“Do you know what I’d like to do right now?”

Faith shook her head in response to Ben’s question. Her teeth closed on her lower lip, betraying nerves.

“I want to take you home with me and tuck you into my bed for a nap. I want to lie there next to you.” Ben wouldn’t even have to be touching her. He’d be satisfied to watch her sleep.

Color touched her cheeks and he thought he saw yearning in her eyes before they shied from his. “That’s just weird.”

He smiled at her. “Maybe. Of course, that’s not all I want, but it would be a start. Just … knowing you were sleeping soundly, right there next to me.”

“I don’t understand you,” Faith whispered.

His own voice low and husky, Ben said, “I’m willing to give you a chance to, any time you’re ready.”

Dear Reader,

The relationship between twins is a fascinating one often explored in fiction. The extremely close bond that sometimes exists, especially between identical twins, is hard for those of us not born a twin to understand. I, of course, like to focus on relationships that have gone bad. It intrigued me to imagine twin sisters with completely different needs. One craves the closeness born in the womb. The other is, almost from birth, horrified to see this other person who is a reflection of her. How can they help but hurt each other, no matter how much they also love each other?

And what’s going to happen to these two women, whose ability to love each other has been damaged, when later they fall in love with the heroes? Wonderful questions I loved exploring.

Because Charlotte’s and Faith’s lives are so entangled, their stories had to be as well. I’m just glad the two books are coming out in back-to-back months! The first THE RUSSELL TWINS story, Charlotte’s Homecoming, was released in July 2011 and now you have Faith’s story.

Enjoy!

Janice Kay Johnson

About the Author

The author of more than sixty books, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter.

Through the

Sheriff’s Eyes

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

BEN WHEELER HATED TO fail at anything.

He hadn’t made a habit of it in his seventeen-year career in law enforcement. Oh, there’d been screwups, sure. Like the one that had landed him in the ICU for a week with a bullet hole in his gut. But that time, he’d taken down the guy who shot him and a second one who’d been about to shoot him, so he couldn’t exactly call it a failure. He’d lived, they’d died. And naturally, there were cases—particularly in Homicide—that had gone cold, which he hated.

But failing to find an ordinary guy … Not a professional hit man or anything like that, not someone who knew how to disappear as a career skill. Nope, just a sleaze who’d abused his wife and, now that she’d left him, wanted to teach her a vicious lesson. Ben couldn’t think of an excuse in the world for his failure to locate Rory Hardesty and put the son of a bitch behind bars.

His fingers flexed on the steering wheel despite the brief glower he gave them. He wished like hell there was a different, logical route to take into West Fork—one that wouldn’t add fifteen minutes or more to the drive.

One that wouldn’t take him past the Russell Family Farm, coming up on the right once the highway rounded a curve that followed the river.

Every time he saw the damn farm, he was slapped in the face with the reminder that he’d failed. Was still failing.

He should have been able to keep Faith and Charlotte Russell from being terrorized and hurt.

He’d spent this afternoon in Everett helping train volunteers for a program that kept first-time juvenile offenders out of the court system. He was giving his time generously because he believed in preventative law enforcement. Nip crime in the bud, so to speak. Make teenage offenders who’d surrendered to an impulse to shoplift or threaten someone face sober citizens from their own community who could assign real-life punishment while also offering the kind of attention and caring the court system couldn’t. The kids who took the opportunity seriously wouldn’t have the crime on their records. Ben liked the concept.

He’d keep his gaze straight ahead as he passed the farm, he told himself. Allow no more than a brief glance, to be sure there wasn’t an ambulance or police car with flashing lights there to signal trouble. Not that there would be at this time of day—Hardesty liked the midnight hour.

Less than half a mile past the Russell farm, the highway led into the small town of West Fork in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains.

Ben’s town now, although he didn’t know yet whether it would be permanent. He’d taken the job as police chief a year ago and still hadn’t decided whether the decision had been good or lousy. Life was undeniably more peaceful here than it had been in Los Angeles. Peaceful, however, could be considered a euphemism for boring. He hadn’t made up his mind which it was.

For a man who had worked his way up from a street officer in the LAPD to a lieutenant in Homicide via long stretches undercover in Vice, spending his days worrying about a chain saw stolen from a rental outfit or graffiti on the high-school gym wall felt unreal. Most of his officers were young and inexperienced, not toughened by ten years or more of urban crime like the homicide detectives who’d worked under him in Los Angeles had been. These days, the most dangerous place he stepped into was the city council chamber. He and the conservative, unimaginative idiots who made up the council did not see eye to eye on most issues. Unfortunately, he was dependent on them for his paycheck and continued employment.

Although Ben had been feeling satisfied with his afternoon’s accomplishments, he’d been growing increasingly tense from the minute he’d left the courthouse in Everett. All because he’d have to pass the Russells’ place, which made him think about Rory Hardesty, about Charlotte, and most of all about Charlotte’s identical twin sister, Faith, who was Hardesty’s ex. The two were twenty-nine, he knew; Faith had lived in West Fork her entire life except for the four years of college, while Charlotte had come home only recently to help Faith and their dad.

His squad car came abreast of the cornfield within which Faith had designed a maze that was a huge hit with area teenagers. Then he passed the handpainted signs strung along the highway, promising Antiques! Fresh Organic Produce! Plant Nursery! Local Arts & Crafts! Corn Maze! It was about the same time he’d moved to West Fork that the Russell Family Farm had been converted from real agriculture to primarily retail. Whether the farm/store/nursery amalgamation was doing well enough to keep the property from being sold off as neighboring ones had been, he had no idea.

Ben was startled to see that his turn signal was on and he was slowing. What in hell? He’d been avoiding the farm and Faith Russell in particular for weeks now. He had no new information to offer her.

But, damn it, here he was turning in anyway, pulling into the hard-packed dirt parking lot in front of the nearly one-hundred-year-old barn that housed the retail business.

Faith’s Blazer was parked beside her father’s battered pickup truck up by the two-story yellow farmhouse. It was late enough in the afternoon that she was home from the elementary school, where she taught kindergarten. He knew she came straight home every day, changed clothes, then went straight to work at the barn, taking over from the part-time employee who filled in days when Charlotte wasn’t able to. Don Russell, the twins’ father, had been injured in early August when the tractor had rolled on him. Now, in October, he was becoming more mobile, but was still on crutches and couldn’t be of much help to his daughters in keeping the farm going. Ben had seen the strain on his face; Russell felt guilty as hell that his land, his farm, was still in the family only because Faith was willing—no, determined—to work herself to the bone to save it.

Russell wasn’t the only one feeling guilty. If only Ben could find and arrest Faith’s ex-husband, that would take a hell of a lot of pressure off her.

A van and a car were parked in front of the barn, which meant Faith had some business. He parked beside the car and, after a moment, got out.

Spiky purple asters bloomed in the narrow bed in front of the barn, as did a clump of sunflowers at the corner. A scarecrow sat atop a bale of straw right outside the barn doors. Sheaves of dried cornstalks and a couple of pumpkins added to the Halloween appeal. Between the corn maze, the pumpkin fields and the wagon rides, Halloween was big for the Russells.

Damn it, what was he doing here?

He knew the sight of him upset Faith. She probably wasn’t any happier to see him than she would have been to see her ex-husband stroll in.

Her divorce had been final over a year ago. The marriage had lasted three years, and resulted in only one police report, after Hardesty had beaten Faith so viciously she’d have died if a neighbor hadn’t called 911. He’d gone—too briefly—to jail, and she had left him. What little Ben knew of the marriage had come from Charlotte, who’d told him that the final beating had been the worst, but not the first. Hardesty had hurt his wife over and over again. Until that last time, she’d lied when she got medical treatment for broken bones and concussion. Forgiven him again and again. Intellectually, Ben knew how the dynamic of an abusive relationship worked and why the women often came to think they were at fault and deserved the punishment. Textbook info aside, he still didn’t really get it.

Sometime this past summer, Hardesty had apparently gotten over any sense of shame and decided Faith should be ready to forgive him again and come back to him. When it became clear that wasn’t happening, he’d gotten mad.

First, in August, came a middle-of-the-night arson fire that did some damage to the barn. That was when Ben had met the Russell sisters. A week or so later, a cherry bomb was lobbed through the dining room window when both women were sitting at the table. Ben had arrived to find Faith white with shock, her silken skin bristling with shards of glass from the shattered window. She’d been virtually deaf for nearly a day after the explosion and was damn lucky her eardrums hadn’t been permanently damaged.

Hardesty hadn’t gone back to his apartment, hadn’t shown up to work the next day. He’d vanished—until the night he broke into the farmhouse and attacked Charlotte, thinking she was Faith. Concussed and with an eight-inch-long gash from a knife, Charlotte had gone to the hospital.

“Rory wouldn’t have hurt Charlotte on purpose,” Faith had insisted. “Only me.”

As if that made it all right. Ben hadn’t quite managed to hide his rage, he knew, remembering the way her eyes had dilated when she’d seen his expression.

