Norrine had been right. When Glenn sneaked into her room the next night, she was sitting up in bed, and, instead of wearing her nightgown, she was still wearing the clothes she had worn to school. When he eased himself down on the edge of her bed, she whipped the can of pepper spray out from behind her back, then with her other hand, she had switched on the light. “See this, Glenn? If I spray you in the face, Mama Shirley is going to wonder why you’re in my bedroom getting your eyes burned out of your pissy little head. And I plan to tell her. And the state.”
He had never said a word to her, then or after. He left her room and never returned. The day she graduated from high school, she returned the can of pepper spray to Norrine and thanked her for her help.
She knew that what she had been through with Glenn was not normal. However, she had lived a rough life with her mother and Lara, and as she got older, she knew there were men who preyed on young girls. All this came back to her that Wednesday morning when Piper and Poppy told them that their uncle had touched them in their most private places. They were only ten years old, for God’s sakes! Tessa had tried to keep their lives as normal and wholesome as possible, and once they were old enough to learn about good touch, bad touch, she explained in very simple terms what they were. And always told them if anyone, it didn’t matter who it was, ever tried to touch them, that they were to come to her immediately. Sadly, that had not happened. There were no tears this time as she remembered her daughters’ tragic deaths. Maybe it was because she knew in a matter of hours she would confront Rachelle, and she would learn of Liam’s whereabouts.
And then she would begin to plan. She would need Lara’s help. Sam had her phone number. She would call her and tell her she had to come to the house. It was a matter of life and death. And she had to add that there would be money involved. That alone would bring Lara to her. If there was money involved, she could always count on Lara to show up.
Tessa tried to close her eyes again, hoping for at least another hour’s rest, but sleep would not come, so she said to hell with it, went to the kitchen in her pajamas, and made herself a cup of coffee. As she waited for the Keurig to do its thing, she prayed that the DA would realize that the evidence that her family was still alive on Saturday made it impossible for her to have killed them. After all this time, it was painful for her to think that the jurors who convicted her actually believed a mother, she, could commit the crimes she was charged with. Had she looked that unsympathetic as she had sat at the defense table?
She didn’t know the answer, as she was sure she had been in a complete state of shock. Her arrest, then the trial, which was only two weeks after her arrest, a fact she later learned was unusual, given the court’s backlog, was the result of incredibly sloppy police work. How could she have killed people on Friday if they were still alive on Saturday? True, Rosa never came forward to tell her story, but how could a coroner mistake a Saturday time of death for a Friday time of death? Once they decided that she was the murderer, did they even bother to ascertain the time of death? Since she was on the mainland all day Saturday, she had to have committed the murders on Friday, to their way of thinking. Ergo, the victims were killed on Friday, and who needed to waste time on establishing scientifically when they were killed? They had to have been killed on Friday since she killed them.
Someone had wanted her out of the way, and she just knew that someone was Liam Jamison. And in only a few hours, she would finally have the opportunity to tell his mother how much she hated him and that it was her life’s mission to find him. Tessa knew enough not to let on about her plans for Liam, but she would let Rachelle see what the years had done to her. She wasn’t even fifty years old and knew that anyone looking at her would add ten years to her age, maybe even more.
“I take it you couldn’t sleep either,” Sam said as he entered the kitchen.
She had heard his footsteps on the stairs, so his appearance in the kitchen didn’t surprise her.
“Not much,” she said, taking her cup of coffee and sitting on the barstool.
He made himself a cup of coffee, and she couldn’t help but admire him. She was a female. He must have showered—his dark hair was still wet—and she could detect a woodsy scent coming from him. He wore a pair of navy slacks with a white shirt, untucked, and buttoned only halfway. He was sexy and handsome, and why she had never really noticed this before, she had no clue. Handsome men hadn’t been her priority.
“Darlene sent me a text message a while ago. Told me to tell you there was a dress and ankle boots in the closet, and the boots would cover your ankle monitor. Said they were in a
