Gazing out the cabin window at the raging blizzard, fear suddenly floods through her as she feels a stranger’s hand clamp across her mouth. No one can hear her stifled screams as she is dragged from the couch by the fire out into the snow. When seventeen-year-old Savannah Devenish vanishes from her family’s remote vacation cabin in Minnesota, FBI Agent Tori Hunter races along treacherous icy roads to be first on the scene. Savannah’s parents are frantic with worry for their beautiful, carefree girl. Haunted by memories of her own missing sister, Tori vows to do whatever it takes to reunite this family. When the police uncover that Savannah’s father Jacob was having an affair, they suspect his involvement, but Tori is convinced his despair is genuine. Her close relationship with the chief detective means the team won’t listen, so Tori strikes off alone, persuading Savannah’s distraught best friends to share their secrets. It seems this ‘good girl’ was sneaking out to parties to meet up with a mysterious man… Then another teenager is snatched from the street, snowy footprints and a discarded hot chocolate cup the last trace of her. The girls are the same age, strikingly pale and blonde. Is a twisted collector stealing them away? And what chance is there that they are being kept alive? With a deadly snowstorm closing in, Tori battles the elements—and her own team—as she follows the trail to an abandoned cabin by a frozen lake. In the basement are bedrooms filled with clothes for teenage girls. Tori was too late to save her own missing sister twenty years ago, but can she find these girls before they disappear forever? An utterly addictive and twisty crime thriller that will have your eyes glued to the pages and your heart in your mouth. Fans of Kendra Elliot, Robert Dugoni and Tess Gerritsen won’t be able to put this down. Read what everyone’s saying about The Winter Girls : ‘ Hang on to your seat… adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride… will keep you riveted and reading till the early hours… Fabulous… LOVED IT… highly recommend… definite 5 star read for me.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Had me hooked from the very beginning… grab you by the throat and don’t let you go till the very end… An edge-of-your-seat thriller! I found myself yelling “run, run!” and breathing so fast, I thought I was going to pass out! ’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ Trust me—you do not want to miss it!... I found myself totally immersed in the story, reading well into the night!! Awesome, awesome!! ’ Tropical Delusions, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ Kept me on the edge of my seat wanting more… just one more chapter before bed… before I knew it, it was the early hours of the morning… Had me totally engrossed… I didn’t want to put it down.’ Nicki's Book Blog, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ The action is non-stop… a wild ride and well worth staying up late to finish! ’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ Wow… a rollercoaster of a story that I couldn’t put down till I finished it… I read it in one day.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ So intense!!!!... a rollercoaster ride… lots of unexpected twists and turns… a fast paced thriller!... This book is unputdownable.’ Tropical Girl Reads, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘I just wanted to read a little bit longer no matter how late at night it was… I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Lots of twists and turns, loads of action and suspense… I couldn't put down! Bravo Roger Stelljes!!’ Debatably Bookish, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘ Gripping read… I couldn’t put this book down! ’ Goodreads reviewer
Release date:
March 4, 2021
Publisher:
Bookouture
Print pages:
350
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The stinging feeling around her mouth burned hot from the duct tape that had been yanked off her face. The thick dark brown six-panel door was pulled closed. Heart pounding, she listened as a key was jammed noisily into the keyway, the locking mechanism turned, and the deadbolt slid into place with a pronounced thud.
Quickly stepping to the door, she placed her left ear against it. She could make out footsteps moving to the right and she thought upward, given the creaking she heard. When the footsteps faded away, she reached down and turned the knob right and then yanked. The door wouldn’t budge, there was almost no give. She was locked in. Imprisoned.
Trying to subdue her terror, she turned around and took in her surroundings.
The queen-size bed to her right had a new comforter on the top and four pillows. Along the far wall, a flat-screen television and DVD player sat atop a four-foot-wide three-drawer dresser. She pulled open the top dresser drawer to find movies inside. In the lower drawers were clean clothes. There were pairs of skinny jeans, two stacks of T-shirts, four plain colored sweaters, along with several pairs of underwear and socks, and bras that looked her exact size.
