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MILLS & BOON
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To my parents, Stew and Pat Palmer,
for believing I could be anything I wished…
and for raising me to believe
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgments
If I were to list all the people who’ve helped me get to this place—the publication of my first book—the acknowledgments would rival the novel for sheer number of pages. So, in an effort to save the pages for the story, I want to thank a few special people who have made all the difference. Laurin Wittig, Kathryn Caskie, Denise McInerney, Elizabeth Holcolme, Ann Shaw Moran and Sophia Nash for their critiques, advice, encouragement and unyielding support. My husband and kids for always being there to celebrate the joys. The Mom’s Book Club, who cheered me on every step of the way and were waiting with bottles of champagne when the dream came true. And last, though never least, my agent, Helen Breitwieser, and my editors, Ann Leslie Tuttle and Tara Gavin, for taking a chance and opening the door to a dream. My heartfelt thanks.
Chapter 1
“Three assaults in five days, more than a dozen bystanders and no one remembers a thing. How in the hell is he doing it?”
Metropolitan Police Detective Jack Hallihan paced the aft deck of the small cabin cruiser docked on the Potomac River in downtown Washington, D.C., his steps echoing his frustration. A jet roared overhead, making its final approach into Reagan National, while the summer sun beat down on the back of his neck, sending sweat rolling between his shoulder blades. He was running out of time.
“He’s gotta be knocking ’em out, Jack.” Duke Robinson, a fellow detective and the wiry dark-skinned owner of the boat, tipped his baseball cap to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun even as his head turned, his gaze following the progress of a pair of young women strolling down the dock in bikini tops and short-shorts. “What’s up, ladies?”
The voices in Jack’s head surged suddenly, unintelligible voices that filled his head night and day, and had for as long as he could remember. He clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into his dark hair, pressing his fingers to his scalp, trying to quiet the ceaseless chatter, if only a little.
“You okay, man?” Henry Jefferson, Jack’s partner of ten years, eyed him with concern from the second deck chair as he rolled a cold Budweiser across a forehead several shades darker than Duke’s. Henry was as tall as Jack, but no longer lean. Too many years of his wife, Mei’s, fried egg rolls had softened him around the middle. There was nothing soft about the gaze he leveled on Jack. “You need to see someone about those headaches of yours.”
Jack snatched his hand from his head. Hell. The last thing he needed was to bring attention to his worsening condition. No one knew he suffered from the same madness that destroyed his father. If he had his way, no one ever would.
“It’s just the heat,” he told his friend. If only. He’d be happy if they were just headaches. Sometimes he felt as though he lived in the middle of a raucous party that never ended, a party where everyone spoke Bulgarian, or Mongolian, or some other language he would never understand. Usually he could tamp down the noise so it didn’t overwhelm his mind, like moving the party into the next room. But the past couple of weeks the voices had been all but shouting in his ears. It was starting to scare the shit out of him.
He pulled the discussion back to the problem at hand, a mysterious rapist terrorizing the Dupont Circle neighborhood of D.C. “In each of the three cases, multiple victims were knocked unconscious by some unknown means to awaken simultaneously a short while later—estimated at anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes. In each case, one young woman among them woke to find her clothing partially removed and blood and semen between her legs. In each case, no one, including the assault victim, remembered anything to help us identify the attacker and solve this case.”
“It makes no sense,” Duke said. “How is he knocking them out before they ever get a look at him?”
“We need those tox reports,” Jack said. “He’s got to be using some kind of gas or drug.”
The muscle in Henry’s jaw visibly tightened. “I want him now, before he hurts another girl. The last assault victim was just eighteen years old. Barely more than a kid.”
Henry’s own daughter, Sabrina, was only a handful of years younger. She and her brother were belowdeck even now. Henry wasn’t leaving her home alone. He wasn’t taking any chances. Jack didn’t blame him a bit.
“And what does the theft at the Smithsonian have to do with all this?” Henry wondered out loud. During the first attack, an ancient stone amulet had been stolen.
