Primary Suspect

In spite of his reassurances, Michael wasn’t sure normal was something he’d ever experience again. His life was a mess.

Hattie glanced at Denner and sniffed her disapproval. “They could at least have put things back where they belonged when they were done pawing through them.”

“Not our job, ma’am,” Denner said. “But then, I’m sure your boss has the money to hire extra help if he needs it.”

Hattie gave another sniff of blatant disapproval and moved away, heading into the living room where a group of investigators were dusting every conceivable surface of her usually sparkling clean room.

Michael was sure she was watching the CSI staff’s every move, suspicious that someone might pocket one of the expensive treasures tastefully scattered about the room. Treasures he’d obtained on his world travels, something he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be doing again anytime soon. Not when he was the prime suspect in a series of four brutal murders.

“You have a loyal staff.”

“Hattie’s been with me a long time,” Michael said.

“Long enough and loyal enough to lie for you perhaps?”

Michael didn’t bother responding. He knew it was useless. Denner’s mind was made up and nothing Michael said would change it

He headed for the marble staircase leading to the second floor and his bedroom. Denner didn’t back off and followed him up.

“Quite a collection of artwork you have hanging on the walls around here, Emerson. Aren’t you worried about someone breaking in and ripping it off?”

“I have a good alarm system.”

“Yes, you do. And that brings up an interesting point.” Denner paused on the middle of the stairs, and Michael stopped, too, glancing back. Waiting.

“There’s no sign of a break-in. Whoever entered the house with Ms. Hamish, fetched a ski pole and then nailed her to the front door. The killer had to have a key or someone let him in.”

“How do you know they even entered the house? That is a common enough ski pole. Maybe the killer brought it with him.”

“Possible. But there’s one tiny detail that tells me that isn’t the case.” Denner looked down into the front hall, nodding at the Windsor chair standing in one corner of the front hall. “That’s Ms. Hamish’s coat lying across the back of that chair. Any thoughts on how it got there?”

Michael shook his head, his heart thudding hard in his chest. The coat put Corinna inside his house. The trap was closing tighter with each passing moment. “I have no idea. Did you question my staff?”

“Of course,” Denner said. “No one seems to remember anyone stopping by.”

Michael continued up the stairs, turning right at the top and entered the master bedroom. The technician dusting the window sill glanced up briefly and then returned to his work.

Michael surveyed the room, assessing the damage. It was a total disaster. Every dresser drawer was open, the contents dumped on the floor. All his clothes in his closet were pulled off their hangers and lay in a heap in front of his closet. The boxes on the shelf pulled down and emptied on top of the clothes.

Someone had tossed the mattress of his king-size bed to the side. All the pillows were split, the feathers spread across the sage carpet. It looked as though someone had slaughtered a truckload of geese. A few of the feathers still floated in the air.

Michael spied his suitcase sitting open in the corner of the room and the urge to get away hit him hard. He needed to get out of here and sort things out. Get his head on straight.

There was no way in hell he could stay in the house another night, another day. If he was somehow the catalyst in these murders, he needed to get as far away from the city as possible. Somewhere isolated. Quiet.

“I’m leaving town for a few days,” he said, standing in front of the suitcase, his back to Denner.

“Like hell you are. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m conducting a murder investigation here. You’re to stay put. I want to know where you are every minute of the day.”

Michael turned around. “Are you charging me with murder?”

The beefy detective shuffled his feet, frustration flickering across his craggy features. “We’ll go downtown for one of our little chats. Maybe we’ll get lucky and you’ll have a flash of conscience and admit to your guilt.”

“Not likely. I’m not inclined to confess to something I didn’t do.” Michael swung his suitcase on top of the box spring. “But once you’ve checked out my alibi and found out I’m not lying about where I was all evening, I’m leaving town. I’m going to my house outside of Keene. You know the one. Your men have been up there to search it more than once.”

“Yeah, I know the one, along with your three other homes outside the country, too.”

