Thirty-Five and a Half Conspiracies (27 page)

“Jed’s as much a part of this as the three of us. He needs to be sittin’ at this table helpin’ make decisions.”

“He’s guardin’ the damn door!” Skeeter bellowed.

“And I’d bet my grandmother’s Blue Willow china that Merv or somebody else is on the other side. That’s your real threat, not what’s going on in here.”

Skeeter studied me and then groaned. “Jed, get your ass over here.”

Jed took a seat between Skeeter and Mason, and Mason and I sat back down too. It worried me when I saw Mason’s expressionless face. What was he thinking?

Once we were all settled, Skeeter pushed back his chair and crossed his legs. “What I’m about to say does not leave this room. If I find out any one of you has told a soul, I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you. Do you understand?”

“Did you really just threaten us?” Mason demanded. “Do you think that’s the right way to get our cooperation?”

Skeeter looked vaguely surprised.

“What?” Mason asked in disgust. “Did you expect me to say I was going to bring charges against you?” He shook his head. “I’m not stupid, and I’ve worked with plenty of informants before.” He turned to me. “More than either of you realize.” He returned his attention to Skeeter. “Besides, I’ll remind you again that I’m currently out of a job. I couldn’t press charges against you if I wanted to.”

“And what’s to stop you from running off and telling someone?”

“Because as Mason Deveraux, private citizen, I could give a rat’s ass about your past, and I’m sure as hell not feeding anything to the crooked DA. The only thing I care about is keeping Rose safe, so if telling us about your past will help ensure that, then I’m not only interested in hearing about it, I’ll also swear on my life to keep it secret.”

Skeeter grinned, eyeing Mason with new appreciation. “You surprise me.”

“I told Rose I’d do anything to protect her, even if it means getting my hands dirty. She begged me not to do that, I listened to her, and look where we are now. I’m willing to do whatever it takes, short of murdering someone. Now tell us what we need to know.”

“And what about your own life?”

“I don’t have a death wish, but protecting Rose takes precedence over my own safety. Otherwise I’d be under twenty-four-hour protection right now.”

“What?” I gasped.

Mason offered me an apologetic grimace. “Detective Pearson wanted me to stay in Little Rock and be placed in witness protection.”

“Mason!”

“Did you really expect me to stay when I’m following leads to help save you?”

Skeeter groaned. “This is touching and all, but we have another way.”

Mason and I turned to look at him.

Skeeter looked me in the eye. “Rose, I take it I have your word.”

“I’m insulted you thought you had to ask. I keep your secrets, Skeeter Malcolm, even when it rips my soul apart. I’ll keep this one as well.”

His jaw tightened and he gave a slight nod, then turned his gaze to Jed.

Jed’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not a turncoat.”

Skeeter nodded.

He turned his chair to face us, his forearms on the table. “When I was fourteen, I met J.R. Simmons at the Sinclair station where I worked.” He nodded to me. “Where we meet.”

Mason shot me a look, but I ignored him.

“I impressed him and he told me to look him up when I grew up. So I did. The day after I graduated, I took the business card he had given me all those years ago and drove to El Dorado. I spent the next six years working my way up his ladder. Until he made me one of his Twelve.”

“What’s The Twelve?” Mason asked. “I’ve never heard of them.”

Skeeter worked his jaw. “You wouldn’t have. It’s Simmons’ core group of top men, and there’s a reason most people don’t know about them. They’re all successful in their own right, but Simmons played some role in getting them where they are today. Usually with money. It’s how he controls them. But some, like me, he trained.”

“But he gave you money,” I prodded. “Was it a loan?”

“Seed money. Like I said, it came with a price.”

“What’s the purpose of The Twelve?” Mason asked.

