“I thought it was just a little bump.”

“It is. It’s just a bloody one.” He applied some antibiotic ointment to the small scrape, trying to ignore the way her soft, lightly floral perfume was making his blood run hot.

He’d never been a man prone to indulging his every sexual whim, but this particular dose of desire was taking a toll on his legendary self-control.

He backed away, giving himself room to breathe. “I think the bleeding’s stopped now.”

She turned to face him. “Thanks.”

Something intriguing glittered in her eyes. Nix knew it would be folly to speculate what that intriguing something might be. But he’d never been any good at turning his back on a puzzle. Especially one that smelled like wildflowers.

The Secret of

Cherokee Cove

Paula Graves

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Alabama native PAULA GRAVES wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Excerpt

Chapter One

She entered the Bitterwood Community Center banquet hall with no fanfare, a tall, fit woman in her early thirties. Fanfare or not, Walker Nix found his gaze drawn her way, taking in her appearance with the practiced eye of an investigator. She had sleek auburn hair worn straight and intelligent green eyes that scanned the room with a specific goal in mind, narrowing as she failed to find her target.

I should paint her, he thought. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but he found her striking features interesting.

Conversation died to nothing as most of the partygoers turned to look at the newcomer. Laney Hanvey, standing near the front of the hall with her mother and sister, crossed quickly to the woman, a smile on her face. She passed Walker, leaving him with a whiff of her light jasmine scent, and extended her hand to the taller woman. “Dana. You look just like your photo. It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

Chief’s sister, Nix thought, his interest tempered by the impracticality of lusting after a woman whose brother was his boss. Her impending arrival had been the talk of the police station from the time the chief had mentioned to one of the file clerks that she was coming. She’d be in town only a few days, just long enough to get to know her brother’s fiancée and catch up on their lives, before heading back to her job in Atlanta.

Still, his gaze lingered on Dana Massey’s face as she smiled at Laney and took her hand with what appeared to be genuine pleasure. She really would be a fascinating subject to paint.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you, Laney!” Dana maintained eye contact as if oblivious to the interested stares of everyone else in the room. Nix dragged his gaze away from the meeting of the future sisters-in-law and let it skim across the other faces in the hall. To his surprise, he saw several looks of shock and one or two expressions of near hostility.

Odd, he thought. As far as he knew, this was Dana Massey’s first visit to Bitterwood. And what little he’d heard about her wouldn’t elicit hostility from anyone but the fugitives she chased in her job as a deputy U.S. marshal.

“Doyle is late,” Laney was saying as she and Dana passed Nix’s position near the doorway. “I tried calling his phone, but he’s not answering.”

“He’s probably lost it somewhere,” Dana murmured in the tone of a sister used to her younger brother’s foibles. “He loses a phone every year, I swear.”

They passed out of earshot, and Nix made himself look at his watch, not Dana Massey’s shapely backside. Almost eight. The party had officially started at seven-thirty. And while Bitterwood chief of police Doyle Massey had a reputation for being a bit more laid-back than his predecessor, he’d never shown a tendency toward tardiness.

Nix bumped gazes with one of his fellow detectives, small, dark-eyed Ivy Calhoun. She was newly married, tanned golden from her recent honeymoon in the Bahamas and looking happier than he’d ever seen her. She flashed a smile at him, and he wandered over to where she stood with her new husband, Sutton Calhoun.

“Nix.” Sutton greeted him with a nod. They were both Bitterwood natives, but Sutton was a few years younger than Nix. He was better acquainted with Nix’s younger brother, Lavelle, which might explain the wariness in Sutton’s gaze. Lavelle had never been anything but trouble.

“Calhoun,” Nix responded in kind, saving his smile for Sutton’s bride. “Have you heard from the chief?”

Ivy shook her head. “Laney said he told her he had to pick up something from the office before he came to the party. But that was nearly an hour ago.”

It didn’t take an hour to get anywhere in Bitterwood. “Have you tried calling the station to see if he showed up?”

Ivy cocked her head slightly to one side, her gaze narrowing. “You think something’s wrong?”

“One of your hunches?” Sutton added, not without a hint of sarcasm.

“No,” Nix lied, even though his hunch meter was going off like a klaxon. “Just doesn’t seem much like the chief to keep his girl waiting.”

“Is that his sister?” Ivy nodded toward Dana Massey, who stood at the front talking to Laney and her family.

“Yes,” Nix answered. “She didn’t seem worried about her brother’s lateness.”

Sutton took a sip from the cup of red punch he held in his right hand. With a grimace, he set the cup on a nearby table. “Maybe she knows stuff about him we don’t.”

“Maybe,” Nix conceded.

“But you don’t think so,” Ivy prodded.

He gave her a warning look, but her eyebrows merely rose a notch and her dark eyes flashed with amusement.

She thought it was all great fun, having a genuine Cherokee soothsayer on the police force, and most of the time Nix didn’t try to squelch her enjoyment. He wasn’t a soothsayer, of course—his hunches were usually based on deduction, not intuition. And he was only part Cherokee. The rest was pure Appalachian Scots-Irish, as his brother Lavelle’s headstrong ways would attest. But playing the inscrutable Indian could have its advantages, especially during interrogations.

“I’ll give the station a call, see what’s what.” He wandered away and pulled out his cell phone to call the main switchboard.

The night shift dispatcher, Briar Blackwood, answered, “Bitterwood P.D.”

“Hey, Briar, it’s Nix. Have you seen the chief?”

“He called about seven to say he was heading in to pick something up from his office, but he didn’t show. I figured he might have been running late and decided to come by after the party.”

Nix frowned. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

“What’s wrong?” Briar asked.

“Probably nothing.”

“Nix—”

“Later, Briar.” He hung up before she could ask any more questions he couldn’t answer and crossed back to where Ivy and Sutton stood, talking to a tall redhead and an even taller man with dark hair and a rangy but powerful build.

Ivy introduced the pair as Natalie and J. D. Cooper, friends of the chief’s. “Natalie used to work with the chief down South,” Ivy added as Nix shook hands.

Natalie smiled, but he saw concern hovering behind her green eyes. “Ivy says Doyle’s late. Doyle’s never late. He may come across as an overgrown frat boy sometimes, but he’s as dependable as they come.”

Her alarm exacerbated his own growing concern. Keeping his voice low, he told them about his call to the station. “That was an hour ago.”

Ivy looked from Natalie’s face back to Nix’s. “Should we go look for him?”

“I’ll do it,” Nix volunteered. “You stay here and make sure Laney doesn’t start worrying too much until we know what’s what.”

Unspoken between them was the fact that there might well be a damned good reason to worry. Only three months earlier, Doyle Massey had crossed swords with a man named Merritt Cortland, whose thirst for power had led him to kill his father and several others in a deadly explosion. He’d tried to make the chief another of his victims, but Massey had fought him off. After Cortland had fallen down a steep incline, landing on the rocks below, he’d been thought dead, but by the time paramedics arrived at the base of the bluff, his body was gone.

Was Merritt Cortland still alive? It was a question that nobody had been able to answer to anyone’s satisfaction. Nix figured it was possible the man’s injuries weren’t fatal as the chief had assumed. It was equally possible that one of Cortland’s ragtag cohort of meth cookers, anarchists and radical militia soldiers had recovered the body and was keeping it on ice in order to keep the legend alive.

Under Merritt Cortland’s father, Wayne, the criminal operation had flourished, and even Cortland the younger had somehow managed to keep the enterprise afloat, despite the disparate elements involved. But if Merritt Cortland was dead, how long would the conspiracy thrive?

Outside the community center, night had fallen deep and blue. After a mild day, the temperature had dropped into the forties, driving Nix deeper into his leather jacket. As he started down the concrete steps to the sidewalk, the door opened behind him and footsteps clicked across the hard surface.

“Are you going to look for Doyle?”

The low female voice rippled along his nerves as if she’d run a finger down his spine. He turned to find Dana Massey standing on the steps behind him, her intelligent eyes full of stubborn intent.

Lying would do no good. She seemed like the kind of woman who never asked a question if she didn’t already know the answer. “I thought I’d see what’s keeping him.”

“How late is he?”

“Party started at seven-thirty, so—”

“When was the last time anyone heard from him?” She walked down the steps until she stood level with Nix, her head only a couple of inches below his own. She was as tall as her brother and had the same sort of dynamic presence, though the chief’s aura of command was often tempered by his good-natured humor.

There was no humor in Dana Massey’s green eyes at the moment.

