Gerard (11 page)

“Because, little brother, we’re family, and we’ll work it until it does work.” He moved out of the barn then and also tipped his hat at Susie. He was whistling as he made his way out into the sunshine, and Gerard looked at Susie.

“What do you think?” She told him she had no idea. “Me neither. That other guy, do you suppose he’ll buy some horses too? Make you another offer like Carl did?”

“I don’t know that either.” He grinned at her. “What does that mean? You think this is funny?”

“No. I think it’s wonderful. Come on, my lady wife, let’s go and see if we can make some very rich men happy. And if we make a few bucks on the deal, I’m all the happier for it.” He kissed the back of her hand when he took it. “And maybe if you’re really good today, I’ll let you tie me to the bed later and have your way with me. We have to break it in, don’t we? Oh, and so you know, the house looks great. I think we can make that part work too.”

“I hope so.” But he noticed that she no longer seemed to be unhappy. “Gerard, do you really think we can make the town better by putting in a B&B? I mean, I don’t know about the other stuff, but that sounds kind of fun. I’ve never been in one before, but I’ve seen them. And Darin can do it if he wants.”

He thought that of all his brothers, Darin would be the one to make it work. He was the friendliest person he knew and could talk to anyone. As they worked around the corral, taking notes on what had to be done to the barns and fencing, Gerard felt better about things than he had in a very long time.

Chapter 9

“Did you get in?” Howard told him that he hadn’t, but he was working on it. “What does that mean, you’re working on it? You should have been in and out of the place weeks ago. I need you to burn that shit to the ground.”

“They got themselves some vid-e-o cameras all over the place, and if that ain’t enough, there are any number of men just moving around the building like they got nothing better to do than to keep me off the land. Why you suppose they went and done that, Garth? That ain’t right.” Garth stood up, and Howard could see that he was pissed too. But he also knew that he’d be over it in five minutes, as he wouldn’t remember what it was about. Garth also wanted to tell his brother that the word
video
was just one word, not three, but didn’t. If he corrected him every time he screwed up, they’d never have a conversation. “I got just as much banking in me getting in that place as you do. If they find that stash of ours, we’re as good as broke. Might as well turn our hiney’s in on how much we got to run on right now, right? I mean, I only gots twelve dollars now that I had to get me some burny stuff. That girl that knocked me down, she let me get me all fired up. That wasn’t really very nice of her either, I’m thinking. She has to pay me back for that, don’t you think, Garth?”

Garth didn’t mention to him that there wasn’t enough for him and Howard to run on anyway. He’d been double dipping on the cash long before the town began to show signs of being taken over by the fucking Douglases. Then there were the Snows and McBrides. Those people were making his life a living hell right now. Instead of the fifty million that they’d been putting in the safe under the building, there was more like ten million. Just enough for him to get out of the country. He had no idea what to do about his brother other than to have him locked up again, but that was going to be hard on his little brother. Howard hated that place.

Twenty-two years ago Garth had begun the plan to take the town. It wasn’t as grand as it could have been, but since the place butted up against some of the prettiest hills he’d ever seen and the river ran right though some of the nicest land that there was, he thought about making himself some money. There would be several hotels, of course, but his plan had been to put in some of them little houses and rent them out to stupid city folks. Ones that would pay him a great deal of money to get away. From what, he wasn’t so sure, but he’d rake in the cash. His brother hadn’t been a part of the plan then, and he wasn’t in it all that much now that he had to run with his tail between his legs.

Then the banker, Nigel Rogers, had come up with the plan to run some of the people out. Just make their lives too hard to hang around, and they’d collect on their misfortune by taking their land and anything else that they might have. Money was the big thing. Rogers, the stupidest person he’d ever met other than Howard, could foreclose on the land and that was what they needed. Of course they’d had to bring some heavy hitters too. The kind that would do whatever they told them for the right price. It had been the best money ever spent as far as he was concerned. Then the Snow bitch had started sniffing around. But the little prick Rogers had had his own agenda, and had fucked them all over by not just getting caught, but also bringing in the Feds.

