Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Oh, yeah, Mia had turned her damn phone off again.

  What the hell? Was this just a bad habit? Was her battery dead? Or was he slowly losing his mind and turning into a possessive freak-oid?

  Chill out, he chided himself. You don’t own her. She has every right to unplug if she wants.

  He reached for a carrot to mandolin when he saw his phone vibrate against the counter. Wiping his hands on a dishtowel, he picked up and saw it was Maxwell. Immediately, his stomach clenched as if a movie had started playing in his head. A movie he couldn’t quite make out and one he definitely didn’t want to see.

  “What’s happened?” he asked tersely into the phone.

  ****

  “Maria! Are you okay?” Mia knew it was a stupid question but miraculously, Maria scrambled to her feet, unharmed. Mia dove behind Shiloh who was slowly falling to his knees.

  In a wild panic, Mia looked toward the tack room and then back to her horse, lying on his side now, blood pumping out of the wound in his neck.

  “Mia, hide!” Maria screamed as another shot rang out. The dirt exploded over Mia’s foot as another slug hit the ground. She ran, stumbling to crouch behind the horse. Maria kept her head down and Mia wrapped her arms around her as the gunshots rang out in the still air. Several thudded into the horse as they crouched behind him but he was quiet.

  I need to get him to a vet! Mia thought wildly when the gunfire quit, and she was aware of Maria sobbing beside her. Over the top of Shiloh, she could make out the form of a man squatting in the shadows of the open tack shed.

  It looked like Ben. Was he trying to sneak up on the shooter? Should they try to run? Mia fumbled for her cellphone and turned it on.

  Suddenly, Ben called out “I got him! I got him! Are you hurt?”

  Mia looked at Maria who shook her head. She turned to her horse and ran her fingers in his mane. “No,” she called back, her voice shaking as she withdrew her fingers coated with his blood. She heard footsteps as Ben ran to them. She didn’t have the energy to stand up. Her beloved horse…her dear, dearest Shiloh…

  Ben stood over them and when Mia looked up she saw the gun in his hand and then saw him slowly aim it at her. “Well, that’s unfortunate,” he said.

  Maria screamed.

  “Oh, yes, Chiquita,” he said, smiling. “The line ends here for you. And for you, too, Mia, which is annoying. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve imagined you in the sack.”

  “You…you’re with them?” Mia, an incredulous stare on her face, was still on her knees. She moved to position herself in front of Maria. “But I don’t understand. You…you called me about Lorna!”

  “Don’t remind me.” He grimaced. “I was trying to win your trust. How was I supposed to know you’d take her? God, Jamie about shit himself. I totally underestimated how crazy you are.”

  “But why are you doing this? Nobody suspected you!”

  “Well, not yet they don’t—until senorita hot pants here starts talking. If she testifies against Jamie, it’s all gonna come out about me.”

  Can this be happening? It was supposed to be all over! Case closed.

  “Maria didn’t know Jamie even had a twin until I told her,” Mia said, stalling for time. Was it late enough yet for Jack to be worried? Who owned the motorbike?

  “I suppose that’s possible. She was pretty wasted every time I had her.”

  “You suck, you know that?” Mia said heatedly. “If you hurt us, they’ll know it was you! My mother knows you came out here—”

  “I won’t try to hide that. I’ve got your gun, you see, conveniently left for me in the glove compartment of your unlocked car.” She saw he was wearing gloves. “It only has your prints on it right now but trust me it’ll also have hers on it when they find it next to your body.”

  He shrugged and affected a mocking, sad tone as if addressing an unseen audience. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kazmaroff,” he said, “but I got there too late to save Mia from the murderous Senorita who then turned the gun on herself.”

  “That makes no sense! What’s her motive?”

  “Well, let’s see…a drug addict who’s been used by hundreds of men in the last month? I’m going to go with, she just snapped.” He ejected the clip from the handgun then dropped the gun at Maria’s feet.

  Ben pulled a small Smith and Wesson from his pocket.

