Praise for Marie Ferrarella

“A joy to read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Christmas Cowboy Duet

“Ferrarella’s romance will charm with all the benefits and pitfalls of a sweet small-town setting.”

—RT Book Reviews on Lassoed by Fortune

“Heartwarming. That’s the way I have described every book by Marie Ferrarella that I have read. In the Family Way engenders in me the same warm, fuzzy feeling that I have come to expect from her books.” —The Romance Reader

“Ms. Ferrarella warms our hearts with her charming characters and delicious interplay.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Husband Waiting to Happen

“Ms. Ferrarella creates fiery, strong-willed characters, an intense conflict and an absorbing premise no reader could possibly resist.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Match for Morgan

* * *

We hope you enjoy this dramatic new series:

The Coltons of Texas: Finding love and buried family secrets in the Lone Star state …

Colton Copycat

Killer

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written two-hundred-and-fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To Melissa Senate, with love, for handing me a great outline to work with!

Contents

Cover

Praise

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“Watch and learn, little sister. Watch and learn.”

Celia Robison’s eyes met her younger sister, Zoe’s, in the full-length mirror as the former fussed over her wedding veil, adjusting it for the umpteenth time in order to best play up her delicate features.

She was talking to Zoe in the church’s bridal room. The latter had popped in a few minutes ago to see how she was coming along. Celia always loved having her sister around—and never more than today—because she knew she always looked even hotter and sexier than usual in comparison. The sweetly attractive Zoe looked like the typical shrinking violet that she was.

Right now, Celia was approximately ten minutes away from leaving her single status permanently behind and marrying Sam Colton, a rather stoic detective on the Granite Gulch police force—and a man that Zoe had secretly been in love with since forever.

Not even Sam knew how she felt, and the librarian—a rather stereotypical career choice that suited the shy, blond-haired Zoe rather well—intended to keep it that way. She doubted Celia knew how she felt about Sam when her sister had asked her to be one of her bridesmaids—and Zoe knew she couldn’t turn her sister down without arousing suspicion. Besides, with both of their parents gone now, Celia was the only family that she had. So, much as it made her heart ache, she’d said yes.

The charade—pretending to be happy for Sam and Celia—was really killing her despite the brave front she was putting up. But this mysterious, cat-ate-the-canary look on Celia’s face had caused her to forget her own bruised heart and piqued her curiosity.

To be honest, it made her uneasy.

Celia had always been the devious one, but given her looks, she had always been able to get away with things others in her position wouldn’t have been able to.

“Watch and learn what?” Zoe finally asked when Celia said nothing further. Her sister just continued smirking at her reflection, as if some huge secret existed between her and the mirrored image.

“Why, how to trap a man of your choice, of course, little sister.”

Zoe hated that condescending tone. Celia used it often with her. “What are you talking about, Celia?” Zoe asked impatiently.

Celia turned away from the mirror to look at her. “Why, Sam, of course. I’m talking about Sam. My future beloved.” She laughed then, clearly delighted with herself.

Zoe moved in closer, discreetly sniffing the air between them. “Have you been drinking, Celia?”

“Not yet, but I will be soon,” Celia assured her with a wink. “That’s what got him, you know. Drinking. And now I’m going to be wrapping him around my little finger—him and that lovely Colton money of his.”

Zoe was beginning to get a very uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was very off. “English, Celia, speak English.”

Celia blew out a breath, and shook her head. “You know, you really are no fun, Zoe. Lucky for you I’m in such a good mood.”

As if to underscore what she’d just said, Celia began softly humming the bridal march under her breath.

This one time, Zoe didn’t allow her sister to put her off. She intended to get to the bottom of this. Celia seemed too pleased with herself for it to be some inconsequential trivial thing.

“What did you do, Celia?” she asked in a firm, quiet voice, her eyes never leaving Celia’s.

Of the two of them, Celia was the vivacious one, the one who had always turned heads. The one who could have any boyfriend she wanted and who could talk her way out of anything. Celia was just that stunning.

As for her, Zoe knew she had to content herself to live in Celia’s shadow. But for the most part, she was okay with that. She loved her sister, even though at times that wasn’t nearly as easy as it should have been.

But what Celia was alluding to was sending an icy cold shiver down her spine and Zoe intended to find out just what her sister was talking about.

Now.

“You seem very pleased with yourself, Celia.” Flattery had always been the way to go with her sister. “Why don’t you tell me why?”

Celia looked as if she was just bursting with her accomplishment and utterly enthralled with what she’d managed to do. “Sam’s marrying me to give his baby a name.”

Zoe’s eyes opened so wide, they almost hurt. “What baby?”

“Exactly,” Celia countered smugly, her eyes dancing.

Zoe caught hold of her sister’s shoulder to keep her from turning back to the mirror. “Celia, stop speaking in riddles. You’re going to be marching down the aisle in a few minutes. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

Had she thought it would do any good, she would have issued an ultimatum to her sister—that she couldn’t leave the small room until she came clean. But Zoe knew Celia would only laugh at her and then it would get ugly from there. All she could hope for at this point was to wear Celia down.

“You do take the fun out of things, you know that, right?” Celia accused, annoyed. And then she laughed. She was far too pleased with herself to let the occasion be ruined by her annoying younger sister—who did, after all, have her uses. “Sam and I never even slept together.”

Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t understand. If you didn’t sleep together, then why would he think you’re carrying his baby?” Something was really, really wrong here.

Celia sighed. Spelling it out took a little of the drama, not to mention fun, out of it.

“Because one night, after he’d killed that awful criminal he’d been chasing, he came to my place just to unwind and talk. Seems killing doesn’t sit well with Sam,” she added with offhanded sarcasm. “Anyway, he was upset and I just kept plying him with whiskey until he totally passed out on my sofa. Then I messed up my place to make it look like we made wild, passionate love all over the living room. When he woke up, I shyly told him I’d never done ‘anything like that before.’”

That in itself was a lie, Zoe thought. Celia had slept with several men who she knew of in the past couple of years. There’d probably been more.

“Two months later, I came to his place and tearfully told him that I was pregnant with his baby.” Her grin all but split her face. “That’s when he offered to ‘do the right thing,’ just like I knew he would,” Celia said, absolutely pleased with herself. And then she spread her arms wide and declared, “And here we are.”

Stunned, Zoe didn’t even know where to begin to unravel all this. “Then you’re not—”

“Nope,” Celia responded. Zoe didn’t think it was humanly possible to be more pleased with herself than Celia was at this minute.

Didn’t Celia realize the dangerous game she was playing? We both know Sam wouldn’t put up with being lied to, Zoe thought.

She asked the first logical question that occurred to her. “What happens when the full nine months go by and there’s no baby?”

