Scarlet Vows

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my esteemed opponent.”

There was no way to avoid the pudgy fingers or the wet clasp of his grip. Despite his slight paunch and that double chin, Frederick Thane wasn’t a big man. At least not yet. At fifty-five or thereabouts, he still had deep black hair, probably due to a little chemical assistance, and he was taller than Drew remembered. Lifts, Drew decided. Even so, the other man still had to look up to meet Drew’s eyes, which obviously rankled.

“Mayor,” he greeted.

“Saw your name on the other sign-up sheet.” He shifted his rifle and stared at the handgun case. “We aren’t competing in the same category.” He swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.

“Not this time.”

Thane’s lips pursed tightly, as though he was trying to decide if there was another meaning beneath those words. “Hot enough for you?”

“I imagine it will get hotter before there is a winner.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Count on it.”

They were not talking about the weather or the contest. It was no secret that Frederick Thane was furious over Drew’s decision to run against him. Thane had scared off every other opponent who dared consider throwing a hat in the ring for the mayoral election. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any leverage to use against the Pierce family. Now he stared pointedly at Nancy Bell.

“And this must be the fancy publicist I heard your grandpa hired for you.”

A sneer licked the edges of his words.

“Fancy?” he heard Nancy whisper to his brother. She sounded amused rather than annoyed.

“Nancy Bell, Frederick Thane,” Drew introduced. “And you know my brother, Zach, of course.”

“Of course, of course. Young Zach.”

Zach winced visibly. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Nancy, however, did. “Mayor Thane.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

Drew gave her points for neither shuddering at the contact of his damp hand nor wiping her own hand against her tailored light blue pants afterward.

“We fancy types are big on charm,” she offered with a professional smile.

“You’ll need it. You have your work cut out for you, my dear,” Thane said.

“Hey, Drew, they’re calling our party now,” Zach interjected.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Thane said with false joviality. “I hear you’re giving the family speech at the picnic in a few days. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Are you? Then I guess I’ll see you on the dais.”

“Indeed you will. Ms. Bell. Young Zach.” Thane pivoted away.

“If he called me ‘young Zach’ one more time I was going to try a little target shooting right out here,” Zach muttered.

“Wouldn’t be worth the cost of the bullets,” Drew told him.

“So that was Frederick Thane,” Nancy mused.

“In the flesh.”

“Of which he has plenty,” Zach added unkindly.

“Interesting.” Nancy watched the mayor stop to chat with some people nearby. “He did make one valid point, you know. You don’t really need me if he’s your competition.”

Zach barked a laugh.

“Don’t let his bumpkin imitation fool you,” Drew warned. “He’s smart enough in his way. He’s been running this town for a number of years now.”

“And he’ll do just about anything to keep that position and win this campaign,” Zach added.

“I’ve studied his dossier,” Nancy agreed. “But the man has a definite problem with his public image.”

“What public image?” Zach demanded. “The man’s a leech and everyone knows it. He’s been sucking the town dry for years.”

“But he keeps getting elected,” she pointed out.

“Hard to lose when you’re the only candidate,” Zach said. “Everyone else has a habit of dropping out before the election.”

“I believe lack of funds is usually cited,” Nancy agreed. “But that won’t be the case this time, will it, Andrew?”

Drew made a noncommittal sound and moved forward to check them in. No, funding definitely wouldn’t be a problem, but he had no intention of dropping out of this race for any reason.

After helping Nancy select a gun to use, he looked around in irritation. “Where the heck is Carey?”

Carey Eldrich had coerced, begged, pleaded and even insisted they participate in the tournament. Once he explained to Nancy that practically the entire town turned out for the event, and that the tournament had started drawing people from as far away as Salem, she readily agreed Drew’s participation was necessary.

“Sounds like a good place for some unofficial campaigning,” she told him. “Before the Fourth of July kickoff I want you seen all over town participating in local events. I’ll make sure you get plenty of media coverage. That’s my job.”

“And I’ll bet you’re very good at your job,” Carey had said flirtatiously. “Just don’t expect his picture on the front page as the winner of the tournament. I’ve been out-shooting him for years.”

