by Marci Bolden
Copyright © 2019 by Marci Bolden
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Okay Creations
ebook layout by Lori Colbeck
mobi ISBN-13: 978-1-950348-24-4
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Continue the Women of HEARTS with Burning Hearts
Chapter 1
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Also by Marci Bolden
About the Author
Prologue
Julia Fredrickson pushed her cart toward the exit of the local food mart. As the tinted glass doors parted, they admitted a burst of summer sunlight and the sounds of cars navigating the parking lot. A siren wailing in the distance.
Leaving the grocery store shouldn’t be a fear-inducing event, but a jolt of terror rolled through her like an electric shock. She felt her throat tighten as she forced herself to swallow. Breathing became a chore almost too hard to manage.
Now that the tall glass door had opened, she felt exposed. She was standing in the lobby of her neighborhood grocery store, but she might as well have been standing on a stage in full view of the world. As it had so many times over the last few weeks, the hair on her nape stood and her nerves came alive. Though she couldn’t see any danger, she felt peril down to her bones.
Someone was watching her.
Someone was waiting for her.
This wasn’t the first time Julia had suspected she was being followed. Actually, this sensation was becoming much too familiar. She couldn’t explain the feeling or pinpoint exactly why she felt so vulnerable. But she knew it. Someone was watching her.
She wanted to turn around. Go back inside the security of the store where the staff knew her by name. Maybe she would have if she hadn’t spent so much time sorting through the pile of organic tomatoes that the manager had come to see if she needed assistance. She had smiled and selected two bright red Romas that were not on her list. Her husband didn’t eat tomatoes. She would likely throw them away before Eric could ask why she’d wasted money on them.
She didn’t tell the manager that picking the produce had been an excuse to linger in the store. Being surrounded by shoppers and staff was better than being alone. No. Not alone. She was never alone anymore.
Eric said she was becoming paranoid and suggested she go to the doctor. He said maybe her hormones were out of balance. Ever since she’d had a bout of baby blues after their second child was born, he attributed everything to her hormones. Never mind that was over twenty-five years ago. Other than that one brief postpartum spell, she had never been prone to anxiety or blowing things out of proportion. She’d been a stay-at-home mom and hoarder of bandages for scraped knees and bike accidents. But she’d never been paranoid.
Julia faced her parking spot—eight spots down the far-left row. She’d made it inside the store in less than a minute. But that was before she had a cart of groceries. She counted the reusable bags she’d filled. Six. She could carry six bags.
She again scanned what she could see of the parking lot from where she stood inside the store. After finding no immediate danger, she hefted the bags onto her forearms and then forced herself into the sunlight.
Damn it.
She’d been so preoccupied with checking her surroundings, she hadn’t dug her sunglasses out of her purse. The midday sun was blinding as it filled the sky and reflected off windshields. She also realized she hadn’t pulled her keys from the outside pocket of her purse. They were within easy reach there, but the handles of the overfilled market bags pressed hard into her forearms, limiting her movements. She would have to put them down to free her hand enough to secure her keys.
Quickening her steps, Julia rushed toward her car. The bumper sticker boasting that she was a proud volunteer at the local dog shelter was like a beacon. She was almost there. Almost safe. The soft soles of her tennis shoes didn’t make a sound as she rushed, but she was certain anyone close enough would hear her labored breathing. Sweat broke on her brow as she stopped at her trunk. Dropping the bags from her left arm without a care for the contents inside, Julia dug in her purse pocket and snagged the loop of her keyring with a finger. The relief she felt at having the keys in her hand was immeasurable. And ridiculous. She was a grown woman terrified of being alone in a parking lot. In broad daylight.
Maybe Eric was right. Maybe she was becoming paranoid.
Using the button on the fob, she released her trunk and then set her groceries inside. Taking a moment to exhale a long breath, Julia made the decision to call her doctor. Something was off with her. Having this kind of fear every day without reason was not normal.
Julia rested her fingertips on the trunk lid hovering above her head. Before she could pull it down, the lid slammed, startling her. Jumping back, she held her breath. A tall man stood between her and the sun. With his face silhouetted by the light, she needed a moment to recognize him.
She smiled when she did. She really was being paranoid.
1
Holly Austin paced in front of the room-length whiteboard. She ignored the photos of cheating spouses and suspected scammers and skimmed over her barely legible notes. Once again, she wished she had better handwriting. Squinting to make out a word as she walked, she cursed when she accidentally kicked a chair. Shoving the obstacle under the table, she continued her pass along the board.
The HEARTS Investigative Services conference room looked like a war zone. Colorful sticky notes, uncapped highlighters, and unstapled pages from police reports covered the table where the team staged cases. While some of her co-workers kept their notes in neat piles and color-coded notebooks, Holly worked best in chaos.