She stepped into the bathroom to find a sink, toilet, and small shower with a fresh bar of soap and shampoo. There was a clean brush for her hair and a brand-new hair dryer. On the vanity to the left of the sink was a new toothbrush still in the package and a fresh tube of gel toothpaste.
Stepping back into the bedroom, she opened the door of the small refrigerator to the left of the dresser. It was stocked with plain bottled water, apple and orange juice, plastic bottles of Sprite and Diet Coke and two flavors of vitamin water she often drank, along with string cheese strips and cups of Greek yogurt, two of her favorite snacks.
She sat down on the end of the bed and rubbed the raw skin around her wrists, and then her ankles, where restraints had bound her arms and legs together.
Clothes that fit, water and snacks that she liked, fresh bedding, a television, and movies.
What is this place? Who are these people? And what do they want with me?
Wednesday, February 12th
Crosslake, Minnesota
Carrie Devenish turned left and drove slowly down the gentle slope of the lightly snow-covered driveway to the family’s sprawling vacation home on Rush Lake.
“Finally,” Savannah, her seventeen-year-old daughter, said in exasperation.
“Hey, it takes a lot longer in the summer,” her mother replied brightly. “No cabin traffic this time of year.”
“It’s also February, Mom. It’s seven degrees outside right now. There’s not much to do up here in Siberia for five days!”
“We’ll have fun,” Carrie answered enthusiastically, eager to get away from the Twin Cities. “We’ll get the hot tub fired up, play board games, go skiing and watch movies. It’ll be a great long weekend.”
“Yeah, if you say so.” Savannah sighed in reply. “Is Dad actually coming up?”
“Yes,” Carrie answered crisply. “He’ll be here in a few hours.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Sure he will.”
Carrie shook her head in mild frustration. Her high school junior could be quite the moody handful, especially when she was denied access to her friends. But for Carrie, this was her chance to unplug from work and de-stress before some difficult conversations and maybe decisions that were coming. If she were going to relax and try to enjoy the time away, especially with her daughter, this needed to be nipped in the bud. “Young lady, I’m not going to tolerate five days of that attitude, understood?”
Savannah rolled her eyes again.
“Understood?” her mother said more forcefully, her voice raised. “Shape up.”
Savannah sat back, surprised. Her mom, preternaturally cool and calm, almost never raised her voice at her for anything. “Yes… ma’am. Sorry.”
“Good. Now you can help me get everything inside.”
“Yes, Mom.”
An hour later, they were all moved in for the President’s Day holiday weekend, which they were stretching two extra days by coming up on Wednesday night. A hearty fire crackled in the massive stone fireplace that ran vertically to the high peak of the cedar-planked ceiling. Savannah sat curled up on the couch by the fire, taking photos with her cell phone and posting them to her social media sites.
Carrie slipped on her coat and grabbed her keys. “Do you want to go to the grocery store with me?”
Savannah looked up and pulled out her earbuds. “Huh?”
“Do you want to go to the store with me?”
She crinkled her nose in disapproval.
“I didn’t think so,” her mother replied, cupping her daughter’s face and snorting a laugh. “Anything in particular you would like?”
“Cookie dough, you know, those small cookie dough cups.”
Carrie shook her head in mild disapproval. “Anything healthy you’d like?”
“String cheese? Greek yogurt?”
“Those I will buy. I’ll be back in a bit,” she said. “Your father should be here soon.”
“Okay,” Savannah replied, and watched her mom leave out the front door. She put her earbuds back in and looked down to her phone. She refocused on the video she was working on, turning up the volume on her phone and singing along with Lizzo’s “Good as Hell”, hamming it up with big eyes, headshakes and hand gestures.
She smiled as she replayed her short video take. “Ooh, that’s sooooo good.”
