Courtney Cole dried her eyes and then blew her nose. Next, she got a cold drink and tried to calm herself down. This was far from the first time her thoughts and emotions had driven her to tears when it came to Tia. Just what the hell had really happened? If her mother was holding anything back, how could she get the truth out of her? Her mother couldn’t possibly be holding anything back deliberately, could she? After all, why would she want to frame Tia if someone else had shot Stan?
Because that someone else might be your own mother, a little voice told her which she didn’t want to hear. The mother you’ve trusted all your life. The mother who has always been open and honest with you.
Or so you thought.
Courtney began to reach for the phone, then thought better of it. No, she would go face her mother in person.
She walked up the hill to her mother’s place, oblivious to the heat. As usual, the door was open, and so she simply walked in.
And noticed the changes right away.
The new figurine. The new area rug. The new watercolor painting. Even the new dress her mother was wearing as she came forth from the kitchen.
“Wow, did you go on some sort of shopping spree or something?” asked a confused Courtney.
“Well, let’s just say that your mom needed some cheering up.”
Courtney followed her mother back into the kitchen, where she was preparing a steak dinner. “Hope it helped,” Courtney said.
“It won’t really help until that lunatic is tried and convicted.”
“That lunatic, as you put it, is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, Courtney,” Morgan said with exasperation. “I know you loved her, but you’ve got to get over her and move on.”
“But I just don’t see how she could’ve done it! I’m sorry, Mom, I just don’t. Are you sure? Are you a hundred percent sure you actually saw her shoot Stan?”
“Honey, we’ve been through this a million times,” Morgan said. “Nothing’s changed.”
Courtney wasn’t happy with the way she seemed to be avoiding eye contact.
“It’s just you and me now, so why don’t you stay and eat dinner with me?”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“Then you can at least have some leftovers for later.”
“That’s ok, Mom. I’ve got plenty of food,” Courtney said, although the truth was that the thought of eating anything prepared by her mother made her a little nervous, something she was both shocked and sad to feel for the first time in her life.
“Well then, sit down and let me tell you the good news.”
Morgan placed the steak in the oven and ushered Courtney into the living room. She sat in the plush chair, and Courtney sat on the couch, aware of the new throw pillows for the first time.
“As horrible as Stan’s murder is,” Morgan began, “he left us some rather serious money.”
“Serious money?”
Morgan nodded. “Turns out he had an insurance policy he’d taken out on himself a while back that I didn’t even know about. And he named me as his beneficiary.”
Courtney tried to hide the growing dread that began to spread within her. So that was it. And now her mother was going to assume she was incredibly naïve. “Yeah?” she said, pretending to be interested and unsuspecting. “How did you come to find this out?”
“Got a call from the insurance company. They sent a small check right away, but the big one is still a few weeks away.”
“And how big is the big one?”
“Oh, just about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Two hundred and fif… that’s a quarter million dollars!”
Morgan Cole nodded slowly, a smile of satisfaction on her face. “Think of what you want for a new car, sweetie.”
Courtney would think, alright.
But not about what kind of car she wanted.
Lorelei Connors had a problem. That was being able to stake out Morgan Cole’s home to monitor her comings and goings. With her house being as secluded as it was, there was no way she could watch the house without being noticed. She considered waiting down at the end of the long drive leading to the house, but that would also be rather obvious. And it wasn’t safe to park alongside such a curvy road with as high a speed limit as it had.
The best she could do would be to track her activities from the store. As the store’s owner, she would have erratic hours, so she just had to hope she got lucky enough to catch her as she sat watching from a distance the day after she’d seen Tia.
And lucky is what she got. After sitting there bored out of her mind for a few hours, Morgan emerged from the store just after lunchtime and headed for her car.
Lorelei was quick to follow, making sure to keep a safe distance so as to remain discreet. Traffic was heavy, but then again, it was California, so it was always heavy. If anything, though, she was more worried about losing her suspect than she was about being discovered.
But she didn’t lose her, nor was she discovered. Instead, she was the one who did the discovering. She discovered that Morgan Cole liked to shop. And an awful lot for someone who was supposed to be grieving the loss of a loved one.
After making purchases at half a dozen stores over the next few hours, the heavyset woman finally called it quits and headed home. Lorelei slowed down and pulled to the side of the road as Morgan turned onto the dirt road leading to her property, and waited until she’d had enough time to reach her house and unload her car before entering the easement herself. As she approached the spot where the road forked, she could see Morgan’s car, but no sign of people.
She drove down by Courtney’s trailer and saw that the girl’s car was there. She then parked next to it and headed to the trailer door. It opened before she could knock on it.
“Hello, Miss Cole. Have you got a minute?” asked Lorelei.
Courtney Cole regarded the woman with a curious expression. “Sure. Would you like to come in?”
