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  Then a splash struck the water above him. A figure swam toward him, and a hand reached for him, pulling him up toward the surface.

  Mack broke through the water and felt the sting of winter wind on his face. Gunshots shook the air around them. He gasped as strong, gloved hands gripped his body, one at his collar and one at his back, and hauled him into a dinghy.

  “Stay low!” It was Liam. “I managed to ping the shoulder of the guy who was shooting at you and he’s fallen back. But it’s only a matter of time before the gunfire attracts backup.”

  But if Liam was in the boat, who’d jumped in to rescue him?

  Mack turned to see Iris’s exhausted and smiling face as she clung to the side of the boat.

  “Iris...” Mack panted.

  Liam hauled her in, and she crawled over to Mack and collapsed on the bottom of the boat beside him. Mack wrapped both arms around her and held her against his chest.

  Liam tossed an emergency blanket at them and then gunned the engine. Iris helped Mack pull the blanket over both of them and then she leaned against his chest.

  “Just for the record,” Liam said loudly over the wind, “I was going to jump in after you if you hadn’t figured it out. But she dropped out of the sky from that rope like some kind of action movie star and dived in before I could stop her.” He grinned. “And I would’ve tried. But she’s pretty tenacious.”

  Yeah, she was. Mack looked down at Iris, as she lay there panting and shivering against him, letting their warmth fill and surround each other. She was tenacious and beautiful, kind and forgiving, stubborn and strong. She was everything he could’ve ever hoped for and far more than he’d ever hoped to find.

  The sound of motors grew loud. Something was coming toward them. He pushed himself up on one arm and looked past Liam. A fleet of police helicopters and boats was approaching. Liam exchanged a few short words with someone on the other end of the radio, but his conversation was lost to the rush of the wind. Then Liam glanced back at them.

  “Tell them the mayor’s former chief of security, Travis Otis shot Mack,” Iris said over the noise, “and that he’s a Jackal.”

  “Will do,” Liam said. “Looks like a total of six young people who were abducted by the Jackals ended up working for the mayor. Thanks to the confession Iris got out of Mayor Kats, they’ve all agreed to testify against her and help locate any others. Hearing the audio of the mayor ordering them killed really clinched it. Seth’s also tracked down the offshore money transfer that the mayor used to pay Hank Barrie to kill Oscar Underwood and frame you, Mack. And now Barrie’s flipped faster than a pancake. You’re in the clear and the charges against you are being dropped as we speak. Investigators will be meeting Iris when we dock to get her statement.”

  He glanced down at his phone and then back to them.

  “Mack, it’s up to you if you want to stick around for the arrests,” Liam said, “or if you want me to get you out of here before anyone realizes you were part of this operation. I don’t know what cover story you’re wanting to go with about everything that’s happened, or who you want us to say was here, but the press is going to be all over this. It’s going to make it harder for your next undercover assignment.”

  “There won’t be any more undercover assignments,” Mack said, tightening his arm around Iris. “At least not ones that force me to pretend to be someone else for days, let alone weeks or months at a time. I’m going to get a transfer out of undercover work and try living my own real life for a change.”

  Liam nodded slowly, then turned his back on them and snapped his phone to his ear. Whoever he was talking to and whatever he was saying was lost to the wind, the motors and the waves.

  And that was okay with Mack. He’d regroup with his team soon enough. They were amazing and he trusted them with his life. For now, the only thing that mattered was the woman in his arms.

  He looked down at Iris. She turned her face toward him and he gently cupped one hand to her cheek.

  “You’re letting other cops arrest the mayor and Travis,” she said. “You’re letting other people storm the boat and interrogate other Jackals. This is a huge arrest and you’re not getting the credit.”

  “I don’t need the credit or the spotlight,” Mack said. “I just need you. Iris, I love you. I’m not sure when I first fell in love with you, maybe it’s something that’s been building since that very first moment we met. All I know is I kept falling deeper and deeper in love with you the more time we spent together. That’s why I got so involved at the homeless center and stayed late so many nights, just helping you clean up and getting to know you. That’s why I disregarded orders... I couldn’t just stand back when the green-masked Jackal was stalking you. And that’s why I fought so hard to find you when you went on the run.”

  Her lips parted but she didn’t speak.

  Mack’s fingertips brushed the wet strands of hair that fell around her face. “I have been in love with you so long, Iris, I can’t imagine life without you,” he said. “I want to be the one who comes to find you whenever you need someone. I want to be the one who holds your hand, does the dishes with you and comes home to you every night for the rest of our lives.”

  Happiness shone in her eyes. “I love you, too.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her, without hesitation or doubt. Her hands reached around his neck and she kissed him back.

  The sound of the fleet grew into a roar. He pulled away, cradling her into his side, and looked up. Helicopters and boats flew past them on all sides.

  Liam turned back toward them. The twinkle in his eye made Mack pretty sure that Liam had spotted the kiss.

  “Update,” Liam said. “Warrants have been issued for the mayor and six members of her staff. Several police officers have come forward to say the mayor was putting pressure on them to downplay the accusation against Oscar Underwood and put you on probation. And the Gravenhurst Family Trust has publicly extended an offer of support to help Iris rebuild the homeless center.”

