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“Yes, it was, and you know something else? He also brought Trey back here to begin with.”

“What do you mean?” Silas asked. She explained about the War Dog program that Schooner was part of. “Good Lord, is that what it took to bring Trey back to us?”

“Schooner absolutely loves him, by the way,” she murmured.

“Good, because I was wondering if this dog needed somebody with a more physical lifestyle.”

“In that case maybe we can just share him,” she suggested, with a laugh. “I’m hoping that Trey sticks around.”

At that, Silas stared at her. “He’s not moved back here?”

“No, he literally came back to search for the War Dog,” she admitted. “I’m hoping I can convince him to stay, but I have no idea where his mind is at this point.”

Silas winked at her. “Honey, it won’t take any convincing. He’s clearly smitten, and he’s just been waiting for me to wake up, so we can put this all behind us, and so he can make a move.”

“ Huh ,” she muttered, looking at her dad. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so.” He smiled. “I saw the way he looked at you. He’s an honorable man, so he’ll ensure that you’re safe and sound. He won’t put you under any undue stress or pressure. I’ve always liked that boy.”

“Hardly a boy now, Dad, and, in a way, you’re right to worry because he did come back damaged.” He looked at her quizzically. “He wears a prosthetic on his leg. He hasn’t talked about it much, but I think there may also be some steel up and down that back of his, not that he needs a whole lot of steel in his back. He’s already seems pretty full of it.” When her dad chuckled, she went on. “He’s a man’s man, you know?”

“He’s also a ladies’ man, just not the way you think. I don’t think any of that is an issue at all,” her dad declared, with a nod in the direction that Trey had disappeared. “If the two of you can make a go of it, I can’t think of a better match.”

“You really like him, don’t you?”

“Always did,” he said, resting his head on the pillow now. “And not just because he was a great fishing partner,” he added, scolding her for the look on her face.

She burst out laughing. “But it doesn’t hurt to have him as a fishing partner, does it?”

“No, it sure doesn’t,” he declared. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about maybe trying to find a life partner myself again, but I don’t know. You get set in your ways, and then you’re not so sure someone else would fit in. So Mildred was always nearby, and we had this arrangement.”

“Yeah, I think it’s called friends with benefits , Dad.”

He winced. “Sounds crude when you say it that way, but, yeah, though I guess she always had an expectation of more.”

“I don’t think so much an expectation but maybe a hope,” Missy clarified, “and I know that Mildred is still very much in love with you.”

“I don’t know about that.… Well, maybe.”

Missy smirked. “Maybe wait and see where this all ends up.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m a little worried that maybe she did have something to do with this, but I can’t quite see it. Anyway, I’m sure Trey will get to the bottom of it.”

“And you don’t expect him to contact the sheriff?” Missy asked.

“Oh, Sheriff Woodley will have to get on board at some point in time”—he waved his hand about—“but he and Mildred have also been pretty close at different times too.” When Missy stared at him, her dad nodded. “Nobody ever sees all the relationships steaming beneath the surface. Mildred and I have been broken up for quite some time, for,… gosh, I don’t know. It’s been a while,” he said, looking at her. “I don’t really know how much time has gone by, but it seems like years. I look at you and see how grown up you are, how beautiful and poised, and it all seems like a lifetime away.”

“Some of that could just be recognizing you almost lost your life,” she noted, with a gentle smile in his direction.

“It’s about how much of it is gone, about how fast time goes by. Sure, almost dying is part of it, but honestly, seeing Trey, seeing the man he’s become, seeing the two of you together, seeing that blossom, it’s really special,” he murmured. When she flushed, he smiled. “See? That’s exactly what you need, a man who can make you blush.”

She shook her head at that. “I don’t think one has to do with the other,” she muttered.

“Maybe not. I guess we’ll see.”

“So, this partner you had. What does he look like?”

“Tall and skinny, similar to his nephew.”

“Ah,” she muttered.

“Why?”

“Because somebody was caught on the hospital’s security camera, and we wondered if he had anything to do with attacking you, but we weren’t sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were attacked here in the hospital. On the security cameras, we saw someone leaving the area after you were attacked, but we couldn’t recognize him, yet the person was very tall and skinny.”