“Actually, no. I just came to ask that you gather Tia’s belongings.”
“Gather her belongings?” Courtney asked as if she wasn’t sure what that meant.
Lorelei nodded. “You still have them, don’t you?”
Courtney nodded.
“I’m going to be bringing Tia a form to sign allowing for the release of her personal belongings into my care so that I can hang onto them and store them for her until she’s released.”
“Store them where?”
Lorelei simply shrugged.
Courtney eyed her suspiciously, and then a look of concern crossed her features. “Is she going to be released soon?”
“I’m working on it.”
Courtney glanced nervously up the hill towards her mother’s place. Lorelei followed her gaze and asked, “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Courtney said much too hesitantly. “I’m just worried about Tia, and I’ve been rather down. As I told you before, I loved her very much and I still do.”
Lorelei chose her words carefully. “So how’s your mom holding up after all she’s been through? I take it she and Stanley were close themselves.”
Agai,n the unmistakable look on Courtney’s face, then she said, “I thought they were.”
“You thought?”
Courtney nodded, then added, “Look, I shouldn’t be talking to you. I’ll have Tia’s stuff gathered for you. If you come by after 5:15 tomorrow, I’ll be here to give it to you.”
“Hey, relax, kiddo. It’s not my job to convict your mother. It’s only my job to see that Tia isn’t falsely convicted of murder.”
A moment of deafening silence filled the air. Lorelei could see that Courtney wasn’t sure what to think or what to believe, but what she had said was true. It wasn’t her job to convict Morgan Cole but only to get Tia Karson released from the hell she was presently living in. Many in law enforcement often lied, bluffed, and bullied witnesses and suspects, but she had always tried to steer clear of that tactic whenever possible, for the more it was practiced, the less trusting people would be in general when it came to talking to cops and lawyers.
“Well,” Courtney began with much hesitation. Again, she looked upward towards her mother’s house. “I think we should talk inside.”
Lorelei followed her inside. They stood in the kitchen, and Courtney took a deep breath. “This has got to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Lorelei nodded with understanding.
“It’s not like my mother was ever bad to me in any way. Had she been abusive or something like that, then maybe this would be a whole lot easier.”
“I can understand that,” Lorelei said sympathetically, understanding the rock and the hard spot the girl was positioned in. “But if you love Tia as much as you say you do, you’ll want to help her. Your mother’s a whole separate case.”
“But she isn’t,” Courtney insisted. “In order to help Tia, I have to tell you something horrible about my mother that I just learned yesterday.”
“And I’m sure that’d be a hard thing to do. Yet like I said, nothing you could possibly say against your mother right here to me could harm her in any way. It could only help Tia.”
“Maybe you yourself couldn’t make any trouble for my mother. But what I have to say could give others an incentive to make trouble for her that actually can.”
“That would depend on a number of things. I couldn’t say for sure either way.”
“I understand that Tia and I could never be together again, no matter what happens, and that hurts. That really, really hurts.”
“I’m sure it does, but I’m also sure you want her to be happy. Right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then give her a chance at happiness by helping to set her free.”
Courtney nodded and slowly proceeded to relay the conversation she’d had with her mother about Stanley’s insurance policy. “To think that my mother could have killed him and then set Tia up to look like the killer makes me utterly sick to my stomach,” she concluded.
“I can see where it would,” said Lorelei, although she was truly unable to imagine being in such a horrible situation, a fact she couldn’t be any more grateful for if she tried.
“How could someone so normal, who has always appeared to live such a normal existence, suddenly do such a thing?”
Lorelei was at a loss for words. She simply shook her head slowly and said, “I don’t know, hun, I just don’t know. But I do thank you very much for sharing this with me, as tough as it had to be.”
“I just don’t want to see anything happen to my mother, no matter how terrible whatever she may’ve done could be.”
“I know you don’t. But if I can present the insurance policy possibility to the courts, it may help set Tia free.”
“But you said you wouldn’t go after my mother!”
“And I won’t. I would simply be opening the judge’s eyes to other possibilities, thus erasing the probable cause in Tia’s case. Get it?”
Courtney thought a moment, nodded slightly, and said, “I think so.”
“If a judge has any doubts, then they tend to dismiss a case before it even goes to trial. As for prosecuting your mother, that’s an entirely different story that would be totally out of my hands.”
“But you getting Tia off could be siccing the bloodhounds on my mother.”
“Yes, that’s possible. I’m not going to lie to you there. But it’s not necessarily what will happen.”
Courtney snatched up a napkin from the small kitchen table and blew her nose. When she was done, she said, “I’m only doing this for Tia.”
Lorelei smiled and said, “Thank you.” She then proceeded to leave.
“Wait,” said Courtney. “I forgot your name.”
“It’s Lorelei.”
“Lorelei, could you please tell Tia I love her?”
“Sure. I’ll tell her.”
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