by Dale Mayer
Surely not. Damned well better not. But that voice on the phone...and the language...
He knew this acreage well after years of being involved, even if only on a periphery level. He'd supplied much of the money that had gone into building this place. It was his way to ease his guilt for ignoring his daughter and for letting his father dominate him. Damnation. He should have done something about reconnecting with her a long time ago. Now with his father's death, the bonds that had held him back had suddenly dissolved, setting him free.
He'd built himself a life without his daughter and his father. A decent life. At least he'd thought so. But that voice he'd heard through Tabitha's phone – God, it sounded like someone he knew. And knew all too well.
He barreled down the back path heading to the large feed barn.
Please let him be wrong.
Please. Now that he'd lost his father and regained his daughter, he didn't want to lose another person in his life. Please, let me be wrong.
He whipped along the pathway searching for the back gate. He was probably too late. But he could hope...
The morning light shone clear. There were a few animals stirring, but as he ran past he could see them shy away from him. Probably just as well. If he found what he was afraid he would find, he might just do some violence himself.
***
Tabitha stared. Then she spun around to stare out the open door. "He directed the paramedics then took off to the back of the reserve. I figured he was looking for Ronin. But I haven't seen him since. Shit."
She ran to the back door.
"Tabitha, wait. Don't go out there alone."
She stopped at the doorway. "Then someone come with me. He could be lying injured anywhere. I'm not leaving him out there alone." She spun around to look at Roman. "You said you'd call for backup. Where are they?"
Ronin said gently, "He called a couple of my guys. Figured as they'd been handling the break-ins, it made sense to get them in on this. They are on the way."
She threw up her hands. "Fine, I don't care who you bring in. Just, please, let's figure this out and stop it."
"We don't know who is involved and how far this goes." Roman added, "Or how long this has been going on."
That stopped her in her tracks. "What are you talking about?"
"You said your grandfather went real quiet the last few months before he died. How do you know that something nasty wasn't going on? Maybe he was being blackmailed? Or threatened?"
"My grandfather? This has something to do with my grandfather?" She hated the rising panic in her voice. She stared at them. "Or are you suggesting he might have had something to do this nightmare? Because there's no way he'd be involved with anything illegal."
They just stared at her. Her stomach roiled at the thought. "No. No. Oh no." She walked backwards several steps, shaking her head. "I'm not going to stand here and listen to something so ridiculous. I'm going to find my father."
She turned and dashed outside, but after several feet, she stopped and bent over, breathing hard. Desperately trying to make sense of this. Of what they were saying. Of what they weren't saying.
She wanted to throw up. But at the same time, she wanted to rant and scream at them.
And that just brought her father back to mind. He was the one she needed to ask some of these questions. He might have the answers.
Or he might not. She didn't know him enough to tell. What she had learned – the important things about him – had come these last few days. After her grandfather's death.
Each new calamity sent her body reeling and her mind grappling for a solid ground to stand on. And none of what was going on right now seemed related to the bigger issue in her life. Trinity.
Or was it?
Or rather, how was it not? What were the chances that Trinity and the problems at the reserve were not related?
Zero to none, she'd say. She was also assuming the problems at Exotic Landscape had something to do with black market animals – when it might have no connection at all.
Or was someone trying to make her look incompetent? Make her look as if she couldn't handle the responsibility?
And there was only person who'd benefit from that. Her father. The reserve and everything to do with it would belong to him.
Her heart squeezed tight, clogging up her blood flow and sending pain radiating outward. She took a deep shuddering breath as she forced herself to contemplate such a betrayal. It couldn't be. Her father didn't want Exotic. He'd never wanted it.
No, there had to be another explanation.
She turned slowly to face the brothers who were standing beside her now. Ronin looked better, but his color was still off. Then again, she was sure hers was way off too.
"We can't answer these questions until we find my father." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I need help to do that."
"We're here."
She shook her head. "Ronin, you can stay here until the staff arrive." She glanced down at her watch. "Which should be in the next half hour. Explain about the guards and that the reserve is locked down to the public today. Wendy might have to field calls if the media finds out." She glanced at Roman, who stared back at her steadily. "Will you come with me? Help me search for my father?"
"Like hell," Ronin snapped. "I'm going with you. He can stay here."
Roman turned to glare at him. "You're not one hundred percent and you're needed here. You can be the hero next time."
Ronin stood firm, glaring at his brother. Then he shook his head like an angry grizzly bear. "I'm doing fine. I'm going with her."
