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“Yes, sir, your honor. I didn’t know that at the time, however. And you should also know that if not for the quick thinking of my now husband, I would have been killed. While he was there to keep me from being shot, that’s how we met.” He stood up, too, when asked. “The attorneys of Schuster and Schuster had been to my home not moments before to pay me off. Again, I didn’t know that at the time. But they offered me forty million dollars but I had to sign some paperwork and take the check. I didn’t, of course. For no other reason than I don’t particularly trust lawyers.”
Everyone got a good chuckle out of that, including the judge. “Yes, well, I can certainly understand that. All right. Let me have a look here. I’m a no-nonsense sort of judge, and if we can come to a deal here that both parties can agree on, then—”
“Sir, we are here because we just don’t know what she’s speaking about. Her paperwork says that my client has robbed her of millions of dollars. I don’t see—”
“Of course, you don’t see. That’s what I’m here to see to. There is, from my understanding, a great deal of evidence that shows that not only was your client attached to the murders that I’ve mentioned, but there are actual places where their fingerprints were found on the body. Now, if that doesn’t tell you something, well, I don’t know what. Now sit your butt down and close that trap of yours before I fine you. I’m in a good mood, and if you continue to jump up to speak before I tell you to, then this is going to go badly quickly.” He picked up the file. “Were you given one of these? Yes, I can see you nodding. Then you should perhaps go over the notes in here and the accusations as well as proof that your clients are about as guilty as they come and figure out what kind of years they’re going to be spending in the nice new prison that we have for people like them.” When he started to speak again, the judge hit his gavel on the table and told him to sit down and shut up again.
The judge didn’t have a nameplate, and Madison wasn’t sure if he’d actually said his name. But he was reading through the files and asking questions of his team of men and women behind him. As it turned out, they didn’t have anything new on the case by lunch, and the judge called it for one hour. His entire family joined them in the lobby to speak quietly to each other.
“He’s kind of a nice guy, right? I’m not sure if that’s it or he’s just a man who likes order.” Edgar told Layla that he’d worked for the man, Judge Parsons, when he’d done his last stint as a lawyer. He really enjoyed him. “He does have a way about him.”
Since he’d had such a large breakfast, he and Layla didn’t want anything to eat. As it turned out, they had all had a large breakfast and weren’t all that hungry either. By the time the judge called things to order again, they were talking about their dragons and what it meant. His mom said that she’d check with her mom to see what she might know. It bothered him that his own mom didn’t know what was going on with the two of them.
The judge started speaking almost before anyone was seated again. He had come to a decision, it appeared and he seemed quite pleased with it. As he smiled at Layla, he asked her to come to the bench. Edgar stood with her. She asked for him to be with her, and the judge nodded to him to join his wife.
“Now, my dear, by using one of those fancy calculators on my phone, I come to an amount that the firm owes you. I might have missed a number or two here, but I think we’re about in the same ballpark that your attorneys are. All right?” She said that she’d not heard the number, so she trusted him. “There’s a good girl. Now, if I figure in all the money that is owed to you, with the deaths of each of your family members—even though we don’t have all the autopsy back yet, I’m thinking that they’ll be all the same verdict. If that’s true, then with the policies that they had, you’re owed about six hundred and fifty-two million dollars. Is that what you have?”
He was happy that he was standing behind Layla or he might not have caught her when she started to sway. After making sure she was all right, the judge ordered a chair and a glass of water for her. Madison thought that he could use something a bit stronger when the man continued.
“Now, with the double indemnity with them being murdered, that comes to—are you all right, honey?” Nodding at the judge, he winked at Layla and told them how much was going to be coming to her in the name of insurance. “That will come to just over one billion, three hundred million dollars. A wee bit over that, but I think you get the picture here.”
“Yes. Christ, yes.” They laughed with him. Parsons looked at him when he asked if he could ask a question.
“They’ll try very hard not to pay that, sir. But we know for a fact that they have insurance policies that haven’t been cashed yet, as well as items that they’ve purchased with the money that they were able to get to. I’d like to propose, after speaking with my wife, that we take it all. The homes that they’ve purchased with her money, cars, land, and anything else that they’ve gotten with her money.” He said that was what he was going to suggest. Just run them out of town. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure you know my mom. She’s been digging into things for a while now and has found quite a few offshore accounts that they have as well as property and other things in their wives’ names as well as grandchildren.”
“Not from anyone under the age of eighteen. Don’t take that from them. But they can only use it for good.” Parsons asked her to define good. “College. Or some kind of higher education. And I’d like to appoint someone in this family to oversee it. That way, we can make sure that this doesn’t happen again to someone else.”
“Very smart girl. Yes, I like that idea all around.” He asked them to have a seat. “By the way, congratulations on the marriage.”
