Kaleb (Samuel's Pride Series) (9 page)

~~~

Roger Thornton moved into the kitchen to look for something that might have the combination on it. Why the hell she had something this big in her house could only mean one thing: it had a lot of priceless shit in it. The man standing in the kitchen scared him enough that he cried out. When the man laughed, Roger felt his temper spit out.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
The man laughed harder. “You get out now before I call the police. They won’t take kindly to you breaking and entering. I know how that one works.”

“You do that
. Call the cops. And last I heard, this wasn’t your house.” The man moved toward him in a slow gait that had Roger thinking he could take him. But when he was up close and personal, as his daughter used to say to him when he was going to hit her again, he took a step back. This guy was way bigger than anyone he’d had to tangle with.

“You should know that I’m watching this here house for my little girl. And she’s not going to take too kindly to you coming in here like you own the place.”
Someone snorted behind him, and he turned to see his daughter, or spawn as he liked to call her when she wasn’t around. “Tania? Whatcha doing here?”

“I live here
, you fucking moron. What are you doing here?” She’d never had any respect for him, and he took a step toward her to show her some of his fist. But before he could get his hand into a fist to hit her, it was captured. The man behind him held him so tightly that Roger knew he was gonna break a bone or two.

“You’re supposed to be in prison for another five years. What the hell are you doing out running free like real people?
I think you should have gotten the chair, but they wouldn’t let me be on the jury.” Roger wanted to slap her face, but the man behind him hadn’t let him go yet. “Well? And when you’re finished telling that lie, tell me how you found me.”

“I was released early for good behavior.” She laughed
, a sharp barking sound that set his teeth on edge. “You never did believe anything I said to you. You’re my spawn. Don’t you know that you’re to believe in me no matter what? That was your problem, Tania, you have no heart. None at all. And what little sense you have, you done used it up on God knows what sort of drugs. Drugs you never would share with your dear old dad, I’m betting.”

“
I don’t do drugs. And if I had, you’re right, I wouldn’t have given them to you. But you’re a liar and always have been. And as for being your spawn, I quit calling you my father long before I realized what a prick you really were. Long before you put Mom in an early grave. So again I ask you, what the fuck are you doing in my house?”

He eyed the man who’d finally let go of his hand
, and wondered if he could get a quick punch in her face before he caught him again. He knew men like him. Roger knew he’d let him go when his spawn started bawling. Before he could make do on his plan, the man laughed and spoke.

“
You’re thinking that you can hit her and I’ll only hold you down for a bit and then let you go.” Roger nodded before he could think to do otherwise. “But I got news for you. You touch her, even to shake her hand, and I will rip your throat out and then piss on your head. Then I’ll let her hurt you.”

“Hurt me? You think I’m gonna survive you taking out my throat?” Roger tried to puff himself up bigger than his five
feet, ten inches. But the man had at least eight inches on him. And he more than likely weighed about two hundred pounds more. “I think you should get yourself on out of here and let me and my spaw…Tania take care of this. Father and daughter like. You’re just messing things up for me.”

“Nope
. You’ll have to conduct your business with me here. And this way I can keep an eye on you.” The man hopped up and was sitting on the counter like he owned the place. Roger decided to ignore him for now and turned to his daughter. She didn’t look like she had when he’d been sent away. She seemed…well, fuller came to mind, but he knew that wasn’t right.

“I’m going to call the police if you don’t tell me what you’re doing here.”
He started to lie to her but felt the overwhelming need to tell her the truth. He hated telling the truth when a lie would serve him so much better.

“I was told you had a house out this way. And when I found this’en
, I knew it was yours. Then when I found your mail in the box, I knew it was the right place. Why didn’t you tell me you’d run into some money? I would have helped you invest it right.” She only crossed her arms over her chest just like her momma used to do. “I’m thinking you need to be taken down a peg or two. And I’m just the man to do it if you don’t act like you’re my daughter.”

“
You can think that all you want, but you come near me and whatever Kaleb had in mind for you will be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you. I’m not ten anymore.” She wasn’t at that. Roger took a long look at the spawn he’d helped create. It looked like her mother was standing there looking all defiant. He found he wanted to teach her a lesson, but was suddenly afraid of who would be learning from whom.

“You got any money you can spot me?”
She shook her head. “What about that big safe up there? You got something in there? If not, what’s the sense in having it? Get on up there and open it and give me a quarter…no half of what’s in there, and I’ll go away for good.”

He
didn’t think she believed that any more than she ever seemed to believe him. Instead of calling his bluff, she looked at the man still sitting in the counter. When she moved away to go to the stairs, Roger sat down. This was way easier than he thought it would be.

“How the hell did someone as much
of a prick as you have a child like her?” Roger smiled. The man wasn’t as dense as he’d first thought. “Oh, I don’t mean to say that she’s bad in any way, but you are. What I’m saying is she’s a wonderful, caring person, and you are not. Her mother must have been a saint to have stayed with you long enough to conceive her.”

“Now see here. You can’t talk to me like that. I’m a man twice your age.”
Roger backed up when Kaleb hopped off the counter. For a second he’d been impressed. Roger knew that he’d be hurting for a month if he’d done that. “You should have more respect for your elders.”

The sound of a gun sliding home had him stop
