by Cynthia Eden
The operator’s voice stayed calm as she asked for Emma’s address.
“I’m not alone,” Emma said quietly. Because she’d learned not to trust anyone. Not in this life. “A man named Dean Bannon is with me.” She wanted his name on the record. Just in case . . . hell, just in case of what? That he decided to attack her before the cops arrived? Dean was making no move to come toward her. He was just standing there, watching her with those deep, dark eyes of his.
Emma gave the operator her address. “Get the cops to hurry, please.” Hurry.
Emma lowered the phone and glanced around her apartment once more. Gone. She’d worked so hard to build this place—her sanctuary—and in one night, some bastard out there had destroyed everything.
“I won’t hurt you.” Dean’s voice was low. She wanted to believe him. But she’d heard that particular lie from too many men before. “I didn’t do this, Emma. I’m one of the good guys.”
She laughed at that. “There’s no such thing.”
His lips thinned, then he glanced back over his shoulder, toward her bedroom. “You’re going to need a guy like me in your life.”
Goose bumps were on her arms. “I doubt that.”
But Dean nodded, and said, “Come with me into the bedroom.”
She shook her head.
“He left something you need to see.”
Her gaze locked on the bedroom doorway, and Emma inched toward it. Dean backed up, but his shoulder brushed against her arm as she passed him. For some reason, that one brush against his body had her tensing. Heat seeped into her skin, and Emma hadn’t even realized that she’d been cold. Not until that moment.
“The mirror,” he told her. “Look there.”
But her gaze was on the bed. It appeared as if someone had taken a knife to the mattresses and sliced them open. Feathers from her pillows littered the floor. Her clothes had been taken out of the dresser drawers, and they’d been slashed, too. Her shirts. Her skirts. Her bras. Her panties.
Her breath choked in as her gaze slowly rose to the mirror. It had been shattered. Long cracks covered the surface. As did . . .
Words. Words written in red spray paint.
You’re next.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE WAS KEEPING SECRETS FROM HIM.
Dean crossed his arms over his chest and watched as Emma opened the door to the little crystal shop. “You’re seriously going to stay here tonight?” he demanded.
Emma had shut down when the cops arrived at her place. She’d watched—her face totally devoid of emotion—as they started bagging and tagging potential pieces of evidence. When the cops had told her that the place was a crime scene and that Emma would have to sleep elsewhere that night, she’d just turned away from her home without a backward glance.
“There’s a cot in the back.” Her voice was low, too calm. “Don’t worry your pretty head, DB, I’ve survived much worse.”
His pretty head? DB? His brows climbed. “Shouldn’t you be more upset? I mean, somebody just—”
“Destroyed everything I own? Threatened my life?” Now the calm veneer cracked a bit, but Dean didn’t see fear in Emma’s gaze. He saw rage. “Trust me, I’m plenty upset, and when I find the bastard who did this, he’ll pay.”
“You’re planning to hunt him?” What the hell?
“No, I’m planning for him to come after me. I’m next, remember? So when he comes, I’ll be ready.”
Dean shut the door to the crystal shop. A little bell jingled overhead as he reached back and deliberately locked the door. “Emma Castille, I want your secrets.”
She was near the counter. Emma turned with a laugh that sounded far too brittle. “And here I thought you already knew them. What did you call me? A criminal? A fraud?”
He stalked toward her. Put his hands on either side of her body and caged her. “Someone is trying to hurt you.” That attack had been personal. Far too intimate. The rage had permeated her home. Emma should be terrified.
He’d seen other scenes like that. Too many scenes.
Fixation.
The perp had planned an intimate attack on the prey he craved the most. He’d have to call his partner, Sarah Jacobs, and get her take on the situation. Sarah was the profiler for the team, and when it came to figuring out killers, the woman was top-notch. She’d be able to tell him—
“If you’re not going to kiss me, then don’t get this close.”
