Jackpot

by Mairsile Leabhair

  Kenny glanced at Deidre, whose eyes held a compassionate plea. “Yeah, she’s okay.”

  Anna exhaled a breath, seemingly calming down.

  Kenny was still cautious. She pulled the gun from her belt and made sure Anna saw it before turning her head toward Miguel. “Would you bring in the bastard that Lester is holding in the garage, please? It’s time to get some answers before we send them both off to jail.”

  “J-Jail?” Anna stuttered, her eyes wide with fear.

  Kenny shrugged. “What? You thought you could just waltz in here shooting at people and walk away?”

  “They were blanks,” Anna declared. “I just wanted to scare the shit out of the bitch, but I could never kill her. No matter how much I hated her.”

  “But, what would that have gotten you, Anna?” Deidre asked.

  “It was a game of Russian roulette. I wanted her to know that there was no place she could hide and that eventually, there would be a bullet with her name on it.”

  “What I heard from Ruth was that you had a pretty good life. So, why now?” Kenny asked as she pulled the clip from the gun and emptied the bullets. “Why go after Jaylen now?”

  “I found out she killed my brother.”

  “A brother you never knew you had?” Kenny asked without rancor.

  “Explain, please,” Deidre requested.

  “You know from Jaylen’s letters that she got pregnant again a year after she had me. It turns out that she had twins,” Kenny expounded, gritting her teeth. “What you didn’t know was that the boy was born with defects because of the drugs and died shortly after birth.”

  “The myths about being a twin are true,” Anna exemplified, her face docile. “All my life, I’ve yearned for something, but I didn’t know what. At first, I thought it was to be normal, be like everyone else. But I began to realize that a piece of me was missing, like my soul was incomplete. When I learned about my brother, I instantly understood what that meant.” She inhaled a ragged breath. “Not only did her addiction cause me shame growing up because of my foot, but it killed my brother.”

  “How did you find out about all of that?” Sophie asked as she carried a tray with cups and a carafe of coffee to the table.

  “Yeah, good question, Soph,” Kenny said. “How did you find out?”

  “When I was in prison—”

  Kenny smirked, shaking her head. “That you got arrested for on purpose.”

  “No, that was a fluke. I really did get caught shoplifting. Didn’t Ruth tell you that?”

  “She was probably too embarrassed to tell me,” Kenny sniped.

  “You’re probably right,” Anna agreed, adjusting her hips to relieve the pressure on her arms. “I learned who Jaylen was on the Internet but when I saw her in person, celebrating her daughter’s lottery win… oh, I guess that would be you. Anyway, she thought she was on easy street, bragging about how rich she was going to be.”

  “Is that when you got into a fight with her?” Chelsey asked.

  “Hell, yeah. If I’d only had more time, she’d be limping, too. As it were, I got some satisfaction out of learning she had to stay an extra week. That’s when the idea for real revenge hit me.” Anna looked at Deidre, her face circumspect. “I’m sorry I scared you all. And I’m sorry I called you a bitch, Mrs. Whitt. I didn’t mean… it wasn’t my intention to…” She lowered her head. “I just wanted Jaylen to hurt like I had.”

  Deidre studied her for a moment, and then said, “Anna, look at me, please.”

  Anna glanced at Kenny as if she wasn’t sure she should. Then she looked at Deidre, feeling surprisingly anxious.

  “The woman you tried to punish with a gun was my daughter. My child. Now, I don’t condone anything she’s done by taking drugs. That was her choice. But, Anna, you made the choice to come in here with a gun that, regardless of it being full of blanks, could have gotten someone hurt, or even yourself killed. So, like your mother, you made a choice and like her, it was the wrong one. So you sit there, looking at me with sorrow in your eyes, but hatred in your heart and—”

  “I don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.”

  Deidre held up her hand. “Let me finish, please.”

  Anna nodded once.

  “I’m talking about your hatred for Jaylen that drives you to make bad choices. So, tell me what your next choice is going to be.”

  She looked at Deidre curiously. “My next choice?”

