Furious

56

Kris found Abby in the library huddled over a secure console.

“Mrs. Fujioka uses this station for her financial affairs. You can trust that what comes in here does not end up on the early news,” Abby said.

“And I have financial affairs?”

“It seems you do.”

“Did Grampa Al relent and let me back at my trust?”

“Sorry, baby ducks, blood ain’t nowhere close to as thick as gold. But, do you remember that bank you established on Texarkana? It might have escaped your attention, seeing how a bomb dropped in right after you closed the deal.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Kris said dimly. The bomb had kind of erased a lot of her memories of that day, but Nelly had reported the bank properly chartered and funded before all hell broke loose.

“Well, they just declared their first dividend, Your Troublesomeness, and you ain’t broke no more.”

“I don’t want a dividend. They need to reinvest their money. They need it more than I do.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Jack muttered at Kris’s elbow as he eyed the transfer. Kris was eyeing, too. There were a lot of zeros after that one. And two commas.

Nelly cleared her nonexistent throat. “Kris, shortly after they gave you this dividend, they made a major stock offer. You now control only twenty-five percent of the stock in the bank, and the value of your stock has doubled.”

Kris shut her eyes and shook her head. “Am I involved in something illegal?”

“No, Kris. It’s just that you started something that really needed starting. Lots of people headed out from the cities and, once Texarkana’s industry and farmers quit cutting off their noses to spite their faces, they found there was a lot of pent-up demand, and money to be made meeting it. Texarkana’s economy is growing at better than ten percent, and there’s plenty of money to be made by everyone.”

“So I can take this money without fear of flattening my friends.”

“Yep,” Nelly said.

“And in one afternoon, I’ve gone from penniless to moderately rich. Jack, you should have married me last week. Now I’ll have to worry you’re after my money.”

Jack snapped his fingers, then added sadly, “And now I’ll have to take my place in line.”

“First place,” Kris said, and gave him a kiss. “Always first place in my heart.”

“If you two can come up for air for a minute,” Abby growled, “there’s more financial mail.”

“More?” Kris said.

“Never rains but it pours, honey,” Abby said. “You remember that Ruth Edris thing you set up on Olympia?”

“Something for distressed farmers. Having a nongovernmental agency let me hire local people. Folks wanted jobs, not handouts.”

“Well, it seems the place is on the mend, and somebody decided to convert the fund into a credit union. Most of the folks you hired gave your money back as soon as they were back on their feet, and you are now the full owner of the place.”

“Ah, Nelly, we’re going to have to file an amended tax return.”

“Already working on it, Kris.”

“Those folks don’t owe me anything.”

“Kris,” Penny put in, “those are hardworking farmers and ranchers. They needed your help, but their pride won’t let them not give back. Let them do what they’re doing and say thank you.”

“Your advice will be taken,” Kris said. There was one less zero in that transfer. Those folks weren’t finding it easy to recover from either a volcanic explosion or, if Kris’s suspicions were right, an asteroid hit.

A well-aimed asteroid hit.

“Business is starting to recover there, too,” Nelly put in. “Them being at the nexus of five jump points is drawing in money.”

“And likely the reason someone wanted to buy up the place, cheap,” Penny muttered. Kris had assigned Penny the job of trying to track down who had aimed an asteroid at Olympia.

In her immense spare time.

So far, Penny had leads but no results. And the trail was getting colder and less likely to pan out.

It was just one more question Kris was likely never to know the answer to.

“So,” Kris said, “me no longer being poor, I guess I’ll have to start paying my bills. By the way, have any bills come in?”

“Not a one,” Nelly said.

“You send a bill, you got to admit you’re working for a criminal facing capital crimes,” Abby drawled. “I suspect a lot don’t want to admit they’ve had an oar in your troubled waters.”

“Or they like Auntie Kris and just want to help her,” piped up Cara. As usual, she’d gravitated to where everyone else was without being noticed. She’d been playing her computer game and keeping quiet until she added her own innocent observation.

Kris found herself struggling to breathe and weak in the knees. She settled into a chair as her eyes moistened, and her mouth got dry. It took her a minute before she could risk a word.

“An awful lot of people have been helping me, haven’t they?”

Around Kris, people found their own seats. Jack came to perch on the arm of Kris’s chair.

“Growing up, I didn’t have many friends. Some of it was my own fault. Some of it was being a Longknife brat, the Prime Minister’s brat. Children can be very cruel to . . .”

Abby was holding up her thumb and forefingers and slowly moving them sideways.

“Yes, I know, you’re playing ‘My Heart Bleeds for You’ on the world’s tiniest violin.”

“Got it in one, baby cakes.”

“What I’m trying to get at, is that I wouldn’t be here except for my friends. You, Penny. You, Abby.”

“Friend? I’m just a working girl,” Abby cut in.

“And when did you last get paid?” Penny asked.

“All of you, and people like Captain Elizabeth Luna and Colonel Hancock. You can’t tell me that either of them got anything out of risking their necks for me.”

“Not a thing,” Jack said.

“But they did,” Kris pointed out.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Penny said with a snort. “And who have I heard that from way too many times?”

“Friends stuck their necks out for me,” Kris said flatly. “And not the least of them are the present company. I owe you more than I can ever repay. For what it’s worth, I really appreciate you.”

There is something in our human nature that makes it hard to take praise, or love, or good things spoken by a friend or a loved one. The room fell silent with a blend of inability to find words and not a small bit of embarrassment.

The silence might have gotten maudlin, but Nelly broke it. “The judges require Kris be present in court in one hour. They have reached a verdict.”

“No time for a bath,” Abby said, jumping to her feet, “but you are not wearing sweats to court.”