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

  “Do you really want to find Ronnie?” he asked.

  I’d asked myself that question more times than I could count. “Yes. I need closure.”

  He nodded. “When I go back to the sheriff’s department, I’ll launch an investigation.”

  “So you’re staying here? You’re going back to your job?”

  A lopsided grin lifted his mouth. “I just found out about you. We’ve got about twenty-five years to make up. Besides, as much trouble as you and Rose get into, I can’t go leavin’ my sister unsupervised.”

  He looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and I realized he’d been worried that I wouldn’t want him to stick around.

  But the mention of Kate brought something else to mind. Something I needed to do.

  “Joe, I need a favor. And I need you to do it with me.”

  He turned to me with an earnest look in his eyes. “Anything, Neely Kate. Name it and I’m there.”

  I was counting on it.

  Two days later, I was more nervous than I had expected. Joe stood in front of me in a protective stance, not that I was surprised. Since our conversation two nights before, he’d truly acted like he was making up for lost time. We’d gone out to lunch the next day, and then I’d gone over to his house last night and helped him paint woodwork. This new relationship still felt a little odd, but mostly it felt right. Like something that had been missing had finally lodged into place. And now, as he looked back at me with a worried expression, I was pretty sure he felt it too.

  “Are you certain you want to do this?” he asked. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  I nodded my head, even if my hands were shaking. “I need to do this. I need to know.”

  He watched me with a grave look. “Believe it or not, I do too. Thanks for letting me go back with you.”

  Let him? I needed all the support I could get. But what if he ultimately sided with the sister he’d known most of his life?

  A door opened and a woman in scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Mr. and Ms. Simmons?”

  I started to correct her, but Joe spoke first. “That’s us.” Then he put his arm around my lower back, and we walked toward her.

  “Your sister is medicated, but she’s still prone to rages and delusions. She’s liable to lash out and say hateful things. Are you sure you can deal with that?”

  Joe looked down at me, his eyes wide with worry. “We don’t have to do this now.”

  “The doctors are still adjusting her meds,” the nurse said in an encouraging tone. “She might be more open to a conversation in a few weeks.”

  Joe’s eyes were fixed on me with such intensity that it was like he was willing me to change my mind, but I was ready to face her. Ready to face my demons. I needed to find out what she knew.

  I shook my head. “No. I can handle it. Can you?”

  He seemed unsure. For a moment, I wondered if I should pretend I wanted to go alone, save him the grief, but he’d already insisted on coming. “You’re the strong one between us,” he said with a wobbly smile. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  As we followed the nurse down a hall, I thought about Joe’s insistence that I was the strong one. I wasn’t so sure he was right. It was more likely that we handled things differently.

  But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The nurse stopped at the opening of a large recreation room full of about twenty men and women. I expected them to be in hospital gowns, but they were all in street clothes. I spotted Kate in the corner wearing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. Her hair was longer—almost to her shoulders—and her streaks had grown out too.

  “Is she expecting us?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” the nurse said. “Her reaction was part of the reason I wanted to warn you. While she seemed happy, she also seemed like she was up to something . . . devious.”

  Joe looked down at me. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “We already drove all this way. I’m not afraid of her.” And I wasn’t—not of her. But I was afraid of what she might tell me, not that I was going to admit that to Joe.

  “Just say the word and we’re gone.”

  I cocked my head. “But you want to talk to her too.”

  “Whatever I have to say can wait.” His gaze held mine. “We need to stick together in this. If you need to go, we go.”

  “And you too,” I said, sneaking a glance toward Kate.

  She’d noticed us, and a cagey grin lit up her face.

  He nodded and the nurse led us across the room until we reached her. Kate sat in a chair with a half-completed jigsaw puzzle of a barn in front of her.

  She grinned, her gaze roving over us. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have dressed up.”

  I bit back a retort that she was more dressed up than I usually saw her; I wanted my answers. No sense starting off by antagonizing her. I suspected it would escalate quickly enough.

  She waved to the three chairs surrounding her square table. “Have a seat.”

  Joe sat down, and I pulled out a chair, trying not to cringe as the wood scraped the linoleum floor.

  “Now, Kate,” the nurse said, “be nice, or your brother and sister will have to leave before your visit is up.”

  That brought a smile to her lips, but she looked up at the nurse and held her straightened index and middle finger to her temple before swinging them out in a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The nurse watched her for a moment, clearly not trusting her.

  Smart woman. I didn’t trust Kate either.

  Kate leaned forward, placing her hands flat on the tabletop. “No one told me it was family day. Mom didn’t want to come?” Her voice rose, carrying over the entire room. “Of course, Dad couldn’t make it—seeing as how you shot him in the head and killed him.”

  Joe flinched, but he gave her a nearly expressionless look. Neither of us said anything. Kate was volatile and I was terrified of setting her off before I got what I needed from her.

  “So . . .” Kate said, leaning back and crossing her legs. “I see you two are besties now.” She turned her gaze to Joe and narrowed her eyes. “But then, you always were trying to replace me. Look at Hilary. You two left me out. For some reason, I was never good enough.”