Celia waved away the very idea she was suggesting. “Oh, I’m not going to wait the full nine months. Sometime in the next month or so, I’ll tearfully tell him I lost our baby. Who knows?” She laughed with a careless half shrug. “He might even be relieved. And by then, it wouldn’t matter anyway—I’ll be married,” she concluded.

Since Zoe had dropped her hand from her shoulder, she turned away from her sister and went back to adjusting her veil and dress.

“I really do make a beautiful bride,” Celia complimented her reflection with feeling.

“You can’t get married to Sam under that pretext,” Zoe cried, staring at her in disbelief. “You have to tell him the truth.”

“No, I don’t.” And then Celia looked at her in the mirror, her face almost contorted with anger. “Oh, stop carrying on like this. After all, it’s not like Sam believes in love or marriage or even the almighty institution of family.” She paused to put another layer of lipstick on. “So marrying a woman he doesn’t love isn’t such a big deal.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Zoe asked incredulously. This had to be the lowest thing her sister had ever done, tricking someone into marrying her. “Marrying someone who isn’t in love with you? You’re really okay with that?”

Celia’s temper was just about at its end. “Of course I’m okay with that. Do you know how rich those Coltons are?”

“I don’t care if they’re richer then God,” Zoe exclaimed. “You can’t go through with this, Celia. It’s not right,” she insisted.

Celia tossed her head in that way of hers, the way that emulated queens ruling over small kingdoms.

“It’s more than ‘right,’ it’s perfect,” she countered, completely pleased with what she had brought about. “Now stop lecturing me like some dried-up old spinster with a house full of cats and get ready for the biggest bash this town has seen, bar none.”

Zoe pressed a hand against her stomach, which was suddenly twisting itself into a tight knot. She felt sick to the bottom of her stomach. She couldn’t be a party to something like this.

Celia, Zoe noted, had gone back into her own little world. Having eyes only for the image she beheld in the mirror and once again humming a tuneless “Here Comes the Bride,” Celia didn’t even seem to hear her slip out of the room.

Her stomach twisted harder, threatening to make her throw up. She had to find Sam, find him and tell him what Celia had just confessed to her. Sam couldn’t be allowed to go through with the ceremony. He’d be marrying Celia under false pretenses.

He’d be—

She came to an abrupt halt mentally. The thought of telling him about this elaborate scheme of her sister’s made her feel even sicker. Moreover, if she went through with it, it would easily brand her as a snitch. She was the blameless one here, but that wouldn’t be the way Sam would see it.

She had to try one last time to get Celia to call off the ceremony and tell Sam why on her own.

Squaring her shoulders, Zoe closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gather her courage together. She’d always just gone along with everything before, but this was the proverbial straw. It was just too much. She couldn’t allow this wedding to take place.

Though she dreaded butting heads with Celia, that was exactly what she was going to have to do.

Eyes opened again, Zoe marched back down the hallway to the bridal room. Knocking once, she didn’t wait for an invitation to enter.

Instead, she threw open the door, took one step into the room—

And started screaming.

Chapter 1

Zoe didn’t remember screaming.

Didn’t remember pursing her lips or emitting the loud, piercing sound less than a heartbeat after she’d opened the door.

Didn’t remember crossing over the threshold into the room, or bending over Celia, who was lying faceup on the floor.

The exquisite wedding dress her sister had taken such all-consuming delight in finding was now ruined. There were two glaring gunshot holes in her chest and her blood had soaked into the delicate white appliqué, all but drenching it. The pattern beneath it was completely obliterated.

The whole scene, which was whizzing by and moving in painfully slow motion at the same time, seemed totally surreal to Zoe, like some sort of an ill-conceived, macabre scene being played out from an old-fashioned B-grade horror movie about a rampaging slasher.

And if the dreadfulness of all this wasn’t enough, someone—the killer?—had gone on to draw a bizarre red bull’s-eye on Celia’s forehead. There was a single dot inside the circle, just off center, and whoever had drawn it had used some sort of a laundry marker, so the bull’s-eye stood out even more than it normally might have.

This can’t be real, it just can’t be real.

The desperate thought throbbed over and over again in Zoe’s head. She’d just left Celia, what, a couple of minutes ago? Five minutes, tops?

How could all this have happened in such a short period of time?

Who could have done this to her sister?

Why hadn’t she heard the gunshots when they were fired?

And for God’s sake, what was that awful noise she was hearing now?

Zoe tried to see where it was coming from, but for some reason, she just couldn’t seem to turn her head.

She couldn’t even move.

The noise was surrounding her. It sounded like wailing, or, more specifically, like keening. It approximated the sound that was heard when someone’s heart was breaking.

Zoe had no idea the noise she was attempting to place was coming from her.

* * *

“You realize this is probably going to be the happiest day of your life, you lucky son of a gun.” The declaration, uttered by one of the men waiting to be ushered down an aisle and into a pew, was directed at the bridegroom. “It’s all downhill from here,” the older man chuckled.

Detective Sam Colton kept the half smile he had been sporting for the past half hour pasted on his handsome, tanned face and merely nodded.

Words were not his strong suit and he couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that, other than the fact that if this was to be the happiest day of his life, it certainly didn’t put the bar up very high.

And as for it being “downhill from here,” well, he already knew that.

He was marrying Celia Robison, who some of the other detectives on the force had made very clear they regarded as being quite an eyeful, as well as a number of other clichéd descriptions.

None of that had entered into the reason why he was standing here, waiting for everyone to take their seats so the ceremony could begin. Waiting for all this to be over with.

He was marrying the woman for one reason and one reason only.

She was having his kid and he’d vowed a long time ago that if he ever did happen to have any kids—most likely by accident, which this was—he was sure as hell going to be there for him or her. He wanted this kid’s upbringing to be completely unlike his own. His childhood had involved his father killing his mother and then his siblings and him being scattered to the winds.

More specifically, they had all been sent off to different foster homes, but they might as well have been scattered to the winds for all the time they’d managed to spend together during all those awful, soul-scarring years.

No matter what it took, his kid wasn’t going to go through that, wasn’t going to feel abandoned, alone and ashamed because no one wanted him or her. If he had to marry Celia for that to happen, well, so be it. He’d managed to survive all this time—and had gotten as far as he had—by learning to roll with the punches. He’d roll with this one, too.

And in the end—

Sam’s head jerked up as everything within him went on high alert the second he heard it.

Part of his response was due to his police training, the rest had evolved based on pure survival instincts. The latter had been necessary in order to live through some of the foster home stays he’d been forced to endure.

“Did you hear something?” Ethan, one of his brothers—they had pretty much managed to find one another and reunite in these past few years—asked him.

