Chapter 1
The blood pooling on the floor under the assassin’s back reminded Nick of butterfly wings. It spread from the twin wounds and sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the kitchen window.
The dying man’s words came between gasps. “I’m not the only one, Avery. The others will get you. Both sides.”
Nick raised his pistol and aimed between the assassin’s widened eyes. A muffled pop from the silencer and it was over.
Killing was the worst part of Nick’s job, but he’d never felt so emotional about it. Not like this, his finger trembling against the trigger. Nobody had ever targeted him before—in his own house, no less.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced at the blood spreading across the white kitchen tiles. Blood meant death and death reminded him of Annabelle. The kitchen he was standing in reminded him of her. The entire house reminded him of her. The memories stung more than his wounds from the fight with the assassin.
Tucking the pistol into the back of his pants, he walked to a filing cabinet in the living room. His boots crunched on the remains of a vase knocked to the floor during the fight. Annabelle had bought the vase a year before she died. Stepping on the broken pieces was like crunching bones. Unbearable.
Slowing his breaths, Nick unlocked the top cabinet, flipping through the files until he found the papers for his other identity—a precaution he’d taken years ago. Illegal, but he didn’t care. He pushed the papers into his pocket and started to close the drawer. He stopped.
His youngest daughter’s wedding paperwork was at the front—paid bills for dresses, flowers, the cake.
The cake.
Red rose petals pressed into the best frosting he’d ever tasted.
He opened the file and saw the brochure—Cakes Made by Love. It had been so long since the wedding, since meeting Lilian. She didn’t know how she’d opened his eyes. He’d thought about trying to see her again, but could he? Should he? She could offer him a safe place to hide. It was tempting.
He put the brochure in his pocket just as a shadow passed the kitchen window. Footsteps, barely audible. Someone must have seen movement through the partly closed blinds in the kitchen. Damn.
He ran to his bedroom and shoved the rest of his things into a bag. Clothes, more weapons—one more pistol, a rifle, a box of ammunition. He had to get out, away from the dead body, from whoever was coming inside. Footsteps followed him down the hallway and he broke into a run out the back door. The yards in the West Virginia neighborhood had fences, mostly wood, some rotting and covered with dull green moss. Nothing Nick couldn’t hop over.
He looked over his shoulder. Two men. They were catching up, a silent pursuit except for heavy breaths. It was the middle of the day. From what Nick could remember, everybody in the neighborhood worked. He hadn’t lived here for two years, but even before then he was hardly home. Always working. Even now.
Except now he had been betrayed. The assassin proved it. Kyle must have sent him.
Slipping behind an old tool shed, Nick knew he could bring down the men. Easy. Maybe they were more of Kyle’s men. Or maybe they were from the other side—the FBI or the CIA. Everybody was out to get him.
One of the men whispered an order to the other. Nick dropped his bag as they appeared from around both corners of the shed, angry growls erupting from their throats.
Nick brought the suited man down first, sending him to the dirt with a blow to the throat. He hadn’t used a move like that for years. It sent pain through his wrist, which told him he’d done it wrong, but nothing he could do about that now. Damn, he was out of shape. He was used to working out in a hot, stuffy gym in São Paulo, punching his fists into dummies hanging from the wooden beams. Nothing like this.
As he watched the second man come at him, he reacted purely on instinct, just as he’d done with the Brazilian in his kitchen, and lifted his leg to kick the center of the man’s chest. The man went flying into the fence. The wood slats cracked loudly. Splinters flew.
The man was taller than Nick. Broad shoulders, muscular, quick. Nick kept himself in control, adrenaline pumping through him, dulling any pain he’d felt earlier.
He noticed the ring of sweat around the man’s tight gray T-shirt. He had to be undercover, FBI, nothing to do with Kyle. His skin was pale, not tan from the Brazilian sun like Nick’s. His fighting technique seemed stiff, straight from training.
Another blow. Nick blocked it, spinning around to kick the man’s knees, but the man was faster and shoved Nick into the fence. Another slat broke. A splinter dug into his back. There was no time to catch his breath before the man jerked him up by his collar. The sharp scent of aftershave stung Nick’s nose.
