He turned and stared at Mariah’s front door, wondering what he should do.

Why was he here? Why hadn’t he gone home? He pushed himself forward and lightly tapped on the door. She opened it. Her soft curly hair spilled around her shoulders and her blue eyes radiated gentle concern as she looked at him. She wore the terry cloth robe she’d had on the night they made love. That night seemed as if it were a million years ago.

It was at that moment that Lucas realized he could fall in love with her, if he allowed it, and that there would be no happy ending. When this was all over, he feared that to her he would be just a bad memory.

And that she’d remember him as the man who broke her heart and never looked back.

The Sheriff’s Secretary
Carla Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty novels for Silhouette Books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times BOOKreviews for her novel Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Sheriff Lucas Jamison —He’s desperate to find his missing sister and her young charge.

Mariah Harrington —Her entire world explodes when her son, Billy, disappears.

Jenny Jamison —Is Lucas’s sister an innocent babysitter or part of a dangerous plot?

Frank Landers —Mariah’s ex-husband had no interest in being a father, but would he kidnap his own son to torment the woman who left him?

Phil Ribideaux —Had the wealthy playboy— Jenny’s ex-boyfriend—been driven to commit a crime when his father disinherited him?

Remy Troulous —The dangerous young man heads a gang called the Voodoo Priests. What was his connection with Jenny?

Louis DuBois, Wally Ellis and Ed Maylor — The sheriff’s men were doing their best to solve the crime…weren’t they?

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Prologue

It had been easier than he’d expected. He drew a deep breath to calm the rush of adrenaline he’d sustained for the past hour and a half.

As the adrenaline eased, a new sense of euphoria flooded his veins. He’d done it. He’d actually managed to pull it off. All the months of planning had finally paid off.

To assure himself of his success, he walked across the shack’s wooden floor and opened the slat in the door that offered him a view into the small room.

They were both still out, unconscious on the mat where he’d placed them when he’d carried them in from the boat. Billy had been easy. He probably weighed no more than fifty pounds.

Jenny had been more difficult. He’d struggled beneath her dead weight, not wanting to drop her into the gator-infested water that surrounded the shack.

They were out, but soon the drugs would wear off and they’d wake up and know they were trapped. They wouldn’t know who had taken them or why they were here. And then the fear would begin.

Although, on the outside, the shack looked as if a stiff breeze could blow it over and into the murky waters of Conja Creek, that appearance was deceiving.

He’d spent the past month making sure the small interior room was strong and secure, like a fortress, not to keep people out but rather to keep people in. It was the perfect place for, when they woke, when they began to scream for help, there would be nobody to hear them but the gators and the fish.

He checked his watch, then closed the slat with a sigh of satisfaction. They had all the basic necessities they needed to survive until he returned here. But now it was time for him to go.

Minutes later he lowered himself into his boat. It would take him nearly an hour to maneuver through the maze of waterways half-choked with vegetation.

He didn’t mind the time it would take. He’d use it to think about Sheriff Lucas Jamison, the golden boy who had it all. He tightened his hands on the boat’s steering wheel. Sheriff Lucas Jamison, the confident know-it-all, the town’s favorite son, the man who looked at him like he was nothing. Right now Lucas was the town’s favorite son, but soon he would know what it was like to be terrified.

Chapter One

Mariah Harrington wasn’t worried when she got home from work and found her eight-year-old son and her roommate missing. It was a gorgeous late-summer afternoon, and odds were good that Billy and Jenny had walked to the nearby park to enjoy an hour or so of outdoor fun. Jenny’s car was in the driveway, so Mariah knew they couldn’t have gone far.

She threw her keys on the kitchen table, stepped out of her navy high heels and opened the refrigerator to look for the can of soda that she’d hidden the night before in the vegetable bin. No chance Billy or Jenny would look in there. They both shared the same abhorrence for anything green and good for them.

Smiling as she carried the cold can into the living room, she thought of her son and her roommate. It was hard to believe how much an eight-year-old and a twenty-five-year-old could have in common. But in many ways Jenny was as much child as adult.

Of course, that came from being raised by an overly protective, domineering brother. Her smile fell away as she thought of Sheriff Lucas Jamison.

As the mayor’s secretary, she often found herself acting as a buffer between the hardheaded Lucas and the ineffectual mayor of Conja Creek. But it wasn’t her job that made her want to keep her distance from the handsome-as-sin sheriff.