“What did you find out about this Stone of Ezrie?” he asked his friend. But Duke’s gaze was firmly fixed on a well-endowed woman making her way along the dock.
Henry gave Duke’s shoulder a hard slug. “Stay in the game, man. We want to know what you learned.”
Duke released a frustrated sigh. “It’s Sunday. Even cops need a day off.”
“Not when girls are being attacked,” Henry said.
“Yeah, okay.” Duke pulled out his wallet and removed a small paper photo. “The Stone of Ezrie.”
Jack took the piece of paper and held it for Henry to see. The photo revealed a sky-blue, teardrop-shaped stone hanging from a simple silver chain. Engraved on the surface of the stone was a seven-point star.
“Why would anyone want this thing?” Henry asked, echoing Jack’s own thoughts. “What kind of rock is it, anyway?”
Duke shrugged. “Nothing valuable. The Smithsonian dude didn’t know why anyone would steal it. There were better things all around. The only thing this rock has going for it is some quack legend. Something about it being the key that opens the gates to Ezrie.”
Henry lifted a thick brow. “What’s Ezrie?”
“Don’t know. It’s all bogus, man. Prime bogus. There ain’t no way to solve this case or to catch the perp until the son of a bitch screws up and leaves us a witness or clue. We’ve been over everything a dozen times.” Duke reached for another beer. “I need a day off, even if you two don’t. So no more talk about work. How ’bout them Nationals, huh?”
Jack took a long drink of Coke, letting it fizz on his tongue as impatience boiled under his skin. He didn’t have time for talk of baseball. He’d managed to push the voices back, but for how long? How much longer until he couldn’t control them at all?
He had to solve this case while he still had the mental strength to do it, before the voices became too much to bear and he ended up like his dad—an alcoholic with a gun in his mouth and his brains decorating the living room wall.
The silken sound of a woman’s laughter yanked him out of his dark musings, stealing every thought from his head. His gaze snapped to the houseboat in the next slip as a tall, slender blonde in nice pants and a trim sleeveless sweater emerged from the door of the boat, holding a cell phone to her ear. She was laughing as she stepped outside, her chin-length hair glowing golden in the summer sunshine.
Jack swallowed. “Who’s that?”
“Larsen Vale. Bleeding-heart lawyer and Ice Bitch extraordinaire. Forget about her. She don’t give it up for no man.” Duke’s words were too loud for the small distance between the boats, but he didn’t seem to care.
The woman glanced up. The laughter drained from her features as though someone had pulled a plug. All emotion fled. Her gaze slid over the men, one after the other, as if they were nothing more than inanimate objects unworthy of her notice…until her gaze slammed into Jack’s. His heart bucked in his chest, a physical jolt like he’d been sucker punched. She held his gaze, then dropped it, shattering it as she turned away.
She clicked her cell phone closed and started across the boat’s narrow deck with quick, confident strides, a briefcase swinging at her side. Without another glance his way, she hopped lightly onto the dock and strode away.
Jack exhaled. “Wow.”
“She’s cold, dude,” Duke insisted. “Ice cold. Don’t waste your time.”
“Dad.” Henry’s ten-year-old son, David, ran up the stairs from below, making enough noise for three kids despite his slight build. “When are we sailing?”
“You don’t sail a motorboat, moron.” His sister, Sabrina, flounced up the stairs behind him.
“Sorry, you two. We’re not taking the boat out,” Henry told his kids. “This is a marina party, not a river cruise.”
“What party?” David asked. “This is boring.”
“David…”
Jack set his half-empty Coke can on the railing. “Who’s up for a walk?” He had too much on his mind to make small talk. If he had to take the afternoon off, he’d rather spend his time with the kids, anyway. He sure as hell wouldn’t have any of his own. Not after what his dad had put his own family through.
“Me, Uncle Jack, me,” David exclaimed, jumping up and down. “Can I get the football out of the car, Dad?”
