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Deadly Cover-Up
Julie Anne Lindsey
Can they uncover the truth before a killer finds them? Violet Ames wants to know why her grandmother hired bodyguard Wyatt Stone before her suspicious accident. But as their investigation heats up, they uncover a scandalous town secret, and a determined killer takes aim at Violet…
Can they uncover the truth
before a hidden killer finds them?
Single mother Violet Ames wants to know why her grandmother hired former army ranger turned bodyguard Wyatt Stone before her suspicious accident. In order to discover the truth, Violet insists she and Wyatt work together—but trusting him with her and her baby girl’s lives is a different matter. As their investigation heats up, they uncover a scandalous town secret, and a determined killer takes aim at Violet. Now, in a race against time, it’s not always obvious who is friend and who is foe…
JULIE ANNE LINDSEY is a multigenre author who writes the stories that keep her up at night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity for fun. Julie lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Today she hopes to make someone smile. One day she plans to change the world. Julie is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. Learn more about Julie Anne Lindsey at julieannelindsey.com (http://www.julieannelindsey.com)
Also by Julie Anne Lindsey (#ua6dc2e29-06fd-5812-88a9-11c78edf14bb)
Shadow Point Deputy
Marked by the Marshal
Federal Agent Under Fire
The Sheriff’s Secret
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Deadly Cover-Up
Julie Anne Lindsey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-0-008-90482-1
DEADLY COVER-UP
© 2019 Julie Anne Lindsey
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#ua6dc2e29-06fd-5812-88a9-11c78edf14bb)
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Contents
Cover (#ucea6e988-fd3b-5105-bdb4-2567fdc2f1ba)
Back Cover Text (#uf9ce2358-4b94-5b8e-a98f-dec835dfef53)
About the Author (#u2e8dc113-745d-5d2a-95d7-c4670721e0a9)
Booklist (#u5ee06488-a3e7-5716-b5b3-a7f355574264)
Title Page (#u0eaca4c9-950f-5aed-9f61-bd47075c7b6b)
Copyright (#u1dc3518a-4a58-5b3b-9526-7b25f9259713)
Note to Readers
Chapter One (#u118525d8-6f6a-5568-a37c-9c2d2f9f01c0)
Chapter Two (#u8feaa69c-d21c-56dc-813b-c7a8808abc46)
Chapter Three (#ub794b6cc-6b85-5af3-afde-4b0bf673f491)
Chapter Four (#u2a6c6d22-4dbf-5fee-9d0d-5d39e8560146)
Chapter Five (#u1b72f5e0-ec6c-5caf-9f59-4409055f59d0)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ua6dc2e29-06fd-5812-88a9-11c78edf14bb)
Violet Ames drove slowly along the familiar winding roads of River Gorge, Kentucky, wiping tears and saying prayers. It had been years since she’d visited the rural mountain town where her grandmother raised her, and this wasn’t the return trip she’d planned. Her version had involved an abundance of hugs and triple servings of Grandma’s double chocolate brownies, but there wouldn’t be any of that tonight.
Violet divided her attention between the dark country road before her and the sleeping infant behind her. Eight-month-old Maggie dozed silently in her little rear-facing car seat, having given up tears to fatigue only moments after the car exited the hospital parking lot. Violet rubbed her heavy lids and tried to stay composed, but it had been a tough day.
According to the midmorning phone call she’d received from River Gorge General Hospital, Violet’s grandma, a seventy-eight-year-old widow, had fallen from a ladder in her barn and nearly killed herself. The notion was unfathomable. Grandma’s barn was old and left unused after her grandfather’s death many years back, so why was her grandma even in there? And why had she climbed the ladder? There was nothing to reach with it except an old hayloft housing a decade of dust.
Violet gripped the aching muscles along the back of her neck and shoulders with one hand, steering carefully with the other. She couldn’t get her mind around the awful day. “What would have possessed her?” she whispered into the warm summer air streaming through her barely cracked window.
That was a million-dollar question, because no one at the hospital had a clue.
Her grandma, the only one who could explain what on earth she’d been up to, was lying unconscious in a bleach-and bandage-scented room, worrying her granddaughter half to death. She’d undergone surgeries for her broken hip and wrist and received sutures on her cracked head and a wrap for her swollen ankle. What she hadn’t done was open her eyes.
Her doctor said she’d wake when she was ready, and he had faith that would be soon. He’d suggested Violet be patient.
Patience wasn’t Violet’s strong suit. In fact, she wanted to scream. Her grandma had been Violet’s entire world before Maggie was born, and she knew it. Violet had made her promise to be careful with herself the year she moved from River Gorge to Winchester, nearly two hours away. And she had. “Yet here we are,” Violet muttered.
She thumped the steering wheel with one palm as hot tears spouted anew.
Maggie started behind her, jostling the car seat’s reflection in Violet’s rearview. Violet couldn’t see her face, but she heard the squirms and soft complaints as Maggie tried to find sleep once again.
Violet pressed her lips into a tight line, then wiped the new round of tears from her cheeks. They’d be at Grandma’s house soon, where they could get a good night’s sleep before returning to the hospital tomorrow, where hopefully they’d get some answers. Or better yet, find Grandma awake.
