Her Final Prayer: A totally gripping and heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Clara Jefferies Book 2)

by Kathryn Casey

  “Naomi called to check on Jacob and she mentioned it. She said you headed off in Carl’s direction from the ranch,” Reba said. “Why are you looking for Carl? Aren’t you onto Myles yet? Even after I gave you all the dirt on him and Laurel?”

  “Reba, please,” Michael said, looking genuinely upset by her ranting. “You know what the prophet says about a rude woman meeting her end.”

  “Do you know where Carl is?” Max asked. “He wasn’t at the trailer.”

  “Haven’t seen him,” Michael said, and Reba shook her head. “Not since Jacob woke up. For some reason, Carl just took off.”

  “How is your son?” I asked.

  “He’s shaky, but he’s coming around. He’ll recover, praise the Lord,” Reba said. “Naomi’s prayers have brought a miracle. She’s been a godsend.”

  This time her husband agreed. “God has smiled on us,” Michael said. “Our son has come back to us.”

  “Has he said anything about the murders?” I asked. “Communicated with you in some way about what happened?”

  “No. He’s only been awake from the anesthetic for an hour or so and he’s foggy. We asked him about what happened, but he didn’t appear to understand what we were talking about. Michael and I told him how upset we are about Anna and Laurel, Sybille and Benjamin. But it was strange. Jacob’s face went blank. He didn’t react,” Reba said. “I mentioned it again, told our son how heartbroken we are, and that time Jacob got agitated. The doctor walked in, and he made us leave the room. He didn’t want Jacob upset.”

  “Jacob didn’t indicate at all what had happened on the ranch? Who was responsible?” I said, disappointed when they shook their heads.

  “No,” Reba said. “He seemed… confused.”

  I thought about that. “Well, maybe he’s more awake now. Max and I will talk to him.”

  As we headed toward the ICU room’s door, the Johanssons stood to follow. We turned, and they halted inches behind us. “We need to talk to Jacob alone,” I said. “We can’t have him distracted.”

  “But he’s so weak. We should be there to—” Reba started.

  “We’ll be patient with him. We understand what he’s been through,” Max assured them. “But you two can’t come in. You need to stay out here.”

  Reba looked at her husband and scowled. “Naomi warned us to watch you two,” she said, assessing me as if I might attack at any moment. “She said you in particular, Clara, shouldn’t be alone with Jacob.”

  Naomi interfering again, I thought. What is she up to?

  “Reba, Michael, we don’t know who did this or why,” I explained. “The person who committed these murders is still out there and may try again. We don’t know if Jacob will be in danger once he leaves the hospital. Max and I are concerned enough that I have officers watching over Jeremy. But we can’t protect them forever. So, we need to get this solved quickly, and Jacob is our best hope to put an end to it all. He’s the only survivor able to tell us what happened. You need to let us do our jobs.”

  They looked at each other, unsure, but then Michael took his wife’s hand. “Reba, let’s sit here and wait. We can go in and visit with Jacob once they’re done.”

  Reba appeared uncertain but followed her husband’s lead. Then she turned back toward us. “Jacob can’t talk yet, you know. You’ll have to communicate some other way.”

  “Sure. We’ll write it down,” I said. Reba let loose a long sigh and shook her head again just as a nurse walked by and noticed us.

  “Are you two going in there?” she asked. When I nodded, the nurse said, “Only five minutes. And don’t upset him.”

  “We heard you’ll be releasing him as early as tomorrow. Is that right?” Max asked.

  “If he’s eating soft foods and drinking okay,” she said. “We like to free up the beds, get people out of the hospital.”

  “When will he be able to speak?” I asked.

  The nurse shrugged. “It could be a day or two. There’s no way of telling.”

  As the nurse ambled off, Max and I walked into the room. Some of the machines had been carted away, but a monitor flashed Jacob’s blood pressure and heart rate. He was sitting up, the head of the bed raised. The slit in his neck stitched up and bandaged, he was breathing normally, albeit with a nasal cannula delivering extra oxygen. When Max closed the door, Jacob turned toward us.

