Fatal Deception Read online

  Fatal Deception: Book Five of the Fatal Series

  By Marie Force

  The wife of the White House deputy chief of staff has been beaten to death, and their one-year-old daughter is missing. D.C. Police Lieutenant Sam Holland is in charge of the murder investigation, but she’s forced to collaborate with Special Victims Unit detectives as well as thorn-in-her-side FBI Special Agent Avery Hill. Then, a cold case of her father’s resurrects old hurts—a distraction Sam cannot afford.

  As Sam’s investigation heats up, so does Nick’s political career—and the heat carries over to their bedroom. Will Sam put the pieces together in time to catch a killer and find the baby, or will ambition, greed and lies prove fatal?

  106,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  Exciting things happen in November. It’s the month we first announced the creation of Carina Press, the month of my Harlequin employment anniversary and it’s the month when we in the U.S. get gorge-yourself-on-bad-carbs-and-turkey day (otherwise known as Thanksgiving). We also get Black Friday (I think they call it that because of the color of your bruises after you’ve been run over by crazy shoppers).

  This November, we’re excited to release our first Carina Press book in trade print format. The Theory of Attraction, an erotic BDSM romance collection featuring novellas from Delphine Dryden, Christine d’Abo and Jodie Griffin, is on shelves and available for order online.

  We also have fourteen new stories in digital for you to enjoy post-turkey coma, in that long, long line outside the mall on Black Friday or, if neither of those is your thing, to enjoy just because you like a good book! Try to avoid the crime and violence of some of those crazy holiday shoppers and enjoy some on-page suspense instead. Marie Force is back with her popular Fatal series and ongoing protagonists Nick and Sam, in her next romantic suspense, Fatal Deception. Also returning is author Shirley Wells with Dying Art, the next Dylan Scott mystery.

  I’m happy to introduce debut author Jax Garren’s new trilogy, which kicks off this month with How Beauty Met the Beast. This novella grabbed my attention when I read it on submission, with off-the-charts sexual tension, a wonderful, character-driven futuristic world, a smart, sassy heroine and a tortured, scarred hero who yearns for nothing more than to keep the woman he’s secretly falling in love with safe.

  Looking for something out-of-this-world to take you away from the pre-holiday madness? J.L. Hilton offers up her next cyberpunk science-fiction romance, Stellarnet Prince, continuing the adventures of futuristic blogger extraordinaire Genny. Meanwhile, Cáit Donnelly’s Now You See It gives a paranormal edge to a thrilling romantic suspense, while erotic fantasy romance Dark Dealings by Kim Knox is guaranteed to give you that “take me away” feeling.

  Joining Kim with erotic romance releases this month are Jodie Griffin with her next Bondage & Breakfast novella, Forbidden Desires, and Lynda Aicher’s first of a BDSM trilogy, Bonds of Trust. All three books in this trilogy are both smokin’ hot, while delivering a wonderful, captivating story.

  We have two authors with male/male releases this month, including L.B. Gregg’s contemporary romance Men of Smithfield: Adam and Holden. Also in the male/male niche, author Libby Drew has her first Carina Press release, paranormal male/male romance 40 Souls to Keep.

  Susanna Fraser’s An Infamous Marriage is our lone historical romance offering this month, but one that won’t disappoint. Anchoring us in the here and now are several contemporary romance titles. Jeanette Murray’s No Mistletoe Required aims to get you into a holiday mood and December Gephart bursts onto the publishing scene with her debut, the witty, fun and romantic Undercover Professor.

  And don’t miss the upcoming conclusion of Shannon Stacey’s second Kowalski family trilogy, All He Ever Dreamed.

  Wherever your reading pleasure takes you, enjoy this month’s variety of releases as we gear up for the holiday season.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my dear friend, Julie Cupp, who answers all my D.C. logistical questions, and props me up every day with laughter, friendship and endless support. Thank you to Captain Russell Hayes of the Newport, RI, Police Department who reads every Fatal book and always helps to make the police action more detailed and precise. Russ received a well-deserved promotion from lieutenant to captain since the last book, and is now overseeing Newport’s detective division. I’m thrilled for him! Special thanks to my husband Dan for the information about how security clearances work as well as the agency that oversees them.

  Thank you to my beta readers Ronlyn Howe, Kara Conrad and Anne Woodall. I appreciate your input more than you’ll ever know. Thanks to everyone at Harlequin and Carina Press for their commitment to the Fatal Series, and to my agent, Kevan Lyon, for her help with the details. To my new editor Alison Dasho—thanks for taking on Sam, Nick and me!

  A HUGE thank you all the readers who’ve embraced Sam, Nick and their story, especially the members of the Fatal Series Reader Group on Facebook, who cheered me on as I finished Fatal Deception. To answer your most pressing question: YES, there’s much more to come for Sam and Nick. Watch for Fatal Mistake in 2013!

