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The offer was so tempting.
In that instant, she would have given anything to be able to trust him. All of a sudden, more than ever before, she realized just how tired she was. Tired of running, tired of looking over her shoulder everywhere she went. It was an infinite road with no end in sight.
She would give anything to be able to trust someone, anyone, for the first time in so long, to turn her face into that broad chest, to ease her burden onto one of those shoulders and let someone else carry the load, if only for a short time.
She didn’t say a word. There was nothing she could say, nothing Ross would understand, that wouldn’t require explanations she couldn’t give. Instead, she turned away and escaped into the bathroom, the moment over. Reality had set in, offering the cold reminder that she couldn’t trust this man, or any other.
Strangers in the Night
Kerry Connor
This book is dedicated with gratitude to everyone who
ever told me they enjoyed something I wrote (even when
I suspected they were just being kind) for that little bit of
encouragement I needed to keep going.
Your words meant the world to me and helped me find
my own. Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A lifelong mystery reader, Kerry Connor first discovered romantic suspense by reading Harlequin Intrigue books and is thrilled to be writing for the line. Kerry lives and writes in Southern California.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Allie Freeman —A witness to murder.
Gideon Ross —The bounty hunter was tracking a criminal when he found a woman running for her life.
Kathleen Mulroney —Her murder set everything in motion.
Price Chastain —The real estate mogul had gotten away with plenty of crimes—and intended to get away with this one.
Roy Taylor —Ross’s nemesis was hunting prey of his own.
Ken Newcomb —Ross’s NYPD contact.
Dominick Brancato —A man with a mission of his own.
Contents
Prologue
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
Prologue
The taxi rolled to a stop next to the Chastain building just after nine o’clock.
For a moment Allie sat there, listening to the raindrops patter against the roof of the cab, staring out through the liquid-smeared window into the darkness. She knew there was a light burning directly above the door she planned to use to enter the building. The veil of rain obscured it, making the alley between the Manhattan high-rise and its neighbor appear utterly black.
Naturally she’d forgotten to bring an umbrella. It had been that kind of day.
The driver twisted in his seat and shot her a skeptical glance. “You sure you don’t want me to take you around the front?”
The only thing Allie was sure about was that this was the last place she wanted to be. She was exhausted. Her back was killing her; her feet ached. All she wanted was to sink back against the cushioned seat and have him take her home.
But she’d made the mistake of doing her brother a favor and getting him tickets for tomorrow’s Mets game, then compounded the error by leaving them on her desk. That was what she got for being in such a hurry to leave work on a Friday in the first place. Of course, with her luck it had to be an early-afternoon game. For her brother and his buddies to get to the ballpark in time, she either had to come back to work tonight or make the trip early in the morning. After the week she’d had, there was no way she was getting out of bed before noon tomorrow.
She reached into her purse for the fare. “This is fine.”
“You want me to wait?”
“No.” She’d be lucky to afford the fare back to Queens without paying him to sit there while she ran inside. She’d have to try to hail another taxi when she got out.
Shoving the money into the driver’s open palm and ignoring the look that said he clearly thought she had a few screws loose, Allie stepped out of the cab. A few seconds later it pulled away.
She moved quickly down the alley, muttering under her breath about baseball and younger brothers. She only hoped that by using the back service entrance and bypassing security in the front, she could get in and out faster. One of the night guards who often manned the front desk was a creep. She had no idea if he was working tonight, but wasn’t about to risk it.
The rain continued to fall, and she was nearly soaked by the time she spotted the dim light above the back entrance up ahead. A sigh of relief whooshed from between her teeth. More than ready to get inside, she reached into her pocket for the security code she wasn’t supposed to have. It was good to have friends in high places, in this case Nadine in Payroll. Nadine wasn’t supposed to have it, either, but Allie wasn’t about to rat her out.
Her hand had just closed around the slip of paper when she heard voices.
The sound was so unexpected she missed a step and nearly stumbled. She reached out and steadied herself against the wall, and hesitated, uncertain. She couldn’t make out who was speaking, but they were definitely coming from in front of her—right where she was headed.
Curious in spite of herself, Allie slowly moved closer. She could make the voices out now, hushed and angry. She realized with a start that one belonged to Price Chastain himself. Real-estate mogul. Head of the Chastain Corporation. The man whose name was on her paycheck, even though she was more likely to see him in the newspaper than in the office. Surprise drew her up short again. He was just about the last person she’d expect to be hanging out in an alley. The other voice belonged to a woman. Allie didn’t recognize it. Whoever she was, though, she was holding up her end of the argument. Chastain’s temper was legendary, but the woman was giving it right back.