Reaching inside her backpack, she extracted her large earphones, and swapped them for her smaller earbuds. She smiled as she jammed along with the video, the sound much better. Then she came up with a new video idea for the song. She started recording again, and was sitting up on the couch, lip-synching, when suddenly there was a man in the background. Dad!
She pulled off her earphones and spun around. “Hey, Da—”
It was not her father.
The man was dressed in all black, and enormous, like a football linebacker.
“Wha… who…”
He was on top of her in an instant, slamming his hand over her mouth, suppressing her screams.
In one fell swoop, he picked her up, threw her down on her stomach on the couch and put his knee on her back.
Savannah thrashed furiously, fighting him, screaming, but he was too strong for her. Her fighting fazed him not at all as he yanked her wrists, pulled them behind her and cinched them, the binding cutting into her skin. She wiggled her hips and kicked her legs, trying to squirm away. The man reached back and pushed down her ankles, and she felt him loop something around them and pull it tight. Her legs felt stuck together.
The front door of the house flew open.
Savannah looked up to see her mom in the foyer.
Carrie Devenish’s mouth was agape. “Sa… Sa… Savannah! Savannah!”
“Mom! Mom!”
She took two steps toward her daughter, then stopped.
The man jumped to his feet and pulled a gun. He took three steps and set his feet.
“Who the hell are you?” Carrie yelled.
Boom!
He shot her in the head.
Savannah watched in horror as her mom collapsed to the floor.
“Mom! Mom! No… Mom!”
The man turned back to her, stuffing his gun in the front of his jeans. He pulled out a roll of gray duct tape, ripped off a strip and pressed it hard over her mouth before hoisting her over his left shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Come.”
“Now?” a voice asked over a radio.
“Now!” Savannah heard him bark as he walked briskly to the front door.
She looked down to see her mom’s open, lifeless eyes staring up at her as the man stepped over her body on the way out the front door. She turned her head to the right and saw a panel van coming rapidly down the driveway, the sliding door flying open as the van turned quickly in the circular driveway. The man jogged to the open van door and dropped her into the arms of another man, who took her and pushed her down to the floor.
“Go! Go! Go!” the monster yelled.
The late-afternoon sun plunged in the western sky and a cold northern breeze swept through the campus mall, light clouds of dusty snow drifting across the sidewalks of Central Minnesota State University. Tori Hunter brushed aside a few windswept strands of her flowing auburn hair, and exhaled one last cold breath in the winter air before she opened one of the main entry doors for the venerable edifice that was the Brooks Social and Behavioral Sciences Building. Once inside, she undid her warm crocheted scarf as she strolled down the busy hallway, nodding to a few students and smiling at a few others. She was getting used to being recognized wherever she went in Manchester Bay, including at the university.
At the end of the hallway, she opened another door leading to a narrow hallway and a long row of professor offices on the left. She stopped at the third door and looked inside to see Professor Lane speaking with a student, a girl with long blond hair.
“Hey, Tori,” the professor said, noticing her standing in the hallway. To her student, she said, “Sasha, say hello to Professor Tori Hunter.”
“Hello, Professor Hunter,” Sasha said, sticking her hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
“Good to meet you, Sasha,” Tori said, taking her hand. To Professor Lane she said, “Do you need me to come back in a few minutes?”
“No, no. I think Sasha and I are finished with her questions. We were just chatting about freshman life.”
“Thanks, Professor,” Sasha said. “Nice to meet you, Professor Hunter,” she said to Tori as she stepped by her out of the office and walked down the hallway.
“Come on in, Tori. Pull up a seat. Let’s chat.”
Tori sat down on the small love seat jammed into the corner of the narrow office and curled her legs under her.
“So how are things?” Professor Lane inquired.
“They’re good.”
“You’re feeling more settled now that you’re back here in Manchester Bay? What are we, going on four months now?”
“Getting closer to five, I think.”
Tori had been born and raised in Manchester Bay. Her father, Big Jim Hunter, was the long-time popular and beloved sheriff for Shepard County. Tori and her twin sister, Jessie, had grown up under the watchful and protective eye of their father. The two of them were inseparable.