His thoughts came to a crashing halt, and his gaze dropped to her lips.
“I’ll find the man who did this. The man who jimmied my lock and didn’t leave so much as a scratch on the door but left everything inside my home destroyed.” Her delicate jaw lifted. “I’ll find the bastard, I promise you that. I’m not going to be this jerk’s victim,” she snapped. “And I won’t be next! Whatever the hell that means.”
Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes gleamed.
And he’d been right before . . . the woman was fucking beautiful.
She was also very dangerous.
He didn’t move away from her, but Dean did lean in closer. The scent of jasmine filled his nostrils. That scent clung to her. “How do you know the SOB isn’t watching you right now? What if he followed you here?”
Her eyelashes flickered. “I’ll set the store’s alarm. I’ll be safe here.” Her chin lifted, and she pushed against his chest. “I told you, dammit, don’t be this close to me! Not unless—”
“I’m going to kiss you.” He was more than tempted. To feel those lush, red lips beneath his. To taste her. Emma Castille seemed to bubble over with life and passion, and he bet that when she kissed—the woman went molten.
He’d sure love to find out.
But . . .
Never mix business and pleasure.
Dean backed away. One step. Two.
“Is it easy to always have that control?” Emma wrapped her arms around her body as she asked that question.
His eyes narrowed. If he didn’t have control, then he had chaos.
“Time for you to leave, Dean Bannon,” she murmured. “I think you can find your way back to the door.”
“We’re not done.”
That bitter laughter came again. He’d expected her laughter to sound different—lighter, sweeter. Maybe her real laughter did sound that way. “Oh, I’d say we’re done. I’ve had an intruder destroy pretty much everything I own. My night has gone straight to hell, and all I want to do now is crash.”
She couldn’t shut him out, not yet. He needed her too much. “You’ve got to tell me about Julia!”
Her face paled. There was a flash of something in her eyes then. Something that looked like fear, but she masked the emotion almost as quickly as it appeared.
“I haven’t seen Julia in over a week, I told you that before.”
“You told me to head over to Bourbon Street. I did. No one I spoke with there remembered her, but, hell, you know, the Bourbon Street crowd changes every night. Hundreds of people are there.” Drunk men and women who weren’t paying attention to a lost girl. “You’re the one who saw her. The only one in this whole city who seems to remember her. Tell me which club she was heading toward. Tell me what she was wearing. Tell me something.” He exhaled on a ragged breath. “I need to know anything that will help her.”
Silence.
Then . . . “A long-sleeved blue blouse. It was too small, faded, and there were two holes on the right shoulder. She had on a pair of jeans, dark jeans, with a ripped right knee. Julia was wearing black flats that had scuff marks on the edges, and the heels were almost gone.”
He frowned as he listened to her.
“Her hair was in a twist at her nape. Pulling her hair back that way made her look older, so I think she was trying pass for at least twenty-one. She wore no makeup, no rings, no jewelry of any kind.”
She was giving one very thorough description.
“I’d say Julia weighed about 110 pounds, and on her five-foot-eight frame, that was just too little.” Her breath s
ighed out. “She was way too thin. I knew she’d been on the streets, and the fear clinging to her told me that Julia was running. I think . . .” Now her voice trailed away.
“Don’t stop.” Not now.
“She looked over her shoulder, and I think she saw someone who frightened her. She ran away then. I-I tried to go after her.”
She had? His head cocked as he studied Emma. Her hands were still wrapped tightly around her stomach.
“I followed her down Bourbon. We were almost at Jean Lafitte’s bar, and I-I lost her.” She raised her right hand and stared down at her palm. “Blood.”
“What?”
“There was blood on the wall. I know it was blood. On the bricks right outside of The Mask.”
“The Mask? Is that a bar?” Because he didn’t remember that place.
“It used to be, but it shut down last spring. Nothing is there now.” Her voice lowered, and she repeated, “Nothing.”
