“We’ve brought some toiletries and a change of clothes.” Reba marched into the waiting area. Though a petite woman, her presence filled the entire space. “And your grandfather has arranged for you a room on this floor, directly down the hall.” She kissed Caleb’s cheek. “Now you run along with Jim and get freshened up, then go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. I’ll stay here with Reve until you return.”
“I can’t—”
Big Jim grabbed Caleb’s arm. “Nobody’s asking you to leave the hospital, son. But if you don’t take better care of yourself, you’re not going to be able to help Jazzy when she comes out of that coma.”
“I don’t know how your grandfather managed to commandeer a hospital room for you,” Reve said, her eyes wide in astonishment, “but you should take advantage of this opportunity. If Jazzy sees you looking like this, she won’t know you.”
“How did you get them to give me a room here?” Caleb asked.
“The Uptons are major contributors to every charity in Cherokee County. Everybody knows how generous we can be,” Jim replied. “I just called in a few favors.”
“And twisted a few arms,” Reba added, then winked at her grandson as she handed him the overnight case.
“Okay, I’ll take a shower and change clothes,” Caleb said. “But Reve’s already sent Moody Ryan to the snack bar for something to eat so I won’t need to go to the cafeteria.”
Jim put his arm around his grandson’s shoulders and guided him out of the room. Once alone with Reve, Miss Reba turned to her and smiled.
“How are you, my dear?”
“I’m doing okay.”
“You’re keeping tabs on Jazzy’s business concerns, I hear.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If there’s anything you need from Jim or me—”
“I’d like to ask you something, and I’d appreciate a completely honest answer.”
The fact that Miss Reba had come to the hospital every day and had encouraged Caleb’s hopes that Jazzy would live and recover completely hadn’t escaped Reve’s notice. Whether Miss Reba’s sentiments were sincere was another matter entirely.
“Let’s sit down.” Reba indicated the sofa.
When Reba sat, Reve moved Caleb’s blanket to a nearby chair and joined his grandmother. She faced the woman and from her expression suspected Miss Reba knew what she intended to ask.
“You’ve been wonderfully caring and supportive of Caleb these past five days,” Reve said. “No grandson could ask for a more loving, concerned grandmother.”
“And you want to know if those feelings of care and support extend to his fiancée.”
“Yes, I do. Because when Jazzy comes out of the coma—”
“You mean if she comes out of the coma.”
“Is that what you’re hoping for? You hope she—”
“What I want does not matter,” Miss Reba said. “But to answer your question—no, I don’t want Jazzy to die or remain in a coma. Am I thrilled that she’s going to one day be my grandson’s wife? No. Have I accepted the inevitable? Yes.”
“And what does that mean exactly?”
“You’ve become very fond of Jazzy in a relatively short period of time, and I believe it’s not simply because she’s your biological sister, is it?”
“Jazzy is not what she seems to be,” Reve said. “She puts up that bad-girl front, even does things to perpetuate her reputation. But Jazzy isn’t bad. She has a big heart, a good heart. And believe this, Miss Reba, if you don’t believe anything else about her—she loves Caleb.”
“Yes, I think she does. I know he worships her. And that’s the reason that as soon as Jazzy is well enough, I intend to give Caleb and her the biggest, fanciest wedding Cherokee County has ever seen.”
“I’m surprised. Pleasantly surprised.” Reve believed that Miss Reba meant exactly what she’d said.
“Well, my dear, you see, I’ve learned from my mistakes. I will never do anything to jeopardize my relationship with Caleb, and if that means welcoming Jazzy Talbot into our family with open arms, then that’s what I intend to do.”
Dallas removed the faxed documents the moment they came out of the machine, scanned them quickly and then handed them to Jacob. The two men had been holed up in Dallas’s office since six that morning and it was now nearly noon. Despite as thorough an investigation as their combined forensics teams could do, the end results were that whoever had attacked Jazzy was still on the loose and they were no closer to solving the mystery of Jeremy Timmons’s murder than they were the night Amber Chaney found his body.
