Love with the Proper Stranger Read Free Page A

gave Daniel was designed to freeze a man in his tracks.
    But Daniel just smiled as he stood up. “You know, I really hope we’re partners for a good long time, John, because I cannot for the life of me imitate that look. I’ve tried. I practice every night in my bathroom mirror, but…” He shook his head. “I just can’t do it. You have a real God-given talent there. See you later.”
    Daniel closed the door on the way out and Miller just sat, staring after him, wishing… for what?
    If the kid had been Tony, Miller might have told him about the nightmares, about the fact that he was too damn scared even to try to sleep. If the kid had been Tony, Miller might have told him that this morning when he’d gotten on the bathroom scale, he’d found he’d lost twenty pounds. Twenty pounds, just like that.
    But Daniel Tonaka
wasn’t
Tony.
    Tony was gone. He’d been dead and gone for years.
    Years.
    Miller reached for the phone. “Yeah, John Miller. Put me through to Captain Blake.”
    It was time to get down to real work on this Black Widow case. Maybe then he could get some damned sleep.
    * * *
    G ARDEN I SLE , G EORGIA , was the best kept secret among the jet set. The beaches were covered with soft white sand. The sky was blue and the ocean, although murky with mineral deposits, was clean. The town itself was quaint, with cobblestone streets and charming brick houses and window boxes that overflowed with brightly colored flowers. Most of the shops were exclusive, therestaurants trendy and four-star and outrageously expensive—except if you knew where to go.
    And after two months on Garden Isle, Mariah Robinson knew exactly where to go to avoid the crowds. She loaded her camera and her beach bag into the front basket of her bike and headed toward the beach.
    Not toward the quiet, windswept beach that was only several yards from her rental house, but rather toward the usually crowded, always happening beach next to the five-star resort.
    Most of the time, she embraced the solitude, often reveling in the noise-dampening sound of the surf and the raucous calls of the seabirds. But today she felt social. Today, she
wanted
the crowds. Today, just on a whim, she wanted to use her camera to take photographs of people.
    Today she was meeting her friend, Serena, for lunch at one of those very same four-star restaurants.
    But she was more than an hour early, and she took her bike with her onto the sand. She set it gently on its side and spread her beach blanket alongside it. There was a reggae band playing in the tent next to the resort bar even this early in the morning, and the music floated out across the beach.
    She sat in the sun, just watching the dynamics of the people around her.
    Some sunbathers lay in chaise lounges, their noses buried in books. Others socialized, talking and flirting in large and small groups. Men and women in athletic gear ran up and down the miles of flat, hard sand at the edge of the water. Others walked or strolled. Still others paraded—clearly advertising their trim, tanned bodies, scantily clad in designer bathing suits.
    Mariah took out her camera, focusing on a golden retriever running next to a muscular man in neon green running shorts. She loved dogs. In fact, now that she wasn’t shut up in an office each day from dawn till dusk, she was thinking about getting one and—
    “Fancy meeting you here this early.”
    Mariah looked up but the glare from the bright sun threw the face of the woman standing next to her into shadows. It didn’t matter. The crisp English-accented voice was unmistakable.
    “Hey,” Mariah said, smiling as Serena sat down next to her on her blanket.
    “I thought you’d sworn off the resort beach,” Serena continued, looking at Mariah over the tops of her expensive sunglasses.
    Serena Westford was older than Mariah had originally thought when they’d first met a few weeks ago—she was closer to forty than thirty, anyway. Her smile was young though. It was