Night of the Raven

“Why the hell has your witchy face been in my head for the past fifteen years?”

McVey didn’t expect an answer. He wasn’t even sure why he’d asked the question. True, she looked very much like the woman in his recurring dream, but the longer he stared at her—couldn’t help that part, unfortunately—the more the differences added up.

On closer inspection, Amara’s hair really was more brown than red. Her features were also significantly finer than … whoever. Her gray eyes verged on charcoal, her slim curves were much better toned and her legs were the longest he’d seen on any woman anywhere.

He might have lingered on the last thing if she hadn’t slapped a hand to his chest, narrowed those beautiful eyes to slits and seared him with a glare.

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

Night of

the Raven

Jenna Ryan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNA RYAN started making up stories before she could read or write. As she grew up, romance always had a strong appeal, but romantic suspense was the perfect fit. She tried out a number of different careers, including modeling, interior design and travel, but writing has always been her one true love. That and her longtime partner, Rod.

Inspired from book to book by her sister Kathy, she lives in a rural setting fifteen minutes from the city of Victoria, British Columbia. It’s taken a lot of years, but she’s finally slowed the frantic pace and adopted a West Coast mind-set. Stay active, stay healthy, keep it simple. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the read. All of that works for her, but what she continues to enjoy most is writing stories she loves. She also loves reader feedback. E-mail her at jacquigoff@shaw.ca or visit Jenna Ryan on Facebook.

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To Anne Stuart, who got the writing ball rolling for me. Thank you, Anne, for all the great books.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Los Angeles, California

Fifteen years ago

The scene felt so real, McVey figured this time it might not be unfolding in his head. His totally messed-up head, which wasn’t improving thanks to the dream that had haunted him every night for the past two weeks.

The moment he fell asleep, he found himself trapped in an attic room that smelled like old wood, wet dirt and something far more pungent than boiled cabbage. The air was muggy and strangely alive. Thunder crashed every few seconds and tongues of lightning flickered through a curtain of fetid gray smoke.

He knew he was hiding, hunkered down in some shadowy corner where the two people he watched—barely visible within the smoke—couldn’t see him.

The man’s fingers clenched and unclenched. The woman circled a small fire and muttered unintelligible words.

Two violent thunderbolts later, only the woman and the smoke remained. The man had vanished.

Okay, that couldn’t be good. McVey searched frantically for a way out of wherever he was before whoever she was saw him and made him eat the same black dripping thing she’d given the now-gone man.

With her eyes closed and her hair and clothes askew, she mumbled and swayed and breathed in choking fumes. Then suddenly she froze. In the next flash of lightning her head began to turn. Slowly, creepily, like a rusty weather vane in a bad horror film.

Her eyes locked on McVey’s hiding place. He heard the black thing in her hand plop to the floor. She raised a dripping finger and pointed it straight at him.

“You,” she accused in a voice that made him think of rusty nails soaked in whiskey. “You saw what passed between me and the one she would have you call Father.”

Whoa, McVey thought on an unnatural spurt of fear. That was a whole lot, what she’d just said. A whole lot of nothing he understood, or wanted to.

“You have no business here, child.” She started toward him. “Don’t you know I’m mad?”

Right. Mad. So why the hell couldn’t he move his—? He stopped the question abruptly, backpedaled and latched on to the other word. Child?

Shock, slick and icy, rolled through him when he looked down and saw his feet encased in tiny, shin-high boots.

Thunder rattled the house. His head shot up when he heard a low creak. Watching her smile, he realized with a horrified jolt that she was beautiful. He also realized he knew her, or at least he recognized her.

When she pointed at him again, the spell broke and he reached for his gun on the nightstand. Except there was no nightstand, and the next streak of lightning revealed a hand that wasn’t his. Couldn’t be. It was too small, too pale and far too delicate.

“Don’t be afraid, child.” Her voice became a silky croon. Her ugly clothes and hair melted into a watery blur of color. “I won’t harm you. I’ll only make what you think you’ve seen go away.”

McVey wanted to tell her that he had no idea what he’d seen and the only thought in his head right then was to get out of there before her finger—still dripping with something disgusting—touched him.

