Cold Hearted (17 page)

She lifted her head and stared right at him.

“How much did you pay her?”

“A hundred thousand,” Jordan admitted. “It was a down payment. She wants a million.”

Rick let out a long, low whistle. “She must know something awfully damn important. What the hell is worth a million bucks to keep secret?”

“My husband’s reputation.”

“Care to explain?”

“No, I can’t. I… Oh, God, Rick, please, let it go. Don’t keep digging. If you do, you’re not going to discover that I killed Dan or Boyd or Robby Joe. But you could inadvertently pique someone’s curiosity and if someone else found out… Please, for my sake, confine your investigation strictly to trying to discover whether or not Dan committed suicide.”

“What are you so afraid of?” He grasped her by the shoulders. She looked up at him pleadingly. “Damn it, Jordan, you have to know that you’re going to be crucified in the press. The kind of information they have about you is a reporter’s wet dream. If what Jane Anne Price knows could make matters worse—”

“What she knows could hurt so many people, including my baby. Can’t you understand that I had to pay her off?”

“Do you honestly believe that once you’ve paid her a million that will be the end of it? A blackmailer always comes back for more. Whatever you pay them, it’s never enough.”

“Oh, Rick, what am I going to do?”

When he pulled her into his arms, she went into his embrace not just willingly, but eagerly. He stroked her back, trying to comfort her. “Does anyone else, other than you and Devon, know what Jane Anne knows?”

“Yes.” She rested her head on his chest.

“Then she’s not your only problem, is she?”

“No one else would ever—”

“Who knows?”

“Only a handful of people closest to Dan and me. Devon, of course, and Ryan and Claire.”

“Anyone else?”

Before she could reply, a woman’s screams, followed by shouting and the rumble of footsteps, echoed through the house. Jordan lifted her head from his chest. The study door flew open. Darlene gasped when she saw Jordan in Rick’s arms.

Jordan lifted her head and pulled away from him. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“That was Tammy screaming,” Darlene said, her gaze jerking back and forth from Jordan to Rick. “She says there’s a dead body in the south pond.”

“What?” Jordan gasped.

“She’s hysterical. She came running into the house screaming like a banshee. J.C. has gone with one of those Powell agents, that Mr. Keinan, to see if there really is a body in the pond and Roselynne is trying to calm Tammy.”

Jordan looked at Rick. “You don’t think—?”

He shook his head. “Stay here. I’ll catch up with Holt and J.C. and find out what’s going on.”

She grabbed his arm, stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “Please, don’t say anything to anyone about what you saw earlier.”

Don’t think it
, he told himself, but couldn’t stop the thought from forming in his mind. What if there really was a body in the pond? And what if it was Jane Anne Price? If the check Jordan gave her was found on her…

There was a body in the pond, lying half in and half out of the water. After looking over the scene and discovering obvious signs that the body had been dragged from near the back gates to the pond, they agreed that the woman probably hadn’t drowned. Without turning her over, Rick couldn’t be a hundred percent positive that it was Jane Anne Price, but she was the same petite size, had the same dark hair, and her clothes were identical to those the senator’s ex-wife had been wearing. They’d seen a small, leather shoulder bag by the gates. And the red sports car was still parked on the gravel drive. So, he was ninety-nine percent sure of the woman’s identity.

Holt and J.C. stayed at the scene while Rick walked back to the house. On the way, he telephoned the sheriff first, and then he put in a call to Griffin Powell.

“Did Ryan Price fire you?” Griff asked when he answered the phone.

“No, I’m still on the job. And it looks like we’ll need those extra Powell agents down here ASAP.”

“What’s happened?”

Rick filled Griff in on the situation, explaining about Jordan paying the former Mrs. Price blackmail money and it was a good possibility that Jordan’s check was in Jane Anne’s purse.

“You followed Jordan back to the house after her meeting, right, and there’s no chance she could have doubled back and killed Jane Anne?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then you’re Jordan’s alibi.”

“It would seem that I am,” Rick agreed.

