CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (41 page)

             
But Melissa Cunningham had told her that her mother hadn't tossed her onto a church step and walked away. Her parents had been married, a minister and his wife. They'd been killed in a car wreck. They'd been accused of embezzlement, but no one had investigated the facts. The police in Hobart had taken the word of the church treasurer who just happened to be . . . George Oberlin.

             
Now Kate's parents were buried in the part of the cemetery close to the parking lot, where the poor people lay. In the next row beneath the trees, heavy, raised headstones were decorated with angel statues and engraved poems. But for her parents, the stones were simple and said only:

             
Bennett Prescott.

             
Lana Prescott.

             
Nothing more.

             
Yet someone had placed flowers on their graves. Bits of the blossoms remained there, their golds and reds faded by the sun.

             
Melissa had made it clear that she doubted the Prescotts' wrongdoing, and that her mother had blamed herself for the family's disintegration and had blamed George Oberlin for their deaths.

             
Mrs. Parker had made it clear that Lana Prescott had been a beloved friend of hers.

             
Lana had been Kate's mother.

             
Bennett had been her father.

             
Somewhere out there, Kate had a family: two sisters and a foster brother, lost because
somebody
had made sure they were separated. And that somebody was . . . George Oberlin.

             
The reporter in her realized that this was a huge story, one that could establish her national career. The human being in her wailed like a baby to know that one corrupt man had ruined so many lives.

             
Her damned cell phone didn't work.

             
Melissa had taken the phone numbers Kate gave her—for Teague, for Kate's mom, for the FBI, for KTTV. Melissa had promised to go home and call each one, one after the other, to get them out here. Kate was done thinking she could handle this matter on her own. By God, she was calling in the cavalry.

             
Turning away from the graves, she watched a black Lincoln Town Car drive up the road and turn into the lot. It parked beside her car, the only other car at the cemetery.

             
George Oberlin stepped out.

             
Of course.

             
How could Kate have been so foolish as to think she could slip into Hobart undetected? Like a giant squid, he had tentacles that reached everywhere.

             
He started toward her. At the sight of his upright figure, his blond hair, his stately stride, her heartbeat lurched in revulsion. This jerk had killed her parents. Because of some sick obsession, he had killed her mother and her father and had taken Kate and given her away as if she were garbage.

             
George Oberlin was a murderer. A serial killer. A ruthless man with no morals.

             
Hatred burned hot in her. Was she afraid? Yes, of course. But she wanted, needed to know why and how he had obliterated her family.

             
Facing him as he neared, she stood at her parents' graves. He had to realize she knew the truth about herself, yet still he postured—chin up, an earnest smile on his lips—still tried to make himself look good in her eyes. Stopping before her, he allowed his gaze to drift over the grave markers. "What did that woman tell you?"

             
"Do you mean Melissa Cunningham?" Kate challenged him with her hostility. "She told me you killed my parents."

             
"Speculation. Unfounded speculation," he promptly said.

             
"Which you didn't deny." She slipped into her role as a reporter. "Don't you think if someone is accused of a murder that he didn't do, he would be shocked and immediately renounce the charges?"

             
"My dear," he said, sounding every inch a man wounded by vicious slander and her mistrust. "I thought that of course you would realize such a tale was preposterous."

             
"I am not your—" She took a breath. She shouldn't be out here with him. But she wanted the truth, and if she was going to obtain it, she needed to be cool. Interested. "But you killed your wife. You killed Mrs. Blackthorn. So it's safe to assume you killed my parents."

             
"I did what had to be done. What people forced me to do. I came up from poverty. Poverty!" Oberlin slipped into his senatorial mode. He straightened his shoulders. His voice took on the smooth tones of an orator. "My father was a truck driver. He swore. He drank. He spit. He stank. And my mother—she was so good, so sweet. He made her afraid. Every day, she was afraid he would hit her again. Or hit me again."

             
"Your father sounds like a monster." Inevitably, she compared Oberlin's youth to Teague's. What turned one man into a monster and the other into a guardian? "But I don't understand. What is it that gave you the excuse to kill my parents? That you had a bad father or a good mother?"

             
The facade of the senator slipped. A dark, dull red crept from Oberlin's collar up to cover his neck, his face, his ears. "If you will just listen"—he took a breath, the color inched down—"I can explain it all."

             
"Please do." She gestured at the gravemarkers.

             
"When I was five, my father killed my mother." Oberlin's tone remained even, but he was breathing hard. "Have you ever seen someone beaten to death? It's horrible."

             
"I can imagine." Unfortunately, she
could
imagine the scene. The photos of her father gave her all-toovivid a reference, and left her without pity for a man who had turned his childhood tragedy into a reason to kill without conscience. "Is that how you killed
my
parents?"

             
His face contorted with temper. He swung toward her.

             
She hustled behind a standing headstone. He was broad-shouldered, with big bones. And taller than her by at least six inches.

             
Not as tall as Teague, but Teague's height had protected her.

