I love you, Sarah Booth.

Please wear this symbol of our love.

Graf.

How clever of him to send the ring in a way that allowed me to accept or reject it without the pressure of him standing--or kneeling on one knee as I felt he would--in front of me. There was a deep traditionalist streak in Graf, yet he'd pushed it aside to consider my nature, my fears.

He knew me well enough to realize that I would have to think about this moment, about what I was promising, and about how this would change who I was--in my eyes as well as in the community I loved.

I slipped the ring on my finger. It was a perfect fit. In every way.

Jitty's words from last night came back to haunt me. If I wore this ring, I had to commit to allowing myself to soften, to trust Graf enough to let him be strong. While I might chafe at the idea of playing a role, I had to accept the wisdom of Jitty's advice. A good relationship required consideration of the needs of "the other."

My cell phone broke the moment.

"Sarah Booth, the biscuits come out of the oven in five minutes. Don't you make me eat cold biscuits." Tinkie's voice sounded better than I could remember.

"I wouldn't dream of that." I ran down the steps and jumped into my car.

Good for her word, Tinkie had breakfast on the table when I walked in. Crisp bacon, hot biscuits with b.u.t.ter and mayhaw jelly, fresh coffee, and grits.

"This is delicious," I told her. We were both eating fast. "If I slowed down, I could taste it better."

"No time for slackers," Tinkie said. "Tammy has a client to read for at eight, so we're on a tight schedule."

I shoved half a biscuit in my mouth and grinned at her.

"The ring is beautiful," she said, her total attention on her grits. When she finally looked at me, there was only happiness in her expression. "Of all the guys in your life, Sarah Booth, Graf wouldn't have been my pick until I saw the two of you together in Costa Rica. The man adores you."

"I can't believe I've accepted an engagement ring." Just like that. The ring slipped onto my finger and now I felt as if it had always been there.

"Have you set a date?"

The idea floored me. Engaged was one thing. Married, with all the trappings of an official ceremony, was something else. "No. We haven't even talked about one."

She laughed. "Don't worry, once Cece recovers, she and I will take over all the wedding plans. It will be spectacular."

That was a troubling word. "Maybe we could just go for intimate and lovely."

"That, too."

Now wasn't the time to argue with Tinkie about the size, shape, or tone of a wedding far in the future, so I let it slide. "Have you met Beaucoup or Peyton?" Both of the CDC workers had been in and out of the hospital, but Doc had handled pa.s.sing information to Tinkie.

She ground pepper on her grits. "Mr. Fidellas stopped by yesterday while he was at the hospital. He's a handsome guy and said some nice things about you." She checked to see if I was taking the bait. When I gave her only a bland look, she continued. "He asked some questions about offsh.o.r.e banking accounts. I told him to talk to Harold."

"Did he say why he asked?"

She pa.s.sed the salt and pepper to me. "Some angle his partner was working, I think."

"Yes, Beaucoup." Obviously Coleman was sharing everything with her. "So what do you think of her?"

"Bonnie Louise--I refuse to call her that vulgar nickname--stopped by the first day she got here. You know, I remember her family well. It was so hard on Oscar to put them off their land. They'd been on that acreage for generations."

The biscuit I held in my mouth turned as dense as concrete. "Oscar put them off their land?"

"Didn't you know?"

I slowly shook my head. "I didn't. Beau--Bonnie--said she was from Sunflower County, but I don't recall where. From the way she talked about leaving the land, I a.s.sumed boll weevils or drought or too much rain had ruined their crop and bad times got tougher."

"The weather was a part of it, but it was a combination of bad decisions and miserable luck, just like what's going on around the country now. Bad loans, poor judgment, and not reading the tiny-tiny print have gotten a lot of people in trouble. But Oscar has never done business that way. The McRaes had a straight-up loan. Her family got in over their heads and they lost everything, but she doesn't appear to hold a grudge or any hard feelings. She's asked about Oscar several times."

I b.u.t.tered my second biscuit. I had no evidence against Beaucoup for any wrongdoing. But my gut told me there was more to her than met the eye. Now that I knew her history, I had an inkling of her agenda. How biblical would it be for an heir of a foreclosure victim to somehow poison the banker responsible for the loss of the family farm?

"What's wrong, Sarah Booth?"

"I feel sick." It was true. The revelation of Beaucoup's background had given me such a violent mental twist that it made me nauseated. I rose unsteadily from her kitchen table.

"I'll be right back." I ran to the bathroom and knelt beside the toilet. Sleep or no sleep, I had to make an appointment with Doc. This was getting to be ridiculous.

