Deadly Act Read online

  Deadly Act

  Kylie Hatfield Series: Book One

  Mary Stone

  Bella Cross

  Copyright © 2019 by Mary Stone and Bella Cross

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Mary Stone

  To my husband.

  Thank you for taking care of our home and its many inhabitants while I follow this silly dream of mine.

  Bella Cross

  To my family. Thank you for your unending support, love, and patience while I navigate this exciting new world of publishing.

  Contents

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Kylie Hatfield Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Description

  When a cunning serial killer meets an inexperienced private investigator with a heart of gold...protecting others comes at a terrible price.

  When quiet, unassuming Jessica Hilyard mysteriously disappears, Kylie Hatfield promises Jessica’s sister she’ll find her. So what if she’s technically just the office assistant at Starr Investigations? It’s the perfect opportunity to prove to her boss she has what it takes to become a real private investigator.

  But when the evidence starts to link Jessica’s disappearance to a dangerous serial killer, everyone warns Kylie to back off the case—the police, her boss, and Linc Coulter, the maddeningly sexy ex-soldier who’s training (or trying to train) her nutty Newfoundland dog, Vader, and making Kylie crazy in the process. But nothing’s going to stop Kylie from becoming a full-fledged private investigator...not even the threat of an unexpected murderer, who wants to take more than just her life.

  By turns humorous, romantic, and downright chilling, Deadly Act, the first book in the Kylie Hatfield Series, will delight fans of Kendra Elliott, Melinda Leigh, and Rachel Caine.

  1

  Jessica Hilyard always thought that love was supposed to make people happy. Maybe it did. For some. But her? It scared her to death.

  Especially being in love with someone like Brandon. A man who lived life to the fullest. A man who took joy in nature. Who took joy in her.

  She jumped when a twig broke somewhere in the forest. A squirrel darted up a tree, and she laughed at herself. She really was a fraidy cat. And if she was going to continue dating Brandon, she’d have to get over it. Fast.

  Jessica smiled, just thinking about the past few months with him. She’d gone kayaking and hiking, and she had even jumped off a cliff. Well, not much of a cliff. Her rock was maybe five feet above the water while Brandon’s had been more than twenty. Her stomach churned as she remembered the feeling of looking down into the icy depths of the river pool. Remembered how badly she wanted to turn away. How badly she just wanted to be home, in her little apartment where everything was nice and safe.

  But she had jumped.

  And even as the water closed over her head, and she kicked her feet to break the surface again, she had been laughing. Then she’d been in Brandon’s arms, and he was laughing with her, telling her how proud he was of her. So very proud.

  He’d made love to her then, moving her swimsuit bottoms to the side before taking her against the very rock she’d jumped from.

  “I’m crazy about you, Jessica,” he’d said against her mouth. “Come away with me. Let’s leave this town and live life to its fullest.”

  She hadn’t said yes. But she hadn’t said no, either.

  Could she?

  Could she simply walk away from school? Her job? Her friends?

  Her comfortable little life that seemed more glamourous on Instagram than it really was?

  Another twig snapped, bringing her back to the present. Bringing her back to the now.

  The present.

  Not the past, where she had so much to regret. Not to the future, where she had so much to fear.

  The now.

  To Brandon, the man waiting for her down by the river.

  Waiting for her answer.

  “Say yes,” she murmured to herself. “And then tell him that you love him and will follow him anywhere.”

  That was her plan.

  To live.

  Really live.

  Life to the fullest.

  With him.

  She was still smiling as she stepped out from the woods, her breath coming heavier now. Not from the exertion of the hike, but from true excitement. Was this what freedom felt like? Freedom from mediocrity? From the shoulds that have weighed her down for so long?

  Her smile grew even wider as she stepped onto the rock…their rock. The rock that had changed everything. Her jump into a new life with a man she truly adored.

  Brandon wasn’t there yet, but that was okay. She was early, always early. He, on the other hand, didn’t even own a watch.

  But time wouldn’t matter where they were going. Time wouldn’t mean a thing.

  Because they were going to write travel articles, making a living visiting one exotic location after another. “Jess and Bran in Wanderland,” Brandon had said with a laugh when she asked him what they’d call their blog.

  She had to admit…it was kind of catchy in the corniest way imaginable.

  To her right, she noticed a red box tied with a golden bow. On the top was a label. Jessica. Open me and follow the instructions.

  She would recognize Brandon’s handwriting anywhere, the ragged up and down slants of each letter reminding her of a heartbeat on an EKG tape.

  She opened the box. Inside was a satin blindfold, and just looking at it made her insides twist. There was another note. Put me on and wait. You won’t regret it.