             
Oberlin's height menaced her.

             
"You're not listening to me. You have a closed mind about this." Oberlin's voice rose. "I thought as a reporter you would listen to me."

             
His appearance was deceptive. Beneath the mask, he seethed with frustration barely held in check. She would do well to remember that. "You're right. I'm not being fair. Make me understand." Because she needed to hear how he would justify the unspeakable to the woman he had so grossly wronged. And because . . . Kate was alone out here. He could rape her. He could kill her.

             
"What happened to your father?" she asked.

             
"Nothing. The deputy who investigated used his fists on his family, too, so my mama's death was ruled accidental. My father kept driving truck, drinking, doing drugs, bringing home women to beat . . . when I was seventeen, he died. He fell and cracked his head open."

             
Fell down the stairs?
Kate clamped her lips tightly to prevent the question from escaping.

             
"When Father died, I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to catch deputies like the one who'd laughed with my father over my mother's bloody body and make them pay. So I married Evelyn because her family had money. I didn't love her. I swear to you, I never loved her."

             
Kate could scarcely contain her aversion. Did he think that made the story more palatable—her knowing he had never loved the woman he'd lived with for twenty-five years?

             
"But her father didn't like me. He didn't believe in me, in my vision. He was a stupid, dirty rancher who wouldn't finance me. So I had to resort to taking a little money from the church." Her incredulous disdain must have shown in her face, for Oberlin added hastily, "I was going to put it back! As soon as I was elected to the Texas State Senate, I was going to sneak the money from the treasury back. Ultimately, it would have been good for the church. I could have greatly added to their coffers."

             
"But?"

             
"I fell in love with your mother."

             
"What?" Kate almost staggered from the shock of his words. He had loved her mother? He dared to claim he loved her?

             
"How could I help it?" Kneeling beside her gravestone, he reverently touched it with his fingertips.

             
He wasn't posturing this time. He meant it. Grief creased his face. "She wasn't the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She was pretty like you. But not like you. She was older than me and a little broad in the hips. After all, she'd had three children." He looked up in appeal, as if expecting Kate to understand.

             
"I wouldn't know." Kate breathed hard. "I've never even seen a picture of her."

             
"I can show you pictures. I've got your photo albums. You can see what she looked like!" He made the offer without comprehending the atrocity of stealing a family's memories. "But you'll see. It wasn't her looks that drew me. It was her . . . soul. It shone out of her like pure light. Everybody loved Lana. She was so kind. She shone with kindness, with motherliness. She was a Madonna."

             
"Did my father love her?" Which seemed more to the point than Oberlin's obscene adoration.

             
"Yes, and she loved him." Oberlin stood slowly, as if his knees hurt. "What followed was my fault. I admit it. I should never have declared my ardor. But imagine, if you will, a handsome young man who has been the object of many women's interest, but who has never loved before. I was overcome by passion, and I confessed . . . she was holding you, feeding you, and you both looked so beautiful. I told her everything. What I wanted, what I imagined, how I would make her rich, how I would worship her. And she . . . she was . . . she said she was married!"

             
Kate bit hard on her tongue to keep back the sarcastic retort.

             
"She was very kind. Kind to me like I'd seen her be kind to other people. Poor people. People who needed charity. Like I was one of
them
." He sneered at the memory. He stared down at the headstones, and Kate realized that, for the first time, he'd forgotten her. He was caught up in a world long gone, trapped in emotions he had never left behind. "But I was strong. I pretended that it was a mistake, that I hadn't really meant it. I knew she didn't believe me, but at least I thought she would honor my trust."

             
Slipping her cell phone out of her pocket, Kate glanced at it. Still no signal.

             
And Oberlin was getting to the end of his story.

             
Her heartbeat tripped and trembled. She slid a few steps toward the parking lot.

             
Oberlin was too caught up in his memories to notice. "About a week later, the pastor called me over. I went into his woodworking shop. He was there making some stupid thing. A table for the bedroom. For Lana, he told me. And the way he told me, the tone he used, that compassionate expression on his face . . . I knew she'd betrayed me. She'd told him that I loved her." His voice rose. "She'd laughed at me behind my back."

             
"If she was as kind as you say, she didn't laugh at you!" Kate grew hot and indignant on behalf of a mother she couldn't remember.

             
"Then why did she tell him?" Oberlin swung toward her.

             
"Because he was her husband. If they were anything like my parents, my adopted parents, they didn't keep things from each other! That's the way it is when people love."

             
"It was a secret." He stalked toward her. "It was
our
secret!"

             
"Apparently not," Kate snapped, then wished she could call back the words.

             
But Oberlin's craziness sounded too much like stupidity for her to have patience. She wanted to slap him and to tell him to get some sense.

             
But she reminded herself that a killer like Oberlin was beyond reason, so she backed up. She fingered the keys in her pocket. House key. Mailbox key. Car key. She pressed the button to open the Beemer.