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From: "Wine Maker" <wine_maker@eknifeshop.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Finding Elvis Chapter 09 (MF, FF, MFF, Slow, Romantic Thriller)
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Author's note:

It's the last day to vote for the Golden Clitorides! Voting closes at
the end of March 31, 2006 so go vote for me in both the "Author of the
Year" and "Best New Author" category now!

Email the following to: golden.clits@gmail.com

Wine Maker
Author of the Year
Best New Author

Vote early and vote often. And tell your friends.

Thanks.

Wine

-----

A Hawk Romantic Thriller. A romantic thriller that starts slowly, but
the passion builds as the plot unfolds. Homicide detective Lieutenant
Shauna Hawkins is in Vegas with her friends Ted and Lisa and has to
find out just who got married last night. As a lesbian, that might be
awkward. A series of dead bodies makes it a lot more serious. This has
a real plot and three dimensional characters. It's more than just a
wanker.

Read this story on several sites and vote on each for me. Voting for my
stories encourages me to write more. Remember to vote for each chapter
on Literotica and on the last chapter on Storiesonline.

http://storiesonline.net/auth/Wine_Maker

http://english.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=560253&page=submissions


Chapter 9: Taking control
(c) 2006 by Wine Maker

When we were finally cleaned up and back downstairs, it was time to
look for Lurch. Having Lurch catch us in flagrante was going to make
questioning him one of those interesting experiences I usually tried to
avoid, but there was a price to be paid for anything worthwhile. The
sex had definitely been worthwhile; hell, the sex had been both fun and
fantastic, but there was a killer on the loose, and events were
proceeding whether we liked it or not.

I turned to Gretchen and gave her my cop face. "Honey, I love you, but
this is _my_ interrogation. My rules, my way. Do _not_ try to fight me
on this. If you want to help me, keep him on the fire while I grill
him. If you can't do this, go into the kitchen and talk to Vanessa,
because I'm going to hit him a lot harder than Sweeny hit you. I'm
going to be everything I'm not with you: I'm going to be offensive,
hurtful, and unrelenting. You need to decide right now: are you in or
out on the questioning of people you know?"

Gretchen swallowed hard. "I'm in. I won't interfere and if I can't
help, I'll keep quiet or leave the room. Hawk, Ivan wouldn't do this.
He couldn't. Look how old he is. Cartwright would twist him into a
pretzel."

I stopped and put my hands on her shoulders. "Get that out of your head
right now, Sweetie." I sighed and pulled her into a gentle hug.
Pulling back, I said, "This is why I asked if you could stand being
with me when I questioned people you know, and care about. When I
interrogate a suspect, when any homicide cop interrogates a suspect,
they are guilty until the facts rule them out. If you are going to be
with me when I talk to them, you are going to have to accept that. I've
seen old people who have killed before, and killed people that you
wouldn't expect. It happens when this old, non-threatening person
surprises them, and, Honey, Lurch moves more quietly than most. We have
no choice but to grill Ivan and the rest of them."

Gretchen sighed, and then met my eyes. At her nod, I kissed her cheek
and went into the main part of the house. "Ivan," I shouted. "Where the
hell are you in this pile of rubble?"

"I'm here, Miss Shauna," he said from the doorway of the Brown Room. He
had a duster in his hand, an apron around his waist and looked
completely ridiculous.

"Fine," I said brushing past him. "This will work fine. Gretchen,
please close the door." I arranged the seats so one was away from a
table, in the open and exposed. Two others went behind a small table.
Emotional leverage. "Please have a seat. I'll try to keep the impact on
your time as minimal as possible."

Stiffly, almost daintily, he sat upright in the seat, only occupying
the forward edge. "I have already given a statement to the police, Miss
Shauna, so I am uncertain what more information I can provide."

I tapped the table lightly with one fingertip. "I may not be on the
clock, but it feels like it, so let's keep things more formal. I'm
Detective Hawkins this morning, and we'll be going over that night from
the beginning. Since I have no access to the official police records.
What is your full name and where were you born?"

"Ivan Orlov, Detective," he sniffed. "I was born in Moscow, Russia, in
1936. My parents immigrated to the United States that same year."

"Fine, Mister Orlov, let's get down to brass tacks. After the
announcements, I saw Kat and Cartwright, still in the room, so they
must have left sometime after that point. Where were you after Hans
finished speaking?"

Ivan adjusted his seat slightly and cleared his throat. "I returned to
the serving area to make certain that the staff was prepared to serve
the guests."

