After dinner, they walked home.It was a lovely night, and they were just full enough that they needed a nap.He’d been lying down for the last couple of days to take a little nap, and it had done him a world of good.Just today, he’d laid down for an hour and got up so refreshed that he was able to not just put his desk together with the chair but also some of the cabinets in his office that he was going to keep his notes in.They were in the kitchen when he realized that all the cabinets had arrived.
“I bet they have them in tomorrow.The floor looks good now that it’s been sanded, don’t you think?”She said it was hard to tell with all the stuff laying around, but she thought she’d love it when it was cleaned up.“I think you had a wonderful idea in just sanding it down instead of replacing it.I think that the rest of the floors will be just as good-looking when they’re finished.”
“How did they get to this point so fast, I wonder.I mean, it’s only been a couple of weeks since they started, and they’re already putting in the cabinets.”He told her what Parker had said to him when he’d asked too.“So they’re all faeries that are working on the house and the outbuilding.I never would have guessed that.I guess they’d have enough magic that they could do just about anything they wanted quickly.”
“When no one is around, they use their considerable magic to get things done that normally would have taken days.That’s why I’ve been staying out of the rooms that they’re working on.Someone has already started working on the bedrooms upstairs, so that they’ll be finished soon, too.”She asked him about the master bedroom.“I’m going to have Parker come over and explain what she meant about finding some kind of treasure.It might be something that gets destroyed while the room is being redone, and I don’t want that.She said she’d come over tomorrow afternoon to show us.She said thatshe’d told us too much when she’d been talking to you and wants to make up for it.”
“Good.That’ll take a load off my mind.I’d like to go through the room and get rid of some of the things that grandda left behind, but like you said, I’m afraid of destroying something that is valuable.Or tossing it out.For all I know, it could be one of the million lottery tickets that she’s saved over the years.I thought about going through them.I did notice that one or two of them are worth some money, but I don’t think they all are.At least I don’t think so.”He asked if some of them expired.“They do.I had to look that up myself.You have about a year after the game ticket has expired before you can’t cash it out.Grannie’s been gone for about two years now, so unless pop-pop is doing the same thing, then I’m doubting that it’s in the tickets.”
“Whatever it is, I hope that we can use it without causing any trouble.I’m thinking that if we do get a windfall, your family is going to expect it coming to them.”She said she’d not thought of that, but he was right.“We’ll have to think of a way so that they don’t find out.I’m all for that.I mean, we are getting the house done, and that’s taking about all our funds, but what do we tell him if we suddenly have a great deal of money?”
“Nothing.The less he knows, the better.And perhaps with all the shit he’s done in the last year or so, they’ll all spend some time in jail where they should be anyway.Isn’t there some kind of law that says that you can’t steal someone’s Social Security check?If not, then there should be one.Pop-pop has to fight them every month for him to be able to pay his bills.Not to mention knocking him around like he’s not related to them.”
“I’ll ask Ivy or Hudson.You’ve met them, haven’t you?”She said that she had.“Good.Hudson is the stay-at-home dad right now, and Ivy works for the foundation.She’s really good.They both are, so we keep on top of things like that in the event something comes back to bite us in the ass.She is the one who went over my contract with the group that I worked with.She told me not to sign, but I was desperate for a job and signed it anyway.I’m so glad that I got them out of my hair.”
They talked about all kinds of things as they toured the house.It really was coming along nicely, and he could see them moving in sometime soon.More than likely in the next month or so.As soon as they started back to the house, he decided that he was going to prove those other men wrong about Molly and give her the best night of sex that he could.She was his everything, and he was going to prove it to her.
Chapter 4
William didn’t know why his daughter was too haughty all the time.He’d raised her just like he had the boys, and she had to turn out to be the one rotten apple in the bunch.Of course, all she’d been good for was cooking and cleaning.And when she’d gotten out of high school, she up and joined the Army.She was out of reach for him for five long years, and when she returned, she was more uppity than before.
“Your lawyer is here.Do you want to talk to him here or in the conference room?Just so you know, you’re going to be recorded no matter where you go.”He said he’d not given anyone any permission to record him.“It’s part of you being arrested.When you came in here, you were told.You even signed off on the paperwork that said you understood that it would happen.Here or in the conference room?It’s entirely up to you.”
“In the conference room.Is this one of those free lawyers?I don’t have the money for a fancy one.Just pull someone off the street to have them with me.I’m going to win this anyway.There is no way that she should have been able to press charges on me when she’s the one who put me in the hospital.”He asked if she was defending herself.“I don’t care what she was doing.She hit on her father, and that ain’t right.I want to have her arrested for this shit.”
“Watch your language.And you started it when you slapped her around.Then you used a hockey stick on her.”He smiled at the memory, then remembered that she’d turned it on him.That wasn’t right.“Get back against the wall.”
After he’d been put in cuffs to walk down the hallway, he saw his sons.They were a sorry lot, the two of them.Sprawling around in their cells like they didn’t have shit to do.They should be planning their next job, not acting like they didn’t have anything to do.He looked at Seth when he told him hi.
