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Chapters (45)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Prologue
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Chapter Thirty-Four
  41. Chapter Thirty-Five
  42. Chapter Thirty-Six
  43. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  44. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  45. Teaser

She’d cheated him out of what he needed, and she had to pay for that. She’d completely deserted him and the life they could’ve had. She hadn’t even said good-bye. Out in the middle of nowhere, she’d thought she could hide from him? Avoid the roles they both needed to play? The lover’s presents he’d planned to shower upon her had been irrelevant to her—and she must have known he’d made plans.

He had meant nothing to her.

He’d found her hiding place, and then he’d played a little. Leaving her an oddity here, a scary sign there. Just enough to have her catching her breath and then convincing herself that she was imagining things in the middle of nowhere. He was smarter than she was, and it was time she realized that fact. Not only smarter, but more powerful.

Life was about power, was it not? He’d learned that the hard way.

Darkness hung heavily above the mountains as another winter storm punished the trees. Brutal snow pummeled the over-loaded branches and assaulted the ice shielding the creek. His woman, for right now she was his, always emerged about this time to trudge around a series of rocks to the primitive outhouse. He had opened the door one night and poured water on the hinges.

How she’d struggled to shut the door the following morning.

He’d watched from a vantage point across the creek, nearly doubling over with silent laughter. When she’d given up the fight and just used the toilet, he’d snapped pictures with his long-range lens. His groin tightened at the memory.

It was amusing she thought she could hide from him. Oh, she was smart enough to cower where she couldn’t be traced—unless somebody had put a tracker on her vehicle. When she’d left her compact to drive an enclosed side-by-side with tracks from the deserted public boat launch, he’d been on her tail already, easily following her trail to this hideaway.

He wasn’t a god, but to her, he might as well be.

His gaze caught on an ax beneath an eave near a covered pile of wood.

That would do.

Chapter One

Chapter One

The victim’s hands had been removed—most likely with the ax left leaning against an ice-covered pine tree. Her wrists were bloody stumps resting on cut logs, which the killer must’ve used to position the flesh for his strike. Perfectly preserved, burgundy-colored flowers littered the ground in every direction around the body, several petals frozen solid to rocks at the edge of the ice-encrusted river. Their stark color leeched into the white snow, creating icy pools of frozen blood.