Reclaim My Life Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Accolades for

  RECLAIM MY LIFE by Cheryl Norman

  “Take one sexy small-town cop hero, add an intriguing heroine with a secret that will have you on the edge of your seat, mix together with a heavy helping of Southern flavor, and you have one terrific book. Reclaim My Life is a winner!”

  –Tracy Montoya, Harlequin Intrigue author

  DEDICATION:

  To Joe Frye, who is more of a hero than he realizes. His generosity, analytical mind, talent, and sense of humor make him a winner in my book. He was the model for my fictional hero, Sheriff Wilson Drake, and he is so going to kill me for embarrassing him with this dedication!

  Published 2009 by Medallion Press, Inc.

  The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO

  is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”

  Copyright © 2009 Cheryl Norman

  Cover Design by James Tampa

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-193475500-6

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  My apologies to Columbia and Hamilton Counties (Florida) for rearranging their boundaries to construct the fictional Foster County.

  A lot of people helped with research for this story. Any inaccuracy or implausibility is solely my fault. For weapons information, I am indebted to Charles Dove. I want to thank Brenna Michele Roth, D.V.M. for veterinary advice, as well as her mom, author and equestrian Jan Scarbrough. Thanks also to Chief Forensic Investigator Jeff Brocaw, of the Duval County (Florida) Medical Examiner’s Office, and to my helpful source at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who has asked to remain anonymous, for helping me with investigative procedures.

  I’m indebted to my critique partner, author Dee S. Knight, for keeping my story on track. Thanks to Rachel, the world’s best mother-in-law, for helping out in so many ways to keep me at the keyboard, and to my sister Jo for working as my unpaid publicist. To Cracker Barrel’s two best waitresses, Joyce and Louise, and the Tuesday breakfast club, including Norman, Dave and Judy Peters, Susan R. Sweet, Tami Sandlin, and Mary Lou Hinkey, for feeding both me and my ego. To the Ladies of the Suwannee Retreat 2005—Judith Leigh, Nancy Quatrano, Elizabeth Sinclair, Kathleen McMahon, and Vickie King—thanks for brainstorming with me when this story was a germ of an idea called Dress Rehearsal.

  Most importantly, thanks to my patient and supportive husband for never complaining about cold cereal for dinner so I can keep writing. You’re the best and I love you!

  PROLOGUE

  The assassin known only as Conger switched on the voice synthesizer and digital recorder then spoke into the telephone. A contract killer couldn’t be too careful. “I received the packet.”

  “Good. Then you know where to make the delivery.”

  Conger mentally translated: You know where the assassination target has been located. “Yes. It’ll take time because of the small-town factor.”

  “You know the timetable.”

  Translation: Prevent the target from appearing when the case comes to trial.

  “I’ll make the deadline—don’t worry.”

  “We know of someone in place who may help you fit in.”

  Conger worked alone but wasn’t above using others to complete the contract. “Send me the details with half the package.”

  Translation: Send information about the contact, along with half the fee.

  “Just remember, if you’re exposed, you’re on your own.”

  “I don’t get caught. That’s why I’m the best.”

  “At your rates, you better be.”

  If the Feds had a wiretap, they’d have no trouble identifying the voice of the client, Lexington’s most prominent surgeon-turned-murderer-and-racketeer. Desperate to eliminate the eye witness who could send him to death row, Frank Sullivan, MD, needed the contract regardless of the price or the time it took to execute it. The slow legal process would give Conger plenty of time.

  “I’m a perfectionist, which is why I won’t be rushed.” Besides, Conger had a number of other contracts to be fulfilled in the interim. Overlapping hits guaranteed a healthy cash flow.

  “Agreed. Just get it handled.”

  Conger merely smiled, stopped the recorder, and disconnected.

  CHAPTER ONE

  One year later

  Most women would kill for her problem. Or at least give up their firstborn. Predisposed to leanness, Elizabeth Stevens needed to gain weight, but at what expense? Stuffing the last of a jelly doughnut into her mouth, she cringed, imagining her arteries clogging by the minute.

  “Refill?” The waitress at Boyd’s Diner hovered with a pot of hot water.

  “Yes, thank you, Lorraine.”

  Lorraine fished a tea bag from her apron pocket and placed it beside Elizabeth’s cup. “We just pulled a batch of cinnamon twists from the oven. Can I get you one?”

  She shook her head. Behind her, a man’s deep voice drawled, “You can bring me a couple, darlin’, along with coffee.”

  Elizabeth recognized the voice without peeking at its owner: Sheriff Wilson Drake.

  “G’morning, Wil,” Lorraine greeted him.

  “Good mornin’, Lorraine.” The sheriff pulled out a chair across from Elizabeth’s and sat. “How’s Professor Stevens this morning?”

  She glanced up from her notepad and into steady green eyes. “Fine, Sheriff Drake. Just making a grocery list.”