There was a touch of judgment in his dark eyes and a command to his presence that made her think of dark days in her past—a past she’d finally managed to escape.

It had been Lucas who had approached her about renting a room to his younger sister. He’d thought Mariah would be a good influence on flighty, immature Jenny.

She popped the top of her soda and took a long swallow. She’d agreed to the idea of a roommate because financially it made sense and because the house was big enough that they could live together without being in each other’s pockets.

Jenny had moved in two months ago. Mariah had found her to be charming but lacking in confidence, thanks to too much older brother and not enough life experience. It was an added benefit that Jenny and Billy had taken so well to each other. There were a lot of young women Jenny’s age who wouldn’t want to bother with an eight-year-old boy.

Mariah unfastened her hair from the neat ponytail at the nape of her neck and slithered her hands through the thick curls to massage her scalp. Then she leaned her head back against the sofa and released a deep, weary sigh.

It had been a long day. She was not only Mayor Richard Welch’s secretary, she was also part therapist, errand runner and mommy to the man. Things were particularly hectic now with the mayoral election coming in less than three months. When Richard had won the election that had made him mayor, he’d run unopposed. This election he was facing two worthy opponents.

Checking her watch, she figured she had twenty minutes or so to sit and relax before she needed to make supper. Billy and Jenny would be back by six. They were never late for a meal.

She must have fallen asleep, for when she opened her eyes again the room held the semidarkness of late twilight. For a moment she was disoriented as to the day and time as she stared around the neat living room.

As sleep fell away, she remembered it was Friday night and she’d been waiting for Billy and Jenny to get home from the park. She checked her watch, the first faint alarm went off in her head. Almost seven. They should have been home an hour ago.

She pulled herself off the sofa and walked to the front door, trying to ignore the small niggle of worry that whispered in the back of her brain.

“They’ve been late once before,” she whispered aloud, as if the audible sound of that thought could ease her concern. The last time, they’d found a stray dog caught in some brambles in the wooded area next to the park. It had taken them hours to calm the frightened mutt and get him untangled.

Mariah opened the door, stepped onto the front porch and looked in the direction of the park, hoping to see them hurrying toward the house with a tale of adventure to share. She saw nobody except Roger Olem, three doors down, watering his flowers.

In another half hour or so it would be full dark.

The humid evening air, redolent with the scent of flowers and sunshine, enveloped her as she left the porch and headed down the sidewalk in the direction of the park. As she made her way, she marveled at the happiness she’d found here.

She’d never meant to make Conja Creek, Louisiana, her home. It had simply been a blip on her road map when she’d left Shreveport on her way to anywhere.

It had taken only a single night spent at a local bed-and-breakfast to make her fall in love with the small, quaint bayou town.

She’d just about given up on happiness before landing here. Eight months ago, life had been about survival, but now she was a respected part of the community, and Billy was happier than she’d ever seen him.

She quickened her pace as the park came into view. If they were here, then she needed to have a talk with Jenny about making sure they got home on time when they decided to leave the house for a little fun.

Her heart dropped a bit when she saw that nobody sat on the swings or climbed on the jungle gym. The only person she saw in the park was one of her neighbors, Rosaline Graham who, since her husband’s death, often spent the hours between dinner and bedtime sitting on a park bench.

“Hi, Rosaline,” Mariah called to the old woman. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my son or Jenny Jamison lately, have you?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, honey. I just got here a few minutes ago, but I sure haven’t seen them.”

The alarm bells that had just been whispering through Mariah’s head suddenly pealed so loudly she could barely hear anything else.

Maybe they’d chosen another way home. Maybe they were there right now wondering where she was. She started back toward home. After several steps she broke into a run, telling herself not to panic. It wasn’t as if it were the middle of the night. It was only about seven-thirty.

But when she got back to the house, there was still no sign of them. The phone had no messages, and the panic that had tried to take hold of her now grasped her with both hands.

She pulled out her address book and grabbed the phone. The reason Billy had been home today and not at his babysitter’s was because he’d awakened with a sore throat. Maybe Jenny had taken him to the doctor’s office.

The fact that Jenny’s car was in the driveway didn’t matter. From Mariah’s house it was a short walk to Main Street, where Dr. Ralph Dell had his offices.

