Page 4 of Weston (Sheppard’s Shadow #4)
“He thought that once Sandy was dead, then he’d get you to buy out her half of the business, and then he’d be set up for a while. He’s also taken out several insurance policies on her that would double if she were to die in an accident.” Weston kept an eye on Rogen while she was being told what Danny had planned for her sister. “He didn’t see why anyone would care as she wasn’t his mate in the first place, and no one would question him. I guess he’d been trying to get someone to do this since before you guys came up here. He thought that it would have been better here because he would be able to manipulate someone else into doing it. Too many people down where you live liked her for him to get away with it.”
“I hate to ask this, but did he have anything to do with my brother’s death?” Weston knew just when the thought occurred to Rogen, too. Sandy had been crying, but she seemed to be getting her shit together, as her brothers called it, the longer she sat there listening to what Archie had been able to figure out. Archie nodded. “Christ. What was his reasoning behind that?”
“Money. Insurance. Not to mention, Benson didn’t care for the way that Danny was treating his sister and was going to go to the police before he was killed. Belinda was supposed to have been killed as well, we assumed, since he had an insurance policy on her and the kids, too. So far, he’s not been able to collect on anything but Benson’s. He’d not paid enough into the ones on the children.” Weston took Rogen into his arms when she stood up. There was no point in her going to find Danny. Since he was human, he would have to be dealt with by human laws. Mores the pity. “He blew through the money quickly. He doesn’t have anything to show for the five hundred grand he’d gotten about a month after the funeral.”
“Half a million dollars, and he hasn’t anything—that’s where he got the games from. The money from killing my brother and my niece and nephew funded his toys so that he could stay at home and do nothing.” Sandy looked defeated as if some small part of her felt like she’d been the cause of it all. “He killed them for no other reason than greed. Just like he was planning to do with me. If not for…had we not come here, then everything would have happened just as he planned. We, I have no doubt that he would have killed off all of us one way or another.”
The rest of the evening was spent quietly talking about anything but Danny. There were plenty of tears. Some memories were brought up about little incidents about things they were only just realizing.
“I’ll gladly go to prison for killing him.” That was the second time one of the Watsons said that, and he believed them just as much. “He killed our brother, and there was no reason for it.”
After a while, Archie and Sunny decided to have dinner brought in. There was plenty of food, and people seemed to be eating, but there was none of the cheerfulness that came with family getting together. Once it was established that there wasn’t any way for the family to get to Danny on their own, he was in jail surrounded by police. They began talking about the other projects that he had going on, from the school building to the mayor’s office, that needed to be worked on as well. Even a little of the conversation was about Hank and his odd conversations about him having to take care of him.
By dessert, the two families were beginning to get pissed off, not at each other but at Danny. They’d gone from the grief stages to the pissed-off one in record time. It was agreed that as soon as they could, they’d go to the police station and file charges against the other man.
“The men from the leap that he’d been trying to convince to kill Sandy are coming forward. He offered them five hundred dollars apiece to cut her lines on her break lines or to make sure that she was using faulty equipment on the job site. The circular saw was to be faulty enough where she’d just suffered enough that he could milk it when she finally died.” Weston asked Jameson if he’d told the family that. “Not yet, but it will come out. One of the men recorded the conversation with him without his knowledge. He turned it over to Archie this afternoon, and I’m only just now hearing about it.”
“Christ, this is a nightmare. I suppose asking her for a divorce wouldn’t have even occurred to him.” He explained about the business. “So he thought that he’d be able to get half the earnings from that even though his wife was deceased? He’s a sick fuck if you were to ask me. We’ve been really broke before, but I don’t think any of us have thought about killing one another off for money. Why didn’t he get a job?”
“I believe you know the answer to that without asking.” He did. But it was just too far-fetched for him to think that anyone could be that lazy about things. “What else do you know? I mean, is there more that the family is going to have to deal with?”
