Chapter 27
Sascha jumped right into the conversation with Red.
"But their mistreatment of you doesn't give you the right to try and kill Gregory.
" She was angry about it because, as much as she felt Red had deserved a better home environment and a loving family, he had made the choice to try and kill a person who had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
Red cleared his throat. "Janie has been telling me all along to cut off ties to my family. That all they do is make me miserable. But it has been hard to let go of them."
She glanced at Gregory. Not once had Red said he was the attempted murderer, nor did he deny it.
"I'm serious about getting the DNA testing done again to prove you're not a Landry," Gregory said, as if that might help.
Red shook his head. "It's not necessary."
“What about the missile at the fairground?" Sascha asked.
"I had nothing to do with that," Red insisted. “That missile could have hurt a whole lot of people. That had to have been some idiot prankster."
Okay, she could buy that. Gregory squeezed her hand. Agree.
But it was interesting that he had denied that situation vehemently, but was quiet about the other.
"I thought Mr. Landry would treat his staff like servants, but he fed us all the same meals he was eating.
When anyone needed time off, he gave it to them, and most of all, they still got paid.
He pays for their childcare and health insurance.
I expected him to be a, well, I don't know, a money-grubbing Scrooge.
But I've made more money working for him than I ever have at any other job. And after the guys at the bachelor party parasailed, he bought tickets for each of us to take turns enjoying the experience too.”
"You went without me?" Janie asked, looking a trifle amused after being ultra serious before, worried about what all this would mean for Red.
"I knew it was a miracle when Janie called me, and I wanted to patch things up."
"You said we're getting married," Janie said to Sascha, accusing her of being a fraud.
"The vehicles you stole and used to run into my cars—" Gregory started to say, changing the topic to one they needed to stick to.
"Uh… I’ve never stolen a vehicle.”
Both Sascha and Gregory frowned. The police had said the vehicles that were used in the crimes had been found and had been stolen.
“My grandmother Lacy Redfern, whom I adored, the only one in the family who believed I was my mom and dad’s son, gave me her farm when she died. My dad was furious. But there are a bunch of old trucks and cars on the property. I refinished them to look brand new."
"And destroyed them while trying to take me out?" Gregory asked, not sounding convinced.
Because again, they were supposed to be stolen. But the police hadn’t reported any of this to the public, so Red wouldn’t have known they had been stolen. Sascha couldn’t imagine the vehicles that plowed into Gregory’s cars, and then the limo had been vintage either.
“So what were you driving when you hit my car the first time?” Gregory asked.
“A, uh, pickup truck.”
He sounded so hesitant, like he was guessing.
Gregory nodded. “Model? Color?”
“Black Ford.”
“And the second time?” Gregory asked.
“The…same.”
Again, he didn’t sound sure of himself.
“And the one that struck the limo?”
Red cleared his throat. “Same.”
“Was he telling the truth?” Sascha telepathically asked.
Gregory shook his head at Sascha. The first two vehicles were Chevrolets: one navy blue and the other black.
They weren’t Fords. They didn’t know what the last vehicle was, only that it was black, because Raymond and Sascha couldn’t tell what the make or model was, and they never found an abandoned vehicle that had been in an accident.
Gregory kissed Sascha's cheek. "We’ll have to look into the situation further before a prosecutor can prefer charges.”
Everyone looked like they were sitting on the proverbial pins and needles, waiting to hear what else Gregory had to say.
"Where is the property that your grandmother, well, you own?" Gregory asked.
"It's twenty miles south of Austin. It has water, electricity, seventy-five acres of land, some of it pasture, some of it treed. And a river runs through it. It's great for farming, fishing, and hunting."
"And boating," Janie said.
"But the farmhouse and barns are in sad shape."
"Show me the property on Google Maps," Gregory said.
Red looked it up and focused on the property while Gregory zoomed in on it.
“Let me see a vehicle that you’ve restored.”
Red pulled up before-and-after pictures of a pickup truck and a muscle car. Sascha looked at them too.
“These are beautiful,” Sascha said.
“Amazing,” Gregory said. "Okay, here's the deal.
You have plenty of great skills as a bodyguard, a miracle worker for turning rusted-out vehicles into cars and trucks worthy of being showcased; you have a beautiful farm—sure, it needs to be restored, just like the vehicles you've taken care of.
