A Year of Summer Shadows: Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series, #2

By Alice Orr

Hailey Lambert loves her North Country life but she doesn't love some of her North Country memories.

Riverton was a great place to grow up – except for Hailey's trouble with the Hargate's. Now Julia Hargate is back in Hailey's life and Virginia, Julia's domineering mother, is back too. Hailey would like to send them both packing – except for the fact that Julia's in a mess that could take away her freedom and maybe her life. Hailey has no choice but to help.

Mark Kalli has had his eye on Hailey for a long time but she won't give him the time of day. Now she's mixed up in the murder of sleazy Finley Yates. It looks like spoiled heiress Julia Hargate is the killer. Hailey says that's not true and insists she has to help. Mark has no choice but to get involved with the killing and with Hailey – whether she wants him around or not.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice Orr Books
• Release date: Jun 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513056364

Book preview

Dedication

To my husband Jonathan who is always my romantic hero –

And to my family, my friends and my faith.

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-R|R-

Visit Alice’s Blog and Website – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Email Alice – [e-mail]

Copyright @ 2015 by Alice Orr

Alice Orr Books

A Division of Alice Orr Agency

New York NY

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All rights reserved

Including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN – 9 781511 796866

Cover and Interior Design by The Killion Group

Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series – What Amazon Readers Are Saying

A Wrong Way Home – Book 1 – Matt & Kara’s Story

Alice Orr hits it out of the park. If you see her name, grab the book.

The puzzle of a mystery, the heat of a romance, the emotional journey of a women's fiction. A WRONG WAY HOME has complex characters and a small town setting sure to charm the reader.

Kept me turning pages. So many twists in plot kept me wondering what would happen next. All I can say is well done! Bring on the rest in this series.

Delicious, well-written suspense spiced with a love story for fun... The 5 stars, however, is for the extremely well-written literature hidden within this story. I highly recommend this read.

A Year of Summer Shadows – Book 2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story

Anytime I see Alice Orr's name on a book, I will be sure and pick it up. I know I am in for a great ride. Always strong, entertaining characters. Plenty of suspense with never knowing ‘who done it’ till late in story, lots of food for thought and just the right amount of romance.

Another great read! Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you have finished the last page, you want more.

Move this one to the TOP of your beach read pile! The second installment of Alice Orr's Riverton Road series doesn't disappoint... a must read for lovers of romantic suspense.

Ms. Orr has the unique ability to involve the reader in the emotions and deepest thoughts of the characters. She makes you care, she makes you wonder, she allows her characters to take the reader on a dangerous ride through the shadows of a small town and lives that mean more than what they appear, just as they would in any small town. She writes about the good and the bad, leaving it up to the reader to see through the shades into the light.

Hurray, Alice Orr swept me off into romantic-suspense land again! Keep 'em coming!

A Vacancy at the Inn – Book 3 – Luke & Bethany’s Story

Alice Orr brings a sense of place to life nearly as fully as a character. And the love story in this quick, engaging read was very satisfying. Well-developed undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.

I loved this book. It is a perfect Christmas read... Though a novella, Alice has packed a great deal of love, suspense and family in a well-plotted and wonderfully written story.

The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authenticity that demonstrates Alice Orr's skill as a writer. I felt right at home with the Millers, who could easily be my own family.

I'm an enthusiastic fan of Alice Orr's series. How does she wrap up so many wonderful characters in such a now-familiar setting? Then there's the additional exquisite tension between two lovers and the scary happenings as well.

A wonderful story filled with warm-hearted people readers will come to love. Give yourself a Christmas gift and curl up with this book.

A Villain for Vanessa – Book 4 – Bobby & Vanessa’s Story

Orr’s ability to raise the stakes and keep the tension high is remarkable. Her characters are multidimensional and her scenic details vivid. She hooked me from the start and kept me turning pages until the satisfying ending.

A mystery, a book of suspense, a study of family dynamics, or a romance; this novel is all of those and then some.

The first sentence of this novel can be any creative writing teacher’s favorite example of a hook. ‘Carl Westerlo’s pudgy fingers caught the corner of an asphalt shingle and tried to hold on, but there was no chance of that.’ Just this opening is enough for me to utter a Wow!

