Deadline

“With the governor’s election less than a month away, both candidates have been busy on the campaign trail,” the news reporter stated. “Lieutenant Governor Caine made an appearance in Oxford, Mississippi, today at his alma mater, Ole Miss, where he was met by thunderous applause.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Rebels,” the smiling Caine began, referring to the team’s athletic mascot and evoking cheers from the crowd.

“Enjoy it while you can, Caine, because they’re not going to be cheering you much longer,” Spencer muttered. “Soon, real soon, the people of Mississippi are going to know you for the coldhearted, conniving bastard that you really are.”

Because somehow, someway, he intended to expose the real Everett Caine—the man who had used an innocent girl, then tossed her aside like garbage and caused her to take her own life. And while she didn’t know it yet, Tess Abbott was going to help him bring the man down.

When George came strolling back into the room and jumped up beside him, Spencer stroked the cat behind the ears and listened to him purr. Then he went back to the article. After fine-tuning it, he sent it off then set the laptop aside. He reached for the cat, stroked his silky fur. “Looks like I’m going to have to take a trip to visit the folks, fella. How’d you like to spend a few days with Miss Rosie next door?”

As if in answer, George purred even louder.

Spencer laughed at the cat’s reaction to the mention of the elderly widow who kept an eye on his apartment and George whenever he was away. “I thought so. The woman spoils you rotten. Just don’t get used to eating fresh tuna and chicken while I’m gone. Because when I come home, it’s back to the canned stuff. Understand?”

George gave him an indignant look out of his green eyes, then he flicked his tail and hopped off his lap to the floor. Without missing a beat, the cat walked over to the door and waited.

Tess exited the bathroom of the suite of rooms she’d been given and yawned. She shook her head, still surprised to discover a Jacuzzi tub and modern bathroom attached to a room that looked as if it had been designed during the Civil War. Heavens, but the room was beautiful, she thought as she flicked off the bathroom light. She padded on bare feet across the plush carpet to the antique four-poster bed. Running her fingers along one of the ornately carved posts, she stared up at the canopy that spanned the entire length of the bed. It had been done in the same rich blue satin fabric that had been used in both the bedspread and the drapes on the windows. The color scheme had been carried through on the pillows, too.

Glancing around the room, she took in all the little touches—the vase of fresh flowers, the oil paintings, the crystal candlesticks, the old-fashioned miniature frames with black-and-white photos, the intricate design of the fireplace screen. She looked at the fireplace, where logs had been placed in the grate, just waiting for someone to strike a match to the kindling wood. There was something so old world and Southern and inviting about the place.

Tired, but eager to explore a bit more, Tess moved across the room to the window. Kneeling on the chair beneath it, she unlatched the window and pushed open the shutters. The sheers billowed in the breeze. After propping her elbows on the windowsill, Tess lifted her face to the sky. The air was cool and damp against her skin. A strong wind coming from the north blew her hair across her face and Tess brushed the tangles from her eyes. Chilled, she shivered lightly, but continued to let the wind and the night wash over her.

And she listened to the sounds of the night: an owl hooting for its mate, frogs croaking near a pond, a dog barking in the distance. Somewhere, someone played a mournful tune on a harmonica that made her think of another time, another night when the air had been cool and damp like this one. The night her mother had been murdered.

Uncomfortable with the turn of her thoughts, Tess opened her eyes and gazed up at the starless sky. The moon had managed to escape the cloud cover, providing a sliver of light in a sky that was now an inky black. There were no high-rise buildings, no garish neon signs, no billboards here. But there were lots and lots of trees and cottages scattered across the landscape. Below her, Tess could make out some sort of garden with a bench beneath a tree. And there was a pebble path that led away from the house. She promised herself that in the morning she would follow that path and see where it led.

As she knelt at the window, the scents and sounds continued to wash over her, evoking old memories. Memories that she’d spent most of her life trying to forget. Memories that she knew she would have to face again if she was going to find the answers she sought—find out who was really responsible for killing her mother. Reminding herself that it was the reason she was here, Tess closed the window and turned back to the room.

