Chapter 19 - Conclusion
“This registry thing is kind of cool,” she told Mustang. “I am signing up to get all kinds of shit. I’m even adding some new grilling tools for you and a two-bottle wine carrier for when we have sexy times on the back nine of our property.”
He rose to walk over to the table where she was working. “We can have some sexy times right here in this house too. Wait. What are you doing?”
“Setting up the registry,” she said, pushing him the stack of wedding invites. “These need to be stuffed and sealed. I have to get them in the mail in the morning.”
He looked at the invites. “These are nice, but where are those gifts going to be shipped to – I know not here.”
HELEN SMILED AT HIM and replied, “No, they are going to be shipped to your folk’s house, or they can bring the gift in person, which most of them are going to do. I don’t see any of them being cheap based on what I’ve seen, but they are frugal.”
“And you’re sure about this?”
“About what, the wedding, you, this life we share?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, taking a pause. “After the weekend with Oscar, nearly getting my head taken off, and coming home to a pile of cash on the table and booty from your looty, I had kind of panic attack.”
“Booty from my looty? That is a new one,” she said looking at him offering a smile.
“The liquor was from Swallowtail’s sommelier.
She paid for it, so he will have to replace the loss at a whopping cost, and he more than likely won’t do business with her or that caterer again.
It is not much, but I am doing guerrilla tactics here, hitting her where she lives. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure?”
“Do you know how to set up offshore accounts, accounts off the books, and dark web payment sites?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m going to start taking her money,” Helen said, watching his face.
“And doing what with it, if I may ask?”
She leaned back in the seat after clicking on a GoPro camera and an Eskimo style sleeping blanket. A second glance made her also click on the hammock. If she had to do surveillance, it sure as shit wasn’t going to be her lying on the ground in the bushes.
“There are four Fields of Flowers in Indiana,” she said. “I’m going to shut them all down. I will use the money for counseling services for the kids, clothes, school supplies, whatever they need.”
“That is what the Archangels do,” Mustang said.
“Gabriel is working on Pennsylvania with Yield where we found Hornworm,” she said. “I am working with Azrael on Swallowtail who is in Michigan.”
“Perhaps, my dear wife,” he said, “you should let Azrael handle the money aspect while you handle working on this wedding and a fantastic honeymoon. If that fax goes off, your head needs to be on the task at hand, not stealing money on the dark web and hiding it from a pedophile.”
She squinted at him. “Do you think I’m not capable?”
“The issue is that you are,” he said. “You also tend to get lost in the moment and go to a dark place, and it is more difficult to bring you out of it the more you mentally visit that cell. The job is difficult enough as it is. Don’t add ugly to our lives when we didn’t invite it to the party.
We must have balance to enjoy the beauty. ”
“Balance,” she repeated.
“Helen, I was never interested in getting married or having kids because of all the ugly shit I’ve seen and had to carry. You are only starting.”
“Did you have to pull out a dead dude’s teeth and burn off his fingerprints, then set his body on fire and kick him off a ravine?”
Jay nearly stopped breathing. “What? I’m sorry; what did you say?”
“Have you had to assess a broken body, undress a man, and see a catheter get inserted into a tiny penis against your will?”
“Well, no,” he said.
“Please, don’t tell me what I can and can’t carry,” Helen said. “I carried, as a child, the realization that I could never be a mommy because my mother’s boyfriend in his drunken state took my cherry, tore up my insides so he could get a fuck. Abi, in return, took his life.”
Jay took a deep breath. He knew there was a lot of darkness in her past. The level of it he didn’t know, and personally didn’t need to know, but he understood.
She wasn’t a broken flower but a strong woman whom he loved and supported with everything in him.
He looked forward to the life they would share.
“Helen, I’m sorry those things happened to you, as well as what happened with The Collector, but we are here, in the now,” he said.
“You are the strongest, most thoughtful, absolutely stunning creature I have ever had the pleasure to share space with, and I love you. I am asking you to allow our love to grow and blossom into the beautiful flowers they are supposed to be before you have to walk into another field of wilting roses to drag out bodies. Those days are ahead. We have a month before you bring the family together to celebrate us. I want to celebrate us.”
“I hear you,” she said softly. Helen looked at the stack of invites and sighed. “Those envelopes aren’t going to stuff themselves.”