Her fingers shook as she punched in the phone number. Normally Mariah was the last to panic, and even though she thought there was surely a logical explanation for Billy and Jenny’s absence, she couldn’t help the swell of inexplicable fear that filled her chest.

By nine o’clock she had called everyone she knew to call. Friends, neighbors and schoolmates of Billy’s. None of Billy’s friends had seen him that day, nor had anyone seen Jenny.

She’d been reluctant to call Lucas, knowing that if Jenny and Billy came home and nothing was seriously wrong, Lucas would reprimand Jenny for the next week for worrying her.

But now she had no choice. With each minute that passed, the disquiet she’d felt since waking from her unexpected nap raged into full-blown fear.

She punched in the number for the sheriff’s office, unsurprised when Lucas himself answered the call. “Sheriff Jamison.” His deep, self-confident voice instantly commanded respect.

“Sheriff, it’s Mariah Harrington. Have you by any chance seen Jenny or Billy today?”

“No. Why?” His voice held a sudden intensity and she could see him in her mind. The tight jaw, the disapproving line trekking across his forehead, the thin press of his lips.

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, but I’ve been home since five-thirty and they aren’t here.” Although she tried to maintain her composure, her voice cracked and tears suddenly stung her eyes.

“I’ll be right there.” He didn’t wait for her to reply.

Mariah hung up the receiver then walked back to the front door and stared outside, watching the night shadows as they moved in to steal the last of the day.

Fear clawed up the back of her throat as she realized that within fifteen minutes or so it would be night. Where was Jenny? And, dear God, where was her son?

LUCAS JAMISON climbed into his car and headed for the Harrington home, already forming the words to the lecture he’d deliver to his sister when he saw her.

God bless that girl, he thought. Sometimes she just didn’t use the brains that she’d been born with. She’d probably taken Billy for ice cream, or decided to get him a burger at the café and had neglected to leave a note.

He just hoped this little escapade didn’t screw up the living arrangement with Mariah. When Jenny’s last boyfriend had broken up with her, she’d not only lost the man she’d believed was the love of her life but also her living space. She’d refused to move back to the family home with Lucas and had bunked on a girlfriend’s sofa for a couple of weeks.

It had been Lucas who approached Mariah about Jenny renting a room from her. He knew Mariah was a widow, alone with her son, and lived in a big enough house that a renter might not be a problem.

But that wasn’t the real reason he’d approached the mayor’s secretary.

Despite being only twenty-nine years old, Mariah carried herself like a much older, much more mature woman. No-nonsense and with cold blue eyes that could freeze a man in his path, she could potentially have the steadying effect on Jenny that Lucas had never managed. Or so he hoped.

“Jenny, what have you done this time?” he muttered as he pulled up to the curb in front of the Harrington house. He hadn’t even turned off the engine before Mariah flew out of the house.

Her chestnut hair, normally pulled back in a tight ponytail, sprung in wild curls around her petite features, making her look far younger than she appeared when she was at her desk in the mayor’s office.

He didn’t have to ask if Jenny and Billy had shown up. The answer to the unspoken question shone from Mariah’s worried blue eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, her usually cool, composed voice holding a telltale tremble.

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” he said as he fell into step with her and headed back toward the house. “If I know my sister, this is all just some crazy misunderstanding, and she and Billy are probably down at the café eating pie or star-watching down at the park.”

“I’ve been to the park. They weren’t there.” She opened the front door and ushered him into the small entryway. When she turned to face him, her eyes flashed with a touch of impatience. “And I haven’t known your sister as long as you have, but I know her well enough to know that she wouldn’t just take off with Billy and not let me know where they are. Something’s wrong. Something is terribly wrong.”

She might think she knew Jenny, but Jenny had obviously been on her best behavior since moving in here. “You mind if I look around?” Lucas asked. In the two months that Jenny had lived here he’d only been as far as the front porch. Jenny had insisted that this was her space and she didn’t want him checking up on her. He tightened his jaw. Obviously somebody needed to check up on her.

“Please, be my guest,” Mariah said. “I’ve already looked in Jenny’s room to see if she might have left a note for me there, but I didn’t find one.”

“Which room is hers?”

She gestured down the hallway. “Second door on the right.”

