Whispers Under a Southern Sky

by Joanne Rock

“Right.” In the background of Clayton’s call, Sam heard the sounds of a diner or coffee shop—the clink of plates and glasses, a waitress calling out an order number. “Gabriella’s brother called me about a job protecting his wife. I’m coming into town today to start.” There was a pause, and Clayton seemed to move to someplace quieter. “The mayor thinks there is someone on the outside helping the guy in jail?”

  “Definitely. Someone is sending threatening texts around town, and there’s no way Covington could have sent those from jail. He must have an accomplice who is still on the loose. And whoever it is threatened my kid.” The need to find out who was helping Jeremy Covington had become every bit as high priority as ensuring Covington got as much jail time as possible.

  Clayton blew out a low whistle. “That’s some kind of desperation to threaten an infant. And a cop’s kid to boot.”

  Sam hadn’t thought about it quite that way before, but it was true. Their perp had to be stupid or desperate to do something that would attract so much attention from the sheriff’s office.

  “You can see why Zach called you. Heartache is a small town, and we don’t have a lot of resources.” He had about five irons in the fire with this case and not enough time to follow up on everything he wanted to. Especially not with Aiden to care for and the major—welcome—distraction of Amy Finley in his life again.

  “I’ll do whatever I can,” Clayton offered right away. “I’m taking this job because the mayor said it would only be for a few weeks, and I wanted to be there for the reunion anyhow. But it sounds like you’ve got a lot more at stake than just a party.”

  “I’d appreciate anything you can contribute.” Sam would put a PI to work in a hurry. Especially one he could trust. “I know it’s been a long time but—”

  “Family first.” Clayton obviously remembered the former mayor’s motto. It had been on all the reelection signs around Heartache for years back when Amy’s father had run the town.

  Hearing the words—applied to him, of all people—meant a whole hell of a lot.

  “Thanks, man.” He hadn’t expected the strong statement of support. And it resonated all the more for him now that he was a father.

  Now that he had a boy of his own to protect.

  “I’ll call you when I get into town, and you can tell me what you need.” In the background, an engine fired to life before Clayton disconnected the call.

  Sam was just pulling into the motel when he spotted Tiffany McCord almost immediately, walking from the main building toward one of the small cottages that surrounded it. Still dressed in striped pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, she had her hair piled on her head and a foam cup of coffee in one hand. She held a phone in her other, and that was where her attention was focused as she hurried between the buildings, slippers scuffing the pavement.

  A stroke of luck to spot her so soon. And he needed the break after the way Amy had walked out of his house this morning. Did she even have plans to see him again? Or had last night been a one-off for her? Memories of the night before flashed through his head like a steamy movie trailer, replaying on a loop he could repeat endlessly.

  Right up until the part where she walked out with no other explanation than “I’m not ready yet.” Had that only been about giving her testimony? Or had it applied to their relationship, too?

  Cursing himself for getting distracted all over again, he shoved open the driver’s-side door of the pickup. He slammed the thing shut and headed in Tiffany’s direction.

  She stopped outside one of the cabins. But she made no move to enter. She stared down at her phone, her mouth open in surprise or maybe dismay.

  Her eyes went wide. She backed up a step. Dropped her coffee on the pavement.

  “Oh my God.” She didn’t seem to notice that the liquid had splashed down her pant legs and was pooling at her feet.

  “Tiffany?” He forgot to be formal. He’d known the woman from her town council job well enough.

  She turned toward him, her narrow face ash white.

  “Sheriff.” She shook her head, her brows knitted. If she was surprised to see him, the shock was small compared with whatever news she’d just received. “I got a message on my cell. A threat to Bailey.”

  Her grip on the phone’s protective case turned her knuckles white. Wavering on her feet, she backed up another step.

  Gently, he took her elbow, knowing it felt like a gut punch to have your child threatened. Would she make the connection that this was how Dan Bryer had felt a few weeks ago when Tiffany herself sent those ugly texts to his daughter, Megan? Tamping down the thought, he reached for her phone.

  “May I see?” He also didn’t want the thing to fall and crack on the pavement, a real risk now as her hands were shaking.

  “The message disappeared.” She jabbed at the screen. “I was reading it, and it vanished.”

  Sounded familiar.

  “All the more reason not to tamper with evidence.” He was tempted to wrestle the damn thing out of her hand so he could get it to Zach, but Sam couldn’t afford a confrontation with her. Let alone overstep his rights as a law-enforcement officer.

  But damn. Any hope he had of finding out who’d sent the threat diminished with each urgent press of her shaking finger.

  “The message said I’d better not talk to the cops or Bailey would be sorry I did.” Her voice hit a high, frantic pitch. Her head swiveled as she glanced around the parking lot. “What the hell does that even mean? Is someone watching me?”

  Turning desperate eyes toward Sam, she finally thrust the cell into his hand.

  “Probably not.” He pocketed the evidence and steered her toward the bench outside her cottage. Or what he assumed was hers. “But it’s easier to trace the message if you can get your phone straight into the hands of an IT expert. The mayor’s company specializes in that kind of thing.”

