Chapter 14 #4
“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Ashton noted. “And Jenny held both Sean and Grandpa as her prisoners.”
“Both?” he asked, his eyes shooting open.
“Yeah, both.” Ashton then tried to explain the nightmare that had gone on. “I recorded her.”
Richard stared at him. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah, holy crap is right. It’s been a not fun trip all the way around.”
“This shit is seriously wrong,” Richard declared, staring back and forth between Ashton and Crystal.
He looked over at Sean, who raised both hands in frustration, his face all shades of angry.
“And I can corroborate,” he stated animatedly, “because the crazy dead woman told me that she had another prisoner who she was still trying to figure out what to do with. So I figured it wasn’t just me going a little bit crazy in here.
But I sure never expected her to do what she did here,” he admitted, as he looked over at the bloodstained concrete.
Richard frowned. “And she just dove off?”
Ashton nodded. “She just dove off, but, then again, it’s not as if she was looking at an easy time of it going forward,” he pointed out.
“You and I both know that would have been quite a long list of infractions, even if you went easy on her. Plus, she held a rifle on Crystal and me just an hour ago.”
Richard shook his head. “Yeah, there is no easy on something like this,” he agreed, followed by a snort. “I mean, those are really ugly charges she would be facing.”
“Exactly.”
Richard groaned. “Okay, I already texted a request for the coroner. You do realize this is the most we’ve had to do in a very long time?”
“I know. Believe me that I know. And I sure hope this is the end of it.”
“Well, if you’re staying here, chances are it won’t be,” Richard grumbled, glaring over at his friend. “Feel free to go off into the wild blue yonder and decimate somebody else’s town for a while, will you?”
“No can do,” Ashton said, with a smile. “It seems like here in Missouri is probably home for me now.”
Richard just rolled his eyes at that.
“I mean it,” Ashton stated, with a quick glance over at Crystal.
She walked over and placed her hand in his. “Yeah, he’s not going anywhere for a long time,” she added. “I’m done waiting.”
Richard looked from one to the other, then nodded. “Good, maybe you can keep him out of trouble then.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know about that, but I’ll definitely see what I can do,” she said.
“Well, at the very least, can you keep your grandparents out of trouble?”
“That depends,” Ashton noted. “Apparently Grandma is sitting in a hotel somewhere, contemplating all the wrongs she may have committed in her life. At least according to Jenny.”
“A hotel?”
“Yeah, at Jenny’s suggestion, my grandmother not being the smartest kid on the block,” Crystal explained.
“Apparently Jenny had Grandma thinking that everything was all her fault and that she would end up on all kinds of charges. And, ever helpful, Jenny suggested Grandma go lie low in a hotel room and figure out what she would do next because Jenny was done covering for her.”
“And did she cover for her?”
“Well, in truth, Jenny apparently had access to the financial records and probably Grandpa’s login information,” Ashton shared.
“So, she’s the one who took out the big chunk of money we weren’t sure about, and she also had access recently and apparently may have been the one who took out the money from Grandpa’s account, or the two of them did it together.
However, Jenny was planning on taking the money herself, then siccing the law on Grandma, so Jenny would be free and clear.
She knew that nobody would ever believe anything Grandma said about Jenny. ”
Crystal added, “But Jenny didn’t quite know what to do with Grandpa and Sean and likely would have just let them languish as captives.”
Richard stared down at Jenny’s body. “Wow, really makes a guy think twice about having help at the house, doesn’t it?”
“Unfortunately a lot of things take on a whole new meaning,” Ashton noted. “I need to get Sean to the hospital to be checked over, and then call my lawyer and the bank to see if we can get the money back into the company account.”
“Yeah, tell the bank to call me,” Richard offered. “You’ll need that in order to make some of those reversals happen.”
“Hopefully your word expedites things, so we can move the money before everybody finds out and decides that our company is a completely lost cause.” Ashton shifted his stance, his hands on his hips as he contemplated the mess in front of him. “I’ll let you know if I need any more help.”
“Jesus Christ,” Richard muttered. “The whole lot of you are nuts. What the hell have you been doing when all this was happening right under your noses?”
“Funny how us good guys project onto the bad guys, not seeing what’s going on. The good news is that things will get sorted out now,” Ashton declared, as he pulled Crystal to him.
Richard stared at him, a warning in his gaze, before he turned to leave the barn.
Ashton called out to Richard, “You might as well get used to seeing us around because I’m not leaving again.”
“Maybe then you’ll stop raising Cain every time you wake up,” Richard muttered, and, with that, he stepped forward and smacked him on the shoulder. “Glad to have you home where you can straighten out all this shit.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ashton agreed. “Too bad you couldn’t do it yourself.”
Richard glared at him, then laughed. “If you want a job, you know where to come.”