"Isn't that your daughter's job?" I asked.

Ivan shrugged, looking a bit more human with the simple gesture. I
pushed that thought away and refocused. "No, not really," he said.
"Vanessa prepares the food, and I see that the staff does the work
required in a timely fashion. However, she was there."

"Did you see either Kat or Everett Cartwright alive after that?"

"Yes," he said testily, "I've already told you I saw Mistress Kat go
upstairs several minutes before she was found dead."

"So you did," I agreed. "You also told me you spilled something on your
jacket. Let's hear about that in more detail."

"One of the hired servers spilled champagne on my back, the clumsy
oaf," he said dismissively. "It's a constant problem when dealing
with temporary workers."

I leaned forward, lacing my fingers on the table in front of me. "The
jacket is still here, I assume. I'll need to see it after we finish
talking."

"Talking," he sneered. "We're not talking, _Detective_. You're
questioning me in an effort to see how I fit as a suspect. Let's not be
coy."

"You want plain talk, fine." I slitted my eyes and pierced him with a
stare. "You look good for the part to me, Lurch. You had access to the
murder weapon, and full run of the house. You also have a damned good
motive."

"What motive would that be, Detective? Find me one person, other than
the Master, who could stand the woman. You'll have far better luck
finding ten honest politicians. To know her was to _hate_ her."

I smiled without humor. "Oh, I believe you when you say you didn't
kill Kat, Ivan. My instincts, and the evidence at the scene, support
that Senator Cartwright killed Kat and then someone killed him. A
source in the local PD tells me that CSI is backing that view of
events. That still begs the question, how did he get a knife from the
kitchen? Did someone get it for him and then follow him upstairs to
finish him off after he did Kat? Was that you, Lurch? Did you give him
a knife to get rid of a bitch you disliked and then kill the man that
raped your daughter?"

He paled and recoiled from me, slipping back into the chair. Gretchen
wheeled and stared at me. All in all, it was a good response to an
educated guess. His reaction confirmed it, and Gretchen's told me that
she had never guessed.

"What?!?" she exclaimed. "He did what?"

I tilted my head and looked at Gretchen. "Why don't we let _Ivan_
explain that to you." Then I skewered him again with my glare. "Why
don't you fill Gretchen in?"

"Because it's none of her business or yours," he snarled back at me,
his calm façade not completely shattered. "What that bastard did to
Vanessa has required years of healing, and I will not see her dragged
back into that morass of despair again."

"It's too late for that," I assured him. "His death makes both of you
very nice suspects, so if you hope to clear yourselves, now is the time
to be open and honest, at least with me. The sooner I can clear you
two, the sooner I can find the killer. If, indeed, you are innocent."

He exclaimed something in Russian that didn't sound very complementary
as he rose from his seat, his face a mask of rage. "How dare you come
into this home and treat me and mine like this? You don't know us!"

I looked up at him, towering over me and smiled that cop smile. "I
_dare_ because it's what I do. Get off that fucking high horse of
yours, give me some reason to clear you and you can get this pushy,
lesbian bitch off your case. You don't want to tell me the details?
Fine. General terms, then. What did Cartwright do to Vanessa?"

Lurch stalked over to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink. As we
waited for him to make up his mind, the door to the room opened and
Vanessa came in.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," she said, her voice low.

Lurch spun and stalked over to her. "No! I won't have you put yourself
through that again for this fucking bitch voyeur. Let her rot!"

Gretchen started to say something, but I put my hand on hers and shook
my head. This wasn't the time to interject ourselves. Vanessa would
more than likely bring Lurch around.

"If not for her, then for Mistress Gretchen, father." Vanessa's
voice faded as she lowered it and pulled Ivan further away. Vanessa and
Lurch argued quietly for a minute before he threw up his hands, took a
stiff shot of the drink he'd poured and set the empty glass on the
table. Vanessa sat in the vacated seat and Lurch stood behind her, his
hands on her shoulders.

Vanessa's eyes were dark, I noticed. A match for the dark brown of her
hair. She folded her hands in her lap and looked between Gretchen and
myself.

"This isn't something I ever wanted to have publicly aired out, but I
can't let my father shield me from everything," Vanessa said quietly.
"If I tell you, then you can move on and find the real killer, but I'll
tell you now that the world is a better place without those vipers."
All that was said in the same matter-of-fact monotone, without heat.

