Books by Nora Roberts

by Roberts, Nora

  Just one night, she told herself. If he didn't call tonight, it would be over. She looked at the clock, watched the seconds tick by. Eight more minutes to go and she would turn the airwaves over to Jackson. She would go home, take a long, hot bath and sleep like a baby. "KHIP, you're on the air."

  "Cilia."

  The hissing whisper shot ice through her veins. She reached over reflexively to disconnect, but Boyd clamped a hand over her wrist and shook his head. For a moment she struggled, biting back panic. His hand remained firm on hers, his eyes calm and steady.

  Boyd watched as she fought for control, until she jammed in a cassette of commercials. The bright, bouncy jingles transmitted as she put the call on the studio speaker.

  "Yes." Pride made her keep her eyes on Boyd's. "This is Cilia. What do you want?"

  "Justice. I only want justice."

  "For what?"

  "I want you to think about that. I want you to think and wonder and sweat until I come for you."

  "Why?" Her hand flexed under Boyd's. In an instinctive gesture of reassurance, he linked his fingers with hers. "Who are you?"

  "Who am I?" There was a laugh that skidded along her skin. "I'm your shadow, your conscience. Your executioner. You have to die. When you understand, only when you understand, I'll end it. But it won't be quick. It won't be easy. You're going to pay for what you've done."

  "What have I done?" she shouted. "For God's sake, what have I done?''

  He spit out a stream of obscenities that left her dazed and nauseated before he broke the connection. With one hand still covering hers, Boyd punched out a number on the phone.

  "You get the trace?" he demanded, then bit off an oath. "Yeah. Right." Disgusted, he replaced the receiver. "Not long enough." He reached up to touch Cilia's pale cheek. "You okay?"

  She could hardly hear him for the buzzing in her ears, but she nodded. Mechanically she turned to her mike, waiting until the commercial jingle faded.

  "That about wraps it up for this morning. It's 1:57. Tina Turner's going to rock you through until two. My man Jackson's coming in to keep all you insomniacs company until 6:00 a.m. This is Cilia O'Roarke for KHIP. Remember, darling, when you dream of me, dream good."

  Light-headed, she pushed away from the console. She only had to stand up, she told herself. Walk to her car, drive home. It was simple enough. She did it every morning of her life. But she sat where she was, afraid her legs would buckle.

  Jackson pushed through the door and stood there, hesitating. He was wearing a baseball cap to cover his healing hair transplant. "Hey, Cilia." He glanced from her to Boyd and back again. "Rough night, huh?"

  Cilia braced herself, pasted on a careless smile. "I've had better." With every muscle tensed, she "shoved herself to her feet. "I've got them warmed up for you, Jackson."

  "Take it easy, kid."

  "Sure." The buzzing in her ears was louder as she walked from the booth to snatch her coat from the rack. The corridors were dark, catching only a faint glow from the lobby, where the security lights burned. Disoriented, she blinked. She didn't even notice when Boyd took her arm and led her outside.

  The cold air helped. She took big, thirsty gulps of it, releasing it again in thin plumes of white smoke. "My car's over there," she said when Boyd began to pull her toward the opposite end of the lot.

  "You're in no shape to drive."

  "I'm fine."

  "Great. Then we'll go dancing."

  "Look—"

  "No, you look." He was angry, furious. He hadn't realized it himself until that moment. She was shaking, and despite the chill wind, her cheeks were deathly pale. Listening to the tapes hadn't been the same as being there when the call came through, seeing the blood drain out of her face and her eyes glaze with terror. And not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. "You're a mess, O'Roarke, and I'm not letting you get behind the wheel of a car." He stopped next to his car and yanked open the door. "Get in. I'll take you home."

  She tossed the hair out of her eyes. "Serve and protect, right?"

  "You got it. Now get in before I arrest you for loitering."

  Because her knees felt like jelly, she gave in. She wanted to be asleep, alone in some small, quiet room. She wanted to scream. Worse, she wanted to cry. Instead, she rounded on Boyd the second he settled in the driver's seat.

  "You know what I hate even more than cops?"

