Daddy's Gone a Hunting (43 page)
One Year Later
C
onnor Connelly had chosen not to go to trial. He well understood the mountain of evidence against him. He pled guilty to the murders of Tracey Sloane and Jamie Gordon, the felony murder of Gus Schmidt, the attempted murder of his niece Kate Connelly, the aggravated assault upon his niece Hannah Connelly, and to insurance fraud.
He admitted that after the boating accident, when he was still in shock, he had heard the nurse call him Douglas. He realized then that he must have grabbed his brother’s wallet by mistake. And it was his big chance.
When he went home, it was easy enough to slip into Doug’s life. At first he pretended to have spells of forgetting names and details, and that covered him.
Hannah was just a baby. Kate became the problem. She was the only one who sensed he was not her real father. When he knew that he could not stop clenching his hand, he deliberately broke it again while she watched. And she had buried that memory until she was injured in the explosion.
As anguished and angry as they were, Kate and Hannah had
drawn some comfort from the fact that the pleas Connor Connelly had entered would ensure that he would die in prison.
When Jack Worth had abruptly ended his last session at the district attorney’s office, after Detective Matt Stevens had as much as accused him of killing Jamie Gordon, he had understood that it was only a matter of time before he would hear the knock at the door that meant he was about to be arrested.
He had gone home, collected his passport, packed a suitcase, and booked a flight from Kennedy Airport for seven o’clock that evening to go to the Cayman Islands, where he had maintained his offshore bank account. He had been standing at the head of the line when the agent at the ticket counter of gate thirteen announced that passengers with first-class seats could begin boarding.
It was at that moment that he had felt the hand of Detective Matt Stevens grip his shoulder. “Not so fast, Jack. You’re coming with us.”
Connor “Douglas” Connelly had been only too happy to drag Jack Worth down with him when, crying and shouting that he had never been treated properly by his father, he admitted to all of his own crimes and to Jack’s complicity in some of them.
Jack was now serving a sentence of twenty-five years to life.
Harry Simon pled guilty to the murder of Betsy Trainer, the young woman he had dragged into the courtyard in the Lower East Side. Reluctantly, the district attorney’s office had allowed a sentence of twenty years to life, instead of the standard twenty-five years to life. Noah Green had effectively argued that Simon’s information about Tracey Sloane getting into that furniture van had been invaluable.
It was obvious to the detectives that even if Clyde Hotchkiss had tried to help Jamie Gordon, he would have been too late to stop Connor from killing her and would have ended up dead himself.
A statement was given to the media exonerating decorated Vietnam veteran Clyde Hotchkiss from having any part in Jamie’s death.
A grateful Peggy Hotchkiss phoned Frank to thank him and added, “Now Clyde can truly rest in peace, and I can go on with the rest of my life.”
Lottie Schmidt had provided the last piece of the puzzle. Angry and bitter when he knew he would soon be forced into retirement, Gus had enacted his revenge. With consummate skill he had created a perfect replica of a small writing desk that had been in the Fontainebleau suite in the museum. He had made the substitution and had sold the antique through the underground market. With the $3 million that he had been paid in cash, he had bought Gretchen’s house and the annuity to maintain it for the rest of her life.
That was the desk that Connor had unwittingly sold to the dealer who had later threatened his life, never dreaming that it was a replica that had been created by Gus Schmidt.
Kate and Hannah did not press charges against Lottie for her complicity in Gus’s theft of the antique desk. They knew how much she had suffered, and they decided to allow Gretchen to keep her house.
Now Kate, her hair grown back to shoulder length, and, except for a tiny scar on her forehead, showing no sign of the injury that had nearly killed her, reminisced to Hannah, “I can’t believe it’s been a year already. As I told the police, I didn’t understand why Gus was so nervous that night. I had been in the museum and suspected that the desk, which I had seen so many times over the years, looked a little bit different. That’s why I asked Gus to secretly meet me at that hour. I thought that maybe Jack Worth was stealing from us and I knew Gus could tell in a minute if the desk had been switched. Now we know that it was Gus himself who had made the switch.”
They were sitting on the couch in Kate’s apartment. On the nearby table were the documents they had both signed relating to the final sale of the Connelly complex property.
The others were about to join them for dinner. Mark and Jessica,
who had become inseparable . . . Mark’s mother, in for a visit, who was lovingly pressuring him about how much she wanted a grandchild. And Justin. He and Hannah, whose own design line had proven successful, were planning their spring wedding.
In the kitchen, on the windowsill, the bromeliad plant that had brought Justin and Hannah together was blooming.
MARY HIGGINS CLARK
, #1
New York Times
bestselling author, has written thirty-two suspense novels; three collections of short stories; a historical novel,
Mount Vernon Love Story;
two children’s books, including her latest,
The Magical Christmas Horse;
and a memoir,
Kitchen Privileges
. She is also the coauthor with Carol Higgins Clark of five holiday suspense novels. Her books are international bestsellers, with more than 100 million copies sold in the United States alone.
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B
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M
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H
IGGINS
C
LARK
The Lost Years
The Magical Christmas Horse
(Illustrated by Wendell Minor)
I’ll Walk Alone
The Shadow of Your Smile
Just Take My Heart
Where Are You Now?
Ghost Ship
(Illustrated by Wendell Minor)
I Heard That Song Before
Two Little Girls in Blue
No Place Like Home
Nighttime Is My Time
The Second Time Around
Kitchen Privileges
Mount Vernon Love Story
Silent Night / All Through the Night
Daddy’s Little Girl
On the Street Where You Live
Before I Say Good-bye
We’ll Meet Again
All Through the Night
You Belong to Me
Pretend You Don’t See Her
My Gal Sunday
Moonlight Becomes You
Silent Night
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
The Lottery Winner
Remember Me
I’ll Be Seeing You
All Around the Town
Loves Music, Loves to Dance
The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories
While My Pretty One Sleeps
Weep No More, My Lady
Stillwatch
A Cry in the Night
The Cradle Will Fall
A Stranger Is Watching
Where Are the Children?
B
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M
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H
IGGINS
C
LARK AND
C
AROL
H
IGGINS
C
LARK
Dashing Through the Snow
Santa Cruise
The Christmas Thief
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping
Deck the Halls
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Mary Higgins Clark
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4516-6894-0
ISBN 978-1-4516-6896-4 (ebook)
