Down and Dead in Dallas, page 4
Jackson returned to the front porch. “Sorry for the delay,” he said, passing her a tall chilled glass of iced-tea.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “We were so busy this morning, I haven’t had a chance to get anything to drink.”
“Seeing Martin like that probably dried out your throat even more.” Jackson sipped from his own glass. “What’s he doing here?”
“I wish I knew.” Truer words had never been spoken.
He nodded. “How long have you been in Even?”
“Just over a week.” A simple question, and already she was treading into dangerous territory. She resisted the urge to shift on her seat.
Silence fell between them. If she had been Caro, it would have been comfortable. Jackson was a big man—tall, lean and incredibly good looking, which struck Christine a little odd. All her adult life, she’d thought she wasn’t drawn to men who were blond, and she wished she weren’t now. Jackson would be the exception. His hair hung long on his neck and low on his forehead, swept back, as if by an impatient hand. But his face was kind, his eyes intensely blue and incredibly gentle. And though she’d have to be blind or dim-witted not to know he and Rose and her husband had plenty of questions, at least Jackson didn’t seem in any hurry to push hard for answers.
To keep him from deciding to push, she made an observation. “I know your sister is new to the funeral home business here, but as nervous as she is about the Wooten funeral, she must be new to the business altogether.”
“She’s been in training well over a year.”
Christine hiked her brows. “Can’t tell it by her driving.”
“I saw she clipped the bushes. It’s a new vehicle.”
“She had a near miss with a mailbox, too.”
“And took out a trashcan,” he said as though it were no big deal. “I stopped and cleared up the mess.”
Christine smiled. “You’re a devoted brother.”
“The delay gave me a chance to watch for Martin, which is why Rose it. We wanted to be sure he didn’t follow us here.”
“Are you saying she deliberately took out the trashcan?” Christine stopped rocking to reassess her assumptions on Rose.
“Definitely.” The corner of Jackson’s mouth lifted.
“She said the hearse was new and she wasn’t used to driving it yet.”
“It is, but Rose was born driving anything with wheels. If she hit the can, it was intentional.”
Interesting. So she hadn’t needed to focus, she just hadn’t wanted to talk on the way to her house. Now why was that? “I see.”
“She is nervous about the funeral this morning,” Jackson said. “Carl Wooten used to own this funeral home. He trained Rose and Matthew and she doesn’t want to disappoint his family.”
So the man on the porch Christine had assumed was Matthew, was Matthew, Rose’s husband. “Can’t blame her for that. Handling my mentor’s service would have me nervous.” Any funeral would have Christine nervous. Since her parents’ deaths, she had avoided them like the plague.
“Rose is worried the locals and Carl’s family will pick apart everything she says or does. You know what I mean. People don’t like being reminded that someone they were close to can be replaced.”
“Change.” Christine slid her fingertip down the chilled, sweating glass. “They fear change.”
“And having someone come along and maybe do their life’s work better.” Jackson bent his knees so his legs weren’t stretched out halfway across the porch. “Caroline, are you okay now?”
Uh-oh. The reprieve had passed and questions were coming. “I’m better. Seeing Martin standing there… Well, my heart rate is still hovering in the stratosphere, but sitting here has slowed it down a bit. It’s surprisingly peaceful here.”
“Glad to hear it. I think that’s what made Rose and Matthew want the place.” Jackson downed a long swallow of tea, then set his glass back onto the little table placed between their rockers. “When you’re recovered, let me know, okay?”
He didn’t want to push her, and he knew he might be. Considering Caro’s usual fragile state, Christine understood his misgivings and apprehension. Thoughtful of him, though it grated at Christine to have Caro’s fragility tagged as her own. Not that she was above using it to stretch out her thinking time, because she surely wasn’t.
Jackson’s phone rang. He checked caller ID and glanced her way. “Sorry for the interruption, but I have to take this.”
“No problem.” It’d give her another couple minutes to figure out how to handle the coming inquisition that could reveal her secret and blow her cover.
