Page 3 of What Started In Deception

Gram-Gram chuckled. “Time flies when you’re sleeping deeply.”

“I guess so.” She frowned as Marcus slowed and turned onto the main driveway, noting the two police cars parked by the front door. “Is everything okay?”

Gram-Gram’s brow furrowed as she craned her neck to see out Lydia’s window. “I don’t know.”

The front door opened, and Uncle James and Will rushed outside.

Lydia pressed her hand to her stomach as they ran to the Escalade, noting the tears on their cheeks and the horror in their eyes.

Uncle James yanked open Gram-Gram’s door. “Mom, you need to come inside.”

Gram-Gram clutched at her oldest son’s hand. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Is Cindy okay?”

Uncle James helped Gram-Gram out of her seat. “Cindy’s fine. Let’s go inside.”

Will opened Lydia’s door, grimacing as he looked at her filthy skirt. “Are you okay?”

She ignored her cousin’s question as she got out on legs that felt like jelly. The sudden sense of sickening dread and her current illness made it hard to take a step. “What’s wrong?”

Will gently nudged her shoulder. “We should go inside.”

She shrugged his hand away. “Tell me, Will.”

He cleared his throat as he blinked back more tears. “The helicopter. They didn’t make it.”

She shook her head, unsure what that meant. But then Gram-Gram collapsed to her knees on a keening wail as Uncle James sank to the driveway with her, and she knew. “It crashed.”

Will nodded as tears trailed down his cheeks. “Just a couple of minutes after they took off. They’re gone, Lydia.”

She heard Will’s words, but they didn’t make any sense. “They’re gone?”

Will nodded again.

“They’re not alive?” she heard herself ask next.

He shook his head. “They’re not alive.”

“None of them? Burke? Mom and Dad? Grandpa Beau?”

“None of them,” Will choked out.

She nodded as she leaned against the SUV, staring at the concrete, unable to take it all in—to comprehend that her family was truly gone.

Chapter Two

Oliver Heights, Virginia

Fifteen Years Later

Lydia hurried around her classroom, putting tiny chairs on top of equally small tables so the janitor could vacuum the floor after the kids had brought plenty of the playground in on the bottom of their shoes this afternoon.

“Awards,” she murmured to herself as she headed to her desk in a pair of sage-colored wide-leg linen capris and a matching sleeveless top, grabbing the folder of colorful cardstock she needed to fill out and decorate at home.

“Knock, knock,” Camille said as she poked her head in from the adjoining kindergarten classroom.

Lydia smiled at the pretty, blue-eyed strawberry blonde, her close friend and fellow teacher, as she secured her evening project in the largest pocket of her leather bag. “Hey, you.”

“Are you heading out?”