While a drugged Cindy Todd lay on the cot in the bas.e.m.e.nt, he unzipped his slacks, eased his p.e.n.i.s free and jerked off. Within moments his c.u.m spewed out over her naked belly.

Chapter 4.

Big Jim Upton poured himself a brandy and tried his best to shut out the sound of his wife's droning voice. It wasn't that he didn't love Reba. He did. She was a good woman, but not an endearing one. He'd married her on the rebound over fifty-five years ago, when the love of his life married another man. He didn't regret marrying her-at least not until recently. Reba had given him a son and a daughter; and together they had survived the loss of both children. For years they had clung to the hope that their only grandchild would eventually mature into a decent, responsible human being. Jamie was thirty now and it was past time for him to settle down, but Jim didn't see any evidence of that happening anytime soon.

"Where on earth could he be?" Reba whined as she paced the floor in the living room. "How could he leave his own welcome-home party without so much as a by-your-leave?"

Jim glanced across the room at Jamie's most recent fiancee. Laura Willis sat on the sofa, her eyes downcast and her hands folded in her lap. The girl was a great improvement over some of the other women the boy had brought home-two other fiancees during the past eight years. Jamie wouldn't marry this girl, just as he hadn't married the ones that had come before her, but she probably didn't realize it-not yet. But she would. Possibly tonight. Jim had a pretty good idea where Jamie had gone. Once he was back in Cherokee County, not even a winter storm could keep him away from Jazzy Talbot.

"Do you suppose he had car trouble and that's why he hasn't returned?" Laura lifted her head but didn't make eye contact with either Jim or Reba.

"He could have called," Reba said. "The phone is not out of order. I checked myself only a few minutes ago."

"What's the point of our staying up any longer?" Jim asked. "Jamie will come home when he comes home. That boy doesn't have a responsible, reliable bone in his body."

"Jim, really!" Reba's voice screeched. "What will dear Laura think, hearing you speak about your own grandson in such a manner?"

Dear Laura? Jim chuckled inwardly as his lips twitched in an effort to refrain from smiling. The minute Reba had found out that Laura's parents were part of the horse-breeding set, the Willis family from Lexington, Kentucky, she'd taken the girl to her bosom. More than anything, Reba wanted Jamie to make a good marriage; and to Reba that meant marrying the right sort of girl from a proper family. She'd certainly seen to it that their son, Jim Jr., and their daughter, Melanie, had married the right sort.

He supposed Jim Jr. and his wife had been moderately happy, especially after Jamie's birth, but Melanie had been miserable with her state senator husband, the son of one of Reba's college sorority sisters. Poor little Melanie. The sweetest child. The most devoted of daughters. On her fourth wedding anniversary she'd left her husband; and it had been a dozen years later before anyone had heard from her. Actually, they hadn't heard from her, only about her. The police in Memphis had phoned to inform them that their daughter was dead. A drug overdose.

"I'm going to call Sheriff Butler." Reba headed out of the living room.

"Wait up," Jim called. "You and I both know where that boy is. There's no use bothering Jacob Butler at this time of night. It's nearly one o'clock. Besides, by now the roads are probably a holy mess, so Jamie wouldn't even try to come home tonight."

"You know where he is?" Laura's sparkling blue eyes dared a head-on meeting with Jim's dark gaze.

"No, no, he doesn't know. He's just guessing." Reba turned back into the living room and scurried over to the sofa. She sat beside Laura, then gave Jim a condemning look.

"h.e.l.l, Reba, the girl might as well know the truth. She'll find out soon enough."

"Shut up, Jim," Reba snapped shrilly.

"What-what is it that you don't want me to know? Is there another woman?"

"Yes!" Jim said.

"No!" Reba said simultaneously.

Jim felt sorry for Laura. The girl was so young, probably not a day over twenty-two, and seemed to be madly in love with Jamie. Of course, they all were, every poor fool he'd ever asked to marry him. Most women easily fell under Jamie's spell, even Jazzy Talbot. Now there was a woman for you! Too bad she didn't possess a suitable pedigree. If she did, Reba might approve of her. If any woman could ever get Jamie to the altar, it would be Jazzy.

"Jamie has some good friends here in Cherokee County," Jim said. "One friend in particular. And he usually pays this friend a visit the minute he gets home. That's probably where he is right now."

"Is this friend a woman?" Laura asked, her voice a mere whisper.

"Of course not," Reba said. "It's just an old high school buddy. The boys played football together."

Grunting with disgust, Jim rolled his eyes heavenward. Let Reba lie for the boy; he wouldn't. "You ladies stay up as long as you'd like. I'm going to bed."