  Guilt clouded Joe’s eyes, but his voice was firm. “Kate, that’s not true or fair. We were kids. You and I weren’t supposed to get along. Especially in that house. But I tried after you moved to Little Rock. I wanted to have a relationship with you. I reached out to you multiple times.”

  “Whenever it fit into your schedule,” she sneered.

  Joe started to protest, but his shoulders settled and he looked beaten down. “I was an asshole, Kate. I’m sorry.”

  She started to laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I heard you correctly. What did you say?”

  I expected him to get angry, but this was a different Joe than the one I’d known for months. He just looked devastated. “I’m sorry, Kate. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  That seemed to appease her. She nodded and turned to me. “I’m surprised to see you here, sis.”

  I forced a smile. “I always wanted a sister, but you could have found a better way to tell me. Your timing kind of sucked. I have enough drama in my life without you adding to it.”

  Kate grinned. “I’ve always liked you. You’ve got spunk. That’s part of the reason I was sure you were a Simmons. I have no idea why you waste your time with that milquetoast Rose.”

  I chose to ignore her statement about Rose, instead focusing on her previous interest in me. She’d always shown more interest in me than made sense. “How did you figure it out?”

  “Is that why you’re here?” she asked with guarded eyes.

  I had to answer carefully. “It’s part of it. Something had to tip you off.”

  “I was trying to figure out dear ol’ Dad’s obsession with Fenton County. I made the connection to Skeeter Malcolm, and then I realized Rose’s birth mother was c
onnected to the factory, and the whole meal got extra delicious. But something about you just piqued my interest,” Kate said, staring into my eyes. “And knowing our father’s penchant for young girlfriends and your current age, well, the timing all seemed to work. At first I thought it might have been Rose—wouldn’t that have been quite scandalous, Joe sleeping with his half-sister?”

  Joe cringed but didn’t say anything.

  Kate’s eyes lit up when she saw his reaction, but she let it go. “But after I did a little digging, I figured out who Daddy Dearest’s girlfriend actually was. The trick was tracking her down. But once I did, the rest was easy.”

  “So you found her?” I asked, trying not to sound eager. “Where was she?”

  “Poor Neely Kate,” she said with fake sympathy. “Somebody has mommy issues.”

  “Kate,” Joe said, “you went to so much trouble to prove that Neely Kate is our sister. Why not tell us both what you found?”

  Kate continued to watch me. “Did you have a DNA test done?”

  “No.”

  She tsked and pretended to look at her nail beds. “You can’t get your hands on all that money if you don’t prove you’re part of the family.”

  “Then you don’t know me very well,” I said in a harsh tone. “Because I don’t want it.”

  “Kate,” Joe said quietly. “There’s no more money.”

  She scrunched her nose in irritation. “Yeah, right. I bet Mom siphoned a lot off, but I know for a fact you and I have trusts. She can’t touch that.”

  “No. It’s gone. All of it. The house too. The FBI took it all.”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped. “What?”

  “All of Dad’s cronies caved and turned on one another and him. His house of cards was built on fraud and extortion. Some of the money came from his law practice, but good luck untangling it all.”

  “So where’s Mom?”

  “With her parents.”

  For once, all of Kate’s pretense fell away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. That was the woman I could feel sympathy for. Not the woman who had orchestrated a plot to kill us all three months ago. Then again, I wasn’t sure that had actually been her plan.

  “Why did you want me at the warehouse?” I asked.

  Her eyes flicked up to me in surprise. Then her façade slid back into place like a tight-fitting glove. “I didn’t want you to miss all the fun.”

  “Kate,” I said quietly. “Why?”

  “To hurt my father—our father. He’d been so untouchable for so many years. I wanted him to suffer—to see that he wasn’t in control of the situation. I wanted to see him vulnerable and scared.”

  “Except, it didn’t work out that way,” Joe said with an edge to his voice. “He was never scared, and he never acted vulnerable. In fact, it was just the opposite.”

  She glanced away.

  “Why was Mason there?” I asked.

  Her gaze jerked back to me, her eyes hard. “Did Rose Petal put you up to that one?”

  “No. I’m asking out of curiosity.”

  “I’ve heard that Mason left Rose.” She turned to Joe and gave him a sly grin. “Which means she’s available.”

  “Oh, my God, Kate,” Joe groaned. “Stop. Just stop.”

  Disappointment flickered in her eyes before she turned her attention to me. “I wanted Rose to watch when I killed him. I wanted to see her suffer.”

  “Why? She never did anything to you.”

  She shrugged indifferently. “Why not?” But I could see she was holding something back. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You want to know about your momma. Do you want me to tell you?”

  “That depends,” I said. “Are you actually going to tell me, or do you plan on wastin’ our time?”

  Kate lifted her eyebrows and looked offended. “Hey, I didn’t ask you to come. You’ll take what you get, and you won’t throw a fit. Don’t they teach that back in Podunk Fenton County? But then, you didn’t always live there, did you? Joe and I learned that rule in our expensive private school—not that it ever really applied to us—while you were in Ardmore, Oklahoma, living in a trailer with your momma and her loser boyfriend of the week. Who knows,” she said with a sneer, “maybe it was the loser your momma let sleep with you.”

