Caleb 66 – Revenge

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I’d gone into the other suite, leaving the girls, since I routinely went to bed before they did. I didn’t want to force my bedtime on them and they, in turn, didn’t want to keep me awake doing what they were doing.

We called down to reception and had all the trash removed from unpacking all of the various purchases that had been made that day. The maids had also been in and made up the beds and cleaned the rooms while we’d been out.

That thought reminded me that we’d have to buy new towels. I didn’t think Amanda and the girls would have thought about that when they’d been out on their buying spree. That could wait until we found a house. I was chafing that the realtor hadn’t gotten back to me. I’d though that their office was open on a Saturday. Sundays, I’d noted from the website, was for viewings only.

The other thing, well actually the primary thing, that was keeping me awake was the fact that I’d recognized one of the arsonists that had attacked our house. It was obvious to me who had given the order, although I still did need to exclude one possibility. I would do that in the morning. It wouldn’t take more than an hour. I could finish up some other business while I was there too. It was a niggle but I wanted to put it to bed.

I centred myself, using a meditation technique to clear my mind, and allowed myself to slide off into sleep.

When four o’clock came around, I found I was once more surrounded by girls. The bed was a king, but there was hardly a spare inch of space. Sarah once again had joined us, but was snuggled up between the twins, behind me, while Ness was sandwiched between Jules and Melanie, who I was spooning.

I slid out of bed, Melanie being the only one who woke. She still had the habit of the street and woke up at the slightest movement.

“Go back to sleep,” I told her.

“I should train,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Take a break,” I said. “There’s plenty of time.”

She didn’t take much convincing and settled down again putting her arm around Ness who, in her sleep, snuggled back into the older girl’s embrace.

I rode the elevator down to the first floor and exited the hotel. The valet jumped up, surprised to see anyone out at this time. It took less than ten minutes for him to bring my truck out to me.

Walter Greenwood’s house was about fifty minutes drive away and, given it was early Sunday morning, the roads were clear. I didn’t see a single car for the first thirty minutes.

I arrived in the Greenwood’s neighbourhood just after five. I’d have less time than I thought although, it being Sunday, I doubted that many people would be up and about this early. The kind of workers that got up at that time didn’t live in this kind of neighborhood.

I parked my truck a few blocks away and jogged down the sidewalk towards their house, noting that all the properties around were in darkness. A quick scan of the surrounding area showed that there were a couple of dogs, but they were also asleep inside. It seemed everyone was slumbering.

Stopping as if to tie my shoelace, I scanned Walter Greenwoods home. There were three minds in there. Two together in a bed, I figured were Walter and his wife, and the other would have been Trevor.

I found which of the two in the double was Walter and slid into his sleeping mind.

It was definitely him that had set us up for the baseball bat attack. At the time he’d tried to attack me, and I’d tripped him into his car, he’d called his lawyer, Knight. Knight had told him to call the police and report the assault. He told him to ask for a particular captain in the department and he’d make sure the right officers were sent out to deal with it.

After that hadn’t worked, Greenwood had spoken to Knight once more, and they had decided I needed to be put in my place. Of course, actions like that didn’t come cheap and Greenwood had paid Knight twenty thousand to arrange the beating.

After yet another failure, Greenwood told Knight that he wasn’t going to spend any more money and that the responsibility for dealing with me was Knight’s. He didn’t order the torching of our house, but there was certainly the implication that something more was going to happen. He’d left it in Knight’s hands as to what.

I searched Greenwood’s mind for something that I could use to get my revenge. When I was done, I had found more than enough but wasn’t sure exactly how to utilize the information. I decided to hold off for now and discuss it with the girls. They had been equally affected and should have a say in the retribution.

It was just after six by the time I’d returned to the Nines. I handed my keys to the valet and he took my truck away. I decided to go for a run.

The girls had ordered breakfast by the time I got back to the room about ninety minutes later. Mary looked at me as I entered, indicating a covered plate which they had saved for me.

“I thought you’d be back sooner,” she said. “It’s probably cold.”

I grinned at her. “I decided to go snooping,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it in a minute.”

After a quick shower I returned to the room and, with the bacon from the breakfast and a couple of slices of bread, made myself a sandwich. I sat down to eat as the girls watched me expectantly.

“Well?” asked Ness impatiently. “Where exactly did you go snooping?”

“I went and had a look at Walter Greenwood,” I said.

“Did he burn our house down?” asked Sarah.

“Not directly,” I said, “nor did he order it burned down. He did order the thugs with baseball bats. When that didn’t work, he just told Knight to ‘do something’ but he didn’t specify what.”

“Then what are we going to do about him?” asked Ness. “We can’t go to the police, we have no evidence.”

“I was thinking of something a little more circumspect.” I said with a predatory grin. I went on to explain what I had found when I’d plundered Greenwood’s mind. He had a lot of secrets, many of which, if they came to light, could see him ruined, and probably imprisoned for a long time.

“First,” I said, “that tax loophole that Trevor mentioned. Aside from that, there is a lot that the IRS would be very interested to find out about. If they were to get their claws into him, I have no doubt that life would become very uncomfortable.

