Vows of Vengeance

“I…don’t know who you are or why you think you know me.” Stella met the man’s gaze, determined to prove her point, but somewhere deep inside, in the far recesses of her mind, something intangible registered.

A wild and primitive awareness flickered in his eyes, something predatory, an almost hungry look, as if she’d not only met him, but that he’d known her intimately.

As quickly as the moment came, it fled, and she was thrust back into the depths of lost time.

“This isn’t funny, Stella.” Luke stalked toward her, stopped and gritted his teeth. “I’ve been searching for you ever since you ran out on our wedding night.”

Stella gasped, perspiration beading her lip. Wedding night? What was he talking about? She’d never been married….

Had she?

Vows of Vengeance

Rita Herron

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling for kids for romance, and writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romantic hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225, or visit her Web site at www.ritaherron.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Special Agent Luke Devlin—An FBI agent who never crossed the line—until he met the enigmatic Stella Segall and married her.

Stella Segall—Luke’s wife disappeared on their wedding night without a trace. Now, accused of murder, she insists she has no memory of her traumatic past or the man who claims to be her husband—Luke Devlin.

Dorothy Segall—Stella’s mother supposedly sold her when she was an infant, but Stella’s returning memories hint at a different story.

Kat Dixon & Jaycee Short—Two hired and trained killers just like Stella—or are they?

Spencer Grossman—Luke’s superior at the agency suspected that Luke’s partner was a bad agent. Now he’s gunning to find out if Luke had joined him.

J. T. Osborne—Osborne’s death was ruled a suicide— wasn’t it?

Drake Sutton—A stranger who claims to be Stella’s guardian—his sinister secrets may destroy them all.

Marvin Andrews—This reporter who will do anything for a story—will he die trying to write it?

The Master—He trained them all to kill without a conscience—is it his turn to die now?

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

Epilogue

Prologue

It was Luke Devlin’s wedding day. The happiest day of his life.

Nothing could go wrong.

He and Stella had arrived at the chapel just before it had closed. They’d already exchanged vows. And now his wife was waiting in the honeymoon suite, preparing for their wedding night.

A night of ecstasy he couldn’t wait to begin.

Neon lights flashed across the night sky on the Vegas strip as he rushed to the car to retrieve the champagne and roses he’d bought for the occasion. Granted, he wasn’t much of a romantic. Hell, he wasn’t romantic at all. And he wasn’t even sure he knew how to be a husband. But he’d decided to give it a try.

After all, he’d never met anyone like Stella.

She hadn’t wanted a big, fancy wedding and neither had he. She’d insisted they drive to Vegas, instead of marrying in D.C. where they’d met. They’d gotten in around eleven, picked out simple wedding bands at a jewelry store nearby and had a nice quiet romantic dinner with a bottle of red wine. After toasting their future, they’d found an Elvis chapel offering a special deal for midnight ceremonies.

Even though the chapel had been somewhat cheesy, he wanted the honeymoon night to be special. Memorable.

And it would be. After the ceremony, they’d hurried back to the hotel as excited as if they’d floated into paradise.

Heady images drifted to mind as he jogged to the elevator. Stella in a bubble bath waiting for him, sipping champagne as he licked bubbles from her breasts. Stella naked and lying on that heartshaped bed with her hair spilling across the pillow and her legs open wide. Stella whispering that she wanted to go down on him as they’d left the chapel. Him doing the same for her afterward, giving her pleasure, and hearing her long-winded ecstatic cries.

Then being inside her, all night long…

A blissful evening of making love where, for once in his life, he could forget he was FBI. That he had an endless number of cases to work. Murders to solve. Killers to hunt down. Women and children to protect.

A life of violent and heinous crimes.

One that didn’t include pleasure.

A life he wanted to share with Stella.

A frisson of anxiety suddenly assaulted him, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. He had this feeling often. Every damn time he went to a potential crime scene.

But not now.

Hell no. Not on his wedding night.

Exhaling slowly, he exited the elevator, cut his gaze up and down the hallway, then toward the intersection where the halls met. Nothing seemed out of place. No strangers were lurking in the corner. No guns pointed his way.

Still, his pulse accelerated as he approached his room and inserted the key in the door. The wooden panel swung open.

Maybe Stella had left the door unlocked. Maybe she was waiting in the room, naked with strawberries and whipped cream on her belly. With chocolate sauce on her thighs, and promises in her eyes.

But that eerie premonition clutched at his chest again, and he felt for his gun, removed it from his jacket and slipped inside the room. All was quiet.

Eerily quiet.

Stella was nowhere to be seen.

He glanced at the bathroom but heard nothing. Only a daunting silence. As if the air couldn’t move. As if death had taken residence inside.

