by Geri Krotow
The barn looked forlorn and dark in the spring night. Rob usually left a couple of lights on inside, on timers, but with his other job managing a dairy farm, he had his hands full. It was easy to let something small slip his mind. Kayla knew the feeling all too well.
Like how they’d put the most colorful aster blooms, normally more available in the fall, in Mrs. Vance’s bouquet, when Kayla knew darn well that the woman would see them as plain old mums. She hadn’t been expecting Mrs. Vance to label them harbingers of death, however.
Her van bounced up the worn path through the field beside the large white barn and she winced as she hit a deep rut. She pulled off the muddy path and onto a dry patch of dirt. Better to walk a few hundred yards to the barn than risk wrecking her van in the dark. Spring thaw had a way of turning the hard clay soil of South Central Pennsylvania into thick, sucking mud not dissimilar to the mud fields she’d seen in the Netherlands as a child. Back when Dad had worked at the Hague and Mom had taken long hours away from her job as a private contractor to take Kayla and her siblings, Melody and Keith, on long sojourns through Europe.
Her favorite had been in the tulip-growing region of the Netherlands. Holland had opened her nose and her eyes to the brilliance of bulb flowers, from hyacinths to parrot tulips. She hadn’t been happy as a child unless there was dirt under her nails from helping her mother plant rows and rows of bulbs, seeds and rose bushes.
Her parents had indulged her when she proclaimed she was going to be a florist and own her own shop. They’d breathed an audible sigh of relief when she’d been accepted to Penn State and majored in horticulture. They assumed she’d end up in research.
Instead her passion for dirt and flowers grew. But rather than being streamlined like a standard Dutch tulip, she’d behaved like the sprawling parrot tulip with its petals falling haphazardly, spreading her interests into the cultivation of hybrids while running her own florist shop and design studio.
As she killed the engine, she thought she heard something high-pitched above the regular shutting-down noises. She paused. The van was only eighteen months old and she was so not in the mood for it to be in need of repair. She prayed the rut hadn’t ruined her front-end alignment or jiggled anything else loose.
Forcing away the annoying thoughts, she got out and her feet immediately sank into the squishy mud. Her bright fuchsia rain boots kept her feet warm and dry.
She clomped through the mud, selecting the key to the barn by feel from her key ring. It had a large soft cushiony frame around the top. She walked past a sedan and wondered if someone else was here.
“No! You can’t do this—” A woman’s voice, loud and strident.
A gunshot, punctuated by a woman’s scream, sounded in the still night, rooting Kayla to the spot.
She had heard something high-pitched a few moments ago. Screaming.
The sound of items crashing inside the barn unfroze her feet and her mind with them. The van was too far away for her to make it there, start the engine and drive off before whoever had fired the gun would know she was there.
Call the police.
She ran to the side of the barn, ducking low from the view of the side door. The door’s window glowed with the kitchen’s bright fluorescent lights. She made out the bulky figure of a man through the slatted blinds but couldn’t risk taking a closer look. Not if she was going to be of any help to the woman whose screaming she’d heard.
That gunshot and scream hadn’t been like in the movies. It was real, scary as hell, and she knew she could be on the receiving end of a bullet if she didn’t play this right.
Crawling on her knees to avoid detection, she squeezed between a tractor pull and a pile of hay bales. She worried that her van was too far down the drive and too much in plain view of anyone who left via the driveway. Did the shooter own the car she’d walked by?
She wanted to run for it and drive away but she couldn’t risk the noise of her engine starting. Her logo was emblazoned on the van, making an anonymous getaway impossible. It would be a siren call to whoever had fired that shot to come after her, too.
Shivers wracked her. From shock or an adrenaline rush, she had no idea as she hunkered down and willed herself to be one with the damp squishy ground and prickly hay bales. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed 911.
CHAPTER 2
Detective Riordan Ortega pressed the gas pedal to the floor as he sped along the farm road that led to the Weddings and More Barn. Rio wanted to get to the call before the other SVPD units made it.
He liked to be the first on the scene to any major crime in town. It had nothing to do with who’d called in the gunshot, and everything to do with his instinctual sense of the ticking clock when it came to crime. The sooner he got the investigation under way, the better chance of catching the culprit.
Silver Valley had always had its share of crime but lately things had been different—busier than he’d ever experienced since joining SVPD a decade ago. They’d just wrapped up the “Female Preacher Killer” case last December, only to be involved full-time in the embezzlement case against the former mayor. Tying up the loose ends on three murders by the serial killer had occupied all his time, and he’d been grateful that the Treasury Department had come into play for the mayor’s case. Because of the embezzlement charges and large amounts of money at stake, the Secret Service had been alerted and then pulled in their former boss, the US Department of Treasury. Secret Service was under Homeland Security these days but Rio still worked with many of the agents he’d met when he’d started on SVPD. Rio loved his job and knew he was good at it, but making sense out of columns of numbers wasn’t something that turned him on.
Unlike Kayla Paruso.
Shit. Kayla.
