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Forbidden Temptation
Paula Graves
Hot-shot criminal profi ler Daniel Hartman was looking for a man called Orion. Leading a manhunt through Birmingham for the killer, Daniel was trying to put old ghosts to rest.But this time Orion's target was Rose Browning, a matchmaking wedding planner with a gift for predicting true love. Tempted by secrets she couldn't reveal, Daniel insisted on offering some very personal protection. He would get her to open up, but at a price. Would he be able to safeguard this raven-haired beauty before his desires for revenge became an obsession?
Forbidden Temptation
Paula Graves
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my girls—
Melissa, Ashlee, Sarah, Amber and Kathryn.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Prologue
A brisk December wind moaned in the pines, driving Rose Browning deeper into her long wool coat. She adjusted the basket of muffins hanging at a dangerous tilt in the crook of her left arm, breathing in the warm aroma of cinnamon that almost overpowered the tang of pine needles and fallen leaves carpeting the path through Bridey Woods.
The ramshackle facade of Carrie and Dillon Granville’s home came into view. Her pulse quickening, Rose crunched over the frosty ground, speeding up the closer she got. In a minute, Carrie would open the door and smile her welcome, her expression blurred by a shimmer of transparent silver in the shape of her husband Dillon’s face. Dillon would appear in the door behind his wife, his smile harder to come by, but that wouldn’t matter once Rose saw the image of Carrie dancing over his face.
This was the best part of what she did, getting to see the veils, each time like the first, fresh and wonderful.
She called them true-love veils, shimmery images of soul mates superimposed over each other’s faces. Seeing them was her gift, and she’d helped a lot of soul mates find each other over the years. She’d even made a career out of it, planning weddings for the people she brought together.
It was how she’d known that Carrie and Dillon were meant to be together, despite the obstacles keeping them apart.
The true-love veils were the best gift in the world, and she was grateful to be the Browning sister who’d received it.
Rose’s footsteps rang on the rickety porch steps, usually enough to bring the sound of feet moving across the rough wood floor inside. But this morning she heard only a low keening sound, which seemed to echo the December wind in the towering pines overhead, sending a chill curling down her spine.
She lifted her hand to knock but faltered, unease slithering through her belly. The woods around her lay silent, as if the animals were in hiding. She’d heard the bark of a gun as she’d left her house near town but thought little of it. Hunting season was in full swing, and, while Willow Grove, Alabama, could boast of lush green fields to lure hunters from the city, many of the locals couldn’t afford to be so picky.
Maybe a hunter had spooked the animals, she told herself.
But she didn’t quite believe it.
The keening grew louder. Harsh breathing, she realized, her nerves jangling. Coming from inside.
“Carrie?”
The breathing stopped.
Rose took a reluctant step closer to the cracked-open door. She could see nothing through the dark opening.
“Carrie? It’s Rose. Is everything okay?”
The silence stretched and grew taut. Rose leaned toward the narrow opening, trying to peer into the darkness.
Overhead a crow shrieked; the raucous sound was like a knife sawing over her tight nerves. Rose jerked, her hand smacking into the door, stinging her cold knuckles. She swallowed a hiss of pain as the door creaked open, hinges moaning.
Daylight slashed across the dark interior to reveal Carrie Granville’s arm outstretched across the plank floor of the main room. The rest of her body was hidden in shadow.
As Rose’s heart clenched, something dark, thick and fluid slithered across the floor toward Carrie’s hand.
Blood.
Rose took a step back, until a soft snicking sound brought her to a dead halt.
“She made me do it.” Dillon Granville’s country twang emerged from the shadows, low and pained. “I didn’t want to, but she made me.”
Wind gusted at Rose’s back, blowing her dark hair into her eyes and pushing the door into the wall. Daylight flooded the cabin’s interior.
Dillon squinted at the sudden light, giving Rose time to turn and run. But what she saw on his face froze her in place.
The true-love veil was there, just as she’d imagined it: Carrie’s face, smiling and happy, a horrific contrast to the slack, pallid face of the woman lying dead on the floor, her eyes half open and forever sightless.
Rose’s arms fell weakly to her sides. Her Christmas basket hit the porch with a thud, spilling apple-cinnamon muffins across the weathered planks.
Behind the lingering true-love veil, Dillon’s expression shifted, hardened. Rose’s heart jolted.
“I can’t live without her. It’s like you told us. We’re supposed to be together forever.” As the hardness of Dillon’s expression softened into a distant half smile, the veil over his face rippled, slowly changing to a translucent image of his own face, his left temple open and pulpy.
Before Rose could process what she was seeing, Dillon lifted the gun. Ice gushed into Rose’s veins and she took a stumbling step back, her legs heavy and unresponsive.
The gun barrel was pointed in her direction for only the briefest moment on its way up to Dillon’s right temple.
“No.” Rose’s voice came out strangled, watery with horror.
Dillon smiled at her. “Together forever,” he said.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter One
The woman sat alone at a table near the narrow stage at the front of the bar, nursing a strawberry daiquiri and feigning interest in the alt-rock cover band currently grinding its way through an old Pearl Jam classic. Now and then she took a sip of her drink but mainly watched the crowd, her eyes alert.
Daniel Hartman studied her from his seat at the bar, curiosity distracting him from his own agenda. There was an odd stillness about her, a composure that set her apart from the rest of the restless liquor-soaked crowd in the small club in the heart of Birmingham’s Five Points South.
Who was she? What was she looking for?
The door opened and a man in a striped shirt and leather jacket entered, pausing in the doorway. Daniel dragged his attention away from the woman to give the newcomer a quick once-over. He was pushing forty, a little paunchy though his clothes hid it well. The wedding ring on his left hand quickly went into his pocket.
Classy.
Daniel looked away, losing interest. This place was a bust. He took another sip of Coke and considered moving on to another club a few doors down. But his gaze drifted back to the woman with the daiquiri, and he stayed put, watching her through narrowed eyes as she took another dainty sip of her drink and clapped politely as the cover band crashed its way to the end of the song.
The paunchy man in the leather jacket approached her table, on the prowl. Of course he’d choose her—a pretty woman all alone in the middle of a bar was too much temptation. Daniel sat forward, curious to see how she’d handle being hit on. Would she notice the imprint on his left ring finger where the wedding band had been? Would it matter?
She looked up at the man, her brow furrowing as he spoke to her. Her gaze drifted to the hand resting on the back of her chair and the furrowed brow smoothed, replaced by a cool, neutral mask. She murmured to the man, who stepped away with a frown. Muttering something that made the woman’s lips tighten, he moved on to the bar and ordered a bourbon neat.
Daniel looked back at the woman and found her watching him. When she didn’t immediately look away, he lifted his glass and nodded.
Her frown returning, she looked down at her glass, stirring the red slush with slow, deliberate strokes. Her chin lifted, followed by her eyes. She locked gazes with him, her expression impossible to read. An electric shock zigzagged through him as he took the full brunt of her attention.
Was it an invitation? A rebuff? He didn’t know, and he’d always prided himself on being an accomplished reader of women. Of people, in general, given his chosen profession.
He could look around this bar and guess, with accuracy, the stories behind the faces surrounding him: The balding salesman with the desperate come-on sitting with the aging beauty queen who’d accepted his offer of a drink because she was desperate for the attention she used to command without effort. The raw-nerved coed drinking to forget her cheating boyfriend and her unfinished term paper. The tax accountant sipping a trendy dark ale and trying to look as though he was just one of the guys. Daniel could read them all.
But not her.
She looked across the room and caught the eye of a waitress, who came at once. They murmured an exchange and the waitress went toward the back, soon returning with the check.
The woman paid her bill and rose from the table, darting a glance in his direction. He followed her with his gaze, memorizing the curve of her hips and the dip of her narrow waist, the way her calf muscles flexed as she navigated the crowded club and pushed her way through the exit door into the cool October night. His skin felt hot and tight.
Part of him wanted desperately to follow her, to see where she went next. What was she looking for? Would she find it?
But he had a job to do here, a job that didn’t include tailing pretty brunettes with great legs. He stayed where he was, waving at the bartender to pour him another Coke. The bartender complied, giving him a black look because he wasn’t buying pricey liquor to go with the soda. Daniel couldn’t blame him—the bar didn’t make money off designated drivers.
