The Andre Miller Saga

Andre Miller 18 The Gremlins

"That bitch blew up my store!" shouted Tilly.

"She what?" said Andre.

"My store front got firebombed last night. Burnt it out front to back. Luckily the fire suppression system worked in the other shops and kept it isolated to just my storefront. The insurance company wants me back in the city to verify the damages and sign off on some paperwork."

"Well, that's a trap." Said her brother Kyle.

"Well, no kidding. You think?" She said angrily.

Caleb said, "She's trying to draw us out because the letter bomb last week didn't work. Is there any way you can hire a law firm to act as a proxy?"

"I'm going to have to," replied Tilly, "but even that is going to be complicated because I can't hire one from here, and if I hire one from anywhere else, I'm going to have to provide some form of contact."

"What if you just make a dummy PO Box that forwards here like the way we set up the office and your old shop? In like Idaho or something?" said Frankie. "Or hire a lawyer out of Boise and just have them receive all correspondence for you and then forward it on to a string of junk PO Boxes."

"That's not a bad idea kid. I knew we kept you around for a reason." Tilly said, still with anger in her voice.

She took out one of the several burner phones the family kept handy and placed a call to an attorney firm in Boise, Idaho. She made all the arrangements via phone or online over the next several hours and they would have a lawyer flying out to Michigan the next morning. As far as the firm was concerned, she was somewhere in rural Nevada and had her reasons for avoiding the city.

The next day she received an email with pictures of her old shop. It was gutted by the fire and the water from the fire department had left a slimy, ashy mess out onto the street. She was in tears from the pictures for several minutes and then her anger returned. She authorized the firm to open an investigation into the fire and she would take care of the cleanup herself remotely. "Caleb, can you send half a dozen elementals to my shop and have them clean and scour the place? Get rid of all the destroyed materials like shelves and cases and just leave it a clean empty space, after the fire inspector signs off on it."

"Yeah, I can do that." He replied, "Just tell me when it's clear and I'll fire off a cleaning crew."

"Oh, that woman is going to pay. I'm going to string her up by her short and curly and use her like a speed bag." Said Tilly mock punching the air.

"When we talked to her last week, she mentioned we were messing with her deadline. So, she's on a clock of some kind. This is just the latest escalation. I'm sure she'll do the same to our offices if we don't respond to this attack. Will your insurance cover the damages?" asked Andre.

"$10000 deductible, but yeah, after that the insurance does its thing. Is there any way we can draw her out, give her a taste of her own medicine?" Tilly asked with fire in her eyes.

"Not without becoming more like her than we want to." Said, Frankie. He had just gotten a huge debt of bad karma taken off of his soul 3 weeks prior and was very conscious of his, and his friend's behaviors.

"Argh!" Tilly shouted and punched a cushion on the couch.

Andre came in from the summoning building and was tucking in his shirt. "The Celestial Union has agreed to monitor the situation and report back to us if anything changes. I'm going to cancel our lease and let the office go. Once word spreads that we aren't coming back it should take it off the target list."

"I hate to lose the shop, you put a lot of work into the place in 20 years. But you're right, it's safer for the other tenants and the neighborhood." Said, Caleb.