  “Pick it up, Maria,” Ben said, indicating the gun on the ground. “Much more natural than my pressing the gun into your dead hand to get the prints to line up.”

  “No, Maria!” Mia said.

  Maria hesitated, then picked up the empty gun.

  He pointed his gun at Mia’s head. “Now hand it back to me, Chiquita, handle first.”

  Maria looked at Mia apologetically and then handed the gun back to him. As soon as his fingers touched the handle, Mia lunged at his knees, knocking the unloaded gun to the ground.

  The gunshot exploded in a splintering scream of noise that reverberated across the pastures and the lake. Mia heard Maria scream her name and then all sound stopped and the world stuttered into slow motion.

  Ben stood and gazed at her as she realized in shock and disbelief that her blouse front was drenched in gore.

  20

  Ben seemed to hover over Mia for long moments before she realized he was falling. His expression looked as if he were about to say something, and then he dropped to his knees, which jolted the gun from his grasp. Mia watched, stunned, not even thinking to get out of the way as he fell, her eyes fixed on the crimson tip of the arrowhead visible from the center of his cotton pullover.

  In the background, she heard voices, shouts. Ben lay on his face now, inches from where she sat, bewildered and horror-struck.

  Maria’s hand was on Mia’s neck and she felt the young woman’s sobs as Maria continued to cry convulsively.

  “Mia! Mia, Jesus! Is that you?”

  She turned to look up to see Ned walking quickly toward her, a crossbow in one hand.

  “He killed my horse,” Mia said, and then covered her face with both hands. “He killed my Shiloh.” All she could do was weep, her head bent, her shoulders shaking.

  She was aware that Ned laid his weapon down and knelt by Ben. She would remember later that he checked the pulse in Ben’s neck and then wiped his hand and put it on Mia’s shoulder.

  “I am so sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “He was a great horse.” Ned put his arm around her and held her close for the thirty seconds before they heard the sirens coming down the dirt drive of the entrance to the stable.

  She felt his arm trembling.

  *****

  Burton drove his rental car, breaking every speed limit in Forsyth County, to reach Shakerag in tandem with the police. When they hesitated on Brown’s Bridge road, he took the lead, swerving into the entrance to the drive and barreling down the gravel approach. Before his car was fully stopped, he had the door open. He ran toward the small group huddled in front of the main tack shed. He saw a big man with his arm around Mia. In the same moment, he saw the body on the ground behind the horse.

  Maxwell and a squad of uniformed police roared up beside his car, lights flashing.

  “Don’t touch anything!” one of them yelled as they emptied from their cruisers.

  Burton watched Mia turn from the man whose arm was around her to look at him. The front of her blouse was blood spattered but from the way she was moving, none of it appeared to be hers. Even so, Burton was at her side and had her in his arms in three strides. He pulled her away from the dead horse and the man’s body.

  “It’s Ben Bryant,” Mia said, her voice wobbling. “Where’s Maria?” She twisted her head to look around.

  “I am here, Senorita Mia,” Maria said. One of the female uniformed police was walking with her toward a police cruiser.

  “What a fool I was,” Mia said, shaking her head. “Jack, this is Ned.”

  “We’ve met, sort of,” Ned said.

  “What happened?” Jack said.

&
nbsp; “Danny and I came out so I could show him the barn and maybe shoot a few arrows,” Ned said, running a hand through his hair. Jack turned and noticed the young man standing on the perimeter of the group, his phone in his hand, his eyes bulging.

  “Is that his bike?” Mia asked, her voice still shaky.

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to take it but I’m trying to be accommodating.” He shrugged and looked in the direction of his date. “Anyway, we were shooting tin cans over by the south pasture when I hear this…fusillade of gunfire. I came at a run. It sounded like someone was taking the whole barn down with a submachine gun or something.”

  “No, just one horse,” Mia said, turning her face into Jack’s shoulder. He rubbed her back.

  Maxwell joined the group. “How you doing, hon? You hurt?”

  Mia shook her head. An ambulance was parked on the perimeter as a team of crime scene techs swarmed the body and began taping off the area. The four backed away to watch from a distance.