“He called the police station around seven and told the dispatcher he was going to drop by the office before the party to pick up something.”

“Pick up what?”

“Don’t know.”

Her lips flattened with annoyance, though her irritation didn’t seem to be directed toward him. “Was he at home when he called?”

“Don’t know that, either,” he admitted. He should have asked the question of Briar, though the chief might not have said where he was. “I’m working on that assumption.”

To her credit, she didn’t make the usual joke about assumptions. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“So I hear.”

She extended her hand suddenly, as if she’d just remembered they hadn’t met. “Dana Massey. The chief’s sister.”

“Walker Nix. The chief’s detective.”

Her lips curved slightly at his dry rejoinder as she shook his hand. She had a firm, dry grip, with long fingers that felt like warm velvet against his own. “So I heard. Mind if I tag along?”

He could still feel the lingering sensation of her skin against his when he dropped her hand. “Wouldn’t you rather stick around the party?”

She shook her head. “I’m here for my brother. Wherever he is.”

He nodded toward the sidewalk. “Bundle up. My heater’s acting up.”

* * *

DANA EYED THE rusty-looking Ford pickup truck parked a block down Main Street from the community center, then shifted her gaze back to the tall, dark-eyed man who seemed to be watching her for her reaction. She got the feeling this moment was some sort of test, but damned if she knew what the right answer might be.

“Nice wheels,” she murmured.

The right corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Thanks.” He opened the passenger door without producing a key.

Her high heels weren’t the most practical footwear for climbing into an oversized truck, but she managed to haul herself into the cab without making too much of a spectacle. Her wool slacks and cable-knit sweater had seemed to be sufficient for the cool night, but the truck’s hard vinyl seat felt like a block of ice under her backside. She stifled a shiver and held her breath until she located the seat belt and reassured herself that it actually worked.

Walker Nix slid behind the steering wheel and engaged his own seat belt before turning to look at her. “Need a blanket?”

She bit back a shiver and shook her head no. “How far away is Doyle’s house?”

“You’re not staying there?”

She shook her head again, hoping he didn’t ask any uncomfortable questions. “I booked a room at a motel in a town north of here. Quaint name—Purgatory.”

“That’s a bit of a drive.”

A bit of a drive? Purgatory was maybe ten minutes away by car. A commute that short in Atlanta, where she lived and worked, was something to be deeply coveted.

Thinking of the short drive from Purgatory reminded her that her car was parked across the street. The Chevy featured soft seats and a working heater. But before she could suggest they take her car, Nix had already cranked the truck and swung it out of its parking place.

“You didn’t see anything on the drive here?” Nix asked her.

“No, but I was already in town by seven.” She’d waffled over the gift she’d picked out for her brother and his new bride on the drive from Atlanta and had decided to do some last-minute shopping in Bitterwood. But, of course, most of the town’s quaint little shops had closed down at five. “Thought I’d do some last-minute shopping, but nothing was open.”

“Everything closes at five around here.”

“Everything?”

“Well, there are some joints here and there where you can paint the town red until you can’t see straight. But I don’t think they’re selling what you were wanting to buy.”

Like most of the other people she’d met since arriving in town, Walker Nix had a hard-edged mountain accent, though his was tempered a bit, as if he’d spent some time away from the hills. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, but she rather liked the flat planes and hard angles of his features. He had olive skin and dark hair worn very short on the sides and only a little longer on top. Military-style, she guessed. Probably had some armed-forces service in his background—marine corps, or maybe army. Infantry, not rear echelon. The man had jumped right to action at the first sign of trouble.

Once they left the small town center, artificial lighting nearly disappeared, save for the occasional residences spaced every few hundred yards along the winding two-lane road. So the sudden bright beams of light that split the darkness around a blind curve caught them both by surprise. Nix hit the brakes, the sudden deceleration slamming Dana hard against the restraint belt crossing her chest. The brakes squealed, but the truck shimmied to a stop a dozen yards short of the large black truck that lay on its side in the middle of the road, its headlights slicing through the darkness.

No, God, no. She stared at the wreck with a knot in her gut. Not Doyle, too.

Before Dana could unlatch her seat belt, Nix had jerked the truck in Park and jumped out, running toward the wreck. She joined him, cursing the high heels that kept getting caught in the uneven, rutted pavement. Terror sucked the air right out of her lungs as she faltered to a stop in front of the vehicle.

The beam of Nix’s flashlight scanned across the bloodied features of her brother Doyle.

Oh, God, please no.

Her brother’s eyes opened, squinting against the flashlight beam. She felt her knees wobble and grabbed the first thing she could wrap her hand around—Nix’s arm. “Doyle?”

Her brother’s gaze met hers, and he forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “About time you got here. I’m an hour late for my own engagement party, and nobody thinks to come looking for me?”

She nearly drooped with relief, dropping her hand from Nix’s arm. Doyle sounded as if he was in pain, but his sense of humor was still in play. That had to be a good sign, right?

“How bad are you hurt?” Nix asked, shining the light toward the floor of the cab. Dana could see that one of Doyle’s legs was broken. Grimacing, she looked back at his face, trying to figure out where the blood was coming from.

“Broken leg,” Doyle growled. “My head is bleeding, but I haven’t lost consciousness, so I don’t think it’s bad. My seat belt saved me from going through the window.”

“Where’s your cell phone?” Dana asked as Nix backed away to call in the accident.

“Somewhere on the floorboard. I tried to get it but...” He waved at his broken leg. “I decided I wasn’t about to bleed out and could wait for help to find me. Although I have to admit, I was about to get desperate enough to risk wiggling around again to find the phone.”

“Rescue’s on the way, Chief.” Nix walked back over to the wreck. “What did you hit?”

“The bridge abutment.” Doyle waved his right hand backward, groaning as the movement apparently shifted his broken leg.

“Be still, idiot.” Dana softened her words with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder.

He looked up at her. “Call Laney, will you?” he asked. “She’s probably worried.”

“Okay.” Dana stepped away and pulled out her cell phone, dialing Laney’s number.

Laney answered on the first ring. “Dana?”

“He’s been in an accident, but he’s alive and making jokes.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nix bend in to hear whatever Doyle was saying. Gritting her teeth against the flare of curiosity, she gave Laney a quick rundown of Doyle’s injuries. “Rescue’s on the way.”

“Why couldn’t he call?” Laney asked, sounding suspicious, as if she thought Dana wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

“His cell phone fell on the floor, and with his broken leg, he couldn’t stand the pain of trying to reach it.”

“I want to talk to him,” Laney said. “Please?”

Dana knew if she’d been in Laney’s shoes, she’d have demanded the same thing. She took the phone over to her brother.

Nix backed out, not meeting her gaze, giving her room to hand over the phone to Doyle. “Laney wants to talk to you,” she told him.

As Doyle reassured Laney that he’d live, Dana crossed to Nix, who was shining his flashlight on the road behind the wreck. “What are you looking for?”

He didn’t answer, turning the light back toward the truck lying on its side.

“I’m a federal agent,” she said quietly. “And I’m Doyle’s sister.”

“You’re on vacation, and he’s my boss.”

“What did he tell you while I was calling Laney?”

“He just went over what he remembers of the accident.”

Such a dodge, she thought. “Which was what?”

Nix’s dark eyes turned toward her, gleaming darkly in the reflection of the flashlight beam off the cracked windshield. “He hit the bridge abutment.”

“I heard that much.” She took the flashlight from his hand and aimed the beam toward the bridge visible about thirty yards behind the wreck. It was a truss bridge, not particularly long, but the land fell away precipitously beyond the nearest edge, and a quick hike down the road revealed why. The bridge stood over a deep gorge, at least a thirty-foot drop, with a narrow ribbon of water reflecting starlight below.

If Doyle had missed the abutment and gone over the edge into the gorge...

She shuddered and walked back toward the truck, stopping midway as a sudden thought occurred to her.

“Detective Nix, what’s the name of this bridge?” She turned the flashlight toward him, centering the beam on his face so she could read his expression.

He squinted, angling his face away from the light. “Purgatory Bridge.”

Dana’s heart dipped. She turned slowly and ran the flashlight beam over the delicate ironwork of the bridge, blinking back a sudden burn of tears. She’d crossed this bridge earlier on her way into town. Passed over it without a thought.

Never realizing she’d crossed over the place of her parents’ deaths.

She made her way slowly back to the wreck, schooling her features until she was certain her emotions didn’t show. She gave the flashlight back to Nix and bent to look in on her brother. He’d finished his conversation with Laney and sat with his hands folded over his chest, clutching her cell phone in his bloodstained fingers.

