Read the book: «Countdown to Danger: Alive After New Year / New Year's Target»

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

—Philippians 4:8

ONE

Too stunned to move, Lynley Marshall pressed numb fingers against the sliding glass door that led out onto the lower deck of her mom’s house. A lurid red note pasted eye level outside on the glass glared at her with a green, jagged font and accusing words. The Christmas colors had drawn her to the note initially. Now its writer had ruined Christmas for her forever. She didn’t dare open the door to retrieve it until she knew whether or not someone might be out there waiting.

KM: Your precious daughter is a killer and deserves to die. Wire me four million dollars before December 31 or she won’t live to see New Year’s Day. You gave birth to her, you will pay. Be alone and ready for my instructions in six days. Don’t contact authorities unless you wish to lose her sooner.

Lynley sucked in a hard breath. KM? That meant Kirstie Marshall. Mom. This note was to Mom? Rereading the note, she felt the numbness in her fingers spread up her hands. She backed away from the door and into the shadows, where the few patches of morning sun that reached the lower deck couldn’t reveal her to whoever might be watching. Someone wanted to kidnap her?

Nothing moved out in the gray and cedar-green forest past the deck railing that overlooked the secluded village of Jolly Mill. Even the tiniest of tree branches seemed frozen in clear amber. The only movement she sensed was the skin on her arms as it tightened into gooseflesh. She could see no footprints on the decking to suggest that someone had recently been here, but that meant nothing since she’d swept snow from the deck yesterday.

Someone must want retribution. Lynley could guess why. But to get it from Mom?

She paced from the kitchen to the living room, shaking with fear and fury.

Lynley had known from the first notice of the malpractice suit three years ago that the family of a patient who died under her nursing care was after money. It didn’t matter to them that no one could have saved their drugged daughter, or that her overdose was her choice, not Lynley’s, even though she’d been the nurse in charge of triage the night the patient came in. There was no way of knowing that this had been the one time Wendy Freeson had gone too far.

Hospitals had deep pockets, so the family had attempted to squeeze money from her employer through the court system. Since the court had ruled against the plaintiff, could the plaintiff be looking for another way to get to her?

It infuriated Lynley that someone was vindictive and greedy enough to threaten her—and her mother! Via television, radio and the printed word, news had spread throughout the region about her uncle Lawson’s death and Mom’s inheritance.

Lynley’s respiratory rate, along with her heart rate, increased. Her insides trembled. Someone had gone to the trouble to find out where Mom lived—to discover, even, where Mom typically preferred to sit and greet the dawn with a cup of espresso. Today, however, she’d had no time because of an early meeting.

Oh, yes, someone knew about those millions, but they obviously didn’t know enough. So who erroneously believed Mom was now wealthy? Not a Jolly Mill citizen. They all knew better.

The smell of Lynley’s coffee lingered in the kitchen, but it mingled with anxiety to make her stomach queasy. Mom would have gone straight to the garage this morning, and she’d missed this tasteless piece of paper, but what about next time? She had to be warned.

Lynley closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, fighting back a bitter terror. The note writer could be on the upper deck this very minute. The house had double decks leading from the kitchen and dining room, as well as the upper guest room. Both had sliding glass doors and upper windows that allowed anyone a good view into the house from the right angle, though no one could see into the house from the front. She’d always appreciated that openness to the morning light. Until now.

From inside, she could see the bottom of the upper deck. She glanced up between the slats of the wooden floor that had tripped her so many times when she was a child. She could see no movement, only those evenly spaced rows of light, enriched by the morning sun that cast shadows of crisscrossed lines on the lower deck.

She was reaching to unlock the door to slide it open and grab the note when the doorbell rang. She jerked around and stared at the solid oak door thirty feet away. Who could that be? Mom wouldn’t ring the doorbell.

Something brushed against her leg. Lynley shrieked and looked down to find Data, one of Mom’s cats, on his usual affectionate marking journey through the house.

She heard rushing footsteps alongside the house and up the short stairway that led to the bottom deck. She searched the kitchen cabinet for a weapon...any weapon.

The edge of a shadow reflected against the glass door and she scrambled aside, screaming again as she drew a handle haphazardly from the wooden knife block. She turned, holding it in front of her. It was a butcher knife, sharp and heavy. She could have been holding a toothpick and she’d have felt as safe.

But then Police Chief John Russell stepped into view, weapon drawn, face grim. She released a breath and slumped with relief against the counter. He froze when he saw the knife, and then his gaze went to her face, which must have certainly shown her fear.

Without intending to, she glanced once more at the object of that fear, and John followed the line of her sight. He looked to the note, which was taped on the outside of the door. He reached for it, of course unable to read it from his vantage point.

“No. John, oh, no!” She lunged forward, still holding the knife. What if someone was watching? What if the person knew he was the policeman in this town?

He stopped midreach and stared at her through the glass, lowering his hand. “Lynley?” The thick double pane muted his voice. “What’s wrong? I was just bringing some of your favorite blueberry muffins and I heard you cry out. Is someone in there? Are you in trouble?” Once again he reached for the red square of paper, weapon still drawn.