She’d called in the emergency. A shoot-out right now, so close to the mayor’s daughter’s wedding, was too suspicious for Rio. Mayor Charbonneau and his gang of thugs were trouble, and had been since they’d arrived in town, coincidentally at the same time as the newest Silver Valley residents, who were trying to set up a cult on the outskirts of town. Rio didn’t believe in coincidences, not when it came to criminal behavior.
“What’s your ETA, Rio?” The dispatcher spoke in his ear.
“Two minutes, tops. Anything new?”
“Caller isn’t talking. She’s kept the line open and we’re hearing shouts.”
Mother of God, please let her be okay. Keep Kayla safe.
The first time he’d seen her she was delivering a bunch of flowers to the station for one of the female cops. He couldn’t remember a thing about the delivery except for Kayla’s huge blue eyes and golden blond hair. And the way her black tights had displayed her long legs and perfect full ass. He’d imagined the breasts hidden by her jean jacket as full and luscious, and he hadn’t been disappointed when they’d made love on the one occasion he’d ignored his personal credo to remain unencumbered. He’d stopped by her flower shop and asked her out. And taken her to his bed, in his torn-apart home on the edges of town.
He’d since finished the renovations on the house, one a Realtor friend of his had stumbled upon three years ago. It was perfect for a flipper but after pouring his sweat and blood into the hardwood floors, he’d decided to keep the single-story rambler on the edge of one of Silver Valley’s farm fields.
He’d imagined taking Kayla there after he’d finished it, when the dust had settled and it was a proper home. He wanted to show her he wasn’t a complete jerk who dated women only for sex. That he wasn’t going to be the guy who loved her and left her. Because it hadn’t been “only” sex with Kayla. But she’d been long gone and they’d been long over before he ever had the chance to bring her home again.
Kayla.
The lack of information from the dispatcher annoyed him.
“Anything new?”
“Nothing, Rio.”
“Has she tried to text anything?”
“No, we told her to sit tight and stay quiet until responders arrive.”
“How close are the other units?”
“Patrol two-three-three is five minutes out.”
“Where the hell were they?” At this rate none of them would be there in enough time to save anyone.
The taste of bile rose in the back of his throat and he cursed.
“What’s that, Rio?”
“Nothing.”
He had to keep it together. Nothing had ever distracted him from his life’s purpose: serving the public. He’d known he wanted to be a police officer since he was eight years old, when his uncle Jimmy had given him a tour of the station in Harrisburg and he’d fallen in love with the way the police department employees had laughed and joked with each other as though the job was nothing but fun.
Only later, as a rookie, had he learned why they really joked with each other. It was to alleviate the deep sense of duty that sometimes weighed unbearably heavy because of the brutal realities of their jobs. The violence, the senseless killings. The gore.
Not Kayla. Not on his watch.
* * *
The phone lay muted on top of the hale bay next to her, the screen turned off to prevent anyone from seeing her. Some reptilian part of her brain shouted at Kayla to slither under the bales and simply hide until the police arrived.
Where was Keith when she needed his savvy?
She prayed that she could somehow channel her brother’s firefighting survival instinct. Because things weren’t getting any quieter inside the barn and she needed some kind of crime-scene smarts.
Rio would be the best help here.
She gave herself a quick, silent shake in the darkness. This wasn’t the time to revisit that hurt.
Stay alive.
Kayla knew better than to go inside and try to help whoever was struggling with the owner of the low voice. From what she could gather it was one man and one woman and they weren’t talking about anything pleasant.
But the woman’s voice had gotten quieter since the gunshot. Maybe the shot hadn’t been intended to hurt anyone, and this was some kind of crazy domestic argument. Kayla heard the woman’s humming voice as she spoke to the angry man. The man’s voice conveyed a fury that had Kayla quaking.
Kayla wondered if she was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t a gunshot she’d heard, but something else, maybe a piece of furniture overturning.
She rested against the barn wall, behind the stacked bales. It was wet and cold and smelled of alfalfa. The one plant on the entire planet that Kayla was allergic to. She wasn’t worried about her watery eyes or itchy nose, though. Not yet.
First, she needed to survive whatever was going on, and hoped it wasn’t anything more than her overactive imagination.
The door shook as a heavy object hit it, followed by the creak of the hinges and a loud slamming. Kayla moved slowly, needing to see what was happening. As she peered between two bales, she made out the open door. It was a yawning black hole, indicating the lights had been turned off.
Shuffling, a grunt or two, crying. Soft, pain-filled crying.
“Help me, someone.” The low, raspy plea reached her ears and it felt as though Kayla was as injured as the woman. If there was any way she could help her...
Kayla stood up from her crouch and looked over the stack of bales. A prone figure lay in the walkway, a woman. The harsh glare of the overhead security lights illuminated dark hair and a business outfit—skirt and jacket. On her stomach, she leaned on her forearms as if she was in a yoga sphinx pose. Kayla immediately recognized her. Scanning the entire area as much as it was feasible while behind the bales, she didn’t see anyone else. The man must have left.
“Meredith!” she whispered as loudly as possible.
“Help. Me.”
