Moriah's Landing Bundle: Secret Sanctuary / Howling in the Darkness / Scarlet Vows / Behind the Veil
Author: Amanda Stevens
Date: 2008-04-02 04:00:00+00:00
Description: A curse has settled over the small New England coastal town of Moriah's Landing...an unknown force that's about to irrevocably change the lives of four young women--and the men captivated by their spell. As they risk their lives to uncover the secrets behind the dark vortex of serial killers, genetic research and modern-day witches that haunts the town, it is their hearts that are in the greatest peril. Bundle includes Secret Sanctuary by Amanda Stevens, Howling in the Darkness by B.J. Daniels, Scarlet Vows by Dani Sinclair and Behind the Veil by Joanna Wayne.
Publisher: Harlequin Intrigue
Rights: Copyright © 2008 Harlequin Books S.A.

Moriah’s Landing Bundle

Secret Sanctuary

Howling in the Darkness

Scarlet Vows

Behind the Veil

Table of Contents

Secret Sanctuary
By Amanda Stevens

Howling in the Darkness
By B.J. Daniels

Scarlet Vows
By Dani Sinclair

Behind the Veil
By Joanna Wayne

Secret Sanctuary

By Amanda Stevens

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Prologue

The sky had been clear all day, but as evening fell, storm clouds moved in from the sea, blocking fragile moonlight and deepening shadows across a bleak and eerie landscape. The wind had picked up, too, stirring dead leaves over the necropolis.

There was something in that wind, Elizabeth Douglas thought with a shiver. Something evil.

She glanced at the luminous dial on her watch. Almost midnight. Time for the ghosts to rise….

She and her friends huddled just inside the cemetery walls as they gazed in trepidation at the shadowy formation of headstones and crumbling mausoleums. Silhouetted against the darkness, marble angels stood with bowed heads and furled wings, celestial sentinels as cold and silent as the graves they watched over.

Elizabeth didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Spending the night in St. John’s Cemetery as part of a sorority initiation was just plain crazy, not to mention against the rules. They’d all be in big trouble if the school got wind of what they were doing.

“Do you think we’ll see Leary’s ghost tonight?” Claire Cavendish asked nervously. A pale, slender girl, she was even more skittish about the coming night than Elizabeth. Claire jumped as the heavy, iron gates clanged shut behind them in the wind. “They say he rises every five years.”

“Oh, come on,” Kat Ridgemont scoffed. “You don’t really believe all those stories about ghosts and witches, do you? That stuff was made up just to attract tourists. None of it’s true.”

“What about those women who were murdered in Moriah’s Landing fifteen years ago?” Claire challenged. “Did they make that up, too?”

“Claire!” Brie Dudley warned in a low voice.

Claire clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God, Kat. I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

Kat shrugged. “It’s okay. I forget sometimes myself.”

But Elizabeth didn’t think that was true. Kat’s mother was thought to be the first victim of a serial killer who had terrorized Moriah’s Landing fifteen years ago. Before his gruesome reign ended, three more young women had lost their lives, and Elizabeth knew that in spite of what Kat said, her mother’s death still haunted her. The killings haunted the entire town because the murderer had never been caught.

Gooseflesh prickled the back of Elizabeth’s neck. She fervently wanted to believe they had nothing to fear tonight—from the killer or from Leary’s ghost—but she couldn’t seem to shake her disquiet.

But at fifteen, she was the baby of the group. The other girls were 18, and Elizabeth was always conscious of the age difference. She wasn’t about to be the first to suggest they turn back.

“Elizabeth?”

She blinked as the beam of someone’s flashlight caught her in the face.

“You okay?” Brie asked worriedly. “You’re being awfully quiet. You haven’t said a word since we got here.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I’ve just been thinking.”

Kat glanced over her shoulder. “About McFarland Leary?” she teased.

“Who else?” Elizabeth tried to say lightly, but her tone sounded a bit defensive even to her.

“You believe in ghosts, too, don’t you?” Claire whispered beside her.

Elizabeth hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she believed in. She just knew there were things in this world that couldn’t be explained.

“Look!” Tasha Pierce said on a breathless whisper. “There it is!”

Tasha and Kat were in front, and they came to a stop as Tasha angled her light over Leary’s grave. Weather and time had worn smooth the face of the headstone, until all but a faint trace of carving remained. But they knew it was Leary’s grave.

Lightning flickered overhead as wind gusted through the cemetery. Shivering, Tasha tucked her blond hair inside her collar. “We’d better get started before the storm hits.”

The girls dropped to their knees, forming a circle around the grave. Tasha placed her flashlight in the center, then removed an ornate wooden box from her backpack and held it up to the light.

“Inside are five scrolls,” she intoned solemnly, her voice rising over the wind. “All but one are blank. Whosoever chooses the image of McFarland Leary must enter the haunted mausoleum. Alone.”

Elizabeth was the last to draw. The others had waited for her, and now they all unrolled the tiny scrolls they’d each selected.

Beside her, Claire gave a horrified gasp. She held up the slip of paper so that everyone could see the etching of McFarland Leary.

Of all the girls, Claire was the least prepared to enter the haunted crypt alone. She was the most sensitive, the most easily frightened.

Elizabeth swallowed back her own fear. “I’ll go in your place, Claire.”

“No,” Brie said. “You’re the youngest, Elizabeth. I’m not letting you go anywhere alone. I’ll go.”

“I will.” Tasha wadded up her scroll and stuffed it in her pocket. “This graveyard is full of Pierces. They’ll protect one of their own.”

“I say none of us go.” Kat slammed the box shut and glanced around the circle. The wind whipped her black hair straight back from her face, making her look almost otherworldly. “They can’t make us do this. Hazing went out with the Dark Ages.”

There were murmurs of assent all around, but Claire shook her head and got to her feet. “It’s not really hazing. Not the bad kind anyway. It’s a tradition, and besides, I don’t want to be the cause of any of us getting blackballed.”

Kat scowled. “Who gives a flying—”

“I care,” Claire said softly. “I can do this. I need to do this. I’ll be fine.”

Ignoring their protests, she picked up her flashlight and headed toward the ancient, crumbling mausoleum. In the intermittent flickers of lightning, Elizabeth could see a broken cross silhouetted against the stormy sky.

Slowly, Claire climbed the stone steps, opened the door, and then, glancing back only once, stepped through the dark portal. For a moment, they could see her light playing off the walls, and then the door creaked shut behind her.

“I’m going in there with her.” Kat started to get to her feet, but Tasha grabbed her hand.

“No, wait. Maybe this really is something she wants to do on her own. Besides, we’ll be right here if she needs us.”

“Then we have to do our part,” Brie said. “Are we all agreed?”

“Agreed,” Elizabeth murmured, but guilt washed over her because as frightened as she was for Claire, a part of her was glad she wasn’t the one inside that crypt.

“Once we join hands, the circle must not be broken,” Tasha warned. “Physically or mentally.”

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes closed as the girls joined hands, forming a protective circle as they summoned the natural forces of earth, air, fire and water to guard Claire from the ghosts of McFarland Leary and any other evil creatures who might roam the night.

But for just a split second, Elizabeth’s mind wandered, and she thought about Cullen Ryan, a boy she’d had a crush on for ages. In trouble with the law, he’d dropped out of high school the year before and left town in the middle of the night. Elizabeth had no idea where he’d gone, or if she would ever see him again. But she prayed that wherever he was, he was safe, too.

And at the very moment when her concentration was weakened, when the spiritual circle was broken, thunder cracked overhead and a scream ripped through the darkness.

Claire!

The girls scrambled to their feet and raced toward the mausoleum. The door was stuck at first, but Kat managed to shove it open. The beam of her flashlight chased away shadows and shimmered off cobwebs suspended from the ornate ceiling. The scent of death and decay permeated the air, but there was no sign of Claire.

Elizabeth’s heart started to pound with a terrible fear, a horrible premonition. She knew what had happened. While she’d been thinking about Cullen, the protective circle had been broken. The evil had been allowed in, and now Claire was gone.

And it was all Elizabeth’s fault.

Chapter One

Five years later…

Elizabeth peered through her rain-spattered windshield as she wended her way around the curving drive toward the lighted mansion. February-bare oaks reached skeletal arms across the narrow lane, entwining with one another to form a natural arbor through which only thin tendrils of light could creep. The night was very dark.

Comprising well over a hundred acres of landscaped grounds, the Pierce compound—hidden from prying eyes by eight-foot, ivy-covered stone walls and thick stands of evergreens—was a masterpiece of design and privacy. The focal point was a lavish brick colonial owned by William and Maureen Pierce, the town’s most prominent citizens.

A Pierce ancestor had founded Moriah’s Landing in 1652, and the descendants had lived there ever since. The family remained active in many areas, most notably politics and science. Rumor had it that William and Maureen’s lavish masquerade ball tonight was not only to continue the celebration that had begun on New Year’s Eve to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the town’s founding, but to help launch their eldest son’s first political campaign.

Elizabeth liked Drew Pierce well enough and she thought he’d make a fine mayor, especially considering she didn’t particularly care for the current one, Fredrick Thane. But in spite of the gossip regarding Drew and the potential for fireworks when Mayor Thane made his appearance at the ball, Elizabeth wasn’t looking forward to this night. She’d never been particularly adept at socializing, and a masked ball was a little out of her league.

But then, disguising herself as someone other than who she truly was might not be such a bad thing, she decided. A seventeenth-century noblewoman, dressed to kill in a lavish gold ball gown with a plunging neckline, might know how to seize the moment—should one present itself—as Elizabeth Douglas never had.

She tugged at that neckline, discomfited by the amount of cleavage showing. Her new WonderBra, she decided, was truly that.

A bolt of lightning temporarily blinded her, and she slowed the car. Dark, roiling clouds hung low on the horizon, and over the sound of her car engine, she could hear the ominous rumble of thunder.

Earlier, when the first raindrops had pelted the roof of her cozy cottage, she’d hurried over to the window to stare out, thinking with a fatalistic shrug that, naturally, it would storm tonight. It always stormed in Moriah’s Landing on momentous occasions—such as, she’d been told, on the night twenty years ago when Kat Ridgemont’s mother had been murdered. And fifteen years later, on the night Claire Cavendish had vanished from the old haunted mausoleum.

Claire had been found in the cemetery several days later, her body tortured, her mind so tormented she hadn’t been able to tell anyone what had happened to her. She’d resided ever since in a mental hospital a hundred miles west of Moriah’s Landing, and every time Elizabeth drove up to visit her friend, she was stricken with guilt.

Which wasn’t rational, she knew. There was nothing she could have done to save Claire that night. She and the other girls had never even seen who took Claire. To this day, the authorities still didn’t know how the assailant had managed to get inside that mausoleum, subdue Claire and carry her off without anyone having seen anything.

At first, the girls had been under a cloud of suspicion—a sorority initiation ceremony gone terribly awry. But they were all so distraught, so terrified that the police had finally believed their wild tale.

To think that any of them would have done such a horrible thing to poor Claire….

Rounding a sharp curve, Elizabeth was momentarily facing eastward, and in the distance, she caught a glimpse of the Bluffs, a towering stone castle perched on the edge of a steep cliff that fell sharply away to the sea. It was there, on the jagged rocks below the castle, that Tasha Pierce had met with a horrible fate of her own, only one month after Claire had been found. It had been storming that night, too.

First Claire and then Tasha.

There were only three of them left, Elizabeth thought. She, Kat and Brie. And poor Brie hadn’t exactly led a charmed life. She’d had to drop out of college after becoming pregnant, and she’d struggled ever since to take care of her fatherless child and her ill mother.

Elizabeth frowned. Sometimes she couldn’t help wondering if they’d unleashed something terrible that night. Something evil. Sometimes she wondered if she and Kat would be next.

But then, Kat had already suffered. Her mother had been murdered when Kat was only three years old, and the killer had never been apprehended.

That left only Elizabeth.

As lightning fired the eastern sky, the castle came into sharp relief for just a split second. It was miles away, but Elizabeth could have sworn she saw a dark figure lurking on one of the turrets.

David Bryson, she thought with a shiver. The man who might or might not have killed her friend, Tasha.

Pulling up in front of the Pierce mansion, Elizabeth waited as two valets came rushing toward the car to meet her. One carried an umbrella which he used to shield her from the rain when she stepped outside, and the other climbed behind the wheel to park her new Audi. Elizabeth winced as the tires squealed against the wet pavement, but to her credit, she didn’t look back. Instead, she wrapped her velvet cloak more tightly around her as she hurried up the granite steps.

As if of their own accord, the massive oak doors swung open, and Elizabeth stepped inside. Her cloak was removed from her shoulders, and she took a moment to arrange the shimmering folds of her gown. When she glanced up, she caught her breath.

She’d been to the mansion before, but it had been a long time ago, before Tasha’s death, and Elizabeth had forgotten the elegance of the place, the sheer opulence.

A set of inlaid marble steps led down to an immense, sunken hall with a chessboard floor of black and white. Directly across the foyer, a magnificent staircase was crowned by a ten-foot cathedral window through which sunshine would pour in the daytime. Tonight, however, lightning flickered through dark clouds as rain slashed against the glass.

Below the window, the staircase split, curving gracefully on either side of the landing to a spacious gallery, brilliantly illuminated by crystal chandeliers and wall sconces that danced like candlelight.

To the left of the foyer, another set of double doors opened into a ballroom, and Elizabeth glimpsed the dazzling swish of costumes as swaying bodies seemed to float over the dance floor.

It was like stepping back in time. The women were adorned in glittering jewels and swirling silk ball gowns from another era, another century, while the men were festooned in everything from military uniforms to brocade breeches and powdered wigs.

And the flowers! Every hothouse from Moriah’s Landing to Boston must have been emptied to accommodate such glorious arrangements, most of them done in red and white in honor of St. Valentine’s Day, although the celebration had very little to do with the holiday. Red and pink cyclamens hovered like butterflies around a colored fountain that had been set up near the buffet tables, and heart-shaped candles floated in the water among fragrant rose petals and gardenia blossoms.

A more romantic setting, Elizabeth couldn’t imagine, and here she was, dateless as usual.

As she lingered in the hall, reluctant to join the throng, a woman dressed in a gorgeous blue gown and an elaborate mask of peacock feathers drifted out of the ballroom toward her. The woman lowered the mask, and Elizabeth smiled, happy to see a friendly face.

Although she didn’t know Rebecca Smith all that well, the two had hit it off when Elizabeth had gone into Threads, a design shop in town that Becca managed, looking for her costume. Becca had gently but firmly steered her away from the more austere designs that Elizabeth had automatically gravitated to and talked her into a golden fantasy concoction with a tight-fitting bodice that laced up the back and a skirt that swirled about her ankles when she walked.

Elizabeth raised her own swan-like mask to her face and pirouetted for Becca. “Well,” she said. “How do I look?”

“Breathtaking,” a male voice said behind her.

Elizabeth whirled, her gaze going immediately to the man who stood at the top of the entryway steps. He’d just come in from the rain, and the shoulders of his black cape glistened with moisture. He shrugged out of the heavy mantle, handing it to the butler without a glance, his gaze never wavering from the two women who stood below him in the foyer. He was dressed all in black, like a phantom, and the golden mask that covered one side of his face was at once hideous and beautiful.

As he slowly descended the stairs, Elizabeth had to fight the urge to step back from him. There was something about him…

“My name is Lucian LeCroix,” he said in a voice as dark and liquid as the night. Before Elizabeth had time to catch her breath, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.

“Pr-professor LeCroix?” she finally managed to stammer.

The brow on the unmasked side of his face lifted. “Why, yes. Don’t tell me we’ve met. I’m certain I would have remembered.”

“No, we’ve never met,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “But I knew you were coming. We’ve been expecting you.”

The brow lifted again. “We?”

“The staff at Heathrow College. You’ve come to replace Dr. Vintner, correct?” Ernst Vintner, the chairman of the English Department, had died suddenly from a massive coronary a few weeks ago. Instead of promoting one of his own tenured professors, Dr. Barloft, the college president, had hired the protégé of an old family friend. Professor LeCroix came with impeccable credentials, but Elizabeth couldn’t help feeling a measure of resentment. She had friends among the faculty who should have had that position.

Professor LeCroix was still holding her hand, and Elizabeth pulled it away. She lifted her chin slightly. “My name is Elizabeth Douglas. I teach courses in criminology at Heathrow.”

“Dr. Douglas,” Becca said.

If he was surprised by Elizabeth’s title and her age, Lucian LeCroix managed to conceal it. “I’d say this is certainly my lucky night then. I was hoping to meet a colleague or two at this gathering, and here you are, the first person I see. Now if I can convince you to take pity on me and show me around campus tomorrow, I will, indeed, be a fortunate man.”

When Elizabeth hesitated, he rushed to add, “If you’re free, of course. I realize I’m being presumptuous, but I’ve just driven up from Boston today, and I haven’t had time to get my bearings.”

Elizabeth still wavered. She didn’t much want to commit her whole Saturday to a complete stranger, and yet professional courtesy demanded that she grant him the favor. He was new in town and a colleague. And after all, did she really have anything better to do with her weekend? There was laundry, of course. And papers to grade.

And Elizabeth had to admit that Lucian LeCroix, from what she could see beneath the mask, was a very handsome man. He looked to be about thirty—ten years older than she—with black hair and dark, piercing eyes.

She could certainly do worse than be seen around campus with the charming new professor, she decided. Maybe then her students would stop calling her Sister Elizabeth behind her back, a reference not so much to her saintly qualities but to her lack of experience in earthly pleasures. How teenage girls could so quickly and accurately—and quite often viciously—size up their teachers remained a mystery to Elizabeth.

But then, so much of life was a mystery to Elizabeth.

Chapter Two

Over his shoulder, Cullen Ryan watched the rain batter the plate-glass window in the Beachway Diner as Brie Dudley topped off his coffee.

“Thanks,” he mumbled absently, then turned back to the counter when she said something in response. “I’m sorry?”

She held the steaming coffee carafe in one hand as she gazed out the window behind him. She was a slim, pretty woman with curly red hair and the most amazing green eyes Cullen had ever encountered. “I was just commenting on the weather.”

“Yeah,” he agreed gloomily. “Not a fit night out for man nor beast, as they say.”

“It’s been an odd winter,” Brie mused. “No snow, just rain. And now this thunderstorm. But what else would you expect on the 350th anniversary of this town’s founding, right?”

Cullen shrugged. He wasn’t given to superstition, and he didn’t put a lot of stock in the supernatural tales that had been passed down for generations in Moriah’s Landing. But he was glad anyway that he’d turned down the moonlighting gig as security guard at the Pierces’ big bash tonight. He wasn’t afraid of ghosts, but he’d hate like hell to be patrolling the perimeter of that huge compound, chasing away gate-crashers and sightseers and probably more than a fair share of local hoodlums looking to have a little fun and put a damper on a celebration that had excluded them.

And he should know about that type because he’d once been there. He’d been a founding member of the gang of misfits who hung out down by the wharf, decked out for trouble in their chains and chin studs and serpent tattoos. He’d once worn some of those same badges of rebellion with a fierce, misplaced pride that had almost been his downfall, but now he wore a different kind of badge. And no one was more astounded by the way he’d turned his life around than Cullen.

Funny what sleeping on the street could do for a man’s perspective, he thought ironically. He’d learned a lot during his years in Boston, some of which had changed him forever and some of which he didn’t much care to dwell on. It was the kind of person he was today that mattered, he tried to tell himself.

“We used to call a storm like this a widow-maker,” Shamus McManus said as he turned to glance out the window. Shamus was a seasoned fisherman who’d once worked on the same boat as Cullen’s father. Cullen had known the old geezer for years, and he knew better than to sit next to Shamus if he didn’t have time for a story or two.

Besides Cullen and Shamus, the only other patron in the diner was Marley Glasglow. Dressed in a yellow rain slicker, he sat at the end of the counter, hunched over his coffee as if totally absorbed in his own thoughts. Glasglow was probably around forty, but he looked much older, a big, burly guy with a sour disposition and no visible means of support other than the few odd jobs he picked up down at the docks.

“We lost many a good man at sea on a night like this,” Shamus was saying. He paused, then gave Cullen a sly glance. “A night like this can bring McFarland Leary out of his grave.”

Cullen laughed. “Oh, come on now, Shamus. Don’t tell me you believe in that old ghost story.”

Shamus’s expression turned dead serious. “I’m sixty-five years old, lad. When a man lives as long as I have, he sees things.”

“You’ve seen Leary’s ghost?” Cullen challenged.

Shamus shrugged. “I might have. They say he rises every five years. It’s been that long since anyone’s seen him.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting to see Leary’s ghost peering in the window.

For the first time all evening, Glasglow looked up from his coffee, his eyes burning with an intensity that made Cullen wonder about the man’s sanity. “Leary fell prey to the evil that’s been the downfall of man since the beginning of time.”

“And what evil is that?” Cullen asked skeptically.

“He was seduced by a woman.”

Behind the counter, Brie bristled. “I hope you’re not implying that all women are evil.” When Glasglow refused to deny it, she said, “If women are so evil, why are most of the truly awful things in this world perpetrated by men? Why are the most vicious killers on death row almost always men? How do you explain that?”

Glasglow eyed her for a moment. “Most men kill because of a woman.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Brie exclaimed. She glanced at Cullen who shrugged.

“Leary was suspected of being a warlock so he was hanged on the town green,” Shamus put in. “He comes back every five years because he has unfinished business in this town.”

“Yeah,” Glasglow muttered. “Revenge.”

“Not revenge,” Shamus said with a frown. “He’s searching for the offspring of his unholy union with a witch. And the offspring of their offspring.”

Cullen shook his head. “You’ve lost me, Shamus. Leary haunts this town every five years because he’s looking for his great-great-great-great-grand-children?”

“Aye, and he’s not the only one searching for his kin,” Shamus said. “Have you never wondered why so many scientific types settle here in Moriah’s Landing?”

Amused by the old man’s ramblings, Cullen swiveled his stool to face him. “No, I can’t say as I have. Are you suggesting it has something to do with McFarland Leary’s descendants?”

“Aye, and the witch’s.”

“Be careful, old man,” Glasglow warned. “You go sticking that nose of yours where it doesn’t belong, you’re apt to get it chopped off.”

“Is that a threat, Marley Glasglow?” Shamus squared his shoulders, as if preparing to throw down the gauntlet. Glasglow was at least twenty years younger and thirty pounds heavier than Shamus, so Cullen decided he’d better step in before things got out of hand.

“The storm’s getting worse,” he commented. “Maybe we’d better all call it a night.”

Brie threw him a grateful smile. “I think you’re right, Cullen. I was thinking about asking my boss if we could close early.”

“You’re throwing us out on a night like this?” Glasglow glowered at her.

Brie shrugged. “It’s only an hour till our regular closing time at ten. You’d have to leave then anyway.”

“And if I refuse?”

Cullen walked over and put a hand on Glasglow’s shoulder. “If you refuse, I have a nice cozy jail cell you might find to your liking.”

Glasglow shoved his cup aside and stood, facing Cullen. At six feet, Cullen was tall enough, but Glasglow towered over him by a good four inches. And like Shamus, Cullen was outweighed by the man, but he knew how to deal with thugs. He’d dealt with plenty of them on the streets of Boston.

He moved slightly, so that Glasglow could glimpse the automatic he wore in a shoulder holster beneath his coat.

Glasglow eyed the gun for a moment, then his gaze met Cullen’s. “You’ve got me shaking, boy.”

Cullen’s stare never wavered. “Maybe you should be.”

“Considering the track record of our fine police department?” Glasglow sneered. “I’m not too worried.” He walked over to the front door and drew it open. An icy gust swept through the diner, and Cullen saw Brie shiver.

Lifting the hood of his slicker over his head, Glasglow stood in the doorway for a moment, staring out into the rainy darkness.

Then he glanced over his shoulder, his gaze resting on Brie. “The police never could find who killed those women twenty years ago. I doubt much has changed since then. If you ever find yourself in trouble, girl, I wouldn’t be looking to the likes of him for help.”

He nodded toward Cullen, then he turned and disappeared through the doorway into the night.

“TELL ME about that castle that overlooks the sea,” Becca said as she and Elizabeth watched the elegant dancers swirl about the floor in the ballroom.

“You mean the Bluffs?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Becca’s gaze was still on the dancers, but she looked pensive, subdued. Elizabeth wondered if something had happened during the course of the evening to disturb her.

Except for their brief conversation in the foyer when Elizabeth had first arrived, she’d seen little of her friend all night. Becca had drifted away after Lucian LeCroix had come in, leaving Elizabeth alone with the handsome professor. They’d talked for a few minutes longer, making arrangements to meet at the library on campus the following morning for his tour, and then Lucian—as he insisted she call him—had excused himself to join the party as well. Elizabeth had been standing alone in an unobtrusive corner for the past hour or so. She was glad that Becca had sought her out again.

The music ended and as the couples drifted toward the fringes of the room, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of LeCroix. He was talking to Drew Pierce, but she could have sworn his gaze was on her.

It was probably her imagination, she decided. A bit of wishful thinking that a man as handsome and debonair as Lucian LeCroix would look at her twice. Since they’d spoken earlier, he hadn’t approached her again. If he was gazing in her direction now, it was probably because of Becca.

Becca was blond and beautiful while Elizabeth was just…Elizabeth.

Lizzie, as Cullen Ryan used to call her. Elizabeth thought that one word, that hated nickname, spoke volumes about the way he saw her.

“Elizabeth?” Becca touched her arm.

With an effort, Elizabeth drew her attention back to the conversation. “Sorry. What were we talking about? Oh, yes. The Bluffs. It was brought over from England, stone by stone, by one of the Pierce ancestors, but a few years ago a man named David Bryson acquired it. There’s been bad blood between him and the Pierces ever since. And, of course, there was Tasha.”

“Tasha?”

“Natasha Pierce.” At the thought of her dead friend, a cloak of sadness settled over Elizabeth, but she tried to shake it off. She didn’t really want to talk about Tasha or David Bryson, but Becca was new in town, and it was only natural she’d be curious. “Her family never approved of David. Apart from the animosity over the Bluffs, they thought he was too old for her. She was only eighteen when they became engaged, and David was in his thirties. She died one night in a terrible boating accident, and her body was never found. Since then, no one’s seen David, although they say he walks the night. Supposedly, he was horribly scarred in the explosion, and that’s why he became a recluse. That, and his guilt. The more charitable in town think he’s still grieving for Tasha. Others say…well, never mind what others say. It’s all a bit creepy, if you ask me,” Elizabeth finished with a shudder.

“I think it sounds terribly romantic,” Becca said softly. “I’d like to meet this David Bryson.”

“No,” Elizabeth said in alarm. “You don’t want to do that. Don’t even think it. I lost one dear friend who got mixed up with that man, and I wouldn’t want to lose another.”

Becca laughed. “Who said anything about getting mixed up with him? I only said I’d like to meet him.”

“If you want to meet someone,” Elizabeth said firmly, “there are a lot of nice guys here tonight. Take Drew Pierce, for instance. He’s handsome and he’s very rich. Most women find him totally irresistible.”

“Yes, I’ve met Drew,” Becca said in a dismissive tone. Obviously, for some reason, the town’s most eligible bachelor held no particular appeal for her. But David Bryson? No, Elizabeth thought. No, no, no!

“Besides,” Becca was saying, “If there are so many nice guys here tonight, why are you standing here talking to me? I haven’t seen you dance once all evening.”

“Oh, that’s because…”

Becca lifted an elegant brow. “Yes?”

Elizabeth waved absently toward the orchestra. “I don’t really care for this kind of music.”

Becca gave her a speculative glance. “I realize we don’t know each other all that well, but would you mind if I offered you a piece of advice?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Of course not.”

“You’re a beautiful girl, Elizabeth. Very warm and caring. I’ve seen that side of you in the short while I’ve known you. But most of the time you seem so aloof. Especially around men. If you could just be a little more…approachable, you’d have them climbing all over each other to ask you to dance.”

Elizabeth glanced at her in surprise. “Who says I want to dance?”

“Every girl wants to dance,” Becca said with a misty smile. She hesitated. “You know what I think? I think you use your aloofness and even your intelligence as a sanctuary. A safe place to hide away the real you so that you won’t get hurt.”

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say to that. She couldn’t deny it because there was too much truth in it.

“I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” Becca asked worriedly.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…”

“We don’t know each other well enough to exchange such intimacies.”

“It’s not that, either,” Elizabeth said. “I do feel as if I know you, and I hope we can be friends. But I’ve never been comfortable sharing confidences even with my closest friends.”

“I can understand that. We all have things we want to keep to ourselves.” A shadow moved across Becca’s lovely features, making Elizabeth wonder what secrets she might harbor. “Well,” she said with a bright smile that seemed a bit forced. “It’s almost midnight. Maybe I should take my own advice and mingle before I turn into a pumpkin.”

Elizabeth didn’t think that would happen. She knew very little of Becca’s life before she came to Moriah’s Landing, but it was obvious the woman knew how to handle herself in social situations. Elizabeth watched with no small amount of envy as her new friend drifted through the crowd with the utmost confidence. She seemed perfectly comfortable in her surroundings even though she knew hardly anyone at the ball.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, had grown up in Moriah’s Landing and while her parents weren’t as wealthy as the Pierces, her life had been one of privilege. She should be the one at ease in such a setting, but she wasn’t. She longed to be home, snuggled in bed with one of her favorite books, the way she spent most of her evenings. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily become a recluse.

Like David Bryson.

THE CLOCK in the foyer struck midnight just as Elizabeth slipped out of the ballroom. She’d meant to seek refuge inside the library across the hall, but instead, she made her way to the rear of the house where a glass-domed solarium would give her a breathtaking view of the storm.

She opened the door and stepped inside. The room was dark and fragrant with exotic blossoms, and very cold. Elizabeth didn’t turn on the light, but used the occasional flashes of lightning to make her way toward the back of the solarium, where long rows of French doors opened onto a flagstone patio and garden.

She rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, wishing for her velvet cloak. Surely such a chill couldn’t be good for the tropical varieties of plants and ferns which grew jungle-thick beneath the glass dome.

As she neared the back of the solarium, Elizabeth realized why the temperature had plunged inside the room. One of the French doors had blown wide, and gusts of icy wind and rain whipped through the opening.

She rushed over to fasten the door, but it resisted her tug. As she struggled with the latch, something moved outside beyond the patio. A flash of color, nothing more. A brief flare of yellow that melted into blackness.

Then the wind slammed the door to with such force that Elizabeth had to jump back to keep her hand from being smashed. She slipped on the wet floor and lost her balance, crashing backward into a plant table. Expensive glazed pots shattered against flagstones.

She struggled to sit up, but the hoops beneath her voluminous skirts kept her off balance.

“Damn,” she muttered, wincing as a shard from one of the shattered pots bit into her palm. She lifted her hand to see if the cut was bleeding, but for some reason, her gaze was drawn skyward. Among the trailing leaves of some lush vine, something swayed from the rafters.

Elizabeth propped herself on her elbows, staring upward. What was that—

In a flare of lightning, she saw a pale face staring down at her.

A ghost! her terrified mind first thought, and her heart began to hammer painfully against her rib cage.

But then, an instant later, she saw the rope.

Chapter Three

“Who found the body?”

The curt question broke into Elizabeth’s chaotic thoughts as she stood outside the solarium with the Pierces. She looked up, expecting to see one of the uniformed officers who’d arrived on the scene a few minutes after William Pierce had called the police, or perhaps even the police chief himself. Instead, her gaze collided with Cullen Ryan’s.

And her heart almost stopped.

She hadn’t seen him this close since he’d moved back to Moriah’s Landing several months ago. Elizabeth thought she’d conquered her old feelings for him once and for all, but then he’d gone and done the unexpected. The unthinkable. He’d gone and made himself respectable.

And now she was all confused again. She stared up at him helplessly.

His short, dark hair glistened with raindrops, and his eyes—gray, like a winter sky—were cool and assessing. He wasn’t overly tall, probably around six feet, but he carried himself in that edgy, confident manner which had always made him seem taller. He was dressed darkly in a heavy long coat over a black V-neck sweater and black jeans, and Elizabeth couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was so good-looking!

And a young woman was so dead.

Elizabeth would do well to remember why Cullen was there. She tried to convince herself that her reaction to him was due to her lingering shock, not just in finding the body but in discovering the victim’s identity. And it had been a shock.

Once she’d turned on the light in the solarium, she’d recognized almost at once the pale face, the dark, flowing hair. The delicate features that remained winsome even in death.

And with recognition had come the shakes. Elizabeth had started to tremble violently, and she hadn’t been able to stop. Someone had fetched her velvet cloak earlier, and she clutched it now like a lifeline. She opened her mouth to answer Cullen, but her teeth were chattering so badly she couldn’t speak.

William came to her rescue. “Elizabeth found the poor girl. It’s been quite traumatic for all of us, as you can imagine.”

When Elizabeth had first informed William and Drew of her grisly discovery, they’d tried to leave the ballroom discreetly, so as not to alarm or panic their guests. Luckily, Mayor Thane had already departed the ball. Otherwise he would have undoubtedly insinuated himself into the situation in such a way as to garner as much press for himself as possible—and conversely, as much unfavourable publicity for his potential rival as he could generate. Bad enough that Zachary, Drew’s younger brother, noting the grim expression on his father’s face, had followed them to the solarium and a few minutes later, Geoffrey Pierce, William’s brother, had shown up as well. Now that the police were on the scene, word would spread soon enough among the guests, if it hadn’t already.

William stepped forward now and offered his hand to Cullen. “I’m William Pierce, by the way.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” Cullen said without expression as he shook hands with the man. “I’m Detective Ryan.”

William glanced over Cullen’s shoulder. “Where’s Chief Redfern? Shouldn’t he be here?”

“He’s out of town, but he’s been notified. The roads in and out of Moriah’s Landing are a mess from the storm. It may be hours before he can make it through.”

William frowned. “Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

“I’m afraid we can’t wait. Deterioration of the body could break down any DNA evidence that might be present. We’ll need to collect samples as soon as Dr. Vogel arrives,” Cullen said, referring to the medical examiner.

“What about the state police?”

“This is our jurisdiction.”

“I see.” William still didn’t look convinced. “That all sounds well and good, young man, but you haven’t been with the police department all that long, have you? Are you sure you have the experience for this sort of investigation?”

Annoyance flitted across Cullen’s brow. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Pierce, but I assure you I’m a trained investigator.”

“Yes, well, I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you seem a little young to me to be a detective.”

He was twenty-four, Elizabeth thought, and age was relative. She knew that better than anyone.

If Cullen had remained with the Boston Police Department, chances were he probably wouldn’t have made detective for another few years. But in Moriah’s Landing, any big-city police-force experience automatically propelled an officer to the head of the pack. Most of the other law-enforcement personnel, Chief Redfern included, had only spotty experience and the minimum amount of training required by the Commonwealth. Whether William Pierce realized it or not, the town was lucky to have Cullen.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said coolly.

“I hope you do.” There was an indefinable edge in William’s voice. Was his concern really due to Cullen’s age, or because of Cullen’s background? Before he’d left town, Cullen had had more than one brush with the local authorities. The charges were never anything too serious—vandalism, joy-riding, crimes of that nature, and because they could never be proven, the complaints were invariably dropped. But people had never had any doubt about Cullen’s guilt, and they always suspected those petty misdemeanors were a prelude to something more serious, something potentially more deadly.

Did William Pierce harbor doubts about Cullen’s transformation as so many others in town did?

Elizabeth didn’t. Not really. She’d always known there was a good side to Cullen. He’d just never allowed anyone to see it.

What was it Becca had said to her earlier? You use your aloofness and even your intelligence as a sanctuary, a safe place to hide away the real you so you won’t get hurt.

Had Cullen’s juvenile delinquency been his sanctuary? Elizabeth wondered.

He was staring down at her, watching her closely, and her breath caught painfully in her throat. Would she never get over this silly crush? This terrible yearning that caused every nerve ending in her stomach to quiver if he so much as glanced at her?

“You’re the one who found the body?” he asked her.

She nodded, buying herself a moment to collect her poise. “Yes, in the solarium. Her name is Bethany Peters.”

One dark brow lifted. “You knew her?”

“She was a student at Heathrow College. She was in my Theories of Criminal Behavior class last semester.” Elizabeth tried not to dwell on the irony.

“Was she a guest at the party?” He addressed this question to William Pierce.

“No, none of us had ever seen her before.”

Cullen turned back to Elizabeth. “What were you doing in the solarium?”

She hesitated. “The ballroom was very crowded. I just wanted a chance to catch my breath.” Would he think she’d been dancing all night instead of people-watching from a secluded corner? Instead of daydreaming about him?

One could only hope.

“Why the solarium?”

“It has this wonderful glass dome. I wanted to watch the storm a bit.” The intensity of his gaze made Elizabeth even more nervous. Her hand crept to her throat, and she found herself explaining, “It’s an air mass thunderstorm rather than an organized system, you see, and I wanted to observe the redevelopment of new convection along the outflow of the previous cells.” Shut up, shut up, shut up, she admonished herself, but she couldn’t seem to stop babbling. “The main cell, of course, was well into its dissipating stage by that time,” she finished lamely.

Cullen ran a hand through his short, spiky hair. “Uh, right. Do you have an idea what time you left the ballroom?”

“Midnight. I heard the clock in the foyer chime.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out any more irrelevant facts. She had the unfortunate habit of resorting to trivia when she got nervous, and she had always been nervous around Cullen.

“Did you see anyone else in the foyer? In the hallway outside the solarium? Anyone lurking outside?”

“No. Maybe. I’m not sure.” She drew an unsteady breath and told him about the open door in the solarium and the yellow flash she’d seen beyond the terrace. “It might have been nothing more than a reflection. I can’t be sure. I certainly can’t say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a person.”

“If it was, we’re not going to find any footprints in this weather,” he said grimly.

Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the fastener on her cloak. “I don’t think it very likely, but I suppose it’s possible someone could have been inside the room when I first entered, and then left through that door. I didn’t turn on a light.”

“Why not?”

“As I said, I slipped away from the party to be alone for a few minutes. I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

Cullen’s glance sharpened. “Were you afraid someone would follow you into the solarium?”

As if. “No. I just thought someone might see the light and become curious. And, also, it was easier to observe the storm in the darkness.”

“I see. When you went back to close the door, that’s when you saw the body?”

She nodded. “I lost my balance on the wet floor and fell. For some reason, I looked up and I saw her hanging from one of the steel supports….” Elizabeth broke off, shuddering in spite of herself.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with death. In her Criminal Investigations courses at Heathrow, she taught her students how to dissect crime scenes analytically and view murder victims objectively. As a graduate student, she’d interned with the Worcester Police Department in order to research her doctoral thesis, and just a few months ago, she’d attended a series of seminars conducted by an FBI profiler. She knew crime. She lived and breathed crime.

But when the victim was someone you knew…someone so young…

“I’ll need statements from all of you,” Cullen said to the Pierces who stood clustered behind Elizabeth. “For now, I want everyone to remain out here. We need to keep the crime scene as virgin as possible.”

Elizabeth winced. “I’m afraid…that is, the solarium may already have been compromised.”

“Someone besides you has been in there?” Cullen asked sharply.

“We rushed in without thinking when Elizabeth told us what she’d found,” Drew explained. “She tried to keep us out, but we couldn’t know for certain the girl was dead. We thought we might be able to help her.”

Cullen glanced at Elizabeth. “How many went inside?”

“All of them,” she admitted gloomily.

He shook his head in frustration. “We’ll have to cross-check fingerprints then. I’ll also need a copy of the guest list.” He turned to the uniformed officer who stood directly behind him. “Make sure guards remain at all the exits. No one leaves, no one gets in without my say-so. I don’t care who it is,” he said pointedly at the Pierces. “I don’t care what excuses they give you.”

“Surely you don’t expect everyone to wait around here indefinitely,” Geoffrey Pierce, Drew’s uncle, complained. “I have things to do.”

“At this hour?” Cullen gave him a speculative look. “What kind of things would they be?”

Geoffrey didn’t answer, just stood there looking unpleasant. A tall, slender man with thinning blond hair, he hadn’t managed the approach to middle age with quite the same grace as his older brother, William. And he didn’t seem to have William’s compassion. He was handsome, as all the Pierces were, but something about his expression, about the cruel set of his lips, made him seem at once sinister and weak.

Drew put a hand on the man’s arm. “Detective Ryan is right, Uncle Geoffrey. We screwed up. Let’s not make things worse.” To Cullen he said, “We’ll do everything we can to cooperate.”

“I’m counting on that.” Cullen took a pair of latex gloves from his overcoat pocket and snapped them on. He handed another pair to Elizabeth. “Show me the body, Elizabeth.”

THE FIRST THING Cullen noticed about the solarium was the temperature. The room was still frigid even though Elizabeth said she’d closed the outside door. He could feel the chill though his overcoat, but then, the heavy fabric was still damp from the rain.

He wondered now, as he followed Elizabeth toward the back of the solarium, if he might have been able to prevent the tragedy if he’d accepted the moonlighting job as a security guard for the Pierces. Probably not. So far, it appeared that the murderer had been able to slip in and out without being detected by any of the other guards or guests which suggested to Cullen that the suspect was someone familiar with the Pierce compound. Someone who had either come in the front gate as a guest, or through the back entrance with the hired help.

But that hardly narrowed the field. Party-goers had come from all over the state, and in Moriah’s Landing alone, half the population had either received invitations to the party or been hired to work in some capacity at the compound.

In short, the killer could be anyone, Cullen thought grimly as he tugged at the neckline of his sweater.

The solarium was crowded with plants. Some of the tree ferns grew all the way to the top of the dome while a maze of sinewy vines coiled around the rafters and crept downward, inching away from the sunlight. Hanging baskets trailed lacy fronds that brushed against Cullen’s shoulders, making him think of spiders. He found the atmosphere inside the solarium suffocating, as if the plants were sucking all the air from the room.

Elizabeth had stopped in front of him and was staring at him curiously. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His tone was more clipped than he’d meant it to be.

She cocked her head, still regarding him. “It’s rather close in here, with all the plants. You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

He glanced at her warily. “Claustrophobic?”

“An abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces.”

“I know what it means,” Cullen said dryly. “But only you would put it that way.”

“What way?”

“Only you would use the exact dictionary definition. Word for word, I’ll bet.”

She lifted her chin. “What’s wrong with being precise?”

“Nothing.” She wouldn’t understand even if he explained it to her. People with a high IQ seemed to live in their own little world. “I don’t have claustrophobia,” he said with an impatient shrug. “I just don’t care for all these damn plants.”

“Well, maybe you have botanophobia. Fear of plants.”

“What I don’t have is time,” he snapped. “Let’s get on with this.”

“Of course.” She gave him a cool glance as she turned and walked to the back of the solarium without another word.

Cullen hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings, but, damn, she could be so annoying. There seemed to be no end to the trivia she’d stuffed inside that head of hers. She’d always been way too smart—and far too superior—for her own good in Cullen’s opinion. That was one of the reasons she’d had so much trouble in school. Bad enough she was such an Einstein, but did she have to rub people’s noses in it?

It was a shame, too, because she wasn’t a bad-looking girl. Cullen supposed that some might even consider her attractive, in a sisterly sort of way. Nice hair. Nice eyes. Slight build.

She’d matured since he’d left town six years ago, but she was still very young. He had a hard time thinking of her as anything other than the bratty little kid he’d tried to protect from the bullies who’d ragged on her in school. Although, to this day, he couldn’t figure out why he’d bothered. She’d made it clear from the first she didn’t want or need help from the likes of him.

Fair enough, he supposed. She wasn’t only brilliant, she was rich to boot. She came from the ritzy part of town, and Cullen had grown up down by the docks. Her parents were scientists; his old man had been a drunk. They didn’t exactly travel in the same social circles, he and Elizabeth.

She’d stopped in front of him again, her head tilted skyward. Cullen glanced up. The body dangled about ten feet from the floor from a steel girder that helped support the glass dome.

Cullen’s blood went cold with shock even though he’d had plenty of time to prepare himself. It didn’t matter how prepped he was or how many times he worked a crime scene, murder always got him in the gut.

Especially when the victim was very young.

She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. Snuffed out by a cold-blooded murderer who’d left her hanging there like a piece of meat in a butcher-shop freezer.

“It’s not a suicide,” Elizabeth murmured.

No, it wasn’t a suicide, he thought grimly.

“I can’t see any wounds,” she added, “But I’m certain she was dead before she was hanged. Otherwise, there would be…visible signs.”

A protruding tongue, for one thing. “How the hell did he get her up there?” Cullen muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elizabeth shiver. She’d been the girl’s professor at Heathrow, but he was willing to bet there wasn’t more than a year or two difference in their ages. In spite of himself, he felt his protective instinct stirring again. She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have let her come back in here.

“This won’t take long,” he said. “I just need to ask you a few questions about finding the body. I want you to show me where everyone was standing when the Pierces came in here. Tell me about their reactions, what was said, anything like that you can remember. Then you can wait outside with everyone else.”

She turned to stare up at him, her expression earnest. “I’d really like to stay until Dr. Vogel examines the body.”

Cullen shook his head. “That’s out of the question.”

“Why?”

“Do I have to state the obvious? You found the body.”

“But what does—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes going wide. “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

He shrugged. “Everyone here is a suspect. I’m not ruling anyone out at this point.”

“But—” She broke off again. “Of course. I understand. You have to take that approach. But I really think I can help you. I know about crime-scene investigation. I’m a professional, just like you.”

“Not exactly like me. You aren’t wearing a badge,” he said bluntly. “If you really want to help, just answer my questions. That’s all I need from you.”

She looked as if she wanted to protest, but decided against it. Pursing her lips, she turned her back on him.

He’d probably hurt her feelings again, but it couldn’t be helped. Ph.D. or not, Cullen wasn’t about to involve a civilian in his investigation. For one thing, bringing in an outside consultant was a tricky business. Egos could get in the way, and secondly, he had his reservations about Elizabeth’s competence.

Oh, she was plenty intelligent. No question about that. But it had been Cullen’s experience that no amount of classroom theory or book knowledge in the world could take the place of plain old-fashioned street smarts, the kind learned the hard way. And for all her education and degrees, Cullen doubted she’d ever really been put to the test. After she answered his questions, he’d send her packing.

“There’s a ladder against one of the walls,” she said.

He frowned. “What?”

“You asked how he’d gotten her up there. I saw a ladder in here earlier. Mr. Pierce said it’s used to cut away dead leaves from the vines and the larger plants, and to change the bulbs when the ultraviolet lights burn out.”

“Did anyone touch it that you saw?”

“No. Mr. Pierce suggested his sons use it to cut her down, but I discouraged that. I warned them we had to leave her as we’d found her.”

At least she’d done that right, he thought grudgingly. “We’ll dust the ladder for prints,” he said, ignoring the expectant look on Elizabeth’s face.

He studied the immediate area underneath the body. The floor was a mess with broken pottery scattered about and muddy water all over the flagstones near the French doors. Cullen could see at least one partial footprint in the sludge.

He motioned to the floor. “Was all this here when you came in?”

Elizabeth bit her lip. “The floor was wet, but I knocked over the pots when I fell.”

He’d been afraid of that. “Is that your footprint?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“We’ll have to check it out anyway. We may need your shoes for verification.”

“Of course.”

They both fell silent for a moment, then Elizabeth said softly, “You noticed, didn’t you?”

“Noticed what?”

“There’s no blood on the body or on the floor. And look at the color of her skin. She looks as if she’s been exposed to extreme temperature, but there’s no frostbite.”

Cullen had seen the same thing, but he’d kept his observation to himself. He’d learned a long time ago to make no assumptions.

“My guess is she was killed somewhere else and brought here,” Elizabeth said. “She could have been dead for several days. The killer probably kept her in a cooler or freezer somewhere until the time was right.”

“Meaning?” Cullen glanced at her curiously. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something about the confident manner in which she spoke had his attention.

“Until he was ready for someone to find her.” Elizabeth’s gaze moved upward, where the body of Bethany Peters stirred gently in a slight draft from a heating vent. “He put her on display. She was left here, like this, for a reason. The killer is trying to tell us something.”

Cullen knew instantly what she meant. One-time crime-of-passion killers would only take the time to move the body of their victim in order to dump it in a remote location or to try and throw off the police. They wouldn’t flaunt it. Neither would a professional hit man. There was only one type of killer who would.

Elizabeth turned to Cullen, her eyes deeply troubled. “This is a very bad thing, Cullen.”

His gaze lifted to the body. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out.

THE MOMENT the medical examiner arrived, Elizabeth was expelled from the solarium.

“We’ll take it from here,” Cullen told her firmly.

“But I’d like to help—”

“If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.” He must have realized how harsh his words sounded because he almost at once altered his tone. “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far, but this is a police investigation. You need to wait outside with everyone else.”

When she still resisted, his grasp tightened on her elbow. “Come on, Elizabeth. Cut me a break here.”

“But you can’t seriously consider me a suspect,” she protested. “If you’d listen to your brain for a moment instead of your ego, you’d realize I could help you.” She winced. That hadn’t come out at all right. She hadn’t meant to goad him, but somehow, around Cullen, she always managed to say the wrong thing.

“You’ve done quite enough already,” he said coolly.

“If you’re referring to letting the Pierces come into the solarium, I had no authority to keep them out,” she defended. “I’m not a police officer.”

He arched a brow. “Precisely my point.”

“Just let me stay while Dr. Vogel examines the body. I want to hear what he says about cause of death.”

“Out.”

“Cullen—”

“Out.”

He opened the solarium door and gave her an unceremonious little push into the hallway. The door closed firmly behind her.

The Pierces were still in the hallway, and they gazed at her curiously.

“I take it your services are no longer required,” Drew commented.

“Cops can be so…infuriating.” The latex gloves snapped loudly as Elizabeth peeled them off.

“They do tend to have a one-track mind,” William sympathized. “But in this case, I have to agree with Detective Ryan. A murder scene is no place for a young lady.”

“But I teach criminology,” she protested. “I’m not unfamiliar with crime scenes.”

“You can’t be more than a day over twenty years old. Hardly more than a child. If Natasha were still alive, I certainly wouldn’t want her subjected to such a gruesome scene.” Pain flashed in William’s blue eyes, and whatever annoyance Elizabeth had been harboring toward him for his comments about her age vanished. Tasha’s death had affected them all, but especially her family. It was obvious that her father still grieved her passing. That was why he hadn’t been able to forgive David Bryson and probably never would.

But had Bryson been able to forgive himself? Elizabeth wondered. Or had his guilt driven him to do unspeakable evil, as some of the townspeople suspected?

Careful, she warned herself. Don’t let your imagination get the better of you.

They had absolutely no evidence thus far linking David Bryson to Bethany’s murder. Nothing except an innate distrust of the man, and Elizabeth knew she was prejudiced in that regard. Tasha had been her friend.

If she wasn’t careful, such a biased perspective would end up proving Cullen’s point—that she had no place in a murder investigation.

“They won’t find anything,” Geoffrey Pierce murmured in a strange, offhand manner, his gaze on the solarium door. “That girl was dead before she was hanged.”

Elizabeth had come to the same conclusion, but it wasn’t exactly admiration she felt for Geoffrey’s keen perception.

Earlier, when they’d all rushed into the solarium, the other Pierces had been deeply disturbed by the sight of the body, especially Zachary, who’d turned a bit green when his father suggested that he and Drew find a way to cut her down. The same look of horror and compassion had emanated from all the Pierces’ blue eyes—all except for Geoffrey’s.

In his eyes only a cool curiosity had gleamed.

Elizabeth had to wonder about a man, a nonprofessional, who could remain so stoic and unaffected in the face of such horror.

Her gaze on him narrowed. “Why do you think Cullen won’t find any evidence?”

He shrugged. “Because whoever did that knew what he was doing.”

“He?”

“Given your field of expertise, I’m sure you know as well as I do that crimes of this nature are almost always masterminded by white males. Serial killers seem to be a unique affliction to our race and gender.” He didn’t seem especially disturbed by his conclusion.

“Serial killer?” Elizabeth said, feigning surprise. “Who said anything about a serial killer?”

Geoffrey gave her an enigmatic smile. “Don’t tell me the same thought didn’t cross your mind when you saw her hanging there. The way the body was put on exhibition? What else could it be?”

“An act of rage,” Elizabeth said. “A crime of passion.”

He shook his head. “You don’t believe that. You know what we’re dealing with here as well as I do.”

Elizabeth had studied crimes such as this in both her undergraduate and graduate courses. She’d learned a long time ago what it meant when a murderer “signed” his kill.

But she couldn’t help wondering how Geoffrey Pierce knew.

And would another body soon follow that would prove his point?

Chapter Four

The storm had moved out to sea an hour or so earlier, but Elizabeth could still see flashes of lightning in the distance as she sat in her parked car down the street from Krauter’s Funeral Home. The downpour had finally abated into an icy drizzle that glistened on the cobblestone pavement like a scene from a French Impressionist painting.

The hour was very late, after three in the morning, and for a moment, Elizabeth was struck by the eerie silence, the preternatural peace that had settled over the night in the wake of bone-chilling violence.

Cloistered in the leathery confines of her new car, she could almost believe that the last few hours had never happened. But they had. A young woman was dead. A student had been murdered, and Elizabeth had discovered the body. No seminar or classroom or degree in the world could have prepared her for that grisly sight.

She watched nervously as the gleaming black hearse carrying Bethany Peters’s body slowly glided past her. The windows were so darkly tinted in the vehicle that she couldn’t make out any of the occupants, but she knew that besides the driver there was one other attendant. She’d been present at the Pierce mansion when the mortuary people had arrived to pick up the corpse.

Tomorrow, Bethany would be transported to a nearby hospital where an autopsy would be performed, and the cause of death would likely be determined. But for tonight she would remain in a cooler at Krauter’s.

A squad car—flashers blacked out, siren silenced—followed the hearse, and Elizabeth ducked down in her seat even though she was fairly certain Cullen had remained at the mansion. He had hours of interviews to conduct and acres of grounds to search, but he would abandon everything in a heartbeat if he had even an inkling of what Elizabeth was up to.

She tamped down a momentary reservation. Okay, so what she had in mind wasn’t exactly brilliant. Probably wasn’t even a good idea. She would be interfering with an official police investigation. She could be fined, even do some serious jail time if she were caught, but Elizabeth didn’t see that she had any other choice. When she’d approached Cullen again later about examining the body, he’d told her no way. No way in hell, to be exact.

“Just give me one minute, Cullen. That’s all I’m asking for. I need to see the body again. I think I saw something—”

“Saw what?”

“I’m…not sure.”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, a gesture that was both familiar and endearing—or would have been, if Elizabeth hadn’t been so thoroughly irritated with him.

The feeling, evidently, was mutual. “I don’t have time for this, Elizabeth.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn? Can’t you just admit you may need my help?”

“With what?”

“The investigation, for crying out loud.”

He gazed down at her for a long, tense moment, his gray eyes cool, remote. Sexy. “Haven’t you ever heard that old saying, Elizabeth? Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

That hurt.

She gave him a disparaging look. “Are you afraid to let me see the body, Cullen?”

“Why would I be afraid?”

“Maybe you think I’ll find something you didn’t.”

His expression became rigid then, and Elizabeth had known she’d gone too far. Again. She’d pressed him way past irritation all the way to anger. Maybe even nudged him into contempt.

“Just stay out of my way, okay? And don’t let me catch you playing Nancy Drew with this case. I’m warning you, Elizabeth…”

Nancy Drew! The nerve, Elizabeth fumed, as she huddled more deeply into her leather seat. Did Nancy Drew have a Ph.D. in criminology? Had Nancy Drew struck up an e-mail correspondence with one of the most famous profilers in the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico? Did Nancy Drew have an IQ of—

Okay, okay, a little voice complained inside her. Enough already. You’re starting to annoy me, for God’s sake.

It was true she never knew when to give up, but Elizabeth had always considered persistence a virtue, not a vice. And she was certain she could help solve this case if Cullen would just give her a chance.

But he was hung up on her age, just like everyone else. If she were a man, if it had taken her the usual amount of time to complete her graduate degree and subsequent field training, no one would question her expertise. No one would think twice about using her on this case.

But she was only twenty, looked even younger, and because of that, Cullen was shutting her out.

Be honest, that same little voice taunted her. Are you really upset because he won’t use you in the investigation, or because he still sees you as an immature schoolgirl? Someone he could never be interested in romantically or…sexually.

Elizabeth sighed. She might as well be a brain without a body for all the male attention she elicited. Unless you counted Dr. Paul Fortier, a biology professor at Heathrow, and since his reputation with the opposite sex was a bit notorious, Elizabeth didn’t think she could consider him a conquest.

Besides, she wasn’t absolutely certain he’d made a pass at her. She’d had a high fever when he’d approached her a few weeks ago after a faculty meeting. It was entirely possible she’d misinterpreted his gesture—and what he’d said to her—but whatever the case, there was something about the man that creeped her out big-time. The way his eyes had seemed to slide all over her when he’d looked at her. The way her skin had crawled when he’d touched her.

Shivering, she rose in her seat and glanced out the window. Tires swished against the wet pavement as the hearse and the police car turned into the drive of the narrow, three-story structure which housed not only the mortuary and crematorium, but the private residence of Ned Krauter, the town mortician.

Out of respect for the dead, or perhaps the late hour, car doors closed quietly as the attendants got out of the hearse and the officer climbed out of the squad car. The three men stood talking for a moment, and Elizabeth let her gaze scan the funeral home.

Windows were lit on the second story of the building where Mr. Krauter resided, and on the ground floor where the mortuary facilities were located.

The third story had been converted into an apartment for lease, and in spite of all the activity below, the windows up there remained dark. Exactly what kind of person would want to live over a funeral home and crematorium, Elizabeth couldn’t imagine, but her concern tonight wasn’t for Mr. Krauter’s lodger, but with Mr. Krauter himself, and how she might be able to sneak into the building without him knowing.

It was a risky proposition, but Elizabeth desperately wanted a closer look at Bethany’s body. Once the postmortem took place, it might be too late. Whatever it was that had disturbed her earlier might be lost forever.

After another moment of quiet conversation, the attendants opened the back doors of the hearse and slid out the gurney. A sheet covering the body fluttered in the wind as the attendants wheeled the gurney to the back door of the mortuary. Once they and the police officer had disappeared inside, Elizabeth got out of her car and ran along the street toward the funeral home, clutching her cloak tightly against her. Now that the storm had passed, the temperature was plummeting, and she could feel the chill seeping into her bones.

As she’d expected, the back entrance had been left temporarily unlocked. Elizabeth opened the door a crack and peered inside. No one was about, so she slipped in.

She’d never been in that portion of the funeral home, but the layout of the house was not unlike that of dozens of other clapboard homes in Moriah’s Landing.

In fact, the entire structure had once been a private residence. Ned Krauter’s grandfather had immigrated from Europe right after the First World War, bringing with him the family mortuary trade which had been passed down for generations. Why he’d left Europe no one seemed to know, but soon after his arrival in Moriah’s Landing, he’d bought the large house for a song from a widow who’d found herself in a desperate financial situation after her third husband had unexpectedly committed suicide.

Krauter had turned the residence into a funeral home, and when he’d died back in the fifties, he’d left his only son a flourishing business which Krauter the Second had, in turn, passed on to his only son, along with an assortment of odd family traits that had been for years the source of no small amount of speculation in Moriah’s Landing.

The current Mr. Krauter had never married and thus had no heir. Elizabeth couldn’t decide whether she considered his childless state a pity or a blessing.

The room she stood in had once been the kitchen of the original residence. The sinks and cupboards had been upgraded to stainless steel, but most everything else had been stripped away. It was now used as a receiving room—the entry point for bodies to the funeral home. There were signs posted in prominent areas which proclaimed that the room met all state and federal requirements for blood-borne pathogens. Although it wasn’t a formaldehyde area, Elizabeth could smell a strong disinfectant that made her slightly queasy.

Several doors radiated from the receiving room, most of them clearly marked. The embalming room, straight ahead. To the right, near where she stood, the crematory. To her left, the coolers. To her far right, an unmarked door that led presumably into the other areas of the funeral home.

It would take only a few moments for the attendants and the officer to transfer the body to one of the coolers, and then they’d come back in here. The officer would probably remain on guard all night, in his squad car she hoped. If he stayed near the coolers or in the receiving area, Elizabeth would have a big problem. But she didn’t think that too likely. People in Moriah’s Landing were nothing if not superstitious, and that included most of the police force.

All she needed to do was find a place to hide until the coast was clear. She surveyed her options once again. The embalming room. The crematory. The unmarked door.

Duh, as her students would say.

Elizabeth opened door number three and cautiously stepped through.

A narrow, dark hallway stretched before her, and she hesitated just inside the door, trying to get her bearings. But it was no use. The corridor was windowless, making navigation highly precarious. Elizabeth hated to use her flashlight, but unless she wanted to stumble around and risk detection, she had no other choice. Pressing the switch, she angled the beam down the hallway.

If she could locate the lobby or the chapel, that wouldn’t be so bad. She could find a pew and sit quietly. Meditate on how much trouble she would be in if Cullen were to find her there.

Maybe he would even threaten her with…dire repercussions. For a moment Elizabeth let herself fantasize about the possibilities.

Then she snapped out of it. Kinky wishful thinking, coming from a girl—a woman—who’d barely even been kissed.

She suppressed a sigh just as a light came on at the end of the hallway and she heard footsteps. Someone was coming down the stairs.

Elizabeth’s heart started to pump in overdrive. There was a door just ahead, and she rushed toward it, the skirts of her costume rustling noisily. She doused her flashlight and melted inside the room just as the footsteps sounded down the hallway.

They came closer. Closer. And then they slowed.

Elizabeth held her breath. She glanced around frantically for a place to hide, but she could see nothing in the darkened room, and she didn’t dare turn her flashlight back on.

The door opened, and she pressed herself against the wall behind it, praying that the abundant folds of her dress would not spill out and reveal her hiding place.

For a moment, her luck seemed to hold. Nothing happened. Nothing moved. Elizabeth didn’t even dare breathe. She stood there, pulse hammering in her throat as she tried to will away whoever stood on the other side of the door.

And then the light came on, and she blinked, certain that she’d been caught. When her eyes became accustomed to the blinding glare, she glanced around.

Whoever stood in the doorway did not come into the room, but Elizabeth wasn’t alone.

Not five feet from where she stood squeezed against the wall, a woman she didn’t recognize rested peacefully in a satin-lined coffin.

“Good night, Mrs. Presco,” a voice whispered from the doorway.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Elizabeth crept from the funeral home lobby where she’d been hiding and glanced down the hallway. The light at the end of the corridor had been extinguished once again when Mr. Krauter had gone back upstairs, and as far as Elizabeth could tell, the coast was clear.

Earlier, she’d waited in the viewing room with Mrs. Presco just long enough for the door to close and for Mr. Krauter—presumably the visitor—to disappear down the hallway toward the receiving area where he’d undoubtedly gone to oversee the arrival of Bethany’s remains.

While Elizabeth had been scrunched behind the door in the viewing room, she’d tried to tell herself there was nothing wrong with Mr. Krauter conversing with the dead. It was rather…sweet.

But images had started to form in her head, visions that had made her break out in a cold sweat. She’d barely allowed Mr. Krauter time to get to the receiving area before she’d opened the door of the viewing room and all but tumbled into the hallway. Then she’d found herself a new place to hide until she’d heard him return to his living quarters upstairs.

Satisfied that he wasn’t coming back downstairs, that the two attendants had gone home and the police officer was standing guard somewhere outside, Elizabeth decided it was time to make her move.

She paused in the corridor now, listening to the quiet of the funeral home. Like any old structure, the house had its fair share of creaks and rattles. Cold drafts. Nothing that was overly alarming.

But she was still uneasy, and she pulled her cloak tightly around her as she tiptoed toward the receiving area. A light over the sink had been left on, and she could see at once the room was empty. She was tempted to draw open the back door and try to determine where the police officer might be. But if he was just outside, he would see her. Best to proceed on the assumption that he was safely ensconced in his squad car. Maybe even snoozing by this time.

Before she had a chance to lose her nerve—or regain her sensibilities—Elizabeth hurried over to the cooler-room door, pulled it open, and stepped inside. The door closed behind her with a swish, and she resisted the urge to try the knob to make sure she wasn’t locked inside. If she was trapped, it might be better to prolong her ignorance.

The room was completely dark. Elizabeth groped along the wall for the light switch, but when she couldn’t find it, she realized the control was probably on the other side of the wall, in the receiving area. The funeral-home personnel would know to turn on the lights before entering the vault-like cooler room.

She flicked on her flashlight. The room came slowly into focus as the beam played off stainless-steel fixtures and a torturous-looking device suspended from the ceiling that she presumed was used for lifting and lowering bodies. She remembered reading once that back injuries were prevalent in the mortuary business.

Spotting the metal cooler, she moved toward it, gooseflesh prickling at the back of her neck.

Being alone in a mortuary cooler room was not for the faint of heart. Elizabeth wasn’t usually squeamish, but she had a healthy respect for the unknown. The metaphysical. The dark forces at work in the world which couldn’t be explained by any amount of scientific research and experimentation.

Early on in her studies, she’d become interested in more than just means, motive and opportunity in murder. Criminal personality profilers had long since determined that most serial killers shared certain characteristics from their childhood. The big three warning signs, as they were known, were: chronic bedwetting, the torture of small animals and an obsession with pyrotechnics. In addition, most had suffered child abuse. But Elizabeth had wanted to know if there were other forces at play. She’d wanted to delve even more deeply into the killer’s mind to determine if there was a kind of base instinct that drove men to kill, not just once but over and over.

In graduate school, her fascination had taken a new twist. Could there be something more than instinct or abuse that drove a mind to the dark side? What about where the killer grew up, where he lived, where he worked?

In other words, could a place be evil?

Elizabeth didn’t know why, but ever since childhood, she’d been very attuned to the strange vibrations in Moriah’s Landing. Sometimes when she lay awake at night, she could sense the supernatural undercurrents that rippled through the town. She could feel the evil that lingered from the witch executions of the 1600s and from the murders of twenty years ago. She could almost taste the bloodlust.

And when she felt those dark stirrings, she came back to the same question. Could a place drive a man to kill? Was that why the women twenty years ago had been murdered in Moriah’s Landing? Was that why poor Claire had been tortured?

Was that why Bethany Peters lay stone-cold in a mortuary cooler?

A frigid blast of air encompassed Elizabeth as she opened the cooler door. The unit was equipped with two removable trays, one on top of the other, so that bodies, or even gurneys and caskets, could be slid in and out without much effort. Bethany had been placed on the top tray, her features frozen in death, her face bluish in the gleam of the flashlight. She looked pale and perfect, almost ethereally beautiful.

As Elizabeth placed her hand on the tray and slid it out, something moved in the darkness behind her. A rustle. A tiny whisper of noise that could have been nothing more than imagination.

But a finger of dread slipped up her backbone.

She turned, playing the flashlight over the room once again. In a far corner, almost concealed by shadow, a gurney covered with a sheet had been shoved against the wall. The white cloth molded itself to the body that lay beneath it.

The sheet moved.

A pale hand lifted.

And Elizabeth felt her entire body go rigid with fear.

Chapter Five

Elizabeth gasped and jumped back, smashing into the cooler with a hard thud. The flashlight slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor. The bulb flickered, then went out, plunging the room into total darkness.

Heart knocking, Elizabeth kept her gaze fixed on the spot where she’d last seen the gurney. She could see nothing. Could hear nothing but the sound of her own pulse roaring in her ears.

But she knew she wasn’t alone.

The air around her seemed to shift and quiver with an unknown presence, a malevolent entity that watched and waited. Elizabeth could feel those invisible eyes on her in the darkness.

Cold air from the open cooler whispered along her backbone as she pressed herself against the metal. For a moment, nothing happened. All was silent. And then in a flurry of movement, someone—something— rushed toward her in the blackness.

Elizabeth screamed and tried to move out of the way, but the gurney caught her in the midsection, knocking the breath from her lungs as she slammed backward into the cooler.

She dropped to the floor, banging her head on the metal tray as she fell. In a daze, she heard footsteps scurry across the tile. The door opened into the receiving area and light seeped in for just a split second before the door closed behind an escaping form. Then all was quiet again. All was pitch-black.

Elizabeth shoved the gurney out of her way. Groaning, she tried to get up, but something rested on her shoulder, holding her down. She lifted her hand, felt cold flesh. Dead flesh. Bethany’s arm had dropped over the side of the tray and her hand had come to rest on Elizabeth’s shoulder.

Scrambling away, Elizabeth managed to rise on shaky legs just as the light came on in the cooler room. The sudden brilliance blinded her, disoriented her, and for one terror-stricken moment, she thought the intruder was coming back to finish her off. Her mouth went dry with fear as she watched the door slowly open, and then a dark figure stepped into the room.

Elizabeth collapsed against the wall, her breath almost a sob. “Cullen!”

His gaze widened when he saw her. He glanced at her, the open cooler, then back at her. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

He must have seen then that something was very wrong because he strode across the room and took her arm. In spite of the lingering shock and the protection of her velvet cloak, Elizabeth’s skin tingled all the way up to her shoulder.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” But her voice sounded as unsteady as her legs felt. “Someone was in here, Cullen. He shoved the gurney against me and—”

“Wait a minute,” Cullen said grimly. “What are you doing in here?”

She gave him a weak shrug. “Never mind that now. I’ll explain everything later, but we have to see if we can find who was in here. It might have been the killer—” She broke off when she spotted something lying on the floor. “What’s that?”

Cullen glanced in the direction she indicated. He walked over and bent down. “Looks like a test tube.”

Elizabeth came to stand above him. The empty glass vial was about four inches long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, capped with a rubber stopper.

“Cullen!” In her excitement, Elizabeth placed her hand on his shoulder, then immediately removed it. “Whoever was in here must have dropped it.”

“You don’t know that. Someone on the mortuary staff could have left it.”

“But you are going to send it to the lab, right?”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than she saw what Cullen was doing. He’d withdrawn an evidence bag from his coat pocket, and using his pen, expertly flipped the vial into the bag without touching the glass.

“If it doesn’t belong to the mortuary staff, then why would someone bring a test tube into the cooler room?” Elizabeth mused.

Cullen stood. “I don’t know,” he said in a strange voice. “Why don’t you tell me?”

His words took a moment to sink in. Then Elizabeth put a hand to her chest in outrage. “You think I brought it? That’s ridiculous!”

He gave her a shrewd appraisal. “Is it? Why are you here?”

She glared up at him. “I can’t believe you’re standing here interrogating me when whoever was in this room might still be in the funeral home. He’s the one who can give you answers.”

“Come on.” Cullen took her arm.

“What? Wait a minute.” Elizabeth tried to pull back. “Did you hear what I said? The killer could be in the funeral home at this very moment. We have to search it—”

“We don’t have to do a damn thing,” Cullen said through gritted teeth. “I can’t believe you, Elizabeth. What the hell were you thinking? Don’t you realize you may have just tainted evidence?”

By this time they were at the door. He opened it and pulled her through, then drew her across the receiving area to the back door. Freezing air cut through Elizabeth’s wrap as they hurried outside. A squad car was parked in the drive near the back door, and she could see an officer sitting behind the wheel. When he spotted Cullen, he opened the door and got out.

“Detective Ryan? Everything okay?”

Cullen gripped Elizabeth’s elbow. “There may be an intruder in the funeral home, Dewey. Go around and cover the front while I have a look around here.”

Officer Dewey glanced briefly at Elizabeth, nodded, and then took off.

Cullen opened the back door of the squad car and all but shoved her inside. For a moment, she tried to struggle away from him. Then she had to wrestle with her skirts, and by that time, Cullen had the situation well under control.

He leaned down, peering at her inside the car. “I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I’m locking you inside.”

Elizabeth tried to muster a little dignity. “You can’t do tha—”

The door slammed closed and Cullen disappeared back into the funeral home.

Elizabeth reached for the door handle, but, of course, there wasn’t one. A wire mesh screen separated the back seat from the rest of the car, and she suddenly realized how helpless prisoners must feel, trapped inside with no way out. But there was one big difference in their plight and hers. She was innocent. She’d done nothing but try to help, and this was the thanks she got?

On the second story, lights came on in Ned Krauter’s residence. Then one by one, lights came on in the ground-floor windows as Cullen and Officer Dewey searched the premises. The third floor remained dark, which somehow seemed ominous to Elizabeth.

Several minutes passed before Cullen finally came back outside. Elizabeth was freezing by this time. She huddled inside her cloak, teeth chattering, as she watched Cullen and Officer Dewey speak in low tones just outside the squad car. She pressed her ear to the glass, but she couldn’t hear a word they were saying. For a moment, she thought Cullen might have forgotten about her, and she considered rapping on the window to draw his attention. As if sensing her intention, he deliberately turned his back on her.

Elizabeth sat back against the seat, fuming. Smarting.

Finally, the door opened and he leaned down. “You okay in there?”

As if he cared. “I’m fine.” Elizabeth slanted him a sullen glance. “Did you find anything?”

“No.”

“What about the third floor?”

“Krauter said it’s rented to a fisherman, named Cross. Krauter says his boat went out a few days ago. Without a warrant we can’t search his place, and without probable cause, which we don’t have, we’re not likely to get a judge this time of night to sign one. But the door was locked. No way the intruder could have gotten in.”

“What about the first floor? The chapel—”

“We searched the damn place from top to bottom, okay? If someone was in there, he managed to get away—”

“Wait a minute,” Elizabeth said sharply. “If? If? There was someone in the cooler room. I saw him.”

“Did you recognize him? Can you give me a description?”

“No…”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t actually see him,” Elizabeth admitted. “He was hiding underneath a sheet on the gurney. When I saw the sheet move, it—it startled me, and I dropped my flashlight. The light went out so I didn’t see who it was. But there might be fingerprints on the test tube. Or on the gurney. He shoved it into me.”

“You keep saying he.”

She gave a helpless gesture with her hand. “Whoever it was.” When he didn’t say anything for a moment, Elizabeth peered up at him. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“I’m sure you think you saw someone,” he said carefully.

Her eyes widened in indignation. “I did see someone. Why would I lie about something like that?”

“I’m not accusing you of lying.” Cullen raked his hand through his short hair, spiking it even more. His breath frosted in the cold air. “Look, you were alone inside a mortuary cooler room with a corpse. Considering everything, it’s no wonder you were scared.”

“I never said I was scared. And considering what things?”

“You’re young. Impressionable. And after finding the body earlier—”

“I didn’t imagine the test tube, did I?” Elizabeth demanded, anger flushing her face. “I’m telling you, someone was in that room with me!”

Cullen’s gaze on her hardened. “Which brings us back to my original question. What were you doing in there?”

Elizabeth stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his gaze. “I told you earlier I wanted to have a closer look at the body.”

“And I told you to stay out of it. I could haul you in for interfering in an official investigation. Maybe even slap an obstruction of justice charge on you.”

She glanced at him then. “You wouldn’t.”

He shrugged. “Not this time. But I’m warning you. I’m losing my patience. I can’t have you running around tampering with evidence. When I make an arrest in this case, I don’t want the suspect waltzing out of it on some legal technicality. You got that?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.” With an effort, she tried to regain her calm. “Look, I know you don’t have any faith in my ability. You’ve made that perfectly clear. But I’m not just some…cop groupie here. I have a lot of training, Cullen. I could help you solve this case if you’d let me.”

“And I told you if I need your help, I’ll ask for it. Did you hear me asking?”

She lifted her chin but said nothing.

“Well, did you?”

“No,” she replied grudgingly. “But I meant what I said, too. I saw something on that body. I don’t know what. I can’t put my finger on it. But something…bothered me. And my intuition is rarely wrong.”

“Your intuition?”

“Yes. You know—”

“Spare me the dictionary definition. I know what it means, I just don’t put much stock in it.”

“You don’t have instincts? You don’t get a gut feeling about certain cases?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But my gut feelings are based on training and experience. Not on some whim.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You just can’t admit it, can you?”

“Admit what?”

“That I might be your equal. In training and experience.”

“Lecturing in a classroom is a lot different than running a criminal investigation. When you’ve put your time in on the street, then we’ll talk.” Cullen straightened. “In the meantime, I’m going to drive you home.”

He put out a hand to help her from the car, but Elizabeth ignored it. Again she struggled with the folds of her costume, but finally managed to crawl from the back seat with a modicum of poise. “I don’t need a ride,” she said coolly. “I have my own car.”

“You may not need a ride, but you’ve got one anyway.” He took her arm firmly and steered her toward a dark, plain sedan parked behind the squad car. “I’ll drive you myself so I can make sure you get there.”

“What about my car?”

“You can pick it up tomorrow.”

Elizabeth started to protest about leaving her new car parked on the street, but considering all that she’d witnessed that night, it seemed a little petty to worry about vandalism.

THEY’D BEEN DRIVING in silence for several minutes when Cullen finally gave her a bemused glance. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you all night. What the hell is that getup you’re wearing?”

“This?” Elizabeth lifted one of the velvety folds of her wrap. “It’s called a cloak. It’s part of my costume.”

“Which is?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but as she turned to face him, the words froze on her lips. In the dim light from the dash, Cullen’s features were shadowy, indistinct. Dressed all in black, he reminded her of a dark angel, a shadow hero, a complicated man with complicated motives.

It suddenly occurred to Elizabeth that she actually knew very little about Cullen Ryan. She’d had a crush on him for years, but she didn’t really know who he was or what made him tick.

Oh, she knew some things about him. He’d grown up down by the docks, and he’d gotten into some trouble as a teenager. His father had died after Cullen had left for Boston, and she didn’t think he had any other family in Moriah’s Landing. So what had brought him back here?

Why return to a place that hadn’t been all that kind to him?

The only thing Elizabeth knew for certain about Cullen was that he’d left town a juvenile delinquent and returned a cop, one with dark secrets and a troubled past. What had happened in those six years to change him?

Or had he changed?

Were the demons that had driven him to mischief as a boy still driving him today as a man? Was his becoming a cop an attempt to control those darker impulses?

Elizabeth shuddered at the thought. At his nearness.

In response, Cullen reached up and pounded the dash with his fist. “Sorry. Heater doesn’t work like it should.”

There was plenty of heat inside that car. Or at least, the potential for it. “I’m fine,” she managed.

“So what did you say you went as tonight?” His gaze swept over her cloak.

“A noblewoman,” Elizabeth murmured. “Seventeenth-century.”

“Figures,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They were cruising down Main Street now, nearing the turn that would have taken them to the Pierce compound. The rain had stopped, and a pre-dawn mist had settled over the town, creeping like a ghost along the cobblestone walkways. A variety of businesses, some of them housed in tall, narrow buildings that were centuries-old, crowded the thoroughfare, their windows dark at this hour, their doorways steeped in shadow.

As in Salem, some of the enterprises had capitalized on the history of Moriah’s Landing. Witches rode weathervanes mounted high on gable rooftops, while black metal cats with green marble eyes slumbered a few feet away on brick chimneys. A souvenir shop, squeezed between a dusty apothecary and an antiques store, sold everything from spell books to T-shirts emblazoned with McFarland Leary’s image—or what an artist had perceived as his likeness. Another shop offered midnight ghost tours.

It was harmless, this exploitation of the town’s past to draw in tourists, especially in the fall during the Halloween celebrations. The locals were proud of their heritage, and even though they were a superstitious lot, they didn’t mind using the legends to make a buck. Most hadn’t even resisted when a group of nature-loving Wiccans had proclaimed Moriah’s Landing their spiritual epicenter and had camped out for weeks on end near Raven’s Cove, performing midnight rituals and dancing naked under a full moon—or so some said.

It was all harmless….

But Elizabeth had never quite been able to get into the spirit of the celebrations because, in spite of the town’s rich history and unique charm, she’d sensed, from an early age, a darkness lingering in murky alleys, crouching in recessed doorways. A malicious presence that hid from the light and preyed on the innocent. She stayed on in the town because of her family, and because the darkness fascinated her as much as it repelled her.

Shivering, she averted her eyes from those doorways.

But they were driving by the town green now, a heavily landscaped area where, according to lore, those accused of practicing witchcraft in the late 1600s had been hung from the gnarled branches of an old oak tree. A plaque commemorated the spot, and the townspeople had come to think of the ground beneath the tree limbs as hallowed.

Whether the legend was true or not, Elizabeth didn’t know. But of all the places in Moriah’s Landing, the town green, particularly the oak tree, still standing, seemed to elicit the strongest feelings in her, an inexplicable sensation that evil lurked nearby. That it watched her every move. That if she wasn’t very careful, she could be its next victim.

She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes closed as they passed by the tree. In her mind’s eye, she could see a crowd milling about on the square, their clothing and expressions somber, their eyes turned skyward.

Elizabeth’s imagination followed their stares.

She could see feet dangling among the leaves, and as her gaze moved upward, she saw Bethany Peters’s pale face staring down at her.

Heart pounding, she opened her eyes, dispelling the vision. Bethany Peters hadn’t really been hanging from the same tree where witches had been killed centuries ago. Elizabeth’s imagination was playing tricks on her. It was silly to be upset by a vision, especially after everything else she’d been through that night.

Still…

She couldn’t shake that tenacious unease that something watched her. That something waited for her.

That whoever or whatever had killed Bethany had some kind of connection to Elizabeth.

First Claire, then Tasha.

And now one of Elizabeth’s students.

You’re next, a dark voice seemed to whisper.

Chapter Six

As the town green receded, the tension slowly drained from Elizabeth, and she began to breathe much more easily.

Heathrow College lay just ahead, a private institution safely ensconced behind a high stone wall broken only by an electronically-controlled gate that was monitored twenty-four hours a day by a security guard. The parents who were willing to pay the steep tuition at the exclusive school wanted more than just the finest education for their daughters. They wanted assurances that the young women would be safe, tucked away from the real world and protected by state-of-the-art security equipment.

Some of the girls rebelled at the school’s rigid rules and outdated curfew, much as Elizabeth had once done herself at boarding school. But for some reason, she’d never found Heathrow confining—as a student or as a member of the faculty—perhaps because coming here had been her choice.

Although it wasn’t so much a choice as a need, she realized. A need for independence. A need to become her own person. A need to get away from the disappointment that was all too apparent in her parents’ eyes every time they looked at her.

She’d had such potential, their expressions seemed to reproach her. How had she gone so far astray?

Elizabeth had known from an early age that she was expected to follow in her parents’ illustrious footsteps. Marion and Edward Douglas were brilliant, renowned scientists who’d made their mark in research long before they’d turned thirty—her mother in genetics, her father in the related field of molecular biology.

They’d met at Harvard, fallen in love, married and had a baby, all in the space of a year, which had always seemed so out of character for them to Elizabeth. She found it almost impossible to imagine that her parents—so serious now, so single-minded—had once been young and in love. For as long as she could remember, their work had consumed them, and nothing, not their love affair and certainly not their daughter, had been allowed to interfere.

They’d both eventually left their affiliation with Harvard to join a private research lab in Boston to which they commuted at least five days a week and sometimes seven. Their only concession to their parental obligations was to buy a beautiful home in Moriah’s Landing, furnish it elegantly, and hire a full-time nanny for Elizabeth until she was old enough to be shipped off to boarding school, the same prestigious institution her mother had attended.

But Elizabeth was not at all like her mother, and she’d rebelled against the pressures and expectations placed on her because of her heritage and her IQ. She’d hated boarding school with a passion, and by the time she turned ten had run away numerous times. Finally, after a frantic call from the school director, her parents had been forced to deal with her. If they sent her back to that place, she’d told them, she would just keep running away until the school was finally obliged to expel her. If they sent her to another boarding school, she would do the same thing. And one day, she might never come back.

At their wits’ end, her parents had finally allowed her to return to Moriah’s Landing and attend public school on two conditions: one, that she enroll in a grade well above her peer group, and, two, that she supplement her studies by simultaneously taking courses at Heathrow.

As a result, Elizabeth had graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, and when she enrolled full-time at Heathrow, she’d already earned enough credits for undergraduate degrees in both math and biology.

But after Claire had been abducted, Elizabeth had switched her field of study to criminology. That had been the last straw as far as her parents were concerned. They’d washed their hands of her and turned their attention in the last year or so to Elizabeth’s younger brother, Brandon, who, at four, showed signs of a genius that far outclassed Elizabeth’s. He had already been accepted to the most prestigious school in the northeast, where he would be sent when he turned six. Just two years away.

The thought of her little brother being sent to live among strangers, his young mind and imagination molded by the same robotic teachers who’d tried to constrain hers made Elizabeth almost physically ill, made her want to take him somewhere far away where he wouldn’t be subjected to the same killing loneliness she’d known as a child.

It was a cliché, Elizabeth knew, but her parents had never understood her, never appreciated the fact that she marched to a different drummer. They didn’t get that she had needs apart from their own, needs above and beyond the classroom and research lab. She had a fine mind, yes, but she also had a heart. She also had the same wants and desires that any twenty-year-old had. That they, themselves, had once had and lost.

Elizabeth turned slightly, studying Cullen’s profile. Sometimes she wondered if her attraction to him was yet another rebellion against her parents. If she would wake up one day to find that she’d spent a good portion of her youth pining for a man who didn’t really exist except in her dreams. Because the real Cullen Ryan couldn’t possibly live up to her fantasies. No man could.

He turned suddenly, capturing her with a gaze so dark, so intense, Elizabeth caught her breath. Her stomach quivered with awareness, with attraction, and she realized that whatever the reason for her fascination with Cullen, it was only growing more potent as she spent time with him.

“What?” he asked with a scowl.

“What what?” she managed to stammer.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because…” She fumbled for an answer. “I was just wondering…. You said you sometimes get a gut feeling about a case based on your training and experience. What do you think about this one?”

He hesitated just a fraction too long. “I don’t like to speculate.”

Elizabeth glanced at him. “You found something, didn’t you?”

“I’m not going to discuss the specifics of this case with you, Elizabeth.”

She sighed. “But don’t you find it strange there were no visible marks on her body? It was almost as if the killer went out of his way to…preserve her.”

“You’re making a pretty big assumption there.”

“I’m not assuming anything, I’m just thinking out loud.” Elizabeth paused. “Can you at least tell me if you think there’s a possibility that Bethany’s killer is the same one who murdered those women here twenty years ago?”

He looked surprised. “Why do you ask that?”

She stared out the windshield, noticing how the mist writhed and curled in the headlights. “It’s hard to imagine a town the size of Moriah’s Landing falling prey to more than one serial killer.”

“Whoa. Slow down.” He shot her a frowning glance. “One murder doesn’t make a serial killer. I don’t want talk like that getting out. Besides, twenty years is a long time for a predator to remain active.”

“Not if he was incarcerated during that time. Or if he widened his hunting ground. All I’m saying is that twenty years ago, four young women were murdered in Moriah’s Landing. Five years ago, a friend of mine was abducted and tortured, and I think she would have been killed, too, if she hadn’t managed to escape. And now this. I can’t help wondering if all the crimes could be related.”

“Those women’s bodies were dumped,” Cullen pointed out. “They weren’t hanged.”

“I realize that, but there could be another kind of connection. Do you think it’s possible—” She broke off, biting her lip.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me what you were about to say.”

“You’d just think I’m crazy. Or young. Or that I’m letting my imagination run away with me.” Elizabeth felt his gaze on her, and reluctantly she turned to face him.

He glanced at the road, then back at her, his gaze deep, probing. Sensuous, even though she was quite certain he didn’t mean for it to be. Not with her.

But the term bedroom eyes had never been more appropriate. Elizabeth couldn’t see his eyes clearly in the dash lights, but she knew they were a stony gray rimmed with darkness. His pupils were small, giving him a piercing, unearthly quality that seemed capable of penetrating a woman’s soul.

“All right,” she said nervously. “But please promise me you won’t laugh.”

He shrugged, refusing to commit himself one way or the other.

She drew a breath. “Sometimes I can’t help wondering if this place, this town drives people to violence, if something from the past, something…evil resides here.”

Cullen stared at her for a moment, then shifted his focus back to the road. To his credit, he didn’t laugh. He didn’t even appear amused. But he wasn’t buying her theory. “A place doesn’t kill. People kill.”

“I know, but—”

He did laugh then, a low, throaty chuckle that sent a warm thrill up Elizabeth’s backbone. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought into all those old stories. Someone with your brains? I’m surprised.”

She shrugged. “I’m smart enough to know there are things in this world that can’t be explained.”

“There are things in this world that haven’t been explained yet,” he said. “Big difference.”

Face it, Elizabeth thought. She and Cullen were probably never going to see eye-to-eye on this particular subject. He was too pragmatic, but she wasn’t surprised by his attitude. She’d faced the same skepticism from her parents any time she’d tried to broach the subject of the supernatural with them.

After a moment, Cullen said, “That friend you were talking about earlier. Was it Claire Cavendish?”

“How did you know?” Elizabeth asked in surprise. “You’d already left town when she was abducted.”

Cullen studied the road. “I must have heard about it somewhere. I seem to recall something about a sorority initiation.” He glanced at her expectantly. “You were there, weren’t you?”

Elizabeth nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She still had a hard time talking about that night. “Yes, I was there.”

“What happened?”

“Why do you want to know?”

He shrugged. “Because, on the slight chance that you’re right and there is a connection to this latest murder, I’ll need to know anything you can tell me about what happened to her.” When Elizabeth remained silent, he said, “You did say you wanted to help, right?”

He would use that against her. Elizabeth folded her arms and turned to stare out the window. After a moment, she said, “There were five of us that night. Kat Ridgemont, Tasha Pierce, Brie Dudley, Claire and myself. We were supposed to camp out in St. John’s Cemetery near McFarland Leary’s grave, and one of us had to spend part of the night alone in the old haunted mausoleum.”

Elizabeth shivered though it was quite warm inside the car. “It was a bad idea from the start. Hazing had been banned by the college and by all the sororities years ago, but this particular sorority had a set of secret rules that pertained only to the local students who wanted to join. Most of the girls came from Boston and New York. Those of us from Moriah’s Landing had to prove ourselves worthy. And we didn’t really object. Not at first. We just thought of it as an adventure. All of us except Claire. She was scared even before we got to the cemetery, but she really wanted to be accepted by the sorority. She was afraid if we didn’t go through with the initiation, one or all of us would be blackballed.”

“What happened when you got to the cemetery?”

“A storm was about to hit. I remember the flashes of lightning in the distance, and the wind. There was a moon, but heavy clouds blocked most of the light. We had to use flashlights to locate Leary’s grave, and then we drew lots to see who would have to spend the night in the mausoleum. Claire lost. We all told her she didn’t have to do it, that we didn’t care whether the sorority blackballed us or not, but she insisted she wanted to go through with it.

“When she disappeared inside the crypt, the rest of us gathered in a circle around the grave, joining hands to form a protective circle to keep out evil—”

Cullen threw her a startled glance. “You what?”

Elizabeth’s face burned with embarrassment. She hadn’t really meant to tell him about that part. She’d never told anyone about the spell. Not her parents, not the police, not anyone. She and the other girls had never spoken of it again. For one thing, there were too many people in town who wouldn’t understand. For another, there were too many people in town who would.

She said in a rush, “Like I said, it was all supposed to be harmless. Then we heard Claire scream. By the time we got the door of the mausoleum open, she was gone. Vanished without a trace.”

Cullen said grimly, “What do you mean without a trace? The police found nothing?”

“No.”

“And you and the others didn’t see anything? Didn’t hear anything? How far away from the crypt were you?”

“Maybe ten yards.”

“And someone got inside, took Claire, and no one saw or heard anything?”

Elizabeth detected the skepticism in his voice, and suddenly she was transported back to that night. Back to the terror. The awful guilt. The suspicion gleaming in the eyes of the police officers who’d questioned her.

That suspicion hadn’t gone away for a very long time, and neither had the guilt. And now Cullen was making her live it all over again. The one person whose trust meant more than anything to Elizabeth was looking at her as if he didn’t believe her.

She said defensively, “I don’t know how it happened. Or why. But Claire has never been the same since.”

Cullen threw her a careful glance. “What exactly was done to her?”

“We…never knew the details. The police withheld the information, partly for her sake, and I think partly because they still suspected one or all of us may have been involved. I think for a while they were hoping one of us would slip up.”

“So you don’t know the extent of her injuries?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “All we were ever told was that she was tortured before she managed to escape from her kidnapper, and her mind just shut down. When she was found in the cemetery a few days later, she couldn’t tell anyone where she’d been or who had taken her, let alone what was done to her. After that, her mother whisked her off to a private institution in another town. She’s been there ever since.”

“Can she have visitors?”

Elizabeth turned. “Why?”

“Because if you’re right and her abduction is connected to Bethany Peters’s murder, then I’m going to need to talk to her.”

“It’s no use. You’d be wasting your time. She can’t tell you anything.”

He lifted a brow. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“Maybe you’re right, then. Maybe I would be wasting my time.” He pulled the car to a stop outside the electronic gate at Heathrow. Flushed from his warm station, George, the guard, hurried over to the car with an impatient scowl, but instead of lowering the window, Cullen turned back to Elizabeth. “If it’s all the same with you, though, I’d like to try talking to her anyway.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Why? You said yourself you don’t really think the crimes are connected.”

He gave her a ghost of a smile. “Let’s just say, you have me intrigued.”

Elizabeth’s heart pounded against her rib cage at the look he gave her. At the way he leaned slightly toward her. With very little effort, she could lift her hand to his face, stroke her fingers along his cheek, trace the outline of his jaw, his chin, his lips. With even less effort, she could touch her mouth to his….

She glanced at George outside the window. He was peering in intently.

“I wouldn’t want you to upset her,” she said in a breathless half-whisper. “She’s been through so much. If you start talking about that night—”

Cullen cocked his head. “What? She might remember something?” He stared at Elizabeth for a long, tense moment, ignoring the rap of George’s knuckle on the window, the glare of his flashlight beam. “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you aren’t telling me about that night?”

“There isn’t.”

“No?” His gaze slipped over her. “Then why are you trembling, Elizabeth?”

SURROUNDED by a low stone wall, Elizabeth’s cottage—one of several residences granted by the college for some of the faculty members—was almost hidden from view by a thick stand of oak and maple trees that provided thick shade in the summer and a dazzling display of color in autumn. In the winter, however, the trees looked skeletal, desolate and not a little eerie with mist curling like smoke around their bases.

The house was small, a one-bedroom with a steeply pitched gable roof and diamond-paned casement windows that were in perfect keeping with the local architecture. The only access was by cobblestone walkways that connected the residential area to the rest of the campus. A faculty parking lot was provided nearby, and as Cullen pulled into a space, Elizabeth was surprised when he shut off the engine. She’d been certain he would let her out as quickly as possible.

He opened the door, and a wintry blast gusted through the car. “I’ll see you home.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Elizabeth was suddenly nervous. “It’s not far, and the campus is perfectly safe.”

But was it? Bethany Peters had been a student at Heathrow, and although her body hadn’t been found on campus, they didn’t yet know where she’d been killed. Or who her murderer was. Or if, in fact, there might be some connection to the college.

Elizabeth had always felt safe behind those lichen-covered walls, but now she realized that the elaborate security precautions were hardly more than an illusion. If someone wanted in badly enough, the walls could be scaled. The gate could be short-circuited. The guard could be fooled.

The murderer could even be someone who lived behind those walls….

Cullen came around and opened her door, reaching out a hand to help her from the car. If he noticed how badly her hand shook, he said nothing.

Climbing out of the car, Elizabeth patted down the folds of her heavy cloak and the swirling hoops of her skirt. “I don’t know how women used to manage,” she muttered, trying to alleviate the fear that had suddenly gripped her.

“That is some outfit,” he agreed.

For a moment, their gazes met, and in the light from a street lamp, Elizabeth saw amusement spark in Cullen’s dark gaze. Amusement…and something else. Or was that, too, her imagination?

A tremor slowly rolled along her nerve endings.

“This way,” she said breathlessly and started down the walkway to her home.

The campus slumbered unaware. In the distance, an occasional light glinted from a dorm window where an unfortunate student was having to pull an all-nighter. Or more likely, where a late-night drinking party and gabfest was taking place. In a little while, Bethany’s room would be roped off with police tape, and word of her murder would be all over school. Elizabeth could already feel a funereal pall settling over the campus.

She turned up her walkway, pausing at her front door. “Well, this is it.” She stared up at Cullen. “Thanks for walking me home.”

“I’ll see you inside.”

Elizabeth’s heart gave a funny little trip. Alone with Cullen in the close confines of her house? How was she going to handle that? What was she going to say to him?

She had a feeling small talk wasn’t going to be a problem. Undoubtedly, the only reason he lingered was to lecture her again.

I’m warning you, Elizabeth.

I’m losing my patience with you, Elizabeth.

Don’t go playing Nancy Drew with my case, Elizabeth.

Bracing herself for his complaints, she unlocked her door and walked inside. She’d left a lamp burning earlier, and now, after such a night, her diminutive living quarters were even more of a welcome sight than usual. She closed the door behind Cullen, then turned, surveying the room with a quick, critical sweep, wondering what he would see, what he would think of her home. What it might reveal, inadvertently, about herself.

The area was crowded with furniture—refinished antiques, tall bookcases, deep tufted sofas and chairs where she could curl up in front of the stone fireplace at night or on a rainy day and read a good book. The floors were maple, stained a golden hue that was a welcome contrast to the darker, heavier pieces of furniture.

On the walls, she’d mounted old photographs and newspaper articles collected from area flea markets and antique shops which provided a rich cornucopia of the town’s history dating back over two hundred years. The earlier annals of Moriah’s Landing, including the witch trials of the late 1600s, were retold in dozens of leather-bound tomes she kept under lock and key—along with some of her other prized volumes—in an old scarred armoire in the bedroom.

She turned expectantly to Cullen.

“It’s chilly in here,” he said with a frown. “Do you want me to start you a fire?”

Did she want him to start her a fire?

She’d wanted that for a very long time.

“Yes, thank you,” she murmured. “I’ll make some tea.”

Hurrying into the tiny kitchen, Elizabeth leaned against the doorframe for a moment as she tried to catch her breath. She’d been dreaming of this moment for years. She finally had Cullen Ryan alone in her home. She was making tea while he built a fire. It all seemed so cozy. So…domestic. Perhaps they could snuggle up in front of the flames and sip their tea, and then later—

“Elizabeth? Better make that tea quick. I can’t stay long. I have to get back.”

The romantic record on Elizabeth’s imaginary phonograph scratched to a halt.

So much for later, she thought as she put the kettle on the stove.

While she waited for the water to boil, she slipped out of her cloak, and using the tiny washroom off the kitchen, tried to tidy her hair. She’d had it styled that afternoon at Chops, the best salon in town, but the elaborate updo had come loose in places, and tendrils fell about her shoulders in hopeless disarray. Nothing short of brushing the whole thing out completely would help, but Elizabeth didn’t have time for that. She removed a few hairpins, gave her head a good toss, and then shrugged. That was the best she could do.

Arranging cups and a teapot on a tray, she carried everything into the living room and placed them on a low table near the fireplace where a blaze crackled and hissed pleasantly in the silence.

Cullen, studying some of the photographs she’d exhibited on the walls, didn’t turn immediately when she came in.

Elizabeth bent over the tray to pour the tea. “How do you take your tea?”

When he didn’t answer, she glanced up, thinking perhaps he hadn’t heard her. But his attention was riveted on her. Or rather, on her chest.

Elizabeth glanced down and almost gasped. Somehow the WonderBra had shifted during the evening’s activities, and now instead of pushing her together and up, it was pushing her together, up and out. She looked as if she were about to pop over the daring neckline of her dress, and Elizabeth had never popped over anything.

Her face went red-hot.

Her first instinct was to adjust the bra or tug on her neckline. Instead she straightened, trying to act cavalierly about the whole affair. But then she caught a glimpse of herself in a wall mirror behind Cullen, and she was even more shocked by the amount of cleavage she’d put on display. Had her chest been that prominent all evening? No one else had seemed to notice.

But Cullen was sure noticing. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from her décolletage, and, in her nervousness, Elizabeth drew a deep breath, which only accentuated the problem.

Slowly, Cullen looked up. Something glinted in his eyes, something warm and dark. Something that made Elizabeth’s stomach tremble and her knees go weak.

“Tea?” Her voice came out hardly more than a croak. Cullen seemed startled by the sound of it. Or at least, something had jolted him.

He gazed at her as if he didn’t quite comprehend. “What? Oh, tea. No. Sorry. I’d better pass. I need to get back….” He was backing toward the front door, all but stumbling in his haste.

Elizabeth started toward him. “Are you sure?”

He put up a hand. “Yes. Very sure.” He bumped into a chair. “It’s late and you need to get some breast—rest.” He opened the door and retreated outside. “Good night, Elizabeth.”

“Good night, Cullen.”

She watched him stride down the walkway toward the parking lot. Once he was out of sight, Elizabeth turned and leaned against the door, hugging her middle.

And then she smiled.

She couldn’t believe it! She’d actually made him nervous! She! Geeky little Elizabeth Douglas. Who would have thought?

Who would have thought that with all her years of studying, all her degrees, all her brain power, what she’d really needed to get Cullen Ryan’s attention was a good push-up bra?

Chapter Seven

In spite of an almost sleepless night, Elizabeth rose early the next morning, showered, dressed and downed a bagel and two cups of coffee before leaving to meet Lucian LeCroix at the library.

The sun was shining when she walked outside, but the temperature had dropped during the early morning hours and a sharp wind blew out of the northeast. Icicles suspended from barren tree limbs glinted like diamonds in the early-morning light, but the effect was more depressing than beautiful to Elizabeth. The cold reminded her of death, and death reminded her of Bethany’s murder and the fact that her killer was still out there somewhere, perhaps even now searching for his next victim.

As she hurried along, Elizabeth resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder. It was broad daylight, but the campus was almost deserted. She met only a handful of students on the walkway, their heads bowed against the biting wind. As Elizabeth neared the library, two girls from one of her classes recognized her and called out a greeting. Another waved from a ten-speed as she pedaled by, her breath steaming like a racehorse’s in the cold.

In all likelihood, the students Elizabeth encountered were only a year or two younger than she. Some of them might even have been older, but their faces all looked so fresh and earnest. So innocent.

Had they heard about Bethany?

Even for those girls who didn’t know her personally, news of her death would still come as a shock. A stunned disbelief would descend over the campus, and then, as details of the murder trickled out, imaginations would be fueled. Rumors would spread like wildfire. Human nature being what it was, the more grisly aspects of Bethany’s death would eventually enthrall as much as they would terrify.

Elizabeth thought about Bethany lying in the cooler, her skin tinted that awful bluish-gray death hue, her eyes open and staring, but not seeing as she waited for the pathologist’s scalpels and saws. Just a few short days ago she’d been like the other girls at Heathrow. Young, vibrant, her whole life ahead of her. Now that life had been cut short, snuffed out by a brutal killer driven by passions so dark and hideous that no one but he could fathom them.

Passions that would have to be sated time and time again.

She was guessing at the killer’s motives, of course, and she could be wrong. Elizabeth hoped she was wrong. She prayed that Bethany’s murder, as tragic as it would still be, had been committed by a crazed boyfriend. A jilted lover. A jealous rival. Anything but what Elizabeth feared most.

She remembered what Cullen had told her last night. One murder doesn’t make a serial killer…. Besides, twenty years is a long time for a predator to remain active.

Not if he was smart.

Not if his bloodlust was matched by his brilliance, by a cleverness and skill that never let him lose control completely. That never allowed him to become reckless.

Most serial killers considered themselves superior and invincible, but supposing this killer really was? What if they were dealing with an extraordinary mind, one that had been carefully cultivated and nurtured until nothing remained but pure cunning? Pure evil?

She gazed into the distance, not seeing David Bryson’s castle, but knowing it was there. Knowing he was inside, stalking those dark halls like an animal trapped in a cage.

Could the townspeople be right? Had he killed those women twenty years ago?

A young man at the time, he’d been brought in for questioning, but nothing had ever been proven. And now he had enough money to protect himself. He was even a benefactor of this very college.

But supposing he had killed those women. Supposing he had somehow managed to keep those dark urges under control all these years until something had once again unleashed the beast in him.

Elizabeth shivered again as she pulled her coat more tightly around her even though she knew it wouldn’t help. She’d dressed warmly for her outing with Lucian LeCroix, but her chill came not from the day, but from within.

A deep, impenetrable shadow had crept over her soul, and no warmth or light would be allowed in until Bethany Peters’s murderer was found.

LUCIAN WAITED for her outside the library. Dressed elegantly for a Saturday morning in dark slacks and an expensive, tailored overcoat, he stood near the bottom of the steps, his gaze scanning the campus.

Elizabeth wondered what he would think of the faded jeans and scruffy ski jacket she’d donned for the occasion. Her concern had been directed more at the weather than at appearances, obviously, and in that vein, she’d twisted her hair into a loose bun at the back of her neck and pulled a red stocking cap over her ears. She barely resembled the woman he’d met at the ball last evening, and she wasn’t at all certain he would remember her.

But he smiled when she approached, and she saw at once that even without the intriguing mask he’d worn last night, there was still an air of mystery about the man.

It was his eyes, she decided. So dark a brown they almost appeared black, and with a kind of simmering intelligence that made one wonder what he was thinking.

Yes, those eyes were definitely the source of his mystery. And a great deal of his attraction, but not all. He was an extremely handsome man, with an angular face highlighted by glossy jet-black hair which he’d combed straight back. He was only about five-ten or so, but he had that look of intense virility, in spite of his sophistication, that made him seem all male.

“Hello,” he said, his voice velvety smooth even in the cold.

Elizabeth held up a gloved hand. “Hello. I’m not late, am I?”

“Right on time.” He came down a step or two to join her at the bottom. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up at all, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what happened last night.” A shadow moved in his dark eyes. “I heard you were the one who found the body.”

“Who told you that?”

He shrugged. “Once the police arrived, word spread quickly among the guests.”

“I’m sure it did.” Elizabeth gazed out over the frozen campus, thinking again about Bethany. Seeing her body swaying overhead—

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She drew a breath. “No, I was just…remembering.”

His voice lowered with compassion. “It must have been a horrible shock, finding her like that.” He paused. “They said there wasn’t a mark on her body. How do the police know it was murder? Couldn’t it have been suicide?”

“There were…other indications,” Elizabeth said, not wishing to elaborate. “It was obvious she was dead before she was hanged.”

“I guess that would suggest foul play,” he agreed.

Elizabeth tried to shrug off the gloom. “I don’t want to talk about any of that today. It’s a beautiful morning. The sun’s shining….” Murder suddenly seemed a long way off. Evil seemed on holiday. “Let’s just get on with the tour, shall we?”

His gaze slipped over her. If he found her appearance lacking, he hid his disapproval admirably. In fact—

No. She had to be mistaken about that glint in his eyes. First Cullen, and now Lucian LeCroix? It was too much to think, certainly too much to hope, that two such great-looking men—albeit very different ones—could show even a crumb of interest in her.

But Elizabeth could have sworn she’d seen that same glint in Cullen’s gray eyes last night, a hint of something that she very much wanted to believe was attraction. After all these years, he’d finally looked at her as she imagined a man would look at a woman he wanted, as she’d dreamed for a long time that Cullen would gaze at her.

Had she been wrong about that look, though? Had the desire in his eyes been merely an illusion?

Maybe all she’d seen was…surprise. She’d inadvertently shown him an awful lot of cleavage. Cullen had never seen her that way before. It would be perfectly understandable if he’d been taken aback. Shocked, even.

In the cold light of day, that scenario seemed more likely. Especially in view of their history.

“Elizabeth?”

“Hmmm?” She glanced up, remembered suddenly where she was and whom she was with. “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about…something.”

“Are you sure you’re up to this?”

“Oh, absolutely. If it’s not too cold for you.”

He smiled. “Actually, I like the cold.”

Elizabeth stared at him for a moment. Wow, she thought absently. He did have a nice smile. A great smile, really. In fact, he was an extraordinary-looking man. He wasn’t Cullen, of course, but his undivided attention was flattering, Elizabeth had to admit.

For the first time in her life, she felt the force of her femininity, that subtle shift in the balance of power between the sexes in her favor. If she wasn’t careful, it could become an intoxicating sensation, she decided.

“I’m ready if you are,” she said.

“In that case, I eagerly place myself in your capable hands.”

She laughed a little at his effusive manner. “So, tell me, have you found a place to stay yet? Are you all settled in?” They started down one of the walkways.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I’ve rented a charming little place on Raven’s Cove. You’ll have to come see it some time.”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “That would be…nice.” She hurried to change the subject. “The school is quite small, as I’m sure you’re aware. We’ll just walk around a bit if that’s all right with you. There aren’t many classes on Saturday, but you can still get a feel for the campus.”

They began at the far southwest corner, where the high stone wall was buttressed by a thick forest of hardwoods. Heavy branches drooped low over the wall, providing the more daring and athletic students easy access to the outside world after the hated curfew. From there it was only a short hike to a paved road that would lead them past the pistol range and eventually into downtown, or more likely, to the waterfront, where several bars and clubs operated till dawn.

After Brie had had to leave school during her sophomore year, Kat and Elizabeth had been the only two remaining at Heathrow of the original five friends. Kat, no stranger to adventure, had led Elizabeth on some harrowing escapades of their own via those tree branches.

“Consider this a valuable part of your education,” she would tell Elizabeth as they scrambled over the wall. “Something to tell your grandkids about.” Usually dressed in black, and sometimes in leather, Kat would always land on her feet on the other side of the wall, ready for just about anything that came their way. Elizabeth would land on her butt more often than not, but no less game for adventure. Kat brought out the devil in her, as one of their professors had told them once, but Elizabeth had long ago decided that was a good thing.

She wondered briefly what Kat would think of her daring foray into the funeral home last night and her brief encounter later with Cullen at her cottage. “You go, girl,” she could almost hear Kat encouraging her.

“That’s a tantalizing smile, I must say,” Lucian commented.

“Oh, I was just remembering my time here as a student,” Elizabeth said. “Heathrow College is the first place I ever felt truly at home.”

She hadn’t meant to reveal something so personal and was thankful Lucian didn’t pry. He merely stared down at her and said softly, “It’s a nice campus.”

“It is,” she agreed, in spite of the cloud that had descended since Bethany’s death.

Lucian’s eyes were very dark in the sunlight. Deep and mysterious. Elizabeth’s stomach fluttered in uneasiness. It was broad daylight, but the campus was still almost deserted. Hardly anyone was about, and here she stood with a man she knew nothing about.

And a student had been murdered recently. Her body had just been found last night. By Elizabeth.

Earlier, she’d been flattered by Lucian’s attention, but now she merely felt…unsettled. He was older than she, and very smooth. Experienced. She didn’t want him thinking the wrong thing about her. She didn’t want him thinking she was available.

But you are available, a little voice reminded her.

She was, but she didn’t want to be.

They’d crossed the campus by this time and were standing in front of the Natasha Pierce Building of Natural Sciences. Elizabeth glanced around, groping for a harmless topic. “This is our newest building, but, as you can see, the architecture blends quite seamlessly with the rest of the campus. It was designed that way, of course.”

Lucian read the dedication over one of the entrances. “Pierce, as in our hosts last evening?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. This building was constructed almost entirely through donations made by the Pierce Foundation, which was established years ago by a Pierce ancestor who was also a prominent scientist. The family has maintained close ties to the school since its founding. They named the building after their daughter who died five years ago in a boating accident.” Elizabeth started up the steps, shaking off her feelings of sadness at Tasha’s memory. “Would you like to look around inside? The Biology Department is first rate, and the new laboratories are state of the art.” Plus, what safer—and less romantic—environment than the sterile confines of a lab?

“I’ve never had much of an interest in science,” he admitted with a wry smile. “Dissecting frogs and pig embryos isn’t exactly my thing, but I wouldn’t mind having a look around.” As long as you’re with me, his eyes seemed to say.

You’re reading too much into this, Elizabeth warned herself as she led the way inside. Lucian was new in town, and she was the first person associated with the school that he’d met last night. He was probably just wanting to be friends.

And she hardly looked glamorous this morning. She was, as she’d always been, just plain Elizabeth Douglas. Smart, yes, and mildly attractive, but nothing to write home about. Not at all the type to inspire a man’s romantic fantasies.

Certainly not a man like Lucian LeCroix. Elizabeth could tell just by looking at him that he’d been with lots of women, and he knew exactly how to treat them. How to woo them. How to make them fall at his feet.

A real lady-killer, Brie would have said.

Trouble, Kat would have warned, while sizing him up from head to toe. And all areas in between.

“Elizabeth?”

She started. “Yes?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “I wonder where you go when you drift off like that.”

“No place interesting.” She shrugged. “Shall we?”

They took the elevator to the lower level where the laboratories were located. The basement was well-lit with several small labs radiating from the main hallway. At the end of the corridor was the largest facility, over ten-thousand square feet of space, implemented with millions of dollars of equipment including Olympus microscopes, Dell Optiplex microcomputers, a Cray C90 supercomputer and a Sorvall MicroUltra centrifuge. Thanks to the Pierces’ passion for science, no expense had been spared.

Through the frosted-glass door that opened from the hallway, Elizabeth could see that the lights were on, and she assumed someone was working, a graduate student monitoring an experiment perhaps.

She opened the door and glanced inside. Paul Fortier, wearing a white lab coat, stood with his back to her, busy with something on one of the worktables.

“Dr. Fortier?”

Obviously he hadn’t heard them come in because he spun, startled, and a test tube he held in one hand dropped to the pristine floor and smashed.

Red liquid splattered against the white tile.

Chapter Eight

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

After his initial stunned reaction, Fortier managed to get his emotions under control—except for a slight muscle twitch in the side of his jaw. “Dr. Douglas! Don’t you believe in knocking?”

“The door was unlocked,” Elizabeth explained. “And I’ve never had to knock before entering the lab.”

“Yes, well, it’s not a good idea to sneak up on someone.”

Not a good idea to hit on your students, either, Elizabeth thought. She’d heard via the rumor mill that some of them actually reciprocated his advances, but for the life of her, she couldn’t understand the attraction. At best, Fortier was an average-looking man, around forty or so, with dark hair frosted at the temples and a neatly clipped beard and mustache. His eyes were a grayish green and closely set. His only outstanding feature was a rather prominent nose, which gave him a hawkish look, as if he were constantly on the lookout for prey.

Elizabeth took a step toward him. “I’ll help you clean up—”

“No! No.” He looked vaguely alarmed by her offer and quickly turned back to the worktable. “Just leave it. I’ll attend to it myself.” He picked up a plastic holder which contained several more glass vials, all filled with a red substance, and then walked over to store them in a nearby refrigerator.

The sight of the test tubes reminded Elizabeth of the one she and Cullen had found in the cooler room at the mortuary last night. And thinking about it brought back the same question. Who had left it there? In spite of what Cullen had said, Elizabeth knew there was no good reason for anyone on the staff to have a test tube in the cooler room. Fluid extractions and injections would be handled in the embalming room.

But if not someone who worked there, then who had brought the test tube into the cooler room? The killer? That didn’t make much sense, either. If he’d wanted a sample of Bethany’s blood or other bodily fluids, why not get it at the time of her murder? Judging by the condition of her body, he’d kept her for several days.

Elizabeth’s gaze went to the broken test tube on the floor, then back to Fortier. She had no idea what kind of experiments he conducted in the lab. He’d always been very secretive about his work. Secretive about everything really.

The only thing Elizabeth knew about his private life—aside from the occasional dalliance with a student—was that he’d once been associated with a large lab in Boston specializing in gene therapy. Elizabeth’s parents knew him slightly, and they’d hinted once that he’d given up research for teaching because he hadn’t been able to cut it in the real world. Why else would one choose to teach? their disdainful tones had implied.

Fortier caught her staring at him and frowned. “Was there something you wanted, Dr. Douglas?”

“I’d like you to meet Professor Lucian LeCroix. He’s the new chairman of the English Department. This is Dr. Fortier, chairman of our Biology Department.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake hands.” Fortier held up his hands, encased in thick latex gloves.

When Lucian didn’t respond, Elizabeth glanced at him. He was staring at the red stain on the floor. He seemed almost mesmerized. “Is that blood?” he finally managed to ask.

“Animal blood,” Fortier assured him. “But the lab rat was unharmed, so no cause for alarm.”

Unharmed? Elizabeth glanced at the spill on the floor. No lab rat had given up that much blood and lived to tell the tale. She started to ask him the nature of his experiment, but thought better of it. Fortier was not only secretive about his work, but he could be resentful. Vindictive even. If he thought Elizabeth was prying into his business, he might get downright nasty.

“Elizabeth.” Lucian’s voice sounded urgent. He put a hand on her arm.

“Are you okay?” she asked quickly.

His hand crept from her arm to his throat, where he seemed on the verge of tearing open his collar. “Would you mind…if I waited for you outside? I think I need some air.”

“Of course, but—”

He turned and hurried from the room before she could finish her thought. Fortier gave a low chuckle. “The new professor seems a little squeamish at the sight of blood.”

“Luckily, he won’t need to come into contact with it in the English Department,” Elizabeth said dryly.

“Oh, I don’t know. Some of today’s literature is quite violent. Don’t you keep up with your reading, Dr. Douglas?”

She shrugged. “I’m not much into fiction.” Which wasn’t at all true. She had a passion for certain kinds of fiction. She thought briefly about the prized volumes she kept under lock and key in her bedroom. “Don’t you want some help with that?” She indicated the mess on the floor. “I feel somewhat responsible.”

“I’ll take care of it. Was there something else you needed?” He seemed anxious for her to leave.

Elizabeth hesitated. “You weren’t at the Pierces’ masquerade ball last night, were you?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Why do you ask? Did anything noteworthy happen?”

Her gaze again strayed to the stain. There’d been no blood at all on Bethany’s body. Nor on the floor beneath where she’d been hanged. No visible marks on the body…

It’s almost as if the killer went out of his way to…preserve her, she’d told Cullen. The thought of that was almost as horrifying as mutilation.

Elizabeth glanced up. “As matter of fact, something did happen. A young woman was found dead. The police suspect foul play. It was Bethany Peters.”

Fortier’s gaze seemed to freeze for a moment, then he turned quickly back to the counter, busying himself with a notepad and pen he kept handy. But Elizabeth didn’t think he was taking notes. He acted like a man who was buying himself some time. “Bethany Peters?” he finally asked in a voice that sounded determinedly calm. “My God, what happened? Did they find who did it?”

“No, not yet.”

“How did she die?”

With his back to her again, Elizabeth noticed several reddish brown smudges near the right elbow of his lab coat. The sleeve was ripped as well.

“The police don’t know yet,” she told him, her gaze on the rent. Had someone grabbed him and torn his coat? Someone with bloody fingers? “They’re waiting for the autopsy.”

Fortier turned then and his gaze met hers. Something about the way he looked at her—his eyes guarded, his expression absent of emotion—caused Elizabeth to shudder. One of his students had been found murdered last night, and he seemed at best mildly interested. “How do they know she was murdered?”

“She was hanged from a steel beam in the solarium at the Pierce estate.”

“Hanged? Then I would think cause of death would be obvious.”

“The police think she was dead before she was hanged. They believe she was killed elsewhere and brought to the Pierce mansion.”

One dark brow lifted. “Why would someone go to that much trouble?”

A strangely detached way of putting it, surely. “I don’t know.” Elizabeth hesitated again. “Bethany was a student of yours, wasn’t she?”

His gaze turned icy, narrowed. “I hope you’re not implying—”

“I’m not implying anything. I just wondered if she’d been absent from class the last few days.”

He shrugged. “Come to think of it, she did miss a couple of classes last week. I just assumed she had the flu. It’s going around campus. You had the bug yourself a few weeks ago as I recall.”

True enough. She’d been sick that day when she’d bumped into him after a faculty meeting and thought he’d made a pass at her. Elizabeth had been in a feverish haze that day, not to mention highly medicated, and it was possible she’d dreamed the whole encounter. But in light of what had happened to Bethany, the exchange, real or imagined, took on an even more macabre sentiment.

She glanced up to find him watching her with that same odd speculation he’d had that day after the faculty meeting.

“The police may be around to talk to you,” she said quickly, trying to dispel her sudden unease.

“The police?” He frowned. “Why would they want to talk to me?”

“They’ll want to interview anyone who may have seen Bethany in the last day or so before she died. They’ll want to know who her friends were, if she had a boyfriend, things like that.”

Fortier’s scowl deepened. “How would I know about any of that? She was just my student. A mediocre one at that.” He struggled with his latex gloves for a moment, then tossed them to the counter. “What’s your interest in all this anyway?”

“Bethany was a student here. Why wouldn’t I be interested?”

He studied her for a moment. “You sound more than just interested. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re trying to interrogate me, Dr. Douglas.”

“Not at all.” Elizabeth’s heart started to pound. She knew it was time to leave, but she hadn’t gotten all the answers she wanted. “I’m just asking you a few questions, preparing you for what the police are going to want to know.”

“How good of you.”

“So…you don’t know anything about Bethany’s social life?” she persisted.

“I don’t keep tabs on my students any more than you do, Dr. Douglas. Although…”

“Yes?”

His expression turned coy. “I seem to recall a rumor going about a few weeks ago that Bethany had been seduced into a cult.”

“A cult?” Elizabeth repeated in surprise. “What kind of cult?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s true. You know how students talk. You hear things that more or less go in one ear and out the other. I never put much credence in rumors.”

Elizabeth somehow doubted that was true. She had a feeling Fortier paid very close attention to the latest talk on campus because, more often than not, the juiciest morsels involved him.

She turned toward the door, then paused. “By the way, Dr. Fortier, you seem to have torn your lab coat.”

He grabbed his right elbow, although Elizabeth had made no mention of where the coat was ripped. “Ah, yes. I snagged it on a nail earlier. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Did you cut yourself as well? That looks like blood on the fabric.”

He looked faintly surprised. Then almost amused. “Blood? It may well be. You know how experiments can get a bit…messy at times.” He turned back to the counter, away from Elizabeth’s probing gaze. “Good day, Dr. Douglas.”

“Good day,” Elizabeth responded, glancing once again at the blood that had been spilled on the floor.

LUCIAN GAVE HER a sheepish smile when she came out of the building. “Sorry for running out on you like that. I, uh, just needed to get some fresh air.”

Why couldn’t he just admit the sight of blood made him ill?

Elizabeth thought back to the previous night, to Cullen’s discomfort in the solarium. He obviously suffered from claustrophobia, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. Why couldn’t men just own up to their weaknesses? Why try to hide them? Didn’t they know such peccadilloes often endeared them to women?

“Are you okay?”

His grin widened, displaying teeth that were dazzlingly white in the sunshine. “I’m fine. Never felt better. Shall we head back?” They started walking toward the library, keeping a brisk pace against the cold. “How well do you know Fortier?”

Elizabeth adjusted the stocking cap over her ears. It had been warm in the lab, but she was glad to be back outside, even in the freezing wind. Paul Fortier had that effect on her. “He’s been here for several years, but I can’t say I know him all that well. Why?”

Lucian’s expression turned pensive. “He struck me as an odd sort, that’s all.”

“He is a little on the strange side,” Elizabeth agreed. “I’m sure you’ll hear the stories about him soon enough.”

“What kind of stories?”

She hesitated. “I really shouldn’t spread rumors about my colleagues. I wouldn’t want them talking about me behind my back.”

“Yet you did bring it up,” Lucian pointed out. “You must think it’s something I need to know.”

“Heathrow is an all-girl school as you well know, and there aren’t that many eligible young men in Moriah’s Landing. Sometimes hormones…”

“Run amok?” he supplied.

Elizabeth blushed, thinking about her own rampaging hormones the night before with Cullen. “There’ve been rumors about Dr. Fortier and some of his students.”

“Are you saying he’s had affairs with students?”

“Maybe. There was an incident a few years back that almost got him fired. A student claimed he’d assaulted her. She later recanted, admitting that she’d wanted revenge for a failing grade. Dr. Fortier was completely exonerated, and the student transferred to another school. The talk died down after a while, but it never went away completely. I’ve always wondered…”

“You’ve always wondered if he really did assault that young woman and then somehow bought her off.”

Elizabeth drew a long, cold breath. “I really don’t think I should say any more about it.”

“I understand.” They walked along in silence for a moment, then Lucian said unexpectedly, “What kind of experiment do you think he was working on?”

“His field is molecular biology, and I know he has a lot of training in genetics. He used to work for the Massachusetts Institute for Human Gene Therapy.”

“Interesting,” Lucian mused. “What brought him to Moriah’s Landing, do you suppose?”

Elizabeth gave him a sidelong glance. “I don’t know, but I could ask you the same thing.” She paused. “Your resumé is quite impressive, I understand. You were tenured at a very prestigious university. You could have gone anywhere, Professor LeCroix. Why Heathrow?”

“It’s Lucian, remember? I thought we agreed.”

“Lucian, then.”

She waited for him to reply to her original question. He took a moment to consider it. “I needed to get away.”

She glanced at him in surprise. “From what?”

“Boston.” He lifted a shoulder. “Without going into a long, sordid explanation, let’s just say the offer from Dr. Barloft came at an opportune time.”

“I…see.” But, of course, she didn’t. His answer was vague at best.

As if sensing her curiosity, he shrugged again. “I was in a relationship. It ended badly.”

“Oh.”

He gave her an amused glance. “To put it bluntly, I was involved with a married woman. I gave her an ultimatum, and she decided to stay with her husband. A graceful exit was all that was left to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“So now you know why I came to Heathrow.” He stopped and when she gazed up at him, he said softly, “I can’t help wondering why you’ve stayed.”

“At Heathrow? I told you. It’s the first place I ever truly felt at home.”

His gaze on her deepened. “You had an unhappy childhood?”

She hesitated, not certain how much she wanted to reveal about herself to a stranger. “I had a lonely childhood.”

“You were an only child?”

“Until four years ago. Now I have an adorable little brother.”

He seemed intrigued by the notion. “Why did your parents wait so long to have another child?”

“I’ve wondered that myself,” Elizabeth admitted. “I think it was because—” They’d given up on me, she almost blurted. “They were both approaching middle age. Maybe they had some sort of crisis. Instead of buying sports cars or having affairs, they decided to have a baby.”

As he stared down at her, something flashed in his eyes. A look of regret. Was he thinking about the woman he’d left behind in Boston? Was he wondering if he’d done the right thing?

“I’m not sure how we got off on this topic,” Elizabeth murmured. She turned and resumed walking toward the library.

“Neither am I. You were telling me about Dr. Fortier. He used to work in genetics—” Lucian broke off, and Elizabeth glanced up at him. He was gazing straight ahead, his expression wary.

She turned then, following his gaze, and her heart almost leaped from her chest. Cullen was at the bottom of the library steps, pacing back and forth in the cold. He had on his long, black overcoat, not elegantly fitted as Lucian’s was, but loose and flowing, hem flapping in the wind. He didn’t wear a hat, but he wasn’t impervious to the weather. His complexion was ruddy with cold, and his hands were shoved deeply into his pockets.

When he spotted Elizabeth and Lucian, he stopped pacing and strode toward them. “Elizabeth.” He gave her a curt nod.

“Cullen.” What was he doing here? How had he known where to find her? Or was she being presumptuous? Maybe his being here was just coincidence, and he wasn’t even looking for her.

But his expectant expression told her that he was. Elizabeth remembered in Technicolor detail the way he’d looked at her last night, his obvious fascination with the low cut of her gown. Then he’d fled her house in great haste because…why? He’d realized suddenly that she was a woman? That he might be attracted to her?

That he wanted her?

A thrill of adrenaline shot through Elizabeth’s veins. It was a heady experience, the possibility of having a man—two men, she amended, glancing at Lucian—interested in her.

But at the moment, neither of them was paying her the slightest bit of attention. They were too busy sizing one another up. And by the look on Cullen’s face, he wasn’t all that impressed with Lucian. The latter was harder to read.

Elizabeth said quickly, “Cullen, I’d like you to meet Professor Lucian LeCroix. Lucian, this is Detective Ryan—”

“We’ve met,” Cullen said, not happily.

“Last night,” Lucian explained. “Detective Ryan spoke with most of the guests, I believe.”

For the first time in her life, Elizabeth felt completely at a loss for words. There was no reason in the world for the encounter to be so awkward, and yet it was. She even felt a little guilty, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why.

But Cullen was obviously displeased with her about something. He frowned down at her. “Do you have a minute?”

“I was just showing Lucian around campus—”

“It’s quite all right,” Lucian said graciously. He turned to Elizabeth and took her hand. “I’ve taken up enough of your time, but I enjoyed the morning immensely.”

“So did I. I hope you’ll be happy here at Heathrow.”

“Oh, I think the chances of that are quite excellent,” he said with a knowing smile. He brought her gloved hand up to his lips. “Till next time, Elizabeth.”

Once he’d walked away, Cullen turned with a smirk. “That’s laying it on thick. Who does that clown think he is anyway?”

“Shush! He’ll hear you,” Elizabeth snapped.

Cullen’s brows soared. “Since when does Lizzie Douglas worry about what anyone thinks?” He reached out and yanked on her stocking cap.

“Don’t call me that. I detest that name.” Elizabeth batted his hand away, annoyed that he seemed intent on returning their relationship to the teasing one they’d had in high school. Those days were long gone. She wasn’t a little kid anymore, and Cullen damn well knew it.

And that, Elizabeth thought, was the problem. At least for him.

She gave him a challenging glance. “So what are you doing here?”

He couldn’t quite meet her gaze. “I came looking for you.”

“And how did you know where to find me?”

He shrugged. “Someone mentioned you were meeting LeCroix here at the library this morning.”

“Who told you that?”

He glanced at her then, his expression slightly reproachful. “I never reveal my sources, Elizabeth.”

“You don’t have to. I know who it was.” No one but Becca Smith knew about her meeting with Lucian, but why would Becca tell Cullen? Why would the subject even come up…unless they’d been discussing Elizabeth in the first place?

Don’t read too much into that, either, she warned herself. The conversation had probably been in reference to Bethany’s murder. Hadn’t Lucian said that Cullen had talked to everyone at the ball?

Still, it gave Elizabeth a strange feeling to think of Cullen talking about her—in any regard—with her friends.

“Why were you looking for me?” she tried to ask nonchalantly.

“I came to ask for your help.”

Elizabeth gaped at him in astonishment. “My help? With what?”

“The case.”

“The case—” Surprise turned to suspicion. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as she studied him. This had to be a trick. The Cullen Ryan she knew would never have made such an about-face over the course of a few hours. Not unless something—or someone—had persuaded him to. “Was this your idea or Chief Redfern’s?”

“Redfern’s?” His brow furrowed. “Why would you think that?”

Elizabeth lifted her gloved hands and blew on them for warmth. “Because you made it clear last night you didn’t want my help. Why the change of heart?”

“Does it matter?” He stared out over the campus, his tone and demeanor impatient. “Why do you have to make this so damned difficult?”

“What?”

“Apologizing to you.”

Elizabeth’s mouth dropped again. “Is that what you’re doing?”

“Apparently not too well.” He hunched his shoulders against the cold as he turned to face her. His eyes glistened in the sunlight like twin glaciers, cool, hard, invincible. For the first time, Elizabeth noticed a tiny white scar that clipped his left eyebrow, and she wondered what had happened to him. Had he always had the scar? She didn’t think so. She would have remembered.

There was very little about Cullen Ryan that she’d forgotten. Except, perhaps, for the extraordinary hold he seemed to have on her.

Earlier, when she’d sensed Lucian’s attraction, the knowledge had made her feel empowered. But with Cullen…with Cullen she never knew quite what to say or how to act. She never knew what he expected of her.

“Maybe I should try this again,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “I was wrong, okay? About shutting you out of the investigation, I mean. Not about the contamination of the crime scene,” he was quick to add. “Or about tampering with evidence. I meant what I said about that stunt you pulled last night. You shouldn’t have gone to the funeral home without my permission. That little visit could still come back to haunt us. You should have known better.”

This was an apology? “All that groveling, Cullen. It really isn’t becoming.”

He cut her a wry glance. “Maybe I should just get to the point.”

“I think that’s probably best,” she agreed.

“The police department here in town has very limited resources. I’m the only detective in the Criminal Investigations Unit, and I was promoted mainly because none of the other cops wanted the extra paperwork. It had nothing to do with my ability, but just for the record, I’m a damn good detective.”

“I never doubted it.”

He shrugged off her endorsement. “But the equipment we have at our disposal, the computer system—” He shook his head in disgust. “You wouldn’t believe the antiquated stuff we have to put up with. Most of the officers on the force are good men, but their training, and frankly their experience, is limited. The state police lab in Sudbury is helping us out, and they’d probably be willing to send an investigator if we requested one. But I don’t think Chief Redfern would agree to that. He’s a stickler for jurisdiction. In other words—”

“I’m all you’ve got.”

He drew a long breath, gazing down at her. “That’s why I’m here. You have an advanced degree in criminology. That’s more than anyone in the department has, including me.” He paused. “In spite of the impression I may have given you last night, I’m not about to let a killer go free because I’m too proud to ask for help.”

Elizabeth had a feeling it had taken a lot for him to admit that. “What do you want me to do?”

“For starters,” he said grimly, “I think we’d better take another look at that body.”

“That’s what—” She’d been about to say that was what she’d wanted to do all along, but for once in her life, Elizabeth thought before she spoke. Swallowing her own pride, she muttered, “That sounds like a good idea to me.”

Chapter Nine

“It looks like an incision.” Elizabeth bent over the body, examining the tiny slit on Bethany’s throat, the only visible mark they’d found so far. The body was still at the funeral home, awaiting transport to the county hospital for the autopsy. She glanced up. “You found this last night?”

“Dr. Vogel spotted it,” Cullen told her.

“What did he make of it?”

“He said it looks like it may have been made to expose the carotid artery.”

Elizabeth’s heart jumped. She looked at Cullen, startled. Horrified. “You mean he bled her?”

“We won’t know that until the autopsy.”

Elizabeth returned her gaze to the body. “I can see what appears to be needle tracks on the inside of her left arm.”

Cullen nodded. “I saw those, too. Hear any rumors on campus about her being into drugs?”

Elizabeth shook her head. She wore latex gloves, as did Cullen, and she reached out now to gently position Bethany’s arm for a better look at the marks. “Even if these are needle tracks, as we suspect, I doubt they were self-inflicted.”

“I agree. They were carefully camouflaged, just like the incision, to avoid obvious detection. But why go to all that trouble, and then hang her?”

“The hanging is probably symbolic of something.”

“What?”

“Witches?” Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know. But I did hear today that she may have been involved with a cult.”

Cullen’s voice sharpened. “Who told you that?”

“Paul Fortier. Do you know him?” Elizabeth looked up, and when Cullen shook his head, she said, “He’s head of the Biology Department at Heathrow. Bethany was in one of his classes.”

Cullen lifted a brow. “And?”

“And he said he’d heard rumors that Bethany may have been seduced into a cult.” Elizabeth straightened, gazing at Cullen over the metal tray that held Bethany’s body. Cold air circulated into the room from the open cooler, and she shivered.

Cullen frowned. “You heard anything on campus about a cult?”

She shook her head. “Not a word.”

He thought for a moment. “What do you know about Fortier? I get the feeling you’re holding something back.”

Elizabeth hesitated, reluctant to convey her feelings to Cullen. They were just feelings, after all, and it didn’t seem right to plant seeds of doubt in his head because she didn’t like Fortier. Because she found him creepy. She thought again about the tear in his lab coat, the stains that might have been blood…. Experiments can get a bit messy at times. “It’s nothing concrete. He’s just a bit strange, that’s all. When I went by the lab today, he was working on an experiment. I startled him when I came in, and he dropped a test tube of blood. It made me think of the test tube we found in here last night.”

“You think Fortier was here last night?”

“No, not really. It’s just—”

“Go on.”

She glanced down at Bethany’s pale body. “I think it might be a good idea to talk to some of the girls who knew Bethany. Find out if she had a relationship with Fortier besides teacher/student.”

“So that’s it.” Cullen’s features hardened in disgust. “He’s the kind of guy who hits on his students.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” Elizabeth admitted.

Cullen’s gaze narrowed on her. “Has he hit on you?”

When Elizabeth hesitated again, Cullen muttered something under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just answer the question, Elizabeth. Has Fortier made a pass at you?”

“I wouldn’t call it a pass, exactly,” she evaded. “He said something to me the other day, and it’s been bothering me.”

“What did he say to you?” Something in Cullen’s tone made Elizabeth glance up in surprise. “Tell me.”

“It was when I was sick,” she said. “I bumped into him at a faculty meeting, and I knew I was still contagious. Plus, I looked just awful. You know how you get after a bout with the flu, like death warmed over. Anyway, I stepped back from him, and I think I said, ‘Stay away. I’m dying.’ I had a high fever, so I may have gotten things confused, but I remember him telling me that I’d never looked lovelier, which was ridiculous. Then he said something like, ‘What is it they say? There’s nothing quite so beautiful or poetic as a dead or dying woman.’ I was too sick to think much about it at first, but now I can’t seem to get it out of my head.” She shuddered.

“Sounds like Poe.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Cullen’s expression was slightly challenging. “I think he’s paraphrasing Edgar Allen Poe. ‘The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetic subject in the world.’” When Elizabeth continued to stare at him, he shrugged. “Don’t look so surprised. I do know how to read.”

“It’s not that—” Although she couldn’t deny he had taken her by surprise. Here was a side of Cullen she’d never seen before. Thoughtful, insightful. Intellectual. “I should have made the connection myself.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, as if he were amused by her self-recrimination. “I guess even geniuses slip up once in a while.”

“I slip up all the time,” she said softly.

Their gazes met and clung again, and for a moment, Elizabeth forgot where they were. Forgot that a beautiful dead girl literally lay between them.

And that a murderer still went free.

With an effort, she tore her gaze from Cullen and glanced down at Bethany. Even in death, she was still very lovely.

“Poe had a fixation with beautiful dead women,” she mused. “It was a constant theme in his writing. Think of some of his most famous poems. ‘The Raven.’ ‘To Helen.’ ‘Annabel Lee.’ You don’t think—” Elizabeth stopped, reluctant to voice the horror going through her head.

“No,” Cullen said grimly. “I don’t. Not yet at least. But without any other viable suspects, I’d say Fortier bears closer scrutiny, especially if it turns out he really was having a relationship with the deceased.”

“Poor Bethany,” Elizabeth murmured. Had she been the obsession of a madman, or had she simply been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time?

“There’s something about all this that’s bothering me,” Cullen said. “If the killer knows his victim, if his rage is something personal, he’ll go for the face. We don’t have that here.” He waved a gloved hand toward the body. “No sign of a sexual assault, either.” He shook his head. “It’s like you said. It looks as if he went out of his way to preserve her.”

“It’s time.”

They both whirled as a whispery voice spoke from behind them. Ned Krauter had entered the cooler room so quietly neither of them had heard him. He stood just inside the door, primly dressed in a somber black suit and starched shirt, the only adornment a single white carnation fastened to his lapel.

He was a small man, not much taller than Elizabeth, but wiry. His hands were clasped beneath his chin, as if in deep prayer or meditation, and Elizabeth couldn’t help noticing that his fingers were very long and tapered, almost feminine-looking.

She imagined those hands administering to the dead, carefully applying rouge and lip gloss to create a more lifelike appearance. And her thoughts reminded her of the close encounter with the undertaker the night before, how he’d come into the viewing room to speak to Mrs. Presco’s corpse.

Perhaps Paul Fortier wasn’t the only one who found poetry in death.

Slowly, Mr. Krauter walked across the room to join them at the cooler. He gazed down at the body, his pale countenance almost rapt. “So young,” he said tragically. “So beautiful.” He reached out a hand, as if to stroke her cheek, but instead he merely clung to the tray for a moment, caressing the cold metal with his thumb. “It’s time,” he repeated, his tone so hushed and deferential he appeared to be speaking to no one but Bethany.

