Mean Streak(63)

He didn’t dispute that. Grange had driven all the way down to Atlanta, which indicated that he and Knight’s random speculations had begun to solidify and actually take shape. Jeff feared that his designation as “frantic husband” might soon be traded for “person of interest.”

If that happened, media cameras would photograph him being escorted into the sheriff’s office by badged personnel with stern faces. Interviews with him would then become official interrogations, and there was a distinct difference. During the former, investigators were deferential and polite. The atmosphere was sensitive and sympathetic.

An interrogation was just the opposite.

He would be forced to retain an attorney, and that was as good as an admission of guilt. There would follow a massive groundswell of distrust and disdain toward him. Nothing he said would be believed. He would be reviled by complete strangers and close associates alike. His clients would question his integrity and take their portfolios to another money manager.

The thought of being subjected to such humiliation caused him to break into a cold sweat. Using a corner of the sheet, he blotted at the trickles of it running from his armpits down his ribs. However, the sour stench of it worked like smelling salts, jolting him back to his senses.

He was getting way ahead of himself. No one had accused him of anything yet. They knew he and Alice were lovers. So? Adultery was a sin, not a crime.

Nevertheless, in the minds of many it would be a serious sin to commit against Emory Charbonneau, champion of the downtrodden, sweetheart of the dispossessed. It was time for him to take preventative measures before he was hung out to dry in the arena of public opinion, where already his wife outscored him by a wide margin. If his infidelity came to light, he might be publically scourged. They’d sell tickets.

Abruptly, he said, “You shouldn’t have called me, Alice. That was the worst possible thing you could have done.”

“Would you rather I let the detectives show up and arrest you without any warning?”

With diminished patience, he said, “They’re not going to arrest me. They have absolutely no basis on which to arrest me. They can’t put me in jail for sleeping with you. Which, under the circumstances, must stop. I’ve got to be an ideal husband, the kind Emory deserves. You and I shouldn’t have any further private contact.”

“Until when?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jeff, please. Let’s talk this through.”

God, he hated her whining. And hated even more that he heard a car pull up just beyond the motel room door. “Don’t call me again.” He clicked off.

Far less confident of avoiding arrest than he’d let on to her, he moved quickly to the window and peered through the crack between the drapes. Knight and Grange were climbing out of their SUV, and they weren’t delivering doughnuts and coffee.

Why were they here a half hour early?

His phone vibrated. “Dammit!”

Knight shouted through the door. “Jeff? You up?” He sounded all business and by no means folksy.

Jeff’s phone continued to vibrate. Cursing under his breath, he answered in a whisper. “I told you. Do not call me again.”

Knight pounded on the door. “Jeff, open up. Now.”

In his ear, “Jeff?”

A key rattled in the lock. Knight had a key to his room?

Through the phone, “Jeff?”

A shoulder was put to the door and, when it came open, the two deputies practically fell into the room. Grange’s hand was on his gun holster. Both drew up short when they saw him standing there shivering in only his underwear.

He felt clammy, lightheaded, and breathless as he smiled and extended his cell phone to Grange. “It’s Emory.”





Chapter 21



He pretended to be one of the volunteers who’d been searching for Emory.

He blended in with them, dressed as most were in heavy outdoor gear. His scarf—the one she’d knifed—covered his chin. He had turned up his coat collar, too, so it covered a good portion of his face. His cap was pulled low. He was wearing dark sunglasses to help hide the scratch she’d inflicted on his cheekbone. It was healing but still visible.

Most of the marks she had left on him weren’t. They were deep inside where wounds were never superficial and scars had significance.

For a city the size of Drakeland, her disappearance and recovery were major events. Upon hearing that she was back in the fold, and feeling the flush of success even though she hadn’t exactly been found, a hundred or more of the volunteers had congregated outside the local hospital to give her a hero’s welcome.

Now, as the sheriff’s office SUV pulled up to the emergency room entrance, it was swarmed by cameramen and reporters, most of whom were up from Atlanta. Gawkers, who had no idea what was going on but were drawn to the spectacle, elbowed for space and a more advantageous view. Uniformed officers were trying with limited success to control the pandemonium.

He stood head and shoulders above everyone in the crowd, but the chance of Emory spotting him was remote. She wouldn’t be looking. This was the last place she would expect him to be.

It was the last place he expected himself to be.

He continued to ask himself why he’d come. The answer continued to elude him. Halfway home after delivering her, he had felt the compulsion to make a U-turn, and he had. Some things one just did and never came to terms with why.