“Brenda? Honey…”
She opened her eyes.
“These men are from the FBI. They want to talk to you.”
She nodded.
Jacob’s heart skipped. “What have you done?”
She stood up and held out her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry. For everything.”
The special agents were taken aback by her acquiescenceas they handcuffed her.
“What has she done?” Jacob shouted.
“Abetted in the armored car robbery resulting in the death of two armed guards and the wounding of two others. One of the robbers who was shot yesterday named all of the participants. According to the confession, Brenda Kingston has been having an affair with Pete Brandt, the man who planned and orchestrated the robbery.”
Jacob reeled as if he’d just been shot. “No. I don’t believe it. Brenda! Tell them it’s a mistake!”
She dropped her head. Her silence said it all.
They walked her out of the bar in full view of everyone inside, and then the regular customers all ran into the house looking for Jacob, who was coming undone before their eyes.
But what the special agents didn’t know was that Brenda Kingston was, for all intents and purposes, already dead when they put her in the car and drove away.
When she fell asleep in the back seat, they thought little of it until they reached their destination and found out they hadn’t transported her. They’d transported her body.
* * *
The shock of her arrest and subsequent suicide left Jacob and his sons prostrate with grief and disbelief, and then following that, the shame that came down upon them. Dylan and Gunner hadn’t been told the details, but Asher knew, and it forever changed the child he’d been meant to be.
Jacob began closing the bar at 10:00 p.m. to take care of his boys, and not one customer complained. Asher stepped up and stepped into a man’s shoes. He hadn’t only lost his mother, but he’d lost the rest of his childhood. He became the one who helped his brothers with homework, and didthe laundry, and when Gunner or Dylan woke up crying for their mother, Asher was the one who took them into his bed and cradled them back to sleep.
Within days, the whole town of Crossroads picked up the rest of the slack in Jacob Kingston’s life. A volunteer cadre of people began taking the boys to school, while others picked them up and took them home at the end of the day.
Pete Brandt and his crew got life in prison.
Life went on, and Jacob’s boys grew up and moved away.
The Tumbleweed Bar saved Jacob’s sanity, and ultimately, forever rooted him in Crossroads, and the missing money became a footnote in history.
* * *
Texas State Prison—Twenty-one years later
Mostly, it was the machines hooked up to Pete Brandt’s body, and the steady morphine drip going into his veins deadening the pain of his cancer-ridden body, that were still keeping him alive.
The prison warden had notified his next of kin that death was imminent, and the next morning, both of his sons were at the prison asking to see him. It had been a little over five years since they’d been to visit, partly because they’d been incarcerated for their own sins in those years.
Today, as they entered the building, their pasts were just shady enough that even entering a prison made their skin crawl. But when they were escorted into the hospital infirmary and saw what was left of their father, Everett cursed beneath his breath, and Freddie stumbled.
Pete had lost his hair and most of his teeth and was down to skin and bones. They wouldn’t have recognized him on the street. The prison doctor approached, quietlygave them the lowdown on Pete’s condition, then pointed out the other patients nearby, and asked them to keep their voices down.
“Is he even conscious?” Freddie asked.
The doctor nodded. “He’s not comatose. He’s just heavily drugged because of the pain, but he’s still cognizant. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep your visit short though. Twenty minutes, tops, boys,” the doctor said, then pointed to the guards inside the ward. “When you’re ready to leave, let them know. One of them will escort you out, so say what you want to say today.”
They nodded, and then moved to Pete’s bedside as the doctor walked away. Everett, the oldest and a redhead, was a taller, skinnier version of his mother. Freddie, the youngest, was Pete’s mini-me, right down to the broad shoulders and blond hair, and the first one to speak.
