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  And then I recognized the song.

  Kids Say the Darndest Things.

  I sprinted out of the bathroom, slipping on the tile floor and catching myself on the doorframe at the last second. By the time I reached my purse, she’d hung up and I cursed, upending the bag and dumping the contents on the floor. I grabbed the phone just as the song started to play again, fumbling with the screen before finally managing to connect the call. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hey, Aunt Jeannie.” Tammy—named after my sister’s favorite old school country singer—sounded calm, which oddly enough did not make me feel better. My second oldest niece and sister’s third child was the type of person who could stay absolutely serene while the entire world was going up in flames around her only to lose it completely when faced with something as simple as a field mouse. “I know I’m only supposed to call you if it’s an emergency and maybe I’ve overreacting a bit—.”

  “Tammy.” I took a deep breath because whatever she wasn’t telling me wasn’t bad. It was catastrophic. “What happened?”

  “Mama and Harold got in another fight.”

  That wasn’t surprising. The third time hadn’t been the charm for my sister, which hadn’t stopped her from making Harold husband number four. I took another deep breath, pressing the heel of my palm to my breastbone and wondering if I’d remembered to pack my heartburn medicine. “And?”

  “Well, to make a long story short, Mama shot Harold.”

  “Oh.” The headache kicking up behind my left eye had nothing to do with the tequila from last night and everything to do with where I could already tell this conversation was going. “Is he dead?”

  “Yep.” I heard a crack and I realized Tammy was chewing gum, which only added to the strangeness of the phone call. “Sheriff Pete—you know, he used to be Deputy Pete and then Sheriff Jack died and Deputy Pete became the sheriff—he took Mama to jail.” She paused and I thought she was finished and she started rambling again and I realized she’d only needed to breathe. “Mrs. Burns is staying with me and Dolly and Conway right now but Sheriff Pete said he’s going to have to call Social Services tomorrow.”

  “No.” I rubbed my forehead and sighed. “No, tell Sheriff Pete and Mrs. Burns I’ll be there in a few hours. There’s no need to call Social Services.”

  “Okay.” There was another half beat of silence and then she said, “Thanks, Aunt Jeannie.”

  “Yeah.” I ended the call, dropping the phone on the floor and leaning my head against the edge of the bed. Before I could give in to exhaustion, I picked the phone back up and hit the speed dial for my assistant. When she picked up, perky and perfect even though I knew she’d been awake at least fifteen hours, I almost cried. “Allison—I know you’re off the clock but I need your help. There’s been a change of plans.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Midnight in Cotton Creek was very, very different from midnight in Savannah. No neon lights, no all-night diners, no drunks staggering over the sidewalk and in to traffic. All we had were rivers and mountains and an old abandoned railroad where the popular kids liked to hangout after football games.

  I drove through the main part of town, noting the few changes in the landscape. The pharmacy/soda shop was still standing, although the striped canopy covering the sidewalk looked worse for the wear. Further down the street, the old two screen movie theatre looked as if it had expanded to at least six screens if the list of offerings on the marquee was any indication. Granted, they were all six months old and none of them had a rating over PG-13 but I suppose the mayor and the town council were still patting themselves on the back about their progressiveness.

  For the most part though, everything was exactly the way I’d left it fifteen years earlier.

  I had no doubt the same could be said for the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, backbiting, gossipy nature of the residents.

  It took me a few minutes and a handful of wrong turns but I finally found the Sheriff’s Office. I studied the outside of the building, wondering when they’d decided to switch from puke green to bland beige. The plants were new, too—when I was growing up, there had been a handful of scraggly flowers, always seeming to be on their last leg. Now, there were hydrangeas and Virginia sweetspire and bluebeard, bursting in bright, vivid color against the non-descript building.

  It almost made you forget you were in front of a jail.

  I grabbed my purse and slid out of the car, locking the door out of habit. Property crime in Cotton Creek was non-existent or at least it had been when I was younger. I doubt it had changed while I was gone, especially if Pete Underwood was sheriff. He might have looked like a doped up basset hound but he’d always had a firm hand on the reins of law enforcement.

