Down and Dead in Dallas, page 18
“Is that what gave me away?”
“My reaction to you is what gave you away,” he said. “But your reactions made me think to recognize it.” He paused. “Something else entirely gave me proof.”
“What?”
“Your kiss.” He looked up at her. “I spent a lot of time with your sister and not once did I feel even a twinge of attraction much less the desire to kiss her. Yet with you, it was kiss you or drown. I wouldn’t make it unless I kissed you. That’s when I knew for fact you weren’t Caroline.”
His disclosure explained a lot. “So that’s why you were acting differently today.”
He nodded. “Ticked off at you for lying. Trying to figure out why you’d lie to me. Whether you were faking having feelings for me for some other purpose. Hurt because you weren’t telling me the truth and frankly shocked you were good and pulling it off to the point that even with doubts, I was falling for you. That grated on me something fierce. But mostly I didn’t know who you were or why you were faking being Caroline.”
She sat down beside him and risked stroking his face. “I lied. I lacked trust. I hurt you and I was hurting, too. But I have never, not once, faked my feelings for you, Jackson.”
He just looked at her. “You sure I’m not the means to an end and that’s it?”
“I’m sure.” She worried her lower lip, studied his reaction. “You believe me but you’re still furious with me, aren’t you?”
“I am, but I get it.”
Surprise rippled through her. “You do?”
He nodded. “We do what we have to do to protect those we love. Sometimes those ways are ones we expect, and sometimes they’re not.”
“Jackson?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” She leaned closer and kissed his lips.
A long minute later, she released him and met his gaze. “You kissed me back, so I’m guessing you’ll forgive me.”
“Eventually,” he admitted. “Provided we live long enough.”
“You say that as if we’re in danger.” When he didn’t dispute her, she went serious. “Are we in danger here?”
“Yeah, we are.” He stared off at the wall, near the front door.
“From who?”
“Everybody,” he confessed, and hauled himself to his feet. “You stay put. I’ll be back to get you for the Little Independence Day celebration tomorrow.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t leave the cottage until then.”
“Why are you worried? Why are we in danger from everyone?” She lifted her arms. “I thought Sampson Park was a safe haven.”
“It is,” he said. “But only for invited guests.”
She stilled. “That doesn’t include me.”
“Let me work through this.” He opened the door. “I need expert advice.”
“What kind of expert advice?”
“Lester’s.” Jackson shut the door.
It echoed a hollow wham.
Chapter 26
Jackson rushed into the manor house, but didn’t see Lester. In the kitchen, he spotted Ned at the stove, stirring something in a large pot. “Have you seen Lester?”
“Not lately.” Ned rubbed his fingertips, sprinkling in salt. Fresh minced garlic smelled strong, wafting in the rising steam.
Jackson spun around to continue his search and collided with Mr. Jenkins. “Sorry.”
“Come with me,” he said, his voice calm and stiff.
In silence, Mr. Jenkins led Jackson out the front door and across the moonlit lawn to the gazebo by the lake. It stood empty, confusing Jackson. “Lester’s not here. Why—?”
“Sit down, Jackson.” Mr. Jenkins pointed to the slatted seat running along the gazebo’s inner perimeter. “You’ve just left Caroline, correct?”
Bewildered, Jackson nodded.
“Did you figure it out yourself, or did she tell you?” he asked.
Sticky hot, Jackson didn’t want to touch that question with a ten-foot pole. “Excuse me?”
“Your hearing isn’t impaired.” Mr. Jenkins frowned. “Don’t make me repeat myself, and don’t play games with me, Jackson. Not about this.”
He frowned. The gig was definitely up. “I knew it.”
“When?”
He looked into the man’s eyes. They were deadly serious. “When I kissed her.”
“Really?” His brows shot up on his forehead. “Not before then?”
“Not for sure,” Jackson hedged, then confessed. “But I had strong suspicions.”
“So she didn’t tell you the truth.”
