Song of the Surf (Pacific Shores Book 3) by Lynnette Bonner Page B

of him!”
    On the other end of the line the dispatcher spoke in his ear, “Sir, are you safe?”
    Mrs. McAllister might be violent, but she was less than half his weight and only as tall as his chest. “Stop, Mrs. McAllister. Just stop.” He finally grabbed a handful of her sweatshirt and held her against the kitchen cabinets.
    “Mama…” Trey continued to rock. “What have I done, Mama?”
    Like a cloak of civility had been dropped over her, Mrs. McAllister pulled away and darted to her son’s side. She clutched his head to her bosom. “Oh my baby. My poor, poor baby.” She rubbed his back as though maybe he’d been the one who was injured.
    Angling away from her, Justus spoke to the woman on the other end of the line once more. “Please send some units.”
    “Sir, I need you to confirm your exact location for me.”
    Justus stepped out onto the deck and searched the front of the house for a house number, but there was none. “Listen, my name is Justus Teague. I run Deschutes Rejuvenation out on Highway 97. I'm at the home of one of my former students. I followed his mother here. There's no house number on the front of the house and I don't remember it. We’re on Seventh in Terrebonne. If you come in from Central, it's the last house on the northwest side of the street, and there is an old rusty pickup in the front yard.”
    It had only taken the police a few minutes to arrive. The coroner had pronounced Helene dead a few minutes later and Justus had stood by while she was placed into the county hearse. A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Trey was sprinting across the yard in a hard line for the fence. “Trey stop!”
    The officer next to him was only a millisecond behind in reaction. “Freeze right there!”
    Trey kept going. He leapt up, his hands scrabbling for the top of the fence.
    A single shot rang out.
    Mrs. McAllister screamed.
    Trey collapsed onto the grass.
    And Justus was sprinting towards him before he even realized he was moving.
    Blood gushed from a jagged hole in Trey’s pants, soaking his leg and the grass below him. “They done shot me!” he groaned.
    And then Justus was being dragged back. One officer stood over the boy with a gun, while another officer yanked his arms behind him and cuffed him.
    Trey screamed and writhed.
    Justus felt the damp soaking into his knees. The cold air stung his lungs. He would never forget the surreal feeling that had overwhelmed him as the flashing lights of the vehicles reflected off the mist around him. How his breath had fogged the air as an EMT had quickly set to work on Trey’s leg to stop the bleeding. How Mrs. McAllister’s screams tore through the night over and over and over again.
    Trey had begged him to ride with him to the hospital, and Justus had agreed, though now he could only remember the ride and the following night in snatches. He’d gone with the police at some point to Helene’s parents’ home. Stood by quietly wishing he could offer something, anything, of comfort as the news tore them in two. But he’d had nothing. Nothing other than his own grief and the feeling that he should have been able to do something to prevent this.
    With Trey’s confession of guilt, his case and moved through the courts fairly quickly. Just last week the decision had come down. Trey had gotten twenty-five years with the possibility of parole after fifteen. He would be thirty-three.
    Justus now had to find the courage, the forgiveness—the ability to extend hope and not extinguish it—to go see the kid.
    If he were anything like Mick, he would have already done so. He rubbed the place below his collarbone where his one and only tattoo resided and released a short breath. Unlike Mick, Jesus still had a long way to go in transforming Justus’s heart into one like His.
    Justus could feel Jalen still pointedly glowering at him.
    Justus sighed. “I know, Jalen. I know. How many years have you known me? I’ve never been one to give