Cheri on Top

  According to the clips, the Cataloochee County Sheriff’s Department and North Carolina state troopers dragged the lake four times in the months after her disappearance, but came up with nothing. Johnston’s story was never substantiated, and as the years went by, many people assumed he was responsible for her disappearance. In 1975, Barbara Jean’s family had her legally declared dead.

  “Did you know that Carleton Johnston was my mother’s uncle, visiting from Charlotte? And did you know that the poor guy had some kind of learning disability? Back then, they just called him slow.”

  J.J. raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No. I did not.”

  “See—you don’t know everything.”

  J.J. yanked a reporter’s notebook from his back jeans pocket. “Why haven’t you ever told me this?”

  “Never came up.” Turner scanned the scene, watching the progress of the dozens of recovery and emergency personnel working to extricate the car. “Now listen, Jay. I’m not saying shit on the record. But as your friend, I’m asking you to wait before you go blabbing some half-assed truth all over creation.”

  “But—”

  Turner cut him off. “If we find human remains—and that’s a big if—nobody’s going to be able to positively ID anyone or anything for a very long time.”

  J.J. nodded.

  “Whatever we find will only be one piece of a bigger puzzle. When this cold case thaws out, I’m afraid the whole thing is going to stink to high heaven.”

  J.J. let out a long and low whistle and began to write. “You’re confirming that Carleton Johnston didn’t die of natural causes. You’re saying somebody killed him to keep him from talking.”

  “I’m not sayin’ anything.” Turner bit on the inside of his lip. “All I know are the ghost stories we heard when we were kids—that and the suspicions of my mother’s family.” Turner glanced over his shoulder at the crane. “But as of right now, for your news story, we don’t even know whose car this is.”

  J.J. smiled. “Ah, well, I can help you with that. See that frail old lady over by the fire truck?”

  Turner peered through the sun. “Yeah. Who’s she?”

  “That’s Barbara Jean’s sister, Carlotta Smoot McCoy, from Maggie Valley. She stopped by to watch the recovery.”

  Turner’s mouth fell open. “Did you call her, DeCourcy?”

  He shrugged. “I had one of my reporters go over to her place for a quote, and she insisted on coming down.”

  “Shee-it,” Turner said, wiping his mouth nervously. “I really don’t want this turning into any more of a damn circus than it already is.”

  At that moment, real estate developer Wim Wimbley strolled past, coming within earshot. Turner stopped talking, and his back straightened noticeably. He tipped his hat. “Wim,” he said.

  “Sheriff.” Wim acknowledged Turner coolly, giving just the barest nod of his head. Then he caught J.J.’s eyes. “DeCourcy.”

  Wimbley walked on by, nose high, hands in his chino pockets, a professionally made crease down the arm of his pale pink, button-down Ralph Lauren dress shirt.

  “Little shit,” J.J. mumbled.

  “Yeah, well, he’s the filthy rich little shit who owns the property we’re standing on. And if this development takes off it will make him even richer.”

  J.J. took his gaze away from Wim and looked at Turner thoughtfully. “Haven’t you ever found it ironic?” he asked his friend.

  Turner shrugged. “You mean how Tanyalee’s engaged to Wim?”

  J.J. laughed. “Hell, no! That’s not irony, man—that’s a godsend! I’m talking about the fact that Wim comes in here and drains Paw Paw Lake to build a luxury waterfront retirement community. I know what he told the planning commission about his man-made jetties and maximizing lakefront homesites and all that crap, but I still don’t get it. Is our society so removed from nature that we have to re-engineer a mountain lake to make it beautiful?”

  Turner wasn’t listening. His eyes had gone huge and now focused directly over J.J.’s right shoulder.

  Though he wanted to turn around, something told J.J. to wait. A tingling began way down in his core. It warned him to stay sharp.

  “Are the Feds here?” he whispered to Turner, not wanting to turn around and gawk.

  Turner shook his head slowly. “It’s worse than the FBI, man. It’s CNN.”

