“You might want to get somebody over to Miranda’s house to fingerprint the windows,” Jenna said.

“Why?”

“I think somebody came to visit while I was there today.”

“What?” He looked at her in alarm.

As she explained what had happened, a new uneasiness swept through Matt. Had the killer returned to the scene of the crime?

“I just got the sensation that I wasn’t alone in the house, but it may have been my imagination working overtime.” She picked up her water glass and took a sip.

“Do you suffer from an overactive imagination normally?” he asked.

She smiled wryly. “Never.”

Matt frowned and stared at her. “Both of the victims were brunettes with blue eyes—just like you.”

Scene of the Crime:

Bridgewater, Texas
Carla Cassidy

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty novels for Harlequin Books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

Contents

Cast of Characters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jenna Taylor—The FBI agent wants to solve her best friend’s murder but instead finds herself the next target.

Sheriff Matt Buchanan—A killer walks his streets. Is he smart enough to save the women who live in his town and the beautiful FBI agent who is under his skin?

Miranda Harris—The first victim of a serial killer.

Carolyn Cox—The second victim of a serial killer.

Leroy Banks—Did the busboy hide a killing rage?

Dr. Patrick Harris—The town’s veterinarian and a man with a secret past. Would he kill to keep his secrets?

Bud Carlson—Did Miranda reject his bad-boy advances, and did that rejection result in her murder?

Chapter One

Special Agent Jenna Taylor looked up the quiet residential street, then down the other way. Seeing nobody around, she carefully pulled aside the crime scene tape that was stretched across the front door of the small ranch house.

It was wrong, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but she didn’t intend to touch anything, wouldn’t do anything to compromise the crime scene.

She was surprised to find the door unlocked. She frowned, marveling at the sloppy work of whoever was in charge.

The faint smell of death lingered in the foyer even though she knew the body of the victim had been removed forty-eight hours earlier.

The first thing she saw as she stepped into the foyer was the horrendous painting of a rustic old red barn with a pond in front of it.

The sight of it threatened to unravel the tight control she’d kept on her emotions since she’d heard about the murder.

She’d painted the picture years ago in the very first art class she’d taken. It held all the flaws of an amateur; the water was too blue, the trees a single shade of green. Jenna had been going to trash it, but Miranda had insisted she loved it and wanted to keep it.

Over the years it had become a running joke between them. No matter where Miranda moved, no matter what her circumstances, the painting was always the one thing constant in her life.

Jenna steeled herself as she stepped into the living room. The essence of Miranda filled the room, from the colorful throw pillows on the red sofa to the plethora of flourishing plants in front of the windows.

Miranda had loved color and life. She made friends easily and trusted in the goodness of people. She and Jenna had been polar opposites, and yet they had been as close as blood sisters.

Jenna had been told very little about the crime, only that Miranda had been murdered and her body had been found in the bedroom. Jenna hadn’t spoken to any of the local officials yet. She’d wanted to come here first, see the scene without anyone tainting her first impressions, without anyone giving her theories about the killer. It was how she worked best—completely alone.

She’d been surprised that there hadn’t been a patrol car out front, a guard to keep looky-loos away. That, coupled with the unlocked front door made her slightly ill. The local law in this po-dunk Texas town probably didn’t know the first thing about conducting a murder investigation.

It didn’t matter. Jenna would see to it that the guilty party was brought to justice. That was her job and she was damn good at what she did.

As she moved down the hallway toward the master bedroom, she reached for the cool emotional detachment that had served her well all of her life. She didn’t think about the murdered woman being Miranda.

It was a victim, nothing more. It was the only way she could do her job effectively.

Still her stomach clenched as she reached the door to the master bedroom. It was closed and for a moment she stood before it and drew a couple of deep, slow breaths.

The doorknob was cool beneath her fingers as she turned it and pushed open the door. Evening shadows were already filling the room and although she would have liked to turn on the light, she fought the impulse, not wanting to draw attention to her presence here.

The king-size bed stood before her. It had been stripped of sheets and blankets and only an ugly rust-colored stain remained in the center of the mattress.

This was where Miranda had died. She’d come to this town to begin to build a new life and instead had been killed in her bed.

As she stared at it, the unmistakable click of a gun sounded from somewhere behind her.

She whirled around and reached for her weapon, but stopped as she saw him. He stood in the shadows by the closet, a tall, dark-haired man with broad shoulders and a gun leveled at her chest.

It was a known fact that often a murderer will revisit the scene of his crime and this man with hair as dark as midnight and hard, cold eyes the color of the gun he held in his hand, looked like he could put a bullet through her heart, then go enjoy a nice cold beer with his buddies.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, as if she were in a position to demand anything.

“I think that’s my line.” His voice was sexy deep and although his tone was relatively light, the sharp gaze of his eyes belied the easy tone.

“Special Agent Taylor, FBI,” she replied.

“Sheriff Matt Buchannan, and nobody called the FBI, so what in the hell are you doing here on my crime scene?”

“I’d feel a lot better about discussing all this if you didn’t have that gun pointed at me.” She didn’t know if he was the sheriff or the killer, but she definitely wished he’d point his gun in another direction.

“And I’d feel a lot better if you’d show me some identification and answer my questions,” he replied, not lowering the gun.

Carefully Jenna reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her identification wallet with two fingers. She had no idea how trigger happy the man might be, but she didn’t want to give him any reason to fire the weapon he had in his hand.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she said. He didn’t look like a sheriff. His hair was too long and there was no way the T-shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders and the worn jeans that hugged the length of his long legs could be construed as an official law enforcement uniform.

He pulled a badge holder from his pocket and tossed it to the floor at her feet. She reached down and picked it up and looked at it. It was official, the man in front of her was the sheriff of Bridgewater, Texas.

When he’d eyed her identification, he finally holstered the gun and tossed the thin wallet back to her. She caught it midair with one hand and tucked it back into her pocket.

