CHAPTER ONE
Dallas, Texas
THESOUNDOFvoices cut through the pounding in her head, dragging her from a deep, dark void into the light of day.
As the door swung open and uniformed policemen streamed into the bedroom, April Vale looked down at her naked body and saw a sea of blood soaking the mattress beside her. A naked man lay next to her, a bullet hole in the center of his chest.
A scream tore from her throat as she recognized David Dean, Mayor Rydell’s campaign manager. Then strong arms hauled her upright and a wave of dizziness hit her, making her stomach roll. One of the officers draped a blanket around her bare shoulders, covering her nudity, and then hustled her over to a chair by the window.
Fighting a fresh wave of nausea, April sat down on the chair, gripping the blanket, her body shaking head to foot.
“What...what’s happening?” She didn’t realize her hands were being cuffed together in front of her until she heard metal clanking and cold bands of steel wrapped around her wrists.
“What’s your name?” The room swarmed with policemen. The one in front of her was stocky and balding, in his early forties. A pair of EMTs rushed into the room and began working over the bloody man on the bed, but his eyes were open and staring at nothing and she knew he was already dead.
April swallowed the bile rising in her throat and fought to clear her head, but when she tried to remember where she was or how she got there, all she came up with was a splitting headache.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said, trying to keep the blanket around her.
“This will all go smoother if you cooperate,” the stocky policeman said. “Tell us your name.”
“I’m... I’m April. April Vale.” She glanced over at David. The hole in his chest seemed even bigger and bloodier than before.
“Can you tell us the name of the victim?”
Victim. A thick lump rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. “That...that’s David Dean. We work for Mayor Rydell.”
A young officer with black hair slicked straight back from his forehead walked up. “Looks like we’ve got the murder weapon, Sarge. It was right there on the floor next to the lady’s purse.”
April frowned, her mind foggy again. “Wait...wait a minute. What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Her fingers tightened on the blanket. “I don’t know how I got here. I don’t remember what happened.”
A gray-haired man in a navy-blue suit brought the gun over in a plastic bag. She recognized the little .380 handgun she carried for protection.
“I’m Detective Sullivan. Does this belong to you, Ms. Vale?”
She took a deep breath. “I think it’s mine. I have one like that. I have a legal permit to carry.”
The EMTs began checking her over, her blood pressure, her vision, whether or not she had a concussion.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” one of them said, “have her checked out, get a blood sample.”
“Hospital? I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
A female police officer walked up just then. “We’ve cuffed your hands in front of you so you can hold onto the blanket. If you cooperate, we’ll leave them that way. If not, we’ll have to cuff them behind your back.”
She closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. “You think I shot him? I don’t even know how I got here.”
The woman’s expression never changed. “You need to go to the hospital. We need to make sure you’re okay. If you were drugged, it’ll show up in your tox screen.”
Tox screen.Drugs.Her pistol and a dead man.
That’s when it began to sink in how much trouble she was in. That’s when April’s brain finally started working and she began to figure out what she needed to do—before things got a whole lot worse.
CHAPTER TWO
ATTHESOUNDof the glass front door swinging open, Jonah Wolfe looked up to see a tall, leggy redhead walk into the office.
“I hope she’s looking for me.” Jason Maddox, one of the country’s top bail enforcement agents and one of Jonah’s best friends, had an eye for beautiful women. This one definitely met Jase’s exacting standards.