  “You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you, and you just learned that you have a sister and a grandmother. What is your next choice?”

  “Prison,” Kenny answered for her. Digging in her jeans pocket, she pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call the police now.”

  Anna’s eyes flickered with fear. Her short stint in McPherson Unit taught her that she never wanted to go back there. Now, she realized, as she sat there with her hands tied behind her back, that her blind hatred for Jaylen would put her back in prison.

  “No, wait, Makenna,” Deidre said, and placed her hand on Kenny’s arm. “I want to hear her answer.”

  Kenny dropped the phone on the table and sat back in the chair, flinging her left arm over the back while still holding the useless gun in her right hand.

  Anna gazed at Deidre for a moment, her eyes swirling with emotions she couldn’t control. “Prison is definitely not my first choice, but I know I’m heading back there.” Her eyes glistened with tears as she continued, “If I could make the choice over again, I’d choose to get to know my grandmother and sister.” Deidre gave her a light smile, but Anna looked away. “As it is, my next choice will be to serve my time in prison and when I get out, take care of Ruth.”

  Deidre leaned forward, a flash of pain radiating up her back. She ignored it. “There’s another option, should you choose to take it.”

  “There is?” Kenny and Anna asked at the same time.

  “We can’t choose who our families are, but sometimes, our families choose us.”

  “Yeah… um… I don’t know what that means,” Anna said.

  “It means that I choose to welcome you to our family.”

  “You do?” Kenny and Anna again asked at the same time.

  “Yes, I do. I couldn’t help Jaylen and look at the sorrow she’s brought to both of you. But I can help Anna, if she’ll let me. It’s her choice.”

  “No!” Kenny bellowed. “First off, we don’t even know if she’s related to us yet, and second, she tried to kill Jaylen.”

  “No, they were blanks,” Anna proclaimed again.

  Deidre held up her hand to quiet them. “Makenna, I know in my heart that she is my granddaughter, just as you are. And she did not come here with murder in her heart. She came here as a cry for help. She thought it was to scare Jaylen, but that wasn’t all of it. She wanted to be caught and put back in prison. To not only punish Jaylen, but herself as well.”

  “Then let’s give her what she wants,” Kenny said.

  Deidre patted Kenny’s arm and then leaned back in the chair. “Have you forgotten your own anger toward your mother? I haven’t.”

  “No, I hadn’t forgotten,” Kenny admitted.

  “I imagine it only got worse when you read her letters,” Deidre speculated.

  Kenny nodded. “You’re right. Miguel had to pull me off of her when I learned about…” She glanced at Anna. “When I learned about her other children.”

  The room fell quiet. Deidre had made her point and both granddaughters were absorbing what they knew to be true. Finally, Kenny stood up, tucked the gun in her jeans and walked to the counter. She picked up the first knife she saw. With the nine-inch carving knife in her hand, she walked over to Anna, paused and looked at Deidre, who nodded with a smile. Then she bent over and cut the ties binding Anna’s hands.

  “I… I don’t know what to say,” Anna stammered as she rubbed her wrist.

  “Say you’ll make the right choice and let go of your hatred for Jaylen,” Deidre suggested. It’s my fault she’s the way
she is. I think this whole thing was revenge for what she thinks I did to her.”

  Shaking her head, Kenny tossed the ties on the table. “That’s not true, Grandma. You tried to help her; she just didn’t want to be helped.”

  “You are right, honey. She didn’t,” Deidre agreed.

  “I want to try… if you’ll help me,” Anna promised. “You’ve given me a second chance, and I’m not going to screw it up. Thank you.” Anna leaned to the side to look at Kenny standing beside her, still holding the knife in her hand. “And thank you, Kenny. I know you had a choice to make, too.”

  “Don’t make me regret it,” Kenny said gruffly, and then managed to tilt one side of her lips up trying to smile. She wasn’t successful.

  Suddenly, they heard loud screaming and then Harold came running in holding a metal baseball bat in his hands. “You ruined everything, you fucking bitch!” he shouted at Deidre. His hands were still bound as he raised the bat up over his head and charged at her.

