Erica Spindler - Cause for Alarm

Dear Reader,

Adoption has come a long way in recent years. No longer is it considered something to be hidden, as if it's a shameful secret. It is acknowledged for what it is- an incredible act of love for all concerned.

As an adoptive mother myself, I know firsthand the immediate and overwhelming love and possessiveness an adoptive parent feels for their child. I understand the adoptive parents' irrational fear of their baby's biological family, and the uncertainty born of having opened life and heart to the unknown. And I know the lengths and depths they, like any parent, would go to keep their child safe from harm.

I used this knowledge as a starting point to create this work of fiction.

My novels have evolved over time, from the rags-to-riches relationship story Red to the pure suspense of my newest book, Killer Takes All. It's been an exciting journey, and each novel I've written represents a step in that journey. I hope that you enjoy Cause for Alarm.

Best wishes,

Erica Spindler

I wish to extend a special thanks to Detective Quintin Peterson, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C., not only for answering my questions about the M.P.D., but for bringing it to life.

Special thanks also to Vicki and John Faivre for information on fly-fishing locales. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I'd also like to offer a huge hug of gratitude to Dianne Moggy and the amazing MIRA crew for helping me pull a rabbit out of a hat with this one.

Time was definitely not on my side. Thanks also to Chuck and Evelyn Vangier, Cover to Cover bookstore, Mandeville, Louisiana, for helping me locate all sorts of out-of-the-ordinary research materials. And finally, thanks to my incomparable agent, Evan Marshall, and my ever-helpful and always-understanding husband, Nathan.

Washington , D.C. , 1998

The fashionable Washington neighborhood slept. Not a single light shone up or down the block of high-priced town homes, the only illumination the glow from the streetlamps and the three-quarter moon. The November night chilled; the air was damp, heavy with the scent of decay.

Winter had come.

John Powers climbed the steps to his ex-lover's front door. He proceeded purposefully but without fanfare, his movements those of a man who depended on not being noticed. Dressed completely in black, he knew he appeared more shadow than man, a kind of ghost in the darkness.

Reaching the top landing, he squatted to retrieve the house key from its hiding place under the stone planter box to the right of the door. During the spring and summer months the planter had been filled with vibrant, sweet-smelling blossoms. But now those same flowers were dead, their stems and leaves curling and black from the cold. As was the eventuality of all living things, their time had come and gone.

John slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The dead bolt slid back; he eased open the door and stepped inside. Easy. Too easy. Considering the parade of men who had come and gone through this door over the years, using this same key, retrieved from this same hiding place, Sylvia should have been more careful.

But then, forethought had never been Sylvia Starr's strong suit.

John closed the door quietly behind him, pausing a moment to listen, taking those valuable seconds to ascertain the number of people in the house, whether they were sleeping and where they were sleeping. From the living room to his right came the steady ticking of the antique mantel clock. From the bedrooms beyond, the thick snore of a man deeply asleep, a man who had probably drunk too much, one no doubt too old and out of shape to have spent the evening with the ever-enthusiastic and sometimes gymnastic Sylvia.

Too bad for him. He should have gone home to his fat, dependable wife and their ungrateful, cow-faced children. He was about to become a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

John started for the bedroom. He took his weapon from its snug resting place-the waistband of his black jeans, at the small of his back. The pistol, a.22 caliber semiautomatic, was neither powerful nor sexy, but it was small, lightweight and at close range, utterly effective. John had purchased it, as he did all his weapons, secondhand. Tonight he would give it a watery grave in the Potomac.

He entered Sylvia's bedroom. The couple slept side by side; the bed rumpled, the sheet and blankets twisted around their hips and legs, only half covering them. In the sliver of moonlight that fell across the bed, Sylvia's left breast stood out in relief, full, round and milky white.

John crossed to where the man slept. He pressed the barrel of the gun to the man's chest, over his heart. The direct contact served two purposes: it would muffle the sound of the shot and assure John a swift, clean kill. A professional took no chances.

John squeezed the trigger. The man's eyes popped open, his body convulsed at the bullet's impact. He gasped for air, the gurgling sound wet as fluid and oxygen met.

Sylvia came immediately awake. She scrambled into a sitting position, the sheet falling away from her.

The man already forgotten, John greeted her. "Hello, Sylvia."

Making small, squeaky sounds of terror, she inched backward until her spine pressed flat against the bed's headboard. She moved her gaze wildly back and forth, from John to her twitching, bloody companion, her chest heaving.

"You know why I've come," John murmured. "Where is she, Syl?"

Sylvia moved her mouth, but no sound escaped. She looked only a breath away from dissolving into complete, incoherent hysteria. John sighed and circled the bed, stopping beside her. "Come now, love, pull yourself together. Look at me, not him." He caught her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. "Come on, sweetheart, you know I couldn't hurt you. Where's Julianna?"

At the mention of her nineteen-year-old daughter, Sylvia shrank back even more. She glanced at her bed partner, still and silent now, then back at John, working, he saw, to pull herself together. "I…I know…everything."

"That's good." He sat beside her on the bed. "So you understand how important it is that I find her." Sylvia began to shudder, so violently the bed shook. She brought a hand to her mouth. "H-how…young, John? How young was she when you began leaving my bed to go to hers?"

He arched his eyebrows, amazed at her outrage, amused by it. "Are we feeling maternal suddenly? Have you forgotten how only too happy you were for us to spend time together? To let your lover play daddy? How eager to let me care for her so you could be free?"

"You bastard!" She clutched at the sheet. "I didn't mean for you to defile her. To…to take my trust and-"

"You're a whore," he said simply, cutting her off. "All you've ever cared about was your parties and men and the pretty baubles they could give you. Julianna was nothing but a pet to you. Another of your baubles, a means for the tired, old whore to buy a bit of respectability."

Sylvia lunged at him, claws out. He knocked her backward, easily, the heel of his hand connecting with the bridge of her nose. Her head snapped against the headboard, stunning her. He brought the barrel of his gun to the underside of her chin, pressing it against the pulse that beat wildly there, angling it up toward her brain.

"What Julianna and I share isn't about fucking, Sylvia. It's not so base as that, though I doubt you could understand. I taught her about life." He leaned closer. He smelled her fear, it mixed with the scent of blood and other body fluids, earthy but very much alive; he heard it in the small feral pants that slipped past her lips, the squeaks of a terrified mouse facing a python. "I taught her about love and loyalty and obedience. About commitment. I'm her everything…father figure, friend and mentor, lover. She belongs to me, she always has."