“You doing okay?” she asked softly.

He looked up, handing over the phone. “Laney wanted to come down here, but I told her to stay put until I find out where the EMTs want to ship me.”

Dana glanced at Nix and found him watching them, his expression unreadable. With a sigh, she bent closer to her brother. “What really happened, Doyle? You’re a good driver. You didn’t just run into a bridge.”

He met her gaze, a hint of apology in his green eyes. “And it’s your vacation, too,” he murmured.

“What happened?”

Closing his eyes, he laid his head against the headrest. “The brakes failed.”

A ripple of dread snaked through her. “How long since you had them replaced?”

He rolled his head and opened his eyes to look at her. “Last week.”

Nix’s voice rumbled behind her, grim as the grave. “Someone tampered with his brakes.”

Chapter Two

“Have there been any overt threats?”

Nix looked up at Dana Massey, wondering if she was ever going to run out of restless energy and stop pacing a hole in the waiting-room floor. He’d taken pity on Laney Hanvey, who looked as if she was close to snapping as it was, and removed Doyle’s sister to the other end of the waiting area, where she could walk the floor to her heart’s content.

“No overt threats,” Nix answered when she stopped in front of him, a belligerent look in her mist-green eyes. “But he’s not without enemies.”

She sank into a chair across from him, as if she’d run out of gas. Stretching her long legs in front of her, she dipped her chin to her chest and looked at him beneath a fringe of dark eyelashes. “So Merritt Cortland is alive, then.”

“Can’t be sure of that.”

“He has the strongest motive.”

Nix nodded. “But not the only motive.”

“Who else?”

“We haven’t yet figured out who else from the police department Cortland might have had on his payroll. The closer we look, the more feathers we ruffle.”

“Whose feathers?”

What did she think she was going to do, go run down every police department employee who ever grumbled about the new chief’s campaign of cleaning out all vestiges of corruption? There wouldn’t be much of a force left. Even those who’d never thought a minute about taking money from Cortland resented being under constant scrutiny. Nix certainly did.

But he knew it was necessary, so he dealt with it. Others in the department weren’t quite as sanguine.

“Everybody gets tired of being a suspect,” Nix answered.

“Too bad.”

He smiled a little at that. “You must be popular with your fellow marshals.”

The withering look she shot his way might have stung a lesser man. But Nix shrugged it off. She was tense and upset. And she was clearly a woman of action, so sitting around waiting for someone else to solve the mystery of the tampered brakes had to be driving her crazy.

Ivy Calhoun had volunteered to go with the vehicle to the garage, leaving Nix to stay with the chief. Massey had asked him to stick close. Nix suspected he wanted someone there at the hospital to protect Laney and Dana.

Not that Dana needed a knight in shining armor. He’d put his money on her in a fair fight.

“Doyle wanted me to go home for the night.” She tried to hide it, but Nix heard a hint of hurt behind the words.

“Not a bad idea. The doctors have already told you he’ll live, and they’ve sedated him for the fracture reduction, so he’s probably not going to be able to talk to you again before morning.”

She winced a little at the term “fracture reduction,” the kind of pain-filled grimace that told him she’d suffered a break or two in her time. Not surprising, considering she chased fugitives for a living. “I just worry he’s in danger.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Nix said.

Her eyes narrowed. “And to keep an eye on Laney while he’s unconscious?”

He should have known she’d figure it out. “That’s my guess.”

She pushed out of her slump. “I haven’t said ‘thanks.’”

“For what? Putting on the brakes in time to keep from smashing into the wreck?”

“For taking the initiative to go look for him in the first place.”

“If I hadn’t, someone else would have.” He nodded toward her. “You were already thinking about it, weren’t you?”

“Just say ‘you’re welcome.’”

He felt a smile crack his face. “You’re welcome.”

The smile she shot back at him came complete with shiny white teeth and a set of dimples that took ten years off her age. “I don’t suppose you could give me directions back to Bitterwood?”

He pulled out his notebook and sketched a quick map for her. “Where are you staying?”

“I told Doyle I’d stay at his place. It’s closer than my hotel.”

He wondered if that was a good idea. If someone had gone after Doyle’s truck, they might have booby-trapped his house, too.

“I’ll be careful,” she said, correctly interpreting his expression. She was better at reading him than she had a right to be. He’d often prided himself on being inscrutable.

“Okay.” He pointed at the map. “This is Old Purgatory Road. Here’s the bridge. Cross the bridge and go about a mile past Smoky Joe’s Saloon, then take a right on Laurel Road. The chief’s house is at the end of the road. Can’t miss it.”

She waved the sketch at him. “Nice map. Thanks again.”

He almost shrugged off her thanks, but remembering her earlier admonition, he put on his best “plays well with others” face and said, “You’re welcome. Again.”

Ah, there came the dimples. Worth the price of admission.

She passed a pair of new arrivals on the way out, speaking to them quietly before she left. It took Nix a second to place them—Natalie and J. D. Cooper, the chief’s friends from Alabama. The redhead nodded a greeting and sat across from Nix in the seat Dana had just vacated. Her husband settled in the chair beside her.

“Detective Nix, right?” Natalie asked by way of a greeting.

Nix nodded.

“Have you seen Doyle since he arrived here?”

“Just briefly when he came in.”

“Any idea what caused the accident?”

Nix wasn’t sure he was authorized to comment on what was now an ongoing investigation.

Apparently his poker face needed more work than he realized, for Natalie’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

Nix cleared his throat. “I can’t really comment.”

Natalie and her husband exchanged looks. “We’ll just ask Doyle and he’ll tell us.”

“That may be,” Nix agreed. “But that’s between the chief and you.”

Natalie’s eyes flashed with irritation, but her husband put a hand on her arm. His touch seemed to settle her. “Fair enough,” she said finally. “How did he look when you saw him?”

“Kind of a bloody mess,” Nix admitted. “Had a gash on the side of his head that needed stitches, but Doyle said he hadn’t lost consciousness, so it looks like the worst of his injuries will be a broken leg.” The chief’s condition was really more than Nix should have shared with the Coopers, but given his reticence on the nature of the accident, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to share a little news that they could get with a phone call to Dana Massey. She hadn’t told them about the brake tampering on her way out, however, so he’d keep that information to himself.

“He’s a good guy. A good cop,” Natalie said, her tone a little defensive.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nix agreed.

Her eyes narrowed at his polite tone, but if she thought he was patronizing her, she didn’t say so. He wasn’t, really. The chief was a good guy and, despite his jovial, laid-back management style, he’d already proved himself to be a good cop.

Whether being a good guy and a good cop would be enough to unravel decades of bad practices, indifference and systematic corruption at the Bitterwood P.D. was a question that had yet to be answered.

* * *

DOYLE’S NEW HOME turned out to be a two-story log cabin nestled in a small, wooded hollow at the end of Laurel Road. It looked like one of those fancy tourists’ cabins you could find a dime a dozen in the Smokies, with names like Eagle’s Nest, Black Bear Lodge and Creekview. A large gravel parking area in front of the house suggested that at one time, at least, the cabin had been used for that very purpose.

A wide wooden porch with rustic log rails spanned the front of the house. After retrieving her suitcase and overnight bag from the trunk of her Chevy, she climbed the three shallow steps to the porch and pulled the keys Doyle had given her from the pocket of her jacket.

Seconds from sliding the key into the lock, she heard a noise from inside the cabin.

She fumbled behind her back for her Glock 17 and remembered, with frustration, that she’d packed it in her overnight bag, not wanting to be armed at her brother’s engagement party. Setting the bag down as quietly as she could, she crouched and worked open the side zipper, where she’d put her empty Glock and a pair of loaded magazines. Sliding the magazine into the Glock, she chambered a round and tried the door.

Unlocked.

Suddenly, the door flew open. With her hand still on the knob, she overbalanced and staggered through the opening, slamming face-first into something hard and alive.

Whoever hit her kept moving, shoving backward. Wheeling her arms to regain her balance bought her only enough time to hit the log rail with her shoulders instead of the back of her head, not that it saved her much in the way of pain. The crack of bone against wood sent painful tingles shooting down both arms, and the Glock bounced away from her suddenly nerveless fingers, skittering across the porch. The back of her head scraped against the second rail as she hit her tailbone with a jarring thud.

She scrambled for the dropped weapon, but by the time she closed her hands around the grip, the two dark figures running away across the front yard entered the woods and disappeared almost immediately into the gloom.

