Cold Hearts (9 page)

“Jolie, we’re not trading snacks today,” Lissa said.

“But I don’t like nanners,” Jolie shrieked.

“Then, you don’t have to eat it. When you finish your raisins, you may go sit in the reading circle.”

“Then, I won’t have two snacks!” Jolie yelled, ready to cry again because her world was momentarily out of orbit.

“Use your inside voice, please,” Lissa said calmly as she continued passing out snacks.

Jolie scooted her chair back and forth just enough to make the wooden legs squeak against the tile flooring, but to Lissa’s relief, she stopped without further orders.

Lissa understood Jolie’s need to be pissed. She knew all too well how it felt to be rejected, but this was unacceptable behavior in her classroom.

When snack was over, they cleared their tables and hurried over to the reading circle.

Lissa eyed Jolie, who was now orchestrating who she wanted to sit with, and then glanced over at Roger Lee. He didn’t appear to care where he sat as long as it wasn’t by Jolie Wade.

This was the first time in her teaching career that she’d had a child as boy crazy as the little blonde. It wasn’t until after school when she was relating the drama to some of her fellow teachers that she found out why.

“Oh, I can tell you exactly why Jolie is boy crazy,” Margaret Lewis said. “She has two teenage sisters. It’s probably all she hears.”

Lissa chuckled. “Ah...that explains everything.”

Margaret began gathering up her things. “Need a ride home this evening?”

“No, I rented a car, but thanks for the offer,” Lissa said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She left the teachers’ lounge, headed for the exit and waved at Louis, who was emptying trash cans.

“Have a nice evening, Louis.”

“Yes, ma’am, you, too,” he said absently, as he rolled the trash bin toward the next room.

The sun was out, but it didn’t feel all that warm. The north wind was fairly stiff and had a chill to it, a reminder that winter would be here all too soon.

Lissa hurried to the car and got in, grateful to be out of that wind, then noticed the grocery list she’d left in the console this morning so she wouldn’t forget to go by the supermarket after school. As badly as she wanted to get home, this had to be done first.

She drove to the supermarket and parked, then grabbed the list as she exited the car. Her mind was already on the job ahead when she heard someone calling her name and turned around.

Well, great. Jessica. My nemesis in high school wants to continue her reign.

“Lissa! Oh, my dear!” Jessica York cried as she threw her arms around Lissa’s neck. “I heard about what happened at the garage. How awful! Was it really your car that killed Mr. Jackson?”

Lissa blinked, felt the blood rushing to her head as she unwound herself from Jessica’s grasp and headed back to her car.

Jessica kept calling out behind her, “What’s wrong? Where are you going? Was it something I said?”

Lissa laid the grocery list in the cup holder and started the car. She wouldn’t look at the bitch for fear the woman would be smiling. If she was, then she would have to get back out of the car and whip her ass, and that might get her fired. A teacher’s morals and behavior had to be above reproach.

So she wouldn’t have cream in her coffee and she wouldn’t eat cereal tomorrow morning, she thought as she drove to the exit. It wasn’t the end of the world.

The light turned green.

She drove through the intersection, suddenly anxious to get home. And then she thought of the stalker and her heart skipped a beat. Would he be back again, now that she’d called the police? The peace she’d found during the day with her students was coming undone.

Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? Dear God, what did I do wrong?

By the time she pulled into the driveway and parked, she was once again in tears. She was getting her things out of the passenger seat when she heard the sound of a car slowing down. She turned around just as Mack pulled into her driveway and parked behind her. She knew there were tears on her face, but her hands were full, and right now she didn’t much care what he thought.

* * *

Mack had been dreading this moment for a lot of reasons, but none of them had involved seeing those tears—at least not at first. The frightening thing was the urge he felt to hurt whoever had made her cry.

“I see I’ve come at a bad time. I should have called.”

Lissa rolled her eyes and headed for the door. He could follow or he could leave. Either way, she didn’t much care.

Her silence took Mack aback, and then he hurried forward and followed her up the steps. When she began fumbling with the key he took it from her trembling fingers and let her in, then stood aside.

Lissa walked past him, dumped the stuff she was carrying on the sofa and then turned around.

“What do you want, Mack?”

