Better Than This: A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel

by Beth Flynn

  “So, he killed her, tossed all of her belongings in a grave—except her apron and change purse—and found and held on to my father’s coin. Why?”

  “You know why.” I looked over at him and saw a vein pop out on his neck.

  When I didn’t respond, he continued, “He waited until the day he could use it against the boy he’d grown to hate. Why do you think he never gave Kenny a hard time about hanging out with you?”

  I was at a loss and shook my head.

  “Because he wanted you and Kenny to fall for each other so he could rip any smidgen of happiness out from under him.”

  I jumped up and looked down at Jake. “It’s why he wasn’t mad the night he caught us together. All I can remember is that evil, maniacal laugh when he came home. It’s because he was glad. Oh, my poor, sweet Kenny.”

  “After you left he gave Kenny the coin and told him he’d just slept with his sister. It was as if he’d spent all those years, waiting to ambush a kid’s heart. And the sad part was, Kenny loved him in spite of his cruelty. Kenny got a punch in the face for calling him a liar. The old man tossed the coin at him and told him he could ask his aunt. Pritchard knew his wife had been exchanging letters with her aunt because he’d found and burned them.”

  Jake reached into the envelope and took out a picture. It was of a toddler sitting on his mother’s lap. Missy and Kenny.

  I brushed away a tear and stared at the photo. “He was so little and innocent then. Did he find her, Jake? Did he find his aunt Esther?”

  He gave a little chuckle. “Yeah, he found her, and she relayed the story I just told you. She’s also the one who gave Kenny this picture because she took it. And her name wasn’t Esther Agnis like the police records showed. There is no Esther Agnis.”

  I turned to look at him, momentarily dumbfounded. “Then who was she?”

  One corner of his mouth dipped down wryly. “Sister Agnes. She was a nun and whoever the idiot was that took her call, misheard her and wrote down Esther Agnis.”

  “A nun? I never knew Kenny had an aunt who was a nun!”

  “Neither did he until his father told him. All he got from him was that she liked to take pictures, her name, and the city from the postmark on the last letter she’d sent to Missy. It took Kenny almost two years to find her, but he did. He tracked her to a church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was temporarily assigned there until they could figure out a place for her.”

  “Why did they need to find a place for her?”

  “She was losing her eyesight. It was a shame because after he’d tracked her down, he found out she was a very talented photographer.” He motioned to the picture I was still holding. “She took that one. Kenny told me she had a pile of photographs she prayed over. She called them her unanswered prayers.”

  He stood up and took me by the hand. “If you’re wondering, she confirmed what Kenny’s father had told him. Missy had written to her and told her about the false pregnancy and then getting pregnant by your father. As the years went by, the letters became sadder. Missy confessed that, in hindsight, she should’ve left with your father, but she was still in love with her husband back then. Sister Agnes told Kenny how sorry she was that she didn’t do more to find out why her niece had stopped writing. It was about the time her eyesight started failing and she had to rearrange her life to deal with that.”

  “It all seems so surreal, Jake.” I blew out a long breath. “Was I right? Had he written to me? Did Kenny ever tell you if he tried to write?”

  “Yeah, Barbie, Kenny wrote to you. You were probably right in assuming your grandmother must’ve come across that first letter and never let you near the mailbox again.”

  I didn’t have the strength to muster up more anger at Juanita Anderson, so I asked a question instead. “Did he learn anything else from his aunt? Anything useful?”

  Jake’s expression closed up. “Kenny told me that before he left Pumpkin Rest, he went to church every Sunday morning and again on Wednesday night.”

  “True,” I agreed. “We both did.”

  “He remembered that Abraham was married to his half sister, Sarah. And he asked his aunt if it would be okay with God if someone nowadays wanted to marry their half-sibling.”

  Oh, Kenny. Even after two years away from me, you still wanted me.

  “When he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he knew he would never see you again.”

  Chapter 46

  We Could’ve Been Together

  “I need to know everything, Jake. Tell me more.”

