Page 47 of A Home for Harmony

If the person was vulnerable, it was a cheap shot cowards pulled the trigger on.

“Have you figured out the amount taken yet?”

“I’m still working on it,” Brooks said. “We are over two hundred thousand at this point. I got two more calls over the weekend from potential victims. These were from three years ago.”

“Shit,” he said.

Never believe a criminal either. Married couple Meg and Alex Hammer both worked as traveling home health aides for the past four years. Four months ago, Meg was reported as having used a patient’s credit card. Once they looked into it, they discovered she was talking patients out of money or using their funds to buy things for them without authorization.

“Yeah,” Brooks said. “The pattern is about right. Meg would go in for a few weeks to a month to work with the patient, earn their trust and then get loans and never pay them back, or talk them into giving her money. One of the calls this weekend had seen our report on the news and went back to their deceased mother’s stuff and noticed money withdrawn around the time they were getting home health care. I’m going to call them.”

“Do you need some help with this?” Micah asked. “It sounds as if it’s getting bigger than we thought.”

“I’m good for now,” Brooks said.

“You’ve got a lot of cases open still,” he said.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Brooks said.

“I didn’t doubt it,” he said. “But you know to come to me if you need to. I appreciate you stopping in to give me an update.”

“I’ll be out most of today and tomorrow checking on things,” Brooks said.

Brooks stood up and Micah got up with him. He’d grab another cup of coffee before he dove into work again.

Mondays always dragged for him, even though he was working yesterday too.

“Luke,” he said when he saw Luke Remington coming in. His troopers would be getting off the night shift now. “How’s that little man of yours doing?”

“Logan is doing great,” Luke said. “He’s so freaking tiny that it terrifies me to pick him up half the time.”

“I remember those days,” he said. He thought he’d have more kids, but Trinda had put her foot down and said one was enough.

That she didn’t get to enjoy life in her twenties, because she spent so much time being a single mother.

It still piled the guilt on his shoulders, but you can’t plan it all out.

“Now you’re just sweating it with your daughter out driving,” Luke said.

He snorted. “Was she doing something she shouldn’t have been?”

It was the way Luke was smirking. That maybe someone saw Scarlet speeding or being reckless.

“No clue,” Luke said. “Just that I’m glad I’ve got a lot of time before those days because I remember what I was like at that age.” Luke turned to Brooks. “How is Ivy feeling? You’ve had a lot of practice with all those nieces and nephews between your brother and sisters-in-law.”

“Is Ivy pregnant?” he asked.

“She is,” Brooks said. “She’s due mid-May. We’re going to find out the sex in a few weeks.”

“It’s a girl, dude,” Luke said. “You and I both know it.”

“There is nothing wrong with being a girl-dad,” Micah said.

Both men looked at him oddly, but he wouldn’t take offense to it. Maybe he had to lighten up around them some more too.

“That’s right, Micah, nothing wrong with it,” Brooks said. “But you’re probably right, Luke. As my sister told me, it’s going to be only fitting for me to have a daughter and then stress that no man treats her like I might have treated women when I was younger.”

“There is always that,” he said. “And that you get to intimidate any man that comes near her.”