There were so many of them, Tess had discovered. Most of them founded in memory of someone’s missing child, just like the Children’s Rescue Network had been founded in Sadie Cross’s memory. A year from now, ten years from now, would such a foundation be Tess’s only consolation, her only connection to a daughter she loved more that life itself?

“You’ll want to keep Emily’s story in the news and her picture in front of the public as much as you can,” Naomi said. “And you’ll have to find creative ways of doing that now that media interest is waning. You might also want to think about starting a Web site. We can help you with that.”

Tess wasn’t as proficient on a computer as she should be in this day and age, but she knew about the Internet’s power, its ability to reach millions of people in the space of a heartbeat. The rest she would learn.

“What else?”

Naomi paused. “You can go proactive.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the note I found is genuine, then the kidnapper has already made contact once, and he was willing to risk detection to do so. You could do another round of television and radio interviews, asking for your daughter’s safe return. It’s possible the kidnapper will respond to your pleas.”

Tess seized on her words. “Then you think the note was genuine. You don’t think it was a hoax as the police seem to.”

“I’m not an expert,” Naomi cautioned. “But I can tell you this. For a split second after I found that message, it crossed my mind that it was from Sadie. I know that sounds crazy. She’s fifteen years old now, almost a young woman, but I guess a part of me still thinks of her exactly as she was the last time I saw her.” A shadow darkened her expression, but her eyes were bright and dry. “The point I’m trying to make is that the note touched me in some way. I think a child wrote it.”

Relief welled inside Tess. “I think so, too. I think that child was Emily.”

“If she did write it, then we have to assume she’s still alive. And if she’s alive, someone may have seen her. A neighbor or a family member of the kidnapper may have suspicions, but for whatever reason, hasn’t come forward. You may have to increase the reward offer, and you may also want to consider hiring a private-detective firm to look at the investigation in a different way.”

Tess’s heart sank. Immediately after Emily’s disappearance, she’d drained her savings to set up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information pertaining to the kidnapping. That was all the money she had in the world, and her cleaning service had suffered a major financial setback, primarily because she wasn’t around to supervise and coordinate the work.

For the last three weeks, she’d haunted the sheriff’s station every day, looking for any scrap of information, any bit of news that would give her hope, that would give her confidence the police were doing everything that could be done to find her daughter. She’d worked with the volunteers, stuffing envelopes, answering phones, passing out pictures locally and to the organizations that could distribute them state-and nationwide. No job was too tedious or too overwhelming for her to tackle. She would do anything in her power to bring her daughter home, but Naomi was asking her to do the one thing she could not do. She couldn’t raise the reward offer. Not alone.

As if reading her mind, Naomi said sympathetically, “The CRN can set up a fund to help you out financially, but it’ll still be expensive. And it could take a while for the donations to mount up. Is there anyone who can help you out immediately?”

Tess shook her head. “Emily and I have no family except for my mother, and she’s certainly not a wealthy woman.”

“What about Emily’s father?”

Tess grew instantly defensive. “What about him?”

“I know he’s dead, but what about his family? Could they help?”

“Uh, no,” Tess said awkwardly, realizing her initial response must have seemed a little strange. “They’re on a fixed income, too. They wouldn’t be able to help.” Not that his mother would if she could, Tess thought. Mildred Campbell had been dead set against her son’s marriage to Tess, and her attitude hadn’t softened even when Tess had nursed Alan through the worst of his illness, when she’d kept vigil night and day at his deathbed. The child Tess had been carrying had only served to remind the grief-stricken woman that as one life began another was ending.

And now it was Emily’s life on the line.

What about her father?

A shudder racked Tess at the mere thought of her secret being revealed after all these years. Emily was in grave danger at the hands of her kidnapper, but the note proved she was still alive. She could still be found and rescued.

But if the truth came out now, there might be nothing Tess could do to save her daughter.

Chapter Two

“Here’s your mail, Mr. Spencer. And your messages.”