Late at night on the fourth of July before their senior year of high school, Jessie disappeared, having been abducted from the side of a country road late at night. Despite a massive hunt and months-long investigation, no trace of her was found. Twenty months later, while Tori was away at Boston College, her father died. Although the official cause of death was a heart attack, Tori knew that he really died of a broken heart. After his burial, she left Manchester Bay and didn’t return for nearly nineteen years.
When she did, she returned as a renowned FBI special agent specializing in finding missing children. She was lured back by a taunting message and invitation from her sister’s killer, who’d struck again in Manchester Bay, in almost the exact same way, on the twentieth anniversary of Jessie’s disappearance. Shepard County Sheriff Cal Lund, an old family friend, dictated she had to work the case with his chief detective, Will Braddock. The two of them, after a rough start, came to form a formidable investigative team. With Braddock’s help, she caught and killed Jessie’s murderer.
Tori had solved her life’s greatest mystery. She’d achieved justice for her sister.
And then there was the matter of Braddock.
They’d butted heads at first, then bonded over the case and their mutual respect for each other’s abilities. As they hunted Jessie’s killer, they gave in to their growing feelings for each other. When it was all over, and he was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from gunshot wounds he’d suffered saving her life, Braddock asked her to stay.
Despite the feelings she had for him, Tori couldn’t bring herself to remain in Manchester Bay. She said no.
She returned to New York City, the FBI, and her career as the driven special agent she’d always been. It was her comfort zone, the cocoon of a world she’d built for herself where nothing else mattered but the job. That life had always sustained her. And upon returning to New York City, she had perhaps her greatest professional triumph: saving the abducted daughter of a powerful New York state senator.
And with that great triumph, she felt—nothing.
For the first time, the accomplishment of bringing someone home left her feeling little satisfaction. What shook her was how empty and spent and alone she felt.
With her sister’s case solved, that singular event that had driven and defined her was no longer enough. For the first time in a long time, she wanted and needed more from life. And what she came to realize was that what she wanted was back in Manchester Bay—Will Braddock.
But could she do it? Was she even capable of any type of relationship—capable of not being alone?
To say that the impact of Jessie’s disappearance on her life had left her emotionally closed off would be an understatement. To give herself any chance of making a go of it with Braddock and a life in Manchester Bay, Tori knew she needed to make significant changes and deal with her past.
She resigned from the FBI. The next day, she started two months of intensive therapy with a psychologist, a good friend and roommate from college.
Two months of therapy was a solid start. It was enough for her to feel better about herself. Having put in the work, she was more confident, open, and free. She was also anxious to return to Manchester Bay, to not let the feelings she had for Braddock, and that he had for her, drift away. And upon her return, it was clear they hadn’t.
Yet twenty years of emotional baggage was not whisked away with a mere two months of therapy. She was in a good place, but there was more work to be done, more walls to take down.
Professor Lane not only taught psychology at the university, she also saw a select few patients who had intriguing life stories and issues to confront. Tori fit her professional interests to a T. They’d been meeting and talking biweekly since Tori’s return to Manchester Bay.
“Have you been busy?” she asked now.
“Not overly so, no. It’s been kind of… strange, not having a regular job to get up and go to every day.”
“What about that case you got called into?”
“The Sarah Goring case?” Tori asked.
“Yes.”
Sarah Goring was an eighteen-year-old high school girl who was last seen leaving a party back in late September down in the Twin Cities. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) led the investigation into her disappearance. A month later, Tori was called to see if she could help spur the investigation. She had made several trips to the Twin Cities over the past few months, but while learning more about Sarah and her difficult life prior to her abduction, little progress had been made in finding her.
“I think for now, unfortunately, that case has run its course,” she said. “We haven’t made any progress on her disappearance. I haven’t gone down there or heard from the BCA in a few weeks.”
Lane switched employment gears. “How do you like teaching?”
