My Deadly Valentine
Read My Deadly Valentine Online
Authors: Valerie Hansen
Tags: #Suspense, #Romance, #Religious - General, #Religious, #General, #Christian, #Christian - Suspense, #Fiction - Religious, #Christian Life, #Christian - Romance, #Fiction, #American Light Romantic Fiction
Praise for Valerie Hansen
“Kudos to Valerie Hansen for writing an exceptional story with a puzzle that’s nearly impossible to solve.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
Hidden in the Wall
“Provides heart-pounding action and heartwarming romance.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
The Danger Within
“Valerie Hansen’s story offers a heartwarming romance with enough suspense to keep the pages turning.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
Out of the Depths
Praise for Lynette Eason
“A beautiful mystery and a solid romance. I highly recommend this book.”
—Dee Henderson, bestselling author of the O’Malley Family series, on
Lethal Deception
“Lynette Eason does a fantastic job. Don’t miss it.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
Holiday Illusion
“A wonderful mystery.”
—
RT Book Reviews
on
A Silent Terror
VALERIE HANSEN
was thirty when she awoke to the presence of the Lord in her life and turned to Jesus. In the years that followed she worked with young children, both in church and secular environments. She also raised a family of her own and played foster mother to a wide assortment of furred and feathered critters.
Married to her high-school sweetheart since age seventeen, she now lives in an old farmhouse she and her husband renovated with their own hands. She loves to hike the wooded hills behind the house and reflect on the marvelous turn her life has taken. Not only is she privileged to reside among the loving, accepting folks in the breathtakingly beautiful Ozark mountains of Arkansas, she also gets to share her personal faith by telling the stories of her heart for all of Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired lines.
Life doesn’t get much better than that!
LYNETTE EASON
grew up in Greenville, SC. Her home church, Northgate Baptist, had a tremendous influence on her during her early years. She credits Christian parents and dedicated Sunday School teachers for her acceptance of Christ at the tender age of eight. Even as a young girl, she knew she wanted her life to reflect the love of Jesus.
Lynette attended The University of South Carolina in Columbia, then moved to Spartanburg, SC, to attend Converse College, where she obtained her master’s degree in education. During this time, she met the boy next door, Jack Eason—and married him. Jack is the executive director of the Sound of Light Ministries. Lynette and Jack have two precious children, eight-year-old Lauryn, and Will, who is six. She and Jack are members of New Life Baptist Fellowship Church in Boiling Springs, SC, where Jack serves as the worship leader and Lynette teaches Sunday School to the four- and five-year-olds.
MY DEADLY VALENTINE
VALERIE HANSEN
LYNETTE EASON
CONTENTS
DANGEROUS ADMIRER
Valerie Hansen
Special thanks to Sheree and Sonja, who helped
me understand how a card and gift shop is run—
and who also keep me well supplied with lovely
merchandise. Their store is one of my very favorite
places to shop.
I sought the Lord and He answered me;
He delivered me from all my fears.
—
Psalms
34:4
PROLOGUE
I sought the Lord, and He answered me;
He delivered me from all my fears.
—Psalms
34:4
S
he can’t do this to me. Who does she think she is?
Pacing, watching, he grew angrier as the moments passed. “Women are evil,” he muttered. “They’re all the same.”
He stared at his hands. They weren’t trembling the way they had been when he’d first realized what was really going on. Facing the problem had helped. So had making plans and looking toward the future.
Was victory going to come easily? Probably not. But he was going to enjoy every moment of the process and see it through to the end.
That conclusion made him smile. He was clever. The woman wouldn’t have a clue what was going on until it was too late. And then he’d even the score. With pleasure.
ONE
“T
here’s no holiday I like better than Valentine’s Day,” Rachel Hollister said. She smiled as she straightened the rack of new cards and admired the predominance of red hearts and white lace. “Except maybe for Christmas and Easter and St. Patrick’s Day and…”
Eloise McCafferty, the elderly founder of the shop, chuckled. “You love greeting cards, period, Rachel. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to turn this operation over to you. My dear Delbert would be rolling over in his grave if he could see how far in debt we are.” She suddenly got an impish grin on her round, full face and her eyes twinkled. “Will you have to fire me to cut corners?”
“Of course not.” Rachel’s blue-eyed gaze met the older woman’s and she realized Eloise had been teasing, although there was an element of truth to the supposition.
“Whew! That’s a relief.”
Sobering, Rachel patted her mentor’s shoulder. “I still wish you’d let me buy an interest the way I offered to. I have a little money saved and…”
“No. You’re like a daughter to me. Just don’t bury yourself in this place 24/7 and miss out on the rest of life.” She winked. “Like maybe marriage.”
Rachel gave a nervous tug on the hem of her embroidered T-shirt and smoothed it over her jeans. “Believe me, I discovered a long time ago that I don’t need a man in my life to make it whole.”
“Maybe not a snob like Lance Beech or the guys you dated before he came along, but there must be a perfect husband for you somewhere.”
“In a little town like Serenity? I can’t see any good prospects. Besides, I prefer to stand on my own two feet.”
She purposely changed the subject. “So, are you ready to tackle the last of the shipment that came in yesterday or do you want me to do it?”
“You’re the boss. You tell me to jump and all I’ll ask is how high.”
Thoroughly enjoying the banter, Rachel nodded and pointed. “Okay, Miss Froggy. You go in the back room and check packing slips while I rearrange these drawers. There’s a lot of old stock in here that I need to weed out and I wouldn’t want you to feel bad having to watch.”
“I don’t mind as long as we donate the rejects to charity the way we planned.”
“Absolutely.”
Rachel pulled an empty cardboard box closer and went to work as soon as the older woman left the room. It was a tedious chore, one that muted her senses and lulled her usually quick mind into a daydreaming state.
Valentine’s Day. What a lovely occasion, she mused.
Except that I rarely receive any of the sweet, sentimental cards we sell.
Perhaps that should have bothered her but it didn’t. After her recent, messy breakup with Lance and the way some of their mutual friends had started practically shunning her, even at church, Rachel was far from ready to open her heart to another man, let alone anyone local.
She was just rising and getting ready to drag the half-full cardboard box to the next drawer when she heard a muffled, squeaky noise coming from the back room.
“Eloise?”
No one answered. “Eloise? Are you all right?”
Waiting quietly for an answer and hearing nothing, Rachel frowned. That was strange. Unless Mrs. McCafferty’s hearing aid battery was going dead, she should have replied.
“Eloise? Answer me.”
Instead of a spoken response, Rachel heard a piercing scream! She gasped. Her feet felt rooted to the carpet. In the few seconds it took for her to force herself to move, the wordless screeching was repeated so many times she lost count.
Jace Morgan was cruising Main Street, just passing the grocery store, when the call came over his radio. He was still learning his way around the area and might have had trouble locating a residence on one of the many unmarked, outlying, dirt roads, but the commercial district was easy to navigate, especially since the sheriff’s office was right across the square.
He radioed that he was on scene as he parked his black-and-white patrol car in front of the group of stores. Leaving the light bar flashing, he stepped out of the vehicle.
An icy wind chilled him through his brown bomber jacket and he shivered, reminded that he was no longer in Southern California. The streets seemed awfully quiet for a Friday morning. Then again, what did he know? Maybe for Serenity, this was bustling activity.
One thing was certain. He was a lot less likely to get shot at again while he was working this beat. The wound in his shoulder had healed nicely. The trauma of watching his partner fall remained. He still ducked when he heard loud sounds, as if facing mortal danger.
That was one of the reasons he’d left Los Angeles and had accepted an enormous cut in pay to work here. His doctors had warned him to either make some changes or risk burning out. Being a cop was in his blood. He’d never willingly stop standing for what was right in a world where so much was wrong, so he’d accepted the first job offer he’d received and here he was—in the Arkansas Ozarks—freezing to death and hoping for an early spring.
He shouldered through the front door of the card shop, fully expecting to be greeted. No one came forward. He called, “Sheriff,” and paused, wary.
At the rear of the store, he heard what sounded like an argument. Releasing the safety strap on his holster, he placed his palm on the butt of his gun and waited, straining to listen.
“You did what?” came a woman’s voice that sounded more than a little peeved. “What did you do
that
for?”
Jace couldn’t hear the soft reply but since no one was screaming or cursing or hollering threats, he figured he’d be able to handle the situation with calming words and a logical approach.
Heading toward the origin of the conversation, he soon found himself face-to-face with two women. One was familiar because he’d introduced himself to many of the shopkeepers when he’d first been hired by Sheriff Allgood.
The other, much younger woman was new to him, and was undoubtedly the prettiest girl he’d seen in ages, with long, light brown, wavy hair and just enough freckles to make her look sun-kissed. She didn’t look a bit pleased by his arrival, though. Her blue eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line. If anyone else had stared at him that way, he’d have been worried. On her, however, everything was attractive, even a frown.
Jace touched the brim of his cap and nodded politely. “One of you ladies reported a disturbance?”
“I did,” the sixtyish, shorter woman answered. “I thought somebody should and Rachel wasn’t about to do it.”
He looked to Rachel. “Pleased to meet you, miss. How can I be of service?”
“This really isn’t necessary,” she argued. “Somebody is just playing a bad joke.”
“Maybe you should let me decide that,” Jace said. He could tell by the way she kept stepping between him and an open carton on the floor that she didn’t want him to look at it. “The problem is in that box, right?”
“Yes, but…”
Deftly angling around her, he nudged the box with the toe of his boot. Bits of Styrofoam packing material were scattered across the bare floor and he could see the top of what looked like a bedraggled flower arrangement peeking through the snowy drifts left in the carton.
Scowling, Jace looked back at the women. “That bouquet must have been in transit a long time—long enough to wilt and die. That’s hardly a police matter.”
“I know,” Rachel replied tersely. “That’s what I told Eloise—Mrs. McCafferty. But she phoned the sheriff’s office anyway.”
He did his best to keep from sounding judgmental as he cautioned them. “Next time, I suggest you call your freight company or whoever delivered that in the first place.”
“What an excellent idea,” Rachel said.
Jace could tell she was mocking him but he let it slide. He needed to make friends here, not alienate the very folks he’d sworn to serve and defend.
“We can’t,” the older woman piped up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Nobody’s listening.”
“Ma’am?”
“There’s no shipping label on this box. Not even a return address. I don’t know how it got back here but it didn’t come in any of the usual ways.”
“Are you sure?” Jace could tell by the surprised expression on the younger woman’s face that this was the first she’d heard of the discrepancy. He watched her bend over, pluck a crumpled piece of paper from the carton and smooth it so she could read what was written on it.
Her eyes widened.
Jace relieved her of the note, taking care to handle it by pinching only one corner. The scrawled message made his heartbeat jump. It said,
Like my favorite girl. Once beautiful, now dead.
Rachel knew it wasn’t logical to be frightened by such a silly threat but it was still upsetting. “I’m going to have nightmares for weeks,” she muttered. “I know I am.”
Her brow knit as she addressed the deputy. “Something else just occurred to me. If that horrible thing wasn’t delivered in the regular way, how did it get into our storeroom?”
“Do you keep the back door locked?”
“We will from now on.”
“How about an alarm system? Do you have one of those?”
“No.” She smiled at Mrs. McCafferty. “And we can’t afford to install one. We’ll be fortunate to keep our doors open if we don’t start to generate more sales. Which reminds me…” She briefly glanced over the officer’s shoulder, then concentrated on him. “More than one of my regular customers has peered in the window since you got here. Would you mind moving that car and shutting off your flashing lights? You’re bad for business.”
“Will you be okay if I leave long enough to do that?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Just didn’t want to be accused of dereliction of duty.”
Rachel huffed and peered at his name tag. “Look, Deputy Morgan, I can take care of myself and Eloise just fine. We didn’t need you here in the first place.”
The moment she spoke she was penitent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. I know you’re only doing your job.”
“You don’t care much for police officers, do you? May I ask why?”
“Well, not because I’m a crook, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Rachel replied. “Actually, my father is a cop. Or he was, until he retired recently.”
“I take it you and he don’t see eye to eye.” Jace’s brows arched.
She laughed wryly. “That, Deputy, has to be the understatement of the century.”