Heroes In Uniform (274 page)

There would be a lot of elderly people displaced while repairs were made. In fact, John would bet it was a miracle none of the structures had collapsed already. Hanford and Denton had cut a lot of corners and broken a lot of rules on that job. And that was likely just the beginning. Hanford and his company had built a lot of buildings in this area. Everything would need to be inspected. Some might end up condemned.

As John walked out to his car, he couldn’t even begin to fathom the cleanup for this one. They not only needed to deal with making sure the corners that had been cut didn’t hurt anyone, they had to figure out which of the other construction workers and crew were in on this. No way Charlie and Sam could have gotten away with this without a lot of people turning a blind eye, or taking orders without bothering to question what was being done. According to Charlie, that was what had gotten Ken Statler killed. He had questioned them. He’d challenged Sam and Charlie, and they had taken him out the same day they killed Katelyn’s mother. A whole lot of death and lives ruined for what, in the end, amounted to relatively little money. They’d skimmed about five hundred thousand dollars off that job. Five hundred thousand dollars for two lives.

* * *

Katelyn waited outside for John to swing by the house after his shift so they could head over to the potluck dinner Laura and May Bishop had thrown together. He’d worked all day the day before, followed by a morning shift today so they hadn’t seen each other for more than a quick good morning before he went on shift. Katelyn blushed at the memory. It really hadn’t been
that
quick, and it had certainly started her day off right.

She balanced the green salad she’d made on her hip and checked her phone when it beeped indicating a text coming in.

On your way, Kit Kat?

Katelyn smiled and texted Ashley back with one hand.
Waiting for John to pick me up. C u soon:)

A minute later the phone beeped again.

K! C u:)

Everyone had made a real point to include Katelyn after her ordeal. She had a feeling they wanted to be sure she didn’t think about running back to Austin now that her father was gone and the mystery of her mother’s death was solved. But, Katelyn was in no danger of heading back to Austin. She’d found a lot more here in Evers than she’d ever thought possible. She had close friends, a man she loved—yes, she’d decided to admit it to herself even though she had yet to tell John exactly how she felt—and she would have a studio soon.

She was smiling when John pulled his cruiser to the curb in front of her house. He came around to open the door for her and dropped a kiss to her lips. “You look happy. What’s got you smiling?” he asked.

“Everything,” Katelyn said as she slid into the passenger seat and balanced the salad on her lap.

John seemed to hesitate as he slipped behind the wheel, and Katelyn felt a rock settle in her stomach when he didn’t immediately pull out onto the street.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly, as he clenched and unclenched the wheel.

John cut the ignition and turned to face her. “I just...I have news about the case, but I don’t want to ruin your good mood.”

She smiled at him and shook her head. “Nothing’s gonna kill my mood. You can tell me.”

“The assistant district attorney got Charlie to talk,” John said quietly, watching her face as if to gauge her reaction.

Katelyn felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach, losing all the air in her lungs at once and feeling like she might throw up. But, she sucked in a deep breath and met John’s eyes. “Tell me.”

“Charlie and Sam had been skimming a little here and there from jobs for years. Using shoddy materials, cutting the thickness of concrete slabs, that kind of thing. In the late eighties, Charlie won a bid to build Sol City, the big retirement community outside of town.” John paused and waited for Katelyn’s nod.

She knew the place. It was a large community with houses, apartments, and a nursing home all in one setting. Elderly residents could start out in a house, then move to an apartment when they needed assisted living, then move to the nursing home if they ever needed full-time care. The place was enormous, with its own grocery store, a golf course and tennis courts, fitness center, medical clinic, the works. It had been Charlie’s claim to fame.

“Charlie had been bribing a local zoning inspector for years. The three got together and expanded the little bit of fraud they’d gotten away with on other projects and made it a wholesale scam on this one. They paid a cut to the guys who worked for them back then. Paid off the right people to look the other way. It was a time when there was a lot of corruption around here. They were able to get away with things they probably couldn’t get away with now.”

