Page 2 of The Murder Club

“I started getting weird messages from the chat room telling me that I’d been chosen to play in a private murder club with a mysterious admirer.” She wrinkled her nose. “I tried to ignore them, but whoever it was remained persistent. They sent me invitations and links several times a day. In the end, I just wanted to be out of it.”

“That means you have nothing but time on your hands.” Kari paused, her brows lifting. “You know what you need?”

“A million dollars and an endless supply of doughnuts?”

“A man.”

Bailey rolled her eyes. How many times had she heard that precise phrase over the past five years? She’d just celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday, but the entire town was convinced she couldn’t be happy without a husband and a gaggle of children.

“It’s not the eighteen hundreds. I’m doing just fine without a man.”

“Aren’t you lonely?”

Ouch. Bailey flinched. It was a direct shot where she was most vulnerable.

“Sometimes,” she grudgingly admitted.

Kari scanned the crowded room, as if hoping a suitable man might magically be drinking beer at a nearby table. Surprise, surprise, she came up empty. Still, her stubborn expression warned that she wasn’t going to be deterred. Bailey grimaced. She knew what came next. Kari wasn’t the first friend to try to get her hooked up.

“Why don’t you try one of those online dating sites?” she demanded.

“Are you kidding? Absolutely not.”

“Why? My aunt just married a man she met online.”

“Your aunt has been married five times.”

“She’s not lonely.”

Bailey laughed. “Thanks but no thanks.”

“Fine.” Kari pursed her lips, mentally searching for another way to torment her friend. “Then let me give you the number of my cousin in Grange. Not that he’s husband material. I’m not sure how he makes his money, although I suspect it’s not entirely legal. But he’s been out of jail for over a year and . . .” The horrifying words thankfully dribbled away as something or someone behind Bailey captured the older woman’s attention. “Oh. Hello.”

“What?” Bailey started to turn her head only to freeze when Kari reached out to grasp her hand.

“No. Don’t look.”

“What is it?”

“A dream,” the woman breathed.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink.” Bailey tugged her hand free and turned to see who was causing her friend to act so weird.

Immediately she located the source of her enchantment. He was taller than most men in the bar, well over six feet and broad through the shoulders. His hair was cut short, but it glistened like gold in the dim light and his eyes were dark. Not dark like Bailey’s brown eyes. But the deepest midnight. Or pools of ebony.

He was wearing a flannel shirt to combat the crisp October air and a pair of jeans that clung to his long, muscular legs. He looked at home in the small bar, unless you took into account his deep tan.

Oh, and the fact that he was heart-stopping, mouth-watering, drop-dead gorgeous.

“You’re not dreaming,” she murmured, her heart skidding until it crashed against her ribs.

“Right? He must be lost. No man looking like that ever comes to Pike.” Kari paused before correcting herself. “Not unless it’s Kaden Vaughn.”

After nearly a year of living in Pike, Kaden Vaughn was still considered an exotic intruder. With his long hair, tattoos, and love of fast cars, he would always be different from the locals.

“You’re not wrong,” she told Kari. “It’s Dom Lucier. He’s a friend of Kaden.”

“You know him?”