Chapter Nine
Sunlight brightened the room early the next morning and when it hit Pepper in the eyes, she groaned.
Powerful arms tightened around her. “Good morning.” Mikial murmured in her ear.
“Morning it is, but what’s good about it?” she grumbled back.
“It’s the start of a new day.” He chuckled.
“And what more will we discover today about the horror I can’t remember of my life?” she whispered bitterly.
Mikial’s arms squeezed her. “I’ll be right there with you.”
Pepper sighed. “I know, this is just so hard for me.” Twisting around, she faced him. “I’m sorry but I didn’t want to remember that night for a reason. I lost my mom, the one person in the whole world I had that loved me. Then to realize that my father was the person who took her away from me when I needed her the most was too much to handle.”
Mikial pressed his lips on hers. “Sweet, you can’t think of it like that.”
“How else do you want me to think about it? He never cared about me. I was four years old and I never met him. I never saw him before that night and he was there all the time. He didn’t give a shit about me or my mother. He never even told her he was married before that night.”
“There is so much we don’t know yet. Maybe he had his own reasons for what he did. Until we talk to him, we can’t jump to conclusions.”
“I don’t fucking care what he had on his mind or who the fuck he thinks he is. He murdered my mom. Who knows what he would have done to me if I hadn’t gotten away from him. He wasn’t taking me home. I might have been just another victim that night. He could have killed me or worse yet, sold me into child prostitution for all I know. I hope you guys can bring him down and leave him with nothing.”
Mikial kissed her again. “We’ll do our best to make that happen, I swear.”
“Good, let’s go eat something. I’m starving.”
“Me too, but I’m more hungry for you.” He growled, pressing her on her back as he fitted himself between her legs.
“Now this is what I call a good morning call.” Pepper giggled as he took her to beyond the heights...again.
An hour later, after they showered, they joined the others in Yuri’s apartment.
Sazon grinned as he saw them enter. He was adding more to the timeline.
Pepper walked over to it and saw so much more than had been there the night before. “Oh my, you guys have been busy.”
Sazon nodded. “It all fell into place when we knew where to look. We just followed the money.”
“Excuse me?” Pepper turned her head to stare at him in confusion. “What money?”
“We followed the money your mother set up the trust with,” he explained. “You my dear, are worth a small fortune, despite the withdrawals Timothy Flynn has already taken out.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Where did all the money come from in the first place?”
“Your mother was more than up and coming before she died. She was established in her own right. She had a warehouse filled with her paintings and when she died, Leon sold most of them off for a very tidy profit. The money was set up to go into the trust, as she was already gone. There were millions in the trust but no one touched it for fifteen years. That much money adds up in a hurry. Timothy Flynn has only been taking it out for the last three years. The trust is set up in a way that only so much can be taken out in a years’ time. He’s maxed that amount out but couldn’t get any more, so the bulk of it is still there.”
“But how did he get his hands on it in the first place?” Mikial asked.
“He showed up with paperwork claiming to be Cullen Brandt. When everything seemed okay, the bank turned over the money. He is still the attorney in charge of her estate.”
“Any idea how Leon ended up representing himself as Jessie’s attorney?”
“We’re still looking into that,” Sazon answered. Pepper had gone after coffee and Sazon glanced at her before turning to Mikial. “How is she taking all of this?”
Mikial turned to watch her for a moment. “Not very well. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Pausing he added, “I don’t think she can take much more.”
“I don’t blame her.” Sazon nodded. “This would be a lot to digest for anyone.” He placed his hand on Mikial’s shoulder. “Hang in there brother and keep her in your sights. Leon didn’t strike me as a murdering type but if she’s right about him killing her mother, I guess you never know.”
“That’s true enough,” Yuri agreed. “None of us know what we are capable of doing until we are faced with a dire situation.”
Mikial nodded. “She’s mine now, so she won’t be far from me until this is over. Leon doesn’t really worry me as much as Timothy Flynn does. I think he might be the one Leon was trying to get in as my silent partner and if that’s the case, he was planning on using my shop to smuggle something into the country.”
“Like what?” Sazon asked with a frown.
Mikial shrugged. “Who knows and who cares. My business is legit and it’s gonna stay that way. There is no way he can force me to do anything I don’t want to do. Timothy Flynn is bad news any way you slice it.”
“Just watch your back,” Sazon warned. “Flynn is crazy enough to do anything.”
“He’s smart too. He won’t come at me head on, he’ll try to sneak in the back door.” Mikial ran his fingers over his short hair barely ruffling it. “I’ll have to watch every single thing coming in and going out. I’ll have to call Mike over at the warehouse and tell him to triple check everything.”
Sazon nodded. “Yes, you will. I wouldn’t doubt Flynn’s setting something up. Is Leon really pushing this?”
Mikial nodded. “He’s been after me every day for either representing my investments or pushing this investor on me. He didn’t want to tell me much about this guy because I shut him down almost from the start but he kept asking me if I’d changed my mind.”
Yuri and Barshan joined them.
