Black Ice (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read online

  Black Ice

  At night on an icy road, Sophie Steven's dead body is found inside her fiancé’s car. On the outside it appears to be a simple accident, but as Detective Blake Warren starts to investigate, she discovers there's more to the story.

  Detective Ryder James is determined to find Sophie's killer and put him behind bars. No one will stand in his way, not even his new partner, Blake. He's worked for years without a partner and he doesn't need one now, even if she is sexy and intelligent.

  Blake is a complete mystery, and she's the last thing Ryder thinks he needs, until a killer threatens to take her away. Can they work together to stop the killer before Blake becomes the next victim and Ryder loses the woman he loves?

  Genre: Contemporary

  Length: 41,000 words

  BLACK ICE

  Lexie Davis

  ROMANCE

  www.BookStrand.com

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  A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

  IMPRINT: Romance

  BLACK ICE

  Copyright © 2009 by Lexie Davis

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-597-4

  First E-book Publication: October 2009

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2009 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Mandy.

  BLACK ICE

  LEXIE DAVIS

  Copyright © 2009

  Prologue

  I can’t believe he’d do this to me. After all I’ve done for him, he’d go out and do this to me! Sophie Stevens stood outside the Snowflake Lodge waiting for the valet to pull her car around the building. After a disastrous Christmas event hosted by none other than her high-powered father, Sophie found out her fiancé and boyfriend of six years decided he’d like to sample some other woman’s goodies before he settled with one for the rest of his life. And the woman just had to be Amanda Cummings.

  Sophie fumed. They hated each other with a passion that couldn’t be explained. Just thinking about Amanda’s hands running all over Rick’s body boiled her blood.

  Sophie groaned as she tapped her designer pump against the concrete walkway. To make matters worse, it started to snow. She glanced up to see the white dots fall from the black sky. She used to love winter. Making snow angels on the ground and building snowmen with her friends. She missed that innocent fun.

  She wrapped her jacket tighter around her body. Her life had gone up in flames, and the culprit of it all stood behind her pleading with her to come inside. She blocked out Rick’s annoying voice. It didn’t matter what he had to say anymore. He’d made his bed and now he’d lie in it. She’d never be able to trust him again.

  Tears filled her eyes. She was done. Everyone told her not to marry the scum, and she should have listened. She should have paid attention instead of blocking off everything right before her eyes.

  “Sophie, get back in here now!” Rick yelled from the door. Sophie took a deep breath.

  She’d embarrassed herself enough by causing a scene in the middle of the Christmas party. Sweet little Amanda had to open her ugly drunken mouth, and Sophie left her with a busted lip. She smiled recalling the event, finding it more amusing than embarrassing. She had wanted to punch Amanda since childhood when the woman took her favorite Barbie doll and pulled its head off.

  “Sophie, we need to talk about it eventually. Might as well do it now.”

  “No, Rick. You made your pick. Go kiss Amanda’s bloody lips and leave me alone.” A tear fell to Sophie’s cheek. “She won.”

  “Sophie, you are being unreasonable.” He stood at the door, hesitating to come closer to her.

  “I’m being unreasonable?” She turned, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’ve done nothing but support you and be there for you through the good and bad, and you repay me by sleeping with my enemy. I’m not being the unreasonable one! I have a right to be mad.”

  “You had to know it would happen, Sophie.” Rick scoffed. “She’s Amanda. She’s always wanted what you’ve had. Why would you think I’d be any different?”

  Sophie felt more tears, and she blinked them away. It’s the cold. Just the damn cold and not any sort of emotion I feel toward him. “Get out of my sight, Rick. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  The car finally came around the building, and Sophie nearly jumped out in front of it in an effort to get away from the worst night of her life.

  “Sophie, that’s my Jag. You can’t take my Jag,” Rick hollered as he stepped outside into the cold.

  Yeah. The idiot couldn’t step outside to confront me but he can step outside to protect his damn car! Sophie grabbed the keys from the valet. A Jag could go a hell of a lot faster than her little Camry. Rick’s voice instantly muffled when she closed the door. She pressed the door locks before he reached for the door handle. He searched for his keys but she moved faster. She fastened her seat belt and pressed on the gas, leaving the parking lot without a second glance back.

  Sophie always hated Rick’s Jag, but the damn thing was worth more than most average Americans made in a year. And he could afford it. The sleazy scum knew how to run perfect cons, his best being the one he pulled on her. Her speed increased as did her anger.

