THE CHRISTMAS TARGET

When new evidence surfaces that Harper Shelby’s niece is possibly alive, Harper doesn’t expect it to endanger her life. For her protection, she has to put her much-guarded trust in Logan Fitzgerald, the man who unknowingly led a killer to her doorstep. Hired to track Harper down, security and rescue expert Logan doesn’t like that he’s been used to find a woman who someone apparently wants dead. Now he won’t leave Harper’s side until he can guarantee her safety and untangle the truth from the lies regarding her sister’s and niece’s murders. The closer they get to finding answers, the more intent the killer becomes on making sure that there won’t be a family reunion—or happily-ever-after—for Harper this Christmas.

Mission: Rescue—No job is too dangerous for these fearless heroes

Finding Harper had put her in danger. He felt responsible for her. Whether Harper thought so or not.

“I’ve been found. Your mission is complete, Logan. I don’t know why I even agreed to let you stand guard tonight, but you did that, too. Now it’s over. The bad guy is gone. I’m safe. Don’t put yourself at any more risk on my account.”

She sounded tired, and he wondered what it must feel like to go from a peaceful and quiet existence to chaos and trouble.

“My job,” he responded, “is filled with risk. This is no different.”

“It is, because this isn’t your job anymore. You did what you were paid for,” she argued.

“We’re wasting time discussing it,” he said. “Every minute that we spend talking, the guy after you is a little closer to escaping.”

“If he’s injured, he’ll show up at a hospital. The police can arrest him there.”

“I’m not taking chances. That’s not how I work. I led the guy here. I’m going to make sure he’s caught.”

Dear Reader,

There are times when life is hard. We struggle, we worry, we fight to hold on to what we’ve striven so hard for, but the more we struggle, the harder it is to grasp. It is easy to stand in those moments, wondering where God is. It is easy to think that He has turned from us. Yet the Bible is clear—in the deepest darkness, He is there. In the hardest moments, He is there. He will never leave or forsake those who love Him, and in this promise, we can rest. Whatever your today, I pray that your tomorrow will be bright and filled with His presence.

I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com or visit me on Facebook or Twitter.

Blessings,

Aside from her faith and her family, there’s not much SHIRLEE MCCOY enjoys more than a good book! When she’s not teaching or chauffeuring her five kids, she can usually be found plotting her next Love Inspired Suspense story or wandering around the beautiful Inland Northwest in search of inspiration. Shirlee loves to hear from readers. If you have time, drop her a line at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com.

Deadly Christmas Secrets
Shirlee McCoy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Show me Your unfailing love in wonderful ways.

By Your mighty power You rescue those who

seek refuge from their enemies.

—Psalms 17:7

To my parents, Ed and Shirley Porter. Again. Because they are a beautiful example of what forever love means.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Tires on gravel.

The sound of a visitor.

An unexpected one, and that made Harper Shelby stop, her back still bent over the shovel, the deep red clay just under its lip.

She didn’t get visitors.

Not ever.

And that was the way she liked it. It was the reason she’d bought twenty acres out in the middle of nowhere, and it was the reason she’d stayed there. The cabin had been nothing when she’d moved in—just four walls and a loft, a tiny kitchen meant to be used by hunters. She’d made it into something beautiful—a two-story structure with just enough room for her and her dog. One bedroom upstairs. One bathroom. An office on the lower level. A kitchen that was small but functional. A living area and wood-burning stove that heated the place in the winter.

The kiln at the back of the cleared acre that the cabin sat on.

It had cost a small fortune, but she’d earned a small fortune playing with the clay she pulled from the creek beds on the property. Lydia would have laughed at that if she’d been alive. Harper’s older sister had been like that—filled with amusement at life and the people in it. She wouldn’t have missed the irony of Harper’s new career. No more clean and sterilized office in one of DC’s most prestigious graphic design firms. No more climbing the corporate ladder, working to impress a boss, earning a bonus, getting the best clients. No more neat brownstone with all the amenities Harper and Lydia hadn’t grown up with. Now Harper shaped clay, molding it into pots and vases and plates that people seemed willing to pay top dollar for. Every one of the pieces was signed with Harper’s pseudonym—Ryan A. Harper. Lydia’s middle name. Harper’s first. A for Amelia, Lydia’s daughter. Harper would have chosen Ryan Amelia Harper, but she’d been afraid the news voyeurs would recognize the combination of names and come looking for her.

Too many people wanted to hear Lydia and Amelia’s story firsthand, and Harper wasn’t willing to tell it. Not to reporters or true-crime writers. Not even to the police. Not anymore. The case was closed, her sister’s murderer dead, Amelia presumed dead, too.

Four years was a long time.

Most people had forgotten, but someone hadn’t. Someone had sent her a package. It had been shoved into the PO box she kept in a town fifty miles away. It wasn’t connected to her new life, her new address or her new property. It was the last vestige of who she’d been, the last connection to her sister’s husband, to the friends she’d once had, the busy life she’d once lived. She’d been thinking that it was time to let the box go. It had been empty every time she’d opened it for the better part of two years.

Until this last time.

She’d made the trip the previous day, opened the box and found an envelope shoved inside. She’d opened it with more curiosity than anything. There was no return address. Just a postmark from DC. Inside, she’d found a newspaper clipping—a tiny little section circled. Just a couple of lines about the death of Norman Meyers—a man who’d been convicted of killing Lydia Wilson and her four-year-old daughter, Amelia. There’d been a scrap of fabric, too, a little square of what looked like a pink blanket.

It couldn’t have been Amelia’s blanket. That had disappeared four years ago, but Harper hadn’t been able to shake the sick dread she’d felt looking at those two things. She’d put a call in to the DC homicide detective who’d handled the case. She hadn’t heard back from Thomas Willard yet.

She’d planned to give it another day or two and then call again, but the sound of tires on her gravel driveway made her think that Detective Willard might have come to her. Or sent someone to her. A local police officer, maybe?

She left the shovel standing up in the rich, moist earth. This was her favorite creek bed, the colors of the clay rich and vibrant. Soon, though, it would be too cold to dig. Already the ground was hardening. If she didn’t harvest what she needed soon, she’d have to wait until spring thaw.

She’d finish collecting today, but first she had to see who was rolling along the road that led to her cabin. She whistled for Picasso but didn’t wait for the dog to appear. He loved the woods, loved exploring the thickets and the deer paths. He always returned when she whistled for him, though, and she could hear him bounding along behind her as she headed up the steep path that led to the cabin.

Less than a tenth of a mile, but the incline made going difficult. By the time she reached the edge of the tree line, the sound of tires on gravel had faded. So had the sound of squirrels scurrying around hunting for food. The forest was usually busy this time of year, animals collecting as much food as they could before winter took hold. By mid-December, the landscape went silent and still. Harper did her best work then, snow and ice and heavy gray clouds making her feel as if she was alone in the world.

Until the world intruded.

Once a month, the church ladies came to visit. Last winter, one of the deacons had come to chop wood for her. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that she’d chopped plenty during the summer and fall, so she’d let him do it and then tried to pay him for his efforts. He’d refused to take money, so she’d given him a vase crafted from clay she’d harvested, fired to perfection and then glazed with all the colors of winter.

Picasso halted at the edge of the trees, growling low in his throat, his scruff standing on end. She stopped beside him, touching his head.

“What do you see, Picasso?” she murmured, peering out from between thick pine boughs.

She’d been expecting a police cruiser.

A black Jeep was there instead.

She couldn’t see the driver, but no one she knew drove a Jeep. She took a step back, her fingers sliding through Picasso’s collar. He might be growling, but if someone got out of the car and offered a treat, he’d be all over that in a heartbeat.

She didn’t want the Irish wolfhound anywhere near whoever was driving the Jeep because she had a bad feeling about her visitor, a feeling that said she’d be better off staying in the woods than stepping out where the driver could see her.

The driver’s door opened, and a man climbed out. Tall. Very tall. Very muscular. Blond hair. Eyes shielded by sunglasses. He wore dark jeans, a black T-shirt and a jacket with a patch in the shape of a heart stitched to the right shoulder.

