Chapter 21
Keisha just stared at Jaxon and shook her head. “I can’t believe it. … I can’t. Kelly wouldn’t do that.”
He didn’t say anything, just waited.
Keisha repeated it, staring at him. “She would never do that. She knows how hard I work.”
He shrugged. What could he say? The evidence was here, the proof was here, but she didn’t want to believe it. He could well and truly understand, but it didn’t change the facts.
She sagged onto her living room chair both dogs backed up and half on her, as if protecting her from the blows they didn’t understand. Her emotions, shock… those they understood. “She really racked up all those credit cards?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yes, and we’re still searching to see if there’s anything else she put in your name.”
She winced at that. “And the whole time, she’s staying here, doing nothing to help, just—”
“Yep,” he agreed immediately, wanting to cut off the tirade, listing all the things Kelly had done and not done.
“I need to talk to her,” Keisha declared, bounding to her feet.
“I understand why you would want to, but it’s not a good idea. The detective clearly stated that you let him speak to Kelly first,” he repeated.
She stared at him. “That’s not good. That’ll just send her into another spiral.”
“Maybe, but at least she’s in the hospital, under constant watch. Plus, we can’t make any real progress if we don’t know what the whole truth is.”
She winced at that. “And you assume there’s more?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Until we get all the information, there isn’t a whole lot we can do except worry and wonder, and that’s not good for anyone.”
“I still have to ask her about all these things myself.”
“Yes, and, as long as Richard speaks to her first and she’s willing to talk to you, you can.”
“Why wouldn’t she talk to me?” she cried out in shock.
“Think about it.”
She sagged back, and tears filled her eyes. “God, I just don’t understand what sent her down this spiral.”
“Yes, … you do,” Jaxon countered. “What we don’t yet understand is how far down she went and what the repercussions are from all that she’s done.”
“It’s just so stupid. Did she really think that I wouldn’t eventually find out about the credit cards?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but it could be she thought that day was coming soon, so she would just spend whatever she wanted and then … check out.”
At his phrasing, she gasped, and the tears once again filled her eyes. “I don’t care about the credit cards,” she cried out.
“I know that,” he replied, “but the credit cards might just be the tip of the iceberg, and, if we don’t have all the information, she can’t heal, because nobody will be calling her out on it. We both know she needs more help than she’s been getting.”
“She’s refused to go,” Keisha wailed. “I’ve tried everything.”
“I know, but this suicide attempt was likely a cry for help, and now she’ll get it, whether she agrees to it or not.”
Keisha took several deep breaths. When her phone rang, she looked at the Caller ID and said, “It’s the detective.” She answered with a wobble in her voice.
He began, “Hello, I’m with your sister. You’ll need to come down and join us.”
“Great,” she said, even with some enthusiasm. Kelly wanted to talk to her, so that was good, right?
“No, not great, not great at all,” he stated, with caution in his tone. “However, it needs to happen.”
Keisha sat up straight, noting the officious tone to his voice. She winced and asked, “Can Jaxon come?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Then he ended the call.
She got up slowly, looked at the time, and told Jaxon, “I just got off work. This is my evening off.”
“Doesn’t matter, since it is what it is. What’s going on?”
“Richard wants me to come down to the hospital, right now.”
Jaxon walked over, gave her a hug, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have looked at her computer.”
Jaxon asked, “Do you want her to heal?”
“Yes,” she cried out immediately, then she sighed.
Since Jaxon was driving, she could allow herself to just sag into the passenger seat and think about everything that had gone wrong in the last few years. “It was so hard after the accident.”
“Of course it was,” he agreed, “for both of you, but she’s only focusing on herself and taking it out on you.”
“Yeah, but she needs to focus on herself. It’s the only way she’ll heal.”
“True, but focusing on herself doesn’t mean hurting those around her.”
Keisha gave him a sad smile. “I think that’s exactly what it means, at least in so many cases. If all they can think about is the fact that their life has been damaged, they keep score and compare, taking the role of victim, which starts a circle of hate.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way. It should be a circle of gratitude that somebody is there to help them.”