Henry nodded and Jack turned to Sabrina. “You coming, beautiful?” At fourteen, the girl was already showing signs of the heartbreaker she was destined to become. Unlike her brother, she’d inherited a healthy dose of the exotic from her mother’s ancestry. Her skin was a light coffee color, her intelligent eyes slightly tilted and her hair silky black as she flicked it behind her back with a toss of her head.
He held his breath, waiting for her reply, wondering if this would be the time she’d finally grown too cool to have anything to do with her “uncle” Jack. But she flashed him a smile full of braces and youthful exuberance, and he knew today wasn’t that day. They found a patch of grass in front of the marina to pass the football.
“You suck,” Sabrina shouted as David ran for the ball he’d missed.
“You suck,” the boy called back, laughing. If there was a natural athlete lurking in the kid somewhere, he had yet to show himself. David grabbed the ball and started running toward them.
Jack held up his hands. “Throw it, pal.” But the boy kept running. Jack laughed, happier out here with these two than he’d been in weeks.
“Throw it, David.” Sabrina waved her hands in the air.
The boy finally heaved the football, getting a nice spiral on it, at last. Unfortunately his aim was off. Way off. The ball sailed directly at the door of the marina office and the woman exiting through it—the Ice Bitch, Larsen Vale.
Jack cringed as the ball hit her square in the arm, knocking her briefcase out of her hand. The briefcase hit the wall and clattered to the sidewalk, snapping open. Papers spilled everywhere.
Hell. She was going to tear the kid to pieces. As David started toward her in his loping run, Jack headed after him, determined to save him from a tongue-lashing that would make his sister’s impatient comments sound like sweet nothings.
“Sorry,” David called good-naturedly as he approached the she-devil.
The woman picked up the ball. To Jack’s amazement she gave David a rueful smile and cocked her arm as if to throw it.
“Go long,” she told him.
David grinned and started running. The woman threw an admirable pass with only a slight wobble, right into the boy’s arms.
“Yesss!” David did his own little version of the touch-down shuffle.
Jack looked at Larsen Vale thoughtfully as she knelt to gather up her papers. He’d heard her name before today. He knew she’d earned herself a reputation for ruthlessness in the courtroom, particularly in defense of women abused by their high-profile husbands. Duke wasn’t the only one who called her the Ice Bitch. Yet she’d just been exceedingly kind in a situation that would have provoked most people to anger.
Jack joined her. “Let me give you a hand with those.” He knelt beside her and began picking up the loose papers. He’d thought her attractive on the boat. This close, she was stunning. Her mouth was wide and lush, perfectly framed by a strong, stubborn jaw. Her eyes had a natural, heavy-lidded appearance that was sexy as hell. And her skin was lightly tanned and flawlessly smooth.
Heat tightened things low in his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hit with this kind of lust at first sight. Too bad she was ignoring him.
“Thanks for being patient with David. He’s a little careless sometimes.”
She looked up and gave him the same expressionless look she had on the boat. Her eyes were a clear golden-brown beneath a thin layer of frost.
“Were you afraid I’d shatter him with my ice wand?”
Jack winced. So she’d heard Duke’s comment. “You had a right to be angry with him. I appreciate your patience.”
She stopped in her gathering and glanced toward the kids. “He was just being a boy.”
“Yeah. I apologize for my friend’s rudeness back there, too. His comments were out of line.” Jack tapped the papers he’d collected on the sidewalk to neaten the stack. “He’s a little too cocksure of his success with women.” He handed the stack to her and their fingers brushed. A bare slide of flesh on flesh.
Inexplicably the chatter in his head went silent. Silent. For the first time in…forever.
She jerked, dropping the papers. “Damn.”
The voices rushed back as if they’d never left at all. Jack’s heart slammed in his chest. Had he imagined it?
She gathered up the last of the papers and put them back in her expensive-looking briefcase. As she started to close the lid, the breeze caught a loose sheet. Jack grabbed for it at the same time she did. Their hands brushed again.
Silence. It was her.