She didn’t follow him, but instead moved back to the front door as if she could make them appear on the doorstep by sheer willpower alone.

Mariah’s house was exactly what he’d imagined it would be—slightly old-fashioned and immaculately clean. As he grabbed the doorknob to Jenny’s room he steeled himself for the chaos inside.

He adored his baby sister, but Jenny had always seemed most comfortable in the middle of chaos and drama. He hoped like hell she hadn’t orchestrated this to get attention. It was one thing to be a drama queen in your own life. It was quite another to involve an eight-year-old boy.

Her room was actually fairly neat, except the bed hadn’t been made and a pair of jeans had been thrown across a chair in the corner. He looked on the night-stand, checked the small desk but found no note, no clue as to where she might have gone with a little boy in tow.

Billy’s room was next door. Bunk beds stood against one wall, the lower bunk not made. A small toy box sat beneath a window. Lucas walked to the window and checked it out. The screen was in place and nothing seemed to be amiss.

The third bedroom had to be Mariah’s. He opened the door and paused in surprise at the sight of the king-size bed covered with a scarlet spread and plump matching pillows. Fat candles stood on the nightstand, their dark wicks letting him know they weren’t just for decoration but were burned regularly.

So, the cool and distant Ms. Harrington had a sensual side. Lucas was surprised by the little burst of heat that filled his stomach at the thought of her in the bed, candlelight stroking her features.

He frowned and shut the door behind him. He flipped open his cell phone and called his office.

“Deputy Ellis,” a deep voice boomed.

“Hey, Wally, it’s me,” Lucas said.

“Hi, boss, what’s up?”

“I want you to get a couple of the guys and check out the café, the bowling alley, the movie theater, places like that. I’m looking for my sister.”

“Problems?”

Lucas hesitated. “Jenny’s late getting back to the Harrington house and we don’t know where she is. I wouldn’t be so worried, but she’s got Mariah’s little boy with her.”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll call you back when we find them.”

Lucas tucked his cell phone back into his pocket, then walked back down the hallway.

He found Mariah where he’d left her, standing sentry at the front door. She didn’t hear his approach, and he paused at the end of the hallway to study her.

Though she’d been in town for almost a year, he knew almost nothing about her. He’d heard through the grapevine that she was a widow, and he knew she was a formidable barrier he often had to bulldoze through to speak with the dolt who called himself mayor. But he had no idea where she’d come from before she’d landed in Conja Creek.

As he watched, she tapped two slender fingers against the glass door, as if sending an SOS message in Morse code. Standing at the door, peering out into the deepening night, she looked smaller, more fragile than he could have imagined.

A protectiveness surged inside him and he reached out and touched her shoulder. She jumped and whirled around, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

“No, I just…” Her eyes darkened to a midnight blue. “Where could they be?”

“Why don’t we go into the kitchen. Maybe you could make some coffee while we wait.”

“Wait? Shouldn’t you be rallying the troops? Getting together a search party?” Her chin rose a notch even as a sheen of tears misted her eyes. “You expect me to just sit and drink coffee while my son is someplace out there in the dark?”

“I’ve already rallied the troops. I’ve got my men looking now and yeah, there’s nothing much to do but have some coffee and wait.” He swallowed a sigh. “Look, Mariah, right now all we know is that Billy and Jenny are late getting home. There’s no evidence that a crime occurred, no indication that this is anything more than my sister’s thoughtlessness. Maybe she took Billy to a movie and lost track of time. I’m sure she’s going to waltz in here before long, and she’ll be shocked that you were so worried. Now, how about that coffee?”

She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded and headed for the kitchen. As she began the coffee preparations Lucas sat at the oak table.

“I thought Billy went to a babysitter on the days you worked in the summer,” he said.

“Normally he does, but he woke up this morning with a sore throat. Jenny offered to stay home with him.”

“I thought she had those job interviews today.” Lucas frowned. He’d been the one to set up the two interviews for his sister for that afternoon.

“She called yesterday and canceled. She didn’t feel like either job was what she was looking for,” Mariah explained.

Lucas tamped down an edge of familiar frustration. “Did you speak to Jenny at all today?”

As the coffee began to drip into the carafe Mariah walked over to the table but didn’t sit. “I spoke to her around ten this morning.” Nervous energy rolled off her as her gaze shot to the kitchen window.