“Really?” he asked, his gaze widening. “That’s not good.”

“That was just one of the things we had to consider while you were out cold, while we were trying to go through all the people who we knew, trying to find someone capable of doing all this. Of course Trey is out of the loop because he hasn’t been here for so long. I’m pretty sure he has been talking to his brother and the sheriff,” she clarified.

“Yeah, I’m sure he would have. It would be hard not to at this point, especially after multiple attacks.” At that came a clearing of a throat behind her.

She turned to see the sheriff standing there, glaring at them. She smiled. “Hello, Sheriff. As you can see, my father is awake.”

“I see that. From the conversation that you’re all trying to wrap your brains around, you are trying to figure out who may or may not have hit you, if you were hit.”

“If?” she snapped, looking at him.

“No damage was done after Silas arrived at the hospital.”

“That’s not completely true,” Missy declared. “Dad was on the floor when they found him. He had been unconnected from all the monitors and from the IV drip, left to die there. I suspect that whoever was here maybe got nervous since Dad falling to the floor probably made some noise.”

“And I think you’re just grasping at straws,” he replied as he looked over at Silas. “How’re you feeling?”

“As if I’ve been shipwrecked and lost for weeks,” he said cheerfully.

That resulted in a smile on the sheriff’s face. “Don’t go doing that again, will you? We had search and rescue out there for a hell of a long time, trying to find you.”

“Oh, I wasn’t planning on doing it again, but, hells bells, I didn’t plan on doing it in the first place.”

“So, I’m sure your daughter has been asking you about sabotage?”

“Yeah, it was sabotage all right, or have you not checked with Rob?”

The sheriff nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I’ve kind of checked with Rob.”

“Kind of?” Silas pressed, with a stare.

“Yeah, kind of, but he wasn’t willing to say anything else.”

“You already know what you need to do,” Silas declared, glaring at Woodley. “Good to know where your loyalties lie.”

The sheriff hitched his hat back and glared at him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about here?”

“Nothing,” Silas muttered and let it go.

Glaring back at Silas, the angry sheriff snapped, “You better watch where you put your accusations.”

“I’m not alone and defenseless now. Trey’s got my back.”

“What do you know about this Trey character?”

“If you weren’t so busy trying to deny what happened here, you would remember him yourself. He used to live here before he joined the military and was my fishing buddy for years.”

“You mean that Boy Scout kid?” the sheriff asked in astonishment.

“Yeah, that kid, the one who I was always bragging about being such a genius fisherman,” he said with a laugh. “Then he took off and went into the military. Honest to God, I missed him something awful.”

“You did say that. I remember that,” Missy shared, smiling, “and you kept trying to convince me to go out more and more on the boat.”

“But it wasn’t your thing.”

“No, it sure wasn’t,” she admitted, “and I’m not sure you’ll get me out in the boat at all now.”

He winced at that. “Yeah, both of us might have to reassess our love of boating, at least for a while.”

“That boat will never float again,” the sheriff snorted. “It’s done.”

“It better not be,” Silas snapped, “because that would really piss me off. The Forget Me Not is not done, and I’ll thank you to not go around saying that it is. Rob will fix her up. You’ll see, and you’ll eat those words.”

Missy huffed. “Oh, so somebody can attack you, and you’re okay with that, but, if they touch your boat, it’s a whole different story?” Missy exclaimed, frowning at her dad.

“Yeah, that was my father’s boat,” he stated ruefully. “We worked on that sucker every weekend for a very long time, and it’s very special to me,” he muttered. “I don’t appreciate anybody who would be trying to take her away from us.”

“I don’t appreciate anybody trying to take you away from me,” she murmured.

“And yet they didn’t,” the sheriff noted, staring at her suddenly. “If you think about it, since you were both stranded out there, it wasn’t just about you, Silas. This was about the both of you.”

And, at that, Missy didn’t know what to say.

Trey and Schooner walked up to Mildred’s house again. Trey knocked, a determined expression on his face.

This time, Keith, Mildred’s son, answered and glared at him. “What the hell are you doing back here?”

