Justice is in her blood...

Fiona Gallagher hails from a long line of Chicago lawmen, and has fulfilled her heritage as a prosecutor, driven to put away the slime of the streets. But now she’s going head-to-head with the police force, on the trail of a cop gone bad…

Detective Ray Doggett is hell-bent on preventing Fiona from getting in too deep. The determined prosecutor has gotten too close to exposing the truth about the crime ring…and about him. Forcibly attracted to Fiona, he’d been sent undercover to investigate corruption—not fall in love. That is far too dangerous…for both of them.

Previously published.

Gallagher Justice

Amanda Stevens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Also available from Amanda Stevens

Mira Books

The Graveyard Queen Series

The KingdomThe RestorerThe Prophet and coming in 2016 The Kingdom

Harlequin Intrigue

The Kingsley Baby SeriesThe Long-Lost HeirThe Brother’s WifeThe Hero’s Son

Gallagher Justice Series

The Littlest Witness

Secret Admirer

Forbidden LoverGallagher Justice

Eden’s Children SeriesThe InnocentThe TemptedThe Forgiven

Quantum Men SeriesHis Mysterious WaysSilent StormSecret Passage

Stranger in ParadiseA Baby’s CryA Man of SecretsThe Second Mrs. Malone

Somebody’s Baby

Lover, Stranger

The Bodyguard’s AssignmentNighttime GuardianSecret Sanctuary

Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER ONE

IT WASN’T A NOISE THAT awakened Fiona Gallagher, but a scent. A sultry, provocative fragrance that carried a subtle note of sandalwood.

She tried to rouse herself to investigate, but the dream kept pulling her back under.

“You always smell so good.”

He tangled his hands in her hair. “How good?”

She looked up with a smile and then showed him. Heart pounding, Fiona bolted upright in bed, her frantic gaze searching the far recesses of the room. It was dark, but enough light filtered in from the street that she could make out all the corners, all the nooks and crannies.

Nothing stirred, not so much as a ghost. She was alone, safe and sound in her second-floor apartment protected from intruders by a series of locks and dead bolts her brother, Tony, had helped her install when she’d first moved in six years ago. No one could get in. She was fine.

Except...she wasn’t fine. She’d been dreaming about David again, dreaming she was still in love with him. That only happened these days when she was under a lot of stress.

The DeMarco case had brought back the nightmares, she thought wearily. As a prosecutor for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, Fiona had come face-to-face with evil before, more times than she cared to remember. But there was something about Vince DeMarco’s eyes... the way he looked at her...that sly smile...

There was something about him that reminded her of David.

Falling back against the pillows, she wiped a hand across her brow. Seven years since that night and David Mackenzie still had a hold on her, one so powerful that sometimes, during moments of weakness, she imagined his scent in her apartment. Heard his voice over her telephone. Saw his smile on every defendant.

Even fully awake now, she could still smell his cologne, but she knew it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She and her therapist had hashed out her hallucinations a long time ago. “The scent is symbolic, Fiona. Not of David, but of your guilt.”

Her guilt smelled like sandalwood. Good to know.

Realizing she would never fall back asleep now, Fiona got up and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. Pressing the towel against her skin, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Outwardly she looked the same as she always had, but deep inside, where all her dark secrets lay hidden, she’d undergone a drastic metamorphosis.

You can’t go through what you did and expect to walk away unchanged, Dr. Westfield had warned her.

She couldn’t expect to ever have a normal relationship again, either, but then, relationships were overrated in Fiona’s opinion. She had her cat, she had her career, she had HBO. What more did a girl need really?

Flipping off the light, she returned to her bedroom long enough to pull on a robe over her pajamas, then she padded on bare feet down the hallway to the living room. Her apartment was small, cramped and drafty, with lots of creaking floorboards and noisy water pipes, but Fiona didn’t mind. The quiet, once-elegant neighborhood on the Near North Side of Chicago with its well-kept lawns and shady streets more than made up for the inconveniences.

And it was a long way from Bridgeport, she reminded herself ruefully as she glanced out the window at the fog-shrouded street below her. Maybe not in miles, but in culture and attitude.

Her parents had grown up in the same blue-collar neighborhood on the South Side where they still lived in the same house they’d bought when they first married. They had the same neighbors, the same circle of acquaintances, the same values and expectations. They’d raised four kids in that neighborhood, and two of Fiona’s brothers had moved only a few blocks away from the family home.

By contrast, the ambitious, thirtysomething professionals who flocked to the renovated brownstones in Fiona’s neighborhood guarded their privacy like rabid rottweilers. She had a nodding acquaintance with only a handful, knew even fewer by name. Like her, most of them came home late—briefcase in one hand, cell phone clutched in the other—to close themselves off from the rest of the world until it was time again to rush off to work the next morning.

There were hardly any families in the neighborhood, no children playing on the stoops. The streets were sometimes almost unnaturally quiet, and if this deepened Fiona’s sense of isolation and the occasional bout of loneliness, well, there was also no one there who knew about David. No one to look out their front window when she drove home each night to shake their heads and wonder how such a nice girl like Fiona Gallagher, someone with her brains and education, the daughter of a cop, no less, could have fallen in love with a killer.

In their own way, though, they were still proud of Fiona in the old neighborhood. She was a rising star in the State’s Attorney’s office, a tough, bare-knuckles prosecutor who fought crime just as ferociously as she battled her inner demons. In the past six years, she’d won every major case, including a high-profile murder trial that had put her on the radar of Chicago politics.

Fiona had been so ruthless in her cross-examination of the defendant, a well-known businessman, that a reporter from one of the local papers had dubbed her the Iron Maiden, the prosecutor who wasn’t afraid to take on anyone, including the rich, powerful and politically connected.

“No one is above the law,” she’d been quoted in the papers, and if she and her brother, Tony, were the only ones who could fully appreciate the irony of her motto, that was just the way it had to be, Fiona had long ago decided.

Turning from the window, she walked over to the small dining table she used as a desk and surveyed the usual mess: an empty Diet Coke can, a greasy paper plate with a half-eaten slice of pizza, stacks of files, police reports and a yellow legal pad with a blank sheet of paper staring up at her.

She’d been working on the closing argument for the DeMarco case when she’d staggered off to bed just after midnight. Staring at the blank page now, Fiona frowned. She hadn’t made much progress earlier, and she knew why. She was nervous about this case. Nervous in a way she hadn’t been in years.

It was a rape case, for one thing, and, aside from the fact that she’d worked almost exclusively on homicides for the last four years, rape cases were notoriously unpredictable. In this instance, there wasn’t even DNA evidence to corroborate the woman’s testimony. Vincent DeMarco had used a condom. He was also a cop, a veteran detective who worked under Frank Quinlan’s command.

Quinlan was one of those clout-heavy cops who was virtually untouchable. Fiona had found out just how well connected he was when she’d cooperated with an Internal Affairs investigation into Quinlan’s interrogation methods.

