CHAPTER 40- I HATE THAT KID
"I really think that Deran and Craig are going to come around" Jessica spoke before taking a sip of her hot tea. She had spent the night at Baz's since everything did not go in their favor the day before.
The couple had been trying to figure out a way to convince everyone that what they were doing was the best thing for the family. The problem was a Smurf had them so much under her control that none of them wanted to see the actual truth. That was just a tactic that Smurf used to control her children and it looked like it was working.
Jessica had hoped her brothers would have understood where she had been coming from yesterday and believed that they were going to see the situation once they got over the initial shock. The one thing they weren't counting on was J becoming more of a problem since he had still been talking with Smurf.
"Have they talked to Smurf at all?" Baz asked her while walking over to the couch. He stood next to it while she was sitting down.
"Not that I know of, they didn't say anything yesterday" Her blue-grey eyes looked over at him. "I mean I spoke to Deran this morning over the phone, but he hadn't said anything to me about her calling. I wonder if she's talked to J?"
"She probably has, he didn't seem like he wanted to listen to what we had to say so I feel like she's going to ask him to do everything"
It was only fair that Smurf was going to keep in touch with one of them and J seemed like the perfect suspect. He had become the favorite easily since coming into the family, pushing Baz right to the side. Jessica knew that was the biggest issue the two men had as Baz was always picked more so than everyone else.
"You think he's really that trustworthy? You guys did steal her money but he's not going to tell her that"
"I'm sure the truth will spill out at some point, but J is going to put the blame on me, he'll never tell her. I don't want you to go see or even answer if she calls you"
"I doubt she would even speak to me again after what happened, I'm going to be the last person she calls. Then again, she'd probably call just to scream at me through the phone and hang up. Remember that one time she did that to me when I was like twenty"
Baz laughed lightly, recalling the event easily. "What, when you took her mustang for a joyride and totaled it?"
"In my defense she took my car first" Jessica reminded him before taking another drink. A smile began to play on her lips as she remembered being at a friend's house and Smurf screaming at her through the phone.
"You hated that car; it was a black SUV that you drove around because it was the cheapest car you could find. It was like a little family minivan"
"That's besides the point, how was I going to drive around?" She mostly meant it as how was she going to go party and score more coke. Jessica was a party girl in her early twenties, taking after Craig and Julia. "And anyway, it was that guy's fault who came around the corner and slammed into me first"
All of the Cody family were trouble in one way or another. Pope was always getting into fights, Craig was always wasted in public, and Deran was good at tagging buildings. Julia would get high; Baz was robbing corner stores and Jessica took Smurf's car for joyrides. The Cody matriarch had her hands full, but she's still considered them turning out good.
Baz was taking a drink of his coffee before glancing at his watch. "I got to go meet with Smurfs lawyer, so I'll be back in a couple hours"
"Can I come with you?" She asked him, not wanting to just hang around his house all day.
Jessica and Baz had arrived at the lawyer's office about twenty minutes later. He didn't mind her tagging along is this also was important not only for him but for her as well. He had spoken to the secretary who informed him that she was already waiting for him. That made Baz a little suspicious that she was already prepared for him, as he didn't know she already had a conversation with Smurf.
The brunette lawyer had been sitting at her desk in a couple had walked in. She looked up momentarily before shoving some papers into a folder. "Well, you're exactly on the dot. It's nice to formally meet you, I take it that you are her daughter Jessica?" She had met Baz previously before as well as the others but never her.
Jessica stepped forward first, offered her hand in a which the two women shook. "I'm Morgan Caulfield, I've been Smurf's lawyer for some time. What's this meeting about?"
Baz had set up the appointment up but didn't discuss over the phone what he wanted to meet her for. "I know you already know that Smurf is in jail so I'm going to just cut straight to the point. I want to see everything that's in her name, the will, the properties, all of it"
"I'm sorry to tell you but I cannot show you any of that. It's all private information"
He narrowed his blue eyes at her while Jessica was trying to make sense of it. "But my name is on everything. She put my name on things just in case anything would happen to her. So why can't I see any of it?"
