“So how did Edith die?” Rex asked.
“I don’t know. Look, Rex, I’m not feeling very well right now. This whole thing has probably brought on a tension headache.”
“Why don’t Tyler and I come to check on you?”
“No, I just need to get this stuff off my face, take a painkiller and lie down for a few minutes.”
“Jill, why are you suddenly feeling so bad?”
“I told you,” she snapped as nausea washed over her. “Tension headache.”
“But don’t you think—”
“Later, Rex.” She disconnected.
Rex stood on the front porch and folded his cell phone, frustrated with Jill and with himself. She was being obstinate—a very familiar trait. And he was being dense. They were overlooking something here.
How had Edith died? Her symptoms had all pointed to heart…or most of them. But there was something—
“Dad?”
He turned to see Tyler stepping through the door.
“Something wrong?” Tyler asked.
Rex shook his head. But Edith…something about her had seemed different that Saturday, after the failed code that had played out in Noelle’s spa. He even remembered thinking that she didn’t appear dead. A dead body lost color. For some reason…
Tyler crossed the porch, watching him closely. “Something’s up. Something big, I can tell. What is it, Dad? What’s wrong?”
Jill had a headache, and she was feeling worse. She had that cream on her face. He couldn’t take the chance that he was jumping to too many conclusions.
“Jill may be in trouble,” he told Tyler. “Do you remember I pointed out the sheriff to you in the dining room a few minutes ago?”
“Sure. He’s got his uniform on and everything. Hard to miss something like that.”
“I need you to go get him, and tell him to meet me at Jill’s place.”
Tyler’s eyes widened with excitement. “I’m on it, Dad,” he said as he pivoted and charged back inside.
Jill stumbled into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then opened the medicine cabinet. As much as she’d initially loved the scent of this cream, it nauseated her now.
As she wiped at it, she reached into the cabinet for some aspirin. She took two tablets, and gagged as she tried to swallow.
By the time she returned to her recliner, she was short of breath. Her chest felt tight.
Something was very wrong.
She reached for the phone on the table beside the chair, accidentally knocking it to the floor. When she scrambled to get it, dizziness and darkness pressed in on her. She fought it back.
Couldn’t breathe well…couldn’t see…what was happening here?
By the time she had the phone in her hands, she couldn’t distinguish the numbers on the button pad, couldn’t even think who she wanted to call.
“God, help me.” Her voice sounded feeble to her own ears.
The phone slid from her hands and thumped onto the floor.
The room closed in on her. Finally, the darkness won.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rex punched Cheyenne’s private number at the clinic on his cell phone as he jumped from the porch and ran to his car, jerking the keys from the pocket of his slacks. The car would save only a few seconds, but every second might count.
Cheyenne answered almost immediately. “Rex? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have time to explain, so listen. We have a cyanide antidote kit at the clinic, don’t we?”
“Yes. We keep it because there’s a fumigation company in town that uses cyanide, so we—”
“Get it and get to Jill’s house now.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think someone’s trying to kill her the same way they killed Edith, possibly poisoning her through the skin. Come prepared. Have Blaze call an airlift.” He disconnected and punched Jill’s number.
Cyanide was a classic poison that affected the skin color after death. It had the telltale aroma of bitter almonds, but if it was mixed in a lotion or cream that was already scented with honey and almond, the aroma wouldn’t be noticeable.
Jill didn’t answer her phone.
“Lord, please let me be wrong,” he muttered as he tossed the phone on the seat beside him and gunned the motor up the street to Jill’s house. “And if I’m right, please don’t let me be too late.”
Jill knew how to battle the darkness. She’d done it since she was a child, and she could do it now.
She remembered Edith expounding on suffering, how it was a blessing in disguise. Suffering made one stronger. Suffering could bring about growth if one allowed it to draw one into God’s healing light.
Jesus, be my healing light. Jesus, take me out of this darkness. Jesus…help me…
Rex slammed his tire tool through the window of the front door of Jill’s house, setting off every alarm. He unlocked the door, burst inside and found Jill on the floor, her body still writhing in the final throes of a grand mal seizure.
Then she went still. Too still. She gasped once, twice, then her whole body went limp. She stopped breathing.
Rex dropped to her side and felt for a carotid pulse. There was none.
“No. Jill, no! Stay with me!”
As he tipped her head back for rescue breathing, Cheyenne and Blaze came running into the room with the antidote kit.
Dear Lord, don’t let it be too late.
Fawn scraped a serving spoon against an empty casserole dish. She was finally catching up with the kitchen crew as they supplied the buffet table with fresh dishes.
What she really wanted to do was find out why there’d been such a sudden exit of people about forty-five minutes ago—first Rex, then the sheriff, Tyler, Tom.
Not that it was any of her business, of course. A helicopter had landed maybe fifteen minutes after Rex left.
That was nothing unusual. Cheyenne and Karah Lee called for airlift at least a couple of times a week for emergencies. Here in the boonies, a helicopter could arrive in a third of the time that a ground ambulance could. Of course, half the dining room had emptied to watch the show.
Fawn kept working, curious, but sure the crowd would come back in with news.
