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Part One
1996
Prologue
“Bitch.” Harley Taggert was drunk, but not drunk enough. He needed another bottle of champagne to dull the pain cutting through his soul and he stumbled as he walked along the deck of his father’s sailboat. The night was clear, the salt smell of the ocean invading his nostrils, the boat gently rocking against its moorings. How could she do this to him? How could she give him back the goddamned ring?
Because she’s a heartless bitch. She gave you back the ring didn’t she?
He glanced down at his curled fist and saw the diamond ring winking in his sweaty palm and remembered pieces of her rehearsed speech about their relationship not working and her wanting to be “friends” or some such rot. Yeah, right. Like she was “friends” with Kane Moran, that two-bit hoodlum? She was probably on her way to screw Moran’s brains out right now.
He squeezed his eyes shut and saw her face in his mind’s eye. God she was beautiful, but then all the Holland women were.
Claire. Jesus. Why?
Damn it, he’d loved her.
More than he’d realized. More than he thought possible.
And she’d cheated on him.
With that low-life poor bastard.
Harley swayed a little as he reached the prow and looked skyward to the skeletal masts rising into the starry night. He felt tears sting his eyes and was ashamed. It was the champagne. Had to be. Because he was a man and men didn’t ever cry—especially not the sons of Neal Taggert. Never them.
“Shit,” he muttered and looked westward past the bay to the open sea. He should leave. Forever. Or . . . do as he threatened and end it all. Just jump into the frigid water and breathe deep. That would show ’em. Or else he should have another drink . . . but first . . . he needed to get rid of the ring. With all his might he pulled his arm back and heaved the sickening diamond as far as he could throw and fell against the railing with the effort just as he heard a distinctive plop as the damned engagement ring settled into the depths of the bay. “Good riddance,” Harley muttered, pulling himself onto his feet as he felt rather than saw someone with him.
He turned quickly, but he was alone. No one had climbed aboard. No one lingered on the dock. It was just his mind playing weird games with him. The hot summer night was getting to him. Even the breath of wind rolling in from the Pacific was warmer than usual for summer in Oregon.
Another noise. From the dock. Fear zinged up his spine. He squinted but saw no one lingering beneath the lights strung over the worn planks. He was alone. Aside from the old coot dozing in the marina office and the people playing some old Eagles album . . . he was just jumpy—too many emotions and too much booze. Or not enough.
From the corner of his eye he saw movement and he twisted his head around in time to see a bony cat slip around a lamppost.
Get a grip. You’re losin’it. man. Either jump into the water and end it or go back into the cabin and raid the old man’s liquor cabinet. There’s a fifth of Black Velvet with your name on it.
He took one step toward the cabin when he saw her . . . just a quicksilver image of a woman sliding quickly through the shadows. Every hair on the back of his neck rose. Had Claire returned? Rethought her heartless decision to cast him aside? Well, it was too fuckin’ late . . . but . . . there was something wrong about her. It didn’t seem right. Or was the champagne clouding his judgment. He blinked and she seemed to have disappeared. But he knew better. Felt her eyes—hidden condemning orbs. Whoever it was seemed used to slinking around and hiding in the shadows, someone who loved to spy. Someone who wasn’t quite right. Someone like his sister.
Swallowing back his fear, he took a tentative step forward, toward the prow, easing closer to the railing. “Paige?” he called, hoping to sound steadier th
an he felt. “Is that you? Come on outta there—”
Something flashed by the side of his head and he turned quickly to see a gloved hand raised high. “What the hell?”
Bam!
“Die, bastard,” an evil voice snarled.
He caught a glimpse of a rock hoisted high.
Before he could move, it crashed down.
Bam!
Pain exploded in his skull.
White light flashed behind his eyes.
Harley staggered backward, blood running in his eyes, fear sliding down his spine. His hips hit the railing and he tried to catch himself, but it was too late. Momentum pitched him over the side of the sleek craft and he was falling . . . falling.
Thud!
The back of his head cracked the dock.
Pain screamed through his skull. His body convulsed. Blindly he groped, reaching, scrabbling for anything to hold on to, his fingers scraping the side of his father’s boat only to lose their grip as he hit the icy water.
You’re going to die. Right now . . . Fight, Harley, fight!
He tried to scream. Saltwater filled his nose and throat. His reactions were slow, out of sync. Help me, please, someone help me! But the words were lost in his mind. Pain ricocheted through his brain, through the dark frigid water. His lungs burned. He flailed wildly, thrashing and churning as his clothes weighed him down. Sluggishly he tried to kick upward but his foot was held tight, tangled or . . . or gripped by someone under the dock. His lungs were on fire, threatening to explode. Frantic, he fought, kicking, looking up to the surface where, beyond the rippling veil of the waterline he caught a glimpse of his attacker as she stood beneath a lamppost on the dock.
The surface was so far away . . . he was going to die . . . she’d killed him. Why? Oh, God, please help me! Jump in here, call nine-one-one, do something. He tried to swim upward, but whatever was holding his foot wouldn’t let go! His entire body screamed in agony. The image overhead rippled before his eyes as he struggled, a pale watery face illuminated by the lights of the dock, a face twisted in horror while the manacle on his ankle seemed to tighten, as if the Grim Reaper himself were holding him fast, ensuring his horrid death.
There wasn’t any more time. In one last effort, Harley kicked and tried to scream.
His tortured lungs shattered. Air spewed, bubbling upward, taking with it any chance of survival. Saltwater flooded his throat. Cold as death it burned like hell. Wave after wave of burning water crushing him from the inside out . . . and then it came . . . the blackness, an eerily seductive calm teased at the edges of his brain, closing in on him as he quit struggling and the last bit of air bubbled up from his lungs. His eyes rolled up in his head, offering him one final glimpse of the world through a watery curtain where he saw the ghostly face of his killer as she inched backward, away from light and into the darkness.
One
All’s fair in love and war.
Or so the old saying went. Kane wasn’t entirely sure he could adopt the adage, not when Claire Holland’s future was at stake, but then what the hell, she’d never cared for him anyway. Never given him the time of day except once, when she’d let her tightly laced guard down. He stepped hard on the emergency brake as he cut the engine and reminded himself that she was married, separated but married, and her name was now Claire St. John.
Rain peppered the windshield, drizzling down the glass in jagged streaks as Kane stared at the shack he’d inherited—a three-room cabin on the shores of Lake Arrowhead. Shingles were missing from the roof; two windows were covered with plywood now decorated with graffiti; rust ran in orange stains from downspouts clogged by years of leaves, needles, and dirt; and the front porch sagged like a broken-down cart horse’s back. Stumps, mutilated by a chain saw and blackened from years in the rain, had toppled over long before they became his father’s works of Northwest art. The attic window—the only source of natural light in the cramped space that had been his bedroom—had been smashed, and pieces of glass still littered the porch roof.
Welcome home, he thought sourly as he climbed out of his rig, threw his duffel bag and bedroll over one shoulder, and ducked against an icy blast of wind. Hot pain shot through his hip, compliments of a stray piece of shrapnel he’d collected on his last assignment overseas. He winced and hitched the bag higher on his shoulder as he cursed the fact that he still limped a bit, enough to throw off his gait when he wanted to move fast.
