Page 1 of Guy (House of Frazier #4)

Guy looked over the list that he was going to take to his brother. He’d looked it over so many times that he could recite it without the paper. What he was doing was avoiding having to talk to him. Guy didn’t like people at all. Dead or alive.

“Are you going to go or sit there on your butt all afternoon. I told you that the list was important for the elderly in the pack, didn’t I?

” Guy would swear that Belinda, Belinda Gross, was as bad as his sisters-in-laws in being pushy, too.

The difference was that Belinda was dead and not running around in his business. Not as much as they did anyway.

Ten years ago now, Belinda had been murdered.

And her crime had never been solved. So in her free time, something that she told him daily she had a great deal of, she’d been wandering around the town and getting into anyone’s business that she wanted to.

And thusly, the list that he had. In return for her help, Belinda wanted Guy to contact her stepdaughter so that she’d know there was insurance on her, so that she could collect it.

If she didn’t do it soon, she’d lose out on the money, and her ungrateful kids would get it.

It wasn’t just the elderly in his pack, but the former Alpha, too, that was causing trouble. His name was Lincoln Bates, alpha to the pack that his brother Lica had taken over. He was still profiting off the pack and the things that he’d set up with the school money and pack money, too.

That too had been a disaster in that the teachers—really anyone who worked there—were taking the money that had been earmarked for things such as a new parking lot or new equipment for the kids to play on.

None of the programs that Lica had set up were being used, either, like the lunch program and the breakfast for the kids.

With the help of Lincoln and that of his wife and four sons, they had it set up under the guise of his retirement to steal from the pack’s money and living the life of the rich.

The woman in charge of the ill-gotten gains—another teacher—had stolen enough for brand new cars and trucks, as well as vacation and summer homes.

It had been going on for ten years until—thanks to his nieces going there, she was caught.

The teacher had told Lica that he should just leave things the way that they were, and she’d take care of it, going so far as to smacking him around a bit to prove her point.

To prove their point, Brandy, Lica’s mate to his alpha, ripped her throat out, decapitating her for all the other wolf teachers to see.

Leaving his new house, one that he’d gotten right before Christmas, was hard on him. Guy liked his solitude and didn’t want to hang out with people any more than he had to. He’d had enough at Christmas time, and now he had to do this. Getting to his brother’s house, he handed him the list.

“I think since I got hit in the head by the mayor’s wife when she was having issues, I can see ghosts.

Well, one of them. Her name is Belinda Gross, and she’s a tiger.

I don’t know how she was killed, so don’t ask me.

But I’m going to help her solve her murder and get her stepdaughter money that was supposed to go to her, too.

” Lica just stared at him. “Well, do you want to go over the list or not. I have stuff to do and I want to go home.”

“Have you always been this rude, or am I just now noticing it?” He told him that he’d forever been rude, and he didn’t know why he’d only just noticed it. “Good to know, I guess. What’s with the list? Or are you going to snap my head off for that, too?”

“Probably. It’s a bunch of shit that’s going on with the pack, and what Bates is into concerning the pack.

And she said that he’s still profiting off the pack’s elderly in a big way.

” He asked how. “Something about social security checks coming to them. He gets a cut from them when he takes them to the bank and cashes them. The other banker, Slaven, would just give him cash for them without question, but now he has to have written permission from the elderly to be able to cash their checks for them. They all signed it so that they could have their money brought to them. Most of them don’t have access to a car or anyone to help them with money, so he takes what he wants from them, leaving them with little to no money. ”

“I guess this has been going on for a while, then.” He said that they even think that Bates is still the alpha since they’ve never seen anyone but him.

“Since the school incident, I’ve been going to different areas of the pack land to check up on things and people.

I’ve really fucked up with this pack, don’t you think?

” He told him not to ask him unless he wanted an answer. “Well? What do you think?”

“I think you’ve been taking the word of a monster, and it’s coming back to bite you in the ass. But that could just be me.” Guy was startled when his brother laughed. “What’s so funny?”

“Don’t write greeting cards unless you do it for the shock value.

What else is on this list?” As they went over each point, Guy was trying not to be mad at his brother for questioning him.

He had to know, and that’s what he was here for, but he didn’t want to be here.

“What does this mean right here about the grocery store? That’s all it says. ”

“Gary Larson owns the grocery store. Like the banker, he’s only allowing the pack to buy things if they pay him a fifty percent tax on anything they buy.

That’s why he’s been able to add onto the store and have all the windows replaced.

He’s not a pack member or anything, but that’s another thing that Bates is collecting on while retired.

” He asked him what he’d do. “Kill them all and leave their bodies out for the buzzards.”

“Do you have any filter at all?” He shrugged. He told him not to ask if he didn’t want an answer. “Look. Could you cut me some slack here? I’ve been only alpha for about eight months. This sounds like it’s been going on for years.”

“About that, yeah.” Guy looked over the list. “Belinda said that Bates has his hand in everything that goes on with the pack. They’ve been stealing the wood that you have stored up for the winter months.

He has his hand in the food bank, too. The only things that he’s not got into, and that’s only because it’s new, are the underground things you have going on.

If he gets his hands in that, there won’t be a safe person leaving here ever again. ”

“That’s what I’m afraid of too.” He looked over the list. “I don’t even know where to begin.

I’m guessing I have to do something about Bates first, but I don’t even know how to begin with that.

Did she have any ideas on how to get his hands out of my business?

Other than killing him and leaving him out for the buzzards?

” Guy said that was all on him. “Good to know both of you aren’t alike.

Do you see any other ghosts around here that I should be expecting you to befriend? ”

“No, just the one.” Guy looked around the house. The Christmas decorations were still up, and the house smelled good. “I have me a house now, too. I’m not saying that I want you to come over and visit or anything, but I bought the one on the hill.”

“You were never like this before, Guy. Something more is going on. You might have been blunt, but never just plain rude to people.” Guy told him that he just couldn’t stand people anymore.

“So are you planning to stay up in your house and not bother with any of us? You seemed all right at Christmas.”

“I can handle little bits of people. And family is all right for a while. But people aren’t at all nice, and I just don’t like them.

” He pointed out that his mate, who was more than likely out there, was going to be a people too.

“So long as she doesn’t want me to go line dancing with her or some other shit, that’ll be fine. ”

Lica laughed. It seemed to be something that surprised him, but he couldn’t tell.

Asking him if he needed anything else, when he said no, he didn’t right now, Guy gathered up his things and started for the door.

Lica saying his name had him pause and wait for something like a blow to his body. Not physically, but all the same.

“Can I get a hug from you?” He turned back and started to hug him when he saw another ghost. Telling his brother about her didn’t seem important, so he hugged Lica and made his way home.

This shit was getting really annoying, and he was going to have to talk to someone about it.

So instead of going home, he made his way to Ayden’s home to talk to his daughter, Selma.

The eight-year-old could see ghosts, too.

She’d been shot in the head by her father some months ago, and Brandy, with her magic, had saved her from dying.

Since then, she’d been able to see ghosts and learned to deal with them.

He was going to get with her and see how she handled things.

She had to be doing better than he was right now.

Selma and Harley, twin girls who were daughters of Summer and Ayden, greeted him with open arms. For whatever reason, they didn’t bother him as much as grown-ups did. They had taken care of him when he’d been hit in the head a few weeks ago, coming out of the storage house.

The mayor’s wife, having mental issues of her own, had hit him with a baseball bat hard enough that if it had been a human, they would surely have died.

As it was, he only had a bad concussion.

They had made him a sweet card with too much glitter on it and had pampered him.

It had been nice right up until it wasn’t, and he went home.