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  "Why did you put a note in the hiding place? We agreed not to use it anymore." She caught her breath and pushed a loose curl from her forehead. "It's not safe. If my little sister hadn't gotten it first, my father would've found it."

  He laughed and drew her to him again, nuzzling her neck. "Silly goose." He captured her mouth in his and thrust his hot tongue deep inside while she forgot how she hated him calling her by those ridiculous pet names.

  After another breathless moment, she pushed ineffectually at him again and pulled her lips away from all that sweet warmth. "Be serious! You could've gotten me in a real fix. Either Mama or Papa could've read it."

  He laughed again. "If you want a note, sweet Nellie-girl, I'll write a thousand of 'em for you." He tugged at her hand, too aroused to pay attention to her complaints.

  "For God's sake," she moaned, half mad with desire she couldn't think straight.

  "You set me on fire, darlin'." He trailed his tongue down her neck and over the top of her blouse which he'd managed to unbutton down to her chemise without her even realizing what he'd done.

  Suddenly in the distance the house porch light came on, the front door opened, and she saw the outline of her mother's figure against the light from the parlor.

  Damn! "I have to go," she whispered.

  He groaned and released her. "You're always doing that to me darlin', getting me hot and ready for you and then leavin' me. It ain't right."

  He pressed her hand against his groin where the bulge pulsed wildly beneath her palm. God, but it made her want to stay. With effort she forced down her desire, knowing the surest way to keep a fellow interested in her was saying no.

  Nell jerked away and took a step toward the road. "Don't leave anymore notes," she warned, sounding more miffed than she really was. She walked backwards toward the road, teasing him with her eyes as she slowly buttoned her blouse back up.

  He stared after her, his eyes narrowed with lust. Just as she turned away she saw a look of mingled desire and confusion pass over his handsome features.

  Good, she liked to keep her beaus guessing.

  Chapter 1

  December 1901

  The disappearance of Ellen Carver had caused chaos in the small town of Tuscarora City from the start. Panic showed itself in speculative gossip, private investigations, and circumvention of the law at every turn. To his endless frustration, Marshal Tucker Gage found that he had little control over the case.

  But two days after Christmas, everything changed.

  Early this morning two fishermen found Nell's body floating face down in the murky, dark waters of the Pasquotank River off the Carolina coast. At first they weren't sure what bobbed in the water, they told Gage. Maybe a log or broken piece of debris vomited up by the black river. They dragged the body ashore and raced to tell the Carvers at Pine Grove what they'd found.

  The family first, not the police, Gage noted, unsurprised.

  After Nell's disappearance in late November, Tuscarora residents had searched frenetically for her. Divers had combed the river for weeks. Volunteers had walked every foot of the river's shore for signs of her. Local trackers had set their dogs loose. All in vain.

  But now Nell's body had come home.

  By the time Gage arrived at the river, the fully clothed body lay on the bank. The men who'd fished her from the river hovered some distance away. Patrolman Will Pruitt stood at hand, turning a peculiar shade of green.

  Gage eyed him warily, hoping his newest officer would not empty the contents of his breakfast on his superior's freshly-polished shoes. The lad had potential, but no stomach for the sight of the dead.

  Gage felt the heavy weight of detachment settle over him. "How did you come to find her?" he asked after a moment.

  Pruitt spat and stepped back toward the body. "Well, sir, I, uh, I was taking a shortcut across the field on my bicycle, coming off night duty." His cheeks reddened as he pointed to his bicycle lying on its side at the edge of the road. "I noticed what looked like a bundle of clothes."

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I didn't think it was important, but I figured I should check."

  "Did you touch anything?"

  "No, sir, I know better 'un that." The lad gripped a lantern as if it would burn his fingers and jerked his head toward the fishermen. "They found her out in the water, hauled her here in their boat, and then ran up to tell her folks."

  Not unkindly, Gage took the lamp from Pruitt's willing fingers, then removed his Stetson and squatted down. Nell Carver lay on her stomach, her skin wet and white as a fish's belly in the gray light. Matted blonde strings of hair draped across her face as it tilted toward the river.

  Gage waited for the wrench of queasiness in his gut, a twinge of nausea or disgust. But, of course, it did not come. Such reactions to death had long been purged out of him.

  He sighed heavily and angled the light for a better look. A stiff wind blew off the river, along with a chill from the heavy mist, and he felt the crunch of his knees and the stab of his old wound as he crouched there.

  Bloody hell, he thought, thirty-seven days after Nell's parents reported her missing, her dead body ended up in the very spot she'd disappeared from. Gone all that time, and no one – not family or her several gentlemen friends – not even her best friend Meghan Bailey – had any idea of where she'd been.

  Where she'd been all this time was likely at the bottom of the Pasquotank River where the fish and scuttling animal life had done remarkably little of their nasty work on her beautiful young face and form. Would the cold water account for the relatively unmarked condition of the body, he wondered?

  He motioned for the fishermen to come closer. He couldn't fault them for dragging the body from the river, but he resented their informing the family before the authorities. He'd liked to have seen the parents' reactions first hand.

  Gage rose, dusting off the knees of his trouser leg. He heard the hardness in his voice when he spoke to the two fishermen. "Did you leave something to mark the spot in the river where you found the body?"

  The first man looked puzzled. "Uh, no, we needed the oar to hurry back. Was afraid she'd – "

  "Fall apart," the second man finished blithely. "Thought she might just break up into little pieces." He looked pleased at his insight into the workings of water on the human body.