“Time for what?” Cullen asked.

“What?” Krauter glanced up, his eyes unfocused for a moment. “Oh, the…autopsy. The ambulance from the county hospital is here.” He returned his gaze to the body, his expression softening. “But not to worry,” he whispered. “It will all be over soon.”

THAT NIGHT Cullen went by the Beachway Diner to have a bite to eat before heading back to the station to put in a few more hours on the case. He’d already been working nearly twenty-four hours straight, but he still had witness interviews he needed to go over, and he wanted to have another look at the evidence log, meager as it was.

As it had been the previous evening, the diner was almost deserted, but Cullen suspected news of the murder had kept would-be customers indoors tonight. He took a booth in the corner and noticed that the two patrons besides himself were the same as last night, as well. Shamus McManus and Marley Glasglow. They were seated at the bar, several stools apart, each appearing lost in his own thoughts.

Cullen was glad he’d chosen a booth. He didn’t feel much like conversation tonight, especially when he knew what the subject would be.

Brie was on duty again, and when she came to take his order, Cullen thought she looked tired. The sparkle in her green eyes—the first thing he usually noticed about her—was missing.

When she came back with his clam chowder a few minutes later, he said sympathetically, “Don’t they ever give you time off from this place?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been working some odd hours now that I’m back in school, and I have to accommodate my class schedule.”

“That doesn’t give you much time for a social life,” he commented.

“Nicole is my social life. Any spare time I have I spend with her.”

When he gave her a blank stare, she smiled and like magic, the sparkle popped back into her eyes. “My daughter. The most beautiful three-year-old you ever saw.”

“I can believe that,” Cullen said, paying her a subtle compliment.

She blushed with pleasure. “You’re a nice man, Cullen.” Then added playfully, “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Thanks.” It was strange to think of someone younger than he already having a kid. Cullen couldn’t imagine himself as a father, maybe because he didn’t want to. Maybe because he was afraid he’d see himself being the kind of parent his old man had been.

“You’ve been putting in some long hours yourself, haven’t you?” Brie asked sympathetically.

“Yeah.”

“That murder.” She shook her head. “What a terrible thing.”

“It’s bad,” he agreed.

“I heard Elizabeth Douglas found the body at the Pierce mansion.”

Cullen stared up at her curiously, watching the play of emotions across her features. “You and Elizabeth are friends, aren’t you?”

“We used to be. We kind of lost touch after I dropped out of school.” She smiled sadly. “We all get caught up in our own lives, I guess. You know how it is.”

He nodded. “So what are the local gossips making of the murder?”

Brie glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “They’re saying McFarland Leary rose from his grave last night and killed that poor girl. He hanged her just like they hanged him. They say he killed all those women twenty years ago, too, including Kat Ridgemont’s mother.”

“That may be what some are saying,” Cullen said grimly. “The other half is certain David Bryson is the killer. We’ve even heard rumblings of a vigilante group forming.” He could picture it now. A mob of outraged citizens traipsing up Old Mountain Road with torches and ropes, maybe a few crosses thrown in for good measure. A scene straight from a horror flick. Just what they needed.

Brie leaned slightly toward him. “I don’t think the killer is Leary or David Bryson.”

Cullen lifted a brow. “You have a theory?”

She angled her head ever so slightly toward the counter, where Marley Glasglow sat hunched over his coffee. “If I were you, I’d find out where he went after he left here last night.”

Actually, Cullen had already checked, and, as it turned out, Glasglow didn’t have an alibi. But there wasn’t any physical evidence or eyewitness accounts tying him to the murder, either. Not yet, at least.

Cullen thought about Elizabeth’s “flash of yellow” on the terrace outside the solarium, and he remembered that Glasglow had been wearing a yellow rain slicker last night. So had Shamus McManus for that matter, but for the life of him, Cullen couldn’t picture that old geezer a killer.

Although…Shamus had made some rather strange claims. What the hell had he been rambling on about? Something about Leary rising from his grave to look for his offspring and the offspring of their offspring?

Was it possible Shamus knew something, perhaps inadvertently, about the murder?

Now you’re grasping at straws, Cullen warned himself. That’s what exhaustion and lack of any real leads will do for you.

He doubted Shamus could be of much help, and as strongly as Cullen believed Glasglow capable of such a heinous crime, the man wasn’t going to be convicted because he owned a yellow rain slicker. If that were the case, three-quarters of the town would end up behind bars.

But even as that thought entered his head, Glasglow slowly swiveled on his stool until he was facing Cullen. And for just a moment, for that one split second when their gazes met, Cullen could have sworn he was staring into the eyes of a killer.

Chapter Ten

On Monday afternoon, Cullen found himself once again at Heathrow College, looking for Elizabeth. It was becoming a habit, and probably not a very smart one. She wasn’t at all the type of woman he needed to get involved with. For one thing, he still had a hard time thinking of her as a woman. At twenty, she wasn’t much more than a kid.

She’s only four years younger than you.

And she has a body that won’t quit.

Okay, granted she wasn’t that much younger than he was, and granted she’d done a lot of maturing since he’d left town six years ago. The way she’d looked in that sexy costume the other night had been evidence of that. The low-cut neckline had revealed plenty of her…maturity. Cullen’s testosterone levels had shot through the roof when he’d seen her. He hadn’t felt an attraction that intense in a long time.

But the problem was, he also still had images of the way she’d been in high school, a brainy, snooty little geek whose air of superiority had rubbed people the wrong way. To be fair, her attitude had probably been a defense against the way the older kids picked on her, but she’d still been as annoying as hell back then.

Even so, Cullen had always found himself coming to her rescue, which, come to think of it, really hadn’t been that much of a hardship, considering how he’d liked a good fight. But there’d been something about her even then that had touched a chord inside him, that had made him want to defend her. Made him want to be her hero.

Which was stupid. The two of them couldn’t have been more unalike. They came from two very different worlds. But even more of a chasm than their social status was Elizabeth’s intelligence. She was a Ph.D. at the age of twenty; he’d quit school his senior year and hitchhiked out of town. He’d later earned his diploma and had distinguished himself at the police academy. But the stigma of being a dropout still clung to him, especially in Moriah’s Landing.

All his life, Cullen had been ashamed of something—his mother running off the way she had, his father’s drinking, Cullen’s own weaknesses and temptations. He’d gotten into a lot of trouble as a kid because of those temptations. He’d hung out with thugs until he’d become one himself, and he still wore that stigma, too. He was a product of his parents, but that was no excuse. There was a time when he’d been no better than they.

Being a cop was the first thing in his life he’d ever had to be proud of. What if he lost that?

Are you afraid to let me see the body, Cullen?

Why would I be afraid?

Maybe you think I’ll find something you didn’t.

He drew a breath, remembering his conversation with Elizabeth. What if she had seen something on the body that he hadn’t? What if she could solve this case when he couldn’t? What if she were to take away the only thing in his life he’d ever been any good at?

And that, he knew, was one of the reasons for his initial reluctance about using her on this case.

But he wasn’t proud of the way he’d acted with her. He didn’t want to be like some of the cops he’d known in Boston—or like Chief Redfern, for that matter—who were willing to jeopardize investigations because of their petty squabbles and insufferable egos. A young woman was dead, and the killer was still out there somewhere. Cullen would do whatever it took to stop that maniac before he could kill again, and if his own pride got stepped on in the process, then so be it.

He located the classroom where Elizabeth was conducting a lecture, and he slipped in quietly so as not to create a stir. Only a few students seated at the back turned to stare at him, and they probably hadn’t been paying attention in the first place, he decided.

Elizabeth stood at the front of the classroom, her back to him as she scribbled something on the blackboard. She continued to talk as she wrote. “…relationship between mental illness and criminality, and the implications that psychiatric labeling of deviant behavior has on the criminal offender, both in and out of the courts—”

She turned then and saw him. Her expression froze. Her body went rigid for just a moment as their gazes clung, and something electric leaped between them.

Then she regained her composure and nodded briefly before continuing her lecture. She was in her element in the classroom. She seemed small, but perfectly capable. Utterly fearless, and Cullen wondered suddenly why he’d ever felt the need to come to her defense.

He tried to concentrate on what she was saying. Evidently the topic was abnormal behavior and criminality, but he found his mind and his gaze wandering. He couldn’t stop looking at her. He couldn’t stop thinking about the other night at her cottage when she’d bent to pour the tea, how her breasts—firm and small and incredibly tempting—had been exposed by the cut of her gown. Before that night, he’d never seen Elizabeth wear anything remotely revealing. He’d never considered her as anything but mildly attractive. Certainly not sexy. Certainly not ravishing.

But that costume had inspired all kinds of fantasies. If he’d gone to bed that night, Cullen was sure he would have dreamed about that dress. About slowly sliding it down her body, until more than just a tantalizing bit of cleavage was exposed….

The room was warm, and he realized suddenly that he was sweating beneath his coat.

When class was finally dismissed, the students pushed past him on their way to the hall. Some of them bumped up against him on purpose while their friends giggled and encouraged them. One slipped a note in his hand, and he glanced down to see a phone number and a smiley face sketched on pink paper. When he looked back up, a shapely blonde winked at him from the doorway.

Heathrow, with its all-girl student body, was a frat boy’s wildest dream come true. But even though the girls weren’t that much younger than Cullen, certainly not jailbait, he wasn’t the least bit interested in any of them. He told himself it was because he had too much on his mind, but when he glanced up and saw Elizabeth waiting for him at the front of the classroom, he realized with a sinking sensation why none of the young women appealed to him.

They weren’t Elizabeth.

You can’t let this happen, a little voice warned him as he approached her warily.

What did he have to offer a woman like her?

“Hello.” Her smile was tentative, shy. Very appealing.

Too bad she didn’t still wear braces, Cullen thought. Too bad she wasn’t still scrawny and annoying. Well, she could still be annoying. But she sure as hell wasn’t scrawny, he noted, his gaze traveling over her.

She was dressed in gray wool slacks and a matching sweater that were not at all suggestive, and yet Cullen couldn’t help noticing the way the fabric clung to her gentle curves. The way her hair, pulled back in a bun, highlighted her smooth complexion. The way her hazel eyes glinted with intelligence.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “I came by to see Fortier.”

Her brows lifted. “Did you talk to him? What did you find out? What did he tell you?”

Cullen held up a hand. “Whoa. Slow down. No need to get so excited.” He saw her blush a little and thought how unusual in this day and age to see a woman so easily embarrassed. How different she was from the women he’d dated in Boston. She wore no makeup, but there was a natural glow to her complexion. A natural sparkle in her eyes even under such sobering conditions.

“Fortier didn’t add anything that you hadn’t already told me,” he said. “He even sort of backtracked on the cult thing. Said he couldn’t swear it had been Bethany he’d heard some of the girls talking about.”

“Do you believe him?”

Cullen shrugged. “He’s hard to read. I’d swear he’s hiding something, but a lot of people get nervous and evasive when they talk to a cop.” He paused. “I actually stopped by for another reason. The preliminary autopsy report is in. I thought you might be interested in the results. We were right about that incision. Cause of death was exsanguination. The body was severely drained of blood.”

Elizabeth shuddered. “What about the needle marks on her arm?”

“The toxicology screen was clean, so it’s not likely she was shooting up. Nor was she injected involuntarily.” Cullen paused, not anxious to get into the more grisly aspects of the report. “According to the medical examiner, the incision was made on the superior border of the sternoclavicular notch, exposing the carotid artery. He thinks a large needle may have been inserted into the artery and was probably joined to a length of tubing connected to a pump. Evidently, it’s a procedure very common in embalming, where fluid is pumped in and the blood is flushed out. The whole procedure wouldn’t have taken long. While she remained alive, the victim’s heart would have helped speed the process.”

Cullen saw the horror dawn in Elizabeth’s eyes, and he wished suddenly that he hadn’t brought her this news. He needed her help, but it didn’t seem right dragging her into something this gruesome.

“My God, Cullen,” she said in a hushed tone. “Why would someone take that much blood from her? And what about the needle marks? Did he try to draw blood from her veins first? Did he try to keep her alive while he—” She broke off, her eyes closing briefly. “What are we dealing with here?”

“A killer,” he said. “A pretty damn sick one.”

But Elizabeth had already turned away from him and was pacing back and forth in front of the blackboard. She stopped suddenly and glanced up. “What about Ned Krauter? He would know about this procedure.”

“So would every other undertaker in the county. And every doctor, for that matter. Any hospital or laboratory, as well as funeral homes, would probably have the necessary equipment.”

Elizabeth nodded. “You’re right. They’d also have the facilities to dispose of the evidence. Still, it is a medical procedure. That could narrow the field.” She paused. “I keep thinking about those murders twenty years ago. Do you remember much about them?”

Cullen shrugged. “Not really. I was just a kid at the time.”

“I wasn’t even born when the first killing took place,” Elizabeth said. “It was Kat Ridgemont’s mother. At least, it was assumed she was the first victim. But cause of death was always a bit sketchy. The police refused to release certain details to the public for obvious reasons, one undoubtedly being they were afraid of a copycat killer.” She glanced up at Cullen. “Something tells me you need to get a look at those old case files. Do you think they’re still around?”

“In the archives, probably. Or in the cold-case file. Let’s go take a look.”

“Really?” She sounded surprised. “You want me to come with you?”

“It was your idea.”

“I know, but…” She hesitated, looking suddenly very young and unsure of herself. “I keep thinking you’ll change your mind. You won’t want my help.”

He gazed down at her, feeling emotions he had no business feeling. “I came here today, didn’t I?”

She swallowed. “Yes, I guess you did at that. Does Chief Redfern know you’re consulting with me on this case?”

Cullen’s expression hardened. “I don’t really give a damn what he knows. I’m not about to let what happened here twenty years ago happen again.”

“Even if it means you have to collaborate with me?” she asked him shyly.

“Even if it means I have to collaborate with the devil himself.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said in a completely serious voice.

ELIZABETH STUDIED Cullen’s profile as they drove toward the police station. She still couldn’t believe he’d changed his mind about using her in the investigation, but she understood his reasoning. He was willing to do whatever was necessary to solve this case, even consult with her.

But a secret part of Elizabeth still held out hope that it was more than just her expertise he sought. She wanted to believe that he trusted her. Respected her. That he might even be looking for a reason to spend more time with her.

Then again, maybe he wasn’t, she thought as she contemplated his grim expression. Maybe all that was on his mind was finding a killer, and that’s what she should be concentrating on, too.

He turned suddenly, catching her gaze, and her heart tilted inside her. There it was again, that flutter of awareness, that tingly thrill that coursed through her body every time Cullen looked her way. Every time he came near her. If this was a schoolgirl crush, she showed no signs of outgrowing it.

His gray eyes, brooding and sexy, watched her for a moment before he turned his gaze back to the road. “When did Fortier first come to Heathrow?”

“A few years ago.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Well, let’s see.” Elizabeth thought for a moment. “He came at the beginning of my first full-time semester, so it must have been five years ago.”

Cullen glanced at her. “Just before Claire Cavendish was abducted.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you happen to know if she was in any of his classes?”

“I’m pretty sure she was. I remember the girls talking about him. Kat, Brie, Tasha and Claire. They were all freshmen that year, and technically I was, too. It was my first year on campus, but I already had enough credits to take senior-level classes, so I didn’t have Fortier. I was only fifteen at the time, and pretty naive. I may have misconstrued some of the innuendo, but I think he may have hit on one of them.”

“Claire?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I could ask Brie and Kat if they remember.” Although she rarely spoke to her old friends these days. Not that they’d had a falling out or anything. They’d all just drifted apart. She’d heard Brie had started back at school, but Elizabeth never saw her.

“What about Professor LeCroix?”

Was it her imagination, or had Cullen’s tone changed slightly? She gave him a sidelong glance. “What about Lucian?”

The corners of his mouth tightened. “It’s Lucian, is it?”

“He is my colleague.”

“So is Fortier, but I don’t hear you call him by his first name.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I’ve never liked Dr. Fortier.”

“But you do like LeCroix?”

“I don’t know him well enough yet to make that determination, but he’s interesting. And charming.” And if Elizabeth didn’t know better, she’d swear Cullen was displaying subtle signs of jealousy, but that was probably hoping for too much.

He glanced at her, his gaze cool and appraising. “Has it occurred to you yet that you discovered Bethany’s body on the day Lucian LeCroix arrived in town?”

Elizabeth stared at him in surprise. “You’re not suggesting he had something to do with her death, are you? Bethany died days earlier before I found her.”

“We don’t know for sure when she died. The M.E. was unable to make that determination.”

“But…we have a pretty good idea, judging by the condition of the body. And besides, Lucian didn’t even know her.”

“That’s a fairly broad assumption, Elizabeth. You can’t know that, either.”

“But you said yourself, he arrived in town on the day her body was found. If she died days earlier—”

“What makes you think they didn’t know each other from somewhere else? Boston, maybe.”

“Was Bethany from Boston?”

“As a matter of fact, she was.”

Elizabeth folded her arms in an unconsciously defensive gesture. “But that doesn’t mean they knew each other.”

“It doesn’t mean they didn’t, either. Bethany was from a wealthy family, and so is LeCroix, from what I’ve been able to gather. Who’s to say they didn’t know each other? Who’s to say they weren’t involved?”

“I don’t think they were,” Elizabeth insisted.

Cullen gave her a frowning glance. “Why not?”

“Because he was involved with a married woman before he accepted the job at Heathrow. That’s why he came here. He left a tenured position at a prestigious university because this woman, whoever she is, decided to stay with her husband.”

“What a noble guy,” Cullen muttered. “LeCroix told you all this?”

“Most of it. Some of it I heard through the faculty grapevine. Evidently, Lucian’s mentor and Dr. Barloft, the president of Heathrow, are old childhood friends. That’s how Lucian knew about the position here.” She paused, her gaze on Cullen. “Why are you so suspicious of him? He hardly fits the profile of our killer.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he doesn’t have a medical background.”

“How do you know he wasn’t a premed student before he changed his major?”

She glanced at him sharply. “Do you know something about him I don’t?”

“No,” Cullen admitted. “There’s just something about that guy…” He scowled at the road.

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He lifted his hand from the steering wheel to massage the back of his neck. “He’s a little too smooth, if you ask me. A little too perfect.”

“He’s very handsome,” Elizabeth commented, eyeing Cullen carefully.

“If you like that type.”

“I imagine a lot of women do.”

Cullen said something under his breath as he whipped the car into a parking space in front of the police station, something Elizabeth was quite certain she wasn’t meant to hear.

He killed the engine and turned, his expression closed, his gaze shuttered. “Be careful with that guy, Elizabeth.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen his type before. He’s a real player. And a girl like you—”

She cut him off with an icy glare. “A girl like me, what?”

“You could get in over your head, that’s all.”

Anger washed over her, and she turned toward the door, reaching for the handle. “Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself these days. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m all grown-up now.”

“Oh, I noticed,” he said grimly. “I noticed all right.”

IT WAS LATE by the time they decided to call it a night. They’d searched through the archives for hours, but they hadn’t been able to locate any of the case files from the murders twenty years ago. The archives had been moved several years ago into a new building after the old facility had been damaged by fire. Elizabeth supposed it was possible the files had either been destroyed or lost, but it seemed odd no one had noticed they were missing until now.

She tried to remember everything she’d heard about the murders, but the only thing that stood out in her mind was the suspect. David Bryson. In the ensuing years, he’d become a wealthy man. Now he had enough money to protect himself from a police investigation, Elizabeth thought. To hide away in his fortress until the smoke cleared.

As they drove back toward Heathrow, Elizabeth laid her head against the seat and thought about the recent murder. About the lack of evidence and the lack of suspects. What they needed, she thought wearily, was a break in this case, and soon. Before the killer struck again.

The night was very dark, with heavy cloud coverage blocking the moon, and a pea-soup fog that had rolled in from the sea. Cullen drove cautiously, his frowning gaze on the road. He didn’t speak. He appeared so deep in thought that Elizabeth wondered if he’d forgotten her presence entirely.

She turned her head on the seat, studying his features in the dash lights. His jaw was firmly set, his mouth thin, his eyes slightly narrowed as he watched the road. There’d always been something about him that girls were riveted to, even when he’d been considered a bad boy. And in truth, that had probably been part of his appeal. But now, even wearing a badge, even on the right side of the law, he was still very attractive. Maybe not as smooth and polished as Lucian LeCroix, but the rough edges and a faintly sinister past only emphasized his masculinity and made Elizabeth all the more drawn to him.

She thought about what she knew of his childhood. His mother had left the family when Cullen was only five or six, and he’d been raised by a father who’d spent long months at sea. Elizabeth had no idea who’d taken care of Cullen during his father’s absences, but she had a feeling he’d pretty much been left to his own devices.

She supposed they had that in common, although she doubted Cullen would see it that way. She’d been brought up in the lap of luxury. She’d grown up in a beautiful home, raised by a nanny with impeccable credentials. No expense had been spared when it came to Elizabeth’s physical well being and to her education. And yet the thing she remembered most about her childhood was the loneliness. The hours spent by herself, waiting…just waiting….

Had Cullen experienced that, too? That aching feeling in the pit of his stomach, that terrible suspicion that no one cared much whether he lived or died?

He turned suddenly and caught her watching him. “What?”

“What, what?”

He smiled. “I think we’ve had this conversation before. Why are you staring at me like that?”

Because I like looking at you, she wanted to tell him, but instead she shrugged. “I was just thinking about the case. Do you think it’s possible Bethany’s murder could be tied to those old killings?”

His expression turned grim. “All I know for certain at this point is that we’re dealing with a real sicko.”

Elizabeth stared out the window, trying to imagine what the killer was thinking. Was he cowering in terror since he’d killed Bethany? Was he wondering in horror how he could have done such a thing? Why he’d done such a thing? Was he panicking, feeling the authorities closing in on him?

Or was he holed up somewhere, savoring his conquest? Reliving past glories? Was he thrilled at the prospect of the next one? Planning even now who his next victim would be?

Elizabeth shivered as she watched the fog melt past her window, and she suddenly thought about Claire, about that night in the cemetery that had changed all of them forever. Claire had been taken by a monster, and in the days and nights that followed her abduction, she’d been subjected to a horror that only she could know. That she, herself, hadn’t been able to live with.

She still breathed, still ate and slept, still dreamed perhaps, but her life had been stolen from her just as surely as Bethany Peters’s life had been taken from her. Just as surely as Leslie Ridgemont’s life and all the other victims’ lives had been cut short twenty years ago.

Elizabeth tried to peer through the fog outside her window, and for a moment, she could have sworn invisible eyes were staring back at her.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked softly. Her gaze was still on the window.

“No,” Cullen said flatly. “Do you?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, I think I do.”

“You surprise me, Elizabeth.”

She turned to face him. “Why?”

“Someone with your intelligence, and yet you’ve bought into all those old tales. They’re just stories. They’re not real.”

“Myths are often based on facts,” she reminded him.

He shot her an exasperated glance. “Do you honestly believe McFarland Leary rises from his grave every five years to terrorize Moriah’s Landing?”

“He was supposed to have risen the night we went to the cemetery,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle. “And Claire was abducted.”

“No ghost tortured that poor girl,” Cullen said harshly. “No ghost killed Bethany Peters. There’s a monster out there somewhere. I’ll grant you that. But he’s real. He’s a flesh-and-blood man who can be taken down when we catch him. And we will catch him.”

He glanced at her then, his expression stern in the dash lights. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth, to say what, she wasn’t quite sure, but as she turned to stare out the windshield, the fog parted and she saw something in the road. Something wispy and fragile. Something that stared into the headlights, undaunted.

“Cullen, watch out!” she screamed.

Chapter Eleven

“What the hell—” Cullen saw him at the same time she did, and he braked so suddenly, Elizabeth would have shot through the windshield if not for her safety belt.

As the car rocked to a stop, she squeezed her eyes closed, bracing herself for the awful thud of flesh against metal. When no sound was forthcoming, she thought the specter must have passed cleanly through the car. She slit her eyes, hardly daring to find out.

But then she saw him standing in the hazy glare of the headlights, his features indistinct but very real.

Cullen reached for the door handle. “Wait here.”

But Elizabeth had already opened her door, too, and she scrambled out. They hurried around to the front of the car where the man remained transfixed in the glow of the car’s fog lights. He was dressed for the cold, in a heavy gray overcoat, hat, gloves and muffler. He appeared large, but Elizabeth thought the bulk of his clothing might be contributing to his size.

“Hey,” Cullen said. “Are you okay? Did I hit you?”

“No, no. The car didn’t touch me.” His voice was cultured, but there was something oddly disturbing about it, a quality that sounded almost…otherworldly, for lack of a better term. Elizabeth found herself shivering in the misty cold.

“I was just out for a stroll,” he said in a conversational tone. “I must have gotten caught up in my thoughts, and I didn’t see the headlights. Sorry to frighten you.”

“Out for a stroll?” Cullen said. “Hardly a great night for walking, is it?”

“Oh, I don’t mind the cold. Or the fog. Gives one a marvelous sense of isolation. Besides, the fresh air helps me to think.”

“Maybe you should think about staying out of the middle of the road in fog this thick,” Cullen said dryly. “I’m Detective Ryan with the Moriah’s Landing Police Department. Mind showing me some identification?”

“Identification?” He patted his coat pocket. “I left my wallet at home, I’m afraid. I don’t live far from here. My name is Leland Manning.”

“Dr. Manning?” Elizabeth asked in surprise.

“Why, yes.” He turned to her then, and although she couldn’t see his expression clearly in the darkness, she had a feeling his eyes were deep and probing. That he was searching her own features and missing nothing. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Elizabeth Douglas. I believe you know my parents, Marion and Edward Douglas.”

He peered at her through the mist. “Ah. I see the resemblance now. An extraordinary woman, your mother. As brilliant as she is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth murmured, discomfited by the man’s piercing gaze.

“You say you live around here?” Cullen asked him.

Manning turned. “Yes. Not far from the college.”

“Maybe we should give you a lift. Probably not a good idea to be out here walking around by yourself.”

“Oh, I’ll be careful,” Manning assured him. “The night air helps to clear my head after I’ve been in the laboratory all day.”

“That may be,” Cullen said. “But if I were you, I’d take my walks before dark. At least for a while.”

Manning nodded. “I understand what you’re saying, Detective. You’re referring to that student who was recently murdered. You haven’t found her killer yet, have you?”

“We’re working on it,” Cullen assured him. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Manning shook his head. “She was a lovely girl. Such a pity.” He turned, his gaze meeting Elizabeth’s in the darkness. “All that potential, wasted.”

“THAT IS one seriously weird dude,” Cullen muttered as they drove away.

Elizabeth craned her neck to watch behind them until the fog had swallowed up Leland Manning. Then she turned back around, shivering. “He has a rather Hannibal Lector-ish quality about him, doesn’t he?”

“He does kind of look like that guy who plays Lector in the movies.” Cullen glanced at Elizabeth. “I take it you know him?”

“Only by reputation. His name is legendary in the scientific community. He was one of the pioneers of gene therapy research.”

Cullen watched the road, but Elizabeth saw him glance periodically in the rearview mirror, as if he expected Manning to materialize suddenly in the back seat. “Gene therapy?”

“Yes. It’s a way to correct certain diseases at their root. Essentially, there are two forms. One is called somatic gene therapy which involves the manipulation of gene expression in cells that will be corrective to the patient but not inherited by the next generation. The other form is called germline gene therapy, which involves the genetic modification of germ cells that will pass the change on to the next generation. You’re getting into some tricky territory there, ethically speaking.”

“Sounds like something from the sci-fi station if you ask me,” Cullen said. “So Manning is involved in all this monkeying around with genes?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, but there’s more. He has a rather bizarre theory about witches.”

“Witches? Why do I suddenly feel as if I’m in the Twilight Zone?” Cullen grumbled.

“Manning has a pet theory that witches did, and do, have special powers, but it has nothing to do with black magic. He thinks some people are born with a special gene which, in some cases, gives them supernatural abilities.”

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. “He actually believes in this hocus pocus?”

“So he says.” Absently Elizabeth tapped her chin with her fingertip. “It seems like there’s something about him I should remember.”

Cullen shot her a glance. “He’s not secretly a werewolf or something, is he?”

Elizabeth grinned. “Nothing quite that interesting. Some kind of scandal associated with him,” she mused. “It happened a few years ago. I’m not certain of the timeline, but it involved another scientist. Manning’s protégé, I believe. He had an odd name.” She thought for a moment. “Rathfastar. Dr. René Rathfastar.”

Cullen shot her a glance. “What the hell kind of name is that?”

“Shush. I’m trying to remember exactly what happened. As I recall, they were both working at the time on the Human Genome Project, but there were rumors they were both affiliated with some sort of secret society whose methodology wasn’t endorsed by the mainstream scientific community. To put it bluntly, members of the society didn’t necessarily concern themselves with the ethical and moral dilemmas that bedevil most legitimate research into human DNA.”

“What kind of secret society are we talking about here?” Cullen’s gaze looked skeptical. “You mean skull and crossbones type stuff?”

“More like a scientific Trilateral Commission,” Elizabeth told him. “I’ve heard rumors that the membership contains some pretty powerful scientists. But, of course, it is just a rumor. I’m not at all certain such an organization really exists. It could be just another legend. Supposedly, however, the society dates back to the 1600s, when a group of scientists banded together to perform secret experiments on witches.”

“And Manning is a member of this group?”

Elizabeth nodded. “According to local gossip. As was Dr. Rathfastar. And, come to think of it, so was Geoffrey Pierce.”

Cullen turned. “What’s Pierce got to do with all this?”

“I don’t know that he does these days, but he used to be a wannabe scientist who used his family money and influence to buy his way into some important research projects. However, he never published any important findings.”

“What about David Bryson? He’s some kind of scientist, too, isn’t he?”

“I never heard his name linked to the society, so I don’t know.” Elizabeth wondered if Cullen was thinking what she was thinking. All the men they’d just mentioned would have the know-how, as well as the equipment, to have performed such a grisly procedure on Bethany Peters. But where was the motive?

“I’ve gone up to Bryson’s place to try and talk to him a couple of times, but that butler of his is pretty protective,” Cullen said. “He wouldn’t let me in.”

“You think Bryson had something to do with Bethany’s murder?”

“He was a suspect twenty years ago. A lot of people in town still have strong feelings about him.” Cullen reached over and adjusted the controls on the heater. “But forget Bryson for the time being. Tell me what else you remember about Manning.”

Elizabeth frowned in concentration. “There was some controversy regarding his research. Dr. Rathfastar accused Manning of publishing stolen findings, and Manning, in turn, claimed Rathfastar was a dangerous fanatic who used human test subjects in his research.”

“Wow. A regular Dr. Frankenstein,” Cullen commented dryly.

But Elizabeth barely heard him. She was remembering something else about Manning. An image came to her suddenly—her mother and father late one night sitting at the kitchen table. Elizabeth had come down for a drink of water and was surprised to find them there, in such a cozy, domestic setting. She’d wanted very much to join them, to tell them about her day or to simply sit quietly and listen while they talked.

But their low, angry tones kept her at bay, and she’d listened unabashedly at the door.

I’ve never made any secret of my feelings, Edward. You know I’ve always believed Leland Manning to be a fraud. A dangerous one at that.

For God’s sake, Marion, you can’t really mean that. The man is a genius. His research into the human genome is nothing short of phenomenal.

Research that he stole from his own colleagues. Her mother’s tone grew acid.

Her father was silent for a moment, then he said angrily, “So that’s it. You’re taking his side.”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side, but I’m entitled to my own opinion. I happen to believe René.”

“So it’s René now, is it?” There was something in her father’s voice that frightened Elizabeth.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Edward, don’t be ridiculous. The man is a colleague. What would you have me call him?”

“I don’t give a damn what you call him. Just never mention his name in my presence again.”

The memory spun away, and Elizabeth felt gooseflesh prickle on the back of her neck, as if she’d inadvertently remembered something forbidden.

“Elizabeth?”

Cullen’s voice roused her from the past. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking. What did you say?”

“What happened to this Rathfastar character?”

She shrugged. “He just disappeared. For a while, I think there were whispers among their colleagues that Manning might have done him in, but then someone saw Rathfastar in Europe. In Brussels, I believe. Then later it was learned that he’d been in a terrible car accident and wasn’t expected to live.”

“Did he?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know. After the rumors died down, I never heard his name mentioned again.” Certainly not at home.

“I still say all this sounds like something from a bad sci-fi movie.”

“Well, it’s not,” she assured him. “Gene therapy and genetic engineering are here. So is cloning. The human race is going to have to find a way to deal with the moral and ethical dilemmas that will inevitably follow.”

Cullen shot her a glance. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon stick with the murder.”

THE GUARD at the gate hurried over to the car and peered in the window. Cullen rolled down the glass, and the man shone his light inside the car.

“Dr. Douglas? That you?”

“Good evening, George.”

The guard flicked off the flashlight and glanced from Elizabeth to Cullen, frowning. “Out kind of late in this weather, aren’t you?”

“I’m in good company, George. You remember Detective Ryan.”

“Sure do.” George’s gaze was disapproving. “Are you here on official business?”

“Just dropping Dr. Douglas off at her place.” An edge of impatience crept into Cullen’s voice. “How about opening those gates for us?”

George wasn’t one for being told how to do his job. He hesitated, and for a moment, Elizabeth thought he might actually refuse. He was only thirty-five or so, but a rounding middle and a balding pate gave him an older appearance. He’d been around for as long as Elizabeth could remember, and he took his job very seriously.

“You take care, Dr. Douglas,” he finally said. He went back to the guardhouse and pressed the control so that the heavy, iron gates slid open.

Cullen stepped on the gas and the car shot through the opening before the gates had fully extended. “That guy’s kind of protective of you, isn’t he?”

“George? He’s always been that way.”

“How long has he worked here?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Forever, it seems.”

“Know anything about his background?”

“Not really, but I’m sure he has an employee file in the administration office. But for heaven’s sakes, Cullen, you can’t really suspect George. He’s harmless.”

“Is he?”

Was he? How much did Elizabeth really know about George Wiley? How much did she know about anyone at Heathrow? Or anyone in town for that matter?

But George? He’d always been so nice to her. Always looked out for her.

Elizabeth remembered once when he’d caught her and Kat climbing the tree branches on the southwest side of the campus to scale the wall after curfew. He’d read them the riot act, but he hadn’t written them up, for which Elizabeth had been grateful. But Kat had scoffed at the gesture. “He’s just trying to impress you. I think he has a little crush on you,” she’d teased. After that night, Kat had dubbed him the Gate Nazi. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planted a few hidden cameras in the dorms.”

“Kat! George wouldn’t do that. He’s a nice man.”

“Oh, grow up, Elizabeth. You’re so naive. Everybody knows the man’s a perv.”

Elizabeth hated to think that her perception of someone could be that far off base.

Cullen pulled into a parking space and killed the engine. When he came around to open her door, he even went so far as to put out a hand to her. Elizabeth took it, feeling the warmth of his flesh against hers. Feeling all tingly with anticipation.

She’d hadn’t left a light on in the house, but there was a security light at the edge of her tiny yard and another one in the tiny green directly across from her house. She could see Cullen’s features only faintly as he walked her to her door.

Elizabeth leaned against the frame, suddenly shy. “It’s a cold night. Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?”

He hesitated. “I’d better be going.”

He leaned down suddenly, and for one breathless moment, Elizabeth thought he was going to kiss her. Everything stilled inside her as she waited. As she wanted.

But instead, he lifted a hand to gently brush against her cheek. “You’ve still got a bruise. I noticed it the other day.”

“I got it at the funeral home.” Elizabeth unconsciously lifted her hand to the spot, and their fingers brushed, entangled. She closed her eyes briefly at the contact.

He leaned in, planting his other hand on the doorframe above her head. “I shouldn’t do this.”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Do what?”

“Kiss you.”

“Oh.” She swallowed again and barely had time to draw a breath before Cullen’s lips brushed against hers. Softly. Curiously. Cautiously.

He lifted his head. “Are you going to slap my face?”

Hardly.

She shook her head.

For the longest moment, their gazes held. Then he kissed her again, and this time there was nothing curious or cautious about the action. His mouth pressed against hers, moving slowly back and forth until Elizabeth’s lips parted eagerly, and she heard herself sigh.

She’d dreamed about this moment so often she hardly dared to believe it was real. But it was. It was! Cullen Ryan was kissing her so passionately she couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t breathe properly. And it was everything she’d thought it would be and more.

All these years, when Elizabeth had held herself aloof from passion, she’d pretended that she wasn’t saving herself for the right man so much as the right moment. The time for love simply hadn’t presented itself. But now, with Cullen’s lips on hers, with his fingers threading through her hair, shaking loose the prim bun at her nape, Elizabeth knew she’d been deluding herself.

She hadn’t been saving herself for the right moment. She’d been saving herself for Cullen. Only Cullen.

He pulled away, his eyes dark and mysterious in the filtered light. “You shouldn’t be doing this with a guy like me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Cullen—”

“There’s a lot about my past I’m not proud of, Elizabeth.”

“Regret isn’t unique to you,” she murmured.

He lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “What have you got to regret?” When she didn’t answer, his expression sobered. “I’m not looking for a serious involvement right now. With anyone.”

Her heart sank a bit. “Who says I am?”

He studied her for a moment. “Then what do you want from me, Elizabeth?”

“I…just want you to kiss me again.”

He looked surprised. Then he laughed a little. “I can do that.”

And he did. He kissed her over and over, until everything faded from Elizabeth’s mind except the heat of his mouth on hers. Until her knees grew weak and she felt all quivery inside. Until her desire for Cullen almost overwhelmed her.

She’d never experienced this before. Never been kissed this way. Never wanted to go that final step as badly as she wanted to now.

Cullen drew away, looking a bit dazed himself. “Wow. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

He laughed again. “Damn right. I wasn’t expecting this from you, Elizabeth.”

“What? That I know how to kiss?”

“That you’d want to, I guess.”

“I’m not a prude.”

“I’m beginning to get that message.” He trailed a finger along her jawline, and Elizabeth shivered. “It’s cold out. I should let you go in.”

She wasn’t the least bit cold. “You could come in, too,” she suggested shyly.

“No,” Cullen said firmly. “I can’t. Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s not rush this, okay? One step at a time.” He kissed her again, and then he was gone.

Chapter Twelve

Everything changed after that night.

Before Cullen had kissed her, Elizabeth had thought they were cultivating an important relationship. He’d taken a big step in coming to ask for her help, and she’d believed it to be an encouraging sign that after all this time, he was finally realizing she’d grown up. He was finally seeing her in a new light.

But after that night, his whole attitude toward her changed. To put it simply, he started avoiding her.

Part of it, she decided, was his very real belief that he wasn’t the right man for her. But she also suspected he was scared of caring for someone because of the way he’d been brought up.

Elizabeth knew what it was like to feel abandoned. To be so hurt and lonely you felt as though you didn’t have a soul in the world who cared about you. Eventually, you grew defensive. You erected a wall around your heart. You tried in every way you knew how to make yourself invincible to hurt and disappointment.

She knew all about that.

But she was willing to take the risk. She was tired of being lonely. She wanted someone to love and to love her in return. She wanted a home and family. She wanted Cullen.

It didn’t matter to her that they were young and that statistics worked against them. What mattered to her was that they would have each other.

But, Cullen, of course, didn’t see it that way. He saw their burgeoning feelings as some kind of trap.

Oh, he’d called her the next day as he’d promised, but even then, the conversation had been strictly business, with no reference whatsoever to what had happened between them the night before. And his tone had been stilted and reluctant. Elizabeth had known at once that he was pulling away. As the weeks went by, it became even more obvious.

But in spite of his aloofness, Elizabeth remained active on the case. She’d received a copy of the autopsy report, and she’d pored over the pages time and again, searching for something that she and Cullen might have missed. She studied the crime-scene photos and the witness interviews, and during the week of spring break, when the campus was all but deserted and she had some free time on her hands, she made a chart, listing all the suspects, their possible motives and their whereabouts, if known, on the night she’d discovered Bethany’s body.

She went over that list now in her mind. First was Geoffrey Pierce, not because she believed him to be the chief suspect, but because his actions that night had inspired a certain unease. He hadn’t seemed the least bit shocked or disturbed to see the body of a young woman hanging in his brother’s solarium. And he had a scientific background, which spoke, not only to the test tube she and Cullen had found in the cooler room at the mortuary, but to the procedure that had been performed on Bethany.

Next came Lucian LeCroix because, whether Elizabeth wanted to believe it or not, Cullen was right. No one in Moriah’s Landing really knew much about him. Elizabeth suspected that Cullen, given his initial dislike of the man, had made a few calls to some of his old buddies in the Boston Police Department, trying to dig up whatever he could on Lucian, but if he’d heard anything suspicious, he hadn’t seen fit to share.

She put Ned Krauter, the undertaker, on the list for obvious reasons. And because he was creepy. He talked to dead people. Not a motive that would hold up in court, to be sure, but Elizabeth wasn’t willing to leave any stone unturned.

Beside Paul Fortier’s name, she drew a tiny star, signifying a very strong suspect. He’d known Bethany, and though they’d found no evidence so far indicating a personal relationship between the two, Elizabeth didn’t discount the possibility. Plus, Fortier had acted as if he had something to hide that day in the lab, not to mention the blood he’d been working with, and the tear in his lab coat, which seemed suspicious. Without any physical evidence or eyewitness testimony linking him to the murder—in other words, without probable cause—neither the blood nor his records could be confiscated so they remained in the dark as to the nature of his experiments. But even if the blood had been Bethany’s, he would have long since disposed of it.

As an afterthought, Elizabeth included Leland Manning’s name on the list. Manning was a long shot, but like Ned Krauter, there was something about him that unnerved her. And again, his scientific background came into play, not to mention his bizarre theory about witches. Had someone drained Bethany’s body of blood for experimental purposes? For some dark sacrifice? Or simply for sick pleasure?

“Checkmate!”

The delighted voice jolted Elizabeth out of her reverie. She glanced down to see that her four-year-old brother, Brandon, had thoroughly trounced her at chess.

She frowned. “That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s not. I won!” he cried gleefully. “I won! I won! I won!”

“All right,” she admonished. “It’s not nice to gloat.”

“Sorry,” he said, chastised, but his eyes gleamed with pleasure, and Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling. He was adorable, with his glossy black hair and light blue eyes, so striking against his dark coloring. Not only was his IQ several points higher than hers had been at his age, but he’d gotten all the looks in the family as well.

“Can we play again? I bet you’ll win this time.” All the charm as well.

Elizabeth reached over and mussed his hair. “Afraid not. It’s way past your bedtime. If you’re not under the covers in two minutes, Annie will come up here and have both our hides,” she said, referring to Brandon’s nanny.

He heaved a sigh. “Okay. But will you read me a story?”

“Why, you little con artist,” Elizabeth accused him, tucking him in. “I gave you a choice between a story and chess, and you chose chess. And besides, you’re perfectly capable of reading a story on your own.”

“I know.” Those beautiful eyes, framed with long, sooty lashes, stared up at her solemnly. “But I love the way you read, ’Lizbeth. It makes me have the nicest dreams.”

How could she resist that? “Well, okay.” She walked over to the bookcase to select a title. “But just for a few minutes. And then it’s lights out. No arguments.”

He signed a cross on his chest. “I promise.”

Elizabeth made a production of searching through his books. “What’ll it be tonight?” As if she had to ask.

“Indiana Jones!” he shrieked.

She cut him a glance. “Don’t you ever get tired of hearing about all those dark, creepy places crawling with spiders and snakes and goodness knows what.” She faked a shudder.

He laughed, a little-boy sound that belied his often-serious disposition. “I like dark, creepy places. I’m going to be an archeologist when I grow up.”

Don’t let Mother and Father hear you say that. Elizabeth smiled encouragingly. “You can be anything you want when you grow up. You just have to follow your own dreams. Not someone else’s. Okay?”

He nodded, anxious for her to begin the story. On impulse, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He rubbed the spot with his fingertips. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because I wanted to. And in case you fall asleep before we finish the story.”

“Good idea. But don’t worry. I won’t fall asleep,” he assured her.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile. She was barely into the second page when he began to nod off. She tucked him in, kissed him again, and then turned off his light before tiptoeing from his room.

Downstairs, she noticed a light underneath her mother’s office door, and wondered if both her parents had come in while she’d been upstairs with Brandon. If so, they hadn’t seen fit to come up and say good-night to their young son, but that was no surprise. Bedtime stories and good-night hugs were part of the nanny’s duties.

Elizabeth wondered, as she’d wondered a thousand times before, why her parents had had children only to delegate their care to strangers. But she knew the answer only too well. Marion and Edward Douglas were both brilliant; their offspring would do amazing things for humankind. But Elizabeth hadn’t exactly been willing to mold herself to their expectations. She suspected that was why they’d decided to have Brandon so late in life.

Hesitating, she walked over and knocked on her mother’s door.

Silence, and then an impatient, “Yes?”

“Mother, it’s Elizabeth. May I come in for a minute?”

“Elizabeth? Is something wrong?”

Elizabeth opened the door and stepped into her mother’s office. Even at her age, she felt a bit intimidated. This room had been a forbidden place to her as a child, as had her father’s study, which was located in the back of the house. She could probably count on both hands the number of times she’d been allowed inside this office, and now, as she gazed around, she realized she hadn’t missed a thing. The word sterile came to mind. Nothing on the walls, on the desk, or in the bookcases to give away even one little hint of her mother’s personality. It was all about her work.

Marion Douglas was seated behind her desk, and in the glow of her computer screen, she looked hardly more than twenty herself, certainly not old enough to have a grown daughter. In her mid-forties, she was still a beautiful woman, with hair a little darker than Elizabeth’s and eyes more green than hazel. But there was still a strong resemblance between them, and it struck Elizabeth again how odd it was that they could look so much alike and be so different.

Brandon, on the other hand, didn’t resemble Marion or Edward. He had his own unique looks, his own special personality, and Elizabeth thought it was a pity that her parents didn’t seem to appreciate just how wonderful their son truly was. He was not only a genius, but a sweet, good-natured child. A blessing.

“Elizabeth?” Her mother sounded annoyed. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Did she need a reason? Elizabeth tamped down the old hurt. “I came to have dinner with Brandon.”

“Oh.” Her mother shrugged. “Well, I assume Doris took good care of you.”

Yes, Elizabeth thought. The housekeeper had done her job well. The meal had been perfectly cooked, perfectly served at the perfectly appointed table in the perfectly decorated dining room. She and Brandon had sat alone at the large table while the dour-faced Doris served them. Elizabeth had enjoyed the meal in spite of their austere surroundings simply because she loved spending time with her brother.

But she couldn’t help thinking what it was like for him when she wasn’t there. When he sat alone at that table. Just as she had once sat alone.

She took a seat across from her mother’s desk, refusing for once in her life to be intimidated by Marion’s brusque manner. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“I’m busy—”

“This won’t take long.”

At her insistent tone, her mother looked up from the computer screen with a frown. “What is it?”

“How well do you know Leland Manning?”

“Manning?” Her mother stared at her for a moment. “Why on earth do you want to know about Leland Manning?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Because I ran into him the other night, and the incident reminded me of something I overheard you and Father talking about once. Some sort of scandal associated with Manning.”

“I’m sure I don’t know anything about a scandal.” Her mother turned back to her work, but in the glow of the monitor, Elizabeth saw that her features had tightened. That her mouth had thinned with displeasure.

“Yes, you do,” Elizabeth persisted. “It involved that secret society of scientists to which both Manning and his protégé supposedly belonged. Is it coming back to you now?”

Her mother hesitated, busying herself at the keyboard. Then she turned off the screen, and her face suddenly looked its age in the harsh glare of the desk lamp. “I don’t know anything about a secret society. It sounds like something you must have dreamed up, Elizabeth.” But her tone sounded strained, as if Elizabeth had struck a nerve.

“Do you remember what happened between Manning and the other scientist? His name was René Rathfastar, I think.”

It was as if a switch had been flipped, not just on the computer screen, but on Marion Douglas’s face. Her features seemed almost frozen. “Why all these questions?”

“I told you. I ran into Manning the other night, and now I’m curious about him. And about Rathfastar. They had some kind of falling out, right? Rathfastar moved to Europe, to Brussels, wasn’t it?”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

Her mother’s expression was fascinating to watch. Elizabeth had never seen so many conflicting emotions flit across Marion’s face. “He was in a terrible car accident. Do you know if he survived?”

“How would I know that?”

“Mother, you and Father and Manning—and Rathfastar, if he’s still alive—all work in the same field. You must remember what happened between them. You must have heard whether Rathfastar survived that car crash. Why are you being so evasive?”

Marion’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “The only thing I can tell you is that Leland Manning is a very cunning man. He is not at all what he pretends to be. A word to the wise, Elizabeth. Stay as far away from that megalomaniac as you possibly can.” She turned her monitor back on then, and instantly grew absorbed in something on the screen. Her face became a blank slate, the emotions once again tucked away into a compartment where they couldn’t interfere with her work. Elizabeth knew further questions would be useless.

Outside the office, she paused, unsettled by the conversation and by her mother’s prevarication. Why had she been so unwilling to talk about Manning and Rathfastar? And about the secret society, for that matter? Unless, of course, she and Elizabeth’s father were both members?

But Elizabeth found that hard to believe. Their work was their lives. She couldn’t imagine either of them being affiliated with any organization which might jeopardize their reputations and their research.

Then why had her mother been so evasive?

And in another flash of memory, something came to Elizabeth that had been niggling at her for days, ever since she’d seen Leland Manning.

Five years ago, just after Elizabeth had moved on campus at Heathrow, her mother had left rather suddenly for a conference in Brussels.

“YOU ALL BY yourself tonight, Dr. Douglas?” George shone his flashlight beam inside her car, as if expecting to see someone pop up from the back seat.

“Just me tonight, George.”

He flicked off the light. “Well, you take care, you hear? This place is like a graveyard tonight. Everyone gone but you and me. You need anything, you give me a shout.”

“I will. Thanks, George.”

As the gates clamored open, Elizabeth pulled through, shivering a bit at George’s comparison to a graveyard. There was something a bit spooky about a school campus during spring break, she decided. The place was so quiet she could almost hear ghost laughter.

Parking in her regular spot, Elizabeth got out and hurried up the walkway to her house. The weather had been nice for the last few days, heating up to a balmy fifty degrees during the day. But with the warmer weather, a low-lying fog had rolled in from the sea, undulating like some giant sea creature beneath the security lights.

Entering her house, Elizabeth closed and bolted the front door, and then paused, listening to the deep quiet of the deserted campus. Nothing spooky about it, she decided. If anything, it was calm and peaceful. Just the sort of night for a hot shower and an early bedtime. And maybe a little reading once she was snuggled safely underneath the covers.

She stood under the hot water for several long moments, hoping the sting of the spray would help alleviate a mild depression that had settled over her since her visit with her mother. Actually, the depression had started weeks ago, when Cullen had started avoiding her.

Walking into her closet, she grabbed one of her cotton nightgowns from a hanger, but then seeing the filmy negligee set her friend and fellow teacher, Rada Kilmeade, had given her for Christmas, Elizabeth chose it instead. She’d been saving the set for a special occasion, but at the rate she was going, she would die a weathered old virgin who would have no need of sexy lingerie. Might as well enjoy it while she could.

She slipped the silky white fabric over her head, and then selected a book from the collection she kept under lock and key in her bedroom. She was just about to crawl into bed when a noise brought her up short.

Standing perfectly still, she listened to the silence. When she heard nothing else, Elizabeth told herself she was imagining things. But with a killer roaming free and the campus all but abandoned, she couldn’t ignore even an invented sound.

Pulling on the matching robe, she walked into the living room, pausing once again at the door to listen. She was just about to give up and head off to bed when the sound came again. Something faint. Something out of place.

Whistling, she thought. Someone was outside her cottage whistling.

George, no doubt, making his nightly rounds.

Elizabeth expelled a long breath of relief, and even considered opening the door to call out to the guard when she thought better of it. Instead, she crossed to the window and pulled back the drapes to stare out.

She saw nothing at first. Ground mist glowed with a strange yellowish tint beneath the security lights and obscured much of the scenery. But across from her house, something moved on the tiny green. A shadow…

Elizabeth peered through the darkness. Not a shadow, she thought. Something was hanging from a tree branch, swaying in a slight breeze. A body—

Her heart slammed against her chest as her hand flew to her mouth.

Her first instinct was to rush out and see if she could help, but then she remembered the whistle, realized the killer could still be near. He might have made the noise deliberately to draw her outside.

The phone!

She whirled, lunging toward her desk, but before she was halfway across the room, she heard another sound.

This time not a whistle.

This time closer.

This time in her house.

She wasn’t alone, she realized with a dreadful certainty that threatened her knees. That made a scream rise up in her throat. Her instincts took over then, and she spun, rushing toward the front door, throwing it open and plunging into the night.

She ran heedlessly. Blindly. Not knowing at first where she was going, just away from her house. Away from the killer.

When she saw her car materialize in the parking lot in front of her, she realized there had been a method to her madness. But her keys were in her purse, and her purse was on her desk, next to the phone….

The sound of footsteps on the cobblestone walkway brought her sharply around. The mist swirled and writhed. Someone was coming. The killer—

Her pulse thundering in her ears, Elizabeth turned again and headed for the gates. George would be in the guardhouse, and he had a telephone. He also had a weapon. They could lock themselves in until the police arrived.

She was gasping for breath by this time. The terror had winded her, but Elizabeth knew she had to keep going. The bedroom slippers impeded her speed, but she didn’t dare take the time to kick them off. She ran. She ran until she thought her lungs would burst and her legs would collapse beneath her. When she saw the guardhouse ahead of her, she let out a sob of relief.

She couldn’t see George, but he had to be inside. He had to be! She pounded on the glass. “Please!” she cried frantically. “Open up!”

But it was no use. It was after eleven, and George would be out making his rounds. The telephone was locked tightly inside the guardhouse, as was the control to activate the gates. Without access to the guardhouse or to the remote control she kept in her car, Elizabeth was trapped inside the campus. The gates were at least twelve feet high, the stone wall eight. No way she could scale it—

The southwest corner! Where tree branches dipped low over the wall. Where Kat had taught her how to sneak in and out after curfew.

Elizabeth ran through the darkness, wondering frantically if there was anyone at all left on campus except her and the killer. Would it do any good to scream? Even if someone was around, they might not hear her. Or they might not find her in time. All she might end up doing was alerting the killer to her whereabouts.

The tree branches were higher than she remembered, and Elizabeth’s heart sank in despair. She didn’t know if she could reach them. Before, she’d had Kat to give her a hand up or a boost from the ground. Now she had no one.

Come on! She could almost hear Kat coaxing her. You can do this! Now, get your butt up here. Jump!

She missed completely the first time. The second time, her fingertips brushed against the bark. The third time, she managed to grab hold of the branch, clinging with all her might while her feet swung wildly and she grunted from the effort.

Steeling her resolve, she dug in, using the adrenaline rush of her fear to give her the strength to swing her body up, to wrap her legs around the branch, to crawl along the limb until she reached the wall. Up and over, and then drop to the ground below.

She landed on her backside, but Elizabeth didn’t take time to worry about injuries. She was up and running through the trees to the road. From there, it was still a mile to the police station, but surely a car would come along before that. Or she would find a telephone.

Through the hushed mist came the unmistakable sound of metal scraping against metal. The front gates were opening, and then, a second later, she heard the roar of a car engine as it thundered through. Elizabeth prayed that the killer would guess wrong and head north, away from her location. But she could hear the sound of the engine getting stronger by the second. Gaining on her.

The killer was coming for her. Somehow, he’d known where she would be.

She had to get off the road.

Glancing around to get her bearings, Elizabeth hurried across the pavement and struck out through the woods. She knew Leland Manning’s house and laboratory were around there somewhere, but his property was surrounded by an electronic fence. There would be no getting inside unless she could make it to the front gate and press the intercom button, pray that someone was home.

But did she really want to do that? What if Manning was the killer?

In the mist and darkness, it was difficult to keep a sense of direction, but Elizabeth tried her best to skirt Manning’s property. When she finally came out on another road, she realized finally where she was. If Leland Manning’s property was behind her, St. John’s Cemetery was just ahead, on the opposite side of the road. If she headed straight through the graveyard, she would come out near Old Mountain Road, which would put miles between her and Heathrow, and hopefully the killer. It would also bring her near the Bluffs, but Elizabeth wasn’t at all certain she wanted to seek refuge with David Bryson any more than she did with Leland Manning.

Hearing the low rumble of a car engine fired her into action. She ran across the road, searching for the gates that would open into the cemetery. Whether David Bryson was the killer or not, she couldn’t waste time worrying. She had to get to a phone.

Spotting the gates, she rushed toward them. The metal opened with a screech, and Elizabeth hurried through.

She hadn’t been in St. John’s Cemetery since the night of the sorority initiation. Now, huddling just inside the walls, she gazed around in mounting agitation. The cemetery had been eerie and menacing in the storm, but the mist was even creepier. It swirled and slid among the headstones, draped the mausoleums in a filmy shroud until only the tops could be seen.

Elizabeth hurried along, trying not to step on graves, hoping not to disturb the dead. Cullen had said he didn’t believe in ghosts, and she wanted to take comfort in his certainty. But the trouble was, she did believe in the supernatural. She did believe in spirits.

From somewhere behind her, the gates clanged softly. Elizabeth knew instinctively the killer had entered the cemetery, and her situation suddenly seemed hopeless. She’d been running all this time while he’d been behind the wheel of a car. She was exhausted from the hunt; he would be fresh, exhilarated. There was no way she could outrun him. The best thing to do was find a hiding place, pray that her nightgown and robe would blend with the mist.

She crouched behind a headstone, pressing herself against the cool surface as she listened to the night. She could hear him coming. He was breathing heavily, but not from exertion. From excitement. From anticipation. From the thrill of the hunt.

Or was the sound her imagination? A figment of her fear?

She didn’t dare glance around the headstone. She knelt there for long, excruciating moments until finally she heard the gates screech again. He had left the way he’d come in. Or at least, he wanted her to think he had.

Elizabeth didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t hide there forever. If he was still in the cemetery, searching for her, he would find her eventually. She had to get out.

Standing on shaky legs, she glanced around. She hadn’t noticed before, but she was only a few feet from the mausoleum where Claire had been abducted. Elizabeth recognized the broken cross on top. That meant that McFarland Leary’s grave was around here somewhere.

She stared in the direction she thought his headstone should be. The mist over his grave swirled. Contorted. Reshaped itself into—she would have sworn—a human form.

A scream bubbled up inside her, and Elizabeth clapped a hand over her mouth to snuff the sound. She whirled, running recklessly through the foggy night, not knowing where she was headed or where she would end up, but miraculously, the second set of gates opened up before her. The hinges screamed in protest when she pushed them open, and then she raced through, running in terror as if the devil himself were pursuing her. And for all she knew he was.

Her first indication of yet a new danger was her feet hitting pavement. She was on a road. Elizabeth paused, looked up, and saw headlights plowing through the fog toward her.

He’d found her! The killer had found her!

Momentarily paralyzed with fear, she watched the lights rushing toward her. The sound of the car engine was a death roar in her ears.

At the last moment, when she could feel the motor’s heat, Elizabeth found her senses and dove for the side of the road.

The car squealed to a stop, a door slammed and footsteps hurried across the pavement.

Elizabeth tried to run, but her legs would no longer carry her. She huddled in the mist as the killer strode toward her.

Chapter Thirteen

“Elizabeth!”

She was so scared and so stunned that for a moment, her brain couldn’t assimilate the sound of her name being called by—not the killer—someone she trusted with her life.

Then, when she saw him hurrying toward her through the fog, she launched herself at him. “Cullen!”

He caught her by the arms and then, feeling her tremble, pulled her against him, holding her close. “Elizabeth? What’s wrong? What’s happened? What are you doing out here at this time of night?”

She was still shaking so badly she could hardly speak. She buried her face in his shoulder, drinking in the scent of him, the comfort of him. “He’s…out there. In the cemetery.”

He stiffened. “Who’s out there?”

“The killer.”

He pushed her gently away then, holding her at arms’ length as he bent and peered into her face. “Elizabeth. What are you saying?”

“The killer is in the cemetery. Or he was. There’s another body…I saw her….”

Cullen’s grip on her tightened. “Where?”

“At Heathrow. In the green by my house. She’s…hanging from a tree branch.”

“Come on.” He hurried her over to his car and helped her inside, then he ran around and got behind the wheel. Pulling the car to the side of the road, he turned to face her. “Tell me what happened. Everything.” Noticing that she was still shivering, he turned on the heater full blast.

“Lock the doors,” she whispered desperately.

“They’re locked. Now tell me what happened. As quickly as you can.”

“I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I heard a noise. Someone whistling. I looked out the window, and I saw her hanging in the tree. I started to call the police, call you, and then I heard something else. He was in my house, so I ran.”

“You ran all the way from Heathrow to here?” he asked incredulously.

She nodded. “When you stopped just now, I thought you were the killer. He was in a car….”

“Did you see the car?”

She shook her head.

“You didn’t see him?”

“No.”

Cullen unlocked the glove box and removed a small-caliber weapon. Thumbing off the safety, he placed it on the console between them. “All you have to do is point and shoot.”

She stared at him in alarm. “What are you going to do?”

“Have a look around the cemetery.”

She clutched his arm. “You can’t. He could still be out there.”

“And if he is, we can’t let him go free.” Cullen’s features hardened. “We can’t let him kill again.”

He removed his gun from his shoulder holster and checked the clip. Then he placed his cell phone in her hand and curled her fingers around it. “Call headquarters. Tell them you’re with me. Tell them what happened. We need officers over here and at the college. They’ll probably need to call in the state police for backup. Can you do that?”

“Of course, but Cullen—” She gripped his arm, unwilling to let him go into the cemetery alone. She was terrified he would never come back out. “I’m scared.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us,” he said with a tense smile.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES later they were back at Heathrow. Officers from both the Moriah’s Landing Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police were combing through St. John’s Cemetery and the woods surrounding Leland Manning’s property. Additional officers were on the scene at Heathrow.

Cullen didn’t bother parking in the faculty lot where Elizabeth kept her car, but instead drove over the neatly kept lawn and cobblestone walkways to pull alongside several other police cars that had done the same.

“Wait here.” He got out of the car and walked over to join the officers grouped in a semicircle around something lying on the ground.

It was the body, Elizabeth knew. The medical examiner was already on the scene and had undoubtedly pronounced death. Now it would be up to the officers and a crime-scene unit from the state police to gather evidence.

After a few moments, Cullen came back and got in the car. Elizabeth stared at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Same as before.” He stared straight ahead. His features looked frozen, unnatural in the colored glare from the police flashers. “No blood on the body or on the ground.”

Elizabeth shivered. “Her neck?”

“There’s an incision. It’s difficult to see out here, but I’m pretty sure we’ll find needle marks on her arm, too.” He paused and threw her an apologetic glance. “I hate like hell to ask you to do this, but I need you to take a look at the body. See if you can identify her.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“You’re okay with that?”

“I’m fine, Cullen. I know what has to be done.”

They both got out of the car, and he slipped off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. As they walked toward the body, the group of officers parted and let them through.

The headlights on the police cars had been left on, and someone had set up a temporary light. Elizabeth stared down at the body. She recognized her at once. Waves of shock and nausea rolled through her. “I know her. She wasn’t in any of my classes, but I’ve seen her around. She worked on the school paper. Her name was Morgan Hurley.”

“You’re positive?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Any idea how to get in touch with her family?” Cullen asked.

“You’ll have to get her address from Administration, but the office is closed for spring break. It won’t be open until Monday.”

“Does the guard have a key?”

Elizabeth hesitated. “I’m not sure, but I assume he has a key to all the buildings.”

“What about the dorms?”

“I don’t know.”

“Private residences?”

She glanced up, startled. She’d never even thought of that. “No, I’m fairly certain he doesn’t, but you’d have to ask him.”

“I intend to,” Cullen said grimly. “Just as soon as I find him.”

Elizabeth’s heart quickened. “George is missing? What if the killer—”

Cullen cut her off. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? Let’s just stick to the facts.” He glanced back down at the body. “You said after you’d climbed over the wall, you heard the gates open and a car drive through. But George wasn’t in the guardhouse when you were there a few minutes earlier.”

“No.”

“So the suspect must have already been on campus.”

“No, not necessarily. Curfew is at eleven, and George makes his rounds shortly after that. Someone could have come in then, and he wouldn’t have seen them.”

“How?” Cullen frowned. “Doesn’t he have to let all visitors in through the gates?”

“The faculty are issued remotes so that we can come and go even when George is off duty or on rounds. Even the staff who live off campus have remotes.”

Their gazes met for a moment, and Elizabeth knew they were thinking the same thing. The killer could be anyone, but the remote gave them a new lead. A new focus. As a member of the faculty, Paul Fortier had access to the campus. So did Lucian LeCroix. Elizabeth felt weak with fear, thinking of either man pursuing her through the darkness with evil in his heart.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean someone who works at Heathrow is the killer,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Cullen. “With so many people away for spring break, someone could have broken into a car, stolen a remote, and it wouldn’t be missed for days.”

“That’s possible.” Cullen took her arm. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to your house and you can pack a bag. You can’t stay here tonight. It’s not safe with everyone gone.”

“What about George?

“Yes, what about George?” Cullen said, his expression dark. “I have a feeling he’s around here somewhere, lying low. Question is, why?”

AS THEY NEARED Elizabeth’s house, she hesitated. The thought of the killer invading her private space, touching her personal things with death still on his hands made her physically ill. “I can’t go in there, Cullen. Not yet.”

He nodded. “No problem. I’ll go in and throw a few things together for you. You okay with that?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You wait in the car.

A few moments later, they were headed back toward town. “I’ll drop you off at your parents’ house. You can spend the night there.”

Elizabeth remembered the conversation she’d had earlier with her mother, and an uneasiness crept over her. She still couldn’t understand why her mother had been so evasive, so secretive.

And why had she gone to Brussels so unexpectedly five years ago? Coincidence?

Elizabeth wanted desperately to believe that it was, but her mother’s reticence was not exactly reassuring. Elizabeth didn’t think she wanted to face her mother just yet. And besides, she didn’t relish answering a lot of questions.

She tried to think of somewhere else she could go. To Kat’s? That was no good. They weren’t that close anymore, and besides, Kat owned her own private detective firm. Sometimes she had to work odd hours. If she was out on a case tonight, Elizabeth wouldn’t want to alarm Kat’s younger sister, Emily.

Brie? Unfortunately, she and Brie had lost touch as well. Actually, Brie had been the one to pull away, and Elizabeth had sometimes wondered if it was because Brie was afraid she and Kat would find out the identity of her child’s father. As far as Elizabeth knew, Brie had kept the paternity a secret from everyone, and though Kat and Elizabeth had speculated about it plenty back then, they’d never been able to figure out who it was.

So Brie was out. Kat was out. And her closest friend at school, Rada Kilmeade, was off skiing in Vermont. Elizabeth turned to Cullen. “Just take me to the Moriah’s Landing Inn.”

He glanced at her nightgown. “Dressed like that? That should raise some eyebrows.”

She shrugged. “I really don’t care.” Besides, she had no place else to go. But when Cullen passed downtown and headed toward the waterfront, she sat up. “You missed the turn.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then where are we going?”

He kept his eyes on the road, staring straight ahead. “I’m taking you to my place. You’ll be safe there.”

His place?

Elizabeth sat back against the seat and digested this turn of events. He was taking her to his place? She was actually going to see where he lived? Maybe get some insight into his life?

Was this a new step in their relationship, or was Cullen simply being kind to her?

Elizabeth was still trembling by the time they reached his apartment building, but she thought it was as much from excitement as lingering fear. “You don’t think my staying here will raise eyebrows?”

He shrugged as he led her up the stairs. “I really don’t give a damn either.”

But Elizabeth didn’t think that was true. Not in the literal sense. She and Cullen both cared deeply what others thought. Why else had she hidden behind her aloofness and intelligence all these years? Why else had he turned bad as a teenager? Because they were both trying to pretend they didn’t care when the fact was, they cared too much.

His apartment was on the third storey, and when he unlocked the door and stepped aside for her to enter, Elizabeth glanced around with great interest.

It was a small place with a living/dining/kitchen combination and a small hallway that led, she presumed, to the bathroom and bedroom. The area was clean and sparsely furnished, but the items he did have were nice—leather sofa and recliner, a new TV and sound system.

The main focal point, however, was the large bay window where, if she craned her neck far enough, Elizabeth thought she would be able to glimpse the sea. The window faced east, and she imagined glorious sunrises. Tonight, however, there was only a pale dusting of moonlight.

“Make yourself at home,” Cullen said behind her. There was something in his voice, an odd, strained quality that Elizabeth had never heard before.

She turned from the window to face him. He’d moved back to the door after placing her bag on the sofa, and he watched her with a simmering intensity that caused Elizabeth’s heart to skip a beat.

Then she realized the source of his fascination. Standing in front of the window, with moonlight drifting through the glass, the silky fabric of her nightgown must have been all but transparent.

She felt her face heat as her heart skipped another beat, then started to pound in overtime. “You’re going back to Heathrow?”

“Yeah, but you’ll be fine here. Lock the door after I leave. The bedroom’s just through there.” He nodded in the direction of the hallway. “Try to get some sleep. I don’t know when I’ll be back, so no sense waiting up for me.”

Elizabeth swallowed. “All right.”

He opened the door, but at the last minute, he turned back to face her. “By the way, while I was getting your things together, I found a book on the floor of your bedroom. I thought you might want it so I brought it along. It’s in your bag.”

Elizabeth caught her breath. Their gazes clung for an instant, and she could have sworn he smiled ever so slightly before he turned and left the apartment.

Face flaming, Elizabeth flew across the room and tore open the bag.

Nestled among a change of clothing and her toothbrush was a rare first edition of Juliette’s Diary: Her Secret Life, Elizabeth’s favorite volume of Victorian erotica.

TO HER SURPRISE, she was able to sleep after all. Locating a blanket, she curled up on the sofa so that she could hear Cullen when he came in. She dozed fitfully at first, but then, as the hours passed, she drifted into a deeper slumber.

When she awakened, dawn was breaking outside Cullen’s window, and a gray light had settled over the room. Her first waking thought was that she was glad it was daylight finally, and her second thought was that she wasn’t alone.

Gasping slightly, she sat up and looked around. Cullen stood at the window. He must have come in very late, and she hadn’t heard a sound. The knowledge that she could sleep so soundly after a murder had just occurred was a bit unnerving.

He heard her stirring and glanced over his shoulder. “Morning.”

Elizabeth stretched, then pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. It was chilly in the room. “When did you get home?”

“A little while ago.” He looked as if he’d just stepped out of the shower and pulled on a pair of jeans. He was shirtless, and his hair was still damp.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “You could have been the murderer, for all I knew.”

“I can be pretty stealthy when I want to be.”

The better to slip from a woman’s bedroom in the wee hours of morning, Elizabeth thought. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I’ve been anxious to find out what happened.”

He ran a hand through his damp hair. “There’s not much I can tell you. The body will be autopsied later today, but I think we pretty much know what the findings will be.”

“No sign of the killer?”

He shook his head.

“What about George? Did you find him? Is he all right?”

“Yeah, we found him.”

Elizabeth’s heart jumped at his tone. “Is he—”

“Oh, he’s very much alive,” Cullen said.

“Where was he?”

“In one of the dorms. With everyone away, he decided to use the opportunity to catch up on his sleep. Or so he says.”

Elizabeth glanced up. “You don’t believe him?”

Cullen shrugged. “He may have been in one of the dorms, but I doubt he was taking a nap.”

“What do you mean—” Elizabeth broke off suddenly, remembering Kat’s words the night George had caught them scaling the fence. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planted a few hidden cameras in the dorms. Everybody knows the man’s a perv. She swallowed. “Do you think George could be the killer?”

Cullen hesitated. “Let’s just say, I intend to keep a closer eye on him from now on.”

Elizabeth glanced down at her hands, seeing them tremble. Could she have been that wrong about George? She’d thought him harmless. Now she didn’t know what to think. Who else might she be wrong about?

She gazed up at Cullen, watching the shadows across his face, glimpsing the darkness in his eyes. “You didn’t find anything in the woods or in the cemetery?”

“No. But the fog made it damn near impossible to spot footprints or tire tracks. We’ll go back out later once the sun burns off the mist and see if we can find anything, but I don’t expect to. This guy doesn’t seem to make mistakes. At least he hasn’t so far.”

“What about me?” Elizabeth asked softly. “I was able to get away from him. That was a mistake.”

“Was it?”

His tone made her shiver. Elizabeth got up and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders as she walked over to the window to join him. “What do you mean?”

Cullen’s expression turned grim. “There was no sign of a forced entry in your house. No evidence that he ever got inside. Maybe he wanted to make you think he’d gotten in so that you would run, so that he could pursue you. Maybe this is part of some sick game of his.”

“But why me?” she asked a little desperately.

He shrugged. “Because he knows you’re helping me on this case. And maybe you’re the one person he’s afraid will find him out.” Cullen paused. “Think about it, Elizabeth. You’re not only brilliant, you have a Ph.D. in criminology. The perfect foil for him. The perfect match.”

Elizabeth clutched the blanket. “But why let me go last night? If he’s afraid I’ll find him out, why not kill me when he had the chance?” She stopped and glanced up at Cullen. “Because he isn’t finished, is he? The game isn’t over.”

Cullen shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “This scares me, Cullen. Someone that cunning. That evil.”

He put his arms around her. “We’ll find him, Elizabeth. We’ll stop him. I promise you that.”

“But when? Before he can kill again?”

He drew a weary breath. “I don’t know.”

They stood by the window for several minutes as the sun slowly rose over the sea. But it wasn’t glorious as Elizabeth had imagined. It was the prelude of another day that the killer went free.

She lifted her face, and her gaze met Cullen’s. There was something in his eyes…something dark and needy. Something that matched the urgency she felt inside herself.

He searched her face for a moment, and then seeing what he needed to, he kissed her.

HE LAID HER on the bed and placed one knee on either side of her. Then, planting his hands beside her head, he lowered his head to hers, kissing her again and again until Elizabeth thought she must have surely died and gone to heaven.

His body hovered over hers, barely skimming her, but everywhere they came into contact, her skin flamed from the intimacy, from the thrill of being so close. She lifted her hand and tentatively stroked his chest. He was so hard! His physique reminded her of those male models who did the designer underwear ads. Sculpted. Muscular. Intensely masculine. Looking at him was such a turn-on.

She grew bolder, running her hand up over his shoulders and down along his arms. Everywhere she touched was new male territory explored and conquered.

Returning her hand to his chest, she skimmed it downward, over his abs, and lower still, until she felt his stomach muscles contract and he drew a quick breath.

She snatched her hand away. That was close. A little too close.

Suddenly, she didn’t know if she was ready for this.

He seemed to intuit her hesitation, and he broke the kiss to whisper his lips across her cheek, nuzzling her neck.

“Tell me something, Lizzie.” His voice was husky against her ear. “What’s a nice girl like you doing reading porn?”

She gasped. “It’s not porn! It’s literature. A classic!”

Cullen gave a low chuckle. “I saw those dirty pictures.”

“I’ll have you know those illustrations are fine works of art!”

“Right. And I read Playboy for the articles.”

She realized then he was teasing her to help her relax, and she wanted to kiss him. He was so sweet and considerate, nothing like people thought him. “You read Playboy?”

“Uh, no. Just kidding.” He ran his tongue around the shell of her ear, causing Elizabeth to shiver. “So tell me about that book.”

She swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about…oh!” He was sliding his hand along her inner thigh, approaching dangerous territory himself. Elizabeth’s stomach fluttered with nerves. With excitement. And more than a little apprehension. “It’s about a young woman who travels to Victorian London to care for her maiden aunt. She has a series of…misadventures along her journey.”

“Such as?” Now his hand was…and his fingers were…

Elizabeth’s breath came in short, jerky little gasps. It took her a moment to answer him. “She…falls prey to…a mysterious stranger…who shares her coach….”

His lips nuzzled her neck. “What does he do to her?”

“He…kisses her.”

“Like this?” He lifted his head to capture her mouth with his, coaxing open her lips, and then his tongue dipped inside, matching the rhythm of his fingers.

Elizabeth felt light-headed. On the verge of losing control. When Cullen finally broke the kiss, she whispered raggedly, “Exactly like that.”

“What else does he do?” His eyes were dark slits of passion as he gazed down at her.

“He…undresses her.”

A knowing smile tilted the corners of his mouth. “Like this?” Hooking his thumbs through the straps of her nightgown, he slowly slid the silk down her arms, and lower, until Elizabeth’s breasts were completely exposed to his gaze.

Her first instinct was to cover herself, but when she reached for the quilt, Cullen’s hand closed around her wrist. He bent and kissed her again, until Elizabeth’s embarrassment began to melt away.

When his lips moved to her breasts, she squeezed her eyes closed, not wanting her natural shyness and inhibitions to dim the pleasure for even a moment.

He tasted her with his lips and then his tongue, and when she arched her back, he groaned, a deep, dark, sensual sound that sent a thrill of excitement coursing through her heated veins.

That he wanted her as much as she wanted him was an erotic thrill. A boost to her fragile ego that she desperately needed at that moment.

She plowed her fingers through his hair, holding him close to her breasts and thinking to herself, “I always wanted my first time to be with you.”

He lifted his head. “What?”

She went perfectly still. Surely she hadn’t said the words aloud, had she? “What, what?”

“What did you say?” He’d pulled back, resting on his knees as he gazed down at her.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did. You said you always wanted your first time to be with me.”

“So?” She tried to shrug, but she was trembling too hard.

“So? This is your first time?”

He sounded almost angry. The heat of humiliation washed over her entire body. “That can’t come as much of a surprise,” she whispered.

He let out a breath. “Not entirely. I mean, I guess I knew. It’s just…hearing it right before we were about to…”

“But it doesn’t have to change anything,” Elizabeth said, wishing she could crawl into a hole and never come back out.

“It changes everything.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he stared straight ahead. “Look, this isn’t right. Your first time shouldn’t be like this. You should have candles and romance and…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Hell, I don’t know. But I know it shouldn’t be like this.”

“Like what?”

“The aftermath of an adrenaline rush,” he said bluntly.

That was all it had been for him? Elizabeth felt her own anger bubble to the surface. “You make it sound so…sordid.”

“That’s how you’d feel about it later, trust me.”

“How do you know how I’d feel?”

He glanced at her. “Because I know you. You’re not the type for a one-night stand.”

Was that what this was going to be? He might as well have shot her through the heart with a dozen arrows. The searing pain couldn’t have been more intense.

He sighed. “I told you before, I’m not ready for a serious relationship. I’m not ready to make a commitment to anyone. I’m still young, and you’re even younger—”

Elizabeth sniffed. “Sounds like an excuse to me.”

His features hardened. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

She was supposed to make this easy for him?

She glared at him.

He lifted his hand in a helpless gesture. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. I’m trying to be a man about this—”

“A man?” Elizabeth said coolly. “I’d say you’re being more of a coward.”

She couldn’t have said anything that would have wounded him more. A shutter closed over his features as he got up from the bed and strode to the bathroom. “Sorry you feel that way,” he muttered, before the door slammed shut between them.

IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT, Elizabeth scolded herself as she stood wrapped in her blanket, staring out the window in Cullen’s living room. Why did she always have to say the wrong thing to him? Why not just accept his rejection and go peaceably on her way? At least a few scraps of pride might have remained intact, but no. She’d had to force a confrontation.

She heard him come out of the bedroom, and she glanced over her shoulder. He was fully dressed, on his way out.

“I’m going back to work,” he said warily. “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

It doesn’t matter, Elizabeth thought. Because I won’t be here.

Not that she didn’t want to be, but she couldn’t face him now.

She nodded, then turned back to the window, not knowing what else to say to him. Actually, she did know, but why were the words I’m sorry so difficult to utter? Especially when one’s pride was still stinging the way hers was.

She sensed Cullen’s hesitation, as if he wanted to say something, too, but after a moment, she heard the door open and then close softly behind him.

So that was that, she thought, willing away the tears that stung behind her lids. Cullen Ryan had been an impossible fantasy, and maybe it was better she face that reality now and move on.

She was young. She had her whole life ahead of her. It was foolish to think that only one man could be her destiny.

“Destiny sucks,” she muttered, wiping the back of her hand across the wetness on her face.

CULLEN PAUSED outside his apartment door, thinking maybe he should go back in and talk to her again, try to explain his reasoning, but knowing him, he’d just make things worse.

And besides, he really didn’t think he could face the wounded look in her eyes that tore at his resolve. If he went back inside, he just might end up taking her to bed again, and this time, he wasn’t certain he’d have the willpower to pull back.

For once in his life, he’d done the noble thing. He might not be the right kind of man for Elizabeth, but he was man enough not to take advantage of her when she was frightened and vulnerable. At least he could live with himself.

But he was afraid Elizabeth still didn’t get it. Why they couldn’t be together.

All she had to do was take a look around her, he thought grimly, glancing at the shabby facade of his apartment building. The cottage where she lived wasn’t fancy, either, and he doubted she earned a huge salary from Heathrow College. But she lived within her means because she chose to. Cullen lived within his means because he had to. There was a big difference.

And supposing they did get together? For how long would she want someone like him accompanying her to fancy masquerade balls and stuffy gatherings at the college? How long before he became an embarrassment to her?

Cullen had his pride, if he didn’t have much else, and he’d almost given that up in Boston. He’d gotten in with a bad crowd, and for a while, he was on the same downhill slide to the gutter as his old man. But somehow he’d picked himself up, shaken off the dirt, and turned his life around. Trying to live in Elizabeth’s world just might send him straight back to that gutter.

With new resolve, he strode down the steps and headed out into his world, where a killer still roamed the streets.

Chapter Fourteen

If Cullen had avoided Elizabeth after their first kiss, he’d treated her as if she had the plague since that morning in his apartment. Weeks went by during which Elizabeth barely heard from him, and only then if there was some new information about the case to impart.

She tried to tell herself it was still possible he’d change his mind. He’d come around in time. And in the meantime, she still had the murder cases, as well as her classes, to keep her busy. She’d requested a copy of Morgan Hurley’s autopsy report from Cullen to compare with Bethany Peters’s, hoping that something would stand out to give them a clue. But other than the fact that the victims had shared the same blood type, she’d seen no similarities.

She had no doubt both girls had been killed by the same perpetrator. The incisions in their throats and the needle marks on their inner arms were almost identical. The fact that they’d both been students at Heathrow led Elizabeth to conclude that the school had to be the connection, although as far as she was able to determine, they hadn’t even known each other. Bethany was a science major, and Morgan had been pursuing an arts degree. They didn’t have the same classes, the same friends, nor did they live in the same dorm. Bethany was from Boston; Morgan was from a little town in upstate New York. Both were from privileged backgrounds, but so were most of the girls who attended Heathrow, except for a handful of scholarship students.

If the school was the connection, then that brought Elizabeth back to Paul Fortier. Bethany had been his student, but Morgan hadn’t. Still, he could have seen her around campus, become attracted to her. Like Bethany, she was a very pretty girl, and Fortier seemed to have a penchant for beautiful women.

What is it they say? There is nothing quite so beautiful or poetic as a dead or dying woman.

There was another possibility, one that made Elizabeth shudder with dread. What if she, herself, was the connection? What if Cullen was right? What if the killer was trying to lure her into his sick game? What if he was taunting her with the bodies of students he’d chosen at random? What if the killings were about her and not the victims?

Elizabeth pulled her sweater tightly around her as she sat at her desk in her office. Tomorrow was Good Friday. The school was closed until the following Tuesday for the Easter holidays. The campus would be deserted as it had been on spring break. If the killer was going to strike again, she had a feeling it would be this weekend.

Since Morgan Hurley’s body had been found, the school had hired additional security, but Elizabeth still didn’t feel safe. She’d booked a room at the Moriah’s Landing Inn for the weekend, and as she watched the exodus of students from the campus, she had a sudden urge to join them. She had no more classes for the day. What was keeping her there?

“Whoa, where’s the fire?”

She’d vaulted from her office so quickly, she hadn’t noticed that someone was standing in the hallway, just outside her door. Her heart started to pound before she recognized him. “Lucian! You startled me.” She gave a shaky laugh.

“Sorry. It seems everyone around here is on edge these days.”

“With good reason.”

He glanced at her purse and briefcase. “Am I keeping you?”

“Actually, I was leaving for the day. I guess I’m anxious to start my holiday.”

“Going somewhere special?”

She started to answer and then thought better of it. Maybe it would be best if she kept her plans to herself. “No, not really. I just want to relax a little.”

“Well, you deserve it. You’ve had a harrowing semester, beginning that night at the Pierces’ masquerade ball.” His gaze deepened. “I can’t help wondering if your discovery of both bodies is more than a coincidence, Elizabeth.”

“How do you mean?”

A shadow moved in his eyes. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I will,” but his warning lingered in her head even after she’d picked up her suitcase from her cottage and headed toward downtown. It was terrifying to think that she might somehow be the trigger for a madman’s bloodlust.

Elizabeth wished desperately that she and Kat and Brie had remained close, so that she would have someone she could talk to about the murders, about her fears. But mostly she wished she had someone to confide in about Cullen.

Honestly, what was the matter with him anyway? He kept saying he wasn’t the right man for her, but he was. He was! He thought she needed someone her intellectual equal, but he was the most interesting person she knew. And besides, just look at her parents. They were both brilliant, the perfect match, and they’d let their work consume them. They hardly spoke to each other these days, and Elizabeth suspected they no longer even shared the same bed. Did Cullen think she wanted that?

Or was he afraid he’d be like his mother, run out on his family when the going got tough? Or like his father, who’d turned to the bottle when he couldn’t handle real life? Cullen was their son, but he was nothing like them. He wasn’t going to become them any more than Elizabeth would turn out like her parents. It was true he’d flirted with the darker side of life before he’d left town, and she suspected in Boston as well, but he’d turned his life around, with no help from anyone. Look at the kind of man he was today. Good. Decent. Honorable.

Honorable to a fault, she thought dryly.

She drove past the turnoff to the inn and headed for the waterfront instead. She wondered what Cullen would do if she showed up unexpectedly at his apartment, but she was too much of a coward to find out. And the irony of that was not lost on her.

Instead, she parked on the street and walked slowly down Waterfront Avenue, past the tattoo parlor, the strip joints and Madame Fleury’s, a fortune teller. When she got to the end, she turned around and walked back.

Pausing outside the Beachway Diner, she wondered longingly if Brie was working this afternoon. She thought again how much she missed her old friends.

On impulse, she pushed open the door and walked inside.

BRIE WAS STANDING behind the counter, and when she saw Elizabeth, her expression grew wary. Then, a split second later, she smiled and motioned to an empty booth near the windows. Elizabeth nodded and walked over to sit down. After a few minutes, Brie came by with the coffeepot.

“It’s been ages!” she said cheerfully. “How’ve you been, Elizabeth?”

“Well, considering I found two dead students in the last two months, not so good.”

Brie gave her a sympathetic smile. “I heard about what happened. It must have been horrible.”

Elizabeth nodded, her stomach going hollow at the memory of those bodies put on display. She couldn’t help but believe the hanging was somehow symbolic. “It was bad, but I’m more worried about those girls’ families.”

“You always were strong,” Brie said.

Elizabeth stared at her in surprise. “I…was?”

“I don’t know who else could have gone through what you did in high school and come out so normal. All that teasing you had to endure just because you were younger and ten times smarter than everyone else. Kids can be so cruel, and all because your intelligence intimidated them. I always admired you for the way you handled yourself.”

“You…did?”

Brie smiled. “You always did underestimate yourself, Elizabeth. I guess it’s reassuring to know some things haven’t changed.” She poured Elizabeth a cup of coffee. “So what brings you to this part of town anyway?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Would you believe, I happened to be in the neighborhood?”

Brie glanced at the clock on the wall. “Business is pretty slow. I can take a break in a few minutes if you’ll hang around?”

“Sure.” It was only two o’clock. Check-in at the inn wasn’t for another hour. Until then, Elizabeth had absolutely no place to go or be.

But as if fate decided to take a hand in her plans, the door opened and Kat Ridgemont hurried inside. She waved to Brie, then glancing around, spotted Elizabeth and strode toward her.

Elizabeth had always marveled at the way heads turned when Kat walked by. She was tall and sleekly slender with long, black hair and dark eyes fringed with thick lashes. Dressed in a leather jacket over a T-shirt and jeans, she somehow managed to look tough and graceful at once.

“I thought I saw you walk by my office,” she said. “I called out, but I guess you didn’t hear me. You looked as if you were a million miles away.”

“Sorry.” Elizabeth motioned to the empty side of the booth. “Join me for a cup of coffee?”

Kat slid into the booth, folding her hands on the table as she leaned forward. “I’ve been meaning to call you. Cullen told me you’re consulting on the investigation into these murders.”

Elizabeth’s gaze widened. “Cullen told you that? When?”

Kat shrugged. “The other day. I don’t remember when exactly. We’ve helped each other out on cases from time to time, and we were talking…”

Her voice faded as Elizabeth suddenly became preoccupied with an image of Kat and Cullen…together. It made her feel terrible because Kat was so much more Cullen’s type than she would ever be. Elizabeth doubted he would have kicked someone as sexy as Kat out of his bed.

“…keep thinking about Claire,” she was saying.

Elizabeth frowned. “What?”

Kat gave her a bemused look. “I said I can’t help wondering if the killer is the same psycho who kidnapped poor Claire. If he’s the same one who murdered my mother.”

Any resentment that might have been building for Kat dissolved like mist in sunlight. “I’ve wondered the same thing myself,” Elizabeth admitted.

“From what I understand, the MO isn’t the same, though.”

“Not altogether, no,” Elizabeth said carefully. Even with a friend, she couldn’t go spouting her mouth off about the cases. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. After twenty years, the killer could have changed his MO, either deliberately or through a natural evolution of his appetites.”

Kat’s gaze turned dark. “What if it is the same guy who kidnapped and tortured Claire? What if the killer’s identity is locked up somewhere in her tormented mind?”

“Then she could be in danger,” Elizabeth said. “But we’ve always known that. That’s why her mother keeps her in Glen Oaks. The security is excellent.”

Brie came over then, and Kat slid over in the seat to make room for her. “We were talking about Claire. And about the murders.”

Brie shuddered. “Elizabeth and I were just saying what a horrible thing those girls’ families are having to go through.”

“Yes,” Kat agreed, her gaze clouding. “Murder is horrible. And before another family is put through the same hell, I think the three of us should take a ride out to Glen Oaks and see Claire.”

“The last time I went, they wouldn’t even let me in to see her,” Elizabeth warned.

Kat nodded. “I know, but they tell me she’s getting better. Maybe if she sees the three of us, it’ll trigger something for her. The last time we were all together was that night.”

“But Tasha was there, too,” Brie reminded them sadly.

For a moment all three fell silent, caught up in the lingering grief over past tragedies, but then Kat shrugged off the melancholy. “Look, I know it’s a long shot, but I’ve always believed if Claire is ever going to remember, if she’s ever going to open up to anyone, it’ll be us. I say we give it a shot.” Kat turned to Brie. “Can you get away?”

Brie hesitated, then nodded. “My shift ends in another hour. I like to spend all my free time with Nicole, but my mother is taking her to a birthday party down the street. I’ll call and tell her I’ll be late. I think you’re right, Kat. We have to talk to Claire. At the very least, we owe it to her to try and help her get her life back.”

They clasped hands, and though their mission was a grim one, Elizabeth felt a camaraderie she hadn’t experienced since that fateful night in St. John’s Cemetery.

GLEN OAKS was a private institution located on the outskirts of a tiny village about a hundred miles west of Moriah’s Landing. Safely tucked away behind an electronic fence which was artfully disguised by thick hedgerows of hawthorn, the white Colonial-style building was an elegant affair with a wide, sweeping drive lined with red oaks and sugar maples bursting with buds. Beds of winter crocus dotted the manicured lawn, and a stone fountain trickled near the entrance.

A nurse led them down an antiseptic hallway where the clatter of food trays could be heard through open doorways. “You girls came at an opportune time.” She lowered her voice as she ushered them into Claire’s room. “She’s had a good day.”

The room was decorated much like a young girl’s bedroom, in pink satin and lace with mountains of stuffed animals on the bed. There was a vanity, but no mirror, and the glass in both the window and the door was doubled-paned and reinforced with wire mesh. Almost impossible to break.

Claire was seated in a rocking chair in front of the window, staring out across the sculpted lawn. She didn’t turn when they came inside. She gave no indication whatsoever she was even aware of their presence.

She’d changed so much since that terrible night. She’d always been fragile-looking, with long, gorgeous hair and a pale, delicate complexion. But she was even more frail now. The cotton dress she wore hung like a sack from her lean frame, and her hair, though neat and clean, had lost its glorious luster.

Kat went over and knelt in front of her, placing her hand on Claire’s knee. “Claire? It’s Kat. Brie and Elizabeth are here, too.”

Brie walked over and knelt beside Kat. “Hi, sweetie,” she said in a soft, soothing tone, much like the one she undoubtedly used when she spoke to her little daughter. “What a pretty dress you have on!”

For the first time, Claire showed a slight reaction, a hint of emotion. She turned her beautiful blue gaze on Brie, and something that might have been a smile flickered across her features.

The nurse said to Elizabeth, “She loves to have her hair brushed. That might help relax her.”

Elizabeth walked over to the vanity and picked up the brush, noting that the bristles were soft and pliant. Nothing that would cause any harm. She went to Claire and began stroking her hair, taking great care to be gentle.

After a moment, Claire’s shoulders visibly relaxed. She still said nothing, but at least she wasn’t screaming the way she had the last time Elizabeth had seen her. Elizabeth had heard those terrified shrieks all the way down the hallway, all the way home and sometimes in her sleep, she still heard them.

Tears smarted her eyes, but she willed them away.

Kat glanced up at Elizabeth, uncertainty flashing in her dark eyes. Elizabeth knew what she was thinking. How did they approach someone as fragile as Claire about what had happened that night? How, in good conscience, could they make her relive that nightmare?

Because it might save another young girl’s life.

It might save Claire’s own life.

Still, they would have to be very, very careful.

Claire reached a hand and touched Kat’s cheek. Then she stroked one finger along Brie’s curly red hair. “Pretty hair.” She lifted a hand and felt her own limp strands. “I used to have pretty hair.”

“Oh, honey, you still do,” Brie whispered.

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. This was so much more difficult than she’d even thought.

“Claire, we want you to know something,” Kat said. “We looked for you that night. We would have done anything to find you, to help you. We’re so sorry we let you down.”

“Hurt me,” she whispered.

“Who?” Kat pressed gently. “Can you tell us who hurt you, Claire?”

“Hurt me again,” she said more insistently.

“We won’t let him hurt you again.” Kat’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “I promise you that.”

“Hurt me.” Then louder. “Hurt me! Hurt me! Hurt me!” A high keening emanated from Claire’s lips, and Elizabeth stopped brushing her hair and stepped back. What had they done?

She remembered the awful guilt she’d felt that night when Claire had disappeared, how she’d been so certain it was all her fault because she’d been thinking about Cullen.

God help her, she was still thinking about Cullen while poor Claire—

She glanced up and saw him standing in the doorway.

It was as if her thoughts had conjured him from thin air. His gaze went from her to Claire, and a look came over his features that Elizabeth had never seen before. It was a combination of compassion, disbelief and a harder emotion that might have been determination.

“Get a nurse,” Elizabeth said.

He turned, but before he could move, the nurse who had shown them in came bustling into the room. She went over and took Claire’s arm, helping her out of the rocking chair. “There, there,” she crooned. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She led Claire to her bed, and Claire lay down, curling herself into the fetal position while she clutched a pink bear to her chest. Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed as she rocked back and forth. The keening had stopped, but Elizabeth thought the silence that followed might even be worse.

“She needs her rest now,” the nurse said briskly. “But I hope you’ll come back again. It’s good for her to have visitors.”

“But she got so upset,” Brie said worriedly.

“Yes, she did,” the nurse agreed. “But any response is better than none at all.”

Chapter Fifteen

It was late by the time they left Glen Oaks. Darkness had fallen in earnest, and as they exited the curving drive and pulled onto the main highway, Elizabeth could see a full moon rising over the treetops.

She rode with Cullen although she hadn’t wanted to at first. She still felt awkward with him, but he’d made a point of asking her in front of Brie and Kat, and Elizabeth didn’t think she could turn him down without arousing her friends’ curiosity. If she’d insisted on riding back with them, they might have asked questions, and she didn’t feel like talking tonight.

Earlier, she’d have given anything for someone to confide in, but now all she wanted was some peace and quiet to think about everything that had happened.

She stared silently out the window for the first several miles of the journey. If Cullen spoke to her, she answered in monosyllables. Finally he gave up and put in a Bauhaus CD. The dark, edgy music was the perfect accompaniment to her mood.

When they were almost home, he turned down the sound. “Okay, what’s with the silent treatment?”

Elizabeth shrugged.

“Now you’re just being childish,” he accused. “You can at least answer me.”

She turned to face him. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything that’s on your mind.”

“My mind is a complete blank.”

“You don’t want to talk about your friend, Claire?”

“No.” Which was true. The memory was still too raw.

“Do you want to talk about what happened in my apartment?”

“No!”

“I think we need to,” he said softly.

“Well, I don’t” Elizabeth folded her arms defensively. “What is there to say? You made your feelings perfectly clear, and for your information, now that I’ve had time to think about it, I agree with you. You’re not the right man for me.”

He threw her a startled glance. Then he frowned. “When did you come to that conclusion?”

“When you gave me no other choice.” She turned back to the window. “I’ve been thinking about everything you said, and you’re absolutely right. A woman like me needs candles and romance…whatever.” She waved her hand absently. “My first time should be special, with a man who knows how to…you know. Someone older, perhaps, and sophisticated. Someone like…like…Lucian LeCroix.” She slanted him a glance and saw his features harden.

“What the hell does he have to do with this?”

“He seems to fit the criteria you have in mind for me. He and I are both college professors. We come from similar backgrounds. We have a lot in common.”

Cullen’s voice hardened with anger. “I told you before, I don’t trust that guy.”

“But I do,” she lied.

Cullen’s gaze narrowed. “You’re just saying that to piss me off.”

“Am I?”

He turned back to watch the road, his face set in hard, furious lines. “Mission accomplished.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Elizabeth lifted her chin. “I’m just telling you what I thought you wanted to hear. You’re off the hook now. You don’t have to worry. I’m turning my attention elsewhere.”

“Like hell,” she could have sworn she heard him mutter.

INSTEAD OF DROPPING her off at her car where she’d left it on Waterfront Avenue, Cullen headed south of town, turning on Old Mountain Road.

Elizabeth glanced at him in surprise. “Where are we going?”

“To see David Bryson.”

“Why?”

“Emotions are running high around here. It’s my duty to warn him about a dangerous situation that could be brewing.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind having a little chat with him about the murders, either.”

According to talk in town, David Bryson never left his house during daylight hours, but after dark, he prowled the streets, keeping to himself and to the shadows. Elizabeth had never personally spotted him, but she wondered sometimes if the occasional sightings of McFarland Leary couldn’t be chalked up to Bryson’s nocturnal wanderings.

Not that she didn’t believe in ghosts. She was quite certain she’d seen one that night in St. John’s Cemetery, but she wasn’t about to confess her sighting to Cullen.

Old Mountain Road was a narrow, twisting trail that led, as its name implied, up the side of a mountain. At the top, clinging precariously to the edge of a jagged cliff, was the Bluffs, David Bryson’s forbidden domain. As they neared the castle, Elizabeth thought that the stone facade blended almost seamlessly with the night.

There were no lights, save for a lone beacon in a tower window. A shadow moved across the light, and for a moment, Elizabeth could have sworn she saw someone staring down at them. She shivered, thinking of all the stories she’d heard about Bryson. A cold-blooded murderer. A horribly disfigured recluse. A man whose passions and grief could have driven him to do unspeakable evil.

Had they?

A butler—tall, rigid, impeccably dressed—opened the door. He was all set to turn them away, but then Elizabeth heard another voice in the background, and the man glanced over his shoulder. When he turned back, he opened the massive door and beckoned them inside. “This way.”

The inside was even darker and more forbidding than the outside. The place was old and creaky, full of shadows and mysterious doorways. Elizabeth and Cullen followed the butler down a long, dark hallway where he drew open a set of doors and waited for them to enter. Once they were inside, the doors closed with a resounding thud.

Elizabeth jumped a little, and goose bumps popped out on her skin. Judging by the crowded shelves of books, they were in a library of sorts, but the room was dank and musty, hardly inviting. The drapes at the window were drawn tightly, shutting out the moonlight, and only one lamp glowed dimly from a corner.

She and Cullen were both gazing around curiously. Elizabeth had assumed that David Bryson would join them momentarily, but as her gaze scanned the murky recesses of the room, she saw that he was already there. Either he’d been present all along, or he’d somehow slipped in from some secret passageway. She shivered as she felt his gaze meet hers.

“You’ve come about the murders.” His voice was deep and velvety smooth. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“I’m sure you have,” Cullen said. “I’ve come by before, but your watchdog wouldn’t let me in.”

Elizabeth strained to see Bryson, but he’d positioned himself in deep shadow. Because of the scars?

“You’ll have to forgive Richard. He’s overly protective, I’m afraid, but then, he has good reason to be, considering that I’m the chief suspect in almost any criminal activity that occurs in this town.” A hint of wryness crept into his rich voice.

“I know what it’s like to be accused of something you didn’t do,” Cullen said. “I’m not here to make accusations.”

“Then why are you here, Detective?”

“To warn you.” Cullen paused. “Suspicions are running high because of these murders. People are scared, and when they get scared, they’re apt to do something stupid.”

“Are you saying the town’s out to get me?”

“I’m saying if I were you, I’d hang close to home until all this blows over.”

Bryson’s hand moved in a fatalistic gesture. “I’m a recluse, Detective. Hadn’t you heard? I never leave these castle walls.”

Elizabeth saw Cullen lift a brow slightly. “Is that so? I’ve heard you like to take…long walks after dark.”

A polite way of putting it, Elizabeth thought.

“Is that a crime, Detective?”

“Not if walking is all you do. Any chance you were near Heathrow College on the night of March sixteenth?”

“As a matter of fact, I was.”

Elizabeth sensed Cullen’s surprise. She turned to stare at Bryson, wishing again she could see his face.

“Were you on campus?”

“I didn’t go inside the gates if that’s what you mean.”

“What time was this?”

“Sometime before midnight. I can’t be sure of the precise minute.”

Cullen and Elizabeth exchanged a glance. “Did you see anyone enter or leave the campus either on foot or in a car?”

“I saw nothing.”

“What about the night of February fourteenth? Were you anywhere near the Pierce compound?”

“I was not.” Impatience crept into Bryson’s voice. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m afraid I really can’t help you out. I don’t know anything about these murders. I can give you a piece of advice, though.”

“Let’s hear it.”

He leaned forward slightly, and for a split second, Elizabeth glimpsed his face. She caught her breath.

And then he stepped farther back into the shadows. “Check the victims’ blood types, their medical histories. You may find something there.”

“How do you know about their blood types?” Cullen asked sharply, but David Bryson had melted into the shadows.

Somehow he’d vanished without making a sound.

“HOW DID HE know that both victims had the same blood type?” Elizabeth mused as they made their way back down the mountains. “That information hasn’t been released to the press.”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Cullen muttered.

“And what did he mean about their medical histories?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself.” Cullen lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck. “But when he said that, I felt as if I should know what he was talking about. Like maybe there’s something I’ve forgotten or haven’t connected yet. You know how it is when you can’t quite put your finger on what it is that’s bothering you?” He snapped his fingers suddenly. “Wait a minute. I think I do know. When I first interviewed Bethany Peters’s mother, she kept wringing her hands and crying over and over that Bethany had always been the picture of health. She’d never been sick a day in her life. How could something like this happen to her?”

“I’m sure it was just a figure of speech,” Elizabeth said. “She was very upset.”

“Maybe. But she was pretty adamant. And one of Morgan Hurley’s friends said something along those lines about her. She was never sick. Might be worth taking a look at their medical records and see if we can find other similarities.”

To what end? Elizabeth was about to ask, but then she turned to Cullen as something occurred to her. “Remember the test tube we found in the cooler room with Bethany’s body? What if someone who knew Bethany’s blood type and her medical history wanted to get a sample of her blood for some reason? An experiment, maybe?”

“But the cause of death was exsanguination. Her blood was drained. The killer would have known that.”

“It’s almost impossible to drain a body completely of blood,” Elizabeth pointed out. “But I’m not talking about the killer. I’m suggesting someone other than the killer may have wanted a sample of Bethany’s DNA. If we could find out who all knew about those blood types and medical histories and why they were so significant, then we might be able to figure out why someone wanted those girls dead.”

“We already know that Bryson knew.” Cullen frowned. “It still seems a long shot to me. Although…” He trailed off into thought.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about something Shamus McManus said to me once. We were in the Beachway Diner, and it was right before I was called to the Pierce compound after you’d found Bethany’s body. He said that McFarland Leary rises every five years to come searching for the ‘offspring of his offspring,’ I think is the way he put it.”

“What did he mean by that?”

Cullen shrugged. “I’m not even sure he knew what he meant. Marley Glasglow was there at the time, and he warned Shamus about sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m thinking Shamus may have overheard something he wasn’t supposed to.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But Shamus also asked me if I ever wondered why so many scientific types settle in Moriah’s Landing. I think that’s starting to sound like a damn good question.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any mystery to that,” Elizabeth said. “There are a lot of major universities in the area, and Boston is a fairly easy commute. Plus, the Pierce Foundation awards a lot of grants. It could be simply a case of following the money.”

“Maybe. But I’ve been asking some questions around town about Leland Manning ever since we saw him that night. He has a laboratory right there on his property. If he has the background and credentials you say he has, why isn’t he affiliated with some Ivy League university, or some hotshot private research institution? And what about his weird theory on witches? If anyone is conducting bizarre experiments, I’d put my money on him. And another thing.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “He’s not the recluse that David Bryson is. He frequents a bar down on the waterfront.”

“Manning?” Elizabeth had a hard time picturing the rather formal man they’d met the other night in a waterfront bar.

“That could be where Shamus overheard something he shouldn’t have.”

“But that still doesn’t tell us what he heard,” Elizabeth mused. “Or if it’s connected in any way to the murders.” She sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. “It’s all giving me a headache, just talking about it. Two months and two bodies, and we’re still no closer to finding the killer. Face it, Cullen. He could be anyone. Bethany had a class under Paul Fortier, and it’s possible something more may have been going on between them. But Morgan was an arts major. She wasn’t required to take biology. Then there’s Leland Manning. Yes, he lives fairly close to the campus. Yes, he has a laboratory on his property. And, yes, he has some pretty strange theories. But where is the connection to the victims? Same with David Bryson. He was a suspect in the murders twenty years ago, but nothing was proven then, and we don’t have anything on him now except that he somehow knew, or at least guessed, that Bethany and Morgan had the same blood type and maybe similar medical histories. So where does that leave us?”

“You forgot to mention your friend, Professor LeCroix. As freshmen, wouldn’t both girls have been required to take an English class?”

Elizabeth waved an impatient hand. “Yes, but Bethany was dead before Lucian ever arrived in town.”

“Assuming he arrived when he said he did.”

“Yes…”

“You’re still defending him, I see.” Cullen gripped the wheel as the car shot around a sharp curve. “Still figuring on him being your first lover?”

Elizabeth gave an embarrassed laugh. “I know I implied that, but I was just…hurt. A little angry, I guess.”

“You must have had some thoughts in that direction or you never would have said anything.”

“I haven’t. I don’t know why I said anything about him.” She gave him a pleading look. “Can we just stick to the investigation right now? If you have something on Lucian LeCroix, let me hear it.”

Cullen glared at the road. “His credentials checked out.”

“You ran a background check on him?”

He shrugged.

They both fell silent, both deep in thought, and then, as they were nearing the cemetery, Cullen said, “I keep thinking about Claire.”

Elizabeth turned. “I know. It’s still a shock to see her like that. She was always so beautiful and the most gentle person I ever knew. That something so horrible could have happened to her, of all people.”

“Vanished without a trace,” Cullen muttered.

“What?”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “How the hell did someone get her out of that mausoleum without any of you seeing anything?”

Elizabeth felt the old familiar rush of guilt. “You don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself that same question.”

He was slowing the car, and Elizabeth glanced around. St. John’s Cemetery was to their left, and Cullen pulled off the road near the gates.

“What are you doing?” she asked in alarm.

“I’m going to have a look around.”

“Why?”

“Because there has to be some way that she was taken from that crypt.”

“But the police searched it. They didn’t find anything.” Elizabeth knew her voice sounded slightly desperate, but she couldn’t help it. The last time she’d been in that cemetery, she’d been running for her life.

“Yeah, but I know the guys on the force,” Cullen said dryly. “Most of them won’t even walk under a ladder. It’s my guess they gave the mausoleum a cursory search, at best.”

Elizabeth stared at the cemetery gates, a terrible dread welling inside her. “You don’t expect me to go with you, I hope.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Cullen’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I need you to show me exactly where you and the others were when Claire disappeared.”

“This can’t wait until morning?”

His expression turned grim. “Another girl could be dead by morning.”

He was right. If there was a clue inside that mausoleum that could stop the killings, then Elizabeth wasn’t going to let a little fear stand in her way. Cullen reached over and removed the gun from the glove box.

“I’m leaving the safety on this time, but if we run into trouble…” He showed her how to flick it off. “Like I said before, just point and shoot.”

Easier said than done, Elizabeth thought. Her hands would be shaking so badly she would be lucky not to shoot Cullen. Or herself.

He checked his own weapon, then returned it to his shoulder holster. He glanced at Elizabeth. “Ready?”

“No.”

He grinned. “It’ll be okay. We’ll stick together. I won’t let you out of my sight.”

“Promise?”

“You got it.”

THE CEMETERY looked different tonight. No storm clouds threatening on the horizon. No fog creeping through the landscape. Just a pale, fragile moon casting a mysterious glow over the tombstones and mausoleums. A mild breeze stirred shadows, making the city of the dead seem almost…alive.

Topping a low hill, Elizabeth paused, her stomach clenching in fear. “That’s it.” She pointed to a crypt directly ahead of them. “I can tell by the broken cross. Leary’s grave is somewhere to the right of it.”

“Show me.”

Elizabeth took the lead, uncertain that she would be able to find Leary’s grave in the dark, but she moved unerringly to it, staring down at the headstone worn smooth by time and weather. “This is it. This is where we were. We formed a circle around the grave. Then we drew lots and Claire lost. She got up and walked to the mausoleum alone.”

“Show me.”

Her heart pounding, Elizabeth crossed the ten yards or so to the crypt, taking some comfort in the knowledge that Cullen was right behind her and they were both armed, although she still had her doubts about her ability to shoot anything. Besides, how did one kill a ghost?

Cullen reached around and tried the door of the crypt. It opened easily, and Elizabeth remembered how Kat had had to struggle with it that night. Had someone been here recently?

“You can wait out here if you want to,” Cullen told her. “I’ll leave the door open.”

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder, her gaze scanning the headstones as she remembered how the fog had formed into a human shape over Leary’s grave. The manifestation had probably been a combination of an active imagination and intense fear, but Elizabeth didn’t relish a repeat performance.

“That’s okay,” she said, suppressing a shudder. “I’ll go in with you.”

The crypt was a fairly large one, and old, with a thick carpet of grime covering the marble floor and cobwebs draped from the ornate ceiling. The place smelled of death and decay, but then Elizabeth wondered if that was her imagination, too.

Cullen played his flashlight over the walls. “I don’t see another door. How the hell did he get her out of here?”

He shone the beam along the wall vaults. They were stacked on top of one another, and each contained a stone plaque. Elizabeth read some of the epitaphs. Beloved Wife and Mother. Our Dearest Son.

An angel holding a lantern had been carved into the stone on one of the bottom vaults and the inscription read: An Angel Walks Among Us. Follow Her Light to His Sanctuary.

“Wait,” Elizabeth said, when Cullen moved the light to the next vault. “Go back.”

She knelt and ran her hands over the angel.

“What is it?” Cullen asked.

Excitement spiraled through Elizabeth. “Do you remember all those old newspaper clippings I have hanging on the walls in my house? I’ve always been an avid history buff, especially about anything pertaining to Moriah’s Landing. I have hundreds of books in my collection, and I like to go to flea markets whenever I can—”

“Elizabeth,” Cullen said impatiently. “Get to the point.”

“Moriah’s Landing is famous—or infamous, depending on one’s perspective—because of the witch executions in the 1600s, just like Salem. But both towns were also active in the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. The symbol of a safe house was a lantern hanging from a hitching post. But there are no hitching posts in cemeteries.”

Cullen knelt. “You think this place was used as a station in the Underground Railroad?”

“Read the script,” Elizabeth told him. “‘Follow Her Light to His Sanctuary.’ A sanctuary is a haven. A safe place. That could also explain how the rumors got started about the mausoleum being haunted. The conductor, whoever he was, wanted to scare people away.”

Cullen looked doubtful. “It’s hard to imagine runaways hiding in here. Someone could have easily stumbled upon them, in spite of the rumors.”

“I don’t think they hid in here,” Elizabeth said, waving an arm to encompass the crypt. “I think they hid in here.” She tapped the vault. “My guess is there’s a series of catacombs or tunnels beneath the mausoleum. They might even lead all the way to the sea, where a ship would take the runaway slaves to freedom.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

The openings to the vaults were hinged, so that coffins could be slipped into place, and then the doors were closed, sometimes sealed.

A small metal handle had been set into the stone at the bottom, and Cullen gave it a tug. When it didn’t budge, he laid aside the flashlight and used both hands. The door gave a little, then finally creaked all the way open.

Cullen picked up the flashlight and angled the beam inside. The vault was empty.

He gave her a tight smile. “Nice work, Sherlock. Now we know how Claire’s abductor was able to drag her off right under your noses.”

He leaned forward, thrusting the upper part of his body into the vault. “I can see steps.” His voice echoed in the abyss. “Looks like they lead down to some sort of cellar. If you’re right, there should be an opening to a tunnel somewhere down there.”

He started to crawl into the vault, but Elizabeth grabbed his leg. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to have a look around the cellar. See if I can spot the opening to the tunnel.”

“Cullen! Are you crazy? That cellar has been there for over a hundred and fifty years. It could cave in at any moment.”

But he was almost all the way into the vault by now. Elizabeth had to lean inside to see him. He was at the stairs. Going down.

“Cullen!”

“I’ll be right back. Wait for me up there.” He took something out of his pocket and tossed it to her. Miraculously, Elizabeth caught it. It was his cell phone. “If anything happens, call the station. Get some help over here.”

Elizabeth backed out of the vault and sat on her heels. Without the flashlight, the crypt was very dark. She could feel something crawling on her neck, and then she realized it was goose bumps. She was chilled all over, and it came to her in a flash the reason for her terror.

She was no longer alone in the crypt.

Her heart began to beat in long, painful strokes. Someone, something was right behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around. She didn’t want to see Leary’s ghost….

A flesh-and-blood arm grabbed her by the throat and pulled her to her feet. Elizabeth struggled. She tried to cry out. But it was too late. She heard the phone clatter to the floor just as a cloth was shoved against her mouth and nose.

A split second before the ether overcame her, she saw a foot kick the vault door shut, trapping Cullen inside.

Chapter Sixteen

Cullen heard the vault door slam and rushed back up the stairs. “Elizabeth! Open the door!” But he realized almost at once that she would never have closed that door on purpose. Someone must have come into the vault.

The killer…

“Elizabeth!” Cullen shoved against the door until he worked up a sweat, but after several moments, he realized he was having a hard time breathing. The effort was using up all the oxygen in the cellar.

He turned and surveyed his options. Option, he amended. There was only one thing he could do. Find the opening to the tunnel and follow it out.

And then it hit him. The full extent of his predicament.

He was trapped underground….

In a small, close space….

No air…

Panic rushed up from his stomach, into his lungs, pressing against his chest. He couldn’t breathe….

Get a grip, a voice commanded him. Elizabeth was in dire trouble. He didn’t have time to go all mental. He hadn’t had a problem entering the vault, so why was he panicking now?

Because he was trapped, that’s why.

Cullen didn’t know when or why or how he’d developed claustrophobia, but he thought it might have been when his mother left. After she’d taken off, he’d sometimes awakened in his small cell-like room, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat.

He felt that same helplessness now, but he fought it. He had to get out of there. Elizabeth was in big, big trouble.

The thought of her calmed him somewhat, and he played the beam of his flashlight along the walls of the cellar. To his right, a small opening, barely large enough to accommodate a man lying flat on his stomach, led, perhaps, to freedom.

But could he do that? Could he force himself into such a narrow space? Even for Elizabeth?

An image came to him suddenly. He could see Elizabeth lying on a table, her features pale and fragile as the blood was slowly drained from her body….

A new panic seized him then, and he strode across the tunnel, dropping to his knees in front of the opening. He could do this. To save Elizabeth, he would do anything.

He slithered into the tunnel, clutching the flashlight, putting one hand in front of the other as he inched forward. He forced himself to think about how Claire had been dragged along that same tunnel. How terrified she must have been. All these years, she’d lived in her own private hell, and now it was up to Cullen to find her kidnapper, to finally bring him to justice.

And so he made himself keep going.

After long, agonizing moments, the tunnel widened and he was able to stand upright. That was better. Not much…but better….

He walked along, feeling spiders crawl in his hair and along his back, but he knew that was just the panic. After a while, the air in the tunnel began to smell fresher, and he thought he could hear the distant sound of the ocean. His first instinct was to run toward the sound, but caution held him back.

The tunnel, as it turned out, had melded into a cave, the mouth of which opened in the side of a cliff. Thirty feet below him, the surf pounded against the rocky shoreline, but tonight there was no boat waiting to take him to freedom, no beacon of welcome or warning except for the distant shimmer from the lighthouse.

Cullen glanced up. It was another twenty feet or so to the top, and from there a long hike down Old Mountain Road to the cemetery where he’d left his car. But that seemed his best shot. He started to climb.

He was almost at the top, ready to reach a hand over the edge of the cliff and pull himself up when he happened to glance up. A dark form dressed in dark clothing stood at the top of the cliff, staring down at him.

David Bryson…

WHEN ELIZABETH came to, she was lying on her back on a stainless-steel table. She could feel the smooth, cool surface beneath her bare skin, and that’s when she realized she was naked.

Naked!

Where was she? She blinked, trying to focus, but all she could see were vague shapes. She struggled to sit up, but a wave of nausea rolled over her, and groaning, she collapsed against the table. Which was just as well, seeing as how she was strapped down.

Strapped down!

She glanced around frantically as everything came back in a horrifying rush. The mausoleum. Cullen! He was trapped underground! His claustrophobia! She had to get to him!

Elizabeth redoubled her efforts to sit up, but it was no use. She fell back, gazing frantically around. Where was she?

There was a picture on the wall beside the table, and she concentrated until it came into focus. It was an anatomical chart representing the circulatory and muscle systems of the human body.

Was she in some sort of classroom? A science lab?

She moved her gaze to the closed door just to her right. There were danger signs mounted on the white surface, a warning that this was a formaldehyde area.

Elizabeth’s heart started to beat painfully. At the end of the table on which she lay were a series of hoses and pumps. A shelf above her head contained several bottles of fluid in different colors. Some of them were pink. Embalming fluid…

She gasped in horror. She was at the funeral home. In the embalming room…

A scream bubbled in her throat, but Elizabeth forced it back. She couldn’t panic. She had to find a way to free herself. And then she had to go and rescue Cullen.

She closed her eyes, trying to think what to do. When she opened them again, a man in a white lab coat stood over her.

“You’re awake, I see.”

Elizabeth blinked. He wasn’t at all who she’d expected to see. “Lucian?” He looked like Lucian and yet he didn’t. His eyes were different. No longer dark, but a piercing blue. She’d seen those eyes before….

His smiled broadened. “Allow me to introduce myself, Elizabeth. I’m Dr. René Rathfastar.”

Rathfastar? Manning’s protégé?

“I’m also known as Lucas Cross, the fisherman who rents the apartment above Krauter’s Funeral Home. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now where you are.”

She moistened her lips, trying to will away her fear. “I thought René Rathfastar was dead.”

“As you can see, I’m not.”

“You killed those girls?” When he merely kept smiling, she said almost accusingly, “But that day in the lab. The sight of blood made you sick.”

He sighed. “An affliction I’ve never gotten over, I’m afraid. It stems from my childhood, when my father, who was an avid big-game hunter, made me dress his kills. It’s ironic, I suppose, that that which repulses me also…stimulates me.”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Why did you kill them?”

“You would have figured that out eventually. That’s one of the things I admire most about you. Your fine mind. We have that in common, you know. I was a prodigy, also, and I know how lonely that can be. I was drawn to you…for many reasons.”

The thought of that made Elizabeth even more ill. She tried to calm her racing heart. She had to keep her wits about her so she could figure out his motive. So she could get one step ahead of him.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” She let an edge of panic creep into her voice. He would like that.

“Oh, I think you do understand. You were on the right track, you just didn’t realize it. But one day soon you would have had an epiphany, and then everything would have fallen into place for you. As much as I hated to bring our little game to an end, I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you ruin my plans. I’ve waited so long.”

“Since Brussels?” She took a stab in the dark at his motivation.

His gaze hardened. “Since Leland Manning forced me out of the society. And in the process, he ruined my reputation, my career. He took everything from me. I had to flee the country, to try and start over in Europe, but even there, he still had influence. He still pursued me. Then I had an epiphany.”

“What was it?” Elizabeth struggled unobtrusively with the bindings that kept her trapped on the table. Bindings that Rathfastar had attached himself because an embalming table usually had no need of them. Elizabeth’s thoughts were slightly hysterical, but she couldn’t seem to rein them in.

“The car accident was the catalyst,” he said. “I’ll spare you the details of the hell I went through, the months in the hospital, the dozens of agonizing surgeries I had to endure. Suffice it to say, I survived. And I came through the ordeal a new man.” He smiled again. “Literally. I look nothing like my former self, but…” He stroked his chin. “I can’t say that I’m displeased with the results.”

“What about the real Lucian LeCroix?” Elizabeth thought she already knew the answer.

“Dead,” he said flatly. “I knew him in college, you see. When our paths crossed again in Europe, he didn’t recognize me. I used an alias to strike up a friendship with him, a bit like that movie. You know. The Talented Dr. Rathfastar.” He laughed, pleased with himself. “Anyway, LeCroix told me about a relationship he’d been in that had gone sour. He was nursing a broken heart and needed a change of scenery. An old friend of his mentor’s, a friend LeCroix himself had never actually met, had gotten him a position at Heathrow College. It was, quite simply, fate. The perfect way to return to Moriah’s Landing. The perfect chance to ruin Leland Manning as he ruined me.”

“How?” Elizabeth wriggled her hand. If she could somehow manage to slip it free—

“This is beneath you, Elizabeth.”

“What?”

“I can see right through you, you know. You’re not going to be able to get away. Not this time. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” He turned, picking up a syringe from the tray of instruments behind him.

“Wait!” Elizabeth cried.

He glanced down, needle poised over her arm. “This won’t hurt much. Just a little sample for my own purposes, and then we’ll get to the really serious bloodletting.” He reached a gloved hand out and stroked her throat.

Elizabeth’s skin went clammy with terror. “If I can’t escape, why not tell me what I want to know? It’s not like I can hurt you with the knowledge.” She stared up at him, her eyes pleading. “How could killing those two girls ruin Manning? He’s not even a serious suspect.”

“He will be. Think about it, Elizabeth. The matching blood type. The similar medical histories. The test tube you found in the funeral home. All that was carefully planned. Everything will eventually lead to Manning, a scientist working with DNA. People already wonder about him and his strange theories. Each new kill will bring the police closer and closer to his door.”

“Each new kill?” Elizabeth whispered. Dear God, how many did he have planned?

He saw her face and shrugged. “Oh, come now. You didn’t think I was finished just because our little game has reached its conclusion, did you?”

She shuddered.

“In fact, Manning’s next victim lay right where you are less that twenty-four hours ago. Her blood has already been flushed down the drain, and now she’s on ice, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, at my place on Raven’s Cove, waiting for the right time to…make her appearance. But don’t worry, Elizabeth. I’ll spare you her identity. Why have that on your conscience in the last seconds of your life?”

Oh, God, who had been his third victim? Brie? Kat? Claire? Terror rushed through Elizabeth’s veins so fast and so furious she could hardly think straight. Hardly keep from screaming, but she knew she had to somehow stay sane. Rathfastar was brilliant, but so was she. She could find a way to outsmart him….

“How did you know I was getting close to the truth?” she asked softly.

He cocked his head. “Your cop boyfriend was starting to ask questions around town about Manning. That’s what I wanted. But you. You were asking questions about me. About the society. Sooner or later you would have figured it all out.”

“But…” How had he known she’d asked questions about the secret society? She hadn’t talked to anyone except her mother….

And then she remembered Marion’s evasiveness. Her unwillingness to talk about Manning and Rathfastar. Elizabeth recalled her mother’s sudden trip to Brussels, where Rathfastar was last seen, where he’d had a terrible car accident….

She gazed up into his eyes. Those eyes that were no longer brown, but blue, fringed with thick lashes.

She had seen those eyes before. And now she knew where.

An image of her little brother formed in her mind. His sweet face. His light blue eyes. His features that were not like either of his parents’ or his sister’s, but unique.

Now she knew why.

“You…and my mother?” she whispered in horror.

He might have looked wistful if not for those eyes. There was nothing behind them. “My brilliant and beautiful Marion. You think she told me of your interest in the society? I wish I could still count on her loyalty, but she made her choice a long time ago, I’m afraid.” He shrugged. “As it happens, I’ve managed to cultivate a new friendship in the police department. She was—shall we say?—persuaded to copy Detective Ryan’s case files for me. He keeps copious notes, by the way. Unusual for someone of his limited talents. You would be shamefully wasted on someone like him, Elizabeth.”

The taunt hardly registered. Her mind was still on Brandon. It couldn’t be true. Please don’t let it be true.

“It is interesting that you should bring up your mother, though.” He glanced down at Elizabeth, his gaze skimming her nude body. “You’re so much like her.” He ran the tip of the syringe along the inside of Elizabeth’s arm, teasing her. “When I’m long gone from here, when Leland Manning has become only a shell of his former self, then I’ll find a way to let Marion know that I was the one who killed her daughter. That’s the price she’ll pay for her betrayal. And as for the boy…”

A wave of fresh terror swept over Elizabeth.

“You’re wondering the same thing that’s tormented me for years, aren’t you, Elizabeth? Is Brandon my son, or isn’t he?”

While they’d been talking, Elizabeth had managed to work one hand free of the straps. When Rathfastar turned to adjust the embalming pump, she glanced around frantically for a weapon.

The only thing she could see were the bottles of liquid on the shelf near the table. She reached up and grabbed one, working frantically to uncap the lid with one hand.

When Rathfastar turned back around, she flung the liquid into his eyes. He screamed, lifting his hands to his face, bending double in pain.

Then his hands dropped, and he was laughing. “It’ll take more than a bottle of distilled water to thwart my plans, Elizabeth.”

He reached for a scalpel from the tray of instruments. “You’ve got a little more fight left in you than I anticipated,” he said admiringly. “Perhaps we should do something about all that energy.”

Elizabeth bit back a scream. That was exactly what he wanted, to see her terrified.

Somewhere behind her, Elizabeth heard a door burst open, and Cullen shouted, “Rathfastar!”

He looked up, surprised.

“Put it down,” Cullen yelled. Elizabeth couldn’t see him, but she could hear what sounded like the clomp of running feet through the receiving area. He’d brought reinforcements.

Rathfastar hesitated, surprised to have his plans interrupted. Especially by someone with such limited talents.

Elizabeth could have wept in relief. But only for a moment.

Rathfastar turned back to her, the scalpel poised over her throat. “Perhaps it is you who should drop your weapon, Detective. One slice, and she’s through.”

A shot rang out, catching Rathfastar in the shoulder. Stunned, he staggered back a few steps, still clinging to the scalpel. A look of rage came over his features, and he lunged toward Elizabeth.

Cullen fired again, and this time the bullet hit Rath-faster in the chest. The scalpel fell from his fingers as his legs folded and he collapsed to the floor.

Cullen ran across the room and loosened the straps, and Elizabeth sat up, clinging to him. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her. “How did you know?” she asked breathlessly. “How did you know where to find me?”

He hesitated. “I guess we’ll have to chalk it up to intuition.”

“You don’t believe in intuition.”

“Then maybe I also got a little help from an unexpected source.”

“What source?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later. Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

Outside the funeral home, Elizabeth turned to him as she clutched his coat tightly around her. “I was so worried about you. The thought of you in that awful place. Trapped with your claustrophobia…” She lifted her hand to his face. “I was trying to get free so I could come and rescue you.”

He swore under his breath, and then he drew her into his arms and held her so tightly she could hardly breathe.

Chapter Seventeen

Elizabeth came out of the dressing room and stood in front of the mirror. She hardly recognized herself. The dress she wore was…revealing, to say the least. Black. Short. Clingy.

She tugged at the low neckline. “I don’t know about this.”

“It’s what you asked for,” Becca Smith reminded her.

“Oh, I know. You did a beautiful job. It’s just…”

“It’s just hot, is what it is.” Kat lounged in a chair near the mirror, eyeing Elizabeth with new respect. “That should bring Cullen up…er…around nicely.”

Elizabeth glanced at her coolly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Kat laughed. “Oh, come on. You’ve wanted to jump his bones for years. Admit it.”

Elizabeth’s cheeks turned bright pink.

“You should see your face,” Kat teased. “It’s like an open book. You never could keep a secret. You’d better leave the subterfuge to Brie.”

Elizabeth thought of Brandon and the possibility that a vicious killer was his father. That was one secret she would take to her grave.

Kat got up and sauntered to the door. “I have to get back to the office, but let me know how that dress works out for you. I may want to borrow it. I thought I might try one of those online dating services, see what’s up with that.” She opened the door, then turned back. “Oh, a piece of good news. I heard from Claire’s mother this morning. We’ve all been feeling so badly for upsetting her when we went to see her, but turns out, she started getting better after that. She may even get to come home for a visit.”

Elizabeth gazed at Kat in alarm. Would that be safe?

Kat shrugged, intuiting her look. “If she does come home, we’ll have to watch out for her,” she murmured.

Elizabeth was still thinking about Claire when she left Threads a few minutes later. Whoever had kidnapped and tortured Claire was still out there. Leslie Ridgemont’s murderer was still out there, too, but at least Rathfastar had been stopped. His latest victim, Dana Colby, had been found, as he’d claimed, in a cooler in the house he’d rented on Raven’s Cove. She, too, had been a student at Heathrow, and Elizabeth’s heart went out to her family.

It would take a long time for the town to get over this latest reign of terror. As for Elizabeth, she planned to keep working on the mystery of the matching blood types and the similarities in the victims’ medical histories in hopes that her research would lead her to the original killer. And to Claire’s kidnapper. There were still too many unanswered questions in this town, and Elizabeth wouldn’t rest until she found out the truth.

But for now…first things first.

She slowly climbed the steps to Cullen’s apartment. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on his door.

When he answered, he looked as if he’d just come from the shower. He wore jeans and a shirt buttoned up only part of the way. When he saw her, his brows lifted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Elizabeth knew she looked different. She wore a trench coat over the dress, but even so, she’d left her hair down and she had on makeup. “May I come in?”

He stepped back so she could enter. Elizabeth’s legs were shaking so badly she hoped she didn’t topple off her stiletto heels.

She turned.

Cullen’s gaze was all over her. “What’s going on?”

“I just came by to see how you’re doing. I haven’t seen much of you since we wrapped up the case.” He’d gone back to avoiding her, but Elizabeth wasn’t about to stand for it this time. Not without a fight. She fanned her face. “It’s warm in here, isn’t it. Mind if I take off my coat?” She let it slide down her arms.

Cullen’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw the dress.

Slowly, she walked toward him.

He backed away from her, until he was up against the wall. “What are you doing, Elizabeth?”

“Can’t you tell?” she asked in a sultry voice she’d been practicing for days. She ran the tip of her finger down his partially-revealed chest. “I’m trying to seduce you.”

He caught her hand. “Well, stop it.”

Elizabeth froze. If she’d been humiliated before, she was positively mortified now. Why had she ever thought she could pull this off? What was she doing here anyway? Couldn’t she take a hint?

She started to pull back, but Cullen clutched her hand. “I told you once that your first time should be special. With the right guy.”

Elizabeth swallowed. But I’ve been in love with you forever, she wanted to tell him. Some remnant of pride, thank goodness, held her back.

“This isn’t the right time, Elizabeth.”

“I’m finally starting to get that message.” Her feelings for him were hopeless.

“I’m not sure you are, so let me spell it out for you.” One arm crept around her waist. Slowly, he drew her toward him. “The next time I carry you into my bedroom, you’ll have a ring on your finger that says your mine forever. Got it?”

Elizabeth stared up at him, stunned. “But you said…the way you’ve been avoiding me…I thought…”

“I’ve been avoiding you because I needed time to think. When I saw you on that table at the funeral home…when I thought about what could have happened to you…” He closed his eyes briefly. “It was like I’d been struck by lightning. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.”

“Seen what?” Elizabeth asked in a trembly voice.

“How much you mean to me.” He gazed down at her. “No one’s ever looked at me the way you do, Elizabeth. No one’s ever cared about me before. I guess I was too scared to believe it could be real. That it could last.”

“But it is real,” she said. “I’ve loved you for a very long time, Cullen. That’s never going to change.”

His gaze turned tender. “It took almost losing you for me to come to my senses. For me to see what was right there in front of me. You’re an amazing woman, Elizabeth.”

“How come it took you so long to figure that out?” she teased. “It’s been days since you rescued me.”

He swallowed. “I know. But even after I realized how much…how I felt about you, I was still scared, I guess.”

“Scared of what?”

He shrugged. “This isn’t going to be easy. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

Unease fluttered inside Elizabeth. “What do you mean?”

He drew a long breath and released it. “I’m not like you. I’m not from your world. I’m a cop. A high-school dropout. The son of the town drunk.” He waved a hand. “Take a look around you, Elizabeth. This is who I am.”

“I know who you are, Cullen. I’ve always known. I may come from a privileged background, but you can’t imagine how lonely my life has been without you. I may have a high IQ, but you’re the smartest, most interesting person I’ve ever known. And as for my parents—” She shuddered. “They have their faults, just like yours did. But it’s who we are that matters. It’s what we’ve made of our lives. Don’t you see that?”

He smiled. “I’m beginning to.”

“Then why can’t you say it?”

“Say what?”

“That you love me.”

He wove his hands through her hair, tilting her face to his. “I love you, Elizabeth. I’m crazy about you. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I want you at this moment.”

“Oh, wow,” Elizabeth whispered, and then she said nothing else because Cullen bent at that moment and kissed her. Tenderly at first, and then fiercely. With the promise of a passion that took her breath away.

“About that book you were reading…” Cullen murmured into her ear. “Where were we…?”

Howling in the Darkness

By B.J. Daniels

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

A killer fog rolled in off the Atlantic, moving silently through the darkness as it approached the small town nestled at the edge of the sea.

Jonah Ries didn’t see the fog coming any more than he could see the future. But he felt it. At first just a disquieting sense of foreboding. Then he came roaring up over a rise in the rocky landscape and saw the sign, Welcome to Moriah’s Landing, and he knew, a soul-deep knowing, that this was the last place on earth he should be.

He slowed his motorcycle, the feeling of darkness so strong he could see himself flipping a U-turn in the middle of the road, throttling up the bike, his taillight growing dimmer and dimmer beneath the twisted dark limbs snaking over the pavement.

But he could no more turn back than he could convince himself he had nothing to fear in Moriah’s Landing. He knew what he would risk coming here. A hell of a lot more than just his life, he thought as he swept down the hill, passing St. John’s Cemetery without looking in that direction, and heading for the wharf.

Overhead, a half-moon rode the star-specked sky, reminding him he had five days, tops.

He felt the first hint of the fog long before he saw it. Small patches of dampness brushed past his face, ghostlike as spiderwebs. But the moment he turned down Waterfront Avenue, the mist moved in as thick as wet concrete, obliterating everything, forcing him to pull over, park his bike and walk the rest of the way.

Might as well just get it over with. He reached under the left side of his leather jacket for the reassuring feel of his .38 nestled in the shoulder holster. Snug as a bug. Too bad what he feared most couldn’t be killed with a bullet. Not even a silver one.

He made his way along the brick sidewalk toward the faint beat of the neon bar sign at the end of the street, unable to throw off the ominous feeling he’d gotten at just the sight of the town’s sign.

Nor had he realized how late it was until he noticed that the shops were all dark, locked up for the night. Of course, it wasn’t Memorial Day yet. That’s when the tiny Massachusetts town would come alive with tourists, especially this year, with Moriah’s Landing celebrating its 350th anniversary.

Tourists would flock here for the beach—and the witch folklore, bringing a morbid fascination for the town’s dark, witch-hanging past.

Tonight, though, the small township lay cloaked in a fog of obscurity, silent as McFarland Leary’s grave, as if waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, Jonah feared he knew what that something was.

“Hey!” A voice came out of the darkness from the end of the street near the blurred, flashing bar sign for the Wharf Rat. Jonah could barely make out the form, but instantly recognized it, just as the man coming out of the bar had recognized him.

“Hey.” The man staggered forward, then stopped, clearly jarred momentarily from his drunken state.

Jonah reached blindly for the first door next to him, grabbed the handle and turned, praying it wouldn’t be locked, but prepared to use whatever it took to get in. He shoved with his shoulder as he turned the handle, losing his balance in surprise as the door fell open and he stumbled in, closing it behind him.

“You’re late,” a female voice admonished.

He froze, his back to the dark room. From beyond it, a narrow path of light ran across the carpet to his feet. He turned slowly, comforted by the feel of the .38.

She stood behind a large antique desk, one hand on her hip, her head cocked to the side so her long mane of raven’s-wing-black hair hung down past her shoulder like a wave. He could feel her gaze, dark and searching, long before he stepped close enough to really see her face.

“Sorry,” he said without thinking. He had plenty to be sorry about so he didn’t mind.

Her eyes narrowed. “I guess you didn’t get my last e-mail.”

He shook his head. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten any of her e-mails.

“Are you ready?” she asked, sounding a little unsure of herself. He sensed this was new territory for her.

Ready? He watched her pick up her purse and jacket and then hesitate. He couldn’t help but stare at her. She had the most interesting face he’d ever seen. Wide-set dark navy-blue eyes with dense lashes, a full, almost pouty, mouth and high cheekbones, all put together in a way that startled and interested him at the same time.

“Yes?” she asked, eyeing him, definitely not sure now. “Is there a problem?”

Not unless being totally confused was a problem. He started to tell her that she was making a mistake. But then she came around the corner of the desk and he got the full effect of her little black dress.

Wow. It was a knockout on her, formfitting against the warm olive glow of her skin. Silver glittered on her wrist, dangled from the lobes of her ears and swept the curve of her neck and throat. Nestled in the hollow between her breasts hung a small silver lighthouse charm.

“Did you have some spot in mind?” she asked. The tap of her heels drew his attention back up to her face as she moved toward him.

He had lots of spots in mind. But she’d caught him on a night when he was already off-kilter and she was the last thing he’d expected to run across. So it took him longer than it should have to realize she thought he was her date—an online blind date, it seemed. Even worse. And from the way she was dressed, they were going out for a drink. Maybe a late supper.