“Did she mention any plans for tonight?”

She focused her gaze back on him, and he saw a desperate fear screaming from the depths of her eyes. “No…nothing. Please, you need to do something. Jenny wouldn’t do this to me. Something is wrong.”

Lucas looked at his watch. Almost ten-thirty. He hadn’t realized how late it had become. For the first time since he’d gotten the call from Mariah, a whisper of deep concern swept through him.

Sure, Jenny had pulled some stunts in the past that had made him want to wring her neck, but he couldn’t imagine her pulling this kind of disappearing act with eight-year-old Billy in tow.

She turned back to the counter to pour them each a cup of coffee, but Lucas was suddenly in no mood to sit idle. The fact that his phone remained silent indicated that none of his deputies had run across them. Conja Creek was a small town, and it shouldn’t take this long for his men to find her…if she was someplace where she could be found.

He drew a breath of relief as his cell phone rang. He grabbed it from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Sheriff Jamison,” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Hello?”

“Twinkle twinkle little star, only I know where they are. A game of hide-and-seek we’ll play. Let’s see if you can save the day.” The voice was deep, guttural and sent shock waves through Lucas. Before he could reply, the caller clicked off.

Chapter Two

Mariah saw the blood leave Lucas’s face as he checked the caller ID box, then slowly closed his phone and placed it on the table. Rich, raw fear invaded her, chilling her to the bone. She sank into the chair opposite him, afraid her legs would no longer hold her up.

“Did they find them?” Her head pounded with nauseating tension. “Please, tell me. Is he…are they…” She couldn’t say the word.

“No! No, that wasn’t one of my deputies,” Lucas said hurriedly. A muscle ticked in his taut jaw, and for the first time since he’d arrived, she saw a touch of something deep and dark in his eyes. That frightened her as much as anything.

“Then who was on the phone?” She didn’t want to know, was afraid of what he was going to tell her, and yet she had to know. She drew a steadying breath.

“I don’t know who was on the phone. The call shows up as private on the ID. The caller indicated that he has Jenny and Billy and that a game of hide-and-seek has commenced.”

She stared at him for a moment, unable to make sense of his words. Hide-and-seek? That was one of Billy’s favorite games. But this wasn’t a game. This was something awful. As she tried to absorb what he’d just told her, he called the sheriff’s office.

“Wally,” he said into his phone. “Get all the men together and meet me at Mariah Harrington’s house. We have a situation here.”

A situation. Is that what this was? She swallowed against the scream that threatened to rip its way out of her throat. Billy. Where was Billy and who had taken him?

Calm. Stay calm, she told herself. It wouldn’t do any good to fall to pieces. She had to stay calm and focused for whatever came next.

“What happens now?” She was surprised by the composure of her voice when inside she was quietly shattering apart.

He rose from the table. “I’ll take a closer look around. We can talk to neighbors and see if anyone saw anything here today.” His dark eyes gave away nothing of his thoughts.

Did he feel the same panic for his sister as she felt for her son? Oh, God. As the full impact sank in, she began to tremble. “What can I do? Shouldn’t I be out asking questions? Looking for him?”

Lucas placed a hand on her shoulder as if to steady her rising hysteria, then returned to his chair in front of her. “Can you tell me if Jenny was seeing anyone in particular?”

She frowned and tried to focus on his question. “You mean dating?” She shook her head. “She was still nursing her wounds from when Phil Ribideaux broke up with her a couple of months ago.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. “But, I don’t know what she did or who she saw while I was at work every day. Do you think somebody she was seeing might be behind this?”

“I’m not sure what to think at this point.” He got up once again. “I’m going to go check around again. We’ll find them, Mariah. Try not to worry. We’ll find them.”

He left her there, and she knew he was going back to Jenny’s room. Try not to worry? Was the man insane? She got up from the chair, unable to sit still another minute longer.

Why on earth would somebody want to kidnap Billy? As her mind whirled with suppositions, she realized she didn’t want to go there. Too many of the answers were too terrifying.

A sob choked up from the depths of her as she moved to the window and peered outside into the black of night. Billy didn’t like the dark. Now he was out there somewhere, being held by someone so he couldn’t come home.

Cold. She’d never felt so cold. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to remember every moment of that morning. She’d been in a hurry. She’d overslept and had rushed around to get ready for work.

