A glint of determination fired behind his bloodshot eyes. Drake leaned in close and said, “Two words. One name. And when I tell you, you’ll be just as immobilized as I am.”
Kate was so poised to hear the name, she wasn’t even breathing anymore.
Finally, Drake opened his mouth and said, “Dean Wentworth.”
Chapter Nine
It was unfathomable. Had the old man lost his mind? There was no way Dean Wentworth could’ve had anything to do with the explosion at the amusement park. It was his amusement park, for God’s sake. But as Kate walked out to Jared’s sedan, it occurred to her that if Jessica had discovered a box of drugs in Bradley’s room, Drake’s account provided some semblance of an explanation. Even still, it was hard to swallow.
She drove slowly and carefully back to the art deco house where Jared was waiting patiently. Inside, she found him at the kitchen table with his laptop.
“I’m back,” she told him, rounding through the kitchen, giving his shoulder a squeeze, and walking straight to the counter where the coffeemaker sat.
“How did it go?” He glanced up from his computer to look at her.
Whispering, she asked, “Is she here?” Kate hadn’t seen Donna’s white sedan outside, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
“No, she didn’t come back.”
“She went to Drake’s Firing Line.” Kate poured herself a mug of coffee. “Want one?”
“Ah, no, I’m good,” he said, lifting his mug off the table. “A shooting range? That’s weird.”
“Let me ask you...” She settled into the chair adjacent to his. “You work closely with the mayor—”
“Ut-oh, I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?”
“From Dean’s end of things,” she went on, “it would seem Scott would’ve had to clue Dean in on the ransom exchange, correct?”
“That’s right, but it’s not like he gave the mayor a choice.”
“Right,” she said, drawing the word out so she could think her point through before stating it. “What happened after the explosion?”
“Aside from Dean panicking?” Jared took a moment to recall. “Dean immediately put in a claim with his insurance company. The amusement park corporation has a policy, as well, so they put in a claim. And I know Dean was issued a huge compensation figure. Nearly a million, actually.”
That would explain Dean’s abrupt shift in mood, having gone from irate to cheerful. What if he had killed two birds with one stone? What if he needed to thwart the ransom exchange for some reason, say, if having Becky in the kidnapper’s custody made her privy to things Dean wouldn’t want her telling Scott as soon as she was home again? And what if collecting insurance money was just an added bonus?
Jared continued with a question. “Don’t tell me you followed Donna to a shooting range and learned that Drake had something to do with the ransom exchange....”
“I don’t know Drake well enough to trust his word on anything,” she offered and took a long sip of her coffee, gearing up for all the furniture moving they would have to embark on.
Eric Demblowski’s comment that Kate was blind when a killer lurked in her own family, which had implied Jason could’ve had something to do with Tommy, was starting to make a shred of sense, unfortunately. Not because Jason was capable of such a thing, but he did work for Dean. He did run Wentworth Contractors, and he was at the helm of the construction site out east where the explosion had taken place.
Before she could let herself go there, thinking the worst, though doing so seemed to be her new mode of operation, Kate got to her feet. “Ready?”
“Let’s get this over with,” he said, rising from his chair and flipping his laptop down.
A grueling two hours passed. Together they carried items out to the U-Haul—the kitchen table, the living room couch, various shelving units and dressers. In the upstairs bedroom, they stripped the mattress and laughed when they gave up on carrying the floppy, heavy thing and instead let it tumble down the stairs. Once it was propped in the back of the U-Haul, they muscled the wooden bedframe down the stairs, a challenging task, though Kate had disassembled the four posters so it would actually fit down the hallway and stairs.
Finally, they had gotten every last item into the truck. Kate thanked Jared and waved him off, as he drove away. She stepped up into the U-Haul and gave Corey a quick phone call. He sounded annoyed and she apologized for having botched the timeline. After listening to him hem and haw at having to rearrange his day in order to go through inventory when she arrived, he ultimately caved to her request that she head over now. Kate thanked him again and started off down Pennsylvania Road.
As Corey wrinkled his nose, inspecting every ding and dent in the furniture, matching the blemishes against photographs of the items he had taken prior to renting her the furniture, Kate kept thinking about Bradley.
Corey concluded, “There’s no damage that I can find.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I’ll release the security deposit on the items. You should see the amount back in your account in about three business days.”
“Perfect.”
The deposit had been at a discount, though still sizable, and she could use it to clear her tab at Grayson’s as soon as the money came into her banking account.
Thanking him again, she started for the door. Outside, dusk was falling, but when she pulled the door open, she realized it looked much cooler than it was.
Last she had heard, Bradley delivered for Gino’s restaurant as a part-time job. If Kate were lucky, he would be working tonight and she would have a chance to ask him a few things without the awkwardness of trying to get Jessica’s permission. If Dean were involved in anything uncouth, Kate doubted Jessica would know about it, but by the same measure, she didn’t want to tip her off in case Drake had been wildly wrong.
Gino’s was located in the heart of Rock Ridge, on Main Street, a few doors down from The Rail, her favorite bar. She hadn’t had a proper beer in ages, or set foot in The Rail, for that matter. Though it was tempting to make a pit stop and calm her nerves, she overcame the urge and walked into Gino’s instead.
