Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
“There’s clean robe or clothes in my closet if you wanna grab something to wear for now. I brought you another coffee. Take a bath or shower if you want. Can you hang in here and watch TV or something for a bit? My P.I. is here and he and I are gonna sweep our belongings for bugs down in my SUV and then we’ll be up. When we come back up, I’ll have him double check your bag, shoes, and that necklace.”
She nodded, looking shell-shocked, still. I put the coffee on the nightstand and left the room. I set the alarm on my way out. Just in case.
Zack had proven himself invaluable over the last several months to the point he’d become a buddy to me as well as our private investigator. He checked and said that everything was clear of bugs and tracking devices, including the sapphire necklace, which was genuine and worth a small fortune. I had my luggage checked as well while I filled him in on the details of the trip.
Maybe they weren’t suspicious of me because of their relationship with Pop. But I wasn’t taking chances because I knew they could be watching. I also knew that a select few were at least somewhat aware of the rift in the final days of Pop’s life and news could travel that far and if it did, even as a rumor, we’d be under suspicion eventually. As far as the lawyer Stan Smith went, he knew too much and was too far away for me to keep an eye on so I had to bear that in mind. With Pop gone his loyalties could easily change, particularly if he had no ties to me because I’d stopped using him. I needed to retain him as a lawyer at least until all this shit was over with. Pop had another local lawyer and that’s who he worked with when he temporarily froze me and Tommy out. He hadn’t made any changes to his will so all of that overwrote the temporary orders that had been put in place in the few weeks before Pop died.
Me and Zack talked to my brother on webcam in my den and agreed that depending on how we played out exits from the businesses we did not want to be in, this could mean that transition would take a whole lot longer than we’d hoped. And if it all started to go to hell the whole damn family would have to slip off the grid. Tommy said he’d work on that contingency plan.
Fuck, Pop; you’re still fucking with us, even from the grave.
Zack was gathering intel about the people on the list of names I gave him and we were gonna re-group later to come up with a plan. After we said goodbye to my brother, I saw Zack to the door and then I checked on her. She was in my room, watching television in my bed. She was in a pair of my grey on grey checked flannel pajamas, a pair I’d never worn but got given for Christmas last year. They were huge on her. She was watching cartoons, looking small in my big, dark wood sleigh bed buried under my big wine-colored comforter.
I sat on the bed. “How you doin’?”
“Fine.”
She probably wasn’t fine.
“Is it okay I chose these to wear?” she asked, looking up innocently at me, giving me a pang of something, I didn’t know what.
“Sure; I brought your things up. They’re in the den and everything is clean, no surveillance or GPS devices. Listen, we have to talk about a few things. You feelin’ up to that?”
There was no big rush provided she wasn’t in a huge hurry to move on.
She winced.
“Will you try for me?” I asked.
She looked at me with what looked like stars in her eyes.
I gritted my teeth for a sec and then forced myself to continue. “I know you’ve been through a lot. I don’t know but I do know, you know? Fuck, okay, first question, are there people looking for you? Family?”
She was quiet a moment, but then answered me.
“No,” she whispered.
“No family?” I asked.
She shook her head and looked to the comforter, tried to mask her pain, but I saw it. I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not.
“Did they kidnap you while you were on vacation in Thailand or something? Is that how they got you?”
She shook her head. My stomach churned. Did this girl volunteer? There were those that did, those who wanted to be looked after, who came from poverty or who were so damaged they thought that someone making all the decisions for them was their anecdote.
She must’ve read my sickened expression as she shook her head vigorously. “I was in Thailand for work, taken in, blackmailed, and there was no escape.”