Secretive

“Thoroughly entertaining. The author’s smooth, succinct writing style enables the plot to flow effortlessly until its captivating conclusion.”

—Romantic Times Book Reviews
(four stars)

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“Sparkling...”

—
Publishers Weekly

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“...keeps readers moving down some surprising paths—and on the edge of their chairs—until the very end.”

—
Cozy Library

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“Tightly constructed with many well-fitted, suspenseful turns...”

—
Shine

May

Dallas, Texas

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H
E waited until the woman jogged to the end of the block, her red ponytail making her easy to track. When she turned the corner, he checked to make sure there was no one in sight, then left his car and walked briskly up her driveway to her back door. She lived alone, and he had nothing to worry about as he approached the house. No pets. No alarm. He removed a slim case from a pocket and went to work on the deadbolt. Three minutes and he was in.

“So easy,” he murmured to himself as he entered the kitchen and saw that the woman had left her laptop on the island. No password protection, either. He made a tsking sound. This wasn’t a challenge at all.

With a few strokes, the keylogger was installed. Now, all he had to do was read the reports.

He checked his watch. It had gone so quickly that he had time to take care of her car, too.

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Wednesday, First week of November

Dallas, Texas

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T
HE ledge was an inch beyond the straining fingertips of Zoe’s right hand. She fought the urge to glance down at her feet. That would involve looking at the ground, which was a good twenty feet below and would cause her stomach to do a rollercoaster-like flip. She ignored her quivering calves as she let out a shaky breath and lunged. Her fingertips curled around the ledge, but before she could get a firm grip, her left foot slipped and then she was swinging in midair like the pendulum of a clock, suspended a few feet from the “rock” face in her harness.

A voice floated up from the ground. “Try the yellow toehold for your right foot.”

Zoe looked down at Ty, far below, his feet braced and arms taunt as he held the rope that supported her weight. She shook her head. “No. I’m done. Ready to lower,” she called.

“Lowering,” Ty replied, letting out a little of the rope. Zoe swung her feet toward the rock wall and gently bounced her way down, then collapsed in a quivering puddle on the padded floor. “Off belay,” Zoe said, already feeling the fatigue in her calf muscles, triceps, and forearms. “My toe and finger muscles are sadly out of shape,” Zoe said, shaking out her hands, which now sported a few callouses.

“Belay off.” Ty unhooked the carabiner from his harness and the rope. A compact man in his late forties, Ty was one of the owners at Rock Sport Center and had literally shown her the ropes last winter when he taught the climbing class she took as an introduction to the sport. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Too long,” Zoe agreed. Despite her quivering muscles, it had felt good to be out there on that ledge. She’d been playing it safe too long.

“Been doing anything interesting?”

There was no quick or easy way to explain the conundrum that her life had become during the last few months. She settled for saying, “Some travel. Italy.”

“Nice. Sure you don’t want to go up again?”

“No, I’ve got a lunch date.” Zoe rolled into a sitting position so she could untie the rope and unbuckle the harness. She might be able to finish her copy-editing job before Helen arrived with lunch...if she could manage to type with trembling fingers.

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W
HEN the knock sounded on her kitchen door two hours later, Zoe paused for a beat to call out, “Door’s open,” then resumed typing as her friend Helen stepped in the kitchen.

“Give me a sec,” Zoe said, squinting at the screen. “Just need to add this bit about the Romantic Road...” Zoe was mid-thought, summing up her most recent copy-editing job for
Smart Travel’s Germany, Switzerland, and Austria Guidebook
. Her fingers were only a little quivery now, but she was glad she didn’t have more typing today after she finished this round of edits.

Zoe was vaguely aware that Helen marched across the kitchen and plunked her oversized purse on the island across from Zoe with a firmness that jangled the heavy gold hardware on the designer bag. Zoe finished the sentence with a flourish. “What did you bring—” she broke off as she finally looked up and saw Helen’s face.

Helen slapped a narrow folder on the island in the same way that a Regency gentleman might have smacked the cheek of a rival, challenging him to a duel.

Zoe leaned back. “What’s wrong?” Helen almost looked as if she wished she could swat Zoe with the paper instead of the island. Under her golden brown bangs, Helen’s face flushed, and her lips pressed into a thin determined line. It was so unlike Helen’s normally sweet and serene expression that Zoe asked, “Did the cleaners lose your orange Armani jacket again?”

“No. Here.” Helen stabbed the folder with her French manicured fingernail.

