A DANGEROUS HOMECOMING

When her big-city dreams come crashing down, Gemma Phillips returns to her small hometown—and finds herself the target of a violent stalker. And her attacker may be linked to the robbery she witnessed years ago…a case reopened after the police discovered a body, supporting her claims of overhearing a murder. Now there’s only one man who can save her: lawman Matt O’Dell. For Matt, solving this decades-old mystery will finally allow him to distance himself from his father’s criminal past. But Matt’s drive to close the case soon turns personal. He needs to guard his reputation…but first, he must protect the woman he’s just discovered he loves.

“Cold?” He raised his eyebrows.

“No, really, I’m okay.”

She accidentally looked in the direction of the crime scene, and shivered again. Matt jogged to his car, retrieved a jacket and returned. Gemma thanked him and slid her arms into it, reminding her skittering heart that this wasn’t high school, wearing his jacket didn’t mean anything, and he was just being chivalrous—Southern, really—to make sure she wasn’t cold.

“Ready now?”

Technically, she could only answer yes. Gemma had run out of reasons to delay this walk. So she nodded slowly, followed Matt as he started off down a path that she knew from experience would lead them from the clearing into a thick forest, dense with live oaks and Spanish moss whose shadows choked out the sunlight.

No, she wasn’t ready. She never would be.

But someone was out there, someone who knew what she’d seen, and they wanted her dead. Sometimes people had to do things they weren’t ready for.

So Gemma took a deep breath and stepped farther into the dark woods. Out of the light.

And back into the place that haunted her very worst dreams.

SARAH VARLAND lives near the mountains in Alaska where she loves writing, hiking, kayaking and spending time with her family. She’s happily married to her college sweetheart, John, and the mom of two active and adorable boys, Joshua and Timothy, as well as another baby in heaven. Sarah has been writing almost since she could hold a pencil and especially loves writing romantic suspense, where she gets to combine her love for happily-ever-afters, inspired by her own, with her love for suspense, inspired by her dad, who has spent a career in law enforcement. You can find Sarah online through her blog, espressoinalatteworld.blogspot.com.

Cold Case Witness

Sarah Varland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you,

for My power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

—2 Corinthians 12:9

To the women who have experienced pregnancy/infant loss,

who know what it’s like to feel as though that loss defines you at times.

That’s not how God sees you.

He sees grace. He sees hope. He sees you.

I pray for continued healing for all of us.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my family for being encouraging, helping when you can, answering questions and all around being the best family anyone could ask for. I love and appreciate all of you.

Thanks also to my friends, both writing friends and “normal” friends. Your encouragement and friendship has been so important to me during the writing of this book. I can’t thank you enough.

Thanks to Sarah, my agent. Working with you has been fun so far! I love that we are both juggling these jobs with the raising of little boys. Thanks for all you do.

Thanks to Elizabeth, wonderful editor and fabulous brainstormer. The work you have done already on this story has amazed me—thank you.

And thank You, Lord, for letting me tell stories and for teaching me things through them.

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TITLE PAGE

BIBLE VERSE

DEDICATION

Acknowledgements

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

Dear Reader

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

ONE

The steps groaned, the only sound in the south Georgia silence, as Gemma Phillips took another step toward the place she’d promised herself she’d never go again—the place where her nightmares had begun a decade before.

She took another step anyway, and another, until she was at the top of the stairs, hand poised to knock on the door of the portable office building where the Treasure Point Historical Society—and hopefully her future—awaited.

A month ago, Gemma would have said this job, helping the town develop and implement a marketing plan for the new museum being built on the Hamilton Estate, was beneath her. If she had her choice, she’d still be anywhere but here. But her job in Atlanta was gone and so were her savings. Treasure Point, where she could stay with her sister rent-free while job hunting, had looked like her only option—still did, unfortunately. And this job was the only one in town remotely close to what she enjoyed doing. She needed this to work.

But first, she needed to wow the historical society members. Surely after ten years, the cloud that had seemed to follow her, the looks people had given her, would have dissipated. Even small towns forgot eventually...

Gemma took a deep breath and knocked, shivering in the slight breeze that rustled the Spanish moss draped in the live oaks around her.

The door opened immediately, as though they’d been expecting her to arrive now. But Gemma knew without glancing at her watch that she was seven minutes early, just like she’d planned.

“It’s you.” An older woman gave her a disapproving stare. Not the first she’d gotten in this town, although she didn’t feel she deserved them. Gemma’d been a straight-A student, always been nice to dogs and old ladies, and still, she was no stranger to that disapproval.

“Yes, ma’am. Were you expecting someone else?” Right before a scheduled interview time? Gemma added the last snarky question only to herself.

Cindy Anne didn’t answer, only spun gracefully and walked into the office building. Gemma shut the door behind herself and lifted a hand to wave at the other committee members, who were already seated at a long table on the far side of the one-room building. The man in the center didn’t look familiar to her, but he stood and reached his hand out. “Jim Howard. We’ve spoken over email.”

Gemma nodded. He was the director of the Treasure Point Historical Society, and the one who’d not only replied to her inquiry about the job but had treated her kindly with every response. Since he appeared to be the one in charge, maybe this would go well after all. “It’s nice to meet you.” She gave her best smile, tried to talk her shoulders into relaxing.

Gemma sat down, noting as she did that the metal folding chair sat directly in the line of sight of the window, in full view of dozens of tall oak trees, branches camouflaged by Spanish moss, where someone could be hiding.

Not that it mattered. She had nothing to worry about, not really. She was jumpy because she was back here on the Hamilton property for the first time in years, where her nightmare had both started and ended a decade before. Moments like this, when chills sneaked up her spine, were just aftershocks from those few months in high school when it had felt as if her whole world was being shaken. No one was after her now. No one needed to be. She was just ordinary. Normal.

“We’re ready to begin.” Jim gave her a small smile, which she tried to return. At least he was being kind, which was more than she could say for Cindy Anne.

Gemma sat up straighter, caught the window in her peripheral vision again and, again, tried to ignore it. She had to stop letting the past color every aspect of her future. It was time to prove to herself, to the town and most important to her parents, that she was more than the shy girl who in high school had testified at the trial of a smuggling ring and sent its members to jail. This job—marketing—was something she was good at. All she needed was a chance to make a good impression.

“Why don’t you tell us a bit about your work history? Your résumé is impressive.”

Gemma tried to keep her smile relaxed, but already she could feel her confidence building, excitement starting to buzz in her chest.

The next ten minutes were straight out of a best-case scenario. Everything pointed to Gemma getting this job.

And then Cindy Anne spoke up for the first time since she’d let Gemma in.

“And what about your past? To what degree do you believe it will negatively influence your attempts to bring positive publicity to the Treasure Point History Museum?”

Silence. Even the near-constant sound of bugs that Gemma associated with this part of Georgia was absent. Just this eerie, empty space where noise should be.

And for a moment, Gemma wanted to walk away. Let them—let the whole town think whatever they wanted. It shouldn’t be this hard to interview for a job. She was qualified and capable. And her supposedly shocking past consisted of testifying against a bunch of criminals. She’d done the right thing. But for reasons she’d never been able to understand, she’d started being looked upon with suspicion ever since she’d discovered and helped break up a smuggling ring. If she could rewind the clock, go back to that night and unsee the crime, she would. Ten years later and she was still dealing with the fallout.

She made herself answer in a level voice. She’d faced people far more intimidating. But she’d never had so very much at stake. “I don’t believe my past has anything to do with this job.”

“Now, Cindy Anne...” another member spoke up. “I thought we’d agreed to give her a fair chance. She’s the best qualified candidate.”

Gemma wanted to let the words lift her spirits ever so slightly, but she was probably their only candidate. Not a lot of small-town people were drawn to marketing. It seemed for her whole childhood that everyone around here had a “what you see is what you get” view of life. And it wasn’t that Gemma disagreed entirely with that perspective...but she’d always felt it was honest but still logical to be careful which side you presented, to let people see what you wanted them to see.

