CHAPTER 1

How is she not freezing? Over the screen of his laptop, Rob eyed Anna Duncan across the bakery. His body shook with a chill. Anna’s flowing sundress draped over the rounded edge of her chair. The month of May in Pennsylvania was nothing like May in Arizona, where Rob had spent the largest chunk of his childhood. Pennsylvania warm was notthe Southwestern warm he knew and loved best. 

Even though the morning snow flurries of St. Claire’s Spring often turned to hot sun by noon, Rob never seemed to feel completely, truly, desert-like warm. Anna never seemed cold, though. She’d been flitting around Poppy’s Pies & Tarts in cotton sundresses or T-shirts and leggings since March when ice still frosted the age-warped windows of his new apartment. He wasn’t complaining about the wardrobe choice, though. He especially wasn’t complaining about the dresses. 

His gaze followed the lightly tanned skin of her arm as she tucked back a wavy lock of her shoulder-length blonde hair. Her red lips split into a smile as she laughed at something Theo Hicks said across from her. 

Sitting at the round table on the inside of the storefront window, Anna pointed at the binder open in front of her, no doubt showing Theo and her fiancé, Archie, wedding cake options. Two cakes, probably like the ones in the book, were showcased atop porcelain pedestals on the other side of the trio for outside passersby to admire. Rob knew Anna had decorated both three-tiered masterpieces. In fact, he’d watched her add some of the final touches. 

He pictured the way her lips would stick out in a pucker and the skin between her eyebrows would wrinkle as she concentrated on the delicate frosting designs. An earthquake couldn’t pull her from her work when she got like that. Rob grew consumed with his work as well.

The scarring down a large section of Rob’s back tightened, sending the uneasy feeling of crawling fingers across his body. It was a sensation that had come and gone more times than he could count since the day a fire had branded him and killed his parents. 

Rob forced his eyes away from Anna and back to his screen. Anna’s obsession created beautiful things; Rob’s only shone light on the ugly. He was nothing like her. 

A shadow fell over him as a body plopped into the chair across from Rob at the small corner table. Rob smirked at Perry’s familiar scolding façade, his scowl somewhere between a boss or dad even though he was neither to Rob. Here we go again.

“Hello, former Witness Protection Program participant Rob Appleton. You here for the free Wi-Fi?”

Rob eyed the red-haired man in a St. Claire police uniform, who looked back at him with his brow lowered in stern rebuke. Rob suppressed an eye roll. 

“Hello, former Deputy U.S. Marshal Perry Cole. Do you really think I’d use public Wi-Fi?”

The corner of Perry’s mouth flipped up in a grin, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder toward Anna and her customers. “I guess you must be here for the view then.”

Rob clenched his jaw at the newly named city police chief. “I don’t recall us having an appointment.”

The grin disappeared. “We don’t, but a mutual friend wanted me to pass along a warning.”

Mutual friend? Maybe when pigs fly. “If Special Agent Sterling wants me to stop using my technological expertise to look for criminals on my own, he should stop finding them with the leads I’m providing.” 

When organized criminal, Elaine “Laney” Hicks, had—after decades of theft, murder, and intimidation—been revealed and killed, Rob had taken to tracking down and bringing to justice every member of her vast network. Some people might choose to use a gun to take revenge on the person responsible for the death of their parents. Rob used a computer.

Perry sighed. “Only stupid cops turn down good leads. But it’s also stupid cops who let civilians put themselves in danger.”

“Civilian?” Rob laughed, but the sound was coated in offense. “I haven’t been a civilian since I watched my parents get murdered, was separated from my sister, and then hunted by a criminal set on killing me, too.”

Perry’s head swiveled as he checked around them to ensure no one was listening to their conversation. “Nothing you do is going to bring your parents back, but your sister is in her shop just a few doors away, and the murderer who was after you is dead.”

Rob lowered his voice to a whisper. “And her network of thugs and killers could find out about her death at any moment. Who’s to say that whoever takes her place won’t be just as bad?” 

“Rob—”

Rob leaned forward, his hand curling around the corner where his laptop screen met the keyboard. “The list of people who know that Elaine is dead may be small, but the truth could get out any second if it hasn’t already. If everyone that worked with her isn’t taken down soon, we’ll never get them, and for all we know, some of them could be right here in St. Claire.” 

Perry tapped two fingers on the metal badge pinned to his chest. “There is no ‘we’ here. You should just be happy that, instead of busting you for spying on the movements of the federal government when you showed up on the scene that night, the FBI actually went along with your plan to keep her death secret.”

He hadn’t even allowed himself the time to be glad Elaine was dead that night. Rob’s decision had been instant. He’d barged into that underground hideout—where his sister’s husband, Josh, sat by Elaine’s dead body—and pleaded his case to the FBI, Perry, and the town’s deputy sheriff. But he had been right. And Perry needed to acknowledge that. 

“They did it because I was right. I was there when Elaine revealed herself as the Snitch and said her associates would murder for her. If you and the FBI let her death go public, do you really doubt that one of those associates won’t take over and use every illegal asset that you all still haven’t managed to track down? Her network’s belief that she is still out there is the only thing keeping them in line, and the clock is ticking until they figure out the charade. If they haven’t already. Are you okay letting any of them get away? Because I am not.” 

