Page 15 of Lance

“I don’t want you to think badly of me, Finny, but I have a son out of wedlock. His name is…well, you’re not going to believe this, but his name is Findley, just like yours. I call him Finn, and he’s okay with that. He’ll be thirty in a few weeks. I’m a good deal older than I look. When Finn was born, I was quite a few decades old. Todd keeps me from dying, and when I found out about Finn, I decided that he could give me immortality and Finn the same so that we could have fun together living in this old house. I didn’t know about you until I came here.” He asked where he was now. “Away at college. He’s brilliant. And a great kid. I love him with all that I am.”

“Well, of course you do. What kind of person wouldn’t love their own son?” He thought about some of the things that he’d witnessed since dying and let it go. There were lots of people out there who didn’t like their kin, much less their kids. He followed Shawnie around the house while she put boxes in the rooms, peppering her with any thought that came into his head. By the time he’d worn himself out, he was ready to go up to his window sill and rest. It wasn’t hard for him to be a ghosty all the time, but conversing with someone and letting them see him that took a bit more effort. He was just thrilled beyond words that someone…

Going back to the kitchen where he’d left Shawnie, he watched her talking on the phone. He wasn’t sure if she could see him. Sometimes, he’d fade out if he’d used up too much energy. She was sobbing, crying hard enough to break his own long-dead heart.

“Yes, I understand what you’re telling me, but I’ve also told you that I’m not going to come back to work for you. You pestering me isn’t getting me anything but pissed off. Just leave me alone.” The person on the other end must have screamed at her because when she jerked the phone away from her ear, she simply put it on the table after pushing a few buttons.