A man she’d successfully prosecuted for murder, who was currently serving a life sentence at Stateville, had brought a lawsuit against the police department alleging that Quinlan and some of the detectives under his command, including DeMarco, had forced his confession by using physical and verbal intimidation, i.e. torture.

Fiona had been outraged. She always set out to win in the courtroom, but the last thing she wanted was to send an innocent man to prison or have a legitimate conviction overturned because of sloppy investigative work or police misconduct. It reflected badly on her and on the office of the state’s attorney, and she took the allegations personally.

Eventually the lawsuit was dropped, and Quinlan was exonerated by a police review board. But to this day, he carried a fierce grudge against Fiona. He’d refused to cooperate with her in the DeMarco investigation, partly out of loyalty to one of his own cops, but mostly, Fiona suspected, because he wanted to see her fall flat on her face.

A possibility that seemed more likely with each passing day. The case wasn’t going well and Fiona knew it.

She stared at the blank page for another moment, then jotted down the first statistic that came to her mind. One out of every three women in this country will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. One out of every three...

When the phone rang, she continued to write as she automatically reached behind her for the cordless unit on the counter. Then her hand froze as she realized the time. It was after two o’clock in the morning. No good news came after two o’clock in the morning.

“Hello?”

“Fiona? It’s Guy Hardison.”

At the sound of her boss’s voice, Fiona frowned. “Do you have any idea what time it is? What’s going on?”

“I just heard from Clare Fox,” he said referring to the police department’s deputy chief of detectives for the North Side. “We’ve got a problem. Could be a big one.” The smooth, polished timbre of his voice always took Fiona by surprise. Like her, he’d been raised in Bridgeport, but any trace of the stockyards had long since been stripped from his speech.

He was Fiona’s immediate supervisor in the Homicide/Sex Crimes Unit and over the years, the two of them had managed to hammer out a fairly congenial working relationship in spite of their sometimes huge philosophical differences. Guy was a shrewd, ambitious prosecutor who’d long ago mastered the art of political expediency and compromise. Fiona had not. Her passion for justice was only equaled by her temper and by her natural inclination to leap before she looked, a tendency that almost always landed her in hot water.

“A woman’s body was found in an alley at the corner of Bleaker and Radney tonight,” Guy continued. “Looks like a professional hit, and if it is, the press will have a field day. It’s just the kind of thing some ambitious reporter would love to sink his teeth into, particularly considering the latest headlines.”

He was alluding to a recent Justice Department report that showed Chicago moving ahead of New York in the number of murders per year. The crime statistics had made the front page of all the local papers, and the mayor, facing reelection in a few months, was livid.

“The police department is taking a lot of heat from both the mayor and the press.” Guy’s voice sounded tense, as if he might be catching some of the flak himself. “Clare wants to make sure this one is handled strictly by the book. No mistakes. No one walks on a technicality. She’s asked for an ASA on the scene to advise.”

He paused. “I’m assigning you as lead prosecutor, Fiona. You’ve got credibility with the press right now, and they like you. Plus, another capital murder conviction under your belt could make certain people sit up and take notice.”

Fiona wondered if he was throwing her a bone after the DeMarco case debacle, or if he had an ulterior motive up his sleeve. “You said Radney and Bleaker, right? That’s Area Three.” Frank Quinlan’s territory.

“You’re not afraid of Frank Quinlan, are you, Fiona?” His voice held the merest hint of a challenge, one he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.

She scowled. “Hardly.” She’d proved that, hadn’t she?

“Then get over there and make sure his detectives don’t screw up the investigation before they even make an arrest. Take Milo with you.”

Milo Cherry was Fiona’s second chair. He was a young, eager prosecutor with a quirky sense of humor and a nearly photographic memory.

After several tries, Fiona finally managed to reach him on his cell phone. She could hear music and laughter in the background, and assumed he was at a late-night party or nightclub, which surprised her, considering they were due in court at nine that morning. But as long as he did his job, came through in a crunch, his social life was none of Fiona’s concern. And he certainly didn’t seem to mind being summoned at such an ungodly hour. He readily agreed to pick her up in ten minutes.

Fiona hurried to get dressed, and in the flurry of activity, she completely forgot about the nightmare that had awakened her earlier. But on her way out, the dream came back to her suddenly and she paused at the door, the uneasy notion that David Mackenzie’s ghost might be lurking on the other side niggling at her confidence.

For one brief moment, she couldn’t bring herself to turn the dead bolt, to step into the dimly lit hallway, to go downstairs and wait for Milo by the front door. She couldn’t seem to move at all.

This was crazy, she told herself firmly. David Mackenzie was dead. It wasn’t his cologne she smelled in her apartment. He wasn’t the killer who had dumped that poor woman’s body in an alley. David was dead and buried, and he wasn’t coming back.

But as Fiona mustered her resolve and stepped out into the hallway, something made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

For one split second, she could have sworn she felt an invisible presence in that hallway. A ghost from her past that had risen from the grave to demand justice.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MURDER OF RAY DOGGETT’S first wife had haunted him for twenty years, but it had been on his mind more than ever lately. She’d been on his mind. He didn’t know why, but he’d been remembering little things about Ruby that he hadn’t thought of in years. Things she’d said. The way she dressed. Her smile. He’d been dreaming about her, too, and obsessing about the murder.

That was why Frank Quinlan’s call earlier had hit him so hard. “...a body found in the north alley of Bleaker and Radney. Young, female Caucasian. Get your ass over there, Doggett. Sounds like a bad one.”

In all the years Doggett had been with the Chicago PD, he’d seen his share of homicides. He’d seen some he knew he would never forget. But it wasn’t another young woman’s death that was eating at him tonight so much as the fact that her body had been found in an alley. That brought back memories.

Ruby’s body had been left in an alley, too. She’d been missing for three days when they found her.

The call had come in from dispatch just after midnight, Doggett remembered. He and his partner, Joe Murphy, had the third watch that night and they responded to the call immediately. But by the time they arrived, another squad car was already on the scene. Murphy got out and headed down the alley, but instead of following him, Doggett walked slowly toward the street. He’d spotted something beneath one of the streetlights.

He recognized the shoe at once. A red high heel trimmed with ruby rhinestones. The kind of shoe an unsophisticated farm girl from Indiana might think was glamorous.

“Look, Ray! Aren’t they beautiful? Don’t you just love them? They’re my ruby slippers. Get it? Ruby’s slippers...”

Doggett turned and started running toward the alley. Murphy met him halfway down, grabbed his arm, threw him up against the wall when Doggett fought him.

“Take it easy, kid.”

“Let go of me, Murphy. Let go of me, damn you. It’s Ruby.”

“I know.”

Doggett closed his eyes. He’d been praying he was wrong, but Murphy’s words confirmed his darkest fear. “I have to see her. I have to see for myself—”

“No, you don’t. You don’t need to see her like that.”

“Let go of me, damn it!”