“You want to tell me what you’re doing here?” He walked over to the wall and flipped on the light switch.

In the stark overhead light he was even more intimidating than he’d been with a gun in his hand. Although his features were sharp and handsome, a scar raced down one side of his face. That, along with the hard gleam in his eyes, let her know he was a man who was intimately acquaintanted with violence.

“Miranda Harris was my best friend and I’m here to catch her killer,” she said and handed him back his badge.

“Unofficially, of course, because the FBI has no jurisdiction in this case. And you’ve already gotten on my bad side by showing up here without contacting me. I could arrest you right now for trespassing on my crime scene.”

“I’m good at what I do,” Jenna said. “I can help you with this.”

“And what exactly is it that you do?” he asked.

“I’m a profiler.”

Those hard cold eyes of his lit with a hint of amusement. “Ah, so you’re going to read some books and compare evidence and magically pull a killer out of your hat?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Are you being an ass on purpose or does it just come naturally to you?” she asked, not trying to hide her irritation. How dare he question her process, her very competence? He was nothing but a small-time sheriff with a closed, small mind.

“Folks around here say it comes pretty natural to me,” he replied easily. “Now, I don’t know where you came from, but I suggest you go back there before I change my mind and throw some handcuffs on you.” He gestured her toward the door.

It was impossible for Jenna to argue with him. She knew she had no business being in the house. She was, indeed, trespassing on a crime scene.

She was acutely conscious of him just behind her as she walked back down the hallway to the front door. She could smell him, the scent of clean male and a faint spicy cologne that was intensely appealing.

She knew the only way she was going to be able to gain access to the information she needed to find the person responsible for Miranda’s murder was to play nice with the locals. This man was at the top of that list.

When she reached the door she turned to face him. “Look, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here.” She forced a smile to her lips. “I apologize for not going the official route and introducing myself before coming here, but I’m sure I could be of some help to you.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Sleepy Owl Motel,” she replied, hopeful that he was going to tell her that they could work together on this.

“I’m sure I’ll have some questions for you. Miranda was relatively new in town. You might know something about her that nobody else here knows.” He opened the front door. “Other than answering some questions, the best thing you can do is stay out of my investigation,” he said. What little amusement that had lit his slate-gray eyes was gone.

“I’d like to say it was a pleasure, Sheriff Buchannan, but it wasn’t.” Jenna turned and walked down the sidewalk to where she’d parked her car.

The July sunshine was hot on her shoulders, but not as warm as the heat of Sheriff Matt Buchannan’s gaze on her.

She’d screwed up. She should have gone to the sheriff’s office and introduced herself one professional to another before coming here to the house.

She wanted access to the files, to the interviews, to everything pertaining to Miranda’s murder. Somehow she was going to have to find a way to work around Buchannan because she wasn’t going anywhere until she found the man who had taken the life of her best friend.

MATT WATCHED THE FBI agent as she walked down the sidewalk to her car. He had a feeling she was a tough little piece of work, but he couldn’t help but notice the sway of her shapely hips beneath the tight jeans.

He watched until she got into the driver’s seat and pulled away from the curb. There was no question that she was exceptionally pretty with her long wavy chestnut hair and blue eyes that had snapped with intelligence.

She had a mouth on her, too, lush and moist and fresh as a petulant teenager. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been accused of being an ass, at least not to his face.

He had a feeling he hadn’t seen the last of her. He also had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time she’d irritate him.

She had some nerve, waltzing in here without notice or permission. She probably figured since she was a big FBI profiler that all she had to do was take a peek at the crime scene and she’d be able to solve the case.

Matt knew the case was only going to be solved by good old-fashioned investigation. This was his town. He knew the players and he didn’t need some hotshot FBI agent with a personal stake in the case to muck things up.

He left the house and headed back to his office. It was a four-block walk from the crime scene. Officially he was off-duty for the day, but until the murder of Miranda Harris was solved, there was no such thing as a day off.

Bridgewater, Texas, was a small town with the traditional Main Street holding two blocks of businesses. It was a place where everyone knew everyone else, where secrets were difficult to keep. The last murder had taken place ten years ago, long before Matt had become sheriff.

Matt had seen murder before. He’d worked as a homicide cop in Chicago for seven years before returning here to his roots and he’d seen the worst that people could do to each other.

But this one bothered him in a way none of the others ever had. Miranda Harris had been an attractive twenty-nine-year-old who had moved to Bridgewater three months earlier. She’d gotten a job working at the Bridgewater Café and had been well liked by all her coworkers.

Everyone had been shocked by the news of her murder and most people believed the killer was somebody from her past. It was much easier to believe that a killer had come to Bridgewater rather than to believe that a killer belonged to Bridgewater.

Matt was a familiar sight walking the streets of his town. His home was three blocks from his office and he’d always found he did his best thinking while walking.

A hundred thoughts whirled in his head now. He definitely had some questions for Ms. FBI Profiler about Miranda. They had yet to determine next of kin, had only managed to learn that she had come from Dallas following a divorce, and so far Matt and his deputies hadn’t been able to locate her ex-husband.

Maybe Jenna Taylor could fill in some blanks, could give him an idea of who from Miranda’s past might want her dead.

He’d stopped by the house to spend some time alone in the room where life had been stolen, hoping that something would jump out at him, that he might see something in a new light, but the only thing new had been the arrival of Jenna Taylor.

“Hey, Harley,” Matt said as he greeted the old man clipping a row of scrubs in front of his house.

“Sheriff.” Harley nodded and dropped his clippers to his side. “Hot enough for you?”

“Only going to get hotter,” Matt replied.

“You find that killer yet?”

“Working on it.”

Harley frowned. “Forty-three years Mary and I have lived in this house and never has she asked me twice to make sure the doors are locked. But the last two nights she’s had me check the locks half a dozen times. She’s scared, Sheriff. Scared that some madman is going to get her like he got that young woman.”