“Nothing that has come to me. But I would keep an eye on the women. Not because I think that he might have gotten someone to take her out but simply because they’ll hurt him, if not kill him soon.” There was that, and while he wouldn’t blame them, he didn’t want them to go to prison for a man like Danny. “Also, Toby approached me the other day, and he’s thinking about moving here. He said it’s wonderful for his family, and I think that if he stays, the others will as well. Especially after all this.”
It was a lot to think about right now. He wanted to whisk Rogen away and tell her that he had her, but knew that it was important for her to be with her family right now. There were other things going on, too. Not even related to Danny and his mess that he needed to be on top of. Like Hank.
He was telling anyone who would listen that he’d okayed for him to live with him. Anyone who knew him knew it for a lie, but the people who were still supporting his mother and grandfather were starting up again. Talking like it would be something that he’d do, invite someone to stay then tell them no. Hank also knew where his parents were and wasn’t talking. They could hold him in the cell for a bit longer because of that, but he didn’t know what he’d do when the man got out. He, as his aunt said, had his cheese slip off his cracker.
Pulling out his laptop to work while the Watson family planned—what he didn’t know, but he was going to make sure that he had bail money when it was necessary—he decided that he could get a little work done before he had to go home. Just as he was pulling up a file, Rogen came to sit with him.
“I want to move here. With you.” He told her that would be fine with him and did she want the house he’d built. “Just like that, you’ll be all right with me moving in? What about my murdering brother? Do you take that into account, too?”
“First, he’s not your brother. He was never related to you or any of you. And only to Sandy marginally. Second, I’ve been in love with you since I first laid eyes on you and could care less if you have fifty murderers in your family. It’s you I love, and the others can suck off if they wish.” He laughed at the expression on her face. “Did you expect me to just turn you down because of one idiot? Danny won’t be around much longer, and that’s about all I can stand of him. Now, do you want the house or not? I’m willing to rebuild or buy anything that you want.”
“I want the house. What if I told you that the others have decided to move here as well? By the way, I’m worried about Belinda. She said it’s like having her family murdered all over again with this coming out.” Weston said he could understand that, and he was fine with all of them living around here. “Will your family give them a good deal on the houses that they’re renting out for us? I’m to understand that Sunny owns them all.”
“According to Sunny, we own them as a family. And yes, if she doesn’t give them to them, I’ll help them buy them. I have enough money for that.” Rogen nodded. “What else did you want to tell me or ask me? You look like you have a lot to say.”
“I don’t, not really. I’m worried. What if he gets out? Danny won’t last long if he does. It won’t be a matter of if he gets killed but who gets to him first to do the deed. He’s done enough to us as it is, and for some reason, him sitting in a jail cell and being taken care of pisses me off to no end.” He told her what he’d heard from his brother. “So they’re not giving in to his demands. I would hope that they don’t do that anyway.”
“He’s not getting any kind of treatment. Like when his meal is ready, they’ll wait until it’s cold before they serve it to him. No extra blankets either. His cot has a missing leg, and they have ignored his requests for a new one. Little things that are making his like hell being in jail. Oh, and the phone is broken. He can’t call anyone, meaning he can’t call the family for help with getting himself an attorney, either. And Archie is making sure that he’s getting nothing in return for his ‘help’ on having you jailed. He said this is all your fault.”
“How the hell is this all my fault?” He explained what he’d heard from the office. “So because my sister couldn’t give him a child, even though he’d been told about that before, it’s my fault that he had to kill my brother and his kids? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. What else is he saying?”
“It’s funny, really. He thinks that your brothers are only farmers because they’re too stupid to do anything else. Also, and this one I find really funny, you go to him for advice on how to do your job. He said he should be getting a consulting fee or something. He’s actually telling people that one the most. And, he needs for you to get him some money so that he can grease some palms in the jail so he can get things going. The thing he’s requested most is a cell phone. I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he had one of them.”
“He’d hire a hit on us all.” He didn’t even blink at her when she suggested that was what he’d do. Because that was exactly what he was doing even in the jail system. “He wants us dead.”
