As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever…

Josie Reynolds lost a friend and mentor when mayor Olivia Stuart died. How could anyone think she was guilty of murder? But clearly that’s just what Detective Jack Stryker thinks. Josie wants to clear her name, but she’s tangled with the law before. She doesn’t know whether to set Jack straight or stay off his radar.

“Straight Arrow” Jack Stryker has to find Olivia’s killer. Josie matches the description of the murder suspect and his instincts tell him she’s hiding something. But the closer he gets to Josie, the more he’s drawn to his prime suspect. For the first time in his career he’s afraid of what his investigation might reveal.

Book 9 of the 36 Hours series. Don’t miss Book 10: The blackout traps Paige Summers in an elevator with a sexy cowboy. But what will she do Monday morning when she finds out he’s her new boss? Find out in Beverly Barton’s Nine Months.

Partners in Crime
Alicia Scott

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Prologue

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

About the Author

Prologue

After midnight, most people in Grand Springs were safely tucked in bed. The hospital still hummed with life, of course. Lately, the police department, as well. But most people in the quiet community were in bed by eleven, and most of the ranchers were in bed well before that.

That’s why Josie liked midnight so well. No more phones jangling with questions from the local businesspeople who’d watched their dreams swept away in just thirty-six hours of rain, mud slides and lightning—one of the worst rainstorms ever to hit Colorado. No more farmers, standing before her desk in their mud-splattered boots and well-broken-in jeans, slowly twisting the brims of their hats as they asked her how they were supposed to get their cows through the winter when their fields were so buried in silt and mud it would take twelve months of expensive rehabilitation before they’d be fit to grow hay again. No more Hal Stuart demanding yet another cut of Grand Springs’s budget because he was acting mayor, dammit, and when he said jump, you’d better say “How high?”

Late at night, Josie could shut the door of her treasurer’s office, take the phone off the hook and finally get work done. She figured and refigured the cost of the flooding and power outage. She looked at pictures of the holes that had appeared in the mountain passes, whole chunks of road swept away by mud slides. She pondered the impact on families, not all of whom were insured, and especially on the farmers who’d never thought to buy flood insurance—then watched half of their cows drown in water that just wouldn’t stop.

Josie didn’t have easy answers. She couldn’t get the county commissioners to focus on the complex ones. So she worked until three or four in the morning most nights, trying to bring order to the chaos. And she pretended that when she finally went home to sleep, she didn’t still see Olivia, her best friend and Grand Springs’s indomitable mayor, dying in her arms while the world raged and howled around them.

Her eyes grew blurry as 2:00 a.m. came and went. She pored over information on federal aid programs. She read about the adopt-a-farm programs other states had used to weather such disasters. She jotted down notes on the strip mining information Hal wanted. She wrote herself a reminder on the upcoming Band, Bingo, Bake Sale fund-raiser next week.

She tried valiantly to keep her eyes open.

The pen slipped from between her fingers. Her head nodded against her chest. Her red, exhausted eyes gave in and closed.

She slid down into her chair, and the sleep hit her all at once and with a fury.

* * *

Dark clouds teeming rain. The sky booming and cracking with a vengeful electrical storm. The thunder so close it echoed through the exposed-beam hallway of the Squaw Creek Lodge.

Josie ran down the hall. Searching, searching, searching. Hal’s wedding was about to begin. Where was Olivia? Olivia would never be late for her own son’s wedding.

She had to find Olivia. The foreboding rolled in her stomach like an echo of the storm, dark and horrible.

A blurry shape in white brushed her shoulder. The bride. Randi, Hal Stuart’s bride, running down the hall. Why was the bride running away from the wedding?

Thunder cracked. The lodge shuddered. Another boom and the lodge plunged into blackness.

A cry. “The bride has disappeared!”

Chaos.

The glow of a candle abruptly appeared, illuminating the end of the hallway. Josie ran toward it. She saw Hal, pale and harried. She heard more voices. “My God, I think she’s unconscious!” In the distance, someone’s phone rang.

Where was Olivia?

Suddenly the lodge was gone. She was out in the night, the wind buffeting her practical economy car, the rain slapping her windshield. Her long blond hair had been ripped free from its knot and was now plastered against her cheeks. Her favorite black cocktail suit, drenched and ruined, clung to her skin.

She drove, the road lights out, the streets flooded, the storm fierce and merciless.

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. She had to find Olivia.

She reached Olivia’s street. She turned into the darkened drive. The wind howled.

No lights appeared on in the house. Not even the reassuring flicker of a candle. Black, black house. Dark, dark night.

For a moment, Josie was frozen by her own fear.

I know what’s in that house. I know what I’m going to find.

Her dream lurched, twisted, then turned on itself like a cannibal.

The storm was gone. The sky was clear, blue, gentle with spring. She was twelve years old, pushing open the gate of the white picket fence, walking up the drive of their suburban home. Cutoff jeans left her long legs bare and nut brown. Her simple white T-shirt billowed comfortably around her arms. She was barefoot. She was humming.

“Mom, I’m home!”

Her dream lurched again, and the whipping wind made her stagger back.

Josie fought her way to Olivia’s back door. She peered through the window as the lightning cracked.

Twist.

Flipping her blond ponytail out of her way, she skipped through the back door, eager to tell her mother about her day—Twist.

Olivia, sprawled on the elegant black-and-white kitchen floor, prostrate in a sea of teal-colored silk.

Josie fumbled with the knob. She cried out her friend’s name. She raised her fist and prepared to smash the window.

The door opened in her hand, unlocked all along, and she rushed into the house.

Twist.

The scent of fresh-baked cookies and spring tulips. The warm, familiar undertones of vanilla and nutmeg. She walked through the kitchen, wondering why her mother wasn’t sitting at the simple block wood table the way she usually did, then passed through the kitchen into the entryway. Stopping. Freezing. Crying.

“Mom? Mom? Mommy!”

Twist.

“Olivia! Dear God, Olivia!”

Her friend was motionless on the floor and the scent of gardenias was cloying and thick.

Josie fell to her knees, shaking her best friend’s shoulders. Olivia didn’t move.

Dear God, Josie couldn’t find a pulse.

“Don’t die on me,” she whispered. “Please, please, don’t die on me. You’re the only person I’ve trusted. The only person who’s believed in me. Olivia…”

Twist.

The feel of the old hardwood floors against her tender knees. The scent of the lemon beeswax her mother used to polish what life she could into the old floors. Little Josie touched her mother’s beautiful gold hair and felt the chill on her cooling skin.

Keening, sobbing, crying. Rocking back and forth, not knowing what to do. Her mom looked so beautiful, her golden hair pooled around her, her white cotton dress draped around her twisted limbs. Her blue eyes, so much like Josie’s, were open. But they stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and would never blink again.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Twist.

“Think, Josie, think—911. Call 911!”

She grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen counter. No dial tone. The power outage had rendered it useless. She threw it across the room. Another bolt of lightning seared the kitchen. She spotted Olivia’s purse on the kitchen table. The cell phone.

Josie grabbed the purse. She pawed through it then turned it over and dumped out the smart phone. Dial, dial, dial.

“Please, I need an ambulance. I think she’s dead.”

The dispatcher asked questions. Josie fumbled through answers. She checked for noticeable injuries. She began to administer CPR. She hunched over her best friend’s body, massaged her chest and tried to will the life back into her.

Live, live, live.

