Chapter 15
The week before Christmas, Jake looked at Stone as soon as he shut off the engine to his truck. “Are you ready?”
“As I can be,” Stone said with a rush of released breath. “Let’s get this over with and let them deal with the information.”
“Yeah, not that I don’t want to help, but with Black, a federal prosecutor investigating, there’s not much we can do except do the grunt investigative work.”
“What do we tell Pru when she asks for a bill.”
“On the house.”
“Good.” They both exited the truck, and because Jake had called Erin a couple of days before, they knew they would be walking into a room full of curious people.
He braced himself against the cold weather and made his way to the door of the barn that had been turned into a meeting area, as well as the office of Jason Black, Ilsa Miller, and Kevin Lassiter.
As soon as they entered, all eyes were turned to them, and he breathed easier when Erin pointed to a table loaded with sandwiches, chips, cookies, coffee, and several bottles of water.
He opted for the coffee first, and if he didn’t get thrown out on his ear, he would maybe eat a sandwich later.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Jake started the conversation. He looked around the room and nodded to the one person there that knew what he had been doing. “Pru, do you want to explain?”
“Sure,” she said, and stood and walked over to stand beside him.
“You guys know that I have good days and bad. Sometimes I’m flaky, sometimes I’m normal.
What I don’t think you know is that I’m smart, like super, super smart.
I was tested in high school back in the day, and my IQ is around 150, which is classified as genius level.
Whatever test I ever took, I aced it. None of that is important now, except for my IQ level.
On Thanksgiving Day, I studied the non-murder board these guys had set up.
” She grinned when Kevin, Jason, and Ilsa snorted a laugh.
She walked over to the board in question and everyone turned to follow her with their eyes.
Ryan and Erin stood beside Stone and Jake now.
“I know you guys all glanced at it, or read it, but I studied it. As you can see, there is mention of Royal PITA here,” she said as she pointed it out.
“Over the months of dealing with Royal, how he was taken down, and the months following, I had some unanswered questions.” She looked at her husband, and boss.
“I didn’t mean any offense to either you Erin, or Ryan for not coming to you with my concerns and questions.
I know you guys are extremely busy, hell we all are, but I didn’t want to add to your work schedule.
Again, don’t think I’m being mean, but do you really have the time to investigate like Jake and his Brotherhood Protectors do? ”
“No,” both Erin and Ryan answered.
“Prudora,” Ryan asked quietly. “What questions did you have?”
“Oh, where did Royal come from? Where did he get his money from? Why did he think someone owning one prize mare, and one hundred acres, that’s been farming for around a year, has the right to take what Erin and her past generations had built up to where they are today.
” She looked at Clark with a grin. “Sorry, I forgot you’re half owner now. ”
“Don’t be, Rin did all this by herself. But I can see why you would have these questions.”
“Me too,” Erin said. “Did you go to Jake to get them answered?”
“Yes, because according to this non-murder board, Royal is somehow connected to Grayson.”
Everyone sucked in their breath and looked at the board, and started to quietly swear when they made the connection. She turned to Jake and Stone.
“I take it you’re here because you found something?”
“We did,” Jake said with a shake of his head. “Well, Stone did. He based his investigation off what Carter Manning found out about Miller Sr., Biggins, and Royal being in the same foster family growing up.”
“After I found something,” Stone said as he lifted the file in his hand.
“I contacted Carter Manning from the Yellowstone office, Hank Patterson, the founder of Brotherhood, and he in turn contacted Remy Montagne, he’s the operator of Brotherhood down in the Bayou, and has Larry Mason hidden there. ”
“Why?” Katherine asked in shock as she looked at her mother. “Why is Larry being protected?”
“Because he went to Lyle Anderson a few months ago with some evidence against Grayson. He knows his hands are dirty, and is willing to take whatever punishment will be dealt to him by a court of law, however, he didn’t want his punishment to be dealt with by Grayson.”
“You’re saying he didn’t want to get killed?”
“Basically, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“No, I had no reason to know this. I’m glad he’s safe and is cooperating with the proper people. However, I wouldn’t be lying if I told you that I hope he gets the book thrown at him.”