But he needed his wits about him tonight.
ROSE LOCKED THE CAR DOOR behind her and closed her eyes, giving in to the tremor in her legs.
Was he the one?
She thought she’d know it immediately, that the rage and violence roiling inside him would surely show on his face, but the man at the bar had looked so normal. Attractive, even, with masculine features, eyes the gray of a winter sky and a lean swimmer’s build. The kind of man she might have smiled at a year ago, encouraged to join her in a drink and some friendly conversation.
But she wasn’t that woman anymore.
She put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine purred to life, the heater vents blowing cool air in a blast that amplified her shivers.
She tightened her sweater around her and turned on the CD player. Allison Krauss’s clarion voice flowed from the speakers, a plaintive plea to a potential lover to let her touch him for a while. She punched the power button off with a growl, glancing at her rearview mirror, where the front entrance of the Southside Pub reflected back at her in garish neon. Part of her expected the door to open and the man from the bar to emerge, seeking her out.
Stalking her.
Another part of her was disappointed when he didn’t.
She glanced at the dashboard clock. Only nine-fifteen on a Friday. The night was young. There were at least half a dozen more bars just in the Five Points South area she could visit before closing time.
Her chest tightened at the thought, but she tamped down her reluctance and pulled her Chevy into the moderate traffic on Twentieth Street, heading for the next bar on her list.
She found one of the last parking places on a side street where two bars sat side by side, as different from each other as day and night. Hannity’s, an old-fashioned Irish pub complete with green neon shamrocks in the window, occupied the corner. Next door was Sizzle, unmistakably a dance bar with flashing lights and a driving bass beat she could hear from her car.
She headed for the dance bar, steeling herself for the noise and light. Southside Pub had been sedate in comparison. Sizzle’s clientele was a good decade younger and twice as loud. At twenty-seven, she was one of the oldest women in the place. Her skirt was at least five inches too long, her silk blouse not nearly tight enough and her upswept hair prim compared to the flying tresses of the women gyrating on the dance floor.
She quelled the urge to head right back out the door, reminding herself that Elisa Biondi had last been seen at this very bar the night she died.
He came to places like this. He looked for women on their own. Easy targets.
She felt an invisible bull’s-eye sitting between her shoulder blades as she weaved through the restless crowd and found a seat at the bar.
“Virgin daiquiri,” she ordered, ignoring the bartender’s arched brow. Had the woman never heard of designated drivers?
The bartender mixed the drink, leaving out the rum, and slid it down the bar to Rose. “Knock yourself out.”
Ignoring the mild gibe, Rose paid for the drink and sipped the sweet slush through her straw, turning her gaze toward the club floor. Dancers filled the cramped space, most of them moving with more enthusiasm than skill, their focus on seduction rather than rhythm. Faces blended into one another, merging into an undulating mass of color and motion.
“Rose?”
The sound of her name drew Rose’s attention away from the dance floor. She turned to find Melissa Bannerman, her current client, sitting at a table nearby, sipping a margarita. Melissa motioned her over.
Picking up her daiquiri, Rose crossed to the table, relieved to see a familiar face. “No Mark?” she asked Melissa, referring to her client’s fiancé.
Melissa hesitated before responding. “He’s in Knoxville for the Bama-Tennessee game. I have a stack of unread manuscripts to get through this weekend, so I couldn’t get away.” Melissa’s family owned a small publishing company. “Have a seat. I promise we won’t talk wedding business.”
Rose took one of the empty seats. Melissa was obviously not alone; someone’s drink sat on the table in front of one of the other chairs. “I shouldn’t barge in on your night out—”
“Alice won’t mind.” Melissa waved toward the dance floor. “We’ll be lucky if we see her the rest of the night. She just broke up with her scummy boyfriend and I think she plans to dance with every guy in this place. Therapy, you know?” A hint of bitterness tinged Melissa’s words. She’d almost ended her engagement a year earlier after catching Mark cheating. Mark’s promise never to stray again had kept the engagement intact. Rose wasn’t sure Melissa had made the right decision.
The true-love veils had made it so much easier to know if a couple was about to make a big mistake.
“Look at her go,” Melissa said with a chuckle.
Rose followed Melissa’s gaze and spotted a tall, curvy woman with wavy brown hair. Her back was to Rose and Melissa, her body grooving to the pounding bass coming from the giant speakers on the wall. Her dance partner could barely keep up, but he didn’t look unhappy about it, his eyes wide with male appreciation as his partner danced off her frustrations.
Alice turned her back on him, a not-so-subtle reminder that she was here for the music, not the man. She looked at the table where Rose and Melissa sat, waggling her fingers at them.
Rose sucked in a swift breath.
Alice’s face was covered with a shimmery silver veil.
Rose called them death veils for lack of a better term. She’d seen several since Dillon Granville’s suicide, death masks superimposed over the faces of the doomed, a gruesome contrast to the true-love veils she’d seen all her life up to that horrible day in Bridey Woods.
The particular death veil Alice wore was one Rose had seen before, six weeks ago on the face of a woman at the grocery store where Rose shopped. Three days later, she’d been found murdered near the Birmingham Zoo. Two weeks ago, Rose had seen the same kind of veil on the face of a cyclist riding in front of her house. She’d been found murdered, as well.
News reports hadn’t mentioned their wounds, but Rose knew what they’d been. Slashes across their jaw-lines and foreheads. Gouges on the soft apples of their cheeks. And a ragged slit across each of their throats, the killing blow.
Two women dead, and Rose had foreseen their murders. How many others hadn’t she seen?
She stared at Alice, transfixed by the shimmer of death on her pretty face. What now? Tell Melissa what she was seeing? She discarded the idea immediately. Melissa might be unpredictable and impulsive, but beneath it all was a solid strain of rationality, and what Rose could see was about as irrational as it got.
Would Alice be more open? How long did Rose have to convince her? Would the killer strike tomorrow?
Tonight?
A finger of dread traced an icy path up Rose’s spine. Was he here already? Hidden by the throngs, watching Alice dance and imagining what he was going to do to her?
Fear rose in her throat, nearly gagging her.
The song ended and Alice crossed to their table. She dropped into the chair in front of the half-empty beer bottle. “Whew! That was fun.”
“Richard who?” Melissa teased.
Alice laughed, her eyes crinkling with good humor. “Exactly.” She turned to Rose. “Hi. I’m Alice.”
“I’m Rose.”
“Sorry—how rude of me!” Melissa gestured to Alice. “This is Alice Donovan, the dancing queen. We went to college together at Bama. Alice, this is Rose Browning, my wedding planner. I told you about her.”
Alice grinned at Rose, the expression grotesquely juxtaposed against the blood-streaked death veil hovering over her face. Rose swallowed the bile rising in her throat and managed a smile in return.
“You should give Rose your card, Alice. Alice just opened a florist shop down the street from here,” Melissa explained.
“Really? I’ll be sure to give you a call,” Rose said, tamping down her growing distress.
“Great!” Alice pulled a card out of her clutch purse and handed it to Rose. “We’re brand-new, but we have terrific suppliers, and I think you’ll be very pleased with our work.”
Rose tucked the card into her purse and took a deep breath, wondering what to say next. A lot of people claimed interest in the paranormal, but even if Alice wasn’t a stone-cold skeptic, would she really believe that Rose could foresee her death? What person would want to hear something like that, much less put any stock in it?
True-love veils had been easier to talk about. Everybody wanted to believe in happily-ever-after.
“Listen, I hate to boogie and run, but the shop opens tomorrow bright and early.” Alice slid her chair back and took a last swallow of beer on the table in front of her. She turned to Rose. “It was nice meeting you. Give me a call and we can discuss what I can do for your business.”
Now, Rose thought. Tell her now. Just blurt it out.
“I’ll do that,” she said, kicking herself for her cowardice. “First thing in the morning.”
Alice flashed her another smile beneath the death veil and headed for the exit.
Rose watched her go, wondering if he would follow her out. Could it be that simple? Was he here in the crowd, waiting for his chance? Waiting fifteen seconds or twenty, enough that nobody would notice him following her, but not so long that he couldn’t catch up with her before she reached her car?
