by Kathi Barton
“It’s more than likely what had me down for a while after she was gone. The thought of feeling nothing at all about the fact that my mother wasn’t only dead, but that she was murdered. All I have to do is think of what she did to Holly over the years, and I want to go dig her up and make her pay.” He looked at the desk when one of the nurses said his name. “I have to go, Dad. I’ll let you know when Amy and Lulu are out of surgery.”
Going up to the nurses’ station, Milly, a long time friend of his, smiled at him. When he asked her how the surgery was going, Milly laughed.
“She’s had to be given a little more juice. Wats called here to make sure that when you take her home, you strap her down any way you can. She’s a pistol, he told me.” North told her he was in love with her. “Well, of course, you are, North. It’s right there on your face like it is Mars and his wife. Like having an electrical current running all over you. You make sure you keep her where she’s supposed to be. We don’t want anything to happen to any of you, Wilkersons.”
“The ring.” Milly asked him what he meant. “Aunt Holly gave me a ring. I completely forgot about it until this moment. I wish I could go home and get it for her.”
“You have time. She’s going to be another half hour or more in surgery. If they gave her more to put her out, then you might have an hour and a half to get home and get back.” He thought for sure he could do it but was afraid of breaking a promise. “How about you call that dad of yours? I’m sure he’d be thrilled to no end in helping you out with this.”
Kissing her on the cheek, he did just that. Dad was tickled to be able to help him. As soon as he sat down, the stress of the last few weeks—the renovations to his house, quitting his job, and anything else he’d been fretting over—just slipped off his shoulders. It was the most wonderful feeling, he thought, to be stress free, if only for a few minutes.
~*~
Amy woke up and looked around the room. She was fuzzy on the details until she saw her leg up in some kind of harness. It didn’t hurt right now, but she was sure if she made a sudden move or even wiggled her toes, she’d be in so much pain again, she’d be begging them for more drugs.
Dad was in the large recliner, snoring away. North was in the tiniest chair she’d ever seen. Then she realized it wasn’t a tiny chair, but a very big man sitting in it. Turning her head at the sound of someone clearing their throat, she looked at the woman sitting there with papers spread out all over the table in front of her.
“What the hell is the difference between proprietor and owner?” Amy had to think a moment and told her she didn’t know really, but they did sound like they should be the same. “That’s what I thought too. But whoever wrote this thing is using them both to talk about the same person. Mainly Mars and I. I’m not an attorney either, but this thing is like unweaving a basket and trying to put it all back together again. Inside out. I don’t know. I’d like to think I’m a tad bit smart, but this isn’t helping.”
“The word owner can apply to just about anything. However, proprietor is what the contract should be using. It’s a business ownership. Why are you looking over contracts, Abby?” North kissed Amy on the cheek before taking her hand into his. “How you feeling? You’ve been out for a few hours. And I was thinking you were really going to be rested when you opened your pretty purple eyes.”
“North, would you look this over for me? I’ve tried to make heads or tails out of this, but it’s not written in any kind of straight forward contract like I’ve had before.” North took the contract from Abby and looked at the first page before handing it back to her. “I don’t know if you realize this or not, but there is more than just the front page in this sucker.”
“This isn’t from a lawyer’s office. It looks to me like someone is trying to scam you.” She asked him how he could tell. “There isn’t a firm name on it. All it has is your name with your home address on it. I know for a fact you’re not using your home address for your business. I helped you set up the P.O. box. Also, if anything, they should be sending this to the building you’ve opened in town. How did they think you were going to use your personal address for working?”
“It does mention something about our home here. The one that is being renovated, not the condo where we’ve been living.” She found it and handed it back to North. Amy was sort of feeling left out, but the pain was making itself known to her, so she just let them do their thing. When North laughed, Amy looked at Abby. “What? What’s going on?”
“It’s telling you in a roundabout way that if they aren’t happy with the photographs you take at their wedding, then they can take your business. Since they slyly put your home address on here, they’re going to say you knew they were going to take your home along with the business when you signed this contract. Who wrote this?”
Abby told them the name she’d been given. Amy sat up a little too fast and asked them to hold on while she got her bearings again.
“I know them. I mean, not personally, but I’ve dealt with them before.” She tried to think while the pain was taking over her mind. “I need something for pain. Now, please. I’ll be able to think better. But don’t sign anything that comes from them. Not even if it comes registered mail. They do this all the time. North, honey, knock me out, please, before I start screaming. This is fucking painful.”
As soon as the nurse came in with a shot for her pain, Amy started to feel the effects of it almost as soon as the needle was taken out of the IV in her arm. While the pain wasn’t completely gone, it was easier to deal with now that a large part of it had been taken away.
Her dad was awake now too. Just letting the magic of the pain meds take over, she answered questions from North and Abby about Highlander Weddings. North asked her if she did wedding pictures too.
