Reborn ghost seeing lady is pampered by her ex husband-Chapter 638: How the Rice empire grew.
Maureen was quite feisty lately and with the way she was glaring at Mahone, she had an accusation loaded and ready to go.
Rekha tugged on her arm to pull her back and stop her from saying it. The first rule of supernatural hunting was don't die. The second was don't blindly believe the word of any supernatural creature. Just because it was a ghost did not mean that it could not lie.
They had to use clarity spells whispered silently to tell if what they were being told was a truth or a lie.
"It is impossible, I have heard the stories about how our land was acquired and I was told that it was a gift from the original settlers, and the rest was bought slowly over time. Is there a possibility that you could be mistaken about what you are saying? My ancestors brought development to this city, we pulled it from the ground up. Did someone pay you off to slander our family?" Mahone fired off one question after the other, he was in denial of his ancestor's involvement in the killing.
Maureen slapped Mahone on the back of the head. "Who can bribe a ghost? I have never heard of such a thing in my life."
Mahone winced, his face twisted as he glared at Maureen. His entire life, nobody had hit him! How could she dare to hit his precious body?
Latoya's gaze narrowed in Mahone's direction. "I do not understand why you are shocked, you suspected something when you found my remains. Was that not the real reason as to why you chose to hide them here instead of reporting to the authorities? Your family has owned this land for generations, so you suspected that someone among them committed murder. You were afraid of what the scandal would do to your great empire, so you kept it quiet. I dare you to deny it." She clutched onto the sides of her dress, growling at him.
All eyes which were full of judgement drifted towards Mahone's direction. Their senses could tell that the ghost was speaking the truth. Maureen was already dancing for joy on the inside.
Latoya's fate was sad but in the end, she was right, the Mahone's had not acquired the land the right way. The literal foundation on which they built their empire was crooked.
"Smile a little less, dear aunt." Rekha whispered to her.
Maureen closed her mouth and blinked a few times, clearing her throat too.
"What really happened Latoya?" Phoebe asked.
Letting out a shaky sigh, a faraway look crossed Latoya's eyes. "It was the year 1803 when the carnivorous Rice family moved to our small, deserted town, back then it was called Bleak shore. It was a small town, poor and rarely saw rich folks like them looking to settle down in our midst.
They threw money around, built a grocery store, started making moonshine which was sold outside the town. Because of them, we got big plantations, food, jobs and more. I won't deny we were excited and greedy for all the good they brought so we welcomed them.
Of course, we did not just welcome them because they were rich, we welcomed them because Bleak shore welcomed all those looking to settle down. The bigger the population in town, the better as it could be expanded and turned into a city.
The Rice family began to buy land in the area, small pieces in the beginning so nobody complained. They said that they were bringing development to the area, they wanted to transform Bleak shore into a tourist town, to attract more people to live in the town and become a city quickly. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
It was a good idea, and many people could not wait. Mr. Jonas Rice said he needed more land to build bigger hotels and a port. At the time, trade was more bustling than we had ever seen. Jonas Rice, he had this great idea to sell our unique stone architecture. He even got big newspapers to print articles about it, and it worked, tourists poured in, and Bleak shore was declared a city.
More money meant more greed and Jonas demanded for more land. A lot of people around us sold their lands cheaply. But Claude and I, we were the only ones that refused to sell." She paused the story.
"Let me guess, the Rice family did not like that very much.?" Maureen's statement came in form of a question.
Latoya moved her head from side to side. "No ma'am they didn't. You see, Claude and I we were former thieves. We could sniff a con man from a mile away and we knew what Jonas was. He was paying peanuts for what the land was worth.
The problem was that we were sitting right in the center of the Rice empire. So, they paid off the sheriff to shake us down, but we held strong. Claude was beaten and arrested but we did not waver.
The town's people turned on us with malice because the Rice family suddenly stopped paying off lands and demanding for their money back. They even threatened to leave and told the folks around that we were preventing growth and development from coming to Bleak shore.
People we once knew and loved sneered at us when we walked down the road and called us names. Neighbors refused to speak to us, they destroyed our farms and killed our animals. No shop would sell grain or any kind of food to us. Claude had to buy our supplies from the next town.
In all this, we remained determined not to sell because the land we were sitting on had been in Claude's family for generations. He wanted to pass it on to our children and grandchildren. We were living off the land, growing fruit and raising cattle and sheep. To force us off our land was to leave us homeless and starving. We had no special skills outside of stealing and farming and we had sworn off the life of crime. The land was all we had, how could we sell it?" A beat passed as she dashed moisture from her cheeks.
Mahone took the chance to say something that had been nudging at him. "I have seen the receipts of sale, the land transfers from Claude Bergman to Jonas Rice! That means that your husband sold perhaps he just did not tell you. Women tend to get sentimental over such things." He brushed a hand through his neatly laid-back hair.
"Shut up!" The women's voices blended as one.
All the women were offended by his business. Even Janice had joined them in telling her boss to shut up and she was surprised that she had the courage to do so.
She had a feeling that she might be out of a job after this. But with all that she had overheard, she would demand a hefty compensation which would allow her to retire comfortably. Maybe it would be sizeable enough for her to buy a condo in this very building.
Latoya's hands moved and remained on her waist. "I saw those documents too with my husband's thumb print on them declaring that he sold the land, but you know what was strange was that I never got to ask him because I never saw him again." She answered, anger rippling through her.
