Landon: Justice Series ― Erotica Paranormal Romance (13 page)

The man wasn’t much of a social person, and this place was so far off the beaten path that it might be days before he saw anyone. There was plenty of room for him to spread out…a pool and pool house as well. Even the garage could be used for tinkering if he wanted. Landon was going to see if any of the other men in his family wanted to take one of the cars as well. He didn’t care how much the estate was going to generate. As far as he was concerned it could rot to the ground. But this way, giving it away like he was going to do, would royally piss his father off. That made it worth it.

As Landon drove back to the hospital, he thought of where his parents had ended up. Both were in prison for the moment, awaiting their trials, and they’d both individually asked to see him. Steele and Hugh both told him he should go. Even Kari had told him that it wouldn’t hurt him to see what they wanted, and he could have a good laugh when they asked him to bail them out.

“As of this morning you own it all. I had a judge look over the things that were left behind, and he made things move a little faster for you so you could sell them. He made me promise that you weren’t going to use the money to get them a good attorney. I assured him that that wasn’t even a question.” Lee had come to see him at the house last night when he’d gone there to get some fresh clothing. “Even the houses that your father had on the market are now off, and in yours and Dillon’s name. I’ve done the same for her father’s things as well. Most of that is still in flux to see if there will be anyone coming back to sue him, but I don’t foresee any problems. His estate is pretty vast, but no entanglements that I can see. The families that might want to sue him, they’re going to be taken care of in the proper channels, but none of it will affect either of you.”

“You think that his will, the one that they found with the body, it’ll stand up?” Lee said that it would. His signature had been verified, as well as the items that had been listed on it were right where he said they’d be. “There is the matter of the stashes that he had. I’m having a few men that I trust go and get it. I’m glad that it was put in a separate paper so that you wouldn’t get hit with taxes on it. That is a shit load of money all in cash.”

Dillon’s father was dead. His body had been found by his staff late last night. They thought he had killed his men, then written out a suicide note leaving everything to Dillon. Then a signed confession about the crimes he’d committed, as well as where to find the bodies. Telling Dillon had been the hardest thing he’d had to do in his life.

After Lee had left him, bringing him not just the news of the death of Allister but the rest of the paperwork that they’d have to sign off on, he went back to tell her. She had taken it very well, he’d thought, and then he told her of the will.

“He wouldn’t have left me anything.” He had to agree with her. The man hated her almost as much as his parents did him. “He might have left me an empty pop bottle or even a half-eaten sandwich, but not his estate. I don’t know what happened, but he didn’t do this.”

“Lee said that everything was verified. Apparently he had a great many places that Lee thought were his run money. He accounted for that as well, and let you know where to find it. Lee is taking care of that as well.” She nodded. “I’m going to sell my house to Drew if he wants it. I know that Hugh bought a house recently from Alexandra, so Drew is the only one that doesn’t have his own place. And it’s close to us. He’s nearly our neighbor.”

“I think that’s a good idea. My father’s house, the one here in town. What am I supposed to do with it?” He told her he had no idea, but whatever she wanted, he was okay with it. “I’d like to use it for something. Not a house. It’s too...I don’t know, too many terrible memories for me there. But we can think of something, right?”

“Yes. How about a hotel?” She asked him why that. “Last week when I was helping Vinnie move some of the antiques to the shop, she was saying that there just weren’t enough places to stay in town, and that her buyers were coming from all over the world to look at the shop. I guess she had a lot of customers coming into town to visit and buy, and there is only the one hotel. We could convert it and use it that way. From what I understand there is already a bath for each bedroom, a huge kitchen, as well as a dining room. And the pool out back could help others unwind for the day. Vinnie might even let us fill it with her things with price tags on them.”

They talked some more, Dillon suggesting that they open up the pool house as a secondary home for the staff. The thing was as big as a good-sized house, with three bedrooms and a nice deck that faced away from the house. It was on the table for now, something they could talk about later if they wanted.

Going through the lobby of the hospital, he picked up some flowers and a box of chocolates for them. Dillon didn’t eat much candy, but he did. Too much, he supposed. As he exited the elevator to go to her room, he saw Kari and the baby coming toward him. Smiling, she handed him little Aster. Landon showed her to his grandda.

“I think they’re going to release her today. The doctor is very impressed with how well she is doing.” Landon asked her if she was kidding. “No. They got her up out of the bed and she was moving around. Slowly, but moving. And she is in much better spirits than she had been. You told her about her dad, right?”

“Yes. Last night when I came back to see her. She said it was all right.” They had hit the lotto when it came to parents. All of them had, he supposed. “I’m ready to take her home. Earl is going to be excited too. He’s come on as our butler.”

