Page 36 of Jason's Justice
“He was under the assumption that once he bought one round of sperm, then he owned the horse it came from, and could use it any way he saw fit.”
“I take it that it doesn’t work that way?”
“No, think IVF for humans. If the first round doesn’t work, you have to pay for the second round. However, if the first round does work, and a baby is born, then once the mare, in this case, is ready to breed again, you have to pay the same price. It’s a one and done.”
“Okay, and Royal thought because he had already purchased his one and done, then he had free access to the stallion?”
“Yes, and Erin rejected him from breeding his mare, because the foal was only three months old. She said the mare wasn’t ready to breed again, Royal got pissed, and that’s when he started his campaign to take her down. This is just my personal observation, but I believe it was an ego thing to him.”
“How?”
“I talked to Erin about this, and she told me that while her stallion was breeding his mare, Royal explained to her the difference between a gelding and a stallion.”
Jake had just taken a sip of his coffee and spat it out with a laugh. He quickly grabbed some napkins from the corner of his desk and mopped up his mess. “Really, someone who only had a few mares, one hundred acres, been in business for roughly a year, tried to tell Erin about horses. A woman that took over the operation of the ranch after her parents were killed, whose ranch had almost five thousand acres, and had been in operation for almost two hundred years?”
“Yep.” They shared a chuckle before Stone turned serious again.
“Okay, those three, Miller, Sr., Biggins, and Royal are just as Carter said. Miller was a banker that did shady stuff with other people’s money and property, and got caught. He’s paying the price. Biggins is a thug and loan shark. Royal was considered rich. However, again, just like Pru said, no one knew where his money came from. It was like he was dropped here in Fool’s Gold. No past, no information on him other than he grew up in the foster care systems alongside Biggins and Miller.”
“Okay, now you have me intrigued.” Jake sat forward and took the papers Stone handed him. He read them and stared at the other man in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not really, I’m having both Carter and Hank look into this.”
“Call Hank back and tell him to reach out to Remy.”
“Who?”
“Remy Montagne. He’s in charge of the Bayou Brotherhood office, down in Louisiana.”
“Ah, and what would Remy have to do with this?”
“He has Larry Mason holed up somewhere down there, keeping an eye on him.”
“Oh, wow,” Stone said, then chuckled. “Let’s hope the gators didn’t get him.”
“Let’s hope.” Jake shook his head and handed the papers back to Stone. “When you hear back from Hank and Carter, we’ll head out and talk to everyone at Erin’s Way.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” Stone went back to his desk and continued with the investigation he’d started a few hours after Pru had left them days ago.
CHAPTER 15
The week before Christmas,Jake looked at Stone as soon as he shut off the engine to his truck. “Are you ready?”
“As I can be,” Stone said with a rush of released breath. “Let’s get this over with and let them deal with the information.”
“Yeah, not that I don’t want to help, but with Black, a federal prosecutor investigating, there’s not much we can do except do the grunt investigative work.”
“What do we tell Pru when she asks for a bill.”
“On the house.”
“Good.” They both exited the truck, and because Jake had called Erin a couple of days before, they knew they would be walking into a room full of curious people. He braced himself against the cold weather and made his way to the door of the barn that had been turned into a meeting area, as well as the office of Jason Black, Ilsa Miller, and Kevin Lassiter. As soon as they entered, all eyes were turned to them, and he breathed easier when Erin pointed to a table loaded with sandwiches, chips, cookies, coffee, and several bottles of water. He opted for the coffee first, and if he didn’t get thrown out on his ear, he would maybe eat a sandwich later.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Jake started the conversation. He looked around the room and nodded to the one person there that knew what he had been doing. “Pru, do you want to explain?”
“Sure,” she said, and stood and walked over to stand beside him. “You guys know that I have good days and bad. Sometimes I’m flaky, sometimes I’m normal. What I don’t think you know is that I’m smart, like super, super smart. I was tested in high school back in the day, and my IQ is around 150, which is classified as genius level. Whatever test I ever took, I aced it. None of that is important now, except for my IQ level. On Thanksgiving Day, I studied the non-murder board these guys had set up.” She grinned when Kevin, Jason, and Ilsa snorted a laugh. She walked over to the board in question and everyone turned to follow her with their eyes. Ryan and Erin stood beside Stone and Jake now.
“I know you guys all glanced at it, or read it, but I studied it. As you can see, there is mention of Royal PITA here,” she said as she pointed it out. “Over the months of dealing with Royal, how he was taken down, and the months following, I had some unanswered questions.” She looked at her husband, and boss.
