Cold Hearts. Sharon Sala

the line went dead, he realized she’d hung up on him. His frown deepened. When Dick Phillips had died, she had scared him with her behavior, although he’d chalked up her reaction to being the one who’d found his body. Now she seemed on the verge of going down that road again. Damn it. He needed to be in three places at once. Then he thought of his fiancée, Dick Phillips’ daughter, Dallas. She could go check on his mother.

      He made a quick call home.

      Dallas answered on the second ring. “Hey, honey, did you forget something?”

      “No. Shit hit the fan early today. Paul Jackson is dead. Looks like the lift fell on him. Would you please go check on Mom, and if she’s acting weird, stay with her for a little while until I can get over there? I need to talk to her, but I can’t get over there for a while.”

      Dallas was horrified. With her father’s murder still fresh in her mind, she immediately empathized.

      “Yes, I’m on my way. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ll stay with her until you can get there.”

      “Thanks,” he said, then pocketed his phone and got in the car with Lissa.

      It appeared she’d been doing a repair job on her makeup. Her eyes were still red and slightly swollen, but she had reapplied some makeup and seemed calmer.

      “Are you sure you want to go to work?” Trey asked.

      “Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “If I need to sign anything, just call the office and leave me a message. I can drop by the station after school.”

      “Earl said you already gave him your statement?” he said as he started the car and pulled away.

      She nodded. “There wasn’t much to tell. I went in to see if my car was ready and...” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, then took a deep breath. “I went in and saw what had happened. I ran back out crying. My friend Margaret Lewis called the police.”

      “Did she go inside?” Trey asked.

      Her voice was shaking again. “Oh, no, no one else did except your officer.”

      “I’ll ask you not to talk about the details, okay?”

      She shuddered. “Of course.”

      A few moments later he turned the corner and pulled up to the front walk of the school building.

      “So here you are. I still think you should have gone home.”

      She gave him a brief smile. “Thank you for the ride,” she said, jumping out and fumbling with her things as she walked away.

      Trey drove back to the station. He wanted the privacy of his office to call Paul’s son and was dreading this call almost as much as the one he’d made to Dallas when Dick Phillips’ body was discovered.

      Inside, he sat down behind his desk, searched online for Jackson Lumber in Summerton and said a quick prayer.

      * * *

      Mack Jackson was outside in the breezeway of his lumberyard, watching one of his employees loading up an order. He eyed the short line of trucks and pickups behind it, four of which were also being loaded. After satisfying himself that all his customers were being helped, he headed back into the main building and then down the hall toward his office.

      He was well liked by his employees and was one of Summerton’s most eligible bachelors. He had no interest in changing that. He stayed friendly but kept everything casual when it came to feminine companions. His bookkeeper, a middle-aged woman named Bella Garfield, had told him that he looked like a dark-haired Daniel Craig, which always made him grin. Being compared to the current James Bond wasn’t a bad thing.

      He paused in the hallway to get a can of Coke from the machine and had just popped the top when Bella stepped out into the hall and waved him down.

      “Mack! Phone call for you on line four.”

      “Thanks,” he said, lengthening his stride. He shut the door behind him and set the can on his desk as he picked up the call. “This is Mack. How can I help you?”

      “Mack, this is Trey Jakes.”

      Mack smiled as he plopped down in his chair. “Well, hello, stranger. What can I do for you?”

      “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Are you alone?”

      Mack’s smile disappeared. “Yes, I’m alone. What’s happened?”

      “I’m so sorry to have to tell you, but your father was found dead in his shop this morning.”

      Trying to make sense of what he’d been told, Mack reeled as if he’d been slapped.

      “What? No! Oh, God, no! Was it a heart attack? Did—”

      “No, Mack. No heart attack.” Trey braced himself for the rest. “He was working on a car late last night, and it appears the lift failed and crushed him beneath it.”

      When Mack went silent, Trey didn’t know what to think. “Mack? Mack?”

      Mack’s voice was shaking, and his eyes were so full of tears he couldn’t see his desk. “I’m on my way.”

      “Look, Mack, the coroner isn’t here yet and—”

      “Are you telling me he’s still there? Under the car?”

      “It’s procedure in an unattended death. The coroner has to see the scene intact.”

      “Are you implying it wasn’t an accident?” Mack asked.

      “No, I’m not implying anything, but it’s my job not to assume anything, either.”

      “I hear you—now you hear me. I’ll be there.”

      “No, man, you don’t want—”

      The line went dead in Trey’s ear. He sighed. This was the second time that morning someone had hung up on him. He left the police station through the back door and returned to the scene of the accident.

      * * *

      It took Mack less than thirty minutes to put the lumberyard into his sympathetic manager’s hands and go home and pack. He’d made the drive from Summerton to Mystic countless times, but never like this. This time he was scared to go home.

      Once, when he was six, he got mad because he couldn’t go to his grandparents’ house and ran away. He didn’t get far before he realized he didn’t know how to get there, so he stopped, then was scared to go home because he was afraid of the consequences. He felt like that now, afraid to go home because of the consequences awaiting him.

      He was also bothered by how his father had died. He had been such a stickler for safety in the garage that this scenario seemed improbable. Of course hydraulic lifts could fail, but he’d never imagined them dropping so fast a man couldn’t escape. The horror-filled image in his head kept getting worse with each passing mile. Had his dad cried out for help and no one had heard? Had he suffered?

      He didn’t know he was crying until his vision finally blurred to the point that he couldn’t see the road. He pulled over onto the shoulder, slammed his SUV into Park and then laid his head down on the steering wheel and sobbed. One image after another swept through his mind from when he was a child. All the nights when he was little and his dad had read him a story to put him to sleep. The countless holidays spent together with his parents. The year the front porch had collapsed from a heavy snow and they couldn’t use the front door for two months. Losing his mother when he was only ten. Mack and his father had become inseparable afterward. Now the thought of his father dying alone in excruciating pain was horrifying. His dad had been there for him when he’d needed him most, but in Paul’s darkest moment, he’d died alone.

      Overwhelmed with grief and guilt, Mack lost track of time.

      It wasn’t until a semi rolled past him so fast it shook his car that he pulled himself together and resumed