Jared Spencer stood gazing out the window of his father’s office—his office now—idly gauging the flow of traffic on the street nine stories below. He turned as his secretary bustled into the room. “Thanks, Barbara.”

She held up a newspaper. “I brought you a copy of the Journal, too. Your father always liked to read the paper first thing in the morning with his coffee.” She paused tentatively. “I seem to recall you take yours black.”

“You have a good memory.”

She turned back to the door. “I’ll get you a cup right away.”

“No, don’t bother,” he said, distracted. “I can get my own coffee.”

Her eyebrows rose. “It’s no trouble.”

“That’s all right. I don’t expect you to wait on me.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Spencer.” She fussed with the mail for a moment, then folded the paper just so on his desk. “Oh, dear.” Her bifocals hung on a chain around her neck, and she perched them on the end of her nose as she scanned the headlines. “That poor little girl is still missing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She looked up over her glasses. “You haven’t heard about it? A five-year-old girl was kidnapped almost three weeks ago from a school playground in Jefferson County. They still haven’t found her.”

“That’s too bad.” Jared walked over to his desk and glanced down at the paper. The little girl’s picture stared up at him. Dark hair, dark eyes.

“What a beautiful child,” he murmured, struck by the girl’s arresting features.

“I know. I saw the mother on television the day after it happened. She looked just devastated, poor thing. I have a grandson the same age as the little girl. I kept wondering how I would feel if it was my daughter standing in front of those cameras, begging some madman to bring her child home.”

“I hope they find her soon.” For a moment, Jared couldn’t tear his gaze from the little girl’s picture. He hated to think of an innocent child being taken from her mother, suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of some psycho.

“I hope so, too, but after all this time…” Barbara trailed off, shaking her head. “The world is a sad place. But I guess you know that as well as anyone.” Her gray eyes swept the spacious office. “It just doesn’t seem the same without him, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Spencer?”

“Not at the moment.” He looked up from the newspaper and smiled. “I’m still just trying to get my bearings.”

“You’ll do fine,” she said in a motherly tone. She paused at the door on her way out and glanced back into the office. “It will be strange, though, without him.”

That was an understatement, Jared thought, sorting through his messages. He still hadn’t gotten over the shock of his father’s sudden death. He kept expecting to look up and see Davis Spencer stroll through the double office doors, demanding to know what the hell Jared was doing sitting behind his desk.

Jared’s father had died four weeks ago from a massive coronary that had taken everyone who knew him by surprise. Jared had always thought his father would live forever. He was too stubborn, too powerful, too manipulative to do otherwise, but in the end, he’d been just an ordinary mortal, succumbing to an all-too-human frailty.

And so Jared had been summoned back to the corporate office in Jackson after a six-year stint in New Orleans, where he’d overseen extensive renovations to the grand old Spencer Hotel on Royal Street. The Jackson Spencer, opened at the turn of the century, was the flagship of an elegant fleet of four hotels scattered throughout the South, but the New Orleans Spencer, established some thirty years later, was the most famous, a crown jewel shimmering with old-world ambience and charm in the heart of the Vieux Carré.

The assignment to restore the hotel to its former grandeur had been both challenging and grueling, but it had also been a good place for Jared to make his mark. He’d earned a lot of respect and accolades from his peers over the years, even if at times his drive and determination had made him one of the most hated men in the company. But that, too, had toughened him. At the age of thirty, he’d already become a man to be reckoned with.

Which was a good thing. His younger brother, Royce, had had six years to make inroads in the upper echelons of the Spencer Hotels Corporation while Jared had been out toiling in the trenches. For as long as Jared could remember, he and his brother had been fierce rivals, a situation encouraged by their father to prepare them for the “real” world.

Whether it was on the football field, in the classroom or climbing the corporate ladder, Jared and his brother had been taught at an early age that it was a winner-takes-all world. The loser, it was always understood, got nothing.