"Jim, please, phone Jamie's friend and make sure he's there and safe." Reba looked at him pleadingly. "He could have had a wreck or-"

"You two go on up and get ready for bed," Jim said. "I'll call Jaz-Jay and see if Jamie's there."

"Come along, dear." Reba stood and waited for Laura to rise to her feet, then she laced her arm through the younger woman's and led her out of the living room, into the foyer, and toward the grand staircase.

After the ladies made it to the landing, Jim meandered into his study. Switching on the banker's lamp atop his ma.s.sive oak desk, he sat down in the leather swivel chair and flipped through his Rolodex. He had promised himself the last time Jamie came home after one of his long absences that he wouldn't keep tabs on the boy. He'd done everything he could to rein the boy in, to make a man of him, and all to no avail. As much as Jim hated to admit it, Jamie was a total failure as a human being. He blamed himself and Reba. They had spoiled him rotten. Given him anything and everything he'd ever wanted. But nothing had been enough; nothing made him happy for very long.

The only thing he'd ever wanted that they hadn't allowed him to have was a life with Jazzy Talbot. At twenty he'd wanted to marry the girl, but Reba'd had one conniption after another just at the thought.

"She's nothing but a little white-trash wh.o.r.e," Reba had said. "And that aunt of hers is as crazy as a Betsy-bug."

Jim didn't kid himself into thinking that if they'd let Jamie marry Jazzy, things might have turned out differently. The marriage wouldn't have lasted. Nothing was permanent in Jamie's life. He wanted variety, excitement, and challenges. But most of all he wanted what he couldn't have. That's why he still wanted Jazzy so d.a.m.n much. He'd put that poor gal through h.e.l.l more than once.

Jim lifted the receiver from the phone on his desk, dialed the number, and waited.

She answered on the fifth ring, her voice groggy with sleep. "Yeah?"

"Jazzy, this is Jim Upton."

"What do you want?"

"Reba's concerned because Jamie left his welcome-home party and hasn't returned. By any chance is he there with you?"

Jazzy laughed. "I a.s.sume the new fiancee is not in the room with you."

"No, she and Reba have retired for the night."

"Jamie's not here."

"Do you have any idea where he is?"

"I might."

"Would you mind telling me?"

Jazzy sighed. "He came by to see me at Jazzy's Joint. We talked. I told him to get lost. And Jamie being Jamie, he didn't take it well, so he latched on to the nearest woman he could find to make me jealous."

"He picked up someone in the bar?"

"That's right."

"Do you know-"

"I think her name was April or Amber. She's been in a few times, but I don't know her personally. I'd say he's probably with her."

"Thank you, Jazzy. And...I'm sorry."

"Sorry for waking me?"

"Yes, that, too, but mostly sorry that Jamie never had the backbone to stand up to his grandmother and marry you despite her protests."

Jazzy was silent for several minutes. "Tell that new fiancee of his to run as far and as fast as she can."

The dial tone buzzed in Big Jim Upton's ear.

Jacob had sacked out on the cot in his office at the courthouse instead of going home. After tossing and turning for nearly an hour, he'd finally fallen asleep sometime after midnight. When the ruckus outside his office door woke him, he punched the b.u.t.ton on his digital watch to light the face. Four-twelve.

"I want to see Jacob right now!" a man's voice shouted.

"But he's sleeping," Deputy Tewanda Hardy informed the irate man. "He's worn to a frazzle."

"Dammit, woman, get out of my way. I need to talk to Jacob."

Jacob lifted himself into a sitting position on the edge of the cot, ran his hand over his face, yawned heavily, and rose to his feet. He'd recognized the man's voice. Mayor Jerry Lee Todd. What the h.e.l.l had put Jerry Lee into such a panic?

By the time Jacob took a couple of steps, the office door swung open and Jerry Lee stormed into the room, Tewanda hot on his heels.

"Sorry, Jacob," Tewanda said, "but the mayor insisted on seeing you immediately."

"It's all right," he told his deputy. Tewanda was his only female deputy and one of the best, if not the best, he had. She was taking courses at UTC in Knoxville to get her degree, so he arranged her schedule so she could work nights. Her dream was to become a lawyer, and Jacob had no doubt she'd make a good one. Already she knew as much about the law as he did. Maybe more.

"You've got to help me," Jerry Lee said.

