For the Love of Jazz (26 page)

“If he wants me bad enough, he’s going to get me, regardless of where I am. I can’t spend my life hiding because of this. My God, you and Jazz put your wedding off. Because of this,” she said, frowning, reaching up to touch her shorn cap of hair.

“Marlie. Stay here. Please,” Anne-Marie said tiredly. Dragging a hand over her neat braid, she sighed. Studying her face in the decorative mirror, she shook her head. “You and your mom are safer here with me and Dad.”

“We’ve been here three weeks already. We can’t stay here indefinitely. I want to plan my wedding. I want to dance at yours. Are we going to let this end our lives?”

“They’ll find out who is doing this,” Anne-Marie responded.

“And if they don’t? It’s been months since it all started. And Tate, God help him, still doesn’t have a clue who did it”

“Don’t have much faith in your man, do you, Marlie?”

“I have complete faith in him. But I don’t want to put my life on hold, waiting for him to finish this. Anne-Marie, I need to go back to my own house.”

“Not yet.”

“Anne-Marie—”

“Please, just a bit longer. Something’s going to happen soon, I know it.”

* * *

One hand on the wheel, Anne-Marie hissed out an irritated breath while she rooted through her bag for her cell phone. “Damn it!” she muttered, smacking her hand against the console before upending the bag and sifting through the contents.

It wasn’t there. Where in the hell had she put it? Gee, Jazz was going to roast her alive. She’d promised she wouldn’t leave the house without the cell phone.

She glanced at the clock on the dash. It had only been a few minutes since she took the call from the new nurse at the hospital. “Five minutes. It’ll just take me five minutes to go back—

“Damnation!” she shouted, jerking the wheel to the side and slamming on the brakes. The impact was expected. She’d been going too fast to stop completely. Still, when she hit the huge, old oak, her brain ceased to function for a moment, just out of shock.

She teetered for a brief moment at the top of the hill, the passenger’s side wedged up against the tree. With a grinding noise of metal on metal, the car careened the rest of the way down the embankment, settling nose first into the creek. She had only a moment to be thankful it hadn’t been a wet summer before the shock settled and blackness closed in around her.

The gray mist was receding when a familiar voice spoke from just outside the car door, a few feet away on the bank.

“You really should learn to slow down a bit, Anne-Marie. Be more careful.”

* * *

“What do you mean, there’s no emergency?” Jazz repeated, his voice rising. Hand clenched tightly around the phone, he said through gritted teeth, “Marlie was here when the new nurse called and said she hadn’t been able to reach Jake Hart and there was an emergency.”

“I’m sorry,” the unit secretary said. “I don’t know what new nurse you’re talking about. There aren’t any new nurses here. And there’s been no emergency today for any of Dr. Kincade’s or Dr. Hart’s patients.”

“No emergency.” Slamming down the receiver, he turned on Marlie. “What time was the phone call?”

“Three thirty,” she whispered, her face bloodless. “There’s no emergency. No new nurse.”

“No.” Snatching the phone back up, Jazz dialed Tate’s cell phone.

“She’s been gone four hours,” Jazz said testily after Tate told him to calm down. “She’s not at the hospital. Not at her house. I call her cell phone and get a damned ‘out of area’ message. He’s got her, Tate.”

“I’m heading out,” Tate said. “Stay with Marlie—”

“The hell I will. That’s my woman out there…” The heated anger in Jazz’s voice died away as he turned to study Marlie Muldoon, standing a few feet away with her arm around her mother, tiny and fragile. “Damn it, Tate.”

“Go find my daughter,” a soft voice said from the doorway.

“Sir, I can’t leave Marlie alone here.”

“It’s not Marlie he wants,” Desmond said. “It never was. All of this has revolved around you, Jazz.” As he spoke, he reached down, just out of Jazz’s sight, lifting the heavy, well-oiled shotgun Jazz had always seen hanging above the desk in Desmond’s study. “Besides, boy. I ain’t exactly helpless.”

* * *

It was a wonder he saw it, driving as fast as he was. But that flash of red, all but hidden from sight by trees and brush, caught Jazz’s eyes as he sped down the lane. Slamming the car into reverse, he backed up until he caught the glimpse of red again. But it wasn’t the red paint that caught his eye this time.

