Folsom Hill was the oldest cemetery in Lonesome Point. Generations upon generations of Lawsons had been buried here, side by side, head to toe, efficiently making use of every inch of their allotted space. But they were still running out of ground. There was only enough room for Lily and two more within the confines of the metal fence erected in the 1800s.
John had already asked that the space next to his wife be reserved for him. Cole said those were the only words his brother had spoken during the interview with the funeral director, choosing to sit silently throughout the rest of the meeting, while his mother chose the casket and what Lily would wear to be laid to rest.
Rest. It was a strange word to equate with death.
Rest made Layla think of recovery, time set apart to heal and gather your strength. But there was no recovery from death. Death was absence and silence, an ending for the one who was gone and a painful new beginning for the ones left behind.
Nothing would ever be the same for the Lawson family. For John and his boys, time would forever be divided into the time before the wife and mother they loved so much was lost, and the time after. And for a long while, all the memories of the years they’d had with Lily would be bittersweet and painful to the touch. Even the best memories would be tainted because they were part of a story that had ended far too soon.
And it was all Layla’s fault.
She swallowed hard, grateful for the dark sunglasses that shielded her guilty eyes from the family and friends gathering for the graveside service. She had done this; she had robbed a wonderful man of his reason for living and orphaned two sweet little boys.
Now she had to make it right.
“Dear friends, my heart aches with you today,” the preacher began, his voice softer, more intimate sounding than it had been during the service at the church this morning. “We know our sister Lily is in a better place, a beautiful place, but it’s still so hard to say goodbye. Especially when someone we love is taken so young. Especially someone like Lily, who was so warm and funny and full of life.”
He smiled sadly. “I’ll never forget the day I met Lily, at a church picnic she’d attended with John, who was her boyfriend back then. I saw this lovely girl, whose beauty came as much from her heart as her pretty face, beaming up at him, and knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d be welcoming her into my church. I married them a year later and after decades of weddings theirs is still one I remember so clearly. There was nothing but love in the room that day. Because that was the type of person Lily was. She loved with all her heart and that love spilled over into the lives of everyone around her.”
Up and down the line of mourners, sobs and sniffs were muffled by tissues and handkerchiefs. Beside her, Cole pulled in a deeper breath and lifted his chin, tightening the arm draped around his mother’s shoulders.
On Laura Mae’s other side, John was a pillar in black, standing with a strong arm around each of his boys. Both of them were crying, their faces buried in the scratchy fabric of their father’s suit, but John’s shoulders didn’t shake, his throat didn’t work, his eyes didn’t tear.
The man hadn’t cried once since he returned home from finding his wife’s body.
Cole was worried about him, but Layla understood. When there was no light at the end of the tunnel and all hope was lost, tears could be dangerous. Once they got started, they could be impossible to stop, and a man with two heartbroken children depending on him couldn’t afford to surrender to despair. John was doing the best he could, keeping to himself, focusing on his boys, and spending every spare moment pacing the stretch of desert where Lily had been found, searching for clues.
The police had ruled Lily’s death an accident, but John was convinced there had been foul play involved. The most emotion Layla had seen from the man in the past few days was an explosive outburst in his mother’s front yard when he’d told Ned Wyatt and his partner to take their “accidental death” and go fuck themselves. He’d promised he would find out what had happened to his wife without the help of a “pair of small town cops who couldn’t find their own asses in the dark, let alone a murderer smart enough to cover his tracks.”
After John had stormed away, Laura Mae had apologized excessively to the officers, who had insisted that they understood no man was himself in the face of such a terrible loss.
Layla had stood behind the drapes by the open kitchen window, eavesdropping, silently agreeing with every word that John had said.
The day before, she’d received a call from Ned asking her to come to the police station later in the week to answer some more questions. He’d assured her that she was no longer a suspect, but that he was hoping she might be able to remember something that would lead the police to the person who had poisoned the well.
She was no longer a suspect, and she was as guilty as sin.
Even if she’d never received the text the evening after Lily’s body was found, Layla wouldn’t have had any more faith in the Lonesome Point police department than John did. But the text confirmed that Lily’s death was no accident.
Come home, it read. Or next time it will be one of the kids.
Layla didn’t recognize the number, but she knew the message was from Wayne. From there, it had only taken her a few minutes to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
She’d listened to the message the police had left while she was at work, but until then she hadn’t thought to check the time the call was received. When she did, she saw the message had been left at ten thirty in the morning, eight hours before Wayne had claimed to receive his test results. She couldn’t see any reason the police wouldn’t call them both at the same time. It was more likely that Wayne had been out of cell range all day and had only received the message when he returned to civilization later in the afternoon. That gave him plenty of time to kill Lily before coming to see Layla at the diner that evening.