“Then there are the clients he’s been ripping off. I’m sure that the SEC would be interested to hear about that. Not to mention the clients themselves. He’s skimmed literally millions from his clients over the last ten years. I’ve no doubt that they will each want their pound of flesh.”

“We need to be a little careful about that,” said Mary. “We don’t want an irate client taking matters into his own hands. While I’m more than happy to see him go down, I don’t want us to be responsible for his death.”

I thought about that for a few minutes. Mary was right. Dianna had told me that Knight represented some people I didn’t want to tangle with. If Greenwood and Knight worked together, how many clients did they share? Had Greenwood been stupid and greedy enough to skim from people who would be likely to take more direct action when showing their displeasure?

“Stick to the IRS,” said Jules. “They will cause him more than enough problems. He’ll lose a lot of money, and probably spend some time in jail. He may even lose his trading license as well.”

“Makes sense,” said Amanda. “If any of his more dubious clients find out what he’s been up to, it won’t be because of us. But I still don’t see how we are going to do this. No matter what we know, we still don’t have any proof.”

“He does,” said Sarah. “Perhaps he could get an attack of ‘conscience’ and decide to turn himself in?”

All eyes turned to Sarah, and she looked around self-consciously. “What?” she asked.

In the end we decided that would be our course of action, but not yet. We needed to find out more about Knight, and decide what to do about him, before we did anything about Greenwood.

Since it was Sunday, there was little that could be done about Knight. Greenwood didn’t know where he lived and, therefore, neither did I.

We spent the rest of the day doing what we would normally do on a Sunday; catching up with schoolwork and just spending time together. For dinner, we decided to go out to a local Italian restaurant. That brought back memories of my first ‘date’ with Ness, although there hadn’t been quite so many people there that time. Josh and Louise had come with us, but Gracie and Dana hadn’t come back from viewing the apartments they’d gone to see. I presumed they were getting some dinner while they were out.

I lay in bed that night, reflecting on what I wanted to do the next day. I needed to take the gun safes to a locksmith and see if they could be opened. I wanted to see if anything inside had survived. I’d been told by the fire officer that he didn’t think that they would, given the heat of the fire, but I’d also been told by others that they should have.

I also wanted to swing by Knight’s office again. This time, however, I wasn’t going in. I needed more information before we could decide exactly what to do about him.

The next morning, I saw the girls off to their respective days and then started my errands for the day. Neither Josh and Louise, nor Gracie and Dana, had come up to our room. Although I didn’t see any particular reason for them to do so, I still felt a little sad that we seemed, even in such short amount of time, to be drifting apart. I figured that would resolve with Josh and Louise when we moved into our new house, wherever that would be, but Gracie and Dana? Were they going to drift out of our lives now? I hoped not.

I started at the locksmith, feeling incredibly foolish, when he opened both safes in a matter of seconds.

“Just because the biometric or digital locks are damaged,” he said, “doesn’t mean the safe is trash. These have a key override, which I was able to use to open them.”

He opened my safe first and, despite the appearance of the outside of the safe, the inside looked exactly as it had when I’d last opened it to put my Glock in. Everything looked perfect. I lifted both of the weapons out and examined them. They looked fine. I’d strip them and give them a good cleaning later to be certain. I grinned at the locksmith, happy that Dean’s present hadn’t been ruined.

Gracie’s weapon was equally undamaged and, after leaving the locksmiths shop, having purchased two new safes from the same manufacturer, went to the FBI office to return it to her.

“I got you a new safe as well,” I said, “since I was there. It’s in my truck.”

“I’ll grab it later,” she said. “Can we talk tonight?”

“I have my flying lesson,” I said. “I’ll be going out probably before you get back to the hotel. I won’t be back until ten-ish.”

“Is that too late?” she asked.

“Not for me,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll come up about ten.”

I smiled at her. I figured I knew what it was about, but chose neither to peek nor to press. I’d let her, or them, tell us in their own time.

A half hour later I was sitting in my truck in a public parking lot a block from the offices of Knight and Temple. I was trying to decide what the best way forward was.

I needed more information but was uncertain of the best way to go about it. I’d been rash to have gone into their offices and announce myself. I’d thought myself so clever, letting Knight know that I knew, although, even so, I thought the reaction disproportionate. Yes, I’d caused him to tail end a patrol car but there was no way he could have known that I’d caused that. Even if he’d seen me in his rearview, he couldn’t have recognized me or known about the power I used to crash his Porsche.

I thought back to the memory I’d taken from Tom Pritchard. I recalled the face of the man who’d taken off his ski mask as he’d driven away, not knowing he’d been observed. It was the face I was currently looking at as he stood in line at the coffee cart on the street a half block away.

Ray Purcell was a security guard at Knight’s office. He’d worked there for five years and really enjoyed it. The work was easy with each day spent strolling around the office complex, flirting with the very pretty interns, and watching the monitors in the security control room. The extra ‘little jobs’ he did for Knight made him good money and also gave him some status in the small pond in which he swam.