When she’d awakened Billy, and he’d complained of a sore throat, she’d barely taken time to console him. She’d taken his temperature, which had been normal, had given him a brisk pat on the head, then had left for work knowing Jenny would handle things for the day.

All she wanted to do now was turn back the hands on the clock, somehow retrieve the precious morning. This time, when Billy complained of a sore throat, she would call in to work and take the day off. She’d stay home with her son and make him chicken noodle soup for lunch and peanut butter sandwiches with the crust cut off just the way he liked them.

She’d stay home, and he’d be safe. Another sob escaped her and she pressed her fingers against her lips in an attempt to suppress it.

She turned away from the window and headed to his bedroom. As she entered, the first thing that caught her eye was the inhaler on the nightstand, along with the nebulizer that had gotten Billy through a rough attack on many nights.

She whirled out of the bedroom and bumped into Lucas coming out of Jenny’s room. “Lucas, Billy has asthma and they didn’t take his inhaler. If he gets stressed or scared he’ll have an attack and…” Her voice trailed off, the sentence too horrifying to finish.

“Mariah, what I need from you is a recent photo of Billy.” His voice was calm, as if he hadn’t heard what she’d just told him.

“Billy has asthma,” she repeated.

“I heard you.” His dark eyes held her gaze intently. “But we can’t do anything about that right now. We have to stay focused on the things we can do. Now, I need a picture of Billy.”

Somehow his words penetrated through the veil of despair that threatened to consume her. She nodded, grateful for something, anything to do.

She went to the desk in the living room and grabbed the framed photo that sat on top. It was the school portrait taken last year. She stared at it. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how much he’d changed in the past several months. His dark hair was longer than it had been when the photo was taken, and his face was thinner. He’d been missing a front tooth then. Imagining his beautiful little face in her mind once again brought the press of tears to her eyes.

She set the photo back on the desk and began to dig through the top drawer. It suddenly seemed important that she find the perfect picture of her son.

In a frenzy she searched, more frantic with each second that passed. Her fingers finally landed on an envelope of photos she’d recently had developed. She opened the envelope and pulled out the photos.

The most recent one she had of Billy was of him and Jenny together. She picked it up and traced a finger over Billy’s dark, unruly hair. His smile was filled with mischief as he grinned into the camera while making horns with his fingers behind Jenny’s head.

Jenny’s pretty face smiled back at Mariah from the photo, and her heart squeezed tighter. In the two months that Jenny had been living with her, Mariah had come to care about the younger woman a great deal.

“Did you find one?” Lucas came to stand behind her. She could smell his scent, a subtle cologne she always noticed when he came in to see the mayor. Funny how the familiar scent calmed her just a bit. She turned to face him with the picture in her hand.

“You can use this one. It’s of Billy and Jenny together.”

He took it from her, and she watched him study it. Other than a muscle knotting in his jaw, there was no sign of emotion. Before he could say anything, the doorbell rang and the deputies began to arrive.

A total of five deputies took their orders from Lucas. They all gathered in the living room. Mariah sat on the sofa, numbed by the events swirling around her as Lucas took control.

“Wally, you and Ben start canvassing the neighborhood, see if anyone saw anything here today,” Lucas said. “John, we need recording equipment placed on Mariah’s phone in case a ransom call comes in.”

Mariah sat up straighter. “Ransom?” Her gaze shot around to each of the men in the room. “But, I don’t have any money to speak of.”

“If this is about a ransom, I reckon the kidnapper figures Lucas can pay big bucks to get his sister back safe and sound,” Deputy Ed Maylor said.

Lucas’s jaw once again tightened in his lean face. “Let’s just hope if this is about a ransom, we get a call soon.” He looked at Deputy Louis DuBois. “Louis, I need you to see if you can get into Jenny’s e-mail, find out if there’s anything weird there. I tried to log on earlier, but she has it password protected.”

The tall, thin man nodded. “It shouldn’t take me too long to find a way around the protection.”

“And what about me?” Deputy Maylor asked.

“Check all the windows and doors, see if you find any evidence of tampering,” Lucas replied.

As the men all left to begin their jobs, Lucas joined Mariah on the sofa. To her surprise, he took one of her hands in his and gently squeezed. The warmth of his big hands around her ice-cold fingers felt good. “You doing okay?” he asked.

