“You look like you’re having doubts about me kissing you.”

Jake smiled and lifted one hand from the roof of the truck. Just the tip of his index finger touched Kylie’s cheek, and the incredible urge to rub against him shot through her. Slowly he drew that fingertip to her chin. He tilted her head back so she couldn’t look anywhere but at him, his gaze dark and intense with hunger. He wanted to kiss her, needed to. He leaned closer, and she tried to close her eyes but couldn’t break his gaze.

“Aren’t you?”

His smile was faint and rueful. “I could fall for you real easily.”

“But you’re not sticking around.”

“And we’re adversaries.”

“Partners,” she corrected.

“Maybe we should leave it at that. No complications. No broken hearts,” he murmured.

And then he kissed her anyway.

More Than a Hero
Marilyn Pappano

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARILYN PAPPANO

brings impeccable credentials to her career—a lifelong habit of gazing out windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasn’t crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then, she’s sold more than forty books to various publishers and even a film production company.

She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the yard that never stops growing and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches. You can write to her at P.O. Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067-0643.

Dear Reader,

Love at first sight—I’m not sure I believe in it precisely, but I’m living proof that you can know pretty darn quickly when you’ve met “the one.” That was exactly how I felt soon after meeting my husband, Bob. Within a few weeks we were engaged, and in less than five months we were married. Now we’re closing in on thirty years together, and never once did I doubt that he was “the one.”

The senator’s daughter and the writer start out as adversaries, but it takes them mere days to realize that they’re meant to be. Fate, destiny—in the beginning, Jake’s not sure what to call it, but by the end, he and Kylie both realize that it’s not how long you’ve known each other that matters, it’s how well. And that, in their case, fate and destiny are just other words for the real thing: love.

Hope you enjoy their journey!

Marilyn Pappano

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Chapter 1

If Jake Norris had ever had a shy bone in his body, six years of interviewing people about traumatic events in their lives had chased it away. He was never at a loss for words and didn’t mind asking tough questions with tough answers. He was skilled at getting people who didn’t want to talk to do just that and he hadn’t yet met the person he couldn’t persuade to tell him something.

Until now. Who would have guessed that person would be a teenage girl whose chin barely topped his belly button?

“Look, I just want to talk to Senator Riordan for a couple minutes—five, tops.” That was probably about how long it would take Riordan to figure out who he was and throw him out of his office.

“You don’t have an appointment,” the girl said for the third time.

“I know. I didn’t know what time I’d be getting into town today.” First lie. He’d spent last night in a motel on the northeast side of Oklahoma City, slept in late and made the final hour’s drive into Riverview that afternoon. “But if the senator’s not busy—”

“The senator only sees people who have appointments.”

“Oh, come on. He’s a senator. If his constituents drop by to have a little chat, don’t tell me he turns them away.”

She fixed her gaze, enormous behind a pair of thicklensed glasses, on him. “You’re not one of his constituents.”

“No,” he agreed. “I’m not. But pretend I am. Does the senator have a few minutes to see me?”

“No. Not without an appointment.”

Was that Riordan’s usual policy? Or had it been instituted sometime in the past week—on Wednesday, maybe, right after Jake had tried to make an appointment with Harold Markham, retired judge and Riordan’s good friend? “Can I make an appointment?”

The girl pulled a business card from the holder on the desk and offered it to him. “Call that number anytime between eight and four.”

He glanced at the card. “This is the office number. It rings right here at your desk.”

She looked at the phone as if it might ring at any moment and prove him right. “I don’t do appointments. I’d better get…” Her voice trailed off as she scurried away from the desk. When she disappeared behind a door at the end of the hall, he sighed and turned away.

He’d driven from his home in Albuquerque to Riverview to conduct interviews, do research and take photos for his next book. He wrote true-crime books, and the subject he’d chosen for his sixth book was one of the town’s few claims to fame, along with Senator Riordan and the aforementioned Judge Markham. It was, no doubt, something most of the town would rather leave forgotten in the past—but they weren’t still paying for it every day of their lives.

Charley Baker, who woke up every morning behind the walls of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, was. He said he was innocent. Every inmate Jake had ever met said the same thing. But there was a difference: he believed Charley.

Charley didn’t have an affair with Jillian Franklin. Didn’t kill her. Didn’t kill her husband. Didn’t leave their three-year-old daughter alone in the house overnight with her parents’ bodies. Didn’t send his ten-year-old son in the next morning to “discover” them. Didn’t deserve to have spent twenty-two years in prison.

Despite his own bias, Jake’s plan for this project was to write an accurate account of the Franklin murders. He just wanted the facts. He wanted to study the details, to know that the authorities had done their jobs fairly, without any agendas of their own. Whatever the evidence told him, that was the story he would write.

If the evidence told him Charley hadn’t been wrongly convicted…

His fingers knotted into a fist.

“Can I help you?”

He turned to find himself facing the munchkin again. Standing beside her was a woman—make that a goddess—in blue. She was tall, slender, with blond hair pulled up and back in a kind of sensual mess, with pale golden skin, pink lips and brown eyes. He’d always had a weakness for blondes with brown eyes. Her dress was simple and elegant, her heels low and sensible, and her legs were damn fine.

And she had spoken to him.

“I was trying to get past your guard dog here—” he gestured toward the girl, and for an instant he would have sworn she’d bared her teeth “—to get a few minutes of the senator’s time.”

“We pay her to not let anyone past.” She sounded as good as she looked—a bit of an Oklahoma twang, feminine, firm. He wondered what her relationship with Riordan was. Purely business? Not likely.

“You’re getting your money’s worth.”

The blonde smiled coolly. “We always do. Lissa, you can get back to work.”

The girl returned to her desk, all of ten feet away, but made no secret of the fact that she was watching them.

“I’d like to see the senator.”

“He’s out.”

“When will he be back?”

“Next week.” Seeing his skepticism, the blonde went on. “He’s on a well-deserved vacation.”

“Let’s see…it’s too early for his annual ski trip to Aspen and not time yet for his annual hunting trip to Montana. Maybe his annual fishing trip to the Florida Keys?” Just how hard could the man work that he deserved three expensive vacations a year?

A muscle twitched in the blonde’s jaw, and steel underlay her voice. “That’s private. Can I ask what your business with him is?”

Rocking back on his heels, he grinned. “That’s private.”

“Well, Mr….”

“Norris. Jake Norris.” He extended his hand, and she shook it without so much as a hint that she’d rather not. Her skin was soft, her palm warm, her fingers quick to squeeze, then relax.

She didn’t recognize his name, which told him two things: she wasn’t a reader of true-crime books, and Riordan hadn’t mentioned him to her. Because he didn’t take Jake seriously? More likely because he thought he could handle Jake. Jim Riordan was accustomed to things going his way. Personally and professionally, he’d always gotten what he wanted. And he probably saw this situation as more of the same. He was in for a surprise.

“Well, Mr. Norris, if you won’t tell me what this is about, then I suggest you schedule an appointment with the senator after his return.”

“Yeah, right, like that’s going to work,” he muttered. He would get the same treatment Markham had given him—I’m not interested. Leave it alone. There’s nothing to discuss. He considered it a moment, then decided he had nothing to lose by telling her. Riverview was a small town. Everyone would know why he was there by noon the next day. “All right. I want to talk to him about Charley Baker.”

She glanced at Lissa, seated in front of the computer. With a flurry of keystrokes, the girl leaned closer to the screen, then began culling facts from the text there. “Charley Baker…tried and convicted in the murders of Bert and Jillian Franklin…the senator prosecuted the case…trial lasted two and a half days…jury deliberated twenty minutes…sentence was life in prison.”

“Lissa’s working on the senator’s biography.” The blonde smiled affectionately at her. “She knows everything.”

“Everything? How did Riverview get its name? No river, no view…”

Lissa pushed her glasses back into place. “The original town was called Ethelton, after the founder’s wife. But no one liked it, so after Ethel died they settled on Riverview. They thought it would attract people to at least visit and that some of them would stay even after finding out there wasn’t a river.”

She sounded so serious that Jake resisted the urge to grin. He simply nodded as the blonde turned back to him. “It sounds fairly cut-and-dried. What is your interest in Mr. Baker?”

“I’m working on his biography,” he retorted, then relented. “I’m researching a book about the Baker/Franklin case.”

“I can’t imagine there’s enough of an interest there to fill a book.”

“Then you should read more.”

The steeliness returned. “I can’t imagine anyone outside Riverview would be interested.”

“People are always interested in other people’s suffering.”

“And you exploit that.” This time she made no effort to hide what she thought.

“Oh, come on. You can’t look too far down on me. You work for Senator James Riordan, who buys, sells and trades influence just like the guy down the street does cars. He’d do anything for a vote. He had his fifteen-year-old daughter out on the campaign trail with him only a week after her mother died, parading this grief-stricken kid with puffy red eyes in front of the world so he could get the sympathy vote.”