“I need to talk to you.”

That seemed like the last thing she wanted to endure.

“I don’t much want to talk to
you
,” she said. Then she shrugged. “I’m sure you understand.”

He wasn’t going to pretend that didn’t hurt, but she needed to know about the lift, so he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him.

Lissa rolled her eyes. “Oh, well! Do come in.”

Mack felt raw enough without getting into a fight and began to explain.

“This won’t take long, but you need to know that my dad’s death wasn’t an accident. There was nothing wrong with the lift. Someone killed him. Trey thinks it’s connected to Dick Phillips’ murder, too. I wanted you to know so you would stop blaming yourself.”

It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and the relief that washed through her was immediately negated by the lost expression on his face.

“Oh, Mack! I... Uh, you...” She sighed and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I was rude, and while I
am
grateful for this news, it doesn’t change your loss. Forgive me.”

He shrugged. “As I said, you had nothing to do with it. You needed to know.”

“Thank you so much. As you can imagine, it’s a huge relief.”

He eyed the shadows beneath her eyes. He knew why she hadn’t been sleeping—because of her stalker—but he couldn’t let go of the tears on her face. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.”

He got the message. Just because she agreed to listen didn’t mean she would answer.

“Why were you crying?”

She sighed. “It was stupid.” Her face was a mirror of what she was feeling as she threw up her hands and started talking.

“Jessica York. She’s the one person from our class who never grew out of being a bitch, and I obviously haven’t grown up enough to ignore her.”

Mack frowned. “Jessica York?”

“Oh, you know...Jessica Shayne. She married some guy from Savannah and lived there for years. She divorced and moved back to Mystic a month before Mom died. I saw her at the funeral.”

The skin crawled on the back of his neck, remembering Jessica was the one who’d inadvertently told him about the abortion. He couldn’t think of one thing to say that would be proper. Lissa was still talking, and it took all he had to focus on what she was saying.

“I shouldn’t let her get to me, but after all these years she still gets her kicks spreading gossip, most of which isn’t true. She even started that rumor years ago that I’d had an abortion, when her mother knew good and well about the miscarriage because it happened in the doctor’s office while she was there.”

There was a roaring in Mack’s ears, and for a couple of seconds he thought he was going to pass out. He could still see Lissa’s lips moving but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He was sick to his stomach, and his heart felt like it might burst.

What had he done?

What the hell had he done?

He staggered toward an easy chair and sat down hard.

Lissa knew by the look on his face that something was wrong and immediately attributed it to finding out his father had been murdered. She was ashamed of herself for not taking his feelings into consideration and moved toward him, intent on nothing more than offering a comforting word, but he clasped her hand, and before she could react he pulled her into his lap and hid his face in the curve of her neck.

At first she was too startled to move. Then she was on the verge of getting angry when she realized he was crying.

“Mack?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and held her tighter.

Now her heart was breaking for his sadness. She couldn’t imagine the horror of knowing someone you loved had been murdered.

“You don’t have to apologize for crying about your father being murdered. Anyone would be devastated.”

He took a deep breath and then lifted his head. He’d wronged her. She deserved the apology face-to-face.

“That’s not what’s wrong,” he said.

“Then, what?”

“I didn’t know about the miscarriage.”

An old ache tugged at her heart. “Yes, you did, remember? You came to the house and asked me if I was still pregnant, and I told you no. You freaked out. Yelled at me and stormed out. I never saw you again.”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Because I thought you’d had an abortion.”

“No!” she screamed. She tore free from his arms and jumped up, so shocked she was shaking. “Who told you that? Why would you believe it?”

Mack stood. “I overheard Jessica and another girl laughing about it. I didn’t want to believe it. I kept telling myself you couldn’t do that. I drove all the way to your house, so numb I couldn’t think.”

Lissa moaned, and when he reached for her again, she moved back.

He felt sick. The look of disbelief on her face was as painful for him now as the day he’d thought she was admitting she’d killed their child.

“I asked you if you were still pregnant. You said no so quickly, I thought—”

“But Mom and Dad called you the night it was happening. You knew! You already knew!”

He stood there for a moment, absorbing the words that had just come out her mouth and trying to find a way to answer without damning people she loved, but there was no way to make that happen.

