Lawful Engagement

His body blocked most of the light emanating from the porch behind him, so she stood in shadows. Nevertheless, he noticed the auburn shade of her hair, its soft red hue natural and sexy.

He’d note this characteristic in her profile as a witness. That was his only reason for noticing.

“Okay, I’ll come to the station so you can question me there.”

The lady was full of surprises. “Fine. Make it nine o’clock this morning.”

“Fine.”

“Meantime, I’ll send a tech out here to take your fingerprints for comparison with the crime scene, and then you can leave.”

She stared but said nothing, and he watched as she walked away. She turned once and glanced back at him, and then she was gone.

Mitch realized with surprise that the challenge of Cara Hamilton had whetted his appetite for more.

Right now, nine o’clock seemed very far away.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Temperatures are rising this month at Harlequin Intrigue! So whether our mesmerizing men of action are steaming up their love lives or packing heat in high-stakes situations, July’s lineup is guaranteed to sizzle!

Back by popular demand is the newest branch of our Confidential series. Meet the heroes of NEW ORLEANS CONFIDENTIAL—tough undercover operatives who will stop at nothing to rid the streets of a crime ring tied to the most dangerous movers and shakers in town. USA TODAY bestselling author Rebecca York launches the series with Undercover Encounter—a darkly sensual tale about a secret agent who uses every resource at his disposal to get his former flame out alive when she goes deep undercover in the sultry French Quarter.

The highly acclaimed Gayle Wilson returns to the lineup with Sight Unseen. In book three of PHOENIX BROTHERHOOD, it’s a race against time to prevent a powerful terrorist organization from unleashing unspeakable harm. Prepare to become entangled in Velvet Ropes by Patricia Rosemoor—book three in CLUB UNDERCOVER—when a clandestine investigation plunges a couple into danger….

Our sassy inline continuity SHOTGUN SALLYS ends with a bang! You won’t want to miss Lawful Engagement by Linda O. Johnston. In Cassie Miles’s newest Harlequin Intrigue title—Protecting the Innocent—a widow trapped in a labyrinth of evil brings out the Achilles’ heel in a duplicitous man of mystery.

Delores Fossen’s newest thriller is not to be missed. Veiled Intentions arouses searing desires when two bickering cops pose as doting fiancés in their pursuit of a deranged sniper!

Enjoy our explosive lineup this month!

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor, Harlequin Intrigue

Lawful Engagement

Linda O. Johnston

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda O. Johnston’s first published fiction appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Mystery Short Story of the Year. Now, several published short stories and novels later, Linda is recognized for her outstanding work in the romance genre.

A practicing attorney, Linda juggles her busy schedule between mornings of writing briefs, contracts and other legalese, and afternoons of creating memorable tales of the paranormal, time travel, mystery, contemporary and romantic suspense. Armed with an undergraduate degree in journalism with an advertising emphasis from Pennsylvania State University, Linda began her versatile writing career running a small newspaper, then working in advertising and public relations, later obtaining her JD degree from Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.

Linda belongs to Sisters in Crime and is actively involved with Romance Writers of America, participating in the Los Angeles, Orange County and Western Pennsylvania chapters. She lives near Universal Studios, Hollywood, with her husband, two sons and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Cara Hamilton—Certain that Mustang Valley’s recent rash of crimes are all related, the crusading reporter is just the writer to expose the connection.

Deputy Mitchell Steele—He’s determined to solve Mustang Valley’s latest murder—and to prove his father’s death two years earlier was not a suicide.

Nancy Wilks—Cara’s friend, the office administrator at Lambert & Church, was killed because of something she intended to show to the reporter. What was it…and where is it now?

Donald Church—Does this attorney know something he hasn’t disclosed?

Sheriff Ben Wilson—He became sheriff when Mitch’s father allegedly committed suicide. Is there a reason why he hates Mitch so much?

Deputy Hurley Zeller—A nasty man in uniform who wants to be sheriff.

Roger Rosales—As the local representative for Ranger Corporation, can he explain why the company’s name keeps popping up each time “murder” is mentioned in Mustang Valley?

Beauford Jennings—Cara’s boss, and owner of the Mustang Gazette.

Della Santoro—The community college professor is Cara’s friend and an expert on Shotgun Sally legends.

Kelly McGovern Lansing—This feisty Texan will do whatever it takes to seek justice.

Lindsey Wellington—She promises to help Cara find the truth behind Nancy’s death.

Shotgun Sally—The legendary frontierswoman influences the lives of Kelly, Lindsey and Cara in their quest for the truth!

Many, many thanks to the other Shotgun Sallys authors, Susan Kearney and Ann Voss Peterson, and of course to Allison Lyons, our editor.

