My Husband Fucked Me Over Ch. 13

Pen laughed. "Sounds fun. I'm looking forward to it."

"I might not have thought of the Lushes, but so am I."

"Done. Reservations will be as close to seven as I can make them on the late side, no earlier."

"We have a plan. Thanks."

I cornered Grant in the master bedroom, where he was packing up the clothes I'd separated out for myself.

"I'm taking you and Stephanie out for supper on Friday evening to thank you for your help. The rest of the ladies are going to be wearing their Lush toys. If you haven't already, acquaint yourself with the controls, so Stephanie can play like the rest of us."

"We've tried it out a couple of times."

"Give it to her to wear just before you leave. Tell her all the women will be wearing one, and she wouldn't want to be out of place."

Grant grinned. "You got it."

"It will be on the dressy side, either resort casual or suit and tie. I don't know which yet. I'll know tonight when I get home."

"Looking forward to it."

We had a couple boxes of goods to drop off at Goodwill, and we dropped them in Fort Myers since it was relatively close to the freeway, and my stuff was probably less fancy than Naples was accustomed to getting. When we got home, we put the boxes of my clothes into Mary's old room to be gone through before deciding what needed to go into the master closets. Mostly maternity clothes for now, and the stuff I didn't fit into for the other closet.

Becky let me know that Mary had finally started responding to all of the photos she'd sent. Since shipping furniture from Australia would be prohibitively expensive, Mary asked that I leave all of my furniture for now, and she'd replace anything piecemeal that she didn't want. She said she had some great pots and pans, so I could get rid of those, but she'd keep the dishes. Since she'd never married, she hadn't acquired a bunch of wedding gifts. A lot of her appliances couldn't use the American electrical grid without adaptors, so she asked I leave toasters, microwave, clock radios, washer, dryer, TV, and the like. They used a 230 volt system at 50 hertz, vice 120 and 60.

I had Becky tell her that the appraisal wasn't done yet, but I expected to hear on Thursday or Friday.

Thursday went much the same, except I got a call from Detective Hanson in the afternoon. I welcomed the break. We were doing lots of deep cleaning.

"What's up, detective?"

"Apparently, your husband is still trying to hire hit men," he said. "We had some inmate reporting that he's been approaching other people set to be released."

"How can that be? What the hell is he going to pay them with?"

"I don't know. Could he have any other insurance on you?"

"None that I know about. Is it possible you could get some kind of search done on my name?"

"I've never tried. I could maybe search Florida insurance companies, but I'm not sure if I could search outside the state or country, but I'll look into it. Maybe you could go through the other contents of that safe deposit box they had the subpoena for, and any of his paperwork at the house, see if he has any insurance records in that. In the meantime, be careful. I'll be sweating him to see if we can get anything out of him."

"How worried do I have to be?"

"I'd be worried. Just because one guy gave him up, doesn't mean they all will. Maybe we'll let Zach Snyder know about the new attempt. Maybe he'll have whoever beat hell out of him before, try to beat some answers out of him for another possible reduction of his sentence."

"Damn, that fucking shithead. All I want to do is be done with that fucker, and I still have to think about him."

"Might be what he's hoping for. Just keeping you worried about him."

"Thanks for the heads up. I'll let everyone know."

As soon as I hung up, I told everyone the latest. Grant warned the security guys and the Tafts. Bonnie notified Bill, and I notified Becky. I called the State Attorney's Office and told them about the call from Detective Hanson and asked if they could check the paperwork recovered from the safe deposit box for any record of insurance policies in Emma's or my name, and asked if they could check with the State Insurance Commission for any record of insurance policies taken out that I wasn't aware of. They agreed to look into it.

We stopped what we were doing and immediately started going through all of the paperwork left in the house, looking for any insurance policies, other bank accounts, or documentation of other policies, such as letters or bills. I told them that all of the known insurance I'd carried had been through State Farm, so to look for anything else. We tried to sort as we went through it, between things I might need, like past tax returns, and stuff that could go into a burn box to be destroyed. About an hour later, Bonnie held up a letter from Mutual of Omaha, thanking Ransom for his prepaid insurance policies on both Emma and me, for a million apiece. Talk about Wild Kingdom. It looked like he'd gotten them soon after he started stealing money. That fucking bastard.

