Free Murder in the Smokies by Paula Graves Page A

remarkable luck as well as thoughtful planning. Things had a way of working out for him in just the way he needed, though he was surprised, in a way, because of who she was.
    The detective. The steely-eyed law-woman who should have known the importance of checking all the doors and windows before she went to bed. Perhaps she’d lived too long in this bucolic little mountain hamlet and had, like others before her, bought into the foolish notion that nothing bad could happen in a place so beautiful.
    On the table by her bedside, a file folder lay open. He moved closer, his eyes so well-adjusted to the dark that he could see the folder’s contents with little effort. Photographs of bodies. His handiwork.
    Excitement flaring in the pit of his gut, he flipped through the file. Hastily compiled dossiers on each victim followed the photographs. April Billings. Amelia Sanderson. Coral Vines. The new one, Marjorie Kenner.
    She was trying to connect them, but the pieces just weren’t there. But she was close. So close.
    Picking up the pen lying by the dossier, he bent and jotted a note on the inside of the folder. He stared at the single word, smiling. Would anyone know what it meant?
    He walked silently to the side of her bed and gazed down at her. A disappointment, in a way. He’d hoped for more of a challenge.
    Looming closer, he stretched his hand toward her. His shadow drifted across her face, plunging her sleep-softened features into darkness. A shame. He had wanted to see her face when she realized her time had run out.
    Her soft respiration was the only sound in the room. He let it fill his ears, knowing it would soon die away forever.
    With a violent thrust, he closed his hand over her throat and squeezed.

    Ivy woke in a rush, phantom fingers pressing against the flesh of her neck. She reached for them before she realized she had only been dreaming.
    A low moan of relief escaping her throat, she sat up and pressed her face into her hands, willing her racing heart back to a normal rhythm. Already, the nightmare was beginning to dissipate, but she tried to hold on to the images. Something—there was something...
    When her legs stopped shaking, she pushed herself off the bed and padded barefoot across the cold hardwood floor to her window, fumbling for the brass window latch.
    It was safely locked in place.
    She slumped with relief, pressing her forehead against the cold glass pane. Outside, the night had gone quiet, the worst of the storm now past. A pale hint of moon glow peeked through the thinning clouds, casting a blue square of light across the wood slats of her front porch.
    Suddenly, a shadow moved across the patch of light, quick and furtive.
    A shadow shaped like a man.

Chapter Six
    As tired as he was, Sutton had hoped he’d fall asleep quickly. Anything to keep from lying there, just a few feet from where Ivy Hawkins was sleeping, imagining in vivid detail what it would be like to explore every inch of her curvy little body.
    He was used to sleeping wherever he laid his head, in desert or jungle, soft hotel bed or grimy blanket on the cold and stony ground. But he couldn’t relax enough to close his eyes for long, and it took a while to realize that his insomnia was about more than his libido. He was also worrying over the meaning of the evening’s ambush.
    Why had someone targeted him? As he’d pointed out to Ivy, not many people even knew he was in town, and even if a few folks had seen him around and recognized the Calhoun boy who’d left town nearly fifteen years ago, how many would know he was investigating one of the murders?
    Or was Ivy’s friend John the deputy right? Could the shooter have targeted him for being Cleve Calhoun’s son?
    But why not target Cleve instead? As far as Sutton knew, his father didn’t exactly live holed up behind a fortress wall. If someone wanted him dead badly enough, it shouldn’t have been hard to make it happen.
    The darkness outside the spare room window had