Ben muttered an obscenity under his breath and felt like a fool, standing here outside the barn, afraid to go in.

Only, he told himself, because he didn’t want to upset Faith.

Too bad he knew a lie when he heard one, even when he was the one telling it.

Still asking himself what he was doing here, Ben stepped inside, then paused to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Small windows let in some sunlight, and double doors thrown open on one side of the barn to allow customer access to the nursery area outside made a bright rectangle.

The space in here was divided by open shelving units built of rough wood that sectioned off garden supplies from art and antiques from produce. In the middle of the barn, a large counter held displays of hand-canned jams and jellies as well as an old-fashioned cash register.

No one was behind the register. His eye was caught by a woman picking through a bin of Yukon Gold potatoes and filling a bag. He recognized her from the library, where she worked.

Ben nodded. “Ms. Taylor.”

A potato in her hand, she looked up, momentarily apprehensive. “Chief Wheeler. Oh, dear. I hope you’re not here because there’s a problem?”

“No, I came to speak to Ms. Russell or her father. Whoever’s handy.” He smiled. “I might buy some of that raspberry jam while I’m here.”

“It’s divine, isn’t it?” She laughed. “I think Faith is outside helping someone.”

“Thanks.”

He was halfway across the barn when Faith and a pair of women came in from the nursery area. Faith was pulling a flatbed cart with half a dozen large, potted shrubs on it. With her head turned away as she said something to the other women, she didn’t see Ben immediately.

Oh, hell, he thought, frozen in place.

He never got over the shock of the first sight of her. She was so damn beautiful. More than that, she made him think about sunshine, golden roses in bloom and picket fences. Home, the kind he’d never had. She was grace and sweetness.

All good reasons for him to stay away from her. He wasn’t the man for a woman like her, not after the life he’d led. Growing up first with a drug-addict mother, then in foster homes, going straight into the ugly world of inner-city law enforcement—these things didn’t make for a man who could be domesticated enough to belong behind a picket fence.

But damn it, sometimes he just wanted to look at her. To drink in the sight of her corn-silk blond hair, worn most often in a braid that hung down her back or flopped over one slender shoulder. The delicate, beautifully sculpted lines of her face and her pretty mouth. Her eyes—God, her eyes, a blue richer than the sky. Her slim body, endless legs, long-fingered hands he could all too easily imagine touching the five-year-olds she taught every day as she gently guided them.

And yeah, he could imagine those hands touching him, too, although most of the time he didn’t let himself.

This, of course, was why he’d stopped by today. To see her. Nothing else.

He’d gotten himself breathing again when her head abruptly turned and her startling eyes gazed right into his. They widened and darkened, and he’d have sworn color rose in her cheeks.

God, he thought. She thinks I have news about Hardesty.

He was deluding himself if he thought she was reacting to him sexually. Hell, no; he was fated only to be the bearer of tidings, good or ill, as far as Faith Russell was concerned.

It didn’t help that he was wearing his uniform. That was another thing different for him here in West Fork. He’d been on one plainclothes assignment or another for his last ten years in L.A. There, the uniform got taken out of mothballs mainly when he had to attend funerals. Now he embodied the police department in this town, so he wore a uniform most days. It felt both constricting and conspicuous to him. Conspicuous, of course, was the point.

“Ms. Russell,” he said in an easy voice. “Ladies. Looks like you’re in for some fall planting.”

“It’s the best time to put in shrubs and trees,” one of them told him. She studied him with interest. “You’re Chief Wheeler, aren’t you? I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the proposed skateboard park. I know there’s some controversy about it….”

Smiling an apology at Faith, he drew the woman aside and, while her friend paid for the shrubs, let her say her piece. He recognized her name once she introduced herself. Sonja Benoit managed the video-rental store in town, while her husband owned a car dealership. They had two teenage sons, which might have been why Sonja had gotten involved in the grand plans to build the skateboard park on a vacant lot near the high school. It might also be, he speculated, that Guy Benoit was fed up with chasing skateboarders off the grounds of his dealership.

By the time Sonja was satisfied that her committee had his support, her friend was pulling the cart outside and Faith was ringing up the potatoes, corn and lettuce for Ms. Taylor, the library clerk. A moment later, he and Faith were alone. Dust, shimmering in the sunlight, billowed out front as the two vehicles reversed.

Faith turned to look at him as he walked toward her. Her face was nearly expressionless. “Do you have news, Chief Wheeler?”

Not Ben. She hadn’t called him Ben in weeks.

“No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I only stopped by to be sure you’re all right, and that you haven’t heard from Hardesty.”

A shadow passed over her eyes, as if a cloud had blocked the sun from a lake’s surface. But after a moment she shook her head. “If I could tell you how to find him, don’t you think I would?”

No, he wasn’t sure at all. He was very much afraid that Faith still had mixed feelings about her ex-husband. Despite what that scum had done to her, she was the kind of woman who believed in redemption and who wanted to forgive.

Granted, ultimately she’d divorced him. But Ben had asked himself, what was to say she didn’t still want to believe that the man she’d married—and presumably once loved—was really a decent guy, somewhere deep inside? Ben had seen a photo of her taken at the hospital after the brutal beating. The mere idea of Faith, battered and bloodied and bruised, made a tide of violence rise in him.

She would only withdraw further from him if she knew what he was thinking, though, so all Ben could do was say, “Yeah. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t left a message or sent you some kind of little reminder.”

If he hadn’t been looking closely, he might have missed seeing her flinch. She suppressed it quickly and managed to stare straight at him.

“I’ll let you know if I hear from Rory.”

God damn it. She did know something.

But he only nodded brusquely. “All right.” He cleared his throat. “Are you still getting some time in at the gun range?”

“Yes, but not as much.” She made a helpless gesture. “I’m … pretty busy.”

Yeah, that was one way to put it. She was working full-time as a teacher and running a business, too. Not to mention caring for her father. She looked more worn down every time he saw her. Sooner or later, he was afraid, she’d break.

The thought made him feel sick and helpless, and roughened his voice. “Do you keep the gun with you?”

She nodded. “It’s in my purse behind the counter.”

He had mixed feelings about the idea of her owning a handgun at all. Like most cops, Ben would have been happiest if no civilians were armed. In Faith’s case, he was far from convinced that she’d have what it took to shoot her ex-husband. On the other hand, twenty-four-hour-a-day protection for her wasn’t an option, and if Ben knew one thing, it was that Hardesty would be back. His attacks had escalated. He wasn’t done.

Ben frowned. “It would be better if you had it on you.”

“I don’t have enough cleavage to tuck it in my bra,” Faith snapped. “Sorry.”

No, she didn’t have big breasts, but he liked what she had just fine. More than fine. She was long and limber and sexy.

He was very careful not to let his gaze drop to her body, although he was painfully aware of it and how little she wore. The summer heat wave had persisted into October, and it was too damn hot in here for her to wear an overshirt to conceal any kind of holster. The snug-fitting cropped chinos she wore with a cap-sleeved T-shirt that barely touched the waistband of her pants left nowhere to hide anything.

He thrummed with the effort it took not to look.

“Rory wouldn’t dare attack me in here, anyway,” she said, and Ben realized she was blushing. He wondered what she’d seen on his face.

“The time he walked in here and your sister ordered him off the property, she thought he’d have hit her if Gray hadn’t come in.”

Gray Van Dusen was another sore point for Ben. He was the mayor of West Fork who had hired Ben as a big-city cop to keep this small town safe. Gray had been enraged when Ben had failed to prevent Charlotte from being attacked and hurt—it so happened that Mayor Van Dusen was deeply in love with Charlotte Russell.

Ben didn’t have many friends who weren’t cops, but he’d thought Gray might be one. No chance of that anymore. The tension between them hadn’t yet gotten in the way of their working relationship, but sooner or later it would if not resolved.

“I’m rarely alone for more than a few minutes,” Faith said. “And I promise you, if I see Rory walk in I’ll head straight to the counter and grab the gun.”

“What do you do at night?”

“I put it under my extra pillow.”

He hated the idea of her having to snuggle up in bed with a Colt .38. His voice had descended to a growl when he said, “I suppose you can’t carry a handgun at school.”

Faith looked shocked. “I hope you wouldn’t seriously suggest that!”

He reached up and kneaded the taut muscles in his neck. “No. You should be safe there, anyway.”

“You know, he might have given up. Or … shocked even himself, when he saw what he’d done to Charlotte.

That’s what—” She stopped so abruptly, his eyes narrowed. “What?”

Her pupils dilated. “I was just going to say, that’s what I think.”

Uh-huh, sure she was. Damn it, had she talked to the scum and wasn’t admitting it? Why?

“I saw the pictures that were taken the night you came into Emergency,” he said flatly. “I’ve seen damn near everything, and those shocked me. Seems what he did to you didn’t shock him. Don’t kid yourself—all he’s doing is lying low.”

She stared at him for a stricken moment, then turned and walked away.

Swearing under his breath, Ben followed.

