Return to Mystic Lake (7 page)

She punched the button to contact her mother, who buzzed them in to the small lobby. “Mom’s place is on the second floor,” she said as she led him toward the nearby elevator. “Her name is Katherine, Katherine Devoe.”

They stepped into the elevator and instantly she was aware that he was too male, too close, and the memory of that kiss they’d shared seared through her brain.

“We’ll keep this brief,” she said as she tightened her fingers on the box of chocolate.

“Whatever,” he agreed easily. “We can’t do much more about the investigation until morning. Jeff Maynard is my top priority at the moment, and we already know he won’t be in at the tavern until late tomorrow afternoon.”

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. If she were smart, she’d make this visit with her mother last until bedtime. It was obvious Jackson intended to bunk with her another night. He’d made no other arrangements to go anywhere else throughout the day.

It was just after six now, and that left far too many evening hours spent in Jackson’s company before bedtime.
We’ll talk about the case,
she told herself as she rapped on her mother’s apartment door.

Katherine Devoe was an older, taller version of Marjorie. She had the same red-blond hair, the same green eyes, and as she opened the door, those eyes lit up with delight.

“Marjorie,” she exclaimed, and pulled Marjorie into a quick hug. She released her, her gaze lingering on Jackson, who stood just behind Marjorie. “I see you not only brought me a box of chocolates, but some eye candy, as well.”

“Jackson Revannaugh,” he said and held out his hand. Katherine slipped her hand into his and released a girlish giggle as Jackson lowered his mouth to kiss the back of her hand. “It’s a real pleasure to meet the mother of such an amazing woman,” he said as he released Katherine’s hand. “I see now where Maggie gets her looks.”

“Maggie?” Katherine raised a perfectly waxed eyebrow. “I like it.”

He was definitely pouring it on thick, Marjorie thought as she beelined for the white sofa. Jackson followed, sitting far too close to her.

Katherine closed and locked the door and then turned to face them, delight on her pretty features. “Well, isn’t this a special night.” She gazed at Jackson. “My daughter has never brought a friend to visit.”

“He’s not a friend, he’s my partner,” Marjorie exclaimed.

“Well, then, you’ve never brought a partner over to visit, either,” Katherine said. “May I get either of you something to drink?”

“I’m fine,” Marjorie replied.

“I don’t suppose you have any bourbon?” Jackson asked.

Katherine flew to the glass-and-gold minibar in the corner of the room. “I do have some bourbon. Straight up or on the rocks?”

“Straight up is fine.” He leaned back on the sofa, looking as relaxed as if he’d been here a hundred times before.

“I do believe I hear a little of the good old South in your accent, Mr. Revannaugh,” Katherine said as she fixed the drink.

“Born in Baton Rouge and spent most of my time in and around the area,” he replied as she handed him the drink.

“What a coincidence—I had a visitor yesterday who was from Baton Rouge. He told me he’d moved up to Mystic Lake to retire.”

Every nerve in Marjorie’s body jangled with adrenaline. “That is quite a coincidence,” Jackson replied. “An old friend of yours?”

“Actually, I’d never met the man before in my life, but he said he was an old friend of Big Bob, my second husband. He was a very nice man, and we had a pleasant visit.”

“What was his name?” Marjorie’s nerves refused to quiet.

Katherine frowned for a moment. “Edward...Edward Benson— No that isn’t right. Bentz. Edward Bentz, that’s it.”

Marjorie made a mental note of the name as Jackson and her mother visited while he sipped on his drink. It was obvious that Katherine was utterly charmed by Jackson, who was on his best behavior and regaled the older woman with stories of old cases along with his admiration for Marjorie.

Katherine was lapping it up, smiling with motherly approval at Marjorie, as if pleased that her daughter had finally found such a wonderful man.

They wound up staying for an hour, then Marjorie was the one to call a halt to the visit. “Mom, we’ve still got to grab some dinner and do some work,” she said as she stood.

“Your daughter is a tough taskmaster,” Jackson said teasingly as he also got up from the sofa.

“She is all about work, but I keep telling her that life shouldn’t be just about that.” Katherine’s eyes twinkled at Jackson, as if she shared a secret with him. “Maybe you can make her slow down a bit and enjoy the fun in life.”