Around her, the committee argued. Gemma stared out the window, noticing someone walking near the edge of the woods.

He was a Treasure Point police officer, but he looked too young to have been on the force during the case in which Gemma had testified. Her shoulders relaxed some at that realization—she didn’t have to hold against him the way some of the officers in that case had treated her.

The man came closer to the building, looked up at the window. Had he caught her staring?

Something about him was so familiar...

Then it hit her. Matt O’Dell, son of one of the men her testimony had sent to prison.

Their eyes met, just for a second. Gemma looked away.

If the Treasure Point Historical Society members hadn’t forgotten her past, Matt surely wouldn’t have. A shame, because he’d always intrigued her in high school. She’d always sort of wished...

“—trial period.”

“Wait, what?” Gemma snapped her attention back to the committee members. She surveyed them one at a time, studied their faces. And didn’t like what she saw.

This wasn’t going to turn out the way she’d hoped.

“We think a trial period might be wise in this case.”

Gemma shot a glare at Cindy Anne. The older woman lifted her nose and shook her head. “Don’t look at me. I think hiring you at all is a mistake.”

Gemma swallowed hard. A mistake? She pushed her chair back and stood. There was only so much she could take. If they weren’t happy with her, fine, but she wasn’t going to accept this kind of humiliation.

“Never mind,” Gemma muttered.

“Wait,” Jim called out.

She turned to face them one last time. She stared. Waited. They stared back.

“It’s your choice,” Jim said. “You can walk out of here with no job, walk away from this town again, even...but if you genuinely care about the museum, the way I believe you do, then you’ll take the two-week trial period option.”

One heartbeat. Then two. She let the silence stretch out, pretended to consider it. As though she had a logical choice. She was caught. And they knew it. She waited anyway, too prideful to seem too eager.

One more heartbeat.

“All ri—”

Her answer was cut off by screams.

In a man’s voice they were even more terrible to Gemma’s ears, especially because they echoed the screams she still believed she’d heard on this property ten years before—the screams the police told her she must have imagined, when she’d thought two of the men involved in the smuggling had started to fight.

One of them she hadn’t been able to identify, though his voice had sounded familiar. One of them—Harris Walker, who had been somewhat of a drifter but had spent time in Treasure Point regularly—had been gone by the time the police arrived. No one had ever seen him again.

These screams were like his had been, and they took her back to those terrifying moments ten years earlier, when she’d been running through the woods as fast as she could, trying not to be the next victim...

Harris had disappeared and Gemma was almost certain he had been murdered, but no one had believed her when she’d told them. Not the police, not anyone.

After the screams came a silence. The kind that chilled a person to her core.

And Gemma knew her nightmare had come back to life.

* * *

In an instant, Matt O’Dell’s patrol had gone from predictable to intense enough that he felt as if he was on the opening segment of a crime show on TV. He’d run from where he’d been patrolling in the woods when he’d heard the construction worker’s yell. He’d found a group of them clustered at the outside edge of the construction site.

“What happened?” Matt directed the question to Ryan Townsend, the foreman.

The man looked up at Matt, looked back down at something on the ground and his face paled, contrasting starkly to his sunburned neck and shoulders. He shook his head. Not really an answer.

At that moment Jim Howard ran across the gravel parking lot toward the construction area. “What’s going on?”

Matt saw several more of the historical society members clustered in the doorway of the portable office building. “Stop.” He put one hand up and said the word firmly, shaking his head. “I need everyone back inside while I deal with this.”

“But—” Jim started to argue.

“Inside, now.”

The man turned around and went back, and he and the others went inside.

Matt approached the scene cautiously, trying to be ready for anything since no one seemed able to speak. The silence was startling after the constant noise of construction. “Move.” The men stepped aside quickly. Not the way he had expected them to respond. Matt braced himself, wondering how bad it had to be to get a group of men like this to be quiet and compliant. They were nice enough guys, but they didn’t typically like being told what to do.

He looked down at the ground, wet from last night’s rain, and saw bones.

Hand and finger bones, reaching out from the dirt.

Matt felt goose bumps rise on his arms despite the eighty-degree heat. The bones seemed to be reaching up. Asking for help.

Treasure Point wasn’t a perfect town—Matt had dealt with crime before as a police officer. But nothing like this. He took a step backward, needing the distance, and looked up to meet Ryan’s eyes.

Matt took a deep breath and centered himself. “Tell me about how you found this.”

Ryan’s eyes swung to another man. “Bruce was working on leveling the site and doing some grading work. When he went on his break, I walked around a little, just to get a feel for the site. I do that with almost everything I build. I saw something sticking out of the ground over here, assumed it was a root and reached down to pull it up.” Here he started to look green. “I looked closer at it and...” His gaze dropped down to the remains.

Matt looked down, too, then glanced up at the construction worker. Ryan’s story made sense and it was hard to fake the level of uneasiness he was showing.

Someone had put that body in the ground, but Ryan was one person Matt was pretty comfortable ruling out, although he’d have to keep him on the official suspect list until he could investigate further. That was policy. Now he had an entire town full of people to consider. A whole state.

The bones looked old—old enough for the flesh to be gone—which made his chances of solving this case go down substantially. This was going to be like looking for a needle somewhere much bigger than a haystack.

The Treasure Point Police Department hadn’t had an official crime scene investigator until a year or so ago when Shiloh Evans—now Shiloh Evans Cole—had gotten certified and stopped working patrol to pursue her interest in forensics and crime scenes. A couple of the other officers could do the basic forensics work, and Matt could do it in a pinch, but Shiloh was the best. Assuming this was a crime scene, and not the accidental digging up of an Native burial ground, her opinion would be invaluable. And even if it did turn out to be an old burial ground with no crime to worry about, it was better to have been safe and called in Shiloh than to have compromised a possible crime scene and risked her wrath.

“I need everyone to move away from the scene.”

Everyone complied quickly. Almost too quickly. Matt shrugged off the suspicion. The construction workers were spooked because they had discovered the body, nothing more. Their actions weren’t indicative of any guilt. He placed the call to Shiloh, and then waited, standing guard over the body.

A police car pulled up only minutes later and Shiloh stepped out. She started surveying the scene even as she walked toward it; he could practically see the wheels in her mind turning, working at sorting out potential puzzle pieces. “What happened?”

“Ryan Townsend thought he saw a root and bent to pull it. Turned out to be a skeleton’s finger.”

Shiloh shook her head. “That’ll give you nightmares.”

“What are your thoughts?”

“You were right to call me. I think we’re dealing with something more recent than anything Native American. This was really close to the original site of the Hamilton house, before it burned down last year. That place had been around forever. They would have known better than to build on any kind of graveyard or burial ground.” She bent down, examined the bones a little more closely. “Besides, bone structure looks too big. We need to get an ME in here.” Shiloh stood and shook her head. “I don’t like how this feels.”

Ryan walked back over before Matt could respond to Shiloh. “Do you need to talk to any of us anymore? Our shift’s over, but we can stick around to give statements or anything you need.”

Cooperative. That made his job easier. “It would help to talk to a couple people, but then you’ll be free to go.” As he gave his answer, movement near the portable office building caught his eye. A woman hurried down the stairs, and straight to the cleanest, most expensive-looking car in the small dirt clearing that had become a sort of parking lot when the Treasure Point Historical Society was meeting in their office. Matt frowned. Why was she running? He hadn’t seen her at all today, so he knew she had nothing to do with the discovery of the body. In fact he didn’t think he’d even seen her around town, although something about her looked familiar, reminded him of... He squinted as he thought.

Gemma Phillips.

What was she doing back in town?

Seeing her again here of all places messed with his mind. What were the chances? This was where the worst night of both of their lives had taken place—although Matt had had plenty of nights that were a close second with his upbringing. Though he’d always wished he could get to know her better in high school since she’d always seemed sweet and fun, they’d been in very different circles. And that night had driven the wedge between them even deeper, separating them further.

She’d left town right after they graduated, before he could ever work up the nerve to see if she might ever consider being friends with someone like him.

