When his cell phone rang, Rick hesitated. “Excuse me.” He removed his phone, flipped it open and said, “Carson here.”
“Rick, it’s Nicole.”
“Can you hold a sec?” He looked at Jordan. “I need to take this. It’s business.”
She tried to smile, but the effort failed. “Certainly. I need to speak to Vadonna about the grocery list for next week.”
He watched her leave the den, which was actually one of the front parlors that had been transformed from a formal living room into an informal family room. He didn’t return to his phone until she had closed the door behind her. “Yeah, Nic, I’m back. Sorry about that, but I was with Jordan.”
“I spoke to Claire.”
“And?”
“She really didn’t know anything much about Jordan’s life before she married Dan, other than a few things Jordan told her.”
“Did she mention to Claire anything about having mental or emotional problems in the past?”
“No, not really, but it’s hardly the thing you’d want to discuss, is it?”
“So, Claire didn’t know anything that—?”
“Claire said that if you want to know anything about Jordan’s personal history, you should ask Jordan herself.”
“And you think she’d confide in me?”
“Probably not,” Nic said. “Is there anyone there who has known Jordan for a long time who might be persuaded to help you help Jordan by giving you some insight into what’s made her the woman she is today?”
“You’re saying pretend that I’m asking about Jordan because by understanding her better, I can possibly do more to help her prove she’s completely innocent.”
“It’s worth a try. And who knows, you just might discover that she is just that—completely innocent.”
Rick had tried the persuasive tactic that Nic had suggested, but unfortunately it hadn’t worked with a single person. He’d thought that if anyone would fill him in on Jordan’s past, it would be Roselynne, but apparently the lady had seen through his ploy. Devon, Tammy, Darlene and J.C. had sung Jordan’s praises, but had given Rick no new information. Rene was his last hope.
“Are you still here?” Rene asked when he cornered her outside on the patio where she’d gone to smoke. “I thought you’d be back at the Inn by now.”
“I’ll be heading out in about thirty minutes, when the shift for the agents at the front gate changes.”
She sucked in a deep draw and blew out a spiral of smoke. “Do you really think that moving into the Priceville Inn is going to change anything?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. Out of sight, out of mind. Only it won’t work. Once Jordan’s in your system, you can’t get her out. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.” Rene laughed. “You don’t think you’re the first man to fall victim to Jordan’s charm, do you?”
“I thought you didn’t harbor any resentment about Robby Joe Wright.”
She took another puff on her cigarette. “I don’t. Believe me, I’m glad I wasn’t the one engaged to him when he died. By that time, I was pretty much over him. If you could have seen what Jordan went through…”
“She took it pretty hard, huh? I guess that was to be expected. She was in love with the guy, right?”
“They adored each other. God, they were so in love.” Rene took a final drag on the cigarette, dropped it onto the stone patio floor and ground it out with the tip of her black, three-inch heels.
“Did she undergo any grief counseling?” Rick asked the question as casually as possible.
“Yeah, sure. She and Darlene actually went together. They’d been close before Robby Joe’s accident, but afterward they became inseparable. I don’t know that they’d have made it through such a tragedy without each other.”
“I’m surprised that, considering Robby Joe was her only child, Darlene didn’t go off the deep end.”
“Well, she didn’t. I think she held it together for Jordan’s sake. Jordan was the one who—” Rene stopped abruptly as if she’d suddenly realized she was on the verge of revealing something that was none of Rick’s business.
“Jordan was the one who went off the deep end?”
Rene glared at him. Did she suspect him of having an ulterior motive for probing?
“Look, I’m asking because I want to help Jordan. If she’s had emotional issues or mental problems in the past, it might explain why she’s the way she is now.”
“And how is she now?”
“I swear to you that I don’t want to hurt Jordan,” Rick said. “I want to help her.”
Rene studied him for a couple of minutes. “You know, I actually believe you. You don’t trust her. You don’t understand her. You’re not a hundred percent sure she hasn’t killed several people, but you still want to help her.” With a perplexed smile lifting the corners of her mouth, Rene shook her head. “I swear, I don’t know how she does it.”
“How she does what?”
“Wraps guys around her little finger. Devon, J.C., Robby Joe, Jay, Boyd, Dan, Ryan, and now you.”
“Ryan?”
“Oh, there’s never been any hanky-panky between them. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that Ryan thinks she’s wonderful, just the way every man has her entire life.”
“Who’s Jay?” Rick asked.
“Jay? Oh, Jay Reynolds. We worked with him at the Peachtree Agency. He had a thing for Jordan, but she was still mourning Robby Joe and although they dated a few times, nothing ever came of it. When she stopped dating him, he took it pretty bad. They had an ugly scene at work one day.”
“What kind of ugly scene?”
“Jordan never did elaborate, but I think he stepped over the line, you know, got aggressive, and she slapped him.”
“What happened after that? Were they able to continue working together?”
“Uh, for a while, but Jay wound up leaving Atlanta. I think he got a job in another city,” Rene said. “Look, I’ve enjoyed our little chat, but I have a few phone calls to make and some e-mails to send out before dinner.”
