It Stinks In Here Part II
“Grandfather feels badly.”
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“Not badly enough,” he grunted at his sister. “His refusal to listen to my concerns forced me to play a dangerous game for two full years after my wife left me.”
“You got her though.” They shared a smile. “I still remember how much I laughed when Duchess got caught red–handed in the office at the house, sirens blaring, lights flashing and with her hand in the cookie jar.”
“I set the trap and she walked right into it.” he snickered with the memory. “Nothing felt as good as watching her get taken away in handcuffs. Well, except watching her get sentenced for corporate espionage and embezzlement.”
“She has under a year left of her sentence right?”
“Unless she gets out for good behavior or early release for parole.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Is it too much to ask that someone kills her inside?” 1/7
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It Stinks In Here Part II
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“She is protected by her family. She took the fall for carrying out her grandfather’s directives. If she weren’t such a snake, I’d be impressed with her loyalty to the family and how well she carries out orders.”
“You never intended to marry her or have a family with her? Not even before you suspected her, knowing that it was what Grandfather wanted?”
He looked away thinking on the question and shook his head, “there was a time I thought she was a good match. I didn’t care for her one way or the other and really I never considered marrying for love because I’d never been in love before.”
“Do you think what you felt for January was love?”
“Yes.”
Thisbe shook her head and called him out, “you don’t do to the people you love what you did, Gully. If you loved her, if you really loved her, you would have sat her down and explained what was going on. Even if you didn’t trust me or anyone other than Glenn to keep your secrets, you should have trusted your wife. She is the one you slept With every night, you planned a family with, and you 12:32
It Stinks In Here Part II
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professed to love and yet you kept such massive secrets from her.”
“It was for her safety.”
“It was because you didn’t trust her enough with the truth. I get not trusting me or Ford because we both are incredibly emotional people but seriously, your own wife?”
He made a face, “you don’t understand the risk.”
“No but January might have. You lied to her about everything. You made me lie to her. You told her we were from a wealthy English family. You gave her a snapshot of who and what we are but it’s like taking someone into a forest and pointing at one tree and calling it the jungle. It was duplicitous and wrong. How could she love you if she didn’t know the real you?”
He gave her an angry glare, “are you done?”
“Yes. I’m done because I can see by the look on your face, that stubborn, pig–headed, face, that you are going to retreat again behind that wall you’ve been hiding behind for the last several years.”
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It Stinks In Here Part II
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“She’s gone. Whether she was taken or whether she left of her own volition, we’ll never know. We need to resign ourselves to this.”
“This is the shit Grandfather was spouting when he was here last week and what forced you to join Ford on an adventure into saving skunks.”
“There were three baby raccoons there too. I got to bottle feed them.”
“What a photo op that would have been,” she mocked him. “Big bad gangster CEO bottle feeding raccoons. Your image would be tarnished.”
“Would it help you to know I killed someone later that same evening for daring to take my shipment from my warehouse?”
“Not particularly.” She made a face of disgust. She watched with interest as his phone rang and he put his business face on.
Unsmiling, cold, blunt, this was the face of the Raptis and Crane families. “Speak.”
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It Stinks In Here Part II
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Thisbe rolled her eyes at the way her brother commanded the legion of soldiers his grandfather put under his rule.
“Boss. I have a report for you on your wife.”
Both he and Thisbe sat up straight at the comment.
“You have a lead?” he growled into the phone, his fist tightening around the device he held near his chin. His heart pounded with incredulity. Almost eight years since she was gone and finally a lead.
“Oddly enough, yesterday when we landed in Burlington you left a bunch of your team in Burlington to kick around until you got back from the woods with the Doc.”
“Yeah.”
“One of the guys saw a woman pumping gas at a gas station. She paid at the pump and didn’t go into the store. He was one of the guys who drove Mrs. Crane to and from school. He said he wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was her because her hair is really dark now, but her profile reminded him of her. When she turned to go back to the car, he used his phone to snap a pic. He sat on it all 5/7
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It Stinks In Here Part II
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night because he thought maybe he was imagining it. He said he’d feel stupid if he brought it up and it wasn’t her. Said it was like a kid saying he saw Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. This morning he’s saying he can’t stop thinking it was her. He sent me the pic. I ran it with the facial recognition software we have. It’s her. I’m certain. I’m sending you the picture.”
His chest was caving in as he looked at the image on his phone. It was his sister leaning over his shoulder gasping that made him exhale, reminding him to breathe.
“It’s her.”
“Where she went after she left this gas station we’re not sure but it’s our first lead in seven years and eight months, sir. I’ve already dispatched a small crew to begin knocking on doors and collecting any CCTV from the area to at least get the direction she drove off in. So far, all we have is she left the gas station, hit a McDonalds and that’s the last we see of her. I’m hoping to hack into some of the cities‘ traffic cams, but her car was nondescript to start with. In a world full of black SUVs, she too was driving one so it’s making it difficult. We don’t even have the make or model because he zoomed in on her face with the Camera.”
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It Stinks In Here Part II
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“Find her.”
“Yes sir.” The phone went dead.
He looked up at his sister who was still staring at the photo on the phone. “Let’s go to Vermont.”
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