Page 13 of Frazier

“Can I ask you something without you going off the handle?” He told him he didn’t know anymore. “Fair enough. What do you think they’d say if they heard you right now? I mean, besides grannie hitting you upside the head for being so dramatic, what do you think they’d say?”

“Honestly?” Frazier told him, of course. “They’d tell me to get my head out of my ass and think about the fact that they were both older than dirt and that they were going to die anyway. But Grandda was killed.”

“Yes. He was. Doing something that he loved doing.” Dexter turned to him. “Did you read the report? The one that the police have? It says that Grandda was protecting two children who were in the line of fire when the man went off. They’d be dead right now if not for him shielding them. He died, just as I said, doing something that he loved doing. Not just protecting the park but the people that came here to have a good time. To see a bear. Buy things that they have no need for. Grandda went to work every day, knowing that it could be his last. Grannie too. They were in their nineties, Dexter. And they loved one another more than they did anything in this world.” He snorted before continuing. “I think it’s the most loving and the most romantic thing a couple could do is to know, deep in their hearts, that they couldn’t live without one another.”

“You’re a sap.” He grinned at him. “I guess you’re right. And I think I knew that when I came to you that you’d be talking to me instead of talking me out of anything. Mark would have slapped me around. Barron would have ignored me and told me that I was stupid. The others? Yeah, they’d do the same. But I knew that you’d just make me see the sense of it all.”

“You’re welcome.” Hugging his brother, he held on a little tighter than he would normally have done. When they released each other, he looked at his brother and saw that he was indeed feeling better. “I think it’s great that you and Sunny are going to have a kid or two. Maybe by the time the other mates come along, we’ll all have some cubs around too.”

“I’d like that. Very much.” Getting another hug from his brother, they both sat down and talked about their grandparents. He was going to miss them both, they all were, but he knew too that they were together and that to him mattered more than him having a broken heart because they were gone.

~*~

Amelia had a whole new respect for her mother. She also understood why she stopped having these monthly meetings with the witches in charge of a coven in part of the United States. The ones in charge were nothing but a whiny bunch of bitches that no more deserved her time than she wanted to give it to them. When someone nudged at her from a link, she paused in her nearly destroying the witch in front of her. Pausing, she thought it was a good thing too. Otherwise, she might well have enjoyed herself too much and taken out the entire room.

“You’re in a mood today.”She smiled when it was Jamie that spoke to her.“My goodness, what is she going on about? Something about housing. I wouldn’t think you guys would have that much trouble with housing. Just poof, you have a house.”

“We can’t use our magic to make our lives easier. Not that everyone doesn’t do this already to a small degree, but there is a limit even on what I will approve. This one, in particular, is wholly aware of what the rule is but has been working on loopholes—that I must admit are pretty clever—to get her neighbor to turn over her house to her. It’s bigger, she says and just what she needs to hold her monthly meetings. But it’s the appliances, as well as the large master bedroom, that she wants more. Also, there is a grand pool out back that she thinks her family will enjoy more than hers would. It’s not going to happen. What can I do for you, my dear friend?”

“You know what I did for the government, right?”She asked her if she was still working for them.“When they beg and pay me a shit ton of money, I’ll work for them. In this one, Sunny is going to help me out as well. She has this freaky ability that allows her to change into the littlest things and get in and out. Anyway, I digress. I need your help with the earth. I could have asked Frazier because he can do it too, but he’s having entirely too much fun, and you’re not.”

“No, I’m not. However, I do feel as if I’m missing something here. Like I’m being tested or something.”Jamie asked her to hold on. She’ll look. After a few minutes of asking Mable questions, Jamie spoke to her again. “You’re kidding? I know you’re not, but I can see my mother doing this. Every day I find things that I’d like to take her to task about. I wouldn’t, but there are days. So they want to piss me off with bogus requests so that I will get so fed up and tell them I didn’t care what they did. Slick workaround if you can get them to make me pissy. Which I am, but now I’m going to be here all fucking day and dowl out charges against them until this is finished. In the meantime, I can help you too. Whatever you need.”

“Great. There is a visitor in town who is making issues. Usually, I wouldn’t care, but when I had to go into town earlier this morning, he nearly knocked me down when he stomped by me. I got like a reading from him. He’s looking for his sister and her kid. I haven’t any idea why he’s pissy about that. His mind was too focused on finding them rather than why.”She asked Jamie if she had a visual of him.“I do. Frazier said you work better when you have something like that. When he turned around to cuss me out, I got a good look at his face and the gun he was packing. He’s not anymore, by the way. I had Sunny take it from him. She couldn’t get a read on him either. He is seriously pissed off right now.”

“Okay. You think of him, and I’ll have a look. From there, I can trace him backward to—how far do you need me to go?”Jamie told her that at least until she found out what his anger was about.“If I see the face of his sister or her kid, I’ll go that route as well. Can you…I don’t know. Keep listening to this woman and hint at what I should be saying when she pauses?”

“Does she ever pause?”They both laughed, and she said that she’d do it.“Thanks for this. I hope you can at least find out something.”

She found the man sitting in a restaurant having a cup of coffee. Amelia hated coffee with a passion. While she was drinking hot tea with Frazier nightly, she didn’t care all that much for it either. Unless it was his grannies. She’d not asked for any of it, thinking they’d want to keep it around, but she could go for some of her fall special right now.

Getting into his mind, she found that he was an angry sort of shit. While searching for the cause of his over-the-top anger, she looked around for his reason for wanting to find his sister. It could be nothing more than she was a bitch and had said something to him this morning, but she—just as she was making up stories that might have pissed the man off, she found the source of his anger.