But where Jared had thrived on the competition, Royce had grown bitter over the years. He deeply resented Jared’s ascension to the presidency of the company, even though the position didn’t offer complete autonomy. Jared answered to a powerful board of directors, and his promotion could prove all too temporary if he didn’t live up to expectations. His age and experience troubled the old-timers on the board, and they would be watching him closely for any slipups, any lapses in judgment that would give them ample cause to remove him.

Jared didn’t know what his brother had to complain about. As executor of a trust set up by their father, Royce had acquired no small amount of power himself.

Frowning, Jared thumbed through the mail. The trust had come as a complete surprise. Unbeknownst to anyone except Davis Spencer and his attorneys, he’d devised the ultimate contest between his sons. The first to produce a Spencer grandchild was given, upon Davis’s death, complete control of a fifty-million-dollar trust.

But Royce didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that the real prize wasn’t the trust, but his family. He had two great kids, a son and a daughter, but unfortunately, he seemed all too preoccupied with the money and the power it brought him. And even that wasn’t enough.

“The board should have named me president,” he’d ranted after the funeral, when he’d learned of Jared’s appointment. “Their decision had nothing to do with who’s the better man for the job. You got that appointment solely because you’re the eldest. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you deserve it. You’ve been away for six years. Six years, damn it, while I stayed here and worked my butt off. While I catered to the old man’s every whim.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing down in New Orleans?” Jared retorted. “I paid my dues, too, Royce. I spent fourteen and fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, on that project. You want to talk about working your butt off? You want to talk about sacrifice?”

“Oh, please.” Royce gave him a killing look. “You were in New Orleans, for God’s sake. Do you know what I would have given to be in your place instead of stuck here with the old man?”

“You could have been there. That project was up for grabs six years ago. But you weren’t willing to start out at the bottom, like I was.”

“Oh, yeah, it was up for grabs, all right. And you grabbed it so fast, it made my head spin. You just couldn’t wait to get down there and prove yourself, could you? You couldn’t get out of Mississippi fast enough.”

That part was true, Jared thought, but not for the reasons Royce had mentioned. Jared’s leaving had nothing to do with their father and very little to do with ambition. He’d left Mississippi because of Tess.

Tess.

Funny how he hadn’t thought of her in years, but the moment he’d returned to Mississippi, the instant he’d smelled the roses at the lake house, her image had popped into his head. He’d been transported back in time, to the very moment when he’d first realized that Tess Granger, the daughter of his mother’s housekeeper, had grown into a beautiful, desirable woman.

He was just back from his graduate work at Harvard that summer, home for the first time in nearly two years. The family—including Royce and his new wife—had all driven up to the lake house for the weekend, but by Sunday afternoon, everyone except Jared had gone back to the city. He was finally alone, and the solitude suited him at the time because he’d been feeling pressured by everyone in his life, especially by his father, who insisted it was time for Jared, as the eldest son, to assume his rightful place in the company. And then there was the endless competition with his younger brother—it had all become overwhelming.

Jared had been restless that afternoon, in desperate need of a diversion. And just like that, there she was. A sun-kissed Eve, tempting and beguiling, skinny-dipping in his swimming pool.

Tanned and slim, her golden-brown hair trailing like a mermaid’s behind her, she glided through the water like a dream. She didn’t have a stitch on, but she seemed completely oblivious to her blatant sexuality.

Who was she? Jared wondered as he watched her from the French doors that looked out on the pool. And what was she doing trespassing on private property?

Not that he cared, of course.

When she turned and floated on her back, he saw that she’d pilfered one of his mother’s prized roses and brazenly tucked it behind one ear.

Opening the French door, he stepped out on the patio. She didn’t appear to hear him, but floated serenely on the water, eyes closed.

“Hello there.”

She gasped, sank, swallowed water, then began to flail wildly. Finally getting her balance, she plunged lower into the water, covering her breasts with her hands. “I…thought everyone was…gone,” she managed to sputter.

