Private Affair

  Copyright © 2015 by Ruth Glick

  Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Kris Keller

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To my husband, Norman, who has supported my career every step of the way.

  Chapter 1

  A sudden jolt of unease made the hairs on the back of Angela’s neck prickle. She might have stopped and looked around. Instead, she quickened her pace, hurrying toward the car. She’d parked behind her shop when she’d arrived early that morning. She put in long hours, but it was worth it because she was building her business and her reputation as a local fashion maven.

  Her sedan had an automatic lock that opened when she reached for the door handle, and she breathed out a sigh of relief as she slipped behind the wheel and locked the doors. Usually she didn’t mind walking to her vehicle after hours. It was only a few steps from the back door of her boutique, after all, and the area was well lit. Which was good, because lately she’d had the feeling that someone was lurking in the darkness, watching her. She glanced up at the car’s dome light and tried to turn it on. But it seemed to be on the fritz. And did the car smell funny? She twisted around, looking in the backseat, but saw nothing.

  Then she shook her head, trying to dispel her unease. Was she getting paranoid? Or was she tempting fate with her success in the fashion world?

  Her shop was on Main Street in Ellicott City, a 250-year-old mill town built into a river valley. The old stone townhouses that lined the narrow thoroughfare were now full of antique shops, restaurants, boutiques, and other retail outlets that catered to tourists and affluent locals. As you drove down the hill toward the Patapsco River, the shops on the left backed right into a massive stone cliff. In fact, the living stone was sometimes part of the back wall. On the right side of the street, there was room in the rear for parking. Some shop owners lived above their stores or rented out the space. Angela preferred to get out of the crowded downtown area when she wasn’t working.

  Her boutique, called What She Wants, sold trendy women’s clothing. It was doing so well that she was thinking about expanding. The store next door had been vacant for a few months, and she was probably going to ask the owner if she could expand into the extra space. That way she could have twice the display area and be able to add the line of slinky underwear she’d been thinking about. Plus, she could have a bigger lounge in the back where customers could relax with a cup of tea while they modeled clothing for each other. That was part of the charm of her shop—the unhurried atmosphere. Destination shopping.

  She smiled to herself as she pictured doubling her domain. Maybe she wasn’t as big a success as the former class star, Olivia Winters. Olivia was a big deal in the New York fashion scene. A jet-setter who was the envy of half the country’s female population. And a sex object for the guys. Was that the bad part? Because there had to be a bad part, didn’t there?

  But Angela could deal with Olivia’s fame and fortune. And she was sure the two of them would have a lot to talk about at the upcoming Donley High ten-year reunion. She was already working on plans for some of the events, and if she couldn’t get Olivia onto the planning committee, she was at least hoping to get her best friend from high school down to Maryland for the reunion.

  Her mind turned from her fears of being stalked to the reunion plans. She was on the committee, and she was going to make sure that this was the best ten-year reunion Donley had ever seen.

  For just a moment, a painful memory from her high school days zinged into her mind. Quickly she pushed it away. All of that was over and done with. You couldn’t dwell on the past. You had to keep moving forward if you wanted to be a success in life.

  With a firm shake of her head, she nosed the car away from the downtown area into the subdivision where she’d bought a comfortable townhouse after her divorce from Chip. She’d met him at a young singles mixer a couple of years after she’d graduated from high school. He’d seemed like a good guy—ambitious and personable, with a college degree in hospitality and a good job at a national hotel chain. But he’d turned out to be one of the few major mistakes she’d made. She’d gotten rid of him as soon as she’d realized he wasn’t about to let his wife have a career that might eclipse his importance as the man of the house.

  She’d bought her end unit at a good price after the housing bubble crash. In the driveway, she clicked the remote, waited for the garage door to open, then drove in and closed the door behind her.

  She was hungry. Maybe she should have stopped at that new French carryout on the way home instead of having to fix something. Well, it would have to be something quick, like a can of the low-cal soup she had in the pantry.

  Before she could get out of the car, someone grabbed her from behind—someone who must have been in the car all the way home from the shop.

  She cried out in shock and disbelief, but the cry turned into a gasp as the person behind her grabbed her shoulder to anchor her in place while they slipped something around her neck.

  In desperation, she kicked out her legs and bucked her body, writhing in her seat as she tried to free herself from the stranglehold. But the hand held her fast as the cord tightened and tightened.