  "Next time you find something like this, gentlemen, report to me first."

  They looked from Gage to each other and back again. "Well, sure, Marshal," the first said, "but the family, you know, they been waitin' a long while."

  "Yes." He knew that explaining the importance of preserving evidence would fall on incomprehensible ears. "Keep this to yourselves," he added, also knowing the futility of that request.

  The news of their grisly find would spread like wildfire. Folks had waited with macabre interest to learn what happened to Nell Carver. Various rumors over the last month had her dragged off by kidnappers, sold into white slavery, or murdered by blood-thirsty Indians and dumped in the Great Dismal Swamp. Some said she lived a life of wealth and ease over in Raleigh. False sightings had come from all along the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

  Gage heard the crunch of boots and saw Dr. Henry Williams making his way across the field.

  "Marshal Gage." The young coroner nodded respectfully and then knelt down beside the body, turning it over with a tenderness that belied his massive hands and hulking size.

  After a cursory examination, the doctor asked, "You believe it was an accident? A drowning?"

  Gage fingered a patch of bristle he'd missed on his face during his hurried grooming. "What do you think?"

  "Not sure." Williams frowned and turned the head from side to side. "I guess she could've hit her head and fallen into the water."

  "An accident then?" Gage thought a moment, gazing off into the distance where the sun shone hazily over the water. "Was she ... molested?"

  "Her clothing's intact and her shoes are on." The doctor lifted the he
m of her skirt to reveal stockings and drawers all in their proper places. "Underwear too."

  "You'll do an internal examination to be sure?"

  Sexual congress could mean the girl's death wasn't an accident, but Nell was a girl known for having far too many suitors. One of them might've hurt her. "If she's had recent intercourse, I need to know if she was willing." Gage pierced the doctor with a stern look. "Can you tell me that?"

  "The water would've washed away any fluids," Williams answered. "I need to examine her right away." He looked across the road. "The Carvers have an outbuilding they use as kitchen quarters. There'll be a large table I can use."

  Christ. "Her parents' house?"

  Williams lifted his beefy shoulders. "It's close. We'll be quick. Don't know how long she was in the water and don't want to risk more damage to the body."

  "I can take her there, Marshal," offered Pruitt. His fresh, young face looked pale, but he was steady on his feet.

  Gage swiped a hand over his brow. "Find a board and some sheets to carry her. Get the fishermen to help." He nodded toward the field where he'd left his horse and buggy. "There's a blanket in the back of my gig. Cover her up, Will, and for God's sake, don't let her family see her."

  #

  After helping Dr. Williams transport Nell's body, Gage sent the fishermen home and Pruitt to search the length of the Pasquotank in both directions for evidence of recent activity along the river bank. While Williams began his autopsy, the Marshal walked to the front of Pine Grove, the Carver family home

  Gage might've appointed someone else to the onerous task of speaking with Harold and Mabel Carver about the discovery of their daughter's body – Dr. Williams, or even Will Pruitt. God knew he wanted to. But he'd faced death far more often than either of them, and the responsibility was his.

  From their appearance he realized both parents had been resting, but they answered the quiet knock at the door before Bessie, their Negro servant, responded. Mrs. Carver's unbound hair fell in faded yellow tangles around the shoulders of a hastily-donned wrap. Her feet were bare on the unforgiving hardness of the oak floor.

  Mr. Carver was dressed in shirt, tie, and vest, but his broad face looked haggard and gray. He sagged against the door frame the moment he recognized the Marshal standing on the porch, his hat in hand. Gage noted the flash of anger, along with the sorrow, that shuddered through Carver's body and knew the father saw only a cold, aloof man who bore bad news.

  Harold Carver's beautiful, too passionate Nellie was dead. This visit merely confirmed what the fishermen had already hurried with salacious eagerness to tell him. Carver staggered back into the parlor and sank into a wing chair.

  Even though he'd thought himself long inured to such pain, Gage felt Carver's grief like a knife heated in a roaring fire. He dispatched his news with a quick precision that belied the old pangs of horror and memory and guilt.

  Gage took a seat opposite Mr. and Mrs. Carver in a delicate chair that ill accommodated his size and length. "You may see her soon, but you must allow Dr. Williams to complete his work first," he cautioned after explaining where Nell's body lay.

  He forced sternness into his expression that brooked no argument. "We should have answers in a few hours. I must ask you to be patient until then."

  He hesitated and looked away from their bleak faces.

  "I'm sorry for your loss," he added, just remembering those were the correct words of condolence.

  #

  As soon as he was decently able to, Gage left the Carvers to their private grief and returned to the police station to file his report. He relieved the officer on duty, Sergeant Henderson, and dispatched him to neighboring cities to begin the task of assembling a coroner's jury. Although Nell Carver's body was now secured in the outbuilding, most of the day would involve summoning the men who would determine how she'd died.

  If, indeed, they could.

  Henderson and six other officers besides Pruitt made up the whole of the Tuscarora City police force. Eight men – nine, counting Gage. Would this slender group be sufficient to investigate the death if it were determined to involve a crime?

  He thought briefly of informing Bailey of her friend's death, but decided against it. Meghan could be like a bulldog in her persistence and intensity, and he wanted to determine the cause of Nell's death first.

  Still, there'd be hell to pay. Fiercely loyal, Meghan loved her friend and would be royally pissed that he hadn't rushed to inform her they'd found Nell's body.

  ###

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  The Next Historical Romantic Thriller by Jo Robertson Weak Flesh

  Chapter 1