Purcell was also a gym rat and spent a good portion of his life in his local gym. He  fancied himself as a MMA fighter, although he’d never really made the grade. His only serious fight had seen him laid out cold in under three minutes.  He was a bully that never missed an opportunity to use his size to intimidate.

The coffee cart was busy and the line was quite long. Purcell was in no hurry as he seemed to be making progress with the young woman, next to him in line, who he was currently working his ‘charm’ on.

I examined his memories.

I saw him getting the call from Knight telling him to escort me out of the building. I heard Knight say that he wouldn’t be unhappy if I were to ‘trip’ on the way out. I was a snot nosed kid who didn’t know who I was playing with. I saw his frustration when he’d tried to grab me to escort me out and I’d sidestepped him.

I also saw him take another call later the same day. Knight had gone out for a lunch appointment and come back in a foul mood. He’d somehow managed to crash his Porsche and, although he’d been able to smooth things over with the police via his contacts, the repairs to his car were going to cost him a packet. Knight had seen me in the car behind him and, although there was no damage to the rear of his car, he was convinced that I’d pushed him into the police car. He’d said as much to the officers but, since there wasn’t a mark on the back of his vehicle, they hadn’t believed him.

He told Purcell that I needed to be taught a lesson, and Purcell was very happy to be able to oblige.

Purcell hadn’t been given specific instructions as to what to do, so he’d organized his ‘team’ to go and torch the house.

When he arrived, the house was in darkness. He assumed nobody was home, although he didn’t bother to check, and simply went ahead with the plan setting fire to the house and then speeding away free and clear.

Knight had been very pleased with the result and had paid Purcell a bonus. Since I was in Purcell’s mind, I also got Knight’s address along with the details of all the others who’d been involved in torching our house.

The woman who Purcell had been chatting to had been responding positively to his charm, and was in the process of taking out her phone to take his number.

It was childish, I know, but I couldn’t resist. Harking back to the day I’d first spoken to Mary, I remembered what I’d done to Todd and pushed the compulsion on Purcell.

I heard the noise, even from my distance, as Purcell let loose with the wettest noisiest and most obnoxious bout of mixed flatulence and diarrhoea I’d heard for some time. All the people in the line at the coffee cart, and even the employee behind the cart, scattered as the foul miasma produced enveloped them. A stain could be seen spreading down the legs of Purcell’s light grey uniform pants.

I grinned to myself as I started my truck and pulled out of the parking lot, heading back to the hotel.

When I arrived for my flying lesson later that afternoon Arnie wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Danny was waiting by the plane as I walked out to the tarmac. I looked around.

“No Arnie?” I asked.

“He’s away,” he said. “He’s finishing up his instructor certifications. All being well he should be clear to instruct by the end of next week.”

I nodded and we started running through the external checks on the plane.

“I heard about what happened,” he said as we worked through the list. “I’m sorry about the house.”

I shrugged. “Nobody was hurt,” I said. “It’s just a lot of inconvenience now.”

“Do you know who did it?” he asked.

“Not really,” I lied. “We had a run in with Sarah’s ex, but it seems a little extreme for him. We have an FBI agent living with us, and I also do some work for them, so it could be anyone really. The FBI has been looking into it, but they don’t have any idea either.”

We climbed into the cockpit and started the preflight.

Once we were airborne, Danny looked at me.

“Is Sarah’s ex trouble?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said. “He’s a spoiled child who didn’t like Sarah dumping him. He’ll get bored and move onto something else, I’m sure.”

He nodded to himself. “Arnie and Sarah seemed to get on well at his party,”

I laughed.

“Is that what you call it?” I asked. “She’s talked about nothing else since. She even asked if she could come along when Arnie is instructing me.”

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I said I didn’t know if it would be allowed,” I responded.

“We normally don’t mind,” he said. “It’s sometimes good to have passengers so you can get the feel of how the aircraft handles with more weight on board. I’m not so sure it would be a good idea in this case though and, were it anyone else, I would probably say no. You don’t want your instructor distracted. Since we’re just going through the motions with you, though, I don’t see any harm in it.”

“I’ve only got three more instructor lessons in any case,” I said. “After that its my cross country and solo work.”

He nodded. “Which reminds me, I have a line on an aircraft that you could use for your additional certifications. Its twin engine, complex, and high powered so it would take you through a lot of the extras you need. It’s an old buddy of mine who has a flight school in Nevada. He’s grounded just now following surgery and won’t be able to fly for at least the rest of the year. The rental is good, but the plane’s in Nevada.

“What I was thinking is that you and Arnie could fly down there, giving you some more stick time, and Arnie some more instruction time. Then he could bring the other plane back, and you could use the journey back as some of your solo cross country flight hours. That journey will give you the time you need. What do you think?”

“How much will the rental on the plane be?” I asked.

“I have other work lined up for it,” he said. “Once Arnie is up and running, we’re going to be able to take more students. It will increase the cost of your lessons, but not as much as you think.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said grinning at him. “When?”

“Saturday after next?” he suggested, “That will get most of your instructor time out of the way. You can finish up on the trip down there, and run your solo flight on the way back. And since you’re effectively doing me a favour, by helping bring back the other aircraft, I wont charge you for the return trip. If you didn’t do it, then we’d have to fly down and get it ourselves. Obviously, it depends on conditions on the day, and you’ll need to plan your flight beforehand.”

