Page 34

Chapter 30

T he cabin was made of logs, Swedish Cope-style, Jamie informed Mere and me, whatever that was. He said his father had built it back in the seventies to use as a fishing lodge. It was furnished with Cleburne hand-me-downs, he said, as well as a few antique pieces he had come across on his travels, with just enough tartan thrown in to let you know a man lived there. I forced a smile through the whole tour.

Jamie showed Mere to her room, cozy with an iron bed and antique washstand. Long muslin curtains, white and airy, lent a romantic feel. In spite of having to leave Ramsey behind at the main house, and the strange interaction with Jamie’s father, she was ecstatic at the sight of her new room. She kept touching the monogrammed bracelet, too. It made my stomach twist with disgust and dread.

“Sorry about Dad,” Jamie said, after he’d dropped my bag in my room. “He can get a little intense about Juliana. The old guard tends to lay it on a bit thick. But you’ve got to give them credit. They were the ones who chased off the automotive plant and came up with the Initiative.”

I just nodded. I was too distracted by the possible plans to get Mere and me out of here that were running through my head. Should I try to sneak out and steal Mr. Cleburne’s vintage truck? Email the local FBI office and wait around while they verified things with local law enforcement? I reviewed each idea, then discarded it. Juliana was like a tiny kingdom—an insulated, isolated bubble with its own aristocrats who had their own set of ironclad rules and threatened merciless punishment for anyone who dared break them. With the exception of Alice, they seemed to control most everyone around here, even the newcomers.

Was Deputy Inman part of it? My guess was no. That day he’d questioned me behind Billie’s, he’d told me not to tell anyone he was looking into the remains found at the mill. And he wasn’t from Juliana proper. Definitely not a part of the inner circle. Which was exactly why I wished he’d call me back.

Cooper Creek, I suddenly remembered. That’s where he’d told me he was from. A little west of Juliana.

Jamie went to the kitchen to find a bottle of wine. I ran a bath for Mere and laid out her pajamas. My mind raced. In the bathroom connected to my room, I unpacked enough to make it appear I intended to stay. Then, from a side pocket of my bag, I pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills Doc Belmont had prescribed for Peter. When I came out, there was wine for two set on the coffee table in front of the sofa and a pair of candles burning. I could hear Jamie in the kitchen, running the faucet.

“Go ahead and start your wine,” Jamie called. “I just need to clean up a bit in here.”

“Thanks.”

Mere appeared before me, wet hair and flushed, in her rainbow cloud pajamas. “Do I have to go to bed?”

I kissed her. “It’s late, sweetie.”

“Can I explore first?”

“Sure.”

She proceeded to wiggle her way around the room, exploring, investigating, and peering into every nook and cranny of the cabin. I inhaled nervously and dropped my hand in my pocket, feeling the pill. I walked over to the glasses of wine. Hand shaking, I dropped it in one of the glasses and swirled the wine around. A lighter lay beside the candles and, on impulse, I grabbed it and dropped it into my pocket. I’d have use for it later on.

Then I peered at Jamie’s glass of wine.

Shit. The pill wasn’t dissolving. It was just sitting there at the bottom of the glass. I looked over my shoulder. Mere had climbed up on an old cushy armchair and was studying a painting of a horse. I dunked a finger into the wineglass, trying to stir the pill around. That worked to some degree. Bubbles were streaming up from the tablet, which might be worse than not dissolving at all, now that I thought about it.

Shit .

I picked up the other glass and swallowed a gulp, all the while swirling and swirling Jamie’s glass. I walked around the woodsy, rustic room, studying the décor, swirling both glasses. Mere had climbed down from the chair and was galloping around the room like a pony. Still swirling the glass furiously, I stepped back into a small office, feigning interest at the framed certificates on the wall. University of Georgia, Emory. He’d gotten another degree there. An MD specializing in Family Medicine.

Jamie was a doctor?

“I was looking for this.” He took the wineglass I’d been swirling out of my hands and took a small sip. He glanced around then kissed me swiftly.

“So you’re Dr . Cleburne?”

“Oh yeah.” He trailed his fingers down my arm. “That.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to brag.” He grinned. A lie. He hadn’t wanted me asking all the obvious questions about the old guard.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why don’t you practice?”