“It allows Simmons to have feelers all over the state. The Twelve are strategically positioned, and they answer only to him. Somehow the person who covered this area was eliminated twenty-five years ago. But after I got to know J.R., I started putting things together. I met him at a gas station in Fenton County around that same time. What was he doing in a nothing county in a nothing gas station only about five miles from a plant that burned down a few weeks later?” He nodded to me. “I suspect he was in town on business with that factory. And I suspect one of The Twelve was eliminated because it all went south.”

“Atchison?”

He nodded again. “I have no idea who my predecessor was, but after he was gone, the three neighboring sections covered the area for a while, not that there was much to cover.”

“What about Crocker?” Mason asked.

“He was too unstable for Simmons. J.R. was biding his time, waitin’ for the right person to take over. He planned for it to be me.”

“After you came back from El Dorado, where did you go when you disappeared for days at a time?” I asked.

“I would go do his bidding.” He sounded bitter. “Jobs he only trusted to his top men. And since I was the greenhorn, a lot of it fell to me.”

“What type of jobs?” Mason asked.

Skeeter released a short laugh. “Most had to do with his son.”

My stomach spasmed.

Mason gasped and turned to me. “Rose, he has what we need. You really
don’t
need to go through with this meeting. Malcolm can turn state’s evidence and testify against both J.R. and Joe. We can use it as leverage to get him to drop your charges.”

Skeeter lifted his hands. “Whoa! I’m not testifyin’ about anything.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mason demanded. “You can destroy this man and save Rose in the process!”

“Do you really think I’d make it to trial?” Skeeter asked, incredulous. “Why the hell do you think you’re in Fenton County?”

Mason sat back in his seat. “What are you talking about?”

“You
had
to wonder why you were here, in Fenton County, of all places.”

“I’ve always figured J.R. Simmons orchestrated it, but I could never put together the how or why of it.”

“It was a warnin’ for me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was one of The Twelve up until five years ago. J.R. figured out I was gettin’ tired of bein’ called away from my own work and forced into doin’ his. So he called me to El Dorado and gave me a file to look over. I figured out what he wanted me to do, but there was no way in hell I was doin’ it.”

“Doin’ what?” I asked.

He took a long, lingering look at Jed, then turned back to face me, his eyes dark and furious. “There was a hit-and-run case in Little Rock. A guy reneged on his payments to a loan shark after multiple warnings. The loan shark was one of The Twelve. So The Twelve in the area had him taken care of by making it look like an accident.” He waved his hand to the side as if that was nothing. “Only Mooney, the moron who was told to take care of it, fucked it up. There was a witness.”

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “Mason was the prosecutor. The witness was a kid. An eight-year-old boy.”

Skeeter cocked his head, his eyes glittering with suspicion. “How do you know that?”

“Kate Simmons.” I cast a glance to Mason, and he stared back at me with a mixture of horror and anger. “I told you. I found a table full of information about Mason in her apartment, which happens to be across from the courthouse and facing the DA’s offices.”

Skeeter lifted an eyebrow to Mason. “Got yourself a stalker, huh? Pictures plastered on the wall and everything?”

“Not quite,” I said. “Stuffed into an envelope. But she had documents and police reports linked to some of his cases in Little Rock. The one she seemed to pay the most attention to was a hit and run from five years ago.”

Mason leaned his arm on the table, his hand in a tight fist. “It never went to trial. The kid drowned.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “If you tell me you drowned that kid, I will rip you to pieces with my bare hands.”

Skeeter scooted his chair back, disgust on his face. “Sorry, Deveraux, but you’ll have to find another reason to kill me. Like I said, I wanted no part of that. When I realized what he was askin’ me to do, I quit on the spot.” He cast another glance to Jed before returning his gaze to Mason. His jaw clenched, and his eyelid ticked. “I saw a kid drown once. Never again, and definitely not by my hand.”

“But he died,” Mason countered, sounding unimpressed. “Someone still killed that boy, and you could have stopped it.”

