Anywhere She Runs

by Webb, Debra

  “You don’t understand, do you?” he jeered. “The Singing River. ‘It murmurs a tragic tale,’ ” he recited, evidently from something he’d read.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Adeline said, “I know the story.” Who could grow up here and not know it?

  “Those sweet, kind Pascagoula Indians were about to be enslaved by the Biloxi tribe.” He shook his head. “Rather than be taken, they joined hands and walked right out into that dark water. Chanting a death song the whole way. The Singing River hums that song to this day.”

  Prescott and Arnold sobbed louder with his every word.

  “Amazing,” Adeline tossed at him. “You see yourself as some kind of warrior or something? You need to prove you’re more powerful than us?” She rattled her shackles. “I think you pretty much proved that already.”

  He shook his head and made that annoying tsking sound. “You don’t understand at all, Detective Cooper. The story revolves around a princess. It was her goddamned fault that all those people walked right out there”—he pointed to the murky water—“to their deaths.”

  He was right. The Biloxi princess who’d fallen in love with the Pascagoula chief. Fuck. That was why it had to be here. He saw them as princesses . . . it was destiny. But whose? What had they done to him? How had they intruded into his territory? It didn’t make sense.

  He motioned to the river with his gun. “Now. Get in the water.”

  Arnold and Prescott wailed even louder, the sounds strangled.

  “Why?” Adeline asked him. “What’s your point in making us get in the water? Why not just shoot us right here? Dead is dead. Who cares about a stupid legend?”

  He rushed up to her, shoved the barrel of what she recognized as a nine-millimeter into her face. “Because this is what was supposed to happen all those years ago when you were just a tiny little baby.”

  “Your father killed your mother,” she reminded. “He tried to kill you. But you hid us where he couldn’t get to us. Why kill us now? What happened back then is over. You don’t have to do this. Where’s that hero who saved his three little sisters?”

  He laughed long and loud. “That’s not what happened.” He snickered. “That’s what they thought happened. But that wasn’t the way it happened at all.”

  “Tell us then,” Adeline challenged, “how it really was. I think we deserve to know before you kill us. Otherwise your whole ritual will have no meaning.”

  He stared at her a moment, his blue eyes—the ones exactly like hers—narrowing with suspicion then relaxing. “Why not? A bedtime story to put you to sleep.”

  Ha ha. He was a comedian. Right now she just wanted him closer and distracted.

  “For six years it was just me.” He banged his chest. “My parents loved me so much. Everything was about me. It was perfect.” He glowered at Prescott. “Then you came along and you were all they talked about. I had to share everything with you, especially my parents. Their little princess,” he snarled.

  He shifted his attention to Arnold. “Then you.” He kicked her in the side. “By then they didn’t have any time at all for me. The babies needed them. Especially that bitch mother of ours. Their little princesses were so sweet in their little pink dresses and bows.” He jerked Prescott to her feet. “I tried to get rid of you. Tried to drown you in the bathtub but that bitch caught me. She was so stupid she thought it was an accident.”

  Adeline eased a little closer to where he stood.

  “And the princesses just kept coming!” He released Prescott and whirled on Adeline. “That bitch just kept spitting ’em out. You cried all the time. I made sure. Mommy,” he said in a squeaky childlike voice, “just couldn’t figure out why you cried all the time.” He rushed closer, nose to nose with Adeline. “It was because I tortured you when they weren’t looking.”

  “Sucked for me,” she muttered, scarcely able to contain the urge to hurl herself into him. But she wouldn’t when the gun’s barrel was turned toward Prescott.

  “Finally,” he snapped, “I’d had enough. My father kept telling me not to worry, that it was still me and him. He would laugh and say the princesses ruled our world. I knew he was miserable, too.”

  Adeline dared to ease even closer.