Unfortunately, her “real” date would probably be along any minute. Jonah realized he’d be damn disappointed when that happened. The problem was, leaving here right now wasn’t an option.

At least not out the front door where he feared the man he’d seen would be looking for him.

Past her, he saw a way out—literally. A back exit and a chance to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

“How about the Moriah’s Landing Inn?” he asked, realizing he had a better chance with her than alone if he hoped to avoid the man he’d just seen in the street. The hotel was only a few doors up on Main Street and had a very nice restaurant. And it was easy to get to since he figured he was probably supposed to be driving a car. Which he wasn’t. More important, they could get to it quickly by going down the narrow alley out back, therefore cutting down the chance of an ugly confrontation with his past.

“Great,” she said, sounding a little surprised.

Probably because of the way he looked. “I apologize for the way I’m dressed,” he said, glancing down at the jeans, biking boots and the laundry-worn blue chambray shirt he wore underneath his old brown leather jacket. He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw, then raked it on up through his hair. Not exactly hot-date material.

She looked down at her dress. It hit about thigh-high on her legs. Black platform sandals gave her a few more inches in height, putting them on about the same level. Her eyes came back to him, a tantalizing flush to her cheeks. “Is the dress too—”

“It’s perfect,” he said, meaning it. “You look sensational.” Meaning that, too.

She quirked a smile at him and ducked her head. “Thanks.”

Yes, definitely new territory for her. This was a woman who didn’t often feel vulnerable. But she did right now. He couldn’t help but wonder why. Even if he hadn’t had to make a quick getaway, her vulnerability made him all the more anxious to get her out of here before her real date arrived.

He glanced out the front window toward the street, the fog dense as chowder. No sign of the dark figure he’d seen earlier. “Why don’t we go out the back? It’s closer that way.”

She lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. He helped her with her jacket, wondering how much she knew about her real date, and opened the back door, glancing down the quaint brick alley to make sure no one was waiting for him.

As they left, he noticed the small sign hanging over the back door. Ridgemont Detective Agency. She worked for a private investigator? Just his luck.

He could hear music and the faint murmur of voices traveling on the sea breeze coming up from Raven’s Cove. His heart picked up the beat of her heels tapping the brick as they walked closer to the wharf, wrapped in the dense cloak of the fog, making what was already an unimaginable night surreal.

He told himself he’d just stolen someone else’s date. That alone could explain his uneasiness. Also he was home again, back in a town he’d vowed never to return to. Unfortunately, he knew only too well all the things that could be lurking in Moriah’s Landing.

She took his arm, the dark alley almost intimate as the foghorn groaned out past the cove. He breathed in her scent and tried to relax. He was safe with her. But he knew relaxing would be impossible as long as he was in Moriah’s Landing. And dangerous.

The apparition came out of the mist so unexpectedly Jonah didn’t even have time to reach for his weapon, let alone sense the presence. Suddenly a dark figure appeared in front of them, her black hooded cloak blowing out in the breeze like the wings of a vulture.

He started at the sight of the old crone, her gray hair a silver aura sticking out from under her black hood, her eyes bottomless holes in her wrinkled face.

Reflexively he stepped between his date and the old woman as the crone reached clawlike gnarled fingers toward them.

“It’s just Arabella,” his date whispered. “She’s harmless.”

How little she knew.

The old woman’s gaze locked with his for an instant, then she stumbled back as if she’d seen a ghost. Or something worse. “Katherine,” she cried, fear contorting her face as she gasped for breath and reached around him, trying to pluck at the fabric of his date’s jacket sleeve.

“Danger comes in with the fog,” the crone croaked, her gaze on Jonah. “Danger and death.” Then the old woman stumbled back into the mist, leaving Jonah shaken. If he couldn’t even sense an old woman coming in the fog, how did he plan to protect himself from the real trouble here?

Katherine must have seen his expression. “Arabella’s just local color,” she said with a laugh, and pulled him toward the Moriah’s Landing Inn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the town council paid her to freak out visitors as part of our witch-folklore ambience.”

Jonah looked over his shoulder. The old woman was gone. But like him, she’d sensed something had come in with the fog, unleashing evil in Moriah’s Landing.

They walked past one of the “witch” shops along the narrow alley that peddled magic, from herbs and oils to tarot cards and crystals.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about all this foolishness?” his date asked as she glanced into the shop window, then at him.

“What foolishness?” he asked, pretending he didn’t know and that he wasn’t still shaken by their run-in with Arabella.

“Witches, the supernatural, all the hype that comes with Moriah’s Landing,” she said with a laugh. “According to local legend, early resident McFarland Leary was a consort to a witch.”

They crossed Main Street to the entrance of the Moriah’s Landing Inn. He opened the door for her, anxious to get inside. Because of the hour, the hotel lobby and the restaurant were nearly empty. A young waiter showed them to a table by the window facing the cove—farthest away from the door and Main Street.

“When they started burning witches at the stake in Salem, many of the witches fled to Moriah’s Landing where they were hidden by McFarland Leary and his consort, a witch named Seama,” she said, and nervously plucked up her cloth napkin from the table. “Seama and her secret coven give the town its supernatural ambience.”

She glanced at him, then out at the foggy darkness as if there was nothing to fear beyond the window. “McFarland Leary is our resident ghost, cursed by the witch he betrayed.” She swung her gaze back to him. Definitely nervous, making him pretty sure she didn’t know much about him. “Seama was carrying Leary’s child when she caught him cheating on her with a mortal and she damned him for eternity. Then she disappeared with her unborn baby. Some people swear she later returned to town and her descendants live among us.” She smiled at that. “The town accused Leary of being a warlock and sentenced him to die. Warlocks were used for kindling around the stakes to get the fire going hot enough to burn the witches. But Moriah’s Landing likes to be different. The town hung Leary from a big oak tree on the town green and buried him in St. John’s Cemetery as a warning to others who might want to consort with witches. Now Leary rises from his grave every five years to seek revenge on the town. Or at least that’s what the chamber of commerce wants you to believe.”

She took a breath as she finished her story and let out a little tense laugh. “Welcome to Moriah’s Landing.”

Obviously, her real date wasn’t from town. He smiled, gazing intently into her dark blue eyes, anxious to change the subject, no matter what it took, even if it meant flirting with a beautiful woman. “I like it already, Katherine.” At least Arabella had provided him with his date’s name.

“Kat.” She dropped her gaze, a faint blush rising in her cheeks, making her even more appealing, as if she wasn’t already. “Everyone just calls me Kat.”

Except for Arabella. He glanced toward Waterfront Avenue, the fog too thick to know if the man he’d seen was still out there looking for him. “You sound as if you don’t like the town,” he said, not sure how much he was supposed to know about her but determined to keep her talking about herself so she didn’t start questioning him. “What makes you stay?”

She seemed surprised and he feared he’d already messed up. He wasn’t ready to go back out on the street. Even if it had been safe, he found his “date” intriguing. Maybe too intriguing.

She took a sip from her water glass, then picked up her menu. “I’ve never even thought about leaving. Can you believe it? I didn’t even leave to go away to college.”

So she went to the all-girl Heathrow College at the edge of town.

“I’m eighth generation,” she said as if that explained it. “In Massachusetts you aren’t considered a native unless you have at least eight generations buried in the local cemetery.”

A local girl. Just his luck.

“Your ancestors must have been fishermen,” he guessed, opening his own menu, although he wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

“Seventh generation,” she said. “Dad died at sea when I was a sophomore in college.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded and peered at him over her menu, her wide blue eyes magnetic. “Commercial fishing,” she said, then dropped her gaze again behind the menu.

He nodded to himself, more than aware that the sea had always taken men from small fishing villages like Moriah’s Landing and would continue to as long as men went to sea. And men would always be drawn to the sea. Some forces in nature pulled at you with a witchery that Jonah understood better than most.

“What about your mother?” he asked, hoping his question was general enough.

“My mother—” he heard the catch in her throat, the hesitation in her voice “—died when I was three. I can’t remember her.” She closed her menu, clearly closing the subject.

“I’m sorry. I hope that isn’t all the family you have here,” he said, doing a little fishing of his own.

“There’s my half sister, Emily. She’s seventeen and a real handful, but I love her. She’s all the family I have left and she graduates from high school next week. Tell me more about you.”

More about him. He studied his menu wondering about the man she was supposed to be having dinner with tonight. He could only guess that they met online, considering her comment about getting her e-mail, and that they obviously hadn’t met face-to-face—until tonight. He knew nothing about online dating. But it was pretty clear that she didn’t know her date very well—nor he her. “There isn’t much to tell.”

“Your father wasn’t a fisherman, I’ll bet.”

Far from it. He shook his head and smiled as he lowered his menu. Fortunately, the waiter saved him. “I have to have lobster,” Jonah told her. “How about you?”

“I don’t eat seafood.” She shook her head. “Not because of any moral stand or because of my father. I’ve just never liked it. I’ll take the chicken,” she said to the waiter.

“Kat,” Jonah said, trying out the name. He liked it. It fit her. “You must know practically everyone in town.” Cause for concern.

“Everyone,” she said, and laughed.

She would know his family. The thought left him cold.

“It’s one of the problems of living in a small town,” she said. “Everyone knows everything about you. And you them.” She shrugged. “But it’s home, you know?”

He didn’t know. He glanced out the window toward the wharf. The neon from the bars at the end of Waterfront gave the fog an eerie glow.

“You can’t even see the lighthouse tonight the fog is so thick,” Kat said, following his gaze to the night, sounding worried about fishermen who might be trying to get to safe harbor.

Jonah looked out past Raven’s Cove, where he knew the lighthouse loomed up from a jagged island outcropping of rock, then back at her as the waiter brought their salads. He couldn’t stop thinking about Arabella’s warning. Or his own uneasiness. He told himself it was just the fog. Just being back here.

“So tell me about your work,” Kat said.

He watched her take a bite of her salad, captivated by her mouth. “My work?”

“Computers. What is it exactly that you do?”

He let out a laugh. So he was supposed to be a computer nerd? Great. “It’s too boring for words. I’m sure your job is much more interesting.”

She shook her head, smiling. “You aren’t one of those people who thinks the private-eye business is like on TV?” She had a great smile. He felt heat as his gaze locked with hers.

“You mean it’s not?” he asked, trying to sound disappointed as he looked deep into all that blue. It was like looking down into the sea. Bottomless and full of mysteries.

She licked her lips, her cheeks flushing again, and dropped her gaze to her salad, her fork poised above a piece of endive. “It actually consists of tedious, time-consuming hours spent digging up facts. But I started the business because I wanted to help people, so I don’t mind.” She shrugged and let her gaze lift to his again.

He didn’t know if the jolt he felt came from her look—or the realization that she was the P.I. of Ridgemont Detective Agency. Bad news. But although he was more than a little attracted to her, he wouldn’t be seeing her again after tonight. In fact, he planned to be out of Moriah’s Landing as quickly as possible. As soon as he finished what he’d come here to do.

He managed to steer the conversation away from himself throughout the rest of their dinner date, careful not to give anything away—or let on that he wasn’t her real date. He even got her to relax a little.

“I had a nice time,” she said shyly outside the restaurant after dinner, sounding surprised. Why did he get the feeling that she didn’t date much?

“I had a nice time, too,” he said, realizing it was true. He hadn’t meant for the date to last this long. He could no longer pretend he was just buying time. And yet he felt off balance again out here in the fog, being with this woman who should have been with someone else. “Can I walk you home?”

She shook her head. “I just live a block or so from here.” She tugged her jacket around her and shifted her feet. Her gaze came up to meet his. Oh, those eyes. And that mouth.

Stirred by a yearning stronger than the force of the moon on the sea, he bent to kiss her good-night. Goodbye.

Her eyes fluttered closed. Her lips parted. A hairbreadth from her wonderful mouth Jonah felt something brush the back of his neck, something cold as the kiss of death.

He jerked around, only to see wisps of fog streaming past as if blown up from the sea by a gust of wind. Except there was no wind, just as there was no one right behind him. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a presence out there in the mist watching them. “Let me walk you home.”

She opened her eyes in surprise, licked her lips and turned her face away, unsure. Again. “I am more than capable of walking myself home.” Obviously upset with him for not kissing her, she took a couple of steps backward.

“I had a great time,” he said, not wanting to let her go. Suddenly afraid to let her go.

She nodded, turned and disappeared into the fog.

He waited and then followed her at a distance as she walked to her clapboard three-story house at the edge of the town green, unable to shake the feeling he’d had that instant before he’d almost kissed her.

Before turning back to the wharf, he listened for the sound of the bolt sliding on her door, and then for the footsteps he’d heard to retreat, shaken by the fact that someone else had followed her home as well.

Chapter Two

Kat couldn’t lose the odd feeling that had come over her outside the restaurant. It wasn’t just that her date hadn’t kissed her. Or that he seemed to cool toward her. As she’d walked home, she’d heard footsteps behind her on the brick pathway. Two sets.

When she’d stop, so did the others, which only strengthened an illogical but growing fear that someone was after her—just as someone had been after her mother twenty years before. The Beretta in her purse and the fact that she was an expert markswoman, had given her little comfort tonight. She’d been spooked and running scared, both highly unlike her.

Once inside her house, she closed the door behind her, locked it, then pulled aside the curtain to look out into the fog, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but her own ragged breath and the erratic thump of her heart. Logically, she knew the sound of the footsteps had probably been some weird echo because of the fog, just as she knew what had caused this sudden case of paranoia. The very mention of her mother.

She kicked off her heels and padded barefoot farther into the first floor of the house she’d lived in her whole life, noticing as she looked upstairs that a light shone from under her sister Emily’s bedroom door. She could hear music playing and Em on the phone talking with one of her friends, both reassuring sounds. She was glad the seventeen-year-old was home on a school night and would be graduating next week, although it worried her that her half sister didn’t seem to have any plans after graduation. But tonight, Kat was just glad not to be alone in the house.

As she passed the phone on the small table at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed that the answering-machine light was flashing. Distractedly, she hit Rewind. She still felt a little scared and wished she’d taken her date up on his offer to escort her. But wasn’t that possibly the mistake her mother had made? Trusting a man? The wrong man.

She hugged herself as the answering-machine tape stopped. What was wrong with her? Her date had been perfectly nice. He’d made her laugh. He’d made her forget how uncomfortable she’d felt about online blind dating. He’d seemed interested in her, in her work. And she couldn’t discount the obvious attraction she’d felt for him.

But once they were outside the restaurant, he’d started to kiss her and hadn’t—as much as she’d wanted him to. Why was that? Not out of shyness, that was for sure.

And yet he’d seemed almost scared of her at first. The way he’d come into her office, appearing confused. Late. Showing up looking as if he’d just gotten off work at the docks. She’d been nervous about meeting him. But he’d seemed nervous, too.

And he hadn’t been the nervous type. Nor had he been anything like she’d expected. The strong jawline, dark from a day’s stubble, the deep brown eyes, a shade lighter than his short brown hair. He’d looked more muscular, rugged..dangerous than she’d expected.

The thought startled her. She’d already been the dangerous-man route. Just the once. But a smart woman learned the first time. Or she ended up dead on the town green. She didn’t want to be the kind of woman who picked the wrong man. Like her mother.

Kat shoved that thought away and hit the play button on the answering machine.

“Hi, it’s Ross.”

Her head jerked up, her attention dragged from her date—to the voice on the answering machine.

“Sorry about tonight. I really wanted to meet you in person, but something came up at the last minute. Maybe we could do it another time? See you online.”

Disbelieving, she pushed rewind and listened to the message again. Her online date had stood her up?

She felt a chill. Then who had she just spent dinner with?

Desperately, she tried to remember what the man had told her about himself during their meal. Only vague generalities that could have fit any man! No wonder he’d seemed surprised when he’d come into her office. No wonder he’d seemed so interested in her, in her work. Because he knew nothing about her! And he didn’t want her asking too many questions about him. She’d been so nervous, she hadn’t even noticed. Until now.

A thought struck her. Maybe his interest in her hadn’t been just to cover his deception. Scared, she tried to remember what she’d told him about herself. Why had he pretended to be her date?

She felt sick inside. Normally, she was damn good at reading people. But dating—God, it made her so anxious. Probably because it had been so long and she’d been so scared that he would turn out to be another Mr. Wrong. Mr. Dead Wrong. And maybe he had been. Thank God she hadn’t let him walk her home. She hugged herself, suddenly cold. Had his been one of the set of footsteps she’d heard following her home? The thought froze her to her core.

“Sorry about your date.”

Kat looked up the stairs as Emily leaned over the railing in her favorite, worn-thin teddy-bear pajamas. Emily was small and slim with their father’s gray eyes. She’d pulled her dark, shoulder length hair into a ponytail, making her look even younger than her seventeen years. “I saved the message for you. What a jerk. He didn’t even come up with a decent excuse for standing you up.” She frowned. “Have you been working all this time?”

She considered lying. “No, I…went out to dinner.”

“By yourself?” Emily made it sound as if she couldn’t imagine anything worse. She probably couldn’t.

“No, actually, I met someone.” She tried to assure herself that it had been innocent, needing desperately to believe that. He’d just taken advantage of the situation. What man wouldn’t who saw the chance to have dinner with a young woman in a sexy black dress? An honest man. A man with nothing to hide.

“Who was this guy?” Emily asked, coming down the stairs to eye her more closely.

Kat wished she’d lied and said she’d worked late. “No one you know,” she said defensively, unable to forget that she’d been attracted to him, a man who lied to her. “I don’t need to have my dates checked out by you.” She flipped off the downstairs light, picked up her black platform heels where she’d dropped them by the door and started up the steps past her sister, hoping that was the end of it.

“As if you don’t give me the third degree about every guy I date,” Emily said, trailing after her.

“That’s different,” Kat said, stopping on the landing. “I’m twenty-three. You’re seventeen and you still have a lot to learn about men.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “As if you’re the authority on men. I’ve dated more this year than you have in your life!” She swept into her room, slamming the door behind her. Emily always had to get in the last word.

Kat stared after her, just wishing the last word hadn’t been the truth. Tonight proved how little Kat knew about men. In spades.

She climbed to her own bedroom on the third floor, not bothering to turn on a light. The room was large with two bay windows on each side and a tiny, railed widow’s walk at the end facing the town green and, past it, Raven’s Cove and the Atlantic. Light filtered in from the pale gray fog.

She dropped her shoes beside the bed and, opening the French doors, stepped out onto the walk into the damp mist, feeling oddly vulnerable. She no longer felt safe—not when she couldn’t trust her judgment any more than she had tonight. Who had she gone to dinner with?

She drew in a breath of the cool, wet night air and looked out at the wisps of mist moving like ghosts through the town green, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t her mother. But more and more when she looked in the mirror, she saw the startling resemblance to the old photographs of her mother.

Worse, she feared the similarities were more than skin deep, since her first choice of a man had been deadly wrong, a choice she’d paid for dearly a year ago. Now, it seemed, she’d made another mistake tonight, and to think she’d been tempted to let him walk her home.

The fog drifted across the green, weaving in and out of the trees. She caught a glimpse of the gazebo just beyond the wide sweeping branches of the witch-hanging tree, the white lattice of the gazebo dark with its cloak of dense ivy. It had been on a night like this almost twenty years ago—she shuddered and stepped back inside to close and lock the doors. How could she not help but think of her mother tonight?

KAT WOKE IN A SWEAT, the sheets tangled around her, her heart pounding. She sat up, terrified. Her hand shook as she reached to fumble on the lamp beside her bed, frantically trying to fight off the horrible images that surfaced to consciousness within her. The clock beside her bed read 2:28 a.m.

She’d had the dream again. Only this time, she swore she could smell her mother’s perfume. And for a moment, she would have sworn she wasn’t alone in the room.

She hugged herself as she glanced around her bedroom, seeing nothing but familiar objects—and no place for anyone to hide. After a few minutes, she curled back under the covers and, although she fought sleep and the possibility of the nightmare coming back, she finally dozed off again.

She woke to the sound of the radio alarm. It jolted her out of bed, dragging remnants of the nightmare with her. She stumbled to the bathroom, disrobing to step into the shower. The hot water and the light of day helped. By the time she dried off, she’d convinced herself that there’d been nothing to fear last night—including the dream and her mystery date.

Logically, if he’d meant her harm, he wouldn’t have taken her to the Moriah’s Landing Inn on Main Street. He’d have suggested someplace where there was less chance of them being seen together. And even though she’d heard footsteps on her way home, it didn’t mean whoever it was had been following her.

By the time she’d dressed for work, she’d discounted her fears from the previous night, even coming up with a logical explanation for the nightmare’s return after all these years. The twentieth anniversary of her mother’s death was only days away. Just the mention of her mother and her death had no doubt spooked her last night on the walk home and triggered the nightmare, even making her believe she smelled her mother’s perfume. Just as she’d imagined hearing someone in the room, before her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

But as she left for work, she didn’t cut across the town green as she normally did each morning. Her lapse in judgment last night and the dream still had her feeling a little vulnerable. She knew it was crazy, since she was trained to be able to take care of herself in most situations. And what did she have to fear in Moriah’s Landing in broad daylight, anyway?

On Main Street she spotted Arabella coming toward her and braced herself for another of the woman’s dire warnings of impending doom. But to her surprise, Arabella appeared to cross the street as if to avoid her. Kat saw the poor woman make the sign of the cross and duck down one of the narrow brick alleys.

Normally, Kat found Arabella’s bizarre behavior amusing, but this morning it made her a little uneasy.

Worse, Kat found herself looking for her mystery date in the faces she passed. She couldn’t help wondering who he was and if she really might have been in danger last night.

As she neared her office, she spotted something lying on the front step. She slowed, glancing around, suddenly feeling as if someone was watching her, waiting for her to find what he’d left for her.

On her office doorstep lay a small bouquet of daisies tied loosely with a short piece of frayed red satin ribbon. No white floral box. No card. Just freshly picked daisies and a worn red ribbon.

As she stooped to lift the flowers gently, as if they were an armed bomb set to blow at even the slightest movement, she told herself they were just flowers. Nothing sinister about daisies. Of course, they had to be from Ross. A small gesture after standing her up last night. Maybe she’d give him a second chance.

And yet she held the flowers away from her as she opened her office door and, after putting them in a glass vase with water, she set them in the front window away from her desk, away from her sight, anxious to e-mail Ross a thank-you, anxious to find out for sure if he’d left them for her. Or if it had been someone else. Her mystery date?

She checked her messages, not surprised to find one from the insurance company asking her to sign off on Bud Lawson’s recent vandalism at his curio shop. Bud was anxious to have it settled so he could get reimbursed for repairs before the start of tourist season—which was only days away.

Since she’d started Ridgemont Detective Agency two years ago, insurance investigations and workmen’s comp made up the bulk of her work, with a few skip traces and domestic-problem cases thrown in. But she loved the work, the slow, methodical plodding that led to a logical conclusion.

She called Bud and set up an appointment for after lunch, then went through the rest of her messages. Her friend Elizabeth had called to remind Kat about her fitting this afternoon at Threads for her dress. She was to be Elizabeth’s maid of honor at her upcoming wedding.

Kat couldn’t be more happy about Elizabeth’s wedding. Dr. Elizabeth Douglas, a criminology professor at the local college, was about to marry a man she’d secretly had a crush on since high school: Cullen Ryan, a detective with the Moriah’s Landing Police Department. Kat glanced toward the window, thinking about Elizabeth and the fun they’d had at college. The daisies caught her eye. She felt a flicker of memory and frowned. What was it? Something about daisies. Something unpleasant.

Shaking her head, she checked her e-mail again. Nothing from Ross yet. Her gaze went to the street, as it had so often done all morning. She watched the pedestrians wander by, mostly early tourists.

She realized she was looking again for only one face in the passersby, and after a few moments of not seeing that face, she opened the Lawson case file and reviewed the list of either stolen or vandalized items Bud had sent her. She thumbed through those, making notes, wondering if there wasn’t a pattern to the recent rash of vandalisms and robberies in town.

“Hi,” a woman’s voice said, making Kat jump.

Kat hadn’t even heard anyone come in. She looked up from her desk to find her friend Claire standing over her. “Hi, sweetie.” She got up to give Claire a hug. “You look great.” A lie. Claire looked pale and thin. All those years in the hospital. Just the sight of her made Kat hurt.

But her friend was smiling and she had put on a few much needed pounds.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” Claire said, appearing more anxious than usual and yet obviously trying to hide it. Claire, with her long straight blond hair and large blue eyes, had been so beautiful and carefree before their freshman year at Heathrow College, before one tragic night changed her life forever.

While still beautiful, there was something about Claire now that seemed too brittle, too fragile, as if anything could make her break into a million pieces.

“I thought maybe we could have an early lunch.” Claire flashed her a smile, but it seemed a little too bright, as if her friend was trying too hard. “There is something I needed to talk to you about.”

Kat glanced at the clock, surprised it was almost eleven-thirty. “That’s a great idea.” She closed the Lawson file and picked up her purse, curious and yet concerned what that something Claire wanted to discuss might be. “I’m starved.”

“Do you mind going to the diner since it’s close?” Claire asked.

“Maybe Brie’s working and she can join us for a moment if it’s not too busy,” Kat said.

Claire nodded, but didn’t seem enthused about the idea of seeing their friend. Kat wondered what was up. Something.

“Can you believe Elizabeth is getting married in less than two weeks?” Kat said as they started across the street toward the diner. It still surprised her. Of Kat’s friends, Elizabeth had always been the serious one, the smart one, the one who’d been more interested in her profession than men compared to the rest of them. She and Elizabeth had drifted apart after college. Only recently had they gotten close again. Kat hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her friend and envied Elizabeth finding a man like Cullen. “Who would have thought Elizabeth would ever marry a cop though?”

Kat stopped, realizing that Claire was no longer walking beside her. She turned to see that the woman at Madam Fleury’s fortune-telling booth had motioned Claire over.

Kat had seen the dark-haired seer a few times around town and heard through the grapevine that her name was Cassandra Quintana, a fortune-teller hired for the season. While Yvette Castor owned the fortune-telling booth along Waterfront Avenue, it appeared Cassandra had been hired for the upcoming tourist season. No one seemed to know much about the woman—not even Yvette. Protectively, Kat worked her way through the traffic and tourists, unable to imagine what the fortune-teller would want with Claire—except to take advantage of her.

“What’s going on?” Kat asked as she joined Claire in front of the brightly colored booth.

Cassandra Quintana raised her dark somber eyes, but said nothing. An attractive woman of about fifty, Cassandra’s dyed dark red hair was pulled back under a brilliant-colored bandanna. She wore a glaring geometric-design caftan covered in astrological symbols and dozens of thin multicolored cheap bracelets.

Kat glanced at her friend. Claire appeared paler, if that were possible, and was visibly shaking. “What did you say to upset my friend?”

“She didn’t say anything,” Claire said, obviously lying.

“Please, let’s go. Come on, I’m starved.” Claire started across the street toward the diner.

But Kat wasn’t through with the fortune-teller. “My friend isn’t well,” she said the moment Claire was out of earshot. “I won’t have you upsetting her with any of your crystal ball crap.”

The woman arched an eyebrow, and then with the flick of her wrist—the cluster of cheap tin bracelets jangling—she produced a tarot card as if pulling it from thin air. She dropped the card on the table in front of Kat. It was the devil card. “I charged your friend nothing. You, however, will have to pay me for information about the man you’ve been looking for all day, but I assure you it will be worth every penny.”

Cassandra smiled at her surprise and tapped the card, drawing Kat’s attention to the devil’s face. Incredibly, it looked a whole lot like her mystery date from last night.

Chapter Three

Kat hurried after Claire, catching her as she stepped inside the diner. “I hope you don’t believe any of that mumbo-jumbo stuff. That woman just pulled the devil card out of her sleeve as if that was supposed to scare me.” Kat shook her head. “I can’t believe those people.”

“The devil card?” Claire asked, sounding worried as Kat stepped past her to slide into a booth by the window.

“A woman I met at the hospital read tarot cards,” Claire said as she took the seat opposite Kat, still looking concerned. “The devil is the fear card. It symbolizes fear of the unknown.”

Kat groaned, wishing she hadn’t said anything. “It’s just the card the woman happened to have up her sleeve, Claire. My only fear is that she said something to upset you.”

Claire didn’t seem to hear. “The devil card can also be a sign of temptation, the demonic side of you, tempting you in some way.”

Kat felt a shadow fall across the window and looked up as a man passed in front of the diner. For just an instant she thought he was her mystery date from last night. Maybe the devil was tempting her.

“Some people believe the cards reveal hidden truths and can forecast the future by opening a channel into another world,” Claire was saying as she pulled one of the plastic-covered menus from behind the condiments.

“A channel? Like HBO?” Kat asked, reaching for the other menu.

Claire laughed, the first real laugh Kat had heard out of her in years. “More like the Learning Channel.” Her friend smiled. “You shouldn’t be afraid of the cards. It isn’t as if they’re some form of sorcery.”

“I’m not afraid of the cards,” Kat said, sounding defensive. “But needing to know the future seems…dangerous to me.”

Claire disappeared behind her menu. “Haven’t you ever wondered, though, why things happen the way they do? Like if maybe there aren’t some supernatural forces at work here that decide our destinies?”

Kat realized that maybe her friend needed to believe that what had happened to her was destined—and that none of them could have done anything to stop it, especially Claire herself. Five years ago Kat, Claire, Elizabeth and two other friends, Tasha Pierce and Brie Dudley, were pledging to the top sorority on campus. On a dare, they decided to spend the night in St. John’s Cemetery next to McFarland Leary’s grave.

As part of the hazing, one of the girls had to enter a haunted mausoleum—alone. They drew lots and Claire “won.” Kat had wanted to take Claire’s place, but Claire said this was something she had to do. As soon as she entered, the girls heard a scream and rushed into the mausoleum. But there was no one there.

Searchers had combed the town and the cemetery, finding no sign of Claire. Then, two days later, she miraculously turned up in the cemetery after escaping her attacker.

Kat blamed herself because she should have insisted on taking Claire’s place. She could see Claire was frightened. Almost as if Claire had somehow sensed the danger. If you believed in that sort of thing. Some thought McFarland Leary had attacked Claire—a ghost. Whoever had hurt her friend was no ghost. He’d been a flesh-and-blood monster.

“You know me,” Kat said now. “I have trouble believing in anything I can’t see. But, wait a minute, yes, I do see a cheeseburger deluxe in my future.”

Claire peeked out from behind her menu, her smile sympathetic. “You should have your cards read sometime. You might be surprised what you find out.”

The last thing she wanted was to be surprised, Kat thought as she glanced through the window at Cassandra in her fortune-telling booth. “Even if I wanted to know the future, I’m not sure I could believe a woman who dressed like that,” she joked, again trying to lighten the mood. When she looked at her friend, she saw Claire frowning at her.

“You had the dream again, didn’t you?” Claire whispered.

Kat felt a chill. “How did you—”

“You look as if you didn’t get any sleep last night.” Claire shrugged. “Maybe I just know the look. I’ve seen it enough mornings in my mirror.”

Kat knew that Claire had had her share of nightmares.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her friend asked. “I’ve learned quite a lot about dream interpretation—”

“From your friend the tarot-card reader?” Kat guessed.

Claire smiled. “Sometimes it helps if you understand what the dream is about. I have a book I’ll drop by.”

“I know what the dream’s about,” Kat said as she looked toward the window. “My mother.” The moment she said the words, she wished she hadn’t. Her mother was thought to have been the first victim of the serial killer who’d terrorized the town twenty years ago, and perhaps was even the same man who’d attacked Claire five years ago.

“I’ve often wondered why I was spared,” Claire said. “I know he planned to kill me, too.”

Kat didn’t want to talk about this. Especially today. She knew that half the people in town, including Claire at one time, believed that the attacker had been the ghost of McFarland Leary. Kat couldn’t deal with that discussion, not today. There were enough weird things going on in her world right now without digging up Leary, no pun intended.

“You said there was something you needed to talk to me about,” Kat said, hoping to change the subject.

Claire nodded. “It’s my little brother, Tommy. I’m worried about him. He’s spending too much time with those older boys who hang out at the arcade, Razz and Dodie, and my mother is so busy with the younger children…” Claire came from a huge family with the kids ranging in age from twenty-three to three.

Kat was very relieved Claire’s request had nothing to do with ghosts or fortune-tellers. Tommy, she could handle. Tommy Cavendish was a sullen fifteen-year-old, who Kat had seen hanging out along the wharf with the boys Claire had mentioned, two locals who were always in trouble. She thought Claire probably had reason for concern.

“I think Tommy might be involved in something…illegal,” Claire said quietly.

“What makes you think that?” Kat asked.

“He’s so secretive and he has money, more money than a boy can make at his age running errands. I’ve tried to talk to him….”

Kat nodded. “Emily doesn’t listen to me either. What is it you’d like me to do?”

“I was hoping you would find out where Tommy’s getting the money,” Claire said.

Kat could see how hard it was for Claire to involve someone outside the family, even a close friend.

“I would pay you—”

“We can talk about a fee later,” Kat said, not wanting to offend Claire by refusing her money, and at the same time feeling she owed her friend.

The rest of their lunch, she and Claire chatted about Elizabeth’s wedding, their bridesmaid dresses and how lucky Elizabeth was after everything that had happened with the recent murders. How lucky they all were that René Rathfastar had been stopped before he killed any more young women. Moriah’s Landing, they agreed, attracted weirdos.

The one man they didn’t talk about was the one who was believed to have killed Kat’s mother and attacked Claire. That man, whom Claire hadn’t been able to identify, was still at large.

Kat noticed her friend staring across the street at the fortune-teller. “Want to tell me what Cassandra Quintana said to you?”

“She said I will find peace soon. But first I must confront my past by going back to where it all began.”

“You aren’t really going to go back to the cemetery based on what some fortune-teller told you, are you?”

“She knew what I’d been through,” Claire said, sounding a little defensive. “I could see it in her eyes. She knew.”

Sure she did. Kat wanted to tell her it didn’t take psychic powers to know about Claire’s attack. It had been in all the newspapers. Everyone knew. But advising her to go back to the cemetery..

“I think you should ask your doctor at the hospital about this first,” Kat advised.

Claire nodded and looked toward Cassandra’s booth again. “Did you notice her eyes? It was almost as if she can see everything.”

Yes, Kat thought, remembering only too well what Cassandra had said to her. The seer did seem to see everything. But being observant wasn’t the same as being all-knowing.

For just an instant, Kat was almost willing to pay the fortune-teller just to find out who her mystery date was, and why, since he’d come into her life, she no longer felt safe.

As Kat was paying their lunch bill, she spotted her sister, Emily, walk past in the new bright red jacket Kat had bought her because she’d just “die” if she didn’t have it. Claire’s concern for her little brother, Tommy, mirrored Kat’s own for her sister as she watched Emily head toward Main, then disappear into the side door of the arcade, a local hangout, and not a safe one. Also, unless Kat’s watch had stopped, school wasn’t out yet.

“I just saw Emily,” she told Claire. “I need to talk to her. I’ll see you later at Threads?” Kat and Claire were both scheduled to get their dresses fitted for Elizabeth’s wedding.

“Sure,” Claire said distractedly. “Thanks for lunch. You won’t forget about Tommy?”

She squeezed her friend’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll see what I can find out.”

Emily was talking to a couple of girls from school when Kat entered the arcade. The moment her sister saw her, she looked horrified.

“Are you checking up on me?” Emily demanded in an embarrassed whisper.

“I just want to talk to you for a minute.”

“Here?” Emily glanced around as if she feared everyone had seen her talking with her older sister. Heaven forbid!

“If you don’t want to be seen with me, we could go outside,” Kat suggested, only half-serious.

Emily took her arm and steered her out of the arcade. “That was so embarrassing.”

“Being seen with your sister?” Kat said, trying to remember when she was a teen if she acted this weirdly.

“What do you want?”

“For starters, why aren’t you in school?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “I told you last week that we were getting out early today.”

Kat raised an eyebrow.

“You never believe anything I tell you.”

Kat didn’t want to argue. “I was just having lunch with Claire and I had a thought. I know you’re looking for a job this summer before college.” Another eye roll. “I was thinking, I could use someone to do filing and other things around my office.”

“You aren’t serious?” Em looked aghast.

“Well, I just thought—”

“That has to be the most boring job…I can find my own job, thank you. A job where I don’t have you looking over my shoulder the entire time.” Emily let out an exasperated sigh. “As if…” She started to turn and go back into the arcade.

“If you change your mind—”

“Yeah, right,” Emily said, and disappeared back inside.

Kat stood on the sidewalk for a moment, watching her kid sister through the arcade window. She and Emily hadn’t shared the same mother. But they shared some of the same problems. Emily’s mother had taken off when Emily was about nine, leaving their father and Kat to finish raising the girl. Their mothers had been a lot alike, it seemed. Only, Kat’s hadn’t left town—just left her young daughter home with her aging grandmother so Leslie could see other men while Kat’s father was at sea.

Kat went back to work but had trouble concentrating. Still no e-mail from Ross. She couldn’t keep her mind on business, her mind wandering to Claire and the fortune-teller and her mystery date. Nor could she seem to shake the uneasy feeling she’d had since last night. She remembered the devil tarot card. Temptation and fear, huh?

She glanced toward the daisies, still trying to imagine what it was about them that bothered her. All she needed was for Arabella to stop by now with another one of her warnings and her day would be complete.

Kat was almost glad for an excuse to leave the office and walk down to Threads for her fitting. The day was warm and clear, the smell of the sea mixing with all the scents of Waterfront Avenue—from the herbs and oils of the witchcraft shops to the corn dogs and cotton candy of the street vendors. There was an excitement in the air that was contagious, as if the whole town was counting down to Memorial Day weekend and the upcoming anniversary festivities.

For the first time all day, Kat felt a little better. The groups of tourists made her feel safe, the fresh air chasing away the darkness of the dream—and the events of last night. She hardly even looked for her mystery man in the faces she passed.

But half an hour later, her good mood vanished when Claire didn’t show. Kat tried calling her at home. No answer. Had she decided to do what the fortune-teller had told her? Had she gone to the cemetery, a place that terrified her friend and could set back the progress she’d made?

As she left the shop, Kat realized she had just enough time to make her appointment with Bud Lawson at his curio shop off Main. From the looks of the place, it had obviously been kids who’d vandalized the shop. Bud was still cleaning up when she got there.

“Any idea who they might have been?” Kat asked.

“Same ones that have been hitting all the shops,” he said with disgust. “You can bet Dodie and Razz were in on it, but how are you going to prove it? And even if you could, they’ll just get their hands slapped. Someone needs to do something about those hellions.”

Kat knew he had reason to be angry, but still, that kind of talk worried her since there was no proof that Dodie and Razz were behind the vandalism.

Back at her office, she made out her report for the insurance company, trying to keep her mind off everything but work. It proved impossible. She found herself calling Claire’s number every hour on the hour, but still no answer. Neither Elizabeth nor Brie had seen her. Both told Kat not to worry. But they hadn’t seen the look on Claire’s face after talking to the fortune-teller. Did her friend want a quick cure to her pain? Who wouldn’t?

When Kat checked her e-mail, she was relieved to see one from Ross, her real online blind date. Her relief was short-lived when she read it though, and realized he hadn’t left the daisies.

Flowers? Me? Way too traditional. Try date again? Witch’s Brew? Coffee? Meet at your office? 7? Ross.

A man of few words. A cup of coffee at seven at night? She thought about her mystery date last night and the quiet, romantic window table at the Moriah’s Landing Inn, and shuddered as she e-mailed Ross back:

Seven it is. We’ll meet at the Witch’s Brew on Main Street, the last building before you hit the wharf. I’ll be wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

He’d missed the little black dress. His loss. But she wasn’t about to wear it again. In fact, she might burn the dress.

Ross had been one of those impulsive actions she hoped she wouldn’t regret. She’d joined an online dating service as a fluke. Ross had sounded nice, safe, and the next thing she knew she made a date with him. She felt anxious about finally meeting. Especially after last night’s imposter date and the scare he’d given her.

She turned in time to see a familiar figure passing outside her office on the other side of the street. Kat hurried out of the office to catch Tommy, and was almost to him when she saw a man in an old army jacket stop the boy on the street, show him something and then head toward her.

“Excuse me,” he said, approaching her.

She just assumed he was one of the panhandlers who passed through town in the summer, bumming money for food or gas.

“Excuse me,” he said, smiling, but the smile did nothing to warm his gray eyes. He had a scar on his left cheek that looked like a crescent moon. “I’m trying to find a friend of mine.” He held out a snapshot in his palm. “Maybe you’ve seen him?”

She tried to hide her surprise as she stared at the photo of two men, the one standing before her sans the scar on his cheek and her mystery date holding a basketball and looking hot and sweaty. Both wore shorts and T-shirts, both were tanned and in great shape, and both were smiling into the camera as if they were the best of friends.

So, Kat wondered as she looked up at the man, why didn’t she believe it?

“Sorry,” she said, and started to move past him.

“You’re sure?” he asked, touching her arm to detain her. His tone as well as his expression seemed a little too intense, a little too desperate.

She pulled out of his reach, stepping back as she moved away from him. “I’m sure.”

As she hurried after Tommy, crossing the street when he did, she realized that she should have at least asked the stranger the name of the other man in the photo. But he’d made her uncomfortable. She wondered what he wanted with her mystery date. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, she’d bet on that.

“Hi!” she said, catching up with Tommy in front of Bait & Tackle, the local bait shop.

The boy flinched as if she’d hit him. He glanced around nervously, looking guilty as hell. “Hi.” He seemed to wait expectantly for her to tell him what she wanted. She’d forgotten what fifteen was like. Just as she’d forgotten seventeen, it seemed.

“I noticed you going past and I haven’t seen you for a while,” she said.

He nodded, still waiting.

“I saw that man stop you,” she said, turning to look back down the street. The man in the army jacket was gone. “What did he ask you?”

Tommy seemed relieved, as if she’d asked him something he didn’t mind answering. “He said he was with the FBI and that he was looking for a man and had I seen him.”

A different story. “Had you seen him?” she asked.

Tommy shook his head.

She realized Tommy was again waiting patiently to see what she wanted with him. “You know I have a job opening at my office for the summer, and I thought—”

“I have a job,” Tommy interrupted.

“Oh, shoot, I thought you’d be great at it,” she said, hoping he didn’t ask what job as she glanced back down the street. She noticed Alyssa Castor, the daughter of the owner of Madam Fleury’s—Yvette Castor. Alyssa appeared to be window-shopping—and tailing Tommy.

Kat saw the girl’s expression as she stole a look at Tommy. Kat recognized the look: idol worship. It appeared Alyssa had a major crush and, as always seemed to be the case, he didn’t even know she was alive—let alone following him.

“So where are you working?” Kat asked conversationally, watching a few tourists mingle past.

“I’m just running errands for a few guys,” Tommy said, sounding both defensive and evasive, two sure giveaways, if there were any.

“Em’s looking for a job.” She hoped. “Errands, huh? Here, along Waterfront?”

He squirmed a little. “Just for Ernie here at Bait & Tackle and Brody at the Wharf Rat and some other guys.”

She nodded, trying to imagine what errands someone like Brody at the Wharf Rat—a bar—would have for a fifteen-year-old boy. Alyssa had stopped a door behind them pretending to admire a huge gargoyle in one of the witch-shop windows. “Maybe you could run errands for me, too.”

He shrugged. “I’m pretty busy already, you know.”

She didn’t know, but she planned to find out. “So what type of errands could I maybe get you to do for me? If you had time? Get me lunch? Or take packages to the post office? What do you do for the other guys?”

Before Tommy could answer, loud angry voices erupted from the bar in question. An instant later, a man came flying out of the bar’s front door as if thrown. He stumbled and fell to the bricks, followed quickly by another.

“Take it outside,” a third man called after them, flinging the cap of one of the men to the ground. The first man stumbled to his feet and dived at the second man still on the bricks. The two began wrestling awkwardly, obviously having had way too much to drink.

What caught and held her attention weren’t the quarreling drunks, but the man who’d just thrown the pair out of the bar. She stared at her mystery date from the night before, wondering why she was so shocked to see that he worked at the Wharf Rat. No wonder she’d been attracted to him! The man was an obvious loser—which unfortunately was her type of late. Maybe someone from the FBI really was looking for him.

He looked up, meeting her gaze, and she quickly swung back around to Tommy, disgusted with herself for being attracted to the wrong type, but also feeling relieved he wasn’t some psychopath just passing through town whom she’d not only had dinner with but had almost kissed.

When she turned, however, Tommy was gone. So was Alyssa. Angry that she’d let Tommy get away so easily, she crossed the street and started toward her office—and tripped over nothing, pitching headlong toward the brick pavement.

Chapter Four

“Hello.” Jonah caught her in his arms. Had he tripped her? He couldn’t believe it. Not when he’d promised himself he’d keep his distance from her. But that seemed damned impossible in a town the size of Moriah’s Landing. Even if he’d wanted to.

She looked surprised—either that she’d tripped on seemingly nothing but thin air—or that he’d rushed in to catch her with such quickness. She also looked a little suspicious. Imagine that.

She shook herself free of him, dark blue eyes sparking with anger and a little fear. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” Oh that mouth. He desperately regretted having not kissed her last night.

It was obvious she’d found out about their “date.” He scanned the small crowd that had gathered around the brawling drunks, but he didn’t see anyone he knew in the faces. “Sorry about last night,” he said, turning his attention back to Kat. “Not sorry about the date. Just that I didn’t mention, I wasn’t him. My name’s Jonah.” He held out his hand.

She ignored it. “You took advantage of the situation.”

He smiled. “That I did.”

“You aren’t in the least bit sorry, are you?” she snapped, and started to turn away.

He caught her arm and leaned close to her ear, the scent in her dark hair intoxicating. “The only thing I regret is that I didn’t kiss you when I had the chance.”

“You blew your chance,” she snapped, pulling free of him. “And since you won’t be around long, with the FBI looking for you…”

He caught her by the wrist. “What did you say?”

“A man who said he’s an agent from the FBI is showing your picture around town, asking if anyone knows how he can find you.”

Deke Turner. Damn. “What did he look like?”

“Stocky, with gray eyes and a small crescent-shaped scar—”

He swore and released her. Definitely Deke. Definitely the man he’d recognized in the fog last night. The same man who’d recognized him—just before Jonah ducked inside Kat’s office.

“So you do know him.” Did she sound disappointed?

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ll be leaving town,” she said, looking way too hopeful. So that’s why she’d warned him about Deke.

He could still feel the warmth of her wrist between his fingers even though he was no longer touching her. Just as he could still sense something around her like a bad aura. “You suppose wrong.” He couldn’t leave now, even if he wanted to.

“Too bad,” she said, and walked away.

He stared after her, still shocked by what he’d felt when he’d touched her and angry with himself for feeling anything. He blamed it on being back in this town. But unlike last night when he’d felt only an ominous presence around her, today he’d definitely detected something much stronger, much more dangerous.

Kat Ridgemont was in some kind of trouble. He could feel it. And if there was one thing he knew, it was trouble.

He considered going after her, trying to warn her. Yeah, like Arabella had last night?

“I see danger in your future,” a woman said behind him.

He turned to find the fortune-teller leaning against the wall, watching him from her dark hooded eyes.

“And I see dead people,” he answered, stealing a line from a movie.

“You will see a lot more if you aren’t careful.” With that, she pushed off the wall and disappeared back into her booth, her jewelry jangling after her.

He shook his head as he went back inside the bar. As if he didn’t have enough problems, now he had a damn fortune-teller telling him things he already knew.

His biggest concern right now, though, was Deke. No, he thought, it was not getting involved in whatever trouble Kat Ridgemont was in. He didn’t need more trouble. He had enough of his own. But he couldn’t forget the feeling he had when he was around her any more than he could forget her. Both a problem.

“I think you’ve finally found your calling,” the owner of the Wharf Rat jeered as Jonah stepped behind the bar again. Brody Ries straddled a stool at the far end, a cigar hanging from his thick lips, his small brown eyes narrowed against the smoke spiraling up. “You seem to have a real talent for mean-drunk tossing.”

“You might be right, cuz,” Jonah said, hiding his irritation, which alone was a full-time job.

“Maybe getting kicked out of the FBI was the best thing that could have happened to you,” Brody said, and laughed, never one to pass up the opportunity to kick a man when he was down. “Working for me, you get to learn about real life. Not like that fancy-ass school you went to, I can sure as hell tell you that.”

Brody had always resented the fact that Jonah had gotten a scholarship his freshman year in high school to go to Wentworth Academy in Boston. It was there that he’d put his past behind him. Moriah’s Landing. His family. And all that both meant to him. He’d never looked back, going on to college and then getting into the FBI. If he’d had his way, he’d have never come back here.

But plans change.

“You know, it’s odd,” Brody was saying, “one of your old buddies was in here just last night, not two hours before you showed up. An ex-FBI agent by the name of Deke Turner. Ring any bells?”

Just that loud clanging one that reminded him how dead he was if he ran into Deke again. “Maybe, but then the FBI is kind of a large place, you know, Brody.”

“Oh yeah?” Brody looked disappointed. And skeptical. “Too bad. You two have a lot in common. It seems he got booted out of the FBI, too. Only, I would have sworn he said he knew you. What’s wild is that he said he just got out of the slammer and heard about your trouble with the feds and decided to come looking for you. Seems he just missed you. Maybe he’ll come back in today.”

Jonah busied himself behind the bar, trying to keep from looking toward the door and letting Brody see just how worried he was about Deke showing up right now.

“So, what exactly are you going to teach me, Brody?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light, trying to change the subject.

“Oh, you’ll see, cuz. We’ll see how you do behind the bar first.” He studied him. “I’ll be watching you real close. The only reason I’m trusting you at all is because we are blood.”

Don’t remind me, Jonah thought. I’ll be watching you even closer, cuz. He’d seen Brody’s expensive sports car, the fancy clothes, heard about the ostentatious home outside of town, the money-hungry ex-wife and the semiclassy influential friends, all out of Brody’s league. Either the bar made a lot of money and Brody’s manners had improved, or his cousin was into something dishonest but highly profitable. Jonah would bet on the latter.

“I can’t tell you what your giving me a job means to me,” he said honestly. The Wharf Rat was the heartbeat of the wharf area. Something illegal going on? This was the place to find out. Brody had his fingers in anything and everything—including a poker game with a man Jonah was dying to meet.

“We’ve all been down on our luck,” Brody said, still eyeing him. “But all the way from an FBI agent to barkeep, that’s one long fall.”

He’d expected Brody to be suspicious—and he was. Jonah would have to watch himself. His cousin was no fool.

“Even you, it seems, can hit the bottom of the barrel,” Brody said, as if in awe. “Maybe if you play your cards right, you won’t always have to be a bartender.”

Jonah was counting on it.

BACK AT HER OFFICE, Kat took out her frustrations doing the job she hated most: filing, which included kicking a few file cabinets and slamming a few drawers.

Her face still burned, Jonah’s words still buzzing in her ears, the memory of his touch branding her skin with a fire his words had done little to put out.

She was totally disgusted with herself.

She couldn’t believe she’d felt relieved to find out he had a job in town and wasn’t just some drifter passing through. Right now she’d love to see his backside heading out on the highway.

Especially since she hadn’t missed his reaction when she told him about the “FBI friend” asking about him. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was a bartender at the Wharf Rat, she suspected that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Digging into the huge stack of filing, she reminded herself of her plan to get a receptionist. The problem was, every time she thought about hiring someone, something came up. This time, it was a new furnace for the house. She also wanted to help with Emily’s tuition in the fall. Kat was determined that girl was going to college. If not Heathrow, then somewhere else.

Their father had left them both insurance money, but it wouldn’t be enough if Emily got into a good college. Kat had been given the greater share because their father had known she would have to finish raising Emily if anything happened to him. Emily wouldn’t get the bulk of her inheritance until she turned twenty-one, which had become a sore point with her sister.

“Daddy didn’t trust me,” Em had cried.

“I’m sure he just thought you would appreciate the money more when you finished college.”

Her sister had given her one of those eye-rolling looks. “I’d appreciate it right now since I’m not going to college.”

Kat hadn’t pushed it, but she wanted more than anything for her little sister to get an education. Em didn’t have any idea how much fun college could be. But Kat did. Her best friend, Elizabeth, could attest to the good times they’d had. Kat had taught her to loosen up and Elizabeth had taught Kat how to study—the only reason Kat had gotten her degree. Elizabeth had also encouraged her to go into criminology and open an agency with the money Kat’s father had left her. It had been the best two things Kat had ever done.

To her surprise, it was almost seven by the time she finished the filing. She walked to the Witch’s Brew to finally meet Ross, her real online blind date, hoping he’d make her forget all about her mystery date from the night before.

JONAH CLIMBED UP the back stairs to his apartment over the bar, checking to make sure no one had been inside since he’d left. He knew Brody had a spare key and had come in while he was gone this morning. No doubt to look around for proof that Jonah was as down on his luck as he’d said.

But this time, the short piece of dental floss he’d left out of habit in the door was still in place and the second-story windows were still locked. He knew nothing had been touched as he glanced around, a deep gut knowing. The intensity of the feeling scared him, making him only too aware what being back in Moriah’s Landing was doing to him. Another cause for concern.

The apartment looked worse than it had last night—and that was saying a lot. Last night he’d been too exhausted to care if it resembled a Dumpster—it already smelled like one. The moment he’d opened the door with the key his cousin had given him, he caught the entrenched scent of long-ago fried fish and spilled beer. The plasterboard walls had holes in them the shape of fists, a sure sign of what kind of renters had been here before him.

The place was small. Just a studio, with the orange shag carpet of a lost bad era, a lumpy stained gold couch that doubled as a bed, two mismatched kitchen chairs with bent legs, an ancient metal table with unimaginative graffiti carved in the top and a makeshift kitchen with a fridge that ran all the time.

The bathroom was so small he could barely turn around. It contained only a toilet and a standing metal shower stall. No sink. But as Brody said, “There’s a sink in the kitchen, and hell, it’s better than living on the street, right?”

Jonah would have much preferred the street. But living over the bar fit better into his plans. He closed the blinds and reached under the couch, pushing aside the ripped underlining for the thin shelf he’d attached to the frame. Carefully he withdrew the small, state-of-the-art laptop he’d sneaked in early this morning with the groceries, and booted it up.

Last night he’d been anxious to get on the computer, but Brody had kept him up most of the night, giving him the third degree about his expulsion from the FBI. Then he’d had his first shift at the bar early this morning, no doubt just so Brody could search his room.

Anxiously, he now typed in his access number, waited for the satellite online connection, then found himself typing “The Landing Gazette, archives, obit, Ridgemont.”

He told himself he was just curious. Kat said she was three when her mother died. If the mother had died in Moriah’s Landing…A list of obituaries for Ridgemonts appeared on the screen. Only four were female, two were much too old to have been Kat’s mother, the third too young. He brought up the fourth obit, startled by what he saw. Kat was the spitting image of her mother, Leslie Ridgemont, at the same age.

But that wasn’t the only thing that shocked and scared him. Kat’s mother had been murdered.

He clicked back to the archives and called up the stories on the murder, becoming more intrigued and worried as he read. The body had been found in the gazebo just feet from the witch-hanging tree on the town green—and only yards from the house where Kat lived.

A chill washed over him. The twentieth anniversary of Leslie Ridgemont’s death was only days away. He didn’t need to check the Farmer’s Almanac to know that the moon would be full on that night—just as it had on the night of her death.

He swore. Some people in Moriah’s Landing believed the vengeful dead rose from their graves on the first full moon. Others swore it was on the anniversary of their deaths. When he’d left town, he’d put those kinds of beliefs behind him. But he couldn’t shake a bad feeling that Leslie Ridgemont was anything but gone and buried for good.

Twenty years ago. He tried to remember. He would have been eight that summer but it wasn’t likely that he’d forget a murder everyone was talking about. In the newspaper articles, it said Leslie Ridgemont worked as a waitress at the Beachway Diner, so that meant his family might have known her.

The more he thought about it, the more he recalled the hushed discussions and the rumors that ran rampant throughout Moriah’s Landing. Half the town blamed McFarland Leary, out of his grave and on a killing spree. But then the rumors had quickly changed to a vampire killer on the loose in the town green.

During his time at the FBI, Jonah had learned that some little thing usually got a rumor started—and that that thing often had a grain of truth. So what would have started talk of a killer vampire, especially when according to the news reports, Leslie Ridgemont had been strangled?

He reread the article, struck by how few details the press actually had. But one fact leaped out at him. The body had been discovered by Arabella Leigh. The crazy woman who’d accosted him and Kat on the street last night.

He read the rest of the stories, learning little more. Leslie Ridgemont had been strangled with a white silk scarf she’d been wearing earlier that evening. Her purse was full of change from the tips she’d made working that night at the diner, ruling out robbery. No sexual assault, but she had put up a struggle.

Reminding himself that this had nothing to do with him, Jonah found himself going through the list of possible suspects based on people who’d been seen on the town green at the time of the murder—or in close proximity.

It had been a stormy spring night, a night when the moon was full, but still the list was fairly long: his cousin, Brody Ries, high-school dropout, then age seventeen; Geoffrey Pierce, one of the town’s leading residents and a would-be scientist who never made the grade, then age twenty-five; Ernie McDougal, owner of the Bait & Tackle, forty-six; Marley Glasglow, high-school dropout, fifteen; and Arabella Leigh, seamstress, sixty-seven.

The last name on the list caught Jonah’s attention. Dr. Leland Manning, promising geneticist, then age thirty-five. Manning, at the time, had only recently moved back to the old Manning place due to his father’s death and was building a modern, high-tech lab on his property. He’d been driving by when he’d seen the commotion at the gazebo, according to the newspaper.

An odd mix of suspects. None really had alibis, since Leslie Ridgemont was killed just moments before Arabella found her. Arabella’s scream brought the others.

They’d all reported seeing each other—but no one else. The killer had never been caught, Jonah noted. Why did that worry him after all this time?

An instant-message box flashed on the screen with the words: “About time I heard from you.”

“I’ve been busy,” he typed, and hit send. He could see his boss dressed in one of her charcoal-gray pinstripe suits, sitting at her desk, ramrod straight, looking like an old-time schoolteacher. Or a nun.

“Everything fine?”

Jonah looked around the apartment. “Dandy.”

“Heard from our anonymous source. We’re looking for a boat called the Audrey Lynn.”

Jonah knew that their online transmissions were encrypted so no one could intercept them, but still he felt jumpy. Probably because the anonymous notes the FBI had received made him nervous. And damned suspicious.

“Still no idea what’s on the boat?” Jonah typed, convinced he was on a fool’s errand in a place that could get him killed. It had already possibly gotten another agent killed, Max Weathers. And now Jonah found himself interested in Leslie Ridgemont’s murder—and feeling things he didn’t want to feel about her daughter.

“No. Still having reservations?”

That was an understatement. Jonah cursed the vague anonymous tip that had him back in Moriah’s Landing. All he knew was that a boat was coming in sometime soon. It was suspected to be bringing in illegal medical supplies of some sort for someone in a secret society of scientists working out of Moriah’s Landing, a society as old as the town itself and its members all secret.

But this wasn’t the first boat to bring in such a shipment. Another boat had come in a month ago. Another agent had been on the case. Now that agent was missing, presumed dead, leaving Jonah to worry what had been on that boat.

“What about scientists at Heathrow College?” she wrote.

“I’ll rattle their cages tomorrow.” He wasn’t optimistic.

“Word is the Audrey Lynn won’t dock until end of the month,” she wrote.

He swore. End of the month? He’d planned to be long gone by the full moon and that was only days away.

“Seen Dr. Manning yet?” appeared on the screen.

“Might have way to meet him. Need some poker tips though.” He knew Dr. Manning played in a private weekly poker game put on by Jonah’s cousin Brody. Brody had already hinted that Jonah might get lucky and be invited. Brody knew a mark when he saw one.

“Tips how to win?” she typed.

“How to lose big.”

“Need more money?”

He smiled to himself. “Not yet.” He thought about his most imminent problem, one of many, but the one he’d called her about last night—former FBI agent Deke Turner. Deke had recognized him even in the fog last night just before Jonah ducked into Kat’s, and it seemed he was asking around town about him. Just what Jonah needed right now, a psycho like Deke Turner dogging his trail.

“Gotta have Deke out of my hair before boat comes in.” If the boat existed. He couldn’t help worrying that someone might have purposely gotten him back to Moriah’s Landing knowing full well just how dangerous it could be for him.

“Picked him up. Can only hold him forty-eight hours though. Sorry.”

“That will have to do.” In just over seventy-two hours the moon would be full and Jonah planned to be miles from this town by then. At least he’d better be.

“Remember. Officially, you have no net.”

“Or rules.” In order to cover his ass, the FBI had booted him—at least on paper.

“You’re there just to find out what happened to Max, not to avenge his death.”

That was assuming he was dead, which they all thought he was.

Jonah stared at the screen, feeling a wave of guilt. He should have taken the assignment when it was offered to him. He shouldn’t have let Max Weathers come to Moriah’s Landing without knowing just what he was up against. But even as he thought it, Jonah knew he couldn’t have warned Max about Moriah’s Landing and Jonah’s own history there. And even if he had, Max would never have believed him.

“Anything else?” she typed.

As a matter of fact…“Need copy of a local murder file.”

The screen stayed empty for a few moments.

“Connected to assignment?”

“Possibly.” It wasn’t really a lie.

“What name?”

“Leslie Ridgemont.”

UNFORTUNATELY FOR KAT, her online blind date turned out to be exactly what she’d originally expected—a computer nerd complete with Coke-bottle-thick glasses and a pocket protector.

Unlike her date from the night before, he talked about nothing else but himself, telling her a lot more about his abilities with computers and the Internet than she’d ever wanted to know. Too bad he wasn’t the man of few words he’d been online.

And, of course, he’d tried to kiss her as they left the Witch’s Brew. Just her luck.

After saying goodbye—for good—to Ross, Kat had called home. No answer. Restless and hoping she’d see her sister, Emily, she walked down Waterfront Avenue. Sometime over her third cup of coffee with the incredibly boring Ross, she’d decided she couldn’t go on being afraid. She had never run from Moriah’s Landing or her family’s history here and she wasn’t going to let some stranger in town intimidate her.

One way to do that was to find out everything there was to know about Jonah—including his last name. After all, she was an investigator. But she was also smart enough to know just how dangerous learning more about him might be—in more ways than one.

She couldn’t help but remember that her uneasiness had begun last night before she’d learned he wasn’t her real date.

At the same time, she couldn’t deny that he thrilled her. She’d known last night that he was dangerous. Dangerous to her because he was just the kind of man she shouldn’t be attracted to.

But was that the only danger she had to fear from this man? She needed to know why he’d pretended to be her date. She also needed to know who had left the daisies. Not Ross, who denied sending them. That left her mystery date. And that other set of footsteps she’d heard following her last night.

At the end of the street, the hulking remains of the old abandoned cannery loomed up. Music drifted from the bars and shops, mixing in a cacophony of excited sounds as the first wave of tourists wandered the streets, picking up local color and curios, hoping to see a present-day witch or scare themselves with the stories of Leary’s ghost or a visit to the cemetery late at night.

Unlike the night before, the evening was clear, the almost full moon golden above the treetops. Out over the water, though, mist rose ghostlike among the boats moored there.

Kat had always loved this time of year in Moriah’s Landing. She didn’t even mind the tourists or all the witchcraft fanfare when shop owners dressed as witches and a hearse cruised the drag, offering cemetery tours. In the winter, the town seemed to hunker down against the nor’easters that moved up the coast bringing wind, rain and even snow.

She liked the feeling that anything could happen this time of year, and she’d never felt it more than she did tonight, a tingling mixture of excitement and fear as she neared the Wharf Rat.

“Why, hello.”

She turned, startled and yet ridiculously hopeful, as she followed the sound of the voice into the shadows at the edge of the building. But the voice was all wrong. So was the face.

Marley Glasglow stepped from the deep shadows into the light, a misanthropic sneer below the brim of his dirty straw hat. He was a big, burly, ill-tempered man who made no secret of his dislike of women.

“Oh? Did I disappoint you?” His lips curled. Not a smile. Nor was the sound he made a laugh. “What? You were expecting someone else? Maybe the new bartender? Sorry, Jonah already left.”

She realized that Glasglow must have seen her earlier today when she was talking to her mystery date in front of the Wharf Rat. Glasglow worked for the bait shop’s owner, Ernie McDougal.

She started to walk on past the bar—and Glasglow, too stubborn to let him think he intimidated her.

“Did he tell you he was kicked out of the FBI?”

Marley must have seen her surprise. He let out a snort. “You sure are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?”

The words stunned her as sharp and hurtful as a slap. Before she could respond, he was swallowed up again in shadow, the sound of his footfalls retreating between the buildings. Then a door opened at the back of the Wharf Rat and Marley disappeared inside.

Kat hugged herself from the chill the man had left behind. She wanted to yell after him that he was dead wrong about her. But she was too upset by what he’d said about her—and about her mystery blind date. Kicked out of the FBI? Maybe the man in the army coat hadn’t been lying after all. She could really pick ’em, that was for sure.

She stood for a moment, scrubbing her original plan to go into the Wharf Rat and try to find out more about Jonah. She didn’t want to see Marley again. Nor did she like the sound of raised voices inside the bar. And hadn’t she found out more than enough about Jonah already?

Behind her she could hear the sound of waves as a boat came into the cove. But it was something closer that drew her attention—the sound of paint coming out of an aerosol-spray can.

She crossed the street, working her way past the dark, empty bait shop to the corner of the building where she could see the wharf with its huge weathered dark pilings stark against the water and mist. She could hear the spray cans and the whisper of voices as she edged closer, deeper into the dark.

From across the street, the front door of the Wharf Rat banged open and a couple of men came out, both talking loudly. The sound of the spray cans stopped abruptly. Kat hurried around the corner of the building just in time to see three figures running away, headed north past the old cannery.

She knew she’d never be able to catch the vandals, not in the platform sandals she had on—even if she’d been able to move. Instead, she watched the three escape, too shocked to take even a step. One of the vandals was small and definitely female, her hair dark and shoulder-length. The girl was wearing a bright new red jacket, exactly like the one Kat had bought for Emily, the one she just had to have.

Chapter Five

Another sound made her spin around, jumpy now and suddenly aware how dark it was this close to the wharf and how alone she was. A fourth figure moved along the rocky shore of the cove, seemingly unable to move quickly. A fourth vandal?

Kat slipped along the back edge of the building, staying in the dark shadow of the wall until she was close enough to recognize him. Tommy Cavendish.

At first she thought the boy was hurt and that’s why he hadn’t been able to run with the others. Then she heard the clink of the glass bottle in his hand as he caught himself on the rocks. He raised the bottle to his lips, tilted his head back and took a long swig, then staggered forward. Tommy was drunk, falling-down plastered!

Before she could move, she saw a second person drop over the short seawall toward Tommy. Hanging back, she watched the all-too-familiar man as he approached the boy. She had a pretty good idea where Tommy had gotten the alcohol, which made her so angry she almost stormed down there to confront them both.

“Give me that,” Jonah ordered the boy, taking the bottle and pouring the remainder of the booze onto the rocks as he helped Tommy back up to the seawall. “Sit.”

Tommy sat, Jonah joining him, their backs to her, just feet away. It was clear the two knew each other, but she wasn’t so sure now that Jonah had supplied the boy the liquor.

“I don’t feel so good,” Tommy said, his head falling between his knees.

“I would imagine not,” Jonah said. “And just think, you’re going to feel even worse in the morning.” He put his hand on the boy’s back as Tommy heaved onto the rocks at his feet. “I suppose we all have to learn about alcohol the hard way. I know I did.” Kat had, too.

“Why does something that makes you feel so good make you feel so bad?” Tommy groaned in between fits of vomiting.

The older male chuckled. “A lot of things in life are that way until you come to understand the word moderation.” He handed the boy his handkerchief.

Kat felt sorry for Tommy and angry with him at the same time. She watched Jonah, surprised at the caring, sympathetic way he helped the boy.

“Thanks,” Tommy said, and wiped his mouth as he glanced sideways at the man next to him.

“That wasn’t you vandalizing the back side of Ernie’s bait shop, was it?” Jonah asked.

Tommy shook his head. The movement seemed to make the boy sick again. It was pretty obvious he was too drunk to do much damage—except to himself.

“But you know who they were,” Jonah said.

Tommy didn’t raise his head. “It was too dark to make them out.” It was an obvious lie.

“Then I guess there’s no chance I’ll see you running with them,” Jonah said.

“I heard you were looking for a boat,” Tommy said in an obvious change of subject.

Kat felt her heart rate kick up. She leaned against the wall, her interest piqued.

“A boat called the Audrey Lynn?”

“That’s right,” he said, looking at the boy. “You’ve seen it?”

Tommy shook his head.

“If you do, I’d appreciate if you’d let me know. I’d make it worth your while.”

“Are you thinking of hiring on?”

“You never know,” Jonah said.

Kat couldn’t see him hiring on to any boat and wondered what his interest was in it as she watched him help Tommy to his feet.

“Think you’re up to going home now?” he asked the boy.

“Are you going to tell on me?” Tommy asked, sounding scared. “It’s just that my sister worries about me too much.” As if Claire had no reason to worry.

“I won’t say anything to your sister. But if I catch you drinking again or even near any vandals, I’m going to kick your butt myself and save your sister the effort.”

“I’m never drinking again,” Tommy groaned.

“Yeah, right. Now get out of here.”

As Tommy slipped off the seawall and stumbled up Waterfront Avenue toward home, Kat stepped back, watching Jonah as he got up and headed down the wharf.

She told herself there was no reason to follow him. She’d learned enough about him for one night. But of course she did follow him.

The mist on the water had grown thicker, the air colder and damp. She moved along the wharf toward the docks where boats rocked gently at their moorings. Where was he going? He moved as if he had some purpose in mind. Not like a man out for a walk, especially on a dock that specifically said Only Boat Owners Beyond This Point.

Maybe he owned a boat. Yeah, right.

She could hear the foghorn at the lighthouse. Closer, water lapped softly against the sides of the boats moored in the cove. She caught glimpses of boats through wisps of fog as she moved quietly along the dock. Where had Jonah gone? She couldn’t see him ahead of her anymore. It would be just her luck to come face-to-face with him in the thick mist. Or worse, crash into him and find herself in the water.

She froze as she heard a sound close by. The whoosh of something moving through water, then a dripping sound, followed by another whoosh, then dripping. It took her only a moment to recognize what was making the noise. Someone was rowing a boat away from the dock just yards ahead of her.

She stopped motionless to listen, staring into the shimmering fog, then moved down the dock past the quiet boats until she caught a glimpse through the mist.

Jonah was rowing a small dinghy out to one of the fishing boats moored in the cove, his back muscles bunching as he pulled on the oars.

What was he up to? He stopped rowing and started to turn. She ducked back behind the bow of the boat she’d been hiding behind just an instant before he saw her. Holding her breath, she listened for the sound of the oars cutting through the water again.

Even when she heard him begin to row again, she waited. The fog whirled around her, cold and wet. She should be home in bed. What did she care what this man was up to? After a moment, she peeked around the edge of the bow and saw that Jonah had reached the fishing boat.

He tossed up a rope ladder and climbed aboard stealthily. She watched, half expecting him to get caught. But then who else was out on a night like this? Just the two of them, it appeared.

She waited, wondering what he was doing on the boat. Looking for something to steal? A few moments later, he appeared again, swung down over the side and dropped back into the dinghy, snapping the ladder loose as if he’d done this sort of things hundreds of times. He probably had.

As far as she could tell, he hadn’t taken anything from the fishing boat—at least nothing large.

She stayed out of sight, listening to him row back toward her, realizing she should have left the moment she saw him get back into the dinghy. Now she was trapped. If she moved down the dock, he was bound to see her. And she wanted to avoid him at all costs.

Suddenly she realized that the rowing sound had stopped. The dinghy banged softly into the dock just yards from her. She felt the wood creak under Jonah’s weight as he climbed out.

She hunkered down, assured where she was in the dark shadow of a large boat’s bow, that he wouldn’t see her as he passed. She was debating whether or not she should follow him once he was back on shore when she realized she hadn’t heard him since he’d gotten out of the dinghy. Nor could she feel him coming. She held her breath, closing her eyes, willing him to get past.

“Hello?” he said, his voice deep, setting something inside her vibrating.

She jumped, her eyes flying open, to find him standing over her. How had he known she was there? He stood only a few inches from her and yet she hadn’t heard him approach. The man moved like a cat.

Her heart leaped to her throat as her hand dropped to her shoulder bag and the Beretta inside it, out of her reach. She straightened, suddenly aware of just how completely alone they were. What was it about this man that had her so spooked?

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, holding his palms up in mock surrender.

“Did I say you scared me?” she snapped.

He moved closer until she could smell his aftershave, a heady male scent, and see his features even in the muted dock lights.

“My mistake,” he said quietly, his voice sending a shiver through her, his gaze calling her a liar as surely as he was standing before her. “Lose something?”

She straightened, pulling out and palming her earring as she did, then looked down, pretending she’d dropped something on the dock. “My earring,” she said, keeping her head down.

“Let me help,” he said as he kneeled next to her. “What does it look like?”

“Small and silver….” He was too close. She could feel his breath stir her hair. She reached down and pretended to pluck the earring up from the weathered boards, sure he could hear her heart drumming in her chest. “I have it.”

He stood again, his gaze so intent she thought it would make her burst into flames. “So you do,” he said softly, his lips quirked into a mocking smile.

She squirmed, unable not to, with him this close and looking at her like that. He seemed to be waiting for her to tell him what she was really doing here. Fat chance.

She saw him look toward her hand clutching the Beretta through the leather purse. She relaxed her grip. And yet she felt as if she was risking a lot more than her life standing out here alone with him.

He smiled, obviously amused, as if he could hear the frantic pounding of her heart and knew exactly why it beat so fast, so hard.

“You’re still mad about last night,” he said.

Is that what he thought? “You mean because I went to dinner with a man whose name I don’t even know?”

“Jonah. Remember?”

She already knew that much—and a whole lot more, thanks to Marley Glasglow. She waited for a second name but it appeared one wasn’t coming. “Just Jonah?”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Jonah…Ries,” he said, his tone challenging.

“Ries?” She couldn’t hide her shock. “You aren’t related to—”

“Brody’s my cousin, not that either of us admit it willingly. Or claim any connection to the rest of the family.”

Ries. At least that explained why he hadn’t wanted to tell her his last name. Could it get any worse? So what was she doing still standing here?

“Last night I was telling you about the town,” she heard herself saying. “And you know more than I do. After all, your family’s been here longer than mine.” She cringed, remembering how she told him about McFarland Leary and his witch, both rumored to have been ancestors of the Ries family.

She felt herself getting angry again—at him for being deceitful, at herself for falling for it. She now not only knew what he was, but who he was. So why didn’t she just turn tail and run?

Because, blast the man to hell, she kept picturing him with Tommy on the shore, handing the boy a handkerchief and telling him he’d kick his butt if he caught him drinking again. Why didn’t that fit with what she knew about Jonah Ries?

Jonah said nothing, his face granite still.

“You couldn’t have grown up here,” she said, thinking out loud. The town was too small; she’d have known him.

“I left my freshman year in high school,” he said, narrowing his gaze at her. “Let’s see, that would have made you about…eight or nine?”

That could explain why she didn’t remember him. That and the fact that the Rieses all lived on the wrong side of town and kept to themselves. Talk about weird families. They gave new meaning to the word dysfunctional.

“Look, for what it’s worth, I really am sorry about last night,” he said, and glanced down the deserted dock. “You never did say what you were doing out here this late at night.”

He knew damn well that she’d followed him. She’d bet on that. “I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep either.” He kept looking at her with that same I-can-lie-as-well-as-you-can expression on his handsome face. “So we have that in common, too.”

“Too? I can’t imagine what else we could have in common.”

“We’re both from Moriah’s Landing and we both have insatiable curiosities,” he said smoothly.

“Do we?”

He smiled then. “So it would seem.” He looked past her as if he could see through the fog—maybe he had X-ray vision. Maybe that’s how he’d known she was hiding on the dock. “Is there someplace in town that’s open this time of night where we could get warm milk for you? I hate to see you lose any sleep.”

“Thanks, but I’m practically dozing off on my feet now.” She started past him. He caught her arm.

“I don’t like seeing you out this late at night alone,” he said.

She would just bet he didn’t. Hopefully, next time he wouldn’t see her. If there was a next time. “Thanks for your concern, but I can take care of myself.” His fingers felt as if they might burn her skin.

He let go of her arm. “I sure hope so.”

She didn’t like the way he said it, almost like a threat. For some reason, it made her think of the daisies. “By the way,” she said, sidestepping him, wanting to run because, as much as she denied it, something about him pulled at her like the moon on the tide, “next time you leave flowers on a woman’s doorstep, leave a card.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Her heart kicked up several beats as she saw the answer in his dark expression. She stopped moving. “You didn’t leave a bouquet of daisies on my doorstep this morning?”

He shook his head and frowned.

“If you didn’t leave them…” She was more anxious than ever to get away from him for reasons even she couldn’t explain. She turned, planning to take off, but he moved too fast.

He grabbed her again, swinging her into him, one hand coming to rest at the small of her back, the other behind her head as his lips unerringly found hers.

His kiss was everything she’d imagined—and more. His mouth warm, firm, demanding, his breath stealing hers as he gave and took with equal parts passion.

She would have fought both him and the kiss, had he given her even half a chance. But he’d taken her by surprise—just as his kiss had—and left her reeling when it ended abruptly.

His gaze met hers in the glow of the street lamp as he released her. “I hate having regrets,” he said matter-of-factly, then turned and left her on the deserted dock without another word, leaving her to stare after him, the taste and feel of him still on her lips.

She cursed his black heart. It seemed he had no qualms about leaving her with one big regret—that she wouldn’t be kissing him again.

JONAH DIDN’T GO FAR. He waited in the shadows of a building, still stinging from the look in Kat’s eyes when he’d told her his name, and still floating from the feel of his mouth on hers. Damn woman. He couldn’t believe she’d followed him. Just what he needed. It was high time he did something about it. But what?

He didn’t have to wait long. Kat made a beeline for home, walking fast, obviously angry and, unfortunately, completely unaware of her surroundings. Didn’t she realize how dangerous that was?

For her own good, he followed her home again, angry with her, with himself. He should have been used to seeing that unpleasant reaction to the Ries name. He’d seen it often enough growing up here. He’d spent most of his almost thirty years trying to live down his family history. Away from here, it had been easy to become someone else, something else. But now that he was back, he was one of them again, whether he liked it or not.

It had taken everything in him not to try to convince her he wasn’t like the other Rieses. But it would have been a lie. And he would have regretted it—unlike the kiss. Her mouth had been full and wet, pliable and sweet. And all he could think about was kissing her again.

A few clouds played hide-and-seek with the moon now hanging over town, golden and growing larger with each passing night. This far from the water, away from the fog, it was clear. Because of that, he could be fairly sure he was the only one tailing her tonight. And just as sure time was running out for him. And possibly for Kat as well.

Kissing her had only convinced him he hadn’t been wrong last night. She was in danger. The feeling was too strong, as if whatever was after her was close by.

He realized he was racing the moon and howling in the darkness. He had no idea what was going on. Or what was coming in on the boat. Or what had happened to the last agent who’d come here on the same mission. But what threw him most was the feeling he got when he was around Kat.

He was going on nothing but instinct, an instinct he’d spent years trying desperately to kill. But unfortunately, you can’t kill who you are, he thought bitterly, and coming back to Moriah’s Landing had made that all too clear—had brought out his heritage.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. He’d always seen his ability to “know” things as a curse. But right now he would have given anything to see the future clearer. To see Kat Ridgemont’s future. And know how to save her.

Daisies. Someone had left daisies on her doorstep. What was that about? Nothing good, he was damn sure.

As he followed her at a distance through the park and town green, he thought again about trying to warn her. He’d seen the fear in her eyes tonight when he’d approached her. Now that she knew who his family was, she seemed even more afraid of him. She would have little reason to trust him, let alone believe anything he said.

She was in danger. But try to explain those instincts and what they foretold to a woman like Kat, who’d already made it clear that she didn’t believe in any of that “hocus-pocus, supernatural stuff.”

He’d forgotten how strong those instincts could be. But being back in Moriah’s Landing, he could feel their power escalating, his body and mind becoming more and more aware as the moon grew in the velvet sky overhead.

He leaned against the trunk of a tree, hidden by the dense foliage, feeling like a stalker as he waited for Kat to go inside and lock the door behind her.

Maybe he was the evil he sensed around Kat. There was a thought.

He watched her disappear into her house, listened for the lock and for the lights to come on, needing assurance that she was safe. At least for tonight.

Then he moved across the damp grass, the night air salty and clear. He knew he couldn’t sleep until he finished this. After reading about Kat’s mother’s murder, he had to see the spot. Had to test himself.

The gazebo came into view beyond the trees. His steps slowed and for a moment he wondered if this wasn’t the dumbest idea he’d had yet. Slowly, he walked toward the gazebo.

A slight breeze stirred the ivy growing up the white lattice sides. He heard a groan and realized he was no longer alone. He turned quickly. Darkness pooled under the huge oak tree nearby and for just an instant he thought he saw the dark silhouettes of the witches hanging from the largest of the tree’s branches, the limb groaning under their weight.

But then the leaves rustled, the limb groaned again in the breeze and the image was gone as if it had never been there.

He stood, stone still, listening to the sounds of the night, remembering everything he’d read in the FBI file that had come attached to his latest e-mail. Apparently, the local police records on the serial killings twenty years ago were missing. That left only the federal file.

Leslie Ridgemont had been found lying on her back on the far bench in the gazebo, her head hanging over the edge, the white scarf around her neck fluttering in the breeze.

The police believed that she’d known her attacker and possibly let the killer walk her home. She’d definitely let him get close enough to strangle her. But what had thrown them about the case were the two cuts on her throat near her carotid artery—a fact not released to the newspapers. But somehow the truth got out. That, Jonah knew, had started the rumor about a killer vampire on the town green.

He moved to the bench and closed his eyes, envisioning the scene that Arabella Leigh had found that night twenty years ago.

Concentrating, he recalled the photographs from the FBI file. He could see the body, the red-and-white snug-fitting diner uniform hiked up, the bare legs, no socks, spoiled white sneakers, the scarf, the cuts on the neck.

He opened his eyes with a start, his heart pounding. He’d seen it all as if it had been him finding the body instead of Arabella—except the face hadn’t been Leslie Ridgemont’s—it was Kat’s.

He stumbled out of the gazebo, feeling weak. It wasn’t just the uncanny resemblance between mother and daughter. He’d seen Kat’s face on the corpse—not her mother’s, and he knew, soul deep, that someone planned to put Kat on that same bench by the full moon.

Shaken to the core, he lifted his head, his gaze going straight to the three-story clapboard house as if something inside him knew—had known since the beginning.

She stood at the railing on the widow’s walk wearing a white nightgown. It fluttered in the breeze as she looked out toward the sea.

He felt a shudder rattle through him as he stared at her, his heart pounding. My God. Had she stood in that same spot the night her mother was killed twenty years ago, Kat would have seen the murderer. But would she have remembered?

Shaken, he turned to leave. Something moved at the edge of the trees. Someone. He caught the shine of eyes, eyes that only a moment before had been doing the same thing Jonah’s had—staring at Kat’s house and the woman on the widow’s walk. The same person who’d been following them the night before?

Jonah took off at a run toward the dark figure in the trees. That ever-growing moon slipped behind the clouds, leaving the night filled with darkness and even darker shadows. His body surged with adrenaline as he sprinted across the grass, a desperate need to stop the evil that he’d sensed was after Kat Ridgemont.

He reached the trees where he’d seen the figure, rounded the stand of oaks, but there was nothing in the cool darkness beneath the wide branches. No one.

Something on the ground caught Jonah’s eye. Next to the indentation of a footprint in the grass lay what appeared to be a glove. He stooped to pick it up, only to find the rough, worn leather glove was dry and almost warm. The man he’d seen watching Kat’s house had to have dropped it.

He swung around at a sound, saw a man running hell-bent toward Main Street, and went after him, knowing in every cell of his body that the person he chased would eventually hurt Kat if he didn’t stop him.

It wasn’t until he crossed Main Street that Jonah realized where the person was headed. St. John’s Cemetery, where McFarland Leary was buried. He could make out the tangled web of tree limbs, the dark jagged lines of the wrought-iron fence, the headstones glowing in the moonlight. Jonah felt his feet falter.

That moment’s hesitation was all it took. He sprinted across Main and up the brick sidewalk along the edge of the cemetery, but by the time he reached the huge wrought-iron gate at the entrance, he knew it was too late. From the back of the cemetery, Jonah heard a car engine turn over, then the grinding of gears and the spray of gravel as the car sped off west of town and out of his view.

Jonah swore, bent to catch his breath, his hands on his thighs, head down. In front of him was the gate to the cemetery. The gate to his own personal hell. He straightened and gazed through the twisted wrought iron, through the misshapen branches of the dark trees to where McFarland Leary lay restless in his grave, the stone stark white in the light from the moon.

“Not tonight, Leary.” Jonah took a couple of steps backward, heart pounding, his muscles suddenly weak as seawater. “Not tonight, you son of a bitch.”

Then he turned his back to the graves and headed toward the tiny apartment he was renting from his cousin Brody over the Wharf Rat. Home.

For the first time since he’d walked out of the FBI headquarters at Quantico, he felt as if he really had hit rock bottom.

Chapter Six

Kat woke with a cry of anguish, her legs tangled in the sheets, her skin clammy with fear. She fought to free herself of the sheets, of the nightmare, surprised it was morning, and worse, that she’d overslept.

Grabbing her robe, she stumbled down the stairs, following the smell of coffee. Emily had made a pot before she’d left for school. But why hadn’t Em at least tried to wake her? Maybe she had.

With a groan, Kat remembered last night and the girl in the red jacket she’d seen running away after vandalizing the Bait & Tackle wall. As much as she dreaded it, she’d have to confront Em tonight about it since the girl hadn’t been home by the time Kat had fallen asleep.

Kat poured herself some coffee and stood barefoot in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around the warm cup, trying to eradicate the chill inside her. She couldn’t forget about the dream. It had come back just as she’d feared, only this time…this time it had been different. She shuddered at the vague memory and took a sip of the hot liquid. The strong coffee did little to melt away the block of ice inside her, though.

Taking the cup with her, Kat headed for the stairs and a shower. But as she started up the steps, she spotted a book on the lower step near the front door. Dream Interpretation: Unlock the Mystery.

But it was the note stuck to the front cover from Claire that made Kat pick up the book.

Hi. Sorry I blew you off at Threads. Didn’t mean to worry you. Just lost track of time. Call you tomorrow, Claire.

Relieved that Claire was okay, Kat carried the book upstairs. She started to drop it on her desk when, on impulse, she thumbed through the pages, expecting to find something funny she could tell Elizabeth about. Elizabeth had been so busy getting ready for the wedding they hadn’t talked much lately and Kat figured they both could use a good laugh.

A word caught her eye, suddenly bringing back the dream with such force that her knees threatened to buckle. She clutched the edge of the desk for a moment. She’d seen something new in the dream last night, something she’d never seen before in the bizarre jumble of images, something she’d remembered. Slowly, she opened the book to the word that had triggered the memory.

Blood: Seeing blood in a dream indicates enemies who seek to destroy you. Beware of someone close to you who isn’t who you think they are.

Ridiculous. Kat slammed the book shut and dropped it on her desk. If only it were that easy to shed the dream, she thought as she went to shower and get ready for work.

AT THE SAME TIME Kat was in the shower, Jonah was driving his motorcycle up to Heathrow College.

He’d been trying to get Kat off his mind all morning, but without any luck. As he walked across campus to the Natasha Pierce Building of Natural Sciences, a modern stone structure—the college’s newest building, named after the deceased daughter of the town’s founding family—he knew his concern for Kat was overshadowing everything, including what he’d come to Moriah’s Landing to do. All morning he’d had a bad feeling that the two were somehow linked. And he always knew to trust his gut instincts.

Dr. Paul Fortier, a trim fortyish man of medium height, got up from behind his immaculately clean desk as Jonah walked in. Fortier’s dark hair and beard were trimmed to perfection and his white lab coat was pristine.

Jonah didn’t like him the moment he saw him. He liked him even less when he shook Fortier’s weak-gripped hand, the biologist’s distaste for him evident.

“What is it we can do for you, Mr. Ries?” Fortier inquired, looking down his hawkish nose at Jonah. He made it clear in his tone that he was a busy man who didn’t like to have his schedule interrupted. Especially by one of the town’s less desirables.

The “we” he referred to was the other biologist in his office: Dr. Rhonda Girard. A tall, thin, intense-looking blond woman, Girard also offered her hand. Her handshake was as cool and detached as her demeanor.

Both Fortier and Girard seemed to examine him openly as if he were a bug they wished was under glass. No doubt they’d heard about his recent “release” from the FBI, which, coupled with the family name of Ries, was making them uncomfortable—and cautious.

Jonah got right to it. “I heard that some of the scientists around here are looking for guinea pigs for research projects they’re doing.”

“Not exactly guinea pigs,” Girard said.

“Just what kind of research are we talking about?” Jonah asked.

“It’s a little too complicated to explain to a layman in our current time restraints,” Fortier said.

Jonah shrugged. “Genetics, right?”

Fortier gave a slight nod.

Jonah knew damn well what brought scientists like Fortier and Girard and Manning to Moriah’s Landing. He’d heard rumors since he was a kid and been warned about doctors who would cage you up like a lab rat—if they got the chance—to experiment on you.

“Tell me this,” he said. “What would I have to do and how much does it pay?” He saw a look pass between them. They hadn’t expected this.

“You would be interested in our project?” Girard asked, obviously unable to hide her shock.

More than they could ever know. He shrugged. “It pays, right? I could use the money.”

“I thought you were an agent with the FBI,” Fortier asked with obvious suspicion.

“The feds and I had a falling-out,” Jonah said, as if Fortier hadn’t heard about it. “They felt I’d chosen the wrong career path.”

He could see they were dying to get his blood, but also leery of this unexpected good fortune. It was rumored that the Ries bloodline ran back several generations, to a time when a Ries produced a son with the beautiful but wild daughter of McFarland Leary and his witch consort.

It was that kind of genetic history that had brought scientists like Fortier and Manning to Moriah’s Landing in the first place. For years there’d been rumors of special powers that came with the genes of certain families—those descended from witches.

But it was also obvious that Fortier and Girard didn’t want the FBI looking too closely at their research. Just paranoia when it came to the feds and how federal research funds were being spent? Or were the doctors dabbling in research they shouldn’t be?

“I’m sure we can find a suitable fee if you’re interested,” Fortier said, obviously trying to sound as if it was no big deal—but not pulling it off. Probably because no Ries in his right mind would ever agree to any kind of genetic scrutiny. “All we would need would be a little blood. It’s painless, I assure you,” he added quickly as if he thought Jonah might be squeamish of needles. No, just nooses.

“Great,” Jonah said.

“If you have time now,” Girard said, “it will only take—”

“Sorry.” Jonah feigned disappointment. “I have to get to my job and I’m running late, but let me know when and where and how much. I’m working at the Wharf Rat. You can reach me there.”

Fortier looked as if he wanted to grab Jonah and open a vein with a letter opener if that’s what it took right there in the immaculate office rather than let him get away. “I’ll call you later and set up a time.”

Jonah was sure he would.

DISTRACTED BY REMNANTS of the nightmare that had followed her to work, Kat was startled to find another bouquet of daisies on her office step. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised, let alone upset at the sight of them again, but she was. As before, they were tied loosely with a piece of used red ribbon. She followed her first impulse and threw them in the trash with the old ones from yesterday.

The daisies disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. She told herself that someone was bound to come forward to take credit for them soon. She held on to that thought, the logic of that making her feel better. But still, something about the daisies unnerved her.

When she checked her messages she found one from Bud Lawson thanking her for completing the investigation so quickly. The insurance company had released his check for repairs. Another message was from the insurance company about Ernie McDougal’s vandalism from last night.

As with Bud Lawson, Ernie McDougal’s insurance company recommended her to investigate the damage and turn in a report, rather than send out one of their own agents all the way from Boston.

It was early, long before most of the shops opened, but Kat decided she’d see Ernie now and get it over with. She locked up and started down the sidewalk. Across the street, she spotted her friend Brie through the diner window and waved, feeling instantly guilty. She had only recently started socializing with Brie again. Her friend had kept to herself when Kat learned she was pregnant with her daughter, Nicole. It was as if Brie didn’t want anyone to know who the father was. Kat started to cross the street to say hello to her, but Brie gave a quick wave and hurried over to a table to take an order.

Kat told herself that it was Brie who had pulled away from her friends. Brie was so busy now working at the diner, going to college and caring for her daughter and ailing mother.

“Good morning!”

Kat glanced over to find Cassandra Quintana already in her booth this morning.

“I have something for you,” the fortune-teller said.

Kat would just bet she did. “Another tarot card? What is this one, death?”

Cassandra’s gaze was dark and deeply intent as she shuffled the large deck of worn tarot cards in her bejeweled fingers, her bracelets tinkling. She sat at the small counter, a dark velvet cover spread before her, several candles and some incense burning on each side. “I thought you might be curious about the daisies.”

Kat felt her heart take off at a run. How did Cassandra know about the daisies? “You know who left them?”

The seer shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I only know what the cards tell me.”

Right. The fortune-teller had obviously seen the person who’d been dropping off the bouquet of daisies. How else would she know about them?

Cassandra flipped a card from the deck and dropped it to the dark velvet. “I see the flowers upset you,” the fortune-teller said. The whisper of another card. “I see that daisies have some significance for you, an association connected with your past that is painful. And…frightening.”

Kat realized most of this the seer could have gotten from her expression alone at just the mention of the daisies. But she felt a tremor. Cassandra’s words had rattled a memory awake. Daisies tied with a red ribbon. She remembered now where she’d seen the same bouquet before, the memory startling her.

Cassandra dropped another card on the velvet. “The daisies portend something that is yet to come. There is a darkness in your future. Danger.”

But Kat barely heard the fortune-teller’s warning. Her heart pounding, she hurried across the town green toward home. Putting down her purse, she rushed upstairs and threw open the doors to the storage area under the third-floor stairs. Frantically, she began to pull everything out, looking for the box with the old photographs her grandmother had left her.

After some frenzied digging, Kat found the box buried in the very back. Leaving everything in the middle of the hallway floor, she took the photos down to the kitchen, poured herself a strong cup of coffee, nuked it and sat down at the breakfast bar. She began going through the photos, her hands shaking.

She found what she was looking for in the middle of the box. Her fingers jerked as she unfolded the newspaper clipping. It was a front-page story about her mother’s murder and consequent funeral. The photo was grainy, the faces around the grave out of focus. Instead, the camera had zoomed in on the casket and the simple bouquet of daisies tied with a worn red ribbon that someone had put on top.

Her heart beat so hard that her chest ached. She picked up one of the last photographs taken of her mother, her fingers trembling as she looked into her own face. Tears rushed her eyes, each breath a labor.

Someone was giving her the same bouquet of daisies he’d given her mother—only at her funeral.

Kat picked up her coffee cup and took a gulp, scared, but this time maybe with good reason.

“ABOUT TIME,” Brody said, glancing at his watch as Jonah walked in. “You’re not working for the feds now.”

“Sorry,” he said, glancing at his own watch. “Dock me the two minutes.” He could feel Brody watching him as he stepped behind the bar, picked up the coffeepot and refilled his cousin’s mug.

Brody laughed. “Maybe I will.”

“With what you pay me, I’m sure I won’t miss it in my check,” Jonah retorted, turning away to put the coffeepot back on the burner.

Brody laughed. “No wonder the feds gave you the boot. I’ve been waiting to tell you the good news. You feel lucky?”

Jonah picked up a bar rag, turned on the faucet and held the rag under it, not wanting to seem too anxious. “Not particularly.”

“I got you in the game.”

He turned off the faucet, wrung out the bar rag and turned slowly, frowning. “What game is that?”

“The biggest poker game in this part of Massachusetts,” Brody bragged. “My poker game.”

“Oh yeah?” Jonah wiped at the already clean bar. “So who plays?”

“You’ll see. That is, if you have what it takes.” Brody grinned. “This ain’t penny-ante poker. The question is—are you man enough?”

Jonah kept scrubbing at the bar. The question had nothing to do with his manhood and they both knew it. This had to do with Ries genes. And, of course, money.

But Jonah couldn’t have been happier—unless, of course, he’d never had to come back to Moriah’s Landing. He wouldn’t have met Kat Ridgemont though. Nor, he reminded himself, would he have known that someone was planning to kill her. However, he did not have the vaguest idea who wanted her dead or why—or how to stop it.

“Well?” Brody demanded.

“I’m always up for a friendly game of poker,” Jonah said, knowing it would be anything but friendly.

Chapter Seven

The telephone rang. Kat jumped, knocking the stack of photos off the breakfast bar and spilling the last of her coffee.

Hurriedly, she mopped up the spilled coffee, shoving the photos out of the way so they didn’t get wet, then reached for the phone before it could ring again.

“Hello?” She thought she heard breathing. “Hello?”

No answer. Was it one of Emily’s friends, surprised to find Kat home?

She heard a soft click and shivered. Now she was letting even wrong numbers scare her, she thought, angry with her heart for pounding so hard.

She tried to walk off her bad mood by taking the long way down Main Street to Waterfront Avenue. But she couldn’t forget the daisy bouquet. Or the eerie resemblance between her mother and her at this age.

Why did she feel as if she had something to fear? It wasn’t as if anyone had threatened her.

As she turned onto Waterfront, she heard the throb of a motorcycle. She swung around expecting to see Jonah coming toward her. It wasn’t him but still her heart raced reminding her of exactly what she had to fear.

She rushed across the street, deciding right then and there to find out more about Jonah Ries—for her own peace of mind.

With the throb of the motorcycle’s motor growing behind her, she hurriedly slipped into the Bait & Tackle. The bell over the door tinkled and Ernie looked up from behind the counter at the back, seemingly surprised to see her.

“Hello,” she called as she worked her way through the racks of fishing supplies to him.

Ernie was a stocky man of about sixty-five or so, with short gray hair on an obviously balding head. He wore a red cap that read Bait & Tackle in navy. The cap made his ears stick out. She’d seen Ernie around since she was a girl, but he’d hardly ever spoken to her, just hello or a nod on the street.

Now she wondered if he wasn’t shy as she held out her hand. He seemed surprised, almost confused, as if he’d forgotten who she was. Or why she was here. “I’m Kat Ridgemont, the investigator your insurance company hired to file a report on the vandalism.”

He shook his head as if shaking out cobwebs. “Kat, of course. You looked so much like your mother, for a moment…” He shook his head again and offered his hand. “Of course I know you.” His grip was stronger than she’d expected, his arms muscular from hauling in fish, his face tanned and weathered from the sea, reminding her of her father.

“I was wondering how long it would be before my shop was hit,” he said with disgust. “Come around here and I’ll show you.”

He held the back door open for her, reminding her that he was from a generation of men who still believed in chivalry.

She tailed him to the side of his building to the place where she’d seen the vandals applying spray paint last night.

“I guess I’m lucky this is all they did,” Ernie said.

“You’re covered by insurance, but you realize repainting the wall won’t exceed your deductible,” she said, wondering why he’d called the insurance company for such a small claim.

“I suppose there isn’t that much damage,” he said thoughtfully.

She nodded, studying the seemingly hurried swaths of paint on the old brick wall. “Not exactly artistic,” she commented. The vandals had taken more time on Bud Lawson’s walls, but then they hadn’t been interrupted as they were last night. “Any idea who might have done this?”

“Kids.” Unlike Bud Lawson, Ernie didn’t seem that upset.

“Have any kids been hanging around, acting suspicious?” she asked.

“Not that I’ve noticed. I’ve been getting ready for the season, so I haven’t been paying much attention.” Tourist season. “The usual kids hang out at the arcade down the street.”

Yes, the arcade.

“I can file a report with the insurance company if you want me to,” she said, pulling out her notebook and pen.

“No, you’re right. No reason to. Just drive up my rates. I should have thought of that before I called them and had them send you over. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

She put her notebook and pen back into her purse. “No problem.”

Ernie walked her back to the sidewalk in front of Bait & Tackle. He seemed to search for something to say, then settled on “Thanks.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Tommy Cavendish said he’s working for you this summer.”

Ernie nodded. “Running errands. Saves me having to take things down to the docks that my crews forget. Why? You don’t think he was one of the vandals.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I was just thinking about hiring him to do some things for me. He’s a good worker?”

“He’s okay, he’s a kid,” Ernie said, and shrugged, squinting at her and into the bright sun.

“I heard he’s also running errands for Brody Ries.”

“I wouldn’t know.” The phone rang inside the Bait & Tackle and Ernie excused himself to go answer it. He turned once to look back at her.

She waved and then, against her better judgment, glanced across the street to the Wharf Rat where Jonah’s motorcycle was parked out front. He was nowhere in sight, thankfully.

But Kat hadn’t gone two steps when Jonah fell in beside her, startling her.

“Hello,” he said, his voice deep, setting a tremor off inside her. “I wanted to apologize for last night.”

“What for?” she asked, pretending the kiss hadn’t meant a thing to her.

“For not offering to walk you home,” he said.

She stumbled and looked over at him in disbelief.

“Oh, did you think I was going to apologize for kissing you?” He smiled, sharklike. “I’m not sorry about that at all. In fact, if you give me the chance…” He laughed. “Got to get to work. Nice seeing you.”

She stopped to watch him jog back to the Wharf Rat. The man was impossible. She mentally kicked herself for still being attracted to him. Like mother like daughter.

BACK AT HER OFFICE, Kat was surprised to find a message on her answering machine from Dr. Leland Manning, a local scientist who lived in town and, according to local folklore, did strange experiments in his laboratory.

“Ms. Ridgemont, if you could call me regarding an urgent personal and very private matter, I would greatly appreciate it,” Manning had said in a clipped, officious tone.

She dialed the number the doctor had left, curious beyond words. She’d never even seen Manning, let alone talked to him, and now here he was asking her to call.

An older-sounding woman with a European accent answered the phone. “The doctor is unavailable. May I take a message?”

“Just tell him Kat Ridgemont of Ridgemont Detective Agency returned his call. I will be out of my office—”

“Ms. Ridgemont,” Dr. Manning broke in, his voice just as clipped and cool as it had been on the answering machine. “How good of you to call so promptly. I would like to discuss acquiring your services.”

She blinked, caught between curiosity and uncertainty. Why would Dr. Manning possibly want to hire her? “I’m free this afternoon—”

“I’m afraid I’m tied up until later on in the evening,” the doctor interrupted, “but it is of utmost importance that I speak with you in person tonight. It will have to be late because of a previous engagement. Say, nine-thirty? At my home?”

She’d had a mental image of the Manning estate since she was a kid. Tall, dark spires that rose above the gnarled trees, hidden behind an electric fence, like some brooding entity. In her mind, it made The Bluffs, a castle at the edge of the sea where the town’s local hermit, David Bryson, lived, look like Candyland.

And go out there after dark?

But she wasn’t one to turn tail and run from anything any more than she was apt to turn down a job without a good reason. “Nine-thirty is fine,” she said, assuring herself there was a very good explanation why no one had ever seen Dr. Manning in the daylight. Why few people had ever seen him at all. “But can you tell me what this is about?”

“I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. Until nine-thirty then.” He rang off.

Just before she hung up, she heard a click on the phone as another line disconnected. She wondered if the older woman she’d talked to first had been on the entire time. Or if it had been someone else at the estate? Hadn’t she heard that Dr. Manning had married? A much younger woman. The word around town was that she never left the estate.

Kat replaced the receiver, torn between curiosity and apprehension. She didn’t like the idea of going out there at night, though.

The other message on her answering machine had been from her friend Elizabeth—and was about the wedding. At least that’s what Elizabeth said it was about. Elizabeth had never been a good liar. Kat hoped everything was all right.

AS JONAH UNLOCKED HIS door, he knew someone had been in his apartment before he even saw the tiny piece of dental floss already on the floor. Brody?

Cautiously, he opened the door. The nice thing about a studio apartment was the lack of adequate places for a man of any size to hide. He stepped into the room, moving quickly and quietly to the bathroom. No one behind the cheap plastic curtain in the shower stall. Nor anyone hiding behind the bathroom door.

He glanced around the apartment. Nothing looked out of place or gone. But maybe the intruder hadn’t come to steal anything. Maybe he’d come to leave something behind—like a bug.

Stepping to the couch, Jonah reached under to the thin shelf holding his laptop. The computer was still there and it didn’t appear it had been touched. He could see Brody looking under a couch cushion, maybe even bending down enough to peek under the couch, but his cousin would never get down on his hands and knees—and that’s what it would have taken.

Jonah booted up the laptop. He ran a check on Cassandra Quintana. No big surprise. Either Cassandra Quintana wasn’t her real name or she had never bothered with a social security card or any other identification.

“About time,” flashed on in the message box.

“What’s up?” he answered.

“We got another anonymous tip.”

Jonah groaned. “What now?”

“Our anonymous source thinks shipment coming in tomorrow night on Audrey Lynn.”

Jonah jumped at the sudden loud knock on his apartment door, followed almost immediately by Brody’s strident voice.

“Open up.”

The computer screen flashed. “BTW.” Online lingo for “by the way.” “That name you asked about—Ridgemont. We just picked it up on Dr. Manning’s phone surveillance. Not Leslie. Kat? Meeting him tonight, nine-thirty, his place.”

“OKAY, WHAT’S REALLY bothering you?” Kat asked after she and Elizabeth were seated in her friend’s living room. “I know you too well. You didn’t just invite me here to talk about the wedding.”

Elizabeth wasn’t just a brain. She was refined and beautiful with long brown hair that, until recently, she’d worn in a bun. It seemed she’d let her hair down since her love affair with the local cop.

Elizabeth gave her a sheepish look. Deceit was something her friend failed at miserably. “I just thought you ought to know. There is a man in town asking questions about you and your mother.”

Kat stared at her, remembering the man in the army jacket. “What man?”

“Cullen said his name is Jonah Ries.”

Jonah? “What kind of questions is he asking about my mother?” She could understand Jonah asking about her. Kinda. But her mother?

Elizabeth looked uncomfortable. “Then you know him?” She sounded surprised—and worried. “Cullen says he’s a former FBI agent and that there are federal charges pending against him. He sounds dangerous.”

More than Elizabeth could know. “Liz, I appreciate you worrying about me—”

“Okay, butt out, right?”

“No, I just…What about my mother?”

Elizabeth seemed to hesitate. “He’s been inquiring about her murder.”

Kat couldn’t hide her surprise. What possible interest could Jonah have in her mother’s murder? She looked at her watch, wondering if she had time to stop by the Wharf Rat before she met with Dr. Manning.

“Look, I’m sorry, this has obviously upset you,” Elizabeth said.

“No, I’m glad you told me. I just can’t talk about this right now. I have an appointment.”

“This late at night?” Elizabeth frowned. “Not with—”

“No, not with Mr. Ries. But don’t worry. I can handle this.” She hoped.

“I know you can.” Elizabeth sounded relieved. “I should have known you wouldn’t get involved with anyone like that. I mean, not—”

“Again?” Elizabeth had found out about the abusive relationship Kat had had. Kat almost confessed to her right then and there just how scared she was about her…attraction to Jonah. Was there a twelve-step program for women like her? But she didn’t want to worry her friend, not with the wedding less than two weeks away.

Kat told herself she was too smart to let another man hurt her. The problem was, she was having trouble believing that Jonah Ries was dangerous. Why was that?

Because of his kiss? Or because of the way he’d been with Tommy? She knew she could never get him off her mind until she got to the heart of the matter, so to speak. Until she found out what he was doing in Moriah’s Landing and why he seemed to have taken such an interest in her—and her mother’s murder.

“You must have a million things to worry about other than me,” Kat said to her friend. “Getting cold feet?”

Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. “I’m busy, but I think I’m on top of it.”

That was so like Elizabeth. “You look happy. Radiant, as corny as that sounds.” She gave her friend a hug. “Thanks for the concern.”

“If you need me—”

“I know,” Kat said, but right now she just needed answers and there was only one person who had those—Jonah Ries. Unfortunately, she had just enough time to get to Dr. Manning’s. Jonah would have to wait.

Chapter Eight

“Come on,” Brody yelled, banging on the door again.

Jonah stared at the computer screen, that bad feeling in his gut stronger than ever. What the hell was Kat thinking, going out to Manning’s alone late at night?

He clicked off, closed the computer on his way to the bathroom, stashed the laptop under some towels and called out, “Just a minute” as he flushed the toilet. “Who is it?” he asked as he neared the door.

“Who do you think?” Brody snapped.

Jonah unlocked the door, surprised Brody hadn’t just used his key. “Yeah?”

“You got another shirt?” Brody pushed his way in, bringing with him a cloud of cigar smoke. Jonah noticed his cousin was dressed like a pimp in a pair of burgundy slacks, a brightly striped gold and burgundy shirt, white patent-leather shoes and enough gold to require an armored car.

Jonah looked down at the shirt he had on, his favorite wash-worn chambray one. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Put on a decent shirt if you own one,” Brody snapped. “I don’t want you looking like a bum.”

Jonah glanced at his watch. Way too early for the poker game, unless—

“Come on, the game’s been moved up.” Brody peered nervously around the apartment as if looking for something. “You got any money?”

“You want to borrow some?” Jonah asked as he unbuttoned his shirt, pulled another one down from the makeshift open shelves at the end of the couch and put it on.

“Funny.” His cousin started to sit down on the dilapidated couch, then changed his mind.

Jonah buttoned up the clean shirt he’d put on, avoiding Brody’s gaze. “You never did say who was going to be in the game.” It would be a complete waste of his time if Dr. Manning wasn’t there—and after what he’d heard about Kat meeting Manning tonight at nine-thirty—

“No, I never did say.”

He turned to see his cousin puffing on his cigar and eyeing him with suspicion. “Does it make a difference?”

“Just curious,” Jonah said with a shrug.

Brody continued to eye him, as if worrying he might have made a mistake.

Jonah was surprised Brody had asked him to the poker game this soon. Something was up. Either Brody was motivated by greed—thinking Jonah would make a great mark—or he was hoping Jonah would do the fleecing. Why did he feel as if this was a test?

“Don’t make me sorry I asked you,” Brody said after a moment.

Jonah took the warning to heart. He’d seen Brody almost kill a man once on the wharf. He’d been ten or eleven, which would have made Brody about nineteen, just a kid, but with a man’s temper. The fisherman had been big and strong, but not as fast as Brody—or as mean. If one of the other fishermen hadn’t come along and helped Jonah pull his cousin off, Brody would have killed the man.

As it was, Brody never forgave Jonah for interfering. It was just another sore point between them—and another reason Brody would never trust him completely. But blood was blood, especially in this town.

“Ready?” Brody asked, eyeing Jonah’s only clean shirt. “I thought I told you this wasn’t penny-ante poker.” But Jonah could tell Brody was pleased that his cousin looked like the bartender he’d become. “I should have loaned you something decent to wear.”

Jonah shuddered at the thought.

Once in the hallway, Brody headed to the back of the building. The smell of stale beer wafted up from the Wharf Rat below, along with the sounds of music and loud voices.

Jonah was surprised to find out the game was held in one of the larger apartments at the back, over the bar. It was quieter here and the smell of old beer not quite so strong.

“I thought this was a high-class card game,” he said, needling his cousin.

“Like you’d know class if it came up and bit you in the rear,” Brody retorted.

The apartment wasn’t much better than the one Jonah was living in, it was just larger and the carpet was chartreuse shag instead of orange.

The kitchen had a better fridge, as it turned out, one stocked with beer, and a small bar with hard liquor and clean bar glasses. Jonah was afraid Brody might have brought him here to serve the drinks instead of play in the game, but then Brody would have to pay him.

The living room had a large octagonal poker table, complete with green felt and eight chairs. A swamp cooler pumped in cool air. That appeared to be the only furniture in the one-bedroom apartment. Through the doorway, he could see an empty bedroom and a bath with a tub but no shower curtain.

“Nice place,” Jonah commented.

“It works,” Brody said, obviously distracted.

Jonah saw him glance at his watch. He could tell that his cousin was nervous. Because the others didn’t know that he’d invited Jonah to play? Or because of the real reason Brody had invited him? What was his cousin up to?

There was a tap at the door and Brody almost jumped out of his skin. Suddenly Jonah felt naked without a weapon snug against his ribs. But he hadn’t dared wear one tonight, even if he could have hidden it under his shirt. There was too much chance that he might have been frisked.

He couldn’t help worrying about why his cousin was so nervous as Brody went to the door. Dr. Leland Manning walked in—Jonah recognized him from an FBI photograph he’d been given of the man—and then he had a pretty good idea what had Brody on edge. The man was damn disconcerting.

“This is my cousin Jonah, the one I told you about,” Brody said, obviously anxious about the scientist’s reaction.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonah watched Brody sweat while Dr. Manning gave him the once-over. Manning was a rather large but slim man in his fifties with the damnedest eyes Jonah had ever seen. Like a blowtorch, they seemed to cut to your core, boring so deep into you until you could swear the doctor knew your every thought.

Jonah waited, not wanting to appear too anxious, his mind blank, just in case the doctor really could read his mind.

Brody seemed to finally remember his manners. “This is Dr. Leland Manning, the—”

“—leading genetics-research scientist in the country,” Jonah said.

“In the world,” Manning corrected with a smile, his teeth small and sharp-looking. He extended his hand.

Jonah had touched fish that were warmer.

“You’re interested in genetics?” Manning asked.

“As a matter of fact I am, if it can explain how Brody and I could be cousins,” Jonah quipped, getting the laugh he’d hoped for.

Brody scowled at him. “A real comedian.”

“Brody tells me you were in the FBI for a while,” Dr. Manning said.

“For a while.”

“Now you’re bartending at the Wharf Rat,” the doctor said. “That’s quite a fall from grace.”

“Yeah,” Jonah admitted. “But I don’t plan on being a bartender for long.”

Dr. Manning nodded at that.

Brody seemed to relax, offering the doctor a drink. At the next tap at the door, he sent Jonah to get it. Jonah figured he’d passed the first test. So why did he feel there would be other, tougher tests tonight and unpleasant consequences if he failed?

Marley Glasglow filled the doorway. Jonah remembered him, a bully with a mean streak.

“Glasglow,” he said with a nod, noticing the bulge under the man’s jacket. It appeared at least one of them was armed. Definitely cause for concern.

Glasglow didn’t respond, just pushed past him and headed for the bar. Behind him was Ernie McDougal, a quiet stocky man in his sixties.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Jonah said, extending his hand as he introduced himself. “Ernie McDougal, right? The Bait & Tackle?”

Ernie nodded, his hand large, his grip solid for a man his age. He didn’t seem surprised to find Jonah here. Obviously, he’d already heard, just as it appeared Glasglow had.

As Jonah started to close the door, he let his gaze sweep the room. Poker brought out the best—or worst in people. Glasglow would be cutthroat and a poor loser. Manning would play for blood. McDougal? He’d play close to the vest. Brody would be as easy to read as a flashing neon sign.

“Excuse me,” said a female voice through the crack in the door as Jonah was closing it.

He pulled it open again, shocked to see Cassandra Quintana standing in the doorway.

She moved past him with an annoyed shake of her head, but it wasn’t until Brody offered her a drink that Jonah believed she really was here to play poker. He groaned inwardly, wondering how many cards she had up her caftan sleeves.

Dr. Manning glanced at his watch. “You’re late.”

Cassandra took her drink over to a chair at the poker table, obviously her usual one. “I wasn’t told there would be a guest tonight.”

“He’s not a guest,” Brody snapped. “He’s my cousin.”

She raised an eyebrow, her dark gaze going from Brody to Jonah. “I still wasn’t told.”

“You mean, you didn’t see it in the cards?” Jonah asked.

Manning actually laughed as he took his place at the table. “So tell me why you went into the FBI in the first place?”

“Damned if I know.”

Manning didn’t laugh this time. “What did they get you for?”

Jonah could feel the others listening with interest. “Nothing big. Falsifying records, selling documents, a little extortion.” He waited until Glasglow and McDougal sat down before he took the chair farthest from the bar. It was obvious that he was the mark—and not the bartender tonight. That was Brody’s job.

Brody handed him a beer as he sat down. The inquisition appearing over, Dr. Manning opened a new deck of cards, then handed them to Cassandra, who began to shuffle them like a pro—and certainly not with the reverence she used with tarot cards. More like someone who’d spent more than her share of time at a gaming table or a carny sideshow.

Jonah felt like a man in a tankful of sharks. They could smell new blood and they couldn’t wait to get their teeth into him. Especially since the meat was former-FBI grade-A stock.

It proved harder to lose at poker than he’d expected. No stranger to five-card stud, he had to fight the urge to prove them wrong about him—and yet at the same time not lose so badly that it made them suspicious.

Dr. Manning played cards with an intensity that even Jonah hadn’t predicted. Glasglow lost with an ugly temper tantrum. McDougal played quietly, competently and with little fanfare, just as Jonah had predicted. Cassandra played like the pro she obviously was.

“You have no business here,” she said during a break in the game. He’d gone out on the fire escape for some fresh air, or at least that had been his excuse, and she’d followed him.

“You don’t seem to mind taking my money,” he said without looking at her. “Any way you can.”

“This isn’t about poker—or money,” she snapped. “The stakes are higher than you think and you’re in over your head.”

He shrugged and turned to go back inside.

“You also aren’t a very credible loser at poker,” she said to his back. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Who the hell was this woman? And why did he believe her, that this wasn’t about money or poker? Then what? He had a bad feeling he already knew.

They played a few more hands, with Jonah winning some small pots but losing the bigger ones to Manning. Ernie, Brody and Glasglow were all behind, Ernie losing the most. Cassandra seemed about dead even, maybe a little ahead. Manning was making a killing.

Not surprising considering that Cassandra had been tipping the doctor off on what everyone had in their hands since the first. The problem was, Jonah hadn’t figured out exactly how she was doing it. Maybe the cards were marked. Or maybe she had some sort of mirror set up in this room, since she always sat in the same chair. All he knew was that she used her bracelets to signal the doctor, so it was obviously something they’d worked out.

“Are you aware that my personal research involves the descendants of witches?” Dr. Manning asked, his gaze penetrating as he swept up the cards Jonah had dealt him without looking at them.

Jonah didn’t even flinch as he picked up his cards and pretended to study them. And he’d thought Brody had invited him to the game to take his money. Instead, it seemed the invite had come from Manning, and for entirely different reasons—just as Cassandra had insinuated on the fire escape. And just as Jonah had feared.

“You know witches really never did fly on brooms,” Jonah said.

Manning regarded him intently. “For thousands of years, there is evidence to suggest, however, that they did possess psychic abilities and possibly other gifts that I believe were handed down from each generation to the next through the genes. Does that interest you?”

“Sounds more up Cassandra’s alley to me,” Jonah said as he pulled three cards from his hand and dropped them facedown on the table, glancing over at her.

Her gaze didn’t even waver as she threw in her hand. Brody, Ernie and Glasglow did the same, both Brody and Glasglow adding a few choice expletives.

“How many cards would you like?” Jonah asked the doctor.

“I think I’ll keep the ones I have. Your lack of interest in this matter surprises me, given that your family is descended from one of the town’s most famous witches, Seama,” Manning said, obviously not going to let the subject drop.

“If you listen to local gossips, most everyone in town is related to Seama.” Jonah smiled. “But if it were true, then I would be able to read your mind and know exactly which cards you have in your hand. Hell, I might even be able to know what the next cards in the deck are.”

Jonah met Manning’s gaze and saw a flicker of concern—and interest. Manning didn’t want to lose this hand—or any hand for that matter. He also desperately wanted to know if Jonah possessed the gene he believed triggered these powers in families like the Rieses.

“Are you going to play poker or talk?” Ernie asked irritably.

“Mr. McDougal here has no psychic abilities at all,” Manning commented. “Nor social skills.”

Ernie shook his head in disgust and leaned back in his chair.

Jonah slowly drew two cards off the top of the deck, smiled and looked over at Manning before he dropped three jacks and a pair of eights to the table. “It seems the next two cards were eights.”

Manning fanned his cards out on the table. Three kings and a pair of tens.

“Just my luck.” Jonah got up from the table abruptly, pretending to be upset as he started to clear the table of glasses, careful not to smudge Cassandra’s prints as he headed for the bar where he hid her glass until he could get it to a fingerprint lab.

“Don’t go away mad,” Glasglow said, sounding pleased.

“Perhaps you’d like to play one more game, try to win back what you lost?” Manning, it seemed, hadn’t gotten enough blood.

“Not the way my luck is running,” Jonah said.

“It will give you a chance to save face and win back some of your money,” the doctor persisted.

“Or let you take my last dime,” Jonah said, turning from the bar.

Manning shrugged. “It’s entirely in the cards.”

Yeah, right. Jonah felt Cassandra watching him, waiting, as if knowing exactly what he’d do. It made him more uneasy than he wanted to admit, because he still hadn’t figured out how she was cheating. Or why she was working with Manning. Or worse, why she seemed to have taken an interest in Jonah himself.

“One more game,” the doctor demanded.

No one had moved, although everyone but Manning had picked up his money for the night.

Jonah now knew why Brody had brought him here. “Sorry, but I’m a working man and I have the early shift at the bar in the morning.”

Brody looked as if he might have a coronary. “Hey, I can call in another bartender for your shift—”

“If you want to always be a bartender…” Manning made a show of gathering up the money he’d won.

Jonah got himself another beer. “Oh, what the hell.” He went back to the table. He could almost taste Brody’s relief.

“Count me out,” Ernie McDougal said. Everyone else echoed him, but didn’t move. It was obvious they were all staying to see this.

“I’ll take another drink,” Cassandra said to Brody, settling into her chair across from Manning and to the left of Jonah.

Manning handed Jonah the cards. “You may deal.”

Jonah nodded and began to shuffle, trying to decide how to make this work to his advantage. The cards were good to him and he upped the ante to everything he had on him.

True to form, Manning raised it, knowing Jonah had nothing more to bet.

“Sorry,” Jonah said in defeat. “I’m busted.”

Manning seemed to consider that for a moment. “Perhaps you have something to bet besides money?”

Playing dumb, Jonah looked down at the cheap watch on his arm then at Manning. The doctor shook his head. “Other than the shirt on my back—”

“Perhaps a sample of your blood,” Manning suggested impatiently.

Jonah could feel the tension, tight as piano wire as they finally got down to their real reason for being here tonight. He smiled. “And if you lose, Doc?”

Manning’s gaze bored into him. “Did you have something in mind?”

Jonah went for the one thing he knew Manning would hate the most. “I’d like to see your lab.” Manning didn’t let anyone into the inner sanctum of his laboratory and, since he’d never accepted any federal funding, he’d never had to.

He saw the doctor’s startled expression, the hesitation, the uncertainty. Manning shot a look at Brody. Brody looked like death warmed over. The tension in the room rose like a high-pitched squeal, high enough to break crystal, had there been any.

“I can assure you it would be of no interest to you,” Manning said carefully. “It is much like any other lab.”

“I hate to hear that,” Jonah said. “When I was a kid I heard you had the heads of witches and warlocks floating in gallon jars.”

“That sort of thing interests you?” Manning’s gaze was hot enough to fry eggs.

Jonah let out a snort. “Hell, those heads could be members of my family.”

Manning appeared relieved. Jonah was just a ghoul with a morbid curiosity and Manning was a doctor with a maniac need to get true Ries blood under a microscope. All Manning had to do was take the bet. After all, what were the chances he’d lose?

“All right, Mr. Ries. If you win, you may see my personal laboratory. If I win…” He smiled. A cold feral smile that lacked any trace of real humor. Like Fortier and Girard, Manning was visibly salivating at the thought of his blood.

“You know,” Jonah said as if reconsidering, “I’m not sure I want to see your lab that bad,” he added with a laugh. “You probably don’t really have heads floating in jars, do you?”

“There is only one way to find out.”

Jonah nodded. Unfortunately, that was true. “You’re on then. How many cards?” he asked the doctor.

Manning looked across the table at Cassandra as if considering. For the first time tonight, she didn’t touch her bracelets. The doctor looked down at his hand, then up at the fortune-teller. It appeared she was no longer helping him.

“Two,” he snapped, throwing down the two cards he needed replaced.

Jonah dealt Manning two cards and himself three off the top of the deck, watching Cassandra. She sipped her drink, seemingly off in her own world. Manning suddenly appeared to be damn nervous.

Jonah looked at his cards although he already knew what he’d drawn. Two aces and a jack. The aces went nicely with the two aces he already had in his hand. He glanced up at Manning and smiled.

Manning’s disappointment was almost palpable as Jonah dropped the four aces to the felt. Angrily, the doctor slapped his cards down on the table, facedown.

Ernie started to reach for them, no doubt anxious to see what Manning had been holding, but the doctor stopped him from showing everyone what Jonah already knew Manning had: three queens, a deuce and a four.

Manning got to his feet, signaling that the game was over. At least for tonight.

Everyone got up to leave, all apparently anxious to get out of there. Everyone except Jonah. He leaned back in his chair and finished his beer. Brody and Cassandra were having a heated conversation over by the door, with Cassandra doing most of the talking. Jonah wished he could hear what was being said, but nearby Glasglow and Ernie McDougal were loudly discussing what time to meet for a boat charter in the morning.

“When do you wish to visit my laboratory?” Dr. Manning demanded, suddenly blocking his view of the others as he came to stand beside him.

Jonah shrugged and took a drink of his beer. “I’m afraid once I see your lab, you’ll destroy all my grisly illusions of it and your work.”

That seemed to take some of the starch out of the doc. “You were exceptionally lucky that last hand,” Manning said, pulling up the chair next to him. It was obvious that the good doctor hated losing but was also dying to know if Jonah had gotten those aces strictly through luck—or had known they were coming up in the deck.

“As you said, it’s all up to the cards,” Jonah said.

Manning motioned for Brody to get him a drink, interrupting the conversation with Cassandra. Glasglow and Ernie left without even a goodbye.

As she left, Cassandra shot Jonah a look as if she knew what he was up to and that he would come to no good end. He didn’t need a fortune-teller to tell him that.

Brody seemed in a real nasty mood as he went behind the bar to make Manning a drink.

“You know what’s wrong with your theory on descendants of witches? If you were right, Brody would have special…powers,” Jonah joked, watching his cousin pour Manning a drink, all the while grumbling under his breath.

Manning followed his gaze and shook his head. “Brody’s line is flawed.”

Jonah couldn’t agree more.

The doctor dropped his voice. “He’s the bastard child of a seafaring man with a low IQ and crude tastes, not a true Ries.”

It seemed Manning had done his homework.

“You, however, I suspect are the real thing,” Manning said, turning his attention back to Jonah. “One of the cleanest lines I’ve traced. I believe you not only knew exactly what cards I had in my hand tonight but also what the next ones in the deck were. That’s an amazing talent, wouldn’t you say?”

“If that were true, it would be a curse,” Jonah said. “Knowing everything, feeling everything. Can you imagine how that could drive a person crazy?”

“Yes,” Manning said. “I believe it had that effect on both your mother—and your father.”

Jonah flinched.

The doctor drained the drink Brody handed him and rose from his chair, seeming pleased with the response he’d elicited from Jonah. “Tomorrow night. Ten. I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

Jonah glanced at his watch: 9:15 p.m. As he watched the doctor leave, he reminded himself that Kat Ridgemont was going out to Manning’s tonight. Hopefully not for a tour of the doctor’s lab. Again he wondered what could possibly possess the woman to go out there this late at night.

Chapter Nine

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Brody accused the moment everyone else had left. His cousin still looked a little pale and upset after his talk with Cassandra, making Jonah wish more than ever that he knew what that had been about. No doubt the fact that Cassandra hadn’t helped Manning during the last game. She had been doing most of the talking, it had seemed to Jonah, making him figure she had her reasons.

“You think you can buddy up to the doc and maybe get in on some of my action,” Brody charged.

Jonah watched his cousin go to the bar and pour himself a stiff drink, his head down, shoulders hunched. Trouble.

“I also heard you’ve been asking around about a boat,” Brody snapped. “And about Leslie Ridgemont’s murder.”

It seemed Brody had ears in a lot of places. Jonah had known it was just a matter of time before Brody got wind of what he’d been doing. “Yeah?”

“What the hell?” his cousin demanded. “I can see how you might be interested in the boat, but Leslie Ridgemont’s murder?”

“I met the daughter, Kat,” he said mildly. “I was just curious.”

“Sure. Like you were just curious about genetics and Manning’s lab?” Brody swore. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He shrugged. “Just checking out all my options.”

“Listen to me. You have no idea what you’re getting into or who you’re messing with.” Brody acted scared. Certainly not for Jonah’s well-being, that was for sure.

“Maybe you should tell me just what it is you think I’m messing with,” Jonah suggested as he moved to the bar.

Brody took a sip of his drink, then set it down carefully on the bar. In one swift motion, he grabbed Jonah’s shirt collar and jerked him partway over the small, makeshift bar. Jonah had seen it coming. Just as he could have stopped the attack, had he wanted to.

“Listen to me, you little bloodsucker,” Brody spat in his face. “If it turns out that you’re still working for the FBI—”

“If I was still working for the feds, I would have already busted your ass for bringing in illegal booze by boat once a month from Canada,” Jonah whispered, having found the shipment last night on a boat out of New Brunswick—just not the boat he’d been looking for.

Brody blanched and let go of his collar. “How did you—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jonah said. “If I wanted a piece of the action, I’d have already asked.” He smiled at his cousin. “I have bigger fish to fry.”

Brody swore. “What you’re going to do is find yourself swimming with the fish.”

Jonah laughed and straightened his shirt. “I think you underestimate me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Brody said seriously. “You’ve even got Dr. Fortier at the college calling the bar, thinking you’re going to give your blood to science.”

Jonah shrugged. “Like I said, I’m exploring all of my options.” Except Fortier had been a dead end. The doctor hadn’t come up with enough money when Jonah had offered his blood—certainly not near enough to suggest anything illegal going on at the university.

“Watch yourself with Manning. He’ll chew you up and spit you out,” Brody warned. “Trust me, you don’t want to get on that guy’s wrong side.”

“Is that why you let him and Cassandra cheat?” Jonah asked.

Brody blanched stark white. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, like a fish out of water.

“Come on, Brody, why else would you let a woman in your game, let alone someone as flaky as that one?” Jonah had seen the way Cassandra was talking to Brody before she left. It was so unlike Brody to take that kind of abuse from anyone—let alone a woman. Cassandra and Brody. Jonah couldn’t imagine a more anomalous pair.

Brody took a moment to compose himself. Either he was surprised that Jonah was aware of the cheating or he really hadn’t known. Either way, he was upset and trying damn hard not to show it. “Don’t let her getup fool you. That is one sharp woman. She plays cards better than most men I’ve known. Just not better than Manning. Neither of them would have to cheat.”

“Maybe they don’t have to, but they do. She and Manning have a system where she tells him what everyone has by touching a different color bracelet.”

Brody stared at him. “Bull. Do you think I wouldn’t know if someone was cheating in my own card game?”

Jonah shrugged.

Brody was visibly rattled. “Yeah, well, while you’re considering your options, here’s one you’d better reconsider. Stay away from Kat Ridgemont.”

Jonah raised an eyebrow at him. “You aren’t serious? Have you seen the woman?”

“She’s fine,” Brody agreed. “But being around her will definitely be dangerous to your health. Take my word for it.”

Jonah felt his heart begin to pound. “How could hanging around her be dangerous?”

Brody shook his head, finished his drink and went to the door. “Just consider yourself warned.” He waited there for Jonah to follow him so he could lock up. Jonah would have to come back for Cassandra’s glass later tonight. Getting in with these cheap locks would be a piece of cake.

“So tell me,” Jonah said conversationally as they walked down the hall together, “what was Leslie Ridgemont like? I heard she was a wild woman.”

Brody laughed and seemed to relax a little. “She was hell on wheels. She flirted with everyone who came into the diner—no matter how young or how old.” He smiled over at Jonah. “She taught me everything I know.”

Jonah didn’t know whether to believe Brody or not. “Like hell. She wouldn’t take on a punk kid like you. Shoot, you couldn’t have been more than what? Fifteen? When she died?”

Brody swore. “I was seventeen and big for my age.” He grinned as if in memory. “She liked me. Said I made her laugh.”

“You’re making me laugh,” Jonah said. “She must not have been very choosy.”

Brody stopped walking. He was so damn easy to get going. “I’ll have you know there were a hell of a lot of guys she flirted with, but most she wouldn’t even give the time of day to after working hours.”

“Yeah? Name just one.”

“Like…Marley Glasglow. She flirted with him all the time, had him practically crawling, and then she’d act like she didn’t even know who he was when she left the diner.” Brody started walking again. “Why do you think he hates women so much?”

Marley Glasglow. He’d been fifteen the spring Leslie Ridgemont was murdered—and on the town green that night.

“You don’t think Marley could have killed her?” Jonah asked ghoulishly. “You were there that night, right? You must have seen him.”

Brody stiffened. “I thought I told you to forget about all that. Especially the daughter. You’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t.” He pushed open the exit and started to take the stairs down into the darkness. “Oh, one more thing. I have an errand I need you to run for me tonight.”

As Jonah watched Brody go a few minutes later, he realized his hands were shaking. Brody knew about the danger around Kat. Why was that? Hearing Brody warn him off only made it more real. And more vital that he warn Kat. If only he knew who the hell he was warning her about.

IT WAS AFTER nine-thirty when the headlights of Kat’s car illuminated the sign up to the Manning estate: Private Road. No Trespassing. She turned down the narrow paved lane that cut a thin swath through the woods. Not even a glimmer of a moon or stars shone through the branches as the road wound its way up the hillside.

The isolated, tree-choked mansion had always creeped her out. Gnarled and misshapen by the wind and weather, the trees seemed to stand guard around the massive house, as protective as trolls under a bridge, as malformed as Frankenstein’s monster.

She knew that wasn’t all that was creeping her out. She’d made a call on her cell phone as she left Elizabeth’s to her source inside the FBI. What she’d heard about Jonah Ries was true. He had been ousted from the FBI and was still facing criminal charges. What was a man like that doing asking questions about her—and her mother’s murder?

Her attention was drawn back to business as the twisted road straightened, the trees drawing back a little for Dr. Manning’s old mansion. A ten-foot-tall electric fence encircled it.

She stopped at the hulking gate but didn’t even have time to press the intercom button before the gate swung open as if by magic. With more than her share of qualms, she drove through.

She’d heard stories about Dr. Leland Manning since she was a girl. Along with the silly rumors that he was a vampire and got his blood from the fresh corpses he used for his research were tales of a secret society of mad scientists who did Frankenstein-like experiments in their laboratories around Moriah’s Landing. Dr. Manning, it was said, was the ringleader.

Kat discounted rumors. But she realized as she parked in front of the haunted-looking house, this isolated place would be the perfect hideaway for a vampire. Or a leading mad scientist.

As she opened her car door, she was struck by the quiet. In the woods around Moriah’s Landing, the spring night had been alive with the reassuring sound of insects and birds. Here, she heard nothing in the impenetrable stillness. Not even a hint of a breeze. The leaves on the trees hung lifeless. Not a breath of air stirred the spring night. No scent of the sea. No whisper of life. Just one small light burning inside the house.

With her purse clutched next to her body—the Beretta and her cell phone tucked inside should she need either—she climbed out of her car. She was almost to the massive wooden door at the front of the structure when, like the gate, it swung open, startling her. She stared at an aging woman in a bad dress.

“Ms. Ridgemont,” the woman said, her voice deep, her accent old-world European. “The doctor will see you in his study.” The woman didn’t wait, just turned on one of her blocky heels and started down a long dark hallway.

Kat followed, surprised at the furnishings. She’d expected the inside to match the outside: dated furniture, thick musty drapes, foot-worn Oriental rugs, walls gloomy and dark with aging wood.

It appeared Manning had gutted the house, then painted the interior a laboratory sterile white, filling it with chrome and sleek black modern furniture, all in stark contrast to the Munsters look of the outside.

The matron had stopped a few feet ahead of her in front of an open doorway. “Dr. Manning,” she announced from the doorway. “Ms. Ridgemont.”

“That will be all, Odette,” said a clipped, gruff male voice.

Odette gave a slight bow then retreated to the back of the house. Kat stepped forward to peer into the study, relieved and surprised to find Dr. Manning in neither a long white lab coat or an all-black suit. An average-looking man in his fifties, the doctor stood before the small blaze burning in the marble fireplace wearing jeans, clogs and an Oxford button-down checked shirt.

Relieved, Kat stepped into the room.

Dr. Manning turned slowly. “Ms. Ridgemont.”

Her relief was short-lived as she was struck by the intensity of his piercing dark gaze—and the stark whiteness of his skin.

He extended his hand. “Thank you so much for coming.”

His touch startled her more than even his eyes. His hand could have been the flesh of a corpse it was so clammy and cold. He smiled as he enveloped her hand in his, giving her the impression it wasn’t the first time he’d seen that reaction to his touch.

“You said on the phone that you wanted to hire me,” she said, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.

He nodded, seeming amused. “Please have a seat.”

She sat on the edge of the leather couch. It, too, felt cold and damp. He took a chair across from her, crossing his legs, fastidiously adjusting one pant leg before looking at her again.

“My laboratory was broken into last night,” he said. “I’m convinced the perpetrators were youths who didn’t realize that they were destroying important research materials.” He took a breath as if winded. “Unfortunately, what they took I must have back.”

“You’ve contacted the police?”

He shook his head. “Let me be frank with you, Ms. Ridgemont. I’m not fond of the police. I was once young and…adventurous myself.”

She couldn’t imagine this man ever being either.

“I feel calling the police in on what was obviously just a prank would do these juveniles a disservice,” he continued. “I don’t wish for them to go to jail or to be punished. I’m sure by now they regret what they did.”

She wouldn’t count on that, she thought as she pulled out her notebook and pen.

“I just want my property returned,” he continued. “I believe you can use discretion in finding these youths for me and making them an offer.”

She looked up, startled. “An offer?”

He nodded solemnly. “I want you to offer them a reward for the return of my property, no questions asked. Does that make you uncomfortable?”

She would never be comfortable around this man, especially with him reading her so easily. “You’re talking about rewarding criminal behavior.”

“I’m talking about the expedient return of my property,” he corrected. “It provides me with no benefit to have these young people arrested. I don’t have the time or any interest in a trial. I don’t have that thirst for justice that you have. To me it’s just an unfortunate incident I hope to rectify with your help.”

Pen poised, she asked, “What exactly was stolen?”

“I prefer to keep that just between myself and the three young people who broke into my laboratory,” he said, making her look up again in surprise.

“You saw them?” How else would he know that there were three, let alone that they were young? Her heart pounded at the thought of Emily being one of them. Is that why the doctor had “hired” her for this job? Because he knew that her half sister was involved?

Dr. Manning rose. “If you would so kindly come with me.” He started out of the room and she followed, amazed that the room felt cold and drafty even with a fire going this late in May. But then the whole house felt as cold and impersonal as a morgue, she thought with a shiver.

She trailed him down the hallway to the back of the house, where he picked up a flashlight. As he opened the outside door for her, she spotted another structure hidden behind the house and surrounded by yet another substantial electrified fence. His laboratory?

She slowed her steps at the thought of actually going inside. As it turned out, she had nothing to fear. He didn’t head for the locked gate, but followed the fence around to the side where she could see a few broken limbs on the ground.

“They climbed the tree and dropped to the other side of the fence, then broke in through the heating vent on the roof of the laboratory,” Dr. Manning explained.

