Fated Absolution (3 page)

“This is me when I was about your age,” she told Lizzy and when Mac pushed in she showed him too, “and this is my Mother. I don’t know her. She died a very long time ago. Just after I was born”

“She’s dead? Brent’s mommy got dead, but he gots a new one and a daddy too.” Lizzy asked her while still fingering the design on the locket.

“I don’t know anything about them.” Before someone started asking question she wasn’t comfortable answering, Maddy changed the subject. “What sort of confection do you guys like?”

“Sometimes Aunt Sam bakes us un-birthday cakes. That’s fun. We get to each pick a day and she bakes us what we want.”

Each child took a turn holding and looking at the tiny pictures that had been enclosed within the gold locket. When they were both finished, she slipped the chain back into her blouse.

“That
is
very nice, I don’t even like to celebrate things when everyone else does, but I bet that would be fun-city to have a special un-day. Mr. MacManus, there are several other properties and businesses in that general area, most of which have all gone belly up. If you wanted to save some real money, I’d approach the lender directly and see if you can get them for about fifty cents on the dollar. Most of them will be willing to take a cut just to not have to carry it on their books anymore. No, no more tea for me please, I have a long drive home. Most of them are just defaulted loans, but quite a few are in for non-payment of taxes, as well.”

Maddy set down her tea cup that was a part of the set Lizzy had gotten from the big closet across the room. Maddy went over to the computer on the desk she had set up and pulled up the city map for the area she was talking about.

“This property is in default of their loan, as are these six here. This one and this one are in tax trouble by thousands of dollars, but not default yet, but it shouldn’t be much longer. If you’d like I can get you the names of the leaning institutions that are involved and you can see what you can work out.”

“As my lawyer, wouldn’t you be the better person to do this for me?” Aaron asked.

“Nah, I’m not really your lawyer. Mr. Butt Hole, err…Button sent me out here tonight as punishment. If you want to contact him and have him do it that’ll be fine, too. But it will be costly. He’ll charge you four hundred an hour and bill you for a minimum of eight hours. Doing it yourself will only take about an hour or so and it’s free. I could show you how, it’s really easy.” Maddy offered as she shut down their computer.

“You don’t like your boss.” Sara hadn’t asked, just made a statement. Maddy didn’t care if they knew about her feelings toward her boss, as far as she was concerned her employment couldn’t get much worse, just longer. They would add on more months, years, it didn’t matter; she was as stuck with them as they were with her. And if she could make them lose a little money in the deal, great! She wouldn’t complain.

“No, Mrs. MacManus I don’t, but then the feelings are very mutual. I should be going. I have to get home before it gets too dark to read the street signs. I can get lost in my own apartment.”

