Chapter 21
Twenty-One
My life would be way better if I wasn’t intelligent enough to know how stupid some people are.
—Mable’s secret thoughts
Mable
It was the squeal of horses that had both of us vaulting out of bed.
“What the fuck?” I asked, but Romeo was already running out of the room buck-ass naked.
I twisted in the bed to look out at the barn that you could see from the bedroom window and gasped when I saw the smoke barreling out of the side door.
I got up, too, slipping into the sweatshirt that Romeo had left behind and my snow boots, and nothing else.
When I got outside it was to see Romeo leading all of the horses out of the barn.
I went to the side of the barn where the water hose was and cursed the fucking weather.
Everything was locked down for the winter…
“Leave it,” Romeo said. “Lead them to the round pen over there. It’s not bad. I just need to put the small fire out and air it out.”
I left it and called to the horses, hoping they’d follow me in their frantic state.
My legs were freaking freezing as they all followed me—thank God.
They went into the round pen with zero issues, and I turned to see Romeo pushing all the barn doors open—still naked except for his old work jacket—with a fire extinguisher in his hand.
I would find this freaking hilarious—his getup—if things weren’t so serious.
When I saw he had it covered, I went back inside and dressed appropriately.
When I came back out with a pair of sweatpants, boots and a sweatshirt for him, he was coming out of the barn.
I handed him the clothes, and he shoved everything on, caked dirt-covered feet and all.
He looked at the barn with anger lighting his eyes.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
I placed my hand to my pounding heart. “That could’ve been so bad.”
“I know,” he repeated, looking back into the barn. “I’m going to muck out their stalls and feed them while I’m out here. Then I need to look at my cameras that I have inside to see if I can find out what happened.”
The thought of someone setting the fire never occurred to us until thirty minutes later we were watching a man try and fail to set fire to a stack of hay bales.
“Fuckin’ a,” he said. “That’s Skeeter Johnson.”
“That is,” I confirmed.
Skeeter Johnson was the groundskeeper for the golf course/country club my mother and father frequented.
“We need to tell the police,” I whispered in horror. “Is he still here?”
“No.” Romeo switched cameras and showed the old man leaving once he’d thought he’d gotten the fire started. “Why didn’t the cameras alert you?”
“They did,” he admitted. “But we were sleeping.”
I grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
He smoothed his hand down my wild hair and said, “They’re okay. And it wasn’t your fault, baby.”
Still, that didn’t stop the guilt from nearly swallowing me whole.
Romeo pulled his phone out and placed it to his ear. “Gentry, I’m sending you some camera footage. I need you to do your thing.”
I heard a male’s reply, but that was about it.
When he hung up, Romeo scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Fuckin’ a.”
“They’re okay,” I said. “Look. They look really happy to me.”
His eyes went to the round pen where all of the horses were running wild. Bobber was even on his back rolling in the snow, his blanket doing very little to protect him from the snow when he was making such a mess.
He gritted his teeth. “Do you think this was your stepmother and dad?”
The thought had occurred to me. “This looks more vindictive, like it would be my stepmother. My dad is pretty in your face, like you saw the other day.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see if Apollo can find anything. Maybe she was stupid and failed to cover her tracks this time.”
“Doubt it,” I muttered.
We fell into the regular routine once we’d cleaned up from the fire, mucking out stalls and feeding the horses.
When I’d done my part, I went back inside and took a quick shower, dressing quickly because by the time all was done, I was starving.
When I got out of the bedroom, mostly dressed, Romeo was on the phone with Apollo.
While he did his thing, I got started on lunch, seeing as we’d completely missed breakfast.
Thankfully, today was a Saturday and neither one of us had anywhere to be.
I’d just finished throwing all the ingredients into a pot for a hearty hamburger soup when he joined me. “Apollo’s looking into it. But your stepmother’s pretty smart. If it was her, she’d would have had to act impulsively and screwed up.”
“What…”
Romeo’s phone rang, and he answered it on speaker as he leaned his hips against the counter.
His feet were still covered in a layer of dirt as he crossed them.
“What’d you get out of him?”
“Guy sang like a canary. Apparently, Whitney Watts ordered him to do it or she’d get him fired.
He did it, but only in a way that he knew it wouldn’t hurt them.
