Sins of the Father: Rose Gardner Mystery Novella 9.5 Read online

  “There were people out to kill him too,” she said with no sign of guilt. “I was protecting them both.”

  I was pretty sure she had given him other information as well, but I wasn’t about to call her on it. I didn’t feel like fighting with her. “Are you still working with him?”

  “You mean am I still questioning people for him?” She shook her head. “I hung up my hat and veil after I confronted your father.”

  But she was still friends with him. I could see it in her eyes. As much as I wanted to warn her to stay away from him, I’d learned that ordering Rose around was not the way to get things accomplished.

  “No lectures?” she asked with a hint of attitude.

  “No. I’d tell you to be careful, but I already know you are.”

  She looked surprised for a second, but then she grinned. “There might be hope for you yet, Joe Simmons.”

  I was beginning to think she was right.

  6

  Rose

  Joe seemed better when I left him, yet I still drove away with a heavy heart. I’d tried one more time to convince him to talk to Neely Kate, but he’d deflected the suggestion, saying he needed to get back to working on the house. When I asked for a tour, he told me I’d given him too much thinking to do but promised to give me one later.

  Rain began to fall as I headed back into town, and Muffy jumped onto my lap when a loud crack of thunder ripped through the air.

  “That was close, huh, Muff?” I covered her back with my hand to help control her shaking. I couldn’t help thinking I should have left her with Joe for the afternoon. He seemed so lonely, and they loved each other.

  A flash of lightning touched down close to the neighborhood where Bruce Wayne and the crew were working, and less than half a minute later my phone rang. I checked my caller ID before I answered, slightly worried when I saw Bruce Wayne’s name. Bruce Wayne rarely called. He was more of a texting guy.

  Pulling over to the side of the road, I turned on my hazard lights. The rain was coming down in sheets, making it too dangerous to take the call while driving.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Did you get caught in the storm?”

  “We got our tools packed up before it hit. I sent the crew home for the day. We’ll start again tomorrow if it’s not too muddy. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

  I started to panic. “Are you okay? Anna?”

  “Rose,” he said in a gentle voice. “We’re fine.”

  “Okay.”

  “This is going to sound weird, but I’m calling about our client’s neighbor.”

  “Heidi Joy?”

  “She the one with all the kids? The one you were talking to earlier?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Another bolt of lightning flashed through the sky, and I snuggled my shaking dog closer. “She was my next-door neighbor when I lived in Momma’s house. What about her?”

  “Her dog ran off.”

  “Oh no.” My heart plummeted.

  “I’m only calling because she has some crazy idea that you might know how to find her dog. Now, why would she think that?”

  I groaned. “I had a vision. I saw Hugo running away and her boys chasing him. I blurted out that he was going to run away because of the storm, but I have no idea where he got off to.”

  “With all them kids, she can’t leave, and she’s worried. She wants you to give her a call.”

  “I’ll call, but the last time I tried to get ahold of her, it said the number was out of service.”

  “She says she changed phones and lost all her numbers. But I’ll text it to you. I didn’t want to give yours out without asking you first.”

  “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure what I could do, but calling her back seemed like the right thing to do. The rain had begun to let up some, but my truck was old enough that it didn’t have a Bluetooth hookup, so I decided to wait until I got back to the office to make the call.

  Once I was parked on the town square, I scooped up Muffy and ran. The door to the office opened as I reached it. Neely Kate stood to the side.

  “What took you so long? I was worried,” she said.

  “I got delayed.” I wanted to tell her about Joe, but now didn’t seem like the best time. “You’ll never guess who I saw.”

  “Who?” she asked as she shut the door behind us.

  “Heidi Joy. My old neighbor. She and her family live next door to the house Bruce Wayne and his crew are working on.”

  “Wow. Small world.”

  “I had a vision while I was there.” I told her what I’d seen and how I’d played it off. This next part would be tricky since I wasn’t ready to tell her about Joe. “After I left, the storm hit and Bruce Wayne called with a message from Heidi Joy. Her dog Hugo ran off, and she’s desperate to find him. She asked me to call her, which I still need to do.”

  “Oh, dear,” Neely Kate said, glancing down at Muffy.

  I was sure we were thinking the same thing. What would we do if we lost my little dog?

  “I wish I could do more to help,” I said. “I have no idea where he went.”

  “Why don’t you put her on speaker phone? Maybe we can figure something out.”

  I rolled my office chair across the wooden floor to Neely Kate’s desk, then pulled my phone out of my pocket. After I dialed Heidi Joy’s number, I set the phone on the desk.

  “Rose?” Heidi Joy asked. “Is that you?”

  I cast a glance to Neely Kate, then looked back at the phone. “It’s me, but I have Neely Kate on the phone too. Bruce Wayne told me about Hugo.”

  “You warned us he was gonna run off, and we tried to keep him in, but Tommy was watching the landscaping crew load up their truck. He opened the front storm door without giving it a second thought, and Hugo ran out.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I take it he hasn’t come back yet?”

