I Shall Not Want

Millers Kill reaches the boiling point in this white-hot novel of love and suspense

People die. Marriages fail. In the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, New York, however, life doesn’t stop for heartbreak. A brand-new officer in the police department, a breaking-and-entering, and trouble within his own family keep Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne busy enough to ignore the pain of losing his wife—and the woman he loves.

At St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, the Reverend Clare Fergusson is trying to keep her vestry, her bishop, and her National Guard superiors happy—all the while denying her own wounded soul.

When a Mexican farmhand stumbles over a Latino man killed with a single shot to the back of his head, Clare is sucked into the investigation through her involvement in the migrant community. The discovery of two more bodies executed in the same way ignites fears that a serial killer is loose in the close-knit community. While the sorrowful spring turns into a scorching summer, Russ is plagued by media hysteria, conflict within his department, and a series of baffling assaults.

As the violence strikes closer and closer to home, an untried officer is tested, a wary migrant worker is tempted, and two would-be lovers who thought they had lost everything must find a way to trust each other again—before it becomes forever, fatally, too late.

Julia Spencer-Fleming shows you can escape danger—but not desire—in her most suspenseful, passionate novel yet.

The Alfred C. O’Connell Library, Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY; Baldwinsville Library, Baldwinsville, NY; Bangor Public Library, Bangor, ME; Berwick Public Library, Berwick, ME; Beverly Public Library, Beverly, MA; Boothbay Harbor Public Library, Boothbay, ME; Clifton Park–Half Moon Public Library, Clifton Park, NY; Crandall Library, Glens Falls, NY; Delaware County Library, Delaware, OH; The Dwight Foster Memorial Library, Ft. Atkinson, WI; Edwardsville Public Library, Edwardsville, IL; Exeter Public Library, Exeter, NH; Falmouth Public Library, Falmouth, ME; Gorham Public Library, Gorham, ME; Huntingdon College Library, Montgomery, AL; Kennebunk Free Library, Kennebunk, ME; Lee-Whedon Memorial Library, Medina, NY; Liverpool Public Library, Liverpool, NY; Lucius Beebe Library, Wakefield, MA; Lynn Public Library, Lynn, MA; Mackinac Island Public Library, Mackinac Island, MI; Manhattan Public Library, Manhattan, KS; Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, MA; Normal Public Library, Normal, IL; North Conway Public Library, North Conway, NH; Norway Public Library, Norway ME; Patten Library, Bath, ME; Perry Public Library, Perry NY; Portland Public Library, Portland, ME; Puyallup Public Library, Puyallup, WA; Richmond Memorial Library, Batavia, NY; Rockland Public Library, Rockland, ME; Romeo District Library, Washington, MI; Scarborough Public Library, Scarborough, ME; South Portland Public Library, South Portland, ME; South Windsor Public Library, South Windsor, CT; Tuftonborough Free Library, Center Tuftonborough, NH; Vose Library, Union, ME; Warren Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME; Warren-Trumbull Library, Warren, OH; Waterford Public Library, Waterford, NY; Wells Public Library, Wells, ME; Wetumpka Public Library, Wetumpka, AL; Wood County District Library, Bowling Green, OH; and the Argyle Free Library, Argyle, NY.

Thanks, as ever, to everyone at St. Martin’s Press, at the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and at the Hugo-Vidal house. I couldn’t do it without you—literally.

Thanks to the friends and family who hosted me in my travels; Jamie and Robin Agnew, John and Lois Fleming, Jon and Ruth Jordan, Dan and Barbara Scheeler, Neil and Tammy Lynn, Calvetta Spencer Inman, Mark and Laura Hubbard, David Lovett and Meg Ruley, Gordon and Rebecca Scruton, James and Mary Ellen Harris, and especially Rachael Burns Hunsinger, who turned her home into a writer’s retreat so this book might get finished.

Thanks to those who gave me information, inspiration, and edification: The Reverend Mary L. Allen, Dr. Michael Brennan, Roxanne Eflin, David Garza, Timothy LaMar, Albert A. Melton, Dr. Parker Roberts, Lieutenant Colonel L. R. Smith (USA Ret.) and the Very Reverend Benjamin Shambaugh.

Finally, thanks to singer/songwriter Bill Deasy, whose CD
Good Day No Rain
was the perfect soundtrack to Russ and Clare’s story. (He even looks like Russ Van Alstyne!) Go to BillDeasy.com and give it a listen.

When she saw the glint of the revolver barrel through the broken glass in the window, Hadley Knox thought,
I’m going to die for sixteen bucks an hour
. Sixteen bucks an hour, medical, and dental. She dove behind her squad car as the thing went off, a monstrous thunderclap that rolled on and on across green-gold fields of hay. The bullet smacked into the maple tree she had parked under with a meaty thud, showering her in wet, raw splinters.

She could smell the stink of her own fear, a mixture of sweat trapped beneath her uniform and the bitter edge of cordite floating across the farmhouse yard.

The man shooting at her turned away from the porch-shaded window and yelled something to someone screaming inside. Hadley wrenched the cruiser door open, banging the edge into the tree. She grabbed for the mic. “Dispatch! Harlene? This bastard’s shooting at me!” Some part of her knew that wasn’t the right way to report an officer under fire, but she didn’t care. If she lived to walk away from this, she was turning in her badge and her gun and going to work at the Dairy Queen.

The radio crackled. “Hadley? Is your eighty still the Christie place?”

