Indelible (40 page)

S
ara sat on the hood of her car, looking out at the cemetery. Nothing had changed about Deacon White's funeral home in the last decade, despite the fact that a large conglomerate had bought them out. Even the rolling green hills looked the same, the white gravestones sticking up like broken teeth.

Still, Sara thought if she never saw another grave again it would be too soon. She had attended funerals all week, mourning the men and women who had been victimized by Sonny and Eric Kendall's rampage. Marilyn Edwards had somehow survived being shot in the bathroom of the station, and it looked like she would pull through. She was strong, but she was a minority. Most of the other victims had died.

“The town looks different,” Jeffrey said, and maybe to him it did. He was such a different person from the man who had brought her here the last time.

“You sure you don't want to call Possum and Nell?”

He shook his head. “I don't think I'm ready for that.” He paused, probably thinking about his son,
wondering yet again what he could do about Jared. “I wonder if Robert knew.”

“I figured it out,” she reminded him.

“Robert wasn't sleeping with me,” he pointed out. “Man, I wonder what he's up to.”

“You could try to find out.”

“If he wanted me to know where he is, he'd tell me,” Jeffrey said. “I hope wherever he ended up, he's found some peace.”

Sara tried to comfort him. “You did everything you could.”

“I wonder if he ever talks to Jessie?”

“She's probably been out of prison a while now,” Sara said. Much as she had predicted, Jessie had served only a handful of years in jail for killing a defenseless man. Her addiction to drugs and alcohol had been a mitigating factor, but Nell's opinion had been that Robert's sexuality was the evidence that most swayed the jury. Sara hoped that things would be different if the same crime happened today, but you could never tell with small towns.

“She's back at Herd's Gap,” he provided. “I got a Christmas card from her the year she got out.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“We weren't exactly speaking then,” he explained, and she guessed this had happened sometime around their divorce.

He said, “Lane Kendall died three days before they came after me.”

“How did you find out?” Sara asked. Sonny Kendall had refused to talk about anything to do with his family.

“The sheriff told me.”

“Since when did Reggie Ray start volunteering information to you?”

He turned around, giving her a half-smile. “You didn't hear about his oldest son, Rick?”

“What?”

“He's the drama teacher over at Comer High School.”

Sara laughed so hard that she had to put her hand over her mouth. Even if Rick had a wife and twelve kids, Reggie would embrace the stereotype the same as if his son was a cross-dressing hairdresser.

“Just goes to show . . .” Jeffrey said, giving a half-shrug that she could tell hurt his shoulder. He was not used to wearing a sling and she practically had to force him into it every morning.

He said, “I wonder what happened to the letters Eric said he sent me?”

“Maybe she didn't mail them,” Sara suggested.

“Sounds like something she'd do.”

“Sonny won't even talk about that?”

“No,” Jeffrey said. “The military wants him when the courts are through. He was AWOL since Lane died. They probably would have overlooked it if he hadn't . . .”

Sara stared at the cemetery. “I forgot all about them,” she confessed. “As upset as I was when we left town, I haven't given them a thought in all these years.”

“Maybe I should have told Lane the truth,” he said. “God, she hated me.”

“She wouldn't have believed you,” Sara pointed out, the same conclusion they had come to all those years ago.

Lane Kendall's life was fueled by hatred and mistrust. Nothing Jeffrey said would have changed that. Still, at the time, Sara had not completely agreed that Hoss should be allowed to take his secrets to his grave. Jeffrey's arguments had been persuasive. Sitting down with Reggie Ray and talking through Hoss's confession would have been like rolling a boulder up the mountain. Absent any hard evidence, no one would take Jeffrey at his word, especially since Robert was not there to back him up.

Sara had always believed that the real reason Jeffrey kept silent was because he could not bring himself to speak against Hoss when the other man was not around to defend himself. In the end, it was easier for him to continue to take the blame than to stir up more trouble with the truth. Jeffrey did not live in Sylacauga anymore, and there was no need to fight that battle. The people who mattered to him knew what had really happened, and the people who didn't went about living their lives much the same as before. Reggie Ray's report said that the sheriff had been cleaning his gun when it went off, and no one had questioned him. Julia Kendall's murder was still listed as unsolved.

Jeffrey tugged at the sling. “Damn, I hate this thing.”

“You need to wear it,” she said, making her voice stern.

“It doesn't hurt.”

She brushed her fingers along the nape of his neck. “I need you to be able to use that arm.”

“That right?” he said, giving her a shadow of his usual sly smile.

She wanted him okay so much that she tried to keep up the teasing. “That hand.”

“You like that hand?”

“I like them both,” she said.

“Do you remember,” he began, “the first time you told me you loved me?”

“Umm . . .” She pretended to think, but she knew.

“When we got back to Grant after being here,” he said. “Remember?”

“I was unpacking all my beach stuff,” she said, “and I looked around and you weren't there.”

“Right.”

“And when you came back I asked you what you were doing, and you said—”

“Your trash smelled like something died in it.”

“And I told you I loved you.”

“I guess you hadn't had that many men take out the trash before.”

“No,” she admitted. “And you're the only one I've wanted to take out my trash ever since.” He gave her a real smile, and she felt her heart lift. “I want to love you so much.”

His smile faltered. “What's stopping you?”

“No,” she told him, trying to clarify herself. “I've been fighting it for so long. From the moment I met you, I didn't want to be in love with you. I didn't want to feel so desperate for you.”

“What's changed?”

Her answer was simple. “You.”

“You haven't,” he told her. “Changed, I mean.”

“Is that so?” she asked, wondering how he managed to make it sound like a compliment.

