Thirty-Six and a Half Motives: Rose Gardner Mystery #9 (Rose Gardner Mystery Series)

by Denise Grover Swank

  That was all Kate needed to say to make Hilary fall in line. Hilary’s left hand instinctively covered her small belly, and she tossed her gun into the basket.

  “That’s good,” Kate said in a soothing tone. “You look a little stressed. It’s probably not good for the baby. Why don’t you wait over there and try to relax?”

  Hilary’s heels clicked on the floor as she walked to her spot.

  That left the three men in the room, all standing on the periphery.

  Kate slid off the desk, pointing to an X in the middle of the marks. “This is for the guest of honor. Now who do you think belongs in that position?” She looked at her father and laughed. “I bet you think it’s for you.”

  “Stop this absurdity right now, Katherine,” J.R. said, sounding vicious. “If you stop, I will lessen my punishment.”

  “Punishment?” she cried in disbelief. “You think you can punish me anymore than you already have?”

  “Is that what this is about?” he asked, hobbling toward her, obviously still in pain from the gunshot wound I gave him a week ago. “Yes, I see the ring on your finger. You are obviously still pouting.”

  “Pouting? You killed my fiancé!”

  J.R. released an exasperated sigh. “He was the victim of an unfortunate robbery gone wrong, Katherine. I understand your need to lay blame, but this is unnecessary and pointless.”

  “And my baby?” she asked. “How do you explain that away, Daddy?”

  Her baby? I blinked. Surely I’d heard her wrong.

  J.R. bristled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You knew I was pregnant when I went away. You had someone watching me.”

  “You shared no such thing with your mother or me.”

  “I didn’t have to,” she countered. “You had access to my medical records. You had people watching me. Admit that you knew.”

  “Katherine,” he groaned. “I really—”

  She shot the ground at his feet, then screamed hysterically, “Admit it!”

  A flicker of panic filled his eyes before his mask slipped back into place. “If it makes you feel better,” he said, lifting his hands, “I knew.”

  Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “Why? You took Nick from me. Why wasn’t it enough to take him? Why did you have to steal my baby, too?”

  “Katherine, I didn’t—”

  “Liar!” she shouted at the top of her voice. Then she stomped over to Hilary and grabbed her by the hair, aiming her gun at Hilary’s abdomen. “Admit it.”

  I gasped in panic as I watched the scene unfold before me.

  Joe rushed forward, terror on his face, but Kate’s face hardened and he came to a stop about ten feet from them. Skeeter was still standing in the back, his hands bound behind him.

  “Kate,” Joe pleaded. “Stop! I know we’ve had our differences, but I’m begging you to stop. For me. That’s my baby, too.”

  Kate shook her head. “This isn’t your baby.”

  Joe’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Kate tightened her grip on Hilary’s hair. “One thing at a time. I want our father to confess to a few things first.”

  Joe shot a panicked look at his father.

  Kate held her father’s gaze. “I killed those two men to prove I mean business,” she said. “I will shoot her baby. You killed mine. You killed Joe’s other baby. I should take this one from you.”

  J.R. held up his hand. “Kate, just calm down.”

  “What are you talking about?” Joe demanded. “What do you mean he took my other baby?”

  He looked over at me, but Kate released a brittle laugh.

  “Not her, you idiot. Savannah.” She flicked him a glance. “You’ll get the details, but you’ll have to wait for them. I’m doing this my way.” She turned her attention to J.R. “You killed Nick,” Kate said in a more even tone. “When he refused to go away for a few hundred thousand dollars, you made sure he went away anyway. Forever. Admit it.”

  J.R. tensed. “He was unsuitable for you.”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “You made that perfectly clear after I told you that we were engaged. But I want you to acknowledge that you made sure he went away.”

  “Kate,” J.R. growled.

  Kate jerked Hilary’s hair, making the redhead cry out in pain, and placed the gun directly on Hilary’s stomach this time. “I will kill her baby, and then I will kill James Malcolm, then Rose, then Joe if I have to. I will kill them all until you admit the truth.” She gave him a sinister grin. “And I know how much you planned to make Rose and James Malcolm pay for what they did. I will steal that pleasure from you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  Good to know she had my best interests in mind.