The restaurant was bustling with early-bird customers, who were chatting loudly in the booths while perusing the menu. The hostess greeted Kate, asking if she would like a table for one.
“Actually, I’m here to see Bradley if he’s working tonight.”
“Let me check the schedule,” she said, as she began tapping the monitor beside the hostess stand, which was typically used to track the occupied versus vacant tables. “I didn’t see him, but he generally goes in and out through the back. One sec.”
Kate waited patiently, as the young woman looked into it.
“He is working,” she said, though her eyes didn’t lift from the screen. “I think he’s out on a delivery.”
“But he’ll come in through the back?”
“Yes, there’s an alley behind the restaurant with a few parking spots in front of our rear exit. But trust me, you don’t want to wait out there. It stinks, thanks to the dumpsters.”
Kate appreciated the warning, but told her she would wait in her truck and wouldn’t be bothered.
It took a few minutes to drive around the block and cut in through the back alley.
As soon as she parked, she shifted the truck’s venting system from outside air to inside circulation, but it didn’t help the stench she’d been cautioned about. She hoped Bradley would return sooner rather than later, and when he did, she wondered where they might talk. The smell was giving her a headache.
Her cell vibrated in her overalls. When she looked at it, she saw Scott’s name and number flashing across the screen and immediately swiped the LCD.
“Hey.”
Scott cut in with, “Amelia made bail.”
“Good for her,” she said.
“When last we spoke, you had really gotten somewhere with her, Katydid. I’m still just spinning my wheels. She doesn’t trust
me.”
“Well, Scott, you arrested her.”
“Bygones?”
“She might not see it that way just because she got out on bail.”
“No, you’re right. She almost missed Lance’s hospital release because of me. She’s not my biggest fan, I get it. Look, we need to help her understand that I only want to get to the bottom of this, and if she’s innocent then she has to help me completely clear her, and she has to tell me everything she knows.”
“Did you tell her that point-blank?”
“Yes, but like I said, she doesn’t trust me. I think if we all got together as a family, and I mean everyone—the boys, you and me, her and Lance—then she would be inclined to get all the facts out in the open. Not in terms of telling the police, but in the spirit of us sticking together as a family.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“What about tonight?”
“Sure, I should be home in an hour.” She hoped as much. Bradley hadn’t returned yet. Where the heck was his delivery? In Vermont?
“I can’t initiate this...”
“I’ll give her a call,” she offered, though it came out like a grumble. “Let’s say seven thirty at our place?”
“I doubt Lance will leave his house.”
“So you’re asking me to call Amelia to invite ourselves over and talk about things she doesn’t want to talk about?”
“Thanks, babe, you’re the best.”
Kate had to laugh, but told him she would get in touch with Amelia right away.
If Amelia was hard to get on the phone and even harder to convince of having this family meeting, Jason was downright impossible. Kate called his cell twice, leaving a voice-mail message the first time and simply hanging up the second, and then followed up with a compelling text message, which included the fact that if Amelia had agreed, then he should, too. Jared was next on her list, and being the good twin to his brother’s evil, he not only picked up right away, but didn’t take any prodding.
“Honey, could you give Jason a nudge,” she said before he could hang up. “I called, but...” She sighed, the sound of which was enough to get her point across.
“Sure thing, but no guarantees. I’ll swing by his house, as well, to cover my bases, but you know how that’s gone in the past.”
“Yeah, I know. Do your best. Seven thirty.”
“Right,” he said, getting off the phone.
She returned her cell to her overalls and stared out at the darkening alley. Headlights suddenly brightened the strip, as a car turned into the alley. She didn’t actually know Bradley’s car, and the one approaching looked a bit flashy to be a teenager’s property, but when the vehicle turned into the parking spot next to hers, she saw Bradley behind the wheel. Music was blasting out the windows until he pulled the key from the ignition and it abruptly cut out.
“Bradley,” she said, stepping out of her truck as soon as he climbed out of his car.
“Who’s that? Kate?” He squinted through the dimly lit alley at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Out here?” he asked, approaching her. “It smells like garlic rotting in the sun.”
Ah, that was the smell. She was glad he’d identified it.
“What about in my truck?” she suggested and he shrugged, walking briskly around the front of her truck and hopping into the passenger’s seat.
“Smells like paint thinner,” he commented, sniffing around. “At least it masks the stench.”
“I always have been lucky like that,” she said dryly. “I wanted to ask you about a few things, but first I’ll say, you aren’t in trouble and I’m not going to get you in trouble.”
“So, what I’m hearing is, I’m in trouble.”
“No really, you aren’t,” she insisted, smiling at his clever teenaged logic. “We’ve known each other a number of years now. I saw the good in you when you were mixed up with the Anarchist Freedom Network and I know you’re still a good kid.”
“Okay,” he said skeptically.
“Your mom told me about a box of drugs in your room.”
