Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “I was going to text you while I was in the bathroom but didn’t want to waste any time. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible, and my, er, window of opportunity was small.”

  He laughed. “That is a very polite way to put it.” He looked at her eyes and kept himself from caressing her cheek, her jawline. She’d acted like a pro.

  “You’re not in law enforcement, Kayla. I don’t want you going into the Charbonneaus’ house by yourself again. Take your assistant with you. Or better yet, call me and I’ll escort you in and out.”

  “That’s crazy. I’m not in danger there, am I?” The quaver in her voice told him that she knew better. He liked to make her voice tremble, but he’d rather do it in the bedroom. Protective instincts were part and parcel of being a cop, but when he was around Kayla his were on overdrive.

  “Yes, I think you could be in a lot of danger. We don’t know what we’re going to find in this investigation. The motive for Meredith’s murder is deeper than a personal conflict. By all accounts she and the mayor got along well.” Except for some recent verbal exchanges that the mayor’s receptionist mentioned overhearing. Kayla didn’t need to know about that yet. “I need you to be more careful, Kayla.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Rio? The man I heard in that bedroom sounded exactly like the voice I heard in the barn. If I’d gone out the front door, or stayed on the stairs measuring, he would have seen me. He could have recognized me—he saw my shape when he chased me.”

  “Are you sure he chased you? Or was he running from the building, from the cops he knew were almost there?”

  “I don’t know. But I couldn’t take a chance.”

  “Kayla, you did great. But again, you’re not a cop. You aren’t trained for the worst-case scenarios.”

  * * *

  They sat without speaking for a bit, both lost in their own thoughts.

  “You definitely heard them having sex?” His head tilted to the side, imperceptible to a stranger but not her.

  “Yes.” And it had been nothing like what she and Rio had done two nights ago. No sense of urgency. It had sounded...contrived, like a performance. But whether on Mickey’s or Gloria’s part, she didn’t know.

  Rio’s frustration with her barely superseded his anger. Dark brows hadn’t moved from their joined position in his troubled expression as he listened to her account of what she’d witnessed. Obviously he was worried about her safety.

  “Do you know who Mickey is, Rio?”

  “He’s the mayor’s assistant.”

  “Like Meredith was?”

  Rio shook his head once. “No. Mickey’s more of an operations assistant. Meredith was strictly administrative and a go-between for the mayor’s staff and his accountant.”

  “Obviously Mickey’s also a very personal assistant to Gloria.” She thought her quip might coax Rio from his troubled emotions but she had no luck.

  “You could have been killed, Kayla. If you’re sure he’s the voice you heard in the barn.”

  “I’m positive. But will recognizing a voice be enough for a court?”

  “No. I need evidence. The bullets that killed Meredith were from a small pistol. I’ve already asked the mayor and his staff to provide any personal weapons they use, for the investigation. Mickey gave us his .45 and it’s not a forensic match, nor is the mayor’s.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I mean, he simply used a different weapon, right?” She didn’t want Rio to think she wasn’t able to help.

  “Right.” Rio was curt, obviously annoyed with her. She knew she’d worried him with her latest escapade. Hell, she’d worried herself. But he was giving her a million-dollar reaction for a five-dollar offense. “What is it, Rio? What am I not seeing here? You look like you’re ready to explode.”

  “There’s some new evidence that I didn’t want to cut you in on until the tech crew validated it. There’s a high probability there was a second assailant that night. He or she left through the barn door on the other side of the building from where Meredith was thrown.”

  “Impossible. I would have heard him.”

  “Unless they weren’t talking. Or their voices were quiet. It could have been a woman, Kayla.”

  “You think it was Gloria? Helping out Tony or Mickey? Or both?”

  Rio looked away, his concentration evident. “No, I don’t think so. Gloria has an airtight alibi—Tony. And he has her for his alibi. They might not be on the best terms, but they’re old-school when it comes to their professional dealings. They’ll back each other to the end.”

  “Gloria might be the only one who realizes they aren’t on good terms. He can’t have a clue that she’s screwing his close assistant. Speaking of whom, what about Mickey’s alibi?”

  “His alibi isn’t as tight as theirs since he’s single and lives alone, but his neighbors have corroborated that they saw him at home and in his yard around the time of the murder. He claims he went home for an early dinner that night and went to bed early. Says he fell asleep watching television by nine o’clock.”

  “That’s impossible. I know it was his voice.”

  “Voices can sound similar. Especially a man’s lower register, and you were in an extreme situation that night. Your adrenaline was flowing and you were trying to stay alive while figuring out how to help Meredith.”

  “I’m not crazy, Rio. It was the same voice.”

  “I trust you, Kayla, but we need harder evidence.”

  He’d said “we,” not “I.” Maybe he did consider her a partner of sorts.

  “Short of a confession, without a murder weapon, will you ever get any?”

  Rio sucked on his straw, the pink concoction half-gone. “I’m always hopeful.”

