Chapter 11

Andrea Willis waited until the medication she had persuaded Laura to take took effect. Then she quietly left her daughter’s bedroom, but not before glancing back to check on her one final time. She had been caring for and protecting Laura since she’d been a little girl, hoping beyond hope that some sort of miracle would spare their daughter from the curse she had inherited. Poor little Laura. If only she could have loved the child more. But she’d done her best. Even Cecil had often said that they had both done everything in their power to help Laura. But Andrea felt that she had failed Laura, that she hadn’t done enough, hadn’t pushed Cecil hard enough to admit the truth.

Andrea didn’t stop by the guest bedroom she shared with her husband. Instead, she went straight down the back stairs to the kitchen. Startled at first by the housekeeper’s presence, she paused on the bottom step and considered whether she should slip back upstairs before Dora saw her. But then she heard Sheridan’s voice in the kitchen. Her younger daughter was laughing and talking to Dora.

Andrea marched into the kitchen. Sheridan sat at the table, a breakfast plate in front of her. One look at Sheridan reassured Andrea that she was perfectly all right.

With her mouth half filled with eggs, Sheridan said, “Morning, Mother.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Willis.” Dora looked up from where she busily prepared biscuit dough. “Coffee’s made and I can fix you something to eat now if you’re hungry. Biscuits won’t be ready for another half hour, but—”

“Coffee will be fine. Nothing else for me right now, thank you.” Andrea walked into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of fresh black coffee, then sat down at the table beside Sheridan. “Mind telling me where you’ve been all night?” she asked quietly.

“Where do you think?” Sheridan whispered her reply. “I met this really interesting guy last night while I was in town.”

Andrea sighed. “I thought as much.” She reached across the table and grasped Sheridan’s wrist. “You were careful, weren’t you? You made sure he used protection.”

“Yes, of course, I did. I’m not a fool. I always take care of number one.”

She hoped Sheridan was telling her the truth. Despite their closeness, her younger daughter had lied to her on more than one occasion. “Yes, you do. Usually. I only wish your sister…”

When Sheridan’s eyes widened inquisitively, Andrea realized she’d already said too much. Although she loved Sheridan with all her heart—yes, more than she loved Laura—their older child had required the bulk of both Cecil’s and her attention. And over the years Sheridan had grown to resent Laura more and more. Andrea supposed she couldn’t blame her, but the tension between the two girls only complicated an already complex situation.

“What’s wrong with poor little Laura now?” Sheridan asked.

“Lower your voice,” Andrea told her. “We do not air our dirty laundry in front of servants.”

“God, Mother, get real. You’ve never fooled anybody. Not our servants at home. And not the Uptons’ servants.”

“Must you always—” Andrea cut her complaint short, realizing she was taking out her frustration about Laura on Sheridan. “If you need to shower and change clothes, shower in our bathroom. And I’ll get your things out of Laura’s room. She had a restless night and is just now sleeping peacefully. I don’t want you disturbing her.”

“What happened? Did she have another one of her crazy-as-a-Betsy-bug spells?”

There was no use denying it to Sheridan. She’d seen Laura at her worst. “I plan to speak to your father this morning about taking Laura home and putting her…placing her somewhere for treatment.”

“Glory hallelujah. About damn time!”

Genny waited outside the dilapidated cabin, Dallas at her side and a handful of specially chosen lawmen scouring the area around the ramshackle old house for signs of any evidence. Jacob had ordered the inside of the cabin off limits to everyone until the crime scene investigators went over the entire place with a fine tooth comb.

“I’m using the most qualified of Dallas’s people and mine,” Jacob had explained to the deputies and policemen on the scene. “And if they need help, we’ll contact Knoxville.”

When Jacob finished another phone call—only one of many he’d made in the past thirty minutes—he came over to Genny. “I might have missed something in there, but to the naked eye, it looks as if she cleared out any evidence that might have linked her to the scene.”

