Page 12 of Maverick

“Get this. She thought with her sister and her brat being dead—what she still calls poor Sherm, people would give her all kinds of attention because they’d think that she was hurt that they were dead. Which she told the court she would only be upset if they weren’t to die right away. It was an eye-opener for all of us. My heart broke for her dad and mom. Hanna had to leave the courtroom in tears, and then Warren just sat there shaking his head at her. The judge, thinking that Lorie had thought that it was somehow a joke, the testimony that she was giving and asked her again what she would have done had her sister and nephew died.” He heard his brother blow his nose as if it had upset him terribly on what was said at the court house. “Maverick, she told Judge Orr that every day since then, she’d been trying to find a way to make their deaths longer and more painful than anything that she could think of because of what she feels they robbed her of for being in jail all this time. She also told Orr that she hoped that she lived longer than her family so that she could finally get the attention that she deserved. Because, get this, she was the one that deserved it more than anyone else.”

“When will the trial be? Did they set it up?” Barton told him that she was going to be evaluated again because the judge wanted no mistakes with this trial as Lorie was so cold and heartless, she couldn’t believe that she was anything but off her rocker.”

Barton assured him that wasn’t what she’d said, but his brother was really upset. When he broke down crying again, his heart hurt as it hadn’t for a while. Deciding to go over to his house to hang out with him for a little while, he called Grace to let him know where he was going to go.

“Good idea. We’re all hanging out with Torie right now. Jade called us all together to comfort her. I think she’s doing much better than I would be had that been a relative of mine. We’re at Jade’s house now. There is a lot of ice cream and wine going around. I’m so glad that you will be with Barton. He looked so bad this afternoon when I got here.” He said that he was going to call his brothers. Good idea. He needs you guys more than ever right now. I don’t think that either of them expected this to go like it has.”

Things like this rarely went the way that people wanted, he was beginning to think. Getting some of the things to take over that his dad had wanted, all his brothers and his dad said they’d meet him at Dad’s house. They’d cheer him up, maybe knock him around a little then have a good time. He hoped so anyway.

Chapter 6

LeAnn watched her ward play on the floor in front of the television. The stupid thing hadn’t worked for about a month now, but it didn’t seem that either one of them missed it all that much. She was happy that the little girl had been with her when her mother had been killed. LeAnn oftentimes wondered if anyone knew that Prissy had had a child, much less one as pretty and as young as little Debra was.

She was sure that, at some point, someone would have come for her had they known about her. LeAnn had started sleeping with a gun in her hand when they went to bed, the little girl in the bed next to her. But when she nearly blew a hole in the electrical man who read the meter, she decided that she might well be better off hiding them all over the house. It had broken her heart, too, that she’d had to show little Debra how to use it and how to be safe around it.

“Grannie?” She asked the child what she could do for her, smiling each time she heard her calling her such a sweet name. “There’s a man at the door. Did you hear him?” She said that she’d not and told her to go and hide. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go hide. But you be extra careful, please. I don’t have nobody but you in my life.”

For an eight-year-old, the child was beyond smart. It took her very little time to teach the child that things weren’t like other people’s homes and that she had to be extra quiet when anyone came around. Looking around her sparse rooms, LeAnn thought she was about as ready as she could be for a visitor. She only hoped that they weren’t there for Debra. Being as old as she was, there wasn’t much fight left in her to keep her safe much longer.

“Hello, Ms. Jamestown. My name is David Westminster. I’m from the power and light company.” She asked him what he wanted. “Well, if I could come in, I’d be able to show you how we’re able to save you about a hundred dollars a month on your bills.”

“I don’t pay but about half that now. If’n you’re going to be able to save me a hundred, am I gonna get to keep the other fifty?” He laughed, it was forced, but she knew it when she’d opened the door that he was out for trouble. “You go on now. Leave this old woman alone. I got me enough to worry about what with the neighbor’s dog coming over all the time and eating my tomatoes in the summer months. Go on now.”

“Where is she, LeAnn?” She asked him what he was speaking about. “The girl, the child of your daughter? I know you have her. Just let me have her, and I’ll make sure you never have to go without again.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete. If’n I had a daughter, you dumb cracker, don’t you think I’d know it? I’m pretty near ninety years old now. A daughter of mine would be in her seventies. Even a kid of hers would be in their fifties if she was to have a kid herself. Where do you get off…I done already told you to go on now. I ain’t got no daughter. And if’n I had one, she would never have been considered a child. I’m sure to Christ, she’d be an old and ugly one.”

He shoved at the door just as she heard the back door open. She was scared beyond words now and let herself fall to the floor when he knocked her back. There was a gun just there under the footstool, and as soon as she got to it, she was going to—

“Mrs. Jamestown? It’s Trevor Strong. I’m here to help you out with the paperwork. Are you here?” She knew that she should have known the name, but she was too afraid to think beyond the men in her house. LeAnn told the man who was still calling for her that she was in the living room being shoved around. The big man who came in through the mud room winked at her. Making her feel like she was just a young girl and he’d come to courtin. “My dad, you know him, Barkley? He said that you prefer when someone comes into the back door like company. I’m assuming that this fellow here isn’t company nor welcome.”

