when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and frowned. The Jakes family hadn’t been all that happy with him lately, and he hoped Trey wasn’t about to read him the riot act.
“Hey, Trey, what’s up?”
Trey didn’t mince words.
“Mom’s dead. She was murdered on the way home from Paul Jackson’s memorial service. The killer thought he took Trina out, too, but she was still breathing when I found her. They just took her into surgery. I thought you should know.”
Lee grabbed on to the kitchen counter to keep from going to his knees.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I’m so sorry about Betsy. Did they take Trina here to Webster Memorial?”
“Yes. I’m in the waiting room outside the OR.”
“I’m on my way,” Lee said, then grabbed his wallet and his car keys, and left on the run.
All the way to the hospital he kept remembering those last moments with Trina and the sadness in her voice. She couldn’t die. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
* * *
Trey hung up the phone and looked at Dallas, but they didn’t talk. There was nothing for her to say. His mother’s body was on the way to the morgue. There would be an autopsy, and since the murder had taken place in Webster County, the county sheriff, Dewey Osmond, had taken charge of the crime scene, just as he had when her classmate Dick Phillips’ body was discovered.
Dallas couldn’t quit shaking. This was a nightmare—a horrible, hideous nightmare. Both of their parents dead—murdered—for something that had happened when they were kids. When she reached for Trey, he grabbed her hand. She saw the shock in his eyes, and when she saw the tears, she cried with him.
* * *
The news of Betsy Jakes’ murder swept through Mystic like wildfire. There were plenty who’d been at the memorial service who hadn’t taken Trey Jakes’ comments all that seriously until now. He’d asked the members of that ill-fated graduating class to think back. He’d said there were some in Mystic who knew things. He’d asked them for their help. He’d mentioned a ten-thousand-dollar reward. Now every classmate left in Mystic, as well as everyone who’d been in high school then, was thinking back to the night of graduation, going through everything they could remember and every bit of gossip they’d heard.
* * *
Lainey Pickett lived almost ten miles outside Mystic, and after being dumped by Sam Jakes years earlier, she had purposefully shut that place and the people out of her life. She did her business and shopped in a neighboring town and coped with life the best that she could. She hadn’t been at the memorial service because she knew nothing about any of the murders, which meant she didn’t know anything about the announcement Trey Jakes made there, either. She made it a habit not to think about the Jakes men in any manner whatsoever.
She’d spent four of the past ten years getting a PhD in history, and for most of the past six years she’d been teaching online classes for the University of West Virginia. Her life wasn’t perfect, but she had taken it for granted until last Christmas, when she’d found the lump in her breast.
A double mastectomy and a round of chemo treatments later, she was now minus boobs but cancer-free and getting ready to begin breast reconstruction. Her once-thick red hair was growing back, and she was alive, and for that she was grateful.
She had just finished her last class of the day and was getting ready to answer some student email when her cell phone began to vibrate. She had forgotten to turn the ringer back on, and when it began to rattle across the counter, she grabbed it before it fell off.
“Hello?”
“Lainey, this is Dallas Phillips.”
Lainey froze. She and Dallas had once been close friends because they were dating the Jakes brothers, but that had all gone by the wayside with her dreams. The urge to hang up was strong, but curiosity won out.
“Well, it’s been a while,” Lainey said.
Dallas heard the chill in Lainey’s voice but didn’t take it personally. She knew Sam had left her high and dry, which was why she was calling.
“I know, and the reason I’m calling isn’t pretty, but I wanted you to know. From one woman to another, you need to be forewarned that Sam is coming home.”
Pain shot through Lainey so fast she could barely focus.
“Well, hell must have finally frozen over,” she snapped.
Dallas winced. Lainey was still angry, and she couldn’t really blame her. Sam had abandoned all of them.
“No, it’s worse. Betsy and Trina were shot on their way home from Paul Jackson’s memorial service. Betsy is dead, and Trina’s condition is critical.”
Lainey gasped. “Dear Lord! What happened? Why?”
Dallas frowned. “Surely you know about the recent murders of my father and Paul Jackson?”
Lainey was shocked. “No! I had no idea, and I’m so sorry. I rarely go to Mystic. I do most of my business in Summerton. What happened?”
“My dad was the first. The killer tried to make it look like a suicide, but they figured out pretty quickly it was a homicide. Then Mack Jackson’s dad, Paul, was killed. Same thing. The killer tried to make it look like an accident, but it was determined to be a homicide.”
Lainey couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know, but...why Betsy?”
Dallas quickly explained about the connection to the night of their graduation.
“Now all of them are dead,” she added. “Trey has been working day and night trying to run down leads, but to no avail, and now this. That’s why Sam is coming home. No one’s seen him in ages. I don’t know what to expect, but I thought it was only fair that you should know.”
Lainey’s voice was shaking. “I am so sorry for...for all of you. And, Dallas, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Dallas said, then hesitated. “Uh...when I asked Trey if I should call you, he said yes. He’s sorry about how Sam treated you...how he treated all his friends and family. The war did something to him. He’s not the same Sam anymore.”
Lainey’s eyes welled, but the tone of her voice was angry.
“Yes, life does that. None of us are the same as we once were. Thank you for calling.”
She hung up the phone and burst into tears.
Sam drove I-75 northbound for almost two hours without remembering a single mile of the trip. It wasn’t until his gas gauge began to signal a need to refuel that he finally had to stop. His head was throbbing and his belly was growling as he went inside the station. He knew he should eat but wasn’t sure if anything would stay down.
The
