Guiding Light: Jonathan's Story: Jonathan's Story

Prologue

Reva Shayne felt the back of her car fishtail as she careered around a bend in the country road and cried out with fear. But she didn't dare take her foot off the gas and risk losing sight of her son. Instead, she gripped the wheel tighter and sped up, catching sight of the bumper of Jonathan's car just as it rounded another curve, still in pursuit of Alan Spaulding's limousine.

This was Alan's fault! Showing up at Tammy's funeral. What did he think would happen? What did he think Jonathan would do when Alan laughed at his grief, called it a performance? Reva should've taken Alan out right there, clubbed him with a prayer book or an angel statue, left him for dead. Because of Alan, Tammy was gone forever and now Reva feared what Jonathan would do in retaliation.

She rounded another corner, banking the car wide and praying no one was coming toward her on the other side of the road. She quickly straightened her car out and resumed her reckless speed. Ahead of her, she could see a cloud of dust where Alan's and Jonathan's cars must have turned onto a gravel road.

As she raced ahead, she tried to banish the image of Jonathan's shattered expression when they'd wheeled Tammy's casket out of the church, the weight of his grief so evident in the slope of his shoulders. "Focus," Reva admonished herself, blinking back tears.

She'd had a feeling Jonathan was going to do something crazy, in spite of his assurances that he wouldn't. Not while he had her grandbaby Sarah with him. But she'd heard it in his voice, seen it in his eyes. Something she hadn't seen there in a long time, not since Tammy's love had changed him. "We won't be safe," he'd said.. "He won't stop until he has Sarah. He'll kidnap her." He never stopped looking at his daughter in Reva's arms as he spoke.

Reva knew Jonathan was right. Little Sarah, born to Alan's granddaughter Lizzie and Jonathan -- was the heir to the Spaulding empire, and Alan had vowed to keep her in his family so she could be raised properly -- as a Spaulding. That Sarah was rightfully with her father made no difference to him -- what Alan wanted, Alan got, at any cost. Just look what he'd done to Tammy. Good, sweet Tammy. How do you get over something like that? How do you survive when someone murders the love of your life?

Maybe you survive by seeking comfort in your infant daughter. And maybe you survive by seeking revenge. Reva knew Jonathan was planning something. She knew because they were alike. Quick to anger and slow to forgive. That was why she had come back to the church.

It was a miracle she'd seen them at all -- Alan's sleek black limo cruising along the outskirts of Springfield, Jonathan's green sedan following closely behind. Reva had had a feeling in the pit of her belly -- whatever Jonathan thought he was doing, she had to stop him. She'd tried to catch up to them, but had lost them in the many turns of the road, and had just caught up to them again.

She whipped her car onto the gravel lane and the car bounced along the rough road. She drove between two barns, and out through barren fields. She could barely make out the cars ahead of her through the dust, but she saw the limousine make an abrupt left in between two silos. She did not see Jonathan's car follow it.

She did not see Jonathan's car.

"No," she said, and gripped the wheel tighter. "No no no no...."

She reached a curve in the road and saw the signpost warning that the edge of the quarry lay straight ahead, and her heart sank. "Jonathan!" she screamed, and slammed on the brakes so hard that her car slid into a patch of evergreen trees. Reva threw open her car door and pushed through the tree branches.

She heard a loud scraping noise as she ran down an old walking path marked with the fresh tread of tires. She reached the edge of the quarry just in time to hear the sickening crash of metal and glass against rock, and saw the car explode upon impact at the bottom. Her mind could not comprehend it -- her son was in that car! So was his baby, Sarah, a tiny little being with so much life ahead of her!

As the flames roared and rose higher, it seemed to Reva that the world was suddenly spinning the wrong way. She opened her mouth to cry for help, but what came out was a scream, a blood-curdling scream of her son's name. "Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan!"

Another explosion sent a fireball into the air, and Reva screamed again.

Out of nowhere Alan appeared at her side -- Alan Spaulding, the monster who had caused this tragedy. Horrified, he watched as the flames engulfed the car that had carried his beloved Sarah, his heir, his future, his salvation.

It seemed impossible, unreal to Reva, as if she was watching a bad movie. No amount of screaming would make it stop; the car just kept burning and burning, the flames growing higher and more ferocious, burning with them all her hopes for a son who had known more pain in his life than a body ought to, burning all her dreams for her granddaughter.

They were gone. Her hopes and dreams for them. The son she'd fought so hard to tame, the son who finally came to believe he was loved. Jonathan and Sarah, gone just like that - as long as it had taken that car to sail from the top of the cliff to the bottom of the quarry.

It was all gone.