Beg to Die

by Beverly Barton

  “Laura doesn’t know,” Andrea said. “She must never know.”

  “Laura doesn’t know that you aren’t her biological mother?” Jacob asked.

  “No.” Andrea shook her head. “I suppose we should have told her, but…” Andrea looked at the sheriff, hoping he was capable of great understanding and compassion. “Would you want to know that your mother was criminally insane? That she had tried to kill your grandfather by torturing him to death?”

  “No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.”

  “Then you can understand why we wanted to keep the truth from Laura, why we’ve lived in fear all these years that the truth would come out. Very few people know about Cecil’s first marriage. He and his father had a falling out when Cecil married Margaret. She wasn’t…she wasn’t our kind.”

  “My first wife came from trash, Sheriff Butler,” Cecil said. “She was a beautiful woman determined to escape from poverty, and she saw me as her escape route. I was young and foolish, and although I was in love with Andrea and we were practically engaged, one night I succumbed to Margaret’s rather considerable charm. She came to me a couple of months later and told me she was pregnant. Naturally, I did the honorable thing and married her. Against my parents’ wishes.

  “We moved to Louisville and were living there when Laura was born.” Cecil sighed heavily. “My parents cut off my funds, and I was ill-equipped to make a living on my own. Margaret discovered that I could offer her very little without my father’s money, and it was then that I realized my wife had severe mental problems. She…she…uh—” Cecil cleared his throat. “I took Laura, left Margaret, and went home to my parents.” Tears trickled down Cecil’s cheeks. “My parents arranged for the marriage to be annulled and we—I—gained full custody of Laura.”

  Andrea couldn’t bear seeing her husband this way, so totally defeated, in so much pain. She had never loved anyone but Cecil. She had forgiven him, loved him, married him, and adopted Laura. And she had never regretted those decisions.

  “Margaret somehow managed to abduct Marshall Willis, Cecil’s father,” Andrea said. “She blamed him for everything at the time. She had intended to kill him, after she tortured him. She took him to the Willis hunting lodge and only by mere chance a couple of hunters heard Marshall’s screams and investigated.”

  “Margaret had tortured my father for hours,” Cecil said. “If those hunters hadn’t…he almost died.”

  “You must see that our knowing Laura’s biological mother’s background sheds new light on Jamie’s murder case,” Jacob said.

  “Just because Margaret was capable of doing something so terrible doesn’t mean Laura is,” Cecil said. “You tell them, Andrea. Tell them that Laura would never…”

  “You have absolutely no proof that Laura had anything to do with Jamie’s murder.” Andrea held her head high and looked the sheriff right in the eye. “Yes, our elder daughter is emotionally fragile and it’s possible she inherited a mental weakness from Margaret. But Laura is, as Cecil told you, a kind, sweet young woman, incapable of murder.”

  “Is that what her psychiatrist told y’all after you committed her for treatment a few days after she tried to run down her boyfriend when she was sixteen?” Dallas asked.

  Andrea glared at the police chief. “That was nothing more than an accident. No charges were ever filed.”

  Andrea looked to their lawyer and the minute he noticed her staring at him, he cleared his throat and said, “I suggest that instead of tormenting the Willis family and pointing fingers at Laura Willis, you make some inquiries about Margaret Bentley’s whereabouts. Is she still confined to the mental hospital? If not, then I’d say she could very well be your—”

  “Shut up!” Andrea huffed. Damned stupid young man!

  “Ma’am?” Wide-eyed and mouth agape, Trent Langley gulped as he looked at Andrea.

  “The sanitarium where Margaret Bentley resided for nearly twenty-two years burned to the ground two years ago,” Dallas explained. “She and nearly two dozen other patients died in that fire.”

  If only Margaret were alive, Andrea thought. If only that insane bitch had been the one who’d killed Jamie. But Margaret was dead. And the truth about Laura’s maternity was no longer a well-kept family secret. She had spent twenty-four years trying to protect Cecil’s little girl, but now she feared the time had come when there was very little she could do to protect Laura from a tragic past that had come back to haunt them all.

