Page 104 of Obsession

Click.

He frowned. Ryker was going to talk with the investigators in Jackson and Oxford. Had he put the murders together? It didn’t matter if he had. There was nothing linking him to the cases.

Both women had been just like his mother. He’d tried to tell them the men they were dating were no good, but just like his mother, they wouldn’t listen. They kept taking the men back time after time. He hadn’t meant to kill them. The men, yes, but not them.

Just like he would kill Ryker. And soon too.

Suddenly memories bombarded him, spiraling him down the rabbit hole.He was a boy again, holding his mother’s hand. She was acting strange, like she’d taken toomany of her happy pills, and she smelled funny. Ascent he now recognized as whiskey.

They walked up the steps to the old house, and he was scared.

“Mama, I thought Daddy was at work.”

“Hush, boy. Wedon’t want him to hear us.”

As quiet as mice, they crept inside. Voices. His daddy’s and someoneelse’s. A woman. Why did his mama have agun?

“No!” That was his daddy yelling. The woman screamed.

Bang!

He pressed his hands against his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened them, his daddy was leaning over his mama. “Why, Margaret? Why did you doit?”

He stared at the blood pooling around his mother’s body. It was all his fault. He should haveprotected her. This would never again happen to someone heloved.

Static on the bug jerked him back to the present. It was time to take care of his new problem, one he hadn’t anticipated. Why were people so greedy? If he paid him to keep his mouth shut, it would only be the beginning.

He glanced down at the directions he’d been given to bring the money. Only it wasn’t money he was delivering and not at the appointed time. It would be done tonight, then he would be free to follow Ryker to Jackson. Maybe he would even have the opportunity to dispose of the ranger.

58

Sam had turned chalk white. “What’s wrong?” Emma asked when he disconnected.

He tapped his phone against his hand. “It’s ... my father. He’s had a heart attack, and Mom wants me to come to the hospital.”

“I’ll go with you. Give me a second to change into jeans.” She hurried to the hall.

“I don’t know that I’m going.”

Emma stopped and turned around. “You have to. Your mother needs you. And Jenny. She needs you too.”

Sam paced her living room floor. He stopped by the window. “What if I’m responsible for his heart attack?”

“That’s crazy thinking,” she said.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, it isn’t. He came by the Port Gibson office while I was there tonight. Wanted to apologize ... asked for my forgiveness.”

“And you didn’t give it to him.”

“I can’t.”

She took his hand. “No, Sam,” she said gently. “It’s not that you can’t forgive him, it’s that you won’t.”

His face hardened. “You don’t understand.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned and faced the window. “I have scars on my back where he whipped me with a leather belt untilthe blood ran down my legs. I was ten, and he was drunk and told me to get him another beer. I made the mistake of telling him he’d had enough.”

Emma pressed her fingers to her mouth. She’d had no idea.

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