Sirens cut through the roaring night. Then the jangle of EMTs sounded down the sidewalk. Dimly, she heard herself cry, “In here, in here. Breathe, Olivia! Damn you, breathe!”

The EMTs rushed into the kitchen. They pushed her aside, then hunched over Olivia, muttering to each other, continuing with CPR.

“Let’s move.”

Suddenly they had Olivia strapped to the stretcher. They were rolling away, back into the horrible night. Josie wanted to go in the ambulance. She wanted to hold Olivia’s hand and beg her to live.

The EMTs left Josie behind. She stood in the rain, watching the ambulance disappear, reaching out her hands. The storm continued. She didn’t notice it anymore.

Live. Live. Live.

Twist.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

* * *

Josie jerked awake at her desk. She rubbed her temples furiously, then scrubbed at the moisture now staining her cheeks. It didn’t help. The images remained behind her eyelids, the past and present too intertwined to be separated.

And all the work in the world, all the nightmares in the world, didn’t change the outcome of either night.

Olivia had died at the hospital. A heart attack was the initial ruling. But days later, Detective Stone Richardson raised some questions, and further investigation revealed that she’d been poisoned—someone had thrust a hypodermic full of undiluted potassium into her leg, causing nearly instant cardiac arrest.

Olivia had been murdered, and nothing in Grand Springs had been the same.

Death. Pain. Betrayal.

I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, Josie reminded herself. Sitting alone in her shadowed office, however, she still couldn’t escape her next thought.

Not this time.

Chapter One

September 22

“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”

“Hmm?” Detective Jack Stryker lifted his scrunched eyes from the coroner’s report and belatedly followed his partner’s gaze. “Damn.”

“Just what we need,” Detective Stone Richardson agreed, “like a hound dog needs a flea.”

“At least fleas don’t campaign for your vote—they know they’re a nuisance.” Jack sighed. He tucked the coroner’s report back into the Olivia Stuart file with a last glance of frustration and longing. The answers were in there somewhere, he just knew it. He’d missed something the first time around, made a mistake. He didn’t screw up often, but he must have this time, because it had been more than three months and they still had no leads on the Olivia Stuart case.

And now Hal Stuart, acting mayor of Grand Springs and one of the most annoying men God had ever created, had entered the police station. He wove through the corridor like a tin soldier, his arms held tightly against his double-breasted suit as if he didn’t want to touch anything—the dirt might rub off.

Hal Stuart didn’t come to the police station often—Jack figured it was too long on chaos and too short on decoration for his taste. The plain corridor poured into the main room, comprised of a beat-up wood floor, numerous metal desks and one wall of windows. In the corner, the lone office belonged to Frank Sanderson, the chief of police. It was as bare bones and worn as the rest of the place. As Sanderson had informed Hal during his last visit, he had better things to do than pick out wallpaper.

Grand Springs was becoming a big city in many ways, and it had a growing drug problem and overworked police department to prove it. Now it also had the murder of Grand Springs’s mayor, Olivia Stuart, making the pressure even more intense.

Jack planted his feet on the floor and summoned a last deep breath. He was tired—he often worked until ten at night, then brought work home with him—but it didn’t show. He’d already smoothed his face into the bland, capable expression cops wore for outsiders. He’d learned a lot about how to handle politicians over the years.

Stone, who prided himself on irreverence, leaned back and propped up his feet on his desk in a deliberately casual pose.

“Don’t antagonize him,” Jack ordered under his breath as Hal entered the main room. “It just encourages him to talk more.”

“But baiting him is the only sport I get around here.”

“It’s not a sport—to be a sport, it would have to be a challenge.”

Stone was still chuckling softly when Hal planted himself in front of their desks. The acting mayor’s soft features were already screwed into a scowl. His blond hair, normally carefully smoothed back, looked mussed, and his tailored suit was uncharacteristically disarrayed. Someone, Jack thought, must be making the acting mayor actually work. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t happy about it, either.

“Howdy, Hal,” Stone sang out. “Nice of you to drop on by. Did you bring us poor slaving public servants any lunch?”

Hal’s frown grew, the look in his eyes uncertain. He crossed his arms over his chest and adopted a firm expression.

“No. Look, I’m a very busy man, so let’s make this quick—”

“Of course,” Stone said politely. Jack hid his wince behind a small cough. When Hal said “let’s make this quick” it meant it was going to be long.

“I’ve given you three months!” Hal announced. “In the beginning, everything was upside down from the power outage, I understood that. Then there were the immediate needs of restoring order and policing the streets after the ensuing accidents and incidents. But it’s late September now. The other situations are in the past, and I want to know—why isn’t my mother’s case being given top priority?”

“It is,” Jack said. He didn’t need a lecture on his job. He already knew that the chances of solving a three-and-a-half-month-old murder case were slim. It ate away at him every night as he pored over old case notes, wondering why they couldn’t connect the dots.

“Then, you have new leads to report?”

“No,” Stone said. “But we’ve processed forty-six people for vandalism and theft, fifteen men for drunken and disorderly conduct, and six people for brawling. Plus, we’ve worked on finding your vanished bride as well as the mother who abandoned her baby at the hospital, and then your sister, Eve, and her daughter, Molly, when they were kidnapped. We’ve also worked on discovering the true identity of Martin Smith, evacuating people from unstable areas and delivering supplies to people cut off by the mud slides. Oh, and I foiled a bank robbery. A pretty slow summer here in Grand Springs, wouldn’t you say, Stryker?”

“We’re giving the investigation everything we can,” Jack translated for Hal. He gave Stone a meaningful look that his partner ignored.

“Didn’t Randi give you a name? What more do you require?” Randi Howell was Hal’s former fiancée. She’d fled on their wedding day due to her own misgivings…and two thugs who had caught her eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Randi reported that she overhead one of the men say, ‘Jo will take care of the broad—it’s her specialty.’ The statement’s too vague,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “We can’t be sure they were talking about Olivia. We can’t even be sure ‘take care of the broad’ means murder. And we have no idea who ‘Jo’ is.”

“As far as we know, Jo could be an acupuncture specialist,” Stone volunteered. “We can’t arrest everyone named Jo based on a statement like that.”

Hal’s face reddened. He turned on Stone. “And your friend the psychic woman, doesn’t she know anything else? Or is she talking to Elvis instead these days?”

Jack placed his hand on Stone’s arm to keep him sitting. As Hal well knew, Jessica Hanson was a little more than Stone’s friend. She was now his wife. And she wasn’t exactly a psychic. The visions she’d experienced after hitting her head during the blackout in June had stopped, and no one was certain why they had happened or what they had meant.

For a bit, however, Jessica had been plagued by the image of a tall, blond woman stabbing a hypodermic needle into Olivia’s leg. These “visions” were always followed by the scent of gardenias.

Hal had been informed of all this. He had also been told that someone had sent a bowl of gardenias as a funeral bouquet to Olivia Stuart’s house. The flowers hadn’t included a card and Eve Stuart, Hal’s sister, could only vaguely recall an elegantly dressed blonde standing in the doorway with the bowl. Stone had tested the bowl for fingerprints. Nothing.

Jack said now, “As you know, Hal, we followed up on Jessica’s ‘visions.’ Stone had the doctors examine the body, and the autopsy confirmed that Olivia had been injected with a dose of pure potassium, leading to immediate cardiac arrest. That’s all Jessica saw and it’s been noted.”

“You can’t trace the poison?”

“No.”