“Don’t forget the one outside of Park City,” Michael added, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Not a chance.” Denner laughed, the tone adding to the pain shooting through Michael’s brain. “But then, you haven’t been out to Utah in over a year. Of course, I had it checked out.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Michael walked over to the clothes left in a heap on the floor and grabbed what he wanted. He stuffed them carelessly into the suitcase before glancing back at Denner. “I’ll turn my passport over to the D.A.’s office in the morning. No passport, no chance that I’d leave the country, right?”

“I’m not a fool, Emerson. You have the financial means to leave the country with or without a passport.”

“So, put a tail on me. Notify the State Police. Do whatever you need to do.” He grabbed a few more items of clothing and threw them on top of the others. He zipped the suitcase shut and swung it off the bed, facing Denner head on. “But unless you’re prepared to arrest me tonight, I’m leaving for Keene after our little chat downtown.”

The look on the detective’s face confirmed his frustration, but Michael knew there wasn’t much Denner could do. “Ready? The sooner I answer your questions, the sooner I can leave town.”

“You might want to put on a hat as I have no plans on sneaking you out the back door. No doubt the press is waiting to get more pictures of that famous face of yours.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, you’re doing just fine, aren’t you? Cool as a cucumber and too damn sure of yourself.”

Resentment shot through Michael. The man didn’t get it. He never would. “In case you’ve forgotten, all the victims of these murders meant something to me. I cared about each and every one of them.”

Denner smirked, his disbelief obvious. “Yeah, right.”

“No matter what you want to believe, their deaths, the way they died and the agony of their families has been first and foremost in my mind.”

“Spare me, Emerson. I have more feeling for these women in my little finger than you do in your entire body.” Denner rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, his hands clenching into fists. “Don’t bother trying to make yourself out to be the victim. No one buys it, least of all me.”

“That wasn’t my objective. There’s enough blame to go around, and that includes you and your elite task force.”

Denner raised a questioning brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I gave you a list of all the women I’ve ever dated. I’ve personally spoken with each and every one of them, warning all of them of the dangers. And yet, they’re still getting picked off one by one. Why haven’t you done more to protect them? Tell me that, Detective Denner.”

Denner stepped in close, his expression tight with rage. He hadn’t expected the attack. Didn’t like being challenged.

But Michael didn’t care. He knew he was right. The women deserved protection, and so far the police had failed miserably.

“Don’t threaten me, Emerson.” Denner leaned in, his breath hot and smelling of onions and sliced deli meat. “We all know who is responsible for their murders. And once I get the goods on you, the killings will stop, and you will be sitting in my jail cell.”

Michael didn’t bother responding. There wasn’t any reason to. Denner had proven more than once that he had a one-track mind, and that track ran in the direction of Michael being the killer.

He brushed past the man and headed for the door.

“Tell me, Emerson, why is it that I have the distinct feeling that more women you know are going to turn up dead with your signature all over them?”

Michael paused at the door and then turned slowly to face the cop. “I don’t know, Detective, why do you feel that way?”

The sneer had twisted and transformed Denner’s face into something ugly and unrelenting. “Because I can smell a liar a mile away. It’s only a matter of time before I find the evidence to convict you. Time and patience. Lucky for me, you’re running low on both.”

Michael fought to keep the panic that surged up inside him off his face.

As much as he hated to admit it, he knew that Denner was right. He was running low on time and patience. And the killer, a man who didn’t tire of advertising his message of death, seemed to have plenty of both.

With the headaches and blank periods getting worse, Michael had the distinct feeling he was closer to the killer than he wanted to admit to anyone—including himself.

Chapter Two

Two Days Later

Within a few minutes of turning onto the fifteen-mile access road leading to Cloudspin Lodge, Kylie McKee wondered if she had made a mistake. The road was worse than she remembered and the fact that she hadn’t driven it in over eleven years didn’t help.

Beneath a blanket of new snow, the pavement was pitted and fractured, and although Kylie was fairly certain the county plow had gone through earlier, pushing mounds of snow up onto the overflowing banks on either side, a new covering of snow had already started to pile up.

