Sleepwalker
Authors: Karen Robards
“
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR VOICES IN WOMEN’S FICTION.”
—Newsweek
“
ONE TERRIFIC STORYTELLER.”
—Chicago Tribune
“
THERE’S A REASON ROBARDS IS TOPS IN HER GENRE.”
—RT Book Reviews
COPS AND ROBBERS DON’T MIX
It’s not that Micayla Lange is afraid of the clinking she hears coming from the first floor of the empty McMansion she’s housesitting for her uncle Nicco. She’s a cop, after all. It’s just that finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her was enough drama for one night. Now she’s alone on New Year’s Eve, wearing flannel pajamas and wielding a Glock 22 as she zeroes in on the unmistakable source of the sound: Uncle Nicco’s private office.
Jason Davis steals things for a living, so unexpected developments are a natural part of the job. Getting caught red-handed by a hot, pigtail-sporting police officer in what is supposed to be a gangster’s deserted house is just one more twist in the game. Kind of like finding incriminating photos in Nicco Marino’s safe, only to discover the cop—and the security cameras—have gotten a real good look at his face.
Unfortunately for Mick, she also got a good look at the damned pictures. Her “uncle” might love her like family, but if he knows she’s seen evidence that implicates him in the murder of a city councilman, she doesn’t like her chances. Which is why she’s having a hard time reconciling her professional instincts with what she is rapidly concluding is an inescapable fact: She’s about to help a criminal get away with a suitcase full of stolen money. And she’s going with him.
Mick and Jason’s race for their lives hurtles them through the dangerous Michigan wilderness on speedboat and snowmobile. As their adventure heats up and their enemies close in, Mick is torn between her duty to the force and the combustible passion engulfing her and her unlikely partner in crime. She’ll have to turn Jason in sooner or later …
if
they survive. But will they ever get a second chance at love?
KAREN ROBARDS
is the
New York Times
and
USA Today bestselling
author of forty-one books and one novella. The mother of three boys, she lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
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COPYRIGHT © 2011 SIMON & SCHUSTER (CONTINUED ON BACK FLAP)
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SLEEPWALKER
THE BANNING SISTERS TRILOGY
Shameless
Irresistible
Scandalous
OTHER TITLES BY KAREN ROBARDS
Justice
Shattered
Pursuit
Guilty
Obsession
Vanished
Superstition
Bait
Beachcomber
Whispers at Midnight
To Trust a Stranger
Paradise County
Ghost Moon
The Midnight Hour
The Senator’s Wife
Heartbreaker
Hunter’s Moon
Walking After Midnight
Maggy’s Child
One Summer
Nobody’s Angel
This Side of Heaven
Dark of the Moon
Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Karen Robards
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books hardcover edition December 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
ISBN 978-1-4391-8372-4
ISBN 978-1-4391-8375-5 (ebook)
Christopher,
This book is dedicated to you, in honor of your twenty-first birthday.
Love you forever,
Mom
SLEEPWALKER
1
Sometimes terrible things happen in the middle of the night. Sometimes the monster under the bed is real. Sometimes there truly is a bogeyman hiding in the closet.
Sometimes people die.
“Do you think they saw us?” Jenny Lange gasped as she fled across the overgrown vacant lot in Detroit’s rough Eight Mile area. Moonlight silvered the bright banner of the fifteen-year-old’s long blond hair, turned her face into a pale beacon as she glanced back over her shoulder. Dressed in a ski jacket, jeans and boots, she was little more than a slim shadow in the darkness. The night was black and cold. A biting wind whistled through the canyon made by the surrounding apartment buildings, whipping sparkling whirlwinds of snow from the crusty layer on the ground.
“Don’t know.” Lori Penski snorted with laughter. Also fifteen, she ran a couple of steps behind her best friend, Jenny, her flight slowed by an intermittent attack of the giggles. “Did you see what they were
doing
?”