It didn't have the policy itself, but did have the policy number. I looked up the toll free number for the home offices of MofO and gave them a call.

"I'd like to speak to someone in charge about an insurance policy on Samantha and Emmaline Ford," I said.

"Has someone died?"

"No, but they might if you leave those policies in force. I believe my husband is using those policies as a way to hire hit men to kill me and my daughter, while he's locked up in jail."

"Oh, dear. Let me give you to one of our senior agents."

No more than thirty seconds later, I was speaking to Ludwig Wagner, pronounced as if it had two V's in the name, Ludvig Vogner. He spoke impeccable English though.

"How may I help you?"

"My name is Samantha Ford, and I've just found a letter, saying Mutual of Omaha has insured me and my daughter's life for a million dollars each. I believe my husband is using the policy as an incentive to have us killed while he's locked in jail for attempting the same thing twice over."

"What's your SSN and date of birth?" I gave it to him. "Your daughter's name, SSN and dob?"

I gave him that, and added the policy numbers from the letter. "I can give you the names and telephone numbers of a Detective for the Lee County Sheriff's Office, and a phone number for the State Attorney's Office here. My husband has been charged with multiple counts of Conspiracy to Commit Murder. Two prior attempts have been made on my life and my child's life. As long as my husband remains the beneficiary of those policies, my life may be in danger. I need to cancel them, or change the beneficiary."

"I probably wouldn't be able to do either of those things without a court order since you didn't order the policies."

"So, anyone can order insurance on anyone, put out a hit, and there's nothing they can do personally."

"Probably not."

"I'm sure the State Attorney will get you one, since one public shooting and three home burglaries have already occurred, and I'm sure they don't want more. Call them. They can probably have it for you in the next one to two days." I gave him the number of my guy. "If I or my four year old daughter should die before you get that fixed, it's on your head."

"I'm sorry."

"You really are, since you probably wouldn't pay anyway if it could be proved my death was the result of actions taken by the policy purchaser, like a suicide clause."

"You're right."

"That's screwed up. At the very least you ought to tell my asshole ex that there will be no payout if he arranged to have me killed."

"I can do that without a problem."

I gave him Ransom's address at the Lee County Jail, Detective Hanson's phone number and ensured he had taken the State Attorney's number correctly and told him to call them today. We left early because I was too mad to continue working, and we had to stop and pick up my two new weapons. Before we left the house, there was a second security SUV outside the house. They bracketed us on the way home.

I added five more boxes of practice ammunition and another box of Cor-Bon. This weekend, I was going to do a lot of shooting, and I'd be picturing Ransom on the other end of the gun. It might be the only way to get my blood pressure down. Grant said he'd take all of the women to the gun range on Saturday and train us all to shoot.

When Bill and Robert got home, they were pissed as hell. I didn't blame them. I was more pissed than both of them together. The fact I still had to deal with this shit was irritating me no end.

"What's wrong, Mommy?" Emma asked, hearing all of the loud and angry voices.

I picked her up and hugged her. "Your father is apparently still trying to hire people to kill us, honey. He had two more insurance policies on us that no one knew about."

She started crying. It must be devastating for a child to learn her father is a ruthless, unloving, uncaring, bastard. I held her until she stopped crying.

When I set her down, I said, "You know, Robert, he bought paid up insurance policies after he started stealing money. If it could be proven he paid for the policies with stolen money, could we get them canceled that way, and the money returned?"

"Maybe," Robert agreed. "But policies like that should cost in excess of a hundred grand for you, and something less for Emma. I thought we'd tracked down all but a few thousand of the money he stole. I have a hard time believing he would have had enough for those policies."

"Could he have stolen from any other accounts that weren't charitable you hadn't found yet? Something the holders of those accounts hadn't discovered yet? You might not have noticed the charitable thefts if Pen didn't keep track of that money so closely. If the owners of any other accounts weren't paying that much attention, maybe he has more money he took and that's why he's still trying. Although at this point, he could be doing it out of general meanness and anger. Even if we were dead, I doubt he'll ever get out of prison to spend a penny of any money he got, even if he didn't get the death penalty."