Morgan leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath, and spoke. "Miss Cody changed everything this morning. I'm sorry but you don't have any of her possessions anymore. She transferred it on to someone else"
"Well, who has it? I doubt she left it to Deran or Craig, hope we didn't know what to do with it. If you and I don't have it then only leaves one person"
Jessica chimed in, irritation filling her voice in her last sentence. She cocked her head towards Baz who was easily irritated as well. They didn't lock eyes, but they knew exactly who it was without saying a word.
Baz tensed his jaw while staring down Morgan. "J's name is on the papers, am I right?"
"I met with J this morning at Smurfs' request. She wanted everything under his control. I don't know what you did to her, but she said it was an emergency"
"This is a joke, right?" Jessica asked, looking between them before casting her eyes to the ground. This was the latest fork in their plan, and she knew that Baz never expected this. "You mean to tell me she's going to leave everything up to a 19-year-old kid?"
"This was her decision and as her lawyer I have to do exactly as she asks. She wanted her Grandson to own everything while she is in jail. Once things are settled it might get reversed but as of now, Joshua Cody owns the properties and everything else that Smurf gave him"
"So how can I go about reversing this decision? I wasn't notified that she was changing it so there has to be something I can do" Baz told Morgan, not only wanting but needing to get this away from J.
"If you can bring J into my office then we can talk. The only thing you can do is if he legally signs over everything, then it goes back to you. Again, it's going to have to go through Smurf"
It was clear that Morgan was on Smurf's payroll and that she was going to do everything to avoid giving Baz the right answer. She had been defending her from the second they walked in and even though Jessica doubted that she'd even try to help them, Baz was convinced that there might be something he still could do. The problem was now trying to get J to hand things over, which the kid was never going to do.
"But she doesn't own it anymore, so I don't understand" Jessica was trying to make sense of it but there was no actual conclusion.
"Yes, but as of right now all of her legal matters are going through J. Everything that she needs, lawyers, even defense attorneys, J decides. If he is willing to hand over everything, he can sign the rights back to you, but he and Smurf are a team. It's going to have to go through both of them as J is looking to her for guidance"
Baz shook his head hard before rubbing his temples slowly. "I can't believe this... I should have known that she would have pulled some shit like this. I also should have known that this would have happened considering he's Julia's kid"
The Cody sister had ignored his words about her sister as none of this was Julia's fault. Even though J came to live with them because of her overdose, Jessica didn't like that Baz was talking bad about her.
"This is all ridiculous. We are her immediate family; we are her children. It's bad enough that she hid all of the money from us but now she won't even put anything in our control"
She told him as Baz was already standing up, ready to leave the office. They both knew that they were not going to get through to J unless they did something dramatic, but they didn't know what. Without speaking another word to Morgan, Jessica trailed behind Baz as he stormed out of the building and back over to his car.
"Okay this is what we're going to do, I'm going to talk to J and get everything transferred back to me. You need to let Craig, Deran and Pope know that Smurf is trying to take everything from us"
"Well, they wouldn't want us to have it either, it was clear yesterday that the two of them had a problem with everything"
Neither of them had talked to Pope but Deran and Craig seem to be set in their ways about the family. Jessica wasn't sure if she had gotten to her brothers yesterday as they still seemed indifferent when she left. It was clear that Baz was trying to divide the family, but he wanted all of them to be on the same page against J.
Jessica had hesitated to get in the car for a moment going that it was going to be a hard day in front of her. Baz already had the car started when she got inside, he spoke to her once more,
"But this also shows that Smurf is not going to trust any of us. Why didn't she put it in Deran's name? He owns the bar so it would have been easy to do that, but Smurf knows that you two are close. She's convinced that you would turn them against her but that's exactly what we're going to do"
While it looked like the two of them were out for themselves, they still wanted their brothers to be a part of everything. Of course, they were going to take the bigger cut and the bigger amount of the blame, but it wasn't fair for them to hide it from their siblings either. Neither of them wanted to be compared to Smurf and they were doing everything in their power to not be like her despite that be not the case.
