Part 23 (1/2)

Pescoli said, ”I think it's a good idea. Respectful. Dan Grayson was good to all of us.”

”Let's go,” Jeremy yelled from behind the wheel and fired the engine before slamming his door shut.

”Great,” Bianca grumbled but climbed into her brother's rig as Pescoli made her way to her own Jeep.

Santana was waiting for her. ”Trouble in paradise?” he asked, hitching his chin toward Jeremy's truck as it wheeled out of the lot.

”Nothing serious.” She didn't want to go into it.

Santana picked up on it. ”You want to ride to the cemetery together?”

”Yes. Please. That would be great.” It felt good to let someone else take charge, if only for a little while. ”But there's three of us,” she said, indicating Sturgis.

Santana's dark eyes sparkled in the sun. ”I'm used to that. Come on.” He walked her to the pa.s.senger side. She handed him her keys and slid into the Jeep. Sturgis hopped inside.

They drove to the cemetery in a long procession and Pescoli stared out the window. Once they were through the city with its plowed streets and piles of graying snow, they pa.s.sed by broad fields spangled beneath the bright sun. The cemetery was located on a hill outside the city limits that angled softly upward and offered a view of the valley and the town sprawled below. Tombstones half buried in snow sprouted from the frozen ground and two roads bisected the graves. Ahead was a fresh plot-dark earth turned over in the snow, an oblong hole in the ground surrounded by several floral sprays, a small tent, and fake gra.s.s.

Fewer people had made the trek to the cemetery, though a bevy of vehicles were parked and mourners trudged through six inches of frigid powder to stand at Dan Grayson's final resting spot. The chaplain said a few more words and led another prayer. The Grayson family sat in a sober group near the grave.

Pescoli's stomach knotted at the finality of it all. When the guns were fired in salute, she fought a fresh spate of tears. Sturgis didn't so much as whimper as the rifles blasted and afterward the dog, head down, followed Pescoli obediently to Santana's truck.

It was over.

For everyone.

Sheriff Dan Grayson had been laid to rest.

Jessica woke Sunday morning feeling tired all over, and at work, the diner was a madhouse. While Sat.u.r.day had been a little slow, the crowd had returned for Sunday breakfast, brunch, lunch, and then later for dinner.

Nell was beside herself, delighted that the receipts were keeping the register busy. ”This is just what we needed,” she said, grinning.

Misty was quick on her feet, and obviously thrilled with the tips. ”Maybe I will take that winter vacation to Puerto Vallarta after all. My cousin's got a place down there, ya know. Always asking me to come down, but the airfare's out of my league. However, with a couple more days like this, I can see myself sitting on a beach and sipping a margarita from some hottie in a Speedo.”

Armando rolled his eyes and muttered something in Spanish under his breath. He and Denise had worked harder than ever getting the orders cooked and plated at a breakneck pace. Though Denise was handling the extra work effortlessly, Armando was at his rope's end, griping that they were running out of staples and that too many of the orders came in with changes. Jessica, grateful for the fast pace, didn't have time to think about the fact that she'd promised herself to go to the sheriff's office the next morning.

But as the s.h.i.+ft wound down and the last customers drifted out of the diner, her stomach once again knotted. Could she go through with it?

It was a little before eleven when Misty said, ”You run on home. I'll close.”

Jessica nodded. She was dead tired and told herself to get a decent night's sleep, then face the music. When she drove out of the lot, she found the city streets nearly deserted, the town of Grizzly Falls seemingly folded in on itself and closed up for the cold winter's night.

She told herself again that she wasn't being followed, that the headlights she'd seen in her rearview mirror weren't zeroed in on her. As she had before, she considered all of her options. She could wait for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to find her, stand her ground, and try to blow him away herself, but then she'd end up in a trial and possibly prison or the mental hospital. Again.

No, thank you.

Fleeing or turning herself in to the police were her options.

If she ran again, she was only putting off the inevitable. Buying a little frantic time. Putting more people in danger. Again, she'd pa.s.s.

