She has a murderous past.

Will it destroy her future, too?

Mila Ramirez has never stopped trying to outrun the sins of her serial killer parents. But her hard-fought new life starts to unravel when she finds an employee dead. Trusting strong, sexy police chief Sam Douglas forces her out of isolation, even as it brings a murderer closer. Mila narrowly escaped evil before. This time it wants to destroy everything she loves—including Sam.

Oklahoma, dogs, beaches, books, family and friends: these are a few of MARILYN PAPPANO’s favorite things. She lives in imaginary worlds where she reigns supreme (at least, she does when the characters cooperate) and no matter how wrong things go, she can always set them right. It’s her husband’s job to keep her grounded in the real world, which makes him her very favorite thing.

Also by Marilyn Pappano

Killer Secrets

Detective Defender

Nights with a Thief

Bayou Hero

Undercover in Copper Lake

Copper Lake Encounter

Copper Lake Confidential

Christmas Confidential

“Holiday Protector”

In the Enemy’s Arms

Copper Lake Secrets

Covert Christmas

“Open Season”

Scandal in Copper Lake

Passion to Die For

Criminal Deception

Protector’s Temptation

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Killer Secrets

Marilyn Pappano

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07872-6

KILLER SECRETS

© 2018 Marilyn Pappano

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To my husband, Robert:

What does it say that when I think of crazy people and villains, I think of you?

And when I think of cops and good guys, I also think of you.

And when I think of heroes.

And when I think of love. Forty years...

And we’ve lived happily-ever-after.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Extract

Extract

Chapter 1

October 15 was a Thursday, three days after my eleventh birthday. My father came home from work, smelling of cigarette smoke and booze, wearing that big goofy smile that was normally reserved for strangers. He kicked off his shoes, threw his Yankees cap at the hook next to the door and missed, then announced that he was taking me to the mall on Saturday to celebrate.

As with all of his grand pronouncements, he waited for me to show excitement at the prospect, maybe even a little joy, but my face remained in its usual dull set. The idea didn’t excite me. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end, churned in my stomach and sent sour little bubbles that burned into my throat. Malls were his favorite hunting grounds: all those shops, all those people, all those escapes. I would gladly give up birthdays and celebrations for the rest of my life if only I never had to set foot in a mall again.

He waited, and I tried to summon a smile, a hint of appreciation, any bit of emotion that would satisfy him, but nothing would come. I just felt sick. I couldn’t do it. Not again.

Of course he knew my thoughts. He always did. His jovial mood vanished in a heartbeat, his smile turning to a snarl. His right hand came up automatically, poised to strike my cheek the way he’d done a hundred times before, but with a muscle twitching in his jaw, another at the corner of his eye, he stilled the motion.

He wasn’t sparing me. I knew it, and the evil gleam in his eyes showed that he knew I knew. The punishment would come, just not before we went to the mall. He needed me to attract the kind of victim that excited him, and that attraction was always based on sympathy. Poor little waif, separated from her father, big brown eyes, trembling lower lip, fear in her voice—just the thing to kick maternal instincts into high gear. A bruised cheek, a split lip, a black eye—they earned sympathy, too, but not the kind he wanted. Needed.

Though I’d spent my entire life shrinking away from him, tonight I didn’t. Not this time. I stood tall and sullen and staring, but inside the shivers had started, and they wouldn’t stop for a long, long time. Saturday was only two days away. Some woman whose only fault in life was catching my father’s attention was going to suffer horribly and then she was going to die.

And then I would suffer, too, but I wouldn’t die. I didn’t know if that made me the lucky one.

Or the unlucky one.

—Excerpt, The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama

Summer was a hell of a time to be in the lawn care business in Oklahoma.

With the air temperature hovering around ninety-five degrees and the humidity somewhere in the same range, Mila Ramirez was eager to escape the oppressive heat as soon as the battered pickup came to a stop. Opening the door required reaching through the window that wouldn’t roll up and grasping the outside handle, sizzling hot in the morning sun. She gave the door a shove with her foot, making it creak, then slid to the ground, her boots making solid clunks on the pavement. If the driveway had been blacktop instead, she was pretty sure they would have sunk into it.

You’re the one who wanted an outside job, remember? You should have become a lake ranger instead.

Alejandro and Mario tumbled out on her heels, bearing the smells of sweat, engine oil and unwashed bodies. If she didn’t smell just as bad, the odors might have overwhelmed her. As it was, she ignored their stink and her own and headed to the trailer.

Cheap plastic crinkled as Ruben handed out bottles of water from the cooler. He was a sour, taciturn man who worked hard, worked his crew hard and had little interest in chitchat. He had even less interest in Mila. None of the crews at Happy Grass Lawn Service did.

Which suited her fine. Hadn’t avoiding attention been one of her goals in life?

She slid the water bottle inside the insulated holder she wore bandolier-style, then grabbed the favorite of her trimmers and a garden trug filled with tools and headed around the corner of the house. Ruben didn’t bother to give them assignments; they’d worked together long enough to know their jobs. This customer was a regular, every Wednesday right after lunch.

The house was somewhere in the high six figures, but she paid it no mind. It was the yard she liked: spacious, more than five acres, with a sparkling blue pool and elaborate flower garden out back. She’d planted the garden herself back in the spring, coaxed the plants to grow from seedlings to strong lush specimens, full of color and fragrance and promise. The irrigation system took care of watering the rest of the week, but on Wednesdays, the plot got her personal attention as she watered and weeded and deadheaded, caring for it as if it were her own.

The silence of the neighborhood was broken by the sound of Ruben’s mower starting. He did the front yard, walking diagonally behind a push mower, per the owner’s preference. Alejandro used the stand-on mower to take care of both sides of the house, and he and Mario shared the jobs of raking, blowing, Weedwacking and edging.

Mila appreciated the relative silence of the backyard. After typing in the code to the gate, she shifted the trimmer so it didn’t damage the flowers on either side of the walkway and wished for a moment that the sun would disappear behind the clouds. Even the ball cap pulled low over her eyes couldn’t lessen the glare reflecting off the smooth surface of the pool.

Too bad she couldn’t take a dip in it. Even tepid water would feel good right now. At least it would wash away a few layers of grime and perspiration. But that would be a fireable offense. She wasn’t so skilled and personable that she could throw away a job, especially one that allowed her to work pretty much on her own. Her crew probably didn’t say twenty-five words a day to her, and that was the way she liked it.

Though, at the thought, something twinged inside her. Was that really the way she liked it? Or was it just the only way she knew?

Resolutely, she pushed the question away. A long time ago, she’d adopted her grandmother Jessica’s philosophy: it is what it is. You took what life gave you, and you made the best of it. That was exactly what they’d been doing for the last fifteen years.

Reaching the back corner of the house, she stopped and let her gaze slide slowly across the vista while contentment chased away the moment of discomfort. The house sat at the top of a hill, with a steep slope starting at the distant edge of the garden. Off to the east rose the slim spires of downtown Tulsa. Just beyond the lower hilltops to the northeast, the town of Cedar Creek sat, compact, a small space crammed with rooftops, power lines and the grid of neatly laid-out city blocks. The valley just past the garden was green with oaks, red cedars and hickories and dotted with gnarled deadfall that indicated too many years since the last cleansing wildfire.

It was a peaceful, quiet place. Until she noticed she wasn’t alone. The quiet remained, but the peace disappeared in an instant.