  “Harold, no!” Deidre screamed.

  Kenny reacted without hesitation. She stepped in front of the rampaging man and jabbed the knife into his gut. He took another step forward which pushed the nine-inch knife in up to the hilt. Everything froze in place, as if someone had hit the paused button on a video. Harold, still holding the bat in the air, his mouth frozen in mid-scream, rolled his wild eyes down to look at Kenny.

  Sophie and Chelsey screamed. Anna jumped up and ran out the door. Kenny remained frozen, blood dripping from the knife she held as Harold fell to the floor, the metal baseball bat clanking across the linoleum. Tobias picked up the bat and then stood beside his mother, prepared to use it if Harold got back up.

  “Madre de Dios.” Sophie muttered as she made the sign of the cross.

  Chelsey cautiously approached Kenny, put her hand on Kenny’s arm, and then pried the bloody knife from her hand. She sat it on the table.

  Kenny looked down at her hands, red with blood. “I think… I think I just killed my father,” she stammered, stumbling back, knocking over Anna’s chair. Chelsey quickly righted the chair and guided Kenny over to sit down in it.

  Anna came running back in with Lester, Carla, and Miguel. She had run away blindly, not knowing where she was going, and found two of the bodyguards who were leaning over the third one, lying on the floor, barely coherent.

  Carla knelt beside Harold and felt for a pulse. “He’s gone,” she said and stood up. The guards looked down at Harold, then over at Kenny.

  “Where were you guys?” Chelsey asked none accusingly.

  “Harold had gotten loose. Apparently, he was double-jointed,” Miguel reported. “That’s the only thing that I can think of that would allow him to move his hands around to his front side. He grabbed a bat and hit Lester over the head, knocking him cold. When I came out to get him, he was hiding behind a car and cracked my head with the bat, also. The next thing I knew, Carla was trying to revive us and then Anna ran in, hit the garage door button, saw us, and stopped. She started yelling that you needed help, and here we are, although I think we missed all the fun.”

  “He was running at Deidre with the bat and Kenny stepped in front of him and stabbed him,” Tobias explained with obvious pride.

  “Would someone please call the police?” Deidre said. “And someone get Makenna a glass of water.”

  “I’ll get the water,” Anna said and walked to the cabinet, retrieved a glass and filled it with cool water from the refrigerator door. She carried it over to Kenny and held it out to her. “You’re one badass bitch,” she said as way of a compliment.

  “I just killed our father, you idiot,” Kenny replied, angry tears stinging her eyes.

  Epilogue

  Sixteen Months after the Lottery

  The spider web began to pull apart as the weight of the truth, like beads of water from a heavy rain, revealed their weaknesses. Harold was convinced that he was Kenny’s father because Jaylen told him that he was. DNA proved that Harold was not and Kenny was both relieved and saddened by it. Even though the police deemed his death a home-invasion, self-defense case and didn’t press charges, she still carried the weight of having killed a man. A man whom she’d thought, at the time, was her father. Her real father would remain a mystery to her, but a mystery she was determined to solve someday.

  The mystery of her sister, Anna, was solved with a DNA test. It proved that Anna was Kenny’s half-sister. They had different fathers but the same mother, which unraveled yet another lie.

  Jaylen, their mother, proven by Deidre’s identification of her photo, and later by DNA, had fled the country with the fifty million dollars. Deidre was at a loss to understand why Jaylen hated her so much that she would go to such extremes. Everyone agreed that it had to have been years of drug abuse that warped her mind, turning love into hate. Unfortunately, no one but Jaylen could give her that answer.

  “The gang is going to see the Eiffel Tower this morning, want to go?” Kenny asked as she entwined her fingers in Chelsey’s hair. They were lying in bed at the Résidence Charles Floquet, in Paris, legs entangled, cheeks still flushed from multiple orgasms.

  “I can see the tower just fine from our window,” Chelsey stated drowsily.

  Kenny glanced out the window and nodded. “That’s true.”

  “I’m so glad Deidre finally had that surgery,” Chelsey said. “She’s like a kid again.”