Combined with the clay on Wayne’s tee shirt that night—red clay, like the kind Lily was fetching for her mother-in-law—the call time and Wayne’s threatening text were all Layla needed to be convinced that her husband had committed murder. And the case against herself being dropped so swiftly was all it took to convince her that the Lonesome Point police couldn’t be trusted to make sure justice was served.
Wayne was her problem. The only way he was going to get what he deserved was if she took justice into her own hands.
While the pastor continued to speak, Layla went through her plan, wanting to be certain she hadn’t forgotten anything or left a trail that could lead back to her when Wayne Wheeler suddenly disappeared.
She’d called Wayne to confirm their meeting from a payphone, and she hadn’t told a soul about her impending trip to Houston. She’d told Cole she was going back to her place for a night so he could spend the evening with his family. Now that Grayson and Reece had returned from their trip, Cole had reluctantly agreed to the separation.
Layla hadn’t told Grayson anything—letting him assume she was moving in with Cole—and had gone upstairs to pack her things. She’d packed her clothes, her computer, her shotgun, and the unregistered handgun she’d liberated from the Wheeler family doomsday bunker three months before she’d left Wayne.
No one had even noticed it was missing. The Wheeler boys had such an extensive stockpile they hadn’t missed one gun and a case of bullets. Layla had hoped she wouldn’t need the weapon, but had wanted to be prepared. Just in case. With the unregistered gun and a little luck, she should be able to make Wayne’s death look like a suicide.
But if she should fail…
She glanced at Cole out of the corner of her eyes.
He was holding up better than he had the morning they’d learned that Lily was gone, but he wasn’t as good at concealing his pain as John was. He would be grieving his sister-in-law for a long time. She couldn’t imagine what her sweet man would do if, God forbid, Wayne got to one of his nephews.
Cole might never recover. He couldn’t handle any more death and he shouldn’t have
to.
That’s why she was determined to shoot first and think about how to make Wayne’s death look like a suicide later. If her plan failed and she was caught, Cole would survive her being in prison. He might not survive her death.
And what if you get the death penalty for murder? What then?
Layla pushed the thought away. She wasn’t going to get the death penalty. She wasn’t going to get caught, and if she did, she had the scars to prove she’d been battered to within an inch of her life. Surely the jury could be persuaded to believe she’d been battered out of her right mind, as well.
She could pull off an insanity plea right now. She was terrified, suffocating on her own guilt, and driven half-mad by the knowledge that all these hearts were breaking because she’d sought refuge on the Lawson ranch.
She should have kept her distance. She should have done everything differently.
If she could go back to the beginning of her adult life and undo all her terrible decisions, she would do it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant living in reverse, suffering through all those miserable years with Wayne all over again until she had lived her way back to that moment when he’d asked her to go out with him and she could say no instead of yes.
But she couldn’t unravel time. And she couldn’t afford to wait until her head was on straight again.
Time and madmen wait for no woman. She had to act now, before it was too late for another person whose only crime had been reaching out a hand to help a woman dumb enough to say “I do” to the devil.
“So do not fear, for I am with you,” the pastor said, quoting the Bible verse he’d chosen to close the service. “Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
If she’d been in a different frame of mind, Layla might have taken the Bible verse as a sign. But God had nothing to do with what she had planned today. He wouldn’t be strengthening her on this errand. She would have to find strength within herself, and beg forgiveness later.
“I’m going to wait for Mom at the limo.” Cole turned to her as the mourners began to line up to file past the grave. “I don’t want to throw dirt. It just…doesn’t feel right.”
“I’ll come with you.” Layla took his hand and they started up the hill toward the road that wound through the cemetery.
Beneath their feet, the grass was still green, but it would be brown before too long. It was only March, but they’d had highs in the eighties the past two days. Soon it would be summer, and for the first time since she was a teenager, Layla might be able to join friends on a float trip, go swimming at the local pool, or simply walk out of the house wearing a pair of shorts without worrying about the bruises on her legs showing.
Or she might spend the summer in jail.
It all depended on what happened tonight.
As they reached the side of the road, where the family limo was parked, Layla turned to Cole, wrapping her arms around him and holding tight, needing to feel his body, strong and warm, against her one more time before she left.
“Thanks,” he said, returning the embrace. “I wish you were coming home with me. I don’t like the thought of a night without you.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, as soon as I get off work,” she promised. “But your family needs you now. You need time to grieve without any strangers watching.”
He hugged her closer. “You’re not a stranger.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he said with a sigh, “but I have no idea how to help them through this. Mom’s holding it together better than I am and the kids actually seem to be able to forget about it every once in a while if they’re distracted. And John…” He shook his head as he glanced back down the hill. “I have no clue what to do for him. He’s so obsessed with proving Lily’s death wasn’t an accident he hasn’t even started to deal with the fact that she’s gone.”
“He’ll deal with that when he’s ready.” She smoothed a lock of hair from his forehead. “Until then, just be there for him. Sit with him. Listen to him. Make sure he eats something and knows he’s loved.”
