he said, sharing with a little of the truth. “They’re pushing him for money that he doesn’t have, and they want it very badly. We think he may have tried to contact your mother.”
“Why would you think that?” she asked slowly.
He sighed. “The bartender at Shea’s said she was yelling that her husband was going to kill her if she didn’t buy him off, and she was broke.”
Her heart skipped. “Broke? She said she was broke?” she exclaimed. “But she owns property, she gets rent—”
He hated being the one who had to tell her this. He ground his teeth. “She’s sold all the property, Keely, probably to pay her bar bills,” he said heavily. “One of the Realtors who was at the bar at the time mentioned it to me. There’s nothing left. She’s probably drained her savings, as well.”
Keely felt sick. She sank down into the sofa and felt wounded all over again. No wonder Ella didn’t want her to leave. Her mother couldn’t afford to hire someone to replace her for domestic work.
“I’m sorry,” Hayes said genuinely.
“No, it’s all right,” she replied, forcing a smile. “I did wonder. She let things slip from time to time.” Her green eyes were troubled. Her own small salary barely allowed her to own an ancient used car and buy gas to get to work, much less pay for utilities and upkeep. What Hayes had told her was terrifying. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, surmising why he’d come.
“I want you to tell me if you hear anything from or about your father,” he said gently. “There’s a lot at stake here. I wish I could tell you what I know, but I can’t.”
Keely recalled that her father’s friend had a police record. He’d bragged when he slapped her that he’d killed a woman for less than Keely had done, talking back to him.
She frowned. “Just before I came to Jacobsville,” she recalled, “Dad’s friend, Jock, said he’d killed a woman.”
“Jock?” He drew out a PDA and pulled up a screen. “Jock Hardin?”
Her heart flipped. “Yes. He was the one who hit me.”
He frowned. “Why did he hit you?”
She drew in a long breath. “I burned the rolls.”
Hayes cursed roundly and then apologized. He leaned forward and stared right into her eyes. “Did he do anything more than hit you?” he asked.
“He wanted to.” She couldn’t say more. Jock had gotten her shirt halfway off and then pushed her away, revolted. Her pride wouldn’t let her admit that to Hayes.
“He was prevented?”
She nodded. Her green eyes looked into his. “Do you know where he is? I mean, he isn’t going to come here and make trouble for Mama and me, is he?”
“I don’t know, Keely. He’s on the run from a new charge, one he shares with your father. Don’t ask. I can’t tell you,” he added when she started to speak. “Suffice it to say that we can put him away for life if we can catch him.”
“And my father?” she prodded gently.
He bit his full lower lip. “He’ll probably get the same sentence. I’m sorry. He’s done some bad things since he left you here. Some very bad things. People have died.”
Her heart sank right into her shoes. She remembered her father laughing, buying her a puppy and taking her around with him in the game park, teasing her about her affection for the big mountain lion, Hilton. He hadn’t been a bad man in those days, and he’d been affectionate with her, and always kind. The man she remembered at the last had been very different, with violent mood swings. Jock had taken over his life. And Keely’s. She’d realized, belatedly, that her father had probably saved her life by bringing her back to Jacobsville.
“He wasn’t a bad man when we had the game park,” she told Hayes. “He had a nice girlfriend who took me to church and he never teased me about it. She was also our bookkeeper. In those days, he was religious, in his own way. He loved the animals. They loved him, too. He could walk right in with the tiger and the mountain lion and pet them.” She laughed, remembering. “They purred…” Her face fell. “What if Jock comes here?” she asked, and she was really afraid. The man had terrified her for weeks. Her father had been so far out of reality that he hadn’t even intervened.
Hayes’s face hardened. “I’ll lock him up so tight he’ll never get out,”