He didn’t want to disturb her. Not when she was this upset, but he had a way of getting information that she might not know of. Since he’d been a little boy living right here in this house, he’d had a couple of fae friends that would come by to play chess with him. Finny stood out in the yard by the big old apple tree and called out for Adonna and Dent. Sometimes, he thought someone should take over naming the little people. They didn’t do such a good job of it most of the time.

~~~

Lance wasn’t used to people coming out to his building, or for that matter, anywhere he had worked. Today, he’d had no less than four people coming out to speak to him when he was right in the middle of something he was doing. And being interrupted while blowing glass, even the hot boxes that he had going, could get someone badly injured or killed. He thought about what he was going to put on the door when he didn’t want people to come in. A sign that said ‘Go away! I’m too busy to fuck around with you.’

He wouldn’t do that, however. No matter how much it appealed to him to do it. His grandparents wouldn’t appreciate it because it was so rude, and everyone else would just come in thinking there was no way that his sign meant them. Idiots. Lance turned slowly with the ball of glass on the tip of his pipe and saw three people standing there.

Not acknowledging them for what he was doing. They didn’t look like they were upset. His assistant, who had called off this morning, would have been a big help in this piece. While it wouldn’t be easy, it was still doable if he had to do it himself. Like he was right now.

“Here, let me cut for you. You’ll have to give me inches, not metric numbers on account I don’t understand them. But I can help.” True to his word, the man did an excellent job of cutting the thick, hot glass when he told him to do it. “If you tell me which direction you’re headed in, I can clear the path for you.”

The two of them worked on the glass pitcher for nearly an hour before he was satisfied that it was finished. Having put on a pair of gloves when he first arrived to help, the man picked up the piece and put it in the cooling area without being asked to do so. Finally able to sit down, Lance thanked the man several times for his help.

“I’ve been there before when you only have one set of working hands. My name is Robby Fairaday. This is my wife, Beth, and her mother, Bethany.” He shook hands with all three of them. “I know that this is out of the blue, but I was wondering if you know a woman by the name of Shawn Farley. I think that we’re her relatives. The DNA tests show that we’re her relatives by being cousins of sorts. She’s taken over the Shamus Farley place a few weeks ago, and it belongs to me as I’m the oldest.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” If he had not been looking directly at the man, he would have missed the spurt of anger that took over his body. “I’ve only just moved to this area a few months ago. As for the mansion, I don’t know anything about that either. I’ve been too busy to explore the town much.”

“She told everyone that she was the last heir to the estate, and she claimed it. I’m the oldest, so I should have been notified.” He told the man that he still didn’t know anything about Shawn or the mansion. “We came here on the notion that she’s got a lot of money, and you guys give out money like you have an endless supply of it.”

“I’ve already told you that I don’t know anything about it. And as for an endless supply of money, that isn’t any of your business either. I’m going to ask you nicely this time to please get out of my workplace and leave me alone. If you have a problem with—” the man pulled out a gun and aimed at his heart. “So you plan on killing me, or is this a threat that you want information that I’ve told you several times that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Letting his lion out, just enough for the people to see that he wasn’t going to be bullied about something that he knew nothing about. The man backed away from him, and Lance reached out to his entire family to let them know he was in trouble. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that even Brook showed up. The queen of lions looked about as pissed off as he’d ever seen her.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Everyone in town that you’ve threatened has told you that they don’t know—what relation are you to this Shawn person anyway?” He said that he was her uncle. “Don’t lie to me again. Why are you trying to get the house and land from Shawn?”

“There is buried treasure somewhere on the land, and I want to find it. It’s said to be worth millions of dollars.” She asked him if he was related to her at all. “No. Fuck, how are you doing this? I’m a pretty good liar most of the time, but you’re making me tell you the truth. While I was looking for an attorney to doctor up some paperwork, I heard that Shawn had already claimed it as her own.”

“Is she the rightful owner?” He said that she was, but he wanted her out so he could look for the treasure. “I see. So you come here to see if you could bully Lance here into making…I do believe that you’ve been told by several attorneys that there is no way that you can claim the land as your own. So you resorted to coming here and threatening someone to do what? Do you even have a plan?”

“I want her to have to appear in court so that I’ll get the chance to kill her and take the land for myself.” Lance glanced over the man’s shoulder to see what was happening when he heard the door open. “I think that’s a reasonable conclusion. She won’t be burdened with the debt of cleaning the place up and all the hard work to make it pretty again. I’ll just look around on the land like I should be able to do. But she’s called the police on me five times already, and I’m sick of fucking around with her. So when I kill her, that’ll be the end of her causing me all kinds of heartache.”

His family, all of them, were there as their lions. The women noticed them first. Two of his brothers were standing in front of them. But the rest were standing right behind the man who hadn’t turned yet to have a look around at what he was up against. As soon as he did, he screamed like a little girl, and Lance had to hold onto his laughter, wondering how he would have reacted if he had seen them shift.

“You’re one of those abominations like that girl is. She can talk to ghosts. Or so she says. I think that she’s just looking for attention and making up stories like everybody does. You go on up there and get her out of my house.” Brook asked him if he’d like to test that theory. “To be a ghost? I’d have to be dead. I’m not.”

“Not yet, you’re not. But I’d gladly help you along with that. I was in the middle of something important when I heard one of my family members was in trouble. Who knew it was going to be a lesson for someone to see if a stranger can look at ghosts. That might come in handy to use at times. It would close a lot of open cases, don’t you think?” He took a step back, and Denver, by far bigger than the others, put his paw on the man and knocked him to the floor. Again, Lance thought it to be one of the funniest things he’d ever seen. “You see behind you that Lance has a very good family that would be willing and able to tear out your throat with just a swipe of their paw. Henry, since you’re the closest to all of them, show him how big your pretty paw is.”

Henry, his brother, put his paw on the man’s chest, knocking him back down to the floor. He could smell the fresh urine when the man pissed himself. Lance could no longer keep his laughter hidden away. He started laughing so hard that he leaned against his table and held on. Christ, he’d not had this much fun in a very long time. He only wished that Georgie was here to see it all.

By the time the police had shown up, Joe being one of them, he arrested the three trespassers and took them away. Joe, shaking his head, asked if anyone had been hurt. Lance thought he knew the answer to that but was just making small talk, building up to something else. When it was just him and Joe in the big building, he sat down at Lance’s desk.

“The man has been testing my endurance all week. First, he went to the banker to get him to void the ownership to this woman named Shawn Farley, who owns the land fair and square. Then he threatened someone when they’d not tell him what was going on. Now this here.” He asked him about the woman. “Her name is Shawn Farley. Her parents must not have liked her overly much to give her such a name. But she showed up here about a month ago to tell me that she was going to take the mansion as her home. I don’t see how that place would be all that comfy to live in. The place is huge. I think you could fit this barn of yours on the main floor several times. Lots of bedrooms too. Anyway, she told me that there might be strangers in town who would try and take it from her, and there has been. Just a week ago, I had to arrest another man claiming to be the rightful heir.”

“I’m not sure where you’re heading with this, Joe.” He asked him if he or some of his family could keep an eye on the place. “Just watch, or do you mean patrol the place?”

“She won’t take kindly if she knew that I was taking liberties with her privacy, but I’m worried all the same.” Lance told Joe that she saw ghosts. “She does. While she was in my office, she told me that I had one who was attracted to me. Gave me information on my momma that had me in tears, I tell you. Yeah, I know she could have looked that up, but nobody would have known that my mom hated ice cream in all flavors but vanilla and that my daddy killed her.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that either.” Joe waved him off and said that it was a mystery that he could close the books on now. “Do you know anything else about her?”

“Yeah.” He looked like he didn’t want to say the words, whatever they were, out loud. “She’s wealthy. I don’t mean like she’s rich and all but she’s like the richest woman in the world rich. She had five crews working on that house even before she came into the office to talk to me. I bet right now that the sucker is about finished.”

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