“This doesn’t sound like kids,” she had to tell him.

“You will see that the ground was muddy from the fog,” he said, shining the beam of the flashlight under the thick branches of the tree nearest the fence.

Kat followed the beam of light, agreeing with Dr. Manning’s assessment of how the thieves had gotten in based on the footprints under the tree.

The doctor reached into his pocket and withdrew what appeared to be a garage-door opener, startling her for an instant into thinking it was a stun gun. He pressed a button and a large yellow yard light flashed on, blinding her.

As she turned away from the sudden brightness, she caught movement in the shadows at the rear of the house. A young spry female in a dress sneaked along the side of the house to disappear into the darkness. Definitely not Odette, the housekeeper.

“You will note the sizes of the prints,” Dr. Manning was saying, his back to the house, making her pretty sure he hadn’t seen the woman. “I would say two older boys and possibly a younger boy—or a girl.”

Kat bent down to inspect the impressions in the once-muddy soil in the beam of the doctor’s flashlight. Three pairs of sneakers, two about size tens, she’d guess, the smaller print only slightly larger than her own size seven.

The soles of the larger two prints had left a design in the mud. Both a popular brand of athletic shoes worn by teens. The smaller tracks had a distinct tread, but no telltale designer’s name left imprinted in the mud.

Kat rose, thinking about Emily’s size eight cross trainers, and at the same time wondering about the woman she’d just seen watching them from the shadows of the house, wondering what size shoe she wore.

“It must get lonely out here,” she said, glancing back at the house, seeing nothing in the shadows now.

“Lonely?” He sounded as if he’d never heard the word before. “I have my work,” he said in that clipped, cold tone. “I have Odette. I have my wife.”

In that order?

He started back toward the house.

“Is it possible that one of them might have been responsible for any of the prints near the tree?” she had to ask.

He stopped so abruptly, she almost ran into him. “Neither Odette nor my wife wear sneakers. Those were sneaker tracks, were they not? The kind young people wear these days?”

He must get MTV in his eerie house, she thought glibly.

She nodded, looking for answers other than the obvious ones and unwilling to dismiss the woman she’d seen. If he didn’t know she sneaked around at night watching him, maybe he also didn’t know she wore athletic shoes when it suited her—or had reason to break into his lab in the middle of the night.

“Also Odette wears a larger shoe size than those, and my wife takes a much smaller size,” Manning was saying, reading her thoughts again. “You are most welcome to inspect their feet if you don’t believe me. But then why would I go to the trouble of hiring you if I thought the theft was, as they say, an inside job?”

He had a point. Also she didn’t care to inspect Odette’s feet, although she wouldn’t have minded meeting the woman who appeared to be the doctor’s much younger wife, if out of nothing more than curiosity.

“What concerns me is how the thieves were able to steal your property and yet get back over both fences with the security you have here,” she told him.

“Once inside the laboratory, they shut down the power to the fences and cut exit holes with the bolt cutters I keep in there.”

She didn’t even want to contemplate why he kept bolt cutters in his lab. “Can I see the holes they—”

“I repaired them at once for obvious security reasons.”

Was he telling her the truth?

“I have no reason to lie to you,” he said, reading her perfectly—and shaking her to the soles of her own shoes. He turned and headed back toward the house.

She followed silently, disturbed by this man and confounded by why anyone would break into his lab. What had the trio taken? Something large enough they hadn’t been able to climb over a fence with it.

Kat followed him back to his study, determined to pass on the case. Without a word, he pulled out a thick black checkbook from his desk drawer, opened it and picked up his pen.

“Dr. Manning—”

“I’m sure you are busy with other cases, but if you can see your way clear to move this one to the top of your list—” he looked up “—I will compensate you liberally. Say, double your usual hourly rate and a generous bonus if you are successful?”

“Do you know what my usual hourly fee is?” she asked, unnerved that he just might.

He smiled. “It really doesn’t matter.”

She watched him write something on the notepad by his phone, telling herself that money or no money she was walking away from this one. But she couldn’t walk away from the fact that the girl she’d seen in a red jacket running away from the freshly spray-painted bait-shop wall might be Emily. Just as the sneaker prints near Dr. Manning’s lab might be hers.

Dr. Manning slid the notepad across the desk without even looking at her.

“That is most generous,” she said, shocked at the amount. She pulled one of her contracts from her purse before she could change her mind. So the guy was creepy. A lot of her clients were weird. It was the nature of the private-eye business.

He handed her a check for a full day’s work at the ridiculously high hourly wage he’d written on the pad, then he handed her the contract he’d filled in and signed in tight, neat handwriting. She noted he’d added the part about the bonus and had written in a figure—enough money to pay almost a semester of Emily’s tuition at an Ivy League college.

She put both the check and the contract in her purse next to her Beretta, feeling as if she’d just made a deal with the devil.

“I’ll be anxiously waiting to hear from you,” the doctor said, closing the checkbook with a snap. An instant later, Odette appeared at the door to walk Kat out.

It wasn’t until she was in her car, the engine running, that Kat let herself glance back at the house. A curtain flicked aside in one of the backlit second-story windows. For just an instant, a young woman’s face peered out. Then the curtain dropped back into place, the room suddenly dark again. Manning’s wife?

Kat hit the gas and drove toward the gate, convinced she could feel Dr. Manning’s piercing eyes boring into her the whole way. He’d read her so easily, how could he not know her suspicions about Emily’s involvement?

The gate swung open and she drove through without looking to see if it closed behind her. As she rounded the first corner and dropped down the hillside along the tree-lined narrow road, she looked back to see the house disappear from view. But she couldn’t get rid of the uneasy feeling trailing her.

In the blackness of the trees, the car’s headlights illuminated only a short stretch of road in front of her. She felt anxious. Anxious to get home and talk to Emily. Anxious to put Manning and his laboratory far behind her.

The road took a tight turn to the left, spiraling down to another tight turn to the right. She glanced at her speed, surprised how fast she was going. The steering wheel felt stiff as she made the first turn. Ahead, the single-lane road took a sharp turn to the left through the dense trees.

She let her foot up off the gas pedal, but the car sped faster, the engine revving loudly. At the same time, she saw something ahead that made her heart stop. A light. It flickered through the branches. Someone was coming up the road toward her.

Panicked, she hit the brakes, but the pedal went to the floor. She pumped it. No brakes. She took the next turn, tires squealing on the dark pavement, the steering so hard she had to crank the wheel to keep the car on the road.

Madly, she stomped on the gas pedal, trying to get it unstuck, her panic heightening. The dense trees rushed by in a twisted murky blur, the sound of the engine roaring in her ears as she pumped again at the unresponsive brakes.

Frantic, she attempted to downshift but she was going too fast. She tried to get the car into neutral, but it wouldn’t go. In final desperation, she reached for the key to kill the engine—and the emergency brake, knowing even as she grabbed for it that it probably might not work. In that instant, a motorcycle came roaring around the curve, directly into her path.

Chapter Ten

Jonah let go of the breath he’d been holding as the car skidded to a halt, only a fraction of an inch from where his motorcycle stopped.

He pushed his bike aside and up on the kickstand, then stepped around the side of the car, his legs weak, his heart a thunder in his chest. Kat’s dark blue eyes were wide, one hand gripping the steering wheel, the other the handbrake.

He opened the door and leaned across her to pry her clammy fingers from the emergency brake. As he did, his body made contact with hers and he felt her jerk as if hit with a jolt of electricity. He could feel her trembling with the aftershock.

“I almost hit you,” she whispered.

He nodded, well aware of that. “But you didn’t,” he said gently as he pulled her from behind the wheel.

Her eyes welled up and she began to shake in earnest as if she only then let herself admit how close a call it had been for both of them.

She had no idea. If he hadn’t been there…He shoved the thought away as she stumbled against him. He put his arms around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. For any other woman and man, it might have been.

But for him, her touch was pleasure and pain. She electrified his senses, blinding him with feeling and at the same time frightening him with the intensity of the danger he felt around her.

“What were you doing out here this late anyway?” he demanded, angry with her for letting herself get caught in this situation, even more angry with himself.

“My job. You might recall that I’m a private investigator.”

It wasn’t something he was likely to forget. “You’re working on a case involving Dr. Manning?”

“Excuse me, but that’s none of your business.” As quickly as she’d stumbled into his arms, she was out of them. She pushed away, wiping at her eyes with still-trembling fingers, her face illuminated by the glow from the car’s headlights, her expression one of anger—and suspicion. “Were you following me?”

He motioned to his motorcycle. “I was on my way up the road when I saw lights through the trees and heard an engine revving and tires squealing.”

“So why didn’t you get out of the way then?” she demanded.

“There wasn’t time.” It had been a fool thing to do, staying in the middle of the road like that, but he’d thought he could stop her by his strength of will if nothing else. “Had you noticed any trouble with your brakes earlier tonight?”

She blinked and looked at him. “How did you know I didn’t have any brakes?” She’d gone straight from suspicion to accusation.

“I can smell the brake fluid from here and I could see you were having trouble stopping.” He stepped around her to reach inside the car and pull the release on the hood.

“You just happened to be coming up the road this late at night?” She followed him around to the hood, looking a little scared and a whole lot suspicious.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said, mimicking her, “but I was doing my job. My boss had me bring a package up to Manning tonight.” He motioned to the box of expensive scotch bungie-corded to the back of his bike.

She looked in that direction, her face threatening to crumble as if the fear had come back. “You could have been killed,” she whispered.

“But I wasn’t and, fortunately, neither were you,” he said softly, touching her arm.

She nodded, fighting back tears, and hugged herself as she looked away.

He pulled the small high-powered flashlight he carried from his jacket pocket and shone the beam onto the engine, not surprised to find the throttle wired so once it was started it would stay open. With his shirttail he removed the hot wire and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“Well?” she said, turning around to look under the hood with him.

He stared down at the engine for a moment. “Afraid I don’t know much about car engines…”

She groaned and slammed the hood, barely missing his head. “A lot of help you are. Probably just a sticky throttle. Maybe the brakes got wet.”

He could see she was searching for an answer other than the obvious one. He moved around to the side, tugged off his leather jacket and laid it over the top of her car before he slithered under to check the brakes. He found the brake line had been cut. No big surprise.

“Did you see anyone else on the road or near Manning’s house?” he asked as he slid out and got to his feet again, shrugging back into his jacket.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Someone cut your brake line,” he said matter-of-factly.

“It must have cracked. Or maybe a rock cut it.” She was shaking her head as she squatted down to look under the car. It was obvious that she didn’t know anything about cars.

“Believe me, it was cut. And by a knife—not a rock.”

“Why would anyone do that and why would I believe you?”

He had a real good idea why someone had done it, but not one he could share with her. “I would imagine in your profession you might have made a few enemies,” he suggested, pulling the wire from his pocket. He hadn’t wanted to scare her, but now he realized he could use it to his advantage. “This was holding your throttle open.”

Her gaze came up to meet his. For just an instant, she questioned whether someone could have deliberately tried to injure her. The idea obviously shocked her. She instantly rejected it with a laugh. “Not with the kind of cases I take.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. But it wasn’t one of her cases that was the problem here.

“Trust me, there’ll be a good explanation for what happened tonight,” she said. “And who knows where you got that wire.”

There was a good explanation, but he didn’t think she would believe that, either. He looked into her eyes, worried that he might blow the progress he’d made if he wasn’t careful, but desperately needing to be totally honest with her.

“Look, you’re in danger.”

“If this is about my brake line being cut—”

“Someone is trying to kill you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You got all that from a near-accident?”

“Let me explain. It’s about this little family quirk—”

“Mine or yours?” she asked.

“Mine.”

“I know what the town says about your family. But I know your family isn’t really descended from McFarland Leary and his supposed witch consort,” she said. “Not that it would make any difference. They were just people. Everyone knows all of that burning at the stake and hanging of witches was just hysteria on the part of ignorant people.”

He winced as if he’d been at the hanging.

Her look turned tender. “Even if you are related to them, it wouldn’t make you…odd or different from anyone else unless you believed that you were. Which you’re not. I mean, I can tell that.”

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and said, “That’s very understanding of you.”

“I know what it is like to have people talking about your family,” she continued. “I’m sure you’ve heard about my mother. Everyone has.”

He thought about playing dumb, but didn’t want to with her. “She liked men. That isn’t a crime.”

“No, but if she’d been faithful to my father while he was at sea, maybe she’d still be alive.”

That would depend on who killed her. But he didn’t tell her that. “Look, someone cut your brake line and rigged the throttle,” he said, trying to get her back to the subject. “I think we should call the police and have them—”

“Not until I have a qualified mechanic look at the damage,” she said. “After all, I did stop, didn’t I?”

She had him there. He couldn’t tell her how she’d stopped. She wouldn’t believe him if he did. Forget total honesty.

“I think you’re overreacting.” She started to move past him as if she thought she was going somewhere in that car.

He didn’t think so. He pulled his cell phone from his leather jacket and punched in the number of the local garage, asked for a tow truck, gave their location and hung up.

She was staring at him. “A cell phone?” she demanded.

Obviously, she didn’t see him as being a cell phone kind of guy. “It’s a friend’s.”

“I can call my own tow truck,” she said, sounding put out.

“Sorry, I was just trying to help.”

“What you don’t seem to get is that I’m not a helpless female. I can take care of myself.”

Under normal circumstances, he didn’t doubt that for a minute. But Kat didn’t have the faintest idea what was after her. Neither did he for that matter.

“So if you don’t mind, Mr. Ries—”

“Jonah.” He crossed his arms and leaned against her car to wait for the tow truck.

She studied him for a moment. “Isn’t there someplace you’re supposed to be?” she asked, motioning to the booze on the back of his bike. It was obvious that she felt safer alone out here than with him. Under normal circumstances, she would be right.

“The scotch will just be a little older when I get it there,” he said.

She planted her hands on her hips. Very nice hips, too. And let out a long sigh as she leaned against the car and looked up at the dark night sky. She looked so damn sexy with her head thrown back like that.

He could feel the fog moving in off the ocean and hear the tow truck already coming up the hill. The towing service was just at the end of town, and Doug, the owner, lived upstairs over the garage, so Jonah had known it wouldn’t take long. “I could give you a ride back into town.”

“Does hard of hearing run in your family? Is that the ‘quirk’ you were going to tell me about?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“Then goodbye, Mr. Ries. I’ll catch a ride with the tow truck.”

He didn’t need her to hit him over the head. But still he waited until the truck lumbered to a stop and a harmless enough looking young man in his late teens climbed out of the cab.

Jonah hung around until the kid got the car hooked on and Kat was seated in the truck cab. Getting on his motorcycle, Jonah duck-walked it over to the passenger side of the tow truck. He waited until Kat rolled down her window. “See you around.”

“Not if I see you first,” she said as she rolled up the window. He smiled in spite of himself as he started his bike and roared off up the road toward the doc’s place to deliver the case of scotch Brody had insisted he bring out tonight.

Once away from Kat and assured she was safe for the moment, he let himself feel the anger and the fear. He’d been set up tonight. Someone had wanted to know more about the Ries genes and had almost gotten Kat killed in the process. Brody? Dr. Manning? Either way, he planned to find out and make sure they never pulled a stunt like that again.

KAT LEFT HER CAR at the garage to be fixed, went home and changed into jeans and a crop top, hoping not to look so conspicuous as she entered the arcade. She just wanted to get this job for Dr. Manning over with. It wasn’t quite eleven but she was surprised to find so many kids still out even with school getting out, in a matter of days.

She wandered through the kids hunched over the noisy machines, looking for Dodie and Razz. Even if they hadn’t broken into Dr. Manning’s lab, they’d probably know who had or could find out a lot easier than she could. She also had a feeling that the allure of easy cash would appeal to the two.

Later she would deal with finding out whether or not her little sister might be involved. Just the thought left her sick with worry.

She spotted Razz at a game called Assassin Station zapping creatures of all kinds with what appeared to be an AK-47. Great game for a guy like him. Razz was the same age as Kat, but he dressed as if he was still in high school and hung out with Dodie, who was around Emily’s age. Both Razz and Dodie had dropped out of high school and didn’t seem to have a life plan other than bullying the younger kids, hanging out at the arcade and getting into trouble.

Razz wore torn and tattered jeans, a gimme T-shirt from a local lube shop and a gimme Bait & Tackle cap from Ernie’s, the cap dark with filth and on backward. He was so engrossed in his game, he didn’t even hear her approach until she leaned over to obscure his next shot.

“What the hell?” he demanded, finally seeing her.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, still blocking his view of the game.

“Well, it can wait until I finish this game.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”

Razz swore and, for a moment, looked as though he wouldn’t cooperate.

“Dr. Manning sent me,” she said.

His expression gave him away. She saw him look around for Dodie. But the younger punk was nowhere to be seen.

Resigned, Razz went outside with her, nervously glancing over his shoulder, obviously not as sure of himself without Dodie. “So what do you want?”

“Dr. Manning’s laboratory was broken into last night. He wants what was taken, no questions asked. He’s willing to pay for its return, if it’s tonight.” Kat added the time constraint as an incentive.

Razz looked worried. “What does that have to do with me?”

She gave him her best duh-look.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said, feigning hurt as he adjusted his cap.

“Whatever.” She started to turn and leave.

“Hey, I might know who did though.”

She stopped and turned back to him. He belonged in jail—not rewarded for his theft, but this was Manning’s call. “Who might?”

He gave her his best duh-look.

Resigned, she said, “Dr. Manning will pay a sizable reward for the merchandise’s return. He’d like it back by midnight.”

Razz ran a tongue over his dry lips. “How sizable?”

She shook her head, but she could see Razz’s interest had been piqued. Curiosity and greed were such great motivators. She watched him glance at his watch, real nervous now. It was after eleven.

“One more thing,” she said. “Dr. Manning found tracks on the ground the night of the break-in and knows that there were three trespassers. Based on shoe sizes, it looks as if one of the three was a girl.” Kat watched his face, her heart pounding. “I want the name of that girl.”

“Even if I knew…” He let out a groan. “Oh, I get it. You think maybe your kid sister was one of them?” He seemed to find that amusing.

“Was she?”

“How would I know?”

She was tempted to wipe the arrogance from his face.

He stepped back as if he feared she just might try.

“I’ll ask around,” he said, and disappeared back into the arcade.

But not before she noticed the brand name of the athletic shoes he had on—and estimated the size. Not surprisingly, they could have been a match for one of the sets of prints under the tree on Dr. Manning’s property.

Kat started home, fairly sure Dr. Manning would have his property back by midnight. If only she could be sure that Emily hadn’t been the girl vandal.

Once she left Main Street, she found the streets dark and deserted. Wisps of fog moved up from the cove on a sea breeze that smelled of fish and brine. As she started along the brick path through the park and town green, Kat heard footsteps echoing behind her.

She turned, seeing no one. Clouds moved restlessly across the moon, casting odd shadows over the town green. The fog moved along the ground, curling around the trunks of the trees, obscuring the ground. If someone really was following her, he must have stepped off the path behind one of the many trees.

She picked up her pace, the echo of the footfalls behind her, but each time she turned, she would see nothing or only catch what might have been a glimpse of movement near the trees. She couldn’t help but think about what Jonah had said to her about being in danger. She’d thought he was just trying to scare her. She was almost running by the time she reached the house, relieved to see lights on inside.

“Hey!” her sister said as Kat locked the front door behind her and tried to calm down. Glancing out the window, she saw no one, but she wasn’t fool enough to think someone hadn’t been out there or that she hadn’t been followed home. Again.

Emily had a plate filled with nachos and was headed for her room, where the volume of music coming out of the stereo was rattling the windows. “Where’s your car?” Em yelled over the noise.

“Had some trouble with the brakes,” Kat yelled back, still a little shaken from her close call and now wondering if the brake line really had been cut, the throttle not just stuck but wired open. But why? It made no sense. “Could you turn that down and then come into the living room. I need to talk to you.”

Emily’s expression closed. “What now?” she asked with a groan.

Kat motioned for her to turn down the stereo first. “I just need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, right.” Em set down her nachos on the table by the door next to the phone and climbed the stairs to turn down the music as if she were headed for a hanging.

Kat checked the answering machine. No messages. No big surprise. But she had expected Ross to call even though she hadn’t planned to see him again. Maybe Elizabeth was right. Maybe she did intimidate men. Except for men like Jonah, she thought with a silent groan.

Kat took a chair in the living room, a room filled with furniture that had been in the family for years, a mixture of styles and colors, but too homey to even consider replacing if she were so inclined—which she wasn’t.

She looked up as the noise stopped and Emily slinked back down the steps, picked up her nachos and plopped sullenly into a chair across from her. “Okay, what have I done now?”

“I need to ask you about something I saw earlier,” Kat said, not sure how to broach the subject, but she noticed her sister suddenly seemed nervous. She didn’t want to accuse Emily of vandalism and she sure as the devil didn’t want to believe that Em had had anything to do with breaking into Dr. Manning’s lab, but she also couldn’t ignore what she’d seen—a young female vandal wearing a jacket exactly like Em’s running from the scene.

“Where’s the red jacket I bought you?” she asked, glancing toward the coatrack by the door, already aware that it wasn’t hanging there.

Em rolled her eyes and made an impatient groan. “You want to talk about my jacket?”

“Where is it?” Kat asked again, not about to be dissuaded.

“I don’t know,” Emily snapped. “Probably around somewhere.”

“Would you mind finding it for me?”

“You aren’t serious?”

Kat just gave her a look and waited. Emily uncurled herself from the chair, her plate of nachos slamming down a little too hard on the coffee table as she stomped up the stairs again. Kat could hear her rummaging around in her room, swearing. She wished she didn’t have to have this relationship with her sister. But without parents to guide Em, Kat found herself in that role.

She turned at the sound of Em’s bare feet thumping down the stairs again. “I can’t find it, all right?”

“Do you remember the last time you wore it?” Kat persisted.

Em rolled her eyes and dropped into the chair again. She pulled the plate of nachos onto her lap and resumed eating, obviously angry. “This morning, I guess. Maybe I left it at school.”

Kat knew the signs of lying: avoiding eye contact, rubbing the nose, putting too much interest in something uninteresting like the melted cheese on a nacho chip. Em was lying about the jacket and Kat could only think of one reason why.

“I saw some kids spray painting the side of the Bait & Tackle last night. One of them was wearing a red jacket.”

Em’s head snapped up, her eyes widening. “You think I was one of them?” she demanded, sounding both insulted and surprised.

“Were you?”

Em opened her mouth and shook her head as if at a loss for words. “You’re accusing me!” Emily was on her feet, the nachos flying. “I can’t believe this.”

“Yes or no?” Kat asked.

“No!” Emily’s glare dared her not to believe it.

Kat realized she hadn’t been keeping close enough tabs on her half sister. She didn’t know what kids she hung out with or where she went or what she did lately. “Then you can tell me where you were yesterday and who you were with?”

Em’s face instantly closed. “I was with some friends.”

“Who?” Kat asked, feeling like a warden instead of a sister.

“Just a bunch of kids,” Emily snapped, looking close to tears and at the same time angry. “I’m almost eighteen!” She said it as if it were a threat. Then she sighed. “Okay, I wasn’t with anyone. I had a fight with Angela.” Angela was her best friend and a girl that Kat worried wasn’t a good influence on Em. “I just took off walking by myself, but I don’t expect you to believe that.”

Kat wished she could, but Em wouldn’t look her in the eye and seemed nervous. “Someone also broke into Dr. Manning’s lab last night and stole his property,” she said, watching her sister’s face, afraid of the reaction she was going to get. “We’re not talking about a prank. We’re talking about breaking and entering and burglary, a punishable crime.”

“Someone broke into Dr. Manning’s lab?” Emily asked, her eyes wide with amazement—and surprise. “What did they steal?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Kat hedged, wondering herself what the kids had taken, “but he’s hired me to try to find the vandals. All he wants is his goods returned and no questions will be asked.”

Emily held her arms out to her side. “So?”

“So you don’t know anything about that either?”

Her sister’s eyes blazed with anger. “I just told you that I don’t know anything about any vandalism.”

“I have to ask.”

“Because you’re a private detective, right?”

“No,” Kat said. “Because you’re my sister and I don’t want to see you getting into trouble.”

“Right.” Emily stood, arms crossed, looking angry. At least she hadn’t stomped upstairs.

Kat tried to think of something to say to ease the tension between them. She wanted to demand Em come up with alibis for both incidents, but she backed off, maybe because she was afraid of what Emily was hiding from her.

Em shook her head as she started to clean up the spilled nachos. “I have homework to do.” She looked up at Kat, obviously waiting for her to say something. Or maybe apologize.

“I’ll help you clean up the nachos,” Kat said. “Maybe we could make another batch. I wouldn’t mind a few.” She saw Emily weaken a little.

“I can clean up my own mess.”

“You know I love you.”

“Right,” Em said, sighing. “And you worry about me. And you only give me a hard time because you’re older and you don’t want me to make some of the same mistakes you’ve made.”

That about summed it up. “Yes. Sure you don’t want more nachos? I’d share with you.”

Em shook her head, her back to Kat, as she rose and took the dirty plate to the kitchen. Kat could hear water running in the sink, the slam of the trash can. Kat turned on the TV to the late news.

A few minutes later, Emily came out of the kitchen with a fresh plate of nachos. Wordlessly, she handed them to Kat. “I got a job today. At the ice-cream shop. I thought you’d like that.”

Kat smiled. “I do.”

Em nodded and smiled grudgingly. “Like, how much trouble can I get into at an ice-cream shop?”

Kat didn’t want to even think. “Let me know if you need any help with your homework, and thanks for the nachos,” she said, touched by her sister’s thoughtfulness.

“Yeah, you’re a real whiz at calculus. Like you would be of any help.” She rewarded her with a small smile as she headed upstairs.

The phone rang and Emily hurried back down to pick it up.

“It’s Angela,” Em mouthed, motioning that she would take the cordless phone upstairs.

Kat nodded, figuring Angela had called to patch things up after their fight. “You’re in for the night, though, right?”

Emily turned to give Kat an impatient look. “I’m not going anywhere. I told you I have calculus.”

Kat channel surfed and nibbled on the chips for a while, then washed the plate and followed her sister on up to bed. It wasn’t until she reached her third-floor bedroom that she realized why she’d avoided going to bed for so long. The nightmare. After everything that had happened tonight, all she needed was to have the dream again.

Without turning on the light, she went to open the French doors and step out into the night. Stars glittered overhead, the moon brighter and bigger. The fog hung in the trees of the town green.

Was it possible her brake line really had been cut, as Jonah had told her? She’d know in the morning when Doug at the garage took a look. In the meantime she’d remain skeptical and leery. It was too much of a coincidence that Jonah had been on that road tonight. Between him and Emily, she was worried. But Kat knew it was more than that. She felt…scared of the future. Why was that?

The town clock struck midnight. She thought of Dr. Manning and his missing research materials. Had they been returned before the witching hour?

A movement down by the witch-hanging tree caught her eye. She saw a man looking her way. He stepped back into the foliage and fog, but there was no mistaking who she’d seen. Jonah Ries. And there was no doubt he was watching her house.

Earlier, after their almost accident, she’d forgotten about asking him why he seemed to have an interest in her—and her mother’s murder. Now he was watching her house….

Kat tapped at Em’s door, waited a minute, then knocked again. No answer. She opened the door, thinking Emily was probably still on the phone and hadn’t either heard the knock—or had ignored it.

The room was empty, the window open and the breeze stirring the note pinned to Em’s pillow. “Sorry sis, but I have to talk to Angela. I’m spending the night at her house—in case you find this.”

Kat swore under her breath, noting that Emily had failed to take her calculus book with her. But right now, Kat had something even more pressing to take care of. Jonah Ries.

Tired of being scared and in the dark about what was going on, she pulled the Beretta from her purse, determined to find out exactly what this man wanted from her—and why he was so sure someone was trying to kill her.

Chapter Eleven

Kat kept to the shadows as she moved through the darkness toward the tree. Behind it the gazebo glowed stark white in the illumination from the scant lights on the green.

She could no longer see Jonah under the witch tree but she knew he hadn’t had time to cross the green and leave without her seeing him. He was here somewhere and she intended to find him.

The breeze smelled of the sea, sharp and cold as the Atlantic was this time of year. In the distance, the foghorn moaned soulfully. The dark seemed to close around her.

She saw Jonah before he saw her. He had started past the gazebo, then stopped and moved toward it as if drawn there. He didn’t seem aware of her as she cut across the green after him.

As she drew closer, she saw that he knelt over something at the back of the gazebo on one of the benches. She slowed her steps, a vague sense of unease turning into something much worse.

A white object caught her eye. White like daisy petals. White like seagull wings. On a gust of breeze, it billowed out. White like the scarf that had been tied around her mother’s neck.

And that’s when she saw the body.

JONAH SWUNG AROUND, startled by the shrill bloodcurdling scream. He hadn’t heard Kat approach—nor had he sensed her presence. He’d been too shocked at what he’d seen lying in the gazebo—lying in the exact spot Leslie Ridgemont had lain.

Hurriedly, he tried to shield Kat from the body lying naked on the bench with the white silk scarf knotted around its throat.

Kat stumbled back, the fear in her expression almost dropping him to his knees. She thought he’d killed the woman lying there.

“Easy,” he said, trying to calm her. “It isn’t what you think.”

But from the wild, terrified look in her eyes, she wasn’t hearing him. She was reliving her mother’s murder. The thought tore at him. He could have killed the person with his bare hands who’d done this, because there was no doubt in his mind that it had been for Kat’s benefit.

“It’s a prank,” he said, reaching for her.

She stepped back from his touch, shaking her head.

“It’s a cadaver, probably stolen from the college as part of some fraternity thing,” he said, although he couldn’t imagine a more cruel prank. The cadaver, smelling of formaldehyde and obviously lacking in blood, had been placed in the same spot as Kat’s mother had been found twenty years ago, complete with the deadly white scarf around its neck. Jonah knew it was no prank. It was a warning. Pure and simple. “I’ve called the police.”

Her gaze came up to meet his then, her eyes still filled with terror and what he suspected were flashes of memory.

He reached for her again. This time she didn’t try to move away from him. Pulling her into his arms, he held her tightly, afraid she might break if he let her go. In the distance he could hear the police siren.

KAT WRAPPED the blanket around her shoulders, still chilled to her core. She felt too shocked to make any sense of the things that had happened tonight, too tired to even try.

Across the interrogation room at the police department, Jonah stood leaning against the wall, looking relaxed to all appearances. But she could see the tension in his face, in his large masculine hands, as he sipped a cup of the hot horrible station coffee and seemed to wait patiently. She had felt his gaze, almost as comforting as his arms had been.

“Thank you,” Cullen Ryan said, and hung up the phone, jotting down a couple of notes before he looked up at her. Kat had known Cullen since they were kids growing up in Moriah’s Landing. At six feet, with short dark hair and an edgy, confident manner, he’d once been the town’s bad boy, living in a section of town almost as ill-reputed as where the Rieses had lived.

But he’d become a cop, returned to town and fallen madly in love with her best friend, Elizabeth Douglas. They were to be married in little over a week and Kat was going to be her maid of honor. But right now, none of that seemed real.

“The body you found,” Cullen said, “has been identified and claimed. It’s a cadaver Dr. Manning was using for research at his laboratory.”

“A cadaver,” she repeated.

Cullen nodded. “It was one of the bodies donated to Dr. Manning for his research. He says it was stolen sometime last night.”

That was the property he’d hired her to get back? No wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her.

“That doesn’t explain how it ended up in the gazebo on the town green with a white scarf tied around its neck,” Jonah said, sounding angry.

Cullen eyed Jonah with a guarded expression. “Nor does it explain what you were doing on the green tonight kneeling over the body.”

“I told you, I was cutting through the park on my way to talk to Ms. Ridgemont when I saw something move in the gazebo, obviously the scarf. I had just found the body when Ms. Ridgemont discovered me.”

Just cutting through the park? A clear lie, Kat thought. She felt Cullen’s gaze swing to her.

“You have any idea who might have done this?”

She shook her head. She’d been so sure that Razz and Dodie had stolen Dr. Manning’s “property” and that they would return it for the reward—not use it for some malicious prank.

“We’ll continue to look for the person or persons who did this,” Cullen assured her. “In the meantime, the cadaver is being returned to Dr. Manning. I’m sorry you had to see it, though, Kat.”

She nodded and got to her feet, leaving the blanket he’d given her on the chair.

“I’ll see you home,” Jonah said, taking her arm.

“I don’t want you going home alone at this hour,” Cullen said, watching Jonah with suspicion. As bad as Cullen’s family had been, it paled in comparison with the Rieses. No doubt he was worried about her. And with good reason. “I could give you a ride,” Cullen offered.

Kat smiled, even more happy that Elizabeth had found him. “Thanks, but Mr. Ries can take me home.” She had no intention of letting Jonah take her anywhere. She just wanted him alone, away from the police station.

Jonah seemed surprised—and wary that she’d opt to let him take her home. Smart man.

Once outside the police station, they walked the half block to the edge of the park where Jonah had left his motorcycle earlier. A breeze moved through the trees, scattering the fog among the branches. It rose in wisps, free as lost spirits. At this time of the morning, the streets were deserted and dark. She and Jonah were alone.

“Okay,” she said, stopping at the edge of light from one of the quaint old street lamps. “Let’s have it.”

He turned to look at her, surprised by her tone, no doubt. Even more surprised by the Beretta in her hand. “The truth. Why is it that every time I turn around I find myself tripping over you? Why were you watching my house last night? What are you doing in Moriah’s Landing?”

He just stared at her.

“Hello?” She sounded like Emily.

Slowly, he shook his head. “What I have to tell you might come as a shock.”

“At this point, nothing you could tell me could shock me.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” he said, his voice a low rumble that reverberated through her. His look could have melted stone.

She felt herself shiver. “Try me.”

“I’m working undercover with the FBI.”

Whew. She’d pretty much guessed that. Or at least suspected it. For a moment, she thought he was going to tell her—

“That’s the good part,” he said quietly. “Being a Ries comes with a small quirk, like I tried to tell you earlier. Because of my genes, I’m considered a warlock.”

She stared at him. He was joking. Sure, she’d heard stories about the Ries family, weird, creepy stories, but Jonah was different, Jonah was—“Let me guess, something to do with the full moon and wolves?”

“That’s a werewolf.”

She knew that. She’d been joking. “Then I guess you’d better tell me what being considered a warlock has to do with why you were watching my house last night, why you’ve been asking around town about me—and my mother’s murder.”

“It means that I can sometimes…sense things,” he said, his voice low.

“You mean like gut instinct?” She could relate to that.

He shook his head. “More like…psychic stuff.”

Get out of here. “You don’t expect me to believe—”

“Here in Moriah’s Landing my psychic ability is stronger than it was when I was gone.” His eyes met hers. “It’s stronger around you.”

Right. A thought struck her. “Are you telling me you can read my mind?” She didn’t like the sound of this. If he could read her mind, then he knew how she’d been thinking about him. She felt her face flush at the thought.

“No, I can’t read your mind.”

She couldn’t believe her relief. But then, she didn’t believe any of this, did she? “If you can’t read minds…”

“It’s hard to explain,” he was saying.

She was sure it was.

“I just get strong feelings sometimes.” He shrugged.

“That’s it?” She hadn’t meant to sound disappointed.

His gaze narrowed. “What did you expect?”

“I’d at least expect some superhero powers,” she said. She put the Beretta away, knowing that she didn’t need it with Jonah. A warlock. Oh yeah.

“You aren’t taking this seriously.”

She smiled. Maybe he could read her mind. “If you really were psychic you’d be at the nearest horse track making your next million.”

“It doesn’t work that way either.” He sounded disgusted. With her or with himself, she wasn’t sure. “Look, I’m only telling you this so you understand—”

“Understand what?” she said, her own antennae going up.

He ran his tongue over his upper lip, the movement drawing attention to his mouth, making her realize again just how dangerous this man really was to her.

He looked away for a moment, then back at her, the intensity of his gaze practically nailing her to the brick sidewalk. “Could we go somewhere and talk about this? It isn’t something I think we should discuss out here on the street.” He reached for her, his touch like a live wire on her skin. “As I tried to tell you earlier, you’re in danger.”

She pulled back, suddenly wanting to cry. “Don’t do this, okay? You’re scaring me.” She felt her heart take off at a dead run. “If you’re working with the FBI, it can’t be on my mother’s case, not a twenty-year-old murder, unless…” She stared at him, his expression making her suddenly bone-chilled cold.

“I think her killer is after you now,” Jonah said quietly, painfully. “I think he has been for some time.”

No. She looked past him, the moon bright. Everything in her wanted to argue that he was wrong. But hadn’t she felt something? Still…“If someone really was after me, then what is he waiting for?”

“The full moon.”

The full moon? For a moment there, she’d almost started to believe him a little. “The full moon?”

“Trust me on this,” he said. “We have forty-eight hours to find him. I’m going to need your help.”

“Hold on. Without some sort of evidence, how do I know any of this is real or that anything you’ve told me is the truth?”

“You know,” he said softly, his gaze holding hers as he drew her toward the motorcycle.

She went, her mind rebelling, and yet part of her kept thinking of the daisies. Those damn daisies. If it wasn’t for them and the trouble with her car tonight…

He handed her the helmet off the seat of his bike and climbed on, waiting for her to do the same.

Slipping on the helmet, she swung her leg over the seat, trying to stay back, away from him, as if by not touching him she could distance herself from what he’d told her. Distance herself from the impact this man had on her.

It proved impossible. She slid down the leather until her front was pressed against his back. His touch brought on all the conflicting emotions she’d felt since the first night she’d met him. As if she didn’t have enough problems.

“Hang on,” he said as he started the engine and gave it gas. The bike leaped into noisy motion. She threw her arms around his waist to keep from falling off, reinforcing contact. She closed her eyes, giving up, too tired to fight the chemistry between them.

The ride to her house was, thankfully, short, the cool night air clearing her head a little.

He pulled the motorcycle up to the front door. She started to get off the bike, wanting to break the physical contact as quickly as possible, but Jonah reached back to put a stilling hand on her thigh. He motioned toward the dark porch. Her front door stood open.

Chapter Twelve

“Could your sister have left the door open?” Jonah whispered, easing off the bike seat as he pulled the .38 from his shoulder holster.

“No.” As she slipped off the seat, he saw she had her weapon in her hand again. Just his luck getting involved with a private eye. Especially one who looked like this one.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed the way her jeans hugged her hips and molded her wonderful round bottom. The white fabric of the crop top lay stark against her olive skin. Her belly was brown above her jeans, and he’d caught the small flash of silver when she moved toward the porch. A belly-button ring?

She gave him a look that told him not to say a word about her going into the house with him.

He motioned to her to at least stay behind him. Carefully, he climbed the porch and eased the front door open a little farther, listening for any sounds in the house. When he heard none, he moved inside, waiting before he flicked on the flashlight from his pocket.

He moved swiftly through the lower floor. While the front door lock had been jimmied open, the rest of the house looked undisturbed—and almost too quiet. It obviously hadn’t been a burglary or the thieves weren’t interested in the TV, stereo, DVD player or the silver.

He felt an odd sensation and stopped, his breath catching. The person who’d broken in hadn’t come to take something—but to leave something. And that person had left the door open on purpose. He’d wanted Kat to know he’d been there. Just as he’d left the cadaver in the gazebo.

Jonah rushed back toward the front of house. No Kat. Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. He swore and, taking two stairs at a time, raced up to the second level.

He didn’t find her there, so kept going up to the third floor, bursting into her bedroom. Past her he could see the widow’s walk where she’d stood earlier tonight. Where he sensed she’d stood the night of her mother’s murder.

She didn’t seem to hear him come racing in. Nor did she answer when he said her name. She stood in front of the vanity, holding something in the palm of her hand, looking at if she’d seen a ghost. And he knew. She’d found what the intruder had left for her.

THE MOMENT SHE WALKED into the room, Kat had smelled her mother’s perfume, the scent so strong, so overpowering she fought to breathe. Memories swamped her, pulling her under, the memories of her mother tightly caught up in the scent of her perfume.

It was as if her mother had just been in the room, her perfume lingering behind. Just as her sordid reputation and the odd circumstances of her death had.

At first she’d thought she was only imagining the scent, the same way she could imagine her mother in this room, sitting at her dressing table, putting on her lipstick getting ready to go to work. Kat had hated it when her mother went to work. Hated the smell of that perfume. It meant her mother wouldn’t be home until late because she’d be meeting a man after work. A man who wasn’t Kat’s daddy. Where had that memory come from?

Kat had moved to the dressing table, catching her reflection in the mirror, startled to see her mother’s face—not her own. It was as if Leslie Ridgemont had come back from the grave.

As she stumbled back, she hit the edge of the vanity. Something glasslike tumbled over, drawing her attention. It was a small lavender bottle with a glass rose on the cork stopper. A perfume bottle.

Her pulse thundered in her ears as she reached for it. Some of the perfume had spilled out on the vanity top. She cradled the tiny lavender bottle in her palm, just as she imagined her mother had years ago.

“Kat?” Jonah’s voice sounded far away.

The perfume bottle was like the one her mother used to have. The one Kat had thrown away when she’d found it in her mother’s things.

She stared at the bottle in her palm, the cloying scent making her sick to her stomach. It hadn’t been on the vanity this morning. She would have remembered. Someone had left it here for her, pushing everything else aside on the vanity so she couldn’t miss it. Just as she couldn’t miss the front door standing open when she came home.

“Kat!” Jonah said next to her.

She blinked, the spell broken.

“What’s wrong?” Jonah asked, his voice tense.

She looked over at him, remembering everything he’d told her and how she hadn’t wanted to believe him that she was in danger, that someone was after her. “It’s the same perfume my mother used to wear.”

“Here, give it to me,” he said, frowning with concern as he pulled a tissue from the box at the edge of the vanity and took the bottle carefully from the palm of her hand. “Do you have a plastic bag we can put it in?”

She nodded, still shocked that someone had broken into her house to leave the perfume where she would find it. Just as they’d left the daisies. Just as they’d left the cadaver. Only this time, they’d come inside her house. Into her bedroom.

She felt herself begin to shake. Felt Jonah’s arm around her shoulders. She stepped into him for a moment, soaking up his warmth, his strength, his arms coming around her to hold her tightly. Then she straightened and went to get a bag for the evidence. Evidence.

She no longer believed she had nothing to fear. Or that she could handle this alone.

JONAH MADE HER WARM MILK and insisted she sit in the overstuffed chair in the living room. He’d closed the curtains, locked the door and told her he wasn’t leaving her alone, but he could tell she didn’t feel safe. He knew she didn’t trust him. But then, why should she?

She drank the milk. He thought maybe some of the warmth might have eased the chill inside her—the same chill he felt.

“Who are you?” she asked, not looking at him.

The question surprised him. “I already told you.”

“Right, you’re a warlock. With no powers. Just the ability to ‘know’ certain things. Funny, but before I met you, none of this was happening. No daisies on my doorstep, no one following me home, no one spying on me, no one breaking into my house.”

He could hear the fear in her voice. She hadn’t taken him seriously before, but now she was scared.

“I’m not the one doing this,” he said.

“You just ‘sense’ the person who is.” He could see that she was fighting tears. She waved her hand through the air, her gaze settling on him. “I didn’t feel afraid until you came to town,” she said, her voice breaking.

“I don’t blame you for being…skeptical,” he said.

“I’m a lot more than skeptical,” she retorted. “I want to know everything. What you’re doing here in Moriah’s Landing, everything. Including a name of someone I can talk to at the FBI to verify that you’re for real.”

That could be a small problem. “If you call the FBI they will tell you my cover story—that I was kicked out.”

She started to rise from the chair, her gaze going to her purse and the Beretta he’d seen her slide back inside it.

“Hold on,” he said, realizing what he was about to tell her could get them both killed. But at this point, he feared neither of them had much more to lose.

She sat back down.

“A month ago, one of our agents came to Moriah’s Landing undercover,” he said. “The FBI had received an anonymous note that some illegal medical supplies were coming in by boat. That agent disappeared. I’ve been sent here to find out what happened to him—and intercept another boat, this one, according to our anonymous informant, carrying yet another shipment of these same illegal supplies.”

“What are they?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We suspect it has something to do with the secret society of scientists that dates back to the first residents in this town.”

She nodded, no doubt having heard the rumors of the secret society. “And the agent? You’re assuming he’s dead?”

“Yes. Max would have checked in by now if he hadn’t been.” Jonah couldn’t hide his guilt.

“And you got involved with me because I mistook you for my blind date,” she said.

“At first. Then I realized you were in danger.” Even now he couldn’t be sure that his showing up hadn’t had some effect on the killer’s plans for Kat.

“If you can ‘sense’ this, why can’t you ‘sense’ the killer?” she asked. “And tell me who he is so I can stop him?”

“It’s not an exact science,” he said. “Some people think it’s a gift. I’m not one of them. But it is definitely a case of use it or lose it. I haven’t used it since I left here. This may surprise you, but I was tired of being different. I didn’t want to know about the things going on around me so I worked hard at not feeling—or knowing anything.”

“So this gift of yours is rusty, is what you’re saying?” She studied him, disbelief in her eyes. And concern.

“And I’m here without any backup as part of my cover.”

She didn’t seem happy to hear this.

“All I can tell you is that the first night I met you I sensed someone out in the fog watching you, so I followed you home. Someone else followed you as well.”

She blinked. “I thought I heard two sets of footsteps behind me.”

He nodded. “I saw a man watching your house the next night. I chased him, but lost him in the cemetery. Unfortunately, I didn’t get close enough that I could see his face.”

“You do realize how this all sounds,” she said, getting up from her chair to go to the window. She pushed aside the curtain.

“I know you don’t want to believe me. Or trust me,” he said. “But I think part of you does. It isn’t just the daisies and the perfume, is it?”

She turned slowly. He met the heat of her gaze. As always, it sent a jolt through him. He saw her weaken a little, unsure.

“There’s been something else, hasn’t there?” he said quietly.

She brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m having the nightmare again,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s the same one I had after my mother died, disjointed, frightening, too mixed up to make much sense of.” She seemed to hesitate.

“Something has changed in the dream?”

She nodded, not seeming overly surprised that he knew that. Or had guessed it. “Blood. I saw blood.”

The thing that had started the rumors about a vampire killer on the town green.

“I know it doesn’t make any sense—”

“It does make sense, Kat. I’ve seen the official report. Your mother had two small cuts on her neck. The police believed that the killer strangled her until she was unconscious then took some of her blood. He was interrupted, possibly by Arabella, or he might have taken more.”

Kat closed her eyes. “Claire’s blood was also taken when he had her.” He could see that for twenty years she’d feared her mother’s killer was still out there. Maybe even feared that the man had taken the wrong woman that night in the cemetery five years ago. Maybe he’d been after Kat all along and mistakenly had kidnapped Claire.

“It wasn’t the same man.”

Kat’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I don’t think the man who killed your mother and the one who abducted Claire were the same men,” he said.

“How can you be sure of that?” she demanded.

“I can’t. It’s just a…feeling I have, and admittedly, not a very strong one,” he conceded.

Jonah knew it definitely wasn’t Dr. Rathfastar, the man responsible for the deaths in Moriah’s Landing earlier this year, who’d been stalking Kat. He was dead. Nor had he been around back when Claire was attacked.

“Why now?” she asked, sounding scared. “Next you’re going to tell me that you think this has something to do with the twentieth anniversary of my mother’s death. Or even the 350th anniversary of the town.”

“Not in the way you mean. This is no ghost after you. A lot of factors could be contributing to the killer making his move now. The fact that you look so much like your mother, that you’re about the age she was when she died…” The moon. But he didn’t tell her that. “There is one other possibility,” he said cautiously. “You were three when your mother died, right?”

She nodded.

“So you weren’t alone in the house,” he said.

“My father was at sea, my mother at work, my grandmother was baby-sitting me.”

“Were you living in this house?”

She nodded.

The crucial question. “Where was your bedroom?”

“On the second floor.”

Her answer threw him. If his instincts about this were off, then what did that say about the others? “You were asleep on the second floor then at the time of the murder?”

She started to nod, then stopped. “No, I forgot. I had a bad dream. My grandmother told me she put me in bed with her. She was staying in my mother’s room.”

His heart leaped. “In your mother’s room on the third floor, the bedroom with the widow’s walk?”

She nodded.

Jonah let out a sigh. “Kat, I think you saw your mother’s murderer that night from the widow’s walk.” He hesitated. “I think he saw you as well.”

KAT STARED AT HIM, her pulse thudding in her ears. Part of her actually believed him. Why was that?

“I believe you woke up that night and went to the widow’s walk. There was a full moon that night. But it was raining. Still you could have seen him either going into the gazebo with your mother or coming back out later.”

She stared into Jonah’s dark eyes, seeing the night as he pictured it.

“I think he saw you there,” Jonah said. “But because you were so young—”

“He didn’t think I would ever remember.” Her eyes widened as she had a thought. “The nightmare. You think I’m starting to remember.”

He didn’t say a word but she knew that’s exactly what he thought. “But he couldn’t possibly know about the nightmare—” She stopped in midthought. “There was this one night. I was having the nightmare and I woke up. I thought I smelled my mother’s perfume. But I also thought someone was in the room, but by the time my eyes adjusted to the light…”

She could see the possibility freaked him. If it was true, it wasn’t the first time the killer had been in her house, in her bedroom. She shivered and hugged herself as the ramifications finally caught up with her.

Had she repressed memories of her mother’s murder? Or was it just a bad dream and nothing more?

The tears seemed to come out of nowhere. Frustration and fear. It was inconceivable that someone would want to kill her. And more than likely just because she looked like her mother.

“This is just so…unreal,” she said, her throat tight with tears.

Jonah started to get up, to comfort her, she was sure. She knew if he touched her, she wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears, and right now she needed to be strong. She needed to be able to take care of herself. Leaning on any man right now would be a mistake. Leaning on Jonah Ries could be the worst mistake she could make.

She moved to the phone by the front door. “I have to be sure Emily is all right.” She dialed her sister’s best friend’s number. Angela’s mother answered after three rings.

“Emily? She isn’t here, Kat. Angela’s grounded until after graduation and can’t have any sleepovers. Maybe she’s staying at another friend’s.”

Kat asked to speak to Angela. “Do you know where Emily is?”

“She’s in the bathroom right now, but I can have her call you,” Angela said, not realizing their cover had been blown.

“Try again. Your mother just told me that Emily never had any plans to spend the night at your house. Where is she?”

“I don’t know. Really. She just told me to cover for her.”

Kat hung up, more upset than ever.

“Your sister?” Jonah asked.

“She’s not at a sleepover like she told me,” she said. “I’m worried that she’s running with the wrong bunch of kids.”

He stepped to her so quickly, she didn’t have time to deflect his comfort. He pulled her to him. She leaned into him, letting him hold her, seduced by the warmth of his body, by a gentleness she saw in the deep brown of his eyes, all the time telling herself it was wrong. But how could she not believe he possessed special powers? Look at the power he had over her body. Over her emotions. And now, over her life.

JONAH PULLED BACK, frowning as he suddenly realized something had changed between them.

She caught his arm to keep him from moving away from her and shook her head. “Don’t.”

“Kat—”

She touched a fingertip to his lips. “If you really can feel things that the rest of us can’t…”

He looked into her eyes. It didn’t take a mind reader for this one. “Are you sure?” he had to ask. Just like on their first date, she looked nervous, definitely scared.

His gaze met hers, pulling her in as his hand reached to cup her cheek. He saw her take a breath and let it out slowly, her eyes wide with fear, her body tense.

“Tell me what you sense about me right now,” she whispered.

He studied her face, her request too easy. “You want me to kiss you again.”

She took another breath, this one catching in her throat, but she nodded slightly, her eyes locked with his.

“That isn’t all you want me to do,” he said, surprised how rough his voice sounded. “You want me to make you forget—just for a little while.” His heart thundered in his chest. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like this, as if he were about to plunge off a cliff—even though he knew there would be no turning back, he couldn’t wait to jump.

Kat let out a sigh. “You can read my mind after all,” she whispered. Her eyes were liquid blue, her gaze as determined as he’d ever seen it.

“Then why are you so afraid?”

She shook her head. “Kiss me. Please.”

He glanced down at her lips, felt her tremble. Her mouth pulled at him like the moon pulled at him. He covered her mouth with his own, her lips soft and warm.

Then he felt the tentative touch of her tongue and he was engulfed with a desire so strong, he felt his insides clench.

He stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. “I can’t do this.”

“Is it me?” She looked as though she might cry.

He shook his head. “It’s the man who hurt you.”

She seemed startled. She bit her lip for a moment as if holding back emotions she’d had bottled up for a long time. “I made a mistake a few years go.” She started to cry, the words coming hard. “He…he hurt me—physically and emotionally.”

Jonah silenced her with a finger to her lips. “I know.”

She didn’t question how he knew. Her eyes overflowed with tears.

“I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t your fault.” He pulled her to him again, encircling her in his arms, her body small and fragile. He could feel her jerking, hear her muffled sobs.

Everything in him wanted to protect her from now until eternity. But he was smart enough to know he wouldn’t be there. She would want someone very different from him. She didn’t know it, but the day would come when she’d want a painted white house that overlooked the ocean and three kids playing out in the yard. He could never give her that.

It took him a moment to still the anger he felt for the man who’d hurt her. He gave her the time she needed as well.

Then he drew back, wiped her tears with a tissue and, cupping her face in his hands, looked into her eyes. He could no more not kiss her than not take his next breath.

The kiss was long and sweet, slow and easy. He slid his hand along the bare skin between her jeans and cotton top. Her flesh felt warm, as inviting as a dip in the Atlantic, as his fingertips ran up the hollow of her back. No bra. He pulled her closer and felt her sigh against him, her body softening into him, her bare breasts beneath the crop top full and firm.

Her skin felt sun-warm and smooth. Her lips parted in invitation as a small gasp escaped, and he felt her tremble against him, this time with desire rather than fear.

“Please, Jonah,” she whispered against his mouth.

Or maybe he just heard it in his head.

He pulled back to look into all that blue, now bright with desire, his own body alive with the feel of her, the need for her.

“Kat, someday you’re going to want more than I can give you,” he said, holding her at arm’s length.

“All I want is you now. It might be all we have.”

Didn’t he know it. He took her in his arms. At least they had the rest of the night.

KAT HAD ALREADY KNOWN what Jonah could do to her senses. She’d only imagined what he could do to her body. But she’d had no idea what he could do to her heart.

He carried her up the stairs and laid her gently on the bed. Then he lay down beside her and slowly began to make love to her with his mouth, his hands, his body.

It was as if she’d never made love before. She gave herself, surrendering to him with heart and soul. There was no turning back. She’d known that the moment she’d seen the hurt in his eyes when she’d told him about her disastrous past relationship.

She had never felt more love for anyone than at that moment. Nor had she realized the extent to which she’d blamed herself for that earlier mistake.

Jonah kissed away her fears, caressing away the hurt and pain, showing her what lovemaking should be. Tender. Sweet. Wonderful. It was as if he knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed, what would make her capable of loving again.

When it was over, she curled in his arms, warm against him, and slept, safe. For a few hours, she forgot there was a killer after her. For a few hours, she could lean on Jonah Ries.

WHEN KAT WOKE to the sun, the bed beside her was empty, but she knew Jonah wasn’t gone. She put on her robe and went downstairs. She heard the sound of the shower running and thought for a moment about joining him.

But she felt strangely shy, remembering the wonderful things he’d done to her, the emotions he’d elicited with just a touch, a word, a look. She started toward the kitchen, planning to make coffee, when the doorbell rang.

Emily? Had she forgotten her key? Or had she seen Jonah’s motorcycle and thought she’d better ring the bell first?

Kat hurried to the door, upset with her sister. But when she opened it, there was no one waiting on the porch. At first all she saw was Jonah’s bike, lying on its side where someone had knocked it over. It startled her and scared her at the same time.

Then she looked down and saw the daisies, the same type of bouquet she’d been getting, tied with another piece of worn red ribbon. Only these daisies looked as if someone had stomped them viciously with a boot heel.

JONAH CAME OUT of the bathroom in his jeans, a towel in his hand, and saw Kat in the doorway. He could tell that something was wrong and rushed to her. The moment he saw his bike, he knew. He didn’t need to see the daisies crushed on the doorstep.

“It’s okay,” he said, reaching for her. Her reaction surprised him.

“It’s not okay,” she snapped, turning around to glare at him. “I’m damn tired of being scared. That’s what he’s trying to do, you know. Scare me. If he had any guts at all he’d just come after me and get it over with.”

Jonah looked into her face and had to smile. He’d expected her to be in tears, running scared. Any woman would be at this point. But not Kat. She was coming out fighting.

“The bastard put the same bouquet on my mother’s casket,” she said.

Jonah felt a jolt. “How do you know that?”

She closed the door and went into the other room, coming back with a newspaper clipping. Jonah stared at the bouquet in the photo, then at her.

“Kat, you know this man,” he said. “He’s someone in this town, someone your mother knew.” Jonah could feel the man’s desperate desire for Kat, the same desire he’d had for her mother—but nothing more. If only that sense of knowing would let him see the man’s face.

“I’m going to find him.”

“We’re going to find him,” he corrected her. He had a couple of thoughts on where they could start. But first he needed to bag the daisies. Even though he doubted the lab could get prints off the ribbon, he had to try. They had thirty-six hours before the moon was full. Time was running out.

KAT LOOKED at the list of suspects—those people who had been seen on the town green that night near the time of the murder. “You think it’s one of them?”

Jonah nodded. “We know it’s a man, so that narrows it down some.”

“You can’t just look at this list and ‘sense’ which one?” she asked, only half joking.

He shook his head.

“Well, until I see these powers at work, you don’t mind if I remain skeptical?”

He smiled then, a real smile. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t.”

She looked down at the list in her hand. Until last night, Kat had discounted what Jonah thought, discounted his concern for her because she didn’t trust him. No, she thought, because she didn’t believe in his instincts or legends about ghosts or witches or…warlocks. And she was scared to death of the way she felt when she was around him because of her attraction to him.

She looked up at Jonah, realizing with a jolt that she was now trusting his instincts—and not just because of what they had shared last night. “You think this guy could have left her bouquets of daisies before he killed her?”

Jonah nodded. “I think he had a thing for her, a secret crush, maybe. For whatever reason, he was afraid to tell her. Maybe he was too young for her or too old, or was too poor or too rich.”

She felt cold inside. “Then he could have been any one of these men. Men who were too young for her, like Brody Ries and Marley Glasglow. Or men whose social standing would never have allowed them to “love” her outright, like Geoffrey Pierce or Dr. Leland Manning or even Ernie McDougal.”

Jonah nodded. “There is someone else who might have seen the killer that night as well. Arabella Leigh.”

For just a moment, Kat had been hopeful. “Arabella’s been out of her head for years.”

“Even before your mother’s murder?”

Kat nodded and glanced at her watch. “I have to find my sister and go to my office—at least for a little while.” She could see that he didn’t want her out of his sight, but it was also clear that he had things to do. And it was daylight, and if he was right, she had nothing to fear until tomorrow night when the moon was finally full. It was also time for her to stand on her own two feet for a while. Hopefully, he sensed that.

She started to head for the stairs, but he pulled her to him, leaned down and kissed her, a slow, sweet, full-mouth kiss that made her knees weak. “Be careful.”

“Always.” She touched his face with her fingertips. “We have thirty-six hours. Between the two of us, we’ll find him.”

JONAH HOPED TO HELL she was right as he neared his apartment over the Wharf Rat, but he wasn’t worried about her because his instincts told him the killer wouldn’t hurt her until the moon was full.

The dental floss was still in the door where he’d left it. Once inside, he booted up his computer.

“I was worried,” flashed on the screen. “Got a name on those prints. Sitting down?”

“Hit me.” He’d managed to get Cassandra’s glass last night out of the poker room and picked up by a courier to take to the print lab. But still he hadn’t expected results this quickly.

“Cassandra Quintana—real name Sandra Langston. Born Sandra Ries, daughter of Eli and Celia Ries. A relative?”

Jonah stared at the screen, pulse pounding, then slowly typed, “Cousin.” One he didn’t know existed. His uncle Eli and aunt Celia had moved away before he was born. “Record?”

“Just a driving-while-under-the-influence years ago.”

That would explain why they had her prints.

“Odd, though, Sandra used the name Ridgemont for a job reference twenty-two years ago. Leslie Ridgemont. Put her down as friend. Mean anything?”

Jonah let out a low whistle. “Interesting.” Boy, was that putting it mildly.

“Still no boat?”

“No.” Nothing on their lost agent either. “But have tour of Manning’s lab tonight.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Why did he doubt that?

He typed, “Later,” then signed off, put the computer back under the sofa and locked up on his way out.

CASSANDRA QUINTANA, aka Sandra Ries Langston, had hooked a sucker. From a distance, Jonah watched her turn the tarot cards. A middle-aged woman with dyed blond hair and a Florida tan listened intently as Cassandra read the cards in a soft and serious hypnotic tone.

Whatever Cassandra was saying, the middle-aged woman was eating it up. He wondered what was missing in the woman’s life that Cassandra was now promising her. Money? A man? Happiness?

The woman thanked the fortune-teller, laying a couple of twenties on the velvet. Cassandra scooped up the money as quickly as she did the cards.

“You’re good,” he said, stepping in front of her booth as she shuffled the deck. “But then, you come by it naturally.”

She looked up as if she’d known he was there. She probably did, given her genes. But it could just be her talent for noticing even the smallest of things—and using them to her advantage.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” he demanded, keeping his voice down. He didn’t need to advertise another Ries relative, not after years of trying to distance himself from the whole clan. Or coven, in this case.

She lifted an eyebrow and continued shuffling the tarot cards. “Maybe I don’t want anyone to know who I am any more than you do.”

He could buy that. “The best way to do that is stay as far from Moriah’s Landing as possible—not come back here.”

“Exactly.”

“Want to tell me what brought you back here after all these years?” he asked, ignoring her implied question.

“Maybe I missed my roots.”

Yeah, right.

“And you?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go after the feds gave me the boot.”

She smiled. “Maybe you can get a bonehead like Brody to believe that, but I’m from the smart side of the Ries family. The…sensitive side.”

“Or at least that’s what you want people to believe,” he said, wondering how much of her psychic ability was a con—and how much just might be real.

She flipped over a card on the velvet. The lovers card and lifted an eyebrow. “You’re right. She is in danger.”

He didn’t even blink an eye. “Who?”

Cassandra smiled. “Kat. And it does have to do with the sins of the mother. Interesting that the two of you have that in common.”

He clenched his fists, trying to still the anger at even the mention of his mother. His mother had fallen in love with a Ries, knowing he had the “gift.” Because her side of the family had their own bewitching talents, Jonah got a double whammy. They had given him the “gift,” but it had killed them both, just as he suspected it would kill him one day. If he let it. Was it any wonder he’d fought it all these years? But now it was the one thing that would let him know how to save Kat and, ironically, it was too weak to sense just exactly who the killer was who was after her.

He looked at Cassandra, wondering if it was possible that she knew.

She flipped over another card, but before it could hit the velvet he covered it and her hand with his own.

“No more cards,” he said from between gritted teeth. “No more games. Tell me who he is.”

She shook her head. “You know as well as I do how the gift works.” Gift his foot. It was a curse. She pushed his hand aside and looked down at the card lying on the table. “It is someone who feels betrayed by her.” Cassandra met his gaze. “That is all I can tell you.”

“You were a friend of Leslie’s,” he said. “You must have some idea. I know it’s a man who was attracted to her—and felt betrayed by her.”

“A lot of men were attracted to her—and were betrayed by her.” Cassandra shrugged. “She was my friend, but I hated the way she behaved. I couldn’t save her.”

He heard the guilt in her voice. Is that why she’d come back to Moriah’s Landing? To help Kat? He started to turn away, but she grabbed his wrist.

“You can stop him,” she whispered. “But only if you stop fighting who you are, what you are. It is your birthright. Otherwise, you will die and so will this woman you have fallen in love with.”

Chapter Thirteen

Kat stopped at Doug’s Garage and Towing on her way to her office. She found Doug under the rack looking up under her car.

“Did you figure out what was wrong with it?” she asked, stepping under the car with him.

Doug squinted over at her from behind dirty safety glasses. He had gone to work with his dad at the garage right out of high school and was several years older than Kat.

“No mystery there,” he said. “The line was cut clean as a whistle.”

Jonah had been right.

“The power-steering fluid container has a puncture in it and the emergency-brake cable has been cut as well,” Doug said, looking at her from behind the goggles, his eyes huge. “I also think they fooled with your clutch cable. Someone vandalized the hell out of your car.”

“But I had some brakes last night. I used the emergency brake to stop. It couldn’t have been cut all the way through.”

Doug frowned. “Sorry, but both lines were cut all the way through. I’m not sure how you got stopped but it wasn’t with the emergency brake, I can tell you that much.”

She stared at him, feeling as if he’d just sucker punched her. If she hadn’t had any brakes, then how had she avoided hitting Jonah?

CASSANDRA DIDN’T APPEAR in the least surprised to look up and find Kat standing in front of her booth. In fact, if Kat had believed in such things, she would have said the seer had been waiting for her to show up. But Kat hadn’t even known she was coming here until her feet stopped outside the booth.

Cassandra nodded in greeting, motioning for her to come inside. In the back was a room that was small and warm, sweetly scented with candles and incense. Posters of the zodiacs leaped out from the brightly painted walls, each wall a different color. Books lined one wall, the titles covering everything from astrology to numerology. All for sale.

“You have come to have your cards read,” Cassandra said, her dark gaze daring Kat to disagree.

“It’s not that I believe for a minute that…” She waved a hand through the air as she looked around the room, wondering what she was doing here.

“Please sit down,” Cassandra said as if Kat hadn’t spoken. The fortune-teller settled into the wide overstuffed chair in front of a tiny table, looking at home in this small, bright room. She picked up the worn cards and began to shuffle them with great care.

Kat told her legs to get her feet moving toward the door, but they stubbornly lowered her to the chair on the opposite side of the table, directly across from Cassandra.

Without a word, Cassandra handed her the surprisingly large deck of cards. They felt awkward in her hands and oddly cool to the touch.

“Ask the cards a question that can be answered with a yes or a no. As you shuffle the cards, think only of your question,” Cassandra instructed in a singsong voice.

Kat found herself nodding as she mixed the cards, only one question on her mind this morning.

“Now cut the cards into three piles,” the fortune-teller instructed. “Pick them up and give them to me.”

As Kat handed her the cards again, she saw how serious Cassandra seemed, as if concentrating as well. Maybe on a question of her own?

Slowly, Cassandra turned over the first card. The Two of Cups. “This is your present situation concerning the question you asked. It has to do with love and passion and trust.” She flipped over another card, the Six of Cups, and laid the card sideways across the first one. “These are past influences, memories from your childhood, that are hindering you and keeping you from what you want.”

She flipped another card—the Three of Swords—and looked up at Kat, sympathy in her gaze. “You have been hurt in the past and have known great sorrow and disappointment.” Kat cringed as Cassandra went on to describe the horrible, dangerous relationship Kat had been through.

Shaken, she leaned back in the chair.

The next card, the Page of Swords, depicted a person from her recent past, Cassandra said. The meeting of a young man. A man with a message for her. A person adept at perceiving the unknown. A person alert to unknown dangers. Jonah.

“This card is your possible future,” the seer said. “Remember, the future is not set in stone. You can still change it.” She turned over the card. The Falling Tower.

Kat stared at the people falling from the tower in terror. “Do not despair,” Cassandra said. “It is only a change card and signifies unexpected events. There are no bad cards.”

Right, Kat thought. Tell that to the two figures depicted falling from the tower on the card, one a man and the other a woman.

The next card was the Ten of Cups. Kat stared at it, needing no explanation of its meaning. A woman, a man and a child held hands under a rainbow of cups.

“This represents your hopes and dreams. A home. Happiness. Love,” Cassandra said, and turned over another card. “This is your immediate future.” The card was the Knight of Swords. “It symbolizes bravery, heroic action, an impetuous rush into the unknown without fear. And, the final outcome.”

Cassandra dropped the Seven of Wands. “You must overcome obstacles in your way, surmount overwhelming odds, but ultimately you can win.”

Kat stared at the images on the velvet in front of her, wanting to believe. “How much do I owe you?” she asked, her voice sounded small, scared.

“Twenty-five,” Cassandra said. “Cash.”

Kat forked over the money as another woman came up to the booth to have her fortune told. Somehow, the money put it all into perspective. She had been a fool to come here. No one knew the future. And it was better that way.

As Kat got to her feet, the seer folded the bills and stuffed them down into the neck opening of her caftan. “He loves you. That is the question you wanted answered, yes?”

Kat stared at the woman for a shocked moment, then told herself that it had been an easy guess. Wasn’t that what most women wanted to know? That, and how it would end?

“He would give his life for you,” Cassandra continued. “But he cannot give you children.” Her dark gaze came up to meet Kat’s startled one. “As much as he loves you, he cannot bear to pass on the gift. And yet, if he does not, he will be cursed from the grave, never to know happiness.”

The words, as ridiculous as they were, sent a chill through her. Hadn’t Jonah told her just last night that he could not give her what she wanted. And what she desperately wanted was a family.

KAT WORKED THE REST OF the day finishing up the paperwork on cases, answering phone messages and running credit checks for several of her clients, trying to keep her mind busy. Anything but thinking about the future—and what Cassandra had told her.

She had tried to reach Jonah at the bar but was told Brody had sent him out on business. She left a message, but by the end of the day he still hadn’t called. She was starting to worry about him, something she knew would do neither of them any good.

It was late when she finally quit working and let herself think about what had been happening to her the last few days—and what to do about it. Unlike Jonah she had no ESP or any paranormal abilities. She had to deal in hard evidence and in what she knew to be true.

She’d heard the footsteps behind her, two sets the night she met Jonah. That meant whoever had followed her home that first night had seen her with Jonah. Was that why the daisies had shown up on her office doorstep the next morning? Had the person decided to make himself known with the bouquet?

Following that line of reasoning, she could only assume the crushed daisies today and the tipped-over motorcycle indicated his unhappiness at seeing Jonah’s bike parked in front of her house early in the morning. The anger she’d seen in the destroyed bouquet scared her. And what about the perfume on her mother’s old vanity? A present? Or another warning that he could get to her at any time?

Unfortunately there was no way to trace the daisies. They grew wild almost everywhere. But the perfume…Kat opened the phone book to the local drugstore and dialed the number, hoping it was still open. It was a long shot he’d bought the scent locally and she knew it. But maybe he’d wanted to move quickly once he thought Jonah was in the picture.

“Do you happen to carry a perfume called Essence of Woman?” Kat asked when the clerk answered.

“Essence of Woman?”

“It comes in a small lavender bottle with a cork top that’s shaped like a rose.”

“Oh, that’s from the Reminiscence Collection. I know which one you mean,” she said. “Let me check. I remember we had one bottle. We normally don’t even carry that brand, it’s so expensive. I’m not sure if the person who ordered it ever came in and picked it up.”

Kat held her breath. “It was a special order?”

“Yes, but I remember seeing it on the shelf,” the clerk was saying. Kat could hear her rummaging around. “We put it out if it isn’t picked up.”

Kat waited, trying not to get her hopes up too high.

“I thought it was here…. Ethel, did you sell that bottle of Essence of Woman? You know, the cute little round one with the flower on top?”

“Sold it just yesterday,” a woman called from somewhere in the store.

“She said—”

“I heard,” Kat said, her heart racing. “Was it the person who special ordered it?”

The clerk called back the question.

“Nope. Gad, it’s been so long since we placed that order I can’t even remember who ordered it. Do you?”

The clerk said she didn’t.

“Does she happen to remember who came in and bought it?” Kat interrupted.

“Who finally bought it?” the clerk called back.

Kat heard a laugh. “That Cavendish boy. There’s so many of them I can’t remember his name.”

“The sullen fifteen-year-old with the blond spike haircut?” Kat suggested, and the clerk forwarded the question to Ethel.

“That’s the one. Guess he’s got himself a girlfriend,” Ethel said with a cackle. “A girlfriend with expensive tastes.”

“She said—”

“I heard. Thank you.” Kat hung up, her hand trembling as she picked up her purse and went to find Tommy.

At the Bait & Tackle, she found Marley Glasglow closing up.

“I haven’t seen the kid,” Glasglow said with obvious disinterest. “Ernie’s out on a charter, won’t be back in until tomorrow evening.”

She thanked him and left, feeling his gaze burning into her backside until she moved out of his range of sight. Pulling out her cell phone, she called the Wharf Rat. Still no Jonah. She asked to speak to Brody. He, too, was gone. She asked the bartender on duty if he’d seen Tommy Cavendish.

“Tommy Cavendish!” the bartender hollered out across the bar, forgetting to cover the phone’s mouthpiece. “Sorry, doesn’t look like he’s here.”

She tried Tommy’s house. Neither he nor Claire was home. Then, on a hunch, she tried Alyssa Castor’s number, the girl with the major crush on Tommy.

“Hello?” The voice was tentative and mouselike.

“Alyssa? It’s Kat Ridgemont. I’m looking for Tommy. Tommy Cavendish?”

Silence.

“Have you seen him today?”

Still not a sound.

“Alyssa?”

“Why would you think I’d seen him?” came the frightened response finally.

“I thought you two were friends.”

A small gasp. “Me and Tommy.”

“If you should see Tommy, would you call me?” She gave the girl her cell phone number.

When Kat walked through the door of her house, she was almost surprised to find Emily at home, sitting in the living room, watching TV.

Emily picked up the remote and turned off the television as Kat came in. She looked guilty enough that Kat figured Angela or Angela’s mother had told her that she’d been busted.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say,” Emily began.

“I don’t think you do. Yes, I know you didn’t spend the night at Angela’s last night. But what has me upset is that you lied to me. Where were you last night? No more lies. You’re going to be eighteen in a few months. By this time next week, you’ll have graduated. Your life will be your own—with no interference from me.”

“Hallelujah,” Emily said under her breath.

“But until then, at least be honest with me.”

“I was with Zachary Pierce,” she blurted out, sounding close to tears. “I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d make a big deal out of us dating.”

Zachary Pierce? A boy from the most influential family in town? “You’re dating Zachary?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Emily said. “I knew what you’d think. How could a Pierce ever be interested in a Ridgemont? You don’t think I’m good enough for Zach, do you?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kat denied. “I just don’t want him taking advantage of you.”

“See, you think the only reason he’d date me is for sex,” Emily snapped. “Well, you’re wrong about him. He isn’t like that and neither am I.”

“Emily, you lied to me and spent the night with this boy—”

“We didn’t do anything but talk!” Emily cried. “Zach likes me, Kat. He likes me.”

Kat realized what she was saying. She went to her sister. “Of course he likes you. Who wouldn’t?”

Em shrugged and smiled shyly. “You think?”

“I know.” Kat hugged her, wishing she wasn’t always suspicious—especially of men.

“I was with Zach,” Em said, “the night someone broke into Dr. Manning’s lab and vandals painted the side of Mr. McDougal’s bait shop.”

Kat couldn’t hide her relief. “When I saw that red jacket—”

“I guess I left it at the arcade, but I didn’t want to tell you that either. Not after I begged you to buy it for me. I knew you’d kill me if you thought I’d lost it.”

“Don’t worry about the jacket,” Kat said. “It will turn up.”

“It already has,” Emily said, and looked up at her, a look Kat recognized too easily.

“Angela.”

Emily nodded. “Her mother found out about the vandalism and grounded her.”

“And the boys who were with her?” Kat asked, already knowing the answer.

“Razz and Dodie.”

“They took the cadaver from Dr. Manning’s lab?” It still surprised her they would do something like that.

“I guess it was just supposed to be a dare, breaking in, taking something,” Emily said. “It was Angela’s idea to take the cadaver. They were going to leave it on the school steps as a joke, but someone stole it.”

“Is that the story they’re telling?” Kat said.

“No, it’s true. I guess they were offered a reward to return it and were going to take it back, but when they went to retrieve the body, it was gone.”

Kat felt a chill. If they hadn’t put the cadaver in the gazebo, then who had? The same person who’d left crushed daisies on her doorstep this morning as a warning? Had the cadaver also been a warning?

UNDER A MOON, swollen gold, and just a day away from full, Jonah drove out to Dr. Manning’s, not sure what kind of reception he was going to get. Manning had had enough time to get rid of any evidence that might have been found in the lab. Any sign that the FBI agent before him might have gotten into the lab.

Nor did Jonah expect he’d find out what was coming into the country by boat.

Maybe Dr. Manning had nothing to hide. Or maybe Manning wanted his blood so badly that he’d slip up and show him something. Or tell him something he wouldn’t mean to.

The gate opened before his motorcycle reached it, and closed swiftly behind him, making him a little uneasy. He couldn’t help but remember what had happened to Kat after her visit here. What did Manning have planned for Jonah? After spending the entire day doing grunt work for Brody, Jonah was in no mood for games.

“Mr. Ries,” Manning said, greeting him from the front door.

Jonah climbed off his bike and walked toward the house. “Dr. Manning. This place is too much, really.”

Manning seemed to find some satisfaction in the fact that everyone thought his house was haunted. Jonah wondered if Manning knew about the vampire and mad scientist rumors—and helped perpetuate them.

Jonah only got a glimpse of the interior of the house—at odds with the outside, that was for sure—before Manning led him around to the back where the laboratory stood like a prison complex behind an electric fence. It appeared that a triple strand of razor wire had recently been added—no doubt after someone had stolen the cadaver found on the town green.

“You haven’t changed your mind about being part of my research, have you?” Manning asked as he unlocked the complicated system going into the lab. Fort Knox should have such a system.

“Sorry, Doc, but I have a fear of nooses,” Jonah joked.

Manning glanced toward the moon, then at Jonah. His look said he knew exactly what Jonah had to fear.

The inside of the lab was just as Manning had said it would be: boring. The doctor talked about his research. Jonah asked questions, getting the stock answers he had expected. Nor did he see anything suspicious, but then he didn’t really know what he was looking for. It would take another scientist to recognize something amiss.

Other than getting the lay of the land, Jonah just hoped to leave a listening device. The last agent had been successful in leaving a bug in the house—but not the lab. It appeared Manning didn’t do regular checks for listening devices—considering how long the one in the house had been in place.

Manning led him into yet another stark white, sterile room, walked to a table and pulled off a drape partially covering what looked like cages.

Jonah let out a gasp before he could catch himself.

“I told you I wouldn’t disappoint you,” Manning said with a satisfied smirk.

In the cages along the wall were hundreds of rats and mice, but nearer, in a large cage, was a creature so shriveled and aged that Jonah didn’t recognize it at first. “This chimpanzee has lived longer than any chimp in the history of the world, thanks to my research,” Manning said, walking over to inspect the ancient primate. “Do you realize what it could mean to discover the fountain of youth?”

“Overpopulation,” Jonah quipped. He could hear some animals in the next room banging around in cages. Wasn’t that the fear of every Ries in his family, to end up in some laboratory cage being poked and probed and analyzed to death?

Suddenly, he just wanted out of here. But as he turned, he saw something in the adjacent room that horrified him, stopping him dead. A stack of small, child-size coffins lined one wall from floor to ceiling.

“Not all the chimps and monkeys enjoyed such long lives,” Manning said, coming up behind him.

Jonah had seen enough. He’d managed to grab hold of the stainless-steel counter and plant the bug. He was ready to get out of there.

But Manning wasn’t through with him yet. He opened another door and went to a massive computer console, pulling up an extra chair before sitting down. He motioned to the chair, but Jonah chose to stand. “I have something I want you to see.”

With a couple of clicks at the keys, Manning brought up Jonah’s family tree, then glanced over at him. “I don’t think you realize how rare lines like yours are,” Manning said fervently. “Your great-great-great-grandmother lived to be almost one hundred and ten. That was unheard of in her day. Your genes could change the world.”

Jonah moved away from the computer and Manning. “I don’t want to change the world.”

“Don’t you? Isn’t that really why you went into the FBI? Aren’t you an idealist, Mr. Ries? A man who thinks he can single-handedly make a difference? Imagine the difference I could make with just a small amount of your DNA?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Doc,” Jonah said. “Even if I was the man you thought I was, there is nothing I’d like more than to see the Ries genes die off. And if I have anything to do with it, they will.”

Manning looked thunderstruck. “You wouldn’t continue the line?”

“The line is flawed, Doc. My parents are proof of that.” He looked at his watch. It was after eleven and he was anxious to get to Kat. “Unless you have some jars with heads in them, I really need to get going.”

Manning looked more than disappointed. He looked desperate. He clicked off the computer and got up slowly from the chair. “I had hoped you were a progressive thinker.”

“I just want to get through this life as best I can,” Jonah said truthfully.

Manning stared at him for a moment, a wild, disturbed look in his already scarier-than-hell gaze. Jonah realized he might have made a fatal mistake coming here.

But after a moment, the scientist walked him out to the fence that surrounded the lab, unlocked the gate and let him out. “If you change your mind…”

Jonah nodded, but it was clear from Manning’s dour expression that he knew Jonah wasn’t going to. But Jonah wondered if that would stop the doctor.

As he drove his bike back into town, he saw a woman cross Main Street and disappear into the cemetery. A feeling of déjà vu hit him. He slowed the motorcycle. The last thing he wanted to do was go into the cemetery, especially with the moon rising and almost full.

But he turned in, driving slowly, looking for Claire Cavendish. He got off his bike and wandered among the graves on foot.

He found her not far from McFarland Leary’s grave, her body rigid with fear and trembling like the leaves in the oak overhead in the breeze.

“Claire,” he said quietly.

She spun around, her eyes wide with terror.

“I’m Jonah Ries—”

“I know who you are,” she said, her voice breaking. “I heard about you.”

He didn’t want to know what she’d heard. “Come on. You aren’t ready for this, trust me.”

She glanced back toward where Leary lay, then at Jonah. She nodded and let him lead her out of the cemetery, through a gap in the fence beside a huge old oak, the closest exit he knew of to her house. He offered her a ride home, but she turned it down, taking off the moment they hit the street. He thought about following her, but changed his mind. He’d followed enough young women home lately.

He started back toward where he’d left his bike and immediately heard the footfalls behind him. Two sets of soft-soled shoes. He waited for their attack, afraid he’d scare them off if he counterattacked too soon. He wanted to know who they were. But more important, he wanted to know who had sent them after him.

He didn’t have to wait long. They came at him from behind, the heavier one charging him, the footfalls more pronounced than the smaller ones.

They bungled the attack badly, even if he hadn’t been trained for just such an occasion. He had them both on the ground without even breaking a sweat.

“What do you want?” he demanded, his knee in the larger one’s back, his hand around the other one’s neck as he held them both down.

“Nothing,” the littler one cried.

He recognized them as two punks he’d seen hanging around the arcade. “You don’t jump someone for nothing,” he said, putting pressure on both.

The larger one—Jonah thought his name was Razz—let out a squeal. “It was only a joke, man. We were just kidding around.”

“Bull,” Jonah snapped.

“No, really. We were just supposed to scare you,” the other one—Dodie or something like that—said.

“Shut up, Dumbster,” Razz mumbled.

“Who hired you to scare me?” Jonah demanded, pressing his knee into Razz’s back.

“I don’t know, man, really. We got a note saying to do it and we’d get some cash. I swear.”

“It’s true,” Dodie cried.

Jonah applied a little more pressure, but the two stuck to their story, adding one small detail. They’d been paid to knock him out and take some of his blood.

He swore, imagining these two trying to take blood. They were to be contacted later to make the deal for the specimen. They swore they didn’t know who was doing the buying.

He finally let them up, figuring Manning had to be behind the plan, although it seemed pretty amateurish for the doctor. The two scrambled off like hyenas.

When he reached Kat’s, no one was home, the house locked up and silent. Anxious and worried, he tried her office on his cell phone. No answer. Damn. Where could she be? Maybe she’d gone to his apartment looking for him. His instincts told him she was in danger, but then he already knew that.

At his apartment, Jonah saw at once that someone had been there. When he opened the door, though, he didn’t find Kat inside. Brody was waiting for him. “Come on, you wanted in on this. I assume you have a gun?”

Jonah nodded, wondering what he had gotten in on, disappointed Kat wasn’t here and all the more worried. “Where are we going?” He needed to find Kat.

“To meet a boat,” Brody said, watching him closely. “The Audrey Lynn.”

Jonah pulled his .38 and shoulder holster from under the towels on the shelf, fighting two conflicting battles inside him: the need to find Kat and assure himself that she was all right. And the need to find out what was aboard the Audrey Lynn and solve this case before the full moon. His instincts told him that the cargo onboard that boat was connected to whomever was after Kat. But Brody offering him the chance to board the boat seemed almost too good to be true.

“Am I really going to need this?” he asked Brody as he checked the .38 to make sure it was fully loaded. It was.

“You never know,” Brody said.

He didn’t like the way his cousin said it. This wasn’t like Brody to cut him in on anything. Every instinct in him told him he was walking into a trap.

Chapter Fourteen

At the wharf, Jonah followed Brody along the docks to a slip with a new thirty-five-foot fishing boat, complete with cuddy belowdecks and two two-hundred-and-seventy-five-horse motors on the back. The name on the side read Wharf Rat II.

“Nice,” Jonah said, stopping to eye the boat.

“Come on, we have to hurry,” Brody said, seeming nervous. But then, he always seemed nervous, now that Jonah thought about it.

“Maybe you’d better tell me what’s on this boat we’re supposed to meet,” Jonah said.

Brody turned to look back at him, squinting under the dull glow of the wharf lights. “You don’t know?”

He realized his mistake. If he was on the up-and-up, he wouldn’t be asking around about the Audrey Lynn unless he knew exactly what was on that boat.

“Hey, you got me carrying,” he said, patting his .38. “You’re acting nervous as hell and you’re wondering why I’m questioning what to expect when we get out there?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m just a little jumpy because we’re running late since you were off doing who knows what,” Brody said. “Now untie the damn boat and let’s quit discussing this on the dock, all right?”

Jonah went to untie the bow. That was close. He knew his mind was on Kat. But if he hoped to get through this night, he’d better start paying attention to his job.

He boarded the boat and Brody started up the motors. Once out of the no-wake zone, Brody opened them up. It was a hell of a nice boat and it moved. There was something reassuring about that as the craft roared out past Lighthouse Island on the endless flat sea. The moon rode with them, a reminder that by this time tomorrow night, it would be full. Tonight, it painted the Atlantic pale silver, and had he not been a Ries, he might have thought it beautiful.

“Take the wheel for a moment,” Brody ordered.

Jonah reached for the wheel. But the moment he touched it, Brody hit him in the arm. His body jerked, the pain like a giant bee sting. He’d looked down to see the syringe sticking out of his shirt, the needle buried in his flesh. Before he could reach for it, he’d dropped to the floor.

“I told you to stay away from Kat Ridgemont,” he heard Brody say from some distance away, and yet he could feel Brody’s large pudgy fingers pulling at his arms, dragging him across the deck. Then he was falling. For an instant, he thought Brody had dumped him over the side of the boat into the ocean. In his condition, Jonah knew he’d drown. His limbs felt paralyzed, his mind dazed.

But instead, he fell down a short flight of stairs. The last thing he remembered was Brody saying, “You’re damn lucky my orders weren’t to throw you overboard.” Then a door slammed shut, the clear click of a lock snapping into place, followed by total darkness.

JONAH DIDN’T KNOW how long he’d been out. He woke in a small cramped space, nauseous, head aching and hurting, caught up in a dream in which he kept hearing Kat calling to him. The spot on his arm hurt like hell where Brody had injected him with who knew what. It ached down to the bone. Whatever drug Brody had given him had left him weak and queasy.

By sheer determination alone, he managed to struggle to his feet, making as little noise as possible. He could feel the boat still moving fast. Did that mean they hadn’t reached the Audrey Lynn yet? Or were they already on the way back?

He felt for his weapon. Gone. No big surprise there. He tried pushing against what felt like the door with his body, then smacking it hard with his shoulder. But the space was too small to get enough leverage, and Brody must have moved something in front of the door because it didn’t even budge. So Jonah waited, wondering what was planned for him, knowing whatever it was, it wouldn’t be Brody’s call.

He must have dozed off again from the drug. When he woke, the boat was slowing down. He could hear the whine of the outboards. He listened, wondering where they were.

Then the engines died. The boat wallowed in its own wake for a few minutes. He couldn’t hear any music from the bars along the wharf. Nor the sound of any other boats. As far as Jonah could tell, they were still out at sea.

The boat banged into something solid. A dock? Or another boat? Then he heard Brody’s voice calling out to someone.

Jonah only caught some of the conversation. It appeared Brody might be haggling over something, probably price. He heard a thunk overhead as if someone had jumped aboard. Then the boat pitched and yawed as something was being loaded aboard. “Be careful with those!” he heard Brody call out.

From what Jonah could tell, the crew loaded five boxes, wooden, from the sound of it, and heavy enough to make scraping noises when set down.

He tried the door again, putting more shoulder into it, hoping the sound on the deck would cover his attempts to break out of his confinement.

“Shh. Give me a minute,” he heard from the other side of the door. His heart caught in his throat as he recognized Kat’s voice. “Thank God you’re finally awake. I was worried that he’d killed you.”

He heard a scraping sound against the door as something heavy was being pushed aside. The door opened, the sudden light blinding him.

Before he could ask Kat what the hell she was doing here, gunfire filled the air over their heads. Three shots, followed by another three in quick succession.

He grabbed for Kat, pulling her down as he scanned the lower deck, looking for something to use as a weapon. His gaze settled on her. “You don’t happen to have that little Beretta…?”

She pulled it out of her purse and handed it to him.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here but I am damn glad to see you.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“Stay here. Hidden. Don’t come out unless I tell you to.” He listened for a moment, hearing nothing, and then he moved cautiously up the steps toward the deck. The moon shone down like a spotlight. He could hear the water lapping at the side of the boat and feel the fishing boat bumping against what he figured was the larger boat, the Audrey Lynn.

As he peered out into the moonlight, he could see the larger vessel, a rope ladder hanging down. Brody’s body lay sprawled on the deck in a pool of blood. He winced, not surprised at the way his cousin’s life had ended, but still sorry to see it.

Just past Brody were five boxes, the size big-screen televisions came in, only these were made of wood. It was too dark to see what had been printed on the sides.

He waited for a few minutes before he bounded up the steps to crouch behind the boxes. He’d expected to hear gunfire, expected someone to take a potshot at him.

But all he could hear was the water and the boats as they thumped restlessly together where Brody had tied them up.

Still being cautious, he edged toward the rope ladder, knowing he would have to climb up into the larger vessel to see if all the merchandise had been unloaded onto the fishing boat. Also if anyone was still alive aboard the Audrey Lynn.

He waited, the Beretta feeling small and insignificant in his hand, then he moved quickly. First to Brody’s body, where he scooped up Brody’s weapon, and then up the ladder. He figured Brody hadn’t fired an entire clip. At least he hoped not.

But when he bounded onto the deck of the Audrey Lynn, he realized he wasn’t going to need any firepower. Three bodies lay in moonlit pools of blood. He checked, all dead. It didn’t take but a moment to realize the skeleton crew had stayed onboard to deliver this shipment while the others must have gone ashore.

Hurriedly, Jonah checked to make sure all the boxes had been unloaded before the shootout. He could find no others that resembled the ones on the deck of the Wharf Rat II.

So what had Brody done? Shot everyone after the boxes were loaded as a double-cross? Was this the last shipment he ever planned to get? Otherwise, it seemed like a dumb move, burning his bridges like that.

Jonah looked around to make sure there was no one else onboard the Audrey Lynn, then, climbing back down to the Wharf Rat II again, he untied, moved to the wheelhouse and started up the outboards, quickly pulling away from the larger vessel.

“Kat,” he called as soon as he was a safe distance from the Audrey Lynn.

She scrambled topside and into his arms. “Oh, God,” she breathed against his neck as she spotted Brody. “Is he—?”

“Yeah. Want to tell me what you’re doing on this boat?”

“I came to your apartment to tell you something I’d discovered, and found a note on your door from Tommy Cavendish to meet you at the Wharf Rat II on the docks. I’d just found out earlier that Tommy bought the only bottle of perfume like the one my mother used to wear from the drugstore in town. Someone had special ordered it, but never picked it up, no doubt knowing they would put it on the shelf. I wanted to warn you about Tommy, so I stowed away on the boat.”

He looked at her, fearing she thought that made perfect sense. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“That was what I was trying to avoid,” she snapped.

He held her to him, breathing in the scent of her as the boat sped north, just glad to have her in his arms, to have her safe. They had less than twenty-four hours before the full moon. They had the cargo from the Audrey Lynn. But they also had Brody’s dead body sprawled on the deck. They couldn’t take the boat back to Moriah’s Landing, that was for sure.

A few miles up the coast, far enough away from the Audrey Lynn to feel a little safe, Jonah stopped the boat, found a crowbar in Brody’s tools and began to pry open one of the boxes on deck to see exactly what he was dealing with. What was it that had gotten the other agent killed?

Kat held the flashlight as the lid on the top box creaked open a crack. He pried harder. The lid gave. The beam of the flashlight filled the dark hole.

Kat gasped, dropping the light as she stumbled back. The smell alone almost knocked Jonah to his knees as he picked up the flashlight and shone it down into the box.

“What was that?” he heard Kat ask breathlessly.

“A mummified body.”

“It’s…hideous.”

Jonah couldn’t have agreed more, the image of the wild hair, the sunken eye sockets, the grinning teeth…That on top of the drug Brody had given him earlier…He shone the light on what he’d seen printed to the side of each box and felt his stomach lurch.

Each box was marked with a woman’s name, the name of the cemetery in England where her body had been stolen from and a pentagram—the sign of a witch.

“Why would anyone want those?” Kat said in a whisper a few feet away from him.

“For research,” he said, more to himself than to her. These mummified bodies were worth a fortune to any scientist in the secret society. The question was, who’d brought them from England?

“What are we going to do with them?” she asked.

He started to reach for his cell phone. It was time to involve the FBI. But he never got it from his jacket pocket before he saw the figure appear from its hiding place on the far side of the boxes closest to Kat.

Jonah went for Brody’s gun that he’d stuffed into his shoulder holster while he’d pried open the box. But he wasn’t fast enough.

The figure grabbed Kat around the neck and dragged her to him, putting a gun to her head. “Don’t think I won’t kill her.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jonah had forgotten about Deke. Obviously the forty-eight hours that the feds could hold him were up. But from Deke’s expression and the weapon he had pointed at Kat’s head, Deke hadn’t forgotten.

“Thought you had me locked up, didn’t you, you bastard,” Deke said, pulling Kat tighter against him, the barrel of his gun at her temple. “I knew you were back in Moriah’s Landing. The moment the feds hit me with some trumped-up interrogation crap, I knew.”

“She doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Jonah said, not interested in the chip on Deke’s shoulder. All he cared about was Kat. “Let her go.”

Deke smiled. “Just goes to show what you don’t know about anything. Speaking of knowing something, I know you’re wearing that shoulder holster, the one you were always so fond of. Reach inside real easy, pull out that gun you took off poor Brody and kick it over here. Then we’ll talk about me letting Kat here go.”

Did Deke not realize that Jonah still had Kat’s little Beretta? He’d stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, under his coat.

“Come on, we don’t have all night,” Deke snapped. There was a mean edge to his tone. Deke had been furious when Jonah had taken the stand, his testimony putting the former agent behind bars for three years. Deke should have gotten a lot more, but he made a deal and got off with a light sentence.

Obviously, even a short prison stay didn’t seem to have done him any good. If anything, Deke seemed more angry and vengeful.

But what was the hurry? Why didn’t they have all night?

Jonah pulled Brody’s weapon from his holster, slowly, carefully, pretty sure Deke was just aching to kill him, and at the same time wondering what Brody had done with his .38. Probably thrown it overboard. Was there any chance he’d put it down belowdecks? Put it somewhere where Kat might have found it while Jonah had been on the Audrey Lynn?

He could see her face in the moonlight, her dark blue eyes questioning as if waiting for him to tell her what he wanted her to do. He hadn’t noticed before, but she wore black jeans and a large black sweatshirt. He met her gaze, trying to send her a message from his mind to hers. Everything is going to be all right. You don’t happen to have the .38 by any chance?

Unfortunately, he couldn’t sense what she was thinking. She looked scared, but not terrified. He hoped she didn’t try anything. Deke would kill her just for the fun of it. Just to see Jonah suffer.

No, he thought. Deke wasn’t going to kill her. The thought came to him clear as day. That decision wasn’t up to Deke. Someone else was running this show—a man who wanted Kat alive because the moon wouldn’t be full until tomorrow night.

Deke was just a hired gun, his only qualification for the job: he hated Jonah Ries enough to kill him.

Jonah kicked the gun over to Deke and watched Kat grimace, her hand going to her right side as Deke pulled her down to pick up the gun. He threw it into the Atlantic, never taking the barrel of his weapon from her temple.

“Now let her go,” Jonah said, trying to sound bored by all this. “Then we can talk about making a deal. Do you realize what’s in those boxes?”

“Something that smells like hell.”

“Something worth a small fortune, if you know who to offer them to,” Jonah said.

Deke looked interested, greed pushing aside good sense as he shoved Kat over to the box Jonah had opened. “Damn, what’s in there?” he asked, obviously having gotten another whiff of the contents.

“Mummified dead women,” Jonah said, remembering that Deke had always been squeamish when it came to dead bodies, something to do with his grandmother and a spilled casket when he was little.

“Not just dead women, dead witches,” Jonah added, knowing how superstitious he was, as well.

The one thing that didn’t faze the ex-FBI agent was killing. It had to be impersonal enough, as long as he could just blow people away and split. But Deke had a thing about distancing himself from the dead. “You never want to look a dead person in the eyes,” he’d once told Jonah. “They’ll take you with them, sure as hell.”

“How much money?” Deke asked, motioning to the boxes full of bodies. “These are for genetic experiments, aren’t they? Hell, they must be worth a fortune. I mean, how many old dead witches are there to dig up?”

Deke wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

“First, you let Kat go.” Jonah had to know if this strong, sure feeling was on target.

Deke looked sincerely bummed. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid. You see, she’s part of the deal I made and it’s a deal I can’t go back on. I know what happened to the last agent.”

“What did they do to Max?” Jonah asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

“They fed him to the fish,” Deke said flippantly. “The same thing they’re going to do to you.”

Jonah could hear a boat motor in the distance. Someone was coming. They must have had a tracking device on Brody’s vessel and were now homing in on them. Soon Jonah wasn’t going to like the odds.

He noticed Kat was still holding her right side, but the look in her eyes had changed. If only he could know what she was thinking. All those years of fighting his mystical heritage. He took a chance. One hell of a gamble.

“You kill her and they’ll do a lot worse than that to you, won’t they?” Jonah said. Slowly, he pulled the Beretta from his waistband. Deke yelled for him to stop. Jonah held his breath as he leveled the barrel at Deke’s head, afraid he’d hear a gunshot, afraid he’d just cost Kat her life.

“Let her go, Deke. She isn’t worth dying over. You can tell them I got the jump on you. They’ll believe that.”

Deke looked scared but not convinced Jonah would take the shot—not with Kat’s head so close to his. “Sorry, Jonah, but I think we got ourselves a Mexican standoff here. You pull the trigger, I kill your girlfriend. In a few minutes, it will all be moot anyway.” The other boat was getting closer, the motor roaring as it bore down on them.

“Maybe not,” Kat said as she lifted the sweatshirt to reveal Jonah’s .38. In one swift movement, she pulled it and stuck the barrel into Deke’s ribs. There wasn’t much he could do, considering one hand was holding the pistol to her head and the other arm was wrapped around her neck.

He tightened his hold on her neck, but she slammed the .38 deeper into his ribs in reprisal.

Deke swore. “You bitch!” He shoved her, sending her flying across the deck at Jonah.

Jonah got off one shot. He saw Deke grab his left arm as he dived over the side of the boat. There was a splash, then nothing but the sound of the other boat, so close now Jonah could see only its bow as it barreled down on them.

The boat slammed into the side of theirs, knocking Jonah to the deck, the Beretta skittering across the fiberglass out of his reach as Brody’s craft keeled over at a forty-five-degree angle.

The boxes with the mummified bodies tipped, the highest ones toppling over. One of them burst open as it hit the deck, bones scattering.

Kat had gotten to her feet just moments before. She’d had her back turned to the oncoming boat, watching Jonah. He hadn’t had time to warn her before the boat hit. She went down hard. He heard her head hit the deck and then she didn’t move.

A spotlight shot down from the larger vessel that had hit them broadside, blinding him as he tried to grope his way to her.

“No!” he heard someone cry out. “Don’t hurt her!” Tommy. It was Tommy Cavendish’s voice. Then the sound of feet hitting the deck as someone jumped aboard Brody’s boat.

Jonah crawled over to Kat. The last thing he remembered was touching her cheek, realizing how cold it felt, then seeing the blood pooling beneath her head. Something hard struck his skull and the lights went out.

KAT WOKE TO THE SMELL of fish, the sound of water lapping at wood and darkness. She opened her eyes, instantly aware of the pain. Her fingers went to the back of her head. She winced at the knot the size of a goose egg just above her ear.

Someone had bandaged her head. For an instant, that gave her hope. Someone who planned to hurt you wouldn’t dress your wounds, would they?

She tried to sit up, realizing she was on some sort of table or bench. In a boathouse? She could feel the gentle rocking. She was definitely on the water. But as she pulled up, she heard the jangle of chains, then pain shot up her right wrist as something cold cut into her flesh and jerked her back down.

Rolling onto her right side, she looked down. Her eyes had begun to adjust to the light. It wasn’t total darkness. A little light leaked in through the cracks in the boards of her prison. But it still took a moment for what she saw to register.

Her right wrist had been handcuffed to a piece of pipe fastened to the wall next to the bench where she lay. She pulled to see if the pipe would give, hoping…It didn’t. That’s when she noticed her right leg was also chained to the pipe.

Panic raced like fire through her. Someone had left her here to die. She went rigid with fear. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She fought to catch her breath. She opened her mouth and tried to scream. Only a small, insignificant sound escaped. She tried again, her scream bouncing off the walls then dying away in echoes. She screamed again and again until her throat hurt, her head pounding.

No one came. She heard no other sound, except for the water lapping at the boards. She’d thought she might be near the abandoned cannery building by the wharf, but someone would have heard her. And her captives would have known that. They wouldn’t have left her in a place where she could be rescued. Not that easily.

She lay back down, her head aching. She wasn’t going anywhere. She had to stop panicking. She had to think. Her first clear thought was of Jonah. Where was he? Tears rushed to her eyes. She wiped them away hurriedly with her free hand. Crying wouldn’t help. Nor hoping for Jonah to rescue her. She was on her own.

She waited until her heartbeat slowed enough that her head wasn’t pounding, then she sat up and looked around the room she was in, searching for something to use to pry the pipe. While it appeared to be well fastened to the wall, the boards had to be weakened by the years and the saltwater. She hoped.

She spotted an old wrench on the floorboards not far away. But how could she reach it? She wasn’t that far off the floor. In fact, she could drop her left hand a few inches over the side of the bench. But she was still about a foot short of touching the wrench. What did she have that she could use to lasso the tool? She looked down, assessing what she had on. Not the jeans. Or the sweatshirt. Nor would she be able to tear the material to make a rope.

Suddenly, her head didn’t hurt quite so badly as she remembered that she’d worn a belt. Hurriedly she began to work it free from her jeans with her left hand. If she could make a loop at the end…If she could drag the wrench over close enough…She went to work, noticing as she did that the sun was sinking over the Atlantic, amazed she’d been out for so many hours. It wouldn’t be that long before she was pitched into the blackness of night. Until the moon rose up over the ocean. And tonight, the moon would be full.

JONAH WOKE to the sound of Deke’s voice and just assumed he’d died and gone to hell.

“Why are you keeping him alive?” Deke demanded some distance away. “You said I could kill him.”

At first Jonah thought the sobbing he heard in the background was Kat. He forced his eyes open, his head aching from where someone had hit him. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. His mouth felt dry as cotton and, as the floor beneath him pitched and rolled, he realized he was sick to his stomach. They must have drugged him again.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the way the floor moved. He must be on a boat. Nothing else moved quite like this. He thought he could hear the motor, felt the vibration as the boat moved through the water. It wasn’t Kat crying.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head just a little. Deke was still arguing. Jonah could see him silhouetted against the light. Another figure sat just out of view. The sobbing came from the corner. Jonah looked that way, but instead of Kat, it was Tommy Cavendish, his head on his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs.

Jonah stared at him, willing the boy to look up. It took all his strength, but after a few moments, Tommy did look up. Even from here, Jonah could see the dried blood on the boy’s mouth and shirt. He locked eyes with Tommy for a moment, then let his head fall back, closing his eyes to the sickness that washed over him.

“Get someone else to unload those boxes,” Deke was saying. “Man, they stink. I’ll puke if you make me do it.”

“Then puke,” snapped a voice. “But shut the hell up.”

Jonah felt his heart drop in his chest, his stomach roiled as he recognized the voice. Maybe he was dead. Maybe they were all dead. Definitely in hell.

“I think Jonah’s awake,” he heard Deke say. “I think I saw him move.”

Someone prodded at him with a pole. He tried not to react, but did. Slowly, he opened his eyes, afraid of what he’d see. A man stepped into view, a face peering down at him.

“Tell me we’re all dead and in hell,” Jonah said, his voice only a whisper, his mouth was so dry.

Missing FBI agent Max Weathers smiled down at him. “I’m the only one who’s dead and I plan to stay that way.”

“Let me kill him now,” Deke demanded, pushing his way into Jonah’s vision. “The bastard shot me.” Deke held up his bandaged arm.

“It was just a flesh wound,” Max said impatiently. “We’re almost there. I need you to unload the boxes, then you can kill him.”

“To hell with that,” Deke snapped. “You unload your own damn boxes. I told you, they stink, and whether you like it or not, I’m wounded and it’s a lot more than a damn flesh—”

The gunshot resounded through the boat, so close Jonah could smell the powder, almost feel the recoil. Deke grabbed a handful of Jonah’s shirt as he went down, pulling Jonah up from the boards. Deke hit the floor, blood gushing from the chest wound as his grip on Jonah’s shirt suddenly released.

“Now you’re wounded,” Max said as he returned his weapon to the holster at his back.

Overhead, someone yelled down that they had the dock in sight. Jonah felt Max look down at him. He shifted his own gaze from Deke’s dead body to the agent standing over him, hoping Max would tell him he was still working undercover and not to worry, he had everything under control.

But the moment Jonah looked into the man’s eyes, he knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

“I can either pump you more full of drugs or tie you up, your choice,” Max said. “I’m being paid to deliver you alive or I’d just as soon shoot you.”

That was clear enough. “No more drugs,” Jonah managed to say, pretending he was more out of it than he was.

“Okay,” Max said, grabbing up a length of nylon rope, making Jonah wonder who had been tied up before him. Kat? “Where is she?” he managed to say.

Max studied him as he bound his hands. “You’ll see her again.”

Jonah couldn’t help the hope that surged through him. “Then she’s alive?”

Max nodded as he bound Jonah’s ankles together with a separate piece of rope. As he finished, he glanced toward the porthole. “For the time being, she is.”

Jonah closed his eyes and willed his body to go to sleep—at least to appear that way. He could hear Max still standing over him listening as his breathing dropped into a steady rhythm, his eyelids fluttered, his pulse dropped. Max didn’t seem to remember Tommy huddled in the corner crying as he left. No doubt he thought he had the boy completely cowered. Jonah feared he did.

The moment Jonah heard Max’s tread on the stairs, he opened his eyes and looked over at Tommy. The boy had his head down again, but raised it as if sensing Jonah looking at him. Jonah tilted his chin, motioning the boy over.

“Untie me,” Jonah whispered. “Hurry.”

For a moment Tommy stared down at him, his face frozen in fear. “He’ll hurt me again,” the boy whispered.

“He’ll kill Kat if you don’t help me,” Jonah whispered back with a knowing that it was the only thing that could get the boy to help him.

Tommy hesitated only a moment, then began to work at the knots at Jonah’s wrists.

KAT HOOKED THE END of the wrench with her belt and began the slow, torturous drag across the weathered boards toward her. It was awkward with her left hand. She’d already hooked the tool numerous times, only to have the belt slip off. Her arm ached and she felt sick with worry that her attempts were futile. She was running out of time.

The sun had sunk in the sky off to the west. She could see the darkness through the cracks in the wallboards. Soon the moon would rise, round and golden, and she knew whoever had left her here would come back for her.

Slowly, she pulled the wrench closer. Now all she had to do was get the loop to slide up the heavy tool. Just a few inches, just so she could get some leverage. If she did it quickly enough, she could grab the wrench before it slid all the way through the loop and dropped to the floor again.

But she’d had it at this point so many times and hadn’t been able to move quickly enough. It meant letting go of the belt and grabbing the tool in just that instant.

Her head ached and she knew the queasiness in her stomach was making it harder for her to maneuver the wrench. As if using her left hand wasn’t awkward enough.

She held her breath as she lifted her arm slowly. The tool rose, higher and higher. Any moment it would begin to slide. Just a little higher. She let go of the belt and grabbed for the wrench, her fingers brushed the cold steel.

For a moment, she thought she’d missed again. She waited to hear the clatter of the tool on the boards below her. Then she looked down at her hand and saw that her fingers had closed around the end of the wrench. She’d done it!

Now if she could just use it to pry the long piece of pipe from the wall. She could slide the other end of the cuffs off and she would be free.

She wedged the wrench between the long pipe and the wood of the wall and pulled with all her strength. She felt it give! She almost let out a whoop. She pried again. The screws that held the long pipe in place pulled out of the weathered wood at one end.

She hurriedly went to work on the other end, excitement making her giddy. She refused to let herself think beyond getting the handcuff free of the pipe.

The other screws gave. She jerked the long pipe to her, then worked the metal loop of the handcuffs down it until she was no longer attached to it. She sat up, rubbing her wrist, then her ankle.

The sun was long gone. Darkness had filled the room. In the distance, she heard a sound. Hurriedly she slid off the bench and worked her way to the door she’d seen earlier, the handcuff attached to her ankle dragging on the floor. She’d half expected the door to be locked. But then why handcuff her if that was the case?

The door swung open, the hinges groaning. She looked out to see nothing but ocean—and a small narrow walkway. She stepped out. The walkway appeared to circle the building she’d been in. She started around it.

Even before she turned the second corner, she knew what she’d find. It was a floating dock, moored far out to sea. On it was the small building she’d been held prisoner in. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but water. Her only option would be to swim, only she had no idea which way to go or how far from land she might be.

She felt tears well in her eyes, blurring the flat surface of the sea as the moon rose up from the water, a round ball of fire, turning everything it touched to gold. She heard him behind her and wondered how long he’d been waiting on the far side of the building.

She turned, just wanting it to be over. She couldn’t take any more disappointments. Wherever Jonah was, he couldn’t help her now and she had no way to help herself.

He came toward her, backlit by the full moon. It wasn’t until he was almost to her that she saw he had one hand behind his back, the other outstretched. As he grew closer, she saw what he held out to her. A bouquet of white daisies tied in a worn red ribbon.

Chapter Sixteen

Kat looked from the daisies up into his face, her heart a hammer in her chest.

“You look so much like your mother,” Ernie McDougal said shyly. “I loved her, you know. She said she didn’t love me.” He shook his head. “She said a lot of things, but I knew she did love me. Why else would she always tease me at the diner.” He smiled at the memory, his eyes turning glassy in the moonlight.

She could find no breath to breathe, let alone speak as she stared at him, remembering his shyness and his moment of confusion at the bait shop. A thought hit her between the eyes: He’d had the kids spray paint his building just to get me to come over.

“Mr. McDougal, you’re making a mistake,” she said, the words coming on short, hard breaths. “I’m not my mother.”

His smile faded. “Why did you tease me like that if you didn’t love me?” He sounded pathetic, certainly not someone her mother would have ever looked at twice. Except at the diner, where she teased and taunted and raked in the tips. Ernie had never stood a chance with her mother. What had made him think he had?

“I bought you such pretty things. Like this white scarf.” He brought his other hand out from behind his back and held up a white scarf.

It was all Kat could do not to scream at the sight of it. “I know you liked that. You wore it all the time. You said you liked the way it moved in the breeze. Pure silk. You’d never had a silk scarf before. I heard you tell Marley as much.” He smiled, caught up in the memory.

Kat thought she heard something over the sound of his voice and the lap of the water at the boards beneath them. A boat. She could hear a boat motor in the distance.

Ernie’s gaze seemed to settle on her again. “You do like the scarf, don’t you?”

“Yes.” It took all the strength she could muster to reach out and take the scarf from his hand. She could see that he was waiting for her to put it on.

She remembered what he’d said about her mother liking it because it blew in the breeze. Would whoever was on the boat see the white scarf? Would they come over to investigate?

With trembling fingers, she tied the scarf around her neck.

Ernie smiled. “I know you like the perfume, too. No one bought you anything so expensive, you said. You wore it all the time. I heard you tell Brody that a real man bought it for you. You wouldn’t have said that if you hadn’t meant it. I saw the look in your eyes when you said it.”

She listened for the boat, the sound growing closer. She felt the scarf flutter in the breeze. Did she dare try to wave to the boat? What would Ernie do?

“You put the daisies in a vase and you would look at them and get that dreamy look in your eyes,” he said, his voice quavering. “You called me your secret admirer.”

His words finally registered. Oh my God. It was just as Jonah had suspected. Unrequited love. Ernie had never told her mother that he was the one who’d left her the gifts. When she wore the scarf and the perfume and bragged about the flowers, he’d overheard her in the diner. He’d thought she felt something for him, and all the time she’d had no idea it was Ernie McDougal.

His gaze hardened as he looked at Kat. “You said such vicious things to me tonight in the gazebo. I just wanted to walk you home. It was so hard for me to finally tell you that I loved you. But I thought with the full moon…” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have said those terrible things to me.”

She saw him tighten his hold on the daisies, crushing the stems in his fist, the veins in his suntanned arms bunching.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have,” she said quickly, reaching out for the daisies, her hand shaking.

He looked up in surprise, his eyes shiny with hope in the moonlight.

“You just surprised me,” she said, imagining how her mother had reacted at the news that her secret admirer was just Ernie.

The boat motor slowed. Ernie didn’t seem to notice. She could hear it headed this way. Someone must have seen the white scarf in the moonlight. If only they would come close enough…

THE MOMENT TOMMY freed Jonah’s hands, he tore at the rope binding his ankles. “I want you to hide. Go back deep into the boat and hide. Don’t come out unless I tell you to, do you understand?”

Tommy nodded. “You’re going to help Kat?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t know they would hurt Kat.”

Jonah nodded and got up, glancing toward the stairs to the upper deck. Then he knelt over Deke’s dead body, realizing he was starting to make a habit of taking weapons off dead men. He pulled out the .44 magnum, checked to make sure it was fully loaded, not surprised to find it was.

He looked back to see that Tommy had gone to hide, then he headed for the steps, wondering how many men were topside. As he started up the stairs, the boat began to slow. He listened, hearing nothing but the throb of the motor, then the boat banged against a dock and he heard Kat’s scream for help.

He bounded up the stairs. Max didn’t hear him coming. Only when he came flying out from belowdecks did Max turn and try to go for his gun, but Jonah never gave him a chance to fire. He pulled the trigger on the .44 magnum, hitting the rogue agent in the chest twice before Max’s body could drop to the deck.

Then Jonah swung the barrel around as a crew member dived for him. The bullets caught the man in the throat and shoulder. Jonah stepped back as the man crumpled at his feet. Another one of the crew tried to make a run for it, diving overboard. Jonah let him go, swinging around, following the direction he’d heard the scream come from.

He saw the scarf first. It billowed out in the breeze, stark white in the moonlight. She stood on what appeared to be a floating dock, looking as if she was waiting for a boat.

For a moment, Jonah didn’t see the man in the shadow of the boathouse. Then Ernie McDougal stepped out to encircle Kat’s waist. The blade of the knife in his other hand glittered in the moonlight as he drew it slowly across her neck, just above the scarf, the tip touching just enough that it drew blood.

Kat cried out, but held perfectly still.

Jonah froze, the gun in his hand wavering as he stared in horror at the scene before him.

“She doesn’t love you, Ries,” Ernie said, his voice flat. “She loves me.”

Jonah saw the terror in Kat’s face. And the hope. She needed a superhero, a man with powers that Jonah Ries did not possess. And yet the night out at Dr. Manning’s, he’d stopped her car. Had it only been out of sheer will? Or was the answer in the genes he’d so despised all of his life?

He looked at Ernie McDougal, concentrating on the hand holding the knife, knowing what Ernie planned to do, sensing it like nothing he’d ever felt before. Ernie was going to kill her. As he’d killed her mother. Only this time, he planned to take his own life. There was nothing Jonah could do to stop him. Nothing short of willing him to move the knife away from Kat’s throat, knowing that one slip and it would be over.

Silently, he sent it like a prayer, all his senses on the hand holding the knife. All his will on saving Kat. He cursed the years he’d denied who he was, what he was, and gave in, opening his soul to those who had gone before him, pleading for their help now.

KAT TOLD HERSELF she would never know exactly what happened. The doctors said her ramblings were from her loss of blood. Hallucinations. Why else would she have thought she’d seen the ghosts of women floating over Jonah, their spirits glowing in the moonlight.

All she knew was that one moment Ernie had a knife to her throat, the cut he’d made burning, his arm around her crushing the breath from her. Then she’d felt his body begin to tremble, the hand with the knife jerking away from her throat.

She’d acted out of instinct, she supposed, since she couldn’t remember thinking before she buried her elbow in Ernie’s stomach. He stumbled back, teetering for a moment on the edge of the dock. She could still see him suspended there, trying to regain his balance, the knife in his hand, his eyes on the blade as if it had a life of its own.

And then, with no warning, Ernie had plunged the knife into his own heart. He’d looked up then, his gaze connecting with hers, then he’d fallen backward into the ocean.

She’d expected his body to surface again, but it didn’t. Then Jonah was there, taking her in his arms, frantically trying to stop the bleeding from the cut on her neck, a cut she could no longer feel. All she knew was that she was in the safety of his arms and nothing else mattered.

Later in the hospital she would remember the pounding of the boat, the wind blowing the tops off the waves, showering then both with cold salty water as Jonah rushed her toward Moriah’s Landing.

The storm had come out of nowhere, waves crashing over the deck of the boat, washing away the boxes and the bodies inside. Through the spray, she had seen Lighthouse Island, the lamp burning brightly, and she’d thought of her father. How many times had he rushed toward the light, trying to get home?

Once, she had looked back into the moonlight darkness thinking she could still see the dock, almost thinking she saw Ernie in the water, pulling himself up. But she knew that had only been her fear making her imagine it. Ernie wouldn’t be coming back and she didn’t even question how she knew that.

It wasn’t until they’d reached the hospital that someone, maybe Jonah, had untied the white scarf around her neck. It had been white, hadn’t it? Funny, but she now remembered it as being bright red. Red as blood.

“You are not going to die,” she’d heard Jonah say as she was rushed down the hall on a gurney. He’d held her hand, squeezing it, but his voice had sounded far away. “You are not going to die. If it takes everything in me, I will not let you die.”

She remembered smiling up at him and saying something about superheroes and powers and tarot cards and true love.

But when she’d closed her eyes to rest, she realized that none of it made any sense at all.

She might have seen her mother. Her father had been waiting for her in a room filled with light, but he sent her back, saying she wasn’t finished yet. After that, she slept.

JONAH LEANED OVER THE bed to plant a kiss on Kat’s forehead. She slept, the sleep of angels, her face peaceful.

“How is she?” Cassandra asked from the doorway.

He nodded her in.

His cousin joined him. She wasn’t wearing her caftan nor her bracelets. She wore jeans and a blouse, her hair dark like his again. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” she offered. “The doctor said she’ll sleep for another two hours and twenty-seven minutes.”

He smiled at that, knowing no doctor had said that. Kat would be awake just before dawn, in exactly two hours and twenty-seven minutes. That didn’t leave him much time. He looked down at her, his heart bursting and said “I love you” in his mind, hoping she would hear it.

“You saved her life,” Cassandra said when he joined her in a corner of the empty cafeteria. Outside, darkness hunkered in the trees, the moon full and glowing.

Had he saved her life? He couldn’t be sure. So many things had happened: Ernie, the storm, all that blood. He could still see Kat’s pale face and feel the life seeping out of her as he raced toward Moriah’s Landing, willing her to live with all the strength in him.

“I’ve decided to stay in Moriah’s Landing. Ernie was going to put the Bait & Tackle shop up for sale. I’m gonna buy it. I’ll be needing a partner if I want to make it a true charter business,” Cassandra was saying. “Ernie was too busy fronting for the secret society to make much out of it.”

Jonah nodded. It had all come out, Tommy being the real hero as he told the cops how Ernie had smuggled in the bodies of witches from around the world for a member of the secret society’s genetic research. Unfortunately, the latest shipment of bodies had been washed overboard and lost at sea. Nor was it known who the intended buyer was. Ernie had taken that to his watery grave.

“Unless you’re thinking about staying with the FBI?” Cassandra said.

He hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but he knew he’d changed since he’d come back to Moriah’s Landing and could never go back to the way he was. Just as he couldn’t go back to the FBI.

“Maybe Kat would like a partner,” Cassandra said, and smiled.

Yes, he thought, he had a feeling Kat would like that.

“I take it you’re no longer…involved with Dr. Manning?” Jonah asked, curious why she’d helped the man cheat at poker.

“It got me in the game, which was amusing for a while.” Cassandra smiled. “And profitable. I hadn’t planned to stay any longer than the summer. But then you showed up.”

It would take some getting used to, being around Cassandra, someone who knew him almost better than he knew himself. It would take even more getting used to having a family again.

“When are you going to tell her?” Cassandra asked, glancing back down the hall toward Kat’s room.

Suddenly he saw it. The white house near the sea, the swing set in the backyard, the three kids and Kat, the sunlight pouring down on them, the sound of laughter as they turned to look back at him.

Cassandra swung her gaze back around to him. She smiled. “Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind about having a family of your own?”

He finished his coffee. “Thanks.”

Cassandra shrugged. “What did I do?”

As if she didn’t know. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you where I’m going?”

Her expression turned somber. She shook her head and reached out to grasp his hand. She squeezed it. “Good luck.”

They both knew where he was headed would take a lot more than luck.

MIST ROSE from St. John’s Cemetery and moved restlessly through the gravestones. The old wrought-iron gate groaned as Jonah pushed it open and stepped onto the hallowed ground. He could feel a vibration deep inside him as he worked his way through the moonlit stones.

He felt them all, the peaceful sleeping the sleep of eternity, the restless turning in their coffins, all reaching out to him as he made his way to the graves of his parents.

He hadn’t been here since both had been laid to rest. Now he stood over the matching headstones, the moonlight at his back. Betrayal comes in all forms. Betraying your heritage was the worst in a family like his.

But he’d come home now. And he planned to stay. That meant admitting who he was. What he was. It wouldn’t be easy. His parents knew that better than most. They had taken their lives rather than know so much about the world and the lost souls in it.

He bowed his head, reaching out to them as he hadn’t in life, finally feeling that elusive sense of peace he’d so yearned for as he accepted the legacy that had been handed down for too many generations to count.

As he raised his head, he looked through the maze of tombstones to McFarland Leary’s grave. Hadn’t he always known this is where it would end? Slowly, he worked his way through the mist rising around him, the moon full and high as if watching him. It was time to face the true ghost of his past.

KAT OPENED HER EYES as the sun came up over the sea. The first face she saw was Jonah’s. He smiled as he took her hand and touched his lips to the palm, opening her fingers, opening her heart.

“I love you,” he said, his gaze meeting hers.

She couldn’t help but smile, as much as her neck hurt where Ernie had cut her, one nick almost lethally too deep. “I love you.” The words came so naturally. Her heart felt like a bubble inside her, blossoming with that love.

“There’s something I have to tell—”

She touched her fingers to his lips, afraid he was going to tell her they couldn’t be together.

He kissed her fingertips and then captured her hand in his. “I don’t know what happened last night, I just know that I love you, I can’t bear the thought of living a day without you, but last night changed things.”

She held her breath.

“If you’re crazy enough to marry me—”

“More than crazy.”

“—you have to know you’ll be getting all the family…quirks that come with me. And,” he said before she could interrupt, “so will our kids.”

Kids? She felt her heart soar, remembering what Cassandra had told her. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over.

“Our children can have two heads and I will still love them just the way I love you,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

She smiled as she looked into his amazing face, knowing in her heart she wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for this man. “I’m taking it very seriously. And counting on our children getting at least some of my down-to-earth plain old common senses. Even if they don’t, I’ll be around to try to keep you all grounded. So are you going to do this the right way or not?”

He smiled at her, shaking his head as he dropped to one knee beside the bed. “Kat Ridgemont, will you marry me, keeping in mind the kind of man you’ll be marrying?”

She laughed. “I know exactly what kind of man I’ll be marrying,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. “Yes!”

Behind him, she caught a glimmer of light, and for a moment she thought she saw images hovering in the shadows smiling down on them as he took her in his arms.

She closed her eyes, not sure what she believed anymore. Except, if there really were gifts that could be passed from one generation to the next, she planned for hers to be the gift of love.

Scarlet Vows

By Dani Sinclair

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Prologue

Eerie stillness blanketed the morning air over Moriah’s Landing. The troubled town brooded beneath the sweltering heat, expectantly waiting.

Her customers all served for the moment, Brianna Dudley pushed at the damp tendril of hair clinging to her forehead and wiped her hands on her apron. Even in the air-conditioned diner it was too hot. A sense of something about to happen crawled over her skin.

Brie stepped outside, moving across the newly attached deck at the back of the Beachway Diner.

Waves lapped steadily at the public beach stretched out below. She checked the deserted tables around her automatically before looking toward the undefined horizon. Definitely too hot for this early in the morning. A scan of the horizon failed to reveal any gathering clouds. She’d hoped that might account for the unease whispering over her nerve endings. Storms always made her tense.

A lazy gull swooped over the restless cove in search of food. He swept past the lighthouse before soaring toward the cliffs and the old stone castle that perched there.

Truly eerie and somber, the forbidding stone fortress would have done justice to the cover of a gothic novel. Clinging precariously to the edge of a jagged cliff, the Bluffs even came equipped with a dark, brooding scientist. Rumor had it Dr. David Bryson was a cold-blooded murderer, horribly disfigured in the explosion that had taken his fiancée’s life.

Brie didn’t know David all that well, but his fiancée, Tasha Pierce, had been one of her best friends, and she truly believed he’d loved Tasha. David was seldom seen in town, but it didn’t seem to occur to people that rather than being a recluse, perhaps he worked all day. And if he shunned bright lights, Brie understood. He had been scarred when his boat exploded in a wild ball of flame.

People here, especially the fishermen, tended toward the superstitious. The older ones loved to spin a good yarn and David Bryson was a terrific target, especially now that Moriah’s Landing was bent on capitalizing on the wickedness that haunted their past. Salem held the historical reputation, but the founders of Moriah’s Landing had joined the fanaticism of the time, punishing helpless men and women for the art of witchcraft.

Whatever secrets the castle on the cliffs held or didn’t hold, it overlooked the cove in sinister silence. No one denied that dark forces seemed to emanate from those old stone walls.

Brie turned away from the sight. Shortly, she would be too busy to worry about castles, witches, the weather or anything else. The annual shooting tournament at the firing range was tomorrow. The event would kick off the weeklong Fourth of July festivities. Since the town was celebrating its three-hundred-and-fiftieth year, they were going all out, trying to surpass the spectacular Memorial Day weekend blast. The scheduled activities had raised the town spirits high. Moriah’s Landing and the surrounding areas were filling with visitors and summer vacationers who thought flocking to the Massachusetts coast would provide some relief from the heat wave sweeping the country. Ha! Not even a puff of wind stirred the terrible humidity.

Brie planned to go over to the firing range before work tomorrow. With luck she could catch her mother’s doctor, Sheffield Thornton, while her mother wasn’t around. She wanted a flat answer to the question gnawing a hole in her soul.

Inside, the air conditioner continued its desperate struggle against Mother Nature. Brie inhaled the chilled air gratefully. Yvette Castor raised a summoning hand from her solitary seat in a booth near the window. Her many-ringed fingers waggled, the multitude of bracelets clanging merrily as she motioned for her check.

“Anything else, Yvette? More coffee?”

“No, thanks. I have to get over to my shop. Cassandra has the day off and I’m doing an early-morning reading for one of my regulars.”

The floor-length broom skirt was cinched at her waist by several lengths of silver and gold chains. Like the bangles adorning her arms and neck, they jingled noisily each time she moved. Yvette had become a part of the local color in more ways than one. Today’s bold purple peasant blouse clashed cheerfully with most of the colors in her skirt. Yvette wasn’t a pretty woman, with that square jaw and those sharply defined features, but she was arresting. Her untamable mass of frizzy dark brown curls tumbled wildly down her back, nearly to her waist. Yet there was a down-to-earth quality about Yvette that Brie liked and respected.

Running Madam Fleury’s fortune-telling stand across the street from the diner suited Yvette. At times there was an almost mystical quality about the woman. Brie couldn’t imagine her doing anything else.

“How is your mother today, Brianna?”

The reminder of her mother’s drawn features this morning made Brie grimace. “The heat’s getting to her.”

More than the heat, and both women knew it. There was no way Brie could pretend any longer that the cancerous tumor hadn’t returned. After the last attempt to remove it, Dr. Thornton warned if the tumor began to grow again, it would only be a matter of time.

Brie swallowed hard against the knot at the back of her throat. Her hand quivered as she handed Yvette her check. Their fingers collided. A warm tingle spread like waves of invisible energy right up Brie’s arm from that point of contact. For a timeless second, everything seemed to stop. Yvette seemed to gaze straight inside her soul.

Brie yanked her hand back. Yvette grasped the check before it could flutter to the tabletop. Her gaze never wavered.

“Do not worry,” Yvette said quietly. “Closure is at hand.”

A stab of genuine fear made Brie inhale sharply.

“No! I’m sorry, Brianna. I phrased my words poorly. I didn’t mean your mother.” She offered an apologetic smile. “I should have said ‘Your prince is coming.’”

Brie didn’t know whether to laugh or scold Yvette for the moment of intense fear her words had caused. Relief won. Yet something in that mesmerizing gaze made it hard to doubt her quietly spoken words. Brie forced her fingers to ease their death grip on her pad. She tossed her hair back, giving her head a negative shake.

“Now, what on earth would I want with a prince?” she demanded. “I already have enough people to serve.” Brie indicated the diner at large, beginning to fill with the usual morning crowd. “And I’d better get back to work before I get fired.”

“Brianna.”

A warning prickle scaled its way down her spine. Unable to leave, but not wanting to hear any more talk about princes, or discuss her mother’s illness, Brianna tried to force her legs to take the necessary steps away from the table. She couldn’t.

“Things happen for a reason, you know,” Yvette said softly. “You must learn to trust your heart once more.”

For a moment, his features were right there in her mind, as vivid and alive as the man himself. Brie could almost see the way the sun placed golden highlights in his hair. She could almost smell the scent of the ridiculously expensive aftershave he wore. And without even closing her eyes, she felt the power of his body as he drew her into the embrace she had craved for what seemed like eternity.

“No!”

Brie lowered her voice quickly. No one spared her a glance. She tried for a smile but was only partially successful. “Forget it, Yvette. I made the mistake of trusting my heart once before. It didn’t work out.”

Yvette gazed right through her pretense. “Was it really a mistake?”

Jolted, Brie mustered a glare. Everyone knew Brie’s young daughter, Nicole, was the joy of her life. While definitely an unplanned pregnancy, her daughter’s birth was a gift. Nicole was growing into a miniature version of both Brie and her mother. The three of them could have been clones, down to the unfortunate bright red hair, pale skin and light freckles sprinkled liberally across cheeks and noses.

Everything except their eyes.

While Brie and her mother’s eyes sparkled a clear, bewitching green, Nicole’s were a startlingly vivid, brilliant blue shade. Piercing. Expressive eyes. Old eyes, her mother had once mused. Brie didn’t know about that, but she did know that her daughter’s eyes were a constant, uncomfortable reminder of the incredibly sexy man who had fathered her.

“So maybe it wasn’t a total mistake,” she conceded, not wanting to think about Andrew Pierce. But her foolish, stupid heart gave its usual lurch at the memories she had never learned to suppress. “But falling in love is a mistake I won’t ever make again.”

“Perhaps that was not a mistake, either, just mistimed.”

Brie suppressed a bitter laugh. “Oh it was mistimed, all right. Take it from me, Yvette, I learned one important fact the summer Nicole was conceived. Princes have a disturbing habit of turning into frogs.”

She tore her gaze from the sympathy and understanding in Yvette’s sad expression, acutely grateful for the gruff, burly biker who indicated he and his companion were ready to place their order.

“I’ll be right with you, Rider,” she called out. To Yvette she added lightly, “Thanks just the same, but I’ll pass on any more princes. I don’t have time for fairy tales anymore.”

Or the Pierce family—Andrew Pierce in particular.

“Fairy tales can come true,” Yvette said softly.

“Ha! Mine would need a fairy godmother with the cure for cancer. If you meet any, feel free to send them my way. Have a good day, Yvette.”

Brie moved briskly to where the two scruffy-looking bikers waited with stoic patience.

Andrew Pierce was undoubtedly some woman’s idea of a prince, she thought, but not hers. Not anymore.

WITH HER SCREAM reverberating in his ears, he watched in detachment as her delicate features twisted in comprehension and horror.

“Ursula.”

He said her name sharply, reaching for her. She scuttled away with surprising speed. How unfortunate. She was going to make him do this the hard way. The bloodied gloves made getting a good grip on her all but impossible. Terror gave her a strength she wouldn’t normally have.

He peeled the gloves from his hands. They dropped to the floor with a wet plopping sound.

“Ursula, stop this.”

“My God! My God!”

Fists pressed against parted lips, her eyes wide, dark pools of horror. Her gaze seemed mesmerized by the still figure on the table, bathed in the bright surgical lights. He had peeled back the skull to reveal the all important brain.

“You killed her!”

“Calm down.”

The hand pressing against her mouth trembled violently. “You killed her!”

She backed into a lab table deep in the shadows of the room. Objects clattered in protest. A pair of test tubes fell together with a jarring crash. He took a step closer. Frantically, her hand swept the table in search of a weapon.

She really was quite beautiful, he decided in detachment. Beautiful, sensual—immoral. Yet even in her panic there was a delicate grace about her.

“This is unfortunate. You shouldn’t have come in here,” he told her regretfully.

A test tube hurled toward his face. He turned his head and the empty vial bounced off his shoulder, falling harmlessly to the floor. She twisted, turning to run. His lips curved. Grotesque shadows danced about the lab, thrown by those bright lights over the exam table where the nude body lay still as marble.

“You’re being foolish, my dear. There’s nowhere for you to run, you know.”

Her panicked breathing made harsh, raspy sounds as she scrambled around a bank of storage cases, nearly falling. He’d planned to confront her later, after he’d finished his work. What had made her decide to come in here now? Not that it mattered. The results would have been the same either way.

His footfalls were the only other sound in the room as he stalked her, cutting off each avenue of escape. She was lost. Confused by the darkness. When she fled between a tall storage cabinet and the untidy stack of large pine boxes, he had her. She’d chosen a dead end in the maze of disorganized equipment.

“Stay away from me! Don’t come near me!”

“Poor Ursula.”

“Let me go!”

“You know I can’t do that. Not now. It’s too bad, really. I’d hoped this would work out much differently.”

She screamed, the shrill sound hurting his ears. Even in the darkness he could see that her eyes were so wide with fear they dominated her small face. His pity was cold comfort for both of them.

“Poor, traitorous Ursula. You really shouldn’t have come in here,” he said sadly, pinning her flailing arms in a grip she had no chance of breaking. “You’ve left me no choice. None at all.”

Chapter One

Andrew “Drew” Pierce gazed around at the large crowd gathered outside the firing range in frustration. “Where’s Carey?”

“He had to see a man about a horse,” Zach announced.

At the same time, Nancy Bell replied, “He went to use the men’s room.”

Drew gave the attractive brunette an apologetic look before scolding his much younger brother with a frown of reprimand. Zach shrugged, but his grin was unrepentant.

“That was his expression, not mine,” Zach said. “How much do you two have riding on this bet? They’re always competing with each other,” he said in an aside to Nancy. “I think you scared the—”

“There is no bet,” Drew said sharply. “And watch your language, Zach.”

“It’s all right, Andrew,” Nancy told him, her soft, graceful hand a stark contrast against his tanned arm. “I could probably even teach Zach a few phrases.”

Drew rolled his eyes. “Please don’t.”

“Think so?” Zach inquired with a broad smile that revealed two hidden dimples.

“You’d be amazed at what I deal with in my line of work.”

“Maybe so, but you don’t have to deal with it from Zach,” Drew warned.

Zach held up his palms. “Sorry, big brother, for a moment there I forgot about your image.”

Drew’s frown deepened. There was an edge to his brother’s tone and a strange undercurrent of emotion beneath the impish expression. Drew turned away thoughtfully. He sensed, rather than saw, Zach lean toward Nancy. Sotto voce, Zach asked, “Like what, for example?”

Drew never heard her response. The tournament had brought out a large crowd as always, and there was a festive air despite the heat. People milled in scattered clumps, chatting and laughing loudly as they waited for their turn to compete. The scent of grilled hot dogs and fresh popcorn mingled bizarrely with the scent of cordite in the heavy air.

A disturbing sensation pulled Drew’s attention to the thick clump of trees that began halfway up the slope on one side of the pistol range. He stared at the dark line of woods, puzzled. Something had changed a short way into the tree line, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.

Deer?

The woods were filled with the animals, but no deer would be within twenty miles of the noise coming from the firing range. Nancy and Zach added laughter to the din. Drew tuned them out. His attention centered on the shadows up the slope. Without knowing why, he concentrated on a dark patch near a wide maple tree. Beads of sweat collected at his hairline and trickled warmly down his back beneath his light summer shirt.

Nothing moved in the patch of trees, yet Drew sensed a presence there. Someone was watching him.

His fingers tightened on the gun case. He had a strange impulse to pull his weapon and aim it toward that spot on the hill.

As if sensing that thought, the darkness stirred.

The motion was slight, hardly a movement at all, but Drew waited, rigid with expectation. A face suddenly appeared, for all the world looking like a disembodied head floating in midair.

Eyes clashed and held.

Drew swore viciously under his breath. The features were unmistakable.

Zach broke off midsentence, coming alert. “What’s the matter?”

“Andrew?” Nancy asked in concern.

“Bryson,” he growled.

The face melted back into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.

“David Bryson?” Zach demanded. “Where?”

“Who’s David Bryson?” Nancy questioned.

“In the trees up the hill,” Drew told his brother with a small nod.

“I don’t see anything.”

Nancy squeezed his arm in a bid for attention. “Andrew? Who is David Bryson?”

In that brief moment of eye contact with the man, rage had surged inside Drew, welling from the recesses where he kept it mostly caged. Now he worked to contain a whole host of emotions, feeling his jaw clench. His knuckles whitened on the case in his hand. He looked at Nancy without really seeing her.

“David Bryson is the bastard who killed our sister.”

“What?”

“I still don’t see anyone,” Zach said, watching the trees with the same tense wariness Drew had felt only moments earlier.

“He’s gone now,” Drew told him with certainty. “Back to the shadows where he belongs.”

“I thought your sister’s death was an accident,” Nancy said sharply.

“That’s how they classified it,” Zach agreed, equally grim.

