Chapter 1

1

There was a look in the woman’s blue eyes that had Gene Hiller hesitating before he said something to her that he probably shouldn’t. Chantal Fields got under his skin faster than any other being on the planet, but today... there was panic in those eyes.

Panic that had him tensing and stepping closer to her. “Chantal, what in the world is going on with you now?”

Her eyes met his. Big, extraordinary, dark blue. “Gene!”

Wild panic.

It was the panic that did it—had Gene doing something he didn’t normally ever allow himself to do with his sister’s best friend: he touched her.

He wrapped his fingers around her arms and pulled her right in front of him. She rested her head on his chest, taking a gasping breath. It told him she’d been running.

She had always been a small woman, taking after her mother. She felt delicate and fragile beneath his hands now. Made him feel big, coarse, and rough, in a way he didn’t like.

She’d been irritating him since about the age of two. That hadn’t changed much in twenty-eight years.

She was both his best friend’s little sister and his little sister’s best friend.

Chantal had been in his life for decades.

He knew when she was scared.

“What’s happened, honey?”

She used to hate it when he called her that—back before she’d stopped acknowledging he existed at all six years ago, anyway.

He waited for her to snap back at him. But she didn’t. “Chantal?”

He wrapped his fingers beneath her dark red braid, cupped her neck lightly. She felt fragile beneath his palm. He wasn’t used to that. Finally, she looked up at him again. Her pupils were dilated; she was shaking. Paler than normal. What in the hell was going on? “Talk to me.”

“There’s a dead woman by the back fence.”

“Like hell there is.”

Her small hand entangled in the cotton of his shirt. “Like hell there isn’t. She’s back there. And I saw her. The dog—I was taking Lucy on a hike through the cliffs. Her hand... it’s sticking through the ground. Gene, she’s back there. Or I’m going totally crazy. I... your house was closer. I need to call Charlie. Now. Like right now.”

The dog whined at her feet, terrified of something. Or picking up on her mistress’s distress. He stepped back, studied Chantal quickly. She wore a lightweight cotton shirt, the top two buttons open to allow for airflow—or to tempt a man in his opinion—but it didn’t work on him and never had.

One thing he could say for her, she was a practical woman, from her head to her toes. But… Chantal was damned honest, this woman. Sometimes brutally so.

That meant... if Chantal said there was a body out there, there was a body out there.

“Show me.”

“Call the police.”

“Show me.”

She sent him an incredulous look. “If you won’t call the police, then I will.”

She moved away from him and did just that. Gene stayed right by her, one hand on the border collie that was with her, and listened.