  J.J. was about to spin around in disbelief when he realized what Turner was saying. For them, CNN wasn’t just a moniker for a news network. It was their shorthand for Cherise Nancy Newberry, in all her glory.

  She was two days late.

  J.J. heard a car door slam behind him. He smiled, sliding his notebook into his rear pocket. “She coming this way?”

  Turner nodded. “Ooh, yeah.”

  “How’s she look?”

  Turner shrugged. “Like she’s been living off bib lettuce and Evian water, but other than that, everything seems to be in working order.”

  J.J. took a moment to center himself. He pasted a scowl on his face. Their first encounter had to be convincing if this was going to work. It was unfortunate Cheri had shown up in the middle of the biggest news story to hit Bigler in forty-seven years but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that now.

  “Stay cool, Halliday,” J.J. said through gritted teeth.

  “Scout’s honor.”

  J.J. turned. It was all he could do not to fall to his knees at the impact. He hadn’t laid eyes on her in over five years. He had to make sure she wouldn’t see the relief in him, the hunger. He checked her out from tip to toe at lightning speed. Her dark, lustrous red hair was cut in some kind of trendy layered style and it skimmed above her shoulders. She wore a skirt that was real short, which was real thoughtful of her. Right then, J.J. decided that he may have been a lot of places and met a lot of women since he’d graduated from high school twelve years before, but it still held true: Cheri Newberry had the best set of female legs on the planet.

  Unfortunately, her sexy four-inch heels were turning out to be a spectacularly bad choice for a visit to a drained lakebed, and J.J. watched her wobble and cuss under her breath as she stepped over deep ruts in the earth.

  Except for the methodic click-click of the winch, everything had gone silent. The recovery crew had stopped talking and yelling. Every set of male eyes was on Cheri. And why not? Cheri Newberry stood out like a Thoroughbred in a field of pack mules.

  Focus, he told himself. Don’t smile. Don’t laugh. And for God’s sake, don’t stare at her legs.

  Cheri wobbled over to the two men. She used an index finger to nudge the big, dark sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “Hello,” she said, her hands nervously smoothing out the contours of her skirt. “I just drove into town. I decided to pull off the road when I saw all the commotion. What’s going on?”

  J.J. said nothing. He simply scowled at her. It struck him as amusing that she’d chosen that getup for her big entrance. It was still about image management for her, he supposed. His guess was that she’d driven most of the way in shorts and flip-flops, then hit the Tip-Top truck stop to change her outfit and freshen her lipstick before she rolled into town.

  He had to give the girl an A for effort.

  Turner took it upon himself to break the awkward silence. “Sure is wonderful to see you, Cheri.” He gave her a hearty, but quick, hug. “We’re happy to have you back home.”

  “Oh.” She laughed uncomfortably, as if she were surprised by the friendly greeting. “Well, thanks. That’s nice of you to say, Turner.”

  J.J. was aware that the rules of social intercourse would require him to say something immediately. If he didn’t speak now, the window for a polite welcome would slam shut. So he stayed silent. Cheri’s eyes flashed from behind her dark glasses, aware of his rudeness.

  Excellent.

  Turner, however, was too much of a gentleman to let the uncomfortable moment continue.

  “Did you have a nice drive up?”

  “Oh! Sure…” She looked
back at her car and laughed nervously. “I decided to leave my Audi down in Florida and drive my old car up here—you know, save on wear and tear and all that.”

  Turner nodded but kept a straight face.

  J.J. did his best not to roll his eyes.

  “So how’s Candy Carmichael doing these days?”

  “Uh, she’s great,” Cheri said, smiling stiffly at Turner. “You know, crazy busy, like always. The Florida real estate market is really starting to rev up again and we’re juggling all kinds of deals, but she’s fabulous. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

  Turner nodded. “Great. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work. It’s crazy busy around here, too. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you get settled.”

  “Wait.” Cheri reached out for Turner’s arm. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, and that’s when J.J. noticed she still had the same short, pink nails she’d had since high school. “Candy and I were so very sad to hear about June. You’ve been in our thoughts and prayers. I am so sorry.”