A uniform of some sort?

She wasn’t going to ask.

She wasn’t going to step out from the trees, either. Her property was too far off the beaten path for someone to find his way there accidentally. This guy had come for a purpose. She’d rather have someone else around when she found out what that was. She couldn’t call one of the church ladies, and she didn’t have any close guy friends. She’d call the sheriff’s department. They could send deputies out, and she’d just stay in the woods until they arrived.

She pulled her phone from her coat pocket, watching as the guy took a step away from the Jeep. Picasso barked twice, the happy greeting ringing through the still morning air. The man turned in their direction, scanning the tree line.

She didn’t think he could see her through the thick pine boughs, but she took a step back anyway, pulling Picasso with her.

“You can come out,” the man called, taking off his sunglasses as if that would somehow make him look less menacing. “I don’t bite.”

“My dog does,” she responded, and he shrugged.

“I’ve had worse than a dog bite. My name is Logan Fitzgerald. Your brother-in-law sent me.”

“My brother-in-law has no idea I’m here,” she responded, keeping the pine boughs between them. Despite what she’d said, she would have been very surprised if Picasso took a bite out of anyone. He was a friendly dog, easygoing and funny. He served as a good early-warning system if a bear or mountain lion was around, and she liked to think he’d try to protect her if one came along, but he had yet to have to prove himself.

“Maybe I should rephrase that,” Logan said. “Gabe Wilson hired the company I work for to find you.”

“Why?”

“He had some information he wanted to share with you.”

“I’m not interested.”

He cocked his head to the side, and despite the foliage between them, she was sure he was taking in her mud-splattered jeans, her hiking boots, the thick wool coat she wore over her T-shirt. “All right. I’ll give him the message for you.”

“That’s it?”

“He hired us to find you, Harper.” He drawled her name, just a bit of a Southern accent in the words. “When he did, he signed a contract stating that if you don’t want to be found, you simply have to say so. He gets no address. No phone number. Nothing.”

“That doesn’t seem like something Gabe would agree to.” Her brother-in-law never gave up on anything. He was determined and driven to a fault. At least, he had been four years ago.

“He didn’t have a choice. That’s the way HEART works.”

“HEART?”

“We’re a freelance security and hostage rescue team,” he responded as if that explained everything. “I’ll pass along your message.” He slid into the Jeep and would have closed the door, but the sound of an engine drifted from somewhere down the road. He frowned. “You expecting company?”

“No.”

“I guess I’ll stick around, see who’s coming.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Sure it is.” He crossed the distance between them and pulled back the pine bough that hung closest to her face. “But it really isn’t necessary for you to keep hiding from me. If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d have done it by now.”

“That’s...comforting.”

“You know what would be comforting, Harper? The idea that someone who lives out in the middle of nowhere and tromps through the woods every day looking for mud—”

“Clay,” she corrected him, and he nodded.

“Clay. What would make me feel comfortable is the idea that this person was carrying a firearm.”

“I have bear spray.”

“Bear spray isn’t going to take down a guy who’s a dozen feet away, pointing a gun at you.”

“I—”

“Guy’s coming fast,” he said, cutting her off and moving into the tree line.

“How can you t—?”

Before she could finish the question, a black sedan was racing into view. Picasso barked excitedly. Two visitors was a dream come true. He lunged toward the driveway, breaking from Harper’s hold.

She followed without thinking, lunging out into the open, the car barreling down on them.

She had about three seconds to realize it wasn’t going to stop, three seconds to think about the fact that whoever was driving had every intention of mowing her down.

And then she was tackled from behind, rolled toward the trees again.

Tires squealed. Someone shouted.

Logan?

And then the world exploded, dirt flying up from the ground near her head, dead leaves jumping into the air, dust and debris and the acrid scent of gunfire stinging her nose.

* * *

Logan Fitzgerald had a split second to realize he’d been used before the first bullet flew. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like that he’d been used to find a woman whom someone apparently wanted dead.

Gabe Wilson?

Probably, but Logan didn’t have time to think about it. Not now. Later he’d figure things out.

For now, he just had to stay alive, keep Harper alive.

He pulled his handgun, fired a shot into the front windshield of the dark sedan. Not a kill shot, but it was enough to take out the glass, cause a distraction.

He rolled off Harper’s prone form and shoved her toward the tree line. “Go!” he shouted, firing another shot, this one in the front tire.

She scrambled into the bushes, her giant dog following along behind her.

The sedan backed up, tires squealing as the driver tried to speed away. Not an easy task with a flat tire, and Logan caught a glimpse of two men. One dark haired. One bald. He fired toward the gunman and saw the bald guy duck as the bullet slammed into what remained of the windshield.

He could have pursued them, shot out another tire, tried to take them both down. This was what he was trained to do—face down the opponent, win. But Harper had run into the woods. He didn’t know how far, didn’t know if she was out of range of the gunman or close enough to take a stray bullet.

He knew what he wanted to do—pursue the gunman, find out who had hired him, find out why.

He also knew what his boss, Chance Miller, would say—protect the innocent first. Worry about the criminals later.

He’d have been right.

Logan knew it, but he still wanted to hunt the gunmen down.

He holstered his gun and stepped into the trees, the sound of the car thumping along the gravel road ringing through the early morning.

Sunlight streamed in through the tree canopy, glinting off leaves still wet from the previous night’s rain. He’d stayed in a tiny bed-and-breakfast at the edge of a national park, waiting for sunrise to come. He hadn’t wanted to drive out to Harper’s place in the middle of the night. If he’d known he had a tail, he wouldn’t have driven out at all.

He scowled, moving down a steep embankment, following a trail of footprints in the damp earth. He could hear a creek babbling, the quiet melody belying the violence that had just occurred.

The car engine died, the thump of tires ceasing.

A door opened. Closed.

Was the gunman pursuing them?

He lost the trail of footprints at a creek that tripped along the base of a deep embankment. A bucket was there, sitting near the water, half filled with red mud.

Clay, Harper had said.

He didn’t think it would matter much if they were both dead.

He wanted to call to her, draw her out of her hiding place, but the forest had gone dead silent. Years of working in some of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan had honed his senses. Even now, years after he’d left the military to raise his younger siblings, he knew when trouble was lurking nearby.

He moved cautiously, keeping low as he crossed the creek and searched for footprints in the mucky earth. The scent of dead leaves filled his nose, the late November air slicing through his jacket. He ignored the cold. Ignored everything but his mission—finding Harper Shelby and keeping her alive.

He moved up the embankment, dropping to the ground as leaves crackled behind him. Whoever was coming wasn’t being quiet about it. Not Harper. She’d moved like a wraith, disappearing into the forest with barely a sound.

He eased behind a thick oak, adrenaline pumping through him as he waited for his quarry. It didn’t take long. A few more loud snaps of branches and crackles of leaves and the bald man appeared, inching his way down toward the creek, his belly hanging over a belt that was cinched so tight, Logan was surprised the guy could breathe.

He could have taken him out then, fired one shot that would bring the guy down for good, but he was more interested in hearing what he had to say and knowing why he was trying to kill Harper.

He waited, counting footsteps as the guy drew closer.

Another few yards and he’d be within reach. Another few feet. The guy moved past the tree where Logan was hiding, completely oblivious to the danger he was in. Not a professional hired gun, that was for sure. Logan had run into his fair share of those during the years he’d been working for HEART. They weren’t this careless, and they were never easy to take down.

He waited another heartbeat.

That was all it took. Just that second of waiting, and calm became chaos. The bushes beside the guy moved and Harper’s dog burst out, snarling and barking as he tried to bite the bald guy.

The man cursed, raising his weapon, aiming at the dog’s head, and then Harper was there, a shovel in hand. She swung hard, the metal end of the tool smacking into the guy’s wrist as Logan pulled his weapon and fired.

TWO

The bald guy looked dead. His eyes were closed and blood was seeping from a wound in his shoulder. He was breathing, though, his barrel chest rising and falling.