“Wonderful. Do you think he’ll make me some of his cookies? I have never had a better chocolate chip than his. And so thick with them too. I swear I could eat a dozen of them.” Landon said that he’d make sure she had some when he baked next time. “Good. Thank you.”

Entering her room, Landon was happy to see that Dillon was sitting in her chair and eating her lunch. Soon, he told himself, they’d be in their own home and they could move on with their lives.

He told her what he’d done today, even telling her about what he’d taken from his parents’ house. In regards to the house, she thought that he should offer Drew the same deal that he’d been given when Alexandra had sold him hers. He thought that was an excellent idea, but might have a hard time convincing Drew.

“I don’t think you will. I think, like the rest of you guys, you want to have your own home. And I have heard from Kari that he spends more time alone than any one of you guys.” He said that he had no idea why, but Drew seemed to enjoy his solitude. “I think he’s lonely. I mean, I know he chooses to live like he does, but I think it’s more of a habit now rather than him wanting to be alone. If he gets this house and a wife, he might change. I guess you guys have a little.”

“For the best. I know that Steele is...I was going to say softer, but that’s not it. He’s still hard, but not like he was before. Steele was cold, heartless, and I wondered at times why he didn’t kill himself when all this happened to him.” Dillon told him what she’d heard. “I can see Aster holding him to that. Making him promise to be strong. It explains a great deal about why he was like he was. There was this promise hanging over him.”

“He loves his sister very much. Not many people get the chance to be with them, even after they’re gone.” Landon nodded and looked at his grandda. He had no idea what he might have done had he not been there for him. “Landon, I want to have children. Like soon. I want to hold them in my arms, love on them the way we never were. Raise them to be happy and honest human beings, and teach them that not all people are like their grandparents. Excluding your grandda, of course.”

“I’d love that. Very much.” He moved to the bed and lay down with her. “We should make sure we start right away. I mean, when we get home, we can start on that.”

“We already did.” He lay there nodding before his grandda started laughing. Landon sat up and started to ask him what was wrong when he realized what Dillon had said.

“What?” She repeated it. “We’re pregnant? I mean you’re pregnant? Right now? You’re going to have a baby right now?”

“Well, not at this moment, no, but in about seven months. I think I might have conceived in the front seat of your truck.” Landon looked at her belly and then at her face, battered still and bruised. “I’ll be fine. I talked to the doctor today and he said that everything is just fine with the baby, and we’ll have a nice pregnancy.”

Landon picked her up off the bed and swung her around. “Grandda, did you hear that? We’re going to be parents. You’re going to be a great grandda. Oh my God, I have to tell Steele. And Kari. I have to...oh hell, baby, I love you.”

Landon held Dillon until she fell asleep. Grandda had left them at some point, telling him that he had some people to tell too. Landon closed his eyes and let sleep take him, realizing for the first time he’d not been plagued by nightmares in a very long time.

Chapter 12

Danny was there, she knew it, but Dillon had no idea where he wanted her to look. There was nothing. Not a thing that she could do to help him find his head. She looked at Addie when she giggled.

“You should see yourself right now. You have no idea whether you want to hit him or cry. I know just how you feel. How the hell Kari did it, being pregnant for nine months and not killing someone because of hormones, is beyond me.” Addie was going to have a baby too. It was as if they’d all drank from the same well, as Connie had said to Landon. “I’m helping. It’s just that the man is really upset, but I think that it’s more than he has no head. I don’t know what it is, but he’s been acting weird since we got here.”

“I have no idea if he’s not been weird all along, but I do have a question for you. How is he talking to you?” Addie asked her what she meant. “I mean, he has no head. Which stands to reason that he also has no mouth. How the hell is he telling you how upset he is?”

“His body has no head. He does as a ghost.” Dillon nodded, still not sure what the hell she was doing here, but she knew that this was where the man was buried. “He swears to me that his head isn’t around here. But I think it’s more than that. It’s...I think he’s lying to you about this. Why would he not want you to find it if you’re sure it’s here?”

“I don’t know, but I think you’re right. There is no reason for me to believe that he ever had a head other than his say so.” Addie laughed again and Dillon told her she didn’t want to know what he said now. “I’m looking for it, but even when I touch something that was yours and only yours, all I’m getting is dead air.”

She actually thought about telling him perhaps that was the problem, that he was full of hot air, but didn’t. He was upset enough. But they had been out here on this land that his family said was his for three hours, and she was hot and hungry. Just as she was ready to call it a day, she felt something.

Moving slowly in a small circle, she knew that something was close, that he was here and lying to them. It might be nothing but the change from his pants that had fallen out, but whatever it was, it was calling to her. Moving in a wider circle, just about a foot wider than before, she knew that she was getting closer.

“He said to tell you you’re in the wrong place.” She said that she wasn’t. “He’s pretty insistent. He thinks you’re about ten feet to the left too far away.”

