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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many, many thanks to the talented team at St. Martin’s Press who make these books happen. Thanks to my editor, Nettie Finn, for your invaluable insights and suggestions. You’re a joy to work with! My gratitude also goes out to Allison Ziegler, Kayla Janas, Sara Beth Haring, Sarah Haeckel, Talia Sherer and the rest of the St. Martin’s crew for everything you do to connect books and readers.

  Thanks to designer Olya Kirilyuk and illustrator Allen Douglas for creating such a delightful cover for this book!

  Thanks to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, for all you do to advance my writing career.

  Thanks to my fellow writers and friends who have encouraged and supported me along the way in more ways than I can count. Y’all are the best!

  Thanks to Colonel (Retired) Patricia A. Mance for suggesting the title for this book.

  And finally, thanks to you readers who picked this book. Have fun as you chase down clues and bad guys with Megan and Brigit!

  ONE

  ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE

  The Slasher

  He reached over to the wooden block of serrated steak knives on the kitchen counter and yanked one out, clutching it in his fist. He slashed and slashed, and the blood splashed and splashed. Over the walls. Over the countertops. Over the floor. Over skin and clothing and shoes.

  When he finished his bloody business, a little brown face looked up at him from the doorway. The French bulldog’s eyes went wide as she tilted her head in question, wondering about the strange events taking place in the kitchen of her home. She issued a soft whine. He tucked the thick roll of bills into his jacket pocket, zipped the pocket closed to keep the cash secure, and reached down to give the dog a quick pat on the head. “Don’t worry, girl. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  TWO

  HOME IS WHERE THE HEART STOPS

  Fort Worth Police Officer Megan Luz

  “What do you say, Megan? Shall we form a pack?” Seth, my hunky, blond, broad-shouldered firefighter boyfriend was down on one knee in the foyer outside the police chief’s office, the place where we’d first met. Our K-9 partners, Brigit and Blast, sat beside him. Brigit was an enormous German shepherd mix with an abundance of fur and even more attitude. Blast, on the other hand, was a sweet, submissive yellow Labrador. All three gazed anxiously at me, Brigit and Blast with big brown eyes, Seth with sexy green ones.

  “Yes!” I burst into happy tears as Seth leaned forward and slipped the beautiful brushed-gold ring on my finger. It fit perfectly. The round diamond glittered in the dim after-hours light.

  As he rose from the floor, I rose from my chair. We wrapped our arms around each other and held tight for a long moment, our chests pressed together, our hearts beating in syncopated rhythm. Appropriate, given that it was Valentine’s Day, a holiday in which hearts factored heavily. Not wanting to be left out of our love-fest, the dogs nudged our knees with their noses, trying to force their way between us.

  I released Seth and wiped my eyes with my fingers, unable to stop smiling. I glanced at my watch: 9:15. My mom and dad would still be up. “Let’s go tell my parents.”

  “They’re not out celebrating Valentine’s Day?”

  “They’ve been married forever, and Mom’s got classes in the morning. They probably got each other a card and ordered a pizza.” Despite having conceived five children, my parents weren’t exactly romantic, at least not in the traditional sense. They were too busy for poetry and picnics in the park, and too budget-constrained to splurge on expensive gifts for each other. Theirs was a solid but practical kind of love, expressed through laundry services, mowed lawns, and shared laughs.

  Seth eyed me. “Think we’ll take each other for granted like that someday?”

  I slid him a smile. “If we’re lucky.”

  We made our way to the elevator, rode down to the ground floor, and headed out to the parking lot, where we loaded our furry partners into his seventies-era blue Nova with orange flames down the sides. We aimed for my parents’ house in Arlington Heights, an older neighborhood in Fort Worth where both I and popular folk singer John Denver had graduated from high school, though he’d preceded me by approximately five decades and had later escaped the brutal Texas summers by moving to Colorado. My parents’ three-bedroom, two-bath wood-frame house could use a fresh coat of paint, but no matter how many times my father looked at the house and commented that he needed to go to the hardware store for painting supplies, he always forgot about the task once he’d crossed the threshold.

