Chapter One
Marsha Henyard shoved through the employee restroom door with eight minutes to turn herself from lowly housekeeper to fancy banquet server.
Nine, if the catering manager ran as late as every other manager Marsha had ever worked for.
She hung her heavy leather tote on a coat hook beside the counter and checked the stalls. Each door hung open against floor-to-ceiling panels, nothing like the gapped metal ones from the roadside motels she used to clean. Even the employee bathroom got real privacy in a place like this. Empty. Thank God for small favors.
Her yellow cleaning shirt clung to her back after eight hours spent scrubbing hotel rooms while their occupants gambled away money she’d never see or slept off whatever they’d done the night before.
One of the penthouses had required nearly three hours by itself, thanks to champagne stains ground into the carpet and lipstick smeared across two wineglasses and a bedroom mirror. Then there was the bathtub ring, so dark that Marsha had wondered whether the guests had bathed in it or dissolved.
People with money could make one hell of a mess.
Her phone buzzed against the counter. Carla flashed across the screen.
Marsha stared at her daughter’s name while she dug a folded white blouse and black slacks from her bag, the leather worn soft at the edges from three years of use. Carla had saved for months to buy it, back before college ate every spare dollar either of them had.
Carla hadn’t answered either of her daughter’s calls that morning. She’d sent one text shortly after lunch.
We need to talk.
Three words that could split a mother’s heart between relief and dread.
Marsha answered and pinned the phone between her cheek and shoulder. “I’ve only got a few minutes before I need to be upstairs.”
“I told my advisor I’m dropping anatomy.”
The blouse snagged halfway over Marsha’s head. She yanked it down and freed her arms, temper snagging right along with it. “You did what?”
“I can’t pass it.”
One grade didn’t erase a semester. “You got one bad grade.”
“Mom…I’ve gotten three bad grades.”
Three. Marsha’s stomach dropped. “You didn’t tell me about the other two.”
“Because I knew you’d do this.”
Marsha dragged the zipper of her slacks up harder than necessary. “Do what? Care whether you throw away an entire semester?”
That we already can’t afford.
“I’m not throwing anything away.”
“You need that class for the nursing program.”
“I know what I need it for.” The twenty-year-old could revert to fourteen in a nanosecond.
The restroom door opened behind Marsha. A woman entered and stopped long enough to glance at her before crossing to the row of sinks.
Marsha lowered her voice. “We’ll talk about this when I get home.”
“I’m going out and won’t be home until midnight.”
Which meant 3:00 a.m. On a Thursday, no less.
“Maybe this is why you have three failing grades?” Marsha turned on the cold water and splashed her face. “You need to focus.”
“Mom!” How many times had Carla said that exact word in that exact tone?
Taking a deep breath, she waited a moment before answering. “How about you be home at ten, and we’ll talk about it?”
“But I want to talk about it now.”
She checked her watch. Four and a half minutes left. “I’m working, Carla. My second job. The one that’s paying for the school you’re about to flunk out of.”
She didn’t mean to be so harsh, but dammit.
“I didn’t ask you to take another job.”
Marsha stuffed her feet into her shoes. “No, you just asked me to help with tuition.”
“I said I could take out a loan.”
“And spend the next twenty years paying it back? You think I want that for you?”
“I think you want to make every decision for me.”
Marsha snatched a black vest from her bag. Her temporary badge waited on top, the silver clip catching the fluorescent light. “I want you to stop quitting the second something gets hard.”
“I’m not quitting. I’m changing majors.”
Exhaustion ran through every muscle in Marsha’s body. “To what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
A pulse throbbed behind Marsha’s left eye. “So your plan is to wander around until somebody hands you a future?”
“My plan is to figure out what I want instead of doing what you picked for me.”
What the actual hell? “I didn’t pick nursing for you.”
“You’ve been telling people I’m going to be a nurse since I was sixteen.”
“Because you told me you wanted to be one.”
“Maybe I wanted you to be proud of me.”
Would the guilt and the second-guessing that came with motherhood ever stop?
The other woman stood at the far sink, smoothing her dark hair. Marsha caught her watching in the mirror. The stranger looked away first.
Marsha reached for an apology. The words crowded behind her teeth, tangled with exhaustion and the four hundred dollars she’d promised the bursar’s office by tomorrow afternoon.
“Go cool off.” She fastened the vest with shaking fingers. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow, when you’re ready to act like an adult.”
Carla gave a bitter laugh. “Right. Because adults get to make their own choices?”
The call ended.
Marsha lowered the phone.
Dammit.
