In High Cotton: Neely Kate Mystery #2

by Denise Grover Swank

  “At your farm, you stupid bitch. But then, you know that already since you’re the one who took him.”

  “I didn’t take him. I swear. But I think I know who did.”

  “Who?” she asked, sounding suspicious.

  “My sister.”

  She snorted. “Now I know you’re lying. You don’t have a sister.”

  “I do,” I said, scooting backward. “She’s the one who was in Ardmore before Christmas last year askin’ around about me.”

  That caught her off guard, and she seemed less certain when she said, “You never had a sister.”

  “I just found out about her,” I said. “Her father had an affair with my mother. This is my half brother’s house. Surely you know about him,” I said. “You’re in his house.”

  She gave me a confused look.

  “How’d you know to come to Joe’s house, Stella?”

  “Branson.”

  Had Branson found out that Joe was my brother and not told Stella? Why had he brought her to Fenton County in the first place?

  “I want the money,” she said. “Where is it?”

  The money. Of course. Stella knew about the money, which made her a loose end as far as Branson was concerned. Had he hoped to pay her off? “Jed has it,” I said, “but Kate has Branson. Which one do you want?”

  “I’m a greedy girl. I want both. How do we contact your sister?”

  Introducing Stella to Kate would be like tossing gasoline onto a bonfire, but that could work in my favor. “Her number’s on my phone.”

  Stella tossed the phone toward me and it hit the floor, skidding several feet away. “Call her but put it on speaker.”

  I leaned over and picked up the phone, grateful it hadn’t broken. I unlocked the screen and pulled up Kate’s number, with Stella close enough to watch what I was doing.

  “Let me see the name,” she said.

  I held up the phone, and she laughed when she saw Kate’s name. “No love lost there, huh?” She gestured toward me. “Make the call.”

  I pressed send, my heart in my stomach when the phone started to ring.

  “Sister dearest,” Kate answered with a smug tone. She sounded wide awake for it being in the middle of the night. “Which of the many reasons I’ve given you finally inspired you to call me?”

  Many reasons? That didn’t sound good. “I’m callin’ for a reason you probably didn’t expect. I have Branson’s girlfriend here, and she wants to see him.”

  Kate began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Stella asked.

  If Stella found out that Kate had castrated Branson, she would likely pull the trigger on that big gun that was still pointed at me. And I couldn’t help thinking that would ruin Kate’s big plans. “Kate, Stella is holding me at gunpoint and she’s a bit touchy about wanting her man back.”

  “She may not want him back after she sees him.”

  “What’s that mean?” Stella asked, getting pissed.

  “It’s a surprise,” Kate said. “You’ll find out soon enough. And I must say I’m disappointed you haven’t discovered it already, Neely Kate. I left it special for you.”

  Bile rose in the back of my throat as I dropped my gaze to the phone. “I found it.”

  Kate laughed again.

  “Enough!” Stella shouted, then kicked me, only I was ready for her this time. Just as her foot was about to connect with my ribs, I grabbed her ankle and rolled to my side, bringing her down to the floor.

  The gun went off and I prayed I hadn’t gotten shot, but plaster rained down on my head. She’d shot the ceiling.

  Stella was on her back, looking startled, but she was still holding the gun. She quickly sat up and pointed it at me again, her eyes full of rage.

  “Neely Kate!” my sister shouted from my phone that was on the floor again. I was surprised to hear that she was slightly frantic.

  “I’m here,” I said, lying on my side. I’d landed right where she’d previously kicked me, fresh pain shooting through my ribs. I still had my gun at my back, but fat lot of good it did me right now.

  “Get up!” Stella shouted as she got to her feet. “Get up, you stupid bitch!”

  “How about we make a trade?” Kate said in her negotiating tone, only her usual smugness was missing. “I’ll give you Branson and you give me my sister.”

  “How much is she worth to you?” Stella asked. “Is she worth a bag full of money?”