“Just you. For now.” She nodded and asked for him to tell her. “He believes that you’re the one that controls the family and that they do what you tell them. That’s the reason that Sandy wouldn’t do what he wanted, and the others agreed. He said that you should have bought her out so that she could stay at home with him and cater to his every need. Children were mentioned, but he said that he’s manly enough to be able to make it work with Sandy having them a few kids. He’s talking about welfare and the benefits that are there for him to get if he has a lot of children. The man is off his noodle if you ask me.”
“Or he’s really smart. Could he be playing that he’s really stupid to get out of jail? I’ve heard it happen before.” Weston said that he’d not thought of that. “I think we might want to think about anything and everything concerning him. If we don’t, then he’s going to make some waves that even killing him won’t take away.”
“I’ll have my brothers look into things. You might have a brilliant idea.” She sat there long enough for him to talk to his brother, Jameson. He was a young attorney, just passing his bar in the last few months, but he was smart in that he never let anything get by him. He had an idea that Rogen might be onto something and left to go and look into things. “He said he likes the way that you think. Outside the box, so to speak.”
“I’ve been around a lot of people that will try their best to take advantage of you. It’s why I’ve been very careful of what I allow humans to do and not do. My friendliness only goes so far before I cut them off.” He never would have thought of her as jaded and said as much to her. “I don’t know that I’d call me jaded, but more like I’m not as trusting as most are. Sandy is. Or she was very trusting. I don’t think any of us will be that much after all this.”
They talked about the plans he had for the office he was in. She had some ideas too about how to make improvements around town that wouldn’t cost so much. Getting people involved in their own town was something that she had her heart set on in her other town. She didn’t think it was so different here, either.
“Have a yard décor contest for the holidays. That’s one way to get people involved. There doesn’t have to be a big money value, just their picture in the paper with their home. A lot of people take pride in their homes that no one around them understands. Planting a few flowers even will go a long way in making the streets look good for people coming around when you’re flirting for new businesses.” He wrote down all the things that she was saying. “Also, if you have decorations stored away for street lights and stuff, people will help you out with those too. Have a parade or something. That’ll bring in other family members just to see their cousin or something on a big float. It doesn’t cost all that much, and it’s fun for the families.”
She had a lot of good ideas on how to make a town spruced up. He was all for that. It had occurred to him that gardens, too, would be a good way to get people involved. Having a farmers market too would certainly bring in some fun, too. As he was making notes, he noticed that the Watsons had grown quiet. Asking him what was going on, she told him that they were going to find them places to work and were going over the newspaper that was in his living room. Weston thought that it was as good as any place to start.
~*~
It was the first time in longer than she could remember that Rogen was out running with someone other than just her family. Having the Sheppards out with them, all of them running through the wooded area, was like being free of the burden—at times, it felt like that—but just being free of being part human.
After running for a good solid hour, she was ready to stretch out and enjoy the sun beating down on her skin. The first thing she did when she found herself a nice spot was stretch out her cat and her claws. Even getting dirt in them didn’t make her any less satisfied with what she’d been able to do.
“Where did you go?” She smiled when she heard from her sister, Sandy. “I have to be honest with you, Rog. This is the first time I’ve felt like a real person in a long time. Even being a cat, I feel like I could take on the world. I’m glad that Weston suggested it.”
“I am too, but I think that he only meant for the two of us to go, but I believe he’s having the time of his life as well. We all needed this.” Sandy agreed with her. “I was just thinking about how seldom we get to do this at home. Toby said it had been years since he’d been running. I know what he means. I shift to give my cat some freedom, but nothing like this. No wonder they don’t want to leave this area. I don’t either.”
There were nearly two hundred acres around the houses that they could roam in. The Sheppards all had homes going up around the area, too, but it was mostly trees and deep scrub they were playing in. The pond was a long, rambling one that seemed to be in the middle of all the land that her cat had played in for nearly twenty minutes before running after Archie when he came and splashed her in the face. It was a treat that she’d not expected and loved all the more because of it.
