“Thinking is good so long as it’s not going
to get you killed. And that stunt you pulled this morning wasn’t smart and could
have gotten you just where you want to be.” He got in the back seat of the car
and waited while they got in the big limo with him. Storm turned to him when
she was buckled. “We’re going to help you right now, Jim. But if you fuck up, I
will snap your neck like a twig and leave your sorry ass by the side of the
road for the buzzards to pick over.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jim felt tears fill his eyes.
His father would have slapped him or taken a belt to his back. Not for what
he’d done but because he’d been caught at it. “I don’t want to do this no more.
I don’t want to be hungry or hurting either. I don’t want to hunt down Andi and
bring her back to that place. It’s evil there. I’m evil.”
Riordan looked at him then. The man had been
quiet until that moment. “You want to make a turn in your life?”
“Yes, sir, I do. I really do. I’m not sure
what my aunt will think about that. I’m not…I’ve spent some time in jail.
Stealing and stuff. I could tell you that they made me. Had me go in and take
that stuff so they could they could get paid by some other guy who wanted it.
But I did it no matter what was said. I’ve been mean to Andi. She…never once
did she call me dumb or stupid when we were together. She is a good girl. I
watched her as best I could, but Dad, he’s hurtful when he don’t get his way,
and sometimes I’d have to do what he said.”
“She’s marrying my brother soon. I guess that
makes us sort of related.” Jim nodded. He felt a little jealous of her, not angry
as he probably should have, and he only nodded again. “You can come and work
for me.”
Jim was sure that he’d not heard him right.
He knew this man and his family. Not actually them but their name. The Harrisons,
their name always told you they were good people. Jim asked him what he meant
by working for him.
“I don’t want to do nothing bad no more. I…you
should know, too, that I’m not right in the head. My momma hurt me when…Dad
said that she tried to kill me before I was born. Mom said it wasn’t nobody’s
fault, but Dad kept at me. Not sure what he meant by that so I asked somebody. The
cord thing, it got all tangled up around me and I got hurt that way. My dad
said I’m just four cents shy of a nickel.”
“Your father is a fucking bastard.” Jim was
nodding before he could think he should disagree with Storm. “You’ll work for
us, and if I hear you tell someone else that you’re not right in the head and
your mother did it, I will…I will not make you happy with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned then, thinking her
the most wonderful woman he’d ever met. “You just tell it like it should be,
don’t you? I like that. I mean, I guess you can be mean when you wanna, but I’m
betting people know when you’re pissed off.”
Riordan laughed and Storm punched him in the
arm. Jim didn’t think they were angry with each other, just…he thought they
were just playing around. When the big car stopped, he felt his belly cramp up.
He just knew right then and there, he was going to jail.
~~~
Riordan was reminded of a dog that had been
beaten so much that he wasn’t going to trust his own paw to scratch him without
hurting him. He was terrified and angry at the same time. Riordan didn’t think
it was a good combination, so he watched Jim carefully.
“You hungry?” Jim nodded but looked like he
was ready to bolt. “What do you think is going to happen when we get out of
this car? You think we have a firing squad all lined up to take you out?”
“No,” he said nastily, then looked at him
again. “Do you? I don’t blame you if you do. Like I said, I’m not a nice
person. Haven’t been for a long time either.”
“You want to change that?” Riordan glanced at
Storm when she asked. And when there was no reply forthcoming, she snapped her fingers
at him and told him to look at her. “When I ask you a question, I demand an
answer. I don’t care if you think I’ll like it or not, you little shit. You
answer me honestly and without hesitation. Do you want to change?”
“Yes. But I don’t think there’s no hope for
me.” She asked him if he graduated from college. “I didn’t even get to finish
up regular school. Them teachers, they said I was too dumb to learn much and
that I was wasting their time. So Dad popped me in the head again and took me
out when I was fifteen.”
“If your dad was here right now, I would…. We’ll
work on that too. You can get an education while you’re working for Riordan.” Storm
looked at him, and he could see her sadness before she looked back at Jim. “We’re
here at our home, not at the jail or wherever you thought we were taking you.
You can stay here until we get you squared away with a few things. But our
house, our rules, understand?”