“Jamie?”She said she was there.“There is a body in a gully near the entrance to the Pigeon Forge area. Not far from the mile marker that leads people back to Gatlinburg. He’s been there for a while, at least a couple of months. Decomposed and been shot three times. There won’t be any identification on him, but his name is Nathan Webb. He’s the ex-husband of Dave Farley’s sister. He’s the angry shit. I can’t find where he killed his brother-in-law, but he does know where his body is.”

“That has him angry? Oh well, that’s the man that I was supposed to find anyway. Webb has been missing from his home for about that long too.”Amelia said she was still looking.“You might want to tune into your meeting first. Mabel is thinking that you’re agreeing with her proposal for her to take the house. Lay down the law if I were you and tell her how it’s not going to happen.”Amelia looked at Mabel.

“I think you’ve gone on about this quite enough, Mabel. You will live in the house that belongs to you and leave your neighbor alone. If I hear that you are tormenting her again, I will have you pay a hefty fine for pestering her about anything at all.” She looked around the room. “If you think that I’m going to do what my mother has done in the past, then you are sadly mistaken. I will hear each and every case, and I will, good or bad, pass judgement on you. If you are here to waste my time, to piss me off so that I walk away? You don’t know me very well. I will be here until every appearance is heard. Do I make myself clear?”

Six of the witches gathered up their things and left. Two more were nodding like they were happy this was the way she was going to handle things from now on but left as well. As the eight remaining witches sat there, Amelia told them that she wasn’t going to be listening to anyone wanting to increase their wealth by means of magic. That was against their bylaws. In the end, everyone in the room left, and she was finally able to concentrate on the man.

“Thanks for leading me right to Webb. Now if you could find out where Farley’s sister is, and she’s all right, I’d feel a good deal better. I have no idea why but I have a feeling that this isn’t going to bode well for her in the end. Not if he’s that angry still after a couple of months.”Amelia told her that she’d found the source of his anger. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

“Probably not. Nathan was an attorney for Madeline Farley, Dave’s sister, in getting her child support for the kid. She goes by—hang on. She has three children, triplets. Two daughters and a son. Anyway, Maddy needs her child support. Baby daddy is behind by about eight years now. Burney Archer just stopped working above board so that he’d not have to pay her for the kid’s needs. Nathan and Maddy have been friends since before they started kindergarten together.”She asked if she knew why her brother killed him.“Dave has never liked Webb. He’s smart and has been helping his sister hide from him. Why hiding? I don’t see it in his mind, but I’m assuming that it has something to do with the fact that he knows Archer from prison. Really well, it seems.”

“So this shit killed the attorney that is helping his sister get food on the table for his two nieces and nephew because he didn’t like him? You do know that is one of the stupidest reasons I’ve ever heard for a reason to kill someone, don’t you?”Amelia laughed and said for as long as she’s been around, that one is way up on the top of her list too.“Do you happen to know where Maddy and the kids are? I mean, is he even in the right area to find them?”

“Let me have a search around. She’s a pretty little thing.”Amelia found the woman easily enough, but finding the kids was a little more difficult. Each time the woman bounced from hiding place to hiding place, she didn’t have the children with her. Being ten, she figured that they’d have a good handle on being able to care for themselves, but she really didn’t know that many children. “She’s good at hiding them away, that’s for sure. And she is in town. She works three jobs right now, each of them a restaurant—to which there is an incredible amount of them around here. Dishwasher for two of them, and she cleans rooms for a bed and breakfast just up the road from where her brother is enjoying coffee.”

“I have him now. One of the officers that are helping me today is going to be watching him for the next few hours. By tonight he won’t be able to take a shit without the Feds knowing the weight, size and what it consisted of. He’s staying at one of the larger hotels just off the main drag in Gatlinburg.”Amelia said she’d not known that she had that much pull.“Neither did I, to be honest, but once I told them that he killed Webb, a federal judge, they stepped right in and took over. Fine by me.”

Still looking for the kids, she found four other hiding places they’d been hiding in over the last month. Each time they moved, it was as if they knew that Dave was close on their tail. Sometimes the kids would simply bug out of a hiding place before their uncle showed up an hour later. Never any less than that, either. Just as she was moving to the next place, she hit paydirt.

“Found them. Christ, Jamie. They’re behind the Gatlinburg Crockett’s Breakfast Camp. It’s on Parkway. They’re going to be caught if—never mind. They heard some kid taking the trash out or something and have hidden again. They’re all right, but I’d really like it if you were to pop there and get them. Take Mark with you. I don’t want any of you hurt because they’re digging in the dumpsters.”She watched as the kids seemed to know just what they were looking for.“They’re smart as tacks, those three. Or their mother taught them well. Either way, they’re not just eating people’s leftovers from their plates. They’ve found some pancake mixes that are expired. Also, they’ve found a bag of apples, some other spices and some kind of canned meat. I think it’s ham. Now they have some syrup that they’re putting in their backpacks.”

“Do you know where they are headed?”She told her that they’d been staying in one of the many empty shops along that lane.“Okay. I’m going to go up Parkway and pop there ahead of them. This might turn out badly if they scream or something. What are you going to do?”

“Get their mom. I’ll get her and then bring her with me to meet up with you guys. I just realized that one of the girls is hurt. I don’t know how or anything. I’m focusing more on keeping up with Maddy for now.”Jamie said that sounded like a good idea.“I’ll see you soon.”

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