Chapter 5

Audra was the first to come in the door later that afternoon, and the first to see that her mother and her oldest brother were at odds with each other. Sometimes when she was particularly angry with someone, Victoria would simply keep quiet, and Jarrod had something of the same inclination. Their silence spoke volumes to Audra right away. She chatted away to both of them for a minute or so, then gave up. They would talk to her, but only in one or two word phrases, and they would not talk to each other.

Heath came in next. Audra met him at the door and warned him. "I don't know why, but they're not speaking to each other."

Heath said, "I think I know why."

Leaving his hat and gloves on the table in the foyer, Heath headed straight for the refreshment table and poured himself a glass of whiskey. As he poured, he said simply, "Nick's gone to town."

Jarrod jumped up out of his thinking chair. "To town?"

Heath nodded. "He said he wants to see her before he talks to you again."

"See who?" Audra asked.

"Carol Keenan."

"Carol Keenan?" Audra said, now just as unhappy. "She's back in Stockton?"

Heath nodded.

Jarrod headed for the door, but Heath grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. Jarrod's eyes burned into him. "Let go of me, Heath."

"Jarrod, I think you best let him be," Heath said. "He's been stewing all afternoon and he's ready to knock your teeth out."

"Heath – " Jarrod growled.

"And he's got more than half an hour's head start on you. He's probably already there, or close to it."

Jarrod still glared.

Heath said, "Look, I'm new at heading off fights between the two of you, so if I make mistakes, I'm sorry, but whoever this Carol Keenan is or was, she's somebody Nick has to talk to before he's ever gonna talk to you about her. I'd just let him do it if I was you."

Jarrod eased a little.

"Besides," Heath went on. "Head out now and you're just gonna meet him coming home on the road and that's where he'll leave your teeth."

"Sit down, Jarrod," Victoria said.

"Is someone going to tell me what's going on?" Audra asked.

Jarrod did not sit down, but he said, "She was arrested for passing bad money in a poker game last night. I talked to her this morning, and I've agreed to represent her."

Audra's face screwed up and her mouth flew open. "You can't be serious!"

"She says she didn't know the money was bad," Jarrod went on. "She says she got it from selling Robert E. Lee's memoirs to somebody."

"And Robert E. Lee didn't write any memoirs," Victoria added.

"So she can't be trusted now any more than she was before!" Audra blurted.

"Before was before, Audra," Jarrod said. "Heath, those Grant papers you found were hers, too. She says they blew out of her saddlebags on the way to Stockton yesterday. But I believe her when she says she didn't know the money was bad, and that's the charge against her."

"What about fraud?!" Audra yelled.

"She passed off phony memoirs and got phony money in return," Jarrod said. "She got nothing of value."

"Still, Jarrod, to represent her – "

"She's got a viable defense to the only charge against her," Jarrod said. "I told her I'd represent her so far as to get her a plea bargain, but I won't go to trial with her if she doesn't agree to one."

Everyone still looked angry, if not horrified.

Jarrod heaved a sigh. "She says she married, but her husband was killed falling off a ladder about a year ago. They were only married for six months. She's been trying to make her way on savings and card games."

"And you believe her," Audra said, incredulous. "Jarrod, she just up and left Nick!"

"I'll see what Pinkerton has to say," Jarrod said.

"Have you gone mad?" Audra asked.

"Maybe," Jarrod mumbled to himself and went back for more scotch. He seriously considered telling them what he and Carol were holding over each other but he knew he couldn't do that, not without telling Nick first.

Heath had been listening to all of this, mostly listening to how his new family interacted with each other when a big disagreement arose. He had watched it before but it was largely about him, and that was all over now. This promised to be even more explosive, especially since he was pretty sure Jarrod was still hiding something. He wasn't sure why he knew – body language, the sound of his voice, something – and he didn't know if it was about the present or the past, but there was something. Heath just took it all in for now. He wasn't going to pipe in just yet.

Jarrod said, "I do feel for the woman. She tried to make a good life for herself, but fate took it away. She fell back on the only things she knew how to do, and now she's roaming the countryside, alone, on the edge of being broke all the time, and now in jail on a charge she's probably innocent of. I'm trying to verify what she's told me. I'm doing what I think is the right thing to do."

