Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Dennis inched closer to the door, clearly planning on making his escape. “Stop right there!” Ridge yelled.

  It was no use. Dennis dropped the pan and ran, moving surprisingly fast for a man his size and age. Ridge lunged forward, intent on chasing after him. But his injured knee couldn’t support his weight and he fell, hitting the wood floorboards with a bone-jarring crash.

  “Ridge!” Trevor was by his side in an instant, a look of horrified concern on his face.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Ridge told him, ignoring the throbbing pain in his knee. “Go after Dennis!”

  Trevor glanced at the door then back at him, clearly torn about what to do. “Go!” Ridge urged. This might be their only chance to get some answers. Now that Dennis knew they were after him he was likely to skip town, leaving them no closer to solving the mystery of Sara’s origins.

  After a few seconds of indecision, Trevor shook his head. “No. You’re hurt. I’m not going to leave you like this.”

  “I’m fine,” Ridge said, trying to hide a grimace as he shifted on the floor. “Just go!”

  Trevor took a step toward the door, but stopped when Penny let out a whine. He turned back and lifted one brow when he saw the dog nose Ridge in concern. Ridge scratched her ear and told her to go lie down in her bed, but she refused to leave his side.

  “That settles it,” Trevor said. “If the dog won’t leave you, I’m not going to.”

  Ridge let out a groan of frustration. “It’s too late now,” he said, shaking his head. “Dennis is probably long gone.” He let out a string of curses and slapped the floor so hard it made the dog jump.

  Trevor held his hand out and Ridge gripped it hard, using it as leverage to pull himself up. “Care to tell me what happened here?” Trevor asked.

  Ridge hobbled over to the couch and sank down with a sigh. Then he filled his brother in, telling him about the attacks and the near abductions of the baby.

  “I still can’t figure out what he wants with her,” Ridge finished.

  Trevor pressed a knuckle to his lips. “You said he sounded afraid?”

  Ridge nodded. “A little.”

  “Do you think he’s the baby’s father?”

  “I hope not,” Ridge said, shuddering a little at the thought. Dennis would be a terrible father in his current alcoholic state. And Ridge couldn’t imagine any woman getting involved with the man, especially given his recent troubles with the law. But stranger things had happened...

  “What’s he got to fear, though?” Ridge asked. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”

  “He might be trying to sell the baby,” Trevor mused.

  “What?” Ridge shook his head, certain he had misunderstood. “Sell her?”

  Trevor nodded, his expression sober. “Human trafficking is a huge black market, and babies fetch some of the highest prices.”

  Ridge’s stomach cramped as a wave of nausea hit him, threatening to drag him under. “That’s horrible. How do you know that?”

  His brother pressed his lips together in a pale line. “Don’t ask,” he said tightly.

  “My God,” Ridge said softly. “Does that really happen here in Granite Gulch?”

  Trevor lifted one shoulder. “It happens everywhere.”

  “I’ve got to call Darcy.” He had to warn her that Dennis was still at large. He might head to the hospital for a last-ditch attempt at taking Sara. Maybe he could get Sam to post a guard on the room until they managed to arrest the man.

  “Darcy?” Trevor asked. “Is this the same Darcy you dated?”

  Ridge nodded. “She’s a doctor now, and she’s looking after the baby at the hospital.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “The baby spiked a fever today. We brought her in just to be safe.” Ridge glanced around, searching for his phone. Trevor followed his gaze and bent down, then handed him the phone.

  “Thanks,” Ridge said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Trevor replied. “But I wouldn’t worry about calling her. If she’s at the hospital, you’ll see her soon enough.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Trevor gestured to his knee. “You need to get checked out.”

  “I’m fine,” Ridge said dismissively, but his brother shook his head.

  “A knee injury is nothing to mess around with. If it doesn’t heal properly, you’ll never be able to walk without pain.” He glanced at Penny, then back at Ridge. “I’m going to assume, given the nature of your work, that you need to be able to move around easily?” His tone was all innocence, but Ridge wasn’t fooled.

  He glared up at his brother, hating that he was right. “Fine. You win.”

  Trevor nodded. “A wise decision,” he said sagely.

  “Do you always have to act like a big brother?” Ridge grumbled.

  A wide grin split Trevor’s face. “I am what I am.”

  “What are you doing here, anyway? That was some pretty good timing on your part.”

  “The letters, remember? I was stopping by to drop them off.”

  Oh, yeah. Ridge had forgotten about that project in all the excitement. Truth be told, he was even less enthused about it now. He wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything other than keeping Sara safe, at least until Dennis Hubbard was behind bars.

  Trevor seemed to sense his change of heart. “I can ask someone else to do it,” he offered. “You look a little distracted.”

  Ridge shot his brother a grateful glance. “Thanks,” he said. “I just need to make sure the baby is taken care of. Once I know she’ll be safe from Dennis, I can turn my attention to the letters.”

  “Understood,” Trevor said. “Now, let’s get you loaded into my truck. I’ve got a lot of updates for you.”

