She let out a ragged breath and clasped her trembling hands, all the while her mind was racing to analyze whether or not her response had been coherent. But she was so rattled, she couldn’t even recall what she had said.
Bart began, not missing a beat, but he didn’t get a word out before Eric leapt in with, “Let’s talk about Becky’s criminal record, which Jason—”
“Yes, let’s talk about her criminal record,” she snapped, cutting him off as rudely as he had her attorney. “More specifically, I’d like to hear from you about the fact that you’ve been hiding Becky Langley in your house this entire time.”
Kate was vaguely aware of the production team gasping and murmuring throughout the Tribune, but she kept her bright eyes locked on Eric, feeling satisfied that the reporter was shrinking in his chair and turning white.
When he began stammering, she stated, “I find it interesting how greatly you and the Rock Ridge Tribune have benefited from Becky’s story. You were nominated for a journalism award, if I’m not mistaken. You don’t just cover the news,” she said sternly. “You’ve also been creating it.”
“That’s unfounded,” Eric objected. “And ludicrous, I might add.”
“Is it? I saw her drive a black SUV to your house last night. You answered the door. She went in and didn’t come out.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Then who was that woman?”
“I’m not on trial here. Your son is.”
“Not yet, he isn’t. And he won’t be, because Becky wasn’t kidnapped. She’s dead center in the middle of the drug ring that has taken over this town, and you’ve been helping her.”
“Cut the feed,” Eric demanded, turning to the director and drawing his thumb across his neck for emphasis. But she didn’t alert her cameraman to stop rolling. “Damn it, I said cut the feed!”
The director looked just as interested to hear Eric’s answer as Kate was.
“Fine,” he barked, shifting in his chair uncomfortably. “Next question.” He didn’t even look at his notecards, but glared at Kate. “Kate, are you concerned about coming off as callous? After all, you’re sitting here, collecting an appearance fee and claiming your fifteen minutes of fame, while your husband is laid up in the hospital.”
Stunned, Kate struggled to speak then spat out, “What?”
“Your husband, Police Chief Scott York, was shot several times, according to my sources. He was gunned down outside of the prison. Yet here you are, basking in the spotlight. Would you say Jason inherited this coldhearted trait of yours?”
In delayed reaction, Kate jumped out of her chair, ripping the microphone from her sweater. As she ran for the door, struggling to process the news, she clipped shoulders with the sound guy and stumbled, her palm smacking a desk. She cursed the damned skirt she was wearing, hiked it up, and took off again.
When she reached her truck, she felt like she wasn’t getting any air and she panicked. She yanked on the driver’s side door handle four times before she realized it was locked. She corrected the error, jumped in, and peeled out into the street.
Kate should’ve known something was wrong. She had called Scott countless times, and it wasn’t like him not to pick up or return her calls. How could she have thought his lack of a response was stemming from their separation and not a critical emergency?
Why hadn’t someone at the precinct called her to tell her what had happened? She’d known most of the detectives and officers for years, and no one reached out?
Weaving in and out of traffic at a breakneck speed, each second passing slowly, she made her way to Rock Ridge Mercy, a hospital she had not set foot in since Lance was nearly killed during the amusement park explosion. The memory flooded her thoughts. She had been terrified, running from the surveillance van to the site. Her only thought had been of Scott and what she would do if anything were to happen to him. And now here she was, the same nightmare riveting her.
Was this Becky’s doing? Was this what she had meant when she directed her followers to take Kate out? Not to kill her physically, but emotionally? Kate feared the plan was working, as she veered into the hospital parking lot and came to a screeching stop just shy of the ambulance port.
She sprinted through the sliding glass doors, which barely opened in time, and when she reached the front desk, she slammed into it, demanding out of breath, “Scott York!”
“Yes,” said the man behind the desk, rising to meet her urgency. “He’s in the ICU.”
“Where?” she yelled.
“Around the desk and down the corridor,” he began, but Kate didn’t wait for further directions. She was already jogging towards the set of double doors he was pointing at.
As soon as she barreled through them, she heard someone behind her call her name.
She didn’t have time for much more than a glimpse over her shoulder, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Officer Garrison, who she often forgot had been promoted to detective.
“What the hell happened?” she demanded.
“Kate—”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Garrison’s empathetic expression turned confused. “Oh, we did.”
“No! You didn’t!”
“Then I’ll give our new receptionist a stern talking to,” he offered, as she gaped at him, appalled he would leave such a critical phone call to someone who hadn’t been on the job very long.
Disgusted, Kate walked briskly towards the ICU, ignoring Garrison who was jogging to catch up with her.
“He was shot twice,” he explained. “He’s conscious.”
Kate wished the information relieved her, but as she came to the windows showing the patients in dire straits and spotted Scott lying in one of the beds, anchored to several machines, wires sprouting from pads on his head and chest, she thought she might collapse with grief.
Pausing at the window and staring at him, Kate sensed Garrison near her. “Lower abdomen and his upper left thigh. He was wearing a vest, so even though he was shot three times in the chest...”