“Yes. Just a couple of times when I was abroad and that was the payment for helping me track an animal. Mostly it was a few pictures of the bride and groom on the wedding day. Some with their family too. Not much. And nothing as good as Abby does.” Abby thanked her, but asked how Highlanders had contacted her. “The same way, through a wedding they wanted me to take pictures of. I think I was in Africa then, taking pictures of some of the baby elephants. Could have been tigers, but that’s not the issue here. I got a registered mail from them. It came via the post office I would use while there. I hadn’t signed for it—one of the workers had.”
“So, you contacted someone to see what was going on?” Amy told North she didn’t have to. “Then how did you figure it out?”
“Ah, there is the question. I didn’t. What I mean is, when the letter got to me, about a month after it was sent, Pat, one of the people helping me, said he’d seen the same kind of letter come to the office for others. Bad mojo, he told me.” Amy remembered the look on Pat’s face while he was trying his best to explain to her what the firm was. “After speaking to him about it, I sent it on to the company I was working for while I was there. They had more money than brains, and I let them deal with it. About three months later, I got a letter from the firm I worked for telling me I had nothing to worry about. I thought about telling him I rarely worried, but it was done, and I didn’t have to deal with it.”
Amy told them with how the contract was worded, Highlanders wouldn’t have only been able to take her home if she had owned one, they’d take possession of all her work, including any future work if they weren’t satisfied.
“How they’d get a photographer, in the end, was that they’d have some sucker take the pictures. The bride, they’d tell you, was unhappy with them. But since they really didn’t want a house or whatever other things were listed, they’d cut the person a deal. One where not only would their firm get the entire set of pictures for free, they’d want the photographer to pay them an ungodly amount of money on top of it. A sort of win-win for them.” Amy laughed. “I sometimes wondered if the wedded couple was even real. I mean, I could see them setting this up o
ver and over. Can’t you?”
“That’s just terrible.” Amy agreed with Abby but told her there were worse scams going on all the time. “What should I do about this?”
“Shred it. You win this round. However, you have to remember something. Even if Highlanders sends out a thousand contracts like this one and only two percent of the people fall for it, they’re making a great deal of money all the time.” Amy laid back on the bed and listened as Abby and North spoke.
Waking up, not realizing she’d fallen asleep again, she found North watching her this time from the chair. She asked him if she’d been out for very long. The pain was far more manageable than it had been before.
“No more than a couple of hours. They said if you wanted anything to eat, you should try something light. But you can have some water. Not ice, because they don’t want you to have the cold hitting your belly to quickly. How do you feel?” She told him not too bad. “Good. I need to tell you a good story. I’m saying it like that, so you don’t think I’m going to disappoint you with some bad news. When Aunt Holly was murdered, she left some things in her will for all of us. Money and some other small things that all of us cherish as much as we did her. She also left us each a ring to use if we were to ever find someone to love.” He handed her the box that it had come to him in.
“Oh, North. This is getting really serious here.” He asked her if she wanted him to slow down. “No. I don’t think I do. I’m in love with you, and I want to spend the rest of my life hanging around with you and your cousins.” She asked him if there was a story with the ring.
“Yes. My great great grandfather bought it when he was Paris a very long time ago. He was a cheap bastard and thought he’d gotten a good deal by only paying ten bucks for it. Dad told me he loved Grandma dearly.” Amy asked him what the real story was. “Well, Dad said that his great grannie took it to the jewelers and had the stone in it reset. It was then she was told it was nothing more than a shiny stone. However, this band was worth a small fortune. I’ve since had it appraised again, and the band is a treasure. Great great Grannie told my dad that the old buzzard, what she called her husband, should know better than to brag about how he’d gotten her something so cheap. If I remember correctly from my dad, when it was given to his sister Holly when she turned nine, it was worth just over a hundred thousand dollars. Grannie told Aunt Holly that she wanted someone in her lineage to use it to ask someone they loved to marry them. I gladly do with it as she wished by asking you, Amy Jay Hamilton, if you’d be my wife, forever and a day?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Oh, North, I love you very much.”
Kissing him was more touching this time. Like agreeing to marry him had with it a bonding magic that would see them happy for the rest of their lives.
Chapter 5
Bringing Amy home was a good deal more complicated than he thought it would be. Not only were there instructions on how to give her a shower, but how to keep her cast dry, how much she was able to leave her ankle lower than her heart. Which was, surprisingly for him, a thing that had to be done. But then, North was an attorney, not a doctor. Thankfully, they had one of those in the family.
“You have her pain meds and her dosage chart. You might have to keep reminding her not to let the pain get too far gone. When that happens, she’ll suffer more, and neither of you are going to like that.” North told Wats he didn’t want her to suffer at all. “I know you don’t, buddy. So keep an eye on her for us. I’ll be over tomorrow, then whenever you might need me. I don’t think you will, but don’t allow her to take over her care, and I think she’ll be fine. If she gives you a hard time, call Abby. She’ll keep her in line.”
For some reason, North didn’t think having Abby come over would work. She and Amy were like two peas fighting over the same pod while laughing. He’d never seen anything like it. They were like friends and enemies at the same time. Sitting down on the edge of the bed that Wats helped him get for Amy, he asked her if she needed anything.
