Lakeside Secrets
Author
K.D. Richards
Reads
18.0K
Chapters
28
A mother murdered. A daughter's return. And a killer determined to keep the case cold. Twenty years ago, trauma and injury stole Karine Eloi's memories of her mother's murder. Now she's back home, teaming up with her best friend, Omar Monroe, to uncover the truth. But the townspeople refuse to spill their secrets, leaving Karine's life in danger. Omar will risk everything to prevent the woman he's always had feelings for from becoming the victim of another unsolved murder.
Prologue
There’s no need to panic. Karine Eloi will probably stay in Carling Lake just long enough to put the house up for sale then she’ll return to that godforsaken city where she lives. After all, she’s some kind of big-shot financial person in Los Angeles. Nobody would trade that life for Carling Lake.
Marilee Eloi’s killer just had to keep a clear head.
The killer had been lucky, damned lucky, for more than twenty years. No one had even thought to connect them to Marilee’s murder. Besides, folks in this town wanted to believe Marilee had died at the hands of an outsider, that one of their own couldn’t have done something so evil. And they’d had the perfect scapegoat. Jean Eloi. Even his name was snooty.
Jean had snuck right in and married a hometown girl and the Carling Lakers hadn’t liked that one bit. It hadn’t taken more than a few well-placed rumors, the best kind if you asked the killer, to get people casting suspicious glances and talking all about how Marilee’s highfalutin husband must have been the murderer.
If the killer had known she’d been in the house with her mother, little Karine might have fallen prey to the big bad burglar that night too. Why leave a witness when you didn’t have to? Karine wasn’t a witness, though. She’d slept through the whole thing and that was what had saved her life all these years.
But now she was back in town and that was bound to kick up memories that the killer would rather stay buried. That new sheriff was far too progressive for the killer’s liking. What if he decided to show off by delving into a more than twenty-year-old murder?
One problem at a time. The killer would have to keep a close watch on Marilee’s girl. Maybe give her a reason not to linger in Carling Lake. And if there was any cause to worry...well then, the killer would just have to finish the job that was started twenty-three years ago.