Beg to Die

by Beverly Barton

  He shook his head. “Nope. Stay. Go. I don’t care.”

  “Then why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I want you to hire Quinn Cortez to defend Jazzy if the grand jury hands down an indictment.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “The Quinn Cortez?”

  “Yeah, the Quinn Cortez.”

  “And why would you think I’d pay Mr. Cortez’s enormous retainer for a woman I don’t even know?”

  “Because she’s your sister.”

  “She is not—”

  “Do you want all your highfalutin friends in Chattanooga and all your business associates to know that you were found in a Dumpster as an infant? Do you want them to know that your sister owns a honky-tonk, has a reputation as a loose woman, and is now on trial for killing her ex-lover? And do you want them to know that you hired a PI to check her out and, even after learning what sort of person she was, you still wanted to meet her?”

  “Are you threatening to blackmail me?”

  “I don’t think I mentioned the word blackmail. I’m just telling you that if someone doesn’t come up with the cash to pay Quinn Cortez, then—”

  “What do you want me to do—write you out a check?”

  Caleb grinned. Finding out how important the Sorrells’ social standing was to Reve—and her own sterling reputation as well—had given him an advantage. He owed his old buddy Joe for coming up with the dirt on Ms. Sorrell so quickly.

  “I’ll call Cortez,” Caleb said, “since I know him and he owes me a favor.” When Reve opened her mouth to say something, Caleb shook his head. “Long story. No time for it now. Anyway, when I call Cortez, I want you to get on the phone, tell him who you are and that you’ll be glad to pick up the tab for Jazzy. Then give him a credit card number or whatever the hell he requires.”

  “I could say no.”

  “Yeah, you could.” Caleb’s grin broadened into a wide smile. “But you won’t.”

  “She must mean a great deal to you for you to resort to strong-arming me into paying you hush money.”

  “Don’t look at it that way,” he told her. “Just think of it as helping your sister.”

  “I told you that she is not my sister.”

  “Okay, have it your way. Jazzy is not your sister. But you two are definitely flip sides to the same coin. You pretend to be sugar, while Jazzy is definitely spice. You come across as being cold, calculating, snobbish, and unemotional. Jazzy’s the exact opposite.” Caleb walked over, grasped her arm, and said, “After we go inside and call Cortez and you put him on retainer, you can leave Cherokee County and never look back.”

  “And you won’t tell anyone—”

  He made a zipping-my-mouth gesture.

  “Very well. Come inside and let’s contact Mr. Cortez. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can leave and put this entire nightmare behind me.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Caleb loosened his hold on her arm and followed her into the cabin. Maybe she thought that once she went back to Chattanooga she could forget all about Jazzy, but he’d bet his old age pension—if he had one—that sooner or later Reve Sorrell’s curiosity would bring her back to Cherokee County.

  Jim Upton lay in the queen-size, pine sleigh bed, his breathing calm, his body relaxed. For the past hour, he had been able to forget that today was the day of Jamie’s funeral, that this afternoon he would bury all his and Reba’s hopes for the future. It was wrong of him to be here with Erin, to have made love to her with more passion than he’d felt in quite some time, when he was in mourning for his grandson. His wife was at home making preparations for the after-funeral reception at their home. Not only would three-fourths of Cherokee County’s population wander in and out of their house later today, but friends and business associates—as well as the governor and both U.S. senators—would come by to pay their respects.

  Erin caressed him, her slender fingers twining around the thick white hair on his chest. “It’s all right, you know,” she told him. “You mustn’t feel guilty about our making love. The death of someone near and dear to us makes us need to reaffirm that we’re alive.” She propped herself up beside him, then leaned over and kissed his mouth in that sweet, tender way of hers.

  “I can’t leave her, you know,” Jim said.

  “Are you talking about Miss Reba?” Sighing, Erin lay back down alongside him and snuggled close. “You’ve told me before that you won’t divorce her, so why bring that up now?”

  He flipped over on his side and looked into her eyes. “That morning…before I found out about Jamie being murdered, I came here to talk to you.”