  Regret.

  Her smile faded a bit when she read that word. There was only one thing she knew she’d truly regret. Disappointing her family. Especially her sister. What would Miranda say about all this? Jessica was anxious, in both a good and bad way, to find out. But even if her sister tried to dissuade her from this journey, Jessica would go anyway.

  She had to.

  No. She wanted to.

  Surely her family, her sister, would understand. Her friends. Her co-workers. They’d understand too.

  And if they didn’t…?

  She shook her head, shaking away any negativity.

  “I’ll call Miranda tonight,” she murmured to the water flowing beneath her perch as she smoothed the blindfold between her fingers. Before putting it on, she lifted her face to catch the last bit of light peeking over the mountains.

  It was so beautiful here.

  Just as
it would be beautiful all the places they would go.

  Another twig snapped, but she didn’t jump this time. Instead, she placed the blindfold over her eyes, securing the elastic behind her head. Goose bumps raised on her arms as she felt Brandon approach her from behind.

  “Yes,” she said to him before he could even ask. Even she could hear the joy in the word. “Yes to you. Yes to everything.”

  Something cold pressed against her throat, the sharp edge piercing her skin.

  “That’s my motto too,” a familiar voice said.

  Before she could scream, the ability to do so was stolen from her as the knife sliced from ear to ear. It really didn’t even hurt that much, she thought, as she took a last leap from her rock—their rock—and the water consumed her for the last time.

  2

  Oh, this isn’t good.

  Kylie Hatfield squinted at her phone. Every little hair on the back of her neck stood at attention, an army of little soldiers telling her just how not-good this was.

  Kylie might have only been working in a private investigator’s office for a month, but she’d already developed quite the spidey-sense when something was off. Her boss, Greg Starr, had unceremoniously informed her that she was too green for the serious cases. Sure, she might have had a teeny bit of an attention disorder, and yeah, sometimes she was too busy talking to actually listen to people trying to impart their words of wisdom to her, but that didn’t matter right then.

  What mattered were the alarms going off in every cell of her body.

  Jessica Hilyard’s Facebook profile was all sorts of suspicious. And the woman had been missing for over a week, or so her sister said.

  Kylie leaned down, absently petting Vader’s head. The enormous Newfoundland mix had been Kylie’s for a little over a month, ever since she’d rescued him from the side of the road after witnessing some asshole run him over. Vader had mended well, but his sense of adventure and extreme drooling complex were the same as the first day she looked into his adorable eyes.

  And he’d already turned into quite the detective dog too. She tilted the phone to him. “What do you think, boy?”

  She’d never had a pet before Vader, but yes, she’d quickly become one of those owners who talked to her pet like he was a real person. He slept in her bed, went where she went. Basically, he was her 130-pound furry shadow.

  As a bonus, if their first and only case had given any indication, Vader was proving to have way more of a spidey-sense than even Kylie possessed. She’d learned that firsthand.

  On the very first day of her job at Starr Investigations, a scary looking woman had come into the office, needing immediate help. Since her boss had been gone, Kylie had taken on the job. After all, how hard should it have been to find a cheating husband and catch him in the act with his side ho?

  Well, should seemed to be the operative word.

  Kylie should have gone to the address her new client had given her, taken a few pictures and been on her merry way. But what actually happened was a totally different story.

  In a nutshell, she’d found the man, thanks to the help of her newly adopted Newfoundland mix. The man had been naked in his bed, but with a snakebite wound for his only company. Again, thanks to Vader, Kylie had found the girlfriend, also with a snakebite wound, about a quarter mile from the cabin they’d rented for their tryst.

  Kylie found out later that it had been the scary looking wife who’d drugged and sicced the copperhead on her husband and his girlfriend, then had grown a conscience and hired Kylie to find them before it was too late.

  Although her first and only case had been scary, it had lit a fire in Kylie’s soul. Where once she’d floundered, wondering if she would ever find the right career, she knew what she wanted to do now.

  If only her boss would let her.

  Greg Starr hadn’t fired her after she’d gone galivanting all over the Smoky Mountains looking for the couple, but he hadn’t let her work on any of the other investigations either.

  And Kylie wanted to work. She wanted to so bad that she could practically taste the “Kylie Hatfield, Private Investigator” license she’d one day hang on her wall. But first, she had to complete the billion hours of on-the-job training the state of North Carolina required in addition to her almost-Criminal Justice degree.

  Vader lifted his furry head, looked at her phone, and…licked Jessica Hilyard’s smiling face, leaving his slobbery goo on the screen.

