Midnight Exposure Read online

  ALSO BY MELINDA LEIGH

  SHE CAN RUN

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

  Text copyright ©2012 by Melinda Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612184753

  ISBN-10: 1612184758

  This book is dedicated to my family.

  To my husband and kids, for believing I could be a success long before I did; my mom, for wallpapering the state of New Jersey in bookmarks; my dad, for buying copies of my book for everyone he knows; my grandmother, for teaching me early in life that a good story begins with murder; and my grandfather, for encouraging the local librarians to stock my books.

  Your support means more to me than I can possibly express.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  October 31

  “Dude, I swear I’ll get us out of this.”

  “It’s OK.” John bit back the whine hovering on the tip of his tongue. Camping sucked. And being lost for two days in the middle of the Maine woods sucked even more. He sniffed. Frozen air stung his nostrils. Wood smoke cut through the heavy scent of pine. “I smell smoke.”

  “Yeah, me too. Cool.” In front of him, his roommate, Zack, hefted his pack higher on his narrow shoulders. “Going in the right direction then.”

  “I guess.” Doubt laced John’s voice. A scant half inch of snow dusted the game trail like powdered sugar. How had his roomie talked him into spending their fall break camping? “Long as it’s not a forest fire.”

  “Not this time of year.” Zack shook his head. “Gotta be a campsite close by.”

  John’s gaze swept the shadowed, desolate forest surrounding them. Bare tree limbs pointed to the overcast sky like skeletal fingers. “That’s what you said an hour ago. You sure you don’t want to stop here?”

  Zack stopped and turned around. “Tell you what, city boy. If we don’t run into campers in the next half hour, we’ll pitch our tent and start a fire.”

  “Man, it ain’t the cold that bothers me. Chicago isn’t exactly the tropics. It’s just so freakin’ quiet.” And dark. No streetlights, no headlights, no neon signs. John pulled his fleece hat lower over his ears and stamped his feet. Inside his boots, his toes stung.

  Zack sucked in an audible breath and blew out a puff of steam. “It’s peaceful.”

  “Creepy,” John corrected and sent a silent prayer skyward that his transfer application to the Art Institute of Chicago had been accepted. “Dude, I don’t blame you for losing the trail. Everything looks the same out here. But you’re crazy if you think this is fun.” John’s parents had thought he’d be safer attending college out here. Not. Didn’t they know Stephen King was from Maine?

  The trail curved around an outcropping of boulders. An erratic, pulsing glow shimmered ahead as faint murmurs carried over the crackling of fire. Hope flared warm in John’s chest. “Do you hear that? It’s people!”

  “I told you everything’d be OK.” Zack slapped John’s shoulder as he hurried forward. Ice and dead pine needles cracked underfoot. “Hello?”

  Instead of the expected greeting, the voices ceased, cut off suddenly like somebody’d pressed the Pause button. A shudder started at the base of John’s spine and quivered up to his nape. He stopped.

  Zack moved ahead. “What the fuck?” His voice dropped to a puzzled whisper as he stepped through a patch of underbrush.

  John pushed aside an evergreen bough. “What?”

  The tree limb snapped back and John ducked under it. Straightening, he faced a clearing the size of a half basketball court. A circle of upright wooden posts, thick as telephone poles and tall as men, ringed the space. Five shorter poles formed a half-moon in the middle. In the center of their arc, next to a large flat-topped stone, tall flames rose from a shallow pit. The tingle on the back of his neck surged into an electric charge. The wilderness might be foreign to him, but John recognized creepy shit when he saw it, and this whole place had a disturbing woo-woo feel.

  John scanned the clearing. Where are the people? He’d heard voices. He knew it. Heat from the fire reached out to his frozen fingers, tempting him to step closer.

  But he didn’t.

  “Hello?” Zack called out again before John could stop him.

  “Shhh.” John’s harsh whisper echoed. “Something’s not right.”

  This place was giving off nasty vibes. Zack was the expert on trees and animals and crap, but the street smarts that had saved John’s ass from those gangbangers last spring wanted him to beat feet.

  John’s gaze dropped to the ground. Just inside the ring of posts, a dark line cut through the thin glaze of frost, as if someone had poured liquid in a giant circle, marking it for something.

  John reached for Zack’s arm to pull him back into the trees, but Zack was already moving forward.

  Into the circle.

  “What are you doing here?” A man stepped out from behind one of the posts. Silhouetted, with the fire to his back, he was featureless.

  John’s arm dropped to his side. Firelight gleamed off a dark hooded robe that draped the stranger’s frame and pooled on the ground around his feet. John’s weirdo-meter went ape shit.

  “We’re lost.” The enthusiasm drained from Zack’s voice.

  The man took three steps. The expansive hood obscured his face like the Emperor’s from Star Wars. He was close enough to touch Zack now. “You crossed the line.”

  John knew he should step forward with his friend, but his legs wouldn’t budge. His feet refused to cross into the circle. There was something critical about that line. John could sense it.