Jared grinned. “Obviously.” He walked over and picked up a towel from one of the patio tables and offered it to her.

It took her a moment to regain her composure, but she did so admirably. She gave him a cool, reproving look. “Turn around, please.”

Jared complied. Behind him came the sound of splashing water as she swam to the side and hitched herself out of the pool, then grabbed the towel from his hand.

“You can turn back around now.”

Swathed from neck to knee in white terry cloth, she lifted her chin defiantly. “I suppose you’re going to tell my mother about this.”

“Tell your mother?” How could he, when he didn’t know who she was or where she lived? On the Eden side of the lake? Most of the locals did. The north side was reserved for vacation homes and exclusive estates owned mostly by out-of-towners, and was sometimes derisively referred to as Sin City by the locals.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she challenged.

“Should I?”

“I’m Tess.”

“Tess?”

A look of annoyance flickered across her features. “Joelle Granger’s daughter. You remember Joelle, don’t you? Your housekeeper?” She said it almost as a jeer, as if she was chiding him for something other than his faulty memory.

Joelle had served him breakfast on the patio just that very morning, so, of course, Jared remembered her. But he also remembered her daughter as a scrawny kid with wild, curly hair and braces. This couldn’t be Tess.

“My God,” he said incredulously. “When did you grow up?”

She shrugged. “Oh, let’s see, I think it was just after you left for your Ivy League education up north. Harvard, wasn’t it? I guess you didn’t get back down here to the sticks very often after that. Except for the wild party you threw one New Year’s Eve that my mother and I had to clean up after.”

He winced at the censure in her tone. “Sorry,” he muttered, not knowing exactly what to say in the face of her animosity. “You were paid for your services, weren’t you?” He knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left his mouth, and sure enough, her expression darkened.

“Oh, of course. We’ve always been well paid for our services, Mr. Spencer.”

“Call me Jared.”

“That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Why not?”

She gave him a withering look. “Because my mother works for you.”

“She works for my parents. That doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”

“Sure it does.” She picked up her clothes.

“Wait,” Jared said impulsively. “Don’t go yet.” He hadn’t met a girl he’d found this interesting in ages.

“I have to go. My mother sent me over here to make sure the house was locked up after everyone was gone. But since you’re here, you can look after things yourself. You don’t need me.”

You’re wrong, Jared thought. He did need her. He hadn’t been a bit lonely until she showed up, but now the prospect of spending the evening alone…without her… “Look. We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot here. Stay, and let me make it up to you.”

“How?”

“We could just hang out for a while. There’s no one here but me. I could fix you dinner, wait on you for a change.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And what would you expect in return?”

He hesitated a fraction too long. The towel she’d been clutching slipped a bit, and Jared’s gaze dipped.

When she saw the direction of his stare, her face flushed bright pink. “In your dreams, buddy.”

“Hey,” he said to her retreating back. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She turned at that.

He nodded toward the soggy rose that still clung to her hair. “You’ve trespassed on private property and stolen one of my mother’s prized roses. Serious crimes that usually entail dire repercussions. But if you stay and have dinner with me, we’ll just forget all about it.”

She gave him a hard, measuring look. “There are two things you need to know about me, Mr. Spencer. One, I don’t respond well to threats.” She reached up and snatched the rose from her hair, tossing it to the ground at his feet. “But here. By all means, take back the rose. I don’t care much for the expensive hybrids anyway. All show and no substance, if you ask me. Like some people I know.”

“Ouch.” He grinned. “That hurt. What’s the second thing I should know about you?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Don’t worry about it. You’re never going to get close enough to need that information.” And with that, she disappeared inside the pool house to dress.

As last lines went, it was a good one, and Jared had been left staring after her, intrigued, amused, and aroused as hell.