  “Hello. Good to see that you’re awake and getting better,” Max said, and Jacob gave a twisted half-smile. “I’m with the sheriff’s department, Chief Deputy Max Anderson, and this is Alber Police Chief Clara Jefferies. We need to talk to you about what happened at the ranch Monday morning. Can you please tell us what you remember?”

  His light blond hair disheveled, Jacob brought his hand without the IV up to his neck and shook his head, as if to say, “I can’t talk.”

  Out of my bag, I pulled a notebook and pen. I opened to a blank page, placed it on the bed tray and then swiveled it in front of him. He smiled, ever so slightly, wincing as he picked up the pen. It appeared that even the smallest movements caused pain.

  As we waited, Jacob, awkward and slow, wrote something down on the notebook, and then held it up: WHY ARE YOU HERE?

  This time I tried. “As Max explained, we need to know what happened on Monday morning at your ranch.” Jacob looked confused, and I went on and said, “We need to know who attacked you.”

  Jacob’s eyes narrowed, and he wrote something on the open page.

  He turned it toward us. I’d had such hope, and when I read the six words on the blue-lined paper it came crashing down on me: IS THAT HOW I GOT HURT?

  He doesn’t remember, I thought. But he must remember something.

  “Okay, let’s rewind,” I said, hoping we could lead up to it and refresh his memory. “Sunday evening, do you remember Carl coming for dinner?”

  A big man, Jacob filled the bed. A few days’ worth of stubble covered his chin, and he dropped the pen back on the tray, and then glanced, confused, at the two of us before scanning the room as if looking for someone to help him. He made no move to pick the pen back up, and before long he rested his head against the pillow and stared at the ceiling as if we weren’t there.

  “Jacob, who attacked you?” I asked. When he didn’t respond, I waited a heartbeat and then tried to keep my voice level but firm. “We need information. Tell me who came to the ranch on Monday morning. Who hurt you?”

  Jacob’s head rolled back down, and he lowered his chin toward his chest, but then jerked it back. His face twisted in agony.

  “Was your friend at the ranch Monday morning? Carl Shipley?” I asked.

  Jacob showed no emotion and little interest.

  “What about Myles Thompkins? Did you see him there?” Max asked.

  Suddenly, Jacob had a glimmer of recognition. Concern flashed across his eyes and he had a visceral reaction, his body tensing. But he wrote nothing down. He didn’t nod or shake his head.

  “If Myles was there, give me a thumbs up,” I said, demonstrating with my right hand.

  Instead, Jacob picked up the pen and wrote: WAS HE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE? WHY? As soon as he showed it to us, he dropped the pen.

  I watched him, worried, and before long I felt the long, thin fingers of a headache unwind behind my eyes. I felt suddenly weary, spent. This wasn’t going as we’d hoped, not at all. Not ready to give up, I picked up the ballpoint and placed it back in Jacob’s hand, wrapped his fingers around it. “Please write down the last thing you remember before waking up here in the hospital. Whatever it is.”

  I counted off the minutes on my watch as Jacob toyed with the notebook and pen. Then, it appeared that something occurred to him. As we watched, he wrote: OUR FAMILY WENT TO SUNDAY SERVICES AND ANNA MADE SPANISH OMELETS FOR LUNCH.

  Max and I smiled, encouraging. “Yes, that’s it,” Max said. “Now, Jacob, write down what you remember after that.”

  I tried so hard to be patient, but I wanted to shake him, to shout, “Tell us what happened!” But
I bit my lip, smiled, and did my best to be calm. I thought about what the man in the hospital bed had been through, and I told myself that he deserved time to digest it. I took a step back, letting Max take over.

  Jacob held the notebook by the metal spiral, making a triangle-shaped tent of it, but he made no attempt to write anything. I wondered if this could be a reaction to the anesthetic, that it wasn’t completely out of Jacob’s system yet. Max reminded him: “Jacob, please, think hard. Write down the first thing you remember after Sunday services and lunch.”

  Jacob swallowed and his face convulsed. I couldn’t imagine how much the severed muscles in his throat must hurt. My hopes rose as he once more picked up the pen. They plummeted when he wrote: I REMEMBER SEEING NAOMI JEFFERIES STANDING NEXT TO MY BED SMILING AT ME.