  The robed man shifted. A blade flashed silver in the moonlight, flicked at the white skin of Zack’s neck. A gurgling gasp issued from his lips. Shock choked John like a hand clamped around his neck. His friend’s body crumpled to the frozen earth. Zack’s head hit last, bouncing twice on the frozen ground. One final breath clouded the night air as dark liquid gushed from the wound onto the frost in a wet streak, like the first brushstroke on a blank, white canvas.

  Steam rose from the pooling blood in a lazy swirl. Staring, numb with nightmarish disbelief, John’s empty stomach turned. He blinked and ripped his gaze from his dead friend to the shadowed figure. The man’s head swiveled toward him. One hand clenched the knife by his thigh. A thi
ck drop of Zack’s blood dripped from the point and stained the snow next to the man’s boot.

  Horror paralyzed John’s brain, but primitive instinct guided his feet. He turned away from the warmth of the fire, away from the man he’d thought was going to save them, and fled toward the darkness of the surrounding forest in a dead and panicked run. The rubber treads on his boots slipped on the slick ground. He crashed through a curtain of pine boughs. His gaze darted ahead. Which way? He paused and listened, disoriented by the monotony of the landscape. Footsteps rustled through the underbrush behind him, unhurried, as if his pursuer had no reason to rush.

  John stumbled away from the sound. His legs pumped awkwardly, like pistons in need of lubrication. Branches whipped his face. Pine needles sliced his frostbitten cheeks like razors. He ducked behind the wide trunk of a towering tree and clamped a shaking hand over his mouth to quiet his breaths. His panting echoed over the rush of blood in his ears, the sound of futility.

  The man was going to hear him.

  He was going to find him.

  He was going to hunt him down and kill him as if he were a well-fleshed buck.

  Branches creaked over his head as the wind blew powder from the tree’s limbs. The crisp night air closed in on him, caressed his sweat-coated skin. A hollow at the tree’s base tempted him to curl up and hide like an exhausted rabbit.

  Like prey.

  A twig snapped to his left. He pushed away from the tree trunk and staggered forward—into a solid, robed chest. John bounced backward and lost his footing. A hand snagged the front of his coat, righting him, hauling him closer, up onto his toes. John’s heart plummeted as he raised his gaze. Icy blue eyes stared back at him from the narrow slit of a black balaclava.

  A huge fist slammed into John’s temple. Pain exploded behind his eyes. His senses faded.

  That’s it, then. At least it can’t get any worse than this.

  But as blackness closed in on him, his last thought was that he could be wrong.

  CHAPTER TWO

  December 16

  “You have arrived at your destination,” the smooth, feminine voice of the GPS announced.

  Jayne eased off the gas and squinted through her windshield at a whole lot of nothing. She glanced down at the palm-sized screen Velcro’d to her dashboard. Number twenty-seven, Route Six was supposed to be right in front of her. But on both sides of the two-lane road, a thin veneer of snow glazed an endless forest. No driveway. No mailbox. No sign of civilization.

  Now what? The pale dusk of an overcast sky bleached the landscape, as stark and lonely as an Ansel Adams black-and-white. As much as Jayne appreciated the aesthetic beauty of the wilderness around her, she did not want to still be appreciating it in the dark, especially with her gas gauge nosing into the red.

  Wait. What was that?

  She guided the Jeep onto the shoulder in front of a narrow opening in the woods. Cleverly tucked behind a stand of pines, a black wrought-iron gate blocked the entrance. In the center of some simple scrollwork, right under the Private sign, was the number 27 in gold script. A narrow lane curved away from the gate. Beyond the bend, the corner of a house peered through the winter-bare branches. Cedar and glass. Modernish.

  Odd house for an eccentric wood-carving hermit. She’d expected some sort of log cabin. Maybe a fenced compound complete with razor wire.

  She drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel. Decisions, decisions.

  To the left of the drive sat a stone pillar with a brass call button. Her first option was to ring it and pretend to be lost. Hope to get invited up to the house. Option number two: She could play it safe and head back to the nearby small town, where she had a reservation at a bed-and-breakfast. She could check in and grab dinner. Polite inquiries could be made. Someone was bound to know R. S. Morgan, if he truly lived here. But would the locals blab about one of their own? Probably not.

  Number one was her best chance of getting the shot she needed, but that plan required her to lie. Tabloid photographers—and she’d better get used to the label—didn’t get warm and fuzzy welcomes from the subjects they stalked. R. S. Morgan could have rottweilers or a shotgun handy. Number two was the most sensible choice. But safe didn’t pay the bills. Jason, her creep of an editor, had given her one week to get the first-ever pictures of the reclusive sculptor. Juicy details warranted a bonus corresponding to the degree of juiciness. One week. Then Jason was sending another photographer. Her younger brother’s medical care hadn’t come cheap. Her family needed that money. Big-time.

  She zipped up her jacket, palmed her smallest camera, and slipped out of the Jeep, shuddering at a blast of arctic wind on the exposed skin of her face. Quiet settled over her like a shroud. Under it, the protestations of her conscience were loud and clear.