Drew didn’t believe those findings. He never had. Their beautiful sister, Tasha, would have been alive today if it hadn’t been for David Bryson. One day, Drew would prove he’d been responsible for what happened. In the meantime, he’d concentrate on winning the mayoral election. Then he’d be in a position to make Dr. David Bryson wish he’d died in that boat explosion as well.

“Oh, hell,” Zach said, abruptly. “Just what we need. More trouble. Ten o’clock high.”

Frederick Thane was working the crowd, moving in their direction. The current mayor stopped abruptly, his double chin quivering when he spotted Drew. For an instant, dark squinty eyes flashed with hate. Then the professional smile slid into place. Only his eyes stayed hard and cold. He strutted forward, hand outstretched, his rounded stomach extending over his fancy belt buckle.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my esteemed opponent.”

There was no way to avoid the pudgy fingers or the wet clasp of his grip. Despite his slight paunch and that double chin, Frederick Thane wasn’t a big man. At least not yet. At fifty-five or thereabouts, he still had deep black hair, probably due to a little chemical assistance, and he was taller than Drew remembered. Lifts, Drew decided. Even so, the other man still had to look up to meet Drew’s eyes, which obviously rankled.

“Mayor,” he greeted.

“Saw your name on the other sign-up sheet.” He shifted his rifle and stared at the handgun case. “We aren’t competing in the same category.” He swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.

“Not this time.”

Thane’s lips pursed tightly, as though he was trying to decide if there was another meaning beneath those words. “Hot enough for you?”

“I imagine it will get hotter before there is a winner.”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Count on it.”

They were not talking about the weather or the contest. It was no secret that Frederick Thane was furious over Drew’s decision to run against him. Thane had scared off every other opponent who dared consider throwing a hat in the ring for the mayoral election. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any leverage to use against the Pierce family. Now he stared pointedly at Nancy Bell.

“And this must be the fancy publicist I heard your grandpa hired for you.”

A sneer licked the edges of his words.

“Fancy?” he heard Nancy whisper to his brother. She sounded amused rather than annoyed.

“Nancy Bell, Frederick Thane,” Drew introduced. “And you know my brother, Zach, of course.”

“Of course, of course. Young Zach.”

Zach winced visibly. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Nancy, however, did. “Mayor Thane.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

Drew gave her points for neither shuddering at the contact of his damp hand nor wiping her own hand against her tailored light blue pants afterward.

“We fancy types are big on charm,” she offered with a professional smile.

“You’ll need it. You have your work cut out for you, my dear,” Thane said.

“Hey, Drew, they’re calling our party now,” Zach interjected.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Thane said with false joviality. “I hear you’re giving the family speech at the picnic in a few days. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Are you? Then I guess I’ll see you on the dais.”

“Indeed you will. Ms. Bell. Young Zach.” Thane pivoted away.

“If he called me ‘young Zach’ one more time I was going to try a little target shooting right out here,” Zach muttered.

“Wouldn’t be worth the cost of the bullets,” Drew told him.

“So that was Frederick Thane,” Nancy mused.

“In the flesh.”

“Of which he has plenty,” Zach added unkindly.

“Interesting.” Nancy watched the mayor stop to chat with some people nearby. “He did make one valid point, you know. You don’t really need me if he’s your competition.”

Zach barked a laugh.

“Don’t let his bumpkin imitation fool you,” Drew warned. “He’s smart enough in his way. He’s been running this town for a number of years now.”

“And he’ll do just about anything to keep that position and win this campaign,” Zach added.

“I’ve studied his dossier,” Nancy agreed. “But the man has a definite problem with his public image.”

“What public image?” Zach demanded. “The man’s a leech and everyone knows it. He’s been sucking the town dry for years.”

“But he keeps getting elected,” she pointed out.

“Hard to lose when you’re the only candidate,” Zach said. “Everyone else has a habit of dropping out before the election.”

“I believe lack of funds is usually cited,” Nancy agreed. “But that won’t be the case this time, will it, Andrew?”

Drew made a noncommittal sound and moved forward to check them in. No, funding definitely wouldn’t be a problem, but he had no intention of dropping out of this race for any reason.

After helping Nancy select a gun to use, he looked around in irritation. “Where the heck is Carey?”

Carey Eldrich had coerced, begged, pleaded and even insisted they participate in the tournament. Once he explained to Nancy that practically the entire town turned out for the event, and that the tournament had started drawing people from as far away as Salem, she readily agreed Drew’s participation was necessary.

“Sounds like a good place for some unofficial campaigning,” she told him. “Before the Fourth of July kickoff I want you seen all over town participating in local events. I’ll make sure you get plenty of media coverage. That’s my job.”

“And I’ll bet you’re very good at your job,” Carey had said flirtatiously. “Just don’t expect his picture on the front page as the winner of the tournament. I’ve been out-shooting him for years.”

“Really?”

“Only if you count his mouth,” Drew had told her.

So here they were, guns in hand. Everyone except Carey.

“You know Carey,” Zach said. “He’s probably talking to someone.”

“You mean some woman,” Drew said in annoyance.

“Of course. Want me to go and find him?”

“No need, Zach.” Nancy pointed a peach-tipped fingernail. “Here he comes now.”

Carey Eldrich rushed up, his blond good looks strangely flushed. His shirt was sweaty and plastered to his body. A worried expression deepened the furrow between his eyebrows.

“Out jogging?” Drew asked critically.

“Sorry,” he offered sheepishly. “Something I ate this morning didn’t agree with me.”

Annoyance changed to concern. Drew stared at the man who had been his best friend and chief rival since grade school. As owners of the local newspaper, Carey’s family was almost as prominent as the Pierce family. Drew figured he knew Carey about as well as anyone. Carey had been a ladies’ man since conception, so Drew had to concede it was unusual for him to disappear when there was a beauty like Nancy on the scene. Especially when Carey had been competing with Drew for her attention ever since they’d met.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked his friend.

“No, no. I’m fine now. Besides, I promised to teach this lovely lady how to shoot. I want her to see for herself that I wasn’t bragging last night. Out-shooting Drew is really as easy as I claimed,” he told her archly.

But his tone was falsely hearty. Drew frowned. Before he could pull his friend aside to find out what was wrong, his attention centered on a woman with a mass of red-gold hair spilling over delicate shoulders. The woman stood with her back to him, talking intently to a man he didn’t recognize. The graceful curve of her back and the tantalizing flare of slim hips encased in well-worn jeans anchored his attention.

He willed her to turn around. His stomach knotted as he waited for a glimpse of her face. Instead, she laid a hand on the man’s bare arm. He in turn smiled intimately down at her. Drew took an unconscious step toward her.

The man’s baseball cap masked his features, but Drew glimpsed silver-streaked hair poking from beneath his cap. The man looked to be in his fifties. What was Brianna doing with a man old enough to be her father? Hadn’t she learned anything from what had happened to his sister?

Carey nudged him in the ribs. “What do you think, Drew?”

“What?” Momentarily diverted, his gaze whipped back to his companions.

“Fat chance,” Zach responded to some comment Drew hadn’t heard.

Carey’s features lit in familiar challenge. “You want to take me on as well, Zach?”

“No way. I just want to watch the fun.”

Irritated at the interruption, Drew turned back toward the woman, certain it was Brie. But the couple was strolling away, deep in conversation. The man’s arm lay possessively across her shoulders as he bent his head close to hers in an intimate way. Drew clenched his jaw.

“Come on, we’re up,” Zach said.

As the couple faded into the crowd he reluctantly joined the others. Target shooting was the last thing Drew wanted to do—especially now. His reaction to seeing Brie was surprising. He’d known the possibility existed when he returned home to run for mayor, but he hadn’t been prepared for the wild surge of emotions that bubbled inside him at the sight of a stranger’s arm on her shoulders.

Maybe it hadn’t been her.

Who was he trying to kid? Four years or forty, he suspected she would always incite emotions so elemental they gripped him like a vise. Brianna Dudley was the only female who had ever had the power to scramble his brains. How had he managed to forget that about her?

Edgy and out of sorts, he followed the others onto the range absently, lost in memories he’d put aside a long time ago. He jerked back to the present when he saw they’d been assigned to the last four stands on the end closest to the woods.

The firing range itself was built into a bowl-shaped depression surrounded by dense woods on three sides. He stared at the trees. The disquiet he’d been feeling all morning intensified. While a credible shot, Drew hadn’t been able to summon up any enthusiasm for this tournament. Instead, his desire to leave was strong enough to surprise him.

“Something wrong, Drew?” Nancy asked as Carey took the stand beside him.

“No.”

Carey eyed him strangely. Zach frowned. “Come on, Nancy, you’re between me and Carey,” he told her. “I’ll help you get set.”

“Oh, no, I’ll help her,” Carey said smoothly. “After all, I promised to show her how it was done.”

Drew tuned them out. He gazed at the target downrange. It had been almost four years since he’d seen Brie, yet she could still set his pulses racing from a distance. How crazy was that?

He sought another focus for his wandering attention. The brooding string of trees on the hill offered nothing helpful. He was here to compete. Inattention on a firing range was dangerous and stupid.

The call went out that the line was live. As people began firing their practice shots, the scent of cordite filled his nostrils. Blue clouds of smoke already hung in the heavy air. Shots thundered in his ears despite the requisite protective headgear. Sweat gathered at his hairline, beginning a lazy trickle down his face. He checked and loaded his weapon.

Drew lined up his sights and fired, wishing he were elsewhere—preferably an air-conditioned elsewhere, but Nancy had mapped out an entire program of places he needed to go over the next few days even though the real campaigning wouldn’t begin until after the July Fourth festivities. With his father’s blessing, Nancy had met with the float committee to discuss Drew’s role on the family float. She’d scheduled him to give the short speech before the picnic, a job his grandfather and father generally handled, and she’d lined up a press interview immediately afterward.

His family had been right. She was good at her job. She’d done her homework on Moriah’s Landing and she’d planned a solid strategy for getting his name in front of the community.

She was extremely attractive, and more than once he’d caught a hint of sensual awareness slumbering in her serious gaze. He gave her points for the subtle way she made her interest in deepening their relationship clear without coming on to him. They had a lot in common. Drew genuinely liked Nancy. She’d make a good political partner, but as tempting as she was, Drew hesitated to change their status. Resisting his family’s attempts at matchmaking had become a habit. He knew his father and grandfather had decided Nancy was an ideal choice for more than his campaign manager.

Drew watched as she took careful aim at her target. Her first two shots went wide. The next shot hit the black outline on the outermost fringe. Carey had talked her into competing in the novice category even though she’s said she’d never done any shooting before.

Because he was concentrating on Nancy, he never saw the figure pelting down the steep dirt incline until he turned back to take aim at his own target. He released the trigger instantly.

She ran like a puppet on a string—or someone at the tail end of their stamina. Her long, dark hair tangled around her face, hiding her features.

Drew yelled for everyone to hold their fire. But at the opposite end of the range, someone was shooting what sounded like a cannon. His voice had no hope of carrying over that sound.

Drew didn’t stop to think. He sprinted toward the woman.

She stumbled and fell, taking his heart down with her. In seconds she was up again, but staggering.

A barrage of bullets passed so close Drew could practically feel the displaced air. The woman jerked to an abrupt stop. She twisted to look behind her, her features contorted by a mask of sheer panic. She took a faltering step and went down again. This time she made no move to rise.

He reached her, crouching over her still form. Red blossomed on her dirt-stained, cotton-print blouse. The deep, dark color spread rapidly across her chest. He sought for the pulse in her neck. Weak. Thready. He could hear each ragged breath she took. The shallow bursts sounded as if each one might be her last.

Her head lolled to the side, giving him a clear glimpse of the red furrow that had plowed its way along the side of her skull, disappearing beneath her tangled hair. Without moving her, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had entered her head or not, but she was still alive.

The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Drew raised his face to yell for an ambulance.

Pressed against the fence at the top of the hill, Dr. Leland Manning drilled him with a stare of absolute hatred.

Shocked, Drew took a second to realize how the scene must look to the man. He was crouched over the woman’s body, gun in hand.

Footfalls pounded up to him, snapping the spell. Voices shouted. People surrounded him, with more rushing forward. Carey Eldrich elbowed him aside, squatting beside the woman.

“Ursula?”

Of course. Ursula Manning, Leland Manning’s beautiful new young wife.

“Don’t move her,” Drew cautioned, feeling ill.

The words came too late. Carey cradled her against his chest and stood. Blood streaked his arm, smearing his shirt.

“Where’s the ambulance?” Carey roared. He ran with her, trailing a path of bright red droplets in his wake. Drew glanced over his shoulder up the hill. Leland Manning was gone.

Bits of excited, disjointed conversation bounced around and through him as Drew rose unsteadily. He pushed his way through the crowd, following Carey.

“…call an ambulance?”

“…still alive?”

“Who is it?”

“…anyone called the…?”

“What was she doing out there?”

And that last question stuck in his head. An excellent question. What had Ursula Manning been thinking to run onto a live firing range like that? And where had she come from? Had she been running from her husband?

Someone gripped his forearm. He realized it was being shaken hard in an attempt to get his attention. Nancy Bell swam into focus. Her wide, pale eyes looked enormous. She looked from him to the gun still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, my God, Drew. Do you think you killed her?”

Chapter Two

Yesterday, news of the shooting had reached the diner less than half an hour after Brie started her shift. Details had been vague and wildly exaggerated as usual, but Brie couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone the perfectly behaved Andrew Pierce, standing on the gun range with an Uzi submachine gun.

He was back in town to stay. Excitement warred with fear. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. In four years he’d only made one halfhearted attempt to contact her after he left town for graduate school. Still, she was extremely thankful she’d left the firing range when she had. What if she’d run into Drew there?

Her heart gave a foolish lurch. Not that it had been likely, given the size of the crowd.

She hadn’t slept much last night as a result of her chaotic thoughts and today she had agreed to pull a double shift. Tiredly, she lifted the laden serving tray. The diner had been filled since she’d come on duty. People stopped by for a quick bite or something to drink or simply to share the news with anyone who hadn’t yet heard about yesterday’s incident at the gun range. The town had seen too much of this sort of excitement lately. Evil seemed to have set up housekeeping in Moriah’s Landing.

Three women had been murdered since the start of the year, their bodies brutally displayed for her friend, Elizabeth Douglas Ryan, to discover. Then, when a stalker went after another of her friends, Katherine “Kat” Ridgemont, people learned that the town’s prodigal son, Jonah Ries, was an undercover FBI investigator looking into the secret society that most of the local scientists were rumored to belong to. And now Jonah and Kat planned to marry. While happy for Kat, Brie couldn’t understand what was happening to their once peaceful town.

She set burgers and fries in front of Dodie and Razz. The local youths delighted in their reputation as the terrors of the neighborhood. Hard to believe Razz was her age. Even harder to believe that she had once accepted a date with him. She hated waiting on him and he knew it.

Normally, the two hung out at the arcade, but occasionally they came in for a sandwich. They were rude, noisy and never tipped. Razz liked to leer at her because he knew it made her angry, but he was careful not to take it any further than that. He hadn’t forgotten how successfully she’d fought him off that night in his car any more than she had. And she’d made it perfectly clear she’d do a lot worse if he bothered her again.

She suspected the pair were behind a lot of the mischief that had been going on here at the waterfront. It defied logic that they hadn’t been caught doing something illegal by now.

“That was a lot of blood, man,” Dodie was saying.

“Arterial blood,” Razz agreed, knowingly. “Bet she didn’t survive the ambulance run.”

“Think they’ll arrest Drew Pierce?”

A chill snaked down her back.

Razz gave his younger friend a hard shove.

“Don’t be stupid,” Razz growled. “Nobody touches the almighty Pierce family. Besides, there were lots of witnesses who can claim it was the woman’s own fault.”

“Including us,” Dodie said smugly.

“Shut up, stupid.” Razz gave him another shove and a kick under the table. Deliberately, he stared hard at Brie. “We didn’t get there until it was all over.”

He was lying, and boldly daring her to contradict him. Brie was tempted. She wouldn’t put much past the pair. Not even an accidental murder.

“Will there be anything else?” she asked politely.

“Yeah. Ketchup,” Razz sneered.

She picked up the bottle sitting inches from his left hand and plopped it in front of him. Without another word she turned away.

What she wouldn’t give to be able to go home and put her feet up. Maybe then her head would stop pounding. Then again, probably not. What she needed was sleep—something she hadn’t been able to achieve after talking with her mother’s doctor yesterday. His confirmation of her worst fears had left her too upset to even cry. Her mother was dying and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do.

Research was being done here in Moriah’s Landing, but clinical trials were a long way off yet. Even if the experimental procedure had been available, Brianna didn’t know how she could possibly pay for anything not covered by her mother’s medical plan. Last semester she’d gone back to college again for the first time since dropping out, determined to complete her degree. But if her mother’s medical bills were about to escalate, Brie didn’t see how she could continue. She’d need to purchase school supplies next month with money she didn’t have yet.

Going home early wasn’t an option today or any other day.

She pushed at another strand of hair drooping moistly against her forehead. A shorter style would be so much easier to manage. Maybe she’d ask her mother to help her chop some of it off tonight. Good haircuts were expensive—another luxury she couldn’t afford.

Rubbing her temple, she walked over to the booth where Rebecca Smith stared vacantly at a menu. A newcomer to town, Becca worked at Threads, the seamstress shop over on Main Street. Brie had been immediately drawn to the quiet woman the moment they met. The attractive blonde appeared to be close to her own age and Brie missed the tight-knit friendship she’d shared with Drew’s sister, Tasha, Elizabeth Ryan, Kat Ridgemont and Claire Cavendish. Even though Elizabeth and Tasha lived on the wealthy side of town, the five women had become close friends over the years. Tasha’s death five years ago, when her fiancé’s boat exploded, had hit them all hard. Especially since it had come on the heels of Claire’s abduction from St. John’s Cemetery the night of their college hazing.

Brie had never forgiven herself for allowing Claire to go inside the haunted mausoleum that night. They had all been scared, but Claire was the sensitive one, the one least able to fend for herself. Brie had always been stronger and street-smart. Maybe she could have fended off the person who kidnapped, then tortured poor Claire. But Claire had drawn the marked piece of paper and had insisted on going through with the ritual. And she had gone insane as a result of what had happened to her. Claire was better now, even living at home once more, but Brie wasn’t sure she would ever fully recover. They may not have seen the legendary Leary’s ghost that night, but he’d cursed them just the same.

While Brie’s friends stopped by the diner periodically, they were all living vastly different lives now. Elizabeth was happily married to Cullen Ryan, and Kat had finally captured the attention of Jonah Ries. Brie was honestly happy for her friends, but she was a bit envious all the same.

“Hey, Brie,” Becca greeted.

Brie smiled back. “Hey, yourself.”

“Is it true? Was someone killed out at the firing range yesterday?”

Brie shrugged unhappily. “That’s what everyone is saying.”

“You didn’t see it happen?”

“No, thank heavens. I wasn’t there very long.”

“I heard Andrew Pierce was involved. Isn’t he the man who’s going to run against Mayor Thane?”

“Yes,” she admitted, reluctant to think, let alone talk about Drew. “What can I get you today?”

Fortunately, as the bell over the door continued to chime, she had little time to chat. The day stretched on, but at least she was busy. Brie collected dirty dishes from a vacated booth, pocketing a generous tip gratefully. People were still waiting to be seated so she hurried. As she turned around her tray struck a passing arm.

She tried to steady the load, but a glass tipped, splashing her with the remains of a soda and ice. Hands suddenly steadied the tray from the other side. Dishes clattered together. Total catastrophe was narrowly averted.

She looked up and her words of thanks lodged in her throat. Instead of dishes, it was her world that came crashing down around her feet. People, sounds, even the heat faded away as she stared at the man holding the other side of her tray. Pain splintered the fragile wall she’d erected around her memories.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not here in the diner. This was her part of town!

Andrew Pierce’s impossibly brilliant blue eyes stared at her in shock.

“Brie?”

The sound of her name on his lips raised a lump of longing at the back of her throat. Drew stood there and she couldn’t utter a sound.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

His incredulous expression made it a whole lot easier to swallow the emotions churning inside her. She sensed his pity and that steadied her. Conscious of the room full of people, she settled for a terse reply.

“I work here. What are you doing? Out slumming?”

Again fluttered unspoken in the heavy air.

Dusky red climbed his neck.

Good. How dare he come here now? See her like this? In her fantasies they met one day in Salem or Boston or some other big city where she was a respected attorney. She would, of course, be perfectly dressed and not at all troubled by the sight of the only man she had ever loved.

His eyes narrowed. She couldn’t help but notice that his thick black lashes were still tipped with gold—just like her daughter’s.

“I came to see if the diner still carries that incredible blackberry pie,” Drew said bitterly.

If he’d slapped her, she couldn’t have been more hurt. Her hands trembled and the dishes clattered, threatening to fall once more. Memories of sharing blackberry pie and long conversations with Drew were painfully raw.

“I’m sorry,” he said so softly she wouldn’t have heard the words if she hadn’t seen his lips move.

“Andrew?”

Long, slender fingers rested against the skin of his lightly tanned bare arm. Brie felt as though those perfectly manicured nails had stabbed her soul. She hadn’t realized Drew wasn’t alone. She followed the nails up the arm to the face of the lovely woman at his side and discovered there were two curious men at his back, as well.

“Hello,” the woman said in a deep, pleasant contralto. “I’m Nancy Bell, Andrew’s…publicist.”

“Really?” The back of her throat actually ached. “How nice for both of you. Trying to change his image should prove quite a challenge. Have a seat and someone will be with you in a moment.”

“Ouch!” she heard Carey Eldrich exclaim.

“What on earth did you do to her, big brother?” Zachary Pierce demanded.

Brie didn’t hear his reply. She pushed her way clear, the dishes rattling dangerously. Drew’s stare burned a hole in her back all the way out to the hot, noisy kitchen where she nearly collided with Lois, the other waitress on duty.

“Whoa there!”

“Sorry.”

“Hey, kid, you look awful.”

“Thanks.” Just what she wanted to hear.

“You’re supposed to serve that stuff, not shower in it. Let me have the tray. That headache’s really getting to you, isn’t it?”

At the reminder, her headache returned with gleeful malice.

“Would you do me a favor, Lois? Another party just came in and I need to go take something. Would you cover their table for me?”

“Sure, kid. If you’re going to break down and take medication that must be some headache. You want to go home? I can probably manage alone. I think we’ve already fed the town twice over.”

More than anything in the world she wanted to go home.

“Thanks, Lois, but I’ll be fine. If you’d just take the new table…”

“Sure. Why don’t you go to the office and rest for a couple of minutes?”

“I’m okay.”

And she would be. Eventually. It was just the shock of seeing him again like that when she hadn’t expected it. What was he doing here? Why here of all places?

And why did seeing him again still have to hurt so much?

She refused to hide. It wasn’t like she could change into someone other than a tired waitress. But taking a few minutes to wipe off the sticky cola and pull herself together wasn’t hiding. And running a brush through her wild tangle of hair was hardly primping. She didn’t bother replacing the makeup the heat had melted away hours ago.

She’d take a pain reliever and go back out front, hold her head up and do her job. She had nothing to be ashamed of. She wasn’t a lawyer, but she was an excellent waitress.

If only were the saddest words she knew.

She swallowed two pain relievers dry and leaned her head against the cool metal filing cabinet, closing her eyes. But that only sharpened the images from the past.

Drew, laughing down at her.

Drew, flirting with her.

Listening to her.

Hungry for her.

Kisses hotter than any fire. Hands that sought—then found. Incredible sensations. Pleasure and need so explosively raw it trembled on the edge of the world.

The moan startled her.

Her moan. And with it came a longing so poignant it brought the threat of tears even closer.

“What am I doing?”

She straightened away from the filing cabinet. Nearly four years and the memories were still so vivid they could make her moan out loud. Her eyes burned with foolish tears. She would not let him do this to her. Never again. Drew was yesterday. Brie lived in today. Family, work, school—this was her reality.

Squaring her shoulders, she took several deep breaths until she could shut off the past. She had given her word and she wasn’t going to break it now. Andrew Pierce was out of her league and out of her life. While she couldn’t pretend he was just another male, she could go out there and face him without collapsing. Everything would be okay.

As long as Drew never learned that he was the father of her child.

No one must ever learn that secret. She would die before she’d lose her daughter to the mighty Pierce family.

“I’M SORRY, WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

Drew forced his attention back to Nancy and discovered she wasn’t the only one watching him with speculative eyes.

“I asked you if she was an old girlfriend,” Nancy said lightly.

“No. Just a friend.” Girlfriends were women you took to concerts or movies or parties. You did more with a girlfriend than talk with them and walk with them and buy them an ice-cream cone. Sadly, that pretty much summed up his relationship with Brianna. He’d never taken her anywhere—except on the public beach.

That memory still had the power to shame him.

He’d been twenty-four, stifled by his family and all the demands being placed on him. The year after Tasha’s death had been hard for all of them, and being home for an entire month that summer, at loose ends, edgy, angry, frustrated, he’d let Carey drag him to a party. He hadn’t wanted to attend. It had felt wrong to laugh and have fun when his sister was dead. But once he’d seen Brianna standing across the room, he hadn’t wanted to leave.

He’d definitely been a moth to the red-gold flame of her hair. He hadn’t known, then, she was his sister’s gawky, freckled-faced friend. There had been nothing gawky about Brianna that night. As if pulled by an invisible wire, he’d gone forward to cull her from the group, finding a relatively quiet corner where they could talk.

And talk they did. She was like no one he had ever met, laughing up at him with bright green eyes that sparkled with good-humored mischief.

Brianna. So vibrantly alive. The name had rippled in his mind, stirring the ghost of a memory, but he’d been too distracted to concentrate on anything besides her. She teased him over his stuffy manners, then vivaciously argued his family’s more conservative views. She was bright, witty and incredibly easy to talk to. Best of all, she wasn’t the least bit impressed at being in the company of a Pierce.

She had no idea what that alone was worth to him. She made him think, with her uncanny insight into people and actions. And she made him laugh—deep, honest laughter from the heart. And as the hours slipped away, he felt more freely alive than he had in a very long time.

She wouldn’t let him take her home. She wouldn’t give him her telephone number, not even when he used every ounce of his highly reputed charm. Brianna merely smiled. Drew had been convinced men would willingly die for that smile.

Shockingly, he’d wanted her, right there in the midst of that noisy crowd. He’d never had a jealous bone in his body until that night, but he realized he didn’t want her sparkling like that in front of all those other panting males. He cut them off with a look. Especially Carey. His friend’s reputation with women was legendary and Drew wanted Brianna all to himself.

He learned pathetically little about her that night. She was good at deflecting his questions. She was attending Heathrow College, determined to be a lawyer, but by the time she disappeared from the party, he’d wanted to know so much more. Brianna Dudley was a witch and Drew didn’t mind in the least being firmly under her spell.

Until Carey pointed out why her name was familiar. Brianna was Brie, his sister’s young friend! Since he hadn’t spent much time at home over the past several years, there was no reason for him to recognize the gorgeous young woman she’d become. She was a local girl who lived with her mother on the other side of town by the wharf. She was attending the prestigious local college, but only because she’d received a full scholarship.

Somehow, having been Tasha’s friend put Brianna out of bounds. But it didn’t stop his attraction. Despite his resolve, he couldn’t stay away from her. His family’s potential displeasure if they found out about the relationship probably played at least a small part in the fact that he continued to see her—on a purely platonic basis.

He spent lots of time eating pie at the Beachway Diner. Brie flirted lightly and so did he, glad she never took him seriously. That made it a little easier to ignore the enticing curves of her body and the way she always smelled so clean and fresh.

It had been much harder to ignore the play of lights gleaming in her enticing hair. Back then it had hung in shimmery red-gold curls nearly to her waist. Her hair had practically begged his hand to tangle in its flames. Drew spent a lot of time taking cold showers that summer while trying not to imagine how all that hair would look spread across his naked chest.

Physical attraction aside, Brie knew how to listen. He liked that about her. In fact, he liked everything about her.

He had a lot of respect for the goals she’d set. She was bright and eager with big plans for her life. Plans that didn’t include him, as she’d made perfectly clear the last time they had talked.

The memory was bitter even now. Not because she’d told him to get lost. He deserved much worse. He’d betrayed her trust. He’d betrayed his own honor. Worst, he’d hurt a valued friend.

Drew grit his teeth in regret. He couldn’t undo the past, but seeing her here today, he needed to understand. Why was Brie still serving customers instead of justice? What had become of all her dreams and plans? For some reason it felt important that he understand.

“Don’t let him kid you,” Carey was telling Nancy. “Drew had the hots for Brianna one summer. Then he found out she was just a kid. And from the wrong side of town at that.”

“She isn’t a kid anymore,” Nancy said.

“No. She sure isn’t,” Carey said thoughtfully.

Drew nearly leaned across the table with his fist. The primitive urge to turn that handsome face to pulp surprised him, particularly when it didn’t go away. He had to force his fingers to unclench.

“This is a very nice side of town,” Drew enunciated in a deadly soft tone of voice. “People who live over here don’t need expensive cars and lots of money to have a good time. They understand what’s really important.”

Carey blinked. His lips parted as the barb slid home. Zach perked up in his seat, alert to his brother’s shift in mood. Only Nancy appeared puzzled.

“Aw, hell.” Carey said. “You still have the hots for her, don’t you?”

“Don’t say another word, Carey.”

Carey clamped his mouth closed. Drew slid out of the booth and stood.

“Where are you going?” Nancy asked in concern.

“I need some air.”

“But you haven’t eaten yet.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Please sit down, Drew. We don’t want a scene. And we didn’t come here for the food, anyhow, if you’ll recall.”

He stepped out of reach of the hand she moved toward him. “No scenes. And there’s nothing wrong with my memory. I just don’t feel like campaigning right now. Excuse me.”

He strode outside without looking back. He was very much afraid if he did, he’d give in to his desire to grab Carey and use his friend’s face to relieve some of the tension roaring inside him.

Hazy, late afternoon heat shimmered in the air. The boardwalk teemed with people. From skimpy scraps of material daring to be called bathing suits, to the colorful garb worn by a local fortune-teller, people strolled and chatted gaily—in direct contrast to his somber mood.

Wheels, a bar a few doors down, opened to disgorge a tall black man in a biker uniform. Music blared at decibels that couldn’t possibly be good for the human ear. Drew changed direction. A cold beer suddenly appealed far more than a club sandwich and fries.

The biker gave him a hard stare. Drew’s expression must have been as fierce as his thoughts, because the man deliberately flexed his fingers and waited. Anticipation hummed through him. If this joker was looking for a fight, Drew was in the perfect mood to accommodate him. He hadn’t been in a brawl since—

“The last time you made that mistake, she paid the price.”

Drew pivoted, startled. The fortune-teller, known as Yvette, stood on the sidewalk only a few feet away, watching him with a fathomless expression.

“Excuse me?”

“You won’t find answers in the bottom of a bottle. Nor in a barroom brawl.”

His insides twisted. People passed between them. The seer didn’t move. Her utter stillness was uncanny. So was her knowledge of what he’d been thinking.

“Can I help you with something?” he finally asked.

She let out a troubled sigh. Almost reluctantly, she shook her head. Her thick, dark hair was as long as Brie’s had been that summer.

“No,” she replied sadly. “Nor can you help her. Not yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I wonder if she remembers that a kiss can break the spell,” she muttered under her breath.

A fruitcake. He hadn’t heard that about her, but that crazy outfit and all the jewelry she wore should have tipped him off. No one in their right mind would dress like that on a day like this.

“The beach is crowded,” she continued. “Still, a walk might clear your head. You’ve made a serious enemy, Mr. Pierce. Tread with caution.”

So she knew who he was. She probably also knew what had happened at the gun range yesterday. Did she think he’d killed Ursula Manning as Leland Manning seemed to believe?

A noisy group of teenagers cut between them, laughing and jostling one another as they passed. He followed the orange and green swirl of her skirt as the gypsy trailed the group into the busy diner without another word.

He was tempted to go after her and demand an explanation. Only what sort of explanation could he expect from a crazy person?

Besides, Brie was inside. For several long seconds he stood there uncertainly, more unnerved by the gypsy’s strange words than he wanted to admit.

The biker had given up the wait. He pulled out of the parking lot with a roar. Drew headed for the bar. At the last moment, he walked on past, heading for the entrance to the public beach.

The sand writhed with tan bodies, loud music and yelling children. The scent of water and suntan lotion mingled in the heavy, hot air. There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the mix together.

Had there been a breeze that night four years ago?

Drew couldn’t remember. Jake and Rider, two Vietnam veterans and co-owners of Wheels, had thrown him out after his second beer. Antihistamines and beer had made his head swim dizzily as he staggered to his car that night. His fingers had struggled to make the key fit in the lock without success.

Brie had appeared at his side, still wearing her uniform. Her hair had been slipping from its haphazard knot on top of her head, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a trace of makeup. Yet he’d wanted her with devastating intensity. It had been awfully hard to remember just then why he couldn’t have what he wanted.

He’d gone all gruff and macho when she’d tried to get him to go into the diner for a cup of coffee. He’d turned back to the car and dropped the keys. Brie had snatched them up, refusing to give them to him. When he tried to grab them from her, she took off running.

That had been all the stimulus he’d needed. He could still remember how his body sang with desire as he chased her down these rickety wooden steps. Stumbling, lurching across the empty sand, he’d wanted her more with each breath. So he caught her, tumbling them both down against a still-warm dune.

She’d tasted of pie and woman and she’d kissed him back with a hunger that had first startled, then stoked his ego enormously. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth. She strained against him, incredibly soft.

He hadn’t known. Hadn’t even suspected the truth. Brianna hadn’t kissed like a virgin. She’d kissed like a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. And she’d wanted him.

If she’d told him to stop he was pretty sure he could have. He liked to think he would have despite his condition. But she didn’t tell him to stop and his hands and his mouth had separated from his fuzzy brain.

Drew closed his eyes against the memory, but he could feel a swell of passion as clearly as if it were happening right now. The lush roundness of her breasts when he’d unbuttoned her uniform and pushed up her bra. The heady reaction to his mouth on her tender skin. She’d been so wild. A match to the tinder of his desire.

Maybe if he hadn’t mixed the drugs with the beer…but the combination hadn’t been nearly as potent as her mouth. He’d been wanting her for so long.

His hand tightened on the wood railing. In the dark, on that very public beach, he’d succumbed to primitive urges and claimed her innocence. Drew inhaled, surprised to find his body all but shaking at the memory. To this day, he couldn’t remember anything after that stunning shock and the incredible, mind-blowing pleasure of his own release. He had no idea how he got back to his car, or how Brie had gotten home.

One more ghost to prod his conscience.

He’d awakened hours later, alone and cramped, inside his car, sand all over his clothing. His keys had dangled from the ignition. If it hadn’t been for the lingering scent and taste of her, he would have told himself he dreamed the entire scene.

Guilt had been his harsh companion driving through the empty streets that morning. He had showered and changed, returning to the diner as soon as he could get away without complicated explanations.

If he lived to be a million he would never forget the smile of her greeting, or the way it had withered and died when he’d sputtered out an apology.

Brianna Dudley had haunted him for four years and he hadn’t realized how much until just now. He stared at the murky horizon and tried to force his stiff muscles to relax.

“You should take off your shoes.”

“What?” Drew looked down and found a small boy staring up at him.

“If you’re going walking on the beach you should take off your shoes. Otherwise they get sand in them and they feel yucky.”

The boy pushed at the bridge of his wire-framed glasses and regarded Drew solemnly.

“Yucky, huh? Isn’t the sand hot on your feet?”

The boy nodded.

“Then I guess I won’t walk down there after all.” Not even if the urge to see if that dune was still there was eating a hole inside him. The dune was probably gone, anyhow, or at least changed beyond recognition. And even if he recognized it, so what? He couldn’t undo the past.

But maybe he could find out why the present hadn’t changed. Maybe instead of a walk on the beach, he’d take a walk up the hill to where the clapboard houses sat like little boxes. If he was going to run for mayor he should see how his constituents on this side of town were coping with their lives.

Chapter Three

Reflected in the late afternoon haze, the houses appeared shabbier than he remembered, the neighborhood more run-down. The narrow cobblestone street was in bad need of repair. Yet flowers bloomed, even though most had a wilted look, as if they, too, struggled to survive.

Drapes were drawn tightly, doors and windows shut against the heat, adding to the neglected air. Even the noisy hum of window air conditioners didn’t detract from the deserted appearance. The late afternoon sun baked the neighborhood without the faintest whiff of a breeze.

Drew paused beneath the drooping leaves of a tall, gnarled tree that rose from the withered ground at the curb of the only house sporting open doors and windows. More weeds than grass covered the ratty lawn, while scraggly, misshapen bushes hid the peeling paint that covered the front porch with its sagging steps and broken railing. Brianna’s house. Or it had been. Did she and her mother still live here?

A group of young children in bathing suits suddenly erupted around the corner. Squeals split the depressing silence.

Rooted to the spot, Drew watched as the group clattered noisily up the steps. The screen door opened and a woman who could have been Brianna’s twin sister stepped outside. Only, Brianna didn’t have a twin sister. She also didn’t have a daughter, but the tiny little redheaded urchin leading the pack was definitely related.

The woman bent down and laughed at something the child said. She wiped at a smudge of dirt with a mother like flick of her thumb. The resemblance between the three was extraordinary.

Did they share the same intriguing spray of freckles across their faces?

The miniature Brianna threw her arms around the woman’s neck while the other four children chattered excitedly. High-pitched giggles completely destroyed the gloomy silence of the neighborhood. As the woman ushered the group inside, her gaze came to rest on him.

Now that he saw her features more clearly, he recognized Pamela Dudley. Old enough to be Brie’s mother, she was also young enough to have a three-or four-year-old daughter, he realized. The man he’d seen with Brie yesterday must have been her father.

Pleased at that thought, he became aware that the woman continued to stare at him. Exactly the sort of protective look a mother might give a stranger out of place in her neighborhood and paying too much attention to her child.

He offered her a friendly nod and started walking, trying to look casual. Great. She probably thought he was a child molester. He should have gone over and introduced himself.

As what? Her daughter’s first lover? The man who would be mayor? Drew lengthened his stride. He should have gone walking on the beach, after all. He only hoped Pamela Dudley didn’t call the police. He’d spent enough time with the forces of law and order yesterday.

Detective Cullen Ryan had been thorough. Ursula Manning was dead. Accident or not, Ryan needed to determine who had fired the fatal shots and why the woman had been there in the first place. Drew had had to curb his temper more than once as he answered questions repeatedly. He had never even met the woman. But he understood Ryan’s frustration. The man was a good cop and he had a job to do.

What had the woman been doing there?

Drew slowed his pace as he approached the corner where the crumbling brick strip club, Girls! Girls! and the Wharf Rat bar, shadowed the narrow sidewalk. This was not the greatest neighborhood to be raising a child. All sorts of unsavory types hung out down here.

When a figure suddenly stepped from the shadows of the bar, Drew’s heart jumped, even as he recognized Leland Manning. At least those rumors of Manning being a vampire weren’t true. Drew had seen him in daylight twice now, though both times those eerily cold eyes seemed to burn right through him.

“Dr. Manning,” he greeted. “I didn’t have an opportunity to offer my condolences yesterday. I really wish I could have reached your wife in time.”

Drew stopped, stunned by the malice in those deep-set eyes. In that instant, Drew had no trouble believing there was something unearthly about Leland Manning.

“You’ll pay,” Manning said coldly. “I’ll see to it.”

“Hey, I didn’t kill your wife,” Drew protested.

Manning strode past. Only then did Drew notice Jake Carpenter, co-owner of Wheels, standing on the sidewalk a few feet away.

“I was there yesterday,” the ex-marine said gruffly. “Damn fool thing, running out there like that. Only luck kept you from getting shot, too.”

“Tell it to Manning,” Drew said ruefully.

“Don’t think that dude’s of a mind to listen.” Jake gazed after Manning and his features puckered into a frown. Drew found his own heart thudding unevenly. Manning had vanished.

The men exchanged uneasy looks. Manning could have stepped into one of the shops lining the street, but it seemed unlikely given the nature of those establishments. Come to think of it, why would a grieving widower be in this neighborhood the day after his wife’s death?

“Guy’s weird,” Jake muttered.

Privately, Drew agreed. He didn’t know Manning, though his Uncle Geoff did.

“Hard to picture someone like him married to a woman like Ursula Manning.”

Drew rubbed his jaw, nodding in agreement. He still expected Manning to step out of one of the shops.

“Cops know what she was doin’ there?” Jake asked conversationally.

Drew turned his attention back to the beefy biker. “If they do, they aren’t saying.”

But Ursula Manning had been scared. Drew had seen her look toward the line of trees right before she fell. David Bryson had been lurking in those trees only a short time earlier—a fact Drew had been only too happy to share with the police.

So had Leland Manning.

“At least ballistics will show who fired the fatal shots,” Jake said. “That should change Manning’s attitude.”

“Hopefully.” While all the weapons had been confiscated for testing, in the confusion immediately following the shooting, things had been pretty muddled. It was possible the police had missed a gun or two.

“Understand Manning’s wife was a nature photographer from Salem,” Jake said thoughtfully. “Guess that might explain what she was doing in the woods, but you have to wonder what made her climb a clearly posted fence that way. She must have heard the gunfire.”

He was right. Which meant she’d deliberately run toward the sound, probably looking for help.

Jake tipped his head, consideringly. “Buy you a beer?”

Touched by the unexpected offer, Drew shook his head. “I’d like that, but I have some people waiting for me over at the diner. Another time?”

“Sure. Stop by Wheels any time you’re in the neighborhood.”

Drew headed for the diner without catching a glimpse of Leland Manning. Carey was standing outside, hands thrust in his pockets. There was an unusual slump to his posture. He straightened as soon as he spotted Drew.

“Where’d you go?” Carey demanded.

“For a walk.”

“In this heat? Are you nuts?”

“Drop it, Carey.”

Carey raised his palms in surrender. “Sure. Consider it dropped.” He sent a speculative gaze toward the bar. “Zach ran Nancy back to the estate. She’s not too happy with you right now.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“A little sweet talk wouldn’t hurt. She kept muttering something about damage control.”

“Nancy doesn’t need sweet talk from me. She works for me, remember?”

“Whoa. You are in a mood. Uh, look, I’m sorry if I ticked you off inside. You aren’t—you know—still interested in that waitress, are you? I mean, she’s got…” Carey took a hasty step back. “Oh, hell.”

“Don’t say another word,” Drew warned him. He couldn’t see his friend’s eyes, hidden behind dark sunglasses, but he sensed a whole stream of questions. Too bad. He didn’t owe Carey or anyone else an explanation. He strode over to where they’d parked and waited for Carey to hit the button that unlocked the passenger door.

“When do I get my car back?” Drew asked as he slid inside the bright green sports car he’d lent Carey several weeks ago.

“My car’s supposed to be out of the shop tomorrow if they get that part in. Do you need it before then?”

Drew shook his head. “Tomorrow’s fine.” He had other cars at his disposal.

They rode in silence, letting their private thoughts do the talking on the drive back to the Pierce compound. Carey pulled Drew’s sports car up in front of the main house instead of parking.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Drew asked.

“No. Thanks.”

“Look, I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.”

Carey regarded him soberly. “You know, don’t you?”

His stomach plummeted. “Know what?”

“One of the four of us must have fired the shots that killed her.”

BRIE WAS RELIEVED when she could finally take off her apron and head home a little early. Questions without answers had tormented her all evening as she took orders and waited tables. Andrew Pierce and the shooting were on everyone’s lips, especially after the way he left the diner before his food arrived.

New rumors were circulating. One had Ursula Manning attacked by bears in the woods. Another said she’d been kidnapped and held for ransom. Rumors being a way of life, Brie didn’t put much stock in any of them, but she did wonder about Drew’s abrupt departure. Seeing him again wasn’t supposed to be so traumatic. She wasn’t supposed to care anymore. Only, she had missed Drew and their long conversations over pie and coffee.

She’d always known he was going to be someone important in politics one day. He was so smart and he cared so much. And she’d used that knowledge to convince herself not to tell him about Nicole. Drew was an honorable man, who didn’t need a scandal or an unacceptable wife and child just because she’d been a fool. Yet sooner or later someone would tell him she had a daughter. Drew wasn’t stupid. He could do the math. Then what?

Why had he come to the diner today? People had long memories. Even without Carey’s careless remark, someone was bound to remember the summer he’d hung out at the diner. What if that someone went to the media? Nicole’s eyes were a dead giveaway to her parentage. Brie gripped her pad a little tighter.

A sense of helpless panic built inside her.

The residents of Moriah’s Landing tended to live by very narrow, old-fashioned codes of behavior. They didn’t hang women for being witches anymore or brand them with a scarlet letter, but they wouldn’t condone a Pierce getting a young girl from the wrong side of town pregnant, and then abandoning her to her fate. It wouldn’t matter to anyone that Drew hadn’t known about the child. He’d be expected to know. The gossip would destroy him—and his budding career in politics.

Depressed by the course of her thoughts, Brie said good-night to her co-workers and stepped outside. Her mind still raced with “what if” images as the hot muggy air of the night enfolded her.

A summer storm was brewing. She could feel it pulsing over the water. Her mother had always said Brie was better than a barometer. She searched the dark sky. It would thunder soon.

Her steps faltered. A cluster of men stood at the far end of the sidewalk in the gap between Wheels and the Bait and Tackle shop.

Little light reached that stretch of sidewalk. Not enough to identify the men. She was about to cross the street when she recognized Razz’s nasal voice. His words carried clearly, stopping her mid-stride.

“Pierce killed the Manning woman, all right, and who’s to say it was really an accident?”

“You mean he shot her on purpose?”

“Think about it. A good-lookin’ woman like that married to an old man? It’d be a heck of a clever way to get rid of an unwanted lover, don’t you think?”

“You think she was messin’ around with him?”

“Rider saw her get in Pierce’s car one day.”

“That don’t mean nothing.”

“I heard her wrists had marks like she’d been tied up,” another voice dissented.

“Maybe Pierce is into S and M,” someone else joked.

Brie knew she should keep walking. They were only gossiping like everyone else.

“Wait and see,” Razz said. “Some other poor slob will take the fall for her death. No one can say for sure who was shooting with which gun. Makes for a nice clean murder.”

“I don’t know, man…”

“Me an’ Dodie was there,” Razz persisted. “The whole town saw Pierce standin’ over her body. He looked guilty as sin. Nice, huh? We could elect ourselves a mayor who got away with murder.”

Fury washed away her common sense. Brianna strode forward, the slap of her soles echoing hollowly on the cobblestone street. All four heads swiveled in her direction.

“Do you know the penalty for slander, Edgar?” she demanded, using his hated given name.

Razz bristled. He loomed tall and menacing, but Brie refused to back down.

“Now, why do I have a feeling Mayor Thane paid you to spread that rumor? Must be because I saw him talking with you and Dodie out here a few hours ago. What’s the going rate for malicious gossip, Edgar?”

She had seen the mayor stop his car in the street to talk with them shortly after Drew abruptly left the diner.

“Watch your mouth, little girl,” he said.

“Does the truth hurt? You told me that you and Dodie didn’t get there until after the shooting,” she reminded him.

The three toughs looked from her to Razz. He bristled as he realized he was losing credibility.

“If you don’t want to get hurt, move along. This here’s a private conversation.”

“On a public sidewalk,” she fired back.

Her insides twisted at the sudden feral malice in his expression. Razz and trouble had always been synonymous. But even the night of her only date with him, she had never considered him dangerous.

Until now.

She should have kept her mouth closed and kept walking. But since she hadn’t, she knew better than to let him see any trace of fear.

“Fair warning, Razz. I wouldn’t make accusations like that so publicly if I were you,” she warned.

“Good thing you aren’t me, then.”

The four of them crowded close enough for her to smell the beer they had consumed. Belatedly, her common sense kicked in. The storm was gathering speed, closing in like them. A darting glance around showed the normally busy street was hauntingly empty. Even senile Arabella Leigh, who liked to walk this part of town at all hours, was nowhere in sight. The loud music reverberating from inside the bar would cover any scream for help she might make.

No question. She was in trouble.

Brie focused on Razz. “If Andrew Pierce had been responsible for Ursula Manning’s death, he would have said so,” she stated calmly, thrusting her hands inside the pockets of her uniform so they couldn’t see how badly she was shaking. “Yesterday was a tragic accident. Ursula ran onto the firing range during the tournament without warning. Drew tried to save her life.”

“Yeah?” Razz reached out deliberately and stroked her hair. Reflexively, she jerked back before she could stop herself, provoking a satisfied smile. She managed a glare, hoping he couldn’t hear the way her heart was trying to pound its way free of her chest.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you it isn’t smart to interrupt a private conversation?” Razz sneered menacingly.

“Yeah, you might get hurt or something,” the leering one added.

Her hand closed over the canister of mace she always carried. It was a small can. Nowhere near big enough to do her much good against four of them.

A dark shadow suddenly detached itself from the side of the bait shop.

“Is there a problem here?” a low voice asked quietly.

They whirled as one. David Bryson glided forward without a sound. He was dressed completely in black despite the heat, and there was something menacing in the uncanny way his features remained in shadow—as if he weren’t quite real.

“Brianna?” he asked.

Brie inhaled in relief at the sight of Tasha’s former fiancé, but she didn’t release her grip on the canister of mace.

“Beat it,” one of the toughs said.

“We’re havin’ a conversation,” the leering one added.

But as he faced the shadowy form of David Bryson, the leer faded. He suddenly appeared younger and weaker than he had just a moment ago.

“Is that right?” David asked softly. His gaze went to her. “Brianna?”

The others tensed, waiting for her verdict. Only Razz looked angry. She had just made a dangerous enemy no matter how she answered.

“It’s late,” she enunciated carefully. “I’m through talking this evening.”

“Yeah? Well, fine,” the self-appointed spokesman agreed. “Me, too. Come on, guys. We’ll see you around, Razz.”

Her shock mingled with relief as the group headed back inside the bar. Razz clenched his fists. He looked as if he wanted to protest, but after glancing at David he seemed to think better of what he’d been about to say.

“We’ll finish our talk,” he told her. “Another time.”

“That wouldn’t be advisable,” David warned. He reached out, stopping Razz in his tracks. A shudder passed through the youth before he jerked free of that hand.

“What are you?” Razz demanded. “Her keeper?”

“If necessary.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, struggling to regain some of his usual swagger.

“Do that…Edgar.”

Razz tried for one last look of intimidation that failed miserably. David simply waited. Razz added a glare for Brie’s benefit before sauntering toward the front door of the bar. Brie watched him go inside before she let herself relax.

“Thank you, David.”

There was no answer. David Bryson had melted back into the shadows without a sound.

Trembling from head to toe, Brie turned blindly back to the street. She would have to hurry now to beat the storm. She sensed it gathering to make a push inland. Car headlights momentarily blinded her when she would have stepped into the street. A vehicle braked to a halt directly in front of her. Her mouth went dry with new fear as the driver’s door burst open.

Andrew Pierce stepped into the street.

“Taxi?” he asked.

She tried to swallow. Surely her knees wouldn’t fold on her now. Not now. Not in front of Drew. A delayed reaction, that’s all it was. This weak, fluttery feeling had nothing to do with the fact he was standing a few feet away looking at her with boyish wistfulness.

“Wha-what are you doing here?”

“Offering you a ride home.”

“I’d rather walk.”

He came around the car. “I remember.”

He said it so gently she felt an inexplicable need to cry.

“You always did like to walk.”

Oh, God. His voice ran like a caress over nerves stretched too tight. She fought an urge to throw herself into his unsuspecting arms in relief.

“There’s a storm coming in,” he continued, “and you never carry an umbrella.”

Why did he have to remember that? It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to remember how thoughtful he could be. How could she ignore him with this longing welling up inside her all over again? Would she never outgrow her infatuation with Drew?

“Brie? Did something happen?” A new alertness came to his stance. His gaze swept her, the bar and the street, lingering on the dark shadows where David Bryson had stood only a few seconds ago. Drew couldn’t have seen him, so he must be picking up on her nervousness.

Before she could respond, music blared stridently as the door to Wheels swung open. They turned at the sound. Razz stood silhouetted against the faint light filtering onto the street. Blood thundered in her head. She sensed his satisfaction even as he stepped back inside.

Drew looked from the bar to her. “Friend of yours?”

She shuddered. “Not in a zillion years.”

His mouth firmed. He looked like a man ready for a confrontation. Her hand lifted to stop him and then had nowhere to go as he turned to her instead.

“You shouldn’t be walking out here alone at this hour.” He glanced back at the bar. “It isn’t safe. Get in the car, Brie. I’m taking you home. The weatherman says it could be a nasty storm.”

She knew. But she was more afraid of another sort of storm altogether. One that didn’t involve the weather. She should refuse and tell Drew to go. Right now Razz was probably inside with his friends spreading the news that she was out here talking to Drew.

He opened the passenger door.

A sudden cold wind gusted across the beach. Lightning forked the distant clouds. Brianna slipped inside the car.

As she sank into the plush leather seat she tried to tell herself this wasn’t a mistake. Drew’s car was blocking traffic—or would be if there had been any. She couldn’t make a scene out here where anyone might see them. But now she was alone with Drew. Awareness enfolded her as he slid in beside her.

“New car?” she asked nervously. “Didn’t you used to have a green sports car?” Thank heaven this was a larger sedan. His presence still managed to take too much of the oxygen from the close quarters.

“This is one of the family cars. I lent Carey my car last week. His is in for repairs.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. A wind gust sent sand pelting against the car. Rain followed on its heels. Drew flicked the windshield wipers on high and put the vehicle in gear.

She stared at the rhythmic swish of the wipers to keep from staring at him. The scent of his aftershave was an unwelcome sensual assault on nerves already stretched too thin.

“You shouldn’t be walking these streets after dark,” he chided.

“When you get to be mayor you can pass a law,” she told him dryly. “No walking after dark.”

“So you heard about that.”

“I work at gossip central—otherwise known as the Beachway Diner. Of course I heard you plan to run for mayor. Probably before you even made the decision to run.”

He flashed her a grin and her heart stood still. How was it possible to feel so enervated, yet so completely aware all at the same time?

“I keep forgetting about the gossip mill,” he said.

The wipers strained to clear the windshield. She didn’t know how he could drive in this downpour. She couldn’t see a thing. He flicked on the defroster and both hands gripped the steering wheel as wind rocked the car.

“What just happened back there?” he asked softly.

“Nothing.”

He glanced at her but had to concentrate on the road. That gave her an opportunity to study the subtle changes in him. He’d always been incredibly handsome, but now youthful charm had surrendered to a far more formidable maturity. He exuded an inner confidence, as if he’d finally come to terms with who he was and where he was going.

The knowledge was bittersweet. She was glad for him, but sorry because it opened the gap between them to an impossible chasm she couldn’t hope to breach.

“Brie?”

He pulled into her mother’s driveway and stopped the car. His stare was as potent as a touch against her skin.

“Was someone hassling you tonight?”

“I made a mistake in judgment.” A big one. “It won’t happen again.”

“Is that why you’re shaking?”

She clasped her hands together tightly. “Your defroster is cold.”

He switched it off.

“Thanks. And thanks for the ride,” she added quickly.

His hand closed over her arm before she could find the handle to the door. The unexpected contact was electrifying. For a moment neither of them moved.

“Brianna.” He breathed her name as if he, too, had been jolted. He shook his head quickly as if to clear it. “We need to talk.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? We used to talk all the time,” he said gently. “Remember?”

Ridiculous tears stung her eyes. Defensively, she reached for sarcasm. “Sure, I remember,” she managed to say lightly. “Do you want ice cream on that pie? Will it be coffee or soda today?”

His jaw set. The pulse in his neck quickened, making her ashamed.

“Please let go of my arm, Drew.” What would she do if he refused? “It’s late and I’m very tired.”

He withdrew his hand slowly, trailing it over her skin. Her belly quivered. Wind-driven rain continued to beat against the car. He stared as if he were trying to see past her words to read her chaotic thoughts.

Oh, God. He could convey so much in a simple look. She’d dreamed about those remarkable eyes, but never once had she pictured them filled with a sadness that nearly matched her own.

“What happened, Brie?”

“I told you—”

“I don’t mean tonight, though I want to know about that too. What happened to all your plans? Why are you working in the diner instead of a courtroom in Boston?”

She tried to summon anger, but his expression made that impossible. All she had to do was open the door and leave. Why couldn’t she make her fingers cooperate?

“What are you doing here, Drew?”

“Trying to talk with you.”

“We did all our talking a long time ago.”

“Did we?” Holding her gaze he leaned forward, stroking the side of her face.

Brie quivered. She leaned into that caress without thought, automatically turning her face into his palm. It had been so long.

He leaned closer, until the seat belt brought him up short. Raising her chin with his fingers, he gazed at her. She felt his breath against her cheek. Her heart fluttered wildly in anticipation of his lips on hers once more.

Lightning flared, a catalyst that knifed through the chaos of her emotions.

“No!”

She jerked free. Drew sat back.

Then the windshield exploded outward in a clap of sound.

Chapter Four

In the instant it took his mind to process what had happened, his body was already reacting. “Get down!” Drew shouted. He tugged her across the seat and covered her body with his own.

Rain pelted the car. Thunder rumbled. He registered the sound of a car speeding away. By the time he lifted his head, there were only two red taillights disappearing in a blur.

Brie sat up slowly.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

“I think so. What happened?”

He watched her puzzlement change to dawning comprehension and then horror as she stared at the hole in the windshield.

Drew reached for his cell phone.

“Wait! What are you doing?” She grabbed for the instrument.

“Take it easy. I’m calling the police.”

“You can’t!” She snatched the phone from his hand and tossed it over the seat.

“Why did you do that?”

“You can’t call the police.”

“Why not? Someone just shot at us.” And he had a pretty good idea who that someone was.

“Don’t you realize what will happen if it gets out you were here with me?”

Panic edged her voice up an octave. She was shaking, and he had to grip her arm to prevent her from getting out of the car. “What are you talking about?” Her eyes were wide, dark orbs. Getting shot at was enough to terrify anyone, but he sensed there was more going on here. He had a sudden image of the older man he’d seen her with at the gun range. “Have you got a jealous boyfriend?” Or worse, “Are you married?”

“Of course not!”

She wasn’t married.

“I have to go inside,” she said gripping the dashboard with whitened knuckles. “My…mother will be worried.”

“Brie, someone shot at us!”

“I know,” she said, obviously shaken. “But it couldn’t have been Razz.”

Razz? “Do you mean that punk kid who hangs out at the arcade?”

Lightning flashed in the distance.

“That punk kid is my age,” she said without inflection.

Drew cursed under his breath. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“Razz may be a boy in your eyes, but he’s no friend of mine.”

Rain drummed against the car. He looked from the bullet hole to where she perched on the edge of the seat, hands defensively crossed over her chest. A horrible thought skated through his mind. He’d been so certain Leland Manning had fired the shot. But what if it hadn’t been meant for him at all?

“Are you in some sort of trouble, Brie?”

A loud rumble of thunder made her start. “Of course not, but you know what this town is like. The gossips will have a field day. A mayoral candidate sitting in a parked car with a local waitress.”

She was right. They would.

“Please, I have to go inside,” she said quickly before he could ask why that mattered. “I have to make sure my…my mother is all right.”

Lightning flared, making her freckles stand out against her pale skin.

“Wait. Why did you mention Razz? Is he hassling you?” She’d been staring at the alley between the buildings as he’d driven up tonight. He’d even wondered then if something had spooked her. “Are you afraid of Razz?”

Quickly, Brie shook her head. “Of course not! I only thought of him because…well, I embarrassed him tonight in front of his friends. But he wouldn’t come after me with a gun because of it.”

She was hiding something. He could sense it.

“Don’t worry, I can handle Razz.”

Razz was a petty hood. He wouldn’t take well to being embarrassed, but firing a rifle at her would be pretty extreme.

“I only know Razz by reputation.”

“Then you know Razz,” she said dryly.

The rain showed no sign of slackening. Drew knew it wasn’t safe for them to continue sitting there in the car. No matter which of them the shot had been intended for, there was only one course of action. “Fasten your seat belt, Brie, we’re going to the police station.”

“And tell them what? Someone we didn’t see in a car we can’t identify drove up behind us and fired into the car? What do you think the police will do about this?”

“They’ll investigate for one thing.”

As the sky lit again he noticed the tiny lines of strain etched around her eyes and mouth. The rough skin of her hands attested to how hard she worked. Only now did he realize how thin she was beneath that shapeless uniform. Frustration hammered at him, matching the rhythm of the rain.

“I can’t believe it was Razz, and Police Chief Redfern will never let his officers question Frederick Thane about a drive-by shooting.”

The mayor’s name was so unexpected he could only gape at her.

“Are you saying you think the mayor of Moriah’s Landing drove up behind us and tried to kill me?” he finally asked incredulously.

“Of course not. He hires people to do his dirty work. You’re a threat to him, Drew—not like the others who had the temerity to run against him in the past. I’m pretty sure he hired Razz and his friend Dodie to spread a vicious rumor around town. Razz is saying that you murdered Ursula Manning because you were having an affair with her.”

The storm was sweeping farther inland, but the incessant rain continued to batter the roof of the car. The night had taken on a surreal feeling.

“Spreading rumors is a long way from murder.” And then it struck him. “Is that why you and Razz had words? Were you defending me?”

She opened the door and stepped from the car before he could stop her this time. Rain plastered her hair to her head and molded the thin cotton uniform to her body.

“Call the police,” she said, bending over the open door. “I’m sure they’ll do up a nice little report for you, there isn’t much else they can do. And if anyone bothers to question Razz, I guarantee you he’ll have an airtight alibi with a dozen questionable witnesses.” She wiped at the water streaming down her face. “Be careful, Drew. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from this part of town from now on.”

Brie shut the door and ran across the lawn and up the sagging front steps. Unlocking the door, she slipped inside without looking back. The porch light winked out at once. Lightning starkly outlined the house against the storm-filled sky.

Brianna was afraid.

He stared at the bullet hole. A matching hole was visible in the rear window. A very well-placed shot given the wind and rain conditions. Either a marksman had tried to kill one of them, or it had been an incredibly lucky shot. The smart thing—the only sane thing to do—was to have the police investigate.

Drew made no move to recover his cell phone from the back seat.

He had noticed some of the posted scores at the tournament yesterday. Frederick Thane was an excellent marksman.

PULLING UP TO THE MAIN house at the family compound, Drew tried to figure out why he wasn’t sitting at the police station. He let himself inside and headed down the hall to his father’s office. The opulent house was as silent as a tomb. He stepped inside the empty office and closed the door behind him.

Had he made a serious mistake tonight?

Wind swept against the house, rattling the bank of windows with a mournful howl. Drew thrust his hands in his pockets and stared out at the night. Not that there was much to see. The compound had been designed with privacy in mind. Thick stands of evergreens sheltered the house and the outbuildings from prying eyes. So did the ivy-covered stone walls that surrounded the patrolled grounds.

Out on the cove, a foghorn emitted its mournful warning.

“Just what I need, more atmosphere.”

Moriah’s Landing had always offered that. He wondered what his ancestors would make of the town today. Running a hand through his damp hair, he gazed unseeingly around the dark, richly paneled office. There was a musty feel to the room. The scent of old cigar smoke lingered in the dark burgundy carpeting and the expensively upholstered guest chairs.

The room’s lamps seemed muted, as if the light cowered from the dark shadows hovering in the corners of the room. Drew knew just how that light felt. In those shadows he could almost feel the eyes of his ancestors watching in judgment to see what he would do next.

He strode to the ornately carved serving table, uncorked the heavy lead crystal decanter and poured himself a snifter of the very expensive brandy his father kept there. He hated brandy, yet it seemed oddly appropriate at the moment. If Brie’s assumption was correct, he’d nearly joined his ancestors tonight.

He lifted the glass in mocking salute to the ghosts of the past and swallowed a healthy dose of the thick, syrupy alcohol. Instantly, liquid fire seared a path straight down his throat.

Drew managed not to choke.

There was a delicate knock and Nancy Bell stepped inside the room. Her gaze went straight to the glass in his hand and her worried expression deepened. “Drinking alone?”

“Unless you’d care to join me.”

“I don’t like brandy.”

“Me neither.” He set the balloon glass down.

Nancy had opted to stay at the main house rather than one of the guest cottages while she was in town. He’d expected to find her here in the office discussing politics with his grandfather at this hour.

“What’s going on, Drew?” Nancy demanded without preamble. “You can’t pull scenes like the one in the diner today and expect to win an election. Especially not after what happened at the tournament yesterday. If something in your past is coming out to bite us, I need to know about it now.”

Nancy glided forward, letting her soft fingers linger against his skin in subtle invitation. Her perfume mingled with the scent of brandy.

“Someone shot a hole through the family sedan tonight.”

“What?” She dropped her hand.

Without embellishment, Drew told her everything, including his earlier encounter with Manning, and his suspicion that the scientist had shot at him to get even for his wife’s death. Nancy heard him out in silence, though her body tightened at the mention of Brie’s name.

“I know you often work with an investigator, Nancy. Do you think he can find out where Frederick Thane was tonight without raising eyebrows or stirring a lot of talk?”

“You can’t believe he was responsible. This is incredible.”

Nancy paced the room. Drew thought she looked perfectly at home in his father’s study. Stylishly elegant, without a hair out of place, he could all but hear her mind whirring as it sorted actions and ramifications.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t call the police.”

Drew wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t either. His stomach contracted every time he thought about how close the shot had come. “Because we didn’t see the person or even the car well enough to identify it so there wasn’t much point. It’s a situation ripe for public speculation.”

“Yes. It is. Thane has been mayor a long time. My team learned a few disturbing things during the preliminary investigation, but we couldn’t find proof of illegal activities.” She paced rapidly, frowning. “You should have called the police. On the other hand, if the shot was intended for the waitress—”

“Her name’s Brianna,” he said sharply. “She’s a friend of mine who just happens to be a waitress.” Drew remembered Brie’s words. How do you think it will look? A mayoral candidate, sitting in a parked car with a local waitress.

Nancy ignored his rebuke. “We definitely don’t want to stir up a lot of negative talk around town, which this would definitely do. I’ll put some people on Thane and this Razz.” She came to a halt in front of him. “Do we have a real name for him?”

“His last name is Razmuesson. I’m not sure about his first name.”

“I’ll find out.”

Nancy laid her hand on his bare arm. Drew couldn’t help but contrast its softness to Brie’s work-roughened skin.

“The theory that Thane tried to kill you makes little sense. Manning is a possibility, given his verbal threat, but I’m more inclined to think your friend was the intended target. Carey told me you haven’t seen her in years. Who knows what she may be involved in?”

Drew wanted to defend Brie, but hadn’t he had similar thoughts all the way back to the compound?

“I’ll put the investigators on Brianne Dudley and Leland Manning as well. We’ll see what turns up.”

Drew hesitated. His first instinct was to protest an invasion of Brie’s privacy. Only, if she was in trouble, maybe there was some way he could help.

“The police called while you were out,” she added with a frown. “They want to talk to you again.”

“Was it Cullen Ryan?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll call him back in the morning.”

“We need to hire a bodyguard for you.”

“No bodyguards!”

“But—”

“Nancy, either you’re working for my father and my grandfather or you’re working for me. You need to decide.”

Her hand lingered against his skin. As she gazed at him earnestly, he couldn’t miss the subtle invitation in her eyes. Poised, confident, experienced, Nancy was as intelligent as she was attractive.

“I work for you, Andrew. I made that decision when I told you I’d take the job. Your father has an excellent campaign manager of his own, and your grandfather doesn’t need one anymore.”

“Then I’ll go back to my place and get to work on that speech you want me to make.”

“Would you like me to…help?”

Looking at her perfect creamy skin, he found himself missing a spray of freckles and bright green eyes.

“Thanks, but I need to do some thinking tonight.”

A bit wistfully, the hand dropped from his arm.

“If you change your mind…”

“Thanks, Nancy.”

He watched the subtle sway of her hips as she left, closing the door behind her. Nancy Bell was a class act. A man could do a lot worse than have a woman like her for a partner. As long as the man didn’t lose sight of the fact that she had an agenda of her own.

“Everyone has an agenda,” he told the shadows. The windows rattled in answer.

The Pierce family agenda had always been law and politics and science. Anton Pierce had been a savvy lawyer as well as a respected politician. His wife’s family fortune had added a great deal to the Pierce family coffers. Ever since Drew could remember it had been drummed into him that a politician needed the perfect wife.

“Sow your oats while you can, boy,” his grandfather had told him the summer after Tasha died. “But you be careful around doxies like that one down at the wharf you’ve been sniffing after. Use common sense. There must be no scandal to mar our family name. The public is sick and tired of political scandal.”

“Brie is hardly a doxie,” he’d said, bristling, trying to hide his surprise that the old man knew of his interest in young Brianna Dudley. “She attends Heathrow College, you know.”

“On a full scholarship,” the old man had said dismissively. “She has no money, no name, no clout, no connections. The woman you select for a wife must be a perfect fit. Can you honestly see that redheaded hoyden sitting down to dinner with the governor?”

The image had brought a smile to his lips then, even as the memory did now. Brianna Dudley didn’t have a conservative bone in her body. But when she smiled at Drew with that open, innocent smile, he stopped thinking past tasting those tempting lips.

A tap on the office door brought him back to reality. Zach cracked the door open and stuck his head inside.

“You busy?”

“I’m supposed to be working on my speech. Come on in.”

Zach skidded to a halt when he spied the brandy snifter. “I thought you hated brandy. What next? Cigars with the good old boys?”

“Stick a sock in it, Zach.”

“What did Ms. Perfect say to upset you now?”

Drew set down his glass and studied his younger brother. There was an edginess to his voice that belied his casual slouch. “Nancy didn’t upset me. We were talking strategy.”

“Yours or hers?”

Surprised by the astute question, Drew cocked his head. “Is there a point to this conversation?”

His brother slumped against the bookcase. “I need some advice.”

“From me?” He kept the surprise out of his voice.

“Even you get some things right.”

“Like what?” Drew asked suspiciously.

“Women.”

Drew forgot to inhale.

“You’ve got a reputation.”

Embarrassed, he forced himself not to look away. “It’s highly exaggerated.”

“Hey, this is me, remember? I don’t just read the paper. Last year there was the fashion model, then that actress, and—”

“Knock it off. They were just women I dated.”

“Exactly. You must use a scorecard to keep track.”

“What’s your point, Zach?”

“You’ve dated at least a dozen women in the past couple of years and you’ve managed to remain friends with all of them.”

Except for one redheaded hoyden.

“So I want some advice.”

“You want to break up with someone without hurting her feelings?”

“No! You didn’t marry any of these women despite the pressure coming from Dad and Grandpa and everyone.” Zach rushed as if he had to get the words out quickly. “How did you know none of them were the right woman?”

A sinking feeling settled over him. Drew tried for a light approach. “You thinking of getting married?”

“Maybe.”

He ran a hand over his jaw. “You’re serious.”

“About Emily, I think I am.”

“Emily? You don’t mean Emily Ridgemont, do you?” Emily Ridgemont was Kat Ridgemont’s younger half sister. Kat had been part of the group their sister used to run around with. The last he’d heard, Kat was working as a private investigator with an office down by the wharf. He didn’t know anything about her kid sister, though he’d heard some rumors that she had a crush on his brother. Drew hadn’t paid any attention at the time.

“I thought you had more sense.”

Zach flushed. “She’s special, Drew.”

Drew shook his head. “She’s a kid, Zach. She can’t be more than what—sixteen?”

“Seventeen. Almost eighteen. And she’s very mature for her age.”

“She’s jailbait, Zach! If Dad finds out…”

“He won’t. And even if he does, I don’t care. I’m not the one being groomed to be president of the United States.”

Drew sucked in a breath. He regarded Zach with fresh eyes. At twenty, his brother’s boyish good looks were firming, taking on the more defined features that come with maturity.

“Want to trade places?” Drew asked softly.

Zach’s gaze shifted away. “What I want is to protect Emily. I like her, Drew. I really like her. When we’re together, I feel—I don’t know, different. When we’re apart I can’t stop thinking about being with her. Wait until you meet her. She isn’t like anyone else. I don’t even notice other women anymore.”

Drew winced. More than anything, he wished this conversation wasn’t taking place. He felt singularly unequipped to handle a discussion on his brother’s love life.

“What should I do?” Zach asked earnestly.

Drew exhaled. “Take it slow.”

Zach scowled.

“Hey, you wanted my advice. For what it’s worth, I’d go slow. Some women want lavish presents and expensive—”

“Em isn’t like that.”

Once again Drew recognized the man Zach was becoming. It was like looking through a mirror at his own past. For just an instant he was jealous of the world of opportunities his brother had yet to explore.

“Never mind,” Zach said, coming away from the bookcase. “Forget I mentioned it. You don’t understand.”

“You’re dead wrong.”

Zach stopped walking.

“I know exactly how you feel.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why you keep a harem.”

“Harems are too much work. But there’s safety in numbers.”

“Yeah? So who was she? The woman that sent you running for safety. This is a whole new side to you. What happened? Dad or Grandpa scare her off?”

Drew’s breath suddenly caught in his chest. Why had he never considered that possibility? Because surely Brie would have come to him.

“Oh, man. Is that what happened?” Zach asked.

“No.” Brie wouldn’t run from a fight, nor would she scare easily. But four years ago she’d still been pretty young. Almost as young as Emily Ridgemont.

“I can just see the old man now shelling out a bundle to pay her off. Emily would never dump me for money.”

A hollow feeling opened in the pit of his stomach.

“That isn’t what happened.” It couldn’t have been. He hadn’t needed his grandfather’s help. “I destroyed the relationship all by myself. I got blitzed one night and…” He hesitated, not wanting to admit what he’d done. But if it would save his brother from making the same mistake. “I destroyed something special.”

Zach stared at him.

“If I’d gone a little slower, given her more time…” He shrugged.

“More time for what?”

The memory was a bitter weight on his soul. “To grow up.”

Zach blinked. “Man, she really ripped you, didn’t she?”

Drew shifted uncomfortably. “Forget it. Next time you want advice, write to one of those columnists in the newspaper.”

For a moment, they regarded each other in mutual embarrassment. “Slow, huh?” Zach said finally.

Drew shrugged. “While you’re a man—”

Zach’s eyes widened.

“—seventeen’s really young, Zach. If what you’re feeling is real, it will wait—and so will she.”

Zach pursed his lips thoughtfully. “So I shouldn’t overwhelm her.”

“Exactly.”

Zach reached for the door handle. “Thanks.”

Drew sank back, feeling oddly depleted as his brother left. He stared at the ornately carved wood, alone with the shadows of his troubled thoughts.

He’d taken something precious from the young girl Brie had been. Could he give something back to the woman she had become?

Drew stalked back to the window. It had stopped raining and a light mist was rolling in over the compound. Clouds circled the moon, making him think of vampires and werewolves. Too many horror movies when he was a kid.

He was about to turn away when something moved in the yard.

Chapter Five

Acting on instinct, Drew reached for the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. Standing to one side of the window, he strained to see.

Hunched over, someone crept up the twisty garden path. Drew realized whoever it was would pass close to his window, so he waited.

The figure kept looking toward the house, watching the windows. Remembering the bullet hole through his windshield, he thought about the gun his father kept here in the safe. But Drew had had enough of guns. He wanted answers, not another dead body.

Pausing a few yards from where Drew stood, the person stared up at the window over Drew’s head. His parents’ bedroom! A faint curl of light from that room reached the man’s features. Some of the tension drained from Drew’s body. Geoffrey Pierce nodded to himself, straightened and set off again more briskly.

His uncle had his own place near Drew’s. A bitter man who felt the scientific community overlooked his accomplishments, Uncle Geoff claimed he was working on a project that would finally get him the scientific acclaim he felt was his due.

Drew had been hearing vague rumors. Now, watching his uncle prowl the grounds in such a secretive manner, Drew knew it was time to pay attention. The last thing any of them needed was a scandal in an election year.

Drew wasn’t overly fond of his father’s brother, anyhow. Geoffrey Pierce was a strange man. Tall and slender with thinning blond hair, he was handsome like all the Pierces. Only there was a cruel set to Uncle Geoff’s lips and an intensity to his stare that made him manage to look both sinister and weak.

He’d been working closely with Leland Manning recently. Drew knew both men were members of a secret scientific society, but the existence of the organization was an open secret around town. No one had thought anything about it until the FBI began an investigation into members of the group.

Now he wondered about his uncle as the man scurried off, swallowed up by the mist.

DREW’S MOUTH WAS DOING incredible things to hers. His hands held her, stroking gently. She could die from the sensations alone. He made her want with intense yearning. She uttered a tiny sound of demand. Her body sang with need.

Only there were voices nearby. Someone was cutting the grass, coming closer and closer. They’d be discovered if they didn’t stop. But she didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to be part of her as they were meant to be.

The sound of the lawn mower bumping the wall below her bedroom window brought Brie bolt upright on the bed. Sunshine and stifling heat filled her room despite the fan she’d left running all night. She struggled to sort dream from reality.

Drew had been making love to her. She’d lived that dream before. But someone really was mowing the lawn. Her lawn!

Her mother shouldn’t be out there cutting the grass!

Tossing aside the badly crumpled sheet, Brie ran to the open window to peer through the screen.

Her mother wasn’t mowing the lawn.

Andrew Pierce pushed a shiny wide mower against the edge of the house.

Impossible. Brie wondered if she were still dreaming. He certainly looked like a fantasy. Dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a trim, fitted white shirt with an open V-neck collar Drew could have stepped from her dream. His lightly tanned skin glistened in the hot, humid air. Muscles rippled as he worked.

He was breathtakingly gorgeous.

Drew paused and raised his head, looking directly up at her window. Brie inhaled sharply. He couldn’t possibly see her through the screen. Could he? His features were partially hidden beneath a baseball cap and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. He gave her a heart-stopping smile and waved cheerfully.

“Oh, my God.” He had seen her!

Nicole!

Brie dashed for the bedroom door. Her daughter’s room stood open and empty. So did her mother’s room.

“Mom! Mom!” Brie yelled as she flew down the stairs, nearly falling over Max in her panic. Her poor little feline skittered quickly out of her path, racing along in her wake at this new and puzzling game.

Her mother’s pet cockatoo, Fitzwiggy, spread his snowy white wings in a flutter of panic as Brie burst into the kitchen.

“Where’s the fire? Where’s the fire?”

Fitzwiggy had picked up several of her mother’s favorite expressions and he sounded hauntingly human when he spoke. Max walked over to give him a perfunctory hiss. Brie ignored them. Where was her daughter?

“Mom?” But she knew the house was empty. There were voices outside. What was going on?

“Hello. Hello. Hello.”

“Be quiet, Fitz.”

As if agreeing, Max turned with feline dignity to pointedly ignore his nemesis.

“Bad cat,” Fitzwiggy told him. “Bad cat.”

Bad Cat sauntered over to investigate his food bowl. His action pulled Brie’s gaze to a note propped conspicuously against the teapot on the counter over the food dish.

The sight of her mother’s clear handwriting calmed her fears even before she started reading.

Mary Jackson and I took the children to the beach for the afternoon. I turned off your alarm so you could sleep in. You’ve been working too hard, darling. Don’t be annoyed. We’ll be back before you go to work.

Love, Mom

Brie leaned against the counter in relief. Her daughter was safe. She wasn’t even here.

The kitchen clock read eleven-thirty. How could it possibly be eleven-thirty? She hadn’t slept much last night, but she was always out of bed by eight. Always. She must still be dreaming. Andrew Pierce could not be in her yard mowing the lawn.

The back door swung open. Brie grabbed the closest item at hand. Andrew Pierce strolled inside as if he’d been doing so for years. He stopped abruptly, looking surprised to see her standing there in her own kitchen.

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead. Planning to make tea or throw that pot at me?”

His lazy perusal flooded her with heat.

“Hello. Hello. Hello.”

Drew removed his sunglasses and set them on the table. He wasn’t the least bit startled by the bird’s greeting. Fitzwiggy fluttered his wings in a bid for attention.

“Hello,” he chirped. “Hello.”

“Hello again, Fitzwiggy.”

Drew knew the name of her mother’s bird?

Max stopped crunching. He walked over and began rubbing against Drew’s pant legs. He too acted as if Drew’s presence was an accepted, everyday occurrence.

“Hey there, Max.” Drew bent to stroke her cat. He arched his traitorous back in feline pleasure.

“Again?” Her voice came out rusty, like it often did when she’d just rolled out of bed.

“Sure. We met this morning.”

“You…” Had he seen Nicole? No, he couldn’t have. He wasn’t acting like a man who had just met his daughter. Nicole must have gone down the street to Mary’s house to wait for her grandmother before Drew had arrived. “What are you doing here?”

Her pulse stuttered, then raced into overdrive as Drew slowly swept her from head to toe with a gaze of masculine appreciation. His impossibly blue eyes shuttered with a slumberous look of desire. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

“I’m mowing the lawn,” he said softly.

“I know that.”

Drew smiled, a slow, sensual smile. Brie could barely hear over the thrumming of her heart.

“Did I wake you? I had no idea you liked to sleep until noon.”

“I don’t. And it isn’t noon yet,” she said defensively. She could feel the heat scalding her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

“You mean right here, inside your house? It’s okay, you know.” His rumbly voice lowered even further, conspiratorially. “Your mother told me to walk in and help myself—”

Her brain stopped functioning. Fantasies, memories, erotic dreams all flooded into her awareness in a rush.

“—to the pitcher of lemonade she left for me.” He added the last with a boyish grin, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone spinning.

Mother. The word finally penetrated the sensual haze suffocating her usually rational thoughts.

“You talked to my mother?” The question came out just short of a screech. Fitzwiggy squawked in response. He flapped his wings in an impressive display.

“Easy, Fitz,” Drew told the bird calmly. “She’s just a little befuddled this morning. Right, Max?”

Max gazed at him inquiringly, then returned to his food dish. Belatedly, Brie set the teapot down before she succumbed to an impulse to hurl it at his head.

“I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you and your mother were all right after what happened last night.”

“You didn’t tell my mother someone shot at us?” She could hear the hysterical note creeping into her voice, and from his concerned expression, so could Drew.

“No, I assumed you’d done that. She was on her way out when I got here, so we didn’t have a chance to do much talking.”

Thank God!

“But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about it.”

The amount of adrenaline pumping through her body couldn’t possibly be a good thing, Brie decided. She’d have a heart attack, right here on the kitchen floor.

“You aren’t a morning person, are you?” Drew asked as he sauntered over to the correct cupboard without hesitation. Withdrawing a glass he turned to her, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. A smile that slowly faded as his gaze skimmed her body. Brie realized she was standing in front of him in only an oversized T-shirt and a pair of skimpy panties.

He set the empty glass on the table beside his sunglasses and removed his baseball cap, running his fingers through his damp hair.

Stress had finally caught up to her. How could such a simple action look like an invitation to sex? She’d lost her mind entirely. Her imagination had gone so haywire he appeared to be looking at her the way she’d wanted him to look at her all those years ago. Covetously. The way she looked at a fresh-baked batch of her mother’s cookies.

“I’m not a cookie.”

His throaty chuckle traveled right down her spine. “Ah, Brie.” He smiled as if he knew exactly what she meant. “As I recall, you taste a whole lot better than any cookie.”

He closed the distance between them, stoking the fire of curling desire building low in her belly.

If he touched her, she would dissolve.

If he didn’t, she would die.

He reached out. The room receded. Lightly, almost reverently, he threaded his fingers in her tangled mop of hair.

“You have no idea how sexy you look right now, do you?”

Mutely, she stared at him.

“You’re practically eating me alive with that look, Brie. Do you know I used to dream about seeing your hair unpinned and wild?” he said thickly. “Exactly like this.”

She…could…not…breathe.

Every sense was heightened. Drew smelled of sweat and cologne, of freshly mowed grass and sunscreen lotion. How could such a combination be so unbearably stimulating? She wanted to lay her hand against his warm skin. She wanted to explore those hard, flat planes.

“I didn’t realize your hair would feel this soft,” he whispered wonderingly. “Like a river of silken flames.”

Oh, God.

The prayer came from her soul—a whispered plea for help. Only Brianna wasn’t sure if she was praying to wake up, or praying this wasn’t a dream.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this,” he growled huskily.

The kiss started out as soft as a sigh, as potent as an explosion. Every nerve in her body short-circuited. His mouth moved with slow deliberation, tasting, sampling, savoring. The kiss lasted forever, over in the blink of an eye. She parted her lips, staring at him helplessly. He smiled and lowered his mouth to hers once more. He probed the hot, moist cavern of her mouth with his tongue.

Dream and reality merged. This was what she had been waiting for. The kiss went hot and wild from one beat of her heart to another.

Drew groaned against her mouth. She whimpered in need.

“What are you doing to me?” he whispered, planting tiny kisses along the line of her jaw. “You could tempt a saint to turn in his halo.”

“You aren’t a saint,” she whispered back shakily.

“Definitely not.”

He slipped his hands beneath her curls, cupping the back of her head firmly. She was captive to that touch. The sensation was highly erotic. Brie strained against him, wanting more as his mouth worked incredible magic, kissing the curve of her cheek, nibbling her chin, biting lightly at the lobe of her ear. Her legs turned to liquid. As if sensing this, he began to lift her.

“Drew? Hey, Drew. Where the heck are you?”

They sprang apart like guilty children at the sound of Zachary’s voice. Drew’s brother stood outside the open kitchen window only a few feet away.

Breathing as if she’d run three miles, Brie gripped the counter for support.

Drew muttered fiercely under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair, across his jaw. She was glad to see the slight tremor of his hand. It was a relief to know he wasn’t any steadier than she felt.

“Zach has lousy timing.”

Or was it good timing? She couldn’t seem to think.

“Better put some clothes on,” he told her gruffly, but softly so his voice wouldn’t carry outside.

Her face flamed. She was a fool.

“Hey, Zach, where’s Drew?”

Carey’s voice.

“I don’t know. He was mowing the lawn a second ago….”

The voices trailed off as the men headed around to the front of the house.

“What did you do, bring a committee?” she demanded.

His shoulders rose and fell. “It was Nancy’s idea.”

“She’s here, too?” An image of the classy, dark-haired beauty was instantly deflating.

“There’s quite a few people here. You’d better get dressed.”

Oddly reassured by his hungry gaze, she found new courage, born of frustration. “Why? Don’t you like my T-shirt?”

His eyes went molten. “Little fox,” he whispered. “I love your T-shirt. I may have it bronzed. Now, go take it off.”

Her hands shook, but she reached for the hem and began to edge it upward.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

The smoky flare of his eyes was all the encouragement she needed. Brianna pulled the T-shirt over her head without allowing herself to think about what she was doing. Tossing it at him, she covered her breasts with her arms.

“Call it a souvenir. I’m going up to take a shower.” An ice shower—maybe in Alaska.

Brie fled. The last time she’d run from Drew, he’d followed. This time, there was no sound of pursuit. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sorry as she leaned against the bathroom door, shaking at her temerity.

What had she done?

She knew the why. The same stupid reason she’d made love with him four years ago. It was pitiful. She was pitiful. But she was still in love with Andrew Pierce.

Hadn’t she learned anything in all these years? She had just played a fool’s game with an expert in the field. The outcome had only one inevitable conclusion.

And this time the stakes were higher. Dangerously higher.

She finally managed to shower and dress and went back downstairs after coming to a decision. She would not give in to the temptation to seduce those indecently sexy jeans right off his body no matter how much she wanted him. She would tell Drew to go away and stay away. She had no place in his life. His grandfather had made her see that without saying a word.

She clung to the memory of the sheer opulence of the Pierce mansion. The rich, dark woods, the ornate paintings, the thick carpeting, the sunken marbled foyer with that grand staircase…Brie gazed at the familiar threadbare carpeting, the old, worn furniture of her childhood. Sly, crafty politician that he was, Anton Pierce had invited her to the family compound with his irresistible offer of help four years ago.

Drew had gone back to school and when her mother needed surgery, she hadn’t known where to turn. There was no money, no way out. So she’d accepted Anton Pierce’s offer to meet with him, and discuss the situation. Without saying a word, he allowed her see for herself that the differences between them were insurmountable. The old man made it perfectly clear she could never be a part of their world. She’d understood that by taking the money she was agreeing to sever any future relationship with Drew.

Brie closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she resolutely strode into her mother’s kitchen. Drew was gone. A lawn mower growled several houses away. Going to the window, she saw Drew and a dozen other people—including the elegant Nancy Bell—working in Mrs. Freeson’s yard. The elderly widow sat on her front porch swing beaming happily.

What was Drew up to?

Beside her mother’s note, Drew had propped his own note against the glass he’d taken down earlier. Instead of lemonade, the glass contained water and a single perfect yellow rose.

Tears blurred her vision. He must have cut the rose from Mrs. Freeson’s large garden. That didn’t dim the beauty of the gesture, but what did he want from her?

Tonight after work, was all his note said. Flipping it over, she found a computer-generated flyer with Drew’s photograph. Andrew Pierce for Mayor was the caption above the picture. His hands gripped a lawn mower and the caption underneath read, When Andrew Pierce says he’s going to clean up Moriah’s Landing, he means exactly that.

The picture had been taken in front of her house early this morning. One of his people must have designed and printed copies of the flyer this morning.

Brianna sank down on the nearest chair. The emotions churning inside her were nearly as overwhelming as they’d been the day he’d come to apologize after making love to her.

Drew hadn’t come here because of her or even because of what had happened last night. He’d come as a part of his campaign. She’d misunderstood and thrown herself at him once again. Mortified, she wondered how she would ever face him again.

NO DAY EVER ZOOMED PAST with such speed. Suddenly the diner was closed and it was time to leave. Drew hadn’t come. She lingered inside as long as she dared before heading home, feeling like a total fool.

Yesterday’s storms hadn’t daunted the heat or the humidity, but Brie didn’t sense any impending storms tonight. She strode briskly, paying close attention to her surroundings on the empty, narrow street. Even the noise from the bars seemed muted tonight. Suddenly, heavy running footsteps were clearly audible. Brie whirled, hand on her mace.

“Brie! Thank God. I was afraid I’d missed you.”

“Drew! You scared me. What are you doing here?”

He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Didn’t you get my note?”

“Of course I got it.”

“But you didn’t think I’d come.”

She’d dreamed. She’d fantasized, but…“Frankly, no,” she said flatly.

He was impeccably dressed. His perfectly tailored shirt and well-pressed dress slacks made her unhappily conscious of her stained, ill-fitting uniform.

“I’m sorry, Brie. I tried, but I couldn’t get away any sooner. My grandfather insisted on dinner at the Crow’s Nest to discuss the new campaign strategy.”

The bar door opened across the street. The person either changed his mind or ducked back inside, because no one came out and the door closed quickly. Drew scowled. “Let’s go. I’m walking you home.”

Her pulse went into overdrive, but she managed to keep her voice even. “What happened to your car?”

“I left it at the restaurant because I knew you preferred to walk.”

And Brie couldn’t help thinking that by leaving it there, no one would notice it in front of her house again tonight.

“We need to talk.”

Her stomach lurched when she saw his expression. “Because of last night?”

“Of course because of last night. Just because I didn’t report the shooting—”

“You didn’t?”

“No,” he growled, plainly not happy with the decision. “I’m worried about you.”

Brie stared up at him in surprise. She told herself not to read too much into his words. Drew would be concerned over anyone he thought was in trouble. Still, her breathing came more quickly.

“Why are you worried about me?”

“Cullen Ryan is in charge of the investigation into Ursula Manning’s death.”

“I know,” she responded, too puzzled by the abrupt turn in the conversation to pursue her question.

Drew scanned the darkness alertly. He lowered his voice. “Leland Manning is claiming his wife was kidnapped several days ago.”

Brie halted. “What?” At his prompting, she resumed walking, but at a much slower pace.

“Apparently, Manning withdrew twenty thousand dollars in cash from his account the day before the tournament. Cullen confirmed this. Manning says an anonymous caller told him to leave the money in a hollow stump in the woods the following morning.”

“So she was kidnapped?”

No one had been charged with Claire’s kidnapping and torture. Now it had happened again? Chills snaked up her spine.

“The medical examiner confirms Ursula had injuries consistent with being tied up. There were other things that indicated she’d been a hostage. Cullen isn’t saying what those other things were.”

Brie shuddered. Claire’s body had several unexplained marks and she was severely anemic in addition to being catatonic. Rumors of vampires had abounded. Moriah’s Landing loved a good horror story.

“You’re thinking of Claire, aren’t you?” Drew asked.

“Yes.”

“So is everyone else.”

“Does Cullen think there is a connection?”

“I don’t know, but he can hardly rule it out.”

“There’s a rumor that the police don’t think the shooting was an accident. Cullen doesn’t think you killed Ursula, does he?”

Drew shrugged. “I don’t think so. And I’m fairly sure he doesn’t believe I kidnapped and tortured her.”

“Ursula was tortured, too?” Goose bumps rose along her arms.

“I surmised that from what Cullen isn’t saying.”

Drew suddenly stopped moving. He peered around alertly at the dark neighborhood street and the even darker houses.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. Keep walking. From now on we’ll use the car.”

Brie nearly tripped over an uneven spot of pavement. His hand closed over her arm, preventing her from falling.

“You’re not planning to make this a habit?”

“Yes.”

For a second, the simple word and his expression raised impossible hopes. But thinking of her daughter scattered them to oblivion. “You can’t.”

“Watch me.”

She stopped moving. “What do you want from me, Drew? Sex?”

For a timeless second he simply stared at her. “Now, there’s a leading question. If I say no, you’ll know I’m lying. If I say yes, you’ll think that’s all I want.”

“Isn’t it?”

He laid his hand on her arm. “Don’t.”

“If you dare apologize again, I will not be responsible for my actions.” Brie whirled and began walking rapidly. She won the battle, relegating the tears to another place inside her heart. Later, when she was completely alone, she’d give in to them, but she would not cry in front of Drew.

He hurried to catch up. Wisely, he didn’t touch her again.

“I seem to spend a lot of time apologizing to you,” he said.

“Must be a character flaw.”

“Brie, four years ago you were too young for me. We both knew it.”

“And now I just live on the wrong side of town?”

Drew swore. “Do you honestly think I care about that? Did Tasha?”

Brie paused once more. “Then I’ll repeat the question. What do you want from me?”

“I’d like to be your friend.”

“Friend.” The word had a bitter taste. “So I can join the legion of your other women friends?”

He urged her forward. “The gossip factory at work again, right? Let me tell you something, Brie. You are nothing like any other woman I have ever known. I almost wish you were. Maybe then I could stop thinking about you. You’re like a splinter under my skin, always there.”

“How flattering.” But in a peculiar way, it was.

Lightly, he trailed his hand down her bare arm. The slight caress bumped her heart.

“Don’t put up barriers, Brie.”

“They already exist. We both know it.”

Brie walked more quickly toward her mother’s house. In the dark, with its freshly manicured lawn and shrubs, the front steps and railing repaired, the house looked like any other along the street. Only the absent hum of an air conditioner and the open windows set it apart.

“Thank you for mowing the lawn and fixing things today. I appreciate it, even if it was part of your campaign strategy.”

“It was the only way I could think of to see you without raising gossip. Of course, I never expected to see quite so much of you, but I’m not complaining.”

She was glad he couldn’t see the color of her face. “I thought you said it was Nancy Bell’s idea.”

“It was,” he admitted honestly. “You should know I told her what happened last night.”

Brie tensed.

“She came up with the campaign slogan to reduce gossip while doing some real good in the community. Maybe we’ll even generate a few votes. And I like helping people, making a difference. I know that sounds trite—”

“No. Helping people is never trite. Your empathy is one of the reasons you’ll make a great politician.”

“Thanks. Want to join my campaign? We’re working on the float tomorrow. You could come and help.”

Her heart fluttered. She longed to say yes. “I can’t. I’m attending a lecture at the college tomorrow.”

“You’re still going to school?”

Dangerous ground. She shouldn’t have mentioned the class. “Dr. Manning is giving a lecture on genetic research that I’m interested in hearing. It’s rare to see Manning outside his laboratory, so I’m very eager to attend.”

Drew tensed. “He’s giving a lecture tomorrow? With his wife still in the morgue?”

“I know. I expected his talk to be rescheduled, but I understand Dr. Manning told the college he needs to work in order to get past his grief.”

While she shared Drew’s skepticism, everyone in town knew Manning was strange.

“Planning to be one of his test subjects to see if you are really a witch?” Drew asked.

“Oh, I already know that. My mother’s line is descended from one of the witches they hung here in Moriah’s Landing.”

“Really? That explains it, then.”

She faced him, feeling her heart pound. He was going to kiss her again. And God help her, she was going to let him.

“You’ve bewitched me, Brie. Ever since the night of that party, I’ve been under your spell.”

She trembled, even as she melted into his arms. Hungrily, his lips closed over hers. Without warning, light pinned them in a beam so bright, she was blinded.

Chapter Six

Drew shoved her behind him as another flash went off. He started toward the car and the searchlight winked off. Helplessly, he watched the car race out of sight. A dog was barking angrily.

Brie had made him forget everything, including caution. If the passenger had had a gun instead of a camera, they’d both be dead right now.

“Did you see who it was?”

“I saw. Razz.”

She inhaled sharply. One of her elderly neighbors and his dog hurried over to them.

“You folks okay?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Blasted hooligans and their pranks,” the old man said. “The police oughta do something about these kids before they give someone a heart attack.”

Drew knew exactly what he wanted to do to Razz.

“You’re the Pierce boy, aren’t you? Didn’t recognize you right off. My eyesight isn’t too good anymore. That was a nice thing you did today. Everybody’s talking about how you were out here working to help the neighborhood. A’ course now I see you had an ulterior motive,” he added with a chuckle. “Don’t blame you one bit. Our Brie here’s a lovely girl. Lovely.”

Behind them, the front door opened. A dim figure stepped onto the porch. “My mother,” Drew heard Brie whisper.

“Go inside, Brie, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He expected an argument, but she only hesitated a second before nodding.

“Good night, Drew, Mr. Lee.”

Drew watched her run lightly up the steps to her mother. He waved, forcing down the adrenaline that insisted he go chasing after Razz and that camera immediately. First he needed to be sure everyone got safely back inside.

“Such a nice family,” Mr. Lee was saying. Brie and her mother disappeared inside the house. “Shame about Pamela’s cancer returning.”

“Pamela Dudley has cancer?” Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.

“Sure. I’m not tellin’ tales out of school since she never made a secret of it. As soon as brain cancer was diagnosed four years ago, I told my Alice it would take a miracle. Had a cousin died of brain cancer. They didn’t get all his tumor, either. Damn shame. It’s so unfair. With the little girl and all, I don’t know what young Brie’s going to do.”

“Albert?” A woman’s voice called out stridently. “Albert!” The dog began pulling at the leash to go back home.

“Busted,” the old man said with a cheerful grin. “I was hoping she wouldn’t notice I forgot to take the garbage out again. Nice talkin’ with you, son.”

Questions filled Drew, but Albert Lee and his dog were moving spryly across the lawn. Besides, Drew realized the answers he wanted should come from Brie.

Why hadn’t she told him? Didn’t she know she could come to him for help?

Of course not. How would she know that? Four years ago he took her innocence and walked away. In her place, he wouldn’t trust him, either.

The front of her house was dark already, the door shut tight. His questions would wait until morning. He had a wise-mouthed punk and a camera to find. Brie wasn’t going to be the source of any gossip if he could help it. What a stupid night to have left his car and his cell phone so far away. As he jogged down the street he wondered if he could pull Carey away from his latest woman long enough to help him search for Razz.

“WHAT WAS DREW DOING BACK here at this hour?” Pamela Dudley asked. “And what was that bright light I saw?”

“Kids were playing a prank with a car spotlight.” Brie didn’t add that someone had taken their picture. Fear sat like a lead weight in her belly.

She lifted Max, who had come running across the kitchen to greet her. His long silver tail swished impatiently and he mewed in irritation. The source of his displeasure, a tiny kitten, opened sleepy gold eyes and blinked curiously at her from its curled position against her daughter’s sleeping form.

Brianna came to an abrupt halt. “What on earth?”

“I’m afraid your daughter’s familiar showed up in the backyard today.”

“Very funny.”

The kitten was a tiny puffball of long, mostly white fur. A calico, it had a comical, pointed face that stared at Brianna curiously, blinked at Max, then dismissed them both with typical feline indifference. The kitten settled herself more snugly against Nicole.

“We can’t keep her, Mom.”

“Fitzwiggy and Max agree with you, but I’m afraid Nicole and Little Imp have a different take on things.”

“You’ve named her?”

“Actually, Nicole named her.”

“Oh, Mom, a tiny kitten like that probably already has an owner. She looks part Persian or something.”

“She’s something, all right,” her mother told her wryly. “Hence the name—unless you’d prefer ‘Bad Cat’ like Fitz does. She wandered up to your daughter when the children were playing in the backyard. I asked around, Brie, but no one seems to know where she came from.”

“The last thing we need is another animal. Why didn’t you tell Nicole no?”

Her mother smiled. “For the same reason you won’t. After all, we’re supposed to be descended from witches,” her mother teased affectionately. “All good witches have familiars.”

“Uh-huh. And magical powers, too, but I’ve never met a broomstick I could make fly.”

Her mother laughed softly. “You used to have a lot of fun trying.”

Brie ignored that rejoinder. “Who ever heard of a witch with a cockatoo for a familiar?” she scoffed, nodding toward the birdcage in the corner.

Her mother smiled. They both knew Brie was going to lose this battle. There was so little she could give her daughter. And the kitten was adorable. It had a black-and-brown patch over its left eye that lent it a cocky, defiant sort of look. Little Imp might be small, but she looked like she’d challenge the world if she had to.

Her mother went over and fussed with Fitzwiggy, offering him a treat before sliding the cover over the large cage for the night. “You never did say what Drew was doing here tonight.”

Brie tensed. “You two must have gotten pretty chummy this morning if you’re on a first-name basis.”

“He reminds me of his sister, Tasha. He seems very nice, Brie.”

“He’s running for mayor, Mom. He has to be nice.”

“Does he know about his daughter?”

The room spun. Brie forgot to breathe.

“Hard to miss those eyes, dear. You never told him, did you? I wondered when you suddenly started dating all those boys that fall. You didn’t want anyone to know who her father was, did you?”

“No.” It came out a croak.

“Why not?”

“I made a promise.”

Her mother studied her expression. She seemed to age right before Brie’s eyes. Her shoulders sagged. Pain filled her eyes. “So that’s it. I always wondered where you got the money for my surgery. Maureen paid you off, didn’t she.”

“Drew’s mother? No. She doesn’t know. No one knows. I got the money from Drew’s grandfather. He didn’t want me seeing Drew anymore. Not that he said that. He was too smart to issue edicts. He offered me money instead. To help out, as he put it. Then he talked about Drew’s career.”

“Oh, Brie…”

“I didn’t know about the baby then. We needed the money and Drew had already made it clear he regretted what happened, so I promised his grandfather I wouldn’t see Drew again. I didn’t think it would be a problem. Drew had gone back to school. Our…relationship was just one of those things.”

“You should have told me.”

“What could you have done?”

“But when you found out about Nicole—”

“You’d started your treatments. They were scheduling the surgery.”

“You shouldn’t have taken the money, Brie. We’d have managed somehow.”

“I didn’t take the money, Mom. I borrowed it. I’ve been paying Mr. Pierce back a little out of each paycheck ever since.”

A tear slid silently down her mother’s cheek. “I’m sorry, Brie. So sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. If you hadn’t been ill, the results would have been the same except that I wouldn’t have taken any money. It all worked out.”

“Did it?”

Her mother looked toward the sleeping child. “How long do you think you can keep Nicole a secret? Drew is bound to realize the truth as soon as he sees her.”

“We won’t let him see her!”

“Oh, Brie. Do you think that’s fair? Don’t you think he would want to know his daughter?”

Her heart filled with anguish. “Think about Drew, Mom. What would it do to his campaign chances, if word got out I’d had his baby and he calmly went on with his life? You know how funny people are around here. If they learn he had an affair with a waitress—”

“Oh, Brie. You’re in love with him, aren’t you? You were infatuated with him even when you were young.”

“Don’t worry, I’m completely over any infatuation.”

Her mother glanced pointedly at the yellow rose now sitting in her cut glass bud vase in the kitchen window. “But is he over you?”

FREDERICK THANE WIPED at the sweat trickling down the side of his face. He hated the heat and he hated meeting in the dead of night like this. He wanted to be back inside his air-conditioned house, in the comfort of his king-sized waterbed.

How could it still be so hot out here in the middle of the night? Moriah’s Landing was a beach town.

“I think you’ll be more than happy with this,” the youth said smugly. “The high and mighty Andrew Pierce is gettin’ it on with a waitress from the diner.”

How he would have liked to wipe that sneering expression from the boy’s face.

“I’m a little worried about that publicist of his. She’s got people askin’ questions around town.”

“Don’t worry about Ms. Bell. I’ll handle her. She doesn’t know anything and she won’t. Nothing she can prove.”

Razz snorted indignantly. “You don’t hafta prove things in an election year. You just gotta convince the public things are true. People aren’t so bright, you know. A few whispers, a couple rumors…”

Surprised by this unexpected perception, the mayor glanced around nervously once again at the dark shadows that encompassed them.

“Shut up, you fool,” he whispered.

“Who you callin’ a fool, old man? I’m safe even if they bring you down.”

The mayor ground his teeth. How he hated dealing with this punk. If the kid and his friends weren’t so useful…but they were. He would have to put up with a little aggravation and inconvenience from time to time. Like now.

Glancing around once more at the empty pier, he tried to shake off the feeling they were being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred uneasily. His breathing coarsened. He tried to meld even deeper into the shelter of the building beside him.

“No one’s bringing me down,” he whispered fiercely. “I know where all the bodies are buried, understand?” Thane handed the boy a tightly wrapped package, careful not to touch those disgusting hands. “Remember that and keep your mouth shut.”

The boy whistled through teeth stained yellow by nicotine. “I always do, don’t I?”

Something stirred in the still air. Both men peered around uselessly. There was nothing to see beyond the restless waves lapping at the beach. Yet there was something out there in the night. A feeling. As if the ghosts of Moriah’s Landing were stirring just out of sight.

Thane consoled himself with the knowledge he was safe. No one could prove a thing against him. He’d always taken precautions. He would continue to take them. Still, he felt the unseen forces gathering over the town expectantly.

“Let me worry about the details,” the boy said arrogantly, startling him from his crazy thoughts. “Everything’s set for the Fourth. The mighty Andrew Pierce will wish he’d gone elsewhere to launch his career.”

“See that he does.”

There was no choice. Thane was not giving up his cushy situation for anyone. Especially not a Pierce. He would do whatever it took, use whoever he needed, to prevent Pierce from succeeding in his quest.

A tiny lick of air sent a chill of apprehension down his back. Thane turned away sharply and headed back toward his car. He wished he could shake this feeling that something bad was about to happen.

“DODIE AND RAZZ AREN’T hanging around the arcade today, Drew. Nobody’s seen them. Carey’s still out searching.”

Drew finished tying a paper carnation together to attach to the float and nodded. “Thanks for trying, Zach.”

“How’d your session go with Cullen Ryan this morning? Did you tell him what happened?”

“No.”

Zach frowned. “Did he say if he got the ballistics report yet?”

“No. He’s not saying much of anything.”

“I got the same sense last night when he talked to me and Nancy. He was especially interested in what we saw before the shooting.”

“You mean who.”

Zach nodded. Nancy Bell strode around the corner of the float. Volunteers were swarming over it, putting paper carnations in place.

“Hi, Zach. I wondered where you got to this morning. Drew, your grandfather called. He wants to see both of us right away. I gather it’s urgent.”

“It generally is with my grandfather.” But Drew’s stomach lurched all the same. An urgent meeting with his grandfather did not bode well.

“Have fun,” Zach said.

Drew handed his brother the carnation and indicated the pile of paper still waiting to be folded. “Make yourself useful. We’ll be right back.”

Drew’s gaze narrowed when he and Nancy finally reached the compound and approached the main house down the long, tree-shrouded driveway. His father’s distinctive car sat prominently in front of the main house.

“I thought your parents weren’t coming home until much later this evening.”

“They weren’t,” he replied flatly. Drew’s instincts were on full alert, particularly when his mother met them at the door.

“You’re back ahead of schedule,” he said, giving her a quick hug.

“Your grandfather called very early this morning. I gather something has happened.”

Drew shrugged as she greeted Nancy.

“They’re waiting for you two in the office. You’d better hurry along.”

Nancy’s cell phone rang as they started down the hall. She stopped walking to check the caller ID. “It’s my investigator.”

“Take the call. I’ll tell them you’ll be right in.”

The darkly paneled room still smelled of cigars and brandy, though neither his father nor his grandfather had either one in evidence. What they did have were matching scowls. His grandfather sat stiffly behind the polished wood desk, tapping an envelope against several sheets of paper. Drew’s father paced back and forth in front of the bank of windows.

“Nancy had a phone call,” Drew said by way of greeting.

“Explain,” Anton Pierce demanded, holding out the top sheet to Drew.

Two pictures, surprisingly clear considering the conditions under which they’d been taken. While the background was dark and indistinct, Drew’s features were unmistakable. So were Brie’s, especially in the second picture. The first showed them kissing. In the second, the two of them were turning startled faces toward the searchlight. They looked guilty as sin.

“He must have used a digital camera and a high-quality inkjet printer,” Drew mused.

“Is that all you have to say?” his father demanded.

Scowling darkly, his grandfather handed him a sheet of paper.

Drew uttered a word he didn’t generally use.

“The photographer wants money or he’ll release these pictures to the press.”

Drew stared into the older man’s cold gray eyes. “Tell him to go to hell.”

“Of course. That goes without saying. But we’ll have to do some damage control. Perhaps Ms. Dudley could be persuaded to leave town for a time. It seems I misjudged her character the last time. I thought when she began paying the money back…”

Something twisted inside him. Drew laid his palms flat on the desk and leaned down. “What money?”

Anton Pierce blinked. “That is not important. What is important—”

“It’s important to me,” Drew said coldly. “What money?”

“Andrew, don’t take that tone with your grandfather,” William Pierce scolded.

Drew never lifted his head. “Did you pay Brie off four years ago?”

“Of course I did. You refused to heed my warning. Fortunately, Ms. Dudley was more amenable. She was only too willing to take the money in return for staying away from you,” he added harshly.

Drew forced words past the fury choking him as he straightened and faced his relatives. “This isn’t the first time you’ve interfered in my life, but it will be the last.”

The room went so still he could hear the soft rattle of his grandfather’s breathing.

“You paid the wrong person. You should have tried paying me to stay away from her.” Drew headed for the door before his uncertain temper caused him to say something irrevocable.

“Where are you going?” his father demanded. “We have to decide how to handle this situation.”

Drew paused at the heavy oak door. “I know exactly how I’m going to handle this situation. I’m going to warn Brie and apologize again.”

“Warn the waitress?” his father sputtered.

“Apologize for what?” his grandfather asked in outrage.

A calm settled over him as he regarded the two men he’d looked up to and respected all his life. Arguing was as pointless as explanations.

“Don’t you realize what will happen if the blackmailer takes these pictures to the local rag? You’ll be a laughingstock,” his grandfather snarled.

“If my reputation can’t survive those innocent pictures, then the family name isn’t worth much, is it? Make no mistake. I will not have Brie’s reputation destroyed by some cheap politician who thinks he can intimidate me.”

“You aren’t going to accost Thane, are you?” his father demanded.

Thinking about what he’d like to do to Frederick Thane curled his fingers. There was no doubt in his mind that the mayor was behind the pictures and the note. “Not immediately, no. First I’m going to warn Brie. Then I’m going to find Edgar Razmuesson and teach him a few things. Then I’ll go and have a polite discussion with our sleazy excuse for a mayor. You’d better have Nancy stick around. We may need her services when I’m through.”

“Andrew Pierce, get back here!”

Drew ignored the raised clamor of voices and closed the door. He nodded toward his mother, who stood on the staircase, clutching the polished wood bannister. Nancy was not in sight.

“Andrew?”

“Later, Mom. Tell Dad I borrowed his car.” He’d driven over in Nancy’s car and he was too angry to go looking for her. Still, he didn’t really want to leave her without letting her know.

His mother’s voice joined the chorus as he left the cool, dark, air-conditioned house and stepped into the heat and humidity outside. As expected, his father had left his keys in the car. Drew started the engine and Nancy came running from the house.

“Drew! Wait!”

He rolled down the passenger window. “I’ll talk to you later, Nancy.”

“But, you need to know what my investigator just told me.”

Drew hesitated. Nancy leaned inside the open window. “Did you know Brianna Dudley gave birth to a baby girl three years ago?”

Not her sister. Her daughter.

“She listed the father as unknown. Is there any chance the baby was yours?”

Breathing suddenly required concentration. He forced himself to exhale slowly. There was more than a chance. Did his grandfather know? Was that the real reason the old man paid her off?

“You didn’t know, did you?”

He felt oddly hollow inside. Anger built slowly, tempered by an odd sense of deflation. “Don’t say a word to anyone about this.”

“Wait! What are you going to do? I’ll go with you.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll call you later.”

“Drew, you won’t do anything foolish, will you?”

“I already did.”

Chapter Seven

The lecture was over her head, but Brie got the gist even though she wasn’t a biology student like most of the others in attendance. Hope surfaced. Leland Manning had a possible treatment that could save her mother.

Brie waited while the students flocked to his side afterward asking questions. Coldly aloof, he answered impersonally, almost by rote. The room was nearly empty when a gangly young man with thick glasses approached. He could have come from central casting with the word nerd stenciled on his bio.

“Dr. Manning, is it true you really believe that witches with supernatural powers exist?”

Manning fixed him with a penetrating gaze. The youth shifted but held his ground.

“Only a fool scoffs at what he doesn’t understand.”

“Oh, come on, Doctor. Witches?”

“There are people with powers and abilities science hasn’t been able to explain. I believe so-called witches are nothing more than normal people with a gene that has heightened talents we are all born with.”

“Like flying on a broomstick?” the youth derided, pushing at the glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.

Manning’s piercing stare became so intense the boy backed up a step, looking suddenly younger and far less sure of himself than he had just a moment ago.

“There are documented cases of telekinesis. There are documented cases of telepathy. There are documented cases of people seeing into the future.”

“Well, yes but—”

“Herbal medicine is making a resurgence in this country. Many skilled physicians are now sending their patients for alternative treatments that would have been considered nothing short of witchcraft in the 1600s.”

“Okay, but—”

“Science holds the answers to everything. Sadly, self-proclaimed scientists are just now starting to ask the right questions. Witches and their powers exist, young man. But there is nothing supernatural about those abilities.”

Manning’s expression darkened. His features took on the look of a true fanatic. His eyes all but glowed. They seemed to bore right through his victim. The boy appeared to shrink right before Brie’s eyes.

“One day, we will discover the genes that control these abilities. We will be able to isolate these genes, tap into them and heighten those latent abilities in so-called normal people. When you look past any myth, you find the reality.” His body seemed to vibrate with the fervor of his words. He leveled the boy with a look of contempt. “A closed mind is of no value in the scientific community. You are a fool,” he pronounced.

Gathering up his notes, Manning strode past the small, shocked remaining audience, leaving the room and the red-faced student behind. Brie hesitated long enough to fortify her courage and push doubts aside before running after him.

“Wow,” she heard a boy say, “that’s one scary dude.”

Brie agreed. Manning was terrifying, but fear was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She left the building and went after him. “Dr. Manning? Dr. Manning! May I have a moment of your time?”

Manning pivoted. He glowered at her. Her courage faltered.

“What is it?”

“A-about your research. Into curing cancer?” She would not allow herself to be cowed. Her mother’s life was at stake. “When will you be ready to start human testing?”

“Are you volunteering?”

Overhead, the intense sun dimmed as a cloud skipped across its surface. Chills raced down her arms despite the late-afternoon heat. Leland Manning’s avid stare made her want to retreat and keep going. Only desperation kept her standing before him.

“No! That is, I don’t need gene therapy, but my mother does. She has brain cancer.”

“Then I suggest she consult an oncologist.”

He started to turn away. She laid a detaining hand on his jacketed arm. She quickly dropped it to her side, startled by the energy inside this man.

“She has seen an oncologist. She’s had all the treatments, but the surgery wasn’t successful. They weren’t able to get all the cells. Her tumor is returning. You’re her only hope.”

He studied her as if she were a particularly useless stain on a slide under his microscope. How had any woman dared to marry this man?

“Even if I were ready to test my theories, the cost of this sort of therapy is prohibitive. Insurance doesn’t cover experimental treatments, you know.”

“I do know,” she said stubbornly.

He named a sum that made her gasp. With a cold smile of dismissal he turned and began striding away. She couldn’t let him do that. There weren’t any options. Heart pounding, she played her ace.

“My mother is descended from a local witch.”

The doctor stopped walking. He turned slowly. Her heart threatened to burst through her chest as his unwavering gaze cemented her in place.

“Which witch?”

She rolled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “Annabel Trantor.”

Brianna could practically see him cataloging and sorting through his memory bank for the knowledge marked “Annabel Trantor.”

“You are a direct descendant?”

“Yes.” Something avaricious in his expression made her want to deny it. “My family lineage is unbroken.” She resisted the urge to quail from that expression and slink away.

“Would you be willing to let me have a sample of your blood for my research?”

Her mind recoiled in horror. The oily seduction of that question repulsed her. But as much as she disliked Leland Manning, she would do whatever it took to get help for her mother.

“Yes,” she agreed before she could have second thoughts. “Absolutely. But only if you’re willing to consider my mother’s case.”

The smile froze her blood.

“Very well.” He named a lower price. “I’ll review her records and let you know my findings. In the meantime, you’ll need to find a way to come up with that amount. To cover my cost, you understand.”

“I will.” Somehow. If it meant selling everything she owned.

“And you understand this is experimental. Your mother could still die. Unless my theory is correct and this protocol works as it should.”

“So there is a chance?”

“A slim chance.”

“We’ll take it,” she said stubbornly.

“Very well. Her name?”

“Pamela Dudley. Sheffield Thornton is her oncologist. He’s the one who told me about your research.”

Manning nodded, filing that information away as well. He reached in his pocket to withdraw a leather business card holder. The ivory card was embossed in a dark red that reminded her of blood.

Her hand shook so badly she nearly dropped his card. Everything inside her wanted to cringe away from the aura this man projected.

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps I should be thanking you.” He inclined his head and strode away. Brie stared after him long after he’d disappeared from sight. The sun slowly crept from behind the cloud as if making certain he was gone first. Its warmth did little to negate the chill that had seeped inside her. No wonder people called Manning a vampire. He had the most terrifying presence she had ever encountered.

She began walking toward the town green to meet her mother and daughter. Her heart was heavy with the weight of fear and worry. She was thankful that at least she didn’t have to work tonight.

Had she made a mistake approaching Manning? Would her mother thank her, or reject the idea completely? Brie had known experimental procedures were costly, but how was she ever going to pull together enough money to do this? Even if her mother was willing to use the house as collateral, it wouldn’t be nearly enough. Their credit was good, but Brie was a waitress. What bank would take a chance on someone like her?

A silver sedan roared up beside her, honking to gain her attention. She was startled when Drew leaned across the seat and threw open the passenger door.

“Get in.”

People were everywhere, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.

“I can’t. I’m meeting my mother at the library.”

“I’ll give you a lift.”

For a moment, she didn’t move. His stern expression told her something was very wrong. Brie slid inside.

“How many cars do you own?” she asked nervously when he didn’t say anything.

“It’s my father’s,” Drew said tersely.

His fingers gripped the steering wheel like a vise. Fearfully, she searched his features for a clue as to what was wrong. “What is it? What are you doing here? I thought you were working on the float this afternoon.”

“I was.”

His flat tone alarmed her even more.

“What is it? My…mother?”

“No. Nothing like that. Look, I don’t want to have this conversation while I’m driving.”

“I don’t understand.” She took a deep breath as he steered the car toward the town green. “There’ll be people all over the park,” she reminded him nervously.

“Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”

The darkly asked question bewildered her. “Of course not. I was thinking of you, not me.”

Drew pulled into a parking space, killed the engine and stared at her. Busy people were everywhere, setting up for tomorrow’s festivities, but he ignored the activity, focusing on Brie.

“Why is it you think I’d be ashamed to be seen with you, Brie?”

Mutely, she stared at him, her eyes wide with apprehension. Drew found he couldn’t blurt out the question eating at him.

“Why didn’t you come to me when your mother got sick four years ago?”

Color leached from her face. The sprinkle of freckles stood out in harsh contrast.

“Why would I go to you?”

Her genuine puzzlement cut deep. “I would have given you the money with no strings attached.”

Red suffused her pale cheeks, but she lifted her chin and held his gaze. “But you weren’t around anymore, now were you?”

Drew cursed. Brie reached for the door handle before he could stop her. She was halfway to the gazebo before he caught up to her.

“Take your hand off me.”

“Calm down.” But he released her arm. “We have to talk. I want to know—”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

The universe spun and shattered. As if from some enormous distance, Drew watched a miniature version of Brianna break away from Pamela Dudley as they left the library. The child pelted across the grass toward Brie. He didn’t need the consternation on Pamela’s face, or Brie’s stricken expression to know the truth. He saw those same brilliant blue eyes every day when he looked in the mirror.

“There you are. We got a book on kittens, see? Gran’ma says we gotta train Lil’ Imp right.”

“Grandma’s right,” Brie whispered. She cleared her throat, hugging the little girl close.

“Too tight, Mommy.”

“Sorry, honey.” Her voice was shaken. “Where’s Imp now?”

“Gran’ma took her to the vet. She’s there now. She has to get shots just like me. Do you think Lil’ Imp will cry?” the child asked.

“No, sweetie. She’ll be brave just like you.”

Drew tried to relax his fists, but he doubted anything would unclench the pain gripping his insides. Nancy’s investigator had been right. Brianna had had his baby. And she’d never told him. Tears stung his eyes as the enormity of the truth settled over him.

“Who are you?” the little girl asked suddenly, looking up at him.

Your daddy. The words formed in his head, but he couldn’t get them past his lips. His daughter. And he hadn’t known.

“Do you got a kitty? I do. Her name’s Lil’ Imp, ’ cause Gran’ma says she’s a holy terror just like me.”

He became aware of Pamela Dudley standing to one side. Lines of strain had etched themselves deeply around her mouth and eyes. Her green eyes, so like her daughter’s, observed him from a well of sadness.

“Hello, Drew.”

“Mrs. Dudley,” he acknowledged. “Brie’s daughter was just telling me about her cat.”

Pamela flinched but nodded. “Yes. She’s pretty excited about having a kitten of her own.”

The beautiful child also watched him, as if sensing the tension that isolated the four of them there on the busy green.

“I always wanted a pet,” he told his daughter softly, “but my parents wouldn’t let me have one.”

“Not even a bird?” the child asked.

“Not even a goldfish.”

“Gran’ma’s got a bird. He’s big and white.”

“Yes. I’ve met Fitzwiggy.”

Pamela reached for her granddaughter’s hand. “Come on, Nicole.”

His daughter’s name was Nicole. Hurt, regret, anger. So many emotions tumbled inside him that his equilibrium was threatened.

“Let’s go get that ice cream now. We have to pick up Little Imp and get her home. I’m sure she’s hungry by now.”

“Isn’t Mommy coming, too?”

“No,” Drew stated before Brie could break her silence. “Mommy is going to stay and talk to me for a while. Is that okay?”

The child hesitated. She reached out her tiny hand and touched the back of his. Anger and resentment drained away, leaving only regret. His daughter.

“Okay,” Nicole said solemnly. “Bye, Mommy. Bye, man. Come on, Gran’ma.”

Brie straightened with a fragile care that was almost painful to watch.

“I couldn’t tell you because you weren’t here to tell,” Brie said quietly.

“What about the day I came to see you at the college? You were laughing with some boy, but you must have known then.”

She lifted her chin, her expression blank. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” The intensity of his feelings surprised even him. It mattered a great deal. “Was it because of what happened that night? Or because of my grandfather?”

“Your grandfather didn’t know, either. No one knew. No one ever would have known if you hadn’t come back to town and decided to run for office.”

“Brie, those eyes are impossible to miss.”

“Not if you had stayed in your part of town. I did what I had to do to survive. And I’ll continue doing whatever I need to do to protect my family.”

Stunned, he shook his head. “Protect them from what? Me?”

“You, your cold, imperious family, the sly comments of the town—anyone and everyone. Nicole is my daughter. It was a one-night stand. You even apologized! Or don’t you remember?”

Her pain lashed him where he stood.

“Get back in your car. Drive back to your safe little compound. We’ll forget this scene ever took place.”

The last of his anger trickled away as he saw how badly she was trembling. He could almost taste her fear. And that was another lash. Brie was afraid. Of him.

“Nicole is my daughter.”

Panic suffused her face. “No! She’s my daughter! A quickie in a sand dune doesn’t make you a father.”

She whirled away, but not before he glimpsed the sheen of tears in her eyes. Drew stood there, trying to marshal his chaotic thoughts. He stared up at the gnarled branches of the massive oak tree where they used to hang women branded as witches. He seldom came here. There was a malignant sensation of evil under that dark canopy of leaves. Drew looked to where Brie stood, a few yards away. Her head was bowed. Was she wiping at tears?

Torn between anger, hurt and sorrow, Drew thrust his hands deep into his pockets and set off in the opposite direction. He wasn’t ready for the sort of talk the two of them needed to have. He had some thinking to do first.

BRIE WIPED furiously at her eyes, expecting his hand on her shoulder any second. But the hand never came. When she turned around, Drew was gone.

Stunned, she scanned the park looking for him, but there were too many people. Why had he walked away? What was he thinking? Did he hate her? The thought was unbearable. What was she going to do?

Slowly, she headed for a path that would carry her out of the park. When Drew’s green sports car pulled up beside her on the street, her heart began pounding rapidly. But it was Carey, not Drew, behind the wheel.

“Want a lift?”

Brie hesitated, but she wanted to get home and be with her daughter. Accepting his offer would make that happen quicker.

“Thanks. Isn’t this Drew’s car?” she asked getting in.

“My car’s still in the shop. They claim they’re having trouble getting the part it needs. Drew lent me this one while I’m waiting.”

Brie nodded, but she wondered why Carey hadn’t borrowed a car from someone in his own family. The Eldrich clan had nearly as much money as Drew’s family did. Brie gave Carey directions and they rode in uncomfortable silence until they pulled onto her street.

“Look,” Carey said abruptly. “I don’t want to get into your business, but Drew’s my friend. Your association with him…well, it could prove awkward, if you know what I mean.”

Brie had never cared for Carey. He was too vain, too flashy, too arrogant. And he’d had a reputation on campus when she was going to school.

“Awkward how?”

“Uh, well, to put it delicately, you aren’t his type.”

“Does Drew know that?”

He reddened. “Look, Brie, Drew has women falling all over him. You’re very attractive, don’t get me wrong, but I’m talking gorgeous models, movie stars—”

“Rich people?” she asked.

“Well, uh, yes.”

“Ah. So you think I’m outclassed in all areas.”

Carey swore. “Drew’ll have my head.”

Brie relented, seeing he was genuinely upset. “Only if I tell him. Which I won’t.”

He pulled to the curb in front of her mother’s house. The garage stood open and empty, which meant her mother and daughter weren’t home yet.

“Look, just forget I said anything at all, okay?” Carey asked.

“Carey, I know I’m out of my league.”

“Hey, look, I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did, but it’s the simple truth, isn’t it? Drew’s going to make a terrific mayor, and one day I’m going to be a lawyer. But all we can ever be is friends, so don’t worry.”

“Oh. Well. Okay then.” He studied her openly. A flicker of masculine interest lit his eyes. “You really are quite attractive, Brie.”

He sounded surprised. Brie didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. Carey might be handsome, but he was a rather superficial sort of person.

“You may not have money, but you do have class.”

Brie blinked in surprise.

“You should know his family handpicked Nancy Bell to be more than his publicist.”

“I figured as much.”

“Sometimes Drew chafes under his family yoke, but he generally comes around and does what they want. His folks have been after him since he finished school to get married. And his grandfather’s been drilling it into his head for years that he needs the right woman by his side if he’s going to run for president one day.”

“Like I said, don’t worry. I have no aspirations to be the first lady.” The very idea was too ludicrous to contemplate. “Thanks for the ride home.”

“Sure. My pleasure. Look, uh, Brie, I’m, uh, not planning to run for office. Mind if I stop by the diner some night?”

Surprised again, Brie shook her head. “The diner is a public place, but I’m not looking for any entanglements.”

“Hey, great. Me neither.”

She sighed internally. Carey’s frequent and fleeting relationships with half the women in Moriah’s Landing were well-known. She wasn’t particularly flattered to learn she had finally captured his interest.

“Thanks for the ride.” As she opened the car door, her skirt tangled on the seat belt latch. Pulling it free she waved and shut the door. Something tumbled to the grass at her feet. A fragile gold necklace with a broken clasp and an expensive-looking pendant glittered up at her.

“Carey, I think one of your lady friends may have lost this.”

But the car was already halfway down the hill. Brie stared at the broken necklace. She had a feeling the delicate heart pendant might be made of real rubies and diamonds. It didn’t look or feel like costume jewelry. One of his girlfriends was undoubtedly missing the bauble.

Or maybe one of Drew’s girlfriends?

Brie refused to dwell on that thought. She’d call Carey and ask him to stop by the diner tomorrow and retrieve the necklace. For now, she’d leave it next to her purse so she wouldn’t forget to take it with her tomorrow.

She hoped her mother would hurry home from the vet’s. They needed to discuss what they were going to do now that Drew knew about Nicole.

Chapter Eight

Drew returned to the compound and used his cell phone to let his brother know he wouldn’t return to help with the float. Leaving his father’s car in front of the main house, he walked back to his cottage.

Several times he reached for the telephone to call Brie, but each time, he set the instrument down without dialing. What he needed to say couldn’t be said over the phone. He wasn’t sure yet exactly what it was he wanted to say. His mind vacillated between shock, outrage and incredible excitement.

He was a father! He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Nicole. One thing was perfectly clear in his mind, he intended to be part of her life from now on. And he couldn’t stop wondering if his grandfather had known about Brie’s pregnancy. There was only one way to find out.

As Drew opened the door to the main house, he was surprised to discover Carey and Nancy huddled together in the open foyer.

“Drew! There you are. We need to talk to you for a minute.”

“I don’t have a minute right now, Carey.”

“Make one.”

Drew paused.

“Maybe we’d better do this in private,” Nancy suggested.

Drew looked from one face to another, anxious to go and confront his grandfather. “Just spit it out.”

“Fine,” Carey said. “Nancy told me that Brianna Dudley has a little girl.”

Drew gave Nancy a hard look, angry that she shared that information after he’d asked her not to say anything.

“I know. She’s my daughter, Carey.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

Drew swung around. Maureen and William Pierce were descending the open staircase. His mother’s shocked expression said they had heard every word. And his brother came inside behind him.

“Let’s move this discussion to the office,” Drew suggested.

“What discussion?” Zach asked.

“Never mind,” his father snapped.

Zach’s body tightened. Drew saw the hurt behind his shuttered expression. “On the contrary,” Drew told his father. “Zach isn’t a kid anymore. This affects all of us, one way or another.”

“Do you mean to say it’s true?” his mother asked.

“Yes. I’m going to ask Brie to marry me.”

His mother gasped. Hastily, she clamped a hand over her lips. Nancy inhaled sharply. Carey, his father and Zach all gaped at him with identical expressions.

Then the hall exploded in raised voices, bringing Anton Pierce from the library. Drew’s father wasted no time in telling him the news.

Drew was finally able to move everyone to the office, where he waited for the uproar to die down—only it never did. His father paced the floor angrily. His mother sank into a chair in the corner twisting her opal ring around and around. Zach leaned against the bookcase. Carey plopped unhappily into a chair next to the credenza and stared at the heavy gilt frame on the opposite wall. Only Nancy stood apart, frowning.

“You cannot mean to marry a waitress,” his grandfather decreed for the third time in as many minutes.

“Andrew, marriage is totally unnecessary. Even Nancy’s investigator says there is no father listed on the birth certificate. We can pay her—”

“Enough!” Drew stared his father down until the senator’s words sputtered into silence and the pacing stopped. Next, his gaze went to his grandfather. The fierce light of battle faded more slowly from those canny, tired eyes, but the once-powerful man sitting in the padded leather chair leaned back, looking oddly defeated.

Nancy Bell’s expression held regret, disappointment and acceptance. Carey stared vacantly, rubbing his chin as if it were a talisman. Only Zach offered a wink, a smile and a thumbs-up of encouragement. Drew felt closer to his brother in that moment than ever before. But it was his mother who stunned them all. Always prim and excessively reserved, she stood regally and glided forward, laying a hand on his arm.

“Very well. If we’re going to have a wedding we’d best get started with the arrangements. I’ll need to get her properly attired,” his mother stated calmly. “There isn’t time to take her into Boston and have it done right, but I can call in a few favors to get things started. I think it would be best to have a quiet wedding, don’t you? Perhaps here in the garden if that meets with your approval. It’s quite lovely right now thanks to all the rain this year.”

“Thank you, Mother, but—”

She gazed at him with eyes the same intense shade as his own. The same blue as his daughter’s.

“Tell me one thing, Drew. Does she look like Tasha?”

The very room seemed to inhale. Drew felt as if unseen generations were waiting expectantly for his pronouncement.

“No, mother,” he said gently. “Nicole looks like Brie. Except for her eyes. She has our eyes.”

His mother inclined her head. “Very well. How soon do you plan to hold the wedding, Andrew?”

“Maureen!” William Pierce protested sharply. “All this talk of weddings is nonsense. Drew isn’t thinking straight. The bottom line is that he can’t possibly marry the girl. She works in a diner. She lives down by the wharf!”

“So did I, once,” Maureen said with quiet dignity.

His prim, cultured mother had once lived in Brie’s neighborhood?

“While we would all prefer to forget that fact, it’s the simple truth.” She turned to Anton Pierce. “And I didn’t turn out so badly, did I?”

The old man rose slowly, walked to the humidor and removed a cigar. “No,” he agreed quietly. “You didn’t. I objected to your marriage. Strongly, as I recall. But it was because I’d hoped William would forge a stronger political alliance for the sake of his career. Just as I had hoped Andrew might.” He sighed and regarded Nancy with obvious regret. “We’ll need to come up with a plan to put the best spin on this situation that we can,” he stated, some of his natural arrogance returning. “That will be your job, Nancy.”

“Excuse me,” Drew interrupted before they could get carried away planning his life again. “We’re being a bit premature here. I haven’t asked Brie to marry me yet.”

“A formality.” His grandfather declared. He snipped off the end of his chosen cigar.

“Not if she says no.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” his father sputtered. “How could she say no?”

Drew stared at his father without really seeing him. “What worries me,” he said softly, “is why she’d say yes.”

PAMELA DUDLEY went upstairs to read shortly after nine. She’d taken the news about Leland Manning’s procedure with little enthusiasm.

“We can’t afford it.”

“I’ll find a way, Mom.”

“You’ve done enough. Some things are meant to be.”

“You can’t give up. I won’t let you. Nicole and I need you. We have to try everything. You know we do. Monday morning I’ll talk with the bank. I’ll see what we can arrange.”

Her mother’s sudden tears nearly broke her heart.

Brie had spent hours since then simply staring out the window at the empty darkness. “If only we really were witches with powers.” She and her mother could stop worrying about what Drew would do about Nicole. And Brie could cast a spell that would heal her mother once and for all. But wishing wouldn’t make it so.

As if sensing her despair, Max jumped onto her lap. She stroked his soft fur in gratitude. “You wouldn’t happen to know any spells, would you, boy?”

There had to be a way to get the money Manning wanted. She would do anything. Anything at all. Closing her eyes, she tried not to wonder for the millionth time what Drew was going to do.

The telephone rang, startling her. She hastened to lift the receiver before it woke her mother. “Hello?”

“Brie? It’s Drew. Did I wake you?”

Brie stiffened. Max jumped down with a mew of disgust.

“I didn’t mean to call so late.”

She gripped the telephone, determined not to let any trace of emotion show in her voice. “I have to be at work at six,” she told him. “We’ll be busy because of the parade.”

“The diner always closes right afterward, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Would you meet me in the park after the parade?”

Brie wondered if she was imagining the note of uncertainty in Drew’s tone.

“I could send a car.”

“I’d rather walk,” she said quickly.

“I know.”

She pictured him running a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry I walked off like that this afternoon. I needed some time to think.”

She gripped the phone more tightly. “And now you’ve come to a decision?”

“I know what I want,” he said firmly, “But any decisions need to be mutual from now on. Look, it’s late. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll let you go back to sleep now. Good night.”

Numb with apprehension, Brie held the phone long after Drew hung up.

What had he decided? They could hardly hold a private conversation in the middle of the park. What was Drew thinking? Brie set down the phone and turned back to the window with an aching heart.

Max startled her by leaping onto the back of her chair and uttering a low growl as he stared out the window. His tail swished angrily.

Brie strained to see through the screen. The street was dark. Several of the old trees had overrun the streetlight and the mayor hadn’t responded to calls asking for them to be pruned back.

Nothing moved, but Max was right. She sensed a presence hiding in the shadows.

Max flattened his ears and rumbled a low feline sound of anger. Brie reached for the telephone. She couldn’t force her eyes from the window.

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“There may be a prowler outside my mother’s house.”

MINUTES CREPT PAST BEFORE a car sped down the street, stopping out front. Not a police car, but a vehicle Brie recognized. Cullen Ryan stepped from the sedan and started for her front porch. Abruptly, he stopped.

“Hold it right there. Police,” he yelled. Brianna’s heart leaped to her throat as Cullen took off running, disappearing between the houses.

The passenger door opened and his wife, Elizabeth, ran up the sidewalk. Incredibly relieved at the sight of her friend, Brie rushed to open the front door.

“Elizabeth!”

“Are you okay, Brie?”

“I’m fine.” But as they hugged, she realized she was shaking. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Same here.”

Elizabeth gave a startled exclamation. Max was stropping her legs in greeting.

“Max, you beautiful devil, you scared me. How are you doing, fellow?”

She bent to lift the cat when a form suddenly appeared at the edge of the porch. Both women jumped and Max skittered back inside. Cullen mounted the steps in twos.

“I thought I told you to wait in the car,” he chided his new bride.

“I know, but when you took off, I knew Brie would be upset. Did he get away?”

“Afraid so,” he said ruefully. “I’d like to have a look around the house, if you don’t mind, Brie.”

“I’d like that, too. I was just about to lock up for the night.”

“You didn’t get a good view of him?”

“No. Actually, it was Max who warned me someone was out there.”

“Good boy, Max. A real watch-cat, huh?”

“Max is a very smart cat. Come in, both of you.”

Brie was grateful for her friend’s presence as Cullen walked around, checking doors and locking windows for her.

“I’ve missed you,” Elizabeth said. “We’ve barely seen each other since the wedding.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“Me, too. Are you doing okay?”

“Sure.” Her life was about to explode into a possible public scandal, her mother was dying and she had people taking her picture and shooting at her—not to mention prowlers outside her window. Otherwise, Brie decided, she was doing just fine.

“How’s Nicole?”

Fitzwiggy let out a squawk of disgruntled protest as Cullen moved around the kitchen, disturbing him.

“Nicole’s fine.”

“Oh, good.”

“We really need to catch up. Why don’t you bring her over one evening? I’ll invite my little brother, Brandon, and the kids can play.”