Jackson stood then stepped off the porch and walked over to the shade of a big twisted oak. A deliberate move, of course, that gave Christine zero chance of overhearing anything, or even trying to read his body language.
Every instinct in her told her to seize the upper hand and quiz him, Matthew and Rose about Caro. But those same instincts also warned her they wouldn’t welcome quizzing and likely would shut down. Seemed they had secrets of their own they wanted to stay secret. Otherwise, at the diner, Rose would have greeted Caroline like someone she knew instead of a stranger. Jackson, too. But neither had. Only Matthew had called her by name on sight. Of course, he’d also been shocked to see her, and it wasn’t a pleasant kind of shock. More like a stunned kind of shock that incited heaps of worry.
What did it all mean? Who were these people to Caro?
Christine prayed she found out…before they found her out.
You’d better, she told herself. Or things could get really messy…
Chapter 7
Jackson leaned back against the trunk of the oak, keeping one eye focused on Caroline and one on the street, half-expecting Martin Easton to be brazen enough to drive right up and start making demands.
“I’m good, Miss Emily,” Jackson said into the phone. “You and Lester doing okay?”
“We’re looking forward to seeing you. It’s been too long, Jackson. Dallas isn’t so far away that you can’t get home to see us a wee bit more often.”
“You know I’d love to be there, but I had to be careful. The last thing I want is to bring Martin Easton to your door.”
“We’re ready for him. Have been for months.”
Jackson didn’t doubt that for a second. The Park had a top-notch security team and the latest equipment. Everyone there, for one reason or another, relied on it, including Miss Emily. “Um, Rose and I were at the diner in Even this morning, and we were pretty surprised to see Caroline Branch here waitressing. When did she leave the Park?”
“Until I heard your message, I wasn’t aware she had.” Miss Emily’s displeasure about that came across loud and clear. “Darby hasn’t said a word.”
Miss Emily’s adopted daughter, Darby, had been abandoned at an Interstate 10 rest stop. Poor kid was only nine years old at the time. Since Jackson’s mom had done the same thing to Rose and he—dumping them out front at the Piggly Wiggly under the auspices of going to park the car and never coming back—he could empathize.
On learning Darby’s folks had long rap sheets for running drugs, Miss Emily vowed that bit of business was done. Darby wasn’t devastated, she feared her birth parents would come back, since she did all the cooking and cleaning and everything else that got done, drugs aside. Miss Emily nixed those fears in short order. She brought in her legal beagles and got Darby emancipated from her folks, then raised Darby herself. Before she went off to college, Miss Emily adopted her and, when Darby graduated, she headed right back to Sampson Park. Miss Emily had taken care of Darby. Now it was her turn to take care of Miss Emily. She doted on Miss Emily something fierce, and even went toe-to-toe with mobster kingpin Vincent Marcello, who had been Miss Emily’s spouse in another life. She’d had to die twice to get away from him for good.
Everyone said, getting dumped and rescued by Miss Emily was the best thing that ever happened to Darby, and Jackson agreed. Things hadn’t worked out so story-book perfect for Rose and he. They’d been separated in a long string of foster homes, but they’d still had each other. Until fate stepped in for Miss Emily and Darby, for all intents and purposes, they had been alone.
Sometimes the heart chooses the family the gene pool doesn’t. Usually, the heart chooses more wisely.
Jackson turned back to the conversation. “I tried to call Darby but she was in the village.”
“She is, and unfortunately Dr. Goodman isn’t available, either. He’s in Sweden at a symposium for the next two weeks. But I left a message for him to call. I’m sure he will as soon as he gets it.”
Goodman was Caroline’s counselor as well as Park Chaplain. “Shouldn’t be long then.”
“Longer than either of us would like. He’s communing, they said. I’m sure that makes sense to them, but I’m not clear on exactly what it means,” she said. “Probably that he’s taking communion. In that case, it shouldn’t be too long. Dr. Goodman is, of course, a very spiritual person.”
