The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception

by Linda Turner

  Midnight, however, came and went and she never noticed the passage of time. They left the Hard Rock and checked out Planet Hollywood, then stopped in at a little jazz place where the music was as low as the lights. When they weren’t dancing, the four of them were talking and laughing and trading stories about everything from high school to first dates to their most embarrassing moments. By the time they called it a night, it was going on three in the morning.

  She’d talked all evening without once having to search her brain for a topic of conversation, but the second she and Blake were alone in his pickup and headed for her house, silence slipped into the truck with them. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to break it. Downtown was left behind, the odometer clicked off the miles, and the quiet, accompanied by a growing tension, thickened.

  Desperate, she broke it just as Blake turned down her street. “I liked your friends. They were fun.”

  His smile flashed in the darkness. “They liked you, too. Dillon doesn’t open up like that for everyone, you know. When he and Sydney first met, he was pretty much a loner, and wanted to stay that way. She’s brought him out of it, but I’ve never heard him tell stories about his days in the DEA like he did tonight.”

  Breaking to a stop in front of her house, he cut the engine and turned to her. She’d left the porch light on, but it hardly touched the shadows filling the truck. “He must have really been taken with you,” he said huskily. “I can’t say I blame him. Did I tell you what a knockout you are in that dress?”

  He didn’t move so much as an eyelash, but Sabrina could feel his touch as surely as if he’d reached out and trailed his fingers across her bare neck. Between one breath and the next, her heart was hammering and the temperature in the cab seemed to have risen ten degrees.

  Blindly, she fumbled for the release to her seat belt. “Not in so many words, but I sort of got the general idea, thanks,” she said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. “I’d better go. It’s late.”

  “Wait! I’ll walk you to the door.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but she was too late. He was out of the pickup like a shot and walking around to open her door for her before she could tell him that was the last thing she wanted. Left with no choice, she stepped out and joined him on the sidewalk.

  The walk to her front porch had never taken so long. With the neighborhood quiet, asleep, they could have been the only two people in the world. Her pulse skipping every other beat, Sabrina half expected him to take her hand, but he seemed content to shorten his strides to match hers and walk along beside her without touching her. Then they reached the porch.

  “Thank you for a wonderful—”

  “I had a great—”

  They both spoke at the same time as they turned to face each other. Normally, Sabrina would have laughed, but in the glare of the porch light, there was nothing comical about the heat in his eyes. It stole her breath and weakened her knees and set off alarm bells in her head. He was going to kiss her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name, and if she had a single ounce of self-preservation, she’d get inside while she still wanted to.

  But she just stood there, her heart knocking against her ribs so loudly that he had to hear it, and waited. In the quiet of the night, it seemed like an eternity, but something of her need must have shown in her eyes because in the next instant, he was reaching for her and she, God help her, was stepping into his arms. “Blake…”

  All she said was his name. Just that. She didn’t use his first name often, and had no idea what it did to him when she called to him in quite that way. He considered himself a civilized man who could easily control his passions, but she’d been driving him crazy for hours. They’d laughed and talked and casually touched and all he’d been able to think of was this moment, when he’d take her home and finally have her all to himself. He’d been so sure that he would sweep her up into his arms and ravage that beautiful mouth of hers the first chance that he got, but the hunger he heard in the simple calling of his name—and the trepidation she couldn’t quite conceal—echoed the confusing mix of emotions churning in his own gut. God, he wanted her, even when she scared the hell out of him. He should back off and give his head time to clear, but he couldn’t, not when she was this close.

  Silently cursing himself, aching for her in a way he had for no other woman, he found himself murmuring reassurances as he gathered her closer. “It’s okay, honey. It’s just a kiss.”

  But the second his mouth settled on hers, nothing was quite that simple. Not with Sabrina. Not since that first kiss that had tied him in knots and left him wanting for days now. Did she know how soft her mouth was? How hot? How giving? He could have spent days just learning the taste and texture of her, and still it wouldn’t have been enough. Not when she was flush against him like a heat rash, her arms climbing around his neck, her tongue sweetly welcoming his in the liquid heat of her mouth. If he never kissed her again, a month from now, a year, he would still be able to taste her.

  That thought alone should have brought him to his senses, but at that moment, every sense he had was occupied with the woman in his arms. His blood rushing through his veins, need like a fist in his gut, he wanted her. In his bed. Under him. Her arms and legs and body surrounding him, taking him in, holding him like she would never let him go. Uncaring that they were standing under her porch light in full view of anyone who cared to look, he slanted his mouth across hers to take the kiss deeper.

  Her head spinning, Sabrina clung to him as if he was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly turned topsy-turvy. All her life, she’d promised herself she would never lead with her heart the way her mother and grandmother had. She just wouldn’t let herself be that weak. But Blake was a man who could shatter convictions she would have sworn were carved in stone. If she hadn’t known that before, she knew it now, when he kissed her as if she was something infinitely precious that he needed more than he needed his next breath. That alone should have had her fighting her way out of his arms, but his hands seduced, even while his mouth wooed her, and her mind blurred. As if from a distance, she heard the whisper of silk as he blindly caressed her, then his fingers were closing over her breast, his thumb searching out her nipple. Lightning, sweet and warm, streaked through her, and with a soft moan, she melted against him.