Tori had taken an adjunct position teaching a late-afternoon Monday and Wednesday criminology class at the university. “I’ll admit I was a little wary about it at the start, but I like it. I really enjoy the students. I get a kick out of how young and eager and vibrant they are. They seem to like me as well. Although they look at me as kind of a…”
“Kind of a what?”
“A curiosity, I think.”
“You’re Tori Hunter. Everyone knows you around here, knows about the case from last summer and what happened to all those women, including your sister.”
“Yeah.”
“How does that make you feel, being a… curiosity?”
Tori shrugged.
“What does Braddock say?”
She laughed. “That I need to get used to it. My past is what it is. I can’t change it, so accept it and own it. The name Tori Hunter means something in Manchester Bay. Embrace it.”
Professor Lane nodded. “He’s a smart man. How are things on that front?”
Tori smiled shyly. “Pretty good, I think.”
“Tell me what pretty good means.”
“Just that. I mean, we really… get along well.”
“You sound so surprised,” Lane said with a grin.
Tori nodded. “I’m a Type A high-strung control freak conflicted neurotic basket case.”
“That’s a bit over the top, I think.”
“Not by much.”
“I know you worry about some of those… traits, but the question is, does Braddock?”
“Braddock,” Tori replied with a whimsical smile, “accepts and at times seems almost highly amused by my… idiosyncrasies, my… intensity, although I do feel like I’ve mellowed some.”
“How about the relationship between you two? Is that mellow? Or is there… heat?”
“You’re asking about sex, aren’t you?”
“Well, since that’s where your mind went to, sure, let’s talk about that.”
“Well, we’re having it,” Tori replied ruefully, and then smiled impishly. “Kind of a lot, actually.”
“And you find that satisfying?”
She looked away but her smile was evident. “Yes.”
“Are you spending the night a lot?”
Tori shook her head. “Only on the weekends really, when his son Quinn can stay with his cousins.”
“Is that what causes you to not stay, or…”
“Or what?”
“We’ve discussed your worries about failing.”
Tori nodded. “I’ve made all these radical changes, taken this big risk, thrown caution to the wind, pick your cliché, but what if it doesn’t work? I mean, then what?”
“What if it does? You moved back here for this, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you’re tying your own hands behind your back.”
“I know, I know…”
“Life is full of risk, especially if you’re going to live it fully, Tori, which is what you’ve told me you want to do. It’s as we’ve discussed: you have to let go and put yourself out there. And relationships? They are not successful if you only have one foot in them. At some point, you have to jump in with both feet if they’re going to work, if they’re going to be truly meaningful, if they’re going to lead to love.” Professor Lane fiddled with her own wedding ring.
“Don’t go there,” Tori pleaded, seeing her therapist twist the silver band with its sparkling diamond. “No, no, no.”
“I’m only making a point. Marriage isn’t the be-all and end-all and that’s not what has to happen at the end of all this. But you’ve told me you want to get to that… place where you could have that kind of a relationship.”
Tori nodded.
“Do you and Braddock talk about where you two are at? Where you are going? Where either of you wants to take this?”
Tori shook her head.
“Not at all?”
“No.”
“You’re an extremely perceptive person. How do you think he feels?”
Tori thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “He seems to be comfortable with things… as they are. He’s not pushing it, but I sense he’s open to more if I want it.”
“If you want it?”
She nodded.
“Let me ask this another way: you would welcome it if he pushed it?”
Tori looked away. She was by her very nature someone who needed to be in control, of everything. She was not in control of this. It was unfamiliar territory and the ground was not firm under her feet. This relationship had been going on for a little under five months, but that would literally be four and a half months longer than any real romantic relationship she’d ever had in her life. In one sense, she was getting comfortable with the rhythm of it. It was good right now and she was happy. At the same time, she inwardly admitted that part of her felt like there was a bit of a plateau they were starting to hit, and she was the reason they were hitting it.
And then there was Braddock himself. He had a history of his own too. And it stared her in the face daily.
“Are you still worried about his first wife?”
“Worried?” Tori asked. “That doesn’t feel like the right term.”
