Legacy Rejected

by Robin Patchen

  He approached as if she were a frightened kitten. “I don’t care about any of that.” He placed his hands against her cheeks. His skin was warm, his palms rough and familiar.

  “It’s a bad idea.”

  But her words dissipated into nothingness as he pressed his lips to hers.

  The world that had been off-kilter since she’d walked into McNeal’s settled back into place. She wrapped her arms around his neck and melted against the length of him. There she found the security that her past kept trying to strip from her future.

  After not nearly enough time, Kade pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. “Thank God.”

  She felt the silly smile on her face. “It’s not like I took that much convincing.”

  His expression wasn’t at all amused. “I thought you were done with me.”

  “I thought you were done with me.”

  “I should have called you first thing this morning, the moment I heard about the article. That was stupid and selfish. I was so focused—”

  “On saving the development, on salvaging your dream.” She swallowed and made a decision. She would stay in Nutfield and fight. No matter what the people of this town thought about her right now, no matter what happened to her business, as long as she had Kade, she had a home worth fighting for. “You and I—we’re going to save it.”

  His lips pulled higher at the edges, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with his grin. “I love that word—we.”

  From the hallway, someone cleared a throat.

  Kade stepped back and faced Brady, who stood with his arms crossed. “If you two are finished…”

  “Sorry.” Kade took her hand. “Brady wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you and Rae are done.”

  “We’re done,” Rae approached from behind Brady. “I have enough to get started. If I have any more questions, I’ll call you.”

  Ginny turned to Kade. “She thought she’d write an article—”

  “It was his idea,” Rae said.

  “Oh.” She looked at Kade.

  He shrugged. “Fight fire with fire, right?”

  “Words with words,” Rae said. “This article should make a big difference in how the town sees you. I’m not going to paint you as a victim but as a survivor of a very difficult childhood. People are not only not going to judge you for your past, they’re going to respect you for what you’ve overcome.”

  Ginny let out a short chuckle. “You can do all that?”

  Rae winked at her. “Just watch me.” She focused on her husband. “The kids are at Marisa’s?”

  He nodded, and she turned to Ginny. “I’m going to get the kids. I’ll call you soon.”

  After Rae left, Brady said, “Now it’s my turn.”

  The way Brady looked at Ginny, if she hadn’t already been against the wall, she might have stepped back.

  “You and I need to talk.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thank God.

  Kade let the relief fill him as Ginny led the way through the house. After a deep breath, he followed.

  And froze in the living room.

  The space was filled with cardboard boxes. They were piled floor to ceiling, blocking the light from the back windows. There was barely enough space to walk through to the dining room.

  She’d been planning to leave. If he hadn’t come, if he’d waited a day or two, would he have arrived to find her gone?

  Ginny stepped back into the room, her eyes wide as she regarded him.

  “You don’t waste any time.” His voice was flat.

  She walked to the tallest tower of boxes and bumped it with her hip. They tumbled, hit the pile beside them, and sent them tumbling, too. “It’s all show and no go.”

  He nudged one with his shoe, just to be sure. The empty box offered no resistance. “So they’re all—?”

  “I couldn’t make myself do it.”

  He blew out a long breath, tried to settle his pounding heart. “I’ll help you break them down later.” And then load them in his truck and take them away, just in case she had any more wild ideas.

  In the kitchen, Ginny got drinks for everyone and filled a bowl with popcorn, which she set in the middle of the table before taking a few pieces.

  “Did you ever eat?” Kade asked.

  “This is the first time I’ve felt like eating all day.” She popped the salty treat in her mouth.

  Brady pulled a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket. “It’s time to tell me everything.”

  Ginny set the few remaining popcorn pieces that had been in her hand on a napkin. She glanced at Kade, who nodded his encouragement.

  Brady said, “Now that I know what your parents did for a living—”

  “They were restaurant owners.” Her voice carried a twinge of defensiveness.

  “And strip club owners,” Brady said. “I’m just wondering if their work has anything to do with why your house was searched that day.”

  She crossed her arms. “How would I know?”

  Brady set the pen down, folded his hands on the pad. “I’m going to have a chat with Bruce next, but I’d like to go in armed with facts. I’m wondering how he found all that information about you, and why now. He’s been trying to find something to use against you since April. If he’d gotten it before now, he’d have shared it before now.”

  Ginny looked at Kade, who said, “Brady thinks someone slipped him the info.”

  “He could have been trying to find information on me this whole time.” Ginny focused on Brady. “Maybe he just got it yesterday.”

  Brady said, “Maybe. Maybe not. But if someone slipped it to him, don’t you want to know who it was—and why?”

  Kade rested his hand palm up on the table, and she slipped hers into it. “Brady asked me if I knew anything about your parents’ businesses. I haven’t told him anything, but I think it’s time to trust him.”

  “But my mother…”

  Kade gave her a moment to finish, but her gaze cut to Brady, and she said nothing else.