  Pushing open the non-descript glass door, I came face to face with one of the top ten people I’d been hoping to avoid.

  Dana Jones.

  Her hair was as blonde as ever, although the two inches of roots made me wonder if she’d misinterpreted the idea of lived in hair or if she simply wasn’t keeping up with on her maintenance. Her face was a little rounder, the puffiness of her cheeks contrasting with the bags under her eyes, which were still as big and blue as a Barbie doll’s. Those eyes went just a little wide when her gaze landed on me and for a split second I flashed back to prom.

  And then she opened her mouth and I was reminded the present was far, far more fucked up than the past.

  “Well, if it isn’t Jeannie Jackson!” Her voice dripped with sugar, the sort of faux sweetness which set your teeth on edge and made your head ache. “You know, I was certain Loretta was lying when she said you would come—I mean, you haven’t been here in, what, fifteen years?—but here you are and let me be the first to say, you look just wonderful.”

  “Yes, I know.” The acknowledgment without any pretense of modesty or attempt to brush off the compliment threw her off balance, exactly as I’d intended. Stepping around the counter, I pointed down the hall. “Sheriff’s office still in the back?” Without waiting for her to answer, I strode past the handful of desks which were thankfully empty, making my way toward where I hoped the sheriff was eating a late dinner. I gave a cursory knock on the door before pushing it open and stepping inside. “Sheriff Pete.”

  “Jeannie.” Pete Underwood looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him, the day after I graduated high school, loaded up my car, and tore hell for leather out of town. He’d given me a warning instead of a ticket and told me to spend the money wisely. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Sorry state of affairs all the way around.”

  “That’s certainly one way to look at it.” I sat down in one of the two visitor chairs, holding back a sigh of my own as I stretched out my legs. I’d been driving for the better part of the last two days and I was starting to feel it. “Tammy gave me the short version. Mind giving me the long one?”

  “I can do that or I can take you to your sister and she can give it to you.” Pete shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

  “Let me hear it from you first and then I’ll get the rest from Loretta.”

  “Well, from what your sister and your niece tell me, Loretta and Harold were fighting about money—he wanted more and they don’t have it.”

  Not shocking in the slightest. I hadn’t met my sister’s latest—and late—husband but I’d picked up enough from the hints she’d dropped in our phone calls to know Harold wanted to live a champagne lifestyle on a boxed wine income. Loretta worked two jobs and Tammy did some baby-sitting in her spare time but Harold claimed a bad back kept him from seeking employment. Funnily enough, it didn’t keep him from drinking at the bar or hunting with his friends.

  “Tammy says Loretta pretty much threw up her hands and said she was going out with her friends to which Harold replied ‘over his dead body’.” Pete opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a pack of gum, thumbing out a piece before offering me one. When I shook my head, he shrugged, dropping the pack back in the drawer and easing it shut. Unwrapping the gum,
he popped it in his mouth, chewing for a moment before continuing. “Guess Harold didn’t think she’d take him quite so literally.”

  “Guess not.” I rubbed my forehead, squinting one eye against the headache brewing behind it. “I won’t lie to you—most of my law enforcement knowledge comes from television. Can you tell me what she’s looking at? Not first degree, obviously, but—.”

  “Georgia doesn’t separate murder out by degrees the way other states do—we pretty much got murder and manslaughter and since I play golf with the district attorney about once a month and know the man pretty well, I don’t think I’m overstepping by saying he won’t go for manslaughter.” Pete swiveled his chair in tiny half circles, chomping away on his gum. He rubbed a hand over his mostly bald head and sighed. “It’d be one thing if Harold had been abusive. A halfway decent attorney could make a case for your sister suffering from battered spouse syndrome and just snapping, picking up the shotgun and blowing him away.”