John squeezed Katelyn’s hand and she remembered to keep breathing.

“Ken Statler apparently started asking questions. They’d offered him money, but it was beginning to look like he couldn’t be paid off. Then your mom discovered the two sets of books Charlie was keeping. Sam was at Charlie’s office making sure the set of books your mom worked on—the one that looked legit to anyone who went over it—had all the info she needed in it to work on the next day. He went to the kitchen to get a drink and left the books out. Your mom showed up a day early and discovered them sitting out.”

“She couldn’t be bought, either,” Katelyn whispered, not bothering to swipe at the tears that ran down her cheeks. She’d wanted answers for so long. But, she never imagined anything like this.

“No.” John shook his head. “She couldn’t. Sam found her, and she refused to be bought. He said he was going to call Charlie to come talk to her, but she said Sam needed to leave. I’d imagine at that point, she was desperately trying to figure out how to get you out of there safely.”

Katelyn closed her eyes. Her mom wouldn’t have been able to walk away. Katelyn was in the cedar chest. She couldn’t leave her there. If Katelyn hadn’t been with her, would her mom have been able to run, to fight?

John must have read her mind. “No, Kate. He wouldn’t have let her leave that room no matter what. It wasn’t because of you. Two very greedy men killed your mom. Sam panicked and grabbed for her. She fell and hit the corner of the desk, but she was still alive. He called Charlie and told him to come home. When Charlie got there, your mom was unconscious but alive. He knew he couldn’t let her wake up.”

“So she was unconscious when he killed her?” Katelyn asked. Her memories of the event were still vague. Knowing that helped somehow. It would have been worse if her mother was awake and aware she was dying. It was a tiny little strand of good in this whole craptacular web that had been Katelyn’s life for the last twenty-four years, but she clung to it.

“Yes. Charlie staged it to look like she’d walked in on a burglar, then Sam made sure Ken Statler disappeared on the same day to throw suspicion toward him,” John said.

“Was it Charlie who tried to run me off the road? Who attacked me at the studio?” she asked.

“He says that was Sam. That Sam started to panic when you came back to town. Charlie told him to lay low, just wait it out, but Sam was too nervous. He thought they should chase you out of town. That’s why Charlie killed Sam. To stop him from letting their secret out after all these years.”

Katelyn nodded then met his eyes with one last question. “How much money? How much money did they steal? How much money did they kill my mom for?” The last words came out on a choked sob. John pulled her into his arms and held her. He didn’t answer the question and she was beyond caring. It didn’t matter. No amount of money was worth losing her mom for. There was no amount of money that could take away the pain she and her father had lived with. John shushed her and held her while she cried, but Katelyn didn’t allow herself to cry for long. She didn’t want to give anything more to Charlie and Sam than they’d already taken from her.

She pushed herself up and took a few more deep breaths and wiped the tears staining her cheeks. It was done. She knew why her father had sent her away, why her mother had been killed. As she stared out the windshield at her father’s house, the home where she should have grown up, she knew. It was finally over. Katelyn felt as though a rock that had been pressing on her chest for years was lifted away. She let out a deep, slow breath and turned to John.

“Okay,” she said with a nod, earning a quizzical look.

“Okay?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Katelyn nodded. “Okay.” Another deep breath and she was ready to face the world. Her cell phone beeped.

Did you two get sidetracked:)

Katelyn laughed and showed her phone to John. “Ashley’s waiting for us.”

John leaned across the seat and brushed his hand down the side of her face, causing that instant lean into him that made him smile. He kissed her slow and long and so tenderly she just might melt, then pulled back and looked into her eyes.

“Okay,” he said with a whole lot more meaning in that single word than its small size indicated and pulled away from the curb.

Everlasting: Chapter Twenty-Three

It felt really good to be around her friends, laughing and relaxing, and for once in a very long while, not having a care in the world. Katelyn leaned back in the chair she currently occupied at May Bishop’s kitchen table and laughed as Laura told them all about Jamie’s attempt to catch a frog the night before with Cade. Laura and Cade’s dog, Red, lay at Laura’s feet, but she raised her head at the laughter, watching them all as though she wondered what she’d missed.