“Yes ma’am.” Storm moved to the door and got
out when it opened. Riordan stayed where he was and looked at Jim when he
didn’t move either. “I won’t fuck this up. I mean, I’ll try not to fuck this
up.”
“This is a rule you break and I will break
you. You hurt my family—and that includes your sister—and you will never see me
coming and your body will never be found.” Jim stiffened and never took his
eyes from his face. “Do you know what we are?”
“I heard rumors about you guys being
something else. Nobody ever said for sure.” Riordan told him they were tigers. “And
you turn into them when you get mad, right? You just turn into this other
thing?”
“We do, but we don’t have to be mad to do it.
Sometimes we just shift when we want to run and play in the woods.” He put out
his arm and let his cat take it. Claws formed. His fur covered the entire
length of his arm in seconds. He supposed he could have just let himself be
covered in fur and be done with it, but he wanted to make a point. “We’re all
cats but Andi, and I’m sure that’ll change soon enough. Fuck with us, and I kid
you not, you will die a horrible and painful death.”
“Yes sir. I believe you.” Jim looked at the
open door, then back at him. “Why are you doing this for me? I know you don’t
like my family…well, except Andi I guess. But why are you doing this for me?”
“Because you’re Andi’s brother. And I have
five of my own. Nobody is perfect, son. No one. And if you work with us and
don’t fuck up, you’ll be a better man for it. You go on in the house now and
we’ll get you a meal that doesn’t come out of the trash bin.” Jim got out of
the car then, and Riordan leaned his head back for a second hoping to Christ
this wasn’t a mistake.
When he entered his home, he went to his
office. He knew that Jim was with Storm, but he needed to get a few things done
before they had to leave again. Storm was working double duty nowadays. The
president would call her up when he had a project for her to do, and she was
working with Mac too. His business was doing well now, too, with the influx of
new clients he’d taken on when they sort of moved into a different circle of
people.
He’d had fifty-four emails since he’d left
the house to go and rescue the aunts. Smiling, he thought of them calling here
and telling them about young Jim in the back of the building.
“I think he’s waiting on us to come out with
the trash and leap on us. Maybe he’ll want us to do things to him.” He started
to tell Lynn he doubted it when he heard Sally speak.
“What do you think he’s going to be doing
with us? We’re as old as this building, and we’re hiding in like a couple of
relics. If that young man is that desperate, perhaps we should just let him lay
out there. Because honey, if he wants us, he’s going to be in for a big old
disappointment.” Sally huffed before continuing. “I swear to you, I’m going to
make you stop reading those smut books. All you ever think about is sex.”
“Maybe if you thought of it more, that nice
man at the grocery store would give us a break on the meat.” Riordan started to
remind them that he was still on the line when Lynn spoke again. “And that
other man, what’s his name? Peter. That’s it. Peter. You should flash him a
little cleavage and we’d not have to pay those fines on the movies we had
overdue last week.”
“In order to flash anyone a little cleavage,
I’d be lifting my shirt up from my hips. My bosoms have sagged that much in the
last…are you still talking to someone on that contraption?” Lynn said it was
him. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Lynn, we’re more than likely scarred the man for
life. He don’t no more want to hear about our cleavage and sex life than I want
him to know about it. Tell him to get on down here and rescue that boy.”
“He don’t care what I say. I think he’s sweet
on me.” He was, on both of them. “You do love me, don’t you, darling? You know
that you’re my favorite great nephew-in-law, don’t you?”
“I also happen to be your only one, but yes,
I love you both very much. And we’ll be right down to see to him. Are you sure
that it’s young Jim?” She told him that she was as sure as rain. “Storm is here
now, so we’ll come down and get him. I’m betting he’s hungry too.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt. Sister and I have been
putting out a bag or two of leftovers for him. Well, they’re not really left
overs. I make him up a sandwich and put it in a Baggie for him. Then put it out
when I see him.” Riordan wondered how long they’d been doing that when she
answered his unspoken question. “I don’t think he’s been doing it long. His
daddy comes with him sometimes, and when he can’t find things, he hits him. They
come a mite early, but that man will beat him too much for not finding things. And
when he does, he eats it all himself instead of giving any to that poor boy.
It’s why we do it for him. So he won’t get beaten.”