  I didn’t bother mentioning emotional abuse—that’d be something for the lawyer to deal with when they went to court. Allison was already working on finding someone who was both competent and wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. The chances of finding one who met both specifications was slim but I’d rather stay local if I had a choice. Local meant they’d know how to work the judge and appeal to a jury if the case ever reached the inside of a courtroom. Local gave Loretta a better shot at getting out sometime before her youngest finished college.

  “Mind if I talk to her for a few minutes?” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “And do you maybe have a couple of aspirin? I’ve had a headache since I woke up this morning.”

  “Got a BC Powder.” He opened the desk drawer again, pulling out the package and tossing it to me before nodding at the corner behind me. “Got a few cokes in the mini-fridge. Don’t tell Mrs. Pete if you see her.”

  “Secret’s safe with me.” Knowing coke could mean pretty much any variety of soda, I braced myself before opening the fridge. I blinked in surprise to find an actual Coke. Popping the top, I ripped open the medicine package with my teeth, taking a long swig of ice cold soda before dumping the powder in my mouth. Swallowing and coughing once, I said, “Loretta?”

  “Yep.” Pete stood, rounding the desk and walking out of the room ahead of me, pulling a set of keys from his pocket as he made his way down the hall, turning the corner and stopping in front of another door. Unlocking it, he pushed it open, glancing over his shoulder as he spoke. “Can’t let you in the cell with her but—.”

  “Jesus!” I shoved past him, my heart hammering double time. “Pete, get her down, get her down now!”

  “Christ in a sidecar.” Pete yanked me back, all but throwing me out of the room. “Tell Dana to call the hospital, activate the EMTs, tell them we got an attempted suicide.” His hands were steady as he opened the cell door, stepping back to drag a chair inside the small space, hauling his bulk up so he could cut the makeshift noose Loretta had wrapped around her neck. “Now, Jeannie. Tell’em I’ve started CPR but I don’t know how long she’s been down.”

  I sprinted down the hall, stumbling to a stop next to Dana’s desk, my words tumbling out in a stream of nonsense which she somehow managed to understand. My legs gave out and I slid to the floor, dropping my head between my knees. My vision wavered and started to go dark and I bit my lip, the pain clearing away some of the cloudiness.

  I was vaguely aware of the hustle and bustle around me but I didn’t pay it any attention, not until a pair of thick-soled black shoes stepped in to my field of vision. I lifted my head as Pete knelt in front of me, his basset hound face even droopier than normal. We stared at each other for a moment before I took a deep breath. “Say it fast.”

  “She’s gone, Jeannie.”

  And so was the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next week was a blur, somehow managing to go too fast and too slow all at the same time. Loretta hadn’t had any life insurance—not that it would have made a difference since most insurance companies are sticklers for the whole ‘no-suicide’ clause—so I’d dug in to my savings and paid for everything in cash. Even keeping things as plain and simple as possible without being insulting had cost me close to five thousand dollars. I wasn’t bankrupt but my fallback cushion was a helluva lot less comfy than I liked.

  My oldest nephew and niece, Johnny and June—Loretta had loved her country music—hadn’t made the funeral. Johnny was in the middle of a five year stretch in the penitentiary for car theft and June... well, she’d run off with her English teacher two years ago, right after her seventeenth birthday. Nobody had seen or heard from her since although if the English teacher’s ex-wife was to be believed, they’d gone west to Nevada. At least that was the address the child support checks came from—court-ordered, of course.

  None of Loretta’s ex-husbands had shown up, either. The first was Johnny and June’s father and if I was being honest I hadn’t expected to see him. The second was responsible for Tammy while the third could lay claim to Dolly and Conway. Not that any of them ever had—once they shook Cotton Creek’s dust off their boots, they were gone, well and truly. Not that they weren’t talked about—even at the funeral, more than a few people had been more than a bit liberal with their discussion of Loretta’s love life.

  Was it any wonder my head was pounding like a fucking drum?

  “Aunt Jeannie.”