  I used my key to unlock the front door, and Brigit and Blast trotted in ahead of us humans. As usual, they headed straight for the kitchen, hoping to steal what remained in the bowl of kitty kibble my mother maintained for her three indistinguishable orange tabby cats.

  The dogs having cued a greeting, my dad appeared in the kitchen doorway. Thanks to his Latino heritage, my father had dark hair and warm brown skin, both of which he’d passed on to me. Thanks to time, his hair bore some silver streaks, more with each passing year. “Hey, you two,” he said. “There’s leftover pizza if you want any.”

  Seth and I exchanged a knowing glance.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But we’ve already eaten.”

  We entered the kitchen to find the dogs with their heads shoved into the cat bowl, and my mother and my sister Gabby at the table with their homework spread out in front of them. Gabby clutched a handful of her dark hair as she struggled with pre-calculus. My red-haired, Irish-American mother was elbow deep in books on the Great Depression, working on a history paper for one of her college courses. She’d recently returned to school after taking a break of nearly three decades. She was living proof that it’s never too late to achieve your dreams and go after your goals.

  While the two still had a way to go on their schoolwork, they’d made quick work of a large heart-shaped box of chocolates. Only three pieces remained, and two of those had small bites taken out of them. Rejects.

  I reached out with my left hand, turning it to and fro to catch the light from the fixture over the table, and grabbed the last remaining intact piece of chocolate. Neither my mother nor my sister noticed my ring. Good thing they aren’t aspiring detectives. I took a bite of the candy. Dark chocolate-covered coconut. Yum! I eyed my sister. “Is this candy from T.J.?”

  “Don’t ever mention that name again!” Gabby broke down into a blubbering mass and bolted from the room.

  Apparently, my question had been a wrong one to ask. I looked to my mother for answers.

  “Gabby and T.J. broke up today,” she said. “He met some girl at a debate tournament and called things off.”

  So my little sister had been dumped, not only on Valentine’s Day, but also on the day I’d gotten engaged. Talk about bad timing. “I’ll go talk to her.” I turned to Seth. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Dad pulled open the fridge door. “That’ll give us guys a chance to have a beer.
” He retrieved a couple of bottles of Shiner Bock and handed one to Seth.

  I walked down the hall to the room Gabby and I had shared before I left for college. I rapped softly on the door. “Can I come in, Gabs?”

  “Only if you promise not to tell me there’s more fish in the sea!”

  While our mother and father had always tended to the physical needs of my siblings and me, they weren’t necessarily the best at responding to our emotional needs. Like many parents, they relied on stale platitudes in an attempt to quickly resolve problems they didn’t have time for rather than truly listening and empathizing. That’s why, when I’d been frustrated by my childhood stutter, I’d ended up pounding rocks with a hammer on the back patio, why I’d disappeared into books where other children suffered but found creative solutions to their problems, or didn’t solve them but learned to live with them. Biblio-therapy had done wonders for me. Still does.

  I opened the door, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind me. Though my twin bed remained pushed up against the far wall, the space was all Gabby’s now and she’d covered my bed with books and rumpled clothing she’d been too lazy to toss in the hamper. My sister lay facedown on her bed, her pillow over her head. How she was getting air was anyone’s guess. I sat down on her bed next to her, and rubbed my hand up and down her back. “I’m sorry, Gabby. Breakups stink.”

  She spoke into her mattress, her voice muffled. “I thought T.J. really cared about me. I’m so stupid!”

  “You’re not stupid,” I said. “Teenage boys are. You have any idea how many of those idiots I deal with every day?” Between fistfights, vandalism, and car accidents, teen boys kept the Fort Worth Police Department busy, that’s for sure.

