Leona Karr - Shadows On The Lake

She and Neil were from two different worlds, and she ought to have the sense to realize it. Sighing, she turned to go into the houseboat.

“I’m back.” A haunting emptiness echoed her words.

She stiffened as an undefined apprehension assaulted her from the dark gloom of the houseboat. Something was wrong. Her heart was suddenly pounding as she bounded to her sleeping compartment to check on her baby.

She froze in the doorway when she saw that the bassinet was empty and the diaper bag was gone. She spun on her heels. She searched everywhere…but found nothing, no one.

There was no sign of her baby on the floating house….

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

This month you’ll want to have all six of our books to keep you company as you brave those April showers!

Debra Webb kicks off THE ENFORCERS, her exciting new trilogy, with John Doe on Her Doorstep. And for all of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the newest installment in Kelsey Roberts’s THE LANDRY BROTHERS series, we have Chasing Secrets.

Rebecca York, Ann Voss Peterson and Patricia Rosemoor join together in Desert Sons. You won’t want to miss this unique three-in-one collection!

Two of your favorite promotions are back. You won’t be able to resist Leona Karr’s ECLIPSE title, Shadows on the Lake. And you’ll be on the edge of your seat while reading Jean Barrett’s Paternity Unknown, the latest installment in TOP SECRET BABIES.

Meet another of THE PRECINCT’s rugged lawmen in Julie Miller’s Police Business.

Every month you can depend on Harlequin Intrigue to deliver an array of thrilling romantic suspense and mystery. Be sure you read each one!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A native of Colorado, Leona (Lee) Karr is the author of nearly forty books. Her favorite genres are romantic suspense and inspirational romance. After graduating from the University of Colorado with a B.A. and the University of Northern Colorado with an M.A., she taught as a reading specialist until her first book was published in 1980. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list and nominated by Romantic Times for Best Romantic Saga and Best Gothic Author. She has been honored as the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year, and received Colorado’s Romance Writer of the Year Award. Her books have been reprinted in more than a dozen foreign countries. She is a presenter at numerous writing conferences and has taught college courses in creative writing.

Courtney Collins—A single mother who is the victim of a dangerous deception. What is the fate of her baby boy?

Neil Ellsworth—Drawn into a tangled mesh of love and danger, Neil has secrets of his own. Can the single mother whose baby is missing break down the walls of his hardened heart?

Devanna Davenport—Courtney’s aunt has agreed to help her niece under false pretenses. What is the truth hidden in the darkest depths of her personality?

Detective McGrady—This dedicated sleuth with a big heart tracks a murderous kidnapper.

Jake Delaney—An angry business associate who threatens revenge. But will he have to pay the ultimate price in the end?

Steve Woodward—What will happen when the police discover his participation in investment fraud?

Harold Jensen—This kind gentleman had no idea that his past acquaintance with Devanna would forever seal his fate.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dark waters of a mountain lake quietly rippled as a lone woman eased the rowboat to a small dock beside a floating houseboat. After quickly tying up the boat, she made sure there was no sign of the passenger she had left behind in the middle of the lake. It was done, she thought with satisfaction, quietly laughing to herself. She really did have a talent for this sort of thing. Buzz would be proud of her.

From the beginning she’d followed his instructions. She’d made friends with a middle-aged woman, Devanna Davenport, who had rented a houseboat on Lake Manitou, Idaho, and invited her niece and baby to join her for the summer. Fortunately, all arrangements had been made by telephone, and her offer to help Devanna get settled had been accepted. They had arrived at the houseboat that afternoon. As she moved away from the rowboat, a short, otherworldly chuckle escaped her lips.

Inside the houseboat, she unlocked a small locker, and placed her handgun inside. Then she took out a picture of a rugged, stern-looking man wearing a cowboy hat and western clothes. As she held the photo only a few inches from her face, she could feel his breath and read the message in his dark, hypnotic eyes. She had borne the guilt of their aborted bank robbery when he had been shot to death. But Buzz was still with her, still in charge. Willingly, she continued to do his bidding. As his silent voice had instructed, she had arranged to get her hands on a baby boy, and had also found a place to hide until Buzz ordered her to kill and rob again.

“Our son will be here soon,” she promised him.

“We’re almost there, Jamie,” Courtney said as she turned her small car into the parking lot of a café on the outskirts of the bustling resort town of Manitou, Idaho. She smiled back at her four-month-old son as he opened his deep blue eyes. He’d been changed and fed at their last stop, and had been sleeping peacefully in his carrier until the motion of the car stopped.

“I need to stretch my legs, look at a map, and we’ll be on our way,” she chatted as she got out of the car then reached into the back seat to unfasten his carrier. Being a mother did wonders for developing muscles, she mused as she slung her purse over one shoulder, a diaper bag over the other one, and lifted the baby carrier out of the car. “Here we go, fellow. This is our last stop before we get home.”

Home? The word had a mocking sound to it, and Courtney quickly shoved it away. A few weeks’ visit with an aunt she hadn’t seen since childhood was not a homecoming. During the long drive from Cheyenne, Wyoming, she had begun to question her decision to accept Aunt Devanna’s invitation to join her in Manitou where she was renting a houseboat for the summer.

Courtney’s husband, Clyde, had been killed in a construction accident a few months before the baby’s birth. Except for Aunt Devanna, there were no other members of Courtney’s family to quell her loneliness. That’s what comes from being an only child, she’d often thought. Her parents had always been on the move because of her father’s uncertain employment, and she’d lost both of them before she was twenty-one. She’d put herself through business college, and had married a strong Irishman more out of loneliness than deep love. The union with Clyde Collins had not been one made in heaven.

“You’re just tired. Everything will look different when you get some rest,” she said, silently encouraging herself as she crossed the parking lot. She felt a decade older than her twenty-nine years, and more alone than ever before.

She’d planned on arriving before dark but night shadows had already spread across the mountain valley, and they were still about five miles from Lake Manitou. She needed to look at her map of the area to locate Hidden Cove, where the houseboat was anchored.