“Actually, she did.” He shifted on his seat and repeated the upshot of what Christine had told him. “I should have known from the minute I first saw her.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t at all attracted to Caroline, but Christine…”
Awareness rippled through Mr. Jenkins’ eyes and across his stern face. “You love her?”
Jackson shrugged. “I’m not sure what love looks like, Mr. Jenkins, much less what it feels like. But she gets to me.”
“Relationships have been built on far less and endured.” Mr. Jenkins took two steps, then turned and took two more steps back toward Jackson. “I take it you are looking for Lester to tell him about her and to discuss what to do.”
Jackson nodded. “That was my thought.”
“In a word, don’t.” Mr. Jenkins advised.
“Why not?” If anyone knew how to handle this sticky wicket, it’d be Lester.
“Because she’s not one of us. If you tell Lester, he’ll certainly tell Miss Emily. He has no choice. And neither will she. The committee will be convened and—”
Seeing where this was going, Jackson cut in. “I can’t not tell them, Mr. Jenkins.”
“Think, Jackson,” he whispered on a rush. “You know the rules here. The moment you say anything to any of them, you will be in the same jeopardy she is in.”
The truth hit Jackson. “You knew she wasn’t Caroline, too.”
“Of course. I knew it immediately, though I did have an advantage over you.” He hiked his chin. “Caroline and I have had tea most afternoons since shortly after her arrival. She confided many things to me, including all about her sister and their Operation Switch and Bait.”
“Why did she do that?”
“So I would charge her phone battery.”
“She had a phone—in the Park?” Jackson couldn’t keep his surprise to himself.
Mr. Jenkins nodded. “On arrival, she had two. One she left with Lucas and her special phone, she smuggled into the Park. Before her arrival, she had used it for the sole purpose of contacting her sister, and she needed the battery charged to phone and let Christine know she was safe.”
“You did it?” Jackson stood up, stunned.
“I brought it back to the manor house to charge and, eventually, I did charge it. But when I returned it to her, she tried to use it and the phone didn’t work.”
“Course not,” Jackson said. “Lucas’s scramblers.”
“His what?” Mr. Jenkins looked confused.
“There are security scramblers in the Park, to keep phones from working anywhere except at the manor house.”
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Mr. Jenkins said. “We—Caroline and I—supposed the phone was somehow damaged. She was very distressed at not being able to phone Christine.”
“Christine has been worried out of her mind, too.” Snakes coiled in Jackson’s stomach. “So if you know all this, then Miss Emily… already knows?” Jackson couldn’t imagine a scenario where Mr. Jenkins hadn’t told her. Yet at the conference meeting this morning, she hadn’t said a word or even hinted at having other information…
“I know you don’t expect me to answer that.”
Jackson was doomed either way. “You told her. Miss Emily knows it all.” Jackson gained his feet, worried. “Why didn’t she warn me?”
“I’m sure she had her reasons. She always does.” Mr. Jenkins rubbed at the back of his neck. “Perhaps it was a trust test.”
“If so, I failed.” Jackson let out a resigned sigh. “What am I going to do?”
“You do have a dilemma,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Christine is an outsider, and you brought her here.”
“But I thought she was Caroline.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “But you know what you thought won’t matter. The rules are the rules for a reason. The safety of everyone here depends on them. If she’d come to Sampson Park as herself, as Caroline’s sister, that would have been one thing. But to impersonate Caroline?” Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “The committee will not ignore that infraction—and Miss Emily will have no choice but to inform it.”
Dread dragged through Jackson. The whole committee would be calling for their heads, Christine’s and his. Worse, the associates had been arriving all day, and they’d weigh in as well. Jackson sought a way out, but there just wasn’t one. “They’re going to kill us.”
“Or make you wish they had.” Mr. Jenkins tilted his head. “Now, where is Caroline—the real one?”
