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Kiss Me, Kill Me
Maggie Shayne
She’s protected him since the day he was born. Since the day the lie began. A long-ago act of kindness to a desperate woman changed Dr. Carrie Overton’s life forever. Before disappearing, the grateful stranger gave Carrie her newborn son. When the woman is murdered, the secret becomes Carrie’s alone.She has kept both it and her son, Sam, safe for sixteen years. But now a friend of Sam’s has gone missing. The police believe he’s a runaway, until he’s found dead, another teen disappears – and talk turns to that long-ago murder.Newcomer Gabriel Cain is asking too many questions, befriending Sam, getting too close. Carrie distrusts him even as she finds herself falling for him. But Gabriel has secrets, too…. Is it time for the lying to end?
Praise for the novels of
MAGGIE SHAYNE
“A tasty, tension-packed read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water
“Tense…frightening…a page-turner in the best sense.”
—RT Book Reviews on Colder Than Ice
“Mystery and danger abound in Darker Than Midnight, a fast-paced, chilling thrill read that will keep readers turning the pages long after bedtime…. Suspense, mystery, danger and passion—no one does them better than Maggie Shayne.”
—Romance Reviews Today on Darker Than Midnight
[winner of a Perfect 10 award]
“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”
—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster
“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven…. A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man
“A gripping story of small-town secrets. The suspense will keep you guessing. The characters will steal your heart.”
—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner on The Gingerbread Man
Kiss of the Shadow Man is a “crackerjack novel of romantic suspense.”
—RT Book Reviews
Maggie Shayne
Kiss Me, Kill Me
This book is lovingly dedicated to the readers who’ve been with me from the beginning, always breathlessly waiting for the next installment, and to the new ones we’ve picked up together along the way. Every word I write, I write with you in mind, wondering what you’ll think, if you’ll like it, if something I toss in for you will make you smile, if you’ll get our inside jokes, if I’ll scare you, if you’ll cry at the end like I did. Every word. Thank you isn’t nearly enough, but I thank you all the same.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Prologue
Sixteen Years Ago
Carrie Overton had known her life was about to change forever. She just hadn’t known how drastically. But when her headlights picked out the shape of a lone woman standing beside her car on the roadside, she knew something was wrong. It was the dead of night in the middle of nowhere. The woman was leaning on her rusty, lopsided car, one arm braced on the hood, the other, cradling her swollen belly. Her face bore a grimace of pain and no small amount of fear. And, in fact, when Carrie flipped on her signal light—though there was no one other than an army of raccoons to see it, she thought—some of that fear changed to visible, almost palpable, relief. The woman—no, she was really little more than a girl, Carrie saw as she drove closer—held up a hand, as if to signal her to stop, though Carrie had already decided there was little else she could do.
She pulled over behind the girl’s car, a primer-colored breakdown-waiting-to-happen, shut her own engine off and got out. The silence of the night struck her as she walked quickly over to the girl. Her shoes crunched on gravel, crickets chirped as if nothing was wrong, and night birds called out noisily every fourth step or so.
“Car broken down?” she asked, almost hoping it was as simple as that, even though every instinct in her body was telling her otherwise. And her instincts were probably better than most, seeing as how she was a doctor. A new one, yes, but a doctor all the same.
The girl met her eyes, and Carrie saw that they were wet. “No. I think I might be in labor.”
Carrie felt her own quick gasp, but just as quickly she grabbed hold of her nerves and replaced them with the quiet calm she had learned patients needed from their MDs. “Lucky for you I came along, then. I’m a doctor.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. I’m on my way to start a new job at Shadow Falls General Hospital.”
“That’s where I’m going, too!” the girl said, but then she whimpered, and closed her eyes and hugged her middle. “God, that hurts.”
“Okay, breathe through it,” Carrie told her. “Like this.” And then she demonstrated, puffing short bursts of air from pursed lips.
The girl obeyed, and in a moment, as the pain eased, Carrie opened the rear door of the girl’s car and helped her in. “Come on, lie down on the backseat, where you can be more comfortable until I get us some help.”
“I think comfortable is impossible at this point.” But the girl moved anyway. Not far, though. She took two steps, then bent double once more, almost falling to her knees this time. She began puffing those short breaths again, and for the first time Carrie felt a real sense of alarm.
Hunkering down to be at eye level with the now-crouching mother-to-be, Carrie asked, “How far apart are the pains?”
“Almost constant,” the girl whispered between puffs.
“Okay. Okay,” Carrie said soothingly. She waited for the pain to pass, and then quickly moved the girl into the backseat. Clearly she was about to deliver a baby. Another birth pang came and went before she got the girl even half-undressed. Then Carrie had to leave just long enough to race to her own car and grab her bag. In seconds she was back, kneeling on the pavement beside the open car door.
