by Jan Stryvant
"Then maybe we can meet over at Sawyer's or maybe Chad's and see if we can figure out just who did this to us."
"Wasn't it the Vestibulum?"
"I don't know, Dae, I really don't. Yeah, they're the leading contenders right now, but I've been warned not to jump to conclusions. Apparently playing vicious backstabbing games is typical with these people. Oh! Roxy's dad says he'll see about picking up the cost to replace the stock we lost for making the tags and collars. I'll call you when I know more. Love you, and tell Jo I love her too."
"Got it! Love you! Bye!"
Sean put the phone back in his pocket and dug in to the food. He had a lot to think about.
"So now what?" Jolene asked Daelyn as she came out of the shower.
"Sean called, he sends his love. We need to go visit my uncle Samis."
"Why do we want to see him?"
"We're gonna need to get a work crew over to our place as soon as possible to start cleaning it up and rebuilding it."
"I'm pretty sure there are some dead people in there, Dae," Jolene sighed with an unpleasant look on her face.
"Yeah, I know," Daelyn agreed with a sad look of her own, "Sean wants to make sure that they're taken care of. I'm betting that they'll probably call it an accident, because of the truck crash. So hopefully they won't have it blocked as a crime scene, which definitely means we need to get someone over there sooner, rather than later.
"After that," Daelyn sighed as they picked their way around all the wolves that were sleeping on the floor. "We need to get to work on finding another place for all of these people to stay."
"Hoping your uncle knows of another abandoned bunker?" Jolene chuckled.
"That, or see if we can talk him into letting some of these people stay in the dwarven town for a little while. Sean said he's going to start looking for a new place today, but who knows how long that'll take?"
"Well, I definitely want to stop by a few spots and talk to a few of my friends, to see if anyone knows anything about what happened last night."
"I guess we can stop by Sawyers," Daelyn chuckled.
"I said friends," Jolene laughed.
"Oh come off it, you two have the whole 'arguing friends' routine down pat. If you two were any louder, people would think you're related or something."
Jolene rolled her eyes.
"So, when do we meet back up with the others?"
"Probably sometime this afternoon, Sean wasn't sure. Let me talk with Granite a moment, then we can get out of here," Daelyn made a bit of a face.
"Yeah, with all these wolves, it is getting kind of stinky in here, isn't it?" Jolene laughed.
Two Steps Forward
Sean looked out at the house as they circled it from above, it was the tenth place they'd flown over so far, the previous ones had either been too close to town, too close to other houses, or just looked like complete dumps. The place was pretty large and looked to be fairly well made, with a large detached garage as well as plenty of space for bunkhouses like the ones Claudia had, as well as a few large hangers. Flying around in the helicopter was definitely giving Sean ideas.
He just needed the money to go with them.
"How much did you say that place was?" He asked Gloria, the realtor that Claudia had rousted for him. Sean was surprised, for all that she'd shown up within the hour, she was immaculately dressed and her makeup was perfect. She looked every inch like she was the kind of person who dealt with extremely rich clients.
"Seven hundred and fifty," she told him over the headset. She was sitting in the back with Roxy and Peg, Sean was up front with the pilot. "It's over fifty acres, and as you can see, has a commanding view of the area."
Sean nodded, "Cool. George, find a place to land us."
"They see you coming in a helicopter; they're not going to give you any kind of deal!" Gloria warned.
"If they can be out by the end of the day, I'll give them a fifty-kay bonus," Sean told her. "I need a place, and I need it now. I got over two million in the bank. I want to have work crews up here by tomorrow to start building bunkhouses, and all that other stuff, just like what Claudia has at her place."
Their pilot George landed them about a hundred yards from the house, and getting out, they all trotted over to the front door as he waited for them.
"Huh, nobody home," Gloria said after they'd knocked on the door and peeked in the windows. So using her phone to open the lockbox with the keys for the house in it, they went inside and looked around.