Alice Orr has a deft hand for every necessary element of fiction. She nails the breath-stopping pace of tightly written suspense, wields the kind of tension, shifts and twists that don't let you look away. I was gripped before I was off the first page. That's a writer’s big gift at work, both for the reader and the story.

A Time of Fear and Loving – Book 5 – Mike & Amanda’s Story

Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.

The best one yet, Alice! Dead bodies on a riverbank and a budding romance that simmers in the background until it ignites with passion.

I thought, Well, I'll read a few pages before I go to sleep. Ha! After the first 20 pages, I could hardly wait to see what Mike and Amanda were going to do next. I was charmed by these vibrant characters. Before I knew it... three o'clock in the morning! And, with a satisfied sigh, I closed the book and went to sleep.

Gripping from the first page. Couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. Alice is brilliant at weaving romance into mystery and her novels are always page turners! I loved it!

I am a big fan of this series.... Each story is a killer page turner that challenges your blood pressure to stay in its normal range!

A Note from Alice

I was born and raised a North Country girl. I grew up on a one-block street in a town a lot like Riverton, the setting of my Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series.

The winters were hard, but summers were soft. Spring was welcome, and fall blazed with color. The North Country ended a couple of dozen miles away at the dark green waters of the Saint Lawrence River and its beautiful Thousand Islands, a summer wonderland where we lived in shorts and tee shirts and bathing suits, sandals sometimes too, but I preferred barefoot. Winter was another wonderland filled with sleds and toboggans and my personal favorite, ice skates.

I return to the North Country now mostly by imagination, and I have a vivid one. I don’t remember a single murder happening while I grew up there. I didn’t know about any passionate romances either, but I love to conjure both in my stories. The same way I conjure Riverton and the Kalli family of Riverton Road, the Miller family of Riverton Road Hill and the Women of West Main Street still to come in Book 6 of this series.

Welcome to Riverton. I hope you have a thrilling visit. If you’d like to say Hey to this North Country girl please don’t hesitate to email me at [e-mail]. Your messages are always a special joy to me. 

Love and Blessings.

Alice

-R|R-

Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series

Book 1 – A Wrong Way Home

Book 2 – A Year of Summer Shadows  

Book 3 –A Vacancy at the Inn  

Book 4 – A Villain for Vanessa  

Book 5 –A Time of Fear and Loving  

Book 6 –A Thankless Season  – In progress

Finley Yates

Finley Yates was bigger in bulk than he was in character. He’d have said that about himself with a sneering laugh, but he wasn’t sharp enough mentally to think that way. He wasn’t ashamed of the kind of man he was either. Finley didn’t bother himself with useless feelings like shame or guilt.

Why waste your head on crap like that, he’d say.

Finley had enough to do just carrying around a body that could fill up a closet or maybe even half of a small room. He preferred planting himself in a sitting position as much as possible, and once he got into that position he wasn’t going to use up his time or energy worrying about useless crap. He was going to put his feet up and let the punks around him do the worrying.

Finley really didn’t like to bother with dragging himself outdoors after dark on a night like this, or any other night, for that matter. It might be summer, but he’d rather be indoors in his oversized chair, taking a load off in front of the TV. The news guy had been bragging about how beautiful the temperature was, but Finley didn’t care a rat’s behind about that.

Those weather jerks got all worked up about summer because this place was so far north in New York State it was almost Canada. Any weather that wasn’t a blizzard was news in this town. Summer went into winter, bang, just like that, so you hardly got to notice any fall. Still, Finley wasn’t going to send up fireworks just because it was warm outside for a change.

Besides, it wasn’t that warm tonight. Whose idea was it to meet out here anyway? Not Finley’s, that’s for sure. He had more sense than to come up with crap gangster movie stuff like having everybody get together in a parking lot late at night. He’d been in on enough left side of the law deals to know most of these meet-ups happened in barrooms.

He’d love to be in a barroom right now. The Tick Tock Tavern was his favorite. It was so loud in there nobody’d be able to listen in on what they were saying or anything else. At the Tick Tock, he’d be tossing back a shot with a cold beer to wash it down. Instead, he was out here messing around in a parking lot on the back end of town.

This is what happens when you do business with amateurs, he thought. You end up dragging yourself outside on a damp night, thirsty for a beer and a bump, shuffling through gravel, stepping in who knows what. He’d just as soon take off out of here right now, and he might do that. Except then he wouldn’t get the money.