“Faith …”

Radiating anger and pain, she spun to face him. “Why are you here?”

To see you. To know you’re okay, if not happy. “I’m doing my job.”

“Scaring me? Trying to intimidate me? That’s your job?”

He willed his expression to go blank. “I have never, and will never, try to intimidate you. Scare you, yes. Until you’re willing to admit Hardesty is capable of really hurting you …”

A shudder ran through her, and then she was screaming at him, “I believe it! I saw what he did to Charlotte! I know what he did to me!” She swallowed. Ended in a whisper. “Do you think I wasn’t there?”

He couldn’t stand it. Ben reached out to pull her against him.

Faith backed away so fast she bumped against one of the stools behind the counter. When he took another step toward her, she whipped behind the stool and gripped it with both hands as if she was prepared to brandish it like a lion tamer to hold him off. Her eyes were wild.

“I want you to leave.”

“I didn’t mean to …”

“Now.”

God. Feeling as though his chest was being crushed—as if he’d been the one under the tractor, not Don Russell—Ben backed away.

“I’m sorry, Faith,” he said, throat feeling raw.

She didn’t say anything, only stared at him with that same angry ferocity. He’d been right; she didn’t like him any better than she did her ex-husband.

No, Ben realized, as he made himself turn away and walk toward the open barn door, right now she hated him even more than she did Rory Hardesty. She still had a habit of softening sometimes where Hardesty was concerned. Pretty clearly, she’d be happiest never to see Police Chief Ben Wheeler ever again.

That, he thought grimly, was one thing he could do for her. Stay away.

Unless he could bring her the news that Hardesty was behind bars.

Or until a 911 call came in some night after Faith’s ex-husband returned to make sure no one else could have what he couldn’t.

Ben didn’t look back. He got in his patrol unit and sat behind the wheel while he calmed himself enough to drive without killing someone.

He was scared in a way he didn’t ever remember being before. Scared that the next time he saw Faith Russell, she’d be lying battered and bloody on a gurney—or dead, being fitted into a body bag.

It was a good five minutes before he could back out and drive away.

CHAPTER TWO

FAITH MADE IT THROUGH the day, and the next day, on sheer willpower alone. She didn’t know why Ben Wheeler’s visit had shaken her so badly, but it had.

He had.

From the minute she’d seen West Fork’s new police chief, she’d tumbled hard. It would be silly to call what she’d felt love, but it was more than lust. Maybe it was most accurate to say she’d known right away that she could love him. The shocking thing was, she’d never felt anything so potent and next-thing-to-painful for Rory. Rory and she had dated for over a year before he’d asked her to marry him. She’d liked him, felt comfortable with him. He’d felt right, as if he fit into the life she wanted.

Ben, Faith had known from the first moment, could blast her life as she knew it to smithereens.

In fact, he’d hurt her right away by asking Charlotte, not her, out to dinner. For all the troubles that lay between Faith and her twin, jealousy over a man had never been an issue. That night, while her sister was out with Ben, Faith had sat at home and burned with envy.

She still didn’t quite know what had happened between them, only that Char had said there weren’t any sparks. She’d been convinced that Ben was really interested in Faith and not her. Sometimes, Faith thought that, too. The night when Rory had tossed the cherry bomb through the window, Ben had seemed to have eyes for no one but Faith. He’d cradled her on his lap while the medic plucked shards of glass out of her flesh, and he’d rushed her to the hospital himself. His tenderness had made her feel safe.

But it seemed as if every time he held her and comforted her, he regretted that he had. She’d never seen a face close down tight the way Ben’s could.

Either he felt nothing for her, or he didn’t like what he did feel and refused to act on it. Either way, seeing him hurt.

She might have told Ben about Rory’s last phone call if only he wasn’t always so irritated with her, so scornful. She knew he didn’t understand any more than her own father and sister did why she had endured three years of marriage to a man who was abusing her. She despised herself enough, thank you; she didn’t have to spend time with a man who believed she was so spineless, he had to bully her into defending herself from Rory.

That was why she’d bought the handgun, why she’d spent a total of thirty-six hours to date shooting at the range. She would defend herself, and Daddy and Char, too, if they were in Rory’s way. Faith still felt queasy every time she picked up the Colt .38, but her hands were steady when she lifted it and aimed, and she could rip the heart out of the target.

Char was always the one who’d been adventurous, strong. Faith was the timid twin, the compliant one. The one easily wounded.

The perfect sucker for a man like Rory Hardesty, she knew now.

The worst thing about seeing Ben this time, she thought, was that she’d had to lie to him. Rory had called, a couple of weeks after he broke into the house and slashed Charlotte with the knife thinking she was Faith.

During the phone call, he’d sounded relieved to hear that Char had recovered. He claimed that he wouldn’t be moving back to West Fork. He’d sounded truly sorry for scaring her, and for what he’d done to Char.

The only thing was … his tone had changed at the end of the conversation. He’d asked if he could come see her if he was back in West Fork visiting. She told him no, and to add weight to her refusal said she was in love with someone else. His voice had changed after that.

“What about your wedding vows?” he’d asked. “Do you ever think about what you promised?”

She’d clutched the phone, thinking about all the times she’d forgiven him. About how close she had come to dying at his hands, which would have released her from her vows in a final way. And she didn’t say a word.

But he did. “I don’t like the idea of you with anyone else, Faith,” he’d told her, and she recognized the anger simmering in his voice.

She’d tried to convince herself it wasn’t anger, that it was really grief for what he’d been foolish enough to throw away, but she hadn’t quite succeeded. It had sounded like a threat to her.

Right after Rory called, Faith hadn’t been able to bear even the idea of seeing Ben again, of having to submit to his questions, of having to remember the horrible years of her marriage. Of giving him even more grounds to pity poor Faith Russell, too weak to stand up to a bully. Anyway, what good would it do to tell him?

They already knew Rory was a threat. Ben, especially, was convinced he would be back.

So she hadn’t told him about the call, and she wasn’t going to now. There wasn’t any point, and she had a right to defend herself against Ben as well as Rory.

But he’d known she was hiding something, which brought out the aggressor in him. Faith could tell he’d been determined to make her bare everything to him, every doubt, every fear, every weakness. She’d had no choice but to order him to leave and not come back, even though he meant well in his own way.

She could count only on herself, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Faith had spent a lifetime trying to clutch her twin sister close—so close, she’d driven Char away. And once she had lost her identical twin, she’d grabbed for Rory instead, enduring too much because he was all she had.

Well, she wasn’t the same woman now. She and Char had come close to healing their breach, and Faith was truly grateful for that. She wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that had alienated them in the first place. Char was mostly living with Gray now, their wedding planned for November. Faith wouldn’t let herself lean on her sister. And Daddy was still convalescent—the idea of him trying to protect her really frightened Faith.

Saturday, she decided, she’d see if Char could work for a few hours, freeing her to drive to Everett to get in some practice at the gun range. She hadn’t been for nearly a week now, and to stay strong and confident she needed to shoot often. Handling the gun should become second nature.

Thinking about it, Faith picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s cell-phone number.

“Sure, Saturday morning is fine,” Char said, after being asked. “I was just thinking about you. Any chance you want to go swimming at the river tomorrow after you get home from school? Maybe Marsha could stay a couple of extra hours.”

Faith hesitated; even the meager salary she was paying the nice woman who worked Tuesday through Friday at the farm ate into their inadequate profits. But it didn’t seem as if she and Char ever had time to do fun things, only the two of them. Gray was such a big part of Char’s life now, and Faith couldn’t leave Daddy on his own for very long yet, either.

“I’d love to. It’s supposed to be hot again tomorrow,” she said. “You want to come by and get me?”

“Okay.” There was a muffled voice in the background, which Faith assumed was Gray’s. Char laughed, then said into the phone, “See you about four?”

“Four,” Faith agreed.

THE SIGHT OF HER SISTER in a bikini shocked Charlotte. Faith had lost weight. Too much weight.

Since their late teens, Charlotte had been the skinny one. She’d always had more nervous energy and not much appetite. Later, she’d deliberately lost weight—part of her strategy along with dying her blond hair dark—to ensure that she and Faith couldn’t be mistaken for each other. She had hated being an identical twin, having another person who looked so much like her. Some of her earliest memories were of throwing gigantic temper tantrums when their mother tried to dress them the same. Too much of her life had been consumed by her near-frantic need to separate herself from her sister.

When she’d come home almost two months ago, Charlotte had realized that next to her sister she looked bony. Urban angular, she’d convinced herself. But, darn it, the food was better here at home. Corn fresh from the field, real butter from a local dairy, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of a hasty bowl of cereal. She’d been gaining weight ever since, while Faith, stressed almost past bearing, had been losing it.

Charlotte just hadn’t realized how much, until now.

She had the sense not to say anything. Faith had reason to be scared. Reason, irrational though it would seem to most anyone else, to be driving herself so hard to try to save the family farm. With the fabric of her life so torn after Mom’s death four years ago, the failure of her marriage and now Rory’s cruel and terrifying attacks, Faith had to hold on to the one solid piece of her life that she could: home. The heritage they’d both grown up taking for granted.