  My heart jolted and I thought I was going to pass out. Had my mother told her that?

  “Kate.” Joe’s voice was hard and authoritative. “Enough.”

  “What?” Kate asked in mock innocence. “She wanted answers. I’m just trying to prove I’m a credible source.” She turned to me with a saccharine smile. “How’m I doing?”

  I stuffed down my shock and told myself I could lose it later. She was right. I wanted answers, but I was going to have to pay for them. Rose and I had already figured out that quirk months ago.

  “Something like that is bound to mess a girl up,” she said, pursing her lips into a mock pout. “But enough about that nonsense. You want me to tell you that your momma is pining for you. That she regrets it all and wakes up every day wishing she hadn’t dropped you off at your granny’s front door like a load of trash at the county dump. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  She was trying to make me run, but I dug in my heels and kept my face neutral, no matter how much I wanted to cry. “I just want the truth, Kate. I thought that’s why you found her. You were lookin’ for the truth. You owe it to Joe and me to tell us what you know.”

  Kate narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at me. “Let’s get one thing straight, Neely Kate. I’m making the rules here.” Then she sat up and grinned. “I bet you didn’t know you were partially named after me, did you? Your momma knew all about me, so she tagged you with my name.”

  “Kate. Enough.” Joe sighed. “What did you find out?”

  “I think you know the details. Asshole impregnates teen. Teen runs away. Teen turns to life of drugs, booze, and trailer trash living. Baby grows up and becomes a thorn in the former teen’s love life.” She cocked her head. “Nothing like your preteen daughter catchin’ the eye of your man. So Neely Kate had to go.”

  She wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already suspected, but my heart still felt like it was being sliced to ribbons.

  “You need to leave that woman in the past, Neely Kate,” she said, doing a piss-poor job of pretending to be sympathetic. “We’re your family now. You’re a Simmons. But then, you acted like one before you even knew the truth.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” I spat out, dangerously close to tears.

  “Don’t be so sure about that. What happened in those two years you took off and left Fenton County?”

  I sucked in my breath. What did she know? “That’s none of your business, Kate. It has nothin’ to do with any of this.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, her eyebrows rising high enough to be hidden behind her bangs.

  “Kate,” Joe said, sounding exasperated. “Neely Kate’s right. It has nothing to do with this. Tell her about her mother.”

  “There’s nothing much to tell. I found her in West Virginia, although she didn’t look much like her old photos. She’s missing a few teeth, and her hair’s thinned out. All that hard livin’, I suppose.” She gave me a grin. “Good thing you got the Simmons genes in the looks department.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I was trying to remember what my mother looked like the last time I’d seen her. Other than the photos Granny had of her growing up, I didn’t have a single photo of her—let alone of her and me—and she wasn’t on any social media. I checked every few weeks or so.

  “She confirmed everything I had already deduced,” Kate said. “But, funny thing, she never once asked about how you were doin’ or what you were up to. I tried to tell her all about you, but she couldn’t be bothered.”

  I tried to control my breathing while Joe put his hand on mine and turned his wrath on our sister. “You having fun, Kate?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a wide smile. “Actually,
I am.” She tilted her head, her eyes on me, watching me like a hawk. “I offered to show her a photo of you.”

  “Because you just happened to have one?” I asked in a snotty tone. “Stalker much?”

  “You have no idea the lengths I’ll go to when I want to find something. Then again, maybe you do. You and Rose know from when you broke into my apartment.” She smirked. “See? I told you that you’re a Simmons. But I’ve got years on you, sis, and I’m very good at getting what I want.”

  “Oh, my God,” I gasped. “You’re sick.”

  Kate started laughing hysterically, catching the attention of the nurse who’d brought us back. As if sensing the nurse was about to intervene, Kate settled down. “Your mother doesn’t want you, Neely Kate. Isn’t that why you’re really here? Not to see me. Not for confirmation that what I’ve said is true. You know it is. You both do. What you’re really here for is for me to tell you that your mother regrets leaving you. But guess what? She doesn’t. She’s happy she abandoned you and wishes you were never born. She blames you for screwin’ up her life. Every single bad thing that happened to her was after you took root in her uterus like a parasite.” She smiled. “I can confirm it all. She doesn’t even want to hear your name.”

  Joe’s face turned red and he got to his feet. “Neely Kate, we’re done here.”

  I looked up at him blankly, lost in my own head as Kate’s words confirmed my nightmare.

  “Aww . . .” Kate cooed, looking up at Joe in adoration. “Isn’t that sweet. You’re already acting like a protective big brother.”

  “Shut up, Kate,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. “Our father may have been a monster, but that’s no excuse for what you’re doing now.”

  “You two deserve each other,” she said, but Joe was pulling me across the room and down the hall. The nurse stopped him to ask about our conversation. Joe answered her with a few short sentences before he dragged me out of the hospital and into his car.

  We both sat in silence, and I watched the magnolia blossoms on a nearby tree sway in the breeze. This felt surreal.

  “Neely Kate.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t.”