Valerie Hansen - Small Town Justice

The disgusted noise Shane made needed no translation. Jamie Lynn looked into Marsha’s misty blue gaze and said, “I’m just here to find the truth.”

Behind her she heard Shane add, “No matter who it hurts.”

“The truth can set us free,” Marsha quoted. “Will you be able to accept it if you learn that your brother actually was guilty?”

“Of course.” But would she? Jamie had believed so strongly that her well-loved sibling was innocent, she’d never considered finding evidence to the contrary. What if she did? What if their parents had been trying to protect them from worse emotional trauma by inventing the story about receiving criminal threats?

But if that were true, if the threats weren’t real, then why send their daughter away? And why split up when Jamie knew how devoted to each other they had been?

No. There was a lot more to this puzzle, to this town, than met the eye. And one of the best places to start getting to the bottom of everything was by keeping company with someone who’d had a vested interest in the whole scenario, right from the start.

She smiled slightly, hoping Marsha was ready for what she was about to say. “I’d like to take you up on your offer but now that you know exactly who I am, I’ll understand if you want to withdraw your invitation.”

“Nonsense. We’d love to have you.”

“And I’d love to come,” Jamie Lynn said, seeing Shane’s face flush. It wasn’t necessary to win him over or gain even partial cooperation. Marsha was the one who would know the most about the events surrounding the hit-and-run anyway. It was Marsha she needed to quiz.

Once again, her conscience reared its head, demanding attention. She reached for the older woman’s hand. “You need to be aware that I intend to keep probing and asking questions until I get satisfactory answers.”

“Fair enough.” Marsha smiled, the outer corners of her eyes wrinkling to accent sparkling irises.

Those were Kyle’s eyes, Jamie noted. The color reminded her of the ocean off the Atlantic coast; not exactly blue, not green, either, while Shane’s were more like the afterglow of a sunset in the forest, all brown and gold.

Perhaps it wasn’t the hues that made those people’s eyes different, she mused. Perhaps it was the personalities behind their glances, particularly in the case of Marsha. Someone had taken her beloved husband from her, yet she was willing to befriend a stranger who she knew was kin to the convicted killer.

What kind of person could manage to do that? Jamie Lynn asked herself. The invitation was evidently genuine and came without strings attached.

Of course, it also meant she’d have to be around Shane for the rest of the evening. That, alone, should have shown her that she was getting in over her head, yet Jamie dismissed the notion. She knew what she was doing. A casual, frank conversation with the family of R.J.’s supposed victim was exactly what she needed as a base on which to build.

She gently touched her scalp with the tip of one finger, wondering how anybody was going to be able to remove all those tiny pieces of glass without scratching her or clogging up their plumbing.

When she glanced over at Shane, she apparently caught him off guard because, instead of the anger she’d expected, she thought she glimpsed empathy.

Then again, he had shown concern by trailing her even after he’d learned who she was. His approach was not nearly as gentle as Marsha’s, of course. He had a macho image, not to mention a firm belief that his father’s killer had been caught and punished. Naturally he would resist an alternate solution. Anybody would.

She pulled her gaze away from Shane and concentrated on his mother. “May Ulysses and I hitch a ride with you to the motel? I really should freshen up and change before supper.”

“Of course.”

Although Jamie Lynn didn’t check Shane’s reaction, she saw Marsha do just that, then smile and say, “You go fetch my grandson. We girls will meet you back at the house.”

He huffed derisively. “Not on your life, Mom. Where that meddlesome woman goes, trouble follows. And so do I.”

“Okay. Then meet us at the motel,” Marsha said, looping her bent arm through Jamie’s. Her smile widened. “Since you’re so worried, I’ll take Kyle home to play with Otis and you can give Jamie Lynn a ride to the house later, when she’s ready.”

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Shane shrugged. “All right. We’ll do it your way this time,” he told Marsha. “Just don’t forget who and what we’re dealing with. Somebody has it in for Ms. Henderson—Nolan—but good, and they don’t seem to have given up. Whenever you’re with her, you can become collateral damage.”

Hesitating, Jamie Lynn tugged on Marsha’s arm. “Wait. This is a bad idea all the way around. Shane’s right about people being after me. I don’t want to do anything to put your family in jeopardy.”

Marsha turned and clasped Jamie’s free hand in both of hers. “Honey, I was married to Sam Colton for almost twenty years. During that time he received threats of all kinds. If I was ever worried about some good old boys heaving bricks through my windows, or some such nonsense, I got over it long ago.”

“This could be a lot worse than a brick,” Jamie Lynn warned.

“Nothing can ever be worse than losing my Sam,” Marsha insisted. “When it’s my time to go, it’s my time. No human intervention can change that.”

“You believe in fate?”

The older woman was shaking her head. Her eyes were so kind they tugged at Jamie’s conscience even more.

“No. What I believe is that God loves me and has been looking after me since I was a child and first met Jesus.” Her grip tightened. “What about you? What do you believe?”

“That I have to be responsible for my own life because nobody else is,” Jamie said before thinking it through. When she saw pity in Marsha’s expression, she wished she’d chosen her words with more care.

Instead of commenting, however, Marsha merely turned and led her toward a newer white sedan. A click of a key fob unlocked the doors remotely and made the lights flash.

Jamie circled, passed her little dog across to Marsha, then sat sideways on the edge of the passenger seat and bent forward over the curbside to shake loose glass out of her hair.

Satisfied she’d done all she could, she swung her legs in, pulled Ulysses onto her lap and slammed the door. She desperately wanted to explain what she’d meant when she’d said that nobody else cared what became of her, but the right words failed to materialize. Aunt Tessie cared, yes. As for anyone else, who knew? Certainly not Jamie Lynn.

* * *

By the time Shane located Kyle and made suitable excuses to the gang of church ladies who had gathered to bemoan the fact that he’d passed his child off so easily, Marsha’s car had left the square. Since he already knew where she was headed and how close the cozy motel was to the middle of Serenity, he wasn’t worried about safety. The idiots who had taken a potshot at Jamie Lynn were bound to know better than to try anything else right away, particularly with the square swarming with cops.

He smiled, realizing that the Serenity version of a swarm of police was far different from a city show of force. Nevertheless, there were enough cops present to ensure that whoever had been targeting the Henderson/Nolan woman would be long gone. Good ole boys might be wild and rowdy but they weren’t stupid. They were, for the most part, endowed with the innate savvy of natural hunters and fishermen, particularly since that kind of outdoor activity was such a big part of their upbringing.

Even he could shoot well, Shane reminded himself. His dad had seen to that long ago. With Sam’s careful instruction had come safety lessons, too. Guns didn’t worry Shane except for Kyle’s presence in the home, so he kept the firearms separate from the ammo and locked each component in a different cabinet.