ILLEGALLY MINE

by Mia Carson

  Harold admired the subtle beauty of the white gold band and the two small clusters of diamonds surrounding a princess cut stone, but it was not a diamond. “Is that an amethyst?”

  “It is. Winston’s mother was a rather unique woman, or so Winston told me.”

  “This is perfect. I’ll have to bring it back to have it resized, but this…this is more than I expected to find.”

  “I look forward to seeing this ring on her finger.” The clerk closed the box and slid it across the counter. “Good luck, Mr. Jenson.”

  “Thank you. Are you sure I don’t owe you anything for holding onto it?”

  “No. Winston was a dear friend, and he and his wife were taken far too early from us all. If I can help put a smile on Anna’s face, that will be payment enough. I do, however, look forward to seeing you both back here to pick out a ring for you,” he added, tapping the side of his nose.

  “I will be certain to tell her so.” Harold pocketed the ring. He wanted to rush over to the bar and ask her right away, but he wanted the matter with Johnny over with so they could focus only on their future together.

  A few more hours from now and hopefully, that would be the case.

  Chapter 11

  Anna fidgeted at her place in the kitchen. She peeked through the window again.

  “Will you stop it? You’ll hear them,” Harold whispered behind her.

  “What if they don’t come in through the front?” she replied.

  “The back door has four locks on it and is too heavy to break down easily,” Harold reminded her. “We went over this with Detective Leven, too. If Johnny is going to break in, he’ll come through the front.”

  She pursed her lips, knowing he was right. “I’m glad I never got around to putting in that security system,” she muttered and shoved her hands in her butt pockets to stop from wringing them.

  Harold moved closer, his body a comforting presence at her back. Leven and the three officers he’d brought with him were scattered around the bar, hiding well. Anna told them about the back stairs that led to the bar from the upper apartments, and Leven covered that area as the officers stayed closer to the front doors. Every entrance was covered, but knowing it did little to relieve the anxiety flooding through Anna. If this went wrong—and it very well could—she stood a chance of facing jail time and losing her bar.

  “Listen,” Harold whispered right against her ear.

  Anna glanced through the window from the kitchen as a loud bang resounded around the bar. The door to the back stairs was not as sturdy as the back door. Three more hits and she heard it slam open and smash into the wall. She heard whispering voices, and Harold pushed her gently behind him. She wanted to argue, but making noise would give away their position.

  “Where is it?” a man asked roughly. The voice was familiar but wasn’t Johnny’s. It had to be Josh. “Johnny, where is it?”

  “Back room,” Johnny replied tersely. “Just get on with it.”

  “You better have the money you promised me for all this shit.”

  Anna cringed as their heavy steps drew closer, but they didn’t enter the kitchen. Harold’s body tensed in front of her, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he placed a finger to his lips and nodded. They had gone into the storeroom. They kept arguing, and Anna wanted to run in there and open the damn thing for them just to get this over with, but that would defeat the purpose.

  “Finally,” Johnny groaned and a scuffle followed.

  “This is what you were looking for? A damn file folder?”

  “You don’t understand what this means.”

  “I understand I’m going to kick your ass for real this time if you don’t pay up.”

  “Hold on, I have to see,” Johnny muttered.

  Anna held her breath, waiting for them to leave the storeroom, but they stayed in there.

  “Damn it! That lying bastard! I knew it, I knew he was trying to set me up!”

  “What do you mean?” Josh snapped. “You mean we came here for nothing?”

  “No, not nothing,” Johnny corrected. “I knew he was lying. They were all lying.”

  “Great, now where the hell is my money, Johnny? You said this safe was filled with cash, so where is it?”

  Johnny mumbled something Anna couldn’t hear, but he was cut off by a pained grunt following what sounded like a fist connecting with a face. Another hit followed and another, and lights flipped on all throughout the bar.

  “Concord Police!” Detective Leven hollered. “Back away from the man and put your hands on your head. Do it now!”

  Harold and Anna exited the kitchen to see Johnny and his friend, Josh, standing in the bar where Leven and the other officers dragged them so they were out of the tiny store room. Johnny spotted her and spat blood from his mouth to the floor, snarling at her.

  “You bitch,” he snapped. “You set me up?”

  “Payback’s a bitch,” she replied with a wicked smile.

  Josh grunted as the two officers grabbed his hands and pulled them behind his back, cuffing him. “Damn it, Johnny! I never should have listened to you, you fucking dumbass!”

  “Be quiet,” the cop muttered and shoved Josh forward. “You’re under arrest.” He read the man his rights as he marched him out the front door Anna hurried to open. She heard Harold speaking quietly with Detective Leven, but her mind was too distracted by what this night meant for her to even hear. The man who had attacked her and broke into her place might be in handcuffs, but they had no proof yet that it was him.

  She walked over to stand beside Harold as Detective Leven took the contract from Johnny and handed it back to her. “Thank you.”

  “This isn’t over,” Johnny snapped. “You’re not keeping this damn bar. You can’t afford it. You’ll go out of business in a few months.”