“Really?”

“Only if you count his mouth,” Drew had told her.

So here they were, guns in hand. Everyone except Carey.

“You know Carey,” Zach said. “He’s probably talking to someone.”

“You mean some woman,” Drew said in annoyance.

“Of course. Want me to go and find him?”

“No need, Zach.” Nancy pointed a peach-tipped fingernail. “Here he comes now.”

Carey Eldrich rushed up, his blond good looks strangely flushed. His shirt was sweaty and plastered to his body. A worried expression deepened the furrow between his eyebrows.

“Out jogging?” Drew asked critically.

“Sorry,” he offered sheepishly. “Something I ate this morning didn’t agree with me.”

Annoyance changed to concern. Drew stared at the man who had been his best friend and chief rival since grade school. As owners of the local newspaper, Carey’s family was almost as prominent as the Pierce family. Drew figured he knew Carey about as well as anyone. Carey had been a ladies’ man since conception, so Drew had to concede it was unusual for him to disappear when there was a beauty like Nancy on the scene. Especially when Carey had been competing with Drew for her attention ever since they’d met.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked his friend.

“No, no. I’m fine now. Besides, I promised to teach this lovely lady how to shoot. I want her to see for herself that I wasn’t bragging last night. Out-shooting Drew is really as easy as I claimed,” he told her archly.

But his tone was falsely hearty. Drew frowned. Before he could pull his friend aside to find out what was wrong, his attention centered on a woman with a mass of red-gold hair spilling over delicate shoulders. The woman stood with her back to him, talking intently to a man he didn’t recognize. The graceful curve of her back and the tantalizing flare of slim hips encased in well-worn jeans anchored his attention.

He willed her to turn around. His stomach knotted as he waited for a glimpse of her face. Instead, she laid a hand on the man’s bare arm. He in turn smiled intimately down at her. Drew took an unconscious step toward her.

The man’s baseball cap masked his features, but Drew glimpsed silver-streaked hair poking from beneath his cap. The man looked to be in his fifties. What was Brianna doing with a man old enough to be her father? Hadn’t she learned anything from what had happened to his sister?

Carey nudged him in the ribs. “What do you think, Drew?”

“What?” Momentarily diverted, his gaze whipped back to his companions.

“Fat chance,” Zach responded to some comment Drew hadn’t heard.

Carey’s features lit in familiar challenge. “You want to take me on as well, Zach?”

“No way. I just want to watch the fun.”

Irritated at the interruption, Drew turned back toward the woman, certain it was Brie. But the couple was strolling away, deep in conversation. The man’s arm lay possessively across her shoulders as he bent his head close to hers in an intimate way. Drew clenched his jaw.

“Come on, we’re up,” Zach said.

As the couple faded into the crowd he reluctantly joined the others. Target shooting was the last thing Drew wanted to do—especially now. His reaction to seeing Brie was surprising. He’d known the possibility existed when he returned home to run for mayor, but he hadn’t been prepared for the wild surge of emotions that bubbled inside him at the sight of a stranger’s arm on her shoulders.

Maybe it hadn’t been her.

Who was he trying to kid? Four years or forty, he suspected she would always incite emotions so elemental they gripped him like a vise. Brianna Dudley was the only female who had ever had the power to scramble his brains. How had he managed to forget that about her?

Edgy and out of sorts, he followed the others onto the range absently, lost in memories he’d put aside a long time ago. He jerked back to the present when he saw they’d been assigned to the last four stands on the end closest to the woods.

The firing range itself was built into a bowl-shaped depression surrounded by dense woods on three sides. He stared at the trees. The disquiet he’d been feeling all morning intensified. While a credible shot, Drew hadn’t been able to summon up any enthusiasm for this tournament. Instead, his desire to leave was strong enough to surprise him.

“Something wrong, Drew?” Nancy asked as Carey took the stand beside him.

“No.”

Carey eyed him strangely. Zach frowned. “Come on, Nancy, you’re between me and Carey,” he told her. “I’ll help you get set.”

“Oh, no, I’ll help her,” Carey said smoothly. “After all, I promised to show her how it was done.”

