Page 23 of Beau (Sheppard’s Shadow #5)

“So that’s how she made her money by pretending to be someone in their family who would need to be paid off.

I’ll say it again, that’s just sick. How did she think that she was going to be able to get away with it in the Watson’s family?

I’m assuming the same way.” Jameson told Beau that her plan had been—at least that’s what the Feds were speculating—to get in good with both families and demand that she have part of their money too.

“She never counted on them being jaguars or even shifters when she played her game, as she calls it. She’s even trying to get the police to tell her that it should be a law that they tell when people are shifters or not.

As you can well imagine, with so many shifters working at the police station, it didn’t go over all that well. ”

They all got a good laugh out of that. And he was glad; things could have been bad had she gotten away with it. Nash even suggested that since she wanted it to be a law, she was planning on doing it once again if she got out.

“Do you think she will?” Jameson said that it was only going to be a matter of time before word got around to those that she’d duped.

“I can imagine that they’ll want their money back and her to be in prison as well.

What do you think about all this, Rogen?

It was your family that she tried to take to the cleaners. ”

“I never wanted to believe that she was our mother. Then, when I found out for sure, it was like she was killed all over again.” She looked around the room.

“I might not have gotten through it without you guys around to keep me going. I know that the rest of the family is like that as well. Grateful for your support when we found out the truth.”

“I can’t believe she thought it was just a game and shouldn’t be in trouble because of it.

I heard that she kept saying that down at the stationhouse.

That people need to have a better sense of humor when it comes to having tricks played on them.

She also claims that you guys won, so you shouldn’t be having her arrested because she was out a great deal of time and money for trying to make this work.

” Weston shook his head as he continued.

“I think that she’s crazy and needs to be locked up for every time she tried this scam.

It was hurtful and mean, not to mention causing a lot of trouble for that couple about the affair. I’d be pissed off if I were them.”

“The Feds are notifying them now. Everyone they know that she tried this on.” Archie asked how many people that would be.

“Six so far but they’re still looking over records at the funeral home.

Since it’s closed down, the funeral home, I mean, it’s been a good deal harder to find people who might have used her as their stylist. That’s where she got the DNA from.

Before they were embalmed. So, they’re thinking that the embalmer or embalmers had something to do with it as well.

Whether she paid them off or something along those lines is all they have to go on right now. ”

“Christ, this is a nightmare more than I thought it was. What does your family have to say about this, Rogen?” She told him.

“I can see that. All of you pressing charges is the only way to keep her in jail so that she ends up in prison after the trial. I hope she gets life for all the trouble that she’s caused. ”

“It’s doubtful that she’ll get life, but she’ll be in for a good long time.

I’m representing the family when it goes to trail, and there will be other attorneys there that will be representing the other five families that they’ve uncovered so far.

” Archie asked him how many they were expecting to be a part of this.

“At least a dozen. We’re looking into her taking blood from the funeral home, as well as other things that she stole from the bodies of the deceased. ”

No matter how anyone looked at this, it was going to be the trial of the century.

So many things were dependent on the funeral directors’ cooperation, and since they’d already had trouble that caused them to be shut down.

This was just going to be another bad thing that happened to the place where people would be demanding money for the probability of her taking their families’ DNA, too.

~*~

Beau decided that he was going to invest in the little company in his town.

The woman made soaps that she was selling on the internet.

She needed a loan that would give her space to make more of her product and more equipment to make it happen for her.

She’d already shown that she had the sales; it was just having the room and equipment that was keeping her from making the kind of money that she could be making.

Tessa Graham was working from her kitchen in a small apartment.

She had some equipment that she was using now, and she had the necessary ingredients to make some more soap.

However, without the extra help that she needed to get the sales out there, she was only making enough to cover her expenses and nothing extra.

“I don’t know that I want to expand enough to owe you a great deal of money, but my sales are getting better daily, so I have to work through the night.

I’d like to be able to sleep for a bit before I get sick.

” He said that he thought that she should either go big or not do it at all.

“I can make seven soaps a day with different fragrances and designs. With the investment of your money, I can do four times that much and still have time to rest when I need it. As it stands right now, I work too long and hard with my other job to be able to keep up.”

“You’ve already shown that you have the right product.

With the influx of money, you would be able to have three days to design and make soap, a couple of days to send things out, and you’d still be able to make things work out for you.

” She thought that the building would be the biggest help.

“No doubt. It looks like you’re using every available space you have now for drying and curing the soaps.

It would be nice if you could have one location in the shop for each step of the process.

And you need to hire others to do some of the things that you can shift to them.

Like the shipping of the soaps. Or just the cutting. ”

“I’ve been doing it all on my own all along.

I don’t know if I can trust someone else to help me when it comes to cutting the soap.

” He said she was going to burn out and fail if she didn’t get help for the bigger orders she was getting.

“I’ve been approached about having my soaps in a department store, too.

I’d love to be able to supply their stores with my stuff. ”

“Again, you’re not going to be able to do that without help.

And I would suggest that you also hire yourself an attorney to keep up with your growing company.

” She nodded, but he could tell that she was still indecisive.

It was going to have to be up to her if she could make this work or not.

“You let me know what it is you want to do, and I’ll be here for you.

Whatever you decide will be up to you only. ”

“I know that I have to make a decision, but I’m afraid that I’ll make the wrong one.

” He thought that everyone was afraid of that who went into business on their own.

But he didn’t say that to her. “I’ll think very hard on it and get back to you.

I just need to think about how much it’s going to cost me to borrow the money that gets me in debt to make soap.

It’s just soap and something that I love to do.

But I know that I have a decision to make. And I will. Soon.”

“Good.” He ended the meeting by giving her one of his cards he’d just had printed up.

It was Danielle’s idea that he have them to hand out, and so far it was working out well for him.

As soon as he was in his car, driving back to the office that they all used, he felt good about letting her decide without putting on too much pressure.

In the long run, it would be all about her that had to make it work and nothing to do with him.

Once he was in the office, he began looking over the rest of the emails he’d gotten since yesterday. They were people wanting what Tessa had. A hand up in something that they’d been doing or thinking about.

He didn’t help them all. Of the three hundred emails that he’d get in a weeks’ time he would only help out about one percent of them.

He was very careful about how he would take on people whom he would invest in.

Mostly, it was advice that he’d give people who asked for help, but sometimes, again, like Tessa, he would see something there that would get him involved.

Soap was something that people used every day, and she had some beautiful ideas about what others used to wash their hands with.

Beau was still going through his emails when Danielle called him on his cell phone. She had an idea for dinner and wanted to know how he would like to have pork chops and corn pudding for dinner. He said that it sounded fantastic.

“I was reading one of the magazines in the doctor’s office, where I had an interview with, and found a picture of what they were calling comfort food. It sounded really good.” He said that he loved comfort food too. “Good. I’ll have the cook make it for us. Anything else you’d like to do with it?”

“Cornbread and gravy. Also, some fried apples.” She said that her mouth was watering now. “Mine too. I have about fifty more emails to go through before I look at the investments that we have online. After that, I’ll be home. How did the interview go?”