  “I made a plan,” he said, seemingly lost in the memories. “I promised to take you on a picnic. The bitch thought we were all sleeping, so she’d fallen asleep in front of the TV. I carried you,” he said to Adeline. She halted her incremental movement toward him. “And the rest of you followed right behind me just like you were in a parade.” He smirked. “It was so easy. I led you right to the water. It wasn’t far from our backyard.” He stepped back. “Then I persuaded you to come into the water with me. It wasn’t more than knee deep. We all sat down, laughing and having fun. Then I pushed you under the water, put my knees on your chest,” he said to Arnold and Prescott. He shot Adeline a sideways look. “I held you under with one hand.”

  Adeline quashed the panic that tried to swell in her throat. “But our mother caught you again, didn’t she? Did she punish you?”

  He lunged at her, grabbed her by the jacket. He pulled her face to his and shoved the gun under her breasts. “No, she didn’t punish me. She was afraid of me. She convinced my father that I needed to go away.” He shoved Adeline away. “So I killed her.” He looked from Adeline to Arnold, then Prescott. “I would’ve killed all of you, but you,” he snarled at Prescott, “took the others and hid from me.”

  “Our father caught you, tried to stop you, and you killed him, too,” Adeline surmised, the scenario unfolding in her mind.

  Jamison’s face blanked.

  Realization dawned on Adeline. “You wanted it to be just you and him. You didn’t intend to kill him. That’s why you wouldn’t talk afterward . . .” His world had been over. Shit.

  “Get in the water!”

  The strangled wailing started again. Adeline knew she had just one shot at escaping certain death. All she needed was a little bit of luck.

  They waded into the icy cold water. Prescott and Arnold clung to each other, Adeline lagged as far behind as the chain would allow.

  “That’s perfect.”

  He was right behind Adeline. She couldn’t see where the gun was . . .

  “Now,” he said, “sit down in the water.”

  Chapter Forty

  Tuesday, December 28, 12:18 A.M.

  Adeline shivered. The water was up to her neck. Beside her Prescott and Arnold were clinging to each other, still sobbing, but the sounds were weaker now.

  They were beaten.

  Jamison waded back and forth in front of them, his movements sloshing the cold water in their faces. He was singing some fucked-up song he’d clearly written about death and princesses. Fury burned low in Adeline’s belly. She was going to kill that son of a bitch.

  But before the bastard died, she had to know what he’d done with his son.

  “Too bad Danny found out what a monster you are.”

  Jamison stopped, turned to her. “You don’t know my son. I’ve protected him from bitches like you.”

  Adeline laughed. “That’s not the impression I got when I visited him and your wife in the hospital. He said he never wanted to see you again.” Jamison bowed down to put his gun in her face. “He wants to live with his grandparents now.” She just kept right on talking. “He hates you.”

  “You’re a fucking liar!”

  She shrugged. “Sorry to be the one to tell you, but he told the police exactly what you did to his mother. He might pretend to like you to your face, because you scare him, but he hates your goddamned guts.”

  “Liar!” He dropped the gun, bent down, and grabbed Adeline by the throat with both hands.

  She sucked in as much air as possible before he cut off the flow completely.

  “He knows the lies they’ve told! He’s going with me.” He crushed her face to his, his grip on her throat like a vise. “He’s waiting at home for me right now.”

  Bingo.

&nbs
p; Jamison’s fingers tightened a little more. “You’ll go to hell for lying, princess.”

  Adeline opened her mouth wide and clamped down on his nose. He screamed. The harder he struggled to get loose, the harder she ground her teeth. Blood spurted in her mouth. Her hands shot up . . . felt for the weapon in his waistband . . . her weapon.

  He shoved her back, tumbled on top of her . . . they both went under the water.

  Paralyzing fear shot through her veins.

  The others’ hands were grabbing at her hair . . . her arms.

  She clutched at him . . . tried to find the weapon. Tried to break free of the hold he had on her throat. Panic burned in her lungs.

  Don’t breathe. Don’t fucking breathe.

  He banged her head against the rocky river bottom. Pain shattered through her skull.

  More weight pressed down on her. A foot caught her in the jaw.

  The fear ignited full force . . . her lungs threatened to burst . . . she couldn’t move . . . couldn’t breathe.

  Adeline stopped struggling.

  “Sheriff! Over here!”

