Chapter Thirty-Four
As Gill led Stan from the hospital floor, Jo allowed the real doctor to check her arm and vital signs before pulling on her clothes and letting her best friends hug the life out of her.
“Damn it, Jo. Don’t you ever, ever do this again.” Zoe shook her finger at her and then hugged her a second time.
“Watch the arm, cupcake.”
“Sorry.” Zoe pulled back but still didn’t let her go.
“I hope you have good insurance,” Mel dug in. “You’ve been in more hospitals than me, and I’m knocked up.”
In the last month Mel had started to actually show.
“I miss you guys,” Jo said.
“We’ve been right here.” Zoe pushed a lock of hair behind her shoulder.
“I know. I just haven’t been able to take a breath in what feels like forever.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “You might wanna stop poking holes in your lungs then.”
Jo looked down at her arm that sat in a new sling. Her shoulder stung like a bitch.
“So Stan—” Mel looked over at the agents who had pulled Caroline aside. Karl stood by Drew as questions were asked.
“All for a stupid love triangle,” Jo said.
“I thought Stan was married,” Mel sighed.
“I haven’t seen his wife in years.”
“Do you think he killed your dad?” Zoe asked.
“It makes sense. If he wanted my job, he takes care of my dad, discredits Karl, takes the position.”
“Only you step up,” Mel reminded her.
“Yeah. So why did he wait until now to make another move?”
Gill led Caroline out of the room and nodded to Jo for her to follow. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” She caught Drew watching. “Do me a favor, distract Drew.”
Mel and Zoe exchanged glances. “On it,” Zoe said.
The room Gill used to question Caroline was one the ICU staff reserved for talking to distressed families.
Gill no sooner closed the door behind them than Caroline burst into tears. “I’m sorry, JoAnne.”
Jo’s back teeth ground to the point of pain. “Prove it, Caroline. Don’t make me wait for answers.”
Gill lifted a hand. “You do have a right to an attorney.”
Jo caught his gaze. “Have you read her her rights?”
Gill turned to Caroline, recited her Miranda rights, and waited.
“I’m not proud of my behavior,” Caroline started.
“Did you kill my dad?”
“No! God, no. I’m guilty of adultery, not murder. Stan and I . . . we’ve both . . . We knew it wasn’t right. Karl and I were having a hard time trying to have a baby. I was tested. I was fine. The doctor never flat-out said Karl couldn’t have a child, so we kept trying.”
“So you started your affair to have a child?”
“No . . . yes, I don’t know.” Her tears increased, and large black smudges of mascara blotted the top of her cheeks.
“Which is it?”
“I wanted a baby. Only it didn’t happen.”
“So you went looking for another man?” Jo fisted her hands, thinking her father had been played.
“After your mother passed, Joseph would come around once in a while, asking what a woman would do in regards to raising you.” Caroline rubbed her palms against her pants. “Your father was a good man.”
“I get it. So you had an affair.”
Caroline stared at the ground.
“How long did it last?”
“About a year.”
Jo’s heart slammed hard in her chest. The thought of her father sleeping with a married woman for a year made her sick.
“You got pregnant?”
She agreed with a single nod.
“Did my dad know?”
“He figured it out . . . later. I didn’t tell Karl.”
“So who broke it off, you or my dad?”
Caroline wove her fingers together, nerves at the surface of her movements. “When Karl told him he was going to be a father, your dad said we were over.”
Well, at least Jo had to give him that. “Where did Stan come back in?”
Caroline was silent.
“We’ll get the answers from him,” Gill said.
“Stan has always been around. He wanted more than I was willing to give him. When he divorced Helen, he assumed I would leave Karl.”
“But you didn’t,” Gill stated.
“Stan started acting strange right after his divorce was filed. Kept saying he had given up everything for me, and I still wasn’t happy. I assumed he meant his divorce, but then he said a few things that made me wonder if there was more to his statement.”
Jo and Gill silently stared at each other.
Gill took that moment to sit down. Jo kept her back to the door, her good arm cradling the one in the sling.
“Like what things?”
“He said Karl was behind the dog killing.”
“A lot of people thought that.”
Caroline tilted her head to the side. “He isn’t. And Stan was over the day Drew found the . . .” She swallowed hard.
“So you figured Stan was behind the animals.”
“Yes.”
“Did that scare you?”
The tears in her eyes started to spill harder. “Yes. He told me Karl wanted your job and was willing to do anything to get it.”
“Is that true?”
“No. Would Karl like to be the sheriff? Yes, but not at your expense.”
“Caroline.” Jo caught the woman’s attention. “What do you remember about the night my father died?”
Fear replaced Caroline’s tears. “I was at home, Karl was on duty since your dad was up at the cabin. Stan wanted to come to see me, but I didn’t want to take the risk. We argued.”
“What did you argue about?”