“What if they shot him in the head?” she yelled, now glaring at the cop, but she was too furious to wait for an answer. “Who did this?”
“We don’t know.”
“The same person who shot at my house?” When Garrison didn’t confirm, she asked, “Black SUV?”
“Look, Kate,” he said, taking her shoulders, but she shoved him off. “Scott has been going off the deep end. I know he’s been making headway on the drug case and the Becky Langley connection, but he hasn’t shared the information. And he’s not talking to me.”
“So he didn’t tell you who shot him?” she asked, shocked.
Garrison shook his head. “Maybe you could get him to say something. I need to know what he knows.”
Kate tempered her reaction, focusing on relaxing her expression, even though her mind was racing. If Scott wouldn’t tell his fellow officers about the recent developments on the case, then he didn’t trust his department.
“Don’t come in,” she asserted. “I’ll talk to him alone.”
Garrison agreed, opening the door and helping it to close.
As Kate neared Scott, she felt Garrison’s eyes on her, so she glanced at him over her shoulder and waved him off.
She took Scott’s hand and studied his face. His eyes were closed and his hand felt limp in hers. Soon a nurse padded into the room and pressed a few buttons on one of Scott’s monitors, then changed his IV bag.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked.
The nurse sank into her hip and tilted her head, gazing down at Scott. “He’s not out of the woods yet, but it’s looking positive.”
“He should be fine,” Kate insisted. “His major organs weren’t shot.”
“No, but the bullet that hit his leg was lodged in his femoral artery. That’s the main artery in the leg. He lost a lot of blood when the surgeon was trying to extract the bullet.”
“Just tell me, what are his chances?”
“That’s good, right? That sounds good. I’d take those odds.”
“His chances of walking, however...”
“What are you telling me?”
“The bullet that struck his abdomen went all the way through to his back. It hit his lower spine.”
“Oh my God.”
“It could go either way,” she concluded. “And we really won’t know the extent of the damage or how lucky he is until he’s strong enough to try to walk. This is what we call a ‘wait and see’ situation.”
Kate felt her legs turn to rubber and her knees wobbled, but she planted her palm on the bed. The nurse wasted no time dragging a chair from the corner of the room over to where Kate was standing. “Let me know if you need anything,” she said in a kind voice. “Just press this button,” she added, pointing to a red button on the bedrail, “and I’ll come right away. Otherwise, I’ll be back to check on Scott in eight minutes.”
“Thank you,” Kate said in a voice barely audible.
“He is conscious,” she assured her. “We’ve got him on some powerful painkillers that cause him to drift off, but he’s coherent when awake.”
After the nurse padded out of the room, Kate leaned over Scott and stroked his white hair.
His left eye popped open in response, followed by his right. “Kate?”
“Shh,” she said. “I’m here. I’m so sorry.”
“Grant Conover,” he said, murmuring. “My lead...”
“What?” she whispered, leaning in and staring at him with unblinking eyes. “What lead?”
“Don’t talk to the precinct,” he groaned, then began coughing. “Trust no one.”
Chapter Seven
Kate thought about Dean’s gun all night as she tossed and turned in fits of shallow sleep. If Scott didn’t trust his own precinct, what hope could the residents of Rock Ridge have of crime finally coming to an end? It didn’t settle her nerves one bit to know she had locked every door and window, set the security alarm, and made sure every surveillance camera was recording.
When she woke the next morning without incident, rather than feeling relieved, she sensed impending doom as though it was only a matter of time before something even worse than Jason’s arrest, even worse than Scott laid up in the hospital, leapt out of the shadows to destroy her.
After walking through every room in the house to make sure there had been no break-in attempts through the night, and also scanning the yard outside for lurking figures, Kate entered the kitchen and cursed that she had left her coffeemaker in Justina’s building.
She scrambled through the cabinets, hoping that memory was serving her. She could’ve sworn she had left a jar of instant coffee somewhere. A strange mix of desperation and disgust came over her at the thought. Kate was a coffee connoisseur, and instant coffee, as stale as it was weak, tended to insult her delicate palette.
When finally she found the jar, she just stared at it, grimacing.
Justina was due to arrive at her house. Kate had made arrangements with the real-estate agent last night before driving home from the hospital. Justina had understood when Kate said she had to postpone their meeting, but it was imperative that Kate get an appraisal in writing before Bart Vaughn took Jason to the courthouse to see about his bail. She was relieved when Justina had agreed to stop by the house in the morning.
Quickly, Kate got Justina on her cell phone.
“Morning!” she said, bright eyed and bushy tailed in a way that Kate envied.
“Hey, could you do me a favor?” she asked, trying to smooth out the jagged edge of her tone.
“In addition to appraising your house?”
“Tiny favor,” she clarified. “Could you swing by Bean There and get me an extra-large, black, hazelnut coffee? And something for yourself, of course. I’ll pay you back for the order.”
“Ah,” said Justina knowingly. “I thought I saw your coffeemaker in unit one. Sure, no problem.”
