The Ultimate Betrayal - Kat Martin Page 0,122
wanted to go.
Available now from HQN Books.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed Brandon and Jessie’s story. In my next romantic thriller, Reese Garrett struggles with his unwanted attraction to his executive assistant, McKenzie Haines. It gets worse when Kenzie is accused of murder. Worse yet, when Reese risks his position as CEO of Garrett Resources to protect her.
Kenzie won’t be safe until the real killer is found so they must work together—the last thing Reese wants to do.
I hope you’ll watch for their story; and if you haven’t read the other books in my Maximum Security series, The Conspiracy and The Deception, I hope you will.
Till then, all best and happy reading.
Kat
The Deception
by Kat Martin
CHAPTER ONE
Dallas, Texas
“I’m sorry, Ms. Gallagher. I know this is terribly difficult, but unless there’s someone else who can make a positive identi-fication—”
Kate shook her head. “No. There’s no one else.”
“All right then, if you will please follow me.” The medi-cal examiner, Dr. Jerome Maxwell, a man in his fifties, had thick black hair finely threaded with gray. He started down the hall, but Kate stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Are you...are you completely sure it’s my sister?” She smoothed a hand nervously over the skirt of her navy blue suit. “The victim is definitely Christina Gallagher?”
“There was a fingerprint match to your missing sister. I’m sorry,” he repeated. “We’ll still need your confirmation.”
Kate’s stomach rolled. Her legs felt weak as she followed Dr. Maxwell down a narrow, seemingly endless hallway in the Dallas County morgue. The echo of her high heels on the stark gray linoleum f loor sent a sweep of nausea through her.
The doctor paused outside a half-glass door. “As I said before, this is going to be difficult. Are you sure there isn’t someone you can call, someone else who could make the identification?”
Kate’s throat tightened. “My father’s remarried and living in New York. He hasn’t seen Chrissy in years.” Frank Galla-gher hadn’t seen either of his daughters since he and his wife had divorced.
“And your mother?” the doctor asked kindly.
“She died of a heart attack a year after Chrissy ran away.” For Madeleine Gallagher, losing both her husband and her daughter had simply been too much.
The doctor straightened his square black glasses. “Are you ready?”
“I’ll never be ready to see my sister’s murdered body, Dr. Maxwell. But I’m all Chrissy has, so let’s get it over with.”
The doctor opened the door, and they walked out of a hall-way that seemed overly warm into a room that was icy cold. A shiver rushed over Kate’s skin, and her heart beat faster. As Dr. Maxwell moved toward a rollout table in front of a wall of cold-storage boxes, Kate could see the outline of a body beneath the stark white sheet.
Emotion tightened her chest. This was her baby sister, only sixteen the last time Kate had seen her two years ago, before she had run away.
The doctor nodded to a female assistant in a white lab coat standing next to the table, and the woman pulled back the sheet.
“Oh, my God.” The bile rose in Kate’s throat. She swayed, and the doctor caught her arm to steady her.
“Is this your sister, Christina Gallagher?”
The body on the table in no way resembled the beautiful young girl who had been her little sister. At only eighteen, this young woman was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, her skin chaffed and sallow and clinging to her bones. Her closed eyes were dark and sunken. Bruises covered her face, shoulders and chest, all Kate could see of the body.
Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks. “It’s her.” It wasn’t Chrissy in any way Kate remembered her, and yet there was no doubt she was the thin, brutalized, lifeless form lying on the stainless-steel table.
The doctor nodded at the assistant, who drew the sheet back over Chrissy’s face. Dr. Maxwell kept a firm grip on Kate’s arm as he turned her toward the door and guided her out of the room, back into the hallway. Her legs were shak-ing, her throat too tight to speak.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the doctor said, finally letting her go.
“Thank...thank you.”
“We have your contact information. You’ll be notified when the body has been released.”
She swallowed, wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Do you...do the police have any leads on the killer?”
“I’m sure they’re working hard to find whoever was in-volved.”
Kate nodded. Without saying more, she started back down the hallway. The doctor didn’t follow and she was glad. There was nothing left to say, nothing more he could do.
Tears blurred her vision and her head swam as she walked out into the sunlight and crossed the parking lot to her car. She wouldn’t be returning to her office today. She needed time to deal with her crushing emotions, the sense of loss and pain. The terrible sense of failure.
She needed time to grieve.
Kate slid in behind the wheel and shoved her key into the ignition. Fresh pain struck so hard she couldn’t breathe. In-stead of starting the engine, Kate put her head down on the steering wheel and started to weep.
* * *
The Deception
by Kat Martin
Available from HQN Books wherever books are sold.
Copyright © 2019 by Kat Martin
ISBN-13: 9781488056048
The Ultimate Betrayal
Copyright © 2020 by Kat Martin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].
HQN
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada