He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

O’Donnell first went missing. Would it have changed how he’d directed the search? Maybe, maybe not. It all depended on the details of that first case and whether there were any clues to that perp’s identity. Without knowing for sure, he wasn’t about to lay that kind of guilt on someone else. He was the chief. Ultimately, he was responsible. “Who were the suspects in the original case?”
    “There weren’t any suspects. All the leads went cold,” Clayton said. “But Branson wasn’t alone. There was another woman with her.”
    Disbelief had Logan clamping his jaw shut to avoid saying something he knew he’d regret. How could his men have forgotten a brutal, double homicide in a town of fifty thousand people? Especially since the only murders around here were usually the result of a drunken bar fight or a crime of passion between two people who supposedly loved each other. He took a deep breath and prayed for patience. “Who was the second murder victim?”
    Clayton shook his head, his smug look returning. “You got it all wrong,” he said. “The second girl, Amanda Stockton, she got away.”
    A manda eased her tired body down onto her leather couch to take a much-needed break from her computer. Making a living by writing computer programs at home rather than having to go into an office was a blessing, but it was also a curse. She’d become the hermit her sister had once accused her of being, working inside on a beautiful weekend rather than going out. The sky—visible from her back windows—was so blue it hurt to look at it. And she knew if she went outside she’d smell the salt in the air, might even be able to hear the waves crashing on the shore a few miles away.
    She’d enjoyed the ocean once, a lifetime ago. She’d loved hearing the sand crunch beneath her feet, feeling its cooling touch between her toes, listening to the cries of sea gulls overhead. But those days were gone, a part of her past. She could never be that carefree again, that ignorant of the people around her, that exposed, vulnerable.
    Wary of the all-too-familiar path her tired mind was taking, she forced those thoughts aside and curled her legs beneath her. With one click of her remote, her brand-new, sixty-one- inch, high-def TV snapped to life. A decadent luxury, it had put a huge dent in her savings. But she’d only turn thirty once, so she’d splurged.
    Instead of spending her birthday last week visiting her parents’ graves like she usually did, she’d watched two action flicks on her new TV, and shoveled handfuls of fattening, buttery popcorn into her mouth.
    She didn’t regret buying the TV.
    She did regret the popcorn.
    An extra hour on the treadmill had been enough to keep her from indulging again anytime soon.
    After clicking through the movie guide, she selected a crime scene drama. With her past, she knew most people would think her odd to like those kinds of shows, but it made perfect sense to her. It was all about control, facing and overcoming fears.
    Not letting him win.
    But instead of the show she’d expected, the screen filled with a live shot of the outside of the building that housed Shadow Falls’ city hall and police station. A red banner underneath the picture declared “Breaking News.”
    When anchorwoman Tiffany Adams stepped in front of the camera, Amanda knew this was something far more important than another fluff piece on the upcoming mayoral race. Adams rarely left the anchor desk to report in the field, probably because her heavy makeup and hairspray didn’t respond well to the Florida humidity.
    In a tone far too upbeat for what she was saying, she informed viewers that a jogger had discovered a woman’s body in the city’s main park early this morning, and that the mayor and police chief were about to give a news conference.
    Amanda’s stomach fluttered and she twisted the hem of her pink tank top between her fingers. Four solemn policemen filed up to stand shoulder to shoulder behind a podium at the top of the steps. She shook her head at the bitter irony. If she went to a store without a written shopping list, half the time she’d come home without the very items she most needed. And yet, even though she hadn’t spoken to those policemen in years, she could still remember their names. Some things she could never forget.
    Even though she wanted to.
    Mayor Edward Montgomery heaved his bulk up the steps and stood red-faced in front of the officers lined up behind the