time. Our condolences on the loss of your mother. It’s a tragedy. A true tragedy,” Standish said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how is your sister?” Mrs. Standish asked.
Sam remembered the wife’s face but not her name, and assumed the young girl with them was their daughter. “She’s holding her own.”
“That’s wonderful news. I’ll make it a point to visit her soon.”
“Thank you for the thought, but Trey has her under guard, with a no-visitation order. I’m sure you understand.”
Gloria sputtered a bit, as if shocked that she’d been refused in any way.
“Of course we do,” Standish said. “Her survival has put the killer on notice.”
Carly Standish had been politely quiet while the adults spoke, but she hadn’t missed a thing about Sam Jakes’ appearance. She thought he was good-looking for an older guy, except for the scars she could see on the back of his neck.
Sam caught her staring, which made her flush.
“I think our table is ready,” Standish said. “Ladies...”
They had no sooner walked away than the door opened again, and Marcus and T. J. Silver walked in.
Marcus Silver was about to walk past Sam when T.J. saw him and stopped.
“Sam Jakes, right?”
Sam nodded.
“Dad. It’s Trey’s older brother.”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”
“No problem,” Sam said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been home.”
T.J. frowned. “I’m so sorry about what happened to your mother and sister.”
“Thank you,” Sam said.
“Yes, our sympathies are with all the family,” Marcus added.
The door opened again, and this time it was finally Trey and Dallas who arrived.
“Sorry we’re late,” Trey said, and nodded toward the Silvers. “Marcus, T.J., it appears we all had the same idea tonight.”
“Yes, it does. Enjoy your meal,” Marcus said, and then headed for the hostess desk with his son.
“Everything okay?” Sam asked.
Trey shook his head. “The digital version of the newspaper is already up, and I’ve been getting phone calls like crazy. Everyone in town wants to come to the meeting day after tomorrow,” Trey said.
“What did you tell them?” Sam asked.
“I told them unless they had specific knowledge and information to share, it was only for the members of that class.”
“Good call,” Sam said.
“Let’s go eat, guys,” Dallas said. “Tomorrow is going to be crazy, but tonight we can just be family.”
There was a knot in Sam’s throat as they were being seated. Dallas’s innocent remark about just being family had gone straight to his heart. All these years while he was living on the edge of life, they had been completely immersed in it—joys, heartaches, rejections, accomplishments. Now, thinking about what he’d lost, Lainey Pickett was at the top of the list.
As they ordered their food, talking about what they had yet to face and what they hoped to uncover during the meeting, Sam was wondering what would happen if he tried to fit back in—if he should even try to fit back in—wondering if they would resent him after the way he’d kept them all at arm’s length.
* * *
Lainey was in bed with her laptop and a beer.
After her conversation with Dallas, her curiosity had been piqued. She was reading through back issues of the Mystic newspaper in an effort to catch up on what had been happening.
She had a whole new level of empathy for Dallas after learning how her father had died, and what she’d been through afterward that had nothing to do with the murder. Attacked by a feral dog, running for her life from criminals in hiding on her property and all the while determined to prove her father had not committed suicide. When Lainey got to the discovery of Paul Jackson’s body, she was struck by the cold-blooded way the murder had been committed. The killer would have had to stand and watch Paul being crushed to make sure he was dead.
The bottle of beer was empty by the time she got to the story about Betsy and Trina being ambushed, and for her, it struck closest to home. She’d imagined being part of their family most of her life, picturing Betsy as her mother-in-law and Trina as the sister she’d never had. When she began reading about the shooting and discovered that Trey was the one who’d found them, she burst into tears.
She started out crying for the Jakeses and ended up crying for herself from the shock and grief of being abandoned by the man she loved, to the ensuing years of loneliness and the day she was diagnosed, all the way through to the last day of chemo. She cried until her eyes were swollen and her head was throbbing before she staggered into the bathroom to get something for the pain.
After that she wandered through the house, straightening a picture hanging on the wall, fluffing pillows on the living room sofa, gathering up a glass and bowl she’d left on a side table, loading the dishwasher and then making sure everything was locked up for the night.
Finally the lights were out in the front of the house, except for the night-light in the hall. She wandered back into her bedroom and got back in bed, then picked up the laptop. She started to click out of the paper’s site, then decided to see if there were any new articles relating to the crimes.
The headline for the digital issue of tomorrow’s paper caught her eye.
GRADUATES OF CLASS OF 1980
The subhead was a shock.
MANDATORY MEETING AT CITY HALL
The hair stood up on the back of her neck as she read the notice posted by Chief Jakes, and then a more inclusive story the editor had added to it. As difficult as it was to grasp, the police were convinced that the three murders were tied to the night the victims all graduated high school, which was why all of the classmates had been summoned.
Lainey’s heart skipped a beat. Her mother, Billie, had been a member of that class, but her mother was dead. Would she have known anything? Had she heard any gossip that would shed light on this mystery? And then she remembered her mother’s diaries. She’d been obsessive about writing in them on a regular basis when she was younger. Lainey remembered reading from them all the time when she was growing up and then talking to her mother about her life. Oh, how they had laughed. For Lainey, it had the feel of being a child with her mother instead of just reading about her at that age. But now that she’d remembered them, and now that she understood the seriousness of the meeting, she couldn’t let go of the idea that there might be something in them that would help.
She
