“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Marise,” Cassidy said, holding her eyes with his.

He hadn’t meant to say it. But he would keep her safe. One way or another.

He held out his hand, taking her much smaller one with his fingers. The contact was warm, and the warmth became heat, and the heat became electric, spreading sparks throughout his body.

He swallowed hard, trying to understand why he couldn’t take his fingers away from hers, nor his gaze from the dark blue eyes that were swirling with need.

Desire. Hunger. Need.

Caution.

He called himself all kinds of fool, and yet the electricity remained, the attraction growing more irresistible. But it was merely an attraction, Cassidy told himself. An attraction that could be controlled.

Had to be controlled. For both their sakes.

Dear Reader,

Once again, Silhouette Intimate Moments brings you six exciting romances, a perfect excuse to take a break and read to your heart’s content. Start off with Heart of a Hero, the latest in award-winning Marie Ferrarella’s CHILDFINDERS, INC. miniseries. You’ll be on the edge of your seat as you root for the heroine to find her missing son—and discover true love along the way. Then check out the newest of our FIRSTBORN SONS, Born Brave, by Ruth Wind, another of the award winners who make Intimate Moments so great every month. In Officer Hawk Stone you’ll discover a hero any woman—and that includes our heroine!—would fall in love with.

Cassidy and the Princess, the latest from Patricia Potter, is a gripping story of a true princess of the ice and the hero who lures her in from the cold. With Hard To Handle, mistress of sensuality Kylie Brant begins CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, a trilogy about three irresistible heroes and the heroines lucky enough to land them. Be sure to look for her again next month, when she takes a different tack and contributes our FIRSTBORN SONS title. Round out the month with new titles from up-and-comers Shelley Cooper, whose Promises, Promises offers a new twist on the pregnant-heroine plot, and Wendy Rosnau, who tells a terrific amnesia story in The Right Side of the Law.

And, of course, come back again next month, when the romantic roller-coaster ride continues with six more of the most exciting romances around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor

Cassidy and the Princess

PATRICIA POTTER

Books by Patricia Potter

Silhouette Intimate Moments

Home for Christmas #897

Cassidy and the Princess #1107

Harlequin Historicals

Swampfire #6

Between the Thunder #15

Samara #20

Seize the Fire #26

Chase the Thunder #35

Dragonfire #48

The Silver Link #63

The Abduction #78

PATRICIA POTTER

is the bestselling and award-winning author of thirty-three contemporary and historical romances. She has more than three million books in print. Her last romantic suspense novel remained on the USA Today bestseller list for four weeks. It was also a Doubleday Book Club alternate selection. She was named “Storyteller of the Year” in 1993 by Romantic Times Magazine and received the magazine’s Career Achievement Award for Western Romances. She has also won several Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic Times Magazine and three Maggie Awards from the Georgia Romance Writers, including one for best single-title contemporary. She is a three-time RITA Award finalist. Prior to writing fiction, she was a reporter with the Atlanta Journal, an editor with a suburban Atlanta newspaper and president of an Atlanta public relations firm. She is now a resident of Memphis. She recently served as PAN Liaison to the national board of Romance Writers of America and is a past member of the national board. She has also served as president of Georgia Romance Writers and board member of River City Romance Writers in Memphis.

To Tracy Farrell…
editor extraordinaire, and friend

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

Marise Merrick wasn’t sure when fear first began filtering into her consciousness, or the moment she realized she might possibly have done the most foolish thing in her life.

She did not usually do foolish things. Her life was a regimen prescribed by practice sessions, competitions and ice shows. She was seldom alone, seldom without a schedule and, it seemed, never with a moment of her own.

She had decided to steal a few tonight. She’d needed air. She’d needed time to think without everyone trying to do it for her. She was infinitely weary of being in a glass cage.

She’d left the Municipal Auditorium where she and her partner, Paul, had been practicing for the next day’s Challenge Skate. A short walk to clear her head. To whisk away the look of disappointment on her coach’s face when she’d missed a jump, the startled surprise—even anger—on Paul’s face. She had not looked toward her mother.

Something had suddenly struck her as out of proportion. She had been feeling that for some time. Figure skating had been her world since she was three years old. She had never known anything else, had never questioned the fact that she was destined for a career on ice. Now after years of practice and injuries, she was nearing her goal. The Sectional was in three weeks, and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships a month later. Finally, the Olympics. It would probably be her and Paul’s last chance. The next Olympics were four years away, and there would be new, younger skaters competing.

But that goal didn’t seem so important any longer. Instead she felt more and more trapped, especially now that Paul had asked her to marry him.

She had meant just to go outside. The air was the way she liked it—crisp and clear—with a full moon in the sky. The area outside the auditorium was empty except for some cars parked in the lot. A short walk. Just a short one.

Marise didn’t know whether she actually heard something or whether the fear that crept up her back was instinct. She turned back toward the door of the auditorium. There was a security guard inside. He had, in fact, warned her not to go out, and when she persisted, had said he would watch for her.

Why had she not listened? She hurried her footsteps, then heard others behind her. She broke into a run. An arm grabbed her from behind and went around her throat, cutting off her air.

“Don’t make any noise,” a rough voice whispered into her ear.

She tried not to panic. She was strong, stronger than a stranger would suppose, especially with her short height and slender body. Her legs and arms were all muscle. If she could get in position, she could kick where it would hurt.

But now she just tried to breathe. She was dragged a few feet, around the corner of the building, behind a Dumpster. She smelled rotten food. She also smelled something else—a sweet, cloying odor.

He pulled her down, and his arm slipped. She twisted, screaming as she did before he fell on her, putting a knife to her throat. “Another sound and I’ll kill you.”

In the shadows, she saw he wore a ski mask. He had broad shoulders. He looked, in fact, like a lineman on a football team. She saw the bulk and the mask. It was too dark to see the eyes.

Don’t panic. Wait for your chance. Yet her heart was beating so loud he must hear it. He liked fear. She could sense it. Let him think you are terrified. Not that she wasn’t.

The knife stayed at her neck as his other hand tore at her track pants. She had tied the drawstrings into a knot since the pants were loose, and he was having trouble untying them. With a curse he pulled, but they did not give. He took the knife away from her throat and shifted his weight. In that moment, her right leg was free and she thrust it into his crotch, and screamed again. He doubled over, and she sought to scramble away.

One of his hands grabbed for her, and in trying to avoid it, she grabbed his mask and pulled it off. He was close, but the shadows shielded much of his face. All she wanted was to get away, as far and as quickly as possible.

His hand came up. Empty. He must have dropped his knife when she kicked him. She heard a noise from around the corner, a shout, and then saw his fist come at her.

Everything went dark.

“Hoppy, there’s been another one.”

Cassidy MacKay turned away from the files that had kept him at the office tonight instead of in front of the television, watching Monday night football. Manny, his partner, had just put down his telephone.

Cassidy flinched at the nickname. Manny had started calling him “Hoppy” for Hopalong Cassidy. Cassidy’s glare and refusal to answer kept anyone else from following suit, but Manny had an advantage no one else did. He’d saved Cassidy’s life.

He took his feet off the desk and turned in his swivel chair. “The Rose Killer?”

“Yeah, but this time he didn’t succeed in killing his victim,” Manny said.

Cassidy whirled his chair all the way around. “She’s alive?”

“Yep. She’s at the hospital.’

Cassidy erupted from the chair. “How bad is she?”

“The beat guys said she was lucky. A concussion, a few cuts, abrasions.”

“Rape?”

“No, apparently she fought like hell. She screamed, and a security guard heard her.”

Cassidy didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. Now it exploded from his lungs.

“She’s unconscious,” Manny continued. “Could be for another few hours, even a day or more, according to her doctors.”

“He’s never left one alive before,” Cassidy said slowly. “Are you sure it’s him?”

“There was a battered rose. Not as perfect as the others. It looked as if someone had rolled on it, but it’s our guy. It had the ribbon.”

“Hot damn. He finally made a mistake.” Cassidy jumped from the swivel chair. “What are we waiting for? City Hospital?”

“Yep. But I don’t think for long. Her mother wants to transfer her to St. Agnes.”

“Mother? St. Agnes? She’s not a pro?”

Manny grinned. “She’s a pro all right, but not the kind you’re thinking of. She’s here for that figure skating competition.”

Cassidy’s brows knitted together in puzzlement.

“Ah, Hoppy, don’t you ever read the newspapers?”

“Not if I can help it.” It was a lie and they both knew it. Cassidy was a news junky, although he was also one of its most vocal critics.

“She’s a figure skater, apparently a champion in pairs. She and her partner could win the Olympic Gold Medal.”

Cassidy groaned. “Tell me you’re baiting me.”

“Nope. She’s a pure unvarnished princess, according to the newspapers.

“Since when do you read about figure skating?”

“Since we have a kid who wants to be a skater. She and my wife watch every time there’s a competition on television.”

“A damn good reason not to get married,” Cassidy said. “Give me a beer and a football game.”

Manny grinned. “That good-ole-boy act might play with others, not me. I happen to know you go to the opera.”

“Spread it around and I’ll ask for another partner.”

“No one else would have you.”

“True,” Cassidy said good-naturedly as he increased the length of his stride.

“Hey, Hoppy, slow up. I’m a short, fat guy.”

Cassidy grinned at that. Manny was Lebanese, and he was a short guy. Thick, too. But it was mostly muscle. Cassidy had no complaints with either his speed or ability, nor with his street smarts. Manny was, quite simply, the best partner he’d ever had.

He did not slow his stride, however. He’d been after the Rose Killer for eight months. Four prostitutes had been killed, a rose left at their side. Cassidy took it as a personal insult that the perp continued to kill at will. He had an insidious thought: now that someone other than a prostitute had been targeted, maybe he could finally get the resources he needed.

He slowed his stride until Manny could match it. “Tell me more about her,” he said.

“She’s beautiful,” Manny said. “I’ve watched her skate. She’s a true athlete.”

That was the supreme compliment for Manny. He was a frustrated athlete who’d been too short to play either basketball or football beyond junior high school.

“How in the hell did he get to her if she’s…a princess?” It had taken him a second to say the word. He’d never known a princess, even a media-created one, and he wasn’t sure how helpful one might be. But the prospect of getting a killer off the streets produced pure adrenaline in him. Up to now, he and Manny had come to a complete standstill in the case.

It had started seven months ago when they’d found the first body. A second, two months later; a third, another two months later; the fourth, two months later. This attempt was only a month since the last murder. All were killed on a Wednesday night. All were raped before being stabbed, but there had been no DNA, which led police to conclude the killer used both condoms and gloves. He never left clues, only a single red rose. The newspapers knew that. What they didn’t know was that the rose was always wrapped with a white satin ribbon tied into a neat bow.

Now they might have a witness who could tell them something about the killer. And, according to the beat cop, they might have to crawl over a mother to get to her.

They reached the parking lot and their unmarked car. “I’ll drive,” Cassidy said.

“I could have guessed that,” Manny said, fastening his seat belt and saying a Hail Mary, his usual practice when Cassidy drove.

Cassidy ignored it as usual. “What else do you know?”

“She apparently went for a walk outside the Municipal Auditorium.”

“At night?” Cassidy’s already preconceived notions about the woman dipped another notch.

“Yeah,” Manny said. “But she doesn’t know Atlanta…”

“You don’t go walking alone at night in any big city,” Cassidy interrupted. “She probably doesn’t have a brain in her head. And I’ll wager you my boat her mama will whisk her out of town faster than I can say boo.”

“No one wants your boat,” Manny said dryly. “And a boo from you would be enough to send anyone scurrying for a plane. Try to be charming for a change.”

“I don’t do charming,” Cassidy said, turning briefly to glare at his partner.

“Only because your heart isn’t in it since…”

“Don’t go there, Manny,” Cassidy warned.

Manny sighed. “All right. Back to Miss Merrick.”

“Miss…? Oh hell, you’re already besotted.”

Manny shrugged. “She must be something special. She got away. That puts her way ahead of the others.”

“Let’s just pray she knows something that can help us,” Cassidy said. He didn’t often depend on prayer, but he was ready to try anything. He couldn’t erase the thought that were he a little smarter, a little quicker, a little more intuitive, four women would still be alive.

He stepped on the gas pedal, and Manny crossed himself again as he beat a yellow light. Cassidy did not miss that, either.

They arrived at the hospital, and he parked illegally though he was careful not to block the emergency entrance. This, he thought, was an emergency. He wasn’t going to lose the only possible witness he might have.

He knew where to go, and in minutes he had the information he needed. Room number and condition, which was “satisfactory.” Poor Manny was practically running to keep up with him as he took the elevator to the neurology floor, checked the room numbers and rapped several times on the second door to the left.

“Come in.” The voice did not sound like that of a princess. It was obviously annoyed. And it belonged to a man.

Cassidy already had his badge out, and he flashed it to the three people in the room. A young man leaned against a wall, an older one sat half-sprawled on a window seat and a well-dressed woman in her forties sat on a chair. The bed was empty.

“Miss Merrick?”

“They are conducting tests,” said the young man who regarded him as if he were some strange creature. Cassidy returned the stare. “You are…”

“Paul Richards, Miss Merrick’s pairs partner and fiancé,” he said. “Tell me you’ve found the man who did this.”

Despite what Cassidy said to Manny, he knew enough about ice-skating to realize there must be more to Richards than was immediately visible. Still, he was singularly unimpressed, perhaps because of the contemptuous dismissal that flickered in the man’s eyes.

But then, after nearly thirteen years with the Atlanta Police Department, damn little impressed him.

Richards did not offer his hand, and neither did Cassidy. Instead of answering a question he thought rather stupid, he turned his attention to the blond woman huddled in the chair. She had scarcely moved since he and Manny entered. He went to her side. “Mrs. Merrick?”

She looked up at him, a glaze of tears hovering in her eyes. “How could something like this happen?”

“She was out alone,” he said matter-of-factly. “That can be dangerous anywhere.” He wanted to ask why her mother had not taught this small fact of life to her, but resisted. “When did you arrive at…the scene of the attack?” The preliminary report said she’d been present when the police arrived.

“Almost immediately,” the woman said. “Paul had finished changing clothes, and we were looking for the security guard to call a cab. We couldn’t find Marise or the security guard. Then we heard the sirens and I…I knew it was her. We followed an ambulance around the corner and saw her. She was so…still. Her blood…”

“Did she say anything? Anything at all?”

She shook her head, then seemed to remember her manners. She held out her hand graciously. “I am Marise’s mother, Cara Merrick.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but the doctors said she suffered a concussion. She hasn’t awakened yet. The doctor thought she would be conscious by now. He told us…”

Cassidy’s heart sank. He’d hoped that she would be conscious by now. He knew that traumatic head wounds often caused at least temporary amnesia of events that occurred just before the injury. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Merrick,” he said.

“I plan to take her to Seattle as soon as the doctors say she can leave,” she said. “I have been looking into charter flights…”

“She’s a witness,” he said. “We think her attacker has killed at least four other women. We need her here.”

The woman stood and drew herself up tall. And as she did, he immediately knew his first instincts had been wrong. This was not a weak woman. She wanted people to think she was, but she wasn’t. “No, Detective,” she said simply.

Cassidy looked at his partner. Manny mouthed something like “charm.”

“And you?” Cassidy turned to the man sitting on the window ledge.

“David South, their coach.” The man straightened, and Cassidy recognized the loose grace of an athlete. “The doctors say they don’t know when she will wake. Or if she will have permanent damage when she does. The bastard cracked her skull against the pavement. We had to withdraw from the Challenge today. But we have the Sectional in three weeks. She shouldn’t miss it. Hell, she can’t miss it and stay in competition.”

Cassidy exchanged looks with Manny. They had been together so long now, they needed nothing more than a blink of an eye, a shrug of a shoulder, a tightening of the mouth to communicate.

Cassidy was beginning to feel very sorry for the princess. Everyone seemed to care more about getting her back to competition than about her well-being.

“We’ll wait here,” he said, leaning against a wall. Manny took up a position on the windowsill next to Mrs. Merrick.

“I tell you, she is unconscious,” the younger man insisted. “And as soon as the doctor says she can be moved, we will leave this…city.”

Not if Cassidy had any say in it.

“Why did she go out alone?” he asked the mother. “Was there a…quarrel of some kind?” The attack had occurred at ten o’clock. What had made a young woman wander by herself in a less-than-safe area? Not, he thought wryly, that there seemed to be any safe ones these days.

“There was no quarrel,” Cara Merrick said. “We were almost ready to leave after practicing all evening. It was very odd for her to just…disappear without telling anyone.”

Not really. Cassidy somehow knew that.

“Had anyone approached her? Stalked her, perhaps?”

Cara Merrick shook her head.

“And the security guard who found her didn’t see anything?”

“You will have to talk to him.”

“I will,” he said. “But I want to know if you heard or saw anything, either before or after the attack. If you have any idea why she went off alone, whether she intended to meet anyone…”

“Absolutely not,” the mother said. “We didn’t know anyone in this city. There had been no threats. No one with an unusual interest in her.”

“But still,” he persisted, “why would she be wandering alone?” He turned to her partner, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the questions. “Would you know, Mr.… Richards, is it?”

“It is, and I have no idea,” Richards said. “She probably just wanted a breath of air. We’d been practicing for hours.”

Cassidy studied him carefully, then turned back to the older woman. “Mrs. Merrick, as I said, we believe the man who attacked your daughter has killed at least four women. She was very lucky to escape tonight. Your daughter might be our only lead.”

The door opened then, and he turned. Two orderlies were wheeling a gurney into the room, and for a moment he felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of him.

A blond woman lay on the gurney, her eyes closed. A bandage was wrapped around her head, and she had a huge bruise on her cheek. Lush dark eyelashes contrasted with the fine blond hair. Manny had said she was a stunner. He had not exaggerated. Despite the bandage there was no mistaking that this was a very pretty woman. She also looked young and vulnerable and, God help him, as if she were indeed a princess from a fairy tale. Hell, Manny had put that nonsense in his head.

He tried, instead, to go back to being a detective. She was blond. The other victims had been blond, too. That might mean the killer was looking for blondes, not specifically prostitutes. Maybe the prostitutes had just been targets of opportunity.

He watched as she was moved, along with an IV, onto the bed. She appeared small, weightless. She’d probably appeared vulnerable to a killer.

“As you can…see, she can’t answer your questions,” Mrs. Merrick said. She went over to the bed and took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Will you please leave?”

He glanced at Manny and nodded. “We’ll stay in the lounge outside,” he promised.

She returned his gaze. “We don’t want her to stay in this city one minute longer than necessary.”

Cassidy looked back down at the sleeping beauty who’d been shifted onto the bed. She’d been strong and smart enough to survive—or had it just been luck? More to the point, had she seen the attacker?

He watched the older woman loom over the patient as if warding off evil spirits. “I have some more questions.”

“The other officers have all the necessary information,” she said curtly. “And I think I asked you to leave.”

Obviously his charm wasn’t working. Well, it seldom did. Still, he wasn’t going to let the injured woman go without talking to her.

“We’ll be waiting outside, Mrs. Merrick. She could save lives.”

Then he turned to his partner. “Let’s go, Manny.”

Hours went by. Cassidy had learned patience a long time ago, but now the stakes were very, very high. He’d asked the nurses at the station to alert him if there was any news. He also kept an eye on the door. He and Manny took turns getting coffee and sandwiches. Noon came and passed. Then a nurse hurried into the room, followed, a few moments later, by a man who was obviously a doctor.

When the nurse came out, Cassidy approached her. “Anything wrong?”

“She’s awake,” the nurse said.

“Does she remember anything?”

She looked apologetic. “Sorry. I can’t talk to you about it.”

He and Manny exchanged glances. Damn, but he wanted in that room.

But Cassidy also felt relief for her. He felt an odd tug somewhere inside that he feared had nothing to do with his current case. He told himself that he merely wanted whatever information the skater might have. That was all. He couldn’t even think of anything else. He stayed away from women these days. Especially women like her. She was so far out of his league as to be on another planet.

Then he wondered why he’d even harbored that fleeting thought. Even if by some miracle she agreed to stay in town, she wouldn’t look at him twice. And he sure as hell wasn’t interested in a relationship. Any relationship.

“Whatcha think?” Manny asked.

“I think we are going to have to be very convincing.” While waiting, he read over the preliminary crime report. He’d been surprised at her age. Twenty-four. She’d looked younger. Born in California. The report was ridiculously void of details about her, and he was hungry for more. Most of all he wanted to know how she’d survived the attack and whether she had seen her attacker’s face. As usual there was no other evidence. No fingerprints. No strands of hair. Only the victim.

He tried to think of her that way. The victim.

The doctor left the room, closing the door behind him. Cassidy strode toward him and displayed his badge. “How is she?”

“Conscious. She’s in a lot of pain, but that’s usual with this kind of injury.”

“Can I see her?”

The doctor hesitated.

“She might have seen her assailant,” Cassidy said. “We think it’s the same man who’s killed four women.”

“I’ve read about them. But weren’t most of the victims pros…working girls?”

“Yes. But now I’m wondering if he specifically targeted prostitutes or if they were just more vulnerable.”

The doctor nodded. “You can see her if her family approves. They want me to discharge her today so they can fly to Seattle.”

“Should she be moved this soon?”

The doctor shrugged. “We would like to keep her another night, but we can’t force her to stay.”

“Does she remember anything?”

“She’s a bit hazy about what happened. There’s no permanent damage, but sometimes there is amnesia concerning events immediately preceding a head injury. Now, excuse me.”

Cassidy stood aside as he left.

Manny came up to him as the doctor disappeared down the hall. “Ready to breach the lion’s den?”

“Lioness,” Cassidy corrected as he strode to the door and knocked.

The mother opened it and blocked the door. She looked at her watch, then back at him. “Do you never sleep, Detective?”

He tried again to give her a charming grin. “I’m told your daughter is awake,” he said.

“She’s ill and shouldn’t be disturbed,” Mrs. Merrick said.

“Mrs. Merrick,” he added patiently. “Perhaps you didn’t understand what I said earlier. Women have been killed. She’s the only one who’s survived an attack by this man, and she’s all we have. We need her help.”

Their eyes met. “Then, you don’t have anything. She didn’t see a face,” Mrs. Merrick finally said.

“Come in,” came a soft voice from within the room.

Cara Merrick looked startled, then dismayed.

“Mother, let them in.” The voice was stronger this time.

Reluctantly, the woman opened the door and stood aside, as Cassidy and Manny entered.

The curtains were closed and the room was dim. The figure in the bed looked fragile and small. Her hair was long and the color of honey, and her eyes were as blue as a summer’s evening sky. And they were intent on him.

Their gazes met, locked. An odd flash of recognition passed between them.

No. He didn’t believe in immediate attraction. Or whatever you called it.

Still, he almost stopped breathing. For one of the few times in his life, he was nearly tongue-tied. He told himself that the twitch in his heart was merely male admiration for a pretty woman. And for her courage.

He went to the side of her bed, as she pushed a button raising the head of the bed and bringing herself to a sitting position. “You said other women were killed?” Her eyes looked tired and her face was pale. He saw her wince as the bed moved.

He nodded. “I’m MacKay, a detective with the Atlanta Police Department. This is Manuel Sharman. We believe the same man who attacked you has killed at least four other women.”

Something flickered in her eyes. She had not known. His eyes went to Cara Merrick. The expression in her mother’s face did not change.

“He wanted to kill me,” Marise Merrick whispered. “I could feel it.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He was wearing a face mask, but I tore it off,” she said slowly. “It was too dark to see much. I don’t think I would recognize him.”

Cassidy’s heart was beating faster. At least she’d seen something, and she probably knew far more than she realized.

“I could have a police artist here later today.”

“I don’t think I saw that much.”

“Will you try?”

She nodded, despite a protestation from her mother who had moved to her side.

Cassidy’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “Height? Weight? Race?”

“He was tall. Perhaps Paul’s height, which is six feet,” she said, then smiled again. “Everyone looks tall to me. Bulky build.” She looked at Manny. “And he was white.” She hesitated. “He was wearing gloves like the nurses wear here.”

White. Tall. The first building blocks.

“Clothes?”

“Dark.” She closed her eyes as if trying to remember. “Track clothes. Like mine. Something else,” she said. “An odor. Almost sweet.”

“Could it have been medicinal?” Cassidy asked.

“I don’t know…it wasn’t familiar.”

She moved, and he saw her grimace.

“She needs rest,” her mother said, reaching out to push the call button.

Her daughter stopped her. “No,” she said. “If I can help…”

But Cassidy realized she was in pain. For a moment, he regretted that he had to do his job, but he pressed ahead. “Could you tell me anything else? Even impressions?”

“I don’t think so.” She moved again, and this time pain was evident in her face. “I wish I could help you more.”

“Do you think you might have seen him before? Could he have been following you?”

Her body seemed to shudder. “No. I…don’t think so.”

“Why were you outside—alone?”

She hesitated. For the first time Cassidy saw something secretive in her eyes. Then she shook her head. “Just fresh air,” she said.

“We’ll have the police artist over here,” he said. “Try to remember everything you can.”

Her eyes closed for a moment, then fluttered back open, and he saw exhaustion in them. He had more questions but they could wait a few hours. After she had some rest.

“You won’t be leaving?” he asked.

Cara Merrick started to say something, but the woman in the bed stopped her. “No,” she said. “I’ll do whatever you want. I want him caught.” There was sudden strength in her voice. Determination.

“How did you get away?” he asked.

“I kicked him in the crotch,” she said. She grinned. Weakly, but it was a grin.

He was momentarily stunned. It was the last thing he had expected to hear.

“I have strong legs,” she added, as if unsure whether he believed her.

“I imagine you do,” he said.

“Did you find the knife?” she asked.

“Knife?”

“He dropped it when I kicked him. But maybe he picked it up when he left,” she said.

Cassidy turned to Manny. “I didn’t see anything about a knife in the report.”

“He had it…at my neck,” she added.

Which could be why the other women hadn’t appeared to have fought back. But they had been strangled. There had never been anything indicating a knife. He looked at Manny. “I think we had better ask for a second search. Just in case.”

Manny nodded.

Cassidy turned his attention back to Marise Merrick. “How did you…”

“I waited for my chance. He couldn’t untie the knot in my track pants. He lowered the knife to cut it.”

“That was very smart,” he said.

“Not really,” she said. “I knew the alternative.”

And she had. He saw the knowledge in her eyes.

“Thank you for cooperating,” he said, forcing a curtness into a voice that felt suddenly brittle.

She looked at her mother as if guessing exactly how little cooperation he and Manny had received from her. “I’ll be here when you return,” she said. “And if we have to stay a few days we—I will.”

Cassidy glanced at her mother and saw the set lips. The boyfriend—or partner—was frowning. Marise Merrick was going to have another fight on her hands.

Cassidy nodded and stepped toward the door.

Her voice stopped him. “Good afternoon, Detective… MacKay.”

He was oddly pleased that she had remembered his name. And angry at himself for feeling that way. He nodded to Mrs. Merrick, then abruptly turned around and headed out of the room.

Chapter 2

“You look like you’ve been struck by lightning,” Manny said.

Cassidy readjusted his face into his usual expressionless facade. “I was just surprised,” he said.

“Me too,” Manny said equably. “I don’t think princesses usually go around kicking people in their—”

“Don’t go crazy with this princess stuff,” Cassidy warned. “She’s a figure skater. Not a princess. She’s just another athlete.”

“Not exactly,” Manny said. “And I liked her. She’s got guts.”

Cassidy had liked her, too. That fierce determination, the way she’d stood up to her mother and fiancé. But how long would it last? Why had she allowed them to dominate her as they seemed to do?

He still didn’t know why she had gone outside the auditorium last evening. He instinctively knew that he would have to get her alone to draw the reason from her. Although he was ninety-percent sure the attacker was the one he’d been hunting, there was a ten-percent chance that someone just knew the serial killer’s M.O. Maybe it was a stalker. Or someone she knew. He had to eliminate that possibility.

Cassidy didn’t like loose ends.

“Let’s get an artist from the department,” he said.

“Do you really think she will stay?” Manny asked. “That mother of hers…”

“Anyone who can cold-cock a killer should be able to make her own decisions.”

“I wonder why…”

“It’s none of our business.” Cassidy said, cutting him short. Hoping to cut short his own thoughts.

The police artist was unavailable until the next morning. He and his computer program had been loaned out to another jurisdiction. Instead, Cassidy and Manny went to the crime scene and scoured the place for a knife. Nothing.

The rose and ribbon had produced no leads so far. At least, though, they had gotten help now that a “celebrity” was involved. Detectives had checked the hospital florist and all the other florists in the area, but no one had purchased red roses. Cassidy had expected as much. After the first killing, they’d conducted an extensive search of florists, only to be told haughtily that it was of a type sold to grocery stores.

The ribbon, too, was a brand found in every drug and grocery store.

So they hadn’t expected to find a knife. Their killer didn’t make mistakes.

“Either he took it with him or came back for it,” Manny said, as the last of the afternoon sun faded away, leaving dusk. It was eight. “I’ve got to go home,” he said, “or Janie will divorce me.”

“It’s been a long night and day,” Cassidy said. “You go. I’ll call Miss Merrick.”

After his partner left, he called Marise Merrick’s room. He’d feared the mother would pick up the phone. Instead, he heard the slightly slurred words of Miss Merrick. He silently cursed himself. He should have realized she would be asleep.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said.

“That’s all right.”

“Is your fiancé with you?”

“He will be. He and Mother went out to get something to eat.”

“I’ll be there with the artist at eight in the morning.

“That’s fine.”

A silence.

“Well, good night, then.” He hung up before he made any more of a fool of himself.

At least someone would be with her tonight.

Marise chased her mother and Paul out after they returned from supper, convincing them to return to their hotel. She feigned exhaustion; most of all, she needed breathing room.

The last time she’d wanted breathing room she’d nearly been killed. But she felt safe in this lighted hospital with attendants checking on her frequently, and she wanted to be by herself. She needed to think, particularly about Paul. She’d felt suffocated today when she’d heard her mother and Paul making decisions for her.

How long had she permitted that?

It had been insulting that she’d not even been consulted about their decision to slip her out of Atlanta, that they had turned away the police who’d wanted to help her and the other victims.

She was twenty-four years old and had been self-supporting since she was eighteen, when she’d turned professional. She made good money these past years since rules had loosened and the line between amateur and professional had disappeared. Between competitions, she and Paul were featured in ice spectaculars throughout the country. But she’d always felt she owed allegiance to her mother.

She had, after all, been responsible for her mother losing her husband and first-born child. And had spent her life trying to make up for it.

Her thoughts went to the detective who had been in earlier. He’d filled the room with restless energy. There had also been a rough kindness he tried to hide, and that made her want to help him. Help herself. She wanted her assailant found and convicted. She’d tried to suppress her anger, knowing it wouldn’t do any good, but it was deep inside her. Boiling. It wouldn’t go away until her attacker was in prison.

She still felt his hands on her, felt his hot breath against her face. She shivered with moments of terror revisited. Four other women dead. She could have been one of them.

That realization only added to her growing dissatisfaction with her life. She knew now that she couldn’t marry Paul. She liked him tremendously. You couldn’t skate in pairs for five years without liking each other. Each became attuned to the other, intuitive even of the other’s feelings. Paul, though sometimes possessive, was usually aware of hers. In many ways, they were a good match.

But though she liked him, she simply didn’t love him.

And neither, she feared, did she love skating the way she once had. She wanted a house of her own. A life of her own. Not one dictated by others. But how to break away without breaking her mother?

A nurse came in to check Marise’s vital signs. When she left, closing the door behind her, Marise turned off her light and closed her eyes.

She woke to fear. To panic. The room was dark but the odor was there. The cloying odor she remembered. She reached for the call button. A hand stopped her, pushing it off the bed. Another stuffed something in her mouth.

He was on the side of the bed with the table. The other side’s gate was down. She’d asked Paul to lower it since she was a restless sleeper and often threw out her legs during the night. Now she thanked God she had.

She struggled fiercely against his hold, and he hit her across the face. She stopped moving immediately as if stunned. Would it work again? She’d read that men like him liked to bully women. Liked the fear. She would let him feel hers.

She heard him exclaim, “Bitch.” One of his hands left her for a moment. Then in the dim light, she saw a needle and his face. A surgical mask hid the lower half. She willed herself to stay still even as the gag was pressed deeper into her mouth. But though he leaned his body over hers to pin it, one of her arms was free.

With one desperate movement, she grasped a pitcher from the bedside stand and swung it at his head. Then she threw all her weight into turning and tumbling off the bed. His hand sought to halt her, but the momentum carried her crashing to the floor with a sheet twisted around her body. She drew her arms around her head to protect it and relaxed her body so the actual impact was minor. She screamed and rolled under the bed, hoping the attacker would be momentarily trapped by the table. Frantically, she searched for the call button that had fallen on the floor. She screamed again.

She heard a muffled curse, then the sound of a door opening. No retreating footsteps. Her assailant must have been wearing tennis shoes of some kind.

The light went on. She heard a worried voice. She rolled from beneath the bed. A woman in a jacket populated by cartoon figures leaned over her. “What…on earth…?”

Marise tried to keep her voice steady. “Someone…was here. He had a needle. It was the man who attacked me the night before last.”

The nurse grabbed the phone. “Security. Room 414 immediately.” Then she leaned back down, looking first at Marise’s bandaged head, then at the rest of her. “I don’t think you should move until a doctor sees you.” She reached for the phone again and called for a doctor on duty.

“I’m all right,” Marise said. “But will you please call Detective MacKay at the Atlanta Police Department. I think his number is on the table…” She suddenly realized she wanted the detective more than she wanted Paul. Or her mother.

She got to her feet, disregarding the nurse, and sat on the bed. She saw a needle in the corner of her room and shuddered. Her entire body trembled. Delayed reaction. She used to do that when she first started in competition. She would skate, then nervousness would seize her as she sat waiting for her marks, knowing how much her mother lived for that judgment.

The nurse saw her hands, too. Instead of saying anything, she made the call to the police department, just as a security guard came into the room.

Marise answered questions over and over again. A doctor came in, checked her and left.

She only wanted one person, though. She didn’t know why. She only knew it was so.

Cassidy knew he should go home. But he couldn’t let the case go.

Instead he poured over the reports on the killings, then every word Marise Merrick had said. If only she could produce a description for the police artist.

He looked at the clock. Eleven-thirty. He needed to leave and get some sleep or he wouldn’t be any good tomorrow. He hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. Yet his thoughts kept turning to his only witness.

Only. He sat back in his chair. Damn. He should have asked for a police guard. Not that there had been anything in the news about her. Both the Merricks, and he and Manny, had wanted to keep this out of the media. Her mother had even asked the business office to admit her daughter under another name.

She should be safe enough.

Except that he had a gnawing feeling in his gut. He should have asked for protection.

Cassidy told himself he was foolish. And yet…

He looked at his watch. Then he called his captain at home. “I think we should have someone at the hospital with last night’s victim,” he said. “Can you authorize a protective detail?”

A silence. Then the captain said, “You think she’s in danger?”

“Her family is with her. But yes. If the perp finds out where she is, or who she is, I think he might try again. We were able to keep it from the news, but…I just have a feeling about this.”

“It will take a little time.”

“I’ll go on over,” Cassidy replied.

“You haven’t had any sleep in two days.”

“I’ve gone longer. And this is the first lead we’ve had. I want him.”

“We all want him. Get off the phone, Cassidy, and I’ll make the arrangements.”

Cassidy put down the receiver. The gnawing didn’t go away. He grabbed his jacket and went outside. He took his own car; getting a police vehicle would take longer. He broke every speed limit.

He looked at the car clock. Twelve now. Probably time for the shift change at the hospital. His foot pressed down on the gas pedal.

The cell phone rang. He took it with one hand while keeping the other on the wheel. A nurse told him Miss Merrick had been attacked.

Cassidy screeched to a stop in front of the hospital. He put an Official Business card on the dashboard, then rushed inside.

He waited impatiently for the elevator to take him to the fourth floor, then hurried down the corridor. The door to her room was open and a nurse was beside her bed. A uniformed security guard looked uncertain but put a hand on his holstered revolver as Cassidy entered.

Marise Merrick was pale as she sat in the bed. She gave him a wisp of a smile as he entered. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

He felt an almost uncontrollable anger, mostly aimed at himself. He should have made sure she was protected before he left.

How had anyone known she was here?

Her attacker might know she needed medical help. And this would be the most likely place because of its proximity to the attack and because of its trauma department. But how would he obtain the number of her room? Her mother had asked that she be admitted under another name to avoid the press.

Unless he was a cop. Or someone here at the hospital who heard rumors of a celebrity patient. He knew the grapevine at hospitals was fast. He filed all of those possibilities.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought someone would be here with you.”

“I know,” she said. “You called and asked. But I wanted them to leave…”

“I should have requested uniforms,” he interrupted. “Or stayed myself. We would have had…him.”

“He wouldn’t have come in if he’d seen someone,” she said. Then her brows crinkled in a frown. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I was already on the way. I had a feeling…”

Their gazes met. Cassidy felt as if he had been hit by a sledgehammer.

The security guard looked at him curiously.

He realized he must be gaping. He pulled out his badge. “Detective MacKay with the Atlanta P.D.,” he said. “Has anything been touched or moved?”

The nurse hovering nearby shook her head. “Nothing except the telephone. I used it to call Security. He…left a needle.” She motioned to the corner of the room where the needle lay. Cassidy could tell it was still filled with some substance. He looked around. The nurse handed him a glove before he could ask for it.

“The…he had on gloves like those,” Marise Merrick said in an unsteady voice.

Cassidy pulled on the glove and leaned down and gingerly picked up the needle. He could guess what was in it. Potassium, probably. The right dosage could stop the heart almost immediately. The assailant had taken a chance. A big one. He must be afraid that she knew far more than she did.

“Did you see any more of him than you did before?”

She shook her head. “The room was dark. He wore a surgeon’s mask.”

“Perhaps some of the hospital staff did,” he said. But he wasn’t hopeful. The attacker obviously timed his attack during the change of shifts. Anyone could have slipped by the nurses’ station. Again, he blamed himself for not anticipating this.

And then there was the nagging conviction that had firmed in his mind. The killer obviously thought Marise Merrick was a danger to him. That meant she would continue to be in great danger.

“Would you like your fiancé here?” he asked, more to stop his own troubling feelings than because he wanted the man around.

“He’s not my fiancé,” she said quietly.

Cassidy felt the oddest sense of relief. “He said…”

“He asked me. I didn’t give him an answer. That’s why I wandered outside last night. I needed some distance.”

She was answering the question she hadn’t been able to answer before, not with Paul Richards in the room. Her blue eyes were late-evening blue, a rich dark color he’d never seen before. Her long hair had been plaited into a braid that fell across her shoulder.

He was aware of an attraction so strong he could barely restrain himself from reaching out to her. More puzzling was the sense that he knew her. That they had met previously, though he knew they had not. The air between them was thick yet compelling, as if he was being pulled toward her by some invisible force.

He struggled against it. “How…”

“I fell on the floor. I’m used to falling,” she said with that quirky little smile that had accompanied her admission yesterday that she’d kicked her attacker in a vulnerable place.

“Like you have strong legs,” he said.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“I want you to teach self-defense classes to some people I know,” he said. Then he realized he was suppositioning that she would be here in Atlanta longer than a day or so. And he could also see in his mind the implausibility of the princess teaching hookers how to disable a killer.

“You’re smiling, Detective,” she said as if astounded at that possibility.

Well, he was. He couldn’t remember smiling since his wife had left him two years ago.

Snap out of it, Cassidy. She’s a victim, nothing more. And not only was she a victim, but she was one he’d failed to protect.

“I’m just impressed with your abilities, Miss Merrick.”

“Marise,” she corrected him.

He’d seen the name written down. It sounded like poetry on her lips. But that was none of his affair. He tried, instead, to concentrate on the business at hand.

“Was there anything, anything at all that struck you about the…attacker?”

“His odor,” she said. “I woke and smelled it.”

He remembered her mentioning that before. “You said it was almost sweet.”

Her nose twitched slightly as if she was trying to remember.

“Cologne?” he asked.

“If it was, it was very bad cologne,” she said. “It was more like…medicinal.”

“Cloying?”

“Sharper than that.”

He had been impressed by her before, and now that image was reenforced. She was reacting analytically, objectively weighing what must have been a terrifying experience.

“Any other impressions?”

“No,” she said. “The room was too dark.”

He was already cataloging facts in his mind. Hospital gloves. Location. Until her attack, no one realized that the proximity of the hospital was important. The area was not one of the city’s best, and the hospital had not been the center of the attacks, more on the edge of a perimeter of approximately two miles. Now it assumed new significance. The attacker knew where to find her and that the change of shifts would be the best time to enter unnoticed. And now the surgical mask and medicinal smell.

She hadn’t described the odor that way before. He’d been thinking that the attacker might be a hustler, a pimp, who got off on terrifying and killing women. He and Manny had been operating on that theory, especially since the deaths had involved prostitutes. The guy might even have been trying to start a protection racket among the working girls.

But Marise’s information introduced an entirely new possibility. Someone outside the world of prostitution. Someone involved in medicine. And now, he suspected, their perp would go into hiding for a while.

Unless he had another chance at Marise Merrick.

“What are you thinking, Detective?” Her soft voice broke through his stream of consciousness.

“I’m thinking that I want you to leave this hospital,” he said.

“What about the police artist?”

“What did you see that night?”

“A blur. An impression of heaviness. Bulk. Longish hair.”

“You know how a police artist works?”

“I do watch television occasionally.”

“He’ll flash part of faces—eyes, foreheads, chins, et cetera. If anything looks familiar, he’ll start constructing a face.”

“I didn’t see enough for that.”

Cassidy didn’t say anything for a moment, then wondered out loud. “But obviously he doesn’t know that.”

“Which is why…he returned tonight,” she finished.

“Yes.”

“You believe he might try again.” It was a statement, not a question. Her eyes were even bluer, if that were possible. Deeper. And inaccessible.

“It’s possible,” he said.

“And if I leave the city?”

“Not as likely, but possible.”

“What can I do?”

Her eyes were impossibly large. Fear was there. But so was reason. Again, he wondered about his first impression. Why had she seemed so compliant to those around her when now there didn’t seem a hesitant bone in her body. Two different women. Would it be different when her mother and partner returned? He was oddly pleased that she hadn’t asked him—or apparently anyone on the hospital staff—to call them.

He knew what she could do. Did he have the right to propose it? What if something happened to her?

“What is it?” she asked.

She also could read his mind. No one else had ever been able to do that. Not his former wife. Not Manny. It was uncanny.

“Detective?” she prompted again. She’d awakened to someone trying to kill her, had dived off the bed and kept her head—and she still looked like a princess. That image, though, was misleading. If she was like a princess, she was one laced with iron.

But she would have to be tough to get to where she was. He knew how much training it must have taken. How much discipline.

“He might have left something in this room,” he said. His hand was still around the hypodermic.

“He had gloves,” she said.

“Maybe not when he filled the hypodermic.” But that, he knew, was a pretty futile hope. This man had been very, very careful. It was too much to ask that he would make a mistake now. Still, Cassidy wanted it at the state crime lab. There might be something there.

She obviously saw the doubt in his face. And great circles shadowed those marvelous eyes.

He looked at his watch. “You should get some sleep,” he said. “I’ve asked for some officers to guard your room. I’ll stay out there until they arrive.”

“Do detectives usually do that?” she asked.

He resisted his first instinct to say, Only for pretty ladies. That would be crossing his personal line. “It’s just for a few moments,” he said more curtly than he’d intended.

She looked startled at his tone. A light seemed to die in her eyes. He girded himself against a reaction. He was there to solve a crime, to apprehend a serial killer. The worst thing he could do was allow himself any personal feelings. That was the best way to get someone killed.

And there was no place in his life for personal feelings. He’d had them once, and they were a mistake. He’d almost destroyed two people.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she persisted. “What can you do? What can I do? I won’t go through life being terrified.” Then, after several seconds, she added, “I want him caught. I want him punished. I don’t want him to do to anyone else what he tried to do to me.”

She was feeling anger mixed with loss. Loss of security. Loss of safety. He knew that from experience. Post-traumatic stress syndrome wasn’t limited to those in the military. He surprised himself by wanting to reach down and touch her hand, to reassure her.

