Ending Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 3)

by Vickie McKeehan

  Ella started shaking her head. “But Jess says no. No, we need the baby to keep going to the well.”

  For a brief time Ella was in her own drug-induced world, taken back to a time when Jess and Alana were forever arguing, Jessica making demands, Alana acting like the enforcer.

  Ella remembered the verbal war of words in detail.

  “Why is it you always react way too quickly to everything?” Jessica accused. “Getting rid of the baby is problematic.”

  “Too bad, she’s a squalling little brat, just like Kit.”

  “I told you motherhood wasn’t for you. But you wouldn’t listen. You just had to get back at Gloria for taking John away from you.”

  “She pissed me off. And so did John. But John certainly has made it up to me lately. He keeps me updated. I can’t imagine Gloria working as a maid. Can you imagine a maid of all things?”

  “It’s all those shock treatments they gave her. Look, could we focus here? You’re always getting off-track. The baby we need, the mother not so much.”

  “She’s a bitchy seventeen-year-old with a big mouth,” Alana offered. “But if we get rid of Lisa, what will we do with the brat? I’m not taking her. Kit’s enough of a handful. And I’m being magnanimous when I say she’s a spiteful little thing.”

  “I hate to say I told you so but… motherhood isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, now is it?”

  Alana ignored her friend, changed the focus yet again to Ella, who’d been sitting stoned on the sofa. She pointed a finger at the younger woman. “What about this one? Ella would be ideal. And she’d be easy to control. Look at her. She’s drugged out. Besides, she owes us.”

  “As much as I’d like to get rid of Lisa, do you think a druggie is really the way to go?”

  “Lisa is going to keep making trouble. If we don’t do something she might end up going to the cops. Then where would we be?”

  That got Jess’s attention. “Okay. But I want it done neat and tidy. I hate cleaning up your fuckups.”

  By the time Ella came back to them, she sat there dazed, spent.

  Jordan had one more question. “Ella, is Lisa Redfield alive?”

  The woman snorted. “Nobody takes a beating like that and survives. I was there. Alana beat the crap out of her. When she was done, Lisa wasn’t breathing.”

  Jordan turned to Reese. “That’s basically the same story she told Max.” He looked over at Ella and said to everyone, “I’m sorry, but I honestly think that’s about all we’ll get out of her today.”

  “We got more than I thought we would.” Reese turned to Quinn; saw the tears streaming down her face. He knelt down in front of her chair. “I’m sorry, honey. But Lisa Redfield was your mother, not this pitiful excuse of a person sitting here.”

  Quinn looked up at Nick. “I didn’t believe you. I didn’t think you remembered Ella, and now…”

  Nick picked up her hand. “It’s my fault. If I’d bothered coming to visit regularly like I should have done, I would’ve known what you were going through. I’m so very sorry, Quinn. I had no idea. I should have known something was up when Lisa didn’t show up with you that day at the farm. It wasn’t like her. She was a good person. I should’ve done something…”

  Max spoke up. “Look, I hate to interrupt. I know this is a painful discovery for all of you but with everyone here, there’s more I need to get out on the table. As you already know, about a week ago we found four sets of remains on the grounds of The Enclave.

  “With help from Donovan here, we’ve positively ID’d all of them, two through dental records.” Max turned to look at Baylee. “One is definitely Sarah Moreland, your mother. She was buried alongside a Luc Delaine, a man who went missing about the same time she did. His remains have been positively identified as well, through dental records.

  “The third body was that of a young female, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years old. Reese sent me over a sample of Quinn’s DNA. This morning the lab confirmed the body is…was Lisa Redfield, a seventeen-year-old Chumash Indian girl from the Santa Ynez, who went missing, according to her mother, around the same time she and a cousin by the name of Ella Canyon drove down to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara to speak to Lisa’s attorney, an attorney by the name of Jessica Boyd.”

  A sick feeling hit Quinn’s stomach. She sent a panicked look toward Nick Tyler. My God, this couldn’t be happening.

