LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      C.J. CARMICHAEL

      Hard to imagine a more glamorous life than being an accountant, isn’t it? Still, C.J. Carmichael gave up the thrills of income tax forms and double-entry bookkeeping when she sold her first book in 1998. She has now written more than twenty-eight novels for Harlequin Books, and invites you to learn more about her books, see photos of her hiking exploits and enter her surprise contests at www.cjcarmichael.com.

      For my husband, Michael, with thanks and love.

      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

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      PROLOGUE

      “EXCUSE ME,” she called to the desk clerk. He’d watched her walk in the motel entrance, but hadn’t stirred from his chair by the television screen. “My husband’s locked us out of our room. Number 14.”

      The clerk had colorless hair and skin, and a long lean body that looked as though it might snap in half if he moved too quickly. There seemed to be no danger, however, of that happening. He unfolded himself and stepped slowly to the counter, his pigment-free eyes fixed on the buttons of her trench coat.

      “Your husband, hey?”

      He was leering, the pervert. Would he think it was so funny if he knew what she had in her pocket? Wouldn’t it be fun to show him… But she had to play this cool.

      “That’s right. My husband. John Doe.” She forced herself to smile, then held out a gloved hand. Was it her imagination or did he pause before dropping the large brass key into the cup of her leather-clad palm?

      Perhaps he thought it strange that she was wearing gloves in May. But the air was cool today, reminiscent of the cold winter Toronto had endured this year. She felt his gaze between her shoulder blades as she turned to leave, and it was a relief when the door finally closed behind her.

      There. That had gone well enough. Now she felt a calm sense of inevitability. The pangs of nervousness and anxiety she’d suffered last night were gone. She dug her right hand into the pocket of her coat and gripped her gun reassuringly. Mentally, she reviewed the remaining steps of her plan. The worst was almost over.

      Room 14 was located conveniently at the end of the motel, down a long concrete walkway and as far from the office as possible. Traffic on the Gardiner Expressway was loud and constant. The perfect backdrop for murder.

      At the door, she paused. There was no one else around. No sounds other than engines and the incessant rumbling of wheels over concrete and asphalt.

      The key slid easily into the doorknob. As she twisted, a tantalizing cooking odor seeped out the crack around the door. What in the world…?

      She held her ear to the small space between door and frame and thought she heard singing. A man’s voice, attempting opera. Clearly the song was coming from another room.

      With her gloved hand she pushed on the knob and slipped into the room, closing the door behind her. She walked around the king-size bed, where a red rose lay on one of the white pillows. Such a romantic touch.

      The sleeping quarters were separated from a kitchenette by a ceiling-hung set of cupboards and a long, waist-high counter. Between the two, she could see the midsection of a man. His clear, tenor voice worked its way to the climax of “The Music of the Night” from The Phantom of the Opera.

      She stepped forward cautiously. Her gun was ready and so was she.

      A creaking hollow in the linoleum gave her away as she stepped off the carpet into the kitchenette. The man turned, obviously expecting someone, but his smile of welcome slipped down from the corners of his mouth as he stared at the barrel of the gun pointed at his chest. He stiffened and stepped backward, pressing against the metal edge of the stove where the contents of a large iron pot boiled. It was tomato sauce, she saw now.

      “What are you doing with that gun? What do you want?”

      Dispassionately, she watched the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed once, then again.

      Calmly she uttered five carefully chosen words.

      His eyes widened. Good. It was important that he understand why this was happening. She pulled the trigger.

      He jerked backward with the impact of the bullet, knocking the pot of tomato sauce over on its side. Then his body slowly slid down and forward, until he collapsed on the floor. Sauce from the overturned pot poured unchecked off the stove, landing precisely on the small balding area at the back of his head. There was no reaction from him as the scalding hot sauce hit his bare skin.

      She allowed herself a slight smile. It had gone according to plan.

      Jerry Walker was dead.

      CHAPTER ONE

      “SOMETIMES I FEEL like taking that gun out of his night table and shooting the television! Right in the middle of Star Trek!”

      Chartered psychologist Trista Emerson pressed the stop button on the tape recorder, cutting off Nan Walker’s explosion of rage toward her husband, Jerry. It marked the first time Nan had been anything but meek and agreeable, and Trista had taken it as a very good step forward. But now Jerry and Nan had missed their four o’clock appointment and Trista didn’t know what to think.

      The Walkers were relatively new clients, part of a recent trend that she’d been trying to avoid.

      Marriage counseling.

      Trista preferred individual therapy, but often it was impossible to separate the two. A client might come to her initially because of personal problems. If that client was married, however, often the problems spilled out into the relationship.

      When that happened, she was honest about her own history.

      “I have training and counseling experience in this area. But you should know that my own marriage ended in divorce.”

      For some reason that knowledge turned very few of them away.

      “Your own trauma has made you wiser, more sympathetic,” a trusted colleague had told her—a man she’d gone to for therapy following the breakup of her marriage.

      Certainly the results she’d seen in her practice gave testimony to his opinion.

      But sometimes, she wondered. Was she the best person to advise these people? Like Nan and Jerry Walker. She’d been seeing them for a couple of weeks now, and she was determined to do her utmost to help them in the one-month trial period they’d all agreed upon. But it wasn’t a good sign that they’d

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