Cause For Alarm

The author of twenty-five books, Erica Spindler is best known for her spine-tingling thrillers. Her novels have been published all over the world, selling over six million copies, and critics have dubbed her stories “thrill-packed, page-turners, white-knuckle rides and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”

Erica is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2002, her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence.

Also by Erica Spindler

SEE JANE DIE

IN SILENCE

DEAD RUN

SHOCKING PINK

BONE COLD

ALL FALL DOWN

KILLER TAKES ALL

COPYCAT

For my sons

I wish to extend a special thanks to Detective Quintin Peterson, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC, for not only answering my questions about the MPD, but for bringing it to life. Special thanks also to Vicki and John Faivre for information on fly-fishing locales. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I’d also like to offer a huge hug of gratitude to Dianne Moggy and the amazing MIRA crew for helping me pull a rabbit out of a hat with this one. Time was definitely not on my side. Thanks also to Chuck and Evelyn Vagnier, Cover to Cover bookstore, Mandeville, Louisiana, for helping me locate all sorts of out-of-the-ordinary research materials. And finally, thanks to my incomparable agent, Evan Marshall, and my ever-helpful and always-understanding husband, Nathan.

Washington, D.C., 1998

The fashionable Washington neighborhood slept. Not a single light shone up or down the block of high-priced town homes, the only illumination the glow from the streetlamps and the three-quarter moon. The November night chilled; the air was damp, heavy with the scent of decay.

Winter had come.

John Powers climbed the steps to his ex-lover’s front door. He proceeded purposefully but without fanfare, his movements those of a man who depended on not being noticed. Dressed completely in black, he knew he appeared more shadow than man, a kind of ghost in the darkness.

Reaching the top landing, he squatted to retrieve the house key from its hiding place under the stone planter box to the right of the door. During the spring and summer months the planter had been filled with vibrant, sweet-smelling blossoms. But now those same flowers were dead, their stems and leaves curling and black from the cold. As was the eventuality of all living things, their time had come and gone.

John slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The dead bolt slid back; he eased open the door and stepped inside. Easy. Too easy. Considering the parade of men who had come and gone through this door over the years, using this same key, retrieved from this same hiding place, Sylvia should have been more careful.

But then, forethought had never been Sylvia Starr’s strong suit.

John closed the door quietly behind him, pausing a moment to listen, taking those valuable seconds to ascertain the number of people in the house, whether they were sleeping and where they were sleeping. From the living room to his right came the steady ticking of the antique mantel clock. From the bedrooms beyond, the thick snore of a man deeply asleep, a man who had probably drunk too much, one no doubt too old and out of shape to have spent the evening with the ever-enthusiastic and sometimes gymnastic Sylvia.

Too bad for him. He should have gone home to his fat, dependable wife and their ungrateful, cow-faced children. He was about to become a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

John started for the bedroom. He took his weapon from its snug resting place—the waistband of his black jeans, at the small of his back. The pistol, a .22 caliber semiautomatic, was neither powerful nor sexy, but it was small, lightweight and at close range, utterly effective. John had purchased it, as he did all his weapons, secondhand. Tonight he would give it a watery grave in the Potomac.

He entered Sylvia’s bedroom. The couple slept side by side; the bed rumpled, the sheet and blankets twisted around their hips and legs, only half covering them. In the sliver of moonlight that fell across the bed, Sylvia’s left breast stood out in relief, full, round and milky white.

John crossed to where the man slept. He pressed the barrel of the gun to the man’s chest, over his heart. The direct contact served two purposes: it would muffle the sound of the shot and assure John a swift, clean kill. A professional took no chances.

John squeezed the trigger. The man’s eyes popped open, his body convulsed at the bullet’s impact. He gasped for air, the gurgling sound wet as fluid and oxygen met.

Sylvia came immediately awake. She scrambled into a sitting position, the sheet falling away from her.

The man already forgotten, John greeted her. “Hello, Sylvia.”

Making small, squeaky sounds of terror, she inched backward until her spine pressed flat against the bed’s headboard. She moved her gaze wildly back and forth, from John to her twitching, bloody companion, her chest heaving.