by Sharon Sala
Twenty
It was magic. One minute Bobby Lee Wakefield’s face was on the screen, and then, with a few keystrokes from Officer Avery, he’d become a she, right down to the long blond hair and come-hither eyes.
“China?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” Floyd whispered, and sat down with a thump.
“This could explain why Bobby Lee decided to take the credit for turning his own mother in. It certainly shifts the blame, doesn’t it?” Red said.
Floyd shook his head in disbelief. “But he’s a football star and a war hero and a Goddamned United States senator. This doesn’t make sense.” He looked at China again. “Are you sure about this? I mean… you picked out his mother before.”
“And no wonder,” Ben said. “Look at the resemblance. They could be twins. As for making any sense, killers never do. However, if I remember anything about Psych 101, killing men who are into perversion could be a symbolic way of trying to kill himself.”
“But Finelli wasn’t into that, was he?” China asked.
“No, honey. He may not have known about the other victims. But catching Bobby Lee in drag would have been the picture of the century. No telling how much money he would have made off that one single shot.”
“Instead, Finelli made the headlines,” Floyd said, and then wiped a shaky hand across his face as he stared at the image on the screen. “Go get the son of a bitch. I’ll have the warrant by the time you arrive.”
China stood.
“You wait here, little lady,” the captain said.
“Let her go,” Ben said. “She’s earned it.” Then he took his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Who are you calling?” Floyd asked.
“Just keeping a promise to someone I know.”
***
Connie Marx was coming out of the shower with a towel around her head when her phone began to ring. She crawled across her bed and grabbed it, letting the wet towel fall to the floor as she did.
“Hello.”
“Connie?”
“Yes?”
“This is Ben English.”
She froze. “Yes?”
“You know where Senator Wakefield lives?”
Now her heart was skipping beats. “Yes, of course. Is it Mona Wakefield? Are you going to arrest her?”
“No, not her.”
There was a moment of silence, and suddenly she knew.
“You’re kidding,” she muttered.
“We’re on our way there now,” Ben said.
“Oh, my God, this is great.”
She hung up in Ben’s ear and was scrambling for her clothes before she remembered she needed a cameraman to make this all work. She grabbed the phone again and dialed the station where she used to work, disguising her voice so no one would suspect.
“I need to speak to Arnie White, please.” Then she hit the speaker button and continued to dress.
“This is Arnie.”
“Arnie, this is Connie. You still hungry?”
He knew exactly what she meant. They’d shared one passion, and that was moving up to bigger and better things.
“Oh, yeah. What’s happening, doll-face?”
“This is big, Arnie. Real big. Get a camera and meet me at Senator Wakefield’s estate as fast as you can. We’re about to get the hottest piece of news in Texas history on tape.”
“I’m already gone,” he said, and hung up in her ear.
She smiled. Justice. She’d waited a long time for justice, and now it was about to come.
***
Bobby Lee was on the phone, checking in with his office in Washington, as he heard the sounds of a number of arriving vehicles.
“I think I’ve got company,” he said. “Just follow through on that EPA lobbyist and I’ll talk to you when I get in. Yes, tomorrow around noon. We’ll have lunch.”
Although he wasn’t expecting guests, after the bombshell he’d dropped yesterday, it was to be expected. And he wasn’t about to turn the media away. Not when he was riding the airwaves on a sympathetic high.
But it wasn’t the media who Delia admitted, and when he saw China Brown at the head of the group, his stomach started to roll. She knew. He didn’t know how, but she knew!
Ben took the senator by his hand and twisted it around behind his back. One handcuff went on with a snap.
“Bobby Lee Wakefield, you are under arrest for the murders of Charles Finelli and Baby Girl Brown. You are also under arrest for the murders of Tashi Yamamoto, LaShon Fontana and—”
When the other handcuff snapped around his wrist, Bobby Lee’s mind went blank. He could see the detective’s mouth still moving, but he could no longer hear the words. His world had narrowed to the woman who was pointing her finger, saying things he didn’t want to admit.
“You shot me,” China said. “I did nothing to you, and you still shot me as if I were a stray dog.”
“No,” he mumbled. “Not me. It wasn’t me. You’ve got it all wrong. It was my mother, remember? You identified her already, and you were right. She’s crazy white trash. Who knows why she did it, but she was always into sex. Every kind of sex with all kinds of men.”
“You lie!”
Everyone turned.
Mona Wakefield stood in the doorway like an avenging angel, her hair a mess and still wearing her son’s clothes. She tried to push her way past the officers, and they immediately stopped her.
“Let her pass,” Ben said, and then from the corner of his eye, he saw another car arriving out in front. It was Connie Marx. She hadn’t wasted any time. The way he figured it, she’d earned at least this much redress.
