Chapter 1

Chapter One

Belle

It’s a damn murder scene.

I look down to where the blood-red juice spilled on my white blouse.

It’s one of those days. Definitely. Straight out of Mr. Murphy’s Law book. I grab my hankie and rub it, but the red stain spreads. Why did it have to be beet, apple, and carrot I chose at lunch? Why?

The door to my classroom creaks, and I make a mental note to bring in some oil or WD-40. It seems easier than bugging the janitor who’s got bigger upkeep concerns than a squeaky door, especially this close to Christmas.

I need to get my books and bags and get to my meeting. Well, okay, I need to get my things, get home, change, and then get to my meeting.

The rubbing made the stain worse. I elevate my blouse murder scene from Agatha Christie to Val McDermid. There’s soda water in the leather bag over the back of my chair. I pour some on the hankie and rub once more, but the stain refuses to budge.

Great.

Just great.

Unless I want to bathe in the soda, home it is, and considering my car went kaput this morning, I have to go now.

“Damn it.”

Behind me comes a shocked gasp. I whirl around.

Oliver Jenkins sits on the edge of a desk, eyes big and round, and as he turns, his blond corkscrew curls bouncing.

“Miss Rosso said a bad word!”

Noah Fitzpatrick is less than impressed. He draws his dark brows into a fierce frown.

“So, what, Ollie?” He leans back against the neighboring desk and scuffs at the floor with a shoe, the shoelace untied and trailing behind, like the world’s youngest world-worn cynic. “Your dad says way worse. My gran says the F word all the time.”

His tiny little gran. Somehow, I doubt the devout churchgoer knows the F word, let alone says it.

I paste on a smile and turn to Oliver. “Where are your parents?” Then to Noah, cock a brow and ask, “Gran?”

“Work.” Oliver rubs a hand over the edge of his desk.

Noah just shrugs.

I’m guessing he’s running through a list of things in his head. The two second graders should be in the school library with the rest of the after-school kids lost in limbo between the last bell and when their parents or guardians can pick them up. Not sitting in my classroom, bearing witness to accidents of the juice kind. I check my watch.

Double crap and raise the F word. Pick-up time from the school library after-hours is over. I was on my laptop too long in the teacher’s lounge, and now . . .

Outside, the day’s turned from overcast to gunmetal gray, and thunder rolls a deep drumroll that flips down into a boom. Oliver jumps as lightning flashes. Even Noah looks a little nervous at the edges.

“Did you lie to Miss Nguyen?” I stick my hands on my hips and glare. Kindly. “About being picked up?”

The reddening cheeks and shifting eyes give them away.

“She has a date, and we saw our classroom was open,” Noah says.

Oliver nods. “We’ll be picked up soon.”

I know Jeanie Nguyen. She would’ve stayed if these two hadn’t, no doubt, snuck off.

This time, the thunder cracks so loud that Noah jumps and Oliver screeches.

“Okay, but you two can help me in the meantime.”

“Yes, Miss Rosso,” Noah says eagerly.

And Oliver’s eyes shine bright as he nods.

It’s not their fault their parents and guardians need to work. This time can be tough for the working class at the best of times but with Christmas around the corner . . .

My phone buzzes in my shoulder bag, but I ignore it and dump it on my desk as the storm darkens the afternoon into an approximation of evening. I pick up the worksheets for tomorrow.

Noah’s eyes round with horror.

“For tomorrow,” I say, handing them to him. “One on every desk, please.”

This time, the drum roll of thunder sounds in the bones, followed by a clap and a bright flash of lightning.

“Oliver, can you tidy the story time corner, please?”

He nods and runs off.

As for me, I pull out an eraser and go over the blackboard, ignoring the brewing storm and the time marching away from me at a brisk pace that feels like running.

I’ve got my bike.

I’ll make it home and to the council meeting.

After all, how late can their parents be?

Mr. Sweet, the janitor, shakes his keys and sighs above the storm as I dash out the door.

“Hope you don’t expect me to clean up the blood, Miss Rosso.”

He cackles as I slide him a dark look. But I race out the door, my jacket open.

“Nope,” I throw over my shoulder, “got the kids to do it.”

His cackle of laughter follows me as I round the corner to the bike rack.

I stumble to a halt just as the first drop of rain hits me.

My bike is toast.

Not actual toast, because that’s delicious. And does its job. This . . . this is just metal with wheels that theoretically work. I say theoretically because these don’t.

Not one, but two flat tires.

I don’t have a bike pump on me or a puncture kit. I should have packed them, because this morning I noticed the wheels weren’t at full firmness, but I didn’t want to be late.

And now?

Now, it’s almost five. I’m not going to make it home, and I don’t have my umbrella. “Shit.”

If I run, I can make the town council meeting. I take off at a wet jog. The afternoon traffic and the incoming deluge slow me to a brisk walk and, finally, taking shelter a few streets in.

The school’s located in the inner part of the city—if you can even classify Sweetwood a city, it should be called an overgrown large town. We have a main stretch where you can find the grocery store, a shopping center, and a farming store. There’s a couple take out places and a few restaurants. Mostly Mom and Pop stores.

What makes the school a part of the inner city would be the fact there’s a few schools and one of them being on the ‘wrong side of the tracks’. Ironically enough, there’s an actual train track that divides the city up between the good part of town and the bad.

In the end, I hail a cab because riding my bike would take fifteen minutes. Walking? In this weather?

By the time a cab pulls over, I’m beyond late and most likely resemble a drowned and murdered rat, and the doors to the meeting are shut.

I stand outside the door and glare at Bob in his dry security uniform. I know his name is Bob because of his name tag.

“Please.”

Sympathy flashes across his face. “There are protocols, miss, and besides, the meeting’s over.”