moving toward the younger man. Not that he knew what he was going to do when he was there, but his temper always got him into trouble. Roger swallowed hard. He’d know that sound anywhere. It was a hand gun, Glock he would say, and whoever was behind him was getting ready to shoot. When something cold and hard touched him right behind his left ear, Roger felt his heart skip a beat.

“You’re a piece of shit.” He started to turn toward
his spawn, but she jabbed him harder in the head with what he could now tell was truly the gun. “You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days, and I hope to Christ it’s me that does it.”

“Now
daughter. You should know that when you lower that gun I’m going to fucking beat you senseless. Then I’m going to take that gun from you and shoot you in the fucking head. I’ve had enough of your shit today. Give me the fucking money now.” He felt his temper rise when she jabbed him again. “Stop that right fucking now. Or so help me I’m going to—” Roger suddenly realized what the hell he was doing.

“To what? Come on, tell me what you plan to do to me when I have a gun to your fucking empty head.”
Kaleb leaned against the counter and said nothing. The man wasn’t going to help him out, Roger realized. Not even man to man.

As Roger was pushed toward the back door
, he had a thought to turn around and hit her. But he was more afraid of her than he wanted to admit, even to himself. When she shoved him out the door and he landed in the grass, he turned to glare at her. But again the gun pointed at him had him snapping his mouth closed.

“You come back here and I will sho
ot you. Not warn you. I won’t give you any sort of head start either. I will blow your fucking tiny little brain out of that head of yours and dance in the little brain that splatters all over the ground. Do I make myself very clear?” Roger nodded and stood up, brushing the dirt off his clothes. “And if I hear one thing, one tiny little peep out of anyone that you’re hanging around them or trying to borrow money you have no intentions of paying back, I will arrest you.”

It took him three seconds for that to sink in. “You’re a fucking cop?
Mother fuckballs. Why didn’t you say something in the first place? Mother…damn it all to hell. You are not my daughter any more. I’m quitting you. What the fuck are you doing being a cop anyway?”

As he stormed off
, Roger felt good. He’d disowned her. A cop? A fucking cop? No child of his was going to be hanging with him and be a part of the worst parts of his life. Roger vowed that so long as he breathed, his daughter could go to hell. He was a childless man. That was until he needed something from her again. Or he found that she’d left the house and he’d get back in. He knew now that the safe held guns, and guns on the market sold for a lot of money. Money that he’d keep for himself.

“I’m not even going to mention her in my will.”
Laughing, he walked all the way down the street before he realized he’d forgotten the car. “Stolen anyway. Let her explain that one to her cop friends.”

Roger pulled the money he’d found in her house and counted it out. Fifty
-two dollars wasn’t a lot, but he figured it would buy him a drink or two. Entering the first bar he came to, Roger was whistling a tune. Yeah, he thought, he was a free man.

Chapter 9

The stakeout was perfect. Lyod had all the right men in place
, and all the players were in the house. Now all they had to do was wait on someone to do what he wanted. If not, he was ready for that as well. The plane ticket he’d purchased earlier that day was tucked neatly in his bag, and the car he’d purchased a while ago under an assumed name was gassed up and ready as well. But that wasn’t going to be necessary. Thornton would be his before too much longer.

“What the hell is that doing here?”
Lyod looked up as a large medic ambulance pulled in the drive as soon as the gate was opened. “You think she’s killed them all?”

He’d told these men that Tania Thornton had left the department and had gone on a killing spree.
Lyod had dug up all the unsolved cases that he could find and made everyone think that they were recent murders. Really he thought it was much too easy, and was sort of disappointed that it had been. He’d wanted someone to challenge him, and all of the men he’d picked for this job simply thought what he said was true.

“I doubt she’d kill the hand that feeds her.” He glanced up at the house they were watching.
Kaleb Jonas had a house that his would fit in three times over. And that didn’t count the servants’ houses and the pool house. “She’s got herself a pretty good set-up here. I’m thinking it might be for something else.”

He’d also found out that Payne had a crippled mother. Perhaps that was why they were there.
The sound of the siren was fading as he stood up and walked to the gate. A large man was standing in the gate house and appeared to be sleeping, but for some reason Lyod thought the man as alert as he was.

“You think we should offer our assistance?”
Lyod shook his head at one of the men, Marcum Donaldson, who’d been questioning his every move since they’d gotten there. “I think this is one of the dumbest plans I’ve heard of.”

“So you’ve said. Several times now.
We’re sticking with this one until you come up with something better.” And for all his bitching and moaning about Lyod’s plan, the man had offered no other way of doing this. “Keep an eye on the gate. When it opens, we’re to stop whatever drives out and see if our girl is in there.”

Several “yes, sirs” had him feeling in charge
, but Marcum still bitched. “If I had known we were going to be hiding out for hours, I would have brought my computer. At least then I’d have something to do with my time.”

When the gates slid open forty minutes later
, he moved to step in front of any vehicle coming out. It just happened to be the ambulance. And with their lights and sirens on, he knew he’d be hard pressed to not only make it stop, but he’d never be able to search it either. HIPPA was driving him insane.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act allowed no room for him to get the sort of information he used to get. Its ruling stated that reasonable efforts must be made to make sure the information on all documents was kept private, and if anyone so much as hinted at any of the information, hell would be paid. Doctors and nurses alike kept any and all information to themselves, and no amount of bribes could loosen their tongues. But the worst place he’d run into problems was the clinic that Payne owned. They couldn’t be bribed, couldn’t be threatened, and no one in the place would tell him a damned thing no matter how many times he went to the place to find out. They were as tightlipped as his ex-wife’s legs were open to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who had a dick. And some that didn’t.

