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Killing Me Softly (Secrets of Shadow Falls Book 1), by Maggie Shayne
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First you drink, then you DIE
The Nightcap Strangler, who terrorized the town of Shadow Falls sixteen years ago, has finally been executed. Case closed. Until Bryan Kendall's lover is murdered in the notorious killer's unique style and the rookie cop stands accused. Has someone committed the perfect copycat crime...or was the wrong man put to death?
A continent away, Dawn Jones hears that her first love has been accused of murder and knows that only she can help him. But to do so, she'll have to face the very fears that drove them apart.
Together they'll work to uncover secrets someone's willing to kill to keep, and renew a love as dangerous as it is inevitable. And their best lead is the girl found dead in Bryan's bed, reeking of the whiskey poured down her throat before her killer squeezed it shut.
A killer who thinks that Dawn, too, could use one last drink...
- Sales Rank: #158451 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-11-15
- Released on: 2012-11-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Rookie cop Bryan Kendall awakens one morning to find his lover, Bettina Wright, strangled in his bed. The crime is identical to those committed by the so-called Nightcap Strangler, a convicted serial murderer who died in prison just weeks before Bettina's death. Bryan's worry intensifies after Dawn Jones, his ex, returns to his little Vermont town and he recognizes the strong resemblance both women share with Nightcap's former victims. Bryan's mentor, a "hero cop" who brought down the original Nightcap Strangler, is sure that a copycat killer with a grudge is trying to frame Bryan, but further murders convince the local police that Bryan is the perp. Bryan and Dawn go on the lam with Nick's help, struggling to prove Bryan's innocence as their romance rekindles. Romantic suspense fans will find this a pleasant beach read, if not particularly scary or tense.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
RITA Award winning, New York Times bestselling author Maggie Shayne has published over 50 novels, including mini-series Wings in the Night (vampires), Secrets of Shadow Falls (suspense) and The Portal (witchcraft). A Wiccan High Priestess, tarot reader, advice columnist and former soap opera writer, Maggie lives in Cortland County, NY, with soulmate Lance and their furry family.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Bryan Kendall awoke with a crushing headache that turned into blinding dizziness when he rolled over. It was only then, as his hand swung out and hit something cold and hard, that he realized he wasn't in his bed.
He was on the bathroom floor.
"Hell," he muttered. "Must've been some party."
He tried to think back but remembered nothing, and really didn't care all that much at the moment. He had a case of cottonmouth that made anything short of the house being on fire uninteresting in comparison. He needed liquid. Any liquid. Now.
He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut against the morning light slanting in through the bathroom windowpane. The sun seemed unreasonably bright this morning. Gripping the sink with one hand, he pulled himself up onto his feet, then leaned over it and cranked on the taps. He bent closer, cupped his hands and drank. The lukewarm water wet his mouth but was nowhere near enough to quench his thirst. His head was spinning and pounding, his stomach churning, and it occurred to him that this didn't feel like an ordinary hangover.
He'd never been drunk enough to pass out on his own bathroom floor.
Lifting his throbbing head, he peered into the mirror and then closed his eyes again. This was too much effort. He needed to drink a vat of water, take a handful of aspirin, crawl into bed and sleep for another eight hours or so. Then he could try again.
He turned in the direction of the door and shuffled through it, feet dragging, because the percussion of actual steps was too painful. It was only a few feet to the bedroom and a few more to the bed, and then he was sinking gratefully onto the queen-size pillow-top mattress, pulling the covers over himself as he rolled onto his side. His arm hit Bette before he remembered she was there.
"Sorry, babe," he muttered, closing his eyes and letting his head sink into the pillow.
She didn't answer. Good. He hadn't woken her. Feeling cold, he tightened his arm around her waist and snuggled up a little closer. But she didn't move. Didn't roll up onto her side and press her back to him the way she normally would. Didn't stroke his forearm where it draped over her.
And she felt cool.
Colder than he did.
Frowning, he lifted his head and looked at her in the early-morning sunlight that was just beginning to stream in through the tiny gap where the curtains didn't quite meet. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, eyes open wide. Something hit him as he stared at her, and it felt as if he'd stuck his finger into a live socket. It slammed into the middle of his chest, just like a shock, and woke him entirely. Bryan blinked to clear the haze from his vision and sat up straighter. A chill ran up his spine, as if some part of him knew what he was seeing before his mind caught up.