I nodded. “Sounds good,” I said, happy to be getting these milestones out of the way. That flight would mark pretty much halfway to getting my PPL. I still had a lot to do, but I was making progress. As usual, the lesson itself was completely uneventful. By the time we landed, I was ready to get back to our temporary home.

Gracie and Dana were waiting in our suite when I arrived back after my lesson. I’d stopped and grabbed a burger on the way. I had told the girls earlier in the evening that they shouldn’t wait for me to eat.

It was just after ten that I arrived back at the hotel.

Dana stood and came to give me a hug as I entered the suite, kissing me on the cheek.

“Hey Caleb,” she said as she guided me over to the sofa, where Gracie was already seated. I took a seat between them. All the other girls were either on the chairs, lounging on the bed or on the floor.

I looked at Dana and then turned to look at Gracie.

“When?” I asked Gracie, breaking the ice. I knew full well what they wanted to say, but despite knowing I knew, they were still finding it difficult.

“We put the deposit down on one of the apartments we saw yesterday,” said Gracie. “They are doing their due diligence, but all things being equal, we should be able to move in this weekend.

I smiled at her. “Congratulations.” I turned to Dana smiling at her too. “It will be good for you guys to have your own space. It’s been really great having you stay with us, but I’m happy for you.”

“You’re sure?” asked Dana looking a little uncertain. “After all you guys have done for us, we kind of feel bad.”

“Don’t” I said. “Like I said. It’s been really great having you stay with us, but we’re all growing up. We can’t live in a frat house for the rest of our lives. Honestly, I’m really pleased that you found somewhere. I guess in some ways the fire moved things along, giving you the impetus you needed?”

“Kind of,” said Gracie. “What’s more interesting is that, although it was a watershed for me, it was even more so for Dana. All of her ‘boy’ stuff was burned up in the fire. All her clothes, and everything she had here from her old life, is gone. Even the computer with that stupid ID on it is gone.”

“You never uploaded that to the cloud?” I asked. Dana shook her head.

“It’s a fresh start for us both,” continued Gracie, “and so it just made sense that we should take the step and get our own place.”

“You’re going to come over for dinner sometimes?” asked Ness looking at the pair. There were tears in her eyes. Gracie had lived with us for as long as Ness had, and she’d come to love her almost as much as she had the other girls. Dana too.

“Does this mean,” asked Jules, “We’re having a ‘going away party?’”

“I think we should,” said Amanda, “how about Friday Night?”

Arrangements were made for us all to go out on Friday night, and I caught an undercurrent of plotting between Gracie and Amanda. I didn’t peek but I figured I knew what that was all about.

“Did you find out anything more about Knight,” asked Jules after Gracie and Dana had left.

“I found out where he lives,” I said. “And I’m going to take a run past his place in the morning.”

I went on to describe what I’d learned from Purcell about the others in the gang, and what I’d done to him in the coffee line. Strangely, none of them laughed. I expected them to find it funny but nobody did. If anything, there was a feeling that he’d deserved far worse and a feeling of disappointment that I hadn’t done more.

“Don’t worry,” I said to them all. “I’m not finished with him yet. Once I’ve got the information I need from Knight, we’ll make a plan. None of them are going to mess with us ever again.”

Four thirty the next morning found me outside of Knight’s house. Knight lived in a gated community, with a high surrounding wall and a manned security booth at the entrance. I’d run along the side of the wall and then, with a little TK push, had hopped over it. I was currently kneeling in shrubbery at the side of his house, invisible in the darkness.

I’d originally intended to get closer but could see security cameras mounted all throughout the community. I contented myself in my current position almost against the outside wall. I could still scan inside of Knight’s house and find the minds within.

There were five people in the house.

Knight slept alone. His wife slept in an adjoining room. They had two young children in a shared bedroom and a live in Au-pair who slept in a room next to the children’s bedroom. I found out that the Au-pair was sleeping with both Knight and his wife, but separately. Both knew that the other was sleeping with the girl but they ignored it. So far they hadn’t all slept together.

Knight was as dirty as they came. I’d been told that he represented some powerful people and he did. Some of those people were not people that I’d want to mess with. We’d need to be very circumspect in how we went about taking Knight down. There was plenty to use. He wasn’t just screwing his Au-pair; financially he’d been screwing his clients, his partner, and just about everyone else he came into contact with. Even Walter Greenwood, whom he’d represented for a number of years, had suffered losses to him.

He was very careful though, never taking too much, never dipping his beak too deeply into any one pot, but the cumulative effect was that he’d amassed quite a considerable amount of money. He lived very high off the hog, but he’d also been salting away funds, moving money from clients and his practice, to an offshore account which even his wife knew nothing about.

He had long term plans and those didn’t include his current family. His caution and patience had served him well though. Nobody even suspected that he’d been stealing from just about everyone he’d dealt with, from his clients to his business partner. His last check of his Caymen Island account showed a balance of over fifty million amassed over the last ten years. He’d planned to double it in the next five to seven years and then move on. He’d be in his mid forties and he had plans to travel and enjoy the rest of his life.

