by Sharon Sala
“Yes, okay,” Randy said, and then grabbed Trey’s arm. “Why?”
Trey ached for his sadness.
“I’m coming to realize there is no answer to why bad things happen. All I know is that after a tragedy, our job is to get through it. You and Clarice will have to be strong for each other. Just give me a couple of minutes to get her,” Trey said, and then left the waiting room.
It was only a few more yards down to the ICU, but the closer he got, the slower he walked. Once he stepped through those doors, he was going to change a mother’s life.
He pushed through the double doors as quietly as he could, cognizant of all the seriously ill people asleep on the other side. No one was at the front desk, but there was a nurse coming out of a room just to his right. She looked startled to see the police chief on the floor at this time of the morning and immediately stopped what she was doing.
“Chief Jakes?”
“I need to speak to Clarice Powell. And you will need to get someone to cover for her for the rest of this shift.”
The startled expression on the woman’s face said what she was thinking. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“Just tell her I need to talk to her. No more.”
The nurse nodded, and then hurried away.
Moments later Trey saw Clarice come out of a room and head toward him with a slight smile on her face.
“Chief Jakes? This is a little late for a visit, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t come to see Trina. Will you please step out in the hall with me a moment?”
Her eyes widened, and he could hear a note of panic in her voice when she asked, “What’s wrong?”
He took her by the elbow and gently led her out of the unit.
“Please, Chief. Is it Randy? Has something happened to Randy?”
Before Trey could answer, Randy Powell walked out of the waiting room and started up the hall toward her. It was the tears on his face that gave him away.
Suddenly Clarice gasped. Everyone in Mystic had heard the explosion. All they knew was that someone had driven a car into the gas pumps at the minimart. She moaned.
“No, no, no. Not my Jack. Please tell me it wasn’t Jack!” she cried.
“I’m so sorry, Clarice,” Trey said, and then caught her as her eyes rolled back in her head.
Trey stayed in the waiting room with them until Randy’s mother, Beth Powell, arrived. She was pale and staggering when she walked in, and then gathered them both in her arms as they began to cry all over again.
Trey was exhausted. It was almost four in the morning. The search at the mine site was supposed to begin around nine. This was going to be a long-ass day, and he still had paperwork to write up on the accident.
* * *
Sam was sleeping with his gun in one hand and his phone in the other when someone knocked on his door. He woke up with a start, then realized he was getting a text and glanced at his phone.
It’s me, Trey. Let me in.
Sam stepped into his jeans and zipped them up, then took his gun to answer the door.
“What the hell?” he said as Trey walked inside. He locked the door behind him, and then watched Trey taking change out of his pockets and kicking off his boots. “Trey. What’s going on?”
Trey didn’t even look at him.
“Can I use your shower? There’s no time to go home and clean up before we have to go to the mine. I had a change of clothes at the precinct, but I smell like smoke.”
Sam could tell that whatever had caused the explosion must have been bad.
“Of course you can use the shower. My shaving stuff is on the counter, too. Use what you need.”
Trey stripped where he stood, then walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
Sam sat down on the side of the bed and turned on the television, then kicked back to watch. It was the comfort of knowing his brother was in the next room that made him relax enough to close his eyes.
* * *
Trey came out with a towel wrapped around his waist and water drops running down his forehead. He glanced toward the bed and realized Sam had fallen asleep, then saw the scars and froze. He’d never seen his brother like this, only wrapped in bandages while he was still healing. This was far worse than he could ever have imagined. And except for whatever help he’d accepted from their mom, Sam had dealt with it alone. Trey took a slow, shaky breath and turned away just in time to catch the early-morning weather forecast on the still-running TV. The day was supposed to be clear.
Sam woke up as Trey was putting his boots back on. He scooted into a sitting position and reached for his shirt.
“Don’t do that because of me,” Trey said.
“Do what?” Sam said.
“Put on a shirt,” Trey said.
Sam hesitated, and then laid it aside. “Force of habit. So enough about the shirt. Talk to me.”
Trey stomped his feet into the boots, then got up and started to pace. That was when Sam knew he was trying to come to terms with what had happened the night before.
“You heard the explosion?” Trey asked.
“Yes.”
“You know Clarice, the RN who’s usually at the front desk when you walk into ICU? She’s married to Randy Powell.”
“I didn’t know that’s who she married. Randy was the team’s best wide receiver our senior year in high school. He was one fast dude.”
“Yes, well, their only son, Jack, aka Speedy, drove his car into the gas pumps at the minimart last night.”
Sam flinched. “Oh, my God, that’s awful. And they blew up with Jack still in the car?”
“Yes.”
“Sweet mercy,” Sam said. Just thinking about all the flames and heat made his gut knot. “Do you know why? Was he drunk or—”
“We don’t know, and the body was burned so badly I don’t know what the coroner will be able to figure out. Honestly, I’m not sure how much it even matters. All his parents care about is him, and he’s gone. How it happened won’t change a thing.”