When Doggett tried to fight his way free, Murphy strong-armed him again. “You can’t go down there. You hear me? It’s bad, kid. Blood all over the place. You don’t want to look. That’s not the way you want to remember her.”

But that was exactly the way Doggett had remembered her for months after her death. He couldn’t seem to remember her any other way. He hadn’t viewed the body at the crime scene, or even later at the morgue, but he’d witnessed enough crime scenes to imagine the blood-splattered clothing, the vacant, staring eyes.

Twenty years later, that image was still with him, at every crime scene, in every investigation. The knowledge that her killer was out there, unpunished and unrepentant, still kept him awake at night.

Maybe he was getting old, Doggett reflected. Dwelling on the past because his life hadn’t turned out the way he wanted. But to hell with it, because now he had another murder to worry about, another killer to find. That was one thing about being a cop. Always plenty of bad guys out there to occupy his mind.

He pulled to the curb and parked behind one of the squad cars. The dense fog softened the flashing lights, and at such an early hour, the scene was still relatively quiet. No spectators to be kept at bay. No news cameras, yet. It was an almost surreal calm, as if he were still caught in one of his dreams, Doggett thought. But when he got out of his car, the scratchy transmission of a squad unit radio grounded him firmly back in reality.

He followed voices down the alley, showing his identification to the young patrolman manning the perimeter. Then he stepped under the crime scene tape and glanced around.

The buildings that rose on either side of the alley were several stories high, stark and graffiti-tagged, with only a few windows that overlooked the alley. Several blocks over on Rush Street, bars and clubs would still be rocking with the young and the hip who were looking to have a good time or score a few drugs, but the immediate crime scene vicinity was a no-man’s-land, an area trapped between the affluence and glamour of the Gold Coast and the misery and desperation of the projects.

Most of the buildings housed small offices and mom-and-pop businesses that had closed up shop hours ago. Even the cleaning crews had long since gone home. The potential for witnesses was pretty much nil. Doggett wondered if the killer was familiar enough with the area to have planned it that way, or if he’d just gotten lucky.

A few feet from where he stood, a crime scene tech photographed the body from several different angles while another narrated as he videotaped. Deeper inside the alley, flashlight beams bobbed up and down as officers searched the ground for evidence.

The victim laying in front of a trash bin, but in the semicircle of officers and detectives that had formed around the dead woman, Doggett could see nothing but a spill of blond hair. He felt his gut tighten as he mentally braced himself for what else he might see.

Meredith Sweeney, a petite, dark-haired assistant medical examiner, glanced up as he approached, and when she nodded, two detectives from Doggett’s unit, Jay Krychek and Skip Vreeland, glanced over their shoulders. Krychek immediately turned back to the body, but Skip nodded and spoke. He was a tall, thin man with a grim expression and stooped, narrow shoulders that made his rumpled suit jackets constantly ride up in the back.

Krychek was partial to the gangster look—dark shirts, light ties, and in the daytime, he was never seen without his badass cop sunglasses.

“Yo, Doggett, how’s it going?” Skip greeted him.

“Not too bad.”

Krychek turned back around to Doggett. “Took your sweet time getting here.”

Doggett shrugged. “Fog’s a bitch out there.”

“Tell me about it. Playing hell with Forensics. They won’t be able to find shit out here.” Krychek stepped back, making room for Doggett. “Take a look.”

“It’s bad, kid. Blood all over the place. You don’t want to look.”

The woman was lying on her back, eyes closed, her expression almost peaceful. To Doggett’s surprise, there really wasn’t much blood. On first glance, she appeared to be sleeping, but someone who looked like her wouldn’t be snoozing in an alley. She was beautiful, a real knockout. Blond. Young. No more than twenty, if that.

Damn shame, Doggett thought.

There was a dark stain on the pavement beneath her head, and her hair was matted with dried blood. She wore a light dusting of makeup—eye shadow, mascara, pale pink lip gloss—that didn’t detract from her natural beauty. The black dress she wore was short and slinky, her shoes spiked and sexy. Expensive and seductive clothing designed to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

By contrast her jewelry was simple and unpretentious—tiny diamond studs in her earlobes and a pearl ring on the third finger of her right hand. The presence of the jewelry seemed to rule out robbery as a motive.

“She was shot in the back of the head,” Krychek told him.

“Do we know who she is?” Doggett asked.

Krychek shook his head. “Not yet. CSU found an evening bag in the Dumpster that we think belonged to her. The wallet was missing, but they found a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper inside a gold compact. We’re checking the cross directory now to see if we can come up with a name.”

Doggett’s gaze was still on the body. “Who found her?”

“Wino by the name of Teddy Scranton. Says this alley is on his regular beat. He hangs around Restaurant Row until midnight or so, then heads over here where it’s quieter. When he spotted her, he walked down to the corner store and had the night clerk call 911. We’ve got him in one of the squads right now, trying to sober him up with coffee and food, but I don’t think he’s going to be much help. Claims he didn’t see anything.”

“Could he have been the one who stole her wallet?” Meredith asked. “Somebody turned her over. Maybe he was looking for her purse.”

“Don’t think so.” Krychek ran his hand down his tie. “If he lifted the wallet, why hang around and call 911? He would have hightailed it out of here ASAP. He got what he wanted for his good deed—a free meal and a little attention.”

A cynical observation, but Doggett figured Krychek was probably right on the money.

Doggett stood with his hands behind his back, a habit he’d picked up at the academy so as not to inadvertently contaminate the crime scene. When the tech gave him the go ahead, he donned surgical gloves and squatted beside the body, still careful not to touch anything as he examined the wound in her head.

“Looks like a .45,” he murmured.

“She was kneeling when he plugged her,” Meredith said.

“Any other injuries?”

“Ligature marks around her wrists. He had her tied up at some point.”

“What about the exit wound?”

Meredith shook her head. “The bullet’s still lodged somewhere in the body cavity. I’ll find it when I open her up.”

“Any idea about time of death?”

“Liver temp would be more accurate, but judging from the thermal scan, I’d say two hours, tops. But that’s just an educated guess.”

It always was. Even with modern forensics, the most reliable way of pinpointing time of death was still to find the last person who’d seen the victim alive, other than the killer, of course, but that wasn’t always possible. Doggett glanced at his watch. If Meredith’s guess was accurate, that would put time of death around midnight.

He bent over a tiny mark on the woman’s left shoulder. “You see this?”

Meredith nodded. “Looks like one of those fake tattoos. I thought it was the real thing at first, but if you look closely you can see where the edges are blurred into the pores.”

“You used to work in Gang Crimes, Doggett.” Krychek’s tone held an edge of resentment. “You recognize that symbol?”

“It’s a trident,” Doggett said. “The Gangster Disciples use it, but they mostly operate on the South Side. This is a long way from their home turf. Besides, I don’t think this is a gang hit.”

“I agree,” Skip Vreeland put in. “Look at the hoochie-mama threads she’s wearing. That girl was out for a good time.”

