In High Cotton: Neely Kate Mystery #2

by Denise Grover Swank

  I shook my head. “No, but I have a pair of capris and a T-shirt.”

  He stood and pulled me over to the edge of the bed. “I hate that our night got ruined.”

  “What time is it?”

  “One thirty.”

  “Then our night wasn’t ruined. It’s the next morning.”

  He kissed me again, then headed into the bathroom. It was then I realized he’d been walking around stark naked downstairs. But then again, I was naked too.

  I pulled the capris and a T-shirt out of my suitcase, retrieved my underwear from the floor, then quickly dressed. When I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I saw Jed walking out of his closet—still naked but carrying a big handgun.

  “Do you have your own gun?” he asked in a serious tone.

  “Not with me.”

  “I’d feel better if you carried one.”

  That made me nervous. “Okay.”

  “You have a concealed carry permit, so I want you to carry one all the time. At least for now.”

  “Okay.”

  He walked out into his room and got dressed while I brushed my teeth. When he came back in, he had a small holster. “I’m gonna slip this into the back of your pants.”

  I laughed. “That’s quite the pickup line.”

  I expected him to laugh, but the corners of his mouth barely tipped up as he slid the holster between the small of my back and my capris.

  “What do you expect to find there, Jed?”

  “Dermot didn’t say, but he was spooked.”

  A spooked Dermot was a bad sign.

  I shooed him out so I could pee, and when I emerged from the bathroom, he had a gray hoodie in his hands. “It’s pretty chilly tonight, so take this in case you get cold.”

  I took the hoodie, still amazed that Jed Carlisle was concerned about my comfort. He was an imposing figure to people who didn’t know him, and even after I’d first met him, he’d been the strong, silent type. But that man was nothing like the man I’d gotten to know. This man was loving, protective, supportive, and at times downright chatty, but he wasn’t chatty right now. He was retreating into himself, which meant he expected to find something bad.

  “I’m gonna get you a gun out of my gun safe,” he said, striding toward the bathroom.

  “I’ll head downstairs and find my phone,” I said. “I haven’t seen it since we got here.” But as soon as I started down the stairs, I realized I’d left it in Jed’s car.

  When I opened the front door to retrieve it, a large man dressed in black quickly blocked my exit. “I need you to go back inside, miss.”

  I took a step back, slightly startled. “I just need to get my purse out of the car.”

  “Mr. Carlisle asked us to make sure you stay inside. He’s worried someone might be in the trees waiting for you.”

  My stomach dropped. “Have you seen anyone out there?”

  “No, miss, but we follow Mr. Carlisle’s instructions. Can I get it for you?”

  “No. I’ll just wait until we leave.” I closed the door and walked into the kitchen, trying to dispel my nervous energy. The dirty glasses and dishes were on the table out on the porch, so I set the hoodie on the counter and headed out to grab the wine glasses and the silverware. Jed was in the living room, coming toward me, as I set them in the kitchen sink.

  His brow furrowed as his gaze landed on the open door. “Neely Kate. Don’t go out there.”

  “I’m just getting the dirty dishes. I doubt there’s anyone out in your backyard.”

  “Just humor me.” He shut the door to the porch and pivoted to face me. “I have a really bad feeling.”

  I might have argued with him if I didn’t have a bad feeling myself, like the boogeyman was waiting to pounce. “I left my purse in the car, and your security guard wouldn’t let me go out to get it.”

  “After Dermot’s call, I told them to stick close to the front door. He knows you’re what they’re protecting, and he takes his job seriously.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “You talked to him naked?”

  A mischievous grin lit up his eyes. “Why not? It’s not like my dick is crooked.”

  “Jed!”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t standing in the doorway showing it off. I called him on the phone.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “You’re terrible.”

  “And you like me that way,” he teased.

  It was true.

  I closed the distance between us and hugged him, burrowing into his chest. “I had no idea what I was missing in my life until I had you, Jed, and I don’t want to go back to that emptiness.”

