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“Maybe. Thank you again, Sheriff.” She smiled, a dead-on ringer for Zoey’s smile. It rocked a man, no denying that. How intriguing. “That cat that’s not yours just walked into the meat freezer. You’d probably better hurry.”
Murdoch made a note. He’d be looking into pretty Nurse Bonita Coleson, as soon as he found that damned cat.
Something about her just reminded him too much of that woman of his.
He and Peach the Fuzz had one thing in common—insatiable curiosity, after all.
Well, that, and maybe a love of Twinkies.
26
Hector was a damned fool,but he was loyal and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Lyle Vaughn Ellis smirked at the other man as they sat there, waiting for what they were supposed to be doing next. The guy bought everything Vaughn’s former stepdad said, like it was gospel. Always talking about the so-called golden children experiments, and how smarter mothers meant smarter babies.
Hector’s father had been just as stupid. Hector’s mother, though, that woman had been smart, all right. Savvy, really.
Savvy enough to brainwash good old Hector into thinking he was the brightest thing since Jobs or Gates or something. She’d worked as a maid for Vaughn’s own mother before she’d died. His mother had been fond of the woman—fond enough that she’d somehow expected Vaughn to watch out for Hector when he was around the place. She gave Hector Vaughn’s old clothes and toys when he outgrew them, and she made sure Hector kept up with his school, too. Even made Vaughn tutor Hector sometimes so the younger boy could keep up.
Vaughn hadn’t minded too much. Hector was only a few years younger, and he was someone who did what he was told. They’d had a lot of fun as boys doing stupid shit they probably shouldn’t have. Vaughn had been an only child. Then his mom had died when he’d been twenty-one. His stepfather Gregory had remarried a year later. To a woman with a whole lot more money and three little girls.
Things had gotten better after his mother had married Gregory. He had taken an interest in Vaughn. And when Vaughn had gotten into trouble when he’d been twenty-two, Gregory had been there for him. To help him figure his life out—even though Vaughn’s mom had been gone and Gregory hadn’thadto. He owed Gregory for that. And that meant Vaughn had to keep an eye on the older man.
Gregory was starting to show his age, Vaughn thought.
Vaughn didn’t give a damn what happened to his younger stepsisters—if he could even call them that—hell, he’d barely been around them at all. But he cared about the old man.
It had been kind of nice being a part of a family, though. The only real “family” he felt he had now was Gregory. And the guy was losing it.
Getting obsessed with these “golden children.” More and more every day. Golden children—supposedly perfect, exceptional little humans capable ofgreatthings.
Gregory wanted tocreatethe most golden of golden children possible.
Vaughn knew the truth—it just wasn’t going to happen. People just didn’t work that way. But Gregory was definitely trying.
Repeatedlytrying. And he had been for decades.
Still, Vaughn didn’t mind the tasks his former stepfather needed him to do now and then. Gregory always paid him extremely well for it.
The excitement was a great rush, too. Sometimes, Vaughn didn’t feeling anything for weeks, until he did a little something for Gregory.
It was just…he didn’t understand why Gregory was so damned obsessed with his dead mistress’s millions of daughters out there. Vaughn knew where they were and who they were. Mostly. There were a few hedidn’tknow where they had ended up. The ones Gregory had sold for money through the years. Pay a surrogate a chunk of cash, she births the kid, then that kid goes for four times what the surrogate was paid. Total profit, with just a little bit of work in his IVF clinics for Gregory.
It had paid off pretty well over the last twenty years or so. Longer. Vaughn had beenhelping outin a lot of ways since he’d been twenty-two. It had started off as a way for him to pay Gregory back for getting his ass out of serious trouble back then.
Now, it was just damned profitable and interesting, the work Gregory and Gregory’spalspaid Vaughn—and Hector when needed—to do. And watching the women who were a part of Gregory’s experiment wasn’t so hard either.
Yeah, they were all mostly smoking hot—at least the adult ones were. Vaughn had ranked them in order of hotness. But he wasn’t sharing that info. Gregory would just get pissed.
Gregory had poured out all his grief when he’d heard three years ago that his lover—who’d run from him after that last kid was born a decade ago or something—had been killed two years before Gregory even realized it.
He hadn’t even been able to go to precious Denita’s funeral. Or bury her under her real name or anything.
Gregory had really changed after that. Gotten even more obsessed. With that woman’s daughters, mostly.
And leaving a legacy for her or something. What would it matter to Denita, anyway? The woman was fucking dead. A legacy meant diddly-squat.
The guy was wacked, but he was all Vaughn really had. Besides Hector.
Vaughn had