“What are you doing?You should be planning a way out of here.Or the next job we gotta do.Money don’t grow on leaves, you know?If you want something, you’d better be figuring out a way to make it happen, not sitting around on your asses and acting like it’s the end of the world.”He said he didn’t have his phone to plan with.“Damn it, boy, don’t you have a brain?What’s this world coming to when a man needs his phone to get a job done?”
“I just want out of here.I thought you said that Molly was going to come through for us?I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her since I was put in here.The least she could do was come and see us.Give us someone to talk to.But no, she’s too busy doing army shit to bother with us.”He’d forgotten about her going back to the service.That did put a damper on things.“You getting out?Where are you going?”
“To see my lawyer.Do you idiots have one yet?You might need them.I’m going to see about getting out by blaming this whole thing on Molly.She had no right to knock me around like I’m not her daddy.”He said that he knocked her around first.“I know that, but it won’t mean a hill of beans when I get her back here.Do you suppose she’ll be back in the States soon?Dad usually knows that.”
He didn’t know what to think about his dad being in a nursing home.He’d be getting better care, which means that he’d live longer.He wanted to get into the house so he’d have someplace to lay his head at night.Then there were his checks.They’d be taking all of it for themselves and not leaving a thin dime for him to use.People were selfish like that, he thought.Taking a man’s money when he was down.He’d have to get what he needed from Molly, and she’d better be paying up, too.No more of this shit telling him no.
The lawyer looked like he wasn’t even shaving yet.As soon as he sat down, he told him the rules as to what he was going to be doing for him.He didn’t care for rules, but he was sure that the man had said them before.He didn’t even look like he cared when he asked him about a cell phone.
“You’re not to have one when you’re incarcerated.You have phone privileges once a day, somake that count.”He asked how he was supposed to get in touch with him.“I’ll be here when I have time and right before your court hearing.Your hearing is set for ten days from today.That should give you time to go over any notes you might have on what happened the day that you beat the young woman up.”
“She’s my daughter, not just some random girl I seen on the streets.That should count for something.”He said it made it worse that he was beating on his own child, as far as he was concerned.“Well, it’s a good thing you’re supposed to be on my side, then ain’t it?I want to know how I can be released on my own?They had work programs for that, don’t they?Not that I plan on working, but I have shit to do, and being behind these bars isn’t getting anything done.”
“You’ll have ten days to figure out a job for yourself.I’ll be bringing you a newspaper so that you can look for one.”He said again that he didn’t want to work.“Then you’ll be in jail for that much longer.You’ll have to have employment, or you won’t be released.That’s the way things go.”
“You don’t have much in the way of good news for me, now do you?”He said his job was to try to keep him out of jail.Beyond that, he just didn’t care.“Are you going to help me all that much?You don’t seem old enough to even be out of high school, much less the colleging that you had to do.”
“I’m a board-certified attorney, which should be enough for you.”He didn’t like him and told the man that.“I don’t care.It’s not like we’re going to be pen pals when this is over.You just figure out a job that you can go to when you get out, or not.Whatever you do won’t reflect on me whatsoever.But we have court in ten days, and you’d better have a good reason why you beat your daughter nearly to death, from what I’ve heard.”
“She lived more to my shame.”The lawyer was making notes, but he didn’t care.It wasn’t right that Molly had more rights than he did.“Do you think you can sue her for me?She beat me so badly that I had to stay in the hospital for five days before I could get around.Somebody taught her how to fight dirty, too.That ain’t right.”
“She’s in the service, I heard.They more than likely taught her how to do hand-to-hand combat to defend herself.”He asked if they really taught her how to fight hand-to-hand like that.“I would imagine.She would have all kinds of training to make sure that someone didn’t get the better of her.She more than likely can carry a gun now, too, to defend herself.You might want to keep that in mind the next time you encounter her.She’s going to be dangerous to be around.”
“There’s no way that she’d shoot her dad.”He told him that he would if he had to defend himself against someone bigger than him.“She’s a little bitty thing, my daughter, but like I said, she fights dirty.Like she knew just where to punch me when I was down.”The man didn’t say anything but continued to make notes on shit.William thought of something that he needed.“How do I get me a pencil and paper to use while I’m waiting for my day in court?I could use it to find me a job, too.”
“I have a newspaper for you now that you can look in.And a pencil that you can borrow right now, but I’m going to get it back from you before I leave.”He handed him the smallest pencil he’d ever seen and the newspaper section that was devoted to jobs.“You need to at least make it known that you’re job hunting and have an interview with a place of employment before the court date.”
“I’ll look, but I’m not going to find nothing.Who is going to hire someone in jail?Nobody.That’s why I don’t have me a job in the first place.”It was a lie.He’d never worked a day in his life and wasn’t planning on getting a job either if he could help it.“What does it mean here that they’ll hire most anyone that has a driver’s license?I have one, but it’s been expired longer than I think I knew how to drive.”