Daddy, Charlotte believed, was ready to let the farm go. Neither of his daughters could imagine what he’d do if it was sold and carved up into a housing development, but Charlotte could tell he was uneasy with the theme-park kind of farm Faith had created and with the retail business that brought in most of the income. No matter what, Don Russell would never be a real farmer again. He was tired. Once he’d have bounced back quickly from the kind of injuries he’d suffered when the tractor had rolled on him. Fifty-nine years old now, he was struggling with the pain and the limited mobility and the indignity of having his daughters have to care for him like a baby in the first weeks.

Because she understood her sister, Charlotte was doing her best to help. She had accepted a job with an Eastside software company in part because she could do a fair amount of the work from home. She was putting in several hours every evening so that she could fill in a few mornings a week at the farm. Gray didn’t mind, overwhelmed as he was with his part-time mayor, part-time architect gigs, which he said felt more like full-time mayor, full-time architect. He often worked evenings, too.

Charlotte knew that she could help her sister and father only so much, but she should have noticed how Faith’s weight was plummeting. Instead of just helping out at the farm, maybe she should have suggested more fun outings. Did Faith ever have fun anymore?

As always, they had made their way upriver, over a tumble of boulders and under the railroad bridge, to a favorite spot that was private and offered a pool deep enough to allow them to cannonball off a rock into the water. The river was running even lower than it had been the last time they’d been here, she noticed as they waded in. Winter had been unusually dry this year, so there wasn’t much snowmelt to run off.

The water was cold enough to discourage any sane person from wanting to plunge in. Inch by inch, was her plan—one Faith ruined by splashing her. Of course she splashed back, and pretty soon they were both immersed to the neck and squealing as they waited for their bodies to grow numb.

“See? Isn’t it better this way?” Faith finally claimed.

“Yeah, right.”

Faith rolled onto her back to float. After a minute, sounding a little guilty, she said, “You still don’t have a dress.”

Charlotte steadfastly refused to go shopping for a wedding dress without her sister, but Faith never seemed to have a minute to spare.

“Not this weekend.” Faith was still floating, her fat, wet braid drifting beside her like kelp. “But maybe next weekend.”

“Okay,” Charlotte said softly, knowing Faith probably couldn’t hear her with her ears beneath the water.

The wedding she and Gray were planning would be simple. She had no intention of spending thousands of dollars on a dress, and she wasn’t the type for flounces or pearl-encrusted fabric, anyway. How hard could it be to find something simple and ready-made? Not that she would dare say that aloud. Faith was more interested in the details of the occasion than Charlotte was. She had always enjoyed planning all the details of parties. Faith cared about things like flowers and a cake. Thank goodness she hadn’t offered her own wedding dress, assuming she’d kept it. Charlotte found herself hoping Faith had trashed it, hateful symbol that it must seem to her.

Eventually they got out of the water and lay in the sun, talking idly. Faith told her sister about this year’s crop of kindergarteners, which included the requisite couple of hellions, a few kids who, in her opinion, shouldn’t have started for another year and two girls who were already reading at a first-grade level or beyond. Charlotte was still feeling her way around in her new job; she’d been working on computer-security projects before, but was now helping enhance already successful management software with on-demand customization capabilities. Mostly she told Faith about the personalities in the office.

Faith asked lazily, “Do you and Gray want to come to dinner this weekend? Sunday, maybe? Dad likes Gray, you know.”

Charlotte laughed. “I know. But then, everyone likes Gray. How else do you think he got elected to office?”

Faith laughed, too. “You’re right. I like Gray.”

Actually, she and Gray had gone out a couple of times, some months before Charlotte had come home. They’d liked each other; there just wasn’t anything else there. And yet, according to Gray, the minute he set eyes on Charlotte, he wanted her. Had maybe even fallen in love with her, although he hadn’t called it love for a few weeks. He hadn’t even realized Faith and Charlotte were identical twins, maybe because he’d seen through Charlotte’s facade from the beginning to who she was beneath. She hadn’t yet quit marveling at the knowledge that he loved her—she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to. It was a miracle that he did, and that she’d been able to let herself love him in return.

“Have you seen Ben lately?” Charlotte asked.

As if by chance, Faith turned her head away, pillowing it on her arms. “Um. He came by a couple days ago. No news. He seemed annoyed that I don’t carry my gun in a holster at all times.”

“Oh, sure.” Charlotte eyed the back of her sister’s head. “You don’t have it with you now, do you?”

There was a moment of silence. “In my beach bag.”

“You’re kidding.”

Faith rolled over then sat up, her gaze level. “Nope. I carry it everywhere. Except school, of course. Then I lock it in the car, in the glove compartment.”

Charlotte looked at the lemon-yellow-and-white bag, repelled at the idea of a handgun nestled inside it alongside the suntan lotion. “Wow. I didn’t realize.”

“We’re all alone here,” Faith said, her voice cool and expressionless. “What if Rory showed up right now? Even if we screamed, nobody could get to us in time to help.”

Charlotte shifted uneasily and stole a look over her shoulder.

“I’m ready,” her sister said with remarkable calm. “I told you that.”

Charlotte looked back at her sister’s face in awe and disquiet. Had Faith really changed so much? Or was the armor she wore no more than a thin crust disguising the vulnerability and fear beneath?

Anger surged through Charlotte. Why couldn’t the police find Rory? Was it too much to ask that Faith be able to feel safe?

“Maybe I’ll stay at the house tonight,” she decided.

Faith only shook her head. “I’m ready,” she repeated. “You couldn’t do anything.”

“I can keep the baseball bat next to the bed.”

Faith’s mouth curved faintly. She’d been the one ready to swing the bat at Rory’s head last time, except that he’d run before she could. “We’ve changed the locks,” Faith said, “and Dad should hear if Rory breaks a window.” He was still sleeping downstairs, in the hospital bed they had rented when he came home after he was hurt. He could probably manage the stairs now with his crutches, but why should he?

“Maybe,” Charlotte said doubtfully. “The way he snores, how can he hear anything else?”

They both giggled. As long as they could remember, Dad had been insisting that he didn’t snore. Mom always said she’d tape him some night, but she never had, and somehow teasing him about it didn’t feel right without Mom here. Some nights this past summer Charlotte had even taken comfort from the familiar sound drifting upstairs.

“Maybe you and Dad should come stay at Gray’s, just until Ben finds Rory,” she suggested. She’d tentatively talked to Gray and he was willing, even though the two of them loved the time they had together, without anyone else.

“I let him terrorize me for three years,” Faith said, sounding completely inflexible. “I won’t let him make me go into hiding, Char. Anyway … How long would we have to stay with you and Gray? Two weeks? Two months? What if Rory never comes back? Or if he waits until Daddy and I go home again? No. I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.”

Charlotte found her eyes resting on the tote bag, with its sunny colors and a semiautomatic pistol tucked inside. Faith followed her gaze, as if understanding what she was thinking. Her expression stayed resolute, almost stony. It was as if her weight loss was a manifestation of what was happening to her—Faith’s soft, gentle nature had hardened, as though baked in a kiln, the process altering her very substance.

Uneasily, Charlotte thought about how little it took to shatter kiln-fired stoneware.

Suppressing a shiver, she said, “If you change your mind, you’re always welcome. Even in the middle of the night. Okay?”

Faith reached out and hugged Charlotte, pressing her cheek to her sister’s. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I love you, Char.”

“And I love you,” Charlotte whispered, too, thankful that the words came so readily these days, a balm to soothe the hurt of ten years of estrangement.

Cold prickles walked up her spine as she thought about how precious their restored bond was. She could lose her sister so quickly if Rory stole into the farmhouse some night and slipped into Faith’s bedroom without waking her. A gun would do no good at all, if she didn’t have time to reach for it.

FAITH SHOWERED before bedtime to cool down, even though she had been swimming in the river only a few short hours ago. The day’s heat had risen in the house, found no escape. Despite the fan in her bedroom and the fact that she’d wrestled her sash window up, she was toying with the idea of taking a pillow and sheet downstairs and sleeping on the sofa in the living room with Dad.

If only he didn’t snore …

She had always enjoyed hot weather; she’d even thought that if it weren’t for Daddy and the farm she might have liked living in southern California or the Southwest. The idea was one she played with while waiting for sleep some nights. Starting anew where no one knew her both appalled and intrigued her. It would be so lonely, but also—she had thought a long time about the right word to describe the shimmer of excitement she felt, and settled on one—liberating. When she was younger, that kind of freedom had held no appeal. After the years of her marriage, though, she’d begun to imagine what it would be like to stand entirely, selfishly alone. To be the quintessential island.

It was only a fantasy, of course. She had a feeling she would wither and die if she truly found herself plunked down in Phoenix, say, knowing no one, unfettered by any ties.

And yet, sometimes she was so very tired.

