Ending Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 3)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “That’s insane.”

  “No, it’s fair. Alana and Jessica made millions on the backs of murdering the Parkers. Besides, it’s what Kit wants—what we all want.”

  Unbelievably moved, Trevor managed to croak out, “Noah has a daughter who lives on a farm in Northern California. She has a fifteen-year-old son. He could certainly use money for university.”

  Reese made it official. “Then I’ll draw up the papers, transfer the money to her and the boy as soon as we can make the arrangements.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Jake spoke up. “Say you were right when you figured out that Kit is nothing like the murdering bitch of a monster that beat the crap out of her growing up on a regular basis.”

  “I had no idea Alana wasn’t her mother. Somehow that nugget got past me. Although I do know Jessica, the lawyer, had a nice little side business selling kids to people who were desperate to adopt. It’s in the file I sent you.”

  “I read it. By any chance is there anything you know you didn’t send us, something that would indicate Lisa Redfield and Ella Canyon, Quinn’s mother, are one and the same person?”

  “Lisa Redfield? The woman who painted Woman Rising? That Lisa Redfield?”

  A stunned Quinn asked, “Lisa Redfield painted Woman Rising? That’s…that would mean…it can’t be? You must be wrong.”

  “The woman in the painting is my wife. When exactly Nelia posed for it, I haven’t any idea. But it is her. After I took it from the Book & Bean, I got curious. The signature of the artist wasn’t visible so I removed some of the paint covering up that area. Whoever painted over it used acrylic paint while the painting itself was done in oils. Even though I know nothing about art, the clumsy attempt to mask the artist was poor at best but effective.”

  “Ella didn’t paint Woman Rising?”

  “She did not. After chipping off a layer of acrylic, I discovered the artist’s name scrawled underneath. Someone named Lisa Redfield signed the painting.”

  Quinn sat down on the bed. “Are you certain?”

  “Which part? That the woman in the painting is my wife? Yes. That someone did a very poor job of covering up the artist’s signature? Yes to that as well.”

  Quinn stared up at Reese. “Then that means it is possible Nick Tyler might be telling us the truth.”

  “It’s more than a possibility. Nick Tyler admitted this morning Lisa went to Ireland to have her baby, which is Quinn, we think. We’re getting another DNA test done. But let’s say this Lisa liked to paint. Pregnant and bored, she decides to do a few canvases while she’s there. Is it possible your wife was one of the people she could’ve met?”

  “Depends. Do you know where in Ireland exactly? That day at the shop, I questioned Kit; Kit said to ask Quinn.”

  But Quinn shook her head. “I was never curious enough to ask much about it.” She saw the skeptical faces around the room and said, “Look, every time I tried to find out more, I hit a brick wall. Ella gave me the same spiel and I let it drop especially, when Tyler never bothered to get in touch. At one time I even considered the possibility that the entire story of Ella getting together with Nick might’ve been just another made-up lie.”

  But Reese had no intentions of letting the conversation die down. “Tyler owns a farm near Dublin. After what he told us this morning, I looked it up on the Internet. It’s near a place called Ballybrack. So Lisa probably stayed somewhere nearby.”

  “In County Dǔn Laoghaire?” Trevor blanched. He thought back to that time of his life, realized there were many instances he’d spent on the road for the cause. In those days the IRA had come first, not his wife, nor his child. “My wife…we lived…that’s less than twenty miles from where I lived with my family.”

  He’d been so stupid back then to waste precious time away from the people he loved.

  He stared at Quinn, recognized her despair. “There’s something else. Kit mentioned Ella Canyon was at one time a renowned artist but I couldn’t find a single other example of her work. I don’t think she ever painted.”

  Quinn blinked. “I knew it. Something inside me has always known she was lying. If Lisa Redfield existed and painted Woman Rising then where does Ella Canyon fit into all of this? Ella’s always run fast and loose with the truth but…”

  “This Ella, this is the woman you think is your mother?” Trevor wanted to know.

  “I’m beginning to have my doubts,” Quinn decided.

  “So am I,” Reese muttered.