“You tell Mary we’re going to get this guy. It’s just a matter of time,” Matt replied.

“Forty-eight hours have already passed. Doesn’t that mean your best chance of getting him is gone?”

Matt stifled a groan. God help the people who watched crime shows on television and believed everything they saw. “Harley, very few crimes are solved in forty-eight hours. Trust me, we’re going to solve this case.” With a wave of his hand, Matt continued down the sidewalk, his thoughts even more troubled than they had been moments before.

The murder had shaken people and there were details that hadn’t been released, details that made Matt’s guts clench. He hoped his gut was wrong, that this was a specific, isolated murder. But he had a bad feeling.

The sheriff’s office was located in the center of Main Street. It was a two-story brick building. The jail was located on the second floor and the first floor was divided into three rooms. The largest room held four desks where the deputies and the dispatcher worked. The second room was an interrogation/conference room and the third was Matt’s office.

“Hey, Sheriff,” Deputy Joey Kincaid greeted him as he walked through the door. The young man was the only person in the place. “Anything new?”

“Afraid not,” Matt replied. Joey was the most eager-to-learn-the-ropes deputy he’d ever worked with. He was like a sponge that soaked up any knowledge Matt might have to give him about the job. And he was an unusually quiet young man who rarely spoke unless he was asking questions.

“Anything new here?” Matt asked.

Joey shook his head. “Nothing. Linda and Jim went to lunch and I’ve just been holding down the fort.”

“I’m going to take a quick shower. If anyone calls, just take a message,” Matt said and then stepped into his inner office.

The first thing he looked at was the small, framed photograph that sat on his desk. In the photo was a beautiful blonde woman, his wife.

For three years she’d been his world and then that world had been stolen away by a madman. He reached up and touched the scar on his face. It never itched unless he looked at the photograph and remembered all that he’d lost.

It had been five years since Natalie had been taken, but there were days the wound felt as fresh as if it had just happened. Other days it felt like a dream he’d once had in another lifetime.

Matt headed to the bathroom with a shower just off his office where his uniform hung waiting. He stripped naked and stepped beneath a spray of hot water.

He worked to wash the stink of death off him before he donned his official khaki slacks and shirt. It was just after noon. He’d spend an hour or so reviewing the file on Miranda, then head out to the Sleepy Owl Motel and question Jenna Taylor.

Maybe if he conducted an official interview with her she’d be satisfied that he was doing his job and would go away.

He stepped out of the shower and dried off, then pulled on his clothes. Back at his desk he opened the pitifully thin file that contained the crime scene photos, reports of the evidence gathered and the interviews that had been conducted so far in the Miranda Harris murder case.

He didn’t know how long he’d been reading when he heard the sound of voices coming from the other room. Assuming that Linda Jerrod, the dispatcher and Deputy Jim Enderly had returned from lunch, he got up to check in with them.

The minute he opened his door he saw her. Jenna Taylor, her pert butt parked almost on top of Joey’s desk. The flirtatious smile that had lifted her lips slid away as Matt stepped into the room. Joey’s face turned bright red and he jumped up from his desk.

“Hmm, Sheriff, this is FBI Agent Taylor. She was just asking me some questions about the Harris case,” he exclaimed.

“Yes, we met earlier,” Matt said and tried to hang on to the anger the sight of her had evoked. Between her badge and her beauty, she’d probably been able to twist poor Joey into a million knots.

“Joey, go to lunch,” he said. “And you—” he pointed a menacing finger at Jenna “—in my office.”

Chapter Two

Sheriff Matt Buchannan was livid.

Jenna could tell by the color that filled his face, making the scar on his cheek stand out in stark relief. She sat in the chair opposite his desk and waited for the explosion she knew was imminent.

He reared back in his chair and drew a deep breath. “Do you not believe in taking orders?” he asked, his voice deep and deceptively calm.

“Depends on who’s giving them,” she replied.

His eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. “Stay away from my deputies, and trust me, that’s an order you don’t want to ignore.”

“I was just trying to get information about the murder. If you don’t want me bothering your deputies, then let me see your file. Give me copies of the crime scene photos and any interviews that you’ve conducted in response to the crime. Play nice with me and I won’t have a reason to go anywhere else to try to get information.”

He leaned forward and pulled out a piece of paper. “How do you know Miranda?”

Jenna realized that apparently he intended to interview her and had ignored her request for the official reports of the crime. “Miranda and I have been best friends since we were twelve years old.”

“Had you been in contact with her recently?”

“I spoke to her by phone the Saturday night before her death.” A rise of grief welled up inside her, but she mentally shoved it away. She refused to allow herself to show any emotion in front of this man with his hard gray eyes.

“Did she mention anyone she was having problems with here in town?”

Jenna shook her head. “No, even though she’d only been here a couple of months, she loved living here. She loved working as a waitress at the café and told me she was making lots of new friends.”

“What brought her here to Bridgewater?”

The heightened color had left his features and once again Jenna was struck by the fact that the sheriff was a hottie. She noticed the photo on top of his desk, a pretty blonde she assumed was his wife. She wondered what kind of a husband he was with his commanding presence and autocratic air. Probably a real pain in the butt, a his-way-or-the-highway type.

“Agent Taylor?”

She realized she hadn’t answered his question. “She was coming off a bad divorce and was looking to start over someplace new. She’d driven through here last fall and had thought it was a charming little town, and decided this was as good a place as any to start a new life.”

“You said a bad divorce? Bad how?”

“Nothing violent or anything like that. Mark just didn’t love her anymore, and it broke her heart when he asked for a divorce.” Miranda had been devastated by the death of her marriage, but she’d also been an optimist at heart, certain that true love and happiness was just around the next corner. “I can’t imagine her ex-husband having anything to do with this,” she added.

