It had been nine days since Jill’s parents learned their daughter’s fate. Nine days since Jill’s body had been found in a rocking chair on the Cracker Barrel porch in Lookout Valley. Nine agonizing days, and the police still didn’t have a suspect. Nine days, and Debra Gregory was still missing.
When Audrey entered the Read House in downtown Chattanooga, she searched the lobby area for Porter. They had agreed to meet there instead of him picking her up at home. He wasn’t difficult to find since he was waiting right inside the front entrance.
Spit and polish. That was Porter Bryant to a T. Always dressed impeccably, clean-shaven, styled hair, manicured nails buffed to a gloss finish, and wearing a delicate hint of expensive men’s cologne.
Porter was to the manor born, so to speak. His father had been a wealthy, high-profile lawyer and his mother a socialite who had dabbled in interior design. Audrey suspected that Porter’s mother and her mother would have gotten on famously.
“Sorry I’m late,” she told him. “After I left the Scotts, I barely had time to go home and change clothes.”
“You missed Chief Mullins’s grand entrance and the big surprise moment.” Porter’s tone held a note of censure. When she gave him a screw-you glare, he quickly added, “You look lovely, so it was worth the wait. And I’m sure with so many people here, the chief and Mrs. Mullins weren’t aware of your absence.”
When he held out his arm for her to take, Audrey graciously accepted and they walked across the lobby and entered the Hamilton Room. Geraldine and Tam had rented that room and the adjoining River City Room for the surprise sixtieth birthday party they were hosting for Willie. The moment the door opened, music, laughter, and the roar of at least two hundred voices enveloped them.
“My God, I know Geraldine didn’t invite half of Hamilton County,” Audrey said. “She wanted it to be a close friends and family event.”
“Well, if only a third of the invited guests brought a date, that would dramatically increase the number of people attending tonight. Considering that Willie Mullins is the Chattanooga police chief, one would expect a large gathering. Certain things are expected of a high-ranking public servant.”
“I’m sure Geraldine was pressured into expanding the guest list.” No doubt by some well-meaning bureaucrat whose opinions matched Porter’s. Tam had told her there were rumors circulating that the state Democratic Party was interested in backing Willie for the U.S. Congress in the next election.
“If so, then she was a wise woman to agree. What the Mullins family does now can affect his political future,” Porter said as if Audrey was clueless about how the game of politics was played. “And Mrs. Mullins showed remarkable good taste in adhering to acceptable social etiquette for such a huge party by requesting no gifts.”
Audrey had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at Porter. His last comment had come across as a backhanded compliment if she’d ever heard one.
Dating Porter had become a habit, one she needed to break sooner rather than later. He was handsome and could, on occasion, be charming, but he was such a snob. He seemed to be every woman’s dream—intelligent, well-mannered, attentive, and handsome. Everyone said that he was a young man with a bright future. Even Tam had liked him when he and Audrey had first started dating, but had revised her opinion within a few weeks.
“Porter’s okay,” Tam had told her. “If you like the stuffed-shirt type. But, girlfriend, he’s so not the man for you.”
Despite Tam’s opinion and her own nagging doubts, Audrey had fallen into a comfortable routine with Porter. And what she had liked most about dating him was the fact that he hadn’t been demanding. Whenever she had to break a date, he was more than understanding. When she continuously told him she wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, he accepted the fact that she wasn’t ready, that she wanted to wait.
But wait for what? She hadn’t been specific. He hadn’t asked.
What are you waiting for, Audrey?
As Porter led her through the throng of celebrators, he said, “This is a come-and-go thing, so we don’t have to stay the entire four hours. I thought you could make your presence known, wish happy birthday to Chief Mullins, grab a few tidbits from the buffet table, drink a glass of bubbly, and then—”
“I intend to stay for a good while,” Audrey informed him.
“How long? I had hoped—”
“Porter, do not go there. Not tonight of all nights. You have to understand what a difficult day this has been for me.”
He pouted like a petulant child who had been sent to bed without his supper. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. No pressure, darling.”
She paused alongside the dance floor and turned to the ever-accommodating Porter. “Willie Mullins is my dearest friend’s father. I love the man. I think of him and Geraldine as family. I’m not going to make a brief appearance at his sixtieth birthday party and just disappear.”
“Yes, of course, I really do understand.” Porter released his hold on her elbow. “Why don’t I find a waiter and get us some champagne.”
“Thank you. That would be nice.”
As if from out of nowhere, Tam appeared the minute Porter left. Wearing a lemon yellow silk dress that clung to her rounded curves and a pair of dewdrop pearl earrings as her only jewelry, Tam was stunningly beautiful.
She slipped her arm around Audrey’s waist. “Look at Mom and Dad. It must be wonderful to still be that much in love after all these years.”
Audrey gave her friend a squeezing hug and then glanced at the dance floor where Geraldine swayed dreamily in Willie’s big, strong arms. “Your parents are proof that there really is such a thing as happily-ever-after.”
“Your dad’s here,” Tam said. “He and your uncle Garth. And Hart.”
“Hart’s here?”
Tam nodded.
“How is he?” Audrey asked.
“Clean and sober, at least for tonight. He looks nice. I think he’s wearing that new suit you bought him for his last job interview.”
Audrey forced a smile. She loved her stepbrother. After Blake’s disappearance twenty-five years ago, they had bonded as siblings. They had both known that they were the expendable kids, the ones who would never be as important to her father and his mother as Blake had been. And each of them had dealt with their family’s tragedies in different ways. Audrey had focused all her energy on a profession where she could help other people deal with their own tragedy, with grief, with suffering of any kind. Hart had sought solace in drugs and alcohol. He’d been in and out of rehab half a dozen times during the past two decades, and he’d never held down a job for more than six months at a time.
“I wish I could do more to help him than just buying him a new suit.”
“My God, you’ve done all you can. And you’ve done it over and over again. What more could you do? I’m not saying Hart’s a lost cause, but …” Tam grimaced. “Hart’s got problems that you can’t fix, problems that maybe nobody can fix.”
“I know. In here”—Audrey tapped her head—“I know. But in here”—she patted her chest—“I want to believe that somehow, some way, someday …”
“Fairy Godmother Audrey.” Tam smiled. “Always wishing you could wave a magic wand and make everything all right for everyone.”
Audrey snorted, the sound quite unladylike. “Yeah, all the good that wishing does me when my damn magic wand is broken.”
Tam laughed.
“It’s