It’s Silver Valley’s biggest social event of the year—and the deadliest

Florist Kayla Paruso has been hired to decorate the mayor’s daughter’s wedding, but when she witnesses the murder of the mayor’s top aide, rumors of corruption—even a cult connection—swirl through the town. Could the mayor really be involved? Luckily the SVPD offers Kayla the very best protection: Detective Rio Ortego. Who just happens to be the last guy Kayla dated. With the wedding fast approaching, Kayla’s the perfect person to pry into the mayor’s dangerous secrets, but Rio won’t hear of it. And as their old attraction reignites, Rio’s cop instincts clash with his need to safeguard the woman he’s falling in love with all over again…

Sirens screamed through the night.

Uncontrollable shudders shook her, and her legs quaked. For this one moment, Kayla allowed the strength and certainty of Rio’s embrace to hold her up. She didn’t refuse the comfort his arms gave her. His breathing and heartbeat were strong and reassuring under her left ear, and she pressed her head against his chest, her arms tight around his waist.

Rio’s waist.

“You’re okay, babe.”

Babe.

The sanctity of their embrace evaporated as effectively as if Rio were a hypnotist and he’d snapped her out of a trance. A trance she couldn’t afford to wander into, not if she was going to keep her emotions regarding him in check. It’d taken this long to finally accept that there was no hope for them.

This was the same man who’d hidden his identity from her. It paid to remember that.

* * *

We hope you enjoy the Silver Valley P.D. miniseries. Be sure to look for more stories in 2016!

If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

Dear Reader,

Weddings are usually a time of joy in Silver Valley, just like they are anywhere else. But when the mayor, who’s suspected of criminal wrongdoing, ends up with a murdered assistant, it’s enough to cast a pall on any event. I had fun writing about wedding planning amid such a terrible crime, and I hope you enjoy reading Wedding Takedown, SVPD #2.

I loved writing heroine Kayla Paruso, since her life appears so well-ordered, but after witnessing a murder she has to dig deep to help justice prevail, even though that involves her former lover, SVPD detective Rio Ortego. As Rio came to life on the page I discovered that he, too, was a more complex hero than first impressions might convey. Kayla and Rio are perfect for each other, but have to survive murder attempts and go through undercover training before they can begin to deal with their own emotional conflicts. Their chemistry is intense—these characters wanted me to write yet another love scene when they had a murderer to catch!

It’s my wish that your time in Silver Valley is entertaining, and that you keep guessing who the killer is to the very end of the story.

Thank you so much for your continued support of my stories.

I’d love to connect with you. Please visit my website, www.gerikrotow.com, and sign up for my newsletter. Also find me at my author page on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter. Wherever you’re comfortable chatting, I’m there!

Peace,

Geri

Wedding

Takedown

Geri Krotow

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former naval intelligence officer and US Naval Academy graduate GERI KROTOW draws inspiration from the global situations she’s experienced. Geri loves to hear from her readers. You can email her via her website and blog, gerikrotow.com.

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To Andrew Grey and Heidi Hormel,

Plotbusters Extraordinaire!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

“My order was very specific. I said absolutely no mums in the bouquet, and you sent an arrangement with three!”

Kayla Paruso knew that customer service was paramount to the success of Kayla’s Blooms. That was the only thing that kept her smiling at Mrs. Vance, who came into the shop every week with a complaint. The elderly woman had been widowed only a year ago and Kayla figured if nitpicking about floral arrangements kept Mrs. Vance going, then so be it.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Vance. I’ll send out a new arrangement tomorrow morning. Tell you what, I’ll throw in a new vase for the inconvenience. Please pick one from that lower shelf and let me know what time you’d like the delivery.”

“You know, in Europe it’s considered bad luck to give mums. They’re funeral flowers!” Mrs. Vance’s dentures clicked as spittle flew from her mouth.

Poor thing.

“I didn’t know that. Thanks for letting me know. Please do feel free to pick out a vase.” How her voice stayed so upbeat was beyond her. Her older sister, Melody, had told her it was the way she’d spoken since childhood—always sounding as though she was excited and happy to see the person she was chatting with.

Mrs. Vance walked over to the shelf of vases, the heels of her stylish shoes tapping on the hardwood floor Kayla had sanded and re-stained two years ago, before she opened Kayla’s Blooms. The lights were bright and her eyes were painfully dry after almost fifteen hours in the shop. It was time to call it a day.

“I’m glad you were here to deal with her.” Jenny, her assistant, spoke quietly behind Kayla. Her hands flew as she pulled off florist paper and wrapped bouquet after bouquet of fresh flowers, finishing each with a colorful spring bow. The Passover and Easter holidays kept them working around the clock and Kayla was grateful for every order called in.

Even for Mrs. Vance.

“It’s all part of the job, right? Besides, she did make it clear, no mums.”

“That’s my point. They weren’t mums, not technically. They were asters. And she’s never mistaken them for mums before.”

“You’re right. We have to give her some leeway. Her daughter stopped in last week and told me she’s thinking of placing Mrs. Vance in a memory care unit. The flowers looked like mums to her, and that’s all that matters. It’s no problem for us to make her up a new arrangement.”

“Unless every other customer wants the same treatment.”

“It’s our policy to replace any unsatisfactory order, and that won’t change.” She wasn’t going to try to explain to Jenny how hard and complicated the aging process could be, especially when dementia came into play. “Why don’t you head home after you get these into the water buckets?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. What time do you need me tomorrow?”

“Eight o’clock is fine. I may be out on deliveries, but you can open the shop.”

“I can come in earlier. You can’t keep working at this pace.”

“Don’t worry about it. I need you fresh and chipper to face all the customers tomorrow. I thrive on this pace. My schedule isn’t going to let up until after wedding season. This is why I got into this business—to keep moving.”

“There’s ‘moving,’ and there’s the hamster wheel.”

Kayla smiled but ignored Jenny’s comment. Jenny was still in college, and spent three of her weekdays commuting to school, working for Kayla on the other two and filling in as needed. She was allowed to have her own opinion. It would be too easy to tell Jenny how much her life would change over the next few years. It was in those years that Kayla herself had realized she wanted to build a life with the permanence she’d never had as a child. Her childhood had been nomadic, spent moving around with her government-employed parents. Starting a new business had been a tremendous challenge but her patience had paid off, since the flower shop was all hers. And so far, it was operating at a profit.

Her cell phone vibrated in her apron pocket and she reached for it, her interest piqued when she saw the caller ID.

“Gloria, what can I do for you?” The Silver Valley mayor’s wife, Gloria Charbonneau, was a new addition to her client list and could bring in an untold number of orders if she spread the word about Kayla’s quality product. Kayla found the woman a bit high-strung, but couldn’t really fault her—her husband had become mayor in a quickly thrown together election when the previous mayor of Silver Valley, a suburb of Harrisburg, PA, had been indicted for embezzlement.

And it was a charge that Kayla didn’t believe one bit. She’d worked with Mayor Donner over the past two years and found her to be a locally grown politician who knew the area and its people, and did her best to get things done as needed. Amelia Donner was well-known in Silver Valley and many of the locals were still very upset at her sudden expulsion from office. Not to mention their wariness about the slick man who took her place, Tony Charbonneau. Mayor Donner had been a quintessential politician but she wasn’t a criminal.

But apparently Kayla’s opinion didn’t stand up to the courts that were still working to put the former mayor behind bars for her alleged crimes.

“This isn’t about my usual order, Kayla. I need something bigger, and soon.” Gloria Charbonneau’s “usual” was a white centerpiece with seasonal flowers and a touch of color, depending upon the month and her mood. Replaced weekly, it was part of the standing-order list that was the backbone of Kayla’s shop.

Last week’s color choice had been black. Gloria preferred a contemporary style with a generous helping of gaudiness thrown in.

“Tell me what you need.”

There was a long pause and when Gloria finally spoke it wasn’t with her usual conviction.

“The mayor’s, that is, our daughter is having a short-notice wedding. Next Saturday evening, at the Weddings and More Barn. Are you familiar with it?”

“Of course.” Her older sister had used the venue three years ago, and her yoga friend Zora had mentioned it as a possibility for her upcoming wedding to an SVPD detective. The same guy Kayla had tried dating with no luck. Followed by another cop she was still trying to forget, months later. But Rio hadn’t been just another cop, another date. They’d had something special, or so she’d thought. Until she’d realized how dangerous his job really was. She needed stability, not constant worry that her life’s partner would be killed in a shoot-out.

Always the florist, never the bride.

And that was what she wanted, she reminded herself.

“Can you pull this off in a little more than a week?”

“That’s what I do, Gloria.” As she spoke soothingly to the woman known for her perfectionism, Kayla’s mind raced with all that would need to be done between now and next Saturday. On top of the Easter weekend.

She’d be decorating a wedding as she ignored the sad state of her own love life.

“Cynthia doesn’t know what she wants yet, in terms of a theme. I’ve asked my husband if his assistant can get some photos of the venue for me to use to brainstorm before I meet with you.” Kayla wondered why Gloria wasn’t using her own administrative assistant, whom Kayla had spoken to many times about floral deliveries.