  Chapter 26

  Andrea Willis slapped the morning edition of The Cherokee Pointe Herald down on the table in front of her husband. Jim Upton glanced up from his plate, littered with the remnants of ham and red-eye gravy, scrambled eggs and Dora’s homemade biscuits. Cecil Willis looked like a damn whipped dog. Jim wanted to shout at the man, tell him to grow a backbone—hell, to grow a set of balls. Only recently he’d envied Cecil being married to a strong, take-charge woman, but that was before he’d realized just how pussy whipped the guy was. He’d take a clinging vine like Reba any day of the week over someone like Willis’s wife.

  “Look at the headlines!” Andrea shouted. “How are you going to deal with this?”

  Cecil lifted the newspaper off his plate. A wad of scrambled eggs, which had stuck to the back of the paper, dropped off, leaving a greasy spot on the newsprint. He read the headlines, sighed, and looked up at his wife, who hovered over him like a vulture.

  “It was to be expected,” Cecil told her.

  “Is that all you have to say?” Andrea demanded.

  “What’s the problem?” Jim asked. “I assume the reporters have gotten wind of Laura’s past history…her emotional problems when she was a young girl.”

  Cecil folded the paper and handed it to Jim. “Now that Laura is a suspect in Jamie’s murder, if you’d prefer we find somewhere else to stay, I’ll understand.”

  Jim took the paper, scanned the headlines:

  IS JAZZY INNOCENT?

  DID JAMIE’S FIANCÉE DO IT?

  then tossed the newspaper aside. “Rubbish. Laura didn’t kill Jamie any more than I did. Brian MacKinnon likes to sensationalize everything. If I thought it would do any good, I’d call Farlan and tell him to rein in that son of his.”

  “Are you saying that there’s nothing we can do about what the newspaper prints about Laura?” Andrea asked, her gaze focused on Jim.

  Jim glanced at the discarded newspaper. “My bet is that the reporter who wrote that piece of trash stopped just short of slander. The facts are probably correct, even if they’ve been distorted a bit.”

  “I’ve read the entire article,” Andrea said. “Either someone in the sheriff’s department has been talking or that reporter has done some digging—deep digging—into Laura’s past.”

  “My God, do they know about—” Cecil shut up the minute his wife glowered at him, making Jim wonder what he’d been about to say.

  “Yes, they know that the Roberts boy accused Laura of trying to run him down with her car when she was sixteen.” Andrea glanced quickly back and forth from Cecil to Jim. “I assure you that Laura did not try to harm that boy. It was an accident.”

  Jim figured there was more to the story than either Andrea or Cecil was letting on, but at present his biggest concern wasn’t Laura. He knew the girl, knew how gentle and kind she was. The very idea that she had tortured Jamie to death was ludicrous. Of course, he didn’t really believe Jazzy Talbot was capable of such cruelty, either.

  I know that you’ve seen to it that the DA has railroaded an innocent woman, had her arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. I know all about how powerful Big Jim Upton is. Hell, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not your grandson. If Jamie Upton was the result of your parenting skills, then I’m damn lucky I didn’t do what my mother wanted me to do and come to you and Miss Reba when I was sixteen.

  He had heard Caleb McCord’s words repeating themselves in his mind, again and again, ever since yesterday when he’d confronted that young man standing outside Reba’s hospital
suite.

  Jamie’s murderer was probably still at large, free to kill again. Hell, she’d already killed again, if the sheriff’s guess was right, that the same person had killed that Watson man. Neither Laura nor Jazzy was guilty, he felt certain of that fact. If he did what he knew was right, he’d make a phone call to Wade Truman and see if it was too late to get the charges against Jasmine Talbot dropped.

  Why now? Jim asked himself. Are you willing to go against what Reba wants just because of what that young pup McCord said?

  “We’ll make sure Laura is taken care of,” Jim told her parents. “How is she this morning?” He glanced around the room. “Didn’t she feel like coming down for breakfast? And what about Sheridan?” Jim was beginning to dislike Sheridan more and more. There was something decidedly unappealing about the girl. His guess was that the younger Willis daughter had been The Cherokee Pointe Herald reporter’s source of information about Laura. It was plain to see that Sheridan despised her older sister.

