Read Cold Pursuit for Free Online Page A

widow.
    Being a decent man, Thomas would probably feel bad for Carolyn, but Melanie couldn’t help that.
    She adjusted her expensive jeans and made sure she would blend in with the upscale, professional crowd at the restaurant. Now wasn’t the time to draw attention to herself. Thomas liked her natural flair for clothes, too, and how she always dressed appropriately for whatever she was doing, whether business or pleasure.
    She liked thinking about him. Saying his name to herself. That she was fifteen years younger than he was—she was just thirty—blew Thomas away. She knew he saw her as sophisticated, worldly, well read and yet completely charming.
    Not as a killer.
    Melanie tossed the towel into a wicker basket and returned to her two-person table in the main dining room. It wasn’t quite eleven yet. Breakfast was still being served. She picked up her menu, smiling at the waiter. “I’ll have the oatmeal with fresh berries on the side—and coffee. Low-fat milk, please.”
    “Of course, ma’am.”
    She hated being called ma’am. But she noticed Kyle Rigby making his way toward her and told the waiter, “Make that two coffees, and add a muffin. What kind do you have today?”
    “Raspberry and—”
    “Whatever. Anything. Warm it up, will you?”
    He retreated as Kyle dropped into the chair opposite her. She hadn’t been this close to him in over a week. With his very short silver-streaked hair and broad shoulders, he looked more like a high-priced Washington lobbyist in his expensive tan suit than a thug. A killer.
    She might be a killer, too, Melanie thought, but she wasn’t a thug.
    And she was giving up killing. She had no regrets about her life over most of the last year, but she was moving on. It was time. Ever since she was a little girl on Long Island, she’d envisioned marrying a man like Thomas. Quiet, intelligent, privileged—a true blue blood, as her mother, who had always wanted Melanie to marry well, would say.
    Melanie wanted nothing more than to be a real, old-money Virginia lady, attending luncheons, hosting teas and benefits, sitting on charity boards. Carolyn had been uninterested in any of those traditions. His daughter was hopeless in that regard. Melanie looked forward to them.
    But first she had to finish her business with Kyle, preferably before people started hanging their Christmas wreaths. As she’d donned her blond wig earlier that morning, Melanie had considered how little she knew about him. His real name, where he’d grown up, if he had family. Whether he was poor or middle-class or rich. Whether his father had beat him or his mother had loved him. If he had brothers and sisters, if they all were thugs or killers.
    She supposed she hadn’t wanted to know. He had come into her life eight months ago, when she’d caught him about to shoot a would-be decorating client, a rich, scummy defense attorney she knew would never pay her on time. She could have stopped Kyle. She could have called the police, distracted him, done
something,
but even as she’d stood there in near shock, he’d known she wouldn’t do anything. She’d never killed anyone or witnessed someone being killed, but she’d been mesmerized as Kyle had smiled at her then fired. She’d never felt so alive. With her would-be client’s body still warm on the living-room floor, Kyle had swept her into an upstairs bedroom and made love to her. Every second of that night was burned into her soul.
    Never, ever would she have such an experience again.
    He’d made her help him clean up the scene. The body wasn’t discovered until four days later. The police still had no leads. The dead lawyer hadn’t noted anywhere that he’d had an appointment with an interior decorator about redoing his sunroom. Fingerprints and DNA weren’t an issue for Melanie. She was Ms. Perfect. She’d never had so much as a speeding ticket.
    As little as she knew about Kyle, here they were, she thought—partners, lovers. Their months