Chapter 7
Crystal came out of the barn when she heard a vehicle approach and instinctively knew it would be Ashton.
Since he had arrived home, it had been nothing but chaos.
She hadn’t even seen the twins since this morning and knew they would be much less than happy to see him.
But, at some point time, that needed to happen too.
She wasn’t sure how to make it less confrontational because those two boys loved conflict.
As a matter of fact, they lived for it, and they had an awful lot of their grandmother’s taste for drama too.
She couldn’t imagine how this would all go down, and she didn’t want to be around when it happened. Yet she had no place else to go.
As he pulled up, she realized he had a dog with him. She walked over, and the dog took one look at her and got incredibly excited. She laughed as the door opened, and Khan jumped out and jumped all over her.
“Khan,” she cried out, as she bent down, greeting him. “Oh, my goodness, you found him!” She tried to hug him, but he was a wiggling mess. By the time he finally calmed down enough for her to put her arms around him, he went off on another wiggle session.
Ashton smiled over at her. “Well, at least I know I’ve got the right dog.”
“Oh, absolutely,” she declared, with a smile. “He’s always been a great cuddler. Where did you find him?”
When he gave her the basics, she stared at him in shock. “What? The Wilfords knocked Sean over and took the dog, and they didn’t expect any repercussions?”
“Because Sean was a veteran, disabled, and not in very good shape, they told the deputies how Sean dreamed it all up, and they didn’t have anything to do with it.
They were sorry for his mental state and all that BS.
Yet I have their admissions on tape. So, anyway, I’ve already sent Richard over there to deal with them, and I’ve already updated the War Department too, even the local zoning council, as I got word that the Wilfords may want to start boarding horses or dogs.
No way in hell I’m letting that happen. Everybody involved has a copy of their confession tape,” he shared.
“But the bottom line is, and I’ve said as much to Richard, we now have two old men missing, Sean and Grandpa. ”
She shook her head. “Surely it’s not connected.” She watched Khan sniff the area all around them, his ears forward inquisitively and his tail high. A happy dog.
“I don’t know what’s connected at this point,” Ashton told her.
She saw the fatigue in his expression and in his body language, along with a certain amount of anger.
“You were pretty hard on them, weren’t you?
” He shot her a look, and she raised both hands.
“And I approve. I’m sure they’re both in a hard place, and, once they committed the act, they couldn’t get out of it easily. ”
“Hell no. You do the crime, you do the time. These are grown-ass people who won’t just fess up that they did something wrong.
” Ashton groaned, shaking his head. “Does nobody do the right thing anymore? At the very least, somebody needs to be aware that Mr. Wilford is dangerous and has no problem knocking people over to take whatever he wants, and his wife just enables him,” he pointed out.
“What the hell is it with people enabling this damn behavior? I don’t get it. ”
“Love,” she said simply.
He snorted. “How is it love when you know the person you love is hurting others? How is that love?” he asked, anger still in his tone.
“I guess I don’t know what it is either. But it also shows the depths to which people go to when they have a spouse who’s out of control.”
He stopped and looked at her. “Now that I understand.”
“So, nothing new on Grandpa?”
“No, nothing that I know of. Richard doesn’t have anything. But now that I have a tracking dog,” he noted, with a smile down at Khan, “I will head out soon and take a good look at the lay of the land.”
“I can go with you,” she offered.
He frowned at her, his gaze searching.
“I’ve been searching the property, looking for him, ever since he went missing.”
He hesitated, studied her closely, and asked, “Can you promise me that he went missing from here?”
She looked at him in shock, offended even, until a sudden realization hit her. “No, I guess I can’t.” She sighed, shrinking back. “That’s just what—”
“Grandma told you, right?”
He was right about that but had no need to say it. Yet Crystal was beginning to see a pattern here.
“I will, however, start looking from here,” he conceded, “because that is the easiest, but it’s not necessarily the truth.”
She took a deep breath and asked, “You don’t think Grandma had something to do with this, do you?”
“I no longer know who and what has had anything to do with anything,” he admitted. “So, pardon me if I don’t have the same trust that you guys have in her.” He whistled, and Khan came running to his side, more than happy to be with him.
She looked at him, unable to contain her surprise. “You haven’t even known him very long.”
“No, but he recognizes somebody who has been training animals, K9 dogs just like him,” Ashton explained, his gaze following Khan. He greeted Crystal’s two dogs, who’d given the new arrival a bit of space, but had now come over to say hello. A moment later all three bounded closer together.
“He knows his own commands, and he’ll never forget those,” Ashton added, patting down Khan.
“Anybody who had any kind of K9 training or military experience with these animals can get Khan to do what they need. But what I need him to do now is help me find both these men. We’ll start with Grandpa this afternoon, even though it’s a little bit late.
But I want to get the lay of the land because I haven’t heard from anybody specifically where he went missing from. ”
“I was told he went out for a walk from here,” she shared, looking at him. Then she frowned and added, “But why would anybody give me incorrect information?”
“I don’t know,” he acknowledged, with a shrug.
“Believe me that I don’t. Yet something is going on here that I don’t like, and I need to get to the bottom of it.
I’ll grab a sandwich and make a couple calls.
Then I’ll get on my riding clothes and head out.
” He called Khan over and headed toward the house.
“Meet me at the barn,” she added, “and I’ll go with you.”
Ashton just nodded and walked inside the front door, Khan eagerly going with him.
Ashton quickly threw together a couple sandwiches and then sat down to eat, while making his phone calls.
The first was to Roger at the bank. He asked if Grandma had opened an account there, and Roger snorted.
Right, her pride wouldn’t allow her to do that.
So he asked Roger about his father’s special account.
Roger admitted how he really wanted to tell Ashton about that, but he had been sworn to secrecy by his grandfather and by the lawyer.
Roger was happy to tell Ashton what the balance was of that account.
Ashton felt bad about what he had been saying about Grandpa enabling her, then taking no responsibility to stop her.
In his own way, he had done both. Ashton was pleased to hear enough money was in Grandpa’s rainy-day emergency account to not only pay back the rest of Grandpa’s clients but to save the Nelson estate.
Well, … depending on Grandma not stealing more money, plus Ashton getting that newest account of hers frozen, the one with the big chunk of change in it.
Still, Ashton would rather have his grandpa back. He would dip into that account, using his power of attorney, if he needed to.
Chowing down on the second sandwich, he now called the sheriff.
“Richard, any word on Sean and Grandpa?” He got no good news, except that his deputies had not yet been out to see Grandma about Ashton spilling the family secrets.
“Give them the day off before they interrogate her. I’m gonna scour the property and see what I can dig up, now that I have a tracking War Dog with me. ”
Richard didn’t like that idea, but Ashton reminded him, “Your lazy-ass deputies would never have followed up at all, if not for my pressuring you. So what does one more day do?” Richard eventually agreed, giving Ashton until tomorrow before the useless deputies started asking some hard questions of Grandma.
“Don’t let her run roughshod over your guys,” Ashton added, then disconnected.