TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS AMANDA QUICK
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
’Til Death Do Us Part
Garden of Lies
Otherwise Engaged
The Mystery Woman
Crystal Gardens
Quicksilver
Burning Lamp
The Perfect Poison
The Third Circle
The River Knows
Second Sight
Lie by Moonlight
The Paid Companion
Wait Until Midnight
Late for the Wedding
Don’t Look Back
Slightly Shady
Wicked Widow
I Thee Wed
With This Ring
Affair
Mischief
Mystique
Mistress
Deception
Desire
Dangerous
Reckless
Ravished
Rendezvous
Scandal
Surrender
Seduction
TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
When All the Girls Have Gone
Secret Sisters
Trust No One
River Road
Dream Eyes
Copper Beach
In Too Deep
Fired Up
Running Hot
Sizzle and Burn
White Lies
All Night Long
Falling Awake
Truth or Dare
Light in Shadow
Summer in Eclipse Bay
Together in Eclipse Bay
Smoke in Mirrors
Lost & Found
Dawn in Eclipse Bay
Soft Focus
Eclipse Bay
Eye of the Beholder
Flash
Sharp Edges
Deep Waters
Absolutely, Positively
Trust Me
Grand Passion
Hidden Talents
Wildest Hearts
Family Man
Perfect Partners
Sweet Fortune
Silver Linings
The Golden Chance
TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE
Illusion Town
Siren’s Call
The Hot Zone
Deception Cove
The Lost Night
Canyons of Night
Midnight Crystal
Obsidian Prey
Dark Light
Silver Master
Ghost Hunter
After Glow
Harmony
After Dark
Amaryllis
Zinnia
Orchid
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2017 by Jayne Ann Krentz
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Quick, Amanda, author.
Title: The girl who knew too much / Amanda Quick.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050066 (print) | LCCN 2016057268 (ebook) |ISBN 9780399174476 (hardback) | ISBN 9780698193628 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Suspense. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3561.R44 G57 2017 (print) | LCC PS3561.R44 (ebook) |
DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050066
First Edition: May 2017
Cover photo © Peter Zelei/Getty Images
Cover design by Rita Frangie
Endpaper art © Daria Rosen / Shutterstock
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
Contents
Also by Jayne Ann Krentz
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
About the Author
This one is for my wonderful editor,
Cindy Hwang,
who said, “Go for it!”
Thank you for believing in me and in this book.
Chapter 1
The abstract painting on the bedroom wall was new. It had been painted in fresh blood.
There was blood everywhere in the elegant, white-on-white boudoir. It soaked the dead woman’s silver satin evening gown and the carpet beneath her body. There was blood on the white velvet seat of the dainty chair in front of the pretty little dressing table.
Anna Harris’s first thought was that she had
walked into the middle of a nightmare. The scene simply could not be real. She was asleep and dreaming.
But she had grown up on a farm. She had hunted deer with her grandfather. Caught and cleaned fish. Helped deliver calves. She knew the cycle of life and the smell of death.
Still, she could not leave the room until she made certain. Helen had collapsed on her side, facing the wall. Anna crouched next to the body and reached out to check for a pulse. There wasn’t one, of course.
There was a gun, however. A small one. It lay on the carpet not far from Helen’s right hand. Acting on instinct—she certainly wasn’t thinking clearly now—Anna scooped up the weapon.
It was then that she saw the message. Helen had used her own blood to write it on the silver-flocked wallpaper just above the baseboard. Run.
And in that moment, Anna knew that the perfect new life she had been living for the past year was an illusion. The reality was a dark fairy tale.
Run.
She rushed down the hall to her lovely blue and white bedroom, pulled a suitcase out of the closet, and started flinging clothes into it. Like the shoes and the frock she was wearing, almost all of her wardrobe was new, the gift of her generous employer. Can’t have my private secretary looking like she shops at a secondhand store, Helen had said on several occasions.
