Chapter Sixteen #3
“Nothing to do with me, but I had Scotty do some hacking in her files, too, and she was a naughty girl. Very involved in the sex trafficking. Tell you what. You can have those files for free. Just get them from my computer in my home office. I’ve got her bank records and some personal emails.
There should be enough there for you to convict her of multiple crimes. ”
“Enough to convict her of murder?” Jack snapped.
“No. Not that.” He stopped. “Oh, I see. You think Lily might have murdered that woman, Nicola, and your dad. Nope. Lily scared some woman into disappearing, but she didn’t kill anyone.”
“Skylar’s alive?” Caroline managed to say.
“Alive and in hiding. If Lily had gotten to her, I would have heard about it. And it was Eric who did Nicola. Don’t know the full story on that, but their paths crossed.”
So, Skylar hadn’t been murdered after all, and once Lily was behind bars, Skylar would likely surface. It didn’t surprise Caroline that Eric had killed Nicola, but there was a huge piece of this that didn’t fit.
“Eric didn’t kill Jack’s father,” she said. “I was with Eric when Buck Slater was gunned down.”
Caroline couldn’t see Kingston’s expression, but she could see Jack. His eyes went dark, and she could feel the dangerous edge whipping off him. And she knew why. Kingston was almost certainly smiling.
Because he’d been the one to kill Jack’s father.
“Eric needed a distraction,” Kingston said. “He wanted gunfire to draw the attention off him so he could get away.”
Her knees nearly buckled. The weight was so heavy on her chest that it felt as if someone was crushing her heart in a tight fist. And despite all of that, Caroline knew what she was feeling was a drop in the bucket compared to Jack.
He’d just listened to the man responsible for his father’s murder dismiss it as a mere distraction.
Caroline tried to give Jack a steadying look. A silent “calm down” because she didn’t want the rage overtaking him so that he charged at Kingston. They just needed more time. Time that maybe she could buy them.
“You can’t think you’ll get away with this,” she said to Kingston.
“Depends on what you mean by getting away with it.” She felt his shoulder move in what she thought might be a shrug. The arrogant SOB. “With my lawyers, I doubt very seriously that I’ll be declared competent or sane enough to stand trial. And my psychiatric records will prove it.”
Records that Kingston had likely doctored. Or else Scotty had done that for him. But Jack and she could try to use his confession to prove otherwise. And even if they couldn’t, he would still spend the rest of his life locked up in a mental institution. Not exactly justice, but it would have to do.
Caroline finally saw what she’d been looking for. Gunnar. He crept in behind one of the shrubs near Jack. Kingston must have seen him, too, but he didn’t react. Probably because Gunnar didn’t have any better angle of a shot than Jack did.
“Once Caroline’s dead, there’ll be no more loose ends,” Kingston announced, and the muscles in his arm and hand tightened. He was going to do it.
Kingston was going to kill her.
Caroline was going to make sure that didn’t happen.
Gathering her breath, she directed her anger and fear to her voice and let out a vicious shout as she rammed her elbow into Kingston.
She dropped her weight, getting her neck away from that knife.
She felt it cut her again, on the side of her head, but she ignored that and scrambled away from Kingston.
Jack moved in. As fast and as mean as a snake.
Caroline had managed to get only a few feet away before Jack was on the porch. He kicked away the knife.
And tossed his gun aside.
When Kingston lunged at him, Jack went after the man with his fists, and Jack was a lot better at it than Kingston.
He rammed his fist into Kingston’s face, causing the man’s head to flop back.
Jack hit him again. And again. His fists pounding Kingston even as the man dropped to his knees on the porch.
Jack might have kept it up, but Caroline touched his shoulder.
“Let Gunnar arrest him,” she said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible.
Caroline wasn’t sure that would be enough to get Jack to stop.
But it was.
Jack froze, his fist still poised midair and aimed at Kingston’s face. Kingston was crying now, his breath coming out in wet, loud sobs. Jack stared at the man several long moments before he stepped back. Caroline was right there to pull Jack into her arms.
Gunnar rushed forward. The deputy hurried onto the porch and cuffed Kingston, hauling the man to his feet. “Jack, I’ll take care of this,” Gunnar said, sympathy all over his face. “And I’ll get the ambulance out here for Caroline and Clarie.”
“I’m fine,” Caroline assured him, and she thought that might be true. Kingston had cut her, but it wasn’t serious. Even if it had been, she probably wouldn’t have admitted it. Not now. For now, she needed to hold Jack and get him through this.
“Kingston killed him,” Jack muttered. “He killed him. And he tried to do the same to you.”
“He failed,” she reminded him, and she eased back so he could see her face. Her eyes. She wanted him to know that she was okay.
Jack shook his head like a man coming out of a trance, and his attention landed on her arm, then the side of her head. Where he no doubt saw blood.
“You need the EMTs,” he insisted.
He snatched up his gun, holstering it, before he jumped down off the porch, pulling her down and into his arms. But he didn’t stand her on the ground. Jack started carrying her toward the front of the inn.
“I can walk,” she said.
However, she didn’t fight him on this. It was something Jack needed, and she soon realized she needed it, too.
She dropped her head onto his shoulder and let him soothe her in a way that only Jack could.
Yes, there were still plenty of things unresolved, but she took these moments of comfort from him.
When they reached the front of the inn, she was thankful to see Clarie up and moving around. Manuel had brought in the other cruiser, and that was where Gunnar headed with Kingston. Clarie was rubbing her head and pacing in front of the other cruiser while she talked to someone on the phone.
“Don’t worry, I’ll let the EMTs check me out,” Clarie immediately told Jack. “I just wanted to fill in Kellan. He’ll meet us at the sheriff’s office.”
Caroline was exhausted, but she knew the night wasn’t over, and she wanted to be there when Kellan booked Kingston. Actually, she wanted to be there for Jack and his brothers.
In the distance, Caroline heard the wail of sirens from the ambulance. But she also heard something else.
A shout.
“You bastard,” someone yelled.
Jack immediately stood Caroline on the ground so he could pivot and draw his gun. But he was too late. The shot blasted through the air.
It took a moment for Caroline to fight through the shock and see what had happened. And then she spotted Grace. The woman was on the side of the front porch, a gun gripped in her hand.
A gun she’d just used to fire the shot.
At Kingston.
Grace hadn’t missed, either. The shot had gone straight into Kingston’s chest.
“You bastard,” Grace repeated, the tears streaming down her face. She dropped her gun, and it clattered onto the porch. “That was for Scotty,” she said before she lifted her hands in surrender.