Mitch (9 page)

“I’ll have to think on it.” She didn’t say no,
and that thrilled Vinnie to no end. “What of my house here? Whatever would I do
with it?”

“Sell it. Rent it out. I don’t care. You know
as well as I do we both have enough money we’d never have to worry about it even
if it should sit there and rot. But I’d like you here all the time, not popping
in and out. I love you.” Grandmother told her she loved her as well. “Then you
really will think about it?”

“Yes. But I think we should get his other
business taken care of first. Your parents aren’t just going to go away, and we
both know that.” Vinnie told her she agreed. “Then when the dust settles, we’ll
talk more about this, all right?”

“Yes. But they won’t be changing my mind. I
want you here and so does Mitch. He’s as excited about it as I am.” Her
grandmother blew her a kiss and left her. Vinnie laid down and fell into a deep
sleep almost immediately.

Chapter 6

Connie watched Mitch. He was certainly
happier, but he was also quieter than usual. She wondered about the envelope in
his hand and started several times to ask him about it, but she wasn’t sure it
was any of her business. But when Aster moved over his shoulder and read it,
Connie wanted to kiss the child.

“They’re very serious about this, aren’t
they?” Mitch told Aster to stop being a brat. “I’m not a brat. I’m as old as
you are...well, about anyway. But those people, the Bruces, what do they think
they can get from you if they come around here?”

“Anything they want, I suppose. But I’m not
going to sit by and let them. Vinnie hooked me up with a good attorney, and
he’s looking into some things.” Mitch looked away from them both, and Connie
wondered if he’d told the attorney what had happened to him in that house. “I
talked to Vinnie about it as well. I told her what I had to go through when I
lived there. Everything.”

“Good.” He turned to look at her when she
spoke. “You need to have people know what they did to you. I know it hurts, but
you did nothing wrong, and they’re the ones that need to be punished.” He
nodded but said nothing. “Are you thinking people will think less of you
because of what happened? If they do, you let me know, and I’ll show them a
thing or two that a ghost can do.”

“I’m not really worried about that any more. I
was, but not now. But I’m just wondering, who do you think they’ll believe? A
broken down man with not a pot to piss in, or people that have been watching
the unwanted for most of their lives? I’m pretty sure I don’t even come close
to the image that they project for the world to see. The Bruces, I mean. I’ve
seen some of the things they’ve said about me, and none of it is very nice.” Mitch
snorted. “I have little to nothing to show for my life. Some money in the bank.
A steady job and some friends that are less than human. A soon-to-be wife that
is a good attorney too, but she’s a little on the odd side in that she’s a
vampire. I love that about her, but I’m pretty sure it won’t win me any prizes
in the upstanding citizen awards. Oh, and let’s not forget that I have long,
very helpful conversations with two of the sweetest ghosts I know.”

“Thank you, darling. We love talking to you
as well. But you’re thinking too hard about this. Why, I know for a fact those people
have been under investigation several times since you left them. There are
three boys missing. Did you know that?” He told her he did and was looking for
them as well. “Mitch, you can’t just let this go. Please tell me you’re going
to fight them with everything you have.”

“I had thought to just figure out a way to
pay them off. Or at the very least, run away and start over with the help of a
new name and identity. But since I’ve found someone to love and to love me
back, I think I’m going to hit them with all I have, thanks to you and the
others.” He sat up and leaned back more on the fence that surrounded the little
family cemetery. “On a different note, I’ve moved in with Vinnie. I asked her
and she said it was on her mind to tell me to anyway. But Christ, you should
see this house. It has nine bedrooms on the second floor and five more on the
third. They all have their own bathrooms too. And the lower levels are like
this entire new house that no one sees but her and me.”

“I’ve talked to Luther about the house. He’s
very proud of that mansion. You’ll be happy there.” He nodded but didn’t look
all that convinced. “Tell me what’s bothering you, Mitch. I can help some. Maybe.”

“They’ve named Vinnie in the suit. Not with
me, but as part of it. Because she is in my life and has money, I guess. I
don’t understand some people.” Connie didn’t either, and she’d seen more than
her fair share of them. “Now they want even more. And they think that the state
should continue to pay them as if they’re watching children for them for the
rest of their lives. At some point, you’d think they’d have a clue that what
they were doing was wrong. I understand that they’ve been investigated, but it
seems no one looked all that hard to find anything. Why are there people like
them out there?”