She’d call back during her break. No, she’d send a text now. Something simple. I’m sorry. I love you. We’ll figure it out.
She opened their message thread, but the stranger’s reflection slid closer.
“Daughters.”
Marsha peered up.
The woman leaned one hip against the counter. She appeared close to Marsha’s age, with a similar build and dark hair that fell a few inches past her shoulders. Even their skin tones were close enough that someone looking from a distance might mistake one for the other. But that was where the resemblance stopped. Her clothes and jewelry put her in a different bracket altogether.
The woman offered a tired smile. “They reach a certain age and decide their mothers have never understood a single thing.”
Marsha locked her phone without sending the message. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks. How much had the woman overheard?
“Mine turned twenty in May.” She clipped the badge to her vest. “She’s certain that makes us equals.”
“Mine’s also twenty.”
That eased the knot behind Marsha’s ribs. “Lord help us both.”
“He didn’t.” The words came out strained, though the woman’s expression never changed.
Marsha slid her phone into her tote and pulled out a packet of face wipes to scrub away what remained of the makeup she’d applied before dawn. “You working the banquet?”
“No.”
“Conference?”
The woman shook her head. Then why was she in the employee’s restroom? She clearly didn’t need the facility either. She hadn’t stepped into a stall or touched the sink. She’d just stood there, watching.
Maybe those true crime podcasts Marsha listened to while she cleaned were making her paranoid. She tossed the wipe into the trash and smoothed on a color-correcting moisturizer to give her skin a little life. A swipe of lipstick and a bit of mascara were all she had time for.
“Which banquet are you working?”
The question sharpened the pressure behind Marsha’s eye. “The law enforcement awards dinner.”
“That sounds fancy.”
“Yep.” Marsha picked her tote off the coat hook and slung it over her shoulder, holding the straps with both hands. “I really need to go.”
The woman stepped between Marsha and the door. “Do they check your badge again before you enter the ballroom?”
Every small alarm inside Marsha went off at once. She tightened her grip on the tote’s straps. “You’ll need to ask someone at the front desk.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I can’t help you.”
Marsha stepped to the side.
The woman matched the movement.
A chill swept across Marsha’s damp skin. “Ma’am, I need you to let me pass.”
“I only need to know how many checkpoints there are.”
Marsha shoved a hand into her tote and closed her fingers around her phone. “Move.”
The woman’s gaze shifted to the bag.
Marsha yanked the phone free, but the woman slapped it from her hand. It struck the tile and skidded beneath the counter.
Heart pounding, Marsha drove her shoulder forward and used her bag to ram the stranger in her midsection. She stumbled into the nearest sink, giving Marsha space to lunge for the door. She caught the handle and wrenched it down.
The woman seized the back of her vest and pulled hard, tightening the fabric against Marsha’s throat.
She twisted, swinging her tote hard enough to drive its metal buckle into the woman’s cheek.
The stranger cried out and lost her grip.
Marsha tore the door open, but the woman hooked an arm around her neck and yanked her backward.
Her shoes slid across the tile. The door slammed shut inches from her fingertips, and she reached back to claw at the woman’s forearm. “Let me go.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
The grip on her throat tightened.
Marsha drove an elbow behind her, striking something soft. The woman grunted, and her arm loosened. Marsha spun and shoved with both hands.
The stranger crashed into the wall beside the sinks, but was fast and twisted her fingers into Marsha’s hair. Pain ripped across her scalp as the woman dragged her backward again. Marsha grabbed for the counter but couldn’t find a grip on the polished surface.
The stranger clamped a hand over Marsha’s mouth and slammed her head backward.
She hit the coat hook she’d hung her tote on and felt it punch into the base of her skull, just above her neck. Pain exploded into her vision, and a bright burst swallowed the room. Marsha crumpled to the floor.
Tile pressed cold against her cheek. Somewhere close, the woman’s breath came fast and ragged.
Marsha tried to lift her head. Pain split her skull, shooting along the sides of her face and driving her back down. The overhead lights blurred into long white streaks.
Her phone lay just beyond her fingertips. The device pinged, and Carla’s name appeared above a new message.
Mom? I’m sorry to disappoint you again.
Marsha reached for it. Her arm didn’t answer. She told it to try again, slower this time, the way she used to talk Carla through a math problem, and got nothing back.
Footsteps approached. The stranger crouched and unclipped the temporary badge from Marsha’s vest. She spoke again, her words swimming in and out of Marsha’s range of hearing, like she kept moving farther away and rushing back close again.
“None of this had to happen.”