Sean was impressed, the place was actually pretty nice, and whoever owned it had already moved out.
"Well, call whoever the listing agent is, and tell them it's sold. Your buyer has cash and wants to move on the deal immediately," Sean said, looking around.
"We'll have to go back towards town," Gloria told him, holding up her phone, "no service."
"The phone in the kitchen works!" Roxy called out.
"Well, in that case, let me go make some phone calls," Gloria said.
"So, this is the place then?" Roxy asked, coming back into the living room where Sean was standing, looking out the window.
"Yeah. It's got three ways in, either through Lemmon Valley, Sun Valley, or Spanish Springs. It's close enough to Reno that you can probably get there in thirty minutes, and with all the space here, I'm thinking we can build up a pretty serious compound with a lot of defenses."
"What about our building downtown?"
Sean shrugged, "It could be months before we can move back there. Up here, we'll see them coming, and we can defend ourselves a lot more aggressively."
Roxy nodded, "True."
"What do you mean by 'aggressively?'" Peg asked.
"Machine guns, land mines," Sean said.
"Mortars, artillery, flame throwers," Roxy added with a grin.
"Sharks with lasers," Sean smirked.
"How about a stick, with a nail in it?" Peg asked.
"Ah! The ultimate weapon!" Roxy grinned.
"Okay," Gloria said coming back into the room. "They're very receptive to your cash offer and want to move on it immediately. Apparently the house has been on the market for a lot longer than they expected. The current owners had to move out last month to their new home."
Sean nodded, "Awesome. I'll give you my lawyer's name and number when we get back to Claudia's. Do you need cash, or will a check do?"
"Your lawyer can handle that. Now, shall we get back? I have a pretty good idea of just how much gas that machine out there burns, and I honestly don't want to hear Claudia bitching to me about it."
Roxy snorted, "Why would she do that?"
"Because she'll expect me to pay for it out of my commission," Gloria sighed. "Why else?"
"See if we can take possession immediately, on say a rental agreement while they work through the whole closing bit, okay?"
Gloria nodded.
"Great, now let's get out of here," Sean said and took the keys from the lock box and put them in his pocket so he could get back in later without having to break any windows.
As they started to fly back towards Claudia's compound, Sean started thinking about what he needed to do next, he'd have to get someone out there to do all the building he needed, maybe he'd have to ask Samis about that, or perhaps Claudia?
Taking off the headset he pulled out his phone, and after casting a silence spell on the helicopter to keep the noise down he dialed Jolene's number.
"Hi, Sean!"
"Hi, where are you two?"
"We just left the dwarven town and we're heading up to the building with Samis and some of his men."
"Why there?"
"Dae figured we should be there in case there are any issues. Near as we can figure it out, the police have ruled it an accident. They do want to talk to you however."
"They can talk to my lawyer," Sean sighed. "I guess we'll meet you there."
"Okay! Bye!"
Sean put his phone away and put the headset back on.
"How close you
can land us to our building, without anyone knowing that you're dropping us off, George?"
"With us being quiet now, I can make it look like I went to the Nugget, but you're all gonna have to get out pretty quick."
"Thanks. After you drop us off, take Gloria back to Claudia's, or wherever she needs to go. Tell Claudia that I'm looking to hire some contractors to do a lot of building and work on the new place, and I need them to start in the morning."
"Got it!"
"Gloria, call me or Roxy if you need anything,"
"Okay, Sean."
They all hopped out of the helicopter before George even touched down with the skids, then ducking down low, they ran off as he rose back up and headed off to the east.
Ten minutes later they were at the building where Daelyn and Samis were arguing with somebody. Sean took a good long look at the building as he walked up to them. The ground floor was completely gutted, and there was water everywhere. He could see the burned out remains of the shop, the shop's van, and one of the vans that Daelyn had only just bought.
The second floor was a mess on this side as well; however the third floor looked okay from here.
