Will tried to remember how well Gilly and Amy knew each other
They hadnât been friendsânothing like that, but Amy was part of the crowd heâd introduced Gilly to. They had looked a little bit alike. Both five-eight or nine, leggy, boyishly slim, naturally blond. Neither blue-eyed. Gillian had had pale, almost sea-green eyes, Amy⦠He couldnât quite picture them. Brown? No, not brown. Flecks of yellow and green.
Dead. Because, like Gillian, she was tall and blond and willowy? But their killers werenât the same man. Couldnât be the same man. Mendoza was guilty, guilty, guilty. A scum who had no business hitting on Willâs girlfriend in the bar, becoming enraged because sheâd rejected him, raping, murdering, taunting.
Had Amy been chosen precisely because she looked like Gillian? A copycat crime required a copycat victim. But who in hell would imitate something like this? Could Elk Springs really have spawned two monsters?
It made no sense. Gillyâs murder by a man whoâd hot-wired cars and fenced stolen goods but never committed a violent crime. This one now, six years later. Why Amy? Why now? A stranger, killed like Gillian, would have been bad enough, but Amy! Less than a week after they met again, talked about old times, flirted a little.
He went cold. Was that why sheâd been chosen? Because heâd flirted with her? Because sheâd once meant something to him?
Dear Reader,
When Harlequin asked me to do a Signature Select Saga story, possibly linked to one of my previous Superromance trilogies, of course it was PATTONâS DAUGHTERS that leaped to mind. I have other favorites among my books, but for some reason the characters in this trilogy and in Jack Murray, Sheriff, which followed, are more real to me than any others Iâve created. The sisters had such distinct voices, self-images and self-doubts. Writing those books, I sometimes felt as if I was channeling their stories, not making them up! In the back of my mind, Iâve always meant to revisit them. And what an opportunityâ¦
Now if only I hadnât made Meg Pattonâs son, Will, such a well-adjusted young man. Note to self: plan ahead. However, even well-adjusted people get a little skewed when tragedy rends the fabric of their lives. Especially when theyâre left with a heavy load of guilt. Poor Will! Things have now gone very wrong since you last met him as a nice college student who was close to his mother and father.
Iâd been contemplating a book about a serial killer for a while, too. So, hereâs hoping you enjoy meeting the Pattons again, or for the first time, and that this particular serial killer keeps you awake a little too late tonight!
Best,
Janice
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
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
BONUS FEATURES
GETTING THERE five minutes quicker wouldnât make any difference. They werenât racing to the rescue. They were going to view a corpse. Nonetheless, Meg Patton drove fast, with fierce concentration. If Detective Giallombardo said anything, Meg didnât hear.
This wouldnât turn out to be anything like the other murder, she kept assuring herself. The detail the kid who called 911 had blurted out would be an aside, something dropped at the scene, not a deliberate choice of murder weapon and staging. Sheâd feel like an idiot for tearing out here when she was supposed to supervise detectives, not respond to calls. She had already seen the way heads swiveled when sheâd stood abruptly and said, âIâll take this one.â
Sheâd garnered more surprise when sheâd glanced around, choosing young Giallombardo almost randomly. Eenie, meenie, minie, mo. âAre you tied up? Then come with me.â Everyone in the squad room had stared after them.
Butte Road ran yardstick straight for miles between rusting barbed wire fences holding back brown heaps of tumbleweed before terminating at a small volcanic cinder cone. The pavement turned to gravel not much beyond the Elk Springs city limits. Most of the year, their SUV would have raised a red cloud of cinder dust to trail them like a tail. Today, the hard-packed surface was frozen solid.
She drove this road every few weeks. Her sister Renee, the Elk Springs chief of police, lived out here on the Triple B Ranch with her husband, Daniel, and her two young children. Meg barely spared a glance for their gate when she tore by it. Renee would want to hear about the murder, even if it was outside her jurisdiction. Cops didnât like brutal murders happening in their own backyards. Even if, in this case, that backyard was a whole heck of a lot of empty country.
One of a half dozen in the immediate vicinity of Elk Springs, this lava cone, no more than a couple hundred feet high, wasnât even dignified with a name, as far as Meg knew. The county had once contemplated using its cinders for road construction, until Matt Barnard of the Triple B made a stink about having trucks roaring up and down his road all day long. After that, it was left in peace, except for Friday-night beer parties and fornicating teenagers.