Perry crossed his arms over his chest. “What you should really be asking yourself, Rob, is whether you’re okay putting yourself and the people close to you in danger because you can’t let this go.”

***

Anna finished jotting down all the things she needed to remember from her meeting with Theo and Archie. Then, after sticking the legal pad between the laminated pages of her big binder, she closed it and gathered everything in her arms as she got up from the table. Rob was in his usual spot in the back corner, his set mouth looking grim. 

The bakery had become a regular hangout for the owner of Apple’s Fritters’ brother. Most mornings, he would come in with his computer, buy a coffee and a chocolate croissant, and sit at the table to work. A tiny part of her hoped she was the reason for his continued presence, but it was more likely the tasty treats and the fact that a person could only go so many places in a small town. 

“Can I bring you another coffee or something else to eat, Rob?” Anna asked and moved behind the counter.

His pressed lips relaxed as he turned his head her way. “You’re not a waitress, Anna. You don’t need to bring me anything.” He twisted in his chair and got to his feet. “I can come up to the counter like everyone else.”

Anna forced her eyes away from the way the gray-green T-shirt stretched over his shoulders as he bent to peruse the glass case. “I saw the chief sitting with you before. Were you guys fighting?”

Chief Stan Hardwick had been the St. Claire police chief since Anna was born, but she liked the former US Marshal who had taken the job upon Stan’s retirement. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen him butt heads with Rob in her family’s shop, though. 

“I wouldn’t say fighting exactly.” Rob tapped his fingertip on the glass in front of the second shelf. “Could I get a ham and cheese croissant and another coffee to go?”

Anna prayed he didn’t see the tinge of regret on her face at his order being to go. She turned around to the counter behind her to grab a paper sleeve and a disposable coffee cup.

“It seemed like your meeting with Theo and Archie went well,” Rob said. 

Had he been listening? The smell of strong coffee hit Anna as she filled Rob’s cup from the drip machine. “It did. I think their cake is going to be a fun one.” She pressed on a lid and handed his hot brew to him. “I’m going to be working with your sister on it. I guess, the night they met, Archie made Theo doughnuts, and so they want the cake to look like an assortment of doughnuts. And then your sister is going to have real donuts on pedestals around the cake.”

“Hmm…” Rob palmed his cup, holding it close to him as if enjoying its warmth. “I’m sure you two will make something amazing. I still can’t believe Theo wants to get married here in St. Claire, of all places.”

Anna gripped a square of pastry sheet from the dispenser and slid open the cabinet door. “Yeah, I guess I’d be scared to have everything out in the open with her mom loose somewhere and possibly plotting. If I was Theo, I’d be scared Laney’ll come out of hiding and try to get retribution for her working with the FBI.”

“I’m not sure.” Rob’s eyelids fell as he glanced down at the floor. “I meant more that, in her place, I would want to put this town and everything about it behind me. I certainly wouldn’t want to get married here.”

Anna shrugged as she wrapped the croissant and slid it into the paper sleeve. “That I do get. It’s kind of brave to have her wedding here. She’s taking all the bad memories and replacing them with a huge good one.” She handed Rob the wrapped pastry and took the folded bills of cash he held between his raised fingers. 

“She’s proving to her past that she’s overcome it,” Anna said. She stepped sideways toward the cash register. “It’s like Theo’s taking back what was stolen from her.” An uneasy tension swelled in her chest. Theo had done something Anna hadn’t managed to figure out herself. 

“If it ends up working out that way,” Rob said as she opened the cash drawer. “Can a happy future really fix a tragic past?”

Was he talking about his own life? She flipped up the metal bill holder and slid in his cash before starting to collect what she owed him in ones.

Rob waved her off. “Keep the change.” Wrapped pastry in his hand, he turned and walked back to his table. “Call it rent for all the time I spend working in here.”

He closed his laptop, lifted the strap of his worn leather satchel from the back of the chair, and plopped the bag onto the table.

“The St. Claire businesses should let you eat for free for taking us out of the dark ages.” As soon as word spread about Nikki’s long-lost brother’s computer skills, every business and even the school lined up to hire him to manage their systems.

Shifting the coffee and pastry into one hand, Rob slid his computer and cell phone into the open bag before closing the flap and shouldering it. “We do what we’re good at.”

Anna blinked. Did she? She glanced to the gorgeous cakes in the window. She was good at what she did, but was that why she came to the bakery day after day? Or had this just been the safe choice? The women in the novels she read never chose the safe thing. 

Rob gave her a nod as he moved toward the shop door, and she felt a sudden rush of urgency. “Rob?”

“Yeah?” He stopped and raised his coffee to his lips.

“The theater is doing Movie Mystery Night this evening where they play classic whodunit films. Would you want to go with me?”

Rob sputtered and choked, sending black drops across the white lid of his drink. 

“I-I’m sorry.” A one-hundred-million-degree flush of mortified heat smacked Anna in the face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Rob coughed. “I just… excuse me.” He cleared his throat. 

Anna said a silent prayer of thanks that there were no other customers.

“Anna…” Composed again, Rob took a step her way. His expression was pained. Was he embarrassed for her? Had her question really been such a surprise? “Thank you for thinking of me. I mean it. Thank you, but I… I don’t think it’s a good idea.”