Claire didn’t loosen her white-knuckle grip on the omelet pan until Hank’s cruiser squealed into the parking lot five minutes later. By then, she’d pushed the terror back with the determination of a soon-to-be bride at a seventy-five-percent-off wedding dress sale. Leaving the heavy cast-iron pan on the hostess stand, she hurried outside to meet her brother.

 She kicked a twig from one of the mangled bushes out of her path. Harvest was the center of her world. No psycho would scare her away from her own restaurant, or its parking lot. At least not twice in one night.

She’d started Harvest three years ago with a small inheritance from Granny Marie and a massive loan from the bank. Her inability to boil water had killed her dreams of being a chef, but she wouldn’t let that destroy her dream of owning her own restaurant. She’d lost buckets of sweat and tears to building Harvest up from the long-vacant remains of the abandoned Grand Hotel. For three years she’d spent nearly every waking hour here. Seven days out of seven, she was here for at least a few hours. Most days she arrived hours before the first line cook and left long after the final customers paid their bill. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone on vacation, taken the day off to drive five hours to go shopping in Denver or even gone out on a date. Hell, she hadn’t even had sex in forever. 

Hank stood outlined by the glare of his cruiser’s headlights. At six-feet, three-inches tall, with the sinewy bulk of a man who had played division one college football, he looked like a mountain compared to her petite frame. Hank, the eldest of her three brothers, took his duties as the oldest brother seriously. Normally, his protective temperament drove her nuts. Not tonight.

He strode toward her, a look of worry pasted on his face. “Are you okay?” Hank hugged her to him. 

He held her so tight, one of his uniform shirt’s buttons dug into her forehead. “I’m fine.” 

His tight grip overwhelmed her, emphasizing how vulnerable she’d been and how much she hated that feeling. Her frazzled nerves tensed, so she grabbed on to the one emotion more powerful than fear. Anger. Pushing away, she scowled up at him. “Really.”

He tsked, obviously not impressed by her typical reaction to trouble, but let her go. “So tell me what happened.” 

Claire had to quicken her pace to keep up with his long stride. “I found her when I dumped the garbage.”

“Did you see anyone? Anybody hanging around?”

“No.”

“Lucky you.” Hank towered over the Dumpster. Gripping his flashlight close to the bulb, he aimed it into the reeking depths. 

A magnetic curiosity pulled her to Hank’s side. She sidled up to him and raised herself on her tiptoes to see inside. The dead girl’s lime-green eyes held no tears, but Claire found hers did. She blinked them away before Hank could spot them. If he realized how scared she’d been and how much seeing the dead girl affected her, he’d make her wait inside. 

That wasn’t going to happen. This was her kingdom. No one pushed her around at Harvest, even if it was declared a crime scene. 

The dead girl must have been in her early twenties, probably a student at Cather College. Dressed in a flowery, turquoise sundress, she looked as if she’d been out for a night of fun with friends. 

Blood matted her peroxide-blonde hair near her right temple. Not much, but enough to show how violently the girl’s night had ended.   

Again, Claire’s gaze was drawn to the girl’s gold charm bracelet. Pretty and delicate, it stood in stark contrast to its surroundings.

Realization hit her like a quick jab to the gut. 

Earlier that night, the chatty girl at table four had worn a similar bracelet.

Could it be the same? The girl had ignored her fellow diners’ dirty looks, aimed her way because she hadn’t put her cellphone down for nearly the entire dinner service. Mostly she’d texted, but large gold stars had swung when she’d held the phone to her ear—the same gold stars now tarnished with discarded food scraps.

“Hank, I know her.” Her voice sounded harsh in the quiet night.

He nodded, but didn’t look up from the body as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know her name, but she ate at Harvest tonight.” 

Hank grunted in acknowledgement then started walking around the Dumpster. Every few steps he stopped, moving aside an old newspaper or other piece of debris with his foot. He’d taken about ten steps when he squatted by the Dumpster. Reaching behind, into the damaged bushes, he pulled out a crowbar. 

Painted cherry red, it looked like the one she kept in her Jeep. He held it up in a gloved hand. Strings clung to one end of it. Claire squinted.

Hair. Bright, unnaturally blonde hair stuck to the end of the crowbar.

Her stomach roiled at the horrible sight. 

Clutching her hand to her mouth, she stumbled away, not stopping until she reached the waist-high bushes bordering the opposite side of the parking lot. Afraid she’d hurl her dinner, she inhaled through her nose and exhaled out her mouth several times. As the warm breeze ruffled her hair, she pictured her happy place. A sparsely populated beach where the sun always shone. Fruity drinks with tacky paper umbrellas delivered by well-oiled and minimally dressed waiters. Waves rolling onto the shore in slow motion, tickling her toes buried in the white sand. After a few minutes, her stomach stopped flipping. 

Turning, she faced her brother, who still stood by the Dumpster, and focused on how this could have happened. 

