Vicki Hinze - Survive the Night

THE DARKEST HOURS

After losing everything, Della Jackson tries to begin again as an investigator. But she can’t forget the past...and neither can someone else. Someone who won’t let anyone—even Della’s best friend, former special operative Paul Mason—stand in the way. As Della is stalked and those closest to her are targeted, both Della and Paul realize there’s only one way to survive. They each have to face their greatest fears, overcome the scars of the past and dare to love again...before it’s too late.

“You’re a compassionate man.”

“It’s not compassion, it’s faith.”

She pushed at her salad with the tines of her fork.

“I had that once. That connection that let me see things, understand things like this. But it’s gone now.”

Now there was anger and outrage and confusion and emptiness. So much emptiness.

“It’s not gone. Faith is a choice you make.” Paul signaled the waitress for more tea.

A choice she didn’t dare make.

She didn’t dare try to fill the empty places. It hurt too much to fill them and watch them empty and disappear. People, possessions, emotions—no matter how much you tried to protect them and yourself, you couldn’t do it.

You couldn’t, and then you had to suffer the loss and failure. She’d suffered enough of both. She had nothing more to give or to lose.

VICKI HINZE

is an award-winning author of nearly thirty novels, four nonfiction books and hundreds of articles published in as many as sixty-three countries. She lives in Florida with her husband, near her children and grands, and she gets cranky if she must miss one of their ball games. Vicki loves to visit with readers and invites you to join her at vickihinze.com or on Facebook at Facebook.com/vicki.hinze.author.

Survive the Night

Vicki Hinze

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.”

—Jeremiah 29:11

In honor of Kathy Carmichael

We are gifted with friends to share our joys and troubles. Thank you for being my friend, Kathy, and for the blessing of being your Sister of the Heart.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

ONE

“Tired?”

Della Jackson latched her seat belt, then looked over at Paul Mason, driving his SUV. Her day had started just after five. It was now nineteen hours long, but she had to give credit to her boss, Madison McKay, owner of Lost, Inc. Holding an “open house” at the small private investigating firm where Della had worked since returning to Florida three years ago was a brilliant idea. Holding it during North Bay’s annual street festival was beyond brilliant and now a proven, resounding success.

“I passed tired about nine o’clock. Not that your company hasn’t been great.” On a horse wearing a cowboy hat or in a black tux as he was now, Paul Mason was gorgeous and charming. Black hair, gray eyes and lean and fit with a face chiseled by a loving hand. More importantly to Della, he was a man of character, trusted, and he expected nothing from her. That made him the perfect nondate date for any event but especially for one of Madison’s formal soirees, which Della never attended without a direct command-performance memo.

Paul’s arm draped the steering wheel. “Can I say something without you going postal on me?”

Odd remark. “Sure.” In their three years of being close friends, hadn’t they always spoken freely? From the first time she’d talked to him on the phone from Tennessee through his organization, Florida Vet Net, and he’d agreed to help her relocate to Florida, she thought they had done nothing but speak freely.

He braked for a group of about thirty festivalgoers to cross the street. One boy about twelve had the Seminole emblem painted on his cheek: Red is good.

Her dress. So he had noticed that she always wore black. Was he like her landlady’s granddaughter next door? Gracie, a precocious eight-year-old, had taken one look at the red dress her grandmother was rehemming because Della had hemmed the silk with dental floss and asked if Della was done mourning.

What mother ever stopped mourning the death of a child? What woman stopped mourning the resulting breakup of her marriage? “The black dress didn’t fit.”

Disappointment flashed through Paul’s eyes. “Ah, I see.” He turned onto Highway 20, then minutes later, south into her subdivision. “You seemed to have fun tonight.”

“You know I did.” They’d danced, enjoyed a battle of the bands and had a grand time. Fun. She’d had fun.

The thought sank in, and a flood of guilt swarmed in right behind it.

He clicked on his blinker to turn onto her street. “It’s okay for you to have fun, Della. And to wear clothes that aren’t black. It’s been three years.”

“I know.” She’d heard it all from everyone—her former pastor, her landlady, her boss, her boss’s assistant—and now from Paul.

“But knowing it and feeling it are two different things?” he suggested.

He understood. Paul always understood. “Exactly.” Days passing on a calendar didn’t change the grief or loss in a mother’s heart. That was the part the others didn’t seem to understand. The ache and emptiness were still fresh, the wounds still raw. She sighed, glanced out the window. Gracie stood on Della’s front porch. What was that she was holding? “But I am working on— Stop!”

Paul hit the brakes hard, screeched to a stop. “What’s wrong?”

Della didn’t pause to answer but grabbed the door, flung it open and scrambled out. “Gracie!” she screamed, her voice frantic, and ran full out toward her cottage. Oh, please no. Don’t let it happen again. “Put down that package!”

* * *

Gracie stood statue-still, her eyes stretched wide, like a terrified deer blinded by headlights.

“Put the box down, Gracie.” Della softened her voice. “Do it now. Right now.”

Gracie set the box on the porch’s floor and then just stood beside it.

Della snatched her off the porch, buried her against her hammering chest and ran across the postage-stamp-sized yard to the sidewalk near the street, putting the most distance possible between the package and the child, using her own body as a shield.

Paul ran up to them. “What’s wrong?”

Della ignored him. “Gracie, didn’t your gran tell you not to get my mail?”

“I—I didn’t, Della,” she said on a stuttered breath. “You’re squishing me.”

Della loosened her hold. “Where did you get the box?”

“It wasn’t in the mailbox, I promise. It was on the porch by the swing.” Her voice cracked. “I was scared you wouldn’t see it and—”

Della’s heart still banged against her ribs, threatened to thump out of her chest. She was shaking. Hard. “I appreciate it, but next time you listen to me. Don’t get my mail anymore or any packages. Got it?”