Marsha opened her mouth to tell her to stay away from Carla. The word for away sat right there and then didn’t. She reached for it again and came back with nothing, just the idea of what she’d meant to say.
One side of the ceiling had gone soft and gray, smudged like a thumb had dragged across it. The other side stayed sharp, the coat hook still in focus, one prong smeared dark and glistening in the grainy light.
For a second, Marsha thought the woman had put a vise around her head and started squeezing, but when she blinked again, her attacker was unbuttoning her vest.
Time skipped. The woman already had Marsha’s shoes off, and Marsha hadn’t felt them go.
The ceiling lights slid above her, one white blur replacing another as the woman dragged her across the tile. Marsha tried to kick, but her legs belonged to someone else now.
A metal partition passed through the edge of her vision. Her shoulder struck the base of a toilet. The stall door swung closed, cutting the room into a thin strip of fluorescent light.
She should’ve called Carla back. She should’ve told her she was proud of her, that the mistakes didn’t matter half as much as Carla thought they did.
I’m so sorry.
Footsteps moved away in Marsha’s shoes.
While the woman turned into her, Marsha vanished.
Chapter Two
Stacy Lark had spent two years with the Philadelphia PD and over a year as a special agent in the Nashville Violent Crime Unit. She knew how to recognize danger.
At the moment, someone much scarier than the suspects she usually faced stood near the windows of Stacy’s parents’ hotel suite, holding a champagne glass and silently judging Stacy’s dress.
Emiliana Lark might not be a serial killer, but she could slay a daughter with a single look.
Beyond the windows, the Las Vegas Strip caught the last gold burn of sunset, the casino lights already fighting against it for space.
The dress was fine. Stacy wasn’t going to look down and prove her mother right.
She’d bought it three weeks ago at a designer boutique in Nashville, black and sleeveless and fitted at the waist, elegant without asking for attention. It had seemed perfect in the boutique mirror.
A frustrated grunt came from behind the suite’s closed bathroom door. Her father, John Lark, was still getting into his tuxedo.
Emiliana smiled. “Your father will be out in a moment, you know.” She examined the hem of Stacy’s dress and took a measured sip of champagne.
Stacy’s attire had apparently deteriorated into an unholy rag during the flight from Tennessee.
“What?”
Emiliana’s sculpted eyebrows rose the slightest fraction. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’ve never needed words.”
“You look lovely, Anastasia.”
Stacy waited for the but.
Emiliana scrutinized the hem again.
Some buts didn’t need to be vocalized.
Her father would be coming out soon and ready to go downstairs. Stacy knew he’d never critique her choices with the same gusto as Emiliana, but he would also defer to his wife’s taste in a heartbeat.
John Lark knew which side of his bread was buttered.
“It’s a perfectly good dress.” Stacy smoothed a hand over the skirt, as if that might convince either of them. “The woman at the store said it was classic.”
“I’m sure it was when she received the shipment.”
“When do you think that was? 1987?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Emiliana crossed the sitting room, her ivory gown whispering around her ankles. “The eighties had far more shoulder.”
She stopped in front of Stacy and adjusted the neckline by less than half an inch. The alteration changed nothing, but Emiliana stepped back as if she’d completed emergency surgery.
“You hate it.”
Emiliana wrinkled her nose, which was the only part of her face that Botox allowed free rein. “Hate is such an ugly word.”
“You brought another one, didn’t you?”
Emiliana glanced toward the bedroom.
Here we go.
Stacy closed her eyes. “Of course you did.”
The sigh Emiliana exhaled could have sailed a boat. “I brought options.”
“For me.”
“For all of us.”
“Dad too?”
Emiliana’s laugh was soft and polished, the exact register she used for boardrooms and charity galas. “Your father once tried to wear brown shoes with a navy tuxedo.”
Stacy remembered that day too well. “He still talks about the intervention.”
“He should. It saved him from photographic evidence.”
Stacy faced the bedroom door. A garment bag hung from the brass hook on the far wall, invisible to her when she’d first walked in. Her mother must’ve positioned it there before Stacy came upstairs.
“What color?”
“Blue.”
“Which blue?”
“The one that makes your eyes less…brown.”
Stacy’s eyes were amber, but they’d had that discussion before. “That doesn’t narrow it down in your world. Sapphire?”
“You did very well.” Emiliana took another sip. “But it’s cerulean, dear. Did Miranda Priestly teach you nothing?”
No surprise there. Emiliana had dressed Stacy in variations of blue for every cello recital, charity dinner, debutante function, and formal family portrait since she was old enough to stand still for a fitting.
Stacy faced the mirror again. “I bought this one myself.”