A grin cut a crease across Finley’s lumpy face, and for half a minute he stopped thinking about all the stuff he didn’t like about tonight. What he did like was the money. Lots of it, in his own damned hand pretty damned soon now. He was getting a kick out of that thought so much he didn’t notice the low rumble of an engine off to his right.

You’d think a guy like Finley would get a tip-off from somebody when the big one was coming his way. Small time connected was all he’d ever been, but connected all the same, and that meant he had ways of knowing what was going down. From day one, he’d been real careful too and never let his guard down like he was doing right now.

That’s all it takes to do you in sometimes. A minute or two. He’d tell you that himself if he had time left to tell anybody anything. Maybe it was because of the amateurs he was dealing with. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t paying tiptop attention tonight.

The bottom line was this. Finley didn’t figure out what was happening soon enough to save himself. By the time he heard the car engine and wondered why he didn't see any headlights to go with it, his ticket was punched for good.

He didn’t really feel it happen either. The bumper caught him from the side, aimed square and hard enough to knock him down flat so fast he almost didn’t feel a thing.

What in hell’s going on here?

That was the last thing he asked himself before the car barreled all the way over him and put him under so far he didn’t mind when the engine revved again, the tires screeched into a tight turn, then headed back at high speed toward the spot where the bloody, fleshy layers of Finley Yates lay waiting.

Chapter One

Earlier. On the Afternoon of that Same Day.

Hailey Lambert had been ordered to appear. Virginia did things like that. She gave orders. Hailey had a feeling Virginia might be afraid nobody cared enough about her to do what she asked if she didn’t make an order out of it. Hailey couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Virginia because of that. But then Hailey tended to feel sorry for a lot of people for a lot of reasons a lot of the time.

She’d been told over and over that some people shouldn’t be let off the hook and she was softheaded as well as softhearted for doing so much of that. Hailey had spent several years of her childhood up close and personal with the self-appointed ruler of this place she’d been summoned to today. Those years should have convinced her entirely that Virginia Hargate shouldn’t be let off the hook by anybody.

Hailey hadn’t forgotten how much it hurt to grow up in a world dominated by Virginia and her daughter Julia, especially after that world was snatched away from her. Hailey spent a great deal of time in this house back in those days. At first, they were happy days and fun, too. But that was when she and Julia were still friends. Before the happy days changed into something else.

Hailey and Julia’s favorite game had been to keep Virginia from finding out how close they really were. They’d put their heads together—the smooth-haired one and the wild one—and giggle while they came up with ways to make Virginia think Julia couldn’t stand Hailey. Because that was what Virginia wanted and Virginia was in charge. Hailey and Julia called her the empress and giggled about that most of all, but only when there was no chance she’d hear them.

Hailey felt sorry for Julia back then. She’d talk about being trapped in this house. How she was the little girl in a scary fairy tale, locked in a dungeon where the stone walls were slimy cold, and everything smelled of rot and mildew. Julia talked like that a lot, as if her life came out of a storybook. Oddly enough, that was one of the things Hailey missed about Julia. Though Hailey tried not to miss her at all because of the way it still sent a stab to her heart.

In Julia’s version of her life as a kid, she was let out on weekdays to go to school and take part in empress-approved activities. That way, the people of the town wouldn’t suspect the truth about Julia’s life and whisper ugly things about the empress behind her back. Virginia was very concerned about the people of the town whispering behind her back, despite how far beneath her she considered them to be.

At nineteen, Julia had managed to break free from this house and her dungeon life and Virginia. Hailey heard about that the same way everybody hears about everything in Riverton, New York—through the gossip grapevine. She’d been gone from this house herself for ten years by then, since she was ten years old. That was when Virginia finally got her way and separated her daughter from her only friend.

Julia was the one who sent Hailey away, and she never fully understood why. A place deep inside her still stung from the hurt, even though it was nearly twenty years in the past by now. The sting had dulled, but she suspected it would always be with her. Meanwhile, in those twenty years, Hailey had built a full, satisfying life here in Riverton, and one of the ways she’d done that was by not letting herself think too much about Julia.

What’s over is over, Hailey would tell herself.