Drew tuned them out. He gazed at the target down-range. It had been almost four years since he’d seen Brie, yet she could still set his pulses racing from a distance. How crazy was that?

He sought another focus for his wandering attention. The brooding string of trees on the hill offered nothing helpful. He was here to compete. Inattention on a firing range was dangerous and stupid.

The call went out that the line was live. As people began firing their practice shots, the scent of cordite filled his nostrils. Blue clouds of smoke already hung in the heavy air. Shots thundered in his ears despite the requisite protective headgear. Sweat gathered at his hairline, beginning a lazy trickle down his face. He checked and loaded his weapon.

Drew lined up his sights and fired, wishing he were elsewhere—preferably an air-conditioned elsewhere, but Nancy had mapped out an entire program of places he needed to go over the next few days even though the real campaigning wouldn’t begin until after the July Fourth festivities. With his father’s blessing, Nancy had met with the float committee to discuss Drew’s role on the family float. She’d scheduled him to give the short speech before the picnic, a job his grandfather and father generally handled, and she’d lined up a press interview immediately afterward.

His family had been right. She was good at her job. She’d done her homework on Moriah’s Landing and she’d planned a solid strategy for getting his name in front of the community.

She was extremely attractive, and more than once he’d caught a hint of sensual awareness slumbering in her serious gaze. He gave her points for the subtle way she made her interest in deepening their relationship clear without coming on to him. They had a lot in common. Drew genuinely liked Nancy. She’d make a good political partner, but as tempting as she was, Drew hesitated to change their status. Resisting his family’s attempts at matchmaking had become a habit. He knew his father and grandfather had decided Nancy was an ideal choice for more than his campaign manager.

Drew watched as she took careful aim at her target. Her first two shots went wide. The next shot hit the black outline on the outermost fringe. Carey had talked her into competing in the novice category even though she’s said she’d never done any shooting before.

Because he was concentrating on Nancy, he never saw the figure pelting down the steep dirt incline until he turned back to take aim at his own target. He released the trigger instantly.

She ran like a puppet on a string—or someone at the tail end of their stamina. Her long, dark hair tangled around her face, hiding her features.

Drew yelled for everyone to hold their fire. But at the opposite end of the range, someone was shooting what sounded like a cannon. His voice had no hope of carrying over that sound.

Drew didn’t stop to think. He sprinted toward the woman.

She stumbled and fell, taking his heart down with her. In seconds she was up again, but staggering.

A barrage of bullets passed so close Drew could practically feel the displaced air. The woman jerked to an abrupt stop. She twisted to look behind her, her features contorted by a mask of sheer panic. She took a faltering step and went down again. This time she made no move to rise.

He reached her, crouching over her still form. Red blossomed on her dirt-stained, cotton-print blouse. The deep, dark color spread rapidly across her chest. He sought for the pulse in her neck. Weak. Thready. He could hear each ragged breath she took. The shallow bursts sounded as if each one might be her last.

Her head lolled to the side, giving him a clear glimpse of the red furrow that had plowed its way along the side of her skull, disappearing beneath her tangled hair. Without moving her, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had entered her head or not, but she was still alive.

The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Drew raised his face to yell for an ambulance.

Pressed against the fence at the top of the hill, Dr. Leland Manning drilled him with a stare of absolute hatred.

Shocked, Drew took a second to realize how the scene must look to the man. He was crouched over the woman’s body, gun in hand.

Footfalls pounded up to him, snapping the spell. Voices shouted. People surrounded him, with more rushing forward. Carey Eldrich elbowed him aside, squatting beside the woman.

“Ursula?”

Of course. Ursula Manning, Leland Manning’s beautiful new young wife.

“Don’t move her,” Drew cautioned, feeling ill.

The words came too late. Carey cradled her against his chest and stood. Blood streaked his arm, smearing his shirt.

“Where’s the ambulance?” Carey roared. He ran with her, trailing a path of bright red droplets in his wake. Drew glanced over his shoulder up the hill. Leland Manning was gone.

Bits of excited, disjointed conversation bounced around and through him as Drew rose unsteadily. He pushed his way through the crowd, following Carey.