In the rearview mirror, she could see only the tire tracks from her car. Virgin snow in both directions. No one had passed in quite some time.

A quick glance at the dashboard told her it was already 4:15 p.m. Dusk was approaching with frightening speed, decreasing her visibility. In this part of the world, rural upstate New York, there were no street lamps to illuminate the way.

Dying light stretched out the shadows of the huge pines lining both sides of the road, and huge oaks, their branches whipped bare of leaves, reached to enclose the road in a spiny tunnel of darkness.

Kylie inched forward, trying to get a better grip on the steering wheel. She could barely see the road through the thick cloud of falling snow.

Reaching down, she fumbled for the button on the side of her seat, desperate to get closer to the windshield. No sooner did her hand leave the steering wheel than the back tires of her rented Honda Civic skidded on an icy patch.

She clamped her hand back on the wheel and eased her foot off the gas. Don’t brake. Don’t brake, she chanted, her voice echoing hollowly inside the tiny car.

The car went into a stomach churning slide across the middle line and headed for a ditch on the opposite side of the road. She tried steering into the skid. Pine trees whipped by the window in a blur.

“Damn!”

She fought the wheel and touched the brake in an attempt to ease out of the skid. The car straightened out, but not before the left front tire clipped the edge of the road, sending her bouncing along a deep rut for several hair raising seconds. Finally she was able to steer back onto the snow covered pavement.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Kylie guided the car back onto her side of the road. Lucky for her people rarely used the road during the winter, preferring to visit the lodge during the glorious summer months that were legendary in the Adirondack Mountains. If another car had rounded the curve during her skid, Kylie knew she and the Honda would have been toast.

A tiny trickle of sweat popped up beneath the collar of her ski jacket and slid down the side of her neck. She didn’t make any attempt to wipe it away. It was time to focus and keep both hands on the wheel.

Her shoulders cramped with tension as she realized she had made a big mistake. She should have listened to the clerk in the tiny convenience store in Keene who had warned her of the worsening of the storm. She should have waited until morning to make the trip to the lodge.

But she’d been too eager reach her destination, believing that the sooner she got there, the sooner she could leave. But now Kylie realized that she’d made a serious miscalculation.

Dark, heavy clouds rolled and tumbled overhead, pressing down on the tiny car and unloading a hail of snow and ice pellets with a vengeance. The sleet tinkled ominously against the windshield and froze into stubborn chunks beneath her wipers.

She reached out and pushed the defrost to high, savoring the blast of heat that poured out from the vents and flamed her cheeks. Hopefully the added warmth would melt the ice build-up and prevent her from having to stop, get out and chop at it with the pathetically small scraper sitting on the floor of the passenger’s seat.

The precipitation covered over the icy patches in the road, leaving behind a deceiving blanket of slickness. The wheel shimmied harder beneath her tightly clenched fingers, making them ache.

Something told her that the standard all-weather tires on the little Honda weren’t going to cut it. She should have rented a SUV. But as soon as the thought entered her head, she dismissed it.

Who was she kidding? She didn’t have the cash to rent something as extravagant as an SUV. She’d barely had enough money to keep the economy car filled with gas for the eight-hour trip north. She was down to her last ten dollars and her bank account wasn’t in any better shape.

She pressed the gas pedal, giving the car more speed, hoping the momentum would keep her on track. She needed to reach Cloudspin soon. The thought of ending up in a ditch in the bitter subzero January temperature outside sent a shiver of fear through her.

The sooner she reached the lodge, the sooner she’d find warmth. And the sooner she reached warmth, the sooner she’d be able to complete her business, hop back in the car and return home to her comfortable little apartment in the Bronx.

She smiled to herself without real amusement. Residing in the city had resulted in an increased hatred for the bitter, forbidding winters of the Adirondacks. She hadn’t been back to Cloudspin in over eleven years.

Instead her father had taken on the responsibility of making the trips down to see her. But with him taking care of the lodge and her working on completing her fourth year of medical school, the visits had been few and far between.