“Wow, you do not beat around the bush, do you?” He laughed as though he couldn’t believe he was in this situation. “Look, it wasn’t mine, and yes, I know I shouldn’t have taken it, not because stealing is wrong, but because getting caught with two pounds of drugs is a felony.”
“It is.”
“Okay, so my mom already talked to me about this.”
“I’m sure she did. What I want to know is where you got it.”
“What, do you have a habit I don’t know about?”
“Let’s stop being cute, Bradley. Where did you get it?”
Bradley’s expression drew long and his face hardened with anger. “I’ll tell you where. From Dean’s crappy girlfriend, that’s where. And I wasn’t going to do anything with it. I was only trying to make a point.”
“Girlfriend?” Kate asked, alarmed. Dean and Jessica had been happily married for a number of years. “Dean has a mistress?”
“Don’t make it sound classy, it’s not and she’s not, no matter how hard she tries.”
She shifted in her seat, speechless.
“Do you know what this feels like for me? Knowing that jerk has been messing around and wanting to tell my mom, but knowing if I tell her it’ll destroy her? I was so pissed off about it, I wanted to scare the crap out of Dean, so I took the box of drugs from that woman, you know, to prove to Dean she was the absolute worst. But of course, I didn’t get the chance because Mom had to go clean my room.” He interrupted himself with a snorted laugh. “Yeah, like she was cleaning. Then once she’s done flipping out at me and sends me to my room, Dean comes in like he’s going to be the cool stepdad and talk to me. I confronted him then about his girlfriend, but he didn’t even let me get to the part where I tell him she’s the one who has these drugs, not me, because Dean frigging cuts me off to tell me he stopped seeing her, anyhow.”
“What’s the woman’s name?” Kate said finally when she regained her faculties.
“Donna,” he said as if her name disgusted him. “Some hotshot from out of town.”
“Donna Kramer?”
“I guess. Frigging Dean,” he went on. “He was all bent out of shape because his secret girlfriend had a secret boyfriend, that poor bastard who got killed. What’s his name? Tommy Barkow?”
Suddenly, Kate’s mind started reeling.
“Donna Kramer and Tommy Barkow,” she murmured to herself. The drug chemist and the dealer.
Bradley continued to stew from the passenger’s seat. “I’m telling you right now,” he stated. “If Dean takes Tommy’s death as his clean slate to start back up with Donna, there’s going to be another murder in Rock Ridge, and it’ll be because I frigging killed Dean.”
“All right, don’t talk like that,” she said in a small voice even she didn’t believe.
Could Donna Kramer have been in room 5 that day with Tommy? Had she killed him? Or had Dean killed him in a jealous rage or as a means to get Tommy out of the way of his secret love affair with Donna?
“You still didn’t tell me where exactly you got that box of drugs,” she reminded him.
“From Donna’s stash,” he replied vaguely.
“Where?”
He snorted a laugh and said “where” in a mimicking voice. “Where do you think? At the amusement park! I’m telling you, that park is going to bring in a ton of cash, but not because the rides are fun. Donna Kramer, with Dean’s help, is going to be selling a different kind of trip entirely.”
Was that why Dean had thrown a bomb at the amusement park that night? Because the police were way too close to drugs being stashed there?
“Kate, are you okay?”
She glanced at Bradley, who looked suddenly concerned for her. “This is huge. This is a conspiracy. It’s going to be the biggest scandal this town has ever seen if it gets out. Dean is going to get in a lot of trouble. This could ruin
Rock Ridge.”
Bradley screwed his face up. “Are you worried about them not getting caught or about them getting caught? Right now it sounds like both.”
She had never been more conflicted in her entire life. And she didn’t have an answer. “I have to get going.”
“Yeah, nice talking to you,” he said, popping the door open.
“Bradley?”
“Yeah?”
“Stay out of trouble, would you?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” he told her with a smile. “I’m good at never getting caught.”
He shut the door and she yelled, “That isn’t funny!” Bradley yanked the restaurant door open and slipped inside.
Kate had to clear her head before she sat down with the Langleys, Scott, and her boys. It would make things tight, but she drove home for a quick shower. As she stood in the stall, letting the hot stream of water wash over her and lathering her hair with shampoo, she was struck by the fact of how thoroughly overwhelmed she felt. The mayor was tangled up with a siren, drug lord. He may or may not have thrown a bomb at Lance Langley. He certainly knew about Donna’s operation of moving drugs from the Langleys’ mustard factory to the shed at the inn, and to the very amusement park he was building. Everyone even remotely associated to the conspiracy was terrified, and worse, clueless about who was behind it all. Was that person Donna? Or did the chain of command go up much higher? Becky’s abduction was an extension of the drug ring, as well, and yet Dean’s decision to blow up the ransom exchange seemed to muddy the motivations behind Becky’s disappearance in the first place. Tommy Barkow had clearly died for his involvement, but Kate was no closer to understanding who had done it, though her prime suspects were either Dean or Donna. And Amelia Langley’s arrest had thrown a superficial wrench into the entire picture of what might’ve truly happened.
As Kate stepped out of the shower, she told herself that if this family meeting didn’t answer the many burning questions she had, she was going to have a bonafide nervous breakdown.
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