22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Epilogue

Sneak Peek of the Next Installment in the Hope Harbor Series

Author’s Note

About the Author

Back Ads

Back Cover

1

SOMEONE WAS IN THE MORTUARY PREP ROOM.

Someone besides her and the body in the cooler awaiting tomorrow’s autopsy.

Someone who shouldn’t be here.

Forensic pathologist Grace Reilly set aside the police report on seventy-six-year-old Mavis Templeton and cocked her ear.

Silence.

She waited, straining to pick up another out-of-place sound.

Only the drip of the leaky faucet, the hum of refrigeration from the cooler, and the squeak of the desk chair as she leaned forward broke the stillness.

There was no one here.

And she shouldn’t be, either.

There were better places for a thirty-year-old single woman to hang out at nine o’clock on Friday night than a funeral home in rural Missouri.

Unless you were a thirty-year-old single woman whose last hot date had been three months ago. A date that had cooled off fast after the guy asked about your day, and you’d told him in perhaps a tad too much detail while the two of you were chowing down on barbecue.

Grace sighed and slumped back in the chair.

As soon as the color began leaching from her companion’s complexion, she’d changed the subject—but not fast enough to salvage the evening or win herself another dinner invitation. He’d dumped most of his meal into a takeout container, hustled her home as fast as he could, and never called again.

So with nothing more interesting to do on this Friday night, she’d swung by the mortuary to review the paperwork and medical records for tomorrow’s autopsy.

Pathetic.

Huffing out a breath, she pushed the chair back and stood. She was out of here. Watching a movie by herself from her collection of oldies wasn’t her first choice of activity for a Friday night, but it was preferable to—

She froze.

There it was again. A muffled, metallic tapping noise. Faint but discernible.

And it was coming from the cooler.

A shiver snaked down her spine.

The only person in there was Mavis, and she wasn’t doing any tapping.

Sidling around the desk, she eyed the refrigeration unit. There had to be a logical explanation for the noise.

Of course there did.

Nevertheless, she opened her purse and pulled out the compact Beretta she’d carried ever since—

No.

She was not going there.

That was then, this was now—and lightning didn’t often strike twice. She was overreacting.

Even so, she kept her pistol at the ready as she approached the cooler.

The faint tap sounded again. More to the right, and muffled. Like it was outside the building.

Exhaling, she lowered the gun. A noise on the other side of the wall was nothing to worry about. For all she knew, a carful of teenagers had pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home and decided to down a few illegal beers where no one was likely to disturb them.