Grimacing with pain, she sat up and assessed her condition. She’d have a big bruise across her shoulders in the morning and a lump on the back of her head. Plus, she’d broken a heel on a brand-new pair of shoes. But it could have been much worse.

She could have been dead.

She entered the cabin with care, finding the light switch next to the door and flicking it on. To her surprise, the living room seemed virtually untouched by the intruders she’d just startled.

The same could not be said for the next room she checked. It was a corner room with big windows looking out on the dark woods. In the daytime, she supposed, the windows would probably let in a lot of light, which was probably why Doyle had chosen this particular space as his home office.

Here the intruders had concentrated their efforts. All of the drawers had been pulled out of the walnut desk against the wall, their contents lying scattered across the hardwood floor. File cabinets stood open, spilling papers and files haphazardly from their metal depths. A framed photograph lay torn in its broken frame, a jigsaw puzzle of glass covering the floor in front of it. On the wall above, there was a combination safe. It remained safely shut, though clearly someone had tried to crack the code.

Dana backed out of the study and checked the rest of the house. The kitchen drawers had all been opened and searched, some of their contents now lying in a jumble on the counter and floor. Likewise, Doyle’s bedroom had been tossed, an explosion of clothes covering every available surface, thrown aside to assist a thorough search of the chest of drawers by the bed. A second bedroom had received similar treatment, although the mess there was limited because all the drawers and the closet were empty.

Back in Doyle’s bedroom, Dana moved aside a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt and sank on the end of the bed, pulling out her phone to dial 911. But before she pressed the first number, she changed her mind and called another number instead.

Natalie Cooper answered on the second ring. “Dana. Hi.”

“Hi. Are you still at the hospital?”

“Yeah. The doctor just stopped in to reassure us that Doyle was doing fine. They’re letting him wake up a little more from the reduction and then they’ll put him in a regular room.”

“Good,” she said, genuinely relieved. Her little brother was strong and tough, but things could still go wrong during any medical procedure. “By any chance is Walker Nix still there?”

“Tall, dark and silent?” Natalie asked, lowering her voice a little.

“That’s the one.”

“He’s across the room staring stoically out the window,” Natalie answered in a wry tone. “Why?”

“I need him to call me as soon as possible. Give him my cell number.”

“Is something wrong?”

Dana didn’t know how to answer that question without potentially sucking Doyle’s old friend and former partner into a procedural mess, so she hedged. “Nothing big. I just need to ask Detective Nix something about an ongoing investigation Doyle’s been involved with. Can you give him my message?”

“Sure.” Natalie hung up and Dana ended the call from her own end, trying not to be immediately impatient for the callback.

It came before she started chewing her nails. “Natalie Cooper said you wanted me to call you?” Nix’s gravelly voice rumbled like distant thunder across the telephone line.

“I know you’re there to guard Doyle and Laney,” Dana said, already beginning to second-guess her decision to bypass emergency response. “Never mind. I’ll figure out something else.”

“Wait,” Nix said before she could end the call. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, looking at the chaos surrounding her in Doyle’s bedroom. “Something’s very wrong.”

* * *

DESPITE THE CHAOTIC condition of the chief’s study, it was the bloody mass of hair at the back of Dana Massey’s head that drew Nix’s immediate attention. “Your head is bleeding.”

Dana turned away from the mess and lifted her hand to the back of her head, looking surprised to find blood on her fingers. “I didn’t realize.”

She looked a little stunned all the way around, Nix thought. She might be a tough lady, but nobody could walk in on a burglary in progress and not be affected. That she’d had the presence of mind to snap a bunch of photos with her cell phone was notable enough. That she’d done it with a goose egg on the back of her head was damned near amazing.

“Am I dripping blood all over the crime scene?” she asked.

“No, seems to be oozing, mostly. It’s in your hair and on your shirt.”

“Damn it! This blouse is silk.”

“I’ve called a TBI unit in to process the place.” The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offered crime scene investigation for small departments that didn’t have the manpower or need for a full-time evidence-retrieval staff.

She frowned. “At this time of night?”

“It’s not their usual procedure on a nonviolent case, but with your brother’s crash and the possible connection to Merritt Cortland—”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I guess that might light a fire under them.”

“Why don’t we clear out and go somewhere until they can come in and do their work?”

“The burglars might come back.”

“So we’ll wait for the TBI on the front porch and I’ll see what I can do about that bump on your head.”

She gave him a look of frustration that he interpreted as irritation that she hadn’t caught the intruders single-handedly when she had the chance. He stifled a smile and led her out to the front porch, settling her on the steps while he went to his car to retrieve a first aid kit. When he came back, she had unzipped her bag and was trading out her pumps for a pair of tennis shoes. She waved one of the pumps at him, displaying a broken heel, before she shoved it into her bag.

She sighed and turned the back of her head toward him to give him better access. “How bad is it?”

“Not too bad, really,” he said after he’d used some antiseptic to clean the abraded area on the back of her head. “Did they hit you with something?”

She waved her hand toward the porch railing. “They knocked me back into the railing. I hit my head on the bottom rail on the way down. I thought it was just a little bump.”

“It is. It’s just a bloody one.” He applied some antibiotic ointment to the scrape, trying to ignore the way her lightly floral perfume was making his blood run hot. Her hair was thick but soft, sliding over his fingers with the same sensuous texture as warm silk. Her skin was velvety and fragrant, tempting him to bury his face in the curve of her neck and just breathe.

He’d never been a man prone to indulging his every sexual whim, but this particular dose of desire was taking a toll on his legendary self-control, and she wasn’t even showing that much skin or giving him any indication that she found him equally attractive.

He backed away, giving himself room to breathe. “I think the bleeding’s stopped now. But that shirt may be beyond hope.”

She turned on the porch step to face him. “Thanks.”

Something intriguing glittered in her eyes, pale and mysterious in the moonlight trickling through the trees. Nix knew it would be folly to speculate what that intriguing something might be. But he’d never been any good at turning his back on a puzzle. Especially one that smelled like wildflowers.

The TBI van came rumbling down the road and parked behind Dana’s dark green Chevy Malibu. Nix recognized one of the evidence techs as a man he’d known during his time in the marine corps. He dug in his memory and came up with PFC Brady Moreland. He and Moreland had been at Stone Bay, Camp Lejeune, at the same time about eight years earlier. He and the private had played pool together a few times at Maggie’s Drawers, the rec center at Stone Bay.

“Private Moreland,” he said aloud as the younger man approached.

Moreland, to his amusement, came close to snapping to attention before his expression shifted with recognition, and a grin spread over his face. “Sarge!”

They shook hands with pleasure; then Nix got down to business, introducing Dana and letting her explain what she’d walked in on.

“It happened too quickly for me to get much of a look at the intruders,” she said with regret. “I think they were wearing gloves, but I can’t be sure.”

“It’s okay,” the other evidence technician, who introduced himself as Blalock, assured her. “If there’s anything here to find, we’ll find it.”

Dana watched them enter the house, looking as if she wanted to tag along for the search. Nix distracted her by picking up her suitcase, which still lay on its side on the porch.

“I can get that,” Dana said, but Nix waved her off.

“I’ve got it.”

“You seem awfully interested in getting me away from here,” she said in a tone that was just short of suspicious. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for being wary of someone she’d met only a couple of hours earlier under less-than-pleasant circumstances.

“Mostly, I’m interested in getting us both somewhere a little warmer.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue, but headlights appeared in the dark, moving toward them on the narrow, dead-end road. The unmistakable shape of a Ford Mustang finally came into view. Laney Hanvey, Nix thought as the black Mustang squeezed into the narrow space between the TBI van and Nix’s truck.

The lady herself got out of the Mustang and hurried to where he and Dana stood on the porch, her gaze widening as she took in Dana’s bloodied condition. “My God, did they attack you?”

“Not on purpose,” Dana assured her, though Nix thought she was probably glossing over the violence of what had happened to her. “I just got bowled over and hit the porch rail.”

“I should take you to the hospital, get you checked out.”

“No,” Dana said quickly. “I’m fine, really. It looks worse than it is.”

“How’s the chief?” Nix asked.

“Groggy. The doctor wants him to stay a day or two, maybe get some rehab for the leg. You can imagine his delight.” Laney made a face, but Nix could tell that she was relieved that her fiancé was feeling well enough to complain. “The break-in just gave me an excuse to make him obey his doctor’s orders.” She glanced at the front door, which the technicians had finally shut, probably to keep out the cold. “How bad is it?”

