She was special. A small-town girl from Montana with enough brains to send herself to college and medical school. Married briefly to Jeffrey Lambert, a heart surgeon who still worked and resided in Seattle, Washington.
Until the mistake.
When he’d gotten too bloodthirsty, too hungry, too eager to destroy the one person who could ruin everything.
And the job had been botched.
Kacey had lived.
Her marriage had fallen apart, though, and after the breakup Kacey decided to become a small-town doctor in the same town where her grandparents had resided all their lives.
Touching.
And perfect.
After escaping his original plan, she’d nearly fallen right into his waiting hands.
This time, there wouldn’t be a mistake; this time he’d take care of her for good.
A slow-burning fury ran through his veins as he studied her picture. His jaw tightened as he noticed her thick red-brown hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and green eyes, which seemed to spark with intelligence, even in the small snapshot.
He’d watched her.
Followed her.
Learned her routine.
She lived in her grandparents’ old home just outside of town. The house was hidden from the road, down a long, tree-lined lane, which would make things a lot easier....
But she would have to wait.
Unfortunately, there were others he had to deal with first.
And when he dealt with Kacey, he intended to take his time, to make certain she realized her sins.
He flipped open a few more files and sorted them. None of the people he was surveilling realized that he was watching them, collecting all the ones that were in close proximity to Kacey.
He wondered if any of them had run across each other.
If so, they hadn’t guessed the one thing they had in common.
Each was born to die long before her time.
And it was his mission to make it happen.
CHAPTER 2
“Your son or daughter did not attend one or more classes today. . . .”
Detective Regan Pescoli felt her blood boil as she listened to the dreaded prerecorded message from the high school where Bianca was supposed to have attended class. “Well, why the hell not?” she whispered aloud and clicked off her cell. She’d dropped her kid off at school herself, and Bianca was too young to drive.
Dialing Bianca’s cell, Regan was put through to voice mail. Of course. Neither of her kids ever picked up. She texted: Where are you? The school called and said you were a no-show. Call me!
“Great,” she muttered, sliding her chair away from her desk at the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department. She glanced at her watch as she walked to Selena Alvarez’s cubicle, where her partner was huddled over her desk, her telephone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she sorted through neat stacks of paper on the desk. Alvarez’s black hair was scraped into a thick knot at the base of her skull and shining blue under the overhead lights.
Glancing up, she held up a finger as Pescoli approached.
“Yeah, I know, but we’ve been waiting for those test results for a couple of weeks now,” she said, her voice tight, her lips twisted into a frown. If there was one thing Alvarez couldn’t stand, it was incompetence. “Uh-huh . . . yeah, well, we’re all shorthanded. I get it. . . . What? If that’s the best you can do . . . okay ... Tomorrow’s fine.” She hung up, fuming. “What do you bet that tomorrow comes and I still don’t know what was in Donna McKinley’s bloodstream?” she said, leaned back in her desk chair, and scowled at her computer monitor, where the picture of the woman in question was visible. “I’d just like to get this off my desk, y’know.”