Page 9 of Ewing

“Yes. We know that they had a boss, too, the four pieces of shit, I mean. Someone that night they were to take the girls to. But one of them ended up dead before they got to their last place. Liza, one of the girls, was keeping in contact with her sister, and she told her that there was a boss that was going to be pissed off because one of them was dead. The only reason we have that information is because when they gave her the drugs to knock them out, they didn’t count on her being a cougar shifter. Otherwise, there is no telling how long it might well have been before we could have found them. And a great deal more bodies piling up as well. If at all. Also, we’ve had a look around. There isn’t anywhere that we can find where they would have stashed the kids so that Tetters could get them.” She asked if he had a house or something that they could be stashed at. “I think, and this is something that my brother Mark said. He pointed out that Tetters is a lazy fuck and wouldn’t be far from where they’d been killed to dump them. The land that he was dumping them in was in the park. And that area is butted up to my land here. Like close enough that he could…he just recently got him a new truck. I saw it in the lot. So he’s making money off of this. A great deal, too, if I don’t miss my bet.”

He thought of something else. Two of the elderly people who had been in the dumping ground had been unidentified. They’d been on the bottom of the pile of bones, and it was difficult to know who they might have been. Ewing thought for sure that they were the Masons. It would be like him to kill them off for no reason. He decided to reach out to his brothers and tell them what was going on.

“Why are you doing this right now?”It was his brother Gibb who had asked him.“Isn’t your mate right there with you? You should be wooing her, not trying to solve crimes. I understand that this is important, but damn it, Ewing, she’s right there in your house.”

“What did you expect me to do? Huh? Throw her to the floor and have sex with her. I don’t know if you know this or not, but I have a houseful of children who are still trying to get used to having a meal when theywant it. All I need for them to do is walk in on us having sex on the floor.”He told him that he’d watch the kids.“Thanks for that. I might take you up on that sometime, but right now, we’re talking, and I don’t care what it’s about so long as we’re together and not arguing about stuff. And this is important. I think that Tetters tried to take one of my daughters today. If not for the quick thinking of Trinity, I think he might have gotten out the door with one or more of them.”

“Christ, you should have started with that. Are they all right? I can come over if they need their big uncle to care for them.”He told Barron that they’d gone to bed without any idea how close they’d come to being taken from them.“I’m sorry, little brother. You tell us what you have, and we’ll…can we come over? I mean, it’s not that far, and I think that it would help. Hell, we’ll even get some food to bring over.”

In the end they did come over and brought their wives. They were sitting around the dining room table talking about everything pertaining to the case when the sun was just coming up. After making a couple of calls to the Feds about who he thought the elderly couple might have been brought them to his house as well.

He was never so happy to have a cook as he was right now. Even the women, who were usually so vocal about having a good meal, had been set to have donuts for breakfast after spending all night working. Milly, their faerie cook, was thrilled to be able to cook for so many. He was just happy that she didn’t go running out of the house when she showed up to work today.

Everyone went home after helping with the clean-up. The mess they’d made not only in the dining room but the living room as well wasn’t that difficult to clean up because of the magic that everyone seemed to have. Just before Sunny and Dexter left, she asked if she could use a little of her magic to find out where the bodies had been killed.

“I know that with the Feds involved that you have to be careful of how you find out the information. But I know the location now. Also, the people that have bought and paid for the chance to kill someone.” He asked her if that was true that people were paying to kill people. “Yes.”

She didn’t say anymore and he was afraid to ask her for more information. She’d tell him, no doubt, but he wasn’t really ready for it right now. After she sat down, asking him to have a seat, he asked if Trinity needed to be there. Her smile told him it all. She needed to be involved, too.

Once they were seated, tea and crumpets showing up about the time that they were seated, and he and Trinity were holding hands. He was about as nervous as he’d ever been about anything in his life. Terrified as well. This was going to be epic but more like a hurricane rather than good news.

“He is the one in charge. Bert is.” That was all he needed to hear before he could breathe easier. Knowing the enemy was nearly all the battle his grandda used to say. “How he did it was a miracle. The man is ten kinds of stupid. All he’s done to advertise is hand draw an advertisement that says simply ‘anything you want with teenagers. He has about twenty people show up, and they bid on the chance to have whatever kind of fun they want with some teenagers. He’s figured out, through his nephew Vance, that girls were easier to catch as they were tiny and frail.”

“They drugged them then take them in their car someplace, and that’s where you know they’ve been…is it just murder or sex too?” She told him sometimes it was both. “Christ. So, how long do you suppose he’s been doing this?”