He edged sideways in the dark. He could escape if the lightning would give him a break.

Of course it didn’t, and her eyes, gray and familiar, continued to track his every move.

“There’s no way out,” she warned. With an impatient sound she grabbed his wrists. “I don’t want to hurt you. You know I never have.”

No, he really didn’t know that, but wherever he was, he had no gun. Or strength, apparently, to free himself from her grasp.

She laughed when he fought her. “Foolish child. You forget I’m older than you. I’m also more powerful, and much, much meaner than your mother.”

His mother?

She dragged him out of the corner. “Come with me.”

When she hauled him upright, he stumbled. Looking down, he saw the hem of the long dress he’d stepped on.

“Why am I...?” But when he heard the high, unfamiliar voice that emerged from his throat, he choked the question off.

The woman crouched to offer a grim little smile. “Believe me when I tell you, Annalee, what I will do to you this night is for your own good....”

* * *

MCVEY SHOT FROM the nightmare on the next peal of thunder. The dark hair that fell over his eyes made him think he’d gone blind. A gust of wind rattled the shade above his nightstand and he spotted the stuttering neon sign outside. It wasn’t until he saw his own hand reaching over to check his gun that he let himself fall back onto the mattress and worked on loosening the knots in his stomach.

That they remained there, slippery yet stubbornly tight, was only partly due to the recurring nightmare. The larger part stemmed from a more tangible source.

It was time to do what he’d known he would do for the past two weeks, ever since his nineteenth birthday. Ever since his old man had pried a deathbed promise from his only son.

He would set aside the disturbing fact that every time he fell asleep these days he turned into a young girl who wore long dresses and old-fashioned boots. He’d forget about the woman he thought he should know who wanted to give him amnesia. He’d focus strictly on keeping the promise he’d made to his father. If that meant turning his back on the people he’d worked with since...well, not all that long actually, so nothing lost there. He was going to walk away now, tonight, keep his promise and change the course of his life.

Maybe if he did that, the nightmare would stay where it belonged. Buried deep in the past of the person he feared he’d once been.

Chapter Two

New Orleans, Louisiana

Present Day

“Make no mistake about it...”

Moments after the sentence had been passed, the raspy-voiced man with the stooped shoulders and the tic in his left eye had looked straight at Amara Bellam and whispered just loud enough for her and the two men beside her to hear.

“Those who brought about my imprisonment will pay. My family will see to it.”

Although her eyewitness testimony had played a large part in his conviction, at the time Jimmy Sparks had uttered his threat, Amara had thought his reaction was nothing more than knee-jerk. After all, life in prison for someone of his dubious health surely meant he wouldn’t see the free light of day ever again.

But the word family crept into her head more and more often as the weeks following his incarceration crept by. It took root when Lieutenant Michaels of the New Orleans Police Department contacted her with the news that one of her two fellow witnesses, Harry Benedict, was dead.

“Now, don’t panic.” Michaels patted the air in front of her. “Remember, Harry had close to two decades on Jimmy.”

“Lieutenant, Jimmy Sparks is the two-pack-a-day head of a large criminal family. He has a dozen relatives to do his legwork. Harry was a hale and hearty seventy-nine-year-old athlete who hiked across Maryland just last year.”

“Which is very likely why he died of a massive coronary just last night.” The detective made another useless patting motion. “Really, you don’t need to panic over this.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“No, you’re not.” His hand dropped. “Well, that makes one of you. Chad, our overstressed third witness, knocked back two glasses of bourbon while I was explaining the situation.”

“Chad dived off the temperance wagon right after Jimmy Sparks whispered his threat to us.” She rubbed her arms. “Are you sure Harry died of natural causes?”

“The path lab said it was heart failure, pure and simple. The man had a history, Amara. Two significant attacks in the past five years.”

Hale and hearty, though, she recalled after Michaels left.

For the next few weeks she fought her jitters with an overload of work. Even so, fear continued to curl in Amara’s stomach. She had thought she might be starting to get past it when the harried lieutenant appeared on her doorstep once again.

