Chapter One

The party was lousy, Josh thought as he made his way to the door. He would have thanked his hostess, except that he had no idea who she was. He was in Los Angeles on a whistle-stop tour of some of his businesses--a hotel here--and had been invited to this party by a man interested in buying into the hotel business. Josh had been bored, and the party had sounded better than any other activity he could think of.

It hadn't been, however. And his distaste had increased an hour before when Leon Travers had arrived to be welcomed servilely by the evening's host; Josh could think of numerous ways for a businessman to advance himself, but selling his soul to the devil was not on the list. His host, it seemed, thought otherwise; he obviously believed the sun rose behind Leon Travers's silver head.

Josh could have disabused him of that idea, but knew only too well that people had to make their own mistakes.

Now, as he made his way through the crush of glittering people, he felt definitely jaded. He was supposed to leave Los Angeles tomorrow, and he found no regret in putting this city behind him. But no longing for the next city, either, and no longing for home.

Home. He owned four homes. A penthouse condo in New York, a ranch in Montana, a vacation lodge in the Catskills, and a lonely cliff-hugging aerie on the coast of Oregon. None of them held any appeal for him at the moment.

He found his coat with some difficulty, then squeezed his way out the front door of the hotel suite. For a moment, he stood in the hallway, allowing his ears to adjust to the relative silence. Then he strode down the hall. Occupied with dark thoughts, he only dimly heard the muffled bell of the elevator around the corner. Walking briskly to catch it, he was abruptly hit by something warm and soft, yet with a force that knocked him backward to measure his length on the carpeted floor. The fall jarred him, but it was when he looked up at his attacker that he lost his breath.

In a flashing instant, what he saw sparked a double reaction within him. His body throbbed strongly, searingly, in an instantaneous arousal; never in his life had he felt such desire so quickly or powerfully. And deep inside him, another response to what he saw caused his heart to turn over with an almost-painful lurch. He thought of all those years of caution and avoidance guided by his conviction that he had only to keep his hand firmly on the wheel of his ship and his eyes away from brunettes to control his destiny.

While his heart and body grappled with powerful new feelings, Josh could regard the situation only with ironic amusement. How else could a reasonably intelligent man react to the knowledge that the fates were probably laughing themselves silly?

"Oh, hell," he muttered despairingly. "I knew it. I knew you were out there somewhere. And I was so careful."

She wasn't listening.

"Ye gods and little fishes! The saleslady said this dress would knock men flat, but I don't think this is what she meant. Damn, and I'll bet you broke something too. Listen, I don't believe it's ethical to sue one's fellow humans. And in this case it'd hardly be fair because we were both moving. I mean, it isn't as if my car hit yours when it was parked. Right?"

He raised himself on his elbows, crossed his ankles, and stared up at her in utter fascination.

She was tall, he judged, and blessed by the Creator with a body that could--and most likely did--stop traffic; it was certainly stopping his heart about every third beat....

Prologue I brought to life, Dani thought. The vision.

The smell of blood turned her stomach, the thick, acrid smoke burned her eyes, and what had been for so long a wispy, dreamlike memory was now jarring, throat-clogging reality. For just an instant she was paralyzed. It was all coming true.

Despite everything she had done, everything she had tried to do, despite all the warnings, once again it was all--

"Dani?" Hollis appeared at her side, seemingly out of the smoke, gun drawn, blue eyes sharp even squinted against the stench. "Where is it?"

"I--I can't. I mean, I don't think I can--"

"Dani, you're all we've got. You're all they've got. Do you understand that?"

Reaching desperately for strength she wasn't at all sure she had, Dani said, "If somebody had just listened to me when it mattered--"

"Stop looking back. There's no sense in it. Now is all that counts. Which way, Dani?"

Impossible as it was, Dani had to force herself to concentrate on the stench of blood she knew neither of the others could smell. A blood trail that was all they had to guide them. She nearly gagged, then pointed. "That way. Toward the back. But . . ."

"But what?"

"Down. Lower. There's a basement level." Stairs. She remembered stairs. Going down them. Down into hell.

"It isn't on the blueprints."

"I know."

"Bad place to get trapped in a burning building," Hollis noted. "The roof could fall in on us. Easily."

Bishop appeared out of the smoke as suddenly as Hollis had, weapon in hand, his face stone, eyes haunted. "We have to hurry."

"Yeah," Hollis replied, "we get that. Burning building. Maniacal killer. Good seriously outnumbered by evil. Bad situation." Her words and tone were flippant, but her gaze on his face was anything but, intent and measuring.

"You forgot potential victim in maniacal killer's hands," her boss said, not even trying to match her tone.

"Never. Dani, did you see the basement, or are you feeling it?"

