The Sheriff's Secretary

“Jenny?” He scooted closer to her as another whimper escaped him.

“Are you okay, buddy?” She pulled him against her and wrapped him in her arms. “Are you hurt?”

“My head hurts and I want my mommy.”

“I know, honey. But you’re going to have to be brave for a little while, okay?”

She felt him nod. “Where is this place?” he asked. “Why did that man bring us here?” Billy’s body trembled slightly against her and she thought she detected a faint wheeze in his voice.

With each minute that passed, Jenny’s mind grew clearer. “Did you see the man, Billy? Did you see what he looked like?” If she knew who had done this, then maybe she could figure out why.

“He had on a black mask. I tried to run, but then he grabbed me and put something over my face and I guess I went to sleep.”

A man with a mask. What was going on? Who had drugged them and brought them here…wherever here was? Once again a scream of terror rose up inside her, but she swallowed against it, knowing that she had to maintain control. She needed to be brave, not for herself but for Billy. If she lost it, that would only frighten Billy more than he already was.

“Somebody took us, Jenny, and I’ll bet my mom doesn’t know where I am.” The wheeze in Billy’s voice wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.

“Don’t be scared, Billy.” She reached her hand up to touch his sweaty head, then rubbed the back of her hand against his damp cheek. “Even if your mom doesn’t know where we are, my brother will help her find us. You know Lucas is the sheriff. He’s very smart and he’ll find us in no time.” She hoped he believed her. She certainly wanted to believe her own words. Billy seemed to relax a bit.

“I think it’s the middle of the night. Maybe we should both go back to sleep, then we can figure out how to get home in the morning,” she said. There was nothing that could be done in the utter darkness that surrounded them.

“Okay.” Billy cuddled closer to her and she could tell by his breathing that he went back to sleep almost immediately.

Sleep was the last thing on Jenny’s mind as she fought against a fear the likes of which she’d never known. She had no idea what kind of place they were in, was afraid to explore in the blackness that prevailed. She had no idea who had taken them and why.

There was only one thing she was fairly certain of and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize it. The buzz of insects, the smell of fish and the sound of water all led her to believe they were someplace deep in the swamp.

As she thought of all the miles of waterways, the hundreds of miles of tangled, dangerous swampland that surrounded Conja Creek, a new despair gripped her, and she prayed that her brother would be able to find them before it was too late.

Chapter Three

Lucas pulled into his driveway at six the next morning. His intention was to take a fast shower, then go talk to Phillip Ribideaux to see if the young man had any clue as to where Jenny and Billy might be.

When he’d left Mariah’s house, she’d been seated in the same chair where she’d sat for most of the night, staring out the window as dawn slowly arrived. He’d left her in the charge of Deputy Ed Maylor, who would hold down the fort there while Lucas did a little field investigation. Maylor was a good man, bright and eager to get ahead.

The Jamison home was a huge two-story antebellum mansion that sat on five acres of lush lawn. Lucas’s father had been sixty when he married his young bride, Elizabeth. He’d made a fortune playing the stock market with his old family money. He’d died when Lucas was eleven and Jenny was just a baby.

Lucas didn’t have many father-son memories. His father had spent most of his time either in his office at home or in bed with a heart condition that had eventually killed him. Although Lucas would always believe it had been his mother’s demands and histrionics that had killed his old man.

“Have you found them?” Marquette Dupre met him at the door, her black eyes radiating with worry.

“No, I’m just here to take a quick shower then go have a chat with Phillip Ribideaux,” Lucas said as he headed for the grand staircase. Marquette followed close at his heels as he headed up to his bedroom suite.

“That boy needs less money and more character, that’s for sure,” Marquette exclaimed. “You think he knows where Jenny and that little boy is?”

“I don’t know.” He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face the woman who had been the housekeeper for first his parents and now him. “Jenny hasn’t said anything to you that I should know about, has she?”

