When he’d seen the moisture brighten her eyes, he’d wanted to pull her into his arms, hug her and reassure her that everything would be okay. That Hattie had moved on to a better place, that they would find the locket, that Sebastian would wind up behind bars as he so well deserved.
He kept his hands glued to the steering wheel, his foot firmly on the gas. While he was still her comforter, he’d taken on a new role last night. One he didn’t intend to let her forget as easily as she wanted to. He’d become her lover, and now he wanted her to admit that she was in love with him.
For whatever reason, she refused to see the truth. She feared it.
Because she’s got a husband, buddy.
True, but she didn’t love Sebastian. He’d seen it in her eyes—the pain and fear and regret whenever she spoke of him. No, she didn’t love Sebastian.
But did she love him?
He wouldn’t have thought so, but he’d seen the way she’d looked at him when he was wounded. She’d been more than concerned, she just didn’t want to admit it because of circumstance, and fear.
Regardless, Dylan wanted to share the future with Julie and Thomas. He wanted to be more than her friend.
The ruts in the dirt road jerked him back to reality and the rickety cabin barely visible just beyond the trees.
“There it is.” She leaned forward in her seat and stared over the dash. “It looks the same. For the most part.”
He noticed the large spray of wilting flowers standing out front.
In Memory of Hattie.
“There are her potted plants.” She indicated the row of pots lining the porch as she climbed out and leaned into the back seat of the car to retrieve Thomas. Each bowl sprouted a different flower, the colors ranging from pink to orange, red to yellow. “She loved flowers,” she said as she cradled her son. “And Jake.” Her gaze shifted to the pig lazing on the porch steps. “She loved him more than any creature on this earth. Just so long as he stayed out of her onion patch.”
The dusty pink animal wore a collar from which a small leather square hung suspended with his name printed on it.
“Nadine?” Her gaze shifted to the old black woman, her hair snow-white and her face creased with wrinkles, who sat in the rocker. Wood creaked and groaned as Nadine pushed with her feet and the chair moved. She’d been Hattie’s nearest neighbor, her arch enemy at times and her best friend at others. They’d grown up together on the bayou, and Julie knew Nadine nearly as well as she knew Hattie.
“She’s gone,” the woman said before pushing up from the rocker and pulling Julie into her arms for a hug.
“I know,” Julie murmured against the woman’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her. Why, she could play Bingo better than anybody over at the church. One time I saw her handle twenty cards during one game.” She wiped at her tears with a wadded-up handkerchief. “They messed up her place.” Nadine motioned to the broken chair that sat on the far edge of the porch, along with a box of trash. “I cleaned the place up as best I could, but they done went and broke a mess of stuff. Damn kids.”
“Kids?”
“Sheriff says the damage was more than likely caused by the kids that pirogue down the bayou and smoke dope in the swamp. Says they needed money for drugs and decided to ransack Hattie’s place. She got caught in the cross fire.”
“Do they have any suspects?”
“You know Sheriff Benoit. If he does, he ain’t sayin’. And if he doesn’t, he ain’t admittin’ as much. That man never thinks he’s wrong.” Nadine leaned down to pet Jake. “Thank God this little fella kept his nose out of it. He was hidin’ under the house when I got here. Hattie would never be able to leave this world in peace if something had happened to Jake.” She wiped at more of her tears. “I’m so glad you’re here, child. She sure did take a hankerin’ to you and your boy.” She smiled tearfully at Thomas, who gurgled a greeting. “My, but he’s getting as round and fat as Jake, here.”
At her words, Julie smiled, and the sight sent a warmth surging through Dylan. “Finally. He’s feeling a lot better.”
“I heard he got pneumonia.”
Julie nodded. “He was pretty sick for a while. But he’s a healthy, happy baby now.”
“And what about you?” Nadine studied her a long moment before a knowing smile curled her lips. “You’re doing better, too.” She winked. “I see you finally took Hattie’s advice and found yourself a handsome beau.”
