Her throat went dry. “It was Smith when I knew her.”
“Yes, that was her maiden name.” The woman on the other end cleared her throat. “Who’s calling?”
Julie sighed, swallowed her fear. “I’m an old friend of hers. I actually knew her when we were both in our teens. My name is Julie.”
“I’m sorry, Miss. Teresa…is—she’s passed away.”
Julie felt her heart sink. “I’m sorry,” she said, but her throat had closed tight, and the words emerged in a coarse whisper. Her eyes welled. She cleared her throat forcibly, willed words to emerge again. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but…can you tell me what happened to her?”
The voice of the woman on the other end sounded equally taut when it delivered the one-word reply. “No.” Then the connection was broken.
Closing her eyes, fearing with everything in her what she would find, she dialed the second number, the one listed under Sharon Brown, but she held little hope that the dead woman, Sharon Beckwith, was anyone other than her own Sirona.
“Beckwith residence,” a voice said.
Julie didn’t bother speaking. The greeting confirmed what she’d already known, sensed. Sirona aka Sharon Brown, had been living as Sharon Beckwith. And she was dead. She wouldn’t offend this family by asking questions. Leave them in peace. She hung up the phone.
For a long moment she sat on the bed, her head lowered, her chest feeling hollow, as if her heart had been removed. Sirona and Tessa. They hadn’t been close at the compound, but during those hours of hell, they’d shared something powerful, something that bonded them more closely than sisters. Together they’d seen Lizzie die. Together they’d rescued her tiny daughter from the flames. Together they’d descended into darkness and emerged into the rising sun.
That was when they’d chosen the baby’s new name, the three of them. Dawn.
They’d hidden out together in a warm, hay-scented barn. Sirona had sneaked away for a few hours and then come back with some clothes she said she’d stolen from an unattended dryer in a nearby town’s only Laundromat. They cleaned up as best they could, divided up the money, bought some bottles and formula for the baby, and bus tickets for themselves.
There had been tears and fierce embraces when they’d said goodbye at the station. Julie had missed those two women to the point of pain, as much as she’d missed her own mother. The only person she’d grieved more deeply had been Lizzie.
She had never ever trusted anyone else with the truth about Dawn. She never would.
Lowering her head, Julie whispered a prayer for the two women who had become her sisters. Then she opened her eyes and told herself she didn’t have time for emotions and sentiment. She had to find out what had happened to them.
She would just have to find another source for the information. It shouldn’t be too difficult for a reporter. She reached for the telephone again but stopped when she noticed the glowing numbers on the digital alarm clock beside her bed. Time to pick up Dawn. This would have to wait.
She went into the bathroom to rinse the tear tracks from her face with cold water. Then she went to pick up her daughter and hoped Dawn wouldn’t see that her mother was in mourning.
* * *
“Hey, Jones, where you been?” MacKenzie asked when she walked into the studio. He was sitting in the dark, at the news desk, mentally rehearsing for the evening broadcast, just over a half hour from now. The place was abandoned, though soon it would be bustling.
“I just picked up my kid.”
“That I know. I was munching snacks with her in the green room while you were holed up in your office for the past hour.”
She shrugged. “Since when am I not allowed to spend some quality time in my office chasing down a few leads?”
“Leads on what?”
“Nothing I’m ready to talk about with you.”
“I thought we were partners?” He gave her his most innocent expression.
She only shrugged.
There was something going on with her. He could see it. And if he wasn’t mistaken, and he didn’t think he was, she’d been crying recently. “Is everything okay?” he asked. Dawn had seemed fine, but Jones looked as if she’d been hit with a brick.
“Fine.” She slid into her own chair, pulled open the drawer hidden on her side of the desk and set up the small round mirror. She flipped a switch, and the mirror lit up. Then she reached for the makeup she kept with it.
MacKenzie was still watching her, still searching her face for clues. She sighed, looking up from the mirror, a compact at the ready in her hands.
“Do I have spinach in my teeth or what?”
“You look like a nervous breakdown waiting to happen, Jones.”
“Gee, thanks. You sure do know how to charm a girl.”
“Only girls who are willing to be charmed, which excludes you entirely. Give me that thing.” He snatched the compact from her hands, flipped it open and removed the soft circular pad.
“What are you doing?”
“Aw, come on. I let you do me. Now you have to let me do you.” He gave her an evil wink and was pleased when her lips pulled into an unwilling smile even as she shook her head in disapproval.
“You are a master of subtlety, MacKenzie.”
“Close your eyes, Jones.”
She closed her eyes and leaned slightly forward. Sean rubbed the little pad around on the hard surface of the pressed powder, then touched her face with it, brushing it over the slightly reddened areas around and beneath her eyes. He smoothed it over her too-pale cheeks, then dropped the pad back into the compact and closed it.
She was still sitting there, still leaning forward, eyes closed. As if waiting to be kissed, he thought, and then he thought how funny it would be if he did that. Kissed her.
But instead of laughter, he felt something else bubbling up inside him as that idea crossed his mind. Something hot and really uncomfortable. And he realized he would like kissing Julie Jones. He would like it quite a lot. In fact, once born, the idea didn’t seem willing to go away.