As he says that, the doors open and people stream out. I rush in and find the mayor’s assistant, who’s packing up.

“Angie.” I dig the folder out from the bottom of my bag and shove it at her. “I’m sorry, but the storm hit, and?—”

Her set lips stop me. Finally, she sighs as she flicks a glance behind me. “Belle, I told you the mayor wouldn’t be here long, and with the storm . . .”

She doesn’t need to finish. The mayor cut it short. Probably left when we were rearranging the art area of the classroom. And me being on time would’ve shown in the minutes.

“Ange, I really am sorry.”

“I know.” She squeezes my arm then wipes her wet fingers on her trousers. “But I said you needed to be here.”

“At least take the signatures as a formal complaint against the Super Hank’s proposal. Hastings wants?—”

“To inject money into our home city, Isabelle,” Lance says behind me.

Angie’s eyes narrow as she takes the file, a tacit move to let me know she’ll do what she can. I mutter a thanks and turn to face Lance Hastings.

My ex-fiancé.

Lance is blond, tall, beautiful, and always tailored in his handmade English suits or in his crisp Cape Cod rich boy around-town casual wear.

My heart used to lurch and do a loop-the-loop whenever he appeared.

Past tense.

I glare as he smiles.

“No, you want to take the land where the Gardens are,” I say primly.

“You’re so dramatic.”

“You, Lance, wanted to tear down the library for a restaurant.” I fold my arms. Water splatters on the floor, earning a slight smile from him.

We both ignore the fact my interference in that both ended the relationship and his bid to close the city library.

“Bookshops exist—Amazon exists—for people to buy books. The library’s a waste of money, and this city needs a facelift.”

“People live at the Secret Gardens complex,” I say. “I live there.”

Lance’s eyes sparkle in a way that accentuates the blue but doesn’t add one drop of anything to his expression, where he’s parked it firmly in neutral.

“No one said anything would happen to it. But a Super Hank’s will be perfect in that area. You’re soaked.” His gaze rakes over me, lingering a nanosecond too long on my breasts. “Let me take you home.”

“I’d rather walk.”

With that, I march past him, shoes squelching the entire way.

My high road stops at a dead end the moment I step out onto the steps of the city hall.

It’s a Thursday, and the streets run in a swish of traffic, sending up sheets of water, footpaths shiny with running silver rivers, and Armageddon above.

Ignoring the thunder, lightning, and pouring rain, I dash across the street the moment the lights change and then keep running.

Walking home’s a bit of a hike in normal weather, but there’s a bus, and if I remember rightly, it comes every hour at this time of night. I flash a glance at my watch, and, of course, it leaves in five minutes.

I’m about four minutes away. Three if I pound that pavement.

I pound. My lungs burn and my legs ache. A stitch twists hard in my side. But I can see it. The stop. And I’ve got minutes to spare, I’ve . . .

“No!”

The big green bus lights up the night two minutes early as it pulls up. The brakes and door hissing.

I wave my arms and push harder as one person bounces out and races off into the rain-filled night.

Oh, I reach the bus. I reach it just fine.

In fact, my timing’s so impeccable that I hit the bus stop just as it pulls away and into the night.

The rain hits harder. Taunting smacks against my already wet skin. Thank goodness my bag is waterproof and my leather one shoves inside that. I’d sit, hole up in the bus stop shelter until the storm passed, I really would.

But there isn’t one. Not even a bench. Just the bus number and times on a sign.

“Well, I’m not going to get wetter.” With that, I trudge off, heading toward home.

At some point, the rain stops, and the thunder recedes into a low growl. Not that it matters. I’m so wet that I’m not even sure why I’m wearing my coat.

I look down at the broken path as I pass a pool of yellow light and some of the warehouses, run-down stores, and buildings as I take the straightest path to the Gardens.

It’s a pretty name for a lovely building in an ugly part of town, a part that would flourish with the right investments. Sticking a mega supermarket out here only means more shops and probably the kind of facelift that’ll push the residents out into less desirable areas.

I’m one of the lucky ones. If I needed to, I could move somewhere nicer—as in a nicer neighborhood—and into a much smaller space, but that’s only me. There are people who can’t afford that.

Who like the fact the complex is the right zone for my school, is still classed as closer to all the other things the richer people have.

If Lance wanted, he could invest his family money into the town in other ways, like here, fixing this up, bringing people in instead of the half-abandoned, shadowy area.

I pause at the intersection, there isn’t much traffic here, and . . . a door opens, and music and smoke tumble out, along with a group of young men covered in tattoos and holding bottles.

“Looky here,” one says, coming up on me. “Bet she cleans up real fucking nice.”

Fear slices bright and white hot through me as I step back into someone else. I glance into the open door, but it’s not a bar, just some kind of converted warehouse by the looks. “Excuse me.”

Fingers grab my arm, and the heat turns to ice, making my heart thrum hard and painful as my stomach lurches and my ears roar.

“You’re not fucking excused,” says the one in front of me who’s got to be maybe a few years younger than me, making him borderline legal for drinking.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” my mouth says. Mouth, not brain, because that’s gone south suddenly for the winter. “And let me go.”

“She thinks she’s funny,” growls a voice in my ear. “It’s just us six, but we can get some other friends, Maybe turn you into our party favor?”

“Yo.”

The voice is deep and commanding. The guy holding me jerks as the others melt away, and it’s just me and the two guys. The one right in front, and the one holding me. He lets go, and I turn.

The man’s on a big motorcycle.

Slowly, he peels himself off, and the helmet shifts from one of the guys to the other.

This time, my stomach zings.

He’s in a leather jacket, worn jeans, and he’s tall as hell.

And jacked.

Even in my fear-addled state, I can see he’s jacked.

My stomach flips as he comes up to me and flips the visor.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he says, “or I’ll break your legs.”