  Nothing, I thought, from Sunday lunch until he woke up in the hospital and saw Mother Naomi at his bedside.

  Max shook his head, and I drew in my lips to stop myself from scowling, struggling to hide my disappointment. The headache intensified, and I wondered if I could talk the nurse into giving me an aspirin. I wondered how far we dare push this man, in his condition. We needed answers. “Jacob,” I pleaded. “Please, think hard and tell us who hurt you and your family.”

  At that, he sat up higher in the bed, and I had the feeling every nerve stood at attention. He glanced from me to Max, then back at me again. He picked up the pen and wrote: SOMEONE HURT MY FAMILY?

  Michael and Reba had said that they’d tried to tell Jacob about Anna and Laurel, the two children, but the look on their son’s face was one of utter confusion. Did Jacob truly not remember? Could his mind be blocking the horror of what he saw, protecting him from the pain of watching his family slaughtered?

  Max and I shared a glance, and he said, “We’re going to let your parents come in now and talk to you. We’ll be gone for a while, but we may try to stop by later.”

  Worry lines etched across Jacob’s brow. Then he wrote on the notepad: PLEASE SEND IN LAUREL AND ANNA. I WANT TO SEE THEM. I WANT TO SEE MY CHILDREN.

  I read the note and felt as if someone had punched me in the chest.

  Jacob couldn’t tell us who’d murdered the women and those two precious children. He’d be no help. Although we could hope that his memory would return, it might not. Disappointment weighed me down like a sodden wool cape; Max and I were on our own. All we could do was keep trying. Then I thought about what Naomi had said, and I turned back to Jacob one more time. “Were you upset with Carl at all? Do you remember if the women were upset with him?”

  At that, Jacob shrugged. He wrote: WOMEN ARE ALWAYS UPSET AT CARL.

  Max and I had arrived with such hope, but he glanced at me, and I saw my disappointment mirrored in his eyes. Jacob would have to be told yet again, perhaps multiple times before he understood, that his wives and children had been murdered. But that painful duty wasn’t ours. It rested with his family. “We’ll send your parents in.” Max patted Jacob’s shoulder while I picked up the notebook and pen.

  Max smiled and said, “Get better.”

  We barely had the door open when Michael and Reba rushed us. “Did he tell you anything about the killings?” Michael asked.

  “It was Myles Thompkins, right?” Reba said. “It has to be.”

  Max frowned. “Your son doesn’t seem to remember anything about what happened. You did say that you’d told him about his family?”

  “We tried to, but like we said, he got kind of a strange expression on his face, like he didn’t absorb what we were saying,” Michael said, looking warily at his wife.

  “Well, it appears he doesn’t remember anything that happened at the ranch yesterday morning,” I said. “Did the doctor say that this might happen, that he might not have a memory of the killings?”

  Jacob’s parents looked at one another, and his mother turned away as she pulled a handkerchief from her purse. Her husband put his hand on her back to comfort her. “Yes. The doctor brought that up with us yesterday. He said Jacob could have post-traumatic stress disorder or some type of hysterical amnesia,” Michael said. “He said that’s not unheard of after such a shock and so much blood loss.”

  “We didn’t tell Jacob about the murders,” I explained. “We thought that would be better coming from the two of you, maybe with the doctors to help you.”

  Michael nodded, and Reba buried her head in his shoulder.

  The moment awkward, we hesitated, but then Max asked, “Did the doctor say if he expects that Jacob will eventually remember?”

  His wife by then openly sobbing, Michael held her close. His voice broke with pain when he said, “The doc didn’t give any guarantees one way or the other. He warned us that if Jacob didn’t remember the killings, his memory might never come back. Or one day, something, anything, could bring it all flooding back. Reba and I discussed that. She’s upset that Jacob can’t tell us what happened.”

  “Not you, though?” I asked.

  Michael shrugged. “Maybe forgetting would be a blessing.”

  Max sighed. “It may be better for Jacob’s mental health,” he said. “It’s not for the investigation.”

  Twenty-Nine

  As they walked away from Jacob’s room, Clara cornered a nurse. “I have such a headache. Splitting,” she said, putting her hand on her forehead. “May I have an aspirin?”