Skeeter looked like he was about to leap across the table and tear Mason’s throat out. “It was such a heinous request, so different from what he normally asked me to do, that I decided it was a test of my loyalty. One I’d failed. I never thought he’d ask someone else to do it.” He stared down at his fist, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “But I found out the kid was dead a few days later. I was wrong, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about that mistake. My guess is that Mooney ended up murdering the kid to clean up his own mess, but he did it on orders.”

“Try telling that to that poor kid’s parents,” Mason sneered.

“If it makes you feel any better, you got your justice, albeit five years too late. Pete Mooney was beaten to death a few days ago.” His gaze shifted to me. “And not by my hands. I wanted him alive.” He pushed out a breath. “J.R. must have figured out I was lookin’ for him.”

Mason looked like he was about to be sick. “I was looking for him too. He was a person of interest in the investigation of the investigator who was supposed to question the DA and instead had me fired.”

“So we both got screwed on that one,” Skeeter said.

“If you’re planning to murder Simmons tonight, I refuse to take any part of it,” Mason said, his voice cold. “And like Rose said, if that’s your plan, you don’t need us. No one knows where we are. Just give us a car, and we’ll go hide out somewhere until things blow over.”

Skeeter clenched his jaw so tightly I could hear his teeth grinding. “And I’m supposed to believe you’ll just let me murder him? That you’re not gonna give some warning to the authorities?”

Mason didn’t say anything.

Skeeter began to laugh, and the three of us looked at him as if he’d lost his ever-loving mind. “Last night I gave Rose an ultimatum about your response. Is that your final answer?”

My voice didn’t sound like my own as I turned to him. “I suggest you give this very careful consideration, Skeeter Malcolm.”

He just started to laugh harder.

“I am deadly serious,” I said, my blood pressure rising. “You will regret it for the rest of your life if you hurt him.”

He stopped laughing. “I know how to hurt him without touching a hair on his head.”

Mason got to his feet. “You would hurt Rose? I thought she was valuable to you.”

“That’s not all you care about, though, is it?” Skeeter’s eyes glittered with a secret.

Mason gasped. “Are you threatening my mother?”

Skeeter snorted. “I have some other information you might be interested in knowin’. Something more personal. I was keepin’ it under wraps to use as a bargaining tool in case you got your job back and I found myself in need of a get out of jail free card, but I realized it might prove more useful now.”

Mason froze.

Oh, God. Did he mean what I thought he did?

“I may have stopped cleanin’ up Prince Simmons’ messes, but that didn’t mean J.R. stopped havin’ them scrubbed.”

I reached over and took Mason’s hand in mine.

Skeeter looked Mason in the eye. “You may have thought you got your justice when you beat Michael Cartwright to a bloody pulp for your sister’s murder, but you left the man who orchestrated the entire thing free and clear.”

Mason’s arm was so tense, it felt like he was about to shatter into a million pieces.

“The man you’re lookin’ for—” Skeeter said in a slow drawl, “—is none other than J.R. Simmons. How do you feel about killin’ him now?”

M
ason took several breaths
. “Do you have proof of this, or is it merely a supposition?”

Skeeter grinned, but it was bitter. “Hearsay. It’s accurate, but not enough to prove it to anyone in a court of law.”

Mason pulled his hand loose from mine and stood, running a hand through his hair. “Goddammit.” Grief saturated the word. “That man has stolen or tainted so much of my life, and he gets away with it time and time again.”

“Not if we kill him.
Together
. I have a plan. We both want our revenge. We’ll mete it out together.”

Mason stared at the wall for several seconds, and then shook his head, defeat in his eyes. “No. I can’t condone that. Not even for him.”

“You’ll let this man get away with ordering your sister’s murder?” Skeeter asked. “I hear Cartwright stabbed her repeatedly, but he planned it so there’d be some time before she bled out. He pulled up the younger Simmons on her phone and laid it next to her face. Joe’s daddy wanted him to hear it. He wanted them both to suffer.”

I gasped and grabbed the back of my chair, feeling dangerously close to passing out.