  Kit and Baylee went over to her and put their arms around her in a massive embrace. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  Reese filled in the rest. “Lisa Redfield’s family never saw her again after she left for that fateful trip to L.A. By this time Quinn was about thirteen months old, according to Lisa’s mother, who did not I might add, kick her daughter to the curb after she got pregnant. Sylvia Redfield wasn’t happy about her fifteen-year-old getting pregnant, but she did not kick her out. In fact, as your grandmother, Quinn, she’s very interested in meeting her granddaughter.”

  Quinn’s hand flew to her mouth as it gaped open. She swallowed hard. “My mother, my real mother is dead because Alana Stevens and Jessica Boyd murdered her just like they killed Baylee’s mother?”

  “My God,” Kit said. “I lived with that monster, suffered at her hands in that house all those years never knowing she’d killed so readily. Quinn and Baylee were often there. Who could have possibly imagined those two women plotted and killed whoever crossed them? All those years we had no idea we shared space with people who were so evil.”

  Max stared at Kit, blinked. This woman had suffered massive abuse for years at the hands of Alana Stevens. No one knew Alana better than Kit Griffin. “Well, I wouldn’t discount what role the rest of the founding partners had in all of it. But we’ll probably never know for certain. Burying bodies near their own reflecting pool took some muscle. I can’t see Jessica or Alana digging a grave. They’d be too afraid they might chip a nail. I’d have to say someone knew what the two women were doing and why. Without giving you specifics there’s reason to believe both women were certainly involved in a great many murders and over a long period of time.”

  Max took the time to glance around the room. “But there’s more. The fourth body is that of Ross Jennetti. We know that for certain because, as I’d hoped, the lab was able to get prints. His fingerprints were already in the system from an arrest back in the late ’80s for breaking and entering. At the time, he had a long rap sheet for burglaries and theft to support a nasty drug habit of us own.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Nick fumed as he stood up and marched to the window. “You’re telling us that Lisa Redfield, Quinn’s mother, that beautiful young girl, was murdered not long after giving birth to my child and I’ve sat around on my ass while my daughter lived in squalor with this drug-addled Ella person and this bitch of an attorney, that this Alana Stevens and Jessica Boyd beat Lisa to death?”

  Reese put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid that about sums it up.”

  “What happened to the million dollars? Or the money I sent every month?” Nick asked, almost afraid he already knew the answer. “It never reached Quinn, did it?”

  “From what we’ve managed to learn from a database on Jessica’s hard drive at work, she kept the million and told Lisa you were playing hardball. In the meantime she was nickel and diming Portman for all she could get out of him, too,” Jake explained. “During that thirteen months, I doubt Lisa or Quinn ever saw anything more than ten grand from the million, certainly never enough to live on until Gerald Baines slipped Jennetti into the picture. Now, that was a complication Jessica didn’t see coming.”

  Reese picked up the story from there. “Baines admitted Alana approached him with the idea of keeping a tighter rein on the cash flow. Baines bit hook, line, and sinker. Alana had a friend named Jennetti, who needed a steady job. What better job than to oversee ten grand a month?

  “But to pull it off, Quinn had to change addresses. Up to that time, Ella and the baby had been living hand to mouth out in the Valley. Because a
fter all Jessica had made it clear Nick’s attorneys were not cooperating with the settlement. How she managed to stretch out the story for eight years is due to the fact that Lisa was no longer in the picture, no longer a threat.

  “We all know Nick’s attorney Portman met Jessica’s demand, so there was no hardball on Nick’s part, no fighting the settlement. Jessica and Alana played on Ella’s drug habit, her weakness, and kept stringing her along. Ella at that point would do just about anything to make sure her supply of drugs never ended.

  “Then for some reason Alana changes the dynamics. We’ll probably never know the exact reason. But it might have something to do with the fact that she has this house in Beverly Hills she owns and needs to liquidate at the time. As a real estate agent, she sees an opportunity. She negotiates the sale of the house to Baines, who in turn, sets Jennetti up in the house to keep an eye on Ella Canyon and Jessica Boyd.

