Marked for Murder

BACK OFF, LADY, OR YOU’RE NEXT.

Shock and anger splintered through Cole as words in colorful crayon leaped from the piece of paper left on Margo’s door. It was signed with a gold star. The killer’s signature.

Cole’s gaze darted to Margo again. She still looked detached and unaffected—just a police officer assessing evidence. But at the base of her throat, her pulse was throbbing. “Let me help, Margo. I can do it under the radar so I don’t offend your staff.”

“Cole, we’ve been through this. This case doesn’t belong to you. Not anymore. It’s mine now.”

He expelled a frustrated blast of air. “At least admit you’re scared. Don’t pretend with me.”

His statement seemed to release a rash of goose bumps, and Margo rubbed her arms to dispel them. “Okay, I’m a little unnerved. I wouldn’t be human if I weren’t. But give up the case? No.”

He had his in. He was taking it.

LAUREN NICHOLS

From the time Waldenbooks bestselling author Lauren Nichols was able to read, there was a book in her hand—then later, in her mind. Happily, her first attempt at romantic fiction was a finalist in RWA’s Golden Heart Contest, and though she didn’t win, she’s been blessed to sell eight romantic suspense novels, and dozens of romance, mystery and science fiction short stories to national magazines. This is her first Christian romantic suspense novel for Steeple Hill Books.

When Lauren isn’t working on a project or hanging out with her family and friends, she enjoys gardening, geocaching and traveling anywhere with her very best friend, husband Mike. Lauren loves to hear from readers. You can e-mail her at lauren_nich@yahoo.com or through her Web site, www.laurennichols.com.

Marked for Murder

Lauren Nichols

MILLS & BOON

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Be gentle and ready to forgive; never hold grudges. Remember, the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.

—Colossians 3:13

For Mike.

I love our life.

CONTENTS

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

EPILOGUE

LETTER TO READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“Yes, I know it’ll be difficult to go back to your apartment, Ms. Cortino, but you could have information that we need. I’ve advised one of my officers that you’re on your way home now. He’ll meet you there. You have our deepest sympathies on the loss of your roommate.”

Margo McBride hung up the phone for what had to be the tenth time since their dispatcher went to the diner for takeout, then propped her elbows on her desk and massaged the tension headache over her eyebrows. She was about to reach for her cold coffee when the door to the Charity, Pennsylvania, police department opened…and an awkward, uncomfortable pall fell over the room. Her side of it, at least.

The tall, broad-shouldered man wearing jeans and a collarless white knit shirt didn’t seem uneasy at all. He was through the low, spindled gate dividing the reception area from the office proper before Margo could blink away a sting of tears.

Cole Blackburn’s wind-tossed brown hair topped rugged features and dark eyes that wanted answers.

Why today, God? Margo thought, feeling her heart break all over again. Why today, when she’d been up since 3:00 a.m. and her nerves were already raw? Then she remembered that she and God were no longer speaking, and braced herself for what was coming.

She knew why her ex-fiancé had come back.

And it wasn’t for her.

Cole crossed to the gray steel desk where she’d been scanning the old Gold Star files, and spoke grimly. “Why didn’t you tell me? I know it’s been a long time since we spoke, but you had to realize I’d want to know about this. Why did I have to hear it on the morning news?”

Events she’d prayed would never be repeated moved through his dark eyes…a time of tragic crime photos, tearful parents and two-inch-high headlines.

“The reporter was careful not to utter the words ‘serial killer,’” Cole went on, “but gold stars and strangulation tells me it’s the same freak. There was a silk scarf around her neck, wasn’t there? But it wasn’t hers.”

With a squeak of wheels, Margo rolled her swivel chair away from the desk and stood. She worked to keep her voice even and polite. “You know I can’t talk about an active investigation.”

“Yes, I do. But in a town of barely six thousand people, I only have to walk into the diner across the street or the convenience store down the block and I’ll hear everything. Gossip flows like water around here. Unfortunately, the facts would be distorted—unintentionally, but distorted just the same. I’d rather hear the truth from you.”