“I don’t know, love. I truly don’t. People
like them are always looking for the short cut. It might not be millions of
dollars, though most of them would jump at it, but mostly to make it so that
they can get as much as they can from the system because they feel they deserve
it. Even if they don’t, they’ll keep taking and taking, complaining about how
they can never get ahead this way.” Connie looked at her home, the one her
lovely family lived in. “Mitch, if you don’t fight this with every fiber of
your being, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”

“I’ve decided to fight. I don’t want to, but
they’ve pushed me against the wall, and it’s either go at them with all I have
or let them continue to beat me down. And they are. Daily now. There was an
interview on television last night with them. You should have heard the drivel
they were saying. How I did them wrong by telling the state I was no longer
there, when in fact I was there the entire time. They claimed I even talked
others into saying untrue things as well. Accused them of doing things that
just weren’t right. I never told anyone why I left until now, but they have
this version of it in their heads that is making me look like a pervert.” Connie
asked him what they were. “They said that Mark told me that I couldn’t make
passes at his wife, that I needed to have counseling. To see someone about what
was going on in my head. Basically, he said I was nuts. They said that they
were going to call the board on me anyway, but the way I’d done it hurt them. It
was the way they’d ran things all along and no one had complained until I told
them to. Bullshit.”

She smiled. This was a Mitch she’d not seen
before. Fired up and full of piss and vinegar, as she used to say. Connie
wondered if she could do anything to help her friend when she realized that
some of those boys he’d told her about were dead. In all these years of being
gone, Connie had made some very strong connections and was going to reach out to
one of them as soon as Mitch left. There was no sense in stirring the pot up if
it didn’t lead anywhere, so she’d wait to tell him. When Mitch stood up to
leave, she wanted to hug him to her desperately. She so loved this young man.

“Well, Steele is saying we need to go over a
few things in the office. I think he wants to make sure that none of what we do
is brought up at the trial. I’ve even asked him not to go, and he only laughed
at me.” Mitch smiled and so did Connie. “I’ve never seen such a change in a
person as he made when he met Kari. Do you suppose everyone does to a degree?”

“You have.” Connie nodded when Aster spoke.
“You’re not as dark or moody. I’ve even seen you smile a couple of times for no
reason whatsoever. My goodness, it’s like someone took your body and replaced
it with a happy one. I like this new you. But what I’d like to know is, when
are you going to introduce us to your mate? And when are you going to invite us
to your home so we can come and see you whenever we want?”

“She can’t see you.” Aster asked him why not.
“I’m not sure. I’ve asked her a couple of times if she can see her aunt or dad
when he’s around, but she can’t. I’ve been meaning to ask Steele about it.”

“She doesn’t want to see us.” Mitch asked her
what she meant. Connie knew there were many factors involved in seeing a ghost,
but if you believed you could, then you could. “She’s afraid of you being a
necromancer, isn’t she? That’s what it is. She’s in love with you and is still
slightly afraid. I know she and Steele have talked, even Kari and Addie have,
but she’s still afraid of what you might be able to do to her. Not that she
really believes it in her heart, but her mind is harder to convince sometimes.”

“I’d never hurt her. She has to know that of
me.” Connie told him of course he wouldn’t. “So you think that if she only
believes in me and what I can do, she can see what I do? All of you guys?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. The fact that
you can see us at all is a wonderment to me. Did you know there are more of you
guys than I first thought? I mean, like families of you.” He said he’d figured
that was true. “But did you know most of them are taking drugs, living in homes
for the mentally unstable as well? People think they’re insane and they usually
end their own lives rather than have anyone there to help them. That is the
saddest thing I’ve ever heard, don’t you think?”

“Yes I do. And had it not been for Ray and
him finding me, I might have been there as well. But how? How do you help them?
I’m sure you have a plan. You’d have never brought it up if you didn’t.” She
laughed and so did he. “I tell you what. You let me finish this thing up with
the Bruces and I’ll help you with your plans. I don’t have much in the way of
funding, but it’s all yours if we can make this work.”

