When I Found You by Brenda Novak

Twenty-Seven

Natasha had just finished cleaning the carpet when Dylan, Cheyenne, Kellan, Grady and Mack arrived. She’d been so relieved and excited by what she’d learned from Stephanie Vogler that she’d almost rushed over to the hospital to tell the Amos brothers everything she’d learned. But she was so far along in the cleaning process she’d decided to finish and simply have them come to her. It would be more private and easier to explain what’d happened if they were here instead of at the hospital, anyway.

Hearing the engines of their vehicles out front as she emptied her bucket and put it in the garbage in the scrubby, overgrown backyard, she wiped the sweat beading on her upper lip and hurried back in to greet them. Although she’d turned the air-conditioning way up, her shirt was sticking to her from scrubbing so hard to make quick work of what remained to be done.

“Wow! Is this what you wanted to show us?” Dylan ducked into the kitchen to survey the cleaning she’d done. “It looks great. Better than it ever has.”

“That’s so nice of you, Tash,” Mack said. “Thank you, babe.”

“Cheyenne was just talking about how we needed to get this place cleaned up,” Dylan added, “but none of us were looking forward to it.”

“I feel terrible,” Cheyenne added, giving her a sheepish look. “While I was talking about it, you were over here actually doing it.”

Finishing something that was so difficult gave Natasha a sense of pride and accomplishment. She loved that she’d been able to perform this service for the family who’d been so good to her. “I knew you were all busy trying to keep the shop and your families going while you supported J.T. I felt it was the least I could do, especially because we all believed my mother was the one who shot J.T.”

Mack and Dylan exchanged a dubious glance. “Tash—” Mack’s expression was sympathetic, but she cut him off.

“She didn’t do it, Mack. I know that now.”

Grady sighed as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “We aren’t going back to this, are we? You know she did. We all do. Who else could it be?”

Natasha’s peace with Grady was tentative at best. And this wasn’t going to help strengthen their truce. But she couldn’t let her mother go to prison, not if Anya didn’t deserve it. Pulling the letter she’d found in her mother’s car out of her purse, she handed it to him.

He lowered his head and scanned it. “This letter is from my dad.”

“Yes.”

“He’s telling your mother to move out, that he’s seeing someone else.”

“Yes.” Natasha remembered how eager Stephanie had been to get inside the house without confronting any of the neighbors. “And that someone else is a woman named Stephanie Vogler. Do you know her?”

Dylan looked doubtful of where this was leading. “Never heard of her. But—” he took the letter and glanced over it “—this only provides motive, Tash.”

His voice was overly patient, the way she talked to Lucas when she was trying to convince him of a reality he didn’t want to accept. “If you didn’t know the rest of the story, that would be true,” she said.

“The rest of the story?” Mack echoed.

She lifted her chin. “It also provides motive for someone else.”

“Who?” Kellan asked, obviously intrigued by all the drama involving his derelict grandfather.

“Stephanie Vogler’s husband,” she announced.

Mack tilted his head as he looked at her. “Dad was seeing a married woman?”

“He was, and her jealous husband didn’t take kindly to it.”

The others gaped at her as Mack moved closer. “You’re saying he shot Dad. How do you know?”

“Stephanie Vogler told me.”

Dylan spread out his hands. “When? How?”

“She showed up here while I was cleaning. She thought maybe J.T. was home, but she got me instead, and had that not happened, I might never have learned the truth, and the police might never have looked any further than my mother.” She couldn’t believe that the stakes were that high and yet the truth had come down to such a coincidence.

“Whoa. Wait a second.” Mack pulled her down on the couch beside him and the others perched on chairs around the coffee table she’d just cleaned, along with the ashtray that was now empty in the center of it. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us exactly what happened?”

Natasha told them about Stephanie letting herself in, how surprised Stephanie had been to find Natasha instead of J.T. and how she’d blurted out things she assumed were already known but weren’t. “If she hadn’t believed my mother had already told the police about her husband being the one to shoot J.T., I don’t think she ever would’ve come forward. I believe she would’ve taken that information to her grave, let him get away with it.”

Grady didn’t look entirely convinced. “But how did her husband get hold of my dad’s gun?”