“There’s always something,” Dallas said. “The problem is that if our investigators find something, will it be anything useful? Without even one suspect”—Dallas paused momentarily—“or possibly with too many, unless our people find DNA evidence that we can match—”

“That’s one of the reasons I need Genny.” Jacob looked to his cousin. “I gi do, I hate to ask you to look inside the cabin at Jamie’s body, but you could be our only hope of finding his killer.”

Whenever he wanted to emphasize the importance of what he was about to say, Jacob called her sister in their ancestors’ Cherokee tongue. “I understand,” she told him.

“I don’t want you to go inside. Just go to the door and take a look, then let me know if you pick up on anything.”

“I’ll go with her,” Dallas said, keeping guard at her side.

“We’ll both go with her.” Jacob moved to her other side so that she was flanked by two large, overly protective men who loved her.

The threesome walked up the rickety steps and across the porch. Then, using a gloved hand, Jacob opened the door. He moved aside just enough to give her a direct view into the shadowy room. The nauseatingly metallic odor of blood assailed her senses. And no wonder. The room looked as if it had been painted in blood.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to be strong as she focused on Jamie Upton’s barely recognizable naked body. Nausea rose from her stomach and burned a trail up her esophagus. She turned and ran to the edge of the porch, then vomited violently. Dallas rushed to her and put his arm around her trembling shoulders. He jerked a handkerchief from his jacket and wiped her perspiring forehead and her damp mouth.

“She’s not going to do this,” Dallas told Jacob.

Genny grabbed Dallas’s arm. “Yes, I am. I’ll be all right.”

“Damn it, can’t you see what’s it already doing to you?” Dallas glared at Jacob. “Tell her she doesn’t have to do it.”

“Genny, he’s right,” Jacob said. “You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do.” She jerked away from Dallas’s protective hold and marched straight back to the open front door. “Both of you stay away from me for a few minutes. Allow me to concentrate.”

She looked into the bloody room, focused on Jamie’s mutilated body, and let the darkness surround her. Thick, heavy darkness. Filled with anger. So much anger.

The moment Genny staggered, she felt strong arms holding her and knew that despite the dark evil encompassing her spirit, she was safe. Safe because Dallas would bring her back before she went in too deep.

Insane rage! The woman who had tortured Jamie had taken perverse pleasure in punishing him. She had wanted him to suffer as she had suffered, as others had suffered at his hands. Had she killed Jamie for revenge? Perhaps, but Genny got a sense of something as strong, perhaps even stronger than revenge. In the woman’s sick mind, she had killed Jamie to protect someone. Herself? Or someone she loved?

Concentrate on this woman, Genny told herself. Can you see her? See her body? Her face? Even a shadowy image?

The darkness swirled faster and faster, sucking Genny deeper into a metaphysical realm. Evil. Tormented. Do not be frightened away, Genny told herself. Seek deeper. Look beyond the veil and reach for the truth.

Flashes of a human form danced through Genny’s mind. A female form. Naked. Bathing herself in cool water, rinsing away the bright scarlet blood. It dripped from her fingers, ran in rivulets down her back and buttocks. The image was vague, unclear, unrecognizable. Except her short, stylish red hair.

Jazzy’s hair!

Genny gasped. Her eyelids shot open. She grabbed Dallas’s arm and held on tight. Unable to speak, she moaned, refusing to believe what she’d seen. It wasn’t Jazzy, she told herself. It was a woman who had hair the same style and color as Jazzy’s.

“Genny, honey, what’s wrong?” Dallas caressed her face.

She shoved his hand aside and closed her eyes again. Go back and take another look. Find the woman again. Prove to yourself that it wasn’t Jazzy.

“Genny, for heaven’s sake, what do you think you’re doing?” Dallas demanded. “Come out of it. Don’t—”

“Let her go,” Jacob told him. “I’ve seen this before. She needs to go back because something she saw disturbed her.”

That’s right, Jacob, soothe Dallas. Make him understand. Genny eased slowly—carefully—into that mystic realm, going just deep enough to connect once again with the woman’s image.

