The Mother. BEVERLY BARTON

had a good marriage—or so he’d thought—and he’d been content. But even before Blake’s birth, he had begun to notice little things about Enid’s behavior, things that he later realized were signs of her mental illness. But he had chosen to ignore those signs. After all, his life had been good, hadn’t it? There had been no need to make mountains out of molehills.

      If only … Famous last words. If only he had paid more attention to Enid’s strange behavior. If only he had admitted that after Blake’s birth, she had needed professional help. But a quarter of a century ago, people didn’t talk much about the various types of mental illnesses, about things like bipolar disorder or postpartum depression.

      I’m sorry, Enid. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were sick, that you had suffered with mood swings and severe bouts of depression since childhood. Sorry that I didn’t realize until it was too late.

      Wayne turned onto Meadow Hill Drive and slowed his truck to the neighborhood speed limit of twenty-five as he drew near his destination. The three-bedroom, two-bath red brick ranch house with the neatly manicured lawn and rose bushes lining one side of the concrete drive beckoned to him as it had for so many years. Inside this house, he would find, as he always did, warmth and caring, understanding, and a few hours of forgetfulness.

      He had already rung the doorbell before he thought that maybe he should have called first. But when Grace Douglas opened the door and stood there smiling up at him, every thought except what a wonderful sight she was left his mind.

      “What a pleasant surprise,” Grace said as she stepped back to allow him into her home. When he remained silent, simply looking at her, drinking her in, her smile disappeared. “Wayne, what’s wrong?”

      The moment he closed the door behind him, she opened her arms and wrapped them around him. When she laid her head on his chest, he enclosed her soft, womanly body in a tender embrace and the weight of the world dropped from his overburdened shoulders.

      “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” Grace said as she lifted her head from his chest and gazed lovingly up at him.

      He reached down and cradled her face with both hands. “Have I told you lately how very important you are to me?”

      Her lips curved in a fragile smile. “Not lately, no, but you don’t have to tell me for me to know, because I feel the same way.” She took his hand in hers and led him through the living room and into the kitchen at the back of the house. “Sit down and I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

      When she pulled away from him to prepare the coffee, he grasped her wrist. She looked back at him.

      “I guess the coffee can wait,” she said.

      He slid out a chair from the table, sat down, and then eased her onto his lap. She draped her arm around his neck.

      Grace Douglas was round and plump, with wide hips and full breasts. She was a kind, giving woman with a heart as big as Texas. He doubted most folks ever noticed the sadness in her pretty blue eyes, a sadness that he understood in a way no one else in her life did.

      He ran the back of his hand gently across her cheek. She closed her eyes and quietly sighed.

      “Could we talk, later?” he asked. “I promise I’ll explain everything. But right now …” He glided his hand down her neck, across her shoulder, and opened his palm to cup one breast.

      Right now, he needed to forget. He needed to lose himself in this beautiful, loving woman. There would be time enough later that evening to tell her about the unidentified skeletons of two toddler boys. Skeletons that might be the remains of his son Blake and her son Shane.

      The minute J.D. entered police headquarters, he spotted his daughter. She rose from the chair where she sat alongside a tattooed, nose-ringed boy with scraggly brown hair and a surly expression.

      When a uniformed police officer said something to her, Zoe cried, “But it’s my father. Please, let me tell him what happened.”

      The officer nodded. Zoe came running toward J.D. and hurled herself at him. Instinct took over and he put his arms around her in a comforting, fatherly way.

      “I wasn’t drinking,” Zoe told him. “I swear to God, I wasn’t drinking. Not even a beer.”

      The young officer, who looked all of twenty-five, lean, blond, and clean-cut, walked over to J.D. “Special Agent Cass?” He offered J.D. his hand. “I’m Officer Karns. Ryan Karns.”

      “Yeah, I’m J.D. Cass.” He shook the man’s hand. “So, what’s going on here?” He glanced from Zoe to Officer Karns.

      “Your daughter isn’t under arrest, but we had to hold her, of course, until a parent could pick her up,” Karns said. “The boy she was with was speeding not two miles from here, and when a patrolman tried to pull him over, he raced off doing close to a hundred. Lucky for him and your daughter, he didn’t wreck.”

      “Dawson just panicked, J.D.” Zoe grabbed his arm. “He’d been drinking a beer and he didn’t want to get a DUI. That’s why he ran.”

      J.D. glowered at his daughter.

      “Whatever possessed you to go off with that boy?” J.D. glanced at the sulking young hunk who glared back at him.

      “Dawson’s my boyfriend,” Zoe snapped angrily.

      “Like hell he is. You’re fourteen. You’re not old enough to have a boyfriend.”

      When she opened her mouth to protest, J.D. gave her a warning stare and said, “Not another word out of you.”

      “Young lady,” she mumbled under her breath.

      “Is my daughter free to go?” J.D. asked Officer Karns.

      “Yes, sir, she is.”

      “No, damn it, I won’t leave without Dawson.” Zoe planted her hands on her slender hips and shot her father a challenging glare.

      “You’ll leave,” J.D. told her. “Either under your own power or thrown over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Your choice … young lady.”

      “I’m afraid Dawson isn’t free to go,” Officer Karns explained. “Not only was he speeding, but he was driving under the influence, endangering himself and others. He failed the breathalyzer test. He had a BrAC of 0.09.”

      “He was just drinking beer,” Zoe told them, adamant in Dawson’s defense.

      “Whatever he was drinking doesn’t matter,” J.D. informed her. “A reading of 0.08 is considered intoxicated, and the number drops even lower for anyone under the age of twenty-one. Dawson’s sixteen.”

      “We’ve contacted Dawson’s parents. They’re out of town, so we’ll be holding him at the Hamilton County Juvenile Detention Center until they get back in town.”

      When J.D. refused to help Dawson, Zoe began mouthing off again, threatening all sorts of outlandish things. The wayward teen was his parents’ problem, not J.D.’s. He had enough trouble with Zoe.

      In the middle of his daughter’s tirade and just as J.D. was at his wits’ end, he heard a calm, soothing female voice ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

      “Evening, Dr. Sherrod.” Officer Karns’s shoulders drooped wearily, as if he, too, were at the end of his rope. No doubt he had counted on J.D. being able to control his fourteen-year-old daughter since he wasn’t sure how to deal with the hysterical girl.

      Apparently, Audrey Sherrod had been visiting her uncle and had just walked out of his office. However, it wasn’t Garth Hudson who accompanied her, but Chief Mullins. The chief gave Audrey a quick, fatherly peck on the cheek and whispered something to her, then nodded to Officer Karns and headed for the exit.

      Dr. Sherrod’s question had startled Zoe into complete silence. She stood there staring at the woman as if she were an alien who had just stepped out of a spaceship from Mars.

      “I