Fade to Black

  Fade to Black

  Book 2 of the Welcome Home series

  Molly Kate Gray, author of Playing with Fire

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Molly Kate Gray

  ISBN10: 1-4405-5729-2

  ISBN13: 978-1-4405-5729-3

  eISBN10: 1-4405-5730-6

  eISBN13: 978-1-4405-5730-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 123rf.com

  For Barbara –

  Your love of theater is the reason this story exists.

  Contents

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt

  Prologue (Excerpt)

  More From This Author

  Also Available

  Prologue

  October 2011

  Rain peppered down on the cracked pavement of the alley running behind Mugs Coffee and Tea Haus. The burned out light bulb above the back steps leading to the rear entrance of the popular hang out for not-yet-drinking-age college students left the narrow expanse dark. Until the two police cars and an ambulance had arrived on the scene, the only illumination came from the white-frosted iron street lamp at the corner of Main Street and Tavern Drive.

  If the head pastry chef hadn’t burned the apple strudel during his early-morning preparations for the busy Sunday morning, she would have gone undiscovered until the busboy took the morning’s trash out. But as the sugar sprinkled atop the pastry went from caramelized to ablaze, Otto flung the door open to wave the smoke out of the kitchen and stumbled blindly over something that shouldn’t have been in the alley.

  Quinn O’Donovan’s body.

  The young woman’s body lay in the puddle next to the rusty dumpster, her blonde hair curled in tendrils next to her cheek. Fair and pale, her perfectly mascaraed eyelashes were closed. A casual observer would assume she was asleep — except for the fact that she wasn’t breathing.

  “Christian.” Sergeant Zachary Rowlins shot to his feet as he stepped away from the young woman’s body. Placing his hand in the center of his partner’s chest, he braced himself against the coming force as the man he’d worked with for the better part of a year attempted to force his way past. “Stop.” Christian O’Donovan’s green eyes widened in horror as the sound of the medical examiner zipping the body bag closed echoed in the eerily quiet alley. “Trust me, not right now.” Partners have each others’ backs, and right now, that meant Zachary needed to stop Christian from walking deeper into the alley.

  Christian was a more than capable officer. He’d been a member of the Peytonville force for five years before Zachary transferred from El Paso, but there were still some things he didn’t need to see — and the body of his younger half-sister was one of them.

  Red and blue lights washed over the day’s growth of whiskers along Christian’s chin. A single tear glowed red in the corner of his eye. “What happened?” His words were choked as he struggled against his partner’s grip on his wrinkled plaid shirt. “I want to see her.” Watching Christian struggle against the pain of losing another family member so soon after his father’s death was a punch in the gut. Zachary had only been Christian’s partner for a few months when word came about his father and step-mother’s death, but the grief weighed heavy on the older officer for weeks until he had to put on a brave face for the arrival of his youngest sister. Christian had been livid when Quinn became his responsibility. The immature college student’s demands on Christian’s time and energy had quickly become the main topic of conversation in the squad car each day. Christian resented being responsible for keeping Quinn in line, but now Christian had lost her too.

  “Trust me. You don’t.” Zachary had been the first officer on the scene since Christian was still on leave from an ankle injury after a drunk driver proved to be a track star while attempting to resist arrest. They caught the idiot who thought it was safe to drive after five beers, but Christian had paid the price. Zachary hadn’t believed in fate until he found himself looking down at an all-too-familiar face in a back alley that stank of decomposing food and beer that had long since gone bad. He’d only studied the girl for a minute before he realized just why she seemed so familiar. Quinn and Christian had eaten dinner at his house just the week before. The move to Peytonville had been good for her … or at least that’s what Christian believed at the time.

  Zachary forced Christian out of the alley and against the side of their captain’s squad car. “Wait till Maggie has a chance to clean her up.” He gripped Christian’s arm tighter as the man continued to struggle against him.

  “Christian.” Lynn approached them after walking away from the medical examiner’s side. Always a woman of few words, her sorrow was evident in the look she cast in Christian’s direction. “Do you think you should really be here right now?” Saying that Lynn looked as if she’d been awakened unexpectedly in the middle of the night was putting it gently. Right now, their normally polished captain looked like a cross between a raccoon and a four year old caught playing in her mother’s makeup, but when she’d received the phone call about Christian’s sister, she didn’t stop to check her appearance in the mirror. Peytonville was a small town, and the police department was like a small family — many of the officers were actually related, since occupations seemed to run in the family in this little East Texas town. Little could drive Captain Lynn Davies out of her bed in the middle of the night, but the death of a Moreland University student was an exception. And Quinn Johnston wasn’t just a student; she was one of their own — almost.