"I don't want to hurt you, and I'm sorry," I said gently, "but we have
to know what really happened."

Vanessa sighed and closed her eyes. "It was two years ago. Cartwright
had been coming to see Hans for several months about something
political, and he kept talking to me so nicely. When he asked me to go
to dinner with him, I was thrilled."

She wiped tears from her eyes and Gretchen rose to get her some
tissues. Vanessa took them with a polite "thank you" and blew her nose.
Gretchen knelt beside her and held her hand. She was so much better at
the feminine support than I was.

"Dinner was wonderful," Vanessa continued, "but on the way home, I
started feeling drowsy. I wasn't really sure what was happening when he
detoured to a motel, but I didn't seem to have the energy to even talk.
He... he got a room and carried me inside. I wanted to tell him 'no',
but I seemed so disconnected."

Vanessa looked up at me, her eyes sparkling with the first anger I had
seen in them. "Then he raped me. I screamed 'no' in my head, but it
never came out. When he was done, he dressed me, carried me out to the
car and drove me around a while until I started regaining some control.
He kept telling me how I should just accept it, that no one would ever
believe me and that he would just claim it was consensual sex."

Her father massaged her shoulders and glared at me. "That bastard raped
her, Detective, and if I had killed him, I would shout it from the
rooftops, proud of it, not hide it from you."

"I made him swear not to do anything when I finally told him last
year," Vanessa continued. "It wouldn't help anything. It would only
hurt him and me. No one would believe us."

"You also told Kirk, correct?" I asked gently.

Vanessa nodded. "He's really a bright man, and he knew something was
wrong from the way I reacted to Cartwright. He wheedled it out of me
over a several month period. Since he already guessed everything, it
didn't make much sense to deny it. And still he keeps asking me out,
knowing how afraid I am."

"Perhaps it's because he cares and wants to help you," Gretchen said
quietly.

"So, knowing this," I asked, "why are you and your father a bad bet on
this murder? Let's say Kat and Cartwright got into a fight and
Cartwright killed Kat before his killer killed him. Catching him
crouched over her body, why not pick up the knife and kill the man who
raped you?"

Vanessa gave me a feral smile. "Because, if I had caught him, I'd have
screamed my head off and gotten him caught with blood all over himself.
I'd have seen that bastard dragged through the mud and locked away for
life by the state. All that pain and the media circus would be a hell
of a lot more satisfying than this," Vanessa spat. "I don't believe in
killing, even scum like him. I'd have wanted him to be raped every day
for the rest of his miserable life in prison. Death was too good for
the likes of him."

I couldn't argue with that logic. I believed her. That still didn't
clear Lurch.

"And why not Ivan?" Gretchen asked, surprising me. "He could have done
it in anger. I know I could have, knowing what I know now."

Vanessa looked at Gretchen and squeezed her hand. "Because he was in
the serving area the whole time where I could see him. Servers went in
and out, but I was there the whole time. I know he didn't kill
Cartwright. If you believe me at all, you'll just have to accept that."

I debated that inside and decided, for the moment, to believe her.
"Okay, if that's so, how did Cartwright get one of the kitchen knives?
Or Kat? One of those two must have taken the knife up there."

Vanessa shrugged. "People were in and out of the serving room before
and after the announcement, and in the kitchen, too. It's not like we
were telling everyone to stay out. I don't know where the knife came
from, but I'd be willing to bet it came from the kitchen proper just
because there would have been fewer people in there after the food was
ready."

I stood up and walked around the table, taking her other hand. "I'm
sorry I had to drag you though this, Vanessa, but I had to know. I
won't ask you to forgive me for hurting you like this, but I hope you
understand why I did."

She looked up at me and smiled a small smile. "I do understand. It's
because you love someone very much."

My lips quirked a smile and I looked at Gretchen. "That's true, but
that's not why I did this. I _had_ to do this because only the truth
would let me look past you to others. Go ahead, cry, shout at me and
hate me. I'll understand."

Vanessa rose and pulled me into a surprised hug. "I don't hate you."
And as quickly as that, she turned and fled from the room.

Lurch glared at me and followed after her, stopping halfway out to turn
and sniff at me. "I am not as forgiving as my daughter, Detective, and
I promise nothing. We will finish this at a time of my own choosing and
in a manner that I find suitable."

Then he stalked out, his back stiff and vibrating with energy like a
plucked guitar string.