One of the half dozen lounges around the pool was occupied. From this angle, all she could see was tousled dark hair above the chair back. It wasn’t unusual to find some clients at home when they arrived, but she’d never seen this client before. His name was Carlyle. She’d taken care of his yard for three years, had planned and planted his garden, but she’d never met him or spoken to him. Like most of their well-heeled customers, he didn’t communicate directly with the help if he could avoid it.

Mila hesitated, then cleared her throat. He didn’t move. Rolling her eyes at her reluctance to leave her safe, unnoticed spot, she forced herself to put the equipment down, then crossed the stepping-stones to the patio. “Excuse me.”

No response.

“Lawn service, Mr. Carlyle.”

Still nothing. She rubbed her grubby palms on the legs of her jeans. The dampness of the denim reminded her that she’d started work at six this morning and hadn’t been dry since. She wasn’t in any condition to approach one of their wealthiest clients.

The deep breath she took was filled with the sweet fragrance of the flowers and a whiff of chlorine from the pool, both expected, plus something else. A tangy, bitter, familiar something that rose like a phantom from long-ago nightmares, that made her muscles go taut and a knot harden in her gut like stone.

The air was utterly still, without even a hint of a breeze to ruffle the dark hair. The oversize chair with its teak frame and plush cushions hid the rest of the person from view, but it couldn’t hide the puddle that had collected underneath the chaise. It was fresh and thick and so out of place on the imported rainbow stone, its vivid red hue an obscene contrast with the peaches, tans and purples.

As she stared, something plopped onto the surface of the blood. Her brain reacted to the ripples, making her aware of the humming of insects. Bees in the garden, she told herself, even as a fat fly lifted off the blood, circled a time or two, then landed again.

Her mind went blank. Her shoulders rounded, her chin drooping. A long time ago, she had believed that if she shrank into herself, if she physically made herself small enough, no one would see her, no one would notice her, but it had rarely actually worked. They had always seen her—her father, at least. Her mother, it seemed, had never noticed her.

The others had seen her. The victims. Even when they were dead, they’d still seen her. Admonished her. Pleaded with her. Blamed her.

She forced a shaky breath. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and they were all dead. There was nothing they could do to her now, nothing here she couldn’t handle. Probably nothing she hadn’t seen before.

Alejandro’s mower roared louder as he drove toward the fence on her side of the house, then after a rumble that vibrated the ground beneath her feet, he made a tight turn and headed back. He wouldn’t hear her if she called. No one ever had. Not even when she screamed.

Nausea rising inside her, Mila forced herself to take a step, another, another, angling off to the left side, the side closest to the gate in case she needed to make a sudden exit. Each step brought the person in the chair into better view, until she could see his feet, his bare legs, the khaki of his shorts. A man, yes. Maybe Mr. Carlyle, maybe not.

Definitely a dead man. The gaping wound that stretched across his throat from one ear to the other left no doubt about that. Neither did the terror in his open eyes. Terror that she’d seen before, on the victims, on her grandmother, on herself.

Oh, God.

Dear God, not again.

* * *

Ninety percent of the city of Cedar Creek fell within the rectangular boundaries plotted by its founders over 125 years ago, making it a neat little box that was easy to navigate. Sam Douglas had been born and raised in those twenty-five square miles, gone off for a stint in the army, then come back to work for the Cedar Creek Police Department. He knew every block like the back of his hand, except for the neighborhood he was turning into.

It was a forty-acre section of high-dollar houses on big lots that overlooked the town while security guards and tall iron fences kept out the common folk. The area had fallen under county jurisdiction until five years ago, when the city council got wind that it was being acquired by some luxury developer. The council had moved fast, extending town limits to incorporate the former ranch and getting a nice increase in tax dollars from it. Even though incorporation meant police and fire protection, this was the first call Sam could remember requesting police presence within the hallowed compound.

“Hawk’s Aerie.” Cullen Simpson, the department’s newest hire, snorted. “Who comes up with these names?”

“People who make more money than you and me, bud.”

Simpson snorted again. “I’d rather have a nice little house in Texas than a big fancy one looking down on Cedar Creek. They could’ve at least built in Tulsa, where there’s more to do.”

“Easier to be a big fish in a little pond.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Sam showed his credentials to the guard at the gate, then drove slowly down the street. Simpson was from a wide spot in the road in north Texas, so he should have understood the fish comment. Maybe he was just too damn young. The more time Sam spent on this job, the older he felt. He was pretty sure he was going to feel ancient tonight.

There was only one street in the development, splitting five hundred feet in to form a loop with four houses in the middle and six on the outside. The middle houses were just as large as the outer ones, but the lots were smaller, only two or three acres. Even on the lofty premises of Hawk’s Aerie, there was best, and then there was best of the best.

“That must be it there.” Simpson pointed ahead, where two police cars, a fire engine and an ambulance were parked. There was also a decrepit pickup truck towing a trailer and bearing a sign saying Happy Grass Lawn Service on its side.

The only happy grass Sam had ever come across was the weed he’d smoked back in his younger days. Who did come up with these names?

He pulled his pickup to the curb, shut off the engine and climbed out as he looked at the lawn service crew idling by their truck: three men gathered together, one woman a dozen feet away. Two of the men were smoking, but none of them were talking. The woman leaned against the faded fender, her feet spread wide, her spine rounded so she stared at the ground. Though there were plenty of people around, she looked alone, with no one to stand with, no one to lean on.

His gut said she was the one who’d found the body, stirring his sympathies. He’d spent two years in combat in Iraq, where he’d seen things no one should ever see, but he still got a jolt at crime scenes. How could someone who probably had zero experience with violence handle getting a view up close and personal?

“Chief.” Lois Gideon, the first female officer in Cedar Creek, removed her cap, dragged her fingers through her wet gray hair, then set it back. She wasn’t a detective and had no desire to be, but she still pretty much controlled the crime scenes. She was good at it.

“The victim is Evan Carlyle, owner of the house. He’s forty-eight, works for a pipeline company in Tulsa, lives here with his wife and two kids. They’re out of the country on vacation. Little Bear’s out back making a list with locating them at the top.” She quirked one eyebrow; Ben Little Bear was a compulsive list maker. People teased him about it, but while things might slip his mind, they never slipped his list.

“The body’s out back by the pool,” Lois continued. “No sign of a break-in, alarms on the house and the fence, security guard says no one’s been in besides those folks—” she gestured toward the lawn service “—and a plumber making a call at a house over there.”

“Who found Mr. Carlyle?”

“The woman.” Lois checked her notes. “Milagro Ramirez. The 911 call came from the older guy, Ruben Carrasco.”

Sam’s gaze went to Milagro again. She remained in the same position, as if the clunky boots she wore were the most intriguing thing in her world at the moment...or, at least, the safest thing. How long would it be before she could close her eyes without picturing Evan Carlyle’s lifeless body? How many nightmares would she have, and would there be someone to help her through them?

Not technically his worry, but the Cedar Creek Police Department had a reputation for going above and beyond. To protect and serve, their vehicles said, and he believed strongly in doing both.

“Let’s see the body.”

Lois crossed the fresh-cut grass to the driveway, then took a stone path that led around the side of the house. The gate there stood open, offering a glimpse of a flower garden that would make Sam’s father proud. Given that Samuel Douglas had spent the last thirty years running his own nursery, that was saying something. Of course, a man who could afford a ten-thousand-square-foot house for his family of four could also afford to pay someone to create garden magic for him.