“Are you done?”
“I haven’t decided.”
She opened her eyes. “I have. You’re done.” She turned back to the mirror, reaching for tubes and pencils and brushes, wielding them as if she had eight arms instead of two.
“We got an interview with Nathan Z, you know.” He only said it to change the subject.
“I didn’t even know that was in the works.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve been a little…distracted.”
Sighing, pausing with a lipstick in her hand, she looked his way. “I know I have. I’m sorry about that, MacKenzie.”
“Hell, it’s not your fault. Any red-blooded woman would be distracted with a gorgeous partner like me around all the time. It’s really no wonder you can’t focus on your work.”
She smiled slightly. “Yeah, that must be it.”
“Of course that’s it. You’re not the first female to fall victim to my allure.”
“Nor the last, I’ll bet.”
He sent her a wink. “Maybe. If you play your cards right.”
She actually laughed, then, a soft, less-than-full-body chuckle, but still…“Better get a shovel. The bullshit’s getting pretty deep in here.”
He grinned at her. “Allan’s setting up an appointment for the interview tomorrow or the day after. Z’s people had his press kit sent over today so we’d have plenty of background.”
“Yeah? Anything interesting?”
“A signed copy of his new book.” He reached for it and slid it across the desk to her. It was a hardcover volume with a starry night dust jacket and the words Messages From God by Nathan Z splashed across the top.
“I thought Dawn might like it,” Sean said. “Just wanted to check with you first.”
“She’ll love it. What did he write?”
“I haven’t looked. Doesn’t matter, Dawn’s gonna love this even more.” Sean dipped into a pocket and brought out four paper rect
angles, holding them up in a fan pattern. “Four tickets to a taping of his show. Right here in the city. Tonight. Dawn can bring a friend. You up for it?”
Julie swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, it’ll get your mind off things. Besides, we’ll be more prepared to interview him if we get to see him in action.”
“I suppose that’s true. It’s just with so much else going on, I don’t think I can possibly…” She turned the book over, and stopped talking. Her eyes seemed to narrow, her brows drew together.
Sean glanced at her. “What?”
“Nothing. I…I changed my mind. Let’s go to that taping tonight.”
“Great. I’m gonna tell Dawn before we go on the air. Is she still in the green room?”
Julie nodded, and Sean hurried out of the studio, calling. “Back in five.”
* * *
The studio was empty now. Dark, with the hot stage lights turned off. Cameras stood like space-age robots, heads nodding in temporary slumber. Cables snaked over the floor in every possible direction.
Julie thought she heard movement behind her. She came out of her seat so sharply she almost lost her balance. She saw nothing in the shadowy room. And yet she felt something. Something dark. She shivered, rubbed her arms. She was just letting all this go to her head. That was all.
Swallowing hard, she returned her attention to the book on the news desk and the author photo on the back of the jacket that had so captivated her. No wonder. The man was striking, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him before, on his television show the few times she’d glanced at it while Dawn was watching. He kept his head cleanly shaved, and he had the most penetrating brown eyes. But it was none of those things that had caught her attention. It was the knowing smile he wore. There was something about it that made her mind itch.
She flipped the book over once more and opened its front cover to look at the autograph, curious to see what pearls of wisdom a renowned psychic used when inscribing a book to the press.
Then her cell phone bleated, distracting her.
Sighing, she reached into the bag, tugged the cell phone from its pocket and brought it to her ear. “Julie Jones,” she said.
“Julie? It’s Melanie Wright, from WKLL in Albany. I got that information you wanted.”
Julie blinked and thought for sure her heart skipped a few beats. She’d spent an hour in her office, making calls, calling in favors, looking for someone in the Albany or Rochester press who would be willing to tell her how Sirona and Tessa had died. She’d all but given up on anyone coming through with the information.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Thanks. I’m glad you called me back. What did you find out?”
“Sharon Brown’s death was ruled a suicide. She hanged herself.”
The air seemed to seep from Julie’s lungs against her will.
“The funny thing is, I did a little digging on that other death you were asking about. The one in Rochester? My sister works for one of the newspapers out there.”
“And?” Julie asked.
“Same thing,” the reporter told her. “Death by hanging, ruled a suicide.”
“Oh, my God.” The whisper issued from her lips without her permission. Both dead by the same method within such a short period of time? It couldn’t be coincidence. God, someone had killed them. Someone had hanged them.
“I smell a story here, Ms. Jones. Do you think we could have a serial killer on our hands?”
“No.” She blurted the answer quickly, sharply.
“What’s the connection between those two women? I haven’t been able to find any, but you seem to—”
“There’s no connection.” But there was. The connection was her…and Dawn. “There’s no story here. Just leave it alone.”
Julie hung up the phone while the ambitious young newswoman was still asking questions and pressed a hand to her forehead, wishing she’d gone to the police instead of the press. She lowered her head, battling tears. God, they’d been murdered. Both of them.
Her gaze found the open book lying on the desk and the elegant scrawl on the title page.