And here she was, turning up again when crime was surfacing in Treasure Point, which was a huge rarity. Did the woman just bring trouble with her?

Matt wasn’t sure if she was leaving in such a hurry because she’d heard about the discovery of the body or if she was just anxious to get away from the place that must carry painful memories for her. Either made just as much sense. And either way, he’d put her on his list of people to talk to later. Something about the purposefulness of the way she ran... It seemed that Gemma Phillips had something to hide.

He just wondered whose life would be turned upside down by her latest revelation.

“I’m going to call the ME.” Shiloh pulled her phone out.

Matt nodded, then walked in Gemma’s direction. She was too fast for him; before he could do anything, even call out to her, she’d climbed into her car and driven away. He stood for a minute, watching her and trying to figure out how she played into this.

“You know her?” Shiloh’s voice beside him caught him off guard. Apparently she’d finished her phone call. He nodded.

“Who is she?”

“Gemma Phillips.”

“Phillips... Any relation to Claire at Kite Tails and Coffee?” Shiloh’s mention of Claire’s coffee shop made him wish he’d swung by there on the way to work this morning. He’d had a cup at home, but the way this day was going, he’d need more soon.

“Her sister.”

Shiloh’s eyes narrowed. “Is she the one who testified in that criminal smuggling case a decade or so ago? She looks younger than I would have thought.”

He nodded. “She was in high school at the time. How’d you know about that case?” Shiloh wasn’t from Treasure Point originally, and it was a taboo enough subject that officers didn’t even discuss it among themselves much.

“The smuggling ring was stealing historical artifacts. I found write-ups in old newspapers at the library when I was doing research for a history class I was teaching.”

Matt forgot sometimes that she’d had a different life before joining the police department. It was hard to imagine her as a timid history professor. In his mind, she was 100 percent law enforcement.

“Why do you think she ran?” Shiloh was full of questions today.

“I don’t know, but I’m planning to find out.”

“Don’t leave yet. I still need you here until after the ME comes. This is your case, right? Your first big one?”

He nodded. His chance to prove himself as something more than a criminal’s son, maybe the only chance he’d ever have.

Another police car pulled up. Lieutenant Rich Davies stepped out and strode in their direction, a determined look on his face. Next to him, it seemed like Shiloh stood up straighter. She’d had some unpleasant run-ins with Davies in the past. Matt felt his own shoulders tense. The way Davies was looking at him, he was afraid his time had probably come, too.

“You found a body?”

Matt jerked his head in the direction of the construction workers. “They did. I was patrolling.”

“You can go back to it. I’ll handle the investigation.”

“I don’t think so.”

Davies said nothing but his face registered shock. More than anybody else, Matt did what he was told, took the jobs he was assigned without complaining. But after years of working easy patrols, of dealing with nothing more interesting than one incident of vandalism that had been tied to an adolescent dare, this was his chance to show the guys on the force that he was capable of real investigations, of doing something that mattered.

“We’ll talk to the chief about this,” Davies warned.

Matt only nodded. “Fine with me.” The chief was a sensible man. There was no reason for this assignment to be taken from him—he hadn’t even had the chance to mess anything up yet.

The chief pulled up in his own car and joined them moments later, ending their silent standoff. “Officers, something wrong besides the body we should all be investigating?”

“I was just telling O’Dell that I was happy to take over the investigation from here.” Lieutenant Davies spoke up first.

The chief glanced between both of them, settled his gaze on Matt. “Any reason you can’t handle this case, O’Dell?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, it’s in your patrol area. I’d like you to see it through.”

Matt blinked. Although he’d been hoping and expecting that he’d be able to keep the case, the relief of knowing his boss thought he was up to the challenge was so strong that he almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He nodded anyway. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t let me down. Now come on, both of you, show me the scene.”

The three of them walked toward the remains together, Matt’s head still spinning at the fact that he’d actually been given the case. He’d wanted a chance to prove himself? Here it was. Now he just had to do it—failing at this wasn’t an option.

TWO

Gemma sat on her sister’s porch swing, trying to enjoy the warm night, hoping the back and forth of the swing would calm her mind down enough that she could sleep. She’d run from the Hamilton Estate and come straight back to Claire’s house, her home for now.

For a few hours, she’d debated her course of action—she could run and go back to Atlanta, find a job anywhere she could so she could at least live somewhere she loved...but she’d agreed to the trial period with the historical society, and she wasn’t a quitter. Her only other options were to ignore everything that was happening and continue with her normal life—or to jump into the investigation fully and end this for good.

So far, she’d decided nothing. So she sat. Swinging.

Darkness fell faster than she’d expected—it always seemed to catch her off guard. Soon it was too dark for her to feel comfortable out in the open. Surely by now word had gotten around town that a body had been discovered. If it was tied to the crime she had witnessed all those years ago like she was almost sure of...was she in danger again?

Still?

Katydids chirped a night song, just another sound that was familiar and yet foreign to Gemma. She’d forgotten how loud it was even out here in the middle of nowhere. The sirens, the traffic she’d grown used to in Atlanta were absent, but the night noises were just as loud.

She’d loved this town once. Before its lack of support for her had broken her heart.

Gemma couldn’t keep hoping this part of her life would go away with no action from her. She couldn’t keep sticking her head in the sand, and she certainly couldn’t run. Maybe going to Atlanta in the first place had been running, although of course her eighteen-year-old self hadn’t seen it that way. But now, all these years later, it was time to face this. Past time. Gemma walked down the porch steps, climbed into her car, backed out and took a deep breath. She needed to go back to the office at the historical society.

If they were half the society they claimed to be, they’d have records. Maybe even records that might tell her more about the crime she’d uncovered ten years ago when she’d walked up on a gang of thieves hiding stolen artifacts deep in the woods behind the Hamilton House. Gemma wasn’t sure yet what information about the items the thieves had stolen would do to help her, but she wanted all the information she could get. She’d never believed the case was fully solved. And the town couldn’t move on until it was.

Neither could she.

Gemma swallowed hard, fought back emotion as she kept her eyes focused on the beam her headlights left on the road for her to follow into the darkness of the night. She’d run today because she already believed she knew who the body belonged to. And if she was right about who the body belonged to, then there was a good chance she was right about several other aspects of this case, too.

Meaning the Treasure Point Police Department had been wrong to declare the case closed.

Meaning that as Gemma had always feared...the man most responsible for the crimes still walked free. Maybe right here in this little town. And there was one more crime to add to his tally that she had been sure of—murder.

She turned into the Hamilton Estate, drove her car to the construction site and parked but left the engine running. Was she sure about this?

It looked safe enough out there, although she knew looks could be deceiving. Gemma took a deep breath, shut off the car and opened the door. The minute she did so, an owl hooted. Startled, she slammed the door back shut, then laughed at her own cowardice. She was from here, not an out-of-towner. She should be used to those noises. Unafraid of them.

But the truth was that every heartbeat of the night, everything that should seem normal, took her back to that night when everything had started.

Being here again, seeing it at night, made her wonder if the setting would jog her memory in a way it hadn’t when she’d been here in the daylight earlier, make her remember anything about the crime that had faded in her memory.

So far there was nothing new. Only fear. But growing within was also the determination to be done with this, to do something good for this town and make her parents proud.

Gemma could do this.

She opened the door again, this time squaring her shoulders and ignoring any odd sounds she heard. She walked across the parking lot to the building, pulling the key out of her pocket as she did so. They’d handed it to her just before she’d left that afternoon. It fit right into the door and she unlocked it, walked inside.

Locked the door tight behind her.

She exhaled deeply, shut her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks that she’d made it this far. Gemma wasn’t sure how God felt about her lately, with her losing her job, not attending church and all of that, but a prayer now and then couldn’t hurt in her present situation.

Gemma clicked the light on, flooding the room with a warm glow that made her relax even more. The hard part was over. She’d made the walk from the car to here without incident—surely if someone had been waiting for her, they’d have attacked. She was unharmed, so it was likely she was in the clear. At least for now.

