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  Coulson’s Secret

  The Coulson Series - Book 4

  Anna J. McIntyre

  Robeth Publishing, LLC

  Coulson’s Secret

  By Anna J. McIntyre

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  Book 4 of The Coulson Series

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Robeth Publishing, LLC

  Copyright © 2013 B. A. J. Holmes, Anna J. McIntyre

  This is a work of fiction.

  Robeth Publishing, LLC, All Rights Reserved

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  Originally Released in 2012 as The Senator’s Secret

  Copyright © 2012 B. A. J. Holmes, Anna j. McIntyre

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  .

  For Don, who told me to go for it.

  I love you, today and forever.

  Prologue

  Kimmy rarely attended high school parties because her mother had the annoying habit of calling the hosting parents to verify there would be a suitable chaperon. She was spending the night at Jenny’s house, and Jenny’s parents were more lenient. They didn’t quiz the girls when they went out for the evening.

  Considering those attending, Kimmy doubted this party was heavy on drugs. Yet, there was definitely a lot of beer and wine, and someone was smoking pot; she could smell it. What might get her into trouble was the damn cigarette smoke. It was a good thing she was staying at Jenny’s house, or she would find herself grounded the moment she returned home and her mother noticed the stench of cigarettes on her clothing. As Kimmy made her way through the smoke-filled room, she made a mental note to wash her hair and air out her clothes before going home in the morning.

  She wasn’t sure where Jenny had slipped off to, but she suspected her friend was with a guy. The party was really kind of mellow, nothing loud and rowdy, despite the fact there were about twenty or thirty of her classmates scattered throughout the premises. The home belonged to a senior she barely knew, and from what Jenny had told her earlier, his parents were in Vegas for the weekend.

  When she passed through the kitchen, she said hello to several girls from the cheerleading squad. One was sitting on the kitchen counter, chatting to her fellow cheerleaders, having some heated debate about some unknown topic.

  From the kitchen, she walked into the formal dining room, where she encountered Susan Parker, a girl from her biology class, talking to a boy she didn’t recognize. The couple seemed to be involved in a private conversation, so she just gave a hello nod as she moved toward the den. Kim didn’t hear Susan whisper, “That one, that’s Kim Myers,” nor did she notice the boy turning to stare at her.

  There were two couples making out in the den and other teenagers scattered in small groups throughout the house and in the backyard. Looking for a bathroom, she walked down the hallway and accidently opened the door to a bedroom. At first glance, she thought the room was empty, but then she noticed someone sitting alone in the dimly lit room. It was Adam Keller.

  Instead of leaving the bedroom and shutting the door behind her, she found herself staring at Adam for a moment. He hadn’t noticed her coming into the room, obviously occupied by private thoughts.

  Kimmy had a fairly good idea what Adam Keller was thinking about. Just days before, he’d lost his father in a car accident. Sitting there all alone, he looked so damn sad. At one time, she’d had a major crush on Adam, spending most of her freshman and sophomore year pining over the boy.

  When she had started her junior year, she had decided to give up on Adam, since he obviously would never notice her. Yet, as she saw him sitting sad and vulnerable in the dark room, all the old familiar feelings came washing over her.

  “Hi, Adam,” she said softly. He looked up, surprised she was standing in the doorway. “I’m really sorry about your dad.” She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d heard about his father’s death. “If you want to be alone, I’ll leave, but if you want some company or someone to talk to, I’ll stay.”

  Adam just looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. He wasn’t sure why he’d come to the damn party in the first place. Until a few seconds ago, he’d decided he would rather be alone, but now as he looked at Kimmy, he wasn’t sure.

  “You can come in,” Adam answered in a whisper. He’d known Kimmy all his life, yet they really didn’t hang out in the same crowd, so he was a little surprised to see her at the party. According to several of his buddies, she’d had a major crush on him. His friends considered her one of the hot brainy girls, yet as far as Adam knew, she didn’t date. He assumed her apparent lack of social life had to do with her mother.

  Adam remembered that when they were still in elementary school the kids teased Kimmy about her mom. It wasn’t just because her mother seemed rather odd, which she was, but because she was huge. He guessed Mrs. Myers was easily 300 pounds, and she wasn’t a tall woman, which made her look even larger.

  Kimmy’s figure was nothing like her mother’s, although she was about the same height and coloring. Both were fair, with auburn-colored hair. The daughter’s features were delicate while the mother’s seemed bloated and coarse.

  Whenever Adam’s friends discussed Kimmy’s physical attributes, there was always someone ready to point out that petite little Kimmy could possibly turn out like her mother someday. Growing up, he’d often heard his father make the comment if you want to know how the girl will turn out, look at her mother. Of course, Ryan Keller normally made that comment during family gatherings when he was complimenting his attractive mother-in-law while praising himself for his choice of a wife. As Adam looked at Kimmy, he couldn’t imagine she would ever turn out like her mother.

