Landon: Justice Series ― Erotica Paranormal Romance (14 page)

“It kept you away, didn’t it? Kept you in line and away from us. Shamed you into believing you were never good enough for us. Which, I might add, I never thought you were anyway. From the moment you were given to me at the hospital, after all that labor and pain, I knew you were going to be a disappointment, and as you can see, I was right.” She pointed to the list. “Get that done, Landon, or so help me, I will make you regret it.”

Instead of sparring with her any more, he stood up. He’d had enough. Between his father telling him how good it had been to kill his own father after that will he’d made them sign, to the demands of wanting Landon to give him enough money that he could pay the guards while he made a few bucks. His father even wanted to smuggle him in some drugs, saying this was the perfect place to set up a nice little business. His mother said his name as he was nearly to the door.

“When will you be back, Landon? I’m not going to just sit here and wait for some news, as little as I get to come to me through the channels. I demand that I start seeing some improvements to my living conditions right away. Make it happen before you return, or don’t bother returning.” He told her he wasn’t coming back. “Why are you doing this to me? I deserve better than this. I deserve more than you ever gave me, that’s for sure.”

“You deserve exactly what you got. And as I told Father, if I could, I’d make sure you not only didn’t have a cot to sleep on, but nothing in the way of luxuries either.”

She was still screaming at him when he left the room. He had no idea what the guard was saying to her, but his voice was getting just as loud as hers was as the door slammed shut behind him. Going to the desk to turn in his badge, Landon felt lighter. His entire body felt like a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders as well. Going out into the sunshine, he looked at Steele when he stood. The only person that he wanted with him when this ordeal started had come with him, even though he’d told him he didn’t want him to.

“Dillon called.” He nodded as he handed him his cell phone. He’d not been allowed to take it in, and saw no reason to miss a call just because his parents had decided to talk to him. “Did it go as badly as you thought it would?”

“Worse.” He told him what they both had wanted. “Sounds like something my mother would have said. When I went to see her, after I left, it was like I’d been set free.”

“That’s what I feel now. And I told both of them I wasn’t coming back either.” Steele nodded as they made their way to his truck. “Steele, do you think they made us what we are? I don’t mean necromancers, but I mean, personally? I know that was asked before, but I’d really like an answer if you have one.”

“You mean broken until we found someone to love us? If that’s what you mean, then I hope so. It’s wonderful to think that something good came from having a family like them.” Landon nodded and thought of Drew and Hugh, and wondered briefly what was in store for either of them. “You okay?”

“I actually think that I am now. It’s like...well, we were none of us very easy to love, yet we found it. We’re not really very social, and we certainly have our own kind of baggage that has nothing to do with the ghosts we have with us.” Steele agreed with him. “I’m in love with my wife and we’re going to have a baby. I think that’s about the best one could hope for under any circumstances, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Steele had driven, so Landon got into the passenger side and called Dillon. She told him that she’d finally found Mr. Crenshaw’s head, and what he’d said about working for them. He relayed the information to Steele.

“Tell her that’s a wonderful idea. And I think it’s good that she’s going to work with all of us as well.” He told her what Steele said, and she laughed as she spoke again.

“I love you. I don’t tell you that often enough, I don’t think.” Landon told her that he was in love with her as well. “Since you seem to not be talking about your parents and the visit, I can assume that it went about as well as you’d thought it would. I wish I could have been there with you.”

“Had you come, I’m sure that I’d be bailing you out of jail about now. My mother was especially caustic about her demands.” He told her a few of the things that they’d wanted. “Mother even told me that I owed her for not killing me as a baby.”

He heard Steele hiss out his anger but continued talking to Dillon. When she laughed, he felt his heart soar in happiness and wondered how he’d lived this long without it. Landon asked her what she was going to do now.

“I’m not sure. Vinnie wants me to help her out at the shop. And I think I might like that. And Addie said that I could find things for your clients as well. She said that she thinks that finding children all the time is not good.” He agreed and told her so. “I’m going to help out the police like I have been, but I think I’m going to be more selective about what I do. It’s really stressful knowing what parents did to their children.”

“I’m glad.” Landon asked her about the arrangements with her father. His body had been in the coroner’s office for three weeks now, and they’d finally released it a few days ago. “His attorney, Garrett, has been making noises about this will that says he gets everything, but as far as the courts are concerned, there isn’t one. I’m not sure what he thought was going to happen with that because he’s in jail and going off to prison for a long time after his trial for kidnapping, as well as a bunch of other stuff. But the judge ruled that the one he wrote on his deathbed is going to stand. I don’t want any of his crap, if you want to know the truth.”

