Closer Than You Think Read Free

later. Still hurting. Still angry. And still afraid.
    Time to deal, Faith. Do it now. Resolute, she walked around the house before she could change her mind, not realizing that she was holding her breath until it came rushing out.
    There it was, off in the corner of the back yard. A respectable distance from the house, as Gran had always said. Someone had kept it tidy all these years, pulling the weeds, cutting the grass around the wrought-iron fence, fashioned in the same style as the one bordering the front. The historical society, Faith remembered. Gran’s attorney had told her that the local historical society paid for the upkeep because the O’Bannion cemetery was a historic landmark.
    Her family was buried here, all the way back to Zeke O’Bannion, who’d died at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. She knew who rested here, remembered all of their stories because, unlike silver teapots, she’d found their stories riveting. They’d been real people, lived real lives. Like a faithful dog, she’d followed her mother whenever she visited the graves, helping her pull weeds, hanging on her every word as she talked about their ancestors.
    Faith pushed at the gate, frowning when it refused to budge. A glance down revealed the issue – a padlock. Her grandmother’s attorney hadn’t given her any other keys, so she walked around the fence until she came to the most recent headstone, carved in black marble.
    It was a double stone, the inscription on the left weathered over twenty-three years. Tobias William O’Bannion. Faith remembered her grandfather as a stern, severe man who’d attended Mass every single day of his life. Probably to confess to losing his temper , she thought wryly. He’d had a wicked one.
    The inscription on the other side of the black marble was crisp and new. Barbara Agnes Corcoran O’Bannion. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother. Philanthropist .
    Most of that was true. Gran had been a strong supporter of a number of charities. And Tobias had loved her in his own way. I loved her. Enough, in fact, to have taken her name.
    Most of her children had loved her. Faith’s mother’s younger brother, Jordan, had taken care of her uncomplainingly until she’d drawn her last breath. Faith’s mother had been devoted to her, although Faith wasn’t sure how much of her devotion had been love. And the jury was out on Jeremy, her grandmother’s only other living child. He was . . . estranged.
    Faith’s grandmother had been quietly laid to rest next to her husband in a very private service, with only her priest and Faith’s uncle Jordan in attendance, in accordance with her grandmother’s wishes. Faith thought it was likely due to the fact that Tobias’s funeral had become a bitter battleground that had shattered the O’Bannion family.
    And her own little family as well, she thought as she moved past the next five headstones, all children of Barbara and Tobias who had not survived into adulthood. She stopped at the sixth stone. Its design was identical to that of her grandparents, the inscription as weathered as Tobias’s. Not surprising, since they’d been bought and carved at the same time.
    One side, her father’s, was mercifully blank. The other bore a terrible lie.
    Margaret O’Bannion Sullivan. Beloved wife and mother .
    ‘Hello, Mother,’ Faith murmured. ‘It’s been a while.’
    As if in response, a high-pitched scream floated across the air. Startled, Faith did a three-sixty, looking for the source, but saw nothing. No one had followed her, of that she’d made certain. There was nothing like being stalked to teach a woman to be careful.
    No one was here. It was just Faith, the house, and the fifty acres of fallow farmland that was all that remained of the O’Bannion family holdings. She patted the pocket of her jacket, calmed by the presence of her gun. ‘It was a dog howling,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s all.’
    Or it could have simply been her mind playing tricks, echoing the