“Do you know where he is? How I can contact him?”

Jenna frowned thoughtfully. “Last I heard he had moved back in with his parents. I don’t know the address, but their names are John and Belinda Harris and they live on the south side of Dallas.”

“What about any other next of kin? Do you know how I can contact Miranda’s parents? Any siblings?” he asked.

“There is no next of kin,” she replied. “Her parents are dead and she had no siblings.” Except me, Jenna thought.

“Do you know her last known address?”

She told him and watched as he wrote down the information. The sunlight drifting in through the windows played in the thick darkness of his hair and she had the irrational impulse to lean forward and stroke that darkness with her fingers.

A new irritation swept through her. “Are you going to let me have those files or not?” she asked.

“Not,” he replied. “You have no place in this investigation.” Those cool gray eyes of his slid down the length of her. “Don’t you have a job to get back to, or were you fired for insubordination?”

“I’m on a personal leave of absence, so I’m free to hang out here in Bridgewater,” she replied and could tell that he wasn’t pleased at the prospect.

Tough. She wasn’t walking away from this. With or without his help she intended to investigate this murder. She owed it to Miranda who had been the only light in her world of darkness.

She stood, deciding she’d had enough. She had work to do and if he wasn’t going to share what he knew, then she’d just have to work twice as hard to find out who was responsible for Miranda’s murder.

“If you need to ask me any more questions you know where to find me,” she said.

She was halfway to the door when he stopped her by calling her name. She turned back to look at him. “We found a will in Miranda’s personal effects. From what I saw of it you appear to be her sole beneficiary. You might want to contact David Waller. He’s the lawyer here in town and is taking care of the legalities.”

Once again a wealth of emotion buoyed up inside her. Sole beneficiary. Somehow those words made Miranda’s death final as it hadn’t been before.

Miranda was gone forever. Grief clawed up the back of Jenna’s throat, the bitter taste nearly choking her. Never again would she see the brightness of Miranda’s smile, hear her girlish giggles as she shared something funny.

Jenna turned on her heel and left. As she hurried out of the sheriff’s office and into her rental car she was half-blinded by tears. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and gulped air in an effort to stanch her sobs.

Within moments she had successfully gained control. Control was one of the things that Jenna did best. She’d learned it early in her childhood. Don’t cry. Don’t show fear. Don’t show any emotion at all. If you did it could be used against you if Mommy was having a bad day. And Mommy had lots of bad days.

She pulled away from the office and drove slowly down the street, checking out the businesses on either side of the road. It was mostly the usual stuff that made up small towns: post office, grocery store and city hall. There were also little specialty shops, a dress boutique, a store that sold stained-glass creations and a taxidermy shop with a stuffed wolf and a raccoon in the window that she thought was more than a little bit creepy.

The place that most interested her was the café. She pulled into an empty parking space down the street from the Bridgewater Café. Miranda had worked there before her death and Jenna hadn’t had lunch.

The place would probably be packed with the lunch crowd and hopefully some of them would be chatty about Miranda and her murder.

Jenna was just about to get out of her car when her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her purse and checked the caller ID. Sam Connelly, fellow FBI profiler and friend.

“Well, if it isn’t the prince of darkness,” she said.

“Calling the princess,” he replied. “I just wanted to check in with you and see if you were doing okay.”

Warmth swept through her as she heard the concern in his deep voice. She and Sam had worked more horrible cases together than she wanted to remember. Sam was sinfully handsome and sexy, but there were absolutely no romantic sparks between them. He came from a place of darkness like she did and although that made them good friends, it also kept them from being anything more to each other. They were just too much alike.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “I’ve made contact with the local sheriff.”

“How did that go?”

“He’s an ass and not only doesn’t he want my help, but I also think he would gladly pay for a plane ticket to get me out of his town.”

“Ah, one of those. So, what are you going to do? Are you heading back here to Kansas City?”

“No way. I just found out I’m Miranda’s beneficiary, so I’ll need to hang around here and take care of her estate.”

“And if you happen to catch a killer while you’re there, then it’s all good,” Sam said.

She smiled into the phone. He knew her so well. “That’s the plan.”

“You’ll call if you need anything or if you just want to talk?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied even though they both knew she would do no such thing. “Just do me one favor,” she said. “If somehow this jerk of a sheriff gets me behind bars, make sure you come and bail me out?”

Sam laughed. “You know the smart thing to do would be not anything that will make him want to lock you up.”

“Yeah, but when did I ever do the smart thing?” she said and with a murmured goodbye she clicked off. She dropped the phone back into her purse and stared at the door to the café.

There was no way she believed that Miranda’s killer was somebody from her past. Jenna was the kind of woman who made enemies, not Miranda. Jenna worked a job that created enemies and if that wasn’t enough, her mouthiness and bad-ass attitude didn’t help. There was nobody from Miranda’s life before Bridgewater that Jenna could think of who would be a viable suspect.

No, the killer was here, in this picturesque little town with its quaint shops and smiling people, people who hopefully liked to gossip. And a murder would definitely be fodder for all the gossipmongers in town.

Matt Buchannan might want her out of his hair, out of his town, but Jenna didn’t intend to leave here until she’d exposed the killer.

THE MOMENT MATT entered the café he saw her. Seated at the counter and chatting up Sally Cooper, one of the waitresses. Why was he not surprised?

He approached the counter and smiled at Sally. “Hey, Sally, what’s the special today?” Although he didn’t look at Jenna he sensed her stiffening at the sound of his voice.

“If it’s Tuesday it must be meat loaf,” she replied. “And we have your favorite dessert today, Sheriff. Michael whipped up a couple of lemon meringue pies this morning.”

He slid onto the stool next to Jenna. “Great, then I’ll have the daily special and a piece of that pie.”