Mason released a loud groan and slammed his fist into the wall, then leaned over his legs. I could tell he was fighting back tears.

“How about now?” Skeeter asked. “You ready to let him skip home now?”

“No.” Mason righted himself, his eyes red, and when he turned his gaze to me, the anguish I saw on his face ripped my heart into pieces. “If I help you murder him, I’m no better than he is.”

I had to regain some control of this situation. “
No one
is murdering J.R. Simmons.”

Skeeter shot me a dark glare. “This is between me and Simmons, Lady. You and Deveraux are simply pawns in the chess game Simmons has been orchestrating for years. The fact that you happen to be his son’s last girlfriend is a pure bonus to him. Joe Simmons will never be allowed to marry anyone but that Wilder bitch, so you better be glad you didn’t try to follow through on his proposal. Otherwise you would have likely met with the same fate as Deveraux’s sister.”

I gasped and sat up straighter in my chair. Mason put his hand on my shoulder, and I covered it with my own.

Skeeter stood. “Joe Simmons may have acted the part of a selfish asshole most of his life, but he’s capable of real emotions. Trust me, I know. I’ve watched the man since he was a teen. If he had known Savannah Deveraux was pregnant with his kid, he would have married her in a heartbeat.” He glanced at Mason. “Surprises you, huh? Joe Simmons has a soft spot for kids too. He’s wanted them since he was barely out of college, even if he’s always had the tendency to pick the most unlikely women to give them to him.”

“How do you know anything about my sister? How do you know so much about her death?” Mason’s voice cracked, but that show of emotion didn’t make the look he gave Skeeter any less murderous.

Skeeter fisted his hands. “Not how you think. But I started asking questions when I heard it on the news. Your name came up, Deveraux, and then I found out about her tie to the Simmonses. It was too big of a coincidence. When you showed up in the Fenton County Courthouse, I knew Daddy Simmons had done something extra slimy.”

“Who’s your source? How do you know their information is accurate?”

Skeeter gave me a sardonic grin. “Well, I can’t be revealing my sources, now can I? I wouldn’t be a man of my word.”

“Cut the crap, Skeeter,” I groaned. “What else do you know?”

“That Daddy Simmons realized his baby still had feelings for Savannah even after they broke up. Hilary Wilder put the screws to him big time, but Savannah was still tugging at his heartstrings. Then Daddy Simmons found out she was pregnant and hired Michael Cartwright to kill her. But he wanted to play with her and Joe first. He figured his son would be eaten up with enough guilt that he wouldn’t dare stray from that Wilder bitch.” He paused. “I’ve given it some thought over the last few days, and I’m pretty damn sure Daddy Simmons had his son sent to Fenton County to work the Crocker case. He was tired of waiting for the Crocker situation to implode, so he helped roll the ball along.”

Mason sat next to me, blinking back tears. “Joe was working for his father when he was undercover with Crocker?”

Skeeter snorted. “Hell no. I’m sure he had no idea. That’s all supposin’ I’m right … and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I am.” He winked at me. “But what J.R. didn’t count on was his son fallin’ in love again. That was definitely not in his plan.” He took a sip of his coffee.

“Why would he send Joe to Fenton County to bring down Crocker?” Mason asked. “What ball did he want to get rolling?”

“So Skeeter would gain control of the county,” I said. “Which would put J.R. in the position to take what Skeeter wanted most.” I looked at Skeeter. “Which is why I have to go tonight. Killing him outright would be too good for him. We’re going to do this right and make him suffer.”

Skeeter grinned as he sat back down. “My world has rubbed off on you.”

Mason shot him an angry glare.

“
No
,” I said. “I’m just tired of seeing so many people hurt by that man.”

“You are
not
meeting him,” Mason said, turning to face me. “That man is deadly. If you walk in there, you’re liable to end up dead.”

Skeeter made a face. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think your boyfriend’s right. If he’s picking off my cherished assets, he won’t let you leave that room alive. We’re not even sure what good could come of keeping this meeting. It’s certainly not worth risking your potential death.”