  “I won’t touch anything. I just need to see her.” Christian squeezed his hands into fists at his side, cracking open a cut he’d gotten while scaling the chain link fence during the pursuit of the drunk driver. “Let go of me.” He looked his partner dead in the eye as Zach gradually lost the battle. Zach released his grip on Christian’s arm and stepped back and out of the way. The rain was coming down in earnest now, pelting the members of the police force and the assorted spectators who’d been attracted by the flashing lights of the patrol cars.

  Christian straightened his back and strode past the members of his extended family, the Peytonville Police force. Heads bowed, they pretended not to see his trembling lip or hear the way his breath caught in his throat. “Let me see her.” His voice was little more than a whisper as he made the request to the medical examiner. “Maggie, please.”

  Zachary came to stand behind Christian and placed his hand on the older man’s trembling shoulder. “Do you need me to call anyone?” Until
Quinn arrived in August, Zach hadn’t realized his partner had family members other than his mother. Christian had been irate when he’d been saddled with caring for his younger half-sister. He’d spent hours ranting to his partner since he didn’t want the responsibility for the partying teen – after all, he’d only seen her twice since she’d turned ten. But after their father’s death, he was the only family member available to take her.

  Just that afternoon, Christian had been telling Zachary that he thought he was making progress with Quinn. A wild child, she’d had few limits growing up, but seemed to actually be settling in on the small private college campus. “I promised.” Christian craned his neck toward the sky. Tears and raindrops merged together and flowed freely down his cheeks. “I said I’d take care of her.”

  “It’s not your fault, Chris.” Zachary ran his fingers through his rain-dampened hair. The thick, chestnut-brown hair curled at the tips, and he knew he was in danger of being told to get a haircut. But this morning, Captain Davies’ attention was on the officer kneeling next to the body in the distance.

  An uneasy silence reigned as the assembled officers waited for Christian to rise from his sister’s side. Normally a crime scene was filled with bustling activity, but not today. The only sound was the rhythmic metallic thudding of the rain against the cluster of police vehicles.

  And then still moment ended. Nodding thanks to Maggie, Christian stepped away from the medical examiner and turned his back on his sister’s body. He appeared to have aged ten years in a single moment. Worry lines crisscrossed his tanned forehead, as wrinkles appeared in the corners of his sorrowful eyes. “Yeah it is.” He grimaced in pain. “Now I have to make a phone call.”

  Chapter One

  Two years later

  Sergeant Zachary Rowlins sighed in defeat as he watched Lieutenant Evans push the thumbtack into the cluttered bulletin board. The blue-eyed teen with curly blonde hair stared from her photograph in unspoken accusation. Quinn O’Donovan had been the first victim, and he wished she had been the last. Instead, this newest member of the society no one wanted to join could have been Quinn’s sister – only the eyes were different. Quinn had her brother’s green eyes.

  Almost two years spent trying to stem the flow of drugs on the local university campus, and all they seemed to be accomplishing was adding six additional photographs on the wall. No closer to discovering the supplier, Zach braced an elbow on the worn conference table and rested his forehead in his hand in defeat. Working in the narcotics division for the past five years had proven to be difficult enough, but now that this lethal strain of ecstasy laid claim to its seventh overdose victim, the unit was under more pressure than ever before.

  “I had a meeting with Captain Davies bright and early this morning.” Lieutenant Evans turned back to his team of officers with a frown. “She met with the mayor last night.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his thick red hair. Once a vibrant red to match his temper, gray had crept in through the years as the stress of heading up the division had proven to be more than a match for him. “If she can’t get a handle on this, her job’s on the line. Mayor Townsend’s giving her three months before he starts looking for a new chief. Davies likes it here in Peytonville. And that means we’re under fire right now. Cadie Reeves’s father is one of the university regents. Obviously if the supplier got to his little angel, we’re not doing our jobs.” He waved his hands in mock-defeat. “You’re dismissed.” He surveyed the members of the narcotics team as they began to shuffle out of the room.

  Zach turned in his seat and exhaled in relief as the two youngest members of the team left the room. They were more trouble than they were worth. Devon Hart and Landon Mueller were new additions to the unit, brought in after Trevor Adkin’s death in May. Since both men were rookies, Zach wasn’t sure how they were supposed to help. The more experienced members of the team seemed to spend an unusual amount of time correcting their mistakes.

  Since Officer Hart’s father was the mayor – and had the ability to decide which members of the police force stayed employed during the weakened economic times – he took great pleasure in reminding the other officers that they could do nothing about his position in the unit. And Mueller had been Hart’s best friend since kindergarten. In a small town, who you knew was just as important as how good you were at your job, even during a time like this. Lieutenant Evans waited for the door to swing closed behind the two young officers before he turned back to the senior members of his team. “O’Donovan, Rowlins, keep your seats.”

