Something strange is going on at Echo Lake.
Detective Adam Thayer is devastated when he arrives too late to save his friend who had called for help. But a series of obscure clues brings Adam to coroner Nikki Dresden, who’s eager to determine if one of the town’s most beloved citizens was murdered. Now they must work together to unravel a deadly web of lies and greed...or die trying.
Nikki’s skin looked pale and translucent in the moonlight, her eyes dark and unfathomable.
Something stirred inside Adam. Something unexpected and completely unwise. Maybe even dangerous, considering the circumstances.
“You looked a lot different back then,” he said.
“Which is why my friends and I were scapegoated.” She scowled into the night. “If you were around that summer, you must have heard those rumors, too.”
“About wild rumors? Yeah.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “You aren’t afraid to be alone with me out here?”
“Not for a second.”
His conviction seemed to rattle her. “Maybe you should be.”
He pointed to the scar at his scalp. “Foolish or not, I’m not that easily spooked.”
A DESPERATE SEARCH
Amanda Stevens
Amanda Stevens is an award-winning author of over fifty novels, including the modern gothic series The Graveyard Queen. Her books have been described as eerie and atmospheric, and “a new take on the classic ghost story.” Born and raised in the rural South, she now resides in Houston, Texas, where she enjoys binge-watching, bike riding and the occasional margarita.
Books by Amanda Stevens
Harlequin Intrigue
An Echo Lake Novel
Without a Trace
A Desperate Search
Twilight’s Children
Criminal Behavior
Incriminating Evidence
Killer Investigation
Pine Lake
Whispering Springs
Bishop’s Rock (ebook novella)
MIRA Books
The Graveyard Queen
The Restorer
The Kingdom
The Prophet
The Visitor
The Sinner
The Awakening
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Nikki Dresden—When her mentor turns up dead, the Nance County coroner worries that something dark has been going on in Belle Pointe, Texas, right under her nose.
Adam Thayer—A strange phone call leads a big-city detective to a small-town killer...and to an enigmatic woman from his past.
Lila Wilkes—A lonely widow with a secret past has ingratiated herself so thoroughly in Belle Pointe that she is now considered the town’s guardian angel.
Dr. Patience Wingate—The deceased’s ex-lover and business partner seems desperate to cover her tracks.
Dessie Dupre—She was the deceased’s faithful housekeeper for over thirty years…until a smooth attorney with a secret agenda sweeps her off her feet.
Clete Darnell—The deceased’s attorney charms an older woman destined to inherit a fortune.
Eddie Bowman—This junkman has dabbled in drugs, blackmail and now possibly murder for hire.
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
Excerpt from Witness on the Run by Cassie Miles
Chapter One
The sun dipped beneath the dense pine forest, casting long shadows across Echo Lake. Thankfully, the temperature had dropped from the midday high of triple digits, but the air was still hot and muggy, with barely a breeze stirring the long tresses of Spanish moss that shrouded the bank. Beyond the shade, in a patch of lingering sunlight, water lilies unfurled in the heat. From this thick carpet of aquatic vegetation, cypress stumps rose like an army of gnomes to form a circle around the rotting corpse.
Nikki Dresden was glad she’d hauled down her waders from the road along with her kit. The body floated facedown just beyond reach of the bank. She tried not to think about the moccasins and gators that nested in the cattails as she sloshed through the shallow water. The smell of decay wafted on the breeze, making her also glad for the spare clothing and sneakers she kept in a duffel in her SUV. She wasn’t shy about stripping. The navy coveralls she wore now would go in a garbage bag that would be placed in an airtight container for transport back to either the laundry at the lab or the heavy-duty washing machine on her back porch. Nikki had learned early on in her career as the Nance County coroner that once the scent of death invaded the close confines of a vehicle, the odor would linger for days if not weeks. Now she took precautions in every aspect of her job.
Which was why, upon arrival at the lake, she’d spent the first few minutes scribbling notes and sketching the topography and layout of the scene before donning her gear. Nuances were critical and memory unreliable. Even photographs could later create a false perception. A capsized fishing boat underneath the bridge suggested an accidental drowning, but Nikki knew better than to make a snap, uninformed declaration. What appeared to be an accident might later prove otherwise, and investigators had one shot at processing the scene.
The first responders had secured the area and Sheriff Tom Brannon had kept law enforcement personnel to a minimum. The crime scene unit searched up and down the bank while a young officer named Billy Navarro took photographs and another officer shot video. The deputies who had arrived late to the scene watched from the top of the embankment. A man Nikki didn’t know sat on a log just outside the perimeter. She assumed he was the one who had reported the body. She’d given him a curious glance as she pulled on the waders and had found him staring back at her. She couldn’t place him, and yet his straightforward regard had unsettled her. Had they met before?
The question niggled at the back of her mind as she focused on the business at hand. At least it was still daylight, though dusk hovered at the edges of the pink horizon. Night creatures already stirred on the opposite bank, the distant serenade of bullfrogs and crickets mingling with the relentless buzz of the blowflies that had homed in on the corpse once it rose to the surface.
Off to the right, she caught the glide of something sinewy and silent in her periphery. The lake here was deeper than she’d thought. Stepping off a ledge, she felt cool liquid ooze into the waders, making it difficult