She had gradually turned the water temperature colder and colder, and now it rained down on her, nearly icy. With a sigh, Faith turned the shower off and stepped out shivering. She towel-dried, then brushed her hair and plaited it with practiced hands. She knew from experience it would still be damp come morning, and help keep her cool.

Momentarily, head tilted as she gazed at herself in the mirror, Faith wondered what she’d look like if she cut her hair boyishly short, like Char’s. She laughed at herself. Silly—she’d look exactly like Char! Except different, really. She had become aware these past two months that they might be identical twins, but they didn’t move alike or laugh alike or even make the same gestures. Passing as each other wouldn’t be easy, as it had been when they were mischievous children.

Rory wouldn’t like it if I cut my hair.

Faith went still, looking at herself in the steam-misted mirror. Her eyes had widened, the shade of blue deepening, as she did battle with the tight knot of fear that had ruled her for too long.

“I should cut it,” she whispered. “Because.”

No. She shouldn’t do anything at all because Rory liked it or didn’t. If she cut her hair in defiance of him, she would be giving him more weight than he deserved.

And she liked her hair long. She always had, resisting haircuts while Char had experimented with every length when they were teenagers.

Faith began to breathe again. She wouldn’t give Rory any power at all. She’d think about him only as a threat, the reason she would be target shooting tomorrow again.

She went back to her bedroom and found it considerably cooler after the cold shower and with her hair wet and the braid heavy down her back.

Dad had long since fallen asleep. She’d heard the rumble of his snoring as she’d crossed the hall from the bathroom. A farmer his entire life, he rarely stayed awake much past nine o’clock, but he no longer awakened with dawn, and he napped in the afternoons, too. She worried a little about how much he was sleeping, although the doctor insisted that was normal, part of the healing process. She still thought some of it might be depression.

Faith turned off her light and stood for a minute looking out her bedroom window at the cornfield. She could see the highway from here, too, and on the other side of it a glint of river between stands of trees. The moon was nearly full and low in the sky, a buttery yellow that looked mystical but was probably, unromantically, caused by smog in the atmosphere. A month from now, on All Hallow’s Eve, it would be a sullen orange, the harvest moon.

She left the curtains open and lay in bed, the covers pushed aside, enjoying the wash of air over her skin as the fan rotated. The faint hum was mesmerizing, a kind of white noise that soothed her. Faith fell asleep to the sound of it.

She never slept soundly anymore. Waking suddenly wasn’t unusual. Old houses made noises, and sometimes Daddy got up at night to go to the bathroom. Faith thought it was a creak that she’d heard. She always left her door open now, in case her father needed her. The rectangle was dark, inpenetrable. She lay staring toward it, holding herself very still as she listened intently for the thump of his crutches, or the quiet groan of the hundred-year-old house settling.

Nothing. For the longest time, there was no repetition. Her instinctive tension eased. She began to relax, let the weight of her eyelids sink. She was always so tired….

This creak was closer. On the stairs, or in the hall. Faith went rigid. There was another whisper of sound—something brushing the wall, perhaps.

Her pulse raced and her blood seemed to roar in her ears. Was it Rory? How had he gotten into the house without her hearing glass break? The front and back doors both had dead-bolt locks now.

One hand crept for the cell phone on her bedside table. Before she could touch it, her eyes made out the deeper shadow within the dark rectangle that was the doorway.

It was too late for the phone. Faith eased her hand back, then shoved it beneath the pillow beside her and found the hard, textured grip of the gun.

I’m not ready for this.

She heard breathing now. Her own, but someone else’s, too. He had stepped inside the bedroom, almost—but not quite—soundlessly. Not Daddy, no thump or scrape of crutches. The shape took form in moonlight. He was only a few steps from her bed.

Something snapped in Faith, and with a scream of terror and rage she lunged for the lamp switch even as she lifted the gun.

In the flood of light, he threw himself forward, his face contorted and a deadly knife lifted to stab.

Faith went cold. As if she were outside her body, she saw her second hand come up to brace the first, her thumb folding just as it ought to.

Rory was almost on top of her when she squeezed the trigger.

CHAPTER THREE

THE RING OF THE PHONE WOKE Ben with all the subtlety of a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. Cursing, he groped on his bedside table for the damn phone.

“Wheeler,” he growled into it.

“Chief, this is Ron Meagher.” One of his young officers, greener than baby peas fresh from the pod. “You said to let you know, day or night, if anything comes in about the Russells.”

“Yes.” He stifled an obscenity and swung his legs to the floor, then turned on the lamp, blinking painfully in the flood of light. “What’s happened?”

“We just had a call from Faith Russell. She says she shot her ex-husband.”

Damn it, damn it, damn it. Ben grabbed the jeans he’d left draped over a chair and yanked them on.

“Is he dead?”

“She seemed to think so. Dispatch said she sounded real cool.”

Cool? Faith? Maybe, but beneath the surface she would be dissolving.

“I’m on my way.” He dropped the phone and tugged yesterday’s T-shirt over his head. Not bothering with socks, he shoved his feet into athletic shoes. Weapon at the small of his back, he snatched his wallet and keys up, then was out the door at a run.

He drove faster than was legal, faster than was safe. The moon was high and silver now, an improvement over the sickly yellow it had been earlier, hanging on the horizon.

Don’t let the son of a bitch be dead, he prayed, with scant hope any prayer from him would be answered. He and God weren’t on cordial terms. He tried anyway. Faith can’t handle it. Shouldn’t have to handle it. Don’t let him be dead.

He didn’t pass a single car on the city streets or the highway. Long before he reached the farm, he saw the multicolored, rotating lights of police cars and ambulance.

He tore into the farmyard, heedless of potholes, and came to a skidding stop behind Faith’s SUV. The scene was nightmarishly similar to the other time he’d been called out here in the middle of the night, when Charlotte had been battered and slashed.

Please, not Faith, he thought. She was so fragile. Strong, too—more than he’d credited her with on first meeting. But gentle, not made for what she’d suffered.

If she’d really killed Rory Hardesty, that would be much worse for her than being hurt would have been.

Burgess was in the kitchen, along with two EMTs.

“Dead?” Ben asked, and got nods all around.

Burgess kept talking. Ben didn’t hear. He walked straight through the dining room to the living room, where he heard voices.

Faith was there, sitting on the sofa beside her father. Meagher, looking about eighteen in his blue uniform, had just asked if she had a license for her gun.

“Yes,” Ben said hoarsely. “She has a license.”

She looked up at him, but not as if she were glad to see him. Not as if she felt anything at all. He had seen eyes like that, too often in his years in law enforcement. Utterly and completely empty, as if tonight she had lost her soul. He wanted nothing so much as to sit down and cradle her in his arms, but he had a feeling that if he did he’d be holding a mannequin, not a living breathing woman.

Her father was watching her, his face drawn. He wasn’t touching her, and Ben suspected she’d rejected his embrace. She sat with her back straight, her hands quiet on her lap, as if she were a guest not quite comfortable in this home but determined to hide it.

Brushing by his young officer, Ben laid his hand against her cheek, marble cool, and took an icy hand in his. He felt his lips pull back in a snarl. “She’s in shock, damn it! Meagher, get her a cup of tea or cocoa or something hot. Now.” He turned and, not seeing an afghan, wrenched the comforter from the hospital bed. Her father reached for it and helped him settle it around her shoulders.

“I told you I’m all right,” Faith said, words belied immediately when a shiver rattled her body.

“Sure you are,” Ben said. He decided he didn’t give a damn how stiff she would be in his embrace. He sat next to her and lifted her onto his lap, tucking the comforter around her.

She began to fight him.

“Don’t,” he said, and tightened his arms.

She struggled for another minute, then subsided when he simply held her close. She shivered again, and her teeth began to chatter. Her father looked on helplessly.

What the hell was Meagher doing? Ben wondered in raw fury. How long did it take to heat water in the microwave?

Waiting, Ben pressed her face into his shoulder and pressed his cheek to her hair. It was damp, he realized, and when he groped under the comforter for her braid he found it to be wet. That wasn’t helping. Cheek against the top of her head, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Faith. God, so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to face this. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She didn’t say anything, only kept trembling against him, her nose buried in his throat as if she couldn’t resist seeking the warmth of his skin.

Ben looked at her father. “Has anyone called Charlotte?”

He started. “No. I’ll, uh, do that. I was too worried about Faith….”

Who probably needed her sister more than anyone else in the world. At any other time, Ben might not have liked knowing that, even though he had been very careful to avoid offering himself up as her rock. But right now, all he wanted was to give Faith whatever she needed.

Don Russell levered himself to his feet and, with the help of the single crutch that was within arm’s reach, shuffled over to the bedside stand where his phone sat.

Ben could hear his side of the conversation, punctuated with pauses.

“Gray? It’s Don. Hardesty got in the house tonight. No, don’t know. Faith shot him. She’s …” His sidelong survey of his daughter was uneasy. “If Char can come … Okay. Thanks.”

