“No. This is all hers.” I lifted my hands, then dropped them. “I… went to help her, but… but there was nothing to do. I called 9-1-1.”
I wanted to run into his arms, have him hug me tight and make all the bad stuff go away, but he wasn’t here as a friend, or even past almost-boyfriend. He was working. I was his job.
“I didn’t know you were back in town,” he said.
I bit my lip, glanced away from his scrutiny. “Um… last month.”
“You’re staying here with Erin?”
“Yes. I’m working with her at Mills Moments.” He looked confused. “Her event planning business.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I was saving up some money to get a place of my own. We’ve been really busy though, handling a few smaller events—like a wedding last night. Most of our time lately has been on a big client, handling all of the catering, the parties and marketing events for Eddie Nickel’s new movie. We were to meet him this morning.”
Eddie Nickel was a famous movie star, but had a house in Cutthroat. Had two kids. Shane, was a few years older than me, but Poppy had been in my high school class. Both of them grew up here with a nanny while Eddie had been in Hollywood or on location filming.
“On a Sunday?”
I shrugged. “They work every day when on location.”
“I’ll have someone get in touch with him,” he replied. Obviously, I wasn’t making that meeting. Neither was Erin. I swallowed hard, realizing how awful that was. Tears threatened, but I willed them back.
He walked toward Erin’s body, but not too close, squatted down, took in everything. I knew he was seeing things I couldn’t.
After a minute, he stood and turned to me. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened to her. I… was sleeping and came out to make coffee. Found her, then called 9-1-1.”
“Where’s your bedroom?” He glanced around the space. The huge kitchen was open to the great room, a curving staircase was to the side of the fireplace.
I pointed down the hall and to the back of the house. “Behind the kitchen. Erin’s room is upstairs. The second floor is pretty much a huge master suite.”
He glanced the way I’d indicated, then back at me. “Why are you covered in blood?”
I looked down at myself, turned my hands palm up and saw how they were completely covered, then told him how I’d settled her on my lap, wondered how she’d hit her head, all of it. Which wasn’t much, the first responders quietly listening. Only the walkie talkie voice cut through the silence.
I shivered, crossed my arms over my chest when I realized I was standing in front of Nix and five other men in just a skimpy tank top—without a bra—and little sleep shorts. Glancing down, I saw my nipples poking against the stretchy cotton, but then I saw all the blood on me. The yellow color was stained, my hands were covered, my arms smeared. There was even some on my blue striped shorts and thigh.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
I glanced up from my BFF’s blood. “Last night, at the Red Barn. At the wedding we planned.”
It was a familiar reception spot that was out of town on ten acres of land, a beautiful old barn renovated for a variety of functions.
“I left before she did, said she had plans after,” I added.
“What were they?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. She didn’t share, but I’m guessing a guy.”
“Was the front door open?” He angled his head toward the currently-open entry. The morning was cool, like every summer morning in Montana, but it would heat up as the sun climbed higher.
I frowned. Thought. “No. I opened it when I heard the sirens.”
“Was it locked?”
“No.” I shivered again.
“I see an alarm pad there by the door.” He pointed to the high-end system. “It wasn’t armed?”
“She never set it that I know of. I don’t know the code. Can I… can I go get a sweatshirt or something?” The blood on my hands had dried, making the skin feel tight.
“I’ll go with you, but the crime scene team needs to do their job.”
“Crime scene?” I repeated.
His dark brow went up. “She didn’t trip, Kit.” He looked to Erin’s body on the floor. “She was murdered.”
2
NIX
Kit Lancaster.
Jesus, Kit fucking Lancaster.
Here. In Cutthroat. I’d wondered where she’d gone. Not gone. Fled. She’d literally left in the middle of the night, and I had no fucking idea why. One day she was coming over for dinner, the next she’d moved to Billings. No call. No text. Not even a fucking sticky note.