Harper dropped the shovel and leaned over him. She would have touched the pulse point in his neck, but Logan edged in beside her and nudged her away.

He lifted the man’s gun from the ground, unloaded it, then shoved the cartridge in his pocket.

“He needs first aid,” she murmured, trying to move closer again.

He blocked her way, frisking the guy, pulling a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf.

“First things first, Harper,” Logan muttered. “We secure the weapons. Then we provide first aid. It’s in the rule book.”

“What rule book is that?” she asked, shrugging out of her jacket and using it to staunch the blood flowing from the bald guy’s shoulder.

He moaned. Not dead after all.

“The one called How to Keep Alive in Dangerous Situations,” Logan responded drily. “Did you call the police?”

“Yes.” As soon as she’d cleared the tree line, she’d called 911. The dispatcher had assured her help was on the way.

Good thing she hadn’t had to depend on that.

She’d be dead now.

She pressed harder on the bleeding wound. The guy had been shooting at her, but that didn’t mean she wanted him dead.

“Get off me!” he growled, rolling onto his side and struggling to his feet. His wrist was broken from the force of her blow, his face ashen, but he looked more angry than anything.

“How about you mind your manners, buddy?” Logan said calmly, holstering his weapon.

“How about you shut up?” the guy spit out, his voice a little slurred, his gaze darting back the way they’d come. No one was there, but Harper thought he must be hoping for help.

“Fine by me.” Logan pulled a cell phone from his pocket, typed something into it and snapped a picture of the man.

“Hey! What’s that about?” the guy snarled.

“Just sending your mug shot to a friend who can find out who you are and whether or not you have any warrants out for your arrest.”

“You got nothing on me.”

“You tried to shoot us,” Harper responded, and the guy grinned.

“Thought you were deer. Hard to see people out in woods like this.”

“No one is going to believe that,” she said, and Logan touched her shoulder, his fingers warm through her T-shirt.

“Don’t engage him, Harper. He’s got his story. It’s what he’ll tell the police. He’ll still end up in jail.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” the guy responded, his gaze darting toward the creek.

“You think your friend is coming for you?” Logan asked, brushing dirt from his jeans, his expression unreadable. He had dark eyes. Not brown. Not black. Midnight blue. They remained fixed on the gunman, no hint of emotion in them. “Because he’s not.”

“We’re a team—”

“A team that kills for money?” Logan smiled, a hard, predatory curve of the lips that would have made Harper’s blood run cold if she’d been on the receiving end of it. “That’s the kind of team that lasts until one guy gets caught. Then it’s not a team. It’s just that one guy alone, wishing he’d picked some other way to make money.”

“You don’t know—”

An engine roared to life and tires thumped on gravel. First slowly, then more quickly.

The man’s accomplice escaping while he had the chance? Probably, and the man seemed to know it. He pivoted and tried to run into the trees.

Logan moved so quickly, Harper barely had time to realize what he was doing. One minute he was beside her. The next he and the bald guy were on the ground, Logan’s knee pressed into the other man’s back.

“Not smart, buddy,” Logan said quietly. “Stuff like that could get a man killed.”

“I’m not your buddy, and I’m not the one who’s going to die.” The guy bucked, trying to dislodge Logan. He didn’t have a chance. Even if he hadn’t been weak from blood loss, Harper didn’t think he could have moved Logan. Muscles and training definitely trumped anger.

“I guess that depends on whether or not you try to run when the cops get here.”

“When the cops get here—”

“Tell you what,” Logan interrupted. “How about we skip the discussion and get to the point. Who hired you to follow me out here?”

The guy went silent, his face blazing with anger.

“Right. So someone did hire you.”

“I didn’t say that!” the man snarled.

“Which answers another question. You’re afraid of whoever hired you, and that’s why you’re denying it.”

“I’m not—”

Sirens cut off the words, the screaming sound of them filling the woods. Picasso barked frantically, excited and alarmed by the chaos.

Harper just wanted it to be over.

She wanted the police to take the gunman away. She wanted Logan to leave. She wanted to go back to the life she’d made for herself. Quiet. Simple. Free of disappointments and heartaches and sorrows.

She supposed that made her a coward.

She wasn’t really.

She’d loved the life she’d once had—the hectic, high-stress graphic design job, the sweet brownstone she’d bought for a steal and remodeled. She’d loved her sister, her niece. She’d even fallen in love. Once upon a time. When she’d still been in college and not nearly as convinced that Shelby women always chose men who were going to hurt them.

Daniel had taught her a valuable lesson about that.

If she hadn’t learned it from her college sweetheart, she might have learned it from watching Lydia. Gabe hadn’t been the kind of husband any woman deserved. He’d cheated. More than once, and he hadn’t been apologetic about it.

And then Lydia and Amelia had died, murdered by a homeless man who’d stolen Lydia’s purse. That was the story the prosecuting attorney told. He’d built a tight case and presented it to a jury, convincing them that Norman Meyers had killed Lydia and Amelia and tossed their bodies into the Patuxent River. Norman was a known meth addict who’d committed enough petty crimes to be a frequent flyer with the police. He’d been married twice, and both his wives had restraining orders against him. Violent was a word that had been used a lot during the trial, and Norman’s angry, defiant glare hadn’t done anything to convince the jury otherwise. Despite the fact that Amelia’s body had never been found, the prosecuting attorney had gone for two counts of second-degree murder. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, and Norman had been put away for life.

Harper had always thought she should be happy with that, but she’d felt no sense of closure. Most days she could convince herself that the jury was right, that Norman was guilty. There were other days when she thought it was all a little too convenient—Lydia and Amelia sneaking out of her place in the middle of the night, walking along a street quiet enough for them to be accosted without any witnesses. Amelia’s body missing and never found. Harper’s brother-in-law finally free of a wife he’d seemed to despise. Harper had spent enough time with her sister and brother-in-law to hear the arguments, the accusations, the veiled threats. She knew that Gabe loved his daughter. He would have never been able to hurt her, but Harper wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t have hurt Lydia.

Had he killed her? Secreted their daughter away somewhere?

The idea seemed farfetched. Besides, the only family member the police seemed to have suspected was Harper. She’d been the last person to see her niece and sister alive and—according to her brother-in-law—was a jealous younger sister who’d hated Lydia.

The press had had a field day with stories that implicated her. She’d lost a few clients because of it, and then she’d lost her job.

Worse, she’d had no alibi, no way of proving that her sister and niece had left her house alive. Until Norman Meyers had pawned Lydia’s engagement ring, Harper had been certain she was going to be tried and convicted.

Not good memories. Any of them.

She shuddered, taking a step away from Logan and the man he was still holding down.

“Harper?” Logan said sharply, and she thought he must have already tried to get her attention. “Can you head to your place and lead the police here?”

“Why?” the gunman spat. “Because you plan to murder me and don’t want any witnesses?”

Logan ignored him, pulling out his cell phone and glancing at the screen. “Tell the police that I’ve got Langley Simmons here. Looks as if he has a warrant out for his arrest.”

The gunman cursed, tried to twist out from under Logan.

“Harper?” Logan prodded.

“I’ll get them,” she responded, calling to Picasso and jogging away. She wanted to leave both men behind, leave the entire mess behind.

She knew she couldn’t, of course.

She’d spent her life trying to do the right thing, trying to live the way she’d thought she should—following the rules, being moral and just and kind. She’d wanted what her mother had never been able to achieve—stability, security, edifying relationships.

God had obviously had other plans.

Her life had taken a turn she hadn’t anticipated, and now all she wanted was to be at peace.

It didn’t look as if that was going to happen, either.

But God was in control.

He had a plan and a way.

She just wished He’d tell her what it was.

There was a lesson in trust there, she supposed, but she’d never been good at trusting. Even when it came to God. Maybe especially then. She’d prayed a lot when she was a kid, begging God to step in before the family was evicted or the lights were turned off or the police came to search for the drugs one of her mother’s boyfriends had left.

