Free The Reckoning by Christie Ridgway Page A

kidnapped Lily a few months ago, but I’m not clear on any other details about him.”
    Nan shook her head. “It’s one of those sad stories that defy explanation. How can one son turn out so bad, how can one man create such havoc?”
    â€œHe did more than kidnap Lily? That I remember, of course, but Emmett said he’s also murdered some others. And that Ryan is a distant relative. Is that why Lily was targeted?”
    â€œThe connection between the Jamisons and the Fortunes is one of those sagas that more than one family could probably find hiding along with the skeletons in their closets. Ryan told Dean and me about it before his death, and apparently it’s a story that Jason Jamison knew as well—and then twisted in his mind to become the motivation for his crimes.”
    â€œWhat exactly is the connection between the Jamisons and the Fortunes?”
    â€œIt’s a who, ” Nan replied. “Kingston Fortune, Ryan’s father.”
    And Ricky’s grandfather, Linda thought. Cameron, Ricky’s father, had been Ryan’s older brother and so would have been another of Kingston Fortune’s sons. “Go on,” she said.
    â€œIn Iowa in the early 1900s, a handsome son of a wealthy family, Travis Jamison, got a young farm girl pregnant. He was shipped out of state before he knew about the child, and its unwed, disgraced mother left the baby boy with a family in the next county—the Fortunes, who named him Kingston. It was he who built the Fortune empire here in San Antonio and in the Red Rock area.”
    â€œSo who put the Jamisons and the Fortunes in touch with each other again?”
    â€œTravis Jamison’s sister discovered the connection. Travis married, had two sons, and then died in the 1930s. But Aunt Bonnie doted on Travis’s sons, Joseph and Farley. Farley went to law school and then into politics. He married and had three children, none who truly inherited his same itch for power. He lost an important election, and it was then that Aunt Bonnie told him about a long-lost relative she’d found—Kingston Fortune. He was Farley’s half brother, wealthy and influential enough to buy Farley a powerful political office in Texas.”
    Linda’s soup bowl was empty. She reached for the basket of crusty rolls. A story like this one was good for her appetite. “Did Kingston help Farley?”
    Nan shook her head. “He wouldn’t even meet with him. The more uncooperative Kingston was, the more Farley became obsessed with him. He ultimately ended up in a rundown cabin outside of Houston, where he would rant and rave about the Texas Fortunes to anyone who would listen, particularly one of his grandsons.”
    â€œJason.”
    â€œThat’s right. Farley’s son Blake had three boys, Christopher, Jason and Emmett. Christopher was a teacher—”
    â€œAnd Emmett an FBI agent.”
    â€œAnd Jason…” Nan shrugged. “In my youth, we called a boy like that one a bad seed.”
    â€œWhat did he want from the Fortunes?”
    Nan shrugged again. “The papers speculate that he started out wanting to ruin Ryan Fortune’s businesses as retribution for the help never given to Farley. Who knows? The fact is, his older brother Christopher tracked Jason here to Texas last year hoping to steer him away from his dangerous interest in the Fortunes. But Jason killed Christopher.”
    Linda gasped. “One of the people he murdered was his own brother?”
    â€œThat’s right. He dumped the body in Lake Mondo, but when it was recovered it was found to have a birthmark on the back right hip—a birthmark distinctive to the Fortunes of Texas.”
    â€œDoes Ricky?”
    Nan nodded. “Ricky has it, too. When the body from the lake was ultimately identified as Christopher Jamison, it was his father, Blake Jamison, who told Ryan of the circumstances of Kingston Fortune’s birth.