When I Found You by Brenda Novak

Twenty-Six

After having witnessed a fight break out between Mack and Grady, Natasha was nervous to walk into J.T.’s hospital room. While she was happy with Mack’s sudden determination that they would be a couple regardless of what anyone else thought, she was sensitive to the fact that Grady had a problem with her right now. He’d never been her biggest advocate, but he’d mostly been supportive. It was hard to think he didn’t want her around anymore.

She held her breath as Mack led her into the room, and Grady and Aaron, who were involved in some sort of discussion about the auto body shop, fell silent.

“Hey,” Mack said.

Aaron rocked back in his chair. “What’s up?”

Grady watched them dubiously, his lips compressed in a firm, straight line.

“Just coming to check on Dad,” Mack replied. “Dylan said he seems to be improving.”

Aaron looked over at the bed, where J.T. was still hooked up to all the standard equipment. “Yeah. They’re careful not to say too much, for fear it doesn’t go as we hope, but I think he’s going to make it.”

“I doubt they’d move him out of ICU if they were as worried as they have been,” Mack said.

“Exactly,” Aaron agreed.

Natasha let go of Mack, approached the bed and took J.T.’s hand. “J.T., if you can hear me, it’s Natasha. I’m so sorry about what happened. Just want you to know that we’re all here, pulling for you.”

There was no response, of course. J.T. was still unconscious, but she believed even a patient in his condition could react positively to love and encouragement.

Aaron got up to offer her his chair. There were only two in the room and Grady had the other one. “Would you like to sit down?”

“No, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

When she nodded, he returned to his seat. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“So am I.” She turned her attention to Grady. “I know this has been hard for you—everything that’s happened. I feel bad that my being here is somehow making it worse. You were very kind to let me live with you when I was younger and had nowhere else to go, and you’ve been good to me all along, just like your brothers. I’m sure you feel as though no good deed goes unpunished after what my mother has done. But I want you to know that I’ll always be grateful to you, and—” she clasped her hands in front of her because the room was far too quiet and everyone except J.T. was staring at her “—and Mack and I love you.”

He blinked in surprise. So did everyone else, and it got awkward for a moment. She’d been completely open and honest about her feelings, but Grady didn’t know how to handle that and his brothers didn’t know how to help him. The Amos brothers were good men—the best—but embarrassing displays of emotion were definitely not their style.

For some odd reason, Natasha felt like she was about to burst into tears. “You don’t have to say anything,” she added less stridently. “I just...wanted you to know.”

When he saw the tears filling her eyes, Grady surprised her by standing up and pulling her in for a hug. “Mack’s a lucky man,” he muttered and, after a quick squeeze, left the room.

Aaron and Mack gaped at her. “You’ve grown soft in your old age,” Aaron joked. “Your younger self would’ve told him to fuck off.”

Mack chuckled along with him. “That’s true. But I tried the ‘fuck off’ approach and it got Grady and me in a fight. The way Natasha handled it seems to be far more effective. ‘Mack and I love you,’ she said. Why didn’t I think of that?”

With a sniff, Natasha grinned in spite of her tears. “It wasn’t just the saying of it,” she said. “It was that he knows it’s true.”

Pulling her up against him, Mack kissed her temple. “I am a lucky man,” he said.

Since Mack had already paid for the room, they spent the night at Little Mary’s. Natasha wanted him to sleep in with her and have breakfast, but he had to be at work at eight. He didn’t want the business to fall too far behind, especially because he said it was time to hire someone to take his place, and training that person would slow things down enough as it was. As soon as he could get his replacement up to speed, he was going to move in with her and open up an Amos Auto Body in Silver Springs instead of LA.

Natasha was worried that Silver Springs was, perhaps, too small a town for an auto body shop to be successful, but he’d pointed out that Whiskey Creek was even smaller. He said it was the quality of his work that would build his business, and she hoped that would make all the difference.

Even if it took a while for Mack to get his shop off the ground, they’d have her job, she told herself. With what he’d saved and what she could bring in, she was fairly confident they could eke by. Even if they had a baby, she had good medical insurance through New Horizons. And once they had some financial stability, she’d try again to open her own pediatric practice.

Fortunately, she could tell that was important to Mack, too. He’d always wanted what was best for her.