“This is Dylan. He’s a good friend of mine.”
Dylan had heard the words time and time again in the past, and they’d always bothered him. No more. Now they simply fueled his determination to prove her wrong.
He would. When all was said and done and Sebastian was a bad memory, he would prove Julie Cooper wrong once and for all, and then he would marry her and never let her go.
Just a friend.
Maybe she was right. And maybe not. It was a chance Dylan was willing to take.
He glanced around him at the trees crowding the clearing, their trunks layered with lichens, their limbs covered with trailing fingers of Spanish moss.
Despite the temperature, a tremor traveled over his skin as he noted the isolated location. He could see why Julie had thought Hattie’s a great place to hide. Now, however, with Sebastian hot on their trail, his only thought was that she could scream her head off and nobody would hear her but the alligators.
He slid his arm around her shoulder. “We need to hurry.”
“Funeral’s not until this afternoon,” Nadine said. “No need to run off. We could visit till then.”
“I didn’t come for the funeral.” Julie swallowed. “I wish I could stay. I would stay, but I can’t. Hattie was holding something for me, Nadine. Something really important. Did she mention it to you?”
“She’s got that photo of you and Thomas hanging in her kitchen. But that’s the only thing I know of.”
“No, it wasn’t the photo. It was a piece of jewelry. I need to find it.”
The old woman nodded before settling back in the rocking chair once again and putting the piece of grass back between her teeth. “Look away, child. If it’s that important to you, Hattie would want you to find it.”
“Thanks, ma’am.” Dylan steered Julie through the doorway and inside the small cabin.
“This is it,” she said, her gaze sweeping the room.
Dylan followed suit. The cabin was sparsely furnished. There was a wrought-iron double bed, a rickety table with four straw-backed chairs and a faded lime-green sofa. The furniture had obviously been broken and the sofa slashed, but Nadine had worked hard at patching it back together. Off to the side sat a black iron cookstove, a small sink with a rust stain around the drain and a row of shelves lined with teacups.
Julie went straight for the cups and fingered the collection. “She loved these, too. She collected them. I remember when one girl who came to Hattie for help—Denise, I think her name was—couldn’t pay. Hattie said never mind. Just bring her a teacup when she could. That’s what she asked all of us.” Julie touched a rose patterned cup with a scarred gold rim. “I brought her this. I picked it up at a resale shop in town after Hattie planted rosebushes in the back. She had a thing for yellow roses, and when I saw this, I knew she would like it.”
Julie trailed her finger on the edge of the saucer and remembered Hattie’s smile, her soft gaze, her strong hands, her stubborn resolve. She remembered everything that had made the old midwife such a wonderful and unique woman, and she wished yet again that she could turn back the clock and do something to save her dear friend.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. Tears burned the backs of her eyes and she blinked frantically.
“It’s pretty.” Dylan’s voice soothed the anguish that tore at her heart. His hand closed over her shoulder and he squeezed, drawing her back to reality and comforting her at the same time. For a split second, she wanted to turn into his warmth, feel his arms tigh
ten around her and simply cry.
For Hattie, because her life had been cut far too short. For Thomas, because he’d been robbed of a normal childhood. For Dylan, because he’d been sucked into something far too dangerous for his own good. For herself, because she’d caused so much pain for so many people. It was her fault Hattie had died. Her fault Thomas was on the run. Her fault Dylan had nearly gotten killed.
Because she’d misjudged Sebastian in the first place.
You started it and you can stop it.
The voice whispered through her head and filled her with a sense of courage. She fought back her fear and dread and guilt and stiffened. “We need to look in each one of these cups. She might have put it in one of them.”
They searched through all of the cups that hadn’t been broken in the struggle, and after that, they looked in various jars and tin cans containing everything from flour to tobacco, until they’d searched every nook and cranny where Hattie might have hidden the locket. Even the trunk beneath the floor held nothing but old photographs and a wad of money, which Julie handed to Nadine. “For Hattie’s girls,” she told the old woman.
