Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Around four in the afternoon, a big SUV with tinted glass pulled up to the front, and four people got out. The driver, who looked like a powerlifter with shoulders that could comfortably seat four and no neck that I could see, stood next to the vehicle and didn’t move. He did, however, smile at me when Misha stuck his head out of the sling, let it hang over the side, and yawned. The dog had no care in the world.
“Is cute,” he said with a thick, I was thinking Armenian, accent.
“Thank you.”
The others, a man and two women, began walking over to me. It had rained only briefly, but still, the women, walking in Louboutin pumps, were struggling in dirt that wasn’t quite mud but wasn’t hard and compact either.
“Hold on,” I called out to them and sprinted over. “May I help you?”
“Yes,” the man said. “I’m Franz Farley, Abbot and Cordelia’s son, and Ada is my aunt.”
“Okay.”
Looking unsure, he turned to the women. “This is my wife, Bethany Whitmore-Farley, and our daughter, Eugenia.”
Poor thing. “People call you Genie?” I asked.
“I—no,” she told me, brows furrowed.
I shrugged. “What can I do for you, Mr. Farley?”
“Well, we live in Marin, in California, and when I went to pay some bills yesterday, I was locked out of our account, and so instead of calling, as I can’t ever seem to get the old girl on the phone,” he said, chuckling, “I thought we’d pop up and visit, as we haven’t seen dear Ada in years.”
What that meant was that after noticing he’d been cut off, Mr. Farley had decided to fly over with his family, I was betting in a private jet, and had brought along their chauffeur, who I was guessing doubled as a bodyguard, so he could drive them from Portland to Rune. It was an insane thing to do just to have a discussion that could have easily been done over the phone.
“Okay, well, two days ago Ada hired a new caretaker, they went together to the bank and had everyone removed from the account but Ada, whom the trust belongs to, and her new guy.”
Mr. Farley’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s you, is it?”
“Yessir, it is.”
He sighed, long and dramatic. “Then I guess we’ll finally have to go to court and prove that my aunt is insane and take the money from her,” he announced to his wife and daughter. “At least this way she can go to a home where they can take excellent care of—”
“Good luck with that,” I said coldly. “She hasn’t spent any money from her own trust in years. You and yours have pulled nearly ten million from a trust that was set up specifically for her and no one else, so—”
“Ten?”
I nodded.
“Goddamn, Harry, I told him not to use it for his— Listen, I don’t know who you think you—”
“I’m the caretaker, sir, and as you can see, we’re renovating the house. It needs quite a bit of work, and the money is going to that.”
“Well, I appreciate that, but she’s not in her right mind, and you’re just taking advantage of an old woman who—”
“I’m fixing up the house,” I reiterated. “So with her money, Ada is renovating her home. Please send anyone you want to see and talk to her, but all we have to do is open the books, and anyone will be able to ascertain who was, in fact, taking advantage of her.”
All three were staring at me like I was the devil. And I was, of course, but they didn’t know that. Plus, I was carrying a really cute dog, so how scary could I really be?
Misha gave them a yip, which for whatever reason startled Mrs. Whitmore-Farley. He was no more terrifying than a fluffy bunny.
“Is that all?” I asked Mr. Farley.
“We need to go in the house and look for—”
At which point Sage popped out from the front yard with a yellow snake—some kind of python, I was thinking—draped over his neck. The scary part of that was pythons lived maybe ten years. I only knew that because Stas had collected them, but what that meant was that someone had gotten the pythons and then lost track of them. I had to wonder if people were driving up to Ada’s place and just dropping off animals. I would need to have a gate put up near the road to dissuade the whole dumping-of-God’s-creatures situation.
Sage motioned excitedly to the creature around his neck. “Are you seeing this, Mr. Gorev? Isn’t he a beauty? He’s an albino!”
He was clearly over the moon, so I gave him the thumbs-up.
“Are you sure it’s okay if I take him?”
“All yours, Sage.”
He looked over at one of the guys with him. “Did I not tell you?”
“Dude, seriously, best house ever.”
Eugenia gasped. “There are snakes in the front yard?” she asked, as if the situation was belatedly sinking in.