Marquette’s tiny face wreathed into something that looked like a prune. “You know better than that. That girl quit confiding in me when she was sixteen and I told you that she sneaked out of the house to meet that boy she had a crush on. How’s Mariah doing?”

Lucas walked into his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to take off his boots. “I’m not sure how, but she’s managing to hold it together.”

“That don’t surprise me. That’s one strong woman. You can see it in her eyes. She’s got that cold gator stare. Besides, she’d have to be a strong woman to put up with that boob we elected mayor of this fine city.”

Lucas offered her a grim smile, then disappeared into the bathroom. Minutes later, standing beneath a hot spray of water, he did what he’d done through most of the nighttime hours: In his head, over and over again, he replayed the phone message he’d received.

There had been something familiar…not about the voice, which had obviously been disguised, but in the inflection, in the cadence of the words spoken. A kidnapper, or a friend of his sister’s working with her to orchestrate drama?

He’d heard from the authorities in Shreveport, who had let him know that Frank Landers no longer lived at the address Mariah had given him. They promised to continue to look for him. He’d called Mariah with the news and she’d been bitterly disappointed that Frank hadn’t been found.

Aware of minutes ticking off, he finished his shower and left the bathroom to see a clean, freshly pressed uniform laid out on his bed. Marquette was as handy as a pocket in a shirt.

Minutes later, dressed and with a thermos of fresh coffee, courtesy of his housekeeper, he drove toward Phillip Ribideaux’s place. The shower had invigorated him, washing away the exhaustion that had weighed him down as he’d driven from Mariah’s house to his own.

He hoped that, while he was hunting down leads this morning, Mariah was getting some much-needed sleep. There was nothing she could do at the moment to help bring her son home, and being exhausted would only make things worse.

He thought of what Marquette had said about Mariah. He’d known she was a strong woman, but through the long hours of the night he’d seen flashes of intense vulnerability. If she had an Achilles’heel it was definitely her son.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel as her strange words to him echoed in his head. It must be terrible, to always look for the worst in the people around you. He had the distinct feeling she’d been talking about his relationship with his sister.

But she didn’t really know Jenny. She didn’t know the fear Lucas lived with every day—the fear that his sister would turn into another version of their mother and come to the same kind of tragic end.

Phillip Ribideaux lived in a large, attractive house on the outskirts of town. The twenty-eight-year-old had never worked a day in his life and lived off the generosity of his father, a wealthy developer in the area.

He was a party guy with no work ethic and a sense of privilege that Lucas had seen too often in men who came from money. In fact, Lucas himself and four of his then closest friends might have come to the same end had they not made a pact in college to use their wealth to give back to the community.

Lucas hadn’t been sad to see the relationship between Ribideaux and Jenny end. Jenny deserved better than a man like Ribideaux.

It was just after seven when Lucas knocked on Ribideaux’s front door. Phillip’s sleek sports car was parked out front, but the knock yielded no reply. He rapped again, harder and longer this time.

“All right, all right.” The deep male voice was full of irritation. Phil opened the door and glared at Lucas. It was obvious he’d been awakened by the knocking. His dark hair was mussed, a pillow crease indented his cheek and he wore only a pair of black silk boxers.

“Morning, Phil,” Lucas said. “Can I come in?”

The handsome young man frowned. “Why? What’s going on?” He scratched the center of his chest, then stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Couldn’t it wait? Jeez, what time is it?”

“No, it can’t wait,” Lucas replied.

“Talk about what?” He gazed at Lucas belligerently.

“I’d like to come in. Now, you can invite me inside and we can have a nice, friendly chat or I can come back in a little while with a search warrant and the chat won’t be quite so friendly.” Lucas kept his voice pleasant and calm, but narrowed his eyes to let Phil know he was dead serious.

With reluctance Phil opened the door to allow Lucas to enter. “Now you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

Lucas ignored the question and walked through the foyer and into the living room. He stopped in surprise, noting the moving boxes lining the walls and the lack of furniture. He turned back to face Phil. “Going someplace?”