The crowd didn’t come back, and as time went on, more diners left, until only a few remained, making quiet conversation amid the clatter of plates and glasses being collected by the kitchen crew.
It wasn’t until the sheriff and his deputy returned—this time with their hats on, looking grim—that Fawn realized something more than a simple airlift was taking place.
The two officers walked straight up to the Marshalls, who sat finishing their dessert in seclusion in the far end of the dining room. Sheena had come into the dining room about thirty minutes earlier, and had joined her parents at their table.
Over the noise of cleanup and the chatter of the kitchen workers, Fawn couldn’t hear what was being said, and so she did the unforgivable. Blaze would kill her. But Blaze wasn’t here. Neither was Karah Lee.
Fawn picked up a basket of corn muffins and carried them through the dining room, going to the few occupied tables with the offering, then edging closer to the Marshalls. If Bertie caught her…
Mary’s voice suddenly rose in a crescendo, eyes wide with shock. “That’s ridiculous! Have you lost your minds?”
Jed’s voice joined his wife’s in outrage. “This is crazy,” he growled. “Murder? Edith Potts died of a heart attack. Everyone knows that. And Cecil got clumsy and fell.”
“We’ve had another attempted murder tonight,” Greg said. “Mary, if you’ll come outside with us, we can talk about—”
“No!” Sheena shoved her chair back and stood, stepping between her mother and the sheriff. “How can you even think my mother—”
“Sheena, stay out of this,” Mary snapped.
“Now, everyone just settle down,” Jed ordered. “There’s been a mistake, that’s obvious. I don’t know what’s going on here—”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Greg said.
“Well, coming in here and trying to terrorize my wife and daughter isn’t a good way to—”
“I’m not trying to terrorize anyone, I’m simply doing my—”
“Stop it,” Mary said. “Just stop it, both of you.”
The cleanup crew and the remaining diners had fallen silent. Fawn had no trouble hearing now.
“They can’t do this, Mom,” Sheena said. “You’ve been through enough.”
Mary’s blue eyes filled with confusion as she looked up at her daughter. “What are you talking about?”
Sheena held an entreating hand out to her mother. “After what that kid did to you, he deserved…” She looked at Greg and Tom. “He deserved what he got.”
Mary stared at Sheena for a few tense seconds, and Fawn saw some spark of alarm in the woman’s eyes. “Sheena,” she said softly, “we’ll talk about this later.”
Mother and daughter locked gazes.
Jed looked at his wife, puzzled. “Mary? What’s she talking about?”
“Don’t listen to her, Jed. She doesn’t know—”
“What kid is she talking about?” His voice had gone soft.
Mary held his gaze. She held her hands out to him. “It was an accident. We always knew it was an accident.”
Husband and wife faced one another.
Fawn didn’t understand everything that was happening. In fact, she understood very little. But even she was observant enough to know when she saw a family dynamic shifting, falling into darkness, shattering apart like cracked eggshells.
“Mary Marshall,” Greg said with a sigh, “you’re under arrest for the murders of Edith Potts and Cecil Martin, and for the attempted murder of Jill Cooper. Murder if things don’t go well for her tonight.”
Fawn grabbed the tabletop beside her as the floor seemed to shift beneath her. Jill? No!
“Jill Cooper!” Mary exclaimed. “What happened to Jill?”
“She tested positive for cyanide poisoning just a few moments ago, just as Edith Potts’s blood did once they knew what to test for,” Tom said, earning himself a look of reproof from his superior. Tom never could keep his mouth shut. “Sounds like you might’ve had motive,” he said to Mary, sounding almost apologetic. “And you’re the one who mixes the herbs and stuff at the spa for those face creams. Noelle already told us that. The cyanide was in the face cream at Jill’s house.”
“No!” Sheena cried. “My mother didn’t have anything to do with Edith’s death, or with Cecil’s. If you want to talk to me—”
Mary caught her breath, eyes widening with apprehension. “Young lady, shut your mouth and sit back down. None of this is your concern. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“But Mom, I do.” Sheena’s voice trembled. She leaned toward her mother. “I heard Edith Potts talking to Cecil. Don’t you understand? I heard about the…the…what that guy did to you in school. I know why—” She shot a glance at Greg, and pressed her lips shut.
Mary leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes, as if to show how silly she thought they were all being. But Fawn could see Mary’s hands shaking, the tips of her fingers white where she gripped the edge of the table. “You’re all being ridiculous. Of course I didn’t kill Edith or Cecil, and I certainly never even knew about Jill.”
“Mary,” Jed said. “What’s going on here?”
Mary reached for her husband’s hand. “It’ll be okay. They can’t convict me for something I didn’t do. You’ll see.” She rose to her feet at last. Pressing past Sheena, Mary nodded to Greg and Tom, and the two officers escorted the woman from the dining room.
Ashen-faced, Jed started to follow, but Sheena caught his arm. “Dad?” Her eyes filled with tears. “Daddy.”
He turned back to her, frowning.
“I heard Edith and Cecil talking about a button Edith found in the chemistry supply closet.” Her voice trembled, and the trembling seemed to spread throughout her body. “I heard them. It was a button Mom made.”