“Maybe she knew where it was and told him,” Cheyenne volunteered.

Natasha appreciated that Dylan’s wife was trying to be open-minded, but she shook her head. “I don’t think so. She acted as though she hadn’t known ahead of time what her husband was going to do, as though she was extremely upset by what’d happened and blamed herself for getting involved with J.T. in the first place.”

“But how else could he have gotten hold of Dad’s gun?” Dylan asked. “Dad keeps it in the closet upstairs in his bedroom. Some stranger, or even a friend, isn’t going to knock and then go upstairs to get the gun in order to shoot him.”

“Maybe they were getting high together, so Grandpa didn’t know what the dude was after when he was moving around the house,” Kellan suggested.

“That’s unlikely. The shooting happened here in the entryway.” Grady pointed at the big wet spot that was the only thing left after Natasha’s cleaning efforts. “Whoever it was had to have had the gun with him already. When Dad opened the door, he pulled it out and fired.”

“Actually, that would place Dad closer to the door,” Dylan said. “I think Dad saw it and attempted to run, which is why all the blood was about ten feet inside.”

Mack jumped to his feet. “Wait! How do we know it was Dad’s gun?”

They all stared at him.

“Most handguns look alike,” he continued. “When the police arrived, they found a gun on the floor, but we were the ones to tell them that Dad owned a handgun, that Anya was living here and would know where to find it, and because she was the one to call for help, they already knew she was the last person to see him before they got here.”

“Right,” Dylan agreed. “And she split right after she called, which only made her look more guilty.”

“But why would the shooter drop his gun?” Grady asked, forever the skeptic. “Everyone who’s ever seen a cop show knows better than to leave the weapon behind.”

“Maybe he didn’t mean to,” Mack said. “Maybe Dad didn’t run. Maybe Dad rushed him, they were wrestling when he was shot, and then Anya showed up unexpectedly and, scared, the dude ran out the door.”

“Only Anya was so hopped up on meth that she didn’t even remember seeing him,” Natasha said softly.

Silence fell. That scenario made sense and everyone could tell.

“But wouldn’t the police have searched the house and found J.T.’s gun if it wasn’t the one lying on the floor?” Cheyenne asked, after they’d all had a few seconds to think it over.

Kellan nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they do on TV.”

“Not necessarily,” Mack said. “We’re not dealing with a police department that’s experienced in this type of thing. They probably thought they had no need to search the house. They had the gun that was used, the blood evidence—if they even bothered with that because they also had fingerprint evidence—and they thought they knew, without doubt, who the perpetrator was.”

“So you think—” Dylan started, but Mack was no longer listening. After weaving through the furniture in the living room, he leaped over the wet spot Natasha had cleaned and ran up the stairs.

They all followed and found him digging around in his father’s closet when they caught up to him. “No way,” he said as he turned to show them a small black firearm. “This is Dad’s gun right here.”

Natasha was sitting at the kitchen table, cradling a cup of hot chocolate, when Grady walked in. It was late. She’d left Mack in bed asleep because she couldn’t quiet her mind. She was too upset that the police had refused to release her mother. As soon as she left J.T.’s house, she’d contacted Chief Bennett to tell him what she’d learned, but he said he was going to keep Anya locked up until he had a chance to do some more investigating, because he considered her a flight risk. “She’s run once already,” he’d reminded her.

At that point, Natasha had reminded him that Anya had turned herself in, so she obviously wasn’t trying to get away with anything, but it wasn’t easy to set aside a confession. She understood that. Chief Bennett said he had to check the registration on the gun, see if there were any other fingerprints on it besides her mother’s, ask the neighbors if anyone could corroborate this new story and talk to Stephanie Vogler and her husband.

The case had seemed cut-and-dried—with her mother’s confession and J.T.’s agreement—so Bennett was reluctant to give up on it too soon. It was his motivation behind keeping her mother in custody that bothered Natasha. She got the impression it wasn’t so much about finding the truth as making sure he and his department didn’t look bad for not double-checking anything to begin with. He didn’t want people talking about the fact that Natasha had figured out who the real shooter was instead of him, so if there was any chance he’d be vindicated with further investigation—any chance that her mother might be guilty after all—he was finally going to start digging into it.