"Stairs. I saw them." The weight on her shoulders felt like the world, so maybe that was what was pressing her down. Or . . . "And what I feel now ...He's lower. He's underneath us."

"Then we look for stairs."

Dani coughed. She was trying to think, trying to remember. But dreams recalled were such dim, insubstantial things, even vision dreams sometimes, and there was no way for her to be sure she was remembering clearly. She was overwhelmingly conscious of precious time passing and looked at her wrist, at the bulky digital watch that told her it was 2:47 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28.

Odd. She never wore a watch. Why was she wearing one now? And why a watch that looked so . . . alien on her thin wrist?

"Dani?"

She shook off the momentary confusion. "The stairs. Not where you'd expect them to be," she managed finally, coughing again. "They're in a closet or something like that. A small office. Room. Not a hallway. Hallways--" A flash of endless, featureless hallways, brightly lit . . .

"What?"

The image in her mind vanished as quickly as it had come, and Dani dismissed it as unimportant because an absolute certainty had replaced it. "Shit. The basement is divided. By a solid wall. Two big rooms. And accessed from this main level by two different stairways, one at each...

Chapter One
There was no answer at the front door. Cody shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his thickly quilted jacket and stepped back from the door, casting a hostile glance out over what would probably be a breathtaking view during daylight. At the moment he could only dimly discern the hulking and intimidating mountains looming all around the tiny valley.

Montana, he was thinking in disgust, and in the middle of winter too. He swore softly, moving out to the edge of the rustic redwood deck that pretended to be a front porch. The durable Jeep that had brought him with relative safety up the winding and icy road to this valley was making soft popping and crackling noises as its hot engine cooled down rapidly in the frigid air. Only those sounds and an occasional whine from the wind high above disturbed the silence.

Cody took care in stepping off the deck, avoiding the two shallow steps, which, he'd discovered only moments before, were slippery. He stood for a moment in the trampled snow that formed a rough walkway, staring at the rented Jeep and then looking around quickly for any sign of a garage. Another building off to one side attracted his attention, and he made his way in that direction cautiously, silently cursing his lack of forethought in not having worn thick boots; his ankle boots just didn't allow for nearly a foot of snow.

He glanced back at the lodge once, trying for the third time to gain some impression of size or style, but was defeated again. The tall trees surrounding the building shadowed it too heavily to offer even a dim silhouette. It was big, though; that much he was sure of. And not a light showed anywhere.

He located a window in the side of the fairly large outbuilding and brushed snow away from the shallow sill, cupping his hands around his eyes and leaning closer for a look inside. The interior was dim, but he felt his brows raise slightly as he identified the hulking shape of a Sno-Cat on the far side. Nearer, he could barely make out a Jeep very like his own but with a more battered appearance.

Cody let his arms drop and backed away from the window, stumbling over rocks bordering a narrow trodden path. Regaining his balance and absently watching his quiet curses assume a misty shape in the cold air, he began to follow the path that led between the garage and the lodge around to the back.

Where the hell was the woman anyway? Cody wondered. He was sure that Pepper had let her friend know that he was coming; she wasn't the type to forget to do something like that. He swore again. If Brooke Kennedy was so damn hostile that she wouldn't even show him a welcoming light or open a door to him, the hell with it!

"Be patient with her, Cody--she's had a rough time."

Pepper's last worried words to him surfaced in his mind, and Cody forced himself to calm down. But, he told himself firmly, if you can't find her, you can hardly help her. The thought cheered him slightly. Maybe she'd gone away for a while. He could take that cruise after all.

As he was rounding a dark corner something hit him squarely in the stomach, driving all the breath out of him in an astonished whoosh, and he folded up neatly before measuring his length backward in the snow.

He lay there for a moment, staring up at the stars and trying to remember if breathing was a voluntary or involuntary action. Voluntary? Maybe he'd better try.

The stars winked out for a second as his paralyzed diaphragm resisted his efforts, then Cody found himself drawing the cold night air into his lungs in relieved...

Chapter One
Spanish moss hung from the towering trees, draping branches, shadowing the drive in coolness. It should have looked gloomy, but didn't, somehow. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and moss to create a mosaic on the hard-packed ground.

Rory stood leaning against the opened car door, gazing around and noting that Nature had been allowed to encroach on what had once, probably, been stunningly beautiful land. The woods were now thickly grown with brambles and nearly impassable; the distant pasture, although obviously still cultivated for hay, was surrounded by a once-white three-rail fence that looked more imagined than real; a gazebo nearly invisible beneath years of ivy strove valiantly to remain standing; and the driveway was packed dirt with not a trace of gravel or pavement, but many a deep rut.