  I didn’t curse but I dearly wanted to. Keeping my eyes closed, I said, “What, Tammy.”

  “Well, I’m thinking we need to talk.”

  And here I was thinking I needed about six beers and a couple of Vicodin so I could sleep through the night. Biting back a sigh, I opened my eyes. “Tammy, it’s been a helluva day. I think we’d all be better off waiting until tomorrow to have any kind of discussion.”

  “I already put Dolly and Conway to bed so it’s just you and me.” She lowered herself to the sofa across from me, tucking the hem of her knee-length skirt tight around her. She’d been blessed—or rather cursed—with my genetics but between her babysitting money and Loretta, she was able to afford clothes which actually fit, so she still looked like a teenager and not a pinup girl. Pushing her chin length hair behind her ears, she said, “I think you and I need to talk about what’s going to happen next.”

  “Tammy, at the moment the only thing I want to happen is sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.” I stretched my legs out, examining my toenails. I’d planned on getting a pedicure while I was in Atlanta, mostly because I was bored with my pink polish. Now, I’d either have to find someone in town or drive two hours to the nearest good-sized city. “It’s been a long day.”

  Long and miserable and if the look on my niece’s face was any indication it was far from over.

  “Well, yes, but I think me and Dolly and Conway have a right to know what’s going to happen to us.” She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me, the snooty effect somewhat ruined by the trembling lower lip she couldn’t quite control. “Whether we’re going to get shipped off to some home somewhere or get hauled all over God’s green creation while you do your work.”

  “I know Loretta liked to keep a bottle of Jim Beam in the back of the top kitchen cabinet.” I narrowed one eye and raised my brows. “You haven’t been sneaking any of it, have you?”

  “No.” If she was feigning her shock, I sure hoped she was putting her acting skills to use in Drama Club. “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, a little bit because that’s what I would do but mostly because you’re sitting over there talking nonsense like you’re three sheets to the wind.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Nobody is going anywhere, Tammy. Not even me.”

  Which was only one more reason for the low grade headache I’d been carrying around the last week. Any moment I hadn’t spent dealing with the funeral I’d been on the phone with either Bill or Allison, doing everything I could to rearrange not only the magazine but my life. I’d have my furniture
and clothes and other odds and ends within the next few days—Allison had already found someone to sublet the apartment, so I didn’t need to worry about that expense. I’d bitten the bullet and hired on three new writers, all of them more than eager to travel all over the country and sleep in shitty hotels. I was, for the foreseeable future, riding a desk.

  “But Ms. Jones said—.”

  “Tammy, I’m surprised your mother didn’t tell you but one of the last people you should listen to about anything requiring more than two brain cells is Dana Jones.” The headache was only getting stronger and I knew if I didn’t take something and soon I was going to wind up with the sort of migraine which knocked me out for two or three days. “Come on, let’s go in the kitchen.”

  The room was laughably small, the dishes scattered everywhere only emphasizing the lack of space. People had brought food, the way they always do when something tragic and gossip-worthy happens. I wasn’t fond of tuna casserole or Frito Pie but I was less fond of cooking and, as I’d been told often enough growing up, beggars can’t be choosers. Granted, I wasn’t exactly a beggar these days but it just seemed rude and wasteful to turn down free food.

  It took a few tries but I finally found the Tylenol. Ignoring Tammy’s impatient sighs, exaggerated in the way only a teenager can do, I poured myself a glass of Mrs. Sheriff Underwood’s—and Lord was that a mouthful—sweet tea, using it to wash down the medicine. It was cold enough and sweet enough to make my teeth ache but I was sick of coffee and water. Sitting down at the table opposite Tammy, I said, “You want to know what’s going to happen next. I wish I had a simple, clear-cut answer but the truth is I don’t.”

  “Mama always said if anything happened to her you would take care of us.” Tammy pressed her lips together, widening her eyes and blinking rapidly. After a moment, she let out a long, shuddering breath. “I guess that means we’re moving.”