Love By Association. Tara Taylor Quinn

how much it would cost the police department to hire a ghostwriter on short notice. One thing was for sure, her limited undercover budget wasn’t going to cover it.

      Her mother’s brother’s wife, whose family, the Johnsons, were in publishing in New York, had a small nonfiction publishing company. Her aunt and uncle had been at her high school graduation, and Chantel hadn’t seen them since.

      That contact probably wasn’t going to be much help...here.

      A couple passed behind Colin. He shifted, placing a hand at her back as he stepped closer. He left the hand there.

      “You’ll get a look at the lead parts, then,” Leslie said. The slightly sly grin she gave Colin made it obvious she was working him. “Seriously, I think you two would be perfect for them.”

      “I’m not an actor.” Colin’s reminder was firm, but kind.

      It would have stopped Chantel.

      “Of course you are, my dear,” Leslie said. “We all are. It’s the only way to survive living among us all!” She chuckled.

      And Chantel was chilled by the tragic truth she was certain she heard underneath the woman’s polish.

      “I’m not sure I understand why you think Colin and I would be perfect for the parts,” Chantel said, an investigator, a high-society beauty and a writer all wrapped into one. While playing a part in the library’s mystery-event evening could very well provide her with access to Leslie as well as giving her the excuse she needed to stick close to Colin, to use him as her cover as she attended functions over the next weeks, she didn’t want him to have reason to avoid her.

      Which he very well could if he didn’t want to play the part.

      She also didn’t want to appear too eager. Was she adopting enough of the blasé attitude she’d observed on so many of the videos of the rich and famous she’d watched over the past week?

      His hand caressed her back. Whatever she was doing, she had to keep doing it. She seemed to have piqued his interest.

      “The story is based on a couple who are newly married and just moving into the mansion. They’ve inherited it and a couple of staff from his uncle. The day they move in, a couple of his uncle’s close friends stop by. They continue to check in. The couple has only been there a few of days when they discover a dead body that’s been dragged behind a hidden door in the upstairs hall. The two staff members, and everyone else who’d dropped by, are suspects.”

      “But neither member of the lead couple is?”

      “No.” Leslie shook her head. “You see, that’s why you and Colin fit the parts so well...” She had a little smile on her face, her eyes alight. And no matter her age, she was really quite beautiful.

      “Leslie.” The one word was softly spoken, coming from just behind Leslie. A man had approached.

      Chantel watched as Leslie’s face became instantly devoid of emotion and a split second later was smiling again. “James.” Leslie turned, taking the man’s hand and pulling him forward.

      “James, good to see you.” Colin reached to shake the other man’s hand. She didn’t detect even a hint of stiffening in the other man’s presence.

      Did he have any idea what James Morrison did to his wife behind closed doors?

      God forbid, could Colin be part of the good-old-boy mentality that would cover up any hint of abuse with justification of one kind or another?

      Or was the High Risk team wrong in their assessment of the situation?

      “You’re monopolizing Colin’s time, my love,” James said to his wife, a tender look on his face as he wrapped his arm around her lower back. “The auction is about to start.”

      Chantel zeroed in on the hand James had on his wife’s hip. She was pretty sure, in spite of the room’s elegantly soft lighting, that those fingertips had whitened with the application of pressure.

      “No, I’m monopolizing her,” Colin quickly asserted. He glanced at his watch. “We’re making plans for the library. We’ve got another fifteen minutes or so before things get going. I promise to release her to you before then.”

      His easy tone matched his expression. James hesitated, but only for a second, before kissing his wife’s cheek and telling her he’d meet her at their table.

      “As I was saying...” Leslie was still with them, but the glow had gone from her eyes. “You and Colin just met—like the couple in our mystery just married. Embarking on the new, so to speak.”

      Colin lifted a hand to cover his mouth as he half coughed. “I don’t know...”

      “It’s perfect because Colin is in charge of all the legal, technical aspects of the evening, and you’ll be our creative administrator. You’ll both need to be there, owners of the mansion for the evening.”

      Leslie smiled, and Chantel was fairly certain she saw a note of uncertainty on the other woman’s face now. Maybe she was imagining it all—James’s too-forceful squeezing of his wife’s hip, her loss of positive energy.

      And maybe she wasn’t.

      Maybe the woman’s husband had just sucked the life out of her with his reminder of the harsh realities in her life.

      “I’d be happy to play the lead female role,” she burst out. And then glanced at Colin. In time to see his look of surprise.

      An expression he quickly cloaked, leaving her with the brief thought to challenge him to a game of poker sometime.

      “Then I accept, as well,” he told Leslie. “I can’t leave this lovely lady stranded without a hero in her first Santa Raquel story.”

      His words reminded Chantel that she was going to be expected to write that story, or at least appear as though she’d done so.

      She’d feel more confident bursting into a bar, gun drawn, to break up a brawl. At least it was something she’d done before.

      Accepting Colin’s invitation to loop her arm through his and accompany him to the rows of seats up front to watch the auction, she promised herself a bowl of chocolate ice cream for breakfast.

      Whatever it took to keep the panic at bay.

CHAPTER FIVE

      “YOU’RE GRINNING.”

      “What?” A piece of whole wheat toast halfway to his mouth, Colin looked up from his tablet—he read the news every morning over breakfast—and focused on his sister.

      “You’re grinning,” she said again. Dressed in light-colored pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, with her long dark hair curling over her shoulders, Julie looked about sixteen. Spoon suspended above her grapefruit, she was watching him.

      They took breakfast together every day in the small room with a wall of windows that overlooked the ocean.

      “What’s funny?” she asked now. In another half hour, she’d be leaving the dishes in the sink for their housekeeper and going up to shower. She had at least two meetings that he knew of that day—one in Los Angeles with executives from the Sunshine Children’s League. She was hoping to get funds for the Santa Raquel hospital to hire a child-life specialist to work exclusively with patients without family visitors.

      “Nothing’s funny. I didn’t realize I was smiling.”

      “You were staring at your tablet but haven’t scrolled in at least five minutes.”

      She was exaggerating.

      “I met the most marvelous woman last night.”

      “Oh?” Leaning toward him, she said, “Do tell.”

      “You can see for yourself,” he said over his