Dangerous Kiss (The Layton Family 1)

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.”