  “I’ve never seen her have so much fun. I’m glad she finally trusts me enough to enjoy the money.”

  “How’d that come about?”

  “Along with the lawyer, I now have two accountants, an investor, and a well-diversified portfolio. Plus, I buried a chunk of money in a shoebox in the back yard for safekeeping.”

  “Just don’t forget where you buried it.” Chelsey laughed, poking Kenny in the ribs.

  Kenny played with a silky strand of Chelsey’s hair. “I just hope she doesn’t try to lose her bodyguard, again.”

  “That’s why I’m glad you brought Sophie and her kids along. Deidre and Sophie are thicker than thieves now and Miguel won’t leave Sophie’s side, so even if Deidre gave her bodyguard the slip, Miguel would protect them both. It was so smart of you to bring him along.”

  “And so smart of me to put them all up in a different hotel,” Kenny said smugly. “But Sophie and I talked and she’s agreed to stick close to Grandma, keeping an eye on Anna.”

  “So, you still don’t trust Anna, yet?”

  “Not completely. There’s still some wariness, but it means a lot to Grandma so I’m trying to get along with her. Still, we end up arguing over the stupidest things.”

  “That’s what siblings are supposed to do, you know?”

  “Yeah, I’m learning that.”

  “Deep down, she adores you, you know?”

  “Of course she does. I paid to have her foot fixed,” Kenny retorted.

  “And because of your generosity, she feels whole for the first time. She can do all the things she thought she couldn’t do before, and that’s a huge life changer for her… because of you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kenny mumbled, “Whatever.”

  Sensing that she should change the subject, Chelsey lazily ran her finger around Kenny’s areola, smiling when Kenny inhaled sharply. “Have I told you that I love my college graduation present? I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

  “And have I told you that I have another surprise for your graduation?”

  Chelsey sat up, the sheet slipping off her bare breasts, and looked down at her. “Oh, no, Kenny. Paris was more than I could ever imagine. It is so wonderful that you could never top it. It is enough.”

  Kenny gazed at Chelsey breasts, the heat simmering again in her depths. “It will never be enough for me. You pushed me to go back to college with you. You helped me with that gawd-awful Algebra. I wouldn’t have my diploma if not for you.”

  “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you shouldn’t educate yourself, you know?”

 
“You are exactly right. But, it does mean that I can afford to surprise you once in a while.”

  Chelsey looked down at the muscles flexing across Kenny’s abdomen at her touch, and the tingling started again. “Okay, but don’t be disappointed when I’m not as overwhelmed as I was with Paris.”

  Kenny sat up, a cocky grin on her face. She opened the bedside drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. Unfolding it, she handed the paper to Chelsey.

  “What is this?”

  “The deed to your very own forensic lab. I’m starting a detective business and am going to need a good forensic scientist who has a state-of-the-art lab to help me. Will you be my partner? Uh, in every sense of the word?”

  Chelsey jumped up on the bed, waving the paper in her hands. “Oh, my God!”

  “Funny, that was the same thing you screamed when I made you come.”

  “Oh, my God!” she screamed again. She dove on top of Kenny, capturing her lips in a fevered kiss.

  “Yep, I’d say that was a yes.”

  The End

  Other books by Mairsile:

  Serial Killer Series (4 Book Series)

  Better the Devil You Don't Know (8 weeks #1 on Amazon)

  Standalone novel in the serial killer series— Book 1

  Casey was at the pinnacle of her career in Texas, the best detective in her precinct, when a horrific accident veered her off course and sent her spiraling over the edge. She ended up in another state with another, less dangerous job, or so she thought. On her first day as the Chief of Security at a large hospital in Colorado, someone is murdered in the parking lot. She had unknowingly walked into the unpredictable world of a serial killer, and being the good detective she was, she couldn’t turn her back on her training. Helping the police with the investigation, she discovers a member of her own staff is the killer’s next target, along with two other women connected to the hospital. Can she catch the madmen before he kills again? Can she save the three women, two of which she is reluctantly falling in love with?