  “Right.” She dropped onto the bench awkwardly, banging her hip on the way down but not even seeming to notice. “I just saw Bailey last night. I should tell her father—”

  “Let me call this in, and I’ll make sure an officer notifies Cole, the school and Bailey, too.” Jogging back to his truck, he used the police radio to contact the station and make arrangements, texting Zach about another disappearing threat at the same time.

  It was a damn good thing Clayton had offered to help. Even so, he would have to call the county for more uniformed reinforcements.

  When he returned to Tiffany’s side, her color had improved a little. Her movements remained stiff and uneasy, however, as he neared.

  “Sheriff, I haven’t mentioned how grateful I am to you for hiring my daughter to watch your son. It means a lot to me that Bailey hasn’t been alienated...because of me.” She folded her arms around herself tightly, bearing little resemblance to the aggressive businesswoman he remembered from town council meetings.

  Sam couldn’t remember her ever thanking anyone in town for a damn thing, unless it was at an event documented by the media. She’d been a press hound for her small business—a sporting-goods store she’d opened with her husband the year before.

  She reminded him of alcoholics he’d seen who’d turned their lives around—people who operated at a whole different pitch once they rid themselves of a bad influence. For Bailey McCord’s sake, he hoped that her mother had learned a lesson in the hell of the last few weeks.

  “I believe each of us are only accountable for our own actions and no one else’s.” He leaned against a post that was mostly decorative in front of her cottage. Judging by the vacant parking lot, Tiffany McCord was probably the only guest at the Country Cabins Motor Lodge this week. “And since my son has been threatened, too, I have a uniformed officer keeping watch over my mother’s house whenever Bailey is there.”

  “You think that makes the kids safer or puts them more at risk if they are together?�
�� She crossed her legs, one foot twitching nervously.

  “With a cop car out front?” There was no question in his mind. “Safer for sure.”

  She nodded, seeming to accept this, but her foot kept right on twitching.

  “Mrs. McCord, do you have any idea who might have sent you that threat?” He’d come here to question her about her argument with Kate Covington yesterday, not add to his already long list of items that needed investigation. But if this incident helped lead him to whoever had threatened Aiden, he was just as glad to put the rest of his questions on hold.

  “Patience Wilkerson.” She tipped her head forward, squeezing her temples between her hands. “The bitch.”

  “Faith Wilkerson’s sister?” Faith was coming in later today to give her statement. She’d been groped by a faceless man in the woods near the quarry in an episode similar to what Amy had experienced.

  He was so close to proving a pattern of behavior. But he’d need more people to come forward before the trial. At first, Sam had hoped for the usual legal motions and delays to slow things down in the justice system. But Covington’s lawyer was pushing things through at full speed, undoubtedly aware the evidence against his client remained thin considering the years Covington had been quietly molesting and stalking girls and young women in the area.

  “I guess they are sisters.” Tiffany shrugged as a big rig roared by on the highway. A few moments later, the motion blew through the bushes at their feet. “All I know is that Patience thinks she’s the true love of Jeremy’s life, and she’s crazy enough to hate anyone else who has ever held that position before.”

  Sam was doing the math to figure out the age difference between Faith and Patience—three years, maybe. One sister was giving testimony that could keep the guy in jail, and the other wanted to protect him? Sounded like some serious sibling rivalry he could use for leverage.

  “This is what you brought up to Kate in the teacher’s parking lot yesterday?”

  “I did. Kate is in major denial about her husband.” She picked at some green peeling paint on the arm of the bench. Flicked off a dry piece.

  “So now you think he’s guilty?” She’d defended him in previous interviews, insisting the police had arrested the wrong man.

  “I think he’s a lying, cheating bastard. And if he could fool me so thoroughly—” She pursed dry lips. Pressed a hand to her forehead. “I have no evidence of anything, okay? But I’d bet Kate could find enough in his files to fry his ass if I can convince her how big of a cheater he is.”

  “Kate seemed very angry with you yesterday. Could she be the one who threatened Bailey?”

  “Kate? She’s won teacher of the year in this state five times in a row or something.” She rolled her eyes and shot to her feet, restless all of a sudden. “She likes kids too much to pull that crap. Don’t ask me how she wound up with such a loser for a husband. She must have a savior complex or something. But to answer your question—no way.”

  Interesting. He made some notes on his phone to check out the Wilkerson family, as well as Kate and Tiffany. Tiffany paced in front of the cottage, biting her lip.

  “I’m going to talk to Kate again. And don’t worry—I’ll do a better job not pushing her buttons. I took the wrong approach with her yesterday.” She jammed her hands in the pockets of her blue-striped pajama bottoms. “We need to work as a team.”

  “You slept with her husband.” Sam didn’t mean it as a jab or even as a judgment. Hell, who was he to look down on her when he’d had a one-night stand with a married woman himself? “What makes you think she’s going to talk to you?”

  “I realize, Sheriff, that I allowed myself to become the town joke between sleeping with Jeremy and pushing so hard into town politics. But I didn’t head up multiple companies over the course of my career without some sense of interpersonal dynamics. I can do this.” She dug her room key card out of her pocket and used it to open the door of her cottage. “Besides, I told my daughter I’d make this right, and I’ve failed Bailey too many times to screw this up too.”