It was only when Sally left the counter to put in the order that Matt turned to look at the woman seated next to him. “Learn anything?”

She gestured toward the plate in front of her. “I’m scarcely halfway through my French fries, I haven’t been here long enough to learn anything yet.” She dragged a fry through a pool of ketchup, then popped it in her mouth. “Although I did manage to introduce myself to Sally.”

Sally returned with the coffeepot and poured Matt a cup. “Anything new in the murder case?” she asked, her voice low as she leaned toward Matt.

He could almost feel Jenna holding her breath to hear his reply. “Nothing that I can talk about,” he said.

Sally shook her head. “It’s a scary thing. I’ve lived in this town fifty years and counting and I don’t remember a murder like Miranda’s ever taking place here. She was such a nice young woman, always smiling.” Sally shook her head again and walked away to fill another customer’s coffee cup.

Matt took a sip of his coffee. He’d believed Jenna was as cold as they came when they had spoken about the murder. She hadn’t blinked an eye at the crime scene nor had she shown any emotion at all when sitting in his office.

Until he’d told her she was Miranda’s beneficiary. It was only then that he’d seen a deepening of the blue of her eyes, a slight tremor in her full lower lip, and he’d realized she wasn’t as cold and unaffected as she’d pretended to be earlier.

Sitting this close to her he could smell her, the pleasant scent of clean with a touch of something slightly citrusy.

“Doesn’t your wife fix you a nice hot lunch?” she asked, breaking the silence that had welled up between them.

“My wife?”

“Yeah, I figured the picture on your desk of the pretty blonde was your wife.” She half-turned to look at him.

“She was. She died five years ago.”

“Sorry,” she replied.

“Yeah, so am I,” Matt replied. He fought the impulse to scratch his scar, the scar he’d received while wrestling with a madman, the same man who had killed Natalie.

“A man like you, surely you have a girlfriend who would be eager to fix you lunch, then.”

“Agent Taylor, if I didn’t know better I’d think that was a backhanded compliment,” he said with a half grin.

“Good thing you know better,” she replied. “And you might as well call me Jenna because I don’t intend on going anywhere anytime soon.” She picked up another fry. “You have to tell me something,” she said as she stared down at her plate.

She looked back at him and in the depths of her eyes he saw a shimmer of pain. “I wasn’t given any real information before coming here, just that she’d been murdered. I need to know the details. They can’t be any worse than my imagination.” She broke off as Sally arrived with his plate of food.

“I don’t want to talk about it here,” he said. He supposed there were some things he could tell her that wouldn’t compromise his investigation, although there were some details that hadn’t been shared with anyone and he wasn’t about to share those with her.

“Then where?” she replied.

“Why don’t we finish our lunch and then I’ll follow you back to your motel room. We can talk there without interruption, without anyone listening.”

“Thank you,” she said and focused back on her plate.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“A little town just north of Kansas City. I work out of the Kansas City field office.”

“Married?”

“Nope.”

“Do you have a significant other?” he asked.

“Yeah, a cranky cat that showed up half-dead on my doorstep.” She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “What’s this? Be nice to the FBI agent and maybe she’ll go away?”

“Something like that,” Matt agreed easily.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re nice or mean to me, I’m here for the long haul,” she replied.

“Won’t your cat miss you?”

“Nah, we have no emotional attachment to each other. That’s why we get along so well. I have a friend who is taking care of her while I’m gone.”

The statement was definitely telling. He suspected that this was a woman who didn’t play well with others. What she had to realize was that when it came to an ongoing murder investigation in his town, he wasn’t willing to play well with her.

Plus, he wasn’t at all sure he believed in the whole profiling thing. As far as he was concerned, solving a crime happened only one way—through intensive investigation, intelligent interrogation and exhaustive interviews.

He thought profiling was a bit of hocus-pocus that might work in the case of serial killers, but there was absolutely nothing in the Harris murder that indicated this was anything but an isolated crime.

“How long have you been Sheriff here?”

“Almost five years. Before that I was a homicide cop in Chicago.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Really, what brought you to this tiny town?”

“I was born and raised here, but moved to Chicago to join the police force. I came back here after the death of my wife. It so happened that the sheriff was retiring, so I stepped into his shoes.”

There had been a time when he couldn’t talk about his wife, when even thinking about her brought a pain that nearly cast him to his knees. But that terrible grief had passed and over the last year he’d finally begun to look forward instead of backward.

For the next few minutes they ate in silence. She finished her meal but made no move to leave.

There was a part of him, a strictly male part, that found Special Agent Jenna Taylor extremely attractive. Definitely a fatal attraction, he told himself ruefully.

“Why didn’t you tell me about being Miranda’s beneficiary when you first met me?” she asked.

He eyed her with a touch of amusement. “If you’ll recall we didn’t exactly meet under the best of circumstances. I was trying to decide if I should arrest you for interfering with a crime scene.”

“I didn’t touch anything. I’m not exactly a novice around crime scenes.” She leaned closer to him and he couldn’t help but notice that she had the most kissable-looking lips he’d seen in a long time. “I could help you, you know. Catching killers is what I do for a living, it’s who I am.”

He finished the last bite of his meat loaf and then pushed his plate away. “If you really want to help me, then tell me a little bit about Miranda. You said the two of you were best friends. I didn’t know her personally, so any information you can tell me about the kind of person she was would help. You said you’ve known her since she was twelve, did the two of you meet in school?”

“No, Miranda’s parents brought me into their home as a foster child, but that was a long time ago,” she said with a touch of impatience. “Miranda and I were like sisters.”

“You look a lot like her,” he said.

For the first time since he’d met her she smiled, a real smile that warmed the blue of her eyes and lit her features from within. An unexpected flicker of desire ignited in the pit of his stomach.

“Miranda and I used to tell people that we were fraternal twins, not exactly alike but almost. We might have looked alike but in most things we were polar opposites.”