  “You came here? Why haven’t you said—?”

  “You weren’t here.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  Where were you? Who were you with? Did you spend the night in another man’s arms? “I came here to tell you that I had decided to ask Reba for a divorce. I wanted us to have a few years—however many I’ve got left—together. As man and wife.”

  “Oh, Jim. I—I don’t know what to say.”

  “That’s changed now. You see that, don’t you? How could I ask her for a divorce now that we’ve lost Jamie? He was all—” Jim clenched his teeth. “I don’t want to lose you, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to continue our affair.”

  Erin wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you. I want whatever you can give me.”

  He caressed her naked back. Soft, pale skin, dotted here and there with small, dark moles. He knew every inch of her. Had kissed those little moles, had memorized their locations. “Where were you?”

  “The morning you came by here and I was gone?” She reached down and grasped his hand.

  “If there’s someone else—”

  “Don’t.”

  “You’re still young and—”

  “I went to Knoxville. I spent the night with a friend. And before you ask, the friend is female. She’s a doctor.”

  Jim tensed, fear zipping through him like a fast-acting drug. “Are you ill?”

  “No, my heath is fine. This friend is a gynecologist. I had called and asked her to put together some information for me about in vitro fertilization. About using a donor egg and a husband or lover’s sperm.”

  “I don’t understand.” Jim rose into a sitting position.

  Erin came up beside him, looked him in the eye, and said, “I’m too old to give you a child, as much as I wish I could. I knew how disappointed you were with Jamie, how much you wished there had been other grandchildren. I thought that if—”

  “My sperm, a donor egg, and you’d carry the child in your body.” Jim reached down and laid his hand over her flat belly. “You love me that much?” Tears misted his eyes.

  “Now I have more reason than ever to want to give you—”

  He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her. “You don’t know what your offering to try something like that means to me. But you’re not the only one too old to have a child. I’m seventy-five. Even if I’m not shooting blanks these days, do you know how old I’d be when our child is ten? Eighty-five. Eight-five fucking years old. It wouldn’t be fair to the child.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Tears trickled down Erin’s cheeks. “What ten-year-old would want a sixty-year-old mother?”

  Jim hugged her to him, loving her more than he’d loved anything or anyone, at this moment loving her even more than he’d loved Melva Mae Nelson all those years ago. He kissed her forehead and asked in a whisper, “Will you come to Jamie’s funeral?”

  “Oh, Jim, I don’t know. How will I be able to bear being there and not being able to comfort you?”

  “Just knowing you’re there, close by, will be a comfort. Please…”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll be there.”

  The Congregational Church was packed to capacity, the sanctuary and the vestibule. A crowd had gathered outside on the front steps and down the sidewalk. She knew that these people weren’t here to show thei
r respects to Jamie. Not many people had liked Jamie. Quite a few had despised him. And several had hated him, as she had. The huge outpouring of sympathy was for Big Jim and Miss Reba. Even people the Uptons barely knew or didn’t know at all had come together on this beautiful, sunny spring day. She suspected that even a few curious tourists mingled among the local citizens inside and outside the church.

  The sheriff and the chief of police were here, both in their dress uniforms, making their presences official, reminding everyone that Jamie had been murdered. Tortured and tormented. Made to suffer. Punished for his sins. She’d seen to that. She’d made sure he would never hurt her, her child, or any other woman—not ever again.

  Jazzy Talbot was conspicuously absent. Good. She’d hate to think that worthless slut would dare to show her face.

  As she watched while others paraded by Jamie’s closed casket, she had to fight the urge to smile—even laugh. She had destroyed his pretty face and silenced his lying mouth. And now Jazzy was suffering.

  But not nearly as much as she would suffer.

  The woman had to die.

  Deserved to die.

  Would die.

  But not yet.

  When this all came to an end and everything was as it should be, Jazzy would be the last to die. After that, she and her baby would be safe. Safe and happy forever.

