Suspicious Circumstances Read online

  The fire that killed his father

  Also devastated her life.

  Searching for anyone who might have information about the hospital fire that killed his father, special agent Liam Maverick asks nurse Peyton Weiss for help in his hunt for answers. But someone doesn’t want Peyton to share what she knows. As the threats against her escalate to attempted murder, Peyton realizes she has no choice but to work with Liam to catch the arsonist. With both of them risking everything for the truth, it becomes a daily struggle to stay alive—and to ignore the sparks flying between them that are hot enough to ignite.

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  “Are you all right, Ms. Weiss?”

  “Yes, it was just a scary night.” Peyton’s gaze met Liam’s. “I understand your father died that night saving others. I’m sorry.”

  “He did lose his life that night, along with others. If there’s anything else you can tell me, I need you to speak up.”

  “I wish I could tell you who set that fire, but I honestly don’t know.”

  “I reviewed my father’s notes on the investigation into Inman’s claims. According to Inman’s statement, he overheard you saying someone on staff gave Mrs. Inman the wrong medication.”

  Peyton tried to control her temper. This wasn’t a chat. It was an interrogation.

  “But you denied making such a statement.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why would he say that if it wasn’t true?”

  “I answered that before. He was distraught and desperate to blame someone.”

  “So, you stand by your original statement, that you don’t believe the hospital was responsible?”

  “I do.” She heaved another breath. “Now, can I go? I need to check on my mother.”

  “Yes, for now.”

  SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Rita Herron

  USA TODAY bestselling author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded storytelling to kids for writing romance, and now she writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. Rita lives in Georgia with her family. She loves to hear from readers, so please visit her website, ritaherron.com.

  Books by Rita Herron

  Harlequin Intrigue

  A Badge of Honor Mystery

  Mysterious Abduction

  Left to Die

  Protective Order

  Suspicious Circumstances

  Badge of Justice

  Redemption at Hawk’s Landing

  Safe at Hawk’s Landing

  Hideaway at Hawk’s Landing

  Hostage at Hawk’s Landing

  The Heroes of Horseshoe Creek

  Lock, Stock and McCullen

  McCullen’s Secret Son

  Roping Ray McCullen

  Warrior Son

  The Missing McCullen

  The Last McCullen

  Cold Case at Camden Crossing

  Cold Case at Carlton’s Canyon

  Cold Case at Cobra Creek

  Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Special Agent Liam Maverick—He will do anything to find his father’s killer.

  Nurse Peyton Weiss—Will her secret get her killed?

  Val Weiss—Why has Peyton’s sister, who is addicted to drugs, resurfaced in her life?

  Dr. Butler—He has incriminating documents against Peyton.

  Joanna Horton—Peyton’s best friend is the only one she trusts.

  Herbert Brantley—Did he take money to hide the truth about Gloria Inman’s death and the hospital fire?

  Miller Conrad—Is he an angel of mercy?

  Director Richard Jameson—Did he give Peyton her job to help her, or to keep tabs on her so she didn’t talk?

  To all the nurses in the world; you’re the real heroes.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Excerpt from Texas Kidnapping by Barb Han

  Prologue

  Five years ago—Whistler, North Carolina

  The hospital was on fire.

  Screams of terror and panic filled the air. Firefighters and first responders rushed in to extinguish the blaze and assist the sick and helpless from the burning building to safety. They’d been working for half an hour now, ever since the alarm had sounded.

  Nurse Peyton Weiss helped clear the last patient from the ER. “Come on, sweetie,” she said as she helped an elderly woman into a wheelchair. “We have to move.”

  The little woman was crying and confused, gnarled hands shaking as she gripped the wheelchair, but Peyton murmured assurances to her as she steered the wheelchair out the emergency exit. The lawn was covered in patients, panicked family members, the hospital staff and now the press, and was virtually a minefield of terrified and injured people.

  Heart hammering, she left the woman with a medic and scanned the chaos for her own mother. Margaret Weiss had been admitted with pneumonia a week ago.

  The same day Barry Inman’s wife had died in the ER.

  Fear squeezed at Peyton’s lungs as she raced across the grassy lawn, searching beds, wheelchairs and stretchers. Though the hospital had tried to evacuate in an orderly fashion by floors and departments, order had deteriorated as the blaze rapidly spread.

  Thick plumes of smoke made her eyes water, or maybe it was tears. There were casualties. Two burn victims already.

  Some woman was screaming hysterically that she couldn’t find her baby.

  She stepped aside as a firefighter carried a man toward the triage area.

  What if her mother hadn’t made it out alive? Smoke inhalation was dangerous, especially in a patient with pneumonia.