“I’ll ask the nurse to see if you can’t have something to help you sleep,” he said, starting for the door.

“I don’t think I can sleep now,” she said. “Please…don’t go.”

He suspected it had taken some courage for her to make that request. He didn’t think she asked for much from others. Others, however, probably asked a great deal from her.

“Yes,” he said simply. He went to the door, opened it. No uniformed officers yet. With the red tape involved, it would probably be morning before they arrived. He turned out the light and went to a chair, settling down into it, his long legs dangling in front of him.

“Thank you,” she said.

Marise heard the soft snoring across the room. It was comforting. She had feigned sleep, knowing that he would probably stay awake until he thought her asleep.

He looked tired, his cheeks shadowed with dark stubble. But she felt safe with him in the room. She wondered whether a wife was missing him. A family? But she was profoundly grateful to whomever had relinquished him for the evening. She didn’t want her mother’s hysterics or Paul’s overprotectiveness. She didn’t want to deal with any of that at the moment.

She would have a battle to fight tomorrow. She had heard everything the detective said, and sensed what he had not. She didn’t know if she could offer any real help in apprehending the man, whether she would recall enough to provide any clues. But she had meant it when she said she would not live her life in fear. She would stay here as long as there was a chance she could help.

And the Sectional in less than three weeks? Her dream? No, not hers. Her mother’s. Paul’s. Did she have the right to destroy it for them? If she didn’t make the competition, they wouldn’t have the points to continue to the World Championship.

The lives of unknown women? Paul’s career? Her mother’s lifelong goal?

How to balance them all. She no longer wanted to be responsible for all of them. For once in her life, she wanted to be responsible only for herself.

She closed her eyes, started to drift…

“I’m sorry I’m late, Daddy. I don’t feel well.”

“Excuses. Always excuses. Why can’t you be more like your brother? Now, he’s going to be a star.”

Her brother turned and gave her a reassuring smile. He was eleven and had already won a regional championship. He was their parents’ real hope, she knew that. She was their second. But she tried. Hours of lessons. Of practicing. She was never good enough. And now came her first competition, and she’d thrown up in nervousness. That’s why she was late.

The car accelerated. She saw the amber light turn red. Late. They were late. Because of her. Because of her fear. Suddenly, she heard the squeal of brakes, felt the jolt of the car and then the crashing sound of metal against metal…

“Easy.” The voice was deep but the low drawl was comforting.

She opened her eyes. Light was filtering into the room. A warm hand was on her shoulder.

It moved away almost immediately. She felt the loss of it. More than she should have.

“You were having a nightmare,” the detective said. He looked worse than he had a few hours ago. His hair was sticking out in all directions, the stubble was darker, his eyes were bloodshot.

“The attack?”

She started to say no, then gave a nod. She didn’t want to tell him she’d killed her father. And her brother. Her mind knew it had been an accident; her heart said she was responsible.

Then a knock at the door, and the room filled with her mother, her partner, a nurse with a tray.

Her mother stared at the detective next to her bed. “What are you doing here?” she said. “And why are there policemen outside?”

MacKay—she thought of him that way now—stepped away from her. “Miss Merrick was attacked last night,” he said evenly.

“In the hospital?” her mother asked. “How could that…?”

Paul went immediately to her bed, crowding out the detective and leaning down to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Marise?” he asked, his voice breaking.

She felt the concern in his voice, and her heart ached. He really did care for her. She’d known that, though at times she’d wondered whether his interest wasn’t more in keeping her as a partner.

Now as she looked in his eyes, she realized she had been wrong. He did love her. She took his hand, feeling the strength that had allowed her to make nearly impossible lifts.

“I’m really all right,” she said, even though she knew she wasn’t. And that there would be explanations that would have to be made. She would have to explain why she was staying in Atlanta. And later—but not now—she would have to explain why she couldn’t marry Paul.

She saw the detective slip out the door.

The people who cared most about her were in the room. She wondered, then, why she felt so alone.

Chapter 3

“What happened?” her mother asked.

She shrugged. “I woke up last night, and there was an intruder in the room. I screamed, and he left.”

Paul’s brows furrowed. “Someone from the hospital?”

“I think it was the same man who attacked me outside the arena. There was the same odor about him.”

“He didn’t hurt you?” Her mother hurried to her side and clasped one of Marise’s hand in hers.

“No,” she reassured both of them. “I got away from him by rolling off the bed. All that falling served me well,” she said wryly. “I might have a bruise. Nothing more.”

“They should have given you protection.”

“I have it now,” she said. “Neither you nor I thought we would need it yesterday since we were using another name,” she pointed out.

Paul’s hand tightened around hers. “How could he have found you?”

“Detective…MacKay thinks it could be someone associated with the hospital.”

“That settles it,” Paul said. “We found a small jet that we can charter. We can leave this afternoon.”

“I’m not leaving,” she announced.

“Nonsense,” her mother said. “The plane is quite safe, even comfortable. And we can afford it with that last endorsement signing.”

“The police think that man killed other women,” Marise said. “They think I can help them.”

“Solving crimes is their problem,” Cara Merrick said. “They are detectives. You’re not.”

“There’s something else,” Marise said carefully. “If he believes I can recognize him, or something about him—and apparently he does or he wouldn’t have taken the risks he did last night—he might follow me if I leave. I’ll never feel safe again.”

“Nonsense,” Paul said. “Of course, he won’t follow us. He’ll just be relieved you’ve left.”

“Are you that familiar with the thinking of a serial killer?” she asked a bit too sharply.

Paul looked hurt.

“I can’t go,” she said. “Not as long as there’s a chance I can help the police.”

“Help the police?” her mother said as if it were a foreign concept. “How can you help the police?”

“A police artist will be here this morning.”

“I thought you said you didn’t see anything.”

“Detective MacKay seems to think that I might recall some things.”

“We can leave after that, then,” her mother said with relief.

“You didn’t listen,” Marise said. “He could follow me.”

“I can protect you,” Paul said.

At one time, she might have accepted that. Now protection took the form of a tall, lanky detective with mussed hair, intelligent dark eyes and a gentle touch. But she should know better than to depend on her own judgment.

She’d fallen in love once. Desperately. His name was Patrick Bennett, and he was a business executive with a sportswear company, older than her by fifteen years. Their relationship ended when she injured her ankle and no longer had the strength it took to be a singles champion with the increasing demand for higher and more complicated jumps and combinations. Her coach had suggested pairs skating. It took as much athletic ability but the strain wasn’t as consistent on her ankle, and Paul and her coach had always been careful to protect it as much as possible. She and Paul had been well-matched in height, technique and abilities.

Patrick had been concerned about her injury at first. Then the concern dissolved into coolness. Before long, he was dating another singles skater, and Marise realized he wanted a trophy companion, not part of a team. It had been bitter knowledge, and she’d guarded her heart ever since. That was also one reason she’d considered Paul’s offer. They were already friends with a lot in common. She didn’t have to worry about betrayal.

And she liked Paul. He had helped her through her heartbreak. He’d demanded her full attention, and the work had been a balm. Although he could be arrogant at times, he was also generous to her and hardworking. He seldom criticized or blamed when she made a mistake.

The only problem was that skating was all he really cared about. She wanted more. She’d always wanted more.

She wanted a home and family. She couldn’t imagine Paul as a homebody and father. He genuinely loved the spotlight and travel and glamor. He wouldn’t understand her compulsion to help capture someone who had almost killed her, who might well kill again.

Neither would her mother. To them, the gold medal was the only trophy worth pursuing.

As the two pressed her to take the flight, she wished MacKay hadn’t left. She wanted his support. Then she questioned whether he’d left because he was forcing her into making a decision.

“Marise?” her mother said, obviously believing the silence meant she was reconsidering.

“I’m going to stay,” Marise said. “It’s not just my safety. Nor other women he might attack. It’s me. He assaulted me. He tried to kill me. I…owe him. I want to help put him away. I want to look in his face when it happens.”

Paul and her mother stared at her as if in shock. But then, she had never been this angry before. She hadn’t realized how angry she was.

A knock came at the door, and the detective entered again, this time with a man with an overlarge briefcase.

“This is Alan Greene, our artist,” he said, as both her mother and Paul looked at him with disapproval.

Greene looked around. “Can we do this alone?” he asked.

Cara Merrick started to bristle.

“I think I should stay here with her,” Paul said, taking a defensive stand next to the bed. “She’s had a second shock in as many days.”

“She’ll be more helpful if she can concentrate,” the police artist said politely but firmly.

“Please wait outside, Paul,” Marise said.

“If that’s what you want…”

“It is, and you, too, Mom.”

Her mother frowned, obviously reluctant to leave. “If you need us…”

“I know,” Marise said. Her mother had been right outside for eighteen years, ever since she’d lost her husband and son. She’d accompanied Marise everywhere as her daughter won competition after competition, then became her business manager and agent.

Guilt about that accident so many years ago had kept Marise from suggesting another manager. And her mother did a good job. After she’d given up skating herself so many years ago, she and Marise’s father had run a skating school. Cara Merrick had been the business manager and deserved much of the credit for its financial success. She’d sold it years later and used the proceeds to finance Marise’s lessons and competitions and costumes.

Marise owed her.

She owed her—and her father—an Olympic Medal, the one shining goal neither of her parents had achieved. She and Paul actually had a shot at it. But first they needed a good showing in the Sectional and, hopefully, the U.S. Championships.

Her mother and Paul left reluctantly. Their coach had already flown ahead to Seattle with the costumes and equipment. One less mother hen with which to contend.

“Can the detective stay?” she asked.

The police artist nodded as he took out his computer and plugged in a modem.

Marise’s heart beat faster.

“Close your eyes,” the police artist said. “Think about impressions. Think about the night before last. What do you see?”

“Darkness. There was a street light, but he came from behind and dragged me into a dark corner. He wore a mask.” Her throat was dry. Her voice sounded scratchy.

“How big a man?”

“He seemed large.” She was picturing his bulk now. Her eyes were still closed, and she willed herself back to those moments. Back to the terror.

“His clothes?”

“Dark. Black, I think.”

“And the ski mask?”

“Black. Yes, black.”

“All right. Thin, fat?”

“Powerful,” she said. “Muscular. His arm was strong. I know muscles. I could feel them around my neck. I think he must work out.”

“Good. Very good,” the artist said.

“Height?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s between five-ten and five-eleven. I’m five-three, and he was about six inches taller than I am, about an inch shorter than Paul.”

He let out a surprised breath.

“I skate next to Paul every day. I know his height.”

“Good. Now his face. What did you see?”

“I didn’t exactly see it. It was too dark, and it happened so quickly.”

“Broad face?” he asked. “Narrow?”

“I don’t know,” she said desperately.

“Open your eyes,” he asked gently. His computer screen was turned toward her. He ran through several facial types. None of them brought any flash of recognition.

“Don’t try too hard,” he said. “Just watch and see if any ring a bell in your head.”

He had an easy way about him, and she found herself nodding and relaxing. Several more pages, then an impression…nothing more.

“Stop,” she said. “I’m not sure, but something about that face…”

It was a square face, heavy jowled. She stared at it for a moment, trying to remember more, to see more. Fear was crawling up her spine. What was it about that facial type?

The artist waited a few more moments, then suggested quietly, “Why don’t we try some eyes?”

A half-hour later, they had a picture. But she couldn’t say whether it was actually her assailant or a mishmash of memorable features that lingered in her mind. “I’m just not sure,” she admitted.

“You’ve done very well, Miss Merrick,” the artist said. “I’ll bet anything that when we find this man, there will be a resemblance.”

When we find him. If they found him.

Detective MacKay had not uttered a word during the entire time. Perhaps he had not wanted to break her concentration. But she had known he was there, and that had made her feel safe.

Now he came over to the bed. “Thank you,” he said in the rumbling deep voice that somehow gave her confidence in him. “That will be helpful.”

“I don’t know how,” she said.

“We have a lot of information we didn’t have before,” he said. “We know he’s familiar with hospital routine. He came in here during change of shifts when no one was likely to be in. He wears latex gloves. That’s probably where the smell came from. We finally have some leads. Thanks to you.”

“What now?” she asked.

“Perhaps you should go to Seattle.”

“You thought there was a chance he would come after me.”

His silence told her it was indeed a worry.

“If he came after me once, he’ll come again.”

Again a silence.

“What about using me as bait?” There. It was said. “That’s what you were thinking earlier.”

“You don’t know what I was thinking, Miss Merrick, and it’s a really lousy idea.”

“It’s the only way I can go on with my life.”

“It’ll be damn dangerous. I’m not sure I can get approval from my boss.”

She swallowed hard. The police artist was watching the exchange with interest. MacKay was frowning. He looked intimidating when he did that.

“Will you ask him?” she said.

“What about your mother and…partner?”

“I’ll manage that.”

“They could get hurt.”

“Not if they go on to Seattle.”

His face must have expressed his doubts. “They’ll leave? Without you?”

“Leave that to me,” she said. “Can you arrange it?”

He hesitated.

“I trust you,” she persisted.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know what I need to know. You went out of your way last night to make sure I was safe. You said you had a feeling and you came.”

His eyes measured her. “I’ll talk to the captain,” he said. “In the meantime, you should be safe enough. My partner, Manny, will stay in the room with you, and there are two uniforms outside. If you return to the hotel, Manny goes with you.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to talk to my superiors.”

“And get some sleep,” she said.

He rubbed his face with his hands. “Guess I could use a shave, too.”

A knock came, and the other detective entered, the one she remembered from yesterday. “Miss Merrick,” he said with concern. “Hoppy said someone came into your room last night, and—”

“Hoppy?” she interrupted.

He looked over at MacKay and his face turned red. Detective MacKay glared at him.

“Hoppy?” she asked again with a smile.

“His first name is Cassidy,” the detective named Manny said without looking at his partner, who was glowering.

The name didn’t mean anything to her.

“Hopalong Cassidy,” the detective prompted. “He was a cowboy on television in the fifties, a guy in a white hat.”

A guy in a white hat. She liked that image.

“Hoppy,” she tested again, and MacKay turned his glower on her.

“I prefer Cass,” he said.

She did, too, after thinking about it. Still, she tried to think of him as MacKay. That fit him, and it was far less personal.

The artist had packed up his equipment. “Gotta go,” he said. “A lot of business today. You were great, Miss Merrick.”

She felt a momentary pride. He had discovered more information that she thought she had. “You’re good at extracting information,” she said.

Detective MacKay was also inching toward the door. “Thank you, Miss Merrick,” he said. “I’ll be in touch later today.”

She watched him leave with the police artist.

The second detective looked at her with interest. “My wife is a big admirer of yours,” he said. “So am I.”

That surprised her. She hadn’t imagined a burly homicide detective would have an interest in figure skating. “Thank you,” she said.

“My wife, she loves figure skating,” he continued. “It sorta grew on me, too. And our kid.”

Just then, the door opened and her mother and Paul entered, eyeing the detective warily.

“I’ll be outside,” the detective said.

She wanted to ask him to stay, but this, she knew, was something she had to do alone.

“Thank you,” she said.

The two waited until the door closed.

“We talked to your doctor,” her mother said. “He said there’s no reason you can’t leave today. And you can start skating in several days.”

“We still have the plane on standby,” Paul added. “And now that you’ve talked to that police artist, you’ve done everything you can do.”

“Not exactly,” she said.

They both stared at her as if she’d grown two heads.

“I might remember more,” she said lamely. She wasn’t ready to tell them she’d offered herself as bait for a trap.

“You probably won’t,” Paul said sensibly. “If you do, you can contact them from Seattle.”

“I’m just not ready yet,” she said. “There are more questions…”

“We’ve lost days,” Paul said patiently. “We need practice.”

“You go ahead,” she said. “You and Mom. You can start practicing. I’ll be there in two or three days. I promise to be there for the competition.”

“If you insist on staying,” Paul said, “I’ll stay. We can practice here.”

“You said it would be several days before I can skate,” she said. “You need the time to get accustomed to the rink. And Mother needs to be there for publicity and to scout the competition. You two and David can make adjustments in the routine. And make sure the costumes are ready.” There was a different set of costumes for the Sectional. And a new program. It would have some of the elements they were perfecting here in Atlanta, but changes were always made.

“I’m not sure…”

Her mother was not often unsure of anything, but she was weakening. The costumes were her pride and joy. She’d designed them for the past six years.

“The detectives can’t properly protect me if they have to watch out for all of us,” Marise said. “Doing it this way will get me to Seattle much faster.”

“I don’t like it. You shouldn’t be alone,” her mother countered.

“I won’t be alone,” she said patiently. “I will be surrounded by the entire police department.”

“The publicity…”

“You can tell them I decided to stay and recuperate here,” she said. “Just think how bad the publicity would be if someone tracked me to Seattle and killed me.” She regretted the words almost immediately, when tears formed in her mother’s eyes. She went over to her and took her hands in her own. “I couldn’t be safer,” she said. “This really is for the best.”

“I want to stay here with you,” her mother said stubbornly.

Marise was surprised. She knew her mother well, and usually knew how to assuage her. “I need to do this, and I need to do it alone. I can’t help the police if I’m worrying about you.”

Paul looked rebellious, then resigned. “You’re determined?”

“Yes.”

Her mother looked horrified. “Paul?”

He shook his head. “If I’ve learned anything about Mare, it’s that when she makes up her mind, we might as well do as she wants.” He gave her a small grin. “She doesn’t do it often, but I’ve learned to heed her when she does.”

He looked back at Cara Merrick. “And I don’t like the idea of her living in terror for the rest of her life.” He turned to Marise. “When will you join us in Seattle?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “A few days. No later than the middle of next week.” She knew that was pushing it. But she could do their skating program in her sleep. Two weeks of practice should be sufficient. She was fully aware how important the Sectional was to Paul, and she would never, never ruin his chances.

“You’ll try to make it sooner?” he asked.

“Yes. I won’t let you down.”

He hesitated, then took her hand. “You never did answer me. The question I asked…before all this happened.”

She hesitated, then said, “Too much has happened in the past two days,” she said. “I…can’t make a decision now.”

But she had. And from the disappointed look in his eyes, he suspected it.

He said nothing. “We’ll stay with you until that detective returns and we know exactly what he plans to do,” he said. “We can stay at the hotel tonight and fly to Seattle in the morning.”

“You chartered the plane for this afternoon,” she reminded him.

“We can cancel that.”

She nodded. She couldn’t deny them that.

Her mother tried once more. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you, after all…”

The familiar guilt surged through Marise again. But this time she wasn’t going to let it guide her. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”

Despite Paul’s seeming acquiescence, she knew they hadn’t given up. They were just going to give her time to reconsider on her own. She would surely see sense. She always did.

But she wouldn’t. Not this time. It was too important. Not only for her, but for others.

And MacKay would make sure she was safe.

She felt a rising excitement—and fear—as she thought of the days ahead. Perhaps, at last, she would have some influence on her own destiny.

Chapter 4

Cassidy paced restlessly, fielding questions from his boss as to manpower, risk and chances of success—with and without the figure skater.

“You sure she’s willing to go through with this?” Captain Haynes asked.

“Yes.”

“And you can protect her?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t believe I could.”

“There’s no other way?”

“She just didn’t see enough,” Cassidy said. “I’m pretty sure it’s someone connected to the hospital, but it could be one of their employees, ex-employees, people who go there often—med techs, police, ambulance drivers, even linen-truck drivers. That includes thousands of people.”

“Then, who do we get to protect her?”

“People I know,” Cassidy said. “I want to pick my team.”

“How long?”

“She has to leave next week.”

“And you feel the perp might go after her?”

“He took a tremendous chance in going to her room last night. There could have been cops inside. Hell, there should have been.”

“Maybe he had a cover story in case someone questioned him.”

Cassidy frowned. “I’m sure he did. He’s clever as hell. And if we don’t get him now, he’ll probably go underground for a while. What really worries me is that he might follow Marise Merrick to Seattle.”

“If we set a trap using her, and anything goes wrong, you know what will happen. We’ll both be busted to the streets—if not thrown off the force.”

Cassidy nodded.

“I’ll take this upstairs and give you an answer this afternoon. In the meantime, I would suggest you clean up. Get a few hours’ sleep. Someone with her now?”

“Two uniforms. And Manny.”

“What about your other cases?”

“They can wait for a few days.”

“Give them to Malcolm and Perry.”

Cassidy nodded. “Thanks.”

“Just make it work.”

Cassidy grabbed a couple of hours’ sleep, then washed and shaved. The phone rang. It was Manny.

“She’s being released,” he said.

“I think we’ll get the go-ahead. The captain signed off on it. Stick with her. Make sure there’s a uniform as well. Check their badge numbers with headquarters.”

“You don’t think…”

“I don’t think anything at the moment. I just don’t want to take any chances. Call me when you have the hotel and room number. Drive them over in your car.”

“My car isn’t very elegant.”

“Just do it.”

She was smaller and even shorter than he’d thought as she’d padded across the hotel suite barefoot, wearing a track suit. She had such a presence about her that he’d thought she would be taller. Five-three, he remembered her telling the artist. But it hadn’t really registered.

At six feet, he towered over her.

The bandage was gone. Her blond hair was damp and pulled back into a ponytail. She looked sixteen. She’s twenty-four. Nearly twenty-five, he told himself. He’d brought up the statistics on his computer. He’d wanted to know everything there was to know about her before taking that last step.

She was even prettier with a touch of lipstick and blush on her cheeks. Her blue eyes looked even more enormous and expressive.

She hadn’t opened the door. Manny had instructed them well. Paul Richards had opened it and stood aside. They had a small suite in a hotel near the auditorium where the competition had taken place.

Cassidy wondered whether Paul stayed in the same room, then told himself her sleeping arrangements were none of his business.

“I can’t talk either of you out of this, can I?” Paul Richards asked. He looked so miserable that Cassidy revised his original opinion of the man. He obviously did care about his partner.

“She can say no at any time.”

“She won’t. She’s set on this dangerous course. But you can stop it. You can refuse to go on with this plan.”

“If I thought she wouldn’t be in any more danger, I would,” he said. “But if we don’t catch him, he could follow you.” He hesitated, then added, “We’ll take every precaution.”

“She wants to help everyone,” Richards said. “Sometimes I even think she hates to win because someone else has to lose.”

Cassidy allowed that idea to sink in. A softhearted skater who could disable a bulky rapist. She was a far more complicated person than he’d first suspected.

Birthday: October 3O, 1977. College: B.A. degree mostly by correspondence courses. Major, English. Birthplace: San Diego, California.

The degree had encouraged him. That must have been difficult to obtain while staying on the road most of the year. She had determination as well as quick wits and an ability to defend herself.

“Where will I stay?” she said.

“With me,” he said.

Paul Richards started to say something.

“Don’t worry,” Cassidy broke in. “There will be plenty of chaperones. I live in a neighborhood of cops. At least two will be with her at all times, and there will be plenty of help within hollering distance.”

Richards stared at him for a long time, clearly trying to establish his possession.

Then Cara Merrick came into the room, her eyes red and her cheeks splotched with tears.

Cassidy looked at Marise Merrick. “You can still change your mind. No one would ever question it.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Detective. Where do we go from here?”

He looked at Mrs. Merrick in question.

“We are leaving in the morning for Seattle,” she said. “I’ll find a place for us for the next three weeks.” Then she stiffened and her eyes became steely. Formidable. “Take care of her.”

“She’s just going to be looking over photos,” he said. He didn’t like his own guilt at telling a half-truth. This was a really lousy idea.

He looked back to Marise. “Manny or I will be here, along with two uniformed officers. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

He looked around the suite. “Are there any other doors?”

“Only a connecting door to Paul’s room,” Marise said.

Well, that answered one question.

“And the only door from his room is into the hall?”

Richards nodded.

“I’ll leave you, then,” Cassidy said. “Manny or I will be outside. If you want any food, we will get it for you.”

He started to leave, then hesitated. “A reporter knows about the attack. Probably from someone at the hospital. We couldn’t stop it.”

“I know,” Mrs. Merrick said. “One reporter found us. We asked the desk not to put through any calls.”

“There will probably be television trucks as soon as the story breaks.”

“Maybe I should go with you now,” Marise said.

“You’ll be safer here,” he said. “I want to make sure everything is set.” Mainly he had to make sure his house was at least habitable. He was the epitome of the world’s view of a sloppy bachelor. What was really bad was that he was in the process of remodeling the house that he’d bought cheap because it was in such bad shape.

It was still the safest place for her, though.

He also needed final departmental approval before he took her anyplace.

“I’ll make sure that no reporters get up here,” he said. “I’ll tell the switchboard to allow my calls to go through, so if the phone does ring, pick it up.” He knew he sounded curt and officious, but he was also feeling an unusual sense of guilt and indecision that he didn’t like at all.

He also didn’t like the look of trust in Marise Merrick’s blue eyes.

“I’ll be here in the morning,” he said. “Eight.”

He left before he had any additional doubts.

Marise met him at the door the next morning. Her mother and Paul were tight-lipped but silent.

She gave them both a hug, then handed Cassidy her bag. There wasn’t much in it. A couple of track suits, a pair of slacks, a pair of jeans, a couple of blouses, a night shirt and robe. A pair of shoes in addition to the running shoes she was wearing now along with a shirt and slacks she was wearing. That was it. Her costumes would go with Paul and her mother.

She hoped she didn’t look as red-eyed as she felt. She’d gotten precious little sleep last night. She’d feared the nightmare would return and that if she woke her mother, there would be yet another battle to fight and more tears to stem.

Her head still ached slightly, and she had enough bruises to make moving uncomfortable. Most of all, she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. She and Paul did need practice time. Was she destroying his career because she didn’t care enough about her own?

Was this…idea simply a way to break away from an increasingly uncomfortable life, one that no longer satisfied her? Was it a selfish adventure that could destroy the hopes of people she cared about?

She only knew that despite the danger she was not foolish enough to ignore, she looked forward to a few days of freedom, away from routine and discipline and the feeling of being trapped.

Or was she just running into another kind of prison?

She was attracted to Cassidy MacKay. He was so different from any man she’d ever met. He exuded competence, and yet there was no arrogance about him, none of the constant anxiety that ran among many skaters.

“Quiet desperation,” she’d called it once.

Cassidy MacKay had none of that. He knew who and what he was.

He had that air of competence this morning. His usually unruly hair was combed, and he’d shaved; she caught a whiff of some masculine scent. Jeans hugged a body that was not the athletically sculptured form she’d grown accustomed to on the competition circuit, though he was obviously in good shape. His forearms were tanned, strong, but without the developed muscles that Paul had. His fingers were unusually long, even elegant, which didn’t go with anything else.

Her gaze met his. She’d noticed before that his eyes were dark, enigmatic. Guarded. They’d rarely shown any emotion. They didn’t now.

“We have a car in back,” he said. “I think we can avoid the reporters.”

She was relieved. She really had not wanted to cope with the media this morning. He opened the door for her, waited until she was out, then shut it gently behind him. Two uniformed policemen were seated in chairs outside her door, although that, she’d learned, had taken some negotiation with the hotel management. The manager had not relented until Cassidy had told the manager to simply explain to enquiring guests that they had an important celebrity they could not name.

They didn’t take the elevators but walked down four flights of stairs, the uniformed police at their heels. They went down to a parking garage, and as they stepped out of the elevator, they were met by Manny in his car.

She looked at both men, knowing she was putting her life in their hands, that she was stepping out of a world that had been safe, if not exactly secure. For a moment, she wanted to flee upstairs.

MacKay opened the back door of the car and held out his hand to help her in. The sudden warmth of it sent an electric shock through her. Her eyes met his, and this time they weren’t empty at all. He felt it, too. She could see it in the muscle that throbbed against his cheek.

This was another kind of danger. She knew it. She was also drawn to it.

Be careful, she warned herself, when his hand jerked away as if it had been burned. Be very, very careful.

Touching her was unwise. Very, very unwise. Cassidy had felt the sudden hesitancy in her, had seen her hand tremble for a moment.

But he didn’t want to lose her now.

He’d been able to get resources he’d only dreamed about before. The press on the killer was scaring the city. It had been bad enough when the victims were prostitutes, but now that an internationally known figure had been attacked, the public would be demanding results.

But he’d been warned that he had limited time, no more than a week. Any longer would be far too expensive in terms of both money and manpower. Which meant he had to bait the trap quickly.

His first concern, though, had been Marise’s safety. He would have additional detectives in the house at all times—ones he had chosen himself.

He also had asked to be told if any member of the department asked to be on the special squad. He still hadn’t dismissed the idea that the killer might be a cop. So he wasn’t taking any chances.

Once Cassidy had Marise inside Manny’s car, he threw his keys to one of the uniforms. “My car is the blue one over there,” he said, gesturing to where he’d parked in an emergency spot. “Do you have a squad car?”

The senior of the two officers nodded.

“Have someone pick it up. You two can take my car and follow us.”

The older one nodded. The younger one couldn’t take his eyes off Marise Merrick. For some reason, that annoyed Cassidy considerably. He put Marise’s bag in the front seat next to Manny, then got in the back seat with Marise.

He felt unusually large and awkward. Every movement Marise made was graceful. He felt like an elephant next to a gazelle. But then she smiled at him, and he didn’t feel awkward at all.

He felt something else altogether. And as he did, a knot of apprehension twisted his stomach. He didn’t need this. Any personal feelings interfered with what he needed to do: protect her and catch a killer.

He steeled himself against her appeal. She already treated him like a friend. She was that way with Manny, too. And that touch had been like a hot electrical wire, snaking across his body, sparking reactions he didn’t want to feel.

Cassidy knew he was glowering. Manny told him he did it better than anyone. But when he looked at Marise, he saw that she was unimpressed. Instead, she regarded him with bemusement.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For putting your life in danger?”

“For letting me do something about it.”

Something shifted inside him. She’d said the words with such simplicity. Even gratitude. He felt like a fraud. He was using her. Nothing more than that. And he wondered why she seemed to cater so much to her mother, and even to Paul, when there was so much strength and substance to her.

“Has your mother always been your manager?” he asked to dissipate the expectancy that was radiating between them.

She tensed slightly, then seemed to forcibly relax. “Yes,” she said. “She was a skater herself. She knows the business. She’s wonderful with the costumes.” Then she turned and looked out the window. “Are we really going to your house?”

“Don’t expect much,” he warned her. “I bought it at a bargain price because it needed so much work.”

“Are there really a lot of policemen in the neighborhood?”

“Manny lives half a block away. A captain in another division lives three houses down. Two other members of the Atlanta P.D. live within two blocks. A lieutenant in the sheriff’s department and a highway patrol major also live nearby. That’s how I found my house. It had been an eyesore, and Manny knew I like to work with my hands.”

She gazed up at him with those magnificent eyes. “You’re doing the work?”

“Some of it,” he said.

“All of it,” Manny interrupted. “My wife calls him when she needs something done. It’s humiliating.”

They traveled the rest of the way in silence. He didn’t see any other cars keeping pace with them, but then, they were not trying to hide. In fact, he was going to make sure her whereabouts were leaked.

They wanted the assailant to come after her. If all went according to plan, she wouldn’t be there then. A policewoman would be.

But there was something he’d learned long ago. Whatever could go wrong, would.

“What do we do next?” she asked.

“After you get settled, we’ll go back to the hospital and start going over personnel photos. He doesn’t know how little you really did see. We’re going to make him wonder a little more.”

“If he’s with the hospital.”

“My guess is he’s connected in some way.”

“What if he doesn’t find out I’m…helping to find him?”

“Then, I’ll leak a story to the media that we have a witness who can identify the killer and is going through personnel files. I’d rather he found out another way. It wouldn’t be as obvious.”

“If he’s as smart as you think he is, why would he walk into a trap?’

“Because doing nothing would be more dangerous. And serial killers usually think they are smarter than anyone else. He’ll know I’m protecting you. He won’t know about the others.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied.

As they drove into his driveway his stomach tightened. He’d tried to tidy up, but it was a man’s place. Still, it was probably the safest place for Marise. What neighbors were not law enforcement officers were sympathetic to them. All were friends. Manny planned to visit each house and ask that they keep an eye out for strangers.

It would be strange to have a woman in the house again. He’d dated since his marriage, but he’d never brought any of them home. Not since Laine left.

He’d not gotten around yet to painting the trim, and the house looked a little like an aging dowager without makeup. The exterior was a bungalow in an older neighborhood, a community where prices were spiraling because of their in-town location. After he and Laine had bought it, he’d spent the next two years fixing it up.

While he had thought the house would help the marriage, it hadn’t. He’d spent every waking moment away from the police department working on it. He hadn’t noticed her growing distance.

Marise was looking at the house with interest.

He sure as hell wasn’t going to apologize for it. Yet he knew she was used to much better. She probably had a large home somewhere.

Manny drove into the garage, which was one of the first things Cassidy had added. It was only a one-car garage—there wasn’t room for more—but he’d built it with a direct entrance into the house. Now he was grateful that he had; it made the place safer.

The exterior was brick with a screened front porch. There once had been a back porch but he’d closed that in and made a sunroom. For Laine. Now he seldom used it. He was seldom here, in fact.

He opened the car door and started to go around to the other side, but Marise let herself out. She didn’t act like a princess, but then, princesses didn’t agree to be bait. She didn’t say anything, but followed him toward the entrance to the house as the garage door closed behind the three of them. He opened the door leading to the kitchen.

It had undergone a frantic face-lift. Dishes in the sink had gone into the dishwasher, a five-day-old pizza had gone from the refrigerator into the garbage. There was nothing to brighten the room, however, but the yellow daisy curtains Laine had selected.

He led the way into the living room, which was furnished with what his male friends called “early bachelor.” Dark overstuffed sofa and chair, a large-screen television and bookcases. He’d put clothes away, but books and magazines, and even several newspapers, lay haphazardly on tables.

He saw Marise’s gaze go to the sunroom just beyond the living area. It had cheap patio furniture. But her eyes lit.

“What a wonderful room,” she said.

“Cass built it,” Manny said. “Cass can build anything. He’s building a sailboat up at his sister’s place.”

Cassidy noted that Manny did not call him Hoppy. Perversely, he was annoyed. Manny was obviously trying to play match-maker.

As if he and the princess had anything in common.

He was very aware of that as she stood awkwardly in the house of which he was so proud, the house he had remodeled, first with love and then with resignation. He was no longer building for the future. He was finished with that part of his life.

“You have my room,” he said. “We have detectives in the second. I’ll sleep in my office.”

“I’ll take the office,” she said.

“You haven’t seen it,” he said. “No one but me could find a way through it.”

She cocked her head. “That bad?”

“That bad,” he confirmed.

“All right, I’ll take the bedroom,” she agreed.

He took her suitcase into a bedroom and laid it down on a chair he’d brought in from the dining room. “There’s a bathroom right outside the room. It’s yours. We’ll use the one off the living room.”

“I feel like I’m dispossessing you,” she said with a hint of a smile.

“Believe me, as a stakeout, this is pure luxury,” he said.

“This is a stakeout?”

Her blue eyes were intense. He realized his error immediately. To him and the others, it might be a stakeout. To her, it was her life. But he wasn’t good at niceties. Never had been. He changed the subject. “Have you had any breakfast?”

“No.”

“What about some frozen waffles.”

She smiled. A genuine wide smile that made him want to do the same.

“It sounds wickedly wonderful,” she said.

“I doubt they’re wonderful,” he said. “Filling, yes.” But the anticipation didn’t leave her eyes, and he wondered about that. She was slim. How much had she sacrificed to stay that way?

Manny was taking care of the police officers. They would stay outside until the detectives arrived. Then the police officers would take the detectives’ vehicles back to the department. Cassidy didn’t want any extra cars in front of the house.

“I’ll unpack,” Marise said, and glided out of the room, leaving it very empty.

Manny returned and found Cassidy in the kitchen. “You got to be kidding,” he said as he eyed the package of frozen waffles.

“You have any better ideas?”

“Yeah. A lot of them. I’ll send Janie over to cook you all a good meal.”

“Maybe Janie will have something to say about that.”

“Nope. She’s dying to meet the princess.”

“She’s not a princess,” Cassidy growled.

“I think she is,” Manny said with offended dignity. “And she likes you.”

“She needs me. And you. There’s nothing more,” Cassidy said.

“You never fixed waffles for me.”

“They are frozen,” Cassidy said patiently.

“Those, either,” Manny said with a grin.

By the time the first popped up, Marise had returned to the kitchen. “I like your house,” she said.

“It’s not finished,” Cassidy said.

“I still like it. I always wanted to live in a home that looked like a real home.”

“Where do you live?”

“A condominium in California when we’re not traveling,” Marise said wistfully as she took a waffle on a plate. He’d already put a big dollop of butter on it, as well as real maple syrup.

He put another on a plate for Manny and popped one in the toaster for himself, then he leaned against the sink and watched her eat.

“A glass of milk?” he asked.

“Thank you.”

The milk was spoiled.

“Coffee?” he suggested.

“That would be good.”

He looked for the instant coffee jar. It was empty. Manny was shaking his head.

“Water would be fine,” she said.

He poured her a glass of water and sat down to discover that his own waffle was now cold.

This isn’t going to work.

But it had to.

It was going to be hell, though. Being in the same room with her disconcerted him. And it had been a long time since he’d felt so…inadequate.

Just a few days. Then he could reclaim his life. His instant coffee. His hot frozen waffles. A shirt thrown on the sofa.

A few days.

A very long few days.

And, he thought as he watched her enjoying those slightly over-toasted waffles, too few.

That last thought was more terrifying than any killer.

Chapter 5

Marise usually had a can of vegetable juice or some protein-laden drink for breakfast. A waffle, even this waffle, was a treat. Because weight was so crucial in pairs skating, she watched every bite of food. She rarely ate for pleasure.

But now she was hungry and she didn’t care. A cup of coffee would have been nice, but she was more than compensated for the lack by the look of chagrin on her host’s face.

She was intrigued with the house itself, particularly the sunroom that was all glass with unusual angles. If MacKay had designed it, he definitely had a bent for architecture. The rest of the house looked unfinished. There were few pieces of furniture in both the living area and her bedroom. What there was in the living room was worn, but looked comfortable.

Still, there was a warmth about it, a symmetry of color and space. Perhaps because of the books that crowded out everything else. For some reason, she hadn’t expected that of a police detective—and that, she realized, was snobbish. But the books included a potpourri of titles: histories, biographies, novels, shipbuilding, architecture. There was an appetite for knowledge revealed in their variety.

There was no similar variety in his kitchen or cupboards. The kitchen looked virtually bare, and when he’d opened the refrigerator, she’d noticed that it, too, looked bare except for a six-pack of beer. The freezer, though, was full. Mostly with frozen waffles, frozen dinners, frozen hotdogs.

Like a sponge, she soaked in evidence of who the man was. She had, after all, put her life in his hands.

The waffle was like manna. She finished and looked at him. His was gone, too, although his partner’s remained nearly untouched.

“What now?” she asked.

“We go to the hospital and look at photos.”

“I wouldn’t recognize anyone.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“Okay,” she said. “Can I wear this?” She looked down at the track suit she was still wearing.

A smile touched his eyes for the first time. “Yep. You look fine.”

“I look terrible,” she disagreed, knowing that her hair needed washing and her eyes must have shadows. She hadn’t slept well last night. “When do you want to go?”

“Now?” he asked.

Better to get it over with. The sooner the man was caught, the sooner she could get on with her own life. The sooner she would be safe.

If she could ever really feel safe again.

Something important—something valuable—had left her life.

Cassidy must have seen it in her eyes. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You will probably need to see someone,” he said gently. “You’ve gone through two traumatic events within thirty hours.”

He’d known exactly how she was feeling. She wondered whether it was impersonal, whether he treated every victim like that, or felt the same odd connection with her that she felt with him.

The warmth of his hand flooded through her like a warm syrup, slow but very satisfying.

Then he moved it, gathered up the dishes and took them to the sink.

She stood. She would need a touch of lipstick, if nothing else.

The doorbell rang, and she stood aside as MacKay went to answer it. Two men stood in the doorway.

MacKay introduced them. Sergeant Sam Preston and Detective Dan Kelley. The latter was almost as tall as MacKay. The other was shorter, wiry thin. Both were polite but couldn’t quite conceal their curiosity.

MacKay walked them around the house, showed them the second bedroom and explained that they would stay inside. He didn’t want anyone to see them.

“I’ll have someone in an attic three houses down. They will have a direct view of what’s going on outside,” he added.

Marise felt a little overwhelmed. She was used to a lot of people around her—her mother, her partner, her coach. But all these hard-eyed strangers with guns were a different matter altogether.

“Is anyone going with us to the hospital?” she asked MacKay.

“Just Manny and myself,” he said.

Just. She felt safe with that just.

He made a phone call, while she prowled around the room, stopping at the fireplace with some photos on it. A man and woman together with two children. She readily recognized the boy as Cassidy. The woman was exotically beautiful with red hair and striking green eyes, and she wore a bolero jacket over what appeared to be a red silk blouse. The man next to her, on the other hand, looked quiet and dignified and lacked the open smile that his companion had.

Another picture, obviously taken years later, portrayed three small girls, two dogs and a cat. And finally, in a third frame, was a young girl in a ballet costume. Marise wondered whether the children in either photo belonged to him.

“Those are nieces with the dogs,” MacKay said.

Marise had been so enraptured by the photo that she hadn’t noticed he was off the phone.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “How old are they?”

“Four, six and eight,” he said.

“And the girl in the ballet costume?”

“Manny’s daughter. She’s my godchild.”

Manny joined them then. “She skates, too. She would love to meet you.”

“I would like to meet her, too,” Marise said. She’d always enjoyed talking to young skaters. She turned back to Cassidy. “Your mother and father?”

He nodded.

“Are they still alive?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “They are that.” His tone was wry.

She must have looked surprised.

“They’re the Fighting MacKays,” he explained, resigned bitterness shading his voice. “They live apart, but they revel in battling each other. I was just talking to my mother. I was to go over there tonight for supper.” He hesitated, then continued, “She intends to bring over some food tonight.”

“Is it safe?” she asked.

“I think so. The detectives are here. And only death or a hurricane could stop her. Probably not even a hurricane.”

Marise glanced at the picture again, and the smile. She thought she would like the woman.

MacKay pulled on a sports jacket over his shirt. He went to the door and glanced out, then led the way to the garage and the car, holding the passenger door open for her. Manny had followed and stepped into the back seat.

The garage door opened.

It was beginning.

She was a good actress. Cassidy noticed that right away.

The hospital personnel had not been happy at the idea of pulling identification photos from thousands of files, but Marise Merrick’s charm soon had three people scurrying back and forth.

Only Cassidy knew that she hadn’t seen enough to identify her attacker, that this was an exercise for the benefit of one unknown person who was probably miles away.

Manny was doing some prowling of his own, trying to learn if anyone was showing an undue interest in what was transpiring in the administrative offices.

Marise continued to study photos for four hours, while MacKay perused the personnel files, noting names he planned to run through the police computer. But as she looked increasingly uncomfortable, he rose. “You’ve had enough,” he said.

“I can stay longer,” she protested.

But she couldn’t. She had deep shadows around her eyes, and she’d been moving restlessly, as if sitting in one position so long had become uncomfortable. She was probably still bruised.

He felt like a bully—a feeling that had never occurred to him before when he worked with a civilian.

“We’ve made our point,” he said. “We’ll be back tomorrow, and let everyone know it. We’ll also have more people who believe you can recognize him.”

“How many officers do you have?” she asked.

“As many as I need for a week,” he said. “You are very high priority,” he added.

“And after a week?”

“It will be reassessed,” he said honestly, and he saw the fear come back into her eyes.

She tried to hide it. “That’s just as well. I have to get back to…the competition.”

His eyes held hers. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Neither here nor anywhere else.” He hadn’t meant to say that. He didn’t even know if it was a promise he could keep. After a moment, he added, “We’re trying to find a decoy to fit your description. So far, no luck.”

But he would keep her safe. One way or another. He had no choice now that he’d prompted her into making herself a target. He held out his hand, taking her much smaller one in his fingers. The contact was warm, and the warmth became heat, and the heat became electric, spreading sparks throughout his body. The air was suddenly close, dense, filled with the expectancy that precedes violent storms, and a palpable tension radiated between them.