“I’d like that,” Brie agreed. Elizabeth spent as much of her time as possible with her four-year-old brother. Brandon was a genius like his sister, but Elizabeth was determined to see to it that her brother grew up feeling loved for who he was, and not just how intelligent he was.

“All set, Brie,” Cullen said. “Everything’s locked down. I checked around outside, as well. Whatever the creep was planning, he didn’t have a chance to do anything.”

“Thanks, Cullen. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks. We need to get home. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day with the parade and all the festivities.”

“You’re working?”

“Everyone’s working tomorrow. Elizabeth and I were on our way home from the store when I heard the call go out. As soon as I recognized your address I offered to come. I only wish I’d caught the guy. I’d really like to get my hands on the ones responsible for all the mischief around here lately.”

Brie wanted to tell Cullen she didn’t think the watcher had mischief in mind. There had been something brooding and evil outside tonight. But she held her tongue, afraid he’d think she was being imaginative.

“Brie, are you sure you’re okay?” Elizabeth asked again.

“Just a little edgy.”

Cullen frowned. “Why don’t you pack up Nicole and your mom and come and stay at our place tonight?”

“That’s nice of you, Cullen, but no. Thank you.”

“Are you sure, Brie?” Elizabeth asked. “We wouldn’t mind.”

“You’re good friends, but I’m sure we’ll be fine now that Cullen scared him off.”

Cullen smiled as he gazed around the room. Abruptly the smiled vanished. A hard look came over his features. He strode to the end table where Brie’s purse was sitting.

“Oh!” Elizabeth gasped as he held up the broken necklace Brie had set beside her purse so she’d remember to take it with her in the morning.

Cullen went from friend to cop in an instant. “Where did you get this, Brie?”

“It fell out of Drew’s car when Carey dropped me off. Why?”

Cullen cursed.

“Leland Manning claims his wife was wearing a necklace exactly like this one when she was kidnapped.”

DREW CLIMBED ABOARD the float, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep. Nerves played havoc with his stomach. He’d had second and third thoughts about this plan of his, but there was no turning back now.

He adjusted his hat as the tractor started up. Dressed as his forefather, Drew took his position as the float lurched forward. And the tractor stuttered to a sudden, jarring halt.

Drew watched the commotion for several minutes before climbing down. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, Drew,” the driver said. “I think someone put sand or sugar in the gas tank. This baby isn’t going anywhere.”

Faces fell all around him. His crew had worked hard and the float looked fantastic. “Okay, guys, let’s get the lines unhooked.”

“What are you going to do?” Zach asked. “There isn’t time to bring in another tractor. Do you know someone with a truck and a trailer hitch?”

“Nope. We’re going to do it the hard way.”

THE LOCALS ESTABLISHED their territory early at the diner, staking out the best booths for a comfortable view of the parade. Brie was running on adrenaline this morning after pacing the house most of the night. She hadn’t called the police again, but the sense that something still lurked in the darkness out of sight never left her. Added to her other worries, sleep had been impossible.

Maybe the storytellers were right. Maybe McFarland Leary’s ghost did rise from his grave every five years, wreaking vengeance on the town. After all, during the height of the witch trials they had hung him in a public assembly right there on the village green for associating with a known “witch.” The tale claimed he faced his accusers with his head high, his eyes blazing in fury. In a quiet voice that carried clearly to every man, woman and child, he pronounced his curse, vowing retribution on Moriah’s Landing and its heirs. And the sky began to darken. History claims that at the moment of his death, a cloud swallowed the sun and a terrible storm swept inland, sending everyone running for shelter. Thus his legend was insured and for many locals, McFarland Leary’s name became synonymous with the bogeyman.

Brie wasn’t sure how much of the legend was true, but she’d begun to wonder. The night of their hazing in the cemetery five years ago, it had seemed like she and her friends had unleashed something terrible. Certainly none of their lives had ever been the same afterward. And now, five years later, dramatic changes were happening once more.

“Will you look at that?” someone exclaimed.

“Is that Andrew Pierce?”

“I think so,” another voice agreed. “It’s the Pierce family float.”

Brie glimpsed the float causing all the comment. Dressed in full Pilgrim costume, Drew led a group of similarly attired people who were pushing and pulling the vibrantly decorated flatbed wagon housing their float. The theme depicted the first landing amid a storm-tossed sea. Obviously, Drew represented the founding father.

Not a bad strategy for someone running for mayor. Brie wondered if they were pulling the float as a subtle message to remind people of the struggle the founding fathers had met in their attempt to build the town, or if they wanted to establish how the town had to pull together to accomplish a goal. Either way, they were making a huge—and favorable—impact.

The float was nearly past when something exploded directly in Drew’s path. What sounded like a series of firecrackers sent people running in all directions. Smoke obliterated the scene as several smoke bombs were lobbed into the street. Girls from the riding academy had been right behind Drew’s float, each one carrying a flag and pole. Horses shied and reared in fright. One girl was unseated. Her horse bolted into the crowd. People screamed as the parade erupted in chaos.

Nicole!

Brie’s mother had planned to walk down the hill with her granddaughter at the start of the parade. As people stampeded toward the diner’s small front entrance, Brie pivoted and ran to the steps off the deck.

Smoke rose slowly in the heavy, humid air. Kat’s younger sister, Emily, sat on the ground holding her arm. Blood ran between her fingers. Brie saw Drew’s brother, Zachary, rush to her side. He lifted her tenderly, peering around wildly.

“Zach! Use the deck out back,” Brie called to him. “Have Lois call the paramedics.”

Brie pushed her way through the crowd. She saw Drew trying to calm the riderless horse who was dangerously close to a group of frightened young children. Spotting her neighbors, she ran over to the couple.

“Have you seen Nicole or my mother?”

“They were down at the end of our street.”

Brie relaxed. That was far enough from the disturbance. The police were restoring order quickly. Searching for her mother in this mob was useless, so she headed back to the diner.

Others had followed Zach, seeking refuge on the back deck. Lois and Sam, the cook, were administering first aid with the help of the newly hired busboy. Zach sat at a table with Emily, pressing a towel against her arm. He looked up as Brie started across the deck.

“I think Emily was shot.”

DREW CROUCHED DOWN instinctively when the first smoke bomb detonated. Almost at the same time, his hat sailed away. Smoke clouded his view as people began screaming. A riderless horse nearly knocked him over in its panicked frenzy. Drew bolted after it, reaching for the dangling reins.

He thought he glimpsed Brie in the crowd once, but she disappeared before he could call out to her. Finally, the police restored order and Drew gazed around. His hat lay in the gutter. A neat round hole ran from one side to the other. Brie had been right. Someone wanted him dead.

Chapter Nine

Brie rushed home as soon as the diner closed. She was almost at the house when her mother’s voice called to her from two doors down. Pamela and Nicole were sitting on Mary Jackson’s front porch drinking lemonade. Nicole was playing with her friends and the little girls were giggling as they watched Little Imp tussle with a ball of yarn. Relief made Brie’s knees weak.

“I wasn’t expecting you home,” her mother said calmly. “Weren’t you supposed to go somewhere after work?”

Drew! She’d forgotten all about meeting him after the parade.

“I, uh, decided to change first. Did you go to the parade?”

“Only for a few minutes. It was too hot. Besides, Nicole was upset over leaving Little Imp behind, so when I bumped into Mary and her girls, we decided to come back here instead.”

“We plan to take the girls over later to watch the fireworks,” Mary added. “Sure sounded like a lot of commotion a while ago.”

Brianna quietly told them what had happened in front of the diner.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with people anymore. I was just telling Mary about the prowler we had last night.”

“What sort of prowler thinks he’s going to find anything worth stealing in this neighborhood, I ask you? Maybe McFarland Leary rose from his grave, after all,” Mary suggested. “You have to admit, there have been some strange and horrible things happening in town these past few months.”

“I don’t think a ghost threw smoke bombs into the crowd. Mom, please keep a close eye on Nicole. I’m feeling real edgy and I have to see someone.”

Her mother nodded knowingly.

“I should be back shortly.”

“Your mother will stay right here with me,” Mary announced firmly. “My Henry will be home soon.”

Although she was already late, Brie took time to shower and change, pulling on a crisp blue-and-white sundress. Though faded, the comfortable shirtwaist made her feel more feminine. There wasn’t time to worry about her hair so she toweled it dry, fluffed it with a comb, and found her mother’s wide-brimmed floppy white hat to cover most of it. Adding sunscreen and a touch of lipstick, she slipped on her sandals and set off for the park.

The dense overgrowth of trees offered shade, but the park bustled with so much activity that the heat and humidity were miserable. Large grills were in operation all over, filling the sluggish air with food odors.

Mayor Thane was at the microphone denouncing the people responsible for this morning’s attack. His words had an oddly rehearsed sound to Brie, who barely listened as she scanned the crowd for a glimpse of Drew.

William and Maureen Pierce sat together in the gazebo, next to Chief Redfern and Anton Pierce. There was no sign of Drew.

“I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

Her heart rate tripled as Drew found her. “Aren’t you supposed to be up there with the other speakers?”

“Come with me.”

The gentle tug on her arm was nothing compared with the tug on her foolish heart. Brie planted her feet. “I can’t go up there!”

“I know. Just stand near the front. Please? We’ll talk when I’m finished. My speech is mercifully short.”

Though she wanted to refuse, Brie let herself be led to the side of the makeshift stage in front of the gazebo. A scattering of applause indicated the mayor had introduced William Pierce.

Becca Smith stood in the crowd next to Zach. Brie stepped over to join them as Drew hurried onto the stage. “How’s Emily, Zach?”

His features lit at Emily’s name, but sobered instantly. “She’s fine. Her arm bled a lot, but she was just grazed. Chief Redfern insists she got cut by something flying out of the crowd.”

Brie lowered her voice. “You don’t agree.”

“Nope. Neither does her sister, Kat. She took Em to the hospital to get checked out. I’m going over there as soon as Drew finishes his talk. Shh. He’s up now.”

There was an underlying edge of excitement that surprised Brie. Zach gave her a broad grin and turned his attention back to the dais.

Andrew Pierce had been born for politics. With his easy confidence, that heart-stopping smile and his open charisma, he had the crowd’s full attention in seconds. “I’m going to beg your indulgence while I depart from the usual patter.”

He looked directly at Brie. Her stomach gave a strange little flip. He smiled and his gaze roved back over the crowd.

“As all of you know, I come from a long line of politicians and lawyers. Our success depends on our ability to talk. Everyone knows both professions are filled with a lot of hot air.”

People tittered. A couple of male voices called out something Brie couldn’t hear. Drew grinned infectiously. Then his expression turned serious. “Four years ago, there was a question I should have asked someone. To my regret, I didn’t.”

He held everyone captive with the intensity behind his words.

“Five simple but terribly important words, and I’ve racked my brain for a way to ask this question. Our family has been part of this town since its inception. You are our friends, our neighbors, our classmates, the people we care about. I decided to ask my question publicly, with all of you standing in witness.”

Her mouth went dry. Drew looked directly at her once more.

“Brianna Dudley, will you marry me?”

“That was six words,” Zach murmured, grinning. “But who cares? Way to go, big brother.”

Deafened by the blood pounding through her head, she was prodded forward until she stood directly in front of Drew at the foot of the makeshift stand.

“Please don’t say no,” he begged softly.

She wanted to weep. She wanted to fly at him in a rage. She wanted to run. Instead, her dazed brain let him slide a large ring onto her finger and fold her into his arms while the crowd went wild.

Panic filled her as people crowded around offering congratulations and best wishes. If Drew had released his tight hold even for a second she would have fled. She saw Becca smiling encouragingly at her. Somehow that gesture of friendship steadied her. And just in time, as Frederick Thane suddenly cut off her view.

“Nice little bit of upstaging there, Pierce.” His voice was hearty, but his eyes glittered with the promise of retribution. “Congratulations.”

He hated Drew, she realized.

Enough to kill him?

“Best of luck to you, too, my dear,” he said with false cheer. Her skin prickled as he pumped her hand. She thought she heard him whisper “You’re going to need it,” as he moved away.

Her heart stuttered to a stop as Anton Pierce took his place. She hadn’t seen the older man up close since that day in his home when she’d accepted his money to pay her mother’s medical bills. The years had not been kind. Anton Pierce looked every one of his eighty-odd years, though his eyes still gleamed with the power and intensity she remembered.

Unconsciously, Brie lifted her chin in silent defiance. She would not cower. She’d kept her word. If he thought this was her idea…

His lips curved just the tiniest bit. She would have sworn that was approval glinting in his eyes.

“As you get older you’ll realize life holds some funny cards up its sleeve,” he told her. “I’ve found it’s best to be prepared to make allowances. Welcome to the family, Brianna.”

“Close your mouth, Brie,” Zach whispered at her back. “He doesn’t bite in public.”

For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He moved away with a sad smile and William and Maureen Pierce took his place.

“Brianna.” There was no warmth in William Pierce’s brief handshake. She’d only met him once or twice and she hadn’t much cared for the stuffy politician.

Maureen edged him aside. Perfectly attired as always, she had quite startling blue eyes. Brie hadn’t realized Drew’s mother shared the same intense eye color as Nicole and Drew.

“Is your daughter with you? I’m anxious to meet her.”

Brie looked frantically to Drew. His mother knew about Nicole? He squeezed her waist in reassurance.

“No, I…she’s at home…with my mother.”

“Of course. It is warm out here for the little ones, isn’t it?” She smiled brightly and stepped forward to hug Brie. Standing frozen with shock in the unexpected embrace, Brie realized people were taking pictures. Reporters were firing questions. She pulled herself together long enough to return the hug, noting Maureen’s approval, even as she prayed the ordeal would end.

No one was answering prayers today.

Drew tried to extract them from the crowd without success. He should have known Brie was too private a person for such a public display. Why had he thought this was such a good idea last night? Sure, it deflected the blackmailer and ruined whatever plan Frederick Thane had in mind, but at what cost? Someone had shot at him this morning. Had he just made Brie a target as well?

It was Cullen Ryan who came to his aid.

“Congratulations.” He eyed Brie closely. “I just spoke to Elizabeth. She told me to tell you if you didn’t call her tonight she’d throttle you. Her words. Look, I hate to interrupt right now, but I really need to talk with you both.”

“If you can get us out of here, we’re in your debt,” Drew told him. Brie gazed up in surprise. It was the first time she’d actually looked at him since he’d slipped his grandmother’s ring on her finger.

“Come on. We’ll go to the station.”

THE POLICE STATION was empty save the dispatcher. Cullen waved and led them back to his cubicle.

“You were right, Drew. Someone fired four rounds into the crowd this morning. Young Emily Ridgemont was grazed, and that’s a scary hole through your hat, but—”

Brie gasped. Drew squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“—it doesn’t appear anyone was seriously injured. We found four spent cartridges. He used a rifle.”

“But Zach said Chief Redfern—”

“Hasn’t seen my report yet.” From a desk drawer he retrieved a clear plastic envelope. “What can you tell me about this, Drew?”

Brie perched on the edge of her seat, staring at the necklace inside the envelope as though it was going to turn into a snake and bite her.

Drew lifted the packet. “I’m no jeweler, but I’d say this is eighteen-karat gold, good-quality rubies and diamonds. It probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of—”

“Have you ever seen it before?”

“No.”

Their gazes locked. Finally, Cullen sat back with a nod.

“You claimed you never met Ursula Manning.”

“That’s right. My uncle’s done some work with Leland Manning.”

Cullen nodded. “I’m going to tell you a couple of things in confidence. They aren’t to be repeated to anyone. There are enough wild rumors going around town right now.” He ran a tired hand through his hair. “I got the ballistics report back.”

Drew leaned forward.

“Ursula Manning was killed by a rifle.”

“We were all firing handguns.”

“Someone wasn’t. The shooter was in the woods above the firing range.”

Drew cursed. “I saw Leland Manning at the fence right after the shooting.”

“So you said. Manning claims that it’s near the place where he was told to put the ransom money.”

“David Bryson was in the woods. too.”

“We’re checking on him.” The detective hesitated. “Manning believes his wife was having an affair with someone.”

Drew looked from the necklace to the detective. “You thought I was that someone?”

“Several reliable witnesses saw her in your green sports car on more than one occasion.”

Drew sighed. “Carey.”

“Carey Eldrich?”

“He’s been driving the car for several weeks. He has…something of a reputation—”

“I know all about his reputation.”

With a heavy heart, Drew told how Carey had disappeared for a long time that morning, claiming to be ill. “But if she was shot with a rifle, he couldn’t have shot her.”

“No. He couldn’t.”

“Razz could have.”

Both men stared at Brie.

“Razz and Dodie were talking in the diner after the shooting.”

Ryan made notes as she told him what she knew about the pair. Then Drew told him about the incident outside the Dudley house and Leland Manning’s threat against him.

“You never told me about that,” Brie accused.

“Just like you didn’t tell me about your prowler last night.”

“And neither of you told me about getting shot at the other night,” Cullen said.

With a guilty shrug, Drew filled him in and they both answered questions while Cullen took notes.

“So, now what?” Brie asked.

“I’m going to move you and your mother and Nicole out to the compound today, for one thing,” Drew said.

“You most certainly will not.”

“You’d be safe there. Nancy is staying at the main house so the other guest cottage is empty.”

“You think stone walls and fences are going to make us safe? I don’t think so. Whoever was in my yard last night didn’t do anything, but he could have. I was standing right in front of the window. I’d be dead if that had been his intention.”

“I don’t care. I won’t have you and my daughter at risk.”

“Will you listen to the man,” she said to Cullen. “He’s the one getting shot at!”

“And like a damn fool I just made you a target in front of the whole town! If someone wants to get to me, they now know they can do it through you. We’re getting married tomorrow as soon as the town hall opens.”

“We are not!” She pulled the loose ring from her finger and held it out. “I never agreed to marry you at all!”

“You have to marry me!”

“Why?”

“Because…you have my daughter.”

Drew instantly regretted his words. Something infinitely sad came and went in her eyes.

“Brie, I’m sorry. I went about this all wrong.”

“Yes. You did.”

Ryan’s chair creaked as he leaned back. Drew had forgotten about him. So, apparently, had Brie. Red seeped up her neck. With shaking fingers, she put the ring back on her finger.

“Sorry, Cullen,” she said. “We can have this fight later.”

“No apology is necessary.”

“Yeah, it is,” Drew said. Brie sat stiffly beside him looking grim and hurt. This wasn’t how he’d wanted things to go.

“Maybe you were right,” he told her quietly. “Maybe it is a character flaw, but I’m going to apologize to you, anyhow. I’m sorry, Brie. I screwed up. Again. Please marry me. Let me take care of you and your mother. I want to get to know our daughter. You can finish your schooling, go on to law school. I can help you if you’ll let me. You won’t ever have to worry about money again.”

“Ha! My mother needs some very expensive experimental treatments.” Her voice cracked. “She’s dying, Drew.”

He covered her hand. “I know. I’ll open you a checking account first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll go to Boston, see a specialist—”

“She has a good doctor.”

“Whatever you need, Brie. Whatever she needs.”

She stared at the ring on her finger.

“It belonged to my father’s mother,” he told her. “I didn’t have time to buy you a new one. We can pick out something more to your taste tomorrow.”

“The ring is beautiful.” She stared at it wistfully.

“Then we’ll get it sized so it fits.”

“I’m not getting married at city hall tomorrow.”

“Okay. My mother offered her garden. She says lots of flowers are in bloom right now.”

Brie looked up at him, her face expressionless. “All right.”

Relieved, he pulled her into a hug. Her body gradually relaxed and she hugged him back. But a question niggled at the back of his mind.

Why had she said yes?

Chapter Ten

“Becca, I need help.”

“Brie! Hi! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Sure, if I still had a job, which thanks to Drew I don’t anymore.”

Becca tipped her head. “Trouble in paradise?”

“I know nothing about paradise, but I can tell you plenty about the opposite end of the spectrum. Drew actually called my boss to say I wouldn’t be working there any longer.”

“Ouch. I imagine you had a few things to say in response.”

“Most of it unrepeatable, not that it changed anything.”

“You sound like you need a friend. How about a cup of tea?”

“It’s ninety-eight degrees outside.”

“So we’ll put some ice in it.”

The two women shared a laugh. Becca led her to the back office. A tiny table with two chairs and an electric teapot sat there. She gestured for Brie to have a seat. “Tell me about your plans for the wedding.”

“I don’t have any plans. You’ll have to ask Drew’s mother.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Becca, I’ve been buying my own clothing since I was twelve. Suddenly I don’t know how to dress, or wear my hair or put on makeup or—” She took a deep breath, surprised to find herself so near tears. “I know Maureen is only trying to help, but if Drew wanted a Barbie doll to dress he should have bought one of them instead of me.”

Brie stopped as she realized what she’d said. Becca went to a small cupboard and pulled out a pastry box and some tea bags.

“Sit back and relax for a few minutes.”

“I can’t, I have to get my mother to Leland Manning’s place for her first treatment at one o’clock, and—”

“Then we have plenty of time. I don’t have any appointments coming in this morning.” She opened the box and poured hot water over the tea bags. “Now tell me how I can help.”

“I’m in over my head, Becca. Maureen insists I need a total makeover. She took me to a nail salon yesterday!”

“Nice job.”

“Nice? I’ve never in my life had nails like these. They hurt. Don’t laugh, I think the woman put them on with cement. Look, I know Maureen means well, and she’s always dressed impeccably, but—”

“Her taste and style aren’t yours.”

“Exactly. Do you know what her idea of a small garden wedding is? Five hundred people! I don’t even know five hundred people! And I’m exhausted from talking to these Boston designers she keeps calling. They’ve been sending me books and sketches and samples until my head’s ready to burst. Can you see me in miles of taffeta with puffy sleeves? Just look in this bag at these samples—”

“Here, try one of these pastries, they’re sinful. Let’s see what you have here. Plaid?”

“Oh, this isn’t just for the wedding. According to Maureen, I have to have an entire wardrobe for political functions. Seven suits, she says. I hate suits. They make me look blocky.”

“Take another sip of tea. I’d have to agree, suits aren’t your style, they’re hers. You need simple styles and colors that will flatter your hair and skin tones. No blacks, nothing in white.”

“Except the wedding dress,” she said morosely.

“Not even. Soft ivory, in my opinion. Something simple with a long, elegant drape. Maybe a variation on a Grecian drape or something that would leave your shoulders bare. In this heat, you’re going to want something cool and simple. What about something like this?”

Quickly she sketched a design on the back of a napkin. Brie inhaled sharply.

“Oh, my gosh, I dreamed of a wedding gown almost exactly like that when I was young. Elizabeth and Tasha and I were going through a catalog one day, you know, just sort of talking about what kind of wedding dress we’d like to wear. And that’s it! Almost exactly as I pictured! Mom was right. She suggested I come and see you and Maureen agreed. Do you think we can find something like this in time?”

“I can make it for you.”

“But the wedding’s in two weeks!”

“That’s enough time. Now, let’s see…”

Being with Becca was like being back in college. The two of them were giggling helplessly over a pattern when they heard someone enter the shop.

Becca looked up from the bolt of fabric she’d just carried to the table. “Uh-oh. It’s Drew.”

Panic hit her. Brie began stuffing the samples and design patterns back into the tote bag. “What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty-seven,” Drew said, sounding amused.

“It can’t be! I have to pick up my mother!”

Her mother had shocked her by agreeing to move to the Pierce compound temporarily. Brie felt as if she were riding a tidal wave from the moment Drew began speaking to the crowd on the Fourth of July. Any minute now she’d fall in and drown.

Drew filled the office doorway, looking formidable and more sinful than the pastries they’d been eating. “Fortunately, your mother’s appointment was postponed until tomorrow morning.” He eyed the remaining confections and lifted a chocolate pastry. Brie watched as his strong white teeth sank into the gooey treat. Her heart pounded out of control for no reason whatsoever. There was nothing at all sexy about chewing and swallowing.

“This stuff should be illegal,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Melts in the mouth.”

That wasn’t the only thing melting. Why did this keep happening to her? All she had to do was look at him and she wanted him. She would be the happiest bride on the planet if he was marrying her out of love instead of trying to save his political career. But then, wasn’t she marrying him to save her mother and keep her daughter?

“My mother’s been giving you a hard time, hasn’t she?” Drew asked.

“Of course not. She’s trying to help me be presentable.”

“You’re presentable just the way you are, Brie.”

A thrill of a pleasure curled in her belly.

“Mom appreciates your help, Rebecca. She’s been quite impressed with your work and she’s feeling guilty for overwhelming Brie.”

“She hasn’t overwhelmed me,” Brie lied quickly, not wanting to cause a rift between mother and son. “Look, this is the dress Becca’s offered to make for the wedding. Isn’t it fabulous?”

“Fabulous,” he agreed. But he looked at her instead of the picture Becca had drawn. Maybe she was crazy, but Brie could swear he was flirting with her. Of course that was ridiculous. And yet…

They hadn’t had five minutes alone since the announcement, though they’d been together every day. Drew had spent most of his spare time getting to know his daughter. The results were obvious and immediate. Nicole had instantly succumbed to the famous Andrew Pierce charisma. Her face lit up whenever Drew appeared. Even Brie’s mother had a similar reaction to his presence. It seemed all the Dudley women were doomed to fall for Drew.

“Since you have your afternoon free now, and I’ve managed to clear my calendar for the rest of the day, I thought we could spend it together.”

“Why?”

Disappointment flared in his eyes. “That’s what engaged couples generally do.”

“But we’re not…”

“Not what?”

He was standing too close. The only thing she could think of was how badly she’d like to slide her hands across his chest and pull him a whole lot closer. How crazy was that?

“Like other couples?” he finished.

“Yes.” It came out a breathless whisper.

“Would you like to be?”

Oh, yes. To have him love her the way she—

“Come on, let’s take a ride. I want to show you something. Becca, will you excuse us?”

Becca smiled as she pretended to fan herself. “Absolutely.”

Drew grinned. “If Becca doesn’t mind, she can call my mother and tell her what works. And Becca, make sure to send my mother a substantial bill for your time.”

“Oh, no, Brie is—”

“My mother can afford it and this was entirely her idea. Let her foot the bill. And Brie, I’ve warned her that if her pet hairdresser even hints that you’d look good with short hair, I’ll restyle his face.”

Becca gave a mock sigh. “I just love a forceful man.”

“Brat,” he teased. “Come on, Brie.”

She let him lead her outside, not sure what to make of this playful Drew. “I happen to look good with short hair,” she said.

Drew chuckled. “I’m sure you do, but I love your hair long and wild, tumbling around your shoulders. I’d like it even better spread on my chest.”

Brie thought this was a really stupid time to feel faint, but the picture of him naked beneath her, their bodies pressed together, was a little more than she felt prepared to handle. “You’re confusing me.”

“Am I?”

He kept looking at her the way she’d looked at those pastries. Her stomach was turning somersaults.

“Nicole—”

“Is occupied for the afternoon,” he said smugly. “Elizabeth brought her brother Brandon over to play this afternoon.”

“But I should—”

He swung her around so their bodies touched, lifted her chin with a knuckle, slanting his mouth over hers. Hormones kicked to life with reckless abandon as the world spun away. He deepened the kiss, drawing her body snugly against his own in a fit so natural, so perfect, she couldn’t think of anything but how much she wanted him.

“You should come with me,” he said against her mouth.

“Honey, if I were a few years younger, I’d go with the man. Good-looking piece of beefcake like that. I’d teach him a thing or two.”

They broke apart. Arabella Leigh watched them through rheumy eyes. She had to be in her late eighties if she was a day. A bit senile, Arabella generally walked the wharf, but it wasn’t unusual to see her just about anywhere around town, mumbling to herself or talking to anyone she met.

She patted her disheveled gray hair and struck a pose. “What about it, handsome? I’ll go with you if she won’t.”

“If I were a few years older, I might take you up on that offer, Arabella,” Drew responded kindly.

Arabella cackled gleefully. With a cheerful wave, she ambled toward the waterfront talking to herself happily. Drew led Brie to a shiny blue car she hadn’t seen before.

“How many cars do you own?” she demanded, to cover the flustered feeling inside her.

“This one isn’t mine. It’s yours. I bought it for you this morning.”

Brie froze. “I don’t want a car! Take it back! My mother has a perfectly fine car when I need one.”

Unperturbed, he shook his head. “That perfectly fine car needs four new tires, a new transmission, shocks, springs and a muffler, not to mention air bags and a safer car seat. This car has all of the above.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read the invoice.”

“I mean about my mother’s car.”

“Our mechanic checked it over yesterday.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You were getting a manicure.”

Brie glanced down at her new fake fingernails and resisted an impulse to curl them away out of sight. “I don’t see a car seat,” Brie told him meekly.

“It’s in the trunk.”

God, she loved his smile.

“Are you going to fight me on every issue?”

“Probably. Drew, I can’t help it. I don’t want you giving me things like cars and new clothes.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me feel inadequate.”

Drew realized she was close to tears. The knowledge slid through him like a knife. He was asking so much of her. He hadn’t understood until he heard her giggling so freely with Becca Smith.

“You are not inadequate. But you’re right, Brie. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I’ll take the car back if you want me to. I’ll get your mother’s car fixed instead. I—”

“No. Please.” She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m being stupid and ungrateful. I’m the one who’s sorry. This is all wrong. You know it’s all wrong. I’m all wrong. You need a wife who dresses right and knows how to do things and—”

Drew swore. “I need you to be yourself, Brie, not a clone of my mother.”

She took a half step back at his strident tone. Drew rubbed his jaw, wondering why he kept making such a hash of things. “Will you take a ride with me?”

“All right.”

She didn’t say another word until he made the turn toward the compound.

“Are we going to your place?”

“In a manner of speaking. The compound is actually comprised of one hundred twenty-seven acres. My family isn’t just good at politics, they know how to invest their money and make it grow. They also believe in conservation and planning ahead. Besides this chunk of land, we own beachfront property and several developmental properties in and around Boston and Salem. My great-grandfather was big on acquiring land and buildings. He had a knack for it.”

“I didn’t realize your holdings were so extensive. You really are rich, aren’t you?”

“Does that scare you?”

“It makes me nervous,” she admitted.

“Don’t be. We’ve hired on extra security. And look at the good news. No one’s shot at me in days.”

“That isn’t funny! Have you talked to Cullen recently? Has he learned anything?”

“Yesterday, in fact. They’re still asking questions. Carey admitted to Cullen that he was having an affair with Ursula Manning,” Drew said unhappily. “But he claims he hadn’t seen or talked to her in several days prior to the shooting.”

Even though they had both figured as much, Drew was clearly upset. “Don’t you believe him?”

“I want to believe him.”

“You’ve been friends a long time.”

“I know, but I keep remembering how odd he looked when he finally joined us that morning. He claimed he was sick.”

“Maybe he was.”

“I just found out Carey’s family cut him off several weeks ago. He doesn’t have a job and he’s nearly broke, yet he’s been making deposits of cash into his accounts since the murder that he can’t, or won’t explain.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“He won’t discuss it.”

“I’m sorry, Drew.” They sat quietly for a few minutes, lost in thought. Finally, Brie asked, “Is he still going to be your usher?”

“He hasn’t told me any differently.” Drew stopped where the road ended. He turned off the engine. “We have to walk from here.”

“Where are we?”

“This is my part of the compound. We’re standing on twenty-five acres that were deeded over to me the day after I was born. Each of us were given shares. This section has a natural spring and a brook. I want to show you where I dreamed of building a house one day.”

He took her hand. Her fingers were cold despite the heat. It was a fairly long hike along the hidden deer path, but she didn’t complain. It was cooler under the dense canopy of trees. The sound of birds filled the air. He stopped when they reached the clearing, wanting to watch her face when she saw it for the first time. “What do you think?”

Her pleasure was obvious. “It’s fantastic. Drew, look,” she whispered. A pair of foxes emerged on the other side of the clearing. They tested the wind but didn’t scent the human presence. After a moment, three tiny kits came bouncing out of the underbrush and followed their parents to the water’s edge.

Drew slid an arm around Brie’s waist as they watched the magical scene. The parents stood guard while the kits drank and played. Suddenly coming alert, they urged their family back into the woods.

Brie gazed at him in wonder. “This is a special place.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

“I expect to see fairies popping out any second.”

He smiled. “Fairies?”

“It feels magical. Don’t you sense it? It’s charmed.”

“Because you’re here.” He laid a hand over her lips to stop her from saying anything further. “Shh. Don’t question the magic.”

Leading her to a stone of granite worn smooth on top by whatever force had placed it there, he took his handkerchief and made a production out of dusting it off.

“My lady?”

“But—”

“Shh. No objections. No negativity. Just sit here beside me and let’s see what else comes down to the water to drink.”

She perched tentatively beside him. After a few minutes she began to relax. He startled her by taking her hand. When she relaxed again he began to rub his thumb against the pad of her hand. A quiver ran down her body.

“What are you doing?”

“Touching you. I like touching you. I always did, remember?”

She tensed. “Drew—”

“Shh. Something’s moving over there, see by that tall pine?”

“I don’t—Oh! It’s a groundhog.”

“Fat little sucker, isn’t he?”

“That’s not very—”

She jumped as he placed a kiss along the back of her neck.

“What are you doing?”

“Kissing you.” He trailed a path of light kisses along the collar of her blouse. “This is a magical place. In this circle all things are possible.”

She gazed at him with such hope and fear it broke his heart. Sliding his hand gently through her hair, he cupped the back of her head. Very slowly, he brought her face to his. “All things are possible,” he whispered against her mouth.

The kiss was gentle. Her body softened. She leaned into him. Need twisted his gut. Slowly the kiss built until it went hot and wild despite his best intentions.

He didn’t remember unbuttoning her blouse or unfastening the front clasp that held her bra closed. But when her firm, tempting flesh spilled into his hands, he covered the pink-tipped bud with his mouth and feasted.

She clung to him, making tiny sounds that sent the heat rising even higher in his body. Lured by the scent and taste of her, he sought her mouth, kissing her hard, his tongue penetrating her mouth the way he wanted to penetrate her body. And she kissed him back, her tiny sounds of pleasure twisting his gut into knots of desire so strong he thought he’d die from the need.

He slid his hand inside the waistband of her pants, feeling her belly contract at his touch. Wicked, hot pleasure assailed him, but from somewhere, a core of sanity surfaced.

“We can’t,” Drew said miserably.

“What?”

Slumberous with molten desire, her green eyes were half closed by passion. Brie shook her head as if trying to understand. Drew withdrew his hand, pulling her body against the wall of his chest.

“I don’t have any protection. We already have one child. We aren’t going to create another one until we both decide the time is right.”

She pulled away and stood, turning her back to him. He watched her fumble with her clothing.

“Brianna.” He touched her back lightly. Her spine stiffened beneath his fingers. She walked deeper into the clearing. “I want you so badly I’m shaking, too. I can see you in my mind, hot and naked, and it’s making me crazy.” His voice broke because he was very much afraid he’d give in to the explosive desire filling his mind and his body.

“We’ve already made love on a sand dune. Wouldn’t you like to try a bed? Our bed—here—in our house? I didn’t bring you here to make love to you. I brought you here to share my dream. This is my spot. I’d like to make it our spot. I’m going to put the master bedroom there, where you’re standing and—Are you crying?”

“No.” She brushed a hand across her face, but she didn’t turn around. “We’ll put the bedroom where the rock is,” she said decisively, though her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I want the kitchen table right here, so we can sit and watch the foxes come and go.”

Drew relaxed. Hope rose in his chest. “All right, we’ll compromise. When we sit down with the architect, we’ll see what he says.”

“There’s a storm coming.”

Drew looked up, seeing nothing but blue sky and a few white clouds. “What?”

She turned to face him. The only trace of passion was the slight puffiness around her lips.

“The pressure’s falling. It’s coming in fast. We have to get back to the guest house.”

Once again he looked to the sky but saw nothing threatening.

“Drew, we have to get back!”

THICK, DARK CLOUDS CHASED across the sky. From his hiding place the man glanced up through the canopy of leaves in surprise as lightning cleaved a jagged path, heralding the rumble of distant thunder. The suddenness of the squall took him by surprise.

He’d been observing the woman and the two children at play, trying to decide if they were alone. The clap of thunder startled the tiny kitten. It scampered directly toward his hiding place. The little boy set off in pursuit. The woman yelled and went after him.

He tensed, preparing to grab his victim. A twig snapped beneath an incautiously placed foot behind him. It could have been an animal, but he knew it wasn’t. Someone else was in the woods.

Swearing silently, he slipped away, angrily abandoning his plan. There’d be another time. He’d see to it. His body tightened in anticipation.

THUNDER CRASHED OVERHEAD as Drew drove along the twisty, tree-covered lane to the guest house. Brie suddenly peered out the side window. “Was that Carey?”

“Where?”

“I saw someone in the woods over there. It was just a glimpse, but it looked like him.”

“More than likely it was my Uncle Geoffrey. He lives in the guest house on the other side of those trees. He’s been skulking about the grounds at odd hours a lot lately.”

“How comforting. Why?”

“I’ve no idea, but I mean to find out. Uncle Geoff’s weird, but he’s harmless.”

At least Drew hoped he was. Drew had been checking into his uncle’s activities lately without a lot of success. Some of the rumors were starting to make him distinctly uneasy.

“You know,” Brie was saying, “the word cottage has a whole different meaning in my part of town. This place is bigger than my mother’s house. How many are there?”

“Only three. They were designed to be near the main house, yet give the occupants a full measure of privacy. I’m living in the one in the opposite direction.”

“You don’t live at the main house?”

“Not since I came home from college. Do you want to see?”

The tension simmering between them since he’d touched her in the clearing rose to the surface once more. Drew watched her breathing quicken, her eyes soften. She was so expressive. He didn’t remember much about that night on the beach, but he knew she was a responsive lover.

“Maybe later. I should check on my mom and the kids. She had one of her headaches this morning.”

A torrent of rain engulfed the car. Lightning exploded across the sky. As Drew pulled up he saw Pamela Dudley herding two sopping-wet children through the backyard, the bedraggled kitten tucked under her arm.

“Looks like your mom and the kids got caught in the rain.” Drew reached for Brie’s arm before she could open the door. “About what happened back there in the woods—”

Green fire danced in her eyes. “As I recall, nothing happened other than a couple of kisses. Were you planning to apologize?”

Again.

“Only for not being prepared, but given how you feel about my apologies, I’ll settle for promising you that the next time I get you alone in a magical clearing, not even a thunderstorm is going to stop me from making love to you.”

Her lips parted in surprise. Her pulse jumped in her throat. His body tightened.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Are you coming in?”

“Not right now. But I’ll be back.”

She nodded jerkily, opened the door and sprinted toward the front of the cottage. Watching her go, Drew wondered how it was he kept blundering so badly around Brie. He was normally accomplished at the art of seduction. It wasn’t like him to forget something so elemental as protection. It was almost as if some other force were at work here, determined to keep them apart.

Drew pulled his thoughts from Brie to his uncle. They needed to talk. But no car sat in front of his uncle’s cottage. Drew waited for the rain to slow, then ran to the front door. There was no answer and no sound from inside. Twisting the handle, he was disturbed when it gave beneath his fingers.

“Uncle Geoff?” Nothing happened when he flicked on the light switch. The power often went out during thunderstorms. A strange, unpleasant smell permeated the house. Apparently, his uncle had stopped the maids. Even without light, the place needed to be dusted and vacuumed. Dirty dishes were piled everywhere. The stove was splattered with grease and bits of dried food. The smell of rotting garbage made his stomach roil in protest.

The wrongness about the cottage set his teeth on edge. Rain beat a tattoo against the roof and windows as he investigated the bedrooms. His uncle had been using the smallest room as an office, but it had been stripped of everything. In the master bedroom the unmade bed had been slept in, but there wasn’t a single personal item anywhere in the room—or, as it turned out—anywhere in the house. His uncle was gone.

Chapter Eleven

Brie had to force herself to sit calmly as Dr. Manning tied the rubber tourniquet around her upper arm. Even here in this brightly lit laboratory on the campus grounds, Leland Manning gave off an aura that was deeply unsettling. The intensity of his stare unnerved her. All she could think about were mad scientists and evil experiments.

As she felt the soft bite of the needle, Brie had the strongest desire to pull her arm back and refuse to allow him to take the promised blood. It didn’t matter that he was also going to run the blood test she needed for the wedding. She didn’t like Leland Manning. She had to force herself to remain still as her blood ran down the hollow tube of plastic and into the small glass test tube.

“I understand you have a child. A little girl, isn’t it?” he asked.

She gazed around at the laboratory, anywhere except those disturbing eyes.

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if you’d mind if I took a sample of her blood, as well.”

Brie jerked her arm. The needle tore loose and blood welled at the site of the tiny puncture wound.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Manning.”

“Quite all right,” he said stiffly. “I have enough for my purposes. About your daughter…”

She fought a sense of revulsion. “No! I’m sorry, but Nicole is terrified of needles. She’s a worse subject than I am. She can never hold still and I couldn’t possibly subject her to having her blood drawn unless it was vital to her health.”

“Not even if it meant I could lower the cost of your mother’s treatments a bit more?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, yes, money isn’t an issue for you any longer, is it?”

Something in his tone made her stomach constrict. “You know, Dr. Manning, Drew wasn’t responsible for your wife’s death.”

He stared at her coldly. “So the police told me.”

His flat tone and stony expression warned her off. “If we’re finished, I’ll go and check on my mother.”

“I’ve offended you.”

No, you’ve frightened me, but she managed not to say that out loud. Brie shook her head as he applied gauze over the small wound.

“No? Good. I should have the results of your mother’s tests back in a few days. Naturally, I’ll need to discuss her case with her oncologist before we proceed.”

“Dr. Thornton said he’d be more than happy to assist in any way he can.”

“Excellent. If all goes well, we can set up a schedule for her early next week.”

“Would it affect anything if we wait until after the wedding? Mrs. Pierce has been keeping her rather busy.”

“The wedding is next weekend, is it not?”

“Yes. Will you be able to attend?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

She tried not to shudder.

“We shall just hope that tropical depression down south stays put and doesn’t turn into a full-scale hurricane. It was on the news this morning. The weather service is monitoring the situation.”

No wonder she’d been feeling edgy. Brie reached for her purse. “Dr. Manning, tell me honestly, does my mother have a chance of recovering?”

“Gene therapy is experimental.”

“I know. I just wondered—”

“I anticipate the drug will go to the altered cancer cells and force them to become a suicide potion for the cancer itself. Gene therapy is still in its infancy, my dear, but there is every reason to believe this will work. Your mother may die, but I expect to learn enough to benefit others.”

Her mother may die. He said it in the same tone he’d used to tell her about the tropical storm. If there was any other recourse available…but there wasn’t. Leland Manning was her mother’s only hope.

“I understand.”

“Do you? I wonder.”

His eyes bore into hers. Brie wanted to cringe away until the brightness of his stare faded.

“I’d like you to reconsider allowing me to test your daughter. Her blood would be quite beneficial…to my research.”

Not for any reason whatsoever. Brie now understood completely why people called Manning a vampire behind his back. “I’ll think about it.”

“Very well.” He picked up the vial of her blood and turned away dismissively.

Brie left the laboratory as quickly as possible. She needed someone to talk to about Manning and his research. Someone who would understand. Someone like Elizabeth! She was a certified genius and science was her specialty. Maybe they could meet for dinner or something.

Unfortunately, Maureen had made other plans. With the wedding extravaganza in progress, Brie’s input was suddenly vital on every aspect. Thrown into the deep end of the Pierce social whirl, she was only grateful that Becca had arranged a suitable wardrobe for not only Brie, but her mother and Nicole, as well. Items continued to arrive from Boston on a regular basis. In addition to designing the wedding gown and her mother’s dress, Becca was also helping in the selection of the other three dresses.

Elizabeth had agreed to act as her maid of honor, Kat would serve as bridesmaid and Nicole would be flower girl, while Kat’s little brother, Brandon, would be the ring bearer. Brie was the only one who wasn’t surprised when Drew asked Zach, rather than Carey, to serve as his best man. Brie had watched with pleasure as the two brothers had grown close over the past couple of weeks. While Carey agreed to serve as usher, he seemed to be avoiding Drew as much as possible.

Elizabeth wanted to give Brie a wedding shower, but they couldn’t fit it into her busy schedule. Maureen insisted Brie and her mother meet with florists, chefs, photographers, musicians and countless others involved in the wedding production. Then there was the visit with Maureen’s favorite hair stylist and makeup artist. She’d had Alfred and his assistant brought in from a Boston salon.

Brie had dreaded the event and was tremendously surprised. The stocky Alfred and his shy assistant actually asked questions about her preferences…and he listened. Aware of Drew’s desire that she keep her hair long, he came up with a fantastic compromise. He layered the back, leaving the length, but cut the front, taming the unruly curls around her face to add volume and height. The style was not only flattering, but a lot less work to care for. Even Drew seemed pleased.

Not that the two of them had had any time alone together, and when they were, Drew seemed preoccupied.

Curiously, the attacks on Drew had stopped right after the Fourth of July parade. In the past two weeks things had been unusually quiet around town—like the warning silence before a storm. Brie didn’t believe it was a coincidence that Mayor Thane had been out of town since then. Drew was still searching for Razz and Dodie, but even Cullen Ryan couldn’t find the pair.

Twice she’d glimpsed someone—or something—sliding among the trees in the woods. She made sure the alarm in the cottage was set at all times and warned her mother not to let Nicole out of her sight. But as nothing happened, Brie began to lose some of her caution.

Three days before the wedding, Brie was summoned to the main house. She ignored the shiny new car and set off on foot. She realized her mistake when a rustling sound brought her to a heart-pounding stop. Someone was following her. She’d left her purse and her can of mace at the cottage. Would anyone hear her if she screamed?

The branches parted. David Bryson stepped partially into view. She glimpsed the scar that ran down the side of his face before his long hair fell forward, covering the mark. Brie tried not to stare. He was dressed in black from his dark hair to his black shoes, and he seemed to melt into the shadows.

“David! You scared me! What are you doing here?”

“It isn’t safe to walk alone.”

“I think you effectively made that point.”

“Then let me make another. If you go through with this wedding, watch yourself. The Pierce family isn’t loved by everyone.”

Fear lifted the hairs on the back of her arms. “What do you mean? Wait, David, don’t go!” But he slipped back into the trees as silently as a ghost.

She’d wanted to invite David to the wedding, but the harsh feelings between David and the Pierce clan ran deeper than the death of Tasha. The family had always hated the fact that David had bought the castle, called the Bluffs, out from under them.

So what had David been doing here? He certainly wasn’t here by invitation. Should she tell Drew? Not telling him felt disloyal, but she didn’t share Drew’s hatred, even if David made her uneasy.

Troubled, she hurried along.

“I’m pretty sure I saw Mrs. Pierce in the solarium,” a harried worker said distractedly when she asked.

Brie disliked the humid room filled with plants. And not just because Elizabeth had found a body hanging from the rafters in there this past winter. The solarium reminded Brie of a jungle run amok with its earthy smells and trailing vines. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find a lion stalking her through the place. She was crossing the tiled floor when raised voices made her pause. Geoffrey Pierce and Drew were approaching, locked in what sounded like a bitter personal discussion.

Brie quickly dodged behind an impossibly tall giant fern tree, not wanting to interrupt. But when the two men came to a halt, she found herself trapped, an unwilling listener.

“That is my business and none of your concern,” Geoffrey Pierce snarled. “I’m tired of your interest in my activities, Andrew. Your constant hounding is the main reason I moved to the beach house.”

“I’m sorry you’re upset, but you’re leaving me no choice. What is David Bryson’s connection to this secret society? I’ve been hearing some ugly whispers around town—”

“I don’t pay attention to rumors and you’d be wise to follow my example.”

“Normally I’d agree, however, if this society of yours is involved in something illegal that will bring scandal down on the entire family—”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about scandal. I’m not the one with little bastards popping up, forcing me into a sham of a marriage with some cheap little waitress.”

Brie bit down on a knuckle, feeling ill. Is that what they were saying in town? Drew didn’t challenge the assertion. It was Nancy Bell’s voice that knifed through the tension. Brie listened to the staccato click of her heels against the tiles as she approached the two men.

“Actually, Dr. Pierce, Drew’s popularity around town has never been higher. His engagement to Brianna has only strengthened his position in the working man’s community.”

“Of course. Wharf rats all love a Cinderella story,” he sneered. “Even when the prince is only marrying her to save his career.”

“Drew! Don’t! He’s your uncle!”

“I don’t care who he is,” Drew bit out in a deadly tone of voice Brie had never heard him use before.

“I’m warning you for the last time. Stay out of my business,” Geoffrey hissed.

“Drew! No! Let him go,” Nancy urged.

Seconds later, Brie glimpsed Geoffrey Pierce outside striding away, his face suffused with bitter anger.

“See if you can get hold of Katherine Ridgemont, Nancy,” Drew said tersely. “She goes by the name of Kat most of the time and has a detective agency here in town. I want her to look into this secret society for me.”

“But I already have investigators—”

“Your people are being stonewalled and we both know it. We need an insider. Give Kat a call. She was my sister’s friend. She’ll help if she can. Have you seen Carey?”

“You mean today?”

“Today, yesterday, the day before? He’s avoiding my calls.”

“Uh, no. I haven’t seen him since I came back.”

Nancy was lying. Brie had seen the two of them together in the garden only yesterday. They had looked so intimate she hadn’t approached. She’d meant to ask Drew if the two of them had developed a personal relationship.

Their voices trailed off as they exited into the garden. Brie heard Maureen’s voice outside raised in greeting.

Brie stared around at the unpleasantly hot, humid room, crowded with creeping, sprawling plants, and shuddered.

Pressure filled the air. It had been building for days now. Brie had blamed it on the tropical storm slowly moving up the coast, but now, she wondered. She could almost believe malignant forces were gathering over Moriah’s Landing in anticipation of some evil event.

She forced herself to walk, not run, toward the door and freedom from the disturbing room. But the brooding sensation didn’t abate in the sunlight. Something evil was out of sight, lurking, watching, waiting.

“Brianna, there you are. Your friend Rebecca is a wonder. She’s handled those designers with the skill of a diplomat. The rest of your new wardrobe arrived this afternoon and just in time. Did Drew tell you we’re having dinner with the governor and his wife tonight?”

Harsh lines bracketed Drew’s mouth and eyes. There was still a dark flush to his skin, and the vein in his neck throbbed with anger that hadn’t yet found a release.

“I haven’t had a chance to mention it, Mother,” he muttered. “We haven’t even had five minutes to say hello yet today.”

She tipped her head, trying to ease his tension. “Hello.”

He didn’t smile. “Don’t let my mother roll over you, Brie. We don’t even have to go if you’d rather not.”

“Of course you must! I am not trying to roll over anyone, but Andrew, you know your father will be very upset—”

“It’s all right, Maureen,” Brie said soothingly. “I’d be delighted to meet the governor.” And seeing the anger still simmering in Drew’s eyes, she added. “And if it will ease Drew’s worry, I’ll promise not to even mention that ridiculous tax bill the man is proposing.”

Drew’s expression lightened slowly, but Maureen uttered a tiny sound of dismay. While laughter lines suddenly crinkled around his eyes as he recognized her tease for what it was, his mother chirped away about how certain topics must not be discussed.

“I did warn you, Mother. Brie has a mind of her own. A good mind. The governor could learn a lot from talking with her. This should prove to be a very interesting dinner.”

“Good heavens,” Maureen whispered.

Brie relaxed as she and Drew shared a private smile. Perhaps, just perhaps, Drew didn’t share his uncle’s view of their coming marriage.

THE BREWING STORM drew energy into itself until it attained the rating of a full-scale hurricane. Weather reports became the main topic of conversation as slowly the storm drifted closer to the Eastern seaboard.

The morning of the wedding was overcast and more muggy than usual. The tropical smell in the air would have felt right at home inside the Pierce family solarium. Brie and her mother were using a guest bedroom to dress, when they found themselves alone for the first time in days. Her mother looked radiant in a sinfully pretty dress of pale yellow.

“Brie, I’m glad we have a moment. I haven’t wanted to say anything because I know how much you love Drew. He’s a marvelous father, but I sense you have doubts about this wedding. I just want you to know it’s not too late to change your mind.”

She had doubts, all right. Major doubts had been chipping away at her sleep and gnawing holes in her stomach. A sham of a wedding, his uncle had called it, and he was right. Drew loved his daughter, but Brie knew if it hadn’t been for Nicole, Drew wouldn’t be waiting with the minister for her right now.

Was she fooling herself that she could make this marriage work for them when half the town seemed to be aware that Drew didn’t love her? But without the Pierce money, her mother would die. Besides, her daughter needed her father’s love. The bond between them had taken no time to develop. Nicole adored Drew and he clearly felt the same. Brie had to make it work, whatever the cost.

“I don’t want to change my mind, Mom.”

There was a knock on the door and Carey stuck his head around the corner. “All set? We need to go downstairs. It’s time for the mother of the bride to be seated.”

Brie felt strangely isolated as Carey led her mother away. Elizabeth and Kat fussed over the children, waiting for their cue.

“Brianna?”

Startled, she found Yvette standing beside her.

“Yvette! I’m so glad you came.” There hadn’t been all that many names on the bride’s list. “You need to walk—”

“I brought you something.”

She opened her hand to reveal a pair of delicate crystal earrings. Captivated, Brie lifted one. “They’re lovely.”

“I know you aren’t into crystals or metaphysical items, but when I saw these…there is supposed to be power in certain crystals. These are for you. For luck.”

Touched, Brie reached up and removed her grandmother’s pearl studs, replacing them with the bits of glittering glass. “Would you hold on to these for me until after the ceremony? I don’t have anywhere to put them right now.”

Yvette smiled and whisked the pearls into the pocket of her long red skirt. “I won’t mislay them.”

“I know you won’t.” She touched the back of Yvette’s hand. The woman’s features suddenly clouded. Brie had the feeling that Yvette was looking past her, into some vision only she could see.

“Yvette, are you okay?” While the rational part of her knew much of what Yvette did was an act, there was still something almost serenely mystical about the other woman. At moments like this, it was hard not to believe in Yvette’s abilities.

“The future changes as each path is chosen. Trust your instincts, Brianna.”

Brie nodded. “I am.”

DREW STOOD BEFORE THE CROWD. He watched his daughter and Brandon lead the procession. Pamela Dudley caught his eye from her seat in the front row. They shared a smile at the picture the solemn youngsters made. Then Nicole saw him waiting. A broad smile split her face and a tension he hadn’t known he felt eased inside him.

“Hi, Daddy! Did I do it right?”

A heart really could swell. Departing from the script, he went forward and gave his daughter a quick hug. “You did it perfectly,” he whispered. “You, too, Brandon.”

The boy beamed. The children were quickly escorted to their places as Kat and Elizabeth followed them down the makeshift aisle. Then Brie stepped onto the path.

She glowed with a soft radiance. She held her head proudly high, her face utterly serene. The palest of yellow rosebuds and baby’s breath adorned her hair, complementing the flowers she carried in her hands. Her dress was elegant in its sheer simplicity.

If Brie had expected fairies in the clearing the other day, he half expected them now. Surely they would be here to watch their queen’s marriage to a mere mortal. As their gazes locked, a strange sense of peace settled over him. He wasn’t aware he’d moved from his brother’s side until he’d taken her hand and led her the rest of the way.

“Daddy, you were supposed to wait over there,” his daughter scolded.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot.”

“That’s okay.”

Everyone smiled as they joined the minister under the trellis of roses and ivy. Everyone except Carey. Drew filed that puzzle away for later. His attention centered on Brie, the minister, and vow he was about to make.

THEY WERE MARRIED. The fact seemed as unreal as the people swirling around Brie. Her feet hurt and her face was stiff from smiling. Famous people, from politicians, to the movers and shakers in the business world, to some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry had attended her wedding. Thankfully, Drew hadn’t left her side—until she finally escaped to the blissful solitude of the bathroom. Her image displayed no sign of the exhaustion tugging at her. She wandered back outside reluctantly, pleased to find Elizabeth and Kat standing nearby chatting with Becca. These were her guests. Her friends.

“Brie, you look like you need something to drink. Here.”

Brie accepted the glass of sparkling water Elizabeth handed her with a grateful smile.

“You’re a mind reader. I was dying of thirst.”

“The wedding was perfect.”

“Do you think so?”

“Absolutely, though I think you were upstaged by your daughter. She melted every heart in the yard when she called Drew Daddy.”

“They were adorable,” Claire agreed, drifting over to join them.

Brie hugged her friend tightly, happy to see Claire finally looking so well after all this time. “I am so glad you came today.”

“Me, too.” She glanced around nervously at the huge crowd of people. “You look like a princess, Brie.”

“Thanks to Becca,” she agreed, smiling at the woman who stood on the fringe of their circle. “Come over and join us.”

Kat snagged a passing waiter carrying a tray of champagne. “We need these. I want to propose a toast.”

The others accepted glasses of the wildly expensive vintage and waited.

“To old friends and new ones,” Kat said, including Becca with a warm smile. “May the future draw us close together once more.”

“Hear, hear,” Elizabeth agreed.

“And to friends who are gone, but never forgotten,” Claire added shyly.

Their thoughts turned to Tasha as Claire had intended. The five of them clinked glasses and drank a pledge to deepen the bond they had forged. Through a gap in the crowd Brie found Drew watching, a smile of approval lighting his eyes.

She touched an earring lightly and thought Yvette might have been right. There might indeed be something of power in these tiny glass shards. Maybe this wasn’t a perfect marriage, but it didn’t have to be a sham. They liked each other and there was no denying their powerful chemistry. It would be enough. She would make it be enough.

Drew turned away from Brie reluctantly. His wife, he thought in satisfaction, would be there later. Right now he was determined not to let Carey elude him again. “We need to talk, friend.”

“Later.”

“You’ve been saying that for two weeks.”

“You’ve been busy for two weeks.”

Carey wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Not that busy. You’re avoiding me. Are the rumors true?”

“Which rumors? This town has so many it’s hard to keep track.”

“Carey, I know you’re in trouble. Let me help.”

To his shock, Carey’s expression turned bitter. “Good old Drew, always there with a hand for a friend. Did it ever occur to you that I might actually be able to solve my own problems? You want to play big brother, go find Zach.”

“Excuse me, Carey,” William Pierce interrupted, totally unaware of the undercurrent. “Senator LaFleur needs to speak with Drew before he has to leave. Will you excuse us?”

“Gladly.”

Drew reluctantly allowed himself to be led over to a group of politicians and their wives. Even as he smiled and chatted, he wondered at Carey’s bitterness. Drew hated the suspicion crawling around in his head. But he couldn’t shake it loose. What if Carey had known he was about to be disinherited? What if he’d conspired with Ursula Manning to pretend she’d been kidnapped to gain the ransom money?

Carey was a playboy. Drew didn’t want to believe he was a thief.

With absolutely no warning, a woman’s shrill scream sent him spinning toward Brie.

Chapter Twelve

Brie reached for Claire as the glass slipped from her fingers, showering them all with champagne.

“No, no, no, no!”

With shocking strength, she tore from Brie’s grasp. Claire raced blindly toward the solarium, her face a rictus mask of terror. Dogs were barking furiously.

Brie glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze landed on David Bryson. Dressed in black as always, he stood beside a large ornamental shrub watching Security chase two fleeing figures. She was absolutely certain David wasn’t on the guest list, but she couldn’t worry about his presence right now. She hurried after Claire. By the time she reached her friend, Claire was curled tightly in a ball behind the tall fern tree, rocking and weeping silently. Elizabeth dropped to the floor beside her, keeping her voice soft and gentle as she murmured to Claire and stroked her rigid body.

“What happened?” Drew asked at Brie’s side.

“I don’t know.” Her own cheeks were damp with tears. She hadn’t even known she was crying. “We were just talking. Suddenly she started screaming.”

Cullen began clearing the room and Brie leaned into Drew gratefully as he slid an arm around her shoulders. “He’s here, isn’t he? The person who hurt her?”

“Shh.” Drew glanced around quickly to be sure no one had overheard. “We don’t know that. She’s been ill a long time, Brie. Maybe someone or something reminded her of the kidnapping. You told me yourself you weren’t sure Claire could handle being in such a large group.”

“But her reaction—”

“Ambulance is on the way,” Kat said, walking over to them. Jonah Ries had an arm wrapped possessively around Kat’s waist, but his features were grim.

“Security nabbed two men who came in over the wall with an arsenal of smoke bombs, spray paint, knives—”

“Razz and Dodie,” Brie said immediately.

“I’ll wring their necks,” Drew promised.

She gripped his arm. Her eyes went to Claire, who lay rigid and unmoving in Elizabeth’s arms. “You don’t think…?”

Cullen joined them and followed her gaze. A hard, professional mask settled over his features. “I’ll find out what those two were doing here.” His jaw set. “You’ll press charges?”

“Absolutely,” Drew agreed.

“Besides Razz and Dodie, do any of you know who Claire was looking at right before she screamed?”

Kat stepped forward. “I was facing the same direction. There were a number of people in our direct line of sight. Anton Pierce was talking with Anita Lovett, the movie star, and her husband. Brie’s mother, Nicole and Brandon, Zach and Em were also standing there. Carey Eldrich and Nancy Bell were having a conversation with a man I didn’t recognize. And Leland Manning, Geoffrey Pierce, Mayor Thane, his aide and two other men I didn’t recognize were clustered together to the right of them.”

“You saw all this?” Cullen asked in amazement.

“I was sort of keeping an eye on the situation.” She shrugged. “You know, in case Dr. Manning had learned that Carey was having an affair with his wife. I didn’t want any trouble.”

Brie’s gaze returned to Claire. Her friend’s pain was horrible to witness. Brie felt so cold she wondered if she would ever feel warm again.

FULL DARK DESCENDED before Brie entered Drew’s “cottage.” She was too tired to do more than note it was a mirror image of the one she’d been sharing with her mother.

“Make yourself at home,” Drew told her. “Staff should have put your wardrobe in the master bedroom down that hall. I want to have a word with the security man outside, then I’ll be right in.”

Since Razz and Dodie had been captured, there could only be one reason for the strong security measures being taken to guard the cottages tonight. Drew didn’t think the danger was over.

She made her way down the hall, feeling numb all over. Two steps into the master bedroom she halted. A small crystal lamp glowed softly. The bed had been turned down. An exquisite red rose and a foil-wrapped square of expensive chocolate lay on each pillow. A bottle of champagne sat chilling in a crystal ice bucket on a stand beside the bed. Two fluted crystal glasses rested on the nightstand. The scent of roses wafted from a large vase on the mahogany dresser, spilling over with the deep red blooms. Soft music played from invisible speakers. And a filmy blue peignoir she’d never seen before had been laid out at the foot of the bed.

“Brie? Is something—” Drew came to a stop at her back, surveying the scene “—wrong?” He uttered a whispered oath. He walked over and lifted the filmy bit of nylon and lace. Brie saw he’d already removed his tie and unbuttoned the top three buttons on his shirt. He looked unbearably sexy. “Nice. But hardly subtle.”

“Are you saying this wasn’t your doing?”

Ruefully, he shook his head. “Probably I should have thought to have champagne waiting, but it never occurred to me.”

“Then who?”

Drew shrugged. “My mother?”

“Your mother!”

He looked down at the peignoir and shook his head. “You’re right. This isn’t exactly her style, is it?” He dropped the gown onto the bed and began shrugging out of the tuxedo jacket.

Brie inhaled a shaky breath, not certain what to do or where to look. Was he planning to get undressed right here in front of her? Her gaze landed on two large suitcases. “Drew?”

“It’s okay. I had them packed for our honeymoon. You’re still pretty rocky, aren’t you? It’s been a long day.”

A rushing sound seemed to fill her head. “What honeymoon? We aren’t going on a honeymoon.”

“Well, not now we aren’t,” he said wryly. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Our flight to Bermuda was canceled this evening. Seems that storm is playing havoc with air travel.”

“You planned a honeymoon?”

“That was supposed to be my surprise. So, surprise.” His wry smile changed to concern and he crossed to her. “Hey, it was supposed to be a surprise, not a shock. A honeymoon is traditional after a wedding, you know.”

He’d been planning a honeymoon.

Of course he had. Those five-hundred-plus guests who witnessed their “quiet” garden wedding would expect no less. She was the only one who’d given the idea no thought.

Because she hadn’t let herself think beyond the wedding itself.

“I think…I’m too tired to think.”

He stroked her shoulder with a tenderness that made her want to cry. “I can see that. Why don’t you change out of your dress?”

“Into that?” she asked, nodding at the peignoir.

His eyes glittered. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind, but I warn you, if you put that on you won’t be wearing it for long.”

Maybe she hadn’t let herself think past the wedding itself, but now that’s all she could think about. This was her wedding night—and Drew was flirting with her, the way he had that day at Threads. Except now there was a hungry edge to the flirting. No more barriers. They were man and wife.

He’d planned on a honeymoon.

A tingling fire hummed its way along every nerve cell. She was exquisitely, painfully aware of Drew. His scent. The way his chest filled that shirt. The knowledge that his mouth had the power to draw the most elemental response from her.

“Come here, Mrs. Pierce.”

The husky timbre of his order weakened her knees, threatening her equilibrium. Had she moved or was it him? He lifted her chin with his knuckle.

“I’ve been horribly remiss today,” he said softly. “I never once told you what an incredibly lovely bride you made.”

He reached for the flowers in her hair, removing them one by one, dropping them heedlessly to the floor. All, save the last one. He trailed the velvety, fragrant petals down the side of her face, brushing her lips, running it down her neck, across her breasts and the nipples straining behind the fabric of her dress. Then he let it fall as well. Pulling her gently forward, his fingers threaded through her hair, discovering sensitive nerves she hadn’t even known existed. Her heart slammed against her ribs as he lowered his head to inhale the scent of her hair.

“Don’t ever change your shampoo.”

Her body quivered in uncontrollable excitement.

“All day I watched you glide around in this simple, sensual gown, and I counted the minutes until I could turn it into an ivory pool at your feet,” he murmured.

Mesmerized by his tender expression far more than his words, she stood still while his arms slid around her neck, his fingers seeking the hidden zipper at her back. His lips nibbled at her throat, the curve of her cheek, skimming over lips that craved the taste of him.

“Ah, here we go.”

He turned her around before she knew what he meant to do. Air brushed the skin of her back as he inched the zipper downward, stopping to plant tiny kisses along the way against her spine. The sensation was wildly erotic. She couldn’t control the trembling that had taken hold of her.

“Drew!”

“Shh. Hold still, I’m not finished yet.”

“Hold still? I can barely stand up.”

Drew chuckled softly. He slid an arm beneath her breasts to support her. “I won’t let you fall.”

And her nipples puckered, achingly aware of that arm so tantalizingly close. The dress slithered over her hips, spilling over the carpeting.

“A garter! I love surprises.”

Before she could tell him the sexy undergarments had been Becca’s idea of a surprise, he placed a kiss at the base of her spine, between the bottom of her lacy garter and above the low line of her high-cut satin panties. Her belly quivered. Her buttocks tightened, and he stood, pulling her back against his body until she could feel the throbbing pulse of his arousal right through his slacks as it pressed against her bottom.

“You feel so good. Turn around and let me see you.”

Heat bathed her body as the sensual rhythm of his words stirred the torrent of suppressed desire. Embarrassed, yet stimulated by his command, she did as he asked, nearly falling as her high heels tangled in the dress. Drew steadied her, pulling the material from under her feet, pausing to kiss the calf of her leg right through her sheer nylons.

Ripples of anticipation skimmed over her. She spread her fingers through the silky strands of his hair as she clutched his head, needing support just to stand. The hot, moist breath of his mouth against her panties weakened her knees so much she was forced to grab his shoulders to hold herself upright. He deliberately brushed the length of her body as he stood, those brilliant blue eyes smoldering with desire.

“Take them off for me.”

“Wh-what?”

He crushed her mouth under his. She melted into his fierce embrace, yielding to the hot, wet kiss that went on and on, destroying all possibility of rational thought. She wanted him. She had always wanted him.

“Your stockings,” he murmured against her ear, pausing to lick the lobe, sending her earring swinging. “I want to watch you peel them from your legs.”

Embarrassment was no match for the feverish longing swirling inside her. He stepped back. Breathless, intensely conscious of him, she raised her leg, resting it against the bed. His bright blue eyes watched her with a ravenous fascination that was somehow empowering. He wanted her—every bit as much as she wanted him. This would be no mindless coupling in the sand. Not even a frenzied coupling in the woods. This was seduction. Slow, simmering seduction that he intended to prolong until neither of them could take the teasing any longer.

Brie’s lips curved. She might not have any experience in seduction, but she suspected experience wasn’t necessary. Her fingers shook only a little as she released the first garter. Slowly, she stroked the nylon down the length of her leg, watching him watch her.

Drew finished unbuttoning his shirt, never once lifting his gaze from her. She was pleased to see his fingers weren’t all that steady, either. She removed the shoe and stocking together. Then she kicked off the other shoe, and repeated the process as he shrugged out of his shirt and cummerbund.

She undid the snaps holding up the garter as his hands went to his waistband. The sound of his zipper was electrifying. Her stomach fluttered madly as he kicked off his shoes and lowered his pants. He was fully, vibrantly aroused.

“I wanted to take my time, but—”

“We’ve wasted enough time.”

“Yes.”

And he toppled her onto the bed, following her down with a greedy longing that set her soul ablaze. Her bra and panties disappeared under the magic of his mouth and fingers. Never had her body felt so vibrantly alive, so exquisitely tuned. She whimpered softly, and Drew smiled, prolonging the moment until neither of them could stand the waiting another second. She couldn’t look away from his glittering eyes as he claimed her body, just as he’d claimed her heart. She nearly blurted out the words of love that filled her mind. It was a very long time before either one of them stirred after the universe exploded and they fell over the edge of the world.

Replete in a way he had never felt before, Drew pulled back the covers, switched off the light and tugged her close to his sweat-slicked side. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her hair tickled his nose. He hadn’t needed the tightness of her body to tell him that her earlier reputation was totally unfounded. Her enthusiastic but untutored response to his lovemaking made him wonder if she’d had any lovers at all since that night on the beach. Primitive satisfaction washed over him.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“And you’ve seen so many.”

“Does it bother you that there were other women in my life?”

“In your life, no. In your bed, of course.”

That candidly refreshing honesty of hers. It never ceased to amaze him.

“I’m incredibly selfish about some things, Drew. I want to be the only one.”

“You are,” he promised. “We took a vow. It’s one I mean to honor, Brie.” Tension eased slowly from her body. He stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “Besides, having a wildcat in my bed is exhausting. Where would I find the energy to look elsewhere?”

She rolled over to face him and her breasts pushed temptingly against his arm. “A wildcat?”

“Hmm.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “A beautiful, fierce, sexy wildcat. And she’s finally all mine.”

Even in the dark, he saw something wistful in her expression, but she settled back against him, curling her body against his. “I should get up and take a shower.”

“We’ll take one together—in a little while.”

For a long time, neither of them moved. He thought she’d fallen asleep when she spoke, her voice thick with the tiredness that weighed on him as well.

“Do you think Claire will remember?”

He forced himself to relax. “Maybe.”

“The last time she got this upset was when Elizabeth, Kat and I went to the sanitarium. We left there feeling terrible for causing her such pain, but right after that she began to improve. It scares me to think that monster might have been one of our guests.”

He tightened his arm around her. The thought scared him, as well. “Go to sleep.”

Her voice relaxed along with her body. “I’m glad you posted guards. If anything happened to Nicole or my mother…”

“Nothing will happen to them,” he said fiercely.

“I know.” She yawed and snuggled closer. “You’ll protect us.”

And her complete faith left him staring at the ceiling long after she drifted into a peaceful, deep sleep.

CAREY KNEW WHAT EVERYONE was thinking. Cullen Ryan had questioned him until he’d wanted to hit something. How could anyone believe him capable of torturing a woman? Carey loved women. His idea of torture was to bring them to the peak of satisfaction over and over again. The idea that he might have hurt Ursula was unthinkable. Worse was the way they suggested he might have had something to do with what happened to Claire. Hell, he’d been a kid when she was kidnapped.

Okay, so he’d known her. He’d even liked her. There had been something fascinating about her—in an innocent little-lamb sort of way. But Carey had never been stupid. He preferred women like Ursula and Nancy. Beautiful women who knew the score and didn’t demand things like permanence or wedding rings.

But he could feel a noose closing around his neck. He had a feeling they’d like to take him to the town green and hang him like they had old McFarland Leary.

He left the police station and walked to where he’d parked his car. Reaching for his keys, he glimpsed a familiar figure ghosting past like an evil shadow. He crouched beside the car and watched intently. Interesting. Now what was he doing out here at this hour?

Carey knew if he was going to keep from getting arrested, he would have to discover who had murdered Ursula himself. He couldn’t rely on the police. And right there went someone with his own motive for her murder. Carey trailed in the figure’s wake.

He thought about the job Nancy had helped him find in Boston. Nancy was special. She saw right through his easygoing pretense. She got him to talk about things he never had with anyone else. It was Nancy who suggested he come to Boston and talk to some people she knew. Work had never interested him before, but this was different. Exciting. Challenging. Certainly better than selling advertising for the family paper.

The figure he was following jerked to a stop and cast a nervous look around. Carey prayed he was deep enough into the building’s shadows that he couldn’t be seen. Waterfront Avenue was ominously dark and silent. Had he given himself away? Maybe the man had heard his footfalls against the worn cobblestones. He’d have to be more careful. He should allow more space between them. He wished there had been time to change clothing. Sneaking around in a tuxedo and dress shoes was stupid, but there hadn’t been much choice. He felt foolish as he glanced behind him, checking the street at his back.

Nothing stirred.

He turned back and his quarry had vanished. Probably gone inside the strip club on the corner. Could he follow without being spotted? He hurried forward.

Something came out of the darkness as he passed the tattoo parlor, smashing against his skull with stunning force. Carey staggered back. The second blow split the skin. Blood trickled down his face. His vision blurred. He lurched against the building. Something smashed his knee and Carey fell, sliding down the jagged brick facade.

His head reeled with pain. He couldn’t seem to make his limbs obey. Something sharp plunged into the side of his neck. He felt the burn and sting even as he tried to fight against the bite of the needle. Carey tried to protest, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. He couldn’t focus on the face over his.

“On your feet, Mr. Eldrich. The kneecap isn’t broken—yet. We’re going to take a ride, you and I. I have a nice black hearse waiting. And it just so happens I have an empty coffin inside.”

His mind screamed in horror, but the screams never left his throat.

Chapter Thirteen

Only half-awake, Drew rolled over, reaching for Brie, as had become his habit over the past two days. But he found only empty blankets. Instantly, his eyes opened. She stood by the window watching the rain. Her hair was a disheveled flame of color against the white satin drapes. She’d pulled on one of his shirts in lieu of a robe. He made a mental note to throw out any robes she owned. He wondered if he would ever tire of looking at her. His wife.

“Brie?”

She turned, letting the drape fall back into place. “The storm’s moving.”

“It’s supposed to hit South Carolina today.”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s coming here.”

He patted the bed at his side. She glided over but didn’t sit down.

“Even if it does, Moriah’s Landing has withstood any number of hurricanes. We’ll be okay.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you feel it? There’s a pressure in the air, like something bad waiting to happen.”

Drew slid out of the bed and pulled her into his arms. She shivered. “I knew you didn’t like storms, but I didn’t know they bothered you this much. Let’s go take a shower and warm you up.”

She lifted her face with a trace of humor. “I don’t think my body could survive another shower with you. My bones are still melted from the last one.” But anticipation flickered in her eyes. It was noon before they got around to getting dressed.

“Do you realize we haven’t left this house since the wedding?”

“Hmm. Shall we go for a record?”

“You’re all talk.”

“Not all talk.”

“I need to be sure Nicole and my mother are okay.”

“You talked to them yesterday.”

“But I haven’t seen them.”

“Ah, this is a visual need. Okay. I miss the little imp, too—and I don’t mean her cat. Let’s go over and see if they want to do lunch and take in a movie. It’s too wet to do much else.”

“We should call first.”

“We can be there in the same amount of time. You really are worried, aren’t you?”

“Not about them. I know they’re okay.”

“The storm?”

“It’s my talent. You charm people and I sense storms. And you can stop looking at me like that. My ancestor was hung because she could predict the weather.”

“Little witch. You bewitched me the first day I saw you.”

She made a face. “I was ten. You looked right through me when we were introduced.”

“Blinded by your beauty.”

“Uh-huh. Drew, if you don’t stop kissing me, we’re never going to leave.”

“What a great idea!”

Laughing, she pulled away. “Put your shoes on.”

“Spoilsport.”

The telephone rang as she was reaching for the doorknob. With an apologetic look, Drew lifted the receiver.

“Drew? Cullen Ryan. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“If this had been a bad time, I wouldn’t have bothered answering. Brie and I were just going out the door. What’s up?”

“Have you seen Carey Eldrich?”

“Not since the wedding.”

“Any idea where I might find him?”

“I gather you tried his place?” Brie came to stand at his side. Reflexively, he put an arm around her and pulled her against him.

“And the newspaper,” Cullen was saying, “and his family, and everyone else I can think of. He seems to have disappeared.”

“Knowing Carey, he’s probably with someone he met at the wedding.”

Brie frowned.

“Hadn’t thought of that. Okay, I’ll keep checking, but if you see him, tell him I want to talk to him again.”

“Cullen, you don’t really think Carey had anything to do with Claire or Ursula’s abductions do you?”

Brie inhaled sharply.

“Because you’re wasting your time. Carey would never hurt a woman. I know the man. I’d stake my life on it.”

There was a pause before Cullen said quietly, “Would you stake Brie’s life on it? If you see him, tell him to give me a call.”

Ryan disconnected. Drew was much slower to replace the receiver.

“You’re right,” Brie said forcefully. “Carey would never hurt anyone.”

Drew might not be sensitive to storms, but it didn’t take a witch to feel the oppression hanging over this town. “Let’s go see our daughter.”

But after arriving at the main house, they learned Maureen had taken Pamela and Nicole shopping for the day.

“Shopping for what? Your mother already bought us enough new clothing to last a lifetime.”

“That bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Brie nodded. “I don’t like taking charity. I like to earn my own way.”

“You married a very stubborn woman,” Anton Pierce said, coming down the hall. Drew felt Brie’s tension as they turned to greet his grandfather.

“Do you know this young woman has paid back nearly all of the money I gave her to keep her away from you four years ago?”

Brie inhaled sharply and Drew slid a protective arm around her waist. “I’m not a bit surprised.”

She tried to wriggle free, but Drew wouldn’t let her. His grandfather smiled.

“I was. I’m not usually such a bad judge of character. I was wrong about you, girl.”

“Thank you. But I’m afraid the next few installments are going to be late,” she told his grandfather. “Drew got me fired.”

“I would hope so,” Anton sniffed.

“I didn’t realize you liked your job so much,” Drew said, kissing the top of her head just to watch her squirm. “If waiting tables means that much to you, I’m sure I can get them to take you back.”

“Andrew!” his grandfather reprimanded.

But Brie looked up at him, the light of battle shining in her bright green eyes. “Not a bad idea. Maybe I can get them to hire you on as a busboy,” she said tartly. “You know, in case your bid for mayor fails.”

Drew laughed out loud. His grandfather scowled. “You have a perverted sense of humor, young lady.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re going out to grab a bite to eat,” Drew told him. “Would you care to join us?”

“No, thank you. Your father and I have a meeting with some people this afternoon.”

“All right. We’ll see you later, then.”

“I shouldn’t tease your grandfather like that,” Brie said after he disappeared into his office.

“On the contrary. He likes it. He likes you.”

Brie made a face. “How can you tell?”

“Years of experience.”

“Uh-huh. Drew, would you mind if we stop and see Claire?”

“Good idea. We’ll grab something at the diner and head over to her place afterward.”

“The diner?”

“Wouldn’t you like to see what it’s like from the other side of the counter?”

Nancy called down to them from the landing of the highly polished oak staircase. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

“Hi, Nancy. I thought you went back to Boston yesterday.”

“No, I, uh, had a change of plans.” She hurried down to the foyer. “Have you, uh, seen or heard from Carey by any chance? I mean since the wedding?”

It wasn’t like Nancy to hesitate or not meet his eyes. “You’re the second person to ask me that this morning.”

Her head came up sharply. “Who else is looking for him?”

“Cullen Ryan.”

Her features paled. Carey had been taken with Nancy from the start. He should have known his friend would put moves on her. “Don’t tell me you fell for the Eldrich charm, too.”

“It isn’t like that.” She raised her head defiantly. “I’m not naive, Andrew. Carey is fun, intelligent and wasting his life because he lacks focus. But now that he’s stopped trying to measure up to you, he’s changing. He’s got a good job in Boston. One that will challenge him. It will be good for him to be away from his family and their pressure to be more like you.”

“His family’s been holding me up as some sort of model?”

“Surely you knew. But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care that his family cut him off. He’s ready to make big changes in his life, but the police are hounding him because of that affair with Ursula. You know he didn’t harm anyone. I’m really worried. I think something’s happened to him.”

“Ryan’s a good cop, Nancy. He’s not going to railroad anyone. The cops just want to know where he got the money to pay off his debts all of a sudden.”

“I loaned him the money. I know what you’re thinking, but he couldn’t go to you. It would have destroyed his pride. I made him a business offer. He was reluctant at first, but when he saw the possibilities, he decided to accept a chance to start over. He was supposed to meet me after the police let him go the other night, but he never came. His tuxedo is missing and no one has seen him since he left the police station.”

Drew’s stomach lurched. “Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere I can think of. Something’s wrong. We were supposed to drive back to Boston together yesterday. He has a meeting tomorrow morning.”

The housekeeper appeared in the library doorway. “Excuse me, Mrs. Pierce. There’s a telephone call for you. Your mother’s doctor?”

It took Brie a second to realize she was the Mrs. Pierce being addressed. “Oh.”

“Take it in the library,” Drew said. “Will you show her, May?”

“Certainly. This way, Mrs. Pierce.”

Brie followed the gaunt woman into a room whose dark, richly paneled walls were filled to the ceiling with shelves of books. This was a genuine library, she realized.

“The telephone is at that desk, Mrs. Pierce.”

“Thank you.” She skirted the grand piano and crossed to the ornate writing desk. “Hello? Dr. Thornton?”

There was a momentary pause. The tone came out sharp and stiff. “This is Dr. Manning.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I assumed—” Flustered, Brie forced herself to calm down. “Dr. Manning, what can I do for you?”

“I called to discuss a schedule so we may begin your mother’s treatments. I assume she still wishes to be a test case?”

Something visceral slithered up her spine. Brie gripped the receiver tightly. “She’s not here right now.”

“We should begin immediately. I agreed to wait until after your wedding, but we really must proceed now if this treatment is to be effective. Each day we delay increases the odds against a successful test case.”

Fear rooted in her mind. A test case. As if her mother wasn’t a human being at all. “I’ll ask her to call you this afternoon as soon as she returns.”

“Do that.”

The click was as abrupt as his tone. Leland Manning was a brilliant geneticist and scientist. But where was the empathy? The concern for his patient? Was she making a horrible mistake to entrust her mother to such a chilling man?

Raised voices came from the hall. Drew and his uncle were at each other again. She hurried out in time to see Geoffrey Pierce storm toward the back of the house. Nancy was gone.

“What happened?”

Drew’s face was surprisingly composed. “I’m not sure. I asked him if he’d seen Carey. He started yelling, telling me to stay out of his business.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”

“Where did Nancy go?” she asked as they ran back to the car.

“She had some business to attend to.”

“Do you really mean to go to the diner?”

“Is there a better place in town for gossip?”

“One of the bars?”

“I am not taking you into some dingy bar to be drooled over by a bunch of drunks.”

“Rider and Jake might take umbrage with that description.”

“I doubt it. You’ll notice they have the good sense to come to the diner for food.”

“Point taken.”

IT FELT WEIRD TO HAVE LOIS wait on her inside the familiar diner.

“Fantastic wedding, you two. I had such a good time. What a shame about poor little Claire Cavendish. I’m glad Cullen arrested those two little vandals. I hope he throws away the key.”

“You think Claire was upset because of Razz and Dodie?”

“Well, sure. They upset a lot of people.”

While the diner wasn’t crowded at this hour, several patrons made it a point to stop by their booth to say hello and chat for a few minutes. Brie noticed the people were treating Drew like one of the them. Nancy had been right, marriage to Brie had enhanced Drew’s status on the wharf side of town.

When Drew excused himself to use the rest room, Brie saw Yvette Castor enter the diner. The fortune-teller glanced around and headed straight for her booth. Her gaudy jewelry clanked noisily as she leaned over the table, but it was her anxious expression that captured Brie’s full attention.

“I know you’re a nonbeliever, Brianna, but I must warn you.”

A breeze swept over her skin.

“The signs are murky and more twisted than normal. There are so many variables, but you must not let down your guard. Someone lurks in the shadows, Brianna.”

Big J. from the tattoo parlor stuck his head in the front door and yelled to Yvette. “Hey, Madam Fleury, you got a customer.” Yvette waved acknowledgement. She touched the crystal earrings Brie wore again this morning. “They won’t be enough.” Looking up as Drew approached, she turned to him. “Don’t let her go anywhere alone.” And Yvette was gone in a swirl of color and a clanking of jewelry.

“What was that all about?” Drew asked.

“I’m not sure. Yvette isn’t usually this strange, but she seems to think I’m in some sort of danger.”

Drew opened his wallet and withdrew several bills. “Let’s go.”

Brie stood immediately. She, too, felt the need for action. “So did we learn anything?”

“Yeah. The diner still makes great pie.”

“Very funny. I meant about Carey.”

“No one has seen him since he left the police station.”

“So where are we going?”

“To look for his car.”

“His car?”

Drew smiled wryly. “He brought mine back right before the wedding.”

“Oh. Well, surely you don’t think something happened to him at a police station?”

Drew pointed to a cherry-red sports car parked in the lot behind the newspaper building two doors down from the police station. “Now I do. That’s Carey’s car.”

DETECTIVE RYAN WASN’T THERE when they went to let him know about the discovery, but Chief Redfern himself bustled over to take the information. Drew kept his dislike well concealed.

Their moods were as dark as the sky overhead when they drove to Claire’s house. Luck wasn’t with them there, either. Claire and Rebecca Smith had gone off together and Claire’s brother had no idea when they’d be back.

“I’d say it’s a good sign if she’s out doing things with Becca,” Drew said. Brie nodded, but he could tell she was still worried.

The wind picked up, making the rain seem heavier than before. The air was decidedly unpleasant. Drew wondered if Brie might be right about the storm. At the compound, they discovered Pamela had returned to the guest cottage due to a vicious headache.

“Let me call Dr. Thornton, Mom.”

“I already did. He’s going to stop by in a little while.”

“Oh. Well how about if we take Nicole with us so you can lie down?”

“That would be nice.”

Brie cast him a worried look. Drew shared her concern. Pamela didn’t look well at all.

“We’ll keep Nicole and the cats with us tonight. Do you want me to take Fitzwiggy as well?”

“No, dear. Fitz is good company.”

“All right. We’ll lock up when we leave.”

Drew helped gather up litter pans, cat toys and scratching posts while Brie and Nicole packed her toys and clothing and loaded them into the car Drew had given her.

Until today, when Nancy had explained why Carey hadn’t come to him for a loan, Drew hadn’t understood what it cost Brie’s pride to accept his gift of the car, but she hadn’t even argued over the substantial checking account he had opened in her name because she needed the money to pay for her mother’s treatments. But was that the only reason she’d married him? The idea lay bitter in his mind.

The telephone was ringing when he carried the last item inside. The voice on the other end sounded muffled, as if the person were covering the mouthpiece.

“Carey Eldrich is in danger.”

“Who is this?”

“If you want to help, be at the wharf at seven-thirty. Come alone.”

A click ended the call.

“Who was that?”

Drew repeated the conversation.

“Call Cullen,” she demanded.

“The voice said to come alone.”

“You aren’t—”

“Of course not, but Ryan wasn’t in the office, remember?”

“I have their home number.”

Drew shook his head. “I’m not leaving you and Nicole here alone.” The fortune-teller’s warning suddenly loomed in his head. “Not even for Carey. What if it was a ruse to get me away so someone could get at you?”

“What if it was a ruse to get you alone?” She reached for the telephone. “I’m calling Elizabeth. I wanted to talk to her anyhow.”

The phone rang four times. Brie was about to hang up when Elizabeth answered breathlessly. Brie knew immediately that her friend was distracted and excited over something. She’d probably caught her in the middle of an experiment.

“Elizabeth, it’s Brie. I’m sorry to bother you, but we need your help.” She could almost see her friend shifting priorities. “Is Cullen there?”

“No, but I’m expecting him home any minute.”

“Would you mind if we came over for a few minutes? Drew just got an anonymous call about Carey. We think it may be a trap.”

“Come over. We’ll be here waiting.”

“Thanks Elizabeth.” She hung up and looked at Drew. “Okay?”

“Let’s go.”

But it wasn’t quite that simple. Nicole refused to leave Little Imp. Even Max acted agitated as he butted against Brie’s legs.

“What’s gotten into him? Maybe it’s all this moving around. I’ll give them a treat while you put Nicole in her car seat.”

“Sure. You get the easy job.” But Drew smiled and lifted his daughter. “We’re going see Elizabeth, Nicole. We can’t take the cats over there, but we’re coming right back.”

Nicole was not pacified. Brie had never seen her daughter throw such a tantrum. And the cats wouldn’t come near the offered treat. The minute Drew opened the front door, Max tried to escape. In the end, they loaded the cats back into carriers and took them, as well.

“The score is daughter and cats one, parents zip. I hope this isn’t an omen,” Drew said.

“Very funny. Do you know where we’re going?”

“I’ll follow you. Drive carefully. With all this rain we’re bound to see flash flooding pretty soon.”

Brie nodded. Max and Imp loudly protested their confinement and her normally happy daughter was in a mood nearly as bad. It was not a happy group that landed on Elizabeth and Cullen’s doorstep a few minutes later. Brie was thankful to see Elizabeth’s brother, Brandon, was visiting, which immediately improved her daughter’s mood.

While the men talked, the women got the children settled in front of the television with pizza and a movie.

“We’re interrupting your dinner,” Brie said apologetically.

“No, you aren’t. I have to teach a class at seven-thirty. I was just feeding Brandon before I ran him home. We’ll eat later. Would you like something?”

“No, thanks.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Brie heard Cullen on the phone in the other room. Quickly she summarized what she knew. “Drew didn’t want me to stay alone, but as soon as the men leave, I’ll head back to the compound.”

“You’re welcome to wait here, though the Pierce estate is like a fortress.”

“One made of Swiss cheese, maybe.”

“Dodie and Razz got inside, but Security caught them.”

“They didn’t catch David Bryson. He was in the woods the other day and he even came to the wedding.”

“You’re kidding! Really?”

“Oh, my God, Elizabeth. I just realized. David was there when Security was chasing Razz and Dodie. What if he’s the one Claire was looking at when she had her breakdown?”

“Who was Claire looking at?” Cullen asked, striding into the room.

Brie stared at the men. “David Bryson. I just remembered he was watching Security chase Razz and Dodie.”

“Bryson was at our wedding?”

Brie nodded, breathing as if she’d just run a mile. “I forgot in all the commotion.”

Drew exchanged dark looks with Cullen. He turned to her with a fierce expression. “You stay with Elizabeth until we get back, do you understand?”

“Drew’s right,” Cullen interjected. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.” He gave his wife a quick kiss on the lips. “Stay out of trouble, all right?”

“You know me.”

“That’s the problem. Come on, Drew.”

Drew made no move to kiss her as Cullen had done with Elizabeth. Brie pushed her hurt aside as he strode ahead of Cullen and out the door. Drew had a right to be upset. He considered David his enemy and she hadn’t told him how David had been spying on him. She swallowed hard. Her friend laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Brie, I can’t cancel class at this hour. I’m afraid you and Nicole will have to come and sit in.”

“No offense, but I don’t think so.”

“But you promised Drew.”

“No, he gave me an order. I didn’t agree to obey. He forgot I’ve got the cats in the car. But before I go I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Brie told Elizabeth about Leland Manning’s experimental procedure and her second thoughts about the whole thing.

“So am I putting my mother at risk in your opinion?”

“Yes! Under no circumstances let your mother go to Manning. My God, what you’ve told me—it’s all starting to fit! Come on back to my lab.”

“You have a lab?”

“Actually, it’s a spare bedroom Cullen converted for me when we rented this house. He thinks I’ve been wasting my time, but I’ve been doing some research into the recent serial killings here in Moriah’s Landing.”

“Do you mean the women whose bodies were left for you to find? But, Cullen caught the killer.”

“But it bothered me that he could never find a substantial connection among any of the women. Not this time, and not twenty years ago when there was a whole other set of serial killings. No one was ever caught for those old crimes and I got to wondering if there could be a connection.”

“You found something, didn’t you?”

“This afternoon, as a matter of fact.” Elizabeth’s excitement was contagious. “I made a breakthrough when I started looking at their genes. All the girls share one common gene.”

“I don’t understand. How would Ernie McDougal know something like that? He ran the bait shop.”

“I don’t think Ernie killed those women. Kat’s mother, yes. But I think the other murders twenty years ago were done by someone else. It really clicked when you told me about Manning. Everyone knows he’s a fanatic, believing that witches have powers due to a certain gene, right? He’s been collecting blood samples for years now.”

Brie nodded. “He wanted a sample from Nicole.”

Aghast, Elizabeth stared at her. “You didn’t let him have one, did you?”

“Of course not. It was all I could do to let him take one from me. Manning gives me the creeps. Are you saying he’s a serial killer?”

“No. I mean, it’s possible, but there’s nothing to tie him to those murders. Still, I wouldn’t trust him until I can be sure there is no connection between his research and this gene.”

“You don’t really think his crackpot theory could be right, do you?”

“I don’t know, Brie. The more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to learn. There’s a strong possibility he’s involved, somehow.”

“He’s a respected scientist, Elizabeth!”

“I know.”

“You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’m scaring me, too. After class I’m going to run these blood samples out to a friend of mine. He works for an independent laboratory about fifteen minutes from here. He agreed to test them and check my results.”

“Why not let me take them for you? I’m not about to haul Nicole and two cats over to the college tonight. As much as she adores you, I don’t think my daughter will sit patiently through one of your lectures. And I know for certain the cats won’t.”

“But the men want you to stay with me.”

“The weather is only going to worsen. I can run your samples out and be back before the men even know I left.”

A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows. Brie tried not to let her nervousness show.

“My mother has a bad headache tonight, Elizabeth. Dr. Thornton’s coming over to see her. I need answers. Gene therapy is her only hope for a cure.”

“Manning isn’t the only scientist doing this sort of research. While I’m at the college I’ll talk with a couple of people and make a few calls. I know when you’re scared it’s easy to grab a lifeline, but let’s make sure this really is a lifeline first. Okay?”

Brie nodded. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

“Are you sure you want to run this out there for me?”

“Positive.”

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “Let me write down the directions. I have to leave in a minute to drop Brandon back at my parents’ house.” She glanced at the window where rain beat a steady tattoo.

“I hope Cullen and Drew will be careful.”

Chapter Fourteen

He waited patiently, part of the blackness of the night. The headlights bobbed in the treetops as the car made its way up the twisty path leading to the house. He braced himself, waiting for the gate to swing open, admitting a long, dark hearse. As the vehicle drove through, he slipped inside, melding with the shadows.

His eyes were used to the night, so he had no trouble slipping unobtrusively through the tall old pines behind the hearse. When the vehicle passed inside the electrified fence surrounding the laboratory, so did he.

Wind drove the rain against his back. Since he was already wet to the skin, he ignored the sensation, but he didn’t like the distant sound of thunder. Lightning posed a serious hazard here in the woods.

Manning ran inside without looking around. Unable to find another entrance or exit to the building itself, he was relieved when Manning hurried back outside, jumped back in his vehicle and drove away.

The locks proved difficult, slowing him down more than anticipated, but once inside the lab, he turned on the lights and set to work. As expected, Manning kept meticulously detailed notes, all conveniently stored on the hard drive of his computer.

Slipping a disk in the blank zip drive, he set to copying everything on the machine. One file caught his attention. Manning had been running experiments on bog people. Stunned, he took the time to scan that particular file. A member of the secret society now living in England had discovered an unexplored peat bog where, according to old church records, a number of witches had been dumped after they were hanged.

This explained a number of things. The hearse in the middle of the night. The stack of coffin-size boxes in the corner. Even the mummified body washed up on the beach a few months ago. Manning was shipping bodies into the country illegally to study.

LIGHTNING CLEAVED THE SKY. Brie gripped the wheel more tightly and dropped her speed even further. If these were merely rain bands coming in ahead of the storm, heaven help them all when the hurricane actually hit.

Wind shoved at the car, overwhelming the poor windshield wipers. Trees bent ominously, swaying over the road. But it was the lightning that really scared her. The jagged spears were blinding in their intensity. As she bypassed Old Mountain Road and the cemetery, Brie decided even a ghost wouldn’t come out on a night like this. She should have gone to class with Elizabeth.

Nicole’s crying was making her physically ill and she had never heard Max howl before. “Nicole, please stop crying, sweetheart. I’m trying to find a place to turn around.” But the road was narrow and twisty.

“Mama, Mama, Mama!”

“Oh, baby, it’s going to be okay.” But Yvette’s words to Drew haunted her. “Don’t let her go anywhere alone.”

Headlights came roaring out of the darkness behind her. The stupid person had his high beams on and he was driving much too fast. Too late she realized the car wasn’t making any effort to slow down. The headlights filled her mirrors. Lightning and thunder came almost as one. And the car slammed into the back of hers with stunning force.

In that split second of total panic, Brie saw the tree rushing forward and knew that she was going to wreck.

DREW WATCHED THE ANGRY WAVES slap the shore, one breaker on top of another. The sky lit with heaven’s fireworks, the boom of thunder barely covering the noise of the pounding surf.

The weather service should hire Brie. Her accuracy put their instruments to shame. Wet clear through, he headed to where Cullen waited in concealment. “He’s not coming. We need to get back to Brie. She doesn’t like storms.”

“It’s only been forty-five minutes.” But Cullen was already moving, signaling the other two officers to call off the wait.

“What’s your home number? I want to call Brie.”

Drew punched the number into his cell phone. The answering machine picked up. Fear curled in his belly. “They aren’t there.”

“I forgot. It’s Tuesday. Elizabeth is teaching a class. They must be at the college. Follow my car.”

Cullen drove with reckless speed through the slippery, wet streets. Drew had all he could do to keep up with the officer. The sense that something was badly wrong hammered at him. Brie was in trouble. Drew knew it with gut-twisting intensity.

THE AIR BAG DEFLATED, filling the car with white powder. Dazed, Brie sat there. Max growled low in his throat. Turning her head, she saw his carrier had been tossed on its side. Little Imp perched on top mewing piteously. For a second, she wondered why that seemed odd. Then she remembered that Imp should be locked in her own carrier on the seat next to Nicole.

Nicole!

She tried to turn around and couldn’t. The seat belt held her pinned so tightly in place it was hard to breathe.

“Nicole?”

There was no answer. Her hands fumbled for the belt’s release. The metal clasp was wedged solid. Worse, the left side of her body was wedged, as well. Her left foot was trapped beneath the brake pedal somehow.

“Nicole!”

Nicole began to cry.

Relief mingled with fear. Imp jumped over the seat. Brie couldn’t see her daughter. The rear view mirror was gone, a tree branch resting inside where the mirror should be. The windshield was mostly gone.

Max growled and Imp hissed as a dark shape came alongside the car and tried to open the door behind her.

Thank God someone was there to help. “Is my daughter all right? I can’t move. My foot’s trapped and the seat belt is jammed.”

“Mama, Mama, Mama.”

“It’s okay, Nicole. I’m right here. Is my daughter all right?”

No one answered. The back door opened. Imp hissed loudly. There was a muffled oath and Imp yowled. Max screamed in primal rage. The sound traveled straight up her spine. Nicole began screaming as well.

“What are you doing? Let my daughter alone!”

Brie struggled against the belt’s restriction, twisting to see what was happening, but all she saw was a dark shape and black-gloved hands pulling her daughter from the car, Imp clutched in her arms.

“No! Let her go! Don’t take my daughter! No! Nicole—!”

THEY ARRIVED AT THE CAMPUS and Drew spotted Elizabeth’s car in the parking lot immediately, but not Brie’s. The storm’s fury was increasing. And every light in the campus suddenly winked out, plunging the grounds into eerie darkness.

“Transformer went,” Cullen said as he ran up to him. He handed Drew a flashlight. “This is going to be a hell of a night. Let’s go.”

POPPING THE FINAL DISK from the computer, he was startled by a thud that shook the ground. The lights winked out. The darkness of the lab was absolute. His small pocket flashlight gave him just enough light to see the computer and not much else.

It had been his intention to prowl the cold room and the main room after he finished with the files, but he’d need a much stronger light, and the files were the important thing. He couldn’t allow himself to be trapped inside.

In the tomblike stillness, he heard an eerie sound, like a low moan. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. Wind shook the building and he relaxed. The storm, of course. Time to get out of here. His tiny beam picked up the pine boxes stacked in the corner like so many coffins.

He approached the stack and peered inside the top box. Empty. Not even packing material to indicate the contents. He started for the door when his foot hit a box off to the side. A cylinder labeled Liquid Nitrogen sat on top, and there was something different about the box underneath. He removed the tank and bent to pry off the lid when he heard someone at the door. Melting into the shadows, he waited as the door was thrown open. Wind and rain ushered in a dark-garbed figure. The light switch clicked futilely. Manning cursed and stepped back outside. He followed like a shadow.

Manning’s car stood a few feet from the door. The man himself appeared in the beam of the headlights, cursing as he reached inside the car. Lifting something from the front seat, he tossed it into the bushes.

Distant lightning illuminated the area. The gate stood open. Taking advantage of the rain and darkness and Manning’s preoccupation with something else inside the car, he made his way quickly to the gate as Manning carried a bundle inside. A tiny feline shape darted from the bushes, streaking toward the door.

ELIZABETH MET THE MEN OUTSIDE the main door, accompanied by a dozen students, one of whom carried a flashlight.

“Cullen! What are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you. The power’s out.”

“Where’s Brie?” Drew demanded before Cullen could respond.

“She took some samples over to Mark’s lab for me.”

“Alone?” Drew demanded.

“No one showed up at the wharf to meet him,” Cullen said to Elizabeth grimly.

“Where’s this lab?” Drew’s body clamored for action. He couldn’t explain the demon driving him, he only knew he had to find Brie.

Elizabeth gave him directions but added, “She should be back any minute now.”

Cullen shook his head. “There’s a couple of low spots along there even though the road itself climbs. She might not make it through if the road floods. Come on. We’ll ride out in that direction.”

“Mrs. Ryan! Mrs. Ryan!” Two young girls came running up. “Come quick! Mrs. Newman fell down the stairs.”

“She isn’t moving,” the other girl added.

“Go,” Drew told Cullen. “I’ll find Brie.”

“If something happens to her I’ll never forgive myself,” Elizabeth said.

Drew battled to keep his sports car on the road once he was out of town. Like the other side roads around Moriah’s Landing this one was twisty and badly over-hung with trees. Trees whose weaker branches were coming down as wind forced them to scrape the ground.

Cullen had been right about the low spots. Water sat on the road in a spreading pool outside the church and several other locations. He braked sharply as a large branch crashed to the road in front of him. As he went around it, his headlights picked up the wink of metal off to one side. Drew was out of the car and running, his mind numb with terror. A tree sprouted from the front of the little sedan. The back door gaped open. Drew heard Max yowling over the sound of the storm. He reached the driver’s door. Bright red hair was spilled over the steering wheel. Brie wasn’t moving. She couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let her be dead!

“Brie!”

She lifted her head. Wet from the rain whipping in through the broken windshield and open door, her face was blotchy, her eyes rimmed by tears.

“Drew! Oh, Drew, he took her! He took Nicole! I couldn’t stop him. I’m trapped.”

His heart thudded to a stop. Nicole’s car seat was empty. So was the cat carrier beside it.

“Who took her?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed.

“All right. Sit still, I’m going to get you out of here. Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt. I’m stuck. My foot’s trapped and the seat belt’s jammed. I’ve tried everything, but I can’t get loose. I can barely move. Drew, we’ve got to get her back! We’ve got to find Nicole!”

“We will,” he vowed. Someone had taken his daughter. The enormity of that was almost paralyzing.

Drew couldn’t get either of the front doors open. Pulling out his cell phone he dialed the emergency number, but the call wouldn’t go through. Drew ran to the trunk. The bumper was caved in, lodging it shut. It took him a second to realize her car had been struck from behind.

All he had in his trunk was a tire iron. Desperately, he began prying at Brie’s door. Headlights trapped him. He whirled, clutching the tire iron. A pickup truck coming from the opposite direction slowed to a stop. Two men about his age jumped out.

“Anyone hurt?”

Fear receded. “My wife’s trapped inside.”

“You’re never gonna get it open that way. Let us give you a hand.”

A sign on the side of the truck read D&D Construction. Between the three of them and their assortment of tools, they forced open the door and cut away the seat belt. They had to work the broken seat back until Brie could slip her foot from the twisted wreckage holding it in place.

“You okay, ma’am? You really oughta let a doctor check you over.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She hugged each of the embarrassed men.

“Glad we could help.”

“Oh, wait!” She turned unsteadily. “Where’s the black box?”

“I got your purse, but I didn’t see any box. You see a black box, Darrin?”

“Nope.”

“It was on the floor in the back seat,” she told them.

“We’ll look,” Drew said. “Let’s get you and Max in the car out of the rain.” He led her to his car and handed her the cat.

“Drew, the box contains Elizabeth’s medical samples. I can’t leave them. She learned something about the serial killings that might be important.”

“I’ll find it.” But he didn’t. There was no trace of the medical supplies anywhere inside or outside the car.

“Sorry, man, I don’t think it’s in here.”

“I’m Andrew Pierce,” he said, pulling a business card from his wallet. He wrote quickly on the back. “If I can ever help either of you, let me know.”

“Any relation to Senator Pierce?”

“My father.”

“Oh, wow. I voted for him. Hey, thanks.”

“No, I thank you. Both of you.”

“No problem, man. Be careful, it’s nasty out here.”

Drew returned to his car and turned the heater on. Brie hugged the carrier, tears running silently down her cheeks.

“Brie, are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

She turned blindly toward him. “We have to get her back, Drew. We have to!”

“We will. I promise,” he vowed. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Brokenly, she did. Helpless rage threatened his emotions. Where did they go to get his daughter back?

When his cell phone rang they both jumped.

“It’s probably Cullen.” But it wasn’t.

“Does your daughter own a calico kitten?” a deep male voice asked beneath the static in his ear.

“Who is this? Where’s my daughter?”

There was a long, almost puzzled pause. “Leland Manning tossed a kitten from his car a few minutes ago. He carried something into his lab.”

And the phone went dead.

Because the person hung up? Or because the other person’s phone cut out? There was no way to know.

“Manning has Nicole!” Brie said.

“We don’t know that. This call could be another trap.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

Drew started the car even as he dialed the emergency number. The call still wouldn’t go through. “I think the emergency line must be down.”

“We have to go out there! Drew, he wanted her blood. I told him no.”

“Manning wanted Nicole’s blood?” And in that moment Drew understood what it meant to have his blood run cold. “What for?”

“I don’t know!” Numb with fear and grief, Brie stared at the road ahead, seeing in her mind those dark hands reaching for her child. Her daughter’s screams would haunt her the rest of her life. So would every helpless minute she’d had to sit there in the dark, struggling to get free, praying for her daughter’s safety. “I don’t even know if Nicole was hurt in the crash,” she sobbed.

Drew reached for her hand. She barely felt his touch as visions of her daughter lying dead or injured rode like a specter in her mind.

Max mewed. Brie opened the door to his carrier, seeking comfort in his soft fur while she mentally urged Drew to hurry.

“Who has access to your cell phone number?” she asked.

“It’s on the answering machine in case someone really needs to reach me.”

He turned onto the narrow paved lane cutting a path through the woods. Brie glimpsed a sign reading Private Road, No Trespassing. Trees hunched over the one-lane path, whipping back and forth angrily. Scattered limbs and debris forced Drew to slow almost to a crawl. They were both surprised when the twisted trees halted to create a small clearing. A tall, wrought-iron fence suddenly rose up out of the gloom. Beyond the hulking gate Brie could just make out the shape of the tall, dark spires of an estate.

“How are we going to get inside?” she asked fretfully.

“Wait here.”

The headlights barely pierced the gloom. Not even a glimmer of light shone beyond their short range as rain continued to fall in blinding sheets. Brie would have welcomed the lightning back for a chance to see. She was cold, wet and frightened to her core, but all she could think about was getting her daughter back.

Drew shoved at the gate. The metal parted in eerie slow motion. Drew ran back to the car. “Brie, I think you should wait in the car.”

“No.”

He cupped her face. “Okay. We’ll get her back together.”

Brie put Max back in his carrier as they drove forward. Max protested plaintively, pawing at her through the bars. She stroked him absently with a finger as the house rose up out of the ground, an ugly, twisted, sprawling shape.

“Grab the flashlight from the glove compartment,” Drew said.

Brie grabbed a screwdriver as well. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but she felt better with it in her hand. Drew parked in front of the monstrosity, and together, they ran to the front door. It opened before they could knock.

A matronly woman in a long black dress held a lit taper. The tiny flame barely illuminated her stern features. “This is private property,” she announced in a heavily accented voice. “You must leave.”

“We’re here to see Dr. Manning.”

“The doctor is not here.”

“Then we’ll wait,” Drew said, brushing past her as if she weren’t trying to block his path.

“Nein! You cannot come in here. You must go away. Come back later!” The candle flickered madly. Distorted shadows jumped and danced against the stark white walls.

“We can’t do that. I’m sorry. We don’t mean to frighten you, but it is urgent we speak with Dr. Manning at once,” Drew told her kindly but firmly.

“I tell you he is not here,” she protested angrily.

“Where is his laboratory?” Drew asked.

“Go.” A long bony finger pointed toward the front door. “You must leave here at once.”

“We’ll find it ourselves,” Drew told her.

“Nein! The doctor will be upset.”

Drew’s expression turned so fierce even Brie was startled. “He’ll be more than upset if he has our daughter.”

The woman whispered something in her native tongue that could have been a prayer or a curse. Taking Brie’s hand, Drew plunged into the black maw of the hall and strode toward the back of the house as if his eyes could pierce the enveloping blackness. Brie flicked on the flashlight and pressed it into his hand.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m guessing his lab is at the rear of the house. I wish I’d paid more attention when Uncle Geoffrey described it.”

The house smelled of stale fried food. There was a dampness that probably came from the storm. Drew’s light picked up bits of stark black-and-chrome furniture in the dark openings as they passed by rooms off the hall. When they came to a place where the hallway split, the light picked up a door at one end. They headed in that direction.

Wind caught the door, ripping it from his fingers to slam it back against the house. A low, squat building was barely visible behind the house, surrounded by a substantial fence, part of which had collapsed under the weight of a massive tree limb that had toppled onto a smaller outbuilding beside it.

“Be careful. That fence is electrified,” Drew told her. “But it looks like the tree took out the generator. We just want to make sure the current is dead.”

Anticipation swelled inside her. Her daughter was here. She knew it. They ran over the muddy ground, fast turning to swampy marsh as the sodden earth struggled to absorb the continuing downpour. Drew tested the fence. Finding it dead, he led her over the broken fence and onto the grounds. A hearse sat in front of the only door she saw.

Drew detoured to the front of the vehicle and shone the flashlight on the bumper. “It’s the car that hit you,” he yelled, to be heard over the howl of the wind.

She grabbed his arm when he started toward the door. “Drew, wait! What if he’s armed?”

“Then his first shot better count,” he said savagely. “Stay behind me.”

She’d never seen Drew like this. He motioned her to one side, turned the door handle and stopped. Before she could ask what he planned to do next, Drew raised his leg and kicked the lock with savage force. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth kick, the lock yielded and the metal door flew inward.

Drew stood to one side. “Manning? It’s Andrew Pierce. I’ve come for my daughter!”

From inside came a volley of rifle shots. Drew pulled Brie down, covering her body with his own.

“Wait here!” he yelled in her ear.

“No! Drew!”

But he was already running back to the door. “Police are on their way, Manning. There’s only one way out. You’d better have a lot of rounds in there. You’re going to need them.”

Silence met his words. Then to her horror, Drew slipped inside.

Chapter Fifteen

Heedless of the mud and water dripping off her clothes and hair, Brie scrambled after Drew, pausing when she reached the black maw of the open door. Her daughter and the man she loved were inside so there wasn’t any choice. Cautiously, she inched forward.

A low, muffled moan drifted to her ears, followed by a scraping sound. Drew? Dear God, please don’t let him be hurt. She stood still a short distance inside, straining to hear over the howl of the wind. When the noise came again she started forward, trying to determine the direction of the sound.

A downburst of wind sent the door slamming into the wall. Brie jumped. Her foot kicked something that rolled across the floor. The smell of alcohol and other chemicals hung in the air. And the moan came once more. Her mind replayed every horror movie she’d ever seen. Her foot bumped against something hard and unyielding. Glass crunched beneath her shoe. The sounds came from inside the box at her feet!

A powerful beam of light suddenly swept the room from the open door at her back. Brie crouched down beside a stack of pine boxes. Coffins!

Something pushed against the lid on the one at her feet. A scream rose from her soul, but it never left her throat. The light from the door fastened on the coffin as the lid was thrust off. A woman’s scream rolled across the room on a building wave of horror as a ghostly pale face raised its head from inside that coffin.

Brie couldn’t move. The flash from a rifle muzzle and the deafening retort of the weapon came shockingly fast. She had no time to react as everything seemed to happen at once.

The scream died away as the figure in the doorway collapsed with a sickening thud. The bright beam of the flashlight rolled across the floor, tossing grotesque shadows around the strange room.

A shape lunged from between two cabinets. It slammed into the dark figure holding the rifle. And the ghostly body in front of her moaned in pain as it sat straight up in the coffin.

Brie scrambled away, hysteria bubbling in her throat. She careened into tables, cupboards and supplies, wending her way deeper into the maze without any thought save escape.

“Mama.”

Amazingly, she heard the tiny whimper over the terrified pounding of her pulse.

“Nicole!”

Brie stopped moving. Objects crashed as the two figures fought. Manning and Drew?

“Mama?”

Nicole’s voice sounded so weak. Confusion and the starting edge of fear laced her daughter’s voice.

“Mama?”

With a resounding crash, a cabinet toppled, shattering a mix of noxious chemicals that assailed her nose.

“Mama! Mama! Mama!”

Brie ran toward her daughter’s voice. A flicker of light came from behind and to her right. Barely enough to illuminate the surgical table and the tiny figure strapped beneath the looming, deadened lights.

Horrified, she rushed forward. “Hold still, sweetheart. I’m going to get you.”

The light at her back grew brighter. She heard the crackle of a new danger. Fire!

Flames licked across the floor, eating the spilled alcohol in its path. Brie struggled with the straps pinning Nicole until she was free and in Brie’s arms.

Smoke drifted upward with alarming speed. Drew reeled back against a lab table. Leland Manning, his face a distorted mask of rage, lifted a heavy microscope and hurled it down with smashing force against Drew’s shoulder. His legs buckled. He grabbed the table for support.

“No!” Brie screamed as Manning now raised Elizabeth’s black case over his head. From out of the choking cloud of smoke, the rifle spat its deadly flame. The box fell to the concrete floor and opened. Leland Manning collapsed facedown on top.

Carey Eldrich, dressed in a stained, torn tuxedo, stood there, weaving. In his hand was the rifle. He swung it toward Brie.

“Go,” he said, weakly. “Get out!”

Drew was suddenly at her side, lifting his daughter from her arms. The flickering flames leaped with glee amid the dense shroud of smoke.

Carey led them to the door, staggering in obvious pain. He’d been the ghostly shape she’d seen rising inside the coffin. But there wasn’t time to think about that as Drew thrust their daughter back into her arms. “Take Nicole! I’ll get the housekeeper.”

Only then did Brie realize it had been the housekeeper who had stood in the lab doorway with the flashlight and screamed. Drew scooped the crumpled figure from the floor as a hungry finger of flame tongued the edge of the open coffin. Carey took her elbow, making her jump. She couldn’t tell if he was offering support or needing it himself, but together, they stumbled outside with Drew at their back, holding the limp, black-garbed figure.

“Keep going!”

They moved past the hearse. A fireball exploded at their backs. Smoke spilled from the open door of the laboratory. The rasp of flames could be heard over the wind. Carey abruptly dropped to the ground. Nicole clung to Brie’s neck, looking more asleep than awake.

Holding her daughter, Brie crouched beside Carey. Drew lowered the housekeeper to a patch of grass and joined her.

“Drew! Carey’s hurt!”

“Can you make it to the car carrying Nicole?”

“I’ll make it,” she said grimly.

Pressing Nicole’s face into her shoulder, she started for the downed tree and the gap in the fence where they’d originally gained entrance.

Like evil springing from the fires of hell, a flaming figure erupted from inside the burning laboratory. Leland Manning ran straight at her, his face contorted in demonic rage.

Brie set Nicole down. She stepped in front of her and drew the screwdriver. Gripping it tightly, she stood her ground.

Cold, soulless eyes bore into her. Drew yelled, but Manning was almost on her. She braced herself, ready to thrust with the screwdriver.

A shot rang out.

Manning folded to the water-soaked ground at her feet, his clothing still burning. Brie spun, pulling Nicole against her chest to keep her daughter from seeing the grisly sight.

Drew lowered the rifle. Behind him, a dark figure pushed open the gate and sprinted across the compound. David Bryson stopped a few feet away. “I can help.”

“Can you?” Drew asked coldly.

“Police and ambulance are on the way.”

“How did you get through?” Brie asked nervously, moving to Drew’s side. Drew slid an arm around her without taking his gaze from David Bryson. Most of David’s face lay in shadow, but what Brie could see held no expression at all.

“The emergency line is back in service,” he stated calmly. “Is Nicole all right?”

“I—I think so. He had her strapped to an operating table!” The remembered horror choked her.

“Let’s get them out of here,” David said to Drew.

Something inside the lab exploded forcefully. Brie felt the shock wave against her back.

David bent over the old woman.

“I’ve got Nicole. Get Carey,” Brie urged Drew. He released her and squatted beside his friend.

“Come on, buddy, let’s go.”

Carey struggled feebly to stand. His features were drawn and pale as death.

“You…always were…a better…shot,” she heard Carey whisper.

“I didn’t fire the rifle,” Drew responded grimly.

Their gazes went to David. His dark black jeans were tightly molded to his skin, the dark black jacket, wetly plastered against his chest. If he was armed, the weapon was well concealed.

In the confusion after the police arrived, Drew stayed behind to answer questions while Nicole and Brie were sent off in the second ambulance. Her daughter’s lethargy was terrifying. Brie waited anxiously for the lab results after the doctor announced Nicole had been drugged.

When the curtain parted, she looked up, expecting Drew, but David Bryson appeared like a dark warrior. He gazed from her to her daughter, his dark eyes asking the question.

“She was drugged,” Brie told him. “The doctor doesn’t think it did any harm, but they’re checking to see what he gave her.” She’d thought she had no tears left, but one slid down her cheek all the same. “It’s all my fault. I actually sought him out. I wanted Manning to help my mother. And all he wanted was Nicole for some horrible experiment.”

David nodded. “Other geneticists are working with so-called ‘suicide genes’ to kill cancer. The therapy is viable, but Manning had a second agenda. Your daughter will be all right. I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait.” But David slipped away.

When the curtains parted this time it was Drew. He sat on the edge of the bed beside her and stroked his daughter’s cheek so tenderly it brought fresh tears to her eyes.

“The doctor got the lab report back. The drug is a common anesthetic. She’s reacting exactly as she should. And odds are, she won’t remember a thing. What do you say we take her home?”

He wiped her tears with the same tenderness he used on his daughter. A tiny mew came from inside the jacket he was wearing. Little Imp suddenly sprang free, jumping to the bed in a frantic effort to reach Nicole. The kitten’s tiny pink tongue swiped her daughter’s chin, sniffed closely, then settled itself against her sleeping daughter’s chest.

“You can’t bring a kitten into a hospital,” Brie admonished, half laughing as she wiped at her tears.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“Where did you find her?”

“In the car inside the carrier with Max.”

“That’s impossible!”

Drew’s face hardened. “I know.”

David. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did. He’d found the kitten. He’d made the call. He’d summoned help.

Or had he?

The wind didn’t seem quite so fierce on the way home, but many of the roads were flooding. The cottage was dark, but it looked so normal. So safe. Drew went in first, finding the storm lanterns they kept for emergencies. Brie’s eyes were gritty from too many tears, but she insisted on putting Nicole to bed herself.

Drew stroked his daughter’s hand and kissed her cheek lovingly. For a moment, Brie thought her tears would start once more. But they didn’t and Drew left the room. Brie put her to bed with Little Imp and Max looking on. Imp immediately jumped up to curl on the pillow beside Nicole. Brie kissed her daughter’s forehead before going in search of Drew.

He stood at the window gazing broodingly out at the night. Like Brie, he was still wearing the wet clothing he’d had on all evening.

“You should change,” she said softly.

He turned. “So should you.”

She let that slide. “Why did Manning want Nicole?”

“No doubt he wanted her blood,” Drew said bitterly, “just like he told you.”

“That doesn’t make sense. He didn’t have to kidnap her and strap her to an operating table.”

She realized Drew’s anger at what had been done to their daughter matched her own.

“You know his pet theory about witches and special powers?” Drew began to pace before the gas fireplace. “According to my mother, our family is also descended from one of the most powerful witches who ever lived in Moriah’s Landing.”

Brie stared at him in shock.

Drew stopped, shrugged. “I just got off the cell phone with her. Manning must have thought he’d found the perfect subject for his crackpot theory.”

“Nicole’s just a little girl!”

“Carey told Cullen Ryan that Manning had been injecting him with something since he was kidnapped. He was using Carey to test out his theory. Manning claimed it was only justice since it was Carey’s fault he’d had to kill his wife—”

“Leland Manning killed Ursula? But I thought she was kidnapped!”

“Cullen never was too happy with that story.”

“But the money—”

“We think he withdrew it to pay for the bodies he was having shipped into the country illegally.”

“What bodies?”

“This all ties in with the investigation Jonah Reis was doing for the FBI. Jonah knew someone in the secret society was smuggling something into the country from overseas. When he and Kat were investigating, they discovered coffins filled with bodies. Jonah and Cullen deduced Manning was smuggling the bodies to use in his research.”

“He wouldn’t need entire bodies to do genetic research.”

“Normally, you’re right, but these were reputed witches from England who lived in the 1500s. I imagine the chance to examine them was irresistible.”

Brie gaped, wondering when this nightmare would end.

“Jonah thinks a member of the secret society now living in England found an unknown peat bog where witches were dumped after they were killed.”

She shook her head, too bewildered to even question such insanity.

“Actually, I’ve heard of this. Scientists have found perfectly preserved bodies dating back to the 1500s in peat bogs. Fortunately, it’s Jonah and Cullen’s problem. Cullen knew Ursula Manning was killed by a rifle shot from the woods and he suspected Manning all along.”

“So Manning kidnapped Carey because of the affair he had with Ursula?”

“Looks that way. The attacks on me stopped right after Carey admitted his involvement with Ursula. She was supposed to meet him in the woods that morning, but she never showed up. She told Carey that Manning only married her because her ancestors dated back to the Salem witch trials.”

“Then why didn’t Manning try to kill Carey like he tried to kill you when he thought you were the one having an affair with his wife?”

“Manning told Carey he planned to open Carey’s brain and inject a gene he had isolated to see if it would reproduce and cause Carey to develop some sort of psychic talent or something.”

“That’s crazy!”

Drew nodded. “As Carey put it, Manning gives new life to the Hollywood image of a mad scientist. The worst part is, the court system will probably find him mentally incompetent to stand trial for his crimes.”

Horrified, Brie stared at Drew. “He’s still alive?”

“I’m afraid so. He’s badly burned, but the bullet didn’t hit any vital organs. The doctors expect him to pull through.”

Brie shuddered. “What about Carey?”

“He has a concussion, cuts and bruises, he’s dehydrated, and weaker than Little Imp from being drugged and locked up in that coffin. And while I don’t imagine he’s going to be fond of enclosed places anymore, he’s going to be fine.”

“Thank God. We should have stopped to see him before we left the hospital.”

Drew shook his head. “He wouldn’t have appreciated our company. Nancy was there.”

“So there is something going on between the two of them.”

“Looks that way. What about us?”

The world seemed to stop. “What?”

Drew walked over to stand directly in front of her. “Why do you think I married you?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No. Just give me an honest answer.”

Her heart began pounding irrationally. “We both know why you married me,” she said sadly.

“Do we?”

“Of course. You needed to save your career and you wanted to be part of Nicole’s life.”

“And you married me to pay for your mother’s experimental treatment,” he said bleakly. “So my uncle was right when he called our marriage a sham. A marriage of convenience.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you look so angry?”

“Maybe because I’m not finding this marriage one bit convenient,” he snapped.

His words were like tiny razors, flaying her heart.

“I don’t want a sham of a marriage,” he announced.

Her own anger, usually carefully controlled, sprang to life. “Well what do you want?” she demanded.

He grabbed her shoulders. “You. Loving me.”

The silence was deafening. “What?” she whispered.

He let her go and strode over to where Max sat perched on the arm of a chair watching them. Stroking the cat gently, he went on more quietly.

“Do you know what my mother told me tonight? Manning might actually have been on to something about witches and their genes. She informed me that my staid, huffy, highly educated father actually believes that stuff. He thinks I have an unnatural ability. Charm. Don’t you love it? He thinks my mother’s incredible green thumb is as unnatural as my supposed ability to charm everyone I meet. Everyone except my own wife, of course.”

“Are you saying you want to charm me?” Brie reeled from the implication of his words. Was it possible? Did Drew want what she wanted?

Drew snorted. He turned back to the window. “The storm’s finally moving off. We were lucky. The hurricane moved up the coast, but never actually made landfall. All this damage was nothing more than a passing blow.”

Just like Drew’s words.

“When I saw your wrecked car tonight,” he continued, “I knew if you were dead, part of me was going to die right there, too. Sounds sappy, doesn’t it?”

She shook her head, but he didn’t turn around, so he didn’t see the hope blossoming inside her.

“I have to tell you, Brie, I have never been so scared as I was tonight when Manning came at you and you just stood there protecting Nicole, holding that ridiculous screwdriver like some street fighter with a knife. I grabbed the rifle, but I knew I was going to be too late. You were going to die and I wanted to die, too.”

He turned around and she saw the moisture in his eyes.

“I love you, Brie. I’ve loved you since that stupid party four years ago. I think I knew it even then, but I was young and stupid and—I don’t want a sham of a marriage, Brie, I—”

She launched herself into his arms, laughing, crying, her heart filled to bursting. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

He grabbed her, giving her a shake.

“You love me?”

“Since I was ten years old and Tasha took a group of us to watch your baseball game. Josie Farleigh knocked my drink over to be mean. You saw her do it and you bought me a drink and a candy bar.”

“Why don’t I remember that?”

“Because I was ten and you were sixteen and there was a girl with long blond hair you were trying to impress.”

“Ridiculous.” But a smile edged his lips. His intense blue eyes were practically glowing. “I don’t even like blondes. I prefer redheads.”

“Really?”

“I’ll prove it. What do you say we go and check out the bedroom?”

“Oh, God, I love you so much, Drew.”

He pulled her tightly against his chest. She felt the certainty and the power of his words when he spoke against her ear.

“I love you, too, Brie.”

Kissing her with incredible tenderness, he slid his arm around her waist and reached for the light switch. At least for the moment, the ghosts of Moriah’s Landing were at peace.

Behind the Veil

By Joanna Wayne

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Prologue

Sweat beaded on the man’s brow as he struggled to drag the lifeless body into the thick clump of bushes and untamed undergrowth. The stench of death punctuated the night air and clogged his nostrils, but he couldn’t leave her like this. The job had to be done exactly according to plan.

Her leg caught on a rock, and he yanked it free, his hand brushing the delicate curve of her ankle as he did. She’d been an easy victim. Weak, innocent, gullible.

So easy. Almost too easy. He’d expected it to be more of a challenge, more satisfying to watch life seep from her body when he’d strangled her, watch blood gush from the two slashes that had severed her arteries. Instead it was over so quickly, he barely had time to appreciate the perfection of his work.

Just like it had been done twenty years ago. And, like twenty years ago, the stupid Moriah’s Landing police would never solve the murders. There had been four then, but only three remained unsolved and attributed to the serial killer. He’d probably stop at three now, as well. Or maybe he wouldn’t stop at all.

He took the knife, ran his gloved fingers along the edge of the blade, and then plunged it once more into the cold, pale flesh.

Easy. Easy. Easy. And perfect. Only one thing left to do. Working meticulously, he carved an M and an L into her abdomen. Something new to make certain everyone knew that McFarland Leary had returned.

Chapter One

Rebecca Smith snipped the emerald thread, laid her scissors on the table and held up the full satin dress for a critical look at the finished garment. The fabric swished as it fell into iridescent folds, catching the glow of the bright overhead lights.

Standing, she held it to her shoulders and took a few twirls around the room. It was the first piece of clothing she’d made for herself in months, but she’d outdone herself this time. The fabric was fabulous, the color rich, the sheen almost glittery.

Stopping to admire the finished creation in front of the full-length mirror, she could almost imagine herself attending a ball in old England. It would be the perfect dress for the Fall Extravaganza. On that night the town of Moriah’s Landing would be transported back in time, to the way it had been the year it was first inhabited. The night would be magical, a celebration that would hopefully dispel the sense of danger and fear that prevailed every fifth year when McFarland Leary was said to rise from the grave. If everything went as planned, tourists from miles around would flock into the narrow streets to celebrate the town’s three hundred and fiftieth anniversary year in a spectacular evening of dancing, vignettes, music and food.

If all went as planned, they would return to their homes when the festivities were over—alive.

The dress slipped through Becca’s fingers, and she barely caught it before it fell to the floor of the shop. The uneasy feeling that had lurked just beneath her consciousness all day had leapt to the forefront, icy and onerous and threatening to squeeze the life from her lungs.

She hated these moments when she seemed to slip into the depths of some world far beyond the one she knew as a simple seamstress. She never told anyone about these experiences, the same way she never admitted that she was anyone but Rebecca Smith, a young woman with simple values and meager expectations. It was better this way, made her less of an oddity, gave people no reason to pity her or to speculate about her past.

She laid the dress across the worktable, then walked to the front window and stared into the grayness of twilight. The streetlights had come on along Main Street, tiny globes of illumination, blurred and dulled by the thick fog that coated the air. A black car pulled up in front of the liquor store next door and a tall man in a pair of worn jeans and a windbreaker climbed from the passenger side of the car and sauntered to the entrance. He nodded and waved when he caught sight of her watching through the window. She waved back.

Moriah’s Landing was ordinarily a quiet, safe town in spite of the popular tales of witches and warlocks and ghosts who rose from their graves to kill innocent women. She didn’t believe in such nonsense, anyway. Humans committed murders, and though the town of Moriah’s Landing had experienced its share of those, there was no reason to believe that evil still lurked in dark graveyards or strolled the rocky beaches at midnight.

No reason at all, unless you believed the legend of McFarland Leary, a man who’d been dead for centuries and still rose from the grave every five years to torture and kill innocent females.

Or if you bought into the stories that circulated about the monster on the hill. She closed her eyes, and the image of a lean, brooding man with swarthy skin and dark, piercing eyes walked through her mind. Thick hair fell across his forehead and hung past his ears, only half hiding the nasty scar that crawled down the right side of his face.

Dr. David Bryson. Living in the Bluffs, his formidable castle of stone and menacing turrets, guarded by hideous, lifeless gargoyles that bared rusted teeth and sharpened claws.

When she thought of danger and foreboding, his was always the face that appeared in her mind, and still the man intrigued her. She’d asked questions of all her friends, listened to the talk about him, watched for him, half hoping he’d materialize from the shadows when she walked home by herself after dark.

She’d spotted him one night just as she’d finished turning the key to lock the shop door. He’d been standing at the corner near her shop. She’d looked him straight in the eye, studied his features in the faint glow of the streetlight. Her heart had beat erratically, but she’d stood as if frozen to the spot, mesmerized, drawn to the man half the town claimed was a mad murderer.

The jangling of the telephone jolted her from her thoughts. She took a deep breath and forced the image of Dr. Bryson from her mind before she answered. “Threads. How may I help you?”

“Becca, it’s Larry Gayle. Some of us are heading over to the carnival tonight. Want to join us?”

She hesitated. “The weatherman is predicting thundershowers.”

“Aw, come on. It’s Friday night. Kat and Jonah are going, and if it rains, we’ll duck into one of the bars along the wharf.”

“In that case, count me in.” She hadn’t seen Kat nearly enough since her friend had fallen in love with and married Jonah. Jonah was with the FBI and Kat was one of the toughest private investigators around. Still, it had been a rough year for Kat. After twenty years, the man who’d killed her mother in Kat’s presence had finally been arrested. The first of the infamous Moriah’s Landing murders of twenty years ago had been solved. The last three had not.

“What time?” she asked, pushing thoughts of the murder aside.

“I’ll pick you up about seven,” Larry answered, “unless that’s too soon.”

Her gaze rose to the clock over the door. It was already a quarter after six, but it was only a ten-minute walk to the room she rented from the Cavendish family, and it wouldn’t take long to slip into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. “I’ll be ready.”

A few minutes later, she’d straightened her work area, hung her dress on a hanger so that the wrinkles could fall out and turned out the lights in the shop. Pulling the door closed, she fit the key into the lock and turned it, checking before she walked away to make sure the lock had caught and held.

There was little breaking and entering in Moriah’s Landing, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious, especially since she only managed the shop for the owner. One day she hoped to buy it, but for now she was content to have a job she enjoyed.

Picking up her pace, she turned off of Main Street and onto a narrow unlit side street. It was the one secluded area on her short walk home. It didn’t really frighten her, but still she always picked up her pace when she started down it. The lots on either side of the road belonged to one of the Pierces, but they had never built here.

The wind blew in from the ocean, sharp and damp and prickling her flesh. Not a great night for a carnival, but she was relieved not to be staying home tonight. The chilling presence that had haunted her all day began to swell into an almost palpable sensation as she rounded the last corner and walked beneath a canopy of tree branches and shadows.

If she believed in witchcraft, she would fear she was one, and that the chill inside her predicted the imminence of danger or death.

If she believed. But she didn’t.

DAVID BRYSON WALKED the rocky path along the edge of the craggy cliffs and stared down at the swirling water as it crashed against the treacherous rocks below. Once the sight had filled him with awe and excitement. Now it was only a bitter reminder that it was the place where he had lost his world.

Some claimed he’d also lost his sanity that horrible night five years ago, and perhaps they were the ones who understood best.

Instinctively, his hand moved to his face, and his fingers traced the jagged lines of the scar that ran from his right temple to below his ear. The facial disfiguration, his conspicuous limp and the hideous patches of coarse, red skin on his chest and stomach were always with him to remind him of the explosion.

Still, the plastic surgeons had worked wonders, rebuilt his face, transformed him from something so ghastly he couldn’t bear to pass in front of a mirror to something merely hideous. The doctors had saved his life even while he’d begged them for the release of death. To this day, he’d never fully forgiven them.

“Dr. Bryson.”

He turned at the sound of his name and located the lone figure standing behind the Bluffs. The man was no more than an outline in the deepening darkness, but David didn’t have to see his butler to recognize him. He knew the voice well.

He waved and called up to him. “I’m down here, Richard.”

David took one last look at the water below him, then tilted his face and examined the turbulent layers of dark clouds before starting back up the rocky path.

Too bad about the gathering storm, but if the carnies were lucky, it would hold off for a few hours. The carnival had been a highlight of the fall season for years, coming to town just after the students at the all-girls college of Heathrow had plunged into the sea of sorority activities and before they became immersed in serious studies.

Memories sneaked into his mind. A kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel, Tasha’s body pressing into his as they spun on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

A ragged ache tore at his insides. He fought it by pushing his body to the limits, ignoring the stabbing pain in his right leg and jogging up the slippery path that ran along the edge of the cliff. In minutes, he’d covered the ground between him and Richard and stopped at the man’s side.

“You risk your life when you do that, sir.”

“What do you expect from a madman?”

“Indeed. You’re no more mad than I am.”

“You need to get out more, Richard. Mingle with the townspeople. They’ll tell you what an insane monster you work for.”

“I take no stock in the tales of people who walk around in fear that some old ghost is going to rise from the cemetery and kill their virgins.”

“Ghost tales are good for tourism.”

“They’re the invention of superstitious fools. There’s evil in this town, cruelty, too. But it doesn’t come from ghosts or witches.” Richard turned and started back toward the house. David followed him, wondering as always what he’d do without the man.

Richard Crawford had come to work for him five and a half years ago when David had returned to Moriah’s Landing and purchased the Bluffs. Richard’s hair had grayed around the ears since then and receded from his forehead, but he was still fit and youthful for a man who’d celebrate his sixtieth birthday this year.

More important, Richard was probably the only one who understood how much David still loved his dead fiancée. He missed Tasha’s voice, her smile, the way she’d made him feel. She’d been so young and innocent. And beautiful.

“…dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Richard. Did you ask me a question?”

Richard turned and raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter, sir?”

“I was just a bit preoccupied. Nothing new.” He’d told Richard repeatedly that he didn’t need to refer to him as sir, but the man was from the old school, and even though he was as much friend and confidant as servant, Richard always made certain to keep that defining edge of separation between them.

“I asked if you were ready for dinner,” Richard repeated. “The cook’s gone for the day, but she left everything in the oven. It will take me only a few minutes to serve it.”

“Dinner. I’d almost forgotten that we hadn’t eaten.”

“I think you would forget to eat entirely, sir, if someone weren’t around to remind you.”

“I might at that. It’s my work that keeps me going these days.” His work and a new fascination, one that frightened him even more than the impenetrable moods that had almost destroyed him after Tasha’s death. One that he would never dare mention, not even to Richard.

“Will you be going out tonight, sir?”

“Maybe later. First I plan to go back to the lab and work.”

The question was ritual. The answer was automatic. After dinner, he either went to his office in the dark corridors beneath the rambling castle or to the test tubes and microscopes that filled the west wing of the Bluffs. He’d work until his mind was numb and fatigue robbed him of the control that kept his inner demons in check. Then he’d lose all perspective and turn into the madman every one believed him to be.

He’d slip from the confines of the Bluffs and drive to the edge of town. He’d park his car and walk the streets and back alleys, searching endlessly for answers he never found. One day he would. And when he did, revenge would be swift and unbelievably sweet.

Becca Smith was not part of the answers or the revenge. But lately, he’d ended up on her street far too often. Something about her haunted him, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to shake her from his mind.

Richard paused at the back door. “I hear the whole town is gearing up for the Fall Extravaganza. Perhaps you should go. One night of fun won’t ruin your reputation as a serious scientist.”

He touched his fingers to the scar. “I’d frighten the children.”

“With one little scar? I seriously doubt that, sir.”

“With one ghastly scar. I suppose I could dig out the mask I wore in the first years after the explosion and go as the Phantom.”

“Just go as yourself. I predict you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

David turned away. “Moriah’s Landings has always had lots of surprises for me. Only one was ever pleasant, and in the end, it was the cruelest surprise of all.”

“That was five years ago. Besides, test tubes make lonely bedfellows.”

“True, but they never pull away in disgust when I stand in front of them.”

