Two reader-favorite Guardians of Coral Cove stories.
Obsession

FBI Agent Colin Roarke vows to protect former crush Michelle Girard from the “Reunion Killer.” Staying one step ahead is Colin’s specialty, but as his frustration intensifies, so do the complications of long-buried feelings. When Michelle is kidnapped, clues lead Colin to an abandoned mansion where dark secrets are concealed—and dangerous desires hidden.

Eyewitness

Four years in an Afghan prison couldn’t erase beautiful Devon Reese from Kieran Roarke’s damaged memory. So when they meet on a beach back in Coral Cove and she begs for help, he doesn’t hesitate. Especially when he learns Devon’s little boy—a son he hadn’t known existed—witnessed a murder. Kieran is desperate to keep his new family safe. He lost them once—he won’t lose them again.

Praise for author Carol Ericson

“Small towns hold the best secrets, and Ericson slowly unravels each one until the final climax.”

—RT Reviews on Obsession

“Elise Duran…is my favorite type of heroine—strong yet vulnerable… I highly recommend this for fans of mystery and intrigue.”

—HarlequinJunkie.com on The Bridge

“A fantastic read from first page to last. Be sure to take in The Stranger and I, Carol Ericson’s debut Harlequin Intrigue, and keep a look out for more. Carol Ericson will quickly become a favorite…”

—CataRomance.com

“From the first page, Ericson’s story will grab readers and cannon them through the adventure, tears and terrors of a homecoming that doesn’t go as planned.”

—RT Reviews on Eyewitness

CAROL ERICSON

lives with her husband and two sons in Southern California, home of state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery, wild freeway chases, palm trees bending in the Santa Ana winds and a million amazing stories. These stories, along with hordes of sexy men and feisty women, clamor for release from Carol’s head. It makes for some interesting headaches until she sets them free to fulfill their destinies and her readers’ fantasies. To find out more about Carol and her current books, visit her website, carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”

Books by Carol Ericson

Harlequin Intrigue

Run, Hide

Conceal, Protect

Trap, Secure

Catch, Release

The Bridge

The District

The Wharf

The Hill

Under Fire

Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

Obsession & Eyewitness

Carol Ericson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OBSESSION

EYEWITNESS

Obsession

Carol Ericson

For my dad,

who loved the central coast of California.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

NO, I DO not need a lifetime supply of Viagra. Michelle Girard snorted as she deleted the unopened email, sending it to the black hole of cyberspace. Maybe Alec Wright, the computer teacher at school, could suggest a better spam filter, one that didn’t allow this garbage to slip through to her inbox.

As her cursor hovered over the next message, a breath of apprehension puffed against the nape of her neck and her hand trembled. The words in the subject line punched her in the gut. Like mother, like daughter?

Different unknown sender from last month, same message. And just like last month, she deleted the email without opening it or reading it and then cleared her delete folder. She didn’t know if the message contained more content than the insidious question, and she didn’t want to find out.

She jumped at the sharp rap on her front door and slammed her laptop shut, as if that could banish the disturbing email from her mind. She dropped the math quizzes she had to grade on top of the computer and crept to the door. Twitching back the curtain on the window, she blew out a deep breath and waved at Amanda, her best friend.

Amanda banged on the door and yelled, “Don’t just stand there gawking. Let me in, already.”

Michelle swung open the door, and Amanda charged across the threshold, gripping her upper arms, a sweater draped around her shoulders. She gave an exaggerated shiver. “This June gloom sucks.”

Michelle peered outside at the once-sunny day now shrouded in a slow-moving fog rolling in from the beach. June days in the little coastal town of Coral Cove usually started out overcast and ended that way.

She snapped the door shut and turned to survey her friend. “What are you doing here, and why are you all dressed up?”

“This old thing?” Amanda glanced down at her shimmering summer dress and plucked at the floral skirt as her sweater slipped to the floor.

“Since you usually work at home in sweats and a T-shirt, there must be some special occasion.” Michelle crossed her arms, waiting for news of Amanda’s next harebrained scheme. She adored her friend, but she was as flighty as a butterfly in a gust of wind.

“You have to point that out, don’t you?” She adjusted the bodice of her dress and spread her arms out, pausing theatrically. “Colin Roarke is back in town.”

Michelle raised one brow. “Colin Roarke?”

“Oh, please. Even you with your bookish ways and band of nerds must’ve heard of the Roarke brothers in high school.” She tousled her blond-streaked hair and took a twirl around the room. “Colin was four years ahead of us and Kieran was six years ahead.”

“Of course I’ve heard of them.” Michelle dipped to scoop up Amanda’s sweater from the floor, her hair sweeping across her suddenly flushed cheeks. She hadn’t given Colin Roarke much thought since she’d had a mad, useless, crazy crush on him in high school.

“I know they both got football scholarships to college. The family lived down the road from here.” Michelle tilted her head. “Didn’t the parents retire to Hawaii or something? The dad made a killing in the dot-com industry and pulled out before it all went bust.”

Amanda’s mouth hung open. “Who cares about their parents? Colin is back in town, and he’s hotter and hunkier than ever, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t had a peek at him yet, but we’re about to remedy that.”

“You’re going to check out Colin Roarke?” Michelle laughed. Amanda and her husband had separated exactly two months ago, and she spent all her time trying to make him jealous.

“And you’re coming with me, so I don’t look too obvious.”

Michelle smirked. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to look too obvious. Where is this rare specimen of hunky manhood and what’s he doing back in town? We’re the ones with the ten-year reunion this summer.”

Amanda formed a pout with her lipsticked mouth. “Too bad Colin wasn’t in our class. Maybe I could’ve snagged him instead of that loser Ryan.”

Michelle clicked her tongue feeling like a schoolmarm. “Ryan is not a loser. He’s a good cop and he loves you.”

“He cheated on me.”

“Not exactly. He sent some inappropriate emails to a woman in another state.” Michelle’s gaze darted to her closed-up laptop. Those inappropriate emails seemed to be contagious.

Amanda brushed her hands together. “Whatever. Are you coming with me or not? Colin’s at Burgers and Brews, but we’ll miss him if you dawdle.”

“Early dinner?” Michelle dropped Amanda’s sweater across the arm of a chair and checked her watch.

She really had to get those quizzes graded so she could enjoy the rest of her weekend, but she welcomed Amanda’s interruption. That email, the second in two months, had spooked her, and she didn’t relish the thought of hunkering down in her beach cottage alone as the fog pressed in on her.

“Sure. That’s a good excuse.” Amanda grabbed Michelle’s purse from the table by the window and tossed it to her.

A short drive later in Amanda’s Mercedes, they rolled into the center of town. Michelle rubbed a circle in the condensation on the window and peered outside. “You can actually see more than ten feet in front of you here, but that’s not going to last long. The fog’s on its way.”

“And I’m on my way to meet Colin.” Amanda threw her car into Park and cut the engine.

Michelle struggled into her sweater as she climbed from the car. “You never did tell me what he’s doing back in town. Visiting old friends?”

“That’s what he’s doing at Bryan’s restaurant.” Hunching forward, Amanda dabbed at her lipstick in the side mirror. “He was good friends with Bryan Sotelo, but I think he’s here on a case.”

“A case?” Michelle hugged the sweater around her body against the cool, moist air seeping into her skin. From the town grapevine, she’d heard that Colin had become an FBI agent after returning from Afghanistan to a hero’s welcome. There had been some tragedy over there involving his older brother.

“Something about Tiffany Gunderson’s accident.”

Michelle wrinkled her nose. “The FBI doesn’t investigate accidents. She fell down an elevator shaft and broke her neck. It didn’t even happen here in Coral Cove. Do they suspect foul play?”

“How am I supposed to know that? You sound exactly like my husband.” Amanda grabbed Michelle’s arm. “Let’s go before Colin leaves.”

“Hi, Ms. Girard.”

Michelle turned toward the two voices, the greeting spoken in unison. Four of her students lounged on the bench outside the local pizza place. The two girls waved, their long, skinny legs encased in short shorts and furry boots. The two boys perched on the arms of the bench, their hoods pulled up over their heads, matching teenaged smirks on their faces.

Michelle’s heart lurched for a moment before she waved and pasted on a smile. “Enjoy your weekend.”

Could one of her students be behind the annoying emails? They probably wouldn’t know her history, but their parents might. She hadn’t thought of reporting the emails to the police, but a third one might constitute harassment.

Amanda sighed. “Sorry. I forgot it was dollar night at Vinnie’s, and some of your snot-nosed students would be hanging around. Just didn’t think they’d be here this early.”

“Sydney and Maddie are nice girls. I don’t mind running into my students as long as I’m not doing something stupid.”

“You never do anything stupid, Michelle. Remember dollar nights at Vinnie’s? We just used it as an excuse to hook up with guys in the back parking lot.” Amanda clapped a hand over her mouth.

Michelle shrugged. “Yeah, I never spent a lot of time at Vinnie’s in high school.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Amanda pulled her close in a one-armed hug. “Teenagers can be so cruel.”

Cruel enough to send hurtful emails?

Laughing, Michelle returned the hug. Amanda had been one of the girls who’d shunned her in high school, but they’d become good friends since Michelle had helped Amanda set up an accounting system for her home business a few years ago.

“Nothing much has changed. Here you are hoping to hook up with Colin Roarke, except this time it’s in a restaurant, not behind it.”

As they pushed through the front door of Burgers and Brews, Amanda pinched her. “Shh.”

Not that anyone in the restaurant could hear Michelle’s comment. The chatter from the group of people in the far corner of the room drowned out the music, and the hostess had to shout above the noise.

“Table for two?”

Michelle nodded and jerked her thumb toward the noisy crowd. “What’s going on over there?”

The young hostess shrugged. “Word got out that Colin Roarke was back in town, which created a ministampede of his high school buds.”

As Michelle pulled out her chair, she glanced at the clutch of people. A tall man at its center, oddly detached amid the furor, met her gaze. For whatever reason, an electric current zapped between them, and Michelle felt it down to her toes.

She averted her gaze and dropped into her chair. Must be those football-star good looks—the broad shoulders, the square jaw. She hadn’t been immune to those attractions in high school, and now the man’s appeal hit her like a sledgehammer all over again.

After the waitress took their drink orders, Amanda propped up her menu and peeped over the top. “They’re having their own class reunion over there. Mmm-mmm, Colin looks better than ever. A few more lines on his face, but the body still looks rock hard. He’s probably older, wiser…and more experienced.”

“He looks…sad.” Michelle shot a few glances at the group, bubbling with laughter and conversation. Colin contributed a word or a smile here and there, but he seemed aloof, separate from the people around him.

“Are you crazy? That’s Colin Roarke you’re talking about—football star, war hero, FBI stud.”

The waitress delivered their drinks and Michelle blew on her hot tea. “Why was he a war hero? What did he do?”

Amanda wrapped her lips around the straw from her soda, staring unabashedly at Colin across the room. “I think you were in Europe on that sabbatical when all the news came through. Taliban forces captured Colin in Afghanistan. He escaped, but…”

Ducking behind her menu, Amanda hissed. “He’s coming.”

Colin strode past their table, a frown creasing his brow. He waved to someone behind the bar and then turned the corner to the restrooms.

“I think he noticed us.” Amanda slapped the menu against the table. “Or at least you. He kept staring over here.”

Michelle scoffed even though she’d felt a jolt when her eyes had met Colin’s. Had he felt it, too? “Aren’t you going to follow him into the bathroom?”

Amanda’s eyes narrowed and she clicked her long fingernails on the side of her glass. “That’s not a bad idea. I could stumble in there and pretend I thought it was the ladies’ room.”

The waitress took their order and apologized for the slow service. “I’m a little overwhelmed tonight.”

When she walked away, Amanda shot a quick glance at herself in the mirror over the bar. “She’s not the only one who’s overwhelmed. I almost swooned when Colin walked past our table.”

Michelle smiled into her tea. Her friend desperately wanted to feel an attraction for anyone other than her estranged husband, but Michelle could see right through her. She nodded toward the tall man striding back into the dining room. “If you were planning on following him, you’re too late.”

Colin crossed the room, running a hand through his short, dark hair. His gait slowed as he approached their table, and Michelle held her breath for some absurd reason. Amanda had infected her with her silliness.

He stalled at their table, and Michelle’s heart jumped. “Excuse me, ladies. Did you both graduate the same year as Tiffany Gunderson?”

Nothing personal, just business. Michelle blew out a breath and answered, since Amanda seemed uncharacteristically tongue-tied. “Yes, we did.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Michelle Girard and this is Amanda Stewart.”

As he clasped her hand in a warm embrace, she noticed scars crisscrossing his wrist. Had the sadness she’d sensed led him to try something crazy?

“Of course I remember you—the girl down the block. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m Colin Roarke.” He released her hand and Michelle had an acute feeling of loss.

He remembered her?

He turned to Amanda. “Stewart? Are you related to Sergeant Ryan Stewart of the Coral Cove P.D.?”

“Married to him.” A soft pink brushed Amanda’s cheeks. “Sort of.”

Colin raised his brows and a crooked smile claimed his mouth. “He’s a good man.”

That smile set into motion a chain of events across Michelle’s body, ending in butterfly wings in her belly. Her unrequited schoolgirl crush had sneaked up on her sensible adult self.

Colin reached into the front pocket of his denim shirt and pulled out two business cards. He slid them onto the table. “I’d like to talk to you about Tiffany while I’m in town. Give me a call.”

Michelle traced the edge of the card with her fingertip. “So Tiffany’s death wasn’t an accident? If not, why aren’t the San Francisco police handling the investigation?”

A spark of interest ignited Colin’s dark blue eyes. “I’d rather not discuss that here. Call me.”

“Hey, Colin. Come over here and set Jeff straight on how that game with Costa ended.”

Colin pinned Michelle with his dusky blue gaze and rolled his eyes. “Nice to…see you again.”

Michelle chewed her bottom lip as Colin ambled back to his high school classmates, their bubbling memories sweeping him back into their circle. The favorite hometown son didn’t wear the label with ease.

“We haven’t been in the joint fifteen minutes and we have his card.” Amanda scooped up the prize and pressed it to her breast.

“Because he wants to ask us questions about Tiffany.” Michelle rubbed her thumb against the embossed letters proclaiming Colin Roarke an FBI agent. “Why do you think the FBI’s involved in an investigation of Tiffany’s death?”

Amanda lifted a bare shoulder. “It happened in the big city. Anything can happen there. At least we have an excuse to call him.”

“How did he know we were in Tiffany’s class and what would we know about her life in San Francisco?”