  Two weeks earlier, he had asked permission to join her for breakfast at the diner. Every morning since, he’d taken her consent for granted. Not that she would object. How could she? The guy was the town’s most eligible bachelor, as well as a hopeless flirt. Real eye candy, if you liked rugged blond men with taut, muscular bodies. She’d learned that his name being Drake was no coincidence. His ancestors had been the first settlers in Drake Springs.

  She sensed his studious gaze on her but didn’t look up. Concentrating on her shopping list, she added ice cream along with real whipped cream and pecan pie. The town’s lone supermarket didn’t stock a lot of no-sugar-added products, so finding calorie-rich food wasn’t difficult.

  She loved the bounty of fruits and vegetables, fresh from nearby farms that had two and three crops a year, but that was hardly the stuff of weight gain. Actually, Elizabeth’s real problem was far greater than needing to maintain her recent weight gain. Much greater.

  “You’re frowning
, darlin’. What’s wrong?”

  Never in a million years could she tell Wilson or anyone else what was wrong. She’d become a good liar in the past year or so. “I’m trying to remember all I need to buy at the store.”

  “It’s obvious you still think like a city gal.”

  “Yes, Atlanta’s pace is hard to shake.” The lies came easily after a year of practice. She had to stay on her toes around the clever sheriff. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “If you forget something, you go back. Miller’s IGA is, at most, a half mile from everything in town.”

  “True, but I try to be efficient.”

  “Hmm.” He waited while Lorraine slid a plate with two hot cinnamon twists in front of him, followed by a steaming mug of coffee. “I like efficiency in a woman.”

  “Thanks, Wil,” said Lorraine, deliberately mistaking his comment. She winked at Elizabeth.

  Reaching for her long braid, Elizabeth averted her gaze. Since childhood, she’d twirled the end of her braid around her fingers absentmindedly when nervous. Yes, the sheriff made her very nervous, especially with his flirting. I like efficiency in a woman, indeed. But she’d lost the long hair last year as part of her makeover. To cover her gaffe, she picked up her tea and sipped.

  Wilson took his first bite of pastry, closed his eyes, and voiced an unabashed “mmm” sound.

  She hid a smile behind her teacup. “It’s that good, eh?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The guy sounded entirely too passionate about a piece of fried dough, although the tempting aroma of hot cinnamon did fill the entire diner. Maybe she should’ve ordered a cinnamon twist, too, since she’d had nothing to feel passionate about lately. The idea of passion and Wilson in the same sentence heated her skin, and she quickly ducked her head to hide her wayward thoughts.

  Focusing on the paper placemat that featured a map of Florida, Elizabeth mentally pinpointed her location. Along the Suwannee River just a few miles south of the Georgia state line, the tiny town of Drake Springs—so insignificant it hadn’t earned a dot on the map, even though it was the county seat—sat far from the main highways and interstates at the intersection of two county roads.

  Wilson finished the first of his cinnamon twists, then took a gulp of coffee. “Today’s the big day, right?”

  She set down her cup and nodded. “That’s right. New term, new school year.”

  “Still feels like summer.”

  “It is still summer.”

  “So what classes do you teach this term?”

  “Shakespeare, all quarter. Comedies in the morning and tragedies in the afternoon.”

  “I can’t say I’m a Shakespeare fan, but I bet you could convert me.”

  She ignored that. “So what about you? Doesn’t the first day of class at the college give you some headaches?”

  “Today? Not much. Yesterday, plenty. That’s when the roads got overloaded with traffic.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “It doesn’t help matters that the students move onto campus over Labor Day weekend.”

  It boggled her mind why Charlotte Drake College of Liberal Arts chose to open the fall term on a Wednesday, especially following Labor Day. The entire week was a waste of time. She was so grateful for a good job, however, she’d hardly be the one to voice a complaint, especially to Dean Drake. She’d heard he was the sheriff’s brother and, though he was red-haired instead of blond, he did resemble Wilson.

  The diner door burst open, and an African-American woman dressed in a deputy’s uniform rushed to Wilson’s side. “Sheriff, we have a—a situation.” The look she exchanged with Wilson led Elizabeth to believe situation was cop-code for something we need to discuss in private.

  “Excuse me.” Rising, he nodded to Elizabeth, then turned to the young deputy. “Be right out, Jamie.”

  Lorraine materialized with a white sack and Styrofoam cup, reminding Elizabeth of a NASCAR pit crewmember. “Here, Wil. Let’s make this breakfast to-go.”

  He thanked Lorraine, grabbed his coffee and bagged pastry, then dashed out of Boyd’s Diner without paying. For all Elizabeth knew, he ran a tab. Or maybe Boyd’s Diner didn’t charge the county sheriff, as a courtesy.

  She smiled at the waitress. “I’d say you’ve done that before.”

  “Yes, but not too often. Luckily, Drake Springs isn’t a high crime city.”

  Drake Springs wasn’t a city by any definition, but Elizabeth didn’t comment. After living twelve months in the college town, she should’ve been used to the pace by now. In a way, she’d made the best of her situation by pretending she had no other life. In fact, she’d become proficient at deception.

  Pretending kept her alive.

  Deputy Jamie Peterson leaned against the fender of Wil’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. “It’s Doc Hodges, the missing vet.”