He swallowed hard, trying to understand why he couldn’t take his fingers away from hers, his gaze from the dark blue eyes that were swirling with need and a bewildered understanding.

Desire. Hunger. Need.

Caution.

His was a body full of writhing reactions and equally writhing emotions, and he didn’t recognize any of them.

He called himself every kind of fool, and yet the electricity remained, the attraction growing more irresistible. He didn’t know how long he would have stood there, if the door to the room had not opened.

She jerked away. He balled his fingers into a fist, feeling the heat from her touch like a brand, burning deep inside.

“I’m going on break,” said one of the clerks who had been assigned to help them. She looked at them, her head swiveling from one to the other, as if she recognized that something momentous had just occurred.

It wasn’t momentous, Cassidy told himself. It was merely an attraction that could be controlled.

Had to be controlled. For both their sakes.

The restaurant—no, it was a tavern, according to the sign in front—was dark, noisy and crowded. It smelled of beer and chili and something else that made Marise’s nose twitch with anticipation.

This was an adventure. A dangerous adventure, but an adventure just the same. Something far removed from the routine of hotel dining rooms and watching everything she ate. Recklessness was stimulating.

“It’s…very different,” she said, taking in the eclectic atmosphere and clientele that seemed to be a mixture of businessmen, students, white-collar workers and sports fans—who sat at the bar and cheered action on television sets located throughout. She couldn’t help but catch MacKay’s surprised look.

Had he expected her to dislike it? A test of some kind?

“Yep,” Manny said happily. “Manuel’s is unique. Every cop and politician in this end of the city eats here,” Manny said. “So do a lot of the sheriff’s deputies. And it’s probably the safest place in Atlanta.”

“The guy has to be working alone,” MacKay said. “He probably wouldn’t have had time to learn that we were there today and follow us. And both Manny and I kept watch. No one followed us.”

“Don’t we want someone to follow us?”

“Yes, but only when we’re prepared.”

“It didn’t take long for him to find me at the hospital.”

Manny looked stricken at the comment. She glanced at the man beside her. A muscle throbbed at his throat.

“Next time, you won’t be alone,” Detective MacKay said.

She tried to concentrate on his words, but she couldn’t. Something else was happening. She had been aware of an attraction the first time she met him. She’d been stunned at the hospital when their hands met and seemed to melt into each other. Instantaneous combustion. And now, when her leg accidently touched his, she felt another unwanted surge of heat gallop through her traitorous body.

A waiter in an apron came over to them, and Manny looked at Marise with an eager gleam in his eyes. “The chili dog is the specialty.”

She read the menu with an unknown sense of freedom. Paul would feel every ounce of additional weight, but she could lose it in three or four days. “A chili dog,” she said almost defiantly. “And iced tea.”

Manny ordered two chili dogs despite MacKay’s raised eyebrows and meaningful look at his shape. MacKay then ordered a chili dog and iced tea, too.

She looked around the tavern. It had character. It had tables with carved names and initials, and an array of photos behind the bar.

MacKay was watching her carefully, as if she might stand up and run out the back door.

“I like it,” she said again.

“You’ll like it even better when you have the chili dog,” Manny said with a grin.

She smiled at him. “Detective MacKay showed me a picture of your daughter.”

His broad homely face broke into a wide smile. “She takes after her mother.”

“I would love to meet her.”

The smile turned into a beam. “She would be beside herself.”

She looked at the man next to her. “When?”

MacKay hesitated. And some of her enthusiasm paled, along with that odd sense of anticipation she was feeling. Was he wondering whether putting them together might place the child in harm’s way?

“If you don’t think…” she started haltingly.

His lips became less grim. “We’ll arrange something. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon.”

“She has practice then,” Manny said.

“Then, I can watch her,” Marise said, enthusiasm bubbling up inside her. She loved working with young skaters. She loved children, in fact, and someday wanted a bunch of them. One thing that had kept her from accepting Paul’s proposal was knowing he wanted to continue skating indefinitely and avoided any talk of children.

MacKay looked at his partner. “I don’t like the idea of possibly leading the killer to Joey, to someplace she might be vulnerable.”

Marise was plunged back into reality. For just the barest of seconds, she had felt that MacKay wasn’t overly worried that the killer was being led to her. But then, she wasn’t a child. And she had agreed, knowing full well the dangers.

“No,” she agreed. “Of course not.”

“We can guard you while you’re here,” MacKay said, evidently reading her thoughts. “But if anything goes wrong, the killer could try to use Joey.”

Manny’s grin disappeared. For some reason it didn’t seem odd to Marise that she thought of him as “Manny,” but tried to keep thinking of his partner as “Detective MacKay.” Or just MacKay. Manny looked like a big teddy bear, and his face was open, his smile immediate and real. Cassidy MacKay, on the other hand, was reserve personified. He rarely relaxed, and on the rare occasions that he smiled, his lips barely moved, one side quirking upward. Usually, the smile was gone so quickly, she wondered whether she only imagined it. She felt as if he were always testing her in some way, that he was not quite sure she was strong enough to do what she’d agreed to do.

He would learn that it took more discipline and determination to get where she was today than probably to be a cop. She had skated through intense pain. She’d competed when she had a temperature raging over one hundred and three. She had practiced until she could barely walk to her room and then ached all night, muscles contracting until she wanted to scream. And yet, she would be practicing the next day, knowing she would face a similar sleepless night.

As for danger, she risked major injury every time she went on the ice. Lifts, throws and twists, especially the death spiral, could easily end in injury. Even the unison skating—for which she and Paul were particularly known—was dangerous. One misstep, one back spasm, one second’s hesitation, and she could fall, her head dangerously close to his blades.

Still, it was obvious Cassidy had doubts about her staying power.

Well, he would learn.

The food came. The hotdog was steaming and covered with chilies and onions. It smelled better than anything she could remember. She bit into it, and it tasted every bit as good as it had smelled. She ate the rest of it as if she were Tantalus unchained. She was as hungry as the mythical figure condemned to stand in water without drink and see a fruit-laden tree he couldn’t reach.

Then she looked up and saw the two detectives watching her. She licked her lips as she finished off the last piece of bun.

“Would you like another one?” Manny asked.

Yes. No. She shouldn’t. “Thank you,” she said a little primly. “I would.”

MacKay raised an eyebrow. But he said nothing, merely signaled the waiter and pointed down at her empty plate.

She felt ridiculously content. Her senses were all alive. Just as they always were in those first seconds when she and Paul skated out on the rink. But at those times she was concentrating with every fiber of her being, her body reacting to Paul’s and to the music and the audience.

She’d never felt that way off the ice. Not until now. She felt the electricity of MacKay’s body, the warmth of Manny’s smile, savored the sense of adventure and freedom and recklessness despite the awareness that a killer was out there.

And she enjoyed the bemusement that changed MacKay’s face, making it look more human. She remembered the photos on his fireplace. Parents. Nieces. Godchild. None of a wife or children of his own.

Had there been a wife? One who had disappointed him? Marise had hesitated to ask. It was none of her business.

Yet her leg—the one that periodically, accidently touched his—felt so warm. And the core of her so…needy.

The second hotdog came, and suddenly she was no longer hungry. Even the smell didn’t tempt her. She realized that the first one had filled her but that it had taken a few moments for the knowledge to reach her brain. But she didn’t want MacKay to know that.

She picked it up and took a bite, aware that chili had smeared across her lips and even part of her chin. Then she set it back down. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone.

Her eyes met his, and they weren’t amused. Instead, they seemed to smolder. MacKay filled her consciousness. She felt as if they were centered in a field of energy, two lodestones being pulled inexorably together.

The surrounding voices faded. The televisions muted. Then she realized she hadn’t taken a breath for several seconds. She forced herself to breathe. She moved her hand, and it accidently touched his leg. She saw him flinch as if it burned him.

Then he moved, taking a wallet from his pocket, and she saw that his hand was none-too-steady this time. That surprised her. She knew how affected she’d been; she hadn’t expected that he would be affected in the same mind-numbing, soul-searing way.

Earth shattering.

Chapter 6

Cassidy was stunned. He’d known attraction in the past, but nothing like this. He’d even loved dearly, yet he had never known the pure physical fist-in-the stomach impact he felt now.

Something this powerful couldn’t last. It was the attraction of opposites, of two people who knew there was no future. A singular moment in time that some twisted jokester had arranged to bedevil him.

He had never believed in glances across a crowded room. Still, from the moment he had first met her, something had sparked between them, and now it was multiplying in intensity at an astounding rate.

He couldn’t remember when he’d been speechless before, powerless even to make his limbs move normally. He had to command his fingers to steady.

But he had never seen anything so sensual, so appealing, as the eagerness and pure joy with which she had consumed a simple hotdog. He had chosen this place partly in self-defense. Although he and Manny frequently ate here, he’d thought her taste would run to something fancier. Perhaps he’d even wanted to see a momentary disdain.

The opposite had happened; the crack in his heart’s defenses widened.

He looked at Manny, who was regarding him with astonishment of his own.

Holy hades, was he that obvious?

He paid the bill, then slipped out of the booth, forcing himself not to offer her a hand. He knew what would happen. That heat. He didn’t need that. Not now. Hell, not ever.

He’d had one disastrous marriage. He didn’t plan to involve himself in a relationship that could only end in another failure.

He led the way out, greeting a few regulars, and paused at the door. Although he thought it too early for the killer to have traced them, he wanted Manny to get the car and drive it to the entrance.

As Manny left, Marise looked up at him with those blue eyes that seemed even bluer and deeper and darker than before. As they’d walked out, she turned every head, and for the first time in years he felt a stab of jealousy and possession.

He touched the small of her back with his hand in a gesture he knew was telling everyone that she was his.

She wasn’t. She never would be.

But she stiffened, and he knew the electricity that he felt in his hand flowed to her body. It was a darn good thing that they would be sharing his house with two detectives.

Otherwise…

Manny drove around, and Cassidy guided her into the back seat of the car. Then they were off again.

Marise was silent for a while, but then she asked, “What happens now?”

“No one but my department knows you’re staying with me,” he said. “If anything happens before tomorrow, we’ll know where to pinpoint our search. If it doesn’t, we’ll return to the hospital tomorrow afternoon and drop a few hints. If nothing happens then, we’ll leak your location to the newspapers. Though I expect they’ll have the information by then.”

He saw her shiver slightly. He wanted to touch her but he’d done that enough today. He’d never considered himself a masochist and he didn’t intend to start now. He needed to stay as far away from her as possible.

But he was aware of her gaze on him. He didn’t even have to look. He could feel its warmth. Manny—darn him—was silent.

“The pictures on your fireplace…” she started tentatively.

He had to turn toward her. It was only…courteous. He was afraid his voice would be rough, uncertain, so he raised an eyebrow in question.

“You don’t have any children?”

“No,” he said, hoping the answer might stop any other questions.

“You’ve never been married?”

It was a polite way of asking him if he was married now. But then, she probably could guess from the state of his house that there had been no woman’s touch.

He could ignore the question. It was none of her business.

But it was. That energy force that radiated between them made it so.

“I’m divorced,” he said shortly. “My wife didn’t want to be left a widow with fatherless children.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Marriage and being a cop don’t go together,” he added.

He heard a cough from the front seat.

“Except for Manny,” he amended. “Janie’s unique.”

“And I’m not a workaholic like you are,” Manny said. “I know when to go home.”

“It’s a lie,” Cassidy said. “He’s a bonehead just like I am.”

As he and Manny swapped insults, he tried not to look at her, at the fine features, the sparkling eyes, the determined set of her chin. Particularly the small smile.

He steeled himself against them, all of them.

They rode the rest of the way in silence.

Marise didn’t wait for either detective to help her out of the car. She didn’t dare touch MacKay again. And he would be the one offering a hand.

She shouldn’t have asked those questions. She knew better. But with the intensity of the attraction between them, she’d felt compelled. And she wondered whether there was a woman in his life now.

It seemed natural enough for someone that appealing. In a sexy, rough-hewn, cynical way.

He was different from everything she knew. Except for the dedication. The dedication was familiar.

Maybe that’s why she was so attracted to him.

When Marise entered the kitchen, the two detectives she’d met earlier, Sam Preston and Dan Kelley, were drinking coffee at the table. They both rose.

“Please sit,” she said.

But they waited until MacKay and Manny entered.

“Anything happen?” MacKay asked.

“Not so much as a phone call,” the taller detective replied.

She smiled. “Mr. Kelley, I hope you didn’t get too bored.”

He looked surprised that she had remembered his name. And pleased. She’d always been good at names and faces. She wished she had seen more of the man who’d attacked her, because she never would have forgotten it.

Sergeant Preston went over to a drip coffeepot. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“How did you get coffee?” Cassidy asked.

“Your cupboard is as bare as any I’ve seen,” Preston said. “I asked my wife to bring some stuff over.” He hesitated. “Don’t worry. Robert checked the street before she knocked at the door, and I was careful to keep behind the door.”

MacKay nodded. “You saved me a trip. I’m not used to company.”

Marise heard the exchange and realized the men had worked together before. An instinctive knowledge existed between them, just like the instinctive knowledge that bound Paul and herself when they were on the ice.

Why, she wondered, was that bond not there off the ice?

Paul. She had to give him an answer soon. If she hadn’t known absolutely before that she couldn’t marry him, she knew it now. How could she even consider his proposal when she had such intense reactions to a man she barely knew? That wouldn’t happen if she loved Paul. It couldn’t.

But she knew how much declining his proposal would hurt Paul. She’d seen it in his eyes when she’d put it off, and then when she’d asked him to leave Atlanta. How long could their partnership continue if some of the trust seeped away?

They had been together so long.

She took the cup of coffee that was pressed into her hands. “It’s black, Miss Merrick. If you want some milk or sugar…”

“No, I like it black,” she said. “Thank you.”

She sat down at the table, and both men sat down with her. MacKay went straight to a cordless phone, picked it up and wandered into the sunroom.

Manny had taken a cup of coffee, too, and he joined her at the table.

“Cass is probably checking in with the captain,” he said. “I’ll be leaving. Is there anything I can get for you?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll call my mother later. Let her know I’m safe.”

“And you’ll stay that way. Cass is the best.”

She wanted to ask him a dozen questions about his partner, but she couldn’t do it while the other two detectives sat at the table. One of them had said his wife brought over groceries. So that was another police marriage that apparently worked. Manny’s did. Why hadn’t Detective MacKay’s?

Manny left, and she found herself talking with the other detectives, asking about their lives. One was married, the other was divorced. A casualty of being a police officer?

“What does your wife do when you have assignments…like this?” She knew they would be staying in the house for two, three, four days.

“She understands. She’s a flight attendant so she’s away as often as I am. It works well. Neither of us can complain.”

“No children?”

“I have one by a previous marriage,” he said. “He lives with his mother.”

So it was another casualty.

“Because you were a police officer?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered what I did,” he said. “We were too young when we married. We both had a lot of growing up to do.”

“Tell me about your son,” she said.

He started talking, and she didn’t have to do or say anything more.

Moira MacKay was a force unto herself.

Cassidy knew the impact of her personality; he’d grown up with it. She instantly became the focus of everyone’s attention when she entered a room. She was redheaded, tall and really quite beautiful, even in her late fifties.

His father had never had a chance.

“Mother,” he acknowledged as she used her own key to enter the house. He’d known she could not stay away once she heard he was protecting Marise Merrick.

His mother knew the name of everyone even remotely connected with show business. She’d been an actress in a road show of Showboat when she met his father in Memphis. He’d been invited to an opening night party by the business manager of the theater and he’d fallen immediately in love.

Opposites attract. At least, that’s what his mother had said. She’d been taken by the quiet Scotsman who’d brought her flowers every night. He was fascinated by the flamboyant Irish actress. They’d married in haste, then had Cassidy and his sister. For the children’s sake, they’d stayed together until he was twelve, and his sister, ten. But it had been a battle royal almost every one of those years.

It was a miracle that Cassidy had married at all. But he’d wanted children and a family, and he’d thought he could do it right.

So much for good thoughts. And so much for opposites attracting.

Moira MacKay breezed in now. Her arms full of groceries, she greeted the detectives in the room. “Good thing I brought a lot of food,” she said on the way to the kitchen.

When she reached the sink, she started taking covered dishes from the bag. “Vegetable lasagna,” she said, looking pleased with herself. “And salad.”

MacKay winced. She was a terrible cook. She tried, but she never could follow a recipe. She liked to improvise, and never to the benefit of the dish. That was why he always took her out to supper.

“You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,” he said.

“No trouble,” she said cheerily. “I’m just so pleased you have someone here.”

“I’m protecting her,” he said. “Not dating her.”

“Still, it’s nice to have a woman in this house, isn’t it?”

He could only sigh. Her marriage was bad, his had been bad, and she was still determined to see him marry again.

“Where is she?” his mother asked. “Is she nice?”

“Yes. You’ll like her.”

Then Marise came in. She was still wearing the pants and shirt she’d been wearing all day, but her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing lipstick.

“Hi,” she said to his mother. “You must be Mrs. MacKay.”

His mother looked surprised, then…darn it…she beamed. Just as the other detectives had. There was something infectious about Marise. Infectious and unpretentious.

He went to the cabinet and took down mismatched plates, while his mother stuck a casserole dish into the oven.

He heard the two chatting behind him as if they were old friends.

He saw the twinkle in his mother’s eyes.

He hoped the killer would make a mistake. Soon.

Before he did.

Marise woke to an early morning sun flooding her room. For a moment she was disoriented. She’d slept deeply. And well. It took a moment for her to realize where she was and why.

She should have been disconcerted. Afraid. Instead, she felt safe and hungry.

The lasagna had been terrible: a preponderance of rosemary, undercooked vegetables and burned on the top. Still, she’d felt enveloped in a warm circle throughout the meal.

She looked at the clock. Seven. She wanted to run. It had been—what?—four days since she last skated? Since she’d had any exercise? She wondered whether she could tempt someone into running with her. She knew MacKay wouldn’t let her go alone. Hopeful, she dressed in a blue track suit, ran a brush through her hair and tied it back with a ribbon, and went into the living room.

The couch was a mess of blankets. The aroma of coffee drifted through the room.

MacKay was in the kitchen with Sam Preston. Both were standing at the sink, drinking coffee. She reached for a cup and poured one herself before either could do it for her.

Then she looked at MacKay. He was unshaven, and his cheeks were shadowed with overnight beard. His hair had obviously been combed by his fingers, and he was wearing the same shirt he’d worn last night.

He didn’t look as if he’d had any sleep.

“Good morning,” she said brightly.

“’Morning,” he replied.

“Can I go for a run?”

He and Sam glanced at each other. She saw that same instant communication she’d sensed yesterday. MacKay’s first instinct obviously was to say no. She saw it in his eyes.

The other detective shrugged.

“Wait until I shave,” MacKay said. “I’ll go with you.”

She nodded.

“I went out and got some groceries last night,” he said as he headed for the hallway. “There’s juice in the fridge. And some fruit as well as cereal and doughnuts. Help yourself.”

She poured herself a glass of juice and sat down at the table. Sam Preston did the same.

“What time did he go out?”

“Around one. There’s an all-night grocery a couple of blocks away. Otherwise, we would have had that god-awful lasagna for breakfast.”

She chuckled at that. She’d watched both Sam and Dan try to choke down the dinner, while complimenting Moira MacKay.

“How long have you been a detective?” she asked.

“Five years. I’ve been with the P.D. twelve years. Before that, I was in the Army Military Police, just like Cass. We both made detective at the same time.”

“Has he known Dan that long, too?”

“They were partners before either made detective.”

So that was why they didn’t need much conversation. To protect her, MacKay had selected people he’d known and trusted for a long time.

“Do you think the…man who attacked me will really try to get to me again?”

He put his cup down and looked at her steadily. “Cass does, and he has an instinct for this kind of thing. He usually gets the hardest cases. Partly because he’s a bulldog, partly because he listens better than anyone else. He seldom misses even the smallest detail. You’ll be safe with him.”

“What if…the killer out-waits him?”

It was the one thing that had been bothering her. MacKay had made it clear that there was a time limit on the intensive protection she had.

“I don’t expect Cass to let that happen,” the detective said.

She took another sip of coffee. “Are you really not leaving the house at all?”

“That’s the plan. Cass will go to headquarters this morning, while we stay with you. If nothing happens in the next twenty-four hours, then you’ll go back to the hospital and look through more photos, dropping the hint that you are staying at his home. If anyone stakes out the house, they won’t know we’re with you.”

She realized then why MacKay hadn’t protested the idea of running. He wanted her to be seen.

Like that lamb tethered for the mountain lion.

Well, she’d known that already. She’d agreed to it. Still, that sudden picture in her mind was disconcerting.

You’re not a lamb. You’ve outfoxed this man twice already.

Which meant he’d be doubly determined.

She’d finished the coffee by the time MacKay returned. He was wearing sweatpants and a matching jacket that zipped up halfway. Under it he wore a blue T-shirt, and she saw part of a shoulder holster and the tip of a gun butt.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I have to do a few stretching exercises first.”

“Okay, then I want you to do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you to get down, get down, preferably behind something solid like a car. If I tell you to run, you run with everything you have back toward this house. Don’t worry about me.”

“You don’t think…?”

“I don’t think anything. Those are just the ground rules from now on.” His voice was curt. His eyes, while not hostile, had none of yesterday’s warmth, or heat or amusement.

She was silent.

“Understand?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you promise to follow them?”

He wasn’t going to give her any slack. She wasn’t at all sure she could leave him if something happened to him, if he were shot or wounded. But she would face a broken promise then.

“Yes,” she said.

She started some stretching exercises, necessary to avoid injury to any of her muscles, especially after a few days without exercise. She was aware of him watching, and she kept them to a minimum. After five minutes, she headed for the door, MacKay behind her.

“Where to?” she asked.

“To the left. We’ll stay in the residential area. The street winds around and meets another. It’ll make a loop of about a mile, and we can do that as many times as you want.”

She nodded.

“You go slightly ahead of me.” He gave her the first smile of the morning. “You can set the pace.”

There were no sidewalks, but neither was there much traffic. She started a slow jog down the right side of the street. Parts of her body still ached slightly from the falls, and she felt a little stiff. MacKay ran several feet behind.

He had no trouble keeping up with her, and she knew he must run often. She picked up the pace.

“Turn here.”

She heard his voice behind her, and she turned onto another residential street. A car came down the street and she stepped on the curve, then she hopped down again, feeling his presence right behind.

She increased her speed. She enjoyed feeling the muscles working again, the high that running, like skating, gave her. And it was a beautiful day. A soft breeze tossed red and golden leaves to the ground, and the smell of fall was in the air.

She breathed it in, then turned again on command. The houses were a little larger than those two blocks away. A dog ran out, barking, but she didn’t stop, and the animal followed them for several seconds, then stopped and turned back.

She heard MacKay tell her to turn left again and she increased her speed, throwing back her head in pure joy at the physical exertion. The familiar adrenaline filled her, as did the presence of MacKay so near.

The noise of an engine suddenly filled the silence and a car came rushing at her. She felt her body being pushed with such force that she was thrown several feet away, over a curb onto the ground. Instinctively she rolled away, then felt a heavy body covering her, almost crushing her.

The weight rolled off and she heard a loud noise. Close. So close she thought her eardrums would explode.

She heard MacKay’s voice speaking rapidly into his radio. Then he knelt next to her, dropping the radio. His right hand held a revolver that had just been fired. “Missed,” he said bitterly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said shakily. “What…?”

“A car just tried to run us down. I got a shot off and I think I hit it, but…”

She stared at him. Part of her hadn’t wanted to believe that her attacker could be stalking her. She knew it…but she hadn’t known it. Not really.

Then she saw his arm was bleeding.

He noticed her glance and shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just scraped it on the pavement.” He stood and offered his hand to her, bringing her up. “We’d better get back to the house. I already phoned in a description of the car.”

“They’ll catch him, then?”

“He’s had time to get away, particularly if he takes these neighborhood roads. I didn’t even have a chance to get the license plate.” He muttered something under his breath.

“No more runs?” she said.

“No more runs,” he warned. “Let’s get back. Dale might have seen something.”

“Dale?”

“There’s a perch in a house overlooking mine. Dale’s one of two detectives keeping an eye on the house.”

“The…whoever it was in the car—he was taking a chance, wasn’t he?” she said.

His lips curled into a frown. “Yes. He must be panicking. I didn’t think he would act this quickly. Otherwise, I would never have agreed to the run.”

“You succeeded beyond your wildest dreams,” she said wryly. “But how could he have found us so fast?”

“That’s what I intend to find out. He might have been just casing the house, then saw you running. Now…he will be more cautious. I doubt he’ll believe I would leave you alone in the house. Not after this.”

They were walking on the grass. She had to nearly run to keep up with him. They were nearing his house when a police car squealed to a stop beside them. It couldn’t have been more than four minutes since the attack.

MacKay went over to the car. “See anything?’

The officer shook his head. “Got the call just a few minutes ago. There’s a BOLO on a dark, late-model sedan.”

“Damn,” MacKay said. “There are a dozen ways in and out of this area, and there’s darn little to go on.”

“You all right, Detective?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure a round hit the car. There should be a bullet hole someplace.”

The patrolman nodded and drove off.

“Let’s get inside,” he said.

“Bolo?” she asked.

“Be On the LookOut for,” he explained.

He looked down at her hands and clearly saw that they were shaking. She willed them to remain steady. If he’d not been so quick in pushing her out of the way of the car, she might well be lying in the street.

His hand clasped hers and he pulled her toward the house.

The two detectives were just inside, waiting.

“We heard on the radio,” Sam said anxiously. “I wasn’t sure whether we should come after you.”

“You were right to stay here. There was nothing you could have done.” He paused, and when he looked back at her, his face was creased with remorse. “I didn’t think he would act this quickly,” MacKay said. “I miscalculated.”

From the expression on his face, Marise didn’t think he did that often.

“Nothing happened.”

“Except you were almost killed. And now he knows we will be careful, and that will make him even more so.”

“Maybe I should leave Atlanta,” she ventured.

MacKay frowned. “I don’t think that’s wise now. He obviously thinks you know something. He could follow you. Your…schedule is well publicized.”

She stared at one then the other. She saw it in each of their faces: she was damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t.

Chapter 7

Cassidy had never felt the kind of fear he experienced that morning. He’d heard the car, knew that it was going too fast and instinctively threw himself at Marise, pushing her out of the way. He’d barely made it in time.

He’d half expected gunshots. But the driver seemed anxious to get away. As if he knew there might be other officers around. Cassidy didn’t get his license plate number, but he would bet his last dollar that it had been stolen.

There were only two ways the perp could have found them. A leak inside the police department. Or someone at the hospital dropping his name.

The possibilities were narrowing. He would have people checking the time cards at both places to see who was off duty when the attacks occurred.

The thought that it might be a police officer made him sick.

A police officer would know how to change plates, how to steal a car or even use one that had been impounded. He would know how to evade roadblocks. He would have a radio to monitor police calls.

A police officer would have access to all the information needed to follow her to another city.

Cassidy had made a holy mess of things.

“Let me look at that.” Marise was standing next to him, worriedly examining the blood on his jacket.

He glanced down. The cloth had ripped as he’d rolled over on her, his arm hitting the cement of a driveway.

He took off the shirt. A large patch of skin had been scraped from his arm, but he knew instantly that it looked a lot worse than it actually was. Still, her fingers were gentle as they touched the wound.

“There’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom across from my bedroom.”

“I’ll get it,” Sam said. “You sit down.”

He did. He would be answering a hundred questions in the next few hours. His captain would want to know why the hell he was out jogging with someone under his care. He didn’t know himself.

Yes, he did. He’d looked into the blue eyes and couldn’t say no. He’d wanted a little time with her alone. He’d let his emotions outweigh his professional judgment. He needed to get off the case.

Sam came back with the kit and handed it to her. She opened it and looked over the contents with something like an expert eye. She must be familiar with every item in that box; heck, she’d probably had more bruises and cuts and strained muscles than he’d ever experienced.

She cleaned the wound, then painted it with an antiseptic and bandaged it. It was a great deal more pleasant than when he performed those chores.

“Thank you,” she said as she finished. “If you hadn’t pushed me…”

“If I hadn’t let you go in the first place, you never would have been in danger.”

“You wanted to flush him out,” she said.

“I meant to have more people around you when we made a move.”

The doorbell rang. Sam answered it and returned with an older man in plainclothes and a uniformed officer. The older man’s expression changed when he saw the bandage. “They didn’t tell me you were hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” Cassidy said. “Miss Merrick, this is Captain Haynes. Captain, Marise Merrick.”

“Miss Merrick,” Haynes said. “I’m sorry about what happened. I thought you were well protected.”

“I was,” she said. “If it hadn’t been for Detective MacKay, I would probably be dead.”

“The idea was to draw him to the house,” Haynes said.

“It was my fault,” Marise said. “I insisted.”

Haynes turned back to Cassidy. “Tell me everything that happened.”

MacKay related the events of the morning. That he had thought going out this morning was safe enough. He described the car, what little he’d seen. “I think we might have baited the trap too well,” he concluded.

“Will you excuse us, Miss Merrick?” the captain asked.

“No,” she replied. “This is about me, and I think I should be present.”

He fixed her with a stare that usually shriveled men two or three times her size. She didn’t flinch.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he finally said.

“I have confidence in Detective MacKay. He just saved my life.”

“You shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. We set guidelines.”

“You didn’t consult me about them,” she retorted.

“MacKay should have explained them.”

MacKay knew he was in trouble. The captain had never been that enthusiastic about the plan. Apparently the recent episode only deepened the man’s apprehension. He didn’t blame the captain this time. He’d messed it up because he’d lost objectivity.

“Perhaps you should assign someone else to the job,” Cassidy said.

Haynes’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Marise, then back to Cassidy.

“You can’t leave her unprotected,” MacKay said. “We know he won’t stop now.”

“If we said Miss Merrick never really saw anything, and she left town.”

“He wouldn’t believe it,” Cassidy said. “Not now.”

“Then, who would you suggest take over?”

“Don’t I have anything to say about this?” Marise’s voice was sharp. All faces turned toward her. “I trust Detective MacKay and the other detectives.”

Haynes looked pained. Cassidy knew exactly how he felt. If it went wrong, the captain’s neck would be on the block. He studied her for a long time, then glanced at MacKay.

“MacKay?” he asked.

Cassidy knew he should withdraw. He was becoming emotionally involved. And yet Marise looked at him as if he was the only one that could make the nightmare go away.

“I would like to stay on,” he said.

Haynes hesitated, then obviously surrendered. “Do you need more people?”

“No.”

“You’ll let me know if you do?”

Cassidy nodded.

“No more chances?”

“There will always be at least two of us with her.”

“No jogging!” Haynes ordered.

“No,” Cassidy replied.

“All right. You have five days. You can have all the manpower you need.” He appeared to want to say something more, but didn’t. Cassidy, though, knew exactly what he wanted to say.

If anything happened to Marise Merrick, Cassidy’s career was over.

But a lot more than his career would be over, he knew. He would never be able to live with himself again.

Marise called her mother. The last thing she wanted was for her mother or Paul to hear about her on the news.

Captain Haynes said he would try to keep this morning’s attack out of the newspaper. It all depended on whether or not reporters had heard the radio call. If not, the report could be buried for a few days.

The hotel operator answered, and she gave him her mother’s name. Marise uttered a small prayer that she would be there. She wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if Cara Merrick had flown back to Atlanta.

But instead, she heard her mother’s businesslike tone. “Cara Merrick.”

“Mother,” Marise said. “I just wanted to let you know I’m fine.”

“When will you be here?” The voice was matter-of-fact.

“Several more days.”

“They haven’t caught that…killer?”

“No, not yet.”

“I want you with me.”

“You can’t protect me, Mother.”

Silence. Then, she said, “Paul misses you.”

“I miss both of you,” Marise responded.

“You need this practice.”

“I know. I’ll be there as soon as it’s safe. I promise.”

“Paul will want to talk to you.”

“I’ll call again,” she promised, “or he can call me here.” She gave her mother MacKay’s number.

“Is that…the detective’s house?”

“Yes, but there are lot of chaperones,” Marise said, trying to keep the amusement from her voice. If only her mother knew how many. “I’m really very safe.” She hoped that her mother didn’t learn what had happened this morning—she would probably be on the plane back to Atlanta.

After hanging up, Marise walked into the sunroom. The backyard was neat but bare of flowers. In her mind, she planted a garden. She’d always wanted a garden.

Then she became aware of MacKay’s presence. It was the faint wisp of aftershave. At least, she told herself that. She didn’t want to think that she was so tuned to him that she simply knew when he was nearby.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she turned around. “That was too close this morning.”

His hair was combed, and he wore jeans and a dark blue sweater that emphasized the ruggedness of his features.

“That’s what we wanted, isn’t it?” she asked. “Now we know he probably won’t stop.”

“It was a mistake,” he said. “This whole thing was a mistake. We should have announced in the beginning that you didn’t see anything. We should never have tied him to the Rose Killer.” He hesitated, then added, “I wanted him badly, but I should never have used you as bait.”

“Could you have guaranteed he wouldn’t have come after me, anyway?” she said. “And do you think I could live with the knowledge that I might have helped prevent other women from being killed, and didn’t?”

His gaze met hers, and the hard look in his eyes softened. “Nothing scares you, does it.”

“A lot of things scare me,” she said.

“What?”

“Failure, I suppose,” she said. “That’s been drummed into me since I was six.”

“By your mother?”

She heard the shadow of disapproval in his voice. She realized he probably didn’t understand why her mother was her business manager, why Cara Merrick appeared to control her life.

How could she explain the guilt she’d known all her life? The debt that she’d been trying to repay?

How could someone like him understand?

So she turned back to the yard. “You’ve never planted a garden?”

“I have a black thumb,” he said. Wry amusement crept into his voice.

“What do you do for fun? When you aren’t detecting or remodeling your house?”

“I’m rebuilding a sailboat,” he said. “It’s at my brother-in-law’s lake cabin north of here.”

“You’re a sailor?” she said with delight. Sailing was something she’d always wanted to do.

“A weekend one,” he said. “At least, I will be, when I get The Lorelei finished. At my current speed, it will take about five more years.”

“An architect, a shipbuilder, a detective. Any other talents?” She tried to keep her voice light.

As he stepped near her, the now-familiar attraction kicked in. The problem was, it wasn’t just an attraction. It was a full-fledged hurricane. If she didn’t hear voices in the other room, she knew, she would be stepping closer to him.

“Calling me any of those would be a vast exaggeration,” he said. “I tinker. Nothing more.”

He was a great deal more. And she didn’t have to step closer. She already felt the force of the magnetism between them. Why could that not happen with Paul?

Why was it happening now?

Paul was familiar. They had the same interests. Their lives revolved around the same goals, at least until recently. She trusted him completely when they were on the ice.

But he didn’t make her heart beat harder, or her blood grow warm and languorous, or cause every nerve to tingle whenever she saw him. Nor did she get a catch in her throat when she heard him speak. Not the way she did when she heard MacKay’s rumbling southern drawl.

He was watching her with an intensity that seared her.

How many minutes had gone by as they stood there? Or was it only seconds?

He hadn’t answered her question. Instead, his brow had furrowed and his mouth had tightened in a grim line.

She couldn’t help it. She reached up and put a finger at the edge of his mouth, trying to erase the frown. A groan escaped his lips, and he touched her face with his fingers. The air became even denser. She was faintly aware that the other detectives were in the next room, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except prolonging the physical and mental intimacy that was so strong between them.

He leaned down. His lips touched hers. Lightly. But she knew—

The phone rang. A voice came from the other room. “Cass?” It was enough to break the magic. MacKay straightened and strode to the door.

Without looking back, he disappeared, and she leaned against the wall, her legs suddenly weak. What was she doing?

Their lives didn’t go together. They never would.

She wondered if the price for her physical safety was going to be far steeper than she’d ever thought.

They had been lucky, the voice on the other end of the line told Cassidy.

On his suggestion, the department had sent officers out to the nearby rapid transit station lot to look for a black or dark green sedan with a bullet hole. It was a long shot, but an officer had found one, and now several more officers had been dispatched to interview everyone who appeared to claim nearby vehicles.

It would be like hunting for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The killer wouldn’t have stolen a car in view of witnesses. But maybe someone had seen him drive in.

They needed a witness. Badly.

MacKay had no intention of returning to the sunroom. Or of being alone with Marise Merrick again. He never should have stopped there minutes ago, but she had looked so wistful as she stared out into his yard.

He’d not seen anything there to make her wistful. But then, he reminded himself that he still knew little about her.

Except for the fact that she made his pulse race, and that every ounce of discipline and common sense left him when he was in her presence.

She appeared at the door, and Sam joined them.

“I think they found the car. They want me to go over and identify it.”

Marise’s eyes widened. “Where was it?”

“A MARTA parking lot.” He paused, then explained, “Our rapid transit.”

“I know,” she said.

“It made sense if he was stealing a car. The owner probably wouldn’t be back ’til late in the day. He could return it and no one would be the wiser.”

“Then how…?”

“The bullet hole.”

“So we have a car thief as well as a killer,” Sam said.

“Our guy is multitalented. That’s been clear from the beginning.”

He saw Marise bite her lip. He wanted to touch her again, but he’d just learned he couldn’t touch—or comfort—“a little.” The…appeal between them was too strong.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“You stay here with Sam and Dan. I’ll check the car.”

He saw the protest in her face but he shook his head. “We have lots of people on this,” he said. “We have teams at the hospital and at the police department. We’re running the names of every employee through our computer system. We’re eliminating those who were on duty this morning—that narrows the search a little bit.

“But there must be so many.”

“The first search is pretty general. We’re looking for any criminal record, or any missing time in résumés. Then we’ll start narrowing it down.”

She looked doubtful, as well she should. They had thousands of names. Doing a detailed search would take weeks, not days. She must know that.

It was possible that the killer wouldn’t attack again. Yet MacKay’s instincts said the guy would. He’d read enough serial killer profiles to know that they were usually loners who thought they were far smarter than any mere police officer. Murder was a chess game to them, a competition with lower beings.

He would strike again, not only because Marise might represent a danger to him but also because she’d become a challenge.

And MacKay had made her that challenge.

“Manny will be over here in a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll wait for him.”

She started to say something, then stopped and turned away. She apparently read the answer to her unvoiced question in his face.

He didn’t want to leave her. Not for a moment. But she would be safer here even though the killer apparently knew where she was. Darn it—wasn’t that what he’d wanted?

He wanted to stay here with her. He also wanted to be at the parking lot. He wanted to know whether that was the car. If it was, he wanted to make sure the officers waiting there asked all the right questions.

“What about lunch?” he asked, trying to break the silence filling the room. Lunch was safe. Lunch was doing something other than ogling his charge. And he realized that they hadn’t had breakfast after the shooting.

Sam went into the kitchen. “I’ll fix some soup and sandwiches.”

They were alone again. That wasn’t what Cassidy had had in mind. Where the devil was Manny? He followed Sam into the kitchen. So did Marise. Sam had poured the contents of a soup can in a pan and was making some sandwiches.

“Just soup for me,” Marise said.

Where was Manny?

He took a sandwich from Sam but declined an offered bowl of soup. He poured himself a glass of milk and offered one to Marise. She took it, but avoided meeting his eyes.

He was grateful when the doorbell rang.

He took his Glock 9 mm from the shoulder holster he still wore and went to the door. It was Manny. He reholstered the gun and unlocked the door. “’Bout time,” he grumbled.

“Bad tempered, are we?” Manny said. “I’ve been down at the station, developing the search pattern. How is she?”

“Better than I am,” Cassidy said drily. “Indestructible, in fact. I’m going to check out the car we think was used this morning.”

“He’s bolder than we thought.”

“That’s why I want you to be very careful.”

“I always am, partner. Besides, there are three of us and one of him.”

“We hope.”

“Serial killers work alone.”

“Usually.”

Manny frowned as he considered the possibility.

“He’s probably alone,” Cassidy said. “But I just don’t want to leave anything to chance. And he might be in uniform.”

“I don’t buy that.”

“Just keep your eyes open.” Cassidy grabbed a jacket to cover his shoulder holster, then headed out to the garage, closing the door behind him with enough force to rattle the glass.

Chapter 8

Cassidy tried to erase the image of Marise from his mind. He couldn’t do it. He wondered whether he ever would.

It was excruciating to feel this way and know it could go nowhere. He needed to stay away from her, but this morning proved he couldn’t. He had no business kissing a woman he was protecting. He had no business letting his libido interfere with his job. The fact that he hadn’t been more cautious proved it. His objectivity was gone. That meant his judgment was equally impaired.

If he had any integrity, he would step away.

He knew he couldn’t. He had offered her protection, and he didn’t trust anyone the way he trusted himself. Even now.

He didn’t want to think that he just plain didn’t want anyone else around her twenty-four hours a day. He dismissed that thought. Or tried to. He would make sure they weren’t alone again. It should be easy enough, with two or three other people in the house at all times. He would just have to be more careful.

Still, the taste of her lingered on his lips…

He put the police light on top of the car and floored it.

He arrived at the huge parking lot that served the MARTA station and found the officer who had discovered the car. A sergeant was there, along with another detective.

Although Cassidy hadn’t seen the license plate, he knew immediately that the car was the one he’d seen earlier. The bullet hole was located just below the fender and difficult to see. He made a note to commend the officer who had discovered it.

He told the officers what questions to ask people as they retrieved nearby cars, then left. Later tonight, when everyone had been questioned, the car would go to the crime lab for fingerprint dusting and a search for other evidence.

Cassidy made a trip to the police department, where officers were searching through hospital personnel files, looking for police records. They were also looking for employees who had been hired within the past two years.

Cassidy had already sent requests through VICAP to police departments throughout the country, asking whether they’d had any similar crimes, particularly a series of young women strangled and left with a rose. So far, the query had produced no hits.

The best bet, however, was still luring the killer out into the open.

But had he stirred a hornet’s nest that would result in tragedy? He would never forgive himself if he had.

The question was, how far would the killer go to get to Marise? What chances would he take? And how did he happen to be out there this morning?

The questions kept hammering at Cassidy. All the facts seemed to lead to the police department. But maybe the killer had simply looked Cassidy up in the phone book, and parked around the corner, surmising that an athlete would want to run.

He looked at his watch. A little before five in the afternoon. He hated to return without more good news than he had. He didn’t want to see the disappointment in her face, nor the fear that he had helped put there.

He stopped at a Chinese restaurant on the way, and bought enough food for five people.

When he arrived at his house, all was quiet. He looked up at the window of the house three doors down. One of his men should be watching from there. But he saw nothing. Not a shadow or a flutter of curtains. Good.

Inside, Manny, Dan and Sam were at the small kitchen table with Marise. They were playing cards.

All four looked up as he entered. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the poker chips.

“Are you corrupting my guest?” he asked.

“She’s corrupting us,” Dan complained. “You didn’t tell us you were bringing in a ringer.”

“I told you I’d played before,” Marise said with a grin that lit her face. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and, dressed in a sweatsuit and with a face devoid of makeup, she looked like someone’s kid sister.

“She just didn’t tell us how good she was,” Manny added. “She’s already won a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or thereabouts.”

“There goes your pension,” Cassidy said.

Manny stood and stretched. “Any news?”

“That was the car. Our people are interviewing everyone picking up their cars in the parking lot. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Anything happen here?”

“Your sister called,” Manny said. “We had a long conversation.”

He wasn’t surprised at either piece of information. Manny was as close to being a member of Cassidy’s family as Cassidy was of Manny’s. Mom had probably called his sister last night with the news that a woman was staying in his house.

“Don’t tell me—she wants to come over for supper.”

“Nope, she wants you to go to her house. Along with Miss Merrick.”

Cassidy held out the bags in his hand. “Not tonight,” he said. “I bought Chinese.”

Manny stood. “One of these days, I’m going to teach Hoppy how to cook.”

Cassidy handed him the food and went to call his sister.

“Mother liked her,” Liz said. “A lot.”

“She’s a protected witness,” he said patiently. “That’s all.”

“That’s not what mother says.”

“You know how she likes to dramatize everything.”