Soon the bumpy road grew steadily more uneven until cracked pavement gave way to sparse patches of dirt and loose gravel. Stones crunched and pinged beneath the tires and frame of Violet’s little yellow hatchback as she maneuvered the final stretch to her former home.
A small smile pulled through her heartbreak as Grandma’s farm came into view. Ghosts of her younger self on bicycles and horseback rushed down the drive to meet her, chased by the beloved hound dogs and yard chickens of her youth, sprayed with a garden hose held by her grandfather before he passed. Carried in Grandma’s arms when her mother waved goodbye from the passenger seat of a station wagon driven by a man she barely knew.
Violet rolled to a stop in front of the old white farmhouse, nausea fisting in her gut and fat tears blurring away the world before her. She shifted into Park and climbed out to inhale the sticky night air. Summers in River Gorge were scorching hot with the constant threat of a thunderstorm. A volatile combination Violet had always loved.
She peered at her sleeping daughter. “This will be fine,” she whispered. “Grandma will be fine.” Unwilling to wake Maggie, Violet unlatched the entire car seat and hoisted it into her arms, baby and all.
With any luck, Grandma still kept a spare house key under the plant in the big red pot outside her dining room window.
Violet carried Maggie to the potted flower garden near the front steps and tipped the planter back with one foot. “Shoot.” Nothing but bugs on the mulch-covered ground beneath.
She turned for the porch. All hope wasn’t gone. Her grandpa used to keep a spare above the front door. Grandma had hated it because she was too short to reach without something to stand on. Violet, on the other hand, hadn’t had that problem since middle school when she shot up to five foot eight and a half and stayed there.
She slowed on the steps when she caught sight of the front door already ajar.
Could the paramedics have forgotten to lock up on their way out?
Had they even gone inside the house if Grandma had fallen in the barn?
Violet flipped the interior light on and swung the door wide. Maybe her grandma hadn’t fully secured the door before heading outside to the barn, and the open door had gone unnoticed by the EMTs.
Eerie silence greeted Violet as she edged her way inside, trying desperately not to wake her daughter. She set Maggie, in her car seat, against the far wall, then pushed the door shut behind them. “Hello?” she called, as much from habit and manners as anything.
The fine hairs along Violet’s neck and arms rose to attention. The couch cushions were all slightly askew and a small drawer in the side table was open. She double-checked that the television and DVD player were still there, then shook her head in a relieved sigh. It wasn’t a robbery.
Violet rubbed the gooseflesh from her arms. Of course it wasn’t. No one in town would bother breaking into her grandma’s house. For one thing, everyone was perpetually invited in, and for another, it was a small town. Folks here knew her grandma barely got by on her grandpa’s small pension. Besides all that, there was nothing to take that Grandma wouldn’t freely give.
A small sound rose on the night air, perking Violet’s ears and causing her to rethink her theory. Another little bump drew Violet’s attention to the kitchen near the back of the home and jerked her heart rate into a sprint.
She pulled her cell phone from one pocket and dialed the local authorities before inching away from the darkened hallway, back toward the front door and Maggie.
“Hello,” she whispered to the tinny voice answering her call. “I think there’s someone in my grandma’s house.”
No sooner had she uttered the words than a hulking shadow erupted from the home’s depths, bearing down on her fast with long, pounding strides. Violet screamed as his iron hands connected with her shoulders, knocking her end over end as he barreled past her and out the front door.
Maggie screamed in her car seat as the calamity of her mother’s crashing body mixed with the loud bang of Grandma’s front door hitting the wall.
Violet scrambled onto her hands and knees, then raced to Maggie’s side. She climbed off the ground slightly bruised but wholly motivated to get her baby to safety. She wasted no time escaping the house with Maggie and locking them both into her car, engine running, while she waited for local authorities to arrive.
WYATT STONE DOUBLE-CHECKED his GPS as the quiet country road turned to gravel beneath his sturdy truck tires. He knew Gladys Ames lived on a rural property, but this was nearly isolated. No wonder she had been scared.
He drove with one hand on the wheel while he dug through a pile of papers on his dashboard with the other, fishing for a business card in decent condition. Normally, Wyatt was better organized, but his fledgling private security business had been growing legs faster than he could keep up or recruit a staff large enough to handle all the work, and that left Wyatt running on caffeine and determination more often than sleep and preparation.
A set of bobbing headlights appeared around the next pitted gravel bend and headed his way, demanding the lion’s share of the narrow road and forcing Wyatt’s truck onto the grass with two wheels. The sheriff’s cruiser lumbered past at a crawl, leaving Wyatt to wait for the opportunity to forge on. Once he could, Wyatt pressed the gas pedal with a little more purpose than before. Gladys Ames had sent several messages to Fortress Security over the past few days, arranging for protection while she “handled some business,” but Wyatt wasn’t supposed to start work until tomorrow. So what had she gotten herself into that required a sheriff’s presence since their last correspondence?
He slid his truck into the space behind a small yellow hatchback and climbed down from the cab.
A brunette with a baby in one arm and a half dozen assorted duffel bags dangling from her shoulders and hands froze at the sight of him.
It wasn’t the first time a lone woman had looked at him that way. It wouldn’t be the last.
His size and general appearance put most folks on edge, especially women. Certainly at night. Definitely alone.
Wyatt stopped moving.