Rose counted the seconds in her mind. Five. Ten. Fifteen…
Nobody followed Alice out of the bar.
Rose clutched her purse and turned to Melissa. “I’ve got to run, too, Melissa—I almost forgot about a meeting I have first thing in the morning.” She rose from the table.
“The new caterer?”
“Yes,” Rose lied, already on her way to the exit, heading off any more questions from Melissa.
Outside, she scanned the street for a glimpse of Alice Donovan. There weren’t many parking places near the bar. Rose had lucked into her spot a few cars down. There had to be a parking lot somewhere nearby—
She spotted a sign that said Free Parking and followed the arrow to a side lot around the corner of the Irish pub. There. She spotted Alice opening the door of a dark blue Camry.
Quelling her fear, she called out Alice’s name, jogging toward her across the narrow lot.
Alice turned at the sound, her brow crinkling until she recognized Rose. “Oh, hi. Did I leave something in the bar?”
Rose faltered to a stop, taking a deep breath to brace herself. “I have to tell you something, and you’re going to think it sounds crazy, but I need you to hear me out.”
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Rose licked her lips. “I see things. I guess, you might call them visions—sort of. Not exactly.” She grimaced as Alice’s expression darkened. “Do you remember the U.A.B. student who was murdered a couple of weeks ago?”
Alice’s expression shifted from wary to alarmed. “Yes.”
“The day before she died, I saw her riding her bike in front of my house. Over her face was this…thing. I call it a veil—it’s like a shimmery image superimposed over her face. Her own face, only…dead.”
Alice took a step back, her fingers closing around her car keys. “Look, I’ve got to go—”
Rose took a desperate step forward. “I know it sounds crazy. I know it does. But I saw the death veil and then she died. I saw another woman a few weeks ago—the same thing. Her face, slashed and bloody. She turned up dead three days later.”
Alice shook her head. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I see a death veil on you,” Rose blurted.
Alice’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re right. You sound crazy.” She unlocked her car door, keeping her eyes on Rose. “We’ll chalk this up to too much rum, okay? I’m leaving now.”
“Just be careful, Alice. I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, as long as you remember what I told you.”
Alice opened the car door, turning her back on Rose only at the last moment, when she slid behind the wheel and slammed the door shut behind her. Rose heard the click of the automatic locks engaging and released a pent-up breath.
The Camry’s engine fired to life, forcing Rose to step out of the way to let Alice pull out of the parking space. The Camry wheeled around and headed out of the small lot, pulling into the light traffic headed toward Twentieth Street.
Rose’s knees began to shake. She leaned against the car parked next to the now-empty slot. Closing her eyes, she gave in to the tremors rolling through her.
Okay. It hadn’t been pleasant, but she’d warned Alice of the danger. Maybe it would be enough. Maybe she’d do something different, be a little more alert over the next couple of days. Avoid being alone where someone could take advantage of her vulnerability.
Alone.
As she was now, in the middle of this isolated parking lot, with only the muddy yellow streetlamp on the corner to chase away the evening gloom. Dread slithered through her belly.
She was alone.
Vulnerable.
The hairs on her neck rose. She felt eyes on her, as tangible as the mist of her breath in the cold night air.
She whirled around and peered into the darkness at the far end of the parking lot. She saw only blackness, impenetrable and infinite. But somewhere in that abyss, someone was watching. Waiting.
Swallowing her rising panic, Rose turned and ran, her heels clattering on the uneven blacktop. She reached the sidewalk and looked behind her at the far end of the parking lot.
Something moved, darting through the gloom and disappearing behind the pub.
Her pulse hammering in her ears, Rose raced to her car, oblivious to the stares of the scattered pedestrians dotting the sidewalk. She fumbled with her keys, her breath coming in soft, keening gasps, until she managed to unlock the Impala’s door. She slid inside, pulling the door shut so quickly that she almost caught her foot.
She jabbed at the power lock. The levers snicked softly as they slid into place, closing her safely inside.
In the silence, her breathing was harsh and rapid. She forced herself to let her heart rate settle into a less frantic cadence before she put the key in the ignition.
She hadn’t been imagining it, had she? She’d seen movement in the shadows, felt his gaze like a touch. She wasn’t crazy.
He’d been watching Alice. Waiting for his opportunity. Maybe he would have made his move right there in the parking lot, if Rose hadn’t showed up.
Maybe she’d already saved Alice Donovan’s life.
But now the killer had seen her.
Rose grabbed the rearview mirror, positioning it to see her own reflection. Her eyes, dark with fear, stared back at her, but her face was clear. No death veil.
She slumped against the car seat, relief tingling through her, quickly swamped by guilt. So what if she was safe? Alice Donovan was still in danger, and Rose’s clumsy attempt to warn her had failed. If her warning had changed Alice’s fate, wouldn’t the death veil have disappeared?
She lowered her forehead to the steering wheel, feeling sick. The truth was, she didn’t know if the death veil would have disappeared. She knew nothing about the damned things, except that they had made her life a constant misery for the past ten months.
She gave herself a shake. Maybe she was giving up too soon. The other victims hadn’t died immediately. A day or two had passed before their bodies were found. Alice had said she was going straight home; maybe the killer wouldn’t strike tonight.
She still had Alice’s business card and the phone number to her florist shop. She could call Alice in the morning, apologize for scaring her and try to explain things more coherently.
Maybe it would work.
She forced her rubbery limbs into motion, buckling her seat belt and starting the car. The dashboard clock showed ten twenty-five. The night was still young, by Friday-night-clubbing standards, but she’d seen all the death veils she could bear in one evening.
She pulled carefully into traffic and circled the block, coming to stop at the traffic light in front of the Storyteller fountain. Spotlights in the center of the fountain lit up the whimsical bronze sculpture of a ram dressed as a man reading to an assembly of smaller bronze animals. A young couple sat on a bench nearby, holding hands and gazing at each other, oblivious to the beauty of the fountain.
A few months ago Rose could have known at a glance whether or not the couple was destined to love each other for a lifetime. Now all she could say, for sure, was that neither of them was destined to die in the next few days.
She looked up at the red light, willing it to change.
A cluster of pedestrians crossed in front of her, heading toward the fountain. A dark-haired man brought up the rear, his long trench coat flapping with each confident stride. A flutter of awareness sparked in Rose’s belly as she recognized him.
The stranger who’d been watching her at the Southside Pub.
He turned his face toward her as if he could sense her scrutiny. Rose shrank back into the shadows, knowing that the glare of the streetlamp off her windshield most likely hid her from his view. The light changed to green as he reached the sidewalk by the fountain, but Rose didn’t move. Adrenaline rushed into her bloodstream.
He’d come from the direction of the club she’d just left.
Behind her, a horn honked, rattling her nerves. She accelerated across the intersection, her heart rate picking up speed. She took a left at the next intersection, heading toward Mountain Avenue. Just a few blocks and she’d be home. Safe.
At least, for now.
MIDNIGHT HAD COME and gone, but Rose remained curled up in the overstuffed armchair by the front windows, gazing out at the moonless night. The lights of the city cast a yellow haze across the night sky, obscuring the stars from her view.
She closed her eyes and listened to the thud of her pulse in her ears, steady and just a little rapid, still pumped up with adrenaline from the evening’s events. Behind her eyelids, the sight of Alice Donovan’s scarred and bleeding face played in strobing slow motion, like a silent movie.
A scratching sound at the front door jerked her eyes open. Staring at the solid door, she held her breath, wondering if she’d imagined it.
Then she heard it again. It was faint but unmistakable, a discordant sound, as if someone were scraping fingernails down the outside of the door.
Releasing a shaky breath, Rose crept to the door and peered through the fish-eye lens. She could see nothing outside.
Checking to make sure the safety chain was engaged, she unlocked the dead bolt and cracked the door open.
Alice Donovan’s wide, sightless green eyes stared up at Rose from the welcome mat. Blood from the gashes in her face flowed onto the concrete stoop, the crimson turned black in the muddy yellow light from the streetlamps.
