Jameson's Salvation

by Riley Edwards

  Then he asked me to bring all of my stock to his store. His customers had been ready to riot when he’d told them he’d no longer stocked my honey. He also asked me to bring all the candles I had made as well. He wanted to make a special display with products. Of course, I immediately accepted his offer and was on cloud nine as I showered and loaded the boxes into the back of my truck.

  I was pulling out of my driveway when I called Jameson.

  “Babe?”

  His deep rumbling voice filled the cab of my truck and I couldn’t help smiling. I loved it when he answered the phone like that. It was a greeting and foreplay and always made me shiver.

  “Guess what?” I asked, but rushed to tell him before he could guess. “Jonas Brown called. He asked me to bring all of my honey and candles to his store.”

  “Good news.”

  “Great news. I’ll be able to start making payments to my angel investor soon.”

  “Kennedy,” he growled, and that made me shiver, too.

  Jameson had opened a joint account and had deposited thirty thousand dollars. Then he’d told me if we needed more, he’d transfer it. I didn’t know how he’d saved up that much money and I didn’t ask. Money complicated things, and I didn’t want to take any risks with our relationship.

  “Kidding. Kidding. Anyway, I wanted to let you know where I was going. After I drop this stuff off to Jonas, I’m heading to Southern States to pick up what I need to start planting tomorrow.”

  “I told you to wait until Saturday and I’d help.”

  “No sense in wastin’ daylight. And besides, I have it down to a science. It will only take me two days.”

  “I still can’t believe you plant each seed by hand.”

  “Gives a whole new meaning to homegrown, doesn’t it?”

  “Gives a whole new meaning to how much vegetables cost,” he grumbled.

  Large farms would not hand plant each row, but my garden was too small to use a tractor and machinery to plant. And besides, I enjoyed working in my yard.

  “I’ll call you when I’m at the grocery store, think about what you want for dinner. And don’t say whatever you want or you’re eating liver and onions tonight.”

  “All right, babe, I’ll think about it.” He chuckled.

  I listened to the sound and wondered when it stopped sounding rusty. Over the last few weeks his smiles were coming easy and his laughter was frequent.

  I let that thought slide down my chest and warm my belly. Jameson was happy.

  “Love you, babe.”

  “Love you, Jameson.”

  Yeah, my man was finally happy. And we’d have our new puppy next week, one more thing Jameson would finally have. A dog and a home. Both I’d get to share with him.

  Jonas and Lavender had been all smiles when we set up the new display they’d placed at an end cap. It was front and center when you walked in the door. When we were done, we chatted for a few minutes, avoiding any talk of Reggie or what had happened. Before I left, I purchased the essential oils I’d been eyeing the last time I was in the store and a box of my favorite tea.

  Jonas waved away my money with sadness clear in his eyes and I didn’t push. If the man needed to give me fifteen dollars’ worth of free products to make himself feel better, for once I would accept the offer and not quibble.

  I was walking through the parking lot behind Nature’s Choice thinking about how my life was looking up. I’d made it to the other side and now I could concentrate on Jameson and the life we were starting. He’d all but moved in—it had just happened, but we hadn’t talked about it. He didn’t even have his own key, even though he was there every night.

  Why didn’t he have one?

  I made it to my truck and added a stop to the hardware store to make him a copy. I opened the door, excited to watch Jameson’s face when I gave him the key to his very first house. He’d love it. I knew he would. His eyes would go soft and he’d grunt my name before he’d kiss me.

  There was a pinch on the side of my neck and I swatted away whatever had bitten me.

  Damn, that stung.

  I braced myself on my open door and tried to stay upright as my vision blurred and I started to sway.

  What the hell was happening?

  I vaguely felt my knees scrape the asphalt as my eyes closed.

  What the hell was going on? Why was I moving? I cracked my eyes open and all I could see was the back of a car seat. My stomach churned and all I could think was that I’d had some sort of an allergic reaction to whatever had stung me. Thank God, someone had seen me pass out and was taking me to the hospital.

  “Thank you,” I murmured to the good Samaritan and closed my eyes. The pain the light caused was unbearable.

  “Oh, it’s my pleasure.”

  I knew that voice. My eyes flew open and I fought to sit up but I couldn’t move my hands. Tied. Why hadn’t I noticed that? Because I was a naïve idiot, always thinking the best of people.

  “Let me out,” I demanded.

  “Not yet.”

  I rolled the best I could, trying to sit up, when my cellphone dug into my hip.

  Yes! Please God let McKenna find me before I lose service or my battery dies. How long before Jameson figures out I’m missing?

  Hours, and I could very easily be dead by then.

  Why was I so damn stupid, always living in a bubble of sunshine? Hadn’t I learned my lesson? People were assholes. Jameson had it right all along. Why couldn’t I have been more like him—always on the lookout for trouble, never putting anything past anyone.

  People fucking sucked! And I was going to learn the hard way what Jameson had tried to warn me about. You can’t trust anyone, not even when you’re walking across a fucking parking lot. I should’ve been paying attention.