Anna was shaking so badly she could barely get the suitcase closed and locked. With effort she managed to haul it off the bed.
She went back to the closet and took the shoebox off the top shelf. Tossing the lid aside, she started to reach into the box for the money she kept inside. She had been in her late teens a few years earlier when the crash occurred, but like so many others who had lived through the experience, she had no faith in banks. She kept her precious savings close at hand in the shoebox.
She froze at the sight of what was inside the box.
There was money, all right—too much money.
With all of her living expenses paid for by her employer, she had been able to save most of her salary for the past year, but she certainly had not saved anywhere near the amount that was in the box. Helen must have added the extra cash. It was the only explanation, but it made no sense.
In addition to the money there was a small, leather-bound notebook and a letter written on Helen’s expensive stationery.
Dear Anna:
If you are reading this, it means that I have made the biggest mistake a woman can make—I have fallen in love with the wrong man. I’m afraid that I am not the person you believed me to be. I apologize for the deception. Take the notebook, the money, and the car. Run for your life. Get as far away as possible and disappear. Your only hope is to become someone else. You must not trust anyone—not the police, not the FBI. Above all, never trust a lover.
I wish I could give you the glowing reference you deserve. But for your own sake you must never let anyone know that you once worked for me.
As for the notebook, I can only tell you that it is dangerous. I do not pretend to understand the contents. I would advise you to destroy it, but if the worst happens, you may be able to use it as a bargaining chip.
I have always considered us to be two of a kind—women alone in the world who are obliged to live by our wits.
I wish you all the best in your new life. Get as far away as possible from this house and never look back.
Yours with affection,
Helen
Helen Spencer had been bold, adventurous, and daring—a woman of the modern age. She had lived life with passion and enthusiasm, and for the past year Anna had been caught up in her glittering, fast-paced world. If Helen said that it was necessary to run, then it was, indeed, vital that Anna run.
She emptied the contents of the shoebox into her secretarial handbag. After a few seconds’ hesitation she put Helen’s little gun inside, as well. She closed the handbag, gripped it in one hand, hoisted the suitcase, and hurried out into the hall.
When she went past Helen’s bedroom, she tried not to look at the body, but she could not help herself.
Helen Spencer had been ravishingly beautiful, an angelic blonde with sparkling blue eyes. Wealthy, charming, and gracious, she had paid her small household staff, including her secretary, very well. In return, she had demanded loyalty and absolute discretion concerning her seemingly small eccentricities such as her occasional demands for privacy and her odd travel schedule.
Like the others on the mansion’s very small staff—the middle-aged housekeeper and the butler—Anna had been happy to accommodate Helen. It had been an enchanted life, but tonight it was over.
Anna went down the stairs. She had always known that her good fortune could not last. Orphans developed a realistic view of life early on.
When she reached the ground floor she went past Helen’s study. She glanced inside and saw that the door of the safe was open. The desk lamp was on. There was a blue velvet bag inside the safe.
She hesitated. Something told her that she had to know what was inside the velvet bag. Perhaps the contents would explain what had happened that night. She set the suitcase on the floor, crossed the study, and reached into the safe. Scooping up the velvet bag, she loosened the cord that cinched it closed and turned it upside down over the desk.
Emeralds and diamonds glittered in the lamplight. The necklace was heavy and old-fashioned in design. It looked extremely valuable. Helen had some very good jewelry but Anna was sure she had never seen the necklace. It wasn’t Helen’s style. Perhaps it was a family heirloom.
But the more pressing question was, why would the killer open the safe and then leave such an expensive item behind?
Because he was after something else, she thought. The notebook.
She slipped the necklace into the velvet sack and put it into the safe.
She went back into the hall, picked up the suitcase, and rushed outside. The sporty Packard coupe that Helen had insisted upon giving her was waiting in the drive. She tossed the suitcase and the handbag into the trunk and got behind the wheel—and nearly went limp with gratitude and relief when the well-tuned engine started up on the first try.