The office smelled musty, like a mix of pine straw, cardboard and something damp. It smelled perfectly like the history of the South. A small smile crossed her face. Working here wouldn’t be so bad, especially if the committee members left her alone during the day and she got to immerse herself in other people’s stories, learning about the past and doing something for the town without interacting with anyone else. It could turn out to be something she enjoyed, especially if it meant as much to Claire and her parents as she was hoping it would. More than anything, she wanted them to be proud of her.

“Okay, where to start first?” She said the words aloud to herself as she walked to the first filing cabinet she saw, deciding to start there, hoping that hearing her own voice would somehow make her feel less alone. At least when she was working here during the day she wouldn’t be by herself. She’d be able to see the construction crew through the window. And even more interesting, Matt O’Dell would be here every day. Just as close physically as he’d been when they’d had almost all of their classes together their senior year of high school, and just as far away in every other way as he always had been.

If things were different between them, maybe she would have called him tonight. She trusted him more than she did any other officer at the TPPD. He hadn’t been one of those who’d questioned her memories, who’d shrugged off her worries. After doing some research, she knew now that eyewitness testimony wasn’t the ultimate form of evidence. If physical evidence contradicted it, it won every time. It was factual, unbiased. So part of the story she’d remembered had been ignored because nothing else had seemed to support it.

But tonight, she knew if she looked out the window toward the construction site, she’d see the crime scene tape from the scene they’d discovered earlier.

There seemed to be support for her memories now.

Gemma shuddered. It was time to delve into these files, the history of the town, and see if there was anything that could help her.

She searched through the green hanging folders, through weathered newspaper clippings and typewriter printed notes, for hours. She couldn’t find anything that remotely tied to the case she’d been involved in.

Sighing, hating that she had to admit failure, she closed the file drawer and stood up, heading for the door. She slid her phone out of her pocket and glanced at it. Almost eleven—even later than she’d thought. Gemma stifled a yawn as she twisted the lock on the door to unlock it. The adrenaline and fear she’d felt when she’d first arrived had long since dissipated. Gemma reached to turn the door handle to open it.

It twisted. But the door didn’t move.

Gemma frowned. She’d locked it when she’d come in. So turning it that way should have unlocked it...right?

She twisted the lock the other way. Tried the knob again.

Nothing.

Chills moved across her body. Sinister laugher came from the other side of the door. Deep. Soulless. Gleeful.

Gemma swallowed hard against the pounding of her heart, which was pounding on the side of her throat, making it hard to breathe.

Relax. She had to relax. She took a deep breath, looked around the room. There had to be somewhere she could—

The lights went out.

Gemma dropped to the floor, crawled behind one of the desks almost without thinking. Survival instincts seemed to have taken over and all she knew was that someone was after her, very likely wanted her dead, and she was trapped in here. But she needed to keep it together, to stay calm and think.

Maybe someone only wanted to intimidate her.

The laughter came again, seeming to be the very sound of evil personified.

And then Gemma started to feel a touch of a headache, which spread quickly into an all-over ache, as if she’d come down with the flu in a matter of seconds. Was it fear messing with her? Or maybe the missing criminal had finally found a way to eliminate his last witness. A gas leak that could fill up the room with carbon monoxide would be an easy way to kill her and make it look accidental.

Her breaths were coming fast now from her fear, and she tried to slow them down, desperate to slow her inhalation of carbon monoxide. Did it work that way? If she tried hard enough, could she keep herself awake?

A window. She just needed to find a window, crack it open and maybe get a few breaths of fresh air. Her head hurt and her eyes, though she couldn’t see in the dark, felt funny somehow.

Gemma pulled her phone out of her pocket, hesitated over the 9 that her fingers wanted to dial on gut instinct. Calling 9-1-1 would bring the Treasure Point police to her, but would they believe her this time anyway?

Matt O’Dell would believe her. She didn’t know why she thought so, but she did.

She had his number in her phone, from when he’d called looking for her earlier in the day and left her a message telling her he needed to ask her some questions about what she might have seen. She’d ignored him.

She hit the send button, tried to put into words what she wanted to say to him.

But she didn’t even get the chance to say “Help”—the only word she’d come up with so far. She’d only just dialed when her headache exploded.

And the black became blacker.

* * *

“Hello?”

Silence. Matt glanced down at his phone again, at the number he didn’t recognize, though it did look familiar. It had an Atlanta area code.

Wait. It was Gemma’s number. He’d called it earlier that day; that was why it looked familiar. “Hello?” he tried again, curious as to why she would be calling back at such a late hour.

No answer. He could hear background noise, although not enough to figure out where she was calling from or why. He’d expected getting hold of her would be challenging; was she really calling him back to talk about the case? Or could something be wrong?

He grabbed his keys, decided to try to find Gemma even though it was late. He’d head to her sister’s house, where he’d heard she was staying, but first he’d swing by the Hamilton Estate, in case Gemma was working late there and had gotten into some kind of trouble.

The more seconds passed the more anxious he got. It was late—surely she wasn’t calling to talk, especially since she wasn’t talking at all. It was possible she’d accidentally sat on her phone or something and hadn’t intended to call him at all, but she didn’t seem like the sort to be careless in that way. Something felt...off. And Matt didn’t know why she’d call him if she was in trouble, but that was what this felt like to him. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, pressed the gas pedal a little harder. Two miles had never taken so long to drive. Matt drummed his thumbs on the wheel as he drove. He turned into the driveway and his headlights caught...

Another car. Hadn’t he seen this one before?

Gemma’s.

Matt threw his patrol car into Park, opened the door and ran. He knew he was taking a chance of looking like an idiot if she was in there safe and sound and he was storming the place like this, but the lights were out. Why would her car be here if she didn’t have the lights on in the office, working or something? There were no good reasons that he could think of.

“Gemma?” He reached for the doorknob. Locked. He fumbled for his key ring, hands shaking. They’d given him an extra key when he’d been assigned this patrol, since the Treasure Point Historical Society wanted everything well guarded but also didn’t want the police to have to resort to damaging their building by breaking a door or a window. Matt knew because they’d told him so in a snooty way when they’d given him the key.

He shone his flashlight on the lock, shoved the key in, twisted.

He went light-headed almost instantly from the first whiff of propane. If Gemma was in here...

“Gemma!” He yelled it this time, no longer asking a question, but instead searching for her. Desperately. He reached for the light switch, but when he flipped it nothing happened. There went any hope this might have been an accident. Someone wanted her dead and Matt knew why.

You never could escape your past.

He searched for her, accidentally knocking into stacks of paper on the desk and hoping they weren’t anything too important. Not that any pile of paper could be more important than Gemma. A mental picture of her teased the edges of his mind, her dark eyes wide. Vulnerable even though she had always been one of the most independent people he’d ever met.

“Be okay, Gemma.” He dropped to his knees and felt around with his hands. The initial light-headedness he’d felt worsened. He stood, ran outside to breathe—through the door that he’d left propped open in the hopes of getting more oxygen into the room—and ran back in. “God, help.” He prayed as he ran. Where would he go if he were Gemma?

Under the desk. If she’d realized someone was after her, she’d be hiding, right?

He stumbled to the desk, knowing if he didn’t find her this time he was going to have to call dispatch and have them send the fire department, who had the equipment to do this kind of rescue.

His hand touched a shoe. Her foot. “Gemma?”

Still no answer. He removed his hand and felt along the floor about five feet. Her hand. That was what he’d been looking for. Matt moved his hands down the soft skin of her palm and felt for her wrist—and then her pulse. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Still alive. Matt gripped her upper arm with both hands, aware suddenly of how small she was, and pulled her toward him and into his arms. He inhaled and found the strength to stand. “Let him be gone, God. Whoever was here, please let him be gone.”

With no choice but to pray and hope for the best, he ran out into the darkness, unable to reach his gun if he needed it since he needed both hands to carry Gemma. And leaving her while he checked the outside for possible danger wasn’t an option—she needed fresh air if she was going to wake up...ever.

