In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,8
she added, thinking of her father. The man who would not die.
“There is evidence he was suffocated. Maybe with a pillow. . .”
Charlie frowned. “Are you sure he’s a MacKilligan? Because that doesn’t sound right.”
“My sister’s correct,” Max said. “Most MacKilligan siblings start trying to kill each other with pillows by the time they can crawl.”
“It’s true,” Charlie insisted when she saw the look of growing horror on Van Holtz’s very handsome face. “My sisters and I didn’t do that, of course. But, then again, we weren’t babies together. So we missed the whole infanticide period of the honey badger childhood. Anyway, what all that means is most of our family has developed a tolerance for that sort of thing. I’m not saying a badger couldn’t be killed that way, but it would take ages to put one down with a pillow. And a lot of strength to keep them pinned to the bed.”
“It’s really just faster to shoot them in the back of the head,” Max said. “We specify back of the head because shooting them in the front causes damage but doesn’t always kill. We have very hard heads. So, depending on the bullet, it may not actually rip through the skull and get to the brain.”
“And we have quite a few cousins that, if a bullet did hit them in the brain, we’re still not sure it would actually do any damage because they are that stupid.” Charlie glanced at Max. “Right?”
“Absolutely. I hit one of my cousins with a bat once . . . it did nothing. It was wood. It broke . . . on his head.”
“And Max took a really strong swing—”
“Okay!” Van Holtz barked, holding up his hand. “Please stop. I can’t listen to this anymore. What I’m telling you is that we are certain your great-uncle was murdered. That’s all you need to know.”
“And we need to know that . . . why? Exactly.”
“Because. There’s going to be a funeral. A large one. We’ve heard your relatives from Scotland will be coming.”
Charlie leaned back in her chair and stated flatly, “We’re not killing our cousins for you.”
Van Holtz’s eyes grew ridiculously wide. “That is not what we’re talking about!”
“It’s not?” Max asked. “Because it makes sense. They’ll all be in one place and we can pretty much just mow them all down. Women and children first!”
“No!” Van Holtz yelped before he looked away and took several deep breaths. “That is not what we’re asking.”
“Ohhhh,” Charlie said. “So you just want us to go to the funeral so we can spy on our family. Right?”
Van Holtz glanced over at his younger cousin Ulrich Van Holtz, who everyone called Ric.
“I see.” Charlie brushed nonexistent lint off her jeans. “Because a honey badger family is not nearly as important as a pack or pride or a teddy bear picnic.”
“I don’t think bears call themselves . . . that.”
“Look,” Ric said, “we’re not trying to have you do anything you don’t want to do. And we are not interested in family business information. But we were hoping that you could provide us with information about—”
“Our Uncle Will,” Charlie finished for the also good-looking younger Van Holtz. Did all their males look that good?
“Your uncle is a very dangerous man,” Ric went on. “We’re not even sure how he’s being allowed in the States, but he is and we want to know why he’s coming here.”
“I know why he’s coming here,” Charlie replied, glancing at her sister; Max smiled back because it was hitting her too. “If Will is coming here, he’s coming here for one reason. And that’s to make my dreams come true. He’s coming here to kill my father.” She clapped her hands together. “Isn’t that awesome?”
Van Holtz stared at them for several seconds before he admitted, “Sometimes I have no idea how to respond to you.”
* * *
Shen continued to stare at the closed cabinet door until he realized someone was standing beside him.
“Did I hear roaring?” the kid next to him asked.
Shen looked over at the teen he was paid very well to protect. It was why Shen was living in this house with three women he wasn’t related to or dating. Because even his family needed space from the seventeen-year-old. But Stevie liked the kid and, to Shen’s continual surprise, Kyle Jean-Louis Parker liked Stevie. Shen hadn’t thought the kid, a child prodigy, liked anyone.