But he wasn’t sure he bought her story. “A girl vanishes, you find blood on bricks, and you just—what? Walk away? Turn and go?”
“I called the cops. Told them everything.” Her lips thinned. “But she was gone. They searched the area, they found nothing, and I’m—well, you know what I am, right?”
A criminal. A fraud.
You’re next.
“I hope that you find her,” Emma said, and her words were husky with emotion. “I hope like hell that you do because if you don’t, I’m afraid that . . .”
“What are you afraid of?” Dean pressed when she trailed off.
“I’m afraid that Julia is dead.” She shook her head. “And I don’t want her to be dead. I want you to find her. I want her to be safe.”
Dean reached out to her. He turned Emma in his arms so that she faced him. “I can’t figure you out.” On paper, she was a woman with a criminal past. As a teen, she’d been in near-constant scrapes with the law. She and her father had conned plenty of people.
But that had all changed one dark night, a little over ten years ago.
He caught her hands in his. Turned them over so that he stared at her palms and the faint scars there. His fingers smoothed over the marks.
“We wanted to help them, too,” Emma whispered. “The cops wouldn’t believe us, but we knew who the killer was. When they wouldn’t listen, we went after him ourselves.”
And her father had died in the attack. The police had blamed him for the whole nightmare scene.
Was there more to that story?
“You don’t realize how very much you want to live until death tries to take you.” Her words were soft, sad.
He was still holding her hands, and he couldn’t look away from her eyes. He’d never met anyone with eyes quite like Emma’s. A man could probably lose his soul, staring into eyes like hers.
If he had a soul.
Emma smiled, but her dimples didn’t flash. “You shouldn’t look at me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like you want to kiss me.”
He did. No, actually, right in that moment, he could have fucking devoured her. His responses to Emma had been off from the very moment he’d seen her. He’d never looked at a woman, just stared in her eyes—and immediately wanted her naked, beneath him, screaming his name.
But he had with Emma.
So maybe she deserved the truth from him. “I could be dangerous to you.”
Surprise flashed in that gorgeous gaze of hers. Then her smile stretched. “Not a man like you. A man like you is too used to walking the straight and narrow to ever be a threat to someone like me.” Then she rose on her tiptoes and leaned toward him. He lowered his head, and her lips brushed against his ear, as she said, “But I could be very dangerous to you, DB. I could wreck you. Shatter that control you hold so dear . . . and then what would happen?”
He could already feel his control cracking because he wanted her sexy mouth under his. Wanted her, under him.
He felt the light lick of her tongue on his ear.
Fuck. His eyes closed.
“So maybe . . . maybe it’s best if we just say our good-byes now.” She slid back down, moving away from him. “While there’s still time.”
Was there time? His eyes opened. Locked on her. “One thing first . . .”
Her brows climbed.
“This.” Because, for once, he’d take something that he wanted. Dean pulled her fully into his arms, pressing her flush against him. His mouth crashed onto hers. His control was already cracked, so he kissed her harder, deeper, wilder than he normally would have—
And she kissed him back the same way. With a sensual abandon that punched him and had him holding her even tighter. His cock surged against Emma as arousal flooded through him. Too fast, too hard, the cracks in his control started to spread as his hold on her tightened.
When she gave a little moan in the throat, he lifted her up, pushing her to the edge of the counter, then sliding between her legs as—
He jerked his mouth away from hers. His hands slapped down on the counter, moving to either side of her body as he sucked in a desperate breath but just got—
Jasmine.
His heart thundered in his chest, and all he wanted—all he wanted was to put his hands under that flowing skirt of hers. To strip away her underwear and drive into Emma.
“Tried to tell you . . .” Her voice was a sensual temptation. “I’m not much for control.”
He shoved away from the counter. She jumped down, and the skirt swirled around her legs. His gaze slowly rose up her body, sliding up her curves and up, up to her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips red and swollen from his mouth, and, if possible, her eyes seemed to shine even brighter.