  Kate was silent for a moment. “I don’t have a bag full of money on me, but I can come up with one when the bank opens.”

  “Is that where the money is?” Stella asked in a hateful tone. “In the bank?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I’d just told her that Jed had the money, but maybe she thought I was lying. “She wants a specific bag of money,” I called out to Kate.

  “Money’s money, right?” Kate asked. “Bring me my sister, and I’ll get you your money and throw in this worthless scumbag as a bonus.”

  Stella seemed to think about it. “How much money?”

  “How much money, Neely Kate?” my sister asked.

  I considered lying, but Stella likely knew how much there was, and this would be a test to see how much Kate wanted me. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “Done,” Kate said. “But the offer’s only good for fifteen minutes. Come to Rose’s farmhouse.” Then she hung up.

  I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or nervous that Kate was willing and eager to pay ten thousand dollars for me.

  “We need to take your car,” I said to Stella. “Where is it?”

  She gave me a sardonic grin. “How about we take that sheriff’s car? We can turn on the lights. I always wanted to do that.” Her hand started twitching and she cast her gaze to the door as though she was losing interest in our conversation.

  “Even if I knew where the keys to the sheriff’s patrol car were, there’s no way in Hades I’d drive that thing. Kate would likely shoot us on sight.”

  “Then you better get an extension because we ain’t got a car.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “Then how’d you get out here?”

  “My car broke down, so I got an Uber. A tall, skinny guy picked me up in a station wagon and dropped me off.”

  Officer Ernie? He’d recently started driving for Uber, and he fit the description of the driver. He was incompetent as a police officer, and it sounded like his lack of common sense had transferred to this job too. He had to know this was Joe’s house. “Then we’re gonna have to walk,” I said. “It’s a five-minute stroll through the field, but we’ll need to bring a flashlight. There’s too much cloud cover to see where we’re going.”

  Stella narrowed her eyes. “I ain’t hikin’ through no field.”

  That was actually a good thing. The longer we stayed at Joe’s house, the better chance I had of Jed getting here and stopping Stella.

  But Stella must have figured that out too. “Or we can wait for your boyfriend to show up. Then I can shoot him, and we can take his car.”

  Panic swamped my head. “He won’t be here in time for us to get to Kate, and then you’ll be out your money and Branson. We need to walk.”

  “Why’re you so eager to help me get the money and Branson?” she asked in an incredulous tone.

  “Because the sooner you get them both, the sooner you get out of my life.”

  A huge grin spread across her face, showing the gaps in her rotten teeth. Stella had plans for getting me out of my life all right… or more specifically, she had plans for me to leave hers eternally.

  I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Time to put this in motion. When I got to my feet, she started to twitch. I was making her nervous. Five years ago, I never made her nervous, but I wasn’t the same woman she’d known before and she knew it, which made me a wild card. “We need to go, Stella. I’m only moving things along.”

  I started to put my phone in my pocket, but she waved the gun at me.

  �
�Uh-uh. Leave that here.”

  When I started to squat, she said, “Nope. Toss it down. It’s a piece of shit anyway.”

  While she had a point, I reluctantly let it drop to the hardwood floor. Jed was going to show up and I’d be gone. How could I leave him a clue where to find me?

  “Where’s a flashlight in this damn house?”

  “Under the sink,” I said, hoping she’d turn her back to get it, giving me a chance to escape, but she wasn’t high enough to make her that stupid.

  “Walk over there and get it. Slowly.”

  I had no choice but to do as she said. I also began to wonder why Joe hadn’t shown up. Had he figured out I was being held hostage and was biding his time to save me? Something deep in my gut told me Joe was close—at Rose’s farm. He’d been there about to leave, and now Kate was there. Had she snuck up on him, or was he spying on her?

  Stella followed me like a shadow, staying far enough out of reach to make me leery of jumping her. When I opened the cabinet door and squatted to get the flashlight, her gaze flicked inside the cabinet for a split second then back to me. “What’s that cord?”