“A big mess in some rooms,” Dana answered. “Not so bad in the others.”

“Was anything missing?”

“I’m not sure.” Dana looked apologetic. “You’d probably know better than I would.”

“I think I’ll stick around, then, see what the technicians come up with. Dana, if you’d like to stay at my place tonight, you’re welcome. It’s over in Barrowville, but that’s actually closer to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to put you out—”

“I’ll be going back to the hospital when I’m through here,” Laney said with a shrug. “You’re welcome to my guest room. The bed’s already made up. You can help yourself to anything you can find in the kitchen.”

“My car’s blocked in,” Dana said.

“I’ll drive you,” Nix offered.

Dana looked at him. “Okay. Thanks.”

Nix carried her suitcase to his truck, setting it in the back.

Dana eyed the open truck bed. “Sure it won’t tumble out?”

“That’s part of the adventure,” he murmured in her ear, sneaking a quick whiff of that floral scent that made his gut tighten with desire. He rounded the front of the truck and looked at her across the roof of the cab. “Will it fall out or won’t it?”

Her green eyes glittered with amusement in the moonlight. “Easy for you to say. They’re not your clothes.”

The truck’s heater decided to work when Nix cranked the engine, blowing a blast of cold air into his face. On the passenger side, Dana gasped and reached to close the vents.

“Give it a few minutes and it might blow warm,” Nix said, buckling up.

Dana looked at him as she belted herself in. “How badly do you want to go home in the next little while?”

He arched an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

Her lips curved in a slow smile. “How about we go see a groggy man with a broken leg about a break-in?”

Chapter Three

Dana’s brother was a big guy, tall and well built, as their father had been, but lying in the hospital bed, with his leg propped up and encased in a thick white cast, he seemed shockingly vulnerable and young. His eyes were closed when she and Nix entered his room, but they fluttered open when she pulled up a chair next to his bed.

He smiled a loopy smile and flailed one arm toward her. “Hey there.”

She smiled. “Hey yourself.”

“Is it morning?” He turned his head toward the window. The curtains were closed, blocking his view of the world outside.

“No, it’s just a little after ten. We had to talk our way in past the nurses.”

He rubbed his hand over his eyes as if to clear out the sleep. He peered at Nix, who stood quietly near the end of the bed. He gave a nod. “Nix.”

Nix’s lips hinted at a smile. “Chief.”

Doyle’s brow furrowed suddenly as he turned his groggy gaze back to his sister. “How big a mess did they make at my house?”

“Not too bad,” she told him, purposefully glossing over the truth to keep him from worrying. She had stopped downstairs in the women’s bathroom to change out of her bloodstained shirt into a fresh blouse, but she hadn’t been able to comb all of the blood out of her hair, opting to pull her auburn hair back into a ponytail to hide the worst of it. The tug of the elastic on the grazed skin of her scalp wasn’t exactly pleasant, but she’d live.

“Laney’s there still?”

“Yes. She’s going to stay until the evidence technicians get through with their investigation.”

“You got the TBI out at this time of night?”

Nix’s lips twitched again. “I might have emphasized the fact that you’re the chief of police and that there have been previous attempts on your life.”

“What were they looking for?” Dana asked.

Doyle’s gaze swung back to her. “Certainly not money.”

She smiled. “No, I suppose not.”

“I don’t keep any case files at home,” he added. “Although—”

“Although what?” she prodded when he didn’t continue.

Doyle glanced toward Nix, not answering.

“I have a phone call to make,” Nix murmured, leaving the room almost as quietly as he’d entered it.

Dana pulled her chair a little closer, laying her hand on her brother’s arm. “What didn’t you want Detective Nix to hear?”

“It’s nothing, really. I don’t suppose there was any reason to try to keep it secret from him or anyone. It’s just—I’ve come across some strange information recently, and I’m not sure what to think about it.”

“What kind of strange information?”

Doyle’s focus tightened, and for the first time since Dana had entered the hospital room, he seemed to be fully awake. “Remember a few months ago when I arrested my chief of detectives for kidnapping a local girl?”

“Not exactly the sort of thing I’d be likely to forget,” she said drily.

He smiled weakly. “No, I suppose not. Anyway, during the interrogation, Bolen said something that struck me as odd when he was explaining why they’d kidnapped the girl.”

“I thought you said it was all about putting pressure on the girl’s father to keep the Bitterwood P.D. alive and kicking.”

“It was,” Doyle said with a nod. “But I didn’t tell you the rest of it.”

“There’s more?”

“A little more. See, there was a point, right before Laney and I managed to turn the tables on Bolen and his boss, that I realized they had deliberately set out to get me up there on the mountain with the missing girl.”

Dana hadn’t heard this part of the story before. “I thought you just sort of walked into the whole mess.”

“Not exactly. At the beginning, Craig Bolen had only agreed to go along with his boss’s plan because he thought they could let the girl go free when it was over. But when it became clear that she might have seen or heard too much, they knew they couldn’t let her live. So they needed a scapegoat.”

“You don’t mean you were supposed to be the scapegoat.”

Doyle shrugged, grimacing a little, as if the movement pained him. “I was new in town. I had a vested interest in keeping the police department going.”

“That’s ridiculous. Who’s going to buy a story like that?”

“That’s what I asked Bolen.” Doyle covered her hand where it lay on the edge of his bed. “That’s when Bolen said something strange. He told me I was a Cumberland, and everybody in Bitterwood knows the Cumberlands are crooks and swindlers and baby-killers. He said no good ever came from a Cumberland in these parts.”

Dana frowned. “Mom’s maiden name was Cumberland.”

“I know.”

“She never talked much about her past.” Dana looked thoughtfully at her brother. “But we knew she came from somewhere around here, didn’t we? That’s why she and Dad were here when they had their accident.”

“Yes. So I’ve been doing a little asking around. And while I don’t put a whole lot of stock in much of what Craig Bolen has to say these days, he was right about one thing.” Doyle’s brow furrowed as his troubled gaze met hers. “People around here seem ready to believe the Cumberlands are capable of just about anything bad.”

* * *

NIX CHECKED HIS WATCH, wondering how much longer Dana Massey intended to stay in the room with her brother. He’d already worked a full day and his night hadn’t exactly been uneventful. He could use some sleep.

But if he was honest with himself, his growing impatience had less to do with going home and getting some shut-eye and more about getting another eyeful of Dana Massey’s long legs, shapely figure and intelligent green eyes.

She is not the woman for you, he reminded himself, closing his gritty eyes against the harsh artificial light in the otherwise empty waiting room. And not just because she’s leaving town in a few days.

He wasn’t sure that such a woman existed, for that matter. He’d gone thirty-six years without finding a woman who would put up with his cynicism or his emotional reserve. It had been easier to live with that knowledge when he was full-time military, because war was hell on marriages. He’d seen the corrosive effects of long tours of duty, the stress on families trying to stoke the home fires when any moment could bring devastating news from a world away.

But he’d been a civilian for five years now without finding a good woman and settling down.

What’s your excuse now, hotshot?

“Falling asleep on me, Detective?”

He opened his eyes at the sound of Dana’s low voice. She stood in front of him, the hint of a smile on her lips. But her amusement didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. Her night had been even worse than his, and it showed in the faint pallor beneath her tan and the dark shadows under her eyes. “You ready to go?”

She nodded, and he pushed to his feet, falling into step with her as they headed for the elevator. She was quiet all the way to the car, buckling in without speaking. But there was an edge to her silence, hints of a gathering storm.

It struck halfway back to Bitterwood.

“What do you know about the Cumberlands?”

His back stiffened for a second at the sound of the name, and he shot Dana a quick look. In the blue glow of the dashboard lights, her strong profile seemed carved in cool marble, both beautiful and unapproachable.

He’d like to paint her like that, too, he thought.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“Do you know anything about my family background?”

He didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “No.”

“My mother’s maiden name was Tallie Cumberland. Ever heard of her?”

The stiffness in his back returned, flowing all the way to his hands until they white-knuckled the steering wheel. The dread ran through him like ice in his blood, freezing him as if he were still that little boy from Cherokee Cove who believed every tale his mama told him, especially the scary ones.

“Don’t even look at a Cumberland,” she’d warned him from the time he was old enough to walk around on his own two feet. “They’re cursed, and they’ll spread their sickness on you.”

His father hadn’t been superstitious at all, but even he had spoken of the Cumberlands in hushed tones, dire warnings blazing in his eyes.