“How would I know?” Jackson asked. “I told you, when Caroline ended Operation Switch and Bait, Christine stayed Caroline to go to Even to find her. She hasn’t. Neither have I.”
Worry clouded Mr. Jenkins’ expression.
Disappointment slid through Jackson. “I take it you don’t know where she is either.”
Mr. Jenkins nodded that he didn’t. “Martin?”
“It’s possible, but my gut says no. He wouldn’t have stayed on Christine. My guess is, if he had her, he would make the two of them disappear.”
“Most likely, you’re right.” Mr. Jenkins sigh heaved his shoulders. “One day she was here, then she wasn’t.”
“She couldn’t just vanish.”
He frowned. “She did.”
Jackson rubbed his forehead. “So what do I do now?”
Mr. Jenkins rubbed his jaw, his gaze distant and unfocused. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Of all the answers he could have been given, that one he never saw coming. “I can’t do nothing. Deceive Lester and Miss Emily? Rose and Matthew?” Jackson grunted. “They have arrived, right?”
Mr. Jenkins nodded. “Earlier this evening.”
“Rose is going to be so ticked off.”
“Will she?” Mr. Jenkins looked thoughtful.
“If she has to die and move again, she’ll be furious.” Jackson knew that for fact. “She’s still assembling her team in Even.”
Mr. Jenkins tapped a fingertip to his lips. “But she sideswiped Martin in Matthew’s Jag to run interference for you, didn’t she?”
Jackson nodded, unsure where he was going with this. “Yes.”
His eyes narrowed, bunching his thick brows between them. “Knowing you and Christine were coming to Sampson Park.”
“Well, yes, and no. Rose thought it was me and Caroline. Then, I thought so, too.”
“But Rose aided you in getting the woman here.”
Jackson picked up on Mr. Jenkins line of thought. “Matthew, too, but we can’t mention that. No sense dragging them into trouble with me.”
“I have an idea.” Mr. Jenkins seemed far less troubled. “You go on back to the manor house and grab some sleep. You look worn out.”
“I am, but who can sleep now—with all this—?”
“Rest, Jackson.”
“Then what?”
“Leave it to me,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Tomorrow, you pick up Christine and go to the Little Independence Day celebration as planned.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s best you don’t know…” Mr. Jenkins took off back toward the manor house.
Jackson wanted to argue, but good sense won out. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell… or be forced to admit. “Thanks,” he called out, hoping he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.
Christine dragged herself out of bed and put on a pot of coffee. If she could hook up to an IV, she’d stand a chance of feeling human today. Since she couldn’t, she’d pull herself together as best she could and be grateful for whatever she got.
After Jackson had left the cottage last night, she’d pulled on black slacks and a t-shirt and then searched the Park for Caro until dawn. She’d been tempted to head straight back to the forbidden area, but it’d be just her luck that Lucas had alarms all over it. She didn’t want to risk tripping them and sending the whole Park into another chaotic lock-down.
She’d walked the banks of the lake, the little bridge to the village. She’d hiked all the way out to the ranch, but couldn’t search it thoroughly. If she’d gotten the animals stirred up, the people in the bunkhouse, if not the main house, would have come running, probably armed.
On the way back, she’d hung close to the edge of the woods. Small wildlife she couldn’t see but heard scurried around, and she prayed hard she didn’t stumble over any snakes or alligators. Jackson claimed both and more were natural to the area.
By the time she made it back to the cottage, the sky was threatening pink. She warned herself not to cut the time that close again; she could have easily been spotted. People here got out of bed early. As it was, she’d had a near-miss encounter with a man watering in the community garden.
Finally, the coffee was ready. She poured a cup full, and went onto the porch to drink it. Squinting up at the sun, she checked the shadows under the giant agapanthus near the street. It was about eleven o’clock. Not having a watch wasn’t so bad, once you figured out how to gauge time.
Her stomach rumbled.
