The Lover

Since the Preston home was in Jackson County, Sheriff Mays accompanied Bernie, Jim and Charlie Patterson when they met Kyle Preston and Stephanie’s parents at the white vinyl-sided house the newlywed couple had rented near Hollywood. Bernie asked the parents and husband to come outside with her and sit on the porch to talk to her and Ed Mays while Charlie Patterson and Jim Norton searched the house.

The parents sat side by side in the porch swing. The husband sat in one of the two white rocking chairs, while Ed Mays took the other. Bernie remained standing.

“I can only imagine how difficult this is for y’all.” Bernie looked at each of them individually. “And I’m truly sorry that we have to question y’all again.”

“Ed explained,” Jay Floyd, Stephanie’s father, said. “We want to do whatever we can to help y’all catch whoever killed our little girl.” Tears welled up in the middle-aged man’s faded brown eyes.

“We appreciate your cooperation.” Bernie glanced at Emmy Floyd, Stephanie’s mother, who sat quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks and a glazed expression on her face. She held her hands in her lap and kept twisting her gold wedding band around and around. Dear God, how horrible this must be for her. To lose a child would be bad enough, but to know that child had suffered repeated brutality for nearly two weeks would be something no mother could ever come to terms with.

Bernie turned to Kyle Preston, and she could tell by the glassy look in his eyes that he was still medicated. “Mr. Preston … Kyle … thank you for allowing us to search your house. I promise that Agent Patterson and Captain Norton will not tear things apart in the search.”

“I don’t know what they think they’ll find,” Kyle said. “If I’m not a suspect …” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard.

“You’re not a suspect, Kyle. Your in-laws verify the fact that you were at their house the evening Stephanie came up missing, that you two had eaten supper there before her night class and that you’d stayed on to help Mr. Floyd work on his tractor.”

“That’s right,” Jay Floyd said. “We expected Stephie to come back by and pick up Kyle, and when she didn’t show up by eleven, we called Ed.”

Bernie nodded. “I realize y’all have answered a lot of questions since that night, that y’all did everything you could to help us in our investigation then and again yesterday after we verified that Stephanie was dead.”

Emmy Floyd keened softly. Her lips puckered; her chin quivered. Jay scooted closer to his wife where they sat in the porch swing and put his arm around her shoulders.

“I hate to go over this again, but it’s possible something one of you thinks is totally insignificant might help us in the investigation.” Bernie eased backward and braced her hips against the porch banisters. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Stephanie? Someone who was upset with her or had a grudge against one of you?”

“Our girl didn’t have an enemy in this world,” Jay said. “She was as good as gold.”

“Jay and Emmy don’t have any enemies,” Ed Mays told Bernie. “I don’t know a soul who doesn’t think the world of them and of all three of their kids, too.”

Bernie nodded again. “What about you, Kyle?”

“I don’t know of anybody, except maybe all of Stephie’s old boyfriends,” Kyle replied. “They gotta be jealous because I got Stephie.”

“She was a prize,” Jay said. “Pretty. Smart as a whip. A good girl.”

Old boyfriends. Hmm … Was it possible that an oldboyfriend hated Stephanie for dumping him in favor of Kyle?Hated her enough to kidnap her, rape and torture her, thenkill her?

“Was Stephanie dating someone she broke up with before the two of you got serious?” Bernie asked.

“I—I wasn’t serious about the old boyfriends,” Kyle said nervously. “The only boyfriend she ever had before me was Richie Lowery.”

“Richie was a good boy,” Jay said. “Besides, he’s the one who broke up with Stephie.”

“He might have been the one who ended things, but I think he wished he hadn’t,” Kyle said.

“What makes you say that?” Bernie asked.

Kyle glanced at his wife’s parents, then at Ed Mays. “Stephie got some notes and some little presents from him last month. She showed them to me and I told her that if he called her or bothered her, she was to tell me and I’d go have a talk with Richie. You know, beat the shit out of him if he messed with her.”

“Are you saying Richie was harassing Stephanie?” Bernie looked point-blank at Kyle.