It was the torn and mangled bushes, the tree with huge patches of bark missing, the pale under-skin of the tree married with black streaks and flecks of red paint and metal.

“Jesus,” he whispered as he fought his way through the tangled undergrowth.

It was Anne-Marie’s beloved Mustang, the body torn and mangled, all but buried in the deep creek bed that ran just inside the tree line. Only a breath of the trunk was visible from the roadside. Half submerged in the water, it sat empty.

“Anne-Marie!” he shouted, frantically searching the banks with his eyes after a quick glance inside the car confirmed it to be empty. “Anne-Marie!”

Splashing his way across the shallow, drought-depleted creek, Jazz’s frantic search came to an abrupt halt.

There, lying on the pebble-strewn bank was Anne-Marie’s pearl necklace.

* * *

Tate stood in the silent living room of his house, the house he’d grown up in—the “For Sale” sign out front next to another sign announcing an “Open House” every Sunday from one to three.

His hand closed convulsively around his cell phone and he lowered his lids, blocking out the room and the pictures on the walls. They hadn’t found Anne-Marie. A rain had blown up shortly after dusk and washed away the scent before they had time to utilize the dogs.

Returning home only to refuel and change out of his mud and rain-stiffened uniform, he had come to an empty house.

Now, opening his eyes, staring at the pictures on the wall, the missing piece of the puzzle finally fell into place.

* * *

Jazz rubbed his gritty eyes once more before reaching for the thick brew that passed as coffee on the days Darla wasn’t there to brew it. Knocking it back, grimacing at the taste, he willed the phone to ring. Willed the door to open to one of the searchers carrying Anne-Marie.

But when the door did open, it revealed his cousin. The odd, blank expression in Tate’s eyes had cold chills running down his spine.
Oh, God, no
, he prayed silently as he rose once more.

“Anne-Marie? Have they found her?” Jazz was almost afraid to ask, and at the same time, afraid not to.

“I think I know where she is,” Tate said, his voice flat, his eyes cold. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

“Where is she?” Jazz asked, lunging for Tate and seizing him by the collar of his shirt. “Who has her?”

Tate’s hands reached up, closing over Jazz’s wrists. But he did little more than hold on as he stared into the face so like his own. “My mother,” he said flatly.

* * *

Staring into those calm, gray eyes, seeing no remorse, seeing no regret, seeing no emotion at all, was the most frightening experience of Anne-Marie’s life. Her mind was still befuddled, still trying to grasp the idea that Ella McNeil was the one responsible for all this.

Ella McNeil.

Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since she’d crashed into the tree, twenty-four hours since she had, at gunpoint, climbed from the mangled wreck of her car. Ella had been waiting for her, looking cool and chic in a silk, khaki camp shirt and jodhpurs.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?” Ella asked, cocking her head, her honey blonde hair falling around her shoulders. She sat across from Anne-Marie, one leg crossed over the other while she sipped from a tin cup of tea.

“Does it really matter?” Anne-Marie asked. “If I’m going to die, knowing why won’t bring me back.”

With a shrug of her shoulders, Ella said, “Most people would want to know why. I imagine I would.”

“I already know the gist of it,” Anne-Marie responded. She flexed her arms again, straining against the steel cuffs on her wrists. “I’m going to die because you are a certified lunatic.”

“Now, darling, I’m not crazy,” Ella said, her tinkling laugh sounding in the air.

“You’re right,” Anne agreed. “You’re freaking psychotic.”

“I’m sure you think so.” A cool smile crossed Ella’s face, chilling Anne-Marie clear through. Sipping from her tea, she lifted her shoulders in an elegant, casual shrug. “And I suppose I can’t blame you for thinking so. I must say, though, Anne-Marie, I thought you were too smart to fall in love with a man like Jasper McNeil.”

“What kind of man is that?”

Ella merely gave her a long silent look. Setting the cup aside, she rose, smoothing her slim-fitting khakis down as she moved across the wooden floor to look out the window. “I’d intended you for Tate, you know. You had no right to give yourself to Jazz.”

“Excuse me?” Anne-Marie asked, her voice frosty. “I really don’t see how you had any say in the matter.”

Brushing her comment aside, Ella continued as if Anne-Marie hadn’t even spoken. “And then to fall in love with the man responsible for your brother’s death,” she mused, shaking her head and clucking her tongue.