“Hoochie-mama threads with a Michigan Avenue price tag,” Krychek, the fashion expert, muttered.

“We need to get a picture over to Rush Street and start canvassing as many of the nightclubs as we can hit.” Doggett stood and walked back over to the other two detectives. “If she was there tonight, someone’s bound to remember a girl like that.”

Krychek stuck his hands in his pockets, jingling his change. “So what’s the deal here, Doggett?”

Doggett frowned. “What do you mean, what’s the deal?”

Krychek shrugged. “Skip and I were the first detectives on the scene so that makes this our case.”

“Quinlan called me at home and told me to get over here ASAP,” Doggett said. “It’s my understanding this is my case.”

Krychek gave a nervous laugh. “No way.”

“Then looks like we’ve got a problem.”

The two men eyed each other warily until Meredith muttered behind them, “Oh, great. A pissing contest between two cops. How unusual.”

Skip said gruffly, “Hell with this shit. Let’s just get on with what needs to be done and let the boss figure out whose case it is later. Right now, somebody needs to go check on that phone number.” He started to walk away, then turned back to his partner. “You coming?”

Krychek held his ground for a moment longer, his gaze faintly menacing, before he stalked off behind Vreeland.

Doggett moved back to the body. He was glad they were gone. He needed a moment alone here, needed time to think. He frowned as he studied the dead woman. He was missing something.

Carefully he cataloged her features, trying to commit every detail of her person and the crime scene to memory. He’d go over it in his mind a dozen more times before this night was out.

He rubbed his chin. Something was bothering him about that mark on her left shoulder. Doggett had the niggling feeling that he’d seen that symbol before, that it should mean something to him, but he didn’t know what.

He was troubled by her appearance, too. The dress and shoes screamed for attention, but everything else, her makeup and jewelry, were understated. His gaze rested on her fingernails. They were neatly trimmed and squared off, but unpolished, as if this were a detail she’d forgotten because she wasn’t used to getting all dressed up. Or as if she’d been in a hurry to go out.

You know what I think? I think you were pretending to be something you’re not. You were trying to fool someone, weren’t you? But who? And why?

And suddenly, in asking those questions, Doggett found what had been missing for him, the connection he needed with the victim.

I’m going to find out all about you, he silently told her. And then I’m going to find out who did this to you. You have my word on that.

CHAPTER THREE

“SO THIS IS WHERE YOU LIVE,” Milo Cherry commented as Fiona climbed into his car, a vintage ’69 Corvette Stingray beautifully restored. “Nice neighborhood.”

“Thanks.” She sank comfortably into the bucket seat and glanced around. “Is this new? I’ve never seen you drive it before.”

“I’ve been working on it in my spare time for a couple of years now. Cars are kind of a hobby of mine.”

She ran her hand over the leather. “I’m impressed, Milo. I had no idea you were so mechanically inclined.”

He gave her an enigmatic smile. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

“It would seem so.”

Fiona was certainly witnessing a whole new side of him tonight, and it wasn’t just the car. She was used to seeing Milo in his conservative, slightly geeky, lawyer persona—dark suits, sedate ties, brown hair neatly combed. Tonight his hair was gelled and he wore slim black pants and a black shirt opened at the collar.

But the change went deeper than just the surface. Milo was usually one of the most laid-back people Fiona knew, but tonight he seemed restless, almost wired. His fingers tapped a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel as he waited for her to settle in.

“I don’t mean to alarm you,” she told him as he pulled away from the curb. “But I think something may be burning in here.”

“It’s just incense. I put it out earlier, but the smell is still kind of strong. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. But would you mind if I rolled down the window a little?”

“You can’t.” He shrugged another apology. “The power windows don’t work. Some kind of glitch with the wiring I haven’t been able to figure out.”

Fiona smothered a sneeze. “You’ve got the address of the crime scene, right?”

“You said the corner of Bleaker and Radney. That’s a few blocks west of Rush Street. Speaking of which.” His fingers continued to drum on the steering wheel as they headed down her street. “I had no idea you lived so close to the party zone. Do you go there much?”

“To Rush Street?” Fiona shook her head. “Rarely.”

“There’s a nightclub on Division Street called Blondie’s. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No, but I don’t get out much,” she said dryly. “And besides, I’m not really the nightclub type.”

He shot her a glance. “I think you might like this place.”

“Is that where you were tonight when I called?” she asked curiously.

He studied the road. “What makes you think I wasn’t home?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She stared at his clothes. “Maybe because you don’t look as if you just woke up.”

“I never said I was asleep.” An intriguing little smile played at the corners of his mouth, and it occurred to Fiona that he had the look of a man with a secret he was just dying to tell. She wondered if, like a lot of males she’d known, he was preening over a recent conquest and couldn’t wait to brag about it in the locker room. He glanced at her again. “You want to go sometime?”

“Go where?” Her mind had drifted, and she’d forgotten what they were talking about.

“To Blondie’s.”

“Are you sure a redhead can get in?” she teased.

“As long as you’re with me, you’ll be okay.” His tone was dead serious. “What do you say?”

Fiona hesitated. “You don’t mean like a date or anything, do you?” She winced the moment she said it. Gee, Fiona. Could you be any more insulting.

His smile disappeared. “Not a date date. Of course not. I thought we could drop by after work and have a drink sometime. Listen to some music. Maybe even dance if the mood strikes us. You know, do that whole Ally McBeal thing.”

Fiona feigned shock. “Don’t tell me you actually watched that show?”

He gave her a warning look. “If you repeat that to anyone, I’ll deny it. Plus, I may have to kill you.”

“Not funny, considering where we’re going,” she grumbled.

“Sorry.” He downshifted as he rounded another corner. “So is that a yes or a no to Blondie’s?”

“It’s a maybe. Let me think about it.”

He slanted her a glance. “Just out of curiosity...if I had asked you for a date, what would your answer have been?”

“No. But it’s nothing personal,” she was quick to assure him. “I don’t date people I work with.”

“Does that include big shots like, say, Guy Hardison?”

Fiona turned in genuine shock. “What?”

“Nothing. Forget I said that.”

“I don’t want to forget it,” she said sharply. “You’ve implied something I don’t think I much care for, and now you owe me an explanation.”

“Look, it’s nothing.” He lifted a hand off the steering wheel. “Just talk around the office, that’s all.”

“What kind of talk?” Fiona folded her arms as she glared at him. She knew what he was getting at, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“Nothing really. Just some grumbling about all the hot cases you’ve been getting lately.”

“If by hot you mean high profile,” she snapped, “Maybe it’s because I win them.” It annoyed Fiona that she felt she had to defend herself. She was a damn good prosecutor. No one had given her anything.

“Don’t take it personally.” Milo gave her a cool smile. “Like I said, it’s just gossip.”

Fuming, Fiona turned to stare out the window. She hated gossip. It had taken her a long time to live down all the talk after the scandal with David broke. She didn’t need people speculating about her love life now and remembering what had happened to her in the past.