His gaze flew to the bed. On top of it lay the white sundress Stella had worn to the chapel. Blood dotted the skirt. The spaghetti straps looked as if they’d been torn.

Shock and horror momentarily paralyzed him. What the hell was going on?

He rushed to examine the damaged dress, picked it up and sniffed the blood to make certain it was real. A mental image of Stella wearing it down the aisle flashed in his head. The bodice had stretched tight over her breasts, the scalloped skirt swirling around her slender bare legs.

His throat closed, confusion and fear clawing at him.

Where was she?

He scanned the room in search of a clue. Her white stilettos were underneath the bed as if she’d kicked them off. The bouquet of fresh flowers had been crushed. Tossed on the end table.

And her suitcase was missing.

Instincts honed by years of training kicked in. He angled himself sideways and approached the bathroom, his imagination going wild. Other images flashed before his eyes. Stella on the floor bleeding. In the tub, drowned. Stella with her neck sliced open. Her eyes staring into space in death.

He’d seen it all before. The horrors of mankind.

But God, not on his wedding night. Not to his bride.

His lungs tightened as he peeked through the door. But no one was inside. The shower stall was closed. She might be hiding behind it.

So might an attacker.

Inching through the doorway, he poised his gun, ready to fire, then jerked open the door.

But it was just as empty as the room. Only a bottle of Stella’s raspberry scented shampoo lay on the floor, the contents spilling over, the red color floating in puddles like blood.

Something bad had happened to Stella.

He flew back to the room, scanned it one more time. A piece of hotel stationery was crumpled on the floor as if it had fluttered there when he’d opened the door.

A ransom note? A Dear John goodbye?

One ear cocked for sounds of an intruder, he leaned over and read the note.

“Don’t come after me. Goodbye.”

The writing was shaky. The note scribbled. A drop of blood dotted the white.

Had she decided their marriage was a mistake, or had she met with foul play?

Rational thoughts kicked in. If she had left of her own accord, why would there be blood?

He grabbed the phone, called security, identified himself as FBI, then ordered them to get someone up to his room. Within minutes, a chunky man with rumpled clothing and a name tag that read Ted appeared.

Ted frowned as he entered. “You reported that your wife is missing?”

Luke nodded, and removed a photo, the only one he had. The wedding photo of them kissing at the chapel. Thunderous emotions rose in his throat at the sight.

In the photo Stella had clung to him. She had looked happy. She had wanted to marry him and be his wife.

“We’ll call the local police.” Ted cocked a brow. “But, sir, are you sure she didn’t just, er…” He cleared his throat and glanced away, his face turning red. “Leave you?”

“There’s blood on her dress,” Luke snapped. His emotions pinged back and forth between fear and panic. And there was more. He had wanted to make a life with Stella. Had finally carved a place in his heart for a woman. Now it felt as if someone had jammed a knife in his aorta, and his own blood was spurting out.

It was unbelievable. Luke Devlin was an agent, a hardass, a man who investigated cases for others. He’d never been personally involved in a case before. That is, except for his partner J.T.’s recent death.

The man glanced at the dress, then at Luke and took a step back. A wary look darkened his eyes.

Luke looked down and realized he’d made a fatal mistake. He’d touched the dress. It held the scent of his cologne. His dirty handprints muddied the white.

And his fingerprints were all over the room. His day had gone from bad to horrible to worse. He was the husband, the one who’d called in the crime.

When the police came, they’d treat him as a suspect.

As if they thought he’d killed his wife.

Just as they’d treated him after J.T.’s recent demise.

Chapter One

Thirteen months later—Savannah, Georgia

The sheets were soaked in blood.

Stella stared at them in shock, then glanced down at her trembling hands. More blood. On her hands. Her fingers. Her nightgown.

It was still wet.

Then she saw the man.

Moonlight streaked his face, a golden outline of his still form stark against the bloodstained sheets. Nausea rose to her throat, the room swirling.

He was lying beside her. Half naked. Brown hair. Average features.

Except blood oozed from his mouth. And his chest had turned crimson, a red stain spreading across his torso.

The stench of body odors assaulted her, and a scream bubbled in her throat. She scrambled backward off the bed, panic clawing at her. Her foot hit a gun and sent it skittering to the floor. She jerked it up, turning it over in horror as she realized the man had been shot with it.

Her heart pounded as she glanced back at him again. Whoever he was, maybe he was still alive.

But he wasn’t breathing. His eyes were wide open, glued to the ceiling in the cold shock of death.

Suddenly the door burst open, and a policeman raced in, his weapon drawn. Stella froze.

The officer took one look at the dead man, then her, and his ruddy face went white. “Don’t move, ma’am.”