“Why do you have to analyze everything to death? Just sit back and enjoy, because I swear the man had his eye on you. He even remembered you from the neighborhood.”

Michelle pressed her lips together as the waitress delivered their food. So Amanda had noticed that, too. Michelle hadn’t had much contact with the popular Roarke boys growing up, even though the family had lived down the road. But one scene shifted into focus, and Michelle’s cheeks burned with the memory.

She must’ve been fifteen because it happened shortly after her mother left. Michelle had retreated to her special place on the beach, a semicircle of boulders against the bluff, her own private hideaway. She hadn’t cried about her mother since she’d left, but that day the tears flowed like a river of sadness.

Suddenly, her world grew darker. She’d glanced up at Colin Roarke’s large form hovering at the entrance to her secret fort, blocking out the sun. He must’ve been home from college. He’d been surfing and his wet suit dangled around his hips. He’d asked her if she was okay, and Michelle was pretty sure she’d told him to buzz off.

Colin probably didn’t remember that. Why would he?

“Told you so.” Amanda tapped her fork against Michelle’s water glass. “You have a very satisfied smile on your lips right now. The man is hot and he noticed you.”

Michelle responded by taking a big bite of her burger.

Amanda stabbed a tomato with her fork. “I think I’d better find another friend for cruising—one who’s not tall, thin and gorgeous.”

“Moi?” Michelle choked down her food.

“Don’t moi me. Ever since you got back from Paris, you look more like a fashion model than a high school math teacher.”

Michelle dabbed her lips, hiding the lower half of her face behind her napkin. After Dad died a few years ago and Michelle fled Coral Cove for a summer in Paris, she had stepped up her game a little. She’d even gone out on a few dates, but she’d hardly describe herself as a femme fatale. She’d always shied away from that image because of Mom.

As they ate dinner and chatted around mouthfuls of food, Amanda sent fewer and fewer flirty glances toward the lively group in the corner. She pushed the last bits of lettuce around her plate and dropped her lashes. “So you think I should give Ryan another chance?”

“What’s wrong? Being on the prowl isn’t as exciting as you imagined? You’ve given up on the hometown hero already?” Michelle shoved her plate forward and planted her elbows on the table.

Amanda shook her head. “Colin’s hot, but he’s not my type. He’s not the life of the party like I expected.”

“Like Ryan.”

“Yeah.” Amanda managed a tremulous smile.

“Then get home and call him.” Michelle waved to the waitress. As she fumbled in her wallet for money, Michelle slid a glance toward the reunion crowd, but Colin had disappeared. He must’ve slipped out the back, escaping from his own party.

They stepped onto the sidewalk and Michelle blinked. The fog had rolled in from the ocean, blanketing Coral Cove’s main street in thick cotton. It would be even denser at her house.

“You okay to drive in this pea soup? It might be safer to walk.”

“Yeah, but you live in one direction and I live in the other, so we’d have to part company here.” Amanda dug her keys out of her purse. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to walk by myself in this wet blanket. Gives me the creeps.”

“Just drive safely.” Michelle took Amanda’s arm and they stepped into the street, peering both ways.

As Michelle grabbed the car door handle, two dark figures emerged from the fog, appearing almost next to her. She gasped, pressing her body against the car.

The two teenaged boys laughed and pushed each other. “I bet the girls are hiding in the parking lot.”

Michelle yanked open the door and dropped onto the seat. “Those kids scared the spit out of me.”

“The girls could be hiding right in front of them, and they’d have a hard time seeing them.” Amanda cranked on the engine. “Can’t wait until June is over and we get some summer sunshine.”

Amanda’s car crawled down the street and she edged around the next turn, hunching forward in her seat. “I hope you know where your house is because I can’t see a thing.”

“The Vincents’ house is on the right, the one with the big spotlight on their driveway. They left for a few weeks in Europe this morning.” Michelle pointed to a glow, diffused by the fog. “Then there should be two streetlights on the left, and my house is at the second streetlight. Across from the streetlights, there’s a long stretch of darkness where Columbella House is.”

“I see the first light.” Amanda eased off the accelerator. “And there’s the second one.”

Amanda made an abrupt illegal U-turn in the middle of the street. “Sorry to give you whiplash, but I don’t want to go anywhere near Columbella House. Now that place gives me the creeps.”

“Thanks for the ride, Amanda.” Michelle grabbed the door handle and glanced back at her friend. “You left your sweater at my house. I can bring it to you later.”

Amanda cut the engine. “I’d better get it now…just in case I don’t go straight home tonight.”

They both slid from the car, Amanda leaving her headlights on and the driver’s-side door open to the street.

The headlights created a glow, spilling light on the beginning of Michelle’s walkway beyond her little fence. She unlatched the gate and Amanda trailed after her.

“You really think I should call Ryan tonight?”

“Absolutely. Give him a chance to do the mea culpa. A few emails do not constitute a full-blown affair.”

“I’m surprised you’re so…forgiving, Michelle.”

Michelle shrugged. “It’s the opposite. You should be surprised if I weren’t.”

Amanda walked with Michelle to the front door and out of reach of the headlights. Luckily Michelle had turned on her porch light before she’d left, so she could actually put her key in the lock.

Thrusting open the door, she ducked inside and snagged Amanda’s sweater from the chair. She handed it to her friend and gave her a hug. “Call him.”

She watched as Amanda floated down the walkway, the fog sucking her into its embrace. Michelle waited, listening for the slam of the car door and the growl of the engine. Instead she heard…a soft thud. Fog this thick muted noise, but that didn’t sound like a car door.

“Amanda?” Michelle squinted into the white wisps swirling around her. The lights from Amanda’s car created a dull illumination on the sidewalk, but Michelle couldn’t focus on anything beyond that. Maybe Amanda couldn’t wait to get home and decided to call Ryan on her cell phone.

Michelle descended one step, her hand clutching the banister beside her. “Amanda?”

Scuffling sounds broke the eerie silence, causing the hair on the back of Michelle’s neck to quiver. Her clammy hand slipped from the banister. Had Amanda tripped and fallen on the ground?

Clasping her sweater to her chest, Michelle inched down the walkway to the gate Amanda had latched behind her. Across the sidewalk, still parked in the street, Amanda’s Mercedes loomed in the fog.

“Amanda, where are you?” Michelle pushed open the gate and stumbled onto the sidewalk. She walked in front of the car toward the driver’s side, the door still open to the street. As she scuffed her feet along the asphalt, hands held in front of her like a blind person, her toe plowed into something soft and giving on the ground.

Michelle’s heart skittered in her chest as she crouched down next to the inert form. Amanda must’ve fallen and injured herself. The lights from the car’s interior cast a waxy glow on Amanda’s pale cheek. Michelle wedged a hand beneath her friend’s head and turned it toward her.

Amanda’s wide, staring eyes sent a river of chills down Michelle’s spine. Then she became aware of the sticky wetness oozing through her fingers.

As Michelle drew away her hand, Amanda’s head lolled back revealing a dark slash across her neck.

Michelle fell backward, as a high, keening wail pierced the blanket of fog. It wasn’t until she stopped to breathe that she realized the sound was coming from her own mouth.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CRY, LIKE an animal in extreme pain, shot through the fog and pierced his gut. But Colin knew human suffering when he heard it. He was intimately familiar with human suffering.

He dropped the rocks he’d been chucking into the water and lurched toward the sound. After a few seconds’ break, the wail began again and he glommed onto the sound of misery like a homing device. He stumbled from the sand onto the dirt path leading to the road.

Through the veil of white mist, he discerned a car parked on the street, its headlights on and the driver’s-side door open. As he jogged closer, the fog parted to reveal two figures, both on the ground next to the open door. Had there been an accident?

He heaved to a stop, his chest tight, adrenaline pumping through his system. One person lay crumpled on the ground and the other, a woman, leaned back on her arms, her head thrown back, her face twisted with anguish.

He squatted beside the nonresponsive person and jerked back. Someone had slit her throat. He’d seen her face before…at the restaurant.

He scrambled toward the other woman, Michelle Girard, and grabbed her shoulders. “What happened? Who did this?”

Her wide, glassy eyes skimmed his face as she dragged in another breath. He shook her to dispel the shock, and the oncoming scream gurgled in her throat.

Then her gaze darted back and forth and she clutched his shirt, popping off two buttons with the strength of her grip. “He’s here.”

She scrambled to her feet, dragging him with her. Her body shook convulsively and her knees gave way. Before she could fall to the ground, Colin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away from the body of her friend.

“Did you see him?”

Her head whipped around, dislodging the droplets of moisture clinging to her hair and showering his face. “No. He must still be here. I didn’t hear a car. I didn’t see anything.”

Colin reached between their bodies and unzipped his gun bag, hanging around his waist. He withdrew his weapon and pulled Michelle toward the house with the white picket fence. “This is your house, right?”

She glanced at his Glock, and a tremble rolled through her slim frame.

“I’m Colin Roarke.” He rubbed a circle on her stiff back. “Do you remember me from the restaurant a few hours ago?”

She nodded, and he propelled her toward the front door. He halted on the porch. “Did you leave your door open?”

Again she nodded, and Colin pushed over the threshold, clutching his gun. Michelle clung to his arm with her blood-stained hands as he checked the other rooms in the small house.

He grabbed her phone and called 9-1-1, and then tried to get Michelle to sit down. Shivers racked her body, and Colin knew if he released her she’d plunge to the floor.

Finally she bent her knees and perched on the edge of her couch. “It just happened. She was leaving my house. I heard noises, but I couldn’t see anything. Oh, my God, he murdered her right in front of me and I didn’t see a thing.”

As she buried her face in her hands, Colin put his arm around her heaving shoulders. She’d been lucky the killer hadn’t come after her. His muscles ached with tension. He wanted to run out there and find the SOB who had done this, but he couldn’t leave Michelle.

He wouldn’t leave her like he did that time when she was a kid.

Sirens blared through the night and they both jumped. Michelle jerked her head up, a shaky hand covering her mouth. “I hope Ryan’s not working tonight. He can’t see Amanda like that.”

Colin pushed off the sofa and headed for the door. Michelle trailed after him. “You can wait inside, Michelle. Someone will come in to question you.”

She twisted her hands, still smudged with traces of her friend’s blood. “I can’t stay inside, especially if Ryan’s out there.”

Colin dragged the collar of Michelle’s sweater up to her pale face. “You don’t need to see Amanda again. Stay in the yard.”

He stepped onto the porch, tucking Michelle behind him. Three police cars and an ambulance squealed to a stop in the street. Must’ve emptied out the entire P.D. of Coral Cove. Did they even have a homicide detective? Colin strode forward, holding his FBI badge in front of him as the red-and-blue lights filtered through the fog.

Colin scanned the faces of the cops swarming out of their cars and didn’t see Sergeant Stewart among them. But like any small-town cop off duty, he’d pick up the call on his scanner. He’d know his wife had been with Michelle Girard tonight.

The officer in charge peeled away from the surge of cops and barreled toward Colin. “What happened?”

“Mrs. Stewart dropped off Ms. Girard and somebody attacked Mrs. Stewart before she got into her car.”

Michelle hovered behind Colin, hooking a finger in his belt loop. She didn’t seem to be able to stand on her own without wobbling, but Colin didn’t mind being her rock.

The cop smacked a hand to his forward. “Stewart? Amanda Stewart, Sarge’s wife?”

“That’s right, Clark. It happened in front of me, but I couldn’t see a thing.” Michelle had stepped forward, pulling back her shoulders, still clutching Colin’s arm for support.

Another pair of headlights plowed through the fog, and tires screeched on the damp asphalt. A man’s voice, frantic and hollow, echoed in the night. Sergeant Stewart stumbled into the crime scene, now illuminated with spotlights and casting an eerie yellow light on all the grim faces. He dropped onto his knees next to his wife’s body and groaned.

Michelle broke away from Colin, her stride strong and purposeful. Two uniformed officers prevented her from approaching Stewart, but she called to him.

From his doubled over position, Stewart raised his head. He staggered to his feet and tripped toward Michelle. She held out her arms and Ryan crushed her body to his, burying his face in her shoulder.

His muffled voice repeated, “What happened? What happened?”

“Officer—” Colin peered at the cop’s badge “—Trammell? Maybe you should question Ms. Girard inside and get Sergeant Stewart away from the crime scene.”

Trammell nodded. “It’s Lieutenant Trammell. You’re that FBI agent, Roarke, in town to investigate Tiffany Gunderson’s death, right?”

“I am.”

Trammell swiped a hand across his brow. “Looks like death is following you around, Agent Roarke.”

Colin clenched his teeth. You have no idea, Lieutenant.

Trammell yelled to one of the gawking officers. “Get County on the line now. Tell them we need a homicide detective and a CSI team.” Trammell tapped Michelle on the back while he clapped his hand on Sergeant Stewart’s shoulder. “Go inside, Sarge.”

With her arm clasped around Stewart’s waist, Michelle led him through the gate and up the brick walkway to her house.

She’d been falling apart just a few minutes ago. Now she was supporting her friend’s husband with the strength of an Amazon woman. Michelle settled Stewart on the sofa and retrieved a box of tissues from the bathroom.

“Do you want some water, Ryan? Something stronger?” She shoved the tissues toward him.

“No. Nothing. What happened, Michelle?”

Stewart asked the question, but Trammell pulled out his notebook.

While Stewart alternately sobbed and cursed, Michelle recounted how Amanda had driven her home and walked to the front door to get her sweater. She grabbed one of the tissues and dabbed her nose. “She disappeared into the fog and I kept waiting for her car to start but I didn’t hear it. I heard some noises and when I went out to investigate…I found her on the ground.”

“Where’d you go tonight, Michelle?” Lieutenant Trammell looked up from scribbling in his notebook.

She glanced at Colin and then shifted her gaze back to Trammell. “We went to Burgers and Brews for an early dinner.”

“Why there? Why tonight?” Stewart practically barked his questions, and Trammell’s jaw tightened.

The tension in the air stretched as tight as a new string on a guitar. Jealous husband? Colin would’ve gone in for the kill with Stewart on edge. Trammell hadn’t even asked Sergeant Stewart for an alibi, but local cops handled their own differently. The homicide detective on his way from County would take care of business.

Trammell cleared his throat. “What were you doing outside, Agent Roarke?”

“My parents have a house down the street from Ms. Girard’s on the other side of Columbella. I walked there after dinner in town and was chucking rocks on the beach when I heard Ms. Girard scream.”

“Did anyone else come out of their house? The Vincents? Did you see anything?”

“There was nobody on the street. I saw the parked car and the two women. I didn’t want to leave Ms. Girard alone to do a search of the area. Can’t see two feet in front of you in this fog, anyway.”