“No, Lissa, I didn’t get any phone call about you. Not from them or anyone else.”

Lissa was screaming inside, but her voice was devoid of emotion.

“It was my first prenatal appointment. It rained all the way to Summerton. It was raining so hard that I took a really bad fall in the doctor’s parking lot. I started bleeding in his office. They carried me out on a stretcher and took me to the hospital. That’s how Mom and Dad found out. That’s how Mrs. Shayne even knew I’d been pregnant, and then her bitch of a daughter spread the word and twisted the knife with the lie.”

“Why didn’t
you
call me?” he asked.

The question angered her. “I was in labor, delivering what would have been our baby. Mom and Dad were furious that I was pregnant, even though they knew I was losing the baby. I was crying for you. I asked them to call you. I thought they did. I stayed overnight in the hospital wondering why you didn’t come. It never occurred to me they didn’t tell you. They brought me home the next day, and then you showed up a couple of hours later and put an end to what was left of us.”

The emotional knife drove deep into his heart. Could he die from this much pain? He wanted to hold her, but she’d made it plain she didn’t want him to touch her.

“I’m sorry. I was a stupid kid, and I’m so sorry,” he said.

Lissa lifted her chin. “We stopped being kids when we made a baby.”

He took the criticism with his head up and tears on his face. “You’re right. I can’t imagine how abandoned you must have felt, and I will be sorry until the day I die that I wasn’t there for you. I’m even sorrier about how I behaved. You didn’t deserve that, but you were my world, and in an instant I believed I’d lost the girl I thought you were and the chance to be a father. I went crazy. That’s my only excuse. Forgive me, Lissa. Forgive me for hurting you that way.”

He walked out of the house, and she didn’t try to stop him, but her head was spinning.

Her parents had lied—to both of them.

Eight

T
he killer found out that Jackson’s death had been ruled a homicide while he was having lunch at Charlie’s Burgers. He was smiling at the waitress who was topping off his glass of sweet tea when he keyed in on the conversation in the booth behind him.

“...said it was murder. No, they don’t have any leads. Who would want to kill him? Paul Jackson was an upright guy.”

The waitress glanced down at him and smiled. “Do you want dessert? Our pies are great. We have lemon, chocolate, coconut cream and peach.”

He patted his stomach as he leaned back. “I think I’ll pass today, but thanks.”

She left the tab on the table and moved on as he pulled a handful of bills from his wallet, making sure to leave her a big tip. He had no qualms about the outcome of his handiwork. He’d known they would figure it out once they discovered the lift hadn’t failed, and he left with a confident stride. He had no reason to assume he would ever be found out.

* * *

Betsy Jakes was sitting across the table from Trey, watching him finish off a piece of pie. When he reached for his coffee cup, she jumped up and refilled it before he could ask. She was anxious. She might even say nervous. He had yet to mention one thing about why he’d showed up in the middle of a workday and stayed to eat lunch with her. She was always happy to see him, but something felt off. She gave his shoulder a quick pat as she topped off his coffee.

He looked up, the smile gone from his face. “We need to talk,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat. Her instincts had been right. Something was wrong.

“Well, sure, honey. You can always talk to me about anything. Is everything all right with you and Dallas?”

“We’re fine, Mom. I need to tell you something, and then I need you to hear me out afterward, okay?”

“Okay, I’m listening,” Betsy said.

Trey saw the smile on her face, but it never reached her eyes, and her hands were shaking.

“Paul Jackson’s death has officially been ruled a homicide.”

“I guessed as much,” she mumbled.

He was surprised she was so forthcoming. “Why would you think that?”

She reached up to push a wayward curl from her forehead and then started to cry. “It’s connected to Dick’s murder, isn’t it? It’s about that wreck, right?”

Trey reached for her hands, but she pulled them back. He hated to push, but he had to ask.

“Do you remember anything about that wreck, Mom?”

Her fingers went straight to the scar along her hairline. “No. Not really. At least I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?” Trey asked. “Please. If you remember anything, even if you’re not sure it pertains to the wreck, you need to tell me.”

“I’ve been having dreams about stuff, but none of it makes any sense,” she said.

