“You’re paying for Quinn Cortez?” Jazzy couldn’t quite get a grip on what was happening here. “Caleb blackmailed you into hiring Mr. Cortez?”
“Let’s say we struck a deal.”
“Is it that important to you to keep my existence a secret—if I am your sister?”
“I thought it was,” Reve replied. “Yes, I suppose it is. I don’t know. Look, just because I’d prefer for us not to be a part of each other’s lives doesn’t mean I want anything bad to happen to you.”
“You’re not exactly what you seem, are you, Ms. Sorrell?”
Reve smiled faintly. “Neither are you, Ms. Talbot.”
Jazzy took the business card and stuffed it into one of her front pockets. “Nobody will ever know about any possible connection between us. Not from me. And not from Caleb. I promise.”
“Thank you.” Reve turned to leave, then paused, glanced back at Jazzy, and said, “I meant what I said. If there’s anything else I can do to help you, don’t hesitate to get in touch.”
Before Jazzy could think of a suitable reply, Reve was gone. For a couple of minutes she stood there as if her feet were glued to the floor. Then suddenly she broke into a run and raced down the hall. Just as she entered the bar area, she saw Reve going out the front entrance.
Let her go, Jazzy told herself. She’s right—you have more important issues to deal with right now than whether or not Aunt Sally has been lying to you your entire life and she knew all along that you have a twin sister. But once this mess with Jamie’s murder was cleared up—and she had to believe that the real murderer would be caught—then she and Aunt Sally were going to have a family powwow.
Chapter 21
When Stan Watson came to, he had the mother of all headaches and his vision was blurry. “What the hell happened?” he asked no one in particular.
Suddenly he felt someone on top of him—a woman’s pussy sliding down over his pecker. Good God, was he unconscious and having some sort of sexual dream? When she started pumping up and down on him, he decided this was no dream. This was real. He tried to grab her hips, but he couldn’t seem to lift his arms. He gave his legs a try and couldn’t budge them. That’s when he realized he was tied down, his arms over his head, his wrists bound together. What was going on? Think, Stan, think. Try to remember. You’d come up here to Honey Bear Trail to check on the fireplace. It was nearly six o’clock—your usual quitting time.
Although his vision hadn’t cleared up much, he looked up at the sky and realized the sun had already set. It wasn’t good dark yet, but he figured it was getting close to eight o’clock, maybe later.
Who was on top of him? Had he brought a woman up here? No, that wasn’t it. He remembered now. He looked up into the woman’s face and saw a blurry image—short red hair was about all he could make out.
Honey. She’d said her friends called her Honey. He’d gone to put his rake in the back of the truck before they went into the cabin and—she’d hit him over the head. He couldn’t think of any other explanation. When he’d had his back turned to her, she’d coldcocked him with her shovel. But why? Was she crazy?
“Why’d you hit me on the head?” Stan asked.
“Here I am fucking you like mad and you’re asking stupid questions.” She paused in her frantic humping. “How else was I going to get you in the back of the truck so I could tie you down? I sure do appreciate your having that big roll of duct tape in your tool box and that length of rope so I could secure the tape on your feet to the trailer hitch and the tape on your wrists to the lock on that big heavy tool box.”
“Lady, what’s your problem? Are you freaking nuts?”
Something sharp sliced across his chest. He yelped in pain.
“That wasn’t very nice of you, was it, calling me nuts,” she said in a syrupy sweet voice. “You mustn’t be mean to me or I’ll have to punish you again.”
“Lady, I haven’t ever done anything to you. Please, just untie me and let me go. We’ll forget this ever happened.”
He felt his dick softening. Fear could do that to a man. And he was scared shitless right about now. An odd feeling hit him right in the gut. What if Jazzy Talbot hadn’t killed Jamie Upton? What if this crazy woman on top of him had killed Jamie? Now was a hell of a time to remember why the woman he’d caught trying to bury a plastic bag in the woods reminded him of someone. At a distance, she looked a little like Jazzy. It was the short red hair and the gold hoop earrings. Otherwise they didn’t really look anything alike.