The darkness seemed to close in around her. Julie ran out of the studio, tripped over a cable, caught herself on a camera, and made it to the door and into the lighter hallway. And still she didn’t slow down. She ran as if the devil were on her tail, until damn near colliding with Sean as he stepped out of his own office.
He caught her shoulders, steadying her. “Whoa, whoa, where’re you going in such a hurry? You miss me that much already?”
She looked past him, saw Dawn sitting behind MacKenzie’s desk, rapidly clicking keys on his computer. Dawn looked up, smiling. “Isn’t it great that we get to go to that taping tonight?” she asked. “And there’s an extra ticket! Can we take Kayla?”
Julie forced a smile she was far from feeling. “I—I guess.”
“We should grab dinner on the way,” Dawn rushed on. “I’m starved already, and by the time you do the evening broadcast, I’ll be gnawing on the desk.”
“Tacos?” MacKenzie asked, grinning at Dawn’s dramatic analogy.
“Sounds good to me. Mom?”
Julie blinked from Dawn’s hopeful eyes to MacKenzie’s probing ones. He saw right through her. He was too damned insightful for his own good—for her own good. But including him in the dinner invitation was a good idea. She needed his help; she had to remember that. And besides, she didn’t want to be alone tonight. She was scared, and she knew she had good reason to be. Someone, it seemed, was systematically killing the survivors of the raid on the Young Believers. She and Dawn could be next on the killer’s to-do list.
She was terrified.
It would be a very public event, with cameras rolling. With MacKenzie by her side, she should be able to keep Dawn safe.
She mustered up a smile and tried to keep the terror from her face. “Tacos sound great. Maybe Kayla can meet us at the restaurant. Are we taking two cars or one?”
MacKenzie shrugged. “We can drop my car at your place and leave from there in yours. More room. But, uh—I want to drive.”
“You want to drive?”
He exchanged a secret glance with Dawn. “Yeah. Hey, it’s only fair. I let Dawn drive my car. So I get to drive yours.”
“Excuse me? The correct answer to that equation is that she has to let you drive her Jeep. Not my Mercedes.”
“From what I understand, your Mercedes will be a lot safer in my hands.”
She shot Dawn a scowl. “You’ve been spreading that horrible gossip again, haven’t you? About what a bad driver I am?”
Dawn laughed. “Gossip? C’mon, Mom. You hold the county record for most orange construction cones destroyed in a single season.”
“I heard the DMV was making her a trophy,” MacKenzie said. “A little orange cone with a sign on it that reads ‘Not A Target.’”
Dawn covered her mouth and kept laughing anyway.
“You two will pay for ganging up on me,” Julie promised. But she felt better. The trembling had stopped, and she wasn’t freezing cold anymore. A few minutes basking in the glow of her beautiful Dawn always made her feel better. And verbal duels with MacKenzie tended to have a tonic effect, as well.
“Fine, you can drive,” she told him haughtily. She turned to Dawn. “You call Kayla and see if her dad can bring her to meet us for dinner. Just to keep you from starving to death, we’ll head to the taco place right after we wrap, speaking of which…”
She glanced at her watch.
“That’s right, we’d better get on it.” MacKenzie put a hand on her shoulder, turned her and hustled her down the hall, calling, “See you in a half hour, Dawnie.”
When they’d gone several feet, he looked at her again. “You don’t fool me for a minute, you know.”
She glanced up at him, almost argued, then gave up. She was tired. “I know,” she said.
“You gonna tell me what has you so on edge today?”
Sh
e lowered her head. “I haven’t decided.”
“But you’re gonna let me hang around anyway. What’s up with that, Jones?”
She lifted her head, looked him right in the eye. “I’m scared half to death.”
He stopped walking, just looked at her, as if he thought she was kidding and then was shocked that she wasn’t. He should be shocked, he realized. Julie Jones didn’t admit to weakness often. Never, in fact. He was probably as surprised as she was that the first time she did, it would be to him. Her nemesis. Her worst enemy and, right now, her only friend.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sean noticed that Dawn deliberately shoved him ahead of her in the line going into the Landmark Theater, so that when they took their seats in the audience, he was sitting between Dawn and her mother, with Kayla on Dawn’s other side. Jones was drawn up as tightly as a violin string. Something had happened between the time she’d left the station to pick Dawn up and the time she’d arrived back at work with her daughter in tow. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t expect her to tell him. She still didn’t trust him, and knowing that gnawed at him, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. After all, up until very recently, he’d had less than honorable motives in wanting to find out her secrets.
He’d wanted to get something on her. To have something to hold over her, even if he never did anything but tease her with it.
Now, everything had changed. He wanted her to trust him, so that he could find out what was going on, so that he could help her. And Dawn.
He swallowed and shifted his focus elsewhere when his mind started pondering further reasons. Like the cockeyed theory that he’d never really disliked Jones as much as he’d pretended. That he enjoyed fighting with her so much because of the sparks that flew between them when they fought. Positive charge meets negative charge. It was almost like sex.
That little change in his perception of their relationship seemed to have thrown the switch on what had always been a grudging but undeniable physical attraction and turned it into full-blown desire. On his part, at least. He’d been thinking about it ever since that moment in the studio earlier, when he’d damn near kissed her.
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