His cool gray eyes measuring, Rory calculated what it would take to restore the land. A riding path through the woods, he mused, and a footpath and benches for guests in need of shaded solitude. The old gazebo torn down and another constructed. The stables weren't visible, but probably they, too, would need a major overhaul.

He thought of the other plantations he'd purchased and converted into resort-type hotels, then looked steadily up the tree-lined drive to the house. Outwardly, it was in better shape than most of the few remaining privately owned plantations. It possessed wide, shallow steps, a veranda extending along two sides, solid white Doric columns, and the landscaping near the building had been kept up. Red brick mellowed by time was decorated here and there by climbing ivy. The shutters appeared to be in good repair and there were no broken windows in sight. Although heaven only knew what rotten floor-boards and moldy draperies awaited him inside inside . . . Jasmine Hall's noble owner had never allowed cameras inside the place, so Rory hadn't the faintest idea what he'd find.

Sighing, he got back into the car and continued up the drive. He'd stay two weeks, as invited, he decided, to look the place over and find out if old Jake Clairmont was really serious this time about selling Jasmine Hall.

Twice before, the crusty old man had spread the word, only to back out gleefully when Rory and others had expressed interest in buying. The second time had been in Charleston, nearly a year before. The third time, six weeks ago, no one but Rory had taken the bait. And he was still vaguely surprised and slightly suspicious that he had been promptly invited out to visit the estate. He frowned as he parked the car in the graveled area near the house and got out, wondering if Clairmont had been foxy enough to have weeded out less interested parties by offering to sell the first two times and then retracting his offer.

It put Rory on guard, his keen business sense wary of an attempt to drive up the price. Although, of course, the place was priceless. Pushing the thought aside, he went up the broad, shallow steps and made use of the shining brass knocker. He had to use it three times, the third time with considerable force, before the heavy solid-oak door finally swung open. And in that moment Rory experienced the somewhat bewildering shock of a man whose entire attention was quite forcibly ripped from all thoughts of business.

She was an antebellum Southern belle, complete from the raven hair dressed in ringlets to the silk slippers peeping from the hem of her hoop skirt. The gown was emerald silk, off the shoulders and breathtakingly...

Chapter One
She was extraordinary. Compelling. Exquisite. Waves of smoldering sensuality emanated from her striking silvery eyes and slender body to hold the audience spellbound. Her sequined gown was a shimmering silver, molding to her like a second skin: the bare flesh it revealed was tanned a smooth gold. Her thick, shining ebony hair hung about her shoulders in a living curtain of darkness. And her voice . . . throaty, sensual, filled with an odd defiant yearning, endowing the words of the song with a wild plea that touched every person in the audience. Women, old and young alike, felt their throats constrict and eyes fill with tears as the passionate words seemed to rise from their own deepest selves. And men of all ages felt their hearts thudding dully in their ears, conscious of a desperate desire to go out and slay dragons. . . .

The man standing in the wings felt the compulsion toward heroic deeds, felt his heart pounding fiercely. A distant part of his mind marveled silently at the effect of the woman and the woman's voice. In little less than a year, she'd won over popular music fans throughout the country. The world, her manager had mentioned casually, happily, was next.

Travis Foxx, standing next to that manager now was conscious of a dozen questions he wanted to ask. But he listened, instead, to a voice rich with a woman's passion and to words that stripped that woman's soul naked as she sang of the dearth of heroes.

"Isn't she something?" Philip Saunders asked cheerfully, clearly expecting a positive response.Travis reluctantly pulled his gaze from the stage as Saber Duncan instantly went into another song, barely giving the stunned audience time to applaud.

"Yes. Yes, she's certainly something." Travis's resonant voice added coolly, "But is she the same woman who released a couple of--in all honesty-- forgettable songs just about two years ago?" Saunders blinked, then laughed. "You've heard the rumors, I see."

"That perhaps she isn't Saber Duncan at all, but a ringer brought in by Mosaic Records? I've heard. And now I wonder." With an effort Travis closed his ears to that enchanting voice scant feet away, focusing his attention on the man at his side. "I heard those forgettable songs when the records were released. And that voice wasn't the one I'm hearing tonight."

"You're so sure of that?"

Travis ignored the mild question. "That voice was as sweet as honey and just as bland. No power. Certainly no passion. And I have copies of the studio photos released to the press then. That Saber was a girl, a hothouse flower with the dew still on its petals."

"Nice imagery," Saunders murmured, clearly amused.

He was ignored again. "This Saber"--Travis gestured toward the performer onstage--"is part jungle cat and part siren. And her voice holds more power, more raw passion, then I've heard from a performer in fifteen years." He lifted an eyebrow at the smiling manager. "Such a change in a single year? Sorry, Saunders, but I'm having a hard time swallowing that."

