Page 87 of House of BS & Lies
I answered it without picking it up and placed it on speaker without checking to see who was calling. “Hello?”
Romeo gestured that he was going to take a shower, and I nodded in understanding.
“Hey,” Rocky, my lawyer friend, said. “Just wanted to give you some updates.”
“Oh, boy,” I said as I watched the soup swirl as I stirred it.
“It’s not all bad,” she said. “First, we filed your motion to get them evicted six days ago. Their lawyer countered with a countersuit, and I’m just telling you now it’s possible that the eviction will be delayed.”
“Of course, they did and it will.” I rolled my eyes. “I expected nothing less though, Rocky. It’s okay.”
“I just hate this for you. But don’t worry about this being pro bono. I’m able to do this in my spare time, so we can keep them tied up for a while so that it’s going to cost them,” she promised.
Even though I knew that she was going to do that, I still felt relief.
I had the money, of course, but again, I tried really hard not to use it.
I would be giving her a fat payment at the end of all of this, though. Whether she wanted it or not.
She was a really good friend, and friends didn’t take advantage of each other.
“The second thing that I did was start digging into the case that we’ll bring against your parents—Whitney especially—when it comes to identity theft and fraud. I spoke with Birdee at length over the last couple of hours, and she wants to bury Whitney. She wants to take this as far as I can take it. I already have my lead investigator on it. Once we get all that we need, we’ll take everything that we have to the police. Once I’m done with her, she’ll be in prison for the rest of her life.”
Something about the way she said it made me feel confident that this was going to end.
It may not be any time soon, but there was at least an end in sight.
“I’ve gotten a lot of anonymous help from someone really good with a computer,” she said. “I can’t use any of this without backing it up with evidence not obtained by illegal means, but I have a direction I can send my computer team in. Plus, I have a couple of contacts at the police stations in the two towns that y’all are in. They’re going to work with me. As well as a contact from the FBI who I think is pretty interested in it. He’s a new and rising agent who really wants to make a name for himself with a big case. And I think he’ll be excited to sink his claws into this one.”
“Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, giving the soup one last stir. “Anything else?”
“That’s about all that I have for you right now,” she said. “I do have one last question, though.”
“Shoot.”
“Do we want to go after your dad?” she asked. “Neither you nor Birdee have really said anything about him. Are we going there? Or are we leaving it alone?”
That was a really good question. “If it’s found out that he’s been an accomplice in all of this, I want to pursue it.”
A heavy lean against my side had me looking down to see Brawny using my leg and the kitchen cabinet for support as he stared out at the snow beyond the kitchen window.
I reached down and gave him a scratch as Rocky and I finished up our conversation.
The moment that the phone went dark beside me, two arms bracketed me in against the stove.
A soft set of lips pressed against my shoulder where Romeo’s sweatshirt had fallen down to expose my shoulder.
He was back. And he smelled better than the soup.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Hamburger soup.” I pressed back against him, relishing in the way his hard body felt against mine.
There wasn’t a single soft spot on him.
Which, quite honestly, was understandable.
The man did a very demanding job for a living. He was a real-life Paul Bunyon. Of course he would be hard in all the right places.
