Silent Killer Page 0,67

tomorrow after church? I’m sure your grandparents won’t object.”

“Yeah, sure, thanks. That would be great.” Seth looked at Cathy, waiting for her to agree.

“Yes, thank you,” Cathy replied.

Donnie spread his arms out, placing one around Seth’s shoulders and the other around his daughter’s waist. “Come on, kids. It’s nearly eight o’clock. Y’all don’t want to be late. This thing is from eight tonight until eight in the morning, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Seth said.

“Yes, Daddy, eight to eight.”

Cathy stood in the yard and watched Brother Hovater back out of the driveway. He threw up his hand and waved. She waved back at him and smiled.

Donnie seemed like a very nice man. He had certainly tried his best to act as a mediator between Seth and her tonight. She appreciated his offer to take them to lunch tomorrow, which would give them time to talk without J.B. being involved.

Jack came up behind her so quietly that he startled her when he spoke. “Are you all right?”

She gasped and jumped simultaneously.

“Sorry,” he said.

She turned and faced him. “It’s okay. And yes, I’m all right, but not happy about hearing my father-in-law’s words come out of my son’s mouth.”

“All the more reason you should do everything you can to regain custody of Seth,” Lorie said from where she stood on the porch.

“I hate that my being here tonight bothered your son so much,” Jack said. “But you have to know that he’s not going to approve of your dating, no matter who the guy is. No man will live up to his father. Not in his eyes.”

Lorie and Cathy exchanged quick oh-my-God glances, and then Cathy looked directly at Jack. “That wasn’t Seth talking tonight. That was J.B. Before I went away, before my breakdown, Seth and I were very close. He was my son far more than he was ever Mark’s. Seth and Mark had a good relationship, but…I can’t let this happen. I cannot lose Seth. I will not allow J.B. to manipulate him this way.”

“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Jack said.

“There isn’t, but thanks. I’ll deal with this in my own way and in my own time.”

“Come on, you two,” Lorie called. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of decaf and we can eat our dessert.”

Jack slipped his arm around Cathy’s waist. She felt his touch in every nerve in her body. A tingling warmth spread through her, an odd mixture of excitement and contentment. Side by side, the strength of his big body comforting her, they went up the steps, onto the porch and into the house.

Jack and Deputy Willis were holding down the fort tonight, and so far, more than four hours into their eight-hour shift, things had been relatively quiet. He glanced at the wall clock. It was already three-thirty Sunday morning. The night dispatcher had taken a total of five calls, and all of them had been easily handled by the night-shift patrolmen on duty. With little to do, he’d found himself thinking about Cathy. When he had returned to Dunmore and taken the job with the sheriff’s department, he’d been at loose ends, uncertain what the future held. Now, here he was back home only a few weeks and he’d hired a contractor to restore his old home and he was pursuing a girl who’d dumped him for another guy nearly seventeen years ago.

Well, maybe he wasn’t actually pursuing Cathy, just renewing their old friendship and seeing where it went. And to be fair, he supposed he couldn’t accuse her of dumping him. He’d been the one who had left her behind when his unit had been sent to the Middle East and he’d wound up spending months as an Iraqi prisoner of war. What had he expected her to do when he’d been reported missing in action?

Just as he lifted his coffee mug to his lips, Jack heard a ruckus at the front entrance, where Deputies Gipson and Dryer were escorting a group of teenagers into the building. He set the mug down on his desk and headed toward the officers and a gang of grumbling youngsters. He counted seven in all, four girls and three boys. Two of the girls were crying, and one of the boys, a redhead, looked scared to death.

“My folks are going to kill me,” one of the girls whined.

“Yeah, my old man will ground me for the rest of my life,” the frightened redhead said.

“Ah, shut up pissing and moaning,” said a stocky boy