It was too late when he became aware of the change in the air. He could actually feel the anger coming off her in waves. That muscle in her jaw twitched again, and her eyes chilled. She glared at him, her breathing shallow but even. Then, after a moment, utterly controlled, she turned away and walked to the desk. “Would you prefer a morning or afternoon appointment?”

“Afternoon. Late. I’m not a morning person.”

She made a note in the appointment book, then on the back of a business card, and handed the card to him. Thursday, 8:00 a.m.

“A little passive-aggressive, aren’t we?” he murmured as he slid the card into his hip pocket.

“Be on time, Mr. Norris. The senator doesn’t rearrange his schedule for people who can’t keep theirs.” Turning on her heel, she walked back down the hall and into her office and quietly closed the door.

Moving to the desk, he scanned the appointment book, still open to the next week. “What schedule?” His name was the only one on the calendar pages.

Lissa snatched the book away and closed it.

With a curt nod to the girl, he left the office and walked the half block to his truck. He’d been in town less than thirty minutes and he’d already pissed off Riordan’s receptionist and whoever the hell the blonde was. He was breaking his own record for bringing hostility in his subjects out into the open.

But he wasn’t writing this book to make friends. All he wanted was the truth—for Charley’s sake. For his.

Because he was Charley’s son. And he’d discovered the Franklins’ bodies.

Jake Norris was an arrogant, obnoxious, exploitive, bottom-feeding vulture.

He was also, according to the Internet, an acclaimed author in the true-crime genre. Heir to Ann Rule’s throne…nonfiction in his capable hands is every bit as captivating as the best thrillers…his page-turners set a high standard….

Kylie Riordan sat back in her chair and studied the photograph on the screen. Dark hair short enough to require a trim every few weeks. Eyes much darker than her own. Straight nose. Strong jaw. Nice mouth. His dark coloring hinted at Indian or Latino heritage, and his smile hinted at the arrogance she’d already experienced for herself.

The only bio she could find was short and told little: Jake Norris got his start in the newspaper business. The author of five books, he makes his home in New Mexico. A private man, apparently…who considered everyone else’s lives fair game for his books. Vulture.

Albeit a handsome one.

She signed off and picked up the notes she’d been working on earlier. Before she’d gotten her pen poised to continue, though, she set it and the pad down again and turned her chair to gaze out the window. At her father’s insistence, she had the best office in the building, because she spent more time there than he did. Dark wood and hunter-green walls, a sitting area with a fireplace and large windows that looked out on the courthouse square across the street—it was a pleasant place to work.

She could sit there all day watching people come and go and never see a face she didn’t recognize. As the senator’s daughter, it was her job to know everyone in his hometown; as his aide, it was her job to know everything about them.

She already knew more than enough about Jake Norris. He wanted to write a book about her father, whom he obviously didn’t hold in the highest regard. He profited from others’ suffering. He was smug. And handsome.

Not that she held looks against a man. She appreciated a handsome man, especially one whose black T-shirt tucked into his snug-fitting jeans to display impressive muscles. Who didn’t look as if he spent too much time at a desk. Who didn’t look as if he was always on in case someone happened to recognize him.

No, she was as susceptible to a handsome face as any woman, though she wasn’t always free to take advantage. From the time she was in the first grade her mother had repeatedly reminded her who she was—a representative of not only her father and her mother but also of the Riordan and Colby families. She’d lived her entire twenty-seven years thinking of reputations, considering consequences. As a result, Kylie Riordan had led a very dull life.

A man like Jake Norris could change that.

If he wiped that smug smile off his face.

There was a rap at the door, then Lissa came in. “I’m going home unless you need me to stay.”

Kylie glanced at her watch. Officially the office closed at four. Realistically it closed when Lissa left, usually sometime after five. Depending on the senator’s schedule—whether there was a dinner to attend, a speech to give, an interview to tape—Kylie called it a day around six. When he was out of town, her evenings were her own. Dinner alone. Television alone. Bed alone.

A very dull life.

“No, Lissa, go on. Have some fun.”

Lissa smiled as if she didn’t quite grasp the meaning of Kylie’s words, took a step back, then stopped. “That guy who was here today…what do you think about him writing a book about the senator?”

“I think he’s wasting his time.”

“He seems to sell a lot of books. His numbers on Amazon.com are really good, even for his older books. And in one of them—it came out last year—he found new evidence that got a convicted felon a new trial after fifteen years in prison, and he was acquitted.”

Kylie refused to admit she was impressed. “Was there ever any question of Charley Baker’s guilt?”

Lissa shook her head. “He was having an affair with Mrs. Franklin. He wanted her to leave her husband and daughter and run away with him. When she refused, he killed her, and when her husband walked in, he killed him, too. Thank God he let Therese live.”

Kylie blinked. She hadn’t made the connection earlier between the case and Therese Franklin, the shy young woman who lived down the street from her. Therese had been taken in by her grandparents after her parents’ deaths, and after they’d raised her into her teens, she’d begun caring for them in their declining years. Her grandfather had died just a few months ago, and Kylie had heard talk about her grandmother being placed in a nursing home.

“Perhaps after Mr. Norris learns about the story he’ll see it’s not worth his time.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” Lissa persisted. “The senator’s campaign for the governor’s office is just getting started. This could have a very negative impact.”

Rising from her chair, Kylie circled the desk and slid her arm around Lissa’s shoulders. “My father didn’t prosecute the wrong man,” she assured her as she eased her through the door and down the hall. “He didn’t send an innocent man to prison. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She wasn’t the only one who’d been ever conscious of reputation and consequences. Her father had known from the time he was ten years old that he wanted a career in politics. He’d never had more than one drink in public and never got behind the wheel of a car after that one drink. He’d never fudged a dime on his tax returns, never accepted money from special interest groups, never looked twice at another woman while his wife had still been alive. He’d lived above reproach as a father, a husband, a man and—despite Norris’s accusation to the contrary—a politician.

There was nothing Jake Norris could do to threaten her father’s career.

“Okay,” Lissa said when they reached the reception area. “I won’t worry…yet. See you tomorrow.”

Kylie waited for her to step outside, then turned the key in the lock. With a wave, she returned to her office, settled behind her desk and picked up her notes again. The senator was giving a speech to a veterans’ group in Oklahoma City two weeks after his vacation ended, and she had a rough outline sketched out. He’d done a tour in the Army after high school—because he was patriotic, because he’d needed the college tuition assistance and because he’d known it would come in handy down the road when he was seeking votes. No doubt Norris would see that as calculating, but Kylie defined it as smart. Without voters, no one would ever get the chance to make a difference in office—and the senator had made a difference.

But when forty-five minutes had passed while her thoughts roamed everywhere except the speech, Kylie put the pages in her bag, shut off the lights and left the office. For a moment she simply stood on the sidewalk out front, letting the evening’s warmth seep into her bones. It was the third week of October, and the weather was warm with just a hint of the chills to come. The leaves had started changing colors, and the occasional whiff of wood smoke in the air made her think of weenie roasts and campfires and burning piles of leaves.

She loved Riverview. “‘No river, no view,’” she mimicked as she started down the street. The rolling hills, pastures and cultivated fields provided plenty of great views. It was a lovely little town in a lovely part of the state, and if Norris didn’t like it, he was more than welcome to leave.

She doubted she would be that lucky. But handling nuisances was nothing new. That, too, was part of her job.

When she reached her car halfway down the block, she took a deep breath. The Tuesday dinner special at the Riverfront Grill was baby back ribs, rich, smoky and sticky with secret sauce. If she went home, she would have a salad or a frozen dinner in front of the television—probably better for her hips but not for her mental state. Turning away from the car, she covered the few remaining yards to the restaurant, greeted everyone by name and was shown to a booth at the front window.

No sooner had the waitress left after taking her order, a shadow fell across the table—no doubt one of her very popular father’s friends or acquaintances. She glanced up, first seeing a pair of jeans so faded that they were practically white, hugging a pair of narrow hips so snugly she couldn’t help but think for one instant about exactly what they cradled.

Heat seeping into her cheeks, she forced her gaze upward, across a simple belt—leather, brown, no tooling—and a T-shirt that could be had for six bucks at the local Wal-Mart. Half the men in town wore similar shirts every day. None of them looked half as good.

Jake Norris’s expression was a mix of chagrin and suspicion. “You should have told me you were his daughter.”

She unrolled the napkin in front of her, left the silverware on the table and spread the white linen across her lap. “When I asked your name, you should have shown a little interest in mine. Besides, you learn such interesting things when people are being honest rather than tactful.”

He took a drink from the frosted mug he held, the muscles in his arm flexing as he lifted, his throat working as he swallowed. Something about the action struck her as sensual, though she rejected the thought as soon as it popped into her head. He was drinking beer. Period. It was nothing to raise a woman’s temperature.

“I apologize if I offended you.”

“If?” she repeated mildly.

“But, in fairness, you accused me of exploiting other people’s suffering.”

