BEVERLY BARTON - Jack's Christmas Mission

“I don’t care who sent them,” she said. “Anyone who knows me well enough to be sending me flowers would know better than to send me red roses.”

An alarm went off in Jack’s head. He glanced at the card he held in his hand. Hellfire! Peggy Jo’s sicko stalker had no doubt sent the flowers.

“What does it say?” she asked.

He hesitated, then lifted his gaze and looked her square in the eye. “‘Red roses for a dead lady.’”

Her mouth rounded in a soundless gasp. “They’re from him.”

“It would appear so.” Jack stuck the note in his pocket, then lifted the clear glass vase and dumped vase, flowers, water and all into the nearby wastebasket. “I’ll contact the florist and see if they have any idea who the sender was.”

“Do you think they’ll know?” Peggy Jo stood ramrod stiff as she gazed at the wastebasket.

“Probably not. Our stalker will be smart enough not to give himself away by letting himself be identified by the florist.”

Why the hell did she keep staring at the discarded flowers? It was as if they held her under some sort of demonic spell. What was the significance of red roses? And why did she hate the one flower that most women adored?

“Miss Peggy Jo?”

“What?” Still she continued to stare, as if hypnotized by the floral arrangement that she had told him to deep six.

“How about filling me in on the fascination you have for those dumped flowers?”

She snapped her head around and all but growled at him. “I’m not fascinated, I’m repulsed.”

“Why?”

“Why? How can you ask such a question. The person who is tormenting me sent those flowers, and you ask me why they repulse me.”

“You told me to get rid of the roses before you knew who they were from. Come on, level with me. Remember I’m the one guy you’re supposed to be able to trust.”

With her gaze boring a hole into him, she said, “My ex-husband used to send me red roses to apologize. Every time Buck beat the hell out of me, he sent me red roses the next day and a note saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

J ack sat beside Peggy Jo as she drove along the busy downtown street in the late-afternoon rush-hour traffic. He hadn’t been surprised when she had rejected his offer to drive. Just another example of her I-gotta-be-in-charge-at-all-times attitude. He had turned in his rental car and explained to his client the necessity of him being with her at all times, and that most definitely included when she was en route to and from work. Her stalker knew where she worked and probably knew where she lived. It would be a simple matter for him—or her—to follow Peggy Jo, perhaps even to cause a minor accident in order to force Peggy Jo out of her car. There were so many clever ways for a stalker to make personal contact with his or her victim. Although everyone, including the client herself, believed her harasser to be male, Jack wasn’t ready to rule out the possibility that the culprit might be female. It would be easy enough for a woman to hire a man to make the phone calls for her.

Despite Peggy Jo’s adamant assurance that it was highly unlikely that her ex-husband was her stalker, Jack put Buck Forbes at the top of the list. When he’d suggested that Forbes should be considered as their number-one suspect, Peggy Jo had reminded him that she hadn’t seen or heard from her ex in thirteen years, so why would he suddenly begin harassing her? Put like that, it didn’t make much sense. But stranger things had been known to happen, so getting the police and the Dundee Agency to check out Buck Forbes was a top priority. Of course, the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays might slow things down a bit. That and the fact that the local police department had been less than cooperative.

The drive across the Market Street Bridge from the downtown business district to North Chattanooga took them across the Tennessee River. Sunset came early in late November, so the streetlights were already shining brightly, eliminating the darkness as Peggy Jo and Jack made their way toward home.

“So, how long have you lived here?” Jack asked.

“Here in Chattanooga or here at my present address?”

“Both.”

“I was born and raised here,” she replied. “But you must already know that. Surely your file of information on me states those mundane facts.”

“I’m trying to make conversation,” Jack said. “You know, just being friendly. Trying to break the ice.”

“This isn’t a date, Mr. Parker.” She cut her eyes in his direction for a brief glower, then returned her gaze to the road ahead. “There’s no need for idle chitchat.”

“Look, hon—Miss Peggy Jo, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together during the next few weeks or longer, so it might be nice for both of us if we tried to get along, if we made an effort to like each other.”

He felt rather than saw her tense. What was it with this gal? Had an abusive husband turned her off so completely that she couldn’t even be civil to a man? She was like a spooked filly who didn’t want any human hands on her.

“So, tell me about him,” Jack said.

“About who?”

“Your ex-husband. All I’ve got in my files is his name, the dates of your marriage and divorce. Stuff like that.”

“What do you want to know?” Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you want to know how many times he beat me, how many times he told me what a stupid, ugly, fat, worthless piece of trash I was? Or would you like to hear the gory details of how he nearly killed me? How he did kill our unborn child?” Her voice cracked at this last admission.

Jack’s guts knotted painfully. The very thought that a man would raise a hand to a woman, let alone beat her, enraged Jack. God help him, if he could get his hands on Buck Forbes right this minute, he might kill him. He knew he’d sure like to give the sorry bastard a taste of what he’d given Peggy Jo. The man had actually hit his pregnant wife!

“You lost a child because of—”

“I was four months pregnant. I came home fifteen minutes late from my job as a receptionist, and he accused me of cheating on him with my boss. The accusation was ridiculous, of course, but that didn’t matter. He beat me until I was unconscious. I woke up several hours later in the hospital. I’d suffered a miscarriage.”

“God, honey, I’m sorry.” Jack’s hand reached for her in the semidarkness inside her car, but the moment he touched her, she cringed. He removed his hand instantly. He’d read in his file on her about the miscarriage, but hadn’t known it was a result of her husband’s brutality.

“I had put up with his cruelty for over three years. But after that night, I went to a shelter for abused women and I filed for a divorce.”

“All men aren’t like Buck Forbes.” Jack felt the need to defend his sex, to convince her that most men weren’t savage animals.

“I’m well aware of the fact that there are a lot of good, kind, loyal and loving men in the world. I just didn’t happen to have one of them for a father or a husband.”

Before Jack could respond, she pulled the Chrysler Sebring into the driveway of a large Craftsman-style house. The old house had a real sense of hominess to it, as if it had been built to accommodate a large family. He had noticed that the neighborhood, which was in the Riverview area, was comprised of both large and small houses, some neatly remodeled and others still in need of repair. His information on her residence stated that she lived in an older section of the city that was part of a mass renovation project.

Peggy Jo turned to face Jack. “Before we go inside, we need to go over a few ground rules.”

“Shoot.” Jack studied her face by the soft light of the nearby streetlight. An odd little spasm tightened inside him and he wondered at the cause.