“Let me check our calendar.” Mrs. Conroy came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Wednesday is fully booked, but Friday would work. You’d requested a ten o’clock graveside service, is that correct?”
Her chest clamped down. She could barely force out the word. “Yes...”
“Reverend Wilcox is available that day, as well.”
“Friday, then.”
Mrs. Conroy’s voice softened. “We’ll take care of everything, Ms. Gallagher. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
Kate managed to swallow. “All right. Thank you. I’ll see you Friday.” She hung up the phone and just sat there with the phone in her hand.
She started to call her father, give him the day and time. Instead, she decided to text him. He said he wanted to come, but she wasn’t really sure he would make it. She was even less sure she cared.
Kate walked into the bathroom, turned the shower on very hot, took off her robe and climbed under the scalding spray. She wished Jase were there. Jason could make her forget about Chrissy. Make all the sadness go away. He had a way of knowing exactly what she needed.
The thought occurred she was coming to depend on him way too much. After Andrew, the notion was frightening. The last thing she needed was another man. She had sacrificed her independence, become a completely different person to be with Andrew.
And it wasn’t the first time.
After college graduation, she had fallen for the young, aggressive owner of a software development company. David had big plans for them as a couple. He expected her to charm his business associates, help him build his company. He expected her to be the woman of his dreams.
She had a knack for business, he had said. Which was probably the reason she had managed to get herself into the same situation with Andrew. Both times she had been sucked into a relationship that caged her in. Tried to change her in some fundamental way. She refused to let it happen again.
By the time she stepped out of the shower, Kate was feeling better. Being Sunday, the office was closed for the weekend, but she had talked to her assistant on Friday, and Laura had assured her everything was running smoothly.
Though she wasn’t completely sure not being needed was a totally good thing.
With a long afternoon in front of her, Kate went into her home office and woke up her computer, clicked up Google, typed inNew Hope Rehabilitation Centerand started digging.
She’d been thinking about the rehab facility ever since talking to Holly and the Lockwoods. A dozen links popped up. She was surprised by the number of articles praising Reverend James Lockwood and his wife, Vera. The home had had tremendous success with the prostitutes who came there for help.
But the center relied on donations. Several organizations had held minor fund-raisers, but the home was at full capacity and the Lockwoods didn’t have the money to open another facility.
If Eli Zepeda hadn’t forced Chrissy to leave, would her sister have been able to conquer her addiction? Would she have left the dark world of prostitution and begun a new life?
Kate didn’t know Tina Galen, but she knew Chrissy Gallagher. Her sister had been stubborn, difficult and spoiled, but she was also smart, hardworking and determined. Whatever Chrissy put her mind to, she would ultimately achieve.
Kate believed, with the help of the people at New Hope, her sister would have succeeded in making a new life for herself. And Kate would have been there to help her.
She leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t been able to help her sister, but maybe she could help girls like Holly and other women in the home.
Kate wasn’t a psychologist or any sort of counselor, she was a businesswoman. Which meant the best way to contribute to the center was to help them raise money, possibly enough to open another home somewhere else.
An image arose in her mind of Eli Zepeda standing outside the Sunshine Motel, big and dark, hard-faced and mean, slapping the young prostitute, punishing her for some imaginary wrong.
Kate had to find justice for Chrissy’s killer before she could move on, but with luck, that would happen tonight. They would deal with Eli Zepeda—and Chrissy’s soul could finally find peace.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They rendezvoused that night at Kate’s. Jase still didn’t like the glass-walled apartment, though the rational part of his brain told him that ten stories up they were safe.
The first time he’d been with Kate, the night he’d taken her on the sofa in the living room, he’d been too damned hot, too hungry for a taste of her to worry about it. He almost smiled. At least there were curtains in the bedroom.
At the moment, he sat across from her and Bran in the kitchen where at least there were actual walls. A diagram, a hand-drawn layout of the Hickam Apartments, showed the front entrance, where the elevator was located, rear exit into the alley, parking lot, and an outside fire escape that descended from the roof.
Jase had also drawn a map of the fourth floor, showing the location of Zepeda’s apartment, which as near as they could figure included two bedrooms and a bath. The fire escape ran next to the living room window, providing an emergency exit. The kind of scum Zepeda ran with, he didn’t stay alive by being stupid.
“The fire escape gives him a way out,” Bran said. “But it’ll work for us, too, if things go south.”