"Sarah Booth, are you okay?" Tinkie called.

I rinsed out my mouth and studied my reflection. As I lifted my hand to straighten my hair, the light caught in the diamond and flashed sparkles around the room. I felt like a kid with the best present in the world. "I'm one hundred percent fine. Let's roll," I said as I walked to the front door.

22.

I dropped Tinkie at the hospital and headed to the chancery clerk's office. Land records were sometimes snarled, but Attila proved his warrior spirit when he attacked the paper trail that led to a time when Bonnie Louise and her family farmed a tract of land in the northeastern corner of Sunflower County.

The deeds were cut-and-dried. Mr. McRae defaulted on his mortgage, and the property was sold at auction from the court house steps on December 23. Talk about rotten timing. Oscar, acting for the bank, oversaw the foreclosure and sale. No doubt a horrible Christmas for the McRae family and for Oscar.

Bonnie Louise McRae had one h.e.l.luva motive to hold a grudge against Oscar.

In a plot designed by a mastermind--if my suspicions were correct--Beaucoup was also the primary element in identifying Oscar's peculiar, and potentially fatal, illness. A conflict of interest, I would say.

It was possible I'd terribly underestimated the gray matter between Beaucoup's ears. Her bodacious bubble b.u.t.t, the way she cooed in Coleman's ear, and her b.i.t.c.hy att.i.tude had perfectly distracted me from what lay beneath the exterior.

"Ms. Delaney, are you ill?" Attila asked.

"No. I'm okay." The record room was stuffy, and I was light-headed from the blast of reality that had rocked my world, but I was fine.

"High interest rates forced a lot of folks off the land, just like now," Attila said. "I wasn't chancery clerk then, but I remember this event. Mr. McRae brought his family to the court house for the auction. They stood and watched, the children crying and clinging to their father's leg, begging him not to let someone take their home." His finger ruffled the pages of the deed book. "Oscar was almost as upset as the McRae family, but he had a job to do."

"Not a job I'd want." My imagination supplied me with plenty of visuals.

"Back then, banks were particular about who they lent to. Folks had to meet criteria to qualify for a loan. What happened wasn't anyone's fault. Farming is a gamble, you know that."

"Do you recall what went wrong with the McRaes?" Where did a family go once they'd been evicted from their home?

Attila took a seat at the table where we'd been working. "Mrs. McRae was diagnosed with breast cancer. Farmers back in those days often didn't carry health insurance. They were self-employed and that's always been a hard row in this country. McRae insisted that his wife go to Houston for the best treatment they could get. He fell into debt. Then we had a drought. He gambled on cotton and lost that year. It was like a hurricane swelling over a row-boat. There was nothing he could do."

"Did Mrs. McRae recover?"

He looked at the shelves of land deeds. "No, she didn't. She died about three years later."

"And McRae?"

"Drank himself to death from the grief. He lost his wife, his land, his family. Had a big insurance policy that paid off the debt, though. In the end, he did everything he could to take care of his family. Gabe McRae seemed to be a good man. He got caught between a rock and a hard place."

What was there to say? The newspapers were once again full of average, normal people being ground to dust by huge financial organizations, a failing medical system, and greedy corporations. Beaucoup's father was one of the silent victims of the last economic turmoil.

Bonnie Louise McRae had a right to hard feelings and a lot of pain a.s.sociated with Sunflower County.

Hard feelings could turn into hard actions. I thought of Bonnie Louise, with her blond, country girl charm and soft drawl. Looks could be deceiving. In fact, they often were.

"Thank you, Attila. You've been a tremendous help."

I left the bowels of the court house and stopped for a moment in the sunshine. Standing on the court house steps, I saw that in the days of Oscar's illness, the last vestiges of winter had retreated. Oaks around the court house sported new green. The scent of magnolia frascatti, like ripe bananas mingled with honey, danced on a gentle breeze.

The shrub was in Addie Ruth Bennett's yard. I'd often ridden my bike there and crawled under the branches to inhale the wondrous scent, so exotic, that excited all sorts of fantasies and adventures. I'd had a magical childhood, and Bonnie Louise had seen her family disintegrate. Loss of that nature could drive a person over the edge.

It seemed like years had pa.s.sed since I'd been by to have a cup of coffee with Millie, and now was a good time--between the breakfast rush and lunch crowd. I could also pick up something tempting for Cece and take it to her in the hospital.

I left the court house and walked the few blocks to the cafe. The day was hot but not too humid, and I pa.s.sed the shops where I'd purchased outfits for Hollywood with help from Tinkie and Cece. My cell phone rang.