Still chilled and feeling a little achy, Tess wondered if she was coming down with a bug. Deciding not to take a chance on getting sick, she returned to the bath-room where she retrieved two aspirin from her toiletry bag and washed them down with a glass of water.

When she exited the bathroom again, she spied the case with her laptop, resting beside the night table. It was late, but she could still do some research tonight. And she wanted to see if she could find out anything about Lester De Roach, she reminded herself as she recalled the strange incident at the convenience store earlier.

But she felt so tired, she admitted and yawned again. Giving in to fatigue, she walked over to the bed and climbed in. After switching off the lamp, she crawled beneath the duvet and closed her eyes. Tomorrow she would see what she could find out about De Roach, see if there was any connection between him and her mother, she promised herself while she snuggled into the pillows and waited for sleep to claim her.

As she drifted off to sleep, Tess’s thoughts were filled with her mother. Tossing and turning, Tess dreamed…

Tess dreamed that she heard voices—her mother’s voice. Only it wasn’t her nice, inside voice. It was her angry voice. And she was crying. Just like she had been crying that morning when she had argued with Daddy first about Mommy wanting to get a job and then about them going to Jackson to see Grandma Elizabeth and spending the night at a hotel. Daddy hadn’t wanted her mommy to work. And he hadn’t wanted them to go to Jackson. He had yelled and said that Grandma Elizabeth was not to pay for their hotel. That he would pay for it.

But they hadn’t stayed at the hotel after all. Because of her. She’d gotten sick. So she and Mommy had come home. So why was Daddy still mad? And why was Mommy crying? Tess heard a crash and her mommy screamed. Scared, she hid under the covers and cried. She cried and cried for a really long time. And then she slept.

When she heard her daddy yell again, Tess opened her eyes. She didn’t feel good. Her throat hurt. And she felt hot and thirsty, too hot and thirsty to keep hiding. “Mommy,” she cried. “Mommy.”

But Mommy didn’t come. Mommy always came when she was sick.

Still sobbing, Tess climbed out of bed and opened the door. She ran down the hall from her bedroom. “Mommy, my throat hurts,” she sobbed as she turned the corner and came into the living room.

Tess stopped and stared at her Daddy kneeling on the floor over her mommy, holding the statue from the bookshelf in his hands. “Is Mommy sleeping?” she asked.

But her daddy didn’t answer. He never even looked at her. He dropped the statue and reached for her mother. So Tess moved closer. She touched her daddy’s shoulder. Then she saw it—blood. Lots and lots of blood. On her mommy’s head, on the floor, on the statue, on her daddy.

“Tess,” her Daddy cried out. “Get out of here, baby. Go back to your room, baby. Go now,” he shouted, turning away so that she couldn’t see her mother.

“What’s wrong with Mommy? Why won’t she get up?”

“She’s hurt. Now go to your room.”

“I want my mommy,” she cried.

“Tess, please—”

And then she heard the sirens. The phone began to ring. Fists banged on the door. And the phone kept ringing and ringing…

Startled by the ringing phone, Tess sat up in bed and looked around the unfamiliar room. Then she spied the phone on the night table. She grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”

“Good morning, Ms. Abbott. This is your six-thirty wake-up call.”

“Thank you,” Tess said.

After hanging up the phone, she fell back against the pillows. And once again she questioned her decision to come back to Grady. What if her grandfather had been right? That she should allow the past to remain buried.

She also recalled Ronnie’s question. Would she be able to handle whatever it was that she discovered?

She didn’t know, Tess admitted. But what she did know was that she owed it to her mother, if not to herself, to find out what really happened that night twenty-five years ago.

Chapter Six

Tess sat at a table in the back corner of the Grady Public Library. The library itself was small. The two-story brick building was composed of no more than a dozen rooms, but those rooms were filled with an array of books. Everything from Shakespeare to the classics to the latest Sandra Brown thriller and everything in between. But while the library had lots to offer in the way of books, the selection of past newspapers and periodicals left much to be desired—particularly the ones dating from twenty-five years ago. So far, she’d only found a handful of articles that provided details about the murder trial.