We hadn’t dated, since meeting for coffee to talk about the Policemen’s Ball didn’t count. And kissing? A peck on her cheek definitely didn’t count. I’d wanted so much more. Fuck, I’d wanted everything with her. I’d hoped she’d return to town because she was the one who’d gotten away. The one I still wanted, even after a year. Hell, she was The One.
And now? The woman of my dreams, of every one of my erotic fantasies, was mixed up in murder.
This morning, seeing Erin Mills dead on her living room floor had been a stunner, but seeing Kit covered in blood… fuck, I’d aged ten years seeing her like that, thinking she’d been seriously hurt. It had covered her hands, her forearms, even her sleep clothes and down her legs. I’d wanted to grab her, hold her, take her away from the horror she’d woken up to. But that was the last thing I could have done. I was a detective, and she was… in a fuck ton of trouble.
She’d been covered in evidence. Without realizing, she’d tampered with a crime scene when she’d gone to help Erin. Her DNA was not only all over the house since she’d been staying there, but all over a dead woman who’d been brutally murdered. It was my job to find out what had happened, to bring a criminal to justice. There was protocol. Steps to follow. One of them wasn’t hugging a witness—a potential suspect—and messing with evidence.
Fuck. That had been twelve hours ago, and I was still thinking of her. My shift was over, and I was driving toward the Mills Moments’ office. I didn’t dare tell anyone my head hadn’t been focusing on the victim, but the roommate. The co-worker.
Kit had been beautiful standing just inside the great room, even with her haunted eyes, the adrenaline surge of panic making her shake. Perfect. Her dark hair had been tousled from sleep. No make-up graced her round face. She’d looked girl-next-door perfect in her little sleep outfit. It had been sexy as hell, except for the fucking blood. The dead body. That was what had kept my dick from getting hard in front of the first responders.
I pulled up to a red light, shifted in my seat.
I’d been protective of Kit before, but now? Had someone meant to actually kill Erin Mills or had the murderer been there for Kit? Had Erin gotten in the way? Why hadn’t Kit heard anything? So many questions unanswered.
“Think she’ll be there?” Donovan asked, breaking into my thoughts. I had him on speakerphone, updating my friend on the case. As prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office, it would be coming his way. Eventually. Once we had an arrest. But he wasn’t asking after Kit because of the case. It was because she was back in town. Back in the middle of a total cluster fuck. After I left the crime scene team to their job at the Mills’ house, I’d called Donovan, told him what happened. Told him that Kit was back, that she was in the middle of it. He hadn’t known she’d been back in Cutthroat because he would have told me. We’d been waiting to get in front of her again. Get a chance to tell her how we felt, to make her ours.
That’s right. Ours.
I flipped my blinker, turned down Main Street. For a Saturday night in Cutthroat, the street was busy, filled with tourists and townies enjoying the spectacular weather. There was nothing better than summer in Montana, except for winter when the black diamonds on Cutthroat Mountain had epic powder.
I thought of Donovan’s question. Would she be at the Mills Mom
ents’ office? “No way she went to her mom’s. As far as I know, Mrs. Lancaster hasn’t left her house in years.” Kit’s home life had been a fucking disaster. Her dad left when she was six, and it had done a number on her mom. Depression and anxiety turned into extreme hoarding and agoraphobia. Kit had pretty much raised herself and taken care of her mom.
“From what Kit told me last year, grocery delivery and online shopping has helped with that. Obviously, Erin’s a dead end.” I sighed, rubbed a hand over my face. “Fuck, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Donovan chuckled. “She could be at a hotel.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “I checked with the hotels. No room in her name.” That was the perk of being a detective. “The office is left.”
I flipped my visor down, the sun blinding me as it sank low in the sky.
With the town nestled between national parks and endless backcountry people came to Montana to enjoy, Cutthroat was a popular town. Innocently named for the local trout in the river that flowed along the east side of town, it might have been small, but it had crime. What town didn’t? There was enough to keep me on the payroll. And busy. The last murder was back in 1984 when a woman killed her husband with a chainsaw after discovering he’d cheated on her with a nun from the convent on the way to Missoula. This case though, was different.