Maybe it was lack of sleep, or last night’s horror, or his seemingly unaffected demeanor that shoved professionalism to the side. Or maybe she just needed to remind him that he wasn’t the only one who’d been hurt eleven months ago. For whatever reason, she said softly, but pointedly, “And if I told you the truth? Today you’d believe me?”

Everything in Cole seemed to still as memories of their last day together stretched between them like a damaged bridge too fragile to cross. It all came back to Margo now…the bone-deep sorrow and futility of that day, the angry words. The love she’d tried so hard to preserve until she’d finally realized that the best thing she could do for the two of them was give back his ring.

Cole broke their eye contact first. Then he sighed, jammed his hands in his pockets and wandered a few feet away to regroup. His gaze skipped from the white floor tiles, to the filing cabinets and office machines, to the barely audible TV and wood-paneled walls. Margo knew what he saw there: more memories. The Officer Bill and D.A.R.E. posters taped to the paneling had hung there when Cole was part of their tiny police force. Then his dark gaze rested on the second desk in the room, and Margo felt that clawing hurt again. Once they’d shared that desk, some days sharing secret smiles, other days poring over files and desperately looking for anything that would lead them to a killer.

It hurt him to look at it, too. She could see it. But not because he missed those days with her. It hurt because the job wasn’t his anymore.

Ambling back to her, he broke the heavy silence. “Who was she, Margo?” he asked quietly. “Is there someone I need to see? Someone who’d expect my condolences? I made some friends while I lived here.”

Yes, he had, and she’d been one of them. His best friend, he used to say. Reluctantly, Margo walked around the desk to him. The sooner she answered his questions and he left, the sooner she could get on with the business of patching the new hole in her heart. She would not think about summer nights sitting on the tailgate of his truck, picking out constellations, or sack races at the department’s picnics, or weekends cuddled together naming the babies they hoped to have one day. The past was the past. The tenderness in his dark eyes was for someone else now.

“You didn’t know her. Her name was Leanne Hudson, and she was walking home from a volleyball game at the park when it happened. She was a med student who’d recently moved here with her family…small, blonde and pretty, just like the first two girls. And yes,” she said, since practically every detail of the murders was already out, thanks to the teenage boys who found the body. “There was a scarf around her neck.”

“But it was window dressing, wasn’t it? He used his hands. And there were no defensive wounds, which suggests—as we’d thought with the other girls—that she knew her attacker or for some reason wasn’t afraid of him.”

“That I can’t discuss.” Margo drew a breath, then let it out. “There is something I can tell you, though, since you’ll hear it on the street anyway. There were four gold stars on her forehead.”

Shock splintered through his rugged features. “Four? There was no report of a third murder. I would’ve heard.”

“There was no third murder. Not in this jurisdiction, anyway. We’re scouring all the databases for number three, but so far—nothing.”

The phone rang, and Margo murmured a polite, “Sorry, I have to take this,” before she picked up the receiver.

Cole moved away to give her some privacy, his obsession with the case and his raw emotions both urgently vying for his attention. It was a close contest, but raw emotion won out. He knew it would be uncomfortable seeing her again, but he hadn’t expected to feel anything beyond that. He’d been wrong. From the moment he’d walked in, memories had flown at him from every corner, making him tense and short and loading him up with guilt when he didn’t have any reason to feel that way. She was the one who’d pulled the plug on their relationship, not him, and he refused to take the blame for it.

Cole forced himself to shift his focus—center on the killer he hadn’t been able to stop, and the high-school girls who’d lost their lives in Woodland Park two years ago. Trista Morgan had been marked with one star; Missy Kennicott, two. Now he could add a third name: Leanne Hudson.

Twenty-four months ago, they’d done everything they could to nail the star-flinging freak, but with the department’s limited resources, the case had dragged on for months. He’d argued repeatedly with Chief of Police John Wilcox that they needed to look elsewhere for the killer—not center solely on two carnival workers. They’d questioned and released the carneys so many times it had bordered on police harassment. But Wilcox had refused and, finally—against Margo’s nervous insistence that Cole back off—he’d told Wilcox to holster his ego and bring in the Pennsylvania State Police.

