Just Hush, Billy!

By Mary Wiggins Cotton

Stunned siblings, Sheri Watkins, a third-year nursing student at TWU in Denton, Texas and her older brother, Kyle Watkins, a first-year med student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, vow to find the dark secret behind their seemingly happy, successful parents double suicides. In their quest, they encounter many closed doors, but continue relentlessly in their search and discover a hidden past known only to their father.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514425350

Mary Wiggins Cotton

Mary Wiggins Cotton, a retired educator and author of THE BIRTHMARK, SHADOWS FROM THE PAST and SOUTHERN LORE, a free e-mag, lives in West Monroe, Louisiana with her beloved husband, Bob, where she is lovingly known as “Mamaw Mary” to her combined family of nine children and an ever increasing number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Mary Wiggins Cotton.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015918856

ISBN:      Hardcover        978-1-5144-2540-4

                Softcover         978-1-5144-2538-1

                eBook              978-1-5144-2535-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/21/2015

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Dedication

To all young adults who feel pressured to conform to the standards set for them by others, may they find the courage to be true to themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my editor and beloved husband, Bob, for his patience and encouragement during the writing of JUST HUSH, BILLY. Thanks for the support from our children, Barry, Keith, Mary, Lisa, Michael, Deb, Geoff, John and Susan that keeps me writing.

CHAPTER 1

Excited over an unexpected cancellation of her afternoon labs at TWU in Denton, Texas, Sheri Watkins, a tall athletic nursing student, jogged toward her jeep parked half-way across the campus. The torrid Texas sun reminded her that close parking was a gift for early risers and that it might be to her advantage to get up earlier. When she opened the door, the inside heat slapped her in the face making her question her sanity for having promised to join friends for tennis. She quickly tossed her books onto the backseat and slid underneath the steering wheel, flinching as the leather almost seared the back of her long tanned legs.

Before the air conditioner could make a significant difference, she screeched to a stop in front of the family home and jumped out. By nature a somewhat unorganized person, she left her books for later and sprinted up the walk, unlocked the front door and jumped inside the cool foyer. When she didn’t hear the soft music her mother usually listened to after lunch, Sheri assumed that she was probably out shopping and didn’t look for her.

Parched and thirsty, she decided to grab a cold soda from the kitchen before changing into tennis clothes. As she hurried that way she almost tripped on her mother’s body sprawled face down on the den floor. Jumping back, she screamed, Oh, my God! Mom, what happened?

When she neither stirred nor replied, Sheri quickly knelt beside her, and asked softly, Mom, can you hear me? Getting no response, she spoke louder, Mom! Mom, talk to me!

Quickly checking for a pulse, she felt nothing the first time. She changed arms and felt again. Still nothing. She leaped to her feet, grabbed a phone and dialed 911 to summon help, then, she frantically dialed her father’s office to ask him what to do. She was told that her father, Dr. Bill Watkins, an orthopedic surgeon, had cancelled his afternoon appointments and had left the office shortly before lunch. His partner, Dr. Jake Brown, took her call and talked her through a hopeless attempt to revive her mother.

Paramedics arrived and Sheri watched helplessly as they worked with her mother, quickly confirming what she had refused to accept. Her mother had been dead for quite some time. The only obvious injuries were bruises around her nose and upper lip, perhaps caused by her fall, but foul play was not ruled out and the police were summoned.

When they arrived, Sheri was told not to touch anything, the body was covered with a sheet, and the area was sealed off with colored tape. Too terrified to be alone, she followed the police into the kitchen where they found four empty prescription bottles on the counter beside a large, near-empty glass of water. Each prescription had been filled earlier in the day.

In a fog of disbelief, Sheri rushed back into the living room and huddled in the corner of the couch to phone Kyle, her older brother. Unable to reach him, she left an urgent message for him to call back. To control the trembling that consumed her, she pulled her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. Nothing seemed real, especially her mother lying dead and covered with a sheet in the den, around the corner, just feet away.

More police arrived. Sheri’s light brown eyes, now wide and dark with fear, darted around the room, finally focusing on hands: hands covered in plastic gloves, touching here and there, searching and carefully placing things in plastic bags, then moving on to something else.

Minutes later, when Sheri overheard someone relate that the well-known Dr. Watkins’ lifeless body had been found slumped in the master bedroom shower and that it appeared he may have slit his own throat, she folded into uncontrollable screams. After finally regaining control, she sensed an eerie quietness around her, such quietness that she could even hear the methodic steps of investigators as they moved about upstairs. One set of steps quickened and moved toward the stairs. Instantly, her eyes shifted to the landing where a detective spoke to someone behind him, then turned to descend. At the bottom, he walked rapidly toward her and extended what appeared to be a sheet of paper in a plastic bag. He asked, Ma’am, is this your mother’s handwriting?

Sheri rose, took the note and carefully studied it.

Billy,

I can’t try anymore. It’s just too hard.

Things will never change. I’m sorry.

Helen

Unmistakably, it was her mom’s crisp note writing penned on her signature stationery. Unable to speak, Sheri could only nod as she returned the bag to the detective and crumpled in a shivering heap on the floor with her back against the couch. She buried her face