  Wyatt ran forward, cutting through the knee-deep saw grass.

  Two of his deputies were crouched down . . . someone was on the ground.

  Oh hell . . .

  He lunged toward the huddle.

  Clay Cooper lay there. He was talking. Wyatt surveyed the area. A shack—the one his contact had said he used for making drug deals—sat in the distance.

  Wyatt shoved his deputy out of the way. He grabbed Clay by the shirt and shook him hard. “Where is Addy?”

  “He . . .” Clay shook his head as if to clear it “He took ’em to the river. He’s gonna drown them. He’s got a gun.”

  Wyatt dropped the bastard, drew his weapon, and started forward. “Fan out, head for the river,” he shouted to the dozen deputies running toward them.

  “He’s crazy,” Clay called after Wyatt. “I couldn’t stop him. I crawled out here and tried to do something but I passed out again.”

  The river’s song buzzed louder and louder in his ears. Wyatt’s heart thumped harder and harder. His feet wouldn’t move fast enough. He had to hurry! He couldn’t be sure how long the bastard had been gone with her . . . with them.

  The crash of water reached his ears. He adjusted his direction . . . held up a hand to let those behind him know to go silent.

  Muffled cries or wails were coming from the water.

  He pushed through the brush and saplings. The moon’s full glow spotlighted the tangle of figures struggling in the water.

  Wyatt took a bead on the tallest of the tangle. One of the women shifted into the firing line. “Dammit.” The women . . . Prescott he could make out and maybe Arnold . . . were fighting against Jamison’s efforts to shove them back under the water. The way they were moving . . . tangled up . . . he couldn’t risk taking the shot.

  Where was Addy?

  Wyatt counted the bodies again. One . . . two . . . three . . .

  Fear jammed into his throat.

  He started running toward the water.

  Jamison whirled around, dragged Prescott in front of him. “Stop right there!” He held something against the back of her head.

  Fuck. Wyatt couldn’t tell for sure if he had a gun. Clay had said he had one. “Don’t move, Jamison,” Wyatt ordered, inching closer.

  “One more step, Sheriff, and I’ll blow her head off.”

  Prescott kept screaming or crying . . . hell, Wyatt couldn’t tell. The sound was muffled by whatever the bastard had stuffed in her mouth.

  “Where’s Detective Cooper?” Wyatt demanded. He divided his attention between Jamison and the water’s murky surface.

  “She’s dead, Sheriff.” Jamison laughed. “You’re too late to save that princess.”

  The water suddenly split in front of Prescott.

  Adeline rose like a ghost, her arms leveled in a firing posture.

  The discharge of the weapon echoed through the night.

  Jamison’s head jerked back. He fell backward . . . splashed into the water and sank.

  Wyatt rushed forward.

  Addy jerked at something that looked like a chain, took two steps toward where Jamison had fallen and unloaded the weapon into the water.

  Two . . . three . . . four . . . five and six shots resonated, shattering the river’s hum.

  The women surrounded her, hugging her against them. Wyatt had to push his way between them to get to Addy.

  She turned to him, her face pale, her teeth chattering. “I told you that bastard wasn’t killing me.” She sucked in a shaky breath, then fell into Wyatt’s arms.

  “You were right,” he whispered as he held her tight to his chest. “And you’re no princess, either. You’re the best damned detective I know.”

  Once the women were on dry ground, Addy removed the socks stuffed into their mouths. Sullenger found the key Addy had told her about and released their shackles. The women hugged some more. One of Wyatt’s deputies had called Wiggins and Hattiesburg to let them know the victims had been found and were alive. Wyatt had also called Sheriff Henley to let her know to look for the boy at the Jamison residence. Henley had just called him back to relay that the boy had been found and was safe.

  Thank God.

  Wyatt kept an arm around Addy as they moved toward the shack. He shuddered every time he thought about how close she’d come to giving up under that water. But she’d remembered telling him that Jamison wasn’t killing her. She’d felt around the river bottom and found the weapon Jamison had dropped.