“What is it?” Zoe asked warily. Helen in this state never lasted long. You just had to wait out the storm—kind of like the tornados that ripped across the Texas plains in the spring. It would all be over in a couple of minutes.

Helen shoved the paper across the island. “
That
is an intervention.”

“Okay,” Zoe said slowly.

“Tucker and I are going to Atlantis in the spring.”

“That should be an interesting trip, since it’s a lost city and all.”

“The
resort
. In the Bahamas.”

“Oh. I see,” Zoe said, despite the fact that she’d never heard of it. Zoe’s travel dream destinations centered on other locales, namely Europe. She’d had her fill of tropical islands during her tween years courtesy of her mom’s ambition to be a star, which had landed their rather dysfunctional blended family on a “deserted” island for a cable reality show.

“Well, that’s great,” Zoe said, at a loss for why Helen looked almost furious. “Shouldn’t you be happier? I mean, you are talking about a vacation here, right?”

“I’m buying you a ticket. You’re going with us. It’s my Christmas present to you.”

“What?” Zoe opened the folder and took out a glossy brochure. A gigantic pink-hued building on a white beach filled the top of the brochure. On the lower portion, a family immersed in brilliant blue water laughed as they petted the slick head of a dolphin. Off to the side sat a massive water slide designed to look like a Mayan temple.

“It’s a little early for Christmas,” Zoe said lightly. Helen didn’t crack a smile. Unlike Zoe, who had a budget so tight that it might as well be in a straightjacket, Helen had disposable income. A few years ago when Tucker had been fresh out of law school and only a lowly associate, Zoe and Helen had both watched every penny, but Tucker was moving up the ranks at his firm quickly. His growing income combined with Helen’s income from her job at the county clerk’s office meant that Helen could spend more on a blouse than Zoe did in a month on groceries.

Zoe’s glance strayed to the gaping hole in the kitchen ceiling that exposed pipes, two-by-fours, and wiring. Zoe’s savings account had covered the water leak and the plumbing repair, but hadn’t stretched to fixing the drywall. It had been over a year, and she had nearly enough money to replace the drywall and complete the job. Tropical resort vacations just weren’t a possibility on her budget, and she didn’t want Helen underwriting a vacation for her either.

Zoe replaced the brochure in the folder with the name of a travel agency on it. “I can’t accept a gift like that.”

“Why not?” Helen shot back almost before the words were out of Zoe’s mouth. “Why the hell not?”

Zoe blinked. Helen hardly ever swore. In fact, the last time Zoe heard Helen swear was when she’d hit her thumb with a hammer while nailing several crates together to create a bookshelf last spring during a Pinterest-inspired decorating bout.

“You’re the one who is always going on about your freedom,” Helen said, arms braced on the island. “About how you’re not a cog in the corporate machine and can do whatever you want. But you don’t. You don’t do anything except stare at that laptop,” she said, her diamond stud earrings flashing as she nodded her head toward Zoe’s ancient Dell.

“Whoa. What is going on? Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.” Like a pricked balloon, Helen deflated. “You know me and how much I hate confrontation. I had to psych myself up for this.”

Helen walked around the island and plopped down on the barstool next to Zoe. “I know you. If I dropped the vacation idea in the conversation casually and said, ‘why don’t you come to Atlantis with me?’ you’d blow me off. I don’t want you to do that. I want you to consider it.
Seriously
consider it.” Helen pushed the folder from the travel agency closer to Zoe.

Above the travel agency’s name, the wingtip of a jet zoomed upward toward puffy clouds. Several little inset squares marched across the bottom of the folder: coconut palms over a white beach, the Eiffel Tower glowing in the night, umbrellas fluttering over diners at a sidewalk café, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

For as long as she could remember, Zoe had wanted to travel. As a tween, she hadn’t read
TigerBeat
or
Seventeen
. Instead, she’d poured over library copies of
National Geographic
and
Budget Travel
. While Helen had been leaning over the bathroom counter, peering into the mirror, trying to recreate the latest trend in “smoky, sultry eye shadow,” Zoe had been lost in the dog-eared, yellowed pages of old romantic-suspense books, transported to England, Crete, Greece, Italy, and even Egypt by the words of Elizabeth Peters, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis Whitney.

Looking back, Zoe wondered if it wasn’t exactly travel she yearned for but simply an escape, any escape, from her life. Technically, she had traveled some as a tween, but spending several months on a tropical island with a reality show film crew didn’t count as seeing the world, at least not in Zoe’s book. That whole experience was as artificial and contrived as a theme park ride. Maybe because of that experience, she’d bundled all her hopes and dreams into ‘travel,’ hoping to someday ‘see the world.’
Really
see it.