“That money, do you have any idea what kind of stuff we can do with that when we get out of the state? I’m gonna get me a whole bunch of matches. Those kind that are sticks, not the paper kind. They don’t burn good like I want. Them people, they can’t do nothing to us if we just move out. Whatcha think, Garth? We can just go to someplace else and never come back here. I might. Just to see if I can burn that house down. But not the barn. It’s got some pretty horses in it, and I don’t wanna hurt them.” He wanted to correct his brother again but didn’t. It only served to piss him off when he did, and he would never learn anyway. “I’m thinking with my half, I’m going to buy me a little island and have them naked women waiting on me hand over my feet.”

“Hand over foot, you moron, and that isn’t going to work at all if you don’t get in and get the fucking money anyway. I’d do it, but my face is known and I’m going to get killed or lynched if I so much as go in the place.” Howard nodded and started to pace his room.

Garth had been staying in this place for three months now. And he was sick to death of it. There were no women that he could call on to come and help a man out. The restaurants that he would love to try were places that took more cash than he had, and his credit cards were no good any more. He couldn’t even get him a nice fake one, not without any money. He was broke, seriously broke, with only about a grand on his person. Not enough to get far when you were a wanted man. He should have been better prepared when Rogers went down. Lighting a cigarette, he thought about the fucking idiot.

Rogers getting caught had been both a blessing and a pain in the ass. The man had been acting all loony for a few months by then, and Garth had a feeling that he was making his own little escape plan. Then he up and disappeared, and Garth had a feeling that the Douglases knew about that too. But they’d all thought they were free and clear, until that fucking family had to go and stick their nose in his business.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Garth hoped the fuck not. Howard was his only brother and sometimes he wished he’d never met the man. He was as stupid as they came. “I’m thinking when they do that grand opening thing next time at the mill, we should go and get some of the giveaway things they’re gonna have. Stick it to them.”

“Yes, that’ll make such an impression on them for us to take some dollar items that aren’t worth the plastic it was printed on.” Howard nodded and Garth felt like finding something to kill him with. “We’ll have to get the money before the grand opening. They’re going to have that place open twenty-four seven for a while, and there won’t be any time to get in.”

“We just need to go in when they’re closed is all. Which twenty-four do you suppose they’re gonna be open? And if they’re only open seven days, we can go in after that. I’m thinking that we can make a killing on taking some of the stock too. They sure have a lot for someone that’s only going to be—”

“Shut up.” He rubbed his temples again, thinking that he might have worn a place in his skull by now. “We have to get in before they open up. And that’s in two days. Less if they have any more stock coming in and people have to go in and set it up again. Did you see about getting in on that? Being one of the stock boys.”

“Said that I’d not work out on account of I can’t read. I thought it’d be ‘cause of my face and hands, but they never even said a word about it.” He sat down and huffed. “Don’t know what they need me to read for them. All I gotta do is match the stuff up to the stuff already on the shelf. Seems even a fool could do that.”

“If you’re stocking the shelves, moron, then there won’t be anything there for you to match up, now will there?” Howard started to speak but then looked as if he got it. “Yes. Pictures don’t work if you don’t have anything to match it to.”

“You know, that’s just not right. They should have special jobs for people who got no ability to read signs.” He wanted to tell him that they did have special jobs for people like him, but didn’t. Howard was, after all, his only brother, much to his dismay. “You think I can get me a job working in one of them fancy shops that are opening?”

“Doing what? I’m pretty sure when you ever get around to getting our money out and then burning the mill down, no one is going to want you to work for them. And to work in a fancy shop, you have to still be able to read.” Howard smiled when he mentioned burning the place down. “You can do that, right? Burn it to the ground?”

“That’s what I can do best. And so’s you know, I have that all worked out too. Got me some gasoline and some cotton. I’m figuring that the place will just puff up when it’s started too. Made of wood and all, it won’t be no time for it to come down on some heads.” His brother had that look in his eyes as he talked about the mill burning. It was what he was good at, as he’d said, and he loved it. When they were children, Howard would sit and watch the fireplace in their home for hours, never saying a word but having a glassy look in his eyes that Garth knew meant insanity. Howard’s cheese had slipped off his cracker, as his mom used to say.

When he’d been about six, Howard had decided to burn down the abandoned playhouse that had sat in their yard for years. Neither he nor Howard had ever played in the thing, but sometimes the neighborhood girls would come over and have tea parties in it or something. Howard had never made allowances for anyone being in the small house when he’d gotten into his head to play with matches.