“Why not? I thought you had computers for that sort of thing. Labs? What the hell is our budget paying for these days, anyway?”

Jack grew tired. They’d had this conversation before. Nothing had changed. For a moment, Jack contemplated telling the man they’d get a lot further a lot faster if he’d shut up and leave them alone. Of course, he said no such thing. “Straight Arrow Stryker” never lost control.

“Pure potassium is readily accessible,” he intoned quietly. “All hospitals commonly administer it in a diluted form to patients recovering from surgery. According to the doctors, it’s available at all nursing stations in a hospital, and the nursing stations are unlocked and unmonitored.

“We interviewed all the hospital staff, and no one remembers noticing any potassium missing. Of course, the potassium may have come from an outside hospital. It might have been ordered directly from a medical supply store. At this point, there’s no way to know.”

“You can’t tell a brand or a batch or something like that?”

“If we had a bottle or label, maybe we could. If we had a needle, we could trace the parts, the manufacturer, maybe get prints or DNA. But we don’t. We just have a victim with a potassium level over ten mils per liter. We have a crime scene with no signs of a forced entry. There are no latent or patent prints. We have no hair, no fiber. At this point, the most likely suspect is Casper the Friendly Ghost.” Jack’s voice ended with an edge. He and Stone had the highest arrest record in Grand Springs, dammit. They were good, they were serious, they were committed. So how could they not determine who murdered such a fine woman as Olivia Stuart?

“But…but…” Hal was struggling now. Jack couldn’t tell if it was from honest emotion or just frustration. Hal wasn’t a particularly strong man, but he was hard to read. He said abruptly, “What about my mother’s last word?”

“Coal?” Stone shrugged. “To tell you the truth, we’re just not sure. My personal theory is that she was talking about the strip mining debates. She was really against strip mining in Grand Springs, just like you’re really for it….”

Hal stiffened. Now his face was definitely shuttered. He’d been taking some heat on the subject, particularly from Rio Redtree, top investigative reporter for the Grand Springs Herald. “I sold my stock in the companies. And I’ve asked Josie to look into both the advantages and disadvantages of permitting strip mining in Grand Springs. I’m a fair man.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Do…do you think one of those companies might have something to do with my mother’s death?”

Jack glanced at Stone. They’d argued this matter numerous times without reaching a conclusion. Jack didn’t believe a person would refer to a political debate as her last word. He also wasn’t a big fan of conspiracy theories. Stone felt the strip mining companies had enough to gain from Olivia’s death to make them likely suspects.

“It’s possible,” Jack said carefully, “but not probable. The cause of death was poison, and statistically speaking, poison is a ‘personal’ MO—we see wives murdering husbands, a jealous lover spiking a rival’s drink, that sort of thing. For poison to be used in a hit… That would be unusual.”

“Then go out and interview everyone she knew!”

“We did. We asked you for a list of associates, remember, Hal?” Jack said. “Then we talked to everyone on that list. Business associates, neighbors, friends, family. I have the interview notes right here.”

“And?”

“And we don’t have any substantial suspects. Olivia was a well-respected mayor, friend and mother. Even her political opponents thought highly of her. She was a good woman, Hal. Her loss is deeply felt.”

Hal looked away. Maybe the emotion was genuine, after all. “You know, there were no ‘intimates’ on that list, Hal,” Jack said quietly. “No past boyfriends, romantic interests. Can you think of anyone, maybe a jilted lover—”

“Olivia? Date?” Hal laughed harshly. “My mother was much too sophisticated for the men in this town. And she was tougher than all of them.”

Abruptly, Hal planted his hands on Jack’s desk. “Let me spell it out for you. I did my part. I’ve given you all the information you’ve asked for, and I’ve given you more than three months to get results. Well it’s almost the end of September, detectives, and you have nothing. I’m not impressed. The taxpayers of this town are not impressed. And the budget for the police department is about to come up for review….”

Stone’s feet dropped to the floor. He was half out of his chair before Jack pulled him back down.

“Understood. And I tell you again, Hal, there’s no one who wants to solve this case more than we do. No one.”

“Huh.” Hal’s expression was blatantly unconvinced. Jack had to dig his fingers into Stone’s arm while Hal glanced at his watch. “Thirty minutes are up. I have to get to my next meeting with Jo—”

“Mayor? Call on line one,” the receptionist interrupted.

Hal grunted and took the call. He shook his head, said he’d get to it in a minute, sighed and hung up. “Incompetence,” he muttered. “Sheer incompetence.”

Jack studied Hal for a long time. Stone had gone still beside him. “Your meeting with Jo?” he asked quietly. Was the man so dense he could not see the significance of his own words?

“Jo? Oh, Josie Reynolds. You know Josie.” Hal headed toward the door. Jack and Stone didn’t stop him.

Stone waited until the acting mayor was completely out of sight before speaking. “Josie Reynolds. Do you think…?”

“We interviewed her, right?” Jack was pawing through the notes. “She discovered the body. She called 911. The EMTs said she’d started CPR before they arrived.”

“I was the one who talked to her, I remember now. Ah, hell, I don’t know, Stryker. She was pretty broken up, you could tell she and Olivia had been close. I heard Olivia had been the one to give Josie the job as treasurer. She took Josie under her wing, made her feel at home.” Stone contemplated his thoughts. “You’ve met her, right? I’ve seen her around, at the usual places, but I’d never really spoken to her before Olivia’s death.” He grinned abruptly. “Odd, you know, for a man like me not to approach a beautiful lady. But…well, she seems to keep to herself. As much as it wounds me to admit it, I’m not sure she would have considered me her type.”

Jack nodded. He had been introduced to Josie Reynolds two years ago when she’d taken the job as town treasurer, and she wasn’t the kind of woman a man forgot. Five foot six with a cloud of blond hair and frank blue eyes, she looked more like a beauty queen than a CPA. By all accounts, however, she was good. Olivia had described her as spirited, passionate, and committed. She got her job done. That was about all Stryker knew. He had always made it a point to stay clear of Josie Reynolds, though he could never say why. And not once in the past two years, in all the times their paths had crossed, had she ever approached him. Without saying a word, they seemed to have settled upon a policy of mutually-agreed avoidances. He kept to his side of the room. She kept to hers.

Stone rose to his feet. “Hungry? I think they can hear my stomach in Wichita by now.”

Jack automatically shook his head.

Stone knew better. “Hey, Straight Arrow, when was the last time you ate?”

“I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine then I’m ugly—and we both know I’m not ugly. I’ve seen that look in your eye, Jack. You’re in bulldog mode and have been for weeks. How many of those files are you bringin’ home at night? How many times are you gonna pore over them with your face scrunched up? You get any more lines in your forehead and people will mistake you for a road map.”

“You’re not exactly lolling around popping bonbons.”

“Nope. But I got smart. I married Jessie.” Stone beamed, Jack rolled his eyes. Stone was so gaga over his new wife, it made a man ill. Jack honestly wished Stone the best and he liked Jessie, but having been married once before himself, he never intended on having Sucker stamped on his forehead again.

“Go meet Jessica for lunch,” Jack said sagely.

“Is that an order, boss man? You know I’d do anything for my partner.”

Jack just grunted.

“I’m telling you, Jack, you’re too intense.” Stone gathered up his sport coat. “Unwind a little, smell the roses. Take a beautiful woman out to dinner. It’ll put a skip in your step.”

“That’s what Grand Springs needs right now—skipping detectives.”