  “Maybe,” she said, shrugging as she stared around her dad’s bar. “But you’re going to jail.”

  “Ha! You don’t have anything on me! This was entrapment,” he yelled. “You broke into my place first, remember? You beat me up with a damn bat!”

  “You know,” Detective Leven mused and turned Johnny so the light touched his face better, “the bruises you said came from a bat look an awful lot like the new bruises you’re sporting now from your friend. Huh, funny how that works out, isn’t it?”

  Johnny yanked his face away from him and shook his head. “I’m not going to jail.”

  “Oh, but I think you’ll find you are,” Harold said, grinning as he stepped forward. “I hope you have a damn good lawyer, too, because I’m going to bury you.”

  “Why? Because you fucked purple-head over there?” Johnny seethed.

  Harold’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t charge forward. He held Anna’s hand instead and nodded. “Might be because I love her, too.”

  “Love.” Johnny’s eyes widened for a second. They narrowed when he rushed past Leven and the other officer and lunged for Anna. He never reached her. Harold decked him with a right hook, and Johnny stopped in his tracks as his eyes glossed over, dazed.

  Harold shook out his hand and grunted. “I’ve been wanting to do that for the past week, you bastard. Stay away from my Anna.”

  Anna’s heart warmed, and when he spun around, she leapt into his arms, kissing him fiercely.

  Detective Leven cleared his throat, and she reluctantly let their lips part. “If you two would like to join us down at the station so we can get this mess sorted out? Then you can get back to your, uh, moment.” He and the officer dragged a yelling Johnny from the bar. “If you don’t shut your trap, I’m going to taser you,” Leven threatened, and Anna smirked. Seeing Johnny twitching on the floor would be a fitting end to this night.

  “Ready to go?” Harold asked. “I’m sure you’d like to get this over with.”

  “Yeah, I’ll lock up and then we’re good.” She closed and barricaded the back door leading to the stairs the best she could, but there wasn’t really anything in the bar to steal. The cash was safe at Har
old’s place and the contract was with her. She scooped up her purse and flipped off the lights. “Time to go put a man in jail.”

  Harold held her hand out the door and during the drive to the police station. She expected to be thrown in another interrogation room and have to wait, but Harold spoke quietly with Detective Leven and he allowed them both to stand in the observation room behind the two-way glass. Johnny was placed in the room on the right while his friend was stuck in the room on the left. His face was red and he spat curses the whole time. Anna cringed away from the glass. What would have happened that night if Harold hadn’t followed her? She would have come face to face with Josh alone. She could handle herself in a simple fist fight, but against a man who was a freaking UFC fighter? He could’ve put her in the hospital without even thinking about it.

  “Hey, you don’t have to be in here,” Harold whispered, a worried frown scrunching his face.

  “No, I want to hear why,” she insisted. “I can’t believe he did all this because I turned him down. And that I wouldn’t let him be my partner in the bar. Something’s off. I just don’t know what.”

  “Your dad and his uncle, were they close?”

  Anna set her purse down heavily and paced around the tiny room. “They were friends once upon a time. He came to the funerals and told me we could change the contract if needed but didn’t offer more than that.”

  Detective Leven opened the door to Josh’s room and winked at the two-way glass. “Josh Green, correct?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “You waived your right to an attorney?”

  “Yeah, I did. I know what I did and I’m not the only one going down for it,” he snapped. “That asshole promised me a hundred grand for doing this shit and he couldn’t pay up.”

  “A hundred grand?” Anna whispered. “Johnny doesn’t have that kind of money.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty damn sure, and I definitely didn’t have that much lying around.”

  Detective Leven slid over a pad of paper and pen. “Start at the beginning. What did Johnny Tory ask you to do?”

  Josh draped his arm over the back of his chair and glared at the far wall. “He calls me up and says he knows where a few hundred-thousand dollars are stashed in this lady’s bar—Anna or whatever. He told me he tried to get to the money, but she won’t let him work with her at the bar and he couldn’t get close enough for her to tell him.”

  Anna shook her head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.” Harold tensed beside her but didn’t say anything.

  “And he asked you to help him set up Anna Crawley?”

  “He told me to come over and stage a fight. She comes in to save him and I knocked her out. I banged Johnny up to make it look like he was attacked and then bolted.”

  Detective Leven nodded. “Anna Crawley never laid a finger on Johnny, then?”

  “No. She burst in to save his poor ass, though. Kinda felt bad for her, but I needed the money, man, and she just got a bump on the head.”

  Anna’s hand lifted to rub the spot, healed days ago, of course, but there was a different kind of pain settling in her chest now, mingling with the confusion of what Josh was telling the detective.

  “What happened once Anna was arrested?”

  “Johnny tore the place apart, but he still couldn’t find anything. He said there was no safe in her apartment or the bar, so I went back to check it out. He told me to make it look good and really mess her up, so I did. I still didn’t find a safe in her apartment, and I didn’t get a chance to hit the bar until a few nights later. I poked around and found the safe, but one of the bartenders worked late so I couldn’t break into it then.”

