The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,128
she comes to talk to you—”
“You know I’m not going to be here forever, right?” As Gin looked over, Miss Aurora’s dark eyes were steady. “When I’m gone, you need to pick up the slack with her. No one else will, and she’s got one foot in childhood, one in adulthood. It’s a precarious time. You step up, Virginia Elizabeth, or I swear I will haunt you. Do you hear me, girl? I will come back as your conscience and I will not let you rest.”
For the first time, Gin properly focused on Miss Aurora. Under her housecoat, she was thinner than she had ever been, her face drawn with bags under her eyes.
“You can’t die,” Gin heard herself say. “You just can’t.”
Miss Aurora laughed. “That’s up to God. Not you or me.”
FORTY-THREE
Lane was not leaving the business center until the detectives were finished. As a result, therefore, he found himself walking in and out of the offices, killing time until eventually, he found himself opening the way into his father’s space and taking a seat in the chair his dear old dad had always sat in.
And that was when he had an aha! moment.
Pushing himself around on the leather throne, he shook his head and wondered why it hadn’t dawned on him sooner.
There were shelves behind the desk, shelves that were filled with your standard-issue, leather-bound volumes and framed diplomas and manly effects of a life lived to impress other people with money: sailing trophies, horse pictures, bourbon bottles that were unusual or special. But none of that was what interested him.
No, what he had suddenly noticed and cared about were the built-in, hand-tooled, wood-faced cabinets that were underneath the ego display.
Leaning down, he tried a couple, but they were all locked—and yet there didn’t seem to be any obvious places to put keys or enter codes—
One of the French doors to the terrace opened, and Lizzie came in, a pair of sweet teas in her hands and something that looked like a sleeve of Fig Newtons in the pocket of her shorts.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “And I feel like sharing the wealth.”
As she headed around and dropped a kiss on his lips, he pulled her into his lap and helped her take out the cookies. “Sounds good to me.”
“How are things going in there?”
“I have no idea. I keep expecting them to say that they’ve copied the files and are off, but not yet.”
“It’s been a while.” She opened the plastic wrapping and offered him one. When he shook his head, she put a cookie in her mouth. “But they haven’t asked for anything else?”
“No.” Taking a sip of what she’d brought, he sighed. “Oh, yeah. This is good.”
“So guess what?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m giving myself a promotion.” As he laughed, she nodded. “I’m appointing myself house manager.”
The instant she said it, he thought, Oh, thank God. Because yes, the bills were piling up, and staff had to be handled, and the endless details of the estate had to be dealt with even if there was a freeze on spending. But …
“Wait, you have so much work already. The gardens, and—”
“Here’s the thing. Mr. Harris has quit.”
Lane shook his head. “You know, I’m actually relieved.”
“Yeah, me, too. I helped him move out today. I didn’t want to go into it with you at the time because he’d made up his mind and there’s been so much else going on. But his check bounced, and it made me think about what’s going on with your household accounts—this place is expensive to run with a lot of moving parts. I mean, like, we need to pay all those waiters. We can’t just leave them hanging. The groundsmen all have checks that go out automatically, I just don’t know when? And if there weren’t enough funds for Mr. Harris? Then there aren’t enough for the other people.”
“Shit, I didn’t even think about that.”
“I know that you’re going to want to do right by everyone. So we’ve got to get money into the household account, and we need to make staffing plans. If cuts have to be made, we’ve got to give people notice. We can’t have the folks who work here in good faith get hurt.”
“I agree.” He kissed her again. “One hundred percent.”
“But I’ll figure it out. I’ll go through everything and then let you know where we are. I don’t know where we can find the cash—”
“Actually, I do. I’ll take care of it first thing in the morning before Lenghe