The Mother

Well, at least the boy was just that—a boy. “Where did Zoe and Dawson go?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Presley looked him in the eye.

He could tell that she wasn’t lying. She was too frightened to lie.

“They just went for a ride in his new car,” Reesa said. “They wanted to have some fun, to be alone together. There’s no crime in that, is there?”

Reesa was a little smart aleck, but she was not his problem. Zoe was.

“He’ll take her home,” Presley said. “It’s not as if they’ve eloped or anything like that.”

“Thank God for small favors,” J.D. grumbled under his breath, then told Presley, “Call Zoe. She won’t answer her phone if she sees I’m the one calling her. Tell her that her father said to get her butt home ASAP if she knows what’s good for her.”

“Er … ah … yes, sir.”

Presley placed the call and they all waited for Zoe to answer. And then Presley gasped, “What? Oh my God, no! Are you okay? Is Dawson okay?”

“What’s wrong?” J.D. asked, his heart beating ninety-to-nothing. When Presley stared at him wide-eyed and her mouth agape, he snatched her phone out of her hand and said, “Zoe, this is your father. What the hell is going on?”

“Oh, J.D., please help us.” Zoe sounded desperate.

“Are you all right? Where are you? What’s happened?”

“Don’t be angry. Please don’t be angry.”

“Zoe!”

“We’re in jail.”

Chapter 7

Wayne Sherrod couldn’t get away from headquarters fast enough. He had hated the pity he’d seen in Willie’s eyes and the sympathetic expression on Tam’s face. He hated that Garth was in denial and preferred to dismiss the possibility that one of the dead toddlers might be Blake. He understood that Garth simply couldn’t accept the fact that Blake was dead. It had taken Wayne years to accept the truth. Yeah, sure, somewhere deep down inside him a glimmer of hope still existed, but he knew only too well how illogical that hope was. Blake was dead. The odds were that he had been one of Regina Bennett’s victims. Wayne had visited the crazy bitch in the mental hospital twice, and both times he had come away with more questions than answers.

Just as he started to open the door to his Chevy Silverado, he heard footsteps behind him and knew without turning around that Audrey had followed him.

Go away, girl. Go away and leave me alone.

“Daddy …?”

He gripped the door handle with bone-crushing strength.

Keeping his back to her, he said, “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Don’t worry about me. I don’t need your sympathy or your comfort.”

“No, you never did, did you?”

Without so much as glancing over his shoulder, Wayne climbed up into the cab of his truck and slammed the door. After starting the engine, he buckled his seat belt and put the gear into reverse. As he drove out of the parking area, he caught a glimpse of his daughter in his peripheral vision. She stood alone, tall, slender, and elegant, and looking so much like her mother.

I’m sorry, little girl. Sorry I’ve been such a worthless father. I’m sorry for so many things.

If he could go back to when Audrey had been a baby, to when he’d been madly in love with Norma, there were so many things he’d do differently. But he couldn’t go back. A guy didn’t get any second chances in this life. He had loved two women and he’d lost them both. And he’d fathered two children and had lost both of them, too. Death had taken Blake from him. And his own stupidity had lost him his daughter.

As he made his way down Amnicola Highway and hit 153, his mind swirling with memories and an ache in his gut growing more painful by the minute, Wayne wanted only one thing—to forget. He didn’t want to remember Norma Colton. How beautiful she’d been. How he had adored her. How she had felt lying beneath him. How sweet her lips had tasted. How badly he had disappointed her by being unable to give her all the love and attention she craved. He hadn’t understood why she’d had to be so possessive, so demanding. The more she had clung to him, the more he had pulled away.

I’m sorry, Norma. God, I am so sorry. I wish I had been able to give you what you needed. I wish I had realized that you were the love of my life. I wish I’d had the chance to tell you.

The late-afternoon sun sank low on the eastern horizon, a blaze of color spreading across the sky. Wayne sucked in a long, hard breath. He had made more than his share of mistakes, and others had paid the price. Not that he hadn’t suffered, wasn’t still suffering, but he deserved it. Neither of his wives had. And God knew, neither of his children had.

Where Norma had been effervescent, giggling and talkative and loving all the time, Enid had been a quiet, reserved woman with a gentle nature. He had fallen in love with her and her son, Hart, too. In the beginning, they’d had a good marriage—or so he’d thought—and he’d been content. But even before Blake’s birth, he had begun to notice little things about Enid’s behavior, things that he later realized were signs of her mental illness. But he had chosen to ignore those signs. After all, his life had been good, hadn’t it? There had been no need to make mountains out of molehills.

If only … Famous last words. If only he had paid more attention to Enid’s strange behavior. If only he had admitted that after Blake’s birth, she had needed professional help. But a quarter of a century ago, people didn’t talk much about the various types of mental illnesses, about things like bipolar disorder or postpartum depression.

I’m sorry, Enid. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were sick, that you had suffered with mood swings and severe bouts of depression since childhood. Sorry that I didn’t realize until it was too late.

Wayne turned onto Meadow Hill Drive and slowed his truck to the neighborhood speed limit of twenty-five as he drew near his destination. The three-bedroom, two-bath red brick ranch house with the neatly manicured lawn and rose bushes lining one side of the concrete drive beckoned to him as it had for so many years. Inside this house, he would find, as he always did, warmth and caring, understanding, and a few hours of forgetfulness.

He had already rung the doorbell before he thought that maybe he should have called first. But when Grace Douglas opened the door and stood there smiling up at him, every thought except what a wonderful sight she was left his mind.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Grace said as she stepped back to allow him into her home. When he remained silent, simply looking at her, drinking her in, her smile disappeared. “Wayne, what’s wrong?”

The moment he closed the door behind him, she opened her arms and wrapped them around him. When she laid her head on his chest, he enclosed her soft, womanly body in a tender embrace and the weight of the world dropped from his overburdened shoulders.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” Grace said as she lifted her head from his chest and gazed lovingly up at him.

He reached down and cradled her face with both hands. “Have I told you lately how very important you are to me?”

Her lips curved in a fragile smile. “Not lately, no, but you don’t have to tell me for me to know, because I feel the same way.” She took his hand in hers and led him through the living room and into the kitchen at the back of the house. “Sit down and I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

When she pulled away from him to prepare the coffee, he grasped her wrist. She looked back at him.

“I guess the coffee can wait,” she said.

He slid out a chair from the table, sat down, and then eased her onto his lap. She draped her arm around his neck.

Grace Douglas was round and plump, with wide hips and full breasts. She was a kind, giving woman with a heart as big as Texas. He doubted most folks ever noticed the sadness in her pretty blue eyes, a sadness that he understood in a way no one else in her life did.

He ran the back of his hand gently across her cheek. She closed her eyes and quietly sighed.

“Could we talk, later?” he asked. “I promise I’ll explain everything. But right now …” He glided his hand down her neck, across her shoulder, and opened his palm to cup one breast.

Right now, he needed to forget. He needed to lose himself in this beautiful, loving woman. There would be time enough later that evening to tell her about the unidentified skeletons of two toddler boys. Skeletons that might be the remains of his son Blake and her son Shane.

The minute J.D. entered police headquarters, he spotted his daughter. She rose from the chair where she sat alongside a tattooed, nose-ringed boy with scraggly brown hair and a surly expression.

When a uniformed police officer said something to her, Zoe cried, “But it’s my father. Please, let me tell him what happened.”