“I can assure you of that. It’s the time and location that can’t seem to be nailed down.”
“Yeah,” I said. “On our end too.” I hesitated. “But if you got the time and location, and let’s say there was a big bust, what exactly would come from this?”
“You mean in terms of Hardshaw’s presence in the county?” he asked.
“And Hardshaw in general,” I said, thinking of Carly. Because pushing them out of Fenton County wouldn’t be good enough for her. She needed them gone. “Would they be weakened?”
He pushed out a breath. “Again, I could get in big trouble for saying this, but I suspect you have some pull in decidin’ who shows up at this meetin’, and you need to keep your friends away.”
“That didn’t answer my question about weakening Hardshaw.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Intel from Mike suggests that someone big in the Hardshaw organization will be attending.”
“How high up?” I asked. And how was Mike privy to that information? I thought again about the contents of that flash drive, the hundred or more files it contained, and realized Mike was much more involved than I’d let myself think.
“The very top.” Then he added, “I have to go, but if you need to contact me, use this phone, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Rose,” he said in a worried tone, “I mean it. Stay away.” Then he hung up.
I clutched the phone to my chest. What was I going to tell the group downstairs? How did I explain what I knew without implicating Mason?
I left my room to check on Hope. She was sleeping, her mouth slightly parted and her hands clenched next to her head. My heart filled with so much love for this tiny human I thought it would burst.
Muffy lay in her dog bed next to the crib, and I squatted in front of her, rubbing behind her ear. “You’re a good girl, Muff,” I whispered. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you watchin’ over our baby.” I kissed the top of her head, and she licked my chin and cheek.
Sitting on the floor, I scooped her into my arms and held her close. She’d been my baby before Hope, and I didn’t want her to think I’d forgotten her. “I will always, always love you,” I whispered in her ear.
She responded with more doggie kisses on my chin and lips.
I placed another kiss on top of her head, then set her on the dog bed and got to my feet, surprised to see Neely Kate standing in the doorway, watching me with a worried look.
She backed up to let me out, and I followed her into the hallway, closing the door to a crack behind me.
“Are you okay?” she asked in a low voice.
“Knowing that woman came from Kate? No. I’m far from all right, but I’m not falling apart either.”
She grabbed my arm and tugged me into my room, closing the door behind us. “I need you to back me up on something.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What?”
“I want to call Kate. After I texted her yesterday, Jed told me to cut off all contact, but I don’t agree with him. Sure, answering feeds her ego, but she doesn’t like to be ignored. She tends to up her ante. Like sending Roberta Hanover here.”
I wrapped my arms around myself tighter. “Do you think she’s goin’ to give you any information?”
“I don’t know,” she said, getting frustrated, “but I have to try. Maybe we can get enough information to at least figure out what she’s up to.”
I nodded. “For what it’s worth, I’m not against it. It’s obvious she thought you two bonded after she kidnapped you last fall. She may freak out if you ignore her.”
She nodded. “I considered that too. And to be honest, while I love my husband to the moon and back, I don’t want him hoverin’ over me while I make the call.” Tears filled her eyes. “Which makes me feel really, really guilty.”
I pulled her to sit on the edge of the bed with me. “Neely Kate, I’m pretty sure I know why Kate’s in town, but I’m not sure what to do with the information. Joe and Jed will want to know how I know, and I can’t tell them. Yet I’m worried if just tellin’ them what I know, they’ll figure out my source. I can’t put him at risk.”
“I’ll keep it secret, Rose,” she said earnestly. “I won’t tell Jed, I swear.”
I swallowed, still uncertain I was doing the right thing, but I figured if anyone had the right to know, it was Neely Kate. Besides, I had to tell someone. Mason hadn’t given me that information for no reason. “There’s a reason everyone’s being so cagey about this meetin’. It isn’t just between Hardshaw representatives and a South American drug cartel. Someone high up in the Hardshaw organization is comin’. Someone from the very top.”
“One of the three?”
I nodded. “My source didn’t say which one, but it seems pretty obvious.”
She gasped. “Carson Roberts. Kate’s boyfriend.”
“He knows her as a blonde, right?” I asked.
“And as Andrea Penske. She created an entire persona to seduce him.”
“Neely Kate, what if she’s using that name right now? What if she’s stayin’ in a hotel using that alias? If she’s goin’ around as a blonde, she can likely come and go as she pleases.”
She stared at the bed as she considered it, then lifted her gaze. “Are you suggestin’ we go to her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. You can ask her what she knows about the meeting and see if she knows the location and date.”
“Slight problem with that thought,” Neely Kate said. “She had brown hair when she went to see our birth mother.”
Crappy doodles. She was right. “Neely Kate, even if we find out the time and date, we can’t go to that meetin’. None of us.”
She gave me a leery look. “I wasn’t plannin’ on it. It’s gonna be nothin’ but a gun fight, and Jed doesn’t want to be anywhere near it. He was gonna try to talk you and Joe out of it.”
“But Dermot still wants to go. He wants to try and stop it from happening.”