Short red hair mussed by the morning breeze. The wind whipping around and about her as she traveled at high speed. Try as she might, Genny could not see the woman’s face—only her hair, only a shadowy outline of her body. And then clearly, distinctly, she saw the car the woman was driving. A small, sleek green sports car with a tan interior.

Genny gasped for air as she brought herself back to the present moment. “Definitely a woman. I saw her washing away Jamie’s blood. I couldn’t see her face, couldn’t make out who she was or if I knew her. She had red hair.” Genny opened her eyes and looked first at Dallas and then at Jacob. “I think she was wearing a wig so that her hair was identical to Jazzy’s. While she showered, she was also washing the blood from her hair…from the wig.”

“Are you saying this woman was trying to pass herself off as Jazzy?” Jacob asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. All I could make out was her hair. I sensed she wasn’t really pretending to be Jazzy. Maybe she just wanted anyone who saw her at a distance to think she was Jazzy.”

Jacob frowned. “Anything else?”

Jacob’s inquiry seemed odd to Genny; she picked up some peculiar vibes from her cousin. “Yes, I saw the car she was driving.”

“And?” Jacob came closer, his eyes narrowing as he approached her.

“It was a small, green sports car. Something new and sleek. The interior was tan. And there was something wrong with the car.”

“What?” Jacob and Dallas asked simultaneously.

“The driver’s side appeared to be damaged. And the glass surrounding the front headlight on that side was broken out.”

“I’ll be damned!” Jacob stormed off the porch and headed straight to his truck.

“Jacob!” Genny went after him, forgetting how much her psychic trips weakened her. When she stumbled, Dallas was there to catch her. She glanced up at the man she loved and told him, “I need to find out what’s going on with Jacob.”

Dallas nodded. “All right. Come on.” He braced her with his strong arm as he helped her off the porch, across the yard, and down the gravel drive to where Jacob was talking on the radio.

“Get in touch with Roy Tillis and find out if that green Jaguar he towed in yesterday is still in his lot,” Jacob said. “And check on a lady named Reve Sorrell. She’s staying in one of the Cherokee Cabin Rentals. Just make sure she doesn’t leave town. I want to question her personally.”

Genny grasped Jacob’s arm. “What’s going on? Do you know someone who drives a green sports car?”

“Yeah. A very interesting lady who looks enough like Jazzy to be her sister,” Jacob replied. “She had a wreck in her green Jaguar yesterday, on her way out of town. And it just so happens that she came to Cherokee Pointe because she’d met Jamie Upton at a party several months ago. She said she didn’t fall for his pretty boy charm, but I had my doubts then and I’ve got even more now.”

“Someone who looks like Jazzy?” Genny couldn’t shake the overwhelming sensation that this mysterious woman and Jazzy were irrevocably connected. And not by their association with Jamie Upton. There was something else. Something basic. Something dangerous.

Dr. Galvin MacNair drove up to the open gates at the Upton Farm at nine-fifty. Jim had telephoned the doctor on his cell phone when one of Jacob’s deputies had driven him home. He’d been waiting fifteen minutes here at the gate, not wanting to go up to the house and tell everyone about Jamie, not without a doctor in attendance. Reba was a strong, healthy woman, but she was also past seventy, had already lost both of her children, and her whole world revolved around Jamie. He was everything to her. Finding out that he had been murdered…Jim could hardly bear to think about it himself. Despite how much sorrow that boy had caused them over the years, he had been their only grandchild and they loved him.

Jacob hadn’t let Jim see Jamie, had told him that his last memory of his grandson shouldn’t be of his bloody body. Although Jacob had been honest enough with Jim to admit that Jamie had been tortured, as Genny had foreseen, Jacob hadn’t gone into details. It was well enough. Some things an old man just didn’t need to know. But he’d been fighting his imagination, doing his best not to visualize what the killer had done to Jamie.