  Zachary leaned forward in his worn black chair, his shoulders rigid. He didn’t even wait for the door to close behind the other officers before he turned his anger on Lieutenant Evans. “Exactly what else are we supposed to do? We’re all working double shifts as it is.” The shadows under his eyes combined with the deep brown stubble on his jawline added emphasis to his words. Since he’d spent the night sleeping in a chair awaiting word on Cadie’s condition, he was still wearing his now-wrinkled button-down shirt from the day before. Judging from past experience, it would be at least eight more hours before he had a chance to go home and change.

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Zach.” Lieutenant Evans nodded in agreement amid the two officers’ grumblings. “If nothing else, my overtime budget knows how much y’all have been working.” He pursed his lips as he shuffled through a stack of papers on his lectern at the front of the small conference room. “They’ve decided to take a new approach.”

  Christian O’Donovan bounced his pen off the table in front of him and looked skeptically at his commanding officer. “What kind of new approach?”

  Raising an eyebrow, the older man half-grinned at the senior members of his narcotics unit. “They’ve decided to add to our ranks.”

  “You’ve been asking for new men for weeks now.” Zachary felt a hint of the tension leave his shoulders — maybe he’d get a shower in this morning after all. When he’d been on his way out the door to go home last night, Lieutenant Evans’ secretary, Sandra, caught up to him, a piece of paper clutched between her fingertips. Since she normally only found reason to get up from behind her desk when it was time for lunch or the fire alarm went off, he knew it couldn’t be good news. She nervously smoothed her wrinkled blouse as she waited for him to read the fax she’d just received from the hospital.

  The unit had another name to add to add to the list that was already far too long. He knew that he’d be getting home later than planned. Hoping that Otis hadn’t eaten all his food in the dispenser during the day, he’d jogged to his car before driving the now-familiar route to the hospital.

  And now he was back at the station – almost twelve hours later. No amount of the station’s industrial strength coffee could defeat the weariness seeping through Zach’s body.

  “We’re not exactly getting approved for more manpower. City council says our budget’s already stretched thin.” Reaching for his coffee, Lieutenant Evans took a long sip as if to fortify himself for the next section of the discussion. “But we are getting a specialist on loan from the state narcotics task force. This next piece of information is on a need-to-know basis only. And you two are the only ones who need to know.” Evans placed his coffee mug on the table in front of him and gave his men a warning look. Keeping to the edge of the room, he walked around the conference tables and opened a side door. “We’re ready for you now.” Motioning to someone waiting in the hallway, he stepped back to allow the specialist entrance to the room. The soft click of heels on the tile floor hinted that the specialist was nothing they’d been expecting.

  One glance at the black leather boots worn by their new team member guaranteed that nothing Lieutenant Evans said could have adequately warned them. The boots stopped just below her knee, still leaving an abundance of toned, tanned skin between the top of the folded leather cuff and the barely-there black mini-skirt she wore. Her braided mane of pale blonde hair fell
over her shoulder, emphasizing the curves in the lightweight emerald green sweater that fit her like a second skin. But that wasn’t what made Zach’s heart threaten to seize in his chest. That honor went to the cornflower blue eyes blinking innocently at the three men in the room from behind lashes so long he could be watching a commercial for mascara.

  Lieutenant Evans cleared his throat and shut the door behind the new arrival. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Agent Rory Johnston.”

  • • •

  “What the hell was brass thinking?” Zach struck his lieutenant’s desk with such force, the cup of assorted pens and pencils tipped over and spilled to the floor. He’d never been more tempted to leave this town and its problems in his rearview window. They were ankle-deep in dead college students, and someone had the bright idea to send him a kid to babysit. “Is she twelve?”

  Christian laughed deep in his chest. “If you think she looks like a twelve year old, you need to spend more time doing middle school visits.”

  Zach’s deep brown eyes shot daggers in response. “You know what I mean. She’s supposed to be going undercover?”

  “Glad you can read between the lines.” Lieutenant Evans nodded at Rory through the window of his office.

  Zach followed Christian’s line of sight and studied his new coworker standing in the hallway. Standing and observing those walking around her, she looked like nothing more than a schoolgirl who’d been sent to the principal’s office as she twisted the uneven end of her braid around her finger. “She’s our new secret weapon?”

  “She’s headed to the college. We’re hoping she can find the source.”

  His cheeks flushing a ruddy shade of red, he folded his arms across his chest, crushing his tie under the muscles of his forearms. “She can’t be qualified. She’s going to get herself killed. She doesn’t look any older than they are.”