  31

  Jameson

  Jameson pushed away the thick file Alec Hall had prepared for the team. Months of Coast Guard surveillance and intel wrapped up in one tidy brief. Their newest contract with the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t officially start until next month, but Alec had asked the team to be prepared at any time—drug smugglers didn’t follow a precise schedule. Though the traffickers had stuck to the same route and Jameson had to admire their ingenuity.

  The waterways—some small, some larger, from New York to Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, then straight to the Atlantic—offered the criminals a clear, mostly unpoliced avenue to move their drugs, with plenty of places to stop and make deliveries, pick up product, and swap vessels.

  The flaw in their plan had been the Delaware River.

  Jameson glanced at the clock on the wall in his office and frowned. It was well past the time Kennedy should’ve called him. He’d lost track of time, maybe so had she.

  He glanced at the file thinking he’d work another couple of minutes while he waited for her, but something felt off. Kennedy always checked in, even though she’d warned him when she was working she had no sense of time, she’d never not called when she said she would.

  Jameson grabbed his cell, and with a sense of urgency, he scrolled to her number and tapped the call icon. Seven rings later, Kennedy’s voice came on the line and asked him to leave a message.

  Voicemail.

  He sat back in his chair and tossed his phone from hand to hand. Jameson weighed his options and didn’t care what it said about him or that he was probably overreacting. He made his way to Nixon and McKenna’s office and knocked on the frame of the open door.

  “Gotta second?”

  Both McKenna and Nix glanced up from their laptops but it was Nix who answered, “What’s up?”

  “Kennedy’s not answering her phone. Can you track it?” Jameson asked McKenna.

  Her brow went up and she smirked. “She’s not answering, so you want me to track her down for you?”

  “Yep.”

  “When was the last time you talked to her?” Nix questioned.

  “A few hours. She was headed to Nature’s Choice. Then she was going
to Southern States and she was supposed to call me when she was done running errands and at the grocery store.”

  Jameson knew he sounded crazy, but he could feel it, Kennedy was in trouble.

  “She probably ran into twenty people she knows at Southern States.” Nix shook his head. “You know how it is around here. Everyone’s nosey as shit and will have a hundred questions for her.”

  Jameson had already thought about that.

  “Know that,” he acknowledged his friend, then went back to McKenna. “Can you track her?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Very.” The longer he stood and argued with the couple, the tighter the knot in his stomach grew. “Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t tell you what it is, but my gut is screaming at me.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you lead with that, instead of coming in here sounding like a jealous stalker boyfriend?” Nix snapped.

  McKenna was already tapping away on her keyboard when her hand stopped mid-stroke.

  “Wait. Remember when she told us she disabled her GPS?” McKenna asked.

  “No.”

  Jameson had no recollection of any such conversation.

  “It was the night we were talkin’ about hacking Reggie’s phone. She said something about not realizing it was so easy, and she thought she’d protected herself because she disabled her GPS.”

  “Okay? So?” Jameson still didn’t remember and wasn’t sure why that mattered.

  “I can’t simply track her, because her GPS is off. I have to fully access her phone.”

  “So? do it.”

  McKenna’s face got tight and the corners of her mouth tipped down. “I’ll do it, Jameson. But it’s a total invasion of her privacy and really intrusive. I’ll have access to everything. Not that I’ll look at anything, but I could, and she’s my friend—”

  “Listen, I get you’re concerned and I hope like fuck I’m mistaken and you all can bust my balls later about being an overprotective idiot, but I’m telling you something’s wrong.”

  McKenna looked to Nix and he nodded.

  Jameson mentally ran down Kennedy’s plans for the day one more time then tried to recall anything that had been out of the ordinary in the last two weeks. Kennedy had gone to work with Jameson every day. They’d gone to the store together. Out to eat. They’d visited her mother. And none of those times had anyone followed them or had behaved strangely. They’d been stopped several times while they’d been out and Kennedy had been asked if she was okay, and they were happy to hear Reggie had been stopped. The questions had been nosey, but as Nix said, it was a small town, that’s what people did. No one had been overly aggressive, and in the last few days, the inquiries had seemed to stop.

  No one had driven up to the Swagger Farm or had been lurking around the office.

  Gossip was only as good as the next story.

  People had moved on.

  Gary was dead. Peyton was dead. Reggie was in jail and no one was coming to his defense because he no longer had anything to hang over people’s heads.

  Or did he?

  “Hey, Jonas? Nixon Swagger. Sorry to bother you but what time did Kennedy Lane leave your store?” Nixon asked into his phone, then paused. “Right. Was anyone in the store today giving her a hard time or taking a special interest in her?” Nix waited again. “Okay, thanks. Hey, one more thing, are there any cameras in your parking lot?” Nixon frowned and nodded. “No problem, and thanks for your help.”

  “Her phone’s off or she doesn’t have service. I’m going to keep trying,” McKenna announced.

  “What’d Jonas say?” Jameson asked, trying to keep his patience in check.

  “She left around two. No one else was in the store, period—lunchtime is the slowest part of the day. No cameras in the parking lot.”

  A little over three hours ago.

  Fuck.

  Jameson pulled up her number to try her again, but stopped when Nix’s phone rang.