  As she passed each street light her vision blurred. She blinked, thinking tears filled her eyes again though none fell to her cheeks. Her head swam as her stomach flopped inside her. Wouldn’t that top it off? Puking in Rick’s Jag and leaving it for him to clean up. She grinned weakly, picturing his face when he saw it. Serves him right.

  A sharp pain blasted through her skull, forcing her to close her eyes for a moment. What the hell? She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Her foot moved to the brake and pressed hard, though the car didn’t slow down. Frantically, she glanced around the car, intensifying the pounding in her head. What is wrong with me? What is going on? She continued to steer the car on the meandering road while her brain felt on fire.

  Panicking, she forced the car around the sharp curve, the right tire slipping across a patch of ice. Sophie screamed as the Jag crashed into a tree on the opposite side of the road.

&n
bsp; The world came to a blinding halt.

  She laid there with her eyes closed, the pain easing a bit. She stood by him through everything and he repaid her by sleeping with Amanda Sophie tried to move but her limbs remained frozen. Her mind grew hazy as she tried to call for help.

  Before Sophie lost consciousness, she decided for a fact that that night was indeed the worst night of her life.

  Chapter 1

  Blake Warren pictured the buzzing cell phone beside her head as a figment of her imagination. Ignore it. It’ll stop eventually. Just a few more hours of sleep. The buzzing continued. Opening one eye to the horrid sound, she reached for the phone to end the noise. All thoughts of sleep flew out the window when she read the readout. She groaned. Phone calls at ungodly hours of the night came with the job. No sleep and gallons of coffee kept her going, and when shit happened, she made it better. She sought out justice for the innocent.

  Why can’t people wait until after the holidays to kill each other? Hell, if they’d only give her time to have a decent night’s sleep and a morning cup of coffee, she’d be grateful. She pushed up from the mattress and clicked the phone on.

  “Warren,” she grumbled.

  “Aren’t you a bright ray of sunshine?” her superior said.

  She rolled her eyes. “What have you got?”

  “Car wreck in Grand Rapids. They asked us to send a team up to investigate. It could possibly lean toward murder.”

  She rubbed her eyes, still half asleep. Too much family, too much eggnog and not enough food or sleep didn’t mix well with work. “Run that by me again. How is a car wreck murder?”

  “The coroner has reason to believe someone killed the victim intentionally,” he replied. “I’m sending you out there now.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Looks like it. Since Betsy is off duty, you’ll be working with James on this. He hasn’t responded yet so who knows when or if he’ll show up. You’ll be the first detective on the scene.”

  Blake bit back a groan. Ryder James. The man that couldn’t keep a partner because he liked to run the show. She’d heard he transferred to their department for a change. He’d been through at least five partners before the lieutenant decided to put him on paperwork for a while. Oh, Betsy, why did you have to get pregnant and go on maternity leave now?

  “I’d be better off on my own.”

  The man laughed. “Yeah, but you don’t exactly get that option, now do you?”

  Blake finally made it out of bed around eight and went on her way to the dimly lit crime scene. The sun started to peek over the hills, ending the night as it welcomed the new day. Blake snarled at the sunrise, wishing she’d gotten that extra two hours of sleep she really wanted. Scratch that. Needed.

  She worked in the Minneapolis homicide department. Why did she have to go to Grand Rapids? She didn’t bother waiting for her new partner before she left. Lou said he rented a hotel room for her to stay in while she collected evidence and gathered the statements she needed. She almost prayed that James wouldn’t show up. She didn’t look forward to spending the day and night with him.

  Thin sheets of ice slickened the roads, making them extremely dangerous. Funny, she thought. The weather man only promised more sleet and snow in the near future. She lifted her coffee cup to her lips and gulped a large amount down. She’d skipped breakfast before she left and regretted it now. It would probably be a long day, and she needed all the energy she could get.

  She glanced at her map again and wound her way through the city of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. With the meandering nature, she could understand completely how the victim wrecked her car.

  Blake parked on the side of the road and climbed out of the car, coffee cup in hand. She bundled herself in a thick parka, gloves, and even a scarf to fight off the freezing conditions. However, the wind still seeped through all the layers to chill her bones.

  She made her way through the mess of people, all officials, to find the coroner, Damian Harper. It’d been nearly three hours since Lou called her to report, and the mess she expected appeared non-existent.

  She pulled out her badge and flashed it to the coroner. “What happened?”

  He pursed his lips, looking at the body. “Well, upon first arrival, the officer on the scene claimed the vic slid on a patch of black ice and swerved across the street to hit the tree.” He walked toward the opposite side of the road and pointed to a fairly large patch of ice. “But that’s not all we found. Once he approached the driver, he spotted small dots of brake fluid in the snow.” Harper led her over to the car and pointed out the drops. “. If you look, the line has been cut intentionally, leading us to believe someone planned this.”