“You’re under arrest. Come quietly or it’s gonna get ugly.”
Nick squinted in the mottled afternoon sunlight. He would never go quietly. Who had chosen these idiots?
Pinning one of Nick’s arms against the fence, the man let go of Nick’s collar and started to reach for the pistol in his shoulder holster. Nick inched the fingers of his free hand to his own gun. In less than a second, his trained assailant lay unconscious on the ground, a welt rising on his temple.
Nick tucked away his gun and pulled his bag from under the suited man’s legs. Pain jabbed his spine, but he ignored it. He needed to retire. He had planned to, but he was the one who insisted on one last job, a last stretch to bury himself so deep he could ignore everything else.
He swung the bag over his shoulder just as his cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out from his pocket. It was Clara, his youngest daughter. Every week he talked to her from his office—except the past week when he’d been stuck in the Amazon with Kyle. How did she get this number? He had never given it to anybody outside of Langley and he’d ignored their calls for the past twenty-four hours.
He remembered his director’s words. We won’t trace you unless you give us a reason to. Now, looking at the two men on the ground, their faces in the dirt, Nick realized that he should have destroyed the phone before he’d left Brazil.
He imagined Clara waiting on the other end. She was eager to talk to him these days, her voice upbeat. He didn’t want to ignore her, even if it was what he’d done most of her life. But he couldn’t answer. Not now. He threw the phone onto the cement and crushed it to pieces with his heel.
He’d wasted enough time. He needed a safe place to figure things out and he knew just the spot. He stepped around the two unconscious men and pulled the brochure from his pocket. It had been three years. Lilian could help him, possibly in more ways than one.
He took a deep breath, anxious to see her again as he set out to find a car nobody would miss.
Chapter 2
Mr. Jackson and his wife smiled as they drank their coffee next to the crackling fire. Lilian had liked the couple the second they checked into her inn a week ago. Nothing seemed to upset them, even when they had found a spider in their shower and told her about it as they ate their croissants the next morning.
“This is the best vacation we’ve had since our honeymoon,” Mr. Jackson said, smiling wider. “Everything’s perfect. The food, our room, the forest, the lake. It’s even better than you advertised.” He lifted his cup toward the carafe in Lilian’s hand.
“I’m so happy to hear that.” Lilian’s cheeks felt warm as she filled his cup. She loved guests who gushed about the inn. It made her feel like her hard work was paying off despite fewer bookings.
The pops of the burning wood almost drowned out the drumming rain. Mrs. Jackson snuggled closer to her husband, who looked up at the ceiling. “Strong rain, isn’t it? Came out of nowhere.”
Lilian straightened her shoulders. “Yes, it did. I’m sorry if it ruined your plans to hike the trails.”
“Not at all!” Mrs. Jackson laughed. “I love summer rain. And it’s even cool enough for us to enjoy a fire. Very soothing.”
Lilian forced a smile. Last summer, a three-day rainstorm had flooded the inn. She did her best to hide it around the guests, but rain always put her on edge.
“The rain is nice, yes, but when it pours like this for too long, it’s almost impossible to get up and down the road. We keep hoping the county will pave it, but they won’t let the permits go through.” She shrugged, hiding her annoyance. “They say there’s not enough traffic.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re not leaving soon, eh?” Mr. Jackson laughed.
Lilian laughed, too. “That’s true. Have a good night.”
She left the room and headed for the kitchen. She had discovered the inn during an afternoon hike. She hadn’t thought much of the old house the day she found it. She’d gone inside the second time she saw it. Her boots had crunched on the broken glass and dead leaves. Something half-buried beneath the decaying mess caught her attention—wings. Hundreds of them, faded orange and black, some obviously older than others—more decayed and brittle, almost translucent. They reminded her of intricately folded origami, beautiful yet flightless.
She stopped in the hallway, listening to the rain on the roof as the carafe weighed heavy in her hand. Maybe the journey had been more of an escape from her divorce than fulfilling a dream.
“Mom, there you are.”