She admittedly found herself wondering about the comparison between her and Meghan Hayes, Braddock’s late wife, who had been from Manchester Bay. Braddock had met her in New York City when they were both college students. Meghan had died of glioblastoma when Quinn was five years old, and Braddock had moved himself and Quinn to Manchester Bay to be near the only family they had.
And near they were. Meghan’s parents lived just down the road on the same bay of the lake and were frequent visitors. Two of her siblings lived less than a mile away, again on the same bay of the lake, and were a constant presence, as their boys were around the same age as Quinn. Fair or not, Meghan’s memory cast a long shadow and was ever present. How could Tori not wonder about the comparison? How could she not wonder about Braddock making the comparison?
“Does her name come up often?” Professor Lane inquired.
“No. Braddock almost never talks about her, at least to me.”
“Never?”
“Well, if her name does come up, it’s usually only in passing because we’re talking about Quinn when he was really young. It’s the ‘I remember when Quinn was a baby and Meghan and I took him to the park’ kind of thing. But other than one time before we even got together, he’s never really talked to me about his marriage.”
“Do you want him to?”
Tori shrugged.
“Do you compare yourself to her?”
“I know I shouldn’t. I try not to, but…”
“She’s there.”
“Oh yeah. And while I never really knew her, I knew who she was when I was a freshman, and she was a senior in high school. I mean, she was this pretty, outgoing, popular girl.”
“And those memories stick.”
“That’s right,” Tori agreed. “Even when you see people later in life, no matter how they’ve changed, it’s always hard to get those first impressions of how you remember them out of your mind.”
Professor Lane nodded. “How about Quinn? Does Quinn’s presence hold you back as well?”
“Quinn is a great kid, a really great kid.”
“That’s good, and you’ve said that before, but that wasn’t my question.”
“One of the reasons he’s such a great kid is because of his relationship with his father. There is a real bond there. Braddock is a really, really good dad. I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“Do you think you are?”
“They are very close. Quinn lost his mom at a young age and I know what that’s like. He needs his father just as I did.”
“Your father never remarried after your mom died, did he?”
“No.”
“Did you want him to?”
Tori shrugged. “At the time, I never really thought about it. Jessie and I never talked about it with him.”
“Were there ever lady friends around?”
She thought on that for a minute. “You know, I don’t ever really… remember any. None that he brought home. I kind of figured, and Jessie and I talked it about it one time, that once we went away to college, maybe he would find someone. But…”
“It never got there.”
“No,” Tori answered. “So now, Quinn is growing up with just one parent, and it’s important he has his dad’s attention.”
Professor Lane nodded. “And you’re trying to find your own space in that relationship.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m not sure how to… navigate it all.”
“So, you don’t.”
Tori nodded. “What do you think?”
Professor Lane took a moment before clasping her hands on her lap. “You may be this forceful control freak of a person by nature, but you’re also really guarded, and…”
“And what?”
“When it comes to this part of your life, you hold back from saying what you really want, what you really feel, what you really need, for fear it won’t be reciprocated. For fear of the what-if. I mean, I can hear it in your voice, Tori. I’m thirty-eight years old, what if this doesn’t—”
“Work.” Tori sighed and looked away, nodding in agreement. She knew that what Professor Lane was saying was true. That very thought percolated in her head often.
“Can I offer an opinion?”
“Sure. Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“Not always. I like patients to find their own way, but every so often…”
“You need to prod. Spit it out, Professor.”
“I won’t use the word you’ve avoided in all our sessions, but Braddock means a lot to you, a lot. I can tell. The way your eyes light up when you talk about him, the smile that creases your face, the change in the sound of your voice.”
Tori nodded in agreement.
“I encourage you to do with him what you’ve been doing with me. Talk about it all. I bet he sees what I see. And it can be baby steps, a little at a time, but it’s healthy.” Lane looked to her watch and then smiled. “Time’s up.”
“And I have to teach my class.”