“Isn’t that what you do? Dig into traumatic events, lay them out bare for everyone to see, then pocket their money?”

Without waiting for an invitation, he slid onto the opposite bench. “How many of my books have you read, Ms. Riordan?”

“None.”

“Then doesn’t it seem wise to withhold judgment until you know what you’re talking about?”

She smiled faintly at the waitress as she returned with a tall glass of iced tea. “Fine. I apologize for calling you a vulture.”

The insult brought a grin to the mouth she had inadequately described as “nice.” It was a great mouth—a really sexy mouth, especially with that bold, brash, amused grin. “You didn’t call me a vulture,” he pointed out. “At least not to my face. Were you and Lissa talking about me after I left?”

“No, of course not.” It wasn’t a total lie. Those few minutes of calming Lissa’s worries didn’t count.

“So you were talking to yourself when you called me a vulture. Some people consider that worrisome. Not me, though. I talk to myself a lot when I’m working.” He set the beer on the table and laced long, strong fingers around the stein. “What did you think of the reviews?”

“What reviews?”

He grinned again, and she had to admit that, arrogance aside, there was a certain charm to it. “Aw, come on. Don’t tell me that you or the munchkin didn’t go online as soon as I was gone to find out what you could about me.”

Rather than admit the truth, she frowned. “Don’t call Lissa that.”

“So…what did you think?” Norris prompted.

Kylie summoned a cool smile. “I think you’re smug and conceited, but I didn’t have to go to the Internet to learn that.”

“I’m not conceited. I’m confident. There’s a difference.”

“But you admit to being smug?”

He shrugged. “No one’s perfect.”

She liked his easy manner. Liked his grin. Was even starting to kind of like his smugness…until he went on.

“Including your father.”

Her spine stiffened. “You think the senator mishandled the Baker case.”

Another easy shrug rippled the fabric of his shirt. “I think Charley is innocent.”

“Why? Because he told you so?”

The easiness disappeared in a flash—no doubt chased away by her snide tone. “I’m not naive, Ms. Riordan. I’ve spent a lot of time with more convicted murderers than you can even name. They write me letters, call me, send me e-mails. They tell me things they’ve never told anyone else. Yes, Charley told me he’s innocent. My gut tells me he’s innocent. More importantly, the evidence raises reasonable doubt.”

Kylie leaned back, crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. A body-language expert would say her posture meant she was closed off, not open to hearing what Norris had to say, and he would be right. She knew her father—knew his morals, ethics and beliefs. He didn’t send the wrong man to prison. “Such as?”

“The whole basis for Charley’s arrest and conviction was his affair with Jillian Franklin, and yet there was no evidence that it ever happened. No one ever saw them together. His wife swears his time was pretty much accounted for—if he wasn’t at work, he was with her or their son. Jillian never mentioned him to any of her friends. His fingerprints weren’t found anywhere in the house. Nothing connects them.”

“Illicit affairs are generally conducted in secret.”

“This affair appears to have been fabricated to serve as a motive for Charley to kill Jillian.”

Anger swept through Kylie with a force that made her tremble. “My father never fabricated evidence.”

“I didn’t say he did. It could have been the sheriff’s department.”

“All you have is Charley Baker’s side of the story, and he’s in prison. He obviously can’t be trusted. You know nothing of the facts.”

He remained as calm as she wasn’t. “That’s what I’m here for. The facts—or an approximation thereof.”

“So you can include them in your book—or an approximation thereof,” she said sarcastically.

He merely smiled. “My books are as accurate as they can be under the circumstances. I rely on trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, public record, interviews, letters—whatever sources I can find. The most recent crime I’ve written about took place eleven years ago. Time affects people’s memories. They want to make themselves look better—or, on occasion, worse—than they really were. I present what I find and I let the readers draw their own conclusions.”

“And hope for a new trial to boost the sales of your book.”

His grin was unexpected and all the more powerful for it. “So you did look me up.”

She stared stonily at him. “You won’t get a new trial out of this one. If my father believed Charley Baker was guilty, he was guilty.”

They were sitting there staring at each other when the waitress approached with a platter of ribs, baked beans and coleslaw. “You planning to eat here or go back to your table?”

Norris held Kylie’s gaze a moment longer before turning to the waitress. “I’m going back to my table.” As she walked away, he slid to the edge of the bench, stood up, then grimly said, “No one’s father is infallible. Not mine, and sure as hell not yours. Enjoy your meal, Ms. Riordan. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

She knew it was petty, but as he walked away she muttered, “Not if I see you first.”

Jake’s motel was about a mile from downtown, a small place that had started life as a motor court back in the heyday of getting your kicks on Route 66. Tiny stone buildings, each consisting of a bedroom and a bath, formed a semicircle around the office, disguised as a giant concrete tepee. It was tacky, but his room had a high-speed Internet connection and plenty of space to spread out. That—and running water—was all he needed.

He parked in the narrow space that separated his room from the next and climbed out of his truck as a white car slowed to a stop behind it. The seal of the Riverview Police Department decorated the door.

He took his duffel bag, an attaché and the backpack that held his computer from the passenger side, slung the straps over his shoulders, then stood a moment in the fading light, trading looks with the young officer behind the wheel. Jake didn’t speak, and neither did the cop, though he did make a show of calling in Jake’s tag number to the dispatcher.

Resisting a grin, Jake climbed the steps and let himself in, flipping on lights as he went. The chief criminal investigator for the Davis County Sheriff’s Department twenty-two years ago was Coy Roberts, currently Riverview police chief. If he thought Jake could be intimidated by a cop barely old enough to shave, he was mistaken.

He’d expected a lack of cooperation from the primary subjects in the case. He suspected they’d arrested, prosecuted and condemned the wrong man. If it was merely a mistake, they, like most people in authority, wouldn’t want to admit it. If it was deliberate, naturally they would want to hide it. After all, they had reputations, careers and freedom to protect.

Reputations and careers made off Charley’s case. Coy Roberts had been elected sheriff six weeks after Charley’s conviction. Jim Riordan had been elected to the district attorney’s office soon after. The case had been a boost to Judge Markham’s bid for a seat on the state supreme court, and Charley’s court-appointed lawyer, Tim Jenkins, had parlayed the media attention into a big-bucks criminal defense career.

Everyone had come out of Charley’s case better off than before. Except Charley.

Jake booted up the computer on the square table that served as a desk, then signed online. He checked his e-mail, then Googled Kylie Riordan.

He got a lot of hits, most of them having to do with her father. She worked for him and had since graduating from Oklahoma University and according to an article on old oil families, she still lived in the family mansion. That aside, he found only one entry of any real interest.

Senator’s Daughter to Wed, the headline read. There’d been no mention of a Riordan son-in-law in the search he’d done. She still used her maiden name and she’d worn no ring on her left hand. So what had happened to the wedding?.

The article was from the Riverview paper, three years old, and focused as much on the senator as on Kylie. The prospective groom was, at the time, a lawyer as well as a newly elected representative to the statehouse, one of the up-and-coming power players.

The photo that accompanied the article was…It seemed wrong for a writer to find himself at a loss for words, but Jake was. There was Kylie, in all her goddess beauty, wearing a smile that could make a man weak, looking beautiful. Sexy. Unattainable.

It was arresting. It would have caught his attention even if he hadn’t had two run-ins with her in the space of a few hours, even if he’d never had the good luck to see her in the delectable flesh.

What she didn’t look like, he thought, was a woman in love. Had she hidden it well? Or had her father arranged the match as some kind of political alliance? Who had called it off—the bride, the groom or the senator? Had she been relieved at her narrow escape or heartbroken by her loss?

He preferred to think relieved.

Without considering his reason, he saved the picture to a folder, then shut down the computer. It wasn’t even eight o’clock—far too early for bed—but he was too restless to work. Taking the computer and the attaché with him, he went back out to the truck, backed out of the parking space and pulled onto Main Street. In the rearview mirror he caught a glimpse of a white car pulling onto the street a hundred yards back. Chief Roberts’s flunky?

There was a lot about Riverview that Jake didn’t remember. He’d lived more places by the time he was ten than most people saw in a lifetime. His father had wanderlust, his mother had liked to say. For a time it had charmed her, but then she’d gotten tired of the moves, the new jobs, trying to make a place a home for a few weeks or a few months but never more than a year. Since the divorce, she’d lived in the same small town. She’d put down roots and nurtured them carefully.

Jake drove the length of Main Street, then Markham Avenue, the other primary thoroughfare. The school he’d attended for six or eight months was located two blocks off both streets, its red brick more familiar than any other place he’d seen. Sacred Heart Church was on the same corner as before, but the old building was gone, a newer, blander version in its place.

He located the courthouse and jail where Charley Baker had spent his last weeks in Riverview. Chief Roberts’s house, in the neighborhood where all of the town’s old money had settled. Tim Jenkins’s showplace where the new money lived. Judge Markham’s place, stately and impressive, and Senator Riordan’s home, even statelier and more impressive.