Most of the time, those prayers hadn’t been answered. At least not in any way that made sense to her. Lights were often turned off and evictions happened. As an adult, she knew those were natural consequences to her mother’s habitual sins, but those old feelings of distrust and anxiety were still there.

She pushed aside the memories as she raced up the steep hill that led to her cabin. Picasso bounded out of the woods in front of her, and she heard a masculine voice call his name. Sheriff Jeb Hunter or one of his deputies.

Seconds later, she hit the top of the path and ran out onto her driveway. Two police cars were parked close to the cabin, Jeb Hunter crouched next to one of them shooting pictures of a bullet casing. Picasso lay a few feet away, panting quietly.

Jeb looked up as Harper approached, his deep green eyes shaded by a uniform hat. “Heard there was trouble out here, Harper. From the look of things, that might be true.”

“It is.”

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“Someone was shooting at us.”

“Us?”

“A guy my brother-in-law sent. He showed up a few minutes before the guys with the guns.”

“There’s more than one gunman?”

“Yes. One drove away. One of them is in the woods, injured.”

“The guy your brother-in-law sent? Where’s he?”

“Keeping the injured guy from running.”

“Then, I guess we’d better go find them. Want to lead the way?”

Not really. What she wanted to do was go back to her clay. It wasn’t a possibility, so she whistled for Picasso and headed back into the woods.

* * *

Logan didn’t much like stepping aside and letting other people handle problems. Right now, he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t a cop and hadn’t been hired to work with them, so he hung back, watching as Simmons was loaded onto a stretcher, his wrist handcuffed to a deputy sheriff.

Sheriff Jeb Hunter wasn’t taking any chances. That was good. Simmons was desperate. Given the opportunity, he’d run. If he did that, Logan doubted he’d ever be found. If he was, it would probably just be his body that turned up. The guy was scared of someone. Logan wanted to know who, but all Simmons was willing to admit to was a few too many beers and a case of mistaken identity.

Lies, but it didn’t matter.

The guy was guilty of nearly killing someone, and he’d be in jail for a while. Maybe when his buddy didn’t show up to bail him out, he’d be more willing to talk.

“So, Logan Fitzgerald,” Sheriff Hunter said as the ambulance pulled away. “You want to explain how you happened to be in the right place at the right time?”

“I was hired by Gabe Wilson.”

“My brother-in-law,” Harper interrupted as if those words would explain everything.

They explained nothing. Not to the sheriff and not to Logan. Finding Harper had been easy. She’d taken out a loan for property in Westminster, Maryland. No address was listed, but with only a little digging he’d found a house title with her name on it.

Easy.

So why hadn’t Gabe done it himself?

The guy had money. Plenty of it.

He could have hired anyone to find his sister-in-law. He’d hired HEART.

Had he known there was going to be trouble?

Or had he simply wanted to hedge his bets, make sure that Harper was found because...

Why?

It had been four years since Harper disappeared from Gabe’s life. If he’d wanted to kill her, wouldn’t he have made an attempt before?

Lots of questions.

Not many answers.

The sheriff must have felt the same way. He frowned, took off his uniform hat and ran his hand over his dark hair. “Now, why, I’m wondering, would your brother-in-law want to find you?”

Logan responded, “He said he received information about his daughter.”

“Amelia is dead,” Harper said, her face pale as paper.

“There was a funeral,” Logan corrected her, because he’d studied the case, read every article. That was the way he was. He liked to be prepared, to understand all the details before he began a mission. “Her body was never found.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “What information does he have?”

“A photograph. A piece of cloth that he says might be part of her blanket.”

He didn’t think it was possible, but she paled more, swaying slightly. Her dog nudged her side.

She touched his head and seemed to ground herself.

“I received something similar.”

“A photo?” Sheriff Hunter asked.

“No. A newspaper article and a piece of something that might have been Amelia’s favorite blanket.” The words rasped out, and Logan cupped her elbow, afraid she might pass out. She looked that shaken, that anxious.

“Did you keep it?” the sheriff asked, and she nodded.

“I called the DC police about it, but they haven’t gotten back to me.”

“When was that?” Logan asked, leading her toward the two-story cabin that sat in the middle of a cleared lot. An acre. Maybe a little more. He’d looked at the plans before he’d driven out, gotten a good feel for the land. Not because he’d expected trouble. Just because it was what he did.

It had paid off this time.

He knew the topography. The creeks. The flatland and forests. The twenty acres she owned wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to get lost in when the forests were as deep and untouched as the ones that surrounded Harper’s place.

“Last night. I called Thomas Willard. He’s a homicide detective who led the investigation into my sister’s murder.” She opened the door.

No key.

She obviously hadn’t locked up before she’d left.

That bothered him.

Life was filled with danger. A person couldn’t avoid it, but he could certainly prepare for it.

“You might want to lock that the next time you go out,” he said, and she shrugged, soft brown hair slipping from its clip and falling across her face. She had freckles on her nose and on her cheeks, long black lashes tipped with gold. He’d say that she spent a lot of time outside, and that she knew her land about as well as anyone could know anything. He’d also say that she probably thought she had things under control, that it was within her power to keep trouble from coming down on her head.

That was a dangerous thing to assume.

He wanted to tell her that, but they were strangers, and he was making assumptions based on what he saw—the tidy little two-story cabin, the rifle that looked as if it had never been used hanging above a small fireplace, the wood-burning stove with its neat pile of wood beside it. Unless he missed his guess, there was more piled by the back door, several cords of it in storage on a back porch or in a shed. She probably had a month’s worth of supplies, an emergency generator for lights, everything she thought she’d ever need. That was good. Great, even. But the best-laid plans didn’t always pan out.

“It’s never been a concern before,” she said, tucking the stray hair behind her ear, her fingers speckled with flecks of red mud. “Now that it is, I’ll be sure to lock up. If you gentlemen don’t mind waiting here, the package is upstairs. I’ll get it.”

She ran from the room, heading toward the back of the cabin, her dog following along behind her. Logan figured there was a kitchen there, maybe a small laundry room and the staircase that led up to the second story. He was curious to see the place, get a feel for how difficult it would be to secure.

He stayed where he was, though, because he’d been asked to, and because he had a few things he wanted to talk to the sheriff about.

“Have your men found the sedan?” he asked as footsteps tapped across the floor above his head.

“Not yet, but the guy can’t have gotten far. Not with a blown tire.”

“There are plenty of places to hide around here,” Logan pointed out. “I’d guess he pulled onto some side road, hid the car and took off on foot.”

“I’m guessing you’re right, and since there are only a few crossroads between Harper’s property and town, I’m feeling pretty confident we’ll track the car down quickly.”

“And then?”

“Take some dogs into the woods, see if we can find our guy.”

“In the meantime, Harper will be out here alone.”

“You think the guy is going to come back?” Sheriff Hunter asked.

“I think he didn’t accomplish his goal. Harper is still alive.”

“You’re assuming Harper was the target,” Sheriff Hunter pointed out.

“That seems like a logical assumption.”

“In my opinion, it would be just as logical to assume that someone is after you. In your line of work, that wouldn’t be unlikely.” Logan didn’t ask how he knew what kind of work Logan did. If Sheriff Hunter hadn’t heard about the visitor to his small town the previous night and checked things out, he’d have had people checking Logan’s credentials as soon as he’d gotten the plate number off the Jeep.

“It wouldn’t be, but there were a dozen opportunities to take me out on my drive here. Not to mention my sleepover in Dora’s Sleep Haven last night. Place has no security. The windows don’t even lock.”

Sheriff Hunter smirked. “You should have asked a local. We would have pointed you to our pastor. He has a nice in-law suite that he loans out to anyone who has a need.”

“In other words, I’m the first person ever to stay with Dora?”

“There was a guy a few years back. Turned out he was running from the law and wanted a place to hide out. Not so smart to hide in a town that has fewer than a thousand residents. Dora called me. I did a little checking. Guy ended up spending the next night in Snowy Vista’s town jail.”

“Probably a lot more comfortable than Dora’s place,” Logan muttered.

