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inclined. But Aunt Cheryl and her husband lived outside Minneapolis, near her own children. Other than birthday cards and Christmas cards, they hadn’t had any contact once the initial stir caused by Anne’s disappearance died down. He didn’t blame her—she needed to get on with her life half a continent away. Still, her offer to “be there”—whatever the fuck that meant—rang just as hollow as the endless “I’m sorries.”
    Cheryl was followed by an endless stream of mourners, people he’d never met or barely remembered who’d shown up at Menlo Presbyterian, supposedly to mourn Anne Taggart.
    Or to rubberneck and rehash one of the biggest local scandals of the last decade was more like it.
    He shook infinite hands, endured endless maternal pats as he watched Cheryl walk over to his father. The grim knot in Danny’s gut tightened as he watched his father woodenly return her hug. God, he hoped Cheryl didn’t say anything about closure horseshit to Joe. It was the last kind of closure Joe needed. The kind of closure that was going to drive his father into an early grave if they didn’t find something, anything, to point them in the right direction.
    But the case was so cold it bordered on permafrost, and the police seemed content to leave it that way. Danny, Derek, and Ethan had worked nonstop to find something—anything to go on, retracing her last days, going back through every pocket and purse and leftover scrap of paper she left behind.
    And Joe had sat by through all of it, saying little, doing less, as he worked his way through a bottle of Ketel One vodka.
    Danny was very afraid Joe was going to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle if they didn’t find something soon.
    Finally the last of the mourners trailed out, and Danny made his way over to where his father stood with his brothers, along with Toni and Alyssa. Alyssa was doing her best to take one for the team, posing for the cameras and granting interviews to everyone as she tried to deflect the press’s attention away from the family. Danny uttered a curt no comment as he plowed his way through the throng and went to stand at his father’s side.
    Like a bunch of good lemmings, the herd of reporters trailed Alyssa out to the parking lot. She threw them a wave over her shoulder, motioning to Derek that she’d call him. As the crowd moved, Danny could see one last mourner exit the dark interior of the church.
    He did a double, then a triple take.
    No fucking way .
    His breath caught and his nostrils flared as he took her in. He knew the thick black waves spilling to her waist, the mouthwatering curves elegantly draped in black wool. Her dress went from neck to wrist to knee and should have been modest, but only served to highlight the lush swell of her breasts, the deep curve of her waist, the sexy flare of her hips. The heels of her black pumps tap tapped their way down the concrete steps and headed in his direction.
    He dragged his gaze up to her face. Her luscious mouth was painted red and set in determined lines. Even though the sun was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, like him she wore sunglasses, her oversize frames hiding half her face. As though, like him, she didn’t want to chance anyone getting a peek into her soul.
    Caroline fucking Palomares.
    No, he reminded himself. Caroline fucking Medford.
    Raw emotion spun up inside him, threatening to take him down. Lust. Anger. And a bunch of other crap he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
    As she strode toward him, shoulders back, hips swinging like she had every right to be walking back into his life, today of all days, he struggled to put the lid back on the swirl of emotion struggling to break free. He reminded himself savagely of who she was. Caroline Medford .
    Wife of James Medford, rich attorney twenty years her senior. The same James Medford who could give her the affluent lifestyle he hadn’t realized she coveted until it was too late.
    The same James Medford she may