“I would like to meet her.”

“We’re protecting her, not running her social calendar,” he said, trying to keep his irritation from showing.

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Right now, it’s dangerous.” His voice softened. Liz had shared a not altogether happy childhood with him. They had tried not to hear the raised voices and bitter arguments. “Someone tried to run her down this morning. I think it’s best to stay in tonight. But if she’s here more than a couple of days, then we can think about supper.”

A pause. “Maybe you should take her somewhere else. You can always use the cabin,” his sister said.

Cassidy had considered that. Liz and her husband Doug had a cabin at Lake Lanier where Cassidy worked on the sailboat. But it was in a different jurisdiction, and it was doubtful he could get Captain Haynes’s approval.

“I’ll remember that,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to…”

He regretted his curt remark. They had always been close. It was yet another sign that he was losing objectivity. “I know, Liz. This morning, I thought I had taken all precautions. It was stupid.”

“She couldn’t be in better hands,” Liz said loyally.

He wished he felt the same way. “I’ll call you.” He hung up the receiver softly, just as Manny called him in to supper.

After they’d eaten, Marise insisted on cleaning up. There was something about the way she had been taken into a small, obviously close circle of friends that made her drop her guard, eased the grip of her self-imposed discipline.

She didn’t want to leave, and that was more terrifying than nearly being run down by a car. She knew MacKay didn’t want to get involved. Even Manny had told her that this afternoon when she’d tried to ask him questions about his partner. She wasn’t going to force herself on him, even though strange things happened to her body every time he entered the room.

The phone rang just as they finished eating, and he was up and answering it faster than she could blink.

“MacKay,” he said.

He listened for several moments, then said, “Keep me posted,” and hung up.

“They didn’t find anything,” he said, turning to the others. “No one at the parking lot saw a thing. The owner showed up and says he parked there at six this morning. He’s not happy. And he’s going to be a lot less happy when they tear up the car. Our only hope now is to get a strand of hair or something we can trace.”

“The fact that he knows how to hot-wire a car means he probably has a criminal record,” Dan said.

“Nope,” Cassidy said. “He used a key in a magnetic case under the car. The owner said his wife always loses keys and insisted on getting one.”

“How would he know there was a magnetic case?” Marise asked.

“It’s an earlier model without combination locks. Our man was probably looking for one, kneeling as if he was checking a tire or picking up a briefcase. He would have picked the front of the lot, which was already filled. There wouldn’t be much traffic.”

Marise felt her heart stop. She’d always thought criminals were not very smart. This one obviously was.

“Serial killers usually are clever,” MacKay said, watching her face carefully. “That and the randomness of how they select their victims makes them hard to catch. That’s why we needed you so badly.”

He rose and went to the window. “I’m going out to look around,” he said.

She wanted to go with him, but she knew that after this morning, he would not even consider it. Instead, she gathered up the empty plates, took them to the sink and looked for soap.

“Let me do that,” Manny said.

“No. I want to do it,” she said, knowing that if she didn’t find a use for her hands, she would go crazy.

A cold shower might have been better. The brisk breeze and cool temperature of fall didn’t help at all.

Cassidy reminded himself that wasn’t the reason he was here. He’d checked earlier with the detective in the perch overlooking the house. Nothing unusual. No car moving slowly around the neighborhood. Still, Cassidy wanted to check every parked car in the vicinity.

He knew the police officers who lived in the neighborhood, but not many of the other neighbors. His hours were too long, and when he was off, he was either working on the house or at the lake working on his boat.

He scanned the pedestrians. There weren’t many. A couple of joggers—both women—and a man walking a dog. He went up to the latter, commented on the sheltie the man was walking, discussed the finer points of various breeds and, satisfied, walked on.

He did the rounds of several blocks, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and wondered again whether the killer would come back here. But his thoughts always returned to Marise and the feelings she evoked in him.

He’d never thought he could really care about a woman again. He’d been careful about choosing his own wife. He hadn’t wanted to bring up a child as he and Liz had grown up. He’d waited until he was thirty, and he’d thought he had found the perfect woman. She was outgoing where he was introspective, and she’d brought color to his life. A public relations spokes-person for the school system, she was smart and interested in many of the same things he was. She also seemed to accept his profession.

But after a friend of his had been killed in the line of duty, she’d changed. She started talking about his looking for another job; she’d even set up interviews without asking him.

The marriage deteriorated from there. He couldn’t sell insurance or real estate or be a pretend cop in the security department of a large corporation. He lived for the chase, for solving puzzles, even—he thought wryly—for the cliché of protecting the innocent.

Perhaps if he had been less a loner, they could have bridged the differences. But as a child he’d learned to turn off the loud voices and arguments by retreating into himself, and that was what he did in his marriage.

And he’d become convinced that the best way to avoid misery was to avoid marriage, and the best way to avoid marriage was to avoid involvement.

Cassidy continued to prowl the neighborhood, telling himself he was just doing his job, though he was really waiting until Marise likely would be in bed. He simply didn’t trust himself with her, even with a house full of detectives.

He finally went to the neighborhood home of a friend—a captain in Burglary—where one of Cassidy’s task force was upstairs.

Sylvie Spencer opened the door. “John’s upstairs with your watcher, Todd Persons,” she said.

“Tyler around?” Cassidy asked. Tyler was their son, a curious twelve-year-old.

“Tyler’s staying with a friend. We thought it would be best. He wants to be a cop, and no telling what detecting he’d try to do.”

“I hope you don’t mind someone being here,” Cassidy said.

She shook her head. “Of course not. How can I complain about a little inconvenience when another woman is setting herself up as a target? I think she’s very brave to do what she’s doing. Most women would have left town. I thought about going over to tell her so, but thought I should check with you first.”

“I think she would like that. Why not in the morning? I have a meeting then at headquarters.”

“I’ll take some food with me.”

“I’ll tell the guys.” He nodded. “Mind if I go on up?”

“Of course not. Join the party. Can I get you a beer?”

“Thanks, but I have to keep my wits about me. What few I have left.”

A twinkle came into her eyes. “Don’t tell me she’s broken through that armor you’ve been carrying around. I do have to meet her.”

“She’s just a witness, Sylvie.”

“Yeah,” she said.

Cassidy went up the stairs to the attic. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The only light came from the soft glow of a lamp down the street. Todd, the detective assigned to watch his house, was sitting to the left of the window, a location designed to keep him hidden from the road.

John, who owned the house, was sitting beside him. A dark shadow. “I’m keeping him company,” he said. “And no, I’m not distracting him.”

Cassidy had questioned the detective there earlier in the day when he and Marise had almost been run down. He’d seen a dark car go by but nothing else. He hadn’t actually seen the assault.

“No one else skulking around?”

“Nope,” Todd said. “A plumbing truck drove by. Everything else looked familiar.”

“Get the name on the truck?”

“Couldn’t see from here, but I took a photo of it. It’s gone to the lab. It didn’t slow or hesitate. There’s been nothing else.”

“I’ll look at it, but I doubt it’s our guy. Not after this morning. He’ll expect extra security.”

“We want him to try for her, though. Right?” John asked.

Cassidy was no longer sure that he did, but he’d started it, possibly putting Marise in more danger. He feared now that she might become an obsession of the killer. Then she wouldn’t be safe no matter where she went. He wished the feds would move faster on their profile.

“Right,” he said finally, “but I think he’ll be quiet for a couple of days, hope we’ll relax our surveillance. Like I did this morning,” he added bitterly. “Bad judgment on my part.”

“Did you find anything in the car?” Todd asked.

“Not yet. We’re checking but I’m not holding my breath. He seems to anticipate everything. But I’m just hoping he’ll make a mistake. He took a chance this morning—maybe he’ll take more.”

“You think he knows about this place?” Todd asked.

“Nothing would surprise me about this guy,” Cassidy said. “We’ve queried to see whether there have been any similar murders throughout the country. And we’re checking the new hires at both the hospital and our department.”

“You really think it could be one of us.”

“Not one of us,” Cassidy said. “But it could be a radio operator, a med tech, a clerk. Hell, it could be anyone. Except,” he added with a wry smile, “one of us.”

He looked down at his watch. Ten. Had Marise gone to bed yet? How had he gotten emotionally involved so quickly? He never became emotionally involved with a case. Never.

“Hey,” Todd said as he peered through the window.

“What is it?” Cassidy asked. He wanted to crowd next to the window, but then the movement might be seen.

“A truck. Can’t see what kind. It’s stopping at your house.”

Cassidy swore. He really hadn’t thought their man would try something again today. He used his cell phone to call the house.

“Truck in front of the house,” he said, when Manny answered.

“We’ve spotted it.”

“I’m on my way back. I’ll be coming through the back door. I want you with Marise. I don’t want anyone opening the door until I get there.”

“You got it.” The phone went dead.

“I’ll go with you,” John said.

Cassidy shook his head. “Stay here with Todd. Keep an eye out for any cars. This might just be a feint to see what happens, learn our defenses. If you notice anything, I want John to check it out. There’s a patrol car just three blocks from here. Call them if you see anyone going near the house. Even a car slowing down. A woman walking a dog. I want it checked out.”

Todd had not moved his gaze from the window. “Right,” he said.

Cassidy ran down the steps and started for his house.

A deliveryman holding a bouquet of flowers had just reached the front porch, when Cassidy darted across the street and wound up behind his house. He gave three swift knocks. Sam let him in.

“Manny’s with Miss Merrick,” he said.

The bell was still ringing, probably because lights were on in the house. Cassidy checked the gun in the holster attached to his belt and opened the front door.

The deliveryman had just turned toward the car, a large oblong box still in his arms. He turned back with a grin. Until he saw Cassidy’s grim face and the gun in his hand.

“Delivery,” he said, “for a Miss Merrick.”

“Come in.”

“I just have to have this signed.” He held out a clipboard.

Cassidy displayed his badge. “Come in,” he said again. “And keep your hands around that box.”

The deliveryman obeyed, stepping into the hallway. He was white, medium height and thin. Certainly not muscular. Young. College age. And bewildered at the moment. “I…I…don’t—”

Cassidy cut him off. “Anyone with you?”

The man—no, more a boy—shook his head.

“Go into the room on your left and lay the box on the table,” he said.

The boy did as Cassidy said. Sam Preston appeared then. “Put down the clipboard and place your hands against the wall,” he ordered.

“I don’t understand.”

“Just do it,” Cassidy said.

Sam frisked the boy, then shook his head. “Nothing on him.”

Cassidy put the pistol in his holster, then went over and opened the box. Roses. Red roses. Tied together with a white ribbon. He left them on the table, then returned to face the deliveryman, taking the clipboard from Sam. His gaze went to the three names listed. The third was Marise’s. Next to it was his address and a notation: Deliver at eleven p.m. Nothing else.

He walked out of hearing distance and used his cell phone to call Todd.

“See anything?” Cassidy asked curtly.

“There’s nothing moving.”

Cassidy swore.

“Cass?”

“The florist was told to deliver at eleven. There has to be a reason.”

Silence on the other end.

“Keep watching.” Cassidy clicked the phone off and returned to where Sam and the deliveryman stood.

“What’s your name?”

“Bryan Cooper.”

“Full-time job?”

Cooper shook his head. “I’m a student at Georgia Tech. I do evening deliveries.”

“Who sent these?”

“There should be a card.”

Cassidy didn’t see one. “There must be a record of who sent them.”

The young man shrugged. “You’ll have to ask the florist. I just deliver.”

Cassidy scanned the form again. No florist’s name at top. It was just a lined sheet of paper with names of recipients, addresses and any special instructions. In this case, there was the detail that the flowers be delivered at eleven.

“Do you usually deliver this late?”

“No, but then, people want strange things. Sometimes it’s an anniversary and the hour they proposed, or something.”

“What’s the number of the florist?”

“It’s closed.”

Cassidy sighed. “You must have another number in event of an accident. Or a problem.”

Hesitation.

“Come on, Bryan. This is important.”

“Mrs. Wydale gets to the shop early. She doesn’t like to be disturbed at night.” Then, evidently seeing the expression in Cassidy’s face, he quickly gave a number. “Can I go now?”

“I think not,” Cassidy said. “A couple of officers will be here to take you down to the station. We want a statement.”

“But…I don’t know anything.”

“You might know more than you think.”

“I just picked up the orders at six. I went to the hospital and delivered one, then had a delivery to a hotel. I got something to eat before coming over here.”

“Is there an extra charge when a special request is made?”

“Yeah. A big one.”

He used his cell phone to call the owner. A sleepy and angry woman’s voice answered.

“I’m Detective MacKay with the Atlanta P.D. You sent out an order tonight. Roses. To be delivered at eleven. Can you tell me who made that order?”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes, ma’am, and this is a murder investigation. Two officers are on their way to your home now.”

“I don’t think I can help you.”

“It must have been unusual enough to stick in your memory,” he said, irritation creeping into his voice.

“It came by messenger,” she said. “Two hundred dollars cash and instructions.”

“Do you still have it?”

“Of course.”

“The officers will take you over to the shop to pick it up. I’ll meet you there.”

“But—”

He hung up.

A police car drove into the driveway then, and two officers came inside. Cassidy asked them to take Bryan Cooper to the station to make a statement. “They will take you wherever you want to go afterward,” he said.

The student just nodded and followed the officers out. Cassidy called the watch commander to have two officers meet him at the home of the florist. He was hanging up when Marise entered the room followed by Manny. She was in a track suit.

“I couldn’t keep her in there any longer,” Manny said apologetically.

Marise’s eyes went to the roses, to the big white bow that surrounded them. Her eyes widened. She knew exactly who they were from.

“He’s daring us, isn’t he,” she said.

“He’s trying to scare you.”

“He’s already done that,” she said softly. “But why?”

His fists clenched. At this very moment, he hated this man as he’d never hated anyone before. In other cases, he’d always been able to keep a certain professional distance. Not now. He felt her fear. And anger. This shouldn’t happen to her. Hell, it shouldn’t happen to any civilian.

Rage filled him, and he fought to control it. Rage didn’t help anything. “You can still go to Seattle,” he said. “I’ll ask the authorities up there to give you protection.”

“And if they say no?”

“It’s worth asking.”

“No. He wants to terrify me. Maybe he wants me to leave so that later…” She stopped. “He’s not going to do that. I’m stronger than he is, and I’m going to let him know it.”

Cassidy didn’t like the gleam in her eyes.

“I want to do a press conference,” she said. “I want to tell them what a coward the attacker was. How…inept he is.”

Cassidy shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I do. You want to make him come out in the open. I have to get back to skating.”

He studied Marise again. She seemed remarkably composed. And determined. He wondered whether the totality of events was numbing her. “I’ll talk to the captain about it,” he said, “but I think we might want to consider other possibilities first.” He turned to his partner. “Manny, can you stay here tonight?”

“I’ll take the sofa in your office.”

“Thanks,” Cassidy said. He picked up his keys from the counter next to the door. He wanted to turn back, but he was afraid that if he did, he wouldn’t leave.

He closed the door softly behind him.

Chapter 9

Marise watched the door close behind him. She felt the eyes of the other detectives on her.

Manny was shaking his head. “I’m with Cass on this one. You don’t tug the tail of the tiger.”

“Is it any more dangerous than standing in the jungle waiting for the tiger to pounce?” she asked. “At least when you pull the tail, you know he’s going to strike and can prepare yourself for it.”

She stood her ground, knowing all she had to do was pick up the phone; media from across the country would flock to attend a press conference. Especially if it had something to do with stalking.

They loved stories like this.

She had to do something.

It wasn’t fear that prompted her suggestion. It was Cassidy.

She knew he was avoiding her. She knew she should be avoiding him. But the pleasure that flooded her when she saw him tonight, his dark eyes full of concern, his brow furrowed, was irrepressible.

Did one fall in love in a few days? She had been infatuated before. But she’d never experienced this depth of feeling. Not the heart pounding, explosive, trembling need, nor the warm wonder of just being with him.

She herself knew how impossible it was. She had commitments for the next two years. She had a moral commitment to other people for much longer. She couldn’t desert Paul. She knew how difficult it was to find a partner. If she left him, it could end not only her career, but his.

Then there was her mother’s dream. No, her life.

And finally, there was Cassidy MacKay, who had his own life. While she knew he was attracted to her, everyone around her seemed to let her know in one way or another that he was not a man for commitment.

The best thing for everyone would be for her to leave. As quickly as possible. And the only way to do that was to bait the killer and draw him out into the open.

Her eyes went back to the flowers. She already realized, of course, that the killer knew where she was. The attempt to run her down this morning told her that. But sending flowers to the door? That had a personal touch to it. Bitch. She heard that word in her mind again. Although the voice itself had been muffled by the surgeon’s mask, the venom behind the expletive had not been.

She shivered.

Manny evidently saw it. “What about some hot chocolate?” he asked.

Hot chocolate was a comfort food she usually avoided. Now it sounded wonderful. “Is there some?”

“I live nearby,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“I’m going, anyway,” he said. “I have a few things to get.”

“Then, I would love some.”

She looked at the clock. Twelve-thirty. But she knew she couldn’t go to sleep now. She wanted to wait, in fact, until MacKay returned. She wanted the comfort of his presence. The safety that she felt with him.

Maybe that was it. Safety. Protection. Gratitude. Nothing stronger. Nothing more dangerous. Emotionally dangerous.

She heard the door open and close as Manny left. One of the other detectives was making coffee. The other was at the window. He didn’t try to hide himself now.

She went to the window and looked out. Most of the lights in the other houses had been turned off. The street seemed full of shadows.

She wondered whether her world would now always be filled with shadows.

Cassidy waited at the florist shop for the owner. Mrs. Wydale had been more than a little unhappy about going to her shop and opening it. But Cassidy wanted a copy of that order.

She finally arrived at two in the morning. The order, she said, had been messengered. She didn’t remember which messenger service; she had been in the back when it arrived, and an assistant must have accepted it. The envelope had gone into the trash; the two officers who had picked her up went through the Dumpster outside and finally found it.

The address had been printed on a computer label. They would have to find the killer to find the computer.

Several hours later, they found the messenger service, and again came up empty. A call had been made to the service to pick up a package at a mid-town address, which turned out to be that of a vacant building. The package and fee were taped to the door.

Cassidy had sent the envelope and order to the lab. He would bet his last dollar, though, that the technicians wouldn’t find any fingerprints.

Everyplace they turned, they ran into a dead end.

Momentarily defeated, he returned to headquarters and called Captain Haynes. It was 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning but he needed a face-to-face meeting to discuss Marise’s proposal.

When the captain came in two hours later, he was not in a good mood. After hearing what MacKay had to say, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “Does she know what she’s doing? If he didn’t want her before, he will really go after her now.”

“Dammit, he’s tried twice, and now those roses. I don’t think she believes it can get any more dangerous.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t like it, and I told her so.”

“You know we can’t keep this kind of manpower on the case indefinitely,” Captain Haynes said. “It’s either this, or turn her loose and urge her to go to Seattle.”

After a moment Cassidy nodded. He knew the department’s budget problems as well as anyone did. He’d even been surprised that he’d gotten as much support as he had. But then, a world-class figure skater was news, and her murder would be darn poor publicity. “I don’t know if he would give up even if she leaves.”

He saw the captain’s look, saw him toy with the idea of getting rid of an expensive problem, and his gut knotted. “And it will be our problem,” Cassidy said, “if anything happens to her in Seattle. We wouldn’t have done our job, and everyone will know it.”

The captain played with a pen on his desk.

Cassidy continued, “This has turned personal for the killer. He can’t let her go now. It’s a matter of pride as well as self-protection. That’s what the psychologist said.”

“So you woke him as well as me?”

Cassidy didn’t reply. The psychologist was on call to the police department. He’d already been brought in on the case to help with the profile being drawn by the FBI. Cassidy had called him after talking to the florist.

“Nothing on the roses or the letter?” the captain asked now.

“No.”

“Why the hell did he ask that it be delivered at eleven?”

“Either he was watching from someplace we couldn’t see him, or he was having a little fun with us, trying to trick us into placing more importance on the time than there really is.”

“I really want this bastard,” the captain said.

“No more than I do,” Cassidy said bitterly.

“Where are we on personnel records?”

“Eighty people joined the P.D. in the three months prior to the first attack, a hundred and thirty in the six months before the attack. The hospital had three hundred. They’d just undergone an expansion and were hiring. We’re intensifying the background checks on those people. We already have people checking duty rosters to eliminate any of our people who were on duty the nights of the murders.”

“Okay,” Haynes said. “We’ll continue with that. You really think this press conference thing might work?”

Cassidy shrugged. “I don’t like it. But if you’re thinking about turning her loose, then I think we should try this first.”

The captain frowned. “It’s risky. But I’m beginning to agree with you. He won’t give up now. I’ll need to check upstairs, but let’s go ahead and plan it.”

Cassidy nodded.

“Any idea where we should hold it?”

“The hospital,” Cassidy said. “I still think that’s where the killer is. He might well try to attend or slip in. I want cameras covering the entire area.”

Haynes nodded. “He probably thinks he’s smarter than all of us. Most serial killers think they can’t be caught. It’s worth a try.” He toyed again with the pen. “How do you think he knew where she was staying?”

Cassidy knew he worried about the attacker being a member of the department. “Easy enough,” Cassidy said. “He could well know that I was the lead detective. We questioned a number of people at the hospital. When Miss Merrick disappeared, he might have looked me up in the phone book. Maybe he intended to follow me that morning and just lucked into us jogging.”

Haynes didn’t repeat the obvious: that it had been a dumb thing to do. But his silence said it for him.

“It won’t happen again,” Cassidy said.

Haynes changed the subject. “When do you want to do this?”

“Monday morning at nine?” That would also give Marise a chance to change her mind.

“All right. But make sure she understands the risks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are you doing today?”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Cassidy said.

“Can you do that with a houseful of people?”

“Yep,” Cassidy said. “Right now, I think I could sleep anywhere.”

“Check in later. And get a shave.”

“Yes, sir.”

After he left the office, he rubbed his right cheek with one hand, feeling its roughness. He knew he must have circles around his eyes. Yet he hated to take the few hours’ sleep he knew he had to have.

Twenty minutes later, he drove into his garage. He knocked at the door leading to the kitchen, then went inside. Manny was there.

“Where’s Miss Merrick?”

“With my Joey.”

“She’s here?”

“With three of us here, I thought it was safe. And Marise needed a diversion. I think she’s getting cabin fever. My daughter brought over some videotapes she’d made of Marise and her partner skating. She wanted to ask her some questions about some of the elements.”

“What kind of elements?”

“You know—jumps, spins, that kind of thing.”

“That kind of thing?” Cassidy asked with a quizzical smile.

“Ah, come on. I have a daughter who skates. If you would stop working all the time and come to one of her competitions, you would see how good she is.”

The plaintive reply brought Cassidy up short. He remembered being asked to attend something not long ago, but he was testifying the next day and wanted to go over his notes. “Next time,” he promised.

Manny changed the subject. “Find anything?”

“Not yet.”

“I was afraid of that. What did Haynes say about a press conference?”

“He gave the go-ahead, subject to approval from upstairs.”

Manny raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised.

“Monday morning. If she still wants to do it.”

“She will,” Manny said. “I don’t think she’s the type of person who changes her mind.”

Cassidy went to the new coffeepot that someone had brought. His kitchen, in fact, looked as if people had brought a lot of things. There was a plate of cookies, a bowl of fruit, several loaves of bread. The refrigerator had probably been filled, too. He thought about pouring himself a cup of coffee, then decided against it. He needed sleep.

He went into the small den. The television was on, and Marise and Manny’s seven-year-old daughter were huddled together on the sofa watching television. Cassidy was behind them, and it was obvious they didn’t know he was there.

His eyes went to the television and remained glued there. On the screen, Marise looked fantastic in a blue skating costume with a skirt that seemed to be pure gauze. It floated as she skated. With her blond hair in a twist, she did indeed look like a princess. A radiant princess. He also noted—with a knot in his stomach—the unspoken communion between the skaters, the trust she must have in Paul Richards during some of the elements. In one, her partner balanced her above him with one hand; an overhead lift, the announcer said. In another she was bent backwards, one foot on the ice, her head just a fraction of an inch from the ice and his skates. One miscalculation…

He’d wondered at her nerve and determination. Now he understood it. What she did called for raw courage on a day-to-day basis.

“That’s a double twist,” Marise told Joey as the routine continued.

“He’s handsome,” Joey said about her partner.

Cassidy frowned behind them. Women, even young ones, sometimes had dismal taste.

“Yes, he is,” Marise agreed.

The comment didn’t help Cassidy’s mood.

“Is he nice?”

“Yes. Very.”

Cassidy wished she hadn’t said the second word. Why was his impression so different? He’d thought Richards arrogant.

“How long have you been skating together?” Joey’s curiosity was limitless, and at the moment Cassidy was appreciative. She was asking questions he couldn’t.

“Six years now.”

“That’s almost as long as I’ve been alive.”

“You’re six?”

“Seven,” Joey said indignantly, before going back to her interrogation. She shouldn’t be a figure skater; she should be a police detective. She’d extracted more personal information from Marise than he had. He decided to lurk a bit longer.

“Why don’t you skate as a single?” Joey asked.

“Because I had an ankle injury. My mother thought pairs would be easier on it. That turned out to be wrong because more and more throws are expected of pairs. They demand as much strength as the triple axel did in singles. But by then, Paul and I were a team and we were better together than I was on my own.”

“Are you in love with him?”

Cassidy found himself holding his breath.

“No,” she said. “Though we like each other immensely.”

“I think I would be in love with him—”

“You’re too young to be in love with anyone, young lady.” Manny had entered the room without anyone noticing.

Joey spun around on the sofa. “Dad! Uncle Hoppy!” she said with a squeal of delight. She bounced off the sofa and ran over to him, opening her arms for him to pick her up and swing her around.

He could have done without the “Uncle Hoppy,” but she always made him feel good with that instant delight of hers whenever he appeared.

“Hi, pumpkin.”

“I’m not a pumpkin.”

“Okay, what are you?”

“A princess, just like Marise.”

“Miss Merrick, you mean.”

Her lip stuck out. “She told me to call her Marise.”

“Then, Marise it is,” he said. “Who am I to interfere with female bonding?”

“What’s that?” Joey said.

“It’s making friends.”

Joey beamed. “She promised to watch me skate.”

“She’d see how good you are.”

“No, I’m not,” Joey said. “Not like her.”

“Being like her requires years and years of practice.” He put her down. “Can I watch, too?”

She took his hand. “Cool,” she said.

Cassidy exchanged glances with Joey’s father, who sighed heavily and spread his arms in resignation. Everything was “cool” these days.

Joey led him to the sofa and pulled him down so that she sat between him and Marise.

He nodded at Marise and felt like a fool. He glanced down at Joey, whose eyes were on the television and the couple that was just finishing their program. They skated together to the bench where they awaited their scores. A bouquet of flowers—roses—was handed to Marise, and her smile made his heart jerk. She should smile like that all the time.

Marise’s gaze met Cassidy’s over Joey’s head.

Her eyes were haunted, and despite her light replies to Joey’s answers a few seconds earlier, she looked tired. She probably hadn’t slept last night, either.

He tried to control his anger. Anger interfered with efficiency. But Marise Merrick was a true innocent, a person who cared more about others than herself. She’d readily agreed to stay here to help prevent the deaths of other women. She’d instantly charmed all the detectives and now was taking time to be nice to a seven-year-old despite obvious exhaustion. She didn’t complain about the food, his less-than-luxurious home or the restrictions on her movements.

She shouldn’t know terror. Cassidy damned the killer who had brought it into her life. He took it as a personal insult.

He’d never done that before. He’d sympathized with victims, but he had never allowed any of them to affect his emotions. How long had he steeled himself against caring?

He turned back to the television. Paul and Marise were hugging each other. The coach, David South, then hugged both of them. As they walked away, Marise’s mother joined them.

The perfect little unit.

He stood. “I’m going to get some sleep,” he said.

“Awwwww, Uncle Hoppy. Can’t you stay with us longer?”

“I wish I could, pumpkin, but I’m tired. And besides that, you two have important things to discuss.”

“Okay,” she said, turning back to Marise.

He felt a little aggrieved at being dismissed so easily. But wasn’t that what he wanted?

He turned to Manny. “I’ll take the sofa in my office. Wake me at two, or if there’s any news.”

“Will do. Did you have anything to eat?”

“A doughnut,” he said. “Or two.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He started down the hall.

“Hoppy?”

He turned around.

“You need a shave.”

Marise looked in the fridge.

Manny had taken his daughter home. She was a delight, and Marise had found herself giving the child her cell phone number. She’d told Joey to keep her informed as to how her skating was progressing. Joey had been ecstatic.

But it had also been a tonic for Marise. A gift of normality.

MacKay was sleeping. He’d told his friend to wake him at two. Manny thought he needed more sleep. So did she. But he would be up soon, and she wanted to have some food ready. Something healthy. She’d heard him mention having a doughnut for breakfast.

She also wanted a few words with him alone. When he’d returned, he hadn’t said anything about what she had proposed. Nor whether anything had been discovered about the flowers. But then, she’d been with Joey.

She was anxious. Anxious and apprehensive and antsy. She needed to keep busy. She was tired of being useless, of having others wait on her.

There was fruit, but she knew he would want more than that. Eggs came closest to healthy. She took out the carton.

The other two detectives were watching television. That was just as well. She didn’t trust them—or MacKay—to fix something nutritious. All she’d seen people eat in this house were doughnuts, carryout or junk food.

Not that she was a very good cook. In fact, Mrs. MacKay’s culinary efforts would probably look good compared to hers. But she would try.

She sliced the fruit. Then she went searching in the fridge again and came up with sliced ham and a huge lump of cheese. Men liked cheese. She took out a hunk and cut that into big pieces. Then she broke the eggs, put in the ham and cheese, and put a frying pan on the stove to get hot.

And she waited.

Sam woke Cassidy at three. She heard him go into the bathroom and run the water.

How long did it take to make an omelette? Just a few minutes. She’d watched it done dozens of times at hotel buffets.

She put the mixture in the hot pan and something immediately went wrong. It started burning. Part of it. The other part was congealing in an orange mess.

Smoke started rising. The smell became distinctly unpleasant.

Footsteps came hurriedly into the kitchen. Sam saw the smoking frying pan. His eyes opened wide, then he grabbed a towel, wrapped it around the handle of the pan and threw it into the sink with a clamor.

MacKay came running into the kitchen with a gun in his hand.

She stepped back. “It’s just…an omelette.”

He slowly put down his pistol. His face was half shaved, half covered with soap. His hair was wet, and a stray clump fell onto his forehead. He was wearing a towel.

Nothing but a towel.

He looked sexy. Very, very sexy. His body wasn’t heavily muscled like Paul’s, but his build was attractively rangy. Very attractively.

She realized she was staring at him.

Cassidy was staring at the mess in the sink. He grinned. “You take after my mother.” Then, as he seemed to realize his state of undress, his face went red on the unsoaped side.

It was immensely endearing, especially in light of her own chagrin.

He turned on his heel and disappeared through the door.

Sam was laughing. In fact, he was doubled over laughing.

She didn’t know whether it was due to her or to MacKay, but it was infectious. She started giggling, too.

When Sam stopped, his face was flushed. “I’ve never seen MacKay…disconcerted before,” he said, amusement still tinging his words.

She hadn’t seen him rattled, either. But then, she hadn’t known him that long. Still, he didn’t seem like a man easily disconcerted.

She grinned back. “I think it must have been my eggs.”

Sam started laughing again. “I don’t think so.”

When he finally stopped chuckling, he scraped out the pan, took some eggs from the fridge, and some cheese.

“I wanted to make an omelette.”

“To make a good one, you need bacon and onion,” he said. “I don’t think our friend has any. We’ll make do with the eggs and cheese and spices. A touch of olive oil first,” he instructed, searching the cabinets and finding a bottle. He poured just a small bit into the pan. “It needs to get really hot first,” he explained. “And the cheese needs to be grated or shaved.”

She looked at him with admiration.

“My mother believed a man should know how to cook,” he said.

He searched the cabinets for spices, finding garlic and salt and pepper and little else. He added it to the mixture and beat it until it was smooth, while she shaved the cheese. Then he put his mixture in the hot pan.

He also popped two pieces of bread in the oven to toast.

“Cass’s wife must have taken all the kitchen stuff,” he said.

She’d wondered about that. The house looked so…masculine now. All except the sunroom. “Have they been divorced long?”

Sam gave her a nod but didn’t elaborate.

Just then, MacKay walked in. He had a bandage where his face had been scraped earlier, but his hair was neatly combed, and he was dressed in jeans and a blue V-neck sweater with its sleeves pushed up. She noticed he was also wearing the gun holster on his belt. He smelled wonderfully of spice.

Sam seemed to notice it, too. He sniffed, then grinned.

“Shut up,” MacKay said good-naturedly. “But I do smell something good.”

“Marise is making an omelette.”

“Sam is making the omelette,” she corrected. “But I’m observing. I’ll do it better next time.”

“Where’s Dan?” he asked.

“Sleeping. He’s taking night watch. Manny left to get some sleep, too, then he said he’s going to headquarters to check on progress. He’ll call you.”

MacKay found a cracked plate. Sam deftly put the omelette on it, and MacKay took it and sat down. Marise took the toast from the oven and buttered it.

“Orange juice?”

“And coffee if we have it.”

“I’ve been keeping a pot going,” Sam said, and poured him a cup.

Marise enjoyed watching him take a first bite.

After several bites, MacKay turned to Marise. “The captain okayed your plan. If you’re sure you want to do this.”

Her heart dropped for a moment. She wasn’t sure. But she had no choice. She couldn’t see another way.

“I’m sure,” she said.

Sam shook his head in dismay.

MacKay’s gaze was steady. He reached out and put his large hand over hers. She felt its warmth surge through her.

“He’ll never stop trying to kill you if you go ahead with this.”

“I know. But I can’t take the chance he won’t stalk me, anyway. This way I have you…and the others…to protect me.” She said the words, and she meant them. But despite the warmth of his touch, she still felt a chill run up her back.

She wondered whether she’d just made the second worst decision of her life.

Chapter 10

She’d barely flinched.

Her hands betrayed her, though. Her smile was fixed. It looked real. But now he was familiar enough with her to know the difference.

The realization that she was hiding her fear from him was particularly painful.

What else was she concealing? He knew with certainty now that she was an expert at disguising her feelings. Only those hands gave her away. She wasn’t as indifferent to the danger as she wanted everyone to think.

He remembered something he’d heard once. It doesn’t take courage to be brave if you have no fear. It’s being terrified and still accomplishing a brave act that ennobles.

Was she terrified when she skated in front of audiences and television cameras, each time knowing that one mistake could destroy years of work? Of hopes?

God knows, he would be.

His gaze went to her eyes. They were midnight blue. Dark. Rich. Fathomless. He suspected any number of emotions and secrets lay behind them.

She tilted her head slightly, her chin jutting out. He’d seen her do that before when she was determined.

She broke the silence. “Did you find out anything from the florist?”

“Not yet. The order was sent in with two hundred dollars in cash. The letter looked computer printed and was messengered from a location in mid-town.”

“Then the messenger service had contact with him?”

“No, the killer left it taped to the door of a vacant building.”

Her face fell.

“He’s going to make a mistake, Marise.”

“He’s smart.”

“He’s getting reckless. He will make mistakes. We have officers surveying the neighborhood, trying to find someone who might have seen something—a man in their area who shouldn’t have been there.”

The killer would make a mistake. They all did. But he wanted it over for her sake. As well as for the sake of the other Atlanta women and their families. Still, he wished he could offer more assurance. He couldn’t.

“The public information officer will contact the media tomorrow,” he said. “You have time to change your mind.”

“I won’t,” she replied.

“How will your mother and Paul react?”

“It’s not their decision.”

“They’ll learn about it.”

“I’ll call them afterward.”

Sam disappeared into the other room, probably to take up his watch at the window.

“They’re very nice,” she said. “They are trying so hard to be unobtrusive.”

He grimaced. “When they’re not playing poker.”

“That was my fault. I was bored, and I’ve always watched detectives play poker in the movies. I thought I would expand my knowledge.”

“I think you expanded theirs, instead,” he said.

“I’m afraid they let me win.” Her brow furrowed, giving her a worried look.

He chuckled. “Not those three.”

Then the furrow deepened. He knew her thoughts were returning to the person who wanted her dead. And the upcoming press conference.

“Why at the hospital?” she asked.

“We’ll have cameras there. I’m hoping our perp can’t resist attending.”

She stilled for a moment, as if frozen, then seemed to steel herself. “I can do it,” she said.

He didn’t want her to do it. He could scarcely imagine her standing in front of a group of people, wondering if one of them was the person who’d been trying to kill her. “You still have time to change your mind,” he said for the third or fourth time.

This time, she merely tried a smile. It was almost, but not quite, convincing.

She looked around the kitchen, and his own gaze followed hers. He had remodeled it with high hopes for his marriage. He and Laine had picked out the rich dark cabinets and speckled off-color tile countertops. Laine had filled it with whimsical kitchen accessories: a lady pig cookie jar, bright colored pans, greenery. Laine had taken them all when she left, and he’d never had the incentive to replace them. Now, for the first time, he realized how very empty it looked.

“How long have you been divorced?” she asked softly, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Three years.”

She was silent, but he saw her look around the kitchen again. Puzzled.

“I’m not here much,” he said by way of an explanation. But it was more than that. The house had represented hope, then failure, and yet he’d never been able to leave it. He’d built other things, but never anything like this. He’d created it out of very little.

Yet he’d also run from it, working around the clock, then going to his sister’s cabin on days off to work on the boat.

A shrink would have a good time with him.

He rose from the table, uncomfortable with the conversation, unnerved by her blue eyes that probed him as well as any psychiatrist.

Well, turnaround was fair play.

“And Paul?” he asked. “He said you were going to marry him.”

“No,” she said. “Perhaps at one time I thought it…could be a good thing.”

She had gotten to her feet, too. She had the furrowed, puzzled look again. It was so incredibly endearing, as he looked down at her.

He wondered why he’d always liked tall women before. Her diminutive height was just right.

She’s a child, he reminded himself.

She’s twenty-four and has the maturity and discipline of someone many years older.

His hand went up to her face, his fingers touching her cheek lightly. She tipped her head so it leaned into his hand, rested there.

Cassidy’s chest ached almost unbearably. The gesture was so trusting. His cynicism faded, giving way to a warmth too long missing from his heart. That such a vulnerable gesture came from such a strong woman humbled him. If anything happened to her…

He bent his head and his lips touched hers. He hadn’t meant it to happen. It was just…inevitable.

Her mouth was soft, and her arms went around him. Her lips responded to him and her body leaned into him. She fitted there, against him. She felt as if she belonged there.

Against every rule he’d ever followed, he deepened his kiss. Their lips melded into each other, and her lips parted slightly. He groaned softly as a certain part of him strained against his trousers. She obviously felt it, because her body instinctively melded more firmly into his.

His world rocked, the world he thought he knew so well. The world that he’d tried to make into a sane, cautious place.

The phone rang. Sam shouted his name from the other room. Reality intruded. Yet he was loath to let her go, to lose the warmth that had been missing from his life.

It was she who stepped back. Her hand stayed on his arm, though, and trembled slightly. Her mouth was slightly swollen by his kiss.

She was in his care. She was a victim.

How could he possibly have let this happen? He’d just broken the cardinal rule of police work. Never get personally involved in a case. But the kiss had been pure magic. Seductive and sexy and sweet.

He ached. He ached with the knowledge of the stupidity of his attraction to her, how completely inappropriate it was. He had taken advantage of his position. Of course, she felt gratitude even if, so far, it was vastly undeserved. He’d made one mistake after another, each time putting her in more danger.

Worst of all, he ached with the knowledge of how much he wanted something—someone—he couldn’t have. He swallowed hard, hoped a certain part of his anatomy would behave, then went into the other room to get the phone.

Marise was stunned. Struck by lightning. So it wasn’t just a cliché. It happened.

She’d been affected earlier. But this was different. That had been pure sexual attraction, or so she’d thought. This was more. Much more.

She went into the sunroom, the room she liked so much. The backyard was full of trees, but the sun filtered through the trees.

The house itself was the kind of home she’d always envied. It wasn’t large, or luxurious, but it was tucked in a neighborhood where people cared about each other and looked after one another. There was a relaxed comfort that made her feel instantly at home.

Then she became aware of MacKay’s presence again.

She turned.

“You look pensive,” he said.

“I like your house.”

“It must be modest compared to what you’re used to.”

“What? Hotel rooms? They all look alike. Even in Europe. And when we’re there, we’re practicing. There’s little time to wander about and explore. Your house—it feels like…a home.”

“It hasn’t felt like that to me for a long time.”

She felt the quiet pain in him. She wondered about the circumstances of the divorce. He’d said only that being a cop and marriage didn’t go together. She suspected it went a great deal deeper than that.

Just knowing he was in the room sent warmth—and pleasure—surging through her. But he looked grim. “I’m going back to headquarters,” he said.

“Has something happened?”

He shook his head. “There’s a task force meeting.”

She wanted to go. She didn’t want to stay here and wait for a killer to strike again. Even with Sam and Dan as company.

“You’ll be safer here. Sam and Dan are here, and we have someone in the captain’s house. I’ll be back later. Feel free to use anything in the house or try any of the books. My house is your house.”

Something of what she felt must have reflected in her face.

“It won’t be long, Marise.” He paused, then looked at her for a searching moment. “Have you ever been fishing?” he asked suddenly.

She shook her head.

“I don’t suppose…”

“I would love it,” she interrupted. She wasn’t sure whether she would or not. She didn’t think she wanted to catch a fish. She didn’t like killing things, not even a spider. But the thought of spending some time with MacKay—learning more about him—was appealing. More than appealing.

“It’s a date, then,” he said lightly. “Tomorrow.”

She felt a stab of disappointment at waiting another day, then remembered she was to hold the press conference Monday. He probably just wanted her to relax. Nothing more.

“Is there anything I can get you?” he asked.

“A fishing pole.”

His lips relaxed into a slight smile.

“There are some extras at the cabin.”

“I’ll practice,” she said.

“Practice what?”

“Fly casting. Isn’t that what you do?”

He grinned. “Not me. I just drop the line in the water.”

She liked that smile. It was what she wanted to coax from him. It was what she needed. And worth every bit of the effort. She tried to analyze it. Perhaps one reason she liked it so was its very rarity. One lip cracked first and turned upward, then the other reluctantly followed suit. The area around his eyes crinkled. Then he looked a little abashed at being caught doing something he didn’t usually do.

She wondered when he’d stopped smiling. When he’d gotten the divorce?

Then she realized they must look foolish standing there smiling at each other. She really wanted him to do something else. Like kiss her again.

Instead, the smile disappeared from his face, and he backed away as if she were a stick of dynamite.

She felt like a stick of dynamite. More than ready to ignite.

He turned around and headed toward the door. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here.”

He turned around. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I meant. I like the house. I appreciate everything you are doing.”

“If I had put a guard on you immediately after this happened…”

“I hate ifs,” she said. “I lived a lot of my life on ifs.” She suddenly realized how true that was. She didn’t want him to do the same.

He was looking at her curiously.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she promised.

He gave her a slight nod, then disappeared through the door. She heard him talk to someone, probably Sam, then she heard the door close.

Marise went into the other room and looked out the window. She watched the car back out of the doorway.

Manny met him downtown. He was already in the room that had been appropriated for the task force. Three men and two women sat at computers. Two others were on telephones.

“Find anything?” Cassidy asked.

“We found one possible,” one of the men said as he put down the phone. “One of the hospital orderlies has a record. A sexual assault conviction. He didn’t put it on his application.”

“How long ago?” Manny asked.

“Eight years, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“How long has he been with the hospital?”

“A year,” the detective said with a triumphant grin.

“Do we have a picture?”

“We’ve sent someone over to the hospital to pick one up.”

“Don’t they check the backgrounds of their employees?” Cassidy asked.

“They say they do. Sometimes one slips through. Apparently his last reference checked out.”

“Where was it?”

“Boston.”

“Any unsolved murders there?”

“None on the VICAP. We’re asking if they have any unsolved murders of young women dating from before the past year.”

