“Yeah,” we both said in unison.
He pushed out a breath and dropped his hand to his side. Now that he had our assurances, his tone was softer. “Is there anything else I should know?”
Neely Kate started telling him all the conflicting information we’d collected about Raddy’s family jewels.
Joe’s phone rang again, and he held up his hand. “Stop right there.” He answered it in his cop voice. “Simmons.” He rubbed his temple, then sighed. “Just hold him off. I’ll be right there.” He hung up and shook his head. “Unbelievable. The press has already shown up.”
“Henryetta has press?” I asked in surprise. I wouldn’t exactly call The Henryetta Gazette a press. They published a paper once a week, but their biggest news was usually the Friday night bowling league scores—or it would be if the scores weren’t a week old by the time the paper went to press on Friday mornings.
Joe’s forehead wrinkled with irritation. “Some kid’s started an online news channel on YouTube. He tries to stir up trouble where there’s none to be found, but somehow Barry figured out there’s a real situation unfolding. He’s camping out on Rayna Dyer’s front yard. I need to head over there to make sure his camera is nowhere near that hot tub.” He headed for the front door, but his hand lingered on the doorknob for a moment. “Neely Kate, before I forget, I wanted to let you know that I have to leave town tomorrow, but I should be back by late afternoon Friday. If you need me for anything, you can still call me.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re leaving town?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Some business with my father’s accounts.”
“Can you still go now that Rayna’s been murdered?” she asked.
“Now, we don’t know what happened to Rayna, so there’s no reason to start throwing out the word murder. Deputy Miller said she was floating in the water along with an empty bottle of wine. For all we know, she got drunk enough to pass out and drowned.” He pointed his finger at us again. “But that’s official information, and I don’t want it gettin’ out. Especially to that pain in the ass, Barry Whitlow. Got it?”
“Yeah,” we said in unison again.
“Besides, I don’t need to be around for every violent crime investigation. There were a few suspicious deaths while I was gone this spring, and they were handled just fine. I’ll make sure things are taken care of before I leave.”
“Is your trip about Kate?” Neely Kate asked, her eyes full of worry.
Joe gave her a soft smile. “No. Nothing to do with Kate. Just some legal paperwork is all. Nothing to worry about, okay?”
She nodded.
He walked over to her and kissed her cheek. “This means I’ll have to take a raincheck on the cake. You two stay out of trouble.” Then he was out the door.
“Do you believe him?” Neely Kate asked as she stood in the front doorway and watched him drive away.
“About his trip?” I asked, trying hard not to act guilty. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She turned to look at me. “Because I’ve been getting letters from Kate.”
“What?” I asked in shock. “What does Joe say about that?”
A frown tugged at her lips. “I haven’t told him. But I wonder if he’s been getting them too.”
She hadn’t told me about the letters, and I wasn’t sure what to think of that either. “How many have you gotten? When did they start? What has she said?”
“Only a few, and they started a couple of weeks ago,” she said, shutting the front door and locking it. “They’re mostly to taunt me about my mother.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. Given the way Kate Simmons liked to mess with people’s heads, I was sure she was currently toying with my best friend.
She shrugged and went into the kitchen. When I followed her, she gave me an exasperated look. “Maybe this is why—because I knew you’d make a big deal about it.”
“It is a big deal, Neely Kate. Your half-sister’s in a mental institution for messing with people’s lives. How is she even sending these things?” I asked, getting more and more riled up. “I would think they’d do a better job of monitoring her outgoing mail.” I pushed out a breath of frustration. “We need to contact the hospital and put a stop to this.”
“No!” she said in a panic. “We can’t.”
“Why on earth not?” I asked in dismay as I stepped closer.
“Because,” she said with tears in her eyes, “what if she’s about to tell me something important and I prevent her from doin’ just that?”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. “Oh, Neely Kate. Surely you can see that she’s messing with you. It’s what she does. Remember the way she confirmed that you’re her and Joe’s half-sister? She’d never give you information without taking a pound of flesh.”
Neely Kate leaned her forehead on my shoulder and began to cry while I rubbed soothing circles on her back.
“When Joe comes back on Friday, you need to tell him,” I said.
“I can’t.”
I leaned back and held her teary gaze. “You can and you will.”
“She says if I tell him about the letters, she’ll never tell me what else Momma said to her,” she hiccupped.
What a mess. Kate Simmons was a manipulative bitch who got off on hurting other people. There was little chance she’d tell Neely Kate anything, but Kate knew she had my best friend on her line with the hook sunk deep.
I leaned back and soothed Neely Kate’s hair from her damp cheeks. “Okay, we’ll do it your way for now, but how about I read the letters first from now on? And if there’s nothing helpful, I’ll won’t show them to you.”
Panic filled her eyes. “No.”
“Neely Kate. Has she given you anything yet? Anything new to prove she’s going to tell you what you want to know?”
“No, but . . .”
“Then let me screen them for you.”
“No.”
“Why not?” When I could see she wasn’t going to budge, I decided to compromise. “Okay. I understand, but you don’t have to do this alone. Show me the letters, and I’ll help you figure out what she’s really up to.”