“The Vincents are out of town.” Michelle shot Colin a grateful look from beneath her dark lashes.

Taking care of Sergeant Stewart had put the soft color back into her cheeks. Being needed had given her purpose and direction. Stewart knew he could lean on her, since he’d been clutching her hand ever since they’d sat down.

Just as Michelle had leaned on him after the murder. And he’d liked someone counting on him for the first time since…

As Trammell continued his questioning of Michelle and took a sample of the blood from her hands, Colin kept his lips sealed. He had his own notions about Amanda’s death, but he had more digging to do before trampling all over the local P.D.’s investigation. He’d need a closer look at the crime scene before jumping to any conclusions, and if he found the telltale sign that this murder was connected to Tiffany’s and Belinda’s, he could make a case to his supervisors to take over the investigation.

Because even though he’d led the CCPD to believe he was here on official business, he was actually on vacation. They didn’t need to know that just yet.

Tucking his notepad back into his shirt pocket, Trammell pushed up from the sofa. “Are you going to be okay, Michelle? The team’s probably going to be in front of your house for most the night, so this is the safest place to be right now.”

“I’ll be fine, but what about Ryan?” She squeezed the sergeant’s knee and tears flooded his eyes again.

Colin tracked every detail of the sergeant’s demeanor. The man had skipped right past shock into grief. How had he gotten to Michelle’s house so quickly when he was off duty? He’d asked earlier why Michelle and his wife had gone to Burgers and Brews. That implied they weren’t living together or Mrs. Stewart hadn’t bothered to tell her husband where she was going.

Trammell studied the toes of his shiny black shoes. “Sergeant Stewart is coming to the station for some questions.”

Another fat tear rolled down Stewart’s cheek. Either he didn’t catch the significance of Trammell’s statement or he didn’t care because he had nothing to hide.

A Detective Marsh from the county appeared and assured Trammell that his CSI guys were gathering evidence while the Coral Cove cops were canvassing the neighborhood.

Before taking off with Trammell to question Sergeant Stewart, Detective Marsh had a few more questions for Colin and Michelle.

Michelle told him she hadn’t heard a car’s engine or footsteps or any other noises after finding her friend’s body. And Colin had heard only Michelle’s wail. That’s all he’d needed to hear to block out every other sound and sensation except for an urgent desire to trample out the source of Michelle’s pain.

Colin had his own question for Detective Marsh. “Did you find anything unusual on the body? Flowers? Petals?”

“If the crime scene investigators found anything, they’d have it bagged and tagged by now, Agent Roarke. This isn’t your case yet, is it?”

Colin rolled his eyes. He hated the petty politics of jurisdiction and one-upsmanship that dominated some law enforcement agencies. “Not yet, Detective Marsh.”

Marsh lifted a brawny shoulder. “Then I guess you won’t find out until it is yours.”

Trammell and Marsh accompanied Stewart to the police department, but the coroner’s van had arrived and the cops were still traversing the area. Michelle would hardly be alone, but Colin found it difficult to abandon her.

She dragged in a shaky breath and closed her eyes. “Thank you for coming when you did. H-he could’ve attacked again. I honestly don’t think I could have moved from that spot if you hadn’t come along.”

“I’m glad I was outside.” Colin unlatched his gun bag and settled it, heavy with his weapon, on Michelle’s coffee table. “It’s strange that neither one of us heard a car or footsteps running.”

Her eyelids flew open and she hugged herself, her fingertips burrowing into her sweater. “Even if a Mack truck had driven by, I don’t think I would’ve noticed.”

“But I would have, and I didn’t hear anything.”

“By the time I found Amanda and screamed the killer had probably already run away.” She hunched her shoulders. “You wouldn’t have heard anything once you reached us…me.”

Colin jumped from the couch and crossed the room to the front window. He twitched back the curtain. The back doors of the coroner’s van yawned open, ready for its cargo.

“Columbella House still empty?”

“Ever since… Yeah, still empty.” Michelle shivered and rubbed her arms through her thick sweater.

Colin pressed his hand against the cool glass. “Maybe the killer ran for cover over there and then took off amid the noise and excitement of the police arrival.”

“You mean you think he could’ve been at Columbella all the time we were inside waiting for the police?” Her eyes widened and she pulled her sweater tighter around her body.

Good job, Roarke, scare the lady even more.

“I don’t know.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he turned to the side and wedged his shoulder against the window. “I’m just guessing.”

“Oh, God.” Michelle spread her hands in front of her face. “I still have Amanda’s blood on my hands.”

She scrambled from the couch and ran into the kitchen. At the sink, she squeezed copious amounts of dishwashing liquid into her palm and rubbed her hands together so hard Colin expected sparks.

As the operation went on and on, Colin approached her from behind and peeked over her shoulder. Lady MacBeth-like, she continued to scour her hands under the hot water, silent tears streaming down her face and dripping off her chin.

Colin grabbed a dish towel, cranked off the water and gently clasped Michelle’s shoulders, turning her toward him. He wrapped the towel around her hands, pulling her close. Then he rested his chin on top of her soft, light brown hair.

“I’m sorry about your friend. I’m sorry you found her.”

She nodded beneath his chin and sniffled. “We hadn’t been friends that long. We went to high school together, but we really didn’t know each other until several years after we graduated. We became best friends pretty fast after that.”

“And you have your ten-year reunion this summer.”

“Yeah.” She brought the towel to her face and used it to wipe her nose. “I don’t feel much like going now.”

Colin patted her back awkwardly. Her warmth and the sweet scent of her hair made him want to take her in his arms, and in her condition she just might go there willingly.

“Sit down, Michelle.” He grabbed the handle of her refrigerator. “Do you want something to drink? Do you have any wine? Beer? Something to take the edge off?”

“I—I don’t drink.” She slid a glass from the dish drainer on the counter and filled it with tap water. Then she floated back to the couch and sank to the cushion.

“Lieutenant Trammell didn’t ask you many pertinent questions. I guess because this is a small town, and he figures he knows all the answers. That homicide detective will probably call you in for more questioning.” Colin dropped to the chair across from Michelle and hunched forward. “Did Amanda have any enemies? Marital problems?”

Michele took a gulp of water, and then cupped the glass between her hands. “Yeah, well, Clark Trammell already knows Amanda and Ryan are…were…separated. I’m sure he’s already told Detective Marsh and they’re questioning Ryan more thoroughly, but there’s no way he had anything to do with Amanda’s murder.”

“Why were they separated?”

“Ryan sent some suggestive emails to another woman.” She splayed her hands on her thighs and studied her long fingers. “The other woman lived in Colorado and I think Ryan was just flirting, but Amanda didn’t see it that way.”

Colin rubbed his knuckles along his jaw. “Did he ever meet this other woman, start an affair?”

“Oh, no.” Michelle shook her head and her silky hair spilled over one shoulder. “Ryan loves Amanda, but she took him for granted and I think he just needed a little validation from another woman. He had no intention of cheating.”

“Sounds like you were on Ryan’s side.”

“I tried not to take sides, but I think a couple should try to work things out, don’t you?” Michelle kept her eyes downcast, her dark lashes crescents on her cheeks.

A muscle ticked Colin’s jaw as he lifted one shoulder. Not if your fiancée cheats on you while you’re overseas serving your country.

“So maybe not the husband, but we know the killer didn’t do it for money. He didn’t steal her fancy car and didn’t snatch her purse.” Colin strolled back toward the window and parted the curtains. The coroner had left and now a tow truck had Amanda’s Mercedes latched behind it.

Michelle joined him at the window, still clutching her sweater around her tall, slender frame. “I can’t believe this is just some random killing. Not in Coral Cove.”

“I don’t believe it is random.”

Turning toward him, she tilted her head. “Why are you here investigating Tiffany Gunderson’s death? She died in an elevator shaft in a hotel in San Francisco. Shouldn’t that be a job for the SFPD?”

Colin took a deep breath and held it. Officially, the FBI had no idea he was here in Coral Cove investigating a murder. Should he tell Michelle that Tiffany hadn’t been the first Coral Cove High alumna to die a violent death? That Tiffany hadn’t been the first body found with a strange yet touching calling card? Should he tell her two, now three women from her graduating class all had their lives snuffed out in an instant?

He searched her wide, dark eyes, still glassy from shock and tears. Easing out a breath, he brushed his thumb across her damp cheek, dislodging a strand of hair. “Tiffany’s death involved some special circumstances. That’s why I’m looking into it.”

Her nostrils flared as she narrowed her eyes, no longer cloudy and unfocused. His vague explanation hadn’t fooled her one bit.

She tightened her jaw and then shrugged, returning her gaze to the formless shapes scurrying back and forth in the street. “You’re not at liberty to tell me anything, but I don’t believe for a minute Tiffany’s death was an accident. Not after tonight.”

Colin ran a hand across his mouth. He’d have to watch what he said in front of Michelle because right now she didn’t have to know she might be on this killer’s short list of victims.

She gasped, and her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “Did you see that?”

No, I was watching you.

While Michelle dug her nails into his flesh, he cupped his hand around his face and peered out the glass. “I don’t see anything except the cops out there wandering around.”

She tapped on the windowpane and whispered. “A light at Columbella.”

CHAPTER THREE

“I DON’T SEE ANYTHING.” Colin’s broad shoulder pressed against hers as he leaned forward to squint into the fog-shrouded night.

Could he feel her shivering? Would he realize it had as much to do with his masculine scent and the feel of him next to her as it did with the flickering light she’d seen at Columbella House?

She clenched her teeth and released her grip on Colin’s wrist. Amanda’s blood hadn’t even dried on the street and here she was getting giddy over a man’s touch. Maybe that email had it right: Like mother, like daughter?

Jerking away from the window, Michelle swiped her keys from the table and scooped up a flashlight from a basket by the door. “I’m going to check it out.”

“Are you crazy?” Colin grabbed her hand. “Someone just murdered your friend, and he’s still out there.”

“That’s right. Someone just murdered my friend, practically on my doorstep, and I’m not going to sit here and do nothing.” She wrestled from his grasp and jingled her house keys in her palm. “I won’t be walking over to Columbella House by myself, anyway. The cops and the county CSI guy are still out there.”

Now that she’d blurted out her brash statement, more from guilt than anything else, Michelle dragged her feet to the front door. She didn’t really want to cross the street to Columbella House. She didn’t want to go anywhere near that gloomy old Victorian, so out of place among the bungalows and beach cottages of Coral Cove.

Colin yanked his gun bag from the coffee table by its strap and hitched it around his waist. “If you saw a light at the house, I believe you. But the cops probably already canvassed that area. They might not be so anxious to cover that ground again.”

Michelle released a pent-up breath. Now she could save face and actually follow through with her bold plan. She’d feel a lot safer with Colin and his gun by her side.

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and stepped onto the porch.

The spotlight still illuminated the area where Amanda had parked her car, although the car itself had been towed. The two remaining Coral Cove officers and the crime scene investigator from the county looked like they were doing more talking than investigating. A murder like this in Coral Cove would tax the resources of the small-town cops. The P.D. would have to work with the county sheriffs and if Amanda’s murder had anything to do with Tiffany’s murder, they’d have to call in the FBI… Good thing they wouldn’t have to go far to find an agent.

Shoving his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, Colin approached the two police officers crouching next to the dark stain on the asphalt. Michelle followed him but allowed his broad back to block her view of the crime scene.

“Are you guys finished out here?” Colin swept his arm across the damp crime scene tape hanging limply in the fog.

Jerry Donnelly, one of the Coral Cove P.D. officers answered, “Yeah, we’re done. Nobody else even heard Michelle’s scream.”

Colin faced the guy from the county. “Did you collect all the evidence?”

The guy patted the bag hanging from his shoulder. “Fingernails, hair, blood, a cigarette butt and assorted bits and pieces. Hopefully, we’ll get more from the body before the autopsy is performed.”

Michelle’s stomach rolled and she ground her teeth together.

Colin bent down and plucked something from the ground. “You missed something.”

The investigator snorted. “That’s a petal. The murder occurred outside on a street. I don’t know about you Fibbies, but we don’t collect every twig and every speck of dirt as evidence.”

“It’s a rose petal. It’s not a twig or a speck of dirt.”

The other man pointed to the rosebushes lining Michelle’s fence. “Yeah, it’s a rose petal. Just like all those other rose petals on those bushes.”

“It’s your case…for now.” Colin slipped the petal inside his pocket. “Michelle saw a light over at Columbella House. Did you guys already check over there, Officer Donnelly?”

Jerry straightened his shoulders and gave a brisk nod. “We already canvassed the yard. Nothing.”

The CSI investigator shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other. “I have to go to the police department to meet with Detective Marsh. You coming?”

Jerry brushed his hands together. “We’ll come with you. Michelle, are you going to be okay? You can come and stay at our place tonight.”

Michelle glanced at her watch and then shifted her gaze toward Columbella. Not much night left. “I’ll be fine. I have good, sturdy locks on my door and a phone by my bed.”

“We’ll send a patrol car by a few times before dawn.” Jerry turned to his partner, a wide-eyed new recruit, and jerked his thumb toward the patrol car.

Michelle watched as the fog gobbled up their taillights. “I guess they weren’t interested in another look at Columbella House.”

“Are you?” Colin raised his eyebrows in question.

“Sure.” Michelle licked her lips. “Are you and your gun going with me?”

“Absolutely.” Colin unzipped his gun bag and slid his Glock into his pocket. “Do you have that flashlight handy?”

Michelle flicked on the flashlight and waved it in front of her. They crossed the street together, and she clenched her hand at her side to keep from hooking on to Colin’s arm.

He unlatched the gate and pushed it open, the rusty hinges squeaking in protest. The abandoned house peered at them through windows streaked with dirt and grime.

With his hand in his pocket, Colin crept toward the sagging porch. He pointed down and Michelle followed with the flashlight, which illuminated steps of splintered wood. “Nobody’s been through this entrance for quite a while.”

“I didn’t see the light from inside the house. It was somewhere in the side yard.”

They shuffled through the dead leaves toward the side of the house, the shaky beam of the flashlight lighting the way.

Colin tugged at the gate leading to the backyard of the sprawling house. “It’s locked, Michelle. This is probably as far as the police got. And if you saw a light, it couldn’t have come from the backyard. You never would’ve seen a light from back there.”

Michelle rolled her stiff shoulders. “Maybe the light did come from the house.”

“If it did, I’m not up to breaking and entering.”

“Neither am I.” She slumped against the gate. “Maybe I imagined the light. Maybe it was just a reflection from the police lights on the street. Columbella House has been giving me the creeps for years.”