By now, Sam had broken into a run and ran past him without responding.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ethan said, answering his own question and hurrying after Sam.

Once they reached the hall, it was obvious the sound was coming from the bridal room. It grew louder and more jarring the closer they got.

“It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” Ethan called after Sam. It wasn’t meant to stop his brother. Ethan was just stating a point of fact.

The next moment, as he came to a skidding halt behind Sam and took in the scene Sam was viewing, he muttered under his breath, “And this has got to qualify as the worst possible kind of luck a groom ever encountered.”

For an excruciating, shattering moment, Sam froze several steps away from Zoe. At first, he wasn’t even aware she was the one screaming.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Celia.

It wasn’t a sense of loss that was echoing through every fiber of his being. It was shock. Complete, total and utter shock, swaddled in disbelief. The shock was not tied to the fact that Celia was dead, but to the symbol he was looking at on her forehead.

He knew that symbol.

He recognized it from both photographs he’d seen originating from crime scenes, and from the nightmares that had haunted his earlier dreams.

That was the symbol his father, the infamous serial killer, Matthew Colton, used to draw on the foreheads of his victims.

But those victims were all men of a certain size and age who reminded Matthew of his older, far more successful brother, Big J. It had been Matthew’s way of doing away, by proxy, with a man whom he hated with every fiber of his being and whom he blamed for everything that had gone wrong in his life.

Matthew killed men, not women. The thought echoed over and over in Sam’s head. And while Matthew had killed his wife when she stumbled across his heinous secret, he hadn’t made a practice of killing young women in their twenties. If nothing else, it would have come to light by now if he had.

Besides, Matthew Colton had been behind bars for twenty years. He couldn’t have killed Celia.

Then who had?

This didn’t make any sense.

The detective in Sam wanted to focus exclusively on the murder—Celia was clearly already dead—of the woman whom he would have married in ten minutes. The human side of him that was struggling to resurface after being buried for more than twenty years felt obligated to offer some sort of comfort to Celia’s sister.

Zoe looked as if she was bordering on going into shock—if she wasn’t already there.

“Zoe—” Sam began, then fell silent, at a loss as to what to say next.

But he didn’t have to talk. The moment he said her name, she turned toward him. He saw the tears flowing from her eyes and the stricken look on her face just before she collapsed into his arms.

He barely caught her in time.

Sam held on to her awkwardly, as if he felt that making any sort of contact would wind up cracking his carefully built up, impenetrable walls.

“She’s dead,” Zoe sobbed. “I was just in here and now Celia’s dead. Why did I leave her? She’d still be alive if I hadn’t left the room. Oh, God, why didn’t I stay?” she sobbed.

Sam looked over her head helplessly toward Ethan. He knew what to do at a crime scene, knew how to defend himself against a killer and knew how to handle himself in all the steps between. But when it came to dealing with something like someone else’s grief, or a woman’s tears, he hadn’t a clue.

Completely at a loss, he looked toward his older brother for help.

Ethan picked up his cue effortlessly. “Why don’t you come outside, Zoe, get some air?” he suggested gently, trying to take hold of Zoe’s arm. He was ready to lead her out of the room.

But Zoe surprised even herself and remained firm. She shook her head adamantly from side to side.

“No, I can’t leave, I can’t leave Celia,” she insisted, looking down at her sister’s prone body.

Sam had already felt for the pulse he knew was no longer there. Celia was gone. Whoever had fired the shots knew exactly where to aim.

Rising to his feet, Sam took a firm hold of Zoe’s arm. “You can’t do her any good anymore, Zoe. Celia’s dead.”

“But why? Who?” Zoe cried, looking at Sam through fresh tears.

Her last thoughts of Celia had been angry ones. Her last words had been condemning ones.

How was she supposed to live with that now?

The guilt of that—and of leaving Celia alone to fall prey to her killer in the first place—had already begun to eat away at her.

“Those are my questions exactly,” Sam replied evenly. There wasn’t a shred of emotion evident in his tone as he asked her pointedly, “What can you tell me?”

“Sam, don’t you think now isn’t the time—” Ethan began, trying to get Sam to treat Zoe with a little more compassion. Ethan’s question indicated he thought the victim’s sister looked as if she was a hair’s breadth away from coming unglued. Asking her questions right now might just push the poor woman over the line.

But Sam apparently didn’t see it that way.

“Now is exactly the time,” Sam emphasized, looking at Ethan. “While it’s all still fresh in her mind.” And then he turned back to Zoe. “Zoe?” he asked, looking at her pointedly. “Did you see anyone walk into Celia’s room after you left her?”

Zoe shook her head, wisps of blond hair coming undone and falling about her face and neck. “No,” she responded hesitantly. “I don’t think so...”

“You don’t think so?” Sam demanded, stretching out the key word and making it all sound almost like an accusation.

It only caused Zoe to look even more bewildered and at a loss.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember,” she cried. “Everything’s just a huge blur.”

And the fact that it was, frustrated her beyond words. She would have raked through her brain with her fingernails if that would have somehow helped bring the missing details back into focus.

With Ethan looking on, Sam tried another approach. “All right, why did you walk out in the first place?” he asked.

She looked at him, stricken. How could she tell him what he wanted to know, knowing it would only humiliate him, embarrass him? Hurt him?

She would rather die herself than do that to him, especially at a time like this.

Dead or not, Zoe concluded, Celia didn’t deserve a man like Sam.

“Zoe, why did you walk out?” Sam repeated more forcefully when she didn’t answer him.

“We had an argument,” she finally answered in a low, quiet voice.

“About what?” he pressed.

“Nothing important,” Zoe told him, waving the subject away as fresh tears threatened to choke her for a second time.

Ethan attempted to step in again. “Sam, her only sister’s just been murdered. She’s clearly in shock. She should see a doctor, not be interrogated right now. And yes, I know I have nothing professional to fall back on like Ridge or Annabel, or Chris—or even Trevor,” he said, mentioning their other siblings, all of whom, unlike him, were in some branch of law enforcement. “But maybe you shouldn’t be the one investigating this murder to begin with.”

Sam gave him a look that most of the law enforcement agents in Granite Gulch had learned to steer clear of. “My town, my case.”

“Your fiancée,” Ethan countered.

Sam completely ignored the last detail. Instead, he looked at Ethan pointedly. “Did you happen to notice the mark on her forehead?”

Ethan had focused on the gunshots that had ended Celia’s life and then on the victim’s screaming sister. Now that his attention had been directed to Celia’s forehead, Ethan looked and was immediately stunned.

Like a man in a trance, he raised his eyes back up to Sam’s face. “Oh my God, is that—?”

“Definitely. Just like his signature mark, except the red dot’s off center.” Sam paused, staring at the bull’s-eye. “That might mean something.”