  And finally a huge thank-you to Sam and Nick, who continue to be such a joy to write. They make me feel lucky to show up for work each day I get to spend with them, and they’re so real to me after six books that some days it’s hard to believe they aren’t alive and living madly in love in Washington. So I choose to believe they’re doing just that.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “Can there really be this many kinds of mac ’n cheese?” Lt. Sam Holland asked U.S. Senator Nick Cappuano.

  Sam’s normally unflappable husband looked somewhat flapped as he contemplated the wide array of choices. “How do we know which one to get?”

  There were spirals and shapes and something called “Easy,” but Sam was certain it would be easy for everyone but her. “Maybe we should wait until Scotty gets here and let him pick out his favorite kind.”

  “I want him to have what he likes in the house. How hard can it be?”

  Sam scanned the shelves once again and decided it could be quite hard. “You don’t suppose there’s this many choices for chicken nuggets too, do you?”

  The question seemed to suck the life out of Nick.

  Sam pushed the grocery cart aside and reached for him.

  Surprised by her rare public display of affection, Nick returned the embrace. “How am I going to convince him to come live with us permanently if I can’t even handle mac ’n cheese for a three
-week visit?”

  “He’s not going to care about the food, Nick. He cares about being with you.”

  “And you.”

  Sam took in the busy grocery store, overwhelmed by the task. Hunting down murderers was simple compared to this. “What’re we even doing here?”

  Chuckling, Nick kissed her cheek and stepped back from her. “We’re doing what regular people do when they have a guest coming to stay with them.”

  “So we’re regular people now, huh?”

  “For a few more minutes anyway.” Nick took the box that proclaimed to be easy off the shelf and put it in the carriage. “Let’s hope for the best.”

  “If he doesn’t like it, I’ll tell him it was your call.”

  “That’s good of you, babe,” he said as he steered the cart toward the chicken nugget aisle. “So I’ve been thinking.”

  Sam was busy enjoying the view of his denim-clad ass as she followed him through the store. He had rich brown hair that curled at the ends, hazel eyes and a mouth that was made for sin. And he regularly made sinfully good use of it. “About?”

  “We need some help.”

  “With what?”

  “Let me rephrase—we need someone to run our lives, especially with Scotty coming to stay with us. What if we get caught at work or something comes up that we can’t get out of?”

  Sam thought about that. “He could go to my dad’s.”

  “True, but your dad and Celia have lives too. If Scotty lives with us, he’s our responsibility.”

  “What do you think we need?”

  “Someone to keep tabs on him when we’re not home. To drive him to practice if we can’t do it. To make sure the house isn’t a wreck, the dry cleaning gets picked up, the bills get paid, there’s dinner at night and some sort of schedule.”

  Sam rolled her shoulders, already chafing at the thought of paying someone to boss her around. “I don’t know about this...”

  “Someone to buy the mac ’n cheese and chicken nuggets,” he added with the charming smile that made her knees go weak. “You’d never have to step foot in a grocery store again.”

  “That’s playing dirty, Senator.”

  “We need someone like Shelby.” The tiny dynamo had put together their fairy-tale wedding in six short weeks. “Someone who can hold her own with you,” he added, ducking as she took a playful swing at him.

  “Why does it have to be a her? I’m picturing a studly dude named Sven with muscles on top of his muscles.”

  Over his shoulder, Nick rolled his eyes at her. “It doesn’t have to be a her. It has to be someone who can put up with you.”

  Even though he was absolutely right about that, she’d never tell him so. “You’re skating on thin ice, my friend.” She followed him up one freezer aisle and down another until he stopped the cart in front of a mind-boggling selection of chicken nuggets. “I wonder if Shelby would be up for a career change.”

  Laughing, Nick put his arm around Sam. “We could certainly ask her.”

  “She won’t want to do it. She has a booming business.”

  “You never know. It’s certainly worth asking. Maybe she knows someone who’d be interested.”

  “We’re really doing this?”

  “Let’s ask around and see what transpires.”

  “You’re sure this she of yours will know what chicken to buy?”

  Nick opened the freezer door and withdrew a bag of breast tenders, studied them and put them back. “She can’t screw it up any worse than we are.”

  “That’s for sure.” Sam’s cell phone rang. “Saved by the bell.”

  He frowned at her. Their rare day off together had taken a tremendous amount of schedule juggling to pull off, and she hoped this call wouldn’t ruin their plans. They’d even declined the standing invite to Sunday dinner at the Leesburg, Virginia, home of his adopted parents, retired Senator Graham O’Connor and his wife, Laine.

  Sam flipped open the phone. “Holland.”

  * * *

  While Sam took the call, Nick studied the chicken tender options. He’d been nervous about Scotty’s pending arrival for days now. The three-week visit was actually a trial run for all of them. The boy Nick had met at a campaign stop at a Virginia home for children in Richmond had become their close friend. When Nick asked him to come live with them permanently, Scotty’s hesitation had surprised him. With hindsight, Nick could understand the twelve-year-old boy’s reluctance to leave the place that had become home to him.