"Damn, maybe. I'll have the accountants check all of the other accounts he had his hands on."

At this point, I was willing to give the house to Mary for the amount of the remaining mortgage I was so pissed. If I could have killed the bastard without suffering for doing so, I would have done it. I think Robert and Bill would have as well.

That evening, Grant had me in the gym, drawing my rubber gun out of my new holster over and over for an hour. I got from the point that it took roughly five seconds to get it out and on target, to a little over a second, with an open purse. It still wasn't great, but it was a substantial improvement.

"Let's face it," Grant said, "if a person already has a firearm on you when you have to draw a weapon, you're already dead. Almost no one is fast enough to draw a gun and shoot before the other person can pull the trigger. At that point, you need a distraction to pull his attention off you, and you might have a chance."

"Can anyone?"

"Average reaction time is around 150 to 300 milliseconds. There are fast twitch muscle experts in fast draw that can get off a shot using an open holster in 208 milliseconds. Theoretically, they can shoot most people before they can react to them drawing the weapon and shooting. But those at the low end of the reaction time scale will still pull their trigger before you pull yours. But let's get real. Those fast twitch muscle people are few and far between. With an open holster, the best I've ever done is a half second, or 500 milliseconds and that's just pulling the trigger, and I don't use an open holster. And if I'm just pulling a trigger, who the hell knows if I'd hit something with that shot if someone was standing five feet away. Which is why I approached that guy's truck with my weapon out and at a low ready position."

"Okay. I see your point."

"The best thing that you can do for your speed, is situational awareness. Knowing that guy in the truck was following us was part of that. That's part of my job. I'm looking for the unusual. You need to learn to do the same. Are people acting normally around you, or do they seem to be paying more attention to you than you warrant? If you are getting attention, is it because you're a pretty face, which should be creating a smile, or pursed lips like they're making a low whistle, or with more concentration? Are they walking normally, somewhat aimlessly at everyone else's speed, or do they seem more directed? Do they have something covering their hands? You need to develop a sixth sense about things. If something seems off, perhaps it is. So you open your purse and put your hand on your weapon. You've reduced your reaction time substantially."

"I see."

"You can practice situational awareness, and you should. Every time you get out of your car in a parking lot, you should be looking around. Who looks normal, who looks threatening? Don't just concentrate on men. Women can be contract killers as well. Some of the best could be women, because you'd never see it coming. When you walk around a mall, do some people watching with intent.

"By that I mean, pay attention to others. Some people go someplace with an idea of what they want to buy. They go to a particular store, buy something and leave. Some people are window shopping. They don't know what they want, or if they want anything at all. They'll be browsing aimlessly. Some people could be doing both. There's something they want, but may be distracted enough to stop for something that grabs their attention. Try to identify those different types of people. They'll move around the mall differently, fast, slow and in between. Then pay attention to who isn't doing any of those things. The kids hanging together because they've got nothing better to do. The people paying more attention to the people, the other people watchers. Those people may be just people watchers, or they could have other, more nefarious purposes. They could be purse snatchers or pickpockets, looking for their next mark. Or a serial killer looking for their next victim. Those people may also be looking for cameras, or security guards or anyone who could witness their theft. They may notice you watching them, and move on.

"Believe me, when you're walking down some dusty street in the middle of some hot zone, you quickly develop a sense of what seems normal, and what doesn't. You don't really lose that skill once you've developed it, even when you come back to the States. But everyone should have some sense of what looks right or wrong. It should almost be unconscious, so you don't eye everyone with suspicion. Hopefully, if I teach you nothing else, I teach you that."

"It does sound like a useful skill to have."

"It's saved my life a half dozen times, just with my own awareness. You can quadruple that when the whole unit was aware. I don't have eyes in the back of my head, so it's nice to know someone is watching my back. By the way, no Lushes in the restaurant on Friday. It will be an unwelcome distraction."

"Well, shit! That gives me even more reason to hate that asshole."