“It’s a blight on the town. I wish some member of the St. Regis family would either sell the place or raze it.”

“Were you still here when Kylie Grant’s mother hung herself from the balcony?” Michelle shivered and pushed off the cold chain link of the gate.

“No, I wasn’t. She’d copied a previous suicide. When Mia St. Regis’s sister, Marissa, took off before her wedding, some said she’d killed herself, too.”

“Yeah, but then both Mia and Marissa’s fiancé got those letters from Marissa explaining that she and Mia’s boyfriend had taken off together. I suppose the house is Mia’s now. Can’t blame her for not wanting to deal with it.” Michelle tugged at the sleeves of her sweater. “I felt sorry for her even though she’s not the type of woman who inspires pity. I guess Coral Cove Drive has seen its share of scandal.”

Colin wedged a finger beneath her chin. “You had it tough in high school when your mom ran off with that senior at Coral Cove High.”

Michelle blinked, afraid to meet the sympathy in his eyes. “I had it tough before that, since I was tall and skinny and wore glasses and braces.”

He pinched her chin and grinned. “It didn’t help that you were a bookworm and as smart as all get-out—a total bully magnet. I’m surprised you didn’t escape Coral Cove like the St. Regis twins did.”

“I had to take care of my dad. When Mom left with that boy, Dad collapsed.”

“Do the kids still think this place is haunted?”

“Not just the kids. In fact, it makes me uneasy just standing here even if you do have a gun in your pocket.” Michelle shifted away from Colin’s warm touch and the toe of her shoe lodged against a stepping stone buried beneath the mulch. She tripped and sprawled onto her hands and knees, the flashlight bouncing out of her hand.

Colin dropped beside her. “Are you all right?”

“I banged my knee on a cement stepping stone. I didn’t even see those before.” She sat back and rubbed her throbbing knee. You could dress up a klutz but she’d still be a klutz.

Leaning across her body, Colin reached for the flashlight and cursed.

“What’s wrong? Is it broken?”

He stepped across her and kneeled on the ground, one hand now grasping the flashlight and the other picking through the dirt and leaves. He cursed again, his body tensing.

“What did you find, Colin?” Michelle’s heart banged in her chest, her breath coming out in short spurts.

He extended his hand toward her, cupping several rose petals in his palm.

Michelle swallowed. He’d seemed unusually interested in a petal he’d picked up near Amanda’s body. What significance did a few rose petals have?

“They’re rose petals.” Her words sounded stupid hanging between them. “L-like the one at the crime scene?”

Colin jerked the beam from the flashlight across the tangled bushes bordering Columbella House. “Do you see any roses here, live ones?”

Michelle squinted into the darkness. “No, but I’m sure the Vincents have some. Dorothy Vincent is always giving me tips on mine. Couldn’t the wind have blown the petals over here? What’s with the petals?”

Colin hooked his arm beneath hers and pulled her up. “Let’s get out of here.”

Colin charged through the front yard and this time Michelle clung unabashedly to his arm until they were through the rusty front gate.

Opening his hand, Colin aimed the light at the delicate yellow petals. “Do the Vincents have yellow roses in their yard?”

“I think so.”

“And what about you? Are your roses yellow? The petal I found near the body was pink.”

“I have both pink and yellow. Do you think the killer left the petals near Amanda’s body? Then what? He ran across the street to Columbella House and showered more petals there?”

Michelle didn’t know a thing about murder investigations, but she was a mathematician and she knew logic. And this didn’t seem logical.

Ignoring her questions, Colin dropped to his hands and knees just outside the crime scene tape. He trailed his fingers across the ground and peeled something from the asphalt.

Holding it up to the light, he said, “It’s another petal, a pink one this time. I think Amanda’s murderer left the petals here and the Coral Cove P.D. didn’t see them, didn’t recognize them as being out of place.”

Michelle folded her arms across her churning stomach. “You’re scaring me, Colin. What is all this about?”

The coiled intensity of his frame relaxed and he tipped his head from side to side as if to relieve a kink in his neck. “I’m sorry, Michelle. Let’s go inside.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her body flush against his. His warmth seeped into her, but her teeth insisted on chattering, anyway. Colin had suspected a link between Tiffany Gunderson’s death and Amanda’s murder, and he’d just found it.

After Michelle unlocked her front door, Colin propelled her to the couch, pressing his hand against the small of her back. “Sit.”

She sank into the corner, curling her long legs beneath her. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he released a long breath, obviously coming to some decision. “Do you remember a girl from your class named Belinda Frank?”

The name drew a visceral response from Michelle, as a sour taste flooded her mouth and her hands curled into fists. “I remember her. You talked about my being a magnet for bullies? Well, she must have had the strongest magnetic field of all because she was the worst. She was a witch.”

“Well, ding-dong, the witch is dead.”

Michelle’s jaw dropped as a confusing tumble of emotions swirled through her brain. “I—I didn’t mean… I’d never wish…”

Colin skimmed his fingertips along her cheek. “I know that. Nobody in town knew about her death?”

“The Frank family wasn’t local. They moved here Belinda’s sophomore year and then moved out after she graduated. Nobody could even locate her to send an invitation to the reunion.”

“One of the reasons they couldn’t locate her is because she changed her name to Gigi French.”

“Gigi French? Sounds like a hooker.”

“She worked as a stripper in Vegas.”

Michelle ran a hand through her tangled hair and closed her eyes. “How did she die?”

“Someone slit her throat and then showered her with rose petals.”

Choking, Michelle hid her face in her hands. “They don’t know who did it? How’d you get involved?”

“No. A buddy of mine on the Las Vegas P.D. called me because he saw the Coral Cove connection. Thought I might have known her, but she started at CCHS after I graduated. I didn’t think much about it until Tiffany Gunderson fell down that elevator shaft in San Francisco. I knew the Gunderson family, so I recognized the name.”

“But Tiffany’s death was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“I figured it was when I first heard about it, but I thought it was a weird coincidence that two young women from the same small-town high school had died violent deaths less than a month apart. So I contacted the SFPD about Tiffany’s accident, and suddenly the two deaths didn’t look like a coincidence.”

“Why?” Michelle drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs to keep them from bouncing.

“Both women graduated the same year…and there were rose petals in the elevator shaft.”

Michelle leaned her forehead on her knees, not even minding the pain from her bruises. “So the FBI sent you back home to investigate?”

Colin cleared his throat. “Not exactly.”

Turning her head to the side, Michelle asked, “What does that mean?”

“Technically, I’m on vacation. The FBI didn’t send me here.”

“Great. So this is all off the record and below the radar?”

“That’s right.”

“But now that the killer has struck again, this could be a case for the FBI. A serial killer in different states? Sounds like a job for the Feds to me.”

Colin stretched his arms above his head and yawned, and Michelle’s gaze dropped to the muscles shifting across his chest and bunching his shoulders. He looked even better than he had as a cocky teenager.

“It might be a job for the Feds, but not necessarily for this Fed. The FBI doesn’t usually assign agents to cases in their hometowns.”

“What are you going to do?” Michelle sucked in a breath and held it. She didn’t want another agent on the case. She wanted Colin Roarke to stay right here in Coral Cove. In fact, she wanted him camping outside her house.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m staying on vacation in Coral Cove, but I can use a little help since I won’t be with my regular partner. Do you have any idea why someone might be killing the female graduates of your class?”

“Me?” Michelle’s voice squeaked in a totally embarrassing manner. “You want my help?”

He tapped the side of his head. “You were the smartest girl in your class. Can you think of any reason why these three were targeted?”

“I have no idea. Tiffany and Amanda hung out with the same crowd and were both cheerleaders, but Belinda wasn’t really part of that group.” She slid her legs from beneath her and propped her feet on the coffee table. “Besides, you’re asking the wrong CCHS Dolphin. I didn’t hang with that crowd, either, and I don’t know what they might have been into. I didn’t become Amanda’s friend until later.”

“But you know who was in that clique. Can you give me a list of names?”

“Sure.” Michelle’s heart skipped a few beats at the thought of helping Colin with this case. She wanted Amanda’s killer brought to justice, and she had every confidence Colin was the man to do it.

Colin pointed to the weak light pressing against the front windows. “We’ve been up all night. I don’t know about you, but I usually need some sleep before I can function. Will you be okay here alone?”

“I’ll be fine.” Michelle scrambled from the couch. “Like you said, it’s morning, and once the news of Amanda’s murder gets out, Coral Cove Drive is going to resemble Grand Central Station. I probably won’t be alone here for days.”

“That’s a good thing.” Colin snapped his gun bag around his waist and shuffled toward the door. Grabbing the handle he turned and she almost ran into his chest. “Be careful, Michelle. You may not have run with that bunch, but you graduated with them.”

Michelle twisted her fingers in front of her. “I’ll be careful, and you need to find Amanda’s killer. She didn’t deserve that.” She waved a hand toward the street, tears pooling in her eyes, her nose stinging.

Colin hugged her, drawing her head onto his comfortable shoulder. Closing her eyes, Michelle wound her arms around his waist. He smelled tangy and fresh like the sea.

She mumbled into his chest. “Thanks for everything, Colin. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this night without you.”

He drew back and wiped a tear from her face with the rough pad of his thumb. “I don’t know. I think I might have added to your grief and pain.”

“No. If I’m going to help Amanda, I need to know everything. And if I’m a target for this maniac, I need to know that, too.”

“You’ve turned into quite a woman, Michelle Girard.” He touched his finger to her nose, dropped it to her lips and then stepped into the overcast morning.

A few hours of fitful sleep later, Michelle stumbled into her bathroom to shower and then changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. The events of last night seemed like a dream, and she crept to her front window to make sure it had all really happened.

She staggered and clutched the windowsill as the reality of Amanda’s murder hit her like a wrecking ball to the gut. A crowd of people ringed the police tape, staring at the bloodstain on the street. Amanda’s blood.

She wanted to scream at them, shoo away the vultures. While she’d been sleeping, she’d heard her doorbell ring and a few knocks on the door. They’d question her endlessly about last night.

Michelle rubbed her eyes and retreated to her kitchen, where she cooked some eggs and made toast. Once she’d eaten, she wrapped her hands around a cup of steaming tea and tiptoed to her front door again and peeked out the window.

People still mingled in the street, forming clutches of gossip groups and then breaking apart to form new groups. Michelle took a few steadying breaths before opening her front door. She’d have to face them sooner or later.

She stepped onto her front porch, taking a sip of fragrant, hot tea. The overcast morning looked a little brighter than it had the past few weeks, giving hope that the sun might struggle through today. Would Colin have another look at Columbella House by the light of day? She wanted to be there with him.

She squinted as a news van parked on the street. The newshounds sure hadn’t wasted any time. A man scrambled from the passenger side of the van and waved his hands over his head.

“Ms. Girard! Can we talk to you?”

“No!” She stepped forward, cupping her hand around her mouth and yelled again. “No!”

As her bare feet moved to the edge of her porch, her toes met some damp leaves. She glanced down. She gasped and dropped her cup.

The brown tea sailed through the air, splashing her feet…and scattering rose petals.

CHAPTER FOUR

MICHELLE STIFLED A SCREAM. She didn’t want the reporter to notice anything. Her heavy ceramic cup, its handle chipped, rocked back and forth on the porch. She crouched down, her toes inches from the petals clinging to the damp wood.

She snatched up her scarred cup and swung around, ready to grab a broom and sweep the petals from her porch. She halted midturn and closed her eyes. Evidence. Those petals represented more evidence for Colin. Not that he wouldn’t believe her, but she wanted him to see them with his own eyes.

She wanted to see him with her own eyes.

“Good morning, Michelle. Are you okay?”

Michelle looked up at the sidewalk. Tyler, Mayor Tyler Davis, plowed through the little gate, ignoring the reporters, and strode up the path, his arms swinging purposefully by his sides.

Michelle shuffled closer to the petals as if to protect them from Tyler’s wingtips. He still hadn’t figured out that he was the mayor of a small beachside town, not a big city.

“Hello, Tyler.” She curled her fingers around the chipped mug handle, the rough edge biting into her hand. “I still can’t believe it happened.”

“Amanda should’ve never left Sergeant Stewart.” He shook his head.

Michelle’s nostrils flared and her fingers tightened on the cup’s handle. “You’re not blaming Amanda for getting murdered, are you?”

“Of course not. But if she’d…” He eyed Michelle’s face, so tight she felt as if one quick grimace would shatter it. Tyler waved his hands. “It’s a terrible business, and you were so close you could’ve witnessed the whole thing if the fog hadn’t been so thick last night.”

A tingle traced a line up her spine and she hunched her shoulders. “I couldn’t see a thing. I just can’t believe it.”

“Not great timing for the summer rush, either.”

“You did not just say that.”

“Say what?”

Michelle jerked her head up and relief spread through her body like a drug. The news van was pulling away and Colin latched the gate behind him, crowding Tyler on the first step.

Tyler shuffled a few steps to the side.

Michelle leveled a finger at Tyler. “Mayor Davis here thinks Amanda’s murder is bad timing for the summer tourist season.”

Colin raised his brows and stared down at Tyler’s reddening face.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Michelle.” He thrust out his hand toward Colin. “Good to see you back in town, Roarke. Do you remember me?”

Colin clasped Tyler’s hand. “Sure, I remember the Davis family. You own a bunch of property downtown.”

“That’s right. Still do.” Tyler brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve. “I’m the mayor of Coral Cove now.”

“Are you here in an official capacity, Mayor?”

“Official?” Tyler rubbed his chin as if thinking it over. “Everything in Coral Cove is my business, but I’m here as a friend to Michelle.”

Michelle pursed her lips. She’d always figured Tyler had constituents, not friends. And right now the only friend she needed was Colin. She shifted her eyes to the damp rose petals still clinging to the porch. Then she blew out a breath.

“Thanks, Tyler, but Colin is here on official business, so…” She waved a hand vaguely in front of her as if to shoo the mayor off her porch.

Tyler captured her fingers and squeezed them in a clammy grasp. “Let us know if you need anything, Michelle.”

“I will.” She slipped her hand out of his clutches and slid the tips of her fingers in the back pocket of her shorts.

Tyler shook hands with Colin again and sauntered down the walkway, his spine stiff with self-importance.

Colin snorted. “Could the guy get any more officious?”

“Don’t ask.”

“I’m not really here on official business you know.” Colin slouched against the wooden post supporting the awning above the porch.

“Yes, you are.”

He jerked to attention. “You know something I don’t know?”

“Look down.” Michelle pointed to the petals on the porch in case Colin had forgotten his directions.