  After entering the room, Kimmy closed the door behind her and walked toward Adam. As she got closer, she could see by his red-rimmed eyes that he had been crying. Quietly, she sat on the bed next to him.

  Years later, looking back on that evening, she would try to recall how it was exactly that she lost her virginity that night to Adam Keller. One minute, they were sitting quietly on the side of the bed together, talking seriously. The next, she was holding Adam in her arms, comforting him as he cried over the loss of his father. Somewhere in that mixture of girlhood infatuation, grief, a desire to comfort, along with teenage hormones, she found herself under Adam on a stranger’s bed with her panties pushed down to her ankles and Adam finding relief from his sorrow in the innocent body of a girl who adored him.

  She was lucky that she didn’t get pregnant that night, since the spontaneous event did not include condoms. Yet, their luck didn’t continue, because by the next year, she became pregnant with Adam’s baby.

  Chapter 1

  Sixteen Years Later

  “Getting a lender for that unit is turning into a bitch for my buyer.” To a casual observer, it appeared Ed Jameson was leaning back in his office chair, talking to himself.

  As Kim approached Ed’s desk, she already knew he was wearing his Bluetooth headset. He motioned for her to come closer, pointing to the empty chair by his desk. She wanted to talk to him about something. Kim sat down quietly, not saying a word, waiting for him to finish his call.

  He remained on the phone for a few minutes longer, discussing the options for his buyer, who was having difficulty financing a purchase. Finally, he was off the phone, mumbling damn banks, before turning his attention to his top agent, Kim Myers. Ed noticed she looked especially tired this morning.

  “I need to leave early for Coulson. If I can get things together, I plan to head out in the morning. I have a client coming in tomorrow afternoon, and I was hoping you could take care of him.”

  “Can’t imagine an agent passing up a client these days but sure, no problem. Actually, I’m glad to see you’ve decided to spend a couple extra days with your mom. It’s been a l
ong time. What did she do to get you to come early for Thanksgiving?”

  “She was murdered,” Kim blurted out the words, her expression blank.

  “Excuse me?” At first, he thought she was making some inappropriate joke, but that really wasn’t her style. By her blank expression, Ed suspected she was in shock.

  “Kim?” Ed leaned forward, studying her face. He noticed her green eyes swimming in unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed at her outburst. “I didn’t mean to say it quite like that. I just can’t believe it’s true.”

  “Good Lord, Kim, what happened?” He was tempted to rush to her side and give comfort, yet he knew better than to invade Kim’s space. While they had a solid working relationship, Kim tended to keep her feelings to herself, and she rarely shared them with others. When dealing with her personal issues, Kim reminded him of a skittish wild animal who needed to be gentled before approaching. But, even if you managed to get her to open up, there was no guarantee you could get close to her again.

  In one of the rare moments when she had discussed her personal life, he had learned she and her mother had a strained relationship. As far as he knew, Kim never returned to her hometown of Coulson after graduating from high school. The mother had visited the daughter a few times over the years, yet he had never met the woman.

  “I got a call last night.” Kim stared blankly ahead as she explained, not looking at Ed. “It was from a girl I used to go to high school with who works at the Coulson Police Department. She called to tell me my mother was found shot. Murdered.” Kim closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Mom begged me to come home for Thanksgiving. She said she had to tell me something, and she refused to do it over the phone.”

  “Do they know who is responsible?” Ed stood up and walked to the door of his office, closing it so he and Kim could have privacy. He grabbed two bottles of water from the small chiller in his office and handed one to Kim, then he sat back down at his desk. He opened his bottle and took a sip, his eyes on Kim, waiting to hear what she had to say.

  “No.” Kim absently opened her bottle and took a drink. “It was a double murder. It’s all very confusing to me, but they found my mother at Senator Harrison Coulson’s office. Both she and the senator were shot. They suspect she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Senator Harrison Coulson? I did hear something about that on the radio this morning. Do you have any idea why she was at his office?”

  “None. As far as I know, she didn’t know him. Although, I once knew his brothers.”

  “His brothers?”

  “Senator Coulson, actually he is—was—no longer a senator. From what I understand, he retired a few years back. Anyway, he has two brothers. A boy I dated in high school—his mother married one of the brothers after his father died. The other brother married his aunt. But, I haven’t seen them since high school.”

  Kim had pushed Adam Keller from her thoughts years earlier; the memories were too painful. She always felt guilty about losing the baby, believing it was her fault because she didn’t want it and she had briefly considered abortion. Adam was adamant about having the baby and insisted they marry. She miscarried before the wedding took place, and they broke up a month later. Other than the immediate family, only a couple of Adam’s or her friends knew about the pregnancy.

  It was years before she realized the true reason she didn’t want the baby. It was not because she was too young and not ready to be a mother, but because she knew Adam really didn’t love her. She’d been a comfort to his grief after losing his father, and his motivation for the proposal had nothing to do with being in love with Kim.