“Chad’s dead.” She saw it in his dog-tired expression. “Damn.”

The lieutenant spread his fingers. “I’m sorry, Amara. And before you ask, the official cause, as determined by the coroner’s office, is accidental suicide.”

“This is not happening.” A shiver of pure terror snaked through her system. When the detective spoke her name, she raised both hands. “Please don’t try to convince me that suicides can’t be arranged.”

“Of course they can, but Chad Weaver was surrounded by eleven friends when he collapsed—in his home, at a party arranged by him and to which he invited every person in attendance. No one crashed the event, and the drugs and alcohol he ingested were his own.”

She swung around to stare. “Chad took drugs?”

“Like the booze, he got into them after Jimmy Sparks’s trial. As witnesses, you all had—er, have—impeccable credentials.”

“Right. Credentials.” Feeling her world had tilted radically, Amara headed for her Garden District balcony and some much needed night air. “Mind’s really spinning here, Lieutenant. What kinds of drugs did Chad take?”

The cop rubbed his brow. “Ecstasy, mostly. A little coke. Might’ve smoked some weed earlier in the day.”

She made a negating motion. “No chance that any of those substances could’ve been tampered with prepurchase, huh?”

“Amara...”

Her sarcastic tone didn’t quite mask the anger beginning to churn inside her. “It’s a fair question, Lieutenant. We’re talking about street dealers, people who aren’t exactly pillars of the community. Are you saying that, given the right inducement, not one of them could or would have slipped a little extra something into the goody bags Chad bought?”

“The coroner is convinced it was—”

“Yes, I heard that part. Accidental death.”

“Suicide.”

It cost her a great deal to work up a smile. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” She struggled to maintain her composure. “I can read your face, Michaels. You’re going to tell me there’s nothing you can do in terms of police protection. I mean, on the off chance the coroner is mistaken.”

The detective regarded the toes of his scuffed shoes. “Massive coronary for Harry. Private party for Chad. No one except the three of you and me heard Jimmy’s threat. The media would love to jump all over this, but they won’t, because the powers that be are well aware of Jimmy Sparks’s many and varied connections. Sure, the odd question is bound to surface, but they’ll die as quickly as they’re born. After all, there’s no evidence of wrongdoing in either case.”

“I suppose not. Well, then.” Amara took a deep breath. “At the risk of sounding paranoid, do you have any suggestions as to how I can avoid a date with the forensic team?”

When he raised his head, the steely look in his eyes said it all. “You need to disappear,” he told her. “Get out of the city and go someplace safe.”

“Safe. Great.” She pressed firm fingers into her temples. “Where?”

Tossing a worried look onto the street below, Michaels pulled her away from the wrought iron railing. “Your parents are in South America, aren’t they?”

“Central America. They’re doing medical relief work, have been for the past two years. Mostly with children, Lieutenant. I’m not taking this nightmare to them.”

“You have relatives in Maine, don’t you?”

“What? Yes—no.”

“We’ll go with the first answer.” When the lights bobbed, he closed the French doors and pulled the curtains. “Let’s do it this way. You pack, make whatever calls you need to, and I’ll drive you to the airport.” He managed a feeble grin. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s shaking criminal tails.”

Amara’s mind swam. “Surely Jimmy Sparks’s family will have the airport covered.”

“Not in Jackson, Mississippi. I know this guy, Amara. It won’t be a group hunt so much as a single-person stalk.”

“As in one person sent to make sure I choke to death on a bite of crawfish or drop dead on the sidewalk from a nonexistent blood clot that’ll dissolve before... God, what am I saying? No, wait, what am I doing?” She turned to face him. “I can’t endanger the lives of my family members. You know I can’t.”

“You can, and you should. Most of those family members live in a spooky little town in a remote and densely wooded section of coastal Maine. Raven’s Cove is your best and safest option right now.”

She stared at him for five long seconds before countering with a flat “It’s Raven’s Hollow, and I will call my grandmother. I’ll explain the situation. But if she’s the least bit hesitant, I’m choosing another destination.”

“Deal.” He ran his gaze over the ceiling when the lights bobbed again. “Pack only what you need.”

