AllFreeNovel
Share Us
toward the house and upstairs to his room. He managed to make it as far as his bed, then flopped, facedown, onto the mattress.
She brushed a kiss across the top of his head. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
As she snapped off the light and closed the door, Josh lifted his head and tried to stifle a yawn. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Mom.”
“Thanks, kid.” Her heart swelled. “I love you.”
“Me, too. And Mom? You know what I said about Luke before, that I didn’t like him?”
She nodded, vaguely recalling a conversation when Josh had sprained his ankle. “Yeah.”
“I changed my mind. He’s okay.”
“Good.” Why it mattered she didn’t know, because Luke had used her. And Josh. “See ya in the morning.” She closed the door and went down the hallway to her room. It seemed empty and dark. Even after she turned on the bedside lamp and pulled down the quilt, it felt cold somehow, vacuous and barren.
What had Jarrod said—that she needed a man? She’d never believed him. Until now. Because of Luke Gates. “Oh, Katie, you’ve got it bad,” she said, realizing the aching truth that she loved Luke Gates.
“I never intended to hurt you.” His final words had rattled through her brain all night long. But it didn’t matter what his intentions had been. He had hurt her. And loving him only made it worse.
* * *
“Okay, Katie, I should be shot for this, but I think I made the rash promise to let you know anything I found out about the Isaac Wells case,” Jarrod said when she answered the phone the next morning.
“Sounds like you’ve had a change of heart.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked through the back window only to discover that Luke’s pickup was missing.
“No way. You be careful. But I figure someone down at that rag you work for is going to write the story, so it may as well be you.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Holding the receiver between her shoulder and ear, she scrounged in a top drawer for a pen and a notepad. “Okay, brother. Shoot.” She sat at the table and listened.
“Okay, the deal is this. It seems that Isaac isn’t quite the loner everyone thought. In fact, he was a crook, or the guy behind the scenes with all the brains. The police don’t know for sure, but they suspect Isaac was involved in a string of burglaries that happened around Medford and Ashland a few years back. Ray Dean was his accomplice, the actual thief. Ray took all the risks and got most of the money. Except for one job—the big one.”
“Which one was that?”
“When Octavia Nesbitt was robbed.”
Katie stopped writing. Her hand froze over the paper. “Wells and Dean were involved in that one?”
“It looks that way. They got away with it and were about to split the loot when Dean was caught for his part in an earlier break-in. He was convicted and, as they say, sent up the river. All that time in prison he kept his mouth shut about the Nesbitt job because it was the biggest one he’d ever pulled off. He had some phony alibi, so the police were thrown off. No one suspected that Isaac Wells might be involved, and eventually Dean ended up paroled. The problem was that Isaac had used all the money—either gambled it away, paid off back taxes, used it to keep up that car collection of his, whatever.”
“He told them this.”
“Not everything, of course, but it’s what the police have pieced together. So when Ray was about to be released, Isaac decided to disappear rather than face him. Ray has a track record of being thrown back in jail within months of being paroled, but this time it didn’t happen. Isaac began to get worried that Ray would talk, so he turned himself in yesterday and is cooperating with the authorities.”
Dumbstruck, Katie leaned back in her chair. “So what about Octavia’s jewels?”
“Pawned.”
“And her cat?”
“I don’t think anyone asked him about her cat. He’s probably long gone by now.”
“Wow.” Katie scribbled as fast as she could. “Why was Stephen a suspect?” she asked, remembering that her nephew had been questioned.
“Never a suspect, but he did have a set of keys that belonged to Isaac Wells—keys that Ray Dean hoped would lead him to the loot. The police didn’t know the connection, of course. Not until now.”
“So what happens now?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I think Ray will be sent back to prison, and Isaac will get a lesser sentence for turning himself in. I think Octavia’s insurance company will probably sue, and Isaac will have to give up whatever he has left to pay off the claim. But I’m not sure. That’s just conjecture.”
