Duane’s Determination (Broken Wheel Ranch #9)

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

“Are you sure?” Laurie asked her doctor in frustration. “There’s nothing else you can do?”

“I’m sorry, but no there are no more surgeries I can do. When you were attacked, the attacker shattered your knee. We did as much as we could with the four operations to try to repair it. Surgically, there’s nothing more we can do.” The doctor saw Laurie deflate, and took pity on her. As he rifled through the files on his desk, and in his drawers he asked.

“What did the physical therapist say?”

“The same thing as you. There’s nothing more they can do for me. I just hate the fact that I’m only forty-seven and have to walk with a cane for the rest of my life, and don’t get me started on this godawful unattractive, and bulky brace.”

“Again, I’m sorry.” The doctor sighed as he ended up looking at the computer and printing out several pages. After getting them off the copier, he sat back down and handed them to her.

“What is this?”

“I’m not getting in your personal business, and I don’t know how the case against your ex-husband and his mother is going,” he began, but held up his hand to stop her. “And I don’t want to know. Those papers I just gave you is some information I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend.”

“What is it?” Laurie looked down and scowled at the papers she held. “What is Broken Wheel?”

“As I said, I heard about this from a friend of a friend. I don’t know exactly what it all entails, but I do know that it is a horse ranch in Colorado that takes patients that want to use horse therapy to try and heal. That’s all I know about it.”

“Like rehabilitation, but using a horse?”

“Yes, at least that’s what I think it is. The website in listed in those papers. Go home, think about it, and look at the website. If you want to do this, and need a doctor’s referral, then call me back. I will give you one. Again, I’m sorry that I can’t do anything more for you.” He studied the woman before him and sighed heavily. “Do you want my personal and unprofessional opinion?” He smiled when Laurie whipped her head up and scowled at him.

“Unprofessional?”

“Okay, that might be a stretch, but I’m of the belief that if a patient takes themselves away from a stressful situation, you know, out of sight, out of mind, they heal better than if they stayed and dwelled on their injury.”

“Are you telling me that going halfway across the country to this ranch might help me?”

“I am. Again, I don’t know how the case against your ex is going, but I feel if you went to The Broken Wheel, then you might be surprised as to what your mind can unblock and how much more you can heal.”

“I’ll think about it,” Laurie said on a heavy sigh and struggled to stand. With her cane in one hand she put the strap to her purse over her shoulder and slowly walked to the front of the office. She drove through the local drive through, something she hated to do, but she refused to go to a restaurant. Since her attack and then her surgeries, she found that some days it was just better to take the easy way out. On a sigh she went to her office, and after she settled behind her desk, she looked at the food she’d purchased and after the bite of one fast food French fry, she threw the entire meal in the trash. She knew she had a yogurt in the mini refrigerator, so she got that and ate it. It wasn’t until hours later, as she turned in her chair and saw the setting sun that she cleaned up her office and made her way home.

The meal she cooked was quick and easy because she’d thrown it in the crockpot before going to the doctor that morning, and after changing into lounge pants and an oversized tee, she settled down to eat her chicken stew with her laptop. Instead of doing any work, she decided to research the place in Colorado her doctor had told her about. As she ate, she did all the research she could, and decided not to act on it right away, she wanted to sleep on it at least.

The next day, during a break in her work, she called her lawyer and had to leave a message. Two days later, she looked up and saw Jason Shyster standing outside her door. She didn’t see her secretary, so she waved him inside.

“Jason, what brings you here?” She attempted to rise, but Jason shook his head as he hurried forward.

“No, don’t get up. I’m here to answer your message you left me a couple of days ago.” He took the seat offered after he unbuttoned his suit jacket to sit. “I’m going to get right to the point, Laurie.”

“Okay,” she said to encourage him to continue when he stopped talking.

“Yeah, it’s not good.”

“What’s not?”

“The authorities still can’t find Peter or Beatrice. It’s like after they left the Bahamas when they were supposed to come back to the States after your attack, they just fell off the face of the earth. There’s also another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Though the police caught the attack on the Nanny cams you had, and they agree one hundred percent that Peter attacked you, and based on what they have been able to get from his phone, and where his car is still parked, they know Peter is your attacker, and they believe Beatrice was an accomplice.”

“But?”

“But because as far as the authorities know, neither one of them have returned to the States, so they haven’t been formally charged. Without that charge they aren’t legally considered fugitives so we can’t go look for them, nor can we extradite them. As it stands right now, they are only wanted for questioning.”

“Well, shit,” Laurie leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh. “So, until they return to US soil, I’m screwed?”

“Basically, yes.”

“What about their business? Who’s running that? Are they still in operation?”

“That’s the only shining light on this case so far. Because it’s on tape that Peter attacked you, and from a warrant the District Attorney asked for, and the phone information, we were able to get into the business, and based on what was found by the local white collar crime unit, they called in the Feds.”

“Like, the FBI?”

“Yes, I can’t tell you exactly what’s been going on, because I don’t know, but I can say that they have proof that Peter, Sr. had been embezzling from the company, then he took his own life.”

