LITMIR.BIZ

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icy breeze swirled around her, sending her skirt flapping about her legs. Thad had been so angry with her on the way home from the Christmas dinner party that he’d pulled over on this deserted stretch of highway outside Denver, then half dragged, half carried her down a path in the woods. “It’s freezing out here, Thad, please take me home.”

      “You’re bound to me forever,” he murmured.

      A shudder rippled through her. His voice was as brittle as the winter wind. Why hadn’t she seen through his charismatic act to the devil that lay beneath? How could she have been such a bad judge of character?

      Because he was an attorney. A well-respected, handsome man she’d thought she could trust. And he’d been so charming at first.

      Until she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore, that she’d quit her job, bought a house and was moving. Then he’d revealed his hidden side.

      He lowered his mouth to kiss her, the stench of bourbon on his breath. His other hand slid clumsily to her blouse, and he jerked a button loose.

      Cold air assaulted her breasts. Her stomach convulsed.

      “Please, Thad, stop. Go home. Sleep it off.”

      “No. Nobody humiliates Thad Jordan.” His eyes darkened with an evil flare she’d never seen before. He looked menacing. Brutal. As if he meant to punish.

      Then his fingers closed around the ruby necklace he’d given her, the cold stone dangling against her bare skin. “You accepted my gift, now accept that we’re together.”

      “You can have the necklace back,” Hailey said, wishing she’d never let him put it on her in the first place. But he had insisted.

      His fingers slid to her neck, and she swallowed, her heart racing. What was he going to do? Choke her? “Please, Thad,” Hailey whispered. “Take the necklace, then drive me home.”

      His jaw snapped tight, then he backed her up against the tree. “I’ll never let you leave me, Hailey. You’re mine forever.”

      Fear spiked her adrenaline, and she swung her knee into his groin. He released her with a bellow. “You’ll pay for that.”

      Panic surged through her. She ran, jumping over the rotting tree stumps and bramble. He yelled and ran after her. She clawed her way through the forest, her breathing erratic. Leaves crunched behind her. He was chasing her. Closing the distance.

      Briars stabbed her thighs, and she tripped over a tree stump. Her hands hit the dirt, and she struggled to regain her balance. Suddenly he was there. He latched on to her hair and jerked her so hard her neck nearly snapped. Dead brush and pine needles pricked her knees. She swept her hands blindly across the ground for a weapon. Just as he lowered his head, she clutched a branch, then jabbed it upward with all her might. He howled in pain, then fell backward cursing. Blood gushed from his cheek and eye.

      Shaking, she jumped up and ran through the forest opening. He screeched her name like a wild animal, once again on her trail. She spotted the car and dashed toward it.

      Thank God he’d left the keys inside.

      She flung herself into the driver’s side, hit the locks and turned the key. The ignition chugged, then died. He burst through the opening in a thunderous roar, one hand covering his bloody eye, the other fist flailing. “Stop it, Hailey. Come back here!”

      She cried out and patted the gas. The car had to start. She couldn’t be trapped here with that monster.

      He closed the distance, then banged on the door. “Open the door, Hailey. Dammit, open it!”

      His eyes wild with rage, he threw himself on the front window. The car rocked sideways.

      His bloody hand streaked the glass as she twisted the key again. She pressed the gas one more time. The car roared to life. Panting, she accelerated, and spun forward. The jolt sent him sailing into the air. She screamed, then steered the opposite way and sped off. She couldn’t look back now. And she couldn’t stop.

      If he caught her, he’d kill her…

      HIS FATHER WAS NOT A KILLER. He was innocent.

      On the long ride home from the Colorado state prison, Rex Falcon’s stomach churned with the certainty that his dad had spent the last twenty years in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. Shame and sorrow mingled with anger. All his life, Rex had questioned his father’s innocence.

      And now with new criminology techniques and the airing of a recent show on The Innocents, more cold cases were being reopened and solved. With his father’s upcoming parole hearing and Rex and his brothers experience in their private investigative business, they’d reviewed the police reports and trial transcripts and found discrepancies that cast doubt on the original case.

      The Hatchet Murderer.

      The press had given his dad the name because of the vicious slayings of the Lyle family. That was the reason his mother had dragged him and his two brothers to Arizona to live. But now Rex had returned to their childhood home at Falcon Ridge to learn the truth.

      Rex shifted his SUV into Park beneath the towering pines next to his family’s stone manor, got out and went to the backyard, to the wildlife sanctuary for the hawks he and his brother rescued and trained for flight. A kestrel sat on its perch, its wings spread in an arc. Although it was dark, and snowflakes drifted down to pelt him in the face, Rex homed in on the animal’s watchful movements. He and his brothers had inherited an affinity for the creatures of the wild from their father. And just as the birds had special sensory skills to stalk and track their prey, so did Rex and Deke and Brack.

      At one time, Rex had wondered if his father had given in to that primitive need to prey on the weak and had killed the Lyles. Now he knew differently, and was ashamed he’d ever doubted him.

      He’d also wondered if he’d inherited that dangerous, uncontrollable side.

      He glanced down the hill at the house where their father had supposedly butchered the family. The Hatchet House had been closed up since the murder. The fading, chipped paint and latticework of the Victorian structure testified to its disrepair. The angles and attic window seemed macabre in the murky light. It was tucked on the side of a cliff, isolated but closer to the main road and town than Falcon Ridge, but the way it jutted out over the mountain made it look as if it might slide into the canyon any second. The location, coupled with its gruesome history and the fact that locals claimed it was haunted had kept buyers away. He’d already conducted a preliminary sweep of the downstairs. Tomorrow he’d search every inch of it and the grounds for evidence the police might have missed in their hasty, slipshod investigation.

      And he’d run off anyone who got in his way.

      HAILEY HAD BEEN DRIVING for hours, battling the snowstorm. Putting the miles between her and Thad. Between her and her past.

      A mountain road twisted to the side, and she veered onto it. Darkness bathed the graveled road, shadows from the trees flickering like fingers reaching for her, crystals of frozen ice pelting her windshield. For a brief second when she’d left Thad, she’d considered going to the police. But he had too many friends in the police department, too many important people to protect him. Just like her fifth foster father had. She’d traveled that rocky road before and managed to survive.

      Her foster mother hadn’t been so lucky.

      So, she’d left Thad’s car at his house, taken her own and left for good. Just to be on the safe side in case he’d followed, she’d traded her Civic for a VW. She’d also traded her golden hair for a brownish-red and had layered it into a shoulder-length bob.

      Thank goodness she’d already bought a place in the mountains, so she wasn’t running without a plan.

      The majestic view of aging trees, their boughs heavy with icicles, and wildlife roaming free stirred her awe. She’d always wanted to come to this area, had been saving for the right place for months. Here she’d find a sanctuary from the dark shadows

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