  “After the terrible time we had at the sheriff’s office yesterday afternoon, Dr. MacNair came home with us and instructed Mrs. Conley to keep Laura sedated so that she’d get a good night’s rest,” Andrea explained. “And Sheridan has already gone out this morning.”

  Or never came home last night, Jim thought.

  “If there’s anything Laura needs, you just let me know.” Jim finished off the last bites of his breakfast, washed them down with coffee, then scooted back his chair and stood. “Please excuse me. I have some business to attend to.”

  “Yes, of course.” Andrea offered him an artificial smile.

  “Thank you, Jim,” Cecil said. “We appreciate your kindness.”

  Jim nodded, then headed straight for his study. The minute he was alone and the door locked, he sat behind his desk and lifted the telephone receiver. He punched in the number and waited as it rang.

  “Powell Investigations,” the receptionist said.

  “Griffin Powell, please. Tell him it’s Jim Upton.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In less than a minute a man’s deep baritone voice said, “Morning, Jim.”

  “What do you have for me?”

  “Not a lot,” Griffin replied. “After all, we just started on this investigation late yesterday afternoon.”

  “Do you have anything at all?”

  “There is a marriage record for Melanie Upton to a Franky Joe McCord—six months before the birth of a child named Caleb Upton McCord—thirty-two, almost thirty-three years ago.”

  “My Melanie?”

  “That’s what we’re checking on,” Griffin said. “I should have a more detailed report for you by late today. Two of my best men flew into Memphis last night.”

  “I want everything they can dig up on my daughter during her years in Memphis. If she married this Franky Joe McCord, the marriage wasn’t legal. She was already a married woman. Byron didn’t get a divorce for several years after Melanie left him.”

  “I don’t suppose that fact matters any now, except that would make Caleb McCord illegitimate.”

  “I want to know every detail of Caleb McCord’s life. And if he is my grandson, I don’t give a rat’s ass that he might be a bastard.”

  “It’ll take time to get the info you want.”

  “Do a rush job. You know that money is no object.”

  “I do have the guy’s blood type, if that will help.”

  “How’d—no, don’t tell me. I don’t need to know how you get the information, just get it,” Jim said. “So what’s his blood type?”

  “Type O.”

  “Humph! Half the world is type O. I’m type O. So were Melanie and Jim, Jr. No great revelation there, but at least it doesn’t rule the boy out. He might be my grandson.”

  “Tell me this, Jim—do you want him to be your grandson?” Griffin asked.

  “I’ve thought about that all night. Couldn’t think of much else. Do I want Caleb McCord to be my grandson? Yes, I do, if he’s a decent human being. If he won’t break Reba’s heart a dozen times over the way Jamie did.”

  “McCord was a Memphis cop and his record with the MPD is admirable,” Griffin said. “So far we haven’t found one dark blot on his record since he joined the force at twenty-two. From what we’ve uncovered so far, McCord is someone any father or grandfather could be damn proud of. He resigned from the police force after his partner was killed and he was severely wounded.”

  Jim swallowed. A grandson he could be proud of! Damn it, he couldn’t get his hopes up, couldn’t start making plans for a boy who might turn out to be a fraud. “If you find solid proof that Caleb McCord’s mother was my Melanie, you call me. And send that proof by courier on the next plane out of Memphis.”

  “We’ll do the very best we can.”

  “I want this kept top secret for now. You understand.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Griffin replied. “And you have my word that we’ll keep this under wraps.”

  When Jim heard the dial tone, he returned the receiver to the base, then leaned back in his desk chair and cupped his hands behind his head. Was it possible? Was it honest to God possible that he and Reba had another grandchild? Was God going to be merciful to them after all?

  In a fit of rage she tore the morning newspaper into pieces and threw them in every direction all around her. How dare they print such vicious lies! How dare they accuse Laura Willis of Jamie’s murder. This was wrong. All wrong! Jazzy was the woman who should be punished. She was the one who had been Jamie’s true partner in wickedness. Laura was an innocent child. Her parents should have taken better care of her. They shouldn’t let bad things happen to her. This was all Cecil Willis’s fault. If he’d been a better father…but some men didn’t know how to be good husbands and good fathers. Her baby’s father had been a bad man. A bad father. She couldn’t allow this to happen. There had to be a way to turn things around, to take the suspicion off Laura. But how?