“Skeeter,” I said, leaning forward. “You have no plan other than to walk in there and kill him. Don’t you think he might be expectin’ you to make a move on him?” Something else occurred to me. “Has he even made it clear he’s doin’ this? If he likes to make people suffer, seems to me that he’d want them to know it’s comin’ from him. And you’re already deep enough in the rat maze.”

He nodded, but he didn’t look happy as he sat back down. “He’s made contact. He made sure I knew where it was comin’ from.”

“Then Jed and I need to go. We handled Mick Gentry just fine.”

Skeeter snorted. “Just fine. I heard you pulled a gun on him.”

I lifted my chin. “And it worked out just fine.”

“Meeting Gentry wasn’t gonna be a church social. Expectin’ anything less would have been a fool’s errand.”

“We didn’t go into it with our eyes closed. Jed suspected two of your men, so I used my gift before we left the parking lot behind the station. It’s how we figured out they were turncoats.”

Jed shifted in his seat. “She forced a vision and saw them waiting for us.”

Skeeter scowled. “I heard. And I heard Merv handled the problem. Merv can help handle this one too. There’s no need for Rose to risk herself.”

I shook my head. “You know darn good and well that your new kingdom isn’t the only thing J.R. Simmons is after. He wants the Lady in Black.”

Fury flooded Skeeter’s face. “
All the more reason for you not to go
.”

“All the more reason I
should
go. He’s gonna want me to know exactly what he’s doin’ and all the pies he’s got a finger in.” I turned to glance at Mason. “I know you said a recording of the meeting wouldn’t do squat for us without a court order, but could your detective in Little Rock help us get one?”

Mason shook his head. “You’d be going as the Lady in Black.” He paused, as if still shocked by the sound of that statement. “You’re going to want to keep your anonymity, but your name would have to be on the court order. That’s if we could even get one. No court order, no wire.”

“What about Jed?” I looked across the table at him, then at Mason. “He’ll be with me. Maybe he could wear it.”

Mason looked Jed up and down as though appraising his ability to protect me.

“Jed’s not wearing a wire,” Skeeter said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“If he goes to the cops, he’s gonna have to tell him why he’ll be there, as well as a whole host of other things we don’t want public.”

“Then is this all for nothing?” I asked.

“No,” Skeeter said, his eyes hard. “This is between me and Simmons.” He shot a glance at Mason. “And if Deveraux wants a piece of his own revenge, I’ll let him join me.”

One look at Mason told me he was actually considering it.

“No.” I stood and banged my fist onto the table. “We need to at least try to make it happen my way.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to push away the dull ache in my head. “I’ll have a vision of Jed.”

Skeeter shook his head. “No.”

“Why?” I spat out, bracing my hands on the table as I leaned forward. “Because you’re afraid my plan will work and you won’t get to see blood?”

He didn’t answer.

“Look, you are central to what J.R.’s doin’, but he’s hurt all of us and so many more. He deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his days. Give him the same fate he wanted you and me to face. Force him to see his whole world go up in a dust storm. Murdering him would be letting him off too easy. Make him sweat. Don’t you think it’s time?”

He still didn’t answer, so I walked over to Jed and put my hand on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I stumbled for a second, trying to decide what to look for, so I asked to see what happened after the meeting. The room disappeared, and I was suddenly in a hotel room. There was a bed at my side, but I was standing behind Vision Rose in a Lady in Black outfit. She was seated in a faded pink chair, her legs crossed, her hands resting primly on her knees. Sitting across from her on a small pink sofa with a tiny white diamond pattern was J.R. and Mick Gentry. There were no other men in the room.

J.R. laughed. “Did you really think you’d leave here alive?”

Then, as if on cue, gunshots rang out, shattering the window to my left. Vision Rose fell to her side, blood splattered on the chair where she had sat. Pain shot through my arm and my chest, and I fell to my knees, taking one last gasp of air as I landed on the large pink and white diamond carpet. Then everything turned to black.