“You have heard of her,” Dana said.

“I’ve heard of the Cumberlands,” he admitted.

“Doyle says that when he mentioned the name, people reacted as if he’d just said a curse word.”

“Does he know why?”

“Not specifically. The most anyone would tell him is that the Cumberlands are nothing but trouble.”

“Does that sound anything like your mother?” he asked carefully.

“No.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Dana didn’t say anything else until they reached the Bitterwood city limits. Even then, she merely said she’d told Doyle she was going to stay at his house. “He didn’t like it, but I’m older than he is, so I win.”

Nix smiled, thinking of his own younger brother and how often he’d invoked the older-sibling rule when they were growing up. “Are you sure you feel safe there? Someone was able to get into the house pretty easily.”

“I’m armed and I’m too wired to sleep,” she answered, slanting a look of raw determination his way. “Bring it on.”

“I could stick around.”

“And protect the poor, defenseless girl?”

“Not what I said.”

She sighed. “I’m usually not this prickly. It’s been an unsettling night.”

“I’m serious about sticking around. And not because I don’t think you can take care of yourself. But you said there were two intruders. Couldn’t hurt to have an extra set of ears to listen out for danger.”

“And it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra firepower,” she admitted. “But it’s a lot to ask.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“So you did.” Her lips curved in a smile that softened her features, making her look far more approachable than she had seemed for most of the drive.

Far more dangerous, too, he reminded himself.

The TBI technicians were still there when they arrived, but they were packing up to leave. Laney was outside with them, talking to Brady Moreland. She squinted at the headlights, smiling when she recognized Nix’s truck.

“Good timing,” she said. “The van will be out of your way in just a minute.”

“Actually, I’m staying here tonight after all,” Dana told her as she slid out of the cab of the truck. “I ran by to see Doyle and told him I’d keep an eye on the place.”

“Oh.” Laney looked surprised. “Okay. I need to run home and get some notes for a court case that starts Monday, but I can be back here in a half hour—”

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Dana said quickly. “Doyle told me you’d probably try but to remind you your big case is important and I’m a deputy U.S. marshal with a big gun.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Go get some rest so you can kick butt in court Monday.”

After Laney’s taillights disappeared around the bend, Dana turned to look at Nix. “I do appreciate the offer to stay, but—”

“But you’re a deputy U.S. marshal with a big gun?”

She patted her purse. “Glock 17.”

“Nice.” He bent a little closer to her, lowering his voice. “I have a sweet Colt 1911 .45 caliber with a rosewood grip, and if you quit trying to get rid of me, I might let you hold it.”

A dangerous look glittered in her eyes. “You’re trying to tempt me with an offer to handle your weapon?”

He nearly swallowed his tongue.

She smiled the smile of a woman who knew she’d scored a direct hit. “You can stay,” she said almost regally. “We’ll negotiate weapon-handling terms later.”

She headed up the porch steps and entered her brother’s house, leaving Nix to wonder just what he’d gotten himself into.

* * *

DANA GAVE NIX the guest room, taking her brother’s bedroom for herself. As she was trying to figure out what part of the chaos to tackle first, Nix knocked on the door frame. He paused in the doorway, eyeing the mess with a grimace. “Let me help you straighten up.”

“It’s okay. I can get it.”

“You should take a shower and clean the blood out of your hair,” he said firmly. “Go ahead. I’ll see how far I can get by the time you’re done.”

She was too tired and sore to argue. The bruises on her shoulders were beginning to ache, and the blood in her hair was giving off an unpleasant metallic odor she would be happy to get rid of. She took her whole suitcase into the bathroom down the hall, pleased to see that the room conformed to tourist mountain cabin standards by being roomy and, even better, boasting a whirlpool tub with a multisetting handheld showerhead.

She tried to hurry through her bath, but the soothing pulse of the showerhead’s massage setting against her bruised shoulders was seductive, keeping her in the tub longer than she’d intended. She forced herself out of the hot spray finally, gritting her teeth against the faint chill of the bathroom on her wet skin, and hurried through drying off and dressing.

But by the time she reached Doyle’s bedroom, Nix had finished most of the cleanup, changing the bedsheets and returning most of the clothes back to their drawers. “There were a few things smudged with fingerprint powder,” he told her as he wiped down the dresser surface with a damp rag. “I put those and the sheets in the clothes basket in the laundry room.”

“Where’s the laundry room?” she asked, tugging her robe more tightly around her as Nix’s dark-eyed gaze dropped to where the robe lapels gaped open to reveal her thin nightgown.

His gaze snapped back up to meet hers. “Just off the kitchen.”

“Ah.”

“Was the water hot enough?”

She nodded. “Bathroom’s amazing. What is this place, one of those tourist cabins?”

“Actually, I think it may be,” Nix answered, giving the chest of drawers a final swipe of the dust rag. “Back about ten years ago, some guy bought up a lot of this land and built a bunch of cabins, hoping to bring more tourism to this area. But it’s just too far off the beaten path, and Bitterwood doesn’t have enough attractions to compete with places like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge or Bryson City. So the guy had to sell off a bunch of these cabins for a song just to keep his real-estate business from going belly-up. Doyle probably got a decent deal on the place. Is he buying or renting, do you know?”

“Buying,” she answered. “He said it wouldn’t look good for the chief of police to rent a place. Might make it seem like he wasn’t planning to stick around for the long haul. Bad optics.”

Nix’s grimace suggested he wasn’t a fan of that sort of public-service politics. Dana didn’t like it much herself, though being a federal law enforcement agent meant that some level of politics was unavoidable.

“Thanks for cleaning up,” she added, waving her hand toward the much neater room.

“Not a problem.”

As Nix took a step toward the bedroom door, Dana caught his arm, stilling his movement. He looked down at her hand, then slowly lifted his gaze back to her face. Heat radiated from his tall, broad-shouldered body, washing over her in a flood that set her own skin tingling.

“Yes?” His voice was like silk over sandpaper.

“You know something about my mother, don’t you?”

Nix recoiled slightly, the movement clearly involuntary. Dana stared at him, watched the color suffuse his face as his gaze slid.

Her pulse notched upward, fueled by a river of dread flowing through her veins to settle in the center of her chest. She took her own step backward, until her knees hit the edge of Doyle’s bed and she sat abruptly, curling her fingers into the bedspread.

“What did my mother do?” she asked, her voice tight with alarm.

Nix made himself look at her, his dark gaze unfathomable. “If the story I’ve heard all my life is true, she killed her own baby and tried to steal someone else’s.”

Chapter Four

Dana’s face went pale with shock at Nix’s words. She stared at him, first in stunned silence, then in a slowly simmering anger that chased the pallor from her face, replacing it with splotches of high color in her cheeks.

“That’s ludicrous.”

He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t actually vouch for any of the details. All he knew was what the older people in his small community had whispered for years, quietly enough that they could pretend discretion while knowing full well that their children were listening and absorbing the cautionary tale of the teenage girl who got herself pregnant, got away with murder and eventually got herself run out of town for her sins.

“My mother was a wonderful, kind, smart and decent woman.”

“I’m sure she was,” Nix agreed, though not with enough conviction to drive the fury from Dana’s flashing eyes.

“You couldn’t possibly know anything about her. She left here before you were born.”

“Yeah, about a year before I was born,” he agreed.

She looked away from him, as if she couldn’t stand looking at him any longer. He took that as his cue to leave, backing toward the door.

“Wait,” she snapped.

He faltered to a stop.

She looked at him again, her expression more composed, though distress roiled behind her eyes. “Please sit.” She waved her hand toward the armchair by the window, next to a table holding a reading lamp and a small stack of books.

He sat in the chief’s chair and took a bracing breath before he looked at Dana again, steeling himself against her anger and pain. But she seemed to have herself completely under control now, her expression back to cool neutral, her eyes mirrors reflecting her surroundings without revealing anything that lay beneath.

“Where did you hear that story about my mother?” she asked.

She wasn’t going to let it go, he saw. Not that he should have expected her to. After all, she hadn’t chosen a career in law enforcement because she was incurious or prone to dodging conflict.

“It’s one of those stories you grow up hearing,” he answered carefully.

“Like monsters in the closet and bogeymen under the bed?” she asked, only a hint of sarcasm breaking the calm surface of her composure.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Like that.”

“So, tell me. What was the story? How did she kill her child?”