“That sounds good, and if you don’t get the photos before tomorrow, I have some of my own.” She was grateful again for her nomadic childhood with parents in the United States Foreign Service. She’d learned early on that organization paid huge dividends during crunch times such as when they’d had to move across the globe to a new country and report to a new school, all within a week. And Cynthia Charbonneau’s wedding was going to be the definition of crunch. “Why don’t we meet sometime tomorrow and nail down the details?”

“I can come by your shop anytime.”

“That’d be wonderful. Is eleven o’clock okay?”

“I’ll see you then.”

Kayla allowed herself a quick fist pump and a wink at Jenny.

“We just landed a wedding for next weekend.”

“Do they want pastel eggs in the arrangements?” Jenny held up one of the thousands of pale lavender, pink, yellow and blue floral picks she’d placed in arrangements over the past few days.

Kayla laughed.

“Probably not.”

“I want this vase.” Mrs. Vance held a large crystal-cut vase that she’d found on the top shelf. Kayla had all but forgotten about her sweet but persnickety customer.

“That’s not one of the vases from my bouquet collection, Mrs. Vance.”

“How much more will it cost me?”

Kayla didn’t hesitate.

“Nothing. You’ve been so patient, I’ll throw it in and have your new flowers out in the morning, sometime before ten o’clock. Does that work for you?”

Mrs. Vance beamed.

“Yes.”

If only all of her customers could be made happy with a simple vase.

* * *

Kayla locked the shop’s door almost an hour after Jenny left, two hours past closing time. The night air felt good on her cheeks. Warmer than inside, where she had to rely on refrigeration and air-conditioning to keep her stock fresh.

She was going to have to run into the Port of Baltimore to pick up flowers for the wedding next week. It might even have to be an extra drive added onto her usual pickup. Jenny couldn’t do it due to her class schedule, and Kayla still hadn’t hired a much-needed additional assistant. Soon, after the madness of the holiday weekend, she’d get on that.

She felt buoyed up as she calculated her revenue. Last year she’d feared the shop wouldn’t last another six months, but the recession seemed to be lessening and people were still falling in love, getting married and dying. Funerals were a big part of her business and she appreciated the chance to be of comfort to grieving families and friends in their times of need.

Her florist van smelled of blooms and mud, a combination she loved. The van’s purchase had been one of her smartest business decisions and she’d spared no expense, from the refrigerated back area to the up-to-date dashboard, which she used now to place a hands-free phone call.

“Hello?” Rob Owings, the owner of the Weddings and More Barn, answered on the first ring.

“Rob, sorry to bother you so late.”

His chuckle made her smile.

“No such thing this time of year. Let me guess, it’s about the Charbonneau wedding?”

“Yes. I still have the key from the Rotary dinner last week—”

“Sure, go on in and plan to your heart’s content. I left the front lights on. Cynthia stopped by last weekend to check it out.”

“Sounds like she was happy with it.”

“I wasn’t there when she checked it out. I had to give the key to Gloria to pass on to her. Gloria signed for the wedding when she returned the key.”

“They’re willing to pour a lot of money into a short-notice affair.” She knew the deposit had to have been hefty for the three hundred guests they planned on.

“Yeah, I thought that was a little weird, but I’m not complaining.” Rob had three kids, one in college, and had lost his wife to a drunk driver two years ago. Kayla had done the flowers for her funeral and also attended.

“I hear you. Thanks, and I’m sure we’ll be talking more over the next week.”

“You bet.”

Instead of driving toward the small subdivision where she lived, she turned right and headed out of town, toward the farm fields that surrounded Silver Valley.

The moon was a crescent against the star-spangled night sky, the edge of sunset still on the western horizon. Kayla could get sucked into work and not step outside for hours on end, but deliveries and special events like this kept her out and about.

You’re aiding the enemy.

A worm of guilt crept into her serenity and she let out an exasperated breath. Ever since last Christmas, when she’d delivered a bouquet of flowers to Zora, not realizing they were from a serial killer, her mind had been on overdrive. It was too easy to think that the rumors about the new mayor were true—that Tony Charbonneau was some kind of criminal who’d found a way to get rid of the previous mayor and get himself elected in short order. Even if the accusations against the previous mayor proved false, it didn’t mean the new mayor was anything but lucky or extremely ambitious. Perhaps a bit of both.

And his wife had high-end tastes, which at times bordered on eccentric, usually in response to the most recent episode of her favorite reality TV series. She’d even send Kayla a video clip of one of the shows, demanding that her bouquets have the same shape. Kayla liked how her unique requests kept her on her artistic toes. It was easy to fall into the routine of everyday arrangements, and Kayla wanted to offer her customers something they couldn’t find anywhere else.

The barn was dark but the LED light at the side entrance flooded the area as if it was daytime. Kayla was familiar with the building since she’d provided flowers for several weddings and graduations here over the past few years, first as a freelancer, taking contracts and storing flowers in her garage and kitchen refrigerator, and then after the shop opened, she’d been able to handle more volume.

The barn looked forlorn and dark in the spring night. Rob usually left a couple of lights on inside, on timers, but with his other job managing a dairy farm, he had his hands full. It was easy to let something small slip his mind. Kayla knew the feeling all too well.

Like how they’d put the most colorful aster blooms, normally more available in the fall, in Mrs. Vance’s bouquet, when Kayla knew darn well that the woman would see them as plain old mums. She hadn’t been expecting Mrs. Vance to label them harbingers of death, however.

Her van bounced up the worn path through the field beside the large white barn and she winced as she hit a deep rut. She pulled off the muddy path and onto a dry patch of dirt. Better to walk a few hundred yards to the barn than risk wrecking her van in the dark. Spring thaw had a way of turning the hard clay soil of South Central Pennsylvania into thick, sucking mud not dissimilar to the mud fields she’d seen in the Netherlands as a child. Back when Dad had worked at the Hague and Mom had taken long hours away from her job as a private contractor to take Kayla and her siblings, Melody and Keith, on long sojourns through Europe.

Her favorite had been in the tulip-growing region of the Netherlands. Holland had opened her nose and her eyes to the brilliance of bulb flowers, from hyacinths to parrot tulips. She hadn’t been happy as a child unless there was dirt under her nails from helping her mother plant rows and rows of bulbs, seeds and rose bushes.

Her parents had indulged her when she proclaimed she was going to be a florist and own her own shop. They’d breathed an audible sigh of relief when she’d been accepted to Penn State and majored in horticulture. They assumed she’d end up in research.

Instead her passion for dirt and flowers grew. But rather than being streamlined like a standard Dutch tulip, she’d behaved like the sprawling parrot tulip with its petals falling haphazardly, spreading her interests into the cultivation of hybrids while running her own florist shop and design studio.

As she killed the engine, she thought she heard something high-pitched above the regular shutting-down noises. She paused. The van was only eighteen months old and she was so not in the mood for it to be in need of repair. She prayed the rut hadn’t ruined her front-end alignment or jiggled anything else loose.

Forcing away the annoying thoughts, she got out and her feet immediately sank into the squishy mud. Her bright fuchsia rain boots kept her feet warm and dry.

She clomped through the mud, selecting the key to the barn by feel from her key ring. It had a large soft cushiony frame around the top. She walked past a sedan and wondered if someone else was here.

“No! You can’t do this—” A woman’s voice, loud and strident.

A gunshot, punctuated by a woman’s scream, sounded in the still night, rooting Kayla to the spot.

She had heard something high-pitched a few moments ago. Screaming.

The sound of items crashing inside the barn unfroze her feet and her mind with them. The van was too far away for her to make it there, start the engine and drive off before whoever had fired the gun would know she was there.

Call the police.

She ran to the side of the barn, ducking low from the view of the side door. The door’s window glowed with the kitchen’s bright fluorescent lights. She made out the bulky figure of a man through the slatted blinds but couldn’t risk taking a closer look. Not if she was going to be of any help to the woman whose screaming she’d heard.

That gunshot and scream hadn’t been like in the movies. It was real, scary as hell, and she knew she could be on the receiving end of a bullet if she didn’t play this right.

Crawling on her knees to avoid detection, she squeezed between a tractor pull and a pile of hay bales. She worried that her van was too far down the drive and too much in plain view of anyone who left via the driveway. Did the shooter own the car she’d walked by?

She wanted to run for it and drive away but she couldn’t risk the noise of her engine starting. Her logo was emblazoned on the van, making an anonymous getaway impossible. It would be a siren call to whoever had fired that shot to come after her, too.

Shivers wracked her. From shock or an adrenaline rush, she had no idea as she hunkered down and willed herself to be one with the damp squishy ground and prickly hay bales. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed 911.

Chapter 2

Detective Riordan Ortega pressed the gas pedal to the floor as he sped along the farm road that led to the Weddings and More Barn. Rio wanted to get to the call before the other SVPD units made it.

He liked to be the first on the scene to any major crime in town. It had nothing to do with who’d called in the gunshot, and everything to do with his instinctual sense of the ticking clock when it came to crime. The sooner he got the investigation under way, the better chance of catching the culprit.

