Stones of Sandhill Island

by Peggy Chambers

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Peggy Chambers

  Stones of Sandhill Island

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  There were letters,

  ribbons, and programs from evenings at the ballet. Her mother’s memories, and Billie felt the stab of pain once again. Her mother’s entire life in one box on the bed. How would she get through this again?

  The pale blue padded envelope lay in the bottom. She gently lifted the lip, and the edges of the paper crumbled in her hands. Inside she found a note written in heavy scrawl, and a black book of matches with gold filigree letters told of bygone days when all the best clubs gave out matchbooks to their patrons. Johnny Fats, it read, and she flipped open the cover. The matches were dry and probably still worked. She laid them aside and read the letter.

  “My dear Giselle,” it read. “I will never forget the night we met, and I await your answer.”

  No signature. Her mother must have known who sent it, or she would not have kept it all these years.

  Her mother always said that Billie’s father was a dancer who could not marry her. She said no more whenever Billie brought it up. Could he have been the man who sent the note, and if so, what answer did he await? She would never know. Why did she wait so long to open the box, and why the big secret? She and her mother had a beautiful life together, so what did it matter? But she wanted to know.

  She fingered the matches as her heart once again ached. It felt like a new cut on top of an old wound that still had not fully healed. And the infection bubbled to the surface.

  Praise for Peggy Chambers

  “Peggy Chambers writes like most of us dream. Her SECRETS OF SANDHILL ISLAND is a definite must-read from cover to cover. Full of mystery, romance, and absolute character development, lost loves and loves found. You won’t just want to read, you’ll want to absorb, you’ll want more…much, much more. Can’t wait for the next in the series.”

  ~Gerry Christina, The Writer’s Block, LA Talk Radio

  Stones of

  Sandhill Island

  by

  Peggy Chambers

  Sandhill Island Series

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Stones of Sandhill Island

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Peggy Chambers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Mystery Edition, 2018

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1892-9

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1893-6

  Sandhill Island Series

  Published in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks go out to County Judge Danny L. Chambers and County Attorney Andrew Lucas of Somervell County, Texas, for their assistance in understanding the Texas Victim Compensation Fund, and other legalities in small-town Texas.

  I am also deeply appreciative of the professional opinion and work done regarding the psychological aspects of the book by Brandi Gibson, LMFT, LADC. She was a great help in reviewing the scenes involving Billie and her psychologist in this work of fiction.

  Prologue

  Two years earlier

  Squealing tires and screeching metal-on-metal shredded Billie’s eardrums.

  In the backseat, right behind his dad, Jimmy sang the song again. The one that Billie thought would drive her crazy. But Jimmy loved it, so she tried to.

  Temporarily blinded by oncoming light, she turned to look at her son, when she saw the other vehicle veering into their lane. Swerving to avoid the head-on collision, Steve took the brunt of the impact on his side—not hers. Glass crushed in on the driver’s side and air bags deployed. Side impact steel bars bent inward as the van rolled on its side. Billie’s head pounded the door each time it rolled over—she had no idea how many times—and the glass on her side never broke. The driver’s side—not so lucky.

  She awoke in a night so dark she thought she lay inside a coffin. No light. No air. The humidity of the summer night clawed at her throat as she tried to breathe. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. She wanted to see her son, but a blanket of dark kept her from seeing outside its boundaries. Once again, she passed out.

  She woke the second time to flashing lights and sirens. Billie had no idea how long she lay there shrouded in darkness, but she knew one thing; she hurt all over. Proof of life. Her chest felt crushed from the seatbelt, and her face was bruised by the air bags. Again, she tried to scream, anything, a name. “Jimmy!” It came out like a dandelion puff. And darkness again.

  More screeching metal, and suddenly a light in her eyes and hands on her body, lifting her gently onto a stretcher, then whisking her away with sirens.

  When she again regained consciousness, she found the pain gone, and her foggy head began to clear. Where was her husband?

  Where was her son? The boy had been named for his paternal grandfather, James Stone, Steve’s father, whom he had never met. And now he never would.

  Chapter 1

  Present day

  Balance. According to the therapist, Billie needed to achieve balance between her spiritual and physical life—and balance between her social and private life. Meditation could be the vehicle to get her there if practiced well.

  Perched one on top of the other and rocking in the breeze, the smooth wet stones glowed in the filtered sunlight. Waves crashed on the shore and mist brushed her cheek as she let go of the top-most pebble. It wiggled slightly, then tumbled as a gust blew up from the sea scattering the entire tower of rocks onto the sand at her bare feet.

