“Damn you, Dwayne! You owe me! Where’d you stash Jackson?” Flushed with fury, Helga Headhopper screeched her indignation.
“I don’t owe you a flippin’ thing!” Dwayne had always hated his older sister. “I don’t even owe you the time of day!”
Jackson was comfortably ensconced onboard his boat, the Suited Aces. And the Aces, currently anchored in international waters, just off the Florida Keys, was presumably immune to any and all scrutiny. So, no worries there.
“Tell me where Jackson is?” Helga demanded.
Disgusted, Dwayne turned to go. “I’m outta here!”
“In a pig’s arse!”
Helga rushed him, shoving him in the chest. Dwayne cartwheeled backwards, landing hard against the edge of her coffee table. Empty beer cans clattered, skating across the filthy floor.
“What the—!”
“Answer me, Dwayne.”
Helga tucked her hand deep into the pocket of her bathrobe, fondling the reassuring coolness of the Colt .25’s grip. The handgun had belonged to their grandfather, who died in action on Corregidor.
Helga was fifteen when she’d surreptitiously liberated it from a rusty footlocker in her grandmother’s attic. At sixteen, exploited by an older boyfriend, she’d robbed her first convenience store.
She didn’t hesitate shooting then. She wouldn’t hesitate firing now. But first, she’d try reasoning with Dwayne. Again.
“Dwayne?”
“If grandma wanted you to share in her lottery winnings,” he reminded her, for the ten-thousandth time, “she would have so stipulated in her will.”
“We’d been estranged,” Helga qualified. “For years.”
“Your choice. Not hers.”
“So, she left it all in trust for Jackson? Disinheriting me in favor of that yapping Yorkie she doted on?”
“Right.”
“Not Fair.” Helga was sure she was entitled.“
As her favorite grandchild, I’m to see that her wishes are kept.”
Helga had reached her saturation point. She pulled the Colt, siting a bead directly in the center of Dwayne’s forehead. “Twenty-seven million, after tax, dollars, buys a whole mountain of doggie kibble, doesn’t it?”
“Hell-gaaa!!!”
“Where’s Jackson, Dwayne?”
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