She was sitting at the table in the small parlor at the B and B, more hopeful for the future than she’d been since before she hired Maxine Green and her marriage went off the rails, when her phone lit up with the selfie she’d taken of herself and Mack last night.

She loved that picture. The wind was blowing his hair, he had his sunglasses on and his right arm was looped casually around her shoulders as they smiled for the camera.

He was so handsome...

To avoid disturbing the other diners—and since she was finished with her “gold rush” omelet and mixed fruit, anyway—she went outside to answer his call.

“Hello?” she said, standing on the wide front porch and looking out at the town she’d been so loath to embrace way back when she was a neglected teenager.

“You finally awake?” he joked.

She smiled at his emphasis on finally. “Barely. And I might go right back to bed.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t blame you. You could probably use the sleep. But I thought you’d want to know—my father’s awake.”

She felt a burst of hope. “He is?”

“Yes. Grady just called. Well, he called the shop, and I answered.”

“But he’s treating you okay?”

“Pretty much like he used to. After what you said to him last night, I think he realizes that he has no right to try to tell me who I can love. He’s just jealous that I’m moving on, and he’s still single and living at home.”

She could see why Grady wouldn’t want to be the last unmarried brother, especially when he and Mack did so many things together. “He’s a great guy. He’ll find someone.”

“You seem to have a way with him. Maybe you can tell him that,” he joked.

She laughed. “Can your father speak?”

“Not yet. Have you heard from your mother?”

“I’m about to go to the police station to see if she’ll accept a visit from me.”

“You think she’s changed her mind?”

“I can’t imagine spending the night in jail was easy. She might be glad I came back.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

She couldn’t fathom that he had any desire to see her mother. “No. You’re busy at work. Just get done what you can at the shop, and we’ll go over to see your dad after I get back.”

“Okay.”

“Mack?” she said, catching him before he could disconnect.

“Yes?”

“I’m so excited about our future.”

“So am I. But...you still haven’t told me you love me,” he pointed out.

“Because you already know it—you’ve always known it.”

“Still, you haven’t said the words,” he said, speaking softer. “I’d like to hear them sometime.”

“Then it’ll give you something to look forward to,” she joked.

She was still smiling after she hung up, went in and packed her bags. She was planning to stay at Mack’s tonight, so she no longer needed the room.

She’d just pulled to the curb in front of the police station when Dylan called her. “Hello?”

“Are you sitting down?” he asked.

She hadn’t gotten out yet, but she wasn’t worried about what he was going to say. She assumed he was calling to tell her what Mack had just told her—that J.T. was now awake. “Yes.”

“We just asked my dad if it was your mother who shot him.”

Her stomach muscles cramped. “And?”

“He can’t speak yet, but he nodded.”

She let her head fall forward until it rested on the steering wheel.

“Tash?”

Shit.“Okay,” she said softly. “Thanks for telling me.”

At least the confusion had been cleared up. At least she could rest assured that her mother deserved what was happening to her, she told herself.

But that didn’t help the way she felt as she started her car and drove away instead of going inside.

Natasha felt her phone buzz. Mack was trying to call her again. He probably wanted to know if her mother had decided to relent and see her. Or he was going to tell her the same thing Dylan had—that their father had confirmed her mother’s confession.

She didn’t answer. She was reluctant to talk to him right now because she didn’t want him to ask where she was. Since it was her mother who’d shot J.T., she’d decided to go over and clean up J.T.’s house. It wasn’t as if the police needed it for anything they hadn’t already done. Whiskey Creek wasn’t like some of the bigger cities, where they had a forensics team to process crime scenes from shootings and homicides. This was a small town with only a few officers, and Natasha doubted they’d ever had to perform a real murder investigation. If someone was shot or killed, it was generally like this incident, where the culprit was obvious from the beginning.

Anyway, someone had to clean up soon. Otherwise, if there was enough blood on the floor, it could invite flies and, possibly, maggots. She didn’t think it would be fair for Mack and his brothers and/or their wives to have to go through the trauma of dealing with that kind of mess.

Natasha had visited J.T.’s house before, so she knew where he lived. And she was pretty sure there was a key to get in on the same ring as her mother’s car keys. Fortunately, Anya had left her purse behind when she went to turn herself in. The police would’ve taken her personal belongings when they arrested her, anyway. Now it would be much easier for Natasha to return Anya’s car to the Amoses, which seemed the only fair thing to do—after she had a chance to drive it back to Whiskey Creek, of course.