  “That will be my mother’s doing,” Mack murmured, pulling Iris closer. “Like I said, she wants to meet you. It’s completely up to you whether you decide to accept their help. If not, there will be other people stepping up, I’m sure of it.”

  “Agreed.” Liam nodded. “Several of us have contacts, big and small, who’ll be happy to chip in. Also, Mack, rumor is that you’re officially getting your badge back by tomorrow. Looks like it’s finally all over.”

  Liam flashed them a grin and then turned back to his phone. Iris nestled deeper into Mack’s arms. He bent down and brushed a kiss across her cheek.

  “Will you marry me?” he whispered. “I’m not saying life with me will be easy. But I know for certain that I don’t ever want to spend another day without you.”

  “I will absolutely marry you.” A smile brushed her lips and illuminated her eyes. “It’s you and me, forever.”

  As he leaned down and kissed her again, Mack knew without a doubt that the best story of his life was just beginning.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Cold Case Connection by Dana Mentink.

  Dear Reader,

  I was eleven years old when I decided to become an author, and thirteen when I started really trying to write books. I still have all of my early tries stashed away in my cupboard. My handwriting was so terrible, I crossed out so many things, and crammed so many words on a page that I can barely read them. But I can still smell the lingering fruits of the different scented pens I used to write with. It wasn’t until I was twenty-four that I started writing the first full-length book I’d ever publish. (In fact, I started it on the road trip I mentioned on the dedication page.) I sold that book nine years later, when I was thirty-three.

  The book you now hold in your hands is my twentieth.

  I’m here because of hundreds of people, far more than I could ever co
unt or list here. There are friends, readers, agents, editors, people who read my first tries and people who supported me. People who gave me space to write in their B and Bs, and coffee shops I worked in. Fellow writers who taught me how to write better. Countless members of law enforcement, the military and people I trained with at the dojo who helped me choreograph scenes.

  And I want to thank you, my readers, for all of your encouragement. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been discouraged and received a note or message from you that has encouraged me to keep going. You have given me strength and hope when I’m feeling defeated, and I am eternally grateful for you.

  Thank you for sharing this journey with me,

  Maggie

  WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM

  Courage. Danger. Faith.

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  Cold Case Connection

  by Dana Mentink

  ONE

  Helen Pike awoke with a jolt, cold sweat dappling her brow. For a shuddering moment, she thought she was back in the tunnels, a naive teen, on that terrible night that would not leave her soul. Cold stone, silence and an endless dripping echoed from the past. She rubbed her temples to massage the memories away.

  That was fifteen years ago. You were a kid in high school. Are you ever going to let go of that nightmare?

  For some inexplicable reason, she’d recently begun to relive the tragic event in her dreams. Five high school friends, Helen, Fiona, Trish, Gavin and Justin, had gone into the abandoned tunnels not more than two miles from the cottage where she now sat, but only four made it out alive. Trish had been murdered, her life ended on the frigid rock floor, her killer never caught.

  Helen propped herself up on the musty couch and brushed her hair out of her face. The cottage, nestled on Roughwater Ranch property, was weakened by age and weather. Her stand-in parents Gus and Ginny Knightly, the ranch owners, had finally decided to have it demolished. That was fine by Helen, since it reminded her of yet another tragedy, one that she might have prevented, which hurt all the worse.

  What happened with Trish was ancient history; losing one of her friends to murder should have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Yet three years ago, her other high school friend, Fiona Ross, had stayed in Driftwood, in this very cottage as a matter of fact, and she too had been murdered during that visit.

  “An apparent hit-and-run,” the police officer had said. “The driver didn’t stop.”

  Didn’t stop, and neither had the anguish that spawned in Helen that day. Two friends, two killings. She’d never thought the deaths could be related, but then she’d found the note four days ago, written in Fiona’s hand, stuffed under the desk blotter.

  Trish. Proof.

  Find out who still has theirs.

  Trish? The name was the tip of a nail, poking in her heart. Proof? The hammer plunging it deep.

  What had Fiona been looking into? Why bring up the high school murder? Those long three years since Fiona was killed felt so fresh, Helen could recall the smell of the pink funeral carnations, hear the cries of Fiona’s babies, the thin wails that reverberated over the gravestones and arrowed right to Helen’s core. The girls were toddlers now, almost three. How would they remember their mother who’d missed out on so much?

  Her phone buzzed with a reminder alarm, rattling her back to the present.

  Ten at night. She needed to double-check the dining hall setup while the Roughwater Lodge was quiet, the guests all gone to bed for the night. No more time to putter about in this relic, looking for answers she’d never find. Maybe demolishing it would blast away her guilt too.

  Something snapped outside, and she jerked to her feet, nerves taut. Most likely a deer? A coyote? Why had she come here so late at night?

  Don’t be a ninny—you’re perfectly safe. The cottage was a short distance from the lodge which she managed for Gus and Ginny. They were like family to Helen, and she’d always affectionately called them aunt and uncle. The ranch was her home, workplace of her overprotective brother Liam, her adopted brothers Mitch Whitehorse and Chad Jaggert. Nothing could happen to her on this property.

