happy as a child unless there was dirt under her nails from helping her mother plant rows and rows of bulbs, seeds and rose bushes.
Her parents had indulged her when she proclaimed she was going to be a florist and own her own shop. They’d breathed an audible sigh of relief when she’d been accepted to Penn State and majored in horticulture. They assumed she’d end up in research.
Instead her passion for dirt and flowers grew. But rather than being streamlined like a standard Dutch tulip, she’d behaved like the sprawling parrot tulip with its petals falling haphazardly, spreading her interests into the cultivation of hybrids while running her own florist shop and design studio.
As she killed the engine, she thought she heard something high-pitched above the regular shutting-down noises. She paused. The van was only eighteen months old and she was so not in the mood for it to be in need of repair. She prayed the rut hadn’t ruined her front-end alignment or jiggled anything else loose.
Forcing away the annoying thoughts, she got out and her feet immediately sank into the squishy mud. Her bright fuchsia rain boots kept her feet warm and dry.
She clomped through the mud, selecting the key to the barn by feel from her key ring. It had a large soft cushiony frame around the top. She walked past a sedan and wondered if someone else was here.
“No! You can’t do this—” A woman’s voice, loud and strident.
A gunshot, punctuated by a woman’s scream, sounded in the still night, rooting Kayla to the spot.
She had heard something high-pitched a few moments ago. Screaming.
The sound of items crashing inside the barn unfroze her feet and her mind with them. The van was too far away for her to make it there, start the engine and drive off before whoever had fired the gun would know she was there.
Call the police.
She ran to the side of the barn, ducking low from the view of the side door. The door’s window glowed with the kitchen’s bright fluorescent lights. She made out the bulky figure of a man through the slatted blinds but couldn’t risk taking a closer look. Not if she was going to be of any help to the woman whose screaming she’d heard.
That gunshot and scream hadn’t been like in the movies. It was real, scary as hell, and she knew she could be on the receiving end of a bullet if she didn’t play this right.
Crawling on her knees to avoid detection, she squeezed between a tractor pull and a pile of hay bales. She worried that her van was too far down the drive and too much in plain view of anyone who left via the driveway. Did the shooter own the car she’d walked by?
She wanted to run for it and drive away but she couldn’t risk the noise of her engine starting. Her logo was emblazoned on the van, making an anonymous getaway impossible. It would be a siren call to whoever had fired that shot to come after her, too.
Shivers wracked her. From shock or an adrenaline rush, she had no idea as she hunkered down and willed herself to be one with the damp squishy ground and prickly hay bales. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed 911.
Detective Riordan Ortega pressed the gas pedal to the floor as he sped along the farm road that led to the Weddings and More Barn. Rio wanted to get to the call before the other SVPD units made it.
He liked to be the first on the scene to any major crime in town. It had nothing to do with who’d called in the gunshot, and everything to do with his instinctual sense of the ticking clock when it came to crime. The sooner he got the investigation under way, the better chance of catching the culprit.
Silver Valley had always had its share of crime but lately things had been different—busier than he’d ever experienced since joining SVPD a decade ago. They’d just wrapped up the “Female Preacher Killer” case last December, only to be involved full-time in the embezzlement case against the former mayor. Tying up the loose ends on three murders by the serial killer had occupied all his time, and he’d been grateful that the Treasury Department had come into play for the mayor’s case. Because of the embezzlement charges and large amounts of money at stake, the Secret Service had been alerted and then pulled in their former boss, the US Department of Treasury. Secret Service was under Homeland Security these days but Rio still worked with many of the agents he’d met when he’d started on SVPD. Rio loved his job and knew he was good at it, but making sense out of columns of numbers wasn’t something that turned him on.
Unlike Kayla Paruso.
Shit. Kayla.
She’d called in the emergency. A shoot-out right now, so close to the mayor’s daughter’s wedding, was too suspicious for Rio. Mayor Charbonneau and his gang of thugs were trouble, and had been since they’d arrived in town, coincidentally at the same time as the newest Silver Valley residents, who were trying to set up a cult on the outskirts of town. Rio didn’t believe in coincidences, not when it came to criminal behavior.
“What’s your ETA, Rio?” The dispatcher spoke in his ear.
“Two minutes, tops. Anything new?”
“Caller isn’t talking. She’s kept the line open and we’re hearing shouts.”
Mother of God, please let her be okay. Keep Kayla safe.
The first time he’d seen her she was delivering a bunch of flowers to the station for one of the female cops. He couldn’t remember a thing about the delivery except for Kayla’s huge blue eyes and golden blond hair. And the way her black tights had displayed her long legs and perfect full ass. He’d imagined the breasts hidden by her jean jacket as full and luscious, and he hadn’t been disappointed when they’d made love on the one occasion he’d ignored his personal credo to remain unencumbered. He’d stopped by her flower shop and asked her out. And taken her to his bed, in his torn-apart home on the edges of town.
He’d since finished the renovations on the house, one a Realtor friend of his had stumbled upon three years ago. It was perfect for a flipper but after pouring his sweat and blood into the hardwood floors, he’d decided to keep the single-story rambler on the edge of one of Silver Valley’s farm fields.
He’d imagined taking Kayla there after he’d finished it, when the dust had settled and it was a proper home. He wanted to show her he wasn’t a complete jerk who dated women only for sex. That he wasn’t going to be the guy who loved her and left her. Because it hadn’t been “only” sex with Kayla. But she’d been long gone and they’d been long over before he ever had the chance to bring her home again.
Kayla.
The lack of information from the dispatcher annoyed him.
“Anything new?”
“Nothing, Rio.”
“Has she tried to text anything?”
“No, we told her to sit tight and stay quiet until responders arrive.”
“How close are the other units?”
“Patrol two-three-three is five minutes out.”
“Where the hell were they?” At this rate none of them would be there in enough time to save anyone.
The taste of bile rose in the back of his throat and he cursed.
“What’s that, Rio?”
“Nothing.”
He had to keep it together. Nothing had ever distracted him from his life’s purpose: serving the public. He’d known he wanted to be a police officer since he was eight years old, when his uncle Jimmy had given him a tour of the station in Harrisburg and he’d fallen in love with the way the police department employees had laughed and joked with each other as though the job was nothing but fun.
Only later, as a rookie, had he learned why they really joked with