  Gabby rolled onto her back. “T.J. is sort of stupid. He stayed up all night playing Fortnite a few weeks ago, and then he overslept and missed most of his shift at work. They wrote him up and said if he was late again he’d be fired.”

  “See?” I said. “Total moron.” I’ll be in trouble for that statement if they reconcile.

  She pushed herself up and clutched the pillow to her chest like a security blanket. She turned her red-rimmed eyes on me. “When do boys stop being stupid?”

  “It takes a long time,” I told her. Seth had been stupid, too, near the beginning of our relationship. Thanks to a father he’d never known and his young mother abandoning him with her parents when he was a child, he suffered severe attachment issues. When he’d developed serious feelings for me, he’d felt vulnerable and called things off. I’d been stunned and heartbroken. Of course, he’d later grown a pair, faced his feelings, and come crawling back with his tail between his legs. In the meantime, I’d had some fun with a sexy mounted sheriff’s deputy who rode a black horse named Jack. I reminded Gabby of the incident.

  “But Seth didn’t dump you for someone else,” she said. “Besides, he came to his senses and begged you to forgive him.”

  “True. But if he hadn’t, I would’ve had some fun seeing who else was out there.” Okay, so that was just a variation of “there’s more fish in the sea,” but at least I’d added a personal anecdote. “You’ll want to be free once you head off to college, anyway,” I added. “You’ll meet a cute boy every time you turn around. You’ll have way more fun if you’re not stuck in a relationship.”

  Her face brightened at the thought. She sniffled and blinked to dry her eyes. She reached out a hand to take mine and give it a squeeze. “You’ll be a really good mom someday.”

  Her words warmed my heart. “I hope so.”

  As she moved to retract her hand, her fingers brushed my engagement ring. She looked down, spotted the diamond, and sat bolt upright on the bed, her eyes wide and mouth gaping, T.J. and his betrayal promptly forgotten. “You’re engaged? Since when?”

  “Since twenty-three minutes ago. Want to help me plan the wedding?”

  “For sure!” Fueled by a renewed faith in romance and a fresh sense of purpose, she bounced out of bed and bounded to the door, yanking it open to holler down the hallway. “Mom! Dad! Megan and Seth got engaged!”

  I followed her as she sprinted to the kitchen.

  Raising his beer in tribute, Dad put his other hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Welcome to the family, Seth. You’ll be the son I never had.”

  Dad seemed to have forgotten an important fact. “You’ve already got three sons,” I reminded him.

  “I know,” he said. “But none of them are handy like Seth is.”

  It was true. Seth might not have received a lot of encouragement or affection from his grandfather, but at least the old coot had passed on his aptitude for fixing things.

  My mother stood, a big smile on her face. She gave me a hug before embracing Seth, too. “I’m so happy for you two!”

  As the news sunk in, though, her smile faltered and she bit her lip. I suspected I knew why. With two of their sons and my mother in college, my parents had no spare funds to pay for a wedding, fancy or otherwise.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’re going to have a simple ceremony and reception. Nothing big and expensive. Besides, we’re adults with jobs. We’ll pay for it ourselves.”

  Seth slid me some side-eye. “We will?”

  The grin tugging at his lips made it clear he’d been merely teasing, but I elbowed him gently in the ribs anyway. Might as well start this engagement off letting him know who’s boss. “Of course we will.”

  My dad looked from me to Seth. “Mom and I can scrape together something to help out. Maybe cover the flowers and the cake?”

  “That would be perfect.” I leaned in and gave my father a kiss on the cheek. “You’ll give me away, won’t you?”

  “Heck, yeah,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get rid of you for years.”

  I knew better. I’d seen his eyes grow misty when Gabby had dropped the news of my engagement.

  Mom pulled out her planner and opened it, uncapping a pen. She’d never been very organized, but returning to school had forced her to develop better habits. She held her pen poised over the notebook. “What date are you planning on?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far yet.” I’d been engaged less than an hour. Sheesh. I glanced over at Seth. “Maybe early fall?”