Alice’s lips moved slowly, a soft rattle rising from her ruined throat. “Too…late—”
Rose jerked awake, her heart in her throat. It was still nighttime, the clock over the mantel reading 2:00 a.m. She sat in the armchair by the window, her back and legs aching from the cramped position.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, beating out a guilty cadence.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
Chapter Two
Rose called the flower shop as early as she dared the next morning. As soon as someone answered the phone, she forced the reluctant words from her mouth. “Is Alice Donovan there?”
“She’s not in yet.”
“When do you expect her in?”
A thick pause greeted the question. When the woman finally spoke, the anxiety in her voice was palpable. “An hour ago.”
Rose’s nightmare flashed through her mind, chilling her to the bone. Her voice cracked. “Have you tried her home number?”
“She’s not answering her home phone or her cell.” The woman’s voice shook. “She’s never late like this.”
Rose tried to keep her voice even. “I met her last night. I said I’d give her a call—I’m a wedding planner and I can always use a new flower source.”
“Was she okay when you saw her?”
Rose closed her eyes. “She was fine, heading home the last I talked to her. Does she live nearby?”
“On Doberville—the Brookstone Apartments.”
Rose gave a start. A block away, easy walking distance.
“I’d go check on her,” the woman continued, “but I’m the only one in the shop….”
“I’ll check, if you’d like. I live nearby. What apartment?”
The woman hesitated, as if realizing she’d already given out a lot of personal information to a stranger. “Maybe I should call the police.”
“Definitely do that. But they won’t do anything yet—she’s an adult and she’s been missing only an hour. I know you don’t want to give out that kind of information to a stranger on the phone. My name is Rose Browning. Like I said, I have a wedding planning company. You can look me up in the Yellow Pages or on the Internet. I just want to help, and I live so close…”
“Apartment 2-D,” the woman said softly.
“I’ll go right now.” Rose hung up and started dressing, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t too late.
That Alice wasn’t already dead.
THE MORNING CHILL curled around the collar of Daniel’s suit jacket, making him wish he’d worn an overcoat. Ahead, yellow crime tape cordoned off a large square where the crime-scene unit gathered evidence while detectives watched from the sides.
Daniel steered clear of the tape, blending into the crowd of locals watching from across the street. He edged toward the local television reporters setting up for live shots nearby.
A pretty black woman in a red wool coat was doing sound checks, practicing her copy for the technician.
“Police report that a couple of joggers found the body here just outside the Mountain View Golf Course. Police have not identified the victim, a woman in her mid-twenties.”
An image of the dark-haired woman at the Southside Pub flashed through Daniel’s mind. Unease settled low in his gut.
He needed to see the body. See who she was, if she was displayed. The crime-scene unit surrounded the body, their camera flashes piercing the tree-sheltered gloom of the brush bordering the golf course.
He circled the scene, vines and brambles tugging his pant cuffs as he edged away from the sightseers and climbed a slight rise for a better vantage point. He settled between a couple of trees. His line of sight wasn’t perfect, but he had a pretty good view of the body. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his jacket pocket and trained them on the scene.
Though nobody looked the same in death as in life, he quickly ascertained that the woman lying faceup in the tall grass was not the dark-haired beauty he’d seen at the pub the night before. This woman was about the same age, but her hair was lighter in color, with an unruly wave to it.
Ignoring a twinge of relief, he trained the binoculars on the victim’s face. He could see little of her features behind the roadmap of slashes marring her pale skin, but what he saw of the wound patterns answered the most pressing question. She was victim number three. She lay posed on her back with her hands crossed over her chest, just like the others.
Just like Tina.
“Danny?”
A man’s voice nearby sent a jolt down Daniel’s spine. He turned to find a clean-cut man in a trim gray suit standing a few feet away, his head slightly cocked.
Daniel was mentally prepping his explanation when he realized the man had called him by name. Recognition dawned, unexpected and not entirely welcome.
No longer the gangly teen Daniel had known, Tina Carter’s brother, Frank, was now in his thirties. He’d gone from bony to wellbuilt and, while still not exactly handsome, women would like him, especially with the badge hanging low on his hip.
Daniel pocketed his binoculars. “Didn’t know you’d become a detective, Frank.” He crossed to the man and held out his hand.
Frank shook it firmly. “You didn’t know I was on the force at all, Danny.” He shrugged off Daniel’s apologetic expression. “What are you doing here? Nobody called the FBI.”
“I’m not with the FBI anymore. I teach college now.” Daniel nodded toward the crime scene. “This is number three, isn’t it? Here, at least.”
Frank glanced toward the scene. “Why would a college professor want to know?”
“Just looking.”
Frank’s frown tightened. “I’ve got to get back before my captain realizes I’m not around. I suggest you be gone before she starts trolling the crowd for witnesses. Unless you’re ready to explain why you’re sneaking around her crime scene uninvited.”
Daniel wasn’t. “Good to see you, Frank.”
Frank just gave a curt nod and strode back down the shallow incline toward the cordoned-off crime scene.
Daniel waited until Frank had slipped under the yellow tape before he followed, skirting the crowd again to keep his distance from the cops and technicians still swarming the crime scene. It was possible someone might recognize his face from his TV appearances.
Daniel wasn’t ready for that to happen. Not yet.
Not until he knew if these murders really were connected to Tina Carter’s.
He settled behind the wheel of his Jeep, his attention focused on the police officers on the scene. Sooner or later, detectives would head for the victim’s home, looking for a murder scene that would provide them with more evidence than the carefully staged dumpsite they were scouring at the moment.
And when they did, Daniel intended to tag along.
THE BROOKSTONE APARTMENTS on Doberville Road had been built in the twenties, a redbrick Colonial Georgian the owner had partitioned into apartments years ago when apartment housing in Birmingham’s vibrant Southside community had become a hot-ticket item. Alice’s apartment was on the backside of the building, making it easy for Rose to approach from the alley without attracting much attention.
She climbed the exterior stairs, the memory of the death veil quivering over Alice’s face haunting her. She should have made Alice believe her. Maybe if she’d come across matter-of-fact, less uncertain…
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe Alice just had a bad hangover and had overslept. No need to give up hope yet.
But her loud raps on Alice’s door brought no response. “Alice, are you in there?”
No answer.
Panic built in her belly, coiling like snakes. “Alice, please come to the door!”
Rose pressed her ear to the door, listening. She felt the hum of electricity against her cheek and the faint sound of voices coming from other apartments, but from inside Alice’s apartment, all was silent.
Frustrated, she followed the wraparound balcony to the side of the building. Alice had a corner apartment with a side window; maybe she could see through the curtains.
As she approached the window, movement at the front of the building distracted her. Two cars, one of them a marked police cruiser, pulled up the drive, heading for the parking lot at the back.
Rose flattened herself against the side of the building, her heart in her throat. The police were here because of Alice. And not just because the woman at the flower shop had called them, either.
They would only be here this quickly if they’d already found Alice’s body.
The police cars disappeared around the building. In a few seconds they’d come back into view. Rose didn’t intend to be here waiting for them. She knew better than to try to explain death veils to the police. She’d tried telling the Willow Grove police about what she’d seen in Dillon’s face when she had reported the Granvilles’ deaths. They’d practically accused her of lying—and those policemen had known her since she was a baby.
The Birmingham police didn’t know her from Adam. They wouldn’t hesitate to make her their prime suspect.
She raced for the stairs, making it to the first-floor breezeway unseen. She darted across the lawn and descended the steep driveway to the street. She headed down the sidewalk, keeping her gaze on the road ahead. If she looked back, she’d only attract more attention.
She should never have told the woman at the flower shop her name. The police would surely speak to Alice’s coworkers and, if the woman on the phone remembered Rose’s name—
She turned at the corner and headed uphill toward home, her breath coming in short huffs. Ignoring a stitch in her side, she took the concrete steps to her house two at a time.
“What are you running from?”
A man’s voice jarred up her spine. She stumbled, grabbing for the iron railing to keep from falling, and whirled around, her muscles bunching, prepared for fight or flight.
The dark-haired man from the pub the night before stood just feet away, his expression tinged with curiosity. His gaze swept over her, through her, as if he were studying every atom, every cell, every drop of blood coursing through her veins.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Saw you last night. At the Southside Pub.”