“Yeah, that the old man hasn’t figured out how to be in two places at once,” Ethan said, pointing out the obvious. “He’s in prison, Sam, where he’s been for twenty years.”

“Almost twenty years,” Sam corrected. He was a stickler when it came to facts.

Ethan conceded the point. “Either way, he couldn’t have done this. Besides, the old man only killed men who reminded him of his brother. Celia would have never been mistaken for a man, even in the dark.” The second the words were out of his mouth, Ethan suddenly realized that Zoe was still in the room. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Zoe. I didn’t mean—”

But Zoe waved his words away. She was far too numbed by what had happened to take offense at something so trivial.

“It’s all right. I understand. And I want to help.” She looked from one man to the other. “I want to help any way I can to find who did this to Celia.”

“Right now, you can help by going and getting yourself checked out by a doctor,” Sam told her, undoing the bowtie he had put on under protest for the wedding. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and began to put in a call for backup.

“I don’t need to be checked out,” Zoe maintained stubbornly. “I didn’t hit my head. I found my sister, murdered. I don’t think the doctor’s got any kind of medication to treat that.” She took a breath, struggling to center herself. “I’m sorry about screaming like that before.”

Sam shrugged. “Under the circumstances, it’s understandable.”

“Okay,” she said, moving on. “What can I do to help?”

It was obvious that although she’d always been regarded as the meek sister and as far as he knew, she had always kept pretty much out of the way and in the shadows, Zoe was not about to just fade away until such time as he could get around to questioning her at length.

But he definitely didn’t want her underfoot, either.

“Okay, you want something to do?” he asked her.

She was almost eager as she said, “Yes.”

“Tell everyone out there that due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, the wedding’s been called off—but they can’t leave, because someone has to take down their statements.” He spared her a preoccupied look. “Do you think you can do that for me?”

For as long as she could remember, she’d always hated having to break bad news to anyone, let alone an entire gathering of people who had come expecting to have a good time. But this was something that clearly needed to be done and Sam was asking her to do it. She put her own discomfort aside and nodded.

“Yes, sure, of course. And I’ll tell them how very sorry you are that this happened and they had to be put through this.”

Slowly checking out the victim, aka his bride-to-be, for a second time, albeit more thoroughly, Sam was already preoccupied. Zoe’s words were only half registering as he looked up at her.

Belatedly, he realized what she’d just said. “Oh, yeah, why not?” he said.

“That’s Sam’s way of saying ‘yes,’” Ethan prompted helpfully, giving her an encouraging smile.

Zoe flashed a very small, weak smile at him in response. “Yes, I know.”

Ethan looked after her for a moment as Zoe left the room. “I think they used to call that kind of thing ‘plucky,’” he commented to Sam.

“Yeah, whatever,” Sam muttered, his mind far more preoccupied with the body before him and the murder it so clearly represented.

In all honesty, he hadn’t wanted to marry Celia and had felt almost resentful she had somehow managed to trap him in this arrangement. But he certainly hadn’t wanted to see her dead.

A sliver of guilt accompanied his thoughts before he pushed it—and those thoughts—away.

Sam rose again, knowing that more definitive information would be forthcoming from the medical examiner’s autopsy. He was already impatient to get his hands on it and the ME and his crew hadn’t even arrived yet.

“Definitely the same,” he said under his breath, more to himself than Ethan. “And yet, different.”

Ethan felt he should be there for him, seeing as how Sam had just lost his bride-to-be, but there were times he found it hard to get close to Sam. His younger brother had constructed an entire wall around himself and so far there were no cracks and no passkey.

We all fight our demons in different ways, Ethan thought. And those demons, he knew from experience, all bore their father’s face.

“Well, that makes it as clear as mud,” Ethan told his brother.

Sam laughed shortly, even though there was no humor in the situation. “I know,” he said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

There was sympathy in Ethan’s eyes as he touched his shoulder. When Sam turned toward him, a silent question in his eyes, Ethan said, “In case I don’t get a chance to say it later, I’m sorry.”

His mind going in a dozen directions at once, Sam asked, “About what?”

Confused by his brother’s response, Ethan gestured toward the body on the floor. “About your fiancée,” he said pointedly.

“Oh.”

For a second, he’d forgotten. This was a homicide and he was thinking like a homicide detective. Personal thoughts weren’t allowed to enter into that. He’d trained himself that way.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Sam shot out the words one at a time in staccato fashion, leaving his brother to wonder exactly what had gone on between Sam and the woman he could no longer marry.

Was Sam that good at hiding his grief, or had what had happened to all of them so long ago destroyed Sam’s ability to feel anything at all, not even sorrow, much less love?

Ethan was almost afraid to find out the answer.

Chapter 2

When she opened the door leading into the church where the actual wedding ceremony was supposed to be taking place, someone automatically cued the organist. Strains of “Here Comes the Bride” began to swell throughout the church and everyone sitting in the pews automatically rose to their feet and faced the back of the church.

Half a beat later, as Zoe continued to stand there, all but frozen in place, someone from within the crowd declared in disappointment, “Hey, that’s not the bride, that’s Zoe.”

The observation was immediately followed by a myriad of questions, all fired at once at Zoe who, since she wasn’t the missing bride, was expected to satisfactorily field the various inquiries.

“Where’s Celia?”

“What’s going on?”

“How long does it take for that woman to get ready? Let’s get this show on the road already.”

There were more questions and more irritated complaints, but those were entirely indistinguishable to Zoe. Shouted out, they mingled with one another until everything just became one huge, pulsating cacophony of noise.

Standing there, with one of the double doors closed at her back in order to afford her support—her knees still felt incredibly weak and she worried about them buckling—Zoe cleared her throat and tried, at first in vain, to get everyone’s attention.

Because her voice was initially so whisper soft, no one even heard her make the attempt except for a couple of the wedding guests who were closest to her at the rear of the church.

But others saw her lips moving and assumed she was telling them something.

“What?”

“Speak up!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“What the hell is going on here?” someone from the center of the crowd roared angrily, their voice louder than the rest.

It was the last disembodied question that caused Zoe to stiffen in response. Angry now, as well as incredibly upset and shaken, she raised her voice as she made a second attempt to be heard.

“There’s not going to be a wedding,” she began. Her voice was still somewhat shaky, but at least it was finally becoming audible.

“I drove all that way for nothin’?” an indignant woman cried angrily in response.

“What do you mean, there’s not going to be a wedding?” someone else demanded heatedly.

“Why the hell not?” yet another, deep male voice wanted to know.

As close to losing her self-control as she had ever come, Zoe raised her voice again and shouted, “Because there’s been a murder!”

Her voice cracked on the last syllable the moment she uttered it.