  Did she hear words whispered in her ear? Hateful words about what a slut she’d been in high school—and how she’d broken her word.

  No, she wanted to scream. It wasn’t true. She’d kept her vow of silence. But the person with the rope around her neck kept whispering, telling her she wasn’t going to get the chance to blab about her past at the reunion—or anyone else’s past.

  The awful voice kept talking, filling
her mind like boiling syrup in a pot bubbling on the stove, and she knew who it was. Someone dangerous. Someone she’d avoided for years.

  “You little slut. You thought you were a big deal. You thought you could hide your true colors, didn’t you?”

  Again she tried to scream that it wasn’t true. It had never been true. And no matter what she had been in high school, she was a different person now. Then she’d been unsure of herself. Eager to fit in. Now she knew she didn’t have to conform to anyone’s standards but her own. She was put together. Successful, and on her way to bigger and better things.

  But there was no breath in her lungs for those protests, or for anything else. She was slipping from consciousness. She tried to focus on her shop. On her big plans. But black dots danced in front of her eyes. Then the blackness overwhelmed her.

  Chapter 2

  Olivia Winters glanced at the man beside her in the driver’s seat of the comfortable SUV. They’d had things to discuss the whole way over here, but as he pulled into a parking space in front of the old stable that had been turned into a restaurant called the Ironwood Grill, they fell silent. This was the second meeting of the Donley High School ten-year reunion committee. Olivia had deliberately missed the first get-together, and she hadn’t intended to make this one. But now everything had changed, and here she was.

  She felt a shiver like a cold ocean wave travel over her skin as she thought about why she was here. When she’d first gotten the email about the reunion, she’d had the sudden sensation of being in an elevator dropping out of control down a dark shaft. No way had she ever considered deliberately going back and mingling with these people again. Yet here she was, returning to the scene of… What was it? The most miserable years of her life? She had vowed to stay as far away from the reunion as she could. What was she going to say to these people after all these years? But the death of her friend, Angela Dawson, had turned her resolve upside down. She and Angela had been best friends in high school, and they had kept in touch after Olivia had moved to New York. Now Angela was gone, and Olivia was about to join the group planning the reunion—with Max Lyon beside her. He’d gone to Donley, too, a couple of years ahead of her class.

  She gave him a quick glance, hoping she was concealing her raw nerves. “Showtime,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Just remember what we talked about,” he said in his deep, masculine voice. It had made her uncomfortable at first. Then she’d admitted that she liked it. His voice helped steady her—that and the private-detective wisdom he’d shared.

  “Uh-huh,” she answered, knowing she was focusing on the easy part of the equation, a set of rules, rather than her churning emotions. There were so many reasons to be on edge, starting with her uncertainty about seeing her former classmates again.

  When he cut the engine, she felt a sense of finality. Too late to back out now.

  It wasn’t quite six thirty, and because they were well into spring, there was still a little natural light lingering in the parking lot. Given her choice, she would have elected to arrive under cover of darkness, but that would have brought its own perils—making her and Max late to the party so that all eyes would be on them when they entered the room.

  To her right, a car door slammed and she jumped. Max put a hand on her shoulder, and her body stiffened even more. She knew that personal contact with him had to be part of the deal, but she was having trouble adjusting to the way his touch made her feel. Maybe because she was attracted to him and didn’t want to be. Really, the chemistry between them only got in the way.

  “Relax,” he said, and she took a couple of breaths, doing her best to comply, trying to pretend that her nerves weren’t tingling like a bunch of live electric wires twisting inside her.

  “Is this worse than being on the runway?” he asked.

  “No contest.”

  “Why?”

  She hated when he asked probing questions that she’d rather not answer. Revealing her insecurities wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal, but this was a bad time to start an argument with him. Even if he was the arguing type, which didn’t seem to be true.

  “Because I never liked playing charades,” she answered, struggling to keep her voice even.

  “Don’t you play a part every time you put on a designer outfit? Or when you do a TV commercial?”

  “That’s different,” she shot back.

  “How?”

  “For one thing, when I’m working, I’m separated from the audience. For another thing, I don’t have to get emotionally involved with my work,” she snapped, then wondered if she’d given away too much.

  When he made a snorting sound, she added, “And because of Angela. Someone coming to this meeting could be the one who…” She swallowed. “Who killed her…” As her voice trailed off, she raised one shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “That’s the main reason we’re here.”