Yuri took a sip of his coffee and suggested, “Maybe we should invite Leon over for a chat.”
Mikial straightened his stance. “I don’t think so. Pepper wouldn’t agree to that.”
“Probably not,” Yuri agreed. “But sooner or later, we’re going to have to talk to him.” He turned and watched Pepper for a moment. “She doesn’t have to see him. We can meet in my office downstairs but we are going to have to talk to him.”
“I think you’re right but before we do speak to him, I want to know more about this business. Right now, we still have too many questions and not enough answers. Questions we may never know the answers to.” Mikial agreed then he growled, “Damn it, I hate this. Everything we think we know it’s just that, we only think we know it. Until we talk to him in person, we may never know for sure. And you can bet he’ll never give us the complete truth.”
Barshan cleared his throat and handed Yuri a piece of paper. “You really aren’t going to like this.”
Yuri searched the paper, growled, then handed it to Mikial.
Mikial read the paper then crumbled it in his hands. He looked at Yuri and tightened his lips in rage. “That dirty low down bastard.”
“What is it?” Sazon asked.
“It’s a newspaper article from eighteen years ago and a death certificate for Pepper Carter,” Yuri explained to the others. “Leon claimed to have found a body of a four year old and he claimed it to be Pepper. He said he knew the girl’s mother and claimed the death was a result of the mother abusing the little girl. He told the papers the girl died as a result of the mother beating her to death. He says he tried to stop the abuse before it was too late but claims he got there too late to save the girl. He also said maybe that was the reason for the fire that claimed Jessie’s life. He hints that Jessie couldn’t take the fact that her baby was dead by her hand and maybe this was her way of coping.”
“Sonofabitch!” Sazon exclaimed. “How could he do that?” He paused then asked, “How does he claim to know who the little girl is? Does the article say?”
“Claimed to be a friend of the family.”
“Friend of the family, my ass.” Sazon scoffed.
“We know it’s all bullshit but it was a convenient way to explain the missing girl and what happened at the trailer.” Mikial shrugged. “We can’t let her see this.”
“Can’t let me see what?” Pepper asked from behind him.
Mikial turned still holding the paper in his hand. “Nothing baby. Nothing at all.”
Pepper caught the look in his eyes, then dropped her eyes to the paper in his hand. Without saying a word, she held out her hand and motioned for the paper.
Mikial tightened his grip and refused to turn it over to her.
Pepper raised her eyes to his. “Please hand it over. I need to know. Don’t hide the truth from me.”
Mikial closed his eyes and handed her the paper.
Pepper scanned it, reading carefully then she dropped them on the floor and walked away from the four men.
No one said a word but instead, watched her carefully.
Finally, Sazon bent over, picked up the paper, and taped it to the timeline.
Mikial watched Pepper for a sign she needed him but Pepper had gone over to the sofa and sat down. She didn’t cry, didn’t even blink. She seemed so far away at the moment even though she was only a few feet away.
He walked over to the sofa and sat down beside her. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her into his embrace.
It took some time for Pepper to come out of her funk but she finally leaned closer to him and began to cry. She didn’t cry out loud, instead she just wept silently.
It broke Mikial’s heart to feel her shudder as she wept. He could only imagine what she was thinking about.
A while later, Pepper broke free from her funk. Turning her eyes to his she whispered, “Promise me you’ll break him. That you’ll take everything he owns away from him leaving him with nothing, not even a pot to piss in. Can you promise me that?”
Mikial nodded. “I can and will.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed his skin. “Good,” she whispered in his ear. “I hate that man so much. He’s just no good. He took everything from me and he didn’t even care. I was his daughter and he didn’t care. He threw my mother away and then he threw me away.” She looked up at him again. “Why would any man do that? Just throw away his child? We never even got the chance to say hello to each other and he threw it all away. Then to say that about my mother? Why?”
“I don’t know sweetheart.”
“Am I so unlovable, he couldn’t even get to know me?” she whispered.
Mikial hugged her closer to him. “No, you are not unlovable at all. I love you.”
Pepper gazed at him “You do? But we just met a few days ago. How can you love me? My own father couldn’t love me.” She dropped her eyes as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
Mikial lifted her face to his. “I’m not your father. Even though we only met a few days ago, I do love you. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have claimed you. I have never claimed another woman in my life. I’ll never let you go.” He pressed his lips to hers. “You’re mine now and forever.”
Pepper tightened her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. “Please don’t ever let me go. I don’t want to be alone ever again. I need you. I need you so much.”
Mikial gave her hot kisses. Mouth open tongue action hot kisses. He tasted her essence and her tears. Losing themselves in the moment, it took a while for them to realize where they were. When they broke the kiss, they looked up to see Yuri, Sazon, Barshan and Raven smiling at them.
Pepper flushed bright red and Mikial just grinned. “Don’t mind us.” He shrugged.