  Kill someone else and make sure Laura has an alibi.

  This was all that man’s fault. That Stan Watson. If he hadn’t seen her digging a hole in the woods to bury the weapons she had used to kill Jamie and the other items from the cabin, none of this would be happening. Watson had been another man who had ruined her plans, as others had in the past. But she could fix things. Laura Willis hadn’t been arrested. The sheriff had no solid evidence against her. For the time being Laura was safe.

  But what about Jazzy? If they didn’t prosecute her for murdering Jamie, she wouldn’t suffer. She wouldn’t endure the torment she deserved.

  Then it will be up to you to make sure she suffers terribly before you kill her.

  It was time to revise her plans, to consider her options. She could still accomplish most of what she’d set out to do, torture those who deserved to be punished. Torture and kill them. She would kill him slowly and painfully. She had dreamed of killing him, of making him pay for what he’d done to her and her baby.

  No, that’s not right. Think, damn it, think. You’ve already killed Jamie. Your baby is safe. He can’t hurt her. You made him pay.

  But what about him? What about him?

  Who? an inner voice asked.

  “You know who!” she cried. “Yes, of course. I’ll kill him first. And then I’ll kill Jazzy. It’s her fault. It’s all her fault. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have left me. She wouldn’t let him go. It’s her fault that he was so mean to me, that he didn’t love me.”

  Was that her name—Jazzy? It doesn’t sound right. That’s not what he called her.

  Of course it’s her. Jasmine Talbot. He loved her. Never me. Never me.

  She would kill him first. And anyone else who got in her way. And then she would kill that horrible woman who had taken everything away from her. Kill them together. Do it at the same time. Let him hear her scream. Make her watch him die.

  Jazzy hadn’t pressed Caleb to tell her why he’d disappeared yesterday morning, why he’d run away from Cherokee Pointe—from her.
They’d made love at his cabin after Genny left. Wild, crazy, animalistic monkeyfucking. And it had been good. Hell, it had been great. But it had been different than when they’d made love the night before, when Caleb had been both passionate and tender. There had been no tenderness in their lovemaking yesterday afternoon. She had felt that he’d been trying to brand her as his property, to consume her completely, to prove something either to himself or to her. Maybe to both of them. And she knew that Jamie was the reason.

  She had heard the doubt and fear in Caleb’s voice when he’d asked, “How do you feel about Jamie Upton? And I want the truth.”

  Damn! Would she never be totally free of Jamie? Here she was accused of Jamie’s murder—despite suspicion falling on Laura Willis now, the DA hadn’t dropped the charges against her—and when she’d finally found a man she thought she could love, Jamie’s ghost stood between them.

  How could she convince Caleb that he had no reason to be jealous of Jamie? How could she prove to him that he was the only man she wanted?

  After they’d spent the afternoon in bed together yesterday, Caleb had driven her into town and she’d showered and changed clothes before coming to work here at Jasmine’s. She had thought things were okay between them, that whatever had been wrong with Caleb, they had worked it out in bed. But last night when she’d thought he would go home with her after they left Jazzy’s Joint, he’d surprised her and said good night at the door.

  “I need some time to think,” he’d told her. “I’ve already called Sally and she’s on her way. I’ll wait in the car until she gets here.”

  “Caleb, what’s wrong?”

  He’d kissed her, but hadn’t answered her question before he walked away, down the stairs and to his car. She’d wanted to go after him, to demand some answers. Instead she’d gone inside her apartment and had herself a good cry.

  She hadn’t seen him all day today. If he needed time, she’d give him time. Her days of running after a man, begging for his love, were long gone. She’d made a fool of herself over Jamie Upton when they were teenagers. Once he realized how much she loved him, he’d walked all over her. But she would never let another man do that to her. Not even Caleb. If he didn’t want her, if he’d decided he couldn’t handle his stupid jealousy of a man she didn’t love anymore, then so be it.