Hattie’s girls were a group of women who’d “graduated” from Hattie’s place. They’d come to her pregnant, down and out, and the old woman had helped them. They’d stayed around after the births of their babies. They’d moved into town and stayed close by to be near the woman who’d given them hope when they’d had nothing else. They traveled around to nearby churches and schools, counseling teens and doing their best to keep other young girls from following in their footsteps.
Two hours later, Julie had exhausted every possible hiding place. She sank down on the edge of the bed next to Jake, who sprawled on a patchwork quilt, and pulled Thomas into her arms. The baby smiled up at her, completely oblivious to her frustration. As if all were right with the world and their future didn’t hinge on one tiny piece of jewelry.
What if it didn’t?
She ignored the doubt. The locket meant something to Sebastian. Something important enough to warrant murder. Something important enough to keep her looking even when she’d run out of places.
Dylan hadn’t been having much luck, either. He’d dug in each and every flowerpot on the front porch and poked around the backyard, looking under Hattie’s wheelbarrow, in her chicken coop. At the moment, Julie could see him digging through Hattie’s garden on the long shot that the old woman had hidden it among her patch of Vidalia onions.
“Where is it?” Julie asked Jake as she stroked his head with her free hand and patted Thomas with her other. “You know, don’t you, Jake? You saw her hide it, didn’t you?”
Great. Now she was talking to a pig. Talk about desperate.
She fingered Jake’s collar and traced the small leather square. It wasn’t merely a name badge as she’d first thought, but a pouch with a small flap that hung from the collar. Red embroidery spelled out his name.
“It has to be here,” she said as she mindlessly traced the edge of the pouch. “But where? Hattie wouldn’t have put it just anywhere. It would be someplace safe. Someplace special.”
Or with someone special, she decided as she noted the lump in Jake’s pouch.
Of course. Hattie had loved Jake. He was always with her, always close. Special.
Excitement rushed through her as she opened the pouch. Sliding two fingers in, she pulled out the contents, a smile spreading across her face as the locket came into full view.
The metal was warm against her palm and she sent up a silent prayer to Hattie for being so clever. No wonder Sebastian’s men hadn’t been able to find the locket. Who would have thought to look on a pig?
Relief washed through her, along with a rush of excitement. She jumped to her feet.
“Dylan!” she cried as she rushed out onto the porch with Thomas on one hip and the locket clasped in her free hand. “Dylan!” She waved toward the garden.
A few seconds later, a head popped up, followed by the rest of his body. He smiled at her, but then the expression faded as his gaze flicked to a point just beyond her left shoulder.
She couldn’t help herself, she smiled, feeling for the first time, deep in her heart, that maybe things would turn out all right. “It’s here,” she said, hoping to stir his excitement. “I found it!”
“Nice going.” She heard Sebastian’s words a heartbeat before she felt the cold press of metal at her throat.
CHAPTER TEN
SEBASTIAN’S HAND closed around Julie’s arm and he yanked her back toward him. The knife pressed deeper into her throat and fear lurched through her. Thomas stirred in her arms at the sudden movement and she held her baby closer.
Fear filled her, yet at the same time, she felt a fierce sense of protectiveness. Her mothering instinct kept her heart calm when it otherwise would have raced ninety to nothing with panic. She had to be smart enough to keep her son out of harm’s way.
To keep him out of Sebastian’s way.
“Well, well, you found it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come, now, Julie. You just ran out here yelling about finding the locket and now you’re trying to tell me you didn’t?”
“I was yelling, but not about any locket. I found something of Hattie’s. An old picture.”
“That’s what you have in your hand?”
Her fingers tightened around the locket. “I don’t have anything in my hand.”
“Sure you do.” He pressed the knife deeper. “Don’t you?”
