Royce (22 page)

“Yes, we do. I know just where you’re going. A sort of neutral person. One that has no say in security but knows the people who work in it. A person that when the door is closed to their office, nine hundred people aren’t aware that you’ve gone in here to speak your mind. Also the rumor mill won’t be so bad with all sort of things going on before the first word is spoken because no one will be the wiser.” Jesse started making notes as he continued. “The office would be on another floor than the one we have the security office on. The person we get needs to be aware of the laws governing HR and also know how to defuse a situation without it becoming a media playground. Oh, Royce,” he said suddenly. “That office on the second floor, the one that we have the luncheons in. That would be perfect.”

Kasey looked over at Annamarie when she lost control of the meeting. “I just wanted them to give me a phone number that they could set up weekly meeting and training classes with. I didn’t mean for them to spend money like they had it to spare.”

“You’ve saved them a great deal, honey. If we have the right people in place, then there won’t be any more Whites in the building and no more lawsuits. This is just the breath of fresh air that they need.” Annamarie looked at Bobby when she laughed.

“You probably saved them from killing White with this. This will give them something else to focus on besides whether or not he’ll get off. The turd seems to think he will and he gives me the creeps the way he keeps looking around and licking his lips.”

Annamarie had noticed him doing that too. Especially when Kasey was in the court room. She wondered if Royce had noticed and decided that he hadn’t. If he had, or any of the boys for that matter, then White would already be dead. She looked up when Curtis called for Kasey.

Three hours and four large pizzas later they had a committee, a person to run the program they were piecing together, and Kasey Hunter was now an official board member. She still looked a little dazed about it all when they went to the office so that she could nurse little Lee. This time, she asked Royce if she could sit with her.

Lee was a beautiful baby. He had a full head of dark hair and his downy skin was so soft that Annamarie found herself touching him just to feel it beneath her fingers. She’d never been more in love with anyone as she was her first grandson.

“They really will do it, won’t they?” She looked up at Kasey when she asked. “They really will just put me in charge of the whole thing like I have any idea what the hell…heck I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you know a great deal more than you think. You banned them together easily enough.” Kasey snorted. “Well, you certainly have my vote for pulling it off.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to watch Lee when I have to go to meetings.” Annamarie nodded. “Okay, but you know all you have to do is ask. Other than me being his lunchbox, he pretty much doesn’t care who holds him.”

“Not true. I saw him cry his head off when that cook of yours held him. I don’t think he liked him one bit.” Of course, the man had been terrified out of his mind, but she didn’t say that. Best to let that one go.

“I don’t know. I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

Annamarie laughed gently and told the girl she couldn’t even if she tried.

Chapter 23

The jury came back the next afternoon. Royce had wanted Kasey to stay home, but she said she needed to be there. He didn’t want to be there so he thought her being beside him would be a tad easier. He held her hand and had his son in his arms. He was sure that White was going to be convicted, but on what charges he had no idea.

When everyone sat back down they looked over at the jury when the judge asked them if they’d reached a verdict. The foreman stood as asked and she started reading the charges.

Guilty. On all nine charges, he was guilty. Before the judge could say more, White stood up.

“You can’t convict me, you stupid bitch. I didn’t do a damned thing to those women that they didn’t want.” He turned to the judge. “You have to tell them to try again. You make them go back in that room until they come out with a better verdict. I’m not going to jail. There is no way I’m going to jail.”

“Then what do you propose we do with you? Let you go? I don’t think so. You have to pay for the crimes you’ve committed. And to do that you will serve—”

Royce would remember the next few seconds for the rest of his life. He would never…no, that’s not right, he could not believe that someone could do so much damage so quickly and then take her own life.

Gertrude Best had been in the court room daily with them. She’d been quiet and reserved for the most part, only getting upset once or twice, but had delivered her story with as much dignity as anyone could under the circumstances. And every day she’d come in with her wand at her throat. Royce knew that she’d never been questioned about it after she’d been on the stand.

The little gun had gone off before the judge had had a chance to make a date for sentencing. Gurt had pointed the little wand at White on several occasions throughout the trial, that when she’d done it this time no one had thought a thing about it. At least Royce hadn’t. The
pop-pop-pop
had sounded long seconds before anyone moved and the last pop had gone off before Gurt could be reached. The final bullet had torn through her chin and up through her brain in seconds.

While everyone rushed to the dead woman, no one moved to the man who lay bleeding to death on the floor. Gurt had been an excellent shot. She’d gotten White twice in the throat and once in the cheek. There was no saving him after they realized that he wasn’t killed like they had assumed. Royce wondered after if anyone had really tried.

It had taken them four hours to get everyone’s statements. Royce had tried several times to get Kasey to take Lee home and wait for him, but she’d stood next to him, at his side when the reports had come, and then again when they were all questioned. She was eerily quiet on the drive home.

“She had this planned for a long time, didn’t she?” Kasey finally asked when they were in bed together. “She knew what she was doing the moment she’d come to the courthouse.”