The darkness seemed thicker, more suffocating than it had when he’d arrived, even though the air was clean and fresh compared to the office. Matt took a deep breath, filling his own lungs with the outside air and then exhaling. He could only hope Gemma did the same. He laid her on the ground beside his police cruiser, deciding to give her one minute to wake up on her own before loading her in the car and driving straight to the small doctor’s office in town.

It only took a minute before she started to cough, and sleepily sat up.

“You got my phone call.”

Matt met her eyes and nodded.

Gemma nodded, too. “Thank you for coming.” She closed her eyes again.

“Gemma, Gemma, wake up.” Matt reached for her arm, helped her sit.

She did so, but she looked woozy to him, still.

“I’m taking you to the doctor.”

“No.” Gemma’s protest was weak. Not that it would have mattered. Matt had already made up his mind about what needed to be done.

He drove to the doctor’s office and at Gemma’s insistence waited in the car while she went inside to get checked out. He was unsettled, antsy, but he couldn’t very well go to the exam room with her anyway.

An hour later, she came back out. Matt got out of the car and opened the door for her, an action that was met with raised eyebrows. She’d been in the city too long. “How’d it go?” he asked as she climbed in.

Gemma shrugged. “Okay, I guess. He wanted to keep me overnight, but I told him I was fine.”

“You’re sure?”

The look she gave him before she pulled the door shut said enough.

Matt climbed in the driver’s seat and shut the door, then turned to Gemma. “You’re staying at your sister’s place, right? Where does she live?”

Gemma shook her head. “I don’t want to go home yet.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“If I go home, I’ll have to go to sleep. I’m not risking dreaming about tonight, not until I’m too tired to stand it. Is there somewhere we could go, just to talk about the case?” She looked away. “You know what, I shouldn’t ask you that. It’s okay, you can take me to Claire’s.”

“No, it’s fine. We should discuss the case anyway. And I know where we can go.”

“You’re sure?”

Matt nodded.

“Could I borrow your phone real quick, to let my sister know where I’m going?”

He handed it to her, trying not to eavesdrop on the call—an impossible goal when he was sitting two feet away from her.

“Claire, it’s me.”

Matt couldn’t make out the words on the other end of the line, but the tone sounded less than happy.

“I’m fine, I’m sorry... Yeah, I know you were worried. But I’m fine.”

More words from Claire.

“I was doing some investigating and someone tried to kill me. I just finished at the doctor and I promise I’m fine. It’s a long story...Yes, I promise I’m fine...Claire, really...Yes, I’m really okay, please calm down for now, okay?...Yes, they’re looking for the guy. Listen, I don’t want to go to sleep yet so I’m going to be with Matt for a little while...Yes, Matt O’Dell...I know. Okay...Mmm-hmm, I’ll be home soon, an hour or so tops, okay?...Love you, too. Bye.”

She handed the phone back to Matt. “You don’t have siblings, do you?”

“No.” Another thing he wished he could have changed about his childhood.

“I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Unit 807 to unit 225. Call my cell.” Matt’s radio crackled before he could reply.

He turned to Gemma. “Shiloh. I need to call and it’s about the case so I’m going to talk outside. You’ll be okay?”

“I’m good, Matt.”

He stepped out of the car and walked maybe ten feet away. Just enough to have privacy in the conversation and still be close to Gemma.

“Did you find anything to lead to a suspect?” he asked when she answered, unable to wait to hear what she’d discovered.

Instead, he got a couple seconds of silence. “Matt, there’s no suspect because nothing appears different than it would from an accidental leak.”

“What do you mean?” Matt glanced down at Gemma through the windows of the car. She was looking out the window, attempting to give him privacy, it seemed.

“There’s no evidence, forensic or otherwise, that supports the idea of deliberate sabotage. We found a gas leak that the fire department is taking care of right now, but it looks accidental. And as for her being trapped... Maybe she locked herself in?”

“And couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door?”

“Hey, don’t get sassy. I’m just telling you what I found. I didn’t say I was happy, either. Frankly, I’m not happy at all because this leaves me with too many questions and I was really looking forward to a good night of sleep tonight.”

“Okay, you’re right. That was out of line. But, Shiloh... She’s not making it up.”

“She’s telling you the truth about what she thinks happened. I believe that.” But Shiloh clearly didn’t believe it had been an actual attack. And she seemed to think that he shouldn’t have been so quick to believe it, either.

Had he lost all sense of his judgment at the sight of a pretty face? Matt was mostly sure the answer was no, but still, doubts haunted his mind. “I think she’s telling me what really happened.”

“Even though I have no evidence for you that backs that up?”

He hesitated. He didn’t know Gemma, not really. And he knew and trusted Shiloh.

“I don’t know.” He let out a puff of air. Frustration, plain and simple.

“Just be careful, Matt. I know what this job means to you and I’m afraid that from what I’ve heard, Gemma doesn’t exactly mix well with the Treasure Point Police Department. She may have helped with her testimony in that case, but it sounds as if she caused a lot of trouble, made them really work for the information they did get.”

She’d been seventeen. Was he the only one who remembered that?

“Careful. I hear you,” he promised Shiloh.

Matt hung up the phone and opened his door, slid into the car. “Sorry, quick work call. I’m ready to go.”

“No news, I’m guessing?”

Her brown eyes were hopeful. This wasn’t the face of a woman who was lying. Be careful... Shiloh’s warning faded in his mind the more he searched Gemma’s gaze.

He shook his head, started driving in the direction of the Hamilton House. They’d swing by there, pick up Gemma’s phone while officers were still there finishing their investigation. She could get her car another time, but Matt wasn’t comfortable with her being alone in this condition. Then they’d head to his house. She’d wanted to go somewhere safe to talk, and that was the best place he could think of.

Deciding who to trust was a big part of his job. Matt could only hope he’d chosen wisely.

THREE

Inside Matt’s house, Gemma could do nothing but stare. She’d expected that with a steady job and without his dad’s alcohol habit, Matt would have a nicer place than he and his dad had had in high school, but she hadn’t been expecting this. From the outside, it was a cedar cabin-like structure, two stories with a wide deck on the front. But the inside...

The front door opened into a living room with a ceiling that must have been close to twelve feet tall. She’d taken a deep breath when she’d walked in, exhaled and felt her shoulders relax almost unconsciously. The floor was knotty pine that was well polished and gorgeous, much like the stone counters that gleamed in the kitchen, which she could see from the living room.

“Everything okay?” Matt’s gaze was amused, to say the least.

Flustered, she felt herself blush, but didn’t know what to say.

“Hey, I was kidding, I’m sure it doesn’t look like you pictured.” Matt motioned to his living room couch that looked as though she could sink back in it and let all of her stress evaporate off her very tired shoulders. “Please, sit.”

She eyed the couch again and took the big chair in the corner instead. She wasn’t willing to let herself relax like that, not yet.

It was jarring to discover that she’d been right all along, ten years earlier. Someone else had been involved in the smuggling ring. Most likely had been the one in charge.

And he’d killed someone.

She swallowed hard, prayed she wouldn’t have to run to the trash can at the revulsion that thought caused. Fear, terror, disgust... They knotted together inside.

“What do you know about the identity of the body they found today?” she asked Matt. Thinking of it clinically like this, detached as though she was part of the investigation, made her feel more in control.

Less afraid.

Matt shook his head. “Nothing for sure and nothing I could share anyway.”

Gemma sat up straighter. “Why am I here, then? You expect me to tell you something but you’re not going to share information?”

“You’re the one who wanted to come here.”

She stood up, moved to the kitchen. “Because I knew you’d come ask me questions eventually anyway. I came tonight to get it over with.” She heard her voice growing louder, but she didn’t care. Maybe she was tired of dealing with all of this, maybe it was the lingering effect of the carbon monoxide or the treatment they’d given her at the doctor’s office to counteract it—but she didn’t want to answer his questions and then sit around and let a bunch of professionals with no personal stake in this sort it out. She wanted to be involved, to help.