Silver Valley had always had its share of crime but lately things had been different—busier than he’d ever experienced since joining SVPD a decade ago. They’d just wrapped up the “Female Preacher Killer” case last December, only to be involved full-time in the embezzlement case against the former mayor. Tying up the loose ends on three murders by the serial killer had occupied all his time, and he’d been grateful that the Treasury Department had come into play for the mayor’s case. Because of the embezzlement charges and large amounts of money at stake, the Secret Service had been alerted and then pulled in their former boss, the US Department of Treasury. Secret Service was under Homeland Security these days but Rio still worked with many of the agents he’d met when he’d started on SVPD. Rio loved his job and knew he was good at it, but making sense out of columns of numbers wasn’t something that turned him on.

Unlike Kayla Paruso.

Shit. Kayla.

She’d called in the emergency. A shoot-out right now, so close to the mayor’s daughter’s wedding, was too suspicious for Rio. Mayor Charbonneau and his gang of thugs were trouble, and had been since they’d arrived in town, coincidentally at the same time as the newest Silver Valley residents, who were trying to set up a cult on the outskirts of town. Rio didn’t believe in coincidences, not when it came to criminal behavior.

“What’s your ETA, Rio?” The dispatcher spoke in his ear.

“Two minutes, tops. Anything new?”

“Caller isn’t talking. She’s kept the line open and we’re hearing shouts.”

Mother of God, please let her be okay. Keep Kayla safe.

The first time he’d seen her she was delivering a bunch of flowers to the station for one of the female cops. He couldn’t remember a thing about the delivery except for Kayla’s huge blue eyes and golden blond hair. And the way her black tights had displayed her long legs and perfect full ass. He’d imagined the breasts hidden by her jean jacket as full and luscious, and he hadn’t been disappointed when they’d made love on the one occasion he’d ignored his personal credo to remain unencumbered. He’d stopped by her flower shop and asked her out. And taken her to his bed, in his torn-apart home on the edges of town.

He’d since finished the renovations on the house, one a Realtor friend of his had stumbled upon three years ago. It was perfect for a flipper but after pouring his sweat and blood into the hardwood floors, he’d decided to keep the single-story rambler on the edge of one of Silver Valley’s farm fields.

He’d imagined taking Kayla there after he’d finished it, when the dust had settled and it was a proper home. He wanted to show her he wasn’t a complete jerk who dated women only for sex. That he wasn’t going to be the guy who loved her and left her. Because it hadn’t been “only” sex with Kayla. But she’d been long gone and they’d been long over before he ever had the chance to bring her home again.

Kayla.

The lack of information from the dispatcher annoyed him.

“Anything new?”

“Nothing, Rio.”

“Has she tried to text anything?”

“No, we told her to sit tight and stay quiet until responders arrive.”

“How close are the other units?”

“Patrol two-three-three is five minutes out.”

“Where the hell were they?” At this rate none of them would be there in enough time to save anyone.

The taste of bile rose in the back of his throat and he cursed.

“What’s that, Rio?”

“Nothing.”

He had to keep it together. Nothing had ever distracted him from his life’s purpose: serving the public. He’d known he wanted to be a police officer since he was eight years old, when his uncle Jimmy had given him a tour of the station in Harrisburg and he’d fallen in love with the way the police department employees had laughed and joked with each other as though the job was nothing but fun.

Only later, as a rookie, had he learned why they really joked with each other. It was to alleviate the deep sense of duty that sometimes weighed unbearably heavy because of the brutal realities of their jobs. The violence, the senseless killings. The gore.

Not Kayla. Not on his watch.

* * *

The phone lay muted on top of the hale bay next to her, the screen turned off to prevent anyone from seeing her. Some reptilian part of her brain shouted at Kayla to slither under the bales and simply hide until the police arrived.

Where was Keith when she needed his savvy?

She prayed that she could somehow channel her brother’s firefighting survival instinct. Because things weren’t getting any quieter inside the barn and she needed some kind of crime-scene smarts.

Rio would be the best help here.

She gave herself a quick, silent shake in the darkness. This wasn’t the time to revisit that hurt.

Stay alive.

Kayla knew better than to go inside and try to help whoever was struggling with the owner of the low voice. From what she could gather it was one man and one woman and they weren’t talking about anything pleasant.

But the woman’s voice had gotten quieter since the gunshot. Maybe the shot hadn’t been intended to hurt anyone, and this was some kind of crazy domestic argument. Kayla heard the woman’s humming voice as she spoke to the angry man. The man’s voice conveyed a fury that had Kayla quaking.

Kayla wondered if she was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t a gunshot she’d heard, but something else, maybe a piece of furniture overturning.

She rested against the barn wall, behind the stacked bales. It was wet and cold and smelled of alfalfa. The one plant on the entire planet that Kayla was allergic to. She wasn’t worried about her watery eyes or itchy nose, though. Not yet.

First, she needed to survive whatever was going on, and hoped it wasn’t anything more than her overactive imagination.

The door shook as a heavy object hit it, followed by the creak of the hinges and a loud slamming. Kayla moved slowly, needing to see what was happening. As she peered between two bales, she made out the open door. It was a yawning black hole, indicating the lights had been turned off.

Shuffling, a grunt or two, crying. Soft, pain-filled crying.

“Help me, someone.” The low, raspy plea reached her ears and it felt as though Kayla was as injured as the woman. If there was any way she could help her...

Kayla stood up from her crouch and looked over the stack of bales. A prone figure lay in the walkway, a woman. The harsh glare of the overhead security lights illuminated dark hair and a business outfit—skirt and jacket. On her stomach, she leaned on her forearms as if she was in a yoga sphinx pose. Kayla immediately recognized her. Scanning the entire area as much as it was feasible while behind the bales, she didn’t see anyone else. The man must have left.

“Meredith!” she whispered as loudly as possible.

“Help. Me.”

Kayla rose to do just that when a shot rang through the night, and Meredith’s head slammed into the ground.

Oh no.

Kayla pressed against the hay, her heartbeat and the ringing from the gunshot loud in her ears. She didn’t know if she was hidden from the killer or if she needed to make a run for it.

She’d never outrun a bullet.

The sound of approaching footsteps was quickly followed by the sound of something scraping and a grunt. A loud thwack as an object hit the ground. Peering through the hay bale, she could only see Meredith’s hands, still as her head lay between them, a briefcase with file folders splayed in front of her where a dark spot grew into a larger circle. Blood. She wished the side light of the barn door wasn’t so bright—the image of Meredith bleeding out would be burned into Kayla’s mind.

Someone cleared his or her throat. She heard the distinct sound of a zipper and then the sound of liquid hitting the side of the barn.

The killer was taking a leak?

“It’s done. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The sound of the deep voice, obviously making a phone call, startled Kayla and she stumbled, landing on the damp ground with a soft thud.

“Who’s there?”

The harsh voice matched the throat clearing, the furious man she’d heard before. She was in trouble. Kayla crawled on her belly around to the other side of the bales and without stopping rose to her feet and ran for her life.

* * *

Rio’s headlights illuminated the open side door of the barn and the figure in front of it. He saw a dark shape darting toward the back of the barn as he got out of his vehicle. As he chased the assailant, weapon drawn, the figure blended into the darkness that surrounded the barn. Rio swore under his breath and tapped the microphone on his communication gear.

“Suspect ran into the fields behind the barn. Do we have units on the other side of the woods? I’m turning back to investigate a possible victim near the east side door.”

“Roger that, Rio.”

“Send a unit to Waverly Street to intercept possible escape.” Waverly bisected the wooded area the dark figure had vanished into.

Heading back to the barn, he let out a silent thank-you that the female lying outside wasn’t Kayla—the hair was too dark, the woman too tall. As he drew closer he saw that not only was she facedown, but she’d also been shot in the back of the head. Blood stained the ground around her head in a black halo. He kneeled to feel for a carotid pulse. The entire left side of her head was gone.

Muttering another oath, he searched for the pulse just in case. Just in case the blood and torn flesh looked worse than the real injury.

Unfortunately, his initial assessment was correct. As he expected, there was no pulse.

“I’ve got a dead female, probable homicide. Call in forensics and the coroner.”

“Have you located the caller yet, Rio?”

“No joy. Still looking.” His gaze landed on her van. “Going to investigate her van.”

“Do not go into the van or barn without backup, sir.”

What the dispatcher was telling him was standard protocol. But Kayla could be in either place, bleeding out. He couldn’t stand on protocol.

“Kayla!” He called over and over, pulling open the doors of her van as he searched for any sign of her.

Nothing.

Her phone.

He directed his frustration at dispatch. “She still on the line?”

“The line’s still open but there hasn’t been any communication since about seven minutes ago.”

It felt as if he’d been on the case for days instead of ten minutes. But time was never reliable during the heat of a crime. Judging from how warm the victim’s body was, she’d been breathing just minutes earlier.

“Has anyone intercepted the suspect?”

“No, but local residents in the neighboring subdivision report someone running through their yards, alerting dogs. One caller saw someone dressed in black get into a late-model sedan and drive away.”

“Did they get plates?”

“No. We’ve got a sheriff’s chopper inbound.”

A single assailant so far. Either he’d shot Kayla, too, and she was on the ground nearby, or she was still hiding, worried for her life.