"Bette?" He reached out to touch her cheek and found it unnaturally cold. Not cold as if she'd been outside in a snowstorm, but cold like raw meat. There was a huge difference. And that was when his brain caught up to what his instincts had already known.
Bettina Wright was dead.
Dead!
Bryan scrambled backward out of the bed, suddenly more wide-awake than he'd ever been in his life. He stood there for a moment, staring at her, gasping for breath. "Bette?" he said. "What the hell? What the hell?" Finally the cop in him kicked in. He ran around the foot of the bed, to her side and bent to feel for a pulse, but stopped himself when, again, he felt how cold she was. His brain was ten steps ahead of him now, thinking, telling him to drag her off the bed, onto the floor, start CPR, call the EMTs. But he didn't do any of those things, because reality had outshouted training. She must have been dead for several hours. There was nothing he, or anyone else, could do for her now. She'd been lying here, getting stiff and cold, while he'd been passed out in the bathroom. Useless.
He struggled to remember anything that might have happened last night that would have given him a clue something like this could happen. He didn't think she'd seemed sick or particularly tired. She hadn't complained about anything. He knew she didn't do drugs, nor would he have had any at the party. Hell, most of the guests had been cops.
Had her heart given out without any warning at all? Had this been some kind of allergic reaction or alcohol poisoning or—
"Oh, no." He spoke aloud, as his gaze settled on her neck. On the ligature marks there. They were obvious, even in this feeble light. "No no no…" Backing up two steps, he jerked the curtain wider and let the sun pour in on her body. The angry, bruised ring around her neck was unmistakable, as were the still-protruding tongue and dried spittle on her chin. Bettina Wright had been strangled to death in his bed while he slept, drunk, in next room. She'd been murdered while he'd been ten feet away, too plastered to help her.
He was a cop, for God's sake, and he'd—
Hell. Oh, hell.
He looked around the room again, spotted his cell phone and picked it up, then he walked back through the house without touching anything. He was wearing jeans, and nothing else, and he didn't grab anything on the way. His home was a crime scene now. Jesus, he couldn't believe it. Bette. Dead.
He opened the front door, using a sock he found on the floor and only two fingers to turn the knob, trying not to smear any prints. Then he left the door open and sat on the front steps, where he flipped open the phone. There were two men who were more important to Bryan than anyone else in his life: his father and his mentor, retired cop Nick Di Marco, and he wanted to phone them both at the same time, but since he had to make a choice… Of the two, Di Marco was physically closer and could get to him faster. Decision made.
He called Nick, then held his head in his free hand while waiting for him to pick up.
"Di Marco, and this better be good, being 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday, pal."
"Nick?"
"Kendall? You sound like hell." The older man paused. "Are you okay?"
"No. I… It's Bette—"
"Who?"
"The girl I'm…sort of seeing. She's…she's dead, Nick. She's fuckin' dead." Bryan's voice broke, but he kept forcing out words. "Strangled, I think. In my bed. Damn, Nick, she's—"
"Whoa, hold up, hold up. Where are you right now?"
"Sitting on the front step. She's inside. She's dead. How could I not have heard something? How could I—"
"You sure? You do CPR? You check for a pulse?"
"She's cold, Nick. She's ice fucking cold."
Nick swore under his breath. Then, "Have you called anyone else?"
"No. I—"
"Okay, okay, we do this by the book. It's the only way to go here. You're a cop—you do this right. You gotta be beyond suspicion, you got that?"
"Sus-suspicion? Shit, Nick, why would I—"
"You're there, aren't you? You woke up with her. You're the last one to see her alive, the one to find the body. You know how this works, kid. You're a cop."
Everything in Bryan tightened until he thought he was going to break. "Yeah. I mean…yeah."
"Hang up and call your father. I'm gonna call the chief, and I'll get there by the time he does. You just wait for us. Don't call anyone else—don't, for the love of God, call her family. Just your dad. Tell him to get here A-SAP. I'm on my way. Don't go back inside. Don't touch anything. Don't take a shower or change clothes. Just sit there, you understand?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I just—"
"I know, kid. You hang in. I'm on this. I'm gonna be there in a matter of minutes, okay?"
"Okay."