Jessica looked over at Baz and hesitated speaking, "J isn't going to hand everything over, you know that right?"
"He doesn't have much of a choice now"
Baz would do anything to get all of Smurf's properties back to him, no matter how long it took. He wasn't going to let some kid come in and take everything that belong to him everything that he believed he deserves. He and Jessica had come a long way from planning, framing, and stealing. Baz was not going to give Smurf the satisfaction of winning, or even J for that matter.
Both of them had sighed at the same time almost reading each other's minds.
"I hate that kid" They spoke unison knowing they had a lot more work to do now.
Nicky had been chilling by the pool yet again as it had been her favorite spot in the house. She didn't have a pool at her old house, and she just enjoyed lounging around.
She had been picking at a salad she made hoping to hear back from one of her friends to get her more coke. J had come into the backyard from the driveway and glanced at her, frustrated with his meeting with Smurf.
"Hey, I haven't seen you in the last couple days, are you okay? I hate to ask but are you still coming to my graduation?" She took a bite of her salad as he looked over.
"Sorry, I just got a lot on my mind right now. There's so much stuff to figure out and sort through when Smurf isn't here. Yeah, when is it again?"
"It's on the 18th, you're so lucky you got to graduate early" J had far better grades the Nicky so he got to complete all of his classes and graduate weeks ago. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"No, Smurf wants me to do everything myself. While she's in jail I have to pick up the pieces around here she just signed over her rights to me, so I own everything that she did"
Even though Nicky was young and naïve, she was the only person that J really could talk to about what was going on. He didn't know if Craig, Deran or Pope would actually help him with anything or would even want to hear it. Besides that, Nicky and Craig were done, and J had feelings for her still.
"No way...Why did she do that?" She wasn't entirely sure what all Smurf had but she knew how huge of a responsibility that was.
"Everything belonged to Baz before, he just wants to sell everything and split the money between all of us. She knew he was going to try to take advantage of the situation, so she put everything to me"
J walked over to her, plopped down in the other lounge chair, and slipped his sunglasses off. He was beyond stressed about the whole thing, but this was Smurf's wishes. He still had to act like he was on her side and while this benefited him to a degree J now had more targets on his back.
"I talked to Jessica yesterday, she didn't tell me much, but I just couldn't wrap my head around Smurf going to jail"
"Do me a favor Nicky and don't talk to her" J said simply before rubbing his face.
"Why? I didn't say anything to her if that's what you mean?"
"I Just don't trust Baz right now, and I don't trust her. Whatever she tells you, don't listen to it. Don't talk to him either"
Since Nicky was out of the loop for the most part, J had to get his message across, and that message was not to trust the others. Jessica and Baz were clearly in for themselves, and J didn't want Nicky to get involved in it.
"Jesus J, aren't you a little paranoid over this?"
J hesitated to fill her in on everything, but it was better for him to tell her than the other two. "Smurf is in jail because Baz told the cops that she killed Javi. Jessica said that she hired someone to shoot him, but Smurf actually never pulled the trigger"
Nicky narrowed her eyes trying to piece the story together. "So they set her up on a murder she didn't even do?"
"That's why it's important right now to play it smart, try to stay away from them. They also took all of the money out of Smurf's storage unit which was worth millions"
If Jessica and Baz wanted to keep tabs on J, it was easy to point at Nicky. The girl was completely clueless within the family and would answer any question anyone asked. That created issues but J was willing to push that aside. He wasn't sure how the others were feeling and even though Nicky wasn't the best chess piece to have, J needed to have a backup.
"How have I not heard about any of this?" She questioned him not understanding how she lived in the house but had no idea that this drama was brewing.
J ignored her momentarily and continued questioning her, "What did you talk to her about yesterday?"
"Nothing really important. We talked about my dad living in Guam. She was telling me that I should go move there and just live with him. She also told me about Dylan"
It was now his turn to look at her confused. "Who's that?"
