by Brenna Lyons
“And he’s still more help than what I saw tonight.”
“Why? Because he loves you, so it’s personal?”
“Not really, though it’s a nice touch. It’s trust. I trust that he’ll be there and do whatever he can, like the wallet.”
“That was a smooth move,” Waters commented to Joe. He faced Kyla and sighed. “You’re not going to back down on this, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
Joe grinned at Waters. “Persistent, isn’t she? Don’t underestimate her, I warn you. The last few times I did, I ended up flat on my back, staring up at her with new aches and pains as a reminder.”
“And she trusts you to protect her?” Waters asked in disbelief
“I don’t pull guns on her, and I only let my guard down for her.” Joe shrugged. “Give me a gun, and we’ll see who has a better chance of protecting her.”
“I don’t think so.”
Kyla tried to hold in a giggle, and both men stared at her. “I was just thinking that I should go into withdrawal any time now. I haven’t seen you with a holster or gun for more than two days,” she told Joe.
Joe sighed. “Maybe someday they won’t be necessary.”
“Okay,” Waters conceded. “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with Mr. Stanton.”
Stanton nodded. “The less upheaval the better. Let them room together. I’ll have someone bring down the rest of her things later.”
“That reminds me,” Kyla asked, “if you’re done at Gram’s, can Eric pick up some of our things for us?”
Waters nodded. “I don’t see why not.” He wished them goodnight, and everyone cleared out.
Kyla settled back in. There wouldn’t be any more bad dreams tonight, but it was going to be a long week.
* * *
Matthew stopped short. Where was the guard? He left Josie and Molly far behind as he sprinted down the hall. The room was empty and the bed freshly made. All of Kyla’s little touches were gone.
Matthew wheeled around and almost ran into the nurse. “Where is my daughter?” he demanded.
Anne looked at him strangely. “She’s been moved. She’s rooming with her husband.”
He blushed. “How come no one let me know?”
Anne shrugged. “I guess they figured there would be less margin for error if they moved her late at night.”
“What’s up?” Josie asked.
“She’s in Joe’s room,” Matthew answered. He glanced at Anne. “Thank you. Sorry for startling you.”
Anne nodded and moved on.
Matthew swung Molly up onto his hip and marched back down the hall.
“What’s wrong?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know. Something.”
On the elevator, Molly glanced over Matthew’s shoulder and waved at a tall, blonde man behind them. “Hi, Jason,” she called to him.
Matthew swung around to face the man.
Jason startled, then grinned at Matthew sheepishly and winked at the little girl. “Hi, Molly. Tell Kyla I’ll go home if she’s so adamant about it. You have to stop doing her dirty work for her.” He tapped Molly’s cheek with his fingertip. The door opened, and Jason disappeared down the hall.
Molly giggled.
Matthew looked at Josie in the empty elevator and put out his hand to stop the closing door.
“Molly, who was that?” Josie asked.
Molly smiled. “That was Jason. You’ll meet him at the wedding.”
They started down the hall. Matthew was lost in thought. Why was Molly so very like her sister? By all accounts, they should be nothing alike. “Molly, did you read Jason’s mind?” he asked.
Molly giggled again. “No. Kyla saw him yesterday. He was guarding her, and she told him to go home.”
“Why?” Josie asked.
“She said her friends could get in trouble for helping to hide her. She wants them far away, so they’ll be safe.”
Matthew and Josie looked at each other and nodded. That sounded like Kyla.
The two police officers waved as they approached. “Hello, folks. Go on in, but you may be waking them.”
“What?” Matthew asked. “Kyla never sleeps until nine.”
One of them shrugged. “Rough night.” He looked meaningfully at Molly.
Matthew nodded.
“Waters will be here soon,” the other officer commented.
Matthew considered his options. He’d rather have Josie take Molly out when Waters was there. He nodded again and opened the door.
Matthew smiled at the scene inside. Kyla’s bed was pushed close enough that her hand was clasped in Joe’s in her sleep. She looked peaceful. This was a side of Kyla that Matthew rarely saw until Easter weekend. His daughter had always been haunted. Or was it hunted?
Joe opened his eyes and waved with a yawn. Matthew waved back. They tried not to disturb Kyla, but she woke when Molly charged in.
Kyla grinned sleepily, then winced when she tried to move. Matthew winced in sympathy for her. She was in a lot more pain than yesterday. Joe squeezed her hand and sent her a sympathetic look.
Molly and Joe were chatting when Matthew saw Kyla startle and duck her hands under the sheet. She unwrapped the bandages around her hands as quietly as she could. Matthew furrowed his brow and shrugged as if to ask what was going on. Kyla met his gaze and jerked her head toward Molly, and he nodded. Whatever it was, she didn’t want Molly to see it.
Matthew stared intently as Kyla eased her hands from beneath the sheets. The cuts and bruises on her arms continued onto her hands but were even worse. The rope burns on her wrists and hands were an ugly purple and green. What could be wrong with the bandage that was worse than her hands themselves?
Waters arrived promptly at ten. Matthew suggested that Josie take Molly for a walk while they talked boring grown-up stuff.