Kayla rose to do just that when a shot rang through the night, and Meredith’s head slammed into the ground.
Oh no.
Kayla pressed against the hay, her heartbeat and the ringing from the gunshot loud in her ears. She didn’t know if she was hidden from the killer or if she needed to make a run for it.
She’d never outrun a bullet.
The sound of approaching footsteps was quickly followed by the sound of something scraping and a grunt. A loud thwack as an object hit the ground. Peering through the hay bale, she could only see Meredith’s hands, still as her head lay between them, a briefcase with file folders splayed in front of her where a dark spot grew into a larger circle. Blood. She wished the side light of the barn door wasn’t so bright—the image of Meredith bleeding out would be burned into Kayla’s mind.
Someone cleared his or her throat. She heard the distinct sound of a zipper and then the sound of liquid hitting the side of the barn.
The killer was taking a leak?
“It’s done. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The sound of the deep voice, obviously making a phone call, startled Kayla and she stumbled, landing on the damp ground with a soft thud.
“Who’s there?”
The harsh voice matched the throat clearing, the furious man she’d heard before. She was in trouble. Kayla crawled on her belly around to the other side of the bales and without stopping rose to her feet and ran for her life.
* * *
Rio’s headlights illuminated the open side door of the barn and the figure in front of it. He saw a dark shape darting toward the back of the barn as he got out of his vehicle. As he chased the assailant, weapon drawn, the figure blended into the darkness that surrounded the barn. Rio swore under his breath and tapped the microphone on his communication gear.
“Suspect ran into the fields behind the barn. Do we have units on the other side of the woods? I’m turning back to investigate a possible victim near the east side door.”
“Roger that, Rio.”
“Send a unit to Waverly Street to intercept possible escape.” Waverly bisected the wooded area the dark figure had vanished into.
Heading back to the barn, he let out a silent thank-you that the female lying outside wasn’t Kayla—the hair was too dark, the woman too tall. As he drew closer he saw that not only was she facedown, but she’d also been shot in the back of the head. Blood stained the ground around her head in a black halo. He kneeled to feel for a carotid pulse. The entire left side of her head was gone.
Muttering another oath, he searched for the pulse just in case. Just in case the blood and torn flesh looked worse than the real injury.
Unfortunately, his initial assessment was correct. As he expected, there was no pulse.
“I’ve got a dead female, probable homicide. Call in forensics and the coroner.”
“Have you located the caller yet, Rio?”
“No joy. Still looking.” His gaze landed on her van. “Going to investigate her van.”
“Do not go into the van or barn without backup, sir.”
What the dispatcher was telling him was standard protocol. But Kayla could be in either place, bleeding out. He couldn’t stand on protocol.
“Kayla!” He called over and over, pulling open the doors of her van as he searched for any sign of her.
Nothing.
Her phone.
He directed his frustration at dispatch. “She still on the line?”
“The line’s still open but there hasn’t been any communication since about seven minutes ago.”
It felt as if he’d been on the case for days instead of ten minutes. But time was never reliable during the heat of a crime. Judging from how warm the victim’s body was, she’d been breathing just minutes earlier.
“Has anyone intercepted the suspect?”
“No, but local residents in the neighboring subdivision report someone running through their yards, alerting dogs. One caller saw someone dressed in black get into a late-model sedan and drive away.”
“Did they get plates?”
“No. We’ve got a sheriff’s chopper inbound.”
A single assailant so far. Either he’d shot Kayla, too, and she was on the ground nearby, or she was still hiding, worried for her
life.
“Kayla!” He ran back to the barn and entered the kitchen, flipping on the light switch next to the door. The commercial illumination revealed a scene of total chaos. Pots and pans of all sizes were everywhere. A butcher block had been knocked over and several chef knives were strewn over the tiled floor. One knife lay closest to the door, blood on it.
“Kayla!”
“I’m here.”
He spun around, weapon drawn, his aim steady.
“It’s me, Rio. Kayla. Or don’t you remember?”
Slowly he lowered his gun and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. Never had the sight of someone been so welcome. A charge of hot attraction went from his heart to his dick, and if there wasn’t a dead body that needed tending to outside of the kitchen they stood in, he knew he’d have her in his arms and laying across the prep table, naked, in a minute flat. So much for his professional pride.
“Kayla.”
He saw the wariness in her eyes. Not fear from the shock of what she’d just been through, but what he’d put there when he’d never called her back after she told him she couldn’t see him anymore.
Even that wasn’t enough to keep her from catapulting herself into his arms, forcing him to take a step back. His butt hit the edge of the prep table as his arms went around her, and he felt a sudden flash of regret that they weren’t here as lovers, instead of as a murder witness and cop.
CHAPTER 3
Sirens screamed through the night as uncontrollable shudders shook her shoulders and made her legs quake. For just this moment, she allowed the strength and certainty of Rio’s embrace to hold her up as they stood outside, waiting. She didn’t refuse the comfort his arms gave. His heartbeat was strong and reassuring under her left ear. She pressed her head harder against his chest, her arms tight around his waist.