“Get a room.” Yuri grunted as he smiled. He took a peek at Raven and found her watching him. He smiled at her. He knew exactly how Mikial was feeling at the moment. Turning to Pepper, he winked then got back down to business. Kneeling down beside them, he looked at Pepper. “I know the article upset you but he did that to cover up his own crime. He had to give everyone who knew about you a reason why you weren’t around anymore. He had to give the whole world a reason for the fire too. Something they could believe.”
“So he tainted my mother’s memory by having the whole world believe she killed her own daughter then took her own life?” Pepper gasped. “It’s bad enough he never wanted me but to do this to her is too much.”
Yuri patted her hand. “He won’t get away with it believe me.”
“Do you suppose that could be the reason Cullen was run off the road?” Barshan asked. “Maybe he didn’t believe the story Leon was trying to sell.”
“Maybe.” Pepper shrugged. “I guess right now, that’s as good a theory as any. Maybe Cullen knew my mother better than Leon thought. I mean he had to know her right? She picked him as her attorney, so she must have known him. Maybe he knew she would never hurt me, not like that.”
“Either that or he found out who your father really was and was going to tell Leon’s wife about you. Cullen was her cousin, remember? He would have been closer to McKenna than Leon and this might not be something he could keep from her.” Barshan reasoned. “It was shortly after the article came out that his accident happened.”
“Even so, he was on his way to Chalmette when the accident happened,” Sazon reminded them. “What was he going there to find? Was there anything left behind that could have pointed a finger at Leon?”
Yuri turned to Pepper and asked, “Was there anything else on the property besides the trailer?”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like another building or something? The fire burned the trailer to ashes, could there have been something else out there for someone to find?”
Pepper went quiet for a few minutes the finally spoke, “You could be right.”
“What? What do you remember?” Yuri asked.
Pepper frowned for a moment then told them, “I remember a place not too far from the trailer. It was a dug out, a hidden dug out. We found it one day while we were out exploring the woods around the house. Mom was so excited about it. She said it would be our little secret. A secret only me and her would know about. We could put our most treasured things in there and they would be hidden from the rest of the world.”
“What does that mean?” Raven asked.
“I’m not sure. But I do remember going there a lot the last year my mom was alive.”
“So whatever she put in the dugout might still be there?” Sazon asked.
Pepper shrugged. “It is possible someone else found it by this time but yeah, if they didn’t know it was there they could have overlooked it.”
“Do you remember where it is?” Yuri asked.
Pepper nodded. “Yes, I do. I remember everything now. Mom and I made up a rhyme about it.”
“What kind of rhyme?” Mikial asked.
“Let’s see if I can remember it…Over the creek and through the woods to where the bluebells grow. Three trees to the north and four trees to the east its hiding behind the blackberry bush.” Pepper blushed at the whimsical rhyme from her past. “You have to remember I was only four at the time we made this up. It had to be something a kid wouldn’t forget. We sang it to the Over the River and through the woods tune.”
Raven laughed out loud and the men chuckled. “I think it’s cute.” She wrinkled her nose.
Pepper paused then added, “I wonder if it is still there and what she put in it?”
“Before this is over, we’ll have to go out there and find out,” Mikial promised her. “Maybe she hid a treasure out there and it’s waiting for you to find it,” he teased.
Pepper giggled and slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Mikial shrugged. “It could be, you never know.”
She shrugged. “It could be, but the dugout could have already been discovered and whatever treasure was there is long gone.”
“According to what we discovered last night after you guys went to bed, Jessie Carter had a studio full of paintings,” Barshan informed them. “After she died, someone sold them off and put the money into the trust. According to rumor, the only paintings that weren’t sold off are the ones on display at the gallery.”
“Oh, that reminds me, you have to take the little girl painting back,” Pepper reminded them.
“Why?” Yuri asked. “The paintings belong to you.”
Pepper shook her head. “That can’t be proven. There is nothing out there that can prove who I am. Yes, the little girl looks like me, even has the same birth mark and the same name but Leon could point out that the painting could be any little girl with silver hair that curls. He released that article to safeguard himself. The world thinks I died at the hands of my mother eighteen years ago. Cullen Brandt died to keep the secret of who I am and Leon can’t admit to anyone that I’m his daughter. Up until yesterday, I had no idea who I was. I couldn’t even remember my own mother. I have no proof of any of this. None that would hold up in a court of law anyway.”
“That’s bullshit.” Mikial growled.
“That may be but it’s the way a judge would look at it and Leon is a lawyer,” Pepper replied. “He would put everything he had into holding up any claim I had to my mother’s estate. He has too much to lose if what I claim is right.” She looked at each and every one of them. “I’m sure Leon thought of everything when it came to hiding his secret. He couldn’t count on me not showing up one day and laying claim to mom’s estate. I bet he didn’t leave anything to chance.” She shrugged. “I do legal research for attorneys, so I know a little bit of what I’m up against. I know what attorneys look for and you have to have actual evidence that a judge can see, something he can hold in his hands to prove your case. Leon has left nothing to chance. He hasn’t left me anything to prove who I am.”
Sazon blew his breath out loudly. “So in order for you to claim anything, we need him to admit what he did and tell the world who you really are? Should be a piece of cake.”