What appeared to be a robbery had gone bad in a well-known flower shop in Dallas. Conrad Steele had been fatally shot. The owner described two people who came into the store wearing masks. He’d given them the money without an argument, but then they’d both turned their guns on Conrad. One blew his face off with a shotgun and the other shot him in the groin with a pistol before they ran out of the store and sped away in a black late-model SUV.
She’d called the Dallas police station and talked to a detective, who verified that Conrad Steele was dead. She wanted to go see the body, but he told her that the family had decided on a closed casket under the circumstances. Kate Steele, a member of the family, was taking care of the arrangements. He was kind enough to give her the name of the funeral home and the time.
That was yesterday, and she had barely had time to buy a decent black dress and make arrangements for their part-time help to run Ellie’s Boutique so that she could go to the funeral. It was all so surreal—no one buried a person that fast. Three days was the minimum. Conrad had been shot on Thursday afternoon, and he was already in the ground and it was only Saturday. There’d been no wake, no family night for friends to come and console her for her loss, not even a church luncheon after the funeral—nothing but a short graveside service. There was no closure in that.
Amanda needed something to hang on to, anything at all to replace the fact that Conrad had three wives—at the same damn time!
CHAPTER TWO
Emotions should have been swirling around Kate on Sunday afternoon when she opened the door into Conrad’s bedroom. She expected the memories to bring back something—anything. Something in the room should cause a flutter of love, anger, sadness. But there was nothing.
She’d been depressed when she met Conrad, and he’d made her happy for the six months they’d dated and for nearly a year following their marriage. Surely she could latch on to one happy memory. But any happiness had been drowned the day that she lost their baby and the doctors said she’d never have any more children. Depression had set in, and Conrad began to hound her for a divorce and his money. Anger joined depression when he became mentally abusive.
Now he was dead, and she should feel something . . . relief? Even if he had been nothing more than a con artist who had lived in her house a couple of days a month for more than a decade, he was still her legal husband. She dug deep into her heart, but there was nothing—she would have had a bigger rush of emotion if one of the janitors at the oil company had died.
Teresa pushed past her into the room. “I told you that you should have divorced him years ago. Now you have to deal with all this, plus his business affairs. Thank God you can use the company’s legal department or you’d be out thousands in lawyer fees.”
“Let’s just get this packing done with,” Kate said.
“At least it’s over.” Teresa went to the dresser and picked up a man’s wedding band. “What’s this all about?”
“He took it off years ago. I’m surprised he didn’t hock the damn thing.” Kate took it from her mother and tossed it into the bottom of the black garbage bag she’d brought with her.
“You could get something for that in a pawn shop,” Teresa said.
Kate shook her head and opened the first drawer. Without checking pockets or even going through pajama pants, shirts, and the rest of his things, she threw them into the bag with the wedding ring. Then she slid open the closet doors. He used to have a packed closet, but now there were only a few suits, dress shirts, and slacks in front of her.
“I told you not to buy all those fancy things for him when you were first married,” Teresa said. “Now they are hanging in one of those other women’s closets. They’ll take them to a consignment shop and make a fortune on them.”
“I don’t care if they burn them and dance naked around the flames. I just want this thing settled. I never want to see those women again.” Kate shoved it all into the bag.
“Well, this isn’t going to take long.” Teresa reached for a box on the shelf. “Are you even going to look in this or do we just put it in the bag, too?”
More to appease her mother than anything else, Kate flipped the lid off onto the bed. His last five years’ tax returns were there, but no will, which might have simplified things. The deed to the cabin he owned up by Lake Kemp, along with the taxes and insurance papers concerning the cabin, were tucked into a big manila envelope. She flipped through the federal business—no dependents, married but filing separate, with her listed as his spouse, and very little return for any of the five years. They’d been prepared by an accountant whose card was stapled to the front of each copy.
Kate set the box aside. “I’ll take this to the lawyers tomorrow. Looks like that cabin where we went on our honeymoon is his primary asset, so I’ll have to deal with it. I’ll get in touch with his accountant tomorrow to see if he has kept the utilities paid.”
“How many times did I tell you that man was trouble?” Teresa sighed.
Kate didn’t answer. Arguing with her mother was like fighting with a tornado—lots of wind and noise with only mayhem and destruction remaining at the end of the argument. It wasn’t totally unlike fighting with Conrad these past thirteen years, but at least he didn’t start every other sentence with “I told you so.”
Teresa glanced around the room. “Anything else?”
“I don’t think so.” Kate looked down at the bag. Fourteen years all neatly tied shut with a red plastic drawstring. Nothing remained but a few phone calls and selling a cabin located two and a half hours north of Fort Worth. “I’ll take this out to your car and put it in the trunk.”
The mistake she made fourteen years ago was finished and over. He wouldn’t appear at her house once a month and rant about a divorce.
“Nothing else in the rest of the house?” Teresa put the lid on the box, picked it up, and followed Kate out into the foyer.
“Not one thing,” Kate said.
She’d long since gotten rid of pictures or anything that might remind her of him when he was gone. What he had was contained in a room she hadn’t set foot in since she came home from the hospital after losing the baby. That was the first time he’d asked her to divorce him. Emptiness was worse than any emotion that she could imagine, but that’s the only thing she felt as she carried the trash bag out.
“Okay, then, I’ll drop the bag by the charity donation center at the church. I’m going to the office an hour or so this afternoon, so I’ll put this box on your desk,” Teresa said as they made their way out to the curb where her car was parked. “You could come home for a few days if you don’t want to be alone.”
A sweet offer, but Kate would rather ask her housekeeper to come over and stay a couple of days as spend time in a house with her mother.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” Kate tossed the bag into the trunk and slammed the lid shut. “I’ll deal with the accountant and start proceedings for probate on the cabin tomorrow.” She didn’t need or want sympathy that day. She wanted to be alone—period.