The woman has more balls than the NBA, NFL, MLB, The Canadian Leagues, and every collegiate team combined! And now she's going to trash my night with Beth… I don't think so! I took a moment to calm myself and to think for a moment.
Josh's voice brought me out of my musings, "Alex? Are you there?"
I turned back to the phone and sighed, I answered Josh, "Yeah Josh, I'm here. Do you have the paperwork I asked for with you?"
He replied "In my valise as we speak."
I told him, "Get a card from the desk and bring the skank up here and lets get this done; and Josh, I want a restraining order on her by morning. Legal contact only though you or Fred Phillips office. Ok? I don't want any more interruptions to this weekend or to have to see her period. She's had fifteen years to talk to me and all she has ever said to me were lies. Also, I'm never to be left alone with her. Period! I don't want her to be able to make any false claims about what was said or done." I thought for a moment and added, "That goes for Beth too. They are not to be left alone. Do you have a recorder on you?"
I could hear the smirk in his voice. "As a matter of fact yes I do it's on right now. As for your request I think I know someone who can expedite that for you tonight. I'll call them AFTER we finish up. We'll be up in a moment." He hung up and I turned to Beth and took her in my arms. I looked into her liquid blue eyes and said, "Promise me that no matter what you hear her say you will not doubt that I love you and will never leave you. I have an idea about what she wants but I can't be certain I'm right until she gets here so we don't have much time."
Beth asked, "What do you think she wants? Hasn't she done enough to you already?" The rage radiated from her in palpable waves. I rubbed her arms in an attempt to calm her down before her brother and Lisa arrived.
I looked into her face. I searched for a hint that she knew what I had deduced and found none. Cupping her face I kissed her on the forehead and said, "She's figured out that she's going to go to prison unless she can cut a deal with someone, and she's decided to start trying to make those deals with me." I said with finality, "Either that or someone explained to her that transferring funds you don't own to your own accounts is viewed as wrong by those at the D.A.'s office and transferring those funds out of the country gets the attention of the Justice Department. She was an integral part of a large scale fraud and grand larceny conspiracy that included that, AND an attempted murder. In this state that means she is just as guilty of the attempt on Fred Phillips life as if she had done it herself. It's considered a part of an ongoing larger crime. The fraud alone could get her seven to ten in Rockland Federal Penitentiary and the attempted murder could add another ten to fifteen years to that. Then there is the theft which could get her another five to fifteen years. Hell, the conspiracy charge alone could get her four to twelve years."
"They convict her on all charges, and the judge sentences her to consecutive terms and she's looking a twenty-six year minimum sentence and a maximum of fifty-two. One of the crimes is violent so she'll be in a maximum security facility not one of the federal country clubs. At this point I figure she's scared shitless, unless I'm way off base. She's just figured out that anytime we had a problem I handled it and made it go away. I was the one who took care of things. No muss, no fuss, just gone. Now she wants me to do the same thing again, and it is SO not gonna happen." I sighed resignedly.
"She's here now to try to persuade me not to testify, or to try to get me to drop the charges that Josh talked to the D.A. about. He has some paperwork to finish filing the complaint with the D.A formally in his briefcase. I WILL be signing that before he leaves, by the way. Her only hope at this point is that the D.A offers her a plea bargain for her to turn states evidence against the rest of these bastards. That or run, and I stripped her dry of funds to do that. Either way she is out of my life in a very permanent way very soon." I gave a dry laugh, "I'll bet you a hundred dollars cold cash she tries to use the girls to persuade me that she should be forgiven by me. That I should drop the charges because of the girls."
At the mention of Lisa in prison the look of unadulterated glee on Beth's face made me sad. I frowned and cupped her face stroking my thumb over her cheek I pulled her towards me, "Please don't be happy about her troubles. She delighted in the pain of others and I don't want you to be anything like her, not even just a little bit. She hasn't ever felt a genuine emotion in her life I don't think."
Beth turned her face into my hand and looked at me. She said, "You are far to kind for this world, my love. I will try to restrain myself but I can't help but be a little glad she is getting what she so justly deserves. I will promise to try to control the impulse to gloat but I won't promise not to do it in private. She's hurt the man I love more than life itself and I won't forgive her that. Not ever." As she spoke she stroked her fingers along my jaw and laid her hand on my chest.
With a mischievous grin I asked, "Who would that be?" She smiled and slapped my chest playfully and said, "You, you silly ass!"
I smiled, put all the joy her words inspired into my eyes and in a small excited voice said, "You said you love me!"
Beth caught the joke and said, "I've told you that several times tonight, if you had been paying attention, you horny little minx, you. And I'll have you know I've meant it every time I've said it to you." quoting my own words back at me. I smiled and hugged her tightly to me, burrowing my nose into the hair at the nape of her neck. I kissed the side of her neck below her earlobe and licked my mark on her neck. Beth purred in my arms like some great cat.
I moved us over to one of the couches and sat down. Beth kind of perched on the arm to my left as we both watched the door. Beth had not completely closed it after accepting the room service tray, so they would be able to walk right in after the elevator arrived. We sat and waited for Josh to arrive. I was casually stroking Beth's thigh and she was playing with the hair on the back of my neck, as we heard the elevator announce their arrival. Beth stood and moved behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. I took her left hand in my right and gave it a squeeze. I stood up.
