“You do that.I’ll let you go to deal with what you need to do, and I’ll talk to you later.”When Jamie closed the connection, he did as well.He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, and least of all the president.Just as he was going to round a building that had been used as target practice for some heavyarmor, he was confronted with six men.
“You’ve been trouble for us.”Cullen just grinned, but his heart was beating way too fast for him to remain too calm.“Why don’t you work for us?We’ll pay you better and give you a big house.”
“No thanks.”He felt his beast wrap around him when they started to circle him.“I do hope that you’ve all made out your wills and kissed your loved ones before you left home this morning.I’m going to kill all of you.”They, of course, thought that was funny.“You should have brought more men with you.Six is just child’s play for me.”
Hoping for the element of surprise, he shifted into his gorilla.Taking out three of them men when they didn’t seem to understand what was going on, the fourth guy wet himself when he went after him.Having just two left, he pounded on his chest and let out a great roar.One of them finally realized that he had a gun and fired it at him just as he was leaping after him.Getting grazed once was enough to make his beast pissed off, and he broke the gun and tore the man’s head off with the swipe of his great hands.The last man dropped to the ground and said he wasn’t going to hurt him.
Popping him on the head, he thought he’d killed him when he fell over backwards.He didn’t need anyone coming around and finding him, so he shifted into his other self and looked on the men’s clothing for the picture.It was on the second man he searched, but he continued to look.Finding a second picture, this one was much better than the first.He put them in his pocket and moved away from the carnage.Just as he was coming around the first set of buildings, he realized that he wished he had not come on this mission and stayed at home with Emmie.
Going to his hotel that he’d been in last night, he took everything that he’d brought, which wasn’t all that much, and took off.He knew the exact moment that the bodies were found and kept his distance from the police.They’d not find anything that would associate him with the killings, but he didn’t want to take the chance.Walking out of town, he was nearly to the naval base when the sun was coming up.He’d hitch a ride home with them and then be home before Emmie really missed him.
Thinking about what he’d had to do to come home, he decided that he really had had enough of this job.He got paid well and didn’t have to work all that hard at it, but he had a family now, and he didn’t want to do this.He’d had enough.And he’d not let anyone talk him into doing something that he didn’t want to do anymore.He reached out to Emmie just as he was in the air.
“This is a shitshow here.You should see the poor judge.I think he’s going to have a heart attack, he’s so frustrated with my sister and Bash.”He smiled and told her that he loved her.“I love you too.Did you get hurt?Is that why you’re contacting me this way?”
“No, I’m fine.I’m on my way home.I’ll have a layover in DC, but that won’t take long to get home from there.”She asked him if he’d done what he went there for.“Sort of.But that’s all right too.The job was finished, and that’s all that matters.”
She told him about the hearing and how much stuff they had dug up on Mary Beth and Bash.They’d been using their food card to buy other things other than what it was intended for.Also, they’d been stealing things and not reporting the income when it was sold off to someone else.
“I had no idea that they would have to report all income to them so that they could adjust their income from the government.I mean, it makes sense, but even the money that I was giving them before I got smart should have been reported.They’re going to spend some time in jail forall the things they were getting.And get this, they’re going to have to pay the government back on the housing that they had for lying to the welfare department on things that they were doing.”He asked her if she’d testified yet.“I did first thing.But I found that I couldn’t leave because of all the shit that is going on.It’s like a show of shows here.I’m going to be surprised if they don’t have to spend the next twenty-five years in prison for fraud.Plus paying the money back that they got.Mary Beth keeps telling the court that I should pay for it all because I have the money.I don’t think there is enough money in the world to get me to pay for all the shit that they’ve been up to.”
“I can’t wait to get to the end of this so you can tell me what happened with them.I should be home by midnight.I have to be debriefed about what happened, then I can come home.I’m going to tell Jamie that I’ve had enough.I don’t want to do this anymore.Not just leaving you, but I’m too old for the kind of shit that’s going on right now.”She asked him if he was serious.“I am.Not that I’m that old, but the shit that is happeningaround this part of the world is too much for one man to tolerate.I’m going to tell him flat out that I’m finished.I hope he gets it.I really want to spend my time with you and the kids, if we have any, and get to be the best house dad I can be.”
“I’m so happy to hear that.I didn’t like spending the night in my bed all alone last night.I missed you keeping me warm.”He said that he’d not slept at all, wishing he was with her.“I know what you mean.We’ll have to keep a promise not to be apart at all again.”
“Deal.”When he told her that he’d see her when he got home, she told him she was going to stay at the courthouse until things were over.He told her to take notes so that he could be right on top of things, and that made her laugh.He was glad that, after all that had happened, he was able to make her do that and was happy that he was going home.That word had never sounded so good as it did now.
