The Amulet

“Is this the original?”

“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper. His face was so close. She couldn’t fight this. The attraction was too unexpected and far too overpowering. “It was found and returned to us.”

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

And then he kissed her. The world began to spin as if she were on a mad carousel. She kissed him back, over and over until every part of her was lost in the passion and need.

A siren sounded in the distance. He pulled away. “I have to go. Tomorrow night in the ballroom. Same time?”

She nodded. His hand trailed her arm one last time, as if he hated to leave her.

She wanted to see him tomorrow night, and the night after, and every night for as long as she could.

But how long would he stay around once he knew the truth about her?

The Amulet

Joanna Wayne

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joanna Wayne lives with her husband just a few miles from steamy, exciting New Orleans, but her home is in the perfect writer’s hideaway. A lazy bayou, complete with graceful herons, colorful wood ducks and an occasional alligator, winds just below her back garden. When not creating tales of spine-tingling suspense and heart-warming romance, she enjoys reading, traveling, playing golf and spending time with family and friends.

Joanna believes that one of the special joys of writing is knowing that her stories have brought enjoyment to or somehow touched the lives of her readers. You can write Joanna at P.O. Box 2851, Harvey, LA 70059-2851.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Katrina O’Malley—She has one thing on her mind until she meets the handsome detective who teaches her what love is all about.

Deputy Bart Finnegan—He’s no longer officially on the murder case, but he’s got too much at stake to give it up.

Deputy Carrie Fransen—After her partner gets shot, she’s spooked over the ghostly happenings that no one can explain.

Deputy Dick McFarland—He’s your typical, arrogant, controlling deputy—and Carrie’s new partner.

Maisie Henderson—She runs a small café and knows a lot about everybody.

Tom Henderson—What he’s seen in the mountains may have blown his mind forever.

Owen Billings—He’s very protective of his troubled wife.

Selma Billings—She’s depressed over her miscarriage—and suspected of having a ghostly experience of her own.

Jeff Matthews—He’s a travel photographer whose pictures tell a frightening story.

Harlan Grant—He’s done time for a sex-related crime, but is he guilty now?

Marjorie Lipscomb—A renowned psychologist who had an eerie and mysterious experience while staying at the Fernhaven Hotel.

Elora Nicholas—The victim who was raped and killed the night Bart Finnegan was shot.

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

Visibility was next to zero in the thick fog, and the roads were wet and icy from the light sleet that had started falling about ten minutes earlier. It was the kind of night a man should be sitting in front of the fire, cuddled up with some sweet young thing and sipping wine. It was not a night for driving deadly mountain roads.

The going was slow, and the steep, winding road seemed to go on forever before Bart Finnegan finally caught a glimpse of the lights from the Fernhaven Hotel. The place seemed to erupt from the mountain and soar to the sky. And somewhere inside the vast, castlelike structure, a man was looking for his wife and afraid she’d met with foul play.

Hotel security had taken him seriously enough they’d called the sheriff’s department. Bart had heard the call when it came through and volunteered to investigate even though he was already off duty.

He made the sharp curve to the right. The impressive hotel was in full sight now. Shrouded in the mist, it looked like something straight from a horror novel. He lost sight of the hotel again as he wound through the expansive grounds.

He knew there were secluded guest cabins out there somewhere, but he couldn’t see them in the dark. He rounded another sharp curve and something moved into the beam of his headlights before disappearing. Probably an animal of some kind, but instinctively, his hands tightened on the wheel and he pulled to the shoulder.

He didn’t see anything in the glow of the flashing red and blue lights, so he lowered his window and aimed his high-powered flashlight into the wooded area. No sign of movement, but still he climbed out of the car for a better look. And that’s when he spotted what looked to be two people darting from one tree to another.

Adrenaline hit and he reached back in the car to grab the loud speaker as he palmed his weapon.

“Police. Identify yourself and your business on the property.”

The response was a bullet that ricocheted off the front fender of his squad car. Damn. He had a nut on his hands. Bart aimed his gun, but didn’t fire. A reckless shot wouldn’t do anything but antagonize the shooter, and if the second figure happened to be the missing woman, it might put her in more danger.

Taking cover behind the car, he scanned the area with the flashlight once again. When he didn’t see movement, he turned it off, knowing it would make him a target when he moved from behind the vehicle.

He took off in the direction the figures had disappeared, using the light from the police flashers to guide him. The land was rocky, wet and icy in spots, making maneuvering difficult. He traveled a few yards, then leaned against a tree and listened for a rustle of grass, the dry crushing of leaves beneath a boot, the sound of breathing, anything. And then as if she knew he was seeking a sign, the woman screamed.

