Books by Karen Robards
GHOST MOON
THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
THE SENATOR’S WIFE
HEARTBREAKER
HUNTER’S MOON
WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT
MAGGY’S CHILD
ONE SUMMER
NOBODY’S ANGEL
THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN
FORBIDDEN LOVE
SEA FIRE
ISLAND FLAME
Special Preview
from the Karen Robards title
HUNTER’S MOON
Now available from Dell
CHAPTER ONE
October 11, 1995
“Hey, Will! Will! Would you look at that?”
Will Lyman responded to his partner’s urgent whisper by opening his eyes a slit and glancing up at the monitor installed in the ceiling of the van. He was slightly groggy, and it took him a second to remember where he was: parked outside a barn at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, charged with bringing to justice a gang of the pettiest crooks it had ever been his displeasure to chase. He, who had pursued big-time names from Michael Milken to O. J. Simpson and worked on big-time cases from the Hillside Strangler to Whitewater, had been assigned to get the goods on a gang of has-been horsemen who had taken to supplementing their income by substituting fleeter-footed “ringers” for broken-down Thoroughbreds they were scheduled to race.
How the mighty are fallen!
It was just before 4:00 a.m., and dark as the inside of a grave in the van. The gray glow of the monitor’s screen provided the only illumination. The picture was grainy, old black-and-white TV quality, but the image it conveyed was unmistakable: a slender young woman in skin-tight jeans had entered the previously empty tack room in the barn they had had under surveillance since dark. Back to the camera, she was in the act of bending over the bait: a large burlap feed bag stuffed with five thousand dollars in cash.
When Wyland Farm manager Don Simpson took it home with him, they had him. Case closed.
Only this girl was not, by any stretch of the imagination, Don Simpson.
“Who the hell is she?” Wide-awake now, Will shot off the dilapidated couch that filled one side of the lawn service van that was their cover to stand staring in disbelief at the monitor. “Do we have a file on her? Lawrence never mentioned a girl. He said Simpson would pick up the money himself.”
“Nice ass,” Murphy said, staring at the screen. The comment was detached. Murphy, fifty-two-year-old father of five, had been more or less happily married for thirty-some years. When it came to female flesh, he was looking, not buying.
“We got anything on her? Do you know who she is?” Irritated that Murphy had forced him to notice the small, firm, unmistakably feminine butt that was thrust almost in his face as the girl bent at the waist, backside toward the camera, Will spoke with an edge to his voice.
“Nope. Never seen her before in my life.”
“Well, don’t go into a panic over it.” Will spared a second to glare at his partner. Murphy never hurried, never worried, never got into a state about anything. The trait was about to drive Will insane.
“Okay, okay.” With a grin, Murphy swiveled sideways in his chair, turned on the computer that rested on the narrow work station built into the wall opposite the couch, and started punching computer keys. “Caucasian, female, between, oh, twenty and twenty-five years old, five feet seven, wouldn’t you say, and maybe a hundred fifteen, hundred twenty pounds.… What color’s her hair?”
“How the hell should I know? The damn picture’s in black and white.” With an effort, Will controlled his irritation and took a closer look. “Dark. Not blond.”
“Brown,” Murphy decided, typing it in.
“She’s opening the bag!”
The clicking of the computer keys ceased as Murphy swung around to watch too. The girl on the monitor now crouched in front of the sack, which rested on the speckled linoleum floor in the corner directly opposite the hidden camera. Her hands were busy untying the frayed piece of hemp that was wrapped tightly around the sack’s twisted neck. Her back was still to the camera, but at least her butt was down. A thick curtain of shoulder blade-length hair kept Will from getting a look at her face. Though her butt was certainly memorable enough for him to be able to pick her out of a lineup if he ever had to.
“Can you get me something on her, please?” Perilously controlled annoyance at both himself for noticing and Murphy for existing tightened his lips.
Murphy turned back to the computer.
