Scene of the Crime: Return to Bachelor Moon Read Online Free PDF

around the pond.
    Her head ached with all the questions, the fears, the utter horror of the past twenty-four hours. What had happened to Sam and Daniella and Macy? It was as if an alien spaceship had shot down a beam that had instantly drawn them up and out of the house, leaving no identifying clues behind.
    She couldn’t imagine who might want to hurt the Connellys. They were respected, warm and giving to both their guests and the community of Bachelor Moon. Daniella served on a half dozen charity committees, and Sam was the man people called on when they were in trouble or needed something done. Macy was everyone’s delight with her sassy attitude and sweet, loving heart.
    As she neared the area where the walkway came closest to the pond, a chorus of bullfrogs sang a deep-throated tune and a faint splash indicated that the fish were jumping.
    It was a beautiful night, and yet all was wrong with the world. Tears burned at her eyes as she thought of the people she loved, people who were missing without any apparent reason.
    The path she followed stopped abruptly at the far end of the pond. A trail led off to John’s little cabin but a sign indicated that guests weren’t allowed on the narrow path.
    She turned and started back the way she had come. Her thoughts shifted to the man in charge of the case: Gabriel Blankenship.
    She was both drawn to and repelled by him at the same time. His intensity nearly stole her breath away. Something about him made her pulse pound a little harder, her heart race a little faster. She recognized it as some sort of strange attraction, but he was certainly the last man she’d want any kind of relationship with.
    He was here to do a job, and when the job was done, he would be gone. He’d just told her that he wasn’t the marrying type, and marriage was definitely on her wish list. She’d thought that was where she was headed with Gary Holzman when she’d lived in Chicago, but that dream had exploded and she’d wound up here with nothing but a beat-up car spewing fumes, a suitcase full of clothes and Cory.
    She’d just about reached the part of the walkway that was closest to the pond’s edge when the sound of rustling in the brush behind her stopped the bullfrog’s song.
    She had no chance to turn, no time to process that danger was coming before she was shoved from behind with enough force that she flew forward and was weightless for an instant—airborne—and then she plunged into the pond.
    Headfirst she went down...down, with no idea how to get up.

Chapter Three
    Although it was relatively early, after the short night before, Gabriel had told both Jackson and Andrew to head to bed and get a good night’s sleep, as he intended to do himself. He was certain the next day would be a long one, and he wanted them all to start out rested.
    He stripped down to a pair of boxers and then opened the window, despite the air-conditioning that kept the room cool and pleasant. Since the age of seven, Gabriel had always kept his bedroom window open, never knowing when he might need to make a hasty escape from a raging drunken father.
    Certainly more than once throughout his childhood, he’d used the window to flee the wrath of George Blankenship. Like Marlena’s, Gabriel’s mother had abandoned him and his father when Gabriel had been seven. She’d left him in the hands of a brutal man who’d either beaten him half to death for unclear reasons or ignored him until Gabriel was old enough to exit and never look back.
    He’d lived on the streets, worked a hundred different jobs, and waffled between a life of crime and a life of investigating crimes. He’d finally managed to make his way through college with a criminal justice degree and a minor in psychology, and that’s when the FBI had brought him in as a profiler.
    He loved his job and he was good at it, but this particular case already had him frustrated by the lack of leads. The bank records had shown no red flags either in the