Never Die Alone

Lena scowled. “Hay is for horses, and we don’t have a lot of time to mess around here,” she advised her brother-in-law and sent him a don’t-mess-with-me stare. Then she glared at the children. “Kids, hurry up. Eat your breakfast. Miss Suzy won’t like it if we’re late, and Reverend Tim has a special treat for you all.”

“I hate Bible school,” Caleb complained, and his sister’s eyes rounded.

“Don’t you say that!” Lena hissed, looking over her shoulder as if she expected Satan himself to appear. “You love Vacation Bible School, you know you do. Now, come on, get your things.”

Rolling her eyes, Trinity slid out of Jase’s arms. “Okay,” she said on a sigh that would have made a petulant teen proud, then climbed into her seat.

Caleb, too, wriggled to the floor before scraping his chair back as his mother poured milk over his cereal, then handed the carton to Trinity. As the kids dug in, Lena motioned to her husband that he was in charge before walking into the front hallway. With a hook of one finger, she indicated silently that she wanted Jase to follow.

Out in the hall, Lena pulled her daughter’s pink jacket from the hall tree as if by rote. Then, glancing outside to what promised to be a scorcher of a day, she replaced the small Windbreaker on a hook.

“Listen, Jase,” she said, her voice low. “I know you expected us to buy you out, but we just can’t. Okay?” Her eyebrows launched upward, but she didn’t wait for his response. “It’s too isolated out here for the kids and for me. They run me ragged. Have no boundaries. No friends. And with a new baby on the way, I can’t stand another minute here.” Frowning, she swept a glance around the entry with its massive but marred staircase, high ceilings, dark walls, and ancient windows, some of which were cracked and needed to be replaced. “We can’t afford to fix this place up. It would cost a fortune. All the wiring and plumbing needs to be replaced, and don’t get me started on the roof. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to mess with it. Too much time. Too much money. Too many headaches. I want new. Clean. Bright. Light. Close in.”

“I thought you wanted the kids to grow up in the country.”

“Well, I was wrong, okay? I changed my mind.” She crossed her arms over her ample belly and glared up at him. “We’ve already found a place in town that isn’t haunted by . . . well, you know.” She gave him a knowing look.

“No,” he said, wondering just how much his brother had confided in his wife of eight years. “Haunted by what?”

Lena’s blue eyes narrowed. She looked about to say something, but pressed her lips together firmly instead. “Everything,” she said evasively, throwing her arms wide. “This place, it just won’t work for us. I want to be close to the church.” As if to close the conversation, she rounded up two backpacks, one pink, the other blue, and hauled them back to the kitchen.

Jase followed.

Trinity was dutifully carrying her near-empty bowl to the sink. Caleb, not quite finished, lifted his dish to his face and started drinking the remains of his milk.

“Caleb Prescott Bridges!” Lena snapped. “What do you think you’re doing?” She shot a disgusted glance at her husband. “Did you see this? Did you? Do you let your son eat like a pig at slop time?”

Prescott snorted. “Honey, it doesn’t matter if—”

“It does matter, Pres. Of course it matters. That’s the problem. Out here you let these kids do whatever they please. No restrictions. I’ve had it.” She whipped Caleb’s bowl from his hands and tossed it into the sink where it clattered against a stack of dirty dishes.

Trinity jumped and Caleb, rather than incur any more of his mother’s wrath, slithered from his chair.

“Get in the car. Both of you!” Lena ordered, and her kids scurried out of the kitchen and out the back door leading to the garage. With a finger pointed at her husband, she said, “Deal with him!” Then pointed at Jase. “I’m losing it.” Snagging her purse from the counter near the microwave, she hurried out the same way her children had taken and let the screen door bang loudly behind her.

Only when he heard the car’s engine cough to life did Prescott speak. “She’s always a little nuts when she’s pregnant.”

“A little?”

“She’s got her eye on a house not far from the Garden District,” he said, walking to the sink and staring out the window. Through the dusty glass both men watched the silver Ford disappear down the drive. “A bungalow,” Pres continued. “Three bedrooms. Big yard. Space for a garden. One block from the church. Actually, we put an offer in and the people accepted, so it’s ours as long as the bank approves.”

“Will they?”

“Should. But we’ll have to sell my interest in this place.” He shoved his hands down the front pockets of his khakis. “We’re moving out.” A beat. “And moving on.”

“What’s that mean?”

Prescott turned and faced his brother. His ta

“Because you have kids.”

“So what’s the difference if I sell to someone else? Either way, you’re out.”

Prescott had a point, but it didn’t sit well with Jase. They both knew it. Because of the ghosts.

“Or,” Prescott said, as if the thought had just crossed his mind. “You could buy me out. I’d give you a deal, and we wouldn’t have the Realtor’s cut. Clean and simple.”

There it was. The reason Prescott had asked him to stop by so early in the morning. It was so like his brother to beat around the bush, hint, and sneak up on a topic rather than say what he wanted outright. In this case, Jase suspected it was because of Lena.

“This is just the opposite from what we agreed.” And Jase had ambitions associated with his job; he didn’t need a ranch to distract him from his goal. Already he had his application in at the police department.

Prescott lifted a shoulder. “Got to keep the peace, y’know? Besides, things change.”

“Do they?” Jase wasn’t so sure as he walked outside to the back porch and stared across the rolling acres to a rise. Past the drying grass and a few sunbaked outbuildings, a tall oak rose in the distance. Less than a hundred yards beyond the tree’s spreading branches was the property line and the slow-moving river.

Images seared through his brain: scenes from his youth, like photographs in an album shuffled quickly past, and he shut his mind to that part of his life, a past long buried that he’d tried like hell to forget.

He heard the porch boards creak as his brother came out to join him.

“In a way, Lena’s right, you know,” Prescott said, following Jase’s gaze down toward the river. “There are just too many damned ghosts here, y’know?”

Jase did know. Though he’d never admit it to anyone.

“I’ll beef up the patrols on your street,” Bentz said as he cradled his cell phone to his ear and rolled his chair closer to the desk. Immune to the noise of the other detectives and staff, he focused on the voice on the phone and the image of the killer on his computer screen. Obsessed with the footage, he watched the video of Father John for at least the twentieth time, but this morning, instead of beer, he was downing his third cup of coffee and hoping the caffeine would stave off the headache that throbbed near his temples.

All the while, the station had come to life around him. Phones jangled, voices buzzed, and footsteps shuffled amid the rows of desks. Somewhere a printer chugged out pages over the constant rumble of the air-conditioning unit forcing cool air through the vents. Still, the rooms were warm. Barely ten in the morning and already the heat of the day was permeating the windows and walls of the old building.