Dallas had arranged to send the evidence collected in each case to his old FBI friend Chet in Knoxville, who would use the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s more sophisticated equipment to examine everything. And Dallas had contacted a former colleague, Teri Nash, now engaged to FBI profiler Linc Hughes, and asked for her help in collecting data on any similar murders in and around northeast Tennessee in the past quarter century. The faxes in Jacob’s hands were the results of Teri’s week-long search.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Jacob said.
“It means somebody has been getting away with murder for the past twenty-five years. And not just one or two murders, but over twenty murders, possibly more.”
“He could have killed other women whose bodies were never found.” Holding the papers tightly in his right hand, Jacob slapped the faxed documents against his left palm. “It’s got to be the same guy. It’s the exact same MO. All the victims were redheads. Either prostitutes or reputed to be bad girls. They were all raped, strangled with a black braided ribbon—left around their necks—and their naked bodies dumped in either a river or a lake or a creek.”
“When I spoke to Teri, she said that with the evidence she’s compiled, the Bureau will definitely want to become involved, but she’s giving us twenty-four hours to get our act together before she reports what she’s found.”
“Did she get Linc to come up with a profile of this killer?”
“Yeah. And Linc says our guy is definitely the organized type,” Dallas said. “High IQ, possibly college educated. Could have been a mama’s boy or at least the family favorite. And there’s a good chance he suffered some type of either physical or mental abuse as a child. And Terry said that Linc suspects some traumatic experience involving a red-haired woman was the catalyst that brought out his killer instincts. In Linc’s opinion, this guy is probably a psychopath.”
Jacob studied the facts in the documents he held, then shook his head. “Some of these murders were a year or two apart, then less than a year and most recently, about every six or seven months. Until Becky Olmstead. It had been less than a week since he’d killed Kat Baker when he murdered Becky.”
“Which means he will probably kill again soon.”
“I just hope to hell it isn’t in Cherokee County.”
“Whether it is or not, we’re involved now. We’re all looking for the same guy.”
“Becky Olmstead’s murder case doesn’t belong to us,” Jacob said. “And since we’re pretty sure Timmons’s murder and Becky’s are connected, you’re right—we’re looking for the same person that Sheriff Floyd is. If one case is solved—”
“Not only will they both be solved, but a string of murder cases that goes back at least twenty-five years gets solved, too.”
“It might be simpler if Jazzy’s attacker turned out to be our serial killer. If that were the case, we’d be looking for one man, not two.”
Dallas nodded. “I’m hoping that when Jazzy comes out of the coma, she’ll be able to tell us who attacked her.”
“And her attacker has got to know he’s safe only as long as she remains in that coma.”
Reve had stayed at County General long enough to see Jazzy during the nine o’clock ICU visitation time. She’d sat beside her sister, held her hand and talked to her.
“I promise I won’t screw things up too badly at Jazzy’s Joint before you return,” Reve had s
aid. “I don’t have a problem overseeing Jasmine’s, but so far, I’ve stayed strictly in the background at Jazzy’s Joint. You know what a snob I am. We rich-bitch types hate smoky honky-tonks and sweaty men.”
For the past half hour, she’d been trying to concentrate on a stack of unpaid bills piled on Jazzy’s desk in her office at the back of Jasmine’s, but her mind kept wandering to her sister. She could think of little else. Both Jacob and Dallas had convinced her that Jazzy wasn’t a victim of the unknown serial killer.
“If it wasn’t the serial killer, then who?” she had asked. “Who would want to harm Jazzy?”
“The same person who thought he’d killed both of you thirty years ago,” Dallas had replied.
That was the reason she had agreed to allow Jacob and Dallas to rotate watchdogs for her. And that was one of the reasons she didn’t sleep well at night and wasn’t functioning normally. Not only did she have to be concerned with Jazzy’s recovery, but she had to worry about someone from their past trying again to kill Jazzy or possibly making an attempt on her life as well.