She’d stopped to purchase a bucket and cleaning supplies, as well as knee pads, a mask and rubber gloves, before parking in the driveway behind J.T.’s truck.

The house—a small brown stucco two-bedroom/one bath—wasn’t much to brag about and neither was the yard. Weeds choked the flower beds and large brown spots in the lawn made it apparent that it wasn’t getting enough water. As she walked to the front door, she noticed spiderwebs clinging to the underside of the eaves, too, but she could tell the grass had been mowed within the last couple of weeks. She supposed that proved some small effort toward keeping up the place, although it was probably Mack or one of his brothers who’d come over to do it.

As a doctor, she didn’t get squeamish at the sight of blood, but she’d never had to deal with a scene like this, where there was no human being to help, just the aftermath of senseless violence. Bracing herself for how it might feel to know this was where J.T. had almost lost his life, because of her own mother, she inserted the key into the lock and swung the door wide.

A wall of stale, warm air hit her, and she immediately covered her nose against the scent of rotting food and garbage. How had it come to this? she wondered. J.T. and Anya knew they couldn’t get along and had no business together...

Pausing to put on a mask, she stepped inside, being careful to avoid the blood spatter on the tile entryway as she flipped on the light.

She was confronted with the groceries her mother must’ve dropped when she came in and a large reddish-brown stain on the carpet. She guessed J.T. would have to replace the carpet at some point, but she didn’t want him or anyone else in the Amos family to have to cope with cleaning up the mess, so she put some music on her phone to help distract her and set to work.

Sweat rolled down her back as she carried out the garbage, but that had to be first—anything to help with the smell. Then she threw open the windows and turned on the AC so that she could breathe easier. J.T. had fallen such that the blood flowing from his gunshot wound not only soaked the carpet but also ran onto the linoleum. Her mop turned as pink as cupcake frosting as she cleaned the kitchen floor—ironic, considering the cause wasn’t anything nearly so happy and appealing.

When she finished, she threw the mop away—she never wanted to see it again—and cleaned the dishes stacked in the sink. She even wiped down the counters and cupboards. She wanted to put one room absolutely right before continuing on to the next.

Stepping around the blood on the carpet, she moved into the living room, where she washed the walls to remove the fingerprint dust that seemed to cover everything. Apparently, the police department had done that much—gathered fingerprints and, presumably, taken the gun and her mother’s cell phone, because they weren’t there.

After three hours, she’d grown tired of her playlist and turned off the music as she started on the carpet. Getting down on her knees with a brush and a bucket of hot, soapy water, she was scrubbing hard when she heard someone at the front door. Whoever it was hadn’t knocked; they were trying the knob.

Assuming Mack had found her, or one of his brothers was stopping by to get clothes or something else for J.T., she dropped her brush into the bucket and stood as the door swung open.

A tall, thin woman, who, at first glance, looked much younger than she really was—mostly because she was darkly tanned and wearing a spaghetti-strap top with a pair of very short cutoffs—walked in. Tattoos covered both arms and an ink snake climbed her throat. That also made her seem younger. But the gray streaks that ran through her long dark hair, which fell freely around her shoulders, and the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth made it apparent that she wasn’t young. She had to be in her fifties.

“Oh!” She’d been so busy looking behind her, as if she was afraid someone might be watching the house, that when she nearly bumped into Natasha, she startled.

“Hello.” Natasha stripped off her gloves. “What can I do for you?”

The woman glanced back at her car, which was parked on the street at the end of the walkway, as though she regretted coming to the door and wished for a quick escape. “N-nothing,” she said, her voice a raspy smoker’s voice. “I—Never mind.”

She turned to go but Natasha pressed the door closed before she could get back out. “Who are you?”

Long, fake red nails flashed as she pressed a hand to her chest. “Me?” She gave the impression that she didn’t want to identify herself, but it would’ve been too awkward to refuse, so she added, “I’m... My name’s...Stephanie.”

Stephanie?Anya had mentioned a Stephanie. Was this the other woman? That Stephanie? “Vogler?” Natasha asked, recalling the last name she’d been given.

The strap on her shirt had fallen. She slid it back onto her bony shoulder as she said, “Yes. How’d you know?”