“…call an ambulance?”

“…still alive?”

“Who is it?”

“…anyone called the…?”

“What was she doing out there?”

And that last question stuck in his head. An excellent question. What had Ursula Manning been thinking to run onto a live firing range like that? And where had she come from? Had she been running from her husband?

Someone gripped his forearm. He realized it was being shaken hard in an attempt to get his attention. Nancy Bell swam into focus. Her wide, pale eyes looked enormous. She looked from him to the gun still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, my God, Drew. Do you think you killed her?”

Chapter Two

Yesterday, news of the shooting had reached the diner less than half an hour after Brie started her shift. Details had been vague and wildly exaggerated as usual, but Brie couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone the perfectly behaved Andrew Pierce, standing on the gun range with an Uzi submachine gun.

He was back in town to stay. Excitement warred with fear. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. In four years he’d only made one halfhearted attempt to contact her after he left town for graduate school. Still, she was extremely thankful she’d left the firing range when she had. What if she’d run into Drew there?

Her heart gave a foolish lurch. Not that it had been likely, given the size of the crowd.

She hadn’t slept much last night as a result of her chaotic thoughts and today she had agreed to pull a double shift. Tiredly, she lifted the laden serving tray. The diner had been filled since she’d come on duty. People stopped by for a quick bite or something to drink or simply to share the news with anyone who hadn’t yet heard about yesterday’s incident at the gun range. The town had seen too much of this sort of excitement lately. Evil seemed to have set up housekeeping in Moriah’s Landing.

Three women had been murdered since the start of the year, their bodies brutally displayed for her friend, Elizabeth Douglas Ryan, to discover. Then, when a stalker went after another of her friends, Katherine “Kat” Ridgemont, people learned that the town’s prodigal son, Jonah Ries, was an undercover FBI investigator looking into the secret society that most of the local scientists were rumored to belong to. And now Jonah and Kat planned to marry. While happy for Kat, Brie couldn’t understand what was happening to their once peaceful town.

She set burgers and fries in front of Dodie and Razz. The local youths delighted in their reputation as the terrors of the neighborhood. Hard to believe Razz was her age. Even harder to believe that she had once accepted a date with him. She hated waiting on him and he knew it.

Normally, the two hung out at the arcade, but occasionally they came in for a sandwich. They were rude, noisy and never tipped. Razz liked to leer at her because he knew it made her angry, but he was careful not to take it any further than that. He hadn’t forgotten how successfully she’d fought him off that night in his car any more than she had. And she’d made it perfectly clear she’d do a lot worse if he bothered her again.

She suspected the pair were behind a lot of the mischief that had been going on here at the waterfront. It defied logic that they hadn’t been caught doing something illegal by now.

“That was a lot of blood, man,” Dodie was saying.

“Arterial blood,” Razz agreed, knowingly. “Bet she didn’t survive the ambulance run.”

“Think they’ll arrest Drew Pierce?”

A chill snaked down her back.

Razz gave his younger friend a hard shove.

“Don’t be stupid,” Razz growled. “Nobody touches the almighty Pierce family. Besides, there were lots of witnesses who can claim it was the woman’s own fault.”

“Including us,” Dodie said smugly.

“Shut up, stupid.” Razz gave him another shove and a kick under the table. Deliberately, he stared hard at Brie. “We didn’t get there until it was all over.”

He was lying, and boldly daring her to contradict him. Brie was tempted. She wouldn’t put much past the pair. Not even an accidental murder.

“Will there be anything else?” she asked politely.

“Yeah. Ketchup,” Razz sneered.

She picked up the bottle sitting inches from his left hand and plopped it in front of him. Without another word she turned away.

What she wouldn’t give to be able to go home and put her feet up. Maybe then her head would stop pounding. Then again, probably not. What she needed was sleep—something she hadn’t been able to achieve after talking with her mother’s doctor yesterday. His confirmation of her worst fears had left her too upset to even cry. Her mother was dying and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do.