She knew it was a lame cliché and not really true. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be sitting here today in the morning room of Hargate House, just because she’d been ordered to appear. Calling this a morning room was one of Virginia Hargate’s many pretensions, just like naming this place Hargate House had been. She was in love with anything that sounded like royalty.

It was ridiculous to give a house a name in a town like Riverton. Most people here were totally down-to-earth, the exact opposite of pretentious. That was one of the many reasons Hailey loved Riverton so much, and the main reason she’d come straight back after college to make her home in her North Country County hometown.

Virginia, on the other hand, always had been and always would be the empress, and having a house with a name and a morning room suited her empress style. Hailey said goodbye and good riddance to Virginia, and her style of living, years ago. Hailey had also promised herself she’d never have anything more to do with any of that again. She’d kept her promise, until today.

She hadn’t understood that she was still attached to Hargate House by a tether as strong as Julia’s had once been. Hailey was tethered here by Julia herself and the loving friendship they’d once shared. That was why Virginia had to say only a single sentence to bring Hailey back to the morning room today.

Julia is in serious trouble. You must help her.

That was two sentences really, but Hailey only heard that her once precious friend was in trouble. She’d ignored the command Virginia tacked on, the sentence with you must in it. Those words came ringing back now, along with their significance. She’d ordered Hailey to be here and here she was, while Virginia smiled with fake affection from her floral printed settee that exactly matched the one where Hailey had been ordered to sit.

You are a sweetheart to have come so quickly, Virginia said.

Hailey had forgotten how perky Virginia could appear when perkiness suited her purposes. Hailey remembered Virginia as distant and cold, especially when she was rubbing something painful under somebody’s skin.

According to your message, Julia’s in trouble. I’m here because of that, Hailey said.

Of course you are, my dear.

Virginia was a small woman. Delicate-boned, she used to call it. She’d loved to show how a thumb and forefinger could encircle her wrist with a width of knuckle to spare. Hailey tried that test on herself many times when she was a girl here at Hargate House. The results were always clear. She was definitely not delicate-boned.

You’re looking well, Virginia.

Hailey’s tone was deliberately cool, to set herself as far away as she could get from Virginia’s perkiness.

I try to keep myself fit. I live in fear of the day someone says ‘pleasingly plump’ within my hearing.

Hailey didn’t believe that Virginia lived in fear of anything. She’d always said things like that to disarm a potential enemy. Hailey was unsettled by how quickly her memories of Virginia’s deceitfulness returned. They slid around her in slippery folds, like one of the heavy satin brocade tapestries in the larger, more formal drawing room of this huge house.

Every sensible bone in her body told her to fight her way free from those folds and get out of here right now. But she couldn’t do that because she still cared about Julia. Whatever had torn them apart all those years ago might have ended their friendship, but it hadn’t closed Hailey’s heart.

There were family reasons for staying too. Her father, Will Lambert, worked for the Hargates most of his life and brought Hailey here in the first place. He’d also accepted a favor on her behalf from Julia’s father Barrett Hargate, enough money to put Hailey through college. She tried to tell herself she hadn’t asked for the money, but she knew that didn’t matter.

Her father and Barrett Hargate were dead, but Hailey owed a debt to the Hargates all the same. She couldn’t run away from that truth, whether she wanted to or not. Virginia was calling in the debt now. Hailey’s father and her conscience gave her no choice. She had to pay up, in his name and her own.

What’s going on with Julia? she asked.

If you are asking what is happening to her at this moment, I really cannot say. Virginia’s tone turned wistful too quickly for Hailey to believe it was sincere. She refuses to let me see her or even to know where she is and what she might be doing.

Virginia lowered her gaze as if to hide her sadness. Two braids circled her head twice. Even all those years ago when Hailey first set foot in this house, Virginia had kept her braids exactly the right length to make two perfect circles. They were blond then and they were silver now, but the effect was still as regal as she’d always meant it to be.

She was dressed for empress effect too, in a pale green suit with a platinum leaf of tastefully small diamonds pinned to one side of the round collar. The green of the suit subtly echoed an accent color in the upholstery design of the settee. Hailey had no doubt Virginia had planned that effect deliberately too.

Where is Julia?

It would be more relevant for you to ask where Julia is not. She is not in jail, and that is only thanks to the vigorous efforts of our attorney.