Riordan had lived in the house for more than thirty years, but everyone still called it the Colby mansion. He’d had dreams and determination but not much else when he’d married Phyllis Colby and her family fortune. Given her money and his ambition, the only surprise was that he hadn’t already moved into the governor’s office and used it as a springboard to get into politics on the national level.

Built of sandstone blocks, the house reached three stories and was surrounded by grounds that spread over an entire block. A wrought-iron fence kept the lush plantings in and the common folk out. Somewhere inside there Kylie Riordan was…doing what? Watching television? Working? Maybe thinking about Jake?

It would only be fair.

He drove past one other house, where Therese Franklin had lived with her grandparents since her parents’ deaths. It was in the old-money neighborhood, too, though nowhere near as fancy as the Riordan place. But then, nothing in Riverview was.

When he turned back onto Main Street, the same white car followed. It must be a slow night in town if Roberts could assign an officer to watch him.

Or was it a sign of how much Roberts and the others were worried about what Jake might find? If they didn’t have anything to hide, there would be nothing for him to find.

But Jake suspected—hoped?—that was a mighty big if.

Chapter 2

Kylie’s college roommate had described her energy level before sunrise as obscene, and nothing had changed since then. By the time she parked outside the office downtown on Wednesday morning, she’d already run three miles, finished the senator’s veterans’ group speech, made a half dozen phone calls back east and sorted through all his e-mails as well as her own. She’d accomplished enough that she could have taken time for a leisurely breakfast at the tearoom two doors from the office, but instead she was going to have her usual—a protein drink and an orange at her desk.

She’d hardly settled in when the private line rang. Balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder while she peeled thick skin from the orange, she answered with, “Hello, sir.”

The senator chuckled. “How’d you know it was me? It could have been Vaughan.”

She rolled her eyes at the mention of the Speaker of the House, one of a half dozen friends who’d accompanied her father to the Keys. David Vaughan was handsome, charming and ambitious—a younger version of her father, except that while her father aspired only to the governor’s mansion, David’s eye was on the U.S. Senate and beyond. Neither of them made a secret of the fact that they thought she’d make a damn fine senator’s wife or even First Lady.

Not in this lifetime.

“Listen, honey, I wanted to tell you there’s this writer who’s supposed to come to town—”

“Jake Norris.”

Silence for a moment, then her father’s grim voice. “So he’s there. Have you met him?”

“He came by yesterday to see you. He has an appointment for a week from Thursday.”

“Damn. Maybe he’ll give up before then.”

She closed her eyes and an image of Norris appeared, dark and handsome, that whiskey-smooth voice of his saying, I’m not conceited. I’m confident. There’s a difference. He wasn’t going to give up and go away just because everyone wanted him to.

“He’s writing a book about Charley Baker,” she said, refocusing on the orange to get the image out of her mind. “Do you remember the case?”

“It was a double homicide—a death-penalty case. Of course I remember it.”

“Was there any doubt as to Baker’s guilt?”

“None.” The word was bitten off, the tone certain.

“Then why not go over the facts of the case with Norris and be done with it?”

The senator snorted. “The facts are the last thing he’s interested in. Have you read any of his books? He’s an opportunist. He takes things out of context, twists facts, sensationalizes everything. Hell, who’d pay good money to read about an open-and-shut case like Baker’s? There aren’t any unanswered questions. There isn’t any doubt about his guilt. The only one who says Charley Baker is innocent is Charley Baker. His own wife believed he did it. She didn’t even stick around for the trial. She took the kid and disappeared.”

Norris had mentioned a son at the restaurant the night before. Kylie wondered how old he’d been, if she’d seen him around town, spoken to him or played with him. Probably not. She’d been only five at the time of the murders, and her world had pretty much been limited to the few blocks surrounding her house. She hadn’t socialized with kids from the wrong part of town—defined by her mother as any part outside their small neighborhood.

“But, sir, if you talk to Norris, at least you’ll know you’ve given him the truth. What he does with it after that is on him.”

He exhaled loudly, a habit to show impatience with her. “We don’t need all this dragged out again, Kylie. It was an ugly time in our town’s history. It just casts Riverview in a bad light. And think of that poor Franklin girl…Pete died just a few months ago, and Miriam’s got to go into the nursing home. Therese is going to be all on her own. She lost her parents once. It’s not fair to make her go through it again just so Jake Norris can make some money.”

His first arguments didn’t carry much weight. Every town had its crime; no one was going to hold a twenty-year-old murder against Riverview. But Therese Franklin…she was such a fragile creature. Horrified by what had happened to her parents, her grandparents had cosseted and protected her to the point of suffocation. She’d had few friends, little freedom and not much of a life. With the current upheavals, how difficult would it be for her to have that old tragedy opened up again?

“She pleaded with me, Kylie,” her father went on. “She begged me to not let Norris do this, and I told her I would do my best to dissuade him. You know I’m a man of my word.”

“What do you want me to do, sir?”

“Stay away from Norris. Don’t talk to him. Discourage anyone else from talking to him.”

She could do that, could put out the word that her father didn’t want anyone cooperating with Norris, and most people in town would close the door in his face. The fact bothered her more than a little. The man wanted information about a case that was public knowledge—a case that was, according to the senator, open-and-shut. No questions, no doubt, no mystery. So why dissuade him from gathering information?

The town’s reputation and Therese’s state of mind aside, her father’s biggest motivation, she suspected, was his planned run for the governor’s mansion. He’d laid out a timetable for himself twenty-odd years ago, and the only deviation had been her mother’s unexpected death. It was his time to be governor, and no one was going to interfere, least of all a convicted murderer and the writer who thought he was innocent.

How much damage could they do? If her father was accurate in describing Norris’s style, a lot, especially when the Senator would face a popular incumbent. Even an unsubstantiated rumor of wrongdoing could upset a sure-to-be-close race.

“Listen, honey, I’ve got to go,” the senator said. “Just promise me you’ll do as I instructed. I’ll call you again later.”

He didn’t wait for her promise before he hung up. He just assumed, as he always did, that of course she would do as he instructed. After all, she always had, hadn’t she?

Slowly she replaced the receiver in its cradle, ate a segment of orange, then went online and ordered one copy of each of Norris’s books. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her father; she did implicitly. She just wanted to see for herself how Norris approached his stories.

That done, she forced her attention to work and succeeded for a time, until she raised her gaze to the window to give them a break from the dull text she was studying. A dusty red pickup had just pulled into the parking space directly in front of the window and Jake Norris climbed out.

His jeans weren’t so faded, his T-shirt was still tight and his boots were beyond scuffed. Dark glasses hid his eyes, though her interest was lower, on the muscles bunching as he swung an apparently heavy backpack over one shoulder. He slammed the door and locked it, then started across the street without so much as a glance in the direction of the office.

Had she wanted him to look? Wanted him to wonder about her? If she was working, if she was watching him, if she was thinking about him?

She would like to say of course not, but honesty wouldn’t let her. He was the sexiest guy she’d run across in ages, as well as the most annoying. Under different circumstances, she would certainly be interested in a discreet short-term fling with him. Under the current circumstances, that wasn’t an option, but even so, it would be nice to know that the interest wasn’t one-sided.

As Norris stepped onto the far curb, Derek West got out of his patrol car and, after waiting for a car to pass, trotted across the street. He went into the courthouse about twenty feet behind Norris. Coincidence? Or was this part of the dissuasion her father had promised Therese? Since he was out of town, he would have called one of his close friends—probably Coy Roberts—to make sure Norris kept his distance from Therese. A little police harassment seemed right up Roberts’s alley.

She sat there a moment, tapping one nail against her desk, before abruptly rising. “Lissa, I’m going to the courthouse,” she called as she passed through the reception area. The girl popped her head out of the file room in time to watch her leave.

She crossed the street and entered through the same side door Norris had gone through. There were any number of offices he could have gone to…but she wasn’t looking for him. She just wanted to see if Derek West was.

The officer was leaning against the wall outside the court clerk’s open door, a broad grin stretching across his face. Voices filtered through the door—Norris’s lower rumble, Martha Gordon’s nasal tones. He sounded angry. She sounded bored. She always did.

Giving Derek a stern look, Kylie entered the office, then closed the door behind her. Norris, leaning on the counter, glanced over his shoulder. For just a moment something flashed in his gaze. Appreciation? Pleasure? Then he turned back to Martha. “You didn’t even check.”

Martha quivered from the top of her gray bun all the way down to the sensible support shoes she always wore. “I don’t need to check.”

“Is there a problem?” Kylie asked, moving to stand a few feet down the counter from Norris.

“This—” Martha’s gaze traveled over what she could see of Norris, and her entire face tightened “—this person wants to see the trial transcript from the Charley Baker murder case. I told him it’s been checked out, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“I asked for the file, and she said it’s not here without even checking,” Norris said, his jaw clenched.

Martha’s face tightened more. If she got any sourer, she would look like a prune. “Why would I waste my time checking when there’s no need? How many requests do you think I get in this office for twenty-some-year-old cases? I can tell you—two. In all the years I’ve been working here.”