  For long, breathless moments, she held on tight as their kisses turned hot and wild and desperate. She couldn’t think and didn’t want to. Then his hands slid to her hips and pulled her against him, trapping his arousal between them. Urgency firing her blood, she whimpered.

  At that moment, she would have given just about anything to be the type of woman who could enjoy the moment for the pure sake of pleasure and not ruin it by thinking too much. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  She never remembered moving, but suddenly she was pushing out of his arms. “No! I can’t do this!”

  Stunned, Blake instinctively tried to pull her back into his arms. “Sweetheart, wait—”

  “It’s late,” she said huskily, gliding out of reach as she fumbled for her keys. “You should be going.”

  The only place he wanted to go was inside with her, but when he ducked his head to get a look at her face, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. She was pale except for the wild color that fluctuated in her cheeks, and her eyes were dark with what looked an awful lot like panic as she tried to avoid his gaze. His desire-fogged brain abruptly clearing, he frowned. “In a minute. First I think we should talk about what just happened here.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she said curtly, turning away. “You kissed me. I kissed you back. End of story.”

  End of story?! She’d just knocked him loop-legged in front of God and any of her neighbors who cared to look at that hour of the night, and she thought that was the end of the story? The hell it was!

  Wanting to strangle her, he followed her across the porch to her front door. “If yo
u really think that, then maybe I should kiss you again because that sure didn’t feel like it was the end of the story to me, honey. In fact, it damn well felt like the beginning. Dammit, Sabrina, will you at least look at me?” he fumed.

  She didn’t even bother to answer him. Her back to him and ramrod straight, she just stood there, staring at something in front of her. Frowning, he stepped around her and swore when he saw that she was as white as a sheet. “What is it? What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

  “The door,” she whispered, her gaze focused on the latch. “It’s unlocked.”

  His eyes following hers, Blake saw that not only was it unlocked, but it was slightly ajar, pulled to, but not quite closed. “Are you sure you locked it when we left? We were both distracted. Maybe you just thought you pulled it shut.”

  Shaking her head, she hugged herself, suddenly chilled. “No, I know I locked it. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where you can leave your doors unlocked. I always check it twice just to be sure.”

  “Then someone’s been here.” His face grim, Blake moved between her and the door. “And for all we know, they could still be in there. Stay out here while I check it out.”

  It was the wrong thing to say to a woman who made her living covering crime. “Not on your life, Nickels,” she said quietly. “In case you’ve forgotten, this is my house. If someone’s still in there, they’re damn well going to have to answer to me!”

  Ignoring his muttered curses, she was right behind him as he stepped into the entrance hall and soundlessly switched on the light. Tension scraping against his nerve endings like a jagged piece of glass, Blake cocked his head and listened for sounds of an intruder, but nothing moved. The old house, in fact, seemed to be holding its breath and didn’t even creak. Whoever had been there was, in all probability, long gone.

  Still, he had no intention of bumbling through the house like an idiot in search of trouble. His pace slow and measured, his eyes watchful as he moved from room to room with Sabrina just a half step behind him, he flipped on lights and patiently waited for her to inspect the contents of each room and take a quick inventory. Nothing had been moved, let alone stolen.

  By the time they reached the kitchen, Sabrina was beginning to wonder if maybe she had forgotten to lock the door. Considering how nervous she’d been about going out with Blake, it was a logical explanation. She’d taken one look at Blake in his tux, and evidently everything else had gone right out of her head, including locking the door. Granted, she’d never done such a thing before, but that made more sense than a thief breaking into the house and leaving without taking anything.

  An invisible weight lifting from her shoulders, she almost laughed at her own foolishness. Then her gaze drifted to the kitchen table and a piece of paper that hadn’t been there when she’d left. A piece of paper that was folded in half with her name scrawled on the outside.

  She froze, her blood chilling in her veins at the sight of that familiar jagged handwriting. She’d only seen it twice before, but she would have recognized it in the depths of hell. “Blake…there’s a note….”

  He followed her gaze to the table and swore, reaching it in two strides. Touching only one corner, he flicked the unlined piece of paper open and quickly, silently, scanned the typed message inside. When he finally looked up, his face was set in harsh lines. “I think you’d better call the police.”

  Her heart in her throat, she stepped closer. “What does it say?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he retorted grimly, moving to block her path. “Call Kelly.”

  Ignoring him, Sabrina tried to move around him, but he anticipated her and once again stepped in front of her. Scared and hating it, she knew what he was doing and couldn’t even be angry with him. “You can’t protect me from this, Blake,” she said gravely. “Whoever wrote that damn thing was in my house! He knows where I work, where I live, where I go and when. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel, knowing he’s out there somewhere, watching my every move? He’s a sicko, a murderer, and I’ve got a right to know what kind of threats he’s making, especially when they’re made in my house.”

