Primary Suspect

The girl’s hair was long and clung close to her head, as if she had just stepped from a shower. She waved.

Kylie lifted a hand and waved back, wondering what the girl was doing alone in the dark, drafty upper halls of the resort.

“Who are you waving at?” Michael asked.

“That girl, on the top floor.” She pointed to the spot.

Michael glanced upward. “There’s no one there, Kylie. You must have seen a shadow.”

She looked up again, her eyes sweeping the length of the top floor. The windows were all empty, the small face pressed to the window moments ago, gone.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled and uneasiness rushed through her. Had she imagined the face?

“I could have sworn there was someone up there.”

“Not possible. We keep the top two floors closed off during the winter months.”

Kylie shivered. Perhaps returning to Cloudspin had been a mistake.

Primary Suspect

Susan Peterson

MILLS & BOON

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For Emmitt & Odin

May you find life as sweet and joyful

as you are to your loving parents.

Have a wonderful life, little guys.

A special thanks to Ann Drobnik for

taking the great pictures of the East Village.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A devoted Star Trek fan, Susan Peterson wrote her first science-fiction novel at the age of thirteen. But unlike other Star Trek fan writers, in Susan’s novel, she made sure that Mr. Spock fell in love. Unfortunately, what she didn’t take into consideration was the fact that falling in love and pursuing a life of total logic didn’t exactly go hand in hand. In any case, it was then that she realized that she was a hopeless romantic—a person who needed the happily ever after ending. But it wasn’t until later in life, after pursuing careers in intensive-care nursing and school psychology that Susan finally found the time to pursue a career in writing. An ardent fan of psychological thrillers and suspense, Susan combined her love of romance and suspense into several manuscripts targeted to the Harlequin Intrigue line. Getting the go-ahead to write for this line was a dream come true for her.

Susan lives in a small town in northern New York with her son, Kevin, her nutball dog, Ozzie, Phoenix the cat and Lex the six-toed menace (a new kitten). Susan loves to hear from readers. E-mail her at SusanPetersonHI@aol.com or visit her Web site at www.susanpeterson.net.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Kylie McKee—All she wanted was to return to Cloudspin Lodge, pack her deceased father’s belongings and leave. But something—or someone—is determined to see that she stays. Perhaps permanently.

Michael T. Emerson—The prime suspect in a string of bizarre murders, Michael retreats to his favorite vacation spot and childhood haunt, Cloudspin Lodge. But the murders seem destined to follow him there, making him question his own sanity and the possibility that he is the killer.

Detective John Denner—A seasoned New York City detective, he’s determined to find the evidence to put Michael Emerson away for life.

Nikki Greenley—Cool, sophisticated and self-assured, Nikki isn’t shy about going after what she wants, and she wants Michael Emerson. If that means following him up to the remote lodge buried in the mountains, then so be it.

Gracie Greenley—Shy, withdrawn and reeling from the effects of a difficult childhood filled with guilt and shame, Gracie reluctantly returns to Cloudspin Lodge with her sister, Nikki.

Craig Templer—Pompous manager of Cloudspin Lodge, he isn’t happy with the invasion of unexpected guests during the lodge’s off-season, especially since Michael Emerson ultimately has plans to fire him.

Andrea Greenley—Ghost child. The victim of a tragic accident eleven years ago, Andrea haunts the grounds of the old Adirondack lodge.

Steven Howe, Reggie Dumont, Heather Barlowe and Leslie McMasters—Nikki Greenley’s faithful posse and fellow party revelers. They’ll follow her wherever she goes…even if it’s back to the place where all their lives changed.

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

Fog rolled in off the Hudson River, cloaking the darkened streets with a thick, choking mist of white. The limo turned onto Barrow Street and the tires hissed on the slick pavement.

Michael Emerson stared out the window, noting that the quaint buildings lining his street seemed to waver, appearing and disappearing within the grayish mist. It was an eerie effect, almost haunting.

He glanced away from the tinted windows and rested his head back against the soft leather seat. He tried to ignore the dull ache that pounded directly behind his eyes.

Heat poured through the vents, but the warmth seemed incapable of killing the chilling dampness that flooded the interior of the car.

Michael massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers, a futile attempt to relieve the pressure. But the pain and pressure remained, the intensity increasing with each passing minute.

The headache had started during cocktails and continued on through dinner. The crush of the crowd and the overly loud music at the benefit dinner hadn’t helped matters. At one point, he had excused himself from the head table and gone to the men’s room. He hadn’t wanted to take anything, willing himself to withstand the pressure. A punishment of sorts, a condemnation of his carelessness. There was no getting around the feeling that the fall while rock climbing had been a stupid mistake.