The law firm was devastated. Also, it was going to have to be closed down. Which was something that his family had anticipated all along. The building, one of theirs, was going to be cleaned from top to bottom after the FBI was finished—a group that Parsons had called in when it was apparent that this wasn’t going to be an easy transfer of funds. As they were leaving, all the money taken care of from offshore accounts, money in luxuries that the firm had purchased, it was still not going to be everything that she was owed. There was also the problem with the fact that other people were coming forward about being taken advantage of by the firm. He was glad that he never really enjoyed being an attorney. This was going to be a case that lingered around for a few years and he wanted no part of that.
Layla was happy with the results. She was going to get her money back on the things that she’d been paying on that turned out to be untrue. Also, what made her the happiest was that she was going to be able to have a marker to be put on her family’s resting places and she’d not have to work day and night to get it down. In fact, she was going to stop being a doctor for the time being and enjoy not owing anyone.
“Oh, before I forget, I’ve been looking into relatives for Kyle. So far, there is no one. With his father in jail, and it looks as if he’s going to be there for a while, the Child Services system is happy with where he is for now. If they can’t find anyone related to him in the next four years, that’s the number they gave me, then you can adopt him. Seems sort of cruel to me to take him after four years, but that’s the system for you.” Layla thanked Dyson when he kissed her on the cheek. “I decided that when my mate comes along, and I’ve no doubt now that she’ll be soon, then I’m going to treat her like a goddess and worship the ground she walks on.”
“She might not like that any more than you bullying her all the time either. She might come along and kick your ass.” Dyson pretended to think about that and said he’d take it. He just wanted the feeling of being settled into a domestic life and enjoying that with someone that he could love. “Christ, that was mushy. If you want any kinds of tips on how to treat a woman, go to Kyle. He’s responsible for me being the man that I am now. At least that’s what he’ll tell you if you ask him.”
They were all laughing when they got into their cars. Almost as soon as he turned the engine over in this car, he got out again and looked up. It was snowing. Just a dusting, of course, but the tiny white flakes were coming down to make a white showing on the ground.
“I bet you go all out for Christmas.” Madison told Layla that they used to, but not in the last few centuries. That there wasn’t any need to when they were all older than dirt. She laughed, just what he’d been going for. “We’ll have to go all out this year. With Kyle with us, I’m betting that he’s never had a good Christmas or, for that matter, holiday before. I want him to have the best ones while we still have him. I hope that means forever, but I’m willing to take what I can get with him.”
Chapter 7
“Hey Pops? Where are you?” Emma hadn’t bothered knocking on the old man’s front door since she was seven years old and had started living with him when things became too much at home. She followed the cursing that led her to the kitchen. “What’s happened here?”
“That granddaughter.” Emma knew just who he was talking about. Poppy, Pop’s only grandchild, had been to see him. “She decided that I wasn’t eating healthy enough. How the hell would she know? I’ve not seen her since Christmas, that was nearly eleven months ago, and she comes barging in here thinking to cook me…who uses flour to make oatmeal, I ask you. Or, for that matter, seventeen pots and bowls? No one, that’s who. It’s going to take me a week to get all this flour out of the walls and curtains. Someone should have beaten her more as a child.”
“You don’t mean that.” He just glared at her. “Go sit down, and I’ll finish your meal for you. Also, clean up. Why is there milk in the trash can?”
“She said that it was cow’s milk. What the hell does that mean? Where did she think that stuff comes from? Heaven?” She told him what she knew. “Almond milk? Christ love a duck, Emma. How the hell does one go about milking an almond? They don’t have teets, do they? How would that even be a thing?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll have to get you some more groceries. She must have gone through all your cabinets and tossed things out. It looks like she poured out your coffee, too. I’ll make a list.” He was still grumbling about the teets on almonds when she put a large bowl of oatmeal in front of him. When he asked where the honey was, she only had to point to the trash can to know. “I’m going to bar her from coming here again if she can’t keep her hands and thoughts about my eating habits to herself. I’ve been around for nearly a hundred years, by golly and I never heard of such a thing as eating healthy that didn’t cause indigestion. I need my oats every day, or I don’t poop. I have to poop, or I die. Don’t she know that?”
“Pops, there are times that I wish I didn’t know as much about you as I do. Now eat, and I’ll clean up the kitchen. You didn’t let her in the pantry, did you?” He said that he didn’t think she knew that he had one. “More than likely not.”
It took Emma an hour to set the kitchen to rights and make a good grocery list. He’d insist on going with her, and she didn’t mind that, but he wasn’t going to be driving one of the carts around. She was sure that ninety percent of the bruises she had last time she left here were from his driving. And he purposely liked to accidentally run into people still dressed in what he assumed were their night clothes.
He never spoke to her while she was driving. Fearful of her losing her concentration and killing him, his fear since his wife had been killed in an accident by a distracted driver, she had plenty of time to think about the relationship that she had with his family. It wasn’t a good one, not even close, but she never stepped foot in the big house again after turning sixteen.