“We definitely need to take that from him,” said Ness at the ‘war council’ we had after school that day.

I’d laid out all the information I had on all of the people involved in burning our house down.

I was happy to note that Levi Green had not been at all involved, nor had he contacted Knight to let him know that I’d been to his office. In fact, Knight was a little put out with Green. He’d tried to call Green a couple of times already and each time his secretary had told him that Green wasn’t available. It appeared that Green was distancing himself.

There were the five men who’d been each paid a thousand dollars to do the deed, in addition to Purcell. Purcell had pocketed five thousand for the job, claiming to his ‘friends’ that he was splitting the fee for the job equally between them.

There was Purcell himself to be dealt with. It was Ness that came up with the beginnings of an idea of how to punish them. We spent some time discussing it until we’d hashed out the details.

Then there was Knight. We’d have to be more careful with him. We could let people know what he’d been up to, in one way or another, but given his clientele, that could very likely get him killed. The kind of people he represented weren’t the kind of people to complain to the State Bar if they found out their lawyer had been ripping them off.

Obviously, we were going to take his money, although I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with it once we had.

Finally, Trevor’s dad was also someone we would have to be careful with. Again, since he had clients referred to him by Knight, for a fee, he also had been stealing from the same people. If they found out, Greenwood was as likely to turn up dead as go to prison.

“I think our original plan for Greenwood,” said Mary, “could be equally effective on Knight.”

“IRS,” I said nodding. “That would work. We could provide the IRS with enough information and proof to take them both down without any of their clients being involved. It was a given that people would try and get away with paying as little tax as possible, so it would be almost expected that they would be doing it too. If the IRS just happened to get an anonymous tip, and investigated…”

“I have enough knowledge from the pair,” I said, “to give the IRS enough to put them both away for a very long time and seize just about everything they own. Since nobody knows about Knight’s nest egg, they won’t be looking for that. Greenwood has a little money salted away, but nothing like the amount that Knight does.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mary said. “So how do we ‘tip’ the IRS?”

Jules grinned evilly and outlined the idea that had just occurred to her.

++++++

That night, Ray Purcell walked out of the bar he’d called into on his way home from work. It was late and he’d been the last to leave. That wasn’t unusual. The bar wasn’t exactly on his way home but he liked it. It had become his ‘local’ and he often went in for an after work drink.

He walked down the alley at the side to access the parking lot. The alley wasn’t well lit, but it was clean and dry. It was short and as he emerged from it, into the parking lot, he noticed someone standing by his car.

That was when he realized that the side window of his car was smashed. The guy standing by it appeared to be urinating, through the smashed window, into his vehicle. He shouted.

“Hey,”

I turned to look at him, and grinned, finishing off and tucking myself away before turning to face him.

“You!” he said. “You little fucker. I’m going to make you lick all of that up, glass and all.”

He ran at me fists flailing.

I sidestepped, exactly as I had with Greenwood, leaving a trailing foot and tripping him. He stumbled and fell across the hood of his car.

Stepping away a little, I waited for him to gather himself and turn to face me.

“You’re going to regret messing with me,” he said. “I’m going to break you into pieces.”

I sighed, already bored with the monolog.

Purcell squared up, assuming what he seemed to think was a fighting stance. He bounced in place, his fists up like a boxer. Then he snapped a kick at me.

I didn’t even need to move. He was so far away that there was no way that that was going to land. He smiled grimly.

“That’s right,” he said. “I’m MMA, and I’m going to make you suffer.”

He moved forward, setting his feet ready for a move, but in that moment I moved. I snapped out a fist catching him squarely on the nose, breaking it. He staggered back, his hands going to his face and coming away covered in blood.

To his credit he didn’t scream out as I thought he would. He just growled and flung himself at me.

A huge roundhouse came in, which I ducked under, and I planted a fist into his liver once, then again. He grunted in pain and swung again, this time with the other hand. I swayed back allowing his fist to pass my face and then pushed his arm across, using his own momentum to turn him so his back was almost to me. I then planted my foot against his ass and pushed him away. He staggered but didn’t go down.

Purcell was panting now, unable to breathe through his broken nose and holding his side where I’d hit him. He spat a gob of blood onto the floor, glaring at me all the while. For myself I just stood, watching him, waiting for him to make his next move. I wasn’t in any hurry.

It took him a couple of minutes to gather himself, but he eventually straightened assuming his stance again. This time though, it was more of a martial arts stance rather than boxing. His feet were planted firmly, nor was he bouncing.

He moved toward me and I took up my own stance. He tried a jab, but I blocked it easily. He tried again, with the same result. For now, I was content to let him come to me. I simply stood there letting him make his moves and either blocked or dodged his attacks. Another jab blocked, followed by a front kick which I sidestepped. He lunged at me, hoping to grapple, but I chose not to engage. I simply stepped aside once again and used his own momentum to trip him to the floor.

He scrambled to his feet immediately and flew at me, all pretence of a fighting style gone, hoping to overwhelm me with his bulk and fury. I blocked four punches in quick succession and then struck, my fist catching him perfectly in the solar plexus, winding him. He staggered back and I followed up punching him once again in his liver. Purcell collapsed to his knees, wheezing and croaking.