  He took me by the hand and we started walking, Lady and Henry in tow.

  “When Kenny left Pumpkin Rest, he headed in the wrong direction. His father, or the man he thought was his father, either deliberately sent him on a wild goose chase, or his aunt had been at a convent somewhere in Alabama before being sent to Fort Lauderdale. The only clue he had was her name, Sister Agnes, and that she always had a camera strung around her neck. She’d visited Missy only once, and that was when she met Kenny’s dad and took the picture I showed you.”

  Jake continued to describe Kenny’s long journey and how he eventually found out his aunt was in Florida. He met up with a traveling carnival in Jacksonville and hung with them for a while and checked with every Catholic church along their route. He became friends with a guy about his age, and after discovering the kid was nothing but trouble, he took off and ended up in Fort Lauderdale. He found his aunt and the sad truth about what his father had told him. Kenny didn’t know what to do with himself after that. He was torn.

  “He knew he couldn’t be with you. Which is ironic now that you know you’re not an Anderson. And he knew that as cruel as his father was, the rotten SOB loved Jonathan and would never hurt him. So he wandered around, struggled with his future. He stayed in one place long enough and mailed you a few more letters, that time giving you an address to use. But you never did and we both know why.”

  I swallowed a huge dose of regret and grief. Tucking a stray hair behind my ear, I whispered, “He could’ve come home. We could’ve been together.”

  “Yeah, but he still believed you were his half sister, Barbie.”

  When I didn’t reply, Jake continued with the rest of his story. It turned out that a year or two later, Kenny ran into the guy from the carnival who’d told him he was in a motorcycle club, and if they accepted him, Kenny could earn good money. So, he got himself a used bike, joined up, and before he knew it he was part of something he didn’t know how to get out of.”

  “Did he know Mike from The Lonesome Keg, like you did?” I wanted to know.

  “He did. The leader of the motorcycle gang owned the bars where Mike worked. Before you ask, Kenny and I had never crossed paths. Remember, I was in prison in Texas about that time.”

  “You didn’t meet Kenny until you went to prison?”

  “Right,” he admitted. “But, we’d heard about each other in passing because we looked so much alike. If it weren’t for this”—he pointed to his neck tattoo—“some people couldn’t tell us apart. When doing her search, if Sheila had brought up our most recent mug shots instead of our original ones, because you know they get periodically updated in prison, you’d think you were looking at brothers. You weren’t crazy, Barbie, and I’m sorry for anything that made you think you were.”

  I waved him off. “It’s okay. I knew I wasn’t crazy. I know it’s scientifically proven that total strangers can pass for twins. Everybody has a doppelgänger out there somewhere.” I gave a thoughtful pause, slowly digesting the onslaught of information. “I know Kenny went to prison for murder, but…”

  “Kenny didn’t murder anyone, Barbie!” Jake barked. “Sorry, didn’t mean to yell, but Kenny wasn’t a murderer. He was railroaded because he happened to be there when his gang and a rival gang started fighting. Yes, he defended himself, but he didn’t kill anyone. Three men died and the law rounded up everyone involved in the fight and the prosecutor threw the book at everyone. His trial was a sham.”
<
br />   I would never know if what Jake said was true or if he was valiantly defending a guilty Kenny. “I was going to ask what you did to land in prison with Kenny in Florida? You told me before that you weren’t part of the gang but you worked for their leader.”

  Jake described how he fell into criminal activity. It turned out that his nickname, Doc, hadn’t been because he was a Dr. Pepper addict. That night at The Lonesome Keg, Mike thought fast when he made up that story. All the other things Mike told me were true, except for one. Jake earned the nickname Doc because he was a thief. A safecracker. Jake explained to me that anybody could open a safe with a crowbar. If not a crowbar, they could blast it open. But when they needed the job to be done quietly with no proof that it had been compromised, they asked for Jake. His tool? A stethoscope. Thus the nickname Doc. Back then, everyone had the safes with tumblers and dials that required a stethoscope or other type of sound-magnifying device to crack. Jake would get in and out with the safe’s owner being none the wiser.