“Probably.” He walked to the fireplace and lifted the shotgun. “Not loaded. I’m not keen on her living out here on her own, but if she’s going to stay, it would be a good idea to have some security.”

“You planning to talk to her about it?” he asked. If Sherriff Hunter didn’t, Logan would. She needed protection. At least until the guy who’d been driving the sedan was caught.

“I’ll give it a try. She has her own way of doing things. Not sure she’s going to listen to me.”

“She will if she wants to stay alive,” Logan responded as Harper walked back into the room.

THREE

Amelia.

She was all Harper could think about as she paced her bedroom, the sound of voices drifting up through the floorboards. Logan’s voice. The higher-pitched voice of his coworker, Stella Silverstone. She’d arrived three hours ago, striding into the cabin as if she owned the place. She’d made tea, fed Picasso, acted as if it wasn’t any of her concern if Harper didn’t want twenty-four-hour protection at the cabin.

“It’s her business,” Stella had said when Logan and Sheriff Hunter insisted that Harper shouldn’t stay in the cabin alone. “If she wants to die before she finds out if her niece is alive, what’s it to you?”

That was it.

All it took.

That one thought, that one little hope that Amelia was alive was enough to make Harper put up with anything or anyone.

Amelia alive...

Her pulse raced at the thought, her throat tight with dozens of memories—her niece’s birth, all the little and big moments that had happened after it.

There’d been times during the past few years when she’d wondered if Amelia was out there somewhere, waiting to be found. Now the possibility seemed real. That little piece of blanket, the newspaper article—had they been hints? Clues designed to pull Harper closer to the truth, closer to her niece?

Or bring her closer to her death?

She shuddered.

She’d kept to herself for years, had separated herself from her old life. She’d put the past behind her, and now it was in front of her again.

Why now?

For what purpose?

She needed to talk to Gabe. She’d called him, left a message on his machine. He hadn’t returned her call. He’d probably make her wait a few days. That was the way he was. The way he’d always been. Everything in his time frame. He and Lydia had been late or early to social events on his whim. They hadn’t even made it to Harper’s college graduation because Gabe had decided that they needed to go over the household budget.

A joke, because Lydia had no control over their finances. She hadn’t even been told how much her husband made. She’d known about the heirloom jewelry he kept in his wall safe, though, and she’d figured out the combination. When Lydia had wanted something, she’d figured out how to get it. She hadn’t really wanted to attend Harper’s graduation. She hadn’t wanted to leave her cheating husband because that would mean giving up the fancy house, the nice clothes, the cash allowance.

Whatever anyone said, whatever anyone believed, Harper had always thought that had cost Lydia her life.

Harper shut the thought off, pulling back the curtains and looking out into the growing darkness. Night fell early this time of year, but there were still a few golden rays of sun glinting on the horizon. In the distance, she could see Snowy Vista, the lights from the town gleaming through the trees. Soon the place would be decorated for Christmas. Every door would have a wreath, every window colorful lights. Trees would be decked out with garland, and yards would boast Nativity scenes and snowmen. She didn’t have anyone to shop for, but every year, she went to town the week before Christmas. Every year, she walked Main Street, looked at all the Christmas decorations, listened to the carols drifting from shops and watched the people walking up and down the street. It was a small town, but near the holidays, people came in from Baltimore and DC, or traveled down from Lancaster and York, just to see the Christmas displays.

That was the kind of town Snowy Vista was. Not a place most people stayed. Not even for a night. Just a place to pass through, to admire in the way one would look at a bouquet of flowers or a snowy mountain peak.

“It’s pretty, though. If I wanted to live around people again, it wouldn’t be a bad place to settle,” she said, and Picasso huffed his agreement, his cold nose touching her hand.

A light flashed in the trees and she frowned, leaning closer to the glass, trying to see if someone was out there. Sheriff Hunter’s men hadn’t found the sedan or its driver yet. The guy would be a fool to return, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

Another flash, and she stepped away from the window, watching as the light flashed again. A signal of some sort? Should she tell Logan? She headed toward the door and was nearly there when it flew open.

Stella strode in. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Away from here,” she responded, grabbing Harper’s hand and dragging her out of the room.

“For how long? Because if we’re going to be gone for more than a few hours—”

“Less talking, more moving,” Stella interjected, her short red hair bouncing as she hurried Harper down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was dark there. No light spilling in from the living room or from the office that jutted off the back of the house.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, afraid to speak too loudly, afraid that if she did, whatever was causing them to rush from the cabin would find them.

“Someone’s out in the woods making a nice little circle of the property. Logan thinks it’s best if we clear out for a while.”

“And go where?”

“Does it matter?” Stella opened the front door, pulled her to a cherry-red SUV and opened the car door. “Get in.”

“Picasso!” she called as she climbed in.

The dog skidded outside and bounded toward the SUV, and then he stopped. Dead still. Every muscle in his body taut, he eyed the dark woods at the edge of the property, growled and then raced toward the tree line.

“Picasso,” she called again, but Stella had already slammed the door and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“I can’t leave my dog,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

“Logan will get him.”

“Logan doesn’t know he’s missing!” she protested, but they were already racing along the gravel road. There were no streetlights out this far. No moonlight glimmering from the steely sky. Stella didn’t turn on her headlights, and the road was shadowy, the trees looming up on either side. Anything could be lurking out there, anyone.

A light flashed, and the SUV shuddered, swerving toward the trees, then back toward the road again. Harper could feel the thump of a flat tire. Someone was firing at them, and one tire had already been shot out.

Stella didn’t slow down, just kept speeding through the darkness.

“Get down!” she shouted, jerking the wheel to the left. Seconds later, the back window exploded, shards of glass flying through the air, falling on Harper’s hair, her hands, her arms. She could see them shimmering in the dashboard lights. She could feel the awful thud of her heart, the rapid pulse of the blood through her veins.

She’d been scared earlier. Terrified, even, but she’d thought the danger was over. She had wanted to believe that the man who’d been driving the sedan had disappeared—gone for good.

She’d been wrong.

If she hadn’t allowed Logan and Stella to stay...

What?

Would Picasso have warned her in time? Would Harper have been able to load the shotgun? Protect herself from the threat?

“Something is burning,” Stella said so calmly, the words didn’t register with Harper.

The smell did—the sharp scent of gasoline, the acrid smell of smoke.

“Must have hit the gas line and sparked. We need to get out, but we need to be smart about it,” Stella continued as if she were talking about the color of the sky or the temperature of the air.

“Smart? Smart would be getting out while we have the chance,” Harper exclaimed, grabbing her door handle.

“Smart would be staying alive. The likelihood this car is going to explode is little to none. The likelihood one of us is going to be shot dead by the guy who’s after you? That’s higher. You get out your side, and you’ll be in the middle of the road. We’re getting out on my side. Back door, because it’s right up against the trees. You go over the seat first. I’ll follow.”

Harper scrambled over the seat, the scents of gasoline and smoke getting stronger. She didn’t see flames, but she was sure the interior of the SUV was growing hotter.

She reached the door and jerked at the handle. She scrambled for the lock, her fingers shaking as she tried to find it.

“Calm down,” Stella barked so close to her ear, she jumped. “Panicking gets people nowhere really fast.”

She reached past Harper and unlocked the vehicle.

“Let’s go,” she urged, pressing close as Harper stepped into the scratchy embrace of a spruce. The scent of evergreen needles mixed with gasoline and smoke, and she gagged, pushing deeper into the trees, the blackness nearly complete there.

She knew the woods like the back of her hand, knew every inch of her property, but they’d gone beyond that, traveling a few miles down the gravel road. She thought she was heading toward the creek. Branches scratched at her face, pulled at her hair and ripped at her clothes, but she kept a steady pace, heading deeper into the woods, and hopefully farther away from the danger.

She thought she heard the creek up ahead and was heading for that when something crashed through the brush beside her, the sound bringing to life every nightmare she’d ever had, every secret fear.

Stella said something, but she didn’t hear. She was too busy running, sprinting through the woods as if it was an open field, everything inside telling her to go and keep going.