"Her kid... Wait, you didn't know anything about this?" The youngest Cody shook his head no seeing this as a new piece of information. "She said when she was 16 she had a kid named Dylan. Jessica said that she got into a fight with your mom and Smurf kicked them out"
When J needed his tetanus shot after the church job, Jessica had filled him in a little history between her and his mom. It was still a foggy area is no one talked about Julia, and no one explained how bad things that with her around. Jessica didn't tell him everything and just mentioned how they hadn't gone along, and now the story began to make sense.
He now remembered that both Julia and Jessica were sleeping with Baz and Smurf didn't accept it. J had already been born as she mentioned how she babysat him before but now the puzzle piece became Dylan. Was it possible that J and Dylan were not only cousins but also half-brothers? Craig and Deran had discussed it previously as it was a huge possibility but now this gave J ammo.
Before he could continue the conversation with Nicky, his phone vibrated in his pants pocket. "It's Smurf, I got to take this"
He got up and walked over to the bar to get more privacy. Right as he reached it, Jessica and Baz had been walking up to the gate to the backyard. They all glanced at each other for a second and J quickly turned away to talk on the phone.
Baz held the gate open for her Jessica walked past him she whispered, "You think he's talking to Smurf?"
He nodded his head in response and kept his eye on him for a couple seconds and then looked away so it wouldn't seem so suspicious. They walked over to Nicky who looked over at them and tried not to glance at J.
"Hey Nicky, you guys just hanging by the pool?" Jessica asked simply.
"Yeah, he was helping me with my chemistry homework earlier, but it was too hot to be inside" It had been a lousy you cover up since she had no books with her.
Jessica had sat down on the lounge chair that J was previously on while Baz just stood next to her. "Who's he talking to on the phone?"
"Oh, it's this kid from our class, well I guess I should say my class. His name is Gregory and he's totally clueless when it comes to this stuff, he's always just copying J's homework"
The blonde Cody had shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand while looking up at Baz. They both knew that it was a lie as it seemed there was tension in the air. Baz and Jessica gave one another a secret look knowing that she needed to talk to Nicky by herself.
"I'm going to head inside and grab a beer; do you guys want anything?"
Nicky had shaken her head no, but Jessica asked him to grab her a water bottle. Baz disappeared without another word into the house, and it was now Jessica's time to focus on the teenager.
"I can't believe you guys have to take chemistry now, that was a class I would have flunked. I did take earth science as if that were so important in my life"
"Yeah, I don't even know what I'm doing and half of my classes. I'm just looking forward to graduating already"
"I was ready for my graduation too, and then I dropped out" Jessica was referring to her pregnancy and she wasn't sure if Nicky caught wind of that. "Luckily for me I got my GED years later and didn't have to face any of those teachers again. Let's just say they knew my brothers well, so they gave me a hard time too"
As Jessica didn't actually graduate in high school, she still was the only Cody sibling to have a diploma. Nicky agreed with her that the teachers were bad, and they made small talk for a couple more minutes. J had hung up and walked back over to the woman, trying to catch their conversation.
"Hey, what did he say?" Nicky asked him, knowing that he was going to follow what she said. J was smart enough to hold secrets as well and act like nothing was wrong.
"He asked if we could have a study session tomorrow because he has no idea what he's doing something about protons or something that has nothing to do with chemistry. Remind me to never graduate before you guys again" He joked while walking over to Nicky's side. She sat up straighter so he could take a seat at the bottom of the lounge chair.
Jessica smiled politely at them and was ready to start the questions. "Are you doing okay? I know that was Smurf being gone someone has to run the house, so I just want to check if everything's okay"
"Everything is fine, Nicky has been helping around the house" That was the truth, but the next part was going to be a complete lie. "I'm used to taking care of everything, I used to do it all the time when my mom was high. There was this one guy though that stuck around for a while but then I guess he couldn't handle it anymore"
"Julia had a boyfriend?" Jessica questioned back.
