Curtis (17 page)

“He wasn’t.”

She looked at Jesse, just realizing that
she’d spoken out loud.

“We weren’t sure at first, but it looked
like he’d been planted. Charles had a feeling that he wasn’t who he said he was
all along. He had a gut feeling that he had been a plant and, other than that,
we had nothing. But when he broke protocol and wanted to take the money we had
him.”

“They don’t take the money in things
like this?”

Jesse shook his head.

“Then where does it go? Someone has to
take it. It can’t wait here for Eric to come and get it.” She looked at where
the money was and noticed that someone was putting it back into the wall. All
of it. She looked at Jesse first then at Curtis. Something wasn’t right.

“We need to catch LaMancusa. If we pull
the money out now, he’ll simply get away. If he’s not sure, then he’ll try
again.” Curtis nodded when she started to shake her head. “We have to get him
off the streets, honey. If we don’t then he may kill others.”

But the money was still in the building.
A building she and he had plans for. She started to protest again when she saw
the man being covered with a sheet. He’d died for this money and she didn’t
have a clue as to why. She wondered if she ever would.

“He was in with one of the families
around here. Not sure who right now, but it’s safe to assume that someone knows
about the money besides us.” Charlie shook her hand. “You did great. I never
would have known that you weren’t aware of things going down.”

Curtis cleared his throat and Charlie
walked away.

“I was supposed to know. Why? Was it
because he wouldn’t go along unless everyone knew?”

“Something like that. He said that all
parties had to be present and everyone had to know the plan. I was afraid you’d
freak out or not let us do this.”

She looked over at the dead man and
glared at Curtis.

“That was not a part of the plan.”

She believed him. She didn’t like it,
but believed him. She started to pace the room as the wall was put back up. She
was beginning to think that there was a great deal she wasn’t aware of. When
she stopped walking and looked back at Curtis, he was leaning where she’d been
and his arms were crossed over his chest.

“Did you kiss me to distract me?”

He shook his head.

“Then what? What made you want to kiss
me right then?”

“I needed it for my own sanity.”

She liked that answer, but didn’t let
on.

