Special Agent's Perfect Cover by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

her ribs. Fargo was like a bull moose and Hawk—Hawk was too damn stubborn for his own good. He might be the younger of the two, but the Hawk she remembered didn’t fight dirty. He was nothing if not honorable. Fargo wasn’t shackled by any such noble conventions. To Fargo, the prime directive was to get rid of any obstacles that might get in his way and those who might ultimately impede Samuel’s control over Cold Plains.
    Oh God, the sooner she could get Mia out of here, the better, she thought, still watching the two men. Desperation stole over her when she thought of Mia. Her sister wouldn’t listen to reason. That left having to find a way to kidnap her, to drag Mia kicking and screaming out of Cold Plains before she was forced to marry that man.
    Brice Carrington had been married once before, and no one knew exactly what had happened to the first Mrs. Carrington, other than the fact that one day, Carrington had haltingly announced that she was “gone from this earth.”
    Just like that, the woman was no longer among the living. Not unlike, Carly recalled, what had happened to the chief of police’s wife. She had disappeared, as well, making Bo Fargo a widower—or so the man had claimed. No one really questioned him about it. One day the man was married, then the next day, he wasn’t.
    It occurred to Carly that the men in Cold Plains did not get divorced. If they found themselves suddenly alone and widowers, it was because they had conveniently “lost” their wives.
    What if these women were not “lost” but rather eliminated? What if Carrington’s wife and the chief’s wife had been killed, just like those five women whose deaths Hawk was investigating?
    And what if there were a lot more dead women buried throughout the state, women who had come from Cold Plains and who, for one reason or another, had fallen out of favor with Samuel?
    Now that she thought of it, Carly vaguely remembered hearing someone say that Brice Carrington had wanted children to carry on his legacy and the first Mrs. Carrington hadn’t been able to have any children. Was that her sin? The inability to conceive and produce little disciples for Grayson? Was that why Carrington was marrying Mia, so she could become the baby machine he both wanted and expected?
    Oh, Mia, Mia, how can you be so blind? They just want to use you. And you’re letting them.
    “Is something wrong, Carly?”
    The question, coming from behind her and quietly worded, nearly caused Carly to jump out of her skin. Even at its lowest point, it struck her as a very creepy-sounding voice.
    Samuel.
    Looking out the window, she hadn’t heard him come into her classroom. The man moved like smoke—or like the devil, except that his cloven hooves were muted, hidden inside of hand-stitched shoes, which cost more than a lot of the farmers and the ranchers in the area managed to earn in any given year.
    Samuel Grayson, movie-star handsome, with a tongue that was smoother than sweetened whipped cream, and blessed with hypnotic eyes that could easily hold a soul in place, had left the tiny town of Horn’s Gulf years ago to make his mark—and his money—as a motivational speaker.
    Increasingly more and more successful, he toured the Southwest and gave seminars to hapless people who wanted nothing more than to be half as dynamic as the man who had captured their attention and fired up their souls.
    So they plunked their money down and listened in rapt attention, hoping for miracles to strike, miracles that would transform them into veritable clones of the stirring speaker. And as they prayed, Grayson went about the business of separating these desperate would-be disciples of his from their “contributions.”
    Contributions, Carly knew, a good many of them could ill afford to give. But that didn’t bother—or stop—Grayson from collecting what he obviously felt was his due.
    Eventually he grew bored and sought new challenges. Not content with moving from city to city,