  The Congregational Church choir stood outside the canopy covering the open grave as they sang an old spiritual, one the minister had said was Miss Reba’s favorite. At least a couple of hundred people had come over directly from the church to the cemetery, while others were waiting to drop by the Upton house later.

  Caleb had thought about going to the house, seeing what it looked like inside, getting an up close look at his grandparents. After being in Cherokee County for over three months, he still hadn’t been able to work up enough courage to knock on the door and tell Big Jim and Miss Reba that he was their daughter Melanie’s son. Hell, they probably wouldn’t believe him. They’d think he was some opportunist out to sucker them. And who could blame them, especially now that they’d lost Jamie. Caleb knew that if his mother’s revelation about her family hadn’t been a deathbed confession, he probably wouldn’t have believed her. Actually, at the time he hadn’t believed her, had thought what she’d told him about her idyllic life as a rich girl had been nothing more than the ramblings of a drug addict, which his mother had been.

  “You have a family,” she’d told him. “My family. In Cherokee County, not far outside of Knoxville. I grew up there. On a farm. The Upton Farm. I had a wonderful childhood. Wonderful parents. Jim and Reba Upton. And I have a brother, Jim, Jr.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?” he’d asked her as he held her hand.

  “Because you’re just a boy and you need somebody to look after you. Go to my father and tell him…tell him I’m sending him a present. A grandson he never knew he had.”

  That had been fifteen years ago, right before he turned seventeen. He’d been an undisciplined kid, a boy who’d fended for himself most of his life, despite having a mother. When she’d been clean and sober, Melanie had been loving and kind and a halfway decent parent. But when she backslid into that drug-induced black abyss she couldn’t escape for long at a time, he’d been on his own. The first time he stole food from the supermarket, he’d been seven and hadn’t eaten in two days.

  If it hadn’t been for Joe Donovan’s old man, a Memphis cop who’d taken an interest in a street smart kid with a penchant for getting into trouble, Caleb might be in the pen now. Instead, he’d wound up emulating his mentor and becoming a policeman. Then, six months ago, while on an undercover assignment, his partner had been killed and Caleb had spent weeks in the hospital recovering from gunshot wounds that had come damn near close to ending his life. That experience had changed him, and when he’d left the hospital, he’d known he didn’t want to go back to his old job, his old life. While he was trying to sort through everything and decide exactly what he did want to do with the rest of his life, he got to thinking about what his mother had told him. She had a family in Cherokee County. He had a family.

  Caleb figured that he could easily blend in with the crowd here at the cemetery, that nobody would even notice him. But he’d been wrong. Jacob Butler sure as hell noticed him. The six-five quarter breed had been eyeing him for the past few minutes, making Caleb feel very conspicuous. Was the sheriff wondering why Caleb would show up at the graveside of a man he’d loathed? Was Butler thinking that maybe there was some credence in what a few folks had speculated—that Caleb had either killed Jamie himself or at the very least had been an accomplice?

  Ignore Butler, he told himself. He’s just trying to intimidate you. Despite the sheriff’s imposing size and tough-guy reputation, Caleb was more annoyed than intimidated. It would take a lot more than a killer stare to put the fear of God into him.

  Caleb eased through the throng of mourners and away from Butler. He found a spot near a large, weathered oak tree that gave him a clear view of the family as they sat beneath the dark green canopy covering Jamie’s open grave. His gaze traveled across the front row, seated closest to the shiny bronze casket. Big Jim Upton lived up to his reputation. He was big, robust, and physically fit for an old man. Although somber and quiet, he looked as if he was about to burst into tears. His big arm draped his small blonde wife’s shoulders. Miss Reba had to be at least seventy, but she’d easily pass for sixty. If he’d ever doubted his mother’s story about belonging to this wealthy, illustrious Tennessee family, taking a good look at Reba Upton erased those doubts. Although a taller, larger woman than Miss Reba, his mother had been the lady’s spitting image.

