32. Jesse
JESSE
“Good morning, New Haven!”
I groaned, pulling my pillow over my head to muffle the rest of what Bob had to say.
Johree laughed, tugging it away.
“Come on, sleepy. Time to get up.”
“Noooo,” I complained.
“I have your coffee ready,” he cajoled.
I sat up, making gimme hands.
He laughed again, and I pouted, sticking my lower lip out.
“It’s there beside you, on the bedside table.”
“Oh.” I grabbed it, slurping away as soon as the mug reached my lips.
“There’s a message from Rishka for you, Johree,” Bob said. “It came as an attachment to a message for me.”
“For you? Why?” I asked.
“Because he and the ambassador said perhaps Johree should deal with the message privately before reading you in.”
Johree looked pensive.
“Perhaps it is another matter, nothing to do with the horses.”
I was wide awake now, despite only having half a cup of magical wake-up bean juice goodness in me so far.
“You don’t really believe that’s the case, though, do you?” I challenged.
He sighed.
“I have misgivings that it is not,” he finally admitted.
“Well, if it isn’t marked For Your Eyes Only for security reasons, there’s no reason for me not to know, right? You can read it right here.”
“Alright.”
He picked up his data pad, and I watched as he went rigid, his eyes flicking up to look at me, with worry radiating out of every pore.
“It’s the horses, isn’t it? She’s not letting them go.”
“It says the horses were not there and that she sent a recorded vid addressed to you to your father’s lawyer.”
“Really? Can I see it?”
“Perhaps it would be best not to and allow the ambassador and your father’s lawyer to handle it.”
“They sent you the vid or not?” I asked in a hard voice.
“They did.”
“Play it. Put it up on the wall comm.”
He swallowed.
“Very well.”
He tapped the screen, and the wall facing the foot of our bed shimmered before becoming a video still of my sister a split second before it began to play.
Lauren looked terrible. Her hair was unkempt and her eyes wild as she looked into the camera, ostensibly from the computer in Ted’s office. I recognized the window and its curtains behind her, as well as the clock on the wall.
“Make sure you fucktards get this to Jesse and Prince Limp Dick!” she screeched.
“They’ve ruined everything! Dad was supposed to marry Susie and go travel in that damned RV, then go stay at her house while we moved in here so we’d have room for the baby!
But there’s not gonna even be a baby now, as Ted’s left too, and Dad says I’m to send you those damned horses of yours or else, and that we’re not getting the ranch!
” She cackled, leaning in. “I can’t send them to you, ’cause they ain’t here no more.
Ted heard what the lawyer had to say and asked me if it was true that I’d lied and set you up to lose the ranch.
He wouldn’t listen to how we’d get rich turning this into a dude ranch we could feature on a reality TV series, making our beef more desirable so we could charge higher prices.
He wouldn’t listen,” her voice caught on a sob, “and went to his mother’s house.
Not even back to our apartment!” she yelled, “but to his mother’s!
” She rubbed her arms. “So, I made sure if I couldn’t get what I wanted, neither could you.
I sent the horses to Livett’s.” She cackled again.
“Bye-bye, horsies!” She gave a double middle-finger salute before ending the video.
I stared at her frozen image.
“Turn it off,” I croaked, an icy coldness filling me. “Get her off!” I wailed. “My babies!”
“What is Livett’s?” Johree asked, and I shook my head violently, unable to answer.
Saying it out loud would make it that much more real, and right now, I was trying to purge the knowledge of what likely had been their fate while I’d waltzed about happily planning their stable, paddock, and pastures.
“Livett’s of Kansas is an auction for meat animals,” Bob replied. “I’m so sorry, Jesse. Rescues attend those. And she didn’t have ownership papers, so perhaps they went and were unable to be sold.”
I began to sob.
“Or maybe she made fake ones on the computer, and they went to... went to...” I couldn’t bear to think it, never mind say it.
I felt the bed dip next to me as Johree climbed in beside me, pulling me into his arms. His tail came up, pressing itself around my lower back as if to anchor me to my mate.
His wings came around us, closing us in a cocoon that felt like safety, but it wasn’t enough.
It wouldn’t bring back sweet old Socks and gentle, super-affectionate Meadow.
“I failed them,” I sobbed, hot tears flowing freely. My throat ached from the force of my pain. “I should have talked to my dad and got this sorted out between us instead of just trying to do stuff on my own with a vague hope he’d let me come get them sometime in the future.”
“This is not your fault, and there will be a reckoning if harm has indeed befallen Socks and Meadow.”
He petted my hair as all I could do was cry over this new betrayal and the two innocent souls she’d harmed just to get even for having to face the consequences of her deception.
I cried until I had no tears left, and Johree rocked me gently, petting my hair and murmuring sweet words of comfort until, at last, I fell into an exhausted slumber.