  She stared at Rio and knew he felt he needed to protect her from what he considered his territory. Their frenzied lovemaking had told her one thing if nothing else. That Rio still cared about her on some level.

  “Rio, you’re acting as if I did something you told me not to do. You’re the one who asked me to find out what I could about Gloria and Cynthia.”

  “Not if it puts you in danger. I was specific about that.” His eyes were bright and fierce. “You can’t go into anything alone again.”

  “If I’d had Jennifer with me at the barn, we both might have been killed. We would have been talking and not noticed what was going on inside until we were right up on it. Have you thought of that?”

  “I have.”

  “And yesterday if someone had been with me I would have never been able to sneak into the bathroom and get the information I did. It was a bizarre situation, I’ll grant you, but it might yield more information at some point. As far as Gloria and Mickey are concerned, I’m the florist. If they’d seen me, all they would have worried about was that I’d figured out they were having an affair.”

  “That could be enough to get you killed, Kayla. The mayor’s history isn’t the nicest, and we have to assume the same about the people closest to him.”

  “I know. I read the papers, see the news. It’s clear to me that they’re organized crime of some sort, and they barely escaped going to jail in New Jersey.” She thought of the family summers they’d taken to the south Jersey shore when they were back on home leave and couldn’t reconcile the peace and serenity of Stone Harbor, New Jersey, with the purported heavy crime syndicates that operated in the northern part of the state.

  “Proof, show me some proof. Since the mayor and Mickey both have rap sheets, it’s proof enough for me. They skirted the law their entire lives, and it’s only by a hair that the mayor is legally eligible to run for elected office in any state.”

  “I still can’t believe he got elected. And I want him out. This is my town, too, Rio, and I’m going to do whatever I need to do protect it.”

  “Leave the protecting to
the cops, Kayla.” He watched her. “Have you told me everything or is there something else?”

  “No, I think that’s it. Maybe it’s time for you to tell me something, Rio?”

  * * *

  He dodged Kayla’s piercing stare as he tried to convince himself the smoothie would fill him up. It was as if she had emotional X-ray vision around him.

  Kayla was the only woman who’d ever forced him to look at his life and see what was missing. A family. A woman and not just a roll in the sack here and there. But Kayla deserved nothing less than a total commitment from him, and Rio had told himself for too long that he couldn’t give anyone a total commitment, not with his job. But his other colleagues made marriages work. Maybe he needed to revisit his reticence. For Kayla it’d be worth the risk.

  Not that she’d let him even come close to committing to her.

  The idea that he’d never be able to reconcile his job with a family had been his reason to stay single until now. But that was before he met Kayla and had had not only the best physical relationship he’d ever experienced, but also the most mentally stimulating one, too. Kayla wasn’t one to let life pass her by. She bit into it with all her teeth and left nothing untasted.

  Rio couldn’t break the classified parts of the case to Kayla, but she wasn’t comprehending how dangerous her situation was, even with having witnessed a murder.

  “About the night of the murder. I know you’re certain the killer didn’t see you, but you don’t know that, not for sure. The fact that we didn’t catch him concerns me. He could have circled back around or driven by and seen your van.”

  “But SVPD was there, Rio. You’re telling me that they didn’t check out each vehicle in the area?”

  “Sure they did, once the murder scene was secured and they ascertained that you were okay.” He watched her expression go from confident to cautiously optimistic to angry.

  “You’re telling me that all along I’ve been so sure that SVPD had me taken care of that night and now you’re saying there could be a gap in it all?”

  “Yes.”

  She was quiet for a bit and he let her think. He was the same way. He needed his space to figure things out. It was one of the common traits they shared that had attracted him to her. Kayla wasn’t one to blurt out whatever she was thinking. Her responses were always measured, considered. It was no doubt a key to her success as a florist, with the wide range of situations and emotional states the people she dealt with were in.

  Kayla shook her head. “No, there’s no way someone saw my van. I parked so far down the drive. We’ve been over this.”

  “We have, but that was before we confirmed that the side door of the barn across from you was ajar. There’s a possibility there was a third person in the barn.”

  “And he or she didn’t run into the fields behind the barn like the man who heard me.”

  “Until we prove it didn’t happen, we’ll assume it did. Have you picked up on anything questionable in your shop since this morning?”

  “No. Jenny and I have been working nonstop since this morning. Gloria hasn’t called me with anything other than a few orders that had last-minute changes.”

  “Okay. Now I need to tell you something about what’s happening with Keith that might relate to Meredith’s case. You know how sketchy the circumstances of Mayor Donner’s indictment were? Well, I think the same group of people may be behind the accusations against Keith.”

  “Go on.”

  He pulled out his phone, where he kept his notes, and used them to make sure he didn’t miss anything he felt she needed to know. Because Kayla needed to know about the True Believers. If he didn’t tell her, he’d never forgive himself if she didn’t take the threat against her seriously.