“What are you doing up?” Grady asked.

She lifted her cup. “Just having a little cocoa.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“No. You just come from the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s your dad?”

“Getting better all the time.”

“I’m glad.”

“Why can’t you sleep? I thought you’d be relieved.”

She grimaced. “I am, for the most part. Just a little irritated by the way Chief Bennett treated me when I called. He doesn’t want to let my mother out of jail. He’s hoping she’s guilty so that he won’t be embarrassed for accepting what he saw without doing anything to verify it.”

“I think that’s a futile hope.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to be embarrassed. There’s no way to avoid that now.”

She set down her cup. This was coming from her second-greatest critic? “I thought maybe you’d agree with him.”

He had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “You should know that Dad was able to talk tonight, before I left the hospital.”

“And?”

He pulled out a chair and sat down with her. “Once I mentioned Stephanie Vogler and her husband, it all came back to him.”

“What’d he say?”

“He couldn’t give me a lengthy explanation. But once I told him what we’d learned, he said it was Stephanie’s husband and not Anya.”

Natasha let her breath seep out. J.T. had gotten it wrong before, which didn’t lend him a great deal of credibility, but the fact that he’d changed his story would help. Had he continued to insist it was Anya, Natasha wasn’t sure what would’ve happened, even if there was proof that the gun was registered to Stan Vogler. “Did he say why he nodded when he was asked if it was my mother?”

“Said he was confused.”

“Hallelujah.” She took another sip of her hot chocolate. “Everything’s starting to come together. Maybe we’ll get out of this nightmare yet.”

He watched as she put down her cup. “I’m sorry, Tash. You’ve had a rough life, and... I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, but I certainly haven’t made things any easier.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I can see why you might resent me. I was a pain in the ass when I lived here. You certainly got nothing out of sharing your house with me, not to mention the activities and food and other things you had to share, as well.”

He waved her words away. “I’ve never minded that part.”

She studied him. “Then...what is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? The way you’ve treated me—it can’t all be about you thinking my mother shot your father, can it? As horrible as believing that must’ve been, you knew I had nothing to do with it.”

“It wasn’t just that,” he admitted.

“What was it?” she asked earnestly.

He appeared uncomfortable as he shifted. “We all had crappy things happen in our childhood. I guess it’s just easier for some to get past that sort of thing than others.”

She guessed he was referring to his mother’s suicide. “You don’t think you can get beyond the past?”

“I’m not sure I ever will,” he replied. “And I certainly never expected Mack to beat me to it. So maybe I’m jealous that he’s found the kind of love that makes him whole. It’s like they say, ‘misery loves company.’ As long as Mack was in the same situation, I didn’t have to feel too bad about myself. I never dreamed he’d be the first to move on.”

She reached out and took his hand. “You’ll get beyond the past eventually, too. You’re such a great catch, Grady. Someday, if you want a family, you’ll find the right woman.”

“There you are,” Mack interrupted as he shuffled sleepily into the kitchen. “What are you doing out of bed? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She gave Grady’s hand a squeeze. “We’re all going to be fine. Everyone has their demons, but we’re luckier than most because we don’t have to face them alone. That’s the meaning of family, right? We have each other.”

Grady nodded and smiled at Mack, who’d been yawning and scratching his bare chest, but Mack suddenly scowled. “Why are you holding hands with my brother?”

“I think someone else is jealous now,” she said with a laugh and stood to go back to bed with Mack.

Mack felt oddly content as he settled back into bed with Natasha. He’d never dreamed he could be this happy, not after being so damn restless for most of his life. When Natasha had lived in this house with him before, he’d struggled as hard as he could to stay away from her. It was a relief to give in and enjoy what he’d always denied himself. He supposed he should’ve given in a long time ago. As far as he was concerned, this was fate.

“Seriously,” he mumbled before they could fall asleep. “What were you doing out there with Grady?”

“Making peace,” she said.

“Everything’s okay?”

“It’s going to be as soon as your dad gets better and my mother is released from jail.”

“That’s going to happen,” he said. “I promise. You won’t be fighting to get your mom out alone.”

She snuggled closer and lifted her head to press her lips to his. “Mack?”

“What?”

“I love you,” she said.