Hailey guessed Virginia was referring to one of the lawyers from Barrett Hargate’s former law firm. He’d been about to move from there to the state supreme court when he passed away.

Who’s representing Julia?

I brought in Todd Massey.

Virginia was pouring coffee for two from the silver carafe on the small marble-topped table in front of her. She hadn’t asked if Hailey wanted coffee. Virginia just assumed, the way she’d always assumed everything. She kept on pouring as she said the name Todd Massey with a lightness that gave no hint of the impact she had to know it would have.

Chapter Two

Mark Kalli had a busy day ahead of him as usual. A new youth crew from his Build Your Future program was starting a big job today, and he wanted to be on the job site. He definitely didn’t want to be here in his office.

The one-story beige brick building sat on top of softly sloping Lambert Hill, a mile past the Riverton city limits. The county jail was almost directly across from the turnoff to the Build Your Future office. Mark had heard a nasty remark recently about the closeness of the jail to the project he’d brought to life almost singlehandedly two years ago.

It’s a good idea to put those loser kids of Kalli’s right across the road from where they really belong. The county won’t have to drive them very far when they screw up and get busted.

The loser kids that guy was talking about were fifteen- to twenty-year-old boys and girls who’d already failed in school and other places. Some people took it for granted that they were bound to fail at BYF too. It was easy to write them off. Most of them had already written themselves off by the time they made it to Lambert Hill.

The lives they’d lived had convinced them they were destined to be left behind while the rest of the world marched ahead toward accomplishments and satisfaction. Mark and the dedicated staff he’d put together here were committed to convincing these young people of something else, that their destiny was whatever they dared to make it become.

Mark had faith in these kids. Most came to him from the courts and some from the school system. They showed up scruffy and ready for a fight, trying to hide their disappointment with life under the huge chips they carried on their shoulders. None of them were old enough to be so hopeless and angry, but hopeless and angry they were all the same.

When a new candidate was referred to Mark, he’d grit his teeth and read the background file. The parts about family and living conditions bothered him most. Stories of neglect, violence and abuse weren’t a happy read. Considering what most of these kids came from, Mark was amazed they could muster enough gumption to make it out of the house in the morning.

He’d come to understand that they managed that gumption by carrying a heavy load of rage toward almost everything almost all the time. Rage was the fuel that kept them running as fast as they could go, away from the places and people that had failed them. Mark’s purpose was to redirect that raging energy into work.

He was determined to show these kids that they could build something for themselves besides long arrest records and a file folder full of sad stories. They could build buildings, or they could rebuild and renovate them. In the process of doing that, they would rebuild and renovate themselves and their chances for a better life, too.

Mark knew how much that sounded like a sermon. He wasn’t just aware of that, he used it to his advantage at every service club lunch and community meeting he could worm his way into. If they didn’t invite him as a featured speaker, he’d stand up and give an off-the-cuff presentation from the audience.

In two years, he’d made sure that pretty much everybody in Riverton knew about the BYF program and his belief that building the future of these young people was crucial to building the future of the community. He’d been accused of being obsessed with the subject, but he figured there were worse reputations he could have.

Bobby Rizzo had been an early recruit to Mark’s growing army of supporters. Bobby knew all about being young and making bad choices. He came from a family where violence happened so regularly it was the norm instead of the exception. He’d nearly squandered his impressive brainpower and the opportunities it could afford him.

Fortunately for Bobby, he’d discovered the Kalli family, or they’d discovered him. Mark’s father Gus and mother Angela, especially Angela, pushed Bobby where he needed to go, toward college, then law school and now his own legal practice in downtown Riverton. They considered him their fifth son. Not after Matt, Mark, Luke and John, but right beside them.

Bobby was always on the lookout for kids who needed the same positive push from the Build Your Future program, but today he had brought in somebody very different from his usual referrals. Bobby had somebody in mind for the BYF staff.

About any other time, Mark would have been open-minded and enthusiastic. Bobby had a talent for spotting good program candidates. The problem was that Mark already knew about this woman, and what he knew made him anything but open-minded, despite Bobby’s hard sell. His referral to Mark’s carefully chosen staff was a spoiled rich girl named Julia Hargate.

I thought you were in the business of giving second chances.

Bobby targeted Mark with his well-known sharp,