  He turned the key in the ignition. "I figure you're going to tell me."

  "Men who order women around just because they're men. I don't figure that as a cultural hang-up, just stupidity. The way I look at it, that's two counts against you, Detective."

  He leaned over, deliberately crowding her back in her seat. He got a moment's intense satisfaction out of seeing her eyes widen in surprise, her lips part on a strangled protest. The satisfaction would have been greater, he knew, if he had gone on impulse and covered that stubborn, sassy mouth with his own. He was certain she would taste exactly as she sounded—hot, sexy and dangerous.

  Instead, he yanked her seat belt around her and fastened it.

  Her breath came out in a whoosh when he took the wheel again. It had been a rough night, Cilia reminded herself. A tense, disturbing and unsettling night. Otherwise she would never have sat like a fool and allowed herself to be intimidated by some modern-day cowboy.

  Her hands were shaking again. The reason didn't seem to matter, only the weakness.

  "I don't think I like your style, Slick."

  "You don't have to." She was getting under his skin, Boyd realized as he turned out of the lot. That was always a mistake. "Do what you're told and we'll get along fine."

  "I don't do what I'm told," she snapped. "And I don't need a second-rate cop with a John Wayne complex to give me orders. Mark's the one who called you in, not me. I don't need you and I don't want you."

  He braked at a light. "Tough."

  "If you think I'm going to fall apart because some creep calls me names and makes threats, you're wrong."

  "I don't think you're going to fall apart, O'Roarke, any more than you think I'm going to pick up the pieces if you do."

  "Good. Great. I can handle him all by myself, and if you get your kicks out of listening to that kind of garbage—" She broke off, appalled with herself. Lifting her hands, she pressed them to her face and took three deep breaths.

  "I'm sorry."

  "For?"

  "For taking it out on you." She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at them. "Could you pull over for a minute?"

  Without a word, he guided the car to the curb and stopped.

  "I want to calm down before I get home." In a deliberate effort to relax, she let her head fall back and her eyes close. "I don't want to upset my sister."

  It was hard to hold on to rage and resentment when the woman sitting next to him had turned from barbed wire to fragile glass. But if his instincts about Cilia were on target, too much sympathy would set her off again.

  "Want some coffee?"

  "No thanks." The corners of her mouth turned up for the briefest instant. "I've poured in enough to fuel an SST." She let out a long, cleansing breath. The giddiness was gone, and with it that floating sense of unreality. "I am sorry, Slick. You're only doing your job."

  "You got that right. Why do you call me Slick?"

  She opened her eyes, made a brief but comprehensive study of his face. "Because you are." Turning away, she dug in her bag for a cigarette. "I'm scared." She hated the fact that the admission was shaky, that her hand was unsteady as she struck a match.

  "You're entitled."

  "No, I'm really scared." She let out smoke slowly, watching a late-model sedan breeze down the road and into the night. "He wants to kill me. I didn't really believe that until tonight." She shuddered. "Is there any heat in this thing?"

  He turned the fan on full. "It's better if you're scared."

  "Why?"

  "You'll cooperate."

  She smiled. It was a full flash of a smile that almo
st stopped his heart. "No, I won't. This is only a momentary respite. I'll be giving you a hard time as soon as I recover."

  "I'll try not to get used to this." But it would be easy, he realized, to get used to the way her eyes warmed when she smiled. The way her voice eased over a man and made him wonder. "Feeling better?"

  "Lots. Thanks." She tapped out her cigarette as he guided the car back on the road. "I take it you know where I live."

  "That's why I'm a detective."

  "It's a thankless job." She pushed her hair back from her forehead. They would talk, she decided. Just talk. Then she wouldn't have to think. "Why aren't you out roping cattle or branding bulls? You've got the looks for it."

  He considered a moment. "I'm not sure that's a compliment, either."

  "You're fast on the draw, Slick."

  "Boyd," he said. "It wouldn't hurt you to use my name." When she only shrugged, he slanted her a curious look. "Cilia. That'd be from Priscilla, right?"

  "No one calls me Priscilla more than once."