  “What do you want me to say, Katherine?” J.R. asked, exasperated. “That I had that man killed?”

  “That man had a name. His name was Nick. He loved me for me, not because I was a Simmons. He loved me in spite of it. You will call him by his name.”

  Joe’s gaze shifted to me, and the misery in his eyes was nearly my undoing. He was thinking of us. Of how I had fallen in love with Joe McAllister before learning that his last name was really Simmons. His father had destroyed everything he had ever loved, so he’d been desperate to keep me away from his family.

  “Fine, I had him killed,” J.R. said, waving his hand dismissively. “I did it for your own good.”

  Joe took a step back, stunned.

  “And my baby?” Kate asked evenly, as though he’d just read back her fast food order.

  He shook his head. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “I was in a car accident,” she said, her anger rising. “Broadsided by a shiny black sedan. I was conscious until the driver came over to check on me. Then I woke up in the hospital, and they told me that my baby was gone.”

  “How far along were you?” I asked quietly. I was no fan of Hilary’s, but I wasn’t about to let Kate kill an innocent baby. I needed to distract her from her plan.

  “Exactly as far along as Hilmonster is,” she said, looking at me. “I told you I’ve been waiting two years for this. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “The fact that I’m here makes it my business.”

  “Shut up!” she shouted. “I’m talking to my father!” She turned her glare back to him. “You hired that man to hit my car. You had my baby killed. Admit it.”

  “I swear to God I didn’t hire anyone to kill your baby, Kate.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  Kate was coming undone, and I was terrified of what she might do. “What about Savannah?” I asked J.R. “Will you admit to having her killed?”

  “What are you talking about?” Joe asked.

  J.R. shot me a look of annoyance. “What does it matter to you?”

  “You destroyed Joe, but wasn’t that the point? To keep him in line?” I asked. “To force him back into his box, so he’d finally accept his fate as the heir to your legacy?”

  “She was an inconvenience.”

  “So you had her killed. You hired Michael Cartwright to kill her. You had the scene set up, making sure she was barely alive when Joe got there.”

  “What?” Joe demanded.

  “It’s true,” Skeeter said from the back of the room. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his shirt and lower face were drenched in blood. “Your father couldn’t let Savannah have your baby, so he had her killed to teach you a lesson.”

  Joe looked at Skeeter with pure hatred. “Did you set it up?”

  Skeeter arched a brow, and Joe released an ugly laugh.

  “I’ve been doin’ my homework,” Joe said. “I wanted to know why my father was so desperate to see you dead. I know you worked for him. I’ve put it all together. I remembered seeing you in our house when I was a kid. You were one of his elusive Twelve.”

  “I haven’t worked for your father for five years, but once I figured out he was makin’ a play for me, I started asking
questions. Your father is behind Savannah Deveraux’s death. And behind movin’ her brother here, too.”

  Joe showed no emotion whatsoever as he turned to face his father. “Is it true?”

  J.R. gave him a stern look. “Sometimes we are forced to do the right thing, no matter how difficult the task seems.”

  Joe’s face turned red. “Killing Savannah and my baby was doing the right thing?”

  “She was the wrong woman for you. The bastard would have scandalized your political aspirations—not to mention you would have felt obligated to marry her. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “So you had them killed?” Joe’s gaze swung to me. “And you knew?”

  “I just found out,” I said. “Last week.”

  “From my father?”

  I barely shook my head. “No, from James Malcolm.”

  “Oh, yes,” Joe sneered. “Skeeter Malcolm. You two are such good friends now.” He turned his contempt toward Skeeter. “You got tired of strippers, so you moved on to my old girlfriend?” he snorted. “And the D.A.’s girlfriend, too. Quite the coup for a piece of Fenton County white trash. Was this a big F-you to Fenton County law enforcement?”

  “Joe!” I shouted. “What are you doin’?”