Her hand shook violently, the gun bobbing up and down as she realized how the scenario appeared. “I—”

“Put the gun down,” he barked.

“But I…I don’t understand.”

His tone hardened. “Now. Slowly lower the weapon to the floor.”

Shock and fear washed over her as she did as he instructed.

“Raise your hands in the air.”

She swallowed hard, then lifted her hands in surrender as he trained his gun on her. It was obvious that he thought she’d killed the man in the bed.

Only she had no idea what had happened.

LUKE DEVLIN’S phone trilled, the sound cutting into the silence of the night as if announcing trouble. He reached for it, one foot already sliding off the side of the bed, his mind playing the guessing game as to the nature of the call. A new case. An old one. Somebody else found dead. Something mysterious happening at Nighthawk Island. More bioengineering related to terrorism and chemical warfare. Their newest undercover plot—or maybe the feds with information on who had killed his partner J.T. Osborne last year and made it look like a suicide.

Or something about his wife’s disappearance.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he’d had at least an hour or two’s worth of sleep. But sleep eluded him these days. So he welcomed work to relieve the pain and restlessness. “Special Agent Devlin.”

“Devlin, this is Lieutenant Rawlins of the Savannah Police Department.”

“Yes?”

“I just got a call from one of my officers, Detective Black. They found your wife.”

His heart thundered in his chest. Stella had been found. Alive?

Time vaulted to a standstill. For the past year, he’d searched endlessly. Even as a suspect himself, he’d pushed the cops and feds for the truth. They thought he’d crossed the line on this one.

But Luke Devlin never crossed the line. Not for anyone. Just as he didn’t believe that J.T. had been corrupt, either.

Eventually clues had turned up that made them believe Stella had left of her own accord. That she was alive and well, moving from one place to another. That she didn’t want to be reunited with him or to be found. But her disappearance had stamped a black mark on his career. Too many questions left unanswered. Too much doubt and suspicion for anyone to completely trust him.

Especially after all the trouble with J.T.

Although the police had officially deemed his partner’s death a suicide, and had called off the search for Stella, Luke hadn’t given up.

He had to solve the mystery around J.T.’s death. He’d been undercover at CIRP, getting close to finding out their latest experiments when he’d died. Luke needed to know what had happened to his wife on their honeymoon.

“Devlin?”

Luke cleared his throat, collecting himself. “Where is she?”

“Sunset Motel.”

“What?” His hand tightened around the phone. Was this some kind of joke? “What’s going on?”

“You can meet Detective Adam Black when you get there,” Lieutenant Rawlins said.

The officer started to hang up, but Luke needed more information. “Wait. Just tell me—is she … alive?”

A long hesitation stretched over the line, riddled with tension. Heat from the open window brushed his neck, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

“Yes, but, Devlin, there’s something else you need to know.” Rawlins paused, the scent of death and fear filled Luke again.

“What?”

“She’s going to be charged with murder.”

The breath whooshed from Luke’s chest. Moving on instincts so natural, he didn’t contemplate his actions, he closed the phone, yanked on his jeans, grabbed a shirt and jogged to his car. His mind raced while he cut through the streets of Savannah. Though it was midnight, tourists crowded the streets, Saturday night partiers in full swing. Booze and music floated through the humid summer air from River Street, a cruise ship had docked in town creating more chaos in the summer atmosphere. The roar of a siren in the distance reminded him that crimes had been at an all-time-high for the area, the closing of the bizarre suicide cases a while back having added more hype to the mysterious happenings at Nighthawk Island.

Questions rattled through his head, the same ones that had haunted him the past year. Where had Stella been all this time? Why had she left him on their wedding night? Had their marriage been some kind of scam? Had she been ill and decided not to burden him? Had she decided that she couldn’t stay married to him, that he was some kind of cold, FBI agent who didn’t know how to treat a wife? Or had she been in some kind of trouble, something she was afraid to confess to him?

But if she’d left of her own free will, why had there been blood on her wedding dress? That one element had bothered him, kept him searching for her, kept him awake each night with disturbing dreams and images.

And if she had been in trouble, why hadn’t she attempted to contact him sometime during the last year?

He maneuvered around traffic and a handful of pedestrians leaving a blues bar, then sped onto the road leading to the motel, leaving the historic side of Savannah with its town squares, haunted cemeteries and classy bed-and-breakfasts behind. He continued on, threading his way to the outskirts, to a rinky-dink motel that catered to low-rent patrons and truckers, ones who didn’t mind bug-infested rooms and two-bit hookers.

What was Stella doing at a place of this caliber? And why had Rawlins said they were going to arrest her for murder? Had she been held captive? Had she become involved with another man and gotten in over her head?

