Carla Neggers: Cold Dawn

Praise for the novels ofNew York Timesbestselling author Carla Neggers

“Neggers’ passages are so descriptive that one almost finds one’s teeth chattering from fear and anticipation as well as from the cold. The chill from the emotionless and guiltless killers’ icy hearts is enough to cause frostbite to our very souls.”

— Bookreporter on Cold Pursuit

“No one does romantic suspense better!”

—Janet Evanovich

“Well-drawn characters, complex plotting and plenty of wry humor are the hallmarks of Neggers’ books. Jo and Elijah are very well matched, and readers will root for their romance.”

— RT Book Reviews on Cold Pursuit

“Neggers’ trademark use of atmospheric mood and setting, including the mist of the title itself, comes front and center. What she’s done is add aspects of the high-action thriller to traditional romantic suspense, combining the best of both in creating a genre all her own. Flat out great.”

— Providence Journal on The Mist

“Readers will be turning the pages so fast their fingers will burn…a winner!”

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Betrayals

“When it comes to romance, adventure and suspense, nobody delivers like Carla Neggers.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz

Also by CARLA NEGGERS

THE WHISPER

COLD RIVER

THE MIST

BETRAYALS

COLD PURSUIT

TEMPTING FATE

THE ANGEL

ABANDON

CUT AND RUN

THE WIDOW

BREAKWATER

DARK SKY

THE RAPIDS

NIGHT’S LANDING

COLD RIDGE

THE HARBOR

STONEBROOK COTTAGE

THE CABIN

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

THE WATERFALL

ON FIRE

KISS THE MOON

CLAIM THE CROWN

CARLA NEGGERS

COLD DAWN

To Margaret Marbury and Adam Wilson—

many thanks!

One

Black Falls, Vermont—late February

Nick Martini rolled out of the four-poster bed in his spacious room in an older part of Black Falls Lodge and turned on a light on his bedside table. He glanced at the clock radio.

Four-thirty.

“Hell,” he said, tempted to crawl back under the down comforter.

Instead he stood up on a thick, brightly colored carpet—yellow sunflowers against a blue background—on the pine-board floor and walked over to the double windows, their cream-colored drapes pulled tightly shut against the Vermont cold.

He’d arrived after dark last night. It’d still be dark out now.

He opened the drapes, anyway.

Yep. Dark.

He felt the below-freezing outside air seep through the windows but left the drapes open. In Southern California, he’d be asleep. Even in northern New England, with the three-hour time difference, he should be asleep. After his long flight yesterday and his drive from a small airport an hour north of the lodge, he’d almost turned around and found somewhere else to spend the night.

He’d always expected he’d check out Black Falls, Vermont, at some point, but it wasn’t his ten-year friendship with Sean Cameron, his business partner and fellow smoke jumper in California, that had finally brought him East to the Green Mountains and Cameron country.

It was a serial arsonist. A killer.

And it was Sean’s sister, Rose.

Nick looked over at the bed with its posts and pictured Rose in his bed in Beverly Hills eight months ago, her skin glowing in the aftermath of their lovemaking. She’d caught him staring at her and had pulled the sheet over her nakedness, as if only realizing just then what a huge mistake she’d made.

He raked a hand through his hair and bolted for the bathroom, with its gleaming porcelain and chrome and its soft, ultrawhite towels. He turned on the shower and tore open a bar of Vermont-made goat’s milk soap while he waited for the water to heat up. He climbed in, stood under the stream of water as hot as he could stand and told himself he still could turn back.

He didn’t have to see anyone else in Black Falls.

He didn’t have to see Rose.

For ten years he’d fought wildfires, and for six years he’d served on a navy submarine. He’d faced dangers and hardships, and he’d seen people die—he’d come close to death himself. He’d always done his best and acted honorably, even when he’d screwed up.

Until Rose Cameron.

As he shut off the shower and reached for a towel, he could taste her mouth, feel her breasts under his palms, hear her soft cries as she’d climaxed under him, clawing at him, sobbing his name.

They’d known exactly what they were doing that night.

Exactly.

Nick toweled off and got dressed in the warmest clothes he’d packed. He doubted he’d pass for a Vermont mountain man, but he didn’t care. He headed out to the hall, shutting his door quietly behind him and taking the stairs down to the lobby. The lodge, long owned and operated by the Cameron family, hadn’t seemed crowded when he’d arrived at nine o’clock last night. From what he’d learned from Sean over the years, it drew its biggest crowds in the warm-weather months.

Just as well, considering the spate of violence the town had experienced since the fall.

Since last spring, really.

A brochure tacked open on a bulletin board in the lobby listed daily winter activities. Nick could take his pick of such diversions as snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, arts and crafts, yoga, nature walks and dance lessons. He wouldn’t lack for things to do, except he wasn’t at the lodge for fun.

A fire was already crackling in the stone fireplace just down from the front desk, where A. J. Cameron, the flinty eldest of the four Cameron siblings, stood, still in his canvas jacket. His blue eyes and the hard set of his jaw reminded Nick of Rose. She’d said Sean was the charmer of the family.

It definitely wasn’t A.J.

Or her, for that matter.

“Coffee’s available,” A.J. said. “Breakfast doesn’t start until six.”

“That’s fine. I thought I’d head over to the Whittaker estate. Sean mentioned Rose has been training her search-and-rescue dog out there one or two mornings a week.” Nick tried to sound matter-of-fact instead of like a man who’d impulsively slept with the Cameron brothers’ baby sister at a vulnerable moment in her life. “He says she’s an early bird.”

A.J. unzipped his jacket. Unlike his two younger brothers, he’d lived in Vermont his entire life. So had Rose, but as a search management consultant and member of an expert disaster search-and-rescue team, she traveled frequently.

Her eldest brother frowned. “I suppose you want to see for yourself where Sean nearly got himself killed last month.”

“Yes,” Nick said carefully, settling on an incomplete answer. “I’m up. Might as well get moving.”

A.J. didn’t relax, but he didn’t look suspicious, either. “I take it you know Rose from her trips out to California.”

“We’ve run into each other a few times when she’s stopped in to see Sean.”

That was Nick’s rehearsed answer, and he thought he delivered it reasonably well.

The Cameron blue eyes narrowed. Nick understood A.J.’s scrutiny. For eighteen months, quiet, cerebral Lowell Whittaker had run a network of paid killers, putting people who wanted someone killed together with people willing to do the killing. During that time, he and his wife, Vivian, had bought a country home in Black Falls.

Now they both were under arrest—Lowell on serious, multiple charges for his role as a murderous mastermind; Vivian, for attempted murder. She was cooperating with authorities to get the charges reduced. Her husband wasn’t cooperating with anyone, including, apparently, his own lawyers, who were urging him to turn over any information he had on his killers, his clients and their victims and potential victims.