  But Jake had his own point to make. “And Connor didn’t kill Claire. Although I appreciate you pointing me in that direction, DNA’s close but no match, something called familial DNA makes the killer a brother or a cousin.”

  Trevor cocked a brow. “They’re sure? Cade then,” he muttered. “Somehow you need to get his DNA for comparison.”

  “That’s what we’re thinking,” Reese stated. “Plus, we think he’s good for all the women missing from the escort service.”

  “Now that I am one-hundred percent sure about because the women went missing after making a service call to Cade, every single one of them. And he more than likely had help in that regard. But I don’t think it was Collin because when a few of the women went missing he was on an extended vacation in Cancun.”

  Reese smiled. “Then we’re of a like mind there, too.”

  Downstairs, Quinn couldn’t wait to tell Baylee and Kit about the confrontation with Nick Tyler and relay what she’d found out about Lisa Redfield.

  She found them in the kitchen with Gloria making a yummy chicken and cheese casserole for dinner. But before she got into the scene at Reese’s office, she wanted to know one thing. “Did any of you know about Reese’s plan to bring Nick Tyler over here?”

  Kit turned completely around from the counter. Her jaw dropped. “No way. Without letting you know?”

  “Wait a minute. Nick Tyler showed up at Reese’s office? What was Reese thinking?” Baylee gasped. “You saw Nick Tyler, talked to him?”

  Reese came into the kitchen about that time, went straight to the fridge for a beer. “I knew you were talking about me. My ears weren’t just burning, they were on fire. Come on, Quinn, be fair. Tell them how it turned out.”

  Quinn sighed and went over the entire story. After she’d finished, Kit and Baylee exchanged looks. It was Kit who said, “If Jessica was involved that means Alana was, and up to her eyeballs in it too. Both women probably tried to scam for more money, milk the situation for all they could get.”

  “Exactly,” Reese said raising his beer in a salute.

  Kit wrinkled her brow. “But how does this Lisa Redfield connect to Ella Canyon? Nick Tyler needs to provide more answers. We should invite him out here to stay with us, get him out of his hotel room and into a friendlier atmosphere, pry more info out of him, get him to talk.”

  Quinn resisted that notion. “He actually called me snotty and spoiled.”

  Baylee’s mouth gaped open. “He did not. That bastard!”

  Still stinging from the insult, Quinn hung on to her resentment. “So sure, go ahead and invite him. In fact, get Reese here to make the call since the two of them are so chummy, e-mailing back and forth behind my back like they were.”

  Coming into the kitchen, Jake shot Reese a glance and Quinn immediately picked up on the exchange. “You knew about this thing with Tyler and let him drag me there without a heads up, didn’t you?”

  Kit glared at Jake. “You knew and said nothing, let her walk in there unprepared. How could you do that?”

  Sheepish, Jake got out his own beer, twisted off the cap. “I told him it was a bad idea.”

  “He did,” Reese admitted. “And I tried to follow his advice by sending Tyler an e-mail to say don’t bother coming. Sue me because the guy didn’t listen. I think he cares for you, Quinn. It might be two decades late, but the man cares.”

  Quinn shook her head. “He comes to see me once in twenty years and you’re ready to hand out father of the ye
ar awards.”

  Reese gave her a withering look. “I’m not. But carrying around that chip for another twenty years will get you nowhere fast except another chunk of bitterness. You want to go through life like that, be my guest. Sooner or later, it will eat you alive.”

  “Screw you. What do you know about it anyway? Rock Star’s story doesn’t even make any sense about this Lisa person. Even if Trevor says she’s the artist who painted Woman Rising. What the hell does all that have to do with me?

  Kit held up a hand. “Wait, Ella didn’t paint Woman Rising? This Lisa Redfield did?”

  Reese explained Trevor’s discovery.

  “Then Lisa and Ella are not the same person,” Kit concluded. “No wonder Ella always resisted picking up a brush to show us her brushstrokes and techniques.” She turned to Baylee. “Remember that time when we were thirteen or so and tried to get her to help us with our art project? She went nuts.”