“And I was terrified that I’d made a
mistake by agreeing to have you here. We thought that he might try something,
but we weren’t sure that he wasn’t going to try it here or when he tried to
leave.”

~~~

Curtis watched her process the
information. He loved to watch her face and, when she finally got it, he could
see it all over her body. She wasn’t any happier, but she did seem to get what
had just happened.

“He works for either LaMancusa or some
other big crime family. And if it’s not the LaMancusas then it’s someone else. If
it’s someone else and the man was willing to die for them, then we might have
bigger fish to fry than we thought.”

He nodded as she continued.

“If LaMancusa is aware of what was going
on here, then any of the people here would know as—”

“Not anyone here. All these people,
including the Fed, are friends of the family and have been for years. Wills and
Daniel went to school together. Jared and Royce have been friends forever.”

She believed him. She could see the
friendship here and wasn’t surprised that even Mrs. Hunter was a part of it.
Kylie watched as Mrs. Hunter cuffed Jared in the head. She laughed when he did.
“What do we do now? We know the money is here. Now what is the plan?”

He took her to the lower level and
showed her around the building she’d been a part of since she was a child. “There
are cameras everywhere. I had them installed a few days ago. The boxes that we were
using to move out some of the newspaper equipment were actually bringing in the
camera equipment. Once the boxes were empty, they loaded them up with the
things to move over to the new building. It’s been a long project, but things
are finally in place. Then after this is over, we’ll put them back once the
building is up to code.”

“And you think he’ll try again?” He
laughed and she thought of something. “You’re planning on it. You know he’ll
come back because…because you’re going to make some sort of slip about the
money.”

“Not about the money, but that we’re
going to go searching for it. Next week. The newspaper is going to run its
first online story about it on Friday. Then on Wednesday, we’ll come here and
take it out again. Only this time there will be news teams here to cover it.”

“You think he’ll try and come before
then. You think he’ll break in again and, this time, find it. Or you’ll catch
him in the act.” He kissed her and she’d felt as if he’d handed her the keys to
the castle. “What if he doesn’t come?”

“Oh he’ll be here. It’s too much money
for him not to. Besides that, we have it from a very reliable source that he
needs the money to be able to breathe past Thursday. There is a heavy hitter in
town that LaMancusa owes a great deal of money to.”

She looked up sharply. “Another Fed.” He
nodded. “And this Fed? He’s the trustworthy type?”

“Yes. It’s Charlie. He’s been playing
this game for awhile now. This, what’s going on here? That’s going to be his
crowning glory. And when it’s done?” Curtis took her into his arms. “When this
is done, you and I will be married and off on our honeymoon.”

She nearly asked him if they could go
now, but a large, wooden container was moved nearby them on a dolly. Kylie didn’t
ask, but she was sure it was the body of the man upstairs. Curtis pulled her
tighter into his arms. She would be glad when this thing was over.

They worked for another three hours. Then
they broke for lunch. The security team, all of them armed, showed up about ten
minutes before they left. They seemed to be ready for just about anything. And
as they walked out of the place Kylie couldn’t help but look back at the
stairs.

“Soon. Soon this will be all over and
things will be normal again.”

Kylie looked at Mrs. Hunter.

“Well, as normal as it can be, I
suppose.”

“Curtis thinks he’ll come the day before
we’re supposed to go and find it. What do you think?”

Annamarie, as she insisted on being
called, shrugged.

“Do you think he’ll give up once he sees
the fence and the guards?”

“Oh no, dear. He’ll think of this as a
challenge for him. Men like him think that they’re invincible. They have so
much given to them because of fear that they actually believe that they’ll get
whatever they want simply because.”

Kylie started to ask because what when
she realized she knew. “It’s like when I was a child. I never had to want
anything. I simply had it. Daddy didn’t have to give me everything, but he did.
Because he loved me.”

“That’s true, but in this case, the case
of the LaMancusas, I think it was more of a getting it because someone might
have told him no. Or because he wanted it because someone else had it. Not that
he wanted or needed it, just that he didn’t have it. He doesn’t seem to be a
terribly stable man.”

Kylie had to agree. The way things were
going, she doubted that any of them were all that stable. When they pulled up
in front of the restaurant she was happy to see her dad. He was being pushed in
his wheelchair by a very pretty nurse who she’d met that morning.

By the time they were settled around the
big table and lunch was ordered, she sat back in her chair. People were
shouting over one another. Laughter was prevalent. There were some low said bad
words, but Annamarie must have had great hearing because she would glare at the
offender when they were said. Noisy and nosy people talked around and to each
other and she was going to be a part of this family. And she’d never been
happier in her life.

Chapter 14

Mary closed the phone with a snap. She
was getting angry, and when she was angry blood was shed. She looked at her
watch and wondered where the hell her brother was. He should have checked in
over an hour ago. She looked over at her grandson and wondered how the hell she’d
stood him for all these years.

“Did he get it?”

She shook her head at this question.

“Mother fuck. Now what do we do? Wait
for them to call us up and say, ‘did you lose something? Well, we found it.’ Not
likely.”

“He still has time to call us. They
might not know exactly where the money is in the place. For all we know, they
could be tearing out each wall to try and find it.” She didn’t really think so,
but he didn’t have to know that. One thing about her brother Billy, he was
prompt.

Eric snorted. Mary walked to the desk
and started to pull the little book toward her. She decided that it was time to
see if he knew as much as she hoped he did. The man had to be smarter than she’d
been seeing since she’d taken over his care when his mother had left.

“There used to be a combination to that
safe. I don’t suppose, when you were looking around here, you found it?” She
opened the book and the handwriting of her late husband jumped out at her. “Your
grandda had the worst handwriting.”

“No. I looked at everything.” He flopped
down in the chair and glared. Mary ignored him. “I tried to get it out of dear
old dad, but he wasn’t talking. The ‘M’ in the book? Do you think she might
know?”

She’d been taken care of, she’d told
him. “It was your mother if you really want to know. I’m not sure why we didn’t
simply kill her off too, but something happened.”

“What did you do?” He leaned forward in
the chair as if she was telling him a bedtime story. “Did you have her killed
or did you hire someone? I never knew her and whenever I brought her up Dad
would knock the shit out of me. I kind of figured that something happened
between them.”

There was some falling out, but Mary
couldn’t remember. She was pretty sure it had something to do with her parents,
Michelle’s. Mary knew that they loved the fact that Eric, Vaughn back then, was
going to be their first grandson. There was the older daughter, one from a
previous marriage, that Michelle had had, but not a grandson. The younger
girl…Mary couldn’t remember her name, was too young to sell off, but they’d
been waiting on that. Mary had thought they could have used the older girl, but
she disappeared right after Michelle had been locked up.

“Your mother was a whore. And she’d have
sold off the family if the price had been right.” Mary continued looking
through the book. Most of it was nothing she could figure out because her
husband hadn’t been very forthcoming in what he had been up to until he needed
her to fix things while he’d been in prison.

She also thought of her daughter-in-law.
Michelle hadn’t been bad at all. In fact, she was good to the family. And when
she’d find any information out, she’d slip it to her father-in-law when he’d
been in one of many stays or call him up. Mary thought that was what had pissed
her off.

That’s when she’d bullied Vaughn into
thinking that his lovely little wife was going to the Feds. She was, but only
when they made her. But as far as Mary knew, Michelle had never said a word. At
least not until after Vaughn had tied her to a chair and kept her doped up then
hooked her on the harder shit. Then she’d been too unstable for anyone to
control. She’d tried several times to kill her husband and Mary. When she’d
gone after her Mary had put the fear of no money into her son. That had worked.

“We should find your mother. I bet she
knows more than she let on.” She knew a great deal and Mary knew it. “I know
where she’s staying. How about you and I make a little trip and collect her?”

Eric was already nodding. “We could do
that. I would love to see the look on her face when she sees how much I’ve
taken over the family business.”

Mary didn’t comment, but stood too. If
they left now they could be there before she killed the little cocksucker. Run
the business? Out of business was more like it. She knew he was in deep to the
sharks. And there were days, like today, that she wished they’d come and try to
collect.

It took them over two hours to get to
the little town. And another forty minutes to find the little place she’d been
staying. Or at least where the card had said she’d been staying. They drove up
and down the same street four times before they went to a convenience store and
asked.

“The Jefferson place, you say?”

Eric nodded and smiled. Mary thought he
looked insane, but didn’t comment.

“Jefferson. There used to be a Madison
family that lived on that street. Might have been about thirty years ago now. Nice
family them. We had Christmas dinner at their house. His missus could really
make a turkey moist. I used to ask my own missus—”

“The Jeffersons. Do you know the Jeffersons?”
Mary was getting a headache listening to the man go on about a turkey. “I’m
sorry. I just need to find them. They’ve been so nice to my daughter-in-law.”