"Okay, what's the problem?" Sean asked coming up to the building.
"Who are you?" the man asked as Sean walked up.
"Sean Valens, I own the building. Now, who are you?" Sean said, staring down at the man.
"I'm with the fire marshal's office; we're still investigating the fire."
"Why? I thought at this point the cause was that jackass who drove his truck into my building."
"Several bodies were found in the basement, as well as on the main floor," the man said as Sean grimaced.
"Damn," Sean swore, "I was hoping they'd just gone to a different motel. Has the coroner's office taken the bodies away?"
"Yes, they were cleared out of here an hour ago. Why weren't you here last night, Mr. Valens? The firemen I talked to last night said that the building was deserted, yet we can see signs that people were obviously living here!"
"Once I got everyone out, I was a lot more concerned with taking care of them, than with staying and talking to the fire department," Sean said, still staring down at the man. "It was cold out and I was worried about everyone. I didn't even know anyone was missing until people told me about it this morning.
"Now, what are you investigating, and why are you preventing the man I contracted from going inside and assessing the damage?"
"We're still wondering just how a gas truck got over on this side of town," the man said, looking at Sean accusingly.
"Yeah, well I've been wondering about that myself. Maybe you should go talk to the police about that?"
"Oh, we have been, Mr. Valens. Perhaps you should be a part of that conversation as well?"
"My lawyer is already talking to them, Mr.?"
"Vasquez, Fire Investigator Vasquez."
"Mr. Vasquez, just what are you investigating at this point that is preventing us from starting on rebuilding?"
"We have concerns about insurance fraud, Mr. Valens. As we understand it, you only moved in a month ago."
Sean rolled his eyes, "Well let me put an end to that speculation right now, Mr. Vasquez. There's no insurance on the building, so there's no possibility of insurance fraud."
Sean heard Roxy snicker as Vasquez looked at him. "No insurance? What about the mortgage company?"
"There isn't one. I hadn't had the chance yet to arrange for a mortgage to free my equity up. Right now, you're costing me a fortune by blocking the contractor I hired from getting in there and giving me an estimate, so I can decide just what I have to do.
"So, unless you have some kind of legal power to arrest us, call my lawyer and please get out of the way," Sean growled and stepped around the fire inspector.
"Come on, Samis, I need to see how bad this is."
Two hours later, smelling of smoke, gas, and soot, Sean sat on the curb talking to Samis.
"All of the flooring for the first and second floors, including that what's left unburnt, that has to be replaced. The fire destroyed the structural integrity of that which it didn't burn outright.
"Then there's the supports. The west wall is going to need to be torn down and replaced, that'll be a bit tricky, but we can do it. Only three of the supporting beams in it have been damaged, though one of them has been severely so."
"And the rest?"
"The rest is mostly smoke and water damage. The insides of the basement and the first two floors will have to be gutted and rebuilt. The top floor mainly just needs to be cleaned and repainted."
Sean nodded, "How long?"
"Three, maybe four, months. That's once they allow us to start work on it of course."
Sean nodded and sighed, "Fine. Put together the paperwork and I'll sign it. I'll call my lawyer and see if he can find out when they'll let you start."
Samis blinked, "Don't you want to know how much it's going to cost?"
Sean shook his head, "Not really. Dae can deal with the money issues. Right now, I have to go over to the morgue and see about claiming the bodies of the folks we lost." Sean sighed and shook his head again, "They only found eleven bodies, Samis. Warn your crew that when they find whosever missing that I want the remains gathered up so I can claim them.
"I'll have one of our clerics down here during the cleanout," Samis assured him.
"Thanks." Sean stood up and walked over to where the girls were waiting. Roxy and Daelyn had gone through the place with him, they'd even gathered up a few things from their room that hadn't been damaged.
"I called Oak and arranged to put some security on the building to keep any looters out," Roxy told him as he came over.