Emotion so raw and painful that he was practically numb with it sapped Jim’s strength. Although he realized that he would have to be the strong one, the one who’d support and care for Reba and Laura, he needed someone himself. He needed a shoulder to cry on. Loving arms to hold him. He’d telephoned Erin, but her answering machine had picked up again. Where the hell was she? Where had she spent last night? Why wasn’t she there when he so desperately needed her?

Dr. MacNair pulled to a stop, rolled down his window, and called to Jim, “I got here as quickly as I could.”

Jim nodded, then walked around the hood of MacNair’s truck, opened the passenger door, and slid into the seat. “Thanks for coming. I don’t know how Reba is going to be able to handle this. She loves Jamie. Loves him more than anything.”

“Yes, sir, I understand. He is…was…your only grandchild. How are you holding up, Mr. Upton? Is there something I can do for you right now?”

Jim looked at the doctor. MacNair, a stocky, ruddyfaced man in his thirties, had a kind face. He was new to Cherokee County, but in the few short months since he’d taken over Dr. Webster’s practice after the older doctor had retired, he’d gained a reputation as a firstrate physician.

“Thanks, but I don’t think it wise for me to take anything—pills or an injection,” Jim said. “I’m the one who’ll have to deal with the family, then make the arrangements and handle the local press. I’ll need a clear head for all that.”

“Yes, of course,” MacNair agreed. “But if you think you’ll need something to help you rest tonight…for the next few nights…”

“Mm-hmm. All right. That might not be a bad idea.” Jim admitted to himself that he was unlikely to sleep much tonight or for many nights to come unless he did take a sleeping pill. It would be impossible to rest with images of Jamie’s brutalized body flashing through his mind. Even though he hadn’t actually seen the body, he had a pretty good idea what had happened from the bits and pieces of what he’d overheard the deputies saying. And not only that, but how did a man rest when his grandson’s killer was on the loose?

“Mr. Upton…I’m deeply sorry about Jamie.”

Jim nodded. “Thank you.”

“Are you ready to go up to the house now?”

“No, I’m not ready, but it has to be done. No point in putting it off any longer,” Jim said. “I called Dora and explained without going into details. I told her to make sure no one except she answered the phone and that no one made any calls out.”

Dr. MacNair shifted his truck from park into drive and headed the late model Ford up the long driveway toward the big house Jim had called home since the day he was born. A home was a place for a family, for children and grandchildren and…once he and Reba were gone, there would be no one. No more Uptons to carry on. No grandchildren and great-grandchildren to fill the empty rooms of the old home place.

When MacNair parked his truck in front of the house, Jim got out and he and the doctor walked up the steps together and onto the front veranda. Dora opened the door and came rushing out to meet them.

“I’ve had the devil’s own time keeping everyone from making phone calls,” Dora said. “And the phone’s been ringing off the hook. Word’s done got out about our Jamie. Neighbors have been calling. And the newspaper and…it’s only a matter of time before there’s a horde of people at the gate. You’d best figure out what to do about it.”

“Close the gate,” Jim told her. “And take the phones off the hook. All four separate lines. Once I’ve broken the news to Reba and Laura, I’ll contact Jacob and have him send somebody out here to keep order. And if necessary, I’ll hire my own private guards.”

“Yes, sir.” Dora looked up at Jim and he could tell she’d been crying. Dora had been with the family since she was a teenager, first as one of the maids and as the housekeeper for the past forty-five years. The woman was practically family.

Jim patted Dora’s back. “We’ve lost him. Our Jamie’s dead.”

“Breaks my heart,” Dora told him. “God help Miss Reba. This is gonna kill her.”

“Is she down yet?” Jim asked.

“Yes, sir. She’s in the dining room. Miss Reba and Mr. and Mrs. Willis are eating breakfast. Miss Sheridan is in the den, watching television. And Miss Laura is still upstairs.”

Jim ushered Dora back inside; Dr. MacNair followed them. Once in the massive foyer, Jim stiffened his spine. He’d done this twice before, when Jim Jr. and his wife were killed in an accident and when they’d received news about Melanie’s death years after she’d run away. Each time he had wondered how he and Reba would survive. They’d been younger then…and they’d still had Jamie. Now, they had no one.