She wanted to throw the locket at him and beg him to let her go free, but he wouldn’t. He would never let her go. Now, without the locket, Julie had nothing to bargain with.
“I see you brought our friend into this,” Sebastian said as he motioned toward Dylan, who stepped up onto the porch.
“She didn’t drag me into anything. I came willingly. We’re friends.”
“You always did have a thing for her.”
“The three of us were friends. What happened, Sebastian?”
At Dylan’s calm voice, Julie nearly screamed until she realized what he was doing. With each question he took a small step forward, closing the distance inch by inch.
“Nothing happened. I’m making a living, end of story.”
“You’ve got enough money to last the average person a few lifetimes.”
“I’m not the average person, and it’s not just about money. It’s about really living. About having all the advantages and using them to get what I want.” He smiled. “Nobody does it better than me, you know. I win because I know how to play the game, to turn every disadvantage into an advantage. To do any and everything to ensure that I win.”
“You won’t win this time,” Julie told him.
“Spoken like someone who’s never played the game. Listen, sweetheart, I will win,” he said, pressing the knife against her throat and making her swallow. The blade cut into her and she felt a drop of blood slide down her neck. “Because I hold all the cards, or I soon will. Now hand over the locket.”
“You heard the lady. She doesn’t have it.”
“Stop right there,” he said to Dylan, who’d been about to take another step forward. “I mean it.” He held Julie tighter, the blade pushing so hard she dared not swallow for fear that the cold metal would slice into her jugular. “You’re lying,” he murmured into Julie’s ears. “You’ve gotten really good at that this past year, honey.”
She drew in a slow, steady breath. As she relaxed, Sebastian’s hold seemed to ease enough for her to speak. “I had to,” she croaked.
“I had quite a time finding you at first. You covered your tracks, hid your identity.”
“But you still found me.”
“I took a guess and tracked down Hattie. I sent three of my friends to pay her a visit. You had a little run-in with one of them yesterday.”
The man who’d knifed Dylan in the parking lot.
“He didn’t handle that job quite so successfully,” Seba
stian observed dryly.
Julie hugged Thomas even closer. Grief welled inside her, fueling her courage and her anger. “You killed Hattie.”
“I already said I didn’t. My men did. Not intentionally, mind you. They just got a little carried away. Once the old woman was gone, I figured it was time to track down my loving wife.”
“I’m not your wife,” Julie protested. “And you’re not my husband. You haven’t been for a long, long time.”
“That hurts me, Julie. And here I was worried sick about you when you left.”
“Worried that I would tell the police about you and your dealings with J. B. Crowe.”
He laughed. “That was the last thing I worried about. It would have been your word against mine without proof.”
“But I have proof.” Her fingers tightened around the locket.
He laughed. “You’re catching on. Why else would I follow you out to this godforsaken place?”
“What’s the proof, Sebastian? Did you put something in my locket?”
Sebastian was silent.
“I’m right, then. So what is it?”
“Wouldn’t you like me to tell you.”
“Why not?” Julie was stalling for time, desperately searching for some way to escape. “I’m not getting out of here alive, am I, so what difference does it make?”
He seemed to weigh her words. “True.”
“Then tell me. I’m anxious to see exactly how clever you are.” Though her question wouldn’t have been enough to make him reveal the truth, her flattery stroked his ego.
“Forget clever, honey. It’s ingenious. No one would suspect that an old piece of jewelry like that would contain a microchip.”
“A microchip?”
“Implanted in the back. But it doesn’t tie me to anything. It implicates someone much more dangerous.”
“That someone being Luke Silva,” Dylan said, inching forward. “Isn’t that right?
“You always were pretty sharp, Garrett. It’s a shame you didn’t put that head of yours to good use instead of letting it all go to waste chasing bad guys.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s a waste. It’s not the most high-paying job, but it’s a rush to lock up scumbags like you.”
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