Moving on tiptoe, Allie peered around the corner to the recessed back entrance.
They were standing directly in front of the door she’d intended to use, clearly illuminated in a puddle of light. Mr. Chastain was right in the woman’s face. She stood in profile, allowing Allie to identify her. Her name was Kathleen…something. Allie wasn’t sure what department she worked in. She only knew her well enough to recognize her face. The woman was shaking, her hands fisted at her sides, her face dark with rage. She didn’t back down from whatever Chastain was saying.
They weren’t alone, either. Two other men stood slightly behind the woman on either side. Something about their stance said that despite their location, they weren’t there to back her up.
An uneasy feeling slid down Allie’s spine. She didn’t know what was going on and she didn’t want to. The last thing she needed was to get mixed up in something that was none of her business. She’d have to suck it up and go in the front entrance. At the moment all she wanted was to get out of there. That sole purpose fueling her movements, she began to inch backward in the direction she’d come from.
Just as Mr. Chastain pulled out a gun.
For a split second, time stood still. Allie froze. Kathleen froze. The air that had been charged with angry voices was now stunningly quiet.
Then Allie noticed that time, somehow, was still moving. Mr. Chastain was still moving. He’d produced a gun from his coat with a casualness that seemed wildly out of place for the situation, the same ease with which he raised the gun, aimed it directly at the chest of the woman standing in front of him.
And fired.
Like a video running in slow motion suddenly propelled into fast forward, everything seemed to happen at once. The muffled shot. The eruption of blood that splattered across Mr. Chastain’s pristine silk suit and overcoat. Kathleen’s head snapping back, eyes wide with shock, before she fell to the ground.
And then, once more, silence. Nothing but the steady beat of the rain.
A scream rose in Allie’s throat, pressing at her Adam’s apple with a force that begged to be released. Some deep-seated sense of self-preservation prevented it. She clamped her lips together in a tight line to keep the sound from escaping. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t afford to let him know she’d seen.
So she stood there, hidden in the alley’s shadows, afraid to move, afraid not to. She watched as Mr. Chastain slowly lowered the gun and returned it to his pocket.
Murder. I just witnessed a murder.
Allie stared at his expression, no less horrified by what she saw there than by what she’d seen him do. There was no remorse. There was no anger. There was…nothing. If she hadn’t seen him kill someone, she never would have believed it. He gazed down at the woman’s body with an expression so blank that she almost wondered if he realized what he’d done.
Then, with a chilling coolness, he smiled.
He said something to the two men, who’d stood there the whole time and done nothing. One of them laughed.
Fresh horror swept over her. Allie slowly became aware of the fact that she was shaking. Tremors racked her body from head to foot. Silent tears mingled with the rain and poured down her cheeks, blurring her vision, the result of keeping that scream inside. She couldn’t wipe them away, couldn’t move at all. Then she realized to her horror that she was still standing there.
How long had it been? Ten seconds? Minutes? An hour?
Too long.
She had to go. He might glance over and see her at any moment.
And then he would kill her, too.
Oh, God.
She had to go. She had to run.
Holding her breath, doing her best not to make a sudden movement, she inched backward, retreating farther into the shadows. She ducked around the corner. Then, only then, did she start moving faster, spinning on her heel, hurtling into the darkness and the escape that lay beyond.
And she ran, so hard and so fast it seemed as though she would never stop running again.
Chapter One
One Year Later
Gideon Ross heard the vehicle a good couple of minutes before it emerged from the winding mountain road and rolled to a stop out front. There was never any doubt where it was headed. His cabin was the only destination on this particular road. Most days passed without a single engine marring the silence, the town store’s monthly deliveries being the only exception. After a couple weeks of trying to be neighborly, the few residents of the town at the base of the mountain who’d even bothered had taken the hint and given up. The cabin was too remote and its owner even more so to make the effort worthwhile.
It was a lesson they’d learned none too soon for his tastes. Ross hadn’t bought the isolated cabin deep in the Adirondacks in hopes of meeting people. He’d moved here to get away from them. If he could find a way to bypass those supply deliveries that didn’t involve starvation, he’d gladly take it.
He knew long before it arrived that the vehicle making its way up the mountain wasn’t the store’s delivery truck. He was well acquainted with the sound of its engine. This ominous and steadily rising growl wasn’t it.