“I’m looking for an explanation as to why you were at the hospital on the day Silas was attacked?” Keith frowned at him. “The old man’s awake now.” At that comment, fear entered Keith’s gaze, and that’s how Trey knew he’d hit the jackpot.

Keith stepped outside on the front porch and closed the door.

Trey nodded. “Yeah, I know. You don’t want to go back to jail, but it seems to me as if you are still pushing the issue, and you could find yourself going back a whole lot sooner than you expected.”

“No fucking way,” Keith snarled, glaring at him. “No way I’m going back.”

“And yet you went into Silas’s room.”

“I didn’t touch him. I didn’t do anything.”

“So why wear a wig?”

“I didn’t want to get recognized.”

“Why did you go in there at all?” he asked, staring at him, trying to figure out why and how this mess was happening.

Keith hesitated and then shrugged. “Not like I give a shit, but my ma asked me to. Of course she did.”

“What does that mean?”

“I just went into his room, okay? She wanted me to check up on him, but I didn’t want him to see me. I didn’t want anybody to see me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not allowed at the fucking hospital, okay?… I broke into it and stole drugs from there.”

“Ah, crap.” Trey stared at Keith. “You’re not legally allowed in the hospital at all, are you?”

“No, I just told you that.”

“Yet knowing that, your mother still asked you to go.”

“Yeah, she did, and I was pissed off about it too. Yet she wouldn’t give me any cash for gas for the car, and I wanted to get the hell out for a bit. Anyway, she told me that she would pay me as soon as I did that.”

“She just wanted you to go in?”

“I was supposed to just go in and check on him, but then he reared up out of the bed. It scared the shit about of me, and, I swear to God, I just took off.”

“Where’s the wig and the lab coat?”

“In my car,” he muttered. “You really think I’ll go to jail over it?”

“I don’t know what’s going on or what this is all about, but we need some more answers,” Trey shared. “How close are you to your mother?”

“What do you mean, how close are we? We’re close, at least as close as anybody can be. She wants me out of the house though.”

“How much does she want you out of the house?”

“I don’t know. Why are you asking?”

“I’m asking if she could have had an ulterior motive for sending you to the hospital.”

“I was just supposed to look in on him. She didn’t want to be seen going in too often, you know? She’s still sweet on him.”

“Yet she’s been dating the sheriff.”

Keith stared at him, surprised.

Trey nodded. “She’s been dating Woodley for a while, so I’m not sure what her motive is on keeping up with Silas in the hospital.”

“Jesus, I don’t know,” Keith declared. “I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t responsible for what happened to him. I had nothing to do with that nightmare out on the ocean. I don’t even fucking like boats. Everybody here is just crazy about fishing, and it’s just not my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

He hesitated and shrugged. “I would tell you, but you’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t. Tell me. Now you’ve got me curious,” Trey prodded.

“I like pottery,” Keith admitted and shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to just be a potter. I would have my own little studio, but my uncle blew that all to hell. He got me hooked on drugs, and that was that.”

“Your uncle?” he asked. “Is this uncle still alive?”

“Yeah, but he’s not all there, not anymore. He had a stroke, and now he’s got dementia or something funky. He’s in a home not far from here, and my ma has to look after him.”

“Really. Do you have any idea what she’s up to?”

“No. What are you even talking about?”

Just then the front door opened, and Mildred stepped out onto the porch, glaring at Trey. “What are you doing here?” she snapped. “And what’s that dog doing here?”

“I’m here because I had questions to ask,” Trey explained, studying the woman in front of him. “And Schooner needed some fresh air outside of the hospital.”

“You don’t need to be here at all. You can just leave. We’ve done enough talking to you, and you need to leave us alone.”

“Maybe so,” Trey conceded. “Your son might have a few questions for you though.”

Keith turned to face her. “What the hell’s going on, Ma?”

“Nothing is going on,” she declared, glaring at both of them.

“So, tell me,” Trey began. “When did your brother have that stroke?”

She looked at him. “Thomas?”

“When did he have the stroke?”

“Why?” she asked nervously.

“Was it about, oh, I don’t know, a few weeks ago?” he asked.

She chewed on her bottom lip.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.”

Keith shook his head. “That’s not true. You told me how you’re the one who’s looking after him,” Keith said, staring at her. “What the hell is going on, Ma?”