“A few months. Right after he killed the Masons because they sold the store to you, he’s been making a living on doing this murder spree with the girls.” He didn’t want to believe that he had anything to do with this and it was Trinity who told him that it wasn’t his fault. “He isn’t getting paid from the store. Doesn’t know how to order things. He hasn’t the first clue either about how to get on the internet and even look things up. He can read the paper online because it was logged in all the time when Mason worked there. I think that we’re lucky in that he knows shit about the internet. If he’d understood even the basics, he would have more deaths on his head because he’d be getting them from more places instead of just locally.”

“Locally?” She nodded and said nothing else. “This is by far worse than anything that I’ve ever encountered. I don’t know what to do with the information that you have. Other than to go to bed and not ever wake up. I…I don’t know what to do? Take a walk? Is it on the Mason’s property?”

“No. Yours.” That made him nearly sick. These killings had been going on right under his nose for the last few—the slap to his face about knocked him off his chair. While he didn’t understand why he’d been hit, he knew better than to retaliate. “It’s not been going on under your nose. Yes, I read your mind. Buck up and figure this out. Otherwise, we’re going to be sitting on information while the bastard is still out there causing the deaths of teenagers all over the fucking town.”

“We should just tell them. Everything.” Sunny asked Trinity how that would work. “I don’t know. I really don’t but sitting on it, that seems like we’re just as guilty as Tetters is. Or…I just thought of this, tell the president. He knows what’s going on here. We should see what he would want us to do with what we know now.”

“I love that idea. He could say something like he had some pictures come back that had what…no, that won’t work. Perhaps he could say that it was an anonymous caller…nope won’t work either. They’d have to be cleared through the system before talking to him, and they’d not have his private number.” Sunny smiled when he had a sudden thought. He didn’t want to think that she planted it there for him to figure out, but he wasn’t going to ask her.

“I was thinking that I should have one of the officers say that they’ve seen something suspicious and checked it out and saw what looked to him like a crime scene. Surely, there will be blood everywhere. And if not, then I can use some of my mojo to make sure that they can think there is.” She winked at him. “You’re very good at keeping your mouth shut when you need to. Aren’t you?

“Yes, that’s it. And I’m not stupid enough to think that I have all the answers.” He loved this idea and when Sunny told him that it was taken care of, he believed her. Now, they had to catch Tetters so that this sort of thing didn’t happen again. “He might leave town in his big new truck. How do you suppose we can keep that from happening?”

“He won’t be able to leave the house.” He didn’t ask. As much as he wanted to know, he didn’t want to know either. “Also, he’s going to have trouble with his truck that makes it so that it won’t run well.”

If it was fixed by Sunny, he had to believe that she had covered their asses as well. Something like this would make national, hell, even worldwide news and he didn’t want to bring his kids into this. Not now that they were beginning to trust people around them. And he had no doubt that it was going to be a shit show.

Getting the kids going this morning was fun. The three youngest of them had been going to preschool to see where their education needed to be. Their studies were sorely lacking, but they were catching up. The two older girls were going to second grade to see what sort of education they were missing. He knew that Patty could read, but not Lily. They’d been working on that nightly since she came to him.

Today was the first time since they’d been staying with him that he got them off on time. It had a great deal to do with having a second pair of hands. Trinity had even been able to fix their hair for them so that it wasn’t just brushed but put into a nice braid that he’d not been able to manage, no matter how many videos he watched.

Billy had his second bottle by the time he was able to make it out to the vineyard. He was a little nervous about leaving the little man with Trinity, but she assured him that she was going to enjoy it. Besides, she had the faeries there so that if she needed anything, they could help her take care of it. She was also going to figure out her job situation with the president so that she could go back and forth to work while he stayed with the kids. If that was something that she wanted to do, she told him before he left.

“I love the kids. As much as I think they like me.” He assured he that if they didn’t like her, they’d tell her. “Oh, good. I think. Anyway, I can work from home most of the time, but I would have to go to DC a few times as well. I don’t know how often but I know that my job depends on me being able to interact with the president personally at times.”

“I don’t even know what it is you do for him.” She told him that she was his go to person when he had to have a talk with one of the people in his office as well as dinners and such. So he’d not sayor do the wrong thing that would get him into hot water over it. “That sounds like a good job. Does he mess up much?”

“Not as much as he used to before I came along. Believe it or not, he would just say things that are now considered to be taboo nowadays. Saying the wrong nationality or even calling someone of color by the wrong culture could and would get him into trouble with entire nations. Also, I’m an attorney.”

“That’s wonderful. I have a vineyard—which is where I’m headed after I take the girls to school. The vineyard is one that I make most of my money with. Actually, I have several of them and sell my wine all over the world.” He laughed. “Not to brag, but it’s been very profitable for us. There is an us now, right?”

“Yes, I’d like that.” She shyly put out her hand, and he took it. Holding it next to his cheek, he inhaled deeply of her scent. “I know that you guys have this thing about it’s my body, and I should decide when we have children, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to hold off on that for a while. Having six kids under the age of nine is a bit much for anyone, I would think.”