His gaze followed her pointing finger, and a quick intake of breath told Michelle he’d picked up on the significance. He crouched, his knee balancing on the first step.

“When did you notice these?”

“This morning when I came out to survey the hordes.” She tilted her chin toward the groups of people on the street, gawking around the yellow crime scene tape.

He stirred the petals with his fingertip. “They’re the same color as your roses. Someone could’ve tracked them up to your porch, carrying them on the soles of their shoes.”

Bending over to study the petals, she inhaled Colin’s fresh, masculine scent. It smelled better than the sweet roses, and her cheeks warmed when he met her gaze with his piercing blue eyes. Their intensity made her fear that he could see straight into her soul and read her thoughts.

“Well, that’s a logical explanation.” She tapped her fingernails on the chipped mug. “And here I thought a killer had left his calling card.”

Colin cupped her elbow as he rose, bringing her with him. Still maintaining eye contact, he said, “I don’t think we can rule out your first assumption.”

A tremble rolled through her body. Colin must’ve felt it because he squeezed her elbow and ran his palm up her inner arm. His touch caused her nerve endings to riot and she shivered again.

“D-do you think it’s a warning?” She pulled away from him and hugged herself. Not that Colin’s arms wouldn’t have felt a whole lot better, but he hadn’t come here to comfort her. Had he?

“I think you need to be careful.” He brushed his hands together and shoved them in the pockets of his jeans.

“I told Tyler you were here on official business just to get rid of him.” She inspected the handle of her cup so he wouldn’t see the hope in her eyes. She hadn’t been a silly twit in high school and she didn’t plan to take on that role now. “Why did you drop by?”

His hands burrowed deeper in his pockets as he hunched his shoulders. “I wanted to check up on you. Rough night.”

“Thanks.” Pleasure fizzed through her veins, pooling in all the right places. She could get used to a man like Colin Roarke looking out for her.

Michelle jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Do you want to come inside and have some coffee? Tea?”

“Sure.” He pointed at the brown puddles on the porch. “Looks like you could use more tea yourself.”

“When I saw the petals on my doorstep, I dropped my cup. It didn’t occur to me at first that someone could’ve brought them up here on the bottom of his shoe.” She shoved open the screen door, and Colin followed her into the house, dwarfing the small room with his large frame.

“You have reason to be jumpy.”

“Tea okay or are you a coffee drinker?” She held up the copper teapot.

“Tea’s fine.” He hunched over the counter, making his shoulders look broader than ever.

Looked broad enough to accommodate all her worries, but he hadn’t come here to give her an excuse to fall apart. He’d probably had a lifetime of people dependent on his strength.

“You know, I had enough people traipsing up to my door this morning. There are probably rose petals strewn up and down the entire length of my walkway.”

“I’m checking out the house today.”

“What?” She clanged the teapot onto the stove top with unexpected force.

“Columbella House. I’m checking it out. It was too dark to see anything last night, but it would’ve made a great hiding place for someone looking to get away in a hurry.”

Folding her arms, Michelle wedged her hip against the counter. “I’m coming with you.”

“You sure?”

“I’d rather know what’s over there than not.” She dug her fingers into her upper arms. “Amanda was my friend. I can’t sit around and do nothing. Maybe if I’d walked her out to her car…”

“Then you might both be dead.” He came around the counter, joining her in the kitchen, crowding her. “Don’t blame yourself, Michelle. It’s a useless exercise.”

Blue-gray clouds scudded across his eyes, veiling them. Again, she sensed a deep sadness lurking behind the confidence and courage. The caretaker in her wanted to banish his sadness.

As if she had that power.

She turned toward the cupboard and grabbed two cups from the shelf. “I guess…it’s like stories of survivors. There’s always that sense of guilt, isn’t there? I wonder if it ever completely goes away.”

Colin was so close behind her the warmth of his body penetrated her cotton T-shirt. When he spoke, his breath stirred the tendrils of her hair.

“I don’t know if it does.”

She reached for her tin of tea bags. “Earl Grey okay?”

“Earl Grey?”

She turned and Colin took a step back, blinking, as if coming out of a trance. She held up the foil pouch. “Earl Grey? You’re not much of a tea drinker, are you?”

“Coffee man.”

“You could’ve told me.” She ripped into the pouch and dropped the tea bag into a cup. “I can make coffee.”

He lifted one of those square football-player shoulders. “I’m a low-maintenance guy. Besides, I came over here to make sure you got through the night okay, not to demand breakfast.”

The kettle whistled and Michelle poured the boiling water over the tea bags. “I’m glad you stopped by, and brewing a pot of coffee would have been a small price to pay for the chance to search the house…with you.”

He thanked her for the mug of tea, and then blew on the surface of the liquid.

She averted her gaze from his puckered lips. Slurping her own tea, she burned her tongue. “Are we going to wait until the vultures out there scatter before sneaking into Columbella House?”

He crossed the room and flicked the curtains at the window. “Are they ever going to scatter?”

She joined him, her shoulder brushing his. “Believe it or not, the crowd’s a lot smaller than it was earlier.”

“We’ll go around the side of the house. Nobody has to know we’re there.”

“So we are sneaking.”

He cocked his head at her, one side of his mouth curving into a smile. “Does that make it more appealing to you?”

“This is a small town. People talk.”

“I think we’re both aware of that.”

She took a sip of her tea, hiding the bottom half of her face with the mug. “People said good things about you.”

“People say good things about you, too, Michelle. It was just your mother, and you’re not your mother.”

Not according to those emails. “I know, but when your parent screws up, the trash gets heaped on you, as well.”

“What your mom did is in the past, and I’ve heard nothing but people singing your praises since I’ve been back.”

“You must be talking to the parents of my students. They like that I hold their kids’ feet to the fire in algebra.”

He blew out a noisy breath and ruffled the back of her hair. “You make it hard on a guy to pay you a compliment.”

She ducked her head, embarrassment warming her cheeks. That’s what Amanda always used to tell her. Pain sliced through her left temple and she pressed the mug to her head.

“Are you okay?”

“Let’s get over to Columbella House and see if we can find something. Amanda didn’t deserve to die in the street like that.”

Michelle put their cups in the sink and dragged a hoodie from a hanger in the closet. “I’m sure it’s cold in that old house. I don’t think anyone’s been in there since the twins were last here.”

“And they haven’t been back?”

“Mia’s in New York and nobody’s heard from Marissa since she took off with Mia’s boyfriend.”

Colin grinned. “I remember Mia’s temper. If I were Marissa I wouldn’t come back, either.”

Michelle crouched by the front door and plucked the flashlight she’d used last night from the basket. “I don’t think the electricity is on over there.”

Colin opened the door for her. When he stepped onto the porch, he shoved the rose petals off the step with the toe of his shoe.

Michelle unlatched the front gate and pushed through, keeping to the sidewalk and avoiding the people on the street.

“Michelle!”

Darn. Not fast enough.

She cranked her head around and spotted Ned Tucker, the high school football coach, peeling away from the group.

“Did you see anything last night?”

She shook her head, shoved her hands in her pockets and continued up the sidewalk with Colin close behind her.

He took her arm. “Let’s cross here like we’re heading toward the beach path.”

On one side of Columbella House, a path led down to a rocky beach. A cave was carved out in the rocks and teenagers hung out there even as they avoided the ramshackle house.

A gate hanging from one hinge separated the sidewalk from the path, and Colin unlatched it and shuffled onto the sandy path.

Instead of taking the winding trail down to the beach, he hopped over the dilapidated fence that enclosed the side yard of Columbella House.

Although the fence was low, Colin lifted Michelle to the ground on the other side. They stood silently in the yard, listening to nothing but the sound of the waves crashing below them.

And the thud of Colin’s heart beneath her cheek.

A strange sense of lethargy seeped into Michelle’s bones. She didn’t want to move from this spot, encircled in Colin’s arms, protected, safe. Once they moved, the magic spell would dissipate like sea spray.

Colin cleared his throat and gave Michelle’s waist a squeeze. Not that he couldn’t stand here forever holding Michelle close and inhaling the scent of wildflowers that clung to her hair. “Let’s try to get in through the side door.”

She jumped back, as if his words had startled her, had dragged her out of some dreamworld. He’d gladly return there with her, but right now he had a murder to investigate. And he had to do it before his vacation ended.

He kept hold of her hand and led her through a tangle of weeds and tall grass. He motioned toward a side door sporting a broken window. “Looks like someone already had the same idea.”

He jiggled the door handle, but it was locked. “Can I borrow your sweatshirt? I promise to replace it if it rips.”

Michelle raised her brows and dangled the sweatshirt from her fingertips.

Colin tucked his hand and arm into the hood of the sweatshirt and plunged into the hole in the glass. He grappled for the dead bolt and turned it, and then felt for the door handle. He turned it once, popping the lock.

He shook out Michelle’s sweatshirt. “Thanks. Not one tear.”

“I knew there was a good reason to bring it.”

Colin opened the side door and poked his head inside the house. “It’s the kitchen.”

He stepped onto the chipped tile. Someone had already shoved aside the pieces of glass from the broken window. Considerate.

Michelle wrinkled her nose. “It smells musty.”

“Thanks to the ocean, it smells a lot better than I expected. At least that broken window let in some fresh air.” He poked around the kitchen, but the previous residents had left nothing there. “Did the twins actually live here the last time they were in town?”

Michelle opened the fridge, pinched her nose and slammed the door shut. “No. I think Mia was going to try to fix things up a bit, but after her boyfriend took off with her sister, she abandoned that idea along with the house and went back to New York.”

“Is there anything in the fridge?”

“Just that unused fridge smell.” She peered into the hallway. “No sense in searching this big house together. It’ll take half the time if we split up. Just tell me what to look for.”

“You sure you’re okay looking around here by yourself?”

Michelle straightened her shoulders. “I’m good. If there’s anyone else in here, I’ll make a run for it…and you have a gun.”

“You take the upstairs and have a look in the bedrooms and bathrooms up there. I’ll stay on this floor and head down to the basement. Just be on the lookout for anything new. I mean any sign that someone has been here recently.”

“Rose petals?”

He nodded and squeezed her hand before she headed for the staircase.

“And be careful on those stairs.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth, feeling like an idiot. Michelle was a grown woman, not a shy teen anymore.

He turned his attention to the search. Columbella House had been beautifully crafted and designed. It was a shame it had been left to ruin, but the house had a reputation.

Bad things happened here.

He snorted. He was as pathetic as the superstitious residents of Coral Cove, avoiding the house and calling for its demolition. The mayor was probably on that bandwagon.

He ran a hand along the intricately carved banister, his fingers clearing a trail in the dust. He called upstairs. “You okay up there?”

Michelle’s muffled reply floated down. “I’m okay. You?”

“Going to look around a little more and then head for the basement.”

She didn’t respond, so he finished wandering through the dining room, the living room, another sitting room, a library and a half bathroom. Nothing amiss.

He pushed open the basement door and flicked on the flashlight Michelle had given him. A flight of stairs tumbled into the darkness below. He aimed his beam of light on the first step and grasped the scarred wooden handrail. He tested the step with his weight and continued downstairs, the chilly air wrapping its fingers around him the farther he descended.

That fresh ocean breeze hadn’t permeated the depths down here. The dank smell of mold and water rot assaulted his nostrils.

When he reached the bottom step, he aimed his flashlight into the four corners of the room. The sword of light cut across generations of beach paraphernalia—tattered umbrellas, broken beach chairs, deflated inner tubes and air mattresses. Their bright colors muted and depressed by the darkness shrouding their final resting place.

Colin shuffled across the floor, his footsteps the first to imprint the dust in many years. He poked through the long-forgotten summer accoutrements. Nobody had been hiding down here.

He brushed his hands on the thighs of his jeans and turned back toward the stairs. As the beam of light tripped up the steps, something glimmered on the floor.

Colin crouched in front of the staircase and reached between the steps. He ran his fingers across the cement. They stumbled over a chain of some sort. As he scooped it up, the hair on the back of his neck quivered.

* * *

MICHELLE SMILED AS she pushed through the door of the first bedroom after the bend in the hallway. Colin’s concern for her well-being sent tingles along her skin. And the fact that he’d taken the basement sent a wave of relief through her body. No way did she want to head down those stairs into the darkness.

The bedrooms at Columbella surprised her with their order. A thick layer of dust coated everything in sight, but the grime couldn’t hide the beautiful lines of the furniture, and all the beds sported full linen, including matching bedspreads, shams and pillows.

She lifted a flounced duvet and peered under the bed. She strode to the closet and sneezed as she flung open the doors. Empty hangers swayed on a rod, boxes sat in neat rows on the floor.

She exited the room and a creaking noise from the next bedroom slowed her gait. Probably just the floorboards protesting her intrusion.

Despite her commonsense approach, her heart skittered in her chest as she eased open the door. She glanced over her shoulder, longing for Colin’s reassuring voice.

She shuffled into the room. Her gaze darted toward the bedspread, wrinkled and wavy with indentations. She ducked and peered under the bed. Dust bunnies scurried into the corner.

She slid a sidelong glance at the closet, almost wishing she could ignore the sliver between the two doors. Every other closet door in every other bedroom had been closed. Holding her breath, she tiptoed to the closet.

“Colin?” She licked her dry lips. He was probably in the bowels of the house…the spooky part. She squared her shoulders and whipped open the closet door.

Her mouth dropped open and she stumbled backward. She hit the bedpost. The jolt of the collision cut through her shock and she let loose with a scream that had to be piercing straight through the floors to the basement.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE SHAGGY MAN in the closet spread his arms wide and smiled. “Caught me.”

Michelle crossed her arms over her chest as if to ward off a blow or a bullet…or the man’s pungent odor. His hands were empty, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have a hidden weapon or he could strangle her with his bare hands.

She choked and spun around, colliding with Colin as he charged through the door, his weapon grasped in one hand.

He gripped her arm with the other hand to steady her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

She thrust a shaky finger at the closet where the disheveled stranger still hadn’t moved. “He’s in there.”

Colin shoved her toward the door and strode toward the closet. He flung the doors wide and leveled his gun at the man slouching amid the dresses and skirts.

“Get out now and put your hands where I can see them. Call 9-1-1, Michelle.”

She patted the pockets of her shorts and dragged out her cell phone. While she breathlessly relayed the pertinent information to the dispatcher, the man in the closet inched a tentative foot forward.

“Be careful, Colin.” The fact that Colin had the man at gunpoint didn’t ease her fears.

Colin gestured with his gun. “Hurry up and keep your hands in front of you.”

The man shuffled forward a few more steps, his arms held out. He started whistling.