When her cell phone ran, Reve jumped as if she’d been shot. Get a grip! She snapped open her leather clutch purse and removed her phone. The number shown on the caller ID was one she instantly recognized. The Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency.
She flipped open her phone. “Hello, this is Reve Sorrell.”
“Ms. Sorrell, it’s Griffin Powell. I have some important information for you.”
Reve’s heartbeat quickened. “Have you found out who tried to kill Jazzy and me when we were infants?”
“No, ma’am, that I don’t know yet. But it’s only a matter of time. You see, I’ve narrowed down the field of women who could possibly be your mother.”
“And?”
“And I think I know who your mother was. I’m holding in my hand a copy of what I believe is your birth certificate.”
CHAPTER 23
Reve met Griffin Powell at a restaurant in Sevierville at four-forty-five. They ordered coffee and dessert. One of Dallas’s men had followed her there and sat several tables over, being as discreet as possible. She hadn’t told anyone why she was meeting with Griffin. After all, until she saw the evidence he possessed, she couldn’t be sure she had anything to tell. And even if it turned out that he’d discovered the identity of her mother, Jazzy was the first person—the only person—with whom she wanted to share the news.
Shoving aside the apple pie he’d ordered, Griffin laid his briefcase on the table, flipped it open and pulled out a file folder. Reve’s heartbeat accelerated alarmingly. Griffin slipped two documents from the folder and held them out to Reve. She hesitated.
“These are copies of what I believe to be your and Jazzy’s birth certificates,” he said.
She took the documents from him and scanned first one and then the other. Mary Leanne Collins had been born five minutes before her identical twin sister Martha Deanne Collins. Mary Leanne had weighed six pounds even. Martha Deanne had weighed five pounds four ounces.
Mother’s name: Mary Dinah Collins.
Father’s name: Unknown.
Mother marital status: single.
Mother’s age: twenty.
Mother’s address: 1803 Hyatt Street, Apt. 2-B, Sevierville, Tennessee.
Reve drew in a deep breath and released it slowly as she laid the two birth certificates on the table and looked right at Griffin.
“Why do you think these twins are Jazzy and me?” she asked.
“Because every other set of twins born anywhere in the state of Tennessee within six months of your approximate date of birth, before and after, is accounted for. Mary and Martha Collins seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“What about Mary Dinah Collins?”
“She disappeared the same day as her four-week-old daughters.”
“Four weeks old?” She and Jazzy hadn’t been abandoned at birth. Their mother had kept them for four weeks.
“I’ve managed to track down a couple of neighbors who lived in the same apartment building as Dinah Collins,” Griffin said. “Both told me that she went by the name Dinah. And they both agreed that she was a very sweet, quiet young woman who kept to herself and didn’t bother anyone. But…” He paused as if trying to come up with just the right words before continuing. “They knew she was pregnant and unmarried. She did have a frequent visitor, and they thought perhaps the man was her father.”
“Her father? Are you saying we have a grandfather—”
“Or a father old enough to be your grandfather.”
“Oh, great. Some guy old enough to be Dinah’s father got her pregnant, didn’t or couldn’t marry her and then…what?”
“I’m searching for Dinah Collins, but so far it appears she was here in Sevierville one day and gone the next. She’d told her neighbors she was taking her babies and moving out of state, probably to Atlanta.” He held up a restraining hand. “Before you ask, yes, I already have agents in Atlanta searching for any clue to Dinah’s whereabouts.”
“Is there any other reason than the fact that Dinah and her twins disappeared that you think she might be our mother?” Reve needed more; she needed substantial proof of some kind.
“Dinah Collins was a pretty little redhead. Auburn-red hair. About the color of yours.”
“How do you—” Griffin removed a photograph from the file folder.