  Caleb studied the woman who was weeping quietly, doing her level best to remain dignified in front of the world while her heart was breaking in two. This was his grandmother. The woman who had given birth to his mother. The protective male side of his nature wanted to go to her, comfort her, tell her that she hadn’t lost everything, that she still had one grandchild.

  Laura Willis sat on the other side of Miss Reba, her body rigid, her eyes glazed. The poor girl was drugged senseless. Dr. MacNair stood at the side of Laura’s chair, his hand on her shoulder. The Willis family—mother, father, and younger daughter—sat in the second row of folding chairs. Sheridan was staring a hole through her sister. She hates her, Caleb thought.

  As his gaze traveled around the outer perimeter of the tent, he spotted Erin Mercer standing where she had a perfect view of Big Jim. As he watched her, he noticed how she seemed totally transfixed on something. He followed her line of vision straight to his grandfather and caught Big Jim staring straight at Erin. If he had noticed that intimate exchange, then others had, too. But it was no secret around town that the lovely middle-aged artist was Big Jim’s lover.

  Caleb didn’t know who to feel sorry for—his grandmother or Erin Mercer. Hell, maybe he should pity his grandfather. It wasn’t as if he knew enough about his mother’s family to understand his grandparents’ marriage.

  The choir sang a final hymn when the minister finished his tribute to the deceased. Big Jim helped his wife to her feet. Unsteady, tears dampening her perfectly made-up face, Miss Reba allowed her husband to lead her to the edge of the open grave as the casket was being lowered into the ground. With each passing moment, she wept harder and harder.

  Poor woman, Caleb thought. Poor Miss Reba. Poor Grandmother.

  Suddenly Reba clutched the front of her black suit and gasped loudly, then crumpled in her husband’s arms. At first Caleb thought she’d merely fainted, but then he heard Jim call out for Dr. MacNair. After a quick examination, the doctor shooed everyone aside.

  “We have to get her to the hospital immediately,” MacNair said. Then Caleb thought he heard the doctor say something about a heart attack.

  Big Jim swooped his wife up in his arms and stomped through the crowd, all but running toward the black limousine waiting at the head of the funeral procession. Caleb stood by watching, a
s did the others at the cemetery, while Jim placed his wife in the limo and issued orders to the driver.

  Murmurs rose from the crowd, everyone speculating about Miss Reba’s health, some making odds on whether she’d live to make it to the hospital. Caleb caught himself on the verge of shouting at those insensitive bastards. Instead he shoved his way through the thick, milling crowd and rushed to his T-bird, parked along the road outside the cemetery gates. He started the engine, revved the motor, and within minutes caught up with the speeding limousine. He wasn’t going to let Miss Reba die without knowing she had another grandson, one who sure as hell would like the chance to get to know her.

  Jacob drove to the hospital with Dallas, since the two had gone to the funeral together. Neither had missed Caleb McCord’s reaction to Miss Reba’s collapse. He’d acted like a man who cared—genuinely cared—whether the woman lived or died. En route to Cherokee County Hospital, they’d briefly discussed the possibility that McCord might have had something to do with Jamie’s murder. After all, he’d had more than one motive.

  When they inquired about Mrs. Upton’s condition, they were directed to the ICU waiting area upstairs and were told that there was limited seating.

  “Already a crowd here?” Dallas asked.

  “If it was anyone other than the two of you, I’d have told you to go home and call back later for an update on Mrs. Upton,” the receptionist said. “We’ve had to post a guard outside the waiting room, mostly to control the press. Would you believe that WMMK brought in TV cameras?”

  “Yeah, I’d believe it,” Jacob said, knowing firsthand that Brian MacKinnon would stop at nothing, would stoop as low as he had to, in order to sensationalize the news on his TV and radio stations, as well as in his newspaper. “That’s the reason we’re here—to make sure this situation doesn’t turn into a three-ring circus.”

  “I’ll coordinate efforts with your chief of security,” Dallas said. “If you’ll point me to his office, I’ll check in with him while the sheriff goes on upstairs and assesses the situation there.”