Deceit

around important names and projects between bites of honey-shrimp salad and prime rib au jus.

At that moment, her yellow-gloved hands holding a dirty plate, Melissa felt something crack within her. A feeling, a knowledge trickled out.

She was better than this.

Melissa stilled, caught by the sensation within herself. Yes. She was better. She really could forget her past. Forget her abuse and the ratty trailer and her mom’s live-in men with roving hands. Staying in this house as a lowly foster child wasn’t enough, even if the house belonged to Baxter Jackson. Melissa could be somebody. She’d be better than Linda. Not just some wife of a rich man who claimed she saw beauty on the inside. Melissa would make her own money. Live in her own place.

Maybe Baxter would help her go to college. She got good grades in high school. Why shouldn’t she pursue a higher education?

Melissa put down the plate and turned off the water. Voices chirped and chuckled from the dining room, but now she barely noticed. She focused out the window into the gorgeous backyard full of flowers and trees and green, green grass. A backyard tended twice a week by gardeners.

“You look stunning tonight.”

Baxter had seen something in her. She was born to live in a place like this. To live this kind of life.

Hope flamed within Melissa, so blazing and sudden she clutched the counter tile, barely able to breathe. For the first time she saw her childhood as a mere blip on the screen. It hadn’t ruined her. None of it, not even the death of her mother. It had strengthened and prepared her for the big world out there. She really could do anything she wanted. She could make things happen. All she had to do was go after it.

Tears biting her eyes, Melissa made a promise to herself. From this day forward no one, no circumstance, no setback would ever stand in her way.

TWENTY-SEVEN

FEBRUARY 2010

A cacophony of hammers startled me from sleep.

My body jerked. My bleary eyes flew open to behold my car windshield sheeted with rain. Some distance across the parking lot, my view of the Baptist Memorial Church warped and wavered. Drops pounded the roof of the SUV.

“Unh.” I blinked hard and checked my watch. Almost 3:00. What in the world? How could I have fallen asleep?

Sinking back against the headrest, I vaguely remembered doing that same thing after leaving the message for Melissa. I’d laid the prepaid cell phone on the passenger seat…

My head swiveled. The phone was still there. Along with the yellow pad and pen.

My body felt like a truck had hit it. I had to eat something. Real food.

My phone rang.

I bounced up straight, heart quivering. Only then did I realize it was my regular cell, not the prepaid. I dug it out of my purse and checked the incoming ID.

Private caller.

I stared at it. Should I answer?

The second ring stabbed my nerves. On the third one I hit talk. “Hello?”

“Joanne.” The unmistakable roughened voice of Hooded Man filled my ear.

My eyes fixated on the windshield, words sticking in my throat.

“I know you’re there.”

I swallowed. He was calling me now? Why hadn’t he called the first time, instead of stopping me on a deluged road?

“Are you doing what I told you?” he pressed.

“Were you at my house last night?”

“Why would I be at your house?”

“Someone slammed the garage back door. Just after the electricity went out.”

“Oh. No. I told you he would kill you if he found out.”

“But I didn’t tell anyone. I hadn’t even been home that long.”

Air seeped from his throat. “Then he doesn’t know, but he wants you dead anyway, after that newspaper article.”

Fear gripped my throat. No words would come.

“Don’t stay in your house tonight, Joanne.”

“Why won’t you tell me who you are?” My voice rose. “Why the mask? You’re a coward. Why should I listen to you?”

Silence throbbed in my ear. For a moment I thought he’d hung up.

“You’re right.” His voice hung low, grating. “I am a coward.”

My eyes closed. “Please tell me who you are.”

“You’re clearly in danger. Your only hope is to persuade Melissa to tell what she knows. Are you looking for her?”

“Yes, okay? Yes!” Perry’s words flashed in my mind—“Do what you have to do.” “Are you the only one who knows about this? Are there others with you?”

“You have to find her now.”

“I’m trying!” My fist pounded the steering wheel.

“You can’t spend another night in your house until you do.”

“What do you expect me to do, go on the run? You’re the one who got me into this. I should go to the police.”

“You can’t.” Hooded Man’s voice flattened.

“And just why not?”

I could hear him breathing.

“Tell me!”

“Because the chief’s in with Baxter.”

All air sucked from my lungs. I slumped back against the headrest, refusing to believe, knowing it was true. Chief Eddington had barely looked into Cherisse’s death.

But not everyone on the force was “in with Baxter.” The two policemen who’d come to my house last night had been helpful.

Or had they? What if they had seen evidence of a break-in and hadn’t told me? By the time I returned to the house the next day, footprints would have been long gone, erased by the rain.

“And don’t go to your sister’s,” Hooded Man warned.

“You leave Dineen out of this!”

“No, you leave her out. By not staying at her house.”

Did he know I’d stayed there last night?

My fingers curled around the cell phone. This was too much. I wanted to strangle this man. Because of some personal vendetta against Baxter, he’d used me as his perfect pawn. He’d played my sense of injustice, hung me out on a limb. Now there was no turning back. “Why did you do this to me?”

“Just. Find. Melissa.”

The line clicked.

“Wait! Are you there?” I thrust a hand in my scalp. “Don’t go!”

No response.

“Please!”

The emptiness echoed. I threw my cell phone on the floor and leaned over the steering wheel. Tears bit my eyes. What was I doing? How had I gotten here? This was crazy.

My cell rang, a different tone.

The prepaid.