Thanks, also, to Fred—for everything.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

Cara Hamilton’s heart beat a familiar, thunderous tattoo of anticipation deep inside her chest. She parked at the curb, slung her large purse over her shoulder and exited her small yellow Toyota.

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning. Though most residences along Caddo Street were dark, lights blazed in the first-floor apartment of the three-story converted Victorian in front of her. Cara’s friend Nancy Wilks, who lived there, had called half an hour ago. She hadn’t said much, only that she had something important to show Cara.

But Cara sensed that, whatever it was, it could be the key to the biggest story of her life.

That was why she felt the familiar rush of excitement. She was on the trail of something newsworthy. And this time it was something beyond newsworthy. Something that could blow the blasé citizens of Mustang Valley right out of their couch-potato seats. Make her career.

Only… As she stood outside her car and glanced around the sleeping neighborhood, a sudden, strange chill enveloped Cara. It was northeast Texas in midsummer. Humid and warm, even at night. Too hot to make her feel so cold.

As she shivered nonetheless, her skin prickled.

“It’s the news itch,” she whispered aloud, determined to shrug off her inexplicable uneasiness. “I’ve been stung by the tattle bug. Right, Sally?”

As if her idol, Shotgun Sally, the stuff of incredibly inspirational folklore, could respond. But as usual, the silly little device of talking to her, using her legendary language, lifted Cara’s spirits.

Not that she’d do so where anyone else could hear.

Cara flinched at the click of her car door closing. The night had been silent except for the crisp chirping of crickets, and their singing halted at the sound. Not even traffic noise from the highway, only a few miles away. And nothing at all from the direction of downtown Mustang Valley.

Cara’s own deep and uneven breathing broke the stillness. That and the light tap of her boot heels on the pavement.

The humidity hung heavy in the air, stifling Cara, moistening her bare arms, for she wore a short-sleeved blouse tucked into her long skirt that matched the soft buckskin-colored vest over it. Why didn’t the heavens just split into a thunderstorm and get it over with?

She winced as her footsteps grew louder when she walked up the three steps to the wooden porch. So what? She was expected.

There was no reason to hide her presence.

The outside light was on, but shadows gathered beyond the porch rails. Cara rang the doorbell for the first floor apartment, hearing the muffled chime from within. Beside this door was another, which led to the stairway to the upper floors.

Cara waited for a moment, listening. She heard nothing from inside. No reason to get impatient…but she was.

Her odd uneasiness began to loop knots inside her.

She rang the bell again.

Still nothing.

For the heck of it, she tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand, and she was able to push the door open. Maybe Nancy just figured Cara would enter when she arrived.

But why hadn’t she come to greet her?

Speaking of edgy nerves…hers had begun shrieking at her. Quiet! she insisted, to no avail.

Cara stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “Nancy?” Damn! Her voice shook. “It’s Cara,” she called more loudly. “I’m here.”

Nothing.

The entry was a tiny hallway, painted pale yellow. A small glass hanging fixture bathed it in soft light.

Cara had been here before. To the left was an open, arched doorway into the living room. Ahead was the way to the kitchen, bathroom and the apartment’s single bedroom.

“Nancy? Where are you?”

If Cara had felt unnerved before, now she trembled with tension. Tattle bug? Heck, she felt as if an army of ants marched formations along her spine.

“Nancy?” Cara called. She glanced into the living room. Though the lamps on either side of the floral print sofa were lit, the room was empty. She continued down the hall.

The farthest door on the right, the one to the bedroom, was ajar. “Nancy?” Cara’s voice rasped, and she cleared her throat. No reason to feel so weird. Nancy was probably in the bathroom with the door closed, the water running so she couldn’t hear Cara.

But neither could Cara hear water in the pipes.

She called out once more, “Nancy,” as she pushed the bedroom door open. And gasped.

Nancy was there. Wearing a pink top and blue jeans, she lay on her bed, facedown, her dark hair askew as her head hung over the side.

“What’s wrong?” Cara cried as she dashed over to her friend, who remained motionless.

Cara’s question was answered in less than a moment, when she turned Nancy over. Her eyes were closed—and there was an ugly, black-rimmed red hole in the middle of her forehead. And so much blood…

USING HER CELL PHONE, Cara had called 911. Help was, she supposed, on the way.

There would be no help for Nancy.

Cara’s head spun as she glanced sidelong at the poor, limp body that lay half off the bed, turned back just the way Cara had found her. Before calling, though, she had put two fingers at the side of Nancy’s neck. No pulse.

Nancy’s skin hadn’t been cold. This had only just happened.

No surprise. Nancy’s call had only been twenty minutes earlier. Cara had left her home nearly immediately, since Nancy had sounded…well, excited? Scared? Cara wasn’t sure now.

Had she guessed what was about to happen to her?