“The police are going to be all over her once they find the check, and even if you can swear she wasn’t out of your sight long enough to have killed Jane Anne, she’ll still look guilty. They could accuse her of hiring someone to do the job or that she’s in partnership with someone, like Devon Markham. They killed Dan Price and then they killed Jane Anne, only Markham did the actual deed.”

“She’s going to need a good lawyer.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Will you contact Cam Hendrix?”

“You’re taking a lot on yourself,” Griff told him. “Don’t you think you’d better see what the lady wants to do before we—?”

“She needs someone to look out for her and that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s part of my job, right?”

“It’s not like you to get personally involved with a client.”

“I’m not getting — Okay, so maybe I am, but I swear, Griff, if not for bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all. She didn’t kill Jane Anne Price, and I’m beginning to believe that she didn’t kill her husband or anyone else for that matter.”

“I’ll call Cam,” Griff said. “If Jordan gives you the okay, I’ll do what I can to get Cam to drive over from Chattanooga right away.”

“Thanks. And send at least half a dozen agents down here tomorrow. We’re going to need them.”

With his calls made, Rick picked up his pace on his walk back to the house. Jordan was standing on the back porch and when she saw him, she came running. Breathing hard and slightly winded, she stopped and looked at him, her eyes filled with questions.

“Is it—?”

“It’s Jane Anne,” Rick said.

“Oh, God.”

He watched helplessly as Jordan struggled to maintain control. She clenched her jaw tightly.

“Holt and J.C. stayed at the scene to make sure nothing is disturbed. I called Sheriff Corbett. He’s calling one of the guards at the front gate to go directly to the scene and he’ll be here himself, along with the coroner within the hour.”

“What happened to her? Could you tell how she died? Did she drown?” Jordan grabbed his arms.

Rick pulled her hands off his arms, brought them together, and held them as he looked into her eyes. “I want you to take a few deep breaths and get hold of yourself completely. Do it now.”

She did as he requested, all the while never breaking eye contact.

“Good girl. Now, listen to me. I know you didn’t kill her. I’m your alibi. But once they find your check in her purse—”

Jordan gasped. “Oh, dear God!”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “It’s going to be all right, but you have to prepare yourself for a few really rough days. The sheriff will have no choice but to question you and even if he goes easy on you, it still won’t be pleasant. He’s going to want to know why you gave Jane Anne Price a check for a hundred grand.”

“I’ll think of some reason, something believable. Maybe it was a loan or maybe—”

He shook her again. “How about telling him the truth?”

She stared at Rick as if he should have known telling the truth was out of the question.

“You’re going to need a topnotch lawyer. And I don’t mean Wallace McGee Airport. I mean a criminal defense lawyer.”

“I’m sure Ryan will know of someone suitable.”

“You know who Camden Hendrix is, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“He’s home-based in Chattanooga and is certified to practice in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and Alabama. He’s a personal friend of Griffin Powell’s. Just say the word and—”

“Yes.”

Rick released a relieved breath. “I’ll talk to Ryan and see if he can’t persuade his good buddy the sheriff not to officially question you until tomorrow morning. We’ll use your being pregnant as a legit excuse to postpone things.”

“People are going to think I killed Jane Anne, aren’t they?”

“Some people will, just as some people think you killed Dan and possibly those other men, too.”

“But you don’t believe I killed any of them, do you?”

She looked at him as if his answer was the most important thing in the world to her, as if she would live or die depending on his response.

“Don’t do this to yourself, honey,” Rick said. “You’re getting all worked up and it’s not good for you or the baby.”

“You — you think I’m capable of murder.” Her voice quavered.

He shook his head. “No. No, I don’t.”

She shivered.

“You’re cold.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “We need to get you inside so you can sit down and rest.”

“The others are going to want to know what happened. We’ll need to get Dr. Carroll out here to sedate Tammy. And Darlene will need consoling. She’ll be worried sick about me. And Devon!”

Rick tightened his hold on her shoulders as they walked toward the back porch. “You’re going into your study and staying there. I’ll have Vadonna bring you some hot tea and I will deal with everyone else, including Devon.”