Turning, Lilian saw her son Devan rushing to her from down the hall. Drenched, he ran the back of his hand across his face and cleared away the water dripping from his short hair down his scruffy jaw. Lilian was constantly wishing he’d shave more often, but he was a man now and he seemed to like sporting the outdoorsman look now that he had finished college and lived at the inn.
“What’s the matter?”
“The canoes are sinking. Again.”
Lilian grumbled under her breath. She’d had to pay someone last summer to get the canoes off the bottom of the lake when they’d sunk during a rainstorm.
“Who left them untied?” she asked, trying not to sound annoyed with Devan or the guests. She was grateful for every moment Devan was around. Last summer, he’d been away visiting his father when the inn flooded; now he was here to help her with whatever she needed. The only downfall was that he was twenty-six and seemed to be getting antsy to leave for good. He wanted to join the Air Force and the thought made her feel sick.
“I don’t know. One of the guests. I should have checked earlier.”
They reached the front entryway. “How many?” She set the carafe on a shelf and took a pair of work gloves from a gardening tool basket.
“Four on the bank. Two tied to the dock and I think one sank already.” Devan looked at the gloves in her hand. “You know, the canoes are really heavy, Mom. We can get them later when we’ve got more help.”
Lilian cringed. If they waited, more canoes would sink. The more she had to get off the bottom of the lake, the more it would cost her. She shoved the gloves in her pocket and took a jacket from its hook. “We can try it together. I’ll be fine.”
Devan touched her arm, his expression softening. “Mom, it’s just canoes. We can buy more later when business picks up. Are you worried about something else?”
Closing her eyes for a moment, she thought of the butterflies again. They wouldn’t leave her mind lately. “I keep thinking about that article you showed me.” There had been photos of clear-cut forests in Mexico, butterflies dropping to the ground when it got too cold, loggers claiming they had to make a living somehow. She didn’t know how she could help except to raise more butterflies. At the moment, that seemed too small a thing to make any difference and it took time she didn’t have.
“That was one scientist’s prediction,” Devan said. “They’re not going to disappear.”
Lilian bent down to pull on her boots. “I’m overreacting, I know.”
“No you’re not.” When she finished tying her laces, Devan took her hand and helped her stand. “They’re important to you, but even if they disappear, they’re not the only thing that brings people here. We just need better advertising.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve never seen you so worried. I’m sorry I showed you the article.”
Noticing the concern in his eyes, Lilian shook her head. “No, the rain’s got me worried, too. It kills a lot of them.” She imagined them dropping into puddles, beating their wings uselessly against the weight of the water.
Devan turned to the door. “Let’s hurry before the bank overflows.”
After she zipped up her jacket, Lilian followed him to the covered porch. On a dry night, bugs usually swarmed the lights hanging from the roof, but tonight was too wet. Deep pools had already formed across the grassy clearing that led down a hill to the lake. Lilian knew she’d be up to her ankles in mud by the time they finished.
“Maybe tomorrow I can try to get the canoes that already sank,” Devan said, walking down the steps. “If I had somebody to help, I think I could do it.”
The rain, hard as pebbles, soaked Lilian in a matter of seconds. She looked up to see Devan already disappearing down the hill. He was right. He could get the sunken canoes when the weather cleared, but he would need help from somebody strong. Maybe Mr. Jackson? He was in his early fifties, not much older than her, but could she ask that of a guest? Maybe she could get a volunteer from town because Mr. Barry, the man she’d hired last year, wouldn’t do it for free.
“Look out!”
Lilian looked up, slamming into a dark figure as hands grabbed her waist. She looked into a man’s handsome face.
“I’m sorry.” He looked relieved to see her. “I called out your name, but you kept walking and turned right into me.”
Lilian caught her breath. She hadn’t seen him in three years, but she still recognized him—square jaw, steely eyes that were almost black in the dim light. She knew they would be soft and gray in the sunlight. He seemed to change like that, one moment dark and mysterious, the next as familiar as her own reflection.
She almost choked on her surprise, gasping for breath as she remembered him in the back room of her cake shop. She was already breaking out in a sweat. “Nick?”
Nick smiled, but his expression was uneasy. He tightened his hold. “Hello, Lilian. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
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Monarch is published by Rhemalda Publishing.