“How so?” he asked curiously.

“Miranda was like a big ball of sunshine. She never met anyone she didn’t like, believed that everyone had some good inside them.”

“And you don’t believe that?”

“It’s my job to look for the darkness in everyone,” she replied ruefully.

They fell silent as Sally brought Matt his lemon pie. Jenna slid off her stool and placed money on the counter. “Look, I’m going to head back to my motel room. I’m in unit seven. I’ll see you there in a few minutes?”

Matt nodded, then turned and watched her weave her way through the tables to the front door. He had to admit she intrigued him more than a little bit.

Certainly that rivulet of desire that he’d momentarily felt had stunned him. He hadn’t felt that for any woman for over five years. Just his luck that the first woman who stirred him on a physical level was one he didn’t think he even liked much.

Chapter Three

Jenna paced the short length of floor in front of the window of the small motel room window. It had been thirty minutes since she’d left the café. How long could it take him to eat a piece of pie?

Although she knew it would be painful, she needed to hear the details of Miranda’s death. She wanted to know how she’d died, who had found her body and what had been done since then to find the guilty.

She walked over to the small table where she had a notebook opened, ready to take notes. She had a laptop, but preferred handwriting things first, then transferring them to the computer. She felt like she thought better in longhand.

She flipped the pages to her to-do list and wrote down that she needed to visit the lawyer first thing in the morning. As Miranda’s beneficiary she’d have to figure out what to do with the house and all of Miranda’s personal belongings. The sooner she got started the better. She didn’t intend to stick around this place forever.

Sinking down in a chair at the table, she pressed her fingers into the center of her forehead where a headache threatened to blossom.

Stress. She’d suffered from stress headaches since she’d been little. Certainly the first twelve years of her life had been filled with stresses that children should never have to experience.

Sometimes she thought those early years of her life had formed the kind of woman she’d become, a woman who sought the darkness in others because she’d come from such a dark place.

She jumped up from the chair as she heard a car door slam outside. A glance out the window showed her Matt walking toward her unit. He walked with a slightly self-confident swagger that was both attractive and more than a little bit sexy.

She opened the door before he could knock. “How was your pie?”

“Excellent,” he replied as he stepped through the door.

She gestured him toward the table and suddenly felt a bit awkward. She’d been in a hundred motel rooms over the last year, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hunky male in the room with her.

She sank down in front of her notebook and picked up her pen. “I hope you don’t mind if I take some notes.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders as he sat in the chair opposite hers. “Suit yourself.” His gray eyes studied her as if she were a particularly intriguing specimen. “I’m not sure why you want to put yourself through all the gory details.”

“My world is made up of gory details,” she replied.

“I hope you have something good to balance that.”

Miranda, she thought. Miranda had been her balance and now she was gone. “Let’s just get down to business,” she said briskly. “She was stabbed, wasn’t she?”

He looked at her in surprise. “How did you know that?”

“I saw the mattress on the bed, the bloodstains. No bullet holes, just blood. There was no castoff on the walls, so she wasn’t bludgeoned.”

He nodded. “She was stabbed. Several times through the heart. There was no sign of forced entry, so we can only assume she might have known the killer.” He kept his voice low and steady as he dryly recited the facts. “She was killed sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning. When she didn’t show up for the lunch shift, Michael Brown, the owner of the café, got concerned and sent over one of the waitresses to check on her.”

“What’s the waitress’s name?” she asked.

“Maggie Wendt. Apparently she and Miranda had become quite close friends. Miranda had given Maggie a key to her house. When Maggie got there and saw Miranda’s car in the driveway but she didn’t answer the door, Maggie got worried and went inside.”

“You checked out her story?”

“Thoroughly. The whole thing has practically destroyed her. I don’t think she’s left her house since she found Miranda.”

“Any other suspects?” she asked.

“I was hoping you’d be able to give me some names. She was only in town for three months. I can’t help but think it’s possible that somebody from her past is responsible for this.”

Jenna frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine it.”

“But you said you live in Kansas City and Miranda was living in Dallas before moving here. Maybe there were things about her life that she didn’t share with you?”

Was it possible? Were there secrets in Miranda’s life, secrets she hadn’t shared with Jenna? “You just don’t want to believe that the killer might be homegrown,” she said.

He smiled and nodded. Oh, the man had a nice, sexy smile. “Of course I don’t want to believe that anyone from Bridgewater is capable of such a crime, but my mind is certainly open to the possibility.”

“When is the house going to be released?”

He frowned, but the gesture did nothing to diminish his handsomeness. “Probably sometime tomorrow afternoon. We’ve already collected all the evidence, what little there was, but I was going to do another walk through in the morning.”

“What kind of evidence did you collect?” she asked.

Once again he frowned. “Unfortunately not much. There wasn’t a single fingerprint anywhere in the house except for Miranda’s.”

“So the killer wiped everything down,” she said. “Or he wore gloves.”

“We didn’t get much of anything that would help the investigation.” His gaze shifted from hers for a moment, making her believe he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. “Why do you want to know when the house will be released?”

“I need to take care of packing things, but also as soon as you release it I’ll be staying there.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Won’t that be difficult for you?”

“Why? Because she died there?” Jenna set down her ink pen. “She also lived there.” To Jenna’s horror a mist of unexpected tears filled her eyes. She stared down at the table and drew several deep breaths in an effort to regain control of her emotions.

He reached out a hand and covered one of hers. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m sorry about your friend.”

Three things sprang to her mind. The first was a black grief for the friend she had lost. The second was that she liked the way her name sounded falling from his lips. The third was that the touch of his big, strong hand shot a wave of evocative warmth up her arm.

She pulled her hand from his and looked at him. “It’s been five years since you’ve investigated a murder, something like this. Aren’t you worried that you might be a little rusty?”