“Mom can simper and you can wink all you want, but nobody is going to make me change,” Marjorie said once they were alone in the elevator and headed back downstairs.

“It’s obvious your mother has your best interests at heart,” he replied.

“Whatever,” she said as they exited the elevator. She didn’t speak again until they were in the car and headed to her house.

“Something isn’t right.” Worry simmered in the pit of her stomach.

“Something isn’t right about what?” he asked.

“Big Bob was from Texas, not from the South. I’d like to know what a man from Baton Rouge who has just recently moved to the small town of Mystic Lake is doing visiting with my mother.”

“Does seem like a bit of a coincidence,” Jackson replied, his voice low and heavy with a new somber note.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not much of a believer when it comes to those kinds of coincidences. We need to find Edward Bentz and see what he’s up to. I have a bad feeling and I want to make sure that somehow something we’re working on now hasn’t brought danger to my mother’s doorstep.”

She swallowed hard, but it was impossible to get the taste of something bad about to happen out of her throat.

Chapter Seven

Jackson paced the floor of Maggie’s tiny kitchen, fighting the frustration of three long days without answers, and a simmering desire for the woman that threatened to explode out of control at any given moment.

For the past three days they’d been chasing down people they couldn’t find. Jeff Maynard either had skipped town or was holed up with somebody they didn’t know about.

According to his boss at Bledsoe’s, Jeff had called and asked for a few days off due to a bad case of the flu. Jackson suspected he had a bad case of FBI-itis. Eventually he’d poke his head out or somebody in town would slip up, and they’d find him.

Edward Bentz had also been an elusive character. They’d discovered he was renting a room from an older woman named Betty Fields. They’d checked with her only to discover that Edward had gone back to Baton Rouge to finish up some last-minute business and would be back at her place late that evening.

Jackson had checked with his contacts in Baton Rouge to get a handle on the man, but apparently he had no criminal record and a background search had yielded only the information that he was fifty-five years old, had worked for over twenty years distributing medical supplies in and around the Baton Rouge area and several other states, and had recently retired from that position.

Unbeknownst to Maggie, Jackson had contacted her director and arranged for an agent to sit outside Katherine Devoe’s apartment as security until they had an opportunity to check out Edward Bentz.

Meanwhile, nothing had come of the investigation into the shoot-out at the motel except that whoever had fired the shots had indeed used an Uzi...serious firepower that was definitely intended to kill.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and flopped in one of the two chairs at the table. The sun was just beginning to peek up shy, faint beams over the horizon.

Although they had been unable to connect with the two people they most wanted to speak to, the hours of the days hadn’t passed with inactivity. Yesterday they’d spent the entire day in the Mystic Lake sheriff’s office, interviewing every single person who had worked under Cole’s command.

They’d learned that Cole was considered a tough but fair boss. While some of the deputies seemed to have a healthy fear of Cole, it was tempered with an enormous amount of respect. No red flags had presented, leaving Marjorie and Cole to come home each day still confused about who was behind whatever had happened to Amberly and Cole.

It bothered him that they hadn’t found their bodies. It was just like the case he’d been working on in Bachelor Moon, where Sam and his wife and their daughter had been missing now for weeks, and their bodies had never been found. The case remained unsolved.

He and Maggie had fallen into a routine, and he knew he probably had about half an hour before she’d make her morning appearance in the kitchen.

Maggie. He took another sip of his coffee and closed his eyes. He had yet to see her bedroom, but last night in the middle of the night they’d accidently bumped into each other in the hallway. The tiny night-light she kept plugged into the socket next to the bathroom had been enough illumination for him to see that she’d been clad in a short deep purple silk nightgown that had fired the red in her hair and showcased every curve she possessed.

Jackson had nearly fallen to his knees with desire. Their eyes had locked in the dim hallway, hers gleaming with a light that made him want to reach out, to pick her up in his arms and carry her into a bedroom and make love to her.

But before he’d been able to move a muscle, she’d scampered like a rabbit back into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

He’d had a feeling that if they’d remained in that hallway for a second longer, she would have awakened in his arms this morning after a long night of lovemaking.

He blew out a sigh of frustration, both mental and sexual. He felt like a powder keg about to explode. Taking another drink of his coffee, he smelled her before she entered the room, that sweet floral scent that ramped up his testosterone to caveman levels.