  Joe’s chest rose and fell, but he didn’t argue.

  “Skeeter Malcolm is not your enemy. Your father killed Savannah. He killed Kate’s fiancé. Your beef is with him. Not Skeeter.”

  But my intervention only encouraged Joe to redirect his anger to me. “Did you break up with Mason so you could move on with Skeeter?”

  I gaped at him.

  “You’re the Lady in Black. There’s no way Skeeter Malcolm would work with a woman he’s not sleepin’ with.”

  A low growl rumbled in Skeeter’s chest. “Shut your mouth, Joe Simmons. I’ve never laid a hand on her.”

  J.R. laughed. “But you want to. James Malcolm finally loves a woman, and the irony is he can’t have her. It’ll only make it that much more bittersweet when you watch me kill her.”

  That seemed to knock some sense into Joe. He shook his head. “Nobody’s killing anyone.”

  “Wrong,” Kate said. “So wrong.” She released a sigh. “But the best part of tonight isn’t here yet.”

  “She’s not comin’,” I said, my stomach twisting into knots. “Just leave her out of this.”

  “Who?” Joe asked.

  Kate smiled. “Neely Kate—and I’d tell you why, but that would ruin the surprise.”

  “I’m damn fed up with surprises,” Joe said.

  “That’s too bad,” my best friend called out from the dark. “This is the best surprise of all.”

  Chapter 33

  “Neely Kate!” I shouted. “Go! Get out of here.”

  “Can’t,” she called out, her voice echoing off the metal equipment as she lingered in the shadows. “I’m just as much a part of this as you are.”

  The look on Skeeter’s face told me he knew she’d been waiting out there, which meant Jed was probably on the premises, too.

  Joe’s gaze shot from me to Kate and then to his father. “Why is Neely Kate part of this?”

  “I have a story,” Kate said in a singsong voice. “A true story from twenty-five years ago.”

  “The factory fire?” Joe asked.

  “That’s part of it,” Kate said.

  She released Hilary’s hair, giving her a shove for good measure, and returned to her perch on the desk. She scanned the dark factory as she talked, continuing to shoot glances at her captive audience.

  “Once upon a time,” she began, “there was a king who ruled his own kingdom—and what a kingdom it was. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, as most kings do. So he promised the lowly king of another kingdom an abundance of riches if he abdicated and became a loyal subject. The king of Fenton County—Allen Steyer—reluctantly agreed. The new king set up shop in a nearly bankrupt manufacturing plant and then manipulated and bribed his way into more riches. But when things began to go wrong, the king used the men at his disposal to threaten the owner and the bookkeeper. While the manufacturing plant owner was easily controlled, the bookkeeper was harder to keep in line.” Kate gave me a wistful smile. “Like mother like daughter, they say.” She gave a little shrug. “The bookkeeper kept several detailed journals filled with evidence of the king’s wrongdoing, and word got back to the king that she had enough evidence to bring him down. He told the deposed king—now one of twelve knights at his twisted roundtable—to get the evidence . . . or else.” She tilted her head to the side. “In the meantime, the king liked to visit his new land, especially since a pretty young peasant girl had caught his eye. The king had the knight set up a place for the king and his concubine to shack up. You see . . .” she drawled, “the king has a thing for teenagers.” She winked at her father and then turned to Hilary. “But you know that from firsthand experience.”

  Hilary’s face turned white. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t be so coy, Hil,” Kate teased. “I saw you years ago.”

  Joe shook his head slightly, his eyes wide. “Saw her doing what?” he asked, fear edging his voice.

  Kate pointed at him with her free hand and gave him a wicked grin. “Exactly where your mind just went.”

  “You slept with my father?”

  The terrified woman I’d seen at Jonah’s church this morning was back. Tears filled her eyes. “I . . .”

  “Joseph, enough,” his father barked. “This entire conversation—let alone situation—is preposterous.”

  “We’ll circle back to that in a bit,” Kate said, making a circular motion with her finger. “First we need to finish this story.” She turned to look at Joe. “Who knew one little decision—trying to take over a manufacturing plant—could produce so many ripples?”