  “Go on with your story,” Maxwell said to Ned.

  “I came running around the side of the tack shed, heard a woman scream, and saw a horse down, with two women sitting next to it and some dude standing there. I was just about to yell out to them when he raised his gun to one of the women’s head.”

  “That would be me,” Mia said, and Jack winced.

  Maxwell pulled on latex gloves on and took the heavy weapon from Ned.

  “If he was already aiming his gun,” he asked, “how’d you have time to shoot this thing in time?”

  Ned looked in the direction of where the bodies of the horse and the man lay. Two women in white jackets were kneeling next to them now. “Normally, I wouldn’t have,” he admitted. “But Mia lunged at the guy and knocked him off balance. By the time he lifted his gun arm again…” He shrugged. “I nailed him.”

  An hour later, Mia sat huddled with Maria in the back of a police cruiser while Maxwell called Jess to update her. Jack noticed that Ned’s friend, Danny, after being sick on the side of the barn, kept to himself. At one point, he attempted to leave on his motorbike and was politely requested to stay.

  Jack stood with Ned in the stable yard. It was dark now but someone had turned the dressage ring lights on. “I’d formally introduce you to my friend over there,” Ned said, “but after tonight I’m pretty sure I’m never going to see him again. The smell of the barn was bad enough. But I think watching me kill a guy with a bow and arrow probably put the icing on that cake.”

  Burton laughed. “Well, then, it’s probably for the best. You’ll have to come downtown to give a full statement—and so will he.”

  “Yeah, I’m definitely sure a police interrogation on a first date is gonna finish us off.”

  Burton laughed again. “Sorry about that. I’m just grateful you were here.”

  “Total coincidence.”

  “Maybe, but what wasn’t a total coincidence was you stepping up and saving the lives of two innocent women. Did you even know it was Mia?”

  “No. At first I thought someone was trying to steal Shiloh.” He laughed bitterly. “Him I recognized at fifty yards. When I saw him on the ground like that…I don’t know…I reached for an arrow without even thinking.”

  “It’s lucky for Mia and Maria that you did.”

  “She’s devastated about Shiloh.”

  “I know. But he helped keep her alive until you could get there.”

  “Damn, he was a good horse.”

  Jack said, “While we’re talking, I’d like to apologize for the bizarre phone call last night. I didn’t know you and Mia were…just friends.”

  Ned laughed. “In fact we’re the best kind of friends as far as most boyfriends are concerned,” he said. “I’m gonna go over and have a word with her.” He looked over his shoulder at Danny. “Can you make sure my date doesn’t start throwing up again?”

  Burton grinned. “No promises.” He watched as Ned walked over to the police cruiser where Mia and Maria sat in the back seat and leaned into the open window.

  “Well, this is one for the books.”

  Jack turned to see Maxwell standing nearby, and watching Ned as he talked to Mia through the car window.

  For a big guy, he moves real quiet, Jack couldn’t help think.

  “I have to hand it to you,” Jack said turning to survey the crime scene. The coroner had already removed Bryant’s body—he’d bled out within seconds of hitting the ground. “You show up here, cavalry flag flying on a hunch from your lady love because she felt some bad juju when she touched a guy’s hand giving him a bag of apples? Takes stones to do that, sir. Big ones. I’m impressed.”

  “Sounds fucking crazy when you put it like that.”

  “Yet here we are. How exactly did that all go down?”

  “Bryant came to Jess’s,” Maxwell said, his face solemn. “He wanted to know where Mia was and because Jess had no reason to suspect him, she told him. Then when she went to hand him a bag of apples for the horses, she touched his hand, and she knew he wasn’t right.”

  “Wasn’t right?”

  “She said she could tell he’d killed someone.”

  Jack whistled. “I can’t imagine what it must have taken for you to take action based on ‘a feeling.’”

  Maxwell turned to him and said earnestly, “Jess is the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. I’d worship at her feet if she’d let me. So seems to me accepting on faith what she believes is true is small enough thing to do.”