That left going to the police, telling them her story, and hoping they would believe her, trust her, go against all the evidence.

She turned onto the county road and the streetlights gave way to darkness. No car seemed to be following her and the more distance she put between herself and Grizzly Falls, the more she told herself to relax. She had only one more night on the run, then, come morning, her life would take another turn and change.

Forever.

”So be it,” she said, the beams from her headlights cutting through the deep night. A few snowflakes drifted lazily from the night sky to catch in the light. As she left the city behind she should have felt calm, but instead, she was still uneasy. Restless. She fiddled with the radio and heard an old Johnny Cash song on a country station that kept cutting out. She thought of her family and a bitter taste rose in her throat. Would they come to Montana? Would she be sent to Louisiana where she would face them again through iron bars or through thick gla.s.s where they could only speak through phones mounted in the walls? Or would they abandon her?

Did she even care? Those ties had been severed a while back, their frayed ends unable to be st.i.tched back together.

She had, of course, not only betrayed and embarra.s.sed them, she'd renounced them publicly, a sin for which she would never be forgiven. Her mother and father lived by a very stiff and archaic set of standards. A public life that was, to all who looked at it, picture-perfect. No cracks to be seen. But once the doors were closed, their private life was very different and very guarded.

She'd known the rules growing up.

She'd not only broken them, she'd done so in a very public way.

She remembered the day she'd first confronted her mother.

Outside on a lounge chair, her mother was reading a paperback. Wearing a sundress and dark gla.s.ses, she'd positioned herself on the porch in the shade of the overhanging oak tree, leaving only her legs exposed to the sunlight.

Though it was barely nine in the morning, the summer heat was sweltering, the day sultry, almost sticky, a haze in the blue Louisiana sky. An Olympic-sized pool, her father's prized possession, ab.u.t.ted the veranda of her parents' home outside New Orleans. It s.h.i.+mmered as it stretched far into the tended backyard.

”Mom?” Anne-Marie called, gathering her nerves.

Jeanette looked up and set her paperback onto her lap. A gla.s.s of sweet tea was sweating on the small table beside the lounge chair. A smaller gla.s.s of ice and a clear liquid, most likely gin, sat near a pack of long cigarettes by the ashtray and a lighter. Paddle fans, as always, were softly whirling overhead. b.u.t.terflies with orange and black wings flitted through the heavily blossomed bougainvillea flanking the yard.

”This is a surprise.” Jeanette smiled, but Anne-Marie knew it was false. Jeanette Favier had never been a warm person.

”I have something to tell you.”

”Oh.” Nothing more. Just the hint of disappointment from dealing with a daughter who had continually disappointed and bothered her.

”It's about . . . him.”

”Again?” Her mother sighed, her smile falling away. ”Why you have such a problem with your husband, I'll never understand. Marriage isn't easy, and given your . . . condition, you're lucky he wanted you.”

”My condition. You mean because I was a little wild?” Anne-Marie challenged.

Her mother sighed through her nose. ”Your brothers were 'a little wild,' but you pushed the boundaries, got yourself in that accident and-” She stopped. ”Oh, well.”

”Go ahead. Say it. I've never been the same since. Isn't that what you were going to tell me? You blame me for falling off a d.a.m.n horse and hitting my head and think that's the cause of every bad thing that's happened to me since.”

”You were in a coma for days, but of course, you don't remember that. When you finally woke up”-Jeanette shook slightly-”you were . . . different.”

”With a condition.”

”You went from bad to worse. I'd thought . . . no, I'd hoped . . . when you finally decided to get married that you would settle down, make a decent life for yourself. But that's not the way it ever is with you.”

”He's not the man I thought he was.”

”No one is. We all have girlhood dreams of white knights and thunderous steeds and chivalrous men who pledge their lives to us, but in the end, they are all just men.” Jeanette let out a long breath and shook her head. ”Have you forgotten the 'for better or worse' part of your vows?”