“Absolutely. I’ll be back in an hour. Feel free to solve the case while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do that.”

Stone waved, but Jack didn’t wave back. He had his nose buried in the files, looking for Josie Reynolds’s interview notes. Josie Reynolds. Jo. Josie.

Josie Reynolds whom he had always avoided. And yet he always knew exactly where she was in a crowded room. Stryker set down his pencil. No more reading. He would talk to her in person. And he would closely watch her eyes.

* * *

Josie Reynolds had never met Gabe Chouder, but she knew him. In the last three months it seemed she had met all the Gabe Chouders of the world, and now as he stood before her desk, she wondered if she would be able to help him any more than she’d helped the others.

Gabe owned a small dairy farm outside of Grand Springs. Two hundred and fifty-four dairy cows on a spread that had belonged to his family for three generations. Now most of those fields were under three feet of mud and silt. His grain silo was destroyed. The water-soaked straw and alfalfa bales had been hauled away before they spontaneously combusted and burned down the little Gabe had left.

When the flood warnings had been issued, Gabe and his son had rounded up the cows, while his two daughters had tended the calves. The cows had been lined up in the milking parlor, which was set on higher ground. He’d done this before, he told Josie, and it had always worked. Grand Springs’s valley didn’t flood much or deeply. The rivers in his low-lying land overran some springs when the snow thawed too fast. Maybe he’d get a foot or two of water.

But the storm had hit; the skies opened up and poured into swollen rivers. Banks had given way. Mountainsides already at saturation point hadn’t been able to take any more. In a span of thirty-six hours, Mother Nature had burst and Gabe Chouder’s life would never be the same.

The water had risen three feet in a matter of hours. He and his son had raised the calves into the hayloft, but below, their cows had bawled in terror as lightning filled the sky and the wind rattled the roof.

Gabe’s wife and daughters were evacuated before the next heavy water hit, but Gabe and his son stayed in the milking parlor. They watched the water rise—the cold, black water which began to freeze their cows’ lungs. Exposure set in. Then shock. The fat, complacent, gentle dairy cows that had never been bred to withstand harsh conditions, began to succumb one by one—the barn filled with their last scared moans.

Gabe wasn’t an emotional man. He’d lived on farms all his life, he understood nature was cruel. He’d accepted it all. Now, however, he contemplated taking a shotgun and shooting every one of his cows so they wouldn’t have to suffer the rising water. So the bawling would go away.

But Gabe didn’t. Because some cows remained standing. Even as the water grew colder, the night darker, they stood. Their companions sunk around them, but some survival instinct, some need deeper than definition, kept them on their feet. If they could try, he had to let them.

He lost one hundred and twenty-six cows that night.

The rest endured. When the water finally receded, they sank into the mud, their legs shaking too hard to support them. And he and his son rubbed them down as if they were champion athletes who’d just brought home the gold.

He had one hundred cows left and twenty-eight calves. His house was ruined, his fields wouldn’t be fit for at least a year. His tractor worked, but the pumps in his milking parlor had to be replaced.

“I got straw,” he told Josie now, “from the last batch donated from Oregon. But there wasn’t much alfalfa given out. Sly’s letting me use one of his fields, but grass ain’t enough for dairy. I’m gonna need forty…fifty thousand in feed to get through the winter.”

“Did you go to the fairgrounds and talk to FEMA?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He twisted his baseball cap nervously. “There’s all these agent people sitting around the Exhibition Hall. You gotta find the one right agency for your needs, they told me. I filled out the paperwork, but no one knew what to do with me. They asked me what I made gross—”

“Gross?”

“Yes, ma’am. And I told them two hundred thousand. So then they said I wasn’t supposed to be in the farmer’s line, I was supposed to be in the small business’s. I went to small business’s, but that man said I was a farm, not a small business, and he sent me back to the first agent. Ma’am, I got a farm to get up and running. I got a hundred head to milk twice a day. I can’t keep making appointments, filling out paperwork and standing in line. It’s been more than three months. The farm people finally wrote me a check for twenty thousand. That’ll fix the milking parlor, buy a little feed. Then what?”

“Okay.” Josie raised a hand. She understood how overwhelmed he felt, because in the beginning, she’d felt that way, too. Now, after more than three months, she’d learned how to navigate the system that was drowning him. “We have a few options.”

He perked up. Most of the people she met were honest, hardworking folks, men of action. Bureaucracy and red tape killed them. Things to do made them happy.

“First, I’ll take this copy of your paperwork over to FEMA and talk to them myself. It’s actually net earnings that matter, which is why you were having some confusion. I can get it straightened out for you, though, no problem. However—” she skimmed his carefully recorded financials with an expert eye “—you’ll probably only get ten or twenty thousand more. That won’t be enough.”

The tight look had reappeared around his eyes. His hands methodically twisted his hat. “No, ma’am.”

“Do you have flood insurance?”

He smiled weakly. “Flood insurance for these parts? Seemed too pessimistic.”

“I know, believe me, I know.” Josie opened her filing cabinet and began pulling out flyers. Grand Springs hadn’t had a significant flood in sixty years. Most people had been caught uninsured. She passed a small stack of papers over to Gabe, smiling when he winced. “They’re not forms,” she assured him, “it’s information on programs for you to consider. It sounds like you’ve started fixing your milking parlor.”

“Yes, ma’am, with the FEMA money.”

“And you’ve been milking your cows?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sylvester has let me use his parlors for a bit. I got my cows at his place.”

“So you have some income?”

“A little.” He looked haggard. “But the price of milk is low, and production is down by half. The cows have been through a major trauma, ma’am. They got respiratory problems, they’re weak…. It’s going to take a year before they’re back one hundred percent.”

“If I can find you feed, Mr. Chouder, can the cows pay for their food?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think so. But that’s it. The rest of the expenses…” He shook his head.

“For now, you need your herd to support itself and get strong. You’ll have a rough winter, but if we can get you through, next year will be better. Has anyone talked to you about the low-interest loans available through FEMA?”

He was already shaking his hands, pushing the paper back. “No offense, ma’am, but you know how much debt I already have? I take more, and I slave for the banks for the rest of my life—or until the next disaster strikes and they foreclose on my farm. No, thank you, ma’am. I’ve seen too many good farmers go down that tube.”

Josie understood fully. Most of the small businesses in Grand Springs were financing their way through the next year. As she’d been telling Hal time and time again, farmers just didn’t have that option. They needed more ingenious solutions.

“I know of a few other programs for you to consider,” she told him quietly. “First, have you heard of the Mennonite Disaster Service?”

“They’re like the Amish, right? I’ve seen them around town. The women wear little white caps.”

“That’s right. They’re not quite like the Amish. They use modern equipment, so to speak. Right now, we have ten Mennonite couples staying at the Boy Scout camp. They drove in to help out. They’re a volunteer service, and they’ve been rebuilding homes and farms across the valley. In their group, they have an electrician and a plumber, so they’re full service—”

“They just do this?”

“Yes.” She indicated the little blue flyer. “They help those in most dire need first. The fact that you have three children and are uninsured may put you at the top of their list. You’ll have to go to the camp and speak to them. If you qualify, they can probably repair your home in a matter of days and help you get your milking parlor reinstalled, as well. They’re very, very good.”

Gabe looked uncertain, but after a moment, he took the flyer. “At the Boy Scout camp, you say?”