  I gave it a quick glance. “A bungee cord.”

  “What’s he got a bungee cord in there for?”

  Why did she even care? But I needed to keep her talking. She’d always been more devious when she was silent. “Joe was remodeling his kitchen, and he had a cabinet that wouldn’t stay closed. He kept bangin’ his head on it, so he used the bungee cord to keep it closed until he fixed it.”

  “And you say he’s your brother?” A gleam filled her eyes, and I didn’t trust her one iota.

  “Half brother.”

  She waved the gun as though to dismiss the clarifier. “Get the cord too.”

  I didn’t feel good about this and suspected where this was going, and sure enough, when I got to my feet, she said, “Put your hands together and hold on to one end of the bungee cord.”

  “Stella,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “That isn’t necessary. You want Branson and the money. I want to see my sister.”

  She barked a short laugh. “Don’t even try to pull that shit over my head, Neely Kate. Her name on your phone is Evil Half Sister.”

  “So we’re off to a rocky start…”

  “I’ll say,” she grunted. “Put your hands together, palms touchin’, or I’ll shoot your foot and you’ll have a hell of a time walkin’ across a field on a bloody stump.”

  She was close enough to do serious damage, and cold enough to do it without remorse. I had no choice to do as she said, even if it burned in my gut.

  Moving closer, she picked up the end of the cord and started wrapping it around my wrists while leveling the gun at my stomach. It was a short cord, so it didn’t buy me much time to act while she was of distracted, but I knew Jed had to be closer than he’d been before and she wasn’t watching to ambush him.

  “You’re not the same,” she said as she stretched the cord tight and hooked it on the other loops, the metal hook digging into my skin and drawing blood. “You used to be meek and mild and—”

  “Controllable,” I finished, burning with anger.

  She laughed. “You’re still controllable. You just have more attitude now. Now, how do we get to this farm we’re going to?”

  The cord was so tight I could feel it cutting off circulation to my hands, but I suspected if I complained, Stella would only make it tighter.

  “Out back.” I nodded my head toward the back door in the kitchen.

  “Lead the way.” She gave me a hard shove.

  I stumbled, nearly falling on my face, but I kept on my feet until I reached the back door, then leaned my shoulder into it to regain my footing.

  “Don’t just stand there. Open the damn door.”

  I reached for the knob, and turned it, my palms slick with blood and sweat. When I got the door open, Stella gave me another shove. “Go on now.”

  I fell to my knees this time, the wood of the small porch breaking my fall. The jarring made my teeth crack.

  She kicked me in the middle of my back, sending me tumbling down the two wooden steps to the muddy yard. My shoulder landed in a puddle. It had started to rain again, and raindrops hit my cheek as I looked up into the sky, assessing my damage. While I hurt all over, my jeans had protected my legs, and my arms seemed fine except for an ache on my right bicep. My right shoulder had taken the brunt of it, but I was sure it wasn’t broken.

  Stella stood over me, her gun pointed in my face, and the light from the still-open kitchen door illuminated the hate in her eyes. “Not so high and mighty now, are ya?”

  “High and mighty?” I choked out, my anger consuming me. “It’s hard to be high and mighty when you’re on your back, lettin’ man after man screw you.”

  Arrogance filled her eyes and she pulled her shoulders back. “Then you weren’t doin’ it right. Now get up.”

  I tried to sit up, but my bound hands made it awkward.

  Stella kicked my bruised shoulder, making me cry out in pain as I fell flat on my back, the back of my head sinking slightly into a soft patch of ground.

  She stood over me again, her feet straddling my sides. I could have tried to knock her off balance, but the gun pointed at my chest stopped me.

  “Look at you and your new life—livin’ in high cotton. You done forgot about your friends.”

  “Friends?” I spat out. “You were no friend. You sat back and let Branson sell me to man after man. You became my jailer too.”

  She laughed. “Let him? Honey, it was my idea.”