  “That’s quite kind of you. Take care, now.” Turner nodded quickly and turned away, not comfortable with talking about June, J.J. knew. But before he could take two steps, the ground shook and the air vibrated as the winch revved up for another tug at the car. As everyone watched, a loud squelching noise exploded from the muck and a pair of mud-covered chrome fins poked up from the goop like a perky set of boobs in an all-girl mud-wrestling match.

  “I’ll be damned,” Turner said, just before he broke into a jog.

  Cheri spun around and whipped off her sunglasses, staring at J.J., her mouth open in shock.

  “Is that—” Cheri stopped herself. She gasped. She pointed behind her. Her voice went high and squeaky. “My God! What’s the name of that missing woman from back in the fifties? The one we told all those ghost stories about—the ‘Lady of the Lake,’ right? Barbara Jean Something? Was it the fifties? The sixties, maybe? Is that her car? After all this time?”

  J.J. didn’t know how to answer her. All he could do was stare back at Cheri. She had the same soft, tawny brown eyes she’d always had, and they were wide with wonder at the moment. God, she was still so beautiful.

  J.J. had made so many missteps in his effort to forget her. The biggest disaster had been Tanyalee, of course. But with Cheri now standing in front of him, just inches from his reach, he knew with certainty that it had all been in vain. He still wanted her. And he’d missed her lovely face, her sense of humor, her sweet mouth. He’d missed her something fierce.

  “Oh, just go fuck yourself, DeCourcy,” that sweet mouth said. Cheri laughed and tossed her hair. “You know, you could’ve at least pretended to be decent about this. It’s not like I wanted to come here. Granddaddy begged me. I don’t relish the idea of being your boss. I would have been fine with never seeing you again as long as I lived. Get the hell over yourself.”

  He had no time to react. Her hand was already on its way to making contact with his cheek. He couldn’t blame her. In fact, she should have smacked him upside the head that awful day in Tampa more than five years ago. God, how it pained him to remember. He’d just finished confessing his love for Cheri when Tanyalee called with the joyful news—she was pregnant with his baby. Cheri had been too stunned to slap him. Too horrified to move. Too angry to cry. And the next time he saw her was at the wedding, where she wouldn’t even look at him. It was as if he didn’t exist, as if Tanyalee were walking down the aisle with an empty tuxedo.

  There had been no such hesitation today, and as Cheri’s hand sliced through the air and headed for his face, J.J. grabbed her wrist.

  Their eyes locked. They both breathed hard. She yanked her arm and tried to spin away. He tugged back. She lost her balance and fell against him.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

  He stared at her open lips. Despite everything, he wanted her. Still. And now that she was here, warm and alive and in his grasp, he had no idea how to make it right. He didn’t even know where to begin.

  One thing was for sure—he was fixin’ to kiss her.

  * * *

  Oh, hell, no.

  Cherise felt herself frozen where she stood, her wrist imprisoned in J.J.’s grip, her knees starting to shake, her nose full of the crisp, clean scent of J.J. DeCourcy. She hadn’t been this close to him since that fateful day in Tampa, when J.J. had gone from charmer to snake in a matter of seconds.

  And after that, she’d sworn to herself that she’d never get this close to him again.

  But here she was, her lips about to meet his, a full-scale war going on between her body and her brain. Cheri tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her go. Her skin was on fire beneath his fingers. Her mouth had gone dry. And Cheri’s brain circled and whirled and twisted around one single thought. You ripped my heart to pieces! You married my sister! You married Tanyalee when you were supposed to be mine!

  “My sister! Oh, dear God, my sister!”

  Those words hadn’t come from Cheri, yet she’d surely heard them. She gasped and spun around, pulling from J.J.’s grasp in time to watch a huge, muddy form begin to push up from the mud.

  Chaos exploded all around them. Everyone began to shout and move into action. Cheri didn’t know exactly what she was witnessing. Was that really the missing woman’s car? Was the old lady her sister? What the hell was going on here?

