Judging Judas (Tarnished Saints Series Book 3) (5 page)

“Don’t be so sure,” said Levi. “After all, I’m his brother and he put me behind bars for seven years.”

“What?” she said aloud, dropping the sample of cheesecake to the ground. All of a sudden she realized this was turning into more of a nightmare than she’d ever imagined.

Chapter 5

Judas pulled up to the arrival section of the airport in Kalamazoo with his lights blinking atop the squad and everyone scattering out of his way. He hated to have to use his privileges of being a cop in this manner, but he had no other choice.

His brother, Peter’s plane had landed a
while ago, and he’d be waiting. And Laney and her daughter’s escapades had put him way behind schedule.

His daughter, he reminded himself, still feeling his knees shaking by this announcement. He didn’t know how to feel at the moment and didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do now.

He saw Pete’s blond hair and his tall form bent over, sitting on the curb and leaning against his duffle bag. His brother was three years younger than him and thirty-two years of age. Judas came to a halt right in front of him and rolled down the window.

“Sorry I’m late,” he called out, reaching over and opening the door for his brother.

Pete stood up and brushed the dirt from his jeans, looking at the squad and just nodding. He picked up his duffle bag and opened the door, scooting into the car.

“I didn’t know I’d be getting a police escort
with lights and all. I’m impressed,” said Pete, closing the door and looking over to Judas.

“Welcome home, Pete, it’s been a long time.” Judas just nodded, but Pete reached over and gave him a manly, half-hug.

“Whoa, none of that shit,” said Judas. “I’m in uniform and in the squad. I wouldn’t want anyone to see it.” He pulled out into traffic, not bothering to turn off the blinking lights until they were on the main road.

“Thanks for picking me up, Jude. For awhile there, I didn’t think you were going to show.”

“Yeah, well I almost didn’t.” He let Pete call him Jude, as he was the only one who did it. But then again, he was the only brother Judas really had any kind of close relationship with either, and he rather cherished that one small thing in his favor. “Where’s all your luggage?” he asked.

“Just this for now,” said Pete nodding to his bag. “I’m only staying for a shor
t while and then I’ll need to get back.”

“
So how’s your work in Peru going?” he asked, looking over to his brother.

Pete looked nothing like a minister and Judas almost laughed. Most ministers wore long robes and were clean shaven. Pete had
wavy blond hair and a full-blown beard and mustache. And on his arm was a large tattoo of an ornate cross that started at his shoulder and extended down his arm. It was very visible with the sleeveless shirt he wore.

“Well, it looks like my work is done down there for now. Actually, I’m anxious to get home. I’ve actually taken measures to come back to Sweet Water for good.”

“For good?” asked Judas. “Are you saying you are going to take over in Pa’s footsteps?”

“Well
, sort of. I’m going to try to get the church back. After all, Pa started the Twelve Apostles Church, and I’d like to keep it going for him. As well as for the rest of us.”

“Well, you’ll have no complaint from me,” said Judas. “I’d welcome you back for good.”

“So I see you’ve managed to return to Sweet Water as sheriff. Impressive.”

“Well, if that surprises you, wait til you hear that Levi is the mayor.”

“I know. Thomas mentioned it to me on the phone. At the rate the Taylor boys are going, we’ll be running the whole town soon.”

They both laughed, and then Judas knew he had to confide in someone with the information he’d just found out.

“Pete, do you remember Delaney McDermott?” he asked.

“Who?” Pete looked up and squinted.

“You know. The girl I almost married when I was seventeen.”

“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled. “I still can’t believe you almost got yourself hitched at that age. That would have been a big mistake. You should feel l
ucky you got out while you could.”

“Well, it seems I didn’t really . . . after all.”

“Didn’t really what? Judas, if there’s something you’re trying to say, then just spit it out already. You know you can tell me anything.”

“Because you
’re a minister or because you’re my closest brother?”

“Both. Now fess up, will ya?”

“So this is a confession now, is it?”

“You know what I mean. And you know that being in my profession I know how to keep secrets.”

They traveled down the road back to Sweet Water with very little traffic around them.

“Well, it’s not going to be a secret for long, so you may as well hear it from me first. Laney’s back in town and I just arrested her pregnant
seventeen-year-old daughter.”

To Judas’s surprise, Pete laughed and just shook his head. “See, I told you that you were lucky to get out when you did. That could have been your troublesome daughter
instead.” He laughed again, but when Judas didn’t respond, his smile faded and he raised his brows.

“Judas? Is there more to thi
s story?”

“She
is
my troublesome daughter. And I just found out about it an hour ago.”

“Oh.” Pete’s face turned serious. “Yeah, I’d say you have a problem on your hands then.”

Judas turned off the highway onto the exit and the backwoods roads that led to Thunder Lake.

“What am I supposed to do?”
he asked, stopping for a few moments longer than usual at the stop sign.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a cop for God’s sake. I had no choice but to arrest her for stealing a purse and also my damn car.”

“Hey, watch t
he language there, bro. And yes, I see your point. But did you say a teenager stole your squad car?”

“Don’t dwell on that
part,” snapped Judas. “What I’m asking advice on is this whole damned daughter thing.” Pete cleared his throat and Judas realized he’d cursed again. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just so upset at Laney for never telling me this in the first place.”

“Well, what was her reason?” asked Pete. “I’m sure she had a reason.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t give her time to tell me.” Judas stepped on the gas and turned down an even more remote country road.