“The usual. We should both file for a divorce, I could move in with him in Waterville.”
“But you didn’t want that.”
“No. I didn’t want to live in Waterville, I like River Bend. I didn’t want to move Drew away from his friends. I know it’s hard to believe, but I love Karl. I never wanted any of this to happen.”
Jo kept her disgust toward the woman to herself.
“So you and Stan argued. What then?”
“He said he would arrange it so that he would move to River Bend.”
Jo narrowed her eyes at Caroline. “And isn’t that exactly what he did once my father was murdered?”
Caroline winced. “Stan commuted, would stay at the hotel outside of town once in a while.”
“And since he and Karl were working opposite shifts, Stan was able to spend more time with you.”
Silence.
It took everything in Jo to keep from saying what she truly wanted to say. “Someone shot me today. Was it you?”
“No.” Caroline shot her eyes toward Jo.
“Was it Karl?”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“Was it Stan?” Jo asked.
“I don’t know.”
She did know, she just couldn’t admit it, even to herself.
“One more question, Caroline.” Jo leaned forward.
Caroline bit her bottom lip.
“Did Stan kill my father?”
The woman JoAnne had known most of her life, the mother of her half-brother, brought her hand to her mouth and cried.
“Why now? Why, after all these years, has Stan made me his target?”
“I don’t know! He’d tell me that if all the obstacles were gone, we’d be happy together. Karl has come home every night stressed, angry . . . everyone was turning against him. The last time that had happened was right after your dad died. When you came back in town and the election made you sheriff, Stan all but disappeared. Then after a year he was back, flirting, asking me to meet him. It wasn’t often, just once in a while.”
Like Jo cared.
“Next thing I know he was getting divorced and making me choose.”
“Why go after me? Why not go after Karl?”
Caroline’s back straightened, her lips pushed together. “Karl’s a good, honorable man.”
“A man you’ve cheated on for years.”
Caroline swallowed hard.
Gill moved between them, blocking Jo’s eye contact.
“It looks to me as if Stan has been framing Karl from the start . . . JoAnne’s father’s death, the attempts on Jo’s life. Even all the animals.”
Caroline nodded.
“If Stan discredits Karl, maybe Karl doesn’t hold the same ‘honorable’ mention in your head.”
Caroline stared, mouth open.
“Maybe Karl is deemed the bad guy in all of his, the man responsible for killing the father of his illegitimate son, and maybe then taking the life of the woman who took the job he should have had.”
Horror reached Caroline’s eyes.
“And maybe then all those obstacles are gone, and you’d have nowhere else to go but into his arms.”
Gill stopped watching Caroline and stared at Jo.
While her heart tore open, some of it healed.
At least now she knew.
Jo stumbled outside the room, leaving Gill and Caroline. Jo met Drew’s gaze.
She attempted a grin. If there was a silver lining to any of this, it was the fact she had a brother.
Karl stood at Drew’s side. The sight of the two of them together twisted her gut.
Drew said something to his dad, and Karl offered a half smile to Jo before nodding in her direction.
“Hey.” Jo sat on a waiting room couch, patted the seat beside her.
Drew, still wearing the uniform for the day’s track meet and the scent of a kid who had been running most of the day, sat beside her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m fine, Drew. Pissed off about Stan, but . . .”
Drew huffed. “We’re all ticked off at him.”
“There are some things you need to know,” she said.
“My mom’s been messing with him.” Drew’s words cut her off.
“I know.”
“Is my mom in trouble?”
“We have a lot of questions for her.”
Drew bit his bottom lip. “Is what he said about your dad true?”
Jo covered her hand with his. “Yes.”
Drew sucked in three rapid breaths. “Does that mean . . . ?” His question hung in the air.
Jo found Karl watching them, humility on his face.
She squeezed his hand. “You still have a father, Drew. But . . .”
He turned and looked at her.
“You’ve gained a sister.”
Moisture filled his eyes.
Damn hers for doing the same thing.
“I like that,” he said.
She needed a bigger smile on Drew’s face. The adrenaline of the day was starting to dump out of her system, and she guessed it was doing the same in his. “Just means I get more than chocolate at Christmas.”
He found his grin. The sneaky-ass one she saw many times in her own mirror. “Means I get to call you JoAnne.”
Her smile dropped. “No one calls me JoAnne.”
Drew did one of those faces kids do to pretend he was contemplating her suggestion. “Well, as I see it, you can’t fail me in track . . . you can’t take away my diploma . . . and Christmas is months away, JoAnne.”
She swallowed hard. “I see how this is going to be.”
“No, you don’t. You might be many things before I was . . . but we became family at the exact same time.” He squeezed her hand back. “We’re going to learn this together.”
Damn kid was going to make her cry.
“Dork.”
Drew pulled her into a quick hug before moving back to his father.