“Then, let’s talk.”

“Not until you tell me what you know.”

Matt was already shaking his head. “That’s not how it works.”

“Why?”

“You aren’t law enforcement.”

The quiet was complete enough that she could hear her heart pounding as she stared in Matt’s direction. She’d hate to be on the receiving end of the glare she was giving him right now. “No.”

His eyebrows rose, slowly. He was calm, in control, and it made her mad. “No?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “You heard me.” She shifted in the chair, managed to sit up even straighter.

“I’m a police officer and this is my investigation.”

“And unless I’m being arrested for something I don’t have to tell you anything. Isn’t that right?”

Matt stared at her for a few seconds. Gemma braced herself. He’d always been one of those guys who was impossible to rile, who took everything in stride, but she was being enough of a pain right now that she knew it wouldn’t be too long until he broke.

Instead, he just nodded.

“Then, I don’t want to,” she shot back.

“I guess I can see why you’d feel that way. I’m making coffee. Want some?”

His calm seemed to knock the fight out of her. Gemma nodded, felt her shoulders drop again. Coffee was always good.

The familiar sounds of coffee being ground—so he was a coffee snob, too; who would have thought the two of them would have anything in common—relaxed her somewhat. By the time he was pouring French pressed coffee for them in his straight out of Southern Living kitchen, she was downright comfortable. The tension had left her almost entirely and she was beginning to regret her outburst. Why did she have to be so forceful when she felt strongly about something? She had to learn to hold on to some of those emotions. It would pay off in the long run, especially while she was living this small-town life. Small towns tended to like sweet women. Not spunky ones with opinions.

She watched Matt as he worked, and found herself more fascinated with him than she should be. Everything about him was a contradiction, from the way he handled the French press so carefully while his arm muscles showed very well defined out of the bottom of his T-shirt sleeves, to the way he’d met her every argument and then let it go all in five minutes.

It made her want to trust him, something that made her stomach do flips—and not the cute kind you read about in novels. These were terrifying, anxious flips.

If the coffee didn’t smell so good, she’d leave. The stress of the night, the overwhelming aroma of French roast coffee... It had gotten her to let her guard down, something she never did. No good could come from that.

Gemma stood to leave, good coffee or not. “I have to go,” she announced abruptly as Matt entered the room, two mugs in his hands.

He just nodded slowly and reached to set the coffee down on the counter. “I’ll follow you back to your sister’s.”

No questions, no anger that she’d ruined what should have been a nice gesture, making the coffee.

Gemma hesitated, giving Matt just long enough to approach her. “Hey.” He spoke softly.

Her face lifted to his, their eyes meeting. He hadn’t touched her at all, but he may as well have from the way the air seemed practically charged with electricity. After just a second or two of silence that stretched out, he spoke. “You don’t have to tell me anything. This isn’t an interrogation, you aren’t a suspect. Technically we have no links between this case and the one you were involved in, so you’re not even a witness.”

“Then, you wanted to question me because...?” she asked, even though she suspected the answer.

He met her eyes with an honesty she wasn’t used to seeing, especially from people in her hometown. It seemed as if people preferred to keep their true feelings to themselves. But she saw no pretense in his eyes. Just full, clear blue.

“You know why. You of all people know why.”

She did. Closure. Curiosity. That nagging, haunting feeling that never fully let her rest, not even in sleep.

Gemma wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Not until she nodded slowly, admitted he was right. “Yeah, I know. But you also know why I want to leave the past alone. Let it go.”

“It doesn’t always stay there, you know.”

As though she didn’t. As though she hadn’t had to fight for a job she was overqualified for because of the stigma of being involved in a criminal trial. “Listen, Matt...thanks for the coffee. But I don’t want to talk about it. And if I’m not legally obligated, I won’t. Not tonight.”

“That’s fine.”

She hadn’t expected him to agree immediately, with no fight at all.

“Stay anyway. Have coffee.”

She studied him. Searched his eyes to see if he meant it.

Then Gemma sat back down.

* * *

Over a decade ago, he’d have given almost anything to have quiet Gemma Phillips give him half a minute’s notice. Now here he was once again, unexplainably attracted to whatever it was he saw in her dark brown eyes.

She was the one to break the silence. “We never talked in high school. Why are you being so nice to me now? When I...”

“What?” Matt asked, already knowing the answer. “You think I’d blame you for my dad going to jail?”

The look in her eyes confirmed he’d been right on. Matt shook his head. “He sent himself there. You didn’t commit any crime, Gemma. You testified against one. There’s a difference.”

“Not to Treasure Point.”

“Yeah, well, small towns.” He shrugged. “But you don’t really believe that you did anything wrong, do you?”

“Everyone treats me as if I may as well have been guilty. As if I’m a criminal by association.”

Yeah, he knew that feeling.

“You don’t believe that’s who you are, do you?” Matt asked Gemma, feeling as though one day he was going to have to answer that same question for himself.

“Of course not.”

“Okay, then, tell me about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What have you done since you left town?”

She eyed him suspiciously for a minute, as if she was trying to figure out his ulterior motive. He didn’t have one, so he watched her back with a small amount of amusement until she’d apparently studied him long enough to decide he didn’t have any particular reason for asking.

“I moved to Atlanta.”

He laughed. “I knew that part. What happened between then and today?” He took a sip of coffee, looking as if he was waiting for her answer.

“Not a lot. I went to college in Atlanta, then started working at a company, doing marketing for them. They had to make cuts and let me go...but I know it’ll work out.”

“But you aren’t happy to be here.”

Gemma shrugged. Matt didn’t miss the way she shifted in her seat, too. “I liked the city.”

“Don’t you like Treasure Point?”

“My family loves it and they’re here. Family’s important.”

He saw her wince after that comment. Yeah, he was used to that, too. So he had no family, really, unless you counted his father in prison, which he didn’t really anymore. Matt shook his head, tiring already of the conversational dance she was doing.

“Why won’t you answer my questions?”

She looked in his eyes then, straight in. Something sparked in them that made him want to lean closer.

“I don’t know why you want to know.” Her voice was softer on the edges. Honest and unguarded.

“Because I want to get to know you.”

Gemma looked away, shrugged. “There’s not much to know, really.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

She wouldn’t look back at him. Seconds went by, maybe minutes. He heard her phone beep as a message came in, but she didn’t reach for it and he didn’t say anything.

More silence.

Finally Gemma looked back at him. “So tell me about you. Is this your first big case?”

Back to business. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. “It’s my first case like this, yes.” He spoke the words to answer her question and also to remind himself. Putting aside a long list of other reasons he shouldn’t be noticing now attractive she was. He needed to focus on work right now. Matt had wanted to be a police officer since the first day he remembered meeting one. He’d been five, maybe six, and an officer on patrol had found him up in a tree and bought him a Happy Meal when Matt had told him he didn’t know where his parents were right then.

That was the day he’d decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life; the day he’d decided what he needed to do to really matter. To be somebody.

“I saw more officers with you at the crime scene today.”

So she’d noticed them as he’d seen her running away earlier in the day. Matt nodded.

“Did they find anything?”

“I thought we already talked about how you aren’t law enforcement?”

She was the last civilian it would be appropriate to discuss this case with. It wasn’t against department rules, specifically, to discuss cases, but officers were expected to use common sense and their training to make wise choices.

“It’s late anyway.” It was a lame excuse to get her out of his house, hopefully out of his head, but it was all he had.

Gemma’s smile lifted slightly. “So you don’t like to be on the other end of the questions. Interesting, I’ll remember that.”

The hint of teasing in her tone, the friendliness there, made it even harder not to trust her. Shouldn’t he tell her what Shiloh had discovered, or rather, not discovered? Really, out of everyone she had the most right to know.

Then Matt pictured Lieutenant Davies, the smug smile that would be on the other man’s face if the chief took this case from Matt and gave it to him. He couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t get stuck working patrol for the rest of his life. Matt was more than just a guy filling a uniform, driving a car with lights and sirens and making sure no one vandalized a construction site.