It took him a bit longer to get to DC and out than he had anticipated.Once he was in town, he realized that he was going to have to spend the night, as the committee that he had to talk to wasn’t ready for him.After telling Emmie what was going on, she seemed depressed, but he told her that he wasn’t going to go out anymore.He was finished with the government and would keep his promise about not going out on missions again.He just hoped that it would be that easy.
Chapter 8
Bash and her sister got twenty-five years for their part in debunking the government.In addition to that, they were to pay back the rental that they were staying in for free for the three hundred and fifty months that they stayed in the house.That came to a whopping eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.The card that they were supposed to be using for food came to just a bit more than that, and she couldn’t believe that Mary Beth still expected her to pay for it all.
“I don’t have that kind of money.What are you talking about?”She said that she could take out a loan.She didn’t want to go to prison.“I think that’s a done deal.You’re going regardless of whether you pay it off on your own or not.”
“Your honor, she should have to pay for some of it.She did send me money there for a while that I didn’t claim.And the coats and shit that she sent the kids.”The judge asked her what she thought was going to happen to her kids with her being in prison.“I don’t know.I didn’t much like them anyway.They’re whiny.I tried giving them to my sister for the money that she owes you, but you said that was selling my kids.That’s not what it was at all.Just an exchange of items is all it is.”
“That’s just selling them to her, in other words.You have to know that no one is going to see it as anything different than selling your kids, don’t you?”She said that people were just mean in wanting to find things wrong with the way that she was trying to get her bills paid.“Regardless of how you put it, you’re still going to prison for twenty-five years plus whatever kind of sentence you get for selling your kids to your sister.”
“You mean that I could get more time added to the other amount?That’s not going to work for me.I don’t have any idea where you get off sentencing us to twenty-five years in the first place.Everyone does that to their government stuff.”He said that she’d been the only one who got caught.“Yeah, and that’s not fair either.If not for my sister, none of this would have happened.You should be putting her in jail for some of this.She sent the kids the coats and school supplies.I didn’t ask her to do it.”
“Would your kids have had coats or supplies if not for her?”Mary Beth had told the judge that she didn’t want to spend money on shit like that.“I’ve told you before to watch your language Ms.Humphrey, and I won’t tell you again.I’ll start adding time onto your time in prison if you don’t behave.”
“I’m not ten.And I’m sure you’ve heard that language before.”He slammed down the hammer, and Emmie jumped.She thought her sister would be better off keeping her mouth shut, but she’d never been able to do that, and now was no different.“What’s that supposed to mean?That you’re some bigwig who sits up there passing judgement on the small people like me?”
“That’s it exactly.I am the closest you’ll come to god, and you’d better remember that.”The judge looked around the room.“I didn’t mean that.I’m just as frustrated as you guys are.I don’t know how you put up with her, Mrs.Dixon.”
“It’s why I moved away when I was sixteen.”He nodded as if he understood and moved on with what he was telling the two of them about their court hearing in January of next year.She liked the idea that they’d be in jail all that time.She and Cullen had put in a request to be the guardians of the kids until such time as they could adopt them, and all she had to wait on was the judge to say it was all right.
When the two of them were taken away, back to jail until such time as they could be transported to a federal prison, he asked her to stay for a few minutes so that he could go over the paperwork for the kids.She gladly would do that and thought it was as good a time as any to be able to get it finished.
“I have no doubt that you can raise these children better than they had been.So I’m going to fast-track the adoption paperwork for the two of you.”She told him thanks, that she’d not expected that.“No, you deserve those kids more than the parents did.I can’t understand why they had them in the first place if they weren’t going to raise them right.Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children, but there’s nothing I can do about that.So, you and your husband have full custody of the children as of the moment the paperwork is filed, and I’ll make sure that it’s filed by this afternoon if not first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you, your honor.I don’t know what else to say.”He said that he thought that the kids had suffered enough having those two as their parents.“Even though one of them is related to me, I agree with you wholeheartedly.I promise you that we’ll raise them to be loved and shown what it is to have three meals on the table, too.I love them already and will care for them for the rest of their lives.”
“I know you will.And I wanted to personally thank you for your help today.It might not have that much difference in the long run, but with your help, it showed what sort of parents and people they’ve been all along.How they slipped through the cracks is beyond me, but hopefully the department will take better care in looking into these kinds of people from now on.”She agreed with him on that.“Now you take those little ones to your heart and love them the way that they should have been all along.I know that you two will do a good job.If not, then those parents and grandparents of Cullen will step in, and that will be the end of that.”
The judge laughed hard as he was getting up from his chair.She thought it was funny that he should mention the elder Dixon family.She thought that the Simpson part of the Dixon crew would be just as hard on them.She’d met them all and found them to be the best family that she’d ever encountered.