“Kayla!” He ran back to the barn and entered the kitchen, flipping on the light switch next to the door. The commercial illumination revealed a scene of total chaos. Pots and pans of all sizes were everywhere. A butcher block had been knocked over and several chef knives were strewn over the tiled floor. One knife lay closest to the door, blood on it.

“Kayla!”

“I’m here.”

He spun around, weapon drawn, his aim steady.

“It’s me, Rio. Kayla. Or don’t you remember?”

Slowly he lowered his gun and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. Never had the sight of someone been so welcome. A charge of hot attraction went from his heart to his dick, and if there wasn’t a dead body that needed tending to outside of the kitchen they stood in, he knew he’d have her in his arms and laying across the prep table, naked, in a minute flat. So much for his professional pride.

“Kayla.”

He saw the wariness in her eyes. Not fear from the shock of what she’d just been through, but what he’d put there when he’d never called her back after she told him she couldn’t see him anymore.

Even that wasn’t enough to keep her from catapulting herself into his arms, forcing him to take a step back. His butt hit the edge of the prep table as his arms went around her, and he felt a sudden flash of regret that they weren’t here as lovers, instead of as a murder witness and cop.

Chapter 3

Sirens screamed through the night as uncontrollable shudders shook her shoulders and made her legs quake. For just this moment, she allowed the strength and certainty of Rio’s embrace to hold her up as they stood outside, waiting. She didn’t refuse the comfort his arms gave. His heartbeat was strong and reassuring under her left ear. She pressed her head harder against his chest, her arms tight around his waist.

Rio’s waist.

“You’re okay, babe.”

Babe.

The cocoon of their embrace evaporated as effectively as if Rio was a hypnotist and he’d snapped her out of a trance. A trance she couldn’t afford to wander into, not if she was going to keep her emotions regarding Rio in check. It’d taken this long to finally accept there was no hope for them. This was the same man who went undercover, whose life was at risk each and every day he went to work. Definitely not the kind of man she envisioned herself with for the long run.

“I’m okay. But she’s not, is she? Is she dead, Rio?”

“Yes, she’s dead. Do you know who it is, Kayla?”

She blinked. Rio was every inch the cop. She knew more than ever what mattered most to Rio. Being a detective.

“Yes, I know her. Knew her. But not personally. I mean, not well. She was in our yoga class until she had to quit because she’d taken on this job with the mayor. It was going to be her big break into politics. She was so young, Rio, so alive. She was asking, begging for help. And I couldn’t do anything...” She didn’t finish, didn’t have to as she looked at the body of the woman, facedown and forever still.

“Did you catch a look at who did this to her?”

“Only a glimpse. Mostly I heard him. Big, booming deep voice. He was really angry from the sounds of it. I heard her scream. Then a gunshot—the first shot was while they were still inside the barn. As I got closer I heard her talking. She was speaking low, probably trying to convince him not to hurt her. After he threw her out here, she asked me for help, Rio. She was still alive, but the second shot killed her.” Her insides turned bilious as she recounted the horror. “I’m sorry.” She turned and tried to run but ended up on her knees at the side of the barn door, retching. Rio kept his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. The reassurance in such a simple gesture was immeasurable. She soaked up his energy, hoping it would soothe her heaving stomach.

Facing him again, she tried to look anywhere but at Meredith. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” His eyes were dark and unreadable.

“You’ve never barfed at a scene, I’ll bet.”

“You’d be surprised.” Gently he led her off to the side, away from Meredith’s still form. “Keep telling me what you remember, Kayla.”

“Okay.” She clasped her hands in front of her. If only she’d come tomorrow morning, instead...

“Did he see you or your van?”

“No, I don’t think so. The van’s too far down the drive and he didn’t come outside until after he threw her out here. He heard me and asked ‘Who’s there?’ He knew I was out here, heard me, but you showed up and spooked him. I made it look like I was running into the darkness around the woods, but then I doubled back and hid behind one of the buildings next to the barn. Right after I heard sirens and then saw the lights from what must have been your car, I saw him run past, not looking for anyone, from what I could tell. When he took off for the woods, I went inside.”

Thank God.

“It might have been me, but probably it was the sirens scared him away.” Rio paused. “Any chance it was a woman with a deep voice?”

She shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. It definitely sounded like a man and he had heavy footsteps. The silhouette was masculine, large. I heard him urinate against the side of the building. And he’d started to pull apart the pile of hay bales where I was hiding. Most women can’t lift a bale and toss it as quickly as he did. If I hadn’t made a run for it, or you hadn’t shown up, he’d have seen me within seconds.”

Rio’s expression remained neutral except for the compassionate light in his eyes. A light she’d once thought he might be able to focus on her for more than a round of mind-blowing sex, a light that might warm her long past the early heat they’d shared. But Rio was a cop, from the top of his raven hair to the bottom of his sexy feet—which she’d noticed on the few occasions she’d seen him naked. He had limitless compassion, for victims and the community he protected. There wasn’t any room for personal relationships in Rio’s world. And no room for understanding her need to have a man with a more stable profession in her life.

She’d tried dating a cop, another SVPD detective, before Rio and it didn’t work out, either. Of course, now that same cop was engaged to her friend Zora, so the reality was that when things were supposed to work, they did.

She and Rio weren’t supposed to work.

As soon as she’d found out Rio was a cop, she’d felt the warning tugs from her heart but ignored them. Because she and Rio had shared a chemistry she’d never experienced before. But in the cold mornings after they’d made love, she’d had to get honest with herself. She couldn’t take the chance of a future full of loss due to Rio’s profession. Once she’d found out he’d been assigned to work her brother’s case, she’d used that fact to call off their brief relationship.

“If it hadn’t been me, someone from SVPD would have been here. We weren’t going to let you get hurt.” Rio’s confident tone was another one of his professional tools. She didn’t disagree with him, but she acknowledged that if the killer had decided to shoot through the hay, she might be lying here as dead as Meredith, who was sprawled in the mud path with her briefcase in front of her and all her pretty floral files spilled out in a haphazard fan. Organization didn’t matter in death.

“Detective Ortega, we’ve got some footprints out behind the barn and Officer Pasczenko found two shells.” A fresh-faced police officer stood next to them, his eagerness to get the job done reassuring in the dark night.

“Tell the forensics teams. They’ll be here soon if they aren’t already.”

“You want me to tell them, Detective?”

“That’s what I said, Officer Ogden.”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer’s obvious pride at being trusted to complete the communication would have been heartwarming if Kayla wasn’t frozen in shock.

“This was supposed to be a simple trip to do some preplanning for a wedding.”

“Whose wedding?”

“Cynthia Charbonneau. The mayor’s daughter. She’s planning a last-minute ceremony for next weekend. Her mother called and offered me a generous retainer fee for the extra work it’s going to take. I couldn’t turn her down, even in the middle of the spring rush.”

“Would you have otherwise?”

“Turned her down? No, I don’t base my business on rumors about my clients. And she’s been a good regular customer—she has a standing order for a fresh arrangement each week.”

Rio’s silence conveyed his agreement. Damn it, but she wished she wasn’t still so in tune with him. That she didn’t notice that in his black T-shirt and the casual blazer he looked like some kind of freaking model.

It would be much easier if Rio looked like a toad.

But even if he looked like the ugliest creature on earth, she’d still have a problem. Because Rio Ortega was the most loving, most generous man she’d ever met.

He was also the most career-driven—at times arrogant but always professional—law-enforcement worker she’d ever known. And she’d known plenty.

“Do you think it’s true, Rio? Do you think the mayor rigged the election?”

“I can’t comment on that, Kayla. But what I can say is that if it smells like manure, chances are that’s what it is. No matter how pretty the field it’s in.”

“You’re never short on your own kind of poetry, Rio.”

“You should have stuck around, Kayla. I could have regaled you with all kinds of fancy words.”

The heat in her cheeks was immediate, as was her desire to close the short distance between them and press her body against his. But anger reined her in as she realized that was his intent—to remind her of the hot nights they’d spent together when she’d agreed to date him late last fall.

Before he’d told her he was a cop. A detective. His not telling her about his career was what she’d used as her defense against his potent invitation to take their relationship deeper. She’d argued that she couldn’t be with a man who wouldn’t reveal who he was or what he did right from the get-go. The mere thought of being with someone who went undercover for unknown lengths of time stressed her out.

And admittedly she still felt a little stupid for not facing her trepidations about his profession before she’d gone to bed with him, much less started to fall for him.

“I’m sorry, Kayla. You’ve just had a terrible shock and I’m giving you grief. We’re going to have to continue this at the station—I need your statement. Do you mind going with Officer Ogden and getting started? You don’t need to be out here in the cold any longer. I’ll be along shortly.”

“I can drive myself.” She needed the reassurance of her van. It was a second office, and a reminder that she wasn’t just an almost-victim of a crime, or a murder witness.

“Let Officer Ogden drive you. I’ll have another officer bring your van to the station.”

The real Rio was back, the one with whom she could get herself into a lot of trouble. His hand was on her elbow, his warmth soothing.

“I’m all right, honest. I’ll follow Officer Ogden there.”

“It’s not a question, Kayla. It’s protocol. You were at the scene of a murder. We have to take a look at the van before you get back into it.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re treating me like a suspect?”