Bart moved toward the sound, though he’d reached the outer edges of the flashers’ illumination and was moving in almost total darkness. He didn’t know this particular area, but he knew the dangers of the Cascades. They were riddled with drop-offs. One wrong step and a man—or woman—could wind up at the bottom of a cliff with a crushed skull.

Bart stopped again, took a deep breath and made a quick decision, hopefully the right one.

“We have you surrounded,” he called from his spot behind the thick, protective trunk of a towering tree. “Give the woman up before the shooting starts and this will go a lot easier on you.”

There was no answer, but Bart heard noises coming from his right. From the sound, he’d guess the man was dragging the victim along. The decline grew steeper, making footing even more treacherous on the icy ground. His foot slipped on a rock, and he had to grab a low-hanging branch to keep from falling. The branch snapped and crashed to the ground, telegraphing his position.

He darted for cover as the sound of gunfire cracked through the cold air. The bullet dug into his flesh. The pain was intense, ripping through his stomach like the blade of a hunting knife. He fell over, tasted dirt and blood and felt his insides rattle against his backbone.

And then he felt nothing at all.

Chapter One

One month later

Bart Finnegan stood at the window and looked down on the lush foliage that bordered the west lawn of Fernhaven Hotel. The evergreens were dusted with white as was the grass. They’d had heavy snows up higher in the mountains, but all they’d gotten at this altitude was a few flakes.

He’d have preferred a real snow. The dusting reminded him of the powdered sugar his stepmother used to put on cakes in lieu of icing. Cakes without icing were like peanut butter sandwiches without jelly. She’d put those in his lunch tin on several occasions as well.

Odd to be thinking about that now. He hadn’t seen the woman or his father in years. Once he’d joined the Marines at eighteen, he’d pretty much put them and his past life behind him. It had been easier than he’d expected. Enemy bullets had been less scathing than his father’s constant criticism and his stepmother’s nagging.

A young couple rode by on the bike path that bordered one of the several creeks that ran through the property. They were dressed for the activity, in matching red and navy jogging suits and navy ski caps. Her long dark hair flowed behind her, even though she didn’t seem to be pedaling all that fast. The man kept turning his head around as if to make sure she was still behind him.

They were the first people Bart had seen since he’d taken this room in the west wing. Actually, the wing wasn’t even open yet, which was why the room was available. The rest of the hotel was sold out. If you build it, they will come.

The familiar phrase played in Bart’s mind. He’d never have believed that the statement would have been true of a hotel built in a secluded part of the Cascade mountains. But, apparently, the rich and famous could be drawn anywhere that they believed was the in place of the winter season, even if a female guest had been raped and murdered only a month earlier.

But then thanks to the press, most people believed she’d been killed by her husband. They were wrong.

Bart was not one of the rich and famous drawn to the hotel to see and be seen. That’s why the room in the unfinished wing fit him to perfection. The price was right, and the other hotel guests wouldn’t even know he was around unless he chose to mingle with them.

Neither would the sheriff’s department. As far as they were concerned, the gunshot wound had left him out of commission and there was no way they would ever have okayed his searching for the perp.

So he’d slip in and out of his isolated room and investigate on his own, roam the halls, listen in on conversations, nose around where he had no business. The old rules didn’t apply anymore. What the sheriff’s department didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

CARRIE FRANSEN stared at Sheriff Huey Powell, trying desperately to hold her temper, a skill she’d never been good at. “Why Rich McFarland?”

“You can’t work homicide without a partner. It’s a department rule.”

“I’ve heard you say more than once that rules are made to be broken.”

“Not this one.” He raked his fingers through his thin gray hair. “I know how close you were to Bart. That’s why I left you alone for this long, but it’s time to move on. You have to take a partner on this case.”

“Then give me Kirk.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Can’t do that, not after what I received in the mail today.” He took a clear plastic bag from the top of his desk and handed it to her. “I’m sending it out for a fingerprint check, but you can see it for yourself.”

Stop me before I kill again.

There was no signature, but the logo of Fernhaven Hotel was taped to the bottom of the note. The logo looked as if it had been torn from one of the cocktail napkins they used in the lounge.

“It could be a hoax,” she said.

“Could be, and I hope it is,” Powell agreed. “But we can’t ignore it. That’s why I need Rich on this case. Other than me, Rich’s got more years in law experience than anyone else in the department. Not only that, but he worked homicide in Seattle for ten years. We need that expertise on this case.”

“It’s taken weeks to get the people in the area to open up to me. If Rich goes in there with his tough guy, big-city cop routine, they’ll crawl back into their reclusive hideaways and refuse to give us the time of day.”

“You have more than the natives to deal with. You have the hotel staff and the guests that were there that weekend. As far as I know you haven’t ruled out anyone yet.”

“Not officially.”