Two more of his officers waited in the backyard, along with paramedics, a couple of firemen, the department’s senior evidence technician and, at a patio table as far from the scene as he could get, Ben, on his computer. He was the only one doing anything. The victim was beyond help, and the tech knew Sam would want to look over the scene before she started collecting evidence. Though none of them was within ten feet of the body, they all retreated a few steps when he approached.

Sam had seen enough death for twenty people. Sometimes it had been sweet, welcomed, a last breath before peacefully slipping away. That was the way his granddaddy had died, with Sam holding one hand and his cousin Mike holding the other. Sometimes it came as a surprise, just an instant to think It isn’t supposed to happen this way before it was over. Some people didn’t even get that much—just poof! Gone, like a light snuffed out.

Evan Carlyle had had more than enough time to understand that he was going to die. He’d seen it. Felt it. Feared it.

Sam looked a long time, his focus tight, not hearing anything but the buzz of insects, the distant wail of a siren and a muffled dispatch issuing from a radio. Nausea rose inside him, the way it always did, but he forced it down again, the way he always did, and walked away before taking a deep breath. As soon as he cleared that ten-foot mark, the evidence tech moved forward to continue with her tasks.

Sam detoured to the table where his detective worked, sunlight glaring on him. “You need any help, Ben?”

“Not yet. Unless you want to interview the yard service people.”

Ben was damn good in the interview situation when it was suspects across the table from him. He was tough, driven, could intimidate the worst of the bad guys and often did without so much as rising from his chair. But when it came to witnesses, the victims, the friends and families, he had trouble finding his stride. “Lois and I will take care of it.”

Without looking up from his computer—where the screen showed another list in the making—Ben grunted, and Sam headed back to the gate.

“What now, Chief?”

Simpson fell in step with him at the corner of the house. The newbie had stayed hell and gone from the body. He’d confessed on the way out that he’d never seen a dead person before, had never even been to a funeral, and he wasn’t looking forward to the experience. “But I’ll get through it,” he’d hastened to assure Sam. “I’ll get used to it.”

“I hope not,” Sam had replied. No one but medical examiners and embalmers should ever get used to the sights of violent death, and even they couldn’t allow themselves to totally get used to it. They had to retain some of their horror, or what purpose was there in living?

“Sit in with Lois while she interviews the men on the yard crew. I’ll talk to the woman.” As he said it, he looked around. The Hawk’s Aerie bulldozers hadn’t left a single tree on the property big enough to provide shade to anything more than a cricket. The stoop fronting Carlyle’s house was small, and its most notable feature was the sun that shone fully on the three stone steps. “I’m going to the truck. At least we can get some air there. Send her down to me—and make sure she comes.”

There weren’t so many people on scene that Ms. Ramirez could easily slip off and evade him, but he wouldn’t take any chances. If he were a sensitive kind of guy, he could find it downright insulting how many people didn’t want to talk to him when a crime was involved—even self-proclaimed honest citizens.

Striding back to the truck, he started the engine, turned the AC on high and watched as Simpson pointed out the pickup to Milagro. With a tiny nod, she pushed away from the pickup and started Sam’s way, her head still down, her manner submissive. She was average height, slender, and the hair that hung messily beneath her ball cap was black. Her choice of clothes looked unbearable for working in the heat: jeans, long-sleeved shirt with a T-shirt underneath, work boots that reached above her ankles, a bandanna wrapped around her throat to cover the back of her neck and the ball cap pulled low. The men on the crew were dressed the same. Protection from the sun.

The passenger door opened and, after a hesitation so brief he might have imagined it, she stepped up into the truck. Accompanying her was the overripe scent of hard work. Sam had smelled worse. Hell, he smelled worse after every steamy summer run.

As soon as she closed the door, Sam directed most of the air vents to the passenger side. Milagro looked like a rag wrung out then dropped to the ground, with grass clippings clinging to her clothes and what little exposed skin they’d found and coated with layers of dirt. The strongest scent coming from her was that fresh, sharp, not-always pleasant smell of whacked weeds. Smelled like Johnson grass, the invasive weed he’d spent three miserable summers banishing from the farm.

“I’m Chief Douglas.” He removed his hat and laid it crown down on the dashboard. “And you are...”

“Milagro Ramirez.”

The name alone made him expect to hear an accent and sounds meticulously pronounced. He didn’t hear either. She said it exactly the way he would have, her accent indistinguishable, as if she might have been from anywhere but south of the border.

“I understand you found Mr. Carlyle’s body.”

“Yes.” She sat rigid, her spine not touching the seat, and stared at some point in front of the vehicle. The air rushing from the vents blew fine tendrils of her hair and was slowly chasing away the pink that spread across her cheeks.

Was she here illegally? Rumor had it that the guy who owned Happy Grass Lawn Service was too cheap to pay decent wages so he relied on immigrants who had no status and no one to complain to. Or she could have all her papers in order but be in trouble for something totally unrelated. She could be a perfectly law-abiding born-in-the-USA citizen who’d never had contact with the police, or she could distrust cops just for being cops. There was no shortage of that sentiment these days.

And yet he and all the others who did it stuck it out. They were the protectors, the investigators, the defenders, the justice seekers and, sometimes, given the nature of criminals and the extent of the things bad people could do to other people, they were just plain insane.

Though Sam had started the day feeling all law and order, truth, justice and the American way, about now he was thinking he just might be insane.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Mila’s body temperature to drop from borderline heatstroke to shivering like winter in her wet clothing. Her arms had goose bumps and her hands were shaking when she reached out to close the vents until only a thin line of air came out.

For a while she’d been lost in blessed numbness. She’d walked calmly out of the backyard, stopped Ruben and asked him to go with her. He’d taken one look at the body, shooed her away and called 911. Next he’d pushed her down onto the driveway in the miserable bit of shade the pickup provided, thrust a bottle of water into her hand and stopped the other two working. She’d had a few lovely minutes when she saw nothing, thought nothing, remembered nothing, when she was just a drifting soul in a distant universe where no person or thing could follow her.

Then she’d heard the sirens, reminding her of other sirens, other lives, other deaths. The noise and bustle of the first responders had drawn her back into this universe, reminding her to pull herself together. It hadn’t been easy gathering all the parts of herself back into a coherent being. Fortunately, these people, this police chief, would find nothing unusual about an incoherent being under these circumstances.

She waited for Chief Douglas to begin his interrogation. He was entering information into the computer mounted between them, and she watched peripherally, thinking his big hands were better suited to birthing cattle or catching footballs than typing on laptops. When his fingers went still, she felt his gaze shift to her.

“Are you all right?”

The question surprised her into looking at him. His eyes were blue and serious, and he studied her as if he could read everything he needed to know in her own eyes. Only one person had ever truly read her emotions—she confused her grandmother and her psychologist on a fairly regular basis—and that person was nothing more than dust and bones in a pauper’s grave. She would spit on it if she knew where it was.

The chief was still waiting. “Yes. I... I walked into that yard not thinking about anything other than the work and the flowers, and instead I saw—” With a shudder, she raised one hand that she knew would still tremble, would make him sympathetic, because he just had the look of someone who was very sympathetic, then sighed.

“I’m sorry.” His voice rang with sincerity.

Guilt twinged deep inside, but she forced it back. She wasn’t lying, just playing a role. Any other person in her spot right now would be entitled to sympathy without feeling guilty, and she was pretending to be any other person. “Better me than his wife or kids.” Her voice came out small, the way it did when she was trying to shrink out of existence.

That wasn’t a play for sympathy. She knew better than most that Carlyle’s six-and eight-year-old daughters didn’t need to see their dad like that, just as she hadn’t needed to see her father in all the ways she’d seen him.