  Slipping his arms around my back, he snugged me closer and rested his chin on my head. “I feel exactly the same way.” He held me for several seconds, and then his arms tightened as though he’d thought of something distasteful. “You ready to go?”

  I was scared to see what Dermot had found, but I was ready for this nightmare to be over. “Yeah.”

  He dropped his arms and, reaching around his back, he pulled out a small handgun. “Here’s the weapon I got you.” He showed me the safety, then popped out the clip and slid it back in, before spinning me around and inserting the gun into the holster at the small of my back. With a deep sigh, he rested his hands on my shoulders, and rubbed gently. Jed’s every moment was usually purposeful, but this was reflexive. He was nervous.

  I lifted my left hand to cover his and glanced over my shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Jed.”

  “Something’s off, Neely Kate. I can feel it.”

  I could too, and we both had pretty good instincts. I turned to face him. “What do you think it is?”

  He shook his head, worry in his eyes. “I don’t know, and that’s what has me worried. I can usually see what’s comin’, but this time… I see nothin’.”

  I forced a laugh. “The next thing I know, you’ll be tellin’ me you have visions of the future like Rose.”

  He frowned. “I really wish she were here right now so I could ask her what she sees.”

  That’s how Jed had met her, and I had to admit I would have been tempted to ask her myself, but it wouldn’t do us any good at the moment. While she’d gotten pretty good about directing visions to tell her what she wanted, she needed to be able to touch the person she was having a vision for, and she was an hour and a half away.

  Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pressed myself into his chest and gave him a soft smile. “I trust you, Jed.”

  He kissed me with a possessiveness that caught me by surprise, his arm like a vice as he held me close. When he lifted his head, his eyes burned with love and worry. “Part of me wants to take you away from here and never look back,” he said with a grave expression. “I feel it’s only fair to warn you that if things take a turn for the worse, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  I stared up at him. “You’re gonna run away with me? What about your business with Witt? What about your new house?”

  “Fuck all of that,” he growled.

  I stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t let you give up everything for me.”

  “Don’t you get it?” he asked in frustration. “You’re my everything. None of it means a damn thing without you.”

  “Oh, Jed.” Every time I tried to figure a way out of this mess, I only saw us digging ourselves deeper.

  Just like Kate wanted. I suspected every move we had made up to this point had played right into her scheme. We needed to throw her off her game. But how?

  At some point, I was going to have to figure out a way to protect Jed and Joe. And Witt and Rose. I’d seen firsthand what the woman was capable of last February, and she’d left a high body count. I couldn’t afford to lose a single person. I had to stop her before she got that far, because now that I thought it over, I suspected the family reunion she was planning involved more than me and Joe. It involved everyone I cared about.

  I needed my phone.

  “Let’s go,” I said softly as I linked my hand wit
h his, wondering how much longer I’d have with him. Kate would want to take Jed away from me as well as Joe. She’d strip everything from me as payback for daring to fill her shoes in Joe’s life. Kate was wicked and vindictive and capable of horrible, horrible things. She would make our life hell until I gave her what she wanted, and the only way I knew to stop this was to cut her off now.

  Before there was too much collateral damage to save them at all.

  Chapter 24

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Jed said as we approached the motel.

  When we’d left the house, he and his team of four guards had acted like I was the Queen of England as they’d moved me to Jed’s car.

  I’d been quiet, coming up with a plan to throw Kate off her axis. I had the beginnings of one, and I already knew Jed would never approve.

  “Is your phone charged yet?” he asked.

  I was sure that wasn’t idle chitchat. He likely wanted to know if Jed or Kate had called me, but when we’d gotten into Jed’s car, I’d discovered my phone battery had died, not that I was surprised. It was old and I hadn’t charged it at all the day before. Now it had been charging for nearly ten minutes and was still showing the charging screen and nothing else.

  “You need a new phone,” he said in a gruff tone. “I’m gettin’ you one as soon as the store opens this morning.”