“If you don’t leave now I’m going to call the police.”
His lips curved. “Should be easy. They’re only a block away.”
Her heart skipped another beat. “Who are you?”
“Daniel. Who are you?”
She pressed her lips together and took a step backward up the stairs. “You’re trespassing on private property.”
“You were at the home of a murder victim. Why?”
She tightened her grip on the railing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The police are knocking on her door right now to see if anyone else is home. You ran when you saw them coming. Why?”
Rather than answer, she turned and started up the steps.
He followed, his footfalls thudding close behind. “Was she your friend?”
She made it to the porch and turned to face him from above. “If you don’t leave now, I will call the police.”
He stopped, gazing up at her, a challenge in his smoky eyes. “Be my guest.”
She turned and went inside, slamming the door behind her. She flipped the dead bolt and rested her head against the heavy wood door, her heart fluttering with panic.
Who was he? Alice’s killer, coming here to taunt her? Whoever had been hiding in the shadows at the end of the side parking lot had seen her.
Had he chosen her as his next victim, after all?
Crossing the foyer on shaky legs, she peered at herself in the antique mirror over the narrow hall table. Her haunted expression gazed back at her, pale and wide-eyed but free of any sort of phantom veil.
Her legs felt boneless. She made it to the living room before her knees buckled. She fell gracelessly onto the sofa, slumping forward, her head in her hands.
If the gray-eyed man was the killer—and, really, why couldn’t he be?—he wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d imagined that a man who could brutalize a woman the way the killer had done must have some mark of evil, a coldness in the gaze or a cruelty around the mouth that would tell her “he’s the one.”
Rationally, she knew it didn’t work that way. The nice man who lived next door and kept his lawn mowed and his house painted could turn out to be the most twisted of killers, and nobody would have a clue. But she should have a clue. For whatever reason, she’d been saddled with this terrifying ability to foresee death. She should damned well be able to spot a killer.
For the past few months she’d been stumbling around in dark, feeling her way through a maze of sharp edges and dizzying pitfalls. As if witnessing Dillon Granville’s suicide had struck her blind, robbed her of the true-love veils and left her with a cruel facsimile, the death veils that now haunted her day and night.
Nearby, her cell phone trilled. She was tempted to ignore it, let the caller leave a message, but she had a business to run, bills to pay. It was probably Melissa with a question about the caterer or the floral arrangements—
Melissa. She had no idea Alice was dead.
By the time she found her cell phone, the ringing had stopped. The number on the display window belonged to her sister, Iris. She was leaving a message.
Rose crossed to the front door as she waited for the message indicator to show up on her cell phone, peering through the narrow glass panel to the right of the door. Rose saw no sign of the man who’d called himself Daniel.
The message light on her cell phone began to blink. She pressed the button, knowing what she’d hear. It had been almost two weeks since she’d last spoken to Iris, and her sister wasn’t used to being an outsider in Rose’s life.
“Rose, are you ignoring my calls?” Iris’s light tone couldn’t hide the dark current of hurt. “Lily’s thinking about hosting Thanksgiving dinner at her house. She said she and Casey are already planning a menu.”
Casey was her sister Lily’s stepdaughter. Lily’s visions had helped reunite Casey with her father, police lieutenant J. McBride. Lily’d fallen in love with the gruff cop in the process, marrying him not long after Casey’s return.
Rose had known Lily would marry McBride from the start. A true-love veil had told her so.
Dashing away tears with her fingertips, she started to dial the phone, resolved to call Iris and commit to being there for Thanksgiving. But another memory stopped her, a flash of shimmery silver slashed with deep crimson, hovering over Alice Donovan’s pretty features.
Iris and Lily knew she’d lost her ability to see true-love veils, but she hadn’t yet told them about the death veils. Even the thought of telling them made her cringe. The death veils made her feel dirty, stained by the miscalculation that had led to Carrie Granville’s death and Dillon’s suicide.
She shut off her phone, fresh tears of despair spilling down her cheeks. She didn’t know how to tell Iris or Lily what was wrong with her. She couldn’t find the words to explain how upside down her life had become since that nightmarish Christmas Eve in Bridey Woods.
A few months ago she’d moved her business and her life to Birmingham, where everyone was a stranger and nobody knew about true-love veils, Carrie and Dillon Granville or the fact that the nice wedding planner in the pretty old Southside house could tell them they were going to die within the next month.
Everything was different now. She was different.
The death veils had built an impenetrable wall between her and the two people she loved most in the world, and she didn’t know how to tear it down.
DANIEL COULD HAVE afforded a top-of-the-line hotel but had opted for an economy motel just outside the city, where he’d be left alone to pore over his files and notes uninterrupted. He’d had another option, of course; he could have gone home. His mother still lived in the same cozy Tudor in Forest Park where he’d spent his childhood.
His brother, Evan, a doctor, lived south of town with his beautiful wife and two children under the age of three. They kept an eye on his mother, made sure she was keeping up with old friends and doctor visits and not sinking into loneliness.
She was lucky to have Evan and his family. God knows what she’d do if Daniel was all she had to depend on.
Guilt tugged at the back of his neck, a familiar feeling. He had a lot to answer for where his family was concerned, and all he’d accomplished over the past decade wasn’t enough to erase the trouble he’d been when he was younger.
He’d stop by to check on her before he left town.
Meanwhile, he had the name of victim number three, thanks to his mystery woman. She’d knocked on the door of apartment 2-D. All he’d had to do was call up the address in a reverse directory and he had the name. Alice Donovan. A quick Internet search had connected her to a flower shop on Twentieth Street. He made a note in his day planner to stop by the place later that afternoon, see if the other employees could help him flesh out who she was and how she might have ended up at the mercy of a killer.
He’d had less luck with the dark-haired woman he’d seen at the pub the night before. He had her address now, but the reverse directory updated once a year. Apparently she’d moved into the house on Mountain Avenue less than a year ago.
He let it go, for now. Steve, his teaching assistant, had e-mailed some new information that needed his attention.
Steve had attached three new articles, two from Tennessee and one from Arkansas, all dated between six and nine months earlier. They filled in a gap between the Colbert County murders and the Texas murders he’d documented last year.
The killer he’d informally dubbed Orion, after the hunter in mythology, seemed to move around a lot. From job to job? Or did his job allow him to travel widely and at will? It was a question Daniel hadn’t yet answered to his own satisfaction. A traveling salesman would make a lot of sense, considering how widespread the murders were. But his crimes also seemed to indicate a certain level of trust on the part of his victims—he couldn’t have killed so many women without being caught if women were wary about him.
Maybe there wasn’t just one killer. Maybe he was all wrong and Orion was a series of different killers with similar M.O.s and signatures. It was possible, wasn’t it?
Maybe he was seeing what he wanted to see, putting together patterns that didn’t really exist because he needed those patterns to take shape and make sense of a mystery he’d been trying to solve for the past thirteen years.
Daniel scrubbed his hands over his gritty eyes, thinking back to the shock of seeing Frank Carter at the crime scene that morning. His memory of Tina’s brother was little more than a series of snapshots frozen in time: Frank watching from the stairs as Daniel picked up Tina for a college formal. Frank eyeing Daniel’s new Firebird with all the hungry interest of a fifteen-year-old with a learner’s permit burning a hole in the pocket of his Levi’s.
Frank’s dark, tragic eyes as he watched the shiny silver casket being lowered into the grave bearing a simple gray stone marked with his sister’s name.
Did Frank see the similarities? The telltale slash marks, the obscene pose mimicking peaceful death? Surely, he did. How could he not?
He wondered, with envy, if Frank had been able to let go of that one violence-stained moment of his life and move on. Maybe he didn’t spend his free time obsessing on crime stats and police reports, looking for those key similarities that might suggest Tina’s killer was still out there, still taking lives.
Still catchable.
Good for him if he didn’t. Good for him if he could close his eyes at night and sleep in peace. Daniel couldn’t.
He hadn’t slept peacefully in thirteen years.
MELISSA BANNERMAN slumped in the armchair across from Rose, her expression stunned. “Someone murdered her? Last night?”
Rose nodded.