"Thanks, Rox. I guess we need to go see about claiming the bodies."
"I already talked to Anthony about that," Daelyn said.
"Oh? What did he say?"
"That as you're not next of kin on any of them, they're balking."
Sean swore, "So what happens to them?"
"He's working with some of our wolves; they're going to go down and claim to be siblings. He said not to worry about it, but it will take a few days."
Sean sighed and nodded, "Well, let's go head over to Sawyer's and see if he's got anything for us. Then I guess it's back to Claudia's for now."
Sean looked around, "Who's got my backpack?"
"Here," Peg said and handed it to him.
"Thanks, I think I'm gonna give Sawyer most of this to sell."
"You sure about that?" Jolene asked.
Sean nodded, "We're going to need a lot of stuff to help us defend the new place, and I doubt any of it is going to be cheap."
Jacob took the binoculars away from his face and turned to look at Chris, "That's him alright! He's sitting on the curb there talking to somebody, looks like a dwarf. Call the team, tell them to suit up and get ready."
"We're not going to deal with him here, are we?" Chris said. "There's still some firemen and cops in the area!"
Jacob shook his head and started looking through his binoculars again, "No, of course not. We'll follow him and see where he goes."
"What if he goes and rejoins his people?"
"Then at least we know where the hell he's staying. Now shut up and call the others. Ah, he's getting up and heading towards a car across the street! Oh! An old car! That'll stand out! This is gonna be easy."
Setting the binoculars back down, Jacob started the car up and put it in gear. When the other car pulled away from the curb, he pulled out as well and started to follow, staying back about a hundred feet or so. Thankfully it was a weekday, so there were quite a few cars on the street, and being in a late-model sedan, they wouldn't stand out at all.
"Okay," Chris said, "Dave's getting them geared up and into the vans. They'll be on the road in a minute; they just need to know where to go."
"Damn, the girl driving that thing needs to slow the hell down! Tell them we're heading north."
"Got it!"
"Oh
! Just turned west," Jacob blinked as the car shot down the road suddenly, jumping way ahead, then cut into an industrial park.
"Damn! They're going to Sawyers!" Chris said.
"What?"
"Sawyers! A goblin fence, his place is in there."
"You sure?" Jacob asked.
"Course I'm sure! I was part of the stakeout for weeks. We know Sawyer sells the kid's stuff, but the kid's never gone there. Guess he's desperate or something to be going there now."
"Well, at least it's off the street," Jacob muttered, "so we'll draw less attention."
Chris snorted, "It's an industrial park, it's not a back alley. There's a lot of people working in there. Don't pull in," Chris said as the approached the entrance, "just park further down along the road."
Jacob did as Chris directed.
"Say, is there anybody staking out the place now?"
Chris shrugged, "Not from us, Al pulled everyone off to watch the other place."
"Well I hope the team gets here before they leave."
Sean stretched after they got out of Daelyn's 'cuda. Roxy had been sitting in his lap; the back seat really wasn't big enough for three, even if it was Jolene, Peg, and Roxy. Or at least Roxy claimed that. Sean figured she just wanted to sit in the front while Daelyn drove, and honestly, he was perfectly fine with having that nice tight butt of hers parked in his lap.
Daelyn parked the car in a concealed spot around the back of the row of buildings that Sawyer's place occupied. For all that it looked like there were five different companies there, all of the spaces actually belonged to him, they were just fronts for other aspects of the goblin's businesses.
Slipping in the back door, after making sure no one was watching, they made their way down to Sawyer's office.
"So, to what do I owe this unprecedented pleasure?" Sawyer grumbled, meeting them in the hallway outside his office.
"I need weapons," Sean told him.
Sawyer snorted, "This is Nevada, there are gun stores everywhere!"
"Heavy weapons," Sean said.
"Just how heavy we talking?" Sawyer asked, giving Sean a shrewd look.
"Heavy machine guns, light artillery," Roxy told him.