Douglas watched her a moment longer before turning his attention to the report template called up on the computer screen. “I need to get some basic information from you.”

He asked questions; she answered. Some of her answers were even true. All of them felt true. She had been Milagro Ramirez for so long that it felt genuine. Cassie, Candace, Melanie...all the other names she’d answered to were like a long-distant dream. The name she’d been given at birth wasn’t even that. She was no longer any of those girls. She was Milagro, who had never had a mother or a father, who lived happily with her grandmother Jessica, whose life had begun at age eleven.

As she talked and he typed, yet another vehicle parked ahead of them. A man and a woman got out, retrieved a gurney from the back of the van and disappeared around back. Presumably they were from the medical examiner’s office. They would put Mr. Carlyle into a body bag, then wheel him back around front, no longer a husband, a father, a boss, just a package, evidence, to be delivered to people who would do even more damage to him than his killer had. They would take specimens and photographs and notes, and then they would send him on to some funeral director who would fix it all so his family wouldn’t recoil in shock.

Her stomach heaved.

Mila shifted so she was facing Chief Douglas, so the activity at the house was a blur she couldn’t easily follow. He gave the impression of being a big guy, but she doubted he was taller than six feet or heavier than 190 pounds. It was just this air of confidence about him, not boastful or brash but quiet, like he knew he could hold his own, and it didn’t matter if anyone else knew it.

He wasn’t a guy she would look at and think, Damn, he’s gorgeous, but he was definitely someone she’d look at and think, He’s in charge here. Authority accompanied that quiet confidence, backed up by the badge, the weapon and the Taser.

But he was good-looking, too. Light brown hair slicked down by the hat he’d worn, earnest blue eyes, a straight nose, a square jaw, a mouth that probably delivered impressive smiles...among other things. If he’d only had dimples, Gramma would melt in a pool at his feet. “I’m sixty-five” she liked to remind Mila. “That’s a long way from dead.”

And sometimes that was followed by a reminder. You’re a long way from dead, too, sweet girl. You should be grateful for it every single day.

She was grateful, more some days than others. She knew how fragile life was, how it could be taken on a whim, how the same hand that tickled or soothed or petted could also deliver pain so intense that it stole her tears.

She was very grateful. Mostly.

The chief’s cell phone rang, and with an apologetic gesture, he answered it. She narrowed her focus to him. If her attention didn’t wander outside this vehicle, it couldn’t go where she didn’t want it to. Instead, she wondered if he was married. He didn’t wear any jewelry, not even a watch, but that didn’t mean anything.

What was his first name? She would vote for something wholesome, middle America, untrendy: Joe, Tom, Jack. Gramma had bought her a subscription to the Cedar Creek newspaper, which had surely printed his name a thousand times, along with some personal information, but Mila didn’t often read it. She wasn’t interested in crime or politics or who got married, had a new baby or won the trout derby out at the lake.

She wasn’t interested in the police chief, either.

Really.

He kept the conversation relatively short. “...just the basic info for the reporters—name withheld until next of kin is notified, our investigation continues, so on.”

Mila wondered briefly if Chief Douglas and his officers had investigated many murders. As cops, were they good, bad or indifferent? Fifteen years she’d lived in Cedar Creek, and she’d never had any contact with the police, not even a warning. She’d made a point of not being noticed by them, either.

She took a sidelong look at the chief and drily wondered, how was that working for her?

* * *

In a lot of big police departments, the chief’s job was administration, political meeting and greeting, and dealing with the media. Cedar Creek’s department was small enough that if Sam wanted to work traffic or act as primary investigator on a routine case, he could. Today, he was grateful to leave this case in Ben and Lois’s capable hands. He’d made one too many death notifications, had dealt with one too many grieving family members and friends. He would be satisfied to make his notes on the interview with Milagro Ramirez, turn them over to Ben and get back to the work piled on his desk.

As soon as he dispensed with Ms. Ramirez herself.

“If you’d like me to call your boss and see about getting the rest of the day off...”

Her gaze slid his way quickly, shy or possibly furtive, then shifted forward again. She considered the offer, looking tired and pale and tempted. He didn’t know her situation. He did know an unexpected day off resulted in financial hardship for people who counted on every hour’s salary to pay their bills. It was a decision she would have to make.

She looked at him again, keeping the eye contact to a minimum. Her hands were clasped in her lap, long fingers, nails cut short, a bandage wrapped around one tip, a bruise discoloring another. Not delicate hands, no polish, almost certainly callused, but capable. Strong. “I—I would appreciate that.”

As he picked up his phone, she told him the number. “What’s his name?” he asked during the first ring.

“Lawrence.”

“First name?”

“Mister.”

Ah, one of those people who didn’t get overly familiar with his employees. At the moment, that grated on his nerves, but then, his nerves had already been shredded in the few minutes in the backyard.

A woman answered on the third ring, and he asked for her boss. Overhearing her call out “Ed, it’s for you,” when the man came on the line, Sam adopted what he considered his politics voice.

“Ed, this is Sam Douglas down at the police department. How are you, man? It’s been a long time.”

Sam didn’t know if he’d ever met Ed Lawrence, but he certainly knew his kind. Made his success on the backs of underpaid, overworked employees, somehow convinced himself that they would be nothing without him when it was really the other way around, smarmy and blustery and always looking for anything he might use to increase his sense of self-worth. In a small town, being on a first-name basis with the police chief could be that something.

“Oh, I’m good, Chief, good.”

“You heard about the incident out here at Hawk’s Aerie, I’m sure. Your employees have been most helpful. I really appreciate it a lot.”

“At Happy Grass, we’re always glad to help. Glad to help.”

Great, a repeater. It was a quirk of cops that too many of them figured if it needed saying one time, it couldn’t hurt to say it twice. It was on the short list of things that drove Sam crazy.

“Listen, your worker who found the body...she’s pretty shook up by this. You can’t imagine what it was like for her.”

“Must have been a pretty ugly scene.”

Lawrence’s voice held a sly, inviting tone that all the put-on sympathy in the world couldn’t hide. He would love to share the gruesome details with his buddies while bragging that he got them straight from the police chief himself. That would be worth free rounds at the bar for two or three days, at least.

“Ugly enough that she really needs to take the rest of the day off. You’re fine with that, aren’t you, Ed? I mean, supporting the community and the police department the way you do, of course you’d want her to go home and deal with this instead of worrying about lawns.”

In his peripheral vision, he caught Milagro rolling her eyes. Apparently, she couldn’t imagine her boss caring anything about his employees except that they showed up and worked hard. Sam couldn’t imagine being that kind of supervisor. Couldn’t imagine anyone in his family letting him get away with it before they smacked him back down to size.

“Sure, sure, she can take the day off,” Lawrence said. “It’ll put us behind schedule, of course, but that’s a small price to pay given the circumstances. You just go ahead and tell Maria—”

“Milagro.”

“Yes, yes, of course she should deal with this. Tell her I said don’t think about work at all today. Tomorrow’s plenty soon enough for that.”

“I will. And you know, Ed...” Sam adopted Lawrence’s insincere good-ole-boy tone. “I would consider it a personal favor if you didn’t dock her pay for the time off. She’s doing her civic duty, helping the police, and I would just hate to see it cost her more than the emotional trauma she’s already been through. You think you could do me that favor, Ed?”