“Long story. We used to have another doctor in town, Bobby Minette. Dixie’s husband. An ob/gyn. Unfortunately, he passed away at a young age. Doc Belmont’s great. But he won’t live forever, and they wanted a backup. Someone they could trust.”

“Someone from the old guard.”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “I know, I know. They’re really set in their ways. Anyway, they sent me to med school, and while I’m cooling my heels at the antique shop, they make it worth the wait.”

“How do they do that?”

He smiled. “It’s a secret. You’ve got to pinky promise not to tell.” He hooked his pinky through mine and my heart seemed to go still. I could barely breathe. “The council created a little trust fund for me. An incentive to keep my morale up, so to speak. They give me whatever I want, and one day, they know I’ll return the favor.”

I went cold all over. “And what is it that you want?” I asked. But I knew. Right there in that moment, I knew exactly what Jamie Cleburne wanted. Because the town council had made sure they got it for him.

They’d sent the email to me.

They’d made a house available that hadn’t been.

They’d paved the way for Billie’s to flourish . . .

. . . and they’d eliminated the one obstacle—Peter—who’d stood in the way of Jamie claiming his prize.

What Jamie wanted was me.

“Billie.” His voice was husky. He moved closer and kissed me. He tasted warm and spicy with a hint of red wine. His hand, the one not holding the wine, moved from my arm to the curve of my lower back.

I pulled away. “Mere.”

“Okay. Later.” He sipped his wine, eyes burning into mine.

I needed to slow him down with the wine. Jamie wasn’t supposed to know he’d been drugged, just that he’d had a really fantastic night of sleep and not woken once. Him being a full-on medical doctor had definitely not been part of the plan.

I shuttled Mere off to bed, then joined Jamie in the living room where he had the Braves-Reds game on. He’d already topped off his wine. Frustratingly, not only was he still upright, he couldn’t keep his hands off me. As I pretended to be engrossed in the TV, he kept rubbing my back and kissing my neck, and it was taking everything inside me not to scream and shake him off. I clenched my jaw and kept commenting on the game. And then, the obvious occurred to me. Short of straight-up anesthesia, the one-two punch of an Ambien and an orgasm would put him in possibly the deepest sleep a person could have.

I looped my arms over his shoulders and pulled him closer.

“Oh God, yes,” he said, and pressed against me, body and face. It was like he couldn’t believe he had me here, all to himself. Like I was his prize or something.

I tightened my arms around him. “Not too loud.”

“My room,” he whispered in my ear. He spun me and gently pushed me toward the opposite side of the kitchen. I spun back to him, grabbing the hand beneath my shirt with what I hoped passed for excitement, not the fury and disgust and fear I was truly feeling.

“Let me just make sure she’s asleep. And I should shower.”

He nuzzled me. “I can’t wait.”

“It’s been a long day, Jamie. Please.”

He softened. Lifted my chin and kissed me once more, this time tenderly. “Shower in my bathroom. I’ll join you.”

I pushed open Mere’s door. She was asleep, thank God. If he would just fall asleep already, I wouldn’t have to go through with this whole nightmarish plan. Time was ticking by. I couldn’t just stay here in Mere’s room. I needed to go back. If he was still awake, I was going to have to play this whole farce out to its bitter end.

I crept back through the house, quietly opened Jamie’s door, and practically collapsed in relief. He was sprawled on his bed, shirt off, jeans still on, snoring away. In a flash, the relief was replaced with something else.

Rage. The kind of bone-shattering, teeth-grinding, blinding flood that wipes everything out of your mind other than the one pure, crystalline need to strike. I wanted to kill this man. I didn’t care about the law or presumed innocence or any of that nonsense. I wanted Jamie Cleburne dead.

And then, I noticed it: a long-barreled shotgun, leaning in the corner of the room, on the other side of the nightstand, gleaming in the low light. As if in a trance, I walked around the bed and right up to it. I reached out and touched it, feeling the cold metal against my fingers.

