Chapter Four
Veronica
Walking through the door of the house I share with my two best friends, my body is still shaking with fear. I go down to my knees, wrapping my arms around my dog when runs up to me. I hug him tightly, needing his love at the moment. When Denver starts licking my face, I feel a bit of the tension leaves my body.
Pushing myself off the floor, I give Denver a long rub then focus on the problem at hand. My life nearly ended tonight, the third time in the last four months. The first happened only two weeks after I buried my mother and stepfather. That time, I was crossing the street, and a car came out of nowhere. Luckily, I was able to jump out of its way, leaving myself with nothing but a few scratches and some bruises.
The second incident was even worse. I was pushed from behind while waiting for the L-train. If it hadn’t been for the quick reflexes of the man standing beside me, I would have ended up on the tracks. I tried telling the other passengers that I was pushed, but everyone looked at me as if I had lost my mind. After thinking about it, I started to agree with them.
I shook both of those off, telling myself they were nothing more than accidents. Tonight was different. It was a direct attack. No way was it an accident. I was standing behind the restaurant, getting some air during my break. One second, I was alone. The next, a man was standing in front of me. A gun was in his hand, and it was pointed at me. Just before he pulled the trigger, the door opened, and one of the dishwashers walked outside. His presence alone was enough to scare the gunman away.
If you count Christmas night, it actually makes four brushes with death. If I had stayed there, I would be dead right along with Timothy, Mom, and the housekeeper. I try not to think of that, but each incident brings it back. After tonight, I’m beginning to think not even the gas leak was truly an accident.
As much as I try to convince myself otherwise, there is no way that it is all a coincidence. Someone is trying to kill me, and I have a pretty good idea who that someone is. I just can’t understand why. I’m so freaking confused that I can’t think straight. The thoughts rushing through my mind can’t be real; there’s no damn way. I have to be wrong, have to be.
Walking into the living room, I see my two best friends sitting on the couch. Kat, Erin, and I have been friends for years, ever since we all ended up at the same boarding school. Our friendship stayed strong, even after we left school and went our separate ways. When each of us got out of college, or culinary school in my case, we reconnected and moved in together. We’ve been sharing a house for the last two years. Usually, I love having them around, but right now, I wish I lived on my own. I need some alone time to think this through.
“What the hell happened to you, Veronica?” Kat asks, pushing herself off the couch and walking my way. “You look like shit.”
She’s right; I look like crap. I was so upset after the gunman ran off that I ended up leaving work early. Not wanting to come home and face my friends, I spent the next three hours riding the L-train from end to end. Of course, the entire time, I was crying my eyes out.
Looking into Kat’s worried eyes, I chew on my bottom lip. My eyes finally move over to Erin and see her staring at me with concern written all over her face. I want to tell them what is going on, but I’m scared to. I feel like, if I say it out loud, the words will make it all real. Right now, I’m not sure I can deal with reality.
I shake my head, pasting on a fake smile. “I’m okay, just a long night.”
“She thinks her stepbrother is trying to kill her,” Erin states, looking down at the laptop sitting in her lap. “And, she’s right.”
My entire body locks up, chills working their way up and down my spine. Even Denver can feel the tension running throughout my body. He keeps rubbing against my legs, letting out a little woof every few seconds, trying to soothe me in the only way he can. I reach down and give him a quick pat before looking back at Erin.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
Erin taps on her laptop a few seconds more then sets it on the coffee table. She takes a second, staring down at her empty lap, before looking up at me. She finally stands up and walks my way. When she gets close enough, she grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Tell us what happened tonight, and I’ll tell you what I know,” Erin says, none of her normal light-heartedness in her voice.
Kat looks at us, anger clouding her eyes. “Tell me you didn’t nearly die again.”
“I can’t,” I reply with a shrug before telling them what happened.
By the time I am done with my story, Kat is shouting and issuing threats. Erin, on the other hand, is just looking at me with pity. She knows something, something that I’m not gonna like. As much as I wish I could ignore this whole situation, I can’t. I have to figure out what the hell is going on, even if I don’t truly want to know.
“Tell me what you think is happening,” I order, pushing the words past the lump in my throat.
“As soon as you called to tell us what happened on Christmas, I knew something was wrong. Timothy wouldn’t have turned off the alarm system,” she says with a shrug.
I thought the same thing when I found out what had happened. Timothy made sure that alarm was on constantly. Not once in my life have I ever seen it turned off. Even when the electricity went off, due to weather or maintenance, a generator would kick on and keep everything running. Miles said the same thing at first. A few days later, he changed his story. He claimed that there had been some issues with the alarm going off for no reason, so his dad turned it off, planning to have it looked at after the holidays. Supposedly, he only remembered after being questioned by the authorities.
“If you wouldn’t have been so hard-headed and let us come to the funeral, I could have run a check on the security system. I would have a better idea of what happened,” she says with a shrug. “It’s too late for that now.”
“I explained why I didn’t want you to come,” I whisper, hearing the hurt in her voice.
Both Kat and Erin wanted to come. They begged me to let them fly down, but I wouldn’t let them. Neither of them comes from money. They were at the boarding school on scholarships, because they both have IQs higher than Albert Einstein. Mom and Timothy didn’t care that they were brilliant; they only saw them as poor kids they didn’t want me associating with. Miles felt the same way, having gone so far as to make cracks about them while we were planning our parents’ funeral. No way was I going to put my two friends through that shit.