  I gasped, and joy and satisfaction filled her eyes. “No one gives me enough credit, but I made a bundle off you. Seventy-thirty cut. I only got thirty, but Branson was doin’ the hard part of dealin’ with you.”

  The woman standing over me was pure evil, so I wasn’t sure why I was surprised at her admission, yet I was.

  She was loving every second of it.

  “Now get up,” she sneered, swinging her leg over me and backing up. “The clock’s tickin’.”

  I rolled to my side and pushed up on my bound hands and knees, then to my feet.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  “We have to walk closer to the road. There’s a path through the fields over there.”

  “If this is some kind of trick, I won’t hesitate to shoot you in the back, Neely Kate. Just like you stabbed me in mine.”

  I could have challenged that statement, but I didn’t want to antagonize her any more than I already had. Instead, I headed toward the front of the house.

  “Uh-uh,” she grunted. “You said through the fields, so we’ll stick close to them.”

  Reluctantly, I headed toward the edge of the hayfield, thirty feet behind Joe’s house.

  “How far away is the path?” she asked behind me, shining the flashlight beam at my feet.

  “A couple hundred feet.” I stepped into a divot in the ground and stumbled. “Can you shine that where I’m walkin’?”

  “If you know this property so well, then you don’t need it, do you?”

  We walked in silence and I could see the path up ahead, across from the pen that held the farmer’s fainting goats. As we grew closer to the path, I heard a car engine coming down the lane, the barest gleam of headlights in the distance.

  Jed.

  But Stella heard it too and gave me a hard shove in the back. “Where’s that path?”

  “Up ahead.”

  “Let me make this clear. You won’t be standin’ here to greet your man when he drives by, whether it be because you’re dead or we’re walkin’ on that path. Now which is it gonna be?”

  I started to answer, but she shoved me again, turning off her flashlight as she pushed me down to the ground next to the field, flat on my stomach. Then she dropped down and lay down next to me with the gun digging into my waist.

  “You better hope he doesn’t see us.”

  The car grew closer, the headlight beams brighter now. I held
my breath as they hit the road next to us, and I wasn’t sure what to pray for—Jed seeing me or not.

  But his car drove right on past and as he was approaching the house, Stella got to her feet, and dragged me up too. “Let’s go.”

  The path was a good twenty feet away, but she could see the opening now and prodded me along. Once we were down the path a ways, she flipped her flashlight back on.

  “Lead the way,” she said.

  The rain had made the hard-packed earth slick and muddy, slowing us down. We walked in silence for several long seconds, then it hit me that sound traveled out here. Jed might hear us talking, or at least enough snatches of conversation to investigate.

  “What do you plan to do with the money?” I asked.

  “What do you care?” she snorted.

  I stumbled again, falling to my knees, which sank into mud.

  She shoved the gun barrel into my back. “Get up.”

  When I didn’t immediately respond, she said, “You know I don’t necessarily need you anymore. I’m on the path. I have a flashlight to get there. I could shoot you now and have one less pain in the ass to deal with.”

  I had no doubt that she would. “Don’t forget that Kate wants me alive. I suspect she won’t give you any money if I’m dead.”

  “What’s she want you so bad for?” Stella asked, jerking me to my feet. Then she added with plenty of spite, “Why does everyone in the goddamned world want you?”

  I didn’t know any good way to answer that, so I said nothing as I started walking, hoping to end this trek, but dreading what was to come.

  Chapter 27

  The house was dark when we broke through the field, but I could see the edge of Joe’s car by the front porch.

  “Now what?” Stella mumbled, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to me. But she gave me another hard shove, dropping me to my knees for the umpteenth time. My knees were so bruised the ache was shooting down my shins, but it was my hands that hurt the worst. The circulation had been severely limited and they throbbed.

  “Get up!” she shouted.

  Apparently Stella didn’t believe in stealthy entrances to showdowns.

  “I’d thank you for bein’ a bit gentler with my sister,” Kate called out into the darkness.