He smiled again, that sexy, easy half grin. “It’s kind of like making love. Even if it’s been a long time you never forget how to do it.”

Her mind exploded with a vision of him in bed, naked and with hunger shining from his gray eyes. She consciously willed the vision away and narrowed her eyes. His statement had been totally inappropriate and she had a feeling he’d done it on purpose, in an effort to throw her off balance and replace her grief with irritation. She had a feeling Sheriff Matt Buchannan was far more intelligent than she’d given him credit for.

She suddenly wanted him out of her motel room, as far away from her as possible. It was clear he didn’t intend to share any real information with her, clear that he wasn’t going to help her in her investigation of Miranda’s murder. And there was something about his easy smile, his very attractiveness that was somehow threatening to her.

“I’ll give you my cell phone number and I’d appreciate it if you would call me when I can get into the house,” she said.

She wrote down her number and tore it from the notebook, then handed it to him and stood in an obvious attempt to dismiss him. “I guess we’re done here.”

He rose to his feet, obviously getting the clue that she was finished with him. She walked with him to the motel room door and stepped outside into the warm July air.

“Jenna, this town and this murder investigation isn’t big enough for us to share. Take care of whatever you need to with Miranda’s estate, but leave the investigation to me.” With these words he left her and walked to his car without a backward glance.

She watched as he got into his patrol car and left the parking lot. She leaned against the outside of her unit and closed her eyes against the bright sunshine.

Miranda, what happened here? Again a wealth of grief clawed up the back of her throat, but she swallowed hard against it.

Who did you meet that killed you? Who could have plunged a knife through your loving, kind heart? Who could have hated you that much? And why? Why did this happen to you?

A faint chill swept through her despite the warmth of the sun. She had felt the creepy feeling she was being watched.

She opened her eyes and gazed around as the disturbing sensation continued. She saw nobody around, but couldn’t dispel the feeling that somebody was nearby, staring at her with malevolence.

The killer?

She’d only introduced herself to Sally. Had the waitress talked about the FBI agent who had come to town? Did the killer already know she was here? Was he stalking her like she intended to stalk him?

“Bring it on,” she whispered just beneath her breath as she went back into her room and locked the door behind her.

“JOEY, I’M HEADING OVER to Maggie Wendt’s place for another interview,” Matt said to his young deputy the next morning. “If you need me, you can either reach me by radio or by my cell phone.”

“Got it,” Joey said.

Matt left the office and stepped out into the hot morning air. Not even nine o’clock yet and the sun was already a fireball in the sky.

That wasn’t all that was hot this morning. As he thought of the dream he’d had the night before, his temperature raised several notches.

Special Agent Jenna Taylor had been the center of his dream, beckoning him into bed with her mysterious blue eyes and a smile that had heated his blood to the boiling point. And he’d been a willing participant, tumbling into the sheets with her and making hot, wild love.

He got into his patrol car and started the engine. It had been a long time since he’d thought about sex, let alone had a dream where he’d awakened panting and aroused and wanting to remain asleep to experience it all over again.

It was an indication that the grief he’d suffered for so long had truly passed. He would forever hold Natalie in his heart, but she was gone and he was ready to move on.

He was only thirty-five years old, far too young to contemplate living the rest of his life alone. Besides, he knew what it was to love. He knew what it felt like to be in love and he wanted that again.

Why he’d dreamed of Jenna was a mystery to him. She’d been in town only twenty-four hours and already he found her to be a major pain.

He shoved away thoughts of Jenna and instead focused on the matter at hand. He’d done an initial interview with Maggie immediately after she’d found Miranda’s body, but she’d been so distraught that he’d had to call a halt to the interview.

He’d tried to talk to her the day before as well, but she’d indicated that she was still too upset to talk about her murdered friend.

He was hoping that today she’d be able to discuss what she knew about Miranda, might be able to give him some details about the murdered woman’s life that would help him find her killer.

It concerned him that they had so little to go on. None of Miranda’s neighbors had seen or heard anything on the morning of her death. The only real evidence they had was a vase of roses, five long-stem roses in various stages of bloom and the sixth that had been found on the center of her bloody chest.

Nobody knew about the roses except the officers who had processed the scene. He and his team were trying to chase down where the roses might have come from, but with Bridgewater being only forty miles from Dallas, it was possible they were bought in the bigger city where there were hundreds of florists. It could take weeks or even months to chase down that particular lead.

He hadn’t wanted to admit to Jenna just how little they had, just how stymied he was in finding the killer. The last five years it had been easy to be sheriff in Bridgewater. The worst of the crimes were an occasional robbery, bar fights and domestic disputes. Murder hadn’t been an issue until now.

Maggie Wendt lived in a small rental home three blocks from Miranda’s house. When Matt pulled up in front of it he muttered a curse as he saw the familiar rental car in the driveway. The woman who had visited his dream the night before seemed definitely determined to get on his bad side.

Even though he was irritated that she was here, he couldn’t help but feel a grudging admiration for her sheer tenacity. Wouldn’t he be doing the same thing if his best friend had been murdered?

He knocked on the door and Maggie answered. “Sheriff Buchannan,” she said in surprise. “Please, come in. I was just speaking with your partner.”

His partner? He shook his head ruefully as he followed Maggie through the small living room and into the kitchen where Jenna sat at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her.

Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of him but she offered him, a bright smile as if they were best buddies. “Sheriff, I was just chatting with Maggie,” she said.

She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless blue blouse that exactly matched her eyes. The top two buttons of the blouse were unfastened, giving him a glimpse of creamy breasts as she leaned forward to wrap her fingers around her coffee mug.

“I’m so glad you’ve called in the FBI,” Maggie exclaimed. “I want everyone in the world looking for Miranda’s killer.” She gestured Matt into a chair at the table next to Jenna. “Let me get you some coffee,” she said.

“Thanks, that sounds good.”

