Page 13 of Guy (House of Frazier #4)

“Where have you been?” Shawn just stared at Margaret until she looked at him. “I’ve not seen you all morning. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been at the hospital since yesterday. I was there trying to get something to stop the bleeding of these wounds—do you mean to tell me you didn’t miss me at all last night? I’m your brother.”

“I know who you are, Shawn. It’s just that when I went to bed, you weren’t here, and when I woke up, you were gone again.

How was I supposed to know that they meant the same outing?

Did you have fun at least?” There were days like today when he would gladly have strangled his sister to death.

“I’ve been busy too. Did you know that when you write a check at the bank, they’ll give you cash for it? ”

“I did know that, yes. Did you happen to have a good reason to go to the bank, Margaret? There was just enough money in the account for us to have dinner tonight.” She said that they let her close out the account for the two hundred dollars that was in the account.

“And the reason you closed out the account? You do know that we need every penny we can save until we can get the money from Amber, right? I did tell you that, didn’t I? ”

“You did, but the checks were just there. I know you said something about needing to have money in the account for the checks to work, but I don’t understand that.

You have hundreds of checks, Shawn. If they closed out the account, we can still write those checks on the account.

That’s why they gave us the checks in the first place, so we can use them to write for money.

” He told her again that it didn’t work that way. “So says you.”

“So says everyone who has ever opened an account. With you closing the account out, that means that the checks aren’t any good anymore.

Now we are well and truly fucked over because of you.

” She waved him off like whatever he said didn’t matter.

“It does matter, Margaret. What are we going to do about food for the next few nights?”

“We’ll write checks. Don’t be silly, Shawn.

You know that I’m right. You have something wrong with you in regard to the checks, don’t you?

I can write them from now on if you don’t want to.

It’s quite easy. Even the lady at the bank said I do a good job with them.

She told me that not many people use the memo part of the checks, but it helps you understand why you wrote out the check in the first place.

See? I know all about them.” Except for the fact that they were useless if you didn’t have any money in the account, he thought.

“You can order tonight, and I’ll write the check.

That way you can get what you want and we’ll both be happy. ”

He just walked away from her. It was that or he was really going to strangle her for being such an idiot sometimes.

Sitting in his chair, he put his hand over the marks on his chest that the big dog had given him.

They wouldn’t stop bleeding, no matter how many different kinds of stitches or tapes they put over them.

Not until he told the dog that he was sorry.

But he had to mean it when he said it. Stupidest thing that he’d ever heard.

Where you could be marked by something and not let it heal until you apologize for it.

He’d never apologized for anything in his life; he wasn’t going to do that with a fucking dog.

Dozing in his chair, he was woken up once by the front doorbell going off.

Knowing how much his sister loved going to the door, he didn’t even bother getting awake enough to see who it was.

A while later, there was another person at the door, and it took him three rings before he realized that no one was going to get it.

Getting up, he made his way to the door to see who would be disturbing his naptime. As soon as he saw the police there, he knew something had happened to his sister. She never left the house without him, and since she had not answered the door, she must be in trouble.

“What’s happened to her?” The officer looked shocked that he asked that, and told him he was here about something else. “My sister isn’t here. She’s the one who would be responsible for whatever you have a problem with. I’ve been here all morning.”

“We’re here about the reported stolen car.

We know that it was repossessed last month.

You would know that too, so why did someone report it stolen?

” He asked who had claimed that it had been.

“Margaret Gross. She said that she went out to get her car, and it was missing. Presuming that it was stolen, she called us.”

“She gets things mixed up once in a while. I’ll have a talk with her.

” The officer said that it was a false report.

“I promise you that it won’t happen again.

Like I said, she gets confused sometimes.

I’ll talk to her, and you won’t hear about the car again.

She’s not here right now, but I will as soon as she comes home. ”

“See that you do.” He wanted to tell the man that he said he would and slam the door in his face, but didn’t. Shawn didn’t need any more trouble right now. “Did you know that you’re bleeding?”

“Yes, I did know that. I just spent too many hours to count at the emergency department to get it fixed, and they couldn’t do anything for it.” He asked if he’d been cut by a shifter. “Yes, a dog.”

“Wolf. You smell like one of the Frazier men. Could be you bit off more than you could chew, I’m thinking.

Nice men, you must have pissed one of them off powerfully for them to let you bleed like that.

” The nurse at the emergency department said the same thing to him last night.

Like he cared how much they were pissed off.

“I’d be thinking of a way to tell them how sorry you are for whatever you did before you bleed to death.

” He tipped his hat and told him to have a good day before leaving with the man he came with.

As gently as he could, he shut the door and waited until he counted to twenty three times before he let go of the scream that he’d been holding for what seemed like his whole life. Then he went in search of his sister.

She wasn’t hard to find. She was in her room writing out checks for the bills that were overdue, or they’d already gotten turned off. He, just as calmly as he could, asked her what she was doing.

“I’m getting our things back. I already called the dealership and told them that I paid off one of the cars.

You’ll have to give me your stuff so that I can pay off yours.

I mailed out a lot of checks today, Shawn.

You should have put me in charge of our bills from the beginning.

I’m doing such a good job at keeping things running.

” She was currently stuffing an envelope that went to the electric company, and he just let her.

“I’m using a lot of the checks that we had.

I hope that I don’t run out before I get everything paid. ”

“I don’t either. Because you know that once the checks are gone, there isn’t any more money.

” She just grinned at him, telling him that he’d just have to order more.

She even handed him the form that came with the checks to order them through the bank.

“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to charge us for more checks on an account that’s closed. ”

He left her to it. There wasn’t any way that anything was going to be paid off with the way things were going.

Not only that, but even if they got the money from Amber, they didn’t have an account to put the money in as of right now.

At least they’d eat well tonight with the cash she’d gotten from the account.

Nothing else to do but go with her way of doing things. For now, at least.

It took him nearly three hours to get things in order in the kitchen.

Margaret acted as if they still had staff and a great deal of them by the way the kitchen looked when he’d gone into it.

She even left the lid off the milk container when she’d been ‘cooking’ herself some cereal.

That was the extent of her cooking: pouring some cereal into a bowl and serving herself.

After the kitchen, he went back to the living room.

Sitting in his chair again, he thought about what he was doing.

There wasn’t any way he was going to be able to show his face at any of the clubs that they used to go to all the time.

And as of last month, he couldn’t get himself there unless he walked.

And he hated the snow and cold. He didn’t much care for the heat and rain either, but one season at a time was all he could work with right now.

All his nice clothing was at the dry cleaners, and he couldn’t get them out without cash. The check thing hadn’t worked out so well for him last month when he’d tried to pay with a check like his sister was doing right now.

He really needed to talk to Amber and see if she’d give them some of the insurance money that she’d gotten from their mom.

Why she did that to them was something that he wished he could ask her.

She’d literally left them out in the cold with the way things were going in their life.

But Amber was their only solution to getting back on track.

Picking up the phone, he tried to calm his heart down from being so afraid to call her.

He’d never been afraid of anything concerning Amber, and right now, he was worried that her soon-to-be husband would come around and finish the job he’d started the other night.

Killing him off didn’t sound like such a bad option right now.

Now, with his sister committing mail fraud as well as the hundreds of dollars in bounced check charges they were going to incur while she was making things ‘right’ for them. He just didn’t know what to do.