“She’s found the money.” Will hadn’t really meant to say it aloud, because he didn’t want Murphy distracted. But the circumstances were so damned unexpected that his mind was not operating with its usual efficiency. He needed an ID, pronto. To decide what to do, he had to know who she was. Did the girl who sank back on her heels to stare at the bundles of cash she had uncovered work for the target of their investigation, or did she not?
The clicking stopped as Murphy, as expected, glanced around at the monitor. Will shot him a look that should have singed his eyeballs. Murphy hunched a shoulder guiltily, and started typing again. The girl reached into the sack to finger first one, then another rubber band-bound bundle of twenties.
“Nothing … nothing … nothing,” Murphy grunted as the screen blinked a couple of times, then shone a maddeningly blank fluorescent green. “No woman fitting her description in the files. Unless I’ve done something wrong.”
That cheerful admission made Will want to tear out his hair. For a quick-talking, quick-thinking, quick-acting type A personality like himself, being teamed with a laid-back kind of guy like Murphy was a penance. Which was probably just what Dave Hallum had in mind when he paired the two of them up. Will’s boss was still mad over the loss of his cabin cruiser. Hell, Will couldn’t help it if the crooks he’d been chasing had thought the damned thing belonged to him, and decided to blow it up.
Hallum always had been one to hold a grudge.
Clearly this assignment, complete with Murphy, signalled payback time.
“She’s taking the money!” Will watched as the unidentified girl, after retying the sack and casting a quick glance around that afforded him the merest glimpse of her profile, stood up with their bait in her arms. Then she turned, finally facing the camera, and walked straight toward them. Her face, Will discovered to his disgust, was as memorable as her butt: fine-boned and beautiful. He blinked in pure self-defense, and in that brief time she—and the Bureau’s money—were out of camera range, and presumably out the door.
Murphy, leaning back in his chair, wolf-whistled appreciatively. “Whoa! Fox-y lady!”
Ignoring him, Will pressed a button beneath the monitor, and waited for the second camera panning the barn itself to pick up the action. All he got was a screenful of snow.
“Doesn’t look like it’s working,” Murphy observed as Will frantically twirled dials and pressed buttons.
No kidding. Will gritted his teeth, abandoned the monitor, and with a dagger-glance at his partner snatched up the phone.
CHAPTER TWO
The burlap bag held place of honor in the center of the picnic table that served her ramshackle family as a kitchen gathering place. Molly felt queasy every time she glanced at it. She had stolen five thousand dollars from Barn 15’s tack room. Had anyone missed the money yet?
Dumb question. It was just after noon, and she’d walked out of that barn before 4:00 a.m. Of course someone had missed the money. Who in his right mind wouldn’t miss five thousand dollars?
The question was, how long ago had they called the police?
If she got caught, she could go to prison for years.
Or worse.
She wasn’t stupid. That much money stuffed in a burlap feed bag and left sitting around in a corner of a deserted tack room in the middle of the night sure wasn’t a bank deposit. It almost had to be somebody’s ill-gotten gains. But whose? For months there’d been rumors around the stable that something dirty wa
s going down. But what? Drugs? Illegal gambling? Fixing races? Who knew? Molly didn’t want to know.
If that money was dirty, whoever it belonged to wouldn’t—couldn’t—call the police. What was the alternative? Visions of hired hit men on her trail made Molly feel light-headed.
But no one had any way of knowing that she had taken the money. She no longer groomed for Wyland Farm. Four days ago she had quit, in a fit of fiery temper that fifteen minutes later she remembered she and her family simply could not afford. Even if Thornton Wyland, obnoxious college-boy grandson of the stable owner, had grabbed her butt.
Last night—or rather this morning—she’d arrived at the barn to pick up her last check. Which Don Simpson would make her beg for, she knew, and might not even give to her though he owed her two weeks pay. He didn’t like people quitting on him, and he had a vindictive streak a mile wide.
She’d thought maybe she might even screw up her courage to the point of asking for her job back. Not that it was likely to do any good. As he often said, Don Simpson didn’t believe in second chances.