“Are you okay?” Sam asked.
Trey shrugged, and then suddenly stopped pacing and sat.
“No, I’m not okay. This just added to the huge knot in my chest. I can’t remember the last time I woke up without it, and I won’t be okay until the killer is caught and Mom is laid to rest.” He grabbed his towel and started drying his hair. “This is making me crazy, Sam. I don’t have a fucking clue as to who’s doing this, and only a half-assed reason that may or may not be why.”
“Trina is going to wake up and put all this uncertainty to an end,” Sam said.
“It won’t be any too soon,” Trey said, then tossed the towel and started finger combing his hair.
“So what time do you want to leave for the mine?” Sam asked.
“Eight thirty?”
Sam nodded. “I’ll follow you out there so I’ll have my car just in case you get pulled away on a call. Oh, one other thing. I took Lainey to see Trina last night after dinner. We met Will Porter getting off the elevator as we were leaving. He was there visiting his wife...in ICU.”
Trey frowned. “Since when did that happen?” he muttered.
“I don’t know, but from the way he was talking, I got the impression she’s dying. And she’s in room 10B.”
“I don’t like that,” Trey said.
“I didn’t, either, so I gave Cantrell a heads-up that the guy was from the same class as our three murder victims, so he needed to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t get anywhere near Trina.”
“Good call,” Trey said. “I’m going to check out the situation and confirm his story. In the meantime, tell me what’s happening with you and Lainey? Are you official again?”
“Yes,” Sam said.
“I’
m happy for you,” Trey said.
“Happy doesn’t quite cover how I feel,” Sam said, grinning. “On another note, I was talking to Lainey about her mother’s diaries, and how she thought the names her mother wrote down in her diaries were a kind of teenage code for the real names.”
“Yes, I got that,” Trey said.
“Well, there was something I noticed when I was reading them. One of the couples she mentioned was Tom Collins and Betty Boop. That got me to wondering if Tom Collins was Donny Collins, and if he had a girlfriend. If he did and we can figure out who she is, she might know a lot of what we’re trying to find out.”
Trey’s eyes widened. “Well, hell, that’s why it’s good to bring fresh eyes into an investigation. I never thought of that. There was no Betty in that class, so—”
“‘Betty Boop’ could simply mean we’re looking for someone with the initials BB, although there are countless other reasons to use that nickname, and she could easily have been younger, too. I read some more in the diaries before I went to bed last night but don’t know anything else that would help. You need to find someone who remembers those kids and those years.”
“I still have Will Porter’s yearbook. I’ll go through it again and check out the lower grades for a Betty or a girl with the initials BB first before we move on to a different interpretation of the nickname,” Trey said, and then glanced at the clock.
“So do you want to go back to bed, or come eat breakfast with me?”
Sam reached for his shirt again. “I want to eat with my brother,” he said. “Give me a few minutes.”
Trey wanted to look away when Sam stood. He didn’t want to stare at the scars, but God help him, he couldn’t help it. And when Sam went into the bathroom, the burn scars on his back held Trey prisoner. It wasn’t until the door closed between them and broke the connection that Trey realized he’d been holding his breath.
Trey scrubbed at his face with both hands as if trying to wipe away the sight from his mind. Sam’s trip home had revealed so much more about him than any of them could have imagined. Trey had thought he knew his brother. He’d thought he understood why Sam had stayed away. But he’d been wrong. He didn’t know this man at all. This Sam put him in awe. After what he had endured and survived, Sam was like some damn superhero. All he needed was a big S on the front of his chest.
* * *
Lainey woke up just after 7:00 a.m., needing to go to the bathroom, then remembered Sam and last night and shivered. He hadn’t lied. He was good—really good—at making her lose her mind.
Still as naked as he’d left her, she dashed across the hall to pee, then turned up the thermostat as she came out. She went back to her room and crawled into bed to wait until the house was warmer, and fell asleep.
The next time she woke up it was almost 10:00 a.m. She didn’t have classes, but there were tests to grade, so she made herself get up.
But Sam was still on her mind. She thought about him while she was taking a shower and realized something about their situation that neither of them could have planned. Sam would never trust himself to be a father, and she’d been told chemo had probably ended her chance to get pregnant. But if they could just grow old together, she would never ask God for anything more.
Later, as she was making herself a sandwich, she got a text from Sam.
Missing you. Love you. I’ll call you later today.
She sent a text back.
Love you and miss you, too. I’ll be waiting.
* * *
Sam smiled as he put the phone back in his pocket, then saw Trey waving him over.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
“Sheriff Osmond just got here, so we’re ready to go,” Trey said as he tied a long length of climbing rope onto his belt.
“Good. I brought my spotlight,” Sam said as he headed for the entrance to the mine.
Sheriff Osmond had two deputies with him. “Sorry about the delay. Crime waits for no man, and I’m shorthanded because of it. It’s just me and two deputies. I’m leaving one on the radio and one keeping the locals off-site.”