“Tell me,” he said.

Betsy flinched. The hard edge in his voice surprised her. “It’s just stuff that’s all mixed up,” she said.

Trey reached for her hands again, and this time he caught them and wouldn’t let go.

“Look at me, damn it! Do I look like I’m kidding? Two people are dead, Mom! Three counting the girl who died the night of the wreck, and you’re the only one still breathing. I’d like to keep it that way.”

Betsy moaned. “I’m going to be sick,” she whispered, and she got up and ran out.

Trey silently cursed the situation and followed her, stopping outside the bathroom door. She came out a few minutes later, pale and shaken.

“Mom?”

She walked into his arms and laid her cheek against his chest. The hopelessness she exhibited was scaring him, like she’d already given in to the inevitable.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I upset you, but I have two dead men, no suspects and a gut feeling that you’re the next target. I’m trying to help you, not scare you.”

Her voice was faint and shaky, but her hold on him was fierce. “I know, son. You didn’t scare me. I’m scaring myself. I dream and see blood. I dream I’m back in that car and I think we’re being chased. That’s all I know. I swear.”

Trey rocked her where they stood, wondering how their calm and ordinary lives had so quickly been turned upside down.

“I don’t want you staying out here by yourself,” he said.

All of a sudden the mother he knew was back as she pushed out of his arms with an angry frown on her face.

“And where would you have me go? Trina is here with me every night, so I’m not by myself.”

“You
are
here alone every day, and expecting Trina to be your safety net at night is only putting both of you in danger.”

“Then, she can go stay with you and Dallas. You don’t even have a suspect, so if I went somewhere and hid, there’s no way to say when I could come back. I won’t be run out of my home! Do you hear me, Trey? This is
my
life.
My
choice. I’ll keep the rifle loaded and nearby. That is my only concession.”

Trey heard anger in her voice but knew it wasn’t directed at him. She was angry with the situation and how it was messing with her life. She’d never abided change well, and now was no exception.

“I hear your words, now hear mine,” he said. “Before this day is out, someone will be here to install a security system, and I expect you to use it. If I ever come out here and am able to walk into this house without setting off an alarm, I will physically move you into my home with me and Dallas, whether you like it or not. Understood?”

She glared.

He glared back.

“Fine,” she muttered.

“I’m going back to work. I love you dearly.”

Betsy sighed. “I love you, too. You really are your father’s son.”

Trey sighed. If she was talking about Dad, she was giving in.

“I have one thing to ask of you,” he said.

“What?”

“If you think of anything else, promise you’ll tell me immediately. Finding this killer fast is crucial. Since we don’t actually know his agenda, there could be others besides you, understand?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Understood.”

“Thank you for lunch,” Trey said, and then he was gone.

Betsy watched him driving away and then went through the house locking every door and window, something she hadn’t done since the month after she’d buried her husband, Beau. She got the rifle out of the closet and loaded it, then carried it to the kitchen and put it in the corner close to where she was working.

* * *

By the time Trina came home from work, Trey had already briefed her on what was happening, so when she saw a van from a security company parked in the yard, she wasn’t surprised.

She walked in just as the tech was finishing the last of the installation. He gave Trina and Betsy instructions as to how the system worked, and showed them how to install an app on their phones that would arm it or turn it off no matter where they were. Then he gave them his card as he left.

Betsy looked at the keypad like it was a bomb and walked off without comment.

Trina armed the system and went to change clothes.

* * *

Reece Parsons woke up with a headache and found the note from Louis about their mother’s imminent arrival, which made his headache even worse. Even after taking pain pills, he wasn’t able to go back to sleep. He was aware when Louis came home from work, and got up to confront him about their mother’s plans. That caused an argument, after which Louis made himself scarce.

Reece thought of his brother’s constant retreat from life as hiding and was thankful he wasn’t made that way. He went after what he wanted with no apologies to anyone. Right now he was standing at his bedroom window watching sundown with a hard-on. It was a sign that he’d made his decision. Melissa Sherman was under his skin and he wanted more. But right now Bobo was dancing around his feet, ready for their evening walk. He sighed. First things first.

“Come on, buddy, let’s get this over with. Daddy has a date tonight.”