He ended the call and met Ben’s eyes. “They’re on their way,” he said, unnecessarily. Despite a tension between the sisters that Ben had never understood, he sensed that either of them would have gone to Siberia or the Congo or, hell, Timbuktu, for the other without any hesitation. He, who had been essentially alone all of his life, even during his brief marriage, wondered what it would feel like to have someone love you like that.

It was unlikely he’d find out, and seemed even more so with his fortieth birthday looming up ahead.

His body heat seemed to be helping her. Faith’s shivers came less often and she was warming up, nose, hands, cheeks. Meagher finally showed up with a mug of cocoa, flushing when he encountered his boss’s glower.

Ben shifted Faith, bundled like a mummy in the comforter, to the sofa beside him and helped her grasp the mug. She sipped, and let out a sigh of relief as the hot liquid reached places he couldn’t.

Ben stayed where he was, keeping her against his side and reminding her to drink, until a commotion at the back door announced the arrival of Char and Gray. Only then did he murmur in Faith’s ear, “Your sister’s here,” and stand up.

She looked at him for a moment, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes were no longer blank, but rather filled with so much emotion, such horror, he almost wished he hadn’t stirred her to life again.

Involuntarily he reached out, but the movement was abortive because Char flung herself across the living room and enveloped her sister in her arms.

“Faith. Oh, God. Faith, honey.”

Ben backed away, leaving them to it. He had to do his job. He just wished his chest wasn’t so tight with anguish that every breath he drew hurt.

Turning to face Gray didn’t help.

Like Ben, Gray Van Dusen was a tall man, over six feet and broad-shouldered. A few years younger—maybe thirty-four, thirty-five—Gray had brown hair streaked lighter by the sun, a pair of level gray eyes and an easy, relaxed style that could morph into hard-ass in an instant. Right now, his pitying gaze shifted from his fiancée’s sister and went cold and hard when he looked at Ben.

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know yet. When I got here, Faith was in shock. I didn’t want to leave her until Charlotte could take over.”

After a moment, Gray nodded in concession. Faith was more important to him, too, than any investigation.

“I’ve got to get on with it,” Ben said abruptly to the room, and walked past Gray as if he weren’t there.

In the kitchen, he determined that Meagher had, astonishingly enough, called for a crime-scene crew—borrowed from the county as the small city of West Fork didn’t have much need for one of their own—and the medical examiner. Both were en route, the young officer reported.

Ben nodded and, reluctantly, started upstairs.

Before he’d taken over, West Fork police would have turned the case over to the sheriff’s department because they had no officers experienced in homicide investigation. He might yet have to do that, if there seemed to be any doubt about tonight’s events—he knew he was emotionally involved, whether he liked to admit it or not. If it turned out the dead man wasn’t Hardesty, or Hardesty hadn’t been carrying a weapon, things could get messy.

A couple of the steps creaked under his weight. Had Faith’s ex spent enough time at the house to know to avoid them? Or were those faint sounds what had woken her?

In the hall at the top of the stairs, the first room on the right was Don Russell’s. Unsurprisingly, it had an air of disuse. On the left was Charlotte’s, where Ben had talked to her when she was recuperating from Hardesty’s last assault. Bathroom beyond, also on the left. And finally, Faith’s bedroom.

The door was wide open. The overhead light wasn’t on, but the bedside lamp was. Had Faith turned it on? If it was Meagher, if the idiot had done a thing in here but verify Hardesty was dead, Ben would string him up by his thumbs.

Ben pulled on the latex gloves he carried in his glove compartment, but didn’t have to touch either knob or door.

The body lay sprawled beside the bed. In fact, the dead man had been so damn close to the bed when the bullet—bullets?—struck, he’d slid down the side of it, fountaining blood on the quilt. Shit, Ben thought; from the quantity of blood, she’d likely gotten him right in the heart.

He pictured her at the range, taking methodical shot after shot, never flinching, her hands steady. Had she been envisioning this moment when she pulled the trigger? Seen her ex-husband in the white paper target?

Reality, Ben had long since learned, was one hell of a lot more brutal than anything the imagination could conjure.

He eased into the room with a sideways step to avoid walking where the intruder had. Sticking to the perimeter, he circled to a position near the foot of the bed and squatted on his haunches so he could see the face.

Rory Hardesty, Ben saw with relief. No mistake there, except on Hardesty’s part. He’d misjudged Faith, bigtime.

At first Ben couldn’t see any weapon, which worried him. Not to say Faith hadn’t had reason to shoot the bastard; he’d hurt her badly enough with his bare hands before, and it was well-documented. But this would be cleaner if he’d carried a gun or.

Ah. The knife had fallen out of his hand and lay in the shadow just under the bed. It was an ugly one with a thick black rubber grip, designed for the military or hunters, if Ben was any judge. The blade was at least eight inches long. He was willing to bet it would turn out to be the same knife Hardesty had used on Charlotte.

Oh, yeah. This one was open-and-shut, but he knew that wouldn’t make it any easier for Faith to live with what she’d done tonight.

He retreated as carefully as he’d entered the room. Now, how the hell had the son of a bitch gotten in? The easiest way would have been to knock out a pane of glass on the back door and reach in to unlock the new dead bolt, but he hadn’t done that. He clearly hadn’t made enough noise to wake either Don or Faith until he was upstairs and so close that in another few seconds Faith could have died.

Ben swore under his breath, pausing at the top of the stairs to get a grip on himself. He couldn’t let anyone see him falling apart at the idea of that knife descending toward Faith Russell’s breast. Or her throat.

Or—God—would Hardesty have wanted to carve up her face to punish her?

He actually shuddered and wanted to go back and kill the bastard all over again. He wished he’d done it in the first place. He could handle killing in a way he was terribly afraid Faith wouldn’t be able to. Especially not when the man she’d shot was someone she’d once loved.

Finally confident he could hide everything he felt, Ben went downstairs where both his officers waited with thinly disguised anxiety.

“Have you looked for the point of entry?” he asked.

Both heads bobbed. Burgess and Meagher exchanged a glance. Jason Burgess, who’d been a cop for two whole years, was the one to answer. “Yes, sir. The laundry room, sir.”

The door was behind the stairs. The window above the washer and dryer was missing its glass. The frame wasn’t large; it would have been a squeeze, but doable. This might have been the only room in the house with a closed door, which would have helped make the entry quiet. Also, Ben determined by prowling, the staircase and a storage space beneath it that was packed with boxes lay between the laundry room and the living room where Don had been sleeping. The pile of boxes would have offered dandy sound insulation.

He went outside, fetched a flashlight from his car and circled the house, where he found a painter’s stepladder under the window. The glass had been removed almost whole and leaned carefully against the house. Cut, presumably, although he didn’t see a tool.

He wondered if Hardesty had intended to reclaim the ladder once he was done inside and drive away to start his life anew, freed of his vicious compulsion once Faith was dead. Or would he have sat down on the side of the bed and called 911 himself, then waited for the arrival of the police as domestic abusers who killed sometimes did? Unless he proved to be carrying a handgun, too, which Ben wouldn’t know until the medical examiner was done with the body and photographs had been taken, Ben doubted Hardesty had intended to commit suicide, another popular option. Stabbing yourself would be a lot harder to do than pulling a trigger.

Satisfied with this first survey, Ben walked back around the house to find all his guests had arrived. He showed the medical examiner upstairs, and encouraged the crime-scene techs to start outside with the ladder and cut window, then returned to the living room. He hoped Faith was up to talking to him now.

Don was back in his hospital bed, the sheet and a thin blanket over him. On the sofa, Charlotte sat beside Faith, holding her hand. Gray stood with his back to the window, watching the two women. They all looked at Ben when he walked in.

“He got in through the laundry room,” he told them. “Took out the window glass neat enough, I’m betting he used a cutter. He either found a stepladder in one of the outbuildings or brought his own. It’s still standing under the window.”

“We have one,” Don said. “It’s damn near as old as the girls. Getting pretty rickety. Wood, with lots of paint splatters.”

Ben shook his head. “This one’s wood, but newish. Maybe he picked it up at his mom’s house.”

“Oh, no,” Faith breathed. “Has anyone told his mother yet? “

Trust her to worry about someone else.

“No,” he said. “I’ll do that eventually. The medical examiner is here right now, and the photographer is taking pictures. It’s going to be a few hours before we can move the body out of here.”

Faith seemed to shrink. Ben felt cruel, but had no choice but to keep on being cruel.

“I need to ask you some questions,” he said.

She swallowed and raised her gaze to his. “Your, um, officer tried earlier, but I …” She closed her eyes briefly.

“I couldn’t.”

“I understand.” He tried to make his deep, rough voice as gentle as possible. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened in your own way?”

“Yes. Okay.” She did, with some stumbling and halting and trembles. Something had woken her up, she didn’t know what. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I wake up every time Daddy goes to the bathroom, or a truck rumbles by on the highway, or the house settles.”

Ben nodded.

At first she’d thought that’s all it was, one of those sighs an old house makes. Then she heard a creak, and what she thought was something brushing the wall outside her bedroom. So she’d reached for her phone.

