Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,57
seemed eager to move to Connecticut and he was glad for that. He had meant it when he said he didn’t want to do anything to keep the women apart.
They’d also gotten all the news on Evan and his family from Debra. She kept in touch with the private investigator who tried to save her. Jack Sutton had ended up paying the bills Turner stiffed the guy for and giving Evan a bonus that was going toward his daughter’s care.
Kaeden pushed Debra’s wheelchair down the hall as Jane held her mother’s hand. They were making plans to have her mother’s hair cut the following week and Kaeden had to admit, he liked listening to the idle chit chat of plans being made. He just liked being around Jane, period, no matter what she was doing.
She’d been taking on some remote freelance work for several of the companies Sutton Capital invested in, but he knew she wanted to find something more permanent soon. If she could relocate to Connecticut where he could help out with her mom some, it might help.
They were almost to her room when one of the staff came down the hall.
“Debra. I didn’t want to let him in without checking with you first, but your lawyer is here.”
Kaeden slowed her chair as the woman came up to them.
“My lawyer?” Debra looked to Kaeden and Jane. “I don’t know why he’d be here. Especially in the evening.”
“I’ve asked him to wait in the lobby but shall I bring him to your room?”
Kaeden knew the home was trying to be a lot more careful about who they let in to see Jane’s mom.
Jane’s mother nodded and Kaeden pushed her into her room.
“Should I wait outside?” he asked when Jane and her mom had settled in.
“Not at all,” her mother said, reaching a hand to him.
He put his hand in hers and she squeezed it.
“You should stay to hear whatever he has to say. Good or bad at this point, I figure we’re all in this together.”
Kaeden sat next to Jane. The lawyer made the same offer to Debra of hearing his news in private when he arrived but she waved him off as well.
“I won’t sugar coat this then, Debra. Turner Carson is dead.”
The shock that swept through the room was palpable.
“What? How?” Debra asked.
The lawyer shook his head. “I really didn’t think they had a case where his first wife was concerned, but I was wrong. Turned out, her family had long suspected him of something, but no one listened to them. They signed papers allowing her body to be exhumed. She was found in her bed with an empty bottle of pills next to her and a suicide note. There were enough people who had witnessed her depression leading up to her suicide that the coroner signed off on the death as a suicide very quickly.
“But when they exhumed her body, tests showed she died from Thallium poisoning. No one would take that to kill themselves then leave an empty bottle of another type of medicine next to them.”
“What is Thallium?” Jane asked.
“It’s a metallic substance that used to be used in rat poison,” the lawyer said. “He would have had access to it through a number of the businesses that he owned. The police went to make an arrest but he locked himself in his office and shot himself.”
Jane slumped against Kaeden and he pulled her close to him. It was over. They didn’t have to worry that he would come after her mom or her again. They didn’t have to wonder if someday they might have to hide from him again.
That fear had still been there for all of them, hanging over them.
Jane stood and went to her mom, hugging her as tears streamed down Debra’s face.
“It’s over, mom,” she said. “It’s over.”
Her mother closed her eyes and cried.
Sometime later, the lawyer filled them all in on what that meant for them. Not only did they not have to worry about him coming after her mother again, Debra wouldn’t have to worry about whether she could get a large enough settlement to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.
Turner Carson had no children and no other heirs. She was still his wife since the divorce hadn’t gone through and Texas was a community property state. She now had all the money she could ever need since she had complete control over all of Turner’s property and funds.
There would be no life