She could barely hear the dispatcher over the shouting and swearing from the farmhouse. She thought she made out two masculine voices. “Yes,” she yelled, getting a squeal of feedback from the mic. She tried again, forcing herself to speak in something like a normal tone. “He’s got a .357 Magnum.” She had recognized the sidearm. Hot damn. “There may be more than one of them. Men, I mean. Not guns. Although there may be more guns.” She could hear herself, close to hysteria. “For God’s sake, send help!”

There was a pause.
The hell with this
, she thought.
The hell with it. I’ve got two kids at home who need me
. As if invoking Hudson and Genny cleared her head, she suddenly realized the highest-pitched shrieking wasn’t coming from a woman.
Oh, my God. Oh, shit
. She squeezed the mic again. “Dispatch, it’s not just the sister and the caseworker. The kids are in there, too.”

This time, Harlene’s reply was instant. “We’ve got cars on the way and the state sharpshooter team is scrambling. See if you can keep him talking until backup gets there.”

Hadley stared at the mic. “Keep him talking? About what? Jesus H. Christ, I’m not a negotiator! I haven’t even finished the Police Basic course yet!”

“You talked to angry guys in prison, didn’t you? Think of something. Dispatch out.”

Talk to angry cons? Hell, yeah. The difference was, they were behind bars, weaponless, powerless, while she walked around free, armed with baton and taser. Cons didn’t shoot at you from a house full of hostages.

The kids were screeching, a woman sobbing, the man swearing.
Think of something. Think of something
. Hadley slithered out of the squad car and crouched behind the open door. She raised herself up until she could see out the window. “Hey!” she yelled. “Hey! You!”

The end of the .357 Magnum swung out of the farmhouse window, knocking a few more shards of glass onto the front porch. Goddamn, that thing looked as big as a cannon. She inhaled. The July sun beat down on the dirt drive, throwing up waves of heat. It was like breathing in an oven. “How ‘bout you let me take those kids off your hands?”

“How ‘bout you come up here and—” He launched into a graphic description of what he wanted her to do for him and what he was going to do to her. She hoped to God the children didn’t understand.

“Let the kids go and we can talk about it,” she shouted. “You want money? You want a ride outa here?”

“I want what’s mine!” the shadowy figure with the gun yelled. “It’s got nothing to do with you, bitch. Leave me alone and nobody will get hurt!” Something from the interior of the house caught his attention. He swiveled around. Yelled something she couldn’t make out. Then the gun went off again.

Hadley was up and moving without thinking, running toward the house, her Glock 9 mm awkward and slippery in her hand. If she had any plan at all, it was to get past the end of the porch to the corner of the house, where he couldn’t see her without opening a window and leaning out. He turned back toward her. She could see the outlines of his face now, his eyes glittering in the dimness of the front room. He brought up the .357. She heard the breath sawing in and out of her chest, the howling of women and children, the susurration of tires on dirt and gravel, and she knew she wasn’t going to make the shelter of the house in time.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God
—she heard the shot, higher and keener than the last two, and dove toward the hewn stone foundation, rolling hard into its cool dampness. The blow stunned her, numbed her, and she beat against herself with one hand while trying to raise her gun to a defensive position with the other, all the while wondering,
Where is it? Where am I hit
?

Then her head steadied and she looked back across the dooryard. A big red pickup straddled the drive—defensively sideways, not head-on like her cruiser. Russ Van Alstyne, the Millers Kill chief of police, had his arms braced on the hood of the truck, his Glock .40 tight in a two-handed grip, pointing at the porch. The gun, she realized, that she had just heard discharging.

“You okay, Knox?” Van Alstyne didn’t take his eyes off the window.

“Yeah.” She struggled to sit up. “I mean, yes, sir.”

“Stay right there. Don’t move.” She glanced up. Some four or five feet above her, a closed window reflected the maple facing it. Hadley squeezed against the edge of the house, drawing her knees in close, doing her best to disappear.

“You shoot one more time and I swear I’ll cap one of ‘em here,” the man screamed. “I’ll blow one of these bitches’ heads off!”

The chief raised one hand, showing it was empty, and carefully placed his sidearm on the hood of the truck with the other. Hadley heard the crunch of more tires. Another squad car pulled in, flanking the chief’s. The door popped open on the far side. She caught the glint of bright red hair and then a bristle brush of gray. Kevin Flynn and Deputy Chief MacAuley. MacAuley and the chief had a short and inaudible conversation.

“What’s going on?” the gunman demanded.

The chief had a way of making his voice big without yelling. “My deputy here says the state SWAT team is on the way. They’re not interested in
talking
to you. But I am.”

“Screw you!” the man yelled. His voice, so near, made Hadley’s skin crawl.

“C’mon, man, talk to me.” The chief sounded like he was about to buy the shooter a beer. “Whaddaya gonna do, shoot one of them? Shoot one of us? They’ll send you up to Clinton, life with no chance of parole. For what? Is one of those bitches worth the rest of your life?”

Hadley felt the shock of the chief’s words sizzle up her spine. Was this the same guy who said “Excuse me” when he accidentally swore within her ear-shot?

“C’mon,” the chief went on. “You put your gun down, I put my gun down, we’ll call it drunk and disorderly. You’ll get thirty days on the county, watching cable TV and sitting in air-conditioned comfort.”

“I don’t want no trouble,” the man yelled. “Me and my brothers just want what’s ours. You hear?” his voice shifted, as if he had turned away from the window and shouted to the people inside. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, girlie! You been holding out on me?”