  Kim had convinced herself that Adam loved her, just as she had always loved him. She began to doubt those feelings during their first and only Christmas together. Instead of spending Christmas with his girlfriend, Adam left for a ski trip with friends, leaving her to spend their first Christmas as a couple alone with her mother.

  Had his feelings for her been close to what she felt for him, she believed they would have stayed together in spite of the loss. Initially, she was the one to push away after the miscarriage. Adam was obviously relieved, realizing he wasn’t prepared for such a committed relationship.

  Now they shared a new connection. Technically speaking, Harrison Coulson was his uncle or at least step-uncle. After all these years, Kim would be going home to Coulson, home to bury her mother, and perhaps home to face her past and Adam Keller.

  Fifteen minutes later, after Kim left the office, Ed recalled what she had said about her mother needing to discuss something with her in person. He wondered what Mrs. Myers needed to tell Kim, and for a brief moment he imagined whatever she had to say was in some way connected to the murder.

  After pondering the notion for an instant, he shook his head over his foolishness, chiding himself for imagining dark conspiracies and wondered if he should stop watching all those cop shows on television. It was probably just another tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he told himself. Considering the economic and political climate, it seemed politicians, even retired politicians, were now targets.

  Chapter 2

  Jake climbed into the open suitcase and settled down for a nap. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he was lying on a metal curling iron and bristle hairbrush. Both of these items Kim had just tossed into the suitcase atop her neatly folded clothes. She turned her back to the bed and the suitcase on the mattress, failing to see her silky black cat climb into the case and make himself comfortable.

  When she eventually turned back to the bed, she found the stowaway, and she wasn’t particularly surprised. If given the opportunity, Jake would climb into any container. She chuckled, picked him up, moved him from the suitcase back to the mattress, and scolded him for leaving hair all over her clean clothes. He immediately walked to the edge of the mattress, trying to get close to Kim, weaving back and forth, purring loudly, vying for her attention.

  She stopped what she was doing, picked Jake up in her arms, and sat on the rocking chair next to her bed, holding the cat on her lap. He settled down, as comfortable as he had been in the suitcase, his purring loud and constant.

  “Well, Jake, you ready for a little trip?” she asked aloud, her hand stroking her furry companion as he pressed his chin into her palm, urging her to continue. Kim had no idea when she would be returning home or how long it would take to settle her mother’s estate. Ed could handle her listings and any clients that might need her. Considering the current real estate market, she doubted she would miss any business by taking a temporary leave.

  On the way home from the office, after talking to Ed, Kim had stopped at the pet store and picked up a harness and leash. Most of the harnesses marketed for cats looked too small. Jake was a big boy, weighing over twenty pounds. She’d also had an identification tag made. Jake was an indoor cat and never wore a collar. A harness and identification tag would help protect her furry friend during the trip to her mother’s house. Even though she intended to transport him in a cat carrier, there was always the possibility she would need to remove him from the carrier before reaching their destination.

  Kim needed to take care of Jake. After all, he was the only family she had left, except of course, for a father and half-brother she had never met.

  “Well, buddy, I hope you don’t mind the car trip.” Kim kissed the top of the cat’s head. “I think you’ll like Mom’s house. It’s bigger than this with lots of places to explore inside. I need to get it ready to sell and go through her stuff.” Kim stopped petting Jake for a moment and closed her eyes.

  “I’d also like to find out who killed Mom. And why.”

  Not interested in what Kim had to say, Jake stood up and jumped off her lap onto the carpeted floor. Kim got up a few minutes later to finish packing. She went to bed early, planning to rise at daybreak and start for Coulson.

  Kim woke the next morning before her alarm went off. She’d had a
fitful night’s rest filled with active dreams featuring random people she had once known from Coulson. She was tired, yet even if she went back to bed, she wouldn’t sleep. She was restless and wanted to get on the road.

  An hour after waking, Kim was in her Chevy Tahoe on her way to Coulson. Jake was in his cat carrier situated on the passenger seat. She considered putting the carrier in the back of the vehicle, but she wanted someone to talk to on the long drive. As it turned out, Jake slept during most of the trip, and Kim silently considered recent and past events.

  As she drove down the highway, she played back the last conversation she had with her mother. It wasn’t the first time Carol Myers asked her daughter to come for a visit. Yet, this time was different. This time, Carol had insisted Kim return because she had something very important to tell her, and it was something they had to discuss in person.

  Kim suspected that something had to do with her father, because several weeks earlier, on her birthday, she had decided to do an Internet search on him. The only time Kim ever thought of her father was on her birthday. She hadn’t really expected to find anything. What she found made her both curious and angry. She had called her mother and demanded an explanation of her discovery, to which her mother had said very little. Kim had hung up angrily, telling her mother not to call her again until she was ready to explain.

  Last week, her mother had finally called, making the plea for her to come for Thanksgiving, telling Kim she needed to tell her something of importance. When Kim had asked Carol if she was going to give that explanation about her father, Carol replied, “This is something we can’t discuss on the phone. Please come home for Thanksgiving.”