She gathered up her things, and after shaking hands with the adults and getting a surprising hug from the two kids, she left. She’d told them to either call the firm or let her know by her email account it if they decided to do it on their own. She could get them the list as late as tomorrow morning when she got to work.

~~~

“What did you think of Maddy Harm?” Sara had waited until after they had put Lizzy and Mac to bed to sit with the contract that the girl had left them and to discuss it with Aaron. Maddy was all the children had talked about when they had put them to bed an hour ago. And wanted to invite her to their birthday party, the real one in three weeks.

“She’s great. Did you get anything from her?” Aaron had truly liked the girl. She was upbeat, honest and the kids had taken to her immediately. And to him that was the great testimony of all kind. Children could spot an insincere person right away.

“Nothing other than she is as honest and sincere as she acts. She does hate her boss though, but I couldn’t get the why. Did you get anything?”

Both were telepaths, Sara being the stronger of the two. It had paid them well to be able to ‘read’ people in dealings whether personal or business. They both had a great many other talents and powers. Sara being the cousin to the Queen of all Magick and Aaron was a fourteen hundred year old vampire, a Master one at that.

“No, just the same. I couldn’t believe how well she interacted with the children. But Lizzy crawling up in her lap to play tea with, her that was a shock. She is normally very standoffish with strangers.”

Aaron had been amazed. They had played tea party and Maddy had never once seemed impatient nor did she seem to be trying to impress them by interacting with their children.

“Well, how do you want to handle the other properties, buy them ourselves or call Mr.

Butt Hole?” Aaron loved that it had slipped out; it showed the girl had a good sense of humor on top of everything else.

“Caught that did you, I nearly hurt myself trying not to laugh out loud. I’m thinking we should do a little investigation into this firm, I think there’s something off there. Couldn’t hurt, and it may gain us a much needed ally in the legal world with her. I have an old friend that I can call; it’s about time for him to visit anyway.”

“Aaron honey, I hate to break it to you, but all of your friends are old.”

“Sure, I’d love to visit. It’s been what, sixty or seventy years?? Heard you got yourself caught and truly shackled.”

Kyle Dixon was really surprised to hear from his oldest friend Aaron. He and Aaron had been turned about the same time, a little over fourteen hundred years ago. Over the ensuing years they had become very close, as close or closer than brothers, coming to the aid of one another whenever the other called. He was also a good friend of Colin Larimore’s, having helped with his very touchy change when he been nearly beaten to death for taking the blame for a stolen loaf of bread a woman had taken for her children.

“I have a few things I’d like to go over with you before you look into something for me.

Also, if Sara hears you call her a shackle, she cut you to ribbons, and I my dear friend will laugh my ass off when she does.”

Kyle was incorrigible. He knew it and so did his friends. But with Aaron, Kyle would freely admit that he dearly loved the man.

They set up a time to meet at the end of the week. Kyle hoped that Aaron would ask him to be a part of his Kiss. He had been wandering for some time now and was ready to settle down.

He couldn’t’ think of any place he’d rather be than with good friends and hopefully new ones.

~~~

“Maddy, I took a phone message for you. Some sexy male voice would like for you to call him back as soon as you can. I told him you were in a meeting. Why that skinflint Schaller won’t give you a phone in that dungeon he puts you in is beyond me.”

Caroline Peters worked as Mr. Button’s personal secretary. She was also sleeping with him. It was a part of the job description. She would work in this position and whatever other position the nasty old man wanted until someone new came along, and then she’d be shuffled off to another part of the building or bought off. She was taking the buy off, Maddy remembered her telling her once, she had big plans for that money and was planning to retire on it, and hell she’d said she was only twenty-nine. Maddy really liked Caroline. Maddy was the only person who treated her as a person, a person of worth, not some two bit whore, she knew. She couldn’t help but here the gossip about her. They had never talked about what she did on the side and Maddy certainly didn’t want to know either.

“Don’t worry about it. This way, when he wants me he has to come to me to yell at me instead of just calling. And I’m sure there are times when he doesn’t think it’s worth the move off his big butt to do it.”

She looked down at the pink message slip and wondered at the name and number. She didn’t know a Colin Larimore. Oh well; she’d just have to find a pay phone somewhere.

Twenty minutes later she was still trying in vain to get in touch with him. Her frustration was making her talk to herself more. “If you leave a message to have someone call you back, the very least you could do is be there when they call.” She left him a second message.

“Mr. Larimore, this is Madison Harm with Schaller and Schaller again. You called the office today looking for me. I don’t have one, an office I mean, nor do I have a phone, cell or otherwise. I will be at this number for another hour. After that, well it’s up for grabs. Okay.”

That said, she hung up.

Maddy hated leaving messages with strangers. You didn’t know whether they were a legitimate call or someone cranking your chain from the office, but she trusted Caroline. Plus, she tended to babble when she was nervous, on top of talking to herself; she was a cracker short of a picnic basket.

“You want to tell me why we are taking personal phone messages for you on company time?” She didn’t know how long Mr. Butt Hole had been standing there, but from his mood she would guess it had been a while. Did he truly expect people to fall to the floor and kiss his feet when he entered a room? Sometimes she took her time acknowledging him just to piss him off.

A girl just had to have fun once in a while.

“Well, as I don’t have any friends, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t a personal message. I do, however; have a call into a potential client, a Mr. Larimore. Was it him that called and got your panties all in a bunch?”