“Well, aren’t we informal today,” she said as she entered the kitchen and her gaze took in his jeans and white polo shirt.

“Yeah, with this heat I didn’t feel like doing the whole agent kind of dress code.” He gazed at her navy slacks and white blouse. “You know, you could do casual with me...maybe some shorts and a blouse that actually has some color to it. I have to admit, you look amazing in purple.”

He grinned as she ignored him and strode over to the coffeepot. “You can pretend you didn’t hear me, but the flames in your cheeks tell me otherwise.”

“A gentleman would never mention a lady’s nightgown,” she replied.

Jackson laughed. “I don’t remember ever confessing to be a hundred percent gentleman, and do you realize how often you blush?” He waited until she was seated across from him at the table. “Are you a virgin?”

She slapped a hand across her mouth in an obvious effort to prevent herself from spewing coffee. She swallowed and coughed, all the while glaring at him with those amazing green eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not a virgin. Why are you even thinking about things like that?”

There was a new wariness in her eyes that told him to back off. He wrapped his hands around his coffee cup and shrugged. “Because I figured it was easier than thinking about this damn case. If it wasn’t for that shooting at the motel, I’d be feeling more than a little bit of déjà vu.”

“What do you mean?” She was obviously relieved by the change in topic.

“If Cole and Amberly were kidnapped, then so far we haven’t figured out a motive. In the case I was working on in Bachelor Moon, we never figured out a motive for what we finally came to believe had to have been a kidnapping. In both cases no ransom notes have been received, everyone couldn’t imagine the people having any enemies and no bodies have been found.”

“But you said none of the investigators in the case in Bachelor Moon were threatened in any way,” she replied, obviously not wanting the cases to be related and still clinging to the hope that they would find the couple alive and well any day now.

“True,” he replied. Hell, he didn’t want the two cases to be related, but comparing the facts of the crimes gave him pause. The fact that Edward Bentz was from the Baton Rouge area, which was very close to Bachelor Moon, and that he was now in Mystic Lake definitely was too much of a coincidence to ignore.

He got up from the table and headed toward the fridge. “I’ll scramble us up some eggs and make toast and then we can get on the road. Hopefully today we’ll get some answers that will help make something about this case come into focus.”

Breakfast was eaten quickly, with the conversation centered on their visit with Marjorie’s mother. “She’s a lovely lady,” Jackson said.

“She’s got a lot of heart.”

“It bothers me that you live like a pauper and she’s in that luxury two-bedroom apartment,” he admitted.

“I don’t live like a pauper,” she protested.

He raised a dark brow and held her gaze. “Maggie, I know about what you make for a salary and it’s obvious you aren’t spending any of it on creature comforts for yourself. Hell, since I’ve been here I’ve never even seen you in anything but that white blouse and slacks. Do you have any other wardrobe?”

“Of course I do. I’m fine the way things are. I like helping out my mother.”

Jackson finished the last of the eggs on his plate and then looked at her again. “But wouldn’t it be better if you’d tell your mother the truth of the situation? Have her move to a place that’s more within her means and ease some of the pressure off you?”

“I think we need to solve this case, and you should keep your nose out of my personal life.” She straightened in her chair and he knew he’d crossed a line with her.

He reached out his hand and covered one of hers. She tried to pull away, but he held tight. “I just want more for you, Maggie. You deserve more from life.”

Her gaze searched his, as if seeking a joke, a facade of charm, but he knew she’d find nothing like that there. He’d spoken the simple, stark truth.

She tried to pull her hand from his again, and this time he let go, and she looked down at her plate. “I appreciate your concern for me, Jackson, but I’m doing just fine. I don’t require a lot to be happy.”

“Are you happy?” he asked.

Her beautiful green eyes met his once again and a frown darted across her forehead. She took a sip of her coffee and then placed the cup back on the table.

“I never really look for happy. I’m satisfied.... Most of the time I’m content with my life, and that’s good enough for me,” she finally replied.

He nodded, although he wasn’t sure why it wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted her to have things—scented oils for a bubble bath, a silk purple dress with killer high heels. She deserved dinner in a candlelit restaurant where the prices weren’t on the menu. He wanted her to have a luxurious carpet to rub her bare toes in at the end of a long day, a sofa soft enough to cradle her as she watched television to unwind.

