Weeding her fingers through the sheets, she grasped for anything that would calm her spinning stomach and racing pulse.
Another rumble, this time closer.
Then another and another in rapid succession, each encroaching on her space, her air, her life.
The thunder escalated, its cadence steady like the giant footfalls of an evil predator, stalking an unsuspecting prey. Only Lillie wasn’t oblivious to its approach. She knew the storm, felt it in her inner being, breathed it into her soul where she battled the terror and torment of a thousand deaths.
Another volley. Her airway constricted. She touched her throat, yearning to be free of the stranglehold of fear that wrapped around her neck.
Don’t cower. Face your phobia. The words of reason echoed in her head.
“Something happened before she came to us,” her foster parents had told concerned friends after taking Lillie into their home when she was a child. “Our little girl is terrified of storms.”
She wanted to laugh at the understatement. Instead, tears trickled from the corners of her eyes.
The musky scent of wet earth and damp air seeped through the partially open window and filled her nostrils, like the cloying odor of that night so long ago. Eyes wide, she stared into the darkness, anticipating the next bright burst of lightning.
A blast of thunder rocked her world, hurling her from the bed. She ran, as she always did, her footfalls echoing on the hardwood floor. No matter how much she longed to ignore the gathering storm, she had no control over the memories that made her relive the terror of that night so long ago.
In her mind’s eye, she was once again four years old.
“Mama,” young Lillie had cried, longing to be swooped into her mother’s outstretched arms.
Instead, he had opened the bedroom door.
“Go back to bed, child.”
The door had closed, leaving Lillie alone in the hallway, huddled in a ball, shivering with fear, tears streaking her face and trembling body.
Another round of thunder, followed by a kaleidoscope of light that blinded her eyes and made the past fade and the present come back into focus.
Finding the corner, the twenty-nine-year-old Lillie crouched, knees to her chest, heart on a marathon race as thunder continued to bellow. Rain pummeled her copper roof, the incessant pings reminding her of the gossip of the townspeople after her mother’s remains had been found fifteen years ago.
Murdered. Sealed in a steel drum. Buried beneath the earth.
“Mama,” she whimpered, trying to be strong enough to fight off the memories.
Outside, the storm raged as if good and evil battled for her soul, only she was too weak, too crazed, to fight off the attacks.
A pounding.
Close, persistent. Rap, rap, rap.
“Lillie?”
Someone called her name.
“Lillie, open the door.”
“Mama?”
She ran to the front of the house, undid the lock and flung open the door. Frigid rain stung her face, soaking her pajamas and mixing with her tears.
“Help me, Lillie.”
A man she knew only from newspaper photos stood before her. Mid-fifties, with gray, rumpled hair and weather-worn skin stretched across a bruised and bloodied face. Doleful eyes, swollen, suffering, seemingly entreated her to forget the past and think only of his need. “They...they found me...beat me.”
His hand stretched to hers. A small metal key dropped into her palm.
“I uncovered information. The...the answers I’ve been looking for,” he said.
She took a step back.
“I never—” He shook his head. “Your mother—”
A shot rang out.
He gasped, his face awash with pain. “Free us...” He reached for her. “Free us from the past.”
Slipping through her fingers, he collapsed onto the rain-drenched step. She screamed, seeing not only her own bloodied hands but also the battered body of her mother’s killer.
* * *
The phone call dragged Dawson Timmons from a dead sleep. Flipping on the bedside lamp, he rubbed his hand over his face and raised the receiver. “Special Agent Timmons.”
“Sorry to wake you, sir.” Corporal Raynard Otis from the Criminal Investigation Division.
“What’s the problem, Ray?”
“Agent Steele is on duty tonight, sir, but he’s tied up, handling a possible overdose, and we’re short-staffed since Agents Patterson and McQueen were transferred.”
With the recent reduction in force, the whole army was short-staffed. “I’m aware of the situation, Ray. Plus, the chief’s on leave until Monday.”
“Yes, sir. That’s why Agent Steele asked that I contact you.” The corporal’s voice was strained. “The Freemont police just notified us about a shooting.”
“Military personnel?”
“Negative, sir. But the location has bearing.”
“Fort Rickman?”
“No, sir. Freemont.”
“What’s the tie-in?”
“The house where the shooting took place belongs to the general’s secretary.”
Dawson groaned inwardly, dropped his feet to the floor and stood. “General Cameron’s secretary? The commanding general?”
“Yes, sir. The deceased pounded on the secretary’s door in the middle of the storm. She answered the knock just before the victim was shot.”
“A drive-by shooting?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“We’re talking about Lillie Beaumont?”
“Affirmative.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Negative, sir.”
“The victim...” Dawson swallowed, hoping to keep his voice level and free of inflection. “Do you have a positive ID?”
“Granger Ford. The guy was serving time for the murder of Ms. Beaumont’s mother. Fifteen years ago he was tried and found guilty. His case was recently reviewed, and new DNA testing exonerated him. Ten days have passed since he got out of prison in Atlanta. Now he’s dead.”
Dawson hung his head. Ringing filled his ears. His stomach soured, and for an instant, his world went dark. Granger had called him three nights ago. Not that Dawson had expected or wanted the phone call from his past.
“Shall I notify the staff duty officer at post headquarters?” Ray asked.
“Let headquarters know, and call General Cameron’s aide as well. Tell him I’ll check out the situation and report back to the general when I return to post.”
Dawson would tell the commanding general what the Freemont police had determined about the shooting and Lillie Beaumont’s involvement in the case. He wouldn’t reveal the truth about Granger Ford and the child he had fathered thirty-one years ago. A little boy raised by an unwed mother who had hardened her son’s heart to his drifter dad.
Dawson could forgive his mother’s bitterness, but he never forgave his father’s rejection. Now, with his death, the truth would come out. The last thing Dawson wanted was for the military to know his father was a murderer.
*