I shook my head and smiled, looking at Gretchen. "See what I mean? I
just have a way with people that makes me _so_ popular. You meld with
them, draw them out, and I confront them and make them hate me so much
that they spill the beans."

She stood behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her
face in my hair, kissing the back of my head. "My job is compassion,
yours is confrontation. I'd make a lousy detective, and you'd make a
piss-poor consort."

I laughed. "That's blunt, but so damned true, love." My laughter died
and I smiled ruefully. "I think I've cemented my piss-poor
relationship with Lurch, for sure."

"Give him some space," she suggested. "He may come back around once
this is all over."

"I'm not counting on that," I assured her. "He'll be looking for
payback, and after all the grief he gave me last night, when he didn't
have the same reason to dislike me, I can only imagine what form that
payback might take." I shook my head. "In any case, we need to go
make a house call on Mister Craig. Since he skated out before the place
was sealed, I have some deep, burning questions for him."

-----

Gretchen called Devon and had him pick us up in the Hummer. He looked
somber in his new duds as he opened the door for us.

I looked over the black slacks, shirt, tie and jacket. The polished
black shoes completed the outfit, though they clashed pretty well with
his dreadlocks and black shades.

"Dressing up?" I asked him with a grin.

"I was tinking dat I should upgrade," he said. "Devon hear about de
whole ting on de news. I be so sorry, Miz Gretchen."

She shook her head and smiled for him. "You don't need to dress up,
Devon. Just dress like you did before, and we'll be fine. If we need
fancy, I'll take care of it ahead of time. And don't worry about me."
She took my hand and kissed my fingers. "I'm in the best hands in the
world."

I flushed with pleasure at the compliment and slid in back with
Gretchen. "Thank you," I whispered in her ear.

"It's the truth, silly," she said with a smile.

Devon turned in his seat after he buckled in. "Dere be lots of people
outside de gate. We have to make de run tru dem so strap in."

He was right; there were a lot of press out there. I pulled Gretchen
down so that her head was in my lap as we made tracks through the
flashing bulbs and talking heads.

"Ooooo, I like this," she murmured. "This has all kinds of
possibilities." Her hands reached for my belt and I pulled her up,
laughing.

"You're such a horn dog," I chided her. "This isn't the time or place
for fooling around."

Gretchen melted against me and kissed my neck in a way that did all
kinds of things to my stomach. "Oh, it might not be the time, but it is
the place, I think," she whispered in my ear. "I think we should go out
one night and see what kind of show we can put on for our loyal
retainer."

"Ha! He'd wreck the car," I snorted. "Or want to join in. Or both."

"I don't know him well enough for that, yet, but we'll see," she
confided.

"Gretchen!" I said, blushing. "Don't be a slut."

"Oh, but I am a slut," she said seductively. "I'm your slut. I told you
I'd do anything for you, but you're right," she said, sitting back up.

I exhaled in relief.

"We still have to have a foursome with the father of our child and his
wife first," she continued in a quiet, wicked voice. "We have to keep
our priorities straight."

"Gretchen!" I hissed. "Not so loud!"

"Devon not listening," Devon said breezily. "He be driving."

"You _were_ listening!" I said hotly. "Don't you pull that silent
servant thing on me!"

Gretchen started laughing and I fixed her with a glare. "You think
you're funny, but you're not."

"Oh, Hawk, you are _so_ easy!" she laughed at me. "I can say the most
outrageous things and you believe them all."

"So," I said with a squint, "you're joking about Ted and Lisa?"

"No," she said, "but I am joking about having sex with Devon. Sorry,
Devon," she said more loudly, "but I don't want to make our
relationship that murky. However, I do promise to see that you meet
some nice girls on occasion to make up for it."

"Devon knew he be gettin' some serious perks, but dat be nice. Tank
you," he said from the front seat while I blushed.

"This is all a bit more open than I'm used to," I complained. "What if
Lisa or Ted don't want to?"

"Silly girl, then we don't, but knowing you, I'd doubt it. Let's worry
about that later."

"Dere be a car followin' us," Devon said, looking into the mirror.

I looked back and saw a familiar sight behind us. A beat up Pontiac
Firebird. Our photographer friend from Vegas was back. With a smile, I
sat back facing the front. "Devon, stand on the brakes."

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Stomp the brakes _hard_," I said again.

He looked pleadingly at Gretchen in the mirror.

She smiled wolfishly and nodded. "Do it."

"Okay..." he said and stood on the brakes with no warning as we were
cresting a hill. The tires howled as we slid to an abrupt halt.