“Jazz was not responsible,” Anne-Marie said quietly, her voice trembling with rage and fear.

“Oh, posh. Everything the man touches is destroyed or dead. His parents, your brother.”

“My father,” Anne-Marie offered, baring her teeth. “Don’t forget about the friend you shot simply to hurt Jazz. Why do you hate him so much?”

“Because he had everything that should have been Tate’s,” Ella returned simply. Her soft gray eyes grew distant, a bittersweet smile curving her mouth. “I begged his father to leave Delia, begged him not to marry her. He laughed at me, said I was a sweet girl, but it was just a crush.”

Looking back at Anne-Marie, she said, “His brother was a poor replacement. I wanted to make him jealous, make him realize we belonged together. Instead, he told me how happy he was for us. And that Delia was pregnant. It should have been me.”

Those words said, Ella took a deep breath, closed her eyes. The lines around her mouth and eyes faded as the tension left her face. “And everything Jasper gave to Jazz should have been Tate’s. And then after Jasper died, she up and married Beau Muldoon, the simpering, little fool. Oh, you’ll never know how sweet it was to see her come into town with a black eye or split lip.”

Edging closer, Ella leaned down and gave a conspiratorial grin and wink. “Beau was always so certain she’d leave him, that she had another man on the side. And from time to time, I let it slip that I’d seen a strange car in the driveway, or her disappearing inside one of Lem’s motel rooms.”

Understanding dawned in Anne’s eyes, darkening them. Face pale with rage, Anne-Marie whispered, “How did a good man like Tate come from a witch like you?”

The sharp slap across her cheek whipped her head around, hair flying into her eyes. Eyes trained on the floor, she breathed deep, the stinging in her face, the ringing in her ears all fading in comparison to the sickness in her gut.

“You really ought to watch what you say, Dr. Kincade,” Ella said, rubbing the palm of her hand. “I can either make this short and sweet or long and terrible. It’s your choice.”

* * *

“Doc Kincade, Momma’s missing.”

Desmond’s head whipped around, his intense gaze pinning Marlie to the wall. “She went to the bathroom. You were with her.”

“She went out the window,” Marlie whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief. “The window. My Momma who can barely even climb the stairs without help.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Desmond pressed his fingers to his eyes, frustration and worry eating a hole in his gut. What in the hell did he do? Half the men in the county were out trying to track down his daughter. Who was going to leave that search to come looking for a crazy, old woman who liked to wander off and dress kittens in doll clothes?

“Any idea where she could have gone?” Desmond asked, forcing his voice to stay calm and even.

“No,” Marlie whispered. “Damn it, Doc Kincade. Anything could happen to her. She just got out of the hospital. Her body is too weak for this!”

“Okay, girl. Here’s what we’re going to do. In my desk, I have a small derringer. It belonged to my wife’s Momma and I would have given it to Anne-Marie but she doesn’t care for guns.”

Only the derringer wasn’t there.

Neither were the bullets.

* * *

“You’re out of your ever-loving mind,” Jazz said flatly as he leaped into the off-road jeep.

“I hope to God I am,” Tate murmured. But the sick feeling inside his gut only intensified. He wasn’t wrong.

Siren blaring, Tate sped down the highway, taking a small, dirt access road that led back into the woods behind the lake. “She cut Marlie’s hair,” he said over the noise of the truck tearing through the woods. “I had just said a few days earlier, right in front of…of my mother, how I loved Marlie’s hair. And then it gets hacked off.”

“You’re condemning your mother on that?”

“Momma has a .38 and she knows how to use it. And she wasn’t asleep the night I got the call about Doc Kincade. I forgot about that. And the look on her face when I told her you had an alibi—Anne-Marie.”

“None of that means shit, Tate. Why would your mother…” His voice trailed off as Tate stopped the vehicle. He recognized the place, the place where he had gone fishing that last time with his father and Tate.

“Momma and Daddy had a fight that night, about me coming with you. Mom didn’t want me to come, said Jasper had no right to spend time with me. It made no sense to me. But Momma grieved more for your daddy than she did for mine. And for the longest time, I thought she hated you.”

Leaping out of the truck, Tate glanced back to Jazz. “Any way I can convince you to stay here?”

“My woman,” Jazz replied softly, heading down the long winding path that would take him to a tiny fishing cabin nearly two miles away.