Michelle sucked in a breath. Was it some sort of signal? She dipped into the hallway and looked both ways.

The man stood before Colin and peered at him through a veil of stringy hair. His filthy clothes hung on his gaunt frame, his lips, still puckered in song, framed by a wild beard. He dropped his arms to his sides and his hands nestled amid the folds of his raggedy clothing.

Colin steadied the metal-gray barrel of the gun. “Put your hands back in front of you where I can see them.”

The man gave him a gap-toothed smile. “I had a gun once. Don’t have it no more.”

“Let me see your hands. Real slow.”

The man hunched his narrow shoulders and raised his arms again. He held his hands, tipped with dirty fingernails, in front of him where they trembled. “Is that what you want, boss?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Is this your house, boss?”

Colin’s jaw tightened. “No.”

“Not mine, either.”

“So what are you doing here?”

Michelle glanced at the time on her cell phone. The police had a mile to get here at high speed. Where were they?

The man moved his hand toward his face, and Colin’s finger tightened on the trigger.

He scratched his beard and turned his head toward Michelle. “I scared the pretty lady, huh?”

Michelle nodded, and her heartbeat began to return to normal. He seemed harmless enough now, but maybe Colin’s big gun had something to do with that impression.

Sirens wailed in the distance, and the grungy man swore. “You didn’t have to go and call the cops on me. I didn’t do nothing wrong. Just scared her. Wasn’t even trying. Heard her going through the rooms and figured I’d better wait it out in the closet. Didn’t know she’d go snooping in the closet.”

Colin narrowed his eyes. The hand on his gun seemed to relax, or at least his knuckles were no long the color of white marble.

Michelle shifted her gaze to Colin’s face. Was he thinking what she was thinking? This man with his long hair, overgrown beard and disheveled clothing didn’t fit the profile of Amanda’s killer. And he definitely wasn’t responsible for the murders in Vegas and San Francisco.

Colin repeated his previous question. “What are you doing in this house?”

Waving his arms at his sides, the man said, “It’s empty, isn’t it? I needed a place to crash.”

Several pairs of footsteps charged up the stairs. “Michelle? Roarke? You up here?”

Colin backed up to the door, keeping in front of her and keeping his gun trained on the homeless man. “In here.”

His own gun drawn, Chief Evans barreled through the door almost knocking Michelle’s shoulder. “Face down. Prone position.”

Colin lowered his weapon and shook his head. “I think he’s just a homeless guy camping out.”

Another officer had joined the chief and shoved the stranger onto the hardwood floor. The cop dragged the man’s arms behind his body and snapped a pair of cuffs on him.

The homeless man started whistling again.

“We’ll take it from here, Roarke. Looks like we just might have our man.”

Colin cleared his throat. “I think…”

The chief hustled the stranger past Michelle and Colin. “We’ll handle it.”

The man winked at Michelle as Chief Evans shoved him out the bedroom door. Another officer squeezed past Colin into the bedroom.

“Did he have a weapon? Did he hide anything in here?”

“We didn’t get that far. I think the dude’s just a homeless guy looking for some temporary shelter.”

“Chief thinks we just nailed Amanda’s killer.” The officer pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket. “I’m going to do a thorough search of the room. Thanks for your assistance. You can leave now. The chief knows you’re not officially on the Gunderson case, Roarke.”

Colin glanced at Michelle and rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

He steered her through the front door, which was now standing open. The curious folks from down the street gawking over Amanda’s murder site had shifted their attentions to Columbella House and the scruffy man now being stuffed into the backseat of a Coral Cove P.D. squad car.

Michelle gulped in a few breaths of salty air. “He’s not Amanda’s killer, is he?”

Colin wandered to the side gate, grabbed the top and leaned forward, peering at the path that rambled to the beach. “No.”

“Maybe—” Michelle twisted the arms of the sweatshirt that she’d wrapped around her waist “—he’s mentally ill. He could’ve been on his way to Columbella, stumbled across Amanda getting in her car and just gone off.”

He turned his head and raised one brow. “Did that guy look capable of attacking someone the way Amanda was attacked?”

“You mean sneaking up on her and slitting her throat.” Michelle kicked at the weeds clinging to the gate, sending puffs of dandelion floating through the air.

He brushed the back of his hand along her fingers where she’d hooked them, like claws, onto the chain-link fence. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffled and blinked. “No. He didn’t look capable of kicking a cat. He’d fall over. But that’s not going to stop Chief Evans or Mayor Davis from railroading this guy. He’ll be languishing in some jail cell just in time for the summer tourists to start flooding Coral Cove.”

“That’s stupid.” His fingers curled around hers. “If they’re that shortsighted, they just might allow the real killer to walk. And maybe strike again.”

Michelle shivered. “You think I’m on his list?”

“I know you graduated the same year as the other women.”

“The three murders could be completely unrelated—a coincidence.”

“And the petals?”

“The petals.” The terror from this morning when she’d seen the rose petals on her porch punched her in the gut. She sagged.

“Let’s get out of here.” Colin peeled her fingers from the gate and laced his own with hers.

They skirted the lingering knots of people in the street and Michelle tugged on his hand. “So which is it, Colin? Do you believe the killer scattered those petals on my porch or do you believe some innocent bystander carried them there on the bottom of his shoes?”

Colin wanted to reassure her, drive the fear from her big, brown eyes, but he couldn’t lie to this woman. He couldn’t pretend that she didn’t face some danger from this wily killer.

“If it’s the former, I’ll make sure he never gets that close to you again.” He tightened his grip on her hand.

A bicycle wobbled down the street between pedestrians, and the bespectacled rider raised his hand in salute. Michelle waved back, and Colin blew out a breath. What now? Couldn’t he ever get this woman alone? He had some more reassuring to do.

The cyclist pulled up beside them and shoved the glasses up his nose. “Michelle, are you okay? I heard what happened this morning and that it happened right outside your front door.”

The man lurched off the seat of his bike, straddling it with his feet planted firmly on either side. His gaze dipped to their clasped hands, and Michelle disentangled her fingers from Colin’s.

“It was horrible, Alec. I can’t believe it happened. I can’t believe Amanda’s gone.”

Alec extended his hand to Colin. “I’m Alec Wright.”

“I’m sorry.” Michelle tilted her head toward Colin. “This is Colin Roarke. Colin, this is Alec Wright. We teach at the high school together.”

For a skinny guy Alec had a strong grip. Then Colin noticed Alec’s legs encased in Lycra bicycle shorts and realized the guy was wiry, not skinny. But he still wore Lycra bicycle shorts. “Good to meet you.”

“I’ve seen your name all over the school. Yours and your brother’s. Kieran, right?”

“Right.” At the mention of his brother’s name, Colin’s face tightened. Would it always be this way? Would he ever be able to think about his brother without this pain shooting into his gut?

Alec’s eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “I—I’ve seen your names on a lot of trophies in the trophy case.”

Colin shrugged. “Don’t know why they don’t replace those old things with new trophies.”

“Because they’re school records.” Alec cocked his head at Colin as if studying some strange specimen.

“Whatever.” The guy annoyed him. He needed to take his Lycra and ride away.

Michelle drew her eyebrows over her nose. “If you have some time this weekend, Alec, maybe you can look at my laptop for me. I have a couple of questions about my email.”

“Yeah, sure.” Alec blushed as red as his bike. “Give me a call. I’d be happy to help.”

Of course he would. The guy had a crush on Michelle as far as he could stretch his stretchy pants.

“Nice meeting you.” Colin jerked his thumb toward Michelle’s house. “We gotta…”

“Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. I’m glad you’re okay, Michelle. Sorry about Amanda.” He clambered onto his bike and headed toward the coast highway.

Colin squinted after him. “Didn’t sound sorry about Amanda.”

“He and Amanda never got along.” She dug her hands into her hips. “What is wrong with you? Did you take an instant dislike to Alec or something? He’s a nice guy and a good teacher.”

“I didn’t like his bicycle shorts.”

Her chocolate-drop eyes studied his face. “You didn’t like that he mentioned your trophies—yours and Kieran’s.”

He didn’t like that he’d mentioned Kieran, period.

He shrugged. “Don’t know why they keep those things around.”

They’d been walking and talking and had wound up at Michelle’s front door. She unlocked the door and shoved it open. Colin didn’t even wait for an invitation as Michelle stepped across the threshold, still talking.

“You should be proud of those trophies. Heck, if the school gave trophies for academic excellence, I wouldn’t mind a few of those scattered around with my name on them.”

Colin laughed, rubbing the last of the kinks out of his neck. “You were a brain, weren’t you?”

She stuck out her tongue. “Go ahead. You can say it. I was a nerd, complete with glasses and braces and bony chest.”

As if pulled by a magnetic force, his gaze dropped to the gentle curve of her breasts beneath her cotton T-shirt. By the time he’d trained his eyes back to her face, a rosy blush had claimed her cheeks.

“The years have been kind.”

She giggled and spun around. The compliment had made her uncomfortable. A truth smacked against his forehead and made its way to his lips. “You played up the nerd persona in high school, didn’t you? Because of your mom.”

She froze and her back stiffened. “That’s ridiculous. Why would you think any high school girl would want to be a geek?”

“Any high school girl who had a hootchie-cootchie mama.”

Her eyes flashed fire as she turned on him. “You’re… you’re…”

“Despicable.” He’d been so excited to discover something about Michelle, so intrigued to have chipped through her cool exterior, he’d lost all sense of social etiquette. “I’m sorry, Michelle. I had no right.”

She blew out a breath and dragged a hand through her thick hair. “No. You’re right. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between me and my mom. I didn’t want people thinking I was anything like her.”

Her dark eyes pooled. He preferred the fire. In two strides, he was at her side. He slid a knuckle beneath her chin and a tear dangled on the end of her long lashes. “I’m an idiot.”

Her lush lips trembled into a smile. “You’re an astute idiot. The only person I’d ever admitted that to was Amanda.”

The tear dripped onto her cheek, and he halted its downward path with his thumb. “I’m going to find this guy, Michelle. And he’s not some whistling homeless dude.”

Sniffling, she pulled back her shoulders. “I—I might have another clue.”

“Something you remembered?” He stepped back from her warmth, squashing his desire, shelving it…for later.

“Emails.”

“Emails?”

She ducked around him and headed for her kitchen table. “It actually occurred to me before, but I was too embarrassed to tell you about it. But now that my pathetic insecurities are out in the open, I may as well lay it all out there.”

She didn’t have the corner on pathetic insecurities.

“Has someone been threatening you?” That’s why she was calling in the help of the bicycle geek. The fact that she’d planned to open up to Alec before him irritated the hell out of him.

“Sort of… I don’t know.” She hovered over her laptop, clicking keys on the keyboard. “Darn. I should’ve been saving them.”

He joined her at the table as she scrolled through her inbox. “What did the emails say?”

“I was too chicken to open them.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “But the subject line said, Like mother, like daughter?”

“That sounds like a threat to me. Or at least harassment.” He sat in front of the computer and opened her Deleted Items.

“Don’t bother. I did a hard delete and sent them to cyberspace oblivion.”

“Do you think Bicycle Boy can help?”

She huffed and punched him in the arm. “He’s a good guy.”

“I hope he knows how to retrieve those messages.” He rubbed his biceps where her delicate hand had nailed him. “Do you know if Amanda had been receiving any emails? Any threats?”

“She didn’t mention anything to me.” She hugged herself and wedged a hip against the kitchen table. “Amanda didn’t have any enemies.”

“Had she been on any dates since the separation from her husband?”

“No. She talked a good game, but she missed Ryan.” Michelle’s face tightened and she pursed her lips. If she was going to burst into tears, he had a strong shoulder.

Her cell phone played some hip-hop song and Colin raised his brows.

“I like to keep current with the kids.” She answered the phone and moved to the window.

Colin clicked around Michelle’s computer as she talked in a low voice across the room. He’d have to give over to Alec’s computer skills and hope the guy knew what he was doing and could retrieve those messages. Maybe someone was trying to scare Michelle, put her on edge. Killers played games, especially the smart ones.

“That was Chief Evans. He wants to see me this afternoon. You, too.”

“Is he still convinced he has his man?”

“He wouldn’t go into it with me.

“Any luck?” She pointed at the laptop screen.

“No. I’m going to have to defer to Alec. Dammit.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why you took an instant dislike to Alec. He’s harmless.”

Harmless is not the way Colin would describe the way Alec had looked at Michelle. Did the woman have no clue how sexy she was? She’d probably be uneasy to hear herself described as sexy…thanks to that mother of hers. Hootchie-cootchie mama. What had he been thinking?

“I hope Mr. Harmless can get those emails.”

“They may be nothing, Colin, totally unrelated to Amanda’s…death.”

“Anything out of the ordinary needs to be examined.” He smacked his forehead. “I completely forgot.”

“What?”

He shoved his hand into his pocket to dig out the chain he’d found in the basement at Columbella House. He dangled it from his finger. It was a bracelet.

“I found this in the basement right before you screamed bloody murder. Do you recognize it? Is it Amanda’s?”

Michelle fingered the bracelet and the charms hanging from it. She plucked one charm out from the rest and squinted at it. Then she dropped her hand as if the charm had scorched her.

CHAPTER SIX

MICHELLE RUBBED THE tips of her tingling fingers against the leg of her shorts, trying to erase memories.

“Is it Amanda’s?” Colin cupped the charm bracelet in the palm of his hand.

“N-no.”

“But you know the owner?”

Warmth flared in Michelle’s cheeks. It’s like the woman had come back to haunt her this summer. “It’s my mom’s.”

“This is your mom’s bracelet?” Colin hooked his index finger around the chain and dangled it in front of his face.

“It didn’t belong to my mom. She made it.”

“Oh.” He dropped the bracelet next to the laptop, where it coiled like a snake. “She made jewelry?”

“Yeah. No big deal. She crafted the pieces at home and sold them to her friends and some of the teenaged girls.”

“But it didn’t belong to Amanda.”

Michelle poked at the bracelet, a bit tarnished and forlorn. “There’s a charm with the initials MS. I’m assuming it belongs to one of the St. Regis twins since they were both in and out of the house when they were last here.”

“Mystery solved. I won’t bother turning it over to the police today.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you want to head to the police station now?”

“Sure. Do you have a car or do you want me to drive?” She swept the bracelet into her hand and stuffed it into her pocket.

“I have a rental.”

She hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her shorts where the bracelet burned against her leg. Maybe she should leave it here. She didn’t need the constant reminder of her mother gouging her thigh. “You know, I never even asked you where you live now. Are you in San Francisco?”