“Don’t touch the note!” She set her knife on the kitchen counter and flipped open the lock on the door.

He rolled the heavy glass backward and stepped inside. “Lynley? What’s wrong?” He peered around the living area and kitchen, as if seeking an intruder.

“I...I’m just a little, uh, creeped out.” She couldn’t keep her gaze from skimming the note again, like a rabbit staring at a rattler. How could she distract John from it?

Of course, that was when he decided to turn and look at it. “What on earth is going on?” He paused, and she could feel his body stiffen.

“John, please. Someone could be watching, and they warned—”

He holstered his weapon. “KM? This is to your mother?” He reached back out the door and lifted the note from the glass. “What kind of sick joke—”

“It doesn’t look like a joke to me.”

“Yeah, but someone’s asking for millions of—”

“Mom’s uncle Lawson had money. He died of cancer before you came to town, and Mom and her brother were the only heirs. All the wild speculations died down before you arrived and the rumor mill moved on to other things.”

“You never told me this.”

“Nothing to tell. Mom’s portion of the inheritance went to help support the homeless rehab center at her request.”

He held the note up. “We’re looking at attempted extortion here.”

Lynley picked up the butcher knife and slid it back into its slot in the block. She turned and studied the forest outside, searching for movement. “The media made a huge deal about my mom’s inheritance near the beginning of the malpractice trial.”

“Then this note is meant to sound as if it’s written by the plaintiff.”

Lynley turned back to him. “What do you mean ‘meant to’?”

“Money makes people crazy, especially when it runs into the millions of dollars. Leave it to the media to blast that kind of half-baked information to the public for anyone to know.”

The media had also basically used a manure spreader to broadcast all the tidbits they could dig up about her father. She’d never told John about him, either. It wasn’t something a woman was quick to tell a man on a first date...or a second or third, so it had become too easy to avoid the subject. Why share the humiliation of being the child of a sociopath?

“It’s nice to know you didn’t go digging into my past online to find out what you could about me,” she murmured.

He gave her a brief, warm smile before returning his attention to the note. “Why spoil the fun of making friends the old-fashioned way?”

Friends. Yes. They were buddies who had made it clear without really saying so that a nice, solid friendship was exactly what they wanted. Right now, however, she could use the comfort of a strong shoulder to support her. She looked up into John’s gentle gaze and felt herself leaning forward. He reached for her almost hesitantly, and she closed her eyes and stepped forward, allowing her forehead to press against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.

This didn’t happen often. She seldom admitted to weakness, seldom allowed herself to get this close to John, even after five months of friendship and trips to the lake, the movies, town activities.

There was something about a man who didn’t push himself on her. John had his own walls, and that was just fine with her. Still, his arms felt good, and he was a much-needed port in this new, frightening storm.

* * *

John studied the interior of the house as he held Lynley’s trembling body in his arms. Something about her vulnerability brought out a double dose of his protective instincts.

He glanced back outside, and realized this wasn’t a wise position to be in. He stiffened and drew her into the shadows of the house, then gave her a tight hug before stepping away from her. He couldn’t be distracted by a very attractive woman in need of comfort when he should keep his mind on possible dangers nearby.

“Is the house locked?” he asked, fingering the .40 mm Glock in his holster.

“Mom keeps most doors and windows double-locked, especially after our recent rash of scares.”

“Good. We need to figure out who left this note and why, obviously,” he said.

“You don’t think it’s from someone in Wendy Freeson’s family out for revenge, because the court decision didn’t go their way?”

“The trial isn’t directly mentioned at all.”

“Of course not. It isn’t as if they’d paint a target for you to find.”

“We’ll check out the plaintiffs, of course, but since the trial is now a matter of public record, anyone could find this and decide to hold it over your head—if they believe there’s money to be extorted, thanks to the great work of the mighty media.” He was acquainted with a few photojournalists who managed to maintain their integrity and their jobs, but very few.

Lynley closed her eyes. He’d never seen her so terrified. In the months he’d known her, he’d seldom seen this side of her. He felt a surge of tenderness. It was an emotion he’d battled more and more the longer he knew her.

“What monster would do this to Mom? And to me?” She rubbed her forehead, as if an answer might come out if she pressed hard enough. “Too much has happened in Jolly Mill. It’s like someone, some...thing...has us in its sights and plans to destroy us one way or—”

“Lynley, it’s going to be okay.” Perhaps this powerful urge he felt to grab her and never let her go came from a need to comfort himself, as well. Lynley was in someone’s crosshairs, and he had to stop it. “You know, don’t you, that any crank with half a brain will warn his victim not to contact the police? Besides, this note is to your mother, not you, so if you look at it that way, the rules don’t apply. She didn’t show the note to anyone. I found it.”

She scowled at the note. “I don’t think this person’s playing by any list of rules.” With a shake of her head, she paced away from him, into the darkness of the unlit living room and as far as possible from the deck. “Maybe I’ll have a chance to show them my own set of rules. Don’t mess with the Marshalls.”

