Page 15 of Trailer Trash

He gave me a hesitant look, not that I could blame him. Lately I’d jumped down his throat every time we were near each other. “Correct.”

“Okay. Let me think . . . You’re a simple man . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything other than jeans and T-shirts and Henleys . . . Oh, my stars and garters, please tell me you’re not into Nirvana.”

He laughed. “Do you want me to tell you?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” But I didn’t want to guess anymore either. That required me to think about what made Jed Carlisle tick, and I wasn’t ready to dig too much deeper beneath the surface. “How about we turn on the radio?”

“That works.”

We spent the rest of our time without conversation while I sang top twenty country songs and played the alphabet game in my head. But my good mood began to erode the closer we got to Little Rock. I was about to confront my half sister—without Joe’s support this time—and I suspected she would make mincemeat out of me.

I turned down the volume. “Skeeter suggested you would be an undocumented visitor. How will you manage that?”

“We’ve made a connection with a nurse. She’ll be there today to let us in.”

“Us?”

“After some discussion, we don’t think you should be on the record either. This way she can claim you were there with me, but if there’s no record of it, they can chalk it up to her lunacy.”

I nodded. “That’s a good idea.” I turned to him. “So the nurse in Skeeter’s pocket has been watching Kate?”

“Yeah. There haven’t been any unusual visitors, but the nurse says she thinks she has something, so we’ll have a chat with her before we go in to see Kate.” He paused, then added, “It sounds like Kate has someone on the inside too, but we’ve checked her bank accounts. We haven’t seen any transfers.”

“Wasn’t her money frozen when her father’s estate and Joe’s money was frozen?”

“No. Joe’s personal money wasn’t frozen, just the estate’s, so neither was Kate’s. Maybe she was saving her monthly allowances or doing some creative investing. Either way, she has quite a bit of money, but she’s hidden it pretty well.”

“Not well enough, if you managed to find it.” When he didn’t answer, I asked, “Could money be coming from somewhere else?”

“Possibly. Or she might be offering something other than money.”

“Like what?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”

“Why didn’t you come talk to her before now?”

“She doesn’t know me from Adam. She’s far less likely to talk to me alone.”

“You think you’ll have a better chance because she’ll be distracted by tormenting me.” If they had someone on the inside watching her . . . “You knew she was sending me letters.”

“No, Neely Kate. I promise we didn’t.”

“Did you know she was sending out mail?”

“No. We suspected she was up to something, but we also think it’s bigger than you.”

I let that sink in.Bigger than me.Even my own personal nightmare was insignificant to the big picture.

Jed shot me a questioning glance, but in typical fashion, he didn’t press me.

The back of my head began to throb, so I grabbed my purse off the floor and pulled out a bottle of water and a bottle of ibuprofen.

Worry filled Jed’s eyes when he heard me shake out two tablets. “Are you feeling bad?”

“A small headache. I’ve had it all day. Just keepin’ it at bay.”

I expected him to comment, but he turned his attention forward, his eyes on the road. Still, he seemed tenser than before.

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