“Then we’ll sell it off. I don’t care. It’s not like we need it.” Lee had told him his net worth today after all was said and done, and he was as wealthy as Steele was. “If you want, we can donate the money to some cause that your father would have hated. Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you fully.”

“Good. I like your idea about the hotel and want to do that with it. He would have hated having strangers in his house.” Landon told her that he’d help her do it. “I’m going to give the city enough funds to build and maintain a house for kids on the edge. Not just people who see ghosts, though we won’t call it that, but anyone that needs for someone to believe in them. It’ll be a halfway house, sort of, until they can come to grips with what they are.”

“I love that idea. Think of how many lives it might save just to have somewhere for people to go and talk.” She said that she had no idea how to get it started, but she was going to look into it. “Good. I’m sure that we can get enough support around to keep it running. There has to be someone that we can trust to do so.”

“Drew said he would help me.” Landon looked at Steele when Dillon told him that. Drew had been pulling from them for a long time now, and he wondered aloud to Steele if this was the final straw.

“I hope not, but there couldn’t be a better person to run that place.” Landon agreed. “It’s not like he’s going to be that far away if we need him for something. A simple car ride and he’s right here. I like the idea.”

“Good. I knew that the two of you would.” Dillon said she had to go and would see him soon. He put his cell away and looked at Steele when he laughed.

“Could be that this is just what Drew needs to bring him around.” Landon asked him if he knew what had happened to Drew. “I do. But...it’s not a story that I think I should tell. He’s been...hurt doesn’t even begin to cover what happened to him. Makes what happened to us seem like child’s play. But this might help him.”

Landon hoped so. His friend was hurting a great deal.

Chapter 13

Drew woke. He knew better than to even move his toe if he knew what was good for him. His hand, down by his side, didn’t so much as twitch in fear as he lay there, darkness covering him like a thick hot fudge sauce that seemed to not just be over him, but in every pore of his body as well. Digging his finger deep into the mattress, he knew that he wasn’t locked away but in a bed. Not that it made things any better for him.

The house made the usual sounds that one did when it was old and needed repair. Nothing that he wasn’t familiar with, but the same as he’d heard in every night of his life. That included the hospital that he’d spent nearly three months in when he’d been ten. It didn’t lessen his fear, but seemed to compound it as things around him began to take shape in his fertile mind.

“It’s time you got your lazy ass up, don’t you think?” The voice nearly made him scream. He did whimper at the sound, the first noise he’d made since he’d opened his eyes. “I’m waiting for you.”

“Please. Just go away. Can’t you just leave me alone?” The voice—a woman’s he knew as well as his own, the sound of it dark and raspy like a man’s—laughed at him. “Please?”

“You can’t wish that for me, boy. This place is mine until I say different. Now get your lazy ass out of that bed. You have to get me some shit. You’re not smart enough to care for yourself, now are you?” The movement of the voice had him turning in that direction, his body no less relaxed knowing that the woman in his room was his own dead mother. “I have always cared for you, Andrew, and I always will. Till death do we part. And if you don’t do what I tell you, that might be sooner than you think. Boy? Are you testing me?”

“Like you took care of me on my tenth birthday.” He knew he’d made a mistake the moment the words left his mouth. Her energy, hot and heavy, washed over him. The lights in the room, even off, popped in their housing and shattered glass in their wake. She was strong, even in her death. “I’m leaving here. I want you to know that, and when I do, I’m having this house taken care of.”

“No you won’t. You got nowhere to go and no one to care for you.” He’d bought a house. From Landon, and he’d be living there today if things went the way he wanted them to. Not in this place where the walls still bore the evidence of his mother’s fury that fateful night. “Now, Andrew. I don’t want to hear any more talk about you thinking you’re going to leave me. I want you to get the house back to the way it was. I told you before, I don’t care for you messing with my shit. Or do you have to go to work? Then I want you to go out and get me some shit. I need a score bad.”

“I’m...this is my last night here. The last time you will be able to speak to me. To terrorize me.” He was flirting with danger now, he knew that. His body, sitting up, now ached for what she’d done to him all those years ago. “I’m not coming back here either. I’ve decided to destroy this house.”