  After a moment, Kade said, “It was her job to protect you, not the other way around.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I’m not after your mother,” Brady said. “If she broke the law in California, the authorities in California will have to deal with it. Right now, I just want to keep you safe.”

  “But will you tell them?”

  Brady didn’t shrug, didn’t blink. “Depends on what you tell me.”

  At least he was honest.

  “I don’t really know anything,” Ginny said.

  “Then I won’t have any information to pass along.”

  And even if he did pass something along, that was Ginny’s mother’s problem, not Ginny’s.

  Brady sighed. “Look, maybe they’re not related at all. Maybe, like you said, Bruce has been trying for weeks to find something to use against you, and he just found it. That feels… unlikely to me. He’s persistent, but what he learned isn’t that hard to find. It’s just… it’s weird, that’s all. I’m here as your friend, not as the chief of police. I’m not here to investigate you or anybody else. I just want to know if there are people I should be on the lookout for.”

  After a quick glance at Kade, her shoulders slumped. “It’s just a guess. After Dad died, Mom sold all the businesses. At least the ones I knew about. Those other strip clubs… I had no idea about them, so I don’t know. I called the restaurants, a few of the new owners gave me the impression Mom and Dad had been…” She paused, shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t exactly living life on the up and up.”

  “They were involved in some sort of criminal activity,” Brady clarified. “Any idea what?”

  Kade gave her a go-ahead nod.

  “We think maybe money laundering.”

  “That makes sense. All those cash businesses, that would be my guess. Do you know who they were working for?”

  “How could I? I knew nothing about it.”

  “I understand that.” Bra
dy tapped his pen on the table. “But maybe you have some names, some—”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Okay.” Brady wrote something on his pad. “Can you tell me the names of the people they worked with?”

  When she said nothing, Brady set the pen down again. “I know you’re scared. Whoever searched your house in April was looking for something. You still claim you don’t know what?”

  “It was nearly two months ago. They’re long gone.”

  “We hope,” Brady said. “But what if these things are related?”

  “How could they be? I don’t even know why you’d think that.”

  “Call it a hunch,” he said.

  Her lips were clamped shut. Kade was about to tell Brady what he knew, even though it would likely infuriate Ginny, when she pushed back in her chair, stood, and headed for her office.

  They said nothing while they waited.

  A few minutes later, she returned with a piece of paper. Kade glimpsed the list she’d typed, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. He guessed, though, that she was sharing the information she’d collected this spring. She’d kept notes when she’d called the businesses her parents owned. In the last few weeks, she’d been adding the names of her parents’ friends, their lawyer, a few other people Ginny had heard her parents mention in passing. With Kade by her side, she’d called a few of them, but nobody had given her any information she hadn’t already had. Either they’d known nothing or they hadn’t been willing to share.

  She stood beside the table, the paper dangling from her fingers. “I don’t want my mother going to prison.”

  Brady nodded. “I understand.”

  Not a promise. Not even the hint of one. Brady would do what he’d promised to do, what the good citizens of Nutfield had hired him to do, even if it meant reporting Ginny’s mother.

  After a long sigh, she held out the paper.

  “Thank you for trusting me.” Brady set the paper on the table.

  Kade tried to read the paperwork upside down while Brady studied it. Sure enough, he saw names, phone numbers, addresses, and how they were associated with her parents.

  Brady asked about most of the names on the list, looking for what, Kade couldn’t guess. After a few minutes of going through a whole slew of names, Brady tapped the paper on a particular one. “This person, Yuri Petrovich. How do you know him?”

  “I don’t really. He was at Dad’s funeral. I met him at the house afterward.”

  “That was the only time you’d ever met him?”

  “Why? Who is he?”

  Brady’s expression indicated nothing.

  She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she said, “That was the only time I met him, yes. But I’d seen him once before. I met Dad for lunch about a week before his accident. It was the day Dad gave me this necklace.” She touched the pendant resting on her collarbone. “He got a call, and then said he had to go. We weren’t even finished with our meals—it was weird he left as fast as he did. As he walked out, a car pulled to the curb, and the back window rolled down. It was like something you’d see on TV. I mean, who has a driver these days?”

  Brady said nothing.

  Kade nodded his encouragement, but she didn’t see. She was focused on Brady.

  “Anyway,” she said, “Dad walked around to get in the other side of the car. When he stepped away, I saw the guy’s face. It was Petrovich. He has a birthmark, you know like…” She tapped her forehead. “I can’t think. What’s the name of the Russian leader, the guy who was in charge when Reagan was president?”

  “Gorbachev?” Brady supplied.

  “Yeah, that guy. The birthmark wasn’t as big as Gorbachev’s, but I remembered it. When I met him a couple of weeks later, I thought it was funny that he was Russian, too, and had a similar birthmark. I think that’s why I remember his name.”

  “And how did you come to meet him?”

  “I told you, he was at our house.”

  Brady’s smile was kind. “What I mean is, did your mother introduce you to him? Or did you introduce yourself?”