What she needed, Amara reflected, was a time machine. Unfortunately all she had was her iPhone, her grandmother’s number and a waning glimmer of hope that she’d ever see anyone in or out of Raven’s Hollow, Maine, again.

Chapter Three

“I’ve already broken up two bar fights tonight, Chief, and the crowd here’s spoiling for more.” Jake Blume’s tone, surly at the best of times, soured. “It’s gonna be a free-for-all by the time this two-town party—which ain’t no kind of party, in my opinion—plays out. Still three days to go and the hooligans on both sides are making their feelings known with their fists.” His voice dropped to a growl. “What do you want me to do about tonight’s ruckus?”

McVey heard about half of what his griping deputy related. More important to him than a minor barroom scuffle was the TV across the room where the Chicago Cubs were cheerfully mopping up Wrigley Field with his beloved Dodgers.

“Run,” he told the slow-motion hitter who’d just slugged the ball to the fence.

“From a bar fight?” Jake gave a contemptuous snort. “This town ain’t turned me into a girl yet, McVey.”

“Talking to the television, Deputy.” Disgusted by yet another out, McVey took a long drink of beer and muted the sound. “Okay, which bar and what kind of damage are we talking about?”

“It’s the Red Eye in the Hollow—a town I’m still trying to understand why we’re working our butts off to cover so its police chief can sun his sorry ass in Florida for the next couple weeks.”

“Man’s on his honeymoon, Jake.” Amusement glimmered. “The novelty’ll wear off soon enough.”

His deputy gave another snort. “Said one confirmed bachelor to another.”

“I was never confirmed—and that was a ball,” he told the onscreen umpire.

“Look, if I’m interrupting...”

“You’re not.” McVey dangled the beer bottle between his knees and rubbed a tired eye. “I assume the damage at the Red Eye is minimal.”

“As bar fights go in these parts.”

“Then give whoever threw the first punch a warning, make the participants pay up and remind everyone involved that it’s you who’s on duty tonight, not me.”

“Meaning?”

“You’ve got a shorter fuse, zero tolerance and, between the towns, six empty jail cells just begging to be filled.”

“Good point.” Jake cheered up instantly. “Can I threaten to cuff ’em?”

“Your discretion, Deputy. After you’re done, head back to the Cove. I’ll be in at first light to relieve you.”

When he glanced over and saw his team had eked out two hits, McVey gave his head a long, slow roll and sat back to think.

In the fourteen months since he’d arrived in Raven’s Cove, he’d only had the dream five times, which was a hell and gone better average than he’d had during his six years with the Chicago Police Department or the nearly eight he’d put in in New York. At least once a month in both places, he’d found himself up in a smoke-filled attic while a woman he still couldn’t place told him she was going to screw up his memories. Not that he’d given up city life over anything as nebulous as a dream. His reasons had run a whole lot deeper.... And was that a floorboard he’d just heard creak upstairs?

With the bottle poised halfway to his mouth, he listened, heard nothing and, taking another long swallow, switched his attention back to the TV.

A third run by the Dodgers gave him hope. A screech of hinges from an interior door had him raising his eyes to the ceiling yet again.

Okay, so not alone. And wasn’t that a timely thing, considering he’d received two emails lately warning him that a man with secrets should watch the shadows around him very, very closely?

Standing, he shoved his gun into the waistband of his jeans, killed the light and started up the rear stairs.

The wind that had been blowing at near-gale force all day howled around the single-paned windows. Even so, he caught a second creak. He decided his intruder could use a little stealth training. Then he stepped on a sagging tread, heard the loud protest and swore.

The intruder must have heard it, too. The upstairs door that had been squeaking open immediately stopped moving.

Drawing his weapon, McVey gave his eyes another moment to adjust and finished the climb. He placed the intruder in the kitchen. Meaning the guy had the option of slinking out the way he’d entered—through the back door—or holding position to see what developed. Whatever the case, McVey had the advantage in that he’d been living in the house for more than two weeks and had committed the odd layout to memory.

Another door gave a short creak and he pictured the intruder circling.