  “Sure. She liked to run her mouth about how she’d had all this talent once as an artist but never would actually show us?”

  Quinn eyed her friends. “So? Maybe she was another Georgia O’Keefe but the drugs affected her talent.”

  Baylee and Kit both gaped at her. It was Baylee who said, “You’re actually defending Ella Canyon. Wow!” She looked around the kitchen. “Where’s a calendar so I can circle this day in red?”

  Quinn blew out a breath. “Look, until Nick starts coming clean with a few more facts, I’m not ready to give him the benefit of the doubt yet. But I see all of you are.”

  Kit and Baylee traded knowing looks.

  Reese picked up on some kind of female vibe, some sort of friend code passing between them. Good, he thought, maybe the women could get her to see reason where he could not.

  It was Baylee who said, “You sound a lot like I did the first time Dylan mentioned he suspected Dad was hiding something about my mother. So believe me, I know exactly how you feel right about now.”

  “But Nick’s story doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We’re all aware of that. But neither does the fact that you and Ella lived a nomadic existence out in the Valley for the first years of your life. The money wasn’t trickling down to you two, not even enough to feed Ella’s habit. Why did the two of you fall off the radar for so long?”

  Dylan came into the kitchen, sensed tension, and immediately tried to lighten the mood. “Who knew we’d all have to make junior grade detectives to figure all this stuff out? When you think about it, it’s like a minefield, twisting and turning with all kinds of obstacles to keep us from learning the truth.”

  “An Alana and Jessica minefield,” Gloria repeated as she entered the fray. “How typical. But why aren’t you coming up with more in the financial records? I always thought following the money trail led to the truth.”

  “We’re making progress,” Jake added. “But Jessica and Sumner were no dummies. As fast as the illegal money streamed in, it went through several offshore accounts so the IRS wouldn’t find it. Like Dylan said, it’s a maze we have to follow to get to where the most money is.”

  Reese couldn’t get past one detail though. “My point is the ten grand a month wasn’t going to Quinn for at least seven or eight years, not until she got to Beverly Hills. The money was sent. I saw the bank records for the wire transfers.”

  “Simple.” Kit shrugged. “Jessica and Alana.”

  Then Baylee spoke up, “Look Quinn, I didn’t want to believe Dylan’s premise about what happened to my mother or Kit’s version of what she saw in that vision she had. But I eventually had to realize my father had lied to me—for years. If Jessica and Alana were involved in this in any way you can bet nothing about it was aboveboard. Just keep an open mind, okay?”

  “That’s what I told her,” Reese said. “Those two women more than likely put the screws to Jennetti, too.”

  Baylee watched Gloria putter around the kitchen, seemingly distracted and suddenly thought of something. “By any chance did you know Ella Canyon back then, Gloria?”

  As Gloria took the casserole out of the oven, she sighed. “I knew you would eventually get around to asking me about that timeframe. Yes, I knew the entire family before that—through Alana. I knew both women were thick as thieves, into all kinds of little schemes. You have to remember I’d been shipped off to Maine to live, locked up myself after Kit and Ben were taken away from me. I didn’t get involved in Alana’s affairs again until Kit turned twelve. By that time, all I knew was Quinn’s mother had a major drug problem. I used to worry quite a bit about Quinn in that environment. That’s why I let you girls sleep over at my house so often, insisted on it really.”

  With that, Gloria walked over and put her arms around Quinn. “But this one had such a good head on her shoulders, an old soul to be sure, wiser than most adults I’ve ever known. Once I realized Ella wasn’t much of an influence on her, I stopped worrying so much, even though to tell you the truth, that stepfather of hers gave me more than a few sleepless nights.”

  Kit and Baylee exchanged another long stare.

  And suddenly Reese realized something else. Quinn might not have unburdened her secret to her friends. But somehow Baylee and Kit knew or at least had suspected Ross had done more than slapped Quinn at fifteen to get her to move out.

  “He wasn’t her stepfather, not officially,” Reese stated. “Jennetti and Ella were never married.”

  Jake shook his head. “Where have I heard this before? Another set of layered lies.”