  “Swagger.” His eyes shot to Jameson’s and he clipped. “Don’t touch anything. We’ll be right there.”

  Jameson’s body coiled tight and Nixon stood.

  “McKenna, keep trying her phone and call Weston, ask him to meet us at Nature’s Choice.” Nixon hadn’t broken eye contact with Jameson, even though he’d been talking to his woman. “Jonas checked the parking lot. He found Kennedy’s truck still in the lot with the door open.”

  Jameson’s whole body caught fire and anger like an old familiar friend settled in his gut and got comfortable. He didn’t wait for his friend to say more, he took off down the hall, skipped two steps at a time, and was out the door like a shot.

  Nixon made it to Jameson’s truck and jumped in as he was pulling away from the curb.

  “I’ll call Jonny—”

  “No. He’ll slow us down,” Jameson returned.

  “We need information from him.”

  Jameson made a right turn, ignoring the traffic light, and cut off a car driving through the intersection. “If he tells me to stand down, I’m not listening. Missing adult cases are not a priority and you know it.”

  Missing. Fuck.

  Nixon had his phone to his ear and Jameson could hear the bite of Nix’s tone, but the words evaded him over the roaring in his ears.

  Jameson pulled into the lot and skidded to a halt behind Kennedy’s truck. He sucked in a breath seeing the door open. Three hours. Three fucking hours her truck was less than five miles from him with the door left wide open.

  Nixon and Jameson jumped out and Nix shoved a pair of latex gloves at Jameson.

  “Don’t contaminate the crime scene.”

  Crime scene. What the fuck.

  Jameson stood frozen, unable to calculate his next move. As a matter of fact, Jameson was at a total loss. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “Doesn’t she carry a purse?” Nixon’s question snapped him to attention.

  “No. Not normally. She has one of the phone cases that holds her cards.”

  Nixon nodded and opened the back door to her truck and poked his head in.

  Jameson went to the other side to help him search, and two minutes later after they’d checked under her seats, center console, and glove box, he announced, “No phone. She must’ve had it on her.”

  They circled the truck looking for something—anything. Nixon got to his stomach and crawled partially under her truck. He backed out holding a piece of orange plastic.

  “Looks like an old-school hypodermic needle cap.”

  Jameson’s body swayed and he had to force himself to stay upright.

  “Nixon!” a man yelled, and jogged across the parking lot.

  On instinct, Jameson’s hand started to move toward his hip but Nix grabbed his bicep, halting the process.

  “Jonas,” Nix greeted. “This is Jameson, Kennedy’s man.”

  Jonas looked to Jameson and locked eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out sooner. We got busy and Lavender was in the back doing payroll. Things like this don’t happen here, I didn’t think to walk her out.”

  As much as Jameson appreciated the man’s concern, he didn’t have the time nor the inclination to assuage the other man’s guilt.

  “I talked to Ray,” Jonas continued. “Come on, you’re gonna want to talk to his son. The boy was taking out the trash and saw two women getting into a car.”

  Two women?

  Jameson didn’t have time to question Jonas further, he was halfway across the parking lot. A door opened and a big, heavyset man stepped out with a scrawny teenager.

  Jonas made a quick introduction and explained that Ray owned a roofing company whose office was in the space next to Nature’s Choice. Jameson’s gaze never left the boy’s as he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  “Go on, RJ, tell ‘em what you saw,” Ray prompted his son.

  “I was taking out the trash. Right there.” The boy pointed to a dumpster ten feet away and Jameson looked from the metal container back to Kennedy’s
truck. Roughly fifty yards away, the boy would’ve had a clear line of sight. “I didn’t…I didn’t think anything about it. A woman was helping another woman into the back seat.”

  “What do you mean, helping?” Nix cut in.

  “I don’t know, like, the woman had her arms around the other woman from behind. Under her armpits, you know, and sat her in the back seat, then picked her legs up and put them in.”

  Jameson’s jaw clenched until his molars hurt.

  “Did you see her face?” Nix continued.

  “No. Both of their backs were to me and I went back in. The woman being put into the car had blonde hair, or really light brown. And the other one had old woman hair.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know, it was like gray and cut short. Above her shoulders.”

  “Like gray? Or gray?” Jameson asked.

  “It was…I think it’s called salt and pepper.” RJ turned to his father. “Like Grandma’s.”

  “He means dark with gray streaks,” Ray clarified.

  “What about the car?” Jameson persisted.

  “It was a black Buick.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. My buddy Todd’s mom has one. It was a Buick for sure.”

  “Was there anyone else? Maybe in the car or standing close?”

  “No. Just the two women. That’s why I didn’t think anything about it. I just thought the woman was helping her into the car.”

  As much as Jameson wanted to shake the kid for not intervening, he couldn’t blame him. Cliff City was a small town, kidnapping was not the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind. Especially if the woman doing the taking looked like a grandmother.

  “Thanks, RJ. You’ve been very helpful,” Nixon offered.

  “I’m really sorry. I would’ve helped. I just didn’t think…”

  “Put that out of your mind. You had no way of knowing. Please call us if you think of anything else.” Nix pulled a business card out of his pocket and gave it to Ray.