He also riled the horses up to get them to make noise.
He’s fully prepared, though, to go down swinging.
He said the conversation took place in front of a camera.
My guess, she took care of that footage. ”
“She could try,” Romeo said. “But Apollo’s been tapped into all those cameras for months since we got here. There’s no way that she’ll erase them in a way that he can’t get back.”
“Good,” I muttered darkly.
Romeo winked.
“Speaking of,” Romeo said as he pulled his phone away from his face. “Apollo just sent a video. Check it out.”
I looked at the video over Romeo’s shoulder as I continued to stir the soup.
“You’ll go, or I’ll fucking end you, Skeeter,” Whitney hissed. “This is nonnegotiable. I’ve been keeping you in a job for years. If you want it to continue, you’ll do this for me.”
The order was simple. Whitney, my so-called stepmother, had ordered Skeeter to set fire to Romeo’s house. Only, Skeeter hadn’t followed that order and had gone for the barn instead.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“That’s enough to bring her in,” Romeo said hopefully.
“It sure the fuck is.” Gentry sounded amused. “We’re on the way there now.”
“Good,” Romeo grumbled. “Keep me updated.”
“Will do,” Gentry responded.
Just as his phone was set down on the counter, my phone rang.
I answered it without picking it up and placed it on speaker without checking to see who was calling. “Hello?”
Romeo gestured that he was going to take a shower, and I nodded in understanding.
“Hey,” Rocky, my lawyer friend, said. “Just wanted to give you some updates.”
“Oh, boy,” I said as I watched the soup swirl as I stirred it.
“It’s not all bad,” she said. “First, we filed your motion to get them evicted six days ago. Their lawyer countered with a countersuit, and I’m just telling you now it’s possible that the eviction will be delayed.”
“Of course, they did and it will.” I rolled my eyes. “I expected nothing less though, Rocky. It’s okay.”
“I just hate this for you. But don’t worry about this being pro bono. I’m able to do this in my spare time, so we can keep them tied up for a while so that it’s going to cost them,” she promised.
Even though I knew that she was going to do that, I still felt relief.
I had the money, of course, but again, I tried really hard not to use it.
I would be giving her a fat payment at the end of all of this, though. Whether she wanted it or not.
She was a really good friend, and friends didn’t take advantage of each other.
“The second thing that I did was start digging into the case that we’ll bring against your parents—Whitney especially—when it comes to identity theft and fraud.
I spoke with Birdee at length over the last couple of hours, and she wants to bury Whitney.
She wants to take this as far as I can take it.
I already have my lead investigator on it.
Once we get all that we need, we’ll take everything that we have to the police.
Once I’m done with her, she’ll be in prison for the rest of her life. ”
Something about the way she said it made me feel confident that this was going to end.
It may not be any time soon, but there was at least an end in sight.
“I’ve gotten a lot of anonymous help from someone really good with a computer,” she said.
“I can’t use any of this without backing it up with evidence not obtained by illegal means, but I have a direction I can send my computer team in.
Plus, I have a couple of contacts at the police stations in the two towns that y’all are in.
They’re going to work with me. As well as a contact from the FBI who I think is pretty interested in it.
He’s a new and rising agent who really wants to make a name for himself with a big case.
And I think he’ll be excited to sink his claws into this one. ”
“Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, giving the soup one last stir. “Anything else?”
“That’s about all that I have for you right now,” she said. “I do have one last question, though.”
“Shoot.”
“Do we want to go after your dad?” she asked. “Neither you nor Birdee have really said anything about him. Are we going there? Or are we leaving it alone?”
That was a really good question. “If it’s found out that he’s been an accomplice in all of this, I want to pursue it.”
A heavy lean against my side had me looking down to see Brawny using my leg and the kitchen cabinet for support as he stared out at the snow beyond the kitchen window.
I reached down and gave him a scratch as Rocky and I finished up our conversation.
The moment that the phone went dark beside me, two arms bracketed me in against the stove.
A soft set of lips pressed against my shoulder where Romeo’s sweatshirt had fallen down to expose my shoulder.
He was back. And he smelled better than the soup.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Hamburger soup.” I pressed back against him, relishing in the way his hard body felt against mine.
There wasn’t a single soft spot on him.
Which, quite honestly, was understandable.