My mouth dropped open in amazement. Jed had come up with his story on the fly, only the look on his face suggested it wasn’t totally a cover story.
Zelda sniffed. “I was the lucky one. Our girl is something special.”
Jed nodded and gave me a tentative smile. “That she is.”
I threw up my hands, feeling uncomfortable. “Enough of this mushy nonsense. What have you been up to, Miss Zelda?”
“Same ol’, same ol’. I started goin’ to the Free Will Baptist Church instead of the Southern Baptist, and you would have thought I’d become a devil worshipper accordin’ to my former Bible study group.”
I laughed and listened to her stories about her new church and what the old neighbors had been up to these last few years. Fifteen minutes into her tales, I noticed she hadn’t said more than a word about her niece.
“What’s Stella been up to?”
She scowled. “She found her a new man.” Her scowl deepened. “Only, this one’s rougher than the last half dozen.”
“Does she come visit often?” I asked.
“I’m lucky to see the girl every few months, and then she only comes around to beg me for money, but I know what it’s for.” She pointed her finger at me. “I don’t support drug addicts.”
My heart sank. Even though part of me was still furious with Stella, I was sad to hear she was using. “Is she still in Ardmore?”
“Oh, yeah. She can’t leave now that she’s got the baby.”
I gasped. “Stella had a baby?”
“Yep, she’s bound to be a little over a year old. I’ve only seen her twice. She said the father tried to sue her for full rights, but she cleaned up enough for the courts to believe she was a fit mother.” She gave me a knowing look. “Child support. But then I heard the man she sued wasn’t the baby’s father after all, so I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
I wasn’t surprised that Stella would put the needs of herself over her child, but it made me ill. Especially since I’d so desperately wanted the babies I’d lost.
“Can you tell me where she lives?” I asked, trying not to look like I was about to gag. “I’d love to pay her a visit.”
“Oh, she’ll be so surprised to see you,” Zelda said with sad eyes.
She’d be surprised all right. It would be like the Ghost of Christmas Past had showed up to haunt her.
Chapter 14
Jed took another glance around the room, then asked, “Miss Zelda, would it be all right if I got a glass of water?”
Zelda cringed. “Where are my manners? I should have offered you something straightaway since it’s already beatin’ hot. I was just so taken by surprise.” She made a move to get up. “I’ll get you something now.”
Jed was already on his feet. “You sit and enjoy your visit with Neely Kate. I’ll get it.”
She smiled up at him as if he’d announced she was a bingo winner. “The glasses are in the cabinet to the left of the sink.”
Jed moved the few feet into the kitchen and opened the cabinet.
What was he up to?
“Oh,” Zelda said, slapping her leg. “I forgot to tell you—some people came looking for you.”
My heart slammed into my ribcage. People? “Were they together or did they come separately?”
“Separately. The woman showed up months ago . . . right around Thanksgiving, but the man was here back in the spring.”
My mouth went dry.
“The woman . . .” Jed said, setting his glass of water on the kitchen counter. “What did she look like?”
“It looked like her clothes came straight out of the Salvation Army, and when I asked her how she knew you, she said you’d worked together . . .” Zelda turned to face me. “But I didn’t fall off the turnip truck. Something about her didn’t seem right, so I asked her to remind me of your boss’s name. She said she couldn’t remember. As big of an asshole as he was, I figured she’d remember Shitty Stan if she’d ever set foot in that dump.” Her mouth pursed. “She was a slick devil, trying to twist the conversation around to get things out of me. The only thing the she-devil got out of me was Stella’s name, and that was only so I could set her up to see if she knew Stan.”
I wasn’t thrilled Zelda had given her Stella’s name, but in the scheme of things, it wasn’t the worst thing for her to have divulged.
“Did the woman tell you her name?” Jed asked.
Zelda shook her head. “No, and I asked her who she was, but she weaseled out of telling me, which was my first clue that she wasn’t on the up and up. Plus, she seemed too classy to work at the place. Ratty clothes aside, she looked like the type to hold her pinky finger out when she sipped her coffee.”
“What did her hair look like?” I asked.
“Short and black.” Zelda lifted her hand to her shoulder. “To about here, and it had blue streaks.”
Kate. My gaze lifted to Jed’s, but he was expressionless.
“Did she say why she was lookin’ for me?” I asked.
Zelda shook her head. “No, but I wondered if she might be a bill collector. Margo’s grandson skipped out on one of those payday loans, and he listed her as an emergency contact. They called and showed up at her door hoping to catch him.” She glanced at me again. “Are you in money trouble, Neely Kate?”
I was always in money trouble, but I was in much better shape than I had been the entire time I’d lived with her. “No, Miss Zelda. I’m fine.”
She frowned, obviously not convinced.
“She’s fine, Miss Zelda,” Jed said. “I’m looking out for her.”
She nodded and her body relaxed. “You’re a good man, Jed.”
She echoed my words from this morning, but he seemed to believe her, his back straightening some.
“You said there was a man,” I said. “Who was it?”