  “And you didn’t go back because?”

  “Johnny told me to wait. She would be in jail soon enough, and then we would have the bar to ourselves,” Josh explained. “Fucking idiot. He lied. There’s no damn money hidden in that building.”

  “Write everything down for me, if you please, including what happened tonight,” Detective Leven stated and tapped the pad of paper. “Sit tight. I’m going to have a word with your friend and be back shortly.”

  Josh scribbled down his story as Anna watched. Detective Leven joined them and leaned against the wall. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Anna told him. “There’s no money except what I took out of the safe, and it sure as hell wasn’t a few hundred-thousand dollars.”

  “I believe you. I have a feeling once I speak with Johnny, I and the entire police department are going to owe you an apology, Anna,” Detective Leven sighed. “Give me a few more minutes and we can figure out what’s going on here.”

  Anna nodded and he left. Harold wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her to his chest. “At least the charges against you will be dropped.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s good,” she murmured.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know,” she promised, and they watched Detective Leven enter the room with Johnny.

  “I want a lawyer,” Johnny snapped before Detective Leven sat down.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I’m not saying a damn word until I get one.”

  Detective Leven nodded. “That’s your choice, but let me inform you of one thing first. Your friend has just told me everything I need to know to drop the charges against Anna Crawley. You, on the other hand, were caught breaking and entering, and that’s just to start. My boys have been doing some investigating on you, and they found you’ve been scamming your renters for quite some time. Seven years, to be exact.”

  Anna swallowed hard. She knew it. She knew he’d raised the rates for no damn reason. He’d cheated her and the other renters out of their money and then had the gall to try and steal from her?

  Johnny’s smug smile fell away. “You can’t prove any of that.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’ll be sure your lawyer is called.” Detective Leven stood and left, though Anna wanted him to stay and figure out what money Johnny told Josh about. Her parents were far from wealthy. No one in her family had money. Her grandma passed a couple of years before her parents’ accident, but all she left behind was enough to cover her funeral expenses. Her mom’s parents were long gone and neither had siblings, so where was this damn money coming from?

  “He’s coming back,” Harold told Anna, and she tried to focus as Detective Leven opened the door. “She’s free and clear, right?”

  “Yes. The charges will be dropped against Anna, and once this idiot’s lawyer shows up, we’ll figure out what he’s rambling on about. You’re sure you have no idea what he was talking about?”

  “No,” Anna assured him. “If I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I would have used the money to buy out the bottom floor already. He’s not getting out of here tonight, right?”

  “If he makes bail, he could, but I’ll try to have someone watching your bar once he’s out. It’ll take a few days, and if this goes to court, you’ll have to testify against him.” He held out his hand to Anna and she took it. “I am sorry for the grief we caused you. Your parents were good people, especially your dad. He’d be damn proud of you these past seven years.”

  Anna smiled, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.

  “If you don’t need her anymore, I think we’re going to get out of here,” Harold said.

  “Please, get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

  Anna let Harold guide her from the police station and back to his car. He started the engine, but she grabbed his arm before he pulled away. “Go back to the bar.”

  “What? Anna, it’s three in the morning. You need sleep.”

  “Just trust me. Go back to the bar, please?”

  He hung his head but didn’t argue and headed for The Crawler. She unlocked the front door once they arrived and flipped on the lights. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but if Johnny thinks there’s something he
re, then there’s got to be something.”

  “What are you going to do? Tear the place apart? You’ve been in this bar every single day since your dad opened it,” he reminded her gently. “If he hid money somewhere, don’t you think you would’ve found it by now?”

  She tossed her purse on the bar and planted her hands on her hips. “Dad was always good at hiding things,” she told him quietly as she scrutinized the walls around her. “He loved puzzles, and he was always making scavenger hunts for me and Mom, ever since I was little.”

  “You think he left one for you?” he asked skeptically.

  She couldn’t blame him. Her dad leaving behind a puzzle was farfetched, especially since he had no way of knowing he and his wife would be killed all those years ago. As she paced around the room, Harold drew out his cell, turning it back on, she assumed. They’d turned both of them off while they waited in the dark for Johnny to break into the bar. He put it to his ear and his eyes widened.

  “Anna, I think you need to hear this,” he told her and held out his phone, putting it on speaker. “You remember I told you we were trying to get ahold of Johnny’s Uncle Terry? He finally called me back.” He hit play on the message and a familiar voice came through the phone.

  “Mr. Jenson, I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to you. I’ve been traveling in the mountains and have terrible reception. As far as anything with my nephew goes, he’s a greedy little bastard who I hoped would turn over a new leaf. Since it appears he hasn’t, I’ll be headed home first thing in the morning to sort him out. If he’s coming after Winston’s bar and his daughter, it’s probably because he overheard Winston and me speaking one night. All I know is my friend was coming into a large sum of cash that would help pay for the bar. When he died and his daughter didn’t say anything about it, I assumed she’d used it to pay off their debts and for their funerals, but I’m afraid that’s all the help I can give. I’ll be in touch as soon as I reach Concord.”