  She passed a group of portable beds where the medics and doctors were assessing and treating patients. Commotion from across the lawn jolted her, and she spotted a doctor starting CPR on a patient. She broke into a run. The patient was her mother. The attending physician, Dr. Butler.

  “Mama!” She took her mother’s hand. “Please, hang on.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” Dr. Butler murmured as he continued compressions.

  A sob welled in her throat. Seconds ticked by. She worked in the ER, dealt with life-and-death situations every day. But this patient was her own flesh and blood. The only family she had left. She couldn’t lose her.

  Everything that had happened the past week crashed back. The day Inman’s wife died in the ER. Something had gone wrong. Peyton voiced her conc
erns to Dr. Butler. But he’d told her to keep quiet or her career would be in jeopardy.

  She had medical bills to pay for her mother’s care. Still, it was wrong, and they’d argued. That night when she’d gotten home, she’d received a threatening phone call.

  Keep your mouth shut or your mother will end up like Gloria Inman.

  She shuddered at the memory. Not the doctor’s voice. But whose? She’d been angry. Scared. And terrified for her mother.

  Her mother’s body jerked. She gasped, then a breath.

  “It’s okay, Mama. You’re going to make it.” Then we’re moving away from Whistler.

  She’d done what the doctor ordered. Told the police she didn’t know what had happened in the ER with Inman’s wife.

  But every night the truth haunted her. She was covering a mistake, one she feared had caused a woman’s death.

  And every day the lie she’d told hacked away at her conscience.

  Chapter One

  Five years later

  Special Agent Liam Maverick braced his Glock at the ready as he crawled through the bushes toward the abandoned cabin where his prime suspect was holed up.

  Five years ago, Barry Inman, husband of Gloria Inman who’d died in the ER at Whistler Hospital, had filed a lawsuit against the doctors claiming his wife died under suspicious circumstances. When the case had been thrown out of court, Inman threatened revenge.

  The next day a horrific fire broke out at the hospital, destroyed countless lives and tore the town apart. Liam’s own father, sheriff at the time, lost his life trying to save others.

  His father was a hero. But he was gone. As they’d stood over their father’s grave, he and his three brothers, Jacob, Fletch and Griff, vowed to find the culprit who’d started the blaze and make him pay.

  The sense that he was finally going to accomplish that spurred his adrenaline, and he flattened his body until he was on his belly. Barbed wire tugged at his leather jacket as Liam inched beneath the fencing, but he used his gloved hand to push it back.

  A few feet away, already perched between a cluster of trees on a hill, Fletch, who worked SAR on the Appalachian Trail under FEMA, aimed binoculars toward the house.

  Recently, Fletch had found evidence in a cave where the man had been hiding, then began a full-fledged hunt for Inman in the mountains. Two days ago, he’d stumbled on footprints near an AT shelter and he’d tracked him to this isolated cabin. As they’d discussed, Fletch was not to try to take down the man himself. So, he’d called Liam and their brother Jacob, Whistler’s sheriff, and given them the GPS coordinates, and here they were.

  Fletch pointed toward the rickety porch, then mouthed confirmation that Inman was in the house. Liam gestured for Fletch to hold back. He and Jacob were armed and would approach.

  About seventy feet ahead of him, Jacob had slipped past the fence and gestured to move ahead. Liam lifted himself off the ground, then crouched low as he and Jacob wove between thick trees and bushes. The weathered little house sat on top of a ridge, offering a view of anyone who might approach from the driveway and graveled road.

  Not wanting to alert Inman, he and Jacob had parked a mile down the road, then hiked through the woods. Dusk was setting, and a gusty breeze picked up, rattling tree branches and tossing debris across the pine needles and withered grass in the backyard. An old tire swing swayed back and forth as the wind battered it, and a stray cat clawed at a trash bag that had been dumped at the side of the house.

  Liam and Jacob crept closer, then divided. Jacob headed around front while Liam checked the back door, then eased around to the side porch. A noise sounded just as he neared the broken window, and he paused and stayed behind the corner of the house.

  Seconds ticked by. The wind whistled. The stray screeched and chased a chipmunk into the woods. The door to the side porch squeaked open.

  Liam inched around the corner, aimed his gun and waited. A minute passed. Two. Then Inman poked his head out and looked around. The man looked a decade older. His once short hair was now long and shaggy. A foot-long raggedy beard hung down his chest to a point. And his clothes were ratty and dirty, the jacket he wore oversize and baggy on his bony frame.

  He peered toward the right, then glanced to where Liam was hiding. His father’s lifeless face as he’d said goodbye to him before the funeral flashed behind Liam’s eyes.

  If this man was responsible, he had to pay. Suffer.

  The need for revenge ate at him, and he moved his finger to the trigger.

  But his father’s voice taunted him from the heavens. His father whose mantra had been Respect and Protect.

  Liam gritted his teeth. He’d become an agent to honor his father.