As Maggie went to the coffeepot on the countertop, Matt looked at Jenna. She shrugged, as if to say that she couldn’t help herself.

“I was just telling Agent Taylor what a wonderful friend Miranda was for the three months that I knew her,” Maggie said as she set a cup of coffee in front of Matt. “Everyone at the café loved her and she and I clicked right away.”

Maggie joined them at the table and grabbed a napkin from the bright red rooster-shaped napkin holder in the center of the table. “I can’t get the picture of her out of my head, her lying on the bed covered in blood.”

Jenna reached across the table and patted Maggie’s hand. “Eventually you’ll forget the horror of it. Time will help.”

Maggie nodded. “It’s just still so fresh.”

“Maggie, I know I asked you this before, but you’ve had a couple of days to think about things, can you think of anyone who might have been angry with Miranda? Somebody here in town who was giving her problems?”

Maggie shook her head as tears glimmered in her eyes. She unfolded the napkin and used it to dab at her tears. “I know everyone at the café loved her. She never complained, even when she took extra shifts. The customers all loved her. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. Maybe it was a robbery?” she asked hopefully, as if somehow that would make it all better.

Matt shook his head. “As far as we could tell nothing was stolen.”

“Did she mention anyone she was interested in? Maybe a man who’d caught her eye?” Jenna asked.

“No, although she did tell me she thought somebody was interested in her, kind of like a secret admirer.”

Jenna sat up straighter in her chair. “A secret admirer? Why would she think that?”

Maggie shrugged, but Matt had a feeling he knew the answer. The roses. Somehow the roses were the key, but damned if he could figure it out.

“She didn’t go into any details, but we spent some time speculating on who might have a crush on her,” Maggie said.

“And who did you come up with?” Jenna asked as she pulled a small pad and pen from her purse.

“Oh, it was just pure speculation,” Maggie said. “We thought it might be Leroy Banks.” She looked at Matt. “You know he works as a busboy and cook at the café. Then we thought it might be Doc Johnson. When Miranda began working at the café he started coming in for both lunch and dinner and he always sat in her section.”

Jenna wrote down both names, her brow furrowed in thought. “Anyone else?” she asked as she looked at Maggie once again.

Matt leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, content to let her do the talking. She’d obviously established a rapport with Maggie before he’d arrived and if she wanted to do his work for him, at least for the moment, he wasn’t complaining.

“Bud Carlson. He’s kind of a jerk, he has that whole bad-boy thing going on, but Miranda told me she thought he was kind of sexy.”

“Did he act like he liked her?” Jenna asked.

Maggie frowned. “Bud flirted with her a lot. I told her that he was bad news and she should stay away from him.” Once again tears filled her eyes. “Do you think Bud did this to her?”

Matt sat up straighter in his chair. “Maggie, we have no evidence to suggest that Bud had anything to do with it.” The last thing he wanted or needed was for rumors to start swirling around and fingers pointing at a man who might be innocent.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Maggie said, directing her gaze to Jenna. “I’ve done nothing but think about this since the minute I found her dead, but I can’t think of anything else that might help.”

Once again Jenna reached across the table and took Maggie’s hand in hers. “You’ve been a big help, Maggie.” She smiled warmly and Matt felt the power of that smile igniting a tiny fire in the pit of his stomach.

Jenna looked at Matt. “You have anything you want to ask, Sheriff?”

He found it oddly amusing that somehow she had taken control and cast him in the role of second banana. “No, I think you’ve pretty much taken care of things.” He got up from the table and Jenna and Maggie did the same.

“Thanks for the coffee, Maggie,” he said as they reached the front door.

He wasn’t surprised when Maggie reached out to hug Jenna. What surprised him was the play of emotions that swept across Jenna’s face as she returned the hug. Raw and vulnerable, they flashed for just a moment and then were gone as she stepped back from Maggie.

“We’ll be in touch,” she said and then she stepped out of the door.

Matt fell into step beside her as they went down the sidewalk. “Partner, huh?”

“I didn’t tell her that, she just assumed it,” she said without apology. As they reached her car she leaned against the driver’s door. “Tell me about the men she mentioned. I can’t believe she didn’t say anything to me about a secret admirer.”

“Maybe she was waiting until she knew who it was before talking to you about it,” he said and then continued. “Leroy Banks is a thirty-year-old who works as a busboy. He’s the nephew of Michael Brown, the owner of the café. He moved here about six months ago.”

Matt tried not to notice how the sun sparked in her hair, making it look soft and touchable. Standing this close to her he could smell her scent, that pleasant clean, citrus fragrance that he’d noticed before.

“Doc Johnson is actually Patrick Johnson, our local veterinarian,” he continued. “He’s thirty-four and has always been a stand-up kind of guy. His office is next door to the café. Bud Carlson is in his late twenties, owns his own home improvement business and considers himself something of a ladies’ man.”

He frowned as he thought of Bud. “He drinks too much, has a hot temper and is the first one to look for a fight.”

“Have you talked to any of these three?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t know about them having anything to do with Miranda. You got more out of Maggie over a cup of coffee than I got in an hour-long interview just after the murder.” He fought against a sigh of frustration.

Before she could reply his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and answered.

“Sheriff, it’s Joey. I just got a call from George Hudson. He was hysterical, said Carolyn Cox is dead—murdered. He told me she was in her bed and she’d been stabbed. It sounds like the other one, just like Miranda’s murder.”

Matt’s stomach clenched tightly. “I’m on my way. Get Thad and Jerry to meet me there.” He clicked off the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.

“What?” Jenna asked.

“It looks like we might have another murder,” he said.

“I’ll follow you,” she replied, as if there were no question that she was coming along.

He didn’t have time to argue with her, nor was he sure he wanted to. If the information that Joey had given him was true, it meant Miranda Harris wasn’t an isolated case. It was quite possible that a serial killer was working in his town.

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