"Hence the book?" Saunders questioned dryly. Travis turned his gaze back to the stage, his eyes drawn like a lodestone to the woman pouring her heart out so compellingly. "That's partly the reason," he answered honestly. "I've never written a biography before, as I told you. . . ."

"But you want to write hers." Saunders filled in the sudden silence between them with wry words. "Well, I warned you. Saber's a very, very private person. I honestly think she'll refuse to authorize you to write...

Chapter One
"Miss Cortney-Bennet?"

From some distant corner of the very dark room a tiny, gentle voice reproved him. "It's just Bennet. Most Americans don't use hyphenated names."

A bit rattled for several reasons, he stepped inside the loft and half-closed the door behind him. It was so dark that he had the eerie feeling of having been swallowed up by something huge and dimly threatening. It didn't help that rain lashed the high windows or that thunder rumbled distantly.

"Sorry. Uh--I got a message about a problem."

There was a long silence broken only by a muffled crash as he took an unwary step forward, tripped over something unyielding, and found himself sprawled across what seemed to be a large box. The tiny voice reached him through his muttered curses.

"A slight problem. You may have noticed that it's dark."

"The whole building's dark," he retorted, peeling himself off the box.

"Well, you own the building. Can't you do something about it?" Suspicion abruptly entered the ridiculously small voice. "You do own the building, don't you?"

"Not at all," he responded politely, barking his shin on what felt like a boulder. "I just stopped by to rape and pillage."

"Perfect weather for it," she murmured.

"Look, where are you?" he demanded, trying to home in on that small voice.

"I'm not sure. I was in the shower when the lights went out, and I haven't been able to find my flashlight. I just barely found the phone."

Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Did you find any clothes?"

"I found a robe." Her voice turned reflective. "Or maybe it's just the towel Caliban chewed a couple of holes in. It feels like a robe, though."

Fascinated, he took a step toward her voice, tripped again, and found himself hugging something tall, unyielding, and furry. Recoiling violently, he tripped going backward and sat down hard on yet another box.

"What the hell?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I just ran into something with fur," he managed to say.

"Is it alive?"

"I sincerely hope not!"

"Oh, well, that was Fluffy. He's a bear. A stuffed bear," she added rather hastily.

He took a deep breath. "Oh."

"Yes. Don't you have a flashlight?"

He decided to remain where he was on the box because there was something definitely unnerving in encountering a bear--be it ever so stuffed--in total darkness. "I couldn't find my flashlight," he explained, adding, "I just moved in yesterday myself."

"You're a lot of help," she told him severely. "What is your name, anyway? I've forgotten."

"Noah Thorne. And you're Stephanie Alexandra Cortney Bennet," he said, remembering not to hyphenate the surnames. "It stuck in my mind."

"Impressive, isn't it?" she agreed cheerfully. "I was born with it, but use it only professionally. To my friends, I'm just Alex Bennet."

For some time Noah had been conscious of a wry feeling about his mental image of the lady with the impressive name. Now he was certain that image was slightly off. They had never met face to face, or even talked on the phone; he had seen some of her interior decorating and had hired her through correspondence to handle the decorating of his building.

And Alex Bennet, upon learning all the details of the conversion, had instantly requested a loft for herself. She...

Chapter One
"C.J., can't you put that book down for ten minutes?"

The exasperated voice, coming from the willowy blonde seated next to C.J. in the cab, contained more than a thread of real irritation. C.J. lifted her burnished copper head and directed a somewhat quizzical look at her friend, then sighed and marked her place, closing the heavy book and leaving it to rest on her lap. "Sorry, Jan," she murmured.

Jan leaned forward to address the third occupant of the cab, who was sitting on the other side of C.J. "Want to bet she starts reading again the moment we check in?"

The brunette on C.J.'s right shook her head with a long-suffering sigh, her brown eyes merry. "That's the trouble with geniuses--they just can't stop being geniuses."

"I'm not a genius, Tami," C.J. protested, her quiet voice mild but very slightly impatient.

"Lord knows that just looking at you no one would take you for a brain," Jan said. "You're no bigger than a pixie, and those ridiculous yellow eyes make you look like a bewildered kitten!"

"It's disgusting!" Tami chimed in, her voice lifting in mock outrage. "All the men cluster around you like bees at a honey pot, until you utterly dumbfound them by saying very seriously that Charlemagne was a terrific king--or whatever he was--and that the Romans were great people in spite of the orgies."

C.J. sighed again as her friends' laughter attacked her ears from both sides. They meant well--they really did. But since she had spent both school days and vacations with them all through the years, these kinds of comments were beginning to grow stale.