"Just breathe. It's gonna be all right."
"Okay."
"Where's your sidearm, Kendall?"
Bryan blinked as he thought for a second and remembered where he'd put the gun the last time he'd had it out. It had been a while. He'd been on paid leave since a recent hostage standoff, waiting for the department shrink to give him the all clear. "In the lockbox, hall closet."
"You sure no one else is in the house?"
Bryan's head came up slowly, and he looked behind him through the still-open door. "I didn't really check."
"Don't. Get yourself a little distance away, but maintain line of sight, just in case."
"Okay."
"Be careful, kid. I'll see you soon."
Bryan closed his eyes, disconnected and felt as if his world had turned upside down. He got to his feet and looked back inside the house, feeling a little more certain there was no one lurking inside. Then again, a few minutes ago, if asked, he would have been fairly certain he wasn't going to find a dead woman in his bed.
So he walked several steps down the driveway, but only got as far as his brand-new, candy-apple-red Mustang Shelby GT, before he had to stop and throw up. And he didn't think it had anything to do with the alcohol he'd imbibed the night before. Dammit, how could Bette be dead? Much less strangled? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he'd imagined the marks on her throat. Maybe the chief had been right to put him on leave, and he did have some kind of PTSD or something going on, and he'd just imagined all of this. Maybe if he walked back into the house right now, he would find Bette sitting up in bed and griping about being late for whatever early-morning class she had.
He could almost believe it. He nearly turned and walked back inside. But something stopped him. The weight of the phone on his hand, he guessed. He needed to call his dad.
He wanted to call Dawn instead.
He wanted to hear her voice right now even more than he wanted to quell the waves of nausea battering his stomach. But that wasn't going to happen. He and Dawn hadn't spoken in five years. There was too much space between them now. Too much hurt. Too little effort to remedy or even address it. He couldn't call Dawn, even though hearing her voice on the phone would make things better in a way nothing else could.
No. Not even Dawn could fix this.
He opened the car door, sat down inside and stared for a long moment at the dark, hulking shape in the distance, where the waterfall that gave this town its name shot off the end of a rocky ledge and tumbled down. The craggy flat-topped beast of a cliff was positioned in such a way that the waterfall itself was nearly always in shadow, making it dark and ominous looking, rather than cheerful or sparkly, the way most waterfalls seemed. Shadow Falls, the landmark, was not beautiful. It was downright spooky. But Shadow Falls, the town, had been the place with an opening on the police force after he'd finished college. And it was only an hour from what he considered home. And so it was perfect.
Or he'd thought it was.
But the town seemed far from perfect right now. Because it concealed something in its shadowy depths.
Something evil. A cold-blooded killer was lurking here. And he'd never even known.
Sighing, Bryan called his father, fifty miles away in his hometown of Blackberry, Vermont.
Nick Di Marco was a big man. And it wasn't entirely a physical thing. He was tall enough at five foot eleven, and his shoulders were wide and solid, even though he was lugging around some extra belly fat these days. His once raven-black hair was streaked with silver, his intense brown eyes lined with crow's-feet that made his smiles more infectious, and his frowns downright scary. Beneath all of that, he was the best cop Bryan had ever had the honor to know. Retired or not.
And he wasn't the only one who felt that way. Di Marco was a hero cop, and everyone in Shadow Falls knew it.
So Bryan felt a little lighter when he saw Nick get out of his black, big-as-a-boat, old Crown Victoria and come striding toward him. Bryan got out of his own car, whose payments were as much as his rent, and tried to hide the fact that his knees were shaking. It was warm outside, the summer sun already beating down on them.
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Page Turner
By London
The Nightcap Strangler has finally died in prison so everyone sighs with relief. Then rookie cop Bryan Kendall wakes up next to his dead girlfriend. She has been killed in the same manner as the Strangler used to kill his victims. Bryan is then suspected of killing her.
Dawn Jones gets word that her first love has been accused of the crime and returns to Shadow Falls to help Bryan solve the mystery of who has started killing girls again like the Nightcap Strangler 16 years earlier.
Actions cause Bryan and Dawn to go on the run and being so close together, they start questioning why they ever broke up. However, they have to put their feelings aside and figure out who killed Bryan's girlfriend before someone else gets killed and Bryan gets accused of the murder.
