up for the fall marathon, so I can beat you again—”
“What? I beat you by a full minute and a half last year.”
Madison shoved her earbuds in her ears and jogged away. “What? I can’t hear you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She flashed her sister a smile, then sprinted toward the parking lot. She breathed in a lungful of air. Memories flickered in the background no matter how much she tried to shove them down.
For her it had been love at first sight. She’d met Luke in the ER when she went in with kidney stones. He was the handsome doctor she couldn’t keep her eyes off. Ten months later they married and spent their honeymoon on Vancouver Island, holing up in a private beach house with a view of the ocean. As an ER doc and a police officer, their biggest marital problem had been schedules that always worked against them. They’d fought for the same days off so they could go hiking together. And when they managed to score an extra couple of days, they’d rent a cabin in Lakebay or Greenbank and ditch the world for forty-eight hours.
Their marriage hadn’t been perfect, but it had been good because they’d both meant the part about for better or worse. They plowed through rough patches, learned to communicate well, and never went to bed angry. Somehow it had worked.
When they started thinking about having a family, she’d decided that she’d pursue teaching criminal justice instead of chasing down criminals after the first baby was born so she could have a regular schedule and not put her life in danger on a daily basis. And Luke looked for opportunities to work regular hours.
But there’d never been a baby. Instead, in one fatal moment, everything they planned changed forever.
Madison’s heart pounded as she ran across the parking lot, trying to outrun the memories. Five years might not be enough time to escape the past, but it was time to try making new memories.
Tomorrow, she was going to call a Realtor.
She was breathing hard when she made it back to her car. She clicked on the fob, then slid into the front seat for the ten-minute drive back to the house she and Luke had bought. It was one of the reasons why she’d decided to move. The starter home had become a labor of love as they’d taken the plunge and moved out of their apartment to become homeowners. A year later, they’d remodeled the kitchen and master bath, finished the basement, and added a wooden deck outside. Everything had seemed perfect. And now, while moving out of state might not fix everything, it felt like the next, needed step of moving forward with life.
Inside the house, she dropped her keys onto the kitchen counter and looked around the room. She’d made a few changes over the years. Fresh paint in the dining room. New pillows on the couch. But it still wasn’t enough.
No. She was making the right decision.
She started toward the hallway, then stopped. Something seemed off. The air conditioner clicked on. She reached up to straighten a photo of Mount St. Helens that Luke had taken. She was being paranoid. The doors were locked. No one had followed her home. No one was watching her. It was just her imagination.
She shook off the feeling, walked down to her bedroom, and froze in the doorway as shock coursed through her.
There. On her comforter was one black rose, just like she’d found every year at her husband’s grave on the anniversary of his death. But this time, it was in her room. In her house. Her heart pounded inside her chest. Five years after her husband’s death she still had no solid leads on who killed him or who sent the flower every year. If it was the same person, they knew how to stay in the shadows and not get caught. But why? It was the question she’d never been able to answer.
She’d accepted Luke’s death and had slowly begun to heal, but this this was different. Whatever started five years ago wasn’t over.
Two
Jonas Quinn drove through Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, surprised at how familiar the city felt. And how good it felt to be back. He’d grown up here, skiing Mount Baker with his father and visiting the fishmongers at Pike Place Market on the weekends with his mother. He knew he’d come back one day, but settling down had always been off the radar. Now the idea was actually