“Oh, Stan, I’m sorry, I can’t let you go.” She started moving up and down on him, apparently trying to keep him hard. “Don’t go flat on me now. Not when this will be the last fuck of your life.”
Every muscle in his body froze. What did she mean by that? Oh, God. Oh, God. She was going to kill him.
“Why me? I don’t even know you.”
“But you caught me burying my bag of goodies, and I knew it was only a matter of time before you told somebody else and they’d tell somebody and then the law would come sniffing around. So you see, Stan, I can’t allow you to live.”
“I won’t tell a soul. I swear.” His heartbeat drummed in his ears. Adrenaline created by pure terror zinged through his body.
“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” She kept riding him, moving faster and faster. “You know I killed Jamie.” She went wild, her movements frantic. Then she screamed when she came. Breathing hard, she said, “I thought the least I could do for you before I kill you was give you a good fucking.” She started moving again.
Stan’s vision cleared and he could make out her face plainly. There was a look of determination in her eyes as she leaned over and dangled her breasts in his face. How the hell was it possible for him to be aroused when the woman on top of him was insane? She was going to kill him. But his body didn’t seem to care. Tension tightened as she rode him harder and harder. He climaxed suddenly. While the aftershocks of his release rippled through him, she climbed off him and ran her fingertips down his chest, over his belly, and across his navel.
“Are you going to torture me the way you did Jamie?” Stan prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life. Please, God, please let her kill me quickly.
“I could, I suppose,” she told him, her fingertips sliding down his damp, sticky penis. “I’d enjoy it so much. But like you said, we don’t even know each other. I have no reason to hate you, no need to punish you severely.”
“Don’t kill me. Please, please, don’t kill me.”
“Oh, Stan, you beg so nicely.” She cupped his penis and scrotum and laughed. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“No, please…don’t…don’t—”
“Hush up now. I promise to make it quick.” She squeezed his genitals. “I’ll have to take these off. I took Jamie’s, you know. I always whack ’em off. It’s sort of my trademark.”
Stan keened. Fear ate away at him like an insidious acid. “No. God, no!”
“Don’t get so upset. I’ll kill you first, then take my prize.”
The last thing Stan Watson ever saw was the knife coming down toward his throat.
Jim Upton sat by his wife’s bed in the ICU unit, her small, fragile hand held securely in his tender grasp. She had regained consciousness nearly an hour ago, a little before eight o’clock, and they had called him from the waiting room. He had already sent the others home—Laura, Sheridan, and their parents. And he’d asked friends who’d stopped by to go home and pray. He’d wanted to wait alone.
When he’d first walked into the ICU, Reba had looked up at him and tried to speak. The only word that came out of her mouth was a hoarse, gasped, “Jamie.” A lone tear had escaped her right eye and cascaded down her pale cheek. Although the usual visitation time in the Intensive Care Unit was twenty minutes every four hours from six in the morning until ten at night, no one had tried to make him leave. And they’d damn well better not, if they knew what was good for them.
He watched R
eba as she slept, a drug-induced sleep to keep her calm and rested, Dr. MacNair had explained. The stress of dealing with Jamie’s death, the knowledge that he had been tortured to death, and then the funeral to say a final farewell had all been too much for her. Although there was a good chance she’d live through this, there were no guarantees that she wouldn’t suffer another heart attack, maybe a massive, lethal one next time.
Jim squeezed her hand. “Don’t die on me, old girl. Don’t you dare die on me.”
If only he could give her something to live for—a reason to fight. Guilt unlike any he’d ever known weighed heavily on his shoulders. Reba knew he’d never truly loved her. She suspected, even if she didn’t know for sure, that there had been numerous other women. She might even know about Erin. Asking her to live for him was a ludicrous thought. Why should she want to live for him after the way he’d treated her all these years? Maybe she did still love him, but a part of her had to hate him, too.