She certainly didn’t need her own colleagues spreading rumors about her.

The silence grew so awkward that Fiona was relieved when they turned down Radney a few minutes later, and she saw the police cars and the crime scene unit pulled to the curb in front of the alley. Milo parked behind them, and Fiona started to get out, but the door wouldn’t open. “Another glitch,” he said.

“Good way to hold your dates captive,” she muttered.

He turned back and stared at her. “What?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

She waited for him to come around and open the door, and then, still angry, she climbed out of the car and headed toward the alley without a word. Milo hurried after her and caught her arm. She spun, stared at his hand for a split second, then lifted her gaze to his.

He got the message loud and clear and removed his hand from her arm. “Sorry. And I’m sorry about earlier, too. I was out of line.”

“Yes, you were.” She held his gaze for a moment longer, then relented. “But let’s just forget it. We’ve got work to do.”

He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “I’d like to forget it, but I can’t. Look, Fiona, I’ve got to say this. There’s a reason why people are talking.”

“What reason?” she asked coldly.

“It’s Hardison. The way he looks at you. He has a thing for you. It’s obvious to everyone but you.”

“That’s ridiculous! He’s a happily married man, for God’s sake.”

“Is he? How long has it been since you saw the two of them together?”

That gave Fiona a moment’s pause. She’d always thought Guy and Sherry Hardison had the perfect marriage. They seemed so close. “Their marriage is none of my business. If they’re having difficulties, it has nothing to do with me.” She started to turn away, but Milo stopped her again.

“Just...be careful around Hardison, okay? There’s a lot more to that guy than he lets on.”

“Like what?”

“Take my word for it. Guy Hardison is not the picture of propriety he wants everyone to believe he is.”

“You know what I think?” Fiona challenged him. “I think you’ve been listening to too much office gossip.”

“And you know what I think? I think you have no idea the effect you have on men.”

A shiver ran up Fiona’s spine at the strange note in Milo’s voice. She could barely make out his features in the darkness, but she could feel his eyes on her. She could sense his intensity, and the chill inside her deepened. She was suddenly aware of how alone they were on the street. There were cops at the scene, but their voices sounded a long way off. She felt a prickle of alarm as he continued to stare down at her.

Then he laughed softly, and his mood seemed to change instantly, as if the whole thing had been a huge joke. He jammed his hands into his pockets, looking like the Milo she saw every day at work. “Lucky for me,” he said with a disarming grin, “I’m immune to tall, gorgeous redheads. Blondes have always been my downfall.”

* * *

THEY SHOWED THEIR credentials to the police officer guarding the perimeter, and then Milo went off to find the medical examiner.

“Who’s in charge of the investigation?” Fiona asked the uniformed officer.

“Talk to Doggett.” He nodded toward a man who stood a few feet away, busily scribbling something in his notebook.

“Thanks.” Fiona knew most of the detectives who worked out of the Area Three Detective Division, but she didn’t recognize this man. “Are you Detective Doggett?” she asked as she approached him.

He didn’t look up. “Who wants to know?”

His voice caught Fiona off guard. It was deep and husky. Might even be considered sexy in certain situations.

But the man himself was nothing to write home about. He was around forty or so, with close-cropped brown hair, high, rugged cheekbones and lips that were well-shaped but humorless. Fiona had the immediate impression he wouldn’t be an especially pleasant man to be around, but that could be said for about ninety percent of the cops she’d met in her lifetime. And she’d met plenty.

“I’m Fiona Gallagher. I’m with the state’s attorney’s office.”

“Gallagher?” He finally looked up, and she was immediately struck by his eyes. They were a light, eerie blue. Piercing one might say.

And that stare. That stare could freeze meat, Fiona thought with a shiver.

“You related to Tony Gallagher?” he asked her.

“He’s my brother. Do you know him?”

“Yeah, I know him.”

And judging by his scowl, the experience hadn’t been all that pleasant. Fiona wondered what the source of friction had been between Doggett and her brother. Tony could be a bit...unpredictable at times. She suspected the same was probably true of Doggett.

“Are you the lead detective on this case?” she asked briskly.

“Let’s assume that I am.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but the last thing Fiona wanted was to become embroiled in a turf war between two homicide detectives. “What can you tell me about the investigation?”

He gave her a mild once-over, but that laser beam stare didn’t tell her a damn thing about what he was thinking. “The victim was shot in the back of the head with what looks to be a .45 caliber slug.”

“Have you identified her yet?”

“We’re running her prints now.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Not that we’ve found so far. The buildings in this area are mostly office space, and everything’s closed at this hour.”

“What about security cameras? Maybe something was caught on tape.”

Doggett nodded. “We’re working on that.”

Someone called out his name, and he turned as another detective hurried toward him. When the man saw Fiona, he stopped abruptly.

“This is Fiona Gallagher. She’s an ASA,” Doggett said. “This is Detective Vreeland.”

Vreeland nodded. “We’ve met.” His tone inferred it had been a pleasure he’d just as soon not repeat.

Vreeland and his partner, Jay Krychek, along with Vincent DeMarco, had been part of the Internal Affairs investigation into the allegations of misconduct by some of the detectives under Frank Quinlan’s command. Unlike DeMarco and Krychek, Vreeland had struck Fiona as a by-the-book cop. A basically honorable man doing a sometimes impossible job. If anything unethical and illegal had gone on during Quinlan’s watch, she doubted Vreeland had been a party to it. But, like any good cop, he wasn’t about to testify against one of his own.

He turned back to Doggett. “We checked the cross directory. The number isn’t in there, which means it’s either unlisted or a cell phone.”

“You try calling it?” Doggett asked.

Vreeland shook his head. “We didn’t want to tip our hand unless we had to.”

“What phone number?” Fiona asked.

“The crime scene techs found a purse in the Dumpster they think belonged to the victim. A phone number was stashed inside a compact, and we’re trying to track down a name to go with it.” Doggett took out his cell phone, and turned back to Vreeland. “Let’s give it a shot. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a name off an answering machine.”

Doggett punched in the number, then lifted the unit to his ear and listened. A second later, the phone in Fiona’s purse started to ring.

CHAPTER FOUR

“THAT HAS TO BE A coincidence,” Fiona said as she fished in her purse for her cell phone. “The timing’s too perfect to be anything else.”

“One way to find out,” Doggett said.

She pressed the talk button and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Coincidence, huh?”

Fiona was looking at Doggett, saw his lips move, but it took her brain a split second to register his voice in her ear. Then her gaze met his, and simultaneously they hung up their phones.

“I guess you’d better have a look at the body,” he said grimly.

She would have anyway, but now Fiona’s stomach churned in apprehension. If her phone number had been in the victim’s possession, then she was undoubtedly someone Fiona knew. Maybe a client, maybe just an acquaintance, but someone who had crossed her path. Fiona prayed it was nothing more personal than that.