Unfortunately, she’d had little luck with the newspaper search since the library was in the process of microfilming its back issues to free up storage space. It was a wise move, one she was surprised that they were only now getting around to implementing. It was simply her misfortune that the segment of newspapers that were being microfilmed at present were the ones in which she was interested.

Still, she hadn’t completely struck out thanks to the old, now defunct, town weekly. From it, she had been able to get a bird’s-eye glimpse of the defense attorney who’d been appointed to handle her father’s case—one Mr. Beau Clayton. Research done when she was still in D.C. revealed that he’d long ago left the public defender’s office and was now in private practice in another county between Grady and Jackson. What she hadn’t known, and had only discovered while at the library, was that Mr. Beau Clayton had been a green attorney, not long out of law school, with nothing more than a few petty theft cases under his belt when he had been handed her father’s murder case to defend. She couldn’t help wondering now just how good a defense he had been able to provide Jody Burns.

Adjusting her glasses, Tess typed in the next call number she’d copied from the periodicals/reserve desk that logged the location of all stored periodicals and newspapers at the library. And as had been the case with most of the call numbers she’d entered, she received the now familiar message: “Microfilm reel—Not Currently Received.” Sighing, Tess typed in the next one on her list.

“Wanda told me you were hiding in here again today,” a soft female voice remarked in that melodic tone to which Tess was quickly becoming accustomed. “Or did she mean you were still hiding in here because you haven’t bothered to leave?”

Tess looked up at Anne Marie Gillroy and smiled. “Hi, Anne Marie,” she said to the head librarian whom she had met for the first time when she’d visited the library on Monday. The lady hadn’t exactly fit Tess’s image of what a small-town librarian should look like. In addition to being under thirty, the brown-eyed brunette had the well-toned body of a dancer and a complexion the cosmetics firms would have paid a fortune to be able to duplicate. She also had a wardrobe much more fashionable than Tess would have expected, given the woman lived in a town of less than eighteen thousand people that didn’t boast designer boutiques on every corner. Today Anne Marie wore a rich burgundy pantsuit with a silver and leather belt that accentuated her curves. She’d draped a scarf in striking jewel tones across one shoulder and had anchored it with a silver clip. A pair of smart ankle boots completed the outfit. The added touches took the outfit from simply pretty to chic. “Believe it or not, I actually did go back to the guesthouse last night to sleep.”

“Are you sure? Because I could have sworn I left you in that very same position yesterday evening.” She leaned closer as though to study Tess’s face. “In fact, I think you were even wearing the same frown.”

Tess chuckled. Removing her glasses, she stretched. “I feel like I’ve been here all night. But the truth is, I’ve only been at it a couple of hours,” she said. “I was hoping I might have better luck today.”

“And did you?” Anne Marie asked.

“Not really,” Tess admitted as she glanced at the small cache of notes she’d made. “It seems just about everything I’ve tried to access for viewing is out being microfilmed. And the few things I have found are pretty much a repeat of info I already have.”

“Sorry,” Anne Marie said with an apologetic smile. “But getting all those old newspaper issues on storage film was something I’ve been itching to do since I took over this job. It took me eight months to get the council to approve it in the budget because they thought Miss Tilly’s old system worked just fine,” she explained, referring to the retired librarian whose position Anne Marie had been hired to fill. “Once they gave me the go-ahead, I decided I’d better move quickly before they changed their minds.”

“I understand,” Tess replied. And she did. Although Anne Marie Gillroy held a degree in library science from a major university in Texas, to many of the townspeople she was still little Anne Marie who had grown up in Grady. But apparently Anne Marie was winning them over slowly but surely. She couldn’t help but admire the woman’s dedication and determination to bring the town’s library into the twenty-first century. From what Tess could see, she was well on her way to accomplishing that goal. It was just unfortunate for Tess that the timing for the revamping of the library’s records storage system proved a hindrance to her own research. Deciding it was time to hit another source, she said, “Since I don’t seem to be getting too far here, I think I’m going to try the newspaper office.”