If asked, C.J. would have replied quite honestly that the tradition of marriage seemed a fine idea and was, after all, what one made of it. To each his own.

Her "own" was blessed singleness. The love of her life was history; no flesh-and-blood man had succeeded in peeling away so much as one layer of that set of abstractions she had long ago wrapped herself in. C.J. saw nothing wrong with that, nothing missing from her life. She was well-traveled, very well educated, and perfectly capable of holding her own in any social situation. The problem was--said her friends--that she didn't particularly care one way or the other about the normal feminine preoccupations.

Her copper hair was curly and kept short for convenience; it rarely saw a brush and never a beauty salon. She wore whatever she happened to pull from closet or drawer, usually casual slacks or jeans and, depending on the season, a sweater or T-shirt. She made no effort to cover with makeup the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose, or to emphasize the catlike slant or color of her tawny eyes. And far from encouraging the attentions of a man, she was more likely to fix him with a ruthlessly clear-seeing gaze, and demand to know what all the pretty speeches were for.

Still, her friends had tried. During the last ten years, they had "fixed her up" with one man after another. She had been ruthlessly pulled from the books in her study time after time to attend a party, see a play, hear a concert. And vacations had been riddled with seemingly casual meetings with suitable, hopefully interesting bachelors. C.J. had only the vaguest recollection of faces and none at all of names.

Four of her friends were now married and Kathy, the last to succumb to the lure of "happily ever after," was scheduled to trip down the aisle exactly one week from today.

The result, unfortunately for C.J., was that her friends were now more determined than ever...

Chapter One
Present day April 8 Tennessee

Case Edgerton ran along the narrow trail, aware of his burning legs but concentrating on his breathing. The last mile was always the hardest, especially on his weekly trail run. Easier to just zone out and run when he was on the track or in his neighborhoodpark; this kind of running, with its uneven terrain and various hazards, required real concentration.

That was why he liked it.

He jumped over a rotted fallen log and almost immediately had to duck a low-hanging branch. After that, it was all downhill--which wasn't as easy as it sounded, since the trail snaked back and forth in hairpin curves all along the middle quarter of thislast mile. Good training for his upcoming race. He planned to win that one, as he had won so many his entire senior year.

And then Kayla Vassey, who had a thing for runners and who was remarkably flexible, would happily reward him. Maybe for the whole summer. But there'd be no clinging to him afterward; she'd be too busy sizing up next year's crop of runners to do more thanwave goodbye when he left in the fall for college.

Sex without strings. The kind he preferred.

Case nearly tripped over a root exposed by recent spring rains and swore at his wandering thoughts.

Concentrate, idiot. Do you want to lose that race?

He really didn't.

His legs were on fire now and his lungs felt raw, but he kept pushing himself, as he always did, even picking up a little speed as he rounded the last of the wicked hairpin curves.

This time, when he tripped, he went sprawling.

He tried to land on his shoulder and roll, to do as little damage as possible, but the trail was so uneven that instead of rolling he slammed into the hard ground with a grunt, the wind knocked out of him, and a jolt of pain told him he'd probably jammedor torn something.

It took him a few minutes of panting and holding his shoulder gingerly before he felt able to sit up. And it was only then that he saw what had tripped him.

An arm.

Incredulous, he stared at a hand that appeared to belong to a man, a hand that was surprisingly clean and unmarked, long fingers seemingly relaxed. His gaze tracked across a forearm that was likewise uninjured, and then--
And then Case Edgerton began to scream like a little girl.

"You can see why I called you in." Sheriff Desmond Duncan's voice was not--quite--defensive. "We're on the outskirts of Serenade, but it still falls into my jurisdiction. And I'm not ashamed to admit it's beyond anything the Pageant County Sheriff's Departmenthas ever handled." He paused, then repeated, "Ever."

"I'm not surprised," she replied somewhat absently.

His training and experience told Des Duncan to shut up and let her concentrate on the scene, but his curiosity was stronger. He hadn't known what to expect when he contacted the FBI, never having done so before, so maybe any agent would have surprisedhim. This one definitely did.

She was drop-dead gorgeous, for one thing, with a centerfold body and the face of an exotic angel. And she possessed the most vivid blue eyes Duncan had seen in his life. With all that, she appeared remarkably casual and unaware of the effect she was havingon just about every man within eyesight of her. She was in faded jeans and a loose pullover sweater, and her boots were both serviceable and worn. Her long gleaming black hair...

Chapter One
She watched the tall, dark, undeniably handsome man enter the restaurant, watched his graceful progress through the crowded room. She watched the fawning waiters and noted the interested stares of fellow diners. She studied the man's companion for a briefmoment. Blondes, she thought. Always blondes. Doesn't his taste vary?