I stepped up on him and he threw his arm up to protect his head.

I wasn’t going to hit him in the head. That was a sure way to break my hand. Instead, I grabbed his arm extending the elbow, and then brought my own elbow down on the back of it. The crack of the bone snapping was drowned out by his scream of pain.

He fell to the floor sobbing in pain and cradling his injured arm.

This was not the first time I’d deliberately broken someone’s arm to prove a point. Idly I thought back to Jasper and the time I’d broken his arm. And that was for threatening just one of my girls. This guy had attacked all of them.

“You set fire to my house,” I told him. “Any one of the women I love could have been inside there. You never even bothered to check. You could have killed them.”

With that, I stomped down hard on his leg, shattering his kneecap. He screamed again.

“Either of my sisters could have been in the house,” I went on, working myself up further. “Sarah is only eighteen. What did she do to deserve that? You could have killed her.”

I stomped again, his other kneecap shattering beneath my foot. He didn’t have the breath to scream, collapsing to his back, retching up a mix of alcohol, bile, and blood as he lay sobbing pitifully on the ground.

“Melanie,” I continued almost shouting, “has been abused all her life. I promised to take care of her and you almost took her away from me.”

I grabbed his other arm, dragging it away from his broken one and twisting it, and snapped his wrist.

Purcell was now crying and blubbering on the floor, his face a mess of blood, and his eyes almost closed by the swelling.

I crouched down where he lay, broken and bleeding, on the alley floor. Despite his screams nobody had come to see what the noise was about. This wasn’t the best area of the city and there was often a lot of stuff going on that normal, decent folk didn’t want to involve themselves in. It wasn’t that unusual to hear gunshots. People rarely reported them anymore, not in this neighborhood.

“You could have killed my friends,” I told him, my rage abating a little, “or even me.”

I reached behind me and pulled out my CQB, pulled the slide back, and chambered a round.

“I had thought,” I said, “that I’d be satisfied with giving you a beating. But now I’m not sure. You see, you’re the kind of stupid that will make excuses. You’ll tell yourself that I caught you by surprise, that I sucker punched you, and that if I’d only fought you fair, you’d have kicked my ass.

“That means that you’ll crawl away into your hole, until you heal, and then you’ll come at me again. I can’t be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, waiting for shit like you to take a cheap shot at me or mine. You won’t even have the balls to come at me. You’ll come at one of my girls, or a friend of mine.

“So I think it’s best all round if I just end it now. I’ve sated my rage. Now I need to make sure you’re not going to take a shot at my family.”

I brought the CQB up until it was pointing directly at his face and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed around the alley.

+++++++++++++++

Purcell woke from his nightmare, his bed soaked where he’d peed in his terror, sweat pouring off him. Quickly, he checked himself, feeling his arms and legs, pressing his hands to his face. Everything was okay and, other than lying in a puddle, he was perfectly fine.

He thought back to his dream, the picture of me, causing such a fear reaction he actually peed again.

I put my truck into gear and drove off. It was about a mile to the next guy’s house and it was after midnight. The illusion dream had only taken about ten minutes to play out so I had plenty of time, but I wanted to get the others done. I still had to go and deal with Knight and Greenwood before my night would be over.

By the time I reached Greenwood’s house, there were six, terrified, enuretic men too scared to even climb out of bed to clean themselves up. None of them would be able to even think about me or my family without quaking with fear.

By the time I’d left Greenwood’s neighborhood, he was sitting in his home office, typing furiously.

I’d thought to have him write a confession, detailing all of his misdeeds to the IRS, providing proof so that they would know exactly what he’d been up to. Jules, however, had been slightly more Machiavellian. Instead of turning himself in, Greenwood was tipping the IRS off about Knight. Given the knowledge I’d taken from Knight, I was able to give him access to all the evidence he needed to present to them. While he was in there, I also had him transfer all of Knight’s money from his Cayman Islands account. Several local and national charities benefitted from hefty donations. His final email was to Knight’s partner, informing him of how Knight was stealing from him.

Once he was done, I sent him back to bed with absolutely no memory of what he’d just done. While the emails were anonymous, he’d made no attempt to hide his trail, not even using a VPN. It would be child’s play for anyone who was interested to track it back to him.

I then moved on to Knight, who reciprocated Greenwood’s actions and gave all kinds of information to the IRS about Greenwood, his client. He then, for thoroughness, reported himself to the state bar for breach of attorney client privilege. He too went back to bed, completely forgetting his nocturnal activities.

It was just after two when I arrived back at the hotel. For once all my girls were still up, waiting to hear the results of my nights activities.

“All done,” I said. “I’ll be amazed if any of them even thinks about us ever again.”

“How did the illusions go?” asked Amanda.

“As expected,” I said, “every single one of them peed themselves. One didn’t just pee.”

“Eww,” said Sarah wrinkling her nose.

“Is that it then?” asked Melanie. “Is it done?”

“I think so,” I said. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground to check on results, but I think those who wronged us have been punished.”