Looking back, I saw the guy's eyes bug out, and the cigarette between
his lips fall into his lap, as he stomped on his own brakes. That was
gonna hurt. The Firebird screeched to a halt just a few feet behind the
Hummer and I popped out the door and ran back. He was too busy swatting
at his pants to pay me much mind when I got to the door and smiled in
the open window.

"Hey!" I said brightly. "Fancy meeting you here!"

It looked like the cigarette was smoking under his butt from the way he
was bouncing around.

"Goddammit, woman! What the bloody hell are you doing?" he snarled when
he had put out the smoldering embers. Good thing he'd never notice it
that car. His pants, on the other hand, had some nice burns. I was
right, that had to have hurt.

"Since you were following us, I decided it would be neighborly to stop
and say 'hi'. You know me, now who are you?" I asked in that same
perky, fake-sweet tone.

"I don't have to..." he started and I just reached in and grabbed his
shirt and dragged him halfway out of the car.

"Let's not be shy," I said to his face. "If we're going to keep bumping
into each other like this, I want to know whose name to put on the
marker when they bury your dead ass."

He blanched and struggled to get loose, but he just didn't have the
leverage. "Luther! Luther de Silva! Let me go!"

"Luther," I crooned. "That's a really nice name for a piece of shit
like you. You're getting on my nerve, Luther, and since it's the last
one I have that still works, I'd rather not burn it out on an ass
pimple like you. I can't stop you from following me in public, but if
you keep getting within arms reach, I might just feel compelled to pull
a Sean Penn on your scrawny ass. Am I getting through here?"

"Let me go, you crazy broad!" he shouted before I stuffed him back into
the car.

Leaning in, I smiled a shark-like smile. "Do be a stranger, okay?" I
stepped back as he threw his wreck into reverse and sped backward. It
was a great escape attempt, right until the rear of his car slammed
into the police cruiser that was just pulling up behind him. When the
airbag in the cop car deployed, I had to laugh. He was screwed whether
he ran for it or not.

I sauntered back to the Hummer and slid in. "That went well, don't you
think?" I asked Gretchen.

"Ohmigod! He hit a police car! Should we run?" she asked, her eyes
huge.

"Nope. Devon, take us on out at a normal clip," I said, never taking my
eyes off the scene playing itself out behind us. The uniform was out of
his cruiser and pulling the hapless Luther out of his Pontiac. I
strapped back in and laughed. "I love being me."

-----

Some judicious calling around garnered the location of Senatorial
candidate Kirk Craig. He was just wrapping up a speech at a rally on
the far side of Boston, but would be back at his office in about an
hour. I looked at my watch and smiled at Gretchen.

"We have a little time to burn, so I think some shopping is in order,"
I purred.

Gretchen frowned. "Shopping? At a time like this?"

"I am shocked," I told her. "I would expect a woman like you would
always be open to the notion of shopping. Oh, and speaking of shopping,
I need to stop at an ATM and check my balance."

She shook her head with that gleam in her eyes that I had learned meant
'watch your ass, Hawk.' "You might just be surprised," she told
me. "Daddy said he transferred your pay yesterday, so the balance is
probably a bit higher. Since we got married, I decided not to hit him
up for the sex fee."

I shifted uneasily in my seat. "Gretchen, I really don't know about
this. I don't think I should take the money. It feels crooked."

She rolled her eyes and took my hand in hers. "Hawk, did you hear Daddy
mention joint control of a trust fund last night?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but I don't really know what that means."

"It means that he set aside a lump some years ago and has been the
trustee until he decided to pass control of it along to us," she said.
"I can assure you that you have much better odds that the trust fund
has more money in it than your back account. Honey, you married into
money and it's always going to be floating around. I'm not going to
make a big deal of it and I don't think you should, either."

I felt my stomach do a slow roll. "Lord, I didn't need to hear that.
How much money are we talking about? I know you told me how much was
going to be paid, but other than remembering it was a lot of money,
I've forgotten."

"I'll put in a call while you get Devon headed where you want," she
assured me, "but it's not an issue between us. I'm well-to-do, too."

"Yeah, but that's your money, not mine."

"Yours, mine, ours, it's all the same," she assured me, that gleam back
in her eyes. That didn't help make me feel better, at all.

While she was talking on her cell, I told Devon to head to the nearest
ATM, Bank of America preferably. He nodded and took a left at the next
light and went several blocks before pulling up to the busy curb.

