In High Cotton: Neely Kate Mystery #2 Read online

  I let her words sink in. “So why did you come in here in a panic as soon as you found out?”

  “Because I know you’ve been goin’ to see her, Neely Kate. I know she’s toyin’ with you and she’s movin’ on to round two.”

  I swallowed the bile that rose in the back of my throat. “That place is locked up tighter than a drum. How did she get out?”

  “Obviously she had help.”

  My blood ran cold. Did Jed have anything to do with this?

  “I need to know the last time you saw her,” Joe said.

  I looked up at him, trying to hide my terror, but I must not have done a good job of hiding it because his gaze softened.

  “I doubt you’ll be a suspect, but they’ll be searchin’ her contacts with a fine-tooth comb.” When I didn’t answer, he asked, “Was it Sunday?”

  “Yeah, I saw her Sunday.” I nearly left it at that, but I needed to be honest with him. At least in this. “But I saw her yesterday too.”

  He sucked in a breath. “You saw her yesterday?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  What to tell him? All of it? “I knew she saw my mother, and she was handing out details like they were golden nuggets. But I told her yesterday that I was done. Either she told me everything or I was never comin’ back again.”

  Joe stared at me in shock. “What was her reaction?”

  “She thought I was bluffin’, but when I started to leave, she told me that she had seen my mother. She said Momma had been scared when she found out who Kate really was, but she wanted to know if I had found out the truth about my father. Kate says she really wanted to know if I’d been given some of the Simmons money. When my mother found out I had no part of it, she was no longer interested in me.”

  “Neely Kate,” Joe said empathically, then added, “she could have been lying.”

  “She wasn’t. But it’s nothin’ I didn’t already expect.”

  “So what happened then?”

  A lot of ugliness I was ashamed of. But I wasn’t ready to go there yet. “I left.”

  “Did she think you were coming back?”

  I hesitated, then said, “No. I knew she was holding back information, so I said we were done.”

  Joe’s face paled. “Shit.”

  “You think she left because I wasn’t playin’ her game anymore?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.” He pushed out a breath. “I need to check the rest of the house.”

  “What are you lookin’ for?”

  “I don’t know yet, but you heard someone come in your house at one in the morning and it wasn’t Rose.”

  “You think it was Kate?”

  “Or someone assisting her. She couldn’t do this on her own.” He walked past me and headed up the stairs.

  I was right on his heels.

  We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in the bedrooms, so we headed to the basement next. Right away Joe noticed the board-covered basement window. “What’s that about?”

  “We noticed it broken a couple of weeks ago. We just hadn’t gotten around to fixin’ it yet.”

  “How’d it get broken?”

  “We don’t know. We just found it that way.”

  He stared at me in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “It was a broken window, Joe,” I said in exasperation. “There was nothin’ to tell.”

  The look on his face suggested otherwise.

  We started looking around the unfinished basement, which held the furnace and air conditioner, washer and dryer, shelves with boxes, and the inherited contents of the nursery that used to be in the sunroom off Rose’s bedroom.

  “Nothin’ looks off,” I said.

  “What about this room?” Joe said, pointing to the space Rose’s father had used as a darkroom. After Rose and I had gotten into a scrape with the crime world a month ago, Jed had turned it into a safe room. How would I explain that?

  “Rose’s father’s darkroom. We keep it locked.” I pretended to try to open the door, praying he didn’t challenge me on it. “See. Still locked. And you need a key.”

  He frowned. “Why would you keep that room locked?”

  Why indeed? “Because of the broken window. We started locking up the valuable stuff down here in case someone was trying to burgle us.”

  He put his hands on his hips in frustration. “Again, why didn’t you tell me you had a busted window?” He shook his head. “From now on,” he said forcefully, “you tell me if your windows get broken, you find your front door ajar, or anything out of the ordinary. I know you and Rose have got yourself tangled up in the crime world and you drive me sick with worry on how to protect you.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe.” And I truly was, but I wasn’t about to stop our investigations.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t agree to my request.”

  I walked over to him and gave him a hug. “You have to trust me more.”

  “I think I trust you too much. Now open that room.”

  “What?”

  “Open that room.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or are you hidin’ something from me?”

  “Of course not,” I said as though he’d said the silliest thing in the world. “Let me get the key.”

  I headed for the stairs, but he walked over to the door and turned the knob, opening the door about three inches. “Well, looky there. The door just magically opened.”

  Well, crap.

  The first indication that something was off was that the room was completely dark. Jed had made us plug in a night-light so we could see in the room if we had to lock ourselves inside, but the light wouldn’t be strong enough to show under the crack of the door. I knew it could have burnt out, but it was only a couple of weeks old. That was unlikely.

  Joe flipped the light switch and nothing happened. “Do you purposely keep it dark in here?”

  “No,” I said, my stomach dropping to my toes. “It worked just the other day. And so did the night-light.”

  “Night-light?” He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flash flight. He shone the light around the room, then froze as he pointed it to the far-right corner. “Neely Kate. I need you to go upstairs and wait in the front yard.” The tightness in his voice alerted me that he’d found something.

