Coming Home To You. Fay Robinson
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find homes for ’em or they’re old enough to get their own place and stuff. Kind of like an orphanage, only real nice, and they’ve got adults who live with them and watch over everything.”
“Is he dating this woman from the orphanage?”
“Don’t think so.”
“But you said you saw him with some woman named Logan who works there.”
“Jane Logan. She runs the place, but I don’t know if he’s dating her. I saw them at the movies once, but they had a bunch of the kids from the ranch, so I figured he was helping.”
“A chaperon?”
“Yeah, I reckon he does that, since he built the place.”
Kate felt the familiar surge of adrenaline that came when she had a good lead. “Bret Hayes built this children’s ranch?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? He bought the land and donated the money to get it goin’.”
PINE ACRES. Back in her motel room Kate set up her laptop computer and inserted the name into her files. She wouldn’t have difficulty getting information. Most of what she needed would likely be at the county probate office or the library. She flipped open the telephone book and copied the addresses.
Her next step was to call Marcus at home. The phone rang three times before the answering machine came on. Kate waited through the brief message. “Marcus, if you’re there, pick up.”
Instantly he was on the line. “Kate, where are you? I’ve been worried to death.”
She smiled, amused at his overprotectiveness. Marcus was two years younger, but of all her brothers he watched out for her the most. He was also the best researcher around and had worked with her for the past four years.
“I’m in Lochefuscha, Alabama.” She spelled it for him from the name on the complimentary notepad by the telephone. “I’m at an exquisite little place called the Highway Hideaway, decorated in Early American Garage Sale. A trucker’s paradise, according to the sign out front.”
“What’s going on?”
“I got a lead on Bret Hayes, so I thought I’d fly down and see if it panned out. I struck pay dirt, Marcus. He’s living here.”
“No wonder he was so hard to find. What’s he doing in Alabama?”
“Breeding horses, apparently.”
“You’re kidding. Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?”
“Positive. And he didn’t deny it.”
“You saw him already? How’d it go?”
She sighed. “Horrible. He wouldn’t even think about helping.”
“Sorry, sis.”
“Me, too, but I’m not giving up. I’ve still got four months until deadline, and I’ll spend every minute of it, if I have to, trying to get Hayes’s cooperation.”
“But what about the book on Marshall? You said you wanted to get started on that right away.”
The late Thurgood Marshall was the subject of her next biography, but she was having difficulty calling the James Hayes book complete. The research on James was solid. The writing was the best she’d ever done. But the story had gaps, unanswered questions about his life that only someone very close to him could answer.
And that was the problem. James, the band, their manager, Malcolm Elliot, the equipment handlers—all had been on the plane the night it left Rome, Georgia, on its way to Chattanooga, Tennessee. It had crashed in a thunderstorm in the north Georgia mountains, killing everyone on board.
Only Lenny Dean, the bass guitarist, was alive. If you could call it living. A drug addict, he had tripped out one too many times on PCP, and his mind was gone. He hadn’t been on the plane the night it went down. He’d been wasting away in a mental hospital for the past nine years.
James’s mother, Marianne Hayes Conner, had refused to cooperate on the book. So had his stepfather, George Conner, and his sister, Ellen Hayes. Bret, his younger brother, represented not only Kate’s best chance to get what she needed on James, but her only chance. She had to get his cooperation, and get it quickly. Otherwise, this biography would never be what she’d envisioned.
“Pull off the Marshall research for a couple of days,” she told Marcus. “I’d like you to follow up on what I found out here. Maybe we can come up with something that’ll help me when I approach Bret Hayes again.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Find out what you can about a place called Pine Acres. It’s an orphanage or foster-care facility. And do some more digging into Hayes’s finances. I want to know why someone who inherited millions of dollars is living like a country bumpkin.”
“Bad investments? Gambling? Drugs?”
“Maybe, but his criminal record is pretty clean. A few misdemeanor convictions for brawling but nothing major. He’s supposed to have put money into this orphanage, but I don’t think that would account for all of it. And this sudden streak of generosity bothers me, anyway. From what I’ve pieced together about him, he doesn’t strike me as the type to give money away once he gets his hands on it. Lose it doing something stupid, maybe, but not give it away. Oh, that reminds me. Find out what you can about the cost of breeding quarter horses. And check with the Secretary of State’s office for public records on his business. Let’s try to estimate how much he’s invested in it and what he’s worth.”
“Why the interest in his financial situation? What difference does it make how well-off the brother is?”
“Probably none, but I sure would like to know what I’m dealing with here. If he squandered the fortune his brother left him, it would be some story for the book, don’t you think?”
“Is that what you believe happened?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want to make any assumptions before I get the facts, but my gut tells me something isn’t right about this guy. Most of his life he walked in the shadow of an older brother who had everything—looks, money, talent, fame, some say even the woman he loved—but when he inherits money and gets his chance to live the good life he’s always wanted, what does he do? He buys a horse farm in an out-of-the-way place and spends part of the money building an orphanage. No way does that add up.”
“I see your point. I’ll get right on it. But hey, you watch yourself. He won’t like it when he finds out we’re digging around in his finances and his business records. You be careful.”
“I will.”
When Kate hung up, she went back to her computer. Tomorrow she’d spend the day asking questions, but tonight she needed to look through what she had on Bret and refresh her memory. She’d downloaded the files with his name on them into her laptop before she left, the information gleaned from interviews with childhood friends of the brothers and their high-school classmates.
She skimmed it. The stuff was pretty routine, although she’d found it useful while writing the early chapters about James’s life. Bret was five years younger than James. He’d spent less than a year at the University of Tennessee, then gone through one dead-end job after another. More than once his brother had bailed him out of trouble and supported him financially.
She got her pad and made a note to ask Marcus to call some of Hayes’s former employers. Why was he living in Alabama? Why not live in Tennessee where he could be close to his mother and sister? Because of creditors? To get away from the media? The man carried his desire for privacy to extremes, that was for sure. All those signs… That horrible little dog…
Whatever the reason, she was too tired to chase after it tonight. Tomorrow was soon enough. When she had more information from Marcus, she could start to piece things together.
She closed the file and went to bed,