Now he was gone and she was coming home to take care of business. Business that meant cleaning out the caretaker’s cottage. A cottage she’d lived in throughout her childhood, witnessing at age eight the slow painful death of her mother from ovarian cancer and watching in wide-eyed wonder the wealthy patrons of Cloudspin vacation in their private, sprawling Adirondack paradise. The contrasts had been stark and painful, making her homecoming bittersweet.

She leaned forward and peered through the ice accumulating on the windshield. The comforting thump thump thump of the wiper blades soothed the tension in her shoulders. Getting closer.

Up ahead, she could make out the final S curve. A few miles beyond that and she’d reach the main gates of the lodge.

Relief washed over her as she eased the car into the final curve. But then, out of the dim light, something fast and dark flashed out into the center of the road.

A skier! Where in God’s name had he come from?

Kylie hit the brake.

She gripped the wheel and watched in frozen horror as the car skidded toward the man poling to reach the cutaway trail on the opposite side of the road.

What kind of fool skied in a snowstorm at dusk? Not to mention doing so dressed in black!

Time shifted into slow motion and the car slid sideways, the tires silent on the smooth ice. The skier glanced up, his expression hard. Determined. He knew the danger.

He dug in, moving for the opening with quick, powerful strides. His shoulders bunched beneath the sleek black jacket and his muscular thighs strained to propel him out of her way.

“Oh, God, he’s not going to make it,” Kylie wailed.

But she was wrong. He reached the cutaway as she skidded past him sideways. She overcorrected and the car fish-tailed.

A sharp crack filled the silence and she cringed. She knew without actually seeing it that one of her tires had hit the back end of his skis.

In the rearview mirror, she saw him stumble and then pitch forward into the snowbank.

She hung on and eased her foot onto the brake. The car slid to a stop on the opposite side of the road and the hood gently hit the snowbank.

Stunned, she sat perfectly still, unable to loosen her death grip on the wheel. But then squirts of adrenaline shot into her bloodstream, hitting her hard. She reached up and unsnapped her belt. As she reached for the door handle, she prayed she’d find him alive.

A blast of frigid air hit her, taking her breath away. She scrabbled for the back end of the car, and in her haste, almost tripped. Frantic, she grabbed for the side of the car and cringed as the cold metal stung her bare hands. She ignored the pain and the voice that warned her to go back for her mittens. She needed to check on the skier.

Across the road, the skier climbed to his feet and leaned over to brush the snow off his pants with brisk, efficient sweeps of his gloved hands. A sense of relief flooded her. He didn’t look injured. He moved with the fluid motion of a natural athlete.

Kylie gingerly trekked across the slippery road, watching as the man bent down to examine the broken section of his ski. It had snapped directly behind the binding. He wouldn’t be using that particular pair of skis anytime soon. She hoped she had enough money in her bank account to replace them.

He straightened up and a pair startling blue eyes, direct and unflinching, focused on her.

Kylie’s heart sank. There was no missing the smear of blood seeping from a jagged cut on his left cheek. The fall had injured him. Not only was she going to have to pay for his skis, but she was also going to be paying medical bills.

He reached up and pulled off his ski hat. “Are you nuts?” he shouted over the howling wind. “Where the hell was the fire?”

The force of his anger made Kylie’s stomach tighten. The man was royally ticked. Not that she blamed him. She’d almost killed the guy.

“I’m sorry,” she said, skidding to a stop next to him. “It was totally my fault. I didn’t see you until it was too late.”

“Nothing like stating the obvious.” Sarcasm dripped from every word.

“I didn’t think anyone would be out on a night like this.”

He lifted a ski pole to point to a sign. “Are you blind? Didn’t you see the signs warning you that there was a ski crossing up ahead? You’re supposed to slow down when going through this section of the road.”

Confused, Kylie glanced at the sign. It did indeed warn drivers of a Ski Xing. She’d forgotten about the trail, failed to see the signs as she focused on trying to keep the car on the road. How could she have missed them?

“Look, I’m really sorry. I—I take complete responsibility.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, lady.”

“It—it was an accident. I was concentrating on getting around the curve.”

