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"Blue Ribbon Rating: FOUR! OUT OF THE SHADOWS is a passionate emotional tale, a story of suspense, a second chance at love, a murderer still on a loose and a nosy reporter who sees the depth of pain within the man she has come to talk with. Lesley Belle, has created a suspenseful novella, which although short, was compact and will leave you tense and guessing; ‘who done it’ throughout the story. OUT OF THE SHADOWS was an enjoyable book to read, if you like a good dose of suspense like me, then you will not be disappointed." Romance Junkies
"OUT OF THE SHADOWS is a short novella that packs a wallop of a story. You are introduced to two amazing characters who make this story come alive. Ian is a tortured hero who can't let go of his past, and Missy is the only woman who can make him whole again. There are hot, sexy scenes that will leave you feeling breathless. Lesley Belle keeps you in suspense practically till the end of the novella. Pick up a copy of OUT OF THE SHADOWS. You will not be disappointed." Romance Reviews Today
"Four Angels! Out of the Shadows is a book about second chances, hope and raw passion. Lesley Belle keeps us on the edge of our seat until the very end and adds a twist the reader doesn't expect. This is a romantic suspense that shouldn't be missed!" Fallen Angel Reviews
"This short novella was very interesting. It has an intriguing mystery that will leave you trying to figure out who the villain is. I thought this romantic suspense book was very well written and the two main characters were very enjoyable for the courage they both felt they needed to continue through their journey of finding the love and compassion necessary for their love to mature. Ian and Missy’s sexy performances were spicy and sensual and it will leave you breathless. I recommend this novella to anyone looking for a good suspenseful story." Just Erotic Romance Reviews
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
By
Lesley Belle
(c) copyright November 2003, Serena Thatcher
Cover art by Eliza Black
New Concepts Publishing
5202 Humphreys Rd.
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
3 years earlier . . . .
It was raining, and trying to hail a cab in New York in the rain was murder.
The barrage of blinding flashes began as soon as they stepped out of the door. His latest show had been a success and had made him a substantial sum, in cash and in notoriety. People revered him as much as they criticized. He was a god and an enigma.
He was an artist.
Taking his wife’s arm, he tried to shield her from the crowd that was now circling them like vultures in anticipation of a long awaited meal.
He was the meal ticket.
Clawing your way to the top of an industry that sucked the marrow from a person’s bones could make a man hungry. He had been ravenous. And now that he was fat with success, they would feast on him. If he let them.
He wouldn’t.
He would tell his agent to commission a limousine so he could go out the back way next time. He wasn’t a fucking circus side show. He would give them the art shows, the art to fill the walls, but he’d be damned if he’d give them his soul. He’d been working so hard, too hard, and maybe it was time to take a break. Enjoy the fruits of his labors, go on a vacation, make love to his wife on a secluded beach somewhere. And paint. He would always want to paint.
Pushing his way through the throng, he held fast to his wife and murmured polite apologizes as he neared the curb. He was focused and elated - high on adrenaline and the promises of tomorrow. Turning to the woman on his arm, he smiled and told her with his eyes how much he loved her. She smiled back, and the moment was frozen in time. He must remember it and put it all, the face, the expression, the love, on canvas. Not for sale but forever. It was a silent promise.
Raising his arm in summons, he waved at a passing cab. The car slowed, and he pushed his wife forward, ready to shuffle her inside. She giggled at his urgency.
“Oh god,” he heard someone say, a split second before it happened.
It was raining. It was murder.
CHAPTER ONE
“Why the hell was she doing this?”
Not a new question, but very relevant considering she was tromping through the middle of some Canadian wilderness back woods being eaten alive by mosquitoes and wishing she’d worn in her leather hiking boots like the guy at the outpost had instructed.
“Damn it, Missy.” Great. Now she was talking to herself. She was a moron. Way past crazy and bordering on obsessive was being too generous. Flat out neurotic is what she was.
Nobody had heard from Ian Mercer in three years. His paintings practically vanished, shows canceled, and the litany of articles just fizzled away. For all she knew, the man was a ghost.
Rumors were aplenty. Some said he was being harbored in some dingy prison cell, some said he had left the country, some said he went mad and drowned. But all pointed to the same thing. He had disappeared, vanished just weeks after his wife’s murder. That in itself was enough to raise more than a few eyebrows and pique the interest of every journalist in New York. He was a hot story before the murder. He was an even hotter one now, three years later. Sure the media had exhausted most of the hypotheses, dug out the dirt from under every rug Ian Mercer had laid foot on, but if Missy could do what no one had yet done, find him, she could write her ticket to journalism prestige. Or at least get out of the maws of the freelance pit that barely paid the bills and offered little more than a sliver of printed paper for her story. She needed the headline, the by-line, the story of a lifetime. And Ian Mercer was it.
