by Sharon Sala
“No one’s yet, but if you find this son of a bitch, I’ll furnish the cement free,” Mack said.
And just like that, the joking was over.
“What’s up, boss?”
Mack began to explain in detail because, for Cain, the devil was always in the details.
Cain was silent as Mack spoke, interrupting only when he needed clarification on something.
Then Mack stopped talking.
“Is that it?” Cain asked.
“Yes, it’s everything we know.”
“I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Tell your lady I’ll be her shadow, so she can go about her life without concern. I’ll have her back.”
“Thank you, buddy,” Mack said.
“You’re more than welcome. I’m sincerely curious to meet the woman who finally took down Summerton’s most eligible bachelor.”
Mack ended the call, then dropped the phone in the pocket of his hoodie and leaned back in his chair. When he’d first come home, it had hurt to be in this house alone. Now Lissa was in the kitchen doing dishes, the faint odor of his dad’s cologne clung to the chair’s fabric, reminding him to stand fast against what threatened to break them, and all he could think was that for these few moments, all was right with their world.
* * *
Betsy stood on the porch watching her son drive away, and when he was out of sight she went back inside, then stopped at the security panel and set the alarm.
“Are you scared, Mom?” Trina asked.
Betsy glanced over her shoulder, wondering how long Trina had been standing there. It bothered her that there was fear on her daughter’s face.
“Oddly enough, now that I’ve admitted what’s been going on with me, not so much.”
Trina put her arms around her mother’s neck and hugged her close.
“Well, I’m scared for you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re the hub of our family. You mean everything to us.”
“Please don’t think like that, baby,” Betsy said. “You know me. I fully believe that when it’s my time to die, it will happen, no matter what. And I won’t mind leaving this earth. I really miss your daddy. It will be wonderful to see him again.”
Trina started sobbing, and Betsy knew it had as much to do with her breakup with Lee as it did the fear of losing her mom.
“Come sit down and tell me what’s wrong between you and Lee. I thought you two had something special.”
“Oh, Mom, so did I,” Trina said, and sat down on the sofa beside Betsy. “It all started over nothing, and before I knew it he was accusing me of cheating. I kept trying to explain, but he didn’t believe me. He ruined everything with his jealousy. Even if he tries to make up, I don’t know if I want him back.”
“What happened to make him think that?” Betsy asked.
Trina’s shoulders slumped.
“I’m only going to tell you because you’re the one person I trust to keep a confidence. One of the employees is stealing at work. My boss, Freddie Miller, has me checking inventory against the daily printouts, trying to find out how the inventory keeps disappearing. Elton, one of the guys at work, is always hitting on me, making jokes about stepping into Lee’s shoes and into my bed, and when Lee came in to take me to lunch, he overheard part of what Elton was saying and said something to him. Elton lost his fucking mind and began talking about how good I was in bed. I socked him on the jaw, which was most ladylike, and then walked out of the shop. Lee decided I was angry at Elton for spilling the beans about my cheating and went ballistic. It hurt my feelings that he would believe it. I said stuff to him I shouldn’t have said, and it just kept getting worse. I told my boss I was going home and, well...here I am, bawling my head off because men can be so damned stupid.”
Betsy put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her head down into her lap just as she’d done countless times when Trina was small.
Trina wrapped an arm around her mother’s knees and cried until she began to hiccup from the stress and strain.
Betsy hurt for her girl, just as she’d hurt for Trey, and just as she still grieved for Sam, her oldest. Of all her children, Sam was the most broken. He’d loved only one woman in his life and then walked away from her because of continuing episodes of PTSD. Betsy hadn’t seen him in three years and often thought she was unlikely to see him again before she died. Trey was finally happy. Trina’s heart was momentarily broken, but Sam was her failure. She didn’t know how to fix him because Sam had stopped communicating.
However, Trina was her immediate concern, and right now there was one thing that Jakes women always did when shit was about to hit the fan. She patted Trina on the back.
“Move a second, honey. I need to get up.”
Trina reached for a handful of tissues as she sat up, while Betsy went to the kitchen. A couple of minutes later she came back carrying a partial bottle of Jim Beam and two shot glasses.
She sat back down, poured whiskey to the brim of both glasses, handed one to Trina and picked up the other one.
“To stupid men and the women who love them,” Betsy said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Trina said, smiling through tears as the sound of clinking glasses marked the moment of female camaraderie.
* * *
Cain Embry arrived in Mystic and located the address he’d been given, verifying it by identifying Mack’s SUV in the drive. He scouted the neighborhood carefully, mapping the layout in his mind and taking note of unoccupied properties. Then he drove the area again, checking off what would be the most accessible escape routes for a perp.
Once it got dark, Cain noted that all the streetlights in front of the Jackson property were working, ditto the motion-sensor porch lights, and he put a tracking device under Mack’s back bumper. It would help him keep track of Melissa when she left the house. The backyard had a six-foot privacy fence, but there was an access gate to the alley, and the lighting there was poor. When he slipped through the gate no lights came on. He got all the way to the back door without calling attention to himself and frowned.