The girls, three of them, had all died. The doors to the house had been barricaded, and there had been no way for them to get out once the lick of flames had begun to take the house over. Not only had he made sure that the structure had stayed as intact as he could make it when it started to burn, but the little girls had not been able to get out, no matter how loudly they’d screamed to be let go.

His brother had been put into a facility for the criminally insane. His mom and he had gone to see Howard once a week for a while, then less as he got older. After their mother had died, Garth went to see his brother often, but only to make sure that he continued to get his brother’s check that was sent to the house to help with medical bills. He banked on that income until the money started coming in from the land deals.

Then about ten years ago, almost to the day, Howard was let out. There wasn’t any reason, they said, to keep him, as he’d not done anything like that again. Of course, immediately after his release, he burned down two more buildings and set a gas station on fire, taking the lives of four people. It seemed to Garth that no one had taken into consideration that he’d not set any fire because no one had given him matches, his favorite thing to use, and a building he could play with.

And now, five years later, he was still out, and no one had bothered to see if he had anything to do with the fires that had been set around the states surrounding them. He had no idea if it was because they’d deemed him fit or they just didn’t care. Whatever the reason, Howard was a murderer, pure and simple. Garth had convinced him that he’d better go out of town to have his fun and to check to see if there was anyone in the buildings before he did it. All he must have heard was go out of town to fire houses, because there had been a dozen or so deaths in the last year alone.

“I’m going to go and check the place out again. I’m thinking those cameras won’t work at night, and I can get me in then.” He wanted to tell him he was sure he was wrong but said nothing. He wanted some quiet time, not listening to his brother jabber about nothing.

When the room was quiet, he went to lay down on the bed. Just lately he’d been having trouble sleeping, and he wasn’t sure if it was the money bothering him or just plain boredom. He was really bored, and it was mostly because he didn’t have people to talk to. He didn’t count Howard, because it was difficult enough to talk to him when he wasn’t aggravated. But when he was upset, like he’d been since the fire at the Mitchell ranch, he was impossible to have a conversation with.

The mill had been Garth’s baby. Yes, it was a great way to make money, and when he’d hit on the idea of double charging the ranches, it had been a stroke of genius on his part when most of them just paid the bill every month without a single complaint. There were a few, of course, that just let it pile up and up, but he’d taken care of that by charging them late fees and then interest that would amount to almost double what they’d thought they owed in the first place. But then that fucking Snow moved in and had some things looked into. If he’d been smart, he’d have taken his money and ran then. But he had hung out, hoping that he could pull off letting them think it was all Rogers’s doing. He still remembered the conversation to this day he’d had with Palmer Snow.

“You do know that no one is going to believe that you had nothing to do with the billing that came from your office, don’t you? I mean, come on, you didn’t even get the names right on three of them. Michelle instead of Mitchell, and Jason instead of Jace? And my all-time favorite is McBirdy instead of McBride. What were you thinking? Or were you?” Garth had picked up the bills and looked at them. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to get them right, even using the spell checker thing on his computer. “Jason Douglas does not exist. So you’d never be able to collect on these anyway.”

“Who names their kid Jace anyway?” He looked at Palmer when he didn’t answer him. “You know that I had nothing to do with these bills. It’s all Rogers. He’s the one that holds all the deeds on the ranches. Why aren’t you talking to him?”

“I did. He’s in jail. I had the pleasure of watching him being arrested. Are you going to give me a good time too? He nearly pissed himself trying to convince anyone and everyone that he was innocent. Much like you are.” He stood up and smiled. “You’ll never get away with this. Trust me when I tell you, I’m going to take great pleasure in watching you fall too.”

And since then, he’d been hiding out. Not far really…right under their noses, as a matter of fact, but hiding all the same. And now things were about to come to a head, and he couldn’t get to his money to run. Mother fuck balls.

“Never happened did it, you ass hat? You never got to see me squirm like Rogers did, now did you? You and that daughter of yours, they really fucked me over, but I won anyway.” Garth laid a pillow over his head to try and stop the pounding. Lately it was all he could do to make it a whole day without having a painful head. He’d go to the doctor, but he didn’t have one that would see him, and even if he did, there wasn’t enough money to pay him once he did.