So, here he was with a man in his house that
he knew nothing at all about. Who could, for all he knew, invite all kinds of
riff raff inside and kill them all in their sleep. He looked at the door when
Storm walked in and smiled at him.
“I was just thinking about Jim and what
having him here can do.” She didn’t come any further in the room and he stood
up. “What is it?”
“He’s in the kitchen right now, talking to
your mom and dad and sobbing like a little boy. I had to leave or show them
that I have a heart. I can’t let that get around, now can I? All she did was
hug him for telling her she smelled nice.” Riordan sat down, his knees weak
with the relief that he wasn’t going to have to kill someone. “I don’t think
that kid has been loved any more than Andi was. You think we can keep him?”
“He’s not a pup.” She grinned at him then.
“I’m guessing from the look on your face that we have a son or something.”
“We have a brother-in-law that needs us as
much as Andi does, so yeah, I guess we do.” She moved into the room. “The
president just called. He wants us to go to China for him. And he said that if
we want to stay an extra week, he’ll pick up the tab.”
“I love the way that man thinks. When do we
leave? And what do we do about Jim?” She told him in the morning and nothing. He
was going to stay with his parents. “Oh good. Just what the boy needs, my
parents helping him out.”
He knew that Jim would be fine now. He had no
idea why, but he had a feeling that Jim was going to turn out all right.
Andi didn’t know what to do in the house, or
with herself for that matter. There were so many rooms in it, most of them
empty, that she was sure that she was going to need a map or something just to
find her way around. Mac had left her about an hour ago, telling her that he’d
be back before morning. He had to help Aedan with something.
“I can stay here. I’d like to.” He nodded,
but she was sure that he was torn. “I can take a nice bubble bath and then take
a nap. I have to be at work in the morning at five, so this will be great.”
“All right, but when I get home, I want you
to be naked and in the bed waiting for me.” He pulled her into his arms. “Are
you sure? Aedan has a report to file for a client and his computer is fucking
up. It’s due tomorrow.”
“Yes, go and help him. I’ll be just fine
here.” After he left her, she had sat down on the floor and cried. Not that she
expected him to stay with her. She knew at best this was going to be temporary,
but the feeling of being overwhelmed took her breath away.
“Mrs.?” She looked at the man standing there,
trying her best to remember his name when he smiled at her. “Rogers, ma’am. I’m
the new butler that Mrs. Harrison asked to come in and help out with the
household.”
“Yes. That’s right. You’re married to the
cook, Bethany. She makes the best scones I’ve ever eaten.” He nodded and
flushed slightly. “What can I do for you?”
“There is a problem with…the kitchen, miss.
It’s…perhaps you should come and see for yourself. I know that this house is
new to Mr. Mac, but I think we need to have some of the things repaired right
away.” She followed him and wondered aloud why he was asking her. “You’re the
new mistress of the house, we were told. Mr. Mac said that if we needed anything,
you could help us.”
“I don’t know why he’d say that. I’m only
hanging out here for…well, let’s see what we can do about the kitchen first.” She
was worried that these people had the wrong idea about why she was here. Or
perhaps they did know and were being polite about it. She was his sexual
partner, nothing more. And Mac would have to explain that to them when he had
time. Andi walked into the kitchen and nearly laughed. “I see. I guess we need
to make a few phone calls.”
She called the office, where she’d been told
Mr. Mac was. There wasn’t any answer that she needed, but a service did kick in
and told her the office hours. Andi didn’t know Mac’s cell phone number, but
Rogers had Storm’s number. She didn’t really want to call the other woman, but
the sink was broken and they needed it worked on.
“Yeah, hi. It’s Andi Collins. I work for you
at the diner.” Storm laughed and told her she knew who it was. “Okay, well, I
have a problem here. The sink in the kitchen is broken. And I don’t mean that
the water is not working, but the whole sink is laying in the bottom of the
shelf under it in pieces. Like someone with a sledge hammer beat it to shit. I can’t
get in touch with Mac to see what he wants to do.”
“Did you try your link?” Andi asked her what that
was. “Okay. I’m going to tell you how I was told to use it. Think of him. Just
think of Mac and you should connect with him through your mind. He’ll know it’s
you. It’s sort of like a private number only the two of you can call. You can
reach me too if we were to exchange blood. Which I think might be a good idea
with you being a human and all.”