“My God.” Tears welled up in Melissa’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks. “Oh, my God.”
“I hate being the one to have to tell you—”
“How did you find out?”
“I heard it on the radio, just before you got here.” The two o’clock news report had finally confirmed what Rose had already known. Alice Donovan was dead.
“My God. Her poor parents.” Melissa shook her head.
“I called the flower shop this morning like I said I would,” Rose added. It was the truth, if an incomplete version. “The woman who answered was obviously upset when I asked for Alice. I managed to get her to tell me that Alice hadn’t shown up at work on time and they couldn’t reach her at home.”
“She lives only a block from here.” Melissa wiped her cheeks, her expression slack and numb.
“I’d gotten that out of her employee. I went to check, but the police had arrived, and I’d thought it best to get out of the way.”
“Was she in her apartment?”
“The news reports don’t say.”
“She just had a new alarm system put in her apartment. I told her it was overkill, but there’ve been two murders in the neighborhood recently, and she didn’t feel safe.” Melissa sniffled. “God, what about funeral arrangements?”
“I imagine there’ll be some delay, given the circumstances. Give her family time to process everything, and they’ll be in touch, I’m sure.” Rose took a deep breath. “Will you let me know when you get the details? I’d like to pay my respects.”
That wasn’t the truth; she could think of a million things she’d rather do than attend Alice Donovan’s funeral. But she knew in her bones that he’d be there. The one who’d killed her.
So she had to be there, too.
“The other murders—they were both young women, too, weren’t they?” Melissa asked.
“Yes.” Sherry Nicholson had been twenty-eight, Elisa Biondi twenty-six. Both had lived in Southside and both had been to Southside bars within a day or two of their deaths.
“I don’t want to think about my wedding today.” Melissa stood and wiped her eyes. “It’s too cruel, thinking happy thoughts today. I’ll call Monday and we’ll regroup from there.”
Rose saw her out, watching from the doorway until she was safely to her car in Rose’s driveway. As Melissa backed her Lexus onto Mountain Avenue, Rose started to close the door.
Until she caught sight of the blue sedan across the street.
A ripple of unease fluttered through her. The windows of the car were tinted dark, but she could make out the shape of someone in the driver’s seat.
Heart thudding, she went back inside the house and locked the door behind her, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
It could be nothing. A salesman between appointments, pulled over to talk on his cell phone. Someone considering one of the empty apartments dotted along Mountain Avenue.
Or the man who’d accosted her this morning on her way back from Alice’s.
She peered out the tall, narrow window that flanked the door, hoping the bright daylight would hide her from view.
The sedan was gone.
She slumped against the wall, not sure whether to be relieved or alarmed.
HIS HEART POUNDED a swift, steady cadence, blood rushing in his ears. He always felt energized after he took his prey, but this time was different in an entirely unexpected way.
Because of her.
The pretty brunette who’d tried to warn Alice that she was going to die.
He hadn’t planned to kill sweet Alice last night. He’d noticed her when she arrived at the club, her wavy dark hair spilling around her shoulders in soft waves. Pretty in an obvious way, she’d fascinated him with her reckless need to dance off whatever was bothering her. He’d fantasized about the first cut, the blood trickling over her pink cheeks and down into the cleft between her full breasts. But he hadn’t planned to kill her. Until he’d heard the other woman’s warning.
“I see death.”
Somehow, she’d known, even before he’d made his selection. She’d known that Alice was the one.
When she’d showed up outside Alice’s apartment this morning, he’d known for certain that something special was happening.
He’d found his muse.
Chapter Three
“I’d like to see Ms. Bannerman,” Daniel said.
The receptionist, a motherly-looking woman in her midforties, arched one eyebrow as she read the business card he’d handed her. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I was in the area when I had the idea I’d like to discuss with her, so I thought I’d drop in to see if she had a moment to speak with me.” Daniel smiled at the woman, hoping a little charm might nudge her toward buzzing her boss.
“I’ll see if she’s available.” The receptionist looked pointedly toward the brown-leather wing-backed chairs in the waiting area. Daniel retreated to one of them, taking a look around the office of Bannerman and Bannerman Publishing.
It was a converted loft on Morris Avenue; unlikely digs for a publishing company that had been in business for more than a hundred years. The Bannermans were old money and lots of it, but apparently the new generation was dragging the company kicking and screaming into the new millennium.
A few minutes with the distraught—and talkative—employees at Five Points Floral Creations Monday morning had led Daniel to Alice Donovan’s college friend, Melissa. Alice and Melissa had gone clubbing Friday night. Melissa might well have been the last person to see Alice alive besides her killer.
Luckily, with a couple of bestsellers under his belt, Daniel had a good excuse to call on Alice’s grieving friend.
He didn’t enjoy taking advantage of her vulnerability, but it was a necessary evil. She might have information about the man who’d killed Alice and a lot of other women. So when the receptionist informed him Ms. Bannerman could spare him a couple of moments, he buried his guilt and headed for her office.
Melissa Bannerman was a pretty blonde in her late twenties, dressed in an expensive gray suit with a pale green blouse, which flattered her tall, lithe build. Recent attempts to repair her makeup couldn’t hide her tear-reddened eyes or the shell-shocked expression beneath the practiced smile. When she shook his hand, her grip was firm, but he felt the faintest underlying tremor. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Hartman. I’ve read all your books and enjoyed them immensely.”
“Glad to hear it.” Daniel sat in the chair she indicated. “I’m here in town doing some research on a cold case, and that’s when I had the idea for a new book. I’m between publishers, and the idea I have is ideally suited to a boutique publishing house like this one, so I thought I’d give you my pitch to see what you think.”
Melissa’s blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I can’t imagine a larger publisher wouldn’t jump at the chance to publish any book you chose to write.”
“Maybe, but I’ve heard good things about Bannerman.”
Her smile almost made it to her eyes. “What’s your idea?”
“Cases in the South that have never been solved.”
A flicker of pain darted across her face. “Intriguing.”
Daniel leaned forward. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I came at a bad time.”
Her expression started to crumble. Tears glistened in her eyes. She caught herself before she broke into tears, but her lower lip quivered as she replied, “No, of course not.”
“I can tell you’re upset. Can I get you a glass of water?”
His kindness seemed to do her in. The tears spilled over, streaking her cheeks. “I lost a friend on Friday and I just got off the phone with her parents.”
“Sorry to hear it. Was it sudden?”
Grief lined her pretty face. “She was murdered.”
As Daniel gently led her to tell him more details about the night of Alice’s murder, the story spilled from her in a rush of sadness and rage.
“Alice left the club around ten or so. She said she had an early morning. I’d have gone with her, but Rose was still there.”
“Rose?”
“Rose Browning, my wedding planner.” Melissa fluttered her left hand, showing off a large diamond solitaire. “We ran into her at Sizzle. She was still there when Alice left, so I stayed. Only, then Rose left about a minute after Alice.”
“So Rose might have seen Alice outside?”
Melissa’s brow wrinkled. “You sound like a cop.”
“Occupational hazard. Have you talked to the police yet?”
“Yes. I don’t know much, but maybe it’ll help track her movements that night, right?”
“Has your friend Rose talked to the police?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask her tomorrow at the funeral.”
“Obviously, this isn’t a good time to discuss my idea.” He rose and handed her his card. “In a week or so, give me a call.” Though he’d used the book idea to get in the door, he’d been contemplating it for a while. He’d give Melissa a fair chance to make a good offer. Meanwhile, he needed to talk to Rose Browning, preferably before she talked to the police.
As Melissa walked him to the door, he asked, “Your wedding planner—you don’t happen to have her card, do you?”
“Somewhere around here. Are you in the market?”
“Maybe.” He smiled at her.
“She’s easy to find—she lives in a big brick Colonial Georgian on Mountain Avenue. It’s 601 Mountain Avenue—right on the corner. You can’t miss it.”
He didn’t react outwardly, but his heartbeat quickened. He knew the house she was talking about. And now he knew the name of his mystery woman. All that was left was to figure out what to do with the information.
SERENITY RIDGE CEMETERY stretched across rolling green hills just outside the Birmingham city limits. Granite and marble gravestones lined the hills like soldiers in formation, waiting for their marching orders.