“No. I want to scream. I want to claw somebody’s eyes out.” She wanted somebody to hold her, somebody to tell her that everything was going to be fine, that Billy would be back in her arms in a matter of minutes. But Mariah had never had anyone to hold her when she was afraid, to calm her when she was upset.

She released Lucas’s hands as she suddenly realized she was going to have to tell Lucas the truth about herself, about her past. She was going to have to confess that her life here in Conja Creek was built on lies.

It was possible Frank had found them, and it was equally possible he’d taken Billy. Jenny could have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. And even though she knew that telling Lucas would destroy the facade of respectability she’d worked so hard to create, she’d do whatever it took to get Billy back.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I don’t know of anyone Jenny was seeing who might be involved in this, but I know somebody from my past who might be.”

Lucas sat up straighter. “Who?”

Mariah clasped her hands together. Even thinking about the man whose name she was about to utter created a knot of new fear in her chest. “His name is Frank Landers, and last I knew he lived in Shreveport.”

A deep frown etched across Lucas’s forehead as he pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket. “What’s his relationship to you and why would he want to kidnap Billy?”

She drew a deep breath. “He’s my ex-husband and Billy’s father.”

LUCAS LOOKED AT HER in surprise. Her ex-husband? “I thought you were a widow, that Billy’s father was dead.”

Her blue eyes refused to meet his as she stared at her hands in her lap. “That’s because I wanted everyone to believe I was a widow. Because I wanted to forget Frank Landers and my marriage to him.”

“You need to unforget now,” he said with an edge of impatience.

She reached up and twisted a strand of her hair between two fingers. “Frank and I were married for five years. We’ve been divorced for two. We lived in Shreveport.” She dropped her hand to her lap and rubbed her left wrist like an arthritis sufferer feeling a weather front moving in.

“If you’ve been divorced for two years, why would your ex-husband decide to grab Billy now?” Lucas asked.

She looked at Lucas. Her cool blue eyes betrayed nothing of what might be going on inside her head. “I don’t know. It’s possible it took him all this time to locate us.”

“He didn’t know where you and Billy were going when you left Shreveport?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know where we were going when we left Shreveport, and I haven’t been in touch with Frank since before my divorce.”

He was less interested in what she was saying and more intrigued by what she wasn’t telling him. “You don’t have a custody arrangement with him?” he asked.

“I have full custody.”

He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. The woman definitely had secrets, but he didn’t have time to be curious about her past.

All he cared about was finding Jenny and Billy, and if she thought this Frank Landers might be responsible, then he needed to call the Shreveport police and see if they could locate the man.

“You have an address for him?” he asked.

“I imagine he still lives in our old house.” She told him the address and he wrote it down.

“I’ll contact the Shreveport police and see if they can hunt him down.” Lucas looked at his watch. Almost midnight. Hopefully the authorities in Shreveport could go to Frank’s home and find out if he was there. It was a five-hour drive from Conja Creek to Shreveport. Even if Frank was home, he could have taken Billy and Jenny and gotten back by now.

He tried not to think about where Jenny might be. If Frank Landers had come to get his kid, then what had he done with Jenny?

Mariah stood, her entire body taut with tension and her eyes haunted. “If he’s taken Billy it isn’t because he wants his son. It’s because he wants to hurt me.”

He’d always looked at Mariah as nothing more than a barrier he needed to get through to see the mayor, a respectable widow who might be a good influence on his flighty, dramatic sister. Now he saw her as neither of those things, but rather as a woman who had apparently suffered some sort of heartache in her past. Lucas knew all about heartache.

“Within an hour we should know if Frank is in Shreveport. In the meantime, why don’t you make a fresh pot of coffee? My deputies should be checking in anytime and they’d probably appreciate the caffeine since it’s getting so late.”

He knew the moment those last words left his mouth that they were the wrong thing to say. She lifted her wrist to check her watch, and her features seemed to crumble into themselves as a sheen of tears filled her eyes.

“Billy has never been away from me this long,” she said, but before he could reply she left the living room and disappeared into the kitchen.

The next couple of hours passed in agonizingly slow increments. Lucas called the state police, and an Amber Alert went out. He also spoke to the FBI, who indicated they would have a field agent there the next morning. The deputies checked in with the news that nobody had seen anything suspicious at the home during the day.