“Who checked it out?” Kylie asked.

Martha’s shoulders went back. “That’s private information.”

“Martha,” Kylie chided gently.

Her mouth pursed, Martha went to the card file on her desk, then returned with an index card, handing it to Kylie. Written there in the woman’s imperious hand was Judge Markham’s name, the date he took the file and the date it was due back—several days past. What was his sudden interest in the file?

“Have you called to remind him that it’s past due?” Kylie asked as she returned the card to the clerk.

Martha sniffed haughtily. “I will now that there’s been another request for it.”

“When you have an answer, will you please let me know?” With a polite smile, Kylie caught Norris’s arm and started toward the door.

He dug in his feet, pulling her to a stop. “These files are a matter of public record. You people can’t hide them just because you don’t want anyone else to see them.”

Instead of tugging harder, she squeezed his arm tighter, all too aware of the muscle beneath her fingers that didn’t yield to pressure. “She can’t give you what she doesn’t have,” she said quietly, warningly. “It’s best if you leave now.”

Throwing a dark look at Martha, who returned it balefully, he let Kylie lead him into the corridor. The instant she pushed the door open, Derek West jumped back a few feet, then tried for a show of nonchalance.

Norris let her pull him a few feet before jerking his arm free. She missed the contact immediately and at the same time was grateful for its cessation. She didn’t need to be thinking about the silky-coarse texture of his hair-roughened skin or how he radiated heat or how long it had been since she’d experienced the pure tactile pleasure of touching a man even in so casual a way. If she wanted to touch a man, she could find plenty of volunteers—men who didn’t care who her father was, who didn’t have an agenda, who weren’t her adversary. Who weren’t so complicated. So handsome. So sexy.

“Who has the damn file?” he demanded.

She glanced at Derek, pretending disinterest. “We’ll talk outside.”

He glanced that way, too, then grudgingly nodded. They’d reached the door before Derek pushed away from the wall, and had gone down the half dozen steps before he opened the door. Kylie turned to face him. “Don’t follow me.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Don’t follow him while he’s with me.”

“But—” Derek’s gaze shifted from her to Norris, then back again. Comprehension dawned, though he tried to hide it. “Oh. Okay. Not a problem.” With a nod, he returned inside the building.

Kylie exhaled as she glanced around. They could go to her office or take a seat on a bench in the square. Instead she gestured toward the street. “Let’s walk.”

They’d made it to the corner before Norris asked, “Are you going to report back to Chief Roberts on everything I say?”

“Apparently Derek thinks so.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

They crossed the street and started down the next block. “I don’t report to Chief Roberts.”

“No, you report to the senator, who shares information with the chief, the judge and the lawyer.”

She kept her gaze on the storefronts they passed, each smaller and shabbier the farther they got from the square. “I don’t tell the senator everything,” she said at last.

“But you told him about me.”

“He called this morning to warn me that you were in town. I told him we’d met.”

“And he told you…to stay away from me? Or to stay close enough to be able to track my activities?”

She tilted her head to one side to look up at him, and Jake forgot his question. She was so damn pretty—delicate in a strong sort of way. Her brown eyes were flecked with bits of gold, and she smelled of spices with just a hint of sweetness. If he’d met her at any other time in any other place…

She would still be Senator Riordan’s daughter. He would still be the enemy.

Sunlight glinted off the diamond studs in her lobes as she returned her gaze to the sidewalk ahead. She wore heels again today, but there was nothing low or sensible about them. They brought the top of her head close to his, close enough that if they stopped walking and he turned her to face him, it would take only an inch or two for his mouth to reach hers.

Prove it, one part of him challenged.

Don’t be a fool, another advised.

“The trial transcript was checked out by Judge Markham,” she said.

Jake knew it must have been one of the four. “He’s retired. Why is he still allowed to check out files?” He would have been allowed to look at it there in the court clerk’s office or to have a copy made, but he wouldn’t have been able to take it from the room. Lawyers could take them out, Martha had explained to him before she’d known which file in particular he wanted, but only for a few days.

“As long as his law license is active, he still has that privilege. As the senator’s assistant, I occasionally check out records for him. We can take them for forty-eight hours.”

“And Judge Markham’s had this file for…?”

She sighed. “It was due back last Friday.”

Jake’s smile was thin. He’d tried to set up an interview with the judge the previous Wednesday. The old goat had turned him down, then gotten possession of the transcript. And it was the only copy the court had. Martha had told him that, too.

“Maybe he wanted to refresh his memory before he talked to you. Surely you want to interview him as well as the senator.”

“Maybe. Except that he turned me down when I called him last week. Said he had nothing to say on the matter and hung up on me.”

“So that’s why you just showed up at the senator’s office,” Kylie murmured.

Jake kicked an acorn and sent it tumbling into the yellowing grass alongside the sidewalk. “Do you ever call him Dad?”

Kylie blinked.

“Most people call their fathers Dad or Pop or Father or even by their first names. What do you call yours besides ‘the senator’?”

“Sir,” she answered.

He would have laughed if she hadn’t been serious. That was some kind of warm, loving relationship they shared. What inspired her loyalty to him? It had to be more than just a paycheck.

“So…if I want to see the transcript, I’ve got to get it from Markham.”

She cleared her throat delicately. “It might be best if you let me get it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s a matter of public record. He doesn’t have the right to—to hide it.” She swallowed hard, obviously aware that she was implying wrongdoing on the judge’s behalf and not liking it.

And what if Markham was hiding the transcript on her father’s say-so? Riordan might be out of town, but he was obviously in touch. Someone was keeping him informed…and, possibly, taking orders from him.

“I’ll stop by Judge Markham’s house later today,” she went on. “I’ll—I’ll let you know if I get it.”

They came to a stop at an intersection. They’d left the businesses behind and were in a neighborhood of moderately priced houses. Most of them were old, a few with their original wood siding, the rest updated to aluminum. The yards were roomy, the trees mature, their leaves turning shades of yellow, red and purple. The best friend he’d had in his months there had lived in the middle of the block. Back then, Jake had envied his house, his bike, his roots…but now he couldn’t even remember his name.

“Does it bother you that everyone says this is an open-and-shut case,” he began conversationally, “and yet no one wants to talk about it?”

“A lot people believe the past belongs in the past.” Kylie started across the street to their left, and he followed. On the other side, she turned back in the direction they’d just come.

“Especially people running for governor.”

She gave him a sharp look but didn’t comment. “Just because you’re interested in what happened to Charley Baker doesn’t mean anyone else is.”

“My agent is. My editor. My publisher. I’m already under contract. I’m going to write the book regardless of what your father and his cronies want.”

“What about Therese Franklin? Doesn’t what she wants count?”

He called to mind Therese’s image as she’d been that September—three years old, a girlie girl, looking like an angel with silky brown curls, huge blue eyes, a Cupid’s-bow mouth. She’d been left alone with her parents’ lifeless bodies for at least twelve hours. When they were discovered the next morning, she was sitting next to her mother, blood staining her white nightgown, eyes red from crying.

Did she remember anything from that night? Probably not. Three was mercifully young. But it had changed her life forever. He knew her grandfather had died, knew the grandmother—the last family she had left in the world—had Alzheimer’s and was also dying. This wasn’t the best time to bring her parents’ murders back into the limelight…but there was no best time to relive something like that.

“I haven’t spoken to Therese yet,” he replied. “I don’t know what she wants.”

“The senator has. She doesn’t want you dredging all this up again. She pleaded with him to stop you.”

Guilt niggled down his spine. “I may not need to interview her. She was so young.”

“She’s still so young.”

“She’s twenty-five.”

“The youngest twenty-five you’ll ever meet. The best thing you could do for her is forget this and go away.”

Forget it. As if it could ever be that simple. From the time he’d started his first book, he’d wanted to write about Charley’s case, though he’d found reasons to put it off. He was already contracted for a different book. He was too close to the story. He needed more experience to do it justice. And the worst reason: he hadn’t been sure he could handle what he found out. But then the last book had come out, and the guy had gotten a new trial. Charley had pleaded with him, and he’d known it was time.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I can’t do that. I told you—I’m already under contract. Besides, I made a promise to Charley.”

“And you’d put a convicted murderer ahead of his only surviving victim?”

“You’re very good at thinking the worst of me, you know.”

A flush tinged her cheeks, but she said nothing.

“What if Charley’s telling the truth? What if he’s spent twenty-two years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit? If the real killer is walking around free, still living here in Riverview, still pretending to be an upstanding citizen?”

She shook her head, her diamond stud creating small sun flashes. “There was no other suspect.”

“Because they didn’t look for one.”

“They had no reason to.”

“They had no reason to suspect Charley except that he was convenient. He lived next door. Didn’t have any ties to the town. Didn’t have money for a lawyer. Didn’t have anyone who cared whether he was railroaded into prison.”

“What about his wife? The senator said she believed he was guilty.”