  “They were very good at it,” Dylan added.

  Reese turned then to gaze into Quinn’s dark, unsettling eyes. All his years of singlehood came crashing down around him. He couldn’t imagine sharing his life with any other woman. He wasn’t sure when it had happened. But damn it, he was in love with the prickly pear, Quinn Tyler.

  CHAPTER 21

  Running out the back door of the house, Quinn didn’t bother with a jacket or an umbrella even though the rain beat down in sheets.

  Her face hurt.

  Ten-year-old Quinn could still feel the stinging slap of a heavy hand from her stepfather. Though it had happened a good two hours earlier, she still felt angry and upset and wanted out of the house so bad she could taste it.

  Through bleary-eyed tears she made her way to the garage at the back of the house where she kept her bike. Even in the rain, she intended to get out of this house, get as far away as she could. She’d bike over to Baylee’s house, where Tanya would surely let her hang out in her kitchen for a few hours.

  But as she got closer to the garage, angry voices stopped her.

  She paused to listen before taking another step.

  Quinn’s attention was riveted to the irate vocal outcry up ahead, not because of the miserable cursing words but because of who was doing the cursing. They hadn’t yet spotted her. First lucky thing that had happened to her all day, she thought, as she scurried behind a tree trunk before they heard the rustle of leaves beneath her feet.

  She needn’t have bothered. The two adults were in a snit, which wasn’t that unusual. It had been Quinn’s experience that if adults weren’t irritated about something they’d find a reason to get there.

  Cautiously, Quinn peered around her hiding place, her favorite ancient oak.

  Alana Stevens stood no more than twenty feet away going toe to toe in an argument with Ross Jennetti, her stepfather.

  “You keep your damned mouth shut. You’re here to do exactly what you’re told. Don’t try to get around me either because I’ll nail you to the cross. I don’t like people who underestimate me.”

  “You just take care of your end of the deal and keep the money coming. You’re late with the money again and I’ll take it up with Jessica.”

  “Don’t you threaten me, you miserable piece of shit. I’ll see you in jail first.”

  At the mention of jail, Ross seemed to back down. “Okay, okay. Just calm down. Maybe I overreacted. After all, I know you’re good for the money. It’s just that I have
obligations too, bills to pay, responsibilities.”

  “Bullshit. You’re a goddamned snitch playing both sides. You know it and I know it. You cause me any more trouble and I’ll see to it that this sweet deal of yours comes to an end. You got that?”

  Ross meekly nodded. “I got it. You know you’re really hot when you’re upset.”

  “Don’t think you can get around me like that. I’m the one who got you this gig.” Alana pointed a finger at him then looked him up and down and started twirling her hair. “But I could use your dick right about now.”

  With that, she watched Alana grab Ross’s shirt and pull him into her for a kiss. She pulled him in the direction of the house, making Quinn very glad she was on her way out the door even if the rain were coming down in sheets.

  Getting soaking wet was infinitely better than staying anywhere near Ross and Alana.

  Quinn woke slowly, her brain on overload. The dreams about childhood had always been tough to keep at bay but now it seemed all this time off was making her crazy. She scrubbed a hand down her face and looked over at Reese, still sleeping handily beside her. She lifted his arm, which draped around her waist like a vise grip, and got up out of bed.

  Grabbing her borrowed robe, she crept down the hall and into Trevor’s room to check on him.

  She was surprised to find him awake and the grimace on his face said he was in pain. Quinn glanced around the room. “Finally managed to run off Gloria, did you?”

  “She went to bed about an hour ago. The woman needs to sleep. She gets to meet her son tomorrow.”

  “Today,” Quinn corrected. Instincts had her touching her hand to his forehead. “You still have fever.” She picked up a pair of latex gloves, filled a syringe with penicillin. To get his mind off the injection, she started talking. “Gloria is so excited I doubt she closes her eyes for five minutes. Kit’s like that too, must run in the family.”

  Trevor grunted. “What are you doing making rounds this time of night anyway? Shouldn’t you be cozied up to the barrister?”