The level of joviality in Lawrence’s voice dropped enough to force him to clear his throat to answer, but he came out with the right response. “Of course, Chief. I’m happy to do it. Happy to do it.” He pronounced each of the last four words with extra emphasis, like he was trying to convince himself.

“Thanks, Ed. I’ll see you around.” Sam laid the phone in the console cup holder.

Milagro was watching him again, but this time her gaze didn’t dart away and back. Her brows were narrowed, and something that might be the start of a smile curved her lips a bit. He got the impression that she didn’t smile much. Lurking beneath the lingering shock and dismay was an intense solemnity that he doubted gave way very often.

What had she been through in her twenty-six years that made her so solemn?

The list of possibilities was too long to consider right now.

She made no comment about the conversation, though she’d clearly heard enough from his end to get the gist of it.

“Do you need to go back to the shop to pick up your car?”

She shook her head.

“How’d you get to work this morning?”

“Ruben picks us up. We’re on his way.”

“I’ll take you home then.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he went on, “You’re on my way. Buckle up.”

She did, and so did he. He pulled out and drove to the driveway, where he rolled the passenger window down. “Simpson, get a ride back with Lois. And Lois, give him the benefit of your years of experience, will you?”

Lois saluted him with a wink and a grin.

After raising the window again, he followed the loop past quiet grand houses and out the gate. He figured Milagro would be happy if they made the drive in silence, but silence wasn’t usually one of his strong suits. “How long have you lived in Cedar Creek?”

Quick glance, hesitation. Yep, she’d rather not chitchat. “Fifteen years.”

“Hmm. I see the same people so often, sometimes I start thinking I know everyone in town. You go to school here?”

“I was homeschooled.”

“Church?”

“No.” After a moment’s pause, he guessed curiosity made her ask, “Do you?”

“Regularly enough that God doesn’t forget my face. Every Sam Douglas in town is expected to be there at least twice a month on Sundays.”

That caught her attention, as he expected it would. “How many are there?”

“There’s me. My father. My grandfather, who’s gone now. My cousin Samson. His boy, Sammy. A cousin Samantha. And her son, Samwell. Samantha hyphenates Douglas with her husband’s last name for both her and Samwell.”

“Maybe your family should look at one of the other twenty-five letters in the alphabet.” She folded her arms across her chest, tucking her fingers into the folds of fabric at her elbows.

Wow. A long sentence with a little bit of humor in it. Feeling a sense of accomplishment, he turned the AC lower. “We’re a big family. We require a lot of names.”

She didn’t ask how big. If she had, he would have turned the question back on her. Since she didn’t, he turned it back anyway. “Do you have family?”

Her expression turned both pensive and wary, and though the truck cab left her little room to move, she managed to put some distance between them.

“Look, Milagro, I don’t know if you’re a citizen, an immigrant or an undocumented worker, and I don’t care. You had a shock today. You probably need someone to stay with tonight, just in case. Do you have someone you can call?”

Her face had gone pale once more, but reluctant acceptance replaced the wariness. “Gramma. My grandmother.”

“Do you want me to take you to her house?”

“No. She’ll come.”

He caught a glimpse of that tiny sort-of smile, softened with deep affection.

“She always comes.”

Whatever she’d been through, she’d held on to her faith in her grandmother with both hands. That was good. With a family the size of his, it could have been easy for some of the kids to get lost in the crowd, to not have anyone special they could trust no matter what, but with parents and grandparents like his, that hadn’t happened to them. He appreciated that it hadn’t happened to Milagro, either.

By that time, they’d reached her street. Sam’s own house was only six or eight blocks away, across Main Street and in a very similar neighborhood: old houses, some neatly maintained and others looking as if the next strong wind would blow them away. Some of the yards were lush with flowers and vegetable gardens; some looked as if a flock of ravenous chickens had pecked out the last piece of grass and it had never grown back.

Milagro’s house was, like his, on the better side of things. It occupied the corner, a decent-size lot with a white-sided house, a deep front porch and a picket fence containing the closest thing he’d ever seen to an English cottage garden. He hadn’t expected her to have a pretty yard or a lot of flowers. She did that sort of thing all day. Didn’t she want a break from it at night?

The driveway went only as far as the sidewalk, the rest of it having been claimed for plantings. He shifted the truck into Park, then turned to face her. “Are you going to be all right?”

She nodded.

“You’ll call your grandmother?”

Another nod.

“Here’s my number. If you need anything, even just to talk, call me.”

She hesitated before accepting the business card he offered. Then, with a polite nod, she opened the door, got out and walked through the gate and into her garden. She followed the stone path to the porch, never glancing back. There she unlocked the door, opened it to the bare minimum of space she needed to slip through and did just that.

The cop in him wondered about that. Was someone inside she didn’t want him to see? Did she have an inside garden that he might have to haul her to jail for? Was she such a bad housekeeper she didn’t want anyone to catch a glimpse of the mess? But in those seconds the door was open, he’d heard excited barking and gotten the impression of a yellow-furred mass of energy greeting her. She had a dog, a big one judging from what he’d seen, who’d been locked up all day and probably regarded an open door as an invitation to romp down the streets.

Would she call her grandmother? Would she do it now or wait until tonight, when it was dark and she was vulnerable and the image of Evan Carlyle’s face haunted her even with her eyes squeezed shut?

Her decision to make, he reminded himself. He’d done his duty, both as police chief and as Samuel Douglas’s son. The rest was up to her.

Chapter 2

January 1.

Halloween had come and gone, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I saw TV sometimes. I knew what those days were like for most people, but I had never had a Halloween costume or anything to feel thankful for. My parents hadn’t killed me yet. That should have been something, shouldn’t it? The idea of Christmas, of people all over the world celebrating someone’s birth... My mother said my being born was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She hated me. He hated me, too.

I didn’t hate them. I just wished they were dead.

He took me to the Rose Parade today. I had never seen so many people in one place, tens of thousands of them. We walked down the crowded sidewalks, him grasping my hand so tightly it hurt, his narrow dark eyes sliding from one woman to the next. Did they have any idea, even just a slight disturbance in their souls, that they were in the presence of evil? I knew it. I smelled it, that mix of excitement and lust and sick, sick pleasure. For him, half the fun was the choosing. He never drank before a hunt. The anticipation was his high, his need, his reward.

We walked. He looked. I let my mind wander someplace safer. Sometimes I just stopped being. I was nothing and nowhere. A blink, and I no longer existed. Sometimes I became someone else, a normal girl whose father loved her so much that he’d fought traffic and huge crowds just so she could see the parade. He held my hand so tightly because his heart would be broken if we got separated. Fear, ignited by pure, sweet love.

I didn’t pretend very often. It was too nice, and when he poked me to point out his target—our target—the fantasy crashed so hard I was afraid it would squash the hope out of me.

Today I looked at those crowds, those hundreds of thousands of people, and wondered what would happen if I ran right into the middle of them. He was stronger, but I was fast and wiry, and I was more afraid. If I twisted my hand from his, quick and hard, and darted into the street between floats, I could reach the other side. I could run to that group of college kids over there and cry, “This man is not my daddy! Please don’t let him take me!”

Better yet, I could disappear. Sometimes when I was allowed to play outside, my mother said I’d never met an obstacle I couldn’t go over, around, under or through. I could run and run until my lungs burst, and he wouldn’t keep up. Everyone around was taller than me. He would have only a vague idea of where I’d gone, and I would get so far away from him that he would never find me.

