LITMIR.BIZ

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to be a hard visit to make.

      He lengthened his stride and saw a man standing guard by a door. Room 12B.

      “Sam Jakes. I’m here to see my sister,” he said and flipped open his wallet, letting the guard see his private investigator license as well as his ID.

      The guard looked closely at both before he gave the okay for Sam to go in.

      “Good to meet you, Mr. Jakes. I’m Mike Cantrell with Embry Security. Visiting will end at noon and resume again at 2:00 p.m.”

      “Thanks,” Sam said and entered the room.

      As he did, the young, dark-haired man sitting beside her bed suddenly stood.

      “I’m guessing you’re Lee,” Sam said.

      The man nodded.

      “I’m Sam Jakes. Nice to meet you.”

      “It’s nice to meet you, too, sir,” Lee said. “I’m going to step outside and give you some time with Trina. She’s in a drug-induced coma, so don’t worry about her not responding to anything you say. The doctor said she’s holding her own. That’s the update.”

      He eyed Sam curiously as he left the room, and Sam could only imagine what he was thinking—probably something along the lines of Where the hell did he come from?

Four

      Sam’s hand was shaking as he reached for Trina’s arm. This was a slap-in-the-face wake-up call to point out what he’d been missing. She’d grown up and nearly died before he could get his ass home, and right now he couldn’t remember even one good reason why it had taken him so long.

      “Hey, little sister. It’s me. Sam. I don’t know who did this to you yet, but I promise we’ll find him. Just get well and know we love you very much.”

      During the time he’d been in the hospital he’d gotten good at deciphering the readings on the various pieces of medical equipment, and from what he could see Trina appeared to be stable, so she was doing her part. But being back in this hospital made him remember all the times his mother had come to see him. All the nights she’d stayed at his side, the tears she’d shed listening to him scream as the doctors began to debride his burns. His family had been there for him. All this time he’d thought he was protecting them by isolating himself, when it appeared he’d hurt them much more with his absence. He swallowed past the knot in his throat, determined not to cry, and was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. Then he felt the pat on his back, and his vision blurred.

      He turned, saw the weariness and the grief in his brother’s eyes, and in that moment their mother’s death was finally real. “I am so sorry,” he said.

      “So am I, Sam,” Trey said, and hugged him, taking comfort from the strength in his brother’s grip.

      “You have hell on your hands, don’t you?” Sam said.

      “Yes, and I don’t know why,” Trey said. “It’s noon, which means they’re going to run us out of here for a couple of hours. I need to swing by the precinct to pick up Dallas, and then we can go to lunch and catch up.”

      Sam looked back at Trina, and then leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Be strong, little sister.”

      “We’ll be back,” Trey added.

      They walked out together with a nod to the guard, and left the hospital.

      * * *

      Dallas was on the computer in Trey’s office when he and Sam walked in.

      “Hey,” Trey said.

      She looked up, then smiled when she realized Sam had arrived.

      “Sam. I am so glad you’re here,” she said, and got up to give him a hug. “It’s been a long time. You look good,” she added.

      “Not as good as you,” Sam said, and hugged her back. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

      She turned the engagement ring on her finger.

      “Thanks.” Then her eyes welled. “Betsy was so happy Trey and I were together again. She kept talking about weddings and grandchildren and—”

      Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m glad someone made her happy, because it damn sure wasn’t me,” he said.

      Trey frowned. “Don’t do that, Sam. She wasn’t unhappy with you. There’s a difference. She accepted your reasoning as sound, figured you knew yourself better than anyone else, and none of us ever heard a complaint about it from her.”

      It didn’t change the fact that Sam felt as if he’d let her down, but it was good to know his mother had understood his fears.

      Dallas shoved the hair back from her face as she sat back down. “I’ve begun working on the list you gave me,” she said to Trey.

      Trey showed Sam the 1980 yearbook from Mystic High School.

      “I borrowed this from Will Porter. He was in the class of 1980, too. We’re going through the list of graduates, trying to find out where they all are, so we can start eliminating them as possible suspects.”

      Sam sat down on the other side of the desk as Trey started pacing. He’d done that ever since he was a kid. When he was thinking something out, he paced.

      “My first question is, why do you think the killer’s someone from their graduating class?” Sam asked.

      “Something we found after Paul Jackson was murdered. When we went through his lockbox in the bank, he left a letter and a bloody tassel in an envelope for his son. The tassel came from a 1980 graduate, but it didn’t belong to any of the four who were involved in the wreck.”

      “Okay, so if no one else is murdered, then we can assume that it does have something to do with that wreck they were in, right?” Sam said. “Otherwise, if more people are targeted, that would remove the wreck aspect.”

      Trey nodded. “Yes. We believe Trina was shot only because she would have been a witness the killer couldn’t afford. Mom thought the murders had to do with something they saw the night they graduated. Once she mentioned dreaming about seeing a body. I asked her if she thought she’d been a witness or an accessory to a killing.”

      Sam flinched.

      “You actually asked Mom if she’d killed someone?”

      Trey’s chin jutted defensively.

      “More or less. Yes, she was my mother, but I’m also the chief of police, and I was trying to solve Paul Jackson’s murder. She told me she dreamed the four of them saw a body. She thought they were on their way to report it when they wrecked. She gave me a journal she’d been keeping of the dreams. A couple of times she wrote something about the four of them seeing someone die, and then being chased.”

      “My God,” Sam said. “All those years, and that was locked inside her memory.”

      “Apparently,” Trey said, and then glanced at Dallas. “How’s it going?”

      “Slow. About half the class moved away.”

      “I want to know where all of them live now,” Trey said.

      “What about the ones who live here?” Sam asked.

      “What about them?” Trey asked.

      “You should confront them when they’re together. I’ve found that once you get a bunch of people together, if they have something to hide, one of them will say something that opens a floodgate.”

      Trey glanced up at the clock. “The paper goes to press at three,” he said. “I just might have time to get a request in for tomorrow’s issue.”

      “Tell me what you want said. I’ll

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