She turned her focus to one of the photos on the wall. The picture captured the woman’s blue eyes and bright smile at the moment a breeze blew her long golden hair off her shoulders. Julia Fredrickson clung to her husband’s arm. The sunlight sparkled off a large diamond on her left ring finger, as if to tell the universe these two people belonged together.
Julia and Eric looked so happy. In the photo, dark glasses hid his light eyes, but Holly easily recalled the pain that had filled his entire face as he’d begged her to help him.
Two days after this picture was taken, Julia vanished. She’d been missing over a month. The more time that passed, the less likely it was that she would be found. Eric knew that too. That was why he’d come to HEARTS when the police continued to imply that Julia had probably needed time away and would be in touch with him soon.
Over the last week, Holly had dug through the Fredricksons’ personal lives, bank accounts, and social media pages. Seven days of asking friends intimate questions, watching Eric Fredrickson just in case he wasn’t being completely honest, and trying to discover if Julia had a lover who might have whisked her awa
y to start a new life.
Well over fifty hours spent hitting the same dead ends the police had run into. That wasn’t sitting well with Holly. Every minute she spent looking for Julia added to the weight of dread in her stomach. She knew better than most how quickly the world and the people in it could change. She’d learned very young how unfair life could be. Though Julia’s children were adults, Holly didn’t think they had learned that lesson until their mother’s disappearance. They had the kind of naiveté that came with being raised in a stable home, sheltered from the ugliness of the real world. That reality had been thrust upon them without warning.
Holly rubbed her thumb over the simple silver heart charm she wore around her neck. She needed to start over. Go back to square one. Start again.
Closing her eyes, she visualized the security-camera footage the store manager had copied for her. A man approached Julia as she put her groceries in her trunk. They spoke for just a few moments. And then she followed him to somewhere out of range of the only working camera in the grocery-store parking lot.
What had he said? Why would Julia go with him?
What the hell am I missing?
Someone gripped Holly’s shoulder without warning, startling her. She grabbed the wrist attached to the offending hand, elbowed the solar plexus, and had the owner of all of the above face down on the floor with her knee in his back in seconds. The dark-haired man pinned beneath her grunted.
Samantha, the newest member of her team, laughed. Sam usually sat around munching on breath mints and sharing celebrity gossip no one cared to hear. She was brilliant at searching the Internet and finding people’s darkest digital secrets. Holly didn’t even want to know all the private databases the little sneak could access. Too bad Sam also had a warped sense of humor. The grin on her thin face made her appear far too pleased with the situation.
Leaning against the conference room doorjamb, she smirked at the scene before her. “I told him not to touch you while you were deep in thought. He didn’t listen. Did you, Detective?”
Holly looked at the man she still had immobilized against the charcoal-gray commercial-grade carpet. The set of his jaw and deep lines around his eyes as he winced indicated he was in pain, but she was more focused on what Sam had called him. Detective?
He wheezed before saying, “I have some questions about Julia Fredrickson.”
Sam chuckled as the man struggled against Holly’s hold on his wrist and the steady pressure she kept on his back with her knee.
“This isn’t funny, Sam,” Holly chastised. “I could have hurt him.”
“Uh, Ms. Austin,” he said, “you are hurting me.”
“Shit. Sorry.” Holly pulled him with her as she stood. After years in active-duty service, her kneejerk reactions still got the better of her at times. Being both a woman and a soldier required finely tuned self-preservation skills. Even now as a civilian, she didn’t always take time to measure her response when she was startled. Life-saving habits died hard.
An awkward-sounding laugh—the kind suspects used when trying to act casual—left him as he looked at her with wide, almost-black eyes. He quickly looked away and focused on stretching his shoulder. His moves didn’t seem sincere. He seemed nervous. His hands trembled as he brushed his suit.
She tried to read between the lines of his behavior and suspected he was there to tell her to back off the Julia Fredrickson case. Though Holly did her best to stay on the good side of the police department, this wouldn’t be the first time an officer had stopped by to warn her that she was treading on his turf. She hadn’t backed off once, and she didn’t intend to now. If that was his purpose in showing up at her office, he was wasting his time.
As she scrutinized him, the detective’s dark skin changed from ashen to an interesting shade of maroon. She didn’t see many men in the heart of the Midwest who had the sepia skin tones she’d seen so often in the Middle East. Though his nose was a bit long for his thin face, she thought he was handsome. She didn’t usually notice those things, but she supposed her adrenaline was rushing as much as his, clouding her mind.