Jake scuffed his boots along the pavement. It was hard to say whether Angela Baker had really believed Charley was guilty. She’d been unhappy for a time before the killings. She’d wanted a different life, a better life, for herself and their son. She’d seen his arrest as the perfect opportunity to move away, change her name and start building that life.

But at one time she’d loved Charley. They’d been married fourteen years—had shared a lot. Today, on the rare occasion she talked about him, all she would say was, I don’t know. Mostly she liked to forget that he existed. Who she was at this moment in time—that was her only reality.

“Back then, she just wanted out,” Jake said. “Now she has doubts. For what it’s worth, his son never doubted him.”

“Children generally don’t doubt their parents.” Her voice was soft, her expression distant. Was she wondering if she was safe in blind loyalty to her father? Did she have even the slightest fear that Jake might uncover evidence that Riordan wasn’t the man she believed him to be?

Would she hate Jake if he did find such proof?

“I’d better get back to work.”

He glanced around and realized they were back where they’d started. The courthouse, tall and imposing, was across the street, the senator’s office a few doors down. The cop she’d called Derek was sitting in the shade near his patrol car, authoritatively watching everyone’s comings and goings. He perked up when he saw them.

“Will you have lunch with me?” Jake asked, turning his back on the cop.

“No. I can’t.”

“Come on. I don’t like eating alone, and you’re the only person I’ve met who doesn’t look at me like I have two heads.”

That earned him a hint of a smile. “Your book places us in an adversarial position, Mr. Norris. I think it’s best if we act as such.”

“The senator’s orders?” he asked while imagining a few other positions he’d rather be in with her.

“I prefer to think of it as advice—good advice.”

“You know I’m attracted to you.”

His candor surprised her. Given that she worked in politics, she probably wasn’t used to blunt honesty. On the heels of the surprise came a rosy flush that tinted her cheeks. “I—I—” She backed away a few steps. “I really need to get back to work.”

He chuckled as she closed the few yards to the office door. As she reached for the handle, he called, “See you around.”

This time, instead of a muttered Not if I see you first, her only response was a slight wave before she disappeared inside the building.

He went to his truck, tossed his backpack inside, then called, “Hey, Derek. You ready to go?”

Harold Markham was in his midseventies, round about the middle and white-haired. Through his religious pursuit of such activities as golf and fishing he maintained a year-round tan that made his eyes a more startling blue in comparison. Startling and suspicious as they fixed on Kylie’s face. “What do you mean you’re here for the transcript?”

Odd. She thought the request was self-explanatory. She’d debated how to approach Judge Markham—whether to be up front and tell him she was returning the file to the court clerk’s office so Norris could check it out, or to blur the truth a little. I told Martha I’d pick up the file and save you both a trip. Or even outright lie: The senator asked me to get the file from you for safekeeping. She’d settled on simply asking for it.

“You do have it, don’t you? Martha told me you checked it out last week. She said you should have brought it back last Friday.” She forced a friendly smile. “You know how she is with her records.”

The judge didn’t smile in return. He simply watched her stonily.

She sighed. Though it was only four o’clock, she’d had a long day filled with distractions. Correction: filled with one big distraction. If she wasn’t catching glimpses of Jake Norris as he drove by the square, she was thinking about him. About his book. The threat the senator presumed him to be. The questions he’d raised. That last comment he’d made.

You know I’m attracted to you. She’d heard a few clever lines and a lot that weren’t, but none had had the power of that simple statement. It had sent an icy shiver down her spine at the same time heat had curled through her belly. She’d wanted to admit that she felt the same, had wanted to agree to lunch, dinner, breakfast and anything—everything—in between. She’d wanted to be wild and wicked and wanton…. But in the end she’d simply been herself.

Kylie Riordan, living a very dull life.

It was for the best. He was a very determined man, and so was her father. Between them was no place to be stuck.

“Missy?”

She refocused on Judge Markham. When she was little, he’d called her Miss Kylie and treated her like a princess. Somewhere along the way he’d dropped the Kylie and switched to Missy, and what had begun as affection had come to feel like condescension. She used the annoyance it stirred to shield her from the guilt as she prepared to lie. “I’m sorry, Judge. The senator called this morning and mentioned the transcript. His message was, naturally, a little vague.”

Judge Markham nodded as if the senator being vague in a private phone call with his daughter made perfect sense.

“He mentioned you and the transcript. I thought he wanted me to take it for safekeeping.”

“What time this morning?”

“Shortly after I arrived at the office.”

He nodded as if that meant something. “Well, he called me this afternoon and told me to destroy it, and that’s what I did. Clearly he recognized the wisdom of my method of safekeeping.” Rising from his chair, he patted her shoulder on his way to the door. He didn’t seem to notice that, despite his clear invitation to leave, she was frozen in her seat.

Destroying court records—that was a felony. Her father couldn’t possibly have suggested…Judge Markham surely must have misunderstood…the senator never would have condoned…

Acid bubbled in her stomach, and her limbs were rigidly locked in place. When her brain finally gave the command to rise, she had to push to her feet, forcibly straightening her knees, mechanically lifting one foot, then the other, to walk across the judge’s library and into the marbled foyer.

“You forgot your bag, Missy.”

It took a moment for the words to clear the buzzing in her ears, for her mind to make sense of them. “My…bag?”

The judge disappeared into the library, then returned holding her purse at arm’s length as if carrying it properly might bring his manhood into question. He offered it to her, then, when she made no effort to take it, impatiently slid the strap over her limp arm to her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She gave herself a mental shake. “Y-yes. Just a…a headache.”

“Nothing a shot of good whiskey wouldn’t cure, I bet.” In his world, there was nothing a shot of good whiskey couldn’t cure.

She smiled, hoping it looked halfway genuine. “I believe I’ll settle for aspirin. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Judge.” She opened the door, gazed out at her car parked in the circular drive out front, then turned back. “I would appreciate it, sir, if you didn’t tell the senator about this. I would hate for him to think that I misunderstood his instructions.”

“Tell him about what?” Judge Markham grinned and winked as he lifted his own glass of whiskey in a salute. “Don’t you worry, Missy. It’s our secret.”

Our secret. She’d never kept secrets from her father, and wasn’t sure why she’d decided to start now. Because if he knew she knew the transcript had been destroyed, he might confess that he’d given the order?

No. She didn’t believe that—couldn’t believe it. Her father had devoted his entire life to public service. He was an honest, upright, moral person. He hadn’t told Judge Markham to destroy those records. He would be horrified when he found out what the judge had done.

But Judge Markham had devoted his entire life to public service, as well, a small voice that sounded a lot like Jake Norris whispered slyly. He was also an honest, upright, moral person…who hadn’t hesitated a moment before breaking the law.

You know nothing of the facts, she’d told Norris the evening before. She was beginning to fear that she was the one who needed an education.

She stopped at the street. If she turned right, she could be home in a matter of seconds…to do what? Fret? If she turned left, she could return to the office, where she could at least fret in an environment more conducive to work.

She chose left, driving the short distance downtown. She parked near the office but didn’t go inside. Instead, impulsively, she crossed the square to the redbrick building on the far side that housed the Joshua Colby Memorial Library. After climbing the broad granite steps, she went through the double doors and headed to the reference section.

The Riverview Journal had been online for five years. Any article from that time could be found in their online archives, along with anything from their first twenty years in business. The rest was being added slowly but was accessible in the meantime on microfilm.

Usually.

The microfilm inside the box labeled September from the year of the trial was blank. So were the films for August and October. Kylie took the boxes to the desk. After exchanging pleasantries with the librarian, she said, “There’s a problem with these films, Mary Anne. They’re blank.”

Mary Anne’s gaze flickered to the worn storage boxes before returning to the books she was sorting. “Really? Isn’t that odd?”

“Have they always been blank?”

“I wouldn’t know, Kylie.”

“Has anyone else looked at them lately?”

“I can’t say. They’re on the shelves. Anyone can use them. We don’t keep track.”

Kylie wanted to grab her, to make her stop what she was doing and look at her, but kept her hands at her sides. “Do you have a copy?”

“No. Afraid not. Sorry.” With an apologetic smile aimed in Kylie’s general direction the woman walked away from the counter, taking refuge in the small office behind her.

Puzzled, Kylie left the library. She’d known Mary Anne since first grade and she’d never seen her act quite so cavalierly. Mary Anne was generally as protective of her library materials as Martha was of her court records. Neither woman’s behavior that day had been typical. Nor had Judge Markham’s or the Senator’s.

And the one common denominator was the Baker case.

Grimly Kylie walked the block and a half to the Journal’s office. Does it bother you, Norris had asked, that everyone says this is an open-and-shut case, and yet no one wants to talk about it?

More and more every minute.

The newspaper office was small and dusty, but the staff put out a good paper given their resources. Words were usually spelled correctly, sentences usually punctuated properly. Dale Bayouth, the owner, publisher and Web master, was sitting at his desk, tinkering with the Web site, when she walked in. He greeted her with an easy smile. “Kylie. What can I do for you?”