  "Why?"

  She sent him her sweetest smile. "Because I cut out their tongues."

  "Right. You want to tell me why you don't like cops?"

  "No." She turned away to stare out the side window. "I like the nighttime," she said, almost to herself. "You can do things, say things, at three o'clock in the morning that it's just not possible to do or say at three o'clock in the afternoon. I can't even imagine what it's like to work in the daylight anymore, when people are crowding the air."

  "You don't like people much, do you?"

  "Some people." She didn't want to talk about herself, her likes and dislikes, her successes, her failures. She wanted to talk about him—to satisfy her curiosity, and to ease her jangled nerves. "So, how long have you had the night shift, Fletcher?"

  "About nine months." He glanced at her. "You meet an… interesting class of people."

  She laughed, surprised that she was able to. "Don't you just? Are you from Denver?"

  "Born and bred."

  "I like it," she said, surprising herself again. She hadn't given it a great deal of thought. It had simply been a place that offered a good college for Deborah and a good opportunity for her. Yet in six months, she realized, she had come close to sinking roots. Shallow ones, but roots nonetheless.

  "Does that mean you're going to stick around?" He turned down a quiet side street. "I did some research. It seems two years in one spot's about your limit."

  "I like change," she said flatly, closing down the lines of communication. She didn't care for the idea of anyone poking into her past and her private life. When he pulled up in her driveway, she was already unsnapping her seat belt. "Thanks for the ride, Slick."

  Before she could dash to her door, he was beside her. "I'm going to need your keys."

  They were already in her hand. She clutched them possessively. "Why?"

  "So I can have your car dropped off in the morning."

  She jingled them, frowning, as she stood under the front porch light. Boyd wondered what it would be like to walk her to her door after an ordinary date. He wouldn't keep his hands in his pockets, he thought ruefully. And he certainly would scratch this itch by kissing her outside the door.

  Outside, hell, he admitted. He would have been through the door with her. And there would have been more to the end of the evening than a good-night kiss.

  But it wasn't a date. And any fool could see that there wasn't going to be anything remotely ordinary between them. Something. That he promised himself. But nothing remotely resembling the ordinary.

  "Keys?" he repeated.

  After going over her options, Cilia had decided his was best. Carefully she removed a single key from the chain, which was shaped like a huge musical note. "Thanks."

  "Hold it." He placed the palm of his hand on the door as she unlocked it. "You're not going to ask me in for a cup of coffee?"

  She didn't turn, only twisted her head. "No."

  She smelled like the night, he thought. Dark, deep, dangerous. "That's downright unfriendly."

  The flash of humor came again. "I know. See you around, Slick."

  His hand dropped onto hers on the knob, took a firm hold. "Do you eat?"

  The humor vanished. That didn't surprise him. What did was what replaced it. Confusion. And—he could have sworn—shyness. She recovered so quickly that he was certain he'd imagined it.

  "Once or twice a week."

  "Tomorrow." His hand remained over hers. He couldn't be sure about what he'd thought he saw in her eyes, but he knew her pulse had quickened under his fingers.

  "I may eat tomorrow."

  "With me."

  It amazed her that she fumbled. It had been years since she'd experienced this baffling reaction to a man. And those years had been quiet and smooth. Refusing a date was as simple as saying no. At least it always had been for her. Now she found herself wanting to smile and ask him what time she should be ready. The words were nearly out of her mouth before she caught herself.

  "That's an incredibly smooth offer, Detective, but I'll have to pass."

  "Why?"

  "I don't date cops."

  Before she could weaken, she slipped inside and closed the door in his face.

  Boyd shuffled the papers on his desk and scowled. The O'Roarke case was hardly his only assignment, but he couldn't get his mind off it. Couldn't get his mind off O'Roarke, he thought, wishing briefly but intensely for a cigarette.

  The veteran cop sitting two feet away from him was puffing away like a chimney as he talked to a snitch. Boyd breathed in deep, wishing he could learn to hate the smell like other nonsmokers.