If Josie was upset about being relegated to the children’s table, she never showed it. Molly left without a peep, but Matthew got the impression she had a better understanding of the current situation than he did.
When they were gone, Matthew turned to Kyla and raised an eyebrow. “What’s with the bandages?”
She pulled the mass of gauze out and handed it to him with a look akin to a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, not that Kyla was the type of child who typically got caught with her hand in the jar. If anything, she got caught with the cookie in her pocket.
Matthew could see the dark red-brown stains clearly. He nodded and dumped the pile in the trash. “Well,” he continued. “Anyone want to fill me in?”
Waters looked at him and sighed. “There was an incident last night.” He shrugged, a movement made awkward by the arm cast and the sling.
“Speak English,” Matthew warned.
“A couple of guys paid off a guard and made it to my room,” Kyla explained.
Matthew paled and moved a step closer to his daughter.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t there at the time.”
“What about—” He jerked his thumb at the trashcan.
“My stitches ripped open.”
“I may not be Molly, but even I can see there’s more to this than you’re telling me. Now, give me the whole story.”
Kyla favored him with a hard look that Matthew had seen before. This was when she usually told him where to get off. “Molly can’t tell you any more than I already have. I tell her what I want to. I rarely slip up. Ask Det. Waters. I’m sure he’s here for a reason.”
Waters nodded. “I am. We have a pretty clear picture of what happened last night.”
“I thought they weren’t talking,” Joe said.
“They weren’t until Parker sold them out.” Waters grinned. “Once Parker started talking, they realized they better talk or go down in flames alone. They have families. They’ll get a lighter sentence for turning in the big fish.”
“And the big fish is?” Kyla prompted him.
“What do you know about Luke Jameson?”
“Another televang
elist? What have these guys got against me?” Kyla moaned.
Waters sighed. “As near as we can get to his motive, he was afraid of your popularity.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“Not really. In his mind, you have the influence to shut off his flow of power and money. You have quite a following, you know.”
“I don’t want a following. I want to be left alone. Why would I want to hurt his ministry?”
“Because he would want to undermine yours. People like Jameson think that’s the name of the game.”
“Well, I don’t want to play. I never did want to play this game.”
“He won’t be playing anymore either.”
“Won’t it just be his word against theirs?”
Waters smiled. “Nope. He’s greedy and stupid. We’ve already verified his fingerprints on the barrel of the gun.”
Joe laughed deep and long at the thought. Even Kyla cracked a smile and shook her head. Matthew couldn’t seem to get a handle on what they all found funny in this situation.
Waters was suddenly serious again. “I have more bad news.”
“What now?” Kyla asked wearily.
“Someone at the department fed some information to the media. I’ve already had calls about it. I declined to comment, but they apparently have photocopies.”
Kyla paled. “Of what?”
Waters glanced at Matthew. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you this until— Well, I didn’t want to tell you at all.”
“No,” Kyla raged. “How could you let them?”
Matthew saw the tears in her eyes. He knew where this was going. “Kyla, it’s okay. I’ve known for a long time. I just didn’t know that you knew. I couldn’t see any reason to hurt you by telling you.”
“How?”
“When you were sixteen, you wanted to start giving blood. Remember?”
Kyla nodded mutely.
“I got you a card, because Briana wouldn’t allow it. We used my address for them to send it to and my phone number so they wouldn’t call her house.”
“I hid the card out with you until I was eighteen.”
“A few days after you donated for the first time, the blood bank called. They were entering you into the computer database when they realized the family group didn’t match up. I lied and told them we’d used a sperm donor. I figured it was close enough to the truth. I was afraid that Briana...” Matthew smiled, but Kyla’s face was unchanged.
“You don’t understand. It’s worse than that.” Kyla shook her head, and the first of the tears fell.
His heart sank. “How much worse?”
She looked at Waters helplessly. If Kyla couldn’t say it, it was pretty bad.
Waters cleared his throat. “She’s not Briana’s either,” he offered quietly.
Matthew was having trouble thinking clearly. “Who— Where are her birth parents? Do they know? Of course not. If they did, this would have come to a head years ago.” Matthew couldn’t even imagine the shock for them if they had no clue.
She shook her head again. “They’re dead.”
“You know who they are?” he asked.
Kyla nodded, and Waters took over again.
“The same men who kidnapped her, killed them on the night she was born. We don’t really understand why yet, but it seems they were trying to kill Kyla even then.”
“Why didn’t they come after her sooner? When she was a child and defenseless?”
“They did,” she answered.
“When? How? Why did they stop?”
Kyla started to cry. She curled into Joe’s shoulder and wouldn’t meet his gaze. Waters stared at him miserably.
Joe spoke. “There was a mix-up. The other baby, your baby—” He faltered. “They thought they had succeeded.” Joe couldn’t continue. He started comforting Kyla.
Matthew’s mind shut down. He wasn’t ready for this. He knew Kyla wasn’t his, but this went beyond any hellish concept of the truth he had ever concocted. “They killed my child?”