"Yeah, I don't really remember his name, but I think it was David or something like that. I was around like 8 years old, I used to think he was my dad. Do you have any idea if he was?"
J's partial truth was that he was used to taking care of himself in the house. The whole boyfriend situation was made up just to see if he could get Jessica to talk. He had previously asked her before who his dad was but now that he knew more about her past life, it opened up more questions.
Jessica shook her head no before speaking, "Um, I can't recall anyone with that name. I wasn't close to your mom, her and I had the falling out so I wouldn't know who that even is. As for your dad, that's a whole other story"
"Well do you know who my dad is?"
"I really don't remember who she was around back then, you're asking me about what went on when I was 15" Even though it sounded defensive, she was trying not to be. When Julia left, she left, and no one knew anything about her.
"Is it Baz?" J was being bold with what he was asking but he wanted to get under Jessica's skin. "I would just like to know who it is, Smurf told me one time that it is a possibility, so I wondered if you knew anything"
J may have asked previously but this seemed suspicious to Jessica. It was making sense that J was going to ask more questions considering what was going on, but he should have known that she wouldn't budge on anything. On top of it J had never asked Baz personally so it wasn't her call to tell him anything.
"Baz isn't your dad, Smurf would have never let anything like that happen in this house" It was now Jessica's turned to lie as she was just trying to cover her tracks. She remembered telling J before, but she also didn't want to think that they could be father and son, no matter what.
"The only thing that I can remember is this guy that used to come around the house. Smurf was trying to do some job and he was part of the plan... Things took a bad turn once he came around"
"What happened?" Nicky wanted to know as she was now invested in what was going on.
While J had been waiting for the truth Jessica looked away from them and towards the pool. She really didn't want to talk about what happened because it was a bad situation, and it should have never happened. It wasn't fair to Julia then and it still wasn't in her death.
As if Baz could read minds, he walked out of the house and moved back over to them. Jessica took a deep breath and relief as he wasn't going to ask her more with him around.
"Hey... Lena has to get picked up from Crystal's soon"
"It's cool if we take her to get ice cream still, right? I promised that we would take her" He didn't responds seeing the urgency written on her face to get out of there. "See you guys later, let me know if you need any help around here, I'd be glad to come over"
Everyone had said their goodbyes and Jessica and Baz were leaving Smurf's house once again. Baz wasn't actually sure if Jessica was being serious about taking Lena for ice cream, or if that was an excuse to escape whatever went on.
He waited until they got out in the driveway to ask his question. "Did he say anything?"
"No, not really" She told him but glanced over his shoulder to make sure that J wasn't there. "He didn't say a word about Smurf, but he started asking me who his dad is and if it were you"
Baz and Jessica talked in the car all the way back to her apartment about the conversation she had at Smurf's. No one knew who J's dad was, but everyone had their guesses. It was out of the blue and didn't make sense why he would be snooping in this territory.
He told her not to worry about it and to focus more on getting everything back in their possession. That meant she had to go see Craig and Deran to tell them that they were not in control of the family whatsoever. Hopefully this plan was going to work because Baz had no idea what they were going to do from that point forward with the family.
It wasn't unusual that the brothers were always at the bar, so Jessica obviously went there first. To her surprised they were not present and the only other place she could look was the beach. As she pulled into the parking lot, she saw Deran's famous car parked off to the side. She figured they had gone surfing so she got out and walked over to the shore, looking around if she could see them. The two of them were walking out of the water and stopped a couple feet away from her when they spotted her.
"I swear you two are like Batman and Robin, I never can catch you guys separate. Have you seen Pope anywhere?"
Craig tucked his surfboard under his arm and headed for the truck. "No... Did you check out that church?"
"No but I'll put that on the top of my priority list. Do you guys have a second?"
"We've already talked about all of this yesterday; I really don't want to get into it" Deran said to her also following Craig back to his car.
Jessica slowly trailed behind them, being careful with what she was going to say with others around. "I know you don't want to hear about it, but can I just at least tell you something that Baz and I figured out?"