She slammed into something.

Not a tree. A man. His chest hard, his body tall and firm.

She tried to jump back, but strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her in. She struggled against the hold, tore at the arms, used every fighting tactic she’d learned as a kid growing up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in DC, because she wasn’t going to die in the woods. Not before she found out the truth about Amelia.

* * *

“Calm down,” Logan said, grabbing Harper’s fist just before it connected with his jaw. “It’s me.”

“Logan?” She stilled, her arms dropping to her sides, her eyes wide in the darkness.

She’d come barreling out of the woods as if a couple of bears were chasing after her, but he couldn’t hear anything but the quiet burble of the creek and the soft rasp of her breath.

“You nearly scared the life out me,” she said, stepping away from him, her voice a little shaky.

“Where’s Stella?” he asked, because there was no way his coworker had left Harper to fend for herself. Not if she were capable of anything else.

“Right here,” Stella responded, stepping through the thick trees to his right. “With the dog. If the perp is still around, I haven’t seen him. Not since he destroyed my brand-new car.”

“I took a shot at him after he hit your fuel line. I was a little out of range, but I think I might have hit him.”

“That explains why he didn’t wait around for us to get out of the SUV,” Stella responded drily.

“He’s heading east. Straight toward the highway.”

“That’s five miles away,” Harper commented, her hand on Picasso’s head. She looked smaller in the darkness, her body diminished by the vast forest surrounding them.

“Five miles isn’t all that far,” Stella responded. “Not for someone who’s desperate, and he is. He sticks around here and the police are going to catch him. Or one of us will.”

“One of us is planning to,” Logan said, pulling a Maglite from his coat pocket. He hadn’t used it before, but now that the perp was on the run, he’d take every advantage he could to hunt the guy down before he made it to the highway.

“Are you going to try to track him?” Stella asked. She’d let him take the lead on this. That was the way Stella was. No fuss. No muss. If it wasn’t her assignment, she took a backseat, followed orders, made herself as much of an asset to the team as she could.

“He’s heading for his escape vehicle. I want to get to him before he reaches it.”

“The police could do the job as easily,” she remarked. No judgment in the words. Just a statement of fact. “And you know how Chance is—he likes to let the local PD handle their problems.”

“This isn’t their problem. This is my problem. I was hired to—”

“Find Harper. Which you’ve done.”

True, but finding Harper had put her in danger. He felt responsible for that, which made him responsible for her. Whether Chance thought so or not. And whether Harper did or not.

And he didn’t think she did.

She hadn’t wanted twenty-four-hour protection, had seemed determined to go on the way she had before he’d showed up with a gunman on his tail. She’d finally conceded when Stella had mentioned her niece.

Amelia seemed to be the key to all of this, and she seemed to be the key to getting Harper to accept protection and help.

“I’m right here,” Harper muttered. “I’ve been found.” She sounded tired, and he wondered what it must feel like to go from a peaceful and quiet existence to chaos and trouble.

“And now you’re in danger.”

“Not because of you,” she responded. “So let’s all go back to my place and wait for the police. They can do what they need to, and we can decide the best way to proceed.”

That wasn’t going to happen.

He wanted this guy, and if he waited for the police to show up, he wasn’t going to get him.

He glanced at Stella. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin. Can you call the sheriff? Ask him to have someone on the road, searching for the perp? He might want to notify the local hospital, too.”

“But—”

“No sense arguing,” Stella said, cutting off Harper’s protest. “He’s stubborn as a mule.” She grabbed Harper’s arm and dragged her back the way they’d come.

Picasso followed, silent for once. The dog probably sensed the tension in the air, the danger that seemed to lurk just out of sight.

Logan flashed his light on the ground, studying the leaves and foliage for signs that someone had passed that way. Minutes went by, the forest coming to life—small animals scurrying through underbrush, an owl calling from a nearby tree. Thick flakes of snow tumbled through the tree canopy, dancing in the beam of his light. If he didn’t hurry, the trail would be lost, the guy gone.

In the distance, sirens were screaming, the police racing in. Hopefully with their K-9 team. The dogs had come up empty earlier, but the scent would be easier to find this time, the area they’d be searching a lot smaller.

His light bounced across the ground, glowing on dead leaves, moist earth and a slick wet splotch halfway hidden by pine needles.

He moved closer and studied the spot.

Blood for sure. A drop that was just beginning to dry. The guy wasn’t that far ahead. Maybe the injury was slowing him down, keeping him from escaping to the road.

Or maybe he wasn’t running.

Maybe he was waiting in the underbrush, hoping for another chance to strike.

FOUR

Forty-five minutes. A long time to walk through swirling snow and gusting wind. Logan had done worse—hiking desolate regions of Afghanistan in the middle of the night, scaling rock faces and climbing mountains in search of enemy strongholds. He’d been a scout sniper, trained in night operations. He’d probably still be that if his parents hadn’t died. He’d loved the work, the adrenaline rush, the high-stakes play.

He’d traded it all for a two-thousand-acre soy farm in North Carolina, which three generations of his family had owned and operated. He hadn’t done it because he’d wanted to farm. He’d done it because his father was dead, his mother was missing and his brothers needed him. Five years in the military hadn’t prepared him for finishing up the job of raising three teenage boys. They’d had a couple of rocky years, but he’d managed to get them through college and into life without much of a problem. Colton ran the farm now and had turned it into an organic venture that was making way more money than their father had probably ever thought was possible. Trent was the town sheriff. Gavin was pastor of the church they’d attended when they were kids. They were all productive citizens doing what they thought God was calling them to. Their parents would have been proud. Logan was proud. And he was going back for Christmas.

His brothers had begged him. When that hadn’t worked, they’d had Andrea call. Colton’s wife had a way of convincing anyone of anything, and when she’d mentioned how long it had been since Logan’s nieces had seen him, he’d agreed to spend his ten-day Christmas vacation in Rushers, North Carolina.

Those plans weren’t going to work out if he died, so he ignored the snow and the wind, the cold that seemed to burrow deep into his bones. He focused on the trail, on the stillness of the forest around him, the dogs coming up behind him.

The perp had to know the police were on his trail, and he had to be panicked. Panicked people made dangerous decisions. Anything was possible. The guy could be just up ahead, waiting to ambush his pursuers. He could be running for the highway. He could be hunkering down, hoping that the snow would wash his scent away.

Logan was prepared for any of those things as he crested a hill and caught sight of the highway—just lights flashing through trees. He moved toward them, the dense foliage thinning as he drew closer to the interstate. The trees were sparser here, snow layering the ground, providing a thick cushion to Logan’s footsteps. He searched the ground and found what looked like footprints pressed into fresh snow. The perp had veered off course, heading south rather than east. If Logan were going to venture a guess, he’d say there was a structure of some sort nearby, a place where hiding a vehicle would be easy. A gas station, maybe. Or a rest stop.

He moved cautiously, the sound of interstate traffic mixing with the rustling of leaves and the swish of the wind.

The trees opened into a field of rotting cornstalks. Beyond that, a house jutted up toward the cloud-laden sky. An old farmhouse of some sort. No lights. No sign that the place was occupied. The footprints disappeared into the field, the old husks and tangled plants making it impossible for Logan to find them again.

He followed his gut, heading across the field and straight to the house. An old porch sagged along the front and sides of it, the boarded-up windows and doors speaking of neglect and abandonment. Someone had loved the house once. Now it was simply a place that had once been a home.

Snow blanketed the porch. No footprints there. Logan bypassed the building, moving around to the back of the structure and into an overgrown yard. Still no sign of a vehicle. No footprints. Nothing that would indicate the perp had been there, but Logan could sense something out of place.

He ducked back into the cornfield, crouching low as he moved toward a group of outbuildings clustered near the back of the property. Looked like a couple of sheds and a barn, but it was hard to see through the falling snow. There’d been a driveway once—he could see that—the crumbled asphalt just a few feet from the edge of the field.