I looked from girl to girl. They were all satisfied. At first there had been some discussion as to whether what we were planning was proportionate to what they’d done to us, but that was quickly discarded.

They’d burned our house down, without a thought as to the potential people that could have been inside. They had no way of knowing that none of us, nor Gracie and Dana, nor Josh or Louise were in the house. It was pure good fortune that the house had been completely empty.

Not only that, either of our neighbors could have been burned out, or someone could have attempted a rescue and got injured or killed. Their complete lack of regard for any of the lives that could have been lost in the fire meant that they deserved everything that they got.

What’s more, none of it could be traced back to us.

Yes, I’d done things I shouldn’t, but I’d met Maggie’s criteria. I’d not been caught.

The next morning, I rewarded myself with a lie-in. It had been nearly three by the time I had gotten to bed and so when I woke at four, I didn’t even get up to pee. I simply closed my eyes and went straight back to sleep.

I was woken up just after seven by my phone ringing.

I pulled it to me from the charging dock and looked at the screen. E.

“Morning,” I said a little sleepily as I answered. “Is everything alright?”

“Did I wake you?” he asked. “Sorry, you said that you were up at four every morning. I thought…”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I had a late night, but I was due to get up in a few minutes anyway. What’s up?”

“I just heard about the fire,” he said. “James told me that you were all okay, but I wanted to check in.”

“We’re all good,” I said. “The house is completely gone though.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” he asked. “Do you know who it was?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we meet up,” I told him.

“So where are you going to live?” he asked. “Are you going to rebuild?”

“We’re looking for a place,” I said. “And yes. Once all the insurance is sorted out we’re going to rebuild.”

“Well,” he said. “I don’t know what Connie or I could do, but I wanted you to know that if there’s anything you guys needed, then you just need to call.”

“Thanks E,” I said. “As it happens, I was going to give you a call in any case. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh yes?” he asked.

“It’s not urgent,” I said, “I was hoping to find a place to stay soon. How about when we do, you and Connie come over for dinner and we can talk then?”

“Sounds good,” he said. “Let me know. Obviously, I’ll have to discuss it with my secretary.”

I laughed. “Tell Connie ‘hi’ from us,” I said.

“I will,” he replied. “Stay safe.” He ended the call.

Since I had my phone in my hand, I checked my emails, happy to see that I’d finally had a reply from the realtor about the house on Bob’s street. They had a slot at six the next day for us to go and see it if that would work for us.

Since all the girls were now awake, having been woken by my phone, I asked them. They all agreed, and I replied to the email.

It was while I was in the shower, luxuriating in the attention I was receiving from Jules who was busy washing my back, that I realized that Sarah was still sleeping with us. In point of fact, we were almost wasting the money on the second suite because, even though having the second room was nice, and I could go to bed earlier than the girls as I was used to doing, I’d invariably wake up surrounded by all of them, Sarah included.

I mentioned it to Jules.

“She feels safe in with us,” Jules replied. “The fire spooked her. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but your autonomic nervous system hasn’t played up even once. Even when you’ve woken up with her draped over you.”

I considered that “Hmmm,” I said. “That’s true. What’s going to happen when we get our new place. Is she going to go back to sleeping alone?”

“Probably not,” said Jules. “Maybe, if and when Arnie stays over she’ll sleep with him, but on other nights, I suspect she’ll want to bunk in with us.”

“I also think,” she said, “given that, we ought to look into getting a bigger bed.”

“Is there a bigger bed? Ours was a Wyoming king, I thought that was the biggest. Are we going to have to get a custom build?”

“There is a bigger one,” she replied. “An Alaskan King. It’s nine feet square, the Wyoming king was only seven feet wide.”

“We’ll have to see what size the rooms are in the house to see if we can get one before we rebuild. Otherwise, we might have to make do until we can.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” she said.

The rest of the day passed without incident. I hadn’t heard anything regarding Knight or Greenwood, but I wasn’t really expecting to this early. I thought that the IRS might take a few days to evaluate the information they’d been sent before acting. Since the two people concerned had no memory of what they had done, there was no rush. They would carry on with their lives without concern until the hammer fell. As far as they were concerned, we had been well and truly put in our place and they put us out of their mind.

Purcell and his team wouldn’t be telling anyone about the dreams that they had had, nor would they be in any hurry to come anywhere near us again.

Thursday evening, we went to look at the house on Bob’s street. All the girls had pretty much decided this was going to be our new home until our house was rebuilt. I’d also asked Marcia to come along and look over the house to make sure there were no problems with it that we needed to know about. I wasn’t averse to spending some money on the new house, but I wasn’t about to buy a lemon either.

The realtor’s eyes widened when so many people turned up together.

“Mr. Stott?” she said as I walked up the driveway toward the front door.

“Caleb,” I said smiling at her. She shook my hand, uncertainly.

“I’m Veronica Sykes,” she said.

“Would you like me to take you around, or would you prefer to just take a look yourselves?”

“We’ll just look around if that’s okay,” I said. “Then if we have any questions we can ask at the end.”

“That’s fine,” she said.

“First question first,” I said. “Is this property in a HOA?”