Trey suggested, “I think what’s going on is that your uncle Thomas is the one who arranged for Silas’s accident and who sabotaged his boat.”

“Why the hell would he do that?” Keith asked in confusion. “There’s no reason for him to do that.”

“It turns out there is,” Trey muttered, “and even your mother may not have known about it initially. I’m not really sure how that’ll work out, but she did know at the end of the day.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith sputtered. “She doesn’t know nothing.”

“Has she been at your uncle’s place any time lately?”

Keith went silent for a moment. “Yeah. A while back she drug me over there one day.”

“What for?”

“To clean, said she wanted to surprise him or something.”

“And she brought you to help?”

“No, to keep an eye out, so the surprise wouldn’t be ruined.”

“And did anything unusual happen?” Trey asked Keith.

“No, nothing I know of.” Keith frowned from one to the other. “Although we did leave in a hurry,… and there wasn’t much cleaning going on.”

“Did she take anything with her?” Trey asked.

“Some papers but she told me that we would come back later.”

“ Right ,” Trey noted, smirking at Mildred. “So, Mildred, was that paperwork the life insurance your brother had on Silas Ragner?”

Her eyes widened, and her bottom lip trembled.

“Wait.… What?” Keith turned to her, waiting for a response. Then asked Trey, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Your uncle was in business with Silas, his partner in the animal clinic way back when. During that time Thomas took out a life insurance policy on Silas. And Silas probably took out one on Thomas. It’s a common business practice that covers one business partner when the other one dies. So, when the partnership broke off, Thomas still had the life insurance policy,” Trey explained. “Apparently Thomas kept paying the premiums all these years, wondering if it was time to cash it in by killing off Silas. Or maybe that was your mother’s idea.”

“It was Thomas’s idea,” Mildred claimed, her arms crossed over her chest, yet visibly trembling.

“ Right , so the question is, were you part of it?”

“What the hell?” Keith turned and stared at his mother, the reality suddenly dawning on him. “Did Uncle Thomas sabotage Silas’s boat to get the life insurance? Was he willing to take out two people over it?”

“It’s worth millions of dollars,” Mildred declared, staring at her son.

“Jesus, Ma.”

“So, let me guess,” Trey interjected. “Mildred, you weren’t cleaning Thomas’s place. You were snooping, and you found out about the insurance and what he’d done. You two had a fight about it, and he ended up having a stroke as a result? Am I close?”

Keith frowned. “Wait. Doesn’t it seem odd that suddenly they both nearly died? How would any of that even work? How or who would even collect this life insurance anyway?”

“Nobody, as long as Silas is still alive, but, if Silas died and if your uncle is still alive, Thomas would get the life insurance. Oh, but then he’s incapacitated—”

“But if someone had a power of attorney,” her son added, turning to stare at his mother, “ you would have had control over all of it.”

“I would have,” she stated, glaring at Keith, “but you couldn’t even do that right.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith yelled, and his bewilderment seemed real.

Trey looked at him and shared, “There were signs that Silas was starting to stir, to maybe wake up, but, if he would have woken up to you being there, I wonder if your mother had hoped Silas would have a stroke on his own or something and just die. Unless there was more to the plan which you haven’t shared, Keith.”

“I wasn’t assuming anything,” she snapped, “I just wanted to know how he was, based on how he responded. You were just supposed to go and give him a good scare,” she exclaimed, looking at Keith.

“You didn’t say that,” he pointed out. “You told me to go in and check on him.”

“I said check on him, move him over to ensure he was breathing, even give him a shake.”

“Hell no, I wouldn’t touch him. The man was comatose.”

“You told me that you would do exactly as I said.”

“Yeah, but not all that. Then he woke up, and it freaked me out. I don’t know that he really woke up, but he made a strange sound, it scared me and I took off.”

“He fell off the side of the bed, by the way,” Trey noted, “so I’m pretty sure the authorities would consider that an assault.”

Keith stared. “What? I didn’t assault him at all.”

“You were seen entering the hospital, wearing the wig and the lab coat,” Trey murmured. “But you took them off, put them in a plastic bag, and left the hospital.”