“You can’t unless I say you can, you hear me?” Her anger was hotter now. The heat of it burned into his flesh where he had feeling, and he thought of that night again. “Now, you’re to stop this talk and do what I tell you to do. Backtalk will get you hurt. I’d think you’d know that by now. I should like for you to tell me what you are going to do in the back gardens. I want you to plant me some weed. I can sell it or trade it for some better shit.” Her voice was hard, unforgiving, as it always was when she didn’t get her way.

“There are no back gardens. I sold that off long ago to take care of your bills and other things that came up. Remember?” He got up out of the bed, moving slowly until he could get his flesh to even out, become more elastic. “I told you this before. It’s been sold off for the new development that is coming in.”

“I’d like you to start on the weed today. Get it surrounded by some tall plants back there. You can buy them online, I’m told. That way if them assholes come along and think to have a looksee in the back, all they’ll see is my simpleton son planted some posies.” Drew ignored her in favor of taking a shower. But her voice followed him in the tiny room even when she didn’t enter. “Once you get the seeds in the ground, then I can put the word out that I’m in business. I’ll have them lined up out the door then. I don’t remember the name of the guy you usually work with for me. Do you remember? Never mind. You can just order the plants and I’ll work on the rest.”

“There is nothing around this house but dead grass. And the trees are gone as well.” Turning on the water, knowing that this was his last shower here as well, he stripped down after shutting the door and turned on the light.

This room, like all the rooms in the house, had no mirror. There was a small one in the hall just by the door, but it had been covered up for so long that he rarely thought of it any more. If he needed to look at himself, he usually waited until he was at someone else’s house or at a public restroom, but never here. And never naked.

Scrubbing his body, Drew thought of what he had to do today. The house, like most of the houses on this block, was being torn down in the name of development. He’d been the only hold out until two weeks ago, and now he was as ready to be gone as the others had been. The only difference was, Drew was leaving everything but a few things he’d given away. He wanted nothing from the house that he’d grown up in. There was nothing here but horrible memories, and scars so deep that he’d never been able to look at himself fully in twenty years.

As he exited the bathroom, the hot water already gone, he pulled out his only pair of pants, a new pair that he’d purchased just for this occasion, and pulled them on. His mother would be gone now, down in the kitchen wondering what to do about making him something to eat. The food was gone too, donated to the local pantry, along with the freezer and its contents that had been nearly empty as well. Not that she could cook, but she did make a fuss over him as he did it for himself.

She was standing in the kitchen looking out over the yard just as he’d thought she would be. He didn’t doubt that she was counting the money that was never going to come in. His mother had never done a damned thing when she didn’t have to, including caring for him as she should have. Whether there was money for it or not, and if he was still hungry after she got her fill, she told him to make due. Drew had made due a lot by stealing what he’d needed.

Not speaking to her, not wanting to get into another discussion that was pointless and had been said many times before, he picked up his jacket and moved to the door. Without a backward glance, he was out the door and to his car in minutes. The big earth movers were already tearing down the house next to his, and he had to smile.

His new house wasn’t far from Steele’s, just about two miles down the road. And it was pretty close to Landon and Dillon. Three days ago he’d gone to the mall and purchased himself all new clothing, including a new coat and shoes, something that he’d not bought in a long time. Then he’d gotten himself pillows and sheets for the new bed. His house was really too big for him, but it was his now. And all because Landon had been a good friend to him.

“I’d like to sell you my parents’ house. For a buck.” Drew told him no, he didn’t want it. “You need it as much as I need to sell it to you. It comes furnished as well. And there is a cook. Her name is Anna Reeves. She’s nice. A little on the odd side, but nice.”

“I don’t want a house. I have one.” Landon asked him how much longer he thought that was going to work out for him. “I don’t know, but I don’t want your house.”

“If you buy it from me, then I’ll tell Dillon to stop looking into what makes you like you are.” Drew started to deny anything she might find. “You know she will. I did. And I wasn’t even looking all that hard. She’ll find it. Then what do you think she’ll do?”

“I don’t want her sympathy. And I certainly don’t need it.” Landon said nothing. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Would you have told me?” Drew said nothing. “Didn’t think so. But I knew some dates, and just plugged them in to see what happened. I’m assuming that the others have no idea either.”

“I’d like to keep it that way too. No one...what the fuck am I supposed to do now? I don’t want the fucking house, but I don’t want her getting into my life either.” Landon had just stared at him. “You’re not helping me.”