“Dora, ask everyone to come into the living room,” Jim told her. “And send one of the girls upstairs to waken Miss Laura. I can’t do this more than once. I want everyone assembled in ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.”

Reve Sorrell stepped out of the shower, dried herself off, and slipped into the white terry cloth robe which was one of the standard amenities at Cherokee Cabin Rentals. When she traveled, she never went tourist class, but even with her discerning tastes, she had to admit that this cabin wasn’t half bad. Not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but clean, neat, and quite comfortable. On a scale of one to ten, she’d certainly give it a six.

Just as she removed the hair dryer from the wall unit, the telephone rang. Something else she liked about this cabin—there was an extension phone in the bathroom. She had placed a call to her personal assistant, Paul Welby, late yesterday to alert him that she would be remaining in Cherokee Pointe a few days and to request he have another car—the dark blue Mercedes 300SL, her favorite, second only to her Jag—brought to her. She had instructed Paul to have whoever he sent with the Mercedes today pick up the Jaguar at the garage where it had been towed and take it back to Chattanooga for repairs. She didn’t want any of these jake-leg body repair people in Cherokee Pointe touching her precious car.

When she answered the phone, she expected to hear Paul’s soft, cultured voice on the other end. Instead she heard a rough, hillbilly redneck saying, “Ms. Sorrell, this here is Roy Tillis over at Tillis and Son Wrecking and Towing Service. I got some bad news for you, and I’m sure sorry about it. I done called Sheriff Butler and told him. And it ain’t my fault. I ain’t never had no car stolen from the lot. Not in all the years—”

“Mr. Tillis, exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

“Well, ma’am, I thought I told you. Somebody stole that green Jaguar of yours sometime after dark last night.”

“What!”

“Yes’m, they just waltzed right in, got past old Worthless, and just drove right off with your car.”

“How is that possible? They would have had to have the keys. And I’m sure you keep the keys locked up in your office, don’t you?”

“Well, there’s where you might figure it’s my fault,” Roy hemmed. “But it weren’t my fault. You see, one of the boys left the keys in the car and—”

“Let me get this straight. You parked my car in an unguarded, unprotected area with the keys in the ignition. Then someone got past a dog called Worthless and just drove off with my wrecked Jaguar. Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s about it. But I figure it’s no big deal, since you’re bound to have insurance out the ass.”

“What did Sheriff Butler say when you contacted him?” Reve asked, her patience almost at an end.

“He didn’t say much except that he’d put an all-points-bulletin out on it,” Roy replied. “Then he said something that didn’t make no sense to me.”

“What was that?”

“He said ‘mighty convenient for her that the car got stolen.’ He sort of mumbled it under his breath.”

“I see.” But she didn’t, not really. What had Butler meant by that unfathomable remark? Although she hated that her car had been stolen, what she hated even more was the thought of having to deal with Jacob Butler again. The man was a Neanderthal.

“Well, Ms. Sorrell, I sure hope they find your car. And I’m real sorry about what happened. You ain’t gonna sue me or nothing like that, are you? I figured you wouldn’t, seeing how your insurance will cover—”

“I’m not going to sue, Mr. Tillis.” She slammed down the receiver.

There was something about this town, Reve decided. Either the place was a jinx to her or it was the other way around and she was the jinx. She’d encountered a menagerie of odd characters yesterday morning—from her look-alike who’d gotten into a heated argument with a good-looking tough guy to a rawboned old kook who chewed tobacco. Then when she’d tried to make her escape and leave Cherokee Pointe, she’d had a wreck, which ended with the caveman sheriff all but locking her up. And now this—her Jag had been stolen. She couldn’t help but wonder, what next? Maybe when the Mercedes arrived later today, she should forget satisfying her curiosity about Jazzy Talbot and simply go home to Chattanooga and forget all about the woman who might be her sister.