  “Jed,” I softly scolded. “Stop. You bought me a car. You’re not buying me a phone. I’ll buy my own.” Which I really couldn’t afford. Sure, I was living with Rose rent-free, but Ronnie had racked up a bundle of credit card debit and I was fighting like hell to get that paid down as quickly as possible. Every spare dime went toward the thousands he owed. Too bad I hadn’t figured out what he’d spent that eighteen thousand dollars on.

  “I need to be able to get ahold of you, NK, and your phone is a refurbished four-year-old model. I’m getting’ you a new phone and that’s that.”

  I couldn’t help grinning at him. “That’s that, huh?”

  He looked slightly chagrinned. “I don’t plan to boss you around, but when it comes to your safety and my peace of mind, I suspect I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  I leaned over and rested my temple on his shoulder. “I love you, Jed. No matter what happens, I need you to know that.”

  He glanced down at me, and I could see the alarm in his eyes in the glow of the dashboard light. “You’re gonna be fine, Neely Kate, one way or the other. You have to trust me.”

  “I trust you, Jed.” And I did—I trusted him to throw away his own life to keep me safe, but Kate was like a bulldog with a piece of rawhide. She was never letting go of me. No matter where we went, she would find me and make things ten times worse for daring to evade her. I couldn’t let him sacrifice himself for me.

  I wasn’t worth the price.

  The flashing neon lights of the Broken Branch Motel shined in the distance, the lights for multiple letters missing so that it read roach motel.

  “Talk about truthfulness in advertisin’,” I quipped, my stomach flip-flopping. What would we find?

  He shot me a tight smile, then pulled into the parking lot around the side of the building, which was less noticeable from the road. The one drawback to criminals using the place for nefarious purposes was the difficulty in hiding their cars.

  Our security detail parked next to us on the passenger side.

  Jed started to open the door when my phone sprang to life.

  “Wait,” I said. “I have some messages and voice mails.”

  “Any important?”

  I glanced up at him. “A voice mail from Granny. And one from Joe. Did he call you?”

  “When I woke up with Dermot’s call, I saw a message from your brother saying he didn’t know anything about Chad Manchester’s case because HPD refused to hand it over. Joe said he couldn’t get anywhere near it, and Henryetta’s finest wasn’t talkin’.”

  “What time did he text you?” I asked.

  “About ten. What’s the time stamp on the voice mail?”

  “Thirty minutes ago.” That couldn’t be good. I pressed play and put it on speaker.

  “Neely Kate,” Joe said, his voice strained. “I pulled Randy off the detail on your house around supper time, so I dropped by the farmhouse to check on things.” He paused. “The body’s gone. Not a trace. Call me back.”

  I stared up at Jed in horror. “Why would she move the body?”

  “I don’t know,” Jed said, pulling out his own phone and checking the screen. “We’ll call him back after we see what Dermot’s found.”

  I nodded. “I’m gonna leave my phone in here to charge. Can you leave the battery on?”

  He didn’t look convinced that it was a good idea. “Just charge it when we come back out.”

  “No one’s gonna be stealin’ your car,” I said in a dry tone. “You’ve got two security guys sittin’ right next to it and another two across the street parked on the side of the road.”

  He pushed out a breath, clearly not wanting to have this conversation right now. “Fine. Only if you agree to let me get you another phone.”

  “Okay.”

  He gave me a sideways glance that suggested I’d agreed too fast.

  “The store doesn’t open until ten a.m., hours from now,” I said. “And I need this phone charged now.”

  He seemed to accept my explanation, leaving the engine light on and the key fob in the console. Then he leaned forward and pulled a ball cap out from under his seat and shoved it onto his head.

  Gesturing to his sweatshirt on my lap, which I’d brought with me from Jed’s house, he said, “Put the hoodie on and tug the hood over your face.”

  I shoved it over my head and he helped me get my arm through one of the holes as I got the other.

  “Stick close to me. Don’t touch a thing.” Then he added, shaking his head, “I know you know better, but I felt better sayin’ it.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m not offended. I understand.”