Mona’s legs were shaking almost as hard as her voice. Seeing all these officers in her own home and knowing why they’d come was almost more than she could bear. She couldn’t look at Bobby Lee. Not yet. Not until she’d said what she had to say.
She stopped in front of Ben and then handed him a fistful of receipts.
“I found these in my son’s clothes at our cabin at Lake Texoma,” she said. “I believe there’s a receipt, in his name, for a particular gun that the serial killer is known to have used—the very gun I found beneath the spare tire in my car. The car I so graciously loaned to my son whenever he wanted to be on his own. There’s also a closet full of dresses at the cabin, some that I dare say will bear traces of blood, and an armoire full of interesting, though cheap, blond wigs. Not at all my style.”
“Mother! What are you saying?” he gasped. “You can’t blame me. I’m your son.”
Mona flinched, and then she slowly turned to stare her son in the face. The death penalty. He would get the death penalty. Texas was not a forgiving state in matters of justice. Man or woman, young or old, if the courts sentenced you to die, then die you did. Her lips began to quiver as her eyes filled with tears.
“Not anymore. As far as I’m concerned, you are now the orphan you always wanted to be.”
“No,” Bobby Lee wailed. “I didn’t mean it. I never mean what I say, you know that. Tell them I’m sorry. Tell them and make it okay.”
She stared at him as if she’d never seen him before, and, truth be told, she wondered if that was true. In her mind, had she made him the son she’d always dreamed of, rather than the bastard he’d always been? It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. She turned away, and as she did, she saw a woman standing near the wall. Immediately, she knew who she must be.
“You… are you the woman he shot?”
China didn’t answer—couldn’t answer.
“You are, aren’t you?” Mona sighed, and the tears began to roll. “I don’t know what to say to you. Because of my family, you lost your child. I understand your pain, because I just lost mine, too. I’m sorry. So sorry.” Then her shoulders slumped, and for the first time, Mona Wakefield looked every one of her sixty-eight years. “Detectives, do your thing. I will be making a statement to the press in the morning. I assume the charges against me will have been dropped by that time.”
“Yes, ma’am, and thank you for coming forward,” Ben said.
“Had I known what I harbored, I would have done it sooner.”
The room became a turmoil of shuffling feet, along with the sounds of Bobby Lee Wakefield’s shrieks and promises to repent. China stood for a moment, pinned against the wall by the crowd of people and a woman with a camera.
“China?”
She turned. Ben was calling her name, a worried expression on his face.
“I’m okay,” she said, and pushed her way through the crowd and walked out of the house.
Lifting her face to the sunshine, she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath of air. A light, sweet scent filled her nostrils, telling her that somewhere nearby there were lilacs in bloom. The warmth on her face, the sound of a bird chirping in a nearby tree… the peacefulness of it all filled her heart.
She could walk a street when she wanted to.
Shop in a mall if she chose.
Walk in the sunshine and never have to fear she’d be shot in the back.
It was over.
Epilogue
Spring was moving on toward summer. Bluebonnets were in bloom and everything had turned a vivid shade of green—from the pastures on the English ranch to the trees along the highways. Everywhere the eye might see, the earth was alive and flourishing.
China sat on the back porch, watching Ben cut hay in the pasture beyond the house. Behind her, the house was quiet, the rooms echoing only with the sounds of her own footsteps now that Mattie and Dave had married and she’d moved up the road to be with him.
There had never been a question of China leaving. She belonged here now, just like she and Ben belonged together. There were days when she saw the hunger on his face, the times when she knew he held his tongue for fear of pushing her too fast. She loved him with a passion she hadn’t believed existed. But he wanted his ring on her finger. He wanted to call her more than China, more than the woman of his heart. He wanted to call her wife.
It was strange that she’d resisted. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere else or with any other man. Something in her was changing, though. She could feel it day by day. She glanced at the sun, judging the time against when she would need to prepare a meal. It would be hours yet before Ben would come in from the field.
Restless, she stood abruptly, dusted off the seat of her shorts and started toward the barn to see Cowboy. As she walked, she stopped at the gate as she always did, burying her nose in the burgeoning bank of the honeysuckle and inhaling the rich, sweet scent. As she did, a flutter of motion caught her eye, and she lifted her head to look.
There, hanging from what appeared to be a tiny gray thread, was a splitting cocoon, and emerging from the hanging sarcophagus was a small butterfly, its wings still wet and folded against its body.