I hopped out and stood in line at the ATM, whistling nervously. When my
turn came up, I slid my card in and entered my pin number. Selecting
the balance, I tapped my foot anxiously. I wasn't sure why this was
rubbing me the wrong way. Shouldn't I be happy to not have to worry
about money as much?

When the ATM spat out the piece of paper, I snatched it and looked at
it. I blinked. That couldn't be right; someone had made a mistake, and
Hans needed to call his accountant.

The guy behind me shouldered past me to the ATM, reminding me that I
needed to get the hell out of his way. I stumbled back to the Hummer
and slid in the back, feeling a bit like I was floating. I knew the
feeling, it was shock. Too damned many of the things that happened to
me around Gretchen made me feel like that.

"You look pale," she said, looking at me worriedly. "Did he not make
the deposit? I can call someone and get it fixed," she assured me.

"Something's wrong," I agreed, "but it's an error on the plus side.
Some bean counter added a zero or two. My account has just over a
million dollars in it. Gretchen, this really makes me feel funny."

"Well," she said calmly, "let's see, what you should have had was seven
days times forty thousand with a surcharge of fifty percent. In my
head, that comes out to four hundred and twenty thousand. Let me call
Daddy's accountant and see what the mix-up is. Devon, Hawk wants to go
shopping, find out what she wants and get us there."

As she talked on the phone, I leaned forward and looked at Devon.
"Devon, tell me I'm not losing my mind."

He grinned. "Hawk, you already lost your mind. Anybody dat know you
know dat. You listen to Devon and he tell you how it is."

I took a deep breath and nodded, resting my arms on the seat in front
of me.

"People, dey search all dere lives for love," he continued in a serious
tone. "You done found dat, or so it looks to dis mon. Everyting else,
dat be beside de point. Don let money make you lose sight of the woman
back dere."

I blinked and chewed on that thought for a moment. Then, slowly, I
nodded. "Thanks, Devon. That's exactly the perspective I needed. I need
to sweat the big stuff, and the money is the least important thing
here, not even close to qualifying as 'big stuff.' You've got a
good eye for the ball. Tell me, why are you single again?"

Devon laughed. "Cuz no woman be crazy enough to keep Devon!"

I shook my head and laughed. "Fine, point made. Now, I need to find a
place that caters to ladies' more intimate needs."

"Dere be all kinds of places like dat. Clothing, toys, people, video or
gynecologist?" he asked matter-of-factly.

"Toys," I said.

"Devon know just de place," he assured me and pulled out into traffic.

I slipped my seatbelt back on and watched Gretchen as she listened to
the voice on the other end of her call. She nodded occasionally and
finally said, "That makes sense. I'll tell her. Now, can you give me
the details on the trust fund?"

The voice buzzed for a minute with Gretchen's eyes growing huge and her
hand clutching mine. "Are you sure about that," she asked, her voice
choked. "I think there's a number out of place."

After a moment more, she nodded and thanked the person, hanging up.
"Okay, now I know what you feel like."

"That sounds ominous," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Just what the hell
does that mean?"

Gretchen took a deep breath. "Well, first things first. The deposit to
your account is for services rendered and a success bonus, so the
amount was correct. One million dollars. I suggest we let the family
accountant help us with our tax return or Uncle Sam and the
Commonwealth of Taxachusetts will eat us alive."

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath of my own. "I
won't let this be an issue, Sweetie. You are what's important, and if
that means dealing with the stupid money, then I will." I opened my
eyes. "Now, what has you in a tailspin?"

She nervously licked her lips. "I'm glad you aren't going to let money
be an issue between us. I'm really glad, Hawk, because Daddy one-upped
that deposit."

"What," I asked slowly, dreading the potential answer, "does that
mean?"

"I can't really get my head around it, but he made a trust for me and
my family when I was a baby. He seeded it with a lot of money and it's
been off making little baby dollars ever since," she said, obviously
stalling.

"Stop dithering, Gretchen. Just come out and tell me what has you off
your feed about it," I said practically.

"Well, in the last thirty years, it's done really well for itself and
us," she said, looking out the window.

"Gretchen!" I said, exasperated. "Just put it on the table." I was
beginning to worry about what amount of money could possible make my
rich wife dither.

Gretchen turned back to me and put her hand on my knee. "Hawk, the
trust fund is worth a lot more than I have socked away. The two of us
are joint trustees of a fund with more than two billion dollars in it."

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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