“So, Keith had everything to do with it,” Mildred stated immediately.

Her son straightened and turned ever-so-slowly toward her. “What the hell is going on, Ma?”

Trey snorted. “If she gets rid of Silas, and she gets rid of her brother, then there’s really only you stopping her from enjoying all that fortune and freedom.”

The son swallowed hard, then stared at his mother. “This is all about money?”

“What do you mean, all about money ?” she repeated, turning beet red. “This isn’t about money. There’s so much more to life than money.”

“But apparently not for you,” Keith replied.

“It’s not as if I got any joy from love,” she argued bitterly. “I really loved Silas, but nobody seems to give a shit about that.”

“But you just tried to kill him,” her son said.

“I did not. That was your uncle Thomas.”

“You were okay with it though.”

She flushed. “It’s not that I was okay with it, but, if it would have worked out that way, there would have been millions of dollars. And it’s not as if Silas wanted me anyway.”

“Yet you’re dating the sheriff,” Trey pointed out.

“No, I’m not dating the sheriff.” She huffed, almost in disgust. When Trey continued to stare at her, she kept talking. “We’ve been together for a while, but he just broke it off.”

“ He broke it off, or you broke it off?”

She shrugged. “I broke it off.”

“But just recently, right?”

She stared at him. “What difference does it make?”

“I can imagine the sheriff was handy to have around, wasn’t he? You haven’t broken it off with him just yet, have you?”

“I will,” she declared. “That was one of the next things that I was planning on doing.”

“But, in the meantime, it was probably handy to have an authority figure, like the sheriff, in your pocket, while you arrange all these murders.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she snapped. “I didn’t do anything. That was Thomas.”

“But you sent me in there,” Keith said, staring at her in shock, “hoping that Silas would die by my doing what you told me to do.”

“What exactly did she tell you to do?” Trey asked Keith.

“She told me to check his lines, and she told me what things to push to check, and I should see if he was breathing. Honest to God,… it sounded funny,” he said, with a frown, “but I wasn’t suspicious. She’s a nurse for fucks’ sake, and I don’t know fucking anything.” He stopped, suddenly looking pale. “You set me up.… You set me up to kill Silas. I was the only one there. You sure weren’t,” he stated, and his jaw dropped. “You literally set me up.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Trey pointed out. “You would be going to jail again, prison probably. And she would have the house, right? So, even if you didn’t die in prison, she would still have the house and maybe access to a lot of money. So, whenever you came back out again, if you even got back out again, you know a lot can happen while you’re in jail. Either way, she would have it all,” Trey explained.

Keith looked at his mother, and Trey could see the pain in his expression. “Dear God,” Keith muttered, “are you serious?”

She just glared at him.

“What happened to your father?” Trey asked Keith.

He turned and looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“What happened to him? You told me how he left you half the house.”

“He died… a long time ago.” Then he stiffened and glanced at his mother again, horrified. “Was that you too?”

She turned on him, with such a mean beady look in her eyes, and replied, “That bastard beat the crap out of me. So don’t you even begin to blame me for that shit. He died, but it was self-defense. Just like this.” With that, she pulled out a handgun.

Her son took a step back in shock, falling against the front door, as he stared at her—as if he’d never seen her before. Schooner, who had been sitting docilely next to Trey the whole time, leaped at her, grabbing her wrist in his jaws, knocking her to the ground, sending the bullet harmlessly into the porch ceiling.

“At least now we’re getting to the truth,” Trey muttered, as he quickly secured the gun and pinned her to the porch floor, then looked over at Keith. “If you ever want a chance to chase your dreams and to do what you want with your life, I think it’s time you phoned the sheriff right now.”

He nodded, visibly shaken, but resolute. “I agree.” And, with another hard look at his mother, Keith pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“No way,” she wailed. “Absolutely no way.”

“It’s already a done deal,” Trey said. “Silas’s awake, and he’ll be fine. Your son has had a very hard awakening, which may continue because we’ll also take a serious look at your brother and see whether it really was a stroke or something you induced.”

From the flush on Mildred’s cheeks, Trey realized that it was, indeed, another crime she had committed, just to secure her brother’s potential ill-gotten gains for herself.