  “Several members of a former cult that formed in upstate New York thirty years ago were released from prison over the past six months or so. For reasons that I can’t go into right now, and more that I don’t even know about, they’ve decided to settle in Silver Valley. The ringleader found a beneficiary who helped him purchase the entire trailer park community on the eastern outskirts of town.”

  “Cozy Acres Trailer Park?” She was alert, her eyes sparkling with interest. It was heady, having Kayla hang on to his words. He wanted her to hang on to his body with the same intensity.

  “Yes, that’s the one. You know it?”

  “I’ve taken some floral orders from them. I only know it because the caller ID comes up when they call the shop. I didn’t think there was anything odd about it because unlike the Female Preacher Killer last Christmas, they didn’t use untraceable means to order flowers. They did what everyone else does. They called me.”

  “They might be fine, Kayla. Not everyone in that trailer park is a former True Believer, even though a former member appears to have used a front man to purchase the entire property.”

  “A True Believer?”

  He sighed. None of this had made the press when SVPD had caught the Female Preacher Killer last December. For good reason. Superintendent Todd had been explicit that nothing to do with the cult could hit the media. They had to protect the ongoing investigation that the Trail Hikers were conducting into the True Believers.

  “The True Believers were run by a man named Leonard Wise, who we haven’t seen in Silver Valley yet, but we expect he’ll show up down here. He served his term in New York and was granted permission to serve his probation here. So far, three of his cronies have shown up and live here. They haven’t done anything openly illegal, but people like them, who used to hold women and children under their control with brainwashing and abuse, don’t change.”

  “Was it a religious cult?”

  “Oh, yes. With Wise as the ringleader. He impregnated girls once they were seventeen, after choosing them by the age of twelve to be the mothers of future True Believers.”

  “How the hell did someone like him ever get out of prison?” Her frustration echoed his.

  “He wasn’t convicted on every charge that he should have been. It’s a hard crime to prove, since the girls were over the age of consent when he had sex with them.”

  “You mean raped them.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re telling me about this why? Do you think this cult had something to do with Meredith’s murder? And what can I do about it besides listen and observe and let you know what I see?”

  “I’m telling you for a couple of reasons. First, I want you to know that I’m not blowing smoke when I tell you to be careful and don’t fight me on the extra SVPD patrols around your shop and house. Your safety is paramount. With this cult in town, anything is possible. Second, I have reason to believe that one of Wise’s cronies is the lawyer who represents the family from Silver Valley Community Church who pressed charges against SVFD initially, and now Keith.”

  “I read in the paper that the family was new to the area, poor and felt disenfranchised by the church community.” Kayla didn’t miss one clue.

  “Yes. Which made them ripe for picking when some sleazy lawyer cajoled them into filing charges against your brother. The charges against SVFD wouldn’t hold and the lawyer knew it, so he recruited these folks.”

  “So all we have to do, all I have to do, is talk to this family and get them to reverse their accusations.”

  “No, you’re not going to talk to anyone. I’ve got this. I’m meeting with the lawyer and family tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You work on Saturdays, too? You’ll be doing that while I’m at the inn working on the wedding planning.”

  “I want you to stay in touch with me the entire time, Kayla. Text me when you get there, when you leave and every thirty minutes in between.”

  “Why don’t I just take an SVPD car and drive myself there in that?” She tried to be sarcastic but he saw that he’d gotten through to her. Finally, the
brave woman he cared about realized her life could be in jeopardy.

  “Where will you be for the rest of the day?”

  “At the shop. I have to place orders for the wedding, along with my usual orders. I’ve got a bit of a break since the holiday rush is over and we’re still early for the wedding season.”

  He nodded.

  “I want you to call or text me before you close up. Either I or an SVPD unit will follow you home.”

  “Rio, that’s not necessary. No one has seen me—I’m the one they should be afraid of.” She smiled and hoped it would coax a smile from him, too.

  He looked at his watch. “We both need to get going. I’ll expect to hear from you whenever you change locations, Kayla.”

  After they said their goodbyes, she went back into the café and ordered Jenny’s smoothie. She wished all she had to worry about was how Jenny liked her drink, instead of figuring out how she was going to avoid getting shot during the next few days.

  * * *

  “This isn’t what I’d planned for my term as mayor. I can’t trust Mickey anymore. He was supposed to persuade Meredith not to do anything foolish. Not freakin’ kill her.”

  “But, Daddy, he told you he didn’t kill her. He said that he just roughed her up. Isn’t it possible some crook came by and robbed her? There weren’t any witnesses, right? There’s no way we’ll ever know what really happened.”

  “Men like Mickey can get worked up and do stupid things.”

  “Still, she deserved it if she was sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Her job was to keep your schedule running, fend off the sharks, keep the appearance of complete professionalism from your office.”

  “She didn’t deserve to die, Cynthia.”

  She laughed, very pleased with the tinkles of glee she’d perfected in front of her mirror. “I didn’t mean that she deserved to die, Daddy. Just get a little shaken up by Mickey. Do you believe him? That he didn’t kill her?”