Paula Graves: Forbidden Temptation

“Glad to hear it.” Daniel sat in the chair she indicated. “I’m here in town doing some research on a cold case, and that’s when I had the idea for a new book. I’m between publishers, and the idea I have is ideally suited to a boutique publishing house like this one, so I thought I’d give you my pitch to see what you think.”

Melissa’s blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I can’t imagine a larger publisher wouldn’t jump at the chance to publish any book you chose to write.”

“Maybe, but I’ve heard good things about Bannerman.”

Her smile almost made it to her eyes. “What’s your idea?”

“Cases in the South that have never been solved.”

A flicker of pain darted across her face. “Intriguing.”

Daniel leaned forward. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I came at a bad time.”

Her expression started to crumble. Tears glistened in her eyes. She caught herself before she broke into tears, but her lower lip quivered as she replied, “No, of course not.”

“I can tell you’re upset. Can I get you a glass of water?”

His kindness seemed to do her in. The tears spilled over, streaking her cheeks. “I lost a friend on Friday and I just got off the phone with her parents.”

“Sorry to hear it. Was it sudden?”

Grief lined her pretty face. “She was murdered.”

As Daniel gently led her to tell him more details about the night of Alice’s murder, the story spilled from her in a rush of sadness and rage.

“Alice left the club around ten or so. She said she had an early morning. I’d have gone with her, but Rose was still there.”

“Rose?”

“Rose Browning, my wedding planner.” Melissa fluttered her left hand, showing off a large diamond solitaire. “We ran into her at Sizzle. She was still there when Alice left, so I stayed. Only, then Rose left about a minute after Alice.”

“So Rose might have seen Alice outside?”

Melissa’s brow wrinkled. “You sound like a cop.”

“Occupational hazard. Have you talked to the police yet?”

“Yes. I don’t know much, but maybe it’ll help track her movements that night, right?”

“Has your friend Rose talked to the police?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask her tomorrow at the funeral.”

“Obviously, this isn’t a good time to discuss my idea.” He rose and handed her his card. “In a week or so, give me a call.” Though he’d used the book idea to get in the door, he’d been contemplating it for a while. He’d give Melissa a fair chance to make a good offer. Meanwhile, he needed to talk to Rose Browning, preferably before she talked to the police.

As Melissa walked him to the door, he asked, “Your wedding planner-you don’t happen to have her card, do you?”

“Somewhere around here. Are you in the market?”

“Maybe.” He smiled at her.

“She’s easy to find-she lives in a big brick Colonial Georgian on Mountain Avenue. It’s 601 Mountain Avenue-right on the corner. You can’t miss it.”

He didn’t react outwardly, but his heartbeat quickened. He knew the house she was talking about. And now he knew the name of his mystery woman. All that was left was to figure out what to do with the information.

SERENITY RIDGE CEMETERY stretched across rolling green hills just outside the Birmingham city limits. Granite and marble gravestones lined the hills like soldiers in formation, waiting for their marching orders.

Tina Carter’s grave lay in the far eastern corner of the cemetery, close to the access road. Fall leaves covered the fading grass and the base of the marble headstone. By the gravestone, a small urn of faded silk roses lay overturned.

Daniel set the urn upright, adding the arrangement he’d picked up at Alice Donovan’s flower shop that morning. If Tina’s mother was still alive, the grave would be immaculately tended, he knew. Fresh flowers left daily, the leaves swept from the headstone and the grass cut above Tina’s silent resting place.

But Mary Frances Carter had died earlier that year of a heart attack and, apparently, Frank still couldn’t bring himself to visit his sister’s grave after all these years.

Daniel brushed the leaves away from the grave, something Frank had said thirteen years earlier still vivid in his memory. It had been the day of Tina’s funeral, moments after the final prayer. Frank had been standing next to Daniel, tears trembling in his reddened eyes. “I can’t stand to even walk by her room anymore,” he’d confessed as cemetery workers had lowered the casket into the ground. “Mama’s made it into a shrine.”

Poor Frank. Tina had always been their mother’s favorite, more so after her death. Emotionally, Mary Frances had left her teenage son to his own devices, too wrapped up in grief for the child she’d lost to deal with the child left behind.

A glass-encased photo of Tina hung over the inscription on her tombstone, her pretty smile captured for eternity on a face that would never grow old. Her eyes glowed with life.

Daniel pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and polished the glass. Twenty-one and beautiful forever, he thought.

Only, she hadn’t been beautiful at the end. Her killer had marred that porcelain skin with slashes and gouges with his rage. He’d slit her throat, silencing her soft voice.

Daniel rose, gazing down at the tombstone. Did Orion kill you, too, Tina? Am I finally going to find him this time?

Tina’s grave lay silent, offering no answers.

Daniel turned and walked back toward the funeral home barely visible at the far end of the cemetery grounds. Today, another woman would be laid to rest, her life silenced by the slashes and strokes of a killer’s rage.

And, if Daniel was lucky, Orion would show up to see what sorrow his handiwork had created.

ROSE SMOOTHED the lapel of her dark brown suit and studied her reflection in the Impala’s driver’s side window. She looked sober and nondescript, she noted with satisfaction, her dark hair tucked into a simple knot at the base of her neck and her makeup at a minimum.

She’d come to Alice’s funeral to see, not be seen.

She spotted Melissa Bannerman and her fiancé, Mark Phagan, just inside the foyer of the Serenity Ridge Funeral Home. Melissa was simply incapable of blending into her surroundings, despite the conservative lines of her navy suit. Pulling her blond hair into a straight ponytail only emphasized her fashion-model cheekbones and cornflower-blue eyes. She was as tall as Mark, towering over most of the women and half the men in the foyer, drawing the eyes of every red-blooded male in the place regardless of the somber occasion.

Melissa’s gaze connected with Rose’s. She waved Rose over. “You remember Mark, don’t you?”

Mark managed a pained smile, obviously wishing he were anywhere else.

Rose followed Melissa into the small chapel, where Alice’s coffin took up the front. They found a pew in the middle, Mark entering first, leaving Rose on the aisle. Melissa inclined her head toward a sandy-haired man sitting by himself a couple of rows up. “That’s Richard Hughes, Alice’s ex.”

The man Alice had been drinking and dancing to forget, Rose thought. She watched him, wondering if he could have been the figure in the shadows. The police had probably questioned him already-significant others were always the first suspects in any murder investigation. Was he still on their list?

Melissa and Mark seemed to know most of the mourners in the chapel. Understandable; funerals were often like reunions, bringing together people who hadn’t seen each other in years. Melissa, Alice and Mark had all attended Alabama together, and many of the people in the tiny chapel shared that common past.

Just not Rose.

For most of her life, that wouldn’t have mattered. “Never met a stranger and never will,” her sister Lily used to tease.