  Then, with a sudden, sucking whoosh of air and mud, an entire car-shaped blob popped out of the ooze. Some of the recovery crew broke out in cheers.

  J.J. moved close to her ear and whispered, “That right there, Cheri, is the sound of the past surrendering its secrets.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cherise saw him flip open his reporter’s notebook and hastily scrawl some words down. She nearly laughed aloud. If anyone were already an expert on the subject of secrets, it would be J.J. DeCourcy.

  “Has a kind of Edgar Allan Poe feel to it, don’t you think?”

  She ignored him, fascinated by the sight of the car, swinging from the end of a huge chain like a monster-sized mud dauber nest.

  “Who’s that tiny older lady?” she asked.

  “Barbara Jean Smoot’s sister, Carlotta Smoot McCoy.”

  That’s when the woman began to sob, bending in half at the waist with agony. Cheri gasped in concern. “I’m going to go to her. She needs somebody to lean on.”

  J.J. responded but his words were overpowered by Carlotta’s loudest scream yet. “Barbara Jean! Oh, God, my sweet sister!”

  They watched as Carlotta ran under the police tape. She began clomping into the mud in a pair of worn house slippers. She didn’t get far. Several deputies went in after her, dragging her out of the mire and carting her back to dry soil.

  Carlotta’s feet kicked in the air, flinging mud as she hollered, “HY-9871! Oh, it’s Barbara Jean! I know it is! Just check!”

  Cherise looked at J.J.

  “Yep,” he said. “That was the plate on Barbara Jean Smoot’s missing Impala.”

  “Just check and see!” Carlotta screamed as she was restrained by deputies. “Oh, please, God! It’s Barbara Jean! Just check the license plate!”

  Cheri took a single step toward the lady when the car began to sway back and forth on the chain, moving through the air, destined for a tow truck backed up to the edge of the lakebed. Thick globs of muck rained down from the undercarriage and the chain groaned and creaked, its metal-on-metal screech painful to the ears.

  “Stay back,” J.J. said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not safe.”

  “Good Lord!” Cherise shrugged away from J.J.’s touch. What a homecoming this was turning out to be! Cherise had no sooner crossed the Bigler city line than she nearly kissed a man she despised while a ghost got ripped from her grave! She hoped to God this wasn’t some kind of omen.

  As a kid, Cherise had loved sitting on her daddy’s lap and listening to him and Granddaddy Garland talk about what might have happened to Barbara Jean. The newspaperm
en would stretch out in their rusted lawn chairs by the edge of Newberry Lake and rehash the story, the evidence, the possibilities, as Cherise cuddled into her daddy’s chest. The story of Barbara Jean Smoot was Bigler’s biggest news story ever, they’d say. It was the town’s most enduring mystery. And as they talked, Cherise would let her imagination run free. Oh, how she’d thought the tale of Barbara Jean was the best scary story she’d ever heard.

  When she’d gotten older, long after her parents were gone, she and Candy would retell the story for the thrill of its high drama—a girl, not much older than they were, too beautiful for their sleepy mountain town; a man seen running away from her car before it disappeared into the lake; and a handful of people who swore they could still see the figure of a woman in a dress and tight blond ponytail, pacing the dock at night, her head bent as if she were scanning the dark water for the clues to her own death.

  In her secret heart, Cherise had always believed she had something in common with the Lady of the Lake. Cherise knew what it felt like to walk around with a heart and a spirit about to bust through the seams of this stupid little town. If Barbara Jean had done herself in—or run away without having the decency to say good-bye—Cherise wouldn’t have blamed her one bit.

  She sighed deeply. Yes, the dock and water had disappeared from Paw Paw Lake, but in her mind she could see the ghostly vision of a woman, searching in the dark for the pieces to her own puzzle. And the image was sharp enough to make her shudder.

  * * *

  J.J. studied Cheri as she stood with her arms clasped tight around her middle, shivering like she was cold. Turner had been right—she’d gotten a little too thin, though what remained looked damn fine packed into that short skirt.

  She began to walk off.