Tina Carter’s grave lay in the far eastern corner of the cemetery, close to the access road. Fall leaves covered the fading grass and the base of the marble headstone. By the gravestone, a small urn of faded silk roses lay overturned.
Daniel set the urn upright, adding the arrangement he’d picked up at Alice Donovan’s flower shop that morning. If Tina’s mother was still alive, the grave would be immaculately tended, he knew. Fresh flowers left daily, the leaves swept from the headstone and the grass cut above Tina’s silent resting place.
But Mary Frances Carter had died earlier that year of a heart attack and, apparently, Frank still couldn’t bring himself to visit his sister’s grave after all these years.
Daniel brushed the leaves away from the grave, something Frank had said thirteen years earlier still vivid in his memory. It had been the day of Tina’s funeral, moments after the final prayer. Frank had been standing next to Daniel, tears trembling in his reddened eyes. “I can’t stand to even walk by her room anymore,” he’d confessed as cemetery workers had lowered the casket into the ground. “Mama’s made it into a shrine.”
Poor Frank. Tina had always been their mother’s favorite, more so after her death. Emotionally, Mary Frances had left her teenage son to his own devices, too wrapped up in grief for the child she’d lost to deal with the child left behind.
A glass-encased photo of Tina hung over the inscription on her tombstone, her pretty smile captured for eternity on a face that would never grow old. Her eyes glowed with life.
Daniel pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and polished the glass. Twenty-one and beautiful forever, he thought.
Only, she hadn’t been beautiful at the end. Her killer had marred that porcelain skin with slashes and gouges with his rage. He’d slit her throat, silencing her soft voice.
Daniel rose, gazing down at the tombstone. Did Orion kill you, too, Tina? Am I finally going to find him this time?
Tina’s grave lay silent, offering no answers.
Daniel turned and walked back toward the funeral home barely visible at the far end of the cemetery grounds. Today, another woman would be laid to rest, her life silenced by the slashes and strokes of a killer’s rage.
And, if Daniel was lucky, Orion would show up to see what sorrow his handiwork had created.
ROSE SMOOTHED the lapel of her dark brown suit and studied her reflection in the Impala’s driver’s side window. She looked sober and nondescript, she noted with satisfaction, her dark hair tucked into a simple knot at the base of her neck and her makeup at a minimum.
She’d come to Alice’s funeral to see, not be seen.
She spotted Melissa Bannerman and her fiancГ©, Mark Phagan, just inside the foyer of the Serenity Ridge Funeral Home. Melissa was simply incapable of blending into her surroundings, despite the conservative lines of her navy suit. Pulling her blond hair into a straight ponytail only emphasized her fashion-model cheekbones and cornflower-blue eyes. She was as tall as Mark, towering over most of the women and half the men in the foyer, drawing the eyes of every red-blooded male in the place regardless of the somber occasion.
Melissa’s gaze connected with Rose’s. She waved Rose over. “You remember Mark, don’t you?”
Mark managed a pained smile, obviously wishing he were anywhere else.
Rose followed Melissa into the small chapel, where Alice’s coffin took up the front. They found a pew in the middle, Mark entering first, leaving Rose on the aisle. Melissa inclined her head toward a sandy-haired man sitting by himself a couple of rows up. “That’s Richard Hughes, Alice’s ex.”
The man Alice had been drinking and dancing to forget, Rose thought. She watched him, wondering if he could have been the figure in the shadows. The police had probably questioned him already—significant others were always the first suspects in any murder investigation. Was he still on their list?
Melissa and Mark seemed to know most of the mourners in the chapel. Understandable; funerals were often like reunions, bringing together people who hadn’t seen each other in years. Melissa, Alice and Mark had all attended Alabama together, and many of the people in the tiny chapel shared that common past.
Just not Rose.
For most of her life, that wouldn’t have mattered. “Never met a stranger and never will,” her sister Lily used to tease.
But Rose wasn’t that person anymore.
She gritted her teeth against the creeping sense of self-consciousness and glanced at the growing crowd filling the pews behind her, letting her gaze move smoothly from face to face without settling long enough to attract unwanted attention. The man standing in the back of the chapel looked familiar; it took a moment to place him as Detective Carter, the policeman who’d taken her statement on Monday after Alice’s murder. If he recognized her, he gave no indication.
Rose started to turn back around when her gaze settled on a tall, lean man in a charcoal suit entering the back door of the chapel. Her heart seized.
It was the man who’d accosted her outside her house the day after Alice’s murder. The one named Daniel.
He met her gaze, his eyes narrowing briefly. He inclined his head in silent greeting as he slid into one of the back pews.
Rose faced forward, her heart racing. Who was he? Why was he here? The skin on the back of her neck prickled. Was he looking at her, even now?
She leaned toward Melissa. “Do you see the man at the back of the chapel, wearing a dark gray suit with a blue-and-gray striped tie?”
Melissa glanced over her shoulder. Her eyebrows arched. “You mean, Daniel Hartman? Weird. Wonder why he’s here.”
“You know him?”
“Yes. He’s a famous profiler. Used to be with the FBI. He’s a professor or something now. Haven’t you ever heard of him? He’s always on the true-crime programs on TV, talking about this case or that.” She lowered her voice. “I’m considering publishing a new book of his.”
As the funeral director took the podium and began the service, Rose slumped in the pew, mulling the new information. She barely heard any of the eulogy, her earlier tension fading into annoyance as she realized just how many hours over the past couple of days she’d spent in fear of her mystery man, when he could have eased her worries with a simple introduction.
After the service, Melissa turned to her. “I need to talk to her parents for a minute. Are you going to the graveside for the rest of the service?”
Rose shook her head. She’d had enough of death for today. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can get back to planning your wedding. Happier things, right?”
Melissa gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for coming.”
Rose stood, stealing the opportunity to glance at the pew where she’d last seen Daniel. He was no longer there.
She looked around the chapel, trying to spot him in the milling crowd heading for the exit, but she couldn’t find him. She did spot Detective Carter again and, for a moment, she considered flagging him down to tell him about Daniel. The police might want to know they had a rogue profiler sniffing around their case.
But telling Detective Carter about Daniel meant admitting she’d been at Alice’s apartment the morning she’d turned up dead, a piece of information Rose had withheld from the detective during their brief interview a couple of days earlier.
He’d want to know why she’d run away when the police showed up. And the only answer that made sense was the one she had no intention of giving. Detective Carter had seemed the open-minded, reasonable sort, but she wasn’t about to tell a cop that she had foreseen the deaths of three of the slasher’s victims.
She joined the mourners heading for the exit, peeling off when she reached the foyer to find a restroom. Spotting the signs at the other end of the foyer, she started weaving her way through the crowd.
Halfway there, the sound of Mark Phagan’s smooth baritone caught her ear. “It’s no big deal—I just had other stuff to do—but Melissa thinks I was with y’all at the game. So if it comes up, that’s where I was, okay?”
Rose followed his voice and found Mark standing a few feet away, addressing a couple of men who looked to be around his age. Both men nodded, one shooting a wry half-grin at the other as if sharing a private joke.
Rose’s heart sank. Mark had already cheated at least once during the engagement. Was he doing it again?
She gave herself a mental shake and pushed on toward the restrooms. Whether Mark was cheating or not, that was for Melissa to figure out by herself. The last time Rose had tried to interfere with the course of true love, her efforts had ended in tragedy in the middle of Bridey Woods.
The restroom was full, women waiting in single file along the wall for their turn inside. Rose fell in behind the last woman, letting her gaze wander to the opposite wall where a bulletin board hung next to the door of the business office. Amid a sea of white sheets of paper full of tiny black type, a sunny yellow flyer gleamed like a beacon, catching her eye.
Special Neighborhood Meeting, read the bold headline across the top of the page. Below, an announcement of free CPR lessons listed a date and time. Too bad it wasn’t self-defense lessons instead, Rose thought.
She cocked her head. Why couldn’t it be? Why couldn’t the Southside neighborhood association set up a special meeting, bring in the police or a self-defense expert to tell women how to avoid being the killer’s next victim? The women in the neighborhood weren’t receiving any warning at all. The police weren’t putting suspect sketches on the evening news or even admitting that the killings were connected—didn’t want to “panic” people.