Cassidy nodded. “Description?”

“White. Five feet nine inches, according to his driver’s license.”

“Was he on duty during the time of the attacks?”

“We’re checking that, too.”

“I’m going to run over to the hospital,” Cassidy said.

“We have two people interviewing staff now.”

“I want to be there,” he said. He had faith in himself, and his instincts.

The detective nodded. “You’re the boss.”

“Manny, stay here and try to get someone in Boston. I want to talk to people at the hospital.”

“Should we call Marise?”

“Not until we’re sure we have the right guy,” Cassidy said.

He grabbed his keys. It was going to be a long day and evening.

Paul called at eight. “I miss you, Mare.”

“How’s Mother?” She felt hypocritical saying she missed him, too. The truth was, she didn’t. Although she was little more than a prisoner here, she nonetheless felt a freedom she hadn’t known in years.

“She’s fine. She misses you, too.”

“How’s the rink?”

“Fine. We’ll have to make some adjustments.” A pause, then, he said, “We need the practice time, Mare.”

“I know. But this is more important.”

“Is your detective…friend there?”

“No,” she said. “He’s out detecting.”

“You’re not alone?”

“I have two other detectives in the house with me,” she said. “Another is watching from an upper floor of a nearby house. I couldn’t be safer.”

“I don’t understand why there aren’t female detectives,” he said plaintively.

She hadn’t thought of that before. Now she did.

“How much longer before you join us?” Paul asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Your mother wants to talk to you.”

Her mother’s voice came on the line. “If you don’t come up here, I’m coming down there.”

Marise sighed. “No,” she said. “This is something I have to do on my own.”

“I’m getting calls. The press wants to know where you are.”

Marise hesitated, then plunged in. She’d never been devious. She couldn’t start now. “There will be a press conference Monday. I’m going to explain what happened.”

“I’ll fly down tomorrow.”

“No,” Marise said sharply. Then she softened her voice. “I want to do this myself. Please.”

A silence, then Cara Merrick said, “I’m your mother.”

“And I’m an adult, and this is my problem.”

“I worry about you. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, too.”

Marise wondered whether the “too” was deliberate. She’d been aware for a long time that her mother was not beyond manipulation. Still, the familiar guilt started nagging at her. But the pattern had to be broken sometime. She’d made the first step when she decided to stay here. She’d made the second when she told MacKay that he couldn’t go through life worrying about ifs. She knew now that it had been aimed at herself rather than at him.

And skating. Did she really want to continue the vagabond life, moving from one city to another, from one country to another? Training? Practicing? Performing? She enjoyed skating. She was good at it. But she didn’t want it to be her entire world. Not any longer.

Her mother was talking on the other end of the line.

“Mom,” she said, “I have to go.”

“Marise, I really want to come back there.”

“Just a few more days, and I’ll join you there.”

“Paul…”

“Mom, you won’t change my mind.”

“Because of that detective?”

There was more truth in that accusation than she wanted to admit. “I am not going to spend my life looking over my shoulder.”

“Well, if you’re not here by Wednesday…”

“Then, you can send Paul after me.”

“If anything happened to you, I…” Her voice faded away.

“It won’t. Good night, Mom.” She very gently put the receiver back into the cradle.

Cassidy looked at his watch. Midnight. The suspect still looked promising. He usually went on duty at midnight. The attacks had all occurred before midnight, except for the attack in the hospital. And that happened right at the shift change. Charles Norris had checked in by twelve but no one remembered seeing him at that particular hour.

Cassidy needed more before pulling the guy in. He didn’t have any real evidence. Everything he had was circumstantial. If he arrested the man, and Norris was released for lack of probable cause, then he would probably flee the city. If he were indeed the killer, he would continue to be a danger to Marise.

Cassidy couldn’t let that happen.

He assigned men to examine every detail of Norris’s life. He checked again with the Boston P.D. Still nothing.

Then he headed home. He had faith in the detectives who would be checking out Norris. His responsibility was Marise’s safety.

And home had taken on a more important meaning again. With Marise there, it really did seem to be home.

And that was a dangerous thought.

A blast rattled the windows of the house, startling Marise as she read in bed. Then came a shout. Voices inside the house. The door slamming.

She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a top and ran into the other room. Sam was near the window.

“What happened?” she asked, moving toward him.

“It could be a diversion.” Sam’s voice was sharp. As he said the words, he moved between her and the window.

Fear prickled along her spine. She wanted MacKay.

She also wanted to know what was going on.

Another noise—a sharp crack—came through the sound of sirens. She saw blood blossoming over Sam’s chest as he went down.

She grabbed his radio and pressed the button she’d seen him press. She knew the words from television shows. “Officer down,” she said. “Officer down. Need ambulance.” She suddenly realized she didn’t know the address. “Detective Cassidy MacKay’s home.”

Then she kneeled next to Sam. He tried to move, and she held him. “No, don’t move,” she said. She heard sirens, but they didn’t stop at the house.

“Don’t…answer the door until you know…who…” His mouth clenched with pain.

She ran to the kitchen and found a towel, returned and unbuttoned his shirt, pressing the towel on the wound.

His breathing was ragged. Her own mouth was dry. She knew to press down, to try to stop the bleeding. She didn’t know what else to do. Every second seemed like hours. This was a neighborhood of cops. Where were they? Where was Dan?

Then she heard a pounding on the door. She got up for a moment and looked out the window. Dan and someone else.

For a moment she hesitated. What if the someone else had a gun on Dan?

But she also knew that Sam could be bleeding to death. She went to the door and opened it.

Dan rushed in, the second man behind him. The latter—who looked to be in his fifties—knelt next to Sam. Dan grabbed her and pulled her out of view of the window.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He was looking out to see what was going on,” she explained. “A shot came through the window. What was the noise?”

“A vacant house down in the next block blew up.”

Flashing blue and red lights made a kaleidoscope of the scene. Sirens grew louder as the cars approached and squealed to a stop outside. Dan left her to go to the door.

Paramedics and two uniformed officers came into the room. One knelt next to Sam, taking vital signs.

She stood back, Dan next to her. “Was anyone hurt in the explosion?”

He shook his head.

“He won’t stop at anything, will he.”

Dan was silent.

The door opened again and MacKay entered. His gaze found hers, studied her, then turned toward Sam. His expression was grim. She saw a muscle throb in his cheek.

Dan didn’t wait. “There was an explosion at the end of the street. I went to see what happened. I think John was distracted. He was calling for fire trucks.”

MacKay’s expression was withering. “You were told not to leave under any circumstances.”

Marise moved then. “It wouldn’t have mattered. If it hadn’t been Sam, then Dan probably would have been shot. Sam…put himself between me and the window. So if there is anyone to blame, it’s me.”

“You don’t know better,” he said harshly. “They do. It’s their job.”

“He’s right,” Dan said. “I shouldn’t have left. I thought someone might be hurt.” He saw MacKay’s expression. “I know. That’s what he wanted me to think.”

MacKay’s gaze returned to hers. His eyes softened as they lowered to her hands.

She looked down. They were clasped together so tightly, it would probably take pliers to force them apart.

The paramedics rolled Sam over on a stretcher, then lifted him.

“How is he?” she asked.

Neither of them answered her, just rushed him out to the ambulance.

Sam was the detective with a wife. A flight attendant, she recalled. She swallowed hard. It really had been her fault. How could she have been so thoughtless as to approach the window?

Because she’d thought herself safe in this house. In this neighborhood. With these people.

But this proved she wasn’t safe anywhere. Nor was anyone who was with her.

Chapter 11

Cassidy couldn’t remember when he’d been so angry. Or had as many doubts about his own abilities.

He’d heard the call on his way home. He had invited an attack; he hadn’t expected outright war on the part of the perpetrator.

But then, he’d miscalculated since the beginning of this case. Perhaps that’s why he was giving Dan such a hard time. He blamed himself every bit as much as he did Dan, and he would let the detective know that.

He tried to soften his voice. Marise’s face was pale, almost bloodless. It was obvious that she felt she was responsible for Sam’s injury. But Cassidy knew Sam would have peered out the window, anyway.

He didn’t want her to feel the blame for this. It was his fault this time. Entirely his. He should have anticipated this, just as he should have anticipated the attack in the hospital.

It was evident she wasn’t safe here. He would understand if she didn’t feel safe anywhere in police protection.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“So am I,” she said. “Sam?”

“I think he’ll make it,” he said. “The hospital has a great trauma unit.”

“Shouldn’t you go with him?”

He shook his head. “Right now, I’m not leaving you again.”

“I can go, too.”

“No,” he said. “I’m taking you somewhere else until Monday morning.”

“Where?”

Cassidy shook his head. Maybe he was paranoid but he didn’t plan to say anything in this house. The killer had gotten very, very close. There might even be some kind of parabolic microphone nearby in the neighborhood.

That the killer had tried again when he must know she was well protected spoke of his desperation. Or his belief that he could outsmart the police.

Was Charles Norris their man? Where was he tonight?

“What about Sam’s wife?” she continued, breaking into his thoughts.

“The captain will notify her. Someone will find her and take her to the hospital.”

Marise was silent, but he saw the pain in her eyes. She wasn’t worried about herself nearly as much as she was worried about Sam. About Sam’s wife. That part of him that he thought had stopped feeling was beating hard again. Fast.

He willed it to slow. He needed to keep his wits about him.

He would check on Sam as soon as he could. Right now, he needed to get her out of here.

The uniformed officers were still waiting for instructions. He called Manny on the cell phone. His partner was at the station, coordinating the search on Norris.

“Anything yet?” Cassidy asked him.

“Nothing more than circumstantial stuff.”

“Sam’s been shot. There was an explosion at the Anderson home in the next block. They weren’t home, but Dan left my place to check on it. Someone took a shot at Marise through the window, and caught Sam, instead.”

Manny muttered something on the phone, then asked, “How’s Sam?”

“It’s serious,” Cassidy said. “He’s still in surgery. A chest wound.”

Another mutter. Manny never cursed. A mutter was as close to it as he got. “How’s Marise?”

“She’s shaken but uninjured. I want to keep her that way.”

“Okay,” Manny said. “I’m on my way over. I’ll tell the guys to check and see where Norris was tonight. Or do you think we should bring him in for questioning.”

“Not until I know where he was tonight. Was he working? Find that out first. If he was at the hospital, then he isn’t our man. And tell our people not to spook him.”

“What now?”

“I want to get her away from the house,” Cassidy said.

“Where are we going?” Manny asked.

“Just pack a bag,” Cassidy said.

Manny hung up. He’d gotten the message.

“Tonight?” Marise asked.

“Tonight,” he said. “Our guy’s getting more and more reckless. I’m not taking any more chances.”

She looked at him with those big blue eyes. He knew she must be wondering what she had gotten herself into. But instead of voicing recriminations, she turned and went into the other room. He saw her slumped shoulders and he wanted to take her into his arms. It hurt to think that she might feel Sam’s injury was her fault. They were the professionals.

He called his captain. Haynes would be awake, having been notified immediately about Sam.

The captain answered. “I’m on my way to the hospital. What happened?”

Cassidy quickly ran through the events. At least, what he knew about them. “I want to take her out of the city.”

“Take Manny with you,” Haynes said. “You want anyone else?”

“No. But I would like a couple of officers at my house until the window is fixed. And I want a security system.”

“I’ll take care of it.” The captain was silent a moment. “You still think Monday’s press conference is a good idea?”

“I think it’s worth a chance. This guy is getting desperate.”

“But not particularly careless,” Haynes reminded him.

“Well, now we have a bullet.”

“That doesn’t help much without the gun. Are you sure you can keep her safe until Monday?”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Cassidy said grimly.

Cassidy had hung up by the time Marise returned. She had run a comb through her hair, and added a touch of lipstick and cheek blush that gave her face some color. Her eyes looked tired. Sad. He wanted to bring back that spirit that gave them so much life.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t do a very good job in protecting you.”

“I’m alive,” she said.

“No thanks to me,” he said. He looked down at his watch. It had been nearly two hours since the shooting. He wanted the forensics team here before he left. He got back on the phone.

Minutes later, a van arrived.

“They’ll be establishing the crime scene,” he said. “They’ll have a few questions for you, to determine where the shot came from.”

She nodded as he went to the door and opened it. A tall woman and a shorter man came in. “This is Doc,” Cassidy said as he introduced the woman. “She’s the best we have in Forensics. And this is Milt.”

She stuck out her hand. “I’m Marise Merrick,” she said.

“It’s a pleasure, Miss Merrick,” Doc said as she took Marise’s hand. “I’ve seen you skate.”

Doc turned back to MacKay. “Sorry I wasn’t here sooner. They woke me up, and I had to wake Milt.”

Milt looked as if he’d just been roused. His hair was mussed; his shirt wasn’t buttoned all the way and the tail wasn’t quite tucked in. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. He just looked at the blood on the floor. “Where was the detective standing?” he asked.

Marise started to move toward the window.

“No,” Doc said.

“You tell me where he was standing,” Cassidy said.

Horror filled her face. “You think he’s out there now?”

“No,” he said. “I’m more Sam’s size than you are.” It was only part of the truth. He wasn’t taking any more chances.

But her face cleared slightly. “A little to the left,” she said.

After several more instructions, he was in place.

“Where was Detective Preston shot?” Milt asked.

“His chest.”

“Show us,” Doc insisted. He placed a small note-size piece of paper from a sticky pad on Cassidy’s chest. “That it?”

She nodded.

Cassidy stood in the same spot Sam had stood, while Doc and Milt went outside. He remained perfectly still as they roped off an area, took a number of photos, then came back inside. “All right, Cass, you can move now.”

Cassidy nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”

“We’ll stay here until it’s light. See if we can’t find some shoe prints or something else.” She nodded at Marise. “I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I know it’s not that great for you.”

“Thank you for your help,” Marise said.

“We’ll be leaving in a few hours,” Cassidy said. “There will be officers here.”

“Okay. What’s your cell number?”

Cassidy gave it to her. She went back out the door, Milt following her.

“Why aren’t there any female officers protecting me?”

He turned and looked at Marise. “Because I wanted people I’ve worked with for years.”

“People you can trust,” she said. “But we know it’s not a woman.” It was more a statement than a question.

“There are several I would trust with my life. None were available. I’ve worked with these guys, and I know what they can do.”

“You think someone with the police department might be involved?”

“No,” he said. “But I didn’t want to take a chance. Whoever this guy is, he knows something about police procedure. I wanted people I’ve worked with before.”

She didn’t say anything, just turned away and sat down. He noticed she’d placed her suitcase next to the chair.

He dialed Stan at police headquarters. “Send someone back to the place where Norris works. Do it in the morning when Norris won’t be working. I want all the prints there.”

“There will be a lot of them.”

“This guy used a gun last night. He’s a good shot. He could have a police background. If so, prints will be on file.”

“Will do,” Stan said.

Taking all those prints would require time Cassidy didn’t have. Marise didn’t have.

His cell phone rang. “I’m at home,” Manny said.

“Marise and I will be over there. We’ll take the back way.”

“The gate will be open.”

Marise napped part of the way. She’d felt drained physically, emotionally and mentally. Visions of Sam lying on the floor as blood spread over his shirt haunted her. She wondered whether they would haunt her forever.

Just as a dark figure in shadows haunted her. Just as roses haunted her.

Manny drove. She sat in the back seat with MacKay. They had left his house, snuck through an alleyway to Manny’s home. There she’d met Janie, Manny’s wife, and then was tucked into the back seat of Manny’s car. No one would be looking for Manny’s car.

Up to now, she’d had the feeling of being a character in a thriller novel. Nothing had quite driven home the reality of her situation until she knelt next to Sam and saw the blood flowing from his chest. She had washed but she still felt the blood on her hands. Warm. Thick.

And the sickness inside at not being able to do anything.

She wondered whether she was in shock, as Manny steered the car out of the driveway and down the street. She was aware that MacKay was keeping an eye out behind them until they were well on their way.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked.

“My brother-in-law’s place.”

“How far is it?”

“About two hours. Try to get some rest. It’s nearly three in the morning.”

She huddled in a corner. The air was warm inside, but she felt chilled. She shivered, and he put his jacket around her. Then she closed her eyes, not wanting him to see how unnerved she was.

She must have drifted off, because she woke to a jarring and realized they must have turned onto a rutted dirt road. She was no longer huddled in the corner of the car, but was tucked against MacKay. His arm was around her, and she realized her head was on his shoulder.

Everything came back. The blood. The expression on Sam’s face. The sound of sirens. The arm tightened around her. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re almost there, and then you can get some sleep.”

She sat up and looked around, then out the back window.

“No one followed us. No one knows we’re here. Not even Manny’s wife. Not even my captain. There aren’t going to be any leaks.”

“How would they know, then, if…?”

“Nothing’s going to happen. Still, I’m to check in every eight hours on the cell phone.”

“Sam? Do you know anything about Sam?”

“Not yet. I’ll call the hospital as soon as we get settled.”

She sat up, pushing back hair that had fallen away from her braid. It was still dark, and the woods looked shadowy—not safe at all. But she held those feelings inside as Manny turned onto another road. She could see water and the silhouette of boathouses on the right side. Manny drove perhaps another half mile before turning into a driveway. He stopped and parked the car.

“Stay here with Marise,” MacKay told Manny. He got out and went to the house.

Through the moonlight, Marise saw a large log cabin structure with a screened front porch that overlooked the lake.

She and Manny waited, as MacKay took keys from his pocket and disappeared inside. Within minutes he was back, opening her door.

He offered his hand, and she took it, knowing exactly what was going to happen. Despite feeling both exhausted and heart-sore, the warmth from his hand sent a jolt of electricity running through her veins. And yet it was comforting at the same time.

How could that be so?

He put his arm around her as if he feared she would fall. The ground was rough and she stumbled once, wondering at that because she was usually surefooted. She stopped for a moment, trying to stop her legs from trembling. She didn’t know whether it was his proximity, her exhaustion or the lingering effects of violence.

He lifted her, cradling her in his arms. She found herself snuggling there.

Paul, of course, lifted her all the time. She could always rely on his solid strength, the sureness of his hold. But this was different. She felt as if she belonged here, as if in some way she had come home.

She’d never felt that way with Paul. Why with this detective, whose life revolved around violence? After the past two days, she couldn’t imagine living that way. Yet Janie had accomplished it successfully. So, apparently, had Sam in his second marriage.

And then she thought of Sam lying on the floor.

MacKay pushed the door open and went inside. He gently lowered her to the sofa, as Manny came in with one large bag of groceries and her suitcase. They must have stopped for groceries and she hadn’t been aware of it. Had she really slept that hard?

“Are you all right?” MacKay asked her.

She tried to smile. “Yes.”

“I wouldn’t be,” he replied roughly.

“I wasn’t the one who was hurt,” she said. She didn’t want to appear weak. Or terrified. She’d tried so hard not to be either. “Can you call and see how Sam is?” Then she wondered out loud, “Or is it safe?”

“There are ways of tracing a cell phone, but first someone would need this number and would have to have access to some very sophisticated equipment. I’ll call Doc on her cell phone. That should be safe enough.”

He picked up the phone. “Doc?” she heard him ask. “Do you know anything about Sam?” He listened for a moment, then said, “Thanks,” and hung up.

Manny had taken wood from a stack next to the fireplace and was building a fire in the hearth. He stopped midway, waiting.

“He made it through surgery. The doctor thinks he’ll make it.”

Marise released a breath she hadn’t been aware was trapped in her throat, then said a brief prayer of thanks.

She looked out. The first rays of light were creeping into the room.

“To bed with you, Miss Merrick,” MacKay said sternly.

“I’m awake now,” she said.

“You won’t be once you get into bed.”

He went to the hall. “There are three bedrooms. This time you get your choice.”

He waited for her. She got up from the sofa and walked down the hall. The floor was hardwood with colorful rugs scattered throughout, including one that ran the length of the hall. She stopped at the first room. The bed was high and had a thick comforter. A comfortable-looking overstuffed chair sat between a window and a dresser.

“This is fine,” she said.

He put the suitcase on the bed. “You take the bathroom first,” he said. “I’ll make some hot chocolate.”

“You bought hot chocolate?”

“Manny’s wife sent a care package.”

Suddenly she did feel tired again. Hot chocolate sounded wonderful. Being pampered felt even better. Especially being pampered by Cassidy MacKay. She doubted if he made hot chocolate often.

He started to leave, then turned. “The bathroom is at the end of the hall. I’ll leave the light on.”

He left the room and she unpacked, wishing she had more than the casual shirts and slacks and sweats. At least she had a robe. She padded to the bathroom, closed the door and looked in the mirror.

She looked dreadful. Pale. Her hair was limp and coming loose from the braid. Her eyes had circles around them.

But she was here. Sam was in the hospital.

She washed her face and rebraided her hair, then went back to her room and quickly changed to the nightshirt and got into the bed, pulling the comforter over her. The bed was soft, and the comforter down. She really did feel like a princess. All she needed was a pea.

And hot chocolate.

Her eyes started to close. She heard a soft knock.

“Come in,” she said.

MacKay entered. He was holding a large cup and he set it down on a table next to the bed. For a moment, he just looked at her. His expression was impossible to read. It was the “detective” look. She didn’t want the detective look. She wanted the male look.

He turned around and left.

“This was not a good idea,” Cassidy told Manny.

“You wanted to crawl in bed with her?”

Cassidy flinched. “Something like that.” He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone but Manny. Unfortunately, his friend knew him too well.

“She’s poison to someone like me,” he said.

Manny sighed. “Laine was poison to you.”

“Yeah, and someone who is an international star and travels throughout the world isn’t?”

“Depends on who the international star is. I’ve seen how she looks at you.”

“She’s grateful.”

“Not that grateful,” Manny said. “Anyway, go to bed. I’ll stay awake. You need sleep more than I do.”

Maybe that was why he gazed at her like some lovesick calf. He nodded. Perhaps some sleep would cure him. Something had to.

Marise woke and stretched lazily. The sun was pouring through the pale drapes. For a moment she wanted to pull the comforter over her head and stay there forever. No dreams this time. No nightmares. But she did feel a little drugged. Too much sleep? Too little? She lay there trying to keep her mind blank for a few more blessed moments.

Then she moved. Was last night’s explosion on the news? Was her name connected with it? If so, her mother would be frantic. She should make a call.

She wasn’t up to it yet. She burrowed back in bed, calling herself a coward. She also wondered what it would be like to wake up in this cabin with no one to worry about, or placate.

Selfish.

She pushed the comforter aside and sat up. She pulled on a clean sweatsuit, then unplaited her hair, brushing it before tying it back with a ribbon.

With unwise anticipation, she hesitated behind the door, then pulled it open and walked down to the bath. She brushed her teeth, splashed water on her face and applied a touch of lipstick.

MacKay was sitting at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee. He didn’t turn as she entered, but she knew he was aware she had. His back had stiffened.

“Good morning,” she said. “Or is it good afternoon?”

“Good afternoon,” he replied. He turned then. “You look better.”

“Which means I really looked bad last night.”

“I don’t think you could look bad,” he said in a tone so soft she almost didn’t hear it.

Pleasure flooded her.

He started to get up. “Don’t,” she said. “I can wait on myself.”

He nodded. “The coffee is in the pot. There’s cereal on the cabinet and milk in the fridge.”

She poured coffee into a cup, then some cereal into a bowl. It looked like pieces of candy.

“Cinnamon bits. Joey’s choice,” MacKay said wryly.

She poured milk on it, then sat down and tasted it.

“Ummmmmm. Good.”

“You’re very easy to please. Frozen waffles and children’s cereal.”

“You sound displeased.”

“Just puzzled.”

“Why?”

His gaze seemed to penetrate her very soul. “You’ve traveled everywhere. You must have had the best hotels, the best food.”

“I’ve had tutors instead of schools, hotel rooms instead of a home, and a strict diet—broiled meat, skinless chicken, carrot sticks, bottled water.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Not always,” she admitted. She knew what the next question would be, and she didn’t know whether she was ready to answer it. She’d never answered it before. Why, then, did she keep skating?

She wouldn’t have chosen to make it her entire life if not for the debt owed both her living parent and her deceased one. Skating consumed a life; it left little time for more. Yes, she’d gotten her college degree, but it had taken an extraordinary effort, and she’d never been able to enjoy a campus, or make friends outside skating.

Not that she was a poor little rich girl. She was lucky to have the life she had, but at times she wanted more. She wanted children who would have a normal home, and a dog and two cats, or two dogs and a cat. She wanted to nurture a garden. She wanted to go a movie without feeling guilty because she should be practicing, instead.

But he didn’t ask the question, and for an instant she thought she understood why. There was already too much intimacy between them. Too much attraction. Too much electricity.

“Where’s Manny?”

“Sleeping.”

She munched, then, her gaze avoiding his. “Is there any news?”

He hesitated. Then slowly nodded. “We have someone we’re looking at. He has a record of sexual assault.”

Relief surged through her. “Has he been arrested?”

“We don’t have enough evidence yet. But we have a lot of people working on it.”

“Do you know where he was last night?”

“Only that he wasn’t at work.”

“Where is ‘work’?”

“The hospital. He’s an orderly.”

Her hand clenched the cup of coffee. Images flitted through her mind. A black ski mask. Blood. A broken window. She finished the cereal without saying any more, then stood and walked over to a window that overlooked the lake. Boathouses jutted out into the water. Except for those, it looked untouched. Peaceful.

“Can we go for a walk?”

He rose and took their dishes to the sink before she could. She saw that he was wearing his pistol. “Cassidy?”

He spun around, surprised. So was she. She’d tried to think of him as “Detective,” or “Detective MacKay.”

“Or should I call you Hoppy?” she said, aware now how uncomfortable he was at the name.

“Cass,” he corrected. “My friends call me Cass.”

“What about Manny?”

“He has special privileges.”

“Why?”

“He saved my life. Pushed me out of the way of a bullet and caught it himself.”

She understood, then, the closeness between the two. She relied on Paul that way. He would take a fall before letting her take one, would incur serious injury while protecting her. She trusted him that way.

And yet she’d never ever felt like this with him, not even when they were first matched.

She looked back at MacKay. He seemed so serious. She wanted to coax a smile from him. She’d never seen a smile quite like his. So reluctant and yet so…appealing.

He was staring at her now, as if trying to remember what she’d said. No smile. Yet she suspected one lurked behind that impassive exterior.

“A walk,” she reminded him.

“Will you follow instructions?”

“I always follow instructions,” she replied primly.

He looked dubious. Then he frowned. “If I tell you to run, you will run?”

“Yes.”

“If something happens to me, you will still run?”

“No.”

He looked at her with a perplexed expression.

“That’s not what a good protectee says,” he complained.

“Would you rather I lied?” She walked toward the door. “Let’s go,” she said.

He would follow.

Chapter 12

Cassidy stared at Marise as she opened the door. He never knew quite what to expect from her. Most other women would be quaking in their room after what had happened.

Maybe that’s what it took to skate. You fell. You got up. You had an injury. You went back on the ice.

And he’d thought he knew what courage was.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I have to write Manny a note, or he’ll worry.” Manny wouldn’t just worry; he would comb the woods, then call the captain.

Cassidy quickly jotted down the note and stuck it on the fridge, then joined her at the door and opened it.

It was just after midday. He’d been able to get about six hours’ sleep, and apparently so had Marise. Just watching her easy, graceful stride made him smile. He realized how long it had been since he’d done that so easily.

The day had warmed, the sun was shining. The leaves on the trees were yellow and gold and red, and some drifted down as a light breeze rustled among them.

The lake was calm and nearly empty. Two men in a boat were fishing in a cove. It was a weekend, but a fall weekend. And a football weekend. In Atlanta that often meant an empty lake. For a moment, he stared at the boat; he was reassured that there was more than one fisherman. Serial killers worked alone.

Marise was taking it all in with eager eyes. But then, she seemed to delight in almost everything. She had a natural curiosity combined with a joy of living that nothing seemed to dim.

She was already tripping down the steep steps that led to the water and the boathouse. She stopped as she reached his sailboat. She placed a hand on the keel, which he’d just finished painting. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s almost ready for the water,” he said.

“Almost?”

“I haven’t finished with the rigging.”

“It’s yours, then?”

He nodded. “I picked it up at an auction. Confiscated property. It had a few problems.” Hell, it had a lot of problems. More than he’d needed, considering the work left on the house.

“I wish it was finished,” she said wistfully. “We could go sailing.”

“Have you done much?”

“Not on a sailboat like this.”

“If you come back to Atlanta, I’ll take you for a sail.”

“I would like that.”

She was dressed in blue sweats that made her eyes look even more blue. Her blond hair was tied back in a ribbon, and she looked…beautiful. Beautiful and desirable. A princess, he reminded himself.

Still, he could see her in the boat he’d already christened The Lorelei after the siren of the Rhine whose singing lured sailors to shipwreck. The Lorelei was his retirement. One day he would drive it to Florida and spend weeks sailing up the east coast. Or months.

If he ever retired.

He could see her on that boat, her hair blowing in the wind.

He took the few steps toward the boat, and his hand touched the hull near her own. Their two hands seemed to inch together. Slowly. Torturously. Inevitably. His went over hers and tightened around it, then she turned in to him.

His breath caught in his throat. She was so incredibly appealing. His hand went to her face, touching it reverently, his fingers tracing its lines and brushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her again. Yet he could no more keep from bending down and touching his lips to hers than he could stop breathing. The moment he did, he was lost, carried along by swirling, compelling currents that dispelled all reason. They pulled them together until nothing existed except the irresistible desire between them, a hunger they’d been fighting for days. A hunger that could no longer be controlled.

And once their lips did meet, he couldn’t let go. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers massaging the sensitive skin just below his hairline as her hair tickled his cheek. Her body reacted to his, fitting into his much larger one as if they already knew each other intimately. As if they belonged together. Heat curled in his loins, and his body ached with need and hunger, changing. Growing hard and expectant and hot.

She opened her mouth, and his lips moved hungrily against hers, exploding in a maelstrom of unleashed need, of expectation that had been building between them for days. The smell of pine, the rustle of fallen leaves, and the soft warmth of a fall sun wrapped around them, heightening the sensuality of every caress, every touch.

Cassidy wanted her in a way he’d never wanted anything before in his life. Every other want, every other emotion, paled beside it. His hand went to the small of her back, his fingers running up and down her spine, and he felt her tremble.

He was trembling, too, and that made him hesitate. He shouldn’t, couldn’t, lose control. But then one of her hands played around his ear lobe, and a groan ripped from his throat. Both her mouth and her eyes were inviting him to do something he very much wanted to do.

In the past three days, she had taken his dark world and made it glow. He wanted more of that light. More of the sweetness she offered. More of the raw eroticism that raged between them. The two disparate qualities built upon one another, churning together to create a whirlwind that was both gentle and fierce. And irresistible.

All the warnings, all the caution, all the rules were swept away by those winds. His lips left hers and trailed kisses along her cheek, hesitating at her earlobe. He nibbled and felt her body react, fitting ever closer to his, seeking the feel of his growing hunger.

His body reacted painfully. A primitive, elemental response. Need burned right through him. He saw the same desire in her eyes.

He stepped away and took her hand. She stumbled slightly, as if her legs couldn’t quite carry her. Those strong legs that could take so much strain. Then he stumbled, too. The weakness was contagious.

With his free hand, he took keys from his pocket, unlocked the boathouse and led her inside. For a moment the dim light made him pause, then he released her hand and used the winch to lower his brother-in-law’s cruiser. It had a small cabin.

And a bed.

He stepped inside and offered her his hand, then caught her as she lost her balance when a gentle swell rocked the boat. He held her for a moment, feeling her breath against his cheek, the body that was both soft and firm. Their gazes met, then their lips, with a mutual desperation that was explosive. Their mouths were almost frantic with the need to touch and feel and taste, to explore and be explored.

The boat rocked again, throwing the two of them even closer together. His arms tightened around her. Her body melded to his and her lips opened, allowing his tongue entrance as her hands went up around his neck, caressing, teasing, asking things he wondered whether she was consciously aware of. Electric tension vibrated all around them, new and glorious and brilliant. His hands moved along her back, feeling the slender curves of her body through the soft, clingy material of her clothes. His lips turned greedy as they plundered her mouth, as his tongue tentatively, then more surely, teased and seduced and explored.

His touch was tender beyond anything Marise had known. The warmth of his fingers streaked to the core of her, causing small tremors and explosions in that most intimate of places.

Her senses had all been heightened this afternoon, perhaps because of her brushes with danger. And now they were stronger, more sensitive than ever before. Still, she felt tension in him, even reluctance, although his hands touched as if they couldn’t get enough of her. They moved and ran through her hair, loosening it from the ribbon holding it back. She closed her eyes to the gentle assault on her every sense, every emotion. Even her toes tingled.

Marise responded as she’d never responded to a man before. She felt consumed by emotions, by an elemental need she couldn’t control. Sensations bombarded her, clawing at the boundaries of her body. She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted Cassidy MacKay at the moment, and the rage of the need overwhelmed her. Even when she’d thought she had been in love previously, she’d never felt this physical yearning, this terribly sweet pain to join body to body.

This couldn’t last—wouldn’t last—but she had to grab at it. If she didn’t, she feared she would never know again the singing in her heart, the flight of that part of her soul that craved love. Then all thought gave way to one all-consuming physical need.

His body trembled as it molded itself to hers, her tongue mating with his. She was barely aware of moving inside the cabin and then to the bed.

His lips rained kisses along her face as his hands unzipped the top of her sweatsuit, then joined in the courtship of her body. Caressing. Touching lightly. Even tentatively, as if giving her every chance to say no. Then her jacket was off, and her bra, and she reveled in the look in his eyes as he leaned down and kissed one hard nipple, then the other.

Every touch was both sensual and tender. She reached over and touched his belt, unbuckling it even as she felt its weight from the holster. It fell to the bed, and he stopped his exploration long enough to drop it to the floor.

Then he pulled off his shirt, and the fingers of one of his hands touched her ear, followed by his lips. She felt the heated texture of his chest, the feathery tickling of his hair against her skin as his hands trailed rings of fire along her body.

She wanted to explore and taste, too. Her mouth went to his ear, her tongue playing games on his skin, one of her hands twisting the dark, tousled hair, the other tracing patterns on his back. She ran her fingers along the shoulder muscles, the slight indentation that ran down his spine.

“Marise,” he said, in a voice so low it was almost a sigh, as her hands fell to the zipper of his jeans. She felt the strain there, the hot throbbing under her touch. He shifted slightly while she slid both the jeans and briefs to his ankles and he kicked off his shoes. She looked at him. She’d seen him before when he wore a towel into the kitchen, and liked the lanky build with its quiet power.

She leaned against him, absorbing his body heat, the assurance that had always so attracted her to him.

Her emotions roiled. She had been fighting that attraction, but now she believed—no, knew—that what she felt went beyond admiration, gratitude, lust.

“You are smiling,” he said.

“Because you look very…enticing naked,” she replied.

“No one looks better than you.” His hands ran down her sides as if memorizing every curve and angle of her body, and she felt like a precious object. She moved closer to him, and he touched her lips with featherlight tenderness, then guided her down on the bed. His hands stroked her, caressing her breasts, then trailing his hand down to her triangle of hair. His fingers explored, ignited, until she thought she could bear the wanting no longer. She gave a strangled whimper.

He positioned his body above her and slowly lowered himself. She relished the hot, pulsating skin that first teased, then hesitated. A deep intense craving gnawed in the deepest core of her and her body moved upward, shamelessly issuing an invitation.

He went into her, slowly and rhythmically, each move intensifying the craving, the expectation. His lips touched hers, treasuring her, even as he probed deeper. Her body arched against him, and her arms pulled him down, wanting him to come faster, deeper, but still he delayed, moving with a deliberate sensuality that made her mad with wanting.

Her body responded, clasping him, dancing with him, the pressure building. Heat flooded her as his rhythm quickened, and he plunged deeper into the center of her. Pleasure billowed through her, each wave more powerful than the one before as the momentum increased and she was lost in one great storm of lightning and bursts of splendor.

She cried out, and his lips found hers once more as he made one last thrust, igniting a final explosion that left her body quivering with aftershocks. “Hmmmmmmmmm,” she said.

“I echo that,” he murmured, and lay next to her.

He placed his arm around her back. His grip tightened around her fingers. Silence settled between them. Then he rolled over and looked at her. “I shouldn’t have let that happen. Particularly without protection. I thought I could control…”

“Me, too,” she said, bringing his fingers to her mouth and nuzzling them. “But I’m on birth control pills…for health reasons.” Really it was to regulate her periods.

He didn’t relax, nor did the frown on his lips smooth away. She realized her explanation did nothing to lessen his sense of guilt. Still, he didn’t try to draw away.

Marise sat up and ran her free hand over his chest, letting her finger get caught in the wiry hair. She felt complete for the first time in her life. She’d never known making love could be like this. Gentle and seductive and intense all at the same time. She had only been with one other man, and he had been quick, with none of the courtship that had accompanied today’s marvelous journey. She didn’t even know that she could be so aroused, so ready, so wanting.

“I need to take myself off this case,” he said. “I’ve just became too involved. Darn. I’ve been involved since the first moment I met you.”

“I didn’t think you liked me.”

“Oh, yes. Right from the start. I like anyone who can kick an attacker in the groin.”

She made a face. “Not a very pretty image.”

“A gutsy one.”

She had the definite feeling that being gutsy was more attractive to him than being pretty. She snuggled in the crook of his arm. She liked gutsy, too. And he certainly was that. She would never forget the way he’d thrown her out of the way of the car.

But most of all she liked the way her body fit into his, the warmth that radiated between them, the feeling of belonging, of completeness.

She could hear the soft lap of water against the boathouse, feel the gentle lift of the boat.

“I could stay here forever,” she said.

“Why don’t you?”

The words were tempting. But it was not a proposal. And even if it was, she had obligations.

“It would ruin Paul’s career,” she said. “And break my mother’s heart.”

He was silent for a moment. “You said something before, something about ifs in life.”

She had known he’d marked that. She never should have said it, never should have expressed the doubts that were growing stronger in her mind. “I was just tired,” she said.

“Couldn’t Paul find another partner?”

“It takes years together to produce winning pairs,” she said. “Finding someone the right size, someone whose technique is similar, and even more years to choreograph and practice jumps and lifts together.”

His eyes were intent on hers. “He’s that important to you?”

“He’s my friend. My partner for six years.”

“And he said he was your fiancé.”

She had already answered that, but that was before she had…made love to Cassidy MacKay. He was asking even more.

“Many couples who skate as pairs marry,” she said. “We probably spend more waking hours together than most wives and their husbands.” She was being evasive, and she knew he knew it.

“And your mother?” he asked. “You said she was your manager.”

“Yes.”

“You’re her only client.”

“Along with Paul, yes.”

She realized her short answers probably said more than she wanted them to. She also knew he would continue probing. It was his business, after all.

“She used to be a skater, too,” he said.

Marise was surprised. How would he know that?

“She walks with the same graceful glide as you do.”

“She won a number of regional competitions but never qualified for the Olympics,” she said.

“And your father?”

“My father skated in the Olympics in men’s singles. He won a bronze medal.”

“What happened to him?” he asked softly.

Her heart stopped. It always stopped when she thought of him, or his name was mentioned. “He died in a car accident.”

His grip on her hand tightened. It was almost as if he sensed the agony the memory still caused.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re lucky both your parents are alive,” she said. “Even if they are the ‘Battling MacKays.’” She paused. “Did they want you to be a detective?”

“Lord, no,” he said. “My father’s an accountant. He wanted me to be a lawyer. Or a doctor. Or a partner in his firm.”

“Then, how did you become a policeman?”

“I left home the day after I graduated from high school, and joined the army. I was one day shy of eighteen. I couldn’t wait to go to someplace peaceful, like a war.”

“Then what?” she asked, intrigued. She had followed a pre-ordained path. His rebellion fascinated her.

“All my aptitude tests said I should be an accountant. So they made me a military policeman. I ended up taking college courses, got a degree in criminology.”

She caught the amusement in his voice, and she batted playfully at him. “Now you’re teasing me.”

He grinned back. “Only a little. It really said I should be a cook.”

“You obviously take after your mother.”

“That brand of cooking would be just about right for the army. Anyway, I learned to cook when I was ten in pure desperation. I’m a good cook,” he said with mock boastfulness.

She looked at him dubiously. “That’s why your kitchen is so empty,” she teased. It seemed remarkable, this easy conversation, especially after something so monumental as sleeping together. Making love, she corrected herself. What they had done was definitely making love.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he said, though some of the wry amusement left his eyes and his voice went a little flat.

“I would like to try your cooking,” she asked, trying to get back the lightness.

“I’m excellent at steaks,” he said.

“I’m good at salads.”

His eyes met hers. She was issuing an invitation.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “I have to take myself off this case.”

“No,” she said. “I trust you.”

“I’ve made one mistake after another because I have a personal interest. I’m no longer objective and that makes me dangerous for you.”

She heard the guilt in his voice. She knew it all too well. “I make my own decisions.”

“You may not,” he said. “The captain could very well order me off this case.”

She raised in eyebrow. “Case? Am I just a case?”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You are much more than that for a lot of people,” he said.

Then, before she could really absorb that idea, he sat up, then stood, his back bent to avoid the low ceiling. “We had better get back to the cabin. I have calls to make.”

His voice didn’t sound quite as self-assured as it usually did.

She didn’t want to go. Looking at a face that was expressionless, she knew the moment of magic was gone.

He’d made a pretty big mess of things.

He’d broken every rule in the book and had endangered his charge by doing so. He should lose his job.

But what was best for Marise?

The fact that he had made love without protection was condemning in itself. He’d never done that before. He had always, in fact, been very, very careful. But he had not brought protection because he’d believed he could keep his own emotions and desire in hand.

More fool him.

And he’d simply gotten out of habit of keeping protection with him. He didn’t date that much; he’d always been a one-man woman. When he’d decided that his job probably precluded another marriage—or any long-term relationship—he’d poured his energy into his house and sailboat. It hadn’t even occurred to him to stop along the way down here to pick up something that would make them both safe…

Because he had absolutely no business doing what he had just done.

He didn’t regret it. He should. He knew that. But the past few moments were among the finest he could remember. He’d loved Laine. They’d had a good sex life, but it hadn’t come close to what he’d felt in the past hour. Perhaps that’s why the marriage hadn’t worked. Not because of his job, but because they hadn’t had the excitement, the communion, the commitment to make it over the rough spots.

He dressed, trying not to look at Marise. It didn’t work. His gaze was drawn in her direction. She was snuggled now in the bed, a sheet over her, but he didn’t need any reminders of the taut body or soft skin.

“I—we had better get back before Manny comes after us,” he said.

The bemused look left her face, and she clutched the sheet around her as she sat up. It fell as she reached for her clothes, and he thought how absolutely beautiful she was. Without more words, she pulled on her sweatpants, her bra and finally the jacket. She shoved her feet into the shoes she’d been wearing. It took her all of a moment.

It took him longer. His fingers were awkward as he pulled on his jeans. They were tighter than usual. He was swollen still. He wanted her again.

Her life depends on you. Dammit.

He picked up his belt with its holster and buckled it on, then he went to the door of the boathouse and opened it, allowing the sun to flood in. He looked around. The boat with the two men was gone. Smoke was spiraling from the chimney of their cabin and some more from a cabin down the road. There was no other sign of human activity. Dappled by the sun, the lake looked beautiful. He really would like to take Marise out on the water. He would love to take her sailing, but The Lorelei wasn’t quite ready yet. And when it was, Marise would be somewhere far away.

He went back inside the boathouse. She was stepping out of the cabin. He offered his hand and she took it, lightly vaulting her way onto the dock. Her face was no longer pale; her cheeks were flushed, her dark blue eyes smoky.

How he wanted to take her again in his arms.

He restrained himself.

She will be leaving soon, he told himself. And he would return to working overlong hours, finishing his house and eating frozen waffles. The prospect wasn’t nearly as appealing as it once had been.

As they left the boathouse and started down the dock to shore, Cassidy saw a figure stepping quickly down the steps from the cabin. He took Marise’s hand and went to meet Manny. He didn’t care about appearances now. He’d committed the cardinal sin: getting involved with a witness. If Haynes asked, Cassidy would admit to it. He planned to put it in his own report.