I picked it up and placed the stock against my shoulder. Closed one eye and trained the sites on Jamie. I held the gun there, staring down the barrel, and saw myself pulling the trigger. I saw the blast, felt the kick of the gun. Pictured Jamie, exploding into a hundred pieces. His blood would spray every surface and I would watch that with nothing but satisfaction. My blood was singing. It felt like there was a chorus of angels around me in every corner of the room, holding my arms up, urging me on. Singing with heavenly voices a solemn dirge. A funeral song.

We will see him, but we will miss him.

There will be one vacant chair.

A rush of air escaped me, and my vision went black. I lowered the gun, returned it to the corner, heading for the door. Dizzy, I clawed at the frame, heaving, my mind racing.

Go, Billie.

Get your daughter and go.

I headed back to Mere’s room. She was sleeping, arms flung over her head, the gold M and J bracelet still on her wrist. I gathered her limp, sleeping form into my arms.

* * *

The night was warm but bright from the moon. At exactly a quarter past eleven, Emmaline Dalzell met me on the asphalt road just beyond the white brick pillars in her mother’s ancient Mercedes. I loaded Mere—still in her rainbow cloud pajamas and half-asleep—into the back seat and climbed into the front. I didn’t bother with a seat belt. Nobody in Juliana was on the road at this hour and the Mercedes was, for all intents and purposes, a tank.

“Just drive for now,” I told Emmaline. “I need to make a phone call.” I opened a search for Cooper Creek, Georgia, on my phone. Hopefully Isaac Inman wasn’t the early-to-bed type.

“Who are you looking for?”

I kept scrolling. “I’d rather not say.”

“I swear I won’t breathe a word and maybe I can help.”

I only hesitated a fraction of a second. “Isaac Inman. He’s a deputy in the sheriff’s department.”

“I know him.” She kept her eyes on the road. “I played his sister in volleyball. You want his phone number?”

“Maybe not his. Someone in his family who might know how to get word to him without using his phone.”

She glanced at me. “His grandmother. Eleanor Inman. She raised him. She lives over in Cooper Creek, on Franklin Road, I’m pretty sure.”

I gave her a grateful look. “Thanks.”

“She’s been to your restaurant,” Emmaline said. “Justine mentioned seeing her there once.”

I got her point immediately: I could find Eleanor Inman on Billie’s reservation app.

“I won’t ask any more questions,” she went on. “And I promise, I won’t say a word to anyone. I may be a Dalzell, but I’ll never be one of them.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Just something my mom told me a long time ago before she died. She said there was something wrong with this town, with the people, and my father knew about it, but he wouldn’t tell her. Me and my sisters can’t figure out what it is either. He doesn’t trust us, not since we started hanging out with Wren and went to live in the Dalzell-Davenport house. Now he’s just obsessed with making sure we get married and stay in Juliana and that we’re always financially dependent on him. And he’s dating one of those new Initiative women who moved here. She’s a clothing designer apparently. Closer to our age than his. I swear, I think he’s going to try to have another kid with her.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What do you think they’re up to? The old guard?” She looked afraid, so small and young. I wanted to comfort her. Unfortunately, I had more pressing matters to deal with.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but it does involve whatever happened in that gold mine back in 1864.”

“You think it’s something bad.”

“I do.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”

From the back seat, I heard Mere issue a little sigh of sleep, just as I located Eleanor Inman’s phone number on the reservation list.

* * *

“He’s right here,” said Isaac Inman’s grandmother. “You want to talk to him?”

I wilted in relief. “Yes, please.”

“Ms. Hope,” came Inman’s earnest, impossibly young voice. I had a brief, panicky moment of doubt. This guy was so young. How was he going to stand with me against a whole town?

“I’m so sorry to call this late, but you were asking me some questions a few weeks ago . . .”

“I remember.”

“I gave you a call on the number you left me, but you never called back. You didn’t, but Sheriff Childers did.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Deputy?”

“That would be because I got fired a few days ago,” he said. “Well, first I got taken off the case and sent off to work on some nonsense case over in Alabama, and then I got fired. I figured Childers didn’t want me on the . . . particular case you and I discussed, and around here, when the powers that be decided you’re gone, you’re gone.”

No shit.

We were almost to Alice’s. I sunk lower in the wide seat. “Will you meet me at my house in an hour?” I asked him. “I’ll tell you everything then.”

“I’ll be there. And Ms. Hope? Stay safe.”