  “What’s in there?”

  He held up his arm to block me, but I darted underneath his arm and snatched his phone out of his hand.

  Propped up against the wall was a man in dress pants and a dress shirt in a sitting position, his legs straight out in front of him. His head sagged to the side and his open, vacant eyes clued me in that he was dead. A handwritten note was pinned to the lapel of his dark suit, which I could read from eight feet away.

  A peace offering. Let’s kiss and make up.

  your loving sister

  I took a step back in horror, my back bumping into Joe’s chest.

  “No…”

  He grunted a terse response. “Kate.”

  Chapter 7

  “Do you know him?” Joe asked, holding my arm in a firm grip.

  I shook my head and croaked out, “No.”

  “Do you have any idea why she would do this?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  But then I did.

  The blood rushed to my head so quickly I thought I would pass out. No. Now was not the time to panic. I needed to keep a cool head, but my hysteria was rising faster than I could push it down into submission. I broke free of his hold and bolted up the stairs, Joe close behind.

  “Neely Kate.”

  I didn’t stop until I reached the kitchen, and even that didn’t seem far enough away, not with Joe watching my every move. I stared to hyperventilate.

  “Neely Kate,” Joe said with worry in his eyes. “What’s goin’ on?”

  With anyone else, he would have expected them to freak out over seeing a dead body, but I’d seen several over the last few months. He knew something else was
going on.

  How was I going to explain this? I needed Jed, but my phone was upstairs and currently dead.

  Joe grabbed my upper arms and bent at the knees to stare into my face. “Neely Kate, honey, I need you to tell me what you know.”

  Tears burned my eyes. If I told him, it would be the beginning of the end.

  “Neely Kate!” Rose shouted from the living room.

  “In here!” I called out. “In the kitchen.”

  Seconds later she burst into the room, her wild eyes moving from Joe to quickly scanning me. “Are you okay?”

  I hugged myself, realizing I’d begun to shake. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t look okay. Joe said Kate broke out and your phone was dead.” She put a hand on her chest. “I was terrified.”

  I quickly gave her a hug. “I’m fine. I forgot to plug my phone in.”

  “Why do you look so scared?” she asked, then shook her head. “Not that finding out Kate is on the loose isn’t terrifying in its own right.”

  I gave her a grim smile. Part of me didn’t want to tell her about the body in our basement. She was going out of town with Skeeter later today, and there was no way she’d leave me knowing Kate was playing a dangerous game. The other part of me didn’t want to tell her because I’d have to confess all. And I still wasn’t ready.

  Damn Kate.

  Joe wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Kate’s a loose cannon. That’s terrifying enough. Sorry to have bothered you so early.”

  I barely stopped myself from turning to look at him in shock.

  She gave him a hesitant glance. Joe would ordinarily ask where she’d been, so she was obviously on pins and needles, waiting for his prying. “No bother. I’m glad you called. But now that I know Neely Kate is safe, I’ll head upstairs and take a shower.”

  She gave me a look that suggested she could easily be talked out of it, but I nodded, eager to get Joe alone so I could find out why he didn’t tell her about our discovery. “I’ll start a pot of coffee. It’ll be ready when you come down.”

  Muffy followed her, and as soon as she was out of earshot, I looked up at him with wide eyes. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

  “Let’s get that pot of coffee started. I suspect we’re gonna need it.”

  I stared at him in shock as he walked over to the cabinets and started opening doors. “Where are the coffee grounds?”

  “Uh… in the fridge.” I walked over and opened the refrigerator door, removing the coffee from the door shelf.

  Joe filled the pot with water, then poured it into the machine.

  “Filter?” he asked as though this was Sunday morning brunch.

  I opened a cabinet he hadn’t gotten to and handed him one.

  “You feelin’ like one or two cups today?”

  I blinked. What in Sam Hill was going on? “Two.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought.” Then he scooped grounds into the filter, poured in the water, then started it brewing.

  “Joe…”

  “Have a seat, Neely Kate.” It was an order.

  I sat in a kitchen chair at the head of the table, clutching my hands on the table and feeling like I was going to throw up.

  He sat down next to me. “I know Kate has somethin’ on you. It will make things easier if you tell me what it is right off the bat. You have to know it’s all gonna come out.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Don’t you need to call somebody?”

  “Not yet. How often do you check that room down there?”

  “Uh… maybe once a week.”

  “So who’s to say we would have checked it right away?”

  “Why wait?” I asked, gripping my hands together so tightly I could feel my nails digging into my skin.

  “Because I need to know how much trouble you’re in and what I can do to protect you before we officially find that body.”

  “What?” I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d told me he was the king of France.

  “What did you do in Ardmore?”

  Now I really felt like I was going to be sick.

  “How much does Rose know?”

  I sucked in a breath, then pushed it out. “Barely anything.”

  “Who’s been helping you? I know you haven’t been seeing our sister alone.”

  I looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. “It depends on who’s askin’. Joe my brother or Chief Deputy Simmons.”