He didn’t like liars. He didn’t like people who abused their authority. And if he lost his job, he wouldn’t moan about it. But right now the only issue of importance was Marise’s safety. And the safety of other women who could well become victims.

Cassidy speeded his steps. Manny wouldn’t be on his way if there wasn’t news. Marise matched him step for step.

When they met him, Manny looked at Marise as if uncertain whether to talk in front of her.

“Go ahead,” Cassidy said.

“It wasn’t Norris,” he said. “At least, not the explosion and the shot that hit Sam. He was on duty last night.”

Cassidy felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He’d been so sure…

So very sure.

Chapter 13

Marise watched Cassidy’s face change, and her heart felt caught in a vise.

For a few precious moments, she’d known a sense of belonging that had previously eluded her. Even when he rose and dressed without looking at her, she’d known it was more because he felt he’d violated some rule than because he regretted what had happened. Every touch had told her that he cared, and she’d felt loved, wanted and completely accepted for what and who was inside, not for the image that others had created.

But now she watched as regret and guilt drained the warmth from his eyes, and she realized he’d been more relaxed this morning because he’d truly believed they had a suspect and that the danger to her had been minimized.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“We keep looking,” Cassidy said curtly.

Manny shook his head. “The captain thinks Norris could still be the Rose Killer, that the shooter last night could be someone who holds a grudge against you. A coincidence.”

“He can’t really believe that.”

Manny sighed. “Probably just wishful thinking.”

Cassidy shook his head. “I know Haynes wants this over, but…”

“He’s going to pick Norris up and question him.”

“Norris?” she asked.

“The orderly I told you about.”

Manny shot him a glance.

“She had a right to know.”

She looked from one to the other. Manny’s gaze, though, rested on her. She knew her face was flushed. She wondered whether there were any other signs of what had happened.

Without comment, he turned around and started back to the cabin.

She could feel the questions in him. So, she knew, must Cassidy.

He had tried to tell her it was unwise, that he would have to resign from the case. She’d ignored that warning. She’d ignored her own internal warnings. He’d told her in many ways that he didn’t believe in marriage, at least not for himself. There was no future, and yet she had been greedy for something she’d never had before.

But she didn’t want to ruin his career.

They were silent as they reached the cabin and went inside. She glanced at a clock in the kitchen. It was nearly four.

“Did your captain say anything about Sam?” she finally asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“He’s still in critical condition, but holding his own,” Manny said.

She felt the tension between the two men. She looked at one, then the other.

Cassidy’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” she said.

She was aware that Manny probably knew exactly what they were saying. She should feel embarrassment, but she didn’t. It had seemed so right.

But she sensed they wanted to talk. “I’m going to change clothes,” she said, “maybe take a shower.”

Neither said anything.

She retreated to her room and closed the door. Then she stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was tangled, her face still flushed, her lips swollen. She saw what Manny must have seen.

Yet she had no regrets. She would never have any regrets.

Manny poured himself a cup of coffee. “You know what you’re doing?”

Cassidy went to a window and looked down at the boathouse. “I don’t exactly know how to answer that. I know it’s not smart. But I don’t think I’m sorry.”

Manny moved next to him. “Janie and I’ve been wanting you to find someone else.”

“I know,” Cassidy said wryly. “I’ve been invited to her matchmaking dinners.”

“She’ll be going back to her career.”

Cassidy didn’t say anything.

“Do you think you should leave the case?”

Manny was asking questions that needed to be asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Cassidy said after a long pause. “I’d really thought we had the guy.”

“I did, too,” Manny admitted. “But then, that would have been too easy. You know nothing’s that easy.”

“I wish I was back there for the interview.”

“You can’t do both—protect and investigate.”

Cassidy knew that only too well. His own strength was investigative. He knew that. He also knew she would fight the idea of anyone else protecting her. He’d thought earlier that he’d made a muddle of things. Now he knew it.

He didn’t even try to defend himself. His actions were indefensible. He would, in fact, tell the captain exactly what had happened.

The question was when.

He didn’t want to take her back yet. She was safer here than in the city, safer where very few people knew her location. He had hoped, in fact, that the press conference at the hospital wouldn’t be necessary.

Now it was, and it would put Marise in even greater danger. Or it could flush out the killer, and she would leave Atlanta.

If she was safe, he could live with that. He thought.

He wanted to give her at least a couple of days away from fear.

“I’ll tell Haynes when we get back.”

“And when is that?”

“Monday morning.”

“And in the meantime?”

Cassidy sighed. “In the meantime, we have you as a chaperone.”

“You sure you don’t want someone else assigned?”

“The fewer people who know we’re here, the better,” Cassidy said, wondering whether he wasn’t manufacturing reasons for staying with her.

Dammit, but he was tied in knots.

He heard the shower running in the bathroom, and he could picture her there. He’d seen her now, all of her, and he knew he would see her that way the rest of his life. The thought was not lustful, though he would be lying if he said lust did not exist here. But there was also a purity in his memory. She was so darn beautiful.

“Hoppy?”

He looked up.

“I lost you just there. What if your mind is wandering when the killer strikes again?”

It was as much of a reprimand as Manny had ever given. What made it worse…he was right.

Cassidy’s gaze swept the view beneath him. The road, the woods, the boathouse. That had been stupid, too. Anyone could have approached.

“You’re right, Manny. It won’t happen again.”

“You know that I want you to find someone again. The timing’s just rotten.”

“I know. Not only my timing. My reach.”

Manny looked at him sympathetically.

“Maybe we should think about leaving in the morning. I’ll call the captain, see if he can’t find a safe house.”

Manny didn’t say anything.

“I’ll take a look around,” Cassidy said.

What he really needed was fresh air. He needed to think.

They played poker that night. The three of them.

Poker was safe.

Nothing was safe.

Marise’s eyes were questioning. Filled with questions he couldn’t answer, filled with desires he needed to stay away from.

They had spaghetti that Janie had sent with them. The sauce was made and just needed to be heated. Cassidy cooked the spaghetti.

And he watched her eat with fascination. She was not an expert spaghetti eater. Strands kept falling off her fork. She had little spots of spaghetti sauce on her face that he longed to lick off.

Better not to think of such things.

After supper they played poker for several hours. Manny won this time. Cassidy was cleaned out. Literally. Figuratively.

He took one last walk around the cabin, going to each of the nearest residences and making sure no one had disturbed their locks. When he returned, Manny reported that Marise had gone to bed.

He and Manny talked for several hours, all about unimportant things. They both avoided the subject of the killer, but he was there.

Then Cassidy went to bed.

The call came the next morning.

Cassidy hadn’t been able to sleep. He lay awake most of the night, knowing he’d made major mistakes. Knowing he might not see Marise again after they returned to Atlanta. He finally rose at dawn.

She was already up drinking coffee on the porch, watching the sun rise.

He restrained himself from going out to join her. He was afraid of what would happen. He’d lost confidence in his own control. It had been all he could do last night to keep from touching her. Only Manny’s presence had prevented it.

He didn’t know whether she was aware of his presence or not. She didn’t turn around, not until his cell phone rang.

He answered on the second ring.

“He struck last night,” Captain Haynes said. “A young woman. An American Beauty rose was next to her.”

“He always struck on Wednesdays,” Cassidy said.

“There was a note,” Haynes said.

Cassidy heard the weariness in his voice and steeled himself for the words.

“‘Thought I would wait? I might have, had you not interfered. But I will have Miss Merrick. No one can stop me.’”

Cassidy felt as if his veins had been infused with ice. “Are you sure it’s our guy?”

“Yes. The rose was placed over her left breast. We never released that information.”

“Nothing on the note?”

“No fingerprints. We’re trying to trace the paper, but it’s so common I don’t think we’ll have any luck. We’re also checking all charge slips for office supplies stores to see if any familiar names appear. But I doubt our man charged it, in any event.”

“I was thinking about bringing Miss Merrick back to Atlanta today. I was hoping you knew of a safe house.”

“Why?”

“It’s too open here,” he said. It was a terrible excuse. But he couldn’t give the real reason yet, that he didn’t trust himself to be alone with her. It was a hell of an admission, one he would confess later to Haynes. But not now. He knew he would be relieved of the assignment. He wasn’t ready for that.

“Have you seen anyone?” Haynes asked.

“No.”

“I think you’re safer there at the moment,” he said. “Now, we really need that press conference in the morning.”

Cassidy hesitated. He was aware that Marise had entered from the porch and was standing close to him. Listening.

He couldn’t say anything now. Or perhaps that was just another excuse.

“Do you need anyone else?” The voice on the phone brought his attention back to the conversation.

“I think the more people who know, the more dangerous it is,” he said. “Where can we go after the press conference?”

“Back to where you are,” the captain said. “I’ll send more men with you.”

That was the last thing Cassidy wanted. He couldn’t stay, nor did he feel he could leave her here. In a safe house, perhaps. Out here was different. He knew the cabin and the woods around it almost as well as he did his own neighborhood. He knew the residents and the cars they drove.

“Cass?”

“I think it would be a good idea to have a backup,” he finally said. “Can you find another location as well?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Haynes said.

“The woman,” Cassidy said. “Who was she?”

“A student at Georgia Tech this time.”

“Blond?”

“Yes.”

“He started with pros,” Cassidy said. “They’re an easy target. He’s gaining confidence.”

“Let’s hope that makes him careless,” Haynes said, and hung up.

Cassidy slowly put his phone away.

“Another one?” she said softly. “He struck again?”

“Yes.”

“Because he missed killing me?”

He looked at her. She was biting her lip, and her eyes were wide with horror.

“He wasn’t going to quit, Marise, whether he succeeded with you or not. He’s going to keep killing until we stop him.”

“Still…”

He fought to keep from touching her, from taking her into his arms. He couldn’t do that. He’d made too many mistakes already. Instead, he sipped his now-cold coffee.

“Have you seen Manny this morning?”

She nodded. “He went to bed when I came out. He said you would be up at dawn, and I swore I wouldn’t leave the house or unlock the doors.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” he said more roughly than he’d intended. “Someone could shoot through that screen as well as a window.”

She looked at him indignantly. “I was watching.”

He shook his head, then went back into the kitchen. She followed and watched while he opened the fridge and surveyed the contents. There wasn’t much but it should last them through today. There were staples in the cupboards. Canned stuff mostly, and coffee. Thank God for Janie’s care package.

His mind was running over logistics so they wouldn’t wander back to Marise. She was wearing slacks this morning, and a blue sweater. Although it was loose, it couldn’t hide the curves of the body he remembered only too well.

“Tell me more about the woman,” she said.

He didn’t have to ask what woman. “She was a college student,” he said.

“So I wasn’t a fluke,” she said.

“You mean you weren’t mistaken for a working girl?” he said. “I don’t think you ever were. I think the first women were targets of opportunity. They were easier to find, easy to lure into some dark place. You’re small. You probably looked like an easy victim.”

“How can you ever catch someone like him?” she asked. “No clues. No fingerprints. No witnesses.”

“We have a witness,” he said. “He made one mistake. I think he made another when he sent the roses. Someone saw him. It’s just a matter of finding that someone.”

He finished the cup of coffee. “I’m going to go out and look around,” he said.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I think it would be better if you stay inside,” he said.

“I don’t.”

She had a determined look on her face.

He hesitated. Manny would not approve. Heck, he didn’t approve. But if they didn’t go near the boathouse…

Was it safe? He thought so. But then, he’d thought jogging the other morning was safe, too. Yet he’d seen no sign of anyone. He couldn’t imagine how the killer would discover their location, particularly after…last night.

He looked at her, at the large eyes that still reflected the horror of hearing of last night’s murder.

But he didn’t feel comfortable in taking her alone in the woods. Instead, he would wait until Manny woke. “Wait until Manny is up,” he said, “and we’ll go out on the lake. I’m just going to take a quick look around.”

She still looked rebellious.

“Please,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you.”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“I’ll be back within thirty minutes. Stay inside with the door locked.”

He checked his pistol, then went outside. He duplicated last night’s search, circling the property, looking for new tire tracks. Fresh footprints. Anything that indicated someone was lurking nearby.

There was nothing.

It was going to be a beautiful day again, one of the warm fall days that made Atlanta a great place to live. He took one final panoramic view, then returned to the cabin, knocking at the door.

Marise peered out, then opened it. “No villains?” she said lightly. But there was no smile in her eyes.

“Nope,” he said.

“Breakfast?”

“Yes.” He knew he was being curt. He had to force himself to be impersonal—because if he didn’t, he would destroy his ability to be effective on this case.

“We have cereal and cereal,” she offered.

“I’ll take the latter.”

“Wise choice,” she said.

They ate their bowls full of breakfast food. By silent consent, they refilled their coffee cups and went out on the porch. She sat, while he looked around again. Nothing unusual.

Then he sat, too.

“It’s so peaceful here,” she said. “It doesn’t seem as if anything could disturb it.”

He knew better, but he didn’t say anything.

He took a sip of coffee. He searched for something impersonal to say, to break that connection that was so strong between them. “When did you start skating?”

“When I was four.”

“You said both your parents skated. Did you want to skate or did they want you to skate?”

She hesitated a moment too long. “A little of both.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

Her mouth bent into a frown and her eyes clouded over.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to pry.” But he did. He wanted to know everything there was to know about her. For a moment he didn’t think she would answer.

Then she said, “I had a brother. He was killed in the car accident with my father.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine.”

“And your mother never married again?”

“No, she rebuilt her life around me. And my skating.”

He understood a lot more now. “And you? Was it what you wanted?”

“What young girl doesn’t?” she said lightly.

Too lightly.

He came close to reaching out to clasp her hand in his. Instead, he knotted his into a fist. “You said you had tutors. How long?”

“Since the sixth grade.”

“Did you miss school?”

“A little.”

“So it was your mother and you?”

“Pretty much.”

“Until Paul?”

She nodded.

“And you?” she asked, obviously trying to divert the conversation. “You said marriage and being a detective didn’t go together. Did you ever think about another occupation?”

“For a moment,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be happy, so it probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway.”

“Do you like being a detective that much?”

“I don’t know if like is quite the word,” he said. “It has some really bad moments. But I’m usually pretty good at it. When I’m not distracted,” he added wryly. “I like puzzles.”

“And your ex-wife didn’t?”

“No. She thought she would. She liked the idea of danger. She didn’t like the reality of it. It’s hard on a wife. The hours are terrible.”

“I’ve noticed,” she said. “But Janie seems to manage.”

“Janie is unique.”

She was silent for a long time. “What about children?”

She’d hit the sore spot. Laine had been taking birth control pills without telling him. He’d found them in her pocketbook when he’d been looking for a set of keys. Laine said she hadn’t wanted to be left a widow with children. That was the first time she’d revealed any reluctance to get pregnant.

He’d been praying for a child. He’d believed they both were.

That had been the last wound they’d inflicted on each other.

He’d given up his hopes then of having children, of having a stable marriage in which children would be loved and safe, and wouldn’t be Ping-Pong balls batted back and forth between parents.

“I have my nieces,” he said. “And my godchild.”

Her eyes met his, and he saw the deep longing in them. She obviously wanted children. But she was living for her mother out of a sense of duty. And, he supposed, love.

“Will being away hurt your chances to win?” he asked suddenly. He hadn’t given much consideration to that. He should have.

He hadn’t given much thought to anything but catching the killer.

“I know the program. Ten days of practice should be enough.”

“How important is the competition?”

“It’s the Sectional. We need to place to advance to Nationals. We could be invited to the Nationals, anyway, but placing in the Sectional makes it a sure thing. The medal winners in National go to the Olympics and the World Championship.”

“Have you been in the Olympics before?”

“Paul and I made the team last time, but he was injured in practice. We had to withdraw. This is probably our last chance.”

He was a fool to think even for a moment he could compete with that. Or with Paul. No matter what she said about not being her partner’s fiancé, they had the same interests, the same goals. The thought was like a sword piercing him.

He told himself he was a homebody. He liked his job, his boat, his house. He liked working with his hands. He had a job he was usually damn good at. He had friends. But he hadn’t realized how lonely he was, how much he yearned for children of his own, particularly a little girl that looked like Marise.

He had shoved all those feelings aside when Laine left. He’d been grateful then that there were no children.

He heard a motor and looked back to the lake. A speedboat was bouncing over the water. He stood and watched until it disappeared out of sight. Still, he didn’t like it. The cabin was tucked in a cove, and they often saw fishing boats but they seldom saw a speedboat.

The car was not visible from the lake, and the boathouse was closed. He didn’t think anyone could see them on the porch, and there was no fireplace, no smoke curling from the roof.

He watched as the boat came close by the boathouse, then headed back out of the cove.

“Do you see anything?” A small tremor was in her voice. It belied her seeming nonchalance about her own safety.

How many other emotions did she hide?

But the moment for confidences had passed. He was the protector. She was his charge.

“I’m going to make some more coffee,” he said.

“Now, that is something I can do,” she said.

She stood, and their hands brushed.

Every reaction from yesterday afternoon flooded back. The sun suddenly paled in comparison to the blinding electricity between them. He couldn’t move for a moment, caught between wanting to take her in his arms and wanting to push her away.

He felt rooted to the floor as her eyes met his, and his chest ached almost unbearably. He had to hand her off to someone else. He told himself that, as tension leapt between them, filling the air with expectancy.

Buffeted by emotions, he forced himself to take a step back. He held the door open for her, unwilling to leave her alone on the porch.

She looked up at him. “Cassidy?”

“Inside,” he said a little too sharply.

To take the sting from his word, he put a hand at her back. She turned and looked up at him.

His fingers touched her cheek. “You wring every ounce of sense out of me,” he said softly.

She lowered her gaze. “I wish we were just two ordinary people who had just met.”

“But we’re not. You have your career. I have my job. And then there’s your life, and I’m not doing a very good job of safeguarding it.” He hesitated, then added, “And when this is all over, when we’ve found the killer, this will all just be a nightmare.”

“No, it won’t. Not all of it. There have been some…good moments.”

“It’s the adrenaline, darlin’,” he said lightly. It rang false, even to him.

“No,” she said with dignity and a poignant assurance.

She went inside before he could say anything else.

Chapter 14

Marise spent an hour doing stretching and aerobic conditioning. It had been three days since she had done any, and now she worked until she was exhausted.

She kept thinking of the new victim of the killer. A blond student. She knew exactly how the woman had felt in her last moments. The terror. The helplessness. The knowledge that she’d made a terrible mistake by being out alone at night.

Marise could smell the same odor the woman must have smelled, feel the same strong hands and the edge of a knife.

Despite MacKay’s assurances that the killer would have struck anyway, she couldn’t get the idea out of her mind that that student might have been a substitute.

She knew it was foolish to feel guilt. But she did. As well as the renewal of fear. She’d tried to dismiss it earlier. She didn’t want it to rule her life, because then the killer would have won even if he hadn’t ended her life. She’d tried not to show it to Cassidy or Manny.

So she tried to work through it. Sweat through it.

And hopefully work off the other roiling emotions she felt.

Cassidy had made it clear that he was going to avoid her. As much as one could avoid another person in a fairly small cabin. She saw the torment in his eyes, and knew he was determined not to repeat yesterday’s…mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake to her, and her heart shriveled at the thought that it was exactly that to him.

She didn’t go outside the room until she heard Manny’s voice. Then she knew it was safe.

She took a long shower. First, hot water to work out the kinks in her muscles, then cold water for a dash of reality.

The questions in Cassidy’s eyes when she’d talked about Paul and her mother made her realize how she’d given up so much of herself.

He didn’t know all the circumstances of her father’s death, of course, but she was beginning to free herself from it.

She had to place in the Sectional in Seattle, then the National, and, if she and Paul got that far, the Olympics, then Worlds. After that, she would retire from the intense competition that she’d never really liked. Perhaps she could skate as a singles in challenges or ice shows, or television productions.

And coach. She would like that. Not the high-stakes competition coaching that David did, but working with youngsters who wanted to skate for the love of skating.

Could she support herself on that?

And her mother? Her mother was only fifty. Cara Merrick loved the competitive skating world and could make a successful career out of organizing events or as a business manager. But she would never do it as long as she could live vicariously through her daughter.

It was time that they both let go.

The water was like falling ice shards. Even at twenty-four, she found it hard to let go of all the forces that had influenced her.

She turned off the shower and stepped out, toweling herself and then her hair. She pulled on a pair of slacks and a sweater. She brushed her hair until it started to dry.

She knew she needed to call Paul again. Her mother and Paul had probably gone crazy if they tried to call her at Cassidy’s number. She just didn’t know if she could go through the same questions and protestations again.

And now was not the time to tell Paul what she’d just decided. She had to do that in person.

She applied a little lipstick, then stepped out.

Manny and Cassidy were around the table. They both looked up as she came into the room.

Manny started to rise, and she shook her head. “Please don’t,” she said.

He sat back down.

She went into the kitchen, got a diet soda from the fridge and returned. “Any more leads from the task force?” she asked. “You said they were going to bring the suspect in.”

“Only that they haven’t found any other leads. Except for that one night, he fits all the criteria. We have a few more backgrounds to check, but so far…”

She felt a black hole gaping inside her. She had so hoped they had found the man. “When are they going to question him?”

“The captain decided to wait to question him until after your press conference in the morning. They want to know if he tries to attend, or even comes into the hospital. His shift begins at midnight.”

“And if he does?”

“Then, it’s another indication of…his interest in you. We need as much as we can get before questioning him.”

“Because you still don’t have evidence?”

“Not sufficient to charge him,” he admitted.

“I promised Paul I would be back by Wednesday. We need that long before the Sectional begins next week.”

His face was expressionless. “I know.”

“I will leave on Wednesday,” she added. “I have to.”

A muscle in his jaw worked. Then he nodded.

“What about some opera?” Manny said.

Cassidy looked as startled as she felt at the question. “Opera?”

“I know Cassidy likes it, so I brought a couple of cassettes with me,” Manny said. “You can listen while I go and see if I can catch some fish for supper.”

“Good cover,” Cassidy said.

“What’s this cover business?” Manny said with a grin. “You know I like to fish.”

“Since when?”

“Since it’s the alternative to canned chili,” Manny said. “Is the equipment still in the boathouse?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. I’ll fish and keep an eye on the lake and the road.”

“I’ll have the chili ready.”

“Ye of little faith,” Manny said.

The old bantering was back. Marise felt a sense of relief. Something had been worked out while she was in the other room.

The sound of Puccini’s La Bohème floated through the room.

Marise watched as Cassidy sat back on the sofa, folded his hands at the back of his neck and rested his head against them. She’d skated to one of the arias once, and she knew the music well. For some reason she hadn’t suspected that a suspicious police detective who worked with his hands would know it well, too.

But from the expression on his face, he did. Another side of a man who kept surprising her.

She sat back and listened, satisfied just to be in the room with him and the majestic music. She closed her eyes, so as not to be seen staring at him, and tried to relax. Unfortunately, his image appeared larger and larger in her mind. Her eyes might as well have been wide-open and fixed on him.

A phone rang and startled her.

Cassidy rose from the sofa, turned down the stereo and answered.

He spoke in monosyllables. Negative and positive.

Then he said, “Do we still need the press conference?” Silence on his part, then he said, “Okay,” and hung up. “We might have another witness. The beat officers found a man who thinks he might have seen something last night.”

Relief flooded her. “What?”

“He saw a late-model car follow a young blond woman. He didn’t think anything of it at the time. Just thought it was someone trying to pick her up. But it’s a dark sedan just like the one that was stolen and left at the MARTA station. This is a guy of habit. The preliminary FBI profile said that.”

She hadn’t seen the profile. Or even heard about it. “What else did it say?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was that helpful, but then, they haven’t had much time. A loner. But most serial killers are loners. Because of his activities, he would most likely be a bachelor. A shoe’s been missing at each scene, so the killer must keep them as a memento. Maybe he raises the roses he leaves, but I think he buys them. It’s part of the game.”

“Game?”

“Catch Me If You Can. He’s been accelerating his activities so the adrenaline is climbing, demanding more and more excitement, which means more and more risks.”

“What about this suspect of yours? Does he own a house?”

“Nope. He rents an apartment, and no, there’s not a garden. He’s not married, and he lives alone. He seems to have few friends.”

“You know all this, and he’s not aware of it?”

“We know how to do it. As far as he knows, we’re asking the same questions about everyone.”

“But if he has a record, wouldn’t he think he would be singled out?”

“Ever think about going into police work?”

She liked the glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Nope.”

“Just as well,” he said. “You’re too pretty. All the perps would fall in love with you and surrender and make the rest of us look bad.”

She swallowed hard. She’d been told before that she was pretty, and in far more eloquent terms. But never had it sounded quite so good before.

Then the smile left his eyes. “His record was a long time ago in another state.”

“Do you really think he might try to come to the press conference?”

“I don’t know. We’re not even sure this is the guy. But he fits what you told us. About the right size and weight. As an orderly, he comes into contact with cleaning fluids, other chemicals. He was off the nights of the attacks. Except for the one at my house.”

“And that really didn’t fit his pattern,” she said. “I heard you and Manny talk about it.”

“No,” he said. “As far as we know, he hasn’t used a gun before. Nor has he committed arson.”

He went over and turned up the stereo again. The strains of an aria emerged loud and pure. He held out his hand. She took it, and they walked together to the sofa and sat. He didn’t make a movement toward her. Nor she toward him.

It was enough, for now, to be together.

And to forget about tomorrow.

The drive to Atlanta the next morning was agonizing.

Each mile they traveled was one less moment left with Marise. It was Monday. She’d made it clear she would leave no later than Thursday morning.

Three days to catch a killer. And Cassidy might well be off the case. He planned to tell Haynes today that he’d become emotionally involved with a witness. He’d always been honest with his superiors. He didn’t plan to break that particular rule.

But though he was in turmoil, she looked serene, as if she were going to church rather than to face ravenous reporters and possibly a killer. If she was nervous, she showed no sign of it. She was uncanny that way.

Manny chatted away in the back seat. He was still basking in his success. He’d caught two fish yesterday. “Captain will have a new location for you today,” he said.

“Not unless you two are there,” she said.

“That’s not our call,” Cassidy said.

“It’s mine,” she said.

It wasn’t, but he was not going to debate that with her.

They had left the cabin at six, thirty minutes after he had prowled around the area one last time. No red boat. No new footprints. Just dew and the first streams of an early morning sun gilding the water.

She had looked out at it as they left the house. “So peaceful,” she said with a certain awe. “I think I could stay here forever.”

He knew he could.

But then they had to leave, and he watched her look down at the boathouse regretfully. They never did take that ride. But that boathouse would always hold exquisite memories for him.

She said very little on the way back to Atlanta. Instead, she looked out the window, and he could almost see her drinking it all in. She was such a mixture of assurance and wistfulness. Sometimes, he thought nothing would startle her. And at other times that everything was new and exciting to her.

“Joey won in her class last night,” Manny said. There was regret in his voice.

“I’m sorry you missed it,” Marise said. “I would have liked to see her, too.”

“Maybe sometime when you’re back here,” he said. “Janie taped it. Joey wants to be a professional skater.”

“It probably means going away to a training facility,” Marise said.

Cassidy looked in the rearview mirror at Manny’s face. No way was his daughter going away from home. Scratch one skating career.

“Let her skate for fun and see what happens,” Marise said, looking back at him. “Most competitive skaters absolutely love it but not many have the discipline to make it a career. It isn’t a normal life for a child.”

“Most,” Cassidy said. “Does that include you?”

She looked at him for a moment. “Yes,” she said finally.

He didn’t believe it. Maybe because he didn’t want to. But it wasn’t his business. It was her career, her life, her decisions. He was a big believer in that.

He stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. It was one he knew well. One of those old-fashioned establishments with real grits and country ham and redeye gravy and bottomless cups of coffee.

Everyone looked at Marise as she walked in, but Cassidy was becoming used to that by now. She’d dressed for the news conference in skirt and blouse and sweater. Ordinary clothes for almost anyone else, but on her they looked spectacular. He still didn’t understand how someone who looked so lovely could be so down-to-earth, so unaffected, so unaware of her own impact on others.

“What do you suggest?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Manny interjected.

“Country ham, redeye gravy, grits and eggs,” Cassidy said.

She looked to Manny for help. “Any other suggestions?”

“Country ham, redeye gravy, grits and eggs,” he said, “and I know you’re not going to ask me the same question you asked Hoppy.”

She looked indecisive, then grinned. “Make it three of them,” she said.

She looked like a kid who was stealing a cookie from a forbidden jar, joyous in the immediate reward but a little apprehensive about the consequences.

Though she obviously liked the food, she ate only a small portion. MacKay found his own appetite suddenly waning. They were on the road again within thirty minutes.

Half an hour later, they drove up to the hospital. Television trucks were already parked in the parking lot. Reporters were gathered at the doors, waiting. Cassidy pulled around to a side entrance, and Manny and she went inside while he parked the car.

When he found them, they had been joined by a security guard. “I’ll take you to the room,” said the guard. “We’re trying to keep the reporters in the lobby or at the entrance.” Like the customers in the restaurant, the guard seemed unable to take his eyes from Marise. He stopped and thrust a piece of paper at her. “For my daughter.” It was half plea, half explanation.

“Of course,” she said, taking it. “What’s her name?”

“Jennifer. But everyone calls her Jenny.”

Cassidy watched as she scribbled down something and handed it to the beaming guard.

Then Cassidy put a hand to her back, and they headed down the hall to a large meeting room. Television cameras had been erected both inside and outside. The ones outside were roving back and forth to catch anyone walking down the halls.

Captain Haynes was inside the room, as were two plainclothes detectives, several officers in uniform and three people in jeans manning the television cameras. A podium with microphone had been placed at the front of the room.

Haynes came up to her. “Thank you for all your assistance,” he said.

“You’re welcome, though it hasn’t seemed to do a lot of good yet.”

“Maybe we’ll have some luck today.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Whatever you want.”

“I thought I would call him a coward, maybe something a little stronger.”

Haynes looked at Cassidy. “I like this girl.”

She wasn’t exactly a girl, and Cassidy saw a small tightening of her lips, something he doubted the captain noticed.

“Miss Merrick is rare,” he said quietly.

The captain shot a glance at him, then turned back to Marise. “We have plenty of protection for you here, and I’ve found a safe house for you. We’ll add a couple of men to the detail.”

“I only have a few more days,” she said.

“Detective MacKay has made us aware of that.”

She didn’t look at Cassidy. Cassidy didn’t look at her. Manny looked at both of them and sighed.

The captain glanced at his watch. “We have twenty minutes to go.”

“Do you have any more information?” she asked.

“We have a great deal of information. No proof.”

“Are you going to question the man you suspect?”

“This afternoon, whether or not he shows up here. We’re having him followed.”

There was a knock on the door. Several men in suits entered. One was the public information officer for the hospital, the other, the administrator. It was obvious they were not altogether pleased about the press conference, or the idea that one of their employees could be a serial killer. But in seconds, Marise had charmed them both, thanking them for letting her use their facilities and for the wonderful care she’d received as a patient.

Manny shrugged his shoulders, as Cassidy threw him a wry frown.

In these few moments, Cassidy didn’t have a chance to talk to Haynes. At least, that’s what he told himself.

He waited by the door, his pistol hidden by a sports jacket, as more people entered the room.

Marise went up to the podium where more radio and television microphones were tied to the hospital one. She had to lower them for her height. Then she went through the testing routine. Her voice, soft at first, seemed to grow stronger. She radiated confidence.

But as he looked into her eyes, he thought he saw something no one else saw. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she wanted him, and everyone else, to think. He wished he could be there with her, standing beside her. Instead he winked at her.

She winked back and threw him a grateful smile.

Reporters swarmed into the room. Cassidy eyed each one of them carefully as they took a seat. He knew most of them. Crime reporters as a whole. There were some shiny new faces that obviously belonged to television stations. One in jeans he’d never seen before.

All of them seemed to have small recorders and stenographers’ pads. Some had the bored expression of one who has seen it all, and others were youngsters who thought they wanted to see it all. He looked around for hospital personnel. They would have badges. Would their murderer think it worth a chance? He would want to. Cassidy knew that to the bottom of his soul.

Word had been leaked out Saturday night in the hospital so that everyone would hear of it. He’d learned long ago that the hospital grapevine was as accurate and fast as any he’d encountered.

The public information officer stood and introduced himself, then Marise.

Her back stiffened as she told about the assault, but her face remained composed. “I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the hospital,” she said, “and the police department that has been extraordinarily supportive.

“I also wanted to say a few words about my attacker. I’ve stayed here in Atlanta in hopes that he would be caught. He is a coward, a man so sick he has to attack those he believes weaker than himself. He might think he’s terrifying, but he ran—just like any other bully—when I hit back.

“I just wanted the city to know what kind of man you call the Rose Killer. It gives him far more dignity than he deserves. The Cockroach would be a better name. They scurry away with the light of day. And now I will entertain questions.”

The first one was expected. “Did you see your attacker?”

“There’s no other reason for me to stay in Atlanta,” she said softly.

“How long are you going to stay?”

She hesitated, then said, “As long as I can do some good.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I think the police have already given out a description.”

“When are you going to return to skating?”

“There’s a competition next week. I’m planning on being there.”

“What do you think of Atlanta, after what happened?”

“Every city has its share of bullies and deviants and cowards. I think you have a beautiful city, and so many people have been really kind. Now I know why they brag about southern hospitality.”

She fielded question after question easily. It was all Cassidy could do to watch the door of the room, the people who came in and stood against the wall. He had seen a photo of Norris. He would swear the man wasn’t in the room. Could he be lurking outside?

After twenty minutes, Captain Haynes stood up. He thanked her for her cooperation and answered a few more questions, then called an end to the conference.

Marise walked over to Cassidy. “How did I do?”

“I think you accomplished your purpose. You just sent an invitation.” His voice was rough. Even a little unsteady. He had agreed to this reluctantly because he didn’t want her to be a target in another city when there was no protection. Now he wondered whether he hadn’t just made another very large mistake.

Her gaze looked uncertain, as if she might have let him down.

He didn’t dare touch her, though he wanted to take her in his arms. Instead, he smiled slowly. “You were magnificent,” he allowed. And she had been. He didn’t add that caveat that she might have gone too far. It was too late now.

Her face lit.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded.

She smiled at the remaining reporters as she left, but she didn’t stop to answer their shouted questions. She had done what she’d intended.

She had staked herself out the way a hunter might stake out a lamb to lure a tiger.

Chapter 15

Cassidy drove the three of them to the police station. The drive was a tense one.

“How long until we can see the footage?” she asked.

“Thirty or forty minutes for the tapes. The film will have to be developed.”

“I saw the cameras,” she said. “Wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he avoid them?”

“There were others you didn’t see. We had some obvious ones, and some not-so-obvious ones in areas he might have thought safe. Where he thought he might just get a glimpse of you.”

“Like the theory of the firebug staying at the scene of the fire he set?”

“Exactly,” Cassidy said.

“Then what?” she asked.

“Depends on whether Norris—our main suspect at this time—is in any of the film, or whether you recognize anyone.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then, we’ll pull Norris in and start asking questions.”

“But you said it might spook him.”

“It might. But if you’re really determined to leave, we have to make things happen. After your challenge today, I don’t think the killer will let you go.”

“Did I go too far?”

Cassidy was afraid she had. He knew she had planned to call the killer a coward. But she had gone a step further. Everything she’d kept bottled up had come spilling out in front of the cameras. He only now realized the depth of her anger; she’d been adept at keeping her feelings in check, in masking the fear and rage.

And contempt. That would have been the worst for the killer. He wanted fear. He probably even liked anger. Contempt was something else altogether.

At his silence, she said, “I thought the idea was to lure him out.”

The idea had been to see if the killer would show up at the press conference, not to incite him.

Manny had been extraordinarily quiet. Marise turned around in the front seat and looked back at him. “What do you think?”

“I think you have a lot of guts. But I wish you hadn’t done it.”

“Manny, I had to make him come after me now. While I’m in Atlanta.”

“What if he doesn’t surface before you leave?”

“I’ll be careful. I’ll hire a bodyguard if necessary.”

Manny mumbled to himself.

Then they pulled into the police department parking lot. Manny was out and opening the door for Marise almost the second Cassidy put the car into park. She was sandwiched between the two of them as they walked into the building.

Cassidy took them to the detective offices and to his and Manny’s desks. He looked at Sarah Henning, one of the detectives working there. “The captain in yet?”

Sarah nodded and surveyed Marise curiously.

Cassidy turned back to Marise. “I’m going to see Haynes,” he said.

Manny raised an eyebrow in question.

Marise looked apprehensive, as if she knew exactly what he was going to do. And say. She started to go with him.

“Stay here with Manny,” he said.

He saw the rebellious look again.

“Please,” he added.

She hesitated. Then nodded.

He walked to Haynes’s office and knocked on the closed door. “Come in,” said Haynes.

The captain was sitting down, and now he leaned back in his swivel chair. “MacKay?”

“The tapes should be ready in thirty minutes. We might want someone from the D.A.’s office there.”

“I’ll call.” Haynes waited. “Your girl put on a good show this morning. Gutsy performance.”

“Too gutsy,” Cassidy said.

The captain straightened in his chair. “Second thoughts?”

“A lot of them. Maybe we should have just sent her on her way.”

“We didn’t. Now we have to use what we have to protect her.”

“It shouldn’t be me,” Cassidy said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve become personally involved.”

“You?” Haynes said. “Cass MacKay?”

Cassidy didn’t say anything.

“You want off the case?”

“No. But I thought you should know about it.”

“How does the lady feel about it?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

Haynes studied him. “I don’t like it, Cass. I should take you off the case.” He took a cigar from a box on his desk and stuck it in his mouth. This was a no-smoking area, and he didn’t light it. Instead, he chewed on it. “This could hurt your career,” he said.

Cassidy didn’t respond.

“You’re the best I have,” Haynes said. “You have the instincts. I don’t want to lose you. And I sure as hell don’t want to lose her.” He chewed on the cigar. “Any suggestions?”

“No.”

“Ask her to come inside.” Haynes took the cigar from his mouth. “And MacKay, that was a really stupid thing to do.”

“I know,” Cassidy said softly as he exited the office.

Marise’s stomach churned. She guessed why Cassidy had talked to the captain. She also knew that she felt safe only with him.

She watched as he left the office and walked toward her. “He would like to talk to you,” he said.

“What did you tell him?”

“Not everything,” he said, his lips turning up in a wry grin.

She smiled back. She felt much better.

The captain was chewing hard on a cigar when she entered the office.

He stood. “Miss Merrick,” he said, “I have a detective who says he’s become personally involved with you. He should be removed from the case.”

“No,” she said.

“Are you involved with him?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It’s very much my concern. It could put you in more danger. It impairs judgment.”

“Not his. I’ll risk it.”

“The Atlanta P.D. can’t.”

“I feel safe with him. And Detective Sharman.”

“You know what you did today. You goaded a killer.”

“I know.”

Captain Haynes chomped down on his cigar. “Let’s go see if we have anything on tape.”

“Will you let Detective MacKay stay on the case?”

“I don’t know.”

He seemed to be avoiding the question she dreaded. If he did, she knew Cassidy would be taken off the case.

He stood and went to the door. “The tapes from the hospital should be ready in the conference room. The other members of the task force will also be there. They’ve interviewed employees at the hospital and might recognize someone who had no business being there.”

She nodded, relieved that the interview was over. At least temporarily.

She followed him out of the room, and he gathered Manny and MacKay, then several other detectives he introduced. Rich. Britt. Harry. And the woman she’d met coming in. Sarah.

They entered a room with a television, a blackboard filled with columns and scribbling, a bulletin board with photos pinned on it. She went over to it. Five women. Their bodies were sprawled out in what looked like alleys. They all looked the same. They were naked. A rose tied with a white ribbon rested over their left breasts. All had long blond hair.

There were computers. A man and a woman were using two of them, but they stopped when Marise came in.

“This is Miss Merrick, everyone,” Haynes said. “This is the rest of the team—at least, those who are working now. Several others worked overnight and have gone home.”

“Anything?” he asked the two.

“A dead end,” said the man at the computer as he glanced at her, then quickly looked away. “If he’s struck anywhere else, there’s no record of it. We’ve checked every large police department in the country. Now we’re working on smaller ones.”

“Keep enquiring,” Haynes said.

The door opened, and a woman entered with a handful of tapes and placed them on the table.

Haynes introduced her as an assistant district attorney who was going to sit in.

She nodded to everyone, then took a seat. “If Miss Merrick sees anything, I want her to speak up. If any of the rest of you see anything, note it and tell me later. I don’t want Miss Merrick to hear it. It could taint the case. I don’t like doing it this way, but I understand that time is of the essence.”

Haynes put the first tape into the VCR. “Settle down, ladies and gentleman. This is going to take a while.”

Marise tried to keep her eyes on the screen, though she was aware of Cassidy, who had taken a seat on the other side of the table. The captain had been right. It had taken a while.

She tried to concentrate. She studied every figure the camera captured, whether they were walking down the hall, stopping to look at the reporters going into the room, or the reporters themselves.

She had a sick feeling in her stomach. She had caused MacKay trouble. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he was taken off the case. And they didn’t seem any closer to catching the killer than they had the morning after the original attack.

They stopped after two hours for a quick break, then resumed ten minutes later.

Her eyes were glazing over. She asked several times that the captain freeze the screen, and she studied the faces and bodies of the people in the frame. Then she shook her head.

It was the third time that she hesitated.

“Anything? Anything at all, Miss Merrick?” Captain Haynes asked.

She paused, then said, “Just a feeling when I saw the man in the green scrubs. Glasses. Dark hair. But I can’t really tell you why. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just…wanting to see something.” She was frustrated. A feeling of failure—defeat—rolled through her.

“Mark it,” Haynes said. Then he started running the tape again.

It was past four when they finished. None of the detectives had said anything or indicated they recognized someone, though she noticed they occasionally made notes.

“Okay,” Captain Haynes said. “That’s it for you,” he said to Marise.

He opened the door. “Britt, take over,” he said. “Compare notes. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He led the way back to his office, Cassidy, Manny and Marise following him. He checked at the secretary’s desk, picked up several messages and leafed through them. Then he turned back to them. “I’m going to keep MacKay and Sharman assigned to you. But I need MacKay here for a while. He can rejoin your protection team later, Miss Merrick.”

“Where?” she said.

“I’ve made arrangements for a safe house. A condominium.”

“What about Detective MacKay’s house?” she asked.

He looked surprised. “It’s been compromised.”

“Isn’t that what we wanted? Don’t we want to trap him?”

“He’s come too close, Miss Merrick. I don’t like the way he’s outwitted us thus far.”

She knew it was hard for him to admit that.

“I think we should just go back to pavement-pounding police work. You’ve given us some leads now. You’ve more than done your part.”

She remembered the smashing of the window, the blood spreading out over Sam’s chest. But that was where she wanted to go. It was Cassidy’s home. And close to Manny’s. Where both men probably wanted to be. And it should be safe now. A distraction wouldn’t work again. “I would prefer Detective MacKay’s house.”

The captain hesitated, then relented. “All right. Dan will go with you and Manny Sharman. I’ll have someone in the window across the way again. MacKay, who else do you want?”

“Britt. He’s not married.”

The comment was like a blow. Sam. He had a wife. “How is Detective Preston?”

“He’s out of critical care.”

“I would like to see him.”

The captain stared at her as if she were mad. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t want you anywhere near the hospital.”

She started to protest but knew she had probably exhausted his patience already. She didn’t want him to reconsider his decision to let Cassidy stay with her. “Are you going to question the orderly?”

“Yes.”

“Can I be there?”

“No,” Haynes said. “If it goes to court, the defense could tear us apart. Neither is it going to help if the defense thinks one of our detectives has gotten too close to the victim.”

A very definite warning.

She decided not to push again.

“Oh, and Miss Merrick?”

She turned. He was thumbing through the messages he’d just picked up. “Your mother has called. So has your fiancé.”

She closed her eyes. They must have been contacted by reporters or seen something on the news. She’d avoided thinking about that. And Paul was still telling people they were engaged. She had to put a stop to that. But she didn’t want to explain. Not now. “Thank you. I’ll call them.”

