Not many days turned out to be almost perfect, but for Kate that one had. Even with the threat of nothing at all good coming from the information that she’d given Waylon, she still felt good about the day. She’d gotten part of the load off her chest, and now all she had to do was tell Amanda and Jamie. Down deep inside, she hoped neither of them asked exactly how long she’d known about all this. Maybe they’d be so excited or bummed out about the will business that they wouldn’t even think about the timing.
Jamie had started reading Pipsie, Nature Detective to Gracie on the deck that evening, but she’d fallen asleep in her mother’s lap before the second page was finished. It was another of those moments when Kate wished she’d had a daughter but then realized if she had, the child would be thirteen now and in those “I know everything” years and certainly wouldn’t want Kate to read a children’s book to her.
Jamie carried her into the house, returned with a bottle of beer, and got comfortable by sitting in one chair and propping her legs up in another. She set the bottle on the table between her and Kate. “You still smell like hay.”
“Well, I haven’t had a bath yet. That’s next on my agenda. You still smell faintly of fish,” Kate said.
“So.” Amanda laid a hand on her stomach. “I hope I can be as good a mother with this baby as you are with Gracie and as Paul is with Lisa.”
“You will be as good as both of them, but I’ve got something serious to talk to y’all about now,” Kate said.
“More serious than kissing the detective who’s trying to hang us out to dry?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, it is more serious. And I hadn’t kissed a man in thirteen years,” Kate said.
“Good God almighty!” Amanda’s voice got higher with each syllable until it completely squeaked out at the end. “You mean you were faithful to Conrad?”
“Not by choice, more by workload. I lost the baby and found out what a horrible person he was all the same week. After that I buried myself in my job. Now back to this other thing. I found a whole pack of letters hidden in my bedroom. They were up under the dresser, addressed to Iris’s daughter, Darcy. I read them, and believe me, they will open your eyes. I’ve given all the information to Waylon. He’s asked us not to tell anyone, not your aunt, Amanda, or your grandmother, Jamie, or my mother, either. It has to be a secret so that it doesn’t interfere with the investigation,” Kate said.
“Oh, I love secrets,” Amanda said. “Will it help us to figure out who gets this cabin?”
“Probably not, but we won’t have to move out anytime soon. It’s likely that the church will own it when everything is settled,” she answered as she headed down the hallway and returned with her suitcase.
“Good Lord, how many are there?” Jamie asked.
“There are a few—you need to read the letters for yourselves. Did you know the room I’m staying in is Darcy’s? Iris’s daughter grew up in this house. When she was a little girl, she used to hide things under the bottom drawer of the dresser. One morning that drawer got stuck.” Kate went on to tell the rest of the story, leaving out none of the details of the letters that were still fresh in her mind.
“Oh. My. God!” Amanda threw her hand over her eyes when Kate finished the story. “I’m changing my name back to Hilton as soon as I can get it done.”
“And I’ll be changing mine and Gracie’s to Mendoza when we go home. I wonder how much it will cost,” Jamie said.
“A little over two hundred dollars,” Kate answered.
“How do you know that?” Amanda checked the potatoes.
Kate stirred the small pot of beans. “Because I looked into it one time, and I’ll gladly pay for all of us to get it done.”
“You’d do that for me?” Amanda asked.
“He cheated us all, and I have the money,” Kate answered.
“I can pay for the name change,” Jamie said. “I’m not in the habit of taking charity.”
“Me, neither, but I’m pretty much broke unless I want to get into my small savings account. I’ll take you up on the offer,” Amanda said.
“I’ll get the legal staff on the name-change papers sent to us tomorrow morning. They’ll send down whatever we need to do, and when it’s time to go before the judge, we can make a day of it.”
“Only two weeks ago he was alive, and now we are talking about changing our names. It’s surreal,” Amanda whispered.
“Not as much to me as to you,” Kate said. “But I wish I’d hired someone to dig into his past like Iris did. I knew he was a con, yet it never dawned on me that he wasn’t even Conrad Steele.”
“I had no idea, either,” Jamie said.