Missy sidestepped a fallen maple and simultaneously swiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Her once perfectly polished fingernails were now chipped, leaving hints of color that rimmed her cuticles but not the tips. Her hair was frizzy from the humidity so that stray curls framed her face and tickled her ears. At least she hoped it was her hair doing the tickling.
Her editor wanted her to get the story, promising that it would bolster her journalism career. So she followed lead after lead, hit dead-end after dead-end, and still she didn’t quit. It would be the smart thing to do. Get a hot new feature, follow the flavor of the month. But not yet.
Instead, there was something compelling about this one. Perhaps it was because of the paintings. They were as raw, edgy, and entrancing as the man behind the canvas who, by all accounts, epitomized those images. Perhaps it was the uncertainty, the curiosity about what really happened that night in New York. The scoop that was waiting to be unearthed. What was Ian Mercer really hiding from? Whatever it was, Missy was driven, not for the cause, but for the story. For the man who was the story. She wouldn’t give up until she got it.
It would be a good one. The best one she’d ever snagged.
Pushing aside a branch, Missy looked ahead at the cornucopia of green and promptly lifted her wrist to check her watch.
“Perfect! Frigging perfect!” Her newly purchased watch with built in compass was now somewhere within a five mile radius, most likely buried under a plot of spongy earth and being christened by some four-legged creature. “Okay, stay calm,” she instructed herself. “All you have to do is turn around and go back the way you came.” Right. Considering she’d been detouring through heavy brush for the past two hours, that was about as likely as turning left at the next pine and checking into a Holiday Inn.
Her latest lead, if one could call it that, had led her to the wilderness, a plot of land deep inside the Canadian border. The only way in or out was on foot.
Missy questioned how the hell this was even feasible. How could a man like Ian Mercer make a full three-sixty from city dweller, living the hopped-up urban lifestyle, and transform suddenly to loner lumberjack, living like a hermit in the middle of nowhere? The irony was so strong, Missy couldn’t resist. So when an art dealer called her months early and told her that an Ian Mercer original had landed on his doorstep, handed to him by a wizened old woman looking for an appraisal for what she thought was a replica picked up at a flea market for under a hundred bucks, he called her. And that led her here, to Canada. To this nightmare of moss and mush. He had to be here, her gut told her so as much as the research.
Needing time to formulate a plan, or if she were honest, a moment to slow her racing heart and force back the tears brought on by a mixture of anxiety and allergens now pricking her eyelids, she sat down on a fallen log and reached into her knapsack for a power bar. She was an emotional eater, that’s what her mother told her anyway. But if now wasn’t a time to seek comfort in a chocolate caramel Slimfast snack, Missy didn’t know what was. She could very well fade away out here, in the middle of nowhere, if she didn’t think of something fast. And she needed nourishment to think, no matter what the rate of brain function a single meal replacement bar would provide.
She hadn’t even torn the package open when she heard it. The crunch of leaves under the weight of something sizable. And the echo of a low, predatory growl told her it wasn’t a person. She wanted to scream but couldn’t find her voice. Instead, she stumbled awkwardly, hoisted herself up, and ran on numb legs. She could hear the sound of her own ragged breathing and the unmistakable sound of the gargantuan-sized bear that easily dwarfed her by two feet in either direction gaining ground. The uneven terrain prevented her from gaining speed or distance from the predator, and sharp branches tore into her flesh, clinging like claw-tipped appendages as she fought her way through the clutches of nature’s maze. She felt like she was being swallowed by the limbs of a million trees, the earth sucking her down. Any second she’d be sacrificed, whether to land or land rover, Missy couldn’t be sure.
But when something wrapped around her waist, she did scream, until she was pushed to the ground and all the remaining air in her lungs escaped.
* * * *
The woman had been sniffing around for days now. She was easy to follow. It was perfect. There was no room for failure this time, that would be unacceptable. A person could only bide their time for so long, and this reporter was just the catalyst for justice. And so beautiful, just like the other one had been.
It had been a mistake. All of it. But nobody would understand that. Murder, they called it. It was justice. It shouldn’t have had to come to that, but in the end the prize was worth it. Would be again. Guilt was not an option. No looking back now.
Payback was a bitch, and her name was Missy.
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