She wasn’t, she knew it. As she widened her circle, Dillon stopped moving. It was here. Well, maybe not his head, but there was something here that belonged to him. As she asked Drew to help her out with the digging, he told her to step back and let him do it. They’d all been treating her like a fragile doll since she’d come home from the hospital.

“Let him.” She looked at Addie before letting her temper go on the man. “They know what you looked like when they brought you into the hospital a few weeks ago. As long as it’s still fresh in their mind, I think you should let them work this out on their own. Drew especially.”

“Why Drew?” She nodded toward him. He was digging the hole where she’d told him like a man who was possessed. She noticed that he did everything that way. He was so single minded sometimes that she wondered how he could walk and chew gum at the same time. “Do you think someone hurt him?”

“Yes. Badly too. And not just mentally, though that’s bad enough. But he’s scarred too.” As soon as he hit something hard, Addie laughed again. “Your ghost is pretty pissed off. I don’t think he meant for you to find his head at all.”

“Why not?” Addie just shrugged. Dillon moved to where a medium-sized trunk was being pulled from the hole and looked down at the lock on it. She asked Addie if she knew what was in it.

“It’s his head. And I was right. He never wanted you to find it. I think he’s been enjoying being with you, aggravating you to get it finished. Even though he knew where it was all the time, it was a game for him. To spend time with you.” Dillon pointed out that she wasn’t able to see him. “No, but he just liked being with you. He wants to help you.”

“Help me what?” Addie told her. “I’m not a necromancer. I can’t see the dead. How does he figure this will work?”

“I don’t know. But he wants you to open the trunk.” Dillon said she wasn’t going to do it. “Danny said that you won’t see his head. It’s been wrapped up in a large blanket and taped. He said that he knew it all along, but liked you too much to let you know.”

Dillon looked at Drew. “What do you think? Open it or just take it to his family to bury? I don’t know what to do, if you want to know the truth.”

“What if there is something in there that they shouldn’t see?” She asked him what. “I don’t know. His entire porn collection. He says that’s not it, but he’s lied to you all along. So I think I’d open it, see what’s there, and if it’s not his head, you don’t have to upset his family more with it.”

So they took the lock off. It had taken an ax to cut through it, but once they had it open, they had to wait about an hour for the odor to dissipate and they could go near it. There was little doubt that something dead was in the box. Holding her shirt up over her nose, she looked down into the chest.

His head was wrapped in a thick blanket that was in a plastic bag. And she could see some of the bodily fluids that had leaked out of it and were on the bottom. Next to it was a smaller box, and it had her name on it. She looked at Addie.

“Why is my name here? Why is it...who wanted me to find this?” Addie turned to look beside her, and Dillon looked around. If he’d brought her out here for her father to find, he was well and too late for that. When Addie laughed again, she thought perhaps she might be inclined to murder her and stuff her in a box, but Drew laughed as well.

“He knew that you’d find him, so he took the body of the man that had hidden him here and asked him to leave this for you. It’s not bad, he promises.” She asked Drew if he’d said what was in it. “No. He said that it’s for you to open. Something...he’s not saying. I swear.”

Drew reached into the box and pulled out the smaller one. She just knew it was going to be his dick or something, and tried to think how to not open the stupid thing. But knowing that she had to, she finally slipped the little lever over and opened it.

“Oh my.” She looked at Addie, then at Drew. “It’s beautiful. It’s...it’s just simply beautiful.”

The cameo broach was nestled in a bed of the prettiest yellow silk she’d ever seen. Bright and cheery, she wanted to rub it against her cheek to see if it was as soft as it looked. But the cameo, old and nearly as big as her palm, was laying there as if it had been waiting all this time for her to find. Taking it out of the box, she realized that it wasn’t a brooch but a necklace. And the chain was as delicate as she’d ever seen.

“I’d say that belonged to someone a very long time ago.” Dillon nodded and Drew said he’d help her put it on. But she was almost afraid to, fearful of breaking it. But once it was on her throat, she turned and looked at Drew. “Very beautiful. For a very beautiful woman.”

Dillon asked Danny where it had come from. Addie answered her, but she was just as touched by what he said as Dillon was.

“It was his great-grandmother’s. The only thing he had left of her. He said that should his children know about it, they’d sell it off to the highest bidder and spend the money on something like a television or a game. He said that his mother gave it to him, telling him to give it to someone very special, and once he’d met you, there could have been no one else.” Dillon asked about his wife. “She isn’t any better than his children, he said.”

When the police arrived some ten minutes later, neither she nor the other two mentioned the necklace. It felt warm on her skin, and she couldn’t wait to show it to Landon.

“He should have been here with you. It’s really too bad that the lawyer could only get him in to see his parents today.” Dillon nodded at Addie. “He didn’t want you to go?”

