Harlequin Romantic Suspense April 2021 Karen Whiddon (best fiction books to read TXT) 📖

Hooking a finger around the trigger, Julia pulled in twice. Smoke rose from the barrel. As if pushed from behind, the figure fell forward.

Holding her gun down and at her side, Julia sprinted to the downed figure. From three yards away, she stopped and felt vomit rise in the back of her throat. The person was no longer indistinct and there wasn’t a bit of golden-blond hair.

Holstering her gun, Julia dove through the dirt toward the prone figure.

“Luis,” she breathed as she rolled him to his back. His face was covered with grime and blood. “Luis, can you hear me? Where’d you get hit?”

What if she’d hit him in the head? Good Lord, Julia couldn’t live with herself if she’d mistakenly murdered Luis. A pink scrape ran down the ridge of his nose and filled with pinpricks of blood. She ran her hands through his thick, dark hair. She couldn’t find a wound.

Groaning, Luis’s eyelids fluttered open. “What the hell happened?” he asked, his voice a croak.

“I shot you,” said Julia. Damn it. Get a grip. She wiped her eyes with her shoulder. “Where’d you get hit?”

“You didn’t shoot me,” he said. Trying to sit up, he lifted his shoulders from the ground.

Julia firmly pressed him back. “You’re in shock,” she said. She’d seen it happen more than once in Afghanistan. Soldiers who’d been riddled with bullets stayed on their feet and continued in combat until they could fight no more.

“I’m not in shock.” Lifting a hand to his cheek, he picked out a sliver of wood. “I think you hit the tree. I dove for cover when I heard the shots. I must’ve hit my head and knocked myself out for a few seconds.” A purple bruise was starting to form on his forehead, evidence that his scenario was most likely true.

Julia looked up. A rivet had been carved into the side of the tree. Her shot had been close, but not close enough. The other bullet had struck a tree five yards away. Relief washed over Julia in a great wave. “Thank goodness I can’t hit the broad side of a barn anymore.”

Luis sat up. He looked at his elbow. The fabric of his shirt was ripped, and the skin beneath looked raw.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s all my fault.”

“I’d rather have a few scrapes on me than a few holes in me.” He rose to his feet and dusted off the knees of his pants. “But Julia, why’d you shoot at me in the first place?”

“I thought you were someone else,” she said.

“Who else is going to be in the middle of the woods? And why would you want to shoot them in the back?”

“Because,” said Julia. “I saw the same person—the hooded intruder—again. The person who was in my house this morning is here now.”

Luis narrowed his eyes and scanned the woods. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

They walked a short distance, the silence interrupted only by the far-off calls of birds and their own footfalls in the undergrowth. Julia struggled to explain what had happened.

“I heard something. A step on the gravel drive, maybe. I turned to look...”

“And then,” Luis coaxed when Julia’s story ebbed into silence.

“And then I looked through the rear windshield, and she was standing at the back of the liftgate.”

“And then?” he asked again.

As Julia relayed what had happened, they stepped onto the gravel drive. In the distance, she saw the house’s roofline. It meant that they’d exited the woods closer to the road than the Owens homestead. How had she gotten so lost? How had she let her skills become so sloppy?

Then again, Julia knew. Since she’d been attacked—not just this morning, but months ago in the bunker—she’d been afraid. And fear wasn’t an emotion she was used to. Sweat collected at the nape of her neck and slithered down her back. “In the woods, something occurred to me.”

“Which is?”

“What if placing Tom Dolan in the gazebo wasn’t random?” She paused and waited for Luis to say something...anything. He didn’t and she continued. “You said it yourself this morning—the person who broke into my house likely timed their break-in to coincide with my run. What if the body was left someplace that I’d find it?”

“Then it sounds like there’s a lot more for you to worry about—whoever is following you has killed once.” Luis paused. “What if you’re their next victim?”

* * *

If Luis was right, and he was afraid that he was, then Julia’s life was at risk. For a moment, he imagined a world without Julia. The thought hit him with the force of a train that had jumped the tracks. They approached the truck and he tried to think of something to say. There were no words.

And then, his eye was drawn to the first-aid kit that sat on the driver’s seat, and more importantly, to the evidence envelope inside. “I found something,” he said. Stretching across the seats, Luis opened the kit and retrieved the bag.

“What is it?” Julia asked.

“Proof that Darcy had an accomplice, at least for the killings of her parents.”

Taking the envelope, Julia read the diary entry through the translucent plastic. “Who is the Watcher? Bethany Edwards?”

“Yeah, but she has an alibi for Tom Dolan’s death.”

“Could be another friend.”

“Didn’t Chloe Ryder work at Darcy’s high school? She was a social work intern or something.”

With a nod, Julia said, “I think you’re right.”

“There was a yearbook upstairs,” said Luis. “We can take it back to Pleasant Pines and show it to Chloe.”

“Don’t you think we should search the rest of the house?”

“I think we’ve done enough. If we need to, we can come back.”

She nodded. “I’ll get the yearbook.”

Luis wasn’t about to let Julia out of his sight, not even for a few minutes, especially since she was being stalked by a killer. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

Thankfully, she didn’t argue. Within a few minutes, they’d returned to Darcy’s room, retrieved the yearbook