“And then I saw him in the doorway. It was dark, but he was darker, and I knew it was too late to call anyone.” Her breath came in agitated pants. It was all Ben could do to stay five feet away and let Faith’s sister comfort her. “I told you I keep my gun under the extra pillow at night.”

All he could do was nod again. His entire body seemed to be locked tight, absolutely rigid. All he saw was Faith, her blue eyes dark with remembered fear. He had his back to Don, and Gray and Charlotte were no more than blurs on the periphery of his awareness.

“I pulled it out and lunged to turn on the lamp. He was rushing forward, a knife in his hand. He was almost at the bed …”

Charlotte made a soft sound of distress. Gray jerked, breaking Ben’s concentration.

Faith was hunched as small as she could make herself, her gaze still pinned to Ben’s as if she couldn’t look away. “I pulled the trigger,” she finished, barely audible. “Twice. Or … or three times. I don’t remember.” The blankness was coming back into her eyes, shock tugging her back under. “I saw … blood. He … he staggered and dropped down.”

“What did you do then?” Ben asked quietly. His hands, he realized, were balled into fists at his side. He could only imagine what her father was thinking and feeling.

“I screamed and scrambled off the far side of the bed. I fell down. I looked under the bed and I could see him on the other side.”

“Your gun?”

“It was still in my hand.”

“All right,” he said. “Then what?”

“I pushed myself to my feet and made myself circle the bed. I was holding the gun. You know. But my hands were shaking so much, I could see it wavering up and down.”

God.

“Did you touch him?”

She shook her head. “I could see his face….” What little color she’d had disappeared, just like that, and suddenly she sprang up. “I’ve got to … Got to …” She clapped a hand to her mouth and fled.

Char raced after her.

“Couldn’t this have waited?” Gray asked.

Ben looked at him. “You know it can’t.”

He knew he hadn’t succeeded in hiding everything he felt. Nobody was that good. Gray studied him for a moment, then dipped his head in acknowledgment.

None of the three men said another word. Five minutes passed before the two women returned, Faith leaning on her sister. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and let herself be settled on the couch again, the comforter wrapped around her.

Without prompting, Faith resumed her tale. “I edged out of the room, even though I wanted the phone on the bedside table. I was afraid to get that close to him. I knew he was dead, but … I guess part of me still thought he’d wake up and grab me. Dumb.”

“Not dumb. Smart. He could have been faking it. Getting away, calling the police, that was smart.”

After a minute she nodded, although Ben doubted she was convinced.

Her voice was grave now, and small, like a child telling a story about something so bewildering and horrific she didn’t really understand it herself. “I ran downstairs. I fell the last few steps.” Faith paused. “I suppose I’ll have bruises. I can’t feel anything right now.”

“Did you call from the kitchen?”

She shook her head. “Dad was yelling my name and I went to the living room. I told him what I’d done and he said he’d call, but I thought I should do it. And then I waited here until there were knocks on the back door and someone yelling, ‘Police.’”

“The shots are what woke me,” her father said, and Ben turned so he could see him. “And Faith screaming.” He shuddered, not surprisingly. There was a lot of that going on tonight. “I reached for the phone and managed to knock it to the floor. By the time I got out of bed and found it, Faith had rushed in here.” He looked at his daughter. “I took the gun from her. I guess you’ll find my fingerprints on it, too. But the way her hand was shaking …”

Ben had already spotted the Colt, lying on the bedside table. “Did you take it by the barrel or by the grip?”

“Ah …” Don mimicked reaching out, and they established that he had never held it by the grip or touched the trigger.

Ben turned back to Faith. “Did you see that it was your ex-husband before you shot him?”

“Yes.”

“How was he holding the knife when he came at you?”

She stared at him.

He took the TV remote from the bedside table and demonstrated the two choices, blade pointing up, as Hardesty had undoubtedly held it when he’d sliced Charlotte, or down, with the clear intention of stabbing from above.

Gray moved to lay a big hand on his fiancée’s shoulder. He didn’t like the memory of what that knife had done to her.

“Down,” Faith said, lifting her hand. “He was going to stab me.”

“You did what you had to do,” Ben told her, as calmly as he could. “You’d be dead if you hadn’t shot him.”

Unbelievably, she began to shake her head and kept shaking it as if she couldn’t stop. “I don’t know. Once I turned the light on he must have seen that I had a gun, and that’s when he rushed forward so fast. Before that, he might’ve meant only to scare me.”

“You don’t believe that,” Ben said incredulously over the voices of everyone else’s protestations. Her face was still so white, he stepped forward and laid the back of his hand on her cheek. “You’re cold again.”

Her head was still shaking like a pendulum slowing but far from run down, and she’d started to rock. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “How can I know?” Her gaze lifted to his. “He’s dead? I really killed him?”

“He’s dead, Faith. But you have nothing to be sorry for.” He crouched in front of her and laid a hand on her knee. “Nothing. Remember how close he came to killing you before you divorced him.”

“But he was angry….”

“Remember what he did to Charlotte.”

The rocking was becoming more pronounced. “He might have been …”

“Damn it, no!” His sharpness had them all staring. Faith quit rocking. “He was angry this time, too. He came to kill you, Faith. You saved your life, and maybe your father’s, too.”

He could tell she hadn’t considered what Hardesty would have done if Don Russell had confronted him when he came down the stairs.

As if the words were wrenched from her, she said, “I never really believed …”

“You’d have to use the gun?”

She nodded.

Again, there might as well have been no one else in the room. They only looked at each other. “Didn’t you?”

“I did,” she whispered brokenly. “But I didn’t.”

Ben would have given anything to hold her right now, but instead he stayed where he was, squatting in front of her. “You did the right thing,” he repeated.

But God almighty, he wished she hadn’t had to.

After a minute he took his hand back from her knee and scrubbed it over his face. He rose to his feet and looked at Gray.

“Can you take Faith and Don home with you?”

“I planned to,” the other man said, in a way that told Ben exactly nothing about what he was thinking.

From the doorway behind them, someone said, “Chief Wheeler?”

He turned his head. The medical examiner, whom he had met only a couple of times since he’d taken over as police chief in West Fork. “Just a minute,” he said, then told Gray, “Watch her for symptoms of shock. She needs to be kept warm.”

Gray surprised him then by reaching out and gripping his forearm. One hard squeeze that felt like … sympathy. He’d seen too much, Ben realized.

“We’ll take care of her. I assume you’ll be by in the morning?” Gray asked.

“Count on it.”

“Don’t worry about Faith,” Gray said. “Do what you have to do.”

Ben nodded, allowed himself one more look at Faith’s face, white and shell-shocked, and made himself turn and walk out of the room.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’LL STAY WITH YOU,” Char offered, hovering beside the blown-up air mattress in Gray’s library. She offered a wavering smile. “Sleepover.”

Charlotte had demanded her own bedroom when the twins were ten years old. In the years after that, however, sometimes one sister or the other desperately needed to talk or just to have this one person in all the world close. “Sleepover?” she’d suggest, and they would share a double bed the way they had when they were young. In the trauma of the past couple of months, they’d done that a couple of times. Just the soft sound of Char breathing beside her was a comfort to Faith.

Tonight, Faith wanted no one.

An image of Ben flashed into her mind, and she remembered the way he’d held her cradled on his lap, his hand on her nape, pressing her face against his shoulder. His throat had been so temptingly close, she’d inched her face over to warm her cold nose against his skin and breathe in his scent, soap and sweat and man.

No. She didn’t want him, either. But a stricken feeling inside told Faith that she might not have been able to resist him if he’d actually been here.

Faith shook her head. “No, please. I’m not sure I can sleep, and … I need to be alone.”

“Are you sure?” Char kept hovering.

“Yes. Please,” Faith repeated.

Wearing a pair of flannel pajamas borrowed from Gray, cuffs and sleeves rolled, she sat on the edge of the bed. Despite the hot, sweet tea Char had plied her with, Faith was still cold. She felt chilled to her marrow.

At last her sister nodded reluctantly and hugged her. “Wake me up if you want me, Faith. I mean it.

Okay?”

Faith nodded because it was expected of her. “Good night.”

Gray, she saw, waited in the hall. He looked as worried as Char did. Faith wondered vaguely what they saw that scared them so. Dad, thank goodness, must have already gone to bed in the guest room. Still recovering from his injuries, he’d needed the better bed.

It was a huge relief when Gray and Char withdrew, turning off the overhead light. She heard them go down the hall to their own bedroom, but there was no click of a door closing—they wanted to be able to hear her. She should have felt reassured, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel much at all, or at least nothing … normal. There was a hollow place inside her that was new. It was like an ice cave, terribly cold, a place where her breath might freeze.

When Faith lay back on the mattress and pulled the covers over herself, she left the bedside lamp burning. She’d never minded the dark before, but she had a feeling it would be a long time before it would seem comforting to her again.

If ever.

Despite the comforter and the blanket Char had added, Faith shivered. I’m so cold.