She’d stolen his heart that day, but it wasn’t until the end of the summer that he’d learned what an accomplished thief she truly was.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, he leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes. But strangely enough, it wasn’t Tess’s image that troubled him. It was the little girl’s picture in the paper that haunted him. The missing child. For some reason, Jared couldn’t get her out of his head.

“WHAT ABOUT THE BANK?” Tess’s mother asked at dinner that night. She looked tired tonight, Tess thought. Joelle Granger was still a young woman, not yet fifty, but Emily’s disappearance had aged her. The lines in her careworn face had deepened, and her light brown hair had seemed to gray overnight. Like Tess’s, her hazel eyes were rimmed with shadows.

She, Tess, and Melanie Kent, Tess’s best friend, were seated around her dining-room table, but no one felt like eating, even though the chicken casserole was one of Joelle’s specialities.

Tess stared at her plate. Wherever Emily was, had she been given food? Or was she hungry, her little stomach swollen and knotted in pain?

Tess pictured her little girl, weak from hunger, too sick even to cry out…

Overcome by the images, she pushed away her plate. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I can’t eat a bite.”

“Try to force something down, honey. You can’t keep doing this.”

“Maybe in a little while.” The thought of food made Tess nauseated, so she tried to concentrate on something else. “I went to the bank this afternoon after I talked to Naomi Cross. There’s nothing they can do. I don’t have enough equity in my house to use as collateral, and there’s nothing in the business worth liquidating.” Tess’s cleaning service had been built primarily on her own blood, sweat and tears, commodities not necessarily valued by a loan institution. “Mr. Cobb was very nice, but as he pointed out, he isn’t running a charity organization.”

Melanie gasped. Her lovely features contorted in anger. She’d always reminded Tess of a classical painting with her large, lost eyes and brooding mouth. “He didn’t say that!”

“Not in so many words, but that was the implication.” Tess rubbed her forehead. “I understand their decision. I do. It’s business. They can’t afford to take on hard-luck cases, but my daughter’s life is at stake. You would think—” She broke off, shoving back her chair as she began stacking plates.

“Leave the dishes,” her mother scolded. “I’ll take care of them later.”

“No, Mama, let me do them. I need to keep busy.”

When her mother started to get up, Melanie said quickly, “Keep your seat, Joelle. I’ll help Tess.” Grabbing the plates, she balanced them in her lap as she deftly guided her wheelchair toward the kitchen.

“You girls don’t have to do that,” Joelle protested. “I’m perfectly capable of washing my own dishes.”

“You’ve done more than your share of dishes,” Melanie insisted, referring to Joelle’s long tenure as the Spencers’ housekeeper. “You deserve a little pampering.”

But even though both Joelle and Tess had installed ramps and made their homes as wheelchair accessible as possible after the accident, Joelle’s cramped kitchen was still hard for Melanie to navigate. She unloaded the dishes in the sink, then moved back to give Tess room to work.

“I’m just in the way,” she muttered.

Tess glanced over her shoulder as she started the dish water. “Stop that. You’re never in the way, and you know it. I don’t know what I would have done without you these last weeks.”

Melanie bit her lip. “I just wish I could have done more. I wish I could have prevented this. Oh, Tess, when I think about the way she looked that afternoon—” She broke off, her blue eyes filling with tears. “If I’d just waited with her a little longer…”

Melanie was the librarian at Fairhaven Academy, and she always stopped by every afternoon to see Emily before Tess picked her up from school. On that particular day, she’d been one of the last people to see Emily before she disappeared.

Tess sighed. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And besides, there were other teachers on the playground that day. They didn’t see anything, either.”

“I know, but—”

“But nothing. I meant what I said earlier. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you.”

Melanie’s eyes softened. “We’ve always been there for each other, haven’t we?” Melanie’s rehabilitation after the accident six years ago had been a long and painful ordeal, but contrary to what she’d said, Tess hadn’t been there for her. Not for a long time. And for that, she’d never quite been able to forgive herself.

She forced a smile. “We’ve been through a lot together, that’s for sure.”

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