  “How is Neely Kate part of this?” Joe asked, his voice strained.

  Kate tsked. “So impatient.” Then she shifted on the desk. “The king was very fond of his latest pet. He visited her often. But the pet was careless in many ways. For one thing, she was quite a nosy girl. The king had her holed up in his apartment when the knight came to bring bad news. Try as the knight might, the bookkeeper could not be swayed to hand over her evidence. The king had been having a very bad day, and while the poor girl had already taken the brunt of his frustration with both his fists and his favorite appendage, he lost his temper at the news. The king shot the knight, leaving him to die on the wool rug.”

  J.R.’s face had turned a pale crimson, and he looked desperate enough to physically make his daughter stop.

  “The girl wisely kept her mouth shut, especially since she had recently discovered she was pregnant.”

  J.R.’s mouth parted, and Joe gave his head a tiny shake, blurting out, “What?”

  “The peasant girl was terrified, so she stole the gun and ran away, never letting the king know about her baby. Seven months later, she gave birth to a baby girl.” A mocking grin spread across Kate’s face as she tilted her head toward Joe. “Surprise. We have a half-sister. But even more importantly—” she pointed the gun at J.R., “—we have the gun our father used to kill Allen Steyer twenty-five years ago.”

  “That is enough, Kate,” J.R. barked, slowly losing his cool. “We are Simmonses. Simmonses stick together.”

  “Then Neely Kate needs to come out here and join us.”

  “Why?” Joe asked, but the realization grew in his eyes.

  Neely Kate walked out of the darkness close to the windows, her eyes steely. “I’m not a Simmons.”

  “I’m sure your DNA says differently,” Kate drawled. “Your mother was smart to leave. She knew our father would have killed her when he found out about the baby. No loose ends.”

  J.R. looked like he was close to blowing his stack. “I’ve heard enough, Katherine. You are done.”

  “I’m the one with the gun,” she said waving it in his direction. “I’m the one who says when I’m done. You can’t control me anymore.”
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  I took a step back, bumping into a candle-covered desk.

  J.R. released a low growl. “So what’s your purpose with this little show? Are you trying to embarrass me? Because you’re currently the embarrassment.”

  “Embarrass you?” she spat out. “And don’t you pretend to care about me. I was nothing to you! If anything, you were so smitten with Hilary you hardly paid any attention to me. Even when we were kids.”

  “He wasn’t smitten with me,” Hilary said, looking at J.R. with tears in her eyes. “He raped me in the name of teaching me how to hold on to Joe.”

  The horror of it all stole my breath. I had known for some time that J.R. Simmons was an evil person, but this . . .

  “My God,” Joe said in an agonized voice. “Is that true?”

  His father wisely kept his mouth shut.

  Hilary started to cry. “I was seventeen. We were juniors. You were supposed to be in love with me, but you kept screwing other girls. He said if I learned how to please you, you’d stay with me.”

  Joe put a hand on his stomach, looking like he was going to vomit.

  “He told me once you settled down with me, he’d leave me alone. But Roberta saw me coming out of his office that first night . . .” She wiped her face. “I went home and locked myself in my room, planning to run away Monday morning when everyone thought I was at school. It would have given me an eight-hour head start.” She started to sob. “But then you came over, and you had that note from your father . . . J.R. said if I didn’t cooperate, he’d accuse Roberta of stealing from the family. He threatened to have her arrested.” She shook her head. “I loved her, Joe. I couldn’t let him do that.”

  “Oh, God,” Joe forced out. “We had sex that day. I thought you were a virgin . . .”

  Hilary began to sob. “I was desperate to make J.R. stop. I thought he’d stop if I had sex with you. But he didn’t. He didn’t stop until much later.”

  Joe’s chest rose and fell rapidly. His gaze lowered to her rounded abdomen. “Is it . . . ?”

  “It’s yours,” she said. “I swear it. He told me I had to make you marry me. It was his idea for me to get pregnant, but he insisted the baby had to be yours.”