"Damn it." Roman glared at his brother, then as if realizing there'd be no reasoning with Ronin, he said, "Then tell me where you’re going. I'll be following as soon as I can."
A few minutes later, she led the way through the maze of pathways. As she walked, she dialed her father yet again. Still no answer.
"What do you think happened to him?" asked Ronin.
A shudder of denial whispered through her. "I hate to say that I hope he's lying unconscious somewhere, but that is preferable to finding out he had something to do with this mess."
Ronin stayed quiet after that. She was no fool and she hadn't had a relationship with her father. But she'd hoped – and after yesterday's revelation – she'd believed, if only for an hour, that they had a basis for one.
And that made his possible betrayal that much worse.
***
Dennis's panic increased with every step. He had to be wrong. He'd spent many hours bitching about this place. About the money he was constantly forking over, first blackmailed into it by his own father to help with Tabitha's care and then by his guilt. He'd thought he would be free after his father's death, but instead the bonds holding him here had been reinforced. He didn't object to helping out the reserve. It was all tax deductible and he could use that. He made money. A lot of it. But he'd also invested much of it into his father's pet project.
He hadn't thought it was an issue. But now little things came back to haunt him.
Comments that meant nothing at the time, but in the greater scheme of what he knew now he had to wonder about. To question. If he was right, his whole life was about to be brutalized by yet another betrayal. He'd thought he'd been through the worst and now he knew there was a possibility everything he'd been through so far was a prelude to this.
"Dennis? Is that you?"
Dennis spun around to see Germaine, his long-term friend, business partner and the financial head of his company, standing in front of him. A big smile on his face.
With a big gun in his hand.
Chapter 24
Tuesday morning
Tabitha sent a wave of questing energy out to her animals. Surely one of them was bothered by something. If there was anything going on, intruders or other predators, the animals always sounded the alarm. Except she'd already sent out a layer of suppression energy to calm them all down. Crap.
She would have to do a systematic search for her
father. There were acres of land here. If her father was around, he could be just about anywhere.
Then she heard panic in the lions’ corner. Something was wrong. She bolted in their direction, calling back, "Over here."
"Did you hear something?" Ronin called behind her.
"The animals in this left corner are disturbed by intruders. They've gone into hiding but I can sense their panic...and fear."
She veered left, then right, her feet flying over the gravel path.
Just as she was about to turn the last corner, her shoulder was grabbed from behind. "Wha—?"
A hand slapped over her mouth. Ronin whispered against her ear. "Shhh. There are voices up ahead."
She stiffened. She'd been listening for the animals, not for people.
"Let's see if we can hear what they are saying."
She craned an ear, closing her eyes to hear better. The sounds were muffled.
Her father's voice. "What's going on here, Germaine? And what's with the gun?"
Tabitha shot a horrified look at Ronin, then watched with equal shock as he unclipped a weapon of his own.
She didn't have time to adjust when she heard the response.
"What's to figure out? God, you're slow. A brilliant money man for sure, but your instincts are just about non-existent when it comes to people."
Her father's pained voice answered, "Obviously, when I trusted you all these years. Maybe you could explain. What are you even doing here?"
A coarse laugh disrupted the serene air around them.
"This place is a gold mine. See, getting my hands on it is a bit of a problem."
"A big problem, I'd say. You won't get it by killing me. Even if you do, it's still not going to be yours by killing my daughter."
"Ah, but I like to think long term and killing your father was just the first step."
Tabitha gasped in shock. Her grandfather had been murdered? And she hadn’t known?
Ronin squeezed her arm in warning. She stared at him in pain as she listened to her father scream in outrage. "You killed the old man? Why, for God's sake? What did he ever do to you?"
"He wasn't...shall we say...cooperative."
Dennis spoke, his voice vibrating in anger, "So you killed him? Over this place. Why? It's a money sink. That's what it is. I pour thousands into it every month."
Germaine said, "And that's why I had help doing this. There is someone who doesn't appreciate all the money being funnelled in this direction. He seems to feel it could be better spent on him."
Tabitha strained to hear her father's shocked whisper, "Please, no."
That coarse laugh again. But Tabitha was already vibrating with outrage. Her poor grandfather, and although she didn't understand who the accomplice was, it was someone else close to her father.
More betrayal.
"Of course it's true. You should know that power, sex and money are really the only motivators in the world. And we have them all here." The disgust in Germaine's voice confused Tabitha.
"I would have never done this. But then you brought that pretty boy into your life. A second wind, a midlife crisis. A fucking joke is what it is."