“No, sir, he’s not. Come in here telling me that he knows about some child that I have of my daughters or some story. I’m nearly ninety, the young fool. If I had me a young person working around here, don’t you think that I’d have a much nicer and certainly cleaner place? I swear to Jon, people just don’t think with their minds no more. That’s what it is. No body is thinking beyond what they want to hear.” She looked the young man over as he helped her up from the floor. The other man, still with his gun out, told Trevor that he’d been here first. “Well, you might well have been first, but you didn’t even bother helping an old woman up from the floor. You even knocking me there didn’t have you helping me out.”

She was babbling. She knew that. Her heart was hurting her, and she wanted to get to her nitro pills before it became a full-bloom pain. Reaching for the tiniest little bottle she thought the drugstore had, she knocked it to the floor and knew that she was going to just die right then.

“Here, you go. Let me help you out with that.” Not only did he get her pill bottle picked up, but he had the little sucker open and was putting an equally tiny pill under her tongue. Almost as soon as it melted, she could feel it working. Trevor even told her that in a minute, if she wasn’t better, he had her a second one, too. LeAnn nearly sobbed. Nobody had been around to help her but the child and she just didn’t know what to say.

Leaning her head back on her chair after getting the second little pill, LeAnn closed her eyes and let the two men argue about the silliest things. At least to her befuddled mind, it seemed like they weren’t making nary a bit of sense. It scared her a bit, feeling this way. She couldn’t leave the child alone, not until she was able to talk to someone about her and why she was hiding her.

LeAnn must have dozed off for a bit there because the next time she opened her eyes, Debra was helping her with a sip or two of water and asking her if she needed another pill. Taking it, just to be sure that everything in her chest was working the way that it was supposed to, she was glad to see that the big man, she couldn’t remember his name at the moment, was on the telephone. Since she knew for a fact that he’d not been on her house phone, LeAnn figured that he had one of them cellular phones that he was using. She looked at Debra when she called out to her.

“That man had the password to make me come up out of the cellar. He said that he was going to call his daddy and get us to a safer place. Are you all right?” She said that she was and that Barkley, his daddy, was her friend. “That man that was here when I went downstairs, he’s fit to be tied standing on the street with the police. They arrested him on account of him having a gun when he was on parole. He sure was powerful upset that Mr. Strong came in and ruined his plans. He didn’t say what they were, but the police hauled him right out of here kicking and screaming about how he was here to get a little girl.”

“I don’t know how he ever thought that you’d not be prepared for someone coming alone, do you, Mrs. J?” She smiled at the nickname, remembering him as a young man when he’d come here with his daddy sometimes. “Dad told me to tell you that he’s sending his best men here to make sure you get out of here all in one piece. Debra here is going to be as safe as we can make her too.”

“They want her on account of them thinking that she knows more than her mother did. You know she’s not my granddaughter, don’t you, son?” He said that he did and that he remembered being around here when she had baked him some chocolate chip cookies. “Yes, I remember that. You sure could eat your weight in them.”

They both laughed, and she felt her heart tensing up a little bit again. Not taking a third pill, she told Debra to make sure that she got her mother’s books from the cellar. While she was down there, she looked at the young man who seemed to know just what she was going to say to him.

“You hang on now. My dad said that you owe him a game of chess.” She said she didn’t know if she could remember how to play now. “An ambulance is coming to get you. Now, don’t you be frightened when they zip you up in one of those body bags, Ms. J. Debra will be in there with you, holding onto you for dear life. Don’t frighten her by doing something sad, all right?”

“I hurt, and I’m old.” He said that he was going to make sure that she got herself some good care. “I know, Trevor, but I’ve only been holding on for the last few years until someone came along and helped me out while caring for little Debra. She’s not a bit of trouble, but I’m ninety years old. My poor old body just can’t hold on too much longer.”

“My dad is going to meet the two of you at the hospital. I know you have things to tell him. Things that the two of you have been putting your heads together about for a long time. Now, you just hang on until then, and everyone will be happy. You’re not going to believe it, Ms. J but my brothers are all married now with babies and children coming along. You have to hang on a bit to see them all. Please?” She cried, and she watched him as fat tears rolled down his own cheeks. Trevor had always been a good boy and she so hated to disappoint him. “Will you at least try for me, please?”

“I’ll try, young man, but I expect you to be there when I’m passing on. I need a young person to hold onto my hand when I’m passing over into the next world. It’ll make me ease into it better whilst I look for my husband. Now that I think on it, he’s been gone longer than we were married. Probably got him a whole lot of women just hanging on his every word.” They both laughed, and she felt another pain rip right through her. “It ain’t gonna be long, Trevor. You make sure that your daddy knows that.”

He said that he would and went to let in the medics. It had been forever since she’d had so many guests in her home, and she didn’t have nary a cookie or cup of coffee to offer them. When they got her onto the gurney, feeling the nice mattress under her worn-out body, they told her that they were going to give her a bit of something that would make her feel a lot better.