  Instead, he continued to torture himself by drawing in the seductive scent—that, and the other, less appealing aromas of a precinct station. Overheated coffee, overheated flesh, the cheap perfume hovering around a pair of working girls who lounged resignedly on a nearby bench.

  Intrusions, he thought, that he rarely noticed in the day-to-day scheme of things. Tonight they warred with his concentration. The smells, the sound of keyboards clicking, phones ringing, shoes scuffing along the linoleum, the way one of the overhead lights winked sporadically.

  It didn't help his disposition that for the past three days Priscilla Alice O'Roarke had stuck fast to his mind like a thick, thorny spike. No amount of effort could shake her loose. It might be because both he and his partner had spent hours at a time with her in the booth during her show. It might be because he'd seen her with her defenses down. It might be because he'd felt, fleetingly, her surge of response to him.

  It might be, Boyd thought in disgust. Then again, it might not.

  He wasn't a man whose ego was easily bruised by the refusal of a date. He liked to think that he had enough confidence in himself to understand he didn't appeal to every woman. The fact that he'd appealed to what he considered a healthy number of them in his thirty-three years was enough to satisfy him.

  The trouble was, he was hung up on one woman. And she wasn't having any of it.

  He could live with it.

  The simple fact was that he had a job to do now. He wasn't convinced that Cilia was in any immediate danger. But she was being harassed, systematically and thoroughly. Both he and Althea had started the ball rolling, questioning men with priors that fit the M.O., poking their fingers into Cilia's personal and professional life since she had come to Denver, quietly investigating her co-workers.

  So far the score was zip.

  Time to dig deeper, Boyd decided. He had Cilia's resume in his hand. It was an interesting piece of work in itself. Just like the woman it belonged to. It showed her bouncing from a one-horse station in Georgia—which accounted for that faint and fascinating Southern drawl—to a major player in Atlanta, then on to Richmond, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, before landing—feet first, obviously—in Denver at KHIP.

  The lady likes to move, he mused. Or was it that she needed to run? That was a question of semantics, and he intended to get the answer straigh
t from the horse's mouth.

  The one thing he could be sure of from the bald facts typed out in front of him was that Cilia had pulled herself along the road to success with a high school diploma and a lot of guts. It couldn't have been easy for a woman—a girl, really, at eighteen—to break into what was still a largely male-dominated business.

  "Interesting reading?" Althea settled a hip on the corner of his desk. No one in the station house would have dared whistle at her legs. But plenty of them looked.

  "Cilia O'Roarke." He tossed the resume down. "Impressions?"

  "Tough lady." She grinned as she said it. She'd spent a lot of time razzing Boyd about his fascination with the sultry voice on the radio. "Likes to do things her own way. Smart and professional."

  He picked up a box of candy-coated almonds and shook some into his hand. "I think I figured all that out myself."

  "Well, figure this." Althea took the box and carefully selected one glossy nut. "She's scared down to the bone. And she's got an inferiority complex a mile wide."

  "Inferiority complex." Boyd gave a quick snort and kicked back in his chair. "Not a chance."

  With the same careful deliberation, Althea chose another candied almond. "She hides it behind three feet of steel, but it's there." Althea laid a hand on the toe of his boot. "Woman's intuition, Fletcher. That's why you're so damn lucky to have me."

  Boyd snatched the box back, knowing Althea could, and would, methodically work her way through to the last piece. "If that woman's insecure, I'll eat my hat."

  "You don't have a hat."

  "I'll get one and eat it." Dismissing his partner's instincts, he gestured toward the files. "Since our man isn't letting up, we're going to have to go looking elsewhere for him."

  "The lady isn't very forthcoming about her past."

  "So we push."

  Althea considered a moment. Then she shifted her weight gracefully, recrossed her legs. "Want to flip a coin? Because the odds are she'll push back."

  Boyd grinned. "I'm counting on it."

  "It's your turn in the booth tonight."

  "Then you start with Chicago." He handed her the file. "We got the station manager, the landlord." He scanned the sheet himself. He intended to go far beyond what was printed there, but he would start with the facts. "Use that sweet, persuasive voice of yours. They'll spill their guts."