And most of all, you have a woman who believes in you and loves you. So what do you want to do?"
"Stay out of prison."
"Right. But do you want to move to Dallas with Janie and continue working for me? Or refurbish your farm until it's a place to be proud of and live there? Or renovate it and sell it? Or move in with Janie and find work in Austin?"
"I loved going to the farm when I was a kid.
Belinda hated it, so I spent summers there helping my grandma with chores after my grandfather died.
But there's no real work out there unless I want to run the farm, and I don't. I wouldn't know the first thing about farming or renovating the house, barn, or other outbuildings.
My grandfather showed me how to refinish vehicles; I used to work with him every summer until he died. "
"Okay, so if I get you help that will assist you in rebuilding your grandparents' home and other buildings and repair the fences and the like, you could sell it.
I'll make sure you have someone who works in your best interest to sell the property for the best price.
Then you can pay everyone back, invest some of the money, and buy yourself a home wherever the two of you want to go. "
"But I want to work for you," Red said, sounding almost desperate, like he had found a family to be with when his own didn't want him.
"Janie?" Gregory asked.
"I'm going with Brendan wherever he goes." She poked him in the chest with her finger. "And you're not having anything further to do with your family."
"Right. Like you told me months ago."
"Yeah, because you were always so upset with them and then took it out on me. Not physically," Janie quickly told everyone. "He was moody and inconsolable. And when are we getting married?"
Red cleared his throat and reached into his pocket, to everyone's surprise. He brought out a boxed ring and opened it. On bended knee, he asked her, "Janie, will you marry me?"
She smiled. "Yes!"
They hugged and kissed, and Sascha was glad she had seen Janie in a wedding gown to marry Red, not someone else in her future.
"Yep. Miss Lassiter is a fortune teller, you know. And she said we're getting married and having a baby girl."
But Red still looked worried. He knew he'd face some felony charges.
"I've always wanted a vintage Mustang," Gregory said. "I'll buy the broken-down one, and you fix it up like new. And Raymond would like a vintage Ford pickup, so the same deal for him. Whenever we go to vintage car shows, he always wants one." Gregory glanced at Sascha.
Sascha laughed. "All right. I want a gypsy van with Sascha the Sensation painted on the panels. I can look up something that appeals to me, and you see if you can do it."
“I can do it,” Red assured them.
"Believe me, I have enough well-to-do collector friends who will be asking you to refurbish their vintage vehicles or buy new vintage ones to refurbish. You might find you don't have time to work as my bodyguard."
But then Sascha remembered something she needed clarification on. "Did you ever have a dream about some guy wearing a mask and strangling you?" Sascha asked Janie.
"Omighod, yes. I mean, not a dream. It was Halloween, late at night; we're both into horror stuff and had been watching scary movies. I went to bed, and Brendan went to turn off the porch light so we wouldn't get any more trick-or-treaters.”
“But I was in a playful mood,” Red said.
“Right. I was under the covers, lights turned off except for the hall light, which was on.
Suddenly, this guy was wearing a ski mask and came over, acting like he was going to strangle me.
I screamed, got my legs free from my bedding, and kicked him right where it hurts the most. How did you know? Ohmigod, you envisioned it?"
"Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was a nightmare or a vision, but I'm glad to know you weren't really attacked."
"I was a lot more careful about scaring her after that," Red said.
"I bet. Were you bitten by fire ants a while back?" Sascha asked, thinking on that mystery too.
"How did you know about that? I covered up the spots, not wanting anyone to think I had chicken pox or measles. Or that I was dumb enough to fall into a fire ant mound."
"When you left my apartment after trashing it, you tripped and fell on a raised mound of fire ants," Sascha said.
"I did.” Red frowned. “How did you know it was me? You had a vision.”
She didn’t say she hadn’t, but just let him think she had.
“I figured it was karma and I deserved it," Red said.
But Sascha thought there was something more to it than that. Then Sascha gave Janie a hug. "You will be a beautiful bride."
Janie smiled at her. “Thank you.” Then she glanced at Red. "We’ll go out and celebrate tonight.”
"I would love that."
"Are you still renovating old houses?" Red asked Gregory before he and Sascha left the apartment.
"Yep. It's become a money-making hobby of mine. Like you and the vehicles, I take a lot of pride in restoring something uninhabitable to something that is loved now."