Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments
Page 105

“Jed told me. I guess you gave it to your boyfriend?”
“No. Joe took it from the crime scene.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, but when he spoke next, his voice was tight. “J.R. Simmons’ son? You really think that was a good idea?”
“It wasn’t like I had much choice in the matter. He just confiscated it and called it evidence. But he promised to give it to Mason.”
Skeeter didn’t reply.
I thought about J.R.’s involvement with the factory and how he had been willing to pay Beverly a lot of money to hand the book over to him. What could be in that book that was so important? Back in December, both Joe and Mason had shrugged off my suggestion that J.R. might be behind the attempt on Mason’s life, saying it wasn’t his style.
J.R. Simmons liked to bring people down and make them suffer. The thought set off a chain reaction of other thoughts, all of which led to an inescapable conclusion.
Why hadn’t I realized that before?
I gasped. “Oh, mercy! It’s not a kill list, even if Mick Gentry and Scott Humphrey thought it was. Skeeter! It’s a list of people J.R. intends to make suffer.”
“That sounds like a whole lot of work when it would just be easier to kill me. Who would go to so much trouble?”
“J.R. Simmons would. Mason says he thrives on causing people misery.”
He released a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“It’s him. I’d bet money on it.”
“You might be on to something. What better way to get rid of me than settin’ me up for a double homicide? Then I’d be forced to sit in prison watchin’ that rat bastard Gentry run my territory.”
I sank down into a kitchen chair. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know yet. The question is who else is on the list?”
I had a pretty good idea. And now I was really scared for Mason.
I hung up and checked the time. It was six-thirty and I had no idea when Mason would be home. I was on edge, wondering how his meeting was going, wondering what would happen to him if it didn’t go well. To kill some time, I scoured the cabinets to look for something to make for dinner. I would feel bad about taking Maeve up on her offer to do some grocery shopping for us, but it might become necessary if Mason intended to uphold our ban of the Piggly Wiggly. In an attempt to occupy my frazzled mind, I started making a list, figuring I could go shopping when we came back from Mason’s uncle’s cabin, but quit after I listed peanut butter three times.
At seven-fifteen I started to get really nervous. I hadn’t heard anything and I wondered if that was a good sign or a bad one. I decided to try to watch some TV with Muffy. We had just settled onto the sofa when I heard a car pull up in front of the house. Less than half a minute later, the front door was flung open. Mason stood in the threshold, his face pale.
I jumped to my feet. “Mason? How’d it go?” But the look on his face pretty much said it all.
He shut the door behind him. “I got fired.”
I stumbled toward him as my stomach fell to my feet. “What?”
He shook his head, looking bewildered. “It was an ambush, Rose. The DA showed up and it turned into an inquisition of me instead of the other way around.”
“But what about Joe?”
His hands shook and his face turned red. “He didn’t do a goddamn thing. He just sat there and let them pummel me.”
I gasped. “I can’t believe it.”
“I can.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs. “We have to go.”
I let him drag me, but I shook my head in confusion. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“We have to get out of Fenton County tonight. Hell, we need to get out of Arkansas.”
“Why?”
He stopped in the middle of our bedroom. “Rose. There’s absolutely nothing to keep Simmons from releasing his false evidence against you now. I’m not in the Fenton County court system to stop it.” He ran his hand through his hair and turned to face the windows. “I just can’t understand what got this rolling so quickly. I must have hit a nerve, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how.”
“I can,” I whispered. “Oh, God. It was me.”
He turned around and his eyes widened. “You? How could it be you?”
I covered my mouth with my hand, feeling lightheaded. “Mason, I discovered what happened to Dora.”
His mouth parted and confusion flickered in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
I clasped both hands together in front of me. “Neely Kate and I have been investigating the case over the last few days.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re kidding me.”
I wrung my hands. “No.”
He ran his hand over his head again, then looked up at me. “What did you find out?”
“It’s a long complicated story, but the bottom line is that Beverly Buchanan murdered Dora Middleton because my birth mother was trying to tell the world that something bad was goin’ on at Atchison Manufacturing. And Dora had a journal full of information to implicate J.R. Simmons.”
He shook his head as though trying to clear it. “Wait. I thought you already went through her journal. It didn’t sound like there was anything like that in there.”
I walked over to the bed and sat down next to him. “There was a second journal. I found it this morning taped to the frame of the baby bed in the nursery.”