When the laughter ended, May turned to Katelyn. “So, how are you holding up? John said you were having some pain in your throat? Is it still bothering you?”

Katelyn nodded. “Just a little,” she said, glad to have her voice almost back to one hundred percent. “It’s not steady. It’s just shooting pains from time to time. The doctors say it can last a long time, but it will eventually go away. But other than that, I’m almost completely back to normal. Eating solid food,” she said with a grin. Solid food was something she’d never take for granted again.

“And your studio is almost ready, right?” Ashley asked.

“Mm hmm. The guys who bought it say they’ll have it ready in another week for me. I can’t wait to get back to work.”

Laura turned to May. “The Hart brothers bought a few of Charlie Hanford’s commercial properties. They’re going into business together.”

Charlie Hanford was selling off properties left and right to pay for his criminal defense lawyer.

May smiled, but there was something mysterious to it. “Are they now?” she asked.

Laura smiled at her mother-in-law. “Did you have something to do with that?”

May shrugged. “I suggested they might try their hand at real estate. Those boys needed something to keep them busy, and this seemed like a good way for them to get back on their feet.”

Laura leaned in and kissed May on the cheek as she peeled and sliced the last of the apples for a homemade pie. “And I’ll just bet you gave them a little seed money for the project while you were at it.” May didn’t answer. “You’re a good woman, May Bishop.”

Ashley explained. “The Hart brothers have been sort of…floundering, you might say. And May likes to help out anyone who seems to need a little push or a little guidance.”

“Well, I for one appreciate them. They’ve been on top of things at the studio. I was so relieved when I heard someone had bought the building and I’d still have my space,” Katelyn said.

Cora poked her head into the kitchen from the backyard. “Hey guys. We miscalculated the number of hamburger buns we’ll need. Can one of you text Shane and ask him to bring about a dozen more?” she asked.

“I got it,” Katelyn said, picking up John’s cell phone. He’d tossed it and his keys on top of her purse when they came in, before joining the rest of the group outside in the yard. Katelyn still hadn’t entered everyone’s numbers into her phone so it wasn’t unusual for her to grab his phone to text one of their friends.

“Thanks,” Cora said as she ducked back outside.

Katelyn froze as she pulled up the message screen and selected Shane’s name. She didn’t mean to see the history, but when it was laid out for her on the screen, it was hard not to miss it. And there it was plain as day. Shane had texted John yesterday asking if he wanted to grab lunch. John’s reply, despite the fact that he’d told her he was working all day, indicated he was down in San Antonio. No denying the text right in front of her:

Can’t. In San Antonio for the day. Call you later.

Katelyn swallowed and stilled the slight shake in her hand. She sent a quick text to Shane about the hamburger buns and put the phone down on top of her purse.

“You okay, Kit Kat?” Ashley asked, studying her from across the table.

Katelyn nodded and smiled. “I’m fine, just a bit tired,” she said, but on the inside her head was spinning. She flashed right back to the humiliating moment when she’d discovered Devan had lied to her; that he’d had a wife and child the whole time they were together. Her mind raced as she remembered all of the red flags she should have heeded but had somehow ignored. All of the signs that should have told her he was lying.

And she knew flat out John had lied to her about where he was yesterday. San Antonio was well outside his jurisdiction. If he had to go there for work, wouldn’t he have mentioned it? You don’t take a four-hour trip and not mention it unless you’re hiding something.

The back door opened and John stepped through, his eyes immediately catching Katelyn’s and locking them to his. It was the effect he always had on her. And in that moment, she knew. Knew in her heart—he wasn’t Devan. Never mind the fact that her father had trusted this man with his position as sheriff. Never mind that Evers, Texas was so small no one could hide a secret for long. She didn’t need any of that to tell her she could trust this man.