LITMIR.BIZ

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awhile.” Garrett’s snap was even snappier that time.

      “Months. Maybe years. And it’s possible everything will be seized if Billy Lee really was using this company as a money laundering operation.”

      Still no sound. Her breath had vanished, and she figured it was a good time to sit back down on the floor again. Good thing, too, because the bad news just kept on coming.

      “The frozen assets include both your apartments here in Austin since they’re company holdings,” Marcum added. “Your cars, too.”

      No car, no apartment. It wouldn’t be as great of a loss to Garrett as it was for her because he split time between Austin and Wrangler’s Creek. And she doubted he’d ever even started the company car since he still drove their late dad’s truck. But for her, the apartment was, well, home.

      “The investigators will be going through everything in the offices,” Marcum continued. “The vehicles and apartments, too.”

      They wouldn’t find anything. Well, they wouldn’t unless Billy Lee had truly gone bonkers and stashed some stuff there. Though with the way her luck was running, there’d be a counterfeiting machine, a kilo of cocaine and Jimmy Hoffa’s body beneath her bed.

      “Your personal bank accounts are also frozen for the time being,” Marcum went on. “But I feel that’s something we can resolve faster than the company assets.”

      There was no way for the ball in her stomach to get any tighter or bounce any harder.

      “So, basically everything we own, including where we live, has just been taken away from us, and we might never get it back?” she asked.

      “Pretty much,” Marcum agreed.

      “I’d like to hear that good news now,” Sophie grumbled.

      “The ranch.” And apparently Marcum thought that was enough of an explanation. It wasn’t. Sophie motioned for him to keep going. “The ranch and the operation there aren’t part of the company or your own personal assets. That’s because Roman legally owns it, and he has no connection to the company.”

      She gave Marcum a very blank look.

      “So, you know what this means, right?” Marcum asked.

      Sophie thought Marcum might be trying to tell them something more than the obvious here. “We won’t lose the ranch,” she concluded.

      “It’s more than that. It means you’ll have a place to live. I just got the okay from Roman, and you and Garrett will be closing things down here in Austin and moving back home.”

      * * *

      HOME SUCKED.

      This was not what Clay had in mind when he’d moved to Wrangler’s Creek. He’d come here to take over for the retiring sheriff. Also for some peace and quiet and to keep an eye on his kid sister, April. At the moment, neither was happening.

      There was a toilet in the corner of what was supposed to be his living room. The bathtub was where he’d hoped to have a sofa. The toilet was obviously hooked up to some sort of plumbing because it was making a loud gurgling sound that Clay could hear even over the tile saw that was screeching in the kitchen.

      “Yeah, I know,” Freddie said, scratching his head. Freddie Shoemaker was the only contractor in Wrangler’s Creek, and that’s the reason Clay had hired him to renovate the old house he’d bought.

      Freddie was clearly an idiot.

      “The guest bathroom’s not right,” Freddie conceded. “They put the plumbing in the wrong place so they just hooked it up where the fittings stopped. I left instructions with my crew, but they musta read it wrong.”

      Yeah, or else they were idiots, too. Since the crew consisted of Freddie’s two sons and a nephew, that was a strong possibility.

      “I don’t guess you could get used to having it this way?” Freddie asked. “It’d save you a lot of money if we didn’t have to undo all of this.”

      No one had ever accused Clay of having a friendly face. It was a by-product of having been a cop for twelve years. First in Houston. Then, here in Wrangler’s Creek. And Freddie got a whopping big-assed dose of that nonfriendly face.

      “Put the guest bathroom fixtures in the guest bathroom,” Clay snarled. “And no, it won’t cost me a lot of money because I’ll only pay for the work you do right.”

      Freddie mumbled an “okay, you’re the boss” and headed toward his rust-scabbed truck parked just outside. Apparently that meant he was done for the day even though it was barely 3:00 p.m.

      Clay tried to call April again. Again, no answer. He wasn’t ready to sound the alarms just yet because April wasn’t the most reliable person, but it’d been two days since he’d heard from her. Her boss at the hair salon where she worked had said April had asked for time off. She hadn’t been at her house, either, when he’d dropped by, which meant something was up. With April, something was up usually went hand in hand with trouble. She was twenty-three, eleven years younger than Clay, but plenty of times she still acted like an irresponsible teenager.

      Clay growled out another voice mail for April to call him, and he followed the sound of the tile saw into the kitchen. The saw was going all right, but no one was cutting the backsplash tiles. In fact, no one was in the kitchen at all. Clay unplugged the saw to kill the noise and went in search of any signs of progress or intelligent life.

      He found neither.

      There was still a hole in his bedroom floor marked with a scrawled sign that said hole. No windows, just tarp where they should be. And there was a fridge in the master bathroom, something that hadn’t been there that morning. That didn’t qualify as progress.

      The fridge door was open, and one of Freddie’s sons—Mick—was peering inside. Not foraging for food apparently but rather using it as a makeshift air conditioner to stave off the already sweltering April heat. He looked to be having an orgasmic moment with his eyes closed and his head going back and forth like an oscillating fan.

      Clay cleared his throat, and Mick jumped nearly a foot off the floor. It was the fastest Clay had ever seen the man move.

      “Shit,” Mick repeated a couple of times. “You scared the dickens out of me, Chief.”

      Ditto. But Clay wasn’t afraid of Mick. He was afraid he was going to have to live with these clowns for the rest of his life.

      And learn the meaning of dickens.

      Mick didn’t close the fridge door. He just stood there enjoying the cool air on his backside and was seemingly oblivious to the fact that Clay wanted to rip off his arm and beat him with it.

      “Why’s the fridge in here?” Clay asked.

      “Oh, it’s temporary,” Mick said as if that explained everything.

      Clay decided to give very specific instructions and use small words. “I want the fridge in the kitchen, and the toilet and bathtub out of the living room and into the guest bath.”

      Mick looked at him as if that were a tall order but then nodded.

      Even though Clay figured this was going to be just another exercise in frustration, he still wanted some answers. “Why exactly is the fridge in here anyway?”

      “The plug.” Mick hitched his thumb to the outlet.

      “Did the electrical plug in the kitchen quit working?” Clay pressed when Mick didn’t add more.

      “Nope. I needed it for the saw, and since I wanted to keep my Pepsi cold, I brought the fridge in here. Didn’t think you’d want it in your bedroom.”

      “I don’t want it anywhere but the kitchen.”

      Again, Mick made it seem as if that would be a tall order. “Say, in case you didn’t notice, the phone next

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