  “Whoa. That is seriously wise shit, Bill. Almost sounds like a conversion.”

  “I intend to marry Jess and be Mia’s step-daddy. You want in on this, son? There’s room for everyone. That’s something Jess taught me. And I’m a slow learner.”

  Burton shook his head in amazement and was about to join walk over to Mia when Maxwell called him back.

  “Just one more thing,” Maxwell said. “And it sucks.”

  Burton felt his stomach lurch at Maxwell’s words but he reminded himself that Mia was sitting safe and sound not ten yards from him. “What is it?”

  “Agent Johnson’s body was found this evening buried in a shallow grave near Dinsmore’s property.”

  The nausea hit Jack full force. “Johnson?” he managed to say.

  “You knew him as Bowers. His real name was Mark Johnson. In any case, he was legit.”

  “You’re right,” Burton said, looking out over the pastures toward the direction of the vanished poultry farm. “That sucks.”

  ******

  “I don’t think I cried this much when my Dad died,” Mia said dabbing her eyes with a tissue that was now in shreds. “I feel so guilty about falling apart over a horse when there’s so much real pain in the world but I just loved him so much…”

  “You cry as much as you want for that horse, sugar,” Ned said. “Shiloh was one in a million. Heck, I feel a little like crying myself.”

  “Thanks, Ned,” Mia said. “I can’t believe how you saved the day. Oh, I’m sorry. Ned, this is Maria.”

  “Ma’am,” Ned said, tipping an invisible hat in Maria’s direction. “You doing okay?”

  Maria nodded. “Si,” she said. “Okay.”

  Ned reached in the window and patted Mia on the shoulder. “Danny and I gotta make a run downtown yet tonight, but I’ll see you soon, okay? Hang in there.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek, then turned and when he saw Jack standing by the car, he gave his shoulder a half slap as he passed. “See you, man,” he said.

  Mia turned her face up to Jack. She didn’t think if she lived to be two hundred years old she would ever see a face that gave her more pleasure or made her feel more safe.

  Not even Ned and his big crossbow.

  “I talked to my mom,” Mia said to Jack. “She said she knew by touching his hand.”

  “I know. Maxwell just filled me in.”

  “You’d think I’d have had a clue. He kissed me twice.”

  “I don’t need the details.”

  Mia smiled, fee
ling her dried tears tight across her face. “I must look a mess,” she said. “I’m sure my hair is a disaster.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  She shook her head. “How did he know my mother’s address in the first place?”

  “Maxwell thinks he did it because he had your phone number—which is linked to your mom’s address….”

  “So, he thought I lived at my mother’s house?”

  Mia looked away into middle space as the pieces began to come together, the picture forming ugly and harsh. “Does that mean…last week when I…he knew there was a guy waiting for me at my mom’s house?”

  “He definitely knew. Might even have sent him.”

  Which meant at the very moment Ben was on the phone with her trying to set up a first date, the man he’d sent to kill her was waiting in the garage at Jess’s. Mia felt a twist of nausea in her gut.

  “You okay, Mia? You just went pale.”

  “People suck,” she said, swallowing hard. “That’s all.”

  “Hey, you just figuring that out?”

  Mia turned to Maria and took her hand. “You going to be okay? They’re taking you to a safe house tonight.”

  Maria nodded. “The devil is dead,” she said. “And I will live.”

  Mia gave her a quick hug. “You’re a tough cookie, Maria,” she said. “The next time something happens to you that seems too hard to deal with, just remember the day you stared down the devil, himself. You’ve got major guts, Maria.”

  “Gracias, Mia,” Maria said, the faintest of smiles on her lips as she leaned tiredly back into the seat.

  Mia turned to Jack where he stood at the window and slipped her hand in his. “Take me home now, please,” she said.

  “With pleasure.”

  Epilogue

  Mia couldn’t believe how the world could change in three short weeks. Even in late February, she thought she could see the signs of spring at the barn. She sat on top of the widest slat-board fence that surrounded the paddock on the eastern slope of the farm. Animals scheduled to see the farrier or the vet were routinely put in here.