“Yeah, I know.”
No one said anything after that, and they all turned to Jake and Stone.
“What did you find?” Pru asked as she went back to stand beside her husband. Everyone heard her giant exhale when Ryan put his arm around her.
“Okay, please bear with us,” Stone said.
“As we all know, Miller Sr., Biggins, and Royal grew up in the foster care system. At one point, around the age of ten to twelve, they were in the same place and stayed together until they aged out at eighteen. From there, they went their separate ways, only to meet every two to three years to catch up.” Stone looked up and when no one asked anything, he looked at Jake.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “This next part was overlooked, and it’s all our fault.”
“What?” Erin asked into the silence when no one would say anything after he paused.
“The home Miller, Sr., Biggins, and Royal resided in, had a natural child living there. He was around the same age as those three.”
“Who?” Pru asked.
“George Michael Babcock,” Jake said and looked at the faces as they registered this information.
“Babcock went by his legal last name until after he graduated from college. That’s around the age of twenty-three, when he became George Michael Grayson.
Grayson is his maternal grandmother’s maiden name.
Once out of college and joining the law enforcement community, the FBI, he went by Grayson.
Don’t quote us, but that’s how we believe he went up through the ranks.
When he did illegal activities, like rough up the gang bangers for a cut of their products and profits, he went by Babcock.
His ex-wife and child, Michael, were Babcocks. ”
“Where’s the ex-wife?” Pru asked.
“No clue.”
“Maybe he killed her.”
“It’s something we’re looking into,” Jake said sadly.
“Yes, that’s what it’s looking like, but we don’t know for sure.
Now to get to Pru’s questions. We were able to dig into Royal’s finances since they’ve been frozen.
Well, Hank was able to. It turns out that all of Royal’s money he flaunted when he lived here came indirectly from Grayson. ”
“Was it from the shakedowns?” Duane asked through clenched teeth.
“Yes, as best we can tell. I’m waiting to see if Hank can get a court order to look into Larry Mason’s financials, along with Grayson’s.”
“Let me work on that,” Jason spoke for the first time and began taking notes. He looked up with a nod. “I’ll let you know in a few days. With Christmas next week, I don’t know if we can get one before then.”
“No problem. I feel as long as Grayson doesn’t know we’re looking into him, it’s not hurting anyone.”
“That still doesn’t answer why Royal went after Erin,” Pru said in frustration. “Why move to Fool’s Gold to begin with?”
“Ego.”
“Excuse me?”
“I went to visit Royal in jail. I asked him directly why he targeted Erin.”
“What was his answer?” Erin asked coldly.
“At first, he wasn’t after you personally.
He had been passing through the area, stopped down to Mattie’s diner, and overheard several people talking about Erin’s Way.
He looked you up online. I don’t know if you know this, but Royal had an entitled attitude.
He felt that if he wanted something, then all he had to do was throw money around and he could have it.
That everyone would give in to him if the price was right.
One, you were a woman and didn’t cower in front of him.
Two, you didn’t do what he wanted. Three, you knew more about horses than he did.
That was the ego thing. When you told him that he couldn’t breed his horse again after giving birth only three months prior, he became obsessed with proving you wrong.
He went to Grayson for more money. This next part is where it gets fuzzy. ”
“How?” Clark demanded, then shook his head. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. But we believe, but can’t confirm until we get the court order to go through their financials, but it’s believed that the gang bangers Grayson shook down for money, and drugs, or had them sell them for him and not themselves, that money was given to Royal.
His past work history was spotty at best. We also believe that Grayson somehow was able to fudge his past so that whenever anyone did a background check on him, he came up smelling like roses. ”
“I can look into that,” Duane spoke. “I have a computer with special hardware that no one will know I’m looking.”
“Good, then you’re going to want to do a deep dive into these four people then.
Royal did admit to me that he figured with his wealth, and attitude, then he could take Erin’s Way from Erin because she was only a mindless female that needed to be told what to do because she couldn’t think for herself.
I’ll admit I burst out laughing and asked him how that worked out for him, since he sat there before me in drab, dark green prison garb. ”
“What did he say?” Erin asked with a smirk of her own.