The anticipation that kindled felt good. Sleepy coastal towns worked for him on several levels these days. Unfortunately, as action went, they tended to be...well, frankly, dead. Unless you counted the increasing number of bar fights and the sniping of two local factions, each of which had its own legend, and neither of which was willing to admit that both legends had probably been created by an ancient—and presumably bored—Edgar Allan Poe wannabe.

Another blast of wind rattled the panes and sent a damp breeze over McVey’s face. It surprised him to see a light burning in the mudroom. Apparently his intruder was extremely stupid, poorly equipped or unaware that he’d broken into the police chief’s current residence. The last idea appealed most, but as it also seemed the least likely, McVey continued to ease through the house.

He spotted the shadow just as the wind—he assumed wind—slammed the kitchen door shut. The bang echoed beneath a wicked gust that buffeted the east wall and caused the rafters to moan.

Shoving the gun into his jeans, he went for a low tackle. If the person hadn’t swung around and allowed a weak beam of light to trickle through from the mudroom, he would have taken them both hard to the floor. But his brain clicked in just fast enough that he was able to alter his trajectory, snag the intruder by the waist and twist them both around so only he landed on the pine planking.

His head struck the table, his shoulder the edge of a very solid chair. To make matters worse, his trapped quarry rammed an elbow into his ribs, wriggled around and clawed his left cheek.

He caught the raised hand before it could do any serious damage and, using his body weight, reversed their positions. “Knock it—” was all he got out before his instincts kicked in and he blocked the knee that was heading for his groin.

Jesus, enough!

Teeth gnashed and with pain shooting through his skull, he brought his eyes into focus on the stunning and furious face of the woman from his nightmare.

* * *

FEAR STREAKED THROUGH Amara’s mind, not for her own safety, but for that of her grandmother who’d lived in this house for close to seventy years.

Although she was currently pinned to the floor with her hands over her head and her wrists tightly cuffed, she attempted to knee him again. When that failed, she bucked her hips up into his. If she could loosen his iron grip, she might be able to sink her teeth into his forearm.

“I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her,” she panted. “This is about me, not my family. You of all people should understand that.”

He offset another blow. “Lady, the only thing I understand is that you broke into a house that doesn’t belong to you.”

“Or you,” she fired back. “You have no right to be here. Where’s my grandmother?”

“I have every right to be here, and how the hell should I know?”

Her heart tripped. “Is she—dead?”

“What? No. Look, I live here, okay?”

Unable to move, Amara glared at him. “You’re lying. I spoke to Nana last night. There was no mention of a man either visiting or living in her home.”

He lowered his head just far enough for her to see the smile that grazed his lips. “Maybe your granny doesn’t tell you everything, angel.”

“That’s disgusting.” She refused to tremble. “Have you hurt her?”

“I haven’t done anything to her. I don’t eat elderly women, then take to their beds in order to get the jump on their beautiful granddaughters.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Yeah, it really is, Red.”

When her eyes flashed, he sighed. “Red... Red Riding Hood. Now, why don’t you calm down, we’ll back up a few steps and try to sort this out? My name’s Ethan McVey and I—”

“Have no business being in my grandmother’s house.”

“You’re gonna have to get past that one, I’m afraid. Truth is I have all kinds of business here.” He shifted position when she almost liberated her other knee. “As far as I know, your grandmother’s somewhere in the Caribbean with two of her friends and one very old man who’s sliding down the slippery slope toward his hundred and second birthday.”

His words startled a disbelieving laugh out of her. “Nana took old Rooney Blume to the Caribbean?”

“That’s the story I got. No idea if it’s true. Her private life’s not my concern. You, on the other hand, are very much my concern, seeing as you’re lying on my kitchen floor behaving like a wildcat.”

“Nana’s kitchen floor.”

“Rent’s paid, floor’s mine. So’s the badge you probably failed to notice on the table above us.”

Doubt crept in. “Badge, as in cop?”

“Badge as in chief of police. Raven’s Cove,” he added before she could ask.

The red haze clouding Amara’s vision began to dissolve. “You said rent. If you’re a cop, why are you renting my grandmother’s house?”