“I’m Anya’s daughter. She’s mentioned you to me.”

Her pale blue eyes darted furtively around the apartment as if she expected Anya to appear, and Natasha suspected her of being a user, too. It made sense. Her mother had indicated that they ran in the same circles.

“Where is your mother?”

She couldn’t guess? Yesterday’s article named Anya as a person of interest, saying police suspected this could be a domestic situation. But the local paper only came out once a week, so there’d been no follow-up to report her mother’s confession. Not yet. “Why? Is that who you’re looking for?”

“Hell no. She hates my guts,” she stated frankly. “I just... I saw the car and was hoping that...that J.T. was back. That he was out of the hospital.”

If she cared about J.T., why hadn’t she been to see him? “So you know he’s been shot.”

“I shouldn’t have come.” Once again, she tried to get out, but Natasha kept her hand on the door.

“Why did you?” Natasha asked.

“I want to go. Let me out.”

“Of course. Just tell me why you’re here.”

“Because I was worried about J.T.! I was afraid that—that Stan had killed him!” Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she covered her mouth to hold back sobs.

As hard and world-wise as this woman looked, Natasha was taken aback by the emotion. “Who’s Stan?”

She blinked several times, seemingly confused. “My husband.”

Natasha felt her jaw go slack. This was not the answer she’d been expecting. “You’re married?”

Stephanie forced the door open. “I’m getting out of here.”

Natasha followed her out. “Can you...give me another second? I mean, why not? If Stan shot J.T., he has to face the consequences, right?”

“Leave me alone,” she said as she scurried to her car. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I never dreamed he cared that much.”

Once they reached her small, battered sedan, Natasha leaned on the passenger side as Stephanie power walked around it. “How do you know Stan shot J.T.?” she asked, watching J.T.’s latest love interest over the top of the vehicle.

“What do you mean?” She was too intent on escape to even look up. “He told me your mother saw him as he ran out. Surely she’s told the police by now.”

Natasha’s heart began to pound, and her feet felt anchored to the cement. Anya must not have recognized Stan. Or because of crystal meth, she couldn’t recall seeing him. “Where’s your husband now?”

Stephanie yanked open the driver’s door. “I don’t know. He took off right after it happened.”

So why had J.T. fingered Anya? “How did Stan get hold of J.T.’s gun?”

She didn’t answer. She just slammed her door, started the car and peeled off without even checking to be sure Natasha wouldn’t be hurt in the process.

“She’s where?”

Dylan looked understandably surprised when Mack confronted him, Cheyenne and Kellan in the hospital cafeteria. “At Dad’s house.”

“What’s she doing there?”

Mack wished he knew. The message he’d received from Natasha was a cryptic one: I’ve found something important. Please come to your father’s house. And bring your brothers.“She didn’t say.”

“But...why would she be at J.T.’s house?” Cheyenne seemed equally perplexed.

“Don’t tell me she’s investigating the shooting in an attempt to prove her mother innocent,” Dylan said. “Anya’s already confessed.”

“Grandpa even said it was her,” Kellan chimed in.

J.T. hadn’t actually said anything. The doctor wouldn’t allow the police to question him quite yet, said he wasn’t strong enough. But he’d nodded when Dylan had asked. What more of a confirmation was required? “I don’t know.” Mack scratched his neck. “I’ve texted her and tried to call. She’s not picking up.”

Dylan scowled. “Grady is just now starting to act normal. I don’t want to set him off again.”

“Neither do I.”

“So are you going to include him in this?”

“He was sitting with me in Dad’s hospital room when the text came in, so I already have. I’ve also texted Rod and Aaron, but I’m not sure either of them will be able to make it.”

“Aaron’s in Reno. He won’t get here until later. But why can’t Rod come?”

“Said he can’t get away from the shop.”

Dylan sat taller. “Really? Why? We’re closed for the night. It looked like he was packing up when I left.”

“He wants to finish a couple cars he’s been working on, doesn’t like being behind.”

“Too bad Grady wasn’t at the shop, too, when Natasha’s text came in.”

“I think he’ll be okay. He’s riding over with me.”

Dylan’s chest lifted as he drew a deep breath, and he shot a glance at Cheyenne. “Well? Should we drive over and see what’s going on?”