“There will be more calls from the news media. I’m sure they’ll want to know where you are staying.”

“There’s no reason to tell them.”

“They might well camp out at Cassidy’s home. They know there was a shooting there. A reporter got it off a police radio.”

She hadn’t thought about that. All the neighborhood needed was to be invaded by hoards from the press. But she wanted to talk to MacKay first. “If it happens, we can move,” she said.

The captain nodded. “I’ll make the arrangements for the condo, just in case.”

“Norris wasn’t on the tape,” Cassidy said as he reentered the task force room. He had seen the man’s photo.

“No,” the captain said. “We all agree on that.”

“Who is the man Miss Merrick pointed out?”

“Beats me,” one of the detectives said. “He didn’t look familiar.”

“He’s in scrubs. Does that mean he’s a doctor?” said another.

“Let’s get our people to zoom in on him. He had an identification badge. Maybe we can get a name. If not, we can compare it with the personnel photos.”

“Okay.”

“But she still wasn’t sure whether it meant anything,” Haynes cautioned. “She didn’t know why she stopped at his photo.”

“Still, it’s more than we had before, and he obviously tried to stay out of sight of the cameras.”

“We really don’t have anything,” one of the detectives said.

“And time is running out,” Cassidy said. “She’s leaving in three days.”

Silence.

“We’ll bring in Norris and question him. Maybe we’ll get lucky. MacKay, I want you there. You know more about this case than anyone.”

Cassidy hesitated. He didn’t like being away from Marise. But Manny would be there. Dan and Britt were also good men. And it shouldn’t be for more than a few hours. He would get a sense quickly whether Norris was their man, whether or not they could get the evidence needed to indict him, or even to obtain a search warrant. They certainly didn’t have it yet.

And he was having second thoughts about returning to his home. Still, it had all the advantages it had before, and now the neighborhood would be far more alert. They would be on the lookout next time.

Was it Marise or instinct that unsettled him?

“Norris is at the hospital,” Haynes said. “Sarah, you and Rich pick him up. I want MacKay to watch him for a while before going in the interview room. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a lawyer.”

“If he’s our man, he’ll sure request his rights.”

“Then, we’ll know,” Haynes said. “MacKay, come into my office.”

Cassidy followed him inside.

“Maybe we can get this wrapped up tonight,” Haynes said.

“I don’t believe in that kind of gift,” Cassidy said. “I read the stuff on Norris. Other than being a loner and the lone conviction, nothing else fits. He’s not bright enough to be our guy.”

“This is one time I hope you’re wrong.”

“Me, too,” Cassidy said as he restlessly paced the office. “But I think we should make copies of the picture of the man that Marise pointed out, and have our people check the hospital.”

“We’re doing that now.”

“He’s the right height. Wrong color hair, though. She’d said she thought it was dark.” Cassidy knew he was babbling like a rookie. He couldn’t suppress the worry clamoring inside him. Even the rising panic. It wasn’t a good idea for Marise to return to his house. He wished now he’d vetoed it.

He kept telling himself that Manny wouldn’t let anything happen to her, wouldn’t take any chances.

The captain was watching him.

“Is there anything more you want to tell me?” Haynes said.

“No,” Cassidy said. He was confused by the way Haynes phrased the question. It left him an out without lying. So for one of the first times in his life he skimmed over the truth.

He just didn’t trust anyone else with Marise’s safety. The killer was extraordinarily shrewd and clever, and obviously familiar with police work.

“Have we checked to see whether any of the hospital employees has ever had police training?” he asked.

“No,” Haynes said. “We were searching for criminal records.”

“Let’s add that search,” he said. “Also whether they had any connection with a police department in the past. Could be in Information Services.”

Haynes picked up the phone and added that search to the list of hospital employees.

“Nothing among our own?”

Haynes shook his head. “We’ve fine-combed the records, particularly those who have joined the department the past two years. Nothing in their pasts. We deleted those who were on duty in other parts of the city during the time of the attacks. We’re asking the others for alibis, but no one believes anything will show up there.”

“That brings us back to the hospital.”

“We’ve found a few criminal records but, other than Norris, nothing in the sex offender area. Most happened years ago, and the hospital authorities were aware of them.”

“So we’re back to Norris.”

“And the mystery man on the tape.”

Haynes hesitated, then asked, “What does your gut tell you?”

“That Norris isn’t our man.”

“It’ll be interesting if you feel that way after we question him.”

Despite the violence that had occurred in Cassidy’s house just days earlier, Marise felt comfortable. His presence was everywhere.

Manny told her to keep away from the windows, and the new detective looked through the house. They checked the telephone for listening devices.

Routine, they told her.

It wasn’t routine to her.

She knew she should call Seattle. Her mother would be frantic. So would Paul.

She finally lifted the telephone and dialed her mother’s cell phone.

Cara Merrick answered on the first ring.

“Thank God,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Your cell phone’s been off. We’ve been inundated by the press. It’s really terrific publicity. I’m getting calls from everyone. Especially from promoters and prospective sponsors. They are very interested in you and Paul. One’s even talking about a television special.”

Marise stood there stunned. She had expected censure. Disapproval. Worry.

It took her a moment to adjust. She should have realized. Her career had always been her mother’s principle concern.

“I have plenty of protection,” she announced coolly.

There was a pause. Then, in a less exuberant voice, her mother asked, “You are all right? I was assured…”

“Yes,” she said, telling herself not to feel guilty. She was tired of feeling guilty.

“Are you still going to be here Thursday?”

“Yes,” Marise said. “I’ve already told everyone—”

“I’ll set a press conference for seven that evening,” her mother said. “Make sure you’re here by then.”

Rebellion started to foment inside Marise. “You had better wait on that,” she said. “And Mother, tell Paul to stop telling people we are engaged. We’re not. We never will be.”

There was a pause, then her mother said, “I think you had better tell him that yourself, Marise.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, and softly replaced the phone in the cradle. Grief and anger both cut her with their sharp edges. She felt like an object to be sold. There had been no questions about how she felt. Whether she was in danger.

She had worried about them flying down to be at her side. Now, conversely, she was hurt that her mother, at least, had no intention of doing so. It didn’t make sense, and she wondered whether it was due to her bewildering emotions. Or perhaps that was always a part of letting go of a substantial part of your life. A divorce must always be a combination of hurt and anger and relief.

What she was contemplating could be construed as a divorce.

She went to her room and looked at the cell phone she’d left at Cassidy’s home. She turned it on and returned to the living room, stopping at the photos. None of Cassidy. None of his former wife. She wondered—and not for the first time—what she was like. And how she could possibly leave someone like Cassidy MacKay.

Cassidy was so easy to be with.

He was also in a dangerous line of work. Could she sit night after night wondering whether he would come home? Whether she might get a phone call or a visit from the captain, the way Sam’s wife had?

Were the emotions, the feelings, she had with him—the extraordinary bond that seemed to link them—worth the agony of loss?

But then, she was only supposing. He’d never mentioned love. Never mentioned permanence.

The phone rang, and Manny picked it up.

She saw the concern that etched his face as he listened. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.” He hung up. “Joey saw you arrive. She wondered if she could come over with my wife. She’s bringing some food.”

“There’s no school?”

“It’s teacher’s day. They have meetings at the school.”

“I would love to see her,” Marise said. She’d really liked the precocious little girl who was so full of questions.

Manny frowned.

She suddenly understood. “You think…”

“I just think it’s better that Joey stay away.”

Her stomach churned. “Of course,” she said.

“My wife, though, is going to bring over dinner. Joey will stay with a neighbor.”

Marise hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “But is it safe for her?”

“She’ll just be here a moment. And she’ll be in sight of our watchers most of the way.”

Marise wanted to go to the window and watch. She wondered whether she could ever look out a window again without flinching. The anger she’d felt earlier at the press conference started building again.

No one had the right to deprive someone else of such a simple pleasure.

“How did you meet?” she asked Manny.

“High school sweethearts,” he said. “Neither of us ever dated anyone else. We got married right after graduation.”

“Was it hard?”

He shrugged. “At first. I always wanted to be a policeman, but I was too young. I went to Georgia State to study criminology, and we both worked. She has a real head for figures. She quit when we had Joey but she still does some accounting and taxes for small businesses. And members of the police department,” he added.

She sounded like super woman to Marise. Good wife, good cook, good mother. Marise felt a sudden stab of envy.

She was a terrible cook, and she had neither home nor children. Nor someone to love and to love her.

She went to the compact disc player and looked through his selection. She’d thought Manny might have been kidding the other day when he’d said Cassidy liked opera. It was obvious from his collection that he did. And jazz. Both traditional and progressive. Easy listening. Classical. Some Irish music: jigs and folk songs. Even some Irish drinking songs.

A man of many tastes, just as he was of many skills. He would never be boring.

She smiled at the thought.

The doorbell rang and Manny answered it.

Janie Sharman smiled at her as she handed a dish to Manny. “I wanted to thank you. Joey was thrilled about your giving her your number. She’s promised not to abuse it, but she’s written it down in several places and carries it with her wherever she goes. A real bragging point.”

“And I’m glad to get the chance to thank you for the spaghetti the other night.”

“They’ve been starving you, huh?”

“Not exactly. Chili dogs, pizzas and…”

“Corn beef hash, I know. Typical male last resort. I brought some lasagna and salad.”

Marise saw more calories coming. At this rate, Paul wouldn’t want her as a partner. He wouldn’t be able to lift her.

But she was hungry. She hadn’t had anything since breakfast this morning. “Thank you. It smells wonderful.”

“Where’s Cass?”

“Down at headquarters,” Manny said, returning from the kitchen. “He’ll be back later.”

“I saw you on television. You were great.”

“I was angry.”

“I could tell,” Janie said. “I understand how you got the best of him. At first, you looked so small…” She looked down at her own body with a regretful expression on her face. She was plump but pleasantly so, and had a pretty face and lovely, calm gray eyes.

“I’m a lot stronger than I look,” Marise said. “I have to know how to move fast.”

“Well, I hope you find him.” She paused, then said. “I have to go back home. I have a costume I’m working on.”

“For Joey?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to see it. And Joey. She’s a joy.”

“Just don’t let her hear you say that,” Janie said with a chuckle. “You’ll never get rid of her.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Marise said. In fact, she thought it was exactly what she needed. She didn’t want to think about this morning, or roses, or killers.

Janie had reached the door. Marise saw her gratitude. But it wasn’t Janie who should be grateful. It was Marise.

Normalcy.

What a nice thought.

Chapter 16

The lasagna and salad were wonderful. Marise and Manny ate together with one of the other officers, and she thought it was so good it was sinful. Another couple of pounds she would have to work off.

For a moment she thought wistfully of running, but after the other morning, that was out of the question. Other exercises would have to do, instead.

When they finished eating, they went back into the living room.

Her cell phone rang.

“Hi,” Joey said.

“Hi,” she replied.

“I wanted to come over and see you but Daddy said I shouldn’t.” She sounded immensely grown up.

“Your daddy is right. But I’ll see you soon.”

“I won a gold medal last night. I wanted to show it to you.”

“That’s wonderful,” Marise said, truly pleased. “I wish I’d been there.”

“I want to be in the Olympics,” Joey said.

Marise tried to be as honest as she could. “It means giving up a lot. Your family life is disrupted. You need the right coach and have to move to his training facility. You practice for hours every morning and afternoon between school work. You have to watch your diet.”

“Dad would never let me move somewhere without him,” Joey said.

“And that is a good thing,” Marise said. “I would trade my career for a dad like that any day.”

“What happened to your dad?”

“He was killed in an automobile accident when I was very young. So was my brother,” she said. Strangely enough, the words came more easily. More matter-of-fact. Yet she knew the dark guilt still lay in waiting, deep chasms that continued to haunt her. She wondered whether they would ever go away. Whether the sickening dread that always accompanied memories or reminders would ever recede.

“I still think it would be awesome to go to the Olympics.”

“I think it would be awesome, too,” Marise said.

“I hope you win.”

“Hey, I haven’t even qualified yet.”

“But you will,” Joey said with the confidence of the young and untried. “Can I call you when you win the Nationals?”

“Of course. You can call me any time now that you have the number.”

A pause. Then she asked, “Do you ever fall?”

“Oh, yes,” Marise replied. “Four years ago, Paul and I medaled in the Nationals and were practicing for the Olympics. A rough piece of ice threw him off balance and I started to fall. He tried to protect me and fell himself, injuring his ankle. We had to withdraw. So this one is very important to him.”

“To you, too?” Joey asked, sounding curious.

The girl was intuitive. Too intuitive. But it was important to her. Not as important as to Paul. But important. She told herself that. But then, why did she feel she would miss this more. This. Home. Family.

“Me, too,” she assured her.

“What countries have you competed in?” Joey asked.

“Japan. France. Germany. Hungary. Norway. Russia. Canada.”

“That must be wonderful,” Joey said.

“There’s not much time for sight-seeing.” That had always been another of her regrets: never having time to explore the wide boulevards or eat in small cafés, or taste the chocolates or freshly cooked pastries and loaves of bread hot from the oven.

From the time her father died, and her mother had started pouring all her emotional and financial resources into Marise’s career, she had felt obligated to succeed. To never miss a moment when she could be practicing, to watch her diet, to make up for her mother’s losses, to catch that brass ring that had eluded her parents but which had continued to be their life’s goal through their children.

Marise tried to wipe away the sudden melancholy. She’d had an extraordinary life and extraordinary experiences. And she did love skating. When it went well, there was a joy and exultation that little could equal. The outburst of spontaneous applause, Paul’s hug when they completed a flawless program…all moments to cherish. Then, why was she so restless?

“Daddy taped one of my competitions. Maybe you can look at it and tell me what I’ve done wrong.”

“I would love to.”

“That’s cool,” Joey said. “Well, I should go…”

Marise smiled to herself as she said goodbye.

She went into the kitchen. Manny was reading a newspaper. “I just talked to Joey. She’s still determined to be a skater.”

Manny looked up and grinned. “A few months ago she wanted to be a doctor, and before that a policeman.” He paused. “Did you ever want to be anything other than a skater?”

She sat down in a chair. “Oh, I wanted to be an orchestra conductor, a cowgirl, even a teacher.”

They settled into an easy conversation. She wondered where Cassidy was, particularly as minutes turned into an hour.

Cassidy’s phone rang, and Manny picked it up. She watched as his face paled. He hung up.

“Joey’s missing,” he said.

Norris wasn’t their guy.

Cassidy had known it almost immediately. He’d stood outside the interview room, watching through the one way window.

Norris wasn’t smart enough, or clever enough, or savvy enough. He had a dazed look after being confronted at the hospital, and had meekly agreed to come downtown. He hadn’t even asked for an attorney.

He had reluctantly admitted to being a convicted sex offender, and had looked completely horrified at the thought of being considered a possible suspect in the Rose Murder case. He’d readily agreed to having his apartment searched, and said he’d never been anywhere near the hospital that morning.

He just wanted to live a normal life, he kept saying as tears welled in his eyes. He was terrified of losing his job.

Cassidy went into the room and played the role of a bully. He usually did it well, but now he felt like someone kicking a puppy. He didn’t like sex offenders, but for some reason this guy really did seem as if he was trying to get his life on track.

He left the room and talked to Haynes. “He’s not our man.”

“You sure?”

“I’m never sure about anything. But I would bet my house on it.”

Haynes shook his head in disgust. “What now?”

“Let’s look at everyone who knows Norris. He probably has a small circle of acquaintances.”

“You think someone set him up.”

“I’m wondering if, like the victims, he presented an opportunity. We still haven’t received anything from other cities. What if our perp started here? Wouldn’t you start with a pro, someone no one would miss or care much about?”

“A virgin killer?”

“But not for long. Once he got a taste of it—”

Cassidy’s cell phone rang. He looked at it. Few people had his number. He looked at Haynes, who nodded. He answered.

Manny’s voice was ragged. “Joey’s missing.”

Cassidy’s heart dropped. “How? When?”

“About forty minutes ago. She was staying with a friend of hers and apparently decided she had to see Marise. She left their house, and her friend didn’t tell her own mother that Joey hadn’t gone home until Janie called. Janie’s looked everywhere. Joey’s just disappeared.”

Cassidy didn’t even try to make him feel better or pretend there was another explanation. He knew Joey. If she said she was going to see Marise, then she would have gone straight there.

“I’ll put an all-points out on her,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

As he hung up, he turned around and told Haynes the news in a clipped tone.

“I’ll have units converge on the area,” Haynes said.

“Tell them to look for a dark sedan. A white male and child.”

“That’s a quarter of Atlanta.”

“I know,” Cassidy said, “but it’s still worth a try. We might get lucky.”

“We’ll have to call in the FBI. It’s a kidnapping.”

“We’re not sure of that yet. She’s just been missing an hour. And if she has been taken by our killer, he might be using her to get to Merrick. To make the point that he’s powerful. There will be a call. Give us a few hours. If the feds take over, we might never see Joey again.”

Haynes knew Joey, too. They all knew each other’s families. They had been to weddings and births and funerals together.

“How would he have known about Manny’s daughter?”

“I don’t know. He might have a police radio, known that Manny and I were protecting Miss Merrick. It would be easy then to research his family.”

“But grabbing her in the neighborhood? He must know we had people there.”

“We had people looking after Marise, not Joey. I’ve got to get over there. Manny’s going to be crazy.”

“You have one hour before I call the feds,” the captain said. “In the meantime, I’m sending our tech people out there to wire the phones.”

Cassidy put the siren on top of the car and roared out of the parking lot.

It took Cassidy exactly twenty minutes to reach the house. Two other police cars were out front. He showed two officers in front his badge and entered the kitchen. An ashen Janie was sitting at the table, one hand held by Manny.

Marise looked every bit as stricken. “It’s my fault,” she said.

Manny shook his head. He was pale. He looked as if he’d aged twenty years. He said, “No, it’s not.”

“Go home,” Cassidy told them. “He might call.”

“Teddy Walford is there. He’ll let me know.” Walford, Cassidy knew, was a neighbor and commander with the fire department. “Uniforms are checking the neighborhood,” Manny added.

“Have you looked?”

“No, I thought it could be another…diversion. And I thought I should be here if Joey came. I keep thinking she stopped at someone else’s house. She knows everyone. Maybe she wanted one of her friends to meet Marise…”

“Anyone see anything?”

“That’s the thing. No one saw anything. If it is our man, he’s a phantom. And how would he know about Joey?”

“The police radio,” Cassidy said. “Joey’s been over before. Your name has been mentioned.”

Manny stared at him.

“And who else could lure Joey without creating a disturbance? No one would think twice about seeing a police car or one of our unmarked cars in the neighborhood, especially now with everything that has been going on.”

“One of ours?” Manny said.

“You always knew it was a possibility,” Cassidy said. “Or it could be someone with a police radio and who knows police procedure.”

Manny’s face crumpled. Cassidy knew Manny’s panic. He wasn’t like Cassidy. He didn’t live for his job. He lived for his wife and daughter. But the knowledge that one of their own could have done something like this twisted the knife.

Marise, he noticed, had retreated to a wall and was leaning against it as if it were the only thing holding her up.

Cassidy ached for Manny and Janie. Marise, too. Janie looked as if she were about to fall apart; Manny, as if his heart had just been ripped out; and Marise as if the world had just blown up and it was all her fault. And he ached for himself. Joey was as dear to him as his own child. She was, in fact, probably the closest thing to a daughter he would ever have.

“Manny, you should be with Janie, and Janie needs to be home in case Joey shows up. Maybe she was just diverted by a friend, and she’ll call,” Cassidy said. He was trying to tamp down his rage. Rage wouldn’t do any good. And if what he believed was happening was true, he needed to think rationally. “Dan and Britt are here, as well as uniformed officers.”

Manny shook his head. “You know—” He stopped, looked at Janie’s face, where there was a glimmer of hope. He nodded. “I’ll call you if I hear anything.” He fixed his gaze on Cassidy. “And you call me if you hear anything. Anything at all…”

“I will, buddy.”

Manny looked shattered. Cassidy knew his friend would be useless now. Hell, Cassidy probably was, too. It was his goddaughter.

“He’ll be in contact,” he tried to reassure Manny who seemed unable to move. “Soon. He won’t be able to help himself.”

“What about the feds?” Dan asked.

“The captain gave us an hour. It’ll take them another hour to get here.”

Janie had been listening. She stood with Manny and grabbed his hand in a death grip. “Why a child?”

“It was the only way to get to me,” Marise broke in. Her voice was raw and her eyes were red.

Cassidy went over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s not your fault,” he said, echoing Manny.

“If I hadn’t insisted on doing that press conference…”

“We’ll find her,” Cassidy said. “But I think it’s a good idea to alert the captain that a department car might be involved.”

He could do it, but he thought it might help Manny if he were the one to make the call. His friend needed to do something.

Manny phoned Haynes. “Cassidy thinks we should consider the use of a marked or unmarked police car. Joey…would never get into a car with a stranger. She might do it if she thought it was an officer.”

He mumbled something over the phone, then hung up.

“How could he know Joey would be here?” he asked.

“Perhaps another opportunity. He might well have been driving by and saw her leave the house. Or,” he said, “he might have gained access to the police radio. He would know about Joey and could have been waiting for her. No one’s been watching your house.”

They should have, he thought. He should have anticipated this. He’d never felt so useless. And he knew Marise’s guilt. Hers was undeserved. She had done what was asked of her.

If anything, he was responsible. He had urged her to stay. He had consistently underestimated the killer.

He had left his goddaughter exposed.

He followed Manny and Janie to the door and watched them leave. Manny’s shoulders were slumped, his head bowed. Janie was hanging on to his hand as if it were a lifeline.

He turned. Marise looked at him. Her eyes were shadowed and swollen.

Dan was across the room. Britt was in the other room with officers, coordinating the search.

Cassidy went over to Marise and brushed a strand of hair from her face. His hand touched her cheek and felt the dampness.

It was a silent grief. He hadn’t seen her cry before. Not ever for herself. Now she cried for a child.

“Don’t even consider that it’s your fault. You haven’t done anything we didn’t ask you to do.”

“It should have been me. I must have said something—”

The phone rang. They both went silent.

Dan looked at them. “We don’t have the equipment installed.”

“Probably someone from headquarters,” he said. But he knew it wasn’t. They would have used his cell phone number.

He walked to the phone and picked it up. “MacKay,” he said.

Nothing. Except breathing. Then a child’s voice. “Uncle Hoppy—”

The connection went dead.

He swore. No voice. He looked at the caller ID that he used to foil solicitation calls. He called the number back. It rang and rang.

Then he called the department to find out who had the number. He held on as they looked and discovered it was a pay phone at a service station.

Maybe their killer had made a mistake. If he used a public phone, someone must have seen him.

So had Joey.

The killer couldn’t let her live.

Cassidy ran to his car. He might be able to reach the service station before a patrol car and he wanted to make sure no evidence was destroyed.

Marise had protection. But Joey. Dear God, Joey.

Marise watched Cassidy reach his car and drive off with tires squealing.

She felt superfluous. Manny was with his wife, Janie. Groups of officers were huddling together over the phones. She was the outsider. Even more than an outsider—the cause. If they didn’t think so, she did.

She carried her purse into the bedroom, away from the scene in which she felt so much the intruder, the onlooker. She tossed it on the chest and sat down on the bed. Then she heard her cell phone ring.

She took it from where it was charging, and viewed it as if it were a snake. As the ringing continued, she clicked it on and held it to her ear.

“Miss Merrick?” the voice asked.

It was a strange-sounding voice. Muffled. She knew immediately why.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I missed your press conference this morning. I caught it on television, though.”

The disembodied voice sent shivers through her. It had been changed electronically. She knew that. She also knew she should go into the living room, signal to Dan Kelley. But something kept her here. She was afraid that if she moved, if he suspected she talked to anyone else, he would kill Joey.

“Where’s Joey?”

“Are you alone, Marise?” His use of her name increased the tremors. There was an insinuated intimacy about it.

“Yes. Where’s Joey?”

“She is such a pretty little girl.”

“I want to talk to her.” Marise knew that whoever was calling had the child. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have this number. The number she had given Joey.

“I don’t think so. She’s…speechless right now.” A mannish giggle.

“Then, I’ll hang up.” She didn’t know if what she was doing was right or wrong. She should go into the other room. Get professional help. Call Joey’s father. Yet she felt deep inside that she was the key to Joey’s life.

She had two deaths on her conscience. She couldn’t bear a third.

“I want to watch you skate,” the voice said. “For me.”

“Where?”

“Is anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Which room are you in? I want to picture you there.”

She felt as if a snake were crawling up her back.

“The bedroom.”

“Are you dressed, Marise?”

“Yes.”

“They know young Joey is missing?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it would take longer. Too bad. It means you have to sneak out of there. If you want her to live.”

“Why should I trust you? Particularly when you won’t put her on the phone.”

“You know I have this number. How could I have it if I don’t have the young lady?”

Marise’s heart pounded so loudly that she thought he could hear it. Her throat was dry.

“If you tell them, your young friend will die.”

“How do you know—?”

“I know everything.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you. I want to see you skate.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you where. When I know you are alone.”

She was silent.

“There’s a pay telephone at a convenience store four blocks away. Take a right at the next block, then another right. You will run into it.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Find one, Marise. Or you can run. You are very good at running. But you had better be there in fifteen minutes. Or Joey dies.”

The phone went dead. A number showed on her display.

She didn’t know what to do. Part of her knew she should march into the other room and tell the police gathered there. She should tell Manny.

If you tell them, your young friend will die. The words kept echoing in her mind.

You can’t let it happen again.

She checked the drawer of the table beside the bed where she’d seen Cassidy put a pistol after their trip to the cabin. It was locked, but she knew where he kept the key. She found it at the bottom of a chest drawer and opened it. She took the gun out, along with the ammunition box that lay next to it.

She held it in her hand.

After a second, she loaded the gun, then tucked it in the waistband of her slacks. At the back. Would her nemesis look there?

She wished she had a recorder of some kind, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t make any difference, anyway. If she lived through this, she could testify herself. She had to make sure that she did.

She looked down at her watch. Two minutes since he’d called. He’d said she had fifteen. She used her phone to call Cassidy. He didn’t answer his cell phone. She then called police headquarters and asked for him. No one knew where he was.

She quickly wrote a note explained that she was to be at a public telephone at a convenience store, but that the killer had said he wanted to see her skate. She added that the kidnapper said he would kill Joey if he saw anyone with her. She couldn’t take that chance. But she would call Cassidy as soon as she received the instructions. She taped the note to the bathroom mirror.

Marise looked down at her watch. Nine o’clock.

She went into the other room. Several other police cars had arrived—uniformed and plainclothes detectives. No one was paying attention to her. She walked into the kitchen and selected a knife from the cabinet. No one followed her. She slipped outside, looked in every direction. Someone should be watching from a window nearby. He would see her. Or maybe not—it was dark.

He couldn’t watch both the front and back of the house at the same time. A fifty-fifty chance. She purposely kept to the shadows, praying she wouldn’t be too late.

There was a sweater at the phone booth. Joey’s sweater.

Police cars had been sent to the location. Cassidy arrived just as they did. He got out and showed his badge, then carefully surveyed the scene. A sweater lay on the ledge. The receiver had not been replaced. It hung from the metal cord.

He asked one of the officers for a glove, then checked the sweater. A note was tucked inside. “Too late,” it said.

He swore. The killer was playing games with them.

He told the officers to guard the crime scene until the forensics people arrived. Then he remembered the explosion.

Was this another diversion?

He felt for his cell phone and realized it was in the car. He had to call the captain. He quickly strode over to it.

A number blinked. He recognized it immediately. Marise’s cell number.

He punched the numbers, then waited. No one answered.

He called his own number.

Manny picked it up. “Yes?”

“Manny?”

“Cass, Marise is gone. Dan said she just disappeared. I came over here in case the…kidnapper called here. Janie’s at home to answer if anyone calls there.” Manny hesitated, then asked, “Did you find out anything about Joey?”

The pain and fear was thick in Manny’s voice.

“There was a note at the phone booth. It said, ‘Too late.’ I’m sorry, Manny.”

“Yeah.” Silence. Then Manny said roughly, “Find Marise, Cass.”

Cassidy heard another voice break in.

“She left a note,” Frank said. “Britt found it on the mirror.” He read it aloud.

Cassidy closed his eyes. So, the call to him had been a red herring.

And Marise had gone to meet a madman to try to save a child.

Chapter 17

She had bested the killer before. She could do it again. Marise kept telling herself that as she jogged toward the convenience store. She suspected the public phone location was in the opposite direction to the origin of the first call.

When would Cassidy return?

She wanted him. She wanted him the way she wanted air to breathe. She wanted his assurance and his experience and his warmth. He would take the fear away.

She clutched her purse. The kitchen knife was inside. If the killer got that close, he would think he had found her one weapon. She hoped he would, anyway.

She looked at her watch. Two more minutes. The convenience store came into sight. And the pay phone was outside.

Three cars in front. Was one of them the killer’s?

She heard the ringing just as she reached the booth. She picked up the phone as she glanced around.

“Very good, Marise,” said the same weird voice. “I didn’t see anyone with you, but I’m sure you have a shadow. Maybe even a tracer.”

“You want me, not a child,” she said, hating the plea in her voice.

“But the child is the key to you,” he said. “And she is very pretty. Maybe I have been missing something.”

Marise felt sick. She was way out of her depth. She wanted to twist around and touch the pistol for reassurance, but that wouldn’t do.

“Are you alone, Marise?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

She had no answer to that. She knew there was such a thing as protesting too much.

“Did you tell anyone I wanted to see you skate?”

“No. I was afraid you would hurt the child.”

“Smart lady. Do you have a phone with you?”

She hesitated.

“Don’t lie to me, or your friend will die.”

“Yes.”

“Leave it on the ledge beneath the pay phone.”

She didn’t know if he was watching. She hesitated. “Not until I hear Joey’s voice.”

“She’s sleeping.”

Apprehension crept down her spine.

“Oh, she still lives. But she’s tucked in a safe place. At least, safe if I get back in time.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you. I want to see you skate. For me. Just for me.”

“Where?”

“A place called the Ice Chalet.”

“I…I don’t have a car.”

“That’s all right. I’ve called a cab. It should be there any moment.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“There’s a fifty-dollar bill taped under the ledge. Now, aren’t you impressed with my planning?”

She’d read a lot, but she’d always avoided serial killer books. Any and all of them. She had no idea what to say. To goad, to pacify, to flatter or admire. Why had she started this? Why hadn’t she waited for Cassidy?

Because the killer wouldn’t wait. Because being trailed by a mob of people would mean Joey’s death.

A cab to an ice rink. How much more bizarre—sick—could this get? Or would he be the cabdriver? Driving a cab she might never leave? Yet she had no choice. “I don’t have skates or anything to wear—”

“What you are wearing now is fine, and you can rent skates. I want you to do those spins, and a double axel and one of those triple lutz.”

He’d been reading. But not enough. She suspected he wouldn’t know a triple lutz if he saw one. But he wanted to control her, make her do his bidding because she had humiliated him. She understood that.

She also knew he would be at the rink. If she could contact the police, then they would have him. Her taunt earlier in the day had produced results. But would she and Joey live through them?

The pistol she’d so resisted touching felt good in the small of her back.

Hope started swirling inside her.

Just then a cab drove up. She looked around. Had anyone found her message yet?

She glanced at the cabbie. He was a young black man. Music blared from the radio. She felt momentary relief.

“You the one going to the skating rink?” he asked.

She’d made her decision. “Yes.”

Cassidy’s phone rang.

“We have a possible,” Haynes said. “We’ve sent some detectives to question him.”

Cassidy broke in. “We’ve lost Marise Merrick.”

“Lost? How in the hell did you lose her?”

“She apparently received a phone call, and our perp threatened to kill Joey.”

“And everyone just sat around and watched her stroll out?”

“No one saw her go.”

“A houseful of detectives and no one saw her leave?”

Cassidy knew it sounded ridiculous, but didn’t respond to that. “We have a lead. She said he wants to see her skate. We need people at every skating rink in metro Atlanta.”

“I’ll get them there. What about you?”

“I’m going to the nearest one…Ice Chalet. Manny’s daughter skates there.”

“I’ll send squad cars.”

“Better send undercover people.”

Cassidy hung up and stepped on the gas. He used his police light as he threaded through traffic, his heart pounding. Haynes said they had a possible—a suspect—but not in custody. And now Marise was in terrible danger. She was his first priority.

Dammit, he should never have let her out of his sight. He should have known she would follow her heart rather than…

Gallant. That was the only word for her.

And foolish, thinking she could somehow trap a killer who had already eluded the police over and over again.

Ten minutes. Fifteen. Then he squealed up to the building. The parking lot was full. He wheeled in, parked on a grassy spot, ran inside. His gaze took in everything. Onlookers standing around or sitting in a small stand on the other side of the rink.

He saw her. She was just entering the rink, anonymous in her jeans and shirt.

He breathed easier. He was in time. He watched as Marise skated around the ice. Her own gaze roamed. He knew it the moment she saw him. Her eyes widened but she continued as if she didn’t see him.

He forced his eyes away from her. He studied every man in the building. Some looked like doting fathers. Some looked impatient. A few young guys watched young girls. Boyfriends?

No one looked suspicious. If their suspect was here, he was a chameleon.

Cassidy turned back to the ice. Skaters were moving to the side, as she spun, then did a leap of some kind. Everyone’s eyes were on her as she skated and whirled and jumped. He had never seen anything so graceful, so completely perfect.

She looked as if she were skating for her life.

For Joey’s life.

She completed her routine and came to a stop. Her eyes met his, panicked.

Then he saw several couples entering the building that he recognized. Detectives. Without being obvious, they stationed themselves at the exits. He doubted that anyone else noticed.

He held out his hand. Marise skated over to him and took it, as applause echoed throughout the rink. Then slowly, the other skaters returned to the ice.

Cassidy held her hand tightly. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Do you think he’s here?”

“No,” he said.

“Then, why?”

His eyes feasted on her. Her fingers had wound around his, holding tight. For a moment, time stopped. His relief was so profound, his heart beating so hard, his senses so impacted that he felt paralyzed.

A shout at the door. He wanted to go over there, but he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. He wasn’t going to leave her.

As if she read his mind, she disengaged her hand and skated over to an exit. Quickly, she untied the skates and stepped out of them. In socks, she took his hand and together they ran over to the door.

A man was bending over a child who had been placed on a bench. Another man, a girl of about six at his side, was standing toward the end of the bench. Other patrons had started to gather around.

Joey. Even as his hand held on to Marise’s, Cassidy leaned down and touched her face. It was warm. He could hear her soft breathing. Relief flooded him.

“How is she?” he asked the man kneeling beside her, doing all the things that a doctor did.

The man looked at him. “Her heartbeat is a little slow but regular. I think she has been drugged. Do you know her?”

“Yes,” Cassidy said. “She’s my godchild.” He touched her forehead, pushing back her bangs. For the second time in minutes, he said a prayer of thanks.

He stood up and showed his badge. “Does anyone here know what happened?”

“Theresa found her in the back seat of my car,” said the man with the small girl. “I thought she might just have just gotten tired, found an unlocked car and crawled in.”

Drugged. The killer was telling them that he could reach Marise anywhere. Any time.

Her fingers tightened around his. She had obviously reached the same conclusion.

But something else was more important at the moment. He extracted his fingers and reached for his cell phone and called Manny. “She’s safe. We have her. She was drugged but apparently nothing worse.”

He heard Manny’s prayerful “Thank God.”

“Hold on,” Cassidy said. He looked down at the man kneeling next to Joey. “You are…”

“Dr. Al Markum,” he said.

“Can you talk to her father?”

The doctor took the phone. “An ambulance has been called,” he said. “She’ll go to City Hospital.”

After a few seconds, Cassidy heard the doctor reply, “You’re welcome. I’ll stay with her.” He hung up.

Then came sirens. Med techs came running in, received information from the doctor, did their own brief examination, then loaded Joey on a stretcher.

“We should go with her,” Marise said. “If she wakes…”

He agreed. His badge would get them on board. He was not going to leave Marise alone again. But first he talked to the other officers. They were to check everyone who left the rink. Not, he thought, that they would find anything. He doubted the killer had ever come inside.

He looked at Marise and thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. It wasn’t just the surface beauty that was astonishing but the character that lay beneath it. The compassion, the courage.

She ran and retrieved her shoes, then joined him at the ambulance. She climbed up, shoes in her hand, and he followed, both of them retreating to a corner, as the technicians busied themselves over Joey’s still inert body.

The call came late that night at Cassidy’s house. A voice, again electronically masked, asked for Marise.

She was awake, drinking coffee, relating everything that had happened for the fifth time. Manny and his wife were at the hospital. Security had been heightened. Two police cars were outside the front door. A team of officers patrolled the backyard.

Why, she wondered, hadn’t the killer tried to take her at the phone booth?

He probably wasn’t anywhere close, Cassidy had explained. He probably didn’t think she would go there alone.

That she would be foolish enough to do so. The unspoken words hung in the air. Cassidy had not been happy with her. That had been obvious on the trip to the hospital and back.

But the ringing of the phone shoved that thought away.

“Keep him talking as long as you can,” Cassidy said as he handed it to her. At least, it was tapped now.

“Did you like my little present?” the voice said.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I’m not interested in little girls. They are…innocent. Not like you. You use people. Then betray them. I know everything about bitches like you.” His words had taken on a wild tone, even through whatever he used to disguise them.

She didn’t say anything.

“I just wanted to let you know you were wrong. I am not a coward. And I can find you anyplace. Any time. You will be mine. I want you to think about that.”

The phone went dead.

She was supposed to be going home tomorrow. No, later today. It was close to dawn and she still hadn’t gotten any sleep.

She wondered whether she would ever sleep again.

Last evening had been analyzed, and analyzed again. There was a weird sense to it if you considered the acts had been committed by a madman.

She had taunted him. He was taunting her.

It was obvious to all that Joey had just been another opportunity. Unplanned. He’d probably been driving by in a car that looked like an unmarked police vehicle and saw her running between the houses.

Joey had remembered very little when she gained consciousness an hour after arriving at the hospital. She’d seen the car pass her, but had paid no attention to it. Suddenly she had been seized from behind, blindfolded and forced into a vehicle. It had been so quick.

A phone had been put to her mouth, and she was told to ask for her father. Instead, she’d recognized Cassidy’s voice. She knew she’d said something but didn’t remember what. Then she’d felt a sharp sting. That was the last she recalled.

Drugs again. Another link to the hospital.

The newest suspect had been off duty. He was reportedly taking an emergency medical leave because of an illness in the family. He had not been at home. Officers were doing an extensive background check. They’d already discovered that he had been a member of an auxiliary sheriff’s unit in Memphis. He would know police procedure. But he had no record of any kind.

The auxiliary element raised all sorts of flags, according to Cassidy. The suspect would know police calls, operation of a police radio, and more. He had been a lab technician in Atlanta for the past six years and had had the same job previously in Memphis. He had a good record at both jobs.

But he was also a bachelor and was considered to be a loner.

Cassidy believed he came closer to their profile than anyone else so far.

But their only real link was the man’s casual friendship with the first suspect. Not enough for a search warrant.

Detectives, though, had been dispatched to find him.

Marise had listened to it all. The voice on the phone, though, still chilled her through and through. She wondered whether the sound of it would ever fade from her mind.

She rose from the bar stool where she’d been sitting. Light was filtering through the windows. She was tired. But she had decisions to make.

The killer had made it clear that he intended to stalk her. She would be no more safe in Seattle than she would be here. And if she went, she could bring danger to her mother. And others. How could she forget the explosion? Or Joey?

They had been lucky. Joey could have died tonight. Would have, if the killer had not wanted to make a point.

Marise knew she represented something to the killer. She’d sat through several sessions with Cassidy about serial killers. Something set them off and they couldn’t stop killing, but the target usually represented something to them. A mother. A lover who had spurned him. A woman who had humiliated him.

Could she just return to her old life now? The Sectionals. Then to the condominium in California to prepare for the Nationals. And, hopefully, the Olympics and Worlds.

Would she always feel the rush of heat, the surge of gladness, the giddiness that flooded her when she thought of Cassidy? Could she ever tame her need for him? The craving that carved a great hole inside her when he wasn’t near?

She jerked herself back to reality. The important thing now was staying alive. And keeping those she cared about alive.

She had turned to the window to watch the first rays of dawn appear. She felt him behind her. The light lingering aroma of his aftershave, the electricity that always filled her at his nearness. There was an awareness between them. It was so sharp she didn’t have to see him, or hear him. She just felt him.

The kitchen was empty. One detective was asleep in the spare bedroom. One was watching through the window, although she knew there were two more officers outside. They weren’t going to let her sneak out again. She wondered how much grief they’d caught because she had managed it earlier.

“I said I would go back today,” she said.

Silence.

She turned. He was close. Close enough that she had to look up. “Advice?”

“I’m not sure I’m the one to come to for that. I’ve not done a very good job.”

“I haven’t helped.”

“No,” he admitted. “But because of you, Joey is back home.”

“She never would have been in danger if I hadn’t…mouthed off at the news conference.”

“You did what we asked you to do.”

She didn’t say anything. She no longer thought she knew the right thing to do. She’d been wrong since the beginning. Perhaps if she had gone to Seattle as her mother and Paul had wanted…

“Then, more women would be dead.”

It was uncanny. He seemed to know everything she was thinking.

“He isn’t going to stop,” Cassidy said. “He wasn’t going to stop. He has a taste now for blood and fear and power. It becomes addictive.”

“What do we do?”

He was silent.

“I want to finish it,” she said with desperation. “I have to finish it.”

“We have a suspect,” he said.

“But you don’t have the evidence even for a search warrant. You don’t even know where he is. But he knows where I am.”

“We’re checking every drug cabinet he might have access to, every druggist in the vicinity. Something will turn up.”

“But that takes time. I don’t have time. I owe it to Paul…to my mother, to be in Seattle for the Sectional.”

“It’s that important?” he asked gruffly.

Her eyes met his steadily. “We have to place there to make the Nationals,” she said. “The Nationals decide who goes to the Olympics. And the Worlds.”

“The Worlds?”

“The World Championship.” She heard the urgency in her own voice. She had to give Paul his chance. Her mother her dream.

“Is it worth your life?” he asked quietly.

Was it? No doubt Cassidy wouldn’t think so. But she couldn’t put her life, her career—Paul’s life and career—on hold indefinitely. She couldn’t hide for a month, a year, forever.

She wouldn’t hide.

She saw the frustration on his face. She knew the same expression must be on hers. She knew all the reasoning on both sides.

He reached out and took her hand, pulling her close to him. She didn’t realize her hand was cold until she felt the warmth of his. She leaned against him, seeping up the heat from his body.

Then he led her to her room. They passed the detective named Britt, who kept his eyes trained on the view outside the window. So many people to guard her. Six in all at the moment. Even if she stayed here, how much longer could she expect the police department to keep these men with her?

Cassidy opened the door and released her hand, standing back to let her enter.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she said.

“You need some rest.”

“So do you.” She saw the exhaustion in his face, the new trails in the contours of his face. She didn’t think some of them had been there yesterday. Her hand went up, and her fingers ran over those small lines snaking out from his eyes.

He hesitated, then stepped inside with her. He put his arms around her again, and she melded her body to his with a needy desperation that expressed the fear, the relief, and all the other emotions she’d felt tonight, including the flood of joy when she’d seen him at the skating rink.

He held her tight, and she buried her head beneath his chin. Against his heart. She felt in him the same anguished terror that she’d felt. Except that his terror, she knew, had been for her. She was feeling its aftermath now in his arms. She had kept it at bay earlier. She had used that iron discipline that allowed her to skate when she was in agonizing pain. But now, in his arms, she was shaking, trembling. His arms should have reassured her but they didn’t. Instead, she knew the hopelessness of inevitability, of sliding into disaster. She didn’t see any way out now. She knew of skaters who had been stalked. But those stalkers had turned out to be harmless.

Hers was different. He was intent on killing her.

Her life had been taken away, held hostage.

And she had no idea how to reclaim it. Or even, oddly enough, if she wanted to reclaim it. Yet she must. For four more months, anyway.

Four more months. Then other decisions had to be made.