The body was already being prepped for transport to the morgue, but Doggett waved the attendants aside. As they stepped back, one of them momentarily blocked the light so that Fiona could barely make out the victim’s features. She didn’t recognize her at first, but then the man moved away, and the light hit the dead woman’s face full on.

Fiona gasped. She took an involuntary step back, straight into Doggett. Rather than moving away to give her some room, he put his hands on her arms to steady her. “Easy.”

He was strong in spite of his lean physique. Beneath the dark suit he wore, his body was hard and muscular. More than capable of holding Fiona up if she needed him to.

But she didn’t need him to. Or want him to. She was still in shock, but she could stand on her own two feet just fine. She’d seen corpses before, only usually, thank God, they weren’t someone she knew.

She stared down at the victim’s beautiful face. That beautiful, pale, lifeless face, and Fiona’s legs began to tremble in spite of her resolve.

Doggett’s hands tightened on her arms. “You’re not going to faint or anything, are you?”

“No, I’m okay,” she insisted.

“Do you know her?” His deep voice rumbled in her ear and Fiona shivered.

“Her name is Alicia Mercer. Her mother is a friend of mine.”

“Then I assume you know how we can get in touch with her next of kin?”

Fiona nodded. Doggett’s hands were still on her arms, but for some reason, she didn’t seem to mind. She hardly even noticed until he took them away. “Her parents—her mother and stepfather—live in Houston. Lori and Paul Guest. They’re both attorneys. I have their phone number and address at home. Alicia and her twin sister, Lexi, are students at Hillsboro University. They share an apartment off campus. Or at least...they did.”

Doggett jotted down the information in his notebook, then glanced up. “You say the victim is a twin? You’re positive about her identity?”

“Yes, I’m positive. It’s Alicia. She and Lexi look a great deal alike, but they’re not identical. You can check her fingerprints, but I know it’s her...” Fiona trailed off as she gazed down at the body. “She does look different, though.”

“Different how?” Doggett said sharply.

“I never saw her dressed this way. And she’s changed her hair. I didn’t know the girls all that well, but I had the impression Alicia was the conservative one.”

“What about the mark on her shoulder?” Doggett asked. “You ever see it before, on either sister?”

Fiona shook her head. “No. Alicia certainly didn’t seem the type who would go in for tattoos. She was so levelheaded—” She stopped abruptly as something occurred to her. She turned, putting an unconscious hand on Doggett’s sleeve. “Oh, my God.”

“What?” Something flickered in his eyes, a curious little flame that made Fiona suddenly aware of how close they were standing.

Most of the time she tried very hard to keep herself aloof—from situations and from the people around her. Body contact, even a touch as slight as her hand on a man’s arm, was never something she instigated. Ever. It didn’t bode well, she decided, that she’d done so now quite automatically. She dropped her hand. “Alicia called me last week. She left a message on my voice mail. I’d forgotten about it until now.”

If he noticed her reaction, he didn’t let on. “Did she say what she wanted?”

“No.”

“Did you call her back?”

Fiona swallowed. “No.”

One brow lifted slightly. “So how well did you know her?”

“As I said, I didn’t know either of the girls very well. Their mother moved to Houston several years ago after she remarried. Alicia and Lexi were maybe fourteen at the time. I didn’t see them again until last year when the girls started the fall semester at Hillsboro. Lori called and asked if she could give them my phone number.”

“Why?”

“She said she’d feel a lot better if they had someone nearby they could call if they...got into trouble.” The irony was devastating. Fiona had to work to keep a tremor from her voice. The guilt, for a moment, was almost overwhelming.

“When was the last time you saw Alicia?” Doggett asked.

“Last winter. She, Lexi, and I had dinner just before they left to go home for the holidays.”

“Did she mention any problems she might have been having? Trouble with a boyfriend? A professor? Anything like that?”

Fiona shook her head. “We didn’t talk about anything personal. I don’t think either of them would have felt comfortable confiding in me about their private lives. I’m sure the only reason they agreed to see me at all was to appease their mother.”

“Did you have dinner with them often?”

“Only a couple of times.”

“Did you have the impression that Alicia got along with her parents?”

Fiona glanced at him in surprise. “As far as I know. I never saw her with her stepfather, but Lori and Alicia were very close.”

“What about the sisters?”

“They were inseparable.”

“But you did say that you didn’t know the girls all that well, right? And you hadn’t seen much of the mother in recent years?”

Fiona hesitated. “It was my impression they were all very devoted.”

“Still,” he said, “Families have problems. It would be pretty unusual if they didn’t tick each other off at least once in awhile.”

“All I can tell you is that I never saw it,” Fiona said a trifle impatiently.

He didn’t press the point further. “So you haven’t seen or talked to Alicia since before Christmas.”

“No.”

“Tell me about the message you got from her last week.”

Fiona closed her eyes briefly. “I was in court when she called, and by the time I got her message, I was swamped with meetings and interviews. I completely forgot about it.”

“She called on your cell phone?”

Fiona nodded. “I gave them my cell phone number because I’m hardly ever at home.”

“What was the message?”

Fiona frowned, trying to recall Alicia’s exact words. “She identified herself and then she asked me to call her back. She said she needed to talk to me.”

“Did she sound frightened? Anxious?”

“I don’t remember noticing anything out of the ordinary about her tone or the message. I assumed she wanted to set up another dinner before she and Lexi went home for the summer break. I intended to call her back in a day or two when my schedule lightened up.”

“But you never did.”

“No.”

Behind her, Fiona heard the rasp of the zipper closing on the body bag, but she didn’t turn. She didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to see that face, so rigid and silent but still so beautiful in death.

“I have to call Lori,” she murmured. But it was a call Fiona dreaded making more than anything in the world.

“Don’t make that call just yet,” Doggett said.

Fiona glanced at him. “She has a right to know what’s happened to her daughter.”

“The mother may be a personal friend of yours, but this is still a homicide investigation,” he said gruffly. “And you know as well as I do that first impressions on hearing this kind of news are important. I’d appreciate you letting me get in touch with the parents when I feel the time is right.”

Fiona frowned. “And when will that time be, detective?”

“You let me worry about that.”

“What about Lexi? Someone has to tell her, and I don’t think she should hear something like this from a complete stranger.”

But Doggett was no longer listening to her. He was staring over her shoulder, scowling deeply. Fiona turned to see what had drawn his attention.

She sucked in a sharp breath. Frank Quinlan had just arrived with a couple of uniformed minions in tow. He stepped under the crime scene tape and bulldozed his way through the alley. Those not in his immediate orbit scurried for cover.

Quinlan was a stockily built man with close-set eyes and a hawkish nose that gave him a mean, predatory look he’d perfected to his advantage over the years. He was intimidating, arrogant, and had so many connections in the department, knew so much dirt on city officials, that even his superiors were afraid of him.

Fiona consciously straightened her posture because she knew that in a one-on-one confrontation with Quinlan, her height was her advantage. Men like Quinlan couldn’t stand tall women.