No, Cara thought as tears filled her eyes. I won’t fall apart.

After all, she wasn’t actually here. This hadn’t actually happened. Her intense, dedicated friend Nancy. Nancy, the office manager who’d so angrily spilled details of her employer’s disgrace to Cara off the record after the scandal broke, wasn’t actually dead.

Get real, she instructed her mind. No defense mechanisms for Cara Hamilton. She was a realist. Nerves of steel, despite her earlier folly. A gritty, down-to-earth investigative reporter ready to do whatever it took to get a story, go wherever that story might lead her.

Yeah, but none had ever led her directly to a murder victim before….

Get to work, Hamilton, she commanded herself. Someone could arrive at any moment.

“What was it, Nancy?” she whispered, forcing herself to draw closer to the bed again. “What did you want to show me?” It had been something important. Cara was convinced of it.

She shook so hard as she surveyed the area around Nancy’s body that she had to lean on the mattress to keep from falling.

Nancy’s sheets were white with pink flowers. She had a handmade quilt on her queen-size bed. Everything was bunched about her. Gently, Cara rifled through the bed clothes but found nothing to explain Nancy’s call.

It had to have something to do with the law firm where she had worked. Of course Lambert & Church was in the process of disbanding, after what had happened before.

A siren wailed in the distance. Coming here, Cara was sure. No more time to waste.

Quickly she scanned Nancy’s bedroom. It was tidy, as usual, nothing out of place—not even any of the books on her bookshelves. Nothing that didn’t belong there.

Cara ran down the hall into the bathroom. Into the kitchen. Into the living room. She looked through the mail on the end table near Nancy’s sofa. The newspapers on top of yet more filled bookshelves. Nothing unusual. Nothing to interest a reporter.

Nothing except Nancy’s body in the bedroom….

Oh, Lord! It dawned on Cara that the killer could still have been there when she arrived. Could still be there.

No, she’d have seen him. Or her. Been attacked, too…

Cut it out, Hamilton. She forced her mind back to what was important. What had Nancy called about?

Another disquieting thought struck Cara. What if the thing wasn’t here because whoever did that to Nancy had taken it?

What if whatever it was had been the reason Nancy had been killed?

Nancy had called Cara to show her.

Cara could be responsible for Nancy’s murder.

A loud knock sounded on the front door. “Yes,” she called as she hurried in that direction.

“Sheriff’s Department,” called a muffled male voice. “Someone here called for help.”

HIS STETSON IN HIS HAND, Deputy Sheriff Mitchell Steele followed the waif who had met him, wide-eyed, at the door. As she led him down the hall of the old, converted house, her walk was brisk, sure, and the swing of her hips caused her long skirt to sway about her legs. Her curly red hair just skimmed the collar of the white blouse extending from beneath her brown vest. Despite the heat, she wore attractive boots, and a large purse hung from her left shoulder.

She’d introduced herself quickly and glanced at the name badge on his uniform shirt before turning her back and telling him to follow. Cara Hamilton.

He knew that name.

He’d only gotten a whiff of her scent, something that reminded him of a mountain spring, fresh air…

She stopped outside an open door and looked at him again. Her full lower lip, pink without a hint of lipstick, trembled, and her hazel eyes remained huge. “Nancy’s in there.” Her softly Texan voice was husky but sure.

He glanced inside, took in the scene. He immediately went to the bed and checked the victim for any sign of life.

But the answer was more than clear when he turned her over. She had been shot by a small-caliber gun. No exit wound.

He was glad when, only a moment later, he heard voices and Cara Hamilton showed a couple of fire department EMTs into the room. They took charge of the victim, and he moved out of their way. But he was certain they could try to revive her from now until tomorrow’s sunset with no success.

A shame, he thought. The victim was a young woman. She didn’t deserve to die like that.

Sticking his hat under his arm, Mitch pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the station, quickly telling the dispatcher what he’d found and instructing her to send some deputies to secure the area and a team of forensics technicians, pronto. As he spoke, he scanned the room to determine whether the murder weapon was there and visible. He didn’t see it.

And then he looked down at the woman who stood beside him in the doorway. She watched the medics with an expression so fierce that she seemed to be willing them to save the victim’s life.

“Ms. Hamilton, I’ll need to ask you a few questions.”

Her stare, as she looked up, appeared startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there. Was she in shock? How could she not be?

But her expression immediately narrowed. “You’re going to catch the SOB who did this, aren’t you, Deputy?”

“Yes,” he replied in all sincerity. Her question implied that she hadn’t done it. Maybe she hadn’t. But until he knew more, he could not rule her out. “I’ll need a statement from you to get started.”

She led him down the hall. When she tried to direct him into the living room, he pointed instead toward the front door. “We’ll talk outside. There’ll be less chance of contaminating the crime scene.”

