Chapter Twelve
Beau
Beau guessed he now knew how third in her class had ended up as a doctor in Burning Scrub. He also had a strong suspicion that third in her class was not going to take the discovery of her DNA origins in stride. To be truthful, he was a little worried about how she’d react.
But he was one hundred percent certain that none of this was his business, no matter how friendly he and Belle had become.
So how he’d ended up in command central—Benny called it town hall—involved in a discussion on the best way to keep Shanda Jenkins from ruining Sheik Ali’s adventure was a mystery to him.
The likeliest reason was that Mavis wanted privacy while she broke the news to Belle that her mother was here, and oh, by the way, your whole family is crazy, and the only people she trusted to keep Beau busy were either otherwise occupied or here in the room.
Belle’s mother had been sent off to Mavis’s house to unpack under Adam’s supervision, who would presumably get to relay the good news to her of the upcoming reunion.
Beau had never been inside the town hall before.
He’d caught glimpses of it, but from a distance.
From the outside, it looked like an ordinary, largish log cabin complete with a vegetable garden and a few farm animals that roamed wild in the yard.
Behind the cabin, solar panels had been built into the natural slope of the land and surrounded by trees and shrubs to keep them hidden from view.
Inside, technology took over completely, explaining how Burning Scrub communicated with the outside world.
Beau had wondered about that. The main room had been set up as a movie theater and held the biggest flat screen TV he’d ever seen in his life.
It spread from the floor to the rafters.
The walls of the second room, from the brief glimpse he got, were lined with computer monitors and blinking lights.
The door to a third room remained closed.
Beau took a front row seat with Jayce, Tilly, and Grady. The three of them seemed up to speed with whatever the hell was going on, although they’d lost their powers of speech, which in Tilly’s case was a remarkable accomplishment. It gave Beau a good idea as to how bad things really were.
Beau couldn’t quite get his head wrapped around all the connections. If Shanda was Belle’s mother and Mavis’s daughter, then that made Mavis Belle’s grandmother, which meant Benny was Belle’s great-grandfather. Mavis he could sort of see.
Yeah. No. He didn’t see it at all. And as for Belle’s relationship to Benny…
Beau figured lookswise, Belle and Shanda must take after Shanda’s father’s side of the family.
Benny faced them from an easy chair that swiveled so he could see either the TV screen or his audience.
He rocked the chair up and down and back and forth, a weary frown on his face.
He’d aged about ten years in the last half hour, meaning the possibility of fossilization was a real fear, and he looked as if he’d keel over any second.
“I can’t believe she came back,” Tilly said, breaking the silence. “I know she’s your granddaughter, Benny, but the last time she was here, she stole nearly fifty thousand dollars.”
“You keep that kind of cash lying around?” Beau was floored.
“You think we can just bank it?” Jayce said it with an attitude that bugged the hell out of Beau.
He didn’t mind Belle treating him as if he were stupid, but Marlboro Man, who couldn’t read a room if he’d been handed CliffsNotes, was a good one to talk.
“It’s not that simple. Banks have regulations as to how much money can be deposited without revealing its source. ”
“The sheik is giving you a million dollars in cash?” Beau couldn’t even.
Tilly’s eyes widened. “Good heavens, no. Our guests make donations to a few local boards. They deposit it in bank accounts for companies that belong to Burning Scrub through Benny’s church.”
Beau didn’t know a whole lot about money laundering—a guitar case full of dollar bills from busking didn’t draw much IRS interest—but distributing cash to local businesses and hospitals and such, then having them make the deposits, explained a lot.
Still. If the entire county was involved in their operation, the bigger surprise was that Shanda Jenkins was the only person who’d robbed them.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to be telling Beau this?” Jayce asked, because he couldn’t quit being a smug pain in the ass for a second.
“He signed a nondisclosure agreement,” Benny said.
The old man had been living in the mountains too long. That NDA—shaky from the beginning—was worthless if it involved illegal conduct. But Beau admired his bewildering faith in a piece of paper considering his paranoia of the legal system in general and the government in particular.
