Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4) Read Free Page A

at Tyler even if she was addressing me. It had been a lot like that lately. I didn’t get much eye contact from anyone. I simply wasn’t as cute as Tyler, I had to realize.
    “Yes. I think this place would make a great wedding.”
    “Great. It’s settled, then,” Pastor Daniel said. “I will make all the arrangements and then we’ll have the ceremony this coming Saturday at five o’clock.”
    We had exactly a week to get ready. Not that we had much we needed to do. Shannon had a dress made for her and the same tailor made my suit and clothes for the kids. It was already taken care off. We had found a small restaurant to have the dinner afterwards. Our guests would arrive just before the weekend, so that meant we had an entire week to explore Savannah and enjoy each other’s company.
    Tyler burst into yet another loud scream and Shannon grabbed him. “Here let me take him. I think he’s hungry.”
    “Didn’t he just eat?” Austin asked.
    While Shannon unwrapped the baby from me, I looked at my big son. I couldn’t believe he used to be this small and demanding. I couldn’t believe I used to have twins and that I actually survived it.

Chapter 3
    A pril 1990
    “Hello? I am looking for a Kimberly Milligan?”
    “This is she,” Kimberly said. “Who’s this?”
    “I’m sorry. This is Jonas Anderson, attorney-at-law in Savannah.”
    Kimberly lifted an eyebrow while her husband Joseph looked at her from across the living room where he was doing homework with their daughter, Rosa.
    “Savannah?” she asked puzzled.
    “Yes ma’am. Savannah Georgia.”
    Joseph shaped a who is this? With his lips and Kimberly shrugged visibly. She honestly didn’t know. She had never been to Savannah. She had never even been out of Wyoming.
    “How may I help you?” she asked, thinking this was probably just someone trying to sell her something. Kimberly prepared herself to hang up.
    “I think I might be the one who can help you,” he said with that heavy southern accent.
    Here it comes. What is it this time? Insurance probably.
    Kimberly rolled her eyes waiting for it to come, but it never did. No sales pitch, no This is exactly what you need …instead the man in the other end said something that would change Kimberly’s life.
    “I am sorry to inform you that your aunt Agnes Vann, a long term client of ours, has passed away.”
    Aunt Agnes? Who the heck is she?
    “And you are mentioned in her will.”
    “I am what?” Kimberly exclaimed. “But I never even met the woman?”
    “Nevertheless, she has left you her home here in Savannah.”
    Kimberly’s heart sank, she grabbed a chair leaned against the wall of their small rental apartment and sat down. “And you’re sure about this?”
    “Positive,” the man said.
    “But why? Why would she leave me anything?”
    “I have no way of knowing my client’s intentions, but this is what she wanted. She wanted you to have the house.”
    “I…” Kimberly clasped her mouth as the realization slowly sank in. She still couldn’t believe it. A house? Her aunt had left her a house?
    “I am asking for you to come to my office and we’ll have all the paperwork done before you can take over the house,” he continued.
    “I…we will be there.”
    Kimberly hung up. She stared at the phone a long time before she finally lifted her eyes and looked at Joseph and Rosa. Her eyes filled with tears. For so many years they had struggled to make ends meet, for so many years they had wanted to get a house, a home they could call their own, but the banks always turned them down.
    “Who was that, mommy?” asked Rosa.
    Kimberly looked into her beautiful blue eyes. Her baby doll, as she liked to call her because she looked so much like a live doll with her blond curly hair. Only nine years old and already a heartbreaker.
    “This…this was a man,” she said,” grabbed Rosa and pulled her into her lap. She removed a lock of hair from the girl’s face and pushed it behind her ear.