Just Evil

by Vickie McKeehan

  Taken aback at Quinn’s revelation, Jake stared at the two women,. Here they were, three beautiful women who’d grown up in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world, and yet, they’d had monsters for parents. His heart went out to all three of them. He was considering their abusive childhoods when Baylee pointed out, “I guess it isn’t practical to bring up all those times the three of us wished Alana dead, now is it? If you don’t mind, that’s something I’ll leave out of my statement when the time comes.”

  Quinn nods in agreement. “Okay. I’ll concede that we did wish that—a lot, but we were kids, Baylee. Surely, this St. John can differentiate between murderous adult and a kid’s childish thinking.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Jake said flatly. As if he were reluctant to bring it up, the question kept nagging at him and wouldn’t go away. He had to get it out. “Did either one of you know Alana was in to…” he’d almost said porn, but decided to take a more tempered approach. “…adult parties? How exposed was Kit to that type of environment? Did any of Alana’s friends ever get…did they ever take notice of a little girl kept in a closet or back bedroom?”

  Baylee went white, before her demeanor changed to hot, red fury. “What are you really asking? You’re asking if Alana’s friends took pity on the little girl and offered to help her out. They didn’t. Or you’re asking if she was molested by one of them? She wasn’t, thank God.” And then as if something had just occurred to her, she turned her temper toward Quinn. “She wasn’t, was she? Did she ever say anything like that to you? That wasn’t something she discussed in group. Did she talk to you about it? She would have said something to me, wouldn’t she? She’d have told me about it, right?”

  Quinn reached out for Baylee’s hand. “She never said anything like that to me. There was that one time in group when she mentioned venturing out of her room to see what the noises were coming from Alana’s bedroom were. She was about eleven, I think, and she followed the music, saw the adults doing the down and dirty, and went back to her room, shut the door, stayed there, and as far as I know never made that mistake again. Being in that type of environment was one of the reasons she waited so long to…” She shot Jake a scornful look. When Baylee tried to stop her from going any further, she shook off Baylee’s arm and said, “No, he should know. The way she grew up was only one reason Kit waited so long to lose her virginity; the other reason was that she was crazy about a guy who never gave her the time of day.”

  “I can’t change the past, Quinn. But I’m here now. And I’m damned sure not going anywhere.”

  But Quinn’s temper spiked again. With little sleep, that long shift caught up with her. She turned on Jake. “Is that what you’re after here, the dirt of it all, the dirty little things that the press, if they find out, will have a field day? Well, if that’s what you’re looking for, you can go straight to hell.”

  He stepped closer to Quinn, kept his voice level. “Calm down. I’m after the truth and whatever helps Kit get through this. My goal isn’t to hurt her, but rather to be prepared. I don’t want the police springing things on her, finding out some dirty little secret they’ll just use against her. It’s St. John’s way. I’m worried about Kit and what St. John can do to her, not the goddamned media.”

  Kit stirred and Jake closed the distance to the bed. Gingerly, he picked up her hand, touched her bruised face, and softened his voice. “Hey sleepyhead, you decide to finally come back to us? Baylee’s here to see you and so is Quinn. We’re all waiting for you to wake up and talk to us.”

  She opened her eyes, saw Jake, tried a weak smile, and then winced in obvious pain when she tried to turn her head. “Everything hurts. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

  “No honey, just a big-assed SUV,” Quinn pointed out as she went into doctor mode, taking her pulse, adjusting the drip going in to her vein. “You’ve got an IV drip here for the pain. Just push this button and out comes the good stuff.”

  “No. No. It makes me sleepy.”

  “That’s the point, Einstein. You need the sleep to help your body recover.”

  She tried to sit up. “I need to check on Pepper.” When she didn’t quite make it upright, she weakly slid back down.

  “They’re keeping you until they’re sure that head of yours isn’t going to fall off.”

  “A car bumped into me, fast. I tried to get out of the way as best I could, but it hit the side of the car again and again. I saw…Collin sitting in the passenger seat.”