She turned on the lights, put the car in gear, and drove down the long, winding drive, through the open gates, and away from the big house.
She gripped the wheel very tightly and forced herself to concentrate. She had not learned all of Helen Spencer’s secrets tonight but she had stumbled upon enough of them to make one thing blazingly clear: She had to get as far away from New York as possible.
The narrow mountain road twisted and turned on itself as it snaked down into the valley, a harrowing trip for those unaccustomed to it, especially at night. But her grandfather had taught her to drive when she was thirteen, and she had learned on bad mountain roads. She knew how to handle tight curves, and she knew this particular mountain road very well. She had driven her employer back and forth between the Manhattan apartment and the secluded mansion many times during the past year.
Helen’s faithful butler, Mr. Bartlett, had doubled as her chauffeur before Anna arrived at the mansion. But Bartlett’s eyesight had begun to fail. Helen had been thinking of looking for a new driver when she hired Anna. Helen had been delighted to discover that, in addition to her stenography skills, her private secretary was also a skilled driver. Saves me from having to hire a chauffeur, she had said.
Helen had always been very keen on keeping staff to a bare minimum. She was not a stingy employer—just the opposite, in fact—but she had made it clear that she did not want a lot of people around her at the mansion. Tonight it occurred to Anna that the reason Helen had limited the number of people on her household staff was because she had secrets to hide.
I’ve been incredibly naïve, Anna thought.
She had always prided herself on taking a cold-eyed, realistic view of the world. A woman in her position could not afford the luxuries of optimism, hope, and sen
timent. For the most part she considered herself to be quite intuitive when it came to forming impressions of others. But when she did make mistakes, the results tended to be nothing short of catastrophic.
She reached the small, sleepy village at the foot of the mountain and turned onto the main road. Unable to think clearly enough to come up with a destination, she pursued a random route, passing through a string of tiny towns.
Run.
She continued driving an erratic pattern straight through the next day, stopping only for gas and a sandwich. But at nightfall exhaustion forced her to pull into an autocamp. The proprietors did not ask for a name, just enough money to cover the cost of a private cabin and a hot meal.
She collapsed on a cot and slept fitfully until dawn. In her feverish dreams she fled from an unseen menace while Helen urged her to run faster.
She awoke to the smell of coffee. A newspaper delivery truck arrived while she was eating the breakfast provided by the couple who operated the camp. She bought a paper and unfolded it with a mix of dread and curiosity. The news of Helen Spencer’s murder was on the front page.
WEALTHY N.Y. SOCIALITE SAVAGELY MURDERED.
PRIVATE SECRETARY MISSING. WANTED FOR QUESTIONING.
STOLEN NECKLACE FOUND IN DEAD WOMAN’S SAFE.
Shock iced Anna’s blood. She was now a suspect in the murder of Helen Spencer. Helen’s warning came back to her: You must not trust anyone—not the police, not the FBI. Above all, never trust a lover.
The last bit, at least, was easy enough, Anna thought. She did not have a lover. She had not had one since Bradley Thorpe. That humiliating debacle was the last occasion on which her intuition had failed quite spectacularly.
She pulled herself back from the cliff-edge of panic. She was a proud graduate of the Gilbert School for Secretaries. Gilbert Girls did not panic. She had been trained to exert control over chaos. She knew how to set priorities.
First things first: It was time to choose a destination. She could not continue to drive aimlessly up and down the East Coast. The very thought of spending weeks, months, or years on the run was enough to shatter her nerves. Besides, the money would not last forever. Sooner or later she would have to go to ground. Catch her breath. Get a job. Invent a new life.
She was not the only person who had spent the night in the autocamp. The others gathered around the table for breakfast, eager to get back on the road. They chatted easily, sharing travelers’ tales. All of the conversations started the same way. Where are you headed?