“Yes, sir. Talk to them, Mr. Chouder. They’re here for people like you. Someday, maybe you can return the favor by helping build somebody else’s home or barn.”

“All…all right.”

“And the Grand Springs Farm Bureau has opened a bank account for all the donations and fund-raising moneys. A lot of that money will be used to purchase alfalfa to get through the winter. However, you can also apply to receive a small grant. We probably can’t afford to give more than a few thousand per farmer, but it will give you something.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t enthusiastic. A few thousand barely bought a new cow, let alone got a farmer through a winter.

“Finally, I’m looking into starting an adopt-a-farm program.”

“Ma’am?”

“It’s been tried in a few other states, Mr. Chouder, with a fair amount of success. Basically, we would do a bio on your farm and match you up with a volunteer who would ‘adopt’ your farm. They would help out with the expenses, sponsor you, so to speak, for the next winter.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, ma’am. That farm has been in my family for three generations. My son’s interested in it now—”

“You’re not selling it, Mr. Chouder. You’re not giving it away. You’re just getting help to make it through the next year.”

“But…but what do they get out of it?”

“The usual. The sponsor gets the satisfaction of helping someone out. Also, quite frankly, most of these people are well off and benefit from the tax deduction. They also like feeling that they’re giving back to the community and helping with ‘grass roots Americana.’”

Mr. Chouder was shaking his head. “Sounds too much like pity.”

Josie bit the inside of her cheeks to keep from sighing. The program really could work except for one major stumbling block—farmers had phenomenal pride. It was one thing to receive help from their own, quite another to take assistance from outsiders, particularly, rich outsiders.

“It’s not pity, it’s community. People helping people through a rough time.”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t want to have to call up some stranger with my bills. What if I need a new tractor? Do I have to ask permission? Does he get to pick it out? I dunno.”

“Those kinds of details would have to be worked out. I would be perfectly willing to help you work them out. Usually, we create a straw budget for the year, the sponsor contributes his part of it up front, and you go on your merry way. Here, just take this and read it over. Think about it, Mr. Chouder. Please.”

“All…all right.” He took the small stack of flyers. The lines hadn’t eased around his eyes. She’d given him options, but she couldn’t give him answers. Those would take a long time to find as the whole community sifted through the aftermath.

“Do you have any more questions, Mr. Chouder? I’ll follow up with FEMA for you as I promised.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I guess I’m all set.”

“You can stop by any time you like. Don’t be afraid to call me with more questions.”

“I’ll…I’ll give it all some thought, ma’am.”

“Josie. You can call me Josie.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled. Looking at Gabe Chouder, she felt her heart break a little. His face was wind-worn and rugged, his eyes squinted from spending a lifetime staring into the sun. She’d moved to Grand Springs looking for the Gabe Chouders of the world. She’d sought goodness, she’d sought purity, she’d sought roots.

And now she knew the joy and heartache community could give. It reminded her of her parents. It reminded her of Olivia.

The sadness that swept through her was old, but still potent. She handled it as she always did. She nudged Mr. Chouder gently and gave him a large smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” she assured him firmly. “Grand Springs is a great community, Mr. Chouder. We’re going to get through this!”

She walked him to the reception area right outside her office.

It was after five, but the waiting area was still filled with farmers and small businessmen. Her gaze picked out her new visitor immediately, however. He was taller, leaner than the rest. He rested against the wall, impeccably dressed. Blond hair cut short to hide the wave. A hard jawline. Blue eyes that saw everything.

She knew who he was immediately. She’d met him two years ago, and her attention had wandered toward him ever since. He was the tall, straight-laced but broodingly handsome man who always stood across the room at social functions and studied her with piercing blue eyes. He was the man who’d actually inspired an erotic dream or two. He was the cop she avoided at all costs.

Now Detective Jack Stryker pushed away from the wall. He met her gaze.

He flashed his detective’s shield.

“Josie Reynolds? Five minutes of your time, please.”

It was funny, the déjà vu that swept over her these days. She looked as his badge, and once more, all she could think was Not again.

Chapter Two

Josie led Jack Stryker into her office because she had no other choice. His tall, rangy build quickly filled the space, not that there was much of it to begin with. Her office was comprised of one big oak desk, two chairs, an ancient computer and a whole wall of slate gray filing cabinets. Oh, and there were two scraggly vines hovering somewhere between life and death.

“I’ve got to do something about them,” she muttered as she passed by the two plants on her way to the relative safety of her side of the desk. The office had only one tiny window, permitting very little light. The plants didn’t like that. They probably weren’t thrilled with her constantly forgetting to water them, either.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Jack Stryker took the old black chair across from her. The chair was too low, making him double over his long body to fit. His knees stuck up comically, which she would have enjoyed more if he hadn’t managed to somehow retain his dignity. His face was composed, his eyes sharp and patient, and his lips… You could tell a lot about a man from looking at his lips. Jack Stryker had very strong, firm lips.

Josie turned away. She smoothed her sensible gray skirt and wished she’d worn pants. She tugged at her pretty gray-and-pink-striped silk blouse, wishing she’d buttoned it up to her neck. Hell, a nun in a wimple would feel exposed sitting across from Jack Stryker. She had no idea what it was about him, but he unsettled her purely by existing. A cop, for God’s sake. A Republican. She ought to have more pride.

No. Her hands were shaking. She was acutely aware of his gaze. And her office had grown too warm. Definite, definite tension in the room. She was an idiot.

“I’m Detective Jack Stryker—”

“I’ve met you before.” She took her seat, and decided it was best to come out firing. “Look, in case you didn’t notice, Detective, there’s at least a dozen people out there waiting to speak with me. I can give you five minutes, that’s it.”

He leaned back, his blue gaze openly challenging. “I’m here about Olivia Stuart’s murder. I would think that would take priority.”

“Then, you didn’t know Olivia very well, did you?”

He stiffened, clearly caught off guard by the sharp retort. Josie smiled sweetly. Round one to the con man’s daughter. Hah, she’d been dealing with cops longer than this man had probably dreamed of becoming one. She wasn’t some pushover and she wasn’t going to be antagonized in her own office, even if the man looked incredibly handsome.

Across from her Detective Stryker stopped leaning back and his eyes narrowed. He had very blue eyes. She’d noticed them the first time they’d been introduced. The shade was bright, piercing, riveting. She was certain that from a hundred yards away a woman would still be able to feel those eyes on her. She definitely felt them on her now.

“How long did you know Olivia?”

“Two years.”

“How did you meet her?”

“When I was interviewed for the position of Grand Springs treasurer.”

“I thought you two were friends.”

“We became friends over the course of the next few months. As the treasurer, I work very closely with the mayor. And Olivia…” Her voice grew husky with the raw emotion that even after almost four months thickened her throat. “Olivia was very kind. She showed me around, made sure I got settled. She was very generous, very…warm.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Have you ever thought of running for mayor yourself?”

Josie frowned, then shook her head, not following his line of questioning. “No.”

“You seem to take your work very seriously.”

“Of course.”

“You were very patient with Gabe.”

“How would you know?”

“I overheard.”

“What do you mean, you overheard? The sound doesn’t carry that easily to the reception area.”

“It does if you put your ear against the door.”

“You…you…eavesdropped on my conversation?” She didn’t know whether to be outraged, amazed or impressed. She settled on outraged, hotly stabbing her finger through the air. “You had no right to do that. Isn’t that illegal?”