“Tired of me already?” He told her never going to happen. “Well, I’m bored out of my mind already. It’s not you or this place, which I’m so glad you have, but I need something to occupy my mind. I can’t get started on the paintings until the equipment I ordered gets here. That’ll be time consuming, but it will be something to do.”
“Would you like to help me with the case against your mom and sister?” Amy asked him what it was about. “Your dad has filed for divorce. And while I enjoyed talking to his attorney yesterday, I think he’s a moron. Not on everything, but divorce isn’t his cup of tea, I don’t think.”
“Probably not, I would guess. He’s been working for my parents since before I was born. To be honest with you, I would have guessed he’d died a long time ago.” North told her the man was nearly eighty years old. “That’s about what I’d guess. I’d love to help. I don’t know much about law, but I could probably look stuff up for you.”
“I need someone to help me make a list of not just all the stores your mom and sister shopped from, but an accounting of how much was spent in a years’ time. You can do it from a calendar year or wherever you want to start. Just as long as it equals a year with all the stores ending at the same time. Understand?” Amy said if she did January to December, then they all had to be the same year. “Perfect. This is a daunting job, I won’t lie to you. I never realized two people could spend so much in a single store on a single day.”
“I don’t know what they did either. I’m to understand that Dad found several hundred thousand dollars in unworn clothing.” North told her that was just in her mom’s closet. “Christ. I’m betting because that was how she dressed when I was young, that they were all a decade or so too young for her. I don’t understand why women want to dress like their kids. Sad, I think.”
“I don’t know. Some women, I think, can pull it off. They’ve aged beautifully and do look like their daughter’s sister. But there are women, like your mother, that should look in the mirror before they leave the house.” He handed her the first three stacks of stores. “I’ve separated it out by store name. At first, I was trying to put them in a date of purchase order. But like I said, there are just too many to cope with.”
North made sure she had everything she needed to work with. He’d brought in a table to use while she was convalescing, and used that to his advantage. By the time he had an outline of what he was going to present to the judge, Amy had made some remarkable headway into getting the paperwork sorted by day of purchase.
“I was sure I was going to find a lot of return slips in this mess.” He asked Amy why she thought that. “I don’t know, really. But I have read a few cases about women figuring they won’t be married all that long and trying to build up a stash of money. To do it, they would buy things on credit. Then a few weeks later, bring it back for cash.”
“That’s what my mother was doing. I guess I never equated her having so much money to her stealing it from my dad. Well, perhaps stealing it isn’t the correct word to use, but I think it was something along those lines.” Amy told him it was stealing. “She didn’t have a job, so I guess since she didn’t contribute anything to the household, it might well have been considered that. Not only did my mom not work, there wasn’t a household she had to run either. The nannies raised me. Then when I was old enough, I was cared for by the staff. I have a better relationship with them than I think is normal.”
“Don’t forget your aunt too. She did a great job making sure you guys were well taken care of. Look at this bill of sales. Why is there a tailored man’s suit on here? My dad only bought his suits from Beckman’s. He’d been going there for so long, they didn’t even have to measure him much anymore.” North took the receipt dated just three months ago. “If you look at the bottom, you can see where the man taking the measurements wrote it right on the bill. My dad isn’t that slim. Nor is he that tall. It says the body frame is six foot six. Dad is
, at best, six foot.”
The more they dug into this divorce, the more things they were finding that Fran had done to make her life a lap of luxury while draining the bank account of her husband. Three hours later, North was still working on some of the things mentioned in the prenup that Fran had signed when she married Shelton all those years ago. Having made them both some sandwiches and brewed some more tea, he figured they were going to be there for another decade and still not be finished.
The knock at his door had him grumbling about visitors when he had a hurt bride in his home. Opening the door, he was surprised to see his uncles and his dad standing on his front stoop with smiles on their faces.
“We came to help you.” He told them that wasn’t necessary. “Well, we’re all attorneys, North, and would enjoy this. Even though we’re, for the most part, retired now, we still dabble in the law. Since this is your first case since leaving the firm, we figure you want to do a good job of sucking up to your future father-in-law.”
Once he had given them all drinks, snacks if they wanted them, as well as a stack of paperwork, North carried Amy to the living room with his family. He introduced her to those she’d not met yet.
Taking his table in the room with them, North was sort of glad he’d not gotten around to buying too much in the way of furniture yet. There was plenty of room for them to have a seat on the floor and spread out their work. Not to mention, they all talked about their childhood, carefully not mentioning their ex-wives. It was wonderful to view a side of them he’d not seen before. And wouldn’t have if his mother were still alive.
“North, there are several more bills here with men’s suits on them. I don’t see two measurements that are alike so far. She was spending Shelton’s money to supply her lovers with clothing. That’s a big no-no when it comes to divorces.” North asked his uncle Aidan why, for his notes. “With just a rough estimate, I’d say there is well over ten grand here. I did read over most of the prenup he had her sign, and she’s not authorized to pay for anyone else’s clothing but her own or her children’s. That’s grand larceny. If she used a credit card, one that Shelton was paying off, to get hotel rooms for her fun, that could be a part of this too.”