  We got out of the car and met in the deep shadows next to the building. He cinched my hood to cover more of my face and tucked my hair inside. Then without saying a word, he wrapped an arm around my back and ushered me around the corner.

  He hurried down the sidewalk past multiple rooms, stopping at the door labeled “10.” The door instantly opened, and Jed steered me inside, a man I didn’t recognize pushing the door closed behind us. I shoved off the hood, but Jed left his cap on.

  Dermot stood next to the bed, wearing jeans, a pale blue T-shirt, and a serious expression.

  “What do you have?” Jed barked without preamble.

  If Dermot was offended, it wasn’t obvious. He pointed to the wall on the other side of the TV. “What do you make of this?”

  The wall was covered in newspaper clippings related to Pearce Manchester’s disappearance and the reward offered. On the dresser was a note in Kate’s handwriting.

  NK,

  A big sister’s job is to take care of her little sister. He’ll never fuck you again.

  I sucked in a breath of horror, and Jed wrapped an arm around my back, holding me close.

  “Is she talkin’ about you?” I whispered, looking up at Jed.

  “Forgive the overreach,” Dermot said, “but I presumed NK was Neely Kate and Kate must be Kate Simmons.”

  Jed gave a curt nod.

  “I’m not sure what the clippin’s are about, but word has it there’s a Manchester dead in a trunk of a car over at the Holiday Inn.”

  Jed’s fingers dug into my hip. “What you found here stays between you and your man over there and us. Got it?”

  Dermot held up his hands in surrender. “I want no part of this crazy-town shit. I was only standing guard over it until you got here. But you haven’t seen the best part,” he said, his face tense. “It proves Kate’s serious about the second sentence of her note. Look in the drawer. It was open when we got here, but Nicholson over there freaked out and shut it.”

  What the hell w
as in that drawer?

  Jed pulled out a latex glove from his front jeans pocket and tugged it on as he approached the dresser and opened the drawer. He stared at it for a few seconds before he looked up at Dermot with an expressionless face. “Are those what I think they are?”

  Dermot gave a sharp nod. “Now you see why I called you.”

  “What did she leave?” I asked as I inched forward to peer into the drawer, though I had a sneaking suspicion I already knew what I’d find.

  Sure enough, nestled in a white box with bloody gauze were two fleshy spheres slightly smaller than golf balls.

  “Since I got dragged into this mess,” Dermot said with his hands propped on his hips, “I’ve gotta ask. Do you happen to know the unlucky bastard who previously owned those testicles?”

  “They could be calf balls,” Nicholson said in a hopeful tone by the door.

  Dermot scoffed. “I’ve seen plenty of calf testicles and human testicles to know the difference. Those are human. Adult. He was castrated, and it wasn’t a clean job. There’s scrotal skin underneath.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Dermot had examined it so closely. I knew he’d been a nurse practitioner, but I wasn’t sure how often he’d come into contact with male testicles to know the difference, and I wasn’t about to ask.

  “So, amateur job?” Jed asked as though he was asking what time Dermot planned to eat breakfast.

  “Definitely. That scrotal skin looked like it had been hacked off with a butter knife. Literally.”

  Nicholson ran to the bathroom and the sounds of retching soon followed. Apparently Dermot hadn’t shared that part with his guy before we arrived.

  Dermot shot a disgusted look over his shoulder. “Whoever did this wanted to make sure it hurt.”

  Jed cringed, the first sign he was affected by the fact that Kate had hacked off some man’s testicles, only I knew exactly who they belonged to.

  “So…” Dermot prodded, turning to me. “I take it you know the owner?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, still unsure what to say when Jed said, “No one from around here.”

  “No loved one, I hope,” Dermot said. “Because blood loss would be a real concern. Unless she cauterized it.” Dermot shuddered. “Okay then, I’ll leave you to it.” Then he glanced over his shoulder again. “I’ll leave Nicholson to help if you want… since he left his own DNA in the toilet.”