Cole felt a nerve leap in his jaw and his stomach clenched. Three days later, Wilcox—with the mayor and town council’s blessing—had dismissed him for insubordination, and blackballed him in surrounding counties.

Losing his job had been humiliating—life changing. Somehow he’d known even then that there would be a domino effect of trouble ahead. That’s when he’d asked God to make things right again. He was the son of a deeply Christian mother and not-quite-devout dad who, nevertheless, kept a St. Michael medal on his key ring— St. Michael, patron saint of cops. But he’d been more like his dad in his beliefs, and apparently the Lord had picked up on that. It had taken him a long time to realize that he couldn’t keep treating God like some benevolent Santa Claus when he needed a favor, then basically ignore His existence until he needed Him again.

“So where’s Wilcox?” he asked, making his way back to Margo when she’d hung up the phone. He had a hard time keeping the disdain out of his voice. “Out glad-handing everybody? Assuring them that he’s only minutes away from an arrest?”

He regretted his sarcasm the moment Margo’s features softened and her gaze slid away. He knew that look. Something had happened.

“No,” she replied. “John died eight days ago of a massive heart attack.”

Despite the bad blood between them, once John had been a friend. Before the murders, he’d even been a good cop. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Cole said honestly. “How’s Adam doing?”

“As well as can be expected for a kid who just lost his only remaining parent. I told him to contact me if he needed anything.” She nodded at the ceramic Hail to the Chief coffee mug on the desk, jammed with pens and pencils. “I still have to box up his dad’s personal things and take them to the house. I’m hoping he’ll want to go back to school soon. Classes started a few days ago for the fall term. But…”

“Yeah. College has to be the last thing on his mind right now.” Cole nodded at the seat she’d vacated—John Wilcox’s padded leather chair. “You’re the senior officer. I guess you’re the acting chief?”

“Yes.”

Then the investigation was her headache now.

Cole released a ragged breath, finally noticing that her black-and-gray uniform was slightly rumpled, finally realizing that the wispy bangs and auburn tendrils that had escaped her loose bun weren’t an attempt at fashion. Finally seeing the weary circles under her beautiful green eyes.

He was about to ask if she’d requested help from the state guys when Sarah French bustled inside, her bright red pageboy frizzing from the late-August humidity. The plump middle-aged dispatcher wore a short-sleeved, neon-green pantsuit and looked as frazzled as her hairdo.

“Margo, there’s a—” She stopped abruptly, and a smile stretched her chubby cheeks. “Cole! You’re back!”

Before he could offer a greeting or say he wouldn’t be staying, Sarah dropped a takeout bag on her desk, raised a just-a-minute index finger and addressed Margo again. “I was leaving the diner when I saw the van pull in, so I hotfooted it over here before they barged inside. I told them to stay right where they were.”

Margo sighed. “Now who’s out there?”

“Channel 29 News from Johnstown—a cameraman and a pushy woman reporter.”

Cole walked to the room divider. “She got pushy with you?”

Sarah slid a funky giraffe-head purse off her shoulder and set it beside her lunch. “Well…maybe I just didn’t like her black eyeliner.” She reached across the low barrier to hug him. “Good to see you again, honey.”

“You, too, Sarah,” he said, returning her hug. She’d been a staunch supporter and voice of outrage when Wilcox had fired him. He’d always appreciated that.

Sarah released him and stood back, beaming. “How’s the P.I. business?”

“Like anything else. Hectic one day, slow the next.”

“Which means?”

He shrugged. “It’s a paycheck.”

“A paycheck’s good,” she returned, clearly annoyed. “But you should be earning it here.”

“Thanks, but it was time for me to move on.”

