Bait

Table of Contents

 

 

“Veteran romance/crime bestseller Robards delivers another hold-your-breath drama, this time starring FBI agent Sam McCabe and advertising executive Maddie Fitzgerald. Her pacing is excellent, and regular infusions of humor keep the story bouncing along between trysts and attacks. This one is sure to please fans.”—
Publishers Weekly

 

 

“Robards returns once again with a pulse-pounding novel. Nonstop suspense amidst sensual romance heats up the pages of this captivating novel. Top rate suspenseful action and sizzling romance form the backbone of this spectacular read, one of Robards's all-time best.”—The Best Reviews

 

 

“Fans of police procedural romances will enjoy the action-packed thriller that does not slow down until the final confrontation ties up all loose ends.... Readers will enjoy this solid suspense story.”—
Midwest Book Review

 

 

“A top-notch thriller filled with humorous characters and diverting subplots that leave the reader engrossed until the very end, this is another coup for Robards.”—
Booklist

 

 

“Maddie and Sam are two extremely likable and compelling characters, which makes this a love affair worth rooting for.”

—
Romantic Times

Also by Karen Robards

BEACHCOMBER
WHISPERS AT MIDNIGHT
IRRESISTIBLE
TO TRUST A STRANGER
PARADISE COUNTY
SCANDALOUS
GHOST MOON
THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
THE SENATOR'S WIFE
HEARTBREAKER
HUNTER'S MOON
WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT
MAGGY'S CHILD
ONE SUMMER
THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN
DARK OF THE MOON

SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
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Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin
Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a G. P. Putnam's Sons edition.

First Signet Printing, June 2005

Copyright © Karen Robards, 2004 Excerpt from
Superstition
copyright © Karen Robards, 2005

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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eISBN : 978-1-101-49544-5

PETER, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU.

HAPPY 21ST, DARLING.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank my husband, Doug, my sons Peter, Christopher, and Jack, and Peggy Kennady, all of whom helped with research, contributed ideas, insights, and comments, and generally told me when I was writing myself into a corner.

 

I'd also like to thank the people who made this book possible: my brilliant agent, Robert Gottlieb, my wonderful editor, Christine Pepe, and her noble assistant, Lily Chin; and Carole Baron, who is awesome as always.

ONE

Thursday, August 7

 

 

It was a professional job, Sam McCabe saw at a glance. The bare minimum of fuss and muss. A couple sprawled on the floor of their cathedral-ceilinged great room, hands bound behind their backs, blood from the bullet wounds in their heads soaking into the already deep red of their Oriental carpet.

“I see dead people,” E. P. Wynne muttered behind him. The words were slightly slurred by the enormous wad of bubble gum the big guy was chewing in an effort to quit smoking. Sam shot him a quelling glance. Granted, they were so tired they were more or less punch-drunk, but humor in the face of multiple homicides was never a good idea.

“Who the hell are you?” A brown-uniformed local yokel separated himself from the pack at the corner of the room and came toward them, bristling. Considering that Sam was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and sporting a three-day growth of beard, while Wynne's two-hundred-fifty-pound girth was decked out in baggy shorts and a stained Hawaiian shirt, the man's attitude was understandable. But this was the culmination of another in a series of really lousy weeks. Sam was not in the mood for attitude, especially from a skinny kid who might or might not be just out of his teens.

“FBI,” Sam growled, not even slowing down. Wynne, ever obliging, flashed his ID as they brushed past the kid like he wasn't even there.

“Nobody called the feds,” the yokel protested to their backs, then, less certain, called over his shoulder, “Did anybody call the feds?”

“Hell, no.” Another brown-uniformed local, a burly, surly-looking fifty-something with a bald head as shiny as a Christmas ornament, entered through an arched opening at the opposite end of the room in time to hear the plaintive question and headed toward them. “I'm Sheriff Burt Eigel. And sure as shit, nobody around here called anybody, feds or otherwise.”

“Sam McCabe. E. P. Wynne,” Sam said, jerking a thumb at Wynne as he introduced him.

“FBI,” Wynne added helpfully, doing his badge-waving thing again.

Sam stopped beside the female victim and looked down at the bodies. Multiple strips of duct tape covered each victim's mouth. Thin, white cord secured their wrists. The fingers had purpled, indicating that the cords had been tied tightly enough to impede circulation—and to hurt. “Wendell Perkins and his wife, Tammy Sue, right?”

Eigel frowned. “How the hell did y'all know that?”

“Let's just say a little bird told me.” Sam squatted and pressed his fingers to the carpet. It was made of fine wool, expensive, just like the furniture in the enormous great room was expensive, the newly built McMansion was expensive, and the gated Mobile, Alabama, retirement community was expensive. The blood soaking the soft, smooth fibers still retained a degree of warmth. This time he'd been close—so damned close. Twenty minutes earlier and Perkins and the missus would have been offering him a cup of coffee—or trying to sneak out their back door, depending on why they'd been hit.

Damn it to hell and back anyway.

“Who called this in?” Sam asked, still studying the bodies as he stood up and wiped his fingers on his already ripe jeans. It was not quite eleven-thirty p.m. Blonde, bird-boned Tammy Sue was dressed for bed in a pair of navy cotton pajamas and had a single white terry slipper on her left foot. Perkins, who appeared to be at least two decades her senior, was a beefy, big-bellied guy with a furry back and chicken legs. He was wearing nothing but boxers, which he had pissed. The pungent ammonia smell all but overrode the meat-locker aroma of fresh blood.

As Sam had noted on multiple previous occasions, there was no dignity in death.

“There's an alarm. Somebody here hit the panic button. We had a man on the scene nine minutes after the call came in. They were dead when we got here.” Eigel paused and glared at Sam, who was glancing around without any real hope for shell casings. There were none immediately visible, and he'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that none would be found. “Why the fuck should I be telling you this?”

There was that attitude thing again. Sam still wasn't in the mood. “ 'Cause you like me?”

Eigel's florid face turned apoplectic. Ignoring him, Sam moved around the bodies, studying them from different angles. From the look of it, Perkins had died first. His wife's death had come moments later, most likely a by-product of the hit on her husband. A glance around the room revealed several possible points of entry for the killer: the front door, which opened into the slate-floored hall that Sam and Wynne had just crossed, and which provided access to the great room through a wide, arched opening; the smaller arched door leading into the kitchen through which the sheriff had entered; or the sliding patio door on the south wall. He calculated the steps from each to the black leather couch where, from the evidence—remote control and a bowl of melted ice cream on the coffee table in front of it; the mate to Tammy Sue's white terry slipper on the carpet between the couch and table; several sections of the newspaper scattered about—Tammy Sue had been sitting when the killer surprised her.