Kate set her cell on the kitchen counter. She would have just enough time to shower and throw on some clothes before Justina got here. Before leaving the kitchen to do just that, Kate found a lemon in the refrigerator, cut off a slice, and filled a glass with water from the faucet. She squeezed the lemon then dropped it in the glass, reminding herself of an article she had once read on the health benefits of drinking a glass of lemon water first thing in the morning.
Well, it was a distant second to a hot cup of joe, that was for damn sure, but she drank it down then started off for the bathroom to get ready.
Once showered, she quickly towel-dried her hair and slipped into a pair of overalls and her sneakers. As she made her way out to the living room, the doorbell rang.
Kate was sure to check the small security monitor in the foyer closet, which showed a bird’s-eye view of Justina. When she finally opened the door, Justina greeted her with a smile and thrust a giant cup of coffee in her face.
“Hallelujah,” said Kate, widening the door with her shoulder and pulling the plastic tab up from the coffee lid.
Having the first sip took precedence over shutting the door, but once she felt a pop of caffeine hit her, she closed and locked it.
“What do I owe you?” she asked, joining Justina in the living room.
The real-estate agent was having a look around the place, her pen pressed firmly against the clipboard she was holding.
“Give me a rundown of all the security features,” she stated. “I can appraise this place upwards of a mil, easy.”
It was the first piece of good news Kate had heard in weeks. She led Justina around the house, noting each and every security feature, along with the make and model of the devices to highlight that they were government grade and state of the art. An hour later, Justina was drawing up the papers on her tablet, and she soon sent a PDF of the report to Kate’s e-mail.
And it was just in time, too.
Her cell phone was vibrating, Bart Vaughn’s name and number flashing across the LCD screen.
“What’s the word?” she asked immediately as she answered the call.
“Can you get down to the courthouse in ten minutes?”
“See ya in five!” She dropped her cell into the front pocket of her overalls and told Justina she had to run. “Thank you so much, again!”
They made their way outside, and as Kate rushed to her truck, Justina asked, “I know you’re going through a hell of a lot right now, but when will the first unit be rentable?”
“Today, I promise!”
Justina narrowed her eyes skeptically and told her that she hoped Kate was right. “Keep me posted!”
After she watched Justina pull a U-turn and drive off, Kate reversed away from the house, swung around, and drove down the long and winding driveway.
The Rock Ridge courthouse was located off of Main Street, perpendicular to the municipal building. Kate hadn’t set foot in the place since her divorce from Greg, a strange affair where she and her attorney stood in an empty courtroom while the judge declared her divorced in the blink of an eye.
Today the courthouse wasn’t nearly as empty. Kate pressed her way through lawyers converging with ex-cons, reporters stalking the lobby, police officers wrangling the crowd. In addition to the drug-related crimes and haphazard murders, many of the ex-cons had been getting into misdemeanor trouble—squatting in vacant buildings, shoplifting, getting drunk and belligerent in public areas.
She found Bart Vaughn standing near a water fountain. As she approached, she realized that in her frenzy to get to Scott at the hospital and the emotional upheaval that followed, she hadn’t given Bart a piece of her mind regarding the disastrous interview she had survived.
“Kate!” he said cheerily.
“Tell me that interview didn’t air,” she insisted.
“Oh, it aired,” he said, flashing his stark-white veneers as he smiled. “You really held your own—”
“I don’t want to have to hold my own
! You threw me to the damn wolves!”
“Ratings beg to differ, Kate. People love you! They like the cut of your jib!”
“What?”
“People think you’ve got moxie, gumption! They didn’t know what the hell to make of your accusation against Demblowski, but they loved you all the more for it!”
“How do you know this?”
“Surveys,” he said easily, but it made it her even more confused.
“As Jason’s attorney, would you look into Demblowski? He had something to do with this whole thing. If we dig deeper, we can exonerate Jason.”
“Yes we can, and we will, but remember, a trial is in everyone’s best interest.”
“Your best interest,” she corrected him in a biting tone.
“We’ve got two more interviews lined up—”
“I’m not going through that again. Scott is in the hospital. I have too much to deal with.”
“Scott in the hospital is the reason I was able to line up more interviews. Kate, your story, your family’s story is capturing the heart of America.”
“Why don’t we focus on capturing the bad guys,” she suggested dryly.
“See?” he said, indicating her attitude. “I love that! That’s what people love about you! Your no-nonsense personality!”
She glared at him, but a bailiff distracted Bart when he shouted, “Flaherty hearing!”
“That’s us!” Bart said excitedly. As he guided her into the courtroom, he added, “You had to wear overalls?”
Grumbling, Kate approached the podium on the left side of the courtroom and sat in the seat behind it, as Bart followed after and set his papers on it.
After a moment, a guard escorted Jason towards them. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and his hands were cuffed to his waist. Kate had to stop herself from bursting into tears. Jason wasn’t a wild animal, and seeing him chained up was gut wrenching.
“All rise!” said the bailiff, as soon as the district attorney had settled on the right side of the courtroom and Jason was standing next to Bart.
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection) Page 45