Turning her attention to Sam, Holly fought the urge to body slam her receptionist to wipe the grin off her face. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Sam’s pink-tinted lips twisted into a deep frown. “Sure.” She turned on her too-high-to-be-practical heels and left them alone.
The detective swiped at his cheek, but a few bits of gray carpet lint and a tiny scrap of neon-orange paper stuck to the black hairs of his short-trimmed beard.
Holly pressed her teeth together but couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “There’s still a little… Right there.” She pointed and then watched the debris fall away as he moved his hand over his chin. “Got it.”
The detective shrugged and pulled at his black jacket as if to shift the material back into place and then straightened his tie. Finally, with a huff, he met Holly’s gaze again. This time, though, he didn’t look so shaken. She actually thought he looked amused.
“So. Next time I should wear a cowbell?” He grinned, showing off a dimple in his cheek that inexplicably drew her attention. She stared until he cleared his throat.
Holly didn’t embarrass easily, but a sense of mortification built in her chest as heat spread throughout her body, settling in her cheeks. Another sensation she wasn’t used to. Not that her assault on him was unwarranted. What kind of cop surprised people? He certainly would have been trained better than that.
She planted her hands on her hips, attempting to push her unexpected discomfiture down and regain control of her emotions. “Don’t ever grab me without warning, Detective. Unless you enjoyed that.” Her breath caught as soon as the words left her, and his eyes darted to hers.
That sounded wrong. Very wrong. She wanted to look away, but she wasn’t about to let this situation get the better of her. His smirk twitched and drew her attention to his lips. Seeing another shred of paper trapped in the whiskers on his chin, she ran her finger under his full bottom lip to knock it away. She jerked her hand back when she realized what she’d done. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” The words rushed out, blending together in a barely intelligible strand.
Damn it. She was acting like a fool, coming across just as he probably expected a female private investigator to. A silly, stumbling girl dressed up to play private eye.
He made a show of flexing the arm she’d twisted. “I’m good. My pride is beat to shit, though.”
“Don’t take it to heart,” she said. “I’ve practiced martial arts since I was a kid. My father wanted to make sure I could take care of myself.”
“Well, you can.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a black wallet and then flashed his credentials. “Detective Jack Tarek.”
Though he lowered the badge quickly, she grabbed his wrist—without the intent of overpowering him this time—and lifted his identification for closer inspection. “Jakeem Tarek.”
He shrugged. “Jack makes me stand out a little less. You know, besides all this.” He waved his hand in front of his face. She suspected he meant the distinct combination of features and skin tone that implied his ethnicity rather than the fact that he was handsome enough to make her want to bat her eyes and giggle.
The word swoon came to mind, and Holly very nearly acted on it for the first time in her life. Instead, she released his wrist and held her hand out to him. “Holly Austin.”
“Yes, I know.”
He accepted her offer with a firm grip. Men who gingerly clasped her hand as if they could break her tended to see her as female first and as investigator a distant second. Tarek’s greeting let her know he saw her the other way—an investigator who happened to be female. Of course, having just pinned him to the ground likely gave him an idea that she preferred men not handle her with kid gloves, despite her current state of rambling and apparent blushing.
He did, however, hold her hand longer than necessary for the customary greeting.
She begrudgingly slipped her palm from his and balled her fingers, a futile attempt to stop the feel of him from escaping her skin. Yet another response she didn’t fully understand but couldn’t control. “Sam said you’re here to pick my brain?”
“I was hoping to cross-reference my case with yours. Have you found anything new on Julia Fredrickson’s disappearance?”
She stared at him, careful to keep her face neutral. And not only because she was hyperaware of the man before her. Police seldom wanted the help of PIs working a case when there were still fresh leads to be investigated. Julia Fredrickson hadn’t been missing long enough for the police to consider her case cold. His request surprised her. Holly didn’t like surprises. Nor did she trust them. Surprises rarely ended well.
“I’m not here as a cop.” He lifted his hands as if to show her he was innocent of any wrongdoing. “Not officially, anyway. My mother’s neighbor has gone missing. Have you seen the news reports on Penelope Nelson?”
Holly nodded. There were similarities that had piqued her curiosity. She was keeping a close eye on the news, hoping to catch updates that might connect the latest missing woman to Julia.
“She’s a sweet lady who sure as hell wouldn’t just walk out on her life,” Tarek said. “Something has happened to her, and I promised my mom I’d look into it.”
“I get that.” Holly wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t help feeling he was baiting her. The police department had shut her out cold. They wouldn’t give her the tiniest morsel of information on Julia’s case. Eric Fredrickson had been giving her as much information as he could on the investigation. “What I don’t get,” she continued, “is what you need from me.”