“Her baby,” he corrected. He thought he saw a quick flinch, a slight tightening in the corners of her eyes. “She was unmarried. Pregnant. Went into labor and someone took her to the hospital in Maryville for delivery. Everything went okay and the baby was born.” He faltered to a stop, knowing the worst part of the story, the part that made any normal person recoil, was yet to come.

“Did she kill the baby at the hospital or at home?” Dana asked, her tone businesslike, as if she were interviewing a witness to a crime.

“At the hospital. The nurse had brought him for feeding and left him there with her. As the story goes, she claims she fell asleep and someone switched out her live baby for an already dead one. But nobody saw anything.”

“Nobody saw anyone carrying a dead baby into the room or carrying a live one out, you mean.”

“Right.” Nix shook his head. “Dana, I don’t know that any of this is true. It’s just a story.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Maybe not. What happened when the unmarried girl discovered the baby in the bassinet was dead?”

“She started screaming.” He swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat as he watched Dana’s face grow even stonier. “She kept screaming at the nurses that it wasn’t her baby, but of course, it had to be. Nobody had gone into her room.”

“That anyone witnessed.”

He’d let his gaze drift away from her face but snapped it back at her words. “That anyone witnessed.”

“What’s the next part of this cautionary tale?” Her voice held a minute trace of sarcasm, so tiny he wasn’t sure whether it was really there or he was just reading that tone into her words.

“The hospital called in a psychiatrist to calm her down. She finally settled down and started to cooperate with the hospital staff, who were trying to make arrangements for the baby’s burial. The nurse who saw her just before all hell broke loose supposedly swore she seemed to be sad but acting normally enough for a girl who’d just lost her newborn baby.”

Dana was silent and very still for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was faint and strained. “And then?”

“The nurses supposedly heard screams coming from a room down the hall on the same floor. A woman screaming that someone had stolen her baby. The story goes, they locked down the hospital and finally found the unmarried girl and the missing baby in the hospital basement. She was trying to take him out a service exit.”

“Who were the baby’s parents?”

“You mean the baby that lived?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “That was never part of the story I heard.”

“They only identified the girl?”

He nodded. “Crazy Tallie Cumberland, mad as a hare and wicked as the rest of her family. Killed her own baby and tried to steal another. Better take care and not let a Cumberland look you in the eye, or you’ll turn out crazy and wicked, too.”

“Lovely.”

“I’m sorry. I guess it’s not so entertaining a legend when you’re on the Cumberland end of things.”

“It’s also completely impossible,” Dana said in a low, flat tone. “My mother couldn’t have killed her own child under any circumstances. She was perfectly sane, perfectly rational and as loving and protective a mother as a child could have hoped for.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Nix said.

“No, you’re not.” She pulled the collar of her robe more tightly around herself. “You never knew her.”

“No, I didn’t.” Nix stood. “It’s late. We’re tired. Let’s just get some sleep tonight while we can. Morning will make everything look better.”

At least, he hoped it would.

But long after he retreated to the guest room, he remained awake, staring at the moon-painted ceiling over the bed and wondering just how much of the story he’d told Dana was true.

And how much of it, true or otherwise, had led to Doyle Massey’s brand-new brakes failing on the curve just past Purgatory Bridge?

* * *

LOSING HER PARENTS had been one of the most devastating moments of Dana Massey’s life. She’d talked to her mother on the phone only a couple of hours before the accident, planning for a birthday party for David, the baby of the family, which was to have taken place the next month. David was turning eighteen, a significant milestone, and Tallie Massey had tasked Dana with finding a particular set of books David wanted for his birthday. They were obscure books on South American agricultural technology, in the original Spanish, and neither of her parents had a clue where to start looking.

Dana had been a junior in college, entirely too full of herself and far too certain she knew everything there was to know about any subject of importance.

Stupid, stupid girl.

The call had come in the middle of the night. It had been David, the baby, the one who felt everything like a pierce to the heart, trying so hard to be strong and adult, to break the news to her gently.

But there was no easy way to tell someone her parents were dead.

Doyle had beaten her home by an hour. She’d found him and David sitting in silence in the well-worn den of their family home, staring at the phone as if waiting for more bad news to crash down on them. They’d looked up in unison as she entered the room, just staring at her with shattered expressions and heartsick eyes. She’d opened her arms and David had run to her, a lost little boy in a young man’s body.

“Sheriff Morgan delivered the news himself,” Doyle had told Dana later, after they’d coaxed David into getting some sleep before morning came and the food-and-sympathy visits started. “David said he’d offered to stick around, but our little brother didn’t want us to think he was still a kid.”

Oh, David, Dana thought, staring at the ceiling of her brother’s bedroom. What kind of man would you have been?

Morning light was beginning to seep through the curtains, just a hint of pearly-gray in the otherwise unrelenting darkness, but it gave her an excuse to get out of bed and get her mind out of the bleak past for a while.

There was a light on in the kitchen, the sound of water running. Figuring an intruder wouldn’t stop for a drink of water, she decided against going back into the bedroom for her Glock and entered the kitchen to find Walker Nix scooping coffee grounds into a filter. He turned at the sound of her bare footsteps on the hardwood floor. “Did I wake you?”

“No.” She stifled a yawn and settled on one of the stools in front of the breakfast bar. “You’re up early.”

“I have to go home and get ready for work.”

“Right.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes hooded. “You want some coffee?”

She nodded. “Nice and strong, I hope?”

“Of course.” His lips twitched as he reached into the cabinet over the coffeemaker and pulled out a couple of large mugs. “Did you get any sleep?”

She grimaced. “That obvious, huh?”

“You look fine.” He actually sounded as if he believed what he was saying.

“You’re a better diplomat than you look,” she murmured with a smile.

He left the coffee percolating and pulled up the stool beside hers, resting one arm on the bar and turning to face her. “I want you to forget what I told you last night about your mother. I have no proof that any of it happened, and what passes as truth, in these hills, can be as flexible as taffy.”

“I know it didn’t happen the way you heard it,” she said with confidence. “But something happened to my mother when she was living here in Bitterwood. There’s no other reason why she would’ve hidden her past so thoroughly from us for all these years.”

“You didn’t even know she was from here?”

“I knew she was from the Smoky Mountains. That she was born in Tennessee and didn’t meet my father until she was nearly twenty and working at a bait shop in Terrebonne. She told us she didn’t have any family left, and no reason to go back to Tennessee for visits. That’s why we were sort of surprised when she and my dad decided to drive to Tennessee for their vacation.”

“Do you think your father knew about your mother’s past?”

She thought about the question for a moment. “I think so. They were best friends as well as spouses. They didn’t keep secrets from each other.”

“But they never told you or your brother anything about it?”

“No.” She hadn’t thought much about why her mother’s past was a blank. It had simply always been that way, for as long as she remembered. “I think Dad guarded her secret because that’s what she wanted. But he must have known.”

“She didn’t leave you anything, a written journal or something that might have explained the blanks in her past?”

“No. Nothing. She wasn’t expecting to die, so she hadn’t prepared.”

“My mother got real sick when I was sixteen,” Nix said after a moment of silence. “Breast cancer. She just wanted to live at least long enough to get me and my brother out of high school.” Nix’s smile was tinged with a hint of exasperation. “Lavelle had to be pushed through that final semester, kicking and screaming.”

“Younger brothers,” Dana murmured, biting back the urge to cry.

“The good news is, she beat the cancer. Twenty-year survivor as of January.”

She felt a flutter of relief. “That’s wonderful.”

He nodded. “The chief says you’re the oldest.”

“He likes to remind people of that a lot. Lucky me.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you look younger.”

“Ten years ago, I might have smacked you for saying that,” she said with a grin. “But now I’ll just say ‘thanks.’ And suggest you might want to get your eyes checked.”

He looked at her for a long moment, his scrutiny straightforward and a little unnerving. “You have to know you’re a very attractive woman.”

She supposed she knew it, although the deeper into her thirties she went, the more she had a sense of time ticking past her at a quicker rate. She’d put her career first, her personal life a distant second, and she’d been okay with that order of things, because she’d always figured there’d be time, before her youth was spent, to change her priorities.

But she was two months shy of her thirty-fifth birthday, no longer the youngest, prettiest woman in any given room, and her expectations had changed.

“Thank you, again.” She cocked her head, smiling slightly. “You’re brave, Detective Nix. Flirting with the chief’s sister.”

“Oh, sugar, this ain’t flirting,” he said in a drawl so low and sexy her cheeks started burning.