"My relationship? That's what this is all about?"
"No. But that's what cut the bonds of loyalty for me. We were best friends. Until you decided to come out of the closet. I kinda knew all along but I just didn't want to confirm it. The status quo was working, so why mess it up? Then you started with the pretty boy. What is he, fifteen to twenty years your junior? And now that you are openly gay, people started looking at me. We'd been such close friends for so long, they assumed we must have been lovers. That you'd taint me and my family with your perversion was disgusting. It wasn't so bad in the beginning until you and pretty boy started living together a couple of years ago. I wouldn't have done anything about it, although I was trying to figure out how to get out of the company without losing everything. If I'd known before this recession, I could have cut and run. It was really bad timing when stocks plummeted. We're barely back on our feet as it is."
"And this makes sense, how? Why?"
"God, you're dense. See, I want the whole company." Germaine laughed. "And once I realized what you could control, if you so chose, well, then I wanted that too."
"Could control?"
Tabitha's thoughts mirrored her father's question.
"Your grandfather always made the provision that you were to look after Exotic Landscape if your daughter Tabitha was incapable. After being in a coma several times in the last month, the break-ins and the vandalism problems, it's obvious that she isn't mentally or physically stable, and that means she isn't capable of managing Exotic Landscape. So this property should fall nicely into your hands."
"Hell," her father said in disgust, "I don't want it. I don't want anything to do with it."
"Too bad, because the paperwork has already been taken care of. After your pretty boy, Eric, got a hold of your father's will, a handmade one... He really didn't trust anyone...did he?"
"Paperwork? Eric?"
Tabitha was too angry to speak. This was all about taking Exotic Landscape? It wasn't even her grandfather's property. It was hers. She'd made sure of that a while ago. At least she thought she had.
"No, that's not true," Dennis protested. "We have the official will."
"Well, hand-written ones are official too. Not when written under duress of course, but as we've already filed this one, giving Eric the right to manage it and you the ownership of the property, it's all good."
Ronin's arms were the only thing keeping Tabitha from racing into the middle of the mess and decking the asshole flat to the ground.
"And how is that going to help?" Her father's bewildered voice made Tabitha hurt. He didn't understand because he didn't want to see the level of betrayal in his world. She couldn't blame him. She didn't even know these assholes, and look at how she felt.
"Then, as you've been living common-law with pretty boy for several years, he stands to inherit everything."
"No, my daughter does," Dennis protested.
"And that was the final straw that brought pretty boy to me in the first place." Germaine laughed. "He found out you made out a will that left everything to your daughter and not to your lover."
"He's in my will. I left him a half million dollars." Her father's voice cracked in shock.
"And no one wants half a million when you give millions to a daughter you can't even stand. A daughter you hate."
Even after everything, that statement hurt.
"I have never hated my daughter," Dennis said. "I hated my father." He groaned. A sound so full of despair, Tabitha hurt for him too.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
But Ronin didn't have a chance to answer.
"I don't think that's going to be a decision you will have to make," said a rich voice from behind her. "No, don't bother turning around."
She stiffened.
"Shit." Ronin swore under his breath.
"Don't turn around, just keep moving forward and join your father." There was a rustling beside her. She caught the new arrival sliding Ronin's gun out of its holder. Damn.
"Who are you?" Tabitha asked as she walked ahead of Ronin.
Her father came into view. "No," he cried out. "Leave her alone."
The asshole Germaine asked, "Dennis, what part about the inheritance didn't you understand?"
Tabitha groaned. "The dead part, of course."
She was shoved toward her father. She stepped over to his side. "Hey, Dad. You really shouldn't have taken off like that."
"I didn't want to. But I thought I heard his voice through your phone talking to Ronin before he was knocked out."
"And you did." Germaine smiled. "And now we have the whole family here, including the security specialist. Except you really don't want to assume that those in an office know nothing about security themselves. It's so easy to fix things with inside people."
Security specialist? He was assumi
ng that Ronin was Roman. Good. Then he couldn't know that Roman would be on his way in minutes. To delay their plans, in order to give Roman more time, she said, "You haven't fixed anything. I had the deed transferred into my name before he died."
"Ah, yes. You certainly filled out the paperwork and left it with your father to take care of. Of course, he gave it to Eric to handle. Only he made sure the papers were never sent off. But then…you haven't been capable of handling things around here in a while." And he smiled, a nasty smile that made her cringe. She looked at the second man also holding a gun. He was maybe in his mid to late thirties. "Dad, who is the second asshole?"