That was an understatement. Jackson had witnessed some robust debates between the spiritual Goodman, who’d been excommunicated from his church and divorced by his wife for an indiscretion, and the scientific Dr. Laura Rossi, the Park’s medical doctor who looked for all answers in science. “The delay puts us in a bit of a bind, at least for the short-term.”
“What kind of bind?” Miss Emily asked.
“We don’t know how to treat Caroline. She doesn’t recognize Rose or me, and we’re scared to ask her anything. We don’t want to mess her up.” Recalling her reaction to seeing Martin, Jackson worried that already had happened.
“Caroline’s been going through the stages to get back to normal and come to terms with years of abuse, but coping well. I’ve talked to her myself every couple of days.”
“Well, maybe she was fine, but if she was fine now, she’d know us. Something’s happened to her.” He glanced over to where the object of their discussion sat sipping sweet tea and rocking. Calm. Relaxed. At ease. Why wasn’t she worried about Martin showing up here? Three months ago, she’d have been frantic—and she had recognized Martin. The shattered coffeepot proved it. “She’s not acting strange or anything, she just doesn’t know us.”
“How odd.”
“It gets odder,” Jackson said, swatting at a mosquito buzzing his ears. “Martin Easton also showed up here this morning.”
“Oh, no.” Miss Emily’s tone turned fierce. “Did he do something to Caroline?”
“No, but seeing him startled her.”
“Was he watching her?”
“From across the street. No doubt about it.” Jackson squinted through the sunlight and scanned, looking for movement. He spotted none. “A couple of Rose’s recruits kept him busy while we got out Caroline out of the diner.”
“So she’s there with you now?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He worried his lower lip. “I thought maybe when we got to Rose’s she’d recall being here at Christmas. But she didn’t.”
“That doesn’t sound good. But she came with you willingly, right? You didn’t have to—”
“No, ma’am. Though, I think she’d have left with anyone to get away from Martin.” Jackson sighed, scratched his shoulder against the rough tree bark. “Rose is a nervous wreck about it.”
“Understandable. She’s just finished her training and assembled her team. The last thing she wants is to have to die and start over again.”
She was still working on her team, but that wasn’t his business to tell. “So what do we do about Caroline?”
“Let me see what I can find out about her on this end and get back to you.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to brief Lester.” Lester had been like a father to Jackson and Rose. Jackson trusted him—even when he thought Lester was a brick short of a full load and Rose was having to bail the man out of jail once a week. He kept forgetting his pants. The Biloxi police weren’t impressed that he remembered his briefs, and hauled him in on a regular basis.
“Definitely. Lester happens to be here, so I’ll speak with him right away.”
“He’s already at the Park?” The associates’ meeting wasn’t for another two days.
“He arrived last night,” she said. “I think he was just lonesome. With Rose and you gone and me mostly at the Park now that I’ve died again, Biloxi just isn’t the same for him.”
“Why doesn’t he move to the Park permanently?” Lester and Miss Emily were close and had been for many years. It seemed kind of sad for them to spend their golden years apart.
“If and when he’s of a mind to, I expect he will. Until then, he comes and goes as he pleases. You know Lester. He’s bent on living his way.”
As much as any of them could, he was. Couldn’t blame the man for that. Her gentle rebuke was Miss Emily in her protector-mode. Jackson smiled. She topped out at five-two, if she stretched hard, and she hovered somewhere in her mid-seventies. Jackson wasn’t worried about retribution. But neither was he stupid enough to provoke or underestimate her. Miss Emily had proven extremely resourceful, and her protection extended to Rose and him. He owed her for the life he was living. He owed all of them.
“Jackson, are you listening or wool-gathering?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Well, think later. Right now, you need to keep a sharp eye on Caroline. If something’s happened and she isn’t quite right, we need to be prepared. Not that she’d ever intend to hurt us, mind you. But the woman could slip and do us all a lot of damage.”