“L.A., although I’ve been thinking of requesting a transfer to San Francisco. One of my buddies is with the Bureau up there. He’s the one who first told me about Tiffany Gunderson’s murder.”

“The local cops realize now that you’re not here in any official capacity.”

“I know, but I still feel obliged to share my opinions with them—that the Gunderson and Frank murders are related, and I believe Amanda’s death is tied to theirs. This is the same guy.”

“But why? Does he plan to work his way through the entire Coral Cove class that graduated ten years ago? Does he have something against those particular women…or me?” She couldn’t stop the goose pimples that rushed across her arms.

Colin must’ve noticed her shiver because he took a step forward and rubbed his knuckles along her skin. “That’s what I’m here to find out, whether the local cops like it or not. My parents were friends with the Gundersons. I at least owe it to them.”

Michelle practically purred at his touch. If the local cops didn’t like Colin’s presence in Coral Cove…she did.

Two hours later, Colin stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Coral Cove Police Station and squinted at the sky. The sun was staging a valiant attack against the stubborn marine layer, hurriedly pricking through the gray muck before it was time to sink into the ocean.

Settling his shoulders against the brick facade of the building, Colin crossed his arms and dug his heels into the sidewalk. The small-town cops hadn’t appreciated his meddling. They’d found a smear of blood on the transient’s sleeve and had closed the case before the blood analysis had come back from the lab.

They hadn’t been interested in rose petals, class connections or class reunions. The summer tourist season loomed less than two weeks away, and the chief and the mayor wanted to make sure nothing more than the haze from the ocean was hanging over Coral Cove by the time the crowds staggered in from L.A. and San Francisco.

Michelle rounded the corner, accompanied by a pumped-up guy in jeans and a Coral Cove High School sweatshirt, and waved. After she’d had her turn with the police, she’d gone to the high school to collect an answer key for some quizzes she had to grade. Looked like she’d brought the mascot with her.

Colin pushed off the wall of the police station. Michelle had been holding up well under the shock of her friend’s murder and her proximity to the killer. But Colin had sensed her busywork and interest in helping him investigate sprang from a desire to keep her sadness at bay. Whatever worked. God knows, he’d employed a million devices to hold his own sorrow at arm’s length.

“That didn’t take long.” Her eyes sparkled above flushed cheeks. “Colin Roarke, this is Larry Brunswick. He’s head of the math department.”

Colin shook the man’s hand. Brunswick looked familiar. Must’ve been teaching when he’d attended CCHS. “I don’t think I had you for any classes, but I think you were teaching when I was in high school.”

“I started at Coral Cove the year your brother, Kieran, was a senior. So I had the thrill of watching him play. Helluva quarterback.”

Colin schooled his face into a bland smile. If he went off on Brunswick like he had with that other teacher, Michelle would have him pegged as a loose cannon. And her opinion of him mattered more than he cared to admit.

“Yeah, he was.”

“Not that you weren’t an amazing player yourself.”

Colin held up his hands and twisted his lips into a grin. “I’m not looking for kudos. Kieran was the better athlete.”

The better man.

Brunswick’s eyes clouded as he drew his brows together. “They still haven’t… I mean, is he still considered missing?”

“Yeah.” Colin felt Michelle’s sharp glance like a needle poking his flesh. He kept his gaze pinned to Brunswick’s sympathetic face.

“That’s rough.” Brunswick adjusted the satchel on his shoulder. “And now this in Coral Cove, Amanda’s murder, I mean. And practically on Michelle’s doorstep. I hear they got the guy.”

“Maybe.” His training had taught him never to give away too much information…to anyone.

“I hope so. My wife, Nancy, is nervous.” Brunswick clicked his tongue. “Glad I decided to clean out my desk today and ran into you at school, Michelle, and had that answer key you needed.”

“You’re a lifesaver. I didn’t want to do all those quadratic equations myself to grade the quizzes.”

“Anytime.” He rolled his wrist and checked his watch. “I’d better hurry or I’m going to be late picking up my wife. Good to see you, Colin.”

One quick wave and Brunswick was practically jogging down the sidewalk. “Does his wife keep him on a short leash or what?”

“She’s a judge’s daughter, kind of a diva.” Michelle studied his face, and he smiled to avoid her scrutiny, to mask any residual pain that might be marking his features. “Do you want to grab a late lunch, compare notes?”

“Yeah, let’s compare notes.”

He steered her toward his buddy’s restaurant, Burgers and Brews, but she shook her head.

“I just can’t, I just…that’s where Amanda and I had dinner last night.”

“I’m sorry. Stupid of me to suggest it.”

“I know Bryan Sotelo’s your friend. I hope the macabre association doesn’t hurt his business.”

“In my experience, it tends to help a business—curiosity seekers.”

“Ugh. I don’t get that.” She pointed across the street. “The Great Earth is pretty good.”

He grabbed his throat and stuck out his tongue. “I don’t do vegetarian.”

“They have burgers and brews over there, too. Don’t worry. I won’t force you to eat alfalfa sprouts.”

Five minutes later they were ensconced at a corner table, and Colin was running his fingers down a short list of burgers. “The sweet potato fries sound good.”

“They are.” Michelle’s menu covered her entire face and she had a white-knuckled grip on its edges.

Colin tapped a finger on the top of the plastic menu. “Are you okay in there?”

She inched the menu down so that her big, brown eyes appeared over the top. “Everyone’s talking about the murder. I keep catching snippets of conversation, and people keep throwing me sidelong glances. Maybe I shouldn’t be out.”

“Stop.” He clapped the menu closed with his hands and she flinched. “Of course everyone’s gossiping about the murder. It’s a big deal for a small town. Remember when that girl disappeared a few years ago from the music festival? I even heard about that and I wasn’t living here.”

“I hate it.” She dropped her lashes, where they created dark crescents on her cheeks. “The gossip.”

“It’s a small town. And you have every right to be out for lunch. It doesn’t mean you mourn your friend any less.”

She grabbed a napkin and bunched it up at her nose. “I’m going to miss Amanda. You have to catch her killer, Colin. Amanda needs justice. She deserves justice.”

“Maybe the Coral Cove P.D. has already caught him.”

She snorted and then blew her nose. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“Did the chief tell you about the blood on Chris’s shirt?”

“Huh?”

The waitress interrupted to take their orders, and as she scribbled her shorthand on her pad, she glanced up at Michelle. “I’m really sorry about Amanda. I know you two were friends and you were right there when it happened.”

“Thanks.”

“You take care of yourself.”

“See?” Colin touched the rim of his water glass to hers. “Nobody is blaming you or thinking you’re weird because you’re eating lunch.”

She blew out a breath and took a sip of water. “Who’s Chris?”

“Chief Evans didn’t tell you?” The cops who’d questioned him hadn’t exactly told him to keep mum about anything. He didn’t owe them, anyway. He owed Michelle. “Chris Jeffers is the name of the transient. He had a smear of blood on his sleeve.”

“Amanda’s?” Her eyes widened.

“They don’t know yet. They sent it out for testing and depending on how backed up the lab is, it could take a while for them to get the results.”

“But it’s something. Maybe you’re wrong, Colin.” She shot him an apologetic look from beneath her lashes. “Maybe Amanda’s murder was just a random act. I’m not saying the other two murders, Tiffany’s and Belinda’s, are random, but maybe Amanda’s death has nothing to do with those other women.”

His gut rebelled against her reasoning. Three women from the same high school class? Two with slit throats and all with rose petals? But his heart softened when he saw the hope shining in Michelle’s eyes.

She wanted to believe Amanda’s murder was a random act of violence. She wanted to believe she had nothing to fear from the same killer. And he didn’t want to dash that belief. Not now.

“Maybe.” He shoved their water glasses aside as the waitress brought their plates. “Now let me see if they snuck any alfalfa sprouts on my burger.”

Pointing to her salad, she said, “You can toss them on here if you find any.”

They ate in silence for several minutes, and then Michelle started shoving lettuce leaves around her plate.

“What’s wrong? Tired of rabbit food?”

“How’s the burger? Not too healthy for you?”

Chewing, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Just the right amount of grease. And these sweet potato fries are great. Have one.”

She picked a fry from his plate and twirled it around. “Colin. What happened to your brother in Afghanistan?”

He nearly choked on his water. Damn. He thought he’d escaped the inquisition. He blotted his mouth with a napkin, stalling for time. Of course he could take his usual route—stare down the questioner and grunt. But Michelle wasn’t some random nosy person on the street. She’d opened up to him about her past hurts and now she’d volleyed the ball into his court.

Isn’t that how relationships worked? Give and take. Not that he and Michelle had a relationship. They had more like a partnership. He’d keep her safe and she’d feed him information about her graduating class at CCHS.

Did he have to open up to a partner?

“Of course, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She dropped the sweet potato fry onto her half-eaten salad and brushed her fingers together.

His eyes met hers. Tiny creases marred the smooth skin between her dark, sculpted eyebrows. She looked worried…worried about him.

He scooped in a breath and twisted the napkin in his lap. “My brother and I were both on the same intelligence-gathering team. We’d been watching a particular bunch outside of Kandahar. We made our move, but someone had betrayed us. They were ready for us.”

“What happened?”

“The Taliban killed a few of the team members and captured the rest of us, including me and Kieran.”

“I—I had heard something about that, later when you escaped.”

Colin’s heart hammered in his chest. He could never get past this part of the story with anyone, not even in his own mind. “I escaped. But Kieran didn’t. We’d planned our escape, but our captors chose that night to take Kieran away for questioning. I wanted to stay, but they had talked about moving us to a different location. The others convinced me, but I should’ve held out. I should’ve stayed with my brother.”

“Of course you couldn’t have stayed.” Her hand inched closer to his and then froze as his fingers curled into a fist.

“Is he dead?”

“No.” Colin smacked his clenched hand on to the table. “After we escaped, we went back for him, but, of course, the Taliban had pulled up stakes and moved on.”

“And you never…” Her fingers nervously pleated the tablecloth.

“We never found Kieran’s body. That’s why I still hold out hope that he’s alive somewhere.”

“You blame yourself.”

That about summed it up. His lips twisted into a grimace. “Kieran never would’ve left me behind, Michelle.”

“You don’t know that.” She skimmed her fingers along the scars on his wrists. “He would’ve done what was best for the whole team, right? Just as you did.”

Her light touch calmed the blood thrumming through his veins. He felt…unburdened. And that wasn’t fair. Michelle had her own turmoil to deal with right now.

“I’m sorry.” Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t be. I asked. I wanted to know. If we’re going to work together on this thing, I want you to trust me.”

He opened one eye. “We’re working together in the loosest sense of that term. I ask you questions about your classmates and you provide the answers. No more traipsing around haunted houses.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder in a sassy move that made his stomach flip with it. “That haunted house may have given up Amanda’s killer. I’m not giving up hope that Chris is our guy. I guess we’ll know when the blood test comes back.”

“Maybe our partnership will come to an end sooner rather than later, which would be a good thing.” Good for Michelle’s safety, anyway.

She nodded. “Absolutely. Of course, if this guy Chris is arrested for Amanda’s murder, it doesn’t solve the other two murders.”

“We’ll let the FBI agents assigned to those cases worry about that.” He signaled to the waitress. “You probably have to get home and grade those quizzes.”

“Yeah, just another exciting Saturday night.”

She made a grab for the check, but he beat her to it. “Are you looking for excitement? I would’ve thought you’d had your fill.”

Her cheeks burned red. “I didn’t mean that. Amanda’s been dead for less than twenty-four hours. The last thing I need is excitement.”

Colin grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t feel guilty for surviving.”

“Like you do?”

“That’s…different.”

“If you say so.” She tilted her chin at the check on the table. “How much do I owe?”

“It’s on me. You can get the next one.” Because he really wanted there to be a next one.

The sun had made its brief appearance. Now the marine layer was staging a comeback. Michelle peered at the sky through the windshield of her car.

“It’s going to be another one of those nights.” Her fingers white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure. The chief said he’d send a patrol car by the house a few times tonight.”

“And I’m right down the street.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but unless you remember quadratic equations, I think I can handle things.”

If she asked him to stay he’d accept in a heartbeat, but Michelle had an independent streak and he had to respect that. Who knows? Maybe after he’d told her how he’d left Kieran to fend for himself, she didn’t trust him to protect her. Hell, he wouldn’t.

She slowed the car as she approached her house. “Do you want a lift to your place?”

“I can walk.”

She swung into her driveway, avoiding the bedraggled yellow tape from the crime scene, and Colin reached into his pocket for a card.

“Do you still have my card from last night?”

“I think it’s in my purse.”

He pressed another one into her palm. “Here it is again, just in case. My cell phone number is on there. Call me if…if you need anything.”

Her doe eyes searched his face, and he relaxed the muscles and even managed a smile. He didn’t want to scare her.

“Thanks, Colin. I think I’ll be okay. After grading, I’m going to bed early. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” He walked her to the front door, and she gave him a tremulous smile and slipped inside.

He strolled to the end of her walkway and shoved his hands in his pockets as he stared at the spot where Amanda had been killed. He knew that homeless guy wasn’t responsible for the murder. When would the police realize it? When the killer cut down another member of Michelle’s graduating class?

He turned and surveyed Michelle’s tidy beach house through half-closed lids. Michelle was not going to be the next victim. And he’d make damned sure of it.

He had no intention of running away…this time.

Several hours later, Michelle stretched and dropped her red pen on the coffee table where she’d been grading the algebra quizzes. She’d planned on getting them done early, having a light dinner and then turning in, but the hands on her watch were creeping toward midnight.

She hadn’t been able to focus all night. Or rather she hadn’t been able to focus on algebra all night. Her thoughts had drifted down the street toward Colin Roarke. No wonder he’d seemed sad that first night she’d seen him. He’d left his brother behind. Had escaped while his brother faced an uncertain future—maybe death.

She’d wanted to assuage his guilt, but she hadn’t been very successful. It was easy to tell other people to shrug off their guilt. Outsiders had a more logical, more clinical approach to someone else’s situation. After what had happened to Amanda, Michelle found it easy to understand Colin’s feelings.

Would she always feel this way? Would she always wonder if there was something more she could’ve done for Amanda? Maybe she should’ve insisted that Amanda spend the night.

Michelle crossed the room to the window and lifted the side of the curtains. The weather outside mimicked the conditions of last night and she gave an involuntary shiver. The fog had rolled in thick and heavy, blanketing the street in its moist embrace.

Clutching her upper arms, Michelle balanced a shoulder against the wall. She’d already spotted one cop car on a drive-by. She’d be fine. Except now she couldn’t discern a cop car on the street even if it drove by with flashing lights. And the cop couldn’t see her.