  Hesitating, he stood his ground. “It’s just trash. Not worth worrying about.”

  “I deal with garbage every day on the streets,” she retorted. “I can handle it. Just because I’m wearing silk tonight doesn’t mean I’m soft.”

  He didn’t like it, but she saw something flare in his eyes and knew she had won. “All right,” he said with a sigh. “Read the damn thing if you insist. I’m calling Kelly.” Striding across the room, he picked up the phone.

  For all of ten seconds, Sabrina almost reconsidered. But if she could be intimidated by a simple note, how could she ever look herself in the mirror again? She was a reporter, and if the innocent-looking paper on the table really was from the murderer, which it certainly appeared to be, then it was news. And she didn’t cower behind anyone when it came to covering a story.

  Squaring her shoulders, she approached the table as if it was a nesting ground for rattlers and cautiously lifted the same corner of the note Blake had, careful not to put any more of her prints on the paper than she had to. The pounding of her heart loud in her ears, she braced herself and began to read.

  You slut! I thought you were different, that you cared, but you’re just like all the rest. You got your story and your headlines—headlines I gave you!—but it was him you went out with. And it should have been me, damn you! It should have been me you dressed up for in that pretty red dress, but you couldn’t see anyone but him. Did you sleep with him when you got home? Just thinking about the two of you together made me sick to my stomach. I won’t allow it! Do you understand? You’re mine! That’s why I killed her, the girl in the red dress like yours. Now you have another story to write, and you don’t have to think of anyone but me. Just me. I’ll kill them all if I have to to make you happy.

  Horrified, Sabrina dropped the note, snatching her hand back as if she’d been burned. “No!” she said hoarsely. “It isn’t true! He couldn’t have killed someone else just because I went out. That’s crazy!”

  Finished with his call, Blake hung up and said, “Of course he’s crazy! Why do you think I didn’t want you to read the damn thing? He’s a sicko who doesn’t know reality from a hole in the ground. For all we know, he could be making the whole thing up.”

  “But what if it’s true?” she whispered, stricken. “What if he really did go out and kill a girl in a red dress because he was angry with me? You read the note. Some poor girl could have died tonight because I went out with you.”

  “Bull!” he growled. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he swore at the guilt he saw already darkening her eyes and gave her a shake. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, Jones! You didn’t do anything wrong. If the bastard really did kill again tonight, he did it because he wanted to, not because of anything you did. Dammit, Sabrina, he’s a loony tune! This isn’t your fault.”

  Deep down inside, she knew that, but that didn’t make her feel any better. The killer had been there tonight, not only in her home, but watching her from the shadows somewhere like a panther waiting to spring. He could have been anywhere…hiding in the bushes in some neighbor’s yard, mingling with the crowd on the River Walk, following her all night and growing angrier by the second as he’d watched her laugh and dance with Blake and his friends. And she hadn’t even known it.

  Damn him, who was he? And what did he want from her?

  “It might not technically be my fault, but I can’t help but feel that I should know who this jerk is.”

  “What about the list you came up with for Kelly?” he asked as she kicked off her high heels and began to pace in her stocking feet.

  She laughed, but there was little humor to the sound. “Believe it or not, the list wasn’t that big. And somehow I can’t see the guy I turned down for the senior prom in high school doing something like this ten years later. It’s got to be somebody else, but who? He’s leav
ing clues all over the place, just daring me to figure out who he is. Why can’t I put it all together and come up with a name?”

  “Because he’s just playing with you the way a cat does with a mouse, Jones,” he said flatly. “He hasn’t given you that much information, just enough to tease you and drive you crazy. If you let yourself, you’ll spend hours just thinking about him, and that’s what he wants…your total attention. Don’t let him win that kind of head game with you.”

  Sam Kelly arrived then with two uniformed officers. While the officers searched the house for signs of a break-in that would explain how the killer got into the house, Sam read the note, his expression stony, then silently slid it into an evidence bag. “Since you’re both dressed fit to kill, you obviously went out tonight,” he said as he dropped the bag on the table with a grimace of distaste and pulled out a chair. “Tell me about it. When you left, where you went, when you got back. Everything.”

  Unable to sit, Sabrina roamed around the kitchen, her words jerky as she began to recount the events of the evening. “It didn’t start out as a date. Since Blake and I were both going to the awards banquet for the National Newspaper Association, we decided to go together. Blake picked me up—”

  “What time?” Sam asked sharply.

  “Seven,” Blake said, answering for her. “It was still light out. A man down the street was mowing his lawn, and a couple of ladies two houses up were gossiping over the fence between their yards. There was a jogger passing the house just as I drove up, but I didn’t get a look at his face. He was about six foot, a hundred and seventy pounds, with blond hair.”

  Jotting down notes, Sam nodded. “I’ll check it out. Go on.”

  Amazed that Blake had noticed such things when all she’d been able to see was him, Sabrina told the detective about their arrival at the convention center, where they’d parted company until after the awards ceremony. “The banquet hall was full,” she added. “But everyone seemed to belong there. If someone was watching either one of us, I didn’t see them.”