“I was just leaning against the door,” he said calmly. “There’s no law against leaning against a door.”

Damn, now she was impressed. She fought the feeling vehemently. “I thought you were the one they called ‘Straight Arrow Stryker.’ You do everything by the book, that’s what I was told.”

“I didn’t break any law.”

“You invaded my privacy! Worse, you invaded Mr. Chouder’s privacy!”

“Ms. Reynolds, I would never repeat anything I overheard about Mr. Chouder’s affairs. I was just trying to determine whether it would be appropriate for me to interrupt the conversation or not.”

He said the words so steadily that she almost believed him. She caught herself immediately, of course. It was always a mistake to believe a cop. In their own way, they were as manipulative, conniving and Machiavellian as the people they were trying to catch.

She drew herself up to her full five feet six inches. “Detective Stryker, if I ever hear gossip about Mr. Chouder’s financial affairs, I will personally hunt you down.”

“And?”

She smiled sweetly. “And announce your five-thousand-dollar donation to the Grand Springs Farm Bureau relief fund, of course. I’m sure you want to help out Mr. Chouder and the other farmers like him as much as possible.”

Perhaps it was only her imagination, but Stryker’s clear-cut, voting Republican face seemed to ease into a small smile of appreciation. “You are good,” he murmured.

“Hah, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Josie yanked open her center desk drawer and pulled out a bright yellow flyer.

“Band, Bingo, Bake Sale next Friday night. Ten dollars to get in, great country music, a chance at cash prizes in bingo, and maybe you can pick up a blueberry pie for your lonely bachelor nights. All proceeds go to the relief fund. I think you should buy two tickets.”

“How did you know I was a bachelor?”

“Are you kidding? Ever since the day I moved here I have been regaled with stories of Mr. All-American, Jack Stryker. There are mothers with eligible daughters who do nothing but contemplate your future. Soon they’ll have set up a Web site for you—your favorite foods, hobbies, likes, dislikes. Oh, that’s right, no one’s supposed to mention the name of your ex-wife. Let’s see, Mary…Margaret…”

“Marjorie.” His voice had become definitely tight.

“Marjorie. Well, no one’s supposed to bring her up. So what do you say, two tickets?”

Jack Stryker blinked his eyes several times, appearing speechless. Was it the mention of his ex-wife, the fact that she knew he was a bachelor or her persistent pushing of the fund-raiser? Josie didn’t care. In this preliminary battle of wills, she was finally winning. She liked winning, and these days, it didn’t happen often.

“You’re either the rudest person I’ve ever met or the absolute best strategist,” Jack said at last.

“Why, thank you.”

Before she could break out the champagne and celebrate her victory, however, he abruptly leaned closer, those sharp blue eyes narrowing dangerously. “But your distraction ploy’s not going to work, Josie. We’re not here to talk about bake sales and we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you. Where are you from, Josie?”

“Hmm, now that I think about it, I’m sure your partner, Detective Richardson, and his new wife would love to go to the fund-raiser, as well. You should buy them two tickets while you’re at it.”

“Why did you come to Grand Springs?”

“The band is Sadie’s Sunshine. Have you ever heard them? A little too much banjo for my taste, but they get your feet stomping.”

“You always keep to yourself. You’ve worked here two years, you go to all the appropriate functions, but no one really knows you. Why is that?”

“I’m personally making lemon squares for the bake sale. They’re a specialty of mine. Better yet, Mrs. Simone is selling a pie-a-month club. For fifty bucks, she’ll deliver a fresh-baked pie to your house each month. She starts with her strawberry rhubarb pie in October. I’d buy that deal for myself, but I’m not sure I’m getting enough time at the gym for a pie a month.”

“Is it men you don’t like? Or cops? Or both?” His blue eyes remained steady, his lips set. She could babble on till doomsday, his gaze told her, he would still get the information he required. As she watched him, the right corner of his lip curved dryly. “Come on, Josie,” he commanded firmly. “Speak to me.”

She had to look away. The nervousness started in her belly and worked its way up to her throat. She had nothing to be nervous about, she told herself again and again but it wasn’t working. Her mouth had gone dry. Beneath the desk, her hands were trembling.

Dammit, she wasn’t ready for this kind of interrogation. She was tired and overworked. She missed Olivia, she wanted to help Olivia, and yes, she did not like cops. Not even the one nicknamed “Straight Arrow Stryker,” who she always noticed, even in a crowded room.

“Look,” Josie said, “as much fun as this has been, I still have a whole reception area filled with people who have much more important questions than what’s my sign. This meeting is over.”

“I’m trying to solve a murder—”

“And I hope you do.” Abruptly, her temper flared. She slapped her desk, startling them both. “Dammit, Olivia was my best friend! I want you to catch who killed her as much as anyone, you narrow-minded bureaucrat. And I’m telling you, I don’t have any more information for you!”

“I think you’re lying,” he said bluntly.

“I think you’ve inhaled too much red ink! I think you guys are desperate for answers over there. I bet Hal’s having a field day whipping your backs. Oh, and the police department’s budget is up for review. I should’ve known.”

Stryker stood so fast, his chair tipped back. His jaw was tight enough to crack three walnuts, and his eyes seemed to blaze out of his head. He was angry, she realized with awe. Not just angry. The famous Straight Arrow Stryker was furious. And God, was he magnificent!

“Don’t you ever, ever accuse me or my partner of manufacturing answers just to please a sniveling idiot like Hal Stuart. I don’t know how you do your job, lady, but I take mine very seriously!”

“And so do I!”

“You’re a suspect, Josie Reynolds.”

“Because I was Olivia’s friend?”

“Because you’re hiding something.” Jack Stryker planted his hands on her desk. He leaned all the way across until she could feel the whisper of his breath on her cheek, and said, “I’m going to come back to this office, Ms. Reynolds, and I’m going to keep coming back until I know everything about you. Where you were, what you’ve done. Why you don’t like cops. And if you killed Olivia Stuart, I’ll personally slap the handcuffs on your tender wrists.”

Her mouth had gone dry. His determination was so pure, she could almost hear the cell doors clanging shut behind her. Again. Again. Again. Josie drew back slowly. She pulled herself together and pasted a smile on her pale face, because that’s what she did best. That is what her father had taught her.

“Does that mean you don’t want four tickets to the Band, Bingo, Bake Sale fund-raiser?”

“What?”

“I said, does that mean you don’t want four tickets to the Band, Bingo, Bake Sale fund-raiser? It’s next Friday, remember? Seven o’clock, and the money goes to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he raised a silencing hand, frowning deeply, studying her again as if she were a puzzle he ought to be able to solve.

She looked him in the eye. It was the most she could do when her stomach had fallen away, leaving her hollow and lost. “I take my job seriously, too, Detective. And right now, my job means I need to raise money for those people sitting out there wondering why a Grand Springs detective is yelling at the Grand Springs treasurer.”

“I did not yell,” he said immediately.

“You yelled.”

“I don’t yell.”

“Would you like me to open the door and ask?”

Jack clutched his temples. For a moment, he definitely looked on the verge of strangling her and even he seemed surprised by the intensity of his reaction. “I’m losing my mind,” she heard him mutter. “I have to get more sleep.”

For the first time, Josie noticed the shadows beneath his eyes, the red tinge of his bloodshot eyes. Olivia had always spoken very highly of Jack Stryker, of his phenomenal work ethic, of his passion for his job. He was the cop who always got his man.