I’d put a request in for Erin’s financials, phone records, the usual data. I discovered the Mills Moments’ office was on the second floor of one of the historic buildings on the east end of town. Loaded with ritzy shops and outfitter stores aimed at the rich outdoorsmen, that address meant her event planning business was doing well. Well enough to need a partner in Kit.
After the paramedics took Kit to the hospital—to ensure she wasn’t hurt and to catalog her clothes and collect DNA samples—I’d waited for the crime scene investigators and coroner. It had taken hours to photograph the body, process everything, type up the reports, deal with my boss, the newspaper. News of a murder spread quickly, especially when it was Erin Mills.
The autopsy would take place tomorrow, and the evidence was being processed. There was nothing else to do tonight. Except find Kit.
“All I know is that they cut her loose from the hospital after a few hours,” I added.
“An officer took her to her car.”
“She was living with Erin, and she can’t stay there since it’s a crime scene. And with a murderer on the loose, it could be dangerous.”
“I have a deputy at Erin’s house keeping an eye on things.”
“You mean keeping an eye out for the Mills family going in and tossing Kit’s stuff to the curb for the trash pick-up.”
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “That, too,” I practically growled.
The Mills family was one of the richest in town with a house that looked like a Swiss ski lodge that could house thirty. It was nestled on a bluff with only the best view their money could buy. The Mills were founding members of the town back in the silver rush. Besides the McMansion, they owned a huge ranch outside of town, plus a few buildings on Main Street… including the one where Erin’s office was located. A Mills had been mayor back in the eighties. Hell, the family had even donated money for the cancer wing at the hospital.
I went to school with Erin’s older brother, Lucas, so I knew both of them had trust funds from their grandparents. Knowing Lucas, no one would think he had money, but Erin? Her fancy house was something I’d never be able to afford on a detective’s salary, even if I won the lottery. Not that I aspired to something so… big or blatant.
Giving Mr. and Mrs. Mills the news their daughter had been murdered—her skull bashed in by a glass Volunteer of the Year award… fuck, it had been bad. Not only were they distraught, but they were pissed. Out for blood. I had no doubt they’d rounded up their lawyers and began an investigation of their own because they doubted my abilities. I was born on the same side of the tracks as Kit. It didn’t matter I had a degree in criminology or years of experience.
I also had no doubt if they found the killer before the police did, they wouldn’t let the courts decide the case. They’d dish up some vigilante justice. This was Montana, after all.
Keith and Ellen Mills’ comments today when I’d told them the news only confirmed what I’d already known. They didn’t like Kit Lancaster. Never had. They believed she wasn’t good enough for their daughter, a “bad influence” because of her crazy mother. I didn’t doubt they’d railroad her for the crime.
Donovan had known Kit as long as I had. Middle school. Had wanted her just as long, too. Yeah, two twelve-year-olds eyeing the cute girl in braces. Total puppy love. We hadn’t done anything with her in high school though, not when our hormones were running wild and we got hard-ons just seeing her smile. She hadn’t given us the time of day. Not that she’d had any time. She’d gone to class and worked as a waitress at the local diner to make ends meet while dealing with her mom’s mental illness. After, she’d gone to the local community college, but both Donovan and I had left Cutthroat for the state school in Missoula. I’d heard she’d been dating Erin’s brother, Lucas.
Unlike his parents, he was a decent guy. Didn’t give a shit about being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I hadn’t worried about him not being good to Kit, but I’d wished it had been me instead. I’d been away at college and couldn’t blame either one of them.
But they’d broken up when he’d gone into the National Guard. Been deployed. When he finally returned, he hadn’t joined the family’s real estate empire like his father wanted. He’d done his own thing and returned to Cutthroat to run a non-profit, using his money to help others, but he and Kit hadn’t gotten back together.