Rio’s mouth was a thin line. “Damn it, Kayla, I know you’re not a murderer. But I can’t make any exceptions—”

“When it comes to your job. I think this is right about where we left off last year, isn’t it?”

She wrenched away her arm and stalked over to Officer Ogden, who stood next to a Silver Valley PD sedan. Kayla had no idea why or how it had happened, but she’d found herself at the mercy of the law again.

* * *

Rio watched as Kayla got into the patrol car with Ogden. Forensics would do a formal check of her van later.

He’d learned through years of police work to never rely on just his eyes. The criminal could have had an accomplice or circled back and hidden in the roomy van. Kayla hadn’t thought of that—she’d only recognized that he needed to be scrupulous about inspecting her van. He saw it all the time—witnesses and victims felt as if they were being victimized a second time by the work the police needed to do to ensure justice prevailed.

It stung more than usual because the witness was Kayla. He’d relived those few weeks with her more than he’d ever admit to himself, always questioning whether they still might be together if he had told her from the beginning what he did and what case he was working on.

He hadn’t expected to have those feelings after that first night. But when one night turned into a week, he’d had to tell her that he didn’t work only as a detective. He often went undercover. She hadn’t been happy to find that out. When her brother’s case came up, he could have passed it to another detective, could have done a lot of things to preserve at least their friendship.

But she found out first, when she’d been in the same diner as Rio. He’d been eating a quick lunch with three uniformed officers. As a detective he almost always wore civilian clothes, his weapon holstered under a jacket or blazer. That day he’d finished up a long undercover case and was still dressed to fit in with the members of the drug ring he’d infiltrated. Baggy jeans, big gold jewelry and his baseball cap on backward. The warmth and rush of awareness he associated with Kayla had hit him when he’d looked across the booths and found Kayla staring at him. She’d been dining with her girlfriend from yoga class Zora Krasny.

The “oh, shit” moment had been the end of their relationship.

She wouldn’t even look at him now as she sat in the police car, staring straight ahead through the window.

Kayla’s pallor shook him more than he cared to admit. The woman he’d thought he might be falling for was strong and quick to defend anyone, from her employees to a surly customer.

Her defense of herself had been pretty good, too. When she’d found out what his line of work was, any hope of a future with Kayla was crushed under the iron will she employed to break up with him and keep him out of her life. The stress of finding out that her brother, a local firefighting hero recently promoted to chief, was being charged with negligence at his job didn’t help matters. It wasn’t just that, though. According to her brother, Keith, the real issue was her need for control over her life,

Still, it would have been nice to be the man who’d changed her mind about what she needed. He’d like to be the man who changed her mind about a lot of things, and those included allowing a man to treat her well and to love her the way she deserved.

He pulled on one of the many pairs of latex gloves he kept in his pocket as he walked over to the crime scene. He silently accepted the wallet one of the forensic team members handed him.

“We found it in the kitchen. Everything was spilled out of her purse.” Officer Kaufmann was a seasoned forensics expert on SVPD and one Rio enjoyed working with because he always shot straight from the hip.

“Meredith Houseman.” He scrutinized her driver’s license photo. The name was familiar and when he looked at her body, the business suit, there was no doubt she was the woman Kayla had mentioned earlier.

“The mayor’s executive assistant.”

“Yes, sir. Should we call him?”

“Hell no, not yet. Let’s leave that to Superintendent Todd.” Rio didn’t want the mayor or any of his cronies nosing around his murder investigation. Not now, not at all. He still wasn’t convinced that Mayor Charbonneau was more than a front for the recently reformed cult that was trying to set up shop on the outskirts of Silver Valley. The embezzlement charges against the previous mayor had happened too quickly, too conveniently as far as Rio was concerned. And Mayor Charbonneau’s appearance in Silver Valley just in time for the special election had been suspicious.

And now the newly elected mayor’s assistant was dead. Murdered at the same place where the mayor’s daughter was supposed to be getting married in a little more than a week.

“Detective Ortega? We’ve found something unusual on the body.” The county coroner stood in front of him, his normally quiet demeanor agitated.

“What’s that?”

“It looks like her ribs were smashed in, probably collapsing at least one lung. She took a brutal beating before she was shot.”

“Damn it.”

Chapter 4

“Rio, you and I both know that while the rumors may prove correct, unless we have evidence of wrongdoing, we can’t ask for a search warrant on the new mayor’s residence. No can do.” Colt Todd, Silver Valley’s superintendent of police, leveled his cool gaze on Rio. There was no sense in arguing with him.

“Yes, sir.”

“We can’t afford to do anything less than what’s perfectly legal and appropriate throughout this investigation. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Rio couldn’t argue with his boss, not on this one. SVPD had plenty going on at the moment, between providing testimony to put a serial killer behind bars for life, keeping an eye on a cult from New York that was trying to reunite in their jurisdiction and investigating the validity of the evidence they’d collected against the former mayor. Of course, Rio didn’t think for one minute that their former mayor had been involved in any of the charges against her. It was a setup, and he’d bet his last dollar that the new mayor was at least peripherally involved, if not behind the entire scheme.

“Do you have any leads on the victim?” Todd’s face had its usual neutral expression, but Rio heard the weariness in his tone. SVPD was being slammed from all sides by crimes that, while they looked unrelated, were proving to be linked in damning ways. The major connection was to the former cult members, all convicted felons. SVPD had to have proof to request restraining orders, or to force these suspicious new citizens of Silver Valley to leave by having the state rescind its permission to allow them to serve probation in Pennsylvania instead of New York.

“I have a few leads, sir. Two officers are out now, informing the victim’s parents. The victim is Meredith Houseman, age twenty-seven, Silver Valley resident. A graduate of Mount St. Mary’s College in Maryland. She had a degree in political science. She worked as a political intern in DC and here in Harrisburg before landing the job with Mayor Charbonneau. She was living at home with her parents while she earned money to go to law school—she’d been accepted by Penn State to study at Dickinson.”

“Damn shame.” Colt Todd shook his head, his frown deepening to a scowl. “There’s going to be a huge backlash with this, especially the media. They’re still not satisfied Charbonneau got into office legally.”

Neither was Rio, and he suspected his boss agreed, but it wasn’t anything they verbalized. It didn’t matter, not until they found solid evidence that the new mayor was behind any illegal doings. SVPD wasn’t a small department, with thirty officers and two to three detectives depending upon operational tempo. It was considered midsize and was usually more than enough to serve the twenty thousand citizens of Silver Valley.

“Debbie’s on it, sir.” Rio referred to the SVPD’s spokesperson. She’d moved up from her job as receptionist when the Female Preacher Killer had been in the middle of his killing spree, wreaking havoc on Silver Valley last Christmas.

“Great. One more thing, Rio. You’d better sit down for this.”

Here it comes.

“You understand that you have to consider Kayla Paruso as a suspect. And then, once you clear her, we need to keep an eye on her. Make sure she’s safe.”

“She isn’t a killer, sir.”

Todd held up his hands. “For legal purposes, Rio. I know damn well she’s not a criminal, much less a murderer. But this is the second murder investigation she’s involved in, and she is the only witness to this one. We have no other leads and I will not have the DA or governor coming after SVPD for anything procedurally imperfect.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop placating me, Rio. Do all of the usual work-ups you’d do on any other suspect. It won’t be as heavy a workload since you did a preliminary investigation on her after she delivered those flowers to Zora Krasny last Christmas. For all we know the crazy cult might be trying to get to her next.” He referred to the bouquet of flowers a serial killer had sent to the person he’d hoped would be a future victim via Kayla’s floral shop. But Zora had been working undercover with fellow SVPD detective Bryce Campbell to lure the criminal out. The case had gotten larger than expected when Zora’s biological mother, a member of a cult Zora had helped break up when she escaped as a child, showed up in Silver Valley. The same cult members were being released from prison and were settling in a trailer park on the outskirts of town.

“Sir, we both know she’s not a suspect. Not really. And her involvement with the potential cult is nil. On a personal note, I know her—knew her—well. She’s a good person, boss.”

Colt searched his face and a slow grin cracked his usual tough expression. “Nice to know you have at least some kind of a personal life, Rio. Nevertheless, we both know how important it is to keep our paperwork in order. Since you don’t think she’s culpable, there isn’t any conflict of interest as far as I’m concerned.” Colt Todd leaned forward and rubbed his temples before he opened his eyes.

“The cult nonsense isn’t going to go away quickly or quietly. We’re dealing with some very determined people who will do anything to gain a foothold of power in a place like Silver Valley. We have everything they’d want—access to major East Coast highways, proximity to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC. We have good people here for the most part. But the heroin dealers and counterfeiters are taking their toll.”

“We’re going to beat them, too, boss.”

“Yes, we are. We may need some help along the way, though.”

“We already have FBI and Treasury working in our area, sir.” Rio had no issues with the Feds and had, in fact, made several good contacts with agents operating locally. It was a mutually beneficial exchange of information and they all wanted the same thing: to put the bad guys behind bars and keep them the hell out of Silver Valley. “You’re talking about the Trail Hikers?”

“Yeah.”