  He exhaled, then stepped from the shadows. “FBI. Hold it right there.”

  Inman’s eyes looked glassy and wide with panic. A dilapidated pickup was parked beneath a makeshift carport. A heartbeat later, he took off running toward the truck.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Liam yelled.

  But Inman didn’t halt. Instead he darted toward the truck. Liam broke into a run just as Jacob yelled out a warning.

  Determined to stop Inman, Liam fired a shot into the ground, but Inman snatched a shovel from the carport and swung it up in defense.

  “You’re not going to get away,” Liam said as he moved closer. “It’s over, Inman.”

  “We just want to talk,” Jacob shouted.

  Inman shook his head. “No, you don’t. You want to pin that fire on me. And I didn’t do it.”

  All guilty men claimed they were innocent. “Put the shovel down,” Liam said as he inched closer.

  “I’m not going to prison for something I didn’t do,” Inman bellowed.

  “Then talk to us and help us find out who did set that fire,” Liam said.

  Jacob crept toward them, his gun trained on Inman, but Liam was closer. “Just put down the shovel.”

  Inman’s eyes were wild, sweat pouring down his face. Then he threw the shovel at Liam and yanked open the door of the truck. Liam dodged the shovel, then lunged toward Inman. Inman fumbled with the key and tried to start the engine. Liam reached for his arm, but Inman swung the door to close it and slammed Liam’s shoulder in the process.

  Pain shot through Liam’s arm, but he jerked the door open again, dragged the man from the truck and threw him to the ground.

  Furious, he jammed the barrel of his weapon in Inman’s face.

  “Try that again and you’re dead,” Liam growled. He kept his gun on him while Jacob bent and handcuffed the bastard.

  * * *

  PEYTON’S HEART HAMMERED as she watched the evening news in the staff break room at Golden Gardens, the assisted-living and nursing home where she worked. After she’d left Whistler, she’d accepted a job at the facility to watch over her mother and had been looking over her shoulder ever since.

  The words Late Breaking News scrolled across the TV screen, then the reporter spoke. “Special Agent Liam Maverick and Sheriff Jacob Maverick of Whistler made an arrest today in the case of the hospital fire that killed several people five years ago.” A photograph of a thin man with a long beard flashed on-screen. “The person of interest, Barry Inman, a man who filed a lawsuit against Whistler Hospital, has been taken into custody. Inman made allegations that his wife’s death was caused by negligence, but the day before the fire, the case was thrown out.”

  Footage of the fire as it engulfed the hospital, then the chaos on the lawn that followed, filled the screen.

  Barry Inman looked weathered and defeated, a shell of the man who’d stood by his wife’s bedside pleading for the doctors to save her. His devotion to his wife, Gloria, had been intense. His anger over her death a force to reckon with. And understandable.

  Guilt pressed against Peyton’s chest. So many lives had been destroyed that night.

  Had Barry set
the hospital on fire?

  The threatening message she’d received about Gloria Inman’s death played through her mind. Whoever had called her wanted to cover up the mistake.

  Did Dr. Butler have something to do with the threat?

  That was hard to believe. He was her mentor when she first came to Whistler. He seemed caring and conscientious. Did he really believe she’d made a mistake and he wanted to protect her career? Or was he covering for someone else?

  The fire had started near the record room for the ER. The room where files were kept on all the patients. Evidence that could have proven Inman was right had disintegrated into ashes in that inferno.

  Suspicions that had dogged her for years mounted again.

  Then fear. If the person who’d threatened her saw that Inman had been arrested, he might think she’d talked.

  Pulse pounding, she grabbed her purse from her locker and rushed from the room. She had to check on her mother.

  Keeping her safe was the only thing that mattered.

  * * *

  LIAM’S JAW TIGHTENED as he studied Barry Inman.

  He’d been hiding out for a reason. And Liam and his brother Jacob intended to find out why.

  “I did not set that fire,” Inman snapped. “I’ve told you that a dozen times.” He ran a finger through the scraggly strands of his beard. “You have no right to hold me.”

  Liam folded his arms while Jacob leaned against the wall, a silent force of anger as he shot Inman a look of intimidation that would normally make a man wither.

  “We have every right,” Liam said. “You have been wanted for questioning in this arson case, which by the way has been upgraded to multiple homicides, for five years. But you disappeared to evade the law. That makes you look guilty as hell.”

  Panic zinged through the man’s gray eyes. “I didn’t murder anyone. I would never.”

  Liam slammed his hand on the table in front of Inman. “Then why did you run?”

  He shifted in the metal chair. “Because you guys were trying to pin that fire and those deaths on me.” Bitterness laced Inman’s voice. “You didn’t want to listen to the truth. You just wanted someone to blame, and I was the easy choice.”