  “All the while Alana is playing both sides, as is Ross. They stick to the story that Jennetti is Nick’s record producer. The title gave him some clout because record producer sounds a helluva lot more impressive than a two-bit, ex-con, drug addict.”

  Nick turned to Quinn. “Words will never be able to express how sorry I am about this whole mess. If I’d only taken the time to check on you myself, not leave it up to so many other people. My own daughter… I’m so sorry, Quinn. I’m so very sorry for everything, for not visiting you, for not bringing you over to Ireland when I could have. My mother could have raised you. Try to understand, I thought you were being taken care of properly, seen to, fed regularly, sheltered, that I was fucking father of the year because I ponied up the goddamn money…and went on with my music.”

  Reese expected Quinn to explode.

  Instead, he watched, a little stunned, as she simply got up from her chair and crossed over to where her father still stood by the window.

  With tears still spilling out of her eyes, she told him, “It isn’t your fault. Not entirely. Oh, the fact that you let the lawyers handle everything, well, you have to live with that. But if Jessica Boyd hadn’t gotten involved from the start, things might have turned out differently.”

  “Who is this Jessica, this Alana person I keep hearing about?”

  “They’re both dead now, no longer important. But I’ll tell you all I know. They were conniving, thieving, murdering women who killed at will for their own greed.” She put her hand on Nick’s cheek. “I want to know everything you can remember about Lisa, about my mother. Try really hard to think of all the things she said to you. The things she did. I want to know my mother.”

  “Sure, I remember things. I’ll tell you everything I can think of.”

  “She painted. There’s a painting I used to have in my apartment. I almost tossed it into the trash once. Thank God I gave it to Kit when she moved out. Of course, at the time, I was trying to get rid of it because I thought it belonged to Ella. Now, it seems it’s the only thing I had of hers that was real.”

  As if Kit read her mind, she leaned over and whispered, “Maybe you could talk Trevor into sharing custody of the painting.”

  Quinn chuckled and wrapped her arm around Kit. “Thanks, I needed that.” She wiped back tears and turned to Max. “How did you find out about all of this?”

  Max nodded in Reese’s direction. “His man Donovan found Ella Canyon locked up and tucked away where no one could get to her. I’m sure that was on purpose. She’s been there for several years. For some reason she took to Donovan. He gets the credit for finding this much out and for bringing her back to L.A.”

  Nick lifted a hand to Quinn’s face. “You really do look like her. You have her energy, her enthusiasm, her boundless joy. My mother wanted to come. Did I mention that? She’ll be wanting to have a sit-down visit with her only granddaughter as soon as you can manage it.”

  She smiled. “I’d like that. I’m sorry I said your music was garbage.”

  He laughed and brought her into his chest for a hug. “Ah, I’ve always heard children make the worst of our critics.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “We have some catching up to do, girl. I hope you’re up to having a father because I intend to be a part of your life, look out for you from here on out. Say no, and I’ll just keep after you until you give in.”

  Quinn looked up into his deep, brown eyes. All of a sudden she needed to believe those eyes were part of her. “It’ll take some getting used to but…” She looked over at Baylee and smiled.

  She turned back to Nick and admitted, “A very wise woman once told me I’d have only the one chance in life at having a father. I think she might have been right. I’d certainly like to give a father-daughter relationship a try.” She tilted her head. “How comfortable are you at your hotel?”

  He shrugged. “Hotels aren’t really the same thing as home, never have been. No amount of amenities can ever take the place of what you have in your own home.”

  She glanced over at Kit. “You wouldn’t happen to have room for another guest, would you?”

  Kit grinned. “Sure, there’s always room at the inn for one more member of our growing family.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Out in the hallway, Reese found Max St. John.

  Pulling him aside where no one else could hear, he asked, “I need to know what evidence you actually have against Cade and Collin that points to them blowing up Quinn’s building. Fingerprints, DNA, anything at all enough to go to a judge and get an arrest warrant?”