When she turned to go, he reached out and grasped her wrist. “Exactly what happened to Jordan after Robby Joe died?”
Rene hesitated. “Look, I’ll tell you because I know that you’ll find a way to dig up the information on your own.” Her gaze locked with his. “Jordan tried to commit suicide.”
How did he reconcile the information Rene had given him about Jordan’s attempted suicide with his firsthand knowledge of the woman Jordan was now? The Jordan he knew would no more try to take her own life than he would. If he’d learned nothing else about her in their brief acquaintance, he’d learned that she was incredibly strong and resilient. As a general rule, strong, resilient people didn’t take their own lives. Had Rene lied to him? If so, why? Or had Jordan been an entirely different kind of person twelve years ago when she’d lost her fiancé?
Had she loved Robby Joe so deeply that she thought she couldn’t live without him? And if that was the case, it was highly improbable that she had murdered him.
Could Robby Joe’s death have triggered a mental break-down that led to a suicide attempt and altered her personality so greatly that she became a cold-blooded murderer?
Now that he had this information about Jordan, did it answer his questions about her? No. All it did was create more questions. And the only person who could provide the answers was Jordan herself.
Rick checked his wristwatch. Ten minutes until the front gate shift change. He flipped open his cell phone and called Holt Keinan.
“I’m going to be held up here at Price Manor for a while. Can you arrange for transportation for the guards back to the Inn?”
“No problem,” Holt said. “I’m bringing in the second shift and then heading back into town. The guys can ride with me.”
“Thanks.”
When Rick went in search of Jordan, he found her where she apparently spent most of her time—in her sma
ll, isolated study at the back of the house. The door stood partially ajar, so he simply knocked once and shoved the door wide open. Standing by the windows overlooking the yard, she merely glanced at him when he entered.
“I thought you’d already left,” she said. “Have you changed your mind about staying at the Inn?”
“No, I got held up,” he told her.
What was the best way to broach the subject? He could hardly come right out and ask her if she had tried to kill herself, could he? How would she react if he told her that he suspected she might have mental and emotional problems that could possibly make her capable of murder?
“Did you need to speak to me about something?” she asked.
He walked over to her. “You know, don’t you, that I don’t want you to be guilty of murder.”
She smiled at him, then looked away, focusing her gaze on some far distant object outside. “If I were guilty of murdering anyone, Dan or any of the other men who have died, don’t you think someone would have figured it out before now?”
“Not necessarily.”
“I’ve told you the truth time and again. I’ve proclaimed my innocence repeatedly. I don’t know what else I can say or do to convince you or the sheriff’s department or even my own lawyer that I have never killed anyone.”
“Have you ever tried to kill anyone?”
She snapped her head around and glared at him. “No, I’ve never—”
“You didn’t try to kill yourself?”
All color drained from her face. She stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown a set of horns. “What—what did you say?”
“I asked you if you tried to kill yourself not long after Robby Joe Wright died.”
“Who told you that I—?”
“It doesn’t matter how I found out,” Rick said. “Is it true?”
“No, it isn’t true.”
“So, you’re saying that you didn’t OD on sleeping pills and didn’t have to have your stomach pumped?”
Color returned to her face, anger brightening her cheeks. She clenched her teeth tightly.
“You know that I can double check the facts,” he said.
“After Robby Joe died, I had a problem sleeping. And when I did sleep, I had nightmares. My doctor prescribed sleeping pills for me. I lived from day to day in a hazy fog, feeling nothing but pain and loss. I went through the motions of living, but I was hardly alive.”
“So you tried to—”
“No! I did not deliberately try to kill myself. At least, I don’t think I did. I don’t remember taking the entire bottle of pills.” She closed her eyes, the memories of that long ago event no doubt still painfully unsettling. “But apparently I did swallow the entire prescription or at least most of it. If Darlene hadn’t found me and called 911…”
Jordan swayed toward him, the movement so subtle that he didn’t think she was even aware of what she was doing.
Whatever you do, don’t touch her.
Her breathing deepened as if she were trying to force herself to stay calm and in control.
“Did you get some psychiatric help?” Rick asked, his voice low and soothing.
“Yes, I was under psychiatric care for three months. I came out of that experience with a determination that nothing would ever push me to the edge of sanity ever again.”
That explained it, Jordan’s cool, unemotional discipline. She had lost control and almost died as a result. Loving too deeply, feeling too much, made her vulnerable. And even if she sometimes appeared to be vulnerable, she wasn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to be.
A ringing telephone broke through Rick’s thoughts. It wasn’t his ring.
“That’s my phone.” She reached over to the desk where her phone lay, picked it up, and flipped it open. “Hello.”
She didn’t say anything else, just listened, then suddenly, she gasped.
“Who is this? How did you get my private number?”
Rick’s gaze silently questioned her. Jordan flipped the phone closed.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He…or maybe she…I couldn’t tell because they were talking so quietly and the voice sounded muffled.”
