In Seconds. Brenda Novak

that her stepfather had been murdered, or that her brother had served fourteen years in prison before being exonerated. They had no idea of the problems that had started upon his release, either. Because all of that had happened to Laurel Hodges, not Vivian Stewart.

      “If there’s a serial killer running around, the danger is far from over,” Claire said, but Vivian wasn’t so sure this perpetrator had killed just for the thrill of it. If the violent gang her brother had joined while he was in prison had caught up with her yet again, it could be that Pat had merely gotten in the way. Like that U.S. marshal in one of the places she’d been before. The Crew had slit his throat and left him bleeding out on the floor. They would’ve killed her, too, if not for—

      She couldn’t even think of what had almost happened, because it involved her children. The men who belonged to The Crew were ruthless. They’d proven that, hadn’t they? They’d also proven that they could get hold of whatever information they wanted. Vivian was convinced that someone in the very agency charged with their protection had been talking. That was the only way The Crew could’ve found them before, when they were all living in D.C. So they’d left the witness protection program, assumed new identities yet again and separated. Other than Virgil, his wife, Peyton, and Rex, who lived in Buffalo, New York, no one knew where she was, not even their handler from WitSec who’d helped them relocate the first time. After all that, what more could she possibly do to keep her small family safe?

      Should she have changed her children’s names, too? Because children were so difficult to trace—they didn’t sign up for credit cards or get jobs or do any of the other things that left a trail—she’d opted to keep their first names. They had a different last name, though, which they understood was because of her divorce. Her new first name, she’d told them, was because she liked it better. Even that had taken them a while to get used to.

      “We need to look out for each other, report any strangers we see,” Claire said.

      “But it’s tourist season,” George responded. “There’re always strangers this time of year, most of ’em young guys who’ve come to hunt or fish or canoe. And you know how rough some of ’em can look, with all their tattoos and body piercings.”

      “Then we’ll have to keep an eye on all of them.” Claire glanced at Vivian, anticipating her full agreement, and did a double take. “Oh, my God! We’ve got to get you rinsed!”

      She’d changed her hair. Drastically. Myles King noticed that right off. For one thing, she was now blonde. That suited her, but he didn’t know if he liked the cut; he couldn’t see Vivian clearly enough to tell. His neighbor waited just outside the dim yellow glow of his porch light as if she feared he might press her to come inside if she moved any closer. She always approached him as warily as she might a bear or some other dangerous animal.

      Why was she so skittish?

      He might’ve guessed that he intimidated her. Police officers got that reaction sometimes. It came with the uniform. But at six foot two, he was only four inches taller. And maybe she was slender, but she was fit. She didn’t seem like the type to feel easily threatened.

      Besides, he’d been so nice to her! He rolled her garbage can to the curb if she forgot to set it out, mowed her lawn when he mowed his, bought enough fresh strawberries to share (he’d once overheard her telling her son that she loved fresh strawberries). He couched it all as an attempt to be neighborly, and it was—being neighborly to the beautiful brunette, who was no longer a brunette, next door. But nothing he did seemed to break down her defenses. Her kids were always excited to see him, but other than those strawberries or something as small as that, she politely declined every gift or invitation.

      His instincts told him he was better off not getting involved with her. But he could sense the chemistry between them, and that was what confused him. He’d never forget the time he was working in the yard without a shirt and caught her watching him from where she was weeding her garden. It was as if a lightning bolt had gone through them both, incinerating them on the spot.

      He knew desire when he saw it; she was as attracted to him as he was to her. So why wouldn’t she let him take her to dinner?

      “Can I help you?” Determined not to try any harder than he already had, Myles kept one hand on the door. It’d been a hell of a day. The last thing he needed was to top it off with another dose of sexual frustration.

      “Um, yes…maybe you can.” She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid my fridge has gone out.”

      The images of blood and death he’d seen earlier still filled his head, making it difficult to immediately comprehend her words. He’d returned from the scene of Pat Stueben’s murder more than an hour ago, but he’d carried the grisly sight home with him. The fact that anyone would beat a good man, a friend to everyone, in Myles’s own backyard, so to speak, made him so angry he couldn’t think of anything else. “Did you say your fridge?” he clarified.

      “Yes.”

      He felt his eyebrows go up. “Okay…”

      “It went on the blink a couple of hours ago and… Claire told me you’re a better handyman than Byron Jacobs.” She flashed him a quick smile. “She said he had to call you when he couldn’t fix her stove last month.”

      She was here for a favor? She never darkened his door, except to drag her son away. Jake slipped over whenever he could. The kid liked to follow him around, even help with the yard work, so Myles had been training him to use the weeder, the edger and the pruning shears.

      But he wasn’t in the business of fixing other people’s broken appliances. He’d done Claire a favor. He wouldn’t mind lending Vivian a hand, too, but it’d taken him three days to screw up the nerve to ask her if she’d go out on the lake with him two weeks ago. And her response? She had to clean her house—an excuse that was almost as bad as telling him she had to wash her hair.

      He opened his mouth to turn her away. He was about to say the food would last until Byron could get to it in the morning. But he couldn’t make himself go through with it, which just proved how obsessed with her he’d become. His wife had died of cancer only three years ago—but thirty-six months of celibacy felt a lot longer to his body than his heart. Not only that, this was the first time Vivian had invited him inside her home. From what he could tell, she didn’t ask anyone in. Except maybe Claire and Vera Soblasky, who occasionally watched Jake and Mia for her.

      Curious to see how she lived, he heard himself accept. “Sure. I can come over right now, if you want.”

      “Marley won’t mind?” she asked.

      His daughter had a friend over; they were watching a movie upstairs on the big screen in his room. They wouldn’t miss him if he stepped out for a few minutes. “No. She’ll be fine.”

      Vivian’s face lit up. “Great. Thank you so much.”

      When that rare smile shot like an arrow to his groin, Myles cursed the testosterone that made him so…male. He had single women coming on to him all the time, but he wasn’t interested in them. Instead, he wanted this complicated neighbor who’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t welcome him even as a friend.

      But tonight she needed help. And he was planning to make sure she got it. Apparently even the gruesome murder of an upstanding Pineview citizen couldn’t lessen her impact on him. “I’ll grab my toolbox and come over.”

      2

      Vivian sat at the kitchen table while the sheriff unplugged her fridge and tore apart the motor. She hadn’t been sure he’d agree to help, but now that he had, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to tell she’d sabotaged it herself. She also hoped the job would take long enough to strike up more than a superficial conversation with him. It hadn’t required much effort to cripple her fridge. She’d yanked out a few wires and was afraid he’d simply reconnect them before she could learn anything about Pat Stueben’s murder, see if he had any idea who might be responsible.

      “Kids in bed already?”