A sense of horror dropped over the gathering like an old-fashioned, heavy theater curtain made of asbestos.

“A murder?” someone near the front of the church cried. “What do you mean, a murder? Like with a dead person?”

A man two pews over spoke up. “No, she’s kidding. Right? This is what they call black humor or something, right? She’s doing this because Celia’s not ready.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Stalling until the bride’s ready?” a third person, a woman near the rear of the church challenged. “’Cause I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting real hungry just sitting here, waitin’.”

As the questions and retorts continued to fly fast and furious at her, Zoe gave serious thought to a full-on retreat. The wedding guests who had previously risen to greet the bride were still on their feet and more than a few were coming toward her, as if shortening the distance between them and her could somehow make what she was saying clearer to them—or better yet, transparent.

Zoe fumbled for the doorknob behind her, thinking to hold on to it and possibly swing the door open again in case she had to execute a very hasty retreat and create a temporary barrier between herself and the wedding guests who were quickly growing more annoyed by the second.

With her hand behind her back, Zoe wasn’t able to secure the doorknob, but she suddenly felt the door opening behind her. She knew she hadn’t managed to do that.

Was there someone behind her?

The next moment, her suspicions were confirmed as she heard Sam’s deep voice addressing the agitated wedding guests.

“No one’s stalling,” he informed them in a voice that was not to be argued with. “There’s been a murder and you all need to take your seats again.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order. “Someone from the police department is going to be coming to each and every one of you to take down all of your statements,” Sam briskly told the wedding guests in his no nonsense voice.

“All our statements?” one of the guests questioned in disbelief.

Both rows of pews were filled to capacity, which in turn translated to a great many statements that needed to be taken. It could literally take hours before anyone was allowed to leave.

“All of them,” Sam replied in a cool, concise tone of voice.

Someone closer to the rear of the church was definitely not satisfied with so little information. “Sam, what’s going on here? We came here to see you get married. Who was murdered?”

Zoe made a judgment call. Sam didn’t look as if he was willing to answer that question just yet, but she didn’t think it was right to withhold the information. These people were supposedly Celia’s friends. Still struggling to come to terms with what had happened practically under her nose, Zoe took the initiative and answered for Sam.

“Someone shot Celia.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam fire her a look that would have definitely kept her silent had she seen it first.

Her immediate reaction to it was to offer Sam an apology for having overstepped her bounds.

But any words to that effect never made it past her lips as anger uncharacteristically took over, vanquishing her tendency to just meekly accept whatever was happening rather than protesting it.

The first volley in that particular battle had been fired when she’d held her ground against her sister, wanting Celia to confess to Sam that she had engineered the lie about being pregnant just to trick him into marrying her.

Having spoken up then, she couldn’t just quietly hold her peace now, especially when doing so—just because it was expected of her—made absolutely no sense to her. It was just cruel.

After all, this wasn’t the kind of secret that someone was going to take to their grave. On the contrary, everyone was going to know who was murdered in a matter of hours, most likely in a manner of minutes.

What was the point of holding back?

It made no sense to her. Right now, she desperately needed to find something that made sense so she could hang on to it and rebuild her world which was, at this moment, completely decimated into charred, gray ashes.

Another disjointed chorus of voices was shouting out stunned reactions to the bombshell that Zoe had just dropped.

“Celia?”

“Oh my God, Celia’s been shot?”

“Celia’s really dead?”

“This is a joke—right?”

“Who did it?”

Sam had remained standing next to Zoe. He raised his hands now and gestured for the guests to lower their voices and in essence, cease asking questions altogether. Any further questions were all going to be coming from him, starting now.

From him and from the rest of the officers he had just called in to act as his backup.

“That’s what we’re going to be trying to find out,” Sam informed the sea of faces that were turned toward him. “Now, this’ll go a lot faster if you all just get back into your seats and wait until someone comes by to take down your statements.”

“But we were all in here,” one of the older women protested helplessly. “We didn’t see anything.”

“And if that’s the case, it’ll go even faster,” Sam replied. His tone of voice, neither friendly nor accusatory, gave nothing away.

The church was now filled with several more patrol officers from Granite Gulch in addition to the detectives and officers who had been invited to the actual wedding ceremony. The latter group also included Sam’s older sister, Annabel, who was a police officer on the same force.

The incoming officers joined forces with the law enforcement agents who were already there to make the process of questioning the temporarily captive wedding guests as painless as possible.

Growing just the slightest bit calmer, Zoe looked at Sam after he had finished briefing the newly arrived police officers.

“Who do you want me to give my statement to?” she asked.

Mindful of what Ethan had said to him earlier about the shock she was dealing with, he looked at Zoe with what he felt might very well be remotely associated with concern. After all, Zoe had been through a lot, and Celia was—or had been, he corrected himself—her sister. Moreover, though he didn’t have any proof at the moment, his gut told him that Zoe had nothing to do with Celia’s tragically dramatic end.

“Are you sure you’re up to this now?” he asked Zoe, scrutinizing her closely. He was a fairly good judge of what a person on the fringe looked like. He’d sent enough of them there during interrogations.

Zoe curled her fingers into her hands and dug her nails into her palms, as if registering that pain could somehow help her maintain control over the grief running rampant all through her.

“Yes,” she answered in a small, but firm voice. “I am—but thank you for asking.”

He hardly took note of the last part. Glancing around the church, he took in the scene.

A handful of law enforcement agents from the small precinct had scattered throughout the pews, singling out wedding guests the way cowboys cut out cattle from a herd for branding. Every available police officer and detective currently there was clearly busy and would remain so for the next foreseeable several hours, if not more.

That essentially made up Sam’s mind for him, although, in all honesty, it had pretty much been made up the moment he had found Zoe in the same room as Celia’s body.

“You can give your statement to me,” he told Zoe crisply.

Glancing around again, he looked for somewhere a little more isolated where he could interview the victim’s sister in private.

When he spotted the reverend, he issued Zoe a quick order, “Come with me.” He made his way over to where the preacher was standing near the front of the church, comforting several of his regulars, people who always attended Sunday services without fail. The parishioners were clearly distraught.

“Reverend Rimmer,” Sam began as he approached the older man.

He got no further. The tall, thin man of the cloth immediately made his excuses to the trio he was talking to, cut the distance between himself and the groom and took hold of Sam’s hand in both of his. For a thin man, he had very large, capable hands.

The moment the reverend began talking, it was obvious he had misunderstood why Sam had sought him out.

“Sam, I am so sorry this terrible thing happened. If you need to talk—”

“I do, but not to you right now, Reverend,” Sam said, cutting the man off before the reverend could get wound up. “Would it be all right to use your office?” He nodded at the woman on his right. “I need to take Ms. Robison’s statement and I need someplace where we won’t be interrupted.”

