Page 9 of Barkley

“You take two of them.That way, when they get here later, you’ll be coming out of the medication and feeling better.But if you still have a headache when they get here, then you can take one.”He took the two pills when Robert stared at him.With a smile, he continued about what the plan was for the day.“Dan and I are going to go into town with your truck.Are you still sure that’s all right with you?”

“I am fine with that.I told you.I have my car in the garage if I need to go anywhere.”His cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.“Christ, it’s business.Carrie, are you going to hang around here with me?This call might take a while.”

“Why don’t I go with them?I have a few things that I didn’t pack with me to come here.You can take care of business, and I can as well.”He asked her if she was sure.“I’m very sure.When I come back, if it’s the ass you were telling me about, then you can tell me how much you actually paid for the building that he didn’t pay shit for.”

He didn’t know what possessed him, but he kissed her on the forehead as he left the kitchen.Heading back to his office to take the call, he was pulling up the email he’d gotten from the guy as he was going on about the offer on his property.

“I’ve been looking into your property that you said you inherited, Mr.Chase.According to the records that I was able to pull up, you don’t actually own that land.You never have.Your mother left it to your sister.Nothing at all to you.I believe you were told that when you went to the hearing of the will.Was that what happened?”Mr.Chase had wanted four million for his land simply because a Strong had wanted to purchase it.“Why should you think that I’m going to pay you for something that you don’t even own?And I’ve have to be pretty stupid to pay you anything for land that I’m well aware of that you don’t own.Your sister was fairly pissed off when I told her that you were trying to sell it out from under her.”

“She’s a fool and will sell whatever she has worthy to the first person that shows her a shiny coin.Women should never have access to money.They’ll go through it faster than a kid with a chocolate bar.You’ll be dealing with me with this land.I’m a good deal smarter than she is, and I know how to make a buck off of nothing.This land, this is mine to do with as I want.That way, I can get enough for my sister and I to share.Minus my percentage for selling it, of course.”Barkley told Chase that he was having better luck talking to Rebecca.“I’m telling you right now, Strong.If you screw me out of this deal, I’m going to sue you.Becky doesn’t have a head for money.She’ll piss it all away, and I’ll be left holding the bag when there’s nothing left.No.You’ll deal with me on this, or so help me, I’ll take you to court.”

“Good luck with that.And you might want to look into what your sister has been doing for the last ten years or so.She’s a very smart businesswoman.”Chase snorted.“Also, it might come as a surprise to you to know that she’s been paying the taxes on the house as well as keeping your mom in medications since you ran off with her fortune ten years ago.I don’t believe, according to your mom’s attorney, she liked you all that much.Even before you decided to become the asshole that you are.You didn’t even come to visit her when she requested to see her only living son.”

“What does she need to see me for?I’m the same man that was there when I was living there.I didn’t steal her money either.I knew that she’d get that all wrong in the end.Momlentit to me, and I never got around to paying her back before she died, that’s all.Now it’s all water under the bridge.She’s dead, and I’m going to get my fair share of money since Mom didn’t have the sense to leave me anything in her will.It’s mine.All of it should be mine since I’m the oldest living male in her family.”Barkley asked what happened to his brothers.“Weaklings.All of them.They got a cold, and the next thing that happened to them they were pushing up daisies.Even our father didn’t have the sense to come in out of the cold, and he died because of it.”

“Becky is in charge now.Do you want to know what that means or should mean to you?”Chase asked him why he’d say something like that to him when he’d just told him he was going to take over the sale of the land.“She’s asked me to tell you that she’s having your parents exhumed as well.Also, your younger brothers.It was the last thing that her mother told her to do before she died.Poor woman.She suffered badly towards the end of her life.Mostly from what I understand, thanks to you.Who steals their mother’s pain pills when she’s at the end stages of their life?But I guess you wouldn’t know since you refused to go and see your own mother.Could she know something that the rest of the world doesn’t?Becky seemed in a hurry to get someone to sign off on the exhumation paperwork to get them tested.”

“What the hell is she thinking?Damn it all to hell.See?Right here?That’s what I’m talking about.She’s forever sticking her nose into things that don’t concern her.”Carrie came out and handed him a note.He’d gotten a phone call, and she’d taken a message for him.He read it as Chase went on and on about how his sister needed to keep her trap closed.“Damn it all the fuck and back.I’m going to hire you.You’re my attorney, and you’re going to sue her into keeping her mouth shut before I have to shut it for her.”

“I’m not going to be able to do that, Mr.Chase.Your sister has hired my father as her attorney, and that would be a conflict of interest for us all.”He asked him why.“Because, frankly, none of us like you.You’re a bastard that took advantage of an elderly woman, your mother no less, and that doesn’t set well with any of us.”

“You would have done the same thing given the chance, and you know it.”He said that his mother would have knocked the crap out of him, and then so would his father and brothers.“There you go right there.You don’t know how to handle yourself.Knock them around a bit, and they’ll see reason.If not, then you just give them a bit of juice that will take them out of the equation.Then when they get lippy, you give them a bit more until they’re no problem.”Barkley didn’t know what to say to the man.Carrie took his phone from him and put it on speaker just as Chase was laughing.Dad joined them on the steps with his phone recording everything that was being said.“That there is the reason that you need to keep my sister from doing what she is doing.I don’t need anyone digging up bodies right and left that—hell, digging up any one of them would get me in deep shit.And that isn’t anything that I want.You shouldn’t either if you know what’s good for you.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that you knocked around your own family, and when that didn’t get you what you wanted, you resorted to poisoning them?Christ man, is there nothing you won’t do for a few bucks.”He said that the estate was worth millions.“No, that’s where you’re wrong.The estate, as you call it, only consists of the land, which is in your sister’s name.Which begs the question, why didn’t you kill her off when you were shortening the lifetime of your other family members?”