  “Okay. What did you steal and how did you get caught?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I had a partner back then. We broke into the home of a guy who’d been laundering money for the criminal elite without any traceable evidence. We’d gotten a tip that he temporarily, and stupidly I might add, transferred the money to the safe in his home. We broke in and took it.”

  “And got caught?”

  “Not right away. My idiot partner was brought in on some other more serious charges and rolled on me as a bargaining tool to have his sentence reduced. The police raided my house.”

  I felt like I was watching a real-life crime drama. “And found the money?” I asked breathlessly.

  “No. They never found the money, Barbie. But they did find a crapload of other things I’d stolen. Jewelry, antiquities, lots of stuff. I was just as stupid as the guy with the safe. I normally unloaded my hauls immediately, but I got caught red-handed.”

  “Whatever happened to all that…?” I didn’t have to finish the thought. “You’ve kept it hidden for all these years, haven’t you?”

  His back straightened. He squeezed my hand tighter before answering. “Yes.”

  “It’s how you paid to have my condo restored after Fancy trashed it. You’re the reason Jonathan and Cindy are at Hampton House. She doesn’t have a benefactor, does she? It’s been you all along?”

  “I promised Kenny before he died that when I was released I would make sure Jonathan came back to Pumpkin Rest. I made it happen when I was still in Georgia.”

  I didn’t ask but wondered if Sheila knew and if it influenced her to convince the board to let Jake work at Hampton House. “But you were in prison for twenty-three years, Jake. That seems excessive for a jewel thief.”

  “Barbie, when you’re in a hostile environment like prison, you do anything you can to survive. I’m ashamed to admit that I did things while incarcerated that kept getting my sentence extended.”

  I listened in a state of shock as Jake explained the prison hierarchy and the man who ran the place. It wasn’t the warden like I’d assumed, but another inmate. The bar-owning leader of the motorcycle gang was eventually arrested and ended up on death row. He ran the prison until the day he died by lethal injection.

  “He was a bad guy, a diabolical guy, but he was also fair, and as much as I didn’t want to, I respected him,” Jake confessed. “Everyone had jobs. I’d rather not tell you what mine was, but let’s just say it relates to how skillfully I messed up Sheila’s husband.” I cringed, and he quickly added, “I’m sorry, Barbie, but it was a matter of survival.”

  “It’s okay. But tell me how you came to respect this horrible man who made you do those kinds of things.”

  “I already told you how I’d done some jobs for him before we ended up in the same prison. He’d heard about the heist I’d pulled off and knew a lot of money was unaccounted for.”

  “How much?” I interjected.

  “One point six million.”

  I’m certain my mouth fell open.

  “Anyway, the first thing he did was call a meeting and asked me where I’d hidden the money. You’ve got to understand, this guy had men everywhere who would do his bidding. He could verify if I was telling him the truth. I had two choices. Tell him the truth and say goodbye to my haul or lie and suffer the consequences when he found out. I told him the truth.”

  “But he didn’t take your money, did he?” Henry chose that moment to interrupt us when he trotted over with an intact jar of moonshine. After fussing over him for a few minutes and trying to discern where he might’ve dug it up, we went back to our conversation.

  Shaking his head, Jake said, “No, he didn’t take the money. He rewarded me for my loyalty for telling him the truth. He also told me that there’d been some talk of men who wanted to convince me to give up my stash. He made sure everybody knew that he got to me first and there was no money left.”

  “He protected your money so you would have it when you got out.”

  “That’s exactly what he did.”

  “Who was this guy? Did he have a name?”

  “He had a name, but you’re better off not knowing it. He was a brutal man who instilled a lot of fear, Barbie.”

  “Pfft…what do I care? You said he’s been dead for years. I’m not afraid, but I am curious. What was this name that instilled so much fear and demanded loyalty?”