It was a miracle, this witnessing of rebirth, and she held her breath as she watched the butterfly crawl to a nearby branch and hang, like a piece of silk in the wind, while it waited for its wings to dry. Little by little, the wings began to flutter, then open, revealing shades of vivid yellow framed by whorls of shining jet. It was like staring into the pattern of a stained-glass window and seeing light through all the pieces.
China held out her finger and, as if sensing the warmth of her skin, the butterfly crawled on and then stayed there, postponing its moment of flight.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she was a child again, hiding from Clyde beneath her mother’s front porch. She could see that small brown worm inching its way through the grass, could remember feeling as ugly and insignificant. She’d lived her life in that frame of mind, never seeing herself as a vibrant woman but through the eyes of a bitter man. He’d called her ugly and tried to drown her the way people drown animals they no longer want.
Even though she’d grown and flourished, there was a part of herself she’d kept hidden away. And it had hung in the back of her mind just like the cocoon was hanging on the bush, unaware that all the while, her thoughts were changing—changing.
As she watched, the butterfly suddenly lifted from the end of her finger, fluttering upward like a helicopter lifting off from a pad. Then, caught by a passing breeze, the bright yellow butterfly disappeared beyond the house.
She stood there in shock, looking around at all there was before her, and then slowly lifted her hands to her face. They began to tremble as she felt her features, sculpting them anew in her mind. Then, suddenly, she had to see for herself if what she felt was really true.
She bolted into the house, running through the rooms until she came to the mirror in her room. She stood, staring at the woman who looked back.
Her hair was thick and long and tied at the back of her neck with a piece of ribbon that was as blue as her eyes. Her face was flushed beneath a light tan, and there was a smile on her lips that came from within. She reached out toward the mirror and laid trembling hands on the glass, but the woman she saw wasn’t there. She moved her hands to her own face and felt the heat of her skin, and then closed her eyes in quiet joy.
Somewhere between the loss of a child and the arms of her man, she’d turned into something grand—a woman who was beautiful because she was loved.
She moved back, loath to tear herself away from the joy on that woman’s face, and then she smiled. The woman smiled back, as if to say, It’s okay. I’ll always be here.
China laughed and walked out the door, her stride lengthening with each step she took. By the time she cleared the yard and headed toward the pasture where Ben was cutting hay, she was running.
Ben saw her coming. Fear leaped within his heart when she began to run. And then he saw her face and realized she was laughing. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wanted to share her joy. He stopped the tractor in the middle of the field and crawled out of the cab in haste. As he started toward her, it seemed as if she were flying as she leaped one windrow of hay after another, bounding from place to place, like a butterfly darts from flower to flower.
He caught her, laughing, although he didn’t know why. And when she dug her hands through the sweat-dampened ends of his hair and told him that she loved him, he knew something had changed.
“What happened?” he asked.
But there was no way she could explain the way she felt inside. So she did the only thing she could. In so many words, she handed him her heart.
“Bennie, if I asked you something serious, would you tell me the truth?”
“Always.”
“Promise?”
He grinned. “I promise.”
“I’m beautiful to you, aren’t I?”
Breath caught in the back of his throat, and his eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, baby, more than words can say.”
She laughed, and then threw her hands up over her head as if she’d scored a major victory.
He didn’t know what was happening, but he was beginning to like it.
“Then don’t you think you should marry me quick before men start lining up at the door?”
His lips tilted upward as joy began to fill his heart.
“China Brown, are you proposing to me?”
She grinned. “Yes.”
He picked her up and then turned in a slow, silent circle, savoring the sound of her laughter and the soft, sexy curves against his chest.
“So, is this a yes?” China asked.
He started to smile.
“It’s yes!” she crowed. “The man says yes!”
“I don’t know what happened to you, but whatever it is, I am eternally glad.”
China kissed him soundly, savoring the truth in her heart.
“It was nothing,” she said. “I just saw a butterfly.”
Other Books by Sharon Sala
A Thousand Lies
A Field of Poppies
The Perfect Lie
Remember Me
Sweet Baby
The Chosen
Snowfall
Missing
Reunion
Bloodlines
Dark Water
Mimosa Grove
Out of the Dark
The Whippoorwill Trilogy
Whippoorwill
The Amen Trail
The Hen House
About the Author
Sharon Sala is a long-time member of the Romance Writers of America, as well as a member of Oklahoma RWA. In 2014, she published her one-hundredth novel. A fan favorite, Sala is an eight-time RITA finalist, winner of the Janet Dailey Award, four-time Career Achievement winner from RT Magazine, five-time winner of the National Reader’s Choice Award, and five-time winner of the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, as well as Bookseller’s Best Award. In 2011 she was named RWA’s recipient of the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Her novels have been on the top of major bestseller lists including the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly. Sala also writes under the name Dinah McCall.