“Yes. I think she had a plan to kill White even before we’d approached her to tell her side of what had happened.” Royce didn’t tell anyone that he thought that Gurt had done them all a favor by killing White. He thought it, but didn’t voice it. “She had had her little gun made when she’d still been in the recuperating stages after he’d shot her.”

“I wish we could have talked more. I wish she could have… I was going to ask her to help me with the program. I thought she’d be an inspiration to everyone knowing that good things could come to you if you didn’t think of yourself as a victim. I guess I was wrong.”

He pulled her tight in his arms and kissed her shoulder. “You weren’t wrong, love. You couldn’t see how badly she’d been affected by what he’d done to her. I’m not sure anyone had.”

She lay there for several minutes before she spoke again. “Royce, do you think the others will be all right? Do you think any of them are thinking about killing themselves?” She turned to him then. “Is there anything we can do for them?”

He nodded before he said anything. “We’ll give them anything they need, baby. Anything. You work your magic on them and see what we can do to help them and we will. I swear if it is in my power to do it, they can have it.”

He held her long after she’d gone to sleep and when Lee woke a few hours later, he went to the nursery to get him. He changed his diaper and took him to the big rocker just to hold him. Lee seemed to be all right with waiting on his food so Royce told him about his mom.

“You should see her went she gets all fired up about something. I’m telling you, son, it’s a sight to behold. And boy, when she’s…well, that’s between mom and me. But she can light me up pretty good too.” Lee watched him as he spoke to him, never breaking eye contact. “You’re going to be such a ladies man, kid. You just wait and see. But you won’t be knocking any of them up before you say ‘I do.’ I did that and it turned out wonderful for me, but you can’t expect to be so lucky. Here are words my brothers say all the time, ‘don’t tap it if you don’t wrap it.’ Words to live by.”

“What a thing to say to a baby.”

Royce looked up at Kasey standing in the doorway when she spoke.

“Are you seriously giving our ten day old son sexual advice?”

“You’re never too young to be taught to respect the lady. Besides, you know you’ll be giving any daughters that we have the same advice.” She walked to him and started to kneel on the floor in front of the rocker. “Sit in my lap. I want to hold the two most important people in my life.”

She slid into the chair and Royce handed her Lee. He cradled them both in his arms. He doubted there was a better feeling in the world than this.

“I have a news conference tomorrow with your mom. Your brother, I think, set it up a long time ago. Then we have a meeting with a reporter from the Daily Broadcast. Some guy by the name of Kyle Washington.”

“Kylie Washington. It’s a girl, woman. She and Jesse went to school together. She’s a real ball buster. She was the one that got the last mayor impeached. She uncovered a ring of prostitution that he’d been running with campaign money.” Royce stood when Kasey did. Lee had decided that he’d waited long enough.

He watched her nurse him. He was such a greedy little thing and he made noises that made Royce smile. Lee held his mother’s finger while he ate his dinner.

“Annamarie said that he…Kylie has been on the story for some time and that she is the one who’d found two of the women for the trial. Do you think she knew about Gurt?” Royce told her that he didn’t know. “I hope she didn’t. I think that would be hard for her to live with if she did.”

Royce hadn’t had anything more to do with Gurt than to see her in the court room, and he was having a hard time with it. He could still see her blood on the wall behind her when she’d killed herself. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. She and Daniel meet on Monday morning. And from what I remember about her as a kid, she and Daniel didn’t get along all that well. Seems she’d take exception to everything that he said.

~~~

Kylie Washington put down her phone and looked at her notes. She was really going to go to the Hunter building to see Daniel Hunter. She closed her eyes, trying to wipe out the hurt and pain that was there every time she’d thought about him. The pisser had made her mad every time she’d seen him when she’d been a teenager.

It had started in middle school, moved up through high school, and then into adulthood. Every time they saw one another, he would make her mad enough to make her want to kick him. But she’d remained the adult. And not only had she not put his nuts up around his eyes, she’d written a glowing article about him when he’d taken over the personal side of his brother’s firm. Cushy job that it was.

She flushed then. She had walked into the same kind of job. Her daddy had owned the newspaper she worked for since before she was born. At least Royce had made himself into what he was; her dad had inherited it from his dad. She walked to her closet for the tenth time in the past three hours.

She didn’t have a thing to wear to this. She wanted to look professional yet hardnosed. She wanted him to see that she could be feminine, yet still be a pro. She threw the last dress in her closet on the floor. Damn it, she wanted him to see that she’d turned into this drop dead gorgeous woman who had a few more brain cells then the normal women he dated. Fat chance.

By the time she cleaned up her bedroom and put the first thing she touched with her eyes closed into the bathroom to put on in the morning, she went to bed. Tomorrow, she was going to see the only man who had made her feel things she’d never felt before.

Kylie Washington had been in love with Daniel Hunter since she’d been ten years old.