From that point on, prosperity had overlooked Last Stop. It was so close to Dallas a person could all but stand in the center of town and throw a nickel at it. And in a cruel twist of fate back in the eighties, when they'd gone to put in the bypass, it had bypassed right by Last Stop.
That had been the last straw for a lot of folks, but the die-hards had stayed-those with the last names of Webb, Coward, Hawkins, Larson, and Jessup-whose ancestors had been the first to be buried in the tiny cemetery. Those five families owned most of everything in Last Stop, including any viable farming land. Others, whose blood didn't run quite so pure as the town founders', had also chosen to stay for one reason or another, but they made the commute into the city each day and prayed for cheaper gas prices.
Last Stop wasn't the prettiest town, and it had never gotten its picture in a magazine for being one of the "cutest small towns in America." Not like Rose Hill, which was only a half-hour drive on the other side of the Trinity River. In Last Stop, the streets were cobbled and the buildings that lined Main Street were two-stories of plain brown brick that looked like cardboard boxes. The city council had tried to come up with some money to put striped awnings over the walkways, but the taxpayers decided they'd rather save their pennies and just get wet when it rained.
Those who lived in Texas understood how the seasons worked-that summer lasted a minimum of nine months throughout the year, and winter usually visited in the month of January, just long enough for everyone to buy boots and winter gear before having to shove it back in the recesses of their closets come February. Drought was a serious problem from May to September, and playgrounds sat empty as one-hundred-degree days and a sweltering humidity made the outdoors a miserable existence.
It was an endless cycle that kept on year after year, without changing-but Last Stop wasn't big on change. When it came down to it, people would still spend their Friday nights watching high school football, their Saturday mornings mowing lawns and washing cars, their Sunday mornings at church, and the rest of the days of the week looking for somebody else's sins to pray about the following Sunday. Last Stop was caught in the past and had no plans of moving toward the future.
Tess Sherman took her life in Last Stop in stride. The name Sherman didn't mean much around town. In fact, most people raised their brows when the name was mentioned. She wasn't deaf. She'd heard rumblings about how she thought she was too good for anyone. They said she liked spending more time with the dead than with the living, and she guessed that was at least partially true. There was no need to worry about the dead running off with ten thousand dollars from her savings account or stealing her car. At least not that she'd encountered.
Of course, it was her own mother who kept the gossip mill going. People got their hair cut at the Clip n' Curl because Theodora was better than Channel 8 when it came to reporting the news. Whether the news was true or not didn't seem to matter so much. Theodora Sherman wasn't known for her honesty.
Or for her scruples. After all, it was also Tess's mother who'd run off with her savings and her car.
She'd flitted in and out of her daughter's life since she was a child, leaving her with her grandmother when it suited her and popping back into town when she needed money or a new man. Her grandmother liked to say that Theodora would steal anything that wasn't nailed down. Tess hated to break it to her, but a few nails wouldn't stop Theodora if she had her mind set on having it.
When Tess had moved back home to Last Stop after college, she'd had a mountain of student loan debt, and she couldn't impose on her grandmother by staying with her. Her grandmother had sacrificed enough over the years, and it was time she got to live her own life without having to worry about anyone else.
So for the past seven years, Tess had lived at the funeral home because she didn't have to pay rent, and because the funeral home had given her exactly what she'd needed: privacy. After growing up in a house where her mother riffled through her drawers looking for cash or mementos to pawn, it was a relief to know she could buy nice things and not worry about keeping them in a box buried in the rosebushes.
Living at the funeral home should've been the perfect solution for her "life plan." Once she'd paid off her student loans, she'd started setting aside money for a home of her own and for the day when she could either buy the funeral home from George Jessup or move on and open her own place. She wanted something that would last. Something that would be only hers.
About two years ago, Theodora had pretty much sent her life plan spiraling down the toilet. Tess had made the mistake of leaving her online bank account open when someone buzzed at the door. Theodora had been doing hair and makeup on Cleo Clancy in the embalming room, but she must've gotten curious when the buzzer had rung and wandered out to see if she could pick up any new gossip.