  * * *

  “It sounds like things are moving along,” Ridge commented, trying to ignore the pain in his knee as Trevor managed to run over every pothole in the road. He clenched his jaw, determined not to say anything, and made a mental note to write a letter to the mayor. Who knew the city’s infrastructure was in such dire need of repairs?

  “We got lucky,” Trevor replied. “Annabel’s theory regarding local restaurants was solid.”

  “And you got a hit?”

  “The Blackthorn Diner in Rosewood,” Trevor confirmed.

  “Sounds like the kind of place that has a lot of employee turnover.”

  “It is,” Trevor said. “But fortunately, the manager recognized our suspect description and gave us a few names. We were able to eliminate some of the women right away, but you want to know the best part?” Excitement crept into his voice and Ridge couldn’t help but smile.

  “I’m on pins and needles here.”

  “One of the waitresses is using a false identity. She’s pretending to be Michelle Parker, a housewife who died over a year ago. We think the woman working in the diner is really Ida Wanto, the same one who rented a room at a boarding house in Rosewood.”

  “Wasn’t that the site of one of the murders?” Ridge asked, trying to recall the exact details.

  “It was,” Trevor said. “The manager of the house confirmed our suspect description, and we watched the place for a while. But the woman never came back.”

  “What kind of a name is Ida Wanto?” Ridge mused.

  “It’s clearly a play on ‘I don’t want to,’” Trevor replied, slowing down for a speed bump.

  Ridge scoffed. “Not very subtle.”

  “It’s not,” Trevor said. “But that tells us something about her.”

  “Oh?” Ridge had to admit he was fascinated by the way his brother could take a simple fact about a person and use it to paint a vivid picture of their personality. More than once, Trevor had cracked a case wide open by focusing on a clue other inve
stigators had overlooked.

  “She didn’t put a lot of time or effort into coming up with a false name. That tells me she’s impulsive. She probably has self-control problems, which suggests she may also have some addictions. Alcohol or smoking or maybe even something heavier. That also means she likely doesn’t spend a lot of time scouting out victims—she picks people she comes across, but doesn’t go out hunting like most serial killers.”

  “She probably has the most encounters with people while she’s at work. Do you know if all the victims ate at the diner?” Ridge asked.

  Trevor let out a small sigh. “Unfortunately, no. The manager looked through the receipts, and it turns out the second, fourth and fifth victims did eat there and paid with a credit card. But there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the diner and the other victims.”

  “Maybe they paid in cash,” Ridge suggested.

  “It’s possible. But I’ve been doing a little digging into victim number six, Francine Gibbons. She doesn’t strike me as the type of woman to eat at the Blackthorn Diner.”

  “That’s true,” Ridge said. Trevor’s assessment certainly fit what Darcy had said earlier regarding Francine’s habits. That meant the killer must have come across her in another context. But where?

  “I need to find out if Francine frequented the bar in Granite Gulch,” Trevor said, as if he was adding the task to a mental checklist of things to do.

  “Wasn’t one of the victims found in the parking lot?” Ridge said.

  Trevor nodded. “Victim number five, Erica Morgan. Witnesses said she’d gotten into an argument with a woman matching our suspect description prior to her murder.”

  “We can ask Darcy,” Ridge said. “She knew Francine.”

  “Were they good friends?” Trevor sounded hopeful.

  “I don’t think so,” Ridge said, hating to burst his brother’s bubble. “But they did know each other and Darcy could probably give you an idea of the places Francine frequented on a regular basis. It might help you narrow down the locations shared by the other victims.”

  “That would be nice. I feel like we’re chasing smoke here. We get close, but she somehow manages to slip through our fingers right before we can grab her.”

  “We’ll get her,” Ridge said firmly.

  Trevor gave him a sidelong glance. “I wish I shared your confidence.”

  “She’ll slip up. Maybe not today, but she will eventually make a mistake. And we’ll be waiting to catch her.”

  “Yeah, well I just hope that happens before any more people get killed.”

  A terrible thought popped into Ridge’s head. “So far, she’s only killed one person for each letter of the alphabet, correct?”

  “As far as we know, yes,” Trevor said. “Why?”

  “The baby’s mom left a note signed with the letter F. We know Francine was not the baby’s mother, but since the woman still hasn’t turned up yet, I thought maybe the killer had done something to her, as well.”

  Trevor frowned. “It’s not likely the killer would change her pattern so suddenly. Serial killers generally stick with what works for them.”

  “But what if the baby’s mother interrupted the killer or somehow got in her way? She might not have been the primary target, but if she saw something she shouldn’t...” Ridge trailed off, letting his brother fill in the blanks. That was why their mother had died—she’d seen their father’s bloody clothes and the red marker he’d used to mark each victim. She’d made the mistake of insisting Matthew turn himself in and he’d killed her for her efforts. Was it possible the Alphabet Killer, so eager to follow in Matthew Colton’s footsteps, had done something similar?

  “We haven’t found any other bodies,” Trevor pointed out, but his tone lacked conviction. They hadn’t found their mother’s body, either.

  “I hope we don’t,” Ridge said. “But we’ve got no leads on the baby’s mother. It’s as if she doesn’t exist.”

