Fatal Charm. Aimee Thurlo

      Prologue

      Lynn Ramos heard the screen door slam behind her as she walked outside onto the moonlit porch. She’d meant to adjust that annoying spring latch many times, but had never quite gotten around to it. Quickly, she glanced down at the soft bundle in her arms. The baby stirred, yawned without opening her eyes, then drifted back to sleep. Lynn smiled, relieved. Six-month-old Carmen could sleep through most anything.

      Lynn drew her daughter closer, protecting her from the winter evening as she walked around the Bureau sedan to their own car. She fastened the baby into the car seat, then glanced back through the kitchen window. Tony was still on the phone. Everything in their lives always seemed to take a distant second to his career in the FBI. As usual, that had been the focus of their argument tonight.

      Lynn drove down the narrow two-lane highway, tears streaming down her face. She wondered if Tony had even noticed she’d left. The thought that he might not have noticed cut deeply. She stared ahead stubbornly, turning onto the mountain road that led toward her sister’s house.

      As she followed the sharp curve in the road, she heard something shift on the floor of the car. Lynn glanced down for an instant and saw a paper sack jutting out from beneath the front passenger’s seat. Without taking her eyes off the road, she reached down. As she picked it up, a small stuffed raccoon fell out of the sack, tumbling onto the seat beside her.

      Lynn recognized the toy she’d meant to pick up for the baby. Her throat tightened as she realized Tony had made time to go by Toy Mart and buy it for Carmen. A rush of warmth swept over her, dissipating her anger. Tony’s dedication to his job was infuriating at times but, in her heart, she knew that he loved her and Carmen deeply.

      Lynn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her hair-trigger temper had certainly been working overtime tonight. What on earth had she been thinking? She watched the snow flurries pile up on her windshield, then get swept to the side as the wipers kept up their steady rhythm. She should have never gone out on a night like this.

      Hearing the soft gurgling coming from Carmen, she turned up the heater a click, making sure the car stayed warm enough for the baby.

      “Okay, little girl.” She smiled, looking at her daughter in the rearview mirror. “Mom blew a gasket, as usual, but we’re going back home now.”

      Lynn began searching for a place to turn the car around. Narrow shoulders plagued this mountain highway east of Santa Fe. She slowed down, pumping the brakes carefully on the icy road as she rounded a switchback curve, careful to avoid picking up more speed than was safe for this stretch of pavement.

      Suddenly, out of the gloom ahead she saw a pair of blinding headlights coming straight at her. The driver was on the wrong side of the road!

      Lynn pulled the wheel hard to the right, barely missing the other car as it shot by. She fought the steering wheel and brake, trying to bring her car back under control on the glaring ice covering the road.

      Lynn screamed as the car skidded off the pavement and hurtled down the hillside into a dark abyss. Something smashed against the windshield, and she was instantly covered with chunks of glass. The car plunged into a steep ravine, flipping end over end.

      As the car finally came to a stop, Lynn struggled to hold on to consciousness, but it was a losing battle. One by one, her senses began to fail. First, she couldn’t feel anything, not even the cold. Then silence enveloped her as if her ears were stuffed with cotton. As her sight gave way, surrounding her with a soupy blackness, she tried to reach out and touch the car and panicked as she realized her arm wouldn’t move.

      Then, suddenly, the darkness lifted, and a sense of peace filled her. There was no reason to fear. Her child would be all right. Freed, she surrendered to the light.

      * * *

      FLASHLIGHT IN HAND, the solitary man staggered drunkenly down the snow-covered slope toward the car. What had he done? The cold wind stung his face, sobering him up.

      Though he didn’t want to climb down into the arroyo, something compelled him to keep going. He slowed down, trying to stay on his feet, but the going was icy and rough, and he kept slipping and falling.

      If there really was a hell, he was sure the Almighty had reserved a special spot for him. He should never have taken that first drink tonight, much less the fourth. Or was it fifth? He knew better. But it was too late to think about that