“Yes, of course, of course.” But rather than step out of the way as Sam had expected him to, Reverend Rimmer turned toward Zoe and took hold of both of Zoe’s hands in his.

“Zoe, please accept my heartfelt condolences on your tragic loss. I didn’t know your sister as well I would have liked—I didn’t see her at Sunday services very often,” he explained, “but I know she was a good woman who had love in her heart for her family and friends.”

Zoe offered the man a smile, patiently taking in his words. She knew what the reverend was saying to her had to be his “go-to” comfort speech, offered to the family and friends of deceased people whom he had never gotten to know on a personal basis.

To the best of her knowledge, the only time her sister ever turned up at any Sunday services in Rimmer’s church was when she was guaranteed a number of cute, eligible young men were in attendance, as well. During those rare occasions, Celia always arrived just a little bit late so she could make an entrance as well as an impression.

Celia always loved being the center of attention, Zoe thought. She felt it was her due.

In a way, Zoe thought now, if it hadn’t ultimately involved her death, Celia would have reveled in the attention this whole thing going on now was generating for her.

But Zoe knew Reverend Rimmer was doing the best he could under the circumstances, trying to comfort her on the death of her sister. This all had, after all, happened under his roof, so to speak, and she felt bad for the preacher.

“If you need anything, anything at all,” Reverend Rimmer was saying to her, “please don’t hesitate to give me a call. Mrs. Rimmer and I are entirely at your disposal—day or night,” he added, and for what it was worth, Zoe believed him.

“Thank you, Reverend,” Zoe replied. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Gently disengaging her hands from the preacher, she turned to a somewhat surprised-looking Sam. Taking a breath, she said, “Let’s get this over with.”

He’d known Zoe for a lot of years. Just how many, he couldn’t have honestly said. But in all that time, he had only been vaguely aware of her. Still, she had never struck him as someone who spoke up, who could hold their own, especially not against a crowd. When he’d sent her off to inform the guests that the wedding had been called off, he’d just thought of her as a messenger. He hadn’t thought anyone would give her a hard time.

He certainly hadn’t thought she could actually stand up to anyone.

Live and learn, he thought now.

He spared her a quick glance. “This way,” he instructed, taking Zoe by the elbow and guiding her out of the crowded area.

He’d gotten the church’s layout just the other day, when Celia had dragged him to meet with the reverend to make the final arrangements for the splashy wedding she had made abundantly clear she had always wanted.

As far as he was concerned, they could have exchanged two-minute vows in front of some justice of the peace. He had absolutely no desire to have witnesses to something he wouldn’t have done on his own in the first place. But since he’d made up his mind to do right by her and especially to do right by his unborn child, they were to exchange vows in front of people who were all one and the same to him at this point.

He didn’t care. He’d just wanted it over with.

And now it is, he thought in an almost accusatory tone.

He forced himself to focus on the moment and not the past.

“The reverend’s office is this way, down the hall,” he told Zoe.

Releasing her arm, he led the way down the narrow passageway.

Compared to the rest of the church and its connected areas, the hallway was almost tomblike in its silence. The lighting that came through the windows located eight feet off the ground was strained and diffuse. Nothing about it was welcoming in Zoe’s opinion.

“Kind of eerie,” Zoe noted, stifling an unbidden shiver that shimmied up and down her spine.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Sam responded almost automatically, then assured her, “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Although he wasn’t carrying his primary weapon, because he was supposed to be off duty and the tuxedo afforded no place to carry the heavy piece, he still had his backup weapon strapped to his ankle. Wearing it beneath the tuxedo trousers had been a challenge, but in the end, he had managed.

He thought of the old adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“I’m not afraid,” Zoe replied, waving away the suggestion that she was. “But it is eerie here,” she pointed out. That feeling was only heightened by the crime that had just taken place there.

Arriving at the reverend’s office, Sam tested the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. Even so, he looked carefully around and then entered the tiny alcove of a room first.

Caution trumped chivalry every time in his book.

A quick visual sweep of the area assured him there was no one in the small, rather claustrophobic room. Shelves crammed full of books of all sizes and shapes lined three of the four walls, adding to the intensely cramped feeling.

The reverend’s desk was no different from the rest of the room. It had piles of papers and folders stacked around, behind and in front of an antiquated computer someone had donated to the church. The piles of paper and the computer succeeded in taking up all the available space on the desktop.

There were papers on the chairs, as well. At first glance, they looked to be preventing anyone from making proper use of the chairs.

Sam cleared off what was obviously the reverend’s chair and then turned his attention to the only other available one in the office. He put both piles of paper on the corner of the desk as carefully as possible, sincerely hoping there wouldn’t be an avalanche.

Finished, he gestured toward the chair and then suggested, “Why don’t you take a seat.” When Zoe did so and he had followed suit, he said to her, “In your own words, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened before you left your sister—and then what you saw when you came back.”

The knot in her stomach returned, tightening and threatening to cut off her very air supply.

She didn’t want to tell him what Celia’s last words to her had been.

Chapter 3

Zoe folded her hands in her lap and for a moment, she just focused her entire being on breathing.

Once she had taken in and exhaled several deep, cleansing breaths, she raised her eyes to Sam’s and addressed his request—at least in part.

“I really don’t have anything to add to what I’ve already told you, Sam.” She’d racked her brain these past couple of minutes, trying to remember some small, salient clue she could offer him that would turn out to be the crucial piece of the puzzle and solve this awful crime, but she had come up with nothing. “Celia and I were alone in the bridal room. When I left the room, she was still fussing with her veil. When I came back a few minutes later, she was exactly the way you saw her—dead on the floor.”

Zoe pressed her lips together, struggling to keep her voice from breaking again. Crying wasn’t going to do anyone any good, least of all Celia. “And you know the rest.”

“You forgot a part,” Sam told her, his voice neither accusing, nor annoyed. He was merely calling her attention to a fact.

She looked at Sam quizzically. She’d told him everything. “What?”

He leaned in a little closer over the desk, creating a sense of intimacy. He was well aware of the fact that trust was grounded in intimacy. “You said you argued with Celia.”

She’d forgotten about telling him that for a second. Or maybe she’d just pushed it out of her mind. Either way, it wasn’t something she was willing to bring out into the light of day. Besides, the argument had no bearing on her death.

“Oh. Yes.” That whole episode came rushing back to her. “We did.”

“What was the argument about?” he asked her pointedly, watching her carefully.

Sam’s voice was even more authoritative than usual. Ordinarily, she would have already volunteered the subject matter of the argument. It had always been in her nature to be as helpful as possible. But in this particular instance, nothing had changed about the way she felt regarding the argument.