  Blake nodded staring at the line and the red fluid that’d gathered in the snow beneath it. She knelt down and stared at the car. “This is going to the M.E., right? When can we expect those results back?”

  Harper shifted his clipboard to the side. “We won’t know for a couple of days. I have my suspicions on how the vic died, but with reason, Dr. Gloria Maynard will do an autopsy and those things take time. She said the workload increased since three members of her team are out.” He reached for the purse on top of the Jaguar. Wearing his gloves, he pulled out the license and held it up so she could read it. “Take a look at the vic’s name.”

  “Sophie Stevens.” Blake met Harper’s eyes. “As in Robert Stevens, CEO of Stevens Enterprises?”

  He nodded. “She has his last name, but she’s his stepdaughter. I didn’t put two and two together until my assistant told me Stevens Enterprises rented out the entire Snowflake Lodge for his Christmas party this weekend.”

  Blake stared at the picture, hating the woman immediately for looking beautiful even in her snap shot. Nobody looks good in a mug shot, especially when it’s taken by the Driver and Vehicle Services. “Is this her car?”

  “No. It’s registered to a Rick Romano. If gossip serves, he is the supposed fiancé of the vic.”

  Blake glanced at the hunched over body lying in the driver’s seat. A trail of blood oozed from a cut on Sophie’s head, running down her face and dripping haphazardly onto her lap below. A cut brake line, a patch of black ice, and a car that wasn’t even hers. Who wanted Sophie Stevens dead?

  * * * *

  “If you knew how to do your job, you’d be done by now.” Ryder James barged into Blake’s hotel room and snatched the file from her hands. “Who have you contacted?”

  Her jaw clenched as she turned to face him. Narrowing her eyes, she replied, “Family. The fiancé. The Lodge. That’s normally procedure.”

  He met her eyes. “I don’t need any lip from you. A simple answer will suffice when addressing me.”

  He watched her jaw clench. Blake Warren didn’t let anyone get the best of her. The straight-laced cop abided by every law, spending most of her time putting the bad guys behind bars instead of enjoying her life.

  He had transferred departments a few months ago and had yet to see her do anything social with anyone. He knew from all the dickheads on the force she didn’t date. They repeatedly asked her out and repeatedly, she shot them down. Rumor had it she was a virgin, which headed the top of interesting things to talk about in Grand Rapids. But Ryder didn’t care about her personal life. He hated working with partners, even the hot Detective Warren.

  “You, Detective James, are not my superior.” She snatched the folder away from him and sat on the bed to look through it. “I’ll talk to you any damn way I please. If you can’t handle that, walk away right now.”

  Ryder watched her a moment before he snatched the desk chair and pulled it beside her. “If we’re going to work together then one of us has to take the lead and the other follows along. I always take the lead.”

  She made a noise in her throat that could have been insulting if he cared what people thought of him. “I don’t want to work with you any more than you want to work with me. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll see who solves the case first, huh?”


  He grabbed the folder again. “No. You tell me what we’re dealing with, and I decide what to do next.”

  “No.” She grabbed the folder and initiated a tug-of-war over it. “Give me the damn file.”

  Ryder jerked the paper documents hard, bringing her and the folder into his possession. Blake landed against his chest, eye to eye with him. “If you don’t want to do things my way then you can walk away. Simple as that.”

  Her breasts pressed against him, and for a moment, he allowed himself to take pleasure in that. He could have kissed her if he wanted, just leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. But as quick as she landed against him, she pulled away, hand still on the folder.

  “Give me the damn papers.”

  “No.” He tugged at the folder, freeing it from her grip. When she tried to grab it again, he stood, holding it out of her reach. “And people wonder why I hate working with partners.”

  “You think you’re funny don’t you? Domineering man up against the helpless little female. Whatever, buddy. I come from a long line of police officers, and I do my job damn well. So stop preventing me from my task and give me the file!”

  “Not until I read the file and see what I’m up against.” They sat nose to nose, and he could feel her accelerated breaths against his lips.

  For the life of him, he didn’t know what had come over him. He wanted to kiss her. Bend her over the desk behind her and press his body against hers. He knew even thinking that would lead to nothing good, but right now he didn’t really give a damn. Something about Blake made him want to know more, and he didn’t care about the consequences. He wanted to know how her lips tasted. He wondered if her skin felt as soft and creamy as it looked. He wanted to know what she felt like beneath him, surrounding him.