  But Fiona Ross was dead, just like Trish, and now she couldn’t ignore the notion that the two were connected. Helen’s conscience began its familiar badgering.

  Why didn’t you ask Fiona where she was going that day? Why she was distracted? Worried?

  It was the list of questions Fiona’s brother Sergio had flung at her the day of Fiona’s funeral. Since then, he’d rebuffed every effort she’d made to reach out to the children, to try and connect in some small way with the little girls who’d lost their mother on her watch. Her cards were returned, her phone calls unanswered. He blamed her, but not as much as she blamed herself.

  Helen tiptoed to the window and looked out into a thick screen of oak and pine. The branches dripped with moisture from the brewing January storm that swept in from the ocean across the acres of ranch property. She could make out nothing sinister in the damp night, no monsters or bogeymen.

  Maybe it was her imagination stoking her paranoia. Certainly that seemed to be the opinion of Mark Farraday, the police chief standing in for Danny Patron who had taken a leave of absence. Chief Farraday merely raised a skeptical eyebrow when she’d presented Fiona’s note.

  Helen had begun to doubt herself. Could it be mere coincidence that Fiona had scrawled that message just before she was killed?

  Snap.

  Now the sound came from the rear. She gulped in a breath. Surely not, more likely it was outside, some animal looking for shelter. Still, she gripped the phone in her pocket. Should she call the police? And tell them what? She’d heard a noise?

  She shook her head. Any other time she would have texted her brother Liam, but he was away with his new bride Maggie on their honeymoon. Chad? The poor guy was probably exhausted after assisting the vet all day with inoculating the herd.

  Big-girl time, Helen. Go get in your car and drive away.

  She’d reached for the front doorknob when a crash of breaking glass and a sudden whoosh of air rushed through the house along with a bang that shook the walls. She screamed and yanked the door open and was halfway to her car when she realized what must have happened. The mangled edge of a tree limb protruded from the shattered glass. A branch from the aged oak had come loose and crashed through the side bedroom window. It took several steadying breaths before she could laugh at her own terror.

  No fancy double-paned windows here, the cottage was outdated, damaged by an earthquake that had rumbled across the region some months prior.

  Teeth gritted, Helen retraced her steps. No reason to leave glass strewn everywhere. The very idea of it aggravated her need for tidiness, which Liam said bordered on obsession. She tried to flick on the lights. Nothing. The power had gone out due to the howling storm. Instead she activated her phone light and grabbed the broom and dustpan from the hall closet, bumping it closed with her hip.

  Cold winter air barreled through the fractured window, chilling her fingers, snaking up her spine. She cleaned up as best she could, dumping the broken glass in a trash bin under the kitchen sink.

  Holding the dustpan and broom, she went to the closet to return the items.

  Fright gripped her stomach. The closet door was a few inches ajar, the door she’d closed tight not a few moments before.

  Her skin pimpled with goose bumps.

  The wind, it had to be. But the wind would blow against the door and close it, not open it from the inside. She tried to reason with her trembling nerves.

  It just came open, that’s all. Old structure, unsettled foundation.

  She blew out a breath. Did she used to be a nervous Nellie? Scared of her own shadow? With conviction, she reached out to pull it all the way open when it
shot wide, the door cracking into her forehead, sending her to the floor.

  * * *

  Sergio chafed against the seat belt. He longed for his motorcycle, to feel the unfettered freedom of a V-twin engine and an endless stretch of open road. But motorcycles were wildly impractical for transporting a pair of almost-three-year-old girls. He still felt the stab of pain at selling his beloved bike. The used SUV that now took him down the country road was sensible, safe...completely boring. It was a humdrum ride, complete with two empty car seats at the moment, strapped snugly into the back since the girls were safely at the hotel with their nanny. At least his ride didn’t have a stick-figure-family decal on the rear window. There really was no sticker that could adequately capture the misfit family he was so desperately trying to hold together anyway, Uncle Sergio and his sister’s daughters. No, his daughters now.

  Daddy. Their sole provider. Responsible for everything from trimming their toenails to encouraging their empathy. That last one was tricky, since he wasn’t sure he had any himself. Not anymore.

  When the tension seized his gut, he tried to reassure himself.

  Laurel and Lucy were okay, weren’t they? Mostly happy and healthy? So maybe he didn’t always know exactly how to handle it when they cried or lost their favorite snuggle toys, but he’d weathered the storms as they came and tried to keep his sister’s memory alive for them as best he could. He’d given up on telling them much about their father, the man who’d died of an aneurysm just before they were born. That had been tragic enough, but to lose their mother when they were only a few months old?

  The relentless barrage of their needs sometimes made him long for his work, diving in bottomless oceans, alone, with nothing but the sound of his own breathing in his Scuba regulator. But getting his PI license meant he could be there for the girls, and their needs trumped his. “And don’t you worry, girls,” he muttered to himself. “Your mama’s killer is going to pay.”