Suddenly he jerked me to a stop and bent low to look into my face. His fingers squeezed so viciously around mine that the tips turned red, and after a spike of pain, mine went numb. “You wipe that smile off your face, you stupid little brat. You try to run away, I’ll kill you.” He yanked hard on my hand, pulling me closer. “You understand?”

I knew what he wanted, and I gave it, a solemn nod.

“You believe me?”

Oh, yes, I believed him.

I’d believed for as long as I could remember that someday my father or my mother was going to kill me.

—Excerpt, The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama

“Hey, Poppy, are you surprised to see me home early?” Mila leaned against the door, held there by the dog’s paws on her shoulders, and rubbed the base of her ears. Gramma had rescued the yellow Lab mix from Cedar Creek a few years ago—had seen the puppy perched on a tree stump snagged in the middle of the creek, alternating between whining at the current and barking for help. There had been other people around, but only Gramma had taken action, kicking off her shoes, wading into the waist-deep water and calming the dog for the trip back to shore.

Gramma hadn’t wanted a dog, but she’d saved its life, so she’d had to find it a safe home. Where else would that be but with Mila, she’d asked, as if it was the most logical question ever.

She had already given Mila two incredible gifts: unconditional love and escape from the terrors that were her parents. Trusting her with Poppy, with the care and nurturing of another living being, had been the third treasure. Twenty-four years old, and Mila had cried over the big-eyed waterlogged puppy who had climbed into her lap and promptly peed.

The Lab had changed Mila’s life. She’d never had a pet before, had been too terrified to even show interest in dogs, cats and hamsters. Showing interest in anything to her father was a one-way trip to pain.

Even over Poppy’s happy barking, Mila heard the police chief drive away. She exhaled, tightness easing in her chest and her stomach. He seemed a perfectly decent person, but being away from him made her feel the same way she did after a long swim: like a fish breaching, bursting from the crushing depths of the ocean into fresh, clean, light, sweet air.

He was a cop.

And she was what she was.

Not right. Damaged. A killer.

Numbness spread through her, closing her eyes, but she still saw things. Still heard. Still smelled. Thankfully, Poppy broke the moment by licking Mila’s face from the bridge of her nose all the way to her chin. “Ew, Poppy, no dog slobber.” Her voice trembled over the words, and she dragged in a breath before catching the dog’s face in both hands and pressing a grateful kiss right above her eyes.

“Okay, sweetie, let me get away from the door and maybe I’ll find some treats in the kitchen.” She caught the dog’s front paws and half pulled, half pushed them to the floor. After removing her ball cap and long-sleeved shirt, she bent to unlace her boots and kick them off on the rubber mat next to the door.

Goose bumps rising on her arms—and an odor so unpleasant that even Poppy wrinkled her nose and stepped away—Mila walked across the cool living room, the dining room and into the kitchen. Her landlord claimed the house had a thousand square feet of living space, but she was convinced that included the front porch, the back stoop and the shaded portion of the backyard. The kitchen’s maximum occupancy was one, though that never stopped Poppy from trying, and the bathroom was small enough that a two-by-three-foot rug covered all except the outside edges of the floor. Her bedroom was about ten by twelve feet—enormous compared to the second one, which had room for a twin bed, a night table and a skinny person standing sideways.

She got treats for Poppy before heading to the bathroom. She turned the water to hot, then shed her clothes in the hallway hamper. Once steam drifted on the air, she adjusted the water from scalding to merely breath stealing and stepped into the glass-enclosed shower.

The water streamed down her, washing away sweat and grime and the tensions she wore like a second skin. She luxuriated in it for one minute, three, five, then washed her hair and scrubbed her body. When she’d started working at Happy Grass, she had welcomed long days in the sun, wearing only short shorts and a tank top. That first day, Ruben had looked at her and shaken his head chasteningly. That day she’d burned despite her olive-toned skin and a zillion-SPF sunblock. She’d quickly adopted Ruben’s ways.

Her brown skin and black hair helped her live up to the name she and Gramma had chosen so long ago. People heard the name, looked at her and thought, Yes, she looks like a Milagro Ramirez. Even Chief Douglas had seemed surprised when he’d heard her unaccented voice.

She had no accent because she came from everywhere and nowhere.

Someday, she hoped to hear Oklahoma in her voice.

After shutting off the water, she pushed the shower door, but it moved only a few inches before stopping. Poppy lounged on the bath mat, her yellow hair drifting in the air. Mila coaxed her back enough so she could step out, throw on some clothes and then let her into the fenced backyard and watched her through the window over the sink. The garden there was as elaborate as the one out front, and if blooms escaped the dog’s huge feet only to fall victim to the sweep of her brushy tail, it was a small price to pay for having her.

One word in that thought stuck in Mila’s brain, refusing to fall away into oblivion as the others had. Victim. Evan Carlyle’s image appeared, as sharp and clear as it had been in the relentless glare of the midday sun, his body slack, his neck gaping, his eyes... It was always the eyes that stayed with her. A dead body wasn’t obscenely different from a living one, just a shell for a soul that had been ripped away. But something about the eyes... The spirit left them last, watching her, accusing her.

“It wasn’t my fault!”

The words exploded from her with such emotion that Poppy, curiously sniffing a frog, directed her gaze to the window, her head tilted to one side, concern on her goofy, doggy face. Mila wanted to tell her it was all right, to go back to her exploring. She wanted to pet her and thank her for caring. She wanted to drop to the ground beside her and wrap her arms tightly around her neck and let her wild hair tickle her nose.

But fear held her at the sink, on the inside looking out. That had been her life for eleven years: no friends, no family, no school, no everyday dealings with the world. Her father had left her home when he worked or drank. Her mother had left her home when she grocery shopped or paid bills or drank. Most of their neighbors in the towns where they’d lived had never known Mila existed. She didn’t go to the doctor when she was sick or play in the yard or get too close to a window where someone might see. The only people who’d ever seen her were the victims.

For eleven years. An eternity.

When the cell rang, it startled Mila. Her head whipped toward the hall, where the phone was still tucked in the pocket of her jeans. Her breathing was heavy, and her hands shook, but her feet were rooted to the floor.

You try to run away, I’ll kill you.

The ringing stopped, but it would start again in seconds. The only person who ever called her was Gramma, and Gramma wouldn’t be deterred by voice mail.

Fifteen years ago, Gramma hadn’t been deterred by time or distance or the obvious message that her daughter wanted nothing to do with her. She hadn’t even been deterred by the evil in the flesh that was her son-in-law. She’d come to Mila’s rescue, same as she’d done with Poppy, and given her a chance at living. Real life. Not cowering in isolated fear.

The ring sounded again, and so did the faint, faraway whisper. This time it didn’t frighten Mila. After all, she had run away, and he had died in the process.

That was one death she would proudly take credit for.

Dashing into the hallway, she grabbed the phone and held it to her ear. “Hi, Gramma. I’m glad you called.”

* * *

When Sam walked into the squad room at the station the next morning, Ben Little Bear was typing at his computer. He looked comfortable, like he’d been there awhile and intended to stay a good long while longer.

Sam sat down in the chair next to the desk, its ancient wood creaking beneath his weight, and put his hat on the next desk. It was the most beat-up one they had and had gone unused for as long as he could remember. According to his predecessor, some chief long ago had gotten it in the hopes of one day being fully staffed. Operating on a budget, that had never happened.

“What do you have on the Carlyle case?”

Ben saved his work, then swiveled to face him. “The State Department located the wife and kids in Rome. The embassy notified her, and they’re helping expedite their return home. I talked to his boss. He said Carlyle was a solid manager, got along with everyone. He seemed happy in his marriage and adored his daughters. No problems at work, no disgruntled employees, no ex-wife, no money problems, no problems of any kind that he knew of.”