As he moved back to the house, his step a
little lighter, Aster came to stand beside her. The girl had had her life cut
so short, but she’d been doing so much good since she’d been killed at
seventeen. And Connie was sure that had she not been there with her all these
years, she might have been a little worse off than even Mitch had been.

“Does he have any idea how much he’s worth,
you think?” Connie asked her how much. “Billions. Not just money either, but
houses, cars, stocks. Vinnie has done well for herself, and in living a long
time, she’s also amassed a great many collectables. I think...what do you think
of her opening a nice antique store? I think with her knowledge and our
connections, she can make a go at it. If nothing else, she might have firsthand
knowledge of all the pieces that come her way. She might have even owned them.”

“What a thing to say. But you might be right.
And you’ve been snooping again, haven’t you?” Aster only grinned. “When she can
see us, and I’ve no doubt she will soon, we’ll have a long talk with her. She’s
going to have to do something other than being a lawyer. I wonder if she became
one because of her being a real bloodsucker, or she just liked to rub it in
people’s faces.”

“Knowing Vinnie, I’d say she did it to rub in
their faces. She’s a nice person. Too bad about her family.” Connie agreed. She’d
been using some of her more...well, less than stellar connections to keep an
eye on Horatio, as well as the rest of the family. He was up to no good, she
just knew it. The man was simply bad news. Connie looked at Aster when she
laughed.

“Well, I’m off. I want to go and talk to
Kari’s baby again. She’s going to be such fun when she gets here. Just a few
more months and I’ll be an aunt.”

As Connie was left in her solitude, she thought
about the people in the house and the ones that were close by. Connie loved them
all, the living and the dead, and she’d do just about anything to help them.
With that in mind, she reached out to a couple of her friends and put the
search out for some of the young men that had been in the Bruce household. Even
the dead had connections that could help.

~~~

Millicent watched the man standing in front
of her in wonder. He was mean and rude, but it was his treatment of the child
with him that had her wanting to tear his throat out. Something that she’d done
countless times to those that would dare piss her off. But with this newfound
life, this half-life, she could only watch as he fumbled through life without
knowing that he was so close to death right now. And how she’d make him pay for
doing that to such an innocent child, something that had never occurred to her
to be bothered about until now. She didn’t bother turning when she felt her
brother come up behind her.

“They’re meaner now than I ever thought
possible when I was alive.” Horrie agreed with her and laughed. “If I could
only, for a moment, do something to rid the world of one more asshole, I’d do
it. Why does he have to yell at his child like that? Why does he think that
screaming at her will make her understand what he wants from her any better?”

Horrie touched the man, no more, and he fell
into the street in front of an oncoming car. They both watched as his body was
thrown high into the sky, then tumbled back down only to be hit several more
times by the other oncoming cars. She turned to him with a frown on her face when
the screaming started, and thought perhaps she’d like to shove him into the
street now too. Not that it would hurt him much. Millie now wished she’d done
it to him when they were both alive. As if he read her mind, he shook his head.

“Not today; actually, not any day. You’re not
to cause me harm no matter what. Do you understand me? But today I have a job
for you to do. Somehow Amber has been blocked from going into Victoria’s house.
I want you to see if you can get in.” She asked him why her. “Because, my dear
sister, you owe me.”

He’d been telling her that since she’d died
and found him here still moving about as if he was still living. What she owed
him and why was still a mystery to her. And when she asked, and she had several
times, he only blew her off and told her there were too many things for him to
remember. She had an idea there had never been anything she’d done that would
have her owing him, but nodded to him all the same.

“Why are you still trying to get that house?
It’s not like it can keep you safe, you dumbass. You’re already as safe as you
can get. You’re dead.” He only glared at her. Something else she was enjoying
about being dead, her brother could no longer hurt her. He could insult her,
even make her cry, but he could no longer touch her. “This is all that stupid
bitch’s idea, isn’t it? Amber has you trying to get her the house that you said
no to all those decades ago. Why? Do you think you can keep it from the
creditors? I don’t. Just let it go, Horrie, and move on. Please.”