  “Chris hasn’t been able to dig up anything with his PI connections?”

  Ridge shook his head. “Like I said, the woman’s a ghost.”

  Trevor whistled softly. “That’s tough.”

  “It breaks my heart to think about putting that little baby in the foster care system,” Ridge said, his stomach dropping as he imagined it. “It was bad enough when it happened to us, and we were older.”

  Trevor was quiet for a moment, likely lost in his own memories of that time. Finally, he cleared his throat. “If it’s any consolation, she’ll probably be adopted quickly,” he said. “Everyone wants the babies.”

  It was true. As older kids in the foster care system, it was one of the first lessons he and his siblings had learned. People wanted to adopt babies because they viewed them as blank slates full of possibility, with no bad habits or emotional baggage requiring attention. No one wanted to take a chance on older kids—it was too messy, too much work to forge a relationship with children who had already erected protective walls around their hearts.

  It hadn’t taken long for Ridge to give up the hope of being adopted. Rather than brood over it, he’d focused on counting down the days until his eighteenth birthday when he’d be free of the system. But some of his younger siblings hadn’t been so quick to adjust. Especially Josie. She’d been only three years old when Matthew had killed their mother, which meant she’d spent the longest amount of time in the system. Was it any wonder she’d changed? Fifteen years of rejection was bound to affect a person.

  He could still remember every detail of their last visit. Ridge had picked Josie up from school and taken her out for a milk shake. Strawberry-vanilla for her, chocolate for him. He’d waited until they were both enjoying the frozen treats before asking the question that had been weighing on his mind.

  “Will you let me become your guardian?”

  Josie froze, the spoon halfway to her mouth. She stared at him as if she didn’t understand the question, and he wondered if he should repeat it. He opened his mouth to do just that when she shoved the spoon back into her shake and pushed the glass away.

  “No.” The word was quiet but firm and it was the exact opposite of what Ridge had expected her to say.

  “No?” he repeated. “What do you mean, no?”

  She tilted her head to the side and pinned him with a haughty glare. “You’re eighteen years old and you don’t know what the word no means?” She was baiting him, trying to start an argument about her attitude so he’d change the subject. It was a classic defensive move, one she’d employed time and again.

  He wasn’t falling for it.

  “I thought you wanted out of the system,” he said, forcing himself to take another sip of his shake. It tasted like chalk to him now, but he swallowed it, determined to pretend everything was normal. Disappointment was a crushing weight that made it hard to breathe, but he didn’t want Josie to know.

  She shrugged. “It’s not that bad. The Carltons are nice people.”

  “But they’re not your family.” The words were out before he could stop them, and he immediately wished them back. Josie’s gaze grew hard, making her look much older than her twelve years.

  “They’re the closest thing I have to parents,” she said shortly. She pulled her glass back and attacked the shake with her spoon. “Why would I want to walk away from that?”

  “I can take care of you,” he tried, hoping a different approach might work. The waitress approached to check on them and he waved her away, keeping his focus on Josie. He had to make her see how important this was. Matthew Colton had torn their family apart—it was time for them to put the pieces back together.

  “Really? How are you going to do that?” she challenged. “You’re starting college in a few months. Where are we going to live—your dorm room?” She scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

  Ridge took a deep
breath. “I’m sharing a place with Christopher and Trevor. You’d live with us.”

  “That sounds great,” she said sarcastically. “I’ve always wanted to share a bathroom with three guys.”

  “We’ll make it work,” he said, ignoring her snarkiness. “Will you please at least consider it?”

  Josie shook her head. “I don’t need to. My answer is no.”

  “Why?”

  She blinked at him, as if she hadn’t expected him to ask that question. “Because.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he pointed out.

  Her expression shifted, became closed off. “It’s the only one you’re going to get,” she replied.

  Ridge waited for a moment, hoping the silence would drive her to elaborate. But it didn’t. She was too stubborn for that.

  She went back to eating her milk shake, acting as though she didn’t have a care in the world. Ridge put his spoon down, unable to stomach another bite. This hadn’t gone at all the way he’d planned.

  He’d spent hours picturing this moment. Josie was supposed to be thrilled with his offer. She was supposed to jump at the chance to leave the foster care system and live with her brothers. Never in his wildest dreams had Ridge imagined her inflexible, knee-jerk refusal. Had she even considered the question before shooting him down?

  “Your shake is melting,” she pointed out, as if she hadn’t just wrecked his carefully crafted plans for putting the family back together.

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” he said dully.

  She shrugged and pulled his glass across the table, digging in to the half-melted shake in a businesslike manner.

  “What?” she asked, catching his stare. “It’s bad luck to waste chocolate.”

  “Josie—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “No. And don’t ask me again.”

  He hadn’t, and not long after, Josie had cut off all communication with him. He had tried to call, had written letters. Hell, he would have used smoke signals if it had meant getting through to her. But she’d never responded to any of his attempts to reach out.

  And then one day she was gone.

  “Ridge?” Something touched his leg and he jumped, driving a fresh spike of pain into his knee.