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

boarded over every window and the door. Still, it was better than driving into the depths of the narrow road she’d have to walk to get to the interview.

Dominique quickly reviewed the address and map on her phone, committing her next steps to memory. Her subject, Johnny Blanchard, was her ticket to the truth. The witness had been difficult to chase down, and he refused to speak to her on her cell phone, opting to leave her messages on the Gazette’s landline only. Before Charlie’s death she would have thought Blanchard might be slightly paranoid, but her perspective about what was happening in Grave Gulch had changed. The more information she gleaned, the more deadly Charlie’s case seemed to have been, from the moment he’d been arrested. The fact that Charlie wouldn’t give her names, in his attempt to protect her, was telling.

Grabbing her trusty, purse-size notebook, she locked her wallet in the glove compartment, shoved her favorite bag under a blanket she kept on the back seat and held on to her keys and phone as she exited the car. Once on the street, she pocketed both in her wool cream trench coat. She was grateful for the warmth it gave her on the almost-spring day. April here meant snow and cold temperatures as Lake Michigan slowly woke up from its long winter of freezing conditions.

Her choice of outfit was deliberate. It was important that she looked like her profile photo on the paper’s website and her social media, so that Johnny knew it was really her. Otherwise, she’d never get close to Johnny; he’d take off the minute he spied her from the window or peephole of his apartment in this part of Grave Gulch. Which was why she’d opted to not dress down but maintain her preferred style.

Everything she relished about living in Grave Gulch—the large, diverse community with a small-town feel, being able to recognize many faces at her most visited restaurants and coffee shops, the ability to enjoy all four seasons with gusto—faded as she turned off the main street and walked deeper into what could be low-income housing in Anytown, USA.

Except this was her home, and it made her heart ache to see the suffering too many endured on a regular basis. She’d reported ad infinitum on the opioid epidemic’s effect in Michigan, but nothing ever prepared her for the harsh separation between the addicted and those who’d either never touched the stuff or were in solid recovery from addiction. Dominique regularly read the published police blotter, and when GGPD hadn’t been so shut-down against giving the press case information she’d ask officers for more specifics. Last night two drug deals had been reported on this same street. GGPD had captured one dealer but the other was still at large. The street wasn’t abandoned, but the sense that she was being watched hung like a thick wet blanket about her shoulders. It was to be expected; drug dealers were always looking for a new source of income.

How many people had taken this same route to their eventual death as they sought the fix for their addiction to prescription painkillers?

You can’t fix everything. Work on fitting your piece of the puzzle.

Only three more blocks and she’d be where the answers to Charlie Hamm’s wrongful conviction, and maybe even his murder, began. A shiver struck her nape and shocked down her spine. Soledad was right; this might be her worst idea yet, coming here alone. Her toes itched for her comfortable and serviceable running shoes. She’d remembered the address, the location on the street grid. But she’d forgotten how quickly a situation could go sour.

You’re being ridiculous.

She was. It was the middle of the day and she was here to ask a person a few questions. No need to make a dramatic case out of it. Let the drama stay where it already existed: in Charlie’s probable murder.

Dominique breathed in rhythm with her steps as sweat trickled down her back, soaking her blouse under the wool coat. It wasn’t one of her usual forest hikes, with hawks, eagles and trees overhead, but only a few blocks.

Only a few more steps. She forced herself to appear confident, without fear. It was only human to be wary when the ravages of several crises saturated Grave Gulch’s normally upbeat atmosphere.

You know you fanned the flames unnecessarily.

Admittedly she’d been fired up when she’d used her personal social media to basically threaten the local cartel with retribution for their crimes against Charlie, along with pushing GGPD until all information pertaining to cases Randall Bowe had worked was released. She’d vow to not stop until she had the truth. Her last post had been a bit softer, as she’d promised to seek justice for Charlie and wouldn’t stop until she had the entire truth. But the meaning was indisputable.

The address was in her sights. She stepped across a tiny break in the sidewalk, kept going. The interview wouldn’t take long if Johnny cooperated.

A big if. Interview subjects were notoriously fickle when the stakes were high. Soledad’s words haunted her. Was she risking her safety for nothing?

No. Justice was always worth fighting for. But she picked up her pace, anxious to get her story and get home.

* * *

Stanton Colton used his best security and protection skills to follow Dominique without being detected by the intrepid reporter. Typical of her defiance against what any normal person would consider “too dangerous to go it alone,” she was making her way up a street that had appeared on the GGPD’s reports from last night.

He had double-checked that he had a weapon both at his waist and ankle before he left his vehicle. He’d parked several spaces behind where Dominique had left her modest SUV on the east side of Grave Gulch. It wasn’t the flashiest of cars, and its black paint looked to be covered with an extra layer of dust. He briefly wondered if she was still partial to hiking through the Michigan forests