  Seth shrugged. “Or we could just go down to the courthouse tomorrow.”

  I’d never been the type of girl who dreamed about her wedding day but, still, I wanted my family and friends to share in the celebration. Besides, the courthouse was where people got divorced, or arraigned, or sentenced, or summoned to serve jury duty. It wasn’t exactly a romantic place. “You know that’s not happening, right?”

  “It was worth a shot.”

  My mom closed her planner and recapped her pen. “We don’t need a date to start looking at wedding gowns and mother-of-the-bride dresses. Why don’t we start first thing Saturday morning?”

  “Works for me.”

  Gabby chimed in, “Me, too.”

  After another round of hugs and amid death glares from my mother’s cats, Seth and I departed and headed back to my place. I was dying to tell my roommate Frankie the exciting news, but unfortunately she was out on a date with her boyfriend Zach. Only her cat, Zoe, was home at the moment and, while I adored the sassy little beast, sharing the news with my feline housemate would not be the same as sharing it with my human one. The fluffy calico met me, Seth, and the dogs at the door with an insistent “meow?”, demanding to know where we’d been and why we weren’t petting her already. I gave her a scratch under the chin and a “Hey, girl,” before stepping inside.

  In the living room, Seth pulled me to him for a soft warm, kiss that was clearly a prelude to something more. Unfortunately, that kiss was rudely interrupted by my phone blaring the “Pink Panther” theme song. It was my special ringtone for detectives Audrey Jackson and Hector Bustamente, two of the investigators from my station.

  Seth groaned as I gently pushed him away. “Ignore it. You’re not on duty tonight.”

  “No
t officially.” But as a K-9 team with a special set of skills, Brigit and I could be called at any time to assist in police matters. Besides, the detectives had taken me under their wings and taught me lots of invaluable investigation techniques. I’d never blow them off if they needed me. I reached into my purse and retrieved my phone. The screen indicated it was Detective Jackson calling. I touched the icon to accept the call. “Hello, Detective.”

  Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I’m at a crime scene. A grisly one. Can you and Brigit get over here?”

  So much for basking in the glow of my engagement. “Of course. Where are you?” I slid my hand into my purse and rummaged around for a pen and notepad. As Detective Jackson rattled off the address, I scribbled it down. “Got it. I’ll be there ASAP.”

  Seth groaned again as I ended the call. “What is it this time?”

  “The detective used the word ‘grisly.’”

  “A murder then?”

  “Most likely.”

  He sighed. “I should’ve realized what I was getting myself into when I fell for an aspiring detective.”

  “Right back at you.”

  Seth was not only a firefighter, but also a member of the city’s bomb squad. Blast was an explosives detection dog. Like Brigit and me, Seth and Blast could be summoned any time there was an explosion or bomb threat. Being continuously on call was an occupational hazard we both faced.

  I leaned in and finished our kiss. Not to be crass, but if someone had been killed, they weren’t going to be any less dead if I took four seconds to kiss my fiancé one final time.

  When I pulled back, Seth reached for the doorknob. “Go get ‘em, girls.”

  As he left, I ran to my bedroom and changed into my uniform at warp speed. Brigit and I were back out the door in two minutes flat and climbed into our specially designed K-9 squad car, me in the front and Brigit in her carpeted enclosure behind me. I nearly backed into Frankie and Zach as I reversed out of the driveway. I pulled my cruiser up next to them in the street, and Zach unrolled his window. Frankie leaned over from the passenger seat, putting her head next to his, her bright blue hair a contrast to his dark military cut. Though Zach had been a paratrooper in the army and served in Afghanistan like Seth, the two hadn’t met overseas. Rather, they’d been introduced when serving reserve duty at the joint base on the west side of town. Seth and I had set Zach and Frankie up, and our matchmaking attempt had proven quite successful.