She looked across the table at her own companion. Another blonde. But the face she studied now was the opposite in every way--except one--from the face belonging to the blonde across the room.

The one similarity was beauty.

Masculine beauty met her thoughtful gaze as she studied her companion. His was an arresting face: lean, classical of feature, tanned, with a determined jaw and humor playing about the curved lips and gleaming in green eyes. A face capable, certainly, ofhaunting dreams and breaking hearts.

He was a tall man, athletic, with broad shoulders and a lithe way of moving. Thick, silvery blond hair. A man in his mid-thirties who was obviously strong, tough, and determined.

She looked once again at the dark man across the room. Slowly she began to smile. "You're smiling," her companion observed in a tone of immense foreboding.

She laughed softly and looked across the table at him, her gray eyes as deceptively unthreatening as a silent mountain fog.

"Why are you smiling?" he demanded, anxiety mixed with amusement in his deep, pleasant voice.

"I'm not blond, and I don't have blue eyes."

"That's why you're smiling?" He glanced at her wineglass suspiciously, obviously wondering how much was too much.

Her smile widened. "Brian, you're a lovely man. I don't know what I would have done without you these last weeks."

Far from being flattered by these soulful remarks, Brian Ashford began to frown in earnest. "Rena, you're up to something," he said uneasily. "The last time you told me I was a lovely man, I had to bail you out of jail the next day."

Serena Jameson waved a slender hand in a dismissing gesture. "That was a misunderstanding."

"You bet it was. You misunderstood that cop when he arrested you, so you punched him in the eye."

Serena gave him another of the gentle, unthreatening smiles he'd learned to mistrust. "He was going to arrest Sam, and I couldn't allow that."

Brian sighed. "I know, I know. Sam was in trouble, so you got yourself into trouble to keep him out of trouble--which is the way your mind works. You're frightening, d'you know that?"

"Nothing terrible's happened, so--"

"I know nothing terrible's happened . . . this week. Unlike last week. And the week before. Rena, I'm going to apologize to your father if I ever live to see him again. I believed--truly believed--that he was showing needless concern by requesting someoneto accompany you from Europe to New York and then on to the West Coast."

"Brian--"

"I never thought," he went on cordially, "that six weeks in the company of a rather lovely twenty-six-year-old woman could hold anything remotely resembling danger. Piece of cake, I thought. Oversee the travel arrangements, keep the lady company, see someof the country I've never seen, and just make sure the genius's daughter doesn't fall down and break a leg during the trip. Easy. Simple. Safe."

"Brian--"

"However, no one warned me that you bleed when somebody--anybody--gets cut. No one warned me...

Chapter One
She checked the line for the third time and then swung out over the guttering, lowering herself cautiously until her feet were firmly placed on the lintel protruding slightly above the top window. She had no fear of being seen from within; this was the attic window, a round conceit fashioned in bogus stained glass and certainly opaque from paint if not from plain old dirt. Her soft kid boots gripped the stone securely, and she looked down over her shoulder to pinpoint her target one last time. Yes--there it was: a raised window sash on the second floor.

Her gaze continued downward until she noted the grass directly beneath her, noted indifferently and with but a glancing thought how that grass would welcome a body falling five stories into its grasp. It would have been easier, she thought, to climb up to the second floor rather than climb down to it, but inconveniently placed shrubbery lighting cast a distinctly unwelcome spotlight on the entire first floor. Only a suicidally bold thief would have taken the chance.

Troy was bold--but she was also shrewd and cautious. And luckily she could belay herself down faster and more quietly than nine out of ten men could have climbed up. Decision made.

Balancing easily on the narrow ledge, Troy reached up to roll down her ski mask to cover her face. That done, her gloved fingers moved automatically over her compact tool belt, ticking off each tool in its proper place. Then she gripped the line, expertly bent her knees, and pushed away from the building, swinging out and down with the speed and control of an experienced mountain climber. The first fall took her down to the third floor, her booted feet touching the brick wall with the lightness of a feather and the silence of a cat. Knees bent, she allowed her joints to absorb force and sound for a split second, and then pushed off again.

Her second jump took her exactly to target: the open window sash was at waist-level and to her right. Again, flexed knees took the force of her landing, absorbing sound. Troy paused for a moment, head turned and eyes fixed on the sentry who'd just rounded the corner of the building. She watched in silence, not a sound betraying her to the man or to the alert Doberman that was pacing on a short leash at his side. Both passed her position, some feet below her, and moved on, the man swearing quietly to his canine companion about the absurdity of patroling on a night as cold as a witch's broomstick and as black as the Earl of Hell's waistcoat.