“Besides,” Benny continued, “his agent received an extra bonus to make sure he keeps his mouth shut. What with those mental health issues he’s having and all, who would believe him?”
A major point went to Benny on that one, because he’d read Leon right.
Burning Scrub was his type of jam. He was crooked as hell but had his own brand of honor, and of one thing Beau was certain.
Leon would dive into an MMA ring and go a few rounds for one of his clients.
Beau had made money off that contest win mainly because Leon was smart and unafraid of the network.
And Beau was here because Leon truly believed that improving his brand was good for his career.
Yippee ki-yay.
“Mavis hid that fifty thousand dollars for Shanda to find,” Benny said.
“We figured it was a large enough amount to keep her from coming back. We figured wrong. Now we’ll need to keep her under twenty-four-hour guard so that she doesn’t suspect we want her to find the money we’re going to hide again, and we have to make it look good.
That means we need someone to keep her busy.
Someone she thinks will be easy to manipulate. Someone with an axe to grind.”
They all looked at Beau.
“Me?” Beau clapped a hand over his heart. “I think you people are great.”
“We could write her into the script,” Tilly said.
Her blond curls wriggled and bobbed. “Give her a part that’s easily explained as to why she’s always got someone with her.
” She began spinning ideas out loud. “What about madam at the saloon? Beau and Jayce could switch roles. Beau can be her box herder. That’s a bouncer, or a pimp,” she said for Beau’s benefit.
“She’d need a prostitute, too. I’d love to play a part like that instead of schoolteacher for a change.
Between us, we could keep an eye on her.
” She looked at Beau with so much eager hope that he didn’t have the heart to disappoint her.
“I’d still get to shoot Jayce though, right?” he asked.
“And we’d still get to hang Beau?” Jayce added.
Benny frowned. “I don’t like the idea of having harlots as part of the story. And Beau doesn’t look much like hired muscle. He’s big enough, but too soft. He needs a harder edge to him. No offense, Beau.”
“None taken,” Beau said.
Tilly didn’t look much like a prostitute, either, with her bouncy blond curls and rosy China doll cheeks.
“Prostitution was common and legal,” Grady assured Benny, reserving judgment as to whether Beau would make good muscle or not.
“Besides, Tilly’s not going to be a real prostitute.
We’ll work it into the script that the sheriff and the madam aren’t on good terms because he doesn’t approve of her or her business.
That will keep him out of the saloon.” Grady warmed to the story changes.
“He’s going to enjoy hanging Beau because Beau’s her righthand man. ”
Beau felt everyone was getting too much enjoyment out of the prospect of hanging him—although they’d enjoyed hanging each other, too, so it was hard to get too worked up about it.
“That’s decided, then.” Benny didn’t look happy, but he sounded resigned.
“Grady, you and I are going to hide money for Shanda to find. Beau, you and Tilly will try and keep her out of trouble.” He sighed.
“Mavis and I never managed to do it. Hopefully, she’ll find the money before Sheik Ali gets here and be gone in a few days. If not, at least we now have a plan B.”
“What do I get to do?” Jayce asked.
“You’re on bear duty for the first part of the week,” Benny said, which meant riding around the outskirts of town, topping up the cayenne pepper supply.
“Adam will be busy playing deputy because he’s the sheik’s bodyguard while he’s here.
” Beau could see the need for a bodyguard when a client had no problem dropping a million dollars on a Western adventure.
“That’s why he can’t keep an eye on Shanda instead of Tilly and Beau.
Then, toward the end of the week, you’ll be the stranger who rides into town and fleeces Beau at cards. ”
“At which point we hang Beau,” Jayce said.
“Not until after I shoot you,” Beau felt obliged to remind him. “Shame you’ll be too dead to enjoy it.”
“Beau has a concert he needs to prepare for, too,” Tilly said, obviously intent on changing the conversation’s direction, which was going downhill. “What songs are you planning to sing for Sheik Ali, Beau?”
For the sheik? The usual dull country mix of top forties that he’d performed for the past year or so. For Burning Scrub, on the other hand?
He tried to sound mysterious, but in a good way, not like Adam—scary as hell. “You’ll find out on Sunday.” Let them sweat for their million dollars.