Michelle let the curtain fall, tousled her hair and yawned. She stuffed the last of the quizzes into the folder for that class and glanced at her laptop. Should she enter the grades online tonight or wait until tomorrow?

She plopped the folders on top of the closed laptop and spun around. She’d wait until tomorrow when her eyelids didn’t have to be propped open with toothpicks.

She turned off the light in the living room and clicked on the lamp by her bed. She peeled off her clothes, tossed them in the basket in her closet and padded to the attached bathroom in her bra and undies.

Still unable to get Colin off her mind, she brushed her teeth and scrubbed her skin as if that could expunge the image of his face imprinted on her brain. She didn’t need to renew her schoolgirl crush on Colin Roarke. He’d be moving on soon enough.

She wandered back into the bedroom, massaging night cream into her face. She slipped out of her bra and tugged a long T-shirt over her head that had Math Teachers Do It With Pi emblazoned across the front—a silly gift from Amanda. Kicking off her flip-flops, she reached for the lamp.

She froze.

She’d heard a scratching sound on the window like a twig scraping the glass. Only she didn’t have any trees outside her bedroom window.

She held her breath. She squinted at the filmy white curtains. It could just be grains of sand whipped up from the sand dunes.

With her heart pounding, she sidled along the wall toward the window. Crouching down, she inched the curtain to the side. A wave of fear rushed through every cell of her body as she watched a hand scrabble at her window.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MICHELLE SCREAMED AND tumbled to the floor. Her fingers had curled around the curtains, and they ripped as she brought them down with her.

Still clutching a piece of white linen in her fist, she scrambled toward the bedroom door on her hands and knees. She glanced over her shoulder at the gaping rip in the curtains framing a smooth expanse of glass. No face. No hand.

Had she imagined it, that hand clawing at the windowpane?

Someone yelled and pounded on her front door. Michelle let out another yelp. She leaped to her feet and dashed for her cell phone, charging on the kitchen counter.

“Michelle!” Another bang on the door. “Michelle! It’s Colin.”

The phone slipped through her grasp as relief surged through her body. She peeked through the peephole and sagged against the door. With shaky fingers she turned the dead bolt and swung open the door.

Colin charged over the threshold and Michelle didn’t know if he’d swept her into his arms or if she’d fallen there, but here she was tucked against his solid chest.

“I heard you scream, what happened? Are you okay?”

He’d heard her scream from down the block?

She took a ragged breath that scorched her lungs. Maybe her scream had carried all the way to his house. “I—I saw something at the window.”

“What window? Not the front?”

“My bedroom window.”

His arms tightened around her. “A face?”

“A hand.” A tremble rolled through her, and his embrace got tighter.

“You saw a hand at your bedroom window? Trying to open the window? Trying to break it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe pressed against the pane, scratching at the glass.”

He kicked the door shut behind him and advanced into the room with her still clinging to his neck. “Show me.”

She untwined her arms and stepped back. She’d never been the clingy type before, but his strong arms had offered an oasis she couldn’t resist.

Time to buck up and be a math teacher.

She pointed to her abbreviated hallway. “My bedroom’s back here.”

He followed her into the room, and she tugged on the hem of her T-shirt, for the first time realizing she was dressed for bed…or underdressed. Then she remembered the wording on the front of her T-shirt, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Whoa! What happened to the curtains?”

“I did that.” She gestured toward the piece of curtain she’d abandoned near the bedroom door. “I had it in my hand when I stumbled backward.”

Colin prowled toward the window and yanked back the bedraggled curtains.

Michelle jumped.

He raised a brow. “Okay, what did you see?”

“I was just about to turn off the lamp on my nightstand, and I heard a scratching sound at the window.”

“Trees or bushes out there?”

“No. Sand dunes.”

“So you went to the window to check it out?”

“Well, I sort of peered out, and that’s when I saw the hand.”

“And the person attached to this hand wasn’t trying to open the window or break it?”

“Not that I could see. It was weird. It was like a disembodied hand. I didn’t see anything else.”

“The guy could’ve been crouched below the window, reaching up.”

Michelle sucked in her lower lip. “Or maybe there was no hand or no body attached to the hand. Maybe I imagined it.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t know. After I screamed and headed for the door, I looked and there was nothing there.”

“He heard you and took off. Believe me, that was some scream.”

“How did you hear me? How did you get here?”

A red flush crept across his face. “I…uh…was outside your house. Your scream carried outside the house, or at least I thought I heard something. And when I looked at your house, I could see the lights still on.”

He’d been outside her house? “Why… What…?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I went out to chuck rocks at the water. Since I hadn’t seen a patrol car since I’d been outside, I decided to cruise past your house myself.”

“I’m glad you did. The hand freaked me out.”

“So now you did see a hand.”

Shaking her head, she shoved her hair behind one ear. “I don’t know, Colin.”

“Do you want to call the police?”

“I was on my way to do just that when you started pounding on my door. Do you think it’s worth it now? If there was someone outside my window, he’s long gone.”

He shrugged. “They can dust for prints.”

Her gaze swept Colin’s reassuringly large frame. He offered the only protection she needed.

“Do you think a murderer is going to leave his fingerprints on windowpanes?”

“Nope, but an even better argument against calling the local police is that I’d like to check the area around your window myself tomorrow morning. And I’d like to do it before some officer of the law tramps around out there.”

“That settles it then. I’d rather have you looking out there than the cops who are already happy with their suspect.”

Colin rubbed the gauzy material of the curtains between his fingers. “You need thicker curtains at your window.”

“There’s nothing on the other side except the dunes, and I have a fence separating my yard from the dunes.”

“Don’t the teenagers still hang out in the sand dunes?”

“Once in a while, but they don’t venture into my yard.”

“Maybe they did tonight.” He drummed his fingers against the window. “Do you have a sheet or something you can hang over this window?”

Michelle gave him a sheet from the linen closet and he draped it over the curtain rod, covering the window and the torn curtains.

“Thanks, Colin. I’m glad you were…taking a walk.”

“Me, too, but I hope that’s not your way of kicking me out of your house.”

“It must be past 1:00 a.m.”

“Must be. But if you think I’m leaving you here alone with disembodied hands at the window and see-through curtains, you’re crazy.”

A warm rush of…something sweet coursed through her veins. “I’m a mathematician. I’m too logical to be crazy.”

“Except maybe crazy about pi.”

She glanced down at her sleep shirt, her cheeks warming. “Oh, this silly thing.”

“I like it.” His blue eyes glowed with an inner fire that singed the ends of her lashes. “I like it a lot.”

She giggled. No, she laughed, because Michelle Girard never giggled. Then she ducked her head in the linen closet again. “I’ll get you a blanket and pillow for the couch. Unless you’d rather have a sleeping bag for the floor.”

“I’d rather— The couch will be fine.”

She held out the blanket and pillow for him, and he took them from her, grazing her arm with his hand. She held herself erect, as an overwhelming desire to throw herself against his chest again surged through her body.

He dumped the blanket onto the couch. “Leave your door open just in case. And if you see or hear anything, don’t hesitate to let loose with one of those screams.”

“Okay, I can do that.” She added a chipper note to her voice to defuse the double entendre. Or was she the only one thinking about a different kind of scream?

Michelle left her door halfway open and crawled into bed, her gaze darting to the makeshift curtain across the window. Had she imagined the hand?

She pulled the pillow to her chest and buried her face into its softness. Whether the hand was real or not, it had brought Colin to her doorstep. And he brought safety and security.

Or maybe he brought more danger than she could handle.

* * *

COLIN WIGGLED HIS toes against the chill seeping into his feet. His nostrils twitched at the smell of rich coffee wafting through the air. Heaven.

He shifted on the uncomfortable couch and peeled open one eye. Michelle buzzed around the kitchen, clinking dishes and dipping in and out of the refrigerator. Pure heaven.

He’d had an uneasy feeling last night ever since he’d left Michelle at her front door after their late lunch. The cops were complacent. That was a bad state of mind—especially for a cop.

He’d noticed the patrol car of one of Coral Cove’s finest cruising down the street once or twice, but Michelle needed more than that. He couldn’t sleep, anyway, and tossing rocks into the inky ocean seemed like a logical alternative. Once outside, his feet beat an automatic path to Michelle’s house.

He’d been on high alert, his ears attuned to the slightest sound. He hadn’t even been sure the noise he’d heard had been a scream or that it had come from Michelle’s house. But it was all the signal he’d needed.

“Did I wake you?”

He blinked and the vision in the kitchen came into focus. “The smell of that coffee woke me up. I know you don’t drink the stuff. You didn’t have to go through any trouble for me.”

“My dad was a coffee drinker, and I still have the coffeemaker—no trouble at all. Besides, it’s the least I can do for a midnight rescue. Black, right?”

She poured a cup of the steaming brew and carried it to him along with a sliced bagel on a plate. She’d already showered and changed from her sexy nightshirt with the sexy slogan into a pair of cargo shorts, a T-shirt and a light sweatshirt to ward off the nip in the morning air.

“Do you want some cream cheese with your bagel?”

“Sure.” He swung his legs over the side of the couch, clutching the blanket in his lap. He’d shed his jeans last night and hadn’t expected breakfast in bed this morning. Not that he minded.

She placed the coffee cup and bagel on the coffee table and retreated to the kitchen for the cream cheese. As she approached him, her gaze dropped to his bare chest. Her cheeks blanched and she averted her eyes.

“Here you go.” She settled the tub of cream cheese with a knife crossed over the top next to the plate.

Before she could draw away, he encircled her wrist with two fingers. “A lovely parting gift from my captors.”

She dropped her lashes. “What’d they do?”

He ran a finger along one of the scars crisscrossing his chest. “You don’t want to know.”

“I’m sorry, even though that’s pretty inadequate.”

“It’s adequate.” He released her and peeled the lid from the cream cheese container. He spread a thick layer on a toasted bagel half. “Are you joining me or did you already eat?”

“I already had something.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Are we going outside when you finish?”

“Yeah. Have you looked out there yet?”

“I looked out the window and didn’t see a thing. Just sand.”

Several minutes later, Colin finished off his bagel and took a last gulp of coffee. While Michelle carried the dishes back to the kitchen, he let the blanket slip to the floor and snagged his jeans from the back of the couch.

She walked back into the room as he was yanking his pants over his thighs. Pink suffused her cheeks, and he couldn’t help grinning as he zipped his fly. Despite the veneer of sophistication she wore, Michelle wasn’t much different from that bashful high school girl with the endless legs and silver in her mouth.

“Are you coming with me?”

“Of course.”

He shrugged into his sweatshirt and shoved his weapon in the pocket. In response to her raised eyebrows, he said, “In case the hand makes an appearance.”

She led him through a side door in the kitchen and he stepped off the concrete porch behind her. The back of her house abutted the sand dunes, just like his. The houses across the street from theirs, like Columbella House, had the ocean tumbling away from their backyards. They just had mountains of sand.

Her backyard was accessible from the front with not even a fence between them. “Anyone off the street can get into your backyard.”

“Yeah, well, I never had to worry about that before.”

They turned the corner of her small beach cottage where two windows faced the sand dunes. She pointed to first one and then the other. “Those are both bedrooms. The first one is mine.”

Colin eyed the bottoms of the windows, which reached about waist-high. Anyone could climb through those windows. Before he clumped through the sand to the window, he asked, “I suppose you wouldn’t notice any footprints out of the ordinary back here, would you?”

Michelle looked down at the bumps and indentations in the sand and shook her head. “You can’t really make out footprints in dry sand, can you?”

“Not really.” He shuffled through the sand and crouched beside her window. “If you saw a disembodied hand, it’s because the hand’s owner was down here. You couldn’t see the rest of his body or his face because he was hiding below the window and reaching up with his hand.”

“Why would he do that if he were trying to break in or even peer through the window like a Peeping Tom?” She hugged herself and hunched her shoulders.

“Maybe he thought he could cut the glass first before reaching in to unlock the slider.”

She shook her head and her light brown hair slipped over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t holding a glass-cutting tool. He was scratching or almost clawing at the window.”

Colin mumbled more to himself than Michelle. “Why would you scratch at a window?”

“Huh?”

He ignored her question and brushed his fingers on the front of his sweatshirt, the muscle in his jaw jumping. He smoothed the tips of his fingers across the glass in a grid pattern—up and down and left to right. Then he moved on to the next quarter of the window. He sucked in a breath.

“What is it?”

Lightly, he traced the pads of his fingers over the rough spot on the windowpane. With his nose almost touching the glass, he scraped at the patch with his fingernail.

He held up his finger, dug the residue from beneath his fingernail with his other nail and rubbed the sticky substance between his thumb and forefinger.

“Colin, what did you find? Looks like a grain of sand to me, which wouldn’t be all that unusual.”

She’d crouched down beside him, and he extended his finger beneath her nose. “It’s adhesive.”

“Adhesive? You mean like tape?”

“Yeah, or more likely one of those two-sided adhesive strips.”

Her eyes widened and he could see flecks of gold in her irises. “What does that mean? I’ve never taped anything to the outside of this window.”

“I didn’t figure you had, which means someone else did.”

“How old is that stuff? It could’ve been my dad.”

He rolled the adhesive between his fingers. “It’s still sticky. Old stuff wouldn’t be sticky anymore, or it would be covered with sand. This isn’t.”

“I don’t get it, Colin.” A note of panic had crept into her voice and he cursed himself for being the one to keep bringing bad news into her life.

“Help me search the ground.” He tapped the window to replace the adhesive and dropped to his hands and knees. Michelle liked to keep active, to be involved.

“Wh-what are we looking for?”

“Anything out of the ordinary. A button. A cigarette butt. A chewing gum wrapper.”

She skimmed her hands across the sand, sifting her fingers through the silvery grains. “A button?”

“A button?” Colin sat back on his heels.

Michelle held out her cupped hand to him. “Not a button like from someone’s shirt, but a black button that looks like it could’ve broken off some machinery or something.”

Colin’s heart jumped in his chest as he held out a surprisingly steady hand to receive Michelle’s discovery.

She turned her hand over, dumping the object into his waiting palm.

He wedged the black disc between two fingers and brought it close to his face. He ran the pad of his finger along the smooth side of the disc, but it wasn’t so smooth.

The same sticky substance he’d collected from the window was present on the disc. He closed his fist around the button and cursed, a black fury beating wings in his chest.

Michelle dug her fingers into the sand. “What is it?”

Colin drew in a steadying breath to keep from smashing his fist into the wall of Michelle’s house.

“It’s a camera.”

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