“Basically, no reason for anyone to want to kill him.”

Ben nodded. “Funny how many times we hear that about people who have, indeed, been killed.”

A person who didn’t think in terms of resolving issues with murder was always puzzled by someone who did. Sam had learned to understand the thought processes, the motivations, but it still amazed him that people chose murder.

“There was no sign of forced entry,” Ben went on, and Sam swore he could almost see him ticking items off a mental list. “You need a code to get into the house and another for the backyard. I’ll have to get a list from the wife of everyone who knows the codes, but obviously the yard service and probably the pool service have the gate code. Pool service isn’t due until Friday, and I’ve confirmed the yard people’s whereabouts for the morning. They were out at that private school on Highway 117 for three hours, then ate lunch at Scott’s, where they’re regulars. Cameras show them arriving at 11:05 and leaving at eleven thirty. Guard has them logged in at Hawk’s Aerie at 11:42. The 911 call came in six minutes later.”

There was nothing like a routine that allowed a person to document practically every minute of their day, Sam thought, then wondered...how was Milagro?

She’d been on his mind ever since he’d driven away from her house yesterday. Had she called her grandmother? Had she managed a peaceful night? Was she back at work this morning? It wouldn’t be a bad thing if she was. In his experience, the best way to deal with trauma was by keeping busy.

And maybe she was one of the lucky ones whose spirits were strong enough to cope, to adjust, to say a prayer, take a deep breath and go on doing what they had to do. Though she’d seemed fragile enough to shatter in a breeze yesterday, he suspected she was much stronger than that.

But he would check in on her later today just to be sure. It wasn’t an unusual action for him to take. In fact, witnesses to violent crimes pretty much always got a well-being check a day or two later. Usually it was the detective handling their case or Lois, but Sam made some of them. He would make this one.

“We got a lot of fingerprints,” Ben said, drawing Sam’s attention back to the case. “Most of them belong to the same four people, presumably the family. There was no sign of a struggle, no skin under his fingernails, no obvious attempt to get his cell phone out of his pocket. My guess is he let someone in, and after he sat down, the person came up behind him. Surprised him. A sharp blade, no hesitation marks. By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late.”

As Sam stood and retrieved his hat, he asked, “Why was he home yesterday?”

“He told his assistant Tuesday night that he was working from home Wednesday. He’s done it before, but it’s an occasional thing.”

Maybe he’d planned on having a late night Tuesday. Maybe he was having company who was staying over for breakfast. Maybe he was taking advantage of his wife and kids being out of the country.

Or maybe he’d just wanted to sit by the beautiful pool and enjoy the beautiful view he worked long hours to pay for.

“You’re thorough, Detective.”

“You might be as thorough if you made a list from time to time,” Ben replied, giving a rare smile. As if an afterthought, he added, “Sir.”

“I may stumble a bit without your endless lists, but I always wind up in the same place.”

“Yeah, well, stumbling isn’t my thing.”

From her desk outside his office, his secretary called, “Telephone, Chief.”

“Got it.” Sam returned Ben’s smirk. “Keep me updated. If you need anything—”

In unison, they said, “Lois will be the first to know.”

With a nod, Sam headed to his office and picked up the phone. “Chief Douglas. What can I do for you?”

“Morning, Chief, good morning. This is Ed. I just wanted to check in and make sure my employees cooperated fully with you yesterday. I give ’em a job and I treat ’em like family, but that gives me certain expectations of them, you know.”

No, Sam didn’t know. He wasn’t even sure whom he was talking to. His work involved a lot of phone conversations, double that yesterday, and he couldn’t place the unctuous, smarmy...

Oh, hell. Ed Lawrence of Happy Grass was the kind of guy Sam wanted to forget as soon as their business was done, but no, he’d buddied up to Lawrence to be sure Milagro got some time off without losing pay. Now Lawrence was going to return the favor by buddying up to Sam. Damn.

“Hang on, Ed. I just this minute walked in the door. Let me get settled.” He set the phone down, closed the door and set his hat in its designated spot atop an old oak filing cabinet. Finally he sat down behind the desk and took up the phone. “Sorry about that, Ed. I’m here.”

“Don’t apologize. People always call at inconvenient times. Some of the worst times. I could tell you...but I won’t.” He cleared his throat and slid into what Sam pegged as his faux-concerned voice. “I just wanted to be sure my crew was cooperative with you yesterday. They’re good workers, but they’ve got their quirks. You know, pretending they don’t speak English sometimes when you know damn well they do, or sticking together like it’s them against me, or freaking out when they have any interactions with the police. My workers are all here legally, Chief, don’t doubt that a second, no, sir, not one second. I’ve got copies of their papers. Now if it happens to turn out that some of those papers aren’t real, well, you can’t blame me for that. I did what I was supposed to.”

Sam barely resisted a snort. If Ed Lawrence was the man he thought, any false papers had probably been obtained at his behest, thereby covering his ass while leaving everyone else out to hang.

When Lawrence took a noisy breath, Sam grabbed hold of the pretext for his call. “Everyone was fully cooperative, Ed. They lived up to your expectations.”

“Good, good. So...the dead guy—I mean, the victim. Ruben says it was Evan Carlyle. Well, actually, what he said was that they found him at the Carlyle house. Was it Evan?”

Bracing the phone between his shoulder and ear, Sam picked up a thick pile of messages and ruffled the edges. Milagro had intimated that Lawrence didn’t encourage familiarity with his employees. He doubted Evan Carlyle had, either.

“You know I can’t confirm that. An official announcement will be made once the next of kin have been notified.”

“But you can confirm that his throat was cut, can’t you?”

Sam sighed. In the reality of crime scenes, there was no such thing as private information versus public. Too many people saw the body: in this instance, the lawn service crew, the police, the crime scene investigators, the ambulance and fire crews, the team from the medical examiner’s office. And everyone talked. Lois, Ben and Simpson had surely told other officers what they’d seen. Ruben and the rest of his crew had likely told their families or friends, and hopefully Milagro had told her grandmother.

“Officially, I can’t confirm anything. When Detective Little Bear has information to share, he’ll contact the media.”

Lawrence’s chuckle held a hint of disappointment. “Aw, Chief, you know everyone shares a few tidbits with their buddies.”

“I know, but as chief, I don’t have that luxury.” Before the wheedling could continue, Sam asked, “How was Ms. Ramirez this morning?”

“Who—oh, Maria. She was fine.” His tone clearly said he’d paid no attention to her. How long had she worked there that her boss still didn’t know her name? Happy Grass wasn’t a large company. Even if Lawrence did nothing more than sign her paycheck every two weeks, he should know her name.

Thankfully, someone in the background shouted for Lawrence’s attention. With a remark about how he never could catch a break, he hung up, and Sam heaved a sigh of relief. He made a mental note to check with Milagro in another few weeks. With Lawrence now acting like they were buddies, she’d damn sure better get paid for her few hours off.

* * *

Mila liked to think she didn’t spook easily, but midmorning on Thursday, when she had to walk into the first fenced-in backyard, she’d hesitated so long that Ruben had come over and led the way. The second time Alejandro had accompanied her and then Mario.

None of them had mentioned yesterday’s discovery. None of them had teased or scorned her hesitancy. They hadn’t said much of anything at all, but she’d appreciated their actions. She hadn’t had a lot of experience with simple courtesies, and today they’d made her throat swell and her eyes sting.