She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the open door to the hall. When she closed her eyes, she saw the dark rectangle of the doorway to her own bedroom, and then the deeper shadow of a man within it. Her eyes snapped open again.

At last she got up and shut the door. After a minute, she dragged a chair away from the desk and braced it at an angle under the knob. At least nobody could get in without making a lot of noise. She hoped Char wouldn’t try and become alarmed.

Back in bed, she pulled the heavy weight of covers up to her chin and lay still, listening to the silence. Gray’s house, which he’d designed himself, was new and lacked the old farmhouse’s sounds of settling. The silence seemed even denser because the multilayered house was built literally into the bluff, so that this lower floor not only had earth beneath it but behind it. The highway was too far away for her to hear the scant evening traffic. Houses on the river bluff were set far apart, all on at least five acres, with woods in between to muffle any sound of barking dogs, voices or cars coming and going. Faith couldn’t decide if the quiet would be soothing or unsettling long-term.

Not that she’d be here for very long. She had to go home soon. Preferably tomorrow. If she put it off, she might lose her nerve. Faith wasn’t sure she could ever sleep in her bedroom again, though. She thought she might move into Char’s. Char had only been spending the occasional night anyway, and then only because she was anxious about Faith.

For better or worse, Char could quit worrying about Rory.

A shudder gripped Faith, one that rattled her bones.

Oh, God. I killed him. I pulled the trigger.

Even though her eyes were open, she saw his face in that moment, rage transformed into astonishment at the sight of the gun leveled at his chest. And then … and then, fear and pain. Blood blossoming. Him stumbling. Because his momentum continued to drive him forward, she’d shot again. And again, she thought. At least three times. Her ears rang with the crack, crack, crack.

Her fingernails bit into her palms as she felt the gun jump in her hands again. So powerful. So lethal. So much more terrible even than she had imagined. Death dealing. Like a movie, images kept running through her mind, inescapable. Blood spurting. The light going out of his eyes even as he stopped abruptly, then dropped, shaking the bed as he toppled against it. Thump. The heaviest, darkest sound she’d ever heard.

Faith gasped, shook, clutched the bedcovers with desperate hands. She stared blindly and thought, What if he came only to threaten me? To try to frighten me into going back to him?

What if he had never intended to kill her?

She couldn’t imagine how she would ever know the answer to that question. How she could live without knowing it.

Faith wasn’t absolutely sure whether Char and Dad and Gray and Ben really did think she’d defended herself the only way she could, or whether they were just saying that because there was no going back from what she’d done and they were determined to reassure her.

What would she have done if she hadn’t had the gun beneath the pillow?

Screamed and thrown herself off the bed. Grabbed for a weapon, any weapon. The chair, perhaps, or she would have likely kept the baseball bat close at hand.

Would she have made it off the bed, if the force of the bullets slamming into his chest hadn’t slowed Rory’s momentum? Shivering, shivering, she didn’t know.

She kept replaying it, from the moment she heard the shush of something brushing the wall outside her room. What could she have done differently? But it was too late to change anything. Tonight, she had killed. She’d chosen to shoot dead the man she had once believed she loved. The man she’d married.

What about your wedding vows? Do you ever think about what you promised?

She curled into as small a ball as she could manage, hugging herself. Yes! she wanted to scream. How could she forget them?

But Rory had made promises, too. He was supposed to cherish her, and he hadn’t. He’d hurt her, over and over. Terrified her, stalked her, assaulted Char. Faith wanted, oh, she wanted so much, to believe she’d been right to defend herself in such a final way.

But what if it was all bluster? The time he had almost killed her, his fists rising and falling, slamming into her until she was like Raggedy Ann, bouncing and flopping, her consciousness seeping away, that time he had been in a towering rage. He’d lost all control. He’d wept the next day, she had been told, and said over and over, “I never meant to hurt her. I never meant it.” Slipping into her house tonight had been planned, which was different. Yes, he’d punched Char the other time, and even lashed out with the knife and cut her, but Charlotte was Charlotte, taunting him. Tonight, he’d had a plan. He had been moving in silence, in the cloak of darkness. What if he had intended only to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning close until an awareness of the mattress dipping awakened her. He might have touched the tip of the knife to her throat while he whispered of his anger. He might have left her eventually, with perhaps a last, near soundless reminder that he could come back any time, that no mere locks would keep him out. That she was his.

Faith shook harder. Her teeth chattered now.

Oh God oh God. She couldn’t have kept living like that, waiting for him to come back. Even if she’d fled to Phoenix or Tampa Bay, the way she’d sometimes imagined, he could have followed her.

He had no right, she told herself fiercely. She would almost rather have died than go on that way, fear hunched beneath her breastbone and rising to clog in her throat. She simply couldn’t have borne it.

It was his fault. All his fault that she’d had to kill him.

But she was the one who had to live with it.

Sleep was not going to come to Faith, not now, when only the lamplight held off the darkness, and not later, when the pale light of dawn crept around the edges of the blinds.

How can I ever sleep again? she asked herself, and didn’t know the answer.

TELLING A MOTHER that her son had been shot dead was a hell of a way to start a morning. Especially when Ben hadn’t made it back to bed last night.

He wasn’t surprised when Michelle Hardesty collapsed, wailing. He had to catch her and half carry her to the chintz sofa in the front room of the ranch-style house where she’d raised Rory, her only child.

Thinking that she’d done a helluva bad job didn’t keep him from feeling pity. He’d seen enough grief to guess that losing a child might be the worst thing that could happen to a person. Ben had known a cop whose sixteen-year-old daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. Thirty years later, Noah’s face still changed when he saw a girl that age. The grief had still been there, and would remain, undulled, for the rest of his life.

Ben was eventually able to determine that she had a sister in Mt. Vernon, whom he called. She was able, thank God, to come immediately, although he had to wait the half hour it took her to drive there. She took over kindly and efficiently. When he left, she was rocking her sister in her arms and murmuring, “Oh, Chelle. I’m sorry. So sorry. That’s it, cry. It’ll do you good.

Cry.”

Profoundly relieved to have escaped, Ben got in his car but didn’t start the engine right away. He’d need to come back and talk to her, see if she might be more forthcoming about her son’s whereabouts this past six weeks once she got over the shock. He knew damn well she’d been hearing from Rory. Defiance had made her chin jut when she lied to him every time he had talked to her.

Yeah, he’d be back, but he would have to give her a day or two. Maybe longer. The only urgency now was inside Ben.

He’d try talking to the sister, too, he decided. Maybe they confided in each other. Maybe she knew where her nephew had been lurking since he drove away from his job and apartment in West Fork. With a little luck, she wouldn’t be as eager to excuse his behavior.

But he wouldn’t be able to tackle Fay Bishop for a day or two, either, since her sister would need her.

His eyes were gritty and a headache rose up his spinal column to wrap his skull. There wasn’t anything else for him to do right now. With a homicide case, he might have attended the autopsy, but cause of death was no mystery here.

The biggest mystery had been how Rory had gotten to the farm; his truck was nowhere to be found. A couple of hours ago, however, they’d discovered a car that turned out to be stolen. It had been left in a turnoff designed for farm tractors a few hundred yards down the highway. Easy walk for Rory.

Ben’s stomach was roiling. He’d get something to eat to settle it, he decided, and then he would go see Faith.

Had she slept at all?

Knowing the answer, he grunted. He remembered too well the hellish doubts and second-guesses that had kept him awake the two times in his career he’d had to shoot to kill. He’d been vindicated in both cases, but that hadn’t kept him from trying to figure out what he could have done differently. Violent death was always ugly. Even cops and soldiers were haunted by what they saw and what they’d done. A pretty kindergarten teacher who’d never wanted anything but to stay in her hometown and raise a family with her husband was ill-equipped to live with the sight of violence. He dreaded finding out what the act of killing would do to her.

With a sigh he started the car. A few minutes later, when he walked into Clara’s Café, conversations stopped and everyone, waitresses and customers alike, turned to look at him. Oh, hell, he thought. Word of last night’s happenings at the Russell farm had obviously spread like wildfire. Plus, here he was unshaven, wearing jeans and yesterday’s T-shirt, his sockless feet in athletic shoes, when people were used to see him wearing his crisp blue uniform.

Should have gone with the drive-through at McDonald’s instead. Or just gone home. His cupboards were pretty bare right now—he ate out a lot—but he could have found something.

He gave a vague nod of general acknowledgment and showed himself to the first empty booth he saw, the middle-aged waitress following with the coffeepot and a menu. He scanned it while she poured, and ordered immediately in hopes of hurrying things along. If only he could render himself invisible.

“Chief Wheeler.” The hearty voice belonged to Harvey Dexter, chiropractor, current president of the West Fork Chamber of Commerce and, to Ben’s private dismay, member of the city council. Dexter had stopped at Ben’s booth, his gaze deeply concerned. The look was one he’d perfected, probably a stock in trade when he contemplated his patients’ neck and back problems. Sixtyish, graying but fit, he also exuded good health, likely another necessity in his trade. “Heard we had a real tragedy last night,” he said.

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