She couldn’t tell Sam what Celia had told her. Knowing would only hurt Sam and it would serve no purpose to tell him now. It certainly had no bearing on Celia’s murder.

Raising her head like someone defiantly guarding a secret, Zoe answered, “It’s private.”

“There’s nothing private about a murder,” Sam informed her.

She stared at the man she had loved for as long as she could remember, trying to make sense of what he had just told her. Holding stubbornly onto her convictions, she brazened it out.

“The argument had nothing to do with Celia’s death. I didn’t kill my sister, if that’s what you’re leading up to. Why would I?” she challenged.

This was an entirely different Zoe than he had ever seen before. He wondered if it was just the stress of the situation, or if there was another reason for the change in her behavior. Could it have something to do with the plain Jane suddenly coming out from beneath her far more vivacious sister’s shadow?

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “You tell me.”

“I am telling you—I didn’t do it. I’ll do everything I can to help you find whoever murdered my sister—but it wasn’t me,” Zoe insisted.

Sam said nothing for a long moment, choosing instead to study her in silence.

After what seemed like an eternity to Zoe, he finally told her, “I believe you. But don’t leave town. I may have more questions for you.”

“Where would I go?” she asked him simply. “Granite Gulch is my home.”

Sam merely nodded in absent acknowledgment, his mind already elsewhere.

Whether the red dot was off center or not, the red bull’s-eye on Celia’s forehead was too reminiscent of his father’s signature trademark not to have something to do with Matthew Colton in some way.

But what?

Since his father most definitely was in prison, this had to be the work of a copycat killer. But if so, to what end? Why would this killer choose to follow in the old man’s footsteps, but deliberately elect to ignore the fact that Matthew killed middle-aged men? Why had he killed a young woman in her twenties?

“Zoe,” Sam said as she began to rise from her seat.

Zoe was on her feet, but her hands remained on the armrests, as if she expected him to tell her to sit down again. “Yes?”

“Did you see anyone hanging around the bridal room when you left or when you were coming back?” Maybe she had seen the killer and hadn’t realized it.

But Zoe shook her head. She’d already asked herself the same question several times, trying to conjure up someone in the shadows. But she always came up empty. She hadn’t seen anyone.

“Everyone was in the church, waiting for the ceremony to start,” she told Sam.

“Well, there had to be someone,” he said, talking more to himself than to Zoe. “Celia didn’t just shoot herself—the angle’s wrong,” he added almost matter-of-factly, as if arguing the fact in front of a board of inquiry.

Since he’d already dismissed her, Zoe left the shelter of the chair. But she felt she needed to say something before she walked out of the room. Celia’s motive for tricking Sam into marrying her had been clear. Celia had loved money and she’d wanted to live the high life. The Coltons, once pariahs because of their father, were once more a wealthy family and had been accepted back into the community’s good graces.

As far as she could ascertain, Sam was marrying Celia to give the unborn child he thought was coming a name. But maybe somewhere within all that noble behavior, he had actually loved her sister. For that reason, she offered him her condolences, even though the words were somewhat hackneyed.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Sam,” Zoe told him softly.

Sam’s expression never changed. She might as well have said it looked like it might rain later. But he went through the obligatory motions and said, “Yeah, same here,” because, after all, she had lost a sister, and that loss undoubtedly meant more to her than his losing his wife-to-be did to him.

What he did regret, far more than he’d ever thought he would, was that he had lost his unborn child in all of this.

Zoe offered him a small, rather sad smile and said “Thank you,” just before she left the room.

Sam rose to his feet a moment later. There was still a church full of people to question and he sincerely doubted the backup crew he’d called in had managed to make more than a small dent in that crowd.

Leaving the reverend’s office, he started to go down the hall and back to the church, only to run into Trevor. His oldest brother had been invited to the wedding along with their other siblings and at first, Sam thought Trevor was looking for him to offer his condolences, just like Zoe had.

But one look at the FBI profiler’s grim expression told him that wasn’t the reason why Trevor was looking for him.

“Good. I found you. I just got a look at the victim,” Trevor said, not bothering to offer any perfunctory niceties first.

His brother stopped directly in front of him, blocking his path back to the church. It was obvious Trevor wanted to talk to him away from the others, even though they were both law enforcement agents.

This was, in part, a family matter and not a conversation either one of them would want overheard by just anyone.

“And?” Sam asked, waiting for the rest of it, because there was obviously a “rest of it.”

Trevor frowned, as if saying the words actually caused him pain. “Your fiancée fits a new emerging pattern.”

For there to be a “new emerging pattern,” there had to be more. “Go on,” Sam urged quietly.

Trevor gave him a quick summary of the details that he had. “In the past two months, two young women, both in their twenties with long dark hair, were found murdered in Blackthorn County. Each of them had a red bull’s-eye drawn on their forehead. And, in each case, the red dot was just slightly off center, same as your fiancée. Now here’s the really weird part—”

“Right, because the rest of what you just said isn’t weird at all,” Sam commented sarcastically.

His own world had ceased being normal the day his father had murdered his mother, but this seemingly baseless murder was hard for even him to come to terms with.

Trevor continued as if his younger brother hadn’t said anything. Given the shock Sam had just received, minutes away from taking his wedding vows, Trevor felt that under the circumstances, his brother could be given a great deal of leeway.

Trevor continued with his narrative. “The first victim’s name started with the letter A, and the second victim’s name began with B. And your fiancée’s name began with—”

“The letter C,” Sam concluded. His eyes never left his brother’s as he tried to put the facts into some kind of coherent order. “So what are you saying, that this was all premeditated? That the killer is playing some kind of a sick game, copying his murders after another serial killer, then adding his own sick twist to it?”

Trevor nodded. “Yeah, weird though it is, that’s what it’s beginning to look like,” he confirmed. “Up until now, it was only speculation on our part. Two similar murders makes for a coincidence. Three similar murders makes it a pattern, and,” he added, “it also throws these crimes into the realm of the murderer being a serial killer.”

Sam paused, trying to assimilate this latest information he’d been given.

“So it’s not just murdering when the urge hits him, killing women who just happen to fit a certain ‘type,’ the way Matthew did with his nine victims of choice. This killer had to know his victims ahead of time in order to stick to his pattern of choice.”

Feeling momentarily oppressed and weary, Sam looked at his oldest brother. “How did the world get to be so screwed up?”

“Not the world, Sam,” Trevor told him. “Just certain bad seeds in it. And to answer your question, I think it’s always been like this to a certain extent.”

About to say something else, Trevor paused instead, searching for words to express his sentiments. Words didn’t seem to come easy to any of them in the family, he thought ruefully.

Still, he knew he had to give it his best shot. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry about your fiancée—” he began.