And just as he figured, it didn’t even slow down when he stepped in front of it and screamed out of the driveway.
He did manage to stop the second car coming out, but as soon as the man driving got out of his car and started for him, Lyod had a moment of clarity. He was a dead man. It was that man Jimmy from the other day.

“Are you stupid or do you want me to snap your neck?”
Lyod reached for his gun and found himself suddenly pressed against the hood of the car he’d stopped. His gun skittered across the pavement. “You think you’re going to pull a gun on me, you motherfucker? I’ll own your ass.”

“I just want to talk to Thornton.”
Jimmy popped his head on the hood of the car as soon as the words left his mouth. Lyod decided that even if they handed Thornton to him on a silver platter, right now he thought maybe he’d decline. Finding her was beginning to be more trouble than it was worth. Then he remembered his men.

“They’re not coming to help you.”
Lyod started to sit up but was slammed back down on the hood as Thornton continued. He wondered when the hell she showed up. “You’re the stupidest man I’ve ever had the unpleasantness to know. Do you have any idea whose property you’re fucking around on?”

“You’re under arrest for murder.”
He heard her laugh and then he was suddenly standing up, facing her. “I can take you in myself so that nothing happens to you.”

A large man came to stand behind her
, and it wasn’t until he put his hand on her shoulder that Lyod knew who he was. Kaleb Jonas was with her, and wasn’t going to take this well. Lyod thought of the meeting he’d had with the man several days ago, and how he’d been afraid of Kaleb then as he was right now.

“I want you to leave Thor alone,” he’d said to him.
“Or else I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your days. And so you know, that’s not going to be very long.”

“Are you threatening me?”
Incredulously, the man had nodded at him and grinned. “There are laws against that. Are you aware of that?”

“There are also ones that say you aren’t supposed to kill anyone, that you shouldn’t sell drugs on school property
, as well as prostitution. But here you sit, guilty of all three and a few more.” He’d stood up then and seemed to grow in size, which had made Lyod press back in his chair because the man was already fucking huge. “Come near her again and I will kill you.”

And now here he was.
“You don’t listen well, do you?” Lyod started to speak but was cut off by Thornton.

“You’re going to get into your car and go away from here.”
He took a step toward her, and Jonas picked him up by his neck and held him there. Lyod hadn’t even seen him move. Thornton continued. “You’re the stupidest man I know. Leave here now and I’ll pretend that I don’t want to let him kill you. Come back, speak to me or anyone I know, and no one will ever find your body. Not that I think anyone would care if you’re dead or not.”

“You’ll pay.”
Lyod found himself suddenly on the ground gasping for breath. He looked up at the two of them before speaking. “You two cannot get away with this. Manhandling an officer of the law, lying to the police, and pretending to be dead.”

“I wouldn’t have had to pretend anything if you and Lipscomb hadn’t tried to kill me.”
He looked at her, shocked. She’d figured out he was there, too. “Oh yeah, I know you were helping him. Especially when all those men seemed to pour out of the house right when I was telling you I was there. Must have twisted up your panties tight around your balls knowing that I was about to stumble onto your little money maker. And you might want to check out your little stash, too. Ill-gotten gains are against the law, in the event you didn’t know that.”

“You stole from me?” He started toward her again
, only to be brought up short by Jimmy. He’d forgotten all about the man. “She can’t get away with this. How would you like it if she took all your money you worked hard to get?”

Jimmy simply shook his head. Didn’t these people understand that he’d had to do all sorts of things to earn what he
had? And not only that, but the things he’d done simply to ensure that no one knew about it. Sometimes he thought being a bad guy was harder than being a good one. But it paid a great deal more, and he’d come to realize that he really liked having money and the things that went with it.

“You’re going to come with me now and we’ll get this all sorted out.”
She laughed at him, and Lyod glared. “Do you have any idea what Lipscomb is going to do to me if you don’t come along with me now? I have to give you up to him by Friday or he’s going to be really pissed off. Just come with me and we’ll explain what’s going on.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Why don’t I drive you there myself and we can get some lunch on the way?” Lyod nodded, thinking she’d finally give him what he wanted. “You fucking moron, you don’t possibly think that I’d turn myself over to a murderer, do you? If you do, you’re dumber than I thought.”

“Don’t be dense.
He’s not a murderer. Ansell has other people do that for him.” Lyod was going to have to make her see reason. “Just come with me. How bad can it be?”

“You’d take me to him, wouldn’t you? You’d turn me over to him so that what?
He doesn’t kill you first?” He told her that was the plan. “Incredible. Simply incredible.”

When she turned her back to him and wrapped herself around Kaleb
, it occurred to him that she was his lover. Probably sucking him dry, too. But when Jimmy stood in front of him, Lyod took a step back. Pain suddenly radiated from his entire face and darkness took him. He knew that he’d been hit, but never had a punch to the face made him drop like this. Before he blacked out completely, he heard her laughter. It was bitter and full of hate, and Lyod knew he was going to die.