This book was a page-turner. The author has a way of making you want more and more and more until you realize it is 2am in the morning. This is the first book I read by this author and I would highly recommend it. I enjoyed the depth of her characters and the story line. The romance part of the book was not over the top too much which made it seem even more real. Just two people trying to figure each other out but also trying to figure out who is killing before they are killed?
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Good story, slowly solving the mystery of a serial killer while on the run from police and the killer.
By Jane
STORY BRIEF:
Dawn's father was psychic. Somehow when he died five years ago his gifts were passed to Dawn. She began seeing and talking to ghosts, and she couldn't make it stop. So she ran away from Vermont and made a new life for herself in California. She left her teenage sweetheart Bryan. Since then she has been taking tranquilizers and alcohol to stop the ghosts. Bryan became a cop. Nick, another cop, became famous 15 years ago when he caught the nightcap strangler, a serial killer. Bryan has been asked to prepare a presentation about Nick for an awards ceremony. It's a secret, and no one is to know that Nick will be honored. So Bryan secretly takes the serial killer police files to study them for his presentation. The serial killer is still out there. An innocent man went to jail. The killer is aware of Bryan taking the files and is worried that he might be caught. So the killer kills Bryan's friend Bette and frames Bryan. Dawn hears about this and comes back to town. She hopes to use her psychic gift to help find the killer.
REVIEWER'S OPINION:
This book was labeled romantic suspense, but it's mostly mystery suspense. There's just enough romance to put it within the genre, but I would have liked more relationship development. We don't see that because the relationship developed years ago when they were teens. Now they are separated, and it's mostly about working together to solve the mystery.
I would have liked more explanation about the psychic gift being transferred to Dawn at her father's death. I expected to see more happen with this gift, but it hardly came into play at all. That's ok with me, it's just why pay so much attention to it at the beginning of the book if you're not going to use it? I also wanted to know more about Sara's baby. It was mentioned several times but never answered. Again, that's ok, but it would have been nice to get an answer.
Regarding the story, it didn't grab me emotionally. I didn't get the feeling of "oh, this is good." It felt more like slowly uncovering clues about a serial killer. It was a little unbelievable that Bryan and Dawn could go around interviewing people without being captured. The police were hunting for Bryan to arrest him. But again, I accept it for the sake of the story. It was an ok story. No serious problems, but nothing special enough to set it apart from others. There was an interesting collection of characters in a cabin at one point. I was intrigued with their interactions as they suspected each other. The ending was well done with suspense and action.
OTHER REVIEWERS:
I noticed some other reviewers say they "knew who the killer was" early in the book which was a problem for them. My reaction was different. First, I had a suspicion, but I didn't "know" for sure. Second, I don't think it's a problem to know who the bad guy is. I've read a number of good stories where I know the villain early on. It can be good to be in the minds of both the good guys and the bad guys and watch their interactions. It's just a different type of story. I wouldn't fault the author over that. In fact I was pleased with myself that I suspected someone. I felt smart. I don't often figure those things out.
DATA:
Story length: 370 pages. Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual language: moderate. Number of sex scenes: one, five pages long. Setting: current day Vermont. Copyright: 2010. Genre: mystery suspense with some romance.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Light on romance, but an interesting plot
By Tracy Vest
Rookie cop Bryan Kendall is in charge of presenting an award to his mentor, Nick who made a name for himself when he caught the nightcap strangler, who wreaked havoc on their small Vermont town 15 years earlier. The "strangler" died recently in prison, and Bryan starts reviewing the case files for the presenation, taking the files home so as not to alert anyone to the award Nick will receive, which puts him in the crosshairs of the real killer, awakening one morning to find his companion murdered in the same fashion, and he as the primary suspect. His old flame Dawn arrives in time to go on the lam with him and conduct their own investigation, using her psychic abilities. Will this be a second chance for the two?
Labeled a romantic suspense, the novel actually has a minor sub plot of romance tossed in. But I found the writing and the pacing engaging. Normally when I come upon psychic abilities, I roll my eyes and toss the book aside, however this one managed to hold my attention. It did fall a bit on the predictable side, but overall the story is very entertaining. This is the first novel I have read by this author, and I plan to seek out more titles by her (provided they don't have second sight or any other paranormal sub-plots - once is enough for me).
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