The vision ended, and I said, “We both die.”

The uproar from all three men was deafening, but my knees started to buckle, and Mason leapt to his feet to keep me upright. I grasped the back of Jed’s chair and pushed his hand away. If I showed any sign of weakness, they’d never let me go through with this. And something told me it was the only way.

“I told you.” Skeeter pointed his finger at me. “He’ll kill you.”

“He didn’t do it. It came from outside.” I described the vision to them in greater detail, and then said, “We can still make this work. We just need to keep changing the logistics until we get the outcome we want.”

“Rose,” Mason pleaded. “Can’t you see how crazy this is?”

“Yes, but I’m bound and determined to do it anyway.” I looked down at Jed. “I’ll do my best to make sure you’re safe, Jed. But I can’t guarantee you’ll make it out alive. I’m not sure I can live with that, so I think you should stay with Skeeter and let me go alone.”

His face reddened. “And if you think that’s gonna happen, you’re delirious. If you keep this meeting with J.R. Simmons, I’m goin’ with you.”

“Okay.” I swung my attention between both Skeeter and Mason. “And now we have confirmation that the meeting truly is with J.R. Simmons.”

“You can’t do this,” Mason said, his voice softer.

But Skeeter had the opposite reaction. He was only getting more pissed. He pointed at me again. “I am in charge here, Lady! You’ve forgotten your place!”

“No, Skeeter Malcolm!” I shouted, letting my temper get the best of me. “Just a week ago you offered me a danged partnership, so that makes us equals! I set this up, so I have more say than you do!”

He got to his feet and advanced toward me. “You never accepted my partnership!”

“Well, in this situation, I accept it!”

“It’s too damned late for that!”

“He offered you a partnership in his crime business?” Mason asked, his voice sounding far away.

Oh crap. What had I done? Panic washed through me, but I’d promised him no more secrets from here on out. There was no other way I could hope for a future with him. “I didn’t have Skeeter’s authority to request a meeting with Mick Gentry. But when I explained it to him later—that I had suggested meeting with him as an emissary to negotiate behind the scenes—Skeeter saw the wisdom of it and offered me a partnership.”

Anger and pain washed across Jed’s face, and my heart skipped a beat. I could guess what was galling him. Why would Skeeter offer to make me a partner when he had never done the same with Jed, who had been with him since the beginning?

“But I turned down his offer. I’ve made no secret of the fact that my sole intention has been—and is—to find out who’s trying to kill you and stop them.”

No one said anything, so I took a breath and turned my attention to Skeeter. “We can make this work. Now let’s start with the location.” I described all the details of the room. “Where were we?”

“The Henryetta Days Inn,” Mason said, sounding distant. “It sounds a lot like the place I stayed when I first came to town. The color scheme and print on the carpet are a giveaway.”

“So do we change the place or try to make it work? I said I’d pick the location, so one of you must have suggested it since I have no clue where to go.”

“Me,” Skeeter said. “It’s the place I would have suggested.”

“So change locations or stay?”

Mason spoke first. “They attack you from the window, which means it isn’t a secure location. If I were sending a plant in to meet an informant, I’d have the windows covered.” He looked at Skeeter. “I presume you’d do the same?”

He nodded.

“So that means whoever was watching the outside was eliminated first.” Mason leaned forward. “The Days Inn is only one story. We need a higher building, or one with no windows. But the problem with no windows is that it’ll keep us from seeing what’s goin’ on. Obviously closets are out.”

“We’ll bug the room,” Skeeter said, his voice hard, refusing to look at me.

“So where do we meet?” I asked.

“A public location was a good idea,” Mason said. “It stands to reason that Simmons would want to keep a low profile here in town. A gunshot burst like that would draw unwanted attention.” He started pacing. “But it obviously didn’t work.”