Larsen Vale clicked her briefcase shut and rose. She met his gaze, briefly, as dispassionately as before. “Thanks,” she said, and turned away.
Jack stared after her, stunned. She’d quieted the voices.
Hope roared through his veins like a flood through a parched gully. She’d quieted the damn voices.
She was his salvation. His cure.
He hurried after her as she started across the parking lot. “Wait.”
She stopped and turned to look at him, a hint of a question in her eyes.
“I’m…Jack.” He thrust out his hand, partly from habit, partly from an intense desire to touch her again. “Jack Hallihan.”
She glanced at his hand, but made no move to take it. “I know.” Then she turned and walked away as if she hadn’t just changed his life.
“You’re an angel, Ms. Vale.”
LarsenVale cut a wry look at the mother of the bride standing beside her. “I’m afraid a lot of people would disagree with you, Mrs. Ramirez. But thank you. I’m glad I could help Veronica.”
Across the crowded, flower-bedecked fellowship hall of the Dupont Circle All Saints Church, her former client, Veronica Hernandez, and her new husband posed for the photographer while one of the bridesmaids artfully arranged the drape of the classic wedding gown.
Veronica’s mother, a compact woman in her fifties, smiled, tears in her eyes. “It will be different this time. Juan is not like Nicky. He is a good man. He will treat my daughter well.”
Larsen gazed at the newly married couple, at the glowing joy in the bride’s face, and remembered the first time she’d seen Veronica. Bruises had lurked beneath her heavy makeup like stones in a still pond, and fear had haunted her eyes. Now adoration lit those same eyes, an adoration mirrored in her new husband’s.
The signs were good that this marriage would be a far cry from Veronica’s last, but Larsen had long ago quit believing in fairy-tale endings.
“I must see to the cutting of the cake,” the older woman said shyly, and slipped away, leaving Larsen standing alone. A place she was all too used to.
Larsen didn’t mind her mostly solitary path through life, but there were times, like now, when she remembered other plans, other dreams. A man to love her. A wedding of her own.
But that was before she’d realized she was different—that love and family could never be hers.
She took a sip of the dark, sweet punch and grimaced inwardly, wishing Veronica had splurged on a few bottles of champagne. Nearby, a man eyed her with interest, earning her standard, back-off look. The man next to him leaned closer and said something that Larsen was pretty sure ended in bitch. The first man stiffened and turned his back on her in a hurry.
The encounter neither amused nor disturbed her. She wasn’t the man-hater everyone thought she was, though it was a miracle she wasn’t, given her line of work. Day after day she saw the disasters men made of their marriages and the pain they caused those who loved them. No, she didn’t hate them. She just didn’t let anyone get that close.
Unfortunately she’d been cursed with looks that invited nearly continuous male attention. Unwanted attention. So she’d developed a haughty manner that kept even the most determined at bay. She was perfectly happy on her own. No one making demands on her time or asking too many questions. She didn’t need anyone. She certainly didn’t need a man.
Larsen tossed back the rest of the sickly sweet punch.
If only her hormones agreed. She groaned at the memory of Jack Hallihan watching her from the deck of his friend’s boat yesterday, those laser-sharp blue eyes boring into her. An unwelcome rush of heat spiraled deep inside her.
She’d never actually met him before, but she’d known who he was. One of her law clerks had pointed him out in the courthouse last fall. Tall and broad-shouldered, with gorgeous blue eyes and a thatch of dark hair that appeared perpetually mussed, he’d walked with an easy confidence and casual strength that had drawn her attention and refused to let go, especially when he’d flashed a grin that had sent her pulse through the ceiling. She’d found herself watching for him every time she went to court for months afterward. She never again caught a glimpse of him.
Until yesterday, when she’d found him staring at her.
A flush of embarrassment rose into her cheeks as she remembered the way she’d dropped her papers at the touch of his hand, like a schoolgirl with her first crush. He hadn’t called her on it. She’d seen no amusement in those blue eyes, no knowing smile that said he knew she’d been affected by the touch. He’d barely reacted at all.