“She wasn’t worth the spit that made her.She’s a woman.Christ, man.Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying to you?”Barkley told him that he was listening to every word he said.“Then you understand that I never thought that she’d be worthy of my attention.Come to find out, she’s the one that I should have been watching.And now I can’t find the bitch.I don’t suppose you know where she is, do you?”

“Even if I did, I’d not tell you.You’d just try and kill her off.”The man laughed and said that he should have years ago.“You’re nothing but a piece of shit, aren’t you?You’d kill off your family instead of getting a job.Or, for that matter, being kind to your mother and family.Instead, you killed them all off one at a time in order to get what you wanted all along.When that took too long, you restored to killing them.Now you’re sitting on your ass, wondering why you’re not a part of the family.What little is left, anyway.”He looked at his dad, who was holding up a piece of paper that he’d written on.“The bodies have been exhumed as of an hour ago.They’re being taken care of right now.It’s a shame, really, that you went to such great links to get what you wanted, and now you’re going to prison.”

Closing the connection, he stood up.He needed to take a walk.Or a run.Setting off toward the road, he decided that he was going to have to walk for miles with how he was feeling.When Carrie started to follow him, he turned to her, ready to tell her to go away, when he realized she was crying.All his pent-up anger disappeared when she sobbed and wrapped her arms around him.Holding her in his arms, he let her cry.When she looked up at him after a few minutes, he asked her what was wrong.

“He killed his entire family for money.”He nodded and told her that there were a lot of bastards out there.“I know, but I’d give anything to have a few more minutes with my parents.Even my sister, though, I’d not spoken to her in decades.Just ten minutes to tell her that even though I’d not known her all that well, I still loved her.”

They walked for about a mile before either of them spoke.He liked hanging out with Carrie and her brothers.They were nothing like his brothers in that they seemed to enjoy arguing about little things.Also, they weren’t as close as he was to his brothers.Not that he liked them better, but they were just different.Something that he’d grown to realize was that his family was nothing like others.Laughing a little, he told Carrie what he’d been thinking about.

“I can see that.I’ve thought the same thing about your brothers and you.You guys aren’t perfect, but you have each other’s back.Even when you guys think that the conversation that you’re all having is getting loud, you check yourself and start over.Mine just keeps getting louder and louder.Then instead of figuring out a solution or whatever, they just walk away.Not you guys.You work well together.And I have to admit, I’m so jealous of your parents.They’re funny without being stuffy like you’d think rich people would be.”He told her thanks.“You’re welcome.What are you going to do about John Chase?I’m assuming that you have some sort of plan.”

“I don’t.I mean, I have a plan to knock the crap out of him if I see him, but other than that, my dad is working on the case.”She asked him if he was also working on hers.“Yes.He’s got about enough evidence to take it to a pretrial hearing.With your in-laws in jail, it’s only a matter now of bringing them in.They’re bitching about how they’ve been wrongly accused.I suppose that’s what I’d say, too, if I knew I was going to go to prison for the rest of my life.Especially Michael.Dad has been getting reports of a disturbance in the ground surrounding the house that he lives in.While that doesn’t one hundred percent mean a body, they’re all confident enough to go there in a couple of days and start digging.That’ll be easier with them both in jail too.”

“Yes, I’m thinking that he’d be out there with a gun blowing people away for digging up the dead.”She shivered.“The links that people will go to in order to get what they want.I’m thinking that I’m glad that I didn’t know my sister’s family.There is no telling how long we might have been alive had they known about us.”

“Yes.I can see your brothers and you getting into their shit about how they were raising those babies.”He stopped walking.“Look, my brother lives right there.Would you like to go and see them?They’re doing really well now.”

“I was warned not to go and look at them, or I’d be taking them home with me.”She looked at his brother’s home.“Just don’t let me hold them.I can’t know if my maternal instincts will kick in with just a look, but holding them will just put me in place of their mother.”

He was still laughing as they approached Clay’s home.He’d been holding them every chance he’d get.They were so calming to him.Even when they were upset and crying, he could get such a burst of energy from trying to get them to quiet down that he found himself at his brother’s house daily just for the boost.

Of course, he never told anyone that.He would be made fun of for days, if not years.No, he kept things that he knew would make him a target to himself.It was better on his ego if he didn’t.

As soon as Clay opened the door, he shoved a crying baby into Carrie’s arms.Then when Lizzy came to the door with the other one sobbing too, she did the same thing.Carrie looked bewildered as she held the twins in her arms.When he reached for one, thinking to help her out, she told him to back off.Laughing as he led her to the living room, she held her nieces for an hour before allowing anyone else to hold them.As it turned out, they liked their aunt as much as she seemed to be liking them.Who knew?

Chapter 5

Robert found his sister in the office.She’d been missing, he supposed, for the last couple of hours.Barkley had left for work, and he said he’d be home late.While gone, they expected their sister to come into the living room with them as they went over contracts for Barkley that were for the new property that he had purchased.

“Carrie?”She didn’t so much as move.Going further into the room, he touched his fingers to her shoulder, and she turned and looked at him.There were stains of tears on her face, and it bothered him that maybe Barkley had said something to her.“What happened?Did he say something to you?”

“Who?”Robert told her who he was talking about.“No.He’d not do that to me.I think he likes me.I love him.”

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