Her mother lasted almost three seconds. “For a different occasion.”
Stacy laughed before she could stop herself. “Why do I even bother dressing myself? I should have emailed you my packing list before the flight.”
“That’s childish, and you know it. You’re twenty-eight years old, and I respect your independence.”
A polygraph machine would have produced seismic results on that one. “The dress waiting in there really drives that point home.”
“It has pockets.”
Pockets. That’s cheating.
Her mother caught it at once. “Proper ones.”
“That’s dirty.”
“I raised you. I know your vulnerabilities.”
Emiliana set her glass on the bar and retrieved the garment bag. The cerulean fabric emerged with a quiet sweep, catching the light as she held it up.
Dammit.
The dress is gorgeous.
The neckline was a plain boat cut, no gaping in sight, and a thin line of sequins traced the hem, catching the light every time the fabric moved. The skirt looked long enough to brush the tops of Stacy’s shoes. If it fit as well as it looked, it would strike the right note for the banquet, elegant without making her look like someone’s overdressed daughter playing FBI agent for the evening.
With a tiny grin, Emiliana spread the dress across the bed and pulled out a pair of Rene Caovilla “Chandelier” sandals that made Stacy’s mouth water.
First pockets. Now this.
She might be on an FBI salary now, but her feet apparently hadn’t gotten the memo. As different as they were, she was Emiliana Lark’s daughter after all.
Stacy reached for the shoes. “You’re insufferable.”
Pleased, Emiliana picked up her champagne again. “You’ll thank me when you see the photographs.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll think it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s close enough.”
Stacy carried the dress into the bedroom and shut the door before her mother could offer assistance.
Her parents’ suite contained more space than Stacy’s first Philadelphia apartment. A king-size bed occupied the center of the room, topped with enough pillows to cushion a plane crash. Her parents’ luggage stood on brass racks near the dressing area—matching leather cases, because Emiliana would sooner travel with a garbage bag than mismatched luggage.
Stacy removed the black dress, gave it a little hug, and laid it carefully on the bed before slipping the blue—cerulean—one over her head.
The fabric settled against her body as if someone had constructed it around her measurements.
She found the pockets.
Deep ones.
“Dammit.”
“I heard that,” Emiliana called through the door.
Ignoring her mother, Stacy stepped in front of the full-length mirror.
The color turned her eyes almost gold and warmed her complexion. Even the neckline worked with the pearl-and-diamond earrings Emiliana had given her when she graduated from Quantico.
Stacy had no intention of admitting any of that to her mother.
She transferred her phone and room key into the pockets, grateful she wouldn’t need to carry the tiny clutch Emiliana had placed beside her champagne glass.
The bedroom door opened as Stacy reached for the handle.
John Lark filled the doorway in his tuxedo, his silver hair still damp from the shower. A black bow tie hung untied around his collar.
He looked from Stacy to the abandoned dress. “Your mother won?”
“She cheated.”
“Pockets?”
“Pockets and shoes.” It was a humiliating admission.
John nodded as if that explained everything. “You look beautiful, sweetheart.”
The easy warmth in his face untangled some of the irritation Emiliana had wound through her.
“Thanks, Dad.” Stacy lifted the ends of his bow tie. “You planning to wear this, or is it decorative?”
“I was hoping you’d take pity on me.”
“You’ve worn a tuxedo hundreds of times.”
“And your mother’s tied it for me about as many.”
“Which means you never learned.”
He bobbed his eyebrows. “I learned how to marry a woman who could do it for me.”
Emiliana appeared behind him. “That’s the closest your father has ever come to admitting strategic dependence.”
John stepped aside so she could reach his collar. “I admit it every morning when I can’t find my glasses.”
“They’re always on your nightstand.”
“Exactly. Strategy.”
Emiliana folded one end of the tie over the other, her fingers quick and practiced. John watched her with fond patience, accustomed to being fussed over and wise enough to enjoy it.
The hotel staff had delivered champagne, fruit, and delicate pastries shortly after Stacy arrived. Fresh flowers covered the table near the windows. Emiliana had ordered those, too, unwilling to trust whatever arrangement the suite ordinarily provided.
They fit together this way—her mother arranging the details, her father teasing whenever she took them too seriously.
Stacy had grown up inside that rhythm.
She’d spent half her childhood trying to disrupt it.
Emiliana had played the piano every afternoon on the baby grand in the music room, her back straight and her hands gliding across the keys. When she suggested lessons, seven-year-old Stacy had chosen the cello because it was the furthest thing from a piano she could think of.