It didn’t look as if it had been used. No tire tracks in the weeds and grass that tangled around chunks of blacktop. Logan wasn’t taking any chances, though. He stayed low, stayed hidden, sliding through the darkness the way he’d done dozens of times on dozens of other cases. Set back from the interstate, the property seemed cut off from the world, the hushed tones of the winter storm and the whisper of distant traffic the only sounds.

If he looked, he could find the lights of cars traveling the highway, but he was focused on the mission. The cold, the snow, the wind, all of it ceased to exist as he moved toward the outbuildings.

At first, it was just a hint of something in the air, a chemical scent that brought Logan to a complete stop. He’d nearly been taken out by improvised explosive devices on several occasions, and he recognized the acrid smell of burning electrical wires. He inhaled cold, crisp air and caught a whiff of it again.

He scanned the property and saw a black column of smoke billowing up from the barn. No flames that he could see, but the place was burning.

A distraction of some sort?

Didn’t matter. Logan had to check it out, make sure that no one was trapped inside the wooden structure. It would go up in minutes, the entire thing devoured by the fire. Someone inside would have limited time to escape.

He pulled out his firearm as he crossed the clearing that separated the field from the barn. At one point, there’d been fencing. Now the old posts lay in piles on the ground.

He moved around to the back of the barn, searching for a window he could climb through. The wide front door would have opened easily, but he didn’t plan to be ambushed as he stepped into the structure.

Flames lapped the back corner of the building, the falling snow adding just enough moisture to the old wood to keep the entire wall from being consumed. It would happen eventually. If he was going to enter the building, he needed to move quickly.

He rounded the corner, found a broken window and climbed through. Mice scurried through the rotten hay beneath his feet. A cat yowled from somewhere deeper in the barn. He’d rescue it if he could. After he made sure the perp wasn’t hiding in one of the stalls.

His light illuminated bridles and harnesses, old tools, all of it hanging from hooks on the walls. Smoke drifted listlessly through the empty stalls, the open and broken windows sucking it out as quickly as it entered. Whoever had set fire to the barn hadn’t poured accelerant inside. A mistake. On a dryer day, the place would already be consumed. Tonight, though, the fire was taking its time. But once it entered the building, it would have plenty of fuel—dry hay, dry walls, dry boards that lay abandoned on the floor.

He stepped over a few, moving toward the front of the barn and the double doors that he could use to escape. His light flashed on piles of hay, bags of food, glowing eyes...

He moved toward whatever was crouched in the corner and saw the kitten that had been yowling. Ugly as sin, its black fur long and matted, one of its ears missing a chunk. He’d seen plenty of barn cats when he was growing up. This one wasn’t more than three months old. He expected it to run, but it approached instead, mewing pitifully as it wove through his legs.

He scooped it up and tucked it into the pocket of his coat. His light glanced off more feed bags, a water barrel, a foot. Leg. Body. Nearly hidden by the water barrel and the feed bags. Not a hint of movement. Not a breath.

Dead.

He knew it before he approached, was certain of it before his light flashed across the prone body, the vacant eyes. Shot in the head. Point-blank from the look of things.

Blood stained the guy’s jacket, and Logan pulled back the fabric, revealing another bullet wound. This one to the left of the collarbone. A nice, neat little hole, a gunshot wound the guy would have survived. Had survived. The guy’s boots were covered in dirt, his pant cuffs wet from snow. Pine needles were stuck in his hair and jutting out of his coat hood.

The perp.

No doubt about it.

He’d made it to what he thought was safety.

And then he’d been killed.

* * *

“This does not make me happy,” Stella said for what seemed like the hundredth time since they’d left the cabin.

Harper ignored her, her gaze focused on the slushy road, the headlights of her pickup truck splashing across gravel, dirt and snow.

“I know you heard me,” Stella pressed, her voice tight with frustration. She wasn’t happy with Harper’s plan, but short of tying her up and locking her in a closet, there hadn’t been a whole lot she could do about it.

Except come along for the ride.

Which she had.

A shame, because Harper would have preferred solitude to Stella’s griping complaints.

“It would be difficult not to hear you, seeing as how you’ve said it a hundred times,” she muttered, and Stella laughed.

“I do have a tendency to repeat myself when I feel as if I’m not being heard. It comes from working with an entire team of men.”

“You’re the only female HEART member?” she asked as she finally reached the main road, pulled onto asphalt and headed toward the old Dillon place. That was where Logan was. Just waiting for Sheriff Hunter to give him a ride back. He’d called Stella to let her know, and Harper had overheard.

She hadn’t seen any reason to make him wait. She had a vehicle, and she knew where the Dillon place was. She also knew that the guy Logan had been tracking was dead. She’d gotten that information from one of the deputy sheriffs who had been collecting evidence at the cabin.

“For now,” Stella said. “My boss has a sister who wants to join the team. If she can convince her brothers to let her do it, she’ll make a good team member.”

“That’ll be nice for you,” Harper said, her gaze fixed on the snowy road and the flakes that drifted lazily in the headlights. The storm had lost most of its strength. If the meteorologist was correct, there’d be rain by morning and just enough warmth to melt whatever remained of the snow.

“We’ll see.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I like Emma fine. I’m just not sure she’s cut out for the work. It’s a tough job, a dangerous one. She’s still a kid.”

“A teenager?”

“Twenty-four.”

“And you’re what? Twenty-five?”

“I’ll be thirty in the spring, but I’ve had a lot of jobs, done a lot of things. Seen a lot. Emma has been...protected. A lot.”

“So maybe it’s time for her not to be. A person can’t grow up if she’s never given the opportunity.”

“A great philosophy in theory, Harper, but letting her grow up in the kind of work HEART does is a quick way to get her killed. Kind of like you, wandering around when a killer is on the loose.”

“The guy is dead, Stella.”

“And someone killed him.”

“Someone? Logan shot him,” she responded, not quite sure what Stella was getting at.

“Not every gunshot wound is fatal. Logan fired a shot that struck the guy, but it wasn’t the shot that killed him. Logan said there were two bullet wounds. The second one was point-blank to the perpetrator’s head.”

Harper hadn’t known that, hadn’t really taken the time to ask much after she’d heard the guy was dead. She’d assumed that Logan’s shot had killed him, and she’d thought the danger was past, that the threat had ended with the man’s death.

“You’re quiet,” Stella said.

“I didn’t realize the gunman was murdered.”

“He was,” Stella said simply. “If you’d asked, maybe you wouldn’t have decided you needed to drive out into a storm to rescue someone who doesn’t need it.”

“Logan was out in the woods for over an hour. He probably does need rescuing,” she responded.

“You’re ignoring my point.”

“Which is?” Harper asked even though she knew exactly what Stella was implying.

“Next time, ask questions so you can have enough information to make a good decision.”

“Going to get someone who’s nearly frozen is a good decision.”

“Not if you’re going to die while you’re doing it.”

“Whoever killed that man is long gone.”

“Says the woman who knows nothing about any of this,” Stella muttered.

“I know that I’m not going to sit around waiting for other people to fight my battles for me,” she replied.

“Great. Good. Wonderful. I just hope that philosophy doesn’t get you killed.”

“Why would it? No one has any reason to want me dead.”

“And yet, people keep trying to kill you.”

Truer than Harper wanted to admit.

She needed to find out what was going on. The only way to do that was to talk to Gabe. He had to know more than she did. Why else would he send someone to find her?

He still hadn’t called.

She’d have to go see him, visit his house in DC with all its fancy furniture and girlie decorations. Lydia had had a field day buying things for the house. She’d had her hand in every room except for Gabe’s office, and it had showed—gaudy and funky and a little over-the-top.

Just like Lydia.

The thought made her eyes burn and her throat tighten.

She and Lydia had been as different as any two sisters could be, but they’d loved each other.

She sniffed back tears that she wasn’t going to let fall, pinched the bridge of her nose, tried hard to think of something other than her sister.

“Things could be worse,” Stella said, speaking into the sudden silence, her voice softer than it had been.

“What?”

“They could be worse, Harper. Always, so we just have to make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in. Like this one.” She waved toward the snowy road and the flakes still drifting through the darkness. “We’re on the road, probably making ourselves bait for a murderer—”

“That’s comforting.”