  Jake’s jaw tightened. “That son of a bitch.”

  Quinn’s fury exploded. “I knew that bastard would cross the line one day. They’re all rotten, every last one of them.”

  A little groggy from the IV drip that Quinn had increased, Kit fought the feeling, but reminded her through a fog, “There was a time you thought Cade was different.”

  “I made a mistake, okay. But didn’t I pay for it? I’ll never let Cade get the chance to hurt me again. And I’m not scared of those bastards just because they have money.”

  Jake wanted to get both women back on track, but curiosity had him leaning into Baylee, asking, “What are they talking about?”

  In a low voice, Baylee explained, “Over our objections, several years back Quinn and Cade went out.” She waited a beat, “They dated. During which time, Cade showed his true colors. I think it’s a Boyd family trait. Quinn wanted to end it. Cade had other ideas. Seems to me, the Boyd men have a little trouble understanding what the word no means.” And she could attest to that firsthand, couldn’t she?

  It sounded to Jake as if all three sons had a major problem with women. But he wanted to get them all back on topic, so in mid-chatter, he bent down to Kit, interrupting the flow of conversation, and asked, “What do you remember, Kit? What kind of car hit you?”

  Her words slurred, she spoke slowly, drawing each word out, “Silver. And big…like one of those Cadillac…things.”

  “An Escalade, you think it looked like that? Did you get a good look at the driver? Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

  The pounding in her head increased. She wanted to drift away, sleep. “He had blondish hair, sort of sandy brown, kind of spiky on top.” She made a weak attempt to sit up again. “If I had some paper I could sketch him.”

  Jake reached down and planted another kiss on one of her bruises that had her going down for the count. “Later. You’ll draw him later. That’s my good girl. Now go back to sleep.”

  Just then, the door opened and Gloria stepped inside the room carrying a small suitcase, which she set down by the door without coming completely into the room. Instead of saying anything to Kit, as if she hadn’t even noticed her, Gloria motioned for Jake to follow her outside. “I need to talk to you out in the hallway.” Only then did she ask, “Did Kit have a good night?”

  Upbeat now, Quinn replied, “She did. The bleeding’s stopped. But she needs to sleep, get as much rest as possible, and let her body recover.” Quinn noticed Gloria seemed upset, distracted even, and hadn’t yet spoken to Kit herself. Believing that Gloria’s behavior meant she’d brought bad news about Pepper, Quinn attempted to divert Kit’s attention with a steady stream of chatter about something inane, until she realized Kit had drifted back to sleep.

  Jake and Baylee followed Gloria out into the corridor. As soon as the door closed behind them, Gloria blurted out, “I stopped by Kit’s house this morning to pick up a few things I thought she might need, but when I went inside, the house had been turned upside down. Someone vandalized Kit’s house, tore through it like a cyclone. It’s a mess. It’ll need to be put back in order before she comes home from the hospital. She can’t walk into her house in that shape.”

  Baylee exchanged looks with Jake. “Just like at Alana’s.”

  “They moved to my office, and now Kit’s. Baylee, they’re looking for something they think Alana hid. Got any ideas?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “What about you, Gloria, got any ideas what they might be loo
king for?” As soon as he got the words out, Jake noted she’d gotten that befuddled look on her face she so often used when she was either nervous or was reluctant to own up to something. It was the same look she’d used when he’d quizzed her about Kit’s abuse that day in his office.

  Without looking at him directly, without answering, Gloria simply changed the subject. “They wouldn’t let me bring Morty in, so I had to leave him in the car.” She turned to go back into the room. “I need to check on Pepper. Kit will want to know how he is, don’t you think?” Without further comment, she calmly walked back into Kit’s room, leaving him and Baylee standing in the corridor wondering whether Gloria’s confusion could be attributed to the early stages of Alzheimer’s or had been rehearsed.