Unwilling to watch Trevor struggle needlessly, Sam waved his hand at his brother’s attempts to express his regrets.

“Yeah, I know.” And then, in a far firmer voice, he told Trevor, “Let’s just get this SOB and make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else.”

Trevor couldn’t have agreed with him more. “Amen to that.”

Just then, a thought occurred to Sam. “You think he has a list?” he asked his brother.

Trevor looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“A list of names,” Sam specified. “You know, women he’s interacted with or maybe just stalked for a while. Women who fit that rather run-of-the-mill description that seems to set him off for some reason. He finds out their names, writes them down, then alphabetizes them so he can eliminate them in order. All that takes time, planning,” he pointed out.

“Who knows what he thinks,” Trevor countered. “But that would seem like the logical way to proceed,” he granted, and then laughed. It was a hollow, almost sad sound.

“What’s so funny?” Sam wanted to know. The whole situation was the complete opposite of funny as far as he was concerned.

“A logical serial killer,” Trevor answered. “It’s not funny, really. More like absurd,” he corrected.

“Not to the victims,” Sam commented.

For a moment, Trevor realized he’d forgotten how very personal the last murder was. He hadn’t meant to sound so insensitive about the woman who would have been Sam’s wife by now if she hadn’t been murdered.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I meant no offense.”

“None taken,” Sam assured him.

He felt almost guilty at his lack of grief over Celia’s death. Everyone was treating him with kid gloves, assuming he was stoically bearing up to this tragic blow. He just didn’t feel right about deceiving them this way.

But this wasn’t the time to come right out and admit he had no feelings for the woman, that all there had been was a sense of obligation, nothing more, behind the wedding.

He had no time to deal with that right now, Sam told himself. There was a killer to catch.

He thought for a moment, then asked abruptly, “Why women with long dark hair?”

Caught off guard, Trevor shook his head. “No idea,” he confessed.

“Maybe we can find the answer with the first victim. Victim A,” Sam clarified. But even as he said it, another idea had hit him. “If that actually was his first victim.”

Trevor wasn’t following him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Sam was extrapolating as he went, building on his initial idea. “Maybe our serial killer killed someone before that, someone the police didn’t find. The person our killer actually hated,” he specified. “The person all the other victims remind him of.”

“Okay,” Trevor agreed. “But why kill these others alphabetically?” In his opinion, that ramped the murders up another notch, making them that much more difficult to execute.

Sam thought for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Maybe our killer is an obsessive-compulsive type and whatever makes those birds tick makes him want to conduct these killings in this specific, macabre, alphabetical fashion.”

It was, Trevor thought, as good a theory as any—and better than most.

“You know,” he told Sam, “if you ever decide you want to move up from being a detective in a town the size of a green pea, the FBI Behavioral Bureau could use someone like you.”

Sam knew he should be flattered by the invitation, but all he really was...was numb. But, this was his brother, and relations were still in the very early reacquaintance stages, so he proceeded as if he was crossing a river in a skiff made of eggshells.

“Thanks, but no thanks. Two serial killers in one lifetime is more than enough for me,” he assured his oldest brother.

They both knew he was referring to their father as well as to the current killer who had suddenly raised his head and thrown everything into chaos.

About to return to the church and the remaining wedding guests that still needed to give their statements, Sam turned to his brother with another, more pressing thought. “You know, before we go on with this investigation, given what’s already happened, I think we should release this story to the local papers.”

Trevor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “The papers? What the hell for? Those reporters are nothing more than vultures. At the very least, they’ll just get in the way.”

He probably hated reporters more than Trevor did, or at least equally as much. When the story had broken about their father, the reporters had had a field day, camping on their front lawn, following them everywhere and always, always snapping pictures and shouting out embarrassing, humiliating questions.

But there was a reason for his break with protocol. “I’d be the first to agree with you,” Sam said, “but since this nutjob has already killed three women that fit a certain description and pattern, it stands to reason that his next victim will be a twentysomething, dark-haired woman whose name begins with the letter D.

“It seems only right that we issue a warning so these women will exercise extreme caution and do what it takes to stay out of harm’s way. Otherwise, if this maniac kills a fourth victim, her death will be as much on our heads as on his.”

Trevor sighed. “I wouldn’t exactly say fifty-fifty, but you’ve got a point. You want to release a formal statement to the press?”

Sam was stunned by his brother’s suggestion. He had a tendency to clam up in front of a microphone. Press conferences weren’t his calling.

“Me? Hell no. We’ve got someone in charge of PR at the station to do that.” The name of the woman escaped him at the moment. “If they have me talking to the news media, public relations between the police and the press will plummet down below sea level. Maybe even lower.”

“Haven’t lost that charming touch of yours, have you?” Trevor laughed.

“No occasion to,” Sam answered and it seemed to Trevor that his younger brother wasn’t really kidding.

Walking into the church proper again, Sam saw the wedding guests were growing somewhat restless as they sat in the pews. He assumed a number of them had been interviewed by now, but everyone was being detained until the last statement was taken.

Sam looked around for Annabel, the person he had temporarily put in charge of this phase. Spotting her, he called his sister over to him.

Annabel was wearing a light blue cocktail dress and looked less like a police officer than usual. At the moment, she was in the middle of questioning one of the wedding guests. She paused when she saw Sam waving her over.

“Be right back,” she said to the older woman, patting her hand. With that, she made her way over to her brother. The first word out of her mouth was, “Anything?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Annabel was a great deal more loquacious than he was and she had the ability to get people to talk to her. He felt certain that if any of these people had the slightest inclination to talk and “share secrets” they would do it with Annabel.

“Nobody saw anything,” Annabel replied needlessly. She did it to ensure the fact that her brother wouldn’t think she was hiding something from him.

“Didn’t think so, but it was still worth a shot. Have all the statements on my desk when you and the others get finished.” That simple act, he thought, assured him of eyestrain and a headache the size of a medium boulder.

“You got it.” There was a pause before she said, “And, Sam—”

He was developing a sixth sense about this. He knew what she was going to say before she had a chance to say it.

“Yeah, I know. You want to tell me that you’re very sorry for my loss.” He forced a smile to his lips. “Thanks.”

Annabel hesitated for a moment, debating saying anything at all. Sam was obviously steeling himself off from the events, reacting to it only as a police detective, not as anything else. But remaining silent on the subject didn’t really sit all that well with her.

“You know, you could try to look a little more broken up, all things considered,” she suggested.

“It’s all on the inside, Annabel,” he replied. “I don’t believe in putting on a show for anyone.”

“I know that, but other people don’t know you as well as the guys and I do,” his sister pointed out, referring to their other siblings.

Sam shrugged. “Other people don’t count,” he replied and, to a good extent, he meant it.

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