Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
It’s a good thing Hawk and I found that shit. Otherwise God knows what would be stored on our property.
Nana pushes a button on her intercom. “Lawrence?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Could you come to the library, please?”
“Right away, ma’am.”
Lawrence is Nana’s butler and close confidant.
A moment later, he enters, clad in his tuxedo. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Close the door, please, Lawrence.”
Lawrence does as he’s told, and then nods to me. “Mr. Bellamy.”
“Hi, Lawrence.”
“Falcon needs a million dollars in cash. Would you get it for him, please?”
“Absolutely. Give me just a moment.”
Lawrence leaves the room.
Funny. I always thought Nana stored her hordes of cash somewhere in the library. Apparently I was wrong.
Or if she does, she doesn’t want me to know about it. So she has another place, and Lawrence is getting it from there.
I learned long ago to never underestimate my grandmother. She’s smart as a whip, and just as sneaky.
Lawrence returns with a black duffel bag and hands it to me. “Mr. Bellamy.”
“Thank you, Lawrence, and thank you so much, Nana. I’ll get the transfer started right away.”
“Don’t worry about that, my sweetheart. I know you’re good for it. I have so much money, and this is nothing to me. I know you wouldn’t ask unless you had a good reason, Falcon. So please, just make sure my trust in you is not misplaced.”
I rise, walk over to her, and kiss her wrinkled cheek. “It’s not, Nana. I promise.”
I pick up the duffel bag, and then I walk out of the library. Lawrence follows me. When we get to the door, he touches my arm.
“Yes?” I ask.
“These bills are unmarked,” he says. “They can’t be traced back to your grandmother.”
“Thank you for your discretion,” I say.
Lawrence glares at me. “She’s an old and frail woman, Mr. Bellamy.”
“She’s old, yes. I wouldn’t call her frail.”
He steps toward me, lowering his voice. “She thinks she’s stronger than she is. Remember. I see her every day. I wait on her every day. I’ve watched her decline over the past couple of years. She loves you. She loves you and your brothers and sisters and your mother and father so much.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”
“She believes in you,” Lawrence says. “But she’s blinded by her love for you. A grandson with a trust fund doesn’t just come in asking his grandmother for cash. If it were for anything other than nefarious purposes, you would’ve just gone to the bank.”
I can’t fault his logic or his observation. He’s exactly right.
“I won’t say anything to your grandmother, Mr. Bellamy. But know this. I love her as if she were my own mother, and I won’t allow anything to happen to her.”
“You don’t love her any more than I do, Lawrence. But I appreciate your concern.”
My grandmother’s ashes sit on my mantle.
I suppose they should probably be at my parents’ house. My father was her only child, but I was lucky enough to get off on furlough for her funeral a year ago, and when I requested her ashes, my father simply nodded.
He knew, as well as I did, that I held a special place in my grandmother’s heart as her first grandchild.
And I knew, as well as he did, how she died very disappointed in me.
I think back to that time, when I asked her for the money, and she didn’t bat an eyelash.
She gave it to me, no questions asked.
She believed in me.
But Lawrence knew.
He cared for her deeply, and he never told her. Then when I went down for manslaughter and got sent away to prison, my grandmother never came to visit me.
My father told me she was just too old to leave the house, but I know better.
She blamed herself. She felt that if she hadn’t given me that money, I never would’ve gone to prison.
She’s wrong, of course. If she hadn’t given it to me, I would’ve gotten it somewhere else. It just might have taken longer because my father didn’t keep cash in the house the way she did.
She was from a different era. She remembered when people didn’t trust banks.
Leif and I haven’t talked much since the ladies went to make dinner in the kitchen.
Instead, I’m standing in the family room, staring at the urn that contains my grandmother’s ashes that sits on my mantle in the family room.
Dad held the ashes for me while I finished out my last year in prison, but it was the first thing I grabbed when I moved back into my house on the family property.
“You called me over here for something,” Leif says. “So what’s with the silent treatment?”
I suck in a breath, look away from Nana’s urn. “Just a lot to think about.”
“I hear you, Falcon. I want to help you. I’m sorry about—”
“Don’t. I don’t know why I got so bent out of shape about it. I mean, why would you change your plans just because I fucked up? So you went into the Navy without me. You served your country, and you didn’t visit me because you weren’t here.”