“Nah, nothing like that. After a couple of notes and presents, nothing else happened. I guess when Stephie didn’t respond, he got the message that she was happily married.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about this before now?” Ed asked.

“I didn’t think about it,” Kyle admitted. “It wasn’t anything important. Like I said, nothing more ever came of it.”

“Where does Richie Lowery live?” Bernie posed this question to Stephanie’s parents.

“As far as I know, he still lives in Hollywood,” Jay said. “You don’t think Richie…” He cleared his throat. “The boy was all right. There’s no way he would have hurt Stephie. He wasn’t the type.”

“I understand,” Bernie said. “But it won’t hurt to question him.”

As she continued speaking with the family, periodically checking her watch and wondering just how long it would take Jim and Charlie to do a thorough inspection of the house, she became more and more certain that Stephanie’s parents and husband didn’t know anything that could shed new light on the case. That is, other than the information about Richie Lowery, which Bernie’s instincts told her probably wouldn’t amount to anything. Not unless Kyle wasn’t telling her everything. But the guy seemed to be an open book.

After running out of questions, Bernie let Ed take over and she sat back and listened. He talked to the family, reminisced about Stephanie and gave them the opportunity to relive happier days.

The front door opened and Jim peered out onto the porch. His gaze connected with Bernie’s. He nodded for her to come to him. She eased up from her perch on the banisters and headed toward the door.

“I believe Captain Norton and Agent Patterson are just about finished,” she said. “If y’all will excuse me, I’ll check with them and be right back.”

When she walked into the living room, Jim closed the door behind her and said, “We found something interesting.”

Bernie’s heart sank. Oh, please, God, don’t let there be any evidence against Kyle Preston. He seemed like such a good guy, a guy in love with his wife.

“Charlie found the items in a box in a cedar chest in the second bedroom,” Jim said. “The box was tied with string and had been placed under several quilts.”

“What was in the box?”

“Come see for yourself. Charlie’s been really careful handling it.” Jim held out a pair of gloves to Bernie. She took them, slipped them on and then followed Jim down the hall and into the bedroom.

“Did you tell her?” Charlie asked.

Jim shook his head. “I thought she’d want to see them for herself.”

Thomasina got another bottle of water out of the machine at Robyn’s Fitness Center before she left. She was warm and sweaty and thirsty, and all she wanted to do was cool off before driving over to the Pig, which was what everyone called their local Piggly Wiggly supermarket, to pick up the items on the grocery list her mother gave her before she left Verona this morning. On the off chance that Brandon Kelley might be doing his shopping this afternoon, Thomasina had reapplied her makeup before leaving Robyn’s. She knew she was acting like a silly teenager with a crush, but she couldn’t help it. She had even dreamed about Brandon last night. Sigh, sigh. Be still my heart.

Hitting the automatic unlock on her keyless entry pad, Thomasina headed straight for her car parked in the back lot behind the fitness center. As she approached, she noticed something hanging on the handle of the driver’s door. An advertisement of some sort? Probably. But it was rather large for a flyer.

Stopping and staring when she reached her car, she realized that someone had tied a white plastic bag to the door handle. Her heartbeat accelerated. Thomasina set her unopened bottle of water on the hood of her car, then hesitantly yet expectantly reached out, untied the knot holding the bag in place and grasped it. Standing there in the parking lot, in the noonday July sun, she peeked inside, but all she could make out was a white box and a manila envelope.

She opened the car door, got in and after closing the door and starting the engine to get the air-conditioning running, reached inside the bag and pulled out the note. With trembling fingers, she removed the message from the envelope and unfolded the note.

Please accept this small token of my affection. Pearls fora lovely lady.

Thomasina gasped silently. Pearls?

She reached into the bag again and withdrew the small, white rectangular box. She felt like a kid on Christmas morning. After removing the lid, she stared at the eighteen-inch string of pearls nestled on a bed of white cotton. Round and creamy white, with a small gold catch, the pearls weren’t real. They couldn’t be. But they were beautiful all the same. And such a sweet gift. A gift from a very romantic man.

A gift from Brandon?