Whirlwind - Janet Dailey Page 0,76

was family. Is it possible to keep this out of the news? I really don’t want reporters and camera crews up here.”

“I can’t control the folks who listen in on the dispatches,” the sheriff said. “But until we know more, I’ll try to keep things quiet. Call me if you find anything else that might help.”

Tess thanked him, took his card, and watched the van drive away. Then, leaving Aaron, she headed back down the road to the house.

Memories swept over her as she walked—Callie making birthday cakes, cutting paper dolls, and reading stories to her sisters; Callie listening to her teenage troubles and hugging her tight when she got the news about Mitch; Callie by their father’s bedside, holding his hand as he died. Warm, laughing, loving Callie.

This couldn’t be real.

But there was no getting around the truth. When it came to the acts of destruction on the ranch, Callie had motive, means, and plenty of opportunity. Even so, Tess couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

She reached the house and crossed the porch—the porch where she and Callie would no longer sit in the lawn chairs with a cold drink while they watched the sunset and talked over the events of the day. She passed into the kitchen where the coffee sat cold on the counter, and no one had even started breakfast—not that anybody, except maybe the boys, would have much appetite.

Standing at the back door, looking out over Callie’s lovingly watered garden, Tess sucked in her tears and prepared to call her sisters.

* * *

When Lexie got the call from Tess, she was in the hospital parking lot, clearing Shane’s personal belongings out of his truck. Except for the pistol and ammo clip in the glove box, the other odds and ends, like his spare keys, sunglasses, and faded baseball cap, along with his boots, clothes, and the things Casey had taken from his locker, would go with him when he went to rehab tomorrow morning. After he left, she would be driving the truck back to the ranch.

Yesterday she’d bought a nylon zipper bag and filled it with several sets of sweatpants, shirts, tees, socks, and underwear, along with a pair of sneakers for Shane to wear in rehab. Seeing to these small needs was becoming routine. It even gave her pleasure. Tomorrow, when they went their separate ways, she would miss being there for him. But she knew that Shane needed to move ahead with the next chapter in his life, and she needed to let him—even if it meant losing him.

She was locking the truck when her phone rang. The connection was a bad one, cutting out Tess’s too-calm voice. Only when Tess ended the call and switched to texting did Lexie get the essence of the message.

Callie is dead. Come home.

Coming.

Lexie sent the single word before the news sank in, doubling her over like a body blow. Callie dead? How could that be? She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t old. It couldn’t be true.

Lexie barely remembered her own mother. From her early childhood, it had been Callie who’d tucked her in at night, Callie who’d brushed her hair, read her stories, driven her to the bus stop, and helped her with her homework. Callie who’d done everything a mother would do except give birth to her.

“No!” She wanted to scream the word at the top of her lungs. First Jack, then her father, then Shane’s terrible injury, and now this.

Fighting tears, she carried the bag of Shane’s things up to his hospital room. She didn’t want to burden him by falling apart, but he’d always been able to read her.

“Tell me,” he said.

Sinking onto the chair when her legs failed to hold her, she told him what little she knew. Toward the end she broke down. Leaning over the edge of the bed, she pressed her face against his shoulder. Her body quivered with sobs.

“God, I’m sorry, Lexie.” He stroked her hair. “You already had too much to deal with. Now this. I wish I had some way to help.”

“It’s not just me . . .” Lexie spoke between sobs. “Tess didn’t say how Callie died. I have the feeling it was something awful.”

“You need to go home,” he said. “You need to go now.”

“What about you?” She raised her head. “What about the transfer to Tucson?”

“I’ll be fine. Brock’s arranged for helicopter transport. I didn’t ask for his help, but this will save me a long day of lying in the