He also wanted her to have laughter, and a man who loved her more than anyone else on the face of the earth. There was no question that she’d suffered financial devastation at the hands of scamming stepfathers, but he imagined she wasn’t even aware of the emotional trauma that had gone along with it.

She needed a man who could break through her defenses, a man who could find her pain and heal it with a well of endless love. But he knew he wasn’t that man, could never be that man no matter how much he might want to be.

She was right. The best thing he could do was help her solve this crime, and keep his nose out of her personal life. Surely when he was back home in his own apartment, living the superficial personal life he’d built for himself, he’d forget all about a green-eyed beauty who had somehow managed to touch the places in his heart he’d thought were untouchable.

“Don’t you find it strange that John Merriweather’s ex-wife has been missing for a week and a half and we haven’t received one single phone call from him?” Jackson asked as they got into her car. “I mean, if my ex-wife were missing, and we were amicable, I’d be camped out on the doorstep of the head investigator and demanding answers every minute of each day.”

“Maybe before we head to Mystic Lake we should have another check-in with John,” she suggested.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” he agreed.

Marjorie backed out of the driveway and hoped that the day forced her to keep her attention on the case and not on Jackson. The touch of his hand on hers, the genuine emotion she’d seen shining from his eyes at the table had both stunned her and sent a yearning through her she’d never felt before.

She didn’t care about expensive furniture or luxury items, but as she’d gazed into those blue eyes of his, she’d wanted him.

She headed in the direction of the Merriweather ranch house and tried not to think of that moment in time when the depth of her yearning for Jackson Revannaugh had taken her breath away, made her tingle with crazy need.

She realized that a part of her wouldn’t be averse to making love to him...just once, knowing that it would never mean anything, that she wouldn’t see him as a threat to the single life she’d chosen for herself.

He had a home to go back to and she had a life to live here. He was probably a great candidate for a single night of hot, mind-blowing sex because she knew they would never mean anything more than that to each other.

As she pulled into John’s driveway, she mentally shook herself, needing to get sex and Jackson off her brain and work the case that had gone nowhere so far.

It was strange that John hadn’t contacted anyone since Amberly’s disappearance. Surely, even though he was her ex-husband, it would be normal, since he and Amberly shared a child, for him to be rattling cages to find her. So why wasn’t he?

She didn’t realize how early it was until the door opened and a young boy with jet-black hair and big brown eyes answered. John was behind him in a second. “Any news?” he asked as he ushered the two of them inside.

“We have a few leads we’re following,” Jackson replied.

Marjorie sat on the sofa, and Max sidled up next to her. “Are you looking for my mom and Daddy Cole?” He leaned into her, bringing with him the scent of soap and innocence that shot a stab of pain straight through Marjorie. This was the victim of whatever had happened, a little boy who desperately needed his mommy back where she belonged.

“We’re trying our very best to find them,” she replied, fighting her impulse to wrap him in her arms.

“You haven’t heard anything?” Jackson asked, his features set in stern lines, reminding Marjorie that he still believed John was their number one suspect.

“Nothing,” John replied, his voice holding misery. “I’ve reached out to all her friends, people she’d mentioned working with, anyone I can think of, but nobody knows anything about what’s happened.”

He sank down in a chair and motioned Max to his side. “I’ve been making her welcome-home cards,” Max said. “But I need her to come home so I can give them to her.”

“We’re doing our best to make that happen,” Marjorie said. Max nodded, his expression far too somber and grown-up for such a little boy.

“We were just wondering why we hadn’t heard from you,” Jackson said, his gaze still focused on John.

John shrugged. “I haven’t contacted you because I don’t have any information to help you. I’d much rather you spend your time working on finding them than talking to me.” He raised his chin slightly, as if he felt Jackson’s suspicion. “If it would make you feel better about me, I’ll start calling you six or seven times a day for a progress report.”

Jackson’s jaw clenched. “I don’t think that’s necessary. We’ll keep you informed of any new developments, and you let us know if you learn anything that might be helpful.” His glance at Marjorie indicated he was ready to leave.

As Marjorie stood up, Max returned to her side. “When you find my mom, would you please bring her home as soon as possible?” His dark eyes filled with tears. “I miss her really, really bad.”