“Unofficially?”

“Not unofficially, either,” she admitted.

“Then we’re wasting our time here. You’re working with Rich on this case. I’ll let him know this afternoon. Fill him in on what you have and take him up to the hotel and introduce him around.”

So that was it. A new partner—whether she liked it or not. And it would have to be the one guy in the department she’d cross the street in the rain just to avoid having to speak to him. The guy was just too arrogant for words.

Bart would laugh his head off if he were standing here right now. Only if he were here, none of this would be happening.

Sheriff Powell stood and stepped from behind his desk. He put a hand on her back between her shoulder blades. Not a hug. Not a clap like he would have given one of the other deputies. She was his only female deputy, and she was pretty sure the gender difference made him uncomfortable.

She didn’t get it, but the sheriff was pushing seventy, and he saw a lot of things differently than she did.

She could hold her own, and she’d put her shooting skills against Rich McFarland’s any day of the week. Bart had made sure of that. He’d gone with her to the shooting range several times a month, insisted that when it was crunch time, it was cop instinct and shooting accuracy that made the difference between life and death.

And sometimes even that wasn’t enough.

THE NIGHT SPARKLED with tiny white lights that winked and blinked from the tall, stately spruce trees that dotted the grounds in front of the hotel, all part of the Christmas decor.

“Pretty impressive,” Rich said. He slowed before they reached the circular drive where a crew of bellmen waited.

“Is this your first time to the hotel?” Carrie asked.

“I’ve been up here a couple of times since they finished it, but always in the daytime. The place looks different at night.”

“Is that why you wanted to wait until dark to drive up here?”

“Partly. I also had some other business to take care of this afternoon.”

He didn’t explain what else he had to do, and she didn’t ask.

“Hard to believe that a year ago, there was nothing here but woods and a few bricks from the fireplaces of a hotel that burned to the ground over seventy years ago,” she said, once again marveling at the grandeur of the hotel.

Rich nodded. “Harder to believe someone built a hotel in the exact same spot. Obviously they weren’t superstitious, which means they were probably not from around here.”

“No, but the woman who rebuilt it was a descendant of the original builder. She meant it as a monument to her ancestor and the past. That’s why she built almost an exact replica.”

“Kind of like the Titanic Two,” Rich said. “But from the looks of that parking lot it must not matter.”

He slowed as he reached the circular drive.

“I guess we should introduce you to the night security supervisor before we do anything else,” Carrie said.

“I’d like to see the spot where they found the woman’s body,” Rich said, making a U-turn and heading back the way they’d come.

“Tonight?”

“Seems as good a time as any.”

She tried to count to ten silently, but only made it to eight. “They found the body at the bottom of a ravine.”

“So?”

“It’s pitch-dark out there.”

“You scared of the dark, Fransen?”

“Of course not. I just don’t see the point in roaming the woods at night when I’ve thoroughly examined the scene in the daylight and documented all my findings. You have read the reports, haven’t you?”

“I read them, but I like to see things for myself.”

“You can’t see a lot in the dark.”

“I’ll see what the perp saw that night. And what the woman saw before she was raped, branded and murdered.”

“It’s not safe to hike that area in the dark.”

“Must be why they made flashlights.”

Smart-ass, she mouthed, her gaze straight ahead.

“You know if I didn’t know better, Fransen, I’d think those ghost tales had gotten to you and that you’re afraid to go into the woods at night.”

“Nice you know better.” But the comment got her attention. “I haven’t heard any ghost tales.”

“Then you must not be talking to the right people. The locals up here claim this area of the Cascades is inhabited by the undead.”

“The undead?”

“That’s what they say.”

“And exactly what are the undead?”

“You’ll have ask someone who believes that bull for the definitive answer, but according to Maizie Henderson they are referring to people who are no longer living, but not gone from this dimension.”

She didn’t know a Maizie Henderson. “I’ve talked to a number of locals during the course of the investigation. No one mentioned ghosts to me.”

“They’re not big on talking about their superstitions, especially to outsiders.”

“And just how would you know that, Mr. Seattle cop?”

“My grandparents lived just a few miles from here up until my parents moved them to an assisted living facility in Seattle a few months ago. My grandfather was big into mountain lore.”

Great. Now Rich was not only the authority on homicide, he was also the authority on the locals. She wasn’t sure why that irritated her so, but it did.

He slowed to a crawl. “Aren’t we near the spot where Bart stopped that night?”

“Just around the next curve.”

He took the curve, then pulled off the road and killed the engine and the headlights. A blast of cold air hit her in the face when he opened his door. She grabbed her parka from the back seat, and pulled it on as she stepped out of the car. An owl hooted somewhere above her and something rustled the grass a few feet away.

