Manhunt
An innocent beauty looking for answers turns to a detective looking for vengeanceOne day. One town. Three missing women. Things like this didn’t happen in Culpeper. Except that they had–once before. Eleven years ago, young Braydon Thatcher was unable to stop a tragic murder, one that hit painfully close to home. Now a detective, Braydon can’t help but notice the eerie similarities between the two crimes. But he has to focus on the present and keep distractions to a minimum. Distractions like Sophia Hardwick, who crashes into town like a Florida thunderstorm, demanding to know where her missing sister is. The attraction between them is nearly his undoing. But he has to protect her, because it's clear someone is resurrecting ghosts in order to punish Braydon. And if he lets his emotions for Sophia get the best of him, she could become yet another victim….
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“Braydon, I’m only going to tell you this once. I don’t, and will not, blame you for the actions of a psychotic man. You did nothing wrong.”
“But now I’m afraid he’s after you.” She may not have known Braydon long but she did know that the vulnerability he was showing now was rare. It pulled at her heartstrings.
“We don’t know that for certain,” she said.
“He wants to make me suffer. What better way than to use you.”
“You care about this entire town and all of its people. He can use any of us.” She said it to lighten the mood. They were skating around saying something significant again. Sophia could feel it. She watched as the conflicted man next to her chose his words carefully.
“He knows you’re different.”
TYLER ANNE SNELL genuinely loves all genres of the written word. However, she’s realized that she loves books filled with sexual tension and mysteries a little more than the rest. Her stories have a good dose of both. Tyler lives in Florida with her same-named husband and their mini “lions.” When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s playing video games and working on her blog, Almost There. To follow her shenanigans, visit www.tylerannesnell.com.
This book is for my mother, Robin.
Who, against all odds, has never stopped believing that I can do no wrong. Without her support and never-faltering love, this book might still be a tangled web caught in my head. I love you, Ma!
Contents
Detective Braydon Thatcher looked at the dock with an anger he had learned to contain burning in his chest. No matter the time that passed, that spot was his personal hell.
“I just don’t understand! Amanda and I fight sometimes, but nothing so bad that she’d just leave.”
Braydon tore his eyes away from the dock, no longer in the Bartlebee name but that of the Alcasters, and took in the rumpled Marina Alcaster. She was upwards of sixty but looked as frail as if she were pushing eighty. Her slumped frame and thin bones were deceiving at best. Everyone in Culpepper knew she had a temper that often boiled over and ran hotter than the Florida heat. Her screech could be heard like a car crash in the town square.
Which was why no one, not Braydon or his partner Tom Langdon, was surprised to hear that Amanda had gone. Though, her mama refused to entertain such a thought.
“When’s the last time you two had it out?” Tom asked, sending Braydon a significant look when Marina hesitated. “Did y’all fight last night?”
Marina pursed her lips and shifted a hip out. “I wouldn’t call it a fight...but we did have a conversation.”
“A conversation?” Braydon raised his eyebrow as Tom wrote that one down. “What kind of conversation?”
Marina put a hand on her hip. “A loud one.” She huffed.
“Was Amanda mad when this loud conversation ended?” Another hesitant look.
“Well, yeah. She got in her car and left.” Before Braydon or Tom could point out that Marina had called to file a missing-persons report, she rushed on. “But she came back later! Look—” she pointed over her shoulder at a blue Honda “—that’s her car!”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“No, that’s why I called you two.” Marina’s temper was starting to flare and Braydon didn’t have the patience to deal with it today. Not with the dock looming in the distance with its invisible stain of agony. Tom, one of the only constant friends Braydon had kept since the incident eleven years ago, knew his partner was distracted by the closeness of it. He took down Marina’s contact information and assured her they’d look into it.
“We’ll give you a call when we find her,” he called, already following Braydon to the truck. “I bet you thought after your promotion to detective you’d have a lot more interesting cases than dealing with a little Alcaster dispute, huh?”
Tom was trying to lighten the mood Braydon had fallen into—he smiled big, exposing teeth slightly stained by too much coffee. Braydon appreciated the gesture and shook himself as they pulled out of the driveway and took the winding dirt path back to the main road.
Tom was right, though. Braydon expected—and hoped—for more exciting work than looking for Amanda, who was twenty-six years old and probably at a friend’s house waiting for her own anger to sizzle out. Not to mention, her being gone wasn’t an actual case until she had been missing for forty-eight hours. The only reason they had driven out was due to a lull in between cases. Also, it wasn’t wise to anger the elder Alcaster, which is exactly what would happen if they had told her to wait her daughter out. So out they had come, ready to help a member of the community. Though, again, trying to patch up a fight between mother and daughter hadn’t been on Braydon’s mind when he signed up for law enforcement. For the better part of his career, he had worked hard for the promotion to one of the two detectives in Culpepper. The town wasn’t big by any means, and mostly sleepy, but there were still investigations that needed working and cases that needed solving.