But if the neighborhood association got involved, the police wouldn’t have much choice, would they? Get enough voices clamoring for answers, and the police might have to admit what Rose already knew: There was a killer stalking Southside and, if he wasn’t stopped, more women would die.
She had the association president’s contact information filed somewhere at home. She’d call as soon as she got there.
DANIEL WAS WAITING in the funeral-home foyer when Frank Carter emerged from the chapel. His old friend met his gaze with a wry half-smile. “Imagine meeting you here.”
“Just thinking of you a little while ago,” Daniel said. “Stopped by Tina’s grave on the way in.”
Frank’s expression darkened. “See any ghosts?”
Not quite the response Daniel expected. “Only the ones in my mind. Still avoiding the place?”
Frank didn’t answer.
“Meant to tell you, I was sorry to hear about your mother,” Daniel added. “Mom wrote to tell me about it.”
“It was strange. She was in good health all the way up to the massive coronary. I don’t know, maybe if I’d been here, I might have seen the signs.” He shrugged. “Ten years away, and the first time I come back home, it’s to bury my mother.”
“And decided to stay?”
“Something like that.”
“Where are you living these days?”
“Home sweet home,” Frank said with a grimace. “The place needs a lot of work before it’s ready to sell and I don’t see the point of spending rent money on an apartment when the house is there and paid for.”
“Shrine still there?” Daniel asked.
Frank’s scowl answered the question. “I still can’t go in there. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like she’s still there. I just…can’t.”
“Going to make it hard to sell the house.”
Frank slanted a look at Daniel. “I’m working up to it.” He moved ahead, toward the exit to join the mourners lining up for the slow drive out to the newly turned grave at the far side of the cemetery.
Daniel lingered behind, looking for Rose Browning. He’d kept an eye out for her since spotting her heading toward the restrooms. He hadn’t seen her come out, so she had to still be back there somewhere.
Unless there was a rear exit.
As he started toward the corridor, the object of his search emerged, stopping short as her startled gaze met his.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t think you were.”
“I need to talk to you.”
One dark eyebrow arched. “About what?”
“Alice Donovan’s murder.”
The other eyebrow lifted. “Why would I want to talk to you about Alice’s murder? You’re not a policeman.”
He debated telling her who he was and why he was interested, but he didn’t want to lay out all his cards yet. He compromised. “Actually, I’m something of a true-crime buff. I’m thinking about writing a book on unsolved murders in the southeast.”
“You want to write about people murdering other people?”
Not the question he’d expected. “Maybe what I write will help solve the crimes.”
Her pale brown eyes glittered with skepticism. “Right.”
He couldn’t blame her for her doubt. It wasn’t a great cover story but it had the advantage of being the truth. Sort of. “Whoever killed Alice has killed before.”
She didn’t look surprised. Interesting.
“There was another woman about a month ago. Sherry Nicholson. Seen leaving the Anchor on Magnolia Avenue around midnight. Next morning her body turned up in the woods near Vulcan Park.” When Rose didn’t respond, he continued. “Victim number two was a med student at U.A.B.”
“Elisa Biondi,” Rose blurted softly.
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”
“They’re connected, aren’t they?”
“I think so.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his. “Interesting hobby you have.”
He didn’t like her cool tone. What he did wasn’t a hobby; it was his job. He was damned good at it. Sometimes he got a big rush out of it. A lot of women found him fascinating because of what he chose to do with his life. Just not Rose Browning, apparently.
“He didn’t start here in Birmingham,” he said.
Her brow creased. “You think he’s killed before?”
Daniel hesitated, not sure why he’d opened up to her as much as he had already. He needed to control the conversation, not get sucked into spilling his guts to a big-eyed brunette beauty with her own secrets. “Why were you at Alice Donovan’s the other morning?”
She hesitated before answering. “I called her business that morning, and her employees were worried because she was very late. I’d offered to check on her. What were you doing there?”
“Following the police from the crime scene.”
She gave a soft huff of surprised laughter.
“I talked to your client, Melissa Bannerman. She told me you were at a club with her and Alice the night she died. Said you left a minute or so after Alice.”
Rose cocked her head. “Melissa told you that?”
“Yes.”
She stepped back, putting more distance between them. “Or maybe you were stalking Alice.”
He ignored the accusation. “Did you see Alice leave?”
“Yes. I saw her drive away, and she was alone and fine.” Rose started to walk briskly toward the exit.
Daniel caught up with her outside the funeral home. “That’s all you saw?”
“You think I saw someone grab her and just forgot to call the police?” She pinned him with a fierce glare.
“You may have seen something you don’t realize you saw.”
“I didn’t,” she said. But unease flickered over her face.
“Maybe someone at the bar paying too much attention to her. Or a car that left the parking lot right after hers—”
“I didn’t see anything like that.” She moved away, heading toward the parking lot. He let her go, walking to his Jeep at a more leisurely pace. She was already pulling out onto the highway by the time he slid behind the steering wheel.
No matter. He knew where she lived.
“IS IT A GO?” Rose tightened her grip on her cell phone, waiting for the neighborhood association president’s response.
“Tuesday at seven, regular room,” John Fielding answered.
Rose sighed with relief. “Perfect. Do you need me to help pass out the fliers?”
“We’ll have some printed up by one o’clock this afternoon. You can pick up a batch then.” He gave her the address of his law firm.
“I’ll be there.” Rose hung up and looked across the desk at Melissa Bannerman. “It’s on—next Tuesday at seven.”
Melissa smiled, though sadness lingered in her eyes. “I can’t believe you got it put together so quickly.”
“It wasn’t me, it was Mr. Fielding. He even managed to get the police to cooperate.”
Melissa looked surprised. “Did you think they wouldn’t?”
“The guy’s killed three women, and the cops haven’t got a clue. That’s not something they like to talk about.”
“Well, I definitely plan to be there.” Melissa stood, picking up the suit jacket draped over her desk chair. “After what happened to Alice, I’ve decided there’s no such thing as being too careful. I have a technician coming first thing in the morning to put in a new alarm system.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Rose agreed. She should consider it herself, although money was tight at the moment.
Melissa shrugged on her jacket and motioned toward the door. “Let’s go see what the Elegant Eatery has to offer.”
Rose let Melissa take the lead at the caterer’s, knowing her strong-willed client would make her own decision regardless of what Rose might suggest. She was too keyed up to sample the goods, anyway.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what Daniel Hartman had told her at Alice’s funeral.
It had been bad enough knowing that the killer had murdered three women. But if Daniel was right, he’d killed dozens of women across several states without being caught.
How could she possibly stop him before he killed again?
Chapter Four
A black ribbon still hung on the door of Five Points Floral Creations when Daniel arrived after lunchtime the Friday after Alice Donovan’s funeral. He recognized the clerk he’d met on Monday when he’d stopped by to find out more about Alice’s movements the night she’d died.
Daniel avoided the clerk, taking a slow tour of the display area, looking for a fall arrangement to send to his mother. A week in town and still he hadn’t called her.
He was a lousy son.
He took a bouquet of fall asters to the cashier’s counter where the clerk, a pretty girl with short black hair and a sapphire nose stud, met him with a smile. Sasha, he remembered.
She recognized him, as well. “Hi. Daniel, right? Did you get in touch with Ms. Bannerman?”
He handed her his credit card. “I did, thanks.”
“I hope you can help find out who killed Alice. I still can’t get my mind around it.” Sasha handed him his receipt.
“Do you know Ms. Browning, too?”
Sasha’s brow wrinkled. “Ms. Browning?”
“She’s a wedding planner. Talked to someone here on the phone the morning Alice…” He let the words trail, watching for her reaction.
“Oh, the one who offered to check on Alice.” Sasha’s eyes widened with sudden horror. “Was she the one who found her?”
Behind them, the bell above the door jingled again. Daniel turned to find the subject of his questions entering the store, her dark hair pulled back in a severe twist, her slim body clad in a conservative gray suit. But she still exuded a sort of wild, natural beauty that made his heart skip a beat.
Her light brown eyes locked with his. “Daniel.”
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