She explained about the microfilm at the library, then asked, “Can I see your copies from that time period?”

He began shaking his head before she finished. “Sorry. They’re not available. I sent everything to my son down in Houston. He’s working on the website archives.”

How convenient. Frustration made her teeth grind, but she forced a smile. “It was worth a try. Thanks anyway.”

She left before she could find the courage to ask when he had sent the archives to his son and at whose suggestion. She doubted he would tell her, and if he would, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

The answer might be more than she could bear.

Chapter 3

After striking out at the courthouse, the library and the newspaper—and with Kylie—Jake wasn’t in the best of moods. The only thing he could think of doing at the moment was the one he really didn’t want to do: visiting the scene of the crime.

The Bakers and the Franklins had lived three miles outside Riverview, at the end of a dirt road that forked to lead to each house. They’d been fairly close neighbors for the country, with no more than a third of a mile between their houses, but in every other way they’d been miles apart.

Bert Franklin had been president of the First National Bank of Riverview. Charley Baker had worked at the glass plant north of town. The Franklin home had looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, with columns and verandas and a vast expanse of lush green lawn, while the Bakers’ rental had been small, dark and one good wind away from collapse. Jillian Franklin had spent her days lunching, shopping and planning events, and Angela Baker had waited tables at the truck stop outside town. The Franklins had been among the town’s social elite. Riverview hadn’t known the Bakers existed.

In the end, though, the Bakers and the Franklins had shared one thing in common: their lives had been destroyed that September night.

Wishing for any excuse not to go, Jake headed west out of town. With each tenth of a mile the odometer ticked off his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. When the sign for Woodlawn Memorial Gardens appeared ahead, he grabbed at the chance to delay the trip out of town at least a little longer.

He drove through a stone arch, then turned onto the first narrow road. There was an office to the right, but it was locked up tight. In an alcove near the door, though, he found a grave locator. He looked up the Franklins, then returned to the truck and drove slowly along the lane. Section six was at the far end of the second row of plots. It was also where the only other vehicle on the grounds was parked. A slender figure, a young woman, knelt in front of a double marker, tending the flowers planted there.

He considered driving on and returning after she was gone, but then she looked straight at him and smiled—really smiled. No one had directed a smile like that at him since he’d arrived in town.

She got to her feet and lifted one hand to stop him. He braked, then rolled down his window as she took a few steps toward him.

“You’re Jake Norris,” she said. “I was hoping to meet you. I’m—”

The angel. Silky brown curls, huge blue eyes, Cupid’s bow mouth. “Therese Franklin.” All those years ago, he’d thought she was of no consequence—too young, too girlie, too spoiled. He would have been much happier if the Franklins had had a son or even a dog.

Except that one morning when he’d found her sitting next to her dead mother. When he’d grabbed her up, held her tightly and run from the house with her, yelling for his father at the top of his lungs.

She looked pleased that he’d recognized her. According to Kylie, she’d pleaded with the senator to stop Jake from researching this case. Kylie’s lie? Or Riordan’s?

He preferred to think Riordan’s.

He parked in front of her car, then got out and joined her in the drab green grass. She was of average height and so slender that a stiff breeze could blow her away—quite possibly the most delicate creature he’d ever seen. Even her voice, light and airy, sounded as if it belonged in another world.

“I assumed I would be getting a visit from you sooner or later,” she remarked in that ethereal voice as they walked back to her parents’ graves. On the other side, another double marker bore her grandparents’ names, along with the dates of their births and his death.

Jake thought it ghoulish to have your name on a grave marker while you were still alive.

“Actually, I hadn’t decided whether I would try to interview you,” he admitted. “You were very young at the time, and I’d been warned this is a bad time for you.”

Her gaze shifted to her grandfather’s grave, and sadness dimmed her eyes. But when she looked back at him, she was smiling again, albeit faintly. “I doubt I’d be able to contribute much, if anything. But there’s a lot I’d like to know. My grandparents didn’t talk about my parents. It was too painful for them. I thought they had died in an accident until I was in high school, when I found out they’d been murdered.”

“That must have been tough.”

She shrugged.

“So you don’t object to my writing a book about this.”

Bending, she tugged a stubborn weed from the base of the monument, then straightened again. “Truthfully…you’re right. I was very young. I don’t remember my parents. I don’t feel a connection to them. They’re symbols rather than people to me. Maybe through your book I can get to know them.”

Abruptly she smiled and looked more like fifteen than twenty-five. “I’m reading your last book. I feel I know those people. That’s what I’m hoping for with this one.”

“What if you don’t like what you see?” It was always a possibility. She could find out that her mother or father had done something to cause their murders…just as he could find out that his father really had committed the murders. “They say ignorance is bliss.”

She smiled again. “Whoever says that isn’t the one being kept in the dark. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I know about the people who brought me into this world, good or bad.”

“So you’re willing to sit down and talk with me?”

She brushed a strand of fine hair from her face. “I’d like that. My number’s—”

The squeal of tires on the highway interrupted her, and they both looked in that direction. A white police car was angled across both lanes as the driver made a clumsy U-turn.

“Derek,” Jake and Therese both said at the same time. She went on. “You know him?”

“He’s been following me, probably on the chief’s orders. I didn’t realize I’d lost him for this long.”

“He’s my boyfriend,” she said with a shy shrug. “Maybe you should leave. My number’s in the phone book. Call me?”

“I will.” Jake returned to his truck as Derek sped through the gate, then skidded into the first turn. The kid was probably enough of a hothead to confront him, unless Therese persuaded him not to.

Apparently she did. A glance back that way as Jake approached the gate showed the police car stopped in the middle of the road and Therese standing beside it, gesturing as she talked.

Jake turned west again on 66. A half mile from the cemetery, he turned north onto another paved road, followed it for a time, then reached the dirt road. He turned and stopped.

Neither house was visible from there. The road climbed straight up a hill with heavy woods on either side. At the Y, a road to the left led to the Baker house, a road to the right to the Franklins’.

Were the houses still standing? Had anyone ever lived in them again?

He would find out…but not today.

Backing onto the road, he headed back to town.

This case was becoming more difficult every time he turned around. No trial transcript, no newspaper articles, no cooperation from any of the principals besides Charley and, now, Therese, who frankly wouldn’t be much help. If her grandparents had refused to talk about her parents, then it was doubtful they’d saved anything that had to do with their deaths or the trial.

But after leaving the newspaper office empty-handed, he’d gone back to the courthouse and copied the case file before it could disappear, as well. It contained information on the warrants, a summary of each court appearance and other such data, including the name of the court reporter. He intended to track her down and see if, by chance, she still had the original of the transcript. He could find out who’d written the newspaper stories for the Journal and whether he’d kept copies. He could try to locate people who’d known Charley or the Franklins. And he could keep agitating Riordan and his cronies.

Agitated people tended to make mistakes.

It was five-thirty when he circled the courthouse. The parking spaces on the block where Riordan’s office was located were all empty but one. It held a silver Jaguar with the license tag designated for state senators. Since it had been parked there most of the day, he figured Kylie was driving Daddy’s car. He eased into the space next to it, pulled out his cell phone and punched in the office number.

He saw movement through the partially open blinds at the window in front of him an instant before she answered. “Riordan Law Office. This is Kylie.”

Shifting his gaze to the door, he saw the same name lettered in gold there. “And here I thought being a part-time senator was your father’s only job. Does he actually have any law clients?”

She was silent a moment before replying, “A few. People who have been with him from the beginning.”

“Judge Markham, Chief Roberts, Tim Jenkins…”

Somehow her silence took on an offended quality.

He rubbed his temple with one hand. “Sorry. Do you know that someone went into the library, took the microfilm containing all the newspaper stories about the Franklins’ murders and Charley’s trial and replaced it with blank film?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“And that the newspaper owner just happened to send all his archives to his son in Houston just a few days ago?”

“I didn’t know when.”

“Does it bother you—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “I admit it. Something’s wrong here. Someone’s trying to stonewall you, to dissuade you.” She gave the word dissuade a twist, as if it disgusted her. “I just can’t figure out why.”

“Because they’ve got something to hide,” he said quietly. “Because they’re covering up something that happened twenty-two years ago.”

He waited for her to argue with him, but she didn’t. She merely sighed.

“Did you go see Judge Markham?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Sitting next to Senator Riordan’s Jag.”

Again he saw movement inside, then the blinds moved about eye level. He could vaguely make out her silhouette, but all the enticing details—the curves, the colors, the scent, the goddessness—were hidden. It didn’t matter. He had enough details about her stored in his memory to entice him for a good long while.

The blinds moved again, then became still. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

It was closer to ten minutes when she finally stepped through the door, locked up, then started his way. She wore the same green dress, the same sexy heels and the same diamond studs, though there was no direct sunlight to make them twinkle. The only difference from that morning was her hair—pulled back in a sleek braid—and her expression. She looked weary. Disappointed.