Research was being done here in Moriah’s Landing, but clinical trials were a long way off yet. Even if the experimental procedure had been available, Brianna didn’t know how she could possibly pay for anything not covered by her mother’s medical plan. Last semester she’d gone back to college again for the first time since dropping out, determined to complete her degree. But if her mother’s medical bills were about to escalate, Brie didn’t see how she could continue. She’d need to purchase school supplies next month with money she didn’t have yet.

Going home early wasn’t an option today or any other day.

She pushed at another strand of hair drooping moistly against her forehead. A shorter style would be so much easier to manage. Maybe she’d ask her mother to help her chop some of it off tonight. Good haircuts were expensive—another luxury she couldn’t afford.

Rubbing her temple, she walked over to the booth where Rebecca Smith stared vacantly at a menu. A newcomer to town, Becca worked at Threads, the seamstress shop over on Main Street. Brie had been immediately drawn to the quiet woman the moment they met. The attractive blonde appeared to be close to her own age and Brie missed the tight-knit friendship she’d shared with Drew’s sister, Tasha, Elizabeth Ryan, Kat Ridgemont and Claire Cavendish. Even though Elizabeth and Tasha lived on the wealthy side of town, the five women had become close friends over the years. Tasha’s death five years ago, when her fiancé’s boat exploded, had hit them all hard. Especially since it had come on the heels of Claire’s abduction from St. John’s Cemetery the night of their college hazing.

Brie had never forgiven herself for allowing Claire to go inside the haunted mausoleum that night. They had all been scared, but Claire was the sensitive one, the one least able to fend for herself. Brie had always been stronger and street-smart. Maybe she could have fended off the person who kidnapped, then tortured poor Claire. But Claire had drawn the marked piece of paper and had insisted on going through with the ritual. And she had gone insane as a result of what had happened to her. Claire was better now, even living at home once more, but Brie wasn’t sure she would ever fully recover. They may not have seen the legendary Leary’s ghost that night, but he’d cursed them just the same.

While Brie’s friends stopped by the diner periodically, they were all living vastly different lives now. Elizabeth was happily married to Cullen Ryan, and Kat had finally captured the attention of Jonah Ries. Brie was honestly happy for her friends, but she was a bit envious all the same.

“Hey, Brie,” Becca greeted.

Brie smiled back. “Hey, yourself.”

“Is it true? Was someone killed out at the firing range yesterday?”

Brie shrugged unhappily. “That’s what everyone is saying.”

“You didn’t see it happen?”

“No, thank heavens. I wasn’t there very long.”

“I heard Andrew Pierce was involved. Isn’t he the man who’s going to run against Mayor Thane?”

“Yes,” she admitted, reluctant to think, let alone talk about Drew. “What can I get you today?”

Fortunately, as the bell over the door continued to chime, she had little time to chat. The day stretched on, but at least she was busy. Brie collected dirty dishes from a vacated booth, pocketing a generous tip gratefully. People were still waiting to be seated so she hurried. As she turned around her tray struck a passing arm.

She tried to steady the load, but a glass tipped, splashing her with the remains of a soda and ice. Hands suddenly steadied the tray from the other side. Dishes clattered together. Total catastrophe was narrowly averted.

She looked up and her words of thanks lodged in her throat. Instead of dishes, it was her world that came crashing down around her feet. People, sounds, even the heat faded away as she stared at the man holding the other side of her tray. Pain splintered the fragile wall she’d erected around her memories.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not here in the diner. This was her part of town!

Andrew Pierce’s impossibly brilliant blue eyes stared at her in shock.

“Brie?”

The sound of her name on his lips raised a lump of longing at the back of her throat. Drew stood there and she couldn’t utter a sound.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

His incredulous expression made it a whole lot easier to swallow the emotions churning inside her. She sensed his pity and that steadied her. Conscious of the room full of people, she settled for a terse reply.

“I work here. What are you doing? Out slumming?”

Again fluttered unspoken in the heavy air.

Dusky red climbed his neck.

Good. How dare he come here now? See her like this? In her fantasies they met one day in Salem or Boston or some other big city where she was a respected attorney. She would, of course, be perfectly dressed and not at all troubled by the sight of the only man she had ever loved.