Once they've reached Deran's jeep, they threw their boards in the back and leaned up against it. Jessica wasn't sure if she'd convince them, but she had been on a mission. "Do you remember when Smurf decided to put everything in Baz's name ages ago? It was like when we were all young and none of us really wanted to be in charge of anything?"
"What about it?" Deran asked while leaning inside to grab a cigarette. He pulled it out of the pack, and lit it before looking back at his older sister.
"She just transferred everything over to J. He has control of everything, all of the properties, the titles to the cars. She didn't give it to any of us"
"Are you serious? Smurf gave everything to that kid?" Craig asked back in surprise.
When she put Baz in control, it was because no one else wanted the responsibility. They were all young and didn't want to take care of anything that Smurf had. None of them complained as they were relieved that Baz stepped up to the plate.
This time had been different though as a was still the new kid on the block. They had done more for the family than he had so Jessica knew it had to rub Deran and Craig the wrong way.
"Baz and I went to the lawyer this morning. He wanted to figure out everything that Smurf gave him so he could split it, but she decided to change it last minute"
"So, what makes Baz any different than J?" Deran took a long drag before continuing on. "I mean, he still wants to sell everything anyway. He was going to take all that she has so now J has it, what difference does it make?"
"The difference is she didn't give it to any of us. J is her grandson, and we are her immediate family. She didn't leave anything to us, she even left it to Baz who is not blood related. Think about it Deran, we pull all these jobs and Smurf wouldn't even hand it over to us?"
"We pull the jobs; you and Smurf don't have a hand in it"
Craig yet again remained quiet while his younger siblings began battling it out. They all knew that issue he had with the situation, but Jessica was hoping that she could convince her brother that what was going on wasn't right. Craig didn't mind Deran speaking for both of them, so he thought it was best just to listen.
"Okay, now what's the problem? I just wanted to come here and let you guys know that J pretty much controls us now, and all of a sudden this is turned around on me? I'm still your sister Deran, no matter the outcome"
"Jessica's right, why did she give everything over to him? He's been here how long, and we've been pulling jobs since we've been kids"
The more Craig thought about it, the more it made sense in Jessica's case. J didn't deserve everything that they worked towards since he hadn't been there for any of it. While Baz and Jessica still wanted to control, it was only fair that one of them could also fight for it.
Jessica looked towards Craig with a faint smile on her face. She appreciated the backup because Baz had been the only one doing it so far. "I don't want you guys to think that just because Baz and I are together that everything is going to shift. I'm coming to you as family, as your sister to let you know that our nephew has an ulterior motive"
"And yet you and Baz didn't have one when you put our mother in jail?" Deran fired back, through his cigarette on the ground and moved away from her to get into his Jeep.
Jessica cast your eyes towards the ground not used to Deran being angry with her. The two were always close and hardly fought, they believe that was the benefit of being full blooded siblings. This was all new to her and she didn't want him to be mad at her forever.
She shook her head heavily and threw up her arms up in the air out of frustration. "All right I can tell I'm getting nowhere so I'm just going to. If you want to talk about this, later give me a call but I'm not going to stand here and let you give me an attitude when I'm only trying to help the family"
She said her goodbyes to Craig before heading back to her own sky-blue jeep. She peeled out quickly and he watched her before he got inside of the passenger seat.
Snapping his head towards Deran, Craig could see everything falling apart. "What is your problem?"
"You know what my problem is. I'm not going to be put in the middle between Smurf, J, Baz, and Jessica. You know what I honestly think we should do? I think we should go see Smurf"
"For what? What is that going to do?"
"Because we've got three different people saying three different things and somewhere in here has to be the truth. Once I figure all this out, I'll come to my conclusion, but I don't know if I can fully trust Baz right now after what he did"
Since Deran was the baby of the family, he was having a hard time dealing with Smurf being in jail. Not only was stealing a major part of the problem, wasn't right that she was sitting in jail for something she didn't do. Deran only wanted to find out the truth because he and Craig were always the middleman. It was time that they stood up for themselves and made their own conclusion without an interference from everyone else.