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Chapter 1
Shirley Wallace woke up on the kitchen floor with her son Sean hovering over her. He had a phone in one hand calling for an ambulance, while holding a kitchen towel pressed against the top of her head with the other.
The taste of blood was in her mouth.
Her body was one solid pain, and it hurt to breathe.
She could hear the frantic tone in his voice, but she couldn’t focus enough to respond.
“Yes, yes, she’s breathing and starting to regain consciousness, but she’s bloody as hell, and I don’t know where all the blood is coming from. Yes, I know who attacked her. Her husband, Clyde. No, I don’t know where he is. Just hurry.”
The 911 dispatcher’s voice was calm and quiet, even as he was dispatching emergency vehicles to the address.
“Sean, stay on the line with me until help arrives,” he said.
“Call my brother,” Sean said. “His name is Aaron Wallace. He’s an officer with the Conway Police Department.”
That was the last thing Shirley heard before darkness claimed her.
The next time she woke up, she was in ER.
“Shirley! Can you hear me? My name is Dr. Malone, and you’re in ER.”
“Where’s my son?” she mumbled.
“He’s just outside this room. You’re safe. He’s safe, and we’re going to make you better.”
Sean was frantically pacing outside the exam bay when he heard the sound of someone running up behind him. He turned to look, then breathed a sigh of relief. Aaron was here!
“How is she?” Aaron asked as he slid a hand across his brother’s shoulder.
Sean shuddered. “I don’t know. Jesus, Aaron. He’s never hurt her like this before. I came in from running errands and found her like that. Her face is bloody and swollen. She’s bleeding from both ears and from a huge cut in her scalp, and she has broken ribs, for sure. Scared the hell out of me. Have they found Clyde?”
Aaron lowered his voice. “He’s in jail. They’re processing him now. Mom got off lucky. Clyde walked into a Quick Loan and shot two people dead. He’s high as a kite and talking out of his head.”
Sean froze, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“What?”
Aaron gripped his brother’s shoulders. “Our father just murdered two people in cold blood. Shit has hit the fan. Have you called Wiley? Does B.J. know?”
Sean’s eyes welled. “Oh my God. No…not yet.”
Aaron nodded. “I’ll do it. And I’ll call the school for B.J. Did he ride his Harley this morning?”
Sean nodded.
“Okay. You just stay here with Mom. I’m going outside to make some calls.”
It was the beginning of the end of life as they’d known it.
Within a week of leaving the hospital, Shirley Pope Wallace had filed for divorce. By the time Clyde Wallace’s trial came to court, his family’s names and faces were as well-known as his, and they were being judged and found guilty of nothing but bearing his last name.
The Conway, Arkansas, police department decided it would be in the public’s best interest if the son of a killer was not on their force, and despite an exemplary record, they let Aaron go. Clyde was in prison for life, and so, it would seem, was his family.
Aaron’s wife, Kelly, couldn’t handle the pressure and filed for divorce two months before their first anniversary. Again, it was nothing Aaron did. She just didn’t want to be associated with the crime.
Sean lost clients through the IT firm he’d workedfor, and was scrambling to make ends meet, and Wiley was reduced to a DoorDash delivery driver, instead of the law enforcement job he’d been hoping for since graduating from the police academy.