“Because the first place she rented to me developed serious plumbing and electrical issues, both of which are in the process of being rectified.”

Why a laugh should tickle her throat was beyond her. “Would that first place be Black Rock Cottage, rebuilt from a ruin fifty years ago by my grandfather and renovated last year by Wrecking Ball Buck Blume?”

“That’d be it.”

“Then I’m sorry I scratched you.”

“Does that mean you’re done trying to turn me into a eunuch?”

“Maybe.”

“As reassurances go, I’m not feeling it, Red.”

“Put yourself in my position. My grandmother didn’t mention a Caribbean vacation when I spoke to her yesterday.”

“So, thinking she was here, you opted to break and enter your grandmother’s home rather than knock on the door.”

“I knocked. No one answered. Nana keeps an extra key taped to a flowerpot on her back stoop. And before you tell me how careless that is, mine’s bigger.”

To her relief, he let go of her wrists and pushed himself to his knees. He was still straddling her, but at least his far too appealing face wasn’t quite so close. “Your what?”

“Omission. Nana didn’t mention an extra key to you, and she didn’t mention you to me.” She squirmed a little, then immediately wished she hadn’t. “Uh, do you mind? Thanks,” she murmured when he got to his feet.

“I’d say no problem if the damn room would stop spinning.”

Still wary, Amara accepted the hand he held down to her. “Would you like me to look at your head?”

“Why?”

“Because you might have a concussion.”

“That’s a given, Red. I meant why you? Are you a doctor?”

“I’m a reconstructive surgeon.”

“Seriously?” Laughing, he started for the back door. “You do face and butt lifts for a living?”

What had come perilously close to going hot and squishy inside her hardened. Her lips quirked into a cool smile. “There you go. Whatever pays the bills.”

“If you say so.”

She maintained her pleasant expression. “Returning to the omission thing... Can you think of any reason why Nana would neglect to mention you were living here when we talked?”

“You had a bad connection?”

Or more likely insufficient time to relate many details, thanks to Lieutenant Michaels, who’d done everything in his power, short of tearing the phone from her hand and tossing her into the backseat of his car, to hasten their departure. Amara glanced up as a gust of wind whistled through the rafters. “My mother would call this an omen and say I shouldn’t have come.”

“Yeah?” The cop—he’d said McVey, hadn’t he?—picked up and tapped his iPhone as he wandered past the island. “She into the woo-woo stuff, too?”

“If by that you mean does she believe in some of the local legends? Absolutely.”

He glanced at her. “There’re more than two?”

“There are more than two hundred, but most of them are offshoots of the interconnected original pair. The Blumes are very big on their ancestor Hezekiah’s transformation into a raven.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“That transformation is largely blamed on the Bellam witches.”

“The Bellams being your ancestors.”

“My grandmother’s surname gave it away, huh?”

“Among other things. Setting the bulk of them aside and assuming you’re Amara, your gran sent me a very short, very cryptic text message last night.”

“You’re just opening a text from last night now?”

“Give me a break, Red. It’s my day off, this is my personal phone and the windstorm out there dislodged four shutters that I’ve spent the better part of the past twelve hours repairing and reattaching.” He turned his iPhone so she could see the screen. “According to Grandma Bellam, you’re in a whack of trouble from the crime lord you helped convict.”

Amara read the message, then returned her gaze to his unfathomable and strangely compelling eyes. “Whack being the operative word. Look, it’s late, and I’m intruding—apparently. I’m sure one of my aunts, uncles or cousins will put me up for the night.” Wanting some distance between them, she started for the door. “I left my rental car at the foot of the driveway. It’s pointed toward Raven’s Hollow. As luck would have it, that’s where my less antagonistic relatives live. So I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing before we met and go break into one of their houses.” She rummaged through her shoulder bag and produced the back door key. “I’ll put this back under the flowerpot. Nana locks herself out at least three times a year.”

Setting his phone on the island, McVey moved toward her. “Forget the key, Amara. Talk to me about this ‘whack of trouble.’”

“It’s a—sticky story.”

“I’m a cop. I’m used to sticky. I’m also fine with ‘sounds crazy,’ if that helps.”