Neely Kate squeezed her hand. “Who doesn’t love watchin’ their man be all manly?”
Jeanne nodded and another tear rolled down her cheek. She pulled both her hands free and swiped it away. “It was just me and him, which was unusual. There was usually someone else with him. And I wasn’t supposed to be there, so I was tucked in behind piles of bagged mulch. They probably thought he was alone.” She wiped a tear. “A four-door car pulled up, and at first Scooter thought they were picking up some mulch or pottingsoil.”
“Was the car a dark sedan?” I asked.
She looked surprised. “Yeah.”
“I bet it’s the same car they used to snatchme.”
She blinked and seemed to be more interested.
“I told you—they took me and I gotaway.”
Hope filled her eyes and she grabbed my arm. “Did you see Scooter?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t, and I’m sure he wasn’t there. Three other men came and saved me. They killed the guys who’d snatched me, so we couldn’t ask them questions, but there was no sign of Scooter.”
But was that right? What if he’d been there and I just hadn’t known it? It still bugged me that Reynolds’ guys had killed Elijah Landry and Bud. But they’d saved my life. It felt ungrateful to judge.
Jeanne wiped away more tears. Our food came, and she looked embarrassed when the waitress also handed her and Neely Kate to-go bags. “I shouldn’t have ordered that. But Scooter wasn’t here to cash his paycheck and money’s tight . . .”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Neely Kate said in a cheerful voice. “Our treat.”
I let Jeanne take a bite of her sandwich before I said, “What happened after the guys pulled up in thecar?”
“Both of them got out and grabbed Scooter by the arms. They started to drag him to the back of the car, but Scooter was having none of it. He tried to break loose, then yelled, ‘Run, Jeanne!’ That caught the guys’ attention. The bigger one—the one who came to see me this morning—whacked Scooter in the back of the head, and I screamed. Scooter slumped to the ground, and the big guy lunged for me and put a hand over my mouth to stop my screaming. The other guy wanted to take me too—he said there weren’t supposed to be any witnesses—but the big guy insisted his brother had only told him to take Scooter. He said they could use me to their advantage. Then he told me not to tell anyone or Scooter was a dead man.” Tears filled her eyes. “They dumped him in the back of the trunk and tookoff.”
“What made you decide to tell Skeeter?” Neely Kate asked.
“They came to get me, and when I saw how powerful they were, I thought maybe they could savehim.”
“And you have no idea who the men were?” I asked. “Had you ever seen them before?”
“No.”
I pulled the folded photo of Elijah Landry out of my backpack. “Do you recognize either of these guys?” I asked, pointing to the two young men in the picture.
She sat stock-still, and I was sure she was going to say yes—so when she shook her head, my heart sank. Were we dealing with two different sets of kidnappers afterall?
“I don’t recognize one of them,” she said. “I recognizeboth.”