Lifting the beer bottle to his mouth, he finished off the last few ounces, then dropped it to the floor beside him. With his feet propped up on the porch railing and the chair tipped back on two legs, he folded his hands behind his head. To hell with it. He wasn’t about to let some idiot ruin his day. The autumn afternoon was too warm and the sun felt too good to get worked up about much of anything.
The vehicle—late-model Buick, he registered before he even thought about it—stopped a few feet in front of the cabin. The engine was cut off, and a few seconds later he heard someone climb out.
He didn’t bother to remove the fishing hat he’d tugged low over his face to see who it was. He knew two things without looking. Whoever it was didn’t know him, because they would know better than to bother him, and they weren’t welcome. They’d figure that one out for themselves soon enough.
Footsteps crunched along the rocks and gravel until they hit the front steps. It was a man, or a woman who walked like one. From the sound of it, a man who was carrying more than a little excess weight.
Ross would have groaned if it hadn’t meant giving away that he wasn’t sleeping. Old habits died hard, and a year of rust hadn’t kept him from analyzing every detail without intending to. As long as the visitor didn’t intend him harm, it didn’t matter who it was. He was an easy target and he wasn’t dead yet. Things looked fairly promising on that front.
“You going to stop faking and offer an old man a drink?”
So much for promising. The voice was familiar, but no more welcome than when the visitor had been a stranger. Tension coiled in the pit of his stomach, killing the beer buzz he’d been working on all afternoon.
“Well?” the voice demanded.
“No.”
The porch railing creaked, no doubt from the strain of Ken Newcomb leaning against it. “Too bad. I haven’t been driving for six hours for nothing.”
“Plenty of places back in the city to get a beer.”
“Except you’re out here in the middle of the damn wilderness.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Yeah. Because you’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Because I want to be left alone.”
“I would be happy not to be here. I wouldn’t be, either, if you had a phone.”
“There’s nobody I’m interested in talking to.”
“Well, you’re going to want to talk to me. I’ve got a job for you.”
“Not interested.”
“You will be.”
“I let my license lapse. You’re going to have to find yourself another bounty hunter.”
“You don’t need a license. This isn’t official. It’s personal.”
That was what Ross was afraid of.
He finally pushed back the brim of his hat and peered up at his visitor. The homicide detective had a face the texture of tanned leather, seeming to bear the evidence of every case he’d ever worked in twenty-five years on the job. In the scant fourteen months since Ross had last seen him, Newcomb appeared to have acquired a good five years more on that face. Fresh lines were carved into his forehead and around his eyes. His gaze simmered with fevered emotion.
The knot in the pit of Ross’s stomach tightened. Whatever it was the man wanted, it was big. That was going to make it even harder to say no to him.
Which didn’t mean Ross wouldn’t do it.
When he didn’t say anything, Newcomb continued, “Did you hear about Chastain?”
Price Chastain. The name was enough to kill the last of the peace Newcomb’s arrival hadn’t managed to dispel. “I heard.”
“Trial starts in a couple of weeks. I thought I might see you back in the city for it.”
“Newcomb, how many times has the D.A. indicted Chastain for something?”
Newcomb’s hesitation was telling. “Four.”
“And how many convictions has he gotten?”
“None.”
“So you can understand why I didn’t hightail it back to the city this time.”
“It’s different this time. We’ve got him.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“This time we’ve got him on tape.”
Ross let that sink in, more the excitement in Newcomb’s voice than the words themselves. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up, but it wasn’t like Newcomb was going anywhere. “I’m listening.”
“How much have you heard about the case?”
“We don’t get much news from the city up in these parts,” he drawled.
“Victim’s Kathleen Mulroney, a secretary at his company. On a Friday night last September he caught her trying to sneak out of the building with some files she’d copied. We don’t know what was in them. They were long gone by the time the arrest was made. Computer records show she copied some kind of hidden files, but Chastain had already moved them by the time we got there. We think she stumbled on evidence of his dirty dealings.”
“You don’t have a concrete motive.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’ll be good enough.”
Ross decided to withhold judgment on that. “Go on.”
“He must have been on to her, because he was waiting for her when she came out of the building. He confronted her, they argued, and he shot her in the chest.”
“The bastard did her himself?” This was too good to be true. Exactly why Ross wasn’t buying it yet.
“Yep. Probably in a fit of rage, possibly out of sheer arrogance. We’ve never been able to pin anything else on him. What’s one more murder?”
“And you got this on tape?”
