I'll Be There Part 1

I'll Be There.

Deborah Grace Staley.

This is for Katy Zirbel, a beautiful, intelligent, strong, brave woman who, just like the heroines I love to create, had the courage to write her own story.

Welcome.

"Hi, y'all. Welcome to Angel Ridge and what could be the worst winter on record here. Dixie Ferguson's the name, and I run Ferguson's, the finest eating establishment in town, if I do say so myself.

"You've chosen to visit us at an unusual time. Normally, I'd describe Angel Ridge as a sleepy little picturesque town that sits high on a ridge above Tella.s.see Lake, but things aren't always like they seem on the surface. Why, around here, the guy who wears overalls and no shirt in the summer is just as likely to be a millionaire as he is to be down on his luck. Take the newcomer who moved to town last fall. She wasn't at all like she seemed either. Why, she had family secrets even she didn't know about.

"Before I go into that, let me take a second to tell you a bit about the place I've called home for most of my life. Angel Ridge, population three hundred forty, is located in the valley of the Little Tennessee River and was established in 1785. In the early days, its first families-the McKays, the Wallaces, the Houstons, the Joneses, and the Craigs-staked their claims on hundreds of acres of the richest bottomland anyone had ever seen. They built big ol' homes near the meandering river and operated prosperous plantations. Well, all except for the Craigs. They were traders and craftsmen. Men of commerce, as it were. Meanwhile, the town developed above the river on a high ridge.

"In the early 1970's, the Flood Control Board came in and bought up most of the property along the flood p.r.o.ne river, and those stately homes that some called relics of a bygone era, were inundated in the name of progress. But those who built more modest Victorians near town up on the ridge? Well, their homes are still standin'. Of course, the families who lost theirs to the newly formed Tella.s.see Lake moved up to the ridge as well and built elaborate Victorian mansions such as this quaint little town had never seen.

"Most of the families I mentioned earlier are still around. These are hardy folks. Why, in all the time they've lived here, they've endured Indian attacks, floods, divided loyalties in the Civil War, and yes, even feuds. The older folks are still marked by the hardships of the past, but the young people of the town hope to move beyond old hurts to create a new generation made strong because of their roots, yet free of the past.

"As I said, last fall Candi Heart rented the old beauty shop across the way on Main Street and opened up a girly shop called, *Heart's Desire' and along with it, a closet full of skeletons. Her shop's a fun place that sells a bit of everything a girl loves: flowers, candy, lingerie, clothing, perfumes and lotions. Why, she even serves tea in the back. It's a nice place where girls can get together and talk. I just love the place and Candi, but she had no idea that her coming here would rattle some old, rusty chains. Yes, trouble followed that girl to town and Jenny Thompson, who runs our newspaper, The Angel Ridge Chronicle, got tangled up in the mess.

"I've lived here most of my life, and I can't remember ever locking my doors at night, but I confess to locking up now and checking them again before I go to bed. I've even caught myself looking over my shoulder as I walk down Main for anyone that might seem suspicious. I hate feeling this way. I never thought things in Angel Ridge would come to this, but that just goes to show you that every town, even a picture-postcard one, has its troubles.

"Not much goes on around here in the winter. After Christmas, folks usually hunker down and wait for spring to come. Given recent events, I'd say people in town are understandably on edge. I guess you could say that's where our heroine, Jenny Thompson, and hero, Cord Goins, are-on edge, hunkered down and waiting. After an explosion at the newspaper, everyone a.s.sumed that Jenny had met her untimely demise. I'm ashamed to admit that I've even helped promote the deception. I really had no other choice.

"Now Jenny and Cord are stuck between a beginning and an ending, and both of them powerless to control the situations they've found themselves in. But that's when a person can also find themselves in uncharted territory just waiting to venture out and make their own way. I've got a feeling Jenny and Cord will find their way.

"So keep safe and warm during your visit to Angel Ridge, and if you have time, come by the diner and have yourself a cup of hot chocolate on me."

Prologue.

Jenny Thompson stood outside the door to Ferguson's Diner, looking in. She knocked on the locked door without much hope that anyone would be inside. Nearly every citizen of Angel Ridge would be at church on a Sunday morning; everyone but her. She'd been up all night working on an investigative report blowing the top off the crime ring behind the recent break-ins that had occurred in Angel Ridge.

Dixie Ferguson emerged from the kitchen, giving her a wave, then came and unlocked the door. "Jenny! Get yourself in here, girl!"

Jenny smiled and walked into the warm, inviting old-fashioned diner complete with checkerboard tile, green vinyl booths, and a lunch counter. "I'm surprised to see you, Dixie. I thought you'd be in church."