She shook her head. “No. There’s nothing in there you need to know about.”
The way she said it made me realize she was hiding something. “She’s put in something in there you don’t want me to see.”
“Things I’m ashamed of. Things from my past.”
I studied her face, trying to decide whether to press the issue. Neely Kate had told me that she’d left town for two years sometime after her high school graduation. She’d alluded to having some regrets about those years, but I had no earthly idea what she’d done, and it was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to tell me now. “Okay.” I smoothed her hair again. “But you know there’s nothing in those letters that is going to make me change my mind about you, right?”
The fear in her eyes suggested she was unconvinced.
I gave her a warm smile. “How about you go up and take a nice warm bath in my claw-foot tub? I’ll clean up the kitchen.”
She looked torn. “I can’t leave you down here with this mess.”
“Of course you can. I’ve left you with more than a few messes on those Tuesday nights I spent away from home.”
“I can’t believe Rayna’s dead,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Who do you think killed her?”
“We don’t know that she was murdered.”
“Do you believe she wasn’t?” Neely Kate asked.
“No.” I searched her eyes. “Do you think Raddy did it?”
“No. He’s not the murdering kind.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, moving over to the sink. “From what his momma said, he might be mixed up with Crocker’s guys . . .” My voice trailed off when I saw the disappointment in her eyes. She knew if Crocker’s men were involved, I would call the investigation off. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow when we have more details. You go take your bath be
fore I change my mind and make you help scrub that skillet.”
“I told you to use the nonstick spray,” she said in a slightly sassy tone.
“Yeah, well, if you keep saying I told you so, I’ll make you clean it all by yourself.”
She lifted her hands in surrender and grinned as she took a step toward the door. “You win.”
I beamed in my momentary triumph.
Placing her hand on the door frame, she turned serious. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Rose.” That fear was back in her eyes, and it broke my heart.
“If you think you can get rid of me, you’ve got another think comin’,” I said.
“Other people said they’d stay too,” she said. Tears flooded her eyes.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. We’d both had more than our fair share of people leave us. “Well, it’s a good thing we’re not like other people then.” I turned back to the sink and turned on the hot water. “Now go, or I really will make you wash these dishes.”
“I love you, Rose.”
I took a breath and turned to face her, but she was already gone.
I opened another beer—my second of the night—and spent the next ten minutes washing dishes and wishing I’d used that five hundred dollars from Raddy Dyer to buy a dishwasher. My farmhouse hadn’t been lived in for nearly twenty-five years by the time I moved in, although my Uncle Earl had kept it up with yearly cleanings and occasional servicing for the appliances. The house and land had been in the family since at least the turn of the twentieth century. I wasn’t sure who exactly had owned it before my birth mother and her grandparents. But one thing was certain: no one had bothered to install a dishwasher.
Muffy danced around my feet, and I glanced down at her as I put the last serving bowl in the cabinet. “You want to go outside again, girl? I guess Neely Kate didn’t give you enough time out there.” I grabbed the dishtowel and dried off my hands, then tossed it onto the counter. “Okay, let’s go.”
I opened the back door, and she took off like a lightning bolt toward the barn. My gut clenched. She didn’t usually head in that direction.
My purse was sitting on the kitchen table, and I pulled out the gun and turned off the safety. I was sure I was being ridiculous—I suspected there was a poor raccoon hiding out in the barn, just like the story I’d told Neely Kate. Part of me wondered if I should call Joe, but he was busy with poor Rayna Dyer, and what was I going to say? That Muffy had run off to the barn? It wasn’t exactly 911 material, but my gut told me something wasn’t right. I wasn’t about to let Muffy run into danger without trying to protect her. She’d protected me more times than I could count.
I considered asking Neely Kate to come, but the sound of the water in the pipes overhead came on, which meant her bathwater had gotten cold and she was warming it up.
Muffy was already in the barn when I walked out the back door. Part of me wanted to call out her name, but if there was someone in my barn, I didn’t want them to know I was on my way in. I needed all the help I could get—and that meant preserving the element of surprise.
Still, I didn’t waste any time making my way to the barn. After a rainy spring, a piece of rotten wood had broken off at the bottom of the double door in the front, which was how Muffy had gotten in. She was small enough to wedge herself through the hole, which was about a foot in diameter. I was creeping around the side of the barn, making my way to the back door, when I heard the low sounds of two men’s voices.
My heart leapt into my throat, and I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone and call the sheriff’s office. Only, I hadn’t brought my phone. I must have left it in the kitchen.
I stood next to the barn, my heart racing as I struggled over what to do. Then Muffy released a low growl, and one of men barked, “Be quiet.” There was a male grunt, and my little dog let out a squeal and began to whimper.
There was no question now. I was going in.
Chapter 10
I edged around the back corner of the barn and noticed that the back door was standing open. Muffy let out a yelp, and then I heard several loud grunts. Part of me wanted to just run in there and save my dog, but I needed to try to be safe about this. Before last February, I would have gone in without giving it a second thought, but I’d become more cautious. I’d seen people murdered in front of me. I’d lost Mason. The night of J.R. Simmons’ death had changed me, but standing there now, I wasn’t sure it had been for the better. I felt more like the woman I’d been a year ago instead of the fierce woman I’d become last winter.