“You were going entirely too fast for the road conditions.”

She shifted uncomfortably. Okay, she was willing to admit she’d been going too fast. But what the hell was he thinking skiing at night, dressed all in black and during a freakin’ blizzard?

She bit back the rush of words that threatened to spill out. Deep breath. No need to make matters worse. If there was one thing Kylie knew she was good at, it was taking the blame and smoothing things over in tense situations. She was a master at it.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” She pointed to his cheek. “It looks as though you cut yourself pretty badly. You might need stitches.”

He reached up and casually brushed aside the trickle of blood seeping down his lean cheek. “It’s a scratch. I’m fine.”

He bent down and unclasped the toe binding of his other ski, the close-fitting cling of his nylon ski pants stretching nicely over his muscular form. Kylie worked to keep her gaze off his physique and on his face. Now was definitely not the time to be lurking on some hot guy’s body. Not after she’d almost turned him into roadkill.

“My skis are shot. You’ll have to give me a lift back to the lodge.”

Kylie nodded and rushed over to help him, slipping and almost colliding with him. He reached out and grabbed her elbow, effortlessly keeping her from taking a tumble. She could feel the heat and strength of his grip sink down through the thick lining of her coat and singe her raw nerve endings.

“Sorry, it’s more slippery than I thought.”

“All the more reason not to barrel down a road with little regard for what might be around the next curve.”

His tone was clipped, impatient. He was not in a forgiving mood. The possibility of a lawsuit loomed in the back of Kylie’s mind.

Lord, could her luck get any worse? She considered sitting down in the middle of the road and crying. With a whopping tuition bill due in January, she was fairly certain things couldn’t get much bleaker.

But she quickly brushed aside the thought. She was made of tougher stuff than that. She could handle this.

Clenching her fists, she studied the man’s face. He looked familiar. Something about the classic lines of his angular face, the strong Roman nose and dark eyebrows over bluish-gray eyes, struck a cord in her. She knew him from somewhere, but for the life of her she couldn’t place him.

She stuck out a hand. “I’m Kylie McKee.”

He ignored her hand and swung his skis over one broad shoulder. “Michael Emerson.”

Damn! Of course, she knew him. How could she have not realized? He wasn’t just Michael Emerson, he was Michael Thomas Emerson, III. His ancestors were founding members of Cloudspin Lodge.

In fact, if memory served her right, he was the current president of the lodge’s board of directors. She choked back her dismay.

She could only hope he hadn’t recognized her name or remembered that he actually knew her. If he did remember, Kylie knew that meant she’d have to deal with the memory of their last meeting—the night things had gone horribly wrong. The night her life had changed forever.

His life, too, no doubt.

As if on cue a frown popped up between his brows. “McKee? You wouldn’t by any chance be related to Daniel McKee, would you? His daughter perhaps?”

Kylie nodded, resigning herself to the inevitable. But instead of questions, the fierceness in his eyes softened just a tad. “I was sorry to hear about your father’s passing.”

“Thank you.”

“He’ll be missed. He was a good man.”

Sadness clouded Kylie’s throat, preventing her from speaking. She managed a small nod.

“You’ve changed some since I saw you last.”

She nodded again but kept silent.

What was one supposed to say to a comment like that? Of course she had changed. She’d been thirteen the last time she’d seen Michael Emerson. Thirteen and banished to a private school at her father’s insistence. It had been a well-meaning attempt on her father’s part to get her away from the lodge and the influence of its wealthy patrons and their out-of-control offspring.

Her father had always believed that the guests at Cloudspin were morally corrupt, people who had more money and time than they knew what to do with. How many times had he lectured her over dinner about idle hands are the Devil’s tool. And in the end, her father had been proven right. There was no getting around the fact that Andrea Greenley’s death had proved that.

In any case, her father’s decision to send her away hadn’t been easy on either of them. Financially or emotionally. But the financial part had been particularly hard. On a caretaker’s salary, he had struggled for four years to pay her tuition to private boarding school. Even the partial scholarship she’d received hadn’t provided much relief.