Waters nodded. “The nurse realized her mistake, but by then—” He sighed. “She couldn’t bear to break your heart when so simple a solution presented itself. She kept her mouth shut and let you fall in love with the wrong child. After all, there was no chance there would ever be a custody battle.”
“This nurse—” Matthew couldn’t even figure out what he wanted to ask.
“It was Gram,” Joe supplied. “She’s been looking after Kyla ever since.”
“And...she’s dead too?”
Joe nodded. “She never stopped regretting what happened. Protecting Kyla became an obsession for her.”
“How did they do it?”
Joe hesitated. He knew but he wasn’t about to tell Matthew the whole story. He didn’t think Matthew could handle the whole truth. The older man could read it in his face.
Joe shook his head. “Everyone trusts a priest. When we’re on our feet again, we can show you her grave if you like. I know it’s not much consolation, but it’s all I have.”
Matthew nodded. Whatever pain he thought he was sparing Kyla, she was always sparing him worse. No matter what, she was his daughter.
Kyla looked at him miserably. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t want you to have to know.”
He crossed the room and folded his arms around both Kyla and Joe. “This doesn’t change a thing. You’re still my daughter. You’ll always be my daughter.”
Chapter Thirty-three
May 30th-31st
Leo sat at his desk. What had once been an interesting adventure-romance had turned into a full-blown media circus. As more information emerged, it became more a montage of urban legends run wild than a simple police case. The media was clamoring for more.
Brian and Cole’s attorneys seemed to be under orders to make new announcements, taking credit for more atrocities, every few days. They claimed to want to make amends for what they had done, but it went beyond that. It was almost as if the two men wanted to bury themselves legally.
Brian still claimed he had no idea of why Jessup wanted Kyla dead as a child. Cole still claimed he only went after Kyla because of rumors he’d heard about her being dangerous to the Church.
Leo didn’t buy any of it. Jessup was crazy. Brian, as a young man, might have blindly followed whatever religious crusade Jessup had sent him on, much as Cole’s men had followed him. He might even have hidden what he had done in fear or shame.
Cole was the point where the logic broke down. Unlike Luke Jameson, Cole wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t jump into a private fight, unless he knew Kyla posed a very tangible threat to himself, his ministry, or his religion.
Why protect her? Why did everyone around her seem to want to protect her? Even Leo found himself slipping into the habit.
Cole spent most of his time staring at the ceiling of his jail cell. Given the circumstances, the judge at the arraignment had denied bail. Even if she hadn’t, Leo doubted either of the men would have bothered to post bail. They would never see the outside of a jail cell except for court time and prisoner transfer again in their lives.
Spending his money on useless lawyers didn’t seem to be enough for Cole. He was also shelling out millions of dollars in reparations to the families of the dead, as Kyla had asked in her statement to the media.
There had been a very public confrontation when Cole’s lawyer approached Matthew Keating as he left the hospital. The lawyer had attempted to give him a check. He’d carefully explained that it wasn’t a payoff, but rather to aid in Kyla’s recovery and their expenses.
On live television, Matthew handed Molly to her mother, took the check, and tore it to pieces. As he tossed them into the air like confetti, Matthew smiled at the lawyer. “Pay my ticket for littering.”
Leo could definitely see where Kyla got her spirit.
Samantha Allen’s lawyer came forward with her will. She had left everything to Kyla and Joe. That was all he’d told the press. He’d told Leo more.
Her house and all of her belongings were Kyla’s. The land surrounding the house was Joe’s. Her life savings was Kyla’s, and her insurance policy was Joe’s.
The dating of the will confused Leo. Five years ago, Gram and Joe had barely met. How could she know for certain that such an arrangement would be so fortuitous? Kyla admitted that Gram somehow knew they would fall in love even before she hired Joe to protect her. Did the woman merely play a lucky hand of matchmaking?
* * *
The doctors decided to release them both on Friday because of Kyla’s ripped stitches. By Wednesday, the cards and letters came pouring in despite Kyla’s plea. At first, she barely glanced at them. Then she opened one. Kyla found money inside and a note asking her to distribute it to the children of the victims.
Kyla sighed. She should have realized this would happen. She’d never organized someone to accept donations, so Kyla had been elected by default until she did.
Joe watched as she opened card after card. She placed the money carefully in a large, manila envelope. Whenever she came across a card or letter that particularly moved her, she set it aside in its envelope. Joe read some of those.
Two hours after she started, she suddenly stopped. She sat with the letter in her lap and stared off into space.
“Something wrong?” Joe asked.
“I can’t decide whether to tear this up or give it to Waters.”
“What is it?” he asked, reaching for the letter.
Kyla sighed. “Hate mail. I should have expected it. It’s probably amazing that it took me two hours to find one.”
Joe grabbed the letter from her lap and started to read it. He grimaced. The author was obviously a former fan of Cole who blamed Kyla for his downfall.
He reached his hand out to Kyla. “Give me the envelope.”
She complied.
Joe ripped the letter to shreds and tossed it into the trashcan beside the bed, then he met her gaze. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
Kyla nodded. “I think I should.”
“I didn’t ask that. Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes, I want to do this.”
Joe kissed her. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal.”