“You two need to talk.”

“Arrrrgh,” he said, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “There’s got to be some way out of this whole mess.”

“Are you saying you want a daughter or not?” asked Pete.

“I’m saying I don’t really have a damn . . . darn choice now do I?”

“When God closes one door he opens a window. This could be the start of a whole new life for you
, Judas. Maybe you should look at it as a blessing, not a curse.”

“So what are you saying? That I should marry Laney?”

“Well, I don’t know. Isn’t she already married?”

“No. Widowed.”

“All right, then do the right thing. Marry her and raise your daughter the way she should have been raised to begin with.”

“I don’t even know where we’d live. I just moved to town myself. I still don’t even have my own place.”

“So marry her and move into one of the cabins that Pa left us. If I understand it right, we were all left a lake lot and a cabin but only if we marry within a year of both Pa and Ma’s deaths?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, you have a lot to think about, bro.”

“I’m not proud of my past, Pete. I don’t know if I can start all over at this age and after what I’ve done. And I know nothing about raising kids. Hell, I don’t even know if I like kids. And now I’m not only a father but about to be a grandfather as well.”

“Well, do the right thing, Judas. And all I can say is that if Pa were still alive you’d be his favorite for giving him his first great-grandchild.”

“Yeah, that is, if I would have gotten married
.” Judas pondered the fact he’d always been vying for his father’s attention, but never seemed to get it. And it was also his father’s form of punishment, demanding that Judas marry Laney once they were caught having sex. His father, being a minister said they needed to wait until marriage for sex, and because Judas had broken some kind of sacred commandment in his father’s mind, he’d have to live with the consequences.

Judas’s father, Webster Taylor was not liked a
t all by Laney’s parents. And Judas found out the day of the wedding that they hated him almost as much as his father. He didn’t know why they’d agreed to the fast marriage that his father had planned, but it didn’t matter. Judas had decided he wasn’t ready to marry and wouldn’t do it just because his father told him it was the only way to redeem himself for what he’d done.

Too damned bad Webster didn’t realize that none of his boys were any better, all doing whatever they wanted, but Judas was the only one who’
d gotten caught.

That’s when he left Sweet Water without looking back. He didn’t want anyone running his life, and it was years before he ever talked to his father
again after that. But when he did, his father never mentioned Laney or the wedding again, and it no longer mattered as it seemed she and her family had moved away just afterwards as well.

But now things were different. Way different, and he had no idea what the hell to do. He was a cop who lived by the rules. By right he should put J.D. behind bars where she belonged. But she was also his daughter. He’d already put a family member be
hind bars and wasn’t proud of it. He hadn’t been able to live with himself the entire time Levi was in prison. And he knew he’d never be able to mend that relationship the way it used to be. And he also knew he couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Judas, I know what you’re thinking,
” Pete consoled him. “We all make mistakes, but you just need to forgive yourself and move on and try to do the right thing next time.”

“This is the next time, Pete.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I keep making mistakes and I’m to the point where I’m even afraid to make a decision, because I know it’ll affect so many others
’ lives as well. But I’m a cop. I can’t start thinking that way, because if I do, I may as well just kiss my career goodbye.”

“Come on now, Jude. It’s not tha
t bad.”

“How could you possibly understand what I’m going through? Hell, you can probably walk on water you’re so perfect. You know as well as I that Pa never liked me. That’s why he gave me the traitorous name of Judas the day I was born a month early and breech. I never heard the end of how I almost killed Ma
by just being born. What kind of mistakes could you possibly have made, Pete?”

“If only you knew,” Pete mumbled and looked the other way out the window. Judas wanted to ask him about it, but he su
ddenly changed the subject. “I’m not proud of the fact I haven’t been home in so long, nor that I lost touch with the rest of the family. And the worst part is that I never came and visited Ma in the home.”

“That’s no different than the rest of us.”

“Maybe, but I took so long to get back here I even missed Ma’s funeral.”

“If it’ll lessen your guilt at all, you know that neither John, Simon, Philip, Andrew, Nate, nor Thad have come back yet since Ma died either.”

“Wow. I had no idea. Still, I don’t feel right about it. I was wondering if we could stop at the church graveyard on the way in so I could pay my respects to her.”

“Of course
,” he said, knowing the church was the last place he wanted to visit right now, as that is where all his troubles began in the first place.

Chapter 6

“Careful
please, that’s an antique Victorian marble-top dresser,” Laney told the movers as they unloaded the van full of furniture she’d brought from her old shop in Big Rapids. She dug her cell phone out of her purse and looked at it once again. Still no call from the police station. Deputy Morgeau told her he’d call as soon as Judas returned, and she had no choice but to leave J.D. there alone, as she had the movers coming and she had to be here to let them in.

“Judas, where are you?” she said softly to herself, glancing at the time on her phone and r
ealizing it had been nearly four hours since Judas left to go pick up his brother from the airport. His deputy had told her it was only a forty minute ride to the airport in Kalamazoo, and the way Judas drove, she figured he’d make it in twenty. She hoped he wasn’t out carousing the town while his own daughter was locked in the holding cage waiting for him to return.

Laney had brough
t J.D. food from the diner that Candace was only too happy to give her. And though she had hoped to convince Levi into talking to Judas, he never gave her a direct answer that he’d help her. Of course, she couldn’t blame him after the story she’d heard.