He was a cop down to his core. An investigator. Someone capable of helping bring justice when it mattered.

He just needed everyone else to see it, too, needed Treasure Point to see him for something other than his father’s son. This was his only chance at proving himself.

And even though he’d been wrestling with attraction only minutes before, what Matt felt now was different. Beautiful as she was, all he could see in Gemma at this moment was her potential to destroy everything he’d worked for.

When he didn’t respond to her, he saw her face fall slightly. With the night she’d had, he felt a hint of guilt for his sudden lack of friendliness, but he pushed it away. “I suppose you’re right. I’m not big into questions.” He made a show of glancing at his watch, not noticing what it said. “But it’s getting late. You’d better head home.”

She nodded. “Claire is probably worried even though I told her I was fine.”

“Was that her who texted earlier?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t check.” Gemma slipped her phone out of her purse and read the message.

Then dropped it into her lap.

“Your sister? Everything okay?”

She just shook her head. He noticed her hands were shaking as she reached to pick the phone up, then handed it to him.

He took it from her, a frown already spreading across his own face. For someone who’d been so brave all day, the thought that a text could scare her this badly...

Then he read it.

He doesn’t believe you. None of them do. I win.

FOUR

Gemma held her hands together in front of her, tight, wishing she had something else she could squeeze besides her own fingers.

How could he have gotten her cell phone number?

She glanced up at Matt, noting the tightness of his jaw. He was asking the same questions she was, but not out loud. Gemma almost wished she could talk to him, but...what had the message meant? He still didn’t believe her?

She wanted to cry. Instead, she swallowed hard and made herself ask the only question that would fully form. “What now?”

“We investigate more thoroughly.”

“Right. But I mean now. Am I in danger? Is he...” Her gaze moved toward the solid wood door. It looked secure, made her feel safely closed in from the night outside. But one good shot to the knob...

Matt was already pulling out his own phone. It looked as if he had a plan. “I’m going to call Clay.”

“Clay?”

“Officer Clay Hitchcock. We patrol together sometimes and he has a little fishing cabin near here where he spends all his free time. He can help me secure this area and make sure it’s reasonably safe. Then we can get you home.” He held the phone up to his ear and stepped away from Gemma. Her shoulders tensed. Being near Matt O’Dell made her feel safe. Who would have thought?

She wanted to let her mind go back to high school, think about the friendship she might have had with Matt if she’d been brave enough to strike up a conversation with someone so opposite of her, but she could think of nothing but the text message, and the impending sense of danger that pressed in on her like a tangible thing.

Gemma swallowed hard, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack. Was it too late to shake it? Maybe if she could have a change of scenery... Hands shaking, heart racing, Gemma wanted to run, but didn’t know where she’d go. And it obviously wasn’t safe for her, not anywhere.

Gemma swallowed hard, willed herself to take deeper breaths.

He doesn’t believe you...

Did the killer know she was at his house? The first time she’d read the words, she’d assumed the attacker knew Matt was the officer on the case. Scary enough. But what if her stalker had actually followed her, knew where she was?

She sank a little deeper into the chair, as though somehow that could protect her from whatever evil might lurk outside in the darkness.

“I think he’s just lent some credibility to your claim that this is all related to what happened ten years ago.”

Matt’s deep voice seemed deeper in the tension. Gemma turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“Until now, we just had suspicions. You may have believed someone was after you because of what happened back then, but it was hard to substantiate. His bragging about that, ironically enough, is what’s going to make people believe you.”

She narrowed her eyes in Matt’s direction. “He was right?”

Their gaze had no sooner connected than Gemma jerked hers away, tried to school her features again. So she was hurt. Fine. She didn’t have to show that to Matt, did she? Give him the power to hurt her more?

“Not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said.”

Understanding dawned as she searched for some kind of indication that Matt was like the other officers, that he didn’t believe her side of the story, either. She finally landed on it. Those minutes she’d been alone in the car, when he’d talked to Shiloh. His attitude toward her had changed after that. Shiloh must have told him something that made him doubt her story.

Just like the text had said.

Gemma did her best to leave her face expressionless, but somewhere in her heart, she could feel the battle going on between too many emotions to name. She couldn’t let him see that.

She stood and walked away from him, momentarily forgetting her fear until she heard a car outside. Gemma jumped away from the window.

“Relax. It’s probably Clay.”

She nodded wordlessly and sat back down.

Matt reached to open the door. “We’re going to have to talk about this later. About me believing you and about that look on your face.”

He could read her so easily?

* * *

Matt didn’t feel comfortable leaving Gemma alone, even for a few minutes. This case was growing messier by the minute, and it looked as though the star witness in the stolen antiques trial from a decade ago might be poised to become the only witness in a murder case.

Even if he didn’t have a bit of a personal interest in her, her safety was too important to get sloppy about this.

So he stepped onto the front deck to meet Clay, leaving the door open six inches or so. He’d only be out here for a second.

“What’s the emergency? You’re going to have to connect some dots for me, man. I didn’t go into work today.”

“You heard about the body, though.” Matt didn’t doubt that for a second. First of all, Clay had law enforcement habits embedded too deep to have turned off the scanner all day, even for fishing. He was too protective of the town he was protecting during the hours he was on duty to ignore it just because he was off. Second, Treasure Point was a small town. Matt couldn’t remember the last murder they’d had.

This would be news everywhere for a long time.

“Just that there was one. At the Hamilton place?”

Matt nodded.

“What is it about that place that attracts trouble?” Clay gave a fake shudder and Matt knew he was remembering a case they’d worked a year or so ago, one involving Shiloh and her past. They’d been present for the final showdown, which had taken place underground in a series of tunnels that led to the old house, and while everything had turned out well, it could have just as easily turned out ugly.

“It’s in the woods, just out of town...” There were plenty of reasons the place seemed like a crime magnet.

“Yeah. Tell me about this one.”

Matt shook his head. “I will. Inside. I have a...” What did he call her? She wasn’t officially a witness yet. Saying he had a woman inside just sounded as though he had some kind of date, which hadn’t been true for him in years. Women in his dating pool wanted to settle down, raise families, and no one wanted to consider doing that with a man whose dad was a felon.

“You have a what?”

Clay’s gaze moved behind Matt and he turned slightly to see that Gemma had walked up behind him. He took in her appearance again, trying to see her through Clay’s eyes. A dark purple fitted T-shirt that somehow managed to highlight the honey flecks in her brown eyes, and comfy sweatpants. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked as if she’d put zero effort into her appearance, but she could draw the attention of anyone she wanted.

And the attention of those she wouldn’t want, too. Like himself. Yeah, Matt was pretty sure he was down on the list pretty close to last as far as people she’d ever want to get involved with. No way she’d trust him after the way his family’s past had affected hers.

And he didn’t blame her. People could move on, but they couldn’t erase things that had happened, could they?

“Matt?”

Clay’s eyebrows were raised and the smirk on his face hinted that this might not have been the first time he’d called his name.

Oops.

“This is Gemma Phillips.” Matt switched to his all-business police officer voice, introducing them since Clay had moved to town about a year after Gemma had graduated and move to Atlanta. Clay’s amusement didn’t dim at all. Yeah, his friend knew him too well for that.

“She has something to do with you calling me over here when I was fishing?”

Matt hesitated, not sure how to say it.

“Somebody’s trying to kill me.”

“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you? Why don’t y’all let me come inside so we can shut this door and talk...” Clay’s voice trailed off. Matt and Gemma stepped back almost in sync and Clay moved inside, toward the kitchen. Matt locked the door tightly behind him, still not sure what their best next step was. Were they being watched? Should he head outside to canvas the perimeter?

He looked over at Gemma again. She was a strong woman. He’d always thought so. But leaving her inside, even with a gun—provided she knew how to use one, as he suspected a Southern woman like her would—didn’t feel like the right choice.

“The house is secure already?” Clay turned to Matt to confirm. Matt nodded.