“If you wanted comfort, you should have fired up that wood-burning stove of yours, huddled under one of those nice quilts you have and read a good book,” she responded.

“That probably would have been a better plan,” she admitted.

“Too late now,” Stella responded cheerfully. “You wanted this. You got it, so we’ll just enjoy the snow and hope for the best.”

Right. Sounded perfect to Harper.

Up ahead, she could see the entrance to the Dillon property—the old gateposts still sticking out of the ground. No gate. Not anymore. It had come down decades ago. At least, that was what she’d heard from people at church. People in Snowy Vista had long memories, and they remembered the way Arthur Dillon had worked the land, sold his produce at local markets, made a good living for himself and his family.

Then he’d died, and his son Matthew had taken over, run the farm into the ground and then left it for greener pastures. No one knew where he’d gone. The old farmhouse had stood empty for two decades, and then a for-sale sign had appeared in the overgrown yard, jutting up from the corner of the crumbling driveway.

That had been two years ago.

As far as Harper knew, the place hadn’t even had one showing.

She turned onto the driveway, the truck bumping over deep ruts. She got about a tenth of a mile from the house before she had to stop, a police cruiser blocking her from driving farther. Not from the local sheriff’s department. This cruiser was a state police car. Jeb must have called them in. Snowy Vista had a very small police force, and murder wasn’t something Harper thought they’d had to deal with much during the history of the town.

She eased the truck off the driveway and parked it in tangled weeds, waiting as a police officer approached. He motioned for her to roll down the window, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to turn around,” he said.

“I’m here for a friend of mine,” she responded. “Logan Fitzgerald?”

“You’re going to have to turn around,” he repeated. “No entry to the property by anyone. It’s a crime scene.”

“I know, but—”

“That’s fine, officer,” Stella cut in. “Mind if we wait at the mouth of the driveway? Logan was being questioned by Sheriff Hunter, but he’s finished now, and we’d like to get him home.”

The officer eyed Stella for a moment, then nodded. “Fine by me, but if I catch either of you out of the vehicle, I’ll arrest you.”

“No worries. I’m in no mood to spend the night in jail,” Stella responded.

That seemed to satisfy the officer.

He walked back to his car, climbed into the vehicle.

“I’m thinking you’d better do what he said,” Stella said. “My boss gets any inkling that we’re bothering the local PD, and he won’t be happy.”

“I wouldn’t want you to lose your job because of my actions,” Harper replied as she backed toward the end of the driveway.

Stella laughed. “Please. Chance wouldn’t fire me. He’s not that kind of guy. He would lecture me and assign me to desk duty for a month. A fate way worse than being fired, if you ask me.” She pulled out her cell phone and texted something. “That should get Logan moving. He’s not going to like that we’re just sitting here waiting for trouble to find us.”

“There are police everywhere,” Harper pointed out. She could see them—flashlights moving along the ground, shadowy forms bobbing through the lingering snow.

“And?”

“Whoever killed that guy would be a fool to try something this close to all these officers.”

“I’d say most criminals are fools. Smart, but fools nonetheless. They think they’re too intelligent to be caught, too savvy to ever be found out. So they make mistakes. Stupid ones. Like trying to kill a woman who’s sitting a few hundred yards from a police cruiser.”

“You’re assuming whoever did it is still around.”

“Statistically speaking, the likelihood that the perp is hanging around watching all the action is pretty high.”

Not a pleasant thought.

Harper tried to tell herself that Stella was wrong, that the likelihood was slim to none, but Stella had been at this kind of work for a lot longer than Harper had been shaping clay. It was obvious from the way she moved, the way she spoke, her gritty rough edge that had just a bit of softness beneath it.

Stella knew what she was talking about, and maybe the criminal wasn’t the only one who was a fool. Harper had been on her own for a long time. She wasn’t used to taking other people’s advice. She wasn’t really used to being around other people.

She’d been social before, but not eager to have the kind of close and intimate relationships most people longed for. She’d tried it with Daniel, because it had seemed like the thing to do, and because he’d been charming and funny and made her feel like a million bucks.

When that hadn’t worked out, she’d been more upset with herself than heartbroken.

She knew how bad her family was at relationships.

She knew how easily fooled they were, how easily taken advantage of, and so she’d made it her goal to be dependent on no one but herself. She hadn’t wanted to end up like her mother—wandering from one bad relationship to another. She hadn’t wanted to be like Lydia—settling for someone because she was afraid of having no one, of having to do it all alone, provide for everything herself.

She’d wanted something different from that, and she’d gotten it.

Only it hadn’t been quite as wonderful as she’d thought it would be. It hadn’t been nearly as fulfilling as she’d thought it should be. Maybe if Lydia hadn’t died, Harper would have changed her tune, made a few deep connections, spent a little more time building relationships and friendships.

She would have liked to believe that was what would have happened. She’d realized after her sister’s death that those things were a lot more important than she’d thought.

It would have helped to have them when she’d been going through the murder investigation. When she’d been the prime suspect in her sister’s and niece’s murders.

She shuddered, pulling her coat a little tighter.

She had the heat turned up high. It wasn’t cold in the truck cab, but she was cold, all the memories that she’d tucked away, all the things she tried really hard not to think about suddenly right there at the forefront of her mind.

Something tapped on her window, near her head, and she screamed so loudly, she thought the truck shook with it. Then she realized she was the one shaking.

She turned, expecting...

She didn’t know what.

A masked killer, maybe?

A bogeyman come to life?

Instead, she met Logan’s eyes. They were black in the darkness, his hair wet from snow. A few flakes shone white against his hair and coat.

“You going to let me in?” he asked, tapping again.

“Right. Sure,” she said, her voice trembling as she unlocked the door and scooted to the center of the seat.

Frigid air filled the truck as he climbed in beside her. He looked tired, and he looked angry.

He also looked...good.

She glanced away, uncomfortable with the direction of her thoughts.

She had enough to worry about without adding someone like Logan to the mix.

“How’d everything go?” Stella asked, her voice breaking through the tension.

“About as well as can be expected when the prime suspect is dead,” Logan muttered.

“No need to be waspish,” Stella replied.

“Waspish?” Logan laughed, the sound gruff and a little hard. “Who uses that word?”

“I do,” Stella responded. “Now, how about you tell me what the police found? Evidence? Any clue as to who is responsible?”

“If they’d found that, I wouldn’t be sitting in this truck. I’d be out looking for the guy.”

“So we’re right back where we were a few hours ago,” Stella murmured. “No suspects and no working theory as to who might be responsible.”

“Exactly. Although, if I had to guess, I’d say the place we should be looking is in DC.”

“You think Gabe is involved?” Harper asked, her throat so dry, she barely got the words out.

She didn’t want to believe her brother-in-law had killed her sister, but she’d never been able to discount the idea. There’d always been a tiny seed of suspicion. Gabe wasn’t afraid to shove people out of his way to achieve his goals. He was aggressive, determined and decisive. If he wanted something, he went after it.

He’d wanted freedom from his marriage.

At least, that was what Lydia had told Harper a few weeks before she’d died—Gabe asked for a divorce. He said he can’t do us anymore.

She’d laughed when she’d said it, as if the entire thing were a joke. Typical Lydia. She’d never been able to believe that someone could be done with her. She certainly hadn’t been done with Gabe. She’d liked his money, his community status, his beautiful home, and she’d had no intention of ever giving that up. Had that gotten her killed?

Had Gabe been desperate enough, frustrated enough, done enough to kill her?

FIVE

Bad to worse.

That was the way things had gone, and Logan wasn’t happy about it.

He also wasn’t happy about the fact that Harper had left the relative safety of her cabin to give him a ride back to her place. A ride he hadn’t needed or wanted. A man was dead. Someone had killed him. The person was still at large. It seemed to Logan that the safe thing to do, the smart thing, would have been for Harper to stay behind closed and locked doors until the murderer was found.

Obviously Harper had other ideas.

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