She stood up from the bed she was weeding, arched her back and grunted as a soothing crack sounded in her spine. You’re making old woman sounds, Gramma warned her. I’m the one who should be creaking and popping.

Gramma had come straight to her house after yesterday’s phone call, making the five-minute drive in two and a half minutes. She’d burst through the front door, greeted Poppy, then wrapped her arms around Mila and rocked her back and forth, stroking her hair, calling her baby and sweet girl and whispering that everything was all right now.

And everything had been all right, because Gramma was there. She was the rock in Mila’s life. Once, when Mila had told her she was her hero, Gramma had laughed and said, Except the tights are support hose these days, and the cape looks more like a hairdresser’s than a superhero’s.

Having Gramma in her life made Mila the luckiest person in the world.

“Milagro.”

Her startle reflex was sharper than usual, though an instant after the surprise, she recognized Mario’s voice. He stood just inside the gate, his brows raised in question. She nodded and began gathering her tools, along with the pop-up mesh tub that held the weeds. She would be the first drop-off today, a fact she appreciated since they’d already worked an hour longer than usual. Poppy would be even more excited than usual, both with her greeting and her need to get outside.

Most of the equipment was already loaded in the trailer. Ruben secured his weed trimmer while she stuffed her tools into their spot, then they both climbed inside the truck and headed out of the neighborhood. The silence was comfortable, she realized with surprise. She’d always lived mostly in silence, and she’d always been acutely aware that it wasn’t exactly normal. But the crew wasn’t quiet because they were angry or suspicious or plotting. They were tired, thinking about a shower and dinner and a good night’s sleep, just as she was. It was familiar. Normal.

When Ruben turned the old pickup onto her block, he glanced her way. “Huh.”

She looked at him, then ahead. A white pickup truck with police department markings was parked across the street from her house. Chief Douglas. Huh, indeed.

Her mouth went dry, her stomach clenching hard. Did he have more questions? Pretty much everyone involved with a murder was looked at closely. Had they looked at her? Had they found out that Milagro Ramirez had formed out of thin air fifteen years ago, that before then she hadn’t existed? Did they wonder what she was hiding and if it had anything to do with the dead man she’d discovered?

Ruben pulled up to the curb opposite the police chief. She got out of the pickup, holding the door so Alejandro could move from the back seat to the front. Before letting go, she managed an action that was more grimace than smile and said, “Thanks, Ruben. Goodbye.” She didn’t look to see if all three men were staring at her. She’d never said thank you, goodbye, hello or anything else voluntary to them.

No wonder they were never chatty with her.

She wanted to go straight inside her house and lock the door, but it would be futile. If Douglas could be put off that easily, he wouldn’t be police chief. With a deep breath to control the queasiness in her stomach, she turned to face his truck. The engine was shut off, the windows rolled down to let in the stifling heat, stirred only by the occasional rustle of wind. The sun was at just the right angle to shine in the driver’s side window, making the cab significantly warmer than the outside air, enough to make sweat glisten on his forehead.

It wasn’t a bad look on him.

He got out, closing the door with a thud, and crossed the street to join her.

“You should have waited on the porch. At least you would have had shade and a breeze,” she said, not realizing until after she’d spoken that a greeting of some sort would have been polite.

Being polite had never been one of her goals, regretfully. Not being noticed had always been far more important to her—and to her survival.

“I would have, but my going on the porch and knocking on the door made your dog crazy. I figured if I didn’t go away, he was going to come right through the door.”

“She,” Mila corrected automatically as she opened the gate, then led the way to the porch. “Poppy is excitable.”

“To say the least. What breed is she?”

“Mostly yellow Lab. Maybe something wiry. She lives in a perpetual bad-hair day.” At the top of the steps, she stopped. Poppy’s barks demanded attention, but Mila didn’t yet know why the police chief was here, and she didn’t want to invite him into her house. No one but Gramma had been inside in the three years she’d lived there, and there were things in there she preferred no one else saw.

Awkwardly, she faced him again. He’d stopped one step below her, putting them on eye level and much closer than she’d expected. He still had that undeniable air of authority about him...and he was still handsome. His eyes were as blue as she’d remembered, his mouth as full of promise, and without crease marks from his hat, his hair looked soft and smooth, though shorter than she usually liked.

Hmm. She hadn’t realized she had a preference in men’s hairstyles.

He smelled faintly of sweat and sunshine and cologne, reminding her that she smelled like a rotting garbage heap under the fires of hell and didn’t look much better. Her clothes were soaked and stinky, and her face was dirty and baked dry. It felt as if too much expression might actually crack her skin. This wasn’t a bad time to wish, for the ten thousandth time, for invisibility.

Poppy’s barks and bangs at the door were frantic, though not an indication of doggy emergency. She acted much the same when Mila came back from the bathroom or returned from getting the mail on the porch. She and Gramma were the only creatures in the whole world who were always happy to see Mila.

But Chief Douglas wasn’t here because he was happy to see her. He’d come about the body, or about information they’d found on her—or hadn’t found on her. It wasn’t a social call. Just police business, and she’d spent her life not getting involved in police business.

Scuffing her feet uncomfortably, she fixed her gaze on the flowers visible over the chief’s shoulder and politely—blankly might be a better description—asked, “Was there something you needed?”

Peripherally she caught a glimpse of his expression: friendly, sincere. No suspicion or doubt or accusations. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. Any problems last night or today?”

She blinked. Seriously? The chief of police was taking time from his day to see how she was coping with finding a body? Of course Gramma would check, and the crew going into the backyards with her had been their way of checking, but what kind of police officer did that? What kind of chief?

“I—I’m okay.” She confirmed the words with a shrug that felt jerky rather than assuring. With some sort of obligation pressing her, she went on. “I still see...you can’t unsee... But it’s—it’s all right.”

Did that sound as bad to him as it did to her? Embarrassment flushed her face, heat creeping down her throat. A man was dead, and no matter that she hadn’t known him, it wasn’t all right. She’d never known any of those women when she was a kid, and their deaths would never be all right.

But she felt responsible for their deaths. With Evan Carlyle, she’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Chief Douglas seemed to understand what she meant. When she sneaked a look, there was no censure in his eyes. “No problems sleeping? No nightmares?”

“A few.” She avoided his face and took another step back. She wasn’t lying, though it felt like a lie. She’d had two nightmares, waking soaked with sweat, Gramma at her side and Poppy resting her head on her thigh. But the nightmares hadn’t been about Carlyle. Seeing him had triggered them, but the faces in her dreams were women whose names she’d never known and the parents she wished she’d never known. If she’d been a regular person, finding Carlyle’s body would have been nothing more than a blip on her radar.

Poppy banged the door hard, and Mila gestured that way. “The baby really needs to go out. Do you mind...?”

She meant Can you say what you want and go? He interpreted it as Can you give me a moment, then we’ll talk? With an expansive gesture, he pointed toward the door. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

Her breath grew tight again. She unlocked the door, then, out of habit, opened it just enough to slide through. Poppy had never met a stranger at the house before, and though Mila was pretty sure the sweet puppy didn’t have it in her to bite someone, she wasn’t so sure about knocking them to the ground and loving them to death.

“Hey, Poppy, baby,” she greeted, rubbing her hands over the dog’s ears and face and shoulders. “I know I’m late. Do you need to go out? Please need to go out because if you don’t, that means I’m gonna be finding puddles somewhere. Come on, sweetie. I’ll race you to the door.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.