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Jack shot Charity, she might drop the lighter, and there was a damn good chance it would set Reverend Harper on fire. There was only one chance to prevent that from happening.

Jack aimed and fired. “Seth, grab the lighter!”

The bullet hit its target—the center of Charity’s chest. She fell backward from the impact. Her eyes widened in shock as her body rebelled against the assault. She dropped to her knees, still clutching the lighter. She stared sightlessly at her father, then tossed the lighter toward Cathy as she crumpled to the floor, face down.

The lighter sailed straight toward Cathy.

Seth dove forward, his arm outstretched, his palm open.

Jack held his breath.

Realizing the lighter was a hairsbreadth from igniting the gasoline soaking her hair, skin and clothes, Cathy rolled backward against the desk.

Seth caught the lighter in his palm, then quickly snapped it shut and closed his fist around it.

Jack rushed into the room and clamped his hand down on Seth’s shoulder. When his son turned to him, he hugged the boy. Seth hugged him, and then they both knelt beside Cathy. Jack jerked the gag out of her mouth and untied her wrists as Seth untied her ankles.

“Charity?” Cathy asked.

“Dead,” Jack replied. He knew he had hit her in the heart. There was no way she could have survived.

“Help John Earl,” Cathy said to Seth as Jack lifted her to her feet.

Jack slid his arm around Cathy’s waist and held her against him as Seth and Missy untied John Earl. As soon as he was free, he rushed to his daughter, knelt down and pulled her lifeless body into his arms.

When the emergency crews arrived a few minutes later, they found John Earl still holding Charity, his face ashen with grief and his eyes filled with tears. Missy was clutching Seth’s hand tightly, and Jack held a gasoline-soaked Cathy in his arms.

Chapter Thirty-five

Almost everyone in Dunmore had shown up during the visitation hours at the Baptist church on the day of Charity Harper’s funeral. The funeral itself had been a private event attended only by Charity’s family and a handful of close friends. Cathy had stayed at Seth’s side during the service and afterward had taken him home, where Jack had been waiting for them. No one, not even John Earl and Ruth Ann, had blamed Jack, but Cathy knew better than anyone how he agonized over having had to kill Charity in order to save two other lives. What had transpired that afternoon in the church basement had brought Seth and Jack together in a way only a shared tragedy could have. They had bonded as comrades, as Cathy’s protectors, and the trauma they had shared had helped speed up the healing process for all three of them

Two months later, the Harpers, along with their foster daughter, Missy Hovater, moved away from Dunmore. John Earl had been assigned to a church in Louisiana. No one ever mentioned that Charity had accused her grandmother of having set her husband on fire all those years ago. Somehow, in the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t seem all that important. Ruth Ann had told Lorie that the family’s only hope of ever having any chance at a somewhat normal life was to move as far away from Dunmore as possible.

For several weeks, Seth had nursed a broken heart over Missy’s departure, but by Thanksgiving he was dating Bracey Carter, the girl he’d taken to the Homecoming Dance in October. Cathy was thankful that her son’s feelings for Missy had been little more than a teenage crush.

Although she had longed for Seth to live with her his junior year in high school, he had opted to live with J.B. and Mona until next summer.

“Granddad and Nana need me more than you do right now,” he had told her. “Besides, you and Jack need time to work things out before you have me underfoot all the time.”

The holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s—came and went. Jack moved in with Cathy permanently on New Year’s Eve. On Valentine’s Day, he proposed. They set their wedding date for mid-March during Seth’s spring break and moved into Jack’s big, newly renovated Victorian home.

Maleah hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, and God knew she wished she could walk away and pretend she’d never seen Griff and Yvette Meng talking quietly on the patio. Their conversation was none of her business.

But why had they waited until Nic had driven into Knoxville for the day to meet? For the past several months, Nic’s