“Just as well,” she murmured, retreating to the counter, where the coffee had finished burbling. She poured the hot black liquid into a mug and crossed to the refrigerator for milk. She spotted some hazelnut liquid creamer—had to be there for Laney, she figured, since Doyle didn’t care for sweet coffee—and poured a dollop from the container into her cup.

“You’re involved with someone back in Atlanta?” Nix asked. He’d moved to the counter to pour his own cup of coffee. Like Doyle, he drank it black, no cream, no sugar.

“Not at the moment.”

He glanced up from his coffee cup, a flame flickering in his dark eyes. She felt a responding flood of heat deep in her abdomen and forced her gaze back to her own coffee.

“Not in the market?”

“I don’t consider myself a commodity,” she answered a little more tartly than she’d intended.

Nix’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but he didn’t seem particularly offended by her response. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Still, she felt bad about snapping at him just for showing mild interest in her availability. She should feel flattered. Hell, she was flattered; Walker Nix was an attractive man. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t care to involve herself in a short-term, dead-end fling.

She pushed her hair back from her face, meeting his gaze. “Sorry. I’ve spent a long time trying to get my fellow marshals to treat me like one of the guys. I forget my social graces sometimes.”

“I’d rather you just say what you’re thinking, straight out. Honesty goes a long way.”

“Okay. Then, honestly, I’m here in Bitterwood for two weeks. I’m not sticking around after that.”

“And you’re not interested in a short-term fling?” The corner of his mouth twitched as he cut to the chase.

“Not that you were offering?”

“No,” he said, the twitch becoming a whisper of a smile. “I wasn’t offering. For pretty much the same reason.”

She let out a long, slow breath. “Well, then.”

He walked slowly across the narrow space between them, reaching past her to put his mug of coffee on the breakfast bar. The move brought him so close she felt his heat pour over her, igniting another blaze of heat in her center. He bent his head, his breath hot against her ear. “Not that it ain’t mighty damn tempting.”

He stepped back, flashed her a smile that she felt right down to the tips of her toes and headed out of the kitchen toward the front door.

“You’re leaving already?” she asked, her voice embarrassingly hoarse.

He turned in the open doorway. “You may be on vacation, Marshal. But I’m not.” He lifted his hand in a brief, stationary wave, then pulled the door shut behind him.

She forced herself to stay where she was rather than trail him to the door and watch him leave. She might be feeling like a giddy schoolgirl right down to her tingling toes, but she had her pride.

And more important, she reminded herself sternly, she had a mystery to unravel. She just had to figure out where to start.

As she was walking back to the bedroom, the house phone started ringing. She picked up the bedroom extension, bracing herself to explain to the caller that her brother wasn’t available.

But it was Nix. “Sorry—I meant to mention this before I left. I don’t know how much truth there is to that story about your mother, but there’s a way you can find out.”

“Yeah?”

“In the story I’ve always heard, your mother was penniless, a charity case. And the couple whose baby boy she tried to take were well-off and reputable, which made what she did that much more scandalous.”

“If it really happened.”

“If it happened,” he conceded. “But if even a germ of the story is true, then what you’re looking for is a hospital that would treat both indigent and wealthy patients.”

“In other words, not a charity hospital or a low-income care facility.”

“Right. And there’s really only one hospital close that fits that description. Maryville Mercy Hospital.”

“That’s the hospital where Doyle is.”

“That’s right. Good luck.” He hung up the phone.

Good luck, she repeated silently. She had a feeling she was going to need all the luck she could find to cut through the years of rumor and innuendo to get to the truth about her mother’s secret life in Bitterwood.

But Maryville Mercy Hospital was as good a place to start as any.

Chapter Five

Nix walked slowly across the narrow two-lane street that bisected tiny Purgatory, Tennessee, wondering how long Alexander Quinn planned to keep him waiting. He hadn’t even taken his seat in the detectives’ office at the police station when his phone rang, and a low voice informed him that Merritt Cortland had been spotted in Purgatory.

It had been a few years since Nix had spoken to the old spymaster, but even with the man’s voice disguised, there was a certain tone to it that Nix found unforgettable. Many things had changed since the last time they’d met—Nix now carried a badge, not an M-16, and Quinn had recently left the CIA to start his own investigative agency in Purgatory. But Nix had a feeling Quinn would never fully give up his secret-agent ways.

Case in point—luring Nix to Purgatory with an anonymous tip. Nix doubted anyone had spotted Merritt Cortland anywhere near Purgatory. Which meant Quinn wanted him to come to Purgatory for some other reason but didn’t want to approach him directly.

On the other side of the road, Laurel Park was little more than a scenic overlook, a narrow strip of grass and trees that ended about thirty yards off the road where Little Black Creek meandered through the foothills just west of the Smokies. In the late nineteenth century, Purgatory had been a company town for a nearby Tennessee marble quarry, but by the end of the Second World War, the company had gone bankrupt as the demand for less expensive building materials drove most of the state’s marble quarries out of business.

Fortunately, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was in business by then, and Purgatory, like other towns near the park’s border, had made a trade out of tourism for a couple of decades before other towns closer to the park and more easily accessible by interstate highway had lured most of the tourists away.

Now Purgatory was limping along on the back of a large auto parts plant that had opened in Barrowville. Corporate bigwigs at the plant had looked east to Purgatory for land on which to build large homes and estates that would provide them with both an easy commute and the pristine beauty of living in the mountains.

The town’s name was unfortunate, but some folks around Ridge County would argue that it was well-enough earned, since the little town had struggled more than thrived for most of its existence.

Nix settled on a wooden bench to wait for Quinn to make himself known. That he was watching from some hiding place was a given. Nix couldn’t imagine Quinn waiting in the open for someone to approach him first.

A man with long sandy-brown hair strolled slowly toward him. His knee-length hiking shorts, round, red-lensed sunglasses, grimy baseball cap and well-worn backpack were the typical uniform of a section hiker, one of hundreds of thousands who hiked the Appalachian Trail section by section over the course of several years.

Of course, even if Nix hadn’t recognized the long-haired man as the former CIA agent he’d come to see, he’d have been suspicious, since the Appalachian Trail was several miles to the east of Purgatory, winding along the Tennessee/North Carolina state line.

The hiker otherwise known as Alexander Quinn sat at the other end of the bench from Nix and pulled a water bottle from his backpack. “Warm weather’s finally here,” he said with just enough of a hipster vibe to make Nix bite back a laugh.

“That’s a new look for you,” Nix murmured.

“Recycled from about twenty years ago,” Quinn said in his normal accent, a neutral tone that had a chameleon-like ability to sound as if it could originally have come from almost any English-speaking country. “Thanks for coming.”

“Was there really a Merritt Cortland sighting?”

“Actually, there was, although I can’t vouch for it personally,” Quinn answered. His gaze moved lazily from side to side, as if he were just a tourist enjoying the view. But Nix knew the old spymaster never did anything casually.

“Are you expecting company?”

“Expecting? No.” He took another swig from his water bottle, then slipped it into the backpack that sat on the bench between them. “But it never hurts to stay alert.”

“Are you planning to get to the point of my summons?”

Quinn’s eyes met his briefly. “My agency has been looking into Cortland’s disappearance. That’s how we got the tip that someone may have seen him just north of here, near the old marble quarry.”

“How valid a tip?”

“Remains to be seen. But we haven’t come across any proof that Cortland is dead, either. So we have to proceed on the assumption that he could still be alive and kicking. And if so, he’s probably working overtime to solidify his control of his father’s criminal enterprise.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Nix asked.

“Seemed like something you’d want to know.”

“It’s something a lot of people would like to know. The FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service—”

“I hear someone tried to kill your chief of police.” Quinn leaned back, crossing his ankle on top of his knee. The soles of his hiking boots were muddy and well-worn, Nix noticed. When the man donned a disguise, he didn’t miss a beat.

“That’s still under investigation,” Nix said carefully.

Quinn laid his head back, as if enjoying the morning sun that angled through the trees overhead to bathe his face with warm light. “Check with your office. I believe you’ll find the mechanic’s assessment is in.”

Nix stared at Quinn. “I thought you were out of the spy business.”

He shrugged. “I don’t spy for the government anymore.”

“Just for yourself?”

“Let’s just say I haven’t lost the ability to uncover sensitive information when necessary.”

“Do the people you employ know you’re still playing head games?”

“They know me,” Quinn said simply.

Nix supposed that response answered the question about as well as anything would. “So, you’ve told me there may or may not have been a Cortland sighting in the area. A phone call would have sufficed.”

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