  He believed her. Understood the fierceness of her commitment to her kid, if nothing else.

  “One last thing.” He hadn’t asked all the questions he’d wanted, but the case had taken a new direction, and he was eager to follow it after all the dead ends of the last week. He didn’t want to wait to speak to Faith Wilkerson and—he hoped—her sister, too.

  “Shoot. I’m listening.” Tiffany leaned her hip into the doorjamb, her tiny cottage dark and lonely behind her with the TV set tuned to an infomercial.

  What a sorry state for a woman who once seemed to have the perfect life and family.

  “How did you find out about Patience and Jeremy?” Tiffany had been in lockup until two days ago. Had she heard the news while she was still in jail? Or had someone told her as soon as she was freed?

  “She sent me photos of them together in the corn maze at Harvest Fest. There was no mistaking the time and date since I recognized the spot.” Her mouth twisted in distaste and maybe a hint of pain. “It was the same damn place he’d taken me, right near the banner for the sporting-goods store, in the back west corner.”

  “And you’re sure it couldn’t have been more innocent than she made it seem?” He hadn’t met Patience, but he didn’t think she could be more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old. “There’s an odd breed of woman who fixates on a man behind bars.”

  “The pics were stills pulled off a video she’d made. They had their hands down one another’s pants. So...” She shrugged, her lips still pursed. “Definitely not innocent.”

  “Did you save the photos?” Linking Covington to new women could only help his case.

  Even better? If he could shift the focus to what Covington had been doing recently instead of ten years ago, he could ease up on Amy.

  “Hell yes, I saved them. Just in case that cheating bastard ever tried to deny it.” She gave a smile that was mostly a baring of her teeth. “They’re password protected in about ten different locations in my files.”

  And just like that, he recognized shades of the Tiffany McCord he remembered. Ruthless, tenacious and arrogant.

  Right now he was grateful for those qualities. Not just because they were going to help him nail Covington’s ass to the wall. More important, they could help him and Amy put the unhappiest parts of their past behind them by bringing a predator to justice.

  That was a good thing. Assuming, of course, that Amy hadn’t already found other reasons to close the door on their relationship. They hadn’t had an opportunity to say much on the subject of Cynthia and what she meant in his life and Aiden’s, but the woman’s arrival had definitely complicated things.

  He’d told Amy he wasn’t in a position to have a simple affair, and he meant it. He cared about her, and he wanted more than just one night. But something told him that pushing her on the issue right now would only send her running back to Atlanta, and he didn’t think he could handle that, either.

  After ten years, he finally had her in his life again. And he would do whatever it took to keep her there long enough to find out if the connection he felt with her was as real as he’d always thought it might be.

  * * *

  “ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to go with you?” Heather asked Amy as they stood on her small porch overlooking a neat lawn dotted with colorful chrysanthemums in garden beds.

  Most of the Finleys lived within a mile of one another, their homes visible to each other across the converted land their dad had once farmed. Heather owned a converted bungalow closest to the original house, while Erin and Scott had built custom houses on their plots. Mack and Nina had converted an old barn on the property but also kept a residence in Nashville. Only Amy had ignored the land her father had given her, never building on the corner she’d been deeded as a teenager.

  Now,
standing with Heather in front of the bungalow that used to be their father’s office, Amy stared up at the home where she’d grown up. A home she hadn’t seen since the night she’d packed her bags and left following the argument with her mother.

  Finally—thank heaven—finally, she was done hiding from her past. After revealing the truth of The Incident to Sam, Amy was ready to see her mother again and try to put their harsh words behind them.

  Or so she hoped. She couldn’t deny she was a little bit tempted by Heather’s offer.

  “I have to do this on my own.” Amy had come back to Heartache to make peace with the past, but her rift had never really been with her siblings. Not if she was totally honest with herself. True, she’d felt abandoned by them. But they’d never hurt her the way her mother had. “She’s the reason I stayed away. And she’s the main reason I needed to come back.”

  Funny how revealing the details of The Incident had made that so clear to her. Being molested in the dark by a stranger had traumatized her—yes. But she’d dealt with it in therapy. And now she’d shared it with Sam, who’d played a role in that night without ever knowing.

  She’d found closure there, but she’d still felt unsettled because she hadn’t confronted what had hurt her most of all. Her mother’s emotional abandonment when she’d needed her the most.

  “She’s much more level than she used to be, more regimented in staying on her meds and working with her doctor.” Heather had a giant mug of tea on the table beside her small wooden porch swing. Everything about the bungalow remodel was as sweet and charming as Heather herself, and Amy found herself curious to see the inside. The fact that it was such a quaint home now was a testament to her sister’s creativity.

  “It’s been a long time.” Amy knew how much she’d grown and changed in ten years. She could only hope her mother had, too. “I just wanted to tell you I was over there in case—” she wasn’t entirely sure what she thought might happen “—you hear arguing.”

  That was one reason she hadn’t wanted Heather with her. No one except Amy and her mother knew what they’d fought about that day, and Amy would prefer to keep it that way.