  Ginny looked at the ceiling. “I was talking to some neighbors when he approached me.” She focused on Brady. “He shook my hand, told me his name, and said he was sorry for my loss. Nothing noteworthy.”

  “But he introduced himself.”

  “What difference does that make?” Kade asked.

  Brady wrote something on his notepad, then glanced at Kade before focusing on Ginny again. “Probably none.” He looked over the paper she’d given him. “No other Russian names.” He tapped the paper with his pen. “Now that we’re thinking about Russian names, do any others come to mind? Maybe people you met in passing but didn’t think to add to the list?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember any others.”

  “Okay. This was your dad’s funeral, right? When was that?” Brady asked.

  “He died a year ago. July second. The funeral was a couple of days later.”

  Kade hadn’t known the anniversary was near. He tried to catch Ginny’s eye to offer solace or comfort or something, but she remained focused on Brady.

  “What happened to him?” Brady asked.

  “It was a car accident. We don’t know exactly what happened, but Mom said he’d not slept well the night before. Maybe he fell asleep. He went off the road, flipped the car, and crashed into a concrete barrier. He died instantly.”

  “In San Francisco?”

  “Oakland.”

  He wrote that on his notepad. “What was he doing there?”

  “He had businesses there. I assume something to do with that. What does all this have to do with the guy who broke into my house and the newspaper article?”

  Brady shrugged. “Maybe nothing. I’m just trying to put some pieces together. And where’s your mother?”

  Ginny shrugged as if it were no big deal that she didn’t know the answer to that. “She sold all the restaurants and the house. I don’t know where she went.”

  “She didn’t tell you?” Brady asked.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “When was the last time you talked to her?”

  “The day of the break-in.”

  “You told her what happened?”

  Ginny nodded. “And that Kathryn had moved away.”

  “Wait. Kathryn?” Brady studied his notes, then looked at her.

  Ginny ran her hands through her hair. She looked so tired, so worn. Kade would give anything to make this easier for her.

  “My sister and her family lived here in Nutfield for years. The day before the break-in, Kathryn left.” She gave Brady a quick rundown on what happened.

  Brady made a few notes. “Did your sister say why she was leaving?”

  She closed her eyes. A long moment passed, but she said nothing else.

  “Ginny?” Brady’s voice was kind but insistent.

  “She said I was in danger.” Ginny opened her eyes and met Brady’s gaze. “Kathryn said that I led people here, and that I should leave, change my name, and never look back.”

  Brady sat back. “You don’t scare easily.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I should have left.” She turned to Kade. “If I’m the reason you lose your development—”

  “Don’t do that.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “I want you to stay. This is your home. You should fight for it.”

  “But at what cost?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Kade said. “Your safety matters.”

  Ginny shifted to face Brady again. “That’s all she told me.”

  “She gave you no names, no details?”

  She shook her head.

  “I take it you two weren’t close.”

  Sadness crossed over Ginny’s face, but she said nothing.

  “When did she move away from California?” Brady asked.

  “Not long after we moved there, Kathryn transferred to Boston University. She met a guy, got married.” />
  Brady looked at his notes, tapped his pen on the table. “Did she go home for the funeral?”

  “Yes, but she left immediately. She didn’t even stick around long enough to go to the house afterward.”

  Brady’s gaze was far away. After a moment, he said, “So how would she know…? You said she told you that your parents’ associates were in town. How would she know that, if she lived here?”

  “She said she saw someone in town who’d been at the funeral.”

  Brady made a note on his pad, then tapped the pen against it, staring at nothing.

  Ginny felt Kade’s gaze on her but didn’t meet it. All the shame about her past, the worry about her future, came back. What was she doing sitting here with these men? Brady couldn’t protect her, and Kade would destroy his life standing by her. “I’m an idiot for still being here.” Her words were whispered.

  Kade stiffened beside her.

  “Nobody thinks that.” Brady shook his head. “I can’t help but wonder why your sister wouldn’t have given you more information. Where is she now?”

  Ginny just shrugged, and Brady made another note.

  “Back to your mother,” he said. “You told her about Kathryn leaving and the break-in?”

  “I hoped Mom would tell me what was going on, maybe who was after me.”

  “I take it she didn’t?”

  “She told me to run.”

  Kade scooted close, rested his hand against Ginny’s back, and focused on Brady. “I told her to stay.”

  “I’m glad you did.” Brady tapped his pen against the table. “Is there anything else you think I need to know?”

  “I’m not sure you needed to know all of that.”

  Brady slid the pen in his breast pocket. “If you think of anything else, even if it seems inconsequential, call me.”

  “You know as much as I do now.”

  He stood. “I should go. I’ll do some digging, see what I can find out. And then I’ll pay Bruce Collier a visit, see if he can shed any light on how he came by the information about you.”

  They walked Brady to the door.

  With his hand on the doorknob, Brady turned. “If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.” He pressed his lips together, shook his head. “Make sure you keep your doors locked and continue using your alarm. Maybe the newspaper article and your prowler aren’t related at all, but it never hurts to stay vigilant.”