David pushed through the door and stepped inside the bleak interior of the Bluffs. Nothing but grays and browns and thick, opaque draperies. Tasha had planned to redecorate the place, fill it with light and brighter fabrics to compliment the richness of the dark woods of the furniture.

Her plans had died with her. Without Tasha, there was no light. Besides, he’d lost all interest in the structure that had so intrigued him when he’d purchased it. Now he spent most of his days in the lab or out staring at the water breaking over the treacherous rocks at the foot of the jagged cliffs.

A bleak and isolated life. But a few miles away, the carnival was in full swing. Coeds’ laughter, painted horses, music, a kaleidoscope of colors. And for the first time in five long years, he felt himself almost wishing he were part of it.

He closed his eyes for a second as Richard walked ahead of him toward the kitchen. He expected Tahsa’s face to materialize in his mind, but this time it was the image of Becca Smith that danced behind his eyelids. Tall and willowy, her long blond hair falling around her shoulders.

He’d have to be very careful if he left the house tonight. And he knew he’d leave. The town was already beckoning.

“STEP RIGHT UP. All you have to do is break three plates to win a prize. Or give me the prize you have walking next to you, and I’ll hand over all the stuffed bears I own.” The hawker tipped a faded baseball cat at Becca as she and Larry walked past his booth.

“Keep your bears,” Larry said. “I know a good thing when I see one.” He grinned and wrapped his right arm around Becca’s shoulder, slowing so that Kat and Jonah could catch up with them.

“Do you want a bear?” Jonah asked Kat. “I pitch a mean fastball.”

“Let’s see. A bear or a beer? I’ll take a beer.”

“Aw,” the hawker groaned. “She’s only kidding. Every woman wants a teddy bear. Or how about one of these cute pink cats? Come on, ladies. Help me out here.”

A large drop of rain plopped on the tip of Becca’s nose, the first of the evening. “Looks like our luck is running out,” she said, quickly forgetting the hawker, who was already rescuing his best prizes from the unprotected edge of his booth.

“Head for Wheels,” Jonah said, indicating the biker bar down by the wharf. “It’s the closest cover.”

The four of them took off running, leaving the lit area of the carnival behind and heading toward the wharf as the rain grew harder. They cut over to Waterfront Avenue by dashing down the street between the ice cream parlor and the fortune-telling stand, both of which had closed for the evening.

A gust of wind coming off of Raven’s Cove blew rain into Becca’s face and whipped her clothes against her body before they finally reached the overhang in front of Wheels. They stomped the mud from their shoes and pushed through the door of the bar to a loud twanging of guitar music from the aging jukebox.

“Tables are all taken,” a buxom blond waitress said as she sashayed by them, “but there’s room at the bar.”

“The bar’s fine with me,” Jonah said, “as long as the beer’s cold. How about you ladies?”

“I can handle that,” Becca said.

“I’ve been known to straddle a stool,” Kat agreed, slipping out of her wet jacket and tossing it over a hook by the door. The others followed suit as a couple of guys moved over to give them four seats together. Becca and Kat took the inside seats so they could talk to each other over the music and loud voices.

The middle-aged bartender wiped his hands on a stained apron and leaned over the counter. “Looks like you got caught in the rain. You must have been at the carnival.”

“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “Poor planning on our part, Jake. If we’d started at the far end and worked our way back, we’d have been at the car by the time the rain hit. As it was, we were at the end by the wharf.”

“Well, at least you got to see it all. Not that it changes much from year to year. What’ll it be?”

They gave him their orders, and Becca and Larry showed their IDs. Jonah and Kat didn’t bother. Jonah’s cousin had owned the bar across the street before he died, and both Jonah and Kat had been in Wheels often enough that the bartender knew they were legal age.

Becca propped her booted feet on the foot rail and let her gaze scan the dim bar while Larry excused himself to go to the men’s room.

The wharf area always intrigued her. The environment stripped away pretense and social niceties. What you saw was what you got, and no one bothered to mince words just to spare someone’s feelings. Like the two men who were sitting a few seats down from them. She wasn’t eavesdropping, but their gruff voices carried easily.

“I’m not afraid of no damn ghost. Not after what I face day in and day out. I say if that Leary fellow rises from his grave, put him on a fishing boat and send him out into a raging storm. One giant wave, and the man will go running back to his safe spot six feet under.”

“Well, someone killed that girl. Matt Jackson was the first cop on the scene and his old lady told mine it was as gory a sight he’d ever seen. Blood everywhere. Hardly had a drop left in her.”

A guy in faded jeans and a worn leather jacket banged his fork on the table. “Would you guys keep it down? Some people are trying to eat in here.”

Kat waited until the bartender set the beers in front of them. “What is this about a murder?”

He leaned in close. “A young woman, late teens or early twenties. Some boys out on their mud bikes found the body in the bushes off of Old Mountain Road just before dark. The police are trying to keep a lid on it until they find out more about it, but you can’t keep anything quiet around this town. You know that.”

“Did they identify her?”

“Not as far as I know. She’d been dead awhile. That’s all I heard.”

Becca felt herself getting sick and wished she hadn’t eaten the chili-soaked hot dog at the carnival.

The man two seats down from Becca broke into the conversation. “It’s that Bryson fellow that done it.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that when you have no proof,” Kat warned.

“I got all the proof I need. The man sits up there in his castle all day, supposedly brooding over some lost lover. Then he comes snooping around town at night. I’ve seen him plenty of times. If he wasn’t up to no good, he’d show himself in the daytime like a real man. He did it. I’d bet my Harley on it.”

Jake slid a foamy beer toward him. “Your Harley? Put up a night with your woman, and I’ll take your bet.”

“Marie wouldn’t have you, you beer-splattered buzzard.” He took a long drag on his beer. “So are you on the side of the beast?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Jake answered, “but I don’t think the man’s dangerous. He’s just a little addled, that’s all. You’d be, too, if you lost your fiancée the way he did.”

“Humph!” The second man slapped a beefy hand on the counter. “I say he was the one who murdered Tasha Pierce. She went up to that haunted house of his to break up with him, and he killed her. Almost killed himself in the process.”

“He’s crazy, all right,” the first man added. “Should be locked up in that same hospital where they put that poor Cavendish girl when she was kidnapped from the graveyard.”

The words ground into Becca’s mind, and David Bryson’s face appeared in front of her, so real she felt she could reach out and touch it. The beer almost slipped from her hands as she set it back on the bar.

“This talk is getting to you, isn’t it?” Kat said, turning her attention to Becca. “You’re shaking, and perspiration is popping out on your forehead.”

“It’s the smoke and the stale air,” she lied. “I think I’ll step out the door and get a breath of air.”

“You’ll get wet.”

“I’ll stay under the overhang,” Becca assured her, already climbing down from the barstool.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. Please. Stay and visit with Jonah. I’ll be just outside the door.”

Kat touched her arm. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She walked away, yanked her jacket from the hook and pushed through the door. Once outside, she leaned against the side of the building for support. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind howled around the corners and cut through her light windbreaker.

Only the real chill came from somewhere deep inside her. She’d had the crazy feeling all day that something terrible was going to happen. Now she found out a young woman’s body had been found off the road leading up to the Bluffs.

But how did she know? Why? She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket.

“Rebecca Smith.”

Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound of her name. She spun around and stared at a figure, half hidden in the shadows of the old clapboard building. He stepped toward her. Her knees grew weak and rubbery and she stood frozen to the cement beneath her feet.

Escape would probably be impossible, anyway. The beast from the Bluffs had come for her.

Chapter Two

The voice was hypnotic, almost haunting and emotions thick as chowder churned inside Becca. “What do you want?” she whispered, her throat so dry, she could barely form the words.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, stepping closer.

She stared at him but only saw his profile. He kept his face turned toward the street. “You don’t frighten me. I was only startled because I didn’t realize you were out there.”

“Then I apologize for not making more noise on my approach.”

“Why don’t you look at me when you talk?”

“I have my reasons.”

“If it’s to save me from the sight of your face, you needn’t bother, Dr. Bryson. I’m sure I can handle it.”

“So you know who I am?”

“Of course. Everyone does.” And they’d all tremble in terror if they knew she was alone with him on a dark, deserted street. Yet the strange feelings coursing through her senses right now lacked the stringent sting of fear she’d felt when he’d first called her name. She pulled her windbreaker tighter. “What do you want from me?”

“Professional services.”

“In what way?”

“My house, the Bluffs. Do you know it?”

“I’ve only seen it from a distance. It appears more a castle than a house.”

“A dark castle.”

“I still don’t understand, Dr. Bryson. What does your dark castle have to do with me?”

“I’d like for you to change it. Let in the light. You know, add color.”

“Are you looking for someone to redecorate the Bluffs?”

“Yes.” He exhaled sharply, as if her saying the words gave him some kind of release. “Can you do that?”

“I’m merely a seamstress, not an interior designer.”

“But you do sometimes sew drapes and slipcovers?”

“Occasionally.”

“Then I’d like to hire you.”

His voice seemed to reach inside her and awake some unexplainable eros, which defied reason. Fear edged along her nerve endings now, but she had no idea if it was due to the doctor’s presence or to her own bizarre reaction to him. “I’m not the person you need.”

He drew away and put his hand to his face as if to shield her from the infamous scar that was already hidden from her line of vision. “You won’t have to see me,” he said. “I’ll stay in my lab while you work and you can correspond with me through my butler, Richard Crawford.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it? I’ll pay you well.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t do it.”

He shuffled and stuck his hands deep into the front pockets of his trousers. “I understand. I’m sorry I bothered you. I promise I won’t do it again.”

Hurt seeped into his voice. She recognized the sound of it but had never expected to hear it coming from his mouth. It humanized him in a way nothing else could have and made her wonder at her own heartlessness.

The door opened behind her and Larry stepped through it. “Kat said you were feeling a little nauseous. Do you want me to borrow Jake’s car and…” He stopped midsentence as his gaze took in the shadowy profile of David Bryson. His hands knotted into fists, and he stepped between the two of them as if blocking her from some type of attack. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Frightening defenseless women?”

David’s muscles tensed. “Something like that,” he said. “But don’t worry, I’m leaving now.”

“Yes.” The word flew from her mouth. She didn’t know why or when she’d changed her mind. “I accept your offer.”

David stopped in his tracks. “Are you certain?”

She nodded. “I’ll come out to your place tomorrow if that’s convenient.”

“Tomorrow will be fine. I’ll send Richard for you. Would ten be too early?”

“No. He can pick me up at the shop.”

Larry clamped his hand around her arm as David disappeared into the shadows. “What are you talking about? Are you crazy?”

Crazy? The term seemed fitting, but she wasn’t going to stand outside and argue with him about it. She owed him no explanation. It wasn’t as if they were more than casual friends. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Maybe not, but you can’t be serious about going to the Bluffs. What did he tell you? Did he threaten you?”

“No.” She pulled the door open and marched back inside the bar with Larry at her heels. She had an idea that it was going to be a long, long night.

BECCA STRETCHED BETWEEN the cool sheets and stared out the window near her bed. The rain had stopped, and the clouds moved across the night sky like black sheets being tossed by the wind. She never felt truly at home, but she usually felt safe and protected in her small, rented nook inside the Cavendish home. Tonight even the familiar surroundings seemed eerily foreign.

Kat and Jonah hadn’t agreed with Larry’s assessment that she was crazy, but even they had warned her to be cautious. A lot of people in town didn’t trust Dr. Bryson. The superstitious rumors of ghosts and warlocks aside, the man was antisocial and decidedly weird. Some even thought he was a killer.

She had no argument for them. If someone had suggested before tonight that she’d be paying Dr. David Bryson a visit tomorrow, she’d have thought them nuts. But there was no denying that she wanted to see him again. She’d liked his voice, or perhaps been mesmerized by it would be the more apt description. Rich, but with a hint of sadness and a whisper of heartbreak.

Hints and whispers. Egads! Now she was beginning to sound like one of the guides giving a practiced spiel to paying tourists. The simple, unadorned truth was that the man was a recluse who dressed in black and only came out of his fortress at night. And she had agreed to go to his castle like some poor sheep being led to slaughter.

The only thing to do was call the man in the morning and back out. Rolling over, she pounded her fists into the pillow before plopping her head back in the middle of it. All she had to say was that she’d changed her mind. What could he do but take no for an answer?

The wind whistled around the corner of the house, and she tugged the covers up to her neck and closed her eyes. “Sorry, Dr. Bryson. I’m not coming,” she whispered.

“Please, I need you, Becca.”

The words slammed into her senses, and her heart thundered in her chest. Opening her eyes wide, she jerked to a sitting position. The room was empty. The voice had been only her imagination working overtime. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, wishing she’d never gone to the carnival and never run into David Bryson. Perhaps it would have been better if she’d never moved to Moriah’s Landing at all.

A town with a history of witch trials and hangings on the town green. A town haunted by ghosts and abductions and unsolved murders. Yet, from the very first day she’d visited Moriah’s Landing, she’d felt as if she belonged here. And she desperately needed to belong somewhere.

Thunder crashed and lightning zigzagged in a blinding display of electric current, and the rain started up again. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the screaming wind and the sound of rain pelting against the windows. Instead, the voice of David Bryson haunted her mind. Smooth, mysterious, seductive.

The storm had passed and the first rays of the sun were already peeking over the horizon before she finally fell asleep. By then she knew that she’d have to make tomorrow’s visit to the Bluffs, if only to satisfy her own curiosity and convince herself that Dr. David Bryson was just a man with no power over her. She would not lose another night’s sleep over him.

CLAIRE CAVENDISH HURRIED down the narrow streets, dodging puddles left from last night’s deluge. Foreboding pooled inside her, much like the water that gathered in the cracks and crevices of the cobbled street. She couldn’t imagine what Becca was thinking, but she knew she had to stop her.

She had liked Becca from the moment she met her, already knew all about her from Elizabeth, Brie and Kat, three of Claire’s closest friends.

It wasn’t unusual that Becca had become part of the same circle of friends that Claire had shared all her life. Once Becca and Elizabeth had become friends, it was only natural that Elizabeth would introduce her to the others. Now they were all friends, and Claire would not stand by and watch while Becca made a horrible mistake.

Becca had no way of knowing the things that Claire knew. She couldn’t know how Dr. David Bryson had bewitched her friend Tasha Pierce, lured her into his life and led her to her death. Claire pictured Tasha as she’d been then. Vivacious, innocent, drunk on life. Both of them had been so excited over beginning their first year at Heathrow College.

Within a month of starting at Heathrow, the hopes and dreams vanished for both of them. Tasha had died. Claire had lived, at least that’s what the psychiatrists had kept reminding her. All she knew know was that she would not stand by and watch Becca fall into the same trap she’d stepped into during sorority rush week five years ago. A lifetime ago. Stepped into that dark mausoleum.

Stepped into hell.

Apprehension churned in her stomach. Becca would have to listen to her. She’d make her. The Bluffs was not the same as a mausoleum, but it could prove just as dangerous.

BECCA FILLED TWO MUGS with fresh perked coffee from the large pot in Threads and handed one to Claire. Claire’s hands shook as she took the cup, and Becca’s heart went out to her. She’d been through so much. Still, she’d been steadily improving over the last few weeks and months, and Becca hated to see her as upset as she was right now.

She reached out and laid a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “If you’re having a bad day, it might help to talk about it.”

Claire wrapped both hands around her cup. “I talked to Larry Gayle this morning.”

If Larry had been available right now, Becca would have gladly wrung his neck. “He shouldn’t have called you, Claire. Everything’s fine.”

“He didn’t call. Mother’s old Ford was sounding funny and she asked him to take a look at it. He’s good with cars, and planned to become a mechanic before he went to work in his dad’s hardware store. We talked while he was there and he told me about last night.”

“Larry Gayle talks too much.”

“You can’t go to the Bluffs, Becca. You can’t work for that—that beast.”

“Oh, Claire, he’s not a beast. He’s just a recluse, and if anyone here had reason to become one, it’s him. And he certainly can’t help the fact that he’s scarred. You surely don’t hold that against him.”

“No. This isn’t about the way he looks.” Claire set her coffee cup on the table and walked to the window. She stared through it for long, pregnant seconds before turning back to Becca. “You’re new in town, Becca. You weren’t here five years ago when the evil erupted. You didn’t know Tasha, how beautiful she was, how sweet.”

“I’ve heard you and her other friends speak of her. I know she must have been a very special person.”

“She was. And then David Bryson came into her life. He used his powers to seduce her—mentally, physically, spiritually. He was all she could talk about, all she thought about.”

“They were in love. It’s like that when you’re in love, or so I’ve heard.” She spoke tenderly, trying to ease the pain and fear that still claimed so much of Claire.

“Tasha was too young to be in love, especially with a man like David Bryson. She was naive and innocent, only eighteen. He was thirty-five, polished, sophisticated. But he was a fake. He’d grown up right here in Moriah’s Landing, the son of a woman who sold her body for men to—well, you know…”

“If you’re saying his mother was a prostitute, I’m sure he had no control over that.”

“It wasn’t just his mother. David was a hotheaded kid who was always in trouble. My mother remembers him, and so does everyone else in this town who’s over forty.”

“People change, Claire. David Bryson changed. He’s become a doctor. There’s no reason to think he’s anything like he was as a teenager.”

“Then how do you explain how he got the money to buy the Bluffs?”

“I’m guessing he earned it.”

Claire turned from the window and stared at Becca. Her long blond hair hung around her sunken cheeks and her blue eyes appeared haunted. That, combined with the paleness of her skin and her slim build, made her appear like an abandoned child much younger than her twenty-three years. She placed both hands on the cutting table and leaned forward.

“Please, Becca, even if you think David Bryson is harmless, stay away from him. A lot of people in this town believe he murdered Tasha.”

“I asked Kat about that when I first heard about him. She said there was never any real evidence against him and that eventually the explosion that killed Tasha was ruled an accident.”

“Only because they couldn’t find any evidence that it was a planted explosion, but the Pierces don’t think he’s innocent.”

“Oh, Claire, honey, the Pierces lost a member of their family. You can’t expect them to be objective about all of this. But from what I can tell, Dr. Bryson is just a man who’s had a very difficult life.”

“He’s not what he seems, Becca. Whatever he wants from you, it has nothing to do with redecorating his house.”

Claire’s voice trembled and Becca’s heart went out to her. She knew the story of how Claire had gone with Tasha, Kat, Brie and Elizabeth to the cemetery as part of a sorority initiation. The one who drew the piece of paper with the picture of McFarland Leary on it had to go into the haunted mausoleum. That had been Claire. While inside, she’d been abducted, and whatever had happened to her while she was in the hands of the madman had left her a shattered shell of the young woman she’d been.

It was no wonder she was so afraid of a mysterious man like David. But Becca had to make her own decisions this time, and she couldn’t base them on groundless fear. “I’m sure the Bluffs can use a little updating,” she said, keeping her tone light. “I have no reason to think that’s not the reason he came to me.”

“But why you, Becca? With his money he can hire a professional from Boston to come out and redecorate the Bluffs or hire one of the local interior designers. Why would he seek out a young seamstress without any experience in interior design? And why would he come to you in the dark of night instead of during shop hours?”

The questions Claire asked were all valid. Becca couldn’t deny that. The man could afford to hire anyone he wanted and yet he’d come to her. “I appreciate your concern, but…”

“But you’re not backing out of the job.”

Becca stared into her coffee cup, hating to meet Claire’s worried gaze. “I can’t, not yet, anyway.”

“See, he’s already gotten to you.”

Becca looked up. It was straight up ten o’clock, and a tall, neatly dressed gentleman was headed up the walk. She couldn’t deny feeling anxious and uneasy, but she also knew that she was going with David’s butler. She walked over and gave her friend a comforting hug. “I have to go now, Claire, but I’ll be home early tonight. Why don’t the two of us go for dinner at the Beachway Diner? I’ll tell you all about my visit to the Bluffs and you’ll see that I’m fine.”

Claire turned to the door. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

Becca shook her head. “Dinner at seven.” She forced a smile as she escorted Claire to the door. “I’ll meet you at the diner, and don’t worry. Who’s afraid of the big, bad beast?”

“Me,” Claire said, but she squeezed Becca’s hand as she opened the door and stepped around the imposing man without even looking at him.

Becca held the door open. “I’m Becca Smith, and you must be Richard Crawford.”

“Yes. Are you ready for me to drive you to the Bluffs?”

“As soon as I lock up and put the Be Back Later sign on the door.” Luckily the owner gave her permission to set her own hours.

“There’s no hurry, but if I can be of assistance, just let me know,” Richard offered.

“That’s okay. I have everything under control.” She picked up a large sketch pad and a couple of sharpened pencils and dropped them into a canvas tote bag that already held her tape measure and a calculator.

Who’s afraid of the big, bad beast? The chant echoed in her head as she hung the sign over the hook on the door. In approximately half an hour, she’d step inside the massive stone castle on the top of the highest cliff in this part of the state, a structure that no one she knew had set foot in for the last five years. Hidden away from the city, in a world of secrets guarded by a stone fence and an electric gate. Just she and Richard and Dr. David Bryson.

Who was afraid now that the time had come?

She was. That’s who.

FROM A DISTANCE, the Bluffs was impressive and imposing. Up close and personal it was downright formidable. The stone was dark gray, scarred by centuries of gale-force winds, driving rains and the burning heat of summer. The curves and angles of the structure stretched out in all directions, large enough to house a small army, with turrets and parapets along the roof line and hideous gargoyles and ferocious creatures from some imaginary animal kingdom posed as silent, ominous guards over it all.

“Don’t let the size intimidate you,” Richard offered as they stepped to the massive wooden door. “It’s basically just a house.”

Yeah, and the Taj Mahal was just a tomb. Anxiety and anticipation warred inside her as Richard fitted a large metal key into the lock and turned it. This would be her first look inside the edifice that had fascinated her from her first glimpse of it. Her first step inside the bastion of a man half the town thought was a blood-sucking vampire and the other half believed was a murderer.

Her heart hammered against her chest as the heavy door creaked open. Claire’s warning crept into her mind, but she pushed it aside. If she’d been afraid to face the new and unfamiliar, she’d have died years ago.

“This is it,” Richard said as he followed her inside. “Welcome to the home of Dr. David Bryson.”

“Wow.” Juvenile comment, but she was lucky to have gotten that out. “It’s so…I mean, it’s awesome.” She turned, her gaze jumping from the magnificent ceilings to the Victorian chandeliers, from the beautiful but worn Persian rugs to the exquisite antique furnishings. Dark, dreary colors, and yet the sheer grandeur was enough to take her breath away. She walked over and stopped in front of the massive marble fireplace. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t even know places like this existed outside of fairy tales.”

“I know exactly how you feel. I felt that way myself the first time I came here to interview for the position of Dr. Bryson’s butler.”

She doubted that. Richard Crawford had been nice and friendly enough on the drive up to the Bluffs, but he was far too sophisticated for her to ever imagine him all but drooling over a house the way she was. She needed to get a grip, make herself sound more professional. “The house and furnishings are quite resplendent, but I must agree with the doctor’s assessment that the place needs updating.” Resplendent? She sounded more like some society snob than a professional. “New window treatments and more colorful coverings for the furniture would make the place much brighter and more livable,” she added, trying to salvage a shred of credibility out of the conversation.

“I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve mentioned it many times over the last few years, but David, Dr. Bryson that is, never seemed interested until now.”

“And are you and Dr. Bryson the only ones who live here?”

“It’s just the two of us, though there are others who work here during the day. There’s a cook and a small staff of gardeners and housekeepers. None of them are here today, though. Saturdays and Sundays are typically the days off for all the staff.”

“When is your day off?”

“Whenever I need one. Are you ready for me to show you around?”

So David was planning to keep the promise he made last night, stay out of sight and leave her in the hands of Richard. She should be thankful. She wasn’t. Now that she’d seen where he lived, she was even more intrigued by him. Besides, unless she talked to him face-to-face, dealt with him as a real flesh-and-blood person, she might never banish him from her thoughts and fantasies or stop hearing his mesmerizing voice echo in her mind. “I would prefer to do the walk-through with the owner.”

“I’m sorry, but he gave specific instructions that I was to deal with you myself. Of course, I’ll take all your ideas to him and he will be the one to make any final decisions on what is to be changed.”

“Then we may as well get started. Since only two of you live here and it doesn’t appear that your employer does much entertaining, you can’t possibly use all the rooms.”

“No, there’re over seventy of them, not counting the lab in the west wing.”

Seventy rooms. It baffled the mind, but she had no trouble believing that it was true. She surveyed the room they were in. New drapes were definitely needed. The ones hanging were streaked and faded and so thick they blocked every trace of sunlight from the room. The chairs should be recovered, too, in something soft and welcoming. And the room needed lamps, low wattage, to throw halos of light where it was needed.

And that was in just one room. If she took this job, it would take her months to even begin to make a showing, especially if she had to fit it in between her regular sewing jobs.

“Could I get you something to drink before we get started?” Richard asked.

“No, and to tell you the truth, Mr. Crawford, I’m not at all sure I can handle this job.”

“I’m sure Dr. Bryson didn’t contact you about this without checking into your credentials first.”

“My credentials are that I design and sew dresses for local ladies who want something a little different from what they can buy off the rack in a department store. I’m good at that, and I work at reasonable rates. Now, if there’s any way David Bryson can stretch that into proper qualifications for this job, I certainly don’t see it.”

She walked to the cluster of windows that covered the entire back wall and tugged the heavy drape to the side. The breath rushed from her lungs as she took in the view. This room overlooked the cliff, looked down on the swirling blue water that splashed against the jagged rocks of Raven’s Cove.

She spotted a man kneeling on the edge of the cliff, a beautiful bouquet of pure white roses in his hand. He scattered them over the rocks and then stood, staring at the water far below. It wasn’t until he turned back toward the house that she recognized him. Her breath caught unexpectedly.

“I see your boss now. Why is he laying roses out to dry?”

“He’s not. He lost his fiancée to those waters below us. The roses are his way of honoring her memory.”

“But that was years ago.”

“It’s a tradition he’s kept up over the years.”

“You know, Richard, since he’s the one who’ll be paying me if I take this job, I think I’ll just go and discuss the redecorating project with him.”

“That is not a good idea.”

“Why not? He’s obviously not working.”

“His wishes are that you deal with me.”

“I don’t work that way.”

He motioned to his left. “There’s a back exit just down that hall, but I’m warning you that Dr. Bryson will not be happy to see you.”

Fine. She hadn’t been that happy to see him in the shadows last night, either, but he’d looked her up all the same. Credentials be hanged. She had none and she was beginning to agree with Claire. Whatever David Bryson wanted from her, it probably had nothing to do with redecorating his house. There was no time like the present to find out for certain.

She started down the hall.

Richard followed her. “You’re making a mistake.”

“It won’t be my first and hopefully not my last.” Strange, but she could have sworn Richard was smiling when she caught that last glimpse of him as she headed out the door for a meeting with Moriah Landing’s most infamous mad scientist.

Mad, maybe. But a man who strew flowers in honor of a fiancée who’d been dead for five years couldn’t be all bad. At least she hoped that was true, because he’d spotted her coming toward him now and he’d ducked into a small stone structure that sat precipitously close to the edge of the cliff. And she was about to join him.

Chapter Three

David let the last of the roses slip from his hands and onto the potting table as he watched Rebecca Smith walk down the cobbled path, her hips swaying in a full cotton skirt that swished around her calves. Hair the color of cornsilk bounced along the collar of a tailored white blouse, and a soft heather cardigan was tied around her narrow shoulders. Feminine, with an understated sexuality that clung like an invisible but intoxicating aura.

Old feelings stirred inside him, and his hands grew clammy. He took one step backward, suddenly painfully aware of his limp and the jagged edges of the scar that ran its freakish path down his face. Picking up a clay pot half filled with dirt, he added water and splattered the muddy concoction over the one window, all but blocking the sunlight from the back of the small, angular structure.

He’d been a fool to seek Becca out and invite her into his world—a fool to bring any woman into his life. Had he not been outwardly disfigured, he’d still have nothing to offer. The unseen scars that cut a barbed swath clear across his heart and soul had proved to be the most destructive wounds of all.

She paused at the door, staring tentatively inside.

He stayed in the back shadows but turned to the right in an attempt to shield her as much as possible from the disgusting sight of the damaged side of his face. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Smith?”

“Please, call me Becca. Everyone does. And, yes, there is something you can do.”

“If it’s about the house, Richard has the authority to make any decisions necessary based on what you tell him. I trust your judgment.”

“To be quite honest with you, Dr. Bryson, I’m not certain my judgment is worth much in this situation.”

“I’m sure you underestimate your ability.”

“No. If you want a party dress, I’m your woman. I’ve even made drapes and slipcovers before, but I’ve always done it according to the wishes of the owner or a professional decorator. I’ve never taken on an entire remodeling job on my own.”

Her manner of speaking caught him off guard. He’d expected her to be softer, more reticent. A big mistake on his part. She was forthright and spunky as hell. “Are you refusing my offer, Becca?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then I don’t see a problem. I trust you, and Richard is authorized to handle this project. I will meet with you from time to time, but in the future, I will choose the time and the place.” He was coming on too strong. If he wasn’t careful, he’d frighten her away, and now that he was so close to her, he wanted her here at the Bluffs even more than he’d wanted her before.

And knowing that filled him with a choking wave of guilt that defied all reason. Guilt and the knowledge that having her on the premises was a dreadful mistake. And still he wanted her.

ANGER SURFACED, SWELLED, shook Becca to the core. The man had some nerve, but she would not be treated like a second-rate servant of his, dismissed with a nod of his head. “I haven’t agreed to take this job yet, but I won’t even consider tackling it without your full cooperation.”

He turned the left side of his face toward her and met her gaze. His eyes were dark, piercing, totally unnerving. “Exactly what do you mean by my cooperation?”

“I’d like for you to walk with me through the rooms that you’d like updated. You can tell me what colors you like, what style you prefer, the function of each room in your everyday life.”

“You want me to walk with you?” He made it sound like an incredible request, as if she’d asked him to sleep with her or father her unborn children.

“Walk and talk, Dr. Bryson. It’s really not all that difficult. I’m an intelligent and quite charming woman, once you get to know me.”

“Your intelligence was never in question.”

“If this is because of your face, I can assure you that your staying in the shadows is not necessary.”

His eyes grew hard, the muscles in his face rigid. “How I handle my deformity is actually none of your concern.”

Poor guy. Had Moriah’s Landing done that to him, made him think of himself as a monster? Or did the feeling come from something far deeper than his physical wounds? When she spoke again, her voice was little more than a whisper. “A man is more than the way he looks.”

“True. And you must trust me the way I trust you. I want you to do the work at the Bluffs, but I can only deal with you on my terms. You will be safe here, and I will pay you whatever you ask.”

“Even if the amount is unreasonable?”

“It won’t be.”

“How do you know?

“Because I know you, Becca.”

His voice crawled inside her, then spread through her like fingers of fire. She could turn and walk away right now, never come to this place again, never see David again. But even if she did, she knew she’d still hear his voice at night. He’d still stalk the corners of her consciousness. The only way she would ever get over him would be to get to know him, to realize he was just a man and that he held no paranormal powers over her.

Besides, the job would pay well, help her start saving money so that she could eventually buy Threads. It would also keep her busy over the long winter months when other work would be scarce. Once the Fall Extravaganza and the Christmas ball were over, life in Moriah’s Landing would settle back into the routine of daily living, and the need for party dresses would come to an abrupt end.

The decision-making was over. She would take the job. David Bryson was not your average citizen of Moriah’s Landing, but then neither was she.

“I’ll take the job,” she said.

“I’m glad.”

And that was it. A few seconds later, she turned, left the stone gardening building and started back to the house. Alone.

THE BEACHWAY DINER WAS noisy and filled with the odors of grease, onions and fishermen in nubby, worn sweaters and rubber boots. Not the classiest spot in town, but the food was always good. Shamus McManus sat at a back table, only half listening to the ranting of Marley Glasglow and Kevin Pinelle. His cod sandwich and bowl of chowder would have gone down a lot easier in better company than either one of them, but when the diner was this crowded, a man had to share with whoever needed a seat.

Marley had lived in Moriah’s Landing all his life—probably close to thirty-five years. He didn’t do any kind of work too regularly, but he hired on with a boat captain often enough to keep his beer belly and his sour disposition. Shamus was sixty-eight, and he’d seen Marley grow more surly and disagreeable with every passing year. This one was no exception.

Kevin was a young fly-by-night, who was working the boats for the summer, signing up with first one fisherman and then another. He was way too sociable for Shamus’s taste, hung out in the wharf bars every night he wasn’t out on a boat, usually with some sweet, young looker on his arm. Obviously, the women went for his physique and boyish charm. Of course, if one of them showed up pregnant and claiming he was the father, he’d probably be out of town before the sun set.

“I think we should march up to the Bluffs and tell that murderer to keep his hands off our women,” Marley said, talking with his mouth full—a thoroughly disgusting sight.

“I didn’t know you had any women,” Kevin joked. “The way you complain about the fairer sex, I’m surprised you’re not glad to let Bryson or the ghost of Leary have his pick.”

Marley sneered and stuffed a few more French fries into his mouth. “I like them fine. Wouldn’t trust one as far as I can spit, but they’re all right in their place.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said. “I feel the same way, except I’ll take them in their place or mine.”

“I just don’t get it,” Marley continued, this time swallowing first. “Why would a good-looking woman like that seamstress go up to the Bluffs to see a dangerous lunatic? Unless she’s a descendant of one of the Moriah’s Landing witches and is going up there to consort with her own kind.”

Shamus shook his head and pushed his plate away. He’d had his fill of the sandwich and Marley. “Becca Smith’s no witch and you damned well know it. And if it was any of your business what she was doing at the Bluffs, she’d have told you.”

Kevin propped his elbows on the table. “Yeah, but as much as I hate to admit it, Marley might actually have a valid point this time. Bryson is weird, acts like some freaking vampire, never coming out except at night. And I saw him talking to Becca outside Wheels last night.”

“A freaking vampire. That’s him, all right. So why would a beautiful woman let herself get picked up in the man’s own car and driven to his godforsaken castle?”

“Do you know for a fact that she did?” Shamus asked.

Marley leaned forward. “I saw her with my own eyes. I was just leaving the liquor store when I saw her get in the car with Bryson’s butler. I followed them all the way to the road for the Bluffs.”

“Maybe Bryson’s trying to get to Claire Cavendish through Becca,” Kevin offered. “That would make sense if he’s the one who kidnapped Claire in the first place, and a lot of folks think he is.”

Shamus plucked his fishing hat from the back of his chair. “That’s hogwash.”

“Yeah, but if he did kidnap Claire, he might be afraid she’s going to remember enough to get him arrested now that she’s out of the hospital,” Kevin argued. “Becca does live in the Cavendish house, you know. And the two of them are friends. I’ve seen them out together.”

“It would be just like the guy,” Marley said, his face growing red and his voice lowering to a husky whisper. “The dirty, murdering son of a bitch. We’ve had enough of David Bryson in this town. It’s time somebody around here gets rid of him once and for all.”

Shamus stared him down. “Someone might one day, but it won’t be you. You’re a dirty coward to the bone, Marley Glasglow. All bark and not enough teeth left in your ugly mouth to bite.”

“Go to hell.”

“I probably will. I’m just hoping it’s not today.” Shamus pulled a few wrinkled bills from his front pocket and dropped enough money on the table to cover his tab and a small tip.

A few seconds later, he stepped out the door, the news about Becca Smith visiting David Bryson hitting him like a bottle of cheap wine. But unlike Kevin and Marley, he had enough sense to keep his opinions to himself.

IT WAS FIFTEEN MINUTES past three o’clock when Becca thanked Richard for the ride home and climbed out of David’s black sedan. The partial tour of the house had lasted until one-thirty. After that, she had eaten the lunch Richard had served, a cream-based soup, a green salad and a chicken-pasta dish as good as any she’d ever eaten. He’d said the accolades belonged to the cook, who was off today.

Richard had joined her for lunch, and they’d talked at length about possibilities for the house. Once she’d taken the tour, ideas had leapt into her mind at the speed of light, and she’d worried that she sounded more like a kid with a new toy than a professional with a new challenge. It seemed that money would not be an object and that both David and Richard trusted her judgment implicitly. The only restriction was that she limit her work to the bottom floor of the east wing of the house.

Reaching into the deep pockets of her skirt, she pulled out the key and fit it into the lock. A white envelope was taped to the door just above the knob. Apparently one of her customers had dropped by while she was out, though she always encouraged them to call first. She pulled the note from the door and stuffed it into the canvas tote.

The familiarity of the shop wrapped around her as she stepped inside and switched on the light. Although she only managed Threads, the owner seldom took any interest in the place anymore. That worked out well for Becca. In a lot of ways the shop was more home to her than her room in the Cavendish house. At work, her mind stayed busy, found creative outlets for the restlessness and waves of undefinable anxiety that never fully deserted her. But alone at night, there was no escaping the fact that no matter how hard she pretended otherwise, Becca Smith was a total fraud.

She started a pot of fresh coffee, then retrieved the envelope that had been taped to her door. Fitting the tip of a silver letter opener beneath the seal, she ripped the envelope and slipped the note out and into the light. It was written on lined notebook paper, with black magic marker, the print crude and uneven.

Stay away from David Bryson or risk meeting the same fate as Natasha Pierce.

The print was childlike. The message was not. She read the note out loud, then shook her head as the initial wave of anxiety settled into disgust. If this was someone’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t funny. But more likely it was a genuine warning from one of the locals who had been exposed to the tales of witchcraft and murderous mad scientists for so long, they actually believed them.

She kept busy as the coffee finished perking, putting away her samples, straightening a stack of fabrics, watering her potted ivy. When the coffee was ready, she poured a cup and dropped to her sewing chair.

Images of the Bluffs crowded her mind. The place was magnificent. It was difficult to believe that someone in the seventeenth century had the vision or the money to build such an incredible structure.

For the first time in—in as long as she could remember—she had found a project she could sink her teeth into. She would bring the Bluffs back to life, and just maybe she’d bring its strange owner back to life, as well. If she did, some woman would thank her for it.

Unless…She picked up the note and stared at it again. Unless David Bryson really wasn’t the man he seemed. Unless he really was the man who had killed those women twenty years ago. Unless he was the man who had kidnapped and tortured poor Claire Cavendish until he’d driven her out of her mind.

She tried to picture him in that role. The image didn’t jell. Still, she’d make better decisions if she relied on facts instead of rumors and groundless superstitions. She usually kept the shop open on Saturday for the benefit of customers who worked during the week, but she’d already been out of the shop for hours so a couple more wouldn’t matter.

And right now sitting at the sewing machine didn’t seem nearly as urgent as going to the library to peruse the microfilm file of newspapers from twenty years ago. She knew they were there—just one more of the famous tourist draws to a town that made a lucrative business out of fear and superstition. But Moriah’s Landing didn’t have the monopoly on that. Everyone believed what they wanted.

In the end, she probably would, too.

FOURTH YOUNG WOMAN This Year Found Murdered.

Becca shivered and crossed her arms over her chest as she read the sketchy but chilling account of the murder. Apparently, few facts had been released to the paper, but she’d heard bizarre tales about the gruesome side of the killings from several of her customers. The events had occurred twenty years ago, but sitting alone in the library, immersed in the newspaper articles, she had the eerie feeling that the bodies were still as fresh as the one that had just been found on Old Mountain Road, not far from the Bluffs.

The first murder had been solved. The last three had not. The fourth victim had been Joyce Telatia, of the Boston Telatias, one of the wealthiest families in the Northeast. The killer could have probably made millions in ransom if he’d only kidnapped her and not killed her. But apparently it was death and not money that drove the monster. And his lust for murder might well have been fueled by publicity surrounding the vicious murder of Leslie Ridgemont, Kat’s mother. In that case the motive had been jealousy and lust, but with the three later victims, there appeared to be no motive, just random killings of innocent victims.

Becca blinked and tried to clear her eyes, but a couple of salty tears mingled with her fatigue, and she pushed away from the viewer. She’d had all she could take for one day. She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she’d have enough time to locate and check out a couple of books that had been written on the history of witchcraft in Moriah’s Landing before she met Claire for dinner.

Bedtime reading sure to produce nightmares. So much for sleep.

THE AFTERNOON IN THE LAB had been totally unproductive, and David had given up on his current experiment after a couple of hours. He’d taken the secret passage that led from the library to an ancient world of darkness, always wondering when he did why he frequently found that world of black chambers studded with skulls and bones more welcoming than the one he lived in.

He’d stayed there the rest of the afternoon, perusing the mountain of meticulously kept notes that had once belonged to Dr. Leland Manning. Dr. Manning had been the major influencing factor in David’s decision to go into medical research. Now the man was in prison for conducting illegal and unethical experiments in genetic engineering. It seemed there was no explaining how far a man could go once he passed the line from reason to madness.

David exited the secret door and closed it behind him, leaving only a wall of bookcases where the opening had been. He crossed the library and started down the long hallway, the echoes of his footsteps a lonesome sound that always reminded him how different it would have been in the Bluffs had Tasha lived. He stopped at the door to the bedroom they would have shared.

Reaching into his pocket, he took out the key ring and fit the key into the lock, then hesitated as thoughts of Becca haunted his mind. So different from Tasha. Far less innocent. Spunky, instead. Determined. Direct. Full, rounded breasts. Sensuous, swaying hips.

His throat constricted, and he dropped his hand from the door. The room belonged to the past, to a love as pure as the white roses he scattered on the cliffs every week, and he wouldn’t defile it with the thoughts running roughshod through his mind now.

He hurried down the hall and descended the steps, not stopping until he reached the back door. Pushing through it, he breathed deeply, letting a rush of brisk, damp air penetrate to the deepest cells of his lungs.

“Is something the matter, sir?”

He turned at the sound of Richard’s voice behind him. “No. Should there be?”

“No, sir.”

David read the doubt in his butler’s eyes. It was uncanny the way the man read his moods—uncanny and at times extremely disconcerting. Not that David had ever considered himself a complex person. He simply did what he had to do in order to survive, a skill he’d been forced to learn at a very young age.

Reaching into his pocket, Richard retrieved a white handkerchief and dusted the seats of a couple of wrought-iron garden chairs. “Why don’t you have a seat, sir? Let me fix you a martini.”

“Not yet. I just want to watch the sun set.”

Richard settled in one of the chairs and undid the top button of his shirt. After five, he tended to be slightly more relaxed, though David had never requested or understood his need to be more formal during the day. It wasn’t as if they ever had unexpected guests drop by for tea.

“I thought the day went well,” Richard said. “I like Becca Smith. What do you think of her?”

The question caught him off guard. Not because he hadn’t considered it, but because he had considered it so frequently since the first night he’d spotted her leaving her shop, head high, unafraid even when she’d noticed him in the shadows. She’d looked him in the eye and met his gaze.

The moment lasted briefly, yet something strange and incomprehensible had passed between them. He’d felt it in every part of his body, and the unfamiliar feelings had left him so shaken, he’d missed his turn on the way home. Driving as if in a trance, he’d wound up five miles past the winding road to the Bluffs.

Now, weeks later, he still couldn’t get her out of his mind. In five years, no woman had elicited any interest for him. But with one look, Becca had cast a spell on him that he seemed powerless to break.

“She’s open and direct and she has lots of ideas for the Bluffs,” Richard said. “I think she’ll do an excellent job.”

“I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t.” David stared at the horizon, at the sprays of orange-and-gold bands that painted the undersides of the puffy clouds. “I hope the two of you will be able to work together agreeably on this project.”

“I think she’d prefer working with you.”

“I doubt that very seriously,” David said, finally turning back to face his butler. “Besides, I don’t deal well with people anymore.”

“You deal well with me.” Richard crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair. “I think you’d do fine with her. You’ll never know unless you give yourself a chance.”

David touched his fingers to the side of his face, bitterly aware of the effect it had had on the nurses in the hospital when they’d been forced to change the dressings on his wounds and deal with the countless skin grafts. And his face, as disfigured as it was, was no match for the blotchy red patches of skin that covered his stomach like some infectious disease. “My chances ran out five years ago, Richard. I’ve learned to live with the fact.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.” At least his mind had accepted the truth. Until Becca came along, his heart and body had, as well. Surely, in time, it would be that way again.

The wind picked up, tearing dry leaves from the branches of the trees and sending them flying in an avalanche of golds, reds and browns. “Fall has definitely arrived,” David said, past ready to change the subject.

“Yes. Time for McFarland Leary to rise from the grave.”

“The guy has been buried since the late 1600s. He’s probably already come back—as a handful of dust.”

Richard rubbed his right hand along his jaw. “Not if the locals are right. They say he was consort to a witch. When she caught him cheating on her with a mortal woman, she damned him to an eternity of torment. Not only that, but he still seeks revenge on Moriah’s Landing for claiming he was a warlock and sentencing him to death.”

“I know. I’ve heard it all since I was a child. He supposedly comes back every five years and kills a young woman or two, to exact revenge on the town and in hopes the sacrifice will appease the witch so that she’ll set him free. Mostly it’s a tale for the tourists, but I’m sure there are some poor superstitious folk in the town who actually believe that nonsense, even though the facts don’t bear it out. There have been no unsolved murders in town in twenty years.”

“There’s already talk in town that it was Leary who killed the woman whose body was found on Old Mountain Road last night.”

“How did you hear that?”

“I stopped at the grocers when I took Becca back to Threads.”

“And while they’re worried about a ghost, some dangerous lunatic is running around free.”

“So is the man who abducted and tortured Claire Cavendish five years ago.”

“Surely you haven’t succumbed to ghost tales.”

“No. I don’t believe Leary’s responsible for any of those horrors, but there’s something evil and angry in Moriah’s Landing. I can never put my finger on it, but it’s always present, as if the heart of the town is beating inside a madman.”

David had no argument for that. The evil was in the black heart of a killer who’d destroyed his world. The anger and the madness lived inside him. He took one last look as the rays from the setting sun glanced off the rocks along the cliff. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said, standing and stretching his weak leg.

“Would you like dinner at seven?”

“Let’s make it eight tonight.”

“Whatever you say.”

Would that all of his life were that easy. If it were, he’d be with Becca Smith tonight. His body came alive at the thought, the need inside him so strong it rocked through him with the force of a tidal wave, making it difficult for him to keep walking.

He shouldn’t want her this way. He had no right. Even if he wasn’t still in love with Tasha, he had nothing at all to give Becca Smith. He was forty. She was surely no more than in her early twenties. He was scarred and hideous. She was young and beautiful, with her whole life in front of her. He was the Beast. She was Beauty.

And he’d given up believing there would ever be a happy ending for him five years ago.

But he wouldn’t give up on having her near him. He couldn’t. Not yet.

Chapter Four

Becca arrived at the Beachway Diner at ten before seven. The place was less crowded than it would have been during the week. Dates went to the more classy Crow’s Nest for Saturday dinner and families took advantage of the gorgeous fall weather to drive up in the mountains for the weekend or to barbecue hot dogs and steaks on their back decks.

But the diner would pick up later, when craggy old fishermen needed some food to soak up the whiskey they’d been tossing down their throats and when the college kids and locals tired of the carnival and came wandering in for hot bowls of chowder and steaming mugs of apple cider.

Becca scanned the area and spotted Brie Pierce and Elizabeth Ryan at a table in the back. The sight reassured her and took away some of the chill she’d experienced while reading the sparse details of the murders from twenty years ago. She’d met lots of people since moving to Moriah’s Landing just under a year ago, but Brie, Elizabeth, Kat and Claire were the only ones she’d call true friends.

Brie looked up and waved her over. Becca waved back and started in their direction. Her pumps clicked along the slick coating of grease that had accumulated on the plank flooring over the years, and she wished she had on her loafers the way she usually did when she came here. Comfortable jeans and a sweater would have been nice, too. As it was, she was seriously overdressed.

“Are you meeting someone?” Brie asked, as soon as she could be heard above the splattering of meat patties on the grill and the clattering coming from the kitchen.

“Claire Cavendish.”

“Then join us,” Elizabeth insisted. “Drew’s speaking to a group of students at Heathrow and Cullen’s on duty tonight.”

“And they trust you two out on the town?” Becca teased, sliding into one of the two empty chairs at their table.

A blast of cold air circulated as the front door swung open. Becca turned, but the newest customers were a couple of uniformed cops. She directed her attention back to her friends, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake about the time or the place she’d arranged to meet Claire.

The conversation stayed light, tiptoed along the edges of the murder, though Becca was certain it was in the backs of both Elizabeth’s and Brie’s minds. Elizabeth was a few years younger than Brie, though they had both been freshmen at Heathrow at the same time as Tasha, Kat and Claire. Becca had heard that Elizabeth’s IQ fell somewhere in the genius range and she’d earned her Ph.D. in criminology by the age most students got their undergraduate degrees. With her long brown hair and flawless complexion, she looked more like a student than the professor she was.

Every time the door opened, Becca turned, but after ten minutes, there was still no sign of Claire. If she’d forgotten or changed her mind, that was fine, but Becca couldn’t help but worry that something might be wrong.

Brie pushed a clump of curly red hair back from her face. “What time were you meeting Claire?” she asked, her green eyes shadowed and her usual quick smile drawn into a worried frown.

Becca was certain they were picking up on her apprehension. “Seven.”

“Then I’m certain she’ll be here any minute. It’s only ten after, and promptness was never one of Claire’s virtues.” Brie squeezed a wedge of lemon into her iced tea and stirred the mixture, sending the ice cubes chasing around the inside of the glass. “Drew and I were just commenting earlier today on how well Claire’s doing. I think the fact that you’ve befriended her has helped a lot.”

“I hope,” Becca said. “It’s hard to tell. Some days she seems fine, but others she gets lost so deeply in one of her depressed moods, I can’t seem to reach her at all.”

Elizabeth nodded. “It’s the same for me. I keep thinking it’s because I was one of the girls there the night she was abducted, that by just being with her, I bring on the depressed moods.”

“I doubt that’s it,” Brie said. “I know she needs her friends now, the new and the old. I’m certain she’s upset by the news of the body that was found on Old Mountain Road.”

“We all are,” Elizabeth said.

“I know, but I don’t want to think about the murder tonight,” Brie said. “It’s just too terrible, as if the horror of five years ago is about to start all over again.”

“No one was murdered five years ago,” Elizabeth reminded her.

“I know, but Claire was abducted and she’ll never be the same again. And then poor Tasha was killed in that horrible explosion. And look at David Bryson. He’s been wounded, slinking around in the shadows and never having anything to do with anyone in town.

“David’s not so different.” Becca felt the glare of her friends even before she’d gotten the whole sentence out of her mouth. She’d been too assertive, sounded more like a defense lawyer than a casual observer. “I mean, he’s probably just more comfortable staying out of crowds.”

“He does more than stay out of crowds,” Elizabeth reminded her. “He stays out of town altogether during the daylight, and when he does come to town, he hangs out by himself in the shadows.” Elizabeth stared at the front of the diner, then turned and put a hand on Brie’s arm. “Isn’t that Drew’s uncle standing at the cash register?”

Brie turned. “That’s Geoffrey Pierce, all right. I’m surprised to see him in here. He never came in when I was working here.”

“Aren’t you going to go over and say hello?” Becca asked.

“I don’t think so. We haven’t been on the best of terms since I heard him accuse Drew of marrying me just to avert a scandal. Not that he has that much to do with any of the Pierce family anymore. Mostly, he stays at the beach house.”

Becca watched Geoffrey. He was in his mid-forties with thinning blond hair and a wiry mustache and beard that made him look ten years older than the last time she’d see him. In fact, if Elizabeth hadn’t said something, she doubted she’d have recognized him at all. His eyes were narrowed as he paid the cashier, and he had an air about him that gave the impression he was not to be messed with. Still, he’d been polite and very attentive the few times Becca had met him.

“Was there a falling out between him and the rest of the family?” Elizabeth asked as Geoffrey finished paying his tab and left the diner.

“Not exactly, but Drew doesn’t fully trust him. He thinks he may have been involved in some of Dr. Leland Manning’s projects, though Geoffrey’s denied it.”

Becca listened to the talk. She found the Pierces fascinating. If it was true that every town had one family that seemed to be the rulers, the Pierces were definitely that family in Moriah’s Landing. Not only were they the founding family, they were the wealthiest and most influential in town. A close-knit group, they all lived in the same area of town, a huge walled-in family compound with a number of private homes clustered around a parklike setting that had served as the backdrop for Drew and Brie’s garden wedding.

The largest home in the compound belonged to William and Maureen. William was a United States senator, already a local legend. His son Drew was running for mayor and, according to the polls, was going to win by a landslide.

She hoped it worked out like that. Of all the Pierces that she’d met, Drew was her favorite, especially since he’d married Brie, his first love from the wrong side of the tracks. Theirs was a true Cinderella story. Brie had worked as a waitress in the Beachway Diner up until Drew had found out that Brie’s young daughter was his. Now he and Brie were as happy as any couple Becca had ever seen.

The door opened again and this time it was Claire who stepped inside, and the minute she did, Becca was certain she had not had a good day. Her face seemed paler than usual, and her eyes were red as if she’d been crying.

But no matter what had spooked her, Becca was certain that wouldn’t keep her from making Becca’s meeting with David Bryson the main topic of conversation.

DINNER WITH CLAIRE turned out to be a very bad idea. As Brie had feared, news of the murder had really upset her. She was distracted, lost in her own thoughts for much of the meal, barely touching her food or even trying to make conversation with any of them.

And, just as Becca had feared, when Claire did talk, it was to beg her not to go back to the Bluffs. Brie and Elizabeth jumped right into that conversation, questions popping as quickly and as randomly as kernels of corn in a hot skillet. Neither of them felt as negatively about David but they agreed that Becca’s working for him was asking for trouble.

For the first time since Becca had settled in Moriah’s Landing, she was beginning to think she might have made a mistake in moving to such a small town. She wasn’t used to having people tell her how to handle her business. But then, she wasn’t used to anyone’s caring about her safety, either. Perhaps it was a fair trade-off. Still, she was thankful when they paid the bill and exited the restaurant.

A gust of cold wind whipped Becca’s hair into her face as she and Claire started the short walk home. The saltwater-laced mist burned her nostrils and pricked her flesh.

“It’s cold for September,” Claire said, pulling her jacket tighter. “The old fishermen always say that’s an omen that the winter will be harsh.”

Becca linked her right arm with Claire’s left one. “I like the feel of fall in the air,” she said, hoping to dispel the spirit of gloom and doom that hovered over Claire. “It makes me think of pumpkin pies, steaming cups of hot chocolate and bonfires.”

“I hate September. I dread to see it come and don’t breathe easy until it’s over.”

“Then let’s make a pact, Claire. You and me.”

“What kind of pact?”

“A promise that we’ll do something wonderfully fun every September.”

“What will we do?”

“We could throw a party. Or go to Boston on a shopping excursion. Or we could pitch tents on the beach and have a slumber party. Roast wieners and marshmallows and make s’ mores.”

“No. No camping out. Not for me. The last time I spent the night outside was when…you know, that night…”

“Oh, gads. I’m sorry. My mouth flew into gear before my brain. Absolutely no camping. And you don’t have to explain anything about that night to me.”

“Thanks.”

They walked the next block in silence. Becca concentrated on the sound of their feet against the pavement, the thud of Claire’s loafers, the click of Becca’s black pumps. A foghorn sounded in the distance and the strains of a poignant love song escaped through the open doors of Wheels.

Turning her head, she caught sight of the lights shining through the windows of the Bluffs. For a second she imagined herself sitting on one of the Victorian sofas in the rectangular drawing room that extended almost to the very edge of the cliff. The only light in the room came from the yellow flames that danced in the massive fireplace and the flickering glow of candles resting on the hand-carved mantel.

A shadow crossed the room and David stepped in front of her and put out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Her heart jumped to her mouth, then plunged to the pit of her stomach. Reeling from the emotion, she shook her head, forcing the images to recede. She had no idea where they’d come from or why they seemed so real. She did know that they were not the kind of thoughts she should be having about a man she barely knew.

“He’s a vampire, or at the very least a warlock.”

She tugged Claire to a stop. “What are you talking about? Who’s a warlock?”

“I’m talking about David Bryson, of course. You were thinking about him, weren’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe. You were.”

“Okay. I was thinking of him, but how did you know that?”

“I saw you staring at the Bluffs.”

Becca breathed a sigh of relief, glad she hadn’t admitted how Claire’s seemingly clairvoyant statement had shaken her. She started walking again.

“Oh, Becca, I hate even thinking of your being up there in that horrible house. And no matter what you say about David Bryson, he’s creepy and dangerous. I’ve heard he’s cloning some kind of two-headed creature in that secret lab of his.”

“Whatever he’s doing in the lab, I won’t have to worry about it. His butler made it clear that I’m to work only on the rooms he showed me today. They’re all in the east wing, far away from the lab.”

“Nothing you can say will make me feel good about your working for David Bryson.”

“Your friend Tasha was in love with him. He can’t be all bad.”

“Tasha was bewitched by him, and the same thing is happening to you. I knew it the second I saw you staring at his house. You had the same look on your face that I saw on hers when she first met him.”

“I’m not bewitched.” Only she had experienced some strange surge of emotion when the images of her and David had taken shape in her mind. And she had this crazy desire to see him again when everyone she knew advised against it. “It’s just a job,” she reiterated, as much for her own benefit as for Claire’s. “I probably won’t even run into Dr. Bryson again. According to his butler, the man spends most of the daylight hours in his lab.”

“In his dark, lab, I bet. How creepy can you get?”

Becca shook her head. She couldn’t explain why she was going back to the Bluffs, not rationally. The money, the job. They were the excuses, but not the reasons.

A black cat ran out from the bushes and darted in front of them. Claire grabbed her arm and tugged her to a stop. “The cat is an omen, Becca. He’s trying to tell us something.”

Becca shook her head, suddenly weary with dealing with Claire’s superstitions and fears. “It’s only a cat.”

“A black cat.”

“A very pretty black cat.” She started walking again.

Claire followed reluctantly. “We shouldn’t take the path the cat just crossed.”

“We should if we want to get home.”

Claire seemed to settle down, or at least she kept walking and stopped talking about the horrors of September and bad omens. They were passing by the secluded area now, empty lots on both sides of the street with big trees and spreading branches that creaked in the wind.

But tonight there was a different sound, a crunching, like footfalls crushing dry leaves. Becca stopped and turned. There was no movement except the shadowy blur of moonlight filtering through the branches that quivered in the wind.

“Is something wrong?” Claire asked

“I thought I heard footsteps behind us.”

Claire tensed instantly and gripped Becca’s hand. “It’s him.”

“It’s no one, Claire.” She said the words with as much authority as she could muster, considering the fact that she didn’t believe them herself. “Just keep walking. We’ll be home in a few minutes.”

But Claire didn’t keep walking. She stood, shaking, her eyes wide and wild. “You can’t run from him. You scream and you scream, but he never stops. He just never stops.”

Poor Claire. She was drifting back into the nightmare, moving and talking as if in a trance, and Becca could almost feel the horror as it wrapped Claire inside its tormenting shell. But if someone was back there, they needed to keep moving. “Everything’s okay, Claire. Just keep walking.”

Claire seemed to sink into herself, become a little girl, a very frightened little girl.

“One more block,” Becca coaxed, trying to pull her along. “That’s all. We’ll be able to see your house as soon as we turn the corner. I bet your mother left the porch light on for you.”

But someone was definitely behind them now, to the left, hidden in the trees and darkness. She couldn’t run off and leave Claire. The little she knew about self-defense raced through her mind, and she reached down and picked up a broken branch that was little more than a twig.

“Leave us alone,” she ordered, waving her branch like a sword. There was movement, but still she couldn’t make out the form of a man. “You’re frightening my friend.”

“It’s you who should be afraid this time.”

“It’s him,” Claire whispered. “It’s him.” A second later she collapsed into a terrified ball at Becca’s feet, leaving Becca to face the man alone.

Chapter Five

Becca held tight to the brittle limb, waving it over her head. She’d go for the eyes first and try to get a knee to the crotch. But even if she landed a perfect blow, it wouldn’t help for long. She couldn’t take off and leave Claire to the man’s mercy.

“I’ll throw my purse down. You can take what money I have, and I won’t even report the theft,” she said, hoping against hope that her offer might appease him.

“I don’t want your money.” The man stepped toward them, though still not into the open. She could see the outline of his frame, lean, not particularly tall—threatening. She struggled to catch her breath and to get a glimpse of his face, but his features blended into the shadowy backdrop as if he were faceless.

Leary rises from the dead every five years and comes for his victims. The terrifying legend seared itself into her brain as terror swelled inside her. She stood, deathly still, unable to move. But even in the midst of the terror, she knew this wasn’t a ghost, and he wouldn’t vanish in a puff of smoke.

“What do you want from us?” she asked.

“Satisfaction.”

Becca tried to tug Claire to a standing position, but Claire continued to sit in the middle of the sidewalk, rocking back and forth, her knees cradled in her arms.

“You should be worried about yourself instead of that sniveling—”

The spray of headlight beams and the sound of a car engine interrupted his words. She turned to see a sleek sports car slowing to a crawl. Adrenaline rushed through Becca, finally breaking the stifling hold of fear. She left Claire and dashed into the street, waving her hands and screaming for help. She could hear the footsteps of their would-be attacker, running in the opposite direction as the car came to a screeching halt. The door of the low-slung sports car swung open, and Geoffrey Pierce jumped out.

“Becca, is that you?”

“Yes. And Claire Cavendish.” Her voice skidded along the edges of her choppy breath. “Someone tried to attack us.”

He scanned the area without stepping away from his car. “Where is he?”

“In that vacant lot.” She pointed to the area she’d last seen the man. “But he’s gone. He ran off when we saw the lights of your car.”

“Damn. I knew something like this would happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You, traveling up to the Bluffs.”

“How do you know about that?”

“There are no secrets in Moriah’s Landing. Remember that, along with the fact that you can’t mess around with the likes of David Bryson and just walk away unscathed. The man’s evil through and through.”

“It wasn’t David Bryson.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t David.”

“Did you get a good look at the man? Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

“No. All I really saw was shadows.” Becca looked back at Claire. She still sat huddled on the cold concrete, hugging her knees, her head buried in the folds of her arms. Becca walked over and wrapped an arm around Claire’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Claire. Geoffrey Pierce is here to help us now. No one will hurt you.”

Claire looked up at Geoffrey, her eyes wide. A low scream gurgled from her lips, then faded in a series of hard shudders.

“We need to get her home,” Geoffrey said. “Let me help you.”

Taking control, Geoffrey walked over and placed his hand out to Claire. She jerked away from him, whimpering like a frightened puppy. Somehow, Becca managed to get her to her feet. “Geoffrey Pierce is going to give us a ride home,” she whispered. “The bad man is gone.”

“No. Not again,” Claire pleaded, her voice low and so shaky Becca could barely make out the words. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

Becca held her tight. “It’s okay, sweetie. I won’t leave you. Just lean on me, and I’ll help you into the car.”

Claire moved as if in a trance, trembling so that it was all Becca could do to get her to take the few steps to the car. Geoffrey tried to help, but Claire jerked away every time he tried to touch her. Becca crawled into the small back seat beside Claire and cradled her in her arms, stroking the back of her head with a steady hand.

“Whoever abducted her before sure did a number on her,” Geoffrey said, once they were buckled into their seats. “Someone should hang that man by his toes and let the buzzards feast on him.” He started the car and drove slowly down the street. “If you didn’t get a good look at your attacker, Becca, how can you be so certain it wasn’t David Bryson?”

“I would have known David’s voice.” That was factual, but it only scratched the surface of the full truth. If David had been standing there, she would have felt his aura, that strange awareness that churned inside her when he was near or even when she thought of him.

He turned onto Front Street. Sure enough, the porch light was on. Mrs. Cavendish always left the light on until the last of her children were safely in for the night. She did the same for Becca since she’d moved in with them.

“That’s Claire’s house, the one with the porch light on,” Becca said.

“I know. I used to drive Tasha over here to see Claire back before Tasha was old enough to drive. The two of them were good friends since grade school. I remember how upset Tasha was when Claire was abducted. A few weeks later, Tasha was dead. All because she got mixed up with David Bryson.”

The bitterness crept into his voice. Becca was sure he missed Tasha. The whole Pierce family had evidently loved her very much. The whole town had, but she doubted if any of them loved her any more than David had.

Geoffrey pulled to a stop in front of the house, killed the motor and turned to Becca. “I’m begging you to stay away from the Bluffs and from David Bryson, Becca.”

“I’m sure David means me no harm.”

“Then you are far too trusting. You’re a beautiful woman, soft and kind. Trusting, the way Tasha was. That’s just the kind of woman he likes, someone he can sweep off her feet with his money and pseudo sophistication. But bear in mind that he is a fake, a dangerous, deadly fake.”

His words seemed to catch and stick in the night air, lingering after his voice had become silent. Becca knew he expected a promise that she’d heed his warning, but she couldn’t do that—not yet—so she said nothing. He turned, opened the driver-side door and crawled from behind the wheel as Becca pushed the door open on Claire’s side. Geoffrey put a hand out to help Claire. She trembled and pulled away from him.

“It’s probably better if I can get her up the steps by myself,” Becca said. “She’ll feel safer with me.”

“I can understand that.”

He stepped out of the way as Becca struggled to get Claire out of the cramped back seat and onto the sidewalk. She had stopped whimpering, but she still clung to Becca and didn’t seem able to bear the full weight of her body.

Becca turned back to Geoffrey as they reached the door. He was waiting at the foot of the steps, watching, ready to help if she needed him. “Thanks, again. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this.”

“Stay away from Bryson.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Which means you won’t. You’re already under his spell. May God keep you safe. He’s the only one who can.” He turned and got back into his car.

“May God keep us all safe,” she whispered as she knocked on the door. She had a key, but couldn’t get to it and hold Claire erect, too.

A few seconds later, Mrs. Cavendish opened the door. One look at Claire and the woman’s eyes welled with tears. She took Claire in her arms and rocked her against her ample chest.

“My baby. My poor baby. What’s happened now?”

Becca took a deep breath. There was no easy way to explain what had happened to Claire, certainly no way to make Mrs. Cavendish feel a bit better.

Claire had called it right about September. Fall in Moriah’s Landing was like a cruise through a carnival chamber of horrors. And there was no getting off the ride.

IT WAS TWO HOURS LATER before Becca was able to go to her room and have a minute to herself. Now, showered and dressed for bed, she stared out the window and let her mind meander through the events of the evening.

Once they’d been free of the actual danger, the hardest part had been watching Claire draw back into her shell, become almost comatose as her mother tried desperately to reassure her that everything was okay. And as difficult as it was to watch Claire, it was equally hard to watch the pain and heartbreak settle into every line of Mrs. Cavendish’s face.

Becca had left Claire to her mother’s care while she called the police to report the incident. The first policeman had arrived in minutes. He was young, polite and amazingly efficient. His questions had been direct and to the point and he’d taken Becca’s every response at face value.

Ten minutes after he’d finished with his questions and left the house, Detective Carson Megham had shown up. The man was at least sixty, had droopy eyes, a fat neck, chewed incessantly on an unlit cigar, and all his questions seemed to come from left field. He’d stayed thirty minutes, drunk the coffee Mrs. Cavendish offered and filled one page of his notebook with lines and squiggles and very few notes.

When he left, Becca was certain that in all her life, she’d never been so glad to see the door close behind any man. She took a deep breath and tried to find something more pleasant to fill her mind before she climbed into bed.

Claire was sleeping now. The rest of the household seemed to be, as well. And if Becca didn’t get some sound sleep soon herself, she’d be a wasted wreck tomorrow when she needed to be fully alert and laying out a plan for redecorating the Bluffs.

She stretched and walked over to the bed. Either she was wrong about David, or Geoffrey Pierce and everyone else in town were mistaken. Maybe she was bewitched.

Thoughts of David pushed away the fright of the night like nothing else had. She climbed into bed, snuggled under the covers and pictured him scattering white roses on top of the cliff. Images coalesced and floated through her mind. She imagined the way David had looked five years ago when Tasha had fallen completely under his spell. He’d been so handsome, her young heart had probably melted at his first touch, the thrill of his first kiss.

Emotions toppled over one another, dizzying, titillating. Tasha had probably never had a chance to do anything but fall in love with David. If Becca wasn’t very careful, she might fall in love with him, too. She was already infatuated with the man.

A man who lived in the shadows, shrouded in mystery. Captivating. Mesmerizing. Dark.

THE MUSIC WAS HAUNTING, a love song that dipped inside Becca and stirred her soul. The room was lit only by the glow of candles on the marble hearth and a fire that licked the logs and danced recklessly inside the massive fireplace.

David held out his hand and Becca slipped into his arms. She felt the pressure of his hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer. Her heart beat against his chest. Her belly rubbed against his, and their thighs did their own dance, a touch and retreat that awakened every erogenous zone in her body.

He tucked a thumb under her chin and tilted her face toward his. Desire blazed in his eyes, then swelled inside her until she felt the moisture pool and begin to flow inside her. He put his mouth to hers, and when he spoke she felt the quick flick of his tongue on the flesh of her earlobe. “I wish this night could last forever,” he whispered. “Just the two of us suspended in time.”

“It can last. We’ll make it last.”

“Promise that. Promise me you’ll always love me the way you love me tonight.”

“Make love with me, David.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

“Please. I can’t bear it if you don’t.”

His lips touched hers, and the thrill of the kiss swept through her in a silken rush. She wanted him so, imagined him ripping her clothes from her body and taking her right there in front of the fire that blazed in the massive fireplace. Instead he pulled away. “You’ll have to go now, Becca.”

“No. Please. I need you, David.”

“If you stay, I’ll hurt you.”

“No. You’ll never hurt me. You couldn’t.”

“But I will.”

“Becca.”

His voice had changed and his face had erupted into a glaring mass of red, mottled skin and jagged scars. He was hideously frightening, totally macabre. She started to run, but she couldn’t get away. His footsteps were pounding behind her.

Pounding louder and louder.

“Becca, are you awake?”

She opened her eyes and pushed wet strands of hair from her face, confusion twisting inside her like rusty coils.

The pounding started again. “Becca, you have a phone call.”

Tommy Cavendish? Claire’s brother. Shaking from the emotions stirred by the dream, she rolled over and looked around, half expecting to see David lying beside her. Needless to say, he wasn’t there.

“Who’s calling at this hour?” she called, her voice heavy from sleep and the aftermath of passion and fear.

“It’s not all that early, lazybones. It’s after eight. And it’s some guy, but he didn’t give his name. Want me to take a message?”

“No. I’ll take the call.” She slid her feet to the floor and into her slippers. Grabbing her old flannel robe from the hook on the door, she slung it over her shoulders and shoved her arms through the sleeves.

A man? She couldn’t imagine who would be calling her on Sunday morning. It couldn’t be Larry. Tommy would have recognized his voice. She just hoped it wasn’t Detective Megham. Anyone but him.

“Better grab the family room extension, that is if you want to hear,” Tommy said, when she started toward the kitchen. “Mom’s cooking pancakes and the little ones are helping.”

“Gotcha.”

She breathed in the invigorating odors of fresh-brewed coffee and bacon and hurried to the family room.

“Hello.”

“Good morning, Becca. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

David’s voice dipped inside, revived the dream, and she went weak. “No,” she answered, hoping the huskiness of sleep camouflaged her feelings. “Is something wrong?”

“I heard what happened last night to you and Claire.”

“News travels fast in Moriah’s Landing.”

“Especially bad news. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m not so sure about Claire, though. I haven’t had a chance to check on her this morning, but she went all to pieces last night, collapsed into a quivering mass of terror.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Is that why you called? To ask about last night?”

“No. I need to see you.”

“I’m planning to come back out to the Bluffs tomorrow to get some more measurements.”

“I’d like to see you this morning.”

“When?”

“When can you be ready?”

“I just woke up. I’m not dressed, and I haven’t had breakfast.”

“You can have breakfast with me. I’ll send Richard to pick you up.”

The recluse who never left the shadows wanted her company for breakfast. But why, especially when he had barely bothered to visit with her when she’d been at the Bluffs? It was all too bizarre.

“Please, Becca. It’s important that I see you.”

The persistent tone mingled with the hypnotic quality of his voice, pulling her in as surely as if he’d reached out and caught her in his arms.

“I suppose I could—”

“Good,” he interrupted. “Richard will be there in forty-five minutes.”

Before she could answer, he’d broken the connection. Geoffrey Pierce’s warning skirted along her nerve endings as she rushed to take a shower. But long before she’d slipped out of her robe and pajamas and climbed under the pulsating spray, the apprehension had been swallowed up by anticipation. She couldn’t wait to see him again.

THE DAY WAS OVERCAST and gray, but even the little sunlight that managed to penetrate the heavy layers of clouds was blocked from the massive sitting room by the thick, opaque draperies that had been pulled tight and clamped to keep even a ribbon of sunlight from pushing its way through. The only illumination in the room was the flickering glow from a couple of candles that rested on top of the black marble mantel.

Dark, gloomy, the only place where David would feel comfortable entertaining Becca Smith. He hadn’t planned on calling her this morning at all, but he’d lain awake for hours last night, hating that some monster had come so close to her that he had left her running to the likes of Geoffrey Pierce for help. He could have lost her, could have been awakening to the news that her body had been discovered in the woods, two slashes cut through her jugular, left to be found by animals or boys on dirt bikes.

The travesty would have been too great. To lose her forever when he ached to have her here where he could watch over her. He ached to touch her, to run his hands down the smooth lines of her face, to fit his lips against the back of her neck and feel her tremble in desire.

Desire for a monster, one almost twice her age? It would never happen, and still he couldn’t let her go. His body stiffened as he heard footsteps in the hall and the sound of Becca’s voice. It tinkled, the way Tasha’s had, a bubbly, rich ringing sound that screamed youth and whispered naiveté.

So much like Tasha and yet so different. More self-assured, her curves more mature, her lips fuller. Her hair was the color of summer straw, where Tasha’s had been like sunlight sparkling through morning mist.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and Becca stepped inside. He drew in a deep breath, steadying his voice, seeking a calm that wouldn’t give away the intensity of his need. “Hello, Becca. Welcome back to The Bluffs.”

BECCA HESITATED, giving her pupils time to adjust to increasing darkness. A chill of apprehension darted up her backbone, froze her to the spot, as she let her gaze move around the cavernous room. Richard’s footsteps were receding. She was alone with David.

He sat on the floor on a satin blanket stretched in front of the unlit fireplace, his face shadowed, his eyes capturing darting reflections from the candles’ glow. “It’s so dark I can barely see you,” she whispered, realizing that fear had left her almost too breathless to speak. “Do you mind if I turn on the light?”

“I prefer the darkness, and there are no lights in this room.”

“Then it’s true what people say about you.”

“I never bother myself with what people say. But what is it that concerns you?”

“They say you only go out at night.”

“They’re mistaken. I went for a horseback ride at daybreak.”

So the tales weren’t true, or else he was lying. He was definitely in the dark now, and she was in here with him. Alone in an isolated area of a seventy-room fortress at the tip of a cliff. But no one had forced her to come. She’d come willingly, and even now, she eased closer instead of running away.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he said, motioning to the feast spread out beside him.

“I’m not sure I can eat at all.”

“If you don’t like the food we can have Richard bring something else.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that. It’s just that, I’m not sure about you, David. I mean, I’m not sure I can trust you.”

“Are you afraid I’ll seduce you?”

Yes. Afraid he would. Afraid he wouldn’t. “I’m not sure what I’m afraid of. You’re different from any man I’ve ever known.”

“Have you known so many?”

“Of course not. I mean I’ve known them, but I haven’t been with a lot of men.”

“I’m glad. And you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you, at least not intentionally.”

“Then I guess we should have breakfast and talk.” She stared at the food, amazed at the variety of selections and the amount. “Are you sure you didn’t tell Richard you were feeding a few dozen guests?” she said, striving to regain some control over her emotions and lighten the mood.

“I told him it was for two, but he tends to go overboard with this sort of thing.”

“Do you do this often?”

“Eat breakfast?”

“Invite a friend for an indoor picnic.”

“Once every decade or so. Actually you’re probably the only person in town who would have accepted the invitation.”

“Does it bother you that the people in Moriah’s Landing seem to fear you?”

“Not anymore, and they don’t all fear me. The Pierces merely hate me—and make sure I’m kept in my place.”

So, he knew how Tasha’s family felt about him. It must make her death all the harder on him. “Have you tried to mend fences with them?”

“Not really. We weren’t friends when Tasha was alive. I see no reason for us to become friends now.”

“They’re a huge family. I don’t think you should lump them altogether like a barrel of spoiled fish.”

“I don’t. I actually like Drew Pierce and think he’ll make a good mayor. And though I have no use for Geoffrey Pierce, I’m glad he showed up for you and Claire last night.”

“Still, it must bother you that Tasha’s family seems to hold you responsible for her death.”

“I don’t worry much about any of the Pierces. I have my work, and my memories. That’s more than a lot of people have. Besides, this lifestyle suits me.”

She couldn’t imagine that a lifestyle devoid of friends and relationships suited anyone, but she didn’t want to pry into what made him tick. Not yet. It was enough that they would be working together and that she was getting to know him little by little.

David pushed a plate in her direction. “Help yourself to the food. And there’s coffee or champagne.”

“Champagne sounds wonderful.”

“Then champagne it is.”

He lifted the bottle from an insulated carrying case, then pointed it away from them and popped the cork. His hands were smooth, his fingers long and steady, and she marveled that they’d missed the destructive effects of the explosion.

With that thought, her gaze went to his face. Even in the darkness, she could make out the curdled flesh along the right side of his face and a jagged-edged scar that seemed to suck his flesh into a hard line of resistance. Still brutally damaged after five years. It made her cringe even to imagine what his face must have looked like immediately after the explosion.

The effects would fade in time, or for all she knew, he might have more surgeries planned to correct the disfigurement. But there were likely other scars. Some on his body, some buried deep inside him. Becca knew more than she cared to about the kind of suffering and loss that buried itself deep inside a person’s soul. She lived with it every day.

Still, she’d never even considered locking herself away from life the way David had done. But then she wasn’t tormented by the memory of a lost love. Now that she thought about it, she was certain part of her infatuation with David had always been the idea of a man pining away for his one true love. The whole tortured-hero idea was straight out of the classics.

David looked up and she averted her gaze, hopefully before he realized that she’d been staring at him. He poured the champagne into two crystal flutes.

“How elegant,” she said, taking one as he held it toward her. “If I’d known we were going formal, I would have dressed for the occasion.”

“You look lovely just as you are. It’s Richard who has a flair for the elegant. I myself am a lifelong member of the Moriah’s Landing Riffraff Club.”

“Riffraff don’t live in castles.”

“They do in my case. In Moriah’s Landing, a man never escapes the branding of his birth, and I’m not only from the wrong side of town—the wharf—but the back side of that. Not that some of the more prominent men in town didn’t come slumming into my neighborhood on occasion—even some of the pious Pierces.”

“My background’s not so wonderful, either.”

“I know.”

His response surprised her. She’d never shared her past, or lack of one, with anyone in Moriah’s Landing. “How would you know?”

He tensed and glanced away. “I looked into your credentials for the redecorating job.”

“But you found out about my private life?”

“I know about your near brush with death.”

“You had me investigated?” She turned away from him and stared at the wall of shadows, suddenly so irritated she could barely sit there and maintain any semblance of control.

“I’m certainly not judging you, Becca. How could I?”

“Okay, David, just so we’re on the same page here, why don’t you tell me exactly what you found out about my past?”

Chapter Six

David understood Becca’s irritation but doubted the facts would ease any of her anger or alleviate her fears. The simple truth was he had wanted to know everything about her—where she’d come from, if she’d been married before, whom she’d loved. He’d hoped that knowing might somehow lessen his inexplicable attraction for her. Instead it had only made her more fascinating.

He stared at her, looking deep into her sapphire eyes. “I only found out the basics about you, Becca.”

“That’s all there is about me, David. Basics. Cold, terrifying facts.”

“You were strangled, had your face smashed in, then buried alive. It must have been a horrible experience.”

“So horrible that I evidently blocked it from my mind along with everything else in my life.”

“So you have no memory at all of clawing your way out of the grave.”

“No, my first memory is waking up in the hospital, but according to the farmer who found me on his land in Vermont, I was coated in dirt and dried blood, disoriented, wandering aimlessly just a few yards from the shallow grave where someone had left me, probably believing they’d killed me even before they covered me with earth.”

His heart tightened into a wrenching knot at the thought of Becca fighting for breath, struggling to hold on to life. “It’s a miracle you survived.”

“That’s what the doctor said. The police tried to find out who I was and what had happened to me, but I was just one of those unsolved mysteries.”

“And you never remembered anything about what happened?”

“No, and I was afraid to dig into the past. For all I knew the man who’d tried to kill me would come back and finish the job if he realized I was still alive. So I made up a name for myself and when I was finally released from the hospital, one of the nurses who’d befriended me got me a job working with her mother in a family owned tailor’s shop. That’s how I learned to sew.” She took a deep breath and sipped the champagne. “Great credentials. So why did you hire me, David?”

He blurted out the truth. “I don’t care who you were or what you did in the past. I’m interested in the person you are now.”

“I haven’t told anyone in Moriah’s Landing about my past.”

“Nor have I.” He reached out and took her hand. To his surprise, she didn’t pull away. “It must have been tough, waking up and not knowing who you were.”

“It was tougher knowing no one cared. There were no missing persons reports filed on me, no one calling all the hospitals to see if I’d been admitted when I didn’t come home that night. No one to care if I lived or died.”

The irritation she’d experienced a few minutes ago dissolved into a sadness that was mirrored in the misty blue of her eyes. A knot formed in his throat. He shouldn’t be letting himself get this close to Becca, but he couldn’t pull away. Not yet. “A lot of people care about you now.”

“Are you one of those people, David?”

“I care.” It didn’t change anything, didn’t lessen his love for Tasha, didn’t make him any less of a hideous monster, but he did care. “Whoever you were before, you’re Becca Smith now. A beautiful, vivacious, loving person.”

But she hadn’t been beautiful immediately after her ordeal. He’d read the entire terrifying report. The police opinion was the man had attacked her and strangled her. Then when he’d started to bury her, he either realized she was still alive or just wanted to make certain she was dead. He’d smashed in her face, probably with the shovel, doing massive damage to the bones and tissue.

Fortunately, she’d ended up in a hospital connected to the medical school, providing her with some of the best care and reconstructive surgery available in the country—all at no cost to her.

She sipped her champagne. “I wish you’d trusted me, David, without an investigation.”

“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s just a routine business arrangement.”

“Like having me here for brunch in a room with the drapes pulled tight and the only light a faint glow from two flickering candles. There’s nothing ordinary about you, David. Nothing ordinary about this.”

He touched his hand to the sickening flesh and scar on the right side of his face. “A man does what he has to, Becca. Believe me, the sight of me in sunlight would not be pleasant.”

“I’m not afraid to look at you.”

“One day I may put you to the test, but not yet. Now, I suggest we eat before the food gets cold.”

DAVID SQUEEZED HER HAND before letting go of it. Becca would have expected that his knowing about her past would have added a strain to their fragile relationship. Instead she felt a new bond with him. He was the one person in all the world who knew as much about her as she knew about herself.

Everything about their relationship was bizarre and mysterious, almost haunting, and yet there was no denying her attraction to him. She didn’t know her own age, but she thought she must be in her early to mid-twenties. David was forty. She was a working girl, lucky to have been given the opportunity to learn a trade that allowed her to support herself and provide the necessities of life. David was extremely wealthy.

Most of all, he was a recluse, a man who revealed so little of himself that it would be impossible for her to ever know the man behind the shadows and deformities. Yet here she was, with him by choice, having brunch in a setting straight from a horror movie.

He broke off a piece of crusty bread and slathered it with marmalade. But instead of placing it in his mouth, he reached across the space that separated them and held it to her lips. Becca opened her mouth and took a bite. When her lips accidentally brushed his fingers, her whole body reacted crazily, as racked by desire from that simple touch as it had been during last night’s dream.

They both retreated into the task of eating, but David kept her champagne glass full. By the time she’d eaten all she could possibly hold, she was feeling warm and more than a little giddy. She had a ridiculous urge to reach across the blanket and link her fingers with his. She wondered what he’d do if she did.

But he was the one who made the first move. He reached out and trailed a finger down the sleeve of her sweater. “You look good in blue. It brings out your eyes.”

She shook her head, pushed her long hair back from her face and managed a throaty thanks. If anyone else had given a casual compliment like that, she would hardly have noticed. Now she was feeling a glow that reached from her toes to the tip of her head.

He leaned over and touched her lips with his. Quick. Gentle. More like a hint than an actual kiss, yet she felt as if her insides had melted and turned inside out.

“Why did you do that?” she asked when her breath came back to her lungs.

“Because in spite of what the people in town say, I’m just a man.”

Only he wasn’t. She was sure of that now, at least he wasn’t like any man she’d ever kissed before.

He picked up his near-empty glass and twirled the remaining liquid for mesmerizing moments before meeting her gaze again. When he did, his dark eyes seemed to whisper of secrets and regret. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, Becca, but I do have a proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“If you’re going to be working at the Bluffs, you should live here as well. It will save you travel time. Besides, why should you be cramped in a tiny room at the Cavendish home when we have so many rooms going unused?”

The idea was chilling, incredible. She’d walk out of her life and into David Bryson’s—a world so linked to the past, it was as if he had become a ghost of a man lurking in candlelight and shadows.

“I can’t possibly live here.”

“You’d be safe from the kind of man you encountered last night.”

“I’m not looking to run from life, David. I could never lock myself away behind stone walls, never give up my friends or the sunlight.”

“I would never ask you to.”

“It’s out of the question. I’m willing to work for you, but that’s it. I can’t even consider living here.”

“I’d hoped that you would. It would be better for all of us.”

She stood and dusted bread crumbs from her jeans. “I don’t know what you want from me, David, but whatever it is, I can’t provide it. Perhaps I shouldn’t take the job at all.”

He stood. “Is that what you want, to just walk away and never return?”

She was trembling now, inside and out, part of her wanting to step into his arms and say she never wanted to leave, but the little bit of rationality she had remaining urged her to get out while she could. Leave before she was completely bewitched by David Bryson.

“I can’t think about this now. Please, have Richard drive me home.”

“Very well, Becca.” He stood and walked toward the door. Before he opened it, he leaned against it, staring at her in the eerie grayness of the room. “If you ever change your mind, your room is waiting.” With that, he opened the door and walked away.

She struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat. Her room was waiting. Bizarre images swam through her mind. A four-poster bed plump with feather mattresses, covered in an exquisite quilt. A crystal vase of white roses atop a polished mahogany dresser and silver picture frames of her and David. No. Not her. The snapshots were of David and Tasha.

Becca’s lungs burned, and her legs grew wobbly. This place was haunted. There was no other explanation. Perhaps it was Tasha’s ghost that filled the rooms and kept David chained to her even though she’d been dead for years.

The door opened again, but this time it was Richard. “Dr. Bryson says you’re ready to go home.”

“Home?”

“Back to the Cavendish residence.”

She exhaled sharply. “Yes. I’m ready.” Slowly her body and mind began to function in a halfway normal manner as she followed Richard down the long hall and toward the front door. The halls were empty, yet she sensed David’s presence, felt he was watching her every step. And already she missed him.

Bewitched by a man with dark eyes and a voice that crawled inside her very soul? Just as Claire had predicted.

DAVID PACED THE LAB, unable to work, unable to think of anything except Becca. He didn’t give a damn about having her work at the Bluffs. He merely wanted her there, wanted to watch her walk, listen to her talk, run his hands through the silky strands of her hair. Finish the kiss he’d barely started a few minutes earlier.

No. He shouldn’t even think such inane thoughts. But Becca was like a drug that had gotten into his system and short-circuited his reasoning powers. He would have to meet a woman who affected him like this, now, of all times, when he was finally making progress in reaching the goal that drove his life.

He’d spent five years prowling lonely streets in the wee hours of the morning and hanging out in the shadows that obscured the wharf, searching for any clue as to the identity of the murderous rat who had caused the explosion that ruined his life and stole Tasha’s. The police might call it an accident. He knew better.

But now he had the records Dr. Leland Manning had kept on the workings of the Moriah’s Landing secret medical society, meticulous records outlining the many unethical research projects the society had conducted over the years and the way the members of the society had destroyed anyone and anything that got in their way.

Manning wouldn’t be needing the records, not in the dirty cubicle of a prison cell where he would spend the rest of his life for illegal medical practices of his own. But, based on Manning’s notes, David was almost certain that the society was connected to the explosion. The police had classified the explosion as an accident, but he’d checked the boat too thoroughly to buy that theory. He’d wanted to make certain nothing marred their honeymoon sailing trip.

Now it was only a matter of time until he unearthed the deadly secrets of hate and revenge and found the answers to his search. When he did, nothing in heaven or earth would stop him from getting his own sweet revenge, not even if it meant winding up in prison.

Just one more reason why he had to let Becca go. He had nothing to offer her. But still he felt the loss grinding away at what little was left of his soul. Becca had no past. He had way too much.

CARSON MEGHAM PULLED a half-crushed cigar from his pocket and poked it into his mouth. If Prissy saw him with it, she’d lay into him like the wildcat of a woman she was. Married thirty-five years and she still didn’t give him a damn bit of room to cultivate his bad habits. But even Prissy might resort to a little comfort prop if she had to deal with the press in Moriah’s Landing now that word had leaked out that the body found two days ago had been branded with the initials M.L.

He stood, stretched and walked to the door. If he’d been the chief, he’d find and fire the man who’d leaked the information. A bunch of hype about a murderous ghost was the last thing the investigation needed.

But it wasn’t his decision to make. In spite of his years with the Kansas City police force, he was the new man on the totem pole in Moriah’s Landing. Just a guy who’d finally given in to his wife’s pleadings to retire and move back to the town where she’d grown up, only to find that life without a gun and a badge didn’t cut it for him. This time he’d work until they forced him into retirement.

McFarland Leary? No way. This guy who’d cut the jugular on the Old Mountain Road body was flesh-and-blood and likely walking the streets right now looking for his next victim. Someone young and pretty. Someone like Becca Smith. She might have been seconds away from a body bag last night. The killer might even be someone she knew, someone who knew she’d be walking that route and passing the wooded lot.

Someone crazy. Out of control. Demented. Someone like Dr. David Bryson.

BECCA HAD RICHARD DROP her off at the corner nearest the Cavendish home, just in case Claire was on the porch or watching from a window. She’d been through enough last night and there was no reason to get her upset over Becca’s being with David, especially since chances were good she wouldn’t be seeing him again. The attraction she felt for him was dangerous and unrelenting. The only cure would be to put him out of her life completely.

That bit of news should make everyone in Moriah’s Landing happy—Claire, Brie, Larry, Geoffrey, all the Pierces for that matter. So why couldn’t she shake the terrible sense of loss, the ache that was already building inside her to see David again?

She groaned as she neared the house and realized that the dark green sedan sitting in front of the Cavendish home belonged to the same guy who’d come out to interview her last night. Not the nice uniformed officer who’d arrived first, but Detective Megham, the old goat who looked as if his face had been baked in a brick oven, though he was probably no more than sixty.

Hopefully he wasn’t back here trying to interview Claire. Mrs. Cavendish had told him last night to leave Claire alone, that she wouldn’t be able to tell him anything Becca hadn’t. If that was why he was here, he’d find out quickly enough that he was no match for Mrs. Cavendish. A mother grizzly couldn’t have been more ferocious at protecting her cubs than Mrs. Cavendish was at sheltering her emotionally wounded daughter.

Becca climbed the steps, preparing herself to go through last night’s ordeal again when it was this morning’s that seemed to have taken the biggest toll on her own emotional state. Just as she expected, the first thing she saw when she slipped through the front door was the detective sitting on the sofa, his arms spread over the back as if the seat were made for one instead of three.

Mrs. Cavendish was in the wooden rocker next to the hearth, her usually cheerful face drawn into a distinct scowl. They both looked up and fastened their gazes on her when she stepped inside.

The detective stood and extended a hand. “Hello, Becca. Do you remember me? We met last night.”

“Yes, I remember. Has something else happened?”

“No, I just needed to ask a few more questions, try to make sure I have everything straight in my mind.”

“I told you everything I knew last night.”

“I realize that, but sometimes people tend to forget a few details when they’re so close to a situation. When the smoke settles, they sometimes remember little things that slipped their mind during the first questioning.”

Mrs. Cavendish planted her feet firmly on the floor and stopped her chair from rocking. “He came here to talk to Claire. I’ve told him that’s out of the question. She’s practically catatonic today, just sitting in her room and staring out the window.”

“It would help if I could talk to Claire, but I can wait,” he answered. “But I want to talk to Becca again as well—alone, if you don’t mind.”

“If she says she’s told you all she knows, then I’m sure she has. You shouldn’t harangue the victims, Detective, especially a nice young lady like Becca.”

Becca walked over and laid a hand on Mrs. Cavendish’s shoulder, her fingers sliding into the loose weave of her oversize cardigan. The poor woman had enough to handle just taking care of her own brood without taking her on, as well. “It’s fine, Mrs. Cavendish.”

“Are you sure? Because I can sit right in here with you if you need me.”

“No. I don’t mind answering his questions, especially if he thinks it will help arrest the right man.”

“Okay, dear, but if you need me, you just call.”

She stood, and Becca could see that this latest trauma in Claire’s life had left her mother’s shoulders more stooped, as if the weight of watching her daughter’s stability take its latest nosedive weighed almost more than she could bear. Becca took the rocker Mrs. Cavendish had previously occupied. “Fire when ready, Detective Megham.”

He crossed his left foot over his right knee. “Why don’t you just tell me exactly what you saw again? Try to place yourself back in the situation. I know it’s not easy for you, but make it seem as real as possible.”

She went through the story again, let the fear creep back inside her, relived the desperation when she realized that Claire couldn’t even stand, much less run. And once again the grotesque image of a man who seemed to be born of the darkness—a man with no face—wormed its way into her mind. She didn’t realize she was shaking until she finished the story.

Megham exhaled slowly, his mouth drawing into a disgusted sulk. “And that’s all you remember? You can’t describe the man at all.”

“No. I never got a good look at him.”

“That’s too bad. If you could identify the man, it might all be over.”

“You’d still have to catch him.”

“If he’s someone you know, that would probably be as easy as getting an arrest warrant and ringing a doorbell. If we could make an arrest, this town would sleep a lot easier tonight.”

“If you arrest a man based on what I saw, you’d likely be arresting the wrong man.”

“That’s not what I’m aiming to do. I just want a killer off the street and behind bars before he strikes again.”

“Then you think the man we saw last night might be the man responsible for killing the woman whose body was found two nights ago?”

“I think there’s a good chance. Isolated, unprovoked attacks on women are rare in this town.”

“There have been other murders this year.”

“All solved and none of them involving chance victims.”

He was right, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had the same thought. Still, it bothered her to have her suspicions voiced by a detective. “Are you working the murder case as well?”

“Yeah.” He uncrossed his leg, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned in close. “Just a couple of more questions, Becca. Do you know David Bryson?”

She felt a throb in her right temple, quick, pulsating, like a yellow caution light blinking a warning. “Why do you ask?”

“I take that as a yes.”

She could lie, though she had no idea why she should. Only, Detective Megham’s question sounded way too much like Geoffrey’s had last night. It was one thing for a Pierce to think David might be involved in anything as abhorrent as frightening her and Claire half to death. It was another thing entirely for a police detective to be trying to tie him to a would-be attack and possibly a murder.

“I know him well enough to know that it wasn’t him that Claire and I encountered last night.”

“You just told me you didn’t get a good look at the man, that all you saw was his outline in the shadows. The facial features were totally indistinguishable. That is what you said, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I guess that’s all for now, though I may have some more questions later. In the meantime, I suggest you not go out alone after dark.”

“Surely you don’t expect the man to come looking for me.”

“I’m not ruling out anything at this point.” He stood and walked toward the front door. “And I’d definitely stay away from David Bryson.”

“He’s not the man you’re looking for.”

“I may know a lot more about that than you do. So take my advice. Stay away from him.” With that he pushed through the door and stepped onto the porch.

She walked to the window and watched the detective saunter down the steps and climb into his car. He was only doing his job, trying to protect her and the other citizens of Moriah’s Landing. Yet she disliked him immensely, beyond all reasonable explanation.

He was out to get David Bryson, to pin a murder on him that she knew David could never have committed. She had to warn him. No matter what had happened between them this morning, or maybe because of what had happened, she couldn’t let him just fall into Megham’s trap.

But what if she was wrong? What if she only saw in David what she wanted to see, let her fascination for the strange recluse from the castle on the hill color her judgment? What if her infatuation was leading her into the very kind of situation Detective Megham had just warned her about?

She knew nothing about David Bryson except that he was strange and moody and that he spent most of his life shut off from the rest of the world. All she really knew of herself right now was that she was infatuated with a man who seemed to hold strange powers over her. If there was such a thing as warlocks and magic, then he might well possess all the abilities that would bestow on him.

But he was not a killer. She’d stake her life on that. Even if it meant going back to the Bluffs to warn him that he might be the number-one murder suspect.

Go back to the Bluffs and face David again. Face him and then walk away. Walk away—if she could. Or else stay in his arms, locked away in a world of darkness and passion forevermore.

Chapter Seven

Not many bars were open on a Sunday night. Wheels was the exception, and it was doing a booming business on this particular evening. The customers were mostly bikers or fishermen and guys who sold bait or tackle along the wharves, but there were always a few guys from town who came down to drink and swap stories over a plate of onion rings and a burger.

Still, it wouldn’t have been Becca’s choice of a place to meet Larry. But since she was the one asking a favor, she didn’t balk at his suggestion.

Larry leaned against the front bumper of his car while Becca climbed behind the wheel. “So where are you going on this mystery trip?” he asked.

“It’s not a mystery. I told you. I just want to get away for a while, take a drive up the coast.”

“I don’t know why. It’s practically dark now.”

“I can still catch the sunset. Besides, I just need to get out of the house for a while.”

“Yeah. I guess it’s pretty depressing to watch Claire sliding back into the black hole she was in after the abduction.”

“It is when there’s nothing I can do to help. Worse, I almost feel to blame. I was the one who asked her to dinner, and I was right there when she fell apart.”

“No one blames you. You were just lucky Geoffrey Pierce happened by when he did. Otherwise you might be…” He pushed a faded baseball cap back on his head. “I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t feel great about your going off on your own tonight, either.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be in the car and I’ll keep the doors locked.”

“I’d still feel better if you’d let me drive you. I could concentrate on the road. You could enjoy the sunset.”

“I appreciate the offer. I really do, but I just need time to think and I’ll do that better if I’m by myself. I’ll take good care of your car, and I’ll be careful.”

“I’m not worried about the car. You know that. You’ve driven it before.” He stepped over and closed her door. “Just don’t stop in any isolated spots to catch the sunset. And stay away from Old Mountain Road. For all we know the knife-wielding maniac might still be hanging around there somewhere.”

“I won’t go near it,” she lied, not for the first time during this conversation. But if she told Larry the truth about why she needed to borrow his car and where she was going, he’d go ape on her. “I won’t be more than a couple of hours at the most.”

“Then just pick me up back here at the bar. I’m gonna meet a couple of friends and grab a burger and a few beers.”

She turned the key in the ignition and the late-model Toyota hummed to life. Larry gave a wave and she waved back before backing out of the bar’s parking lot and heading past the row of clapboard buildings and the clusters of weathered fishermen who hung out near the boats even when they weren’t getting ready to go after the big ones.

The air smelled of fish and burgers, grease and salt water. Usually she liked it. It made her feel part of the community she’d chosen as home. Today it made her slightly nauseous, but she knew it was her nerves and not the odors that turned her insides to the consistency of curdled cream. She had no idea what kind of welcome she’d receive when she stood beneath the threatening gargoyles and knocked on the heavy wooden door of the Bluffs.

She’d tried to call David, but his number was unlisted. With her first choice of action aborted, she’d moved to the next, then gone back and forth with herself all afternoon. Going to the Bluffs meant facing David again, and after the roller coaster of emotions she’d experienced this morning, she wasn’t sure she was up to that.

Still, here she was, driving the road to the Bluffs, apprehensive yet excited. The bittersweet truth was that she had never felt this way about any man before. Breathless and giddy and starved for his touch—as if she’d been waiting for him all her life without even knowing he existed.

She lowered the window and hoped the sting of the wind in her face would shock some sense into her before she reached the Bluffs. She might be a fool where David was concerned, but she didn’t have to let him know it.

It was almost twilight when she turned onto Old Mountain Road. The trees cast deep pockets of shade over the winding, narrow road, and she felt as if she were suddenly cut off from the rest of the world. There were at least a half-dozen families who lived up this way, but the only sign of them were the occasional mailboxes at the side of the road beside dirt drives that disappeared into a seemingly impenetrable forest.

A cold shudder rumbled through her body as she neared the spot where the newspaper reported the body had been found. Had the victim already been dead when the killer brought her here or had she been pleading with him not to kill her? If she was alive, the feeling of isolation Becca felt now must have added to the horror and desperation.

She slowed as the road curved sharply and began the steady climb to the top of the cliff and the turnoff to the private road that led to David’s fortress. She could see the roofline now, the turrets, the bulwarks, the battlements. Nothing was missing except a moat and a couple of fire-breathing dragons.

She caught a glimpse of a car in her rearview mirror. It was nice to know she wasn’t totally alone out here—only the car was coming much too fast. No one should be driving this road at that speed. One missed curve and the car and driver would go hurtling over the cliff and onto the rocks far below. She slowed and moved far to the inside, giving him plenty of room to pass as they reached the one lone straight stretch in the road. Instead, he slowed as well, keeping the same distance between them.

Saliva pooled in her mouth and the muscles of her stomach and abdomen tightened. Peering through the rearview mirror, she tried to identify the driver, but the shadows on the road had deepened to an opaque blur and all she could see clearly was the car itself. Dark, either black or navy. A nondescript compact.

She lowered her foot on the accelerator, speeded up another five miles an hour. He did the same, staying exactly the same distance behind her.

Stay away from Old Mountain Road. Larry’s warning echoed in her mind, but it was too late now. She was here. A split second later she felt a jolting impact. Her tires rumbled in the soft dirt on the side of the road, and she gripped the wheel with white knuckles, trying to steer the car back onto the road. It skidded across the center for terrifying seconds before she managed to get it back on course.

The driver had intentionally bumped her, and he was right behind her. The crazy fool was going to ram her again. Only this time he had moved to the inside. If he got a solid hit, she could spin totally out of control and toward the treacherous drop-off. It would be her, not him, who plunged to her death.

She toed the accelerator to the floor, but too late. Her body jerked, and the seat belt dug into her flesh as the other driver made a direct hit against her back fender. The car spun out of control, but miraculously she managed to straighten it and keep it going in the right direction.

The other car was on the inside now, between her and the protecting embankment. Finally, she could see the man’s face, a skeletal frame with bits of brain and blood oozing from the yellowed bone.

She screamed, still clutching the steering wheel as he rammed her again, a solid hit that sent the car careening across the road. The air bags exploded into an expanding, choking pillow and all she could see was a cloud of white as the wheels of her car left the pavement and went flying into space.

All white. And then all black. The last thing she remembered was the hideous, decaying face of McFarland Leary, grinning at her as he sent her to her death.

Chapter Eight

David loosed his hold on the reins, giving Socrates freedom to pick his own speed as they headed back toward his stables. The horse broke into a gallop, as if he knew they were going home.

Home. The word meant so little to David now. Nothing more than imprisoning walls and loneliness and a place to do his research. All the hopes and dreams he’d had when he bought the Bluffs destroyed in one unholy night five years ago.

It had been ludicrous for him to even imagine that it could change, that he could bring Becca there and that she would transform the house, bring laughter and life back into the musty, dark rooms of the aging mansion. It was past time he got over his preoccupation with her, anyway.

His heart would always belong to Tasha. His traitorous body was all he had left, a body still racked by desire though it was senseless to believe Becca or any other woman could want his hideous, deformed body. He mustn’t ever let himself forget that.

But he had forgotten. He’d kissed Becca and almost forgotten everything. Instinctively he touched the fingers of his right hand to his lips. He could still taste her. Tart, sweet, berries and champagne.

A deafening crash of metal on metal reverberated through the night air, thrusting him back to reality. Socrates bolted, then skidded to a stop, almost catapulting David into a cluster of brush. A horn was going off, as well, a piercing, earsplitting blaring that wouldn’t quit.

He jerked the reins to the left and urged Socrates toward the source of the clamor. Some dupe driving too fast, probably swerved into the opposite lane when rounding a curve. They’d had a fatality from that just over a year ago. Hopefully, this one wasn’t that serious.

The path to the road was steep and thick with undergrowth. Movement was slow, and the sun had disappeared below the horizon, bathing the area in the deep gray of twilight by the time he and his horse neared the road. Socrates picked his way down the last rocky ledge, finally clearing the heavy growth of trees and coming out along a stretch of curved embankment.

David craned his neck and searched for some sign of the wreck. At least one of the cars had to be around here somewhere. The horn was still blasting away, a piercing, penetrating alarm that echoed off the rocks and came to him in deafening stereo.

It wasn’t until they were actually on the shoulder of the road that he spotted the tire marks, black, sliding almost sideways across the road and toward the edge of the cliff. If one of the cars, or both, had gone over the embankment, there was little chance for survivors.

He climbed from the horse’s back and cautiously led Socrates across the road for a better look. Straining to see through the trees in the dim lighting, he scanned the area at the foot of the cliff. All he saw was the splash of the water slamming against the rocks. He walked to the left, around a young cedar, and finally he caught a glimpse of red metal. Not at the foot of the cliff, but miraculously wedged between the trunks of two spindly pine trees forty yards below him. The last possible barrier between solid ground and the rocks below.

The headlights were on, the horn blasting away, but there was no sign of movement. He tied Socrates to a tree and took off, half running, half sliding down the embankment.

His breathing was sharp and jagged, his bum leg aching by the time he reached the site. Grabbing a penlight from his pocket, he fell against the car and yanked the passenger door open, dreading what he might find. He saw the hair first, bathed in his small circle of light, spread like a golden halo over the head that was slumped against the steering wheel. He recognized her at once and his heart seemed to explode in his chest. Not Becca. Not like this.

He touched his hand to her blood-stained sweater. She didn’t move, and he willed his mind and body not to collapse completely. His hand flew to the pulse spot in her neck. Strong. Steady. Relief flooded him, leaving him weak, but his gaze took in everything at once, looking for excessive bleeding, for a head wound, for an obvious fracture.

Becca raised her head and stared at him, blankly for a minute, as if she couldn’t make him come into focus. “David. How did you get here?” She pushed away from the steering wheel and pushed a clump of bloody hair from her face.

“Don’t try to move. Just tell me what hurts.”

“My ears.” She covered them with the palms of her hands. “Can you please turn that damn horn off?”

Relief was so sudden, so overwhelming, he burst into laughter. The sound of it surprised him. He’d totally forgotten the feeling and the sound of his own laughter. He checked the bloody wound on her forehead and assured himself it was minor before he left her to stop the persistent bellowing.

It was his first real look at the damage to the car. The hood was crushed, apparently from the impact with the tree. From the looks of the tracks, the car had taken a zigzag course down the embankment, hit the first tree, then spun around and wedged itself in tight between the two of them. The back right bumper and passenger side door were also crushed. It wasn’t evident what had happened to them.

It took a few minutes of straining and prying before he managed to get to the horn connection beneath the hood and dislodge it. By the time he finished, Becca was climbing out of the car. He rushed back and steadied her in his arms. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To check the damage to the car.”

“First we need to check the damage to you.”

“You don’t understand. This isn’t my car.”

“It doesn’t matter whose car it is, the damage is not going to get any worse while the car sits here. Lean against the car and let me have a look at you.”

“I’m fine.” She shoved her hair back from her face, then stared at the sticky red blood that clung to her fingers. “Except for this.” She smeared the blood on the legs of her jeans. “I must have hit my head. It doesn’t hurt, though.”

“It’s fairly superficial, more of a blunt blow, so you probably won’t require stitches.” He gave her a cursory examination, the best he could manage under the circumstances. She lifted her feet and arms and moved as he directed. “I don’t see any sign of broken bones, but you have some scratches and cuts on your neck and along your right cheek. They may be from flying glass. The windshield is busted.”

“A few cuts and scratches. I’ll take those. A few minutes ago, I thought I might be about to make my appearance at the Pearly Gates.”

“You almost did.” And the miracle of it all hit him again, somewhere deep inside him where he’d thought nothing existed except the horrible vacuum of loss. “From what I can tell, you are in amazing shape for a woman who just missed going over the cliff.”

“Does that mean you’re through poking and prodding?”

“I’m a doctor. Making patients miserable is what we do best.”

“I didn’t think you were the kind of doctor who worked with patients?”

“I specialized in research, but that was after I got my medical degree and after I practiced for three years in family medicine.”

“Then I’m in good hands.”

“Not good enough. You need to be checked over in the hospital. Do you have a phone in this car?”

“Who are you going to call?”

“An ambulance.”

“Then there’s no phone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You need a thorough checkup and X rays.”

“No, I need to…” She moaned and stretched so that she had a better look at the front half of the car. “Oh, God. Don’t worry about an ambulance. I’ll need a hearse after Larry sees his car.”

“I’m sure Larry will just be happy to know you’re safe.”

“Right. Then he’ll kill me.”

Larry Gayle. David knew exactly who she was talking about. He was the guy she was with the other night when he’d talked to her outside Wheels, and he’d spotted them together on several occasions before that. He’d hated the sight of them walking and laughing together, having dinner, talking to friends. But she hadn’t been with Larry tonight. She’d been driving the road alone.

“What were you doing out this way?”

“It’s a long story. I don’t want to get into it right now.” She turned around, as if she were looking for someone or something, then wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. “Can we just get out of here now? Do you have a car or something?”

“No. I was on Socrates.”

“Socrates?”

“My horse. He’s tied to a tree just up the hill. I can call Richard and get him to meet us here. He can drive you to the hospital.” He would like to take her himself, make sure they gave her a complete examination, that they were gentle and thorough and…

And he was thinking the impossible. He wasn’t going to walk in that hospital and face the life he’d left behind long ago. Even if he did, it wouldn’t help Becca. If anything, it would work against her, make people hate her just because she was with him. Perhaps that was happening already.

“What happened out here, Becca?”

“I’ll tell you everything later, but right now I just want to get out of here.” She leaned against him. “But I’m not going to the hospital.”

“I can’t let him just drive you home. You need to be observed by medical professionals, at least for tonight.” Even as he said the words, he knew what he would do. “Just relax, Becca. I’ll call Richard. You’ll be safe and cared for. I’ll see to that.”

He circled her waist with his arms and pulled her close. Her hair brushed against his cheek. He shouldn’t take her home with him, but he would. He couldn’t help himself. He was lost in a need he didn’t understand at all.

CIGARETTE SMOKE HOVERED just below the low ceiling of Wheels, like smog with no place to go. A country tune from the jukebox played in the background, and in the rear of the bar, a shaggy-haired man and a peroxide blonde old enough to be his mother were dancing cheek to cheek. When the boats came in the party began, and everyone was invited. Larry wasn’t sharing in the spirit of celebration.

He nursed his beer and tried to follow Kevin Pinelle’s banter. The guy was a talker, but he never said anything that amounted to a mouthful, and right now he was really starting to get on Larry’s nerves. “Gee, man, don’t you ever just sit quietly?”

“Sure. When I’m home, and if you don’t like talking, that’s where you should be. But don’t take it out on me ’ cause your woman ran out on you. I don’t know why you’re fretting, anyway. I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t replaceable. I say we go talk to the two who just came in.” He nodded toward a table by the side wall.

Larry gave the girls a once-over, and one of them flashed him a come-on smile. “Not my type,” he said, though on another night he might have settled. He pushed up the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt and stared at his watch. Becca was an hour overdue and not a word from her. It wasn’t like her, and he couldn’t help wondering where she was and why she’d been so insistent that she go alone tonight.

“They sure look like my type,” Kevin said, still staring at the women.

“Yeah. They’re breathing. You go ahead. I’ve seen you in action. You can handle two babes without my help.”

“That I can, my man.” He smiled and tipped his beer bottle in the ladies’ direction. They smiled back. “But you might as well join me. Hell, if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. One or two—or more, if you’re lucky.”

“One’s plenty for me.”

“So are you hung up on Becca Smith?”

“Could be.”

“Big mistake, my friend. The trick is to have them hung up on you. Besides, I hear Becca’s making visits to the castle on the hill. Personally I wouldn’t want any part of my body to come in contact with a woman who’d been touched by that freak.”

“Crap, Kevin. She went up there on a job. If he touched her at all, it was to shake her hand.”

“Don’t kid yourself. David Bryson may look and act like something from a sideshow, but he’s a man like the rest of us. If he’s having a looker like Becca up to Frankenstein Manor, he’s either doing her already or he’s planning on making a move on her.”

“Where’d you get that idea?”

“What idea? That the freaking beast has the hots for Becca? You figure it out. He sits up there all day by himself, then comes to town at night and sneaks around in the shadows like some bloodthirsty vampire. And he’s singled Becca Smith out. He sent his driver to pick her up yesterday and she stayed up there half the day.”

“I told you. That was all business.”

“Oh, yeah, ri-i-ight. You are a sucker, my friend. She’s probably up there with him now, in your car. And you’re sitting here worried about her while two good-looking babes go lonely.”

“Becca is not with David Bryson. That much I can promise you. I’ll wait for her. The chicks are all yours.”

“They will be. Watch. You might learn something.” He stood, raked his fingers through his hair, mussing it instead of straightening it, then sauntered over to the table and joined the two women. They were hot-looking, both wearing sweaters that were at least a size too small. Their nipples were perfectly outlined, leaving little to the imagination. Another time he’d have liked to join Kevin, but not tonight.

Not that he put any stock in Kevin’s opinions. The guy just loved to stir up trouble. But if he did find out that Becca had taken his car to visit David…

The bartender stopped in front of him and pushed a portable phone across the counter. “It’s for you. Keep it short. This is a business and that is a business phone.”

Larry pressed the phone to his ear to hear above the din of the bar. “Hello.”

“Is this Larry Gayle?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“David Bryson. There’s been an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Becca ran your car off the road. She’s fine, but the car can’t be driven as it is.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I happened on the accident right after it happened.”

“Wasn’t that convenient.”

“It was for Becca.”

“Where was the wreck?”

“On Old Mountain Road, but I’ve taken the liberty of calling a tow truck. They’re hauling it to Grange’s Garage, probably as we speak.”

Old Mountain Road. The one place Becca had said she’d stay away from—the road to David’s stone monstrosity. Larry fought the urge to slam his fist into something—into anything since David’s face wasn’t close enough to take the blow.

“And suppose I don’t want it taken to Grange’s Garage?”

“Then call them and have them take it wherever you like. I’ll take care of any charges your insurance doesn’t cover.”

Big man. He’d take care of everything, just like he had with Tasha Pierce. “I don’t need your stinking charity. Where’s Becca?”

“She’s here with me.”

“Well isn’t that just a full net of flounder. You tell her I’ll borrow a car and be there to pick her up in half an hour.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll have my butler drive her home.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“It would be better if you didn’t, at least not until you calm down. She’s had a rough couple of hours, and she’s resting now.”

“Resting, is she? In a house with a ghoul? Now, that would be enough to give any woman nightmares.”

Larry broke the connection and slammed the phone onto the counter. Picking up what was left of his beer, he downed it in one continuous gulp. Five years ago he’d been dating Tasha Pierce when she dropped him like a smelly mackerel and joined up with David Bryson.

But then David hadn’t looked like a monster. Now he did. And still Becca Smith had gone running up to see him tonight, even after she’d been warned. The man had strange powers over women. Larry had never believed in the tales of witches, warlocks and ghosts that half the town did, but David Bryson was not human.

He was certain of it. And he had been allowed to live much too long. It was time someone did something about that. And past time someone taught Becca Smith a real lesson, one she wouldn’t forget.

BECCA STRETCHED OUT on the sofa in the drawing room and propped her feet on a tufted, antique hassock. David had built a fire when they’d come in and Richard had served her tea and fresh scones topped with lemon curd, a custom he’d apparently brought over with him from England. Now she was alone in a room illuminated only by the flames that darted and danced in the mammoth fireplace.

“Everything’s taken care of,” David announced as he stepped back into the room. “I reported the hit-and-run to the police but told them you weren’t up to talking just yet. They didn’t like it but agreed to wait until morning to get your version of the wreck. Then I called for a tow truck and got in touch with Larry Gayle. He was still at the bar just as you thought he might be.”

“Was he furious?”

“That’s a pretty apt description of his mood.”

“He’ll probably never speak to me again.”

“Actually, I had to persuade him not to come running to your rescue. He’s afraid for you to be in a house with a ghoul. I think that’s how he put it.”

“Oh, David, I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. He’s probably right.” He walked over and settled in a chair in the corner. “If you feel like talking, I’d like to hear the full story of what happened this evening.”

She stared into the fire, watched a log break and tumble off the grate, setting off a crackling spray of yellow flames. “I guess I should start at the beginning.” She ran her hands across the rough denim of her jeans, trying to ease the clamminess. “Detective Megham made another visit to the Cavendish home this afternoon.”

“Does he have any leads on the man who tried to attack you and Claire?”

“He thinks he does.” She turned to face him and as always felt the heat of awareness shimmy through her. She wished there was a better way to say this. “He thinks it could be you.”

“Did he say that?”

“Not exactly, but he intimated not only that it was you last night but that you’re the man who murdered the woman whose body was found two nights ago.”

David’s expression and voice remained calm. “When in need of a suspect, go for the monster on the hill, the one man in town who doesn’t dance to the Pierces’ tune.”

“I don’t think this has anything to do with the Pierces.”

“Then you have a lot to learn about living in Moriah’s Landing. Everything that goes on in this town has to do with the Pierces. What else did the good detective say?”

“That I should stay away from you, that you’re dangerous.”

“Yet here you are.”

“I thought you should know what was going on.”

“So you borrowed Larry’s car and were on your way to see me when some kook plowed into you and just kept going.”

“It wasn’t exactly hit-and-run.”

“Exactly what was it, Becca?”

“The crash wasn’t an accident. I was intentionally run off the road. The driver of the other car jammed into me repeatedly until I lost control of the car.”

“Damn.” David stood, walked to the hearth and leaned against the mantel.

“Did you see the driver of the other car?”

“I saw what looked like McFarland Leary.”

David crossed the room in long strides and sat down beside her, careful to keep his right side turned away from her. “What are you talking about?”

“Just before the car hit me for the last time, I got a quick look at the driver. At the time, I thought I was glimpsing hell itself. But I’m sure now it was just a man wearing one of those rubber McFarland Leary masks that are in all the tourist shops.”

“You could have been killed by an idiot in a mask,” he said, his voice cracking. He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her so close she could feel the beating of his heart against her breasts.

And then he kissed her, not the feather-soft whisper of a kiss that they’d shared that morning, but a deep, ravenous kiss that tore her apart and then put her back together again, more whole than she’d ever been. He kissed her again and again until her lips were swollen and tender and still she couldn’t bear to pull away.

Finally he did, but he cradled her face in his hands, and when her gaze met his, it was as if he were still kissing her. “I shouldn’t have done that, Becca. I had no right, not after what you’ve been through.”

“It wasn’t just you who did it. No kiss could be like that if only one person was involved. Surely you know that.”

“I’m not sure what I know right now.” He covered the right side of his face with his hand as he drew away, as if suddenly aware that he’d let her glimpse too much of his deformity.

Strange that it should bother him so much when it was no more than a shadowy illusion in the firelight. She wasn’t sure that it would have mattered, anyway. It was not so much what she saw when she looked at him but what she felt that consumed her.

“I’ll have Richard ready the guest room. We’ll talk again in the morning.”

“I need to call Mrs. Cavendish and let her know I won’t be back tonight. After that, will you sit with me for a while, stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“If you want me to.”

“I do.” Wanted him in a way that defied all reason. Wanted him no matter what the cost.

THE WIND BLEW ACROSS the cemetery, stirring the dry leaves and tossing them around like the old dreams of people who were buried there. So many graves. Yet only one mausoleum held any fascination for the lone man strolling through the maze of tombstones and dead bouquets.

Five years ago he’d abducted Claire Cavendish from that spot. She had been the perfect victim. Young, beautiful, fragile. That’s why he’d weakened, kept her alive for days while he played sick games with her body and her mind. But keeping her alive had turned out to be the worst mistake of his life. She’d escaped before he could silence her forever.

Somewhere in the scarred corners of her mind, she knew who he was. Knew his name and the sound of his voice. And one day she’d walk back into those dark chambers and the veil would lift. As long as she’d stayed locked away in that hospital, he hadn’t worried much. Who’d believe a crazy person if she pulled a name from her memory and claimed he’d ravaged her body and soul?

But now she was out, making progress, walking the streets, talking to people, especially to Becca Smith. He had to kill Claire. That was the only way to make sure his gruesome secrets stayed locked away. He’d kill her and he’d kill Becca Smith.

He’d already tried this afternoon, but his plan hadn’t worked. Dear old David Bryson had come to her rescue. But he would kill both women before this was over.

He’d kill Claire because he had no alternative. He’d kill Becca because she was consorting with a madman.

And for the pure thrill of it.

He’d do it soon. He had to. The need to kill was taking over his mind the way it always did. And when it became too loud to silence, he had no choice but to spill the bright red blood of a beautiful woman like Becca Smith.

Chapter Nine

David paced the hall outside the guest room where Becca slept, his footsteps the only noise in the eerily silent house. They seemed to echo in his ears, like warning drums, while visions of Becca danced in his head. Just as he’d promised, he’d sat beside her bed until she’d fallen asleep.

Lying there in one of his T-shirts, the soft cotton draping the gentle curves of her breasts, her silken hair fanned across the creamy sheen of the pillowcase, catching the soft rays of moonlight that filtered through the window.

He was still reeling from the effect. His feelings for her were frighteningly strong, consuming, and yet so different from the love he’d felt for Tasha. With Tasha, everything had been right from the very beginning, as if the second they met, they knew they were meant to be together.

With Becca, everything was wrong except the ridiculously overwhelming attraction that made him seek her out over and over until he’d finally weakened and pulled her into the shadowy, empty shell of life he inhabited.

Tasha had made him strong. Becca made him vulnerable. But she needed his protection. He hadn’t been sure last night’s attack had been directed at her specifically, but there was no doubt about today’s. Someone wanted her dead, and he wouldn’t stand by and watch her get killed, the way he had with Tasha. She would have to listen to reason now, agree to stay at the Bluffs where he could make certain she was safe.

Only how could he have her here day after day and not touch her? How could he look into her eyes and not want to kiss her? How could he bear going to bed night after night alone when she was asleep in the same house?

“David.”

The voice was high-pitched, a cry for help. It cut through him, fueling a rush of adrenaline. He pushed through the door of the guest room, expecting to see Becca sitting up in bed, fighting off the dregs of a nightmare. Instead, she was still in its clutches. Her eyes were closed, and she was writhing, twisting from side to side, tangling her body and legs in the sheets. Scared to death even in her sleep.

He sat down beside her and lay a hand to her shoulder. “I’m here, Becca. I’m right here. You’re safe.”

The twitching stopped and her breath slowed to a steady pace. She reached up and placed her hand over his, and a surge of desire shot through him with dizzying force. His fingers dug into her flesh, the smoothness of her like silk against the rough flesh of his hands.

She stirred again, this time opening her eyes. “David?” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been screaming for hours instead of calling for him once.

“I’m right here.”

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then looked around the room, her eyes narrowed, as if trying to see through a dense fog. She wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and then turned her gaze to him, the moonlight painting surreal shadows on her face. She tried to roll to her side and winced in pain, before giving up.

“You’re in pain.”

“A little.”

“Show me exactly where it hurts.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She was teasing him, but she touched her hand to a spot on her right side just below her waist. “Here.”

Making sure the right side of his face was turned away from her, he flicked the bedside lamp on low. Gingerly, he lifted the shirt, leaving the sheet high enough that he didn’t see any more of her body than was necessary.

“You have an ugly bruise. It looks as if the catch on the seat belt may have dug into your flesh when you stopped.”

“I think I even remember that. See. Nothing to worry about.”

“Any other sharp pains or areas that seem overly sensitive?”

“My neck and shoulders are stiff. Kind of a dull ache, no worse than I get after a day of nonstop sewing.”

“Let me see you sit up.”

“Aw, c’mon, Doc. We did all this already.” But she rose to her elbows and then pushed herself to a sitting position. “See. I’m up. Back straight. Chest out.”

His gaze went to her chest, which was most assuredly out. She was joking and teasing, trying to keep the moment light. He didn’t even remember how to joke and flirt. But then he’d thought he didn’t remember how to feel the needs and the urges that were currently driving him over the edge, either. He’d been wrong.

Struggling for a steady hand and a reasonably clear mind, he switched off the lamp, then concentrated on the pillows, plumping them and propping them behind her back.

She leaned back and sighed contentedly, though he was certain she was working hard to keep from showing the stiffness of her muscles. “You have a terrific bedside manner,” she said, smoothing the sheet.

“Thank you, but I’m not sure the medical ethics board would approve of my bringing the patient home with me to treat her.”

“I wasn’t your patient. I was an accident victim, and you were merely fulfilling your Hippocratic oath by taking me in.”

He doubted Hippocrates would see it that way, and he was certain Larry Gayle didn’t. He had a strong suspicion that Mrs. Cavendish hadn’t, either, though he’d only heard Becca’s end of the conversation when she’d called to tell her she was spending the night with him.

Becca stretched, letting her toes slide down the underside of the sheet. “When was the last time someone slept in this bed?”

“Years ago.”

“You should open the Bluffs to company again. The place has character and history—and room. Definitely room. I’m glad this is one of the rooms you’re planning to redecorate. It cries for burgundy, don’t you think?”

“I don’t hear any crying.” And if he did, it would be his own, crying in desperation because he was playing a game he could never win. She stared at him, critically, as if she were trying hard to read his mind, her fingers massaging a spot at the base of her skull.

“Let me do that for you,” he said. “Then I’ll give you something to help you relax and get back to sleep.”

She shook her head. “I don’t take drugs unless I absolutely have to.”

“Good, because I don’t have any painkillers on hand stronger than an aspirin. I was thinking about a little sherry.”

“Sherry I can handle.”

He scooted closer so that he could fit his hands around the curve of her neck. She turned away from him to make the task easier. His fingers trailed the taut lines, from her earlobes to the curl of her shoulders, gently at first, to let her adjust to his touch.

Slowly he increased the pressure, circling her shoulders with his thumbs, then working his way up her neck, thoroughly, until he felt the kinks begin to release. She rolled her neck, and silky locks of her golden hair slid over his fingers and hands. His body hardened, and instinctively he jerked away.

She turned and stared at him, her usually bright blue eyes smoky and seductive. “Why did you stop?”

He hesitated. “I thought you were ready for the sherry.”

“The sherry?” She touched two fingers to his lips, and traced the outline of them.

He parted his lips and she slipped her fingers between them, the movement so erotic he lost the battle for control. He sucked and nibbled her fingers, his body reacting as if it were a separate entity, as if all he could do was go along for the ride and accept his destiny.

He wasn’t sure who made the first move, or maybe they did it together. All he knew was that their lips met. He kissed her over and over again—couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. He let his mind go numb and his feelings take over. He felt the heat of her beneath the cotton shirt, reeled from urges that possessed his body, ached to make love to her the way a man should make love to a woman. Nothing held back. Just give and take, and drown in the pleasure.

Her hands were all over him. In his hair, trailing his rib cage, dancing along his waist. Moving lower, searing a path toward his abdomen. Touching the spot—

Reality surfaced in an eye-opening blow of frustration as her hands paused over the grotesque patch of blotchy, wrinkled flesh that darkened his belly. He’d lost his mind completely, giving in twice in one night to this crazy, destructive hunger. He couldn’t have her, not now and not ever. Once she saw him, she’d run away in disgust.

“I’m sorry, Becca.”

She held out her hands, palms up, her eyes flashing. “Why do you keep doing this? You kiss me senseless and then withdraw and say you’re sorry as if you’ve stepped on my toe.”

He backed away from the bed. “You’re intrigued by a legend, by some beast who lives in a forbidden castle on the hill.”

“Maybe I was at first, but not now. Not since I’ve met you.”

“But you haven’t met me, not really. I’m not just a legend, Becca. I am a beast, a hideously ugly beast who’s best left to hide in shadows and dark chambers.”

“Give me a chance, David. Let me see you—not in the shadows, but in the light.”

He stood and thrust his hands into the front pockets of his trousers. “I can’t do that.”

“So you can just pretend you didn’t like kissing me just now and move on?”

“I never said this was the way I wanted it. It’s the way it has to be.”

“This morning you wanted me to move in with you. Now I feel as if you’re kicking me out of your life.”

“No. I want you here, at the Bluffs. You’ll be safe here, even from me. Especially from me. I won’t bother you again.”

“You won’t touch me and yet I know you want to. Are you sure it’s because of your appearance? Or is it because you’re still in love with Tasha Pierce?”

“My personal life is my business.”

“Tasha’s dead, David, and no amount of wishing she wasn’t will ever bring her back.”

Her words ground inside him, cutting and tearing at his heart. “This isn’t about Tasha.”

“Then what is it about?”

Damn, but he wished he knew the full answer to that, but the truth was snarled and convoluted, too tangled for him to unravel. It was part of the past and the present and the future that Becca might not have if she got mixed up with him. It was the fact that he was only a mangled scrap of a man—a sight too hideous for any woman to bear. And, on some level, it was still Tasha. It would always be Tasha.

So he did the cowardly thing, walked away without answering. It was the only choice he had, but as he walked the dark hallway to his own room, he felt the loss deep in his gut. There was no way out of the hell he lived in.

BECCA OPENED HER EYES to bright sunlight streaming across her bed and the odor of fresh perked coffee. And to Richard Crawford setting out china, silver and napkins on the round table next to the window. She stayed beneath the covers.

“Room service, and I didn’t even order. I like this place better all the time.”

“I hated to wake you, but a Detective Carson Megham has already called three times this morning. Apparently he wants to talk with you about your accident. I’ve managed to put him off so far, but he seems determined on paying you a visit.”

“Jeez! There goes the neighborhood.”

“It sounds as if you know this detective.”

“For the last couple of days, I seem to see him more often than I do my toothbrush.” Thinking of which, hers was back at the Cavendishes’. So was her hairbrush, and her hair was probably a mass of tangles. And she wasn’t sure where her watch was, either. “What time is it?”

“Ten past ten.”

“You’re kidding. I haven’t slept this late in years. No wonder Megham’s called three times.”

“Yes, ma’am. Dr. Bryson said you needed the sleep.”

“Evidently he was right, but still I’m surprised I didn’t wake with the sun as I usually do.”

“You had no way of knowing the sun was up. It was dark as a cave in here before I tied back the curtains a minute ago. Can I pour you a cup of coffee, ma’am?”

“You can if you promise not to call me ma’am. Becca will do nicely. Do you always refer to David as Dr. Bryson?”

“Yes. I know it’s too formal for the younger generation, but it was customary in the family where I worked before moving to America, and old habits die hard.”

He poured the coffee from an insulated pitcher into a china cup. “Cream and sugar?”

“Just black. Where is David this morning? Is he sleeping in, too?”

He arched his brows. “Hardly. He was up at seven and has been in his lab since before eight.”

“He must be working on a very important project.”

“He never talks with me about his work, but he puts in lots of hours in the lab, so I’m sure it’s important.” Richard placed the coffee on the bedside table. “I took the liberty of bringing you a scone and some marmalade. I thought you might be a bit hungry. There’s a cup of fresh fruit as well. But the cook is here today, so if you want a full breakfast, I’m sure she can handle that.”

“You mean a scone with marmalade isn’t a full breakfast?”

“Not to me.”

Finally she’d coaxed a smile to his face. He was a nice-looking man, and if he’d lived anywhere but the Bluffs, the local widows would be baking him pies and inviting him to church socials every chance they got.

Richard stepped away from the table and toward the door. “Is there anything I can get you?”

Information, but she wasn’t quite sure how to approach the subject, since he was obviously very protective of his boss. She decided on the questioning approach. “Did David tell you about the wreck?”

“Do you mean the fact that it was intentional?”

“So he did tell you.”

“We discussed it briefly this morning.”

“Do you think I should stay at the Bluffs while I work on the redecorating project, Richard?”

“It doesn’t really matter what I think. This isn’t my house.”

“I’m interested in your opinion.”

“Your coming to the Bluffs Saturday upset a lot of people, Becca. Your spending the night here last night is going to upset a lot more. But I’m sure Dr. Bryson thinks you’re the right person for the job. If not, he wouldn’t have asked you. And if he’s asked you to move into the Bluffs, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“He hasn’t done a very good job of explaining those reasons to me.”

“Some men are afraid to admit what they want, even to themselves.”

That response surprised her, but she knew it was a deliberate statement and not a slip of the tongue. Everything about Richard seemed deliberate. “Did you know Tasha Pierce?” she asked, then wondered why she’d bothered. She knew as much about Tasha as she needed to know. Knew she was perfect and wonderful and that David had never gotten over her.

“Yes. I had been working for David about six months when they met.”

“They must have been very much in love.”

“As in love as I’ve ever seen two people.”

She stared out the window. She hated thinking about David and Tasha together, but the image stayed in her mind. A young David. Without scars and deformities. Without the brooding and mysterious eyes. “I guess a man falls in love like that only once in a lifetime.”

“Love is infinite, Becca. Like the universe, the stars, the planets. It goes on and on forever. Every time it’s different, but it can never be measured or compared.”

A glimmer of something Becca didn’t fully understand stirred inside her. It was warm like summer sun on the sand. “You are either a very wise man, Richard Crawford, or you have had a lot of experience with life.”

“It’s a combination, but keep it our secret.” He winked. “In this town, having insight can get you labeled as a warlock, and I don’t want the tour guides adding me to their list of strange local phenomena.”

“Do you believe in people being bewitched, Richard?”

He looked at her, studied her as if trying to decide if her question was serious before he answered. Instead he returned the question. “Do you?”

“I’m not sure. I was sure, but I just don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“It’s this town that does that to you.” He met her gaze, his eyes dark, troubled. “To answer your question, I don’t believe in ghosts and witches, but there’s a spirit of evil in Moriah’s Landing that can’t be explained rationally. And there’s a presence in the Bluffs.”

“What do you mean by a presence?”

“Cold spots and areas that make the hairs on your neck stand on end when you pass them late at night.”

Just the description made hers stand on end. “Then you do believe in the supernatural.”

“I believe there are powers beyond what mortals possess. Some good. Some bad.”

She shuddered, unable to shake the chill that had overcome her.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you, Becca. This house is perfectly safe. I didn’t mean to suggest that it wasn’t. Now, I’m going to get out of here and let you drink your coffee and eat your scone. Then you should probably shower and get dressed. Detective Megham will be here at eleven-thirty. There are clean towels in the bathroom across the hall. A new toothbrush and toothpaste, too, and you’ll find personal soaps and shampoos in the basket on the counter. If you need anything else, just let me know.”

“I can’t think of a thing.” Except that she’d like to see David before the detective showed up. Unless she was mistaken, Megham had more than the accident in mind. That was why he was so anxious to talk to her while she was at the Bluffs. “I’d really like to talk to David. Do you think he’d mind if I visited him in the lab after I’m dressed?”

“I know he’d mind. No one is allowed in the lab while he’s working. Not even me.”

“Never?”

“Not in the five and a half years I’ve worked for him.”

“Will he be coming back to this part of the house when the detective comes?”

“I don’t think that’s his intention.”

“Will you take me home after the detective’s visit?”

“I know that Dr. Bryson would prefer you stay here.”

“As a prisoner?”

“Of course not. If you insist on leaving, I’ll drive you into town.”

“Were those David’s orders?”

“They were his instructions.”

And so like David. They touched when he wanted it, kissed when he wanted it. And when he wanted out of her life, he merely walked away, buried himself in his lab where no one was allowed.

She’d be a fool to stay here on his terms, and yet, how could she carry the danger that followed her back into the Cavendish home? They had been through so much already.

Which left Becca with exactly nowhere to go. No significant other to run to, no mother who’d protect and love her the way Claire’s mother did her, no family to shelter her. She’d be alone again.

RICHARD MANAGED TO HIDE his smile until he was out of sight of Becca Smith. He had the strange but comforting feeling that in spite of what she said, she wasn’t going to run away. After five long years they might be about to have a woman in the house again. Not just any woman, but a beautiful lady who was smart and spunky and tough.

He’d almost frightened her off by telling her the truth about the Bluffs. He’d have to watch that in the future. She’d find out soon enough on her own.

Becca would bring youth and laughter back into the house, and with any luck at all she just might lead David back to the land of the living. Of course, she’d have to march right through Tasha’s memory to do it. But if he was a wagering man, he’d put his money on Becca Smith.

How was it they said it over here? You go, girl. You go.

Chapter Ten

Becca couldn’t remember when a shower had felt so good. The hot water pulsated into her sore shoulders and rolled down her back in welcome rivulets of moist heat. After a few minutes of soaking up the steam and relief, she turned so that the showerhead directed the full spray to the back of her neck. She’d probably be achy and stiff for days, but she was just thankful she could move without too much pain. She took that as an omen that there were no injuries that would require medical care.

Taking the fresh bar of soap from the holder, she rolled it over and over in the washcloth until she had a foamy lather to spread over her body. Bending slowly, she sucked up the pain and ran the rag over her legs. The right calf had a purple-and-black bruise, ugly, but not nearly as ugly as Larry’s car had looked with the front of it crushed into an accordion.

She straightened and groaned again, not only from the pain that shot through her hip but from the prospect of having to face Larry. Hopefully she could put off the face-to-face encounter until tomorrow, but she’d have to call him today. She owed him an explanation of some kind.

First Megham, then Larry. And by that time David might have surfaced from the forbidden lab. And those were just the people supposedly on her side. Somewhere out there was a man who’d tried to kill her.

Could life get any better than this?

CLAIRE STOOD AT THE WINDOW, her mind sliding in and out of reality. One minute, she pictured Becca, locked away in the haunted stone fortress that harbored death and sordid powers from the underworld. The next, she slid back in time, to a September night five years ago.

Fear, desperation, madness. They closed in on her, choking her, making her weak. Trembling, she closed her eyes as the familiar curse fell on her like rain from a black cloud.

It was so dark in the mausoleum. She couldn’t see anything, but she could smell death all around her. Dank. Clammy. Caustic. But she was young. Death couldn’t hurt her. All she had to do was stay in here for a few minutes, and it would all be over.

She, Brie, Kat, Elizabeth, Tasha. They would have passed the test, proved their worthiness for admission into the most prestigious sorority at Heathrow. The others were right outside, waiting for her. She’d drawn the picture of McFarland Leary, but any of them would have taken her place if she’d let them. They were those kind of friends, thoughtful and protective. One for all and all for one.

She concentrated on the positive as she moved deeper into the inner chambers of the tomb. It was colder here, as if death were trying to reach out and pull her into its clutches. Something started crawling up her leg beneath her jeans. Panic knotted her insides. She shook and kicked, but the creature clung tenaciously until she trapped it between her jeans and her legs and crushed its life away. Likely a spider, though it could have been anything with legs, and for all she knew the floor was alive with them.

Don’t think about them. A few more steps. Make it all the way to the back. Then she could light her one match that the sorority allowed and retrieve the gold box that proved she had indeed visited the house of the dead.

