Henry blustered, “But that was so long ago, surely you don’t-”
“You doubt the last word of a dying man?” Leigh demanded. “No matter. We didn’t expect anything more of you than this. You are bought and paid for by the Waynes just like half the people in this town. So I’m giving fair warning to you and to them. I will find out which one of them killed my husband, and when I do, they will pay.”
Then Leigh turned around and walked between her sons to face the crowd.
“Yes, look at me. Look long and hard, all of you. As for my so-called family, if any of you are hiding in the crowd, you best take a look, too, because this is what the devil looks like when he’s on your heels. When I find which one of you did this, you will wish you’d never been born. There isn’t enough money between you and God to buy your way out of this.”
Michael walked up to flank his mother on her left. Samuel and Aidan stepped into place on her right, and then Samuel slid an arm across her shoulders and raised his voice.
“The back-shooting coward and the family who harbors him best remember, you won’t catch us unarmed again.”
Leigh lifted her chin as she stared at the crowd. She stared them down until they began looking away.
“I think we’re done here,” Leigh said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Samuel said, and slipped a hand beneath her arm, then escorted her to the Jeep and seated her inside.
Samuel led the way out of town with his brothers behind him. He didn’t speak until they were all the way out of town. He looked at his mother. Her jaw was set. Her eyes were clear, and her gaze was fixed on the road in front of them.
“Mama.”
She answered absently without shifting her gaze. “What?”
“I am very proud to be your son.”
Leigh nodded, squeezed his arm and then took a deep shuddering breath.
He caught movement from the corner of his eye and quickly shifted his gaze. Her feet were on the dash, her elbows resting on her knees. She took another breath, covered her face with her hands and moaned.
Breath caught in the back of Samuel’s throat as her shoulders began to shake and she started to cry-harsh, ugly sobs ripped from the depths of her soul.
“Oh my God, oh my God, Stanton Lee, how am I going to live without you?”
Samuel didn’t talk, and he didn’t touch her. This grief was for her alone.
Three
By a twist of fate, Leigh’s sisters had been in the crowd. Nita Garner and Fiona Tuttle were older than her and rarely gave her a thought anymore, but that was obviously about to change.
Since Nita was divorced and Fiona widowed, they alternated their residences between the family estate in Eden and their apartments in New York City. They had been in Eden for nearly two months and, to pass the time, were redecorating parts of the mansion. On a whim, they had taken the day off for their own mini-makeovers and were just coming out of the local day spa on their way to have lunch when they’d been alerted by the honking.
“What on earth?” Fiona muttered, as she stopped and turned around.
Nita pointed at the woman in the passenger seat of the front vehicle racing up the street.
“Oh my God! Is that Leigh?”
Fiona gasped. “Yes, I believe it is.”
They stopped to stare, and when they saw the two vehicles stopping in the street in front of the police station, they stayed to watch.
They hadn’t seen their sister up close in years and were horrified by the condition of her hair and clothing, but when they saw the men getting out with her and realized they were her sons, they were stunned. They would not have known their own nephews if they’d passed them on the street.
They weren’t the only ones who were curious about the racket, and when a crowd began gathering, they stood at the back out of curiosity. Then Leigh began talking, and when they heard the rage and the pain in her voice, and the accusations she was making, they left in a rush, frantic to get back to the family and find out what the hell was going on.
The fact that the crowd was still milling and talking when they tried to slip away set them at a disadvantage. They knew when people began calling out to them that this was going to get completely out of hand. By the time they got in Fiona’s car and drove away, they were nearly in tears.
“What in the world do you suppose has happened?” Nita asked.
Fiona shook her head.
“Who knows? I haven’t heard a single member of the family even say her name in years. Now this. It makes no sense,” she said.
Nita pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Fiona asked.
“I’m calling Blake. If he’s not home, he needs to get there.”
“If you’re going that far, then tell him to gather the whole family. This is a mess that’s not going to go away soon,” Fiona said.
“Right,” Nita said, and waited for Blake to pick up.
When he finally did, his voice was terse and distracted. “What do you want, Nita? I’m about to take a conference call,” he snapped.
“Get home. Now. And make sure everyone else is there, too. We have a huge problem.”
Blake shoved his chair back from the desk and stood abruptly.
“What are you talking about?”
“Leigh and three of her sons just drove into Eden in a rage. Someone murdered her husband today. He wrote his killer’s name in the dirt before he died.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Blake asked.
“The name he wrote was Wayne. Leigh just called us all out in front of Chief Clayton and half the town, and pretty much promised to send the killer to hell.”
Blake gasped. “Son-of-a-holy-bitch! You cannot be serious.”
“I do not make jokes about the family skeletons. Get everyone home. Fiona and I are on the way.”
She hung up before Blake could argue and then dropped the phone in her purse.
They rode for a few moments in total silence, and then Fiona sighed. “I can’t believe Leigh would think any of us capable of that.”
Nita snorted.
“Get serious. Father already threatened to do that very thing, and Blake and Justin backed him.”
“But that was ages ago, and Father is dead,” Fiona said, and skidded through the turn into the open gates at the entrance to the Wayne estate.
“Uncle Jack is not dead, and they don’t call him Mad Jack Wayne for nothing. For that matter, Blake and Justin have more or less turned into Daddy,” Nita said.
“What possible reason would they have to do that after all these years? I don’t believe this. There has to be an explanation. Besides, our family law firm can destroy them in court. That could just as easily be the first name of a man we don’t even know.”
Nita looked up at the looming three-story mansion and shifted nervously in her seat.
“Leigh was scary, wasn’t she?”
Fiona sighed.
“Yes. With the scratches on her face and arms, and all that blood on her clothes, she looked like she’d been in a war, not to mention her sons were very protective of her.”
“And those sons are absolutely gorgeous,” Nita drawled.
Fiona gasped.
“Seriously, Nita! That sounded incestuous.”
Nita glared.
“It was just a comment about their physical appearances. I didn’t hit on them, for God’s sake.”
Fiona wheeled the car beneath the portico and slammed on the brakes, then looked up in the rearview mirror.
“Charles is right behind us, so I guess Blake is calling in the family as you asked,” she said.
Blake’s son, Charles, had just turned twenty-one and was constantly teased by the family that he drove like an old man, never speeding. He was a stocky, muscular young man, more like his mother’s people than the Waynes. After he’d turned sixteen, he’d chosen to live with his father instead of his mother, who’d returned to her family home in Florida. Charles had his eye set on a future in the family conglomerate. As he pulled up beneath the portico, he noticed his aunts were still in the car beside him.