“You make it sound like it’s some sort of
curse.” Storm laughed and Andi felt her face heat up. “What will that help me
with? I have this issue now.”
“You’ll see once you try it. If that doesn’t
work, I’m…. Hang on a sec.” Andi wanted to try to reach out to Mac as Storm had
suggested, but didn’t want to be embarrassed again. She’d been doing that
enough. “Okay, Ordan and another person are coming over to see if they can help.
And so you’re not thrown off by this, it’s Jim, your brother.”
“Why is he coming here? And where…did he hurt
you? He can be mean, but mostly it’s my father that makes him. I’m not saying
I’m not afraid of him, but he can be nice when it suits him.” She stopped
talking when she heard Storm whistle. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. But I wanted to tell you they were
coming now before they got there. And Jim is staying here. He wants us to help
him get out from under your dad and aunt. We had a long talk and he’s going to
go back to school and try to be an upstanding person.” Andi asked her what if
he didn’t. “Then I kill him, bury him in the back yard, and we move on.”
Andi wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not.
She really wasn’t sure that she wanted to know either. Storm, according to
Martha and Billy, had been in the army, something special. And could and would
kill without much in the way of effort. Andi had a feeling that her brother
would be dead long before he got to better himself. He was like their dad—too
much to change like that, she thought.
“He’s on his way over. Are you going to be
all right with that? You have Rogers and his wife Bethany there, right? They
can both protect you if he gets out of hand. They’re both bears.” Andi looked
at the couple as they stood by the broken mess at the counter. Bears? She
wondered what other kinds of shifters there were out there. “Andi, are you
going to be all right with him being there?”
“Yes. I guess. He’s not…bears? They’re
bears?” Storm laughed and she looked away from Bethany and Rogers, knowing that
they must have heard her. “It’s okay, I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to
say to him, but it’s fine, I guess.”
“Good. He’s going to work on this, Andi, and
when he does, you’re going to be much easier around him. All of us will.” Yeah,
sure, and her father was going to be a priest too. “If you think you’ll be all
right, then I won’t come over too.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m fine.” She heard
the car pull into the drive and looked out the back door. They must have been
on their way or Mac lived closer to them than she’d thought. As they got out of
the car, she told Storm that they were there and hung up. Turning to Rogers and
Bethany, she told them what was going on.
“She told you about us, did she?” Andi nodded,
suddenly a little afraid. “We’d never harm you. We owe Miss Storm everything,
and you are her family. She saved our son for us when we all…she was in the
service, you know? Well, our son was as well, but he’d been ordered to go there
or he had to go to prison. When he was there, he met her. Not a good beginning
to their relationship. I guess he insulted her. But Miss Storm, she got him on
the right track and he did well for himself.”
“I’m very glad for you. I think that’s what
she’s trying to do with my brother. He’s coming as well.” She looked out the
window again to see Mr. Harrison pulling things from the back of the truck and
handing them to Jim. “I’m afraid of him…my brother, I mean. He’s not always
mean to me, but I don’t know if my dad has sent him here to get me or not.”
“He won’t harm you. No one will so long as we
can be here to help you.” She nodded and asked if she could please go elsewhere
while he was there. “Of course. Why don’t you go to the living room and I’ll
bring you something to hold you over until dinner? I don’t know what we’ll be
doing for dinner right now, but we can give you a nice snack.”
Andi moved out of the kitchen and to the room
that she felt the most comfortable in. It was also the only room with all of its
furniture. Mac had told her that he’d only just moved in and was buying what he
liked when he found it. She hoped that he found things like the furniture in
this room for the rest of the house. She really liked this.
The house really was big. Five bedrooms and
five baths on the upper floor. Four each on the second floor, as well a game
room with a big screen that rolled from the ceiling, and seating like that of a
movie theater. She had wondered if there might be popcorn, just kidding about
it, when he showed her the big old fashioned popcorn maker in the corner of the
room.
The main floor had the master suite with
bathroom, a dining room that would hold fifty people she’d bet, kitchen, and
living room. There were two bathrooms on this floor, not counting the one in
the master bedroom, as well as a pantry that was as big as the place she stayed
in before coming here. There was a linen closet, Rogers told her, as well as a
plate room. There were no plates in it as yet, but he assured her that with the
size of Mr. Mac’s family, it would need to be filled up.