The air beside him stirred as Margo strode past him, tucking those wispy strays back into her bun on her way to the door. Suddenly he found himself feeling sorry for her—another wrinkle he hadn’t expected. And for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he wanted to help. “Want me to tell them you’ll have a statement later?”

She registered surprise, but only for an instant. “Thanks, but they’re just doing their jobs. Every newspaper, radio and TV station within a two-hundred-mile radius has called this morning. It was only a matter of time before the vans showed up.”

The phone rang again. Snatching up the receiver, Sarah spoke in a melodic singsong. “Charity Police Department. How can I direct your call?”

“Lousy way to start a new job,” Cole said in an undertone.

“Yes,” Margo replied.

Sarah raised a hand to stop Margo from leaving, then thanked the caller and hung up. “C.O.D.’s official,” she said somberly. “The Hudson girl’s hyoid bone was broken. Death by asphyxiation.”

“Thanks, Sarah,” Margo murmured.

Then Cole watched her square her shoulders, take a breath and go out to meet her interrogators.

Margo barely had time to adjust to the bright sunlight before a reporter in crisp white slacks and a navy blazer thrust a microphone at her. The woman’s smooth chin-length hair was as black as her eyeliner.

“Chief McBride? Nancy Talbot, Channel 29 News. What can you tell us about the murder? Are there any leads?”

“First of all, it’s still Officer McBride. Second, this investigation is in its infancy. It’s too early for me to comment on anything. We’ve contacted the Pennsylvania State Police, and they’re handling the evidence we’ve collected.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Evidence it wouldn’t be prudent to share at this time.”

Talbot pressed on, her voice rising. Sarah’s “pushy” comment had been right on the money. “The teenage boys who found the body in the park said the victim had been strangled with a scarf. They also said there were four gold stars on her forehead. Two years ago, two young women were killed in the same park in the same way, and marked with one, then two gold stars. Does that tell us there was a third murder? Are you looking for a serial killer, ma’am?”

Great. It wasn’t bad enough that the kids had blabbed; they’d blabbed to a reporter. “As I said, I’m not at liberty to answer your questions right now. I’ll be releasing a statement later today.”

“I appreciate your position, but the public does need answers—if for no other reason than to maintain their own safety. Some of the young women we’ve interviewed are frightened. The earlier victims, Missy Kennicott and Trista Morgan, were both blondes. Leanne Hudson was blonde. Shouldn’t you be warning young blonde women to be extremely cautious when they walk your streets?” She thrust the mic at Margo again.

A thin crowd had begun to form outside the stone-and-timber police station, interested onlookers who’d been attracted by the news van. Across the street near the diner and municipal parking lot, people were taking their time getting into their cars.

“Ms. Talbot, we’re cautioning all women who travel the streets after dark to be cautious. We’ve suggested that they walk with a friend until the situation’s resolved.”

“Of course,” she said, quickly pressing on. “You mentioned that you’ve asked the Pennsylvania State Police for assistance?”

“That’s correct.”

She jumped on Margo’s answer with both feet. “You say that as though it’s standard procedure. Yet former Chief Wilcox chose to go it alone when the other two murders occurred. Should he have brought in the PSP two years ago?”

Margo didn’t realize Cole had followed her outside until she felt his weighty stare and spotted him standing in the shallow crowd. He, too, appeared to be waiting for her answer.

Regret tightened her chest.

It would be so easy to say no, John Wilcox hadn’t acted responsibly. Moreover, she suspected that some grudging part of Cole wanted her to state that publicly. The investigation and Cole’s dismissal had marked the beginning of the end of their relationship. But answering that way would denigrate her boss’s memory and cause undue pain to the families of those first two girls. With a polite smile, Margo ended the interview.

“My apologies, Ms. Talbot, but I have work to do. I can tell you that my department and I have made this a top priority. In fact—”

Shifting her gaze to the camera, she spoke clearly and succinctly. “If the man—or woman—who took Leanne Hudson’s life is watching, I have a message for you. We will find you. And when we do, I will personally do what ever it takes to see that you’re prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There’ll be no deals. You’re going to pay.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Cole said gravely as they went back inside the station. They passed Sarah, who was on the phone again, scribbling something on a long pink notepad, a half-eaten sandwich and takeout drink at her elbow.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that little speech of yours,” Cole said. “You made it too personal.”

