Read Online Just Evil by Vickie McKeehan - Free Book Online Page B

always
had to play catch up for one reason or another. The usual subjects like math
and English didn’t interest me much, but I knew I had a talent for drawing and
painting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough for Alana. She didn’t think I
was talented enough to make a living at it so it wasn’t worth my time.
    “Mainly what Alana wanted was a carbon copy of Alana, girly
through and through. It didn’t matter that my interests weren’t in those
things. No daughter of Alana’s was going to be a tomboy. What she didn’t count
on was the fact that when she wanted me to do something, anything at all, I
usually did the opposite, especially as I got older, and deliberately headed in
the other direction from what she wanted.
    “When she couldn’t mold me into what she so obviously
wanted…” She took a deep breath and just blurted it out, “She tried beating it
into me at an early age. But I was headstrong. I battled her at every turn even
when I was small. I paid for that stubbornness, but as I got older, either she
drew the battle lines in the sand, or I did. It was a tossup. I fought her so
often it became a way of life until I moved out.”
    “Aw, honey.” He reached out and put his arm around her.
Hearing it now, Jake was sure his earlier instinct had been right; that St.
John would see that as motive. But tonight he refused to go down that path.
Even though his heart went out to her, he wanted specifics, and was determined
to get the answers. “Kit, how many broken bones did you have as a kid?”
    At first the question startled her, but then she looked
away. “My right arm was broken at three, left leg at four, my left arm at five.
Those were her rage years. I mostly just tried to stay out of the woman’s way.
But when I was little, she was a force to be reckoned with and sometimes it was
difficult to avoid her. She was so much…bigger.”
    Jake swore. “How could she hurt you like that, something so
beautiful?”
    “I’m pretty sure Alana didn’t think of me as beautiful, most
of the time she was just pissed about something and I got in the way.”
    If he’d known she’d had such a lousy childhood, maybe he’d
have…what? What could he have done about it back then? It was Jake’s turn to
fall silent.
    As if Kit sensed his mood, she purposely pushed the memories
away. Enough, why did it always seem like she embarrassed herself with him?
    She took in several gulps of ocean air, welcoming the slight
breeze that fanned her face. All the wine she’d had over dinner made her flush.
She took another deep breath and filled her lungs with the moist ocean air
before going on, “By the time Gloria and Morty moved out to L.A., dad’s letters
with postmarks from places like Africa or Spain came less frequently and then
one day stopped coming altogether. When I was fourteen, Alana told me he died
in Europe and that was that. John Griffin disappeared from my life. I never saw
him again.”
    Jake squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head. “Kit,
I’m sorry I made you go through all that again.”
    She shrugged. “I guess I better get used to it. I’m afraid
it’s like you told Baylee, with the abuse, the police will jump to an even
larger conclusion that I had a motive. Even though it doesn’t make much sense
that I’d wait so many years later and do…that. I swear I didn’t killed her.”
    “No one who knows you could possibly think you killed
Alana.” But he was pretty sure Max St. John wouldn’t let up until he got all
the gritty details. He pictured the man’s face, the tough-talking, no-nonsense
detective.
    Jake inwardly winced. He knew St. John would run with past
abuse as the motive. And what about the media, what would happen when they got
wind of it?
    Jake watched as she distractedly picked at several broken
pieces of purple and black fan shells. She looked deep in thought. But in one
swift motion, she tucked her dress around her so she could bring her knees up
to her chest.