"And yet you're here knocking on my door."

"I had a craving for chocolate ice cream."

"Never let a good lunch get between a woman and her chocolate."

Jenny laughed. "Everything okay, Dixie? You look tired."

Dixie picked up a mug and sipped her coffee. "I could say the same about you, not that you don't cover it well with that fabulous pantsuit." She held up her cup. "Can I get you some?"

"Yes, thanks." She could use a break and the chat with a good friend.

"Susan had a rough night," Dixie said as she poured.

The mayor's wife, Susan Houston, was Dixie's best friend. She'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer. "I'm sorry to hear that Susan's not doing well."

Dixie sat at the stool next to Jenny's. "I know they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I'm not so sure. The chemo is brutal."

They both drank their coffee in silence for a moment. How could something so awful happen to such a young, vital woman with children to raise?

"So what are you blaming your restless night on?"

"Work."

Dixie shook her head and, amused, Jenny couldn't help noticing her friend's hair which was short, spiked and some shade of red not found in nature, but on Dixie, it worked.

"You know what they say, all work and no play..."

"I know, but I found out a long time ago that I don't have time for the games men play. Anything beyond a couple of dates and they start giving you h.e.l.l about working too much, but when they work too much, that's a different matter all together. I don't need anyone trying to run my life but me."

Dixie held up her coffee cup in a salute. "Amen to that, but it does get lonely."

"I wouldn't know. Too busy," Jenny joked, but the old familiar ache in the region of her heart called her a liar.

"You have to go to bed sometime and not that I'd know, but I hear there's something to be said for a long, warm, hard body to snuggle up to."

Jenny fell into what she did best-putting up a wall with humor. She smiled. "Do tell..." and sipped her coffee.

Dixie sighed. "I would like to try it once, just to say I did."

"Have someone in mind?"

"I wish."

The two friends laughed. "So, you must be on the trail of a hot story." Dixie commented.

"Mmm," Jenny nodded.

Dixie clapped and rubbed her hands together. "I love a good expose. Tell me."

Jenny thought about that for a minute. There were certain aspects of the story that were out there for anyone to find if they cared to dig. Other information, however, she would turn over to the authorities. A lot of people were going to prison because of what she'd found. "Turns out that Candi's mother lived here twenty-some years ago. Came down from the mountain, pretty as a picture, and had every man in town with a heartbeat falling at her feet, single and married alike."

Dixie's eyebrows rose. "I'm listening."

"You can imagine how the little church ladies in town felt about her."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Unable to find a job here, she resorted to working at a gentleman's club in Vonore."

"A what?" Dixie exclaimed.

"A private club, tucked away out on some dirt road, where there was all manner of illegal activity going on."

"Such as?"

"Gambling, drinking, loan sharking, drugs, you name it. Oh, and exotic dancers just to add a little spice."

"Hold on." Dixie held up a hand and sat straighter. "Are you saying that sweet little Candi Heart's momma was an exotic dancer?"

"Well, let's just say she was a scantily clad performer who sang and did a pa.s.sable imitation of Marilyn Monroe."

"And the men in Angel Ridge..."

"Had front row seats."

"Scandalous!"

"Indeed, that is until Candi's momma turned up dead, floating in a back water cove just outside of town."

"You mean murdered?" Dixie exclaimed.

"Well, officially she drowned, but given the kind she was involved with, I'm inclined to speculate."

"So what happened to these criminals running the place? Are they still around? Is that who's been causing trouble for Candi?"

"I suspect so. The club closed not long after Candi's momma died, but you know how these organizations work. There had to be someone on the outside with money paying these locals involved to run the operation. My guess is that some of them are still around and working at it under the table. Who knows, could be some of the businesses here in town are fronts for illegal activity."

"No way."

Jenny shrugged. After she published her piece, she'd turn it all over to the attorney general's office in Knoxville and let them sort it all out. She should probably get out of town for a few days. She'd been missing her sister, Frannie. Maybe she'd pay her a visit.

"Well, I need to get going." She stood and lifted her purse to her shoulder.

"Let me get you that ice cream."

"Thanks."

Dixie fixed her treat and handed it over. Jenny juggled to get her wallet out of her purse.

"Stop now. It's on me. Let me get the door for you."

"Thanks," Jenny said.

As she walked down the sidewalk back toward The Chronicle, she swirled her tongue along the point where her ice cream cone met the creamy chocolate that crowned it. Sweets were her weakness, chocolate in particular, in any form. She'd earned the treat after the all-nighter she'd pulled at the paper, not that she needed an excuse. She was a firm believer in living by her own terms, and that meant she had chocolate if she wanted chocolate-no guilt.

