Dying to Tell (11 page)

She took off her prom dress and put on jeans, desperate to talk to Amelia and make sure she was okay. She hadn’t been asked to the prom, and Sadie felt guilty about leaving her. But Amelia encouraged her to go, had said she was okay.

And she had seemed okay. She’d been taking her medication and had appeared stable for weeks.

Then Amelia’s shrill scream pierced the night.

Amelia was in the guesthouse, in the studio they built when she and Amelia were teenagers so Amelia could exorcise her demons on canvas. Therapy, the doctors had said.

Her artwork was characteristic of whatever personality had assumed her body for the day.

Sadie began to shake, the fog of that night weighing so heavily on her that she had to fight for breath. It was as if she were reliving it all over again.

She raced outside...saw a man stumble from the guesthouse. Not just a man...Jake’s father...he was hurt. Bleeding...

Then Amelia...no, not Amelia.

Skid.

Amelia was gone, and Skid was there. She could tell it was him because he was wearing that baseball cap. And he was limping.

Skid claimed he’d torn up his leg in an alley brawl.

He swung the rifle up and pointed it at Arthur Blackwood.

“No, put the gun down,” Blackwood pleaded.

Sadie screamed and ran toward Skid, then grabbed his arm and tried to stop him from shooting.

But he fired, and Blackwood hit the dirt on his knees. He was coughing, choking, in pain.

Blood spewed...sprayed the ground...

Sadie ran to him. She had to help him
.

But it was too late. Blackwood collapsed. Blood was everywhere. Coating him. Soaking his clothes. His face was pale. His eyes blank.

A cry caught in Sadie’s throat.

Blackwood was dead...no...he couldn’t be. Not Jake’s father.

Skid was wild, cursing, swinging at her. “Get the fuck off of me, Sadie. I had to stop him!”

“
Please go away, bring Amelia back,” Sadie cried.

“You stupid bitch, I’m protecting her!” Skid yelled.

Then he turned on her with an evil glint, and fear paralyzed her. He was going to hurt her, too.

Trembling, she turned and ran toward the house. She had to get Papaw. Wind beat at her, and the sky unleashed a torrent of rain as she opened the door.

Papaw was slumped in his recliner, snoring softly, his breath reeking of whiskey. She raced over and shook him to wake him up.

“Papaw, help...Amelia killed Jake’s daddy...I mean Skid did, he shot him.”

Papaw jerked awake, his eyes wide in shock, then he staggered up and threw the bottle aside. “Jesus God.”

The next few minutes blurred as they ran outside. Then she and Papaw were arguing. She wanted to call the sheriff. Papaw said no, they’d lock up Amelia forever.

Sadie was crying...she didn’t want to lose her sister. Didn’t want to lose Jake.

Jake...he would be devastated.

She grabbed Papaw’s arm. “We have to call anyway. Jake has to know...”

But Papaw slapped her.

Slapped her so hard she hit the dirt on her knees and tasted her own blood. Then he shook her, yelled at her, told her everything would be okay. She just had to do as he said.

The next thing she knew, the sound of rain splattering the truck reverberated around her. Papaw had turned into someone else that night, too. He claimed he had to protect his granddaughters. He couldn’t send Amelia to jail.

Sadie wiped at tears as she and Papaw and Skid loaded Blackwood’s body into the back of Papaw’s pickup truck.

Her stomach churned as the wheels rumbled over the graveled road by the river. Then the sound of the river gurgling...the mill spinning...Papaw’s shovel hitting rock as they dug the grave...

Sadie jerked herself from the past, but the images remained in her head like a horror show, playing over and over.

What had Skid meant? He was protecting Amelia from what? From Arthur Blackwood?

And why had Blackwood been at the house?

She’d asked her grandfather, but he insisted they never speak about that night again.

And they hadn’t.

But she’d never forgotten it.

She couldn’t erase the cold, blank look of Jake’s daddy’s eyes staring up at her from the grave.

And she couldn’t forgive herself for not calling the sheriff and being honest with Jake.

Jake took the shortcut to his house and made it there in five minutes. When he moved back to Slaughter Creek, he’d bought a fixer-upper not far from town and the local elementary school so he could pop home for lunch whenever possible.

And now Ayla had started kindergarten. His little girl was growing up.

He parked in front of the blue Victorian—Ayla had picked out the color—then stowed his gun inside his jacket and climbed from the sheriff’s car. Thunder rumbled, the gray clouds rolling across the sky hinting at a storm.

He strode up to the back door, jangling his keys as he walked. He wished to hell he could erase Sadie from his mind. But she’d looked so small and lost, all alone in that house, that he couldn’t.

Hell, he could smell the blood, the death, still lingering in the halls. How was she going to sleep there tonight?

Trying to smother the image, he forced himself to focus on what he needed to do as he let himself in the back door. He had to find out more about Foley and check on that autopsy of Grace Granger.

He didn’t like the fact that Grace had fallen in the stairwell with no witnesses to corroborate that her fall was accidental, or the fact that the man who’d found her in the stairwell had disappeared.

The scent of homemade vegetable soup wafted through the kitchen as he entered, then the sight of Ayla, all smiles and pigtails as she jumped up from the kitchen chair and ran toward him, welcomed him with the kind of heartwarming greeting that could make a grown man cry.

Dammit, he’d been a hard-ass like his father until Ayla had come along.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” she squealed. “You’re home.”

His heart swelled with love as he scooped her into his arms. “Hey, baby girl.”

She planted sloppy kisses all over his jaw, and he ate it up, squeezing her until she squirmed and wiggled and begged to get down. “Come see my grilled cheese. Gigi let me make a smiley face on it!”