“I can’t ask you to—”

“You didn’t ask,” he told her. “Once I get you situated in your study, I intend to stay with you and block the door while I call Ryan and then Griff. If anyone tries to get to you, they’ll have to go through me first.”

Jordan sat in her favorite chair in her study, her feet propped on the matching ottoman. A half-empty teacup rested on a floral coaster on the tea table to her right. Sitting at her desk, Rick talked softly to someone on his cell phone. She closed her eyes and sighed.

It hadn’t been easy to relinquish control to someone else, but Rick all but forced her to let him take care of everything. She didn’t know what he’d said or done, but no one had entered her study since Rick brought her in here. She had heard rumblings outside the door, but apparently no one had been brave enough to go against Rick’s orders.

Her head throbbed with the tension created from stress. The day had started off with a bang and steadily gotten worse, ending with the horror of Jane Anne’s body being found in the pond. She hadn’t killed Dan’s ex-wife, but even Rick swearing he knew her whereabouts when Jane Anne was killed wouldn’t stop people from speculating about her. That alone was bad enough, but what worried Jordan far more was knowing that someone who had access to the estate grounds was the murderer. With the gates locked and guarded, it was highly unlikely that someone had breached the security. If no one had entered the estate unseen, that narrowed the list of possible suspects to those who were still here at the time of Jane Anne’s death.

Claire and Ryan had gone home. Sheriff Corbett and Lt. McLain had been gone for quite some time. Other than Rick and the two Powell agents, that left only members of her family, which included Tobias and Vadonna. She simply couldn’t believe that any one of them had killed Jane Anne.

Devon was a gentle soul, violence of any kind abhorrent to him. Rene would kill in self-defense, but for no other reason. J.C. was capable of just about anything, but what possible motive could he have had to kill Jane Anne? Tammy was mentally unstable and was prone to hissy fits, but Jordan refused to believe she was capable of murder. Roselynne would kill to protect those she loved and Darlene was incapable of cold-blooded murder.

A sudden wave of nausea hit Jordan from out of the blue.
Not now, please, not now. The last thing she needed to deal with was a bout of vomiting
.

She wasn’t aware that she had made a sound, but undoubtedly she had moaned because Rick paused in his private telephone conversation to ask her if she was all right.

She started to say that she was okay except for being a little sick at her stomach, but before she could say anything, a piercing pain sliced through her lower body.

Oh, God, no!

She clutched her belly.

Not the baby.

“Jordan, what’s wrong?” Rick asked, then spoke to the person on the other end of the line. “Look, I’ll have to call you back later. Just get the ball rolling.”

“Rick. Rick!”

“I’m here,” he told her as he ran across the room. “What is it? Are you sick?”

“Yes, but… but I’m cramping. Oh, Rick, I think something’s wrong with my baby.”

When Jordan woke, she remembered very little after Rick had lifted her into his arms and carried her to the car. She vaguely recalled everyone talking all at once, their voices blending into one gigantic cry of concern. What had begun as mild nausea had quickly progressed into severe abdominal pain and culminated with vaginal bleeding. Rick had wasted no time with calling an ambulance or trying to soothe anyone else’s concerns. He probably broke the speed limit by twenty or thirty miles per hour getting her to the hospital. Apparently she’d lost consciousness soon thereafter because she remembered nothing else, except…

The feel of Rick holding her hand. And the sound of his voice telling her that she was going to be all right.

When she opened her eyes fully, she glanced around the sterile room and realized she was at the small clinic/hospital in downtown Priceville. The room was semi-dark, illuminated only by the light from the hallway and the security lights shining through the slats in the closed window blinds. Darlene sat in a chair beside the bed, her head bowed, her eyes closed.

She’s praying. Praying for me and my baby.

My baby!

Jordan’s soft moan interrupted Darlene’s prayer and brought Devon, who had been standing in the corner of the room, to Jordan’s side.

Flanked by Darlene and Devon, she glanced from one to the other, but in the darkness she couldn’t see their expressions clearly.

“The baby?” she asked.

Darlene sniffled and turned away.