“With each accident you’ve had, it’s become more obvious. After you were nearly turned into a speed bump for the train, I decided to do something more than worry,” Erin states, thankfully getting back to the subject at hand. “I did some digging and found out some interesting stuff about Miles. Your brother is in serious debt to a loan shark, maybe more than one, and he needs your inheritance to pay it off.”
I try to make sense of what she is saying, but I just cannot get my brain wrapped around the idea that my stepbrother may be trying to kill me. When all was said and done, including the jewelry my mother left me, I inherited over six million dollars. That is pocket change to what my stepbrother got. Miles inherited the majority of Timothy’s estate. He received the company and controlling interest in all of the oil wells his dad had owned. He also took ownership of all the properties, which included the mansion in Houston and six estates in three different countries. Combined, all of that is valued at over a billion dollars. When you add in future profits, you’re talking about billions. Then, he received a hell of a lot of money to boot.
Looking at Erin in confusion, I ask, “He just inherited more money than he could spend in a lifetime. Why would he want my inheritance?”
“He’s broke. By the time his dad died, Miles was swimming in debt. As soon as he got his hands on the money, it was gone. Everything is gone, even the house he grew up in.” Letting go of my hand, Erin takes a step back and shakes her head. “Even with all he inherited, he is still in debt. He needs your money to keep from getting his ass taken out.”
Kat takes a step back and shouts, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, ignoring Kat’s outburst.
Instead of answering, Erin walks back to the couch and sits down. Then, she grabs her laptop and starts clicking keys. My friend is a tech guru. If you put a computer in front of her, she can do anything. Hell, she made quite a bit of money on a phone app that she created in less than a day. She clicks away for a few minutes before motioning for us to come over and look. After plopping down beside her, I look at the screen, not quite sure of what I am seeing.
“What is all this shit?” I ask as Denver lays his head in my lap.
“This is a copy of your stepbrother’s flight log for the last nine months. He has flown to Las Vegas twenty-three times, Atlantic City seven times, and twice to Monte Carlo,” she explains, pointing to the dates on the screen. “He has done a lot more traveling, too, to places that are not considered gambling hotspots. In fact, he has spent more time away from Texas than he has at home. Some of that could be for business, but I believe most of the travel was for high-stakes poker games.”
She flips from screen to screen, pulling up more and more information on my stepbrother. She shows me pictures of him sitting at the poker tables in Vegas, images she pulled right from his social media accounts. Then, she starts showing me his financials. Miles’s credit report is filled with one maxed out account after another. She shows me the bill of sales on all his properties and my stepfather’s business and oil wells, making sure that I know they were all sold for pennies on the dollar. Finally, she shows me a divorce decree, where he signed over full rights of his daughter to his wife.
“He moved to Vegas last month,” she tells me, pulling up a hotel registration. “Since then, he has been living in a high-roller suite at The Palms. That shit’s not cheap, so he has to be getting money from somewhere.”
“Yeah, he’s probably borrowing it from someone, planning on paying it back with Veronica’s fucking money,” Kat shouts, anger filling her voice. “He’s betting on your death, and that’s a bet he’s planning on winning.”
“The only person who would give your brother that kind of money would be a loan shark. By now, he is probably so far in debt that he’d be willing to do anything, even kill his stepsister,” Erin explains before drawing in a deep breath. “But, there is no way we can prove that. If we took what we have to the police, I doubt they’d even talk to him. I’d be the one going to jail, for hacking into your brother’s information.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I ask her. Erin isn’t usually one to keep something like this from me, especially if she thought it could be dangerous.
“I had questions about the gas leak, and you blew me off,” she says, keeping her voice gentle. “If you didn’t want to listen to me then, why would you listen to me now. I thought about telling you many times, but I could tell you were trying to make excuses for the shit that was happening to you. We all did. The car could’ve really been an accident. The train, too, for that matter, but it worried me. That’s why I decided to see what I could find about Miles. When nothing happened for a few weeks, I decided I was probably wrong. I hoped he had given up and found another way to cover his debts. After tonight, it’s obvious that he hasn’t. Something needs to be done before it’s too late.”
I look between my two best friends, trying to take in everything I’ve just learned. My stepbrother has destroyed everything his father built in just a few short months. With everything, only one part runs through my mind. The thought is enough to make my stomach roll.
“He killed my mom and Timothy, killed the housekeeper, and now he wants to kill me,” I whisper, swallowing back the bile rising up in my throat. “What am I going to do?”
Kat grabs my hand, squeezing it tightly. “You know what you have to do.”
Without even saying his name, I know Kat is telling me I need to call my dad. I may be a grown woman now, but I will always be his little girl. He can make this right, make Miles leave me the hell alone. The only problem is, Dad will do that by putting a bullet in the asshole’s head. At this point, I couldn’t care less about my stepbrother, but I don’t want my Dad going to jail.
Erin nods, tossing her arm over my shoulder. “She’s right. You have to let him know what’s going on. This isn’t something you can fix by yourself.”
“I know,” I reluctantly agree, hating to lay this on his shoulders.
Dad has always been there whenever I’ve needed him, and this time would be no different. I will just have to make sure he understands that he can help me, as long as he doesn’t do anything that will land him in jail. I don’t need to feel any more guilt.
I take a minute, trying to fight back the wave of panic filling my body. Finally, I stand up and step around Denver’s huge body then start walking across the room. Grabbing my purse off the hook by the door, I pull out my phone. Not wanting to do it, but knowing I have to, I click on his name and wait for him to answer.
As soon as he answers, I say the words I know will fix everything. “Daddy, I need you again.”