“Fine.”

They stood on the porch under its light and away from railings the suspect might have touched. Mitch had already scoped out the porch’s wood deck. Despite the humidity, the day had been dry, so there was little likelihood of finding muddy footprints. No, footprints were more likely to be discovered on the ground, but only if the perpetrator stepped off the paved walkway. Had he—she?—walked right up to the front door and been let in by the victim? Or would they find evidence of a break-in—a broken window, a jimmied door, a picked lock?

“So, Ms. Hamilton, I gather you know the victim.” He removed a small notebook from a pocket and began to make notes.

“I knew her, yes.” Her voice was sad despite her ironic tone. “Her name was Nancy Wilks. We’ve been friends for years.”

“Good friends?”

“Not extremely close, but…” Her voice trailed off. “I was here tonight because she called me. She said…she said she was feeling rotten because she had just lost her job, and she wanted me to come over to commiserate.”

Cara Hamilton was lying. Mitch did not need the intuition inherited as part of his half-Native-American ancestry to tell him that. He knew it as surely as if she’d proclaimed it in neon lights. He stopped writing and looked at her.

No matter how boldly her mouth lied, her body language didn’t. He observed her despondency, her sense of loss, written in the sorrow of her gaze as she met his eyes—without a hint of her verbal guile. She stood with her arms folded, as if hugging herself in comfort after her ordeal of finding the body.

For an insane instant, Mitch wondered what it would feel like to take the small but curvy woman into his arms to soothe her grief. He hardened his glare, but her expression remained sorrowfully innocent.

“Right,” he said. His job wasn’t to contradict her. Or to feel sympathy for her. But if he could catch her in a lie… “So you came over at—” He glanced at his watch. “What time did you get here?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she replied. “I can’t have been here more than twenty minutes, though. I…I found her the way you saw her.” Her voice broke.

“I see. So then what did you do?”

She described pretty much what he’d anticipated. She’d checked to see if her friend was alive, then called the emergency phone number and waited.

“And what did you do while you waited?”

“Do?” The question seemed to take her aback. “I didn’t do anything. I just…waited.”

“Mm-hmm,” Mitch said noncommittally. “And did you touch anything?”

“No.” Her response came too fast.

“If you did, you should mention it, in case your fingerprints are found someplace they shouldn’t be.”

“I know better than to disturb a crime scene,” she lashed back. But there was a defensiveness in her tone that told him that, once again, she was lying.

“I’m sure you do.” He regretted his sarcastic tone immediately.

She frowned for an instant, then, almost visibly tucked away her anguish. Her small chin raised, her hazel eyes intense, she asked, “So how will you start to investigate this murder, Deputy Steele?”

“Exactly the way I’m doing it, Ms. Hamilton. By securing the crime scene.” He nodded at the white Sheriff’s Department sedan that had just pulled up to the curb. A couple of deputies exited and headed toward them. “By having the scene checked for evidence,” Mitch continued. “And by asking questions.”

“I see. And how do you—”

“As I said, I’m asking questions.”

“Of course, but—”

He continued as if she had remained silent. “Not you, though I’m sure it’s hard for a reporter with your reputation to let someone else do the interrogating.”

She closed her mouth. The way she regarded him seemed speculative, but of course he knew who she was. He figured everyone in Mustang Valley, maybe in the whole of northeastern Texas, knew of investigative reporter Cara Hamilton and her incisive articles in the Mustang Gazette.

Why was she really here? To visit a friend, or to research a story? Maybe, but it was awfully late for either.

To commit murder?

He doubted that but couldn’t rule it out. He’d have the techs check her for gun residue, just in case.

The patrol deputies reached them—a couple of guys he’d worked with often. A couple of good ones, fortunately, who didn’t challenge his authority. The department was small enough that everyone took on a variety of duties. And small enough that Mitch knew which fellow officers hated his guts.

He quickly filled these guys in, and they headed off to start the log of who entered the crime scene and to cordon it off with yellow tape. Not a moment too soon. The neighbors had gotten wind that something was up and were trickling from nearby homes. A couple appeared in another doorway of the victim’s house—the upstairs tenants? They might be valuable witnesses. A deputy approached them.

Mitch turned back toward Cara Hamilton, only to see the twitch of her skirt as she headed once more through the door to Nancy’s apartment.

Damn. He hurried after her, grabbed her arm. “Stay out here,” he demanded.

She started, then looked from the fingertips that still vised her slender, warm upper arm, back to his face.

“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you again that this is a crime scene, Ms. Hamilton.”

“Of course not, and that’s exactly why I have to—”

“You have to stay here, out of the way.”

Some guys, Mitch figured, would melt into an ugly little puddle of ooze under the fiery glare she turned on him. He merely glared back.