Disgusted, he shook his head. World-class climber and he’d fallen on a simple rock face he’d climbed a million times before without incident. A disastrous climb that had resulted in the death of one of his good friends. Served him right that he suffered from headaches.

But recriminations were useless and he had realized that during dinner. In the end, he had relented, downing two painkillers his physician had given him after the accident, acutely aware that he had a speech to deliver.

Unfortunately the medication had produced no noticeable change, and he had ended up losing time while in the men’s room.

Blank time. A yawning space of emptiness.

For how long, he wasn’t sure. Twenty minutes? A half hour? An hour? All he remembered was standing over the sink in the cold stark bathroom, fighting a sucking, clawing pit of pain that had seemed determined to pull him under.

When he finally returned to the table, he was relieved that no one commented on his absence. Mainly due to the fact that they were all feeling pretty good, well into their third or fourth bottle of wine.

So, he had sat down and picked up where he’d left off, thinking to himself that it was as if time had stood still for a brief second.

“Looks like trouble up ahead, sir,” his driver’s voice broke over the intercom, interrupting Michael’s thoughts.

He sat up and hit the switch lowering the tinted window between himself and Alex. Shifting forward, he peered out the windshield. Trouble indeed.

Halfway down the block, directly in front of his newly renovated town house, the harsh glow of police lights flashed in the thick fog. Several patrol cars, an ambulance and a black van were double-parked, and men in uniform flitted in and out of the thick shroud of fog blanketing the narrow street and sidewalk. Something was definitely up.

“Wonderful,” Michael muttered under his breath.

“Want me to just cruise by, sir? Take you on out to the house in the Hamptons?”

For a brief moment, Michael actually considered telling Alex to do exactly that—cruise by, take the bridge and head out to his place on the island. Ignore the whole damn thing. But as soon as the thought flashed into his brain, Michael knew that wasn’t the answer.

As weary as he was at the thought of suffering another go round with the NYPD, running was not the answer. He needed to deal with whatever waited for him a few feet away. Time to find out what had brought the police to his doorstep for a fourth time in less than six months.

The thought made the pain in his head shoot up another few notches.

“They know my license plate, Alex, and as enticing as your offer is, I’m going to have to talk to them sooner or later.” He slid across the seat to the door. “Just pull up.”

He reached for the door handle, prepared to climb out. Of late, he’d gotten pretty good at dealing with the police. They might not believe a word he said, but up to this point, he hadn’t been arrested for anything.

A part of him wondered why no arrest. With all that had occurred over the past six months, even he was starting to have doubts about his innocence.

Alex slid the limo up next to one of the double-parked patrol cars and stopped. He started to get out to come around and open the door for him, but Michael laid a hand on his shoulder. “Take the car and go on home. I’ll handle this.”

Alex turned and leaned an arm on the shelf between the front and the back of the limo. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you, sir?”

Michael shook his head. “No, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

He grabbed the door handle and climbed out, cringing as his foot hit a partially frozen puddle. The thin ice broke and frigid water sloshed over the sides of his shoes and dampened the hem of his pants. Great. One more thing to cap off a lousy evening.

The fog parted, allowing Michael to see the front of his house. Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off the area and a tight circle of uniformed cops milled around. When they spotted him, they parted, allowing him access to the front of his home. There was no missing the veil of ill-concealed anger in their eyes.

As he stepped up onto the curb, Michael stopped short. The ringing in his ears and the ache between his eyes increased to the point of almost blinding him

A woman hung nailed to his front door, a ski pole jammed through the upper left side of her chest, a bright red stain spreading across the front of her skintight, white lace dress. Adrenaline hit Michael’s bloodstream with a thundering rush.

Although her head hung forward, her luxurious chestnut-brown hair limp and her chin resting on her narrow chest, Michael had no difficulty recognizing her—Corinna Hamish, a former girlfriend.

There was no question that she was dead. The killer had shoved the pole up under her rib cage. The blood was dark and rich on the white lace.

In a daze, Michael moved closer. Anger ripped through his body, settling deep in the pit of his belly. How could this have happened again? How could another person he cared for been murdered and then left like a piece of discarded refuse on his doorstep?

He stared in disbelief, rage replacing confusion. This was the fourth victim in less than six months, and all the deaths were connected in some way to him. All the victims had been women he had known or dated. All women he’d cared about in some deeply personal way.

No wonder the police wouldn’t leave him alone. It was as if the killer was leaving behind these grisly messages just for him. Messages he didn’t understand or grasp no matter how hard he tried.

He stared at the metal spear stabbing her chest. He instinctively knew that the police would link the pole to him. Probably part of his skiing and climbing gear stored in the basement. As with the previous murders, the killer had set him up, implicated him in the crime.