  “No.” She sniffled, and the crying I heard in the background grew louder. “I’m stuck here with all the kids. I don’t know how you knew Hugo was gonna run off, but I’m begging you, Rose. If you have any idea where he might have gone, please tell me.”

  “I don’t, Heidi Joy,” I said, my heart breaking for her and the boys. “It was only a guess.”

  “Which way did he run?” Neely Kate asked as she leaned closer to the phone.

  “He ran down the street,” Heidi Joy said. “Toward the McManus farm.”

  I shot Neely Kate a questioning glance, but she ignored me. “Has he run away before?”

  “A few times.”

  “And where did you find him before?”

  “Once at the farm. The other two times we found him in our neighborhood.”

  “We have to go see a client out your way,” Neely Kate said. “We’ll look for him while we’re out.”

  My eyebrows shot up. I mouthed, What are you doing? But Neely Kate kept her attention on the phone.

  “Oh, would you?” Heidi Joy asked, her voice breaking. “My boys are devastated.”

  Neely Kate reached to get her purse from her open bottom desk drawer. “We’re just about to head out. If you hear anything, give Rose a call.”

  “Thank you so much!”

  Neely Kate ended the call, then handed me the phone.

  I stood and rolled my chair back to my desk. “What are you doing, Neely Kate? We weren’t headed out that way.”

  “We need the experience,” she said as she turned her computer off. “We can add this to our résumé.”

  “What résumé?”

  “Our detective work résumé.”

  “Neely Kate. We are not detectives.”

  “Bull hockey. We’ve solved all kinds of dangerous and non-dangerous mysteries. And we’ve even gotten paid for solving a crime.”

  “For finding a garden gnome, Neely Kate!”

  “We made $500!”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll help look for Hugo because I’m worried about him, not because I’m interested in adding anything to our résumé.”

&nbs
p; She gave me a smug look. “Whatever you want to call it, it serves the same purpose.”

  The storm had let up, so I grabbed Muffy’s leash and headed to the front door, Muffy prancing after me. “Let’s go find your new friend.”

  We all climbed into my truck and rolled down the windows, letting fresh air fill the cab.

  “What neighborhood was Bruce Wayne’s job at?” Neely Kate asked as I drove away from the square. “She mentioned the McManus farm. Was it the one in Briar Patch Acres?”

  “Yup. We should probably drive up and down the streets and look for him first.”

  “Good idea,” she said. “What’s he look like?”

  “He’s bigger than Muffy. I would guess about fifteen pounds. He’s furry—mostly white, with some black spots. Little ears that flop over. He’s cute.”

  “The kind of dog people might steal.”

  I shot her an anxious look. “They got him from an animal shelter.”

  She shrugged, but she looked about as worried as I felt. “The sooner we find him, the better.”

  When we reached the neighborhood, we drove slowly down the streets, calling out Hugo’s name. After we made it through twice, I called Heidi Joy.

  “Have you found him?” she asked as soon as she answered.

  “No,” I said, putting the phone on speaker so Neely Kate could join the conversation. “I was hoping you’d heard something.”

  “No.”

  “Hey,” Neely Kate said. “Does he have a chip?”

  “Yes. He was neutered and chipped when we adopted him.”

  “Maybe it has GPS tracking,” Neely Kate suggested.

  “No,” Heidi Joy said, sounding forlorn. “It only scans at the vet if he’s found.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re going to keep looking. I’ll let you know if we have any news.”

  “I’ll do the same.”

  Muffy released a soft whine when we ended the call.

  “It’s okay, girl. We’ll find him,” I said.

  The farm backed up to the edge of the road, so we parked the truck and I attached Muffy’s leash. We walked the fence, looking for any signs.

  “There,” Neely Kate said, pointing to some paw prints in the mud. “Do you think that could be from Hugo?”

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning forward. “It definitely could.” But I pushed out a sigh when I realized the prints went under the wooden fence and continued into a soybean field.

  Neely Kate cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Hugo!”

  We waited for several seconds before I called out his name too.

  “Now what?” Neely Kate asked.

  I looked her over and shook my head, handing her my car keys. “I’ll walk through the field and look for him. You drive the truck over to the McManus farmhouse and wait for me.” Before she could object, I waved to her shoes. “You can’t go traipsing through the fields in those. They’ll get ruined.”

  She shuffled in her pink, glitter-covered flats. “I didn’t plan on working out in the field today, and my work boots are back at the office.”

  “It’s okay,” I said with a smile. “I could use a walk to clear my head.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you need to clear your head?”

  Crappy doodles. I didn’t want to have this conversation now. “Sometimes a girl just needs a moment to think.” I unhooked Muffy’s leash and started to climb over the wooden fence. “Call me if you find him.”

  I planned to spend most of this walk trying to figure out how to tell Neely Kate I’d seen her brother.

  7

  Neely Kate

  Rose was hiding something.

  I knew her well enough to know the difference between when she was sad and needed space and when she was up to something. And this was the latter.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out what she was hiding. She’d been gone for over an hour and a half this afternoon, and her timeline didn’t add up.

  She’d gone to see Joe.