Pushing those thoughts out of my mind, I placed my back against the wall. I kept my elbows pinned to my sides as I held the gun with both hands and pointed it toward the sky. I was still working out a strategy, but Muffy’s crying sent a spike of anger through my body, burning off any residual fear.
I leaned around the open doorway, pointing my gun into the space that was only slightly illuminated by a kerosene lantern. Two men were in a heap, or rather one man was in a heap, and the other was delivering a sharp blow to the man’s side with his boot. The man who was standing had his back to me. I cast a quick glance toward the corner and saw Muffy hunkered down on the floor, whimpering.
“Both of you stop right there and lift your hands into the air before I shoot you,” I called out in a loud voice, holding my gun on them.
The man who was standing slowly lifted his hands and started to turn as the other guy continued to cover his head with his hands and release pained whimpers.
“Rose,” the standing man said as he turned toward me. I recognized his voice, his shape, him before he showed his face. “Don’t shoot.”
“James?” I gasped, lowering the gun to point at the man on the ground. “What are you doing out here?”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “Taking care of this trash.”
The man on the ground dropped his hands and started to push himself up to sitting. “Don’t shoot! Rose, it’s me! Raddy!”
“Raddy?”
“Can you put the gun away?” he begged.
“Not until you tell me what you’re doin’ here.”
“Lookin’ for you. I’m in trouble, and I need your help. Yours and Neely Kate’s.”
I shook my head in confusion, my gun still trained on Raddy. “James, what’s goin’ on?”
“I found this piece of shit in your barn.”
“I told you!” Raddy said to James. “I was waiting until the coast was clear to go talk to them. The deputy sheriff was here, and I had to wait until he left.”
“You were hiding in my barn?” I asked Raddy in disbelief.
“No.” He shook his head frantically. “Well . . . I guess so, yes. But I didn’t plan on hurtin’ you like Malcolm thinks. I only wanted to talk to you.”
I was still shocked that James was here. As far as I knew, he’d only been to my farm once—and that was months ago, after we’d teamed up to bring down J.R. Simmons. I kept trying to get him to come over to my house for one of our Tuesday night meetings, but he always refused, saying he didn’t want anyone knowing we were friends. Yet now he was standing in my barn and beating the sense out of Raddy Dyer. That couldn’t be a coincidence. None of it could be.
“You were beating him up?” I asked.
James met my dark look with a scowl of his own. “Before you start judgin’,” he said in a tight voice, “I never laid a hand on him.”
I lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
He lifted his hands from his sides. “I didn’t say I didn’t hurt him. But I only kicked him after he kicked your dog.”
“You did what?” I demanded, still holding the gun on Raddy.
“She was gonna bite me!”
“Bullshit,” James growled. “You owe her dog an apology.”
“What?” Raddy shouted in disbelief.
“Did I stutter?” James snarled. “Tell her dog you’re sorry for hurting her.”
“I ain’t apologizing to no damn dog.”
That tick
ed me off even more. “Her name is Muffy.”
Muffy heard her name and crawled toward me. Fear shot through me; Muffy never crawled. I squatted down next to her and gently placed my hand on her back, then slid it down to her side. She let out a soft whimper when I pressed my finger on her back hip.
Now I was good and pissed.
“Why are you here, Raddy Dyer?” I demanded as I stood, pointing my gun at him again. “What was so important that you had to sneak around in my barn?”
“It’s Rayna,” he said, climbing to his feet. “She’s dead.”
That was like a bucket of cold water on my anger. I lowered my gun and turned on the safety. I didn’t trust Raddy, but I knew James wouldn’t let him get away with anything. Still, I wasn’t about to put the gun away. “I know. Joe got called in to help with the investigation. That’s why he left.”
“They’re gonna pin this on me,” he said, pressing his hand to his side where James had kicked him. “They’re gonna say I did it.”
“Did you?” I asked in a firm voice.
His eyes flew wide. “No! Why would I kill her? I’d already left. We were through.”
“Maybe she had your necklace,” I said. “Maybe you thought you could make her tell you where it was.”
“No!” he insisted, sounding desperate. “That’s not what happened.”
James stiffened. “Then why don’t you tell us what did happen, Dyer.” His tone left no doubt that it was a demand and not a request.
“My momma called and told me that you and Neely Kate stopped by to see her,” Raddy said to me. “Homer was fit to be tied.”
“Wait,” I said. “You call your father by his first name?”
“He ain’t no father of mine,” he said in disgust. “He’s my stepdaddy, but my momma saddled me with his name. If I was gonna kill anyone, I woulda killed that mean bastard years ago.”
I’d barely spoken to the man, but I couldn’t disagree with Raddy’s sentiment.
“Why’d you have to go by there?” Raddy asked in a whine. “I didn’t know you were gonna talk to my momma. I thought you’d butter up Rayna and get the damned thing back from her.”
Family Jewels: Rose Gardner Investigations #1 Page 10