The rebellion hadn’t created the distance Stacy intended. Emiliana hired a private instructor, purchased a child-size cello, and learned the piano accompaniment to every piece Stacy mastered. Stacy had chosen the cello to claim something of her own. Somehow, it had become one more thing they shared.
Her phone vibrated inside her pocket, and Stacy slipped the device free. A text from Stella Knox.
We’re heading down. Want to join us peasants?
Stacy laughed.
“What is it?” John turned as Emiliana straightened his lapels.
“Stella. The team’s on the way downstairs.”
“Perfect.” Emiliana reached for her clutch. “We should leave too.”
Stacy typed a quick reply.
I’ll meet you near the elevators. Don’t you dare say you like my dress!
She slipped the phone back into her pocket. “Actually, I thought I’d go down with them.”
The glass stopped an inch from Emiliana’s glossed lips.
John crossed to the bar and picked up his champagne.
“We’re all attending the same banquet.” Emiliana’s tone remained light, but the set of her shoulders changed. “We can go together.”
“I know. I told the team I’d meet them.”
“You see them every day.”
“Not in formal wear. There may never be another opportunity to watch my boss suffer in a bow tie.”
Emiliana stroked John’s arm. “This evening honors your father.”
“It honors the Nashville office too.”
Emiliana tightened her grip on the stem. “I’m aware of that. I only assumed we’d enter as a family.”
Her parents had flown to Las Vegas for John’s award, though neither of them needed much encouragement to attend a black-tie anything. Emiliana had spent the past week confirming reservations and scheduling photographs as if the banquet were a diplomatic summit.
Stacy understood why arriving together mattered to her.
She also knew what would happen the moment they entered that ballroom.
People would see John Lark, philanthropist and founder of the Lark Foundation, gliding into the room with Emiliana in ivory silk on his arm. Stacy would become their daughter before anyone remembered she belonged to the FBI team receiving its own award.
She didn’t want to fight about this. “I’ll sit with you.” Stacy’s voice gentled. “I want to walk in with my team.”
Emiliana opened her mouth.
John touched his wife’s shoulder. “Let her.”
She turned toward him. “I—”
“Tonight belongs to her too.” Pride settled across his face as he studied Stacy. “She should enter with the people who helped her earn it.”
The warmth in his voice tightened Stacy’s throat. “Walking in with my team doesn’t make me any less proud of you, Dad.”
John crossed the room and kissed Stacy’s forehead. “I think I’m the proud one tonight.”
Temporarily beaten, Emiliana handed Stacy the small silver clutch from the table.
“I have pockets.”
“Your phone won’t fit in those pockets without ruining the line of the dress.”
Stacy accepted the clutch. Some wars weren’t worth the casualties.
Her mother kissed her cheek, careful not to disturb her makeup. “We’ll see you downstairs.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” Emiliana studied Stacy’s mouth. “And after you apply another coat of lipstick, you should put it in the clutch too. Dress lines.”
John ushered his wife toward the door before Stacy could respond. He winked over one shoulder.
A moment later, the suite fell silent.
Stacy retrieved the phone from her pocket and applied another coat of lipstick before sliding them both into her clutch.
She hated when her mother was right.
The elevator carried her toward the lobby with soft music playing overhead. Stacy caught her reflection in the polished brass doors, the blue dress fitting perfectly, her earrings sparkling under the elevator lights. Anyone looking at her would recognize Emiliana Lark’s influence before Stacy spoke a word.
The doors opened.
Stella waited near the windows with Hagen Yates, Paul Slade, and the rest of the Nashville team. They’d cleaned up well, although Hagen was already tugging at his collar. SSA Slade stood rigid in his tuxedo, as if formal wear represented a personal attack.
Stella spotted Stacy and broke into a grin.
Ander Bennett gave a low whistle but simmered down just as fast. “Damn, Lark. You take ‘formal’ to a whole other level.”
Mackenzie Drake’s eyes narrowed. “How do you walk in those shoes?”
Caleb Hudson chuckled. “I think those spikes qualify as weapons.”
Stacy crossed the lobby toward her team and stopped thinking about the dress.
A wedding should mark a new beginning. This one could destroy it all.
FBI Special Agent Stacy Lark arrives in Las Vegas ready to celebrate. The Nashville team is being honored for its latest case, her philanthropist father is delivering the award, and Stella Knox and Hagen Yates have decided to turn the trip into an impromptu wedding.
Before they can exchange their vows, a woman pulls a gun.
The attack isn’t random. She chose this wedding. She knows Stacy’s family. And whatever brought her to Las Vegas began long before anyone stepped inside the chapel. Read More