He strode past her to Doggett and stabbed a finger in her direction. “What the hell is she doing here?”

That was like him, not to speak to her directly, Fiona thought. Jerk. She pitied the women under his command.

“Commander, this is Fiona Gallagher. She’s an ASA—”

Quinlan cut off Doggett’s introduction with an obscenity. “I know who she is, Doggett. I asked what she’s doing here.”

“Deputy Chief Fox asked for an ASA on the scene to advise.” Fiona was pleased that her voice sounded smooth and professional, as if his little tirade didn’t bother her at all.

He whirled. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Gallagher. Stay the hell out of our way. You interfere with this investigation, you’ll have me to answer to.”

“And if you screw up my case, you’ll have me to answer to,” she shot back. “I expect to be notified the moment you have a suspect in custody. I want to be present for the interrogation.”

Her insinuation was crystal clear, and if there had been sufficient light where they stood, Fiona was certain she would have witnessed Quinlan’s face turn a dark, livid purple. As it was, his rage rendered him incapable of speech for a moment before he sputtered another obscenity, then turned on his heel and stalked off.

Milo materialized beside Fiona. She hadn’t even known he was around, but he must have heard the sordid little showdown, because he muttered, “Asshole,” in a low voice, then said anxiously, “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Doggett said behind her, “What the hell was that all about?”

She turned. “Let’s just say, I’m not one of Commander Quinlan’s favorite people.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he said dryly. “You want to clue me in on what’s going on?”

Before Fiona could answer, Milo said, “You ever hear of the Fullerton Five, detective?”

“You mean those guys who killed that little girl a few years back?” Doggett’s expression subtly altered. “Wait a minute.” He glanced at Fiona. “Gallagher. That’s why I know you. You’re the prosecutor who went after Quinlan when one of those guys brought a lawsuit against the department. No wonder he’s pissed at you.”

“I didn’t go after him,” Fiona argued. “Allegations were brought against him and some of the detectives under his command that I believed to be credible. I cooperated with the IAD investigation because I wanted to get at the truth.”

“He was cleared by Internal Affairs and by the Office of Professional Standards,” Doggett said. “You still believe he coerced those confessions?”

Fiona shrugged. “I know I can’t prove it. But I learned a long time ago that this is a town built on clout and cronyism. I’ve had to accept that justice is sometimes hard to come by.”

“Yeah,” Doggett said with a frown. “I guess that’s a lesson we’ve all had to learn.” He glanced back down at the body bag, then turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

FIONA STARED OUT THE CAR window as Milo drove her home a little while later. They were just coming back from Lexi and Alicia’s apartment on the north side of the city, near the university. Doggett had agreed to let Fiona be present when he broke the news to Alicia’s sister, but when they arrived at her apartment, no one was home.

Which was very odd and troubling to Fiona. Where could an eighteen-year-old girl be at four o’clock on a Tuesday morning? Any number of places, of course, but with her sister lying dead in an alley—

She’s okay, Fiona told herself. Wherever Lexi was, she was fine. They couldn’t both be gone. Fate wouldn’t be that cruel to Lori, but Fiona knew all too well that it could be. She’d seen enough heartbreaking cases in her years as first a defense attorney and now as an ASA to know that fate had nothing to do with fairness.

“Fiona? Did you hear what I said?”

Milo’s voice drew her out of her deep reverie. She turned from the window. “Sorry. What?”

“I was asking you about the other twin. Is she—” He broke off, looking sheepish. “I don’t want to sound insensitive here.”

“But you want to know if Alicia’s twin is as beautiful as she was.” Fiona sighed. “Even more so, if you can believe it.”

Milo shot her an incredulous glance. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not kidding. You should see her. Lexi is...” Fiona trailed off. “I don’t know how to explain it exactly. She has this quality about her. Men are...drawn to her.”

“Like she’s always in heat,” Milo said under his breath.

“What?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. I was just projecting, I guess.”

“But you nailed it perfectly,” Fiona said with a frown. “That’s exactly how men look at Lexi.”

Milo was silent for a moment. “Were they models or something? I’ll have to take your word about Lexi, but let’s face it. Alicia was drop-dead gorgeous.”

Fiona winced at the description. “They had offers to model, but their mother tried to shield them from all that.”

“Shield them how?”

By asking me to look out for them, Fiona thought. But for crying out loud, who was she to supervise teenagers? She’d fallen in love with a killer. Hardly a role model most mothers would welcome, but Fiona and Lori went way back.

She could still remember that day after school when Lori had confided in her that she was pregnant. Fiona had been stunned. She wasn’t even allowed to date, and her best friend was pregnant!

Tearfully Lori had explained how she’d met this guy at the mall. He was older, more experienced, and claimed he was in love with her. Fiona could believe that. Even so young, Lori was a blond, blue-eyed stunner, the kind of girl that men couldn’t take their eyes off.

The two of them had started meeting after school and on weekends. Not for real dates, of course. Lori wasn’t allowed to date, either. She’d tell her mother she was going to Fiona’s house, and then she’d meet up with this guy. They’d have a soda together. Go to the movies. All very innocent at first, then things got out of hand.

He dumped her when he found out she was pregnant. Lori was devastated.

“You have to tell your parents, Lori. What else can you do?” Although secretly Fiona thought that the last thing she would ever do was tell her parents something like that. She’d rather die first because her father would kill her anyway, and her brothers.... She shuddered. She didn’t even want to think about what her brothers would do.

But somehow Lori had managed to work up the courage to go home and tell her parents everything. She certainly wasn’t the first girl in their neighborhood to find herself in that predicament, and this was the enlightened eighties after all. But her father had still been so angry that he’d sent her to Detroit to live with his sister while arrangements were made to put both babies up for adoption.

When they were born, however, Lori couldn’t go through with it. She kept the babies and stayed with her aunt until her father finally relented and came for her.

The moment Wayne Mercer laid eyes on the twins, it was love at first sight. He and Lori’s mother doted on the girls, and did everything in their power to help Lori get her life back on track. She graduated with honors from both high school and college, and, like Fiona, was near the top of her class in law school. The two of them had even been associates at the same law firm in the Loop, but then Lori had met Paul Guest, a Houston attorney, and was swept off her feet. They were married two months later, and he took Lori and the twins back to Texas with him.

For a couple of years after the move, Lori and Fiona kept in touch with phone calls and letters, but the calls eventually stopped, and gradually, the correspondence dwindled to only Christmas cards.

Then last summer, Lori called Fiona out of the blue. “I need to ask a big favor of you,” she said, after the two had spent a few minutes catching up. “The twins will be starting college in the fall.”

“That’s impossible,” Fiona insisted. “They were in kindergarten just last week.”

“They were already out of kindergarten by the time we started law school, Fiona.”

She groaned. “Stop. You’re making me feel ancient.”