“I’m sorry, Reba,” he told her. “I wish I could have been a better husband.”
If only they hadn’t lost both Jim Jr. and Melanie. If only there had been other grandchildren. Jamie had meant the world to Reba, and now she had lost him, too. Tears sprang into Jim’s eyes.
If only I could give you a good reason to want to live.
Caleb arrived at Jazzy’s Joint a few minutes past seven. After his confrontation with Jacob Butler, he’d left the hospital, had walked around alone, and had done a lot of thinking. His big secret was out, and if Jacob knew, it was only a matter of time before Jacob told Jazzy. And he didn’t want her to know—not yet. She’d been the reason he had kept putting off making contact with the Uptons. He had come to Cherokee County to find his mother’s family, but after meeting Jazzy and learning about her connection to his cousin Jamie, he’d decided to wait. Jamie had been a topnotch son of a bitch. What sort of family produced a rotten apple like that?
But today when he’d watched his grandmother collapse right before his eyes, everything had changed. She was an old woman who might not live. He’d mistakenly thought there was no need to rush into claiming his new family, that he could wait around and get the lay of the land, so to speak. He had wanted the chance to find out a lot more about the Upton clan before he revealed himself as their long-lost grandson.
Lacy motioned to Caleb the minute he arrived, so he made his way through the crowded, smoke-filled room and went straight to the bar. He leaned over the counter so he could hear Lacy without her having to holler.
“We’ve been having a problem with a guy who’s been shooting pool with Dillon Carson,” Lacy said. “I tried to handle things when I saw neither Sheri nor Kalinda could do anything with him. Even Dillon, drunk as he is, tried to reason with the man. I didn’t want to ask Jazzy, but—”
“You’re a murdering whore!” The man’s cruel shout could be heard over the country music coming from the jukebox, the clinking of bottles and glasses, and the talk and laughter created by the other customers.
“Damn!” Caleb cursed under his breath.
“She came out a few minutes ago and has been trying to get him to leave,” Lacy explained. “He hasn’t been that loud before, but I could tell from her facial expressions that he’s been giving her a really hard time.”
Of all nights for some smart-mouthed asshole to hurl insults at Jazzy—the night Caleb had come in several hours late. After his long walk to think things through, he should have come straight to work. Instead he’d gone back to the hospital. When he’d peeked into the ICU unit, the door to Miss Reba’s room had been open and he’d seen Big Jim sitting by her bed, holding her hand, his face damp with tears. He’d come close to walking in on them and telling his grandfather who he was. But he figured now was the wrong time. The Uptons had been through hell these past few days. Besides, he needed to tell Jazzy first. He owed her that much.
“I’ll take care of things,” Caleb told Lacy.
Her friendly smile deepened the wrinkles in her lined face. “I knew you would.”
When Caleb arrived on the scene at the back of the room where the pool tables were set up, he found a tall, lanky guy in his late thirties right up in Jazzy’s face. He could tell by her expression that she was on the verge of slapping the man’s face.
“No wonder Jamie Upton threw you away,” the man said, his words slightly slurred. “You’re nothing but trash and this whole town knows it. But you’re going to be prison trash pretty soon, when they put you where you belong.”
“Look, buddy, why don’t you leave?” Dillon Carson, a bit unsteady on his feet, patted the man on the back. “No one wants any trouble. Isn’t that right, Jazzy?” When he turned to her, the other man knocked Dillon’s hand off his back.
“Yeah,” Jazzy said. “You’ve got a right to your opinion, but you’re not going to badmouth me in my own bar.”
“I’ll say whatever the hell I want about you wherever I want to say it.” The man put his face closer to Jazzy’s, not two inches between their noses. “And you can’t do a damn thing to stop me, ’cause everybody knows what I’m saying is the truth.”