Troy turned her head to watch them move out of sight around the opposite corner of the building. She saw mist rise in front of her eyes and realized absently that she'd held her breath, but her lungs hadn't complained; Troy could hold her breath for a long time. She locked the line in position and used the niches in the bricks to pull herself sideways until she could peer between the crack in the drapes.

She had highly developed night vision so her eyes saw as much of the interior of the room as was possible through the narrow crack. A chair, a desk, what looked like a game table, and--ah! Books on shelves. The plans had been worth what she'd paid for them then; this was the library. The safe should be to the left of the desk and probably--unoriginally--behind a painting.

She braced her feet even more carefully and slid a hand inside the open window. Sensitive fingers gloved in form-fitting kid searched slowly and delicately for any indication of wire or trip device, and found none. Still cautious, Troy unhooked a small electronic device from her belt and pushed a button, her eyes fixed...

Chapter One
Even before she opened her eyes, Riley Crane was aware of two things. Her pounding head, and the smell of blood.

Neither was all that unusual.

Instinct and training made her lie perfectly still, eyes closed, until she was reasonably sure she was fully awake. She was on her stomach and probably on a bed, she thought. Possibly her own bed. On top of the covers, or at least not covered up.

Alone.

She opened her eyes a slit, just enough to see. Rumpled covers, pillows. Her rumpled covers and pillows, she decided. Her bed. The nightstand, holding the usual nightstand accessories of lamp, an untidy stack of books, and an alarm clock.

The red numbers announced that it was 2:00 p.m.

Okay, that was unusual. She never slept late, and she never took naps. Plus, while either a headache or the smell of blood was not uncommon in her life, the two together were setting off alarm bells in her mind.

Riley concentrated on listening, her unease growing when she realized that she could hear only on the "normal" level. The faint hum of the air-conditioning. The muffled rumble and crash of the surf out on the beach. A gull screaming as it flew past the house. The sort of stuff the usual everyday sense of hearing could glean automatically without any added concentration or focus.

But nothing else. Try as she might, she couldn't hear the underlying pulse of the house that was made up of things like the water in the plumbing and electricity humming in the lines and the all-but-imperceptible shifting and creaking of seemingly solid wood and stone as wind blew off the ocean and pressed against the building.

She couldn't hear any of it. And that was bad.

Taking the chance, Riley pushed herself up on her elbows and then slid her right hand underneath the pillows. Ahhh . . . at least it was there, right where it was supposed to be. Her hand closed over the reassuring grip of her weapon, and she pulled it out, giving it a quick visual scan.

Clip in, safety on, no round in the chamber. She automatically ejected the clip, checked that it was full, and slid it back into place, then chambered a round, the action quick and smooth after so many years of practice. The gun in her hand felt comfortable. That was right.

But something else was very wrong.

She could see the blood now as well as smell it. It was on her.

Riley rolled and sat up in a single motion, her gaze darting around the bedroom warily. Her bedroom, something she recognized with a sense of familiarity, the reassurance of being where she should be. And it was empty except for her.

Her head was pounding even harder from the quick movements, but she ignored it as she looked down at herself. The hand holding the gun was smeared with dried blood, and when she shifted the weapon to her other hand, she saw that it was as well. On her palms, on the backs of her hands, her forearms, even, she saw, underneath her fingernails.

As far as she could tell, there was no blood on the covers, the pillows. Which meant all the blood on her had dried before she had apparently fallen across the bed fully dressed and gone to sleep. Or passed out. Either way . . .

Jesus Christ.

Blood on her hands. Blood on her light-colored T-shirt. Blood on her faded jeans.

A lot of blood.

Was she hurt? She didn't feel any pain, apart from the throbbing headache. But she did feel a cold,...

Thursday, January 6The body had been exposed to the elements for at least two or three days. And before last night's heavy rain had washed them away, the tracks of dozens of paws and claws must have crisscrossed the clearing.

It was shaping up to be a long, cold winter, and the animals were hungry.

Deputy Alex Mayse shivered as he picked his way gingerly past the town's single forensics "expert," a young doctor who'd been elected coroner because nobody else had wanted the job. The doctor was crawling around the clearing on his hands and knees, his nose inches from the wet ground as he found and flagged the scattered bones and other bits the animals had left.

"You don't have to hum to yourself, Doc," Alex muttered sourly. "We all know how happy you are."

Remaining in his crouched position, Dr. Peter Shepherd said cheerfully, "If a murdered teenager made me happy, Alex, I'd be worse than a ghoul. I'm just fascinated by the puzzle, that's all."

Waiting patiently just a few steps behind the doctor, camera in hand as he waited to take pictures of each flagged spot, Deputy Brady Shaw rolled his eyes at Alex.

