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“I’m a very wealthy woman, Harold, and as such, I check out everyone that I have contact with. I have a husband and children. I want them to be safe. So when I found these, I figured that she was abusing her poor husband.” She handed him another paper, this one filled with dates and times. “Those are to an underground abortion clinic. The very fact that they’ve only been married almost ten years, and these date back for as many as fifteen, tells me that she’s not as faithful as she makes out to be. If it were me, I’d get rid of her right now. She’s about to have another visit to the clinic.”
Harold stood up, his blood boiling. But it was Vicky who told him to have a seat. She’d take care of this. The two of them watched as she made her way to his sister-in-law. Whatever went down, and he was sure that it was going to be huge, Vicky would handle it like a pro.
“I like you and your wife, Harold.” He didn’t take his eyes off his wife when he told Toby that he liked her too. “She took the paperwork with her. She’s going to get rid of her without costing you a dime, I think.”
When Toby left him, laughing her ass off as she did, he continued to keep an eye on his wife. He wasn’t worried about her getting hurt. There were enough people around that Clara would be dead if she tried anything. Harold knew the exact moment that Clara knew she was caught.
Vicky pointed to the house, and then she looked like she was waving his brother over. Not Collin, but Cramton. After showing him the paperwork that Toby had given them, he took Clara by the arm and ‘helped’ her leave the party. He wasn’t surprised to see that he took several men with him, too. Vicky came back to sit with him.
Not a word was spoken about Clara. They didn’t bring up how they were going to tell his brother why she’d be gone when he got home either. And there was no doubt to him that there wouldn’t be a trace of her left in the house by then either. Taking his wife’s hand into his, he kissed the back of it and told her that he loved her.
“I don’t think we should tell Toby that we owe her. I have a feeling that she’d make us regret it.” He agreed with her and then laughed a little. “Yes, I think it’s funny too that we’re the head of what was once a large operation as a mob family, and we’re terrified of offending a slip of a girl. Perhaps she should be in charge.”
They were both still laughing about it when some of the crowd started to leave. Even later in the evening, when it was just him in the living room, he would get a chuckle out of Toby and them being afraid of her. Not that he wasn’t. He was just a little, and he’d make sure that the family knew not to fuck around with her from now on.
Chapter 7
Cassie didn’t want to stay at work another moment longer. However, since she’d only just arrived at seven and it was only seven ten, she was going to have to stay. Pouting to herself, she logged onto her computer and began pulling up requests that were sent to her overnight. Forty-seven emails was a bit much, but she knew that it wasn’t the most she’d ever received working for Adler Real Estate.
“What are your plans for next week? You’re on vacation, right?” She said that she was, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone her plans. “You’re afraid they’ll cut you off again? I would be, too. How many times have they done this to you? Five? Six?”
“Eight. But this time, I’m being smart. I have all the paperwork approved and copies made so that I’m not going to be here.” She would quit. Enough was enough, and her kind of skill wasn’t something that everyone could do. “I’m going to be gone most of the day today. If you hear anything, will you let me know?”
He wouldn’t. Jack was a follow around the boss with his nose stuck up his ass kind of employee. She had also learned that if she wanted the office to know anything, just tell him. Jack was a bigger gossiper than anyone she’d ever known. Even her mom wasn’t as good as he was. And at least her mom was upfront about spying on people to get the juicy stuff. Jack would just as soon stab you in the back than to miss anything going on around the office.
It was why no one knew where she lived. They thought they did. But she’d been out of her old place for over three years now, and no one was the wiser. Cassie even had a post office box set up in a different town that would funnel her mail to her once a month when she made the arrangements with the boss there. She had a lot of people owing her a favor, and it had worked out well for her.
Making sure that she had all her equipment before leaving the office, she made sure every time that she also had her badge, cell phone, as well as lots of thumb drives. No one owned her work but her. Not until she was paid. It was in her contract as well, as she made sure that every house she worked with also knew that she owned the rights, not the agency nor the boss.
Cassie enjoyed her job. It got her out of the building every day, and she got to see some really cool things while filming. She’d been approved by the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, to fly her unmanned aerial vehicle, or UVA, so she used it to record views of houses for sale that no one else could get.