  “He went by Grizz.”

  Chapter 47

  I Want You More Than My Lungs Want Air

  “Grizz, schmizz, I don’t care what he went by, I’m glad he’s dead!” I announced.

  Jake chuckled. “I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are in agreement with you.”

  “Tell me more about you and Kenny.” Something occurred to me and I had to ask. “He didn’t tell you about my aversion to blueberry pancakes, did he?”

  “Of course he told me. It’s one of the reasons I ate them in front of you. I wanted to know if you were as stubborn as he said.”

  I laughed. “Did he also tell you that one day when we had our own house he promised he would make them for me every morning?”

  Jake grew solemn. “He might’ve, but I don’t remember it.”

  I couldn’t figure out why but I thought I might’ve somehow hurt Jake’s feelings. So I circled back to something that had been nagging at me.

  “The night at my house when I got drunk on moonshine. Did you—”

  He didn’t let me finish the sentence, but stopped walking and pulled me close to face him. He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand and told me, “I carried you up the stairs and put you in bed. And I told you that I’d loved you for as long as I could remember.”

  I stared into his eyes and asked, “How could that be? You’d only known me at that point for a couple of months at the most. And I know I wasn’t very nice to you for a long time before that.”

  “I’ve known you for as long as I knew Kenny, Barbie.” His expression was guarded, unreadable. “Do you know what it’s like to spend almost twenty years with another person in a room no bigger than your new bathroom? Believe me when I say you have a lot of time to talk.”

  I opened my mouth to answer him but he continued, “I knew everything about you, about Jonathan, about Pumpkin Rest. You don’t think every chance Kenny got, he didn’t talk about the girl he loved? The girl he would never stop loving. The girl he could never be with because she was his half sister. I knew everything about you, Barbie. Even after you moved away and went to college.”

  I took a step back. “That’s impossible. I didn’t stay in touch with Kenny after the couple of letters I sent him while he was in prison went unanswered.”

  “But he kept in touch with the facility where Jonathan had been staying. He knew about your visits to see his little brother and how even after they asked you to stop coming, you always made it a point to stop in once in a while and watch Jonathan from afar without him seeing you. They appreciated that you kept your distance so it
didn’t upset him.”

  I looked away and shifted nervously. I’d never have guessed that while in prison Kenny was able to communicate with someone from Jonathan’s group home. It was a stupid assumption on my part. Prisoners were allowed to exchange letters. Just because he didn’t write to me didn’t mean he couldn’t write to someone else. Darlene being the obvious example.

  “And how you still managed to make the long drive from school to drop off some of Jonathan’s favorite things that you regularly bought on a college student’s budget. Don’t you see? I didn’t fall in love with the girl Kenny left behind. I fell in love with the woman you became, Barbie. I mourned right alongside Kenny when Darlene wrote to him that you’d gotten married. When I told you that Emmy encouraged me to take the road less traveled, she wasn’t talking about the road to Pumpkin Rest. It was the road to you, Barbie.”

  “Oh, Jake,” I cried while looping my arms around his neck. “I’m so grateful you listened to Emmy.”

  He kissed me. A long, lingering, tender kiss that shot straight to my heart and weakened my knees. When it ended, we resumed our walk, and before we knew it we were at my house. I waited to see if he was going to suggest that we finally consummate our relationship, but he knew what I was thinking and immediately cut to the chase.

  “I’ve only been able to dream about being inside of you, Barbie. And right now, I want you more than my lungs want air. But I’m gonna stick to my guns about marrying you first. I’ve waited this long. I can wait a couple more weeks.” A look of panic flashed across his face when he asked, “It won’t be more than a couple of weeks, right?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “We can get married tomorrow if you want, Jake. But I’m going to use your chivalrous and gentlemanly insistence on abstinence to plan something intimate. Darlene would never forgive me if she wasn’t part of our nuptials. And I’m sure I can pull it together in a week or so.”