“He didn’t die of a heart attack?”

“No, again, based on the evidence, they even had a search warrant for Beatrice’s residence, and since Peter lived there, they also went through everything there. Your ex-father-in-law, embezzled from his own company, and when he was caught, he took his own life. Beatrice covered it up by telling everyone he had a massive heart attack. We have the official autopsy report. It was poisoning.”

“Are you sure Beatrice didn’t do it?”

“Huh?”

“Think about it, they say in all the cop shows that poisoning is a woman’s method of choice for murder. He stole from his company, taking money out of her pocket, so what’s to say she didn’t off him herself to get him out of the way. Why would he poison himself, he seemed like a person that would use a gun, or drive his car into a tree, not poison. Then when I exercised my legal right for Gibson Associates to stop paying Stanton Enterprises one hundred grand a month, I get attacked by Peter himself less than two weeks after I served them with the papers. He contacted her to say it was done, which based on my position at the bottom of the stairs, I’m thinking he thought I was dead, he calls her, goes to the airport, and gets on a plane. The lead investigator tells me that just the day before Beatrice went to the exact same destination as Peter. I’m not in law enforcement, but in my mind, that screams conspiracy. If I was a betting woman, then they were in on this together. If I was a winner at betting, I would say Beatrice was behind it.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Beatrice was a cold bitch. We never really got along, and six months into my marriage to Peter, she tried to tell me what I was going to be doing in my own home.”

“Which was?”

“I was to quit my job, be a stay-at-home-wife, wait on Peter hand and foot, and be the good little wifey and obey his every command.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, I told her in no uncertain terms that Peter didn’t own the home, I did, and that his pay check was so small, he couldn’t pay one utility, let alone all of them, along with a vehicle for him. I flat out told her that if she thought she could control what went on in my home, then she wasn’t welcome. She spouted some shit about family being family, and I told her that she was Peter’s family, not mine. We ignored each other after that. I never went to any of her events, and Peter stopped going to my family events when he started cheating on me when he found out I was pregnant.”

Jason shook his head, and asked, “Why did you stay another twenty-three years in that toxic, loveless marriage.”

Laurie laughed and shook her own head. “To prove that I could be the same petty bitch she was. I stayed out of spite. I knew, from the pre-nuptial, that I would be entitled to the three million if I stayed for twenty-five years. Beatrice was the one that was at the lawyer’s office and crowed that that clause was her doing.”

“Damn, I would hate to be on your bad side.”

“Normally, I’m not that vindictive, it was just that when she came into my home and tried to tell me how my marriage was going to be run, I’d had a bad day, and snapped. One good thing about that, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I never had mother-in-law problems after that because we avoided each other like the plague. Oh, and when social media started coming out, and she’d make some snide comments about me, I called her out in public and told the truth. I even told any of her so-called friends, and the extended family if they had something to say, to say it to my face, and until they knew the exact price of my bills, and the color of my kitchen, they had no right to say anything and to keep their mouths shut. After about eight months, she blocked me on everything, however, I never heard from anyone in Peter’s family after that.”

“Was Beatrice or Peter big on social media?”

“I have no clue, why?”

“Maybe the cops can look to see if she’s currently posting anything so they can get their whereabouts.”

“I can’t be sure. I know I’m never on there.”

“I’ll stop by and talk to the officer in charge of your case.” Jason stood, but Laurie stopped him.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I saw my doctor a few days ago, and he said I’m as good as I will ever be. There are no more surgeries, and my physical therapist said the same thing. I’ll walk with the brace and cane for the rest of my life.”

“So, you’re saying that Peter’s attack on you has diminished your quality of life?”

“Yeah, and the doctor will be sending his final report to your office.”

“Damn, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, I need to ask you if it’s okay if I take a vacation, and get out of town. There’s a ranch out in Colorado that helps people like me with horse rehabilitation, and I want to see if I can’t take a week off to go out and investigate it. If I think it will help me, I might sign up for their program.”

“I don’t see why not, because there are no formal charges, and we can’t find them, there’s no court date coming up, so you won’t be needed here. You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re the victim here, so there aren’t any restrictions against you. Maybe it would be good for you to get out and have a change of scenery. You never know, it might help in your healing.”

“That’s what the doctor said, and why I called and left the message. I wanted to see if I was needed here.”

“Not as far as the case goes, but I don’t know about your business.”

“I’ll handle that.” Laurie reassured him as she stood and walked him to the door. When she was alone, the first thing she did was bring up the website on her computer and fill out the application. She figured it would take a couple of days to hear back, which was fine with her. She had plenty of work to do in the meantime. Once the application was filled out, she picked up the phone and made a call. The next week was a whirlwind of meetings, and by the time she got a response from The Broken Wheel Ranch, she was able to book a flight, and rent a car for her upcoming meeting. The last thing she had to do was to tell her mother and daughter of her plans, so they didn’t worry about her, and that her mother could come in and check on her house, gather her mail, and water her plants while she was gone.