The kettle made this God-awful sound, and Colton missed some words as he tried to pretend that he hadn’t damn nearjumped a mile. He snatched the kettle off the stove, trying to shut it up.
“…before his death, Jeb contacted me about the ownership of the show and its bank account. The attorney client privilege prevails beyond the grave, but I never represented him personally. You are correct that the show was a front. Jeb told me this because he wanted to be sure Zach’s money couldn’t be taken.
“Once I assured him it could not, he turned over the passwords to his business account and sent me all his papers. I turned those over to the FBI yesterday. I’m sure they’ll want to speak to Zach and Ms. Brown, but it’s clear from the documents that neither Zach nor Ms. Brown were involved in the illegal dealings of Jeb Baxter.”
Lord save him from folks that had that many words in their mouths to chew on. Colton grabbed one of the coffee cups and poured the tea in, leaning down to smell it. Huh. Okay. East coast quirks.
He took the tea to Zach and handed it over like it was a live snake. “Here you go, honey. So, the good news is, you ain’t in trouble, so far as I can tell. In six years you’re going to be a gazillionaire, which also seems like pretty damned good news.”
“What’s the bad news?” Zach asked, sniffing his cup.
Zach hadn’t reacted like he had to the bourbon, so Colton savored his tiny victory. “The bad news is that I think Beauregard is probably still spouting legal words that may or may not go together, and if you don’t get in there and give him an ear, he may never stop.” Colton stopped, grinned at himself, just about tickled shitless. “Then Ted’s head will explode—which, okay, he’s my boss, but he’s kin, and I like him well enough.”
“Thank you.” He set the cup down and hugged Colton. “You always seem to be there just before I crash and burn.”
Colton almost said, ‘just doing my job,’ but Zach wasn’t just his job. “I told you already, you don’t need to keep thanking me. And not that I want you to have a meltdown, but I plan to be there if you do.”
“Still my hero,” he peeked into the house. “If they weren’t here, I’d kiss you proper.”
Colton filed that IOU away for future redemption. “We should go inside.”
Zach nodded and moved, but Colton stopped him.
“You forgot your tea.”
