Scene of the Crime: Bachelor Moon Read online

Thinking about her corn bread, she opened the oven door to check on it. Dinner this evening would be a traditional gumbo with corn bread. Lunch would be chicken salad croissants with potato salad and coleslaw. It would only be Sam for lunch. Her long-term guest, Matt Rader, was rarely here for the noon meal.

  When Daniella had opened the bed-and-breakfast she’d decided to offer three meals to her guests. She loved to cook and adding the additional meals meant she could also make a little money on the food.

  And money was always an issue, so she was pleased that for the next month she was pretty well booked solid for the weekends.

  Johnny would be so proud. The words jumped unbidden into her mind. As always, thoughts of her ex-husband brought with them myriad emotions that ranged from anger, to grief, to an uneasy lack of closure that might always haunt her.

  The knock on the back door shoved thoughts of Johnny right out of her head. Frank Mathis peered in through the screen, and she motioned him inside.

  “That flower bed on the north side of the house is looking pretty dismal,” he said. “I thought I’d head into town and pick up a couple of new plants to add in. Is there anything you need from the stores?”

  She smiled at Frank, who had been her right-hand man since she’d bought the place a little over five years ago. He could make a flower bloom as easily as he could fix the temperamental air conditioner. “No, I think I’m good until Sunday when Macy and I will do some grocery shopping, but let me get you some money for the new plants.”

  Frank raised a hand to dismiss the offer. “I’ll take care of it. I still have some of the money left that you gave me to replace those shrubs in the front.”

  “Thanks, Frank. And you might want to plan to eat dinner here tonight. I’m making gumbo.”

  He patted the slight paunch at his middle. “You know I love your gumbo. I’ll definitely be here.”

  As Frank left through the back door, Daniella pulled her corn bread from the oven and thought about the man who had been such a support when Johnny had disappeared and she’d been left alone to run this place.

  Frank had worked with Johnny at a factory that manufactured furnace boilers. Two months before Daniella and Johnny had opened the doors to her bed-and-breakfast the factory had closed down, leaving Frank and many other men in the small town unemployed.

  Frank had come to them and confessed that he was broke and needed to move out of the apartment he’d been renting. He knew they had a caretaker’s cottage across the pond, and he’d sworn that for free rent and board he would take care of whatever needed to be done around the place. Two months later Johnny was gone, but Frank had proven himself invaluable around the place. And it was an added bonus that he adored Macy.

  She found herself once again standing at the back door and staring out at her latest guest. Even though he was still seated in the chair she sensed a tenseness about him, a simmering energy that she’d noticed the moment she’d introduced herself to him.

  She closed her eyes and for a moment could imagine his strong arms wrapped around her, the spicy scent of his cologne on her skin, in her bedsheets. It had been so long since she’d been held in the warmth of an embrace, felt the breathless excitement of making love.

  Sam Connelly looked like a man who would know how to please a woman. There had been a dark heat in his eyes as his gaze had slid the length of her, a sultry heat that had made her feel all tingly inside.

  She snapped her eyes open and moved away from the window. What on earth was she thinking? It was ridiculous to fantasize about a guest, even one who looked like Sam.

  One of her cardinal rules was to never get involved with her guests. Sam Connelly was just like all the other people she allowed into her life—fleeting and definitely temporary.

  The ring of the phone pulled her from her crazy thoughts. As she went to the desk in the kitchen to answer, she noticed that the caller ID indicated the call was anonymous.

  It wasn’t unusual for her to get anonymous calls. Some people called to find out the rates and information about the bed-and-breakfast and didn’t want her to have their number. They were probably afraid she’d make follow-up calls to them and try to talk them into a vacation they didn’t want.

  “Bachelor Moon Bed and Breakfast,” she said into the receiver. There was a long moment of silence, although she could tell the line wasn’t dead. “Hello?”

  “For you.”

  The voice sounded strange, as if it had been somehow altered. “Excuse me?” Daniella replied. There was a soft click and she knew the caller was no longer on the line.

  She hung up the phone with a frown. For you. What in the heck did that mean? Maybe she hadn’t heard right.

  She tried to dismiss the call from her mind, knowing it was time to get lunch prepared. Still, as she got busy setting the dining room table for Sam’s lunch, she couldn’t stop the dark sense of foreboding that slithered through her.

  Chapter Two

  Sam fished through the lunch hour. He had a couple of bites but never landed a single fish. It didn’t matter. As the day wore on and the peaceful silence of his surroundings seeped through him he began to relax in a way he hadn’t done in years.

  Not once did the details of a case enter his mind. Not once did he think about any of the killers he’d hunted and caught in his career. He just breathed in the air, napped for a few minutes and relaxed.

  By four o’clock the late July sun was at its hottest, and he decided to call it a day and head inside to his room. He stored his fishing pole and tackle box in the trunk of his car and went into the house.

  He saw nobody as he climbed the stairs to his room, but the air was redolent with the scent of cooking, and he immediately thought of the woman who would be his landlord for the next two weeks.