“What did they say?”
Jordan’s phone rang again. She clutched it with white-knuckled ferocity.
“Give it to me.” Rick held out his hand.
She placed the phone in his palm.
He checked caller ID—Unknown. He flipped open the phone and placed it to his ear, but didn’t say anything.
“Don’t hang up on me,” the strange voice said. “I’m doing you a favor. I’m giving you fair warning and that’s more than I did for the others. Watch your back. Don’t trust anyone. Someone close to you is your worst enemy.”
“I’ll relay the message,” Rick said. “Now let me give you fair warning. You come anywhere near Mrs. Price and I’ll take you apart, limb from limb. She’s under twenty-four-hour-a-day protection. Got that?”
Silence.
The bastard had hung up.
Chapter 18
One brief letter and one phone call wouldn’t be enough to convince them that Jordan was in danger. The only way to convince everyone—the sheriff’s department and the Powell agents, Rick Carson in particular—that Jordan was innocent was to threaten her life. If she were a victim, she could hardly be the killer, now could she?
In the beginning, she had been unsure what role, if any, Rick would play in their lives; but now she knew, without any doubt, that Jordan needed him. Temporarily. To see her through this rough patch in their lives. And she intended to see to it that Jordan got what she needed. Hadn’t she always?
Keeping Jordan safe was a matter of self-preservation. Jordan could not survive without her, even if she didn’t realize it. Nor could she survive without Jordan. If one died, the other died, so strong was their bond.
Everything she’d done, she had done for both of them.
She glanced down at the lined notebook paper and the number 2 pencil on the desk. She would have to write more letters and make more phone calls, using the prepaid cell phones that couldn’t be traced. One letter and one phone call each day. That should be sufficient. And she would have to be careful not to get caught.
She tapped the pencil against her cheek. Perhaps the letters and the phone calls would be enough, but if they weren’t…
She unlocked and opened the bottom left drawer, glanced down at the scrapbook she kept hidden away and decided that perhaps, in a few days, she should mail Jordan a little surprise package.
Alone in her study, Jordan gasped when she heard the knock on the door. Hurriedly, she closed the old photo album, tossed it into the bottom desk drawer and as she rose from the chair, she shoved the drawer closed with the tip of her foot. She knotted her hands into loose fists to keep them from trembling and faced Maleah Perdue, who had opened the door and now stood waiting for Jordan to invite her into the study.
“Mrs. Price, Rick asked me to—”
“Where is he? Where’s Rick?”
“He left a few minutes ago. That’s what I was trying to tell you—he’s put me in charge of guarding you. He felt that it would be easier for you if your bodyguard was a woman.”
“Oh, yes, I—I suppose he’s right.”
But I don’t want you. I want Rick.
“I’ll be staying here at Price Manor,” Maleah explained. “And I’ll need a bedroom close to yours. You won’t go anywhere outside the house and certainly not off the estate without me.”
Jordan nodded. “I understand.”
“Even if the person who sent you the letter and made the phone call isn’t dangerous to you, it’s better not to take any chances. From now on, I’ll open all mail that is the least bit suspicious and I’ll answer all calls on your cell phone unless you know the identity of the caller.”
“Surely that doesn’t mean you intend to be with me all the time, that I won’t have any privacy at all.”
“We
’ll get together once a day and open the mail,” Maleah said. “And I suggest that whenever you’re alone you either turn off your cell phone or simply let any calls that come up on caller ID as Unknown go straight to voice mail.”
“Yes, certainly. That makes sense.”
“I’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible, but it’s my responsibility to keep you safe.”
Jordan looked at the attractive woman Rick had assigned to protect her from an unknown enemy. Maleah Perdue didn’t look like Jordan imagined female bodyguards looked. She was average height and had a slim but nicely rounded figure. With her blue eyes, blonde hair and creamy complexion, she epitomized the All-American beauty of decades past.
Maleah dressed sensibly in tan twill slacks, navy blue blazer, white shirt and low-heel navy shoes. As Jordan studied her, she noted a bulge beneath the left side of the blazer.
“You’re wearing a holster.” Jordan spoke aloud without realizing what she’d done until it was too late.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s mandatory whenever I’m on guard duty.”
“I don’t like guns.”
“I assure you that I won’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“Yes, of course.” Jordan cleared her throat. “At dinner this evening, I’ll introduce you to everyone and explain the situation, but until then I’d like to be alone. I promise I won’t leave the house and I won’t answer the phone unless I know the identity of the caller.”
“All right. I’ll see you at dinner then.”
“Dinner is at seven this evening.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As soon as Maleah left, Jordan slumped down in the nearest chair. Just when she’d thought things couldn’t get any worse, this had to happen. A threatening letter, followed by a threatening phone call. And instead of staying on at Price Manor to personally see to her safety, as she had hoped he would do, Rick had put someone else in charge.
You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone. You can take care of yourself. You know better than to rely on another person. People disappoint you. They let you down. They die and leave you all alone.
Coldhearted Page 20