  Wil tossed the white sack onto his vehicle’s passenger seat. Cathleen Hodges had opened the town’s first veterinary practice more than a year earlier. She’d been reported missing over the Labor Day weekend. Wil figured she’d turn up sooner or later. Drake Springs was hardly a hotbed of kidnappings. “Did she show up?”

  “You could say that.” Jamie’s usually full lips thinned. “Her body washed up at ol’ man Reesor’s dock.”

  Body? “Did she drown, you think?”

  “Not unless she survived the bullet in her brain. Plus, there’s no sign of her vehicle.”

  “Did you call Jacksonville?” he asked, referring to the medical examiner’s office that covered Foster County.

  “Not yet. I wanted you to know first.”

  “Did Brady stay behind with the body?” Wil had only twenty full-time deputies, eight of whom were off duty.

  “Yes. He’s securing the scene—what there is to secure. We each took photos.” She pulled a cell phone off a clip on her belt. “You want me to call in the others?”

  Wil shook his head. It wasn’t as if the county was large enough to have a homicide division. Or any division. His small force worked in shifts to patrol and answer calls. After yesterday’s hectic influx of college students, he opted to let them rest. “We’ll work with the scheduled force for now.”

  She shrugged. “Reesor pulled the body out, so I don’t know how much he contaminated any forensic evidence.”

  “How’s the old guy holding up?” Wil worried about the town’s octogenarian fisherman more than forensics.

  “Pretty shook, if you ask me. He wasn’t expecting a homicide.”

  “Who was?” Wil had been sheriff for almost two years, and this was Foster County’s first murder in a decade or more. “I need you and Brady to keep the scene secure for the evidence team, then conduct a knock-and-talk. See if we can find a witness or build a timeline.”

  “Knock-and-talk? All we have is old man Reesor.”

  “I want every homeowner along that section of the river questioned, Jamie. Somebody might have seen or heard something that didn’t seem reportable at the time.” Wil suppressed a sigh. They had a slim chance of finding evidence involving a floater, but he couldn’t afford to overlook any opportunity to find a clue.

  “What about the state guys?” she asked, referring to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “Won’t they have to be involved?”

  “Definitely.” Tiny Foster County had no crime laboratory or medical examiner. “I’ll call the ME and FDLE and meet you back at Reesor’s dock. I need that missing person report.”

  Jamie nodded. “I’ll have it for you when you get there.”

  She left Wil standing in front of the diner. Dread settled over him. He had his first homicide as sheriff. True, he’d been lucky his term’s first year, but this was Foster County, not Duval County, where he’d spent too many years as a detective. Drake Springs was his retreat, his home again after many years, the tiny part of Florida few knew about or paid attention to. The proverbial Main Street, U.S.A.

  Or did such a place exist anymore?

  His cinnamon twist forgotten, Wil tossed the
coffee cup into the trash and then jumped in the Jeep. The sheriff’s office was one block behind the courthouse on Court Street, walking distance from Boyd’s Diner. Much as he’d like to make the calls from his own desk, he vetoed the idea and drove directly to Gabe Reesor’s place on the river. Talking on a cell phone while driving was a safety hazard he’d warned others about, but today he’d make an exception and multitask. He needed to be at the crime scene without delay.

  At the Alibi Bar, located right at the “City Limits” sign, Main Street narrowed to a two-lane county road. Thick growths of blackjack oaks blocked the morning sun to form a tunnel of shade along the blacktop. Wil made his calls, thankful for speed-dialing and no traffic, while racing toward Reesor’s. Slowing for the turnoff, which was little more than two tire tracks in the dirt, Wil saw movement in his rearview mirror. Another vehicle closed in on him. Painted cream and black, the Chevy Blazer sported a blue and red light bar on its roof.

  What the hell—?

  Just his luck to have Adam Gillespie, Drake Springs’s police chief, arrive at the scene. Never mind that it wasn’t within Adam’s jurisdiction. Adding to Wil’s frustration, Adam’s mother, who owned the town’s newspaper, thought nothing of pumping Adam for details to spice up the Drake Springs Democrat. How had Adam found out about the homicide so quickly? Wil would just as soon have his prostate checked than field questions from his adversary.

  Adam had opposed Wil in the election, though Wil doubted he really wanted the job. Drake Springs had hired the police chief with a decent salary and benefits, whereas the county sheriff’s position was political. Job security was in the hands of the voters every four years. But what did he know about Adam’s motives? The grudge between them predated the sheriff’s race by decades.

  Ignoring Adam’s arrival, Wil bolted from his Jeep. He slowed at the steep incline of Reesor’s boat ramp, where he spotted his two deputies. Jamie Peterson, the younger of the two, stood to the side as if avoiding contact with the corpse. Probably was, not that he blamed her. New to law enforcement, Jamie had never worked a homicide until today. Brady Newcomb, a four-year veteran with Foster County’s sheriff’s office, stood at the dock with his roll of yellow crime scene tape, which he’d strung generously through the palmettos and pines.