“Because it is personal. Someone took the life of a girl this department was sworn to protect, then made sure he’d get a wagonload of publicity by mimicking an unsolved case.”

She was keenly aware of him following her toward the desk she’d inherited, so close she could feel his warmth. She glanced at him briefly, thinking that conversation between them was a lot less strained when they were talking about someone or something else. “Did you see the look on that reporter’s face? She found the whole thing tantalizing. She’s not going to file a tragic story, she’s going to sensationalize it, and we’re going to have so many curiosity seekers driving through town, I’ll have to deputize Sarah to keep traffic flowing.”

“I don’t care about that reporter. I care that you might’ve just made yourself a target. If the same person killed all three girls, he obviously despises women. What if he hates women in authority even more?”

“And what if Leanne Hudson’s death had nothing to do with the previous murders?”

Irritation entered his tone. “I’d still tell you that coming on like Dirty Harriet was a mistake.” He fell silent for several seconds, and she could almost hear the thoughts clicking through his mind. “Are you saying you think this murder could be a copycat?”

“I don’t know. We’re looking at it both ways. And I wasn’t trying to be Dirty Harriet.”

“No?”

“No.” She sank into her chair, transferred the Kennicott and Morgan homicide files to a drawer, then leaned her weary back into soft leather and met Cole’s eyes. Suddenly, she was so exhausted, all she wanted to do was curl up in a corner and sleep for a year. “Cole, I don’t have the energy to fight with you today.”

“I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m merely saying that you don’t have to put yourself out there the way you just did.”

“Look. I don’t think you understand my position. A woman at the helm of an investigation like this has to show strength. The public—especially the parents and families of those dead girls—needs to know that I’m dedicated to finding whoever did this to them. I don’t want them to doubt my commitment for a second.”

She was about to go on when she suddenly looked at him—really looked—and realized that beneath his brusque delivery and despite their rocky past, he did care about her, just a little. It was her undoing.

Margo felt the old knocking in her heart, and an emotional lump rose in her throat. “My heart aches for these people, Cole. That’s why I’m going to use every tool at my disposal and everything I’ve ever learned to do my best for them. But the truth is…” She drew a breath. “The truth is, it should be you sitting in this chair. You were right. John was wrong.”

For a time, the only sounds in the room were the whir of the air conditioner and the sounds of their own memories. Then the phone rang again, jarring them both.

Turning around, Sarah excused herself for interrupting. “Margo, Brett’s on line one. The Hudson girl’s roommate never showed up at their apartment. He wants to know if he should stick around for a while or head back here.”

It took her a moment to reply. “Tell him to wait. I’ll join him there in a few minutes.” She looked up at Cole. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”

“No problem,” he said, unreadable thoughts clouding his eyes. “You have things to do. Maybe I’ll drop by your place later.”

Stunned, not sure why he’d do that—or if she could even handle another meeting—Margo swallowed and moistened her lips. “You’re not driving back to Pittsburgh?”

“No.” There was no explanation attached to the word, and she didn’t think she could ask for one. Instead, she watched him leave—watched him bump knuckles with Sarah, then step into the late-August sunshine and close the door behind him.

What little energy she had left drizzled away. Why was he thinking about coming by later? What did they have to talk about? They’d said all that needed to be said eleven months ago when she’d broken their engagement. They were over.

Weren’t they?

Pushing away from her desk, she said goodbye to Sarah and headed out the side door, where one of the department’s two black-and-white prowl cars waited. She slipped inside, fastened her seat belt. She couldn’t think about Cole anymore—couldn’t open herself up to what-ifs and maybes. Letting herself think there was hope for them would destroy her this time if it failed to happen. For her own sanity, she needed to concentrate on her job and try to ignore the nervous beating of her heart.