  He certainly wouldn’t be averse to a little vacation romance as long as she was willing and able and understood the meaning of temporary. It was the only kind of relationship he had—hot and very, very temporary.

  Minutes later he stood beneath a shower, grateful that the water pressure was good and the water steamy hot. He hoped the food was as good as it smelled. He regretted missing lunch because now he was starving.

  Once he was out of the shower he dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a short-sleeved, light blue, button-up shirt, then stood at the window in his room and stared outside.

  Today had been surprisingly pleasant, and he reluctantly admitted that maybe he had needed a vacation after all. He couldn’t remember when he’d taken any time off work over the last five or six years.

  He was about to walk out of his room and head down to the dining area when his cell phone rang. A glance at the caller ID let him know it was Special Agent Jenna Taylor.

  “Is this my favorite prince of darkness?” she asked when he answered.

  “Hey, Jenna, what’s going on?” he asked, as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I just wanted to check in with you and make sure you arrived at your vacation paradise okay.”

  Six profilers worked out of the Kansas City FBI offices. Misunderstood by most civilians, branded as renegades within their department, they were a tight group with a bond that went beyond their jobs.

  All of them were single, but when Jenna had traveled to Bridgewater, Texas, to investigate the murder of her best friend, she’d fallen for the local sheriff and was now in the process of transferring from the office in Kansas City to one in Texas.

  “I’m here and have spent the day sitting in a chair with a fishing pole in my hand,” he replied.

  “Good for you. You need this, Sam. You were on your way to falling so far into the darkness that nobody could have pulled you out.”

  “Whatever,” he replied, already faintly irritated by the conversation.

  “Seriously, Sam. You need balance in your life. You’ve got to get some good in with the bad, and it wouldn’t hurt if you’d find a nice woman to spend time with.”

  “You know how I feel about that, so don’t even get me
started,” he replied. “I like being alone and I intend to stay that way.”

  “I know, but as someone who has just found the love of my life I wish all my friends could feel the same kind of happiness that I have.”

  Sam sighed. Former smokers and the newly in love, they could both be irritating with their need to reform the entire world. The two talked for another few minutes and then ended the call.

  As he walked downstairs to find the evening meal, he shoved thoughts of Jenna from his mind. He was going to miss working with her, but he was glad that she’d apparently found her soul mate.

  Despite the fact that he’d found her attractive and had enjoyed working with her, there had never been any sparks between them. They had simply been coworkers who had become close friends.

  All thoughts of Jenna left his mind as he entered the dining room to find two men already there. One of them stood near a sideboard pouring himself a cup of coffee from the urn on top, and the other was already seated at the table.

  The man at the table stood as Sam entered the room. “You must be the new guest. I’m Matt Rader, a fellow guest of this great place.” He held out his hand to Sam.

  “Sam Connelly,” Sam replied, as he shook Matt’s hand.

  “I’m Frank, the handyman and gardener and general jack-of-all-trades,” the other man replied. “I saw you out on the dock earlier. Did you have any luck?”

  “A few nibbles, nothing more.” Sam sat in one of the empty seats at the large table, assuming there was no seating assignment.

  Frank took a seat opposite Sam. He was an older man—Sam guessed he was in his late forties—and he had the weathered features of a man who spent a lot of time outside. “You here on business or pleasure?”

  “Strictly pleasure,” Sam replied. “I’m on a two-week vacation and looking forward to doing nothing more strenuous than fishing.”

  For the next few minutes the men talked about the fishing in the area and the hot weather. Sam was grateful that neither man asked him what he did for a living.

  It had been his experience that people did one of two things when they learned he was an FBI agent. They either got paranoid and distant or they glommed onto him with endless, mostly stupid questions.

  The superficial conversation was just beginning to wind down when another man arrived. He was a hand some blond with brown eyes, and he introduced himself as Jeff Tyson, a family friend of Daniella’s.

  It was obvious the minute Daniella bustled into the room carrying a large bowl of jambalaya that Jeff wouldn’t mind being more than a family friend to Daniella. He immediately leaped forward to take the bowl from her, and from the expression on his face Sam knew the man was in love with her.

  As Sam saw her a slight sizzle again went through him. Her gaze met his and a hint of color crept into her cheeks. Did she feel it, too? The crazy tug of physical attraction? Maybe her cheeks were just flushed from cooking, he thought as she disappeared back into the kitchen. Or maybe there was something more going on between her and Jeff than just friendship.

  She returned a moment later with a pan of corn bread and a bowl of salad. “I have fresh peach cobbler for dessert,” she said. “Enjoy your meal.”

  The food was terrific and the conversation flowed easily between the three men. Sam ate and only half-listened as his thoughts returned to the woman who had served them.

  Apparently Daniella and her daughter didn’t share their meals with the guests. As the owner of a bed-and-breakfast, Daniella had certainly set herself up for a demanding life, and she was a single parent to boot.

  He had a feeling beneath the sexy package there had to be some major inner strength. It was Sam’s experience that divorcees reacted to their life experiences in two ways: either they were eager to get married again and try for the happily-ever-after they’d been deprived of in their first marriage, or they turned their back on the very idea of a second marriage.