Rio was familiar with the Trail Hikers, a government shadow agency that contracted agents who worked undercover, not only in Silver Valley and the Harrisburg area, but also throughout the United States as needed.

“I’m not full-time TH, sir, but I’ve been cleared to operate with them, and I received the introductory training. I’m aware of what they’re capable of. But I don’t think we’re in that much of a bind yet.”

“I didn’t think we were, either, but without their help we would have never brought down the Female Preacher Killer in time. We might still be chasing that bastard.”

“Sir, we’ll get Meredith’s killer, too. He’s amateur at best, to have confronted the mayor’s personal assistant in a place where anyone could have walked in at any time. Chances are it’s someone the mayor knows.” He wanted to wrap this up with Todd. Kayla was somewhere in the building, waiting to give her statement. But Colt wasn’t done with him.

“Watch it, Rio. We can’t start operating on assumptions. We both know where that will get us. I’m asking you to keep an open mind. If you see anyone you think is a Trail Hiker, you can’t let them know you suspect there’s a bigger investigation afoot. It’s for all of our safety.”

“Keep my eyes open and my mouth shut. I know the routine, boss.”

That got a full grin out of Colt Todd, a rarity when his boss was stressed.

As Rio let himself out of his superior’s office, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it might be the last smile he’d see from his boss in a long time.

* * *

Colt Todd watched Rio depart as an attractive silver-haired woman walked into his office.

“Claudia. You’re working late. Nice to see you.”

“Colt. I heard about the murder.” She shut the door behind her. When she turned back to him, she held out her hand. They shook and not for the first time he wished he could tug on her slim but strong arm and bring her up against him, lower his mouth to hers and...

“I trust I’m not interrupting you?” She motioned to the door Rio had just exited.

“Only our most recent murder investigation. Please, sit down.” He waited until she slid into the chair before he lowered himself into his. “It’s damn vexing, Claudia. When I was a rookie, we were pressed if we had one or two murders a decade. Now we’ve had more in the past six months than the last five years. What the hell is going on with this town?”

“I think we both suspect the same thing, Colt.”

“I can’t wait to take down these cult maniacs.”

“That’s what I’m here for. I have to ask you, and the SVPD, to give the True Believers a wide berth.”

“What do you mean by that?” He already knew, but he wasn’t going to let her off the hook, no matter how damn attractive she was.

“Higher levels of government are interested in the cult, Colt. How it’s reorganizing, why it’s picked Silver Valley and if Leonard Wise is back in town.” She named the original leader of the cult, a man who had created a colony of children with young women convinced they had to listen to him. “I can’t say much more, except that we need to monitor them. They may lead to some bigger crooks. And a bigger scheme than taking over a town of twenty thousand in suburban Pennsylvania.”

He looked at her and admired how she didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, as he’d been known to make many cops, and especially criminals, do. “You’re asking me to keep the residents of Silver Valley in danger from these crazies and to put my force at risk for longer than necessary, Claudia.”

“Yes, I am. And it’s not a request, Colt, so your conscience can be clear. It’s an order from way above my pay grade.” Claudia was a retired United States Marine Corps general. “Above her pay grade” referred to the highest levels of government.

“If it has the attention of the White House, why not bring in more FBI?”

“Trail Hikers are elite, Colt. The FBI is fantastic at what it does. But we don’t know how far the cult’s reach is. Who’s really calling the shots. Leonard Wise could be a front man for someone, something else. Until we have more concrete answers we can’t call in anything that would arouse suspicion.”

“Or spook the cult away.”

Claudia nodded. “You got it. I hate it as much as you that Silver Valley has become the petri dish to observe these slime bags. All I can do is promise that TH is here, backing up SVPD whether or not your officers are aware of it.”

“How much support will we get from your group?” He knew he had Claudia’s support as the group CEO, but even she had superiors to answer to.

“As much as you need, like always. As long as our budget holds out, which, trust me, it will.” She shifted forward in her seat. “Can you fill me in on what you have on the Houseman murder? Rio will file a report for us, but I want to hear it from you first.”

“You must think the murder’s related to the cult, Claudia. Or is there something more I don’t know?”

“No, I have no connections. Yet. But a mayor voted into office in such a rush, especially a political thug whose specialty until now has been New Jersey politics, raises red flags. We can’t rule out the True Believers manipulating local politics for their own gain.”

“You’re leaving something out, Claudia, but I’ll play along.” He waited for her to smile and felt a rush of warmth to his crotch that he had to admit was a damned welcome feeling after years of living his self-imposed celibate lifestyle since his wife had died eight years ago.

Maggie. God, he still missed her. But when Claudia was around, the pain diminished. He filled her in on what he knew.

“Kayla Paruso, the florist from last Christmas who delivered the message in a bouquet to Zora Krasny.” Claudia wasn’t asking, she was thinking aloud. The woman had a steel trap for a brain. Another reason he was attracted to her. “We did an extensive background check on her at the time. She was raised by Foreign Service officers and has lived globally, probably conversational in two if not three languages besides English.”

“That’s not going to help us solve this, Claudia. She barely caught a look at the guy and describes his voice as deep and masculine.”

“From a polyglot that’s not a bad thing. I’m sure she’d be able to identify the voice again, in court. What I’m more interested in is her potential as a Trail Hiker.” Claudia’s eyes gleamed and the color on her high cheekbones conveyed her enthusiasm at adding to her team of super-trained law-enforcement agents.

“A florist? Claudia, I’m a simple man, the leader of a team of local cops. But even I know the importance of having the training and background to go into any kind of law enforcement. I doubt Kayla Paruso knows the difference between a pistol and a rifle.”

“Because she’s a woman?”

“Hell no. Because she’s an artistic type. Have you met her? She’s a pretty woman, very intelligent and very focused on her flower shop. It’s her life.”

“That kind of focus can easily translate into what we need on TH, especially for undercover surveillance.” Claudia’s eyes narrowed. Colt hid his amusement because he didn’t want Claudia to think he was making fun of her. He wasn’t. He was thrilled that he could make her react like this. It brought him back to his first thoughts about Claudia when she’d walked into the office...

“Don’t, Colt.” Her gaze was steady, her voice calm, but he saw the tremor in her hands. “I know what you’re thinking and it won’t work. I don’t date men I work with.”

Well, shit.

* * *

Kayla hated the smell of the Silver Valley Police Department’s building. A small structure in the middle of the most commercial part of town, it seemed benign enough. Until she walked in and smelled the combination of day-old coffee, cigarette smoke and sugar. The coffee was self-explanatory. Any office that worked 24/7 needed a source of caffeine. The smoke wafted in from the outdoor designated smoking area, as all government buildings in Pennsylvania were smoke-free. The sugary scent she’d never been able to pinpoint. The likely stereotype was doughnuts, but the SVPD employees she’d met, from the receptionist to police officers and detectives, were all in incredible physical shape.

Still, the smell of cotton-candy sugar lingered in the air.

She hated it because she associated the building with when her brother had been brought in to give a statement after the church fire last Christmas. She’d picked him up afterward.

The first time she’d had occasion to visit was also last Christmas, when her statement had to be taken and filed for her unintentional delivery of flowers from a serial killer.

This third time certainly wasn’t the charm, she thought, as she sat in a cracked, padded chair in a drab interrogation room, waiting for someone to come take her statement—again.

She’d already told two different officers her version of events, from when she’d pulled up outside the barn until Rio had arrived on scene.

As if she was a suspect.

She felt like one, despite her guilt at not being able to do anything to save Meredith. Meredith, who’d been shot right in front of her, wasn’t much younger than Kayla. She’d been doing her job as the mayor’s assistant and in one horrible evening her life was over.

Kayla hadn’t been able to do anything to save her own brother, Keith, from the evil that seemed to be invading Silver Valley, either. She’d been stunned when one of the couples from the church had filed a suit against Keith and the town, claiming they’d suffered from the fire and it was his fault. The mayor had said he sided with Keith but still removed him from active duty. He was still on administrative leave from the Silver Valley Fire Department.

Purposeful steps sounded on the other side of the door before Rio opened it and strode into the room. A smarter woman wouldn’t have looked at him, but Kayla allowed herself a good long glance at the man she’d been unable to shake from her memory. She told herself it was the shock, not desire.

Rio.

It would be so much simpler if she hadn’t slept with him. If she didn’t know the passion beneath that rock-solid cop exterior. And he might be her only chance at proving she had nothing to do with this murder.

Rio was the one man she’d even considered starting a serious relationship with in years, until she realized how dangerous his occupation was. She’d dated a cop before, but with no intention of making it anything more than casual. Cops weren’t available to her. Too risky. They could be killed. She’d had enough loss in her life. Being involved with someone she couldn’t count on around-the-clock didn’t appeal to her.

He lied to you.

He hadn’t lied, really. Just left out one little fact about himself until it was too late for it to be an innocent oversight. If he didn’t trust her with his real life from the get-go, she wanted no part of it.

“Here.” He set a take-out latte in front of her. The sweet almond smell made her groan. He grinned.

“I thought you’d appreciate it about now. I’m sorry you’ve had to wait for so long.” He took the chair opposite her.