“Ready to hike?” Rich asked, cutting away a wide swath of black with the bright beam of his flashlight.

All of a sudden she had the bizarre but almost overwhelming feeling that someone was watching them. But it couldn’t be. She and Rich were the only living souls around. “I’m ready,” she lied.

He handed her a flashlight. “Want to lead the way?”

“Sure.” Lead the way right past the spot where Bart had been shot. Right to the ravine where Elora Nicholas’s body had been found, her stomach branded with some weird design. She breathed in a huge gulp of cold night air and started walking. She would not be spooked by the dark or ghost tales. Or by the icy tingles climbing her spine.

IT WAS ten past nine when Bart took the service elevator to the first floor, then followed the strains of a waltz to the Glacier Ballroom. According to information in the hotel lobby, the ballroom was the site of fabulous Christmas balls held every Saturday night in December. The soirees were acclaimed as a not-to-be-missed activity, and Bart had no intention of missing this one.

Not that he was into balls, but it was an excellent opportunity to check out the guests, at least sixteen of whom also had been guests the night the woman had been abducted, and he’d been shot. Apparently, people couldn’t get enough of this place. Considering the prices they charged, he found that pretty amazing.

But then the hotel did have an ambiance he hadn’t expected. Elegant, yet the staff was warm and friendly. Breathtaking scenery, rugged yet serene. Remote, but there was a shuttle that made a run a few times a day to the ski trails an hour northwest of here.

He adjusted the jacket of the black suit he’d “borrowed” from the servant supply closet on the first floor. The fit wasn’t great, but it would do for a waiter. For the most part he hoped to go unnoticed amid the party crowd. He was here to observe and overhear, not to be seen.

The ballroom was already crowded when he followed a middle-aged couple through the open double doors. Men in black tuxes and women in elegant dresses that swept the polished wood floor filled the dance floor and sat at white-clothed tables listening to the music and sipping champagne.

Huge crystal chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling, and everywhere he looked there were huge bouquets of flowers and tables of food accented with delicately carved ice statues. It was a far cry from his usual Saturday night burger and a couple of beers at Jake’s Bar and Grill.

The band started a new number, this time a tune he recognized, though he didn’t know the name of it. A woman walked past him, close enough that the silky fabric of her gown brushed his fingers and the fragrance of her perfume crawled inside him and evoked a memory he’d thought was dead and buried.

It got to him a lot more than it should have. He took a few steps backward, then stopped, mesmerized by a woman across the room.

Her hair was the color of molten gold, though the strands that caught the glow of the chandeliers took on a reddish tint. It was piled high on top of her head, with curly tendrils falling about her cheeks and forehead.

Her dress was emerald-green, cut low enough to show cleavage. It fit tightly around her tiny waist, then swirled into yards of satin that didn’t stop until they reached the floor. But the jewel of the outfit hung from a silver chain around her neck, a huge emerald surrounded by pale yellow diamonds. He’d never seen anything so spectacular in all his life.

He looked around, half-expecting the rest of the people to be staring at her the way he was. They weren’t. They were dancing, filling crystal flutes with the champagne that bubbled from a fountain or snaring delicacies from the trays of waiters who meandered the ballroom.

Only he seemed to be enchanted by the woman, and not just by her physical appearance and the pendant. She had an ethereal quality about her that made it seem as if she were more dream than reality.

He started toward her. A middle-aged woman in red bumped into him. Her champagne spilled and dripped onto his slacks and the toe of his shoes. He bent to brush it off. When he looked up again the woman in the emerald gown had disappeared.

He hurried across the room, searching the crowds for a glimpse of her. When he didn’t find her, he pushed through the double doors that led to the garden. Still no sign of her.

Yet somehow he knew he’d see her again.

Chapter Two

The cold sneaked into Carrie’s lungs as she and Rich tramped the near frozen ground. The mountains had a whole different feel at night. Eerie shapes coalesced in the mist, and crept across the rugged terrain at the far edges of their flashlight beams like translucent shadows.

The decline grew sharper, and she had to grab on to the trunks of spindly trees or to low-hanging branches to keep her balance as her boots crashed through the layers of leaves, twigs and exposed roots.

“I still can’t imagine why the man dragged Elora all the way out here to kill her,” Carrie said.

“Maybe he wasn’t planning on killing her. He may have been taking her somewhere, then panicked when he crossed paths with Bart.”

“Taking her where?”

“Maybe a mountain hideaway or an old cave. It might have been a kidnapping that turned deadly.”

Could have been, but she hadn’t uncovered any evidence to indicate that was the case. “The body was found over there,” she said, aiming the beam of her flashlight at the ravine just past a downed tree. There were still remnants of the yellow crime scene tape. The rest had been blown away.