“Do you want to go?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I want no part of it. Especially since some law enforcement agency is plannin’ on goin’.”
“What?” she whisper-shouted. “Who? The sheriff?”
“No. Joe said they don’t know anything about it. I’m guessing state or federal, but they don’t know when or where the meetin’ is any better than we do.”
“You can’t tell Jed and Joe. They’ll figure out the connection to Mason.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I never told you it was Mason.” Although I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. She’d already figured out he was feeding me info.
She gave me an eye roll. “Please. But that’s why you can’t tell them. They’d figure it out.”
“Especially since I told Joe that Mason is one of my sources.” I pushed out a frustrated sigh. “I suck at this.”
“No you don’t,” she said, reaching for my hand. She gave me a tentative smile. “Maybe Sparkle Investigations should look into finding the date and time of this meetin’.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. “You’re suggestin’ we keep this from Jed and Joe?” I shook my head, my frustration growing. “Neely Kate, Joe quit his job to stop the secrets between us.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, lifting her brow. “Because he told Jed he was quitting to protect you.”
“The two go hand in hand,” I said.
“Look,” she said softly. “When Joe was with the sheriff and the state police, didn’t he keep things from you?”
“Well yeah, but—”
“Rose, I know you’re strivin’ for one hundred precent honesty with him, but the fact is, that’s never gonna happen.”
“How can you say that?” I demanded. “I’m tryin’ so hard, Neely Kate.”
“Of course you are,” she said with a warm smile. “And so is he, but you’re always gonna have secrets. Like when he cooks his chicken cacciatore, and you pretend to like it.”
I gr
imaced. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He loves that dish, and it’s not like it’s inedible. It’s just not my favorite.”
“Exactly. So you pretend to like it to spare his feelings. Just like y’all spared mine when I was experimentin’ in the kitchen.”
I flushed with embarrassment. Neely Kate used to be known for her nearly inedible “gourmet” creations. Ultimately, Kate had been the one to tell her what none of us could bear to—that they were awful.
“That’s not a secret,” I said. “That’s a white lie.”
“But aren’t secrets lies of omission?” she asked with a sad look in her eyes.
I turned away, my heart breaking.
Here I go again. Lying to the man I love.
She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her shorts. “I’m makin’ a call, but you can only stay if you can keep this between us.”
“Neely Kate…” I groaned.
She sat up straighter. “I’m doin’ this, Rose, with or without you.”
I shot a glance at the door, then back at my best friend. In the end, my loyalty and my curiosity won out. “Make the call.”
She tapped on her screen, then gave me a long look and turned on the speaker button.
“Well, hello, sister mine,” Kate said with a smile in her voice when she answered. “I wondered when you’d get around to calling. Is Joe there? I want to see if he got my gift.”
“Oh, he got it all right,” Neely Kate said. “Why couldn’t you just give it to him like a normal person?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Kate asked. “Was Rose Petal there? Did she like it?”
Neely Kate released her annoyance. “She has a baby, Kate. That woman could have been dangerous!”
“Calm down,” Kate said with a groan. “I made sure Bobby knew not to hurt little Hope. I threatened her life if she did.”
I pushed out a sigh of relief. At least that suggested she didn’t want to hurt my baby.
“Did Joe like his gift?” Kate asked in a smug tone.
“He’s intrigued,” Neely Kate said carefully. “He’s lookin’ at it now.”
“With Mr. Sexy? I almost wish I was there to see him.” She made a purring sound, and I was sure Neely Kate was going to reach through the phone and snatch her bald.
Instead, she took a deep breath and asked, “Why did you go see our birth mother?”
“I already told you. You deserve to be happy, NK. I’m gonna make sure all your dreams come true, but you need to let me handle things on my own.”
“Why are you in town now?” Neely Kate asked.
“I got here a little early to prepare for tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve got big plans, and it’s all for you, little sis.”
Our gazes met, Neely Kate’s eyes as big as mine felt. “I want to see you, Kate. Let’s meet up for coffee. That sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, I’d love to, but I’m afraid I have my hands full right now. We’ll have to do a raincheck.”
“Kate,” Neely Kate said, her voice breaking. “I’m begging you, don’t hurt our birth mother or our baby. Please.”
There was a moment of silence, and I worried that Kate had hung up. “I won’t, NK,” she finally said. “I promise. Don’t you worry about that, okay?” Her smug tone was gone, and to my surprise, she sounded like she genuinely cared about her sister. “I wish I was with you right now so I could wipe those tears away and tell you everything’s gonna be okay, but I can’t. Just know that I’m doing this for you, baby sis. I’m doing this so you can be happy. At least one of us Simmons kids should be.”
“Joe’s happy,” Neely Kate said. “He has Hope now, and he and Rose are gettin’ married. He’s happy, Kate.”
She was quiet again. “Is he though?”
Neely Kate and I stared at each other.
“But this will make him happy,” Kate said. “A clue. Tell him to look for the file labeled VAM4E. Oh, and Neely Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” Kate said, sounding more sincere than I’d ever heard her.