“Rest easy, Miss Emily. I won’t let her out of my sight.” Jackson twisted to look over at Caroline again. Beautiful woman. His stomach clenched. Dangerous woman.
“We need information to do no harm,” he warned. “I’m tiptoeing, trying not to cross any lines with her. But it’d sure help to know there are lines, where they are, and what’ll trigger them.”
“I understand the situation clearly, my boy. I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.”
Jackson ended the call, hoping Miss Emily responded with guidance sooner rather than later.
Chapter 8
The front door swung open and an agitated Rose came flying out onto the porch, looking rattled to the core. “Jackson, Caroline, come. I’ve got an emergency.”
“What’s the matter, sis?” Jackson jumped to his feet. His foot landed on the tip end of the rocker, and he waved wildly to catch his balance. The glass tipped and the tea and ice splashed Christine right in the face.
Everyone stopped.
Christine swiped at her eyes with a fingertip. “Well, that was refreshing.” The front of her t-shirt was soaked and clinging to her skin. She ruffled it to shake it loose.
“Caroline, I am so sorry.” Jackson looked mortified.
“No problem. It’s just tea, not blood, Jackson.” Christine focused on Rose. “What’s the emergency?”
“It’s the flowers,” Rose said on a rush, her mouth drawing tight with tension. “The florists just dropped them off, and they’re not arranged. Half the people in the county have sent flowers, and they’re all loose. What am I supposed to do with them? I don’t know how to arrange flowers. Carl Wooten’s family is going to have a conniption fit.” Rose swiped a lock of damp hair from her forehead. “This is the trouble you warned me about,” she told Christine. “Frankie and Myrtle did it deliberately. You know they did. To make me a laughingstock around here.”
“Who are Frankie and Myrtle?” Jackson asked.
“The two florists in town.” Rose’s face was flushed.
“I did warn you there would be trouble,” Christine said. “I had no idea what kind of trouble.”
Rose frowned. “Frankie said they were going to bring the flowers directly to the cemetery, but since I helped you at the diner, they thought one good turn deserved another. So they brought them here.”
“But they’re not arranged. What are they going to do about that?”
“Nothing, Jackson.” Rose shrugged.
“What are we going to do?” Jackson looked ready to pounce, and lost. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“How much time do we have?” Christine asked. If she could help out, she would. Seeing anyone as worried as Rose grated. It couldn’t hurt to have a favor on her side. Might make them more open to helping her find Caro.
“A little over an hour.”
“Okay. Settle down, Rose.” Christine headed toward her. “We’ve got this.”
Rose frowned. “You know how to arrange flowers?”
“Not really, but it can’t be that hard.” Christine hiked her chin and silently apologized to every floral arranger in the world. She had to get Rose calmed down. “Do you have a computer?”
“A computer?” Rose went still, her hand on the doorknob.
“So I can look it up. You can learn anything on the Internet.”
Rose looked skeptical. Her forehead furrowed between her eyebrows. “At this point, I’ll try anything.”
Christine followed Rose, and Jackson brought up the rear. They walked through the open living and dining room, passed the kitchen, which smelled of fresh paint, and took a second hallway to the funeral home. Christine revised her opinion. What had struck her as creepy initially now seemed convenient, having the funeral home and house all under one roof.
When they made the corner from the reception area and headed down a secondary hallway, she spotted three doors. The first room held a gurney and equipment. They prepared the bodies there, she figured. The second room was blocked by heavy blue drapes. On the other side of them, she supposed was the chapel and viewing area where the service would be held.
“Back here.” At the end of the hall, Rose motioned for them to hurry, then stepped inside.
Flowers covered every possible surface—the long row of cabinets, the broad table dead center, the floor, and both desks. “There have to be a thousand flowers in here.”
“I know!” Rose threw up her hands. “Matthew’s calling Frankie’s and Myrtle’s, but of course, neither of them are answering.”