Well, she’d seen the world, or Italy, at least, last spring and it hadn’t gone so well. “I don’t know. My last trip didn’t really turn out that great.”

“That wasn’t a trip,” Helen countered. “That was a flight from the police. Hardly a relaxing getaway. You need something to take your mind off...everything.” Helen’s gaze slipped to the refrigerator where, among the poetry magnets and the half-composed grocery list, were several sketches.

Zoe bit her lip and considered again whether she should let Helen in on her secret. Normally, Zoe shared everything with Helen. It was hard to keep something from the person who knew the name of your secret middle school crush and had not only helped you move into your first apartment, but also commiserated with you, providing dark chocolate and ice cream, during the week of the double-whammy when your boyfriend dumped you
and
your mother announced her engagement to her latest boyfriend, who had been closer to Zoe’s age than her mother’s age.

Zoe had told Helen everything that had happened during her unexpected trip to Italy. How she’d found out her ex-husband, Jack, hadn’t been completely honest about his life prior to their marriage, and how his past had entangled both her and Jack in a series of events, which culminated in a chase from southern Italy to Venice.

The only detail Zoe had left out was about a piece of mail she received after she returned home.

“I know it’s been rough these last few months,” Helen said.

Zoe nodded. She knew if she opened her mouth, she’d blurt out the whole story. She kept her lips pressed firmly together. She’d kept quiet so long. No use in breaking her silence now. It would only wound Helen to know she’d kept the truth from her this long.

“It’s painful, but with Jack...” Helen hesitated, obviously wanting to avoid the word
dead
, “...gone, do you think it would help to clean out the upstairs? I’m here to help. You don’t have to do it alone. Just say the word, and I’m here.”

“I know.” Zoe patted the back of Helen’s hand. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not ready yet.”

“Okay. So...the Bahamas,” she said with a hopeful inflection. “Sand between our toes. Drinks with little umbrellas. Pool boys to ogle. What do you say?”

Zoe breathed an internal sigh of relief that they weren’t talking about Jack. There was only so much deception she could manage with her best friend. “The last thing I want to do is be a third wheel.”

“You wouldn’t be a third wheel, I promise. It’s the annual business conference for Tucker’s office. He will be in his panels and meetings all day and half the night. I want someone to hang out on the beach with me.”

“You know how I feel about beach vacations. I look like a ghost.” Zoe threw out an arm to display her fair skin. Helen was blessed with an olive complexion. After a day in the sun, she’d be a rich, golden tan. Even forty-five minutes in the sun scorched Zoe’s skin. Beach and pool time meant floppy hats and layers of sunscreen. “One day on the beach and I’ll look like a sunburnt ghost.”

“We’ll get a cabana. And, there’s shopping—the local straw market sounds fun. We can get massages, too.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea...”

“I think this could be really good for you,” Helen said gently. “You’re not
you
anymore. I’ve never understood how you could like living the way you do—flitting from job to job, not having a steady income, but you thrive on it. Or, you did. But ever since Italy, it seems you’ve lost something...I don’t know how to describe it. Passion, maybe. Before, you sparkled with energy. Now, you’re like a hermit, shut away in this house, grinding out your freelance work. I understand the whole Italy experience was traumatic, but you’ve got to move on. And losing Jack...well, I know events change you, but I’m worried about you.”

Zoe knew there was a smidge of truth in what Helen said. “I will admit that I was thrown a little...off stride with everything that happened. I have changed some, and I’m trying to get back to normal. I went climbing today.” Zoe held up her calloused hands.

Helen rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Great, now you need a manicure. I’ve got to go. I have a report to finish, but I did pick up sandwiches.” She handed Zoe a sub wrapped in white paper. “Turkey for you. I’ll have mine at my desk.” She buttoned her hound’s-tooth jacket and sent Zoe an imploring look. “Please,
please
think about the trip. There’s plenty of time to get your passport reissued. I’m sure that FBI agent, the nice one, can help you with that.”

“I’ll consider it,” Zoe said, fingering the edge of the folder where the cotton ball cloud disappeared off the edge. She didn’t tell Helen that Mort Vazarri had already greased the wheels of officialdom, and the U.S. government bureaucracy had sent a replacement for the passport she’d lost in the canals of Venice. Her new one was stashed away in her top dresser drawer under a tangle of scarves and belts, but Helen didn’t need additional ammunition for her argument, so Zoe simply nodded. “I’ll think it over.”