  It didn’t take a genius to see she was keeping it a big secret, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. Joe must have told her he didn’t want to have anything to do with me.

  The realization set me reeling, but it only took a second for the lightheadedness to go away. The hurt, I was used to. This wasn’t the first time someone in my family had found me lacking.

  By the time I’d walked back to the truck and driven toward the road, Rose had climbed the fence and was already twenty feet into the field, with no sign of Muffy. But that wasn’t unusual. Rose let Muffy walk off-leash in the fields by her farm all the time.

  I had to pay close attention when I got to the main road. I knew the general location of the entrance to the farm, but it wasn’t marked. I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack, but Rose still wasn’t there when I pulled up in front of the McManus house and barn.

  There weren’t any cars parked out front, but I got out of the truck and walked up to the front door and knocked. I didn’t know much about the McManuses, beyond that they were a middle-aged couple with grown kids, but I figured it was better to let them know Rose was walking across their field before someone walked out with a shotgun. Several knocks later, no one had come to the door.

  They weren’t home.

  I sat on the steps to the front porch while I waited. Trying to think about anything besides the last few months. Ronnie had taken off at the beginning of February, and I hadn’t heard a word from him since. I’d gone to Carter Hale, the attorney who’d represented Rose when she was charged with murder, and asked him to file for divorce. I knew Carter would have to serve him with papers, and I’d hoped his server would flush him out. But three months later, there was still neither hide nor hair of him.

  While Rose was in Houston, I’d gone to talk to Skeeter Malcolm. It was something I’d considered doing before, but her absence meant I wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse. I’d stopped by the pool hall on my way back to the office after a landscaping consult. The place was deserted, but I was still surprised to see Skeeter and Jed playing pool.

  “Neither of you boys have real jobs?” I’d asked with a lot of sass as I walked toward them. “You just hang out at the pool hall on any ol’ Tuesday afternoon?”

  Jed eyed me with his typical stoicism, but Skeeter looked worried. “Is Rose okay?”

  That stopped me in my tracks. While it wasn’t a secret that Rose had gone to Texas to donate her bone marrow, it wasn’t exactly common knowledge either. And while Skeeter liked to keep tabs on all things in Fenton County, this wasn’t idle curiosity. It was genuine concern.

  Rose had been in contact with Skeeter Malcolm. Why hadn’t she told me?

  But that was a question for another time. I shook off my surprise and said, “Rose is fine. I’m here for another purpose.”

  His shit-eating grin didn’t quite cover up the look of relief. “You here to give me trouble, Neely Kate?”

  I knew Skeeter was waiting for an answer, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how concerned he was for Rose. While Rose and I had each other, I wanted someone else to care about me the way Skeeter cared for her. I had thought Ronnie was that person, but I’d driven him away. Maybe I deserved to be alone.

  I was about to give Skeeter some sassy retort, but to my horror, my chin trembled and tears filled my eyes.

  Jed’s expression changed on a dime. Without saying a word, he moved toward me, wrapped an arm around my back, and led me to the office down the hall. After he got me settled into a chair in front of Skeeter’s desk, Skeeter appeared in the doorway with a bottle of water. He shut the door behind him and then sat in the chair next to me rather than the one behind the desk. Jed stayed right where he was, standing by my side.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” Skeeter asked.

  I started laughing even as tears flowed down my cheeks. “I’m always in some kind of trouble. You should know that by now.” I grabbed the water bottle out of his hand and took a sip.

  Skeeter looked u
p at Jed, then back to me. “Is this about your husband?”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I need answers, Skeeter. I need to find him. Will you help me?”

  He was silent for a moment before he said, “I don’t know where he is, Neely Kate. We’ve already looked.”

  My head jerked up. “You what?”

  He held my gaze. “Jed and Merv have both been following leads, but they haven’t found anything.”

  Fear shot through me like an arrow. “Oh, my God. Are you after him because he sided with Gentry?”

  Skeeter sat back with a look of disgust. “We’re lookin’ for him for you. Because you need to find him. You didn’t ask us to, but we wanted to help you.”

  His statement could have knocked me over with a feather. I knew Skeeter cared about Rose, but why would he give two figs about me?

  I was about to ask him when a knock landed on the door.

  A dark shadow crossed over his face as he called out, “What?”

  The door opened and the bartender appeared in the doorframe. He looked almost as scared as he had that time Skeeter flew off the handle when he discovered Rose and me questioning Dirk Picklebie. “Mr. Malcolm, there’s someone from the sheriff’s department asking for you.”

  Skeeter grimaced and rose from his chair.

  I looked up at him with alarm. “Are you in trouble?”

  A smirk lit up his eyes. “Just like you, NK, I’m always in some kind of trouble. But in this instance, they’re probably here about the whole Simmons mess.”

  “Joe’s dad?”

  “They keep coming by to see if I’ve remembered anything else. And every time they show up, I tell them nothing’s changed.” He looked over my head at Jed. “You got this?”

  Jed nodded. “Yeah.”

  Skeeter gave him a long look, then walked out of the office and shut the door behind him.