“I think he was some kind of police officer, but he didn’t show me his ID, so I’m not sure. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he acted all official.”
Police? My gaze jerked to Jed’s in a panic.
He moved to the sofa and sat beside me, resting his hand on my knee. “Did he say anything to indicate where he was from?”
Frowning, she shook her head.
“That’s okay,” Jed said. “He was probably being careful. Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell us everything you remember?”
“I was outside watering my petunias when he pulled up, getting out of his car and ambling toward me like he was large and in charge.”
“What kind of car did he drive?”
She pointed toward the front door. “Kind of like the one you’re driving.”
“A dark sedan?”
“Yeah, like the ones on all those cop shows.”
“What happened then?” he pressed. I was glad he’d stepped in—my mind felt like a hamster on an out-of-control wheel.
“He walked up and said he was lookin’ for a missing person, then asked, ‘You know Neely Kate Rivers?’ and I asked, ‘Who’s askin’?’” She shook her head with a frown. “He didn’t like that answer one bit. He moved up close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath when he said, ‘Unless you want to get what’s coming to her, you’ll answer my damn questions.’”
I sucked in a breath.
“And what did you say?” Jed asked, not fazed at all.
“Well, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I was pretty darn sure I didn’t want it, so I told him the truth—that I hadn’t seen Neely Kate in five years. But it didn’t matter if it was the truth or not because he wasn’t buyin’ it. He called me a liar. I let loose, telling him he needed to respect his elders and that you can catch more flies with sugar water, but he wasn’t the least bit impressed. He told me I had to earn his respect.”
“Zelda,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
She blew a raspberry. “I’m not about to let some punk kid push me around.”
“Kid?” Jed asked. “How old do you think he was?”
&n
bsp; She waved off his question. “Anyone under fifty is a kid to me. But he looked to be in his thirties.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A suit, but it was a nice-lookin’ one. Not one of those cheap knockoffs. And sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes. Never trust a person who won’t look you in the eyes.”
“So did he ask anything else?”
“Yeah, he wanted to come inside my home and look around. I asked him to show me his badge first. He bugged off instead, saying he’d be back to deal with me, but I never saw him again.”
Jed nodded. “Thanks.”
“Are you in trouble with the law, Neely Kate?” Zelda asked with worried eyes.
“No,” Jed answered, wrapping an arm around my back. “It’s just some crazy man who’s stalking her. If he comes back, don’t answer the door, and if he tries to break in, call 911. He’s not a police officer.”
“I knew I was right,” she said, snapping her fingers. My heart swelled with love for her.
“You have good instincts, Miss Zelda,” Jed said.
“I didn’t get this far in life playin’ the fool.”
Jed grinned, but my mind was whirling. Had that man been working for Kate? I didn’t think so, somehow.
We left soon afterward, and I gave Zelda a long hug. When I released her, she reached up and patted my face. “Thank you for comin’ to see me, but you need to leave this place and never come back.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Nothing good ever came to you here. Don’t go searchin’ the past, Neely Kate. You need to find your future.”
Tears stung my eyes.
“You’re a good girl. You just needed someone who believed in that too. Someone besides me.”
I hugged her again, realizing how much this woman had done for me and how little I’d given back. Wishing I’d done better by her. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush now,” she said with a watery smile. “I’m proud of you, girl. Now go live the happy life you deserve.”
Jed put his hand on Zelda’s shoulder and shook her hand. “It’s been an honor to meet you, ma’am.”
“You too, young man.” Then she made a shooing motion. “Go on now. I always hated goodbyes.”
Jed opened the door and put his arm around my back as we walked toward his car. He opened the passenger door to let me in before circling around to the other side.
I studied him as he turned on the ignition. Until Ronnie, no man had ever opened my car door, and even Ronnie had to be trained. When Rose had told me about the man who had kept watch over her during meetings with possibly subversive criminals, I never in a million years would have pictured the man with me now. Was this the real Jed Carlisle, or was it all an act? After seeing him with Zelda, I would bet money this was genuinely him.
He pulled into the gravel driveway in front of my mother’s old trailer. “We should have asked Zelda about your mother.”
“It would have been wasted breath. I asked plenty of questions when I came back. Zelda said something spooked Momma and she took off. After she dumped me at Granny’s, she disappeared for good.”
“Do you think J.R. found out about her . . . and you?”
I gasped. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“It might explain how Kate learned the truth. And if J.R. did find out about you, it wouldn’t have been hard to track you down to the Rivers’ farm. Why’d he leave you alone all those years? It stands to reason he’d keep an eye on you . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked taken off guard.
And I knew why—it didn’t take a genius to figure out who would have been tasked with watching me.
Jed looked furious.
“We have no way of knowing if Skeeter was involved, Jed.”
“Oh. I know he was. He did J.R. Simmons’ dirty deeds and kept it all from me for years.” He backed out of the driveway and headed down the road toward the trailer park entrance.
“But there’s a good chance J.R. never knew the truth until the end.”
“Had your mother ever taken off like that before? And why did she leave you behind?”