A day later and she was still reacting. Even the memory of their brief meeting had turned the air in her lungs warm and heavy. With a groan of self-disgust she headed for the punch bowl and a cool refill, her heeled sandals clicking on the bare linoleum floor.
She didn’t want to be attracted to a man. Attraction led to wanting and to wishing for things that could never be.
The conversation in the room eased as the guests’ attention turned toward the cutting of the cake.
As she poured another ladle of the dark red punch into her cup, she heard a soft sound of laughter and glanced up to find a girl standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her pretty, delicate features awash with a poignant wistfulness.
A tiny thing, barely five feet tall, she was far too thin. Larsen guessed she was in her late teens, maybe early twenties. She wore a pair of jeans and a Redskins T-shirt that were both miles too big for her as if she, and not they, had gone through the dryer and shrunk. Her skin was a deep tan in color, her head shiny and bald like a chemo patient’s.
Larsen’s heart twisted with sympathy and she took a step toward her. “Hi, there. May I bring you a piece of cake?”
The girl started and turned to Larsen with a guilty, wide-eyed gaze. “I…nay, m’lady.” The words stumbled out in a charmingly accented rush. “I should not have…nay.”
“It’s all right,” Larsen assured her. “There’s a piece for me and I really don’t want it. I’d be happy to bring it to you.”
The girl cocked her head as if pondering Larsen’s offer…or Larsen herself. The girl’s eyes, an amazing shade of violet, looked suddenly older than her years.
“My thanks,” she said shyly. “But I cannot.” Then she turned and fled into the kitchen.
Larsen sighed, sorry she’d chased the girl away. She turned back toward the festivities, but as she took a sip of the too sweet punch, her vision suddenly went black.
Pain shot through her head and she grabbed for the wall, cool punch splashing her bare legs even as her sight returned. Except…she wasn’t seeing with her eyes.
She could feel the hair on her arms leap upright, her heart beginning to pound with a terrible dread. For the first time in fifteen years she was about to watch someone die.
The scene unfolded in front of her—the same, yet altered. Though still in the fellowship hall, she watched from above now, as if she’d been plastered to the ceiling. Time had lurched forward. The cake was gone, the bride and groom stood near the door, ready to leave. Women gathered around the bride, preparing to catch the bouquet.
Mouths moved, shoulders shook with laughter, but Larsen heard none of it—like watching a silent movie. Then suddenly everyone went still, their expressions sliding off their faces, leaving them looking like mannequins…or wax figures.
No, not everyone. A man, the strangest man she’d ever seen, appeared to be talking. He was dressed like something out of a medieval play. His tunic was a shimmering forest-green, his leggings brown with metallic gold flecks that caught the light. But the strangest things about him were his long, lank hair and his skin—both a matching, startling white.
As she watched, he motioned to one of the bridesmaids. The plump young woman left the throng of women and went to him, her dark ringlets brushing the shoulders of her cobalt gown. When she reached him, she turned her back to him, pulled up her tea-length skirt to her waist, and bent over. The odd-looking man started to untie his leggings.
Shocked realization jolted her. Larsen opened her mouth to yell at him, but nothing came out. As she watched in helpless frustration, two people strode angrily into the premonition—a man in a suit and a woman in the same apple-green sheath dress Larsen wore even now.
It was her! She was watching herself.
The albino in the tunic stared at the two of them with surprise, even as he pulled his distended penis from his leggings. He scowled, then flicked his free hand. Like an army of well-dressed zombies, the wedding guests surrounded the pair and attacked. Without hesitation. Without mercy.
With horror, Larsen watched her other self crash to the bare floor and disappear beneath a barrage of kicking, stomping feet, her apple-green dress turning a sickly, purplish bloodstained brown.
The attack ended as suddenly as it began. Like puppets jerked upright by a dozen sets of strings, the guests stood at attention, blank-faced and splattered with gore. At their feet lay Larsen’s and the unknown man’s mutilated remains.