“Sure you are.” She wasn’t going to refuse the drink, however, and enjoyed several sips before she spoke again. “Thank you for the coffee. Let me guess, you need me to go over everything I’ve already told Officers Ogden and Miller?”

“No, you’ve given your official statement. I need you to dig a little deeper and think about your clientele. How many new customers have you had in the past few weeks?”

“You mean since the new mayor was installed?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her tone. Rio’s lips twitched. It would be so easy to reach over and make him smile.

Would have been, if they were still seeing each other. She really needed to get a grip. They’d barely dated. It had been more like a mutual lust-satisfaction gig. An arrangement Rio appeared to have forgotten.

“Since whenever. Anyone stick out, anyone seem strange, out of place in Silver Valley?”

She shook her head. “It’s one of my busiest times of year, between Passover, Easter and springtime in general. Not as busy as Christmas, but it gets close to the same volume over the month. I can’t always tell which new customers will stay and which ones are simply buying their bouquets for the season. But no one struck me as odd.”

“What about your regular and special event contracts? You mentioned the current mayor is a regular customer?”

“The previous mayor is no longer on my regular list, of course, but yes, the new mayor picked up where she left off. Actually, his wife, Gloria, is the one who does the ordering.” Ex-mayor Amelia Donner had started the tradition of keeping fresh flowers in the office while she was mayor and had extended it to her home. But these days Amelia Donner had no money for anything but her legal defense. “I do occasionally drop off some fresh flowers to Amelia.”

“That’s nice of you.”

Kayla blushed. The latte warmed her fingers and she clung to the paper cup, wanting to drink more but not wanting to lose the source of comfort, afraid that her hands might still shake.

She risked a look at Rio, who remained his usual gorgeous self-contained “I am a detective, damn it” self. There was that flicker of light in his deep brown eyes, the flicker she missed. A lot.

He waited for her to think some more, remember something he could use. This was how Rio operated. As if he had all the time in the world. As if she was the only person he cared about.

“Gloria Charbonneau orders flowers fairly regularly for the same types of affairs as Mayor Donner did. But...” She took a large gulp of her drink.

“Go on.”

“She isn’t the friendliest person. She has very expensive taste and never wants the stems I have on hand. I have to go to the Port of Baltimore or Philadelphia for her requests and get the flowers fresh. I even had to go into New York once. I was surprised when she called about flowers for this wedding only because she’s a careful planner, from my brief association with her. She doesn’t do anything short-notice if she can help it.”

“The wedding is a surprise from what you’ve said. And that corroborates the statements we’ve taken from the owner of the Weddings and More Barn.”

“Yes, definitely short-notice. And I’ve never met her daughter, Cynthia. If she’s anything like Gloria, the next week is going to be a rough one. Gloria is a perfectionist, to say the least. You should be interviewing her, though, not me. I’m only the florist.”

Rio’s eyes lit up and his dimples, surprising in his masculine face, made Kayla smile.

“For being ‘only the florist’ you seem to get yourself in the middle of a lot of activity, Kayla.”

“Spare me the official mumbo jumbo, Rio. You know me. You know it’s all coincidence. It’s a small town, and even if there are twenty thousand citizens of Silver Valley, there are only three other florists besides me, along with several more in the Harrisburg area. We each offer a different type of service.” She shrugged, ready to be done. “You’ve taken my statements, and you know where I live. I’m not a flight risk. It’s after midnight and my day starts in four hours with delivery preps for the local churches. May I go?”

He held her gaze long enough for her to see her emotions echoed in his expression. Feelings she had no desire to address, not at half-past midnight on a work night. On a night she’d witnessed a murder. On any night since they’d last been together as a couple.

“Yes, you can go. First let me make something very clear. While I’m confident we’ll clear you of any suspicious activities, that doesn’t mean this is over. We have a murderer out there, someone who probably knew the victim. That means a local, and that means you could be on his radar. Your van was in full view. We’re going to keep a close eye on you. Extra patrols past your shop at opening and closing, and by your home in the evenings. Don’t be alarmed, we’re just doing our job. But I would like you to stay quiet about what you saw last night. Don’t volunteer to anyone that you were there—we told the owner of the Weddings and More Barn that it was a local who called in the report but we didn’t say you were there. For all he knows, you drove up after the SVPD units arrived and went home.”

“Sure, no problem.” It wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with anyone. “I’m telling you, the criminal never saw me or my van. Even if he made out the van down the drive, it was too dark and too far away to see the logo. I’m not concerned.”

“It’s not your decision whether or not we’re concerned about your safety, Kayla. That’s up to SVPD and we keep the people of Silver Valley safe.”

“Tell that to Meredith Houseman.”

His nostrils flared and in another place or situation she might have giggled. Instead immediate remorse made her angry at herself.

“I’m sorry, Rio. That was horrible of me to say. I know you would have done anything to save her.” She knew that was true.

Rio said nothing as he yanked open the door.

“Officer Ogden, show Ms. Paruso out.” His order was sharp and she didn’t expect him to say another word to her.

But he turned back to her and nodded.

“We’re not done, Kayla. Expect to see more of me.”

Chapter 5

Kayla opened the shop at five thirty the next morning. Sleep had been a losing proposition and after a few hours of tossing she got up and left for work.

The scent of hyacinths and Easter lilies permeated the air and she tried to allow the uplifting scents to raise her spirits. It didn’t seem right to be putting together so many celebration arrangements while she still had the image of Meredith in her mind.

She sipped her coffee and winced at the bitter brew her stale beans had produced. She’d had no choice but to bring it from home as the local coffee shops weren’t open for another thirty minutes. Her cupboards were bare; flower season left little time to get groceries. She could always run out later or have Jenny pick some up on the way in.

A solitary light over the workbench illuminated the long list of customers who required fresh flowers for their Passover and Easter celebrations, beginning with the Silver Valley Community Church. The historically significant edifice had almost burned to the ground at Christmas, with Zora and the man who was now her fiancé, Bryce, in the midst of the fire. Keith had been on scene with the SVFD and they’d gotten everyone out and had saved the historic building.

As Kayla snipped stems and stuck them into damp floral foam for a series of six matching arrangements, she allowed her mind to wander. Anywhere but to last night, which was still too scary to replay.

Of course Rio’s dark brown eyes were the first image that appeared. Damn him. It would help to talk to someone about her feelings, but her sister, Melody, lived too far away, and Zora was in the midst of planning her wedding. Although even a bride-to-be needed a break, and Zora knew her best of anyone around.

Zora had been posing as a minister to help ferret out the serial killer who was after female preachers. Why Zora was involved in law enforcement, since she was a therapist, Kayla had never asked. Keith had told her not to, since it could compromise Zora if she was some kind of undercover agent. She’d been in the navy before, so Kayla wouldn’t be surprised to find out Zora led two lives.

Together Zora and Bryce had brought down the serial killer who had used Kayla to take flowers, and a message, to Zora’s college friend while she was acting as the congregation’s interim pastor. Of course, it turned out that the “college friend” was really Zora, working undercover with SVPD.

Somehow during the case Zora had found love with Bryce, SVPD’s other detective. Unlike Kayla, Zora seemed to have no issue with dating a cop.

A scraping noise alerted Kayla to the back door opening—the loading area for the van and incoming shipments. She fought back panic. It might not be an intruder, but she wasn’t expecting Jenny for another two hours.

She grabbed for the largest pair of shears they kept at the workbench and held them in front of her with her right hand while her left reached for her phone.

“Kayla?” The familiar baritone washed away her anxiety with relief, followed by a quick, hot surge of anger.

“What are you doing here so early, Rio?”

He presented a paper bag and two cups of take-out coffee in a cardboard holder. “I knew you had an early start and wanted to make sure you’re doing all right.”

“You gave me coffee last night. That was enough.”

“Still not a morning person, I see.” He set the tray onto the counter and offered her one of the cups. “You can put the scissors down. You’re safe. But I give you points for quick thinking.”

She grudgingly lowered the makeshift weapon and accepted her second cup of coffee from Rio in less than twelve hours. Biting into the soft almond croissant she’d taken from the bag, she looked at him.

“These shears are no joke. They’d kill you as quick as a bullet if need be.” He didn’t react to her attempt at humor. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “This is delicious, thank you. You couldn’t have gotten much sleep, either.” She remembered that he’d said he never slept much once he got into a case.

“I don’t need a lot. You remember that, I’m sure.”

The heat that had never disappeared between them suddenly scorched her insides and she wished she had more sense. That she had the wherewithal to tell him to get out of the shop and let the door hit him right on his sexy butt.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, indeed.” His eyes took in everything. With a start she realized she missed this. The quiet morning time together, the intimacy of sharing the day’s first cup of coffee as they woke up.

It was only three weeks. Get over it.

“I’m safe, Rio. As you can see, no one’s here to bother me.” Almost as if last night never happened.

“You’re safe, my ass. I walked right in here. You didn’t even have the back door locked!” His voice was quiet, low, but powered by the ferocity of his concern.

“I imagine it would be awful for you to lose your only witness.”

“I’m not going to leave you high and dry, Kayla. You’re not alone in this. We will catch this killer. And I know you’re worried about Keith, and I assure you I’m working on that, too. Not every case takes as long as his has.”