“The chemistry…” Jed’s eyes closed, as if in great pain.
“Dad, that kid raped Mom,” she whispered. “He deserved what he got, but they were talking about opening up that old case, which might even have sent Mom to prison.”
“So what are you saying?” His voice, always so gentle with his daughter, suddenly grew hard. “That your mother might have had something to do with Edith—”
“No, Dad.” She swallowed hard. “She didn’t.”
He didn’t reply. He simply waited, and his already ashen face turned nearly as white as the serving dish Fawn held.
Tears spilled down Sheena’s cheeks. “I couldn’t let it happen,” she whispered. “I couldn’t let Edith expose her.”
Jed took an unsteady step backward, as if to avoid what his daughter was saying.
“And Jill was asking too many questions. She knew. I couldn’t let her hurt Mom, either. I got the key to her house from Noelle’s key chain, and looked for anything she might have to incriminate Mom. I didn’t find anything. She must have known someone was looking for it.”
Jed’s face seemed to crumple. “So you…you stopped her, too?”
“I had to. Can’t you see? Edith had lived a long life, and she was ready to go, you know? So was Cecil. Mom…Mom didn’t deserve to go through all that. I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t want to do it.”
Suddenly, Fawn realized she was looking at someone quite different from her friend, Sheena Marshall. This young woman was willing to…what…kill? To protect her mother?
“I dated Bill Coggins, remember?” Sheena continued. “I told you about it. He worked for that bug extermination company. They use cyanide for—”
“Sheena, stop.” Jed suddenly looked at Fawn.
She recoiled from the horror in his expression. She backed away from father and daughter, knowing she would never eavesdrop again.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Sheena said. “When Mom left that day, I mixed that cyanide in one of the jars of facial cream and put it on Edith’s face. It was so awful. I nearly lost it when she died, and I had to help revive her, when I knew she wasn’t going to—”
Jed groaned and stumbled backward into a chair. He crossed his arms on the table, then rested his face against his arms. Great, heaving sobs shook him, his anguish filled the dining room.
Sheena turned a helpless gaze to Fawn, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve got to talk to Greg.”
The darkness had never been so thick. So close. It invaded her lungs, her whole body. Her mind. Her spirit. She tasted it, bitter and cold against her tongue and throat. Cruel against her eyelids.
There was even a sound to this darkness, like the echo of a slow heartbeat.
Always before, she had fought against this darkness herself, even though she told others she was depending on God to get her through.
This time, she had no choice. She had no power. The fight was gone. In her heart, she prayed for the Light.
“Jill.”
At first, that sound barely rose above the heavy rhythm of the darkness.
“Jill, can you hear me? I’m right here with you. I’m not leaving.”
The heaviness lifted only slightly as she felt a different kind of pressure on her hand. She tried to move her fingers. The pressure changed, intensified.
“Jill, it’s me. It’s Rex.”
Again, she tried to move her fingers, but she couldn’t tell…it was still so dark.
Fawn wiped the final table, hours after the law had left with not only Mary, but Sheena. Jed had sat at this table for so long, head down, shoulders shaking, that Austin Barlow, of all people, had finally sat down beside him, put a hand on his arm and talked.
That, too, was hours ago. Finally, Jed had left, his face red from crying. Austin had gone with him.
“Girl, get off your feet right now, and that’s an order!”
Fawn jerked around to find Blaze standing behin
d her, arms crossed, looking stern.
“I can’t. I’ve got to keep working.” If she sat down and started thinking again, she would cry, and she refused to cry.
“Bertie says you’ve not taken a break for hours. You keep that up and you’ll have fallen arches and a stooped back before you’re thirty.”
“I’m not going to make it a habit.”
Blaze took her by the arm, took the rag from her hands, and gently pushed her toward a chair. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
Fawn obeyed as Blaze set two cups of hot chocolate on the table she had just cleaned and took a seat himself.
“Have you heard anything about Jill?” she asked.
“Sounds like she came through it. Not sure how much damage it might’ve done, but Rex is there with her. So’s the whole Cooper clan and half the town, jamming up the waiting room, from what Cheyenne told me last she called.”
“Sheena tried to kill…” Fawn choked on the words.
Blaze shook his head. It wasn’t a denial, it was his typical I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening head shake.
“How could she do that?” she whispered.
“Guess you know we’ll have to say some prayers for that family.”
“The Coopers, right?” she said.
“Mary and Sheena.”
“But to murder—”
“All the more reason to pray for them. Mary and Sheena are blinded. Unless they see the light, they’ll be facing a whole lot more than a prison cell here on earth.”
“I don’t think I can pray for someone who killed my friends.”
“Gonna have to learn, then. Got to forgive them, simply because you’ve been forgiven for all the things you’ve ever done.” He leaned toward her. “And we both know what a heap of trouble you were.”
“I never killed anybody.”
“Did you ever hate anybody?”
Fawn stared into her hot chocolate.
“Hating’s just like killing someone in your heart,” Blaze said. “Let me tell you something. Edith and Cecil are already dancing through their heavenly mansions, laughing and singing and happier than they ever were here on earth. You think they hold a grudge against Sheena?”
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