“See, you’re a hundred times better at this than I am,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t come with us in the limo? I can bring you back to pick up your car later.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “But I love you and I’ll be thinking of you every minute.”
“Me too.” Cole dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “Take care of yourself tonight, okay? Keep your guard up and the doors locked.”
“I’ll be safe at home with an angry big brother to watch over me,” she said, ignoring the guilt howling at the back of her mind as she lied. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about John and the kids.”
“I just couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you,” Cole said, pulling back to look deep into her eyes. “Sleep with your gun by your bed and make sure Grayson sleeps with one eye open, okay?”
“Okay.” She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
“Promise,” Cole pressed, brows drifting farther up his forehead.
“I promise.” She stood on tiptoe, pressing a kiss to his cheek before adding in a whisper. “I’m going to head out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He stayed by the limo as she turned to walk away, but she’d only made it a few steps before he called out. “I love you, Layla.”
She turned around but didn’t stop walking, afraid she might lose her nerve if she changed direction now. “Love you, too.”
She blew him a kiss and then spun on her heel, aiming her body toward where she’d parked her car at the very end of the line of vehicles. She was only ten feet from the entrance to the cemetery. All she had to do was hit reverse and she’d be on the road in minutes.
It would take her about nine hours to get to Houston. Allowing for stops for gas and food, she hoped to arrive at the meat packaging plant around ten o’clock, an hour before her and Wayne’s scheduled eleven p.m. meeting. That should give her enough time to get inside, get ready, and gather her courage to do what had to be done.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cole
Cole had learned a lot about Layla in the short time that they’d been a couple.
But he’d learned even more in the twelve years they’d gone to school together and the four years he’d spent working side by side with her in the barn during high school. In some ways, she was a different person than she’d been back then, but in others she was still very much the same. Layla still had a kind heart and a wicked sense of humor, still loved to laugh at his goofy jokes, and was still one of the worst liars he’d ever met.
She might have been a master at fooling Wayne, but Cole wasn’t Wayne and he could sense that something was off.
Way off.
All the way back to the ranch in the limo, he tried to convince himself that it was the funeral that had her upset and that everything would be okay when she showed up at his house tomorrow. But by the time he got the kids settled in his mother’s living room with their video games and headed back into the kitchen where his mother was making coffee, Cole couldn’t ignore the unsettled feeling in his gut any longer.
“I’m going to step outside and call Layla,” he said, tugging his cell from his back pocket. “Be right back.”
“Don’t hurry on our account.” John’s voice was as flat as the eyes he’d trained on the black and white television in the corner, where one of his mother’s cooking shows was playing for background noise. “I’m not going to be good company. I’m sick of sitting on my ass while the trail goes cold and the person who did this gets a step closer to getting away with it. I need to keep looking. I know there’s something the police missed.”
“You can go out first thing tomorrow,” his mother said, pulling mugs down from the cabinet above the huffing percolator. “There’s no rain expected so nothing’s going to get washed away overnight. Right now, you need to be here with the boys. Even if you’re not sayi
ng a word, they need to know their daddy is in the house.”
John grunted in response.
“Remember when your dad passed,” his mother pressed. “Remember how you needed to know where I was every single second and the closer I was the better.”
John’s jaw clenched, but after a moment he pushed his chair away from the table. “Fine. I’ll go watch them play games. Won’t be any more mindless than whatever we’ll be talking about in here.”
“What about Bubba and Marisol?” his mother called after him. “They’re supposed to call from Japan in a few minutes.”
“You talk to them,” John said, throwing the words over his shoulder as he left the room. “I don’t have anything to say.”
Laura Mae sagged against the counter, the empty coffee cup in her hand drooping listlessly at her side. She was wearing the same black dress she wore to every funeral, but today she’d left her long, silvering hair down around her shoulders instead of pulled back in its usual braid. It made her look softer, more vulnerable than the no-nonsense, tough-as-steel woman who had raised three boys alone after her husband died.
“He’s going to be okay,” Cole said though he wasn’t sure he believed it. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and crossed the kitchen. “It’s just going to take time and space to work through this the way he needs to.”
“Do you think he’s mad about Bubba not being at the funeral?” his mother cast a worried glance his way as she set her empty mug back on the counter. “We could have postponed it for a couple more days so he and Marisol could get a flight in, but it just seemed better for the boys to get it done as fast as we could.”
Cole laid a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Bubba will be here tomorrow night, and honestly, I don’t think John cares who was or wasn’t at the funeral. He’s got bigger things on his mind.”
“Don’t I know it,” she said, then added in a softer voice. “I know he’s hurting and looking for someone to blame, but the police are sure it was an accident. I’ve been going along with him, watching the boys while he goes out to look for clues, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. Maybe I shouldn’t encourage it.”
Chaps and Chance Page 13