“The second one’s easy: I attracted too much attention from Momma’s boyfriends.” Somehow Kate had known about that too. Only, she hadn’t gotten it entirely right—Momma may have let one of them sleep with me, but she’d absolved her guilt by telling him I had to technically be a virgin when he was done.
While I was taking my haunted hayride down memory lane, Jed had been piecing together my last words to him.
“Your mother got rid of you because she was jealous of the attention her boyfriends were giving you?” he asked in disbelief.
“I didn’t say she was jealous,” I backtracked.
“You didn’t have to.”
“She did me a favor in the end, but it goes to show that there could be any number of reasons why she took off. For all we know, someone turned her in for pimping her twelve-year-old daughter to her boyfriend for drugs.”
Jed remained still so long that if he hadn’t been driving, I would have wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But one look at him proved he was alert—and angry enough to wring someone’s neck.
A good two or three minutes later, he said, “You may be right about why she ran, but the J.R. explanation would still make more sense. If she was worried about getting turned in for your molestation”—he spat out the word—“I would think she’d keep you around to make sure you stayed quiet. If she was running from J.R., she’d have run far and wide. Ditching you would have made it easier for her to hide. She’d know that the first place J.R. would look for you would be your granny’s farm. Which means he probably knew you were there, and he had Skeeter watching you.”
But it also meant she had literally thrown me to the wolves. She must have known J.R. would be tempted to destroy any potential claims to his money. That was the sole reason she’d run twenty-five years ago. To save her skin.
I let that settle in, waiting for the familiar pinprick in my heart, but maybe my heart had been hurt too many times. Maybe there wasn’t enough of me left to feel.
That thought was quickly dashed when I considered that Skeeter Malcolm might have been stalking me. “But Skeeter hasn’t worked for J.R. for the past five years,” I objected, wanting him to tell me it wasn’t possible after all.
“I guarantee you that he was watching you when you came to Fenton County the first time.” Jed looked like he was about to rip someone’s head off. “You were a kid.”
“You don’t know that he was watchin’ me, Jed.”
He kept his eyes on the road. “I do.” He paused. “He may not have known why he was watching, but he did it anyway and reported it to Simmons. And when all of this shit came to pass this past winter, he never said one fucking word to anyone.”
“Jed. It’s okay.”
“The hell it is.” He swallowed, and I could see a war waging on his face. “I’m done.”
I shook my head as I tried to grasp what he was saying. “You’re gonna quit?”
“He already fired me, Neely Kate. I told you that.”
“But you know he’ll change his mind and call you back.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go back.” He turned to look at me. “Maybe this is the last straw.”
“Because of me?”
“Seems like a pretty damned good reason to me.”
“But—”
“I’m not letting anyone hurt you, Neely Kate. Not while I’m around.” His voice was hard when he added, “And that includes Skeeter Malcolm.”
Chapter 15
We decided to get lunch and come up with a plan for the rest of the day. Zelda didn’t have a solid address for Stella, but she knew the name of the apartment complex. We picked a place with Wi-Fi and Jed brought in his computer bag. He set up his laptop on his side of the booth and began to search for Shenandoah Apartments, leaving me with plenty of time to think.
I wasn’t sure how to handle what Jed was going through. He and Ske
eter went back a long way, so I understood why he felt betrayed, but I had no idea how to comfort him.
“Jed, I think we should talk about it.”
“Talk about what?” he asked as he continued his search.
“Skeeter.”
His fingers stopped typing and he glanced up at me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true. He hurt you.”
His gaze returned to the screen. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“But he did. He’s like a brother to you, and you thought you shared almost everything. When you found out he’d spent all those years working for J.R. without ever telling you . . . that had to sting.”
“I trusted him, Neely Kate.” He didn’t look at me.
I covered his forearm with my hand. “I know.”’
“I knew his story about running off to Memphis to make seed money for the pool hall was a lie, but I didn’t press him. I figured he’d done something he was ashamed of.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t ashamed of it. He came back and worked for the man. He cleaned up your brother’s messes.”
“Joe’s?”
He glanced up at me. “Joe kept him pretty busy at times.”
Joe had rebelled against our father’s expectations, enough so that he’d gotten himself into trouble with the law in his earlier days, despite the fact that he worked for the Arkansas State Police. I’d heard that J.R. had always sent in a cleanup crew to smooth things over. I had no idea that Skeeter was the one who’d pushed the broom.
“Skeeter was always running off to do some secret task. I started to get more and more suspicious about what he was doing, but he’d shut me down straightaway whenever I asked. Then the secretive trips stopped one day five years ago. No explanation. I guess that was when he quit doin’ J.R.’s grunt work, but I never heard a word of any of it until last winter . . . when he was working with Rose.” He shook his head. “Even when shit was goin’ down last fall, he never breathed a word.”
“Maybe he was ashamed after all,” I suggested. “Skeeter’s a powerful man in his own right. Being on J.R.’s leash had to chafe. Even years later. I would guess that could wound a man’s pride.”
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