"Sarah Booth," Coleman said. "I've received a copy of the report from the Jackson PD. Erin Carlisle is officially a missing person. The only evidence they could find at the scene was Cece's blood. The Chicago police attempted to contact Sonja Kessler, but she wasn't at home. If she works, they haven't been able to find an employer."

"Is there any sign of Erin in Chicago?"

"No record of a plane ticket in her name. Law officers are checking both airports, but I don't think Erin went to Chicago."

Which meant she'd most likely been abducted.

"The Jackson police are checking Erin's phone records," Coleman continued. "If she spoke with Sonja Kessler, we'll know it. We'll also know who called Erin. Someone had to tell her that she had a half sister, and it's a fifty-fifty chance that information came via the phone."

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"Based on the brutality of the attack on Cece, I'm concerned for Erin. She's the key to unlocking the Carlisle land for development. If she's not around . . ."

"Then Luther can develop it any way he chooses." I'd come to the same conclusion. "Do you think Luther is smart enough to plan all of this by himself?" If Coleman could come to view Beaucoup as a suspect on his own, it would be much better than me pointing the finger at her.

"Information on Lester Ballard has also come through. The blood in Janks's room gave us a DNA match to Ballard. There was a cut on Ballard's right hand, which we believe was sustained during the argument overheard by the man across the hall."

"Do you think Janks killed Ballard?"

"Initial evidence points in that direction, but I don't have absolute proof. Ballard wasn't killed in the B&B. We don't have a crime scene yet. Wherever he was shot, he was taken to Friar's Point landing and dumped in the river."

"Thanks, Coleman. I'll let you know if I find anything."

I'd made it to Millie's, and I opened the door on the smell of home cooking. Millie was wrapping silverware in the back, but she came over with cups and a pot of coffee. Other than two customers deep in conversation at the counter, we had the place to ourselves.

I ordered Millie's world-famous chicken and dumplings for Cece and some dewberry cobbler for Tinkie and waited while Millie pa.s.sed on the order to the cook.

When she was back at the table, she picked up my left hand and examined the ring.

"I'm so happy for you, Sarah Booth." There were tears in her eyes. "Graf won me over, I have to say."

"I'm still adjusting to this." I twisted the ring on my finger. The fit was perfect, but the image of myself was a little disconcerting. Sadie, Sadie, married lady wasn't a role I'd ever aspired to play, despite Jitty's haranguing.

"Allow yourself to be happy, Sarah Booth." Millie refilled my coffee. "Finding a man to share your life, if you're really partners, will be better than anything you ever imagined. Remember how happy your mother and father were?"

Of all the role models she could hold up, none was more potent. "My parents loved each other very much."

"There's great happiness in real love. Strife and conflict, too, but much joy. I'm glad for you."

"Thank you, Millie."

The doorbell jangled and a group of women entered and sat at a large table. The bell on the counter rang--my order was up. Millie stood. "Gotta get busy."

With the piping hot containers of food wafting delicious aromas under my nose, I left the cafe and retrieved my car. As I drove to the hospital, I tried to call Graf, but I'd missed him at home. Because I couldn't stand it, I left a message on his cell.

"The ring is incredible, Graf. It's beautiful. And it's on my finger. For better or worse, I will marry you."

It wasn't a traditional proposal or acceptance, but our life together would never fit into a neat box. We'd figure out how to live it our way. And we'd do it together.

Tinkie still retained the chipper look that a night's rest had given her, and when I scanned over the patients, it was clear to me that the two realtors were improving. Luann sipped juice through a straw, and Regina was able to speak a little. Neither had a clue what had happened to them.

Standing beside Tinkie, I pointed at the women. "This is great news, Tinkie. They're better."

"I'm afraid to hope," she admitted.

"Hope is what you do best, Tink. Don't stop now." I offered the cobbler.

Tinkie had chosen to wear Oscar's favorite red slack set, and the toll of the last week was evident. She'd lost at least ten pounds. But her hair was coiffed and her makeup was flawless. Perhaps the worst was behind us.

She took the container. "Take Cece her food. Knowing her, she's famished. I went down earlier, but she had a consult with a plastic surgeon. Doc says they're going to work on her nose soon. Put it back right."

The longer I spent with Tinkie, the more obvious it was that her perky att.i.tude hid a deep depression. Grabbing her shoulders, I asked, "What's wrong?"

"Cece wouldn't be hurt if she hadn't been trying to help Oscar."

"Cece was on a story--you know that. Wild horses couldn't have kept her away from following a lead."

She looked down at her feet.