“Sure, in a perfect world. I haven’t seen a perfect world yet, have you?” The bright smile he sent in her direction made her nod. “That’s the problem, right? We all know what we want to see happen, but that doesn’t mean that we do it.”
“No, not as often as we would like to see it,” he confirmed.
When he pulled up in front of the hospital, she got out and looked over at him. “Are you sure you want to come?”
“I think I need to come,” he noted, with a smile for her. “Considering the state you’re in, it’s probably better if I’m there.”
“She won’t like it.”
“Depending on what Richard has already told her, she probably won’t like anything.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Keisha muttered. “I’m a little worried about what he has to say.” Holding hands, they walked into the hospital, found out where Kelly was, and headed up to her room.
“You didn’t come by or talk to Kelly earlier?”
“No, she was sleeping when I called, and they told me to check in later.”
“And did you check in later?”
“Yes, but I was told she had not fully recovered.”
“In other words, she’s avoiding you.”
“Crap,” she muttered. “I was really hoping not to consider that.”
“You might be trying to avoid it, but, as you can see, you’re about out of time.”
When they got to Kelly’s room, they knocked and pushed open the door. Detective Richard stood up from where he’d been sitting, smiled at them, and waved them in. “Hey, thanks for coming.”
The smile might have been friendly, but his tone was definitely not.
Keisha hunched her shoulders and walked up to her sister in the hospital bed, but Kelly kept her head facing the window and wouldn’t look at her.
“Kelly,” Keisha asked, “what’s going on?
” Kelly didn’t say anything, and Keisha looked over at Richard. “Can you explain?”
“You mean, outside of the fraud that your sister has committed? Let’s review what we know so far.
She has the one card that we confiscated, and two other cards that she just applied for.
Then there is the money that she has been giving to a group that apparently needed it for something—except she used your money for it. ”
She winced at that. “That’s great,” she muttered, with a dry laugh. “I barely have enough money to keep us going as it is, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that.”
“The credit card companies have been informed about the fraud, so we’ll see what they say,” Richard noted.
“The bottom line right now is that Kelly has committed fraud. She’s in trouble for that, and she’s also not cooperating when asked for information about a group she belongs to online.
If she refuses to talk, we will have to arrest her. ”
“Because they’re not criminals,” Kelly snapped. “You’re making it sound as if they’re terrible.”
Keisha walked over to the other side of Kelly’s bed, where her sister stared out the window, and asked, “Are these the people who convinced you to do all this?”
Kelly flushed.
“Are these the people who told you it was okay to open credit cards in my name and to rip me off, even though you know very well that I already work incredibly long days, and that it’s all I can do to put food on the table, to pay the mortgage, and to keep you as safe as you need to be? ” Keisha asked, her voice breaking.
Kelly flushed again and for the first time looked as if maybe she had some acknowledgment of having done something wrong, but she sure wasn’t remorseful. “Maybe,” she muttered, “but that still doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”
“Right.” Keisha laughed. “So, they are happily working members of society, doing everything they can to be better people, right?”
“Nobody is trying to be better people,” Kelly snapped in a scathing retort. “Everybody is out there just to rip each other off.”
“Oh, like you ripped me off, you mean?” Keisha asked, looking at Kelly.
Her sister stared out the window, refusing to have anything more to do with the conversation. Keisha turned and looked at Richard.
He smiled at her and continued. “There are obviously a lot of extenuating circumstances here, but there’s also a much deeper issue.”
“What do you mean?” Keisha asked.
“The group that she belongs to is a group that law enforcement has had our eyes on for a while,” he admitted.
“We’ve known that somebody out there was encouraging people to do things like this, to harm themselves, but we haven’t ever been able to catch them.
And now we’ve got a line on them. So the task force assigned to work on that issue has control of the matter. ”
She nodded slowly. “And what happens to Kelly?”
