Snapshots. Pamela Browning

      Snapshots

      Pamela Browning

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Thanks to Neill for “Joey” and the music, Melanie for

       Low Country lore and Bethany for chai tea latte and the prom (though like my heroine, she was never allowed to stay at the hotel all night, either). I love y’all!

      This book is for Cameron, in happy anticipation of our

       snapshots together in the coming years.

      Contents

      Chapter 1: Rick

      Chapter 2: Rick

      Chapter 3: Trista

      Chapter 4: Trista

      Chapter 5: Trista

      Chapter 6: Rick

      Chapter 7: Trista

      Chapter 8: Trista

      Chapter 9: Trista

      Chapter 10: Rick

      Chapter 11: Trista

      Chapter 12: Rick

      Chapter 13: Trista

      Chapter 14: Rick

      Chapter 15: Trista

      Chapter 16: Trista

      Chapter 17: Rick

      Epilogue: Trista

      Chapter 1: Rick

      2004

      To say that their marriage was in trouble was a classic understatement. Sure, he and Martine had their problems like any other couple. They’d managed, though. In the past they’d congratulated themselves on their strength under pressure, their determination to make the relationship work. But this time was different.

      An unwelcome guest had hitched a ride earlier when he stopped to pick up Martine at work, and it began to whine in the vicinity of Rick’s ear. He swatted at the mosquito, and the hum stopped, then resumed. He slapped at it again, harder this time, and the noise ceased.

      Martine glanced out of the corner of her eye, still defiant but incredibly beautiful. “Bet you wish that was me,” she said. “Bet you’d like to squash me flat.”

      “Stop it, Martine,” he said, keeping his voice even.

      She turned her head away, her pale hair glimmering in the headlights from oncoming cars. “If you insist on going to this stupid party for Shorty, I have to stop by the house to get a wrap,” she said. The early-January breeze blew in on the promise of a cool night, more than welcome in Miami any time of year.

      “Attendance is mandatory,” Rick said. “All the guys are—”

      She cut him off midsentence. “Just don’t talk to me while we’re there, okay?”

      “Fine,” he said curtly. It’s not as though he really had anything to say to Martine, except Why?

      “At least we’re doing something together,” Martine said. “For once you don’t have to work late.” She didn’t even attempt to conceal her resentment.

      Gunning the car’s engine as he rounded the corner onto their peaceful palm-lined street, Rick spotted the white Impala immediately. It stood out in this manicured Kendall neighborhood; one rear window was broken out, and a spreading rust stain marred the trunk. At any other time, he might have paid more attention.

      “I’ll be right back,” Martine said, reaching for the door handle.

      “It’s a surprise party,” Rick reminded her. “We don’t want to be late.”

      As she slammed the car door, Martine cast a scathing glance back over her shoulder. Under normal circumstances, Rick would have accompanied her, maybe changed out of his jacket, shirt and tie into more comfortable clothes, but he needed time to recoup. She disappeared into the house, a typical south Florida ranch with a red barrel-tile roof.

      Rick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Ten years of marriage. Ten wasted years, and how long since he’d realized he’d made a terrible mistake? Seven years? Five? He’d wanted kids; Martine hadn’t. His paralyzing discovery of those love notes in Martine’s bottom dresser drawer, which he had opened innocently enough last night, had made so many things clear. All the nights she’d said she had to work late, the Saturday-afternoon shopping trips when she returned with no purchases, the cell-phone bills he never saw, not to mention the general air of secretiveness that he hadn’t recognized for what it was. And all he’d had in mind when he opened that drawer was to check her bra size so he could buy her a sexy birthday present for the purpose of inspiring their almost nonexistent sex life.

      He felt a sting on his left ear—that damn mosquito again. He opened the car window, figuring that maybe the insect would do them both a favor and escape into the night. While the window was down, he spared the derelict white car at the curb a cursory assessment. A car parked there was by no means unusual, since the teenage girl next door often entertained boyfriends who left their vehicles at the edge of Rick’s property. Out of habit, Rick attempted to pick out the numbers on the license tag, but it was hidden in shadows from the surrounding shrubbery.

      He punched the button to bring the window all the way up and massaged his eyelids for a long moment. It had been a quiet day in Homicide, affording him time to catch up on paperwork and mull over the situation with Martine. He’d never dreamed she was capable of betrayal. They’d been childhood friends, college buddies. Which proved that you really never knew another person, no matter how close the relationship.

      Minutes ticked past, punctuated by the shrilling of crickets. What was taking Martine so long? Rick checked his watch. It had been half an hour since he’d picked her up at the law office where she worked, twenty hours since he’d read the incriminating letters. Last night she’d cried, he’d accused, she’d admitted everything. No, that wasn’t quite true. Not everything—at least, according to a terrible suspicion that he’d never voiced and never would.

      He sure as hell wouldn’t be going to a party for his boss tonight if Shorty hadn’t encouraged him and promised a promotion to chief detective before long. All Rick wanted, really, was to lick his wounds in private. To hunker down somewhere far from here and figure out whether he was capable of living without Martine. Or maybe he should be considering whether he could still live with her. Tappany Island, yeah, that was the place. Tomorrow he’d ask for a week off, depart on a road trip to South Carolina and just hang for a while.

      The front door of their house swung open abruptly. Rick, expecting Martine to hurry out, waited impatiently for her to emerge into the yellow glare of the bug bulb in the porch light. Then, in the shadows inside the house, he saw the stocky dark-clad figure pressing a knife to Martine’s throat, muscular arms gripping her in an awkward embrace. Instinctively, Rick reached for his weapon, a .38 semiautomatic tucked away in the shoulder holster under his jacket. He leaped from the car.

      At this point, the action sped into fast-forward. Martine let out a small involuntary squeak at Rick’s sudden movement. Lightning quick, the knife slit a shallow cut across the creamy skin at the base of her throat. Beads of blood appeared, dark red and out of place as they slid toward the scoop neckline of Martine’s pale green dress.

      “Stay away,” warned her captor in an agitated voice, his accent guttural and Hispanic. “Unless you want your wife to become fish food at the bottom of a canal.” The man seemed electric, wired, jittery, like an out-of-control marionette.

      Rick recoiled, held himself back when all he wanted to do was to rush the man and blow his head off. Martine, who must have known his inclination, sent him a look of such dire pleading that it rocked him back