“Do I?” I asked with a hint of attitude as I tugged them out the rest of the way.
He glanced back at me in surprise. “You think you don’t?”
I walked over to the nightstand. “Now is not the time to have this discussion, Jed.”
“Neely Kate.” He turned fully around to face me.
I shook my head. “Not now.”
There was nothing on top of the nightstand, so I opened the drawer. “I found his car key fob.”
“He didn’t have one on him,” Jed said. “Anything else?”
I noticed a piece of paper in the nightstand drawer underneath the fob. I gasped when I realized it was a note and who it was from.
“What did you find?”
I picked up the paper and read, “Following the breadcrumbs. Be sure to find your prize and remember what happened to Gretel.” My gaze lifted to his. “Love, Kate.”
“She signed this one?”
I nodded.
“She wanted you to come here. What prize?” He spun at the waist, glancing around the room. “She’s hidden something here for you.” He returned to the suitcase. “Search everything.”
“What do you think we’re lookin’ for?”
“I have no fuckin’ idea,” he growled, but I knew he wasn’t upset with me, at least not directly. This particular frustration was directed toward my sister.
I searched the nightstand then the bathroom as Jed took everything out of the suitcase and searched the pockets of both the bag and the clothing.
“Nothing in the bathroom,” I said a minute later. “I even searched the inside of the back of the toilet.”
I checked the pockets of the clothes in the closet; then we both checked all the drawers and behind the artwork and mirror on the wall, then under the TV. When that didn’t turn up anything, we tugged back the bedding and the pillows, leaving nothing but the mattress.
“Surely it’s not the panties,” I said in disgust, although I wouldn’t put it past her.
Jed stared at the bed for a second, then grabbed the side of the mattress and lifted up.
There in the middle of the bed frame was a large manila envelope with my name written in Kate’s scrolling script.
I snatched up the thick packet and Jed lowered the mattress.
“There must be fifty pages in here,” I said as I opened the flap and pulled out the contents. On top was another handwritten note in Kate’s script.
Since what happened on a bed is what got us both here, it seemed fitting to hide this under Chad’s. I think you’ll particularly like the tabbed section. ;)
“Who’s Chad?” I asked.
Jed hesitated a moment. “Pearce Manchester’s brother.”
My gaze jerked up to his. “So Chad Manchester is who’s really in my basement?”
His expression was dark. “I don’t know. It seems more likely that Manchester hired the guy in your basement.”
My blood ran cold as I flipped to the next page—it was a private investigator’s report from a firm in Little Rock, who according to the documents, had been hired by Kate to look into the activities of Neely Kate Rivers in Ardmore, Oklahoma, seven years prior.
I sat on the mattress, and Jed sat next to me and watched in silence as I started flipping through pages. Interviews with Beasley, Branson, and Stella. None of them had told the investigator anything about Pearce Manchester, but they had told the investigator that I’d slept with a lot of men for money while working at a strip club. And that I’d abruptly left town and they’d never heard from me again. The investigator had even tried to talk to Zelda, but she’d told them to go to hell. The date listed suggested it was the guy who had come to ask her questions a few months prior. There was a separate document, not part of the investigator’s report, detailing Kate’s visit to Beasley in prison last fall. She’d asked about my involvement in his accident, and he’d been cagey with his response, then told her to ask me about the azaleas. While he didn’t confirm I’d been part of something more damning than his DUI, he also didn’t deny it.
Next was a page with a plastic sticky tab on top. It was another private investigator’s summary, this one from a firm in Virginia, hired to investigate Jenny Lynn Rivers.
My mother.
In the pages that followed were multiple photos of my mother over the past two decades—some including photos of me when I was a child—and a list of her whereabouts covering from the time she’d been in Ardmore to dumping me off, and her five-year-long cross-country trip to the East Coast until she’d settled in West Virginia.
The last pages were a transcript of my mother’s conversation with Kate last fall, which had apparently been recorded. The lines of the bottom of the last page caught my eye.
Kate: Neely Kate’s pregnant, what do you think of that? You’re gonna be a grandmother, Jenny Lynn.
Jenny Lynn Rivers: Tell her to get rid of it while she still can. It’s a hell of a lot harder to ditch ’em after they’re born.
Kate: Any other message you want me to tell her?
Jenny Lynn Rivers: Tell her… (Long, tearful pause.) I know she’ll never get rid of it. She’s got more love in her pinky toe than I’ve got in my whole damn body. (Long pause while she lights another cigarette.) She’ll be a better mother than I ever will, but don’t tell her that. She needs to be free of me for good. Don’t tell her where I am. Just let her live her life. (Another pause.) Unless she comes into some Simmons money… if she does, let me know and I’ll ask her for a payoff to leave her alone.
**End Interview**
Jed wrapped an arm around my upper back, cupping my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Neely Kate.”
I brushed a tear from my cheek with the back of my wrist. “That was sixty seconds we didn’t have time to waste.” I got to my feet, leaving Jed’s arm to fall to his side. “We need to get the laptop back to the farm and get it opened so we can see what Neil Franken found and hopefully find out Chad Manchester’s connection to all of this.”
“But what you read about your mother… you can’t just sweep that under the rug.”
I turned back to him with a glare. “My mother is a worthless parasite. As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead.”
If only I could get my heart to agree.
“Okay,” he said as he stood. “Let’s take the key fob and try to figure out which car this belongs to, then do a quick search.” He snatched it from the drawer and slid it into his pocket.
The hall was empty when we left the room. Jed carried the laptop under his arm, and I held on to the envelope. We took off our gloves and stuck them in our pockets, then headed down the long hall to the stairwell by the back door we’d come in through, not encountering anyone the entire way.
When we walked outside, I held out my hand. “Give me the key. I should be the one to search his car. No one will recognize me in this wig.”
The look on Jed’s face suggested he wanted to disagree but couldn’t. “Fine, but call me when you get inside.”
I nodded and put my glove back on my right hand. He pulled out the key fob with a glove and placed it in my hand. “We’ll talk about that report later.”
I responded in a chilly tone. “I’ve wasted years pining over that woman, and she doesn’t want anything to do with me. What’s there to discuss?”
Sympathy filled his eyes. “Neely Kate.”
I straightened my back. “We have much bigger fish to fry. I’m gonna check out his car.”
I clicked the lock button on the key fob several times, glancing around, and searched out the car’s beeping response. There it was, a sedan parked at the opposite end of the lot from where we’d parked.
“Start inside, then check the trunk,” he said, still looking concerned.
I nodded and started to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist and hauled me back, staring down at my face. “You deserve better than what your mother has given you.”
I shook my head, turning away. “I’m not doin’ this right now.”
Or ever. But if I tacked that one on, he’d likely try to continue the conversation.