  They were all correct about Kit. When she woke up a couple of hours later, the first question out of her mouth was about Pepper. The vet had called to let Jake know the dog’s vital signs were holding steady. He’d suffered no ill effects from the anesthesia and was being fed intravenously. If the bleeding didn’t reoccur over the next twenty-four hours, he’d recover. He wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, but his condition was far better than anyone expected.

  Knowing her dog was on the mend made Kit feel better, even though her head hurt like she had her own personal jackhammer pounding away inside. And with her right shoulder in a sling every little movement was a struggle. But if Collin had been in the car that ran her and Pepper off the road, she wanted him to pay, which meant she had to do something about it even in her weakened state. She’d volunteered to sketch what the driver of the car had looked like. So with Gloria holding the paper and Baylee guiding her every motion, Kit began to sketch with her good left hand.

  While Kit drew, Jake headed downstairs to meet Dylan for breakfast in the hospital cafeteria. Quinn walked out with him, got on the elevator with him. “I’m sorry I blew up, but it wasn’t really at you. I don’t like to think that Kit’s in this mess because Alana knocked her around when she was a kid. Kit’s like family, my sister. I don’t expect you to understand, but I never knew my real father; I’m not close to my mother, and certainly not close to my stepfather. I won’t go into the details, but I do agree with Baylee that Kit had it far worse than either one of us. Alana was just…she was crazy, Jake. I think she might have been a sociopath, not right in the head. After listening to Kit in group, I gave Alana’s particulars to a psychiatrist friend of mine, got him to do a behavioral profile. He agreed with my amateur diagnosis. She was abusive, both verbally and physically. She locked Kit up, often. Treated her badly, and never seemed to show any remorse or guilt about any of it. Throw in the fact that she was often erratic, unpredictable, and narcissistic, and you have a bona fide sociopath. Whatever it takes to get this St. John off Kit’s back, I’ll say and do. Just tell me what you want to know, how I can help, and I’ll not only cooperate every step of the way, but I promise not to fight your efforts.”

  When the elevator doors dinged at the first floor, Quinn looked straight into Jake’s eyes and said, “And if you can get that son of a bitch Collin Boyd to hang for hurting her, I’ll be indebted to you for life.”

  Over runny eggs and stale coffee, Jake brought Dylan up to speed about what Kit had told them earlier.

  After listening, Dylan had one question. “So this Collin isn’t a former boyfriend?”

  “Remember when we sold our first major law firm here locally? Boyd Boyd Geller & Gatz? We worked on them for months before we finally got them to sign on the dotted line. When the deal was done, they asked us out to their compound in Malibu called The Enclave to that decadent party known as the Boyd Bash, over Memorial weekend. We went, we drank, we made nice. Remember how impressed Claire was, surrounded by dozens of Hollywood celebrities?”

  “Well, I’m glad you brought that up right about now, Jake. I can see how relevant that is to the topic at hand.”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, he told Dylan everything he knew about Collin, including the fixation he had for Kit, his hot temper, and how volatile he could be when he drank. Jake went over the ugly scene at Kit’s house. “Now you’ve got Alana dead, Jessica, and Eva Geller Gatz dead. You want to tell me there isn’t something that connects all of it? Half the founding partners of that law firm are gone, out of the picture for whatever reason.”

  Dylan suddenly understood. “Holy shit, the family has money, power, and more political influence in this state than you or I could possibly imagine. We have to be careful how we tread here, Jake. Are you sure you know this woman well enough to put everything on the line for her like this? And don’t go biting my head off. I’m just asking a simple question, trying to look out for you.”

  “I love her, Dylan.” Why did he have no reservations about telling Dylan but had such a hard time saying those three words to Kit?

  But hearing Jake use those three words, words he hadn’t even used about Claire, stopped Dylan flat. How was he supposed to argue with love? “Well, hell. When did this happen? You don’t think you could slow this thing down a little, take a step or two back just long enough to think it through?”