“What Chastain didn’t know was the building across the alley had just had a new security system installed. A camera above its back entrance captured the whole thing. If it hadn’t, she would have just been somebody else connected to Chastain who disappeared without a trace. We’d have never been able to connect him to it.” Newcomb shook his head. “Five years of investigating the bastard, and we get him out of dumb luck.”
“Isn’t that always the way?” Ross muttered.
As if sensing Ross’s lack of enthusiasm, Newcomb elaborated. “We’ve got everything. Chastain catching the Mulroney woman coming out of the building. The argument. Chastain shooting her. Two of his men removing the body.”
“Which men?”
“A guy you never heard of, new on Chastain’s payroll, Pete Crowley.” Newcomb met his gaze head-on. “And Roy Taylor.”
A cold trickle slid down Ross’s spine. “Why are you here, Newcomb?”
“Taylor skipped town.”
Newcomb didn’t have to say another word. They both knew it. Those three words told Ross everything he needed to know—and guaranteed his cooperation. He swore, exactly the reaction the detective was looking for. For the first time since he’d arrived, Newcomb smiled, a deep satisfied grin.
Ross closed his eyes before he put his fist right in the middle of those grinning teeth.
R ESTLESS , R OSS PULLED a fresh beer out of the fridge and popped the cap off with the back of his thumb. There wasn’t a chance of getting his buzz back, but if anything called for a drink, this was it. He just wished he had something stronger on hand.
Draining half the bottle in one pull, he paced a ragged path across the cabin’s hardwood floors while he waited for Newcomb to emerge from the bathroom. The man was taking so long in there he must have been guzzling coffee for the entire drive here.
Part of him wanted to throw the detective all the way back to the city and forget everything he’d been told. Getting pulled back into this mess was the last thing he needed. He’d finally made his escape, bought the spread in the back of beyond he’d been dreaming about for years and made a clean break with his former profession. For the past year, he’d managed to find, if not peace, then at least quiet. No more tracking skips into places no sane person would go, no more dealing with the lowlifes and the overworked, understaffed law enforcement that populated New York. Here he was left alone, and that was all he really wanted.
All except to see Price Chastain behind bars.
Ross lifted the bottle to his mouth again. The alcohol burned as it went down. The sensation was nothing compared to the anger that burned in his gut at the thought of Chastain finally getting what he deserved.
Price Malcolm Chastain, born Gary Allan Paine, a self-made real-estate magnate who owned a sizable chunk of three boroughs. A glorified slumlord who’d expanded his empire by whatever dirty means necessary. Not to mention an all-around sleazebag, a man with almost as many underworld connections as the mob.
And the person who’d ordered the death of Jed Walsh, the man who’d taught Ross everything he knew and the only person in the world who’d given a damn about him when Ross was nothing but a kid scrambling to get by on the streets.
Of course neither Chastain nor Taylor, his head enforcer, had been charged for anything related to Jed’s death. There’d been no way to prove what everyone knew had happened. That was how it was with Chastain. More than one person who’d stood in the man’s way had wound up dead over the years, yet trouble slid off him like rainwater off a slanted roof. The feds were after him. The New York attorney general wanted a piece of him. After being made a fool of four times, the D.A. would kill for a conviction.
Yet nothing stuck. Ross wasn’t green enough to think the bad guys always got what was coming to them. As much as it stung, he’d finally had to face the fact that Chastain’s reckoning wasn’t coming anytime soon.
Maybe he should have held on to some of that old optimism this time.
The bathroom door swung open. Newcomb stepped out into the main room, tightening his belt with both hands. He cast an appreciative eye around the space.
“I wouldn’t have thought it, but this is a nice setup you’ve got for yourself here. Got myself a bit of land out in Jersey I’m going to develop if I ever get around to retiring. Maybe that day’ll be coming sooner rather than later, huh?”
That same hard gleam, the glitter of satisfaction, burned in Newcomb’s eyes. That Newcomb was so sure Chastain was going down only stoked Ross’s impatience.
If anyone but Ken Newcomb had shown up on his doorstep, Ross wouldn’t have given him the time of day. He wasn’t that comfortable around cops to begin with, despite all the years they’d spent ostensibly working on the same side of the law. He’d spent too many years in his youth outrunning them to feel at ease around them. It was part of what made him so good at his job; he knew what someone desperate to elude the law would do and where he would go. But Newcomb had been the lead detective on Jed’s case, as well as a member of that elite group that wanted Chastain to go down as badly as Ross did, if not more.
“When?” Ross said, cutting right to it.