He approached the motel room with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Finally he’d glean some answers. Learn the truth. Get closure.

Look into her eyes and know why she’d put him through hell the last year. Why she hadn’t loved him enough to stay around.

The blue lights of the Savannah police car swirled through the darkness, the neon lights of the Sunset Motel blinking as he parked. One letter was missing in the word Sunset so it read the Sunet, and the building was so dilapidated it should have been condemned. A smattering of rattletrap cars filled the lot, a group of spectators already hovered in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and mumbling, obviously aware their peaceful night had been interrupted by crime.

He barreled his sedan into a parking spot, killed the engine, then grabbed his badge and flashed it at the locals working to secure the scene.

“Special Agent Devlin.”

The squatty officer at the bottom of the steps spoke first. “Detective Black said you’d be here.”

Luke nodded, grimacing. The man obviously knew about his past. As Luke climbed the steps to the second floor, he dodged a reporter and cameraman. The motel rooms were lined up, each with its own outdoor access to the balcony. The doors were painted an avocado-green that had faded to a pea-green color from the blistering sun and relentless summer heat.

Seconds later, he stopped at the doorway, his gaze skimming past the security guard talking to one of the local cops. Through the open doorway, he cataloged details of the scene.

Blood was splattered everywhere, soaking the sheets and dotting the stained gray carpet. The foul odors of death hit him. The mumblings of policemen at work. A crime scene crew that had just arrived.

He saw Detective Black inside, then his gaze landed on Stella, and his heart literally seemed to stop beating.

She sat stone-stiff in one of the motel chairs, her hands knotted, her normally olive complexion a pasty-white, while Black questioned her. Luke hadn’t imagined the gut-wrenching reality of seeing her alive, in the flesh.

The hair that had been buttery-blond was now jet-black, not short and layered as when he’d known her, but a long tangle of ebony waves that sent a bolt of surprise through him. Surprise and sexual desire. He had wanted Stella the first moment he’d met her. The moment he’d looked into her pale green eyes.

She’d been leaning against a bar wearing a red dress that hugged her curves and a pair of rhinestone earrings that had dangled down to her shoulders. Although surrounded by gaping men, she’d appeared disinterested. Instead she’d looked lost and lonely.

After the death of his partner and the questions surrounding J.T.’s final days, Luke had been vulnerable himself. He’d always admired the way Osborne had juggled his career and a wife, and for the first time in his life, Luke had wanted the same.

In an uncharacteristic move, he’d bought Stella a drink. Three vodka martinis later, and they’d crawled into bed for some of the steamiest sex in his life. Stella had completely poleaxed him with her odd mixture of shy vulnerability and her bold lack of inhibitions about her body.

A month later, they’d eloped and that blissful month of premarriage heaven had turned into the year from hell.

He cleared this throat, struggled for calm and entered the room. An eerie quiet descended as if the black cloud that had been following him had swallowed the light. Two officers parted, their stares burning his back as he walked toward her. They knew who he was. Knew this was his wife.

When he stopped, only a breath away from her, he expected recognition. He waited, bracing himself, tamping down his anger.

She looked up, and he stared into her light green eyes, was caught anew by the sensuality and sweetness he’d once seen there. A bruise darkened her cheek, though, and a cold look of horror filled those crystalline eyes, as well as a dead emptiness that shook him to the core.

Yes, it was Stella.

But not the Stella he remembered.

She didn’t speak, jump up and greet him, or offer an explanation. Didn’t acknowledge that she was his wife. Didn’t move to touch him, to hold him or beg him for forgiveness.

He had to clear his throat twice to make it work. “Stella?”

He waited, his lungs tight.

“Yes.” An odd, almost distant look glazed her expression, then her voice came out in a low whisper. “Who are you?”

STELLA’S HEAD was swimming. First from waking up to find the dead man beside her, her hands coated in blood. Then the security guard and police with their questions and accusing eyes.

And now this stranger…was staring at her, calling her name, looking at her as if he’d seen a ghost.

As if she should know him.

“Come on, Stella,” he said in a harsh voice. “It may have been over a year since we were together, but don’t pretend you don’t recognize me.”

“I…” She gripped her hands in her lap, shuddering at the blood on her fingers. The sticky dark substance had seeped beneath her fingernails, soaked into her skin, settled in the fine lines on her palms. The smell suffocated her, the feel of the dried blood caking her hands nauseating her.

She desperately wanted to shower and rid her body of the stench of the dead man, but the detective beside her had already informed her bathing was impossible. They had to collect evidence. Fingerprints, DNA. Protect the crime scene.

So they could nail her for the murder.