  He’d been elated when Scotty mentioned a baseball camp in the District and suggested he might stay with them while he attended. Nick wanted everything to be perfect for all of them, thus the knot of fear he’d been carrying around. Nothing about their life was ever perfect. Most of the time it was a bloody circus—literally—with Sam hunting down murderers while he campaigned for reelection.

  They were lucky to get ten uninterrupted minutes together on a regular day. What business did they have bringing a child into that madness? But what choice did they have? He’d become essential to them, and now Nick could only hope they’d become essential to him too.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked.

  Nick dragged his eyes from the chicken nuggets and turned to her. “Was that work?”

  She shook her head. “Tracy had another huge fight with Brooke.” Sam’s sister had been locked in World War III with her teenage daughter for months now. “It keeps getting worse.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “Trace is a mess.” She reached up to caress his face. “What has you looking so troubled?”

  “I was thinking about Scotty.”

  “What about him?”

  “What if this visit is a disaster? What if we blow our only chance with him?”

  Sam stepped closer, placed her hands on his shoulders and looked up at him with potent blue eyes. “It won’t be a disaster. It’ll be reality. He needs to see what our life is really like—the good, the bad, the ugly. There’s no sense sugar-coating it. If he comes to live with us, he needs to know what he’d be getting. He needs to know who he’d be getting.”

  Amused and touched by her efforts to bolster his spirits, he said, “And who would he be getting?”

  “Two people who’d love him and care for him and support him—always.”

  “You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

  “I usually am,” she said with a cocky grin that made him laugh.

  “I refuse to dignify that with a response for fear of hearing about it for the rest of my life.” Reaching into the freezer, he grabbed a bag of breast tenders and tossed it into the carriage. “Let’s hope we got something he’ll eat. If all else fails, there’s always his favorite—spaghetti.”

  “Even we can’t screw that up.”

  “Don’t jinx us.”

  She took his hand and linked their fingers. “It’ll be great. I promise.”

  Since his gorgeous wife was, in fact, often right, Nick chose to believe her. For the first time in days, the knot in his stomach loosened a bit. Maybe, just maybe, it would all be fine.

  * * *

  After they stashed the groceries at home, Nick went looking for Sam and found her in the study in front of the computer. “Um, excuse me. Day off. Remember?”

  “I need to check in, and then I’m all yours.”

  He wrapped his arms around her from behind and stopped short when he saw that she’d rearranged his desk—again. “Really, Samantha? Every time?”

  The kisses he placed in the most ticklish areas on her neck made her laugh even harder.

  He reached around her and pushed the power button on the monitor. “You’re done.” With more kisses to sweeten her up, he said, “What do you think about a trip to Georgetown? I bet our workaholic buddy Shelby is at her shop today. We can stop in and say hello. If she isn’t there, we can grab some lunch and do some window shopping.”

  She curled an arm around his neck and brought him down for a real kiss. “Am I only allow
ed to window shop?”

  “Whatever you want, my love.”

  “Ohhh, I like the sound of that.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  They grabbed a cab to the swanky neighborhood where Shelby kept a storefront bridal boutique. “Damn it,” Sam said when she saw the closed sign outside the main door. “It was too much to hope that she’d be open today.”

  “Look.” Nick pointed to a pink Mini Cooper parked across the street. “Who else could that belong to?”

  “True.”

  “Call her. Maybe she’ll see us.”

  Sam pulled out her phone and placed the call.

  “Did you already blow it with the sexy senator?” Shelby asked when she answered.

  “Ha-ha, no, I didn’t already blow it with him,” Sam said with a smile for Nick. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. We’re outside your store. Got time for a quick visit?”

  “For you? Always!”

  Sam slapped the phone closed. “She’s coming.”

  A minute later, Shelby appeared at the door to let them in. The tiny blonde, dressed in a pink silk jogging suit, greeted them with hugs and squeals of delight, though her face was puffy and red. “You guys look fabulous! Married life is clearly agreeing with you. Are you here about the replacement dress? Vera promised it by the end of the month. I still can’t believe someone actually slashed a Vera Wang original!”

  “What’s wrong, Shelby?” Sam asked. “Have you been crying?”

  “Oh no, no. Allergies.” She led them back to her office. “They’re a bitch this time of year.”

  Behind Shelby’s back, Sam grimaced at Nick, letting him know she didn’t believe Shelby’s explanation.

  When they were seated in pink leather easy chairs and holding glasses of pink lemonade, Shelby clapped her hands and let out another giddy squeal. “It’s so good to see you! I’m thrilled you came by. The dress should be in any time. Unfortunately, we caught Vera in the height of the spring wedding season.”

  “Actually, we’re not here about the dress, even though we appreciate your help in replacing it,” Nick said, glancing at Sam. “We have a bit of an ulterior motive.”

  “What’s that?” Shelby asked.