“I have a question for you to ask Weston.” She told Sandy that she could ask him if she wanted something. “I could, but he’d just tell me to ask you or something, and I want this in the worst sort of way. I want to have the butler’s home behind your house. I don’t want a big house, I don’t want to live far from you, and I think that it’s the perfect place for me to be. Deep enough in the woods so that no one will bother me either.”
“I don’t care if you take it, but it really is off the beaten path. Are you sure you’d rather not have a little house nearer to town?” She told her why she didn’t want to live in the town. “I doubt very much people will care that you were married to Danny, honey. They’re going to be more than likely ready to take you under their wing rather than blame you for something that you had nothing to do with.”
“I just want to be alone for a while. I’m not saying that I want to live out my life in solitude, but for now, I want to…I guess you could call it reflect on what I’ve done to put me in this mood. He really did take us all for a ride, didn’t he?” He had to. And the worst part was, he’d profited off their sorrow. “I was sort of afraid that Belinda would blame me for all this, but she told me that I was supposed to get that notion out of my head. That he did this all on his own, and that’s all there is to it.”
She had said as much to her about Sandy as well. And that he would have done it to another family had it not been theirs but with them, he was caught before it got too far. He would have killed more of them if not for the fact that Weston had figured out what he’d been up to. She would have been—
“I’m going to bond with Weston as soon as possible. Life is too short for me to be waiting for the right time. We both love each other, so what the hell am I waiting on.” She, like Weston, had fallen in love quickly. Probably because they were both cats, she didn’t know, but she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life and damn this waiting game to see if it was going to last. “I’ve been a fool in waiting around for the other shoe to drop. He’s been so sweet in waiting for me to come around. Not once has he pressured me, either. Just being my mate and waiting on me to shit or get off the pot.”
“You have such a way with words, love.” They both laughed as she was lying in the sun drenched field. Curling into a nice ball of fur, she rolled to her back so that the sun was hitting her in all the right places. “I see you now. Can I join you? That looks so inviting.”
She wanted to nap alone but knew too that once Sandy was with her, she’d not jabber on and on until she wanted to smack her. Before she could tell her that she wanted quiet time, Sandy was snoring slightly and rolled into a nice ball, too.
When she woke, she was alone in the field. She didn’t know when Sandy had left but was glad that she’d not bothered her when leaving. Stretching out again, her fur standing on end, she shifted to her other self and was happy to know that one of the perks that you got in finding your mate was true. She was fully clothed in the things that she’d had on before. Standing up, she made her way to the little house in the clearing that she’d not noticed before. It had to be the butler’s house that Sandy was talking about, and she was glad that it was in as good a shape as she hoped it would be.
“Mistress, would you like for me to make the house open for you?” She told Syrup, the little red faerie that had helped her before, that she’d loved that, then told him about what her sister wanted. “Oh, she’ll love it here. There are a number of faeries around, that she won’t be alone entirely. They’ll keep her safe, too.”
“Have you heard about her husband and what he was planning to do?” Syrup told her that all the faeries knew and felt so sorry for the young mistress. “She thinks that people will not like her being around because of what he’s done to our family.”
“There was a troll once that decided to kill his wife and children because he couldn’t be the monster that he wanted when the queen was looking for guards of the realm. He didn’t, of course, but it wasn’t because of a lack of trying. Trolls make the best guards for the queen, and she pays them very well. I still, to this day, have no idea how he was going to make it work. He was a lazy person and didn’t work when his wife did. But this troll, Quarter, was his name, and he didn’t want to be married to such a person as he was married to, either. I don’t know what it was about his mistress that he didn’t like, she was much like him, a troll, but she came from a poor family and was forever making him watch his money. He thought that all money was there to spend and that she was wrong in keeping him from his play.” She told Syrup that he sounded like Danny, Sandy’s husband. “Yes, I thought that you’d see that. Quarter tried all kinds of ways to rid himself of his family—they don’t mate and find their only one like shifters do. They fall in love, or so everyone thinks, and that they are together forever. But he was a monster, even going so far as to try and sell his children to humans for them to do things to. Can you imagine what a human would do with such a thing as a troll child? It gives me the willies to think on it.”