“I don’t know what local charges will be filed. I’ll have to talk to the DA about that.”
“And it’s all related to the credit card fraud?” Keisha asked.
He nodded.
“So, if I say I don’t want to press charges?”
He looked at her intently and then at Jaxon, his eyes squinting. “In that case, you will be liable for all the charges,” he stated. “So, before you decide that you really want to let this go, you may want to take a look at how much the total is.”
“How much is it?” she asked warily.
When he told her the five-digit number, she sagged onto the chair beside her sister’s hospital bed and whispered, “Good God, Kel.”
He nodded. “And keep in mind, this is only what we’ve found so far.”
“What can you do about the charges?” Jaxon asked, putting a hand on Keisha’s shoulder. Kelly stared at them, fire in her gaze.
“So, we’ve alerted the credit card companies to the fraud we’ve found, but now that we have the fraudster,” he shared, “it’s doubtful that anybody will let you both off the hook.”
Keisha closed her eyes and slowly rubbed her face as he continued.
“Beyond that, I don’t know what else Kelly may have done, but there’s another twist with the money that she’s been handing over to this group. It seems they’re also supporting various other groups.”
“And is she in trouble for supporting them?” Keisha asked warily.
“We’re still investigating to determine the extent of her involvement,” Richard replied. “So, whether she’s an innocent victim or an active participant has yet to be determined.”
Keisha felt the tears in her eyes as she gazed at her sister. “How could you ruin your life like that, Kelly?”
In a move so fast that everybody reared back, Kelly pivoted up onto her elbows and glared at her.
“Ruin my life? That happened a long time ago. God, don’t you get it?
I’m the one who’s stuck in the wheelchair.
I’m the one who has no life. And what did you do?
You went and brought that ass of a husband right back into your world,” she snapped, followed by a snort.
“I don’t even get options like that. I’m a cripple, remember? ”
Keisha stared at her sister, clearly seeing the hate for the first time. Not just depression but absolute hate. “It was an accident,” she replied, “the kind of thing that can happen to anybody at any time.”
Her sister started to shake violently, her anger growing.
“But it wasn’t just an accident. You were driving,” Jaxon interjected. “So, maybe that accident is something that you feel guilty over.”
Her sister’s gaze widened. “Where did you hear that?” she whispered.
“From the other family who lost a father,” Jaxon stated.
“Is it true?” Keisha asked, shock on her face.
Kelly paled and sank back, but Keisha went on.
“Apparently the police didn’t put that in the accident report, or maybe they thought you had suffered enough.
I don’t know. However, I do know that we can’t work on your healing until we know the truth. All of it.”
“You don’t want to know the truth,” Kelly snapped.
“So, is the truth that you caused the accident and killed Mom and Dad?” The shock was numbing Keisha, but she also knew just how horrifyingly painful this conversation had to be for her sister because it was absolutely killing Keisha.
Jaxon’s hand gently patted her shoulder and slowly rubbed her back.
She took several deep breaths as Kelly stared at her. As the moments ticked by in silence, her sister’s mouth opened and closed, as if to say something. She gasped back and forth several times before finally sagging into the hospital bed, as her tears flowed uncontrollably.
“Say it,” Keisha stated, refusing to let her sister off the hook on this one. “At least acknowledge the truth of what really happened.”
“Fine. I was driving,” she roared, bawling her eyes out, “and Dad was making me so angry because he told me that I was speeding. He wanted me to slow down because the road conditions were shit. But instead … because I was so angry at him, I sped up. I lost control. The road conditions … It was horrific,” she whispered, with a gasp.
“I was too arrogant, too full of myself, and far too angry. We’d had a conversation during dinner that upset them, and I just took that anger out onto the road,” she admitted, through her tears.
“So, yeah, I killed them, and, yeah, I deserve absolutely everything I get.” And, with that, she sobbed even more.
At that point, one of the nurses came inside, took a look around, then suggested that everybody leave the room.