New Year Heroes: The Sheriff's Secretary / Veiled Intentions / Juror No. 7

“Wait,” Lucas interrupted the kidnapper. “We need to know that Billy and Jenny are still alive. You’ve got to give us something.”

“I reckon you’ve forgotten who is in charge here. At the corner of Main and Cotton Street you’ll find a bench with a big wide seat.”

“Listen to me, what is it you want from us?” Lucas exchanged a look of frustration with Mariah.

“At the corner of Main and Cotton …” the kidnapper began again.

“Why are you doing this? Just tell us what you want,” Lucas interjected. He was trying to pull the kidnapper into a discussion, hoping that something the caller said would trigger a clue. But the kidnapper still had no desire to deviate from whatever script was in his head.

“At the corner of Main and Cotton Street, you’ll find a bench with a big wide seat. If you look beneath you might find a clue, a little gift from me to you.”

Lucas grunted in surprise as Mariah snatched the receiver from his hands. “Listen you, we’re not playing your game anymore. You hear me? I’m done chasing around town looking for clues that aren’t there.” Her voice was shrill with anger and her eyes flamed with emotion. “Play your stupid game without us, because we’re done.”

The caller hung up.

Mariah stared at Lucas. She clutched the phone receiver so tightly her knuckles turned white. He gently tried to take it away from her.

“What have I done?” she whispered as she released the phone to him.

“You’ve changed the game, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he replied.

She sank into a chair at the table and covered her face with her hands. He pulled up a chair in front of her and sat, then reached out for her hands.

“Mariah, maybe you shook him up and maybe that’s what we needed to do,” he said. “He’s been running us all over town for nothing. It was time we told him no more. We take away the pleasure he’s gotten in baiting us and maybe he’ll get desperate for attention and make a mistake.”

“I just hope I didn’t make him angry enough to do something awful.”

“If he’s going to do something awful, then nothing we can do or say will make a difference,” Lucas said. It was possible something awful had already been done. He couldn’t ignore the possibility that Jenny and Billy had been killed in the hours immediately following the kidnapping and the killer was just amusing himself now.

“Who are you calling?” she asked as he began to punch numbers on his phone.

“The office. Ed,” he said into the receiver. “I want you to do me a favor. Go to the corner of Cotton and Main and check a bench that’s there. See if there’s anything taped to the bottom of it, then call me back.” If the kidnapper was watching, seeing the deputy might force him to act and give them something to go on.

He hung up and Mariah stared at him expectantly. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.

He shrugged and stared outside where night had once again fallen. The fourth night, and they were no closer to finding Jenny and Billy than they’d been on the first night.

He looked back at Mariah. “We do what we’ve been doing. We let the investigation unfold and we wait for a break.”

She sighed. “Did you find out any more about Frank’s whereabouts the past couple of days when you walked him outside?”

“No, but I did let him know what would happen if he bothered you while he was here in Conja Creek. I told him exactly what we thought of men who abuse women.”

Her eyes widened. “You threatened him?”

“Let’s just say I gave him a friendly warning.”

“Did you get any feeling that he might be behind this?”

“I don’t know whether he is or not, but he’s the kind of man capable of such a thing.” He leaned back in the chair. “The caller’s voice is so distorted it’s almost impossible to match it to somebody we’ve heard.”

“Maybe Agent Kessler will be able to tell us something about the calls,” she said.

Lucas nodded. But he knew that it could take weeks, even months to get information from Kessler and his men. The FBI lab wouldn’t necessarily see the kidnapping of one child and one woman from a small Southern town as a priority given all the other cases they worked.

Lucas still felt the burning need to be doing something, to tear apart the town in an effort to find the missing loved ones, but logically he knew there was nothing more to be done than what was being done.

The kidnapper was still in charge of things, and unless or until he made a mistake, there wasn’t much more Lucas and his men could do.

Maylor called to let them know that there was nothing unusual about the bench at Cotton and Main. Lucas checked in with Kessler and the rest of his men, then the night stretched out before them, long and dark.

“Is your mother still alive?” he asked Mariah, seeking conversation to fill the time.

“No. She had cancer and passed away not too long after my wedding. She died happy, believing that I had found a man to love and cherish me. I’m glad she passed before she knew about Frank and about my divorce.” She got up from her chair. “Want some coffee?”

“Sure,” he agreed. He wished she’d sleep. What little sleep they’d both gotten over the past four days had been in unexpected catnaps, when exhaustion overwhelmed will.

As he watched her making the coffee he was struck by a burst of desire for her, a need to lose himself in her kisses, in the sweet heat her body offered.

He couldn’t know if what he felt for her was real or simply emotions flaring out of control because of the situation.

It also occurred to him that, for the past four days, they’d existed like a married couple, sharing quiet conversations in the predawn moments, listening to each other breathe when the conversation ran out.

Lucas had never been a lonely man, but he had a feeling when he returned to his big house with only Marquette as company, he would be lonely. Talking to Mariah, watching her graceful movements and listening to the sound of her voice had become a pleasant habit, one he knew would be hard to break.

When the coffee was finished, she brought it to the table. She wrapped her slender fingers around her mug and eyed him curiously. “Don’t you want children?”

He started to give a quick reply, but instead took a sip of coffee and thought about the question. “I haven’t really thought about it for a long time. Certainly when I got married I figured eventually there would be kids. But then my marriage fell apart and I was busy raising Jenny. I didn’t give it any more thought.”

“Jenny is going to eventually get married and start a family of her own. That’s important to her, having a husband and kids.” She tilted her head a bit, the light overhead glistening in her chestnut hair. “When do you get your chance, Lucas? When is it time for you to build something just for yourself?”

“I have my work. It’s always been enough for me,” he replied a bit uneasily.

“Work is what I do, but being a mother is who I am.” She took a sip of her coffee, then continued. “I bet you’d make an awesome dad.”

He laughed, the amusement surprising even himself. “You can’t have it both ways, Mariah. You’ve told me in so many words that I’ve been screwing it up with Jenny and yet you think I’d make a great dad. That’s a little bit contradictory, don’t you think?”

She smiled, and it was the first smile he’d seen from her that wasn’t tinged with grief, that didn’t hold tense lines and jagged edges. “My complaint about your parenting skills has nothing to do with when Jenny was younger. I’ll bet you were a loving caretaker for her when she was a kid. My only complaint is that you don’t seem to know that it’s time to let go.”

“Point taken,” he replied. “You’re different than I thought you were.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever I saw you at the mayor’s office, you seemed hard-edged and uptight. You’re softer than I thought.”

“I take my job very seriously. Besides, anytime you came in to see Richard, he freaked out just a little bit. I think you scare him. You’re always so sure of yourself and what you’re doing. Richard cares so much about this town and the people, but he’s less sure about his path than you are.”

“Did he know about your past? That you weren’t really a widow?”