There was a pool and a pool house, also a
gardener’s shed, whatever that meant, as well as a butler’s cottage and a
garage. She’d yet to see either of those places, but was assured from Rogers
that it was more than adequate for him and his wife. As she lay back on the big
sofa, she wondered, not for the first time since coming here, what the fuck she
was doing.
~~~
“I’ve been trying to reach my nephew. He’s
stupid, so I’m thinking that he’s forgotten where his house is. There are times
when I wish we’d just drown him like one of them stupid pups that end up at the
house.” Hester waited for the man behind the thick glass to answer her. She was
sick to fucking death of getting the run around with these people. And having
to come all the way down here to find Jim since that cunt of a niece wouldn’t heel
was really making her have to do things that she didn’t think she should have.
“Well? Is he there or should I call the morgue or something? Answer me, damn
it.”
She pounded her cane on the floor when he
just stared at her. Hester had things to do and not one of them included
hunting down Jim. Why George hadn’t gotten rid of that kid when it was obvious
to everyone that he was retarded was beyond her. Had she been living with him
when that thing was born, he wouldn’t have survived the night. Even that girl
should have been taken out with the trash when she’d been born, and she might
have had Jim not been lurking about like some fucking spy. Kids were the
ruination of the world as far as Hester was concerned.
“Jim’s not been around, Hester. Not for some
time now. And had you called down here, I could have told you that over the
phone.” She didn’t bother telling him that she didn’t have a phone thanks to
that ungrateful brat, Andi. “Would you like to go back and see your brother?
We’re moving him out in the morning.”
“What do you mean, moving him out? You are
not doing anything of the kind. What do you think is going to happen when you
have to bring him right back? He should have been released days ago. I demand
that you release him to me right now. This nonsense has gone on much too long
for my tastes.” He told her he wasn’t doing any such thing. “You can be really
brave on the other side of that glass, can’t you? Well, let me tell you, you can’t
live back there. Yes, damn it all to fuck and back, take me to see George. You
people are going to pay for this when I get me a lawyer.”
He said something, but she couldn’t
understand him. Which was probably just as well. Hester hated the police. Hated
everyone as a matter of fact, but if they had on a uniform or a suit, she’d
just as soon shoot them between the eyes as to look at them. Fucking bastards,
all of them.
When she was told to have a seat, she didn’t.
Standing her ground even though there were several people behind her made her
feel like she was winning this war. And one thing that Hester liked to do was
win. When the man behind her huffed at her, she turned and glared. The man
backed up, just as he should have. Hester had showed him, she thought. Everyone
was afraid of her. But then someone from behind him moved around her and to the
front of the line and stood right in front of her to talk to the idiot behind
the glass. Like she wasn’t even standing there.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m being
helped. You get your ass back in line and be quick about it.” He didn’t move,
so she poked him in the ass with her cane. “I’m talking to you.”
Before she could hit him this time, which was
what she had planned, he turned and jerked her cane from her. Hester started to
reach for it, to bash him over the head with it, when he just snapped it over
his knee and dropped the pieces on the floor. As he turned back to the window
and the fool behind it, she could see the officer laughing. Well fuck that shit,
she thought.
Reaching for him this time, intent on
slapping the shit right out of him, she had only brushed her fingers over his
arm when he turned and grabbed her arm and pulled it up behind her in a quick
move. No one had dared touch her for as long as she could hold a stick in her
hand. But this man, this dead man—because he would be when she was finished—was
shoving her towards the seats against the wall and then into one of them.
“You sit there and shut up or I will shut you
up.” She started to stand up when he leaned down to within an inch of her face.
Hester Casey did not get treated this way. “You do not want to fuck with me,
lady. I’ve had a really shitty day so far, and I need to do this for a friend
of mine. So help me, I will fuck you up if you get out of that chair.”
She might have gotten up. Hester was at the
point where she was going to, too. But he snapped his teeth at her, his body
taking on a thickness that reminded her of large cats that had been in the zoos
when she’d been made to go to them. When he stood up, towering over her now
that she was seated, she saw something run along his arms and neck, all the way
to his face, that made her back from him and her belly lurch up.