Jazzy punched him in the middle of his chest. “Look, you stupid jackass, either you leave now or I’ll call the police and have you thrown out of here.”
The man grabbed Jazzy and shook her. She shoved him, but he held onto her tightly with one hand and drew back his other hand into a fist. Caleb dived straight at them, shoving Dillon aside and knocking him to the floor in the process. The guy on the verge of striking Jazzy never knew what hit him. Caleb rammed into him and sent him back against the wall lightning fast, twisting his arm behind his back. Then, pressing one arm across the man’s throat and applying pressure, he subdued him immediately.
The man gasped for air. Caleb eased up just a fraction as he said, “You want to apologize to the lady now before I take you out of here or do I have to whip your sorry ass?”
“I’m not going to—” He choked when Caleb added more pressure to his windpipe.
When his face turned red and his eyes bugged out, Caleb eased up again and asked, “Are you ready to apologize to Ms. Talbot?”
“That’s not necessary,” Jazzy said. “Just get him out of here.”
“It’s necessary,” Caleb said, glaring at the man. “Apologize or—”
“I—I’m sorry.” The man looked at Jazzy, his moist eyes pleading with her. “I’m real sorry.”
“Get him out of here, will you?” Jazzy’s gaze collided with Caleb’s, and he realized that she was more than a little upset.
Without saying another word, he marched the man through the crowd that had been watching the entire exchange. After they stepped outside onto the sidewalk, Caleb released his tenacious hold on the guy.
“If you know what’s good for you, don’t ever come back here again.”
The guy nodded and all but ran down the street to his car parked half a block away. Caleb waited until he drove away before returning to the club. When he got back inside, he couldn’t find Jazzy. Lacy pointed toward the hallway that led to the ladies’ room, the storage room, and Jazzy’s office. He’d check her office first.
The door was closed. He knocked. No reply.
“Jazzy?”
Silence.
He tried the knob. Not locked. He opened the door. She sat on the front edge of her desk, her arms crossed over her chest. When he walked over the threshold, she glared at him.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No, I’m not all right!” Her voice held a steely, pissedoff edge. “Couldn’t you have just thrown him out of here without threatening his life?”
“Is that why you’re upset?” Caleb chuckled.
Bad move on his part. Jazzy huffed loudly.
“The guy was going to hit you.” Caleb said.
“And I was fixing to knee him in the groin.”
“Oh, so you’re pissed because I interrupted before you brought the guy to his knees all by yourself, not because I nearly choked hi
m to death.”
Fuming, sparks flashing in her eyes, Jazzy slid off the desk and marched toward Caleb. This was the Jazzy he’d first met, all fire and spunk, taking names and kicking ass. This was the woman he was crazy about, the woman he wanted. She was as feminine as a woman could get, all round curves and beautiful face, but there was a toughness in Jazzy that overlay the softness beneath, the vulnerability she tried to hide.
Caleb waited for her, let her come to him. When she was a couple of feet away, she stopped and planted her hands on her hips. Now she was going to let him have it with both barrels.
“Where were you tonight?” she asked.
“What?” That was not what he’d been expecting her to say.
“When you called to tell me you’d be coming in late, you didn’t mention why. Where were you? Or should I ask you who you were with?”
Had he heard her right? She wasn’t furious with him because he’d come to her rescue a few minutes ago. No, she was angry because she thought…she thought what? That he’d been with another woman? Was it possible she was jealous? If so, that had to mean she cared.
“I had some personal business to take care of. And before you ask, no, I was not with another woman.”
She dropped her hands from her hips, huffed, and turned her back on him. “Why should I care if you were with some woman? It’s none of my business.”
“You could make it your business.” He walked up behind her.
Knowing he was close—a hairbreadth away—she stiffened instantly, but didn’t turn around. “I could have handled that loud-mouthed drunk, you know. I hired you as a bouncer to protect the customers, not protect me. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I don’t need you or anyone else to fight my battles for me.”
Beg to Die Page 24