If she lived.

His hand lifted her chin, and he looked directly into her eyes. She tried to blink back tears, but one fell and wove its way down her cheek. She felt its moisture. One of his fingers wiped it away with infinite tenderness.

Then he leaned over and his lips touched hers. Tenderly at first. His hands touched the back of her neck, massaging it. They stood there together, blacking out the rest of the world. Her body gradually relaxed, as his fingers worked against her tense muscles.

For the past fifteen years, every day, she’d known exactly what she was going to do the next day. Most of the time, even the next hour. Her life had been scheduled to the very last moment, and now that schedule was slipping away—the goals were shifting and she felt lost. Emotions were tumbling like rocks in an avalanche.

Cassidy moved his lips from hers and rained soft kisses across her face. Then he led her over to the bed. She sat down.

He kneeled and took off her shoes, then stood. “We’ll get him, love,” he said, his hand touching her shoulder.

“Love.” He said it so easily. Too easily. A throwaway endearment. Nothing more. She felt another tear start to wander down her face. Her emotions were so raw.

She lay down, not wanting him to see.

He covered her with the spread, then sat next to her, taking her hand. “I’ll stay with you,” he said.

She didn’t think she could sleep with Cassidy so close. But still, she closed her eyes. His hand felt warm in hers.

Her lids were heavy. She felt safe.

For now.

Cassidy drifted in and out of sleep. He knew he shouldn’t be in here, but she’d reached the end of her strength. He didn’t want her to wake alone.

He looked at the bedside clock radio. Nine. He gently released the hand he had held these past few hours. Tenderness welled up inside as he watched her sleep.

He heard noises at the other end of the house. He looked down at her again. That glorious hair had fallen over one side of her face. Long dark lashes shuttered eyes he could still see in his mind’s eye.

One of his fingers touched a strand of her hair, and it felt like silk. She was a sleeping princess, just waiting to be kissed by a prince. But he was far from a prince, and he couldn’t see a happy-ever-after ending with her. He could only give her the gift of safety.

After a moment, he rose. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of himself. He was still wearing his shirt and slacks, the sleeves of the shirt rolled up. His tie dangled from the collar, which was unbuttoned.

He needed to go to the other room. He needed to talk to the captain about their next move. There was only one he could think of. The captain would say no, but Cassidy didn’t see an alternative. If he had to resign, he would.

He didn’t want to leave her alone. You will just be a room away.

Too far.

Think about a country apart.

He took one last look at her and trod carefully across the floor to the door.

Chapter 18

The way was familiar now. The restaurant where they’d had breakfast two days earlier, a country store, several old buildings with antique signs out front amidst a yard full of odds and ends, including a broken-down wagon and rusty plow.

So often when she visited a city, she saw little but the airport and route to the hotel and ice facility.

Today, she was absorbed with the ride to the lake, with the mixture of modern ten-story office buildings and luxury residential areas, and then the touch of what once had been the rural south.

She concentrated on that. Not on the man next to her or the danger that lay ahead.

They were going beyond the Atlanta Police Department jurisdiction. Back to the cabin that held such memories for her. She looked at Cassidy, at the hard set of his face, the tenseness of his body.

He was risking everything for her, including his job. She now knew how important that job was to him.

No one saw any other solution.

The D.A. had refused to seek a search warrant on the new suspect’s house. No judge would issue one on what they had, he’d said. Philip Sanders had not shown up at either his house or at the hospital—but then, he’d applied and had been granted leave to take care of a sick relative.

She knew that Cassidy had had a long conversation with his captain, then with the sheriff for the county in which the cabin was located. The sheriff was an old friend of Cassidy’s, a man he’d worked with on a case that involved both jurisdictions and who shared Cassidy’s interest in sailboats.

Haynes had reluctantly agreed to loan several of his men to the sheriff’s department. He’d wanted to use a decoy for Marise, but she refused. She had no doubt that the killer knew exactly what she looked like. She had to get close. She had to get him to talk.

Otherwise, he would continue killing. None of them had any doubt of that now.

The idea, though, was to have so much protection that talking would be all the killer would do.

Every room in the cabin—and the boathouse—had been wired for sound. Deputies and officers had set up shop in the two homes on either side of the property. There were two of the sheriff’s best men—both members of the TACT squad—already installed in a small room off the kitchen. Others would be in the woods.

Manny was not with them. Manny was part of the bait. He would make a call over the police radio to Cassidy—one they hoped would be intercepted.

It had to be intercepted.

Marise felt a combination of expectation and raw terror. She experienced the same adrenaline she felt when going on ice in front of a supportive audience when everything was at stake, at least when she thought everything was at stake. Now she knew differently. Then, a career had been at stake. Years of training had been at stake. What was that compared to a life? Her own? Cassidy’s? Her mother’s?

As planned now, she would never be more than twelve feet away from a police officer. She would have a tiny microphone on her.

A confrontation. That’s what she wanted now. The thought terrified her but certainly no more than did the thought of never being able to sleep peacefully again.

“Having second thoughts?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I can turn around.”

“And go where?” she asked. She thought about her phone call to Paul, then to her mother. They didn’t understand why she wouldn’t be on a plane today. She tried to explain that the killer might well follow, that they would all be in danger.

“We’ll hire bodyguards,” her mother had said.

“For how long?” she’d replied. And that was the crux of the matter.

“You promised,” her mother reminded. “Paul is expecting you. He’s already reserved time for you two to practice at the arena.”

“Ask him to schedule extra sessions next week.”

“I’m flying down there,” her mother said.

“We would probably pass each other,” Marise said patiently. She was used to being patient. “And I won’t be where you can find me.”

Silence.

Her shot at independence. She was twenty-four and she felt like a child asking for approval.

Approval to go and meet a killer?

Cassidy interrupted her thoughts. “I don’t want you to take any more chances. I don’t care if you get a phone call saying the world has ended. You go nowhere without me. Not even outside to check the weather. If you don’t promise, I’m going to turn around and drive you to the airport.”

“I promise,” she agreed.

“If someone calls and says I was shot, what will you do?”

“I won’t move from the house.”

“You remember everything I told you about firing a pistol?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t say anything else. She saw a muscle jerk in his cheek, and his lips had thinned.

Moments later they drove up to the cabin. She knew there were people inside. But it looked as vacant as any up and down the road. None showed any sign of life.

She saw the sailboat through the trees, still perched on the frame. The other boat would be inside the boathouse. That thought must have brought color to her face. She felt her cheeks warm.

She was out the door without his help. She knew that just touching him would completely undo her.

She kept several feet between them as they walked inside. Once the door was closed, Cassidy checked to make sure all the curtains had been drawn. Then, he called, “Matt?”

The door to a pantry and washer room opened. A man who looked too large to be contained in it stepped out.

“Matt,” Cassidy acknowledged. “Comfortable?” he asked.

“I’m trying to make it more comfortable. I’d forgotten how small that place is.”

“Got everything set up?”

“Yep. Bugs in every room. They can be monitored from the pantry and in the two neighboring houses.” He turned to Marise.

“You’re every bit as pretty as the Irishman told me you were,” he said.

She found herself blushing. He was about four times her size. Maybe more. Probably six times. He must be four inches taller than Cassidy, who was at least six feet. He was well over two hundred pounds, with a thick tree-trunk build, although she doubted there was much fat. His hair was thick, a chestnut brown that was a little too long. He was chewing gum.

He was every good ole boy she’d ever watched on television.

“Matt Cramer,” Cassidy said. “Our local sheriff. This is Marise Merrick.”

“Now I know why he talked me into such a damn fool stunt,” Matt said.

“Matt’s an electronic genius,” Cassidy said.

She looked again and saw the shrewdness in his eyes, the intelligence that the rough, ruddy face masked.

“How many men do you have here?” she asked.

“Including both Matt’s and my teams, twelve. Our best.”

“I’ll make the call,” Cassidy said. He looked at her again. “Are you sure? Last chance to back out.”

“Yes and no,” she said.

“Gutsy, too,” the sheriff said, looking over her admiringly. “And I didn’t think anyone could take Cass’s mind off that boat.”

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” Cassidy said good-naturedly.

“You said she can shoot.”

“I said I showed her how.”

“Let’s see,” Matt said.

Cassidy took a small pistol out of his pocket and handed it to her. She checked it as he had taught her before they left his house. It was loaded.

“I would prefer she had something larger,” Matt said.

“This is easier to hide.”

Cassidy took off the radio hooked to his belt. Then he spoke into it. “Patch me through to Manny Sharman. My cell phone isn’t working.”

“Sure, Sergeant.”

Marise heard the static. It had all been planned. They only hoped that her stalker had not caught on to the fact that they realized he probably had a police receiver. There was no reason he would.

Manny came on.

“Got here okay,” Cassidy said.

“Gonna work on that sailboat of yours?”

“Yep.”

“Miss Merrick okay?”

“Yeah. She needed this before going back.” He hesitated, then added, “How’s your daughter?”

“Staying with friends.” An extra precaution.

“Good. See you later.”

He clicked off the radio. It was enough. Not too much. At least, he hoped not. No location. Just enough clues to help the killer find him. All the guy would have to do was look up Cassidy’s relatives, then do a property search. Or call headquarters and act the long-lost brother who needed to get Cassidy. If nothing happened, there would be another call tomorrow, with a few more hints.

Their guy knew computers, knew electronics, knew drugs.

She shivered. It had to work. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear the two agonies of fear and the way she felt about Cassidy. Her heart pounded harder every time she looked at him.

“How did you ever get Haynes to okay this?” Matt asked, as another person, this time a woman, came into the room from the back.

“I’ve been testing the equipment,” she said. “You all come across loud and clear.”

“This is Quinn,” Matt said. “One of my deputies.”

She was almost as tall as Cassidy. Marise felt inconsequential next to her. Her hair was nearly waist long and pulled back by a ribbon. She wore a flannel shirt, jeans, boots and no makeup.

“Hi,” Quinn said, nodding her head. But her gaze was curious.

“Quinn’s as good as I am with the electronics,” Matt said. He handed Marise a watch. “A voice-activated microphone,” he said. He looked back at Cassidy. “How did you get Haynes to agree to this?”

“I threatened to quit,” he said.

Marise guessed from his wry expression that there was a lot more to it than that.

“What about a game of poker?” Cassidy asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. “Marise is quite…adept at it.”

Quinn’s eyes lit. Marise’s first impression had been that she was plain, perhaps because of the lack of lipstick, of any color other than the suntan. But when Quinn smiled, she was really quite pretty. Marise wondered whether Matt noticed that, or the quick glances Quinn darted in his direction.

“It will be hours before he’ll find us,” Cassidy said.

“If he does,” she added.

“Oh, he will. He’s already risked his job by disappearing. I doubt that he’ll go back. You’ve obviously become his obsession—so much so that he’s willing to risk everything to reach you.”

Dusk fell. Quinn had beat them all, winning about thirty-thousand dollars and telling Matt she expected every penny of it. They were within hearing range, through an open door, of their equipment. Every hour, Quinn checked each of the stations.

Someone was stationed at the turn-off from the main road. If anyone entered the area, they would know about it.

“Let’s go out on the porch,” she said.

He nodded. Even if the killer was nearby, they needed to show some normalcy. They wanted, after all, to lure him inside.

A luminous moon was rising over the water. It looked fragile in the not-yet-dark sky. They could hear the lapping of water against the boathouse and the shore, and a glimmer on the water itself from the last remnants of day and the first of the stars. Pines moved slightly in the light breeze.

It looked incredibly peaceful.

Even though she carried a pistol in her slacks and she knew Cassidy had one in a holster toward the back of his belt.

The contrast struck her. Peace and violence.

She heard the sound of a motorboat, and they both strained to see it. The sound died away after several seconds. Her hand reached for his. She needed human contact.

She wanted to lean into him again. Burrow into him.

Every rustle made her start. What does a bullet sound like before it hits?

She felt herself tremble. His hand tightened around hers.

Then he let go. “Cell phone,” he said softly, reaching for hers. He put it to his ear. “Okay,” he said, then replaced it in her pocket. “A car is driving in. It may be nothing. There are ten homes farther down the road. The sheriff reached eight of the owners and asked them not to come out this weekend, but he couldn’t find two of them.”

They stayed outside on the swing, listening. Then they saw a light down on the road below, a car traveling slowly.

Marise told herself that law enforcement officers were crawling all over the place, but still her heart pounded as the vehicle moved slowly past them, then down the road until the red tail-lights disappeared from view.

Cassidy released a long breath as the sound of gravel being crunched by the car faded.

“Someone will check on it,” he said.

Dusk had disappeared into night. The half moon was bright, the stars numbering in the millions. For a moment, the serenity had been interrupted.

“After the Olympics, what will you do?” Cassidy asked, surprising her. He’d never before asked about the future.

“That’s supposing we make the Olympics,” she said. “We have to medal in the Sectional first. If I get there.”

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “You should have left here right after the attack.”

“It was my choice,” she said. “Not yours. Do you really think I could continue with my life knowing that I might have stopped some other woman from being killed and did nothing.”

“Most people would,” he said cynically.

“Then, why are you still a detective?”

“The chase,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “You really do care about people.”

He was silent, then returned to his previous question. “After the Olympics…?”

“Then I try to make money. Challenges. Invitationals. Ice spectaculars. There’s a growing number of television events.” She shrugged. “There are so many expenses. Our coach. Business manager. Costumes. Travel expenses. Choreographers. Music. Mother and I have a condominium in California where Paul and I train when we’re not on the road, but that’s nearly all the time.”

He was quiet for a long time.

She wanted to tell him that she would give it all up in a moment if he asked her. Not immediately, of course. She would have to finish the year, hopefully through the Olympics and Worlds, but then regardless, she planned to tell Paul he would have to find a new partner.

The idea had been on the fringe of her mind for weeks, perhaps even months, but it had never been quite so clear before.

She wanted to tell Cassidy that, but then she would be forcing his hand. He’d said nothing about a future. About love.

He seemed complete as he was. He had a home, friends, his dream to sail the seas. She had, in fact, never met anyone who seemed so…comfortable with who and what he was.

He straightened. The phone again. She couldn’t hear it, but he must have felt it. He pressed it to his ear again.

She heard his side of the conversation. “Keep an eye on it.”

Then he stood, lifting her up with his hand. “I think we should go inside.”

“Do you think he’s here?”

“I don’t know. Lights went on in a house half a mile away. That indicates a resident. Our people will check the license number and keep watch.”

They went inside. She felt the tension in his body.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Instinct.”

They sat down on the sofa. He went over to the CD player and hunted for some music, then inserted a disc. Piano favorites. “Autumn Leaves.” Soft.

He offered her his hand and she took it. They swayed for a moment with the music, then he started to move. He was a good dancer, light, but very easy to follow.

He pulled her close to him, one hand going around to the small of her back as he moved easily over the floor. She wondered how much was for show, how much to reassure her. Even with the curtains drawn, she was sure their forms were probably visible.

She didn’t care. She moved against him and heard the beating of his heart. It seemed loud. Fast.

The sound of his breathing turned raspy, as if it were difficult. Her own was painful. She didn’t want this to be a show. She wanted it to be real.

The song ended. Another started. And another. Despite the tension, she started to relax. “Unchained Melody.” She had skated to it once. But never had it affected her like this.

He started to move again, his long body as graceful and sure as Paul’s. But the feelings were ever so different. She wanted to stay in this circle of his arms forever. She leaned against him.

Then—an explosion.

Down near the lake.

He dropped his arm, whirled around and ran out on the porch. The boathouse was in flames.

“There was someone watching the boathouse,” she said, hearing the fear in her voice.

He grimaced and nodded. “He didn’t notify Matt, which means he’s…”

“Dead or unconscious,” she finished, when he stopped. She felt sick with both fear for herself and terror for the unknown man below.

She was also very, very angry. She was rigid with it. “So he knows at least one person is watching the house?” she asked.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t know how many.”

“He’ll expect you to go and see about the boathouse.”

Cassidy hesitated, even though they had been over this a dozen times. He’d suspected the killer would do something to get him out of the way.

Still, he hesitated.

“Go,” she said.

“This was a rotten idea,” he said.

“Too late now,” she said with an attempt at a smile. “I’ll be all right. The others will be alerted now, too.”

“Go inside. Don’t leave Matt’s side.”

He leaned down and kissed her fiercely, then went out the door. She reached in her pocket for the gun. Still there.

She started for the door, then turned to watch Cassidy run down the steps.

Then she saw the form slide onto the screen porch. She started for her gun.

“It’s okay,” the man said. “Detective MacKay caught me on the way down. He sent me to stay with you.”

The voice was matter-of-fact. She’d not met all the men she knew had been stationed around the house. They’d been put in place before she arrived.

“I’m going inside,” she said, turning back to the door.

“I think it’s better if we stay here on the porch,” the man said in the same clipped voice. “And wait for him.”

The porch was dark. The man’s eyes were hard to read. But there was something… Suddenly she knew what it was. When she’d talked to the killer before, his voice had been altered. But now she thought she recognized the cadence of his words. Maybe the assuredness in them. Still, she wasn’t sure. Not yet. “I need a sweater,” she said.

There was another explosion down at the dock.

“He must have stepped on the wrong board,” said her visitor, smiling at her. He reached out and grabbed her arm just as his words made an impact.

Another explosion.

Fear for Cassidy eclipsed fear for herself. She tried to keep from letting it show.

“I think we should stay outside,” he said. “The house might be wired.”

“My sweater.” She tried again, knowing that Matt and Quinn were probably frantically trying to reach the man who had been watching the boathouse, as well as rounding up the other men. There should be several right outside. Then, how did this man—if he wasn’t who he said he was—get inside the ring of protection?

Had he killed some of the others? Even Cassidy in the explosion? Please God, no. And where were Matt and Quinn? Hadn’t they heard voices?

But she and the killer were on the porch. Was it only the interior that had been bugged? Surely the detectives must have included the porch. Surely…

He must have seen her glance. He frowned, then looked at the door. “Anyone in there, pretty lady? I know there’s someone…in radio contact.”

She tried to keep her face expressionless as she stepped away. He wasn’t disguising who he was now. Pretty lady. He had used that on the phone.

Her expression must have told him that she knew.

A knife was suddenly in his hand, then pressing against her throat.

She started to scream but it was cut off, as one arm went around her torso while the other hand pressed the sharp edge of the knife deeper. She felt the first trickle of blood.

And Cassidy? He couldn’t have been caught in the explosion. He was too wary.

“We are going to move off the porch,” he whispered into her ear. “No noise. Try that little stunt you did last time and the knife slits your throat. It’s very sharp.” The last words ended on a high note, almost childishly gleeful.

She could, though, reach in her pocket. The pistol was there.

Someone had to be nearby. She tried to listen, but there was only the crackling of flames from below. There should be officers all around. Where were they? Panic filled her.

Then a light flooded the space about her. It would be shining in her assailant’s eyes.

“Drop it,” came Matt’s voice.

“So there were more,” said the voice by her ear. The knife cut deeper into her skin. “You shouldn’t have tried to trap me, pretty lady.”

“I said, drop it.” Matt’s voice again.

“I don’t think so,” her captor said. “Not unless you want a dead skater. Shoot me and she dies.”

Blood was soaking her blouse now, but she didn’t feel the pain. Instead, her senses were acute. She heard the very faint sound of footsteps on pine needles behind her assailant, smelled the mild tangy fragrance of the aftershave Cassidy used. A wild joy filled her, even as she shuffled her own feet as if tripping, to muffle the telltale sound. He was alive!

She also realized her own danger. The wrong move and she would die.

“Why?” she asked, stalling for time. “Why me?”

“You look like her. The bitch that left me. I tried so hard to please her. I sent bouquets of roses. I spent all my money. She liked roses. She told me so. But she still left me. Just like my mother did.”

The pressure on her neck relaxed slightly. He thought he was in control. He had her. “Tell him to drop his gun.”

She could do that. Quinn was still out there. So were others. And Cassidy. Most of all, Cassidy.

“Matt,” she said. “Drop it, please.”

He hesitated, then made a show of dropping his weapon.

“Kick it over toward me.”

When he leaned down to pick it up, she would…

But he didn’t lean down.

Instead, the knife tightened against her skin, and blood flowed freer.

“Reach for it,” he said. “Very carefully.”

She leaned down, feeling the blade against her neck. She didn’t dare make a move now. She had tricked him twice before. He was expecting it.

She reached for the gun and straightened, letting it dangle from her fingers. He couldn’t take it, not without letting her go for a fraction of an instant.

“Why?” she asked again.

“She laughed at me,” he said. “No one laughs at me.”

“I didn’t laugh at you.”

“You’re just like her,” he accused.

“I’m not like anyone.”

She could almost hear him think about what he should do.

“Shoot him,” he suddenly commanded. “Shoot the cop, or I’ll kill you.”

“No.” She dropped the pistol.

He swore. “Pick it up.”

“No.”

He swore again. He was obviously unused to women on the wrong side of the knife refusing him. He couldn’t get away without the gun. Did he want to kill her, or take a chance of reaching for the gun?

Survival won out. Keeping the knife to her throat, he sank with her to the ground until they were both kneeling. The gun was just below his elbow. He let go of her neck with one arm while the other kept the knife to her throat. He reached—

Without one arm holding her, she fell to the ground away from the knife, and Cassidy was on him like a tiger, knocking the knife from his hand. Pummeling him until Matt pulled him off, then they were surrounded by more men.

One of them looked at her neck. Another ran inside for clean towels to staunch the blood, while others handcuffed the assailant. They found a pistol taped to his leg. Apparently, though, he’d believed the knife was more menacing to her.

Cassidy stood, pulled her into his arms and held her as if he would never, ever let her go.

Chapter 19

Cassidy took her home. He would leave the questioning to the others.

They’d stopped by the hospital first. The cuts on her neck were superficial. The nurse had cleaned them and the emergency room doctor had used Dermabond to reduce scarring. He asked if she wanted anything for pain, and she said no.

Then Cassidy drove to his house. He’d checked to see whether she preferred a hotel, but she didn’t want to be alone.

It was not yet dawn. A few hours’ sleep. At a house no longer populated by numerous detectives and police officers.

The phone was ringing when they arrived. A search warrant, issued after Sanders’s capture, had turned up a wealth of evidence, including shoes of the slain women. There was no doubt that this time they had the right man.

Haynes was a very happy police captain and was making plans for a press conference the next morning. He wanted Marise there.

Cassidy asked her.

She shook her head. “I’m flying to Seattle,” she said.

With a feeling of emptiness, Cassidy relayed her answer to Haynes and declined to appear, either. “You should get all the credit,” he said, knowing that answer would soothe any lingering doubts Haynes had about the past week.

After hanging up, he made hot chocolate, while she made arrangements for a flight later in the day. The only available seat was at six p.m. They would have the day to rest.

And then she would be out of his life. He wanted to ask her to stay, but trying to keep her here would be like trying to catch a butterfly. What did you do with it when caught? When you took away its ability to fly. He now knew the meaning of loving something—or someone—so much that you let it go.

They finished the hot chocolate in silence. There was so much to say, and so little. He wanted to offer his life, but that would mean limiting hers.

“You should get some rest,” he finally said, after realizing he was staring at her, memorizing the lines and angles of her face, the way her hand impatiently brushed aside her hair when it fell across her cheek. The bandage around her neck reminded him of his own ineptitude. He should never have let Sanders get so close. It had been a flawed plan, and he should have found something better.

Her pain was his pain.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“You should be cursing me,” he said.

“No. You let me do what had to be done,” she said. “It was the only way to get back my life.” She hesitated, then added, “You trusted me.”

“I almost got you killed,” he replied roughly.

“I would have been killed if you hadn’t helped me. It might have been tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. I never would have been able to sleep again, not without fear.”

He saw the torture in her eyes and he wondered whether these past few days would live with her forever. Marise was strong, but she might still need counseling.

He had been standing while drinking the chocolate. He put the cup down and held out his hand to her. She took it, stood and looked up at him.

As if he were a god.

Hell, he was anything but, and he felt like a complete failure. It had been his job to keep her safe, and he’d made a mess of it.

She stood on tiptoes. “I’ll miss you, Detective Cassidy MacKay.”

He would do more than miss her.

“There’s no one here,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. It was an invitation. One he couldn’t refuse.

“Marise.” He said the name with awe.

Her mouth twisted wryly. “I’ve never really liked the name before,” she said.

“Why?”

“My parents wanted a figure skater. My mother thought it sounded…professional. I never really felt as if it fit.”

My parents wanted a figure skater. Not a child. In that one sentence, she’d said a great deal about herself. He suddenly realized why he hadn’t liked her mother.

Other things she’d said nagged at him. He’d never really understood the hold her mother had on her. Nor the hold Paul had on her. When she’d talked about joining them in Seattle, it had not been as if it was something she wanted to do. It had sounded more like a responsibility.

He understood responsibility. He’d always known it, expected it of himself—but he also had known what he wanted to do.

He cared enough for her—hell, he loved her enough—to want her to be happy, to want to see joy in her face at the thought of returning to skating. Instead, there was an uncertainty, even a sense of forlornness as she looked at him.

It shattered his defenses. He held out his hand and she took it. Together, they walked into the bedroom. The room was dark. It would not be long before dawn broke.

His hand touched her cheek. She looked so incredibly vulnerable. And yet he knew she was made of steel, too. The combination was irresistible.

Tenderness budded inside, then grew until it threatened to overwhelm every other emotion. It felt warm and good, filling the emptiness in him, squeezing out the darkness that had gradually overtaken him. He hadn’t realized that until now. He hadn’t known the extent of the void.

She reached up on tiptoes and her lips met his. Unable to resist the offer she was making, he kissed her with barely leashed passion.

A sound came from deep within her, a purring, welcoming sound that aroused him more than any spoken words. His mouth pillaged hers with a ravenous yearning. He felt her hand entwining with his hair, and they clung together.

He was grateful, so grateful. His hand touched the bandage around her neck, and he realized how close she had come to death. He started to back away, but her hand caught his, her blue eyes intense and seeking.

He wanted to be noble. He told himself not to take advantage of her. She was vulnerable at the moment. He’d couldn’t ask her to give up her life any more than he could give up all that he was. He didn’t know what he could offer her if he gave up the only thing he did well. And he couldn’t bear causing her the same pain he’d caused Laine.

But her fingers were playing enticing games with his hair, the back of his neck.

His blood was like currents of liquid fire, searing and sensitizing every nerve, every muscle. She leaned against him, and pleasure coursed through him as she responded so completely to every touch, her hands doing their own exploration, intensifying every sensation.

He undressed her. Slowly. Carefully. Tenderly.

He knew he should go. He knew he should tuck her in bed and say good-night.

But her hand clasped his. “Don’t go,” she whispered.

He should. He knew he should. For both their sakes.

But he couldn’t. Tonight was still with both of them. The waiting, the tension, the fear, the danger. The relief. Emotions that had to be vented.

Part of him knew he was rationalizing. He shoved that side apart and succumbed to the pure need and desire that sparked and snapped between them like a live electric wire. He sat on the bed next to her, one hand holding hers, the other running over her face. He wanted to memorize every feature. Record every expression.

Then let her go. Let her be the princess she was meant to be.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then moved down and kissed her throat with restrained passion. A sound came from deep within her, a sleepy, contented, welcoming sound that aroused him more than any words. His lips moved upward until they met hers, touching them gently at first, then with growing hunger.

He was only barely aware that she was unzipping his fly, that somehow his jeans and briefs ended up on the floor and he was leaning over her, his mouth leaving hers and his tongue tracing a path down her neck.

“Cassidy,” she said, as if savoring the name on her tongue. Her body arched at the same time. Inviting his. Meeting his.

His gaze met hers. He marveled at the passion in her eyes. They were so expressive, so full of emotion.

He kissed her again, and then they were clinging together, their bodies fitting together in a rush of need and desire and, he thought, desperation. He entered her. He’d meant to do it slowly, but her body responded greedily, and together they were swept into a dizzying, dazzling journey that he could no more stop than he could halt the sun from rising.

Marise felt all the tension ease from her body as his filled her with warmth and power, plunging deeper, and she responded. Her body reached for him, enveloping him, as they moved in an erotic dance together. His strokes grew faster, deeper, and then there were spasms, each growing in strength until both of them climaxed in one magnificent, fiery explosion.

He held her next to him as the waves receded. But not the warmth. Not the comfort of his body.

She lay in his arms, savoring the intimacy, wanting to stay forever in the cradle of his arms.

Safe. So safe.

She woke first. Sun streamed through the windows. Cassidy lay next to her, his cheeks dark with stubble. His breathing was steady and sure, his eyes closed and shaded by black lashes that matched the color of his unruly dark hair.

She wanted to touch him, but she knew how little sleep he’d had these past few days. And she relished the opportunity to watch him with unguarded eyes.

He was everything she wanted. He and the children they could produce together. A house. Maybe even a dog. Or two.

She wanted to stay here forever.

And tonight she would be aboard a plane.

She would take memories of this morning with her.

I love you. She told him that in her mind. It echoed in her heart. But neither of them had uttered the words. It was almost as if she feared they might turn around and bite her.

She had been his job. He had protected her because he wanted to catch a killer. He cared, she knew that. But there was nothing more.

She shifted, and his eyes opened. Slowly. Lazily. His hand reached over and took hers. “You’re beautiful, you know.”

“So are you,” she said with a grin.

“Don’t tell anyone else that,” he said gruffly. “I would never live it down.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

“Don’t go,” he said suddenly. It was as close to a declaration as he’d made. Her heart jumped, then settled back down.

“I must,” she said.

“I…something you said,” he said after a moment. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

She saw the question in his eyes and she felt the need to explain. Or try to. Her fingers played with his. “I told you my father and brother died in an accident,” she said.

His gaze bored into her. He waited.

“My father was driving me to a competition. I didn’t…want to go. I dallied and we were late. He was driving too fast.”

His eyes closed and his fingers tightened around hers. “It wasn’t your fault, love.”

“My brother…he was the one who was supposed to go to the Olympics, to do what my mother and father always wanted.”

He pulled her into his arms. She lay there, listening to the beat of his heart.

“Is it what you want?” he asked.

“It’s something I have to do. For my mother. She…lost so much.”

“You must love it, too,” he finally said. “Or you wouldn’t be so good.”

This time she was silent. She did love it. Just not to the exclusion of everything else. And that was what it had been.

He rolled over and regarded her seriously.

The phone rang. He gave her a wry look, and then, obviously reluctant, he rolled over and grabbed the receiver next to the bed.

“MacKay,” he clipped out.

He listened for several moments, then said, “I can’t come in until seven.” Silence. “I’m sure she’ll come if you need her.” He hung up.

“He confessed,” Cassidy said. “His attorney is claiming he’s mentally ill, but I don’t think that will wash. They will need you if it comes to a trial.”

She nodded and glanced at the clock. It was after one. A little less than five hours left.

His gaze followed hers to the clock.

“I’d better get dressed,” she said.

He moved to a sitting position, and his fingers touched her face. “We owe you a lot,” he said.

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

He looked at her, his eyes masked. She saw a familiar muscle throb in his cheek. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

Then he stood abruptly, rummaged in a drawer of his dresser. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a sports shirt, along with a pair of briefs, then headed for the bathroom. She heard the shower start.

She thought about joining him there. But she knew what would happen. She didn’t think she could bear another goodbye.

The flight was on time. For once. It would be, he thought. No reprieve. No more stolen moments.

After what she’d told him earlier, he had nothing more to say. He knew now why she’d paid so much attention to her mother. He’d seen the guilt in her eyes.

He’d wanted to tell her it was foolish. Bad things happen. It hadn’t been her fault. But he didn’t think it would help. Not now. It was something she had to work out for herself. After this week, she was well on her way to doing so. She had taken a huge step in reclaiming her life.

He hadn’t wanted to load her with more guilt by declaring the way he felt. He hadn’t wanted her torn again. It was his gift to her. Maybe later…

But God, it hurt.

The flight was called. She turned around and looked at him, her eyes searching his. Then she stood on tiptoes and kissed him.

“Thanks, Hoppy,” she said mischievously, then turned and walked quickly to the gate.

The Olympics

Cassidy, Manny, Janie and Joey entered the coliseum with the other patrons.

It was Joey’s birthday gift. Only that. Or so Cassidy had told himself over and over again. He couldn’t admit that he was doing it for himself, too.

He had not contacted Marise—not after the first time he tried her cell phone and reached her mother. Cara Merrick had been coolly polite at first, but then, when he persisted, told him to stay away from her daughter. Hadn’t he done enough already? Marise wanted to leave the whole Atlanta experience behind her and concentrate on the upcoming competition. Be kind enough to allow her to do that.

It was the least he could do.

Still, he couldn’t resist a trip to the Olympics. He’d even gone to Seattle, where she and Paul had captured the gold medal. But he hadn’t stopped to see her. She’d needed time. He’d needed time.

She and Paul then won the silver at the Nationals. Cassidy watched them on television, with Manny, Joey and Janie. Except for the barest slip in a landing—thanks to Joey he was learning all the terminology—they had skated perfectly.

And they had qualified for the Olympics. Her dream. Her mother’s dream. Paul’s dream. Cassidy didn’t want to deepen the guilt he now knew haunted her. He didn’t want her plagued by more conflicts of loyalties. The only way he could do that was to stay away.

Even if it shattered him. The greatest gift he could give her was letting her go. Letting her be the best she could be.

He could barely control the loneliness the thought brought to him.

But still… He knew it would be nearly impossible to get tickets to the Olympic event, but he wasn’t above using his police connections to get inside.

For Joey. Yeah, right.

Would Marise know he was there? Would she feel his presence, as she had felt so many things about him?

He doubted it. But he still had to be there. For her. For himself. For closure.

Would there ever be closure for him?

A cop and marriage didn’t go together. How many times had he repeated that litany? And that pertained particularly to a princess. To someone accustomed to the best. To someone who stayed in great hotels, who visited and was adored in exotic cities.

Would he even try to see her? He had complicated her life. Was it fair to complicate it more?

And would she really want him to? She didn’t need him any longer. She was back in her own world. Wouldn’t it be better to leave her there? He didn’t need to create any more guilt in her, to make her choose between her deep loyalty to her mother and Paul, and him. God knows, she placed enough on herself.

Still, he wanted to see her, if only from a distance. He wanted to see her win.

And she was even more beautiful than he’d remembered. As she glided out onto the ice with Paul, she did look like a princess, not like the girl in a pair of jeans confronting a killer. And even from a distance, he saw the perfect unison between the pair, the obvious trust, the magic that flowed between Paul’s long grace and her poise and elegance.

The music was from Phantom of the Opera, and Paul wore black clothes and a half mask, while Marise wore a shimmering white dress with a white scarf around her neck. Cassidy’s throat caught as she was lifted above Paul’s head, then lowered to the ice. He could barely breathe when they performed triple salchows, followed by a backward, upside-down lift.

The long program peaked in the death spiral he’d seen on the video.

So much grace. So much beauty. More than ever, he was struck by the perfection of the two. A team. A couple. There was an aura about them that cut him to the quick.

When they finished to thunderous applause, her face was flushed, and even from here he could see that her eyes shone. She had the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. Wide. Spontaneous.

The princess. Beautiful. Elusive. Unobtainable.

He could only imagine how it felt to be on the ice, to feel the waves of approval embracing them.

He was happy for her. But the ache inside his heart was almost unbearable.

He thought they should win the gold medal. They received the silver, losing to a Hungarian pair.

But she looked delighted. Even serene.

She belonged here. The lump in his throat grew.

Joey darted away down the aisle. Manny stood aside. “You know where she’s going.”

“She won’t get in.”

“I thought you knew my daughter,” Manny said wryly. “You go after her. Bail her out of jail if necessary.”

“What about you?”

“It’s godfather duty,” Manny said. “It would be embarrassing to bail out my own daughter.” He settled deeper into the chair. So did Janie.

Joey had disappeared from sight. Cassidy remembered the fear he’d felt when she’d been kidnapped. Some of that fear returned now. Joey, though—well, Joey was fearless. And Manny knew Cassidy would go.

His steps quickened. He saw Joey in the hall, a broad smile on her face.

He wanted to scold her for not waiting for someone, but he didn’t want her to live in fear. Caution, yes, fear, no.

“She’ll want to see me,” Joey said with certainty.

“Yes,” he agreed. And he knew it was true. The Marise he knew would.

He steeled himself, then took Joey’s hand and found his way down to the dressing area. There he showed his badge and handed the officer a note to be delivered to Marise.

He leaned against the wall as Joey chattered nervously. His heart quickened. His breath slowed.

Would she be the same Marise he’d known?

Or the unattainable princess?

Marise looked at the note in her hand.

Brief. To the point. Like the man who had written it. Joey is outside the dressing room and would like to see you. Cass.

Not “I would like to see you.” Her heart quaked. She wondered whether Manny had broken his word and told him what she planned. She heard the sound of thousands of people leaving the building. In her mind, she could still hear the enthusiastic applause of just moments earlier. It had been glorious, but not nearly as glorious as knowing Cass was standing outside.

He had come. It was the first time she’d heard from him since she’d left Atlanta, though Manny had told her he’d been impossible ever since she’d left.

That little tidbit had given her hope.

She knew she’d never skated better than she had tonight. Perhaps a part of it was relief. The pressure was gone. She’d told Paul two months earlier that she couldn’t marry him. She also told him that he should start looking for another partner.

She’d felt suffocated the first few days after she’d arrived in Seattle. The press had reported that she’d been instrumental in the apprehension of a killer, and she’d been besieged. The bandage on her neck had elicited horrified looks from her mother and Paul. Neither wanted to let her out of sight. She’d tried to forget about Cassidy, about the days that had brought both terror and joy. But she couldn’t.

She’d found herself looking for him. Every time she went on the ice, her eyes searched the onlookers. In Seattle, she thought she’d seen him, but then dismissed the idea. He would have stayed to see her.

He had not.

Still, she made her decisions. She was tired, exhausted. She hadn’t realized how much until she reached Seattle. Paul didn’t want rest. He was driven to be recognized as the very best. She wasn’t. He’d wanted to sign contracts for a number of shows this spring. She wanted a break. It was that simple, and that complicated.

So she told him she planned to slow down, and she wanted to give him time to find another partner. One was available now, a tiny skater whose partner had incurred a career-ending injury.

Her mother had been convinced Marise would change her mind once the horror of her days in Atlanta receded. Marise knew she wouldn’t. She wanted to continue to skate, but in singles, and mostly in noncompetitive events. She also wanted to teach skating. To children like Joey.

And now her mother and Paul had finally accepted her decision. Paul was already working with the smaller skater, Bethany, and Marise thought they would make a good pair. Bethany was smaller, lighter, and Paul was envisioning more gold in his future. And once Marise had let other skaters know she was retiring from the competitive world, several had approached her mother about representing them. She no longer feared she was abandoning either of them.

Manny had kept her informed about the case. The district attorney’s office had reached a plea bargain with her attacker. Sanders would plead guilty to four counts of murder in exchange for four life terms. It was a plea bargain that would keep him in prison for life, with no chance for parole. The prosecutor had recommended it because he knew that Sanders’s attorney planned an insanity defense. This was safer and cleaner, and Marise would not have to testify. For that, she was grateful. She didn’t want to relive the terror.

She wished, however, that it had been Cassidy who called to tell her.

Still, she looked forward to working with children, and that allayed some of the loneliness she’d felt. And when the decision had been made, she found herself skating better than ever.

Now it was over. She’d fulfilled her mother’s dream: competing in the Olympics. Now it was time to make—and fulfill—her own dreams. She only wished she could make those dreams with Cassidy…

She stood just inside the door, took a long breath. What if he didn’t want her? What if he was here just for Joey? Resolutely, she opened the door.

Cassidy kept an eye on Joey, who was absorbing everything. It helped to take his mind off the next few moments. And the past miserable months. How many times had Manny suggested that he call Marise after that first rebuff from her mother?

“I almost got her killed, Manny,” he’d replied. “There’s no place in her life for a cop, and you know how I feel…”

“A cop and marriage don’t go together,” Manny said wearily, aping Cassidy’s timeworn excuse. “Forgive me if I don’t accept that. You made a mistake the first time. That’s all.”

Cassidy didn’t accept that. He’d always believed there had been something wrong with him. Something that made him unlovable. Perhaps because of his parents’ fighting. He and his sister had always believed it was their fault.

But in the past few weeks, he’d been so damn miserable, he was gradually rethinking his priorities. He had, in fact, decided that he was going after Marise. If, by any miracle, she…loved him, he would give up anything for her. He would find some way to support himself, support them, even if it wasn’t in the style to which he knew she’d become accustomed.

But he’d had to wait until after the Olympics. He hadn’t wanted to destroy that dream for her.

Then he’d hesitated again. Until Joey had forced the issue.

And now the time was here, and he’d never felt so inadequate. Uncertain. Afraid.

The door to the dressing area opened, and she was there. She had changed to a pair of jeans and blue blouse and sweater. Her hair, which had been in an elegant French braid, was loose. Most of the makeup had been wiped from her face.

She was even more beautiful than she had been on the ice.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hullo,” he replied, silently cursing his own awkwardness.

Strangely enough, Joey hung back. He was barely aware of her. Just enough to know she was there. “Joey wanted to see you,” he added, cursing himself for being so uninspired.

She kneeled down. “Thank you for coming,” she said to Joey.

“You should have won,” Joey said.

“I did,” she replied with a certainty and confidence that struck him. Then she looked up at him, and her smile widened. She was telling him everything he needed to know. There was a new assuredness about her.

He reached down and took her hand, and she stood.

“You didn’t call,” she said.

He didn’t tell her that he had, that her mother had convinced him to give her time. “I didn’t want you to have divided loyalties,” he said.

Her eyes searched his. “You don’t have to worry about that. Not any longer.”

“I’ve missed you,” he said, knowing his voice sounded like a croak. “More than I thought it possible to miss anyone.”

Relief seemed to fill her face. And, incredibly, love.

“Then, you won’t mind if I move to Atlanta?” she asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“Atlanta?” Suddenly, he had a deep suspicion. “Manny…”

“I swore him to secrecy,” she said. “I’ve just accepted a proposal from the owner of the ice rink where Joey practices. I’ll coach skating there.”

“What about…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence. His heart was pounding too loudly.

“Paul has a new partner. It will take him time, but she has the same goals as he does.”

“Your mother?”

“Professional skating is her life. She’s going to manage Paul, along with several other skaters. My leaving opens up new opportunities for her.”

He couldn’t quite take it all in.

She hesitated. “Manny said…you would be pleased. But don’t think you owe me anything. It was just time for me to leave and settle down. I want a dog and a house and friends. Manny was the only person I knew outside skating and—”

“Thank God for Manny,” he said, stopping her torrent by placing a finger to her lips.

“Then, you are not…displeased.”

“God, no,” he said. “You don’t know how much I missed you, but I knew how much you wanted…needed to do what you’ve worked for your whole life. I thought leaving you alone would be the best gift I could give you.”

“The best gift…is you,” she said.

“I can get a desk job,” he offered. “Or try something else.”

“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t be you.”

“But you would be giving up skating.”

“No,” she said. “I can still do Pro-Ams as a single,” she said. “But what I really want to do is teach. I think it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

And looking into her eyes, he knew it was right for her. He remembered the times she had tried to say that. He just hadn’t been able to accept the fact that anyone could really give up what she had.

He had been afraid of another failure, of hurting someone else, just as she had been afraid to disappoint those she loved. They both had cheated themselves. But she had more guts than he had.

Or maybe fate had ordained they make the decision at the same time, each overcoming their own demons.

He put his arms around and kissed her. Long and hard. Tenderly. Hungrily.

He heard Joey giggle behind him.

He looked in Marise’s eyes. They were glowing. Even more than when she’d been on the ice. They were glowing for him.

He touched her hair and wondered whether this was really happening.

“Yes,” she said, pulling back and answering his unasked question.

“I love you, princess.”

“I didn’t think you would ever say that, Cassidy,” she said.

“Cassidy and the princess,” Joey said in a wondering voice behind them.

“Forever,” Cassidy added.

And he knew that it was true.

ISBN: 978-1-4592-0373-0

CASSIDY AND THE PRINCESS

Copyright © 2001 by Patricia Potter

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