When Justice Comes (Tupelo Grove #3)

Chapter 1

Hezekiah Webster didn’t notice the first scream. He was too focused on the home inspector.

Hez and his former and future wife, Savannah, had a contract on a wonderfully eccentric house outside Nova Cambridge, complete

with a little rooftop observatory she had loved since childhood. It was an easy house to love—until you saw the utility and

maintenance bills. The windows alone probably added a thousand dollars to the annual electric bill. Though every window was

a handcrafted unique work of art, the inspector pointed out that they were all single panes and a number were drafty.

Hez sighed and added another item to his long list of post-closing projects.

Savannah left Hez and the inspector and went to an enormous picture window with a panoramic vista of Mobile Bay from a hillside

that sloped down to the water. In the distance the Kate Norris Bridge extended over the inlet to Weeks Bay. Hidden prisms

in the window corners cast rainbows when the sun hit them just right.

Hez didn’t blame Savannah for preferring to savor the view and hunt rainbows.

After the horrors she had endured over the past few months, she deserved it.

So did their ten-year-old nephew, Simon.

He was out exploring the idiosyncratic landscaping outside.

He had promptly discovered the semiartificial sea cave below the house, of course.

His laughter and excited yells had been a welcome change from his withdrawn silence in the month since his mother, Savannah’s sister Jessica Legare, was murdered.

The second scream finally got Hez’s attention. Savannah pointed out the window. “Simon!”

Hez ran to the window. As Savannah rushed to the door, Hez saw Simon’s blond head bobbing in the water fifty yards offshore.

He was trying to swim back to land, but a rip current pulled him farther into the bay with every second. Simon screamed again,

a thin and desperate cry. Hez had heard it a minute ago, but he’d been distracted.

Just like when Ella died.

Hez sprinted out of the house, past Savannah and the inspector, an arthritic retired carpenter. This couldn’t happen. Not

again. He had to save Simon. Hez’s running strides seemed to take an eternity to propel him down the sloping terrain to the

pier.

He kicked off his shoes as he reached the boathouse at the end of the pier and hurled himself into the deadly current. He

swam through the cold, cloudy water, trying to spot Simon between strokes. The shore receded rapidly behind him, but the distance

between him and Simon barely seemed to shrink.

Simon had stopped screaming, which was a bad sign.

He seemed to be struggling to keep his head above water.

Exhaustion killed many riptide victims, and Hez feared it might be claiming his nephew.

He had to reach the boy, but he could feel his own strength starting to fail.

He was still recovering from brain surgery and was nowhere near his normal fitness level.

Hez reached Simon at last. His nephew saw him and frantically grabbed for his arm. Hez pulled back. “Simon, listen to me!”

He gasped for breath. “We have to get out of this current. Swim parallel to shore. I’ll help you.”

But Simon didn’t listen. Wide-eyed with terror, he flailed toward Hez. Simon went under for a second and came up coughing.

Hez tried to remember the lifeguard training he got during high school summers working at the local pool. He inhaled a lungful

of air and ducked under the surface. He couldn’t see Simon in the murk, but he caught hold of one of his thrashing legs, spun

him around, grabbed his skinny torso, and put him in a cross-chest carry. Hez surfaced and gulped in a fresh breath.

Simon stopped struggling now that his face was above water and he was in Hez’s grip, but the effort left Hez nearly spent.

He caught a glimpse of shore, which was now just an emerald line on the horizon. They must be nearly a quarter mile out, and

there was no way he had the strength to swim back.

He switched to a sidestroke, battling to get out of the rip current and keep both Simon and himself from slipping below the

surface. Hez couldn’t keep it up much longer.

Something red and white flashed above the waves ahead of him. A buoy. He might be able to reach it. He forced aching muscles

to keep moving, willing himself forward.

Spots clouded his vision and he fought for air.

The buoy was fifty yards away. Twenty. Ten.

His hand touched the buoy’s hard, smooth side. A single eyebolt stuck out of the slick surface. With his last strength, Hez put Simon’s hand on it. The boy’s fingers instinctively closed into a tight grip.

Hez tried to grab the buoy, but his fingers found no purchase. A thrumming roar built in his ears and his vision narrowed

to a tunnel. His hands slipped off the buoy and the water closed over his head.