If there was a woman to lose control for, it just might be her.
But Dean knew just how dangerous it would be for him to relax his guard. The last time he’d let himself go, death had followed.
He turned for the door because he wasn’t sure what he should say to her. An apology wasn’t coming from him because Dean wasn’t sorry that he’d kissed her.
But he was sorry he’d stopped.
He unlocked the door and stepped out into the night. The bell jingled over his head.
“Good-bye, Dean,” her soft voice followed him.
“ARE YOU AFRAID?”
The voice came out of the darkness, taunting her, terrifying her.
Julia Finney tensed. The ropes cut into her already bleeding and raw wrists, they sliced over her ankles, and a pain-filled moan slipped from her lips.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She felt his fingers on her cheek. Wiping away her tears. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything but darkness in that place.
“Pl-please,” Julia whispered. “I-I just want to go home . . .”
“I thought you hated home. You told me that you hated it, remember?”
The tears wouldn’t stop.
“Don’t worry, baby, I won’t let them get you again.” His fingers slid down to rest over her throat. Right over the frantic beat of her pulse. “I’ll make sure that you never, ever have to go home again.”
Then his fingers started to tighten around her neck.
HE WATCHED AS Emma slipped out of the little shop. It was far after one a.m., when she should have been in for the night. Safe.
But she was slipping away from safety.
She looked to the left. She looked to the right. Emma didn’t see him because he was hiding in the shadows. Over the years, he’d grown far too used to the shadows. He could blend perfectly with them.
So when she started hurrying down the street, it was too easy for him to follow her. His steps made no sound as he gave chase, and Emma, oh, she was moving fast. There was no hesitation from her. Only determination.
When they reached Bourbon Street, the noise from the crowd was like a roar. The street was filled, overflowing. People were hanging over the sides of balconies. Men were vomiting in the street. Couples were making out in dark co
rners and under bright streetlights.
Emma ignored all of those people. She hurried away, moving down, down the street until the bars thinned. Until the noises dimmed.
Once, she glanced back over her shoulder.
But he was still covered by the shadows.
Her gaze swept over him, and she went right back to her path. And he went back to following her.
When she reached the boarded-up building, Emma hesitated. Her hand reached out and touched the bricks that lined the right wall.
The Mask. He looked up and saw the faded sign on the top of the building—two masks, not just one. A Mardi Gras mask that showed a big, wide smile, and one that showed a twisted frown.
She crept around to the back of the building. He watched as she yanked on the door, and when it didn’t open for her, Emma retreated a bit and studied the old bar. The windows had been boarded up, but Emma grabbed one of those boards and yanked, hard. It popped loose. Then she used that board to smash the window. Glass shattered.
Breaking and entering? She kept surprising him.
Emma used her board to shove the broken shards of glass out of her way, then she climbed inside the building.
Well, well . . .
EMMA TURNED ON her small flashlight. Her heart sounded like a drumbeat in her ears as she crept forward. This was the right place, she knew it. The darkness was so thick, so cavernous, and yeah, okay, the place was also extremely creepy.
But if the girl was there . . . I have to find her.
“Hello?” Emma called out. She knew this wasn’t her smartest move, but something had kept nagging at her as she’d lain on the cot in the back of the crystal shop. She’d been inside The Mask once before, right after the night she’d seen Julia. And she remembered . . .
Emma turned to the right. Her flashlight swept over the wall there. A wall that had already been marked by graffiti. Some random signs that meant nothing to her. A smiling face and—
You’re next.
Her breath choked out when she saw those words. Yes, yes, dammit, they had been what she remembered as she lay in that too-small, too-uncomfortable cot in the shop’s back room. She’d searched this place herself, after the cops had left, and she’d seen the graffiti then. She’d been intent on the girl, so when Julia hadn’t showed up, Emma had dismissed all the graffiti.
