Grace Anne - By Kathi S. Barton Page 0,77

the last ten years of her life in the armed services—cargo pants, black t-shirt, and boots. Grace was willing to bet that she had a gun somewhere on her person, more than likely two of them. Sin’s twin Lilliane was dress in a denim dress with sandals, and a huge purse.

“Tell us what happened at the house. I know you spoke to the police already and they cleared you. Tell us what happened after you left the house.” Michael came to sit beside her as Lilliane asked her. He took her hand as she began.

“Thomas tried to…he wanted me. He said that I was going to die anyway and that Verrie had promised that he could have me. I was in the backseat with him when he tried to rape me.” She looked at Michael before she continued. “Verrie was driving and she told him to wait. But he wouldn’t. He told her that he wanted his payment now. I don’t know what she owed him for, but he was collecting.”

“Thomas had been trouble all his life. His problem was that his mother hadn’t made him do anything he didn’t want and when he did something that got him into trouble she simply paid off whoever he had injured.” Michael looked around the room before looking back at her. “He hated me. I never understood why until the funeral. His friends…well, the ones that had been his mother’s acquaintances, had told me that they could never understand why she let him get by with so much. And that his hatred toward me was because my mother had always been so good to me.”

“So he was jealous,” Payton said. “I knew that little shit. Sorry, but he was. And the longer I was around him, the more I wanted to kick is fucking ass. There wasn’t a kid around that had it so easy yet seemed to think it wasn’t enough.”

“I’m not sure. I only met him the one time and that was at the birthday dinner for Trace.” Grace flushed a little. “He made a pass at me then. I didn’t know how to react. It was as if he thought I was…well, it matters little now. But back to the house. I was in and out of it by then. There was this man and he lifted me out of the limo. I’m not sure what his relationship was to the others, but he did everything they told him to. He also seemed to understand that they were four separate people, yet he only listened to Verrie.”

“His name was Bob Smith, if you can believe it,” Shamus told them as he opened a folder. “He took care of your mother off and on over the years. He was her keeper, I guess. Especially when your father spent time behind bars, he’d hire him to make sure she didn’t get into trouble. Or too much trouble, it seemed. She was in a great deal of it by the time she made it back here.”

“That explains a lot. When we got to the house, every time she would become another he would simply start calling her by that name. At one point they had an argument with him and he fought with each of them as if they were three separate beings.” Grace remembered how surreal that had been. “There were times when I would swear that he was more their father than anything else.”

“So he took you into the house, then what?” Cain asked. Grace felt sorry for him the most. He’d been the protector of them all for so long. To have this happen and it be out of his control was probably eating away at him.

“I was taken to the basement and put on the floor. The room was small, but they’d been prepared for me. The plastic on the floor had been the first clue that they planned to actually kill me, but I think something went wrong. Verrie said that they had to keep me or they wouldn’t get anything.”

“They ransomed you,” Alyssa said. “We got a call just after Thomas was killed and she said that she wanted ten million dollars and they’d give you back. We think it was because of the police being on them so quickly.”

“Thanks to you.” Nathan handed Grace the broken phone as he walked over and kissed Jazzie. “You turned it on and activated the GPS. That was a great way to find you and, even broken like it