Audra made an unhappy face. "I can't imagine that Nick would be all right with you representing her."

"Maybe not," Jarrod repeated and drank a little of the scotch he had just poured for himself. "But I guess we won't know exactly how he feels until he gets home, will we?"

XXXXXXX

Nick walked into the sheriff's office, feeling a mixture of angry and uncomfortable about what he was about to do. Sheriff Harris looked up from paperwork he was doing at his desk. "Nick! I didn't expect to see you here."

Nick said, "Steve. Can I see Jarrod's client?"

The sheriff said, "Sure," and got up and opened the cellblock door.

Nick went in and saw her there, alone. She was sitting on the cot, looking up to see who was coming in. Her eyes went wide, and as the sheriff went out, she got up and got as far away from Nick as the cell would allow.

Nick noticed what she was doing. "Well," he said. "All the way over here I kept trying to compose what I was gonna say to you, but now that I'm here, I don't know what to say."

Carol gave him a glance, but only a glance. "Neither do I." There was silence between them before she looked up at him, staring at her, and she said, "Why did you come here?"

"To see you," Nick said. "I thought maybe it was because you left me without a word six years ago, and I wanted to get the last one in. But now, that doesn't seem all that important."

"I knew Jarrod would talk to you, but I didn't think he'd do it this fast," Carol said. She wondered if Jarrod had told him everything, but he didn't look quite angry enough for her to think that he had.

"He doesn't keep things from me."

She looked hard at him. She almost said yes, he does, but she didn't say it. Instead, she said, "What do you want to say to me?"

"I don't know," Nick said. "I've really hated you all these years, Carol. As much as I loved you then, I've hated you since. And now, it all just seems so pathetic."

"Pathetic?" she said with a lot of scorn. "You think I'm pathetic?"

"Compared to who the girl I thought I was in love with was, yes," Nick said.

She shook her head. "You never really knew me, Nick."

"Because you didn't want me to."

She stayed standing there, staring at him. "Why don't you say what you really want to say? You hate me. You'd like to get your hands around my throat because I really hurt you when I left you."

"Why did you leave?" Nick asked.

She fumbled then. She couldn't say the truth. She just said, "We weren't meant to be together, Nick. You didn't really know me."

"Why didn't you let me know you?"

She shook her head. "You wouldn't have liked what you saw."

He just stared at her.

"What do you want me to say, Nick?" she said. "Do you want me to say I did love you and I left because I thought I wasn't worthy of you? All right, there it is. That's why I left."

"No, it isn't," Nick said. "I may not have known a lie when I heard it when I was 22, but I know one now."

"All right then. I didn't love you. I left because I could tell you were going to ask me to marry you and I didn't want that. I didn't want you. Now, just go."

She turned her back on him. He looked to see if she had any tears in her, but she didn't. Still, Nick kept looking, because he didn't believe what she had just said either. "You were a much better liar then than you are now," he said.

She turned to face him again, farther away from him now. "Nick, the past is the past. There's no point in dredging it up. I thought I loved you, but when I realized you were going to ask me to marry you, I knew I didn't love you. There's no more to it than that."

Nick let that sit for a moment, and then he said, "Why don't you fire Jarrod?"

"Why? Because he's a good lawyer and he can get me off fast and clean, that's why. He'll take care of that and I'll be on my way out of this town."

"Why did you come to Stockton now in the first place?"

"Because it's between Modesto and Sacramento."

"So are a lot of other towns."

"Nick, will you just let things go? I never intended to see you again. I intended to be in here for one night and then out again. I didn't know the money I passed was bad. I sure never intended to be in jail. And I never even intended for Jarrod to be my lawyer. He just happened to be the one the sheriff brought in here."

"Then fire him," Nick said.

"I can't," she said. "I need him. He'll get me off and I'll be gone. Now for God's sake, Nick, let it all be dead in the past where it belongs and get out of here."

She turned her back again, and this time, Nick did what she asked. He hesitated a bit, wondered if he should actually say good-bye, but then he didn't say it. He just left.