Fit hits the Shan - A Jake Burbank mystery thriller chapter five

CHAPTER FIVE

This time he went for drinks.

It was after noon which meant five o’clock somewhere by his reckoning and besides, it was his house and he could do as much day drinking as he liked.

Gretchen trailed down the stairs, belting on her skirt under her untucked silk blouse.

She had one of his old robes tossed over a shoulder and handed it to him as he passed her a tumbler with a stingy splash of bourbon in the bottom.

He was out of rum.

“Ice?” she asked.

He pointed toward the kitchen and proceeded to sip his neat, like a gentleman is supposed to do.

She came back with her ruined drink and sat in an arm chair opposite him on the couch.

The picture window looked out over his front yard and the real estate housing development going in across the pasture.

The light coming in gave her red hair a slight glow as she touched the glass to her lips and didn’t drink.

Jake didn’t mind.

He would just add what she left to his glass later. Waste not, want not.

“What’s the favor?” he asked.

“I need to go get something,” Gretchen said.

“What’s stopping you from getting it?”

“A guy,” she sighed.

“An ex sort of guy?”

“Exactly that sort.”

“And what does he have that he’s keeping from you?”

“Money,” she said.

“How did he get this money?”

“He didn’t,” she told him. “I did.”

“And he kept your money?”

She nodded.

“And you let him? That doesn’t sound like the Gretchen I remember.”

She touched her lips again and didn’t drink.

“He has this way about him,” she said. “Once he starts talking, he convinces you that it’s your idea to do what he says.”

“Did he con you?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get the money?”

He noticed her shoulders stiffen.

“Someone left it to me.”

“A will?”

“You could call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“He cleaned out his bank account and gave the money to me before he died.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No,” she smirked. “I’m not a killer. But his family thinks I did.”

Jake tilted his head.

“He had a heart attack.”

“That’s common enough.”

“In bed. With me.”

“Another ex?” Jake sat back on the couch.

“He was a lover,” she said.

“Who paid you.”

“The two acts are independent of each other,” she snapped. “I don’t do that for money.”

“Then why did he pay you?”

She shifted in the wing chair, the fabric of her skirt whispering on the soft leather.

“Because he loved me.”

“And you loved him.”

“Yes,” she answered. “He couldn’t change his will, because of his family. But he wanted me to have some comfort.”

“Did he know he was going to die?”

She shivered at the memory of something. Jake wondered if it she was reliving the moment her paramour died.

“He knew his heart was weak,” Gretchen explained. “It wasn’t our first scare.”

“I knew sex with you was mind blowing,” Jake sat back. “But killer?”

“It’s not funny,” she pouted. “A man is dead.”

“But what a way to go,” Jake finished off his drink and poured another.

He was glad to get the details after their tryst upstairs. Somehow the thought of her killing a man and having money stolen by an ex stole the ardor thoughts of her lodged in his mind.

“Who is the man that took your windfall?”

Gretchen sat up straight and crossed her legs. She perched the forgotten tumbler of bourbon on her knee.

“George Baker,” she answered.

Jake shook his head.

“I don’t know him.”

“Yes you do,” she said. “He’s in Little Rock.”

“George Baker,” he repeated and rolled the name around in his head trying to knock loose a memory.

“His father was Whit Baker.”

Jake sat back on the couch.

“Those Bakers.”

She nodded.

“How did you get involved with George Baker?”

“Through his father’s charity,” she said. “The same way I met his father.”

“Whit.”

“The man who left the money to me.”

Jake laughed.

He didn’t mean to laugh but there was a certain amount of absurdity to what she was suggesting.

“Whit Baker died in your bed after leaving you a monetary largess,” he said. “And his son, your lover, won’t let you have it.”

“It sounds more complicated than it is.”

“It sounds pretty simple to me,” said Jake.

He took a long sip and let the amber liquid burn it’s way down to his stomach.

“And you want me to go talk to George Baker to get your money back.”

“He might respect a lawyer.”

Jake snorted.

He knew Baker by reputation and the man did not respect lawyers. Or cops. Or courts. Or anything that he didn’t like, which Jake suspected would include him.

Especially if he was trying to take money from the man.

“Billionaire,” Jake shook his head and stood up to make another drink.

“Do you have to do that?”

“Drink?” he raised the bottle. “Yes. It gives me pleasure and I haven’t had enough of that in my life as of late.”

“Not even today?” she looked up at him from thick eyelashes.

“Today notwithstanding,” Jake told her.

“I meant judge me,” she said as he poured a generous dollop of bourbon into his glass.

“I am the least judgmental son of a bitch you’re ever going to meet,” he took a sip. “Trust me on that one. I’m on the receiving end of a lot of it.”

“Sorry,” she shivered in the seat and leaned forward to put the glass on the table. “I guess when I said it out loud, it made me sound bad and I felt insecure.”

“Is it bad?”

“His family thinks so.”

“His son too?”

“He might think it’s bad now.”

“Why won’t he give you the money? Did he know his Dad wanted you to have it?”

“He knew what Whit wanted.”

“How did he get it?”

“That’s part of the problem,” she said.

Jake finished his drink and took hers from her hand.

“If I’m going to do this, I need to know it all,” he told her.
He quaffed her drink despite the ice that watered it down and hoped he had enough liquor in him to hear what she was about to say next.