“Maybe,” he replied. “I’ll see how all that works out here, after I get to the bottom of this other mess and see who is owed what,” he shared.
“Just let me know.” And, with that, Richard turned and walked up to greet the coroner, who had just arrived.
Ashton looked down at Sean. “You ready?”
Looking grim, Sean replied, “I promised Crystal that I would get looked over, but, man, please don’t leave me there. You have to understand, … hospitals and me—”
“Say no more. I get it,” Ashton said, holding up his hand, as if taking an oath.
“Don’t worry. We’ll take you there, get you checked over, and then I’ll get you home again, along with this guy,” he added with a chuckle, as he reached down and rubbed the top of Khan’s head.
“You’ve got a great watchdog here. Make sure you look after him. ”
“Oh, I intend to,” Sean declared. “I love this dog to bits. How did you even know to go looking for him?”
“Actually,” Ashton shared, “some guardian angels out there look after these War Dogs and their owners too.” He rubbed Khan’s ears. “I came here looking specifically for Khan. Word had it that he’d gone missing. So, guess what? I came right away to lend you a hand.”
Sean stared at him in shock. “Well, shit, I didn’t even know help was coming.”
“Most of the time there isn’t enough help,” Ashton stated, “but the people running this program, let’s just say that they are pretty special. And, by the way, if you’re looking for a prosthetic to get you back up on your feet—”
“Yeah, there’s no money for that kind of shit. You know that.”
“Well, I got mine, and that’s what Kat does.”
“Yeah, I heard from a friend of mine about some sweetheart a few states over who does some great work on prosthetics,” he muttered, “but the VA turned down my request years ago. I don’t know how the hell they can do that.”
“Well, I suggest we talk to Kat directly then.”
“Do you know where she’s at?” Sean eyed him hopefully.
“Yeah, you’re looking at her one-of-a-kind design right here,” Ashton replied, as he pulled up his pant leg to reveal the etched-in-steel prosthetic.
“Man, that’s a piece of work,” Sean noted, staring at it with envy.
“You can get one too.”
“Do you think that’s even possible?” Then he stopped and shook his head. “She’ll just say I’m too old, and it’s not worth it.”
“No, she won’t. I haven’t heard those words come out of her mouth ever,” Ashton said, with a smile. “But I can tell you that she’ll want you to do some prep work before.”
“Like what kind of work?” he asked.
“Physical therapy, some specific exercises to build up strength. You’ll have to build everything up so that it’s strong enough for her to put in the screws and bolts and all that good hardware in there.”
“You got hardware in there?”
“Yeah, I sure do,” he confirmed. “This thing screws on and off just perfectly.” They kept talking as they managed to drive him over to the Emergency Room.
The nurses were nice enough to get Sean into a shower and then found some clothes in the lost and found for him, all before the doc even looked Sean over.
After a checkup and the okay from the doctor, they headed over to Sean’s place.
As they pulled up, they warned him that it looked like it had been tossed pretty well.
The old man stared at his place and sighed. “Of course,” he muttered. “I mean, if anybody can steal five bucks from you, that’s what they’ll do.”
“Do you need a hand cleaning this place up?” Ashton asked.
“Of course he does,” Crystal interjected. “We’re not leaving him here like this. This is hardly even inhabitable at the moment,” she noted, frowning as she looked around. She asked Sean, “Do you have anybody in town who helps you at all?”
“Not in a way I can count on,” he replied. “That would be way too easy.”
She smiled. “Well, maybe you need to come back to our place for tonight, and we can get a crew over here tomorrow to clean up,” she suggested, looking back at Ashton. “This is no way for Sean to live. Not after what he’s been through already.”
Ashton smiled. “Got it. I’ve been there and done that myself.”
She stared at him and said, “Please tell me that you didn’t have to live in a situation like this either.”
“Not exactly like this”—he shrugged—“but things got pretty ugly for a time. Then I ended up over with Kat and Badger, and that completely changed things for me. So, we will prevail in the end.” He looked over at Sean and asked, “So, are you up for bunking with us for the night?”
The old man looked at him gratefully. “I would be honored if you gave me a home for the night,” he replied. “It’s a little rough around here right now.”
“And we’ll have to find your wheelchair.”
He nodded at that. “That’ll be a sore point for me,” he added. “A pair of walking sticks are in the closet here somewhere. I can use them if I have to, but I’m kind of out of practice with them. Maybe we can grab a change of clothes too.”
They rummaged around, found the crutches and some clothes. Sean nodded. “Okay, this will do for the moment, until we can rustle up my wheelchair.”
Ashton added, “Let me send a message to Richard, asking him to have his guys look around Oliver’s place, since you are incapacitated without it. Jenny probably stashed it somewhere in that barn.” With that done, he called out to them both, “Let’s go home.”