“Roger that,” he said, looking at the two different invitations. “Why are these different?”
“That one,” she said, pointing, “has your name and Helen McDaniel; it goes to my Dad and Aunt Stephanie. The one with the different time that says Shenita Nelson goes to my mother.”
He looked at it noting the hours’ time difference. “This one is an hour after the wedding.”
“Anita Barnes is going to make a grand entrance in a loud pink ball gown, waving a wand and wearing a tiara,” she told him. “However, we will all be sitting down eating dinner when she arrives. It will completely take the thunder from her roll.”
“It’s your day. She would do that?”
“Yep,” she said. “We are talking about a woman who slept with her sister’s husband and potentially drugged her sister to keep her off-kilter, which is why my father took the job in the UK to get Stephanie away. I put nothing past that woman.”
He sat looking at Helen with new eyes. “Is this why you decided to become a Technician?”
“Partly,” she told him. “Those kids who run away from home are running away from people like my mother who have no business having children. She is a neonatal nurse who takes excellent care of her patients. Anita just never took good care of me and Cherry.”
“So, Cherry looked out for you?”
“We looked out for each other.”
“Say, how about this weekend we go visit, see the baby and Naomi, and have some downtime,” Mustang suggested.
“Let me check in the with the boss to make sure it’s cool,” Helen said.
Honestly, it was the last thing she wanted to do.
Her weekly calls to Abi had morphed into five-minute checks-ins, and this week, it was simply a text.
Perhaps they did need to go. She hadn’t seen the baby, and she missed Naomi.
She admitted ruefully, however, that she didn’t miss Abi.
****
IN THE OTHER ROOM, she looked at the stack of invites, labeled with postage affixed.
Tomorrow these were all going out, and in less than three days, responses would be arriving, along with Kurtzwilde getting his invite.
A wild hair went up her ass, and she printed two more, affixing addresses and postage and sticking them in the middle of the stack.
She used her Technician phone and dialed one.
“State your need,” the voice said.
“Don’t need nothing, but in a way, a friendly voice of reason, I guess,” Helen said.
“You, needing a voice of reason? How may I be of assistance,” the voice said.
“I want to create dark web accounts and steal all of that bitch’s money, break in her house, rearrange her underwear drawer, and steal her period panties or put some itching powder in them, which would serve her right,” Helen said.
“The other half who sleeps next to me said that is your job, the money thing. The other part is just me wanting to be petty.”
Azrael found herself laughing. “Why would you steal her period panties?”
“Normally, you only have two, maybe four pair, to be honest. Since you’re wearing a pad, they don’t technically get dirty, so yeah, fuck her,” Helen said, finding herself laughing aloud.
“You are mentally unwell,” Azrael said, trying not to laugh. It bothered her how much she was enjoying talking with the tart little fruit.
“And you’re just discovering that?”
The line grew quiet. “It is my job to reallocate the funds for those in need, women needing a fresh start, new identities, and new bank accounts, not honeymoons to wine country.”
Helen knew she was alluding to the eighty grand she had taken from Swallowtail’s nasty party, “I haven’t spent it if you want me to get it to you.”
“No, you earned it,” Azrael said. “I do have some intel if you’re interested.”
“Interested.”
“Located potentially two Fields of Flowers right outside of Indianapolis,” Azrael said.
“Eagle Creek by the interstate and Lawrence by the 485,” Helen said. “Found those myself. Not many kids. Lawrence is a start-up. Eagle Creek is teens, none under twelve, no prostitution. Just a resting and refueling spot for kids making their way West to warmer climes or better hustles.”
“Okay then,” Azrael said.
“You forget, Cherry and I lived in Indianapolis. I know the turf,” Helen replied. “The other half wants to spent some time on the home front this weekend. I simply want some time off to regroup, get my head in the game.”
“It has been quiet, spookily so,” Azrael said. “I think you’ve spooked them all, and there has been little to no activity.”
“Kurtzwilde will get his wedding invite in a day or so, with a special note from me. His kids will get theirs as well,” Helen said. “I’m kind of interested to see who will respond and show up.”
“You and me both,” Azrael said, taking a pause. “I got a call today from Sour Grapes about your assessment.”