“The pains only started an hour ago. I thought I’d have time to get to Shadow Falls.”
“Most women would have,” Carrie told her. “You’re being an exception to the rule today. But don’t worry. I can deliver your baby right here just fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Then why am I scared shitless?” the girl asked. “Unhh! Oh, God.”
Carrie tried to project confidence and hide her own nervousness—she’d delivered babies before, after all. Not on deserted country roads in the backseats of barely roadworthy cars, but she didn’t imagine many doctors had. She laid a calming hand on the girl’s bulging belly and felt the baby move inside. It instigated a wave of sadness, but she tamped it down. “It’s a miracle, you know. It’s a miracle you’re experiencing right now.”
“Miracles hurt!” Pant, pant, pant. “Have you ever—oh, hell!—delivered a baby before?”
“Dozens of them,” Carrie lied. She’d delivered three—exactly three—during her residency, but she’d never had to fly solo, without a nurse or sterile tools or gloves, not to mention a backup neonatal team standing by.
“I’d give anything not to have to do this,” the girl moaned.
“I’d give anything to trade places with you right now,” Carrie told her.
“You must be nuts, then—oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell!”
“Not nuts, just broken. I…I’ll never be a mom.” Maybe telling her that would make her realize what a blessing this event was. How important. How special.
The contraction passed, and the girl’s expression eased. She studied Carrie’s face. “You can’t have kids?” she asked.
Carrie met her eyes. “Nope. I was born with defective fallopian tubes and—”
“Oh, shit! Something’s happening. I have to push. I have to—”
“Go ahead, push.” Carrie got low and flattened her hands against the bottoms of the girl’s feet so she would have something to brace against. The contraction eased, and the girl fell back, heaving a sigh.
“Relax until the next contraction,” Carrie told her. “Then we’ll push again.”
“It’s odd, me meeting you out here like this,” the girl said.
“We haven’t officially met, though, have we?” Carrie pointed out. “I’m Carrie Overton. Doctor Carrie Overton. And you are…?”
The girl didn’t answer. She was gripped by another contraction, and then another, and the opportunity for conversation was gone, aside from the necessary bits. Breathe through it. Push harder.
It wasn’t long before the baby’s head came into sight. And with the next push, the shoulders began to emerge. “You’re so strong,” Carrie said. “This is going to be over in no time, hon. Two more pushes, maybe three.”
“I want it to be over with now!” the girl cried.
“I don’t blame you. Come on, push with me now.”
The girl pushed, and Carrie talked and comforted, and in short order she was holding a tiny, wriggling baby boy in her arms. He released a series of congested bleats, making her laugh softly. “A boy,” Carrie said. “And he’s got a great set of lungs on him, too.”
“Is he okay?” the girl asked. “I want him to be okay.”
“He’s fine. He’s absolutely…beautiful. God, look at him. He’s perfect.” Carrie sniffled, then tied off the cord, cut it and wiped the baby down as best she could with gauze and sterile water. She suctioned his nose and mouth with a small blue aspirator, wrapped him in her own jacket, and for just a moment held him in her arms, smiling down at his tiny face. When tears burned in her eyes, she blinked them away and gently placed the baby in his mother’s arms.
“You should try to nurse him,” Carrie whispered. She couldn’t speak any louder than that for the tightness in her throat. The idea of never being able to have a baby of her own…it was a constant twisting blade in her heart. She knew she would be a far better mother than her own volatile, passionate, hot-tempered mother had been. “I can hardly wait to see what he weighs,” she added, mentally trying to change the subject.
She helped the new mother clean herself up, got her sitting upright, watched her trying to nurse and then nodded. “Okay, listen. I passed a house a few miles back. I’m going to drive back there, see if I can use their phone to get an ambulance out here for you, and we’ll get you and your little guy to a nice clean hospital where you can recover properly. Okay?”
The girl lifted her face, her expression oddly detached. “I thought doctors all had those car phones nowadays.”
“Not this one. Not yet. Anyway, I doubt it would work out here even if I did. But I’ll be quick.”
“And you’ll come right back here?” the girl asked.
“Right back. I won’t be more than ten or fifteen minutes. And you’ll be fine, I promise.”
“And the baby, too? He’ll be fine, too, alone for that long?”
Carrie tilted her head. “He won’t be alone, honey. He has you.”
“I could fall asleep, or—”
“He’ll be fine. I promise.” Carrie started to back away, but the girl reached out and gripped her hand.
“This was supposed to happen. You finding me here. It was meant to be. I know it was.”
“Maybe so.”
“For sure. I knew a man once. He always said everything happens for a reason. And that if you want something bad enough, it can happen.”
“Well, I’ll bet you wanted help pretty badly. Maybe he was right.”
The girl nodded slowly, her gaze turned inward. “Please hurry back.”
“I promise. I’ll be just as fast as I can.”