“No big deal, Sheriff. I doubt there’s a need for a large search team. We shouldn’t need to look beyond the most obvious shafts. I don’t think anyone would have had time to go deep,” Trey said.
Sheriff Osmond nodded. “I agree, so let’s get started. Get a mask before you go in, and keep your radios on. GPS won’t work in there, so we stay together and watch our footing. This mine has been shut down since 1978.”
The three men walked in about twenty yards until the tunnel branched off in several different directions.
Sheriff Osmond pointed. “Sam, you have the biggest light source, so you get the lead. Just take it slow.”
Sam nodded and headed into the first tunnel on their right, with Trey and the sheriff behind him. Within moments it was evident a lot of shifting had occurred since the mine had been shut down. The roof sloped farther on one side than the other, and a lot of the shoring was broken. Sam paused to sweep the area with his spotlight. His gut knotted at what he saw. When the shoring broke, the floor of the tunnel had shifted a good six inches down on one side, displacing the track that the coal cars had run on. The track was bent in some places and raised above the ground in others, making passage dangerous.
“You see what I see?” Sam said. “This is a bad tunnel, so whatever you do, don’t touch any of the shoring. If this bothers anyone, now is the time to say so.” No one spoke. “Okay, then, it’s going to get dusty, so mask up and follow me.”
Each of them was carrying a flashlight, but they were depending on the brighter spotlight ahead of them to light the way.
Old spiderwebs coated with dust dangled like shredded fabric above their heads. The air was cold and still, and there was no sound except for their footsteps. Every step they took stirred the dust below their feet until the air was thick and hazy.
Just as the tunnel began to slope downward, Sam stopped.
“Hold up,” he said.
They all saw it at once. It was a cave-in.
“Damn it,” Trey said.
“I’d say this is as far as we go here, but there are still three more tunnels to check,” Sheriff Osmond said. “So let’s go back and search number two.”
Sam passed his light back up to Trey, who took the lead on the way out. When they returned to the main passage, they were silent, their mood less hopeful.
Sam retrieved his spotlight and led the way into the second tunnel.
The shoring there was still in place, but the tunnel was barely wide enough for the coal cars to have passed, and the track they would have used was missing.
He paused and gave the area ahead of him a three-sixty sweep with the light, and as he did, he saw a large dark space between where he was standing and the continuation of the tunnel.
All of a sudden, he realized what it was.
“Get back,” he said urgently.
Trey swung his light toward Sam. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a big hole in the floor just ahead of me,” Sam said.
“Let me see,” Sheriff Osmond said.
“No, both of you stand back. Until we know what we’re standing on, we don’t want to put too much weight on the rim.”
Osmond shuddered and backed up past Trey.
Sam stopped about six feet from the hole. “Give me a few minutes to check this thing out,” he said.
“What the hell do you think you’re going to do?” Trey demanded.
“Crawl up on it belly down and look over the edge.”
“Not until I tie this rope around you,” Trey said, unhooking the rope from his belt as he stepped forward, then quickly fastening one end around Sam’s waist. He and the sheriff took the loose end.
“Okay, we’re go
od here,” Trey said. “Just go slow, and if you feel something give, roll toward the wall. We’ll pull you back.”
Sam nodded, then got down on his belly and began to inch toward the edge of the hole with his spotlight clutched tight in one hand. It didn’t take long, and then he scooted forward just enough that he could see down as he aimed the spotlight into the hole.
It took a few moments for him to see the bottom, and when he did, he reacted with a jerk. A weird feeling went through him, and he wondered if his mom and her friends had stood on this very spot so many years ago. He thought of how scared they must have been, and how desperately they had tried to get back to tell someone what they’d seen.
“Hey, Trey.”
“Yeah? What do you see? Is there anything there?”
“I would bet good money that we just found Donny Collins.”
Sheriff Osmond gasped. “Are you serious?”
“I see a skull and most of the bones to go with it.”
“Well, son of a bitch,” Sheriff Osmond said softly. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t think anything was gonna come of this.”
“Get back,” Trey said and tugged on the rope.
“I’m coming,” Sam said and scooted backward until he was far enough away to stand up and untie himself.
Sheriff Osmond was already on his radio.
“Target located. Tunnel number two. We’re coming out.”
“10-4, Sheriff.”
Trey gathered up the rope and reattached it to his belt, and then looked at his brother. All he could see were Sam’s eyes, and they were welling.
Then Sam pulled down his mask. “She could have been here to see this happen, you know,” he said. “She and her friends saw something bad go down and tried so hard to tell. Now we have to finish it.”
“It may take a while to identify the body,” Sheriff Osmond said.
“If we’re lucky, there could be identification down there with him,” Sam said.
“I vote for lucky,” Trey said.
Thirteen
Even though they tried to keep the find quiet, by the time the sheriff’s department contacted search and rescue from the Forest Service to lower the coroner down the shaft to examine the remains in situ, half the county knew what was happening. Most of Mystic knew it had something to do with the murders, but they didn’t know how, or who the body would be.