Something flew by her head. She put up her hand to protect her eyes from what had to be a bat. She tripped and pitched forward, catching herself on a wall of cold, abrasive concrete. Thank God, she’d surely made it all the way to the back of the mausoleum. She reached in her pocket for the matchbox with the lone match inside it. Something clamped around her arm before she could, and a large, foul-smelling hand covered her mouth, trapping her scream inside her dry throat.

The sound of ragged breathing seemed to echo through the tomb, but she wasn’t sure if it was hers or the person’s who smelled of aftershave and whiskey. Fear roared in her brain, terror so excruciating she thought her heart was going to thrust itself through the walls of her chest.

She felt the sting of a needle as it punctured her flesh and sank deep into the veins in her arm. And then the pit opened and sucked her inside.

“No. No. No. No.”

“Claire. It’s all right, sweetie. I’m right here.”

Claire’s eyes flew open. She was incredibly cold—bone cold—as if her veins coursed with frigid blood. She fell into her mother’s open arms and held on tight. If she didn’t, she’d fall back into the pit.

Her mother rocked her to her breast, stroked her hair and her back. “Don’t go back there, Claire. Don’t go back to that horrible place in your mind where you get so frightened.”

“I can’t help it. It just happens. I don’t go looking for it, but it finds me and drags me back there.”

“Well, I won’t let it have you. Not again. At least not for good. I’ll always be here to pull you back to safety.”

“I’m counting on that.”

But she would go back, over and over, until her mind finally let her see past the pit, see the face of the man who’d abducted her that night and taken her to hell. That was the only thing that would ever free her from the terror—free her or destroy her completely.

“I’m okay now, Mama.”

“Are you sure, sweetie? I can stay right here with you. No one will notice if the kitchen goes unmopped.”

“No. Go ahead with what you were doing. I’ll just lie down on the couch and rest a bit.”

“That’s a good idea. You rest and I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes.”

Claire waited until her mother was out of hearing range before she picked up the phone and dialed Larry’s number at work. She hated to bother him, but she knew he’d be as upset as she was about Becca’s being seduced by David Bryson’s evil powers. Larry was the one person she could count on to understand that there was no time to waste.

They had to save Becca before it was too late.

BECCA WOULD HAVE LOVED to have clean clothes to step into after her shower, but she had no choice. Tossing her wet towel over the rack, she slipped back into the same things she’d had on yesterday—all except for the blood-stained pullover. The colored shirt she’d worn under the sweater was faded and worn, but it would have to do. The jeans were fine, though still smeared with her blood. And the toothbrush Richard had provided was a godsend.

There was no hairbrush, but she made good use of the comb she’d had in her purse, working to untangle the mass of hair until it fell in smooth waves over her shoulders. That and a touch of the lip gloss that she always carried and she felt presentable enough for the detective.

Once she was dressed she went back to the guest room, stared out the window until she was thoroughly bored—about five minutes—then decided to stroll through the house. She’d pretty much seen this part of the house on her walk through with David the other day, but there were countless other areas that she hadn’t explored.

Pans banged and clattered in the kitchen, and the steady whir of a vacuum cleaner drifted from somewhere down the hall. The noise and activity level made the place seem much less intimidating than it had on her first visit, and Becca hesitated only a minute before heading down the carpeted hall.

The moldings were painted a dusty cream, or else they’d yellowed to that color over the years, and the wallpaper was a muted flower pattern. Antique brass sconces, probably original to the house, had been converted to electricity, each with a tiny bulb that gave off a shimmery glow that made lacy patterns of light and shadow to illuminate the long hallway. She stopped at the first closed door and hesitated only a minute before easing it open. After all, Richard had said to make herself at home.

Another guest room, she guessed, judging from the lack of any personal touches. The headboard of the bed was elaborately carved with angels cavorting among rolling clouds and the mattress was covered with a flowered quilt, the stitching meticulous. An antique secretary stood against one wall, and a china pitcher and bowl sat on a mahogany stand near the heavily draped window.

She could easily imagine the room having looked the same way for the last hundred or so years. It still boggled her mind that the house had been built stone by stone in the 1600s, and for most of that time, the house had stayed in the Pierce family. David had been the first man to break the continuity of ownership. For the first time, she began to understand why the Pierces were so bitter about his living in the house.

First the house, then Tasha. He had claimed two of their most precious possessions, and at least some of them had never forgiven him.

She closed the door behind her, walked past a few more doors and then opened another. Apparently this room had been used as a child’s playroom at some point in time. An antique doll cradle sat in the center of the room, and resting inside was a delicate porcelain doll dressed in a white christening gown. An army of carved wooden soldiers marched across a brass-hinged chest and a stack of leather-covered classics lined a mahogany bookcase, with all the books at a child’s eye level. Shaggy teddy bears sat in miniature chairs at a table graced with a child’s china tea set, and a metal tricycle stood as if ready for a tyke to crawl aboard and take off.

Her favorite room, hands down, Becca decided as she closed the door and stepped away and continued down the carpeted path, her mind playing with the idea of raising children in house so large and rambling, you’d have a difficult time finding them if they ever decided they didn’t want to be found. In fact, if she wasn’t careful she could get lost herself, especially here where the hallway intersected with another, offering three options.

If she continued straight, the surroundings looked the same as the way she’d come, the same lighting, the same carpeting, a similar series of closed doors on either side of the hall. To the right, the hall was unlit, and worn carpet the color of old blood trailed off toward what appeared to be a dead end.

To the left was a staircase that led to the second floor. She hesitated and then started climbing the steps, slowly, serenaded by the creaking of old boards. With each step, she seemed to be leaving behind what little life and activity the Bluffs provided. Fear chased along her nerve endings, quick, frigid, a reminder that she was entering a vast area of isolation where she’d never been before.

All but one of the doors along the hallway were closed. She moved toward it, then stopped instantly. A draft rolled across her, and she turned slowly, looking for the source of the cold air. There didn’t seem to be one.

Richard’s words flashed through her mind. Unexplained cool spots. It was downright creepy, and if there hadn’t been the one open door up ahead, she’d have rushed back to the main part of the house.

And that would be stupid, she told herself. The house was centuries old. There could be any number of logical reasons for the draft she felt. She just couldn’t think of them right now, but she might, if she knew what was inside the room that she was standing near.

Fitting her hand around the polished brass doorknob, she twisted, expecting the door to open as it had with the other rooms she’d peeked inside. This time, the circle of brass didn’t move. Neither did the door. A locked room. Not so unusual in a house this size, but she did wonder why this one was locked and all the others hadn’t been. Who was David keeping out?

She glanced at her watch. Eleven-thirty. Detective Megham was running late or else he was already here and no one knew where to find her. Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to wait a few minutes, and she did want to at least glance inside the room with the open door, though it meant walking almost the length of the hallway. She all but ran the last few yards.

Her breath caught, then released in a slow, steady sigh as she stepped inside the door and got her first glimpse of one of the most remarkable views she’d ever seen. The haze had been burned away by the sun, and the water in Raven’s Cove was a dazzling shade of turquoise, the surface studded with glittering diamonds.

Best of all, the view wasn’t sabotaged by trees or scrubby brush. She could see the rocks that jutted below the cliff, the water dancing along the rims of the hard, jagged edges before splashing back to the sea. There were a couple of sailboats out today, taking advantage of the calm and the Indian summer weather.

The view had her so spellbound that it was several minutes before she turned to scan the rest of the room. Obviously, she was in a library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined every wall and two large desks flanked the center of the room. Stepping over to the bookshelves, she scanned the titles. Book after book about serial killers and crime-scene investigations and murders.

Walking to the desk, she let her gaze drop to an open file. The name Joyce Telatia was printed in black ink along the tab. Joyce Telatia. The name was familiar, but it took her a minute to remember where she’d heard it before. When she did, a sinking sensation settled in her stomach.

Joyce had been the fourth young woman murdered twenty years ago, the third of the three whose killer had never been caught. Becca flipped open the file and picked up the first sheet of paper and read the scribbled notations under Joyce’s name. Blond hair. Five feet six inches tall. Blue eyes. Small boned. A hundred and twenty pounds.

It had to be Joyce’s description, but it could have been Becca’s. Twenty years ago Joyce had been the victim, and just yesterday Becca had barely missed being run from the road and killed in a deliberate car crash. The night before that, she’d narrowly missed being attacked less than a block from her home.

“Are you looking for something?”

She jumped at the sound of David’s voice, then let her gaze circle the room. Finally she located him, in the back corner of the room, away from the light, standing so that his whole right side was hidden from view by a huge brass statue.

“I didn’t know you were in here. Why didn’t you say something?”

“You’re a long way from the guest room, Becca. Are you lost?”

“No.” She wouldn’t be intimidated or frightened by him. “Richard said I should make myself at home. I was doing that.”

“So I noticed. Do you know who Joyce Telatia is?”

“The fourth murder victim from twenty years ago. But why are you so interested in her, David?”

“Everyone in Moriah’s Landing is interested in the murders. Reliving the horror is our community pastime.” He buried his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. “I don’t want to seem inhospitable, Becca, but this part of the Bluffs is off-limits. Not only this room, but this whole section of the house.”

“Will it still be off-limits if I accept your invitation to live here?”

“It will always be off-limits. I’d like for you to forget the things you saw in here today, and I’ll have to ask you not to come back into this room—ever.”

Some people even believe David was the one who committed the murders twenty years ago.

Larry’s words crept through her mind, and she had to hold on to the edge of the desk for support as a wave of nausea overtook her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to concentrate on the facts. David had lived in Moriah’s Landing at the time of the murders, had first-hand access to everything that was going on. He’d even been questioned in the deaths, adequate reason for him to be interested enough in this murder to have collected the information surrounding it.

“I don’t think I’d like to live in a house with so many secrets,” she said, backing toward the door.

“All of us have secrets, even you.”

“Hidden away in the dark corners of my mind, perhaps, but not locked inside rooms. And I’m not intentionally hiding my past. I just can’t find it to claim it.” Still, she backed toward the door. “It wouldn’t help your case any if Detective Megham was to see the files or the books in this room.”

“I wasn’t planning on inviting him in. But I do want you to stay, Becca. I want you here, living at the Bluffs so that I can watch over you and keep you safe. I know that you asked Richard to take you home, but I’m asking you to reconsider. Please. Stay here with me.”

A minute ago, fear had coursed through her veins and apprehension had strangled her. But now his voice reached out to her, his piercing eyes held her captive.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good.”

She turned and all but ran down the hall, taking the steps two at a time. Be-witch-ed.

The word became three syllables and pounded in her head like a rampant mantra as she rounded the turn in the hallway and headed back for the main section of the house. That’s how Claire would describe Becca’s bizarre attraction to David. As for Becca, she couldn’t explain it at all.

Richard was waiting for her at the door to the guest room. “You have visitors.”

“Detective Megham.”

“No. He called and said he’s been detained by a new emergency. It’s Claire Cavendish and a young man named Larry Gayle.”

“Oh, no, not Claire. Not here. Does Claire seem all right?”

“To the contrary. She seems extremely upset. They declined to come in so I suggested they wait for you under the gazebo in the garden.”

“Thanks, Richard.”

She stopped in the kitchen for a glass of ice water before heading out to the gazebo. If it had been later than noon, she’d have opted for a stiff drink. Claire visiting the Bluffs when just a glimpse of the place made her tremble in fear. There was no way in the world this was going to be good.

Chapter Eleven

Larry’s muscles flexed and released in rapid succession, making his breathing shallow and his chest ache as if someone had pounded a fist into his rib cage. Claire sat a few feet away, perched on the edge of a circular garden bench that had been built into the gazebo.

She was weak and yet determined, whimpering like a sick puppy one minute, insisting they had to save Becca the next. He’d never seen her like this, a cross between the preabduction Claire and the empty husk of humanity she’d sunk into right after the attack.

He felt like a heel for bringing her up here and putting her through this, even though it was her idea. But Becca was so protective of Claire, she might leave David Bryson just to relieve Claire’s fears.

Claire turned and looked back toward the Bluffs. “What do you think is taking her so long?”

“Who knows? I can’t even imagine what she’s doing in there. No woman in their right mind would willingly spend the night with that freaky lunatic.”

“Becca doesn’t see him that way. He’s bewitched her the same way he did Tasha.”

“And we know how Tasha ended up.”

Bitterness rolled and bucked inside him. He’d been crazy about Tasha Pierce and finally gotten her to go out with him a time or two. Then the hotshot doctor had moved back to town and bought the Bluffs. And one look from David was all it had taken. Crook his little finger and Tasha had fallen faster and harder than a sky diver with a ripped parachute. Now Becca was making the same stupid mistake, and just when he was hoping they would become more than friends.

He looked up at the sound of crunching leaves. Becca was hurrying across the lawn in their direction, her blond hair catching the wind and dancing in the sunlight. She was staring at him as if she wouldn’t mind running an ice pick through his heart. And still she looked beautiful.

Damn David Bryson. But he wouldn’t win this time. Larry would see to that.

BECCA WALKED RIGHT PAST Larry and sat down next to Claire. She put an arm around her thin shoulders and hugged her before directing her full attention to Larry. “You shouldn’t have brought her here. You know how this place upsets her.”

Claire turned to Becca, her eyes glossy, as if someone had sprayed a fine film over them. “He didn’t bring me, Becca. I called him. I couldn’t leave you up here with that monster.”

“Look at me, sweetie. I’m fine. David’s not a monster. He’s my friend.”

“No. He’s just pretending to be your friend. Please, Becca, come with us. While you still can.”

Claire was trembling, and Becca’s heart ached just seeing her in this condition. But Claire was sick. She needed help and understanding, not being dragged around by Larry Gayle on a rescue mission that had no basis. She hugged Claire again and then walked over to Larry, not stopping until they were practically toe-to-toe. “I’m sorry about your car, Larry, but it wasn’t my fault. Someone ran me off the road. Still, I’ll pay whatever the insurance doesn’t cover.”

“If I’d known you were driving up to the freak’s castle, I would never have let you borrow the damn car.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I’m sorry about that, too, but I had to see him.”

“So it seems. A nice little tryst with the devil. You must like it since you’re still here.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Yeah. Then why don’t you tell me what it’s like, ’ cause that’s sure how it looks to me and how it’s going to look to everyone else in town.”

The insinuation twisted inside her, probably because it wasn’t that far from the truth. But whatever she felt for David, it was none of Larry’s business. She struggled to keep her tone calm, for Claire’s sake. “I want you to take Claire home now, and don’t bring her out here again.”

A high-pitched wail, sounding more like the squawk of a bird than a young woman, pierced the morning air. “No. No. No.”

They both turned to Claire. She was hugging her arms around her chest and rocking back and forth. She stopped when she saw them looking at her and put a hand out toward Becca.

“Please come with us. Please. This place is part of the evil. I can feel it right here.” She placed both hands over her chest as if holding her heart in place.

Becca dropped to her knees at Claire’s feet and took Claire’s trembling hands in hers. “The fear is in your mind. This is just a house, Claire. Nothing more than stones and wood and glass.”

“No!” She shook her head almost violently. “It’s more than that. Tasha came here and she died here.”

“Tasha was killed in an explosion. That had nothing to do with the house or with David.”

“Please, just come with us, Becca.”

“I can’t. Not yet. But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine and you will, too. You just need to take your medicine and get some rest.” She stood and walked back to Larry, standing close so that she could keep her voice low. “Do you see what you’ve done? How could you bring her here knowing how upset she’s been since the near attack the other night?”

“She wanted to come.”

“She’s out of her head. Take her home and be gentle with her. Don’t say anything else to upset her.”

“I’m not the one who’s upsetting her. You are. You’re upsetting all of us and behaving totally irresponsibly. We’re not leaving here without you.”

Her anger spun out of control. “I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions about where I go and whom I go with.”

He wrapped his hand around the soft muscles of her upper arm. “I’m driving you home. I’m not losing my woman to some freaking madman again.”

His woman? Emotions knotted inside her, then swelled until she thought she might explode. “I was never your woman, Larry. We were friends, and that’s all.”

“We would have become more if that hideous beast hadn’t taken over your mind.”

Becca’s muscles tensed to the point of aching. Claire, Larry, a killer in a McFarland Leary mask—all slipping over the edge of sanity—or else she was. She tried to pull away from Larry, but his fingers dug into her flesh and he twisted her arm until pain shot up the muscles and into her shoulders. She could scream for help, but that would only upset Claire more.

“Whose car are you in?” she asked, looking around and not seeing a vehicle.

“Mrs. Cavendish’s Ford. It’s parked in front of the house.” He shoved her in that direction, his hand still gripping her arm.

Claire started crying. “Don’t hurt Becca, Larry. Don’t you turn into a monster, too. I can’t take this. I just can’t.”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Becca felt the pressure of the situation squeezing her head like a vice, but she had to at least sound in control for Claire’s sake. “I’ll ride back to town with you.”

“I didn’t want him to hurt you,” she whispered, her voice ragged. “I don’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“Stop sniveling,” Larry ordered. “Becca said she’s coming with us, and that’s what you wanted.” He finally let go of Becca, though he walked so close that his arm brushed against hers and she could smell the perspiration that beaded on his flesh in spite of the coolness of the day.

This was a side of Larry she’d never seen. It stunned her that she could have thought she knew him well, had considered him a friend without ever dreaming he could be this callous. Yet he’d never made a secret of how he felt about David.

Amazingly Claire pulled herself together enough to stand and start walking toward the car, though she looked as if she might drop into a faint at any second. Detective Megham would be upset when he arrived and Becca wasn’t there, but he’d get over it. After all, he was the one who blew off the appointment, and he couldn’t expect her to put her life on hold just so she could be harassed by him.

DAVID STOOD IN THE DOORWAY watching Becca deal with her two friends. After what she’d seen in the library, he’d fully expected her to be gone when he left the lab and came to lunch, but here she was, and all he felt was that strange jumping of his heart that he always experienced when she was near.

He wasn’t surprised that Larry Gayle had shown up, not as furious as he’d been when David had talked to him on the phone last night. But he was surprised he’d brought Claire Cavendish with him, especially now that he saw her from a few yards away. Her flesh was pale and her gait unsteady, as if just walking to the old Ford parked in his driveway was taking all the strength she could muster.

David pushed out the door unnoticed as Larry and Becca neared the car, Claire still several feet behind them. Evidently Becca was leaving with them, without even a look back at the Bluffs. He’d expected her to leave, and still he dreaded it so much that the metallic taste of desperation filled his mouth and dried his throat.

As they neared the car, he saw Larry grab Becca’s arm roughly. The move caught him off guard, but his muscles tensed and he stepped outside, staying half hidden behind a cluster of thick shrubbery.

“I said I would go with you. Now, get your hands off me.”

Becca’s voice was low, barely carrying to where he was standing, but there was no mistaking the tone.

Larry maintained the grip. “Is that what you say to the freak when he touches you?”

“He’s not a freak. He’s kind and smart and he’s—”

“And he’s not too fond of watching someone manhandle a woman.”

Larry dropped his hold on Becca and turned to face David, his mouth twisted into a scowl, his chin jutted forward. “I’ve come to take Becca home, and you need to stay out of this. Moriah’s Landing has had enough of you, and so have I.”

“I see. Becca, do you want to get in this man’s car?”

Becca looked first at Larry and then back to Claire. She dropped back and wrapped a hand around Claire’s waist, before finally letting her gaze settle on David. “I don’t want to go with him, but I need to take care of Claire. She shouldn’t be out here in the condition she’s in.”

“In that case, I’ll have Richard drive you and Claire into town.”

Relief eased the lines in Becca’s neck and face. “I’d appreciate that, David.” She turned to Claire. “David’s butler is going to drive you home, Claire. I’ll go with you. He’s a kind and sensitive man, and he’ll take good care of us.”

Larry beat a fist into the hood of the Ford, then glared at David, his expression making it clear that he would have liked to plant his fist somewhere else.

David met his glaring stare, amazed at how badly he ached to leave the camouflaging cover of the shrubs and get in the man’s face. Only to do that would expose his deformities, put them on display in the bright sunlight. And then he’d have to watch as repulsion drove Becca away forever.

“This is private property, Larry, and your welcome has run out.”

“I’m leaving, but this isn’t the end of this. Your days in this town are numbered. Count on it.” He opened the car door and folded his six-foot-plus frame behind the steering wheel. The elbow of his left arm jutted out the open window as he turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine before turning back for a parting shot. “You can sleep with the devil, Becca, just don’t expect to get your soul back when you’re done.” A second later his tires squealed as he jerked the car in gear and took off.

David watched the car skid around the first turn, barely missing the ditch that bordered the drive. He had the crazy feeling that his life was like the car, spiraling out of control. And he was pulling Becca along with him, enmeshing her in his life and pulling her into danger that he had no idea how to stop. She was certain the danger was her doing. He knew better. The danger had always lain with him.

“Thanks, David. That was so…”

“Human.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

But it was what she meant. He could see it in her eyes. And for the first time in five years he felt almost human again. Too bad that feelings could not be trusted. He should turn and go back inside, leave things as they were, but he couldn’t. “Will you be coming back with Richard?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then think about it. You’ll be safe here, and…” He wasn’t one to beg, yet the need inside him was so strong. “I want you with me, Becca.” With that he turned and walked inside, hating himself for needing her when Tasha’s memory was so real inside him. When Tasha’s murder had not been vindicated.

DETECTIVE MEGHAM STOOD next to the chief of police while a hoard of reporters pushed around them with cameras, microphones and wagging pencils. The chief had called a press conference to detail the newly discovered identity of the body that had been found a few days ago. Sally Evers, twenty-two, a recent graduate of Heathrow College who was interviewing in a neighboring district for a teaching job. She’d apparently rented a car and driven to Moriah’s Landing for a few days’ vacation before driving back to Missouri.

But, as Megham had suspected, the chief wasn’t telling much more. He’d left out the fact that the jugular had been severed with two deep cuts, and he’d neither confirmed or denied the leak that the killer had left initials M.L. carved into the woman’s stomach. He’d merely stated the facts concerning the methods used by the killer were confidential so as not to impede the investigation and eventual arrest of the man responsible for the murder.

But Megham wasn’t wasting his time searching the cemetery for some damn ghost. As far as he was concerned, David Bryson was the major suspect. He didn’t have proof, but in the past his intuition in cases like this had been right a lot more often than it had been wrong.

They’d pretty much pinpointed the time of death, and Bryson had been seen in town that night, as always lurking in the shadows and having little to say to anyone. That gave him the opportunity, and any healthy adult male with access to a sharp blade—as in a scalpel—had the ability.

That left motive. Insanity required no real motive, and everyone knew that the beast on the hill was crazy. He’d been questioned in the murders twenty years ago and he’d been questioned in the explosion that took his fiancée’s life five years ago.

Megham had an idea that when the evidence started falling into place, it would be like a row of dominoes dropping, one after another. When the last one fell, Bryson would be behind bars and Moriah’s Landing would go back to being the peaceful sort of town Prissy had wanted to retire to.

Now Megham had a new kink in the case. Becca Smith, a seemingly intelligent woman, had apparently become involved with Bryson. While he hated to see Becca put herself into that kind of danger, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it, so he might as well use the situation to his advantage. As soon as this press conference was over, he’d go to the Bluffs and interview her. He was already late for their appointment. It would give him the opportunity he needed to get inside that stone wall and look around, get a feel for the place. All he’d need was one good piece of evidence for the court to grant a search warrant.

“Do you foresee an arrest anytime soon?”

“I’ll defer the questions about the actual investigation to Detective Megham, as he’s heading up the case with the full assets of the department behind him.”

Chief Redfern nodded to him to take the question from the saucy female reporter from the local news TV station. He cleared his throat while weighing his words. “We don’t foresee an imminent arrest, but we are investigating every lead that comes our way.” A dozen reporters started clamoring for his attention. He pointed to a young Asian man in a dark gray suit.

“Do you have any suggestions for how women should protect themselves while this maniac is on the loose?”

“If they go out at night, they should go out in groups or with an escort. Above all, stay out of situations that leave them vulnerable, such as walking home alone at night or being out near the wharf area alone. At this point, we believe that the victim was alone and in an unprotected area at the time of the attack.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?”

“The perpetrator did a good job of avoiding witnesses. Apparently no one saw or heard anything.”

“Is it possible that the villain knew the victim?”

“Anything’s possible.”

He fielded a dozen more questions, all more or less versions of the first few before the chief called a halt to the conference. He sucked in a double helping of relief. Talking to reporters was the part of his job he liked the least, but the public had a right to know—just not the right to know enough to interfere with his investigation. These conferences were always stretched along a fine line of fact and omissions.

He stepped away and headed back inside the station house. Once inside, a spurt of adrenaline revived him to the point he couldn’t wait to get on his way. Next stop the Bluffs and hopefully a chance to meet Dr. David Bryson in person. Wealthy, renowned scientist gone mad.

THE SUN GLINTED OFF the rocks as David stood on the top of the cliff, scattering the petals of white roses. It wasn’t his usual day to honor Tasha’s memory in this way, but since Becca had come into his life, the need to remember every detail about Tasha had swelled to a crescendo, blaring inside his brain.

But try as he might to preserve it, the memory of Tasha had started to dim. Worse, it had begun to merge with images of Becca. At times when he looked into Becca’s eyes, it seemed to be Tasha staring back at him. It was as if Tasha’s spirit haunted the Bluffs, calling to him, whispering his name in the dark of night. But when he closed his eyes, it was Becca’s smile he saw.

His mind shuffled back through the years. It had been different with Tasha from the very beginning. She’d triggered something inside him, released the valve that kept the black, angry secrets of his past locked safely away. She was the first person he’d ever told what it was like growing up in a shanty behind the wharf area where men from town knocked on his mother’s door day and night. Tasha had neither faulted nor excused his mother’s lifestyle, except to say that his mother couldn’t have been all bad. She’d given him life, and Tasha loved her for that.

No one gets to choose their family. The best we can do is just love them and take them as they are. That had been Tasha’s response not only to his past but to the way her family had rebelled against her dating him.

He had loved her so, been certain that he’d never love anyone else, yet his obsession with Becca grew more intense, more agonizing with every second he spent in her presence. Not only was it spoiling his memory of Tasha, it was interfering with his work—the one thing that had seemed to make any sense at all over the last five years.

He thrived on working alone in his lab, and that was one of the reasons he’d moved from being a practicing physician to a medical scientist. He wanted hypotheses that could be proved true or false if the experiments were thorough and ruled out all variables.

He liked making a difference, not in one life, but in countless thousands. Like now. He was so close to another major breakthrough, this time in an area that could save the lives of people who’d already been given a death sentence, good, hardworking people like Brie’s mother. Pamela Dudley’s physician had heard of David’s research and sent David her medical records.

Pamela had been one of the few ladies in town who hadn’t snubbed her nose at David’s mother, and that had earned her a place in his heart. He hadn’t been able to save his mother from the cancer that had robbed her of the will to keep fighting for life, but he still had a chance to save Mrs. Dudley, to give her the opportunity to see her grandchild grow up.

He dropped the last few roses without bothering to scatter the petals. Work was what he needed now. It was the only way to keep the little sanity he had left.

But even as he made his way back to the lab, thoughts of Tasha and Becca tiptoed through his mind. Tasha was dead, but he owed her justice, had to find the man who’d blown up the boat and stolen her life’s breath. Becca was alive, but she’d never be able to love a man whose heart had been broken in so many pieces it would never be whole again. And she’d never desire a body as hideously deformed as the one that encased his soul and mind.

And still he wanted her.

BECCA KEPT UP a steady conversation with Claire on the way back into town. She chattered about the weather, the leaves that had already begun their transformation to the glorious reds and golds that would set the woods on fire in the next few weeks, but her attempts to lighten the mood had little or no effect on Claire or the pit of despair she’d settled into.

“Do you mind if I use your phone?” Becca asked as Richard turned onto Main Street. “I’d like to call Mrs. Cavendish and let her know we’re on our way. I’m sure she’s worried about Claire.”

“Help yourself.”

She dialed the number. Mrs. Cavendish answered on the first ring. “Hello.”

“It’s me, Becca. I’m bringing Claire home.”

“Is she all right?”

“She’s—very upset, almost catatonic.”

“Oh, my poor baby. He hasn’t hurt her, has he?”

“No, Larry didn’t hurt her, but he should have never taken her up to the Bluffs. I can’t imagine what possessed him.”

“I didn’t mean Larry. I meant that beast. Larry just left. He said Dr. Bryson was holding you and Claire at his castle.”

Becca struggled to contain her anger. “Larry lied, Mrs. Cavendish. Dr. Bryson’s butler is driving us home because Larry was turning violent. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Oh, dear. I was so afraid. I was just about to call the police when you called.”

“Then I’m glad I caught you first. Claire’s okay, but she’ll need her medicine and you may want to call her doctor. Most of all, you need to keep her away from Larry Gayle.”

“You can count on that. He told me he and Claire were going to lunch when they left here in my car. I would have never let him take her to the Bluffs.”

“I know.” Becca’s heart went out to Mrs. Cavendish as she ended the conversation and broke the connection. The family had been through so much. Claire’s abduction, then Mr. Cavendish’s untimely death in a construction site accident. Now Becca was pulling them into more trouble.

When Richard turned the corner onto Front Street, she could see Mrs. Cavendish and Tommy, her teenage son, standing on the porch. As soon as he slowed and pulled to the curb, they rushed down the steps to the car.

Becca jumped from the car and went around to help them get Claire from the back seat. Claire wasn’t trembling anymore, and some of the color had come back to her face, but her eyes were still wide and glazed over, the pupils enlarged.

Tommy practically lifted his sister out of the car and set her down on the sidewalk. “I’m going to give Larry a piece of my mind. You can believe that,” he muttered, supporting most of Claire’s body weight.

Mrs. Cavendish’s eyes were moist and red, and she brushed the back of her sleeve across them. Becca gave her a comforting hug, then leaned against the back fender of the car and watched the three of them, their arms intertwined, slowly climb the steps. This was the house they’d lived in all of Claire’s life. They belonged here. She didn’t.

I want you with me, Becca.

David’s words floated through her mind, as hypnotic and real as if he were here beside her. “Why do you want me?”

“Excuse me.”

“Sorry, Richard. I guess I was talking to myself.” He nodded, as if he understood perfectly.

She couldn’t stay here and she had nowhere else to go—except to a man who’d invaded her mind, stirred passion that she had no idea she was capable of feeling. A man who lived in an isolated castle high on a cliff.

A man whose heart belonged to a dead woman.

Only a fool would make a choice like that. A fool or else a woman who was totally bewitched—or in love.

Chapter Twelve

Becca moved around the small room, packing the last of her clothes and meager belongings into cardboard boxes that Richard had obtained for her from the neighborhood grocer. At first she’d planned on taking only a few essentials, but when she realized how sparse her entire stash of worldly possessions actually amounted to, she decided to pack everything. A woman without a past traveled light.

She’d drop off a few boxes of books, photographs, summer clothes and souvenirs at Threads and take the rest of her belongings with her to the Bluffs. There was certainly plenty of room there. The issue was that if and when she decided to move out of the Bluffs, she didn’t want it to be a major undertaking. Easy come, easy go. That was the only way this could work.

Richard had offered to help with the packing, as had Mrs. Cavendish, but Becca was more comfortable sifting through her own things and saying goodbye to the room and another time in her life that would never return. A rented room wouldn’t mean much to most people, but it was as much home as any Becca could remember.

Although the tiny room didn’t compare to the grandeur of the Bluffs, it had been hers. The Bluffs belonged to David and to Tasha’s memory, perhaps even to Tasha’s ghost. Certainly the spirit of David’s dead fiancée seemed to inhabit the place. Apprehension gathered inside her in prickly sensations and jabbing bouts of nausea. There was a good chance she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

Had Tasha Pierce wondered that same thing when she’d gone to the Bluffs on the last night of her life? Was that why her spirit still roamed the halls and perhaps left cold spots in the house where she’d been supposed to live as Mrs. David Bryson?

She pushed the ridiculous ideas from her mind. It was the attempt on her life and Claire’s emotional state that was spooking her so. The Bluffs was just a house. David Bryson was just a man.

And if she was wrong about that, heaven help her.

“DID YOU CALL DAVID and tell him I was coming home with you?” she asked as Richard pulled away from the Cavendish home, the back seat and the trunk of the car loaded to capacity.

“I did. He seemed pleased, and he said to tell you that you have a visitor on the way.”

“Detective Megham must be determined to see me in spite of our missed appointments.”

“Apparently. The detective says he has important news.”

News—or a warrant for David’s arrest. The apprehension that had been churning inside her settled into full-blown dread as they started toward Threads to drop off a few boxes before heading up Old Mountain Road.

MEGHAM PERCHED ON THE EDGE of the antique Victorian chair in the drawing room, awkwardly, as if he thought the furniture might not support his weight. Becca sat on the sofa, facing him. He’d wanted David to be present for the questioning, but David had refused, saying he was involved in an experiment that he couldn’t leave at the time. The best he could offer was to take part in the discussion via speakerphone.

That bit of news hadn’t surprised Becca. She’d never seen David outside the dark and shadows, and she hadn’t expected he’d just walk into the drawing room as if it was an everyday matter. Megham, however, was obviously irritated that David had refused to show up in person. He finished questioning Becca first, then had Richard get his boss on the phone. His questions to him were pointed and curt.

“I realize murder is not high on your priority list, Dr. Bryson, but I’d like to hear your version of what happened on Old Mountain Road yesterday.”

David wasted no words in describing how he’d heard the crash, then found Becca slumped over the wheel of the wrecked car.

“So you never saw the driver of the other vehicle?” Megham asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t totally believe David.

“That’s what I said.”

“Well, at least you were out of the house. From what I hear, you don’t venture out during the daylight hours.”

“Is my lifestyle part of this investigation?”

“It could be, before it’s all said and done. Why did you bring Becca Smith back to your house instead of taking her home or to the hospital?”

“Is it a crime to take care of a friend after she’s had a bad experience?”

“I’ll ask the questions here, Bryson. You just answer,” Megham sputtered, becoming more flustered by the second. “Why did you bring Becca to the Bluffs?”

“I can answer that,” she said.

Megham stared at her coldly. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“David and I are friends. I was frightened and upset, and he took care of me.”

Megham leaned forward, his bushy brows knitted and drawn tight over his eyes. “You have strange taste in friends.”

“Nonetheless I came here by choice.”

He shook his head, glaring at her as if he thought she’d taken complete leave of her senses.

“So what is this news you mentioned when you called earlier?” Becca asked.

Megham pulled a wrapped cigar out of his shirt pocket, worried it for a few seconds, then stuck it back in his pocket. “We’ve located the car used to force you off the road, or at least what’s left of it.”

“Where?” she asked, springing to full attention.

“On the outskirts of town.”

She sucked in a grateful breath. “Surely if you found the car, you can track it down to its owner.”

“We did. The car was stolen from the driveway of a retired couple down on Armstrong Street. They’re visiting their daughter in Illinois, didn’t even know it was missing until we got the phone number from a neighbor and called them.”

“But the car should have fingerprints.”

“If the guy left prints, they’re destroyed now. He set the vehicle on fire. The only reason we were able to match it to the owner was that the car exploded and sent the license plate careering through space like a missle. It landed a few yards away, basically undamaged.”

Her surge of optimism disappeared as quickly as it had bloomed. “So that leaves us nowhere again.”

“Pretty much.” He finally scooted back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “You know, Becca, you’ve pretty much set yourself up as a target.”

“How is that?” David asked, his voice booming from the speakerphone.

“Hanging out with you. You’re not the most popular man in town, you know?”

“Who Becca chooses as a friend doesn’t give anyone the right to claim open season on her.”

“I’m not saying it does,” Megham answered. “I just think she’d be wise to stay away from you.”

“I’m not just ‘hanging out’ with David, Detective, I’m living at the Bluffs for a while.”

His face hardened into a misshapen sculpture. “Then I’d say you’re making a very big mistake. There’s already been one woman murdered in this town. I’d hate to see you become the second.”

“If idle insinuations are all you have to offer, Megham, I think I’ll get back to work. I’m sure Becca has better things to do with her time, too. I’ll have my butler show you to the door.”

Megham’s face turned a blustery red, but he had no comeback for David. Funny, but in this situation, it was David who seemed the older and wiser of the two men, certainly the one in control. And she felt incredibly young and vulnerable, unsure of herself in every way. But she’d have to grow up fast. Her life might very well depend on it. And the last thing she wanted to become was a pawn in a game orchestrated by a murderer.

ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, two days after Becca had moved in with David Bryson, Brie Pierce sat in the wooden swing on the Cavendish front porch, using her right foot to maintain the steady, hypnotizing motion of the swing. The chains squeaked slightly, and condensation from the glass of lemonade she was holding rolled across her fingers. Claire sat in the birchwood rocker, rocking back and forth and toying with a shredded tissue.

Claire had called and asked her to come by for a few minutes, said she needed to talk to her, but so far Claire had said very little. Still, Brie sensed something different about her, a slight change in the agitation Claire had begun demonstrating after the abduction five years ago.

Brie sipped the lemonade. “Are you still worried about Becca?”

“Not as much as I was, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t staying with David Bryson.”

“My family says the same thing. Have you heard from her since she moved out?”

“She called this morning.”

“How did she sound?”

“The same as always, but I know she’s falling under David’s spell, the same way Tasha did. Sometimes I think he’s McFarland Leary reincarnated.”

“I don’t even want to think about that.” Brie watched a squirrel scurry around the roots of an oak tree, then scamper off across the yard. “You said when you called that you needed to talk.”

Claire chewed on the end of a fingernail, then clasped her hands together in her lap. “I think my memory of the abduction is starting to come back. I’m remembering things that had been lost before, sights and even smells. I remember the same things I’ve always remembered, but everything’s more intense and I seem to move further into the setting, as if I’m there again.”

The words came out in a rush, the syllables running over one another so badly that it took Brie a minute for the message to sink in. When it did, she shuddered and a lump settled in her stomach like a ball of cold wax. “Do you remember a face?”

“No, not yet. But last night I was in my room alone, staring out the window, and I saw myself lying on a gurney in a dark room. I had tubes attached to my arms and one stuck down my throat. I was trying to pull away, but I was so weak I couldn’t move. I opened my mouth to scream and something hot and sticky, like blood, gurgled from my throat and ran down my neck.”

Brie stopped the swing, reached across the space that separated them and took Claire’s hands in hers. “How horrible. Let’s not even talk about it.”

“But I have to remember. I want to remember. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to get past the terror and have any kind of normal life.”

“I guess. I keep thinking about the man who did that to you. I wonder if he’s the man who killed Sally Evers.”

“I wonder the same thing, and sometimes I think I would have been better off if he’d killed me, too.”

“Don’t talk that way. It’s always better to be alive. You’ll get better. I know you will.”

“I keep hoping.”

“You will. I’m just so thankful Geoffrey happened by when he did the other night when you and Becca were almost attacked.”

“He called me yesterday.”

“Really? What did he want?”

“He just asked how I was doing. I don’t know him that well, but he seems such a nice person.”

“I don’t know, Claire. Drew doesn’t fully trust him, not since Dr. Leland Manning was arrested, but then Drew can be a tad suspicious.”

“That’s a politician for you.”

“True, but Geoffrey does seem upset about something, or else he and Drew’s dad have had a falling out we don’t know about. He’s moved down to the family beach house, doesn’t even attend family dinners and celebrations anymore.”

“At any rate, he saved my life, and I was glad for the chance to thank him. I was too upset to have anything to do with him that night.”

“Just don’t trust him too much. That’s all I’m saying. Now, about these memories—have you talked to your doctor about them?”

“Yes, and he agrees that I might be on the brink of remembering vital information.” Claire let go of Brie’s hands and started rocking again, slower this time, as if each movement took effort. “I’m thinking I should go back to the cemetery, that if I stand next to the mausoleum where I was abducted I might finally remember the face of the man who abducted me.”

“It’s too risky. Your emotional state is too fragile. Just give yourself time. You’ll remember when your mind and body are ready.”

“I suppose. It’s just that I’m so worried about Becca.”

“I know. We all are, but Becca’s a very capable woman. I’m sure she didn’t just move into the Bluffs without giving it serious thought.” Brie stood and gave Claire a hug. She couldn’t stay much longer. Drew was speaking to the local teachers association tonight, and he wanted her to go with him. And she loved being at his side. She loved him so.

She wished for that same kind of love for Becca and for Claire one day. But mostly, she just prayed they stayed safe and sane.

BECCA RAN HER fingers along the worn drapes in the drawing room, envisioning the way the room would look when she had the new ones ready to hang. She wished she had more time to devote to the redecorating, but with dresses to finish for the Fall Extravaganza, a couple of weeks absence from Threads was all she could spare right now—time to recover completely from the wreck. Time to adjust to living with David.

Her contact with David had been minimal since moving in. He was in his lab from daybreak until dark, and the few times she’d seen him at all had been from a distance, down the length of one of the dark hallways. Yet she sensed his presence everywhere, his and Tasha’s. And he’d visited her in her dreams every night, each one becoming more and more erotic, as if her unconscious were compensating for his physical slights.

In spite of David’s absence, Richard and the entire staff went out of their way to make her feel welcome, but she knew that the changes around the rambling castle made them all a little nervous. Security was tighter, with newer and even more technically sophisticated equipment mounted at the electric gates and around the property. And the doors to the main house were kept locked, even during the day.

Her arrival had changed the beautiful castle to a guarded fortress, all David’s way of protecting her, though he never mentioned it.

She wandered the hallway, back up the stairs and to the spot where she had felt the rush of cold air before. The hairs on her neck stood on end as a sheet of icy air climbed her spine and seemed to settle deep in her bones. But the house was old. Surely there was a rational explanation for the change in temperature.

She tried the door. It was locked tight, just as it had been before, though she hadn’t encountered any other doors inside the house that were locked.

The cleaning woman was in a room a few doors down the hall. She could hear her walking around, humming a tune as she worked. Her keys were still in the door, dangling from the lock, inviting, beckoning.

Becca looked away, then back again. No one would miss the keys in the seconds it would take her to unlock the other door. As if in a trance, she walked to the open door, slipped her fingers over the keys and silently pulled them from the lock. Hands shaking, she tried several keys in the new lock, finally finding one that turned easily. Then, barely daring to breathe, she turned the knob, pushed the door open and stepped inside the room.

Stepped inside a shrine to Tasha Pierce.

She shivered as her gaze swept the room. It was just as it must have looked five years ago. Bouquets of fresh white roses filled cut-crystal vases. Two champagne flutes set on a silver tray, ready for toasting. And the bridal dress, a frothy concoction of silk and lace, lay across the bed, the train flowing to the floor, the headpiece and veil like a crown above it all.

Everything ready for the bride who had never made it to her wedding.

Becca staggered backward, consumed by an emptiness that left her weak. So much love. So needlessly lost. David and Tasha, soul mates who’d been torn apart by an explosion that had never been explained.

Her mind seemed to travel back in time and link with Tasha’s. Blinking back tears, Becca crossed the room and picked up the exquisite headpiece and veil. She slipped it on, adjusting the veil so that it fell over her face. Then, carefully, as if the fabric might dissolve at her touch, she lifted the wedding dress and held it to her shoulders.

Her reflection stared back at her from the angled floor mirror and she could feel the swish of silk around her legs and ankles. Closing her eyes tight against the light and the glare of reality, she swayed back and forth, envisioned herself dancing with David. The moment was incredibly sweet.

She imagined David’s lips on hers, his hands tangled in her hair, pulling her close. “I love you,” she whispered, not even aware of what she was saying. Only aware of the intensity of the passion that swirled inside her.

“Tasha!”

She opened her eyes with a start and stared at the man who stood in front of her, seeing him for the first time in the bright light of day. It was a sight she would never forget.

Chapter Thirteen

The wedding dress slipped from Becca’s shaking fingers and pooled at her feet. David’s eyes were dark, penetrating, his gaze so intense, she felt as if he held her with some invisible force. She was conscious of the thick locks of dark hair that fell across his brow, of the scar that ran down the side of his face, of the jut of his strong jaw, but they were drowned in the emotions that swelled and churned inside her.

“You had no business coming into this room, Becca.” His voice was bitter, accusing.

“I’m sorry, David. I’m really sorry.” She took a step toward him, but he turned away and faced the wall.

“Just get out of here. That’s all I ask. Leave me some small shred of pride.”

Bending, she picked up the dress and spread it across the bed just as she’d found it.

“Are you happy now, Becca? You wanted to see the hideous wound and now you have. It’ll make a great horror story to tell your friends on dark, stormy nights.”

“The scar’s not so bad, David.”

“It made you sick to look at it. Do you think I’m blind, that I didn’t see the repulsion that turned your stomach? You couldn’t even look at me.”

“It was just the initial shock. It’s not important. It’s not who you are.”

“It’s all I am. All that’s left of me. Now, please leave this room, Becca. You have free run of the rest of the house and I’ll make certain you never have to face me again.”

“Would you like me to leave the Bluffs?”

“No. Please, don’t go. You’ll be safe here.”

Safe but alone. She ached to go to him and wrap her arms around him. But he stood with his back to her, his stature ramrod straight.

“Don’t climb back into your shell, David. Please. Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

But he was. He was going back to some dark place inside himself where she’d never be able to find him. A place where only memories of Tasha lived and a time when he’d been whole and free. Back to a life that had no room for her or any of the outside world.

He had never been hers, and yet her heart seemed to be drying up inside her as she left the room and walked away. Even from a watery grave, Tasha had won.

DAVID STOOD IN THE HALLWAY watching Becca, his insides a massive bundle of raw nerves and ragged pain. When he’d stepped inside the door and seen Becca standing there, he’d almost lost his grip on reality. For a second his mind had seen Tasha, and the past had come down and buried him under a rush of cruel memories.

When the moment had passed, he’d lashed out at Becca, the last person he’d ever wanted to hurt. But at best he was only a mangled, twisted shell of a man. Now Becca had seen that for herself. He’d witnessed the shock in her eyes and then he’d watched them change to pity. It was almost more than he could bear.

He should have never given into the desires that had driven him, never sought her out in the dark of night. His obsession for her had been unquenchable. It still was.

Even now, he ached to go to her and take her in his arms. Longed to make love with her as if it was the last night of the world. But she’d never want him the way he wanted her.

He swallowed his painful need for her, knew he’d go to the secret bookcase opening that led to the cavernous catacombs hidden below the house in the bowels of the earth. He’d failed everyone in his life who’d ever mattered, and the dank, musky chamber below the earth was the only place that truly welcomed him now.

But at least Becca was safe. He could do that much for her if he couldn’t do anything else. He closed the door to “Tasha’s” room and turned the key in the lock without looking back. Tasha wasn’t in there. She was dead. More than ever, he rued the day he hadn’t died with her.

THE NEXT TWO DAYS PASSED in a miserable silence. There was no news from Megham about the man who had run Becca from the road or tried to attack her and Claire, and there had been no arrest in the death of Sally Evers. Worse, Becca hadn’t even seen David, though she’d heard him talking to Richard and knew he still went to town every night.

Becca had worked on the plans for redecorating the Bluffs, but her heart was no longer in the project. She just wanted to see David, all of him, scar included. She missed him so.

Feeling too restless to do any kind of meaningful work, she walked to the back door just off the kitchen. Taking the key ring Richard had given her from her pocket, she fit a small bronze key into the lock, turned it, then stepped outside, careful to relock the door behind her. Fluffy white clouds floated overhead, but the sun was hot and had already burned away the early morning fog. Walking gingerly, she made her way down the brick path to the edge of the cliff where she had seen David scattering white roses a few days earlier.

Standing at the top of the cliff, she studied the waters below. Along most of the area’s shoreline, a pounding surf splashed over dangerous rocks, but in this spot the cove was protected, almost serene. The perfect spot to moor a small yacht. The spot where the fatal explosion had occurred.

She rubbed her eyes as strange images assaulted her mind. Fire and smoke. The sound of splintering wood and boards crashing into the sea. The smell of burning flesh and gasoline. She rocked backward, almost losing her balance, then reached out and grabbed the sharp edge of a huge boulder to steady herself.

No wonder David could never forget the night Tasha was killed. Becca hadn’t even been there and yet she felt the terror churning inside her just thinking about what it must have been like. Was this what Tasha’s family felt when they thought about that night? If so, it was easy to understand why Tasha’s parents and the rest of the Pierces couldn’t let go of the loss enough to forgive David.

She turned at the sound of neighing and spotted David sitting on the back of his horse a few yards away. He looked different. His shaggy hair had been cut and he was clean shaven though he wore a cloak with a hood that covered most of his scar. Still, he took her breath away, and she stood for long moments just staring at him before she noticed another horse, saddled and waiting behind him.

“It’s a perfect morning for a ride,” he said. “Besides, I thought you might be getting cabin fever. I had the stable hand saddle Stardust for you. She’s gentle but spirited. I think you’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I will.” She walked over to the filly, crooning as she did and moving slowly so as not to frighten the majestic animal. “Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?”

“It means I’ve missed you.”

His voice was husky, low, seductive, and warmth seeped inside her and tugged at her heart. She ached to have him climb down from his horse, take her in his arms and smother her with kisses the way he had the other night.

“I’ve missed you, too.” She took Stardust’s reins and hoisted her foot into the saddle. “I’m ready for anything, Dr. Bryson.”

THE DAY WAS GOLDEN, brilliant sunshine, leaves tinged with every shade of red imaginable, and as far as David was concerned, all of it paled when compared to the splendor of the woman riding a few feet in front of him. Her long silky hair was pulled up in a knot, and loose tendrils cascaded down and wound into tight curls that bounced along the regal lines of her neck.

It had been pure hell staying away from her the last few days. For five years he’d managed just fine without a woman, but now his body seemed to have adopted a mind of its own. No matter how often he told himself that he had no business even thinking of making love to her, he thought of almost nothing else. He thought of his lips on hers, his hands roaming the soft curves of her neck, fitting over the soft mounds of her breasts, touching and teasing and making her ache for him the way he ached for her.

But there was no way to think of making love to her without remembering how she’d reacted to the sight of his scar. And that was not the worst of what he had to offer.

She reined in Stardust and waited for him to catch up to her. “This is such a beautiful spot. Can we dismount and talk for a while?”

Talk. He’d heard somewhere that the four scariest words a man could hear from a woman were “we need to talk.” He’d never realized before now how true that was. “I’m not much of a talker,” he said, climbing out of the saddle.

“I’ve noticed.”

He helped her dismount, then tied the two horses to a low-hanging branch. She walked ahead of him, stopping at a flat area covered with a thick carpet of dried leaves.

“It seems so peaceful out here, as if we’re a million miles away from all the trouble that’s plagued me and Moriah’s Landing,” she said, dropping to a sitting position.

“What shall we talk about?”

“You.”

“Bad boy from the wrong side of the wharf transformed to doctor scientist and then to the beast on the hill. You already know all of that. What else is there to tell?”

“I’d like to know how you can kiss me senseless one minute and pull away the next, why you seek me out to take me horseback riding after going to such lengths to avoid me for the last two days. Is it that you’re embarrassed by your scar, because you’re afraid of getting involved, or just that you’re still in love with Tasha?”

“It’s just that I recognize my own weaknesses and I accept the truth. Remember that I’m much older than you.”

“If you accept the truth, why are still hiding behind that hood and cloak?”

“You just don’t give up, do you?”

“I can’t, David.” She reached up, took his hand and tugged him down beside her. “I probably shouldn’t care for you, but I do. I care a lot, but before I get in any deeper I need to know if there’s a chance for us.”

He took a deep breath, deluged by feelings and needs he didn’t understand. But Becca was right. It was time for the truth, for both their sakes. He squeezed her hand, then dropped it as his mind slid into the past. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Just start where it feels right.”

“Then I’ll have to start with Tasha.”

Becca felt a sinking sensation, a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. It seemed ludicrous to be jealous of a dead woman, yet she knew that she was. Jealous, but mostly just unsure whether or not David would ever allow himself to love her or anyone else, or if he planned to live on Tasha’s memory for the rest of his life.

Leaves crunched beneath his feet as the heels of his black boots dug into the soft earth. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“I need to hear it.”

He hesitated, his lips pressed together, then finally took a deep breath as if he were about to dive into the sea. “I met Tasha in town a few months after I bought the Bluffs. I knew I was too old for her, but I couldn’t deny the attraction or turn down her invitation to go sailing with her and some of her friends. From that moment on, I was hooked. I know falling in love so fast sounds crazy, but that’s how it happened.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy to me.” But it would have before she met David. It was all in a person’s frame of reference. “I take it her parents disapproved of your dating.”

“To put it mildly. Her family already hated me, insisted I had bought the Bluffs right out from under them while they were waiting for it to go to auction for back taxes. Apparently the deed was in Geoffrey Pierce’s name and he mortgaged it to the hilt when he ran up some gambling debts. The family was sure no one else in town could afford it, and intended to buy it back and keep it in the family.”

“Did you know the family planned to buy it back?”

“No. All I knew was that it was up for sale at a good price. It needed some work, and it was much larger and far more lavish than I was looking for, but like everyone else who grew up in Moriah’s Landing, I was always awed by the place. And it was the only place available that was large enough to house a full working lab.”

“So even then you planned to work as well as live here?”

“Absolutely. I was going to use the money I’d made through my breakthroughs in genetic research to bring in promising young research scientists and provide them with room, board and enough grant money to live on. I envisioned this place as a mecca for genetic studies that would hopefully lead to major developments in the prevention and cures of terminal illnesses.”

“It could still be that.”

“Maybe one day.” But his tone and the shrug of his shoulders indicated he doubted that would ever happen.

“How did Tasha feel about all of that?” she asked.

“She was as excited as I was, thought it was time Moriah’s Landing was known for something besides witches and unsolved murders.”

“Were you involved with the town’s secret medical society?”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing, really. I’ve just heard about it.”

“From whom?”

“I don’t remember. Kat and Elizabeth were talking about it one night. I think some of the Pierces are members, but I’ve never been sure if it’s actually a medical society or merely a social club.”

“It’s neither, but to answer your question, I checked it out when I first came back to Moriah’s Landing, was in it just long enough to realize that I wanted no part of it.”

“Because it involved some of the Pierces?”

“Because it involved unethical research projects—and worse. I’m just beginning to discover how much worse.”

His eyes grew darker, shadowed, and Becca felt as if he were changing before her eyes, revisiting his own demons and transforming into the beast everyone took him for. Pinpricks of cold needled her skin, like a spray of finely crushed ice.

“But in spite of all of that, you and Tasha planned to marry and live here in the Bluffs, practically neighbors with the rest of the Pierces.”

“She gave her family an ultimatum. Either accept me or lose her. They chose her, at least her parents did. They loved her very much, and she loved them. They wanted to throw an elaborate wedding at the Pierce compound, but Tasha insisted on a garden wedding at the Bluffs—the wedding that never happened.”

He stared into space, and Becca felt his pain as if it had somehow been transferred to her by osmosis. Tears pooled in her eyes and she brushed at them with the back of her hand. One minute, he’d been on top of the world. The next he’d fallen into a black abyss that must have seemed bottomless.

“It was Tasha’s face that kept me going during those first nights after the explosion when the pain was so excruciating I wanted to die. And then, when the doctors finally decided I was well enough to know the truth, they told me that Tasha had died that night in the explosion. Her body was never found, only ripped fragments of her clothing that had washed up on the beach, some pieces far down the coast.”

Becca searched inside herself, trying to think of something to say, but the only phrases she could think of sounded trite. So she reached out to him with touch. She took one of his hands and held it between hers, though he didn’t seem to notice.

“I begged the doctors to let me die, too. If I’d had the strength, I would have taken my own life. Instead I dissolved into the pain. Then, when I finally saw myself in the mirror, I realized Tasha was the lucky one. She would never have to see the deformed freak I had become. The flesh was literally burned from the right side of my face and parts of my stomach. I’ve had countless skin grafts, so many operations I’ve long since quit counting them.”

She lay her head on his shoulder, her heart aching for him. No wonder he’d locked himself away for years and come out only at night. “You’re not a freak, David, nor a beast.”

“How can you say that now that you’ve seen me?”

“Because I mean it. There’s so much more to you, I could forget the scar is even there.”

“Could you?”

“Yes. But that still leaves one big unanswered question. Are you still in love with Tasha?”

“I haven’t forgotten her.”

“No, I’m sure you never will, but that’s not what I asked.”

He let go of her hand and seemed to draw back into himself. “I know she’s dead and that she won’t be coming back. But I can’t let go of that night, not until I find the man responsible for the explosion. He has to be punished. I owe Tasha that.”

“But the police investigation concluded that the explosion was an accident.”

“That was only after they couldn’t find a way to pin it on me. No evidence of a bomb was ever found, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. I’m convinced the explosion was deliberate.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I kept the boat in perfect condition and I had checked everything for the honeymoon trip. If there had been any kind of malfunction or leak, I would have caught it. As far as I’m concerned, the only rational explanation is that someone planted explosives on the boat.”

“But why would someone do such a horrible thing to Tasha or to you?”

“Tasha was never meant to die. She wasn’t even supposed to be at the house that night, much less at the boat. The wedding was scheduled for ten the next morning. We’d had an afternoon prewedding party at her parents’ house, and the plans were for her to spend the evening with her parents and attendants and then go to bed early. I was going to stock the boat for our honeymoon trip.”

“What changed her plans?”

“She was young and impetuous. She showed up at the boat, said she had to have some time alone with me. We started kissing and couldn’t stop.”

Becca understood that sensation all too well. Even now, in spite of everything, she wanted David, wanted him the same way Tasha must have wanted him that night. The last night of her life.

“We made love that night for the very first time, the only time. Then, when I was telling her goodbye, the boat exploded in a storm of fire and wood and metal, all raining down on us at once. That’s the last thing I remember.” His voice grew husky, and he exhaled sharply.

But she couldn’t let this go—not yet. “And you think that explosion was planned and executed by someone who knew you’d be on the boat?”

“It makes sense, though I haven’t been able to find one lead in the case. That’s what’s driving me positively mad. The answers have to be right here, yet I’ve looked for five years and can find nothing. I dragged her into the danger, and I let her die.”

“Tasha’s death wasn’t your fault, David. You can’t go on blaming yourself forever.”

“I may not have caused her death, but I didn’t stop it.”

His breathing grew ragged, and his voice cracked. The hopeless frustration and desperation were driving him positively mad. But it wasn’t his fault. None of it had ever been his fault, no more than what had happened to her had been her fault.

“Please, David, take off the hood. Give me a chance to love the man you are.”

He winced, then removed it from his head and let it fall against his cape. The scar was brutal, the flesh pink and puckered, but none of it mattered.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, knowing that no matter what she’d said about not letting herself care too much, she already did. Like Tasha, it was as if she was meant to love him.

They held each other for long precious moments. She stroked the back of his head, his shoulders, the corded muscles in his back. The wind whispered against her cheeks. A bird sang. A brown leaf floated down and landed on her leg.

And then David’s lips were on hers, and the world ceased to exist. She floated in a sea of desire, aware of nothing except the emotions that swirled inside her. Their breaths mingled, their bodies pressed against each other, and nothing that she could remember had ever felt so right. When he finally pulled away, they were both struggling for breath and for at least a slim hold on reality.

“Whatever you do, David, don’t apologize for kissing me, not this time.”

“I wasn’t going to.” His fingers trailed a line down her cheekbone and then pressed against her kiss-swollen lips. “I do think we should get back to the house, though, before I start kissing you again and can’t stop with just kisses.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Not for me. I’m just not sure it would be right for you, not yet.”

He held her close, and she felt him shudder. She didn’t know the full truth about him yet. She was certain of it, but she was just as certain that she’d fallen in love with him. Whatever demons he faced, she could face them with him, as long as she felt his love the way she did at this minute, as long as he didn’t pull away and withdraw from her life.

Arm in arm, they walked back to the horses. The words “I love you” hummed inside her, but she didn’t say them aloud. She’d save them until she knew the time was right. Hopefully, that would be soon.

THEY TOOK THE LONG WAY back to the Bluffs, riding the crest of the cliff for a while. Azure waters stretched as far as she could see to the east. To the west, the landscape jutted and dipped into rolling grassy hills bordered by woodlands. The air was brisk and invigorating, alive with the smells and sounds of autumn in New England. It was amazing that a day that had started out so badly had turned glorious—all because she was with David. And because they’d talked and kissed and, for the very first time, he’d really opened up to her about his past, shared his hurt, let her see not only the wound and scar that defined the body, but the man inside the body. She still had no guarantee that he felt the same way she did or that he’d ever be ready to move on with his life, but at least she understood him better, and she had to believe there was a chance the two of them could make it as a couple.

Becca Smith. No one from no where, a part of a couple. That in itself was a miracle.

“Hold up a minute,” David said, pulling his horse to a dead stop. He’d been riding a few feet in front of her, leading the way, but now his attention was focused on something on the ground. Her gaze followed his to a trail of red. Blood? Maybe.

“What is it?” she asked as the mood shifted from near euphoria to one of dread.

“It’s probably just a wounded animal, but I want to check it out.”

“Wounded animals can be dangerous.”

“I’ll be careful. Wait here.” He dismounted and secured his horse, then pulled a gun from a leather saddlebag.

“When did you start carrying a gun?”

“At the same time I increased the security for my estate.” He disappeared into an area of heavy brush.

She waited for a moment, but as the seconds ticked by with no call from David, the dread became tangible, a nagging uneasiness that riddled her resolve. The body of a young woman—off Old Mountain Road, close to David Bryson’s property. Only this wasn’t near David’s property. It was on his land. Behind a tall stone fence with an electric gate and surveillance cameras. Whatever David had found, it couldn’t possibly be another body.

Yet her heart pounded against the walls of her chest as she slid from the saddle and tied Stardust to the branch of a maple tree before setting off to follow him into the woods. When he heard her coming, he took a step backward, his arms outstretched to halt her progress.

“You don’t want to see this, Becca.”

Chapter Fourteen

David’s warning came too late. Becca had already seen the body, stretched out on the grass, the woman’s arms and legs twisted at a bizarre angle, a silver-handled knife protruding from her chest. She fell against a tree trunk and grabbed her stomach. She knew she was going to be sick, but there was not one thing she could do about it.

David pulled a clean white handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. She wiped her face, then forced herself to take another look at the body, as shock and nausea gave way to a sick realization. “I know her—knew her.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know her name, but I’ve seen her before. In Wheels, I think.”

“Victim number two. Looks like our guy is a serial killer.”

“Just like twenty years ago.” She walked over to stand by David, still shaking inside, but regaining a bit of her equilibrium. “But how could he get the body in here? He’d have had to hoist it over the fence and drag it all the way back here. There’s no way he could have gotten a vehicle through the gate.”

“My guess is she came willingly.”

“I don’t follow.”

“People scale the fence all the time, sneak in to get a look at the beast in his lair. I’ve had kids actually camp out here, a kind of coming-of-age ritual, or an initiation.”

“You mean the way Claire had to go inside the mausoleum?”

“Something like that.”

“Then you think someone lured the woman here and then killed her?”

“It would have been the easiest way, since we know they didn’t come through the gate.”

“What kind of monster would do that?”

“The same kind who killed Sally Evers. Don’t touch anything. From the looks of the coloring and the texture of the skin, I’d say this body is still warm. We don’t want to do anything to contaminate the crime scene. The prints should be fresh enough to lift.”

“Unless he wore gloves.”

“Even then there could be some way to identify the killer. DNA can be taken from something as seemingly insignificant as one of the killer’s hairs.”

“You do know that Detective Megham’s first suspect will be you.”

“As always. For twenty years I’ve been the scapegoat for everything bad that’s ever happened in Moriah’s Landing. I’m surprised they didn’t try to blame my own mother’s death on me.”

“Was she murdered?”

“No. She died of an overdose of pain pills when I was seventeen. She had a form of cancer that was incurable, and I don’t think she could take living anymore when all she had to look forward to was pain and death. But I think it’s the only thing that happened back then I didn’t get blamed for.”

Becca started to walk away but couldn’t keep herself from stealing one last look at the body. “There’s something carved on her stomach. Initials.”

He stooped for a better look. “M.L.”

“McFarland Leary.” Something snapped inside her and a shudder ripped though her. “The killer really is the same man who ran me off the road the other day, David. He has to be. Why else would the driver have been wearing that hideous Leary mask?”

“This is all speculation, Becca. Let’s just go back to the house and call Megham. This is better left in the hands of the police.”

She was shaking as he led her away, her heart breaking for the young woman whose body lay a few feet away. As few as a couple of hours ago, she could have been alive, laughing and scaling the wall with some man she trusted, maybe was even attracted to. A man with no conscience, who could kill over and over again and never look back.

What kind of man would commit such acts? And how in the world were they going to stop him before she became his victim? He’d already picked her out. Had followed her and Claire home from the restaurant the other night, run her off the road on Sunday. It was the same man. She was sure of it. She didn’t know how she knew with such certainty, but she did.

THE INTERVIEW WITH Detective Megham went pretty much as David had anticipated. The man had already made up his mind, and now that he had a bit of evidence to go with his faulty conclusions, he would go after an arrest warrant. Number one—the person who stumbles across a body is always a prime suspect. Two, the body was found on his property. And lastly, he had no alibi for the morning up until the time he took Becca horseback riding.

David wasn’t worried about the arrest warrant. They could haul him in and question him all they wanted. When his twenty-four hours were up, they wouldn’t have the evidence to justify holding him any longer—unless they manufactured some. That was always a possibility, but he didn’t see Megham as the kind of guy who’d go that far.

But the biggest problem was that while Megham worked at putting him away, the real killer was out there, no doubt planning his next attack. And that could very well be against Becca.

“That man is really beginning to irritate me,” Becca said the minute the door closed behind Megham.

“I think that’s his plan,” David said.

“He’s so set on arresting you that he didn’t even comment on your suggestion that the woman might have come here willingly with the killer.”

“He’s probably already figured that out, as well.”

“I know the killer is the same man who tried to attack Claire and me the other night and then ran me off the road. The mask, the initials. It all adds up.”

“But if it’s the same man, then he’s using a completely different style with you, and that’s very unusual for a serial killer. It’s as if he’s singled you out, has taken more risks to get to you.”

David pulled a black notebook from his pocket and started making notes, talking out loud while he wrote. “A man who doesn’t buy into the town’s hype of a ghost who rose from the dead to kill young maidens, but is crazy enough to play along with the idea.”

“Or else it really is McFarland Leary.”

“You surely don’t believe in ghosts.”

“I didn’t.” Now she wasn’t sure. Half the time she felt as if Tasha’s ghost still roamed the halls of the Bluffs, that Tasha had entered her mind, haunted her so that she felt Tasha’s emotions instead of her own, the way she had when looking over the water where Tasha had been killed. The way she had when she’d held Tasha’s wedding dress to her shoulders. And if Tasha’s ghost was still present, then McFarland Leary’s could be as well.

“The ghost of McFarland Leary.” The name rolled off of David’s tongue as if he were introducing the ghoul. “It’s the perfect setup, especially since a lot of people around here still believe that Leary was responsible for the original murders.”

“It’s bloodcurdling.”

He took her hands in his. “I don’t want you to leave the house unless I know where you’re going and unless I know you’re properly protected. And if I’m not here to protect you, then Richard will be in charge.”

“Why wouldn’t you be here?”

“Because if Megham has his way, I’ll be in jail, at least for questioning.”

Fear, dread, anger—a collage of emotions she didn’t begin to understand—collided inside her. “It’s like the fairy tale where the prejudiced mob comes after the beast just because they don’t understand him. And you’re not a beast at all. They are. Megham is.”

“I’m not a murderer. As long as you know that I can live with what Megham thinks.”

“I know you’d never even hurt anyone, at least not intentionally.” She buried her head against his chest, wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight as he rocked her to him. Up until a few days ago, David Bryson had been the intriguing stranger on the hill, a man who’d stalked her mind by day and haunted her dreams at night.

Now he’d become her protector. And still she wanted more. No matter what danger lay outside the stone fence and guarded gate, she wanted David Bryson in her life.

CLAIRE CAVENDISH TOSSED and turned in her sleep as the habitual nightmare claimed her mind and body. The tomb was black, moldy, the putrid odor of decay clutching her every breath. Spiderwebs brushed across her face and adhered to her eyelashes, a gossamer veil that refused to be whisked away.

Someone grabbed her from behind, the way she knew he would, the way he always did. He clasped his hand over her mouth, silencing her scream, as the smell of whiskey burned her nostrils and mixed with the horror that heaved inside her.

She tried to break away, but he picked her up. A second later, they disappeared into the cold, narrow pathway that tunneled beneath the rocks and ended up out near the cliffs. When they exited, a gust of wind tore at her hair and plastered it against her face. It picked up the leaves and tossed them into a whirlwind of motion, the sudden gale moaning its way around the rocks, the desolate sound of the foghorn blaring in the distance.

Her friends were back at the cemetery, in their circle, holding hands. They would never know what had happened to her, never know that she’d been stolen from the mausoleum by the devil himself and taken straight to hell.

Claire woke with a start, her breath so shallow and fast, she felt as if she were suffocating. She knew at once it was only the dream, but something was different. She’d covered new ground, gone deeper into the recesses of her memory than she’d ever gone before.

She tried to think back. There had to be something about the man that would identify him. A voice. A smell. Something in his touch.

But there was nothing. Even though she’d finally got past the first horrible moment of contact, her mind was still protecting her from the full truth of what had happened during the time she’d been with the monster.

Kicking back the tangled sheets, she stretched her feet to the floor, flicked on the lamp by her bed and reached for her diary. She had to write everything down while it was fresh in her mind. Some people might say it was just a dream, that it meant nothing.

Claire was convinced it was much more. It was her way back to the living. Once she knew who had stolen her youth and her mind, once he was behind bars, she’d at least have a chance of moving past the dread that seemed to suck the very life from her.

She wished she could talk to Becca again, but Becca had moved into the Bluffs, moved in with a man who might not even be human. “Take care, Becca,” she whispered into the quiet of the night. “Please take care of yourself.”

ONCE DETECTIVE MEGHAM LEFT, David had gone straight to his lab and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. But, for the first time since Becca had moved into the Bluffs, he had joined her for dinner. Richard had gone into town, saying he had plans for the evening, but she knew he was giving them time to be alone.

They’d both avoided talk of serial killers and security and finding the body. Instead, they chose topics more favorable to digestion. The weather and the house itself.

Right after dinner, David had disappeared again and she hadn’t seen him since. Now, bathed and dressed in her prettiest nightshirt, she sat on the edge of the bed and thumbed through a copy of National Geographic. And the file on Joyce Telatia that she’d found in David’s library found its way into her mind.

Why would David have collected so much material on a woman who’d been killed twenty years ago? And what had spawned his fascination with murders and serial killers, prompted him to fill the shelves of his library with books on the subject? Surely, there was some logical explanation.

Or was there the slightest chance that she was truly bewitched by a phantom or perhaps a mortal with two completely different personalities? One—a man who was tortured by loss. The other—a man who could kill in cold blood and show no remorse. And if that were true, did he even suspect the truth about himself?

“Becca.”

She jumped to a sitting position at the sound of David’s voice.

“I noticed your light was on and thought I’d stop in and say good-night. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I was just looking at a magazine.” She tossed the National Geographic to the bedside table.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“It’s late.”

“True, but you’re awake, and so am I.” His voice was like a silken spray, covering her from head to toe, caressing. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. “You’re beautiful, Becca. So young.” His fingers trailed her face. “So soft.”

The fears from a few minutes ago surfaced, then drowned in the desire that coursed through her as David’s fingers trailed a path down her neck, to the exposed cleavage at her collar. “I tried to stay away from you. I just can’t. I’ve wanted to make love to you since the first night I saw you.”

“Why me, David? I’m just a seamstress. A nobody. Why do you want me?”

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. All I know is that you’ve taken over my mind and my will. You’re all I can think about.”

And then his lips were on hers. Soft, coaxing, then growing hard and demanding. But his hunger was no more than her own as he eased her back to the bed, then lifted her feet to the top of the quilt and stretched out beside her. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, as his fingers worked the buttons loose on her nightshirt.

Her body was on fire now, flashes of intense heat and desire so strong it took her breath away. Her hands roamed his shoulders and back as her nightshirt fell open and she lay totally exposed to David’s mouth and hands and eyes.

His fingers raked across her breasts and past her waist. “You’re so perfect. So beautiful. Just lie back and let me make love to you, Becca.”

She couldn’t have refused had she wanted to, and she didn’t want to. Her body craved him, her mind so possessed by him that she felt as if they were already one.

She moaned softly as his fingers skimmed the curves of her body, lingering over each breast, making her nipples pebble-hard before taking them in his mouth one by one. And then his hands splayed across her stomach, his thumbs moving in concentric circles, stirring her so that her insides seemed to be melting.

She arched to him as he lowered his mouth to her body and sent her spiraling to the top, then over the edge. She moaned in sweet relief and tried to catch her breath as her heart thundered inside her chest.

“Did you like it?” David whispered when she cuddled against him, content in the afterglow.

“I loved it.” And still her words were an understatement. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. “Now it should be your turn.” She tangled her fingers in the buttons of his shirt.

“Not tonight.”

His words were uneven, scratchy, as if he were trying desperately to tamp down the same desires that had driven her wild just a few seconds earlier. She started to push for an explanation, then stopped and grew cold at the possibility that flooded her mind.

He’d been in a terrible explosion. He’d lost part of his face, but what else had he lost? The idea that he could never make love again felt like weights on her chest, crushing her lungs.

“Don’t look so horrified, Becca. I told you. I’ve learned to live with the life fate’s handed me. But I won’t expose you to such a sight.”

“Is that all you’re talking about, just some burned flesh that you think is unattractive? Is that the reason you won’t make love to me all the way?”

“It’s reason enough.”

“Not for me, David. And it shouldn’t be for you. I don’t care what you look like. I care about us.”

He jerked to a standing position and looked down at her, his face hardened into lines of granite, his dark eyes as piercing as a sword. “Okay, Becca. You win. And once again, I’m going to lose.”

In one frantic motion, he jerked his shirt open, the buttons tearing loose and bouncing across the floor. “Look at me, Becca, and then tell me you’d ever want to make love with a man who looks like this.”

Becca gasped, then averted her gaze, hating herself for not being able to hide the initial shock. Once the shock abated, it wasn’t repulsion she felt but an overwhelming sense of sadness for the pain David must have suffered and the anguish he felt now.

He clutched the shirt with both hands and jerked it back together, covering the ribbed area of pinkish, curdled flesh that swept across his belly. “So you see, the people in town were right all along. I am a beast.” He hesitated, then looked up and let his gaze lock with hers. “I’m sorry, Becca. For everything.”

His apology ground inside her, tearing at her like a vicious cat might tear at its prey. “A burn like that must have hurt terribly,” she said, trying desperately to keep her voice on a steady keel.

“It did. But that was the kind of pain that pills could help. Looking in the mirror every day hurts far more.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen a plastic surgeon.”

“Several. Grafting new skin is a long, painful process at best. I haven’t had the best. My body rejects a lot of the grafts and I’ve had serious problems with bacterial infections following many of the surgeries. It seems that after all the work on my face, my body has just decided it’s had enough for a while. The doctors are optimistic that over time they can make me less of a ghoul, but there are no guarantees.”

“There are no guarantees about any part of life, David. Not for you, or me, and there certainly were none for the two women who were brutally murdered. But as long as we’re alive, we have to keep fighting.”

“So they say.” He turned away but stopped and leaned one hand against the door frame, his head hung low, the defeat weighing down every part of his body.

“Don’t go, David. Please, don’t go.”

“Stay and see you pity me? Watch you try to make yourself touch me when the very sight of me makes you sick to your stomach? No thanks.”

“Then go. Sit by yourself and wallow in self-pity. You obviously don’t have a clue how I feel, anyway.”

“Are you saying the sight of my mangled skin doesn’t repulse you?” It was more of a challenge than a question.

“It’s ugly and it’s unfortunate. But I’d want you, David Bryson, even if you sprouted green antennae or an extra nose.”

He shook his head, his expression reflecting just how incredible he thought her reaction. “How could you possibly want me to stay after what you’ve just seen?”

“It’s simple. I love you.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but they’d slipped out, and now that she’d said them, she was glad. She did love him, and she was certain she’d never wanted any man the way she wanted him right now.

He turned back to her, still clutching his shirt so that the worst of his stomach was covered. “I have nothing to offer a woman like you, Becca.”

“I didn’t say it was smart or right to love you. I only said that I do.” She stood and took a few steps, stopping just in front of him. Fitting her fingers around the edges of the front placket, she pushed the shirt open.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I do. I have to do it for me. I can’t pick and choose parts of you to love.” She splayed her hands across the wound, amazed how easy it was to do. Awed by the fact that desire coursed through her with the power of an ocean current.

He shuddered at her touch, and when she looked up at him, his eyes were closed tight, moisture pooling in the corners. And then he wrapped his arms around her and his lips found hers. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her down in the center of it before climbing in beside her.

He kissed her mouth, her face, her eyes, then trailed downward and buried his lips in the hollow of her neck. As always his kisses set her on fire.

They made love in a frenzied tangling of arms and legs and heated touches that left her breathless. The dreams of him had been erotic beyond anything she could have imagined, but feeling him inside her was a million times more exciting. They came together with a hunger so intense, she forgot explosions and killers and danger.

All she knew was that she was finally one with David. And it was perfect.

THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE of the Bluffs changed after that night of making love. In spite of the danger lurking all around, in spite of the knowledge that Megham was probably working on getting an arrest warrant, in spite of the body of the killer’s latest victim being found on the grounds, David seemed more relaxed than at any point since she’d met him.

She wasn’t sure if it was the actual act of consummation—as glorious as it was—that had made the difference in him or if it was the fact that he’d gotten past showing her the damaged flesh that he’d thought would totally repulse her. Whatever the reason for his change in mood, she couldn’t help but smile as she sat across the dinner table in the cozy garden room.

“Will you be working in the lab tonight?” she asked, when David had finished the last morsel of chocolate cake.

“No. I plan to spend the next few hours going over some notes and files.”

She swirled the last few drops of coffee in her cup, then finished it. “What kind of old notes?”

“Pieces to a puzzle that never quite fit.”

“I take it you don’t mean an actual jigsaw puzzle.”

“No. A twenty-year-old murder mystery. A mad bomber. Records of doctors with sick minds.”

“Why such an interest in a murder that took place twenty years ago.”

“The whole town’s curious, as are the multitude of tourists who flock here every year. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It just doesn’t seem like you.”

“You’re right. I’m interested in Joyce Telatia and the other victims because I think there’s a chance they could be connected to the explosion that killed Tasha.”

She found his answer incredible. “How would they be connected?”

“There are things that have gone on in this town for twenty years, illegal, immoral, unethical things, and they involve some of the most upstanding citizens. Some have been uncovered, but not all. A lot of people still have a tremendous amount to lose.”

“Is this connected to the secret medical society that we talked about before?”

“Possibly. It’s a tangled maze, but I can’t go pointing fingers without facts to back them up.”

“Who do you think is behind it?”

“This isn’t fit after-dinner conversation, Becca, and there’s no reason for you to take on these problems when you already have so much to deal with. When the killer is caught and your life has settled down again, I’ll fill you in on the details, that is, if you’re still interested. Now, I suggest we finish our coffee before it gets cold. I still have work to do tonight.”

She tried to make light conversation, but the mood had been destroyed. But she stayed at the table after David finished and left, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee and trying to imagine what possible connection the unsolved murders of twenty years ago could have on Tasha’s death.

Some people in town believed David had killed those three women. Some probably believed he was the madman serial killer who’d killed the two women in the last few days. Others would be sure it was McFarland Leary himself or some deranged psychotic who thought himself to be Leary.

Finally she left the table and walked the long hall to the staircase that led to the library where she had first seen the file. She spent the next hour perusing copies of book on true crime and medical and psychiatric studies on the minds of serial killers. The material was chilling, and she shivered as she stopped in front of the one bookcase she hadn’t looked at before.

She pulled out a heavy volume. Her fingernail brushed a bump at the back of the bookcase. Stooping, she looked to see what she’d touched and saw a smooth black knob. She hesitated for only a second before she pushed it. A second later the bookshelves slid apart and a wooden door appeared.

Hands shaking, she opened the door and stared into a dark tunnel that disappeared into total blackness. A million questions swam in her mind. Serial killers, Joyce Telatia, rumors that David Bryson was a madman who killed innocent women in cold blood, even his fiancée.

Questions without answers. Only she had the strange idea that the answers might all be waiting at the end of the tunnel. She looked around the room, spotted a gas lantern and a book of matches. All the light she’d need, for as long as she’d need it. Unless she never returned.

The echo of her footsteps seemed deafening as she made her way down a series of dark steps and through tomblike passages. If there was such a thing as ghosts, they would surely be at home here. Her foot bumped against something that bounced off the wall and went careering down the passageway. When she got close enough, she lowered her light and saw the eerie glow of the flickering flames creeping over a skull. She swallowed the scream, but it rattled inside her head, nearly driving her wild. And still she kept walking.

Finally, the passageway widened. Stopping beneath an arched doorway, she took in her first view of a rambling system of columns and arches that extended far beneath the Bluffs. It was a basement of sorts, though like no basement she’d ever seen before. She was standing in an open area about the size of the ballroom, but a series of meandering hallways ran off in every direction.

She had no idea which path to take, so she just started walking down the first dark passage. It intersected with other corridors, and after a couple of turns, she realized that she might not be able to find her way out.

Fear ran icy fingers up her spine and along the back of her neck. Maybe this had originally been a tomb. That would explain the skull. Or maybe it had been more of a dungeon, with people locked down here while they were still alive and left to wander the dark, cold corridors until they became so weak they just passed out and eventually died.

She forced her feet and legs to keep moving forward, though she felt like Claire must have felt the other night when they’d almost been attacked near her house. Her insides quivered, and she could have easily dissolved into a formless heap.

And then she saw a light. A few feet ahead, a ribbon of light around what appeared to be the outline of a door. She stopped, but the soft echo of footsteps still sounded behind her.

She wasn’t alone.

Chapter Fifteen

“Are you looking for something?”

Becca swung around and found Richard only a few feet behind her. The darkness and shadows changed his appearance, gave his skin an eerie glow and turned his hair the color of soured cream.

“I’m looking for David,” she lied, amazed that in this setting even Richard seemed threatening.

“Then you’ve come to the right place. Just follow the light. Open the door and you’ll find him.”

She did as he said, stepping into a room that had been set up as an office. A half-dozen oil lamps had been strategically placed around the room, all of them burning. There was a folding card table set up in the middle of the room, two folding metal chairs, a laptop computer, and boxes of books, files and disks stacked everywhere. All things that could have been carried through the narrow passageway that she’d just followed.

David sat at a table, a file open in front of him. Seventy rooms inside the Bluffs and he had made this dark chamber inside the catacombs his office.

“How did you find me?” David asked, peering at her over the back of the folder.

“I was looking at books in the library and I accidentally touched the button that parted the bookcases.”

“Pure luck.”

He didn’t specify if it was good or bad luck, and at this point, she hadn’t decided, either. David definitely didn’t appear to be overjoyed to see her.

“I didn’t know where the passage would wind up.”

“But you decided to follow it, anyway. You are a very brave woman, Becca. It’s a miracle you found me at all. If you hadn’t made the correct turns, you might have been lost down here for days, or months, with no one even knowing to look for you here.”

But she’d made the right turns, almost without thinking, as if someone, or some thing had been guiding her here. It was too creepy for words.

“I brought the files you asked for,” Richard said, from his position by the door. “Would you like me to walk Becca back into the house as I go?”

“No. She’s here now. She may as well know everything.”

She wandered closer, letting her gaze scan the folders on the table. Dr. Leland Manning’s name jumped up at her. “Why would you work down here, David, when you have such a beautiful home to work in?”

“For years it was the only place I felt comfortable. I didn’t use it as an office until recently, but now, it seems appropriate for the tasks I perform here.”

She leaned against the folding table that David was using as a desk. “The puzzle that you said you were trying to solve?”

He spread his hands as if encompassing the entire array of files spread across his desk. “These are printouts of Leland Manning’s files. Most of them have to do with his connection to the secret society. I’m convinced the missing piece of the puzzle is somewhere in these notes.”

“How did you get Manning’s notes? I’d have thought the police would have taken them when they arrested him.”

“I stole them before the police had a chance to confiscate them.” He stood and pulled out a chair for her. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned so far. But let me warn you that it’s as grim and as demonic as any nightmare known to man.”

“Like the nightmare Claire lived through.”

“Every bit as heinous. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Claire’s abduction and torture aren’t connected to our original killer. It would fit his pattern perfectly—only Claire escaped before he’d finished what he’d started.”

She dropped into the chair, her insides knotted into a tight ball, her heart pumping in overtime. Last night she’d lain in David’s arms, flushed with pleasure and heated by the afterglow of making love. Today she was in a web of cold, dark chambers.

David reached over and took her hand. “You’re pale, Becca. Maybe we should just go back. I don’t want to frighten you.”

“No, I’d like to hear what you discovered in the notes. I’m already involved in this and I’d like to know what I’m up against.”

“Whatever you’re up against, the man isn’t going to win. Not this time. We are.”

And once again she believed him and loved him so much that the fear dried up like a hot sidewalk after a summer rain. “Let’s hear it,” she said. “I can handle it.”

“Then let’s start with this.”

He pulled a small, worn book from a desk drawer and handed it to her. The fabric that held the lock had decayed and frayed. She tucked her finger under the cover and lifted it, studying the handwritten note on page one. The diary of Joyce Telatia. Her hands began to shake.

“Where did you get this?”

“From Leland Manning’s office. Just jump to the back, starting about a dozen pages from the end. The entry in question is highlighted.”

She read the first sentence of the marked passage. I met a fascinating young man today, and I feel totally bewitched.

SHAMUS MCMANUS SAT at the end of the bar, swigging down his whiskey on the rocks and listening to the acrimonious grumbling going on all around him. Two murders in a week’s time. Both young women. Both found naked with their jugular veins cut. Everyone had a theory, but no one knew jack about what had really happened. Least of all the police.

“Hey, Shamus, you got an alibi for the time of the murders? That old relic detective they’ve got on the case is questioning everybody in town, and a grouchy old buzzard like you is sure to be on the list.”

He stared at the man asking the questions—Sammy Jacobs—stained sweatshirt, tobacco-stained lips, his beer belly punching into the bar.

“I don’t need an alibi. If I were going to kill someone, it wouldn’t be young, good-looking women. It would be an old cuss like you that the world wouldn’t even miss.”

“Wasn’t a man that killed them,” Marley Glasglow said. “It was Leary. The police are trying to keep it quiet, but I know someone who works at the morgue and he’s heard plenty.”

Kevin Pinelle straddled the bar stool next to Marley. “Right on, Marley. Why don’t you and me just go to the cemetery and take care of that bag of bones?”

Marley turned and stared at Kevin. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it, pretty boy? I wouldn’t be surprised to find you lying naked one night with your throat slit.”

The bartender turned from the mug he was filling with draft beer. “Yeah, but it will probably be because some guy found him in bed with his wife.”

A few guys laughed, but nothing like the guffaws that would have filled the room on a regular night. The murders had cut into the serenity of the small coastal town, the fear sticky and thick as the fog blowing in tonight. The mood was getting to Shamus.

He heard the door open behind him and felt the draft as a burst of cold air slunk inside. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of Marley’s face. It was white as a sheet.

Sammy jumped to his feet. “What the hell!”

Shamus turned around to see a man in the door. A McFarland Leary mask covered his face, topped by a stringy white wig.

Kevin burst out laughing. “Larry Gayle, you are one crazy man.”

Larry jerked the mask from his face. “How did you know it was me?”

“You got on the shirt you had on at lunch today. Ketchup stains right in the same place.”

The foghorn sounded in the distance and Shamus knew the fog would be rolling in, thick, blanketing the coast like a shroud. A perfect night for McFarland Leary to be on the prowl.

BLOOD WAS ON HIS MIND as the man walked the area along the wharf. Up until a week ago, he’d imagined that the sight of warm blood spurting from a dying person would be nauseating. Now it was all he could think about.

But he had decided to kill only three women, and that’s the way it had to be. It would be the crime spree of the century, relived over and over again in stories told to the tourists when they visited Moriah’s Landing.

One more to go. Becca Smith. Beautiful, with her shiny blond hair, her shapely body, her tinkling laugh. But it would all come to an end when he took the sharp blade of the knife and sliced through the jugular. Quick and simple.

But that was all that would be simple about her murder. Her moving into the Bluffs had complicated everything else. But the details were all worked out. The flower delivery van made a trip to the walled-in fortress once a week. This time he’d be in it, stowed away in the back beneath the blankets used when transporting the large glass swans they used for weddings.

But there would be nothing in the back of the panel van when they delivered David Bryson’s white roses. There never was. The driver made the long trip to the Bluffs early, before the other deliveries were ready. And the long white boxes of roses rode in the passenger seat, right next to the driver. He knew. He’d checked out all the details.

While the driver walked to the house with the flowers, he’d sneak out of the van and find a nice place to hide until the time was right. The Bluffs was a huge place with lots of windows and doors. And one would lead to Becca. By this time tomorrow night, her body would have been found and safely ensconced in the morgue.

He’d be in the bar having a beer with the talk of murder all around him. He’d be infamous. Too bad no one but him would ever know.

BECCA FINISHED READING the diary and laid it on the table. It was obvious that in the days before Joyce Telatia’s murder, she’d been involved in some sort of bizarre, secret research project. It was also obvious that she’d become obsessed with some man whom she didn’t identify.

“Who do you think the young man was that Joyce was in love with?”

“From the description, I’d say it was Leland Manning, which would explain how he came to get his hands on her diary before the police did.”

“I read the accounts of the murders in the newspaper files. There was no mention of Leland’s having dated Joyce.”

“I’m sure they didn’t date. Leland was married at the time, but there must have been some kind of affair going on between them, one the cops never heard about.”

“Lots of men have affairs, David. That doesn’t make them murderers.”

“True, but there is no record of any projects involving students at that particular time. That’s why I think the secret society might have been behind the projects. Joyce became involved, and she was murdered.”

“But the newspaper indicated the killings were all random.”

“They may have been, a random selection of young women involved in the project. I was investigating the secret society at the time my boat blew up. I think it was someone trying to get rid of me before I found out too much. Only it wasn’t me they killed. It was Tasha.” Sadness turned his eyes into a pool of dark chocolate.

As always, everything in David’s life eventually came back to Tasha. It shouldn’t hurt, but it did. Every time she made a step forward with him, Tasha’s name came up and it seemed she fell two steps back.

“What have you learned from Manning’s notes?” she asked, preferring to concentrate on something she might be able to help with.

“In the beginning, the society was more of a social club, a place where men got together to play poker, drink whiskey and discuss the topical events of the day, especially those related to the medical field. It was made up mostly of local doctors, but there were always a few key business people in the group, as well.” He rummaged through his notes. “Take a look at this.”

He spent the next two hours showing her the basics of what he’d discovered after months of scrutinizing Manning’s notes. Some of the society members had become obsessed with the search to find the fountain of youth through research experiments using blood taken from direct descendants of women identified as witches in Moriah’s Landing in the seventeenth century.

Although the research was far from conclusive, they had identified a gene that they referred to simply as “gene W,” the witch gene. The goal was to clone new cells that included that gene, implant the new cells in humans and have it become a part of a living human’s genetic makeup. What they hoped for was a human who didn’t age in the traditional way. They were never successful, and apparently there was a lot of bickering among the members who were involved as to what was morally and legally acceptable research on live subjects and what wasn’t.

The more Becca read, the more upset she became. She’d always held doctors in such high regard, but reading the notes, she realized that a few had been willing to completely ignore the Hippocratic oath for their own mercenary and personal benefit.

If they had found the proverbial fountain of youth, they would have not only dramatically increased their own longevity, but in all likelihood would have become unbelievably wealthy in the process, the way David had when he’d made the major breakthrough in genetic research, discovered drugs that were now used in hospitals and research centers around the globe. But for these men, it was a matter of selling their souls to the devil.

“I think I’ve seen enough for one night,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “More than I ever wanted to know about the corrupt side of medicine.”

“It’s pretty gruesome,” he admitted.

“I’m still not sure why you’re so certain that the murders were connected to the society.”

“Not to the society as a whole, but to one person in the society. It’s that name I have to come up with. The name and indisputable proof.”

“It boggles the mind, and I’m too tired to think anymore tonight.”

He straightened a stack of notes, walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. His fingers dug into her flesh, kneading her tired muscles. But as always, there was no way for them to touch without the sparks igniting into a full-blown fire. His thumbs traced the lines of her neck.

A second later she was in his arms, kissing him again and again, the need swallowing up the sludge and mire they’d waded through for the past dismal hours. She ached to make love to him, but not in the catacombs, not in a room where depravity was spread out on the table like food for demons.

“Let’s go back to my room,” she said, breaking from the kiss.

“Not tonight.”

Puzzled and hurt, she pulled away from him.

He fit his hands around her waist. “I think it’s time you moved into the master suite with me.”

“I can handle that.”

Using the flashlight to guide their way, he led her back through the bleak catacombs, through the oppressively narrow passageway and to the steep steps. Skulls, skeletons, lost souls wandering endlessly in a world of darkness. The images assaulted her mind, but she refused to let them take hold.

“You’re awfully quiet,” David said. “I probably hit you with way too much information for one night.”

“Nonsense. I’m a big girl.”

“You’re tough.”

“Like you, I had to be if I wanted to survive. Besides, I was just imagining people being locked away down here without food or water.”

“More likely it was used for storing goods that were imported illegally and then sold in the colonies. The Pierce who built the house originally was in the shipping business.”

“The history of the Pierces and that of Moriah’s Landing must be intertwined from the very beginning.”

“Yes, I can just imagine a Pierce throwing the first stone at someone suspected of being a witch, or stringing up the rope to hang that witch.”

“Strange how this town has kept its fascination with witches, warlocks, vampires and ghosts intact for three hundred and fifty years.”

“I hated those tales when I was growing up. My earliest memories are of lying in my bed at night, listening to the wind howl through the trees or the blast of the foghorn, and I’d imagine it was the ghosts coming to get me. And on those nights when the fog rolled in so thick I couldn’t even see the tree outside my window, I’d imagine it was poison spewing from the mouths of the witches that had been killed in the seventeenth century.”

“How old were you then?”

“Only four or five. I toughened up quick when I started school. I had to. The other kids knew what my mom did for a living and they never let me forget it.”

“But if you hated this town so much, why did you come back here?”

“The town wouldn’t let me go.”

It was a bizarre comment, but in a way she understood it. The first day she’d come to Moriah’s Landing, she’d felt as if it were reaching out to her, as if she belonged here. “Did you know about the catacombs when you bought the house?” she asked.

“No, but I found them shortly after, while Tasha and I were dating. We discovered a yellowed layout of the house in a rusted trunk at the back of the attic. I did the carpentry work myself, opened one passage, and put in the sliding bookcase to cover it.”

“A man of many talents.”

“And I plan to show you all of them.”

“Sounds intriguing.” As everything about David did. “How many people know the catacombs exist?”

“Aside from the original owner, I’m not certain, other than me and Richard and, of course, Tasha before she died. I’ve found human skulls and bones down here, as well as the skulls of animals, so I think they must have been used as a mausoleum of sorts at one time, or for some type of sacrificial ceremonies.”

“Let’s just hope the sacrificial ceremonies were a long time ago.”

“Probably a century or two. As for who else knows about the catacombs, I’m not even certain the current generation of Pierces knew about them, though you can still feel a draft if you stand near the openings that are boarded over.”

“That explains the cold spots.”

“I guess Richard told you about them.”

“Yes, but he didn’t mention the secret passage that we came through or the catacombs.”

“Just one more corner, then we’ll reach the exit that leads into the library.”

She gulped in a deep breath as they stepped out of the passageway and into the light. And once again she was struck speechless by the sheer grandeur of the Bluffs. Perhaps it was the starkness of the catacombs she’d just left, but the massive chandelier, the hand-carved molding, the hand-painted ceiling over the library, the dark, rich wood of the bookcases seemed like something from a fairy tale as her feet sank into the thickness of the Persian rug.

“I love this room,” she said. “The books and the warmth of the wood. It think it’s my favorite in the whole house, at least of the ones I’ve seen.”

He looked around as if seeing the room for the first time. “It was Tasha’s favorite room, too. She used to come in here to study for her classes at the university.”

Tasha. Yet again. She was sorry she’d said she liked the room now. And once again she wondered if she’d ever be able to compete with the memory of a woman who hadn’t lived long enough to ever do anything wrong.

“You seem so quiet,” David said. “Have I done something to upset you?”

“Not intentionally. It’s just that what we have doesn’t seem enough to compete with your memories.”

“That’s not true. It’s just…”

David walked to the window, pushed back the heavy drape and stared out into the darkness. Things had been going so well a minute ago, now they were crumbling around him. The last person in the world he wanted to hurt was Becca. What he wanted to do was protect her, hold her, drown in her kisses. So why couldn’t he just move on and let the past go? He knew Tasha would want him to.

She stepped behind him. “Finish the sentence, David. It’s just what? That I’m not Tasha? That I’ll never be her? You can say it. I may not like it, but I won’t go ape on you.”

He struggled to find the right words to explain feelings he didn’t understand. “It’s just that I’ve lived on memories for so long. I never expected to have another chance at love, never thought anyone could desire this mangled mess of a body. I guess it’s just all happening too fast for me to adjust. I know Tasha would want me to go on, and yet I feel almost as if I’m betraying her.”

“Then don’t betray her, David. Stay here and live on your memories. Love her as much as you like for as long as you like, but she isn’t coming back. And I can’t stay with you knowing that I’ll never come first with you.”

He heard her footsteps as she walked away, ached to run after her and hold her so close he could feel her heart beating against his chest. Longed to make love with her over and over again. But he couldn’t, not until he knew he could deliver what she asked. He owed that not only to Becca, but to himself.

He started to walk to the locked room where he went so often on lonely nights. The one place he still felt close to Tasha. A few feet down the corridor, he changed his mind. Nothing would give him peace tonight. So he might as well drive into town and see what he could discover about the town’s reaction to the latest murder.

And, if miracles still happened, he might even find out something that would give him the identity of the killer. But he wouldn’t lurk in the shadows. Not anymore. Those days were over.

If his experience with Becca had taught him nothing else, it was that he was a lot more than flesh and blood, and if people didn’t like the way he looked, that was their problem. And if they didn’t like the fact that he was the owner of the Bluffs now, well, that was their problem, too.

Moving almost silently, he let himself out the front door, careful to lock it behind him. The security was all in place. Becca would be safe. And protection might be the only good and decent thing he could give her.

DAVID COULD HEAR the din of laughter, loud talk and the jarring blast of the jukebox a half block before he reached the door of Wheels. Within seconds after he pushed his way inside, the talking and laughter stopped, leaving only the blare of the jukebox to fill the void. He let his gaze travel the smoky saloon, looking one man after another in the eye before finally walking to the bar and sliding onto a barstool between Shamus McManus and a bearded man he didn’t recognize.

Shamus was the first one to break the silence. “Are you lost, Bryson?”

“Not likely. I grew up on the wharf, remember.”

“Oh, I remember well. I took you on your first fishing trip and taught you how to drive your mom’s old Chevy. You’re the one who seems to have forgotten where you came from.”

“I’ve got my memory back now.” He stared at the bartender. “What’s a man have to do to get a drink around here?”

The bartender wiped his hands on his apron but stayed his distance. “You’re not welcome in here, Bryson.”

“You got a policy against serving scientists?”

“I have a policy against serving murderers.”

“If you have any kind of evidence against me, then call the cops and have me arrested. Otherwise, I’ll have a whiskey on the rocks. And one for my friend Shamus.”

“I told you you’re not welcome.”

Shamus banged his glass down on the table so hard that a piece of the ice shot out and bounced across the bar. “Hell. Ain’t none of us welcome in here. You just like our money, and Bryson’s got more of it than any of the rest of us. Now, pour the blasted drinks before I come behind the bar and do it for you. And the rest of you in here…” He raised his voice so that it boomed over the jukebox. “This is David Bryson. Used to be the roughest, brattiest kid on the wharf. Back then he had a right hook that would set your head rattling for days. I hear it’s worse now, so if you want to tangle with him, I suggest you pay your insurance up first. If not, then quit gawking and get back to your drinkin’.”

The bartender poured the drinks and set them in front of them. There were a few grumbles at the back of the room and a lot of stares, but the noise level increased and a guy pulled a shapely redhead into his arms and started doing moves that David guessed passed for dancing.

“You always were quite an orator,” David said, clinking his glass with Shamus’s.

“And you always had piss-poor timing. So what the devil are you doing making your grand entrance at the same time we got us another serial killer making the rounds?”

“Like you said. I’ve got piss-poor timing. Now, have you got any ideas who’s behind the murders?”

“A couple, though I’ve got nothing but speculation to go on. Finish your drink and we’ll go back to my place where we can talk.”

IT WAS NEARLY TWO WHEN DAVID drove the winding road back to the Bluffs. He hadn’t learned much from Shamus, but tonight had still been an important milestone for him. He’d stepped back into the world of the living, not tentatively, but boldly, and he’d done it without covering the scar on his face.

He’d made another decision tonight, too. He prayed he’d made the right one.

THE WHITE PANEL VAN ROCKED and rattled along Old Mountain Road. By the time the driver slowed for the turn onto the private road to the Bluffs, his hidden passenger was impatient and trying hard not to sneeze. The blanket was scratchy with a sickeningly sweet flower smell that made him feel as if he were awake for his own funeral.

One more murder. One more knife slicing across the neck. Quick and simple. This time he wouldn’t even stay around to hide the body. He’d just scatter the vial of dirt he’d brought from Leary’s grave over the body and then he’d be gone. Back through the woods and over the fence.

He could pick even the best of locks with the speed of Houdini. A teenage career of breaking and entering had taught him that.

His heart rate increased. This would be his last murder—for a while, anyway. He’d miss it, the act itself and the satisfaction of knowing he could do it and never get caught. Not to mention the fun of watching those idiots in town speculating whether or not a ghost was popping off their young women.

The van jerked to a stop. Evidently they were at the gate. He could hear the driver punching in the secret codes that opened it. The man didn’t breathe easy until the van jerked forward—at least as easy as a man could breathe buried under a pile of blankets with only a tiny space between him and the wall to grab some oxygen.

Jump from the truck while the driver made the delivery. Hide in the row of shrubs that bordered the walk to the garden and then make a run for cover. Lucky for David Bryson he’d have a fresh supply of white roses to scatter over his newest dead girlfriend.

Chapter Sixteen

Becca hurried toward a front window when she heard the doorbell ring, hoping it wasn’t Detective Megham again. It wasn’t. It was the deliveryman from the florist. She couldn’t see his truck, but she recognized the ribbon-tied boxes that the roses came in. White roses to be scattered over the cliffs in memory of Tasha Pierce.

The first time she’d witnessed it, she’d found the practice endearing. Today it only assured her that she’d made the right decision. As soon as she found a place to go, she’d be leaving the Bluffs.

Even if David convinced her to stay, it wouldn’t work. Every time she caught him staring into space or looking as if his mind were a million miles away, she’d always wonder if it was Tasha who was on his mind. When they kissed, she’d worry that it was Tasha he was thinking of. When they made love, she’d…She had to stop this. It was making her physically ill.

But maybe she was being too hard on David, expecting too much too soon. Just because she’d fallen so hard, so fast, didn’t mean he would have the same reaction. Given time, he might be able to let Tasha slide into the background and love Becca as much as she loved him.

She walked down the hall and trudged the steep staircase, drawn to his shrine to Tasha. Pausing outside the door, she closed her eyes and imagined Tasha in the beautiful wedding gown, her eyes shining with love, her heart overflowing. Tears burned at the back of Becca’s eyelids as she walked away. She and Tasha had so much in common. They had both lost their hearts to David. But Tasha still possessed him.

Becca walked down one long hallway after another, not caring where she went, as long as it was away from that room. She had no idea how far she’d walked or exactly where she was, but finally she stopped and leaned against the wall and tried to get her bearings. She was fairly certain she hadn’t been in this part of the house before, but all of a sudden she had the creepy feeling that she wasn’t alone. She turned and looked down the hall behind her.

“Who’s there?”

There was no answer and not a sign of movement. Paranoia was catching up with her. There were always noises in a place this old. She opened a door and stepped into a windowless rectangular room with chairs and folded tables stacked along the wall. An antique dining table, covered with a leather pad, sat directly beneath a brass chandelier, as if ruling over the clutter.

A large cardboard box rested in the middle of the table, the edges folded back, revealing the top half of a skull and a hand that seemed to be scratching and clawing its way out of the container. A gob of white hair poked from around the skull, tumbling over the rim of the box like a clump of spiderwebs.

Just Halloween decorations, she told herself. But still her stomach constricted then rolled inside her as she walked to the table. Her hands shook and she could feel a drop of cold sweat sliding between her breasts as she reached inside the box, wrapped her hands around the wig and pulled.

The hideous rubber mask of McFarland Leary fell against her, the blank eyes staring at her. She went weak and the room spun around her like a carousel gone mad.

Get a grip, Becca. It’s nothing but stupid decorations. Lots of people own these ridiculous masks. Holding the edge of the table, she struggled for a deep breath and some equilibrium.

Instead she heard the sound of the door behind her closing and the lock clicking into place. She spun around. The first thing she saw was the pointed blade of a knife. The second was the face of the man holding the knife.

“Hello, Becca. Time to meet the real beast.”

Becca stared at the man, knowing she’d seem him before but unable to remember where. “Who are you?”

“That’s right, we haven’t had the benefit of formal introductions, have we? His lips twisted into a taunting grin. “My friends call me Kevin. Most of the women just call me darlin’.”

“Until you kill them?”

“That’s right, sweetheart. Usually I give them the pleasure of my company first. Too bad I don’t have time to do that for you. A stuck-up broad like you could use the attention of a man like me.”

The thought of his hands on her, much less any other part of his body, made her skin crawl, but the thought of the knife slicing through her neck overrode everything else. The chances that someone would hear her scream were almost nil. And once she screamed, he’d waste no time in killing her.

There had to be a better way. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, trying to buy time to think.

“I’m just delivering what the town of Moriah’s Landing wants. Think how disappointed they’d have been if old McFarland Leary hadn’t come crawling out of his grave to kill off a few maidens. One here. One there. All inching closer to the monster on the hill. Now, this one will be right under his nose. Who’d ever convince a jury he’s not the murderer?”

The man was horribly sick, and yet he’d planned the whole thing amazingly well. And she’d played right into his hands by moving into the Bluffs. She’d be dead. David would be in jail—for murders he’d never committed.

Unless…

Her gazed scanned the room. A skull, a mask, a horrid fake hand. All gruesome, but nothing that could help her now. She took a step backward, to the stack of folding chairs. “All this to set up David. Do you even know him?”

“It’s not about David Bryson or even about you, sweetheart, though you’ve made a fascinating prospect from the night I decided to add you to the victim list.”

She leaned her backside against a metal chair, putting her hands behind her and wrapping her fingers around the curved edge of the high back. “When was that?”

“The night you showed up at Wheels with Larry Gayle and those other two friends of yours. You shouldn’t have dumped my buddy for the mad scientist. It wasn’t cool.”

“But even before that, you’d killed one woman and planned to lay the blame on David.”

“That’s right. You just added the whipped cream to my pie. A murderous ghost, a vampire in a Gothic castle, and a beautiful blond-haired woman who obviously has the hots for the beast. It’s classic.”

“And I made it easy for you by moving in with David?”

“Easy and difficult. The Cavendish home would have been much easier to break into than a stone fortress.”

He laughed, not loud, yet the sound roared inside Becca’s head. His left hand opened and closed, and the veins in his neck stood out like blue cords as he positioned the knife to attack. Images flew through her mind. The wedding dress and veil. Only she was wearing it, not Tasha. And she was dancing with David on the deck of the ship with a blanket of dazzling stars shining above them.

She and David. Making love and loving. Always, she and David.

Adrenaline rushed through her in a crushing wave and she pulled the chair from behind her and slung it at Kevin. It glanced off his chest, but it slowed him just long enough for her to grab another chair. She was screaming now, a piercing yell that reverberated from the ceiling and walls, screaming and swinging the chair like a club.

But the man just kept coming, the knife outstretched and ready to plunge into her neck and rip through her jugular just as he’d done with the other victims. He yanked the chair from her hands and hurled it across the room. She grabbed another for one last chance. This time she hammered the leg of the chair into his eyeball. He stumbled backward, but only for a minute.

When he recovered, he came at her like an angered bull, the muscles in his arms flexed into hard knots, blood pouring from the injured eye. He slapped her hard across the face, knocking her to the floor. Her head banged against the base of the table, blurring her vision and searing her body with pain.

When she looked up, she saw two knives, both of them coming toward her. And then her head seemed to explode. She fell back as the first drops of warm blood gushed onto her blouse.

“I love you, David. I love you so much. I wish I could have been Tasha for you, but…”

The words died on her lips as she sank into an abyss that pain and heartbreak couldn’t reach.

Chapter Seventeen

At first David thought the screams were the wind howling around the corners of the Bluffs, the way it had done so many times before. But he was in the closed-in passage, making his way back up from the catacombs. There was no way he would hear the wind.

Oh, God, no. It was Becca. He recognized the voice now. And someone else’s. A male. Laughing like a madman. Head down to avoid colliding with the ceiling, he started running, trying desperately to figure out which room the cries were coming from.

Within seconds, he’d cleared the bookcase door and started down the long hallway. One more scream. Please, Becca, be alive and give me one more scream so that I can find you.

But the hallway had grown strangely silent. He rounded a corner and his heart slammed against his chest. There was no scream, but he could hear banging noises, a clucking and scraping as if furniture were bouncing off the walls.

He reached the door, tried the knob only once before snatching the pistol from its holder and shooting the lock off. His hand still on the trigger, he kicked the door open and stared into the face of Kevin Pinelle. Kevin’s hand was on the knife. The knife was on Becca’s neck.

“Drop the knife or I shoot.”

“Nah. I’m not much for jail time. Wouldn’t go well at all for a pretty boy like me. So, I’ll just kill her and let you shoot.”

David pulled the trigger.

THE BACK OF BECCA’S HEAD pounded like the heavy bass of a punk rock tune. She opened her eyes and looked into David’s. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

He cradled her head in his arms. “I always heard that if you save a woman once, they expect you to do it over and over.”

Her hand scraped across the front of her blouse and paused in the sticky dampness. “Is that blood?”

“Yes, but not yours, though it would have been if I’d been a second longer.”

“Did you kill my attacker?”

“No, just wounded his knife hand. I wouldn’t want him to miss out on his prison experience. Now, if you can stand to be moved, I’m going to carry you to the front of the house. You took a nasty blow to the back of your head.”

“Anything you say, Dr. Bryson.” She managed to move her head enough to scan the room. “Where is Kevin?”

“Megham and Richard are downstairs with him while they wait for the ambulance. The second ambulance. The first one will be yours, and this time I am not taking no for an answer.”

She rested her throbbing head against his chest, thankful to be alive, thankful that the current murder spree was over, thankful that no more women would die at the madman’s hands.

She wouldn’t let herself think beyond that yet. She knew how much she loved David, but the near-death experience didn’t change their relationship. Loving him would never be enough as long as his devotion to a dead lover came first.

A haunted castle. A tortured lover. A twisted and unhappy ending. Just like in an old Gothic novel.

Bewitched. And bittersweet.

THE DIAGNOSIS HAD BEEN a mild concussion, and by the second afternoon, Becca was restless and anxious to be released from the hospital. They’d already kept her an extra day, just as a precautionary measure, or so the doctor had said, but she’d definitely be going home today.

Home. Only she didn’t really have one anymore. She’d already moved her things out of the Cavendish home, and one of the younger children had claimed her space. And she couldn’t go back to the Bluffs knowing that David was still in love with Tasha. She was strong but not that strong.

With her options limited, Becca had decided to move into the motel on the edge of town while she looked for a place to rent. A small efficiency apartment would be adequate for her needs—something with a short lease. Once she’d finished the dresses she had already agreed to design and sew for the Fall Extravaganza, she planned to move away.

She’d miss her new friends—Brie, Kat, Elizabeth and Claire—the only real friends she could remember. But if she stayed, it would be sheer torture to look up and see the Bluffs every day, to know David was there and that she would never be the one he loved.

The loss hurt far more than the blow to the head, even more than the surgeries that had reconstructed her nose and her jaw following the incident five years ago. This time the pain buried itself so deep inside that it permeated every part of her, lived with her every second of the day. But, unlike David, she would move past the pain and enervating loss. One day, though she knew it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

She looked up as the door to her room squeaked open and Brie Pierce stepped inside.

“Hello, Miss Town Heroine,” Brie purred, sweeping across the room to hug her.

“Me? A heroine?”

“I should say. You practically singlehandedly caught the serial killer who was terrifying the whole town.”

“I didn’t catch him. If David Bryson had been a few seconds later, I’d be dead.”

“But you slowed the guy down until David could get there. And the report I heard was that you got in a few good whacks with a metal chair, practically took his eye out.”

She grimaced at the thought. “How is his eye? I hope I didn’t blind him.”

Brie shook her head, and her hair bounced around her shoulders. She looked different since she’d married the man destined to be Moriah’s Landing’s next mayor, more sophisticated, but that in no way diminished the glow love had painted in her eyes and her smile.

“I can’t believe you’re worried about that monster,” Brie said, “not after what he did to those two poor women and almost did to you.”

Becca straightened the sheet and propped up a little higher in the hospital bed. “It was Kevin Pinelle who tried to attack Claire and me that night, too. He admitted it.”

“Only because he thinks some shyster lawyer is going to get him off with an insanity plea.”

“He hasn’t admitted running me off the road that evening, though,” Becca said. “It seems he would if he’s behind it. Once a man’s admitted to two murders and an attempted murder, you wouldn’t think he’d bother to lie about running someone off the road.”

“Drew’s convinced he did it, though. He thinks Kevin’s just trying to throw some suspicion on someone else, that he’s the kind of guy who likes to keep the cops and news media jumping through his hoops. Even Drew’s father says he thinks Kevin will milk this for all the attention he can get.”

“So let’s not give him any more of ours,” Becca said.

Brie walked over and stood next to the bed. “When do you get out of this place? If I were you, I wouldn’t be in too big of a hurry. I spied a very cute doctor in the hallway when I was coming in.”

“I get out as soon as my not-too-cute doctor comes by and releases me.”

Brie bent to smell a bouquet of mixed flowers David had sent, then paused to read the card. “Will you be going back to the Bluffs?” she asked.

“No. I’m checking into a motel.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Brie protested. “Come and stay with Drew and me. I’ll take care of you until you’re completely recovered.”

“You have far too much to do keeping up with your politician husband to take me on. Besides, I’ll only be in the motel until I find a place. There have to be lots of apartments in this town for rent.”

The phone rang. Becca reached over and answered it, half expecting it to be David, but it was Claire’s voice that answered her hello. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and whispered a quick apology to Brie for having to take the call while they were visiting.

“You sound upset, Claire. Is something wrong?”

“I’ve started to remember the night of the abduction.”

“That’s great. Isn’t it?”

“It is, although it’s got me so shaky I can barely function.”

“Do you remember who kidnapped you?”

“Not yet, but I remember details not only about that night, but about the days immediately after that.”

“What does your doctor say?”

“He wants to hypnotize me again. When he tried it before, I got so upset that he stopped the procedure, but now he thinks I’m ready.”

“What do you think?”

“I want it over with. I want the man in jail so I can go on with my life and quit jumping at every shadow, stop thinking every man I meet is somehow connected to the abduction. The other night when Geoffrey saved us from being killed, I thought he was the man. And then when I went to the Bluffs, I was sure I could feel something evil about the place. Not necessarily David, but the house itself.”

Catacombs with skulls and bones. Secret passageways and long tunnels. In the case of the Bluffs, Claire might not be altogether wrong, but Becca didn’t want to bring that up now. “When do you see the doctor?”

“This afternoon. Wish me luck.”

“I do, Claire. I wish you all the luck in the world.”

Becca was still a little shaken by the conversation even after they’d said their goodbyes and she’d hung up the phone.

“I take it that was Claire Cavendish,” Brie said.

“It was.”

Brie frowned. “She’s started to remember things about the abduction. Did she tell you that?”

Since Brie knew that much, Becca saw no harm in telling her the rest. Brie listened attentively as she told about the hypnotism session scheduled for that afternoon.

“Poor girl.” Brie turned to stare out the window. “So much to face. I suppose her mom’s going with her to see the psychiatrist.”

“No. The older kids are in school and her mom has the younger ones. But if Claire needs her after the session, Mrs. Cavendish will go to the doctor’s office to pick her up as soon as Tommy gets in from school.”

“It would be a miracle if Claire actually remembers the details of that night. I think it’s the only way she’ll ever move on.” Brie squeezed Becca’s hand. “And now I think I should get out of here and let you get some rest.”

“That’s all I’ve done for days. I’m eager to get back to Threads and sew.”

GEOFFREY PIERCE STOOD outside Becca’s hospital room, listening to the conversation between her and Brie. He’d decided to come by and pay a visit to the recovering victim, but he hadn’t expected to learn so much without even talking to her.

Claire was getting her memory back. Becca was going on with her life. Or so they thought.

He hurried away as Brie wrapped up her visit. No need for him to be seen lurking in the hallway of the hospital, especially now that he’d already heard all he needed to know. Poor Claire. Poor Becca. Almost home free, then caught in the web.

DAVID SAT IN THE semidarkness of his catacomb retreat, feeling more and more like the subhuman freak the town saw him as. Becca had asked so little of him. So why hadn’t he been able to bend a little?

He wanted Becca in his life, already longed to see her face across the table from him, to hear her laughter echoing through the Bluffs. He ached to touch her, to kiss her, to stretch out beside her in the four-poster bed and hold her in his arms and make love with her.

Instead he’d let her walk out of his life. Tense and heartsick, he went to the computer and opened Manning’s files, scanning quickly back to September twenty years ago and the research project that had not been connected to any hospital or to the university. Subjects chosen from blood samples taken in routine physicals. The names of the women had been supplied by an unnamed contact in a local physician’s office. Three women had been chosen—all having the elusive gene W. All suspected of being direct descendants of Moriah’s Landing’s infamous witch population.

And, of course, Joyce Telatia had been in that group of three. But who had been the doctor conducting the research?

He’d gone through all the doctors at that time, one by one, gone back and looked at their pictures. None had matched the description Joyce gave in her diary. Even Leland Manning had not checked out, though he’d thought at first that he might.

He picked up the phone and punched in the number of Becca’s room at the hospital. At least he could check on her and see how she was doing, though he knew the real reason he was calling was just to hear her voice. The phone rang seven times before a floor nurse picked up and identified herself.

“I’m sorry, sir, Miss Smith has checked out of the hospital.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“No, but I did see her talking to Geoffrey Pierce in front of the hospital. Perhaps he gave her a ride home.”

Geoffrey Pierce. The name flashed across his brain as if it were lit in neon. Geoffrey had been a member of the secret society when David had first moved back to town, until he’d been voted out of the group five years ago. But he wasn’t a doctor.

Geoffrey Pierce. Mid-forties now. That would have made him the right age then. The hair color was right. As for the rest of the description from Joyce’s diary, it was difficult to tell. A man changed a lot in twenty years. But David had never trusted Geoffrey, always thought there was something inherently evil about the guy.

Could he have been the man that Joyce saw even though he wasn’t qualified to supervise the complete project, even though he was not actually involved in medicine at all? Why not? The society never followed any other standard procedures.

Geoffrey Pierce, a murderer? The missing piece.

And Becca was with Geoffrey Pierce now. Panic ripped through him with the force of a cannonball. Running on gut instinct and an overload of adrenaline, he went to the gun closet, unlocked it and took the shiny pistol from the case. He had to find Becca now. If Geoffrey was the killer…

But in his mind, there was no “if.” He knew it with the same certainty that he knew he loved Becca Smith. Now all he had to do was find her in time. And once he did, he would never let her go.

BECCA OPENED HER EYES and stared at a bare lightbulb that seemed to be circling over her like a buzzard waiting for lunch. Her vision was blurry, her mind thick with an impenetrable fog. She tried to move but couldn’t. Her arms were strapped to her sides, and her feet seemed leaden. She could hear breathing. Someone was nearby though she couldn’t see who it was.

“Where am I?”

“We’re in hell, Becca. Geoffrey Pierce’s hell.”

The voice infiltrated her consciousness. “Claire, is that you?”

“Yes. I’m only a few feet away to your right.”

Becca struggled to rouse from the lassitude that claimed her body, finally managing to turn her head enough to see the bed through the drug-induced haze that glazed her eyes. Claire was laid out on a gurney, her hands and feet strapped down. She had needles embedded in both arms, attached to tubes that appeared to be extracting blood from her body in slow but steady trickles.

Geoffrey Pierce. Her memory slid in and out of focus, letting her retrieve bits and pieces of information. She’d run into him at the hospital and he’d offered her a ride to the motel. She’d refused, remembering what Claire had said about suspecting Geoffrey. But he’d injected her with something that had left her weak and woozy. He’d put her in his car and tied her hands and feet, but hadn’t bothered to blindfold her as he’d taken back roads down the beach to the Pierces’ beach house.

He’d carried her inside and down to his basement lab. And then—her mind went blank. No, there had been another needle, plunged deep into her vein, and she’d started falling, and falling and falling.

“How did you get here, Claire?”

“When I got out of my car at the doctor’s office, Geoffrey was waiting for me. He’d come back for me to finish what he started five years ago. I think I always knew that he would.”

“Oh, my God. Not Geoffrey. Surely it wasn’t Drew’s uncle who abducted and tortured you.”

“But it was. He’s the monster, and he’s going to kill us both.”

Becca closed her eyes and floated away, into the clear blue water. Her lungs hurt and the salt burned her throat and her eyes. She kicked and fought as hard as she could, but Geoffrey just kept holding her down. She was going to die.

She shook her head, trying in vain to escape the drugs’ hold on her mind. She’d been in the hospital, not the water. “We’re not going to die, Claire. We can’t give up.”

“I can. I want to die. Soon. Before he starts to touch me and hurt me the way he did before.”

Her voice cracked and broke and she started to sob, a quiet, mournful sound that crawled inside Becca and squeezed at her heart. But still she didn’t want to die. There had to be a way out. If she could only move. If she could only clear her mind.

GEOFFREY’S OWN BLOOD ran cold as he stared at the results of the blood test. It couldn’t be, and yet it was. DNA didn’t lie. Becca Smith was not Becca Smith at all. She was Tasha Pierce.

He’d never wanted to hurt Tasha, had never expected her to be on the boat that night. He’d realized too late that she was. When he found her still alive in the water after the explosion, he’d panicked, fearing she could tie him to the deed. He’d tried to drown her, and ended up strangling her. If he’d left her body to be found by the authorities, they’d have found the marks on her neck and known she was murdered.

Young and scared himself, he’d thrown her lifeless body in the trunk of his car and driven for hours, finally driving off the road in the middle of the night and burying her in a shallow grave he’d dug with a shovel he’d stolen from some farmer’s barn.

Tasha Pierce was dead and buried. He knew that much for a fact. Whoever, whatever, lay in that room down the hall wasn’t human. She not only had gene W, she had a witch’s powers. His insides quivered and his stomach did a free fall, sinking and jerking inside him. He jumped from the chair and ran to the bathroom. He was going to be sick. He was going to be very, very sick.

And then he was going to destroy the nefarious, inhuman creature that lay in the next room.

A few minutes later, he wiped his mouth on the back of his shirtsleeve and walked to the room where Becca’s body was strapped to the gurney.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Tasha. You should have stayed dead.”

I HAVE TO KILL YOU, TASHA. I have to kill you. Don’t you see? I have no choice now.

The words rumbled around in her mind, a storm that threatened to wash her away. And then the images started. The boat. The explosion. The mounds of suffocating earth.

She tried to scream as the memories flooded her mind. They were jumbled and mired in confusion, but they were there.

She was Tasha Pierce.

DAVID HAD RUSHED TO the Pierces’ beach house, not sure what he’d find, or if he’d find anything at all. Geoffrey could have taken Becca anywhere.

He skidded to a stop in the front driveway, jumped out of the car and ran to the door. Amazingly it was unlocked, even ajar a few inches. Pulling the pistol from the shoulder holster, he stepped inside. As silently as he could, he walked from room to room, keeping his back to the wall, ready to pull the trigger at a split second’s notice.

The house was richly furnished, the consummate bachelor’s pad. Large pillows on the couch, a big-screen TV and elaborate music system. A plush, furry rug in front of the fireplace. Nothing was out of place, and there was no sign of Becca or anyone else.

He’d been so sure that Geoffrey was his man back at the Bluffs. Now the dulling throb of possibility began to pound against his temples. Had he been wrong? Stopping in the kitchen, he leaned against the marble counter.

A door squeaked open behind him. He jerked around as a sleek black cat crept through the door, stopped to look at him, then walked right past and crouched in the corner to watch him. David walked to the door and peered down a set of steep steps that disappeared into a dark hole. And from somewhere below him, he heard the sound of a toilet flushing.

A new wave of adrenaline exploded inside him as he headed down the steps. The smells were familiar. Antiseptics, formaldehyde, alcohol. Geoffrey wasn’t a doctor, yet he had some kind of lab in his basement. The elusive pieces of the jagged-edged puzzle began to fall into place. Only now Becca was caught in the iron grips of their claws.

And Geoffrey Pierce was a far more practiced killer than Kevin Pinelle. He’d honed his craft two decades ago.

“PLEASE, GEOFFREY. KILL ME. Please kill me.”

Becca could hear Claire’s voice, but it sounded as if it were coming from deep within a bottomless pit. Becca herself seemed to be floating somewhere far above Claire, outside her own body. A gray shroud glazed her eyes, and the room spun slowly through a heavy blanket of fog. She tried to comfort Claire, but her tongue was thick and refused to move in her dry mouth.

“I’ll kill you, all right, Claire, in my own good time, after I make you pay for escaping the first time. But Tasha will have to die now. She’s a witch, you know. That’s why I have to drain the blood from her body and keep it pure. Once I find the secret of longevity, I’ll no longer be the poor Pierce relative, the one who never quite lived up to the family’s standard.”

Becca tried to focus, but all she could make out was shadows and streaks of light. Facts drifted in and out of her mind. Geoffrey Pierce was her uncle, but he was going to kill her. Was it because she loved David?

David. She closed her eyes and tried to pull up his image. So handsome he took her breath away. He’d kissed her on top of the Ferris wheel. She could feel his lips on her now. Warm. Sweet. He took her in his arms and they floated away. They’d be together always now.

“Okay, Miss Tasha. The fun is over. You have enough phenobarbital in you now, you won’t fight me when I drain the blood from your body. I can’t really kill you. I did that five years ago. You’re already dead.”

DAVID FOLLOWED THE SOUND of Geoffrey’s voice. The man was truly mad. Mad, but brilliant, so smart he’d gotten away with murder for twenty years. David would have to play it carefully, make certain there was no way for Geoffrey to get the upper hand. He was certain the man would kill both him and Becca without any hesitation.

David stopped just outside the door, took a deep breath, poised his trigger finger and pushed into the room where Geoffrey held Becca prisoner. “The game’s over, Geoffrey.”

“Well, look who came to the party. If it isn’t Dr. David Bryson, the hideous beast who stole the Bluffs from me.”

David saw Claire first, then caught sight of Becca in the periphery of his vision. Anger erupted inside him, driving him so near the edge he thought he might be going mad himself. “It’s over, Pierce. Your days of killing women and getting away with it have come to an end.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you killed Joyce Telatia twenty years ago and the other two women, as well. For all I know you might have even had something to do with Kat’s mother’s murder.”

“No. I didn’t kill her. I found her dead. I stole part of her blood, though I was too drunk to do it right.”

“You tampered with the dead and got a real taste for blood. Is that the way it happened, Geoffrey? And you liked it so well, you abducted Claire fifteen years later.”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Dr. David Bryson? But you don’t know half the story. Once a man kills, he has to kill again and again. Only I wised up after Joyce Telatia. I waited months between each murder, then I went out of town, from town to town, found women of the night that no one missed, anyway. But I would never have come after Becca if she hadn’t gotten mixed up with you and Claire. I warned her to stay away from you, in writing and in person. Too bad she didn’t heed my warning.”

“But she didn’t listen, so you tried to run her over the cliff.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know then that I was trying to kill a dead woman. Now I do. She’s dead, David. Dead.”

David stared at Becca. Her eyes had a blank, glazed sheen, and her arms hung limp at her sides. And in that second, he died a thousand deaths.

He raised the gun and pointed it at Geoffrey. The black cat sprang from nowhere, ran across the room and jumped on the top of Becca’s stomach. Its back went up, and it snarled and extended its claws.

“Where did that damn witch cat come from?” Geoffrey yelled as sweat broke out all over his body.

At that moment, Becca’s body jerked, a series of quick movements, and then she turned her face toward David. His heart slammed against his chest so hard he wondered if it had stopped beating before. “Put your hands in the air, Geoffrey. Now. Or not. I’m aching for you to give me one reason to shoot.”

“Then go ahead.” Geoffrey grabbed a syringe from the table and pointed the needle at Becca as if it were a dart. “A dose of cyanide and it’s all over. All it has to do is seep into her muscle tissue.”

“Put that needle down, or so help me, I’ll blow you away.”

The next thing David saw was the needle hurtling through space, heading straight for Becca. Geoffrey had struck the fatal blow, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Chapter Eighteen

David dived toward Becca in a futile attempt to shield her body with his, to take the cyanide for her. He was too late, but the black cat wasn’t. She jumped at the needle, avoiding the point but causing it to ricochet and miss its mark. The point plunged into the floor beside the bed a second before David landed on top of Becca.

David turned back toward Geoffrey, the gun still in his hand, but Geoffrey had disappeared. David could hear his footsteps pounding on the steps that led back up the basement steps and into the house. A minute later he heard a loud yell and then the clunking and bumping of something clattering down the stairwell.

By the time he reached the steps, Geoffrey was lying at the bottom of them, clawing at his throat as his body shook and gyrated in convulsions. A hypodermic needle was jammed into his heart. Apparently he’d taken an extra injection with him just in case David had followed. But he’d never made the escape. He’d tripped on something and fallen, plunging the cyanide-filled needle into his heart.

The convulsions stopped. It was too late to help him. Geoffrey had been killed by his own poison.

David turned to see the black cat sitting in the shadows, licking her paws and purring. He checked Geoffrey’s pulse just to be certain the man was dead. There was none. When he looked around, the cat had disappeared.

David hurried back to Becca. He held her in his arms for painful minutes before he could make himself let go of her long enough to call an ambulance. When he finished the call, he stopped at Claire’s gurney and whispered words of reassurance to her before taking Becca in his arms again.

“I know you’re too out of it to understand right now, but I love you, Becca, more than life itself. I want to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll have me. I don’t want to live in the past. I just want to love you.”

“It’s okay, David. I’m Tasha.” Her words were slurred, her tongue thick from drugs, her voice no louder than a whisper. He wasn’t sure what she said, other than that it was something about Tasha.

“Don’t try to talk now, Becca. Just know how much I love you.”

But she opened her mouth again and he put his ear close to her mouth so she wouldn’t have to strain.

“I’m home, David. I’m finally home.”

THE FALL EXTRAVAGANZA was everything the people of Moriah’s Landing could have dreamed of—music, food, people dressed in costumes of the days when Moriah’s Landing was founded. The temperature was in the high sixties, the air brisk and carrying the scent of pumpkins and late fall blossoms. The sky was clear, alive with sparkling stars and a full harvest moon. The mysteries that had haunted the town for the last twenty years were solved, and now Geoffrey Pierce lay in the cemetery, not far from the grave of McFarland Leary.

David still woke up every morning trying to convince himself all over again that his new life wasn’t a dream. He held Tasha’s hand as they walked through the crowd and toward the back of the gazebo where they were to meet Drew and Brie. They never made more than a few steps’ progress without someone stopping to hug her and tell her how glad they were to have her back.

Amazingly enough, a lot of them shook his hand, as well, and thanked him for his part in stopping not one but two killers. His status of town beast was slipping fast, but he had to admit he liked his new status of hero much better. Even the scar appeared to be growing on people, and it bothered him less and less every day, as did the rest of his mangled body. Tasha loved him, and that was good enough for him.

Tasha. He still had trouble getting used to calling her that after she’d been Becca in his mind for the last few months. He loved the woman she’d become as much as he loved the one he’d met and fallen in love with five years ago. But knowing that she was the same woman explained the immediate and overwhelming attraction they’d had for each other from that first brief moment when their eyes had met.

“Looks like the whole gang is waiting on us,” Tasha said, waving. “Drew and Brie, Kat and Jonah, and Elizabeth and Cullen.”

“Claire’s with them, too.”

Tasha strained her neck. “I don’t see Claire.”

“Standing next to Elizabeth.”

“Oh, my gosh, that is her. She looks absolutely stunning. It’s hard to imagine her as the frightened mouse of a woman that she was just a few short weeks ago.”

“And speaking of stunning, did I tell you how wonderful you look tonight?”

She put a finger to her chin flirtatiously. “I’m not sure. Better tell me again just in case.”

“No. You’re getting much too spoiled.” But he kissed her and knew he was the one leading the charmed life.

TASHA, ELIZABETH, KAT, BRIE and Claire sat at a table under the stars while the men in their lives stood in line for a round of drinks.

“I never thought we’d all be together again like this,” Brie said, tugging on the puffed sleeves of her dress. “Now that we are, I’m having trouble believing it.”

Elizabeth spread her hands on the table, her diamond engagement ring that accompanied her wedding band reflecting the sparkle from the strings of miniature lights strung over their heads. “We’ve come a long way from that night five years ago in the cemetery.”

“I had to travel back from hell,” Claire said. “I couldn’t have done it without all of you.”

Kat reached over and squeezed her hand. “I just wish I could have done more.”

“I guess most of the thanks goes to David Bryson,” Brie said. “If it hadn’t been for him, Tasha would have been killed without our ever having known that she hadn’t died in the explosion the night before her wedding.”

“I love him,” Tasha said.

“Like we haven’t noticed,” Brie said as they all started laughing. “You drool all over the man.”

“Well, he is the hero of the day. Not only did he save my and Claire’s lives, but he may have developed a drug that can save Brie’s mother’s life.”

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” Brie said.

“We all are,” they agreed in unison.

“It’s been some year for Moriah’s Landing,” Elizabeth said. “Murders, underhanded medical schemes, scams of all descriptions. It’s as if the evil finally crawled out of the old mansions and beat-up shacks along the wharves and got stamped under the feet of justice. And it’s touched each one of us in some unique way.”

“I’m still not clear on how it all fits together,” Brie mused.

Elizabeth said, “It’s like this—”

“The layman’s version, Elizabeth,” Brie interrupted. “No university criminology technical jive.”

“You got it.” Elizabeth smoothed the tablecloth, ready to illustrate with the cocktail forks and napkins the scenario as she saw it. “Geoffrey Pierce, Dr. Leland Manning and even before him, Dr. Rathfastar, were all part of the secret medical society, all searching for the elusive gene W that they thought existed in the original witches of Moriah’s Landing. Dr. Rathfastar was too radical for the other members and they dismissed him from the group.”

“Kicked him right out,” Kat said, taking away one of the forks Elizabeth had lined up across the center of the table. “And that pissed the guy off.”

“Big time,” Elizabeth agreed. “So he started grabbing Manning’s subjects and killing them, taking the blood for his own experiments and not leaving any blood in the body for Manning. That’s why when Rathfastar was arrested, the crime spree wasn’t fully over.”

“And that’s when my Jonah stepped in,” Kat said.

“He stopped the illegal medical supplies—or rather, mummified corpses—that a member of the secret society was bringing into the county. And during his investigation, we found out that Ernie McDougal was the man who killed my mother twenty years ago.” Kat took away another fork.

“And then came a new villain,” Brie said. “Dr. Leland Manning, the monster who tried to do experiments on my daughter. And who killed his own wife and tried to kill Drew.” She picked up a fork.

“And finally Geoffrey Pierce. Strange how it all runs full circle,” Tasha said, picking up all the forks and holding them in the circle of her right hand. “All the searching for gene W and I have it. So now we know that there’s nothing to the theory that drove so many men to such heinous crimes.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Claire said. “You’ve cheated death five times now. The night of the explosion, being buried alive, the crash on Old Mountain Road, the knife of Kevin Pinelle and the cyanide-laced needle of Geoffrey Pierce.”

A shudder rippled up Tasha’s backbone and she let the forks drop to the table with a clatter. “You don’t really think I’m a witch, do you?”

“Of course not.” Elizabeth said. “Just one lucky woman.”

“Let’s join hands,” Kat said, “the way we did that night at the cemetery. Only this time we’ll all think of all the things that bind us as friends.”

“Friends forever,” Tasha said, taking the hands of Brie and Claire. They closed their eyes and Tasha let her mind float from one to the other of the women at the table. She was so lucky to have friends like this, fortunate to have found her way back to Moriah’s Landing and the people who loved her. The moment seemed to pass in an instant, but they all held on to one another’s hands until the men returned, no one willing to break the bond that held them.

Friends forever. Lucky in love. Fortunate to be alive.

“IT WAS A PERFECT NIGHT,” Tasha said, slipping inside David’s arms.

“Almost perfect,” David agreed.

She propped a hand on her hip seductively, and his heart rolled over inside him.

“We could make it perfect,” she teased, “once we get back to the Bluffs. Are you ready to go?”

“Not quite.” He tugged her beneath a cover of twinkling lights that threaded around the bare branches of an oak tree.

“You look so serious,” she said, her eyes shining as brightly as the lights. “You’re not about to dump me, are you?”

“Not in this lifetime, but I am serious.” He fumbled in his front pocket for the ring, making sure it was still there. He’d done this five years ago, but he was certain he couldn’t have been any more nervous then than he was now.

He took her left hand in his and got down on one knee. “I loved you as Tasha and I loved you as Becca Smith.” He had practiced a flowery speech. He couldn’t remember a word of it now. “Will you marry me?”

She fell to her knees beside him. “We never made it to the altar, but I married you with my heart and soul five years ago, David Bryson, and our love was so strong that it drew me back to Moriah’s Landing even though I couldn’t remember the place or you.” She cradled his face in her hands, and he could see the moisture glistening in her eyes. “It’s always been you. It always will be.”

“Is that a yes?”

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. “It’s a yes.”

He stood and tugged her to her feet. “Should I ask your parents’ permission again?”

“Let’s just ask their blessing, David. And I’m sure they’ll give it. Since you saved my life, twice, they’re ready to nominate you for man of the year. Drew, too. As soon as he’s elected mayor, he’ll probably give you the keys to the city.”

“I don’t need a key to the city. I have everything I need right here in my arms tonight.” He slipped the ring on her finger, and the tears she’d held in check started to roll down her cheek. He kissed them away as the band started playing. The beautiful, haunting theme from Beauty and the Beast wafted across the green.

“May I have this dance?” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “They’re playing our song. Just don’t expect me to turn into the handsome prince.”

“You already have.”

An owl hooted somewhere overhead. Tasha trembled, instinctively, afraid that the owl was an omen that their happiness would be ripped away from them again. But David took her in his arms and held her close as they moved to the music. The fear was swept away in the magic of the moment. Love was the only omen she’d believe in anymore.

A love that had lived inside both of them and drawn them back together against all odds. Claire had been right all along. She was bewitched by David, and he by her. He lowered his mouth to hers, and she lost herself in his kiss.

Bewitched forevermore.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-1587-4

Copyright © 2008 Harlequin Books S.A.

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Secret Sanctuary
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Books S.A.

Howling In The Darkness
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Books S.A.

Scarlet Vows
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Books S.A.

Behind The Veil
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Books S.A.

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