“So that is what you need in the way of evidence to support probable cause, and then you can get a search warrant. Everyone understand that now? That’s the key takeaway for tonight.” Tori glanced up to the clock above the door and glimpsed Braddock, who must have slyly slipped into the back of the classroom. She let a small grin escape.
“Okay, for next time, which I know, I know, is after President’s Day weekend, your reading assignment is Chapter Ten. So be prepared to fully discuss. And by the way, tonight is the last night to turn in the extra-credit paper, so if you have those, drop them off on the way out. And everyone, have a good holiday weekend.”
She looked down to her laptop, clicking to close her PowerPoint presentation as her students filed out of the classroom.
“Professor Hunter?”
She looked up to see two of her students, Emily and Olivia, standing with extra-credit papers at the ready. She liked the two of them and their confidence. They participated eagerly in class and were not the least bit afraid to come up and chat a little after. “Ah, excellent,” she said, stuffing the papers in her shoulder-strap briefcase.
“Nice boots, Professor,” Emily observed. “I really like those, are they new?”
“In fact they are, thanks for noticing.”
“Professor Hunter, are you doing anything fun for the long weekend?” Olivia asked.
Professor Hunter? The Sasha girl in Professor Lane’s office had called her that. She was still getting used to it. She wasn’t sure why, but she thought it made her sound older than she felt. “You know, I don’t really know, to be honest. I’m sure I’ll be doing something.”
“With that detective, perhaps?”
“Excuse me?” Tori replied, but with a wide smile.
“Well, you are dating that good-looking detective, right?” Emily asked. “You know, the one who picked you up that night? That’s the word on the street, anyway.”
“Oh, is it now?”
Tori was amused. She didn’t cut the usual look of a college professor, with her flowing hair and her outfit of skinny blue jeans, high-heeled black leather boots, and light gray marled blazer. She liked good clothes and shopping for them. It was a guilty pleasure that led to the occasional lingering glance from her male students and approving looks from the women. And on more than one occasion, just like tonight, Braddock had slipped into the back of her classroom to observe before taking her to dinner.
“I assume you mean that good-looking detective?” Tori said quietly with a little sly grin, nodding to the back of the classroom.
Both girls looked back, surprised. “Yeah… ah, sorry, Professor,” Emily said, a little sheepishly.
Tori laughed. “I guess I’ll have to take that up with him tonight at dinner. I’ll let him know that my students suggested he plan something special. Thanks, girls.”
Emily and Olivia scurried out of the classroom and Braddock approached the lectern. “Good evening, Professor.”
“You know, it’s bad enough my students call me that, but not you too,” Tori said, and then, seeing her classroom was empty, she stood on her tippy-toes and pecked Braddock softly on the lips. “Hi there.”
“Hiya back.”
“What’s the plan, Detective?”
“I thought the new Italian place in Crosslake might be nice. Cal said it was good, with a surprisingly varied wine list for you. It’s a bit of a drive, but I say we give it a go.”
“Well, if Sheriff Lund and his refined palate says so, it must be good.”
“It’s refined enough for around here anyway,” Braddock said with a chuckle.
Tori spent some of the drive thinking about her session with Professor Lane, and the man sitting to her left.
Will Braddock was the chief detective for the Shepard County sheriff’s department, reporting directly to Sheriff Cal Lund. A transplant from New York City and formerly a detective with the NYPD, he was, at six-foot-four, athletic and lanky, a former college basketball player. And her students were correct, he was handsome, ruggedly so, with a thick mane of black hair flecked with some gray, and, currently, a tightly trimmed beard. He was the reason she’d walked away from New York City, her south Manhattan condo and her FBI career, where she had her choice of cases, and moved back to a college town of forty thousand people in northern Minnesota. And it wasn’t simply a matter of physical attraction, though that clearly was part of it. There was something deeper. Professor Lane was right: Braddock reached her in a way no man ever had.
As was her nature, Tori tried to analyze why that was. Was it the old opposites-attract thing? Was it his calm, almost unflappable demeanor
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