She reached out and grabbed it, her hand trembling. Garnering her courage, she looked at the color snapshot of the young woman. Oh, yes, Dinah was indeed a pretty little redhead. No taller than five-four, with an hourglass figure that reminded Reve of Jazzy’s build and perfect facial features that strongly resembled both her own and Jazzy’s.
This was her mother. Reve knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning.
Mary Dinah Collins.
Hello, Mother. Who were you? What happened to you?
“From what her neighbors said, I don’t think Dinah Collins was the type who would have tried to kill her babies,” Griffin told her. “One of the neighbors, a Mrs. Burton, said that Dinah adored her twins, that she was a good little mother.”
“Then you think someone stole us from her and left us for dead. Who and why?”
“Possibly your father, who was probably a married man.”
“I suppose it’s not quite as horrible to believe your father left you for dead as it is to think your mother did.”
“There are other possibilities,” Griffin said.
“Okay, give me your take on what happened. You’re the one with experience in these matters.”
“All right. Let’s say you and Jazzy were kidnapped, then why didn’t Dinah contact the police to report her babies missing? She’d have been hysterical, wouldn’t she? She’d have done anything to have found her baby girls.”
“Oh, God! You think whoever left me in that Dumpster and Jazzy in that tree stump in the mountains killed our mother, don’t you?”
Griffin didn’t say anything for several seconds, then nodded. “I don’t think we’ll find Dinah Collins alive.”
“Not unless she’s the one who left us for dead.”
“I’ll keep up the search for Dinah,” Griffin said. “And I’ll do what I can to track down anyone else who might have known her. Old Mrs. Burton said Dinah had lived in the apartment on Hyatt Street for about a year and a half, but she never mentioned where she’d come from or who her people were.”
“And this older gentleman was her only visitor?”
“No, not her only visitor, but her most frequent one. He came to see her weekly.”
“So, what do you make of that? Looks like Dinah was some rich old man’s mistress, doesn’t it?”
“Do you want me to go any further with this investigation?” he asked. “Do you really want to know who your father was?”
“Oh, yes, I want to know who the son of a bitch was,” Reve said emphatically. “And if he’s still alive, I want to look
him in the face and spit in his eye.”
“It’s your money, Ms. Sorrell.” Griffin Powell stood. “I’ll be in touch when I have more information.”
Reve sat alone for several minutes, allowing her mind and her emotions to absorb this mind-boggling news. If only she could tell Jazzy, share this all-important revelation with her.
Jazzy, please, please come out of that damn coma soon. I need you. I need my sister.
Shelly Bonner hated nights alone. She didn’t like the dark, always slept with a nightlight on and when Ronnie Gene was on a run, halfway across the country in that eighteen-wheeler of his, she usually made a point of finding her a man to keep her from getting lonely. More often than not, she knew her lover—his name, where he lived, whether or not he was married. She’d even screwed around with a few of Ronnie Gene’s buddies, but found out right quick what a mistake that was. These days she usually picked up a guy in Jazzy’s Joint or across the county line at either Barney’s or the Smoky Mountain Roadhouse. Tonight she’d run into this fellow at Barney’s and knew right away that he looked familiar. He’d called himself Harry, but she figured that wasn’t his real name. Who he really was hadn’t come to her—not yet. But she figured that by morning, she would have remembered where she’d seen him before tonight.
He was older than her usual pickup and definitely a cut above the rough, rugged rednecks she preferred. But this guy had come on all sweet and attentive, telling her right off how pretty she was and how much he loved her long hair. She’d been a dishwater blonde most of her life, but recently she’d started streaking her shoulder-length hair with red highlights, making it a dark strawberry blonde.
When she’d made it clear to this guy that she was interested in more than him buying her a drink, he’d told her, “Meet me outside in about five minutes, and don’t tell anyone you’re hooking up with me.”
“You’re married, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. And I don’t want my wife to—”
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