  There was a small part of him that hoped she fell into the second category, that she was ripe for a very brief, very physical relationship with no emotional attachment, and that she and Jeff truly were just old friends with nothing else going on between them.

  He frowned irritably, wondering why he suddenly had sex on the mind. He knew part of the problem was that he’d been so long without it. It had been eight months since he’d been with a woman, part of a fling with a career-minded woman he saw on an irregular basis.

  Ramona Welch lived in Topeka and occasionally traveled to Kansas City for business. Whenever she was in town she’d call Sam and they hooked up for the night. There were no expectations between them and definitely no love.

  He was grateful when the meal had ended and he escaped to his room after telling the others good-night. He was tired after the long drive that morning and the previous night of little sleep.

  After pulling down the pretty green bedspread he stretched out on the bed and considered turning on the television, but decided instead to just enjoy the silence.

  There had been little silence in his life or in his head in the last seven years since he’d become a profiler at the age of twenty-eight. His head had been filled with the voices of victims and the whispers of killers, and now, with no pending case to think about, he relished the blessed silence. As much as he hated to admit it, his boss had been right. He’d needed some time away from his job.

  He must have drifted off to sleep, for a soft knock on his door awakened him. Instantly he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Yes?” he called.

  The door creaked open and Macy peered in. “Can I ask you something?”

  He got up from the bed and met her at the door. “What’s that?”

  “You got any kids?”

  “No. Why?”

  She shrugged. “Just wondering, that’s all. My daddy got lost when I was a baby.”

  “He got lost?” What did that mean?

  Macy nodded. “Mommy told me she looked and looked for him, but we never could find him.”

  It sounded like a case of abandonment. Despite the hard shell he always kept around his heart he felt a tiny crack as he gazed into Macy’s childish eyes.

  “Since we can’t find him I’m kind of looking for a new daddy.”

  Before Sam could reply a scream ripped through the air. Sam instantly recognized it as Daniella and without thought he scooped Macy up in his arms and took the stairs two at a time.

  He found her in the kitchen. She stood at the back door, her face white as horror radiated from her eyes. The sight of Macy seemed to center her as she stepped away from the door and some of the color flooded back into her cheeks.

  “Macy, go to your room and get ready for bed. I’ll be in to kiss you good-night in just a few minutes.” Despite the fact that she appeared more calm, Sam heard the tremble in her voice.

  Sam placed Macy on the floor. “Why did you scream?” she asked her mother.

  “It’s nothing, honey. Go on and get your pajamas on and don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  The minute the child disappeared through a doorway at the back of the kitchen, the horror once again filled Daniella’s blue eyes. “Out there…oh, God, she’s dead.”

  Sam stepped out the back door, where the bright porch light illuminated half the yard. The first thing he saw was a trash bag lying on the ground about ten yards from a large Dumpster. The second was the body propped against the base of a large tree.

  He sucked in his breath as he went closer to investigate. It was obvious she was dead. A wood-handled knife protruded from the center of her chest, and her brown eyes were frozen open as if in startled response.

  She’d been pretty in life. Her dark hair shone with a rich luster, and her features were dainty and attractive. She was clad in a navy sundress and matching sandals, and Sam instantly ruled out robbery, for her diamond rings were still on her fingers.

  He took a step closer, although not so close that he might contaminate the scene. The dried blood around the wound indicated to
him that she’d been dead for a while. No blood in the general area led him to believe this was just the dump site, not the scene of the murder.

  The grass around where she sat looked undisturbed, with nothing out of place to capture his attention. No gum wrapper, no cigarette butt, nothing that could supply a clue as to who was responsible.

  Not your scene, a little voice whispered in his head. This isn’t your problem. You’re on vacation. He backed away. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved. He was simply a guest here; there was absolutely no reason for him to get involved in this crime.

  As he turned and saw Daniella silhouetted in the doorway, he hoped to hell he could hang on to his desire to remain uninvolved, but he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  DANIELLA WATCHED AS SAM headed back toward the house. She felt sick as wave after wave of horror washed over her. As Sam entered the kitchen she fought the irrational impulse to run into his arms, to feel the warmth of his body against hers.

  “I called the sheriff. He should be here soon.” She was appalled to hear the quiver in her voice.

  Sam took her by the arm and led her to a chair, where she sat and fought back tears. “I was going to take out the trash,” she said. “I’d only taken a couple of steps outside when I saw her.” She fought against a shudder than threatened to consume her body.

  “Do you know her?”

  She nodded. “Her name is Samantha Walker. She’s the divorced daughter of the mayor of Bachelor Moon.” She wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to ward off the cold horror that still swept through her. “I can’t imagine who did this or what she was doing on my property.”

  “Where is everyone else?” He sat in the chair next to hers and the scent of his clean, crisp cologne swept over her. It was oddly comforting.

  “Frank and Jeff went home right after dinner, and Matt went out. Surely you don’t think any of them had anything to do with this?”

  “I was just curious who was in the house. It looks like she was moved here after she was killed, and she’s been dead for quite a while.”