He noticed Louis had picked up a bucket of fried chicken, and he grabbed a drumstick as he left the house with Bobo prancing around his heels. He ate as they walked, anticipating new adventures. Tonight he was getting inside her house and then inside her pants, but not until he was sure she was asleep. He knew the layout of the house from prior visits, when he’d scouted the perimeter. All he needed was some cooperation from the weather, and from the looks of the gathering clouds hiding the half-moon, that just might happen.

* * *

Lissa had been glad to get home from school that afternoon, but the moment she’d walked into the house her thoughts had gone immediately to what her parents had done to her relationship with Mack. She’d been trying to think back to what all they’d said and done that night. She remembered them coming into the ER angry. They weren’t sorry she was losing the baby and kept saying it was God’s way of fixing what had happened. She remembered her mom and dad fighting, and her mother saying it was all Mack’s fault and this was her chance to start over.

She’d been in so much pain and so scared, and hearing them talk like that had been shocking. All the years they’d been dating, she’d never once heard them say anything bad about him, and now they were acting like he’d turned into the devil. At one point she had stopped her dad in the middle of his rant and told him to shut up, that Mack hadn’t forced her to do anything, and that she’d been as willing a participant as he was. After that, they had moved her into a room in the birthing wing of the hospital, and while her mother had gone with her, her dad had never come back to see her there.

Despite all that, it was still staggering to her that they’d purposefully lied. The only possible reason was that they’d wanted to make sure she and Mack didn’t resume their relationship and, thanks to misunderstandings and gossip, it had worked.

She felt guilty it was her parents who’d done this, but at the same time she was still a little pissed off that Mack had
ever
thought she wouldn’t want their child.

With great effort, she pushed the mess to the back of her mind and began working on lesson plans for the week while keeping an eye on the weather report.

As the afternoon faded into darkness and it began to rain again, she sighed. It meant another recess indoors tomorrow. Even if the storm passed on before morning, the ground would be too muddy for kids to play outside. She had some craft supplies on hand, and a couple of DVDs to pass the time.

Something rattled outside the window, which made her jump, but when she looked out all she saw was the for-sale sign from the house next door blowing down the street.

* * *

Reece Parsons was standing up against the back wall of the storage shed next door, taking shelter from the wind and rain. It had come up unexpectedly, and he was damn cold. He wished now that he’d gone into Louis’s closet and borrowed his parka, but then Louis would have gotten all wound up about not getting it dirty. Louis was a pain in the ass and had more hang-ups than a 911 operator, but he
was
his identical twin, even though DNA was all they had in common.

Louis worked with an entire school building of women and was scared of them all, while Reece was obsessed with the opposite sex and how many ways he could hurt or scare them, which was how he got off. He didn’t know why he was like that, but it was what made his dick get hard, and that was all that mattered.

He heard a dog begin to bark, but the property where he was lurking was unoccupied, and the oncoming storm had darkened the night sky, making him confident of his hiding place.

He was waiting for Melissa Sherman to go to bed, and as soon as the lights went out and he was certain she was asleep, he was going in. After that she was his for as long as he wanted, then he would slit her throat. It was a swift and silent way to get rid of a witness.

* * *

Mack was numb. It was after midnight, and he still couldn’t sleep.

Inadvertently, he’d hurt the only girl he’d ever loved and didn’t know how to fix it. He understood why Lissa would hate him. He pretty much hated himself. All these years he’d lived with unjust anger and wasted the years they could have been together.

He sat within the silence of his dad’s house, going over and over the sequence of events before something finally broke through his fog of self-directed anger and a thought occurred to him. If her parents had called him like she’d asked when she was in labor, none of the rest of this hell would have happened.

And then he got angry all over again. Why had they done that? They’d known that he loved her. The hospital could have called him, too. But then, as fast as his rage rose, it died. The hospital had done exactly what it was required to do by law and notified the next of kin, which meant her parents. Just because he’d gotten her pregnant, that hadn’t given him any legal rights. They hadn’t been married. That meant when it had come to the girl he loved and the baby they’d made, the hospital hadn’t owed him anything.

But Mack kept struggling with the truth.

Why the hell had her parents been so furious that they hadn’t even told him what was going on?