  “Not without a prescription,” the nurse said. “I’m sorry, but it’s not allowed.”

  “Of all the ridiculous—” Clara started.

  Max thought she was about to lose her temper with the woman. He touched her arm and said, “Let’s stop at the drug store. There’s one on the first floor.”

  “Oh, of course.” Clara nodded. She appeared embarrassed and apologized to the nurse as they turned to leave.

  After she started the engine, Clara took two tablets with a gulp of water and closed her eyes for just a moment. “I’m sorry I was short with that nurse,” she said. “It’s just that… well… that turned out to be a waste of time.”

  “Very true,” Max agreed. “But no reason to give up hope. We’ll figure it out.”

  At first, she said nothing. Then as they pulled out of the lot, he heard her murmur, “God, I hope so.”

  Her mood worried Max. They were both upset, but Clara had taken Jacob’s inability to help them hard. She frowned behind the Suburban’s wheel and mumbled to herself. Max considered how wrapped up she’d become in solving the murders. She invested so much in her work, but in some cases, like this one, a cop had to keep perspective. Answers often didn’t come overnight. But he had to admit he, too, felt devastated when Jacob had been unable to finger the killer. Every time Max thought about Benjamin and Sybille, their small lifeless bodies under the sheet, he felt sickened.

  Nearly thirty-three hours since Naomi’s 911 call, and they didn’t have a lot of answers.

  True: they had two suspects. Max again wondered where Carl was and mulled over the possibility that he’d gone into hiding. Why would he do that if he wasn’t involved? And Myles? Nearly a full day had passed since they’d put out the BOLO asking law enforcement officers all over the state to be on the lookout for him, and nothing. The news stations in the area and as far away as Salt Lake were displaying his driver’s license photo and asking anyone who saw him to report in, but no one had called. Where was Myles Thompkins? It was as if the guy had vanished.

  On top of that, something needled at Max.

  Earlier that afternoon, he and Clara had read the letters together, and Max couldn’t get them out of his head. The emotions Myles and Laurel expressed brought back memories of a time when he and Clara were young and he would have given up anything and everything to be with her. In fact, he did give up everything when the prophet’s henchmen ran him out of Alber. That was a terrifying time. Just seventeen, Max was left to fend for himself in the middle of downtown St. George. Only two hundred dollars in his pocket, he had no one to call for help. Max’s heart filled with rage remembering how his own father ab
andoned him at the direction of the prophet.

  While Clara fretted about the case, Max considered the girl he’d known. Sometimes he caught glimpses of her in the new Clara, the woman she’d become. Like the teenager she’d been, her long black hair never managed to stay in a bun. Instead, wisps habitually curled at the nape of her neck. Max recalled their kiss the evening before. He felt his chest warm as he remembered her head pressed against it at her office that afternoon. Stolen moments, that was all they had. He wanted much more. Lost to his thoughts, he reached over and wrapped an errant strand of her hair around his finger.

  Caught by surprise, Clara shivered.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, it’s okay, Max,” she responded. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  “I should have given you a warning.” He hesitated, but then, since he had her attention, he ran his fingers down her arm, until he cupped her hand on the steering wheel. She smiled, not appearing to mind the attention. There’d been something he’d wanted to ask her for a week or more. It had been gnawing at him. Was this the time?

  “Clara,” he said. “Neither one of us has a place where we can be alone together. I have Brooke, and you’re living at the shelter. Everything we do in Alber is… watched.”

  “As I’ve recently found out,” she acknowledged.

  He didn’t ask what she meant, but continued. “A friend offered me a cabin in the mountains. Assuming we’ve wrapped this case up, I’m heading there on Thursday. Alice is keeping Brooke for the weekend. I’d like you to come.”

  “To the cabin?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m hoping… well… it might be a good place for us to figure this out.”

  “Figure this out?” she murmured, as if unsure what he was saying.

  “Figure us out,” he answered. Her frown grew longer, and Max paused, considering what to say next. “Clara, like I said earlier, I want to give us a try. I do. But I also have Brooke to consider. And my own feelings. The thing is: I need to know where this is going. If it is going anywhere.”