She didn’t reply. She’d like to believe him that this case wouldn’t languish as Keith’s case continued to do.

Rio leaned against the bench and took a good long perusal of the work area. “I don’t think I ever got back here when we dated.”

“No, you didn’t.” He’d come in the first time to order flowers for a colleague who was in the hospital. The next few times had been to pick her up after she closed shop and he’d waited in his car out front until she joined him. They hadn’t wanted to spend time here—there was little room to do what they both wanted. What she had needed from him—his touch—was best experienced in a bedroom.

“You never answered my calls, Kayla.”

So they were back to that.

“There was nothing to say. We’d agreed to stop seeing each other.”

“And we’d agreed to stay friends. Friends keep in touch.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been busy.”

* * *

Rio chugged his hot coffee as his mind replayed the hundreds of replies he could toss at Kayla in the morning quiet of the shop. They were both tired and on edge. She was probably still scared out of her wits, even though she’d never admit it to him.

But he saw it anyway, in the fine lines around her eyes, the slightly wild look she’d cast his way as he walked into the shop. If he hadn’t called her name first, those ridiculously large scissors may have been lodged in his chest.

“It has. I’m glad for you, Kayla. I know how much the shop means to you.” Busy meant that she’d increased her revenue and that the gossip about the serial killer ordering flowers from her hadn’t tainted her business. It was hard to tell sometimes which way the whisper mill would turn in Silver Valley. Like the rumors around Kayla’s brother’s case. Rio still couldn’t bring the case to closure, months after Keith Paruso had been accused of improper fire-inspection techniques and endangering public safety. Just when he thought he had Keith off the hook, another loophole was presented by the prosecuting attorney, in the shape of a couple Rio believed were being put up to do the dirty business of the cult. The former cult members had arrived just before all the political chaos began, but he had no definitive evidence they were connected to Keith’s case. Yet.

“Thank you, and thanks for the coffee. It’s a nice treat. With that in mind, I do need to keep working.”

“Mind if I stay a bit and talk to you while you work?”

“Not at all.”

He fought not to laugh. Her words were in direct opposition to the sour look on her face. He was the last person she wanted to spend time with.

“You know, Kayla, it seems a little silly to me that two people like us are allowing the past to control whether or not we have a cordial relationship until your brother’s case is closed. We’re intelligent adults.” He watched her fingers move with equal parts grace and speed, stabbing pink flowers next to white in some kind of a green foam brick.

“Well, Rio—” God he loved how she said his name, and the images that refreshed for him “—I find it silly that you are standing here so early in the morning after a very long night in the police station, trying to pick up where we most definitely left off. I told you that it had nothing to do with you, personally. We agreed that we couldn’t date, that it’s a conflict of interest, remember? And I think being friends falls under that category, too.”

“If I’d been a doctor and not told you what I did for that long, would you have been as upset?” She’d been angry that he hadn’t been open about the fact that he worked undercover at times, and he’d been angry at himself for not putting it together that she was the fireman’s sister.

Truth be told, he hadn’t wanted to make the connection. All he’d wanted was to be with Kayla.

Two long spikes of green, maybe palm leaves, went into the middle of each of the arrangements. He wondered how she knew exactly where to place each stem so that the final product looked so perfect.

“Yes, I would have wondered why you hadn’t told me what exactly you did.”

“I told you I was a cop. And as soon as I was assigned directly to Keith’s case, I should have asked to have it given to someone else.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” She shook her head as she selected more blooms from a large plastic bin in the professional-grade refrigerator at the far back of the workroom. She shut the heavy door with her hip and the latch automatically clicked shut. “Stop watching my hips, Rio. It’s distracting.”

“Yes, ma’am. And for the record, it does matter. Because we still obviously have some chemistry between us.”

“Chemistry isn’t enough to make something work when one partner is always gone. You disappeared in the middle of our, our...” She pursed her lips as she clipped away at unwanted leaves on the stems of some kind of purple flower.

“Our affair?”

He loved watching the color rise from her chest, bared by her crewneck, up her neck and across her cheekbones. It reminded him of the other ways, one in particular, that he’d made her blush so profusely.

“Whatever you want to call it.”

He laughed. “Kayla, you are hands-down the most complicated woman I’ve ever known.”

“Thank you, I think?” She put her gloved fists on her hips. “Rio, I understand that you’re here because you’ve probably been assigned to keep an eye on me. You and I know I’m nothing more than a witness—I wasn’t involved in the murder. Do what you need to do to get your job done. But don’t think you have to sugarcoat it with fancy coffee and polite conversation. We’re not supposed to be talking to each other, remember?”

“We can’t discuss your brother’s case, that’s all. And I’m not a sugarcoating kind of guy, Kayla. You know that. I’m here because I want to be. You can have SVPD cops checking in on you, but the regular presence of uniformed police in your shop probably isn’t the best thing for business, is it?”

“My customers aren’t afraid of the police, if that’s what you’re asking. Your colleagues crawled all over my shop at Christmas, after I delivered the flowers to Zora from the Female Preacher Killer. It didn’t hurt business then.”

He had to level with her.

“We’re watching the new mayor closely.” He watched her as he explained. “You mentioned that his wife frequents your shop. And now, with the wedding this weekend, it’s a good opportunity to try to learn more about them.”

“You’re using my business as your cover?”

“Not exactly. We need you to help us out.”

“I already told you, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.”

“That’s good, Kayla, but I need you to be careful. If the mayor is who we think he is, associated with the kinds of people we suspect, he’s a dangerous man.”

“Which is why his assistant is dead, I presume?”

“Maybe.” He hesitated, knowing he shouldn’t share everything with her, but somehow needing to. “Kayla, I suspect that whoever is behind your brother’s civil suit may be tied to the mayor, as well. I can’t say much more, but trust me when I tell you there’s a chance that as we delve into this murder investigation we may uncover some ugly facts.”

“Any chance the facts could clear Keith?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m hoping for, but again, I can’t promise you anything. You know that if Keith’s case goes to trial I’ll be stating that I don’t believe the charges against him are valid. And I shouldn’t say any more.” She looked so damn hopeful and he hated putting the encouragement out there when he, more than anyone, knew it could end up being a long haul. “I can’t say anything else about Keith, Kayla. And trust me when I tell you that the people on the other end of this, the persons I suspect the mayor may have ties to, are wily and loaded. It’s an uphill battle. Their coffers run deep and money keeps otherwise nonsensical claims alive in court.”

She snorted as she clipped the stems of several daisy-type flowers.

He watched as her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip. “Kayla?”

“You think Keith’s innocent, too. Don’t you?”

He looked at her. Knew he shouldn’t do what he was going to do, what he’d wanted to do since he’d walked into her shop. Since he saw her last night, shivering in shock at the barn. Since he’d last made love to her, four months ago.

Her eyes were tired; she’d been up most of the night, as had he. But they reflected the same spark of attraction that he felt, the combustible chemistry that was making him hard. He reached out and cupped her jaw. “You’re beautiful, Kayla.” He didn’t have to pull her to him—she leaned in for the kiss.

When their lips met there was no pretense of it being a first kiss again, or a simple affectionate gesture. Her mouth pressed against his with equal force and when he slid his tongue between her lips she met it with hers. Rio stopped thinking and let Kayla’s moist breath, her soft gasps, her urgent caresses against his upper arms, take him away from the gravity of the case.

Her arms went up around his neck and he took the opportunity to cup her breasts as they kissed, then moved his hands to her firm butt and gently pressed her against his erection. Her work counter was up against his back and he used the support to take most of her weight, forcing her onto her tiptoes.

“I want you, Kayla. I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

Her reply was a quick nip to his lower lip before he felt cool air against his face. He reluctantly opened his eyes and found her stare unnerving.

“We aren’t supposed to be doing this, Rio.”

“I know.” He stroked the distinctly feminine curve of her lower back and watched as she bit her lower lip, trying to hold back the moan he wanted to hear.

“Stop, Rio.”

He lowered his arms and she took a step back. Her face was as bright pink as the tulips on the worktable and he couldn’t miss her hard nipples as they pushed against her shirt.

“I’m sorry, Kayla. When I’m around you my dick does the thinking.”

“That’s all it is, Rio?” Her tone cooled as quickly as he’d heated up during their kiss.

“We never lasted long enough to find out if it could be more.”

“Your career is your first priority.” She sniffed and picked up a bunch of green stems with fluffy leaves.

“And you don’t want to date a cop. And you can’t trust me, right? We’re back to square one.”

“Not exactly.” Challenge lit her expression. “We both want my brother’s name cleared. And I want to see this mayor get his due if he’s a bad guy. So do you. Let me help out as much as I can with the Charbonneaus.”

“No heroic measures, Kayla.”

“Fine, but if I get a chance to dig up dirt, I won’t stop.” They both grinned at her unintended pun.

Rio held out his hand. “Friends? For now?”

She grasped his hand and shook, nodding. “For now. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get these bastards, whoever they are. My brother is a gifted firefighter and law-enforcement officer. He needs to be doing his job.”

“Trust me, Silver Valley needs him to be doing his job.” He let her hand go only when he had to. Otherwise he would have tugged her back for another kiss.

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