The sidewalks were deserted with everyone still in church, but services would be over soon. Jenny pushed her sungla.s.ses up on her head as she stepped out of the warm autumn sunshine into the darkened alley that ran parallel to Main Street, the only major thoroughfare in downtown Angel Ridge. This side of the street housed The Angel Ridge Chronicle and the older businesses in town, such as Wallace's Grocery, McKay Bank and Trust, and the Apothecary Shoppe. The slower pace of the quaint little East Tennessee town had appealed to her when she'd moved here three years ago after living in Nashville where she'd worked as an investigative reporter at The Tennessean.

She rotated the cone as she swiped her tongue across the chocolaty treat. It had taken her all of a month to get bored. She'd managed, but she had to admit she'd missed the thrill of breaking big stories. Thanks to Candi Heart, she'd gotten her feet wet again. Given what she'd found, she wondered if she'd been crazy to get involved, but only for a half second. Reveal the truth, and the rest will work itself out-that was her journalistic credo. She hoped that held true for the crime ring she'd uncovered, but seasoned instincts told her that an organization this established and this large wouldn't go down swiftly or quietly. It's the reason she hadn't hit "send" on the email that would place the story on the wire nationwide by morning. She wanted to proof it once more and have a little more time to think. This was a life-changing story; the biggest she'd ever had.

She shook her head and bit into the cone. Three years in this town and she'd gone soft. She'd send the story as soon as she got back to her desk.

She'd just tossed the rest of her cone into a garbage can when an explosion rocked the shops lining the alley. Jenny lost her balance and fell. Covering her head, she crawled behind the garbage can as a shower of shrapnel rained down.

When the ground stopped shaking and debris quit falling from the sky, Jenny chanced a look around her. Her winter white Donna Karan pantsuit was ruined, her Manolo Blahniks were missing a heel, and her ears were ringing. Other than that, she was fine, though her heart beat so hard and fast, she felt like it would burst.

She managed to stand on her broken shoes and walked between the buildings toward Town Square. Good Lord Almighty, it looked like a war zone. People spilling out of the two churches on either end of Main Street were shouting and running in all directions. A man crouched next to an unconscious woman while others knelt in the gra.s.s holding their heads. She heard Dixie say, "What happened?" and someone answer, "There's been an explosion at the newspaper."

She wobbled on her damaged pumps, ready to run out to confirm or refute what she'd just heard when something stopped her-something that froze in her gut and had her easing back into the shelter of the alley. Someone had blown up the newspaper.

Bud DeFoe, who ran the hardware, said, "First they break into Candi Heart's new shop, and then not two days later, they blow up our newspaper!"

"Where's Jenny?" she heard Dixie say.

"Do you think she was inside?"

"I don't know. She was just with me at the diner, but she's had time to get back to the paper. Oh Lord-"

"Why would someone want to blow up the newspaper?" Bud asked.

Why indeed? She'd been made. The long inactive crime syndicate that Candi Heart's arrival in town had stirred up meant to keep her from publishing her expose. They'd destroyed her newspaper thinking her inside to shut her up-permanently. She retreated back into the alley completely, then made her way quickly to the sheriff's office, thankfully unnoticed, what with all the commotion of people running in all directions and emergency personnel arriving.

As soon as she entered the back of the courthouse, she walked through the deserted rear offices straight to the jailhouse, which, as usual, was also empty. She pulled the heavy metal door closed that separated it from the front offices, slid to the floor and dug in her pocket for her phone. Jenny dialed the sheriff's personal cell number.

Grady Wallace had been sheriff in Angel Ridge since long before she'd bought the paper. She wouldn't call him a close personal friend. The best relationship she could hope for between the press and local law enforcement was cordial, and he was at least that-most of the time. He'd even agreed to work with her on this investigation, but she felt sure that was because he was more than a little interested in Candi.

There'd been a time when Jenny had thought that perhaps he might be attracted to her. As she'd told Dixie, she was not interested in a relationship, and certainly not with an officer of the law. Turns out he'd been powerless to resist this woman of mystery who had them all neck deep in this trouble.

"Wallace."

"Grady? It's Jenny Thompson."

"Jenny? Thank G.o.d you're all right! What the h.e.l.l's going on? Woody just called and said there was an explosion at the newspaper."

"Well, that seems to be the consensus. I didn't stick around to investigate. Aren't you in town?"

"I was on the riverbank with Doc Prescott. I'm on my way back. Where are you?"

"Hiding out at the jail."