He grinned at the fierceness she showed despite her fear. He’d married the last woman he’d known with that much courage. But what had Sandra’s courage earned her? A long, hard-fought battle against cancer that ravaged her body and finally won.

“Few people have the ability to follow through on their threats,” he assured Lynley. “In the first place, they seldom have a way to even know you’ve called anyone, much less the police. I guess we can be glad Jolly Mill couldn’t afford to buy a car for their only police officer, if someone really is watching the house somehow.” He held his arms out to display a long-sleeve dark gray flannel shirt that went with his regular jeans. “No one can tell I’m driving a police car and I’m not wearing a uniform. No one knows I’m a cop unless they know me, even if they’re looking at us from the forest right now.”

“You don’t think the note’s from someone in the Freeson family, then?” Her voice suddenly sounded so tired, so vulnerable.

John wanted to pull her close again and tell her everything would be okay. But he knew too much about the world. “I only got in on the end of the trial since moving here. I don’t think the Freeson relatives ever shared an authentic tear over Wendy’s death. From all accounts I found, they didn’t know her. But any family member can bring a lawsuit for a wrongful death, no matter how ridiculous.”

“That I believe,” she said. “I wasn’t surprised to learn they’d had to hunt down an attorney all the way down in Florida—some guy with a license to practice in Missouri—because they couldn’t find anyone nearby to take their case.”

“The guys in the precinct back in Sikeston used to joke that half of the attorneys in practice graduated in the lower fifty percent of their classes.”

Finally, she gave a grim smile. “The attorney who took the Freeson case must have had a particularly low graduating score.”

He nodded, glad to hear another surge of fight in her voice.

“Wendy’s medical record showed she was what the emergency department personnel called a frequent flier,” she said. “She cried wolf too often. How could I have known that one time, out of the dozens of times she showed up demanding narcotics for make-believe pain, that she’d overdose?”

John heard the grim tone of Lynley’s compassion, despite the fact that Wendy had caused her own death by the illegal use of someone else’s buffet of prescription medications.

The only person he’d known to shed a tear about Wendy’s death was Lynley Marshall, the triage nurse who’d been unfairly blamed for it.

Lynley walked into the kitchen for a drink of water, glancing with obvious trepidation toward the woods past the deck.

Now was not the time, of course, but John couldn’t keep from admiring the grace of her movements, the beauty of her slender, athletic form. Her lush, thick, dark brown hair fell across her face as she leaned forward, covering the firm chin and graceful lines of her face.

She walked back into the shadows of the living room, shoulders hunched, looking miserable. She was obviously held in the grip of a shock so profound that she looked to him for direction. This was not like her at all.

Time to start the investigation process. He walked past her and touched her shoulder, squeezed it. For a moment she appeared to be leaning toward him.

“That lawsuit’s been a nightmare from beginning to end,” she whispered. “Now it seems there’s actually not going to be an end.”

“I did some background checking on the Freesons after I got here.”

She blinked up at him. “You never told me that.”

“I didn’t want to distract you.”

“What did you find out?”

“None of the family members had a history of violence, no prison records, nothing. I wouldn’t expect any of them to be rocket scientists, but Wendy was the only problem family member. As you already know, they were distant cousins.”

“If only I’d paid closer attention to her when I did triage that night, but her vitals were stable, and she looked the same way she’d looked the three times I’d seen her before during that same week. How could I have known she was in trouble on that particular night? She’d refused the CT scan and left against medical advice.”

“Which cleared you.” He waited until she looked up and met his gaze. “You’re second-guessing yourself again. You did everything right, and the court decision bore that out.”

She closed her eyes. “I know.” She looked back up at him. “But what you’re saying is that anyone could be behind this...this perverse joke.” She jabbed her fingers at the Christmas-colored note. “Everyone in the 417 area code knew about Lawson’s death and the inheritance.”

“Everyone but me, apparently. It’s almost as if this little macabre greeting card came from someone using public records as a fulcrum. The demand is for money, not revenge.”

“But so was the lawsuit.” Lynley caught her breath. “Mom. She could be in danger.” She rushed back to the phone beside the sofa. “I need to get her back here.”

John pulled out his cell and spoke Gerard Vance’s name. In seconds he was talking to the only other man in Jolly Mill with good police experience—Vance was a former cop from Corpus Christi, Texas, who’d given up his career to use family money and help the homeless. Another set of eyes on this situation would be helpful right now, and Kirstie was at the rehab center today.

The former cop’s deep voice greeted him in the middle of the first ring. “Hey, Chief. You change your mind about helping in the kitchen today?”

“Sorry. As a matter of fact, I need to see you. Now, please. I’m at Kirstie’s with Lynley. Could you bring her down with you?”

“Hey, this sounds serious. What’s up?”

“Her daughter’s life has just been threatened.”

“Lynley!”

“Bring protection.”

“Let me hunt down Kirstie and I’ll get her there.”

John disconnected and nodded to Lynley. “I’m here, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”