  Well, he wasn’t always brilliant, but he was a true hero, her Vader. She’d taken to calling him Sherlock since the snakebite incident, in honor of his keen intelligence and bravery. She’d be his Watson any old day.

  But today, as he munched on the milk bone she tossed him, Kylie knew she’d have to rely on her own intuition here. And something really stunk in Asheville. Because Jessica Hilyard’s profile, chock full of inspiring memes and interesting slow-cooker recipes and photos of the pretty blonde’s thighs on a lounge in front of the aquamarine waters of a pool, with Day off! Ahhhh as the caption, hadn’t been updated in nearly a week.

  Jessica’s sister, Miranda, had been right to put a call in to Starr Investigations less than ten minutes ago. If Kylie’d had a loved one who’d simply dropped off the face of the earth like that, she’d have called for a private investigator too.

  Kylie knew that her boss had wanted her to cool it. She’d been on Greg’s shit list ever since she inserted herself in that last ordeal with the jilted wife who’d nearly killed her husband with a copperhead snake. The husband’s lover hadn’t been so lucky and had succumbed to her wounds the next day.

  Kylie had been too late, and she still hadn’t gotten over that fact. She also hadn’t gotten over how recklessly she’d behaved.

  It was only out of sheer luck that Kylie’s stupidity hadn’t also gotten her killed, Greg had told her more than once. And she probably would have cooled it if every single pore in her body wasn’t screaming with curiosity.

  “I know it killed the cat, but that’s why I’m a dog girl, right, boy?” Kylie said to Vader with a grin. She could swear he nodded.

  Besides, it made sense, even if her thick-headed, stodgy old boss couldn’t see it. Greg didn’t have Facebook. In fact, in his mid-sixties and as crotchety an old man as you could find, he was pretty much against any innovations that had come out this century. Whether he would admit it or not, her boss needed her and her technological prowess. And Miranda Hilyard, Jessica’s sister, the woman she’d just gotten off the phone with, had sounded desperate for help.

  Kylie couldn’t just sit around twiddling her thumbs. Not when people were in distress.

  Especially when she saw that she and Jessica had a mutual friend. Bethany Gutierrez, whom she’d gone to UNC with a few years ago. They’d been in freshman dorms and rushed together, though Jessica’d chosen Phi Sig and Kylie had gone Delta Gamma.

  It’d been a while. But from what she remembered, Bethany was cool and approachable. Kylie figured a friendly, totally innocent message to play catch-up wouldn’t get her in too much trouble. Especially since she was just doing some innocent groundwork to help Greg when he got back. Right?

  Kylie opened up a chat message to Bethany and began to type before she could talk herself out of it: Hey! Your name just popped up, and I couldn’t stop wondering how you’re doing.

  To her surprise, a return message popped up just seconds later: OMG Hi, sweetie! I miss you! How are you? You graduate yet?

  Kylie gritted her teeth. After nearly six years, she should’ve put a couple of years between herself and college. But with six changes of major and a whole lot of uncertainty and soul-searching under her belt, at twenty-four, Kylie was still ages from obtaining a degree of any sort. But that was the beauty of text conversations. She could ignore that question, for now.

  Hey, guess what? I think we have a mutual friend in common! Jessica Hilyard?

  It seemed to take forever before a response popped up: Oh, yes. We’re all so worried about her. No one’s be
en able to get in touch with her for days. It’s just really weird.

  Kylie took a deep breath and typed in: I can imagine! I really want to help. I know her sister Miranda is beside herself. Do you want to get together for lunch and talk about it?

  Kylie smiled when Bethany responded: Would love to! xxoo

  Her thumbs flew over the screen: Great! I’m free today if that works for you. Kylie looked down at Vader, knowing she’d need to take him with her. Want to meet at the Corner Café downtown?

  When Bethany agreed to meet at one p.m., Kylie rubbed her hands together, a chill of excitement running down her spine. Nothing that had happened in any of her seven majors had ever made her feel so excited.

  But no, this wasn’t part of the job. It really wasn’t. Just an innocent lunch date with an old friend to catch-up.

  Grrrrr…

  At Vader’s growl, the hair on the back of Kylie’s neck stood up.

  “It’ll be okay, boy,” she soothed, scratching the spot that made his eyes roll back into his head. It wasn’t like she was launching her own investigation or anything. Not her. She’d totally learned her lesson on that front.

  Her phone dinged. Another message from Bethany: So, your profile says you’re a private investigator.

  Kylie groaned. She’d fudged on her profile because it sounded better than her real title, which was Assistant to the Private Investigator, aka Greg Starr’s gofer and filing clerk. Considering Greg was such a techno-dunce, she’d figured he’d never find out.