He braced himself, preparing for the ordeal that he knew lay ahead. The three previous interrogations following the earlier murders had been grueling. The sight of Corinna’s body told Michael that he’d soon be dealing with the same thing all over again.

“Getting to be quite a habit, isn’t it, Emerson—” a deep edgy voice said from behind, “—you and I meeting over the murdered bodies of your ex-girlfriends.”

Michael turned, not in the least surprised to find NYPD Detective John Denner standing behind him. His big hands were shoved into the pocket of his ill fitting pants, a scowl of suspicion and disgust crowding his craggy, disagreeable face. The man made no attempt to hide his hatred of Michael.

“Are you going to take her down or leave her hanging there?” Michael demanded, surprised at how easily the anger slipped into his voice.

He sucked damp air. This was not the time to lose his cool. Denner wanted that. Wanted him off balance and vulnerable.

“She deserves more than to be left hanging like that,” he added in a softer voice.

Denner’s gaze shifted to Corinna’s body. “A few more pictures and they’ll take her down.” The detective smiled, but there was nothing warm or sympathetic in the stretch of his thin lips. “Mind telling me where you’ve been all evening?”

“I was at the Waldorf. A benefit dinner for St. Vincent’s. Since I was their main speaker, I have plenty of witnesses to my whereabouts.”

“I’ll just bet you do.”

Michael hated the fact that he had to account for his every move, but he also knew that Denner held firm to his belief that he was the prime suspect in all three—now four—murders.

“I can give you the names of several prominent people who can vouch for my whereabouts all evening,” he said. “You’re welcome to talk to all of them.”

“Oh, you can count on me doing just that. In fact, I plan on checking and rechecking each and every name. And when I’m finished, I’ll dig into where you’ve been every second for the last twenty-four hours.”

“The only time I was out of anyone’s sight was when I excused myself to go to the men’s room.” Michael shrugged. “For all I know someone might have seen me in there, too.”

He didn’t bother adding that he’d stayed in the men’s room for more than a few minutes, trying unsuccessfully to deal with the headache.

His neurologist had told him that the troublesome headaches would last for a while. Mainly because a serious concussion can do that to a person.

But the pain from the headaches wasn’t the only thing bothering Michael. Lately he’d become more concerned about the increasing blank periods, the blackouts.

But he didn’t mention those to Denner. Something told him that admitting he’d lost time would put him in an even more tenuous position with the police detective. Better to try to deal with the blank periods on his own.

“Perhaps you were gone long enough to slip out the back door and finish off Ms. Hamish,” Denner said.

“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you? It would make your job easier.”

“There’s nothing easy about pinning you down, Emerson. But I’ll find a way.”

“I didn’t kill Corinna.”

Denner snorted. “You don’t mind if we check that out for ourselves, right?”

Michael shrugged again, trying for a casualness he didn’t feel. “Do whatever you need to do. Nothing I say has had much impact on your obsession that I’m the one who killed these women.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to believe a guy who is intimately connected to all the murder victims but keeps insisting he’s as innocent as pure driven snow.”

Off to the side, the crime scene photographer moved to a position directly across from Michael, snapping off pictures in rapid succession. The flash of the camera renewed the pounding in Michael’s head. He glanced away, a part of him unable to comprehend the brutality of Corinna’s death.

He reached up and rubbed his temple, trying desperately to clear his head. He needed his wits about him right now. This was not the time for headaches or the ugly sensation of fogginess that seemed to cloud his brain. The mist swirled around them, wet and clinging.

Although he’d been able to provide an iron-clad alibi for each of the murders, he knew it frustrated the hell out of Denner and the other members of the special task force assigned to the case. They wanted him to confess. Wanted the case closed with him behind bars for life or a needle in his arm.

“When was the last time you talked with Ms. Hamish?”

“Two weeks ago. We had lunch at Kristoff’s.”

“And that’s when you gave her your typical kiss-off?”

“If you’re asking if we discussed the direction our relationship was going, then yes.”

“Not getting enough, huh, Emerson?”

Michael’s hands tightened into fists at the crudeness of the remark. But he didn’t bite. He’d gotten used to the detective’s technique, familiar with Denner’s tendency to try to push his buttons. No way did he plan on giving Denner the kind of ammunition he was fishing for.

“Corinna wanted more out of our relationship,” he said. “She was a classy woman who always put things on the table. She was honest about her desire to see things between us go to the next level. I told her that as much as I liked her—enjoyed her company—I didn’t see our relationship going any further.”

“So you took her out and finished her off because she wasn’t willing to accept your brush-off, right?”

“Actually we parted quite amicably. Corinna is—” he swallowed hard “—was a beautiful woman. She didn’t want for male companionship. She knew how to move on. I have no illusions that she saw me as the only fish in the ocean.”