He hoped he wasn’t the cause, though of course he had something to do with it.

She walked to the driver’s side and waited motionlessly as he rolled the window down. Even then, she didn’t say anything.

Finally he did. “Want to have a drink before dinner?”

“How about a few drinks instead of dinner?” she wryly suggested. Without waiting for an invitation, she walked to the other side of the truck and climbed in—and managed to do so without showing more than an inch or two of thigh, he was disappointed to notice.

He had to move his backpack to make room for her and her attaché. “My research,” he remarked as he hefted it into the narrow space behind the seat. “The way things are disappearing around here, I’m afraid to let it out of my sight.”

She didn’t respond.

He didn’t ask where she wanted to go but backed out of the space. When he reached Main Street, he turned east and drove past his motel, past the businesses that gave way to houses that gave way to countryside. There were plenty of restaurants with bars in Tulsa, if they didn’t find someplace sooner, though he couldn’t imagine the daughter of Senator Jim Riordan letting loose and tying one on. She was too image-conscious for that.

The sun was low on the western horizon when she finally spoke. “He destroyed it.”

“Who destroyed what?”

“Judge Markham. The trial transcript. He destroyed it.”

“He told you that?”

“No, I read it in his palm,” she snapped. “Of course he told me.”

“Why would he tell you? Destroying court records is a crime.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it tightly and stared out the side window.

Jake’s muscles tightened, then eased. He wasn’t too surprised by the destruction. The admission, though…obviously Markham trusted Kylie enough to confide his own lawbreaking to her. He didn’t expect her to do anything with the information, to turn him in or make a complaint.

And if Markham could trust her that much…Jake shouldn’t trust her at all.

“Are you always this unpopular when you’re researching a book?” she asked after a time.

He managed a grin. “No. Riverview is setting a new low in my career.”

“But people aren’t always happy when they hear what you plan to do.”

“Not always. But this is the first time people have hidden or destroyed records. It’s the first time a cop has dogged my every step.” He saw her gaze flit to the outside mirror, checking the road behind them. He grinned again. “He turned around at the city limits. He probably recognized you and figured you’d fill in Chief Roberts.”

“I avoid speaking to Chief Roberts when I can.”

“You don’t like him?”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s a friend of my father’s. Not mine.” Shifting in the seat, she faced him. “The senator says your books are inaccurate, that you twist the facts and sensationalize the acts to maximize sales.”

A muscle twitched in Jake’s cheek, the annoying kind of jerk that he could damn near see. “He’s wrong,” he said stiffly. His work was important to him. It was all he really had besides his mother, whose past went back only so far as her current marriage, and his father, wasting away in prison. He was proud of every aspect of every book that had his name on the cover. “The senator also said—”

“Turn left up ahead,” she directed, gesturing to where a flashing red light marked a four-way stop sign.

He obeyed, then followed her next direction into the parking lot that fronted a middle-of-nowhere bar. The smell of grease hung heavy on the air, suggesting the place also served food. He looked from the cinder-block building to the elegant woman unbuckling her seat belt. “Not quite your kind of place.”

“Good hamburgers, good fries, good music—and no one gives a damn about the senator or his daughter.” Leaving her attaché, she slid to the ground and slammed the door.

He grabbed his backpack and followed her inside, admiring the way the green dress clung to her hips and molded to her backside. She moved as if she’d gone through years of dance or gymnastics. Probably both had been deemed essential for the senator’s sake. After all, what would people think if his daughter was a less-than-perfect klutz?

The bar was dimly lit, as all bars should be, with pool tables on the left, a jukebox to the right, a small dance floor in the middle and tables and booths all around. It was too early in the evening for much of a crowd, though a half dozen young men were gathered around the pool tables and twice that number occupied a few tables.

Kylie chose the corner booth, as far from the door as they could get, and sat with her back to the room. He didn’t mind. He’d rather face trouble than let it sneak up behind him.

When the waitress came, she ordered a burger, fries and a Coke. He asked for the same, except with beer, then settled comfortably on the bench to watch her. She didn’t seem to mind.

“The senator also said what?”

He didn’t understand her question without thinking back. He’d been about to tell her about Therese when she’d interrupted to give him directions. Now he half wished he hadn’t said anything. She wasn’t going to like it and she looked as if she’d had enough disappointments—disillusionments?—for one day. But she was waiting and she was going to find out anyway. “He told you that Therese Franklin didn’t want me looking into her parents’ murders. That she pleaded with him to stop me.”

Kylie nodded once. Even in the near darkness her hair trapped light from somewhere, giving it a golden gleam.

“I ran into Therese today. She was enthusiastic about the book. She wants to talk to me, wants me to call her.”

For a long moment Kylie simply stared at him, looking…unsettled was the best word he could come up with. There was a little surprise, a lot of dismay and a lot of…well, unsettledness. “You’re saying the senator lied to me.”

Yes. “I’m saying Therese doesn’t appear to have any interest in stopping this book. That seems to be the senator’s agenda. And the judge’s. And the chief’s.”

Abruptly she covered her face with both hands, pressing her fingertips hard against her temples. He couldn’t blame her if she had a headache. Learning ugly things about the person you’ve given unconditional loyalty to could be enough to make anyone sick.

“Hey.” Leaning across the table, he caught hold of her left hand and pulled it away. “Let’s forget about this for a while, okay? Let’s just enjoy our dinner and each other’s company and deal with the rest of it later. Okay?”

Kylie kept her eyes closed a moment, focusing her attention on his hand. His palm was callused, his fingers strong, his touch gentle and warm. Just that little contact, and her breathing was easing, her tension lessening. If he really touched her—pulled her close, slid his arms around her, stroked her body—she just might melt…or shatter.

Finally she opened her eyes, carefully withdrew her hand from his and called up a practiced smile. “How did you get into the newspaper business?”

His grin was crooked and charming. “You did check me out.”

She’d been checking him out since the moment she’d first seen him.

“My mother married a man who owned three small-town papers, along with a ranch. I had a choice between castrating cattle and shoveling manure or working at the paper. Like many males, I get a little squeamish about castration, so I opted for the paper.”

“Where you still had to deal with plenty of manure.”

He nodded.

“Why did you start writing this kind of book? Why not fiction?”

The waitress approached before he could answer. After she left their food, he salted his fries, squirted ketchup onto his plate, then took a bite of his hamburger before facing her again. “Someone I was very close to was the victim of a crime. Writing about other victims seemed a reasonable way to deal with it.”

He was choosing his words carefully. Because losing that person still hurt? Because he didn’t like discussing his grief? And yet he expected other people to discuss theirs.

Not fair, Kylie admitted, at least in this case. The people who’d grieved in this case were Therese Franklin, Charley Baker and his family. They were willing to talk with Jake. It was the ones who’d made their careers off the case who wanted it kept buried.

It was her father.

Swallowing hard, she pushed all thought of the senator to the back of her mind. “Are you married?”

Jake looked offended. “Would I have said what I did today if I was married?”

You know I’m attracted to you. Desire feathered through her belly. Pure lust. She hadn’t felt it in such a long time.

“Some men don’t take their wedding vows seriously. I don’t know you well enough to say.” Just enough to know that she wanted to fall into bed with him. She probably wouldn’t, but the wanting was there.

“I’m not married—have never come close. I do date, but there’s no one serious and hasn’t been for a long time. I’m thirty-two. I live in Albuquerque, though one of these days I plan to move out of the city and up into the mountains. I went to college for a couple years but quit when I realized it wasn’t going to help me do what I wanted to do—write. This is my sixth book, and I’m under contract for one more. I’ve considered writing fiction and will probably give it a shot before too long—mysteries, probably, or thrillers. And I would never come on to one woman while I was involved with another.” He took a breath, then fixed his dark gaze on her. “Your turn.”

She delayed by taking a bite of her hamburger, then following it with a couple of fries. Finally she shrugged. “I’m not married either, though I did come close. He would have made a great son-in-law for the senator but not such a great husband for me. I’m twenty-seven, I live in Riverview and Oklahoma City and I don’t plan to move anywhere. I began working for my father when I was fifteen, and after I graduated from Oklahoma State I continued to work for him. The pay is good, the hours are flexible and I like my boss. For a time I wanted to go into politics myself, but not anymore. I was raised to be a good politician’s daughter and, someday, a good politician’s wife. So far, I’ve succeeded at one and have no interest in the other. And I would never get involved with a man who was with another woman.”

“So will you get involved with me?”

His whiskey-smooth voice made the word sound intimate and naughty and conjured up all sorts of images in her mind. Naked, hot, needy, wicked. Her clothing suddenly seemed too tight, too warm. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t…couldn’t.

“You know you’re attracted to me,” he pointed out.

Her hand trembled as she reached for her glass, then took a cooling drink. “I do?”

His grin this time was pure charm—no brashness, no arrogance. “You know how you’re looking at me…it’s the same way I look at you. There’s something between us. Something…”

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