  He glanced at her as she pressed the back of her skull against the firm support of the headrest, feeling the solid barrier through her thick hair. It was long so she could wear it up if she needed a high-society look, or she could keep it down and appear to be barely out of her teens. But neither of those were the part she was currently playing. Tonight her hair was a sexy blond mane flowing around her slender shoulders. And her makeup was runway perfect, as always. At least her looks were something she could be confident about, which had basically always been true.

  “You know your lines. Everything’s going to be fine,” Max murmured.

  Impossible. It wasn’t going to be fine. She’d known that well enough from the beginning. But she’d come up with the plan because it was a quick way to pick up some useful information. When she started to nervously twist the strap of her purse, Max reached out and stilled her hand.

  The pressure of his warm fingers on hers made her go very still. Through her lashes she glanced up at him and saw something she hadn’t noticed earlier. The rigid look on his face told her his emotions were as conflicted as hers.

  This was the only time she’d seen him look jumpy, and she didn’t know whether to be glad or worried that he was reacting, too.

  Just then, movement on the other side of the car window caught her eye, and she seized the opportunity to shift her attention away from the man who had pressed his hand over hers. As she looked past Max’s shoulder, she saw a group of people she recognized crossing the parking lot. The first one to register was the large bulky form of Tommy Larson, former Donley star quarterback. He was still well-muscled, with shoulders as broad as North Dakota. She remembered he’d married Bunny Raymond, former captain of the cheerleading squad. But he wasn’t with her now. Instead he had another woman on his arm, someone even more stunning than Bunny.

  Olivia had heard that they’d gotten married a couple of years out of school. She’d been surprised that two people with such swelled heads could live in the same house. Apparently it hadn’t worked out. And now Tommy was going the same route with another beauty?

  He glanced in her direction, stopped and squinted, then did a double take as he apparently recognized her—and maybe Max as well. Obviously he hadn’t expected to see either one of them here today. But she’d gone to considerable trouble to make the meeting—with Max at her side.

  Instinctively, she slid closer to him, and he slung his arm possessively around her shoulder as he followed the direction of her gaze and saw her react to the approaching couple.

  He turned so that his warm breath fanned her ear, like he was getting ready to nuzzle her in a sexy move. Nice thought, but instead he was sticking to business. “That’s Tommy Larson,” he said, either remembering the former football player from the way he’d strode around the halls of Donley High or recognizing him from the yearbook and Web pictures he’d studied.

  “Yes,” she managed, goose bumps rising on her arms—and not just from seeing her former classmates. She was reacting to Max, and she didn’t want to. Not now. And not ever.

  Two newcomers emerged from the
darkness farther down the parking lot and joined the man and woman looking in their direction. Mark Tate and Sue Harrison. Again, Olivia couldn’t stop herself from making a quick evaluation. Mark looked kind of stressed out, his face aged more than the ten years that had passed since she’d seen him, and his dark hair was thinning. Sue had put on a few pounds and was wearing a knit shirt that did nothing to hide the ripples of fat around her middle.

  She knew she was making judgments about her former classmates in an effort to calm herself. And as the foursome stared in her direction, she sat as still as a statue, staring back calmly while her heart was pounding inside her chest like it was doing a Calypso number on Dancing with the Stars.

  Maybe she was fooling the people outside the car, but not the man sitting beside her. “You’ve got more going than any of them,” Max whispered.

  Maybe now. And perhaps it was true if you were talking in terms of worldly success. But here, in this place, it didn’t matter what she had transformed herself into. She was back in a world where you could be laughed at for wearing the wrong color blouse on the wrong day or for having the wrong socks.

  She heard herself saying, “They probably think I’m a snob who forgot where she came from. I mean, I’ve hardly been back here since I left for New York.”

  “You’ve been busy. But you’ll convince them you’re just a good old Donley girl.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right.” She’d wanted that so badly back in high school that she’d done some things and gotten into some situations that made her cringe now. Of course, she’d run with the in crowd, by virtue of her looks, she supposed. And maybe her lack of interest in making the honor roll was because everybody figured it was only for kids who related better to books than people. But she’d never really felt like she belonged. The popular kids mostly came from upscale developments in Columbia and Ellicott City. She’d lived on a farm, and she’d gone to Donley because her father had grown up with the guy who’d become superintendent of schools and had gotten her special permission to go to the best high school in the county.