"You and me both. I was looking forward to playing with Stephanie out in public for the first time."

We didn't go to my house on Friday. In the morning, we worked out as usual, but we also got tips from Grant and Stephanie about self-defense. Both Bonnie and Pen paid as much attention as I did. We cleaned the house, then took some time for some relaxing, but not, unfortunately, on the beach. Grant thought we should stick to the widow's walk for awhile for safety purposes, despite the increased security again, so we played games with the kids up there.

I got a call from the appraiser on Friday afternoon, saying he thought the house could sell for a hundred, ninety-five thousand. The remaining mortgage on it was seventy-eight. With closing costs, I figured I'd sell it to Mary for ninety, and fuck Ransom. With any luck, he wouldn't have been able to spend a dime of the money he got for the house anyway. Becky got done early on Fridays, so she could join us for a couple hours before we went out to eat. I informed the ladies there would be no Lush wearing tonight, because of the need to be extra alert. They all moaned a little at that news, and it wasn't a happy moan. Pen started to read to the kids, letting the rest of us relax a little more. I told Becky to let Mary know I'd received my appraisal back at 195K, and I'd be happy to sell it to her for less than half of the appraisal, just to screw over my husband.

"Tell her I'll sell it for ninety thousand, which would cover my mortgage and costs."

"She'll be happy to hear that. She's put together a CV and is starting to apply at some local vets."

Becky sent it off. It had to be morning in Australia. She got an answer back relatively quickly.

"Mary said she wants to thank you. From your price, she feels you're not doing anything in particular to keep me attached to you."

"Tell her she's welcome, and I won't do anything more than I usually do, which is the best sex I can give you."

Becky laughed. "I have to admit, I love the sex."

"Where are we going, Pen? I forgot to ask, and what are we wearing?"

"The Turtle Club at 7 PM and resort casual is the attire."

"What does that mean, resort casual?" Becky asked.

"Generally, dressy casual, like slacks and collared shirts for the guys," Pen said. "Sundresses, skirts, dresses or slacks for the women. No shorts or collarless shirts like tees or sleeveless shirts, or muscle shirts. You don't need hosiery, or heels, but you shouldn't be wearing flip flops either. Tennis shoes are generally okay, but you might want something a little dressier."

"Okay. I've got stuff like that."

"Becky, Grant wants to take all the women to the gun range tomorrow and make sure you know how to handle a gun without shooting each other," I said. "He's going to talk to us about situational awareness and teach us to be aware of our surroundings. I think he wants to take us to the mall and do some practice there after we go shooting."

"Good, I can get you some more maternity clothes," Pen said.

"What's situational awareness?" Becky asked.

"Being aware of your surroundings and everything going on around you all of the time," Stephanie said. "Not letting yourself be surprised by anything and being ready to respond to any situation. It's why Grant knew you were being followed to Conor's Steakhouse all the way from Sam's house. He saw the pickup pull out behind the limo and followed all the way to the restaurant. Most people won't notice you're being followed. That's why he doesn't want anyone wearing a Lush tonight, because it would be too distracting to maintain the proper alertness.

"For instance, Grant and I will sit on opposite sides of the table tonight, so he can keep track of half of the room and I can keep half of the other. You need to notice when people are paying more than a normal amount of attention to you. We'll practice tonight. Sit beside me and I'll point some things out to you. It will keep you safer under normal circumstances."

"Okay. It could be fun."

"You need to go through your stuff at my house, Becky," I said. "Decide what's coming with us, and what you'll be getting rid of. I put all of my stuff in Mary's room closet. You might want to do the same since there are four people sharing Pen's bedroom and closet. Maybe Sunday, since Saturday seems taken up with other activities."

"Yeah, as long as we don't take all day. I've already got quite a bit of homework."

"I imagine it would take 60-90 minutes plus driving time."

"I can work with that."

We had to get up and get ready to go out around thirty minutes later. A quick shower and into a nice maternity dress and some sandals. I had time to give Emma a quick once over as well. The men all looked rather splendid in their resort wear. I wouldn't mind a nice fucking from Robert later on.