“God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to confess my sins, do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.”
The priest slammed the slot closed. A chair scraped across the wood and a door creaked open. Sighing, Rule stood and walked out of the box.
Father Wilkins glared at him, fisting his hands on his hips. “You must learn humility, boy.”
Rule flushed. “If you’d given me the chance to express my sorrow for my sins before your absolution—”
“What good will it do? If you were sorry, we could’ve stuck to the proper order of confession. But you aren’t.”
“Yet you absolved me,” he said.
“Of the sin ofwantingto kill your sister,” he whispered harshly.
Rule glowered at the priest.
The rotund little man drew himself up. “The seal of confession is undamaged. I suggest you rethink your intentions. Neither I nor God above will save you from your father’s wrath. Remember that before you, Curly, Larry, and Moe cavort in hell.”
The priest stormed away, leaving Rule to stare after him in angry silence as his mother’s text came through.
She was outside.
Chapter Fifteen
Kendall stared at a set of documents laid out on her desk. She blinked. Gaped. Blinked again.
The titles and deeds to the club, the surrounding land, Logan’s farmhouse, Patricia Caldwell’s house, the trailer park where some Dweller families and club girls lived, and several businesses, listed Johnnie as the sole owner. Most of the documents had been signed by Logan, Sharper, and Wallace Bart—Rack.
Except nothing checked out at any courthouse within a three-hundred-mile radius nor the state databases of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and California. She’d even gone east and checked Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Farther out on the opposite side of the country to Virginia. The records still in the local county clerk’s office contained discrepancies. Itleft her at square one. She didn’t know who the fuck owned what.
Although it would solve so much if she could announceJohnnieowned everything, it wasn’t possible. The documents were phony. Besides, Bash would probably lure that idiot somewhere and kill him. Or would’vealreadyfucked him up.
Tempted to swipe everything off her desk, Kendall huffed and reached for a folder filled with some of the letters between Sharper and Logan she’d found in the boxes Bailey allowed her to comb through. Her father, K-P, possessed a lot of records. How he came to have them, Kendall would love to know. She wondered if that was what led to his death.
Sighing, she opened the folder. She scanned the first letter, the second, the third.
“Oh, you were both miserable fucking assholes,” she muttered.
The names Sharper and Logan called each other, the promises of death, and their hatred jumped off the pages. After skimming four letters that all read like a psychopath’s manifesto, Kendall decided to read one more before moving to the next folder.
The six boxes Bailey lent to her had turned into several dozen files. With Rory’s help, she’d sorted everything to make sense of it all.
Johnnie was angry with her again. Mostly, he was jealous that she and Christopher seemed so close. Unlike his obsession with Meggie, Johnnie couldn’t see that she and Christopher interacted like siblings. After her husband had claimed for so many years that he wanted her to be accepted by everyone, butespeciallyChristopher, he was having a fit now that it happened. He also hated the fact that Kendall and Christopher were working together to resolve the mystery that brought Bash into their lives when, according to Johnnie, she turned her back on him and refused to do as he requested.
Her gaze fell on the signatory line of the fifth letter. She gasped. Joe Foy signed it.
Marion,
I hope this finds you well. I trust my new will is in a safe place. It is quite important that it is with someone I trust. My Meggie must get her share. Her mother allowed that jackass she married to gamble away the house meant for my baby girl. He seems to make Dinah happy. That’s all I can ask for. If she’s happy, then Meggie will be happy. Goddamn if I don’t think about stealing my daughter away. That would create more problems than I can deal with. My fucking life is in a freefall. I know two people who love me. One’s like a son to me and the other is my princess. I try to hold on for them, but no longer being allowed to see Meggie has stolen my joy. I don’t give a fuck anymore. If anything happensto me, see to it that the proper will comes to light.
Forever indebted to you, your friend,
Joe Foy
Kendall re-read the letter four times, as if the answers to her questions would magically appear. Judging by the date, Meggie was fourteen at the time it was written.
If there were envelopes that accompanied the stacks of letters, she’d have addresses. She’d also have postmarks—
Narrowing her eyes, she studied the letter again, then looked at the previous four. She was a dumb ass. What K-P had in his possession weren’t originals. They were copied. Somehow, she could see Big Joe copying his letter to this Marion woman and giving it to K-P. However, the same couldn’t be said for the letters between Sharper and Logan. K-P must’ve stolen them, then found a copier.