“Two days, we think.” He eyed the now-empty bottle Ross cradled in both hands. “You got another one of those?”
Ross stalked over to the refrigerator without missing a beat. “You think? ”
Newcomb’s face darkened. “Taylor was supposed to be in court yesterday morning. His lawyer tried covering for him, but it took us about two seconds to figure out he wasn’t in the city anymore.”
“I’d say that was a couple hours too late. You should’ve had a man on him. You had to know he was going to run. He shouldn’t have even been out on bail.”
“You know it and I know it. Try telling that to the judge.”
Ross plunked an unopened bottle of beer on the table in front of Newcomb. “Who is it?”
The detective shook his head as he reached for the bottle, and Ross knew he’d understood the question he’d really been asking. Chastain had gotten away with too much for too long not to have greased a few palms along the way.
“Bernstein’s on the up-and-up,” Newcomb said. “Real hard-nosed law-and-order type. The D.A. was glad to get him. Besides, we were more concerned about Chastain running. He has a lot more to lose.”
“The case is that strong?” After the way Chastain had weaseled out of every charge ever brought against him, Ross couldn’t imagine him consigning himself to a life on the lam unless he was sure he was going down. And Chastain wasn’t one to concede easily.
Newcomb ticked off the evidence on his fingers. “We’ve got the blood on his suit and overcoat. And we’ve got the tape.”
“It’s that good, huh?”
Newcomb took a drink before answering. For the first time Ross sensed a crack in the detective’s confidence. “What?”
Newcomb heaved a sigh. “We don’t have a body, though witnesses spotted Taylor dumping something in the river that night. There’s no sound on the tape of course, which would help lock down the motive if we could hear what they were saying. Plus, it was kind of rainy that night, so Chastain’s lawyer’s probably going to argue we can’t see everything clear to enough to be absolutely sure. Reasonable doubt—you know the drill. His lawyer’s going to try everything he can.”
“So much for that slam dunk, huh?”
Newcomb glowered at him through bloodshot eyes. “He pulls out a gun, shoots her in the chest, she goes down, they drag the body away. It’s all there in black and white. Short of an eyewitness, it’s the best case we’re going to get.”
“Why would Taylor run and not Chastain?”
Newcomb swallowed deeply from the bottle and pulled it away from his lips with a satisfied sigh. “Maybe Chastain still thinks he’s getting off scot-free. He’s a cocky SOB. Taylor’s just a hired gun. He has to know it doesn’t look good. He can either turn on Chastain or he can run. And the last guy who tried to rat out Chastain on this turned up dead.”
“Who?”
“Crowley, the other guy who’d removed Mulroney’s body with Taylor that night. He’d made some noises about wanting to talk to the D.A. Then he turned up dead. Everybody knows who did it.”
“But no way to prove it.”
Newcomb tipped his bottle in acknowledgment.
“So Crowley’s death left Taylor alone to stand trial with Chastain.”
“And maybe Taylor finally figured out that his chances of walking away this time weren’t looking so good.”
“Who’s on the case? Officially, that is.”
“Wes Miller.”
Ross nodded. He knew the other skip tracer. “He’s good. He shouldn’t have trouble finding Taylor. You don’t need me.”
“Miller’s good. You’re the best.”
“Jed was the best.”
“And he taught you everything he knew. More important, you’ve got more incentive than Miller. He’s only in this for the money. This is personal for you. You want Taylor to go down even more than you want Chastain to, and you won’t stop until he’s back here where he belongs. We both know it. That’s why I’m here.”
Damn. Newcomb knew him too well. He knew that while Chastain was the man in charge, Taylor was the one Ross held responsible for Jed’s death.
His control over his emotions must have slipped. When he looked up from the table, he found Newcomb staring at him, that strange triumphant glow in his eyes. “So you’ll do it?”
Say no.
The words came automatically.
“I’ll do it.”
Ross didn’t know who he’d been trying to convince otherwise. Deep down, though part of him never would admit it, he wanted to do this. He hadn’t been able to do anything for Jed when it mattered, hadn’t been able to save his life, hadn’t been able to see to it that the man responsible paid. But he could do this. This was what he was good at, what Jed had taught him to do. It only seemed right that his specialty be put to use to capture the man who’d killed Jed.
If he was completely honest with himself, he might admit he was looking forward to getting back into the game. Peace could be damned boring.
“You know, Newcomb, you didn’t say anything about bringing him back in one piece.”
Newcomb grinned slowly. “As long as there’s enough of him to stand trial, he’s all yours.”
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