She should never have lost her temper. The thing to have done in such circumstances was simply knock away the hand groping the back of her jeans, and laugh the whole incident off.
Not punch the farm owner’s grandson in the gut, and threaten to render him genderless if he ever touched her again.
And then tell her boss what he could do with himself and his job when Simpson, ignoring Thornton Wyland completely, snarled at her for yelling in the barn and spooking the horses.
Temper, temper. It had gotten her in trouble before, and no doubt it would do so again. But this time she should have thought about the consequences before she shot off her big mouth.
Not thinking before she acted was something she did too often. Just like she hadn’t thought it through before taking the money from that tack room.
The question was, what did she do now?
Except for the horses, and a gimlet-eyed cat, the barn had been deserted when Molly entered it. Simpson always arrived for work at 4:00 a.m. sharp, and it was a good half-hour earlier than that. The groom who was supposed to be on duty throughout the night was nowhere around. She had seen no one. No one had seen her. No one knew she had been in that barn. No one knew she had the money.
Should she take it back?
Yeah, right, a little voice inside her head sneered. Just wait till 3:45 a.m. tomorrow, sneak back inside the barn with the money, and leave it where you found it. Like no one’s even missed it yet. Like they won’t even notice it’s been gone.
What if they caught her taking it back? Molly shuddered at the thought. That would be the same as being caught stealing it. The consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
Besides, she couldn’t take it back. She had already spent one of the twenties. Unable to help herself, entranced by the fact that she actually had that rarity, real cash money that wasn’t already earmarked for rent or food or something, in her possession, she had stopped by the Dunkin’ Donuts on Versailles Road on the way home. The kids had woken up to fresh doughnuts and milk. What a treat! All of them, even fourteen-year-old Mike, who lately had been way too cool to show enthusiasm for anything, had reacted with delight.
Whatever happened, even if she did end up going to prison—or worse—Molly just couldn’t regret those doughnuts.
Anyway, they needed the money. It was wrong to steal, but it was better than starving, especially since they would soon be kicked out of their house, which came with her job at a reduced rent of a hundred and fifty dollars a month. The job had been all that kept the roof over their heads and food on the table for herself and four kids—and she didn’t have that job anymore.
What she did have was five thousand dollars, cash.
But she sure didn’t want to go to jail. Or worse. What would the kids do then?
Footsteps on the wooden boards of the ramshackle porch brought Molly’s head around. Firm footsteps. I-mean-business footsteps. Not one of the kids playing hooky. Not a utility company man, come to collect what they owed or turn off the electricity or gas. Not a social worker, or a truant officer, nosing around about the kids. From bitter experience, Molly knew what all those footsteps sounded like.
These sounded serious.
She jumped up from the picnic table bench from which she had been nervously eyeing the evidence of her guilt and snatched the burlap bag off the table. She barely had time to stuff it in the cabinet under the sink and grab the shotgun that was kept on the far side of the refrigerator before the knock sounded on the door.
The gun wasn’t loaded—she was afraid to keep a loaded gun around the kids, so she hid the shells in a hole in the underside of the mattress in her bedroom—but whoever was at the door wouldn’t know that. Anyway, intimidation was what she had in mind, not murder.
Creaking springs and a ferocious burst of barking announced that Pork Chop had heard the knock too. A huge animal, part German shepherd and part who-knew-what, Pork Chop was ferocious enough looking to freeze the devil himself in his tracks. Black and tan, with a long, springy coat that added inches of bulk to his already impressive size, Pork Chop was in reality as harmless as a kitten.
But whoever was at the door wouldn’t know that.
Toenails scrabbling on the linoleum, Pork Chop almost knocked Molly down in his mad dash for the door. His hackles were up and he was making enough noise to wake the dead.
Ox, Molly accused him silently as she moved to stand beside him. Then, the gun butt snuggled firmly under her armpit, she opened the flimsy wooden door and grabbed Pork Chop by the collar as if she was scared he’d devour whoever was on the other side of the still-latched screen if she let go.