~~~

Kaleb watched Thor. She hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten back in the car. Jimmy glanced at him several times in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t say anything. Both of them knew that she was hurting.

“Ansell Lipscomb was on my list to find and bring in.
When I first started out on this hunt, it was simply to find a man who was known to be dealing drugs too close to the high school. But the deeper I dug, the more I found out.” Neither he nor Jimmy spoke as Thor continued. “The night I went to his estate, I was alone. Not that it mattered to me if I was or not. Even when I had a partner I tended to do things on my own. But this should have been a two-man operation. The place was crawling with armed men.”

“Where is the place?” Kaleb looked at Jimmy when he asked. “Once a cop
, always a cop. Where did you find his place, honey?”

“Mulberry
Court. Although I don’t understand the Court part, because his place was the only one there. I found that he’d bought the entire subdivision. I guess to keep things the way he wanted them.” Again he looked at Jimmy. Mulberry Court was only two streets over from where they’d found her that night. “I’d killed nine by the time I got to the house. And had taken out three dogs. I don’t kill animals normally, but it was me or them. And I hadn’t thought to bring a dart gun. When I contacted Sweeney, he told me to stand down. To wait. I thought then that it was odd of him to say that to me, but he’d been on me about this case since I brought it to his attention.”

“But you couldn’t let it go.” She shook her head as she laid her head on his lap.
Running his fingers in her hair, he watched her closely. Thor was not just hurting. She was devastated with this.

“They caught me almost as soon as Sweeney told me to back off. But the men coming out of the house were too much for me to do anything by that point but to fight or be killed. When I was hit from behind
, I thought for sure I was dead, but I woke up in a cell. Ansell showed up after they’d beaten me to shit and let the men there with me take turns making me suffer. They had one minute to make me scream or he’d make them pay a fine. One dollar. That was the fine. One fucking dollar.”

“How long did you last?”
Kaleb knew her well enough to know that she’d have held out for as long as she could, but he’d seen what they’d done to her, and she wouldn’t have been able to last forever. The knife wounds alone would have brought down a larger man than him.

“I don’t know. But it was too long for some of them.
After a while, the pain was so intense that I wasn’t really feeling it. That’s when they started to strip my flesh off.” She rolled over and looked up at him as she continued talking. “Was it the blood from Stephan or you that healed me to the point where nothing is visible?”

“Mostly mine
, but Stephan made it so you’d survive long enough for me to heal you. He knew when I’d come into the cell with you that you were my mate. I didn’t tell him, but he knew. Before he left with you, he asked me what I was going to do.” Kaleb looked out the window as they drove toward the hospital where Samuel and Kennedy were having a baby. “I told him that I wasn’t going to take you, claim you. I said it was too late. I’d been too long on my own.”

“Yet you did.
Why?” He looked down at her and smiled sadly. “You still don’t want me, do you?”

“Yes. With all my heart.
Not only have I fallen in love with you, but I’ve found that I can no longer live without you. In fact, I’m not sure how I survived this long without you in my life. I know it’s a cliché, but you do complete me.” She put her hand on his cheek, and he kissed it. “I’m in love with you, Tania Thornton. Will you marry me?”

He hadn’t meant to ask her then. Hell, if he was honest with himself
, he’d never even considered asking her at all. But now that he had, he held his breath waiting for her to answer him, to say something that would give him an indication that she would be his wife.