“You didn't need to,” he said. “You were perfect already.”

She laughed out loud. “Tell that to my mother.”

He waited for her to stop laughing. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Waiting for me to grow up.”

She put her fingers to his cheek. “Patience has always been my strong suit.”

“No kidding.”

“You were worth the wait.”

“Tell me that in another ten years.”

“I will,” she promised him. “I will.”

He looked down at his injured arm, and she tried to stop him, thinking he was going to take off the sling. What he did instead was take her hand and look at his Auburn class ring on her finger. When all hell had broken loose at the station, she had taken the ring, knowing it would help identify Jeffrey to the shooters. At the hospital, while Jeffrey was in surgery, she had nearly worn a blister on her finger, rubbing the blue stone in the ring like a talisman, as if she could somehow make everything okay.

She asked, “Do you want it back?”

He kept his expression neutral. “Do you want to give it back?”

Sara looked at the ring, and thought about everything that had brought them to this place. As silly as it was, she knew what her wearing the ring would mean to Jeffrey, and to everyone else in Grant County.

She said, “I'll never take it off.”

He smiled, and for the first time in what seemed
like forever, Sara felt like things might eventually be okay.

Jeffrey must have felt this, too, because he tried to tease, “Maybe you should take it off if you're working in the yard.”

“Hm,” she answered. “Good point.”

He rubbed her finger with his thumb. “Or helping out your dad.”

“I could wrap some masking tape around the band so it fits better.”

He smiled, tugging the ring, pointing out that it was hardly in danger of falling off. “You know what they say about big hands . . .” he began. When she did not answer, he finished, “Big feet.”

“Ha-ha,” she said, cupping his face in her hand. Before she knew what was happening, Sara had her arms around his neck, holding on to him as if her life depended on it. Whenever she let herself think about how close she had come to losing him, Sara felt a sort of desperation that made her chest ache.

“It's okay,” he told her, though he seemed to be saying this more to himself. She could tell he was thinking about the thing that had brought them here in the first place.

She forced herself to let go of him, asking, “Are you ready?”

He glanced back at the cemetery, squaring his shoulders as best as he could.

Sara slid off the hood of the car, but he told her, “No, I need to do this alone.”

“You sure?”

He nodded again, heading off toward the cemetery.

Sara got into the car, leaving the door open so she would not suffocate in the heat. She looked at the ring, turning her hand so she could see the football on the side. Like all class rings, it was huge and hideous, yet right now she thought it was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

She looked up, watching Jeffrey make his way up the hill. He picked at the sling around his neck before taking it off and shoving it into his pocket.

“Jeffrey,” she admonished, though of course he could not hear her. He did not hate the sling so much as the appearance of infirmity.

He stopped at the corner of the cemetery where a small marble marker stood. She knew Jeffrey well enough to know he was thinking about Sylacauga marble and underground streams, cotton mills and sinkholes. She also knew that the thing he took from his pocket was a small gold locket.

As she watched, Jeffrey used his bad hand to open the heart, taking one last look at the picture of Eric inside before leaving the keepsake on top of Julia's gravestone and walking back down the hill to Sara.

S
ylacauga is a lovely small town located in central Alabama near the Cheaha Mountains. They have a full-time sheriff and police force and a population of around 12,000 folks who will probably read this book and wonder if I've ever been to the place. I assure you that I have, but please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction and I have taken great license with streets, buildings, and local landmarks just to make it easier on myself. Like many small towns—north, south, east, or west—Sylacauga is a peculiar blend of friendly, good folks and a smattering of bad. You can find out more by visiting the place yourself or going to Sylacauga.net. While you're on the web, you can also look up the name Billy Jack Gaither to see the darker side of small-town life.

This book has been a long time coming for me. When I first wrote
Blindsighted,
I knew that one day I would delve into Jeffrey and Sara's past, so in subsequent books, I left some clues for folks as a little reward for those who were paying attention. My sincere thanks to y'all for being there from the start and making it possible for me to keep doing what I love most: being a writer.

My agent, Victoria Sanders, is a great friend and champion of my work. Meaghan Dowling and Kate Elton are the best editors a girl could ask for. Ron Beard, Richard Cable, Jane Friedman, Brian Grogan, Cathy Hemming, Lisa Gallagher, Gail Rebuck, and Susan Sandon are my heroes. Sales, design, and marketing teams have my thanks for their generous support. There are plenty more people to name, from the ladies in Scranton to the guys who drive the trucks, but space being limited, please know you all have my sincere gratitude for the wonderful job you do.

Dan Holod reviewed gun stuff for me, but any mistakes are entirely my own fault—and please remember this is a work of fiction, not a how-to manual. Yet again David Harper, M.D., came to the rescue, making Sara really sound like a doctor. Steve Asher and friends at the National Hemophilia Foundation helped with some tricky problems and I hope I got everything right. Patricia Hawkins, Amy Place, and Debbie Hartsfield (formerly the Smart sisters) provided some interesting facts about their hometown, and I hope I managed to capture the flavor of the place through them.

Fellow authors helped me keep my chin up. I won't name them here, but you can find most of them in
Like a Charm,
the serial novel I worked on while writing
Indelible.
Markus Wilhelm deserves special thanks, as does Harlan Coben, who is the only person on earth allowed to call me number two.

Lastly, I've had Sara drive a BMW in every one of these books in the hopes that the nice folks over in Munich will thank me with a shiny new 330ci. No luck yet, but I'll keep trying. Likewise, Tom Jones and Shelby Lynne. Y'all don't call . . . y'all don't write . . .