"What's wrong?" When Tewanda flipped on the overhead light in Jacob's office, he took a good look at the mayor. The guy looked like death warmed over. Drenched to the skin, his face red from exposure to the frigid temperatures and his hair plastered to his balding head, he was a sorry sight, downright pathetic. Jacob glanced past Jerry Lee to Tewanda, who lifted her hand to her lips repeatedly in a gesture that told him she believed the mayor was drunk.

"Have you been drinking?" Jacob asked.

"Yes, I've been drinking," he replied. "I was out at Big Jim's for a welcome-home party for Jamie tonight and I had a couple of gla.s.ses of champagne. And then I had a few sips of Scotch at the house, to warm myself up. But I'm not drunk." He whirled around and glared at Tewanda. "I'm upset, dammit, not drunk."

"Whatever you say, Mayor Todd." Tewanda rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

"Would you mind leaving us? I need to speak to Jacob alone," Jerry Lee said.

Without another word, Tewanda turned and exited the office, but she left the door open. Jerry Lee kicked the door closed behind her.

"Women shouldn't be deputies," Jerry Lee said.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" Jacob crossed his arms over his chest. "It's four o'clock in the morning. What couldn't wait until a decent hour?"

"Cindy's missing."

"What?"

Jerry Lee rubbed his closed eyelids with his fingertips. "She left the party early. Caught a ride with the new doctor and his wife." He opened his eyes and stared toward Jacob, but his gaze was unfocused as he continued explaining. "I've talked to them. They said they dropped her off on their way home, around nine forty-five. I got home a little after eleven and she wasn't there."

"Any reason why she would have left you?" Jacob asked, knowing full well that half the town had heard about Cindy and Jerry Lee's marital brawls.

"She didn't leave me. All her stuff is still at the house. Whenever she takes off for a few days, she always packs a couple of bags. Nothing's missing."

"Maybe she spent the night with a friend." Jacob purposely didn't mention the friend's gender. Cindy had a reputation for sleeping around and had cheated on Jerry Lee with at least half a dozen men-maybe more-during their six-year marriage.

"She never stays out all night with any of her friends. She's always home by this time of the morning." Jerry Lee slumped down in one of the two chairs facing Jacob's desk. The man aged ten years right before Jacob's eyes. "I know what you're thinking. You believe she's gone off with some man, but I tell you she hasn't."

Jacob walked over and placed his hand on Jerry Lee's shoulder. "How can you be so sure?"

"Her latest is that Carson guy. You know, the wannabe actor/director who's in charge of the town's little theater." Jerry Lee entwined his fingers and popped his knuckles. "I called him and he wouldn't talk to me, so I went over to his apartment. He finally admitted that she'd been there last night, but swore she'd left before eleven."

Jacob wanted to feel sorry for Jerry Lee, but he couldn't. He'd brought a lot of this misery on himself. He'd married the wrong woman, refused to let her go, then had taken out his misery on her and everyone else around him.

"Give me a list of her friends," Jacob said. "Around six I'll make a few phone calls."

"She's not with any of her friends. I'm telling you, she's in trouble. I feel it"-he punched his stomach with his closed fist-"in here. We've got ourselves a killer running loose in Cherokee County-"

"Don't go jumping to conclusions. Cindy's probably just fine and she'll show up at home in a few hours."

"Do you really think so?"

Jacob nodded.

"I want to fill out a missing person's report," Jerry Lee said. "And if she doesn't come home, I want you to-"

"If she isn't home by noon today, call Roddy Watson. You live in town, remember? You'll need to file a report with the Cherokee Pointe police."

"Yes, yes. I know. It's just I trust you to find Cindy for me. You know about our past history and all. Roddy and I play golf together, we belong to the country club, our mothers are bridge partners. You understand."

Yeah, Jacob understood all too well. Jerry Lee didn't want to involve his friend, the chief of police, a man the mayor considered his social equal. He could admit to Jacob that he'd confronted Cindy's most recent lover, but he could never be that honest with a friend.

"Why don't you go home, try to get some rest, and if Cindy doesn't show up by noon, give me a call and we'll go from there."

With his shoulders slumped and weariness etched on his features, Jerry Lee rose from the chair, held out his hand, and said, "Thanks," as he shook Jacob's hand.

The minute the mayor left, Tewanda brought two cups of coffee into Jacob's office and handed one to him. He looked up from where he sat behind his desk and smiled at her as he accepted the coffee.

"He's a real piece of work, isn't he?" Tewanda said.

"Why, Ms. Hardy, saying something like that makes me think you don't like our mayor."

"Like him?" Tewanda harrumphed. "The man's a bigot, a wife beater and a-"

"Don't hold back, tell me what you really think of him."

"I hope Cindy Todd has run off with somebody and stays gone for good."