Then, to my utter surprise, Neely Kate said, “I love you too.”
And from the look on her face she meant it.
Chapter 27
Kate hung up, and Neely Kate lowered the phone to her lap.
“You love her?” I asked, trying to keep my judgment to myself.
Her gaze jerked up to mine. “We can’t choose our family, Rose. You should know that first hand. Your momma was cruel to you, but you still loved her in some way. You’ve told me so yourself.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
A fierce look filled her eyes. “I don’t condone what she’s done or what she is about to do, not for a hot second, but I can’t deny that she’s doin’ it because she wants to help me. Before I met you, there weren’t many people in my life outside of my Granny and Witt who’d lift their little finger to do that.”
“That’s messed up, Neely Kate.”
“I know,” she admitted. “I can’t explain it, but something happened on our road trip, and I could see that she loves me in her messed-up Kate way. I can’t help loving her a tiny bit too.”
Only it seemed like more than a tiny bit.
She held my gaze. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ll do everything in my power to keep her from hurtin’ people, but part of me loves her for wantin’ to help me.”
I nodded, trying to understand.
She ran a hand over her head. “I know what it sounds like. You’re right. It’s messed up.”
I groaned. “I shouldn’t have said that. That was mean and judgmental, and besides, you’re right. We don’t get to pick our birth family. And I think it’s okay to love them even if they are…” I struggled to find a word to describe Kate that wouldn’t offend my best friend.
“Monsters?” she supplied.
Like James. Did that explain why part of me still worried about him even though he’d turned into someone I barely recognized? Maybe the same part of me that had refused to give up on Momma was refusing to give up on him.
“I know she’s a monster,” Neely Kate said, “but she’s my monster. Joe’s too, and he still loves her. Even if she’s crazier than a cuckoo clock that chimes at five minutes after the hour.”
“And the bird comes out with a hatchet and starts choppin’ up the clock,” I added.
She grinned, but sadness filled her eyes. “Exactly.”
“We’re sisters too,” I said, “and it’ll be legal as soon as Joe and I get married.”
“I know, and that means so much to me. I can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.”
I clasped her hand and squeezed. “I feel the exact same way about you. And together, we’re going to go tell Joe and Jed about your call. Because we did what needed to be done, but they need to know what we found out. We’ll have to look for that file.”
She met my eyes and nodded, squeezing my hand back. “I’ll take the heat for this one.”
We headed downstairs and found Joe and Jed in the kitchen. They had identical setups, each with a laptop in front of him and a legal pad next to him, and their attention was squarely on their screens. Joe looked away to write something down.
“I did something you’re not gonna like,” Neely Kate announced as she walked into the room.
Jed sat up. “What?”
“I called my sister.”
“You called Kate?” Jed demanded.
“She’s the only one I’ve got that has my blood,” she said, then reached for my hand. “This one’s the sister of my heart.”
“While I’m sure this would make a lovely greeting card,” Joe said sarcastically as he turned in his chair to face us, “what possessed you to call her after Jed and I both expressly told you not to?”
Neely Kate had left that part out when pleading her case with me, but I wouldn’t have tried to stop her.
Neely Kate dropped my hand and stared them down. “Because for one thing, neither one of you is the boss of
me. Just because you put a ring on it, Jed Carlisle, doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do, and Joe, just because you’re my older brother doesn’t mean you always know best.”
Jed stared up at her in surprise, which quickly morphed into anger. “I’m tryin’ to protect you!”
“I don’t always need protectin’!” she shouted. “I’m a grown woman who is perfectly capable of makin’ my own decisions, thank you very much!”
Both men had the good sense to keep quiet.
“Look,” she said with a sigh. “I know neither one of you understands, but the last thing we want is for Kate to get pissed or hurt. And if I’d ignored her, that’s exactly what would have happened.”
She made a convincing argument, but I’d heard the end of their call. It went deeper than that. Neely Kate had wanted to talk to her. Would it end up biting her in the butt?
“Okay,” Joe said slowly. “What’s done is done. What did she say? Did she give you anything?”
Neely Kate lifted her chin with a smug look in her eyes. “Whatever’s happenin’ is goin’ down tomorrow.”
Both men jolted in their chairs.
“When?” Joe asked.
“She just said tomorrow,” Neely Kate said. “She asked if you liked your present and said to tell you to look at the file labeled VAM4E.”
Joe turned to his laptop and scanned his screen. “I haven’t seen anything like that.”
“What else did she say?” Jed asked, his face expressionless.
Neely Kate walked over to the table and sat down at the far end, as though purposely placing distance between herself and her husband and brother. I hung back, moving to the sink to wash dishes.
Neely Kate held Jed’s gaze. “The first thing she wanted to know was whether Joe got his gift. I laid into her for sending that woman here around Hope, but Kate assured me that she’d warned Bobby not to hurt Hope.”
It All Falls Down: Rose Gardner Investigations #7 (Rose Gardner Investigatons) Page 23