  Clay broke free from the paramedic treating his injuries. “Addy! You’re alive!” He rushed to meet them. “I was worried sick. You okay?”

  Addy pulled away from Wyatt and took the three steps that separated her from her cousin. “I’m fine, Clay, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Confusion claimed his face. “What?”

  She drew back and slammed her fist into his jaw. Clay staggered back, wailing like a little girl. Addy turned back to Wyatt. “Arrest that piece of shit for conspiracy to commit murder.” She shook her hand and winced.

  Wyatt pulled her back into his arms. “I think that’s called ‘police brutality.’ ”

  She smiled. “I learned it from a guy I used to know.”

  Wyatt tilted her face up to his. “You scared the hell out of me, Cooper.”

  She searched his face. “We have a lot to talk about, Wyatt. It’s time we got over the past.”

  Before he could ask her what that meant, she walked over to where the paramedics were checking out Prescott and Arnold.

  The investigation was pretty much over. The victims were alive and seemingly well.

  With the investigation done and her mother gone, Addy had no reason to stay.

  Wyatt wasn’t ready for that. Losing her once was more than enough.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Forrest General Hospital, 4:22 P.M.

  Adeline smiled. Amazing. A beautiful baby girl. A little light at five pounds and fourteen ounces, but absolutely beautiful. A head full of dark hair.

  Just amazing.

  Wyatt moved up beside her at the viewing window. “You’d better watch out, they say this is contagious. Next thing you know, you’ll be wanting one.”

  She smiled. “I think I’m immune.”

  “Maybe so.” Wyatt chuckled.

  Adeline liked it when he laughed. He hadn’t done that often since she’d been back. With good reason. But that was behind them now. She made a mental list of the things she needed to do, including the arrangements for her mother’s funeral. Adeline would miss her. There were things she wished she had said. In time she would come to terms with what she hadn’t said and done.

  Cyrus had high-powered attorneys all over the charges against Clay. Womack and his buddy up in Laurel were facing charges of evidence tampering. Both would lose their badges. Sad thing, but there was nothing worse than a dirty cop no matter the excuses for his or her actions.


  Prescott and Arnold were safely back home with their families.

  Lydia Jamison had awakened from her coma at six this morning. Her water had broken three hours later. Allison Renae Jamison had come into this world via Cesarean section at two this afternoon.

  Adeline was an aunt several times over.

  She smiled at her nephew. A nurse had dragged a chair over so he could admire his new baby sister. He was a little shy, but Adeline had already decided they were going to be friends.

  He didn’t know just yet that his father was dead. When his mother had recovered sufficiently, she would talk to him about that. The grandparents couldn’t stop doting on the new granddaughter. They hovered around their daughter the way Wyatt was hovering around Adeline.

  That was something else she had to take care of. And there was no time like the present. She was never again going to be guilty of failing to share her true feelings with the people she cared about.

  “You never trusted me to take care of myself on the job,” she said to the man beside her.

  Startled, his gaze collided with hers. “Are you kidding?”

  She shook her head. “What you did nine years ago is proof positive that you thought I wasn’t capable of doing the job. Don’t even think about denying it.” He’d already admitted as much.

  Wyatt sighed. “You’re right. I was afraid for you. I loved you so much and I couldn’t bear the thought of you being in that kind of danger. If I’d had my way you would have stopped being a cop altogether.” He gave his head a bow in acquiescence. “But I was wrong. You were and are a damned fine cop, Addy. I’d go through a door with you anytime.”

  A smile pulled across her lips. “Thank you. I am a damned fine cop.”

  Say it, Adeline! “I was wrong, too,” she confessed, not an easy thing for her to do.

  Wyatt inclined his head. “Do you care to elaborate?”

  “Leaving for a while was a good thing. There was too much going on around here. Going was good.” She surveyed the activity, nurses and newborns, beyond the window. “But when things settled down, I should have come back.” She looked into Wyatt’s eyes. “And I should have listened to what you had to say. I shouldn’t have allowed what happened to destroy what we had. You deserved the benefit of the doubt and I didn’t give it to you.”