“No. That’s why I went ahead and did this today. To keep me from worrying about him. He really didn’t want to go to see them, and I don’t blame him at all. But he has his grandda, and as much as the man loves his grandson, he dislikes his son and his wife that much more.” Dillon put her hand on the necklace. “Do you suppose that Danny will move on now, or will he really help me out?”

“He’s there with you now. Not really sitting with you, but close. He asked me to tell you he was sorry for all this. But he really did mean well.” She nodded, touched that he’d go to such lengths to befriend her. “Did you know that most of the dead know who you are? They talk about how you can help me find things. Most of them are taking bets that you’re going to be working with Steele and the rest of them soon.”

“I don’t know what I can do. If they have an object that needs to be found, I can do that all right, but I can’t talk to the dead like they can.”

“I don’t think it’ll matter to them. Some of them, like Danny here, are missing parts of what they left behind. I don’t mean heads or things like that, but a pen that they might have wanted someone to have. A letter they want found and can’t remember where it is. There are all sorts of things you can do to help us.” Dillon had no idea, but she said she’d like to try. “Did you know that Vinnie wants you to come and help her find things as well? She has a drawer full of one ofs. I mean, like single earrings and watches without the fobs. Just little things, but she has a feeling that they’re out there, just not where. I think it would be good for you in that you’re not looking for the dead, as they are all the time.”

She thought it would too. Looking for lost children to find them not only dead, but by the hand of the people that were supposed to care for them, had taken its toll on her before. She’d not had a breakdown, but it had been close. Taking some time away from that might be what she needed. As they made their way back to her house, Dillon thought of nothing else.

~~~

Landon could not believe his mother. He’d thought his father was insane, but his mother was making demands of him that he...just wow, was all he could think about. She asked him if he was listening to her.

“Yes. I just...I guess I’m just slightly confused why you think I’d do any of this for you. I mean, I can understand the nicer towels, but I’m not buying you monogrammed ones. Nor am I going to go out and have custom sheets made for you. In fact, I’m not going to do any of this for you. At all. What I don’t understand, and perhaps you can tell me, is why the hell you think I should.” He looked down at the list he’d been given when he came in. It actually said
My Demands
on it, like he was going to rush right out and fulfill it. “You do know that you’re in prison and will be for the rest of your natural life? And for the better part of my life, you kept me in one too. Just by treating me the way you and Father have.”

“Oh, grow up, Landon. I’m not going to stay here forever. Not if I can help it, I’m not. And that’s another thing. I want you to get me better living arrangements. I hate this place. There are no rugs on the floor, nor do I have any privacy when I have to use the bathroom. This place is a dump.” His father had asked for the same thing. No—
demanded
, as his mother did, that he do something about getting him out of here. Saying that not only did he not belong there, but that someone was going to pay for him being treated like this. “Who do you know that can make this happen? I’m not happy to be here.”

“That’s really too bad. And if you want to know the truth, Mother, if I could, I’d make it worse for you.” She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d say such a thing to her. “As for this list? Since you didn’t answer me, I’m assuming you have no real reason why I should bend over backwards to do any of this. So I’m not going to.”

“Then why are you here? Why did you bother wasting my time, as you have all your life, coming here and bothering me? I swear to you, you are as useless to me now as you were as a child. Sending you away was the best idea that your father had. Especially since there was no way for us to get rid of you any other way.” She slammed her hands on the table, as best she could being chained to it, and told him to get to the list. “Damn it, will you please grow some balls and get this shit taken care of for me? It’s the very least you could do after all we’ve suffered for you. And don’t think you’re going to get too cozy in my house either. I don’t care what that will said, you’re not entitled to a damned thing.”

“Really? Then no. No. You can rot in here for all I give a shit. I’m not going to lift a finger to help you, to bring you anything, nor am I going to try and find a way for you to get to somewhere nicer. You’re here, deal with it.” She called him a few names, no worse than he’d heard before, as he just sat there.

“If you can’t be grateful that we brought you into this world, then I’d rather you just didn’t visit me as much.” He told her he wasn’t coming back. “Then how do you expect me to know when you’ve made progress on my list? You don’t really think you’re not going to do those things, Landon. We’re Logans, and we do not do well in prison like this. You think these ignorant people are going to come and tell me? They won’t even let me have my own phone in here. I have to use the one in the hall like I’m some sort of criminal and might steal it.”

“You are a criminal, Mother. You killed your own father, as Father did his. You also lied to me about him. As well as you continued to blame me for the fire at the school when you knew from the beginning that I had nothing to do with it.” She shrugged. “Why? Why did you make me go on believing that I had caused that fire when it was a meth lab blowing up? What reason could you have had for that?”