The roof, a good shot of the yard and how close or not they’d be to their neighbors. Even how dense trees might be or how overgrown it might have become while waiting on a buyer. She didn’t hold back on the filming either. If she had been asked to cover a property, they got all of it. And for a lot more money, she’d record the inside of the house as well. That took a lot of time and work to get through a house with one of her smaller drones. Especially if it was still occupied.
She was on her third house of the day when she took a break. Cassie didn’t usually stop for lunch or breakfast until about two. Today was no different. However, it was hotter than hell, and she was about as dry as she’d ever been. Pulling out a bottle of water from her backpack, she looked around the yard she’d just finished filming.
It was a shitty backyard. It looked like, at one time, it had had an inground pool that someone got the bright idea to fill in with dirt. They’d not bothered with taking up the concrete walkway around it, so it stuck out like a sore thumb. Cassie didn’t think that they’d used good dirt either to fill it in. More like bags of thrash then that were filled in with dirt they might have dug up in other parts of the yard. It would take more to make the yard livable than it would to remodel the whole house. Just as she was set to get back to work, her cell rang. It was her brother.
“I have nine questions for you.” She laughed and asked him if they were in any particular order or would he ask them one at a time. “What? You know what, never mind. I need you to do me a favor, too. I’ll talk to you about it when we’re finished here.”
“You do know that I’m working, don’t you?” Bradley asked her if she was too busy for her favorite person. “I don’t know. He’s not called me today, so I guess I’ll have to help you.”
“Very funny. Where are you anyway?” She told him and then told him he had only eight more questions. “As it so happens, that was one of my questions. I’m coming to you. One of the things that I need an answer for is something that you need to see.”
While waiting for Bradley to come to her, he’d be on his bike, so it wouldn’t take him long she finished up the yard. That was all there was for her to do as the rest of the house she’d finished up before the yard.
She was packed up and waiting by her car when he pulled in behind her. As soon as he was within talking distance, he started talking like they’d never had a twenty-minute break from their original conversation.
“You see this mess here? I don’t know what I’m looking at. Tell me what you see, and that might help me.” She took the laptop from him and watched the recording that he had. After telling him what it looked like to her, he took the computer and messed with it, then handed it back again. “What is that if the other thing was the door and window on the recording? Is that another entrance to the house? Or did someone, you, in this case, get too much of the neighboring home so that I can’t see what I want?”
“You know, I never mess up. But yes, that is the neighbor’s door. If you remember, I told you that the house next door was abandoned and that I thought that they were using it as a way to get in and out of both homes. See how it has that flashing over the walkway between them. From the aerial view, you don’t see it. It’s like there is nothing there the way they have it set up. A person could go between the houses with a camera right on top of the two doors, and no one would be the wiser. Why is this an issue now? That was four years ago.” He told her. “Oh. I hadn’t read anything about that. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t read any news, little sister, and that is why it’s good that you have me in your life. The houses are being used again for drug drops. The people go into one house, pay up, then four hours later, they come back to the other house on the pretense of getting pizza or some shit delivered, and that’s where they get their order. I believe that it’s hidden either on the person or in the hot bags that they all seem to have now. I told my boss that both houses needed to be torn down. Now, he wants me to figure out how to stop this from happening again. Bastard.”
Bradley was an agent with the local FBI. She had been, too, at one time, both of them working together a great deal until she had her little nervous breakdown. Smiling to herself, she knew that it wasn’t even close to being little. She’d been locked up for nearly six months before she was able to come back to herself and another year before she could function in life again.
“I could set you something up, but you’d need someone to approve the time. I have the equipment, it’s just old stuff that I don’t use anymore, but I’ll do it if you want.” He asked her how long it would take her. “Not long. A couple of hours at the most. More than likely, if I can get in there in the early morning, I can do it in less time than that. It’s up to you.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” While waiting for her brother to make the call, she packed up her things and was ready to go home until it was approved. Bradley would know that she’d need it in writing that verbal anything wasn’t going to fly with her. “He said for me to come by the office later, and he’ll have the paperwork all filled out.” When he frowned, she waited for him to tell her. When nothing was forthcoming, she punched him in the arm and told him to say to her. Bradley was more closed mouth than she was.