Cain had accessed the DMV database for a picture of Melissa Sherman, so he knew what she looked like, but from the quick glimpse he’d gotten of her a few minutes earlier when she’d taken out the garbage, the photo did not do her justice.
He picked the lock on the door of the garden shed and set up shop right by the single window for the night. If anyone came into the backyard he would see them, and if Melissa Sherman left the house, he would be on her tail.
* * *
The late news had come and gone. Mack was propped up in bed struggling with his conscience.
He could hear water running in the bathroom down the hall, well aware Lissa was in there, wet and naked.
And then his thoughts would ricochet to his dad’s body, or what was left of it, in some drawer at the morgue, cold and naked.
His emotions were so scattered. He felt such sorrow, and at the same time joy. Lissa was the constant—the anchor to the rest of his life. His dad would be happy about their reunion, which was why he didn’t feel guilty for thinking about making love to Lissa in the midst of what should be a grieving period. He could just hear his dad’s voice.
The dead have no need for grief. Life is for the living, so live it.
He swiped a shaky hand across his face as he heard the water stop. Fate had thrown them back together and kept him alive when he could have died. They had been given a second chance. Wasting it wasn’t an option. But how the hell he was going to make this happen without one or both of them getting hurt again was a whole other story.
Then Lissa walked into the bedroom wearing a bath towel and a smile.
Lissa had seen the want in his eyes all through supper, known he was tracking every step she took with a hungry-hound gaze that made her ache. It had come to her during the shower that there was a way to ease their mutual misery.
“I have an idea,” she said.
He groaned. “I had the same idea,
but without a solution.”
“If you can comfortably lie down on your back without moving, I have your answer,” she said.
He eased himself down until the pillow was beneath his head instead of his back.
Her eyes narrowed warningly. “You have to promise not to move.”
“Quiet as a mouse here,” he said, but his heart was pounding.
“Are there still condoms in that nightstand?” she asked.
“Lord, I hope so,” he said.
She sauntered over to the bed and opened the top drawer, then smiled.
“Bingo,” she said as she dropped the towel and turned out the light.
“Sweet mercy,” Mack whispered as she crawled up onto the bed beside him and pulled off his sweats.
He could see the outline of her body as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he watched her crawl toward him.
“Remember, don’t move,” she whispered, and then she proceeded to kiss him senseless.
Her breasts brushed across his chest as she moved back and then straddled his legs. He was already hard, so when she suddenly took him in her hands, and then leaned down and took him in her mouth, he got lost in the sensation of warm and wet. One minute rolled into the next, and then all of a sudden she rose up, unrolled the condom down onto his erection and, without missing a beat, eased down until he was inside her.
Warm and wet turned into tight and hot, and he thought the top of his head was going to explode. He tried to open his eyes, but the pleasure was so intense he got only a glimpse of her head thrown back in ecstasy as she rode him to the climax of his life.
He was already in pieces when she came, but when he heard her moan, he remembered that sound. Seconds later the tremors of her climax rolled around and then through him.
Even after she’d collapsed beside him in a silent, quivering heap, neither of them spoke. His heart was still hammering too hard for him to breathe and talk at the same time, and Lissa was so sated she couldn’t move.
“Am I still breathing?” she asked.
He felt the rise and fall of her breasts and groaned. With little coaxing, he could do that all over again.
“You’re not only breathing, you’re smokin’. That almost made up for the ten years without you.”
Lissa threaded her fingers through his hand and then rested it on her belly.
“We have a lot to make up for,” she said, and waited for the blood rush of her pulse to settle.
Finally she got up and went back to the bathroom, only to return with a warm wet washcloth. She climbed back on the bed, and proceeded to remove the condom and clean him up.
He watched the intensity on her face without knowing what to say, and then she left again. This time when she came back she was carrying a robe, which she tossed on a chair by the bed.
“I can sleep on the sofa if—”
“No. With me,” Mack said, as he scooted over to give her access.
She crawled in and rolled over to face him.
“Do you remember calling me every night after you went to bed?” she asked.
He smiled in the dark. “Yes, baby, I do.”
“Remember what you always said?”
He was glad for the shadows that hid sudden tears. “That I loved you more than all the stars in the sky, and one day I’d say that when you were lying by my side.”
“It’s taken us a long time to get here, hasn’t it?” she asked.
“We were together countless times in bed, but never to sleep, but as long as we draw breath, it’s never too late,” Mack said. He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Lissa laid her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. The last thing she thought as she was falling asleep was that she would never sleep afraid again.
* * *
The killer was standing at his bedroom window, nursing a nightcap and thinking of how close he was to finishing what should have been done years ago. From where he was standing, he could see the outline of the mountains surrounding Mystic against the backdrop of the night sky. High up on the eastern slope he caught a glimpse of an occasional light flickering through the trees, probably a security light from someone’s home.
