“Crime tape? It’s a crime scene? Is that agent from the big Chinese buyer still coming in here to buy sang at Tarver’s? What about the guys from the pharms and the ginseng-laced power drinks companies? I can’t see anyone around here hurting her, but those outsiders might do something to keep her sang count up so that—”
“Let’s go over all that tomorrow. The crime tape’s just a formality. Now, listen,” he added, his voice darkening as he gave her the slightest shake, as if to force her fears back down. “I’m going to phone Cassie, because I’m sure you can stay there tonight. Then, after we check out the house for any sort of clues—”
“For clues? You do think something awful has happened to her, don’t you?”
“Let’s not assume the worst for a woman who knew the woods so well. I’m sorry I can’t let you go home tonight, but we can keep your car here, and I’ll take you out to Cassie’s, then pick you up just after dawn. I’ll transfer your things to my vehicle now. You want to give me your keys, then I’ll help you to the bathroom before I call her?”
“I’ll be all right. But she has to be all right, too!”
Damn, she was going to cry. Her mother was missing, and she couldn’t go home. But neither could she have a meltdown. She had to focus on finding her mother, and that meant going along with Drew, in more ways than one.
“I’ll be all right,” she repeated, blinking back tears as she pulled away from him and fished her keys out of her purse. When she handed them to him, their fingertips touched; a jolt of lightning might as well have leapt between them. She thought he felt it, too, but his words came calm and steady.
“Stay strong, Jess. We’ll work through this together.”
Not trusting her voice, she nodded and went out of his office and down the hall, with both hands on the walls to stop the place from spinning. Neither of them was saying it, but they knew a lot was at stake in Mariah’s sang count and, therefore, in her disappearance. It was all tied in with mountain pride and worse—big money both here and abroad.
Jessie knew she had to deal with a new Drew, but then, she was a new person, too. One with a missing mother who might be as endangered as wild wood sang.
* * *
Drew had to fight the urge to pull Jess against him and hold her. It was an insane thought, considering the last night they’d been together and now this nightmare. Despite her obvious exhaustion and frustration, he was astounded at how beautiful she’d become, delicate and edgy, yet sturdy and strong. Tall, slender with tousled, curly blond hair and blue-gray eyes that bored right into you. Yeah, just as he’d remembered her and yet not the same at all. Filled out, at ease in what had once been a string bean of a body, self-assured despite her dilemma …
“Here, let me open the Jeep door for you,” he said as she stepped outside to join him on the porch.
“It looks more like a truck. Is this Deep Down’s version of a cop car?”
“It’s a Jeep Cherokee with a wired-off backseat in case I have a prisoner to transport. I’ve only got two small holding cells here.”
“A Cherokee? I’ll bet Seth Bearclaws likes that.”
“I tried to give him a lift the other day, but he won’t ride in it. Says it’s just another thing ripping off his people’s heritage.”
He went back to the office, turned out the lights and locked the door before he got in the driver’s side of the front seat. He was proud of this silver, four-wheel SUV he’d been issued when he’d taken the job. It had made his measly salary sound a lot better. It was a sturdy vehicle for the mountain roads. It didn’t have a light bar, just a single red light he put on the roof if he had a pursuit or an emergency. Traffic jams were nonexistent here. He’d been tempted to have Sheriff stenciled on both front doors, but realized it might make some folks in his jurisdiction nervous or even trigger-happy. Still, with some characters in the outlying areas, he felt as if he had a bull’s-eye on his doors and on his back. Could Mariah have run afoul of any of them?
“One of my little causes around here,” he told her, “is reminding people to lock their doors. The times, they are a changin’’ round here.” She seemed very far away, not just across the console; she looked as if she was glued to the outside door. “Seat belt,” he reminded her, then had to help her click it in the unfamiliar lock.
“Lots of locks. So big-time crime’s coming in here?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. In the four months I’ve been on the job, it’s hardly been cops and robbers,” he admitted, as he turned on the headlights, pulled out and headed toward Cassie’s. “I broke up a fight between the Talbots and the Enloes so that feud wouldn’t restart.”
“As I recall, that feud went back to the Civil War. If the truth were known, probably to the old clan wars of Scotland. So that was a good day’s work. What else?”
He was touched that, despite her own problems, she seemed genuinely interested. About half the local population insisted there was no need for law enforcement here. He almost confessed to her how hard it had been to see the sneers and overhear the snide comments about Drew Webb, of all folks, from all families, coming back to uphold what the government said was right.
“I arrested a guy from Frankfort for letting his six-year-old son chase deer on a noisy ATV. The dad was hopping mad, said he’d sue—he was a lawyer, no less, who should have had some brains. The kid could have been killed with the ridges and rills around here. I deal with a lot of pranks from kids who are just plain bored,” he told her. “I think we can both sympathize with that.”
A moment’s silence stretched between them.
“Yes.”
“I do a lot of knock-and-talks, playing counselor as well as enforcer. The things I thought would cause me the most problems, drinking and policing illegal patches of marijuana, haven’t taken much time. Hardly anyone makes their own moonshine anymore, and when I find pot patches, I destroy them. But I don’t make an arrest or apply to have the land legally confiscated if I’m not sure who planted it.”
“Unless you catch them in the act, you’re never sure.”
“Right. Besides, like sang spots, a lot of it is planted far outside of town.”
“I’m sure sang is even harder to police,” she told him, slanting her body slightly in his direction as he turned off onto the side road toward Cassie’s. “I mean,” she went on as they began to bounce down the long, rutted lane, “sang’s more of a heritage here, a God-given medicine and moneymaker.”
“That’s exactly it. Local diggers and foreign buyers alike don’t give a damn what the endangered species laws say.”
“And your knock-and-talks?” she asked. Again, it really got to him that, as whipped and upset as she was, she was focusing on what he’d said. He hadn’t realized he’d been so lonely, coming home to Deep Down.
“I’ve arrested two guys and driven them into jail in Highboro for domestic violence. I owe my mother that much. Above all else, I took this job because I can’t stand guys who rough up their women and kids, and there’s still a lot of it in these patriarchal parts. I—I almost lose control—again—when I see that. Sometimes I think life was easier in sunny Naples, Italy, when I was MP—military police. I was in charge of the brig for drunken sailors and marines. They didn’t expect favors from a onetime bad boy from a hellfire family.”
He realized he sounded angry. He hadn’t really let loose with anyone since he’d been here, not even with Chuck Akers. He’d been walking a fine line between building bridges and enforcing the law.
Cassie’s house