Circumstantial Marriage

“I still think it would be better if I did this alone,” he said. “If something happens to me, you’ll still be alive and able to figure another way out of this.”

“You need someone to watch your back, otherwise it’s just a suicide mission.” Her gaze sharpened. “And at least one of us cares whether you live or die.”

He recognized that stubborn gleam in her eye. Arguing would just be wasting breath.

Audrey suddenly got quiet. “Even if the plan works, it seems wrong that the truth won’t come out.”

“All I care about is you not being killed.”

Only when the words were out did he consider how they might have come across. Like she mattered to him. Which she did, he immediately recognized, his chest tightening.

He didn’t want it to be the case, and he’d done his best to fight it. But suddenly he knew the thought of anything happening to Audrey scared the hell out of him.

To Patty, my favorite journalist and an even better friend.

A lifelong mystery reader, Kerry Connor first discovered romantic suspense by reading Harlequin Intrigue books and is thrilled to be writing for the line. Kerry lives and writes in New York.

Audrey Ellison—She was targeted for death by forces determined to keep a long-hidden secret from being revealed.

Jason Stone—A man who’d lost everything, he had no interest in anyone else’s secrets, but he couldn’t stand by when a woman running for her life came to him for help.

Hal Talmadge—The journalist had uncovered the scoop of a lifetime—one that cost him his life.

Richard Bridges—A politician with a bright future…and a dark secret in his past?

Dick Bridges—Seeing his son become president was his life’s ambition. How far would he go to see it fulfilled?

Julia Bridges—Was the ideal political wife as perfect as she seemed?

Marybeth Kent—The innkeeper wasn’t a fan of her hometown’s favorite son.

Will Kent—The small-town mayor had big-time aspirations of his own.

Tim Raymer—A name from the past that kept coming up.

Clint Raymer—He had plenty to say, but could he be believed?

Albert Shaw—A man with a job to do and no qualms about doing it.

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

In the two years Audrey Ellison had lived in her apartment building, she had never felt unsafe there. Living in a big city like Baltimore, she knew to be careful and alert to her surroundings, but her neighborhood was decent and the quiet four-story brownstone had never been anything but peaceful. So, as she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment at one that morning, she had no reason to feel uneasy.

Instead, she simply felt exhausted, barely capable of making it up the stairs. She never stayed out this late on a weeknight, but her friend Jackie was getting married over the weekend, and Audrey had been roped into one last, impromptu girls’ night out to celebrate Jackie’s impending nuptials and final days as a single woman. Audrey hadn’t intended to stay as long as she had, but had gotten caught up in the festivities and lost track of the time.

Jackie hadn’t stopped beaming once all night, Audrey thought with a smile of her own. Getting to share in Jackie’s happiness was worth the lost sleep that would inevitably leave her dragging in the morning. If she was honest, it gave her hope that happy endings still existed, and someday she herself might find what Jackie and so many of her friends had. Someday….

She finally reached the third-floor landing. The smile still on her face, she unlocked and opened her door, thinking only of stumbling to her bedroom and collapsing into bed.

Stepping inside, she kicked the door shut behind her without turning on the light. She didn’t plan to be in the living room long enough to need it. Reaching for the strap of her messenger bag to lift it over her head, she started to ease out of her shoes.

The prickle of unease at the back of her neck was her only warning. It came out of nowhere, pure animal instinct. The sensation snapped her awake and made her go still.

Her eyes flicked over the darkened room, the faint light that managed to break through the curtains offering little illumination. She could see nothing, hear nothing. She knew just the same.

Something was wrong.

She dropped the strap of her bag and reached out to turn the light on after all.

She never got the chance.

Two seconds later something hard and round pressed against the back of her skull.

She froze, even before a low, deep voice ordered, “Don’t move.”

That vague sense of unease exploded into full-fledged terror at both the man’s presence and the instinctive knowledge of what he was pushing into her head.

It was a gun. There was a man in her apartment with a gun pointed at her head.

It didn’t seem real. Who was he? How had he gotten into her apartment? What did he want?