The Fifth Victim. BEVERLY BARTON

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.”

      “If she has run off with some guy, I wish she’d left Jerry Lee a note or something. As it is, he’s going to run us crazy if she doesn’t come home.” Jacob sipped on the hot coffee and sighed with pleasure when he realized it was fresh. “You made a fresh pot. Thanks.”

      “As soon as Jasmine’s opens for breakfast at six, I’ll run out and get us some sausage biscuits,” Tewanda said. “Until then, I’ve got peanut butter and crackers if you want some.”

      “Nah, thanks.” He held up the orange UTC mug. “This will tide me over for the time being.”

      Tewanda glanced down at the photographs spread out on Jacob’s desk. Crime-scene photos of Susie Richards’s mutilated body.

      “Makes me sick at my stomach just to look at those,” she said.

      Jacob gathered up the photographs, slid them into a folder, and laid them aside. “We did everything we were supposed to do, but I doubt it will be enough to catch this guy. He didn’t leave us much to go on. He covered his tracks like a pro, which tells me he’s done this sort of thing before.”

      Tewanda shivered. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

      “Yeah. If he’s done it before, he’ll do it again. I just hope we find him before another innocent person is killed.”

      After a restless night, Jazzy woke at dawn. She had slept an hour, woke, and thought about Jamie. Then she’d slept another couple of hours, woke, and thought about Jamie. The pattern had repeated itself all night—except for when Big Jim’s telephone call woke her around one-thirty.

      Had she seen Jamie? Hell, yes! He’d come by Jazzy’s Joint around ten-thirty. One look at him and her stomach had tied in knots. Even now she wasn’t sure whether the reaction had been lust or fear. Perhaps both.

      He’d been so damn sure of her that she’d derived a great deal of pleasure from telling him to leave her the hell alone. He had pressed her; she’d retreated.

      “I’m over you,” she’d told him. “I’ve moved on. So don’t think you can walk back into my life and crawl back into my bed. Never again!”

      Half the patrons in Jazzy’s Joint had heard her screaming at him. She didn’t care. The whole damn town knew their sordid history, knew she’d gotten pregnant with Jamie’s baby when she was seventeen, knew his grandmother had forbidden him to marry her. Most folks thought she’d had an abortion and she’d never told them any different. Only a handful of people knew the truth—Aunt Sally, Ludie, Genny, and Jacob. She’d miscarried at three and a half months. A part of her heart had died with that sweet little baby.

      As she climbed out of bed, the chill in her bedroom encompassed her. She reached out and lifted her robe off the foot of the bed, then slipped into it as she headed for the bathroom. After relieving herself, she went to the tiny kitchen in her second-story apartment over Jasmine’s and hurriedly prepared the coffeemaker.

      She glanced out the window facing the east and saw the first faint glimmer of dawn. Was Jamie asleep at home with his latest fiancée, or was he in bed with the woman named April or Amber or something that started with an A and had a cutesy sound to it? He was with one or the other, Jazzy thought. He’d made love to one of those women, held her, kissed her, and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. That woman could have been her. All she’d had to do was welcome him back into her life. He’d be with her now and every night for as long as he was in town, if only she’d said yes.

      Her body ached for his.

      Jazzy opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of orange juice, and drank straight out of the carton.

      Was it Jamie her body ached for or was it just a man? Any man? She hadn’t been with anyone in a long time. Despite what people thought—that she was a slut—Jazzy took sex seriously. Over the years, there had been a few men other than Jamie, but not many. And she’d cared about each of them, had hoped for a future with each of them, and had been disappointed by each of them.

      A part of her might always love Jamie, but she wasn’t in love with him anymore. He was poison to her. Every time he breezed into town, he came to her and renewed her hope for something real and lasting between them. But not this time. Not ever again. She’d cried her last tear over Jamie Upton!

      Dallas woke instantly when he heard the woman’s screams. He shot straight up in bed. For a moment he didn’t remember where he was. You’re in Genny Madoc’s home in Tennessee, in the mountains, he reminded himself. Good God, had that been Genny screaming? He jumped out of bed, slid into the slacks he’d tossed across the cedar chest at the foot of the bed last night, and then eased his Smith & Wesson semiautomatic from his hip holster and raced out into the dark hallway.

      “Genny?”

      Silence.

      “Genny?” he called again as he rushed toward her bedroom.

      He knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again. Drudwyn growled. And then he heard a soft, weak voice.

      “Help me,” she said.

      He flung open the door, not knowing what to expect. A kerosene lamp’s dim glow shimmered over the room, illuminating the mantel on which it rested and casting shadows across the wooden floor and over the flowery wallpaper. Genny lay in the middle of the bed, unmoving, rigid, her gaze focused on him as he made his way to her.

      Drudwyn growled when he approached the bed.

      Genny closed her eyes and instantly the dog quieted. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the animal had read Genny’s mind.

      As he leaned over her, his gaze fixed to hers, he asked, “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Are you in pain?”

      She СКАЧАТЬ