“Did the queen find out?” She was just entering the house when Weston joined her. Smiling at him, she told him what Syrup was telling her about. “I hope that someone took him to task or, at the very least, had him go to jail.”
“He is no longer with us.” She knew that to kill a troll, or so she had read, was difficult. They were thick-skinned and mean. Wondering how this particular being was killed, she paused in the doorway to the little house to ask him what had happened. “His lady mistress came upon him trying to murder her son, and she tore his head off. You should see the rooms above, my lady. They had a splendid view of the forest beyond here.”
“I’m sorry, you said she ripped his head off?” Syrup nodded and said that she had indeed. Her anger was so powerful. “What happened to her? Did the queen punish her?”
“No, she’d never do that. She gave her a little house for her and her sons, and they’re making grass rugs to use in the faerie homes. I have two of them in my own home. She makes them bigger for shifters, too. They’re quite beautiful; however, even if they were ugly, I don’t believe anyone would tell her. She had ripped the head off a full-grown troll, you know.” Rogen looked at Weston. She was happy to see that he was as shocked as she was about what the little man had said. “Shall I tell her that you’d like one of them too?”
She couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. When Weston joined her, she held onto him as their mirth got the better of them. It was said so nonchalantly that she couldn’t believe the story. While she knew it was true, the faeries didn’t lie, but it was the way that he sprinkled in bits about the house that got her going. Every time she looked at him, too, she would have a bit of laughter spill from her lips.
While they toured the house, she told him what Sandy had wanted. Weston, who she knew he would, was all for it, and he even suggested that the house be able to change for her needs, too. It was something that she’d forgotten about in her own home, and was glad that he suggested it. Having Sandy so close would do a lot for her well-being, too. Her sister was her world.
As they walked home, they didn’t say all that much. He would point out things that he saw, and she would question him about things that she did. Rogen hadn’t realized how close the houses were until they went on their run. All the brothers were having their homes built by the faeries, and they were going up quickly. She hoped they didn’t do that too much, or she’d be out of a job soon.
For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, the two of them lazed around the house. She read some of a book that she’d been wanting to read, and Weston did a crossword puzzle. As dinner rolled around they were deciding on what to have when their cook asked them if they wished to grill out. It sounded so good to her that she had ideas of all the food that could be put on the grill and cooked the quickest. She was suddenly that hungry.
Ending up with steaks on the grill and grilled veggies, she was finished with her steak before she’d finished the rest of her meal. When asked if she wanted a second one, both she and Weston agreed. All the sunshine and running as their cats had given them quite an appetite, it seemed. She even had a second baked potato, she’d been so starved.
After dinner, almost too full to move, the two of them sat out on the deck on the back of their home. The night was dark, with hardly any stars out, but it was the perfect night to sit outside and not be bothered by anyone. She didn’t even think of her family either. It was just the two of them.
“I have a meeting in the morning with the Feds. They’ve found some money that I can have to work on some of the projects that were left undone. They’re suggesting the school, but I’ve been there, and it’s the jail that needs the most immediate work on it. Like a fresh building and cells.” She asked him if they’d hire locally to do the work. “Of course. I have to put in bids, but I was hoping that you and your sister would be there to work on it as well. For it to be done right.”
“I don’t know how that works. Usually, we just build or remodel homes. But I’m thinking that if someone puts in a bid, they’ll have their own contractor to oversee the project.” He said he didn’t know how it worked either. “I can help you with the blueprints, however. I have a friend of mine who designs buildings for city work. I could give him a call. I think that if you have a plan in mind, you can figure out who is going to give you the best price that way.”
The two of them ended up looking up how to put out a bidding contract for the jail and learned a great deal about it. By the time they were ready for bed, she’d contacted her friend, and they were well on their way to having a new jail built for the town.