Beg To Die
Pray for mercy with this spine-tingling thriller, for fans of Karin Slaughter and Tess Gerritsen.With friends like these, who needs enemies…Cherokee Pointe, Tennessee has seen some murder before, but nothing like that which has claimed the life of playboy Jamie Upton. The crime is so vicious, so personal and filled with hatred, the authorities are certain it had to be someone he knew.Number one suspect is Jamie's former lover, Jazzy Talbot. But Jazzy knows she didn't kill Jamie, just as she knows she's being stalked by a hunter waiting to pounce.As the same killer strikes again and again with the same chilling signature, Jazzy is running scared. With no one to believe her innocence except enigmatic drifter Caleb McCord, Jazzy plunges into the small town's long-buried secrets. Each startling truth brings her dangerously close to a killer determined to make Jazzy beg to die….
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Beg To Die
Beverly Barton
In memory of a very special lady, an avid reader and a
fellow Tuscumbian who never missed one of my
autographings,
JAN WHITTLE
and
In memory of my dear cousin
LOUISE GIBBS THORNE,
a fellow writer whose weekly column appeared in
The Colbert County Reporter
for many years.
Table of Contents
He pounded on her door and shouted her name. Go away, she wanted to scream. Leave me the hell alone. But she knew he wouldn’t go. Not unless someone came and dragged him away.
Maybe she should call Jacob and tell him that Jamie was harassing her again. As the county sheriff, he could hold Jamie in jail overnight. Or she could phone Caleb and ask for his help in getting rid of an unwanted midnight visitor. Caleb had gotten plenty of practice lately as the bouncer at Jazzy’s Joint. He’d thrown Jamie out of the place several times recently.
But for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to pick up the telephone. It wasn’t that she wanted to see Jamie. Not tonight of all nights. But she’d been expecting him, had known somewhere deep down inside her that he would pay her a visit after his engagement party ended.
“Jazzy…lover, please, let me in.”
His voice was slightly slurred, no doubt the result of numerous glasses of champagne, and not the twenty-dollars-a-bottle stuff either. Probably Moet’s Dom Perig non or Taittinger Comtes des Champagnes. Or possibly Roederer Cristal or Pommery Cuvee Louise. Something that cost no less than eighty bucks a bottle. In hosting the big bash celebrating their only grandchild’s upcoming nuptials, Big Jim and Reba Upton had spared no expense. Everybody in Cherokee Pointe had been talking of nothing else. The Uptons had hired a catering service out of Knoxville for the engagement party and the rehearsal dinner, the same service the bride’s parents had chosen to cater the wedding reception next month.
While Jamie continued banging on the door and pleading with her to talk to him, Jazzy curled up tightly on the sofa and placed her hands over her ears. Jamie had been engaged twice before and hadn’t followed through with wedding plans either time. But it looked as if his engagement to Laura Willis might actually end in marriage. If for one minute she believed Jamie’s marrying another woman would put an end to his obsession with her, she’d be the first in line to offer them congratulations.
Sure, there had been a time when she’d dreamed of becoming Jamie’s wife, but that had been years ago, when she’d been young and foolish. That stupid dream had died a slow, painful death as maturity had given her a firm grip on reality. No way would Jamie’s rich and socially prominent family ever accept her; they still saw her as nothing but a white trash tramp who’d gotten pregnant at sixteen.
Did she still care about Jamie? Yeah, somewhere in her heart remnants of that passionate first love still existed. Only a few years ago, she had still been as obsessed with Jamie as he was with her. For the past ten years he had floated in and out of her life, just as he had floated in and out of town. But this time, when he’d returned a few months ago with a new fiancée in tow, Jazzy had turned him away when he’d come to her. And one night, when he hadn’t taken no for an answer, she had threatened his life. Or, to be more precise, she’d threatened his manhood. And what truly frightened her was the realization that she would have shot him—shot his balls off—if he’d come after her again.
“Jazzy…don’t be mean. Please, doll baby, let me come in. Just one last time. Don’t you know how much I love you?”
No, damn you, no! You don’t love me! You never did. You’re not capable of loving anyone except yourself.
While she sat on the sofa, hugging herself, wishing she could block out the sound of Jamie’s pleading, memories washed over her, flooding her senses. The first time Jamie had kissed her. The junior/senior prom, when she’d given him her virginity and had known she would love Jamie forever. The day he’d cried when he told her he couldn’t marry her even though she was carrying his child. The night he had returned to Cherokee Pointe after his first year of college. They’d made love repeatedly for forty-eight hours, leaving bed only when necessary. The first return visit, years ago, when he’d brought home his first fiancée—and Jazzy had welcomed him into her arms, into her bed, not caring about his bride to be.
How many times had she forgiven Jamie? How many times had she given him just one more chance? Time had run out for them. She knew it, even if he didn’t. She’d turn thirty soon; she had wasted enough of her life waiting for Jamie Upton to give her what she wanted, what she’d always wanted from him. Marriage.