Back inside, she refilled her cup from the pot, wishing she’d brought a few of the pastries home with her from the village yesterday. Instead, she slapped together a peanut butter sandwich, certain Jackson would have a stroke at her eating habits.
Dropping onto a seat at the table, she grunted. Forbidden or not, she was going to check out that secret area. It was the only place left to look for Caro. What was the worst that could happen?
More awake and alert, she topped off her cup and then took a steaming sip. Jackson—the whole bunch of them—would be ticked off. Lucas wouldn’t be pleased, either. If she had to, she could always tell them all the truth. Now that Jackson knew it, a confession wouldn’t be the end of the world. So they’d be upset. Deceiving people did that. But if she’d concluded Caro wasn’t in the Park and she explained… really, how bad could it get? It wasn’t like they’d kill her or anything.
She finished her sandwich and went for cup four, feeling a lot more energetic. Hoping the feeling didn’t fizzle before the festivities began, she showered and tossed opened the closet, looking for something appropriate to wear.
A sea-green sundress caught her eye. If her hair were still red, she would have looked right past the dress but, as a blonde, the dress would be a good look for her. She put on the flowing dress and a pair of strappy sandals, then pinched her cheeks—which the heat would have flaming within minutes of stepping outside—then swiped on a little lip gloss. Twisting her hair up into a knot to get it off her neck, she snapped in a barrette to hold it in place.
A mirror check surprised her. She looked like Caro.
Her heart hitched and Christine squeezed her eyes shut. “I will find you. Whatever it takes, I will find you.”
Chapter 27
In the village, people filled the street, milling from vendor to vendor. From strings looping their wrists, kids and many adults, floated balloons, munched on funnel cakes and cotton candy.
A group of seniors sat at a table in the shade, laughing and chatting. Some ate shrimp stew and some enjoyed thick slices of apple pie topped with homemade ice-cream. Beyond them, a barrel Christine had seen yesterday and wondered what it was for, now held a tabletop. Four white-haired men, including Speckles, sat in rockers around it, playing checkers and sipping at what looked like mugs of ice-cold beer.
All the sidewalks were shaded with fabric awnings, giving the vendors who had set up tables in front of their stores respite from the blazing sun. Huge bows had been tied to everything stationary, the ribbon ends left long to dance in the breeze created by foot-pumped fans being pedaled by teens. Large metal washtubs and bins lined the outer walk, filled with sodas and mason jars of tea resting on beds of crushed ice. In the middle of the street near the big clock, a cluster of residents sat seated, playing musical instruments. From fiddles to trumpets to flutes. Beyond them, others coupled and danced to the music. Others danced alone, and when some took a break, still others joined in, and kept the music and the dancing going.
“This is great.” Christine smiled at Jackson. “It reminds me of the old-time ice-cream socials.”
“I can’t say I’ve been to an ice-cream social,” he said.
“We had them at church, when I was a kid. In-gatherings, they called them. Everyone would bring a casserole and play games, and of course, make home-made ice-cream.”
“If I’d known that, I’d have spent more time at church. Rose was always dragging me to services at one or the other. She thought attending church would keep me out of trouble.”
“Did it?”
“Mostly, worrying what she’d do to me if I got in trouble kept me out of trouble.” He grinned. “She took me to Sunday School nearly every week.”
Something in his voice warned Christine there was more to the story. “But…”
“But I’d go in the front door then sneak out the back, find a tree, and take a snooze.”
“Jackson.” The reprimand was only half-hearted. “You didn’t get caught?”
“I did.” He nodded. “I woke up and the preacher was sitting beside me on the grass.”
She tried not to laugh. “What did he say?”
“He asked me what I was doing there.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I was having myself a talk with God.”
“And he believed you?”
“Seemed to.” Jackson grunted. “Actually, Pastor Brown was a wise one. He said sometimes he liked to get off by himself and talk to God, too. It was easier to hear what He had to say when a body could get to the quiet.” Jackson dipped his head. “Pastor Brown had a harping wife and four daughters.”