  Surprised, Max replied, “Looking for more clients, Brennan?”

  He threw him a disgusted glance. “Don’t even start that crap. I ask because I checked this morning and there is only one warrant out for Cade Boyd and it’s for Claire’s murder. There’s nothing out for Collin. And I’m really wondering at this point, why you can’t find this guy?”

  “We’re coming up empty regarding evidence pointing to them for Quinn’s building. And just recently both brothers changed out their cell phones on us. We know Collin more than likely will not show up for the July hearing on the kidnapping charge. But our hands are tied until he is actually a no-show. We’re doing our best, Brennan. Show a little faith, a little patience, let the system work in your favor.”

  “That’s what I thought. And you have to wait until the preliminary hearing in July to see if he’s a no-show before you issue another warrant? Got it. I just want to make sure you have nothing tying them to the arson and the eight deaths at Quinn’s building. You have no actual evidence pointing to them.”

  “We know they did it, we just haven’t found that link to them yet. But we will. Hey, you know how the system works as well as I do.” He eyed Reese warily. “Don’t even think about doing anything where I’ll have to arrest your ass, Brennan. Got that?”

  “Me? What would I do? I’m just a geeky lawyer. It’s also come to my attention that your department is investigating several missing prostitutes from the same escort service. Is that info correct?” He saw cop-interest flicker in Max’s eyes and knew he had him hooked.

  “It isn’t my case.” But Max gave him a curious look. “You have information about that? It’s your duty to share it.”

  “Come into my office. Let’s call the detective in charge of the case, see if he’s interested in looking into a tip from a concerned citizen.”

  Later, after Max had taken off, Reese explained what he’d learned to Jake and Dylan. “Just like we thought it looks like Cade and Collin could walk away from all of this, except maybe for Claire’s murder. Which means Cade could leave the country.”

  “How did Max feel about the call girl theory?” Dylan asked.

  “Interested. But that’s a far cry from having anything concrete. DNA is the answer. He’s going to follow that route. But first they have to find Cade in order to get it on the sly.”

  “So, are we talking about going the typical route here, take them down via warrant and an arrest where they might just make bail and leave the country, or are we moving forward with ending t
his thing for real?” Jake asked.

  “Look, handing Max the call girl theory was simple backup for me. As far as I’m concerned, we end this thing, the three of us.” He glanced at Dylan who seemed to be wavering. “Doubts? Second thoughts? Concerns? Now would be the time.”

  Jake narrowed his eyes, took the time to glare in Dylan’s direction. “Nothing’s changed for me. You?”

  “It’s just that, how long have we known each other? Thirty years? We’ve been in some dicey situations together and managed to get out of all of them.”

  Reese nodded. “Go on.”

  “Remember the time we went down to Tijuana when we were in high school, got into a fight with those German tourists, tore the place up?”

  “You feel like walking down memory lane now?”

  Jake didn’t like where this was going. “Yeah, we were real bad asses back then. So? You want to back out? Is that what you’re saying? Because it’s convenient for you that Trevor took care of your Connor problem, isn’t it? Reese and I aren’t that lucky. If we don’t end them here and now, we’ll both still be dealing with Cade and Collin long after Kit and I get married.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all. We’ve always had each other’s backs no matter what. And now is no exception.” Dylan held out his hand. “There’s no one else I’d rather stand beside in a fight than you two guys.”

  “Aw, we like you too,” Reese said as he reached to grab his outstretched hand. “Want a hug, too?”

  “Kiss ass.”

  “Okay, but I’m really more of a leg man and the thing is I’ve always had this thing for your legs, Surfer Boy. You have the nicest legs, all tanned and strong and...”

  Dylan shot him his middle finger. “You’re sick, Brennan. You know that?” He turned to glare at Jake. “Now you want to tell me what that was all about because I’m for ending this thing, too.”

  Jake nodded. “Okay. Sorry, I’m a little edgy.”

  “We all are. Then as long as we’re in agreement, I’ll put the wheels in motion,” Reese added.