  She’d try again tomorrow. She breathed deeply. Maybe some different stones. The tide would come in and take these anyway. Life was like that. Here today and gon
e tomorrow—she should know. But now she needed a shower. She needed to fix dinner for her mother, Giselle, and then get ready for her set at Le Chez. Maybe the diners would enjoy a little Janis Joplin tonight since the piano would be set up outside. The raspy voice of Janis could get a little noisy in a small restaurant. There wasn’t room for a jazz singer with a microphone, so they moved her outside when they could.

  Rising, she picked up the yoga mat and rolled it, placing it in the bag with the iPod and ear buds. She almost never listened to music when she meditated and balanced rocks. The sound of the ocean set her mind free. She listened to spa music for her yoga practice. The fishermen who sometimes came down to the rocks looked at her strangely at first, but soon got used to the figure of the dark-haired woman, barefoot in yoga pants, sometimes playing with rocks like a child on the shore.

  But she was not a child and she had responsibilities—like a job, and her mother. Billie had grown up on the tiny strand made mostly of sand aptly named Sandhill Island many years ago. One end of the island—the one she loved best—she found rocky and mysterious with blue-green water foaming over rocks then pulling back out to sea. Her breathing synced with the never-ending back and forth of the water. She couldn’t believe she’d ever lived anywhere else. Why would she? But she knew why. There were no night clubs for singers on the tiny island except during the tourist season, which was never long enough. But now back to heal, and to help her mother heal as well, she would do her best.

  Slipping into flip-flops she walked the short distance toward her mother’s weather-beaten home. It needed repairs. The wind and salt were relentless. Paint could be stripped in a season if the storms were frequent, and washing salt-encrusted windows was an almost constant chore, something she needed to do again. She kept her mother’s bedroom window clean, so the ailing woman could look out to sea. Mom had so few good things in her life these days.

  Billie stopped by the post office in town before heading home. She often forgot to check the mail, used to home-delivery when she lived in Corpus Christi. But Sandhill Island was not a normal town. The ferry, the only way back and forth to the mainland, made the postal area necessary. Each home had a box at a central location instead of on their own porches.

  She kept the key to the mail box in the tiny pocket of her yoga pants. Inserting it into the keyhole, she found a few bills, magazines, and a notecard addressed to her with a return address of Keesler AFB. She knew only one person at Keesler.

  Maj. Sandra Miller was her oldest friend from high school. The jazz singer and the scientist made an odd mix, but they spent a lot of time together when they were younger. Then Sandy went off to college to become a meteorologist, followed by joining the Air Force, marrying, and having two kids. Billie moved to Corpus Christi and the limelight to follow her dreams on stage. Sandy saw the world, while Billie saw the Gulf of Mexico from a larger city than the one she grew up in. Sandy had two children while Billie had none—not anymore.

  She opened the door to her mother’s residence. No key needed. They never locked the door on the island, unlike Billie had in Corpus. It was also her home—something Billie reminded herself of over and over. She grew up in this house. Then she became an adult and moved away. Now that she was back, it had once again become her home; her mother told her that, and Billie tried to remember.

  “I’m home,” Billie called out.

  “Your mother is such a dear.” Raven stood in the doorway to the kitchen in scrubs with her dark hair pulled back in a French braid. Jamaican born, she studied nursing and moved to Corpus Christi. The home healthcare group she worked for assigned her to Giselle Martin on Sandhill Island. Raven was well suited to island life. She came in five days a week and worked her schedule around Billie’s. That way Billie’s mother, Giselle, never stayed alone. She helped with the cooking and cleaning along with health care and bathing Giselle. Billie knew the domestic chores were not in her job description, but the nurse did the things necessary for her patient. Giselle had Parkinson’s, a painful and debilitating disease, and Billie watched her mother live with it daily.

  When the car accident happened two years ago, Billie came back home to visit and heal, only to find her mother falling on painful legs. Then the tremors started, and Billie knew her mother needed help. Billie was not the only one who knew pain. They found the diagnosis of Parkinson’s devastating, maybe even more painful than the disease itself. Giselle was a beautiful, vibrant woman and more determined to help her daughter heal than herself. Her health problems were put on the back burner until the diagnosis came. Then they had to trade roles.

  “Yes, she is. What did she do this time?” Billie placed the mail on the antique buffet and pulled a letter opener from the top drawer, slicing the envelope open, excited to see what her friend had to say.