“I’m not surprised,” Mariah said. “All my neighbors work except Sarah Gidrow across the street, and she spends most of her days watching soap operas in the family room in the back of the house.”

They couldn’t be sure Mariah’s house was a crime scene, which was problematic. There was no sign of a struggle, nothing to indicate that anything untold had happened there. It was possible the crime scene was the front yard, or the park, or a sidewalk a block away.

Jenny’s e-mail had yielded nothing to raise an eyebrow, and Deputy Maylor had reported that there was no sign of forced entry or tampering at any of the windows or doors, leaving Lucas to suspect that if the crime had happened here, Jenny had opened the door to whomever had taken them.

If they’d really been taken.

It was that particular thought that haunted him as the night hours passed. Were Jenny and Billy really in danger from a kidnapper, or had Jenny orchestrated this whole drama? What better way to get the attention of Phillip Ribideaux, the young man who had recently broken her heart?

Although this was certainly beyond the pale of any stunt Jenny had pulled in the past, he had to admit that it was something he thought she might be capable of doing.

It was in her genes. He had plenty of memories of his mother pulling crazy stunts in an effort to hang on to whatever man happened to be in her life at the time.

He shoved away those thoughts, not wanting to remember the woman who had possessed the maternal instincts of a rock. She’d died when Jenny was twelve and Lucas was twenty-two, and for the past thirteen years Lucas had spent his time raising Jenny and trying to make sure she didn’t turn out like Elizabeth, their mother.

Despite the late hour, he began calling Jenny’s friends to find out if anyone had spoken to her that day or knew where she might have gone.

Mariah sat on the edge of the sofa and listened to him making those calls. With each minute that passed, the tension that rolled off her increased and her eyes gazed at him with the silent demand that he do something, anything, to bring her baby boy back home.

By three he had nobody else to call, nothing else to do but wait until morning or for another phone call to come in.

“You still aren’t sure that they’ve been taken by somebody, are you?” she asked when he hung up the phone after talking to one of Jenny’s girlfriends. There was a touch of censure in Mariah’s eyes.

“I have to look at all possibilities,” he replied non-committally.

“It must be terrible, to always look for the worst in the people around you.”

He eyed her in surprise. There was an edge in her voice that made him wonder if she was trying to pick a fight. He stared at her assessingly.

Even though exhaustion showed in the shadows beneath her eyes and her forehead was lined with worry, somehow she looked lovely. He’d never really noticed before how pretty she was. But she also looked achingly fragile, as if the mighty control she’d exhibited over the past hours might snap at any moment.

“I’m just doing my job,” he said, refusing to be drawn into an argument with the mother of a missing eight-year-old. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” he suggested. “We’ve done everything we can do for now.”

She sighed and swept a hand through her cascade of chestnut curls. “So, we just wait.” Her voice was flat, without inflection. It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement.

Lucas didn’t reply. He knew there was nothing he could say that would make things better for her. There was no way he could tell her that, no matter what happened, he didn’t see a happy ending.

If Jenny were responsible for this, then he would have to do his duty and arrest her for kidnapping. If Frank Landers had taken Billy, then what had he done with Jenny? The answers that sprang to his mind chilled his blood. And if somebody had taken Jenny for ransom, then Billy was expendable.

No matter what, Lucas had the terrible feeling that a tragedy lay ahead and there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening.

THE FIRST THING Jenny became aware of was a headache the likes of which she’d never had before. She winced and reached up to grab the back of her pounding head. Slowly, other sensations and impressions began to seep through her mind.

The smell of rotting fish and dampness coupled with the faint sound of water lapping against wood. The sound of insects buzzing and clicking. She opened her eyes and was terrified when she saw nothing but blackness.

Where am I? The question screamed through her head, making it pound with more nauseating intensity. Panic surged inside her as she sat up, fighting back a scream of sheer terror.

Before she could release the scream, a faint whimper sounded from someplace beside her. And with that whimper, memory returned.

She and Billy had been sitting on the sofa watching cartoons. Billy had gotten up to the bathroom…and somebody had come into the house.

One minute she’d been laughing at the antics of the Road Runner, and the next her mouth and nose had been covered with something that must have rendered her almost immediately unconscious.

“Billy?” She tentatively moved a hand and encountered his warm little body next to her.

“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.

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