Until the Olivia Stuart case. For a moment, the humor of the situation struck her. Two of Grand Springs’s most overworked public servants, going after each other like small children. And the sadness struck her again. Grand Springs’s two lost public servants, each wanting justice for Olivia and yelling petty insults at each other instead.

“Two tickets,” she said more gently. “Sounds like you could use a night off.”

He grunted, which was probably his version of agreement.

“I’ll take four,” he said suddenly. “Stone and Jessie might as well drool over each other in public for a good cause. Are you going?”

“Yes.”

“With anyone?”

Josie shook her head in frustration. “None of your business. Go home, Detective. It’s almost six o’clock and I still have a lot of work to do. Try not to arrest any of the good citizens in my office on your way out.”

“This isn’t over.”

“Oh, famous last words. Cops have absolutely no imagination.”

Jack arched a brow. Far from retreating, he said somberly, “Yes, we do.” He leaned over her desk.

“I’ll see you at the fund-raiser, Josie. And I’ll see you going home every night and I’ll see you jogging every morning. I want Olivia Stuart’s killer. Think about that, Josie. Think about that real hard.”

He stepped out of her office. She struggled to inhale long after the door had shut behind him.

I’m not the killer, dammit. A Reynolds isn’t the killer.

* * *

At nine o’clock, she turned away the last person. She hated doing that, hated seeing the stress in each person’s eyes as she stood in the waiting room and softly promised to meet with them first thing in the morning. Four people were left. They’d waited six hours and now had to return tomorrow.

Goaded by guilt, she spent another two hours trying to catch up with paperwork. By eleven, her stomach was growling too much to concentrate. She cleaned up her desk, updated her list of things to do for the morning and prepared to leave. Halfway out the door she remembered she’d forgotten to speak to FEMA for Gabe Chouder.

“Damn,” she muttered. “Get it on the list.”

Heading back out, she remembered she’d forgotten the report on strip mining for Hal Stuart. She went back to add that to the list. The third time, she recalled her promise to speak with Helen Hunter about the bingo prizes. The fourth time, she made it through the door, stomach growling, eyes tired.

Her low-slung heels echoed in the vaulted hallways of City Hall. All the offices were dark, only the yellow ceiling lights guided her way. It was a strange, lonely feeling to be in a big marble building all alone at night. She nodded goodbye to the security guard stationed by the front doors and let herself out.

The night was cold and clear. Her car was around back. These days she wondered how safe it was to walk to her car alone, but still had no choice. At least, she encountered no surprises tonight.

She drove home on deserted roads and pulled up to a dark one-story rancher. She had no roommates, no pets, no people to help her, which meant she got to drag the garbage can to the curb even though she didn’t feel like doing it. Monday was garbage night, so out it went.

Back inside, she snapped on the kitchen light and set her briefcase and jacket on the kitchen table. She was spending too much time at work, and her small house showed it. Plants drooped from lack of water. The simple, sparse furniture had gathered a thick layer of dust. Abruptly, the whole place depressed her. She had a house, but not a home. A home shouldn’t smell as alien and stale as her place did now.

She stared at the brown kitchen cabinets and contemplated heating up a can of soup. Food might make her feel better. When a person burned the candle at both ends, food and nutrition became even more important, she reminded herself. But the act of taking out a saucepan and opening a can sounded like too much work. Did a man like Stryker come home to an empty house, as well? Did he contemplate heating up soup and realize he was too tired, or did a man as handsome as him have a new woman every night, happy to fill the void?

She could still remember the tight feeling in her belly when Grand Springs’s most eligible bachelor had pinned her with his gaze. And she recalled the secret, nearly primal thrill of making “Straight Arrow Stryker” yell.

Oh God, what was she thinking? She gave up on cooking, dropped her clothes on the floor, and climbed into bed.

Her dreams brought her comfort. She was ten years old again. She knew because her blond hair was in the kind of beautiful French braid only her mother could do. She sat at the simple kitchen table. Her mom was making cookies and the kitchen smelled of nutmeg and vanilla.

The back door opened as her father walked in, wearing a suit he’d donned first thing in the morning and now accessorized it with his hearty smile. Her mom looked up, her eyes immediately going soft. Rose’s gaze always went tender when she saw Stan.

“I got me a job, Rose. Selling cars. I’m going straight, just like I promised.”

“Oh, Stan. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He wrapped her pretty mama in a big bear hug. In his suit, he looked big and handsome, all red hair and snapping blue eyes. In her spring dress, her mother was his perfect complement, all blond hair and delicately defined features.

Her mother sat Stan at the table. He got his own plate with four oatmeal cookies, sneaking one to Josie when Rose turned for the milk. She palmed it effortlessly, the way he’d taught her, and he winked at her until she giggled.

Josie was the luckiest girl in the world and she knew it. She was Stan’s little girl, and Stan was the only father on the block who knew how to make dreams come true. And when Rose smiled at Stan the way Rose was smiling at Stan now, there wasn’t anything Stan couldn’t do.

Josie inhaled the scents of nutmeg and vanilla. She let the oatmeal cookie melt on her tongue.

“I want to stay here always, Daddy,” she whispered in her sleep.

“Of course you can,” he promised her in her dream. “Of course you can.”

Her alarm clock went off at six. She awoke disoriented and groggy. She sat up with a scowl, impatiently pushing a cloud of tangled hair out of her face.

“Liar,” she muttered. Her room, empty and still dark gray with morning, didn’t argue. She pattered into her bathroom and buried herself beneath the scouring spray of a hot shower.

* * *

“Well, I’m so happy you finally found time for your family!”

Jack leaned over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Mom.”

He shook his father’s hand as the older man apologized for Betty Stryker’s comment with his gaze. Jack understood. His mother was a high-strung, anxious woman. Sometimes she was on medication, but mostly she tried to manage it on her own. It wasn’t easy. Betty Stryker’s world was filled with demons and worry. And the death of her oldest son at the age of eighteen had only made the shadows darker.

“We’re grilling steaks,” Betty announced. She stood in the middle of the simple living room, nicely attired in chocolate-colored slacks and an off-white turtleneck. She twisted each ring on her right hand in turn and then started over again.

“Steak sounds great,” Jack told her.

“Are you sure? I have chicken I could defrost. We still have some of that salmon in the freezer….”

“Steak is perfect. Honest. Crazy as things have been lately, a nice thick steak sounds wonderful.”

“Are you working too hard? How is Hal Stuart as acting mayor? I heard he’s a real tyrant. Is he too demanding? Are you getting enough sleep?”

Ben took his wife’s arm and led her toward the kitchen. “Jack is doing just fine, dear. Policemen don’t expect regular hours, do they?”

“Work’s not bad at all,” Jack agreed, when in fact both he and his father knew he hadn’t slept for more than six hours a night in months. “Can I help you with anything?”

“No, no. Just sit right down at the table. I’ll get the salad. Ben, will you check the steaks on the grill?”

His mother bustled around. Movement helped keep the restlessness down. Jack sat down at the table in the same seat he’d occupied since his parents had moved into the house when he was four. It was a simple three-bedroom rancher made of good, solid construction. His father had earned enough as an electrician to support the whole family. They’d been comfortable growing up, but never rich. Family vacations were generally camping in the mountains, not flying to Disneyland.

