I quickly make my way out of the clubhouse and back to the apartment. I’ll have to take Corey with us, unless I can leave him with Gemmy at the Sheriff’s office for a while?
Walking inside the apartment, I give Jack a slap on the back. “You can get off now, Jack. You’ll be starting with me at the range so get your hog finished. It needs to be reliable.” I hand Jack an envelope and slap his shoulder again. When he tries to hand back the envelope which he opened, I shake my head. “Nope, take it. You earned it keeping my woman safe.”
“I did it because I like her. She’s a great person, Chaos. Keep close to her as much as you can because she’s suffering from losing Bethy.”
“I will, Jack, and I’ll call on you if I need you,” I reply.
Jack leaves after shouting goodbye to Victoria and Corey. I head to them in the living room and give Corey a rub over his hair, mussing it up and getting a laugh from him.
“Specs has an appointment for you to see Callahan for the will reading at four this afternoon. We can drop Corey at the Sheriff’s Office and Gemmy will watch him for us. It’s on the way so it willnot have us running around all over town, and Corey will be able to meet the deputies.”
Victoria’s eyes pool. I quickly take a seat and wrap an arm around her, pulling her to me. She’s nodding her head that yeah, she heard, but this is going to take some coming to terms with. Losing someone that close to you leaves such a vast gap in your life that it feels like it’ll never heal.
“I’ll go take a shower and get ready.” Victoria kisses my cheek before giving Corey one as well. “Get cleaned up, Corey. You don’t want the deputies to think you are unprincipled,” Victoria states.
“What’s that, Mom?” Corey asks, and Victoria laughs as she replies, “Ask your Dad.”
Victoria rushes to the bedroom while I turn and look at Corey who I see has an expectant look on his face, which tells me I have to respond. “Okay, let’s see how you will find out what words or phrases mean.”
I take out my phone and hand it to Corey. “Googlewhat does unprincipled mean?” I sit next to Corey and watch him type out the question.
“Oh, it means not acting in accordance with moral principles. What does accordance mean?” Corey clears this definition on the phone screen and types in accordance. “Oh, now it says conformity.”
Aw, fuck, we could be at this forever. But Corey is deep into checking out the words. But each time he finds one it giveshim another. I’m getting a little exasperated but daren’t say the fucking word or he’ll be googling that one.
“Come on, Corey. Go wash up and get ready. You only have fifteen minutes now before we leave.” I take the phone from him and shoo him on.
****
Giving Gemmy a smile as Corey rushes to the reception desk gets me a wave in return. “Well, who do we have here? A criminal?” Gemmy is smiling at Corey and he’s cottoned on quickly that she’s playing with him.
“I’m an investigator, and here to find out if you’ve been good or bad…” Corey tries to say seriously but fails when the huge smile on his face doesn’t leave.
“Me! Are you investigating me? Wowser. Okay, then you’ll have to have a desk in the deputies’ office.” Gemmy gives me a wink as she guides Corey into the deputies' room, and I hear hellos going on. Gemmy looks over her shoulder. “Go on, buzz off while he’s busy.”
Stepping back outside, I jump into the truck and give a smile to Victoria. “He’s okay. He’s with the deputies doing an investigation into Gemmy.”
“Oh, well, that’s interesting,” Victoria smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Come on, let’s get this done.” I start the truck and head to the lawyer's office.
“Mr. Callahan will see you now,” the receptionist says, giving us both a small smile.
A few minutes later we are sitting in front of a massive desk with a large man looking back at us. “I’m Alan Callahan, and I knew Bethy and her brother Art from when they were young. I drew up Bethy’s will only six months ago. She had a bad feeling about the trouble Art was in and told me she wanted things in place.”
“What do you mean things in place?” Victoria asks.
Clearing his throat some, he replies. “She wanted to have her financials in order, and she wanted all arrangements noted in case of her death.”
Victoria gasps lightly, and I take her hand, grazing her knuckles, trying to give her some comfort. “Will you make all the arrangements, or will we do it?” I ask, trying to take some of the hard questions from Victoria having to ask them.
“No, I will do them. I will make sure they are exactly what she wanted and they will be paid for. Once that is done, I will pay any outstanding bills Bethy had, and the rest will go directly to you, Victoria. She named you as the sole beneficiary.”
“What about Art?” Victoria asks, but the look on Callahan’s face tells me he doesn’t give a fuck about Art, and probably neither did Bethy.
“He was left a letter, but he received nothing from her apart from that. However, he has died, as you know, so the letter will be filed with all the other documents that are from Bethy’s estate.” Mr. Callahan takes a piece of paper in his hand and reads from it. “Bethy wanted to be cremated but said she didn’t mind if herashes were buried or scattered. She wanted no funeral, party, or other kind of celebration of her life. She said she wanted to slip out of this world as quietly as she slipped into it.”
Victoria is crying fully now, and I scoot my seat closer, wrapping an arm around her, holding her as best I can. I look at Callahan and he has tears in his eyes as he watches Victoria break down.
A while later, once Callahan tells us there is no more that he has to tell us we leave with a thank you and a heavy feeling. With nothing more we can do or learn, we leave the office and sit in the truck for quite some time while Victoria gets herself back together.
“I’ll have to speak to Mia and tell her we are not having a funeral or any kind of send-off for Bethy. I’ll just have to live with the fact she wanted to slip away quietly. But she can’t take the love I have for her out of my heart. She’ll stay there until I die and I see her again.” Victoria takes hold of my hand and holds it tight while I drive us back to the Sheriff’s office to pick up Corey.
“We’re gonna get married, Vicky. We have a son. The official adoption papers are here. Once we are married, you’ll adopt him too. Then he’ll have parents that love him and support him. We can add to that family, too. Maybe have us a few kids running around like rugrats,” I chuckle at the choked sound Vicky makes when I say a few kids. She didn’t complain about the marriage part of that mind you, and that’s happening far faster than she thinks.