Not again. Savannah clenched her hands together in front of her and barely breathed as she watched Simon clinging to the buoy bobbing

in the whitecaps. She stood on the dock with a warm April breeze blowing over her skin. She’d seen Hez’s strained face a moment

ago, but now she couldn’t spot him with the waves rolling toward the shore.

The home inspector patted her shoulder. “I called the Coast Guard,” he said in a wavering, gravelly voice. “They have a boat

in the area.”

“I don’t see him,” she whispered. “Hez has to be all right. I can’t lose him.”

A speedboat plowed through the water toward the buoy and slowed as it approached. The vessel’s wake dislodged Simon’s grip,

and he disappeared beneath the waves.

A rescue diver dove in after him and surfaced almost immediately with her nephew. He towed the boy to the boat and delivered

him to other crew members, who hauled him into the boat.

She stepped to the very end of the dock. “Hez! Hez is underwater!” Her shout frightened away two gulls near her feet.

The rescuers were too far out to hear her over the boat’s motor, but she caught the sound of Simon’s hysterical voice screaming, “Uncle Hez! You have to get Uncle Hez!”

The rescue swimmer nodded and dove under the whitecaps again.

Please God, please God. Savannah couldn’t form more of a prayer than the desperate plea for intervention. It seemed an eternity before two heads

surfaced, and she managed to drag in a relieved lungful of air.

The swimmer towed Hez to the boat, and two other rescuers dragged him over the side. He was much too limp, and his face was

way too white. A man and a woman knelt beside him, bending over his inert body. One of them breathed into his mouth while

the other performed chest compressions.

For an instant she relived the sight of paramedics bent over her small daughter after Ella had been pulled from the pool.

All their ministrations had failed to save their little girl. Unable to watch such a horrific scene again, she slammed her

eyes shut for a moment. “God, no, no. Please no.”

She forced her lids open again. She wanted to be there holding Hez’s hand, but since she couldn’t be beside him, the least

she could do was pray with all her might.

Her vision blurred as she watched the rescuers. Two breaths, thirty compressions. She counted them out as the man lunged down against Hez’s chest. Breathe, Hez, breathe.

Wait, was that his hand? She swallowed hard and spotted that movement again. Hez raised his arm feebly. Then his face appeared

over the gunwale. He retched several times until only dry heaves remained.

After a few more minutes, he was sitting up and leaning forward against his bent knees.

The engine on the boat roared, and the bow headed for shore and the small dock where Savannah stood.

She drank in the sight of Simon and Hez sitting with a blanket around them.

Both alive. She could hardly believe it.

The boat bumped the side of the dock, and a crew member leaped onto the weathered boards to tie up. Two of the crew helped

Hez off the boat, but Simon rushed ahead and threw himself into Savannah’s arms.

“I was skipping rocks and my foot slipped,” he said in a choked voice. “I nearly killed Uncle Hez.” He turned and faced the

boat as Hez stepped onto the dock with a wobbly stance. Simon left Savannah’s arms and went to his uncle. “Thanks for saving

me, Uncle Hez.” Tears streamed down his face, and he put his arms around Hez’s waist.

Hez bent over and coughed up a little water. He coughed a few more times, but it was beginning to sound less wet. He straightened.

“I’m still alive and kicking, buddy. I’m just glad you’re okay. I—I couldn’t bear to lose you t-t—”

He broke off, and Savannah heard the word too at the end of that sentence. She wasn’t the only one who had relived Ella’s death in the last half hour.

A crew member touched his arm. “Let’s sit you down on the bench until the ambulance gets here.”

Hez’s blue eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

“I’m afraid we have to insist, sir.” The man led him to the bench. “You’ll need to be under observation for a few hours. The

boy too.”

As soon as the man was out of the way, Savannah rushed to Hez’s side and knelt in front of him. The tight containment of her terror and horror dissolved, and she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “When you went under that water, I was so afraid I’d l-lost you.”

He pulled her up and onto his lap where he wrapped his arms around her. He was still shivering, but his smile warmed her as

she gazed down into his face. “I’ve got a wedding to attend, and it would take more than a riptide to stop me from putting

that ring back on your finger.”

She buried her face in his neck and breathed in the scent of his sage soap under the salty tang of his skin. Thank you, God.