He knew the general direction of Betsy Jakes’ place, but it was on the flatland at the base of the mountain, and there were too many miles and trees in between to see it.
She was the one remaining witness between him and the success of which he dreamed. Something had to be done about her, and soon, but getting to her would require a little finesse. She was bound to be wary now, and while no one had the faintest notion of his identity, it wasn’t as if they traveled in the same social circles. At the least, his appearance at her place would be viewed as strange.
He downed the last of his drink, and then took off his robe and crawled into bed. As he did, he could hear footsteps in the hall outside his room. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation, and quickly rolled over and turned out the light. He would figure out some way to make this work. He always did.
* * *
Reece waited until Louis was asleep before he slipped the keys out of his brother’s pants pocket and sneaked out of the house, for once leaving Bobo behind. Yes, Louis had told him Melissa Sherman was gone, but he wanted to see for himself. He’d gone online and found the address of Paul Jackson’s house with the intention of seeing for himself that she was really with Jackson’s son.
When he drove past her place and saw the house in darkness and the car missing from the driveway, it made him mad all over again. He thought about a little more vandalism just to make a point and then opted against it. Too risky now that he’d upped his game.
It took him a little longer to find the Jackson residence in the dark, and even though the lights were off inside, the front porch light was on and there were motion-detector lights beyond that. He knew because he saw them come on as a cat ran across the yard.
He frowned as he drove past. This house would be more difficult to get into, and she would no longer be alone. It was only luck that he’d gotten away from that guy the first time, and he wasn’t willing to try it again. His best bet would probably be catching her out of the house, but that would entail using the truck in the daytime. Louis would have himself a small fit, but he would get over it.
He certainly wasn’t going to let it go. The relationship between him and Melissa Sherman had gone from sexual thrill to payback. She’d made him look bad, gotten away and holed up with another man. He intended to watch her beg and then kill her. Women like her didn’t count.
A couple of hours later he was home with a take-out burger and fries from an all-night truck stop a few miles out of town. He let Bobo out and then got a plate and a bottle of ketchup, and sat down with his food. The steel-trap memory for facts and figures that kept him on the high side of investment profits was spinning. He was curious to see how his latest investment was faring and ate quickly.
Bobo began scratching at the door to come in. Reece grabbed a fry as he got up and then tossed it to the dog as he trotted inside.
“All for you, little guy,” Reece said, and then laughed when Bobo caught it in midair.
He cleaned off the table, tossed the trash and headed for the computer with the dog at his heels. It was almost 4:00 a.m. He could get in at least two or three hours of good work before Louis woke up, maybe more, since today was Sunday.
* * *
“Run, Lissa. Storm’s coming. Get in the cellar. Run, baby, run!”
Lissa’s feet were flying, barely skimming the ground as she ran, her gaze fixed on her granny, who was standing at the top step of the storm cellar.
Mack was running beside her, shortening his stride so he wouldn’t pull ahead.
The wind was blowing so hard. There was so much debris in the air she could hardly see, but she could hear the terror in her granny’s high-pitched voice.
All of a sudden her feet left the ground and she thought it was over, that she was going to die, only to realize Mack had picked her
up, trying to save their lives.
He swung her around and into his arms as he lengthened his stride, holding her fast against his chest. Lissa wrapped her legs around his waist for balance and held on for dear life. Moments later they were in the cellar, the door locked fast, and her granny was hugging them both and crying as the tornado’s roar was upon them.
“You saved her, son! You saved the both of you!”
“I had to, Ms. Daisy. I can’t live without her.”
* * *
Lissa sat up in bed, her heart pounding, tears running down her face as she looked at the man asleep beside her.
She hadn’t thought of that day in years. A picnic at her granny’s pond had almost ended in tragedy. It had been her sixteenth birthday, and if it hadn’t been for Mack she wouldn’t have lived to see her next.
Still rattled by the memory, she slipped quietly out of bed, putting on her robe as she walked down the hall and into the kitchen, then parted the curtains and looked out in the backyard, wondering where the security guard was hidden. Because of the overcast sky there was no visibility between her and heaven, but she knew in her heart her loved ones were there.
“Can you see us, Granny? He did it again. He saved me. Tell Mama and Daddy it’s going to be okay. We’re figuring it out.”
All of a sudden she felt hands around her waist and for a heartbeat relived that same feeling of weightlessness when she thought the storm had taken her. Then she turned around. “You’re awake,” she said.
She laid her cheek against the middle of his bare chest as his hands slid beneath her robe.
“I woke up and you were gone,” he said.
“I had a dream...no, a nightmare. Remember the picnic at Granny’s pond and the tornado?”
She felt him shudder. “Hell yes, I remember,” Mack said. “I thought we were both dead.”
Lissa leaned back enough to see his face. “You saved my life that day.”
He shrugged. “I had no choice. I had promised your daddy I’d bring you home for supper, and my daddy taught me to never go back on my word.”