“Oh, but I am. I am helping you as much as you’ll be helping me. Buy the house and be happy. Well, as happy as you can be.” Drew wanted to hit him but didn’t. He had been having a bad day, and the pain was just barely controlled then. “Lee will be contacting you in the morning. I’ve already had the paperwork changed over to your name. Congratulations. Here is the key.”

After Landon had left him sitting in the restaurant, he sat there for an hour nursing a beer that he’d not taken a single drink of. When he realized that he was well and truly fucked in this, he snatched up the keys and went to his car. The moment he saw the house, he knew that it was going to be perfect for him.

There were no neighbors to speak of. The house sat on about seventy acres of wooded land. The privacy fence around it was tall enough to keep out the most persistent of people, and he knew that it had a guard on it, a magic safety net that Steele would have put on it the moment that Landon told him he’d sold him the house. He moved into the front door and was surprised to see that the house really was furnished.

The entire bottom floor looked like a showcase for a magazine spread. There were flowers in vases that looked fresh, art in frames that looked as old as the house was. When someone cleared their throat, he’d turned, expecting to see his mother, when a smallish woman smiled at him.

“I’m Anna Reeves, sir. You must be the new owner.” There was no point in denying it, so he nodded. “Mr. Landon said you’d be by today. That I was to have you a list of things that the kitchen needed. I must say that it’s well stocked, and there is little other than food that we’ll be needing.”

“Steele, Steele Bennett, he uses this service that brings out groceries, unless you want to go and get them.” She said that she’d like that. “I’ll make sure that you have credit set up, then. Just get everything that you need and we’ll go from there.”

“Good sir. I’ve a daughter that would like to come and work with me, if you don’t mind. I can pay her. She’s got herself a good head on her shoulders, and is in need of some extra cash for her books and such. She’s in her last year of college to be a nurse.” Drew told her that he’d pay her a good wage too. “Thank you, sir.”

“Call me Drew. I’m not sure how this works, you working for me, but I don’t want it to be too formal. I’m just a simple man who likes his privacy.” She said she understood. “I won’t be having parties or people over. And I want to be left alone as much as possible.”

“Very good, sir...Drew. I can work with that.” After they had worked out a way for her to contact him before he was moved in, she made her way to the kitchen and he finished his tour of the house. By the time he was done, he knew that despite the fact that he was forced into the deal, he was glad that it was his. The house called to him.

And today he was finally moving in.

As he made his way up the long drive, he thought about what his mother was going to do now. Not that he really cared. He just didn’t want her coming to him. Not now, not ever again. The fact that she’d been unable to leave the house that she’d killed herself in wasn’t his doing but her own, and he hoped that she never figured out that she could move. But now that her resting place was going to be destroyed, he knew that she’d not be long for this world. At least he hoped so.

Andrew Mullins was finally and hopefully forever free from the woman that had made him what he was today. A necromancer that, because of her trying to kill him and succeeding twice while he’d been set on fire, was going to try and get on with his life. Whatever that might be.

~~~

Stupid people were around today. Ryder Mackenzie, Mac to her friends, watched the couple as they struggled to get their kayak in the water without getting their very expensive shoes wet. Not going to happen, she thought. They were in the fucking water and they were going to get wet. As she made her way around them and to the couple she was going to work with for the next couple of hours, she wondered again what the fuck she was going to do this winter. Other than a planned visit to see her best bud since college, she was at a loss. Maybe she’d take a cruise, she thought with a grin. Never going to happen was her next thought.

As she told the couple how to maneuver the small boat and how to guide themselves through the water, her mind drifted. Mac had been doing this for so long, kayaking down this particular river, she could have drawn a map for them about every single rock they needed to avoid, as well as all the places that would tip them if they didn’t use their oars just right. And this was not the only river she could do that to.

“Will you be going with us?” She wanted to tell them that if they were stupid enough to think that she was going to just let them go in the water alone, then they had no business doing this, but only nodded. “Good. I have a feeling that we’re going to need a great deal of help before the day is out.”

“You’ll be fine.” And not that she was conceited or anything, but she knew that they would be because she was there. “I’ve done this over a million times. Once we get to the first bend, you’ll wonder why you never did it before.”

They all watched the couple with the expensive shoes go by them. Roger was their guide, and he looked at her like he wanted her to save him. Instead, she waved at him and gave him the thumbs up, something that they did even when they knew it was going to be a disaster. And that trip had that written all over it.