Page 114 of Deadly Misfortunes

Red looked surprised.

“Number two. I didn’t get everything handed to me. I didn’t run the furniture shops, own them, none of that.”

“You’re not a furniture salesman?” Janie asked, sounding surprised.

“You could call me that. Eventually, I did own several furniture stores. But that’s not how I made my money.”

Red was listening, maybe even believing him a little.

“I found a mansion that had been foreclosed on; taxes hadn’t been paid; the estate itself was dilapidated, falling apart. It needed so much work. But I had saved up from odd jobs, and I promised the handymen I would pay them when I finished remodeling the place and sold it. It was scary to not know if I could do it and then pay everyone back. Mom and Dad told me I was on my own when I turned eighteen. That they had made their own fortune and that I needed to make my own or end up selling furniture in one of the stores.”

“You were able to sell the mansion?” Red asked. “Or is that the one you live in?”

“I sold it and paid off all the people who had helped me rebuild it. And I paid all the money for the building supplies.”

“And you made money?”

“Hell, yeah. I made $650,000 dollars, invested some of it, and bought my next house to flip. Rose would do all the interior decorating to stage the houses, using furniture from our stores. Before long, I had made a million dollars—on my own, not based on my parents’ wealth. So if you had been raised by my parents, you wouldn’t have been given all that wealth.”

“What about your sister?” Red asked.

“I pay her for her interior decorating, and she works on other homes now too. She’s made a lot of money from that and could afford her own home, but while she’s single, she prefers living with either me or with our parents.”

Red rubbed his bearded chin in thought.

“Okay, so number three. I understand that you have been estranged from your parents, and probably your sister, because they have treated you as not being their true son, and I’m really sorry about that. It’s not right. You deserved to be loved and cared for just like anybody does.”

Red looked like he was going to say something, glanced at Sascha as if she might be able to read his thoughts, and shook his head.

What was that all about?

27

Sascha jumped right into the conversation with Red. "But their mistreatment of you doesn't give you the right to try and kill Gregory." She was angry about it because, as much as she felt Red had deserved a better home environment and a loving family, he had made the choice to try and kill a person who had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.

Red cleared his throat. "Janie has been telling me all along to cut off ties to my family. That all they do is make me miserable. But it has been hard to let go of them."

She glanced at Gregory. Not once had Red said he was the attempted murderer, nor did he deny it.

"I'm serious about getting the DNA testing done again to prove you're not a Landry," Gregory said, as if that might help.

Red shook his head. "It's not necessary."

“What about the missile at the fairground?" Sascha asked.

"I had nothing to do with that," Red insisted. “That missile could have hurt a whole lot of people. That had to have been some idiot prankster."

Okay, she could buy that. Gregory squeezed her hand. Agree.

But it was interesting that he had denied that situation vehemently, but was quiet about the other.

"I thought Mr. Landry would treat his staff like servants, but he fed us all the same meals he was eating. When anyone needed time off, he gave it to them, and most of all, they still got paid. He pays for their childcare and health insurance. I expected him to be a, well, I don't know, a money-grubbing Scrooge. But I've made more money working for him than I ever have at any other job. And after the guys at the bachelor party parasailed, he bought tickets for each of us to take turns enjoying the experience too.”

"You went without me?" Janie asked, looking a trifle amused after being ultra serious before, worried about what all this would mean for Red.

"I knew it was a miracle when Janie called me, and I wanted to patch things up."

"You said we're getting married," Janie said to Sascha, accusing her of being a fraud.