Denner laughed, the sound harsh. Grating. He nodded in Corinna’s direction. “You call a sharpened ski pole shoved through her chest amicable?”

Michael fingers tightened into fists, but again he kept his voice reasonable. “Of course not. But that doesn’t prove I killed Corinna.”

“Funny how every woman you’ve ever had a relationship with seems to be turning up dead. You don’t find that unusual? Significant in some way?”

“As hard as this is for you to grasp, Denner, I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t kill Corinna or any of the other women.”

At least he was pretty sure he hadn’t. God, please let me be innocent.

“Where have I heard that pitiful claim before?” Denner snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah, that’s right, four weeks ago, following the unfortunate demise of Ms. Karen Pearson—another of your former companions.”

“You’ve already checked and rechecked my alibi for that night. You know there was no way I could have killed her.”

“Not how I see things. I just haven’t found out how you managed to slip out of your meeting without being missed.” Denner smiled again, a barracuda eyeing his prey. “But rest assured, I haven’t given up.”

“No big surprise there.”

Denner pulled out his notebook. “Give me the names of those prominent people who can vouch for your whereabouts this evening.”

Michael rattled off a list of names and watched as Denner carefully recorded them. If he had any friends left after the completion of this investigation, it would be a miracle. Neighbors and friends were beginning to look at him with an unmistakable glint of uneasiness in their eyes. Not that he could blame them. He was beginning to suffer from his own doubts.

The crime scene photographer moved off, but still no one came to remove the pole and take Corinna down. Michael’s stomach tightened into an unmanageable knot.

He couldn’t stand seeing her hang there one more minute, her designer dress fluttering gently in the night breeze, revealing her slender white thighs in the harsh glare of the streetlights. Someone needed to cover her up. Give her the dignity she deserved.

Denner seemed oblivious to the stagnant stench of death hanging between them. He stood slightly hunched over, his hooded eyes seeming to bore gaping holes into Michael’s. The man’s suspicion and hatred was blatant, unmistakable.

Finally, unable to take it any longer, Michael ran up the steps. Before Denner or anyone else could stop him, he grabbed the pole and yanked it out. The end had been sharpened to a lethal point, explaining how it had pierced Corinna’s slender frame with ease. He caught Corinna’s body as she fell.

Denner rushed forward. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Michael ignored him as he gently laid Corinna’s seemingly boneless body on the cold cement. He shrugged off his dinner jacket and laid it carefully over her face—a once classically beautiful face that had graced more than a few covers of high-end fashion magazines.

“It isn’t right to leave her hanging like that,” Michael said, squatting down to tuck the corner of his coat around Corinna’s slender shoulders. “She deserves better.”

“You should have thought about that before you nailed her to your front door. And quit messing with our crime scene or I’ll have one of my guys run you in just on principle.”

Michael sighed. There would be no convincing the police of his innocence. They had zeroed in on him like vultures on fresh meat. They’d work this angle until they found a way to pin the murders on him. Something told him their focus on him was so intense that there was a strong possibility they’d miss any clues to the killer’s true identity.

He blinked, momentarily blinded by a flash of light. He glanced up to see several reporters gathering behind the crime scene tape. Another group of vultures had caught the scent and arrived right on cue.

No doubt they’d gotten a good picture of him leaning over Corinna’s body. He knew that within a few hours photos of him would be splashed across the front page of all the local papers and on the early morning news.

He needed to think. To get away. Things were getting out of control. There had to be a reason for all these killings and he needed to figure out how he’d become the catalyst.

He straightened up and glanced at Denner. “Am I permitted inside?”

Denner paused and then nodded. “Sure. Just ignore the men dusting and tearing the place apart.”

No surprises there. They’d done the same thing after each murder, attempting to find something, anything, that would firmly implicate him in the murders.

As he reached for the doorknob, Denner followed close on his heels. Obviously the man wasn’t done with him yet.

His housekeeper, Hattie, met him at the door, her tiny hands clenched in front of her, an expression of concern cramping the lines of her bony face. “I’m sorry, sir. They have a warrant.”

Michael patted one of her thin shoulders. This was the fourth time they’d searched his house. He was almost getting used to the indignity of the police invasions, but from Hattie’s expression, he could tell she was more than a little unnerved.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he reassured her. “You did the right thing letting them in.”

“But they’ve torn everything apart again, sir.” Her frightened birdlike gaze darted nervously toward the body behind him and then back. “It took us days last time to get things back to normal.”

“Your boss should have thought of that before he went on his little murder spree,” Denner said.

Hattie’s face reddened, but before she spoke again, Michael guided her back into the front hall. “We’ll about it later, Hattie. Just let the police do their job. Things will be back to normal eventually.”