  He took another long look at Jake. A million questions formed in his head but looking at Jake’s face, he had his answer. “Of course you can’t. But there’s more at stake here. If you go after him for what he did to Kit, you better be prepared. You don’t take on a family like the Boyds without a serious battle plan. You can’t fight these people conventionally; they’re too powerful. You have to hit them where they hurt. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “What would you have me do, sit back and wait until he kills Kit the next time?”

  “Of course not, but there’s something else going on here other than Collin getting pissed off at Kit, isn’t there? Like who’s killing the partners off one by one and why? And what does all of it have to do with Kit’s mother? And what the hell are they looking for?”

  “Can we trust this guy where you dropped off the safe we found?”

  “He’s working on it now, and yeah, we can trust him. When he pops it open he’ll call. And don’t look at me like that.”

  He glanced at his watch. “The man’s only had it for about thirty minutes. I know you’re in a hurry, but stuff like this just takes time.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I read thrillers, mystery novels, watch my fair share of those forensic shows. It always works itself out with a little patience.”

  At that moment, his cell went off. Grinning, he moved his eyebrows up and down. “Burke here. Okay. What’d you find? That’s it? You’re kidding. Okay. I’ll be there in thirty to pick it up.”

  When he hung up, Jake waited. Patience was not a virtue at the moment. “Well?”

  “He got the safe open. There was $200,000 in hundred dollar bills, a .357 Magnum, a passport in the name of Alana Chambers, and Kit’s birth certificate.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Jake thought for a moment. “Why would these guys be interested in Kit’s birth certificate or a lousy two hundred grand? It has to be the gun they want.”

  “If, and I emphasize if, the safe is what they’re looking for at all. Looking for a gun doesn’t make much sense, unless maybe it was used in a crime of some sort. What do we do now?”

  “We call the cops and let them know Collin’s mixed up in this whole thing. When you pick up the safe, don’t let it out of your sight. And Dylan, call Reese, tell him I need Jordan Donovan to drop whatever he’s working on.”

  With only one good hand, it took Kit twice as long to do the sketch as it normally would have. But when she’d finished and Baylee held it up so that Jake and Dylan could take a look, they both did a double take and blurted out in unison, “Gerald Auslo.”

  “You know this guy?” Baylee asked.

  “One of the guys who ransacked my offices yesterday morning caught on the surveillance video. There’s already a warrant out for him, but it looks like we might have to bump up the charge
s to attempted murder.”

  “Now wait a minute, why in the world would this guy be driving the car that hit Kit and be hanging out with Collin Boyd in the same car?”

  “Good questions, and ones I intend to ask the cops.” He took out his cell phone. “But right now, I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave Kit alone. Even with a half dozen nurses around, I don’t want her left by herself for any reason.”

  When he noticed Kit had drifted off to sleep again, he turned to Baylee and offered, “If you need to take off, go home to be with Sarah, I’ll be here.”

  “If it’ll help, I can take a shift,” Dylan offered.

  Baylee smiled. “It makes more sense to take shifts. Go home, Jake, try to get some sleep, grab a hot shower, a change of clothes. I’ll stay here till you get back. That way, she won’t be left alone.”

  She turned to Dylan. “And we may take you up on that offer later, thanks.”

  As Jake stroked Kit’s hand, he hesitated. “I don’t like the idea of leaving her.”

  “You aren’t. She’ll sleep while you’re gone; she won’t even know you aren’t here.” Watching him hesitate, Baylee added, “I’m not going anywhere, Jake. Tanya has Sarah.”

  “Okay. But call me the minute she wakes up. I want to be here when the cops come.”

  CHAPTER 23

  A half a mile or so down the same stretch of beach where earlier that morning Connor had stumbled upon his father’s body, the three Boyd brothers sat on the deck of a luxuriously furnished beach house, once again knocking back Johnny Walker Blue.

  Shaken by the events of the morning, the brothers drank shot after shot. They’d buried their mother only days earlier. Now their father was dead—dead from a bullet wound to the head just like their mother, just like their aunt. But at the realization that someone was exterminating their family one by one, all three adult men were scared shitless, feeling like cornered prey, ready to lash out at the first thing that moved.