  You have sunk to a new low.

  Ice crunched beneath her furry boots as she approached the gate. All she had to do was snap one picture of an old wood-carver and be on her way. No biggie, right?

  She patted her pockets for gloves but came up empty. Her naked and freezing finger depressed the call button. Nothing. She tried again, but the speaker remained stubbornly silent. Which opened up option number three: sneak up to the house for a look-see.

  Except for the iron barrier, the property wasn’t fenced. There was plenty of room to slip around the gate post. But she’d never violated anyone’s privacy like this. She’d never admit this to her editor, but those other celebrity pics she’d sold him were freak occurrences, taken while she was shooting pictures of Philadelphia for a travel brochure the same month a major motion picture was being filmed in the Old City section. One actress had literally fallen at Jayne’s feet—and hurled on her shoes. There was a big difference between snapping some drunken Hollywood tartlet’s picture outside a club and spying on someone’s home.

  Didn’t matter that Danny’s hospital bills were dragging her family under. Didn’t matter that Jayne and her three brothers were going to lose the family tavern because of said bills. Didn’t even matter that this artist’s privacy was going to be violated whether it was Jayne or another photographer who snapped the pictures. Her feet wouldn’t budge. This was not gonna happen.

  Danny was getting better. That’s what really mattered. He was adjusting to the limited use of his hand, and his posttraumatic stress was improving. The whole robbing-Pete-to-pay-off-Paulie thing wasn’t exactly a new experience for her family. They’d always squeaked by in the past. But this time, Jayne wanted to be instrumental in getting her family out of a jam. Her brothers had been dragging her deadwood around for long enough.

  She slipped the camera into her pocket. New plan. She’d go to town and attempt to contact the elusive sculptor legitimately. She’d explain that his anonymity was compromised and try to talk him into a picture taken on his terms. Morals were such a pain in the butt.

  “Can I help you?”

  Jayne spun around at the deep voice behind her. She splayed a hand over her thumping heart. A tall, lean man was climbing out of a giant red SUV. Jayne had been so engrossed in her personal debate she hadn’t even heard it approach.

  Her mental head smack was cut short as he stepped into full view. Power radiated from a broad, parka-encased chest and long, jeans-clad legs. The winter tan and muscular throat told her he spent time out of doors, even in this climate. Jayne’s gaze slid higher, over a strong-boned face and shadowed, square jaw that begged her to snap his profile in black-and-white. Military-short, dark brown hair topped green eyes as clear as polished emeralds.

  Oh. My. If this was R. S. Morgan, she would have to change her opinion on eccentric artists.

  “I’m sorry. I’m blocking your driveway. I’m lost.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. “My cell won’t work and I’m really low on gas.” She shushed her conscience. Those other things were true. “I’m on my way to the Black Bear Inn in Huntsville.”

  “You missed the turnoff for County Line Road. It’s about ten miles back.” A Southern accent laced his voice, smooth
as warm caramel.

  “Oh.”

  He stepped closer. Despite her five feet ten inches, Jayne looked up at him. Nice.

  “It’s another ten miles into town from the turn,” he said. “Will your Jeep make it that far?”

  It would, but just driving off wouldn’t give her any more information. “I’m not sure.” Sheesh. The next time she went to confession, she was going to be saying Hail Marys for a week straight.

  “I’ll get you a gallon of gas.” No offer to accompany him to the house. Drat. And he was being awfully, inconveniently nice. Her job would be a lot easier if he were as rude as the puking diva.

  “Thanks so much.” She offered her hand and a grateful smile. “I’m Jayne Sullivan.”

  He hesitated, staring down at her extended hand for a few seconds before accepting. His long, elegant fingers were marred by numerous small scars, and his callused grasp was burning hot as it engulfed Jayne’s frozen fingers. She felt like something inside her was softening, slowly melting like an M&M on her tongue.

  “I’m Reed Kimball. If you’ll just move your Jeep, I’ll get that gas.” He tugged his hand free, and Jayne realized how hard she’d been holding it.

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Face hot, Jayne hurried back to her vehicle and pulled forward. The gate opened and Reed Kimball drove through. A few minutes later, the truck reappeared. He tilted the nozzle of a fuel can into her Jeep without a word.

  Jayne bounced on her toes, forcing blood into her frozen feet. “Nice piece of property.”

  “Mm.” He made a vague sound of agreement and focused on the gas can.

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “A while.”

  “You don’t sound like a Maine native.” Jayne pressed on. “Where are you from originally?”

  He removed the can and screwed on the fuel cap. “There you go. That should get you to town.”

  A sudden gust of wind ripped through the pines at her back. Needles trembled. His polite dismissal made her suddenly aware of her remote surroundings and of the size of the quiet man standing so close to her. Despite all her self-defense training, he looked like he could overpower her in seconds. She didn’t get a threatening vibe from him, but their isolation felt acute. As did her vulnerability.