  “You know she’s having trouble swallowing her food, so I started putting it in a blender or mashing it up for her. Well, today she wanted an apple, and I mashed it. She told me she used to put allspice on it for you and you would eat it right up. I sprinkled some on her apple, and she insisted I try it too. She said it could be used as an anti-oxidant, and with nursing, I might be exposed to disease. Like I could catch what she has. But she is a dear. And apples are better with the spice on it. I’m surprised my mama didn’t do that when we were kids. But we didn’t have an apple tree in Jamaica, just citrus. We didn’t eat many apples.”

  Billie no longer listened as she read Sandy’s note. Now that there was email, no one wrote letters anymore, but Sandy was old fashioned like Billie. Part of why they were such good friends. The note held pictures of her and her kids on the beach playing in the waves. She loved Sandy, and the kids made her heart ache for her own. The tragic car accident that took the lives of her son and husband left her untouched—at least physically. Late one Friday evening on the Crosstown Freeway, they met Joe Franks heading the wrong way. The accident, over in a second, would last a lifetime for Billie. The therapist told her that she would not get over her husband and son’s deaths but learn to live with them. For Billie, it would be a life-long learning process.

  The note said Sandy and the kids were coming for Spring Break and wanted to see Billie while on the island. Sandy wanted some time with her children before hurricane season hit and she got busy.

  “Billie?” Mom’s soft voice called from the bedroom where she spent most of her time these days.

  “Coming, Mom.” Billie put the card on the buffet with the rest of the mail and walked across the hall to her mother’s room. She had placed her mother in the room with the most available light. The doctors said depression was part of the problem with Parkinson’s patients, and light therapy helped. Billie knew a lot about depression.

  “What’s the weather like?” Giselle sat in the wheel chair looking out to sea, her legs mostly useless these days. Her pale blue robe and slippers accentuated clear blue eyes and silver hair pulled back in a neat bun at the back of her head. Tiny wisps of curls escaped the pins that held the rest and framed her face. Though aging, Giselle still had a beauty that belied her age. A southern belle, she had lived her life in the Corpus Christi and Sandhill Island area, and her mother had named her Giselle after the ballet.

  “Warm and a little windy. It blew over the stones I stacked. But they were small.” Billie smiled at the woman who raised her and then took her in again when tragedy struck.

  “Are the ones on the porch still standing?” Giselle used to watch Billie as she practiced her daily ritual of mediation, stacking the stones on top of each other. Some larger ones still sat on the porch, and Billie often rolled her mother’s chair out to see them and enjoy the sea air. For some reason, the older woman loved the stacked stones too. Billie thought of the simple act as meditation for both of them.

  “Yeah, they’re too big to blow over unless there is a storm. Speaking of storms, Sandy is coming. She sent a card that she is bringing the kids to the island during Spring Break and I can’t wait to see them.”

  “I’m sure
they have grown a foot.” Giselle folded the robe on her lap with gnarled fingers.

  “Oh, you know it. Full of vim and vigor I’m sure.”

  “And how will you handle that?” Giselle looked into her daughter’s eyes. Parkinson’s, a disease caused by a loss of dopamine producing cells in the brain, had not dulled her emotions. She still thought of others first.

  “I’ll smile and enjoy them.” Her mother still worried about her. The feeling was mutual these days. The difference was, Billie worried about Giselle’s physical health.

  “Good for you.” The older woman smiled with lips that drooped on one side as if she’d had a stroke. The doctors said the tests were inconclusive. Giselle said what did it matter under the circumstances. She was normally right.

  “I can’t wait to see them.” Billie walked to her mother’s side and placed her hand on her shoulder. “It will be painful in ways, I’ll admit that.” Tears filled her eyes. Billie often cried when she didn’t want or need to. It happened because of the depression. The therapist said she tried too hard to be strong, and now she paid the price. But she had to try for herself and her mother. She had to be strong. She hoped the tears would stop someday.

  Since the night she woke up trapped in the car with hardly a scratch, next to two bodies that had once been her husband and son, she suffered from PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—nothing to be trifled with—would take some time to get over. Her family could not come back. She had only her mother and her music to give her a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Survivor guilt was real.

  Chapter 2

  The Hurricane Hunters from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron out of Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi were on standby alert. Sandy had plans for the weekend, and now she had to cancel them. She knew the kids would understand, but they were tired of her always leaving just as the weather became warm. With spring break right around the corner, she wanted to take them home for a visit with their grandmother.

  At least she didn’t have to fly to the Hawaiian Islands this time. This time she could pack them off to Dad, who worked as many hours as she did, for a short period. She always downplayed the danger by saying “just another trip to the Atlantic” (or Pacific) depending upon where bad weather popped up this time. Her family didn’t need to worry.