Jake forgot about the murder and Sadie and Grace Granger as he lost himself in praising Ayla’s creation, a face she’d carved into the bread before Gigi grilled it.

He gave the older woman who’d practically adopted the two of them as her family a grateful smile. Gigi, short for grandma, had lost her own son in a car accident before he’d had the chance to marry and have kids.

After Jake’s mother’s death, Gigi had babysat him and Nick while his father worked and when he went out of town. Which, come to think of it, had been often.

His father was in the reserves, so periodically he was called away on missions.

For a while after he disappeared, Jake had figured that was where his father was. But when he’d asked questions of the military, he’d come up empty.

Fortunately, when Jake had returned to Slaughter Creek, Gigi had eagerly agreed to watch Ayla and cook for him. In exchange, he gave her room and board and paid her salary and insurance. But he had a feeling she would have cared for Ayla free, just to have someone to love.

Gigi dipped him a bowl of soup and gestured toward the cornbread, and he nodded. “Thanks, it’s been a long day.”

“I know this case is difficult,” she said, carefully avoiding the word
murder
. “And I heard that Sadie Nettleton is back.”

Ayla plopped into her chair and took a bite of her sandwich. “Who’s Sadie?”

Gigi gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. “Someone I used to know a long time ago, pumpkin.”

Ayla twirled a strand of her auburn hair around her finger, an endearing habit Jake had grown to love. “Is she pretty?”

Okay, his little girl definitely was growing up too fast. “Not that that matters, but yes, she is.”

“Is she coming over to play?” Ayla asked.

Jake fought a smile. Now she was back to being his kid again. “No, sweetie. Her grandfather passed away, and she’s here to bury him.”

Ayla’s face fell. “Oh.”

Gigi placed a bowl of fruit on the table, sidetracking Ayla’s probing as she dug into the strawberries.

But questions lingered in Gigi’s eyes. Jake avoided those as well. The sweet woman had tried her matchmaking skills on him with the daughter of a friend. She thought he needed a wife, a mother for Ayla.

But he had insisted he was fine on his own.

Sadie’s face flashed in his mind. Truthfully, he’d probably never gotten over her. Sadie had been the love of his life.

Back when he was foolish and young and believed in love.

Now she had her own life, and so did he. And the two would not mesh.

He wolfed down the bowl of soup and cornbread and, for the next two hours, lost himself in being a father.

The best part of his life. After Ayla’s bath and a bedtime story, he tucked her in and hugged her tight.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said with a gap-toothed smile.

He tweaked her nose. “I love you, too, sweet pea.”

She scrambled beneath her pink ruffled coverlet, squeezed her baby doll to her, and closed her eyes. For a moment, Jake couldn’t breathe as he watched her drift into innocent sleep.

For a little girl without a mother, she seemed surprisingly happy. Only occasionally did she question where her mother was, and why on Mommy & Me day at school, Gigi came instead.

Emotions clogged his throat, and he made himself leave the room. Gigi had retreated to her suite to read or watch TV, and he went to his office to check his computer for messages.

His cell phone buzzed before he could settle down, and he checked the number. A local one. The Grangers.

Sucking in a deep breath, he punched connect. “Sheriff Blackwood.”

“Sheriff, it’s Elma, Grace Granger’s mama.”

“Yes, Elma. I was going to call you tomorrow. I requested the autopsy, like you asked.”

A sniffle sounded over the line. “Thank you, Sheriff. I...saw Grace the day before, and she squeezed my hand, and opened her eyes and said there was something she had to tell me.”

“What was it?”

“She said they were hurting her in there.”

“I’m sorry, Elma, but Grace did have some mental problems.”

“I know that, but she also had some broken bones over the years. Once, it was her wrist. They said she twisted it too hard when they had to restrain her.”

“Go on.”

“Another time she broke her ankle. They said she tried to escape that time, too.”

Jake grimaced. It was hard to tell if those injuries had been incurred as they’d said, or if there had been abuse. “Did you report it?”

“I talked to Sheriff Bayler, but he just wrote it off like everyone else. Said that she made it up.”

“Did you question the staff? Did anyone see her being hurt?”

Elma made a choked sound. “No, but I still wondered, especially when she never got better in there.”

“Why was she hospitalized to begin with?”

“Gracie cried all the time. She talked about people dying and made up stories, and her tests at school came back low.”

“So she had emotional problems as well as learning difficulties?”

“It started when she was about three. I took her to that free clinic for her shots when she was a baby—thought it was a blessing, I did. But a few months after that, she started acting funny. Just stopped talking.”

Jake considered her comment. Great strides had been made in diagnosing childhood problems, especially autism. For God’s sake, once kids with hearing impairments had been dubbed mentally retarded.

Had Grace been autistic, or could she have suffered other problems that hadn’t been detected?

“By the time she was twelve, she was starting to have paranoid delusions,” Mrs. Granger said. “Dr. Coker, the doctor at the free clinic, said they could help Gracie at Slaughter Creek Sanitarium, so we took her there. But once she went in, she just shut down, and she never came out of her shell.”

Jake frowned. “She didn’t improve at all?”

“No, she got worse and worse.” Elma’s voice cracked. “So bad they even tried some of that treatment they called progressive for the time.”

“What kind of treatment?”

“Well, they never really said. Except there were rumors about shock treatments and drugs that no one wanted to talk about.”

Ayla’s sweet face taunted him. If it were Ayla, he’d do anything to keep her safe. To help her if she was sick.

Elma had trusted the doctors, but they hadn’t helped. In fact, she thought they’d made Grace worse.

And now Grace was dead.

It was up to him to find out the truth.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Just as it was up to him to unearth the reason Sadie’s sister had killed her grandfather.

He assured her he would let her know what he learned, then ended the call.