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      To Rob (again) who loves me through it all.

      CHAPTER ONE

      OLIVER SULLIVAN—who had been called only Sullivan for so long he hardly remembered his first name—decided he disliked Sarah McDougall just about as much as he’d ever disliked anyone.

      And he’d disliked a lot of people.

      Meeting dislikable people was a hazard of choosing law enforcement as a profession, not that Ms. McDougall fell into the criminal category.

      “Though I have dealt with criminals who were more charming,” he muttered to himself. Of course, with criminals he had the advantage of having some authority over them.

      All this naked dislike, and Sullivan had yet to even speak to her. His encounters had all been filtered through his voice mail. He’d never seen her, let alone met her, and he would have been only too happy to keep it that way.

      But she’d gone to his boss.

      Her voice on the phone had been enough to stir his dislike of her and her bulldog-like persistence had cemented it.

      Not that her voice was grating. It was what she wanted from him that was the problem.

      Call me back.

      Please.

      It’s so important.

      We have to talk.

      Mr. Sullivan, this is urgent.

      When he’d managed to totally ignore her, she’d eventually gone to his boss. Sullivan mulled that over with aggravation. Which was worse? The fact that she had gone to his boss? Or the fact that his boss had ordered him to comply?

      At least go talk to her, the chief had said. In case you haven’t figured it out, you’re not in Detroit anymore.

      Oh, Sullivan had figured that out. In about his first five minutes on his new job.

      Being a cop in small-town Wisconsin was about as different from being a homicide detective in Detroit as Attila the Hun was different from being Mother Theresa.

      “What moment of insanity made me choose Kettle Bend, Wisconsin?” he growled.

      Of course his moment of insanity had a name, and her name was Della, his older sister, who had discovered this little pocket of American charm and chosen to come here with her orthodontist husband, Jonathon, to raise her two boys. She’d been trying to convince Sullivan to join their happy family ever since his whole life had gone sideways.

      Sullivan shook that off, focused on the town instead. He took in the streets around him with a jaundiced eye.

      It looked like the kind of town Walt Disney or Norman Rockwell would have imagined, wide, quiet streets, shaded by enormous trees that he, hard-bitten product of some of Detroit’s worst neighborhoods, had no hope of identifying.

      Still, there was no missing the newness of the leaves, unfurling in those tender and vibrant shades of spring, the sharp, tangy scent of their newness tickling his nose through his open car window.

      Nestled comfortably in the leafy shade were tidy houses, wearing their age and their American flags with equal pride. The houses, for the most part, had a pleasant sameness about them. White with pale yellow trim, or pale yellow with white trim, the odd sage-green and or dove-gray thrown into the mix.

      All had deep porches, white picket fences around postage-stamp yards, splashes of spring color in the flower beds lining walkways that welcomed.

      But Sullivan refused to be charmed.

      He disliked illusions, and he knew this particular illusion to be the most dangerous: that there were places left in the world that were entirely safe and uncomplicated, porch swings and fireflies, cold lemonade on hot summer afternoons.

      That there was a place where doors and windows were unlocked, where children rode their bikes unescorted and unafraid to school, where families laughed over board games. That there were places of unsullied innocence, places that whispered the word home. He kept trying to warn Della all was probably not as it appeared.

      No, behind the windows and doors of those perfect and pretty houses, Sullivan was willing to bet he would uncover all kinds of secrets that belied the picture he was seeing. Behind some of those closed doors were probably booze bottles hidden down toilet tanks. A kid with a crack problem. Unexplained bruises and black eyes.

      It was this cynicism that was making him a poor fit for Kettle Bend.

      Certainly a poor fit for Sarah McDougall’s plans for him.

      Her message on his voice mail chimed through his head, making him shudder. We need a hero, Mr. Sullivan.

      He wasn’t about to be anybody’s hero. This wasn’t how he wanted to be spending his day off. He was about to make one Sarah McDougall very, very sorry she’d gone after this bear in his den.

      Checking addresses as he went,