Jack had been happy, though. Ben had taught him and Tom how to hunt and track. There had been weekends fishing together, then the Boy Scouts. Tom had ridiculed the Boy Scouts after the first three years. Jack had continued on to become an Eagle Scout, however, while his father became a troop leader. Right after Tom’s death, when emotions were still too high for words, Jack and his father had gone on the Scout trips together and let the hiking sweat the pain from their pores. By nightfall, they could sit together in front of the campfire, watching the flickering flames and finding comfort in just being there, side by side, father and son, bonded by the silence.

Jack wondered if such things would’ve helped his mother. Instead, she always stayed home, shutting herself up in the house where Tom’s room became a museum to an eighteen-year-old rebel, each item still exactly where Tom had placed it nearly twenty years ago. Even now, sitting at the table, the fourth chair carried a full weight of silent accusation and guilt.

I am Tom’s chair. Don’t you remember him sitting here, throwing peas at you across the table and laughing the way only Tom could laugh? Don’t forget, don’t forget.

Betty returned with the salad. Ben followed her with the steaks. Corn on the cob, freshly steamed and rich with butter, already sat in the middle. Betty poured two glasses of milk for Jack and his father, then a glass of water for herself. Her gaze darted briefly to Tom’s chair before she sat.

They began the meal in silence, the way they always did.

“Have either of you seen Paige Summers,” his mother said at last, her voice slightly high-pitched, as if she was seeking to fill all the silent voids in their lives. “I ran into her at the grocery store just the other day. I would swear she was pregnant.”

“Haven’t seen her,” Jack confessed.

“I didn’t think she had a boyfriend,” Betty pressed. “I haven’t heard of any boyfriend and she certainly isn’t married. Last I knew, she was just starting out as administrative assistant for Jared Montgomery’s real estate firm. Imagine. This town just isn’t what it used to be.”

“It’s none of our business,” Jack said quietly. He’d met Paige Summers only once, but she seemed like a genuinely nice, sweet woman. If she was single and pregnant, then she had enough to deal with and didn’t need any undue gossip. He finished eating his salad. His father dished up the steaks. After a bit, Jack found himself asking, “Do either of you know Josie Reynolds?”

“She’s the town treasurer,” Betty said promptly. She prided herself on knowing who was who in the community.

“You ever met her?”

“I saw her at the Jamesons’ Christmas party last year. Oh, that blond hair of hers. Just gorgeous. You wouldn’t know she was an accountant to look at her.”

Jack agreed with that. He looked at his father, who was nodding.

“She’s good,” Ben said. “A real hard worker.”

Jack raised a brow. That was high praise coming from Ben, who’d worked sixty hours a week all his life to support his family, plus volunteered as a community fireman and Scout leader. “Why do you say that?”

“I’ve been working with her.”

“You have?”

“Sure, I’ve been helping out with the fund-raisers. You know the community auction two weeks ago? Josie’s idea. She’s even the one who called the companies and got them to donate the computers and plane tickets. We raised fifteen thousand dollars that night.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“The big dinner and theater at the old mill? Josie’s idea. She got Grand Springs’s community theater to volunteer their play, and Touch of Class Catering to provide all the food at cost. Made two thousand off of that.”

“Oh.”

“Then this Friday we’ve got the Band, Bingo, Bake Sale coming up—”

“That I know about. In fact, I bought four tickets.”

“Good, good.” His father nodded approvingly. “Josie’s idea again. Sadie’s Sunshine called her up and said they’d like to do something to help out, and Josie set it all up. Smart woman. She really pitches in. People like her.”

“Who are you taking to the bake sale, dear?” his mother asked. She wasn’t too interested in the fund-raisers. Organizing activities taxed her nerves.

“Uh…I haven’t really thought about it.” Jack quickly turned back to his father. When his mother got on this topic, it took a hurricane to shake her off. “So you’ve talked to Josie a few times?”

“Oh, yeah, I work with her a lot.” His father was very active in the community.

“Has she ever mentioned where she’s from?”

“No.”

“What about her family? Does she talk about family?”

“No.”

“Are you going to take Josie to the bake sale?”

“No,” Jack said to his mother with probably more force than necessary. “I’m just…I’m just curious, that’s all.” He didn’t bring up her tie to the Olivia Stuart case. He made it a point never to talk about his job in front of his mother. He was still frowning, however. He couldn’t get the mystery of Josie Reynolds out of his mind. “Don’t you find it odd that she never talks about her personal life?” he persisted. “She’s hardly a quiet woman. She’s definitely not shy,” he muttered.

His father chuckled. “She has spirit. You should hear her with the FEMA folks. That’s kinda fun.”

“But Dad—”

Ben shrugged. “She likes her privacy, Jack. She’s got a right.”

“She’s very beautiful,” his mother said. “And unattached.”

“I’m not interested in her that way, Mom. Really, I don’t have time right now to be interested in anyone. I like my life the way it is.”

His parents exchanged a look he’d seen too many times before. He abruptly set down his silverware. “Is it true everyone’s afraid to mention Marjorie’s name when I’m around?”

Betty’s eyes widened. She looked at Ben for help.

“Well, Jack,” he began in a careful, placating tone.

“Oh, God, it is true. It’s been five years, Dad. I can handle it.”

“She wasn’t right for you,” his mother said immediately. “I told you from the beginning that she wasn’t right. Anyone could tell just by looking at her that she had the morals of an alley cat.”

Jack winced and pushed away his plate. He’d lied, after all. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His parents exchanged that look again. His ex-wife Marjorie had been a faithless bitch, there was no other word for it. She was the only mistake Jack had ever made, but boy, had it been a big one. He was the type of man who’d assumed he would marry only once. He would meet the perfect, kind, beautiful woman and be faithful forever. They’d raise two children, eat dinner together every night and hike on the weekends. Certainly, coming home early and finding his beautiful wife in bed with a muscle-bound rookie officer hadn’t been among his plans. Nor had he ever imagined the way she’d looked him right in the eye and said, “You deserved this Jack. You never could give me what I need.”

The fancy town house, the luxury automobile, the role of the future mayor’s wife.

Jack was good at many things, but he wasn’t good at forgiving, and he never quite forgot.

“How about some after-dinner coffee?” his mother asked brightly. “Or would you like tea? I have jasmine, mint, English breakfast and chamomile. Or maybe you’d like some cognac, I think your father has cognac. Don’t you have cognac, Ben?”

“Coffee would be perfect, Mom. Here, why don’t you sit for a change and let me help you.”

“Oh, no, no. You just stay right there. I know where everything is, it will only be a minute. It’s not every day you come to see us. The least I can do is brew you some coffee.”

Jack watched her bustle away, her movements nervous and jerky. When she pulled out the coffeepot it shook in her hands.

“It’s all right,” Ben said softly beside him. “The blackout was tough for her, but she’s doing pretty well these days. Sleeping through the nights.”

“That’s good.”

“It has been five years since…since that woman,” Ben said abruptly. He always referred to Marjorie as simply “that woman.” “You made a mistake marrying her, Jack, but that’s all right. You were young and she was beautiful and had that effect on men. Now, Josie Reynolds… Mark my words, Jack, she’s special. Tough as nails, works harder than a dog and beautiful from the inside out. She’s who you need. A girl like that will really challenge you. Take her to the fund-raiser. Give dating a chance.”

“Not you, too, Dad,” Jack groaned.

“On some things, your mother is right.”

Betty returned. She handed out the cups of coffee, then passed around the cream and sugar. They drank the coffee in silence, and as always, Betty’s gaze was on Tom’s chair.

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