Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Damn it, Leon.
I turned into the driveway, leaned forward as I drove up to the hole, and peered through the windshield. The interior of the house was darker than the outside, but I saw the unmistakable blocky outline of Brick’s rear. The Humvee was in the house. The damages. So many damages.
Catalina would kill him. And I would hold him while she bashed his head in.
I shut off the engine and went inside. The place had a wide foyer. Twin staircases hugged the opposite walls, leading upstairs to a unified landing. Two black tire marks stretched from the front door, across the shiny grey marble floor, across a beige oriental rug, all the way to where Brick now waited in front of a steel door. The door looked really out of place in the upscale house and sported a big dent. A panic room. Great.
They had driven the Humvee through the front door, through the foyer, through the sitting room and half of the damn house, and then they rammed it into the steel door.
Damn it. Damn it with sprinkles on top.
Grandma Frida sat on top of Brick looking bored. To the right, a shirtless Leon rested on the floor, leaning against a coffee table that had somehow survived the vehicular assault. His T-shirt, once white and now bloodstained, was wrapped around his head. A white man in his mid-thirties frantically paced back and forth around a white couch as if trying to wear a hole in the rug.
“Have you all lost your minds?” It seemed like a fair question.
Leon pointed to the man. “His fault.”
I looked at the man. “Who are you?”
The man stopped pacing and looked at me for the first time. “I’m Kent. Kent Mills. I live here. This is my house.”
He was the suspect’s spouse.
“What happened?”
Leon gave me an exhausted look. “This is Kent Mills. He works as a registered nurse. This is his house, except it’s actually being foreclosed on because his wife, Sandra Mills, who is our suspect, failed to pay the mortgage. For six months.”
“I did pay the mortgage!” a woman’s voice shrieked through the speaker above the steel door. “It’s a misunderstanding!”
Kent spun toward the door. “Oh yes, another one of your famous ‘misunderstandings.’ It’s a clerical error, it’s a computer glitch, and you’ll call them tomorrow and straighten this right out.”
“You’re a bastard, Kent. A stupid, selfish bastard!”
Kent sucked in a lung full of air.
I used my best impersonation of Mom’s voice. “Shut it.”
He clicked his mouth closed.
I turned to Leon. “How did Brick get in the house?”
“I’m getting to that. We were hired by The Shaw Distillery to investigate possible embezzlement. I determined that their bookkeeper, Sandra, was robbing them blind.”
“That’s a lie and I’ll sue you for libel,” Sandra screamed through the speaker.
“That suit will be thrown out, because it should be slander, not libel,” I said. “If you’re going to threaten someone, at least do it correctly.”
“I looked into the other businesses she did the books for,” Leon said. “She befriended people, convinced them to let her handle their books, and then stole everything they had.”
“That’s another lie. I’m telling you, it’s a misunderstanding.”
Leon rolled his eyes. “A lie the way your MBA is a lie?”
Kent blinked. “Wait, what? I saw the diploma from UT. It’s in the office.”
“Fake,” Leon said. “She has an Accounting Certificate from Houston Community College. UT has no record of her ever attending.”
“It’s a –”
“A misunderstanding!” Grandma Frida, Leon, and Kent finished in unison.
“Get to the part where the two of you drove the car into the house.”
Grandma Frida drew herself up straight. “It’s not a car. It’s an armored assault vehicle.” She petted Brick’s roof. “You don’t listen to her. You are a magnificent beast.”
I had to strain to not shake my fists at them.
“I found nine businesses she defrauded for a total of eight million dollars,” Leon said.
“Eight million? Really?”
“She’s been doing it for years.”
“Eight million, Sandy, and you couldn’t pay the mortgage?!” Kent roared.
“It was fine! It was all fine until you ruined it!”
“Where did the money go?” Kent demanded.
“She bought a winery,” Leon said. “Seriously, who does that?”
“Sandy! What the hell do you know about wine?”
“You never believed in me, Kent.”
My head began to throb. I rubbed my temples.
Leon heaved a sigh. “I came here to talk and give her a chance to come clean. At that point, Mr. Mills ran out, hysterically screaming that his wife had locked herself in the panic room with his little girl.”
A child? These two had a child?
“So you called Grandma, talked her into driving Brick here, and rammed it through the house into the panic room? Do you have any idea the conversation Catalina will have to have with our insurance company?”
Leon waved his arms. “I did my due diligence. First, I had him formally hire us. He signed a waiver absolving us from any liability resulting from damages to the property. Second, I called Grandma. I wanted to go with a blow torch. She decided that, and I quote, ‘ramming it is faster.’”