I’d returned after graduation, got a job as a cop, but Donovan had stayed for law school. Only after he passed the bar did he return. Then, we started stopping into the diner to see her. We’d go together and on our own, sit in her section, talk her up.
We’d finally connected working together on the planning committee for the Policemen’s Ball. I hadn’t been thrilled with the task since a dance of any kind wasn’t my thing, but it had been a fundraiser, the event supporting families of officers who had died or been injured in the line of duty. We’d gotten to know Kit, hoping she’d warm up to the idea of two men wanting her. Until she’d fled town without any notice.
Maybe we shouldn’t have been so subtle. Or so slow.
Now she was back, and I wasn’t losing the opportunity again, even with a fucking murder investigation in the middle of it all. Her mother was no support at all. The one friend we knew she had in town was dead. For someone so fucking sweet, she had enemies in the Mills, and that meant people all over town would hate her. Kit needed both of us now. And we weren’t taking it slow any longer. We were letting her know how we felt. Tonight. Right fucking now.
I pulled into a parking spot, cut the engine of my police SUV, rubbed my eyes. “So far, she’s the prime suspect.”
“If it’s not a crime of passion, next up on the list of usual suspects is family.”
“I’m not telling Keith or Ellen Mills they’re prime suspects,” I told him, practically shuddering at the thought. “I’d be fired by morning. We’ll investigate them, but I’ll let Miranski deal with them as much as possible.” The other detective on the force hadn’t grown up in Cutthroat and didn’t know the players like I did. She could deal.
“Smart. You don’t fucking think Kit did it, do you?”
I was insulted he even asked.
“Fuck, no. I doubt she had the strength to dent a skull like that.”
The memory of Erin’s skull bashed in would stick with me forever.
“Erin was almost a foot taller than Kit. Unless Erin was sitting on the floor or Kit stood on the coffee table to hit her, the angle is all wrong.”
I’d been on murder scenes before, but it was hard to handle it objectively when it was someone I’d known most of my life. I hadn’t been friends wi
th her, but being Lucas’s sister, we’d all pretty much grown up together. Cutthroat was small enough.
“It’s your job to find someone else.”
I sighed because he was stating the obvious. It was my job to find and collect evidence, discover motive and means, then find a fucking killer. It was his job to see they were found guilty and spent the rest of their life behind bars. The case was in my hands now, but would—hopefully—be in his soon. He was the one with the pressure of having the mayor for a father. I was content for my dad to be a plumber.
Climbing from the vehicle, I took the phone off speaker. “Getting there. First, I’ve got to get our girl, keep her safe. I’m out front of her office now.” I looked up at the second-floor windows. “Light’s on.”
“I’ll meet you there in a few minutes,” he said.
“I want to put a ring on Kit’s finger and get her in my bed. Get her between us. The way it’s looking”—I ran my free hand over the back of my neck—“I might have to put cuffs on her and stick her in a jail cell.”
“As you said, fuck no. She’s got us now. I want to put the cuffs on her and secure her to my bed.”
Abso-fucking-lutely.
3
KIT
Everyone in Cutthroat had heard about Erin. With twenty thousand people, it was big enough that I didn’t know everybody, but everybody knew Erin Mills, or at least the Mills family. Word traveled like a wildfire in a summer drought. Everyone was trying to get the inside scoop, the gossip. From me. They didn’t care that it was gruesome, that Erin was my friend, that she’d had her head bashed in.
After I’d been cleared from the hospital and taken to my car—with the stern instructions not to leave town until the detective was able to take my official statement—I’d gone to the office.
I had nowhere else to go. Living with Erin had been temporary. I’d wanted to save up a little money, since almost every penny I had would go to a deposit and first month’s rent. I didn’t have much stuff; my mother’s hoarding nature had taught me to be the opposite, keeping only what was vital. I had a TV and couch, even a bed, but they were in a storage unit until I found my own place. That wasn’t going to happen now, at least not anything halfway decent or safe.
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