“There doesn’t seem to be an immediate threat,” he admitted. “But someone is after her, and he seems to know she’s here.” He explained about the text message.

“Have you checked things out outside?”

He shook his head.

“He didn’t want to leave me alone,” Gemma chimed.

Okay, so she was more perceptive than he’d thought. There was a good chance he was underestimating her ability to handle the situation, but he wanted to take care of her. Was that so wrong?

“I’ll take care of it. Tell me the rest of what’s been going on. Start with the body.”

Matt gave him the short version. Clay just kind of took it in, nodded and seemed to think about it without saying much.

Clay was steady, not quick to jump to conclusions. He could spring into action when he needed to on the job and react quickly, too, but if he had the choice, he’d take things slow.

The opposite of Matt.

“So far it hasn’t been that bad, right? Besides the carbon monoxide thing?”

Matt raised his eyebrows at his friend. Seriously, had he been listening? “Isn’t that bad enough? It could have killed her.” The pale shade of Gemma’s face seemed to imply that she agreed with him.

“Listen, though, he could have shot her, finished things quick and certain. With the gas, there was always a chance she could escape. What if it was a warning? Maybe he figured that if she didn’t die, that would be enough to scare her off, especially when he followed it up with a text message and then coming over here.”

“So you don’t think it will get worse?”

Matt wasn’t happy with the lilt of hope in Gemma’s voice. He liked how it sounded, but it was false hope right now, and he couldn’t let her hang on to it. “I don’t think we can say that for sure.” He glared at Clay with a “thanks a lot” kind of expression.

Gemma’s shoulders fell. Matt noticed for the first time how much more exhausted she looked even than she had after the carbon monoxide incident earlier.

“All right, if that’s all I need to know, I’ll head out and check things out.”

“Be careful,” Gemma urged.

Clay smiled and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I will be.”

Matt followed him to the door, then locked it behind him after he left. He turned back to Gemma.

* * *

Matt’s eyes on hers seemed to look deep into the tangle of fears weaving its way around her heart. His expression had become more serious since the text message. Even though he’d been so insistent earlier that he didn’t want to push her into sharing more about the past than she was comfortable with, Gemma knew the rules had changed at this point. The text message had been a game changer, and everything was going to be different now.

Her heartbeat quickened and she had to remind herself to breathe deeply as she waited for what he’d say. She couldn’t bring herself to just volunteer the information. She needed him to ask, needed to know that he wanted to be invited into the not-so-pretty sections of her past.

Another deep breath. And another. She wasn’t ready.

“Do you have any more coffee?” she stalled.

“Gemma.” He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure you don’t need more coffee with whatever drugs you’ve got in your system that they gave you after the carbon monoxide.”

Her shoulders slumped as he sat down on the other end of the couch and looked at her. “I know I told you we wouldn’t talk about it...”

He trailed off. Gemma looked away.

Since she was looking at the wall, studying the mounted fish trophies that somehow looked not awful in this cabin, she didn’t see Matt reach out.

But she sure felt his hand cover hers and squeeze.

She swung her head back around, eyes meeting his with no hesitation. She’d expected him to yank his hand away quickly, but he let it stay there.

“I want to keep you safe, but I don’t know how to do that when I don’t have the whole story. He’s going to be one step ahead of me, Gemma, trying to get you, if I don’t know at least what you do about who he could be.”

This time the skipping of her heart had more to do with the emotion in his words, the words themselves and how he cared, than with fear. Something deep inside her felt...something.

“And, Gemma, I’m willing for this to go both ways. You tell me what really happened that night, trust me with that, and I’ll keep you in the loop on my investigation.”

He didn’t break eye contact as he said it. Everything about his body language backed up his words—he was telling the truth.

An inside look at the case, through his eyes? That would keep her close to it. Ensure that she could do everything possible to guarantee all the loose ends were tied up this time, that she really got closure and her life back.

Her self back. She was tired of being known as the girl who’d been through this or that related to the trial.

She wanted to just be Gemma Phillips.

Ending this case would let her do that, at least she hoped so. Which was why she nodded. Took a deep breath.

“You already know I was on a walk on the Hamilton property when I saw those men. I guess maybe I was curious, I don’t know, but once I saw movement, I studied them for a minute while I was walking, just curious about what they were doing. They were burying things in the ground, which struck me as odd.”

Matt nodded. “I remember this part. I paid attention at the trial—I knew you’d tell the truth about what really happened and I wanted to know.”

“Really?” Gemma had known Matt was there, but had assumed that when she’d talked he’d probably tuned her out. It went right along with her assumption that he would probably always hate her for her part in putting his dad behind bars. Now he was telling her he’d listened? And...appreciated what she’d had to say?

When had she ever felt as if anyone had appreciated the sacrifices she’d made to testify?

“I always wanted to tell you,” he admitted, his eyes not wavering from her.

Somehow it gave her the strength she needed to keep going. Gemma squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them back open. Stood up and started to pace.

“I saw them burying boxes. You heard all of that testimony, so there’s no need to go over it again.” Anytime anyone brought it up she saw the whole thing in her head all over again. Saw them behind the hanging Spanish moss, thinking no one saw or heard them as they talked about what they’d done, how many estates they’d stolen things from. She’d recognized a couple of them. Matt’s dad, for one, and Rich Thompson, who’d worked at a gas station not far out of town. Several of them were unfamiliar to her, but she could tell by their accents that they were mostly local. Not necessarily from Treasure Point, but at least from this corner of Georgia.

“I ran back toward the Hamilton House, but I tripped. The doctor told me later it was the worst ankle sprain he’d seen in his career. In any case, I fell.” Hard. The pine straw on the forest floor must have muffled her fall. Either that or the men she’d seen next had been too distracted by their own disagreement to notice a little bit of noise in the woods...

Her own heartbeat had been the loudest thing in her ears then, even when the men’s fighting had grown louder. They couldn’t have been standing more than thirty feet from her, off the little game trail she’d been using. She’d only seen the other men a minute before—they were close enough that she assumed they were together, even before she heard what these men were saying.

“Gemma?”

She had to blink to see Matt and his living room, rather than the dark, thick Southern woods she’d been lost in, in her mind. When she finally focused she noticed she’d stopped pacing. She was standing in the middle of the room, suddenly afraid to go on, afraid to move.

Somehow afraid that someone was watching...

Listening?

“Gemma.” Matt was up from his place on the couch now, moving toward her. All she could do was shake her head.

“What is it? You can trust me. You know that. I know you do.”

He was right. She did trust him, for reasons she couldn’t explain even if she tried. But she couldn’t shake her sudden uneasiness.

What she was about to say she’d only said out loud a handful of times. Once the police had decided that this part of her testimony was questionable, that it had too many gaps to be useful, she’d stopped telling this half of her story.

“They were fighting.” She lowered her voice. Looked around the room again. No one was eavesdropping. Gemma tried to use logic to calm her fears. Matt was inside and hadn’t noticed anything else unusual since the text message, and Clay Hitchcock was out there somewhere in the night.

No one else was here. She took a deep breath. Time to be brave whether the emotions were there or not. “They were fighting and I interrupted them. Harris Walker is the only one I could identify for sure. The other man had his back to me. His voice sounded familiar, but I never could place it.”

“That’s not uncommon in situations like these. Sometimes the trauma makes it too much for the brain to process.”

Gemma nodded. That was what she had assumed. “Anyway, when I fell, my ankle hurt too much for me to move right away, and I could hear them talking. Their voices were tense and it wasn’t long before their fight got out of hand. Harris wanted more money—I assume from his part in stealing the antiques I’d seen the other men hiding—and the other man wouldn’t give it to him. The argument grew more heated. The last thing I heard was Harris threatening the other man. Even though my ankle felt as if it was on fire, I got up and ran anyway. I was afraid that if they saw me, they’d kill me. All I could hear from then on was my heartbeat and the pounding of my feet as I ran. I don’t know if he was shot or killed some other way, I just know that no one ever saw him again. And I think I was yards away when he was murdered, the second-to-last person to see him alive.”

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