“Now you know how I feel every day.” Lori laughed, but there was some tension in her voice. “Oh, Fiona, you should see them. They’re all grown up and so smart. And so beautiful! I know every mother thinks that about her children, but Alicia and Lexi are special. You wouldn’t believe all the modeling offers they’ve had. But Paul and I have tried to shelter them from all the attention because we don’t want them to get caught up in something they can’t handle.”

Fiona wondered if Lori was thinking about her own trouble as a teenager.

“We always planned on the girls going to school here in Houston,” she continued. “Paul wanted them to go to Rice. It’s a wonderful school, and his father is one of the trustees. And, of course, the best part is that they would be close enough for us to keep an eye on them.”

“I take it the girls have other ideas,” Fiona murmured. She could sympathize with Alicia and Lexi. Growing up with a father and three brothers who were all cops, Fiona had felt pretty smothered herself at times.

Lori sighed. “Evidently they talked to a recruiter from Hillsboro University, and now that’s where they want to go. They’re bound and determined, especially Lexi. Alicia, I think, would still like to go to Rice, but she’d never let her sister go off to Chicago alone. They have that twin thing, Fiona. Where one goes, the other goes. When one is upset, the other is upset. If one gets hurt, well, you get the idea. They’re so attuned to one another, it’s almost scary.”

Fiona frowned, still uncertain where she fit into the equation. “Hillsboro is an excellent school, Lori. My sister-in-law is head of the forensics anthropology lab there.”

“I know it’s a great school, but it’s so far away. And now that my parents are dead, I don’t have any family left in Chicago. No one to look after the girls.” Lori paused and took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m calling you, Fiona. Would it be a terrible imposition if I gave them your phone number? It would make me feel so much better to know there’s someone in the city they could call if they needed to.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Fiona said impulsively. “In fact, I insist. Tell you what, when are you coming up to help them settle in?”

“Next week.”

“Let’s all have dinner together so the girls can meet me. Maybe then they’ll feel less awkward about calling.”

“I’d love that. Oh, Fiona. I can’t tell you what this means to me.” Lori sounded so relieved that Fiona felt a little guilty. She’d readily agreed to the arrangement because it was an easy thing to do. She didn’t think, for one second, that two gorgeous teenage girls, on their own for the first time, would really feel the need to call on a complete stranger.

She didn’t say as much to Lori, however, and the following week, they met for dinner at a restaurant on Michigan Avenue. Lori and Fiona had arranged to arrive early so they could have a chance to chat before the girls joined them. They were exchanging stories about some of their more interesting cases when Lori suddenly touched Fiona’s hand. “There’s Alicia. She just came in.”

Lori’s whole face was suddenly aglow. For one split second, Fiona almost resented the adulation that radiated from her friend’s eyes. Motherhood couldn’t be that grand, could it? Fiona wasn’t missing out on something that spectacular, was she?

Then she turned. And for several long seconds, she could do nothing but stare at the girl making her way through the crowded tables toward them.

She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful young women Fiona had ever laid eyes on. “Oh, my God,” she blurted. “No wonder you didn’t want to let them out of your sight.”

Lori’s smile turned wistful. “She is lovely, isn’t she?”

Lovely was an understatement. In spite of the sedate way she dressed, Alicia Mercer turned heads as she walked through the crowded restaurant. But when she sat down at the table, she seemed oblivious to the stares and admiration. Fiona was instantly charmed. The girl was as modest and unassuming as she was gorgeous. She was almost too good to be true.

And then her sister walked in.

Lexi Mercer was tall like Alicia, with the same pale blond hair and blue eyes, but there was nothing understated about her appearance. She had on low-rider jeans and a cropped shirt that showed off a very flat, tanned stomach and a belly button ring that sparkled in the lighting.

If admiring eyes had noticed Alicia, men literally drooled over Lexi. It was more than just her physical beauty. She had a kind of magnetism that would make even the most principled man have some very dark thoughts.

Fiona tore her gaze away long enough to glance at Alicia. She was staring at her sister, too, and there was something in her eyes. Not jealousy. Not envy. Not even resentment, but...something.

It made Fiona wonder instantly what it must have been like, growing up in Lexi’s shadow. In any other family, Alicia would have been the golden child, and even now, she would still be the most desirable woman in any room—until her sister arrived.

And Lori? What had it been like raising such a child? Lori was still a young, beautiful woman in her own right, but in her daughter’s presence—

Let’s face it, Fiona thought grimly. With Lexi Mercer around, we all look like hags.

But in spite of any latent rivalry, it was obvious the three women were close and had such a wonderful relationship that Fiona again felt twinges of jealousy. It was at that moment that she suddenly became aware of the ominous ticking of her own biological clock.

After that day, Fiona didn’t see the girls again until just before Christmas, when Alicia called to set up a dinner. Fiona had been so pleasantly surprised at how much she enjoyed the girls’ company that she’d honestly meant to keep in touch. But work became extremely hectic. Cases piled up. Every once in a while, if she thought about the Mercer twins, Fiona would promise herself she’d call them when she had a spare moment, just to say hello.

But that spare moment never came. Not even to return Alicia’s call last week.

And now it was too late.

Soon, it would be Lori who received a phone call, one that would turn her perfect little world into a nightmare.

CHAPTER FIVE

“WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO WALK up with you?” Milo asked as he pulled to the curb in front of Fiona’s building. In spite of the earlier tension between them, he’d been very solicitous since they’d left Lexi’s apartment, and Fiona appreciated his effort to return their relationship to normal. The last thing either of them needed was a strained working environment.

She gave him a tired smile. “No, thanks. I still need to do some work on the DeMarco case. We’re due in court in...exactly...” She glanced at her watch and groaned. “Four and a half hours. What about you? Are you ready?”

“I will be.” He frowned suddenly. “Tell me the truth, Fiona. Do you think we have even an outside shot at a conviction?”

“I don’t know. It’s always hard to predict what a jury will do in a he said-she said case like this. With no forensic evidence, it’ll be a hard sale to the jury.”

“How could there not be one single piece of evidence against that bastard?” Milo muttered. “I get that he wore a condom, but no hair, no fibers, no DNA beneath her fingernails? What the hell did he do, scrub her down afterward?”

“You know what happened,” Fiona said. “Same thing that happens in too many of these cases. She went home and showered.” Although in Kimbra’s case, she’d gone to a runaway shelter. She’d gotten rid of her clothes, too, because she’d never planned to report the rape at all. But Rachel Torres, a woman who ran the runaway shelter, saw the bruises and forced the truth from Kimbra. She was the one who took her to the emergency room, but by then a rape kit was almost useless. Whatever evidence there might have been to help put DeMarco away had been washed down the drain.

“I watched the jury yesterday when DeMarco took the stand,” Fiona said. “He scored some serious points.” And nothing she’d been able to do during cross-examination had rattled him. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn the man was on something. How could anyone remain that calm when she’d gone straight for the jugular?

Milo nodded morosely. “I thought so, too. And Kimbra’s testimony was shaky, at best.”

That was another thