by Eve Gaddy
“I can’t do this, Tessa. I can’t be with you, knowing you’re counting down the days until you go to China. I can’t wonder how many more times I’ll kiss you, hold you, make love with you. And I can’t put my life on hold while you spend two or three years halfway around the world.”
“I never—I don’t expect you to.”
He smiled ruefully. “Maybe you don’t, but I seem to have different expectations. Falling in love with you made me want things I never believed I could have. A home. A family. After Frannie disappeared, I figured that was my last shot at family. And then you came along.”
“Will—”
“I wanted those things with you, thought I could have them with you. But you said it yourself, yesterday. We don’t want the same things.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, forcing the words out. She waited with her heart slamming against her ribs.
His eyes were dark gray, as flat and lifeless as she’d ever seen them. “I’m saying goodbye,” he said hoarsely.
“Goodbye?” she echoed. “Now?” Her heart twisted. She’d known it would end, but she had wanted the last weeks, wanted to savor the time they did have together.
Face grim, he nodded. “I thought I could handle it, but last night . . . after last night I knew I was kidding myself. I’m sorry, but I can’t—I can’t look at you every day and know I’m losing you.” He looked miserable, as miserable as she felt. “I need a clean break. It’s the only way I can deal with things.”
“Don’t go,” she choked out, tears filling her eyes and trickling down her cheeks. “I love you.”
He stared at her, his gaze more impenetrable than the moss hanging from the Caddo cypress. “Maybe you do. But it’s not enough, is it?”
“I wish . . . you don’t know how much I wish things could be different.”
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “So do I.” He leaned over, took her face in his hands and gazed at her, as if memorizing every detail. “Be happy,” he said, and kissed her.
He put her away from him, roughly, and strode to the door. Once there, he halted and turned to look at her. “You’ll call me if you’re . . . if you’re pregnant?” Unable to speak, she nodded. “I’ll get my stuff when you’re not here. It’ll be easier that way.” The next moment he was gone.
And Tessa lay down and cried until she had no more tears left.
WILL DID THE ONLY THING he knew to do. He buried himself in his work. Nothing would make him feel better, other than Tessa suddenly changing her mind and staying in Uncertain. But she’d made her choice abundantly clear.
He’d made the right decision to end it cleanly. When your life fell apart, you endured it, you picked up the pieces and you moved on. That lesson had been burned into his soul from the age of eight, when his mother had deserted him. From foster home after foster home. From Frannie’s disappearance when he was seventeen and he’d hitchhiked out of Uncertain one step ahead of the foster care system.
Damn straight, he’d learned that lesson.
Will spent the next several days searching the Internet, combing old phonebooks and calling the area jewelry stores, starting with the ones closest to Uncertain. First, he culled the ones that had gone into business after the date of Frannie’s death. The ones that had been operating then and had gone out of business since, he set aside to deal with later, if necessary.
Given his specific criteria, he didn’t have a lot of places to try. One morning he paid a visit to a shop in Longview that currently carried silver glasses cases, and had in the past as well. Over the phone, the owner had agreed to look at the police sketch of the object, but Will didn’t get his hopes up. He’d found one other store that carried the items and had learned nothing new from them.
Augustus Perdue had owned The Jewel Box, his small but exclusive jewelry store in downtown Longview, for over thirty years. Will glanced around, noticing the quiet elegance of the place. Nice. Must be doing all right to have stayed in business so long.
Dark green plush carpet covered the floor. Queen Anne chairs were scattered around, some in front of brightly lit display cases that stood out in the muted lighting of the store. The wedding set display caught his eye and a sharp pain stabbed his heart. Fortunately, the jeweler came out, so he didn’t have to think about Tessa and his broken dreams for long.
To Will’s surprise, Perdue greeted him enthusiastically, leading the way to his small office in the back and telling the clerk not to bother him. A small man, Perdue had a mess of untidy gray hair and wore a neat gray suit. His deep brown eyes were as sharp and bright as the diamonds he worked with.
“I’m a big believer in supporting the police,” he told Will, closing the door behind him. He pulled a pile of papers from a chair and tossed them aside, offering the chair to Will. “Or the Rangers, or any arm of the law. I’d have been a dead man a few years back if the local cops hadn’t shot an armed robber who came in here.”
“I appreciate your cooperation. I’ll get right to the point,” Will said, pulling the sketch out of his pocket. “Do you recognize this design as something you’ve carried?”
Humming an off-key tune, the jeweler studied the paper for a moment. “Hold on a minute.” He left the room, returning a few minutes later brandishing a silver case. “This isn’t exactly like the one in the sketch, but it’s close. I’ve carried this line for about ten years now.”
Wishing he’d gotten a better look at the one on Ray Jennings’s desk, Will studied it, then raised his gaze to Perdue’s. “According to my sources, the case in question was only manufactured for a few years.” He named the manufacturer and asked without a lot of hope, “Do you remember if you carried that brand nineteen years ago?”
He nodded briskly. “Sure did. I carried a lot of items from that manufacturer. I don’t get a lot of call for these—” he tapped the case in Will’s hand “—but every now and then someone will want one. Good markup. Worth keeping in stock.” He scratched his head, clearly pondering. “Matter of fact, one of my regulars goes in for this sort of thing. Don’t know if you know him. He’s a banker over in Uncertain, name of Ray Jennings. Partial to anything sterling. His wife, though, she leans toward the gold.”
Hot damn! Too good to be true, Will thought. “Would you remember if you sold him a case nineteen or twenty years ago?”
Perdue shook his head regretfully. “Sorry. But he has bought several over the years.”
Will picked up the paper in preparation to leave. It was a long shot, but he asked anyway. “How long do you keep your sales receipts?”
“Forever. Have them going back to the day I opened,” he said proudly. “Martha, that’s my wife, she says I’m a pack rat. But I like keeping the information on hand. Never know when it might come in handy. You want to look at them?”
Good thing he didn’t have allergies, Will thought a short time later as they began sifting through the files. The dusty files, kept in open cardboard boxes, could trigger a major attack. Even with Perdue helping, it was slow going, but finding a receipt would make any amount of time spent worthwhile. Proof of purchase might not hang Jennings, but it would sure as hell incriminate him. And throw doubt on Jed’s guilt.
It took them two hours, but Will left the place armed with Perdue’s good wishes and two receipts for sales of silver glasses cases to one Raymond Jennings of Uncertain, Texas. One dated shortly after Frannie’s murder, one a year earlier. Still circumstantial evidence, but as damning as any of the evidence against Jed.
Now he had to decide how to play this in order to have the best shot of proving Ray Jennings had killed Frannie Granger. Because, even though the glasses case placed Ray at the site, and even though it was certainly possible that Jennings was indeed the murderer, he still lacked motive. Why would Jennings have killed Frannie?
Still undecided about his best course of action, Will left Longview
and headed for the Cypress Bank and Trust. As he crossed the lobby on his way to Jennings’s office, he found his way blocked by five feet seven inches of platinum blond bombshell. Amanda. Great, just what he needed.
“Will! Where have you been hiding yourself?” She put her hand on his upper arm and squeezed lightly, brushing herself up against him and fluttering her eyelashes. “Don’t you have time for your old friends anymore?”
Will opened his mouth to brush her off with a quick comment, but something in the eyes gazing hopefully at him changed his mind. Amanda must be awfully lonely, he thought, to try so hard to latch on to him when he’d shown so little interest. His pity stirred, he stayed to talk to her a minute, allowing her to pull him aside to a small seating area arranged against one wall. Ray wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ve been around,” he said. “Working on Frannie’s case.”
“You know what they say about all work.” Voice husky, eyes sultry, she squeezed his arm again, this time deliberately rubbing her breasts against him.
If they’d been alone she’d have had him down on the floor in no time flat, he thought, grateful they weren’t.
“Tell me it’s not true.”
“What’s not true?” he asked, a little dazed by the come-on.
She batted her blue eyes at him and all he could think was that they were nowhere near as pretty as Tessa’ s.
“I heard a rumor about you and that archaeologist.” She laughed, placing her other hand on his chest. “And of course, I couldn’t believe it. You’re not living with the woman, are you, Will?”
“Not anymore,” he said without thinking. Shit, now he’d done it. Stupid move, McClain.
“Good,” she said, her voice a husky purr. Her fingers walked up his chest, the bracelet on her wrist tracing a trail as they went. “Why don’t you come pick me up tonight and we’ll go somewhere—” she pursed slick red lips “—private. Very private.”
Women had come on to him before, though never quite this blatantly. He gazed down at her. She was pretty, if a bit overdone. There was no reason he couldn’t take her up on her offer. No reason he shouldn’t lose himself in hot, no-strings-attached sex. Except that he didn’t want Amanda in his bed or in his life. He wanted Tessa.
He heard a stifled shriek and turned around to see Joleen Berber, Frannie’s best friend. Her round face drained of color, she stood stone still, staring at them. Her hands curled into fists, her breath came in short, staccato gasps.
“Joleen, are you all right?” he asked, concerned she might be having a heart attack. The older woman had been in poor health for years now, he knew from Emmy and also from seeing her when he’d interviewed her several weeks before.
Amanda huffed out an exasperated sigh as Joleen tottered toward them. But she wasn’t looking at Will. She was staring straight at Amanda with a ghastly expression on her face.
“Is that . . . Where did you get that?” she asked, stretching a blue-veined, trembling hand toward Amanda.
“Will, what is wrong with her?” Amanda demanded in an urgent undertone, shrinking against him. “Ooh, she’s giving me the creeps.”
“Joleen, let me help you,” he said, moving out of Amanda’s grasp to take the older woman’s arm. The woman’s whole body quaked, and he grew more alarmed. “Can I get you some water?” Or call a doctor, he thought.
She shook him off with surprising strength. Ignoring him, she addressed Amanda. “Please. Where did you get that bracelet?”
Amanda flicked her wrist impatiently. “This?” she asked, indicating an intricately tooled pearl, emerald and gold bracelet. “From my mother, not that it’s any of your concern. It’s a family piece, part of a set.”
“A family heir—heirloom?” Jolene asked brokenly, then moaned pitifully when Amanda nodded.
“Really, Will,” Amanda whispered in another urgent aside, “the woman needs to see a doctor.”
“I’m s-sorry,” Joleen stammered out. Blinking rapidly, she looked away. “I didn’t mean . . . I have to go.” She turned and rushed toward the entrance.
Hampered by the ever-clinging Amanda, Will went after her.
Ray Jennings entered the building just as Joleen, in her haste, crashed into him and cried out. Startled, Ray grabbed her arms, preventing her from toppling backward. Will reached them just as Joleen, staring up at the man, her expression one of sheer terror, crumpled into a dead faint. Jennings caught her before she hit the ground, thank God, preventing no telling how many broken bones.
“What the hell?” Jennings said, supporting the limp form whether he wanted to or not. “Someone call the paramedics. This woman is ill.”
A short time later, Joleen had recovered enough to sit on the couch and sip a glass of water. After being assured of the older woman’s well-being, Jennings went to his office, obviously irritated by the scene she’d caused.
Amanda, fuming at the interruption, left after tucking a note into Will’s shirt pocket and whispering a highly erotic suggestion in his ear. He blessed Joleen for her timing, if nothing else.
In spite of Joleen’s protests that she didn’t need medical attention, the paramedics checked her out to be safe. “Her blood pressure’s low and her respiration’s a bit shallow, but she seems all right,” the medic told Will after examining her. “She refuses to come to the hospital, but it might be better if she had someone to watch her at home for a little while. Bring her in if she does it again. You a relative?”
“No, just a friend. But I’ll take her home.” He meant to get to the bottom of Joleen’s behavior. She’d been frightened to the point of fainting at the sight of Raymond Jennings.
Will intended to find out why.
Chapter Seventeen
BY THE TIME Will drove Joleen home, she’d regained her color and looked much better. Good thing, because he couldn’t see badgering her for an answer to her strange behavior if she’d continued to look ill.
Besides, he had a few fond memories of the older woman, dating back to the first time he’d met her. Joleen had still been nursing then, and since Will refused to go to the hospital, Frannie had asked her to treat his injuries, courtesy of the bastard from his most recent foster home. Even though she obviously hadn’t approved of him, Joleen had been kind and gentle to the scared kid he’d been.
Emmy had told him Joleen had changed. He’d thought her odd himself, he remembered, when he’d interviewed her. But not as weird as she’d been at the bank.
Joleen knew something. Something important, if his hunch was right.
“You don’t need to stay, Will,” she said nervously. “I’m fine. Had a touch of flu the other day and I’m sure that’s what it was. Why, I fainted right out, here at home, too. You just can’t tell with that flu bug, what’s going to happen.”
Will took a seat beside her on her drab brown twill sofa. Everything about the place was drab, including its owner. The strong odor of stale cigarettes permeated everything, including the air. “Good, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Because I need to ask you some more questions.”
“Questions?” Her faded blue eyes widened in alarm behind her glasses. Lanky gray hair half hid her jaw. The soft, aged skin of her round face wrinkled in concern. “I already told you what I remembered about the day—the day Frannie disappeared.”
“Not that day. I’m talking about today.” He asked the question softly, keeping his eyes on her face. “Why does Ray Jennings scare you, Joleen?”
Her pupils dilated. Her breath came faster. “He doesn’t. I told you, I’ve been sick.”
“You weren’t sick. You were scared to death when you realized who he was. I know. I’ve seen that look before. Remember, I’m a cop.”
“You’re mis-mistaken,” she stammered. “I just fainted because I’ve been sick. That’s all.”
Right, and he was the tooth fai
ry. “If you’re frightened of him I can help. I can protect you if you need it.” She didn’t speak and he continued, “Did it have something to do with the bracelet?” That little episode had been as weird as Joleen fainting in Ray Jennings’s arms.
Joleen compressed her lips, her normally cherubic expression hardening. She started to rock, a slight swaying of her body, staring ahead of her as if she saw something. A memory?
Finally she whispered, “You’ll think I’m terrible. But I didn’t steal it. Not really. She owed it to me. She owed me, I tell you. I paid for the funeral.” She turned to Will, eyes suddenly crafty. “Cost me money I couldn’t afford. And I took good care of her. Tried my best to help her. It wasn’t my fault she . . . died.”
Totally confused, Will asked, “Who died?”
“Emmy’s mother. Ginny Owens, her name was.”
To say he was rocked didn’t even touch it. “Emmy Monday? You’re talking about Emmy Monday’s mother? You knew her?”
Twisting her hands together, Joleen nodded. “I met her when I was working at the free clinic in Tyler. She was such a sweet thing. Some slick-talking man had left her pregnant, and she was alone, like so many of the girls. Parents kicked her out when she turned up pregnant.” She sniffed, dismissing the parents. “Can you imagine, just turning your daughter out to fend for herself at a time like that? Girl wouldn’t hear of going to a home. Said she didn’t intend to give the child up. Besides, she was afraid the father of the child would find her if she did.”
“And that would have been bad?”
Joleen snorted and rolled her eyes. “The dirty bum had given her money for an abortion, but she wouldn’t do it. She didn’t know when she let him talk her into bed, but he was married and scared to death Ginny would make a mess of things for him.”
Still floundering but beginning to see light, Will said, “This married man who fathered Emmy is . . .”
“Raymond Jennings,” Joleen pronounced without hesitation. “The bank president himself.”