“No,” she said. “Most of the houses on the streets are rental properties.”

“Perfect,” I said.

We went into the house. Both Ness and I went straight to the kitchen. It was nowhere near the size of the kitchen in our old house, but it was big enough and had a six burner stove and a high level built-in oven and grill.

The living area was a combined living and dining room that would be large enough for a ten place dining table as well as seating for eight in the living area. There was a half bathroom off the kitchen. There was also a study which wasn’t huge, but big enough.

“Would this work for you as a workshop?” I asked Jules, and she grinned at me.

“I was just thinking the exact same thing,” she said. “I could put a bench there, and…” she went on to describe how she’d equip the room.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, two with ensuites, and a family bathroom.

The master bedroom was easily as big as ours and I was certain the big bed would fit with space to spare.

I sighed.

“Only two of the rooms having ensuites might be a problem,” I said to the girls.

“Not really,” said Louise, “If we took this room, we’re right next to the bathroom in any case. It’s not a huge deal.”

“You only offered because you love wandering around the house naked,” said Amanda. “That would be the ideal excuse.”

Louise grinned at her but didn’t deny it.

“What do you think Sarah?” I asked indicating the second of the bedrooms with the ensuite. “Will that be okay for you?”

Sarah looked at me, a complicated look on her face.

“Yes,” she said eventually. “That would be great.” There wasn’t a great deal of enthusiasm in her words.

I decided to leave it for now and talk to her later, or perhaps see if one of the girls could find out what the issue was.

While we were walking around, Marcia had taken herself on her own tour, and eventually met up with us in the entry hall. She had a notepad on which she’d made a few notes.

“On the whole,” she said, “not bad.  There are a few little niggles, but they shouldn’t cost that much to put right. If you spent maybe five thousand on the place, it would be worth the asking price.”

I looked at the realtor.

“How flexible is the seller on price?” I asked.

“There’s already been an offer made,” she said, not actually answering the question. I saw from her mind that the offer was, actually, nearly fifty thousand below the asking price. The problem for most people coming to view the property was the area. It was full of students and people didn’t want to live in the midst of students. They made noise, were rowdy, and had parties. The only people interested in buying were those who wanted to buy the property to rent out to those very students. Because of that, they wanted to get the property cheaper and weren’t willing to pay the kind of money that someone looking for a home might.

“What do you guys think?” I sent to the girls. “Is this the place for us, for now?”

I got a resounding chorus of yeses from the girls.

“My contractor says that if I spent five thousand on the house, it would be worth the asking price.” I said to the realtor. “So, that’s my offer. Five thousand below asking price. I’m looking for a quick close. I can have the money in escrow probably by the end of business tomorrow if our offer is accepted.”

“You have seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash?” the realtor asked.

“Yes,” I said simply. “How long will it take for you to get an answer for me? Are there other viewings lined up?”

I could see that there weren’t, and that she’d been authorized to accept any offer that came within ten thousand of the asking price. The house had been on the market for a little while, and the previous owners, although they had moved, had taken out a bridging loan. The interest on that loan was starting to become a problem. They wanted out of the house.

Veronica wondered briefly if she should try for more money, but decided against. She smiled.

“I’m authorized to accept on the owner’s behalf,” she said. “If I can take some details from you, we can get things started.”

We spent another hour at the property completing paperwork. Marcia had left already, although she’d left an envelope with me, presumably with the costings for the site clearance at our old house.  

“How long before we can move in?” I asked. “Our house burned down, and we’re currently living in a hotel. We’re anxious to move as soon as possible.”

“We have to do some checks,” she said. “We’re required by law to do anti-money laundering checks on anyone buying properties cash. That can take a few days. Then it’s really in the hands of the lawyers. I’ll get the ball rolling and hopefully by the end of business tomorrow we’ll have an idea of the timescale. Would that be okay?”

“That would be fine,” I said. We shook hands again left.

Once again, we decided not to eat at the Nines. The restaurant was good, and the food was really good too, but eating there every night wasn’t just expensive, it was just too much. We wanted something a little more down to earth. We decided on a diner that made a really nice burger, and ate there.

We were just getting ready to leave the restaurant when my phone rang. Dianna.

“Hi, Dianna,” I said. “What’s up.”

“Caleb,” she said. “What did you do?”

“Do?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“I know Maggie said ‘don’t get caught’, but I never dreamed you’d go that far,” she continued. “We never expected this! Maggie wants you to come in.”

I sighed. It appeared that Maggie didn’t think arson and attempted murder warranted turning them in to the IRS.

“They burned down our house,” I said. “They could have killed any or all of us. What did you think I was going to do, give them a swirly?”

“I didn’t know,” she admitted. “I thought you might get them to confess to the police or something.”

“Confessing to the IRS isn’t worse than that,” I said. “I don’t see the problem.”

“What?” she said. “Confessing to who?”

“I got them both to turn each other in to the IRS, with proof of their wrongdoings,” I explained. “I figured that was an appropriate response and would see them taken down.”

“The IRS?” she said hesitantly. “So, you didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“Caleb,” Dianna said, “Walter Greenwood is dead.”