  He held out his hands. “Do you see me wearing a badge or a uniform?”

  “That doesn’t mean squat, and you know it. You’re always on duty, twenty-four seven. I think it’s best you just handle this like any other case.”

  “Then I’ll take a leave of absence.”

  “Why?” I asked him, bewildered.

  “To prove that I love you and that I’m here for you no matter what. I’ll quit my damn job if I have to, to prove that I have your back.”

  “But it’s your job, Joe.”

  “Exactly. It’s my job. You’re my sister. Family trumps work.”

  A burning lump filled my throat and tears fell down my cheeks. “Why? You hardly know me. We only found out we were siblings a few months ago.”

  “I knew you pretty well before we found out,” he said with a mischievous grin. “I knew you were hardheaded and stubborn.” He turned serious. “And I know that when we’re together we feel like family more than I’ve ever felt it with anyone else, even Kate.” He paused. “I need you just as much as you need me, Neely Kate. And I’m not letting Kate destroy you—destroy us—because I suspect that’s her real goal. But I need to know everything that you’re hidin’.”

  I bit my lower lip as I mulled over his words. Could I really trust him?

  He leaned over and covered my hand with his large one. “I swear to you on my babies’ graves that I won’t use anything I find out to hurt you. I’ll quit if necessary.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t let you do that, Joe.”

  “You can’t do this on your own.”

  Relief washed through me. I’d been so scared he was going to dump me at the first sign of trouble, but here he was, insisting he was sticking with me. I glanced out the back windows. “I’m not own my own. I have help.”

  “It’s not Kermit the Hermit, is it?” he asked in dismay.

  Kermit was the private investigator Rose and I were working with to get enough hours to take the PI exam. But Kermit was as lazy as they come. Any case we worked for him, we handled completely on our own. “Heavens, no. I aim to stay out of jail, not get a one-way, first-class ticket into one.”

  “Then how do I know the person you’re relying on is resourceful enough to actually help?”

  I pushed out a sigh. “Trust me. He is.”

  Joe chewed on my answer for a few moments. “He?”

  “I think the coffee’s done.” I hopped up and grabbed two mugs and filled one to give to Joe, then partially filled mine to leave room to doctor it up.

  “Is this he your mysterious boyfriend?”

  I didn’t answer as I put his mug in front of him.

  “Neely Kate.”

  Joe was genuinely concerned, and I owed him something. I grabbed the creamer, then sat in my chair and held his gaze. “He helped me in Ardmore. He’s very resourceful and has options you don’t.”

  His eyes hardened. “So he’s a criminal. Did you get mixed up with him while you and Rose have been traipsing around playing Nancy Drew in the Fenton County crime world?”

  He wasn’t too far off.

  “Need I remind you that Mason Deveraux is back with a vengeance?” he asked in a hard tone. “He’s gonna throw the book at anyone who so much as breathes the wrong way.”

  “I know, Joe,” I said with a sigh. “I know.”

  “So who’s helping you?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell you, but I promise you that he’s working hard to make sure I’m safe.”

  “He’s actively lookin’ into this?”

  I no
dded. “He’s on it, I swear. It’s better this way. Otherwise, you might get caught up in something awkward.”

  “I don’t even know what he’s helpin’ you with. Is someone tryin’ to pin something on you?”

  My heart was racing, making me breathless. “I did something, Joe, something I thought was buried in the past. My boyfriend thought it was buried too. But then something happened yesterday to make us realize it wasn’t as gone as we’d hoped it would be.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “You left Oklahoma six years ago. Maybe what you did is past the statute of limitations.”

  “There is no statute of limitations for this crime.”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yeah,” I said sadly. “And you and I both know if I tell you, you’ll be obligated to act on it. If you think it’s gonna come to that, then let me confess to someone else. Maybe Deputy Miller. Then you won’t be caught up in my mess.”

  “I’m not worried about getting caught up in your mess, Neely Kate,” he said, getting frustrated. “I’m worried about you. I know there’s no way in hell you committed murder.”

  I stared at him in surprise.

  He gave me a look that suggested I was a fool. “There’s only one crime with no statute of limitations in Arkansas. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

  I broke out into a cold sweat.

  “Who did you kill?”

  I shook my head

  “Who’s helpin’ you?”

  I glanced back up. “Do you really think I’m gonna tell you after you’re all worked up?”

  Joe looked furious. “What does Kate have on you?”

  “Kate keeps hinting she knows what I did. After our visit yesterday, I was convinced she doesn’t know anything, but after finding that man in the basement…” I swallowed. “I’m not so sure.”

  “You said you didn’t know who he was, Neely Kate,” he said, his voice rising. “If I’m gonna help you, you can’t keep lyin’ to me!”

  “I’m not lyin’, Joe,” I said calmly. I understood why he was upset. He was putting his job on the line for me. “I swear I’ve never seen him before, but I think he’s part of it. Especially after everything that’s happened over the last few days.”

  He took a breath and when he released it, he asked in a tight voice, “Are you in danger?”