Maddy had no respect for Button and didn’t bother hiding the fact. She couldn’t stand that he was the laziest man she knew and that he would take advantage of every situation. Not unlike most people, but he was particularly good at it.

Rather than answer her, he slammed the slip down on the table and huffed out of the room. He had to have heard her laughing all the way down the hall. She was still grinning when she got to the now empty reception desk to use the phone there.

“Mr. Larimore, please? This is Madison Harm returning his call. He called just a few minutes ago.”

She was watching the birds on the tops of the trees while she had waited for the phone to be picked up by him.
Oh to be out of doors on a day like today
she thought,
or to at least have a
little window to look out of once in a while, or a nice breeze on a pretty day.

“Hello Ms. Harm. I’m sorry we have been playing phone tag, but I’d like to talk to you about some property you talked to Aaron MacManus about, he’s a good friend of mine. I’m interested in purchasing four of the empty buildings that are on Merchants Way and was wondering if you’d act as mediator for me? I have some daytime conflicts and am unable to call the banks during their hours.”

Maddy would have gotten a shock out his “daylight conflicts” had she of known what they were. Colin, like Aaron and Kyle was a vampire. She was blissfully unaware of any non-human creatures.

Vampires didn’t really fry to ash when the sun hit them; it heated them up from the inside out. Starting with their bones, it cooked them, boiling their insides to the point of exploding. If they got to ground, or into a deep lair and plenty of fresh blood they could survive, if they hadn’t been out too long, but it took weeks, sometimes months for them to recover.

“Sure, but he did explain to you that I don’t have my own practice. And that I work for a larger firm. You would have to go through them first before I could legally help you out.”

You never knew when the phones were bugged in the office, so she always made sure to cover her butt. She wasn’t unethical, just smart.

“Yes, yes he explained all that. You’d only be acting as a go between, but I understand what you are saying. Who would I need to talk to in regards to this? Sara mentioned a Mr.

Button, is that who I’d contact? Or Mr. Schaller? I’d like to get started on this right away, Ms.

Harm. Is either of them in their office right now?” Apparently Colin had a clear plan and he was the type to forge ahead and get it accomplished, Maddy thought.

“Mr. Button is still in his office as a matter of fact, and he’d be the one you’d contact, yes. I have his direct phone number, so you could call him whenever you want.”

“Could you transfer me to him now? I like to do things when I have all the players in front of me Ms. Harm, now would work out very well for me.”

Mr. Larimore did indeed want to get the ball rolling. So Maddy called her boss and started to explain to him what Mr. Larimore wanted and that he was on the three-way with her when he got nasty with her. Again.

“You know we aren’t a real estate office, right? Out front of the building it says, in very large letters as a matter of fact, ‘Schaller & Schaller, Attorneys at Law’ no where does it mention

‘call us up if you need to have some dumb cunt help you buy some worthless property’. Tell your lover boy that if he wants you to help him, as long as it’s on your own time, I don’t give a flying fuck what you do.” He was actually much nicer this time than he had been in the past; the problem now would be he had a witness.

“Okay, is that your final decision on my helping Mr. Larimore?” Even she could hear the barely concealed humor in her voice, but this was just too great for caution.

“You are a fucking pain in my ass,” he practically screamed into the receiver. “I don’t give a shit. Did you understand me that time, bitch.”

“Did you hear that Mr. Larimore, I have Mr. Button’s approval in helping you so long as it’s on my own time? Shall we set up a time to get together tomorrow?” Her voice was sugar sweet and ever so polite, and if she sounded just a tad breathless it was because she was holding onto her all out laughter with every fiber of her being. She didn’t figure it would be in her best interest to start screaming with laughter at this point.

“Yes, Ms. Harm, that is quiet all right. Mr. Button, you are…there are simply no words to describe you. I run several very, very large corporations and looking for a law firm to help us diversify. If you were the last firm on this Earth I would not use you. And I will be sure to tell everyone I know just what sort of person you are and how you treat your employees. Ms. Harm, I look forward to hearing from you now that we have it established you are a free agent.