The spicy scents of perfect Indian summer weather greeted her. Ordinarily the sheer beauty of the day would have gonç a long way toward soothing any agitation she might be feeling. She loved October, loved the way the bright sunlight looked spilling over the carpet of red and gold leaves covering the yard, laved the mild temperature, loved the smell of woodsmoke that tinged the air. But the agitation she was suffering at that particular, moment was far from ordinary, and so she barely noticed what would on most days have given her a great deal of pleasure.
There was a man on the other side of the screen door. Making no move to open it, Molly held firmly on to Pork Chop’s collar as he lunged at the barrier of fine black mesh. The dog’s huge jaws parted as he threatened the visitor, revealing rows of teeth that would not have been out of place on a Tyrannosaurus rex. Eyes widening, the man on the porch took a single look at Pork Chop, then stepped back a pace.
A glance told Molly that she’d never seen the man before. Fortyish, of average height and lean build, he had sandy hair cut ruthlessly short, a deep tan, and piercing blue eyes. He wore a dark suit and tie and looked grim. A hit man? She let go of Pork Chop’s collar and leveled the shotgun at the man’s belt buckle. Pork Chop barked hysterically.
“What can I do for you, mister?” Her greeting was hostile.
“Miss Butler?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over Pork Chop’s ear-shattering din. Molly battled the urge to tell Pork Chop to shut up. The animal was deafening—but he was also clearly worrying the man on the other side of the screen. On balance, it was worth it.
“Nope.” He wasn’t looking for her. Or the kids. As she registered that the person he asked for was unknown to her, Molly relaxed. With her knee she shoved Pork Chop back from the screen, preparing to shut the door in the stranger’s face.
“Miss Molly Butler?”
Molly froze. The name was close. Too close. He was looking for her. He just had the name a little wrong. Molly fixed him with a wary gaze, her fingers tightening around the barrel of the gun. Without waiting for her to say anything more, he reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and produced a leather wallet.
“Will Lyman, FBI,” he said, opening the wallet to flash a badge and some sort of identification card at her. “I need to talk to you, Miss Butler.
Could you please put down the gun, and call off your dog?”
She might have tried—he was with the FBI, after all—but calling off Pork Chop was easier said than done. Anyway, it was too late. Pork Chop’s attention suddenly found an object worthy of focus. Molly’s only warning came when the volley of barking ended in a high-pitched yelp. With that the dog leaped right through the screen, his hundred-pound body as deadly as a missile to the flimsy mesh. Landing clumsily on four huge, bunched paws, now in full cry, he leaped skyward again, exploding past the unwelcome visitor in a frenzied bound. Knocked clean off his feet, the FBI man went down with a yell and a crash. His head just missed the rusting metal glider.
The neighborhood cat that had inspired such passion took one look at the behemoth tearing up the ground behind her, and swarmed up the gnarled trunk of a huge oak.
At the foot of the tree, Pork Chop leaped and snapped at the intruder, who calmly settled herself on a lower branch and proceeded to wash a calico paw, twitching her black-tipped tail with disdain. A single leaf, turned gold by autumn, fluttered down to land on Pork Chop’s nose. He shook it off, and went mad at the indignity of it all.
“Shut up, Pork Chop!” Molly yelled. For all the good it did, she might as well have saved her breath.
The screen door, never very solid (she had put it up herself), had been knocked awry by Pork Chop’s assault. It was open now, the wooden frame hanging lopsidedly from its hinges, stopped from closing by its low-dipping front corner, which was snagged on a board protruding from the uneven porch floor.
She would have to get Mike to help her fix the door when he got home from school, she thought distractedly. Mike would complain as he did about almost everything anymore, but he could hold the door up while she tightened the hinge screws. And she would have to buy new mesh.
Thank goodness for the five thousand dollars. Without it, the mesh would have to wait.
But she couldn’t think about that right now. Her first priority was to get rid of the man sprawled on her porch.
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