Alex grimaced in sympathy, but all he said to Shepherd was, "Yeah, yeah. Just find something helpful this time, will you?"

"Do my best," the doctor replied, studying what appeared to be a bleached twig.

Alex walked to the area where most of the body had been found, noticing with a certain amount of sympathy that Sandy Lynch was over behind a tree puking her guts out. She was having a lousy introduction to the job, poor kid. Not that the old hands were handling it any better, really. Carl Tierney had had the misfortune to find Adam Ramsay's mortal remains, and the ten-year veteran of the Sheriff's Department had promptly lost his morning Egg McMuffin.

Alex himself had suffered through a few teeth-grittingly queasy moments during the last couple of hours.

In fact, the only member of the Cox County Sheriff's Department who had shown no signs of being sickened by the gory sight was the sheriff.

There was an irony there somewhere, Alex thought as he joined the sheriff, who was hunkered down several feet from what was left of Adam Ramsay, elbows on knees and fingers steepled. In its entire history, the small town of Gladstone had seldom been troubled by murder. A long line of sheriffs had grown old in their jobs, dealing with petty crime and little else of consequence, needing no more police training than how to to load a gun, which would in all likelihood never be fired except at targets or the occasional unlucky rabbit. It was a local saying that all the Cox County sheriff had to be good at was filling out the Santa suit for the annual Christmas parade down Main Street.

Until last year, anyway. The town finally elected a sheriff with an actual law degree and a minor in criminology--and what happened? Damned if they didn't start having real crimes.

But they were blessed in that this particular sheriff had very quickly displayed an almost uncanny ability to get to the bottom of things with a minimum of time wasted.

At least until recently.

"This makes two," Alex said, judging that the silence had gone on long enough.

"Yeah."

"Same killer, d'you think?"

Startling blue eyes slanted him a look. "Hard to tell from the bones."

Alex started to reply that there was a bit of rotting flesh here and there, but kept his mouth shut....

Chapter One
Present day

Nightmares again?"

Diana Brisco slipped her cold hands into the front pockets of her smock and frowned at him. "What makes you ask?"

"That." He nodded at the canvas on its easel in front of her, a canvas with a dark background and bright, harsh slashes of color in the foreground.

She joined him in staring at the canvas, and finally shrugged. "No, no nightmares." For once, at least. "Just in a mood, I guess."

"A dark mood."

"You told us to paint what we felt," she said defensively. "I did that."

He smiled, the expression lending his already angelic features such beauty that she unconsciously caught her breath.

"Yes, you did. And quite powerfully. I'm not worried about your work, Diana. It's superb, as usual. I'm concerned about you."

She mentally shook off the almost mesmerizing effect of his physical presence and ignored what she suspected was a pat-the-pupil-on-the-head compliment, saying, "I'm fine. I didn't sleep well, but not because of nightmares. Just because . . ." She shrugged again, unwilling to admit that she had been up half the night staring through her bedroom window, out over the dark valley. She had spent far too many nights that way since arriving in Leisure.

Looking for . . . something. God only knew what, because she certainly didn't.

Gently, but also matter-of-factly, he said, "Even if this workshop was designed for self-expression rather than therapy, I'd be offering the same advice, Diana. Once we're done here, get out of The Lodge for a while. Go for a walk, or a ride, or a swim. Sit out in one of the gardens with a book."

"In other words, stop thinking about myself so much."

"Stop thinking. For a while."

"Okay. Sure. Thanks." Diana knew she sounded brusque and wanted to apologize for it. He was only doing what he was supposed to do, after all, and probably had no idea that she'd heard it all before. But before she could form the words, he merely smiled and moved on to the next of his dozen or so "students" here in the bright, open space of the hotel's conservatory.

Diana kept her hands in the pockets of the paint-stained smock and frowned at her painting. Superb, huh? Yeah, right. To her eye, it looked more like the finger painting of a highly untalented six-year-old.

But, of course, quality was hardly the point. Talent was hardly the point.

Figuring out what was going on in her screwed-up mind was the point.

She took her gaze off the painting and watched as Beau Rafferty moved among his students. An artist of his caliber teaching this sort of workshop had struck her as extremely odd at first, but after a week of classes she had come to realize that he had a genuine gift not only for teaching, but also for reaching and helping troubled people.

Other people, at least. She could already see changes in most of the others participating in this workshop. Strained faces had begun to relax, smiles had appeared to replace frowns or haunted anxiety. She had even seen a few of them out enjoying some of the activities The Lodge had to offer.

But not Diana. Oh, no. Diana was still having nightmares when she could sleep at all, she couldn't remember the last time she had felt relaxed, and none of the myriad sports or recreational facilities here held the least appeal for her. And despite Rafferty's undoubted genius and ability to teach,...