How could someone have done this here? How could she not have known? What if she had taken the garbage out sooner, would she have caught the murderer in the act? Could she have saved the girl? Unable to answer any of the questions and frustrated by her powerlessness, Claire considered the facts.  

The killer had left the body in her Dumpster. The girl had probably died here. Guilt rose like bile. She should have known something was amiss and stopped it, or at the very least called the cops. Harvest was her restaurant. It was her responsibility to protect her guests.  

The bastard, whoever he was, would pay. She’d make sure of it.

She stomped back to Harvest’s door, anger building with each step. Dry Creek was the kind of place where people said hi to each other when they passed on the street. They left their cars unlocked at the mall. To outsiders, it was just another railroad town on the flat Nebraska plain, but to the folks who lived here, it was home. Home was supposed to be safe. 

Sure, they had crime, but it was nonviolent stuff. The mayor’s house getting toilet-papered. A meth addict breaking into a house in the middle of the day when no one was home. Kids taking a car for a joyride. Nothing like this. She couldn’t remember the last time there had been a murder in Dry Creek.    

Hank’s backup arrived in a convoy. Every deputy, on duty and off, flooded in while Claire glowered from Harvest’s doorway. 

They swarmed around the Dumpster. Some stood and gawked. Others talked off to the side with Hank. The CSI-type guys laid down numbered cards and snapped photos. Yellow crime scene tape spanned the entrance to the parking lot, resting on top of the bushes and trussing up her Jeep like a macabre Christmas present. 

No way her Jeep was leaving the parking lot anytime soon. Great. How was she supposed to get home now?

She didn’t want a deputy to give her a lift. She needed a friendly shoulder and a hug. Beth would come pick her up. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to call her best friend at two in the morning, or been on the receiving end of such a call.

An invisible hand squeezed her brain like a sponge. Desperate for some aspirin to relieve her tension headache, she headed inside to raid Harvest’s first-aid kit. 

Her phone vibrated in her hand. Without even looking at the screen, she realized Beth’s best-friend-sixth-sense must have kicked in. Either that or she was up late listening to the police scanner again. She’d gotten the scanner for Beth last Christmas. The girl had been addicted to it ever since. She could picture her now, curled up with a romance novel showing a bare-chested man on the cover, her ever-constant cup of coffee on the bedside table and the police scanner buzzing in the background. The idea made her smile for the first time in hours.

“Beth?”

“Sure, let’s call me Beth,” said an unfamiliar male voice.

Claire froze, ice-cold fear solidifying in her veins.

“I can see you right now, so pretend you’re talking with Beth. That way none of the Barney Fifes end up with holes in their heads.”

The deadly threat, delivered with a light touch, registered with finality. Her headache forgotten, she searched the crowd, looking for the Voice of Doom on the other end of the line. No one looked her way. No one held a phone. She spun on her heels and hurried toward Hank, toward help.

“Oh, Sugarplum, where are you going? No one can help you,” the man taunted in his nasal tone. “And stop looking for me. People only see me when it’s too late.”

The phone slipped in her clammy hands, so she tightened her grip. Petrified, she tried to speak but only a choked coughing sound came out.  

“Good girl. Now, I want her phone and flash drive. I want them immediately or you’ll pay like she did.”

Her body went numb. The phone fell to the ground and bounced off the asphalt. Claire gaped at it for a moment, her mind blank. Acting on instinct, she swooped up her cell.

Pressing the phone hard to her ear, she feared her shaking hands would drop it again. “Whose phone and flash drive?” 

“Why, the dead girl’s, of course, Ms. Klutz. I had hoped they were in her handbag, but I was wrong. I hate being wrong—it always means more work for me.”

Desperate, she wished Hank would look at her. With this psycho’s eyes on her, she couldn’t wave her arms for help. She stared at the back of Hank’s head. Muscles tense, she willed him to turn around. No luck. 

“I don’t have them.” A tiny, naive part of her believed her pleading tone would work. He’d rescind his threat and life would go back to normal.

“Too bad. I’d hoped to do this without it having to get all messy—for you, that is.”

His words blasted her fragile hope to pieces. Her only alternative was to get help. Someone else had to notice her distress.

“But you’re lucky. It’s late and I’m tired after, well, you know what I did tonight. Suffice it to say she had a lot more fight in her than expected.” He chuckled. 

At her wits end to find another way to gain someone’s attention, she raised her voice. “Who are you? How’d you get my number?” 

Engrossed in their jobs, no one glanced up. Defeated and alone in a parking lot filled with law enforcement, Claire sank down to the curb. 

“Silly girl, I can read. Your name is on the menu as owner and proprietor. It doesn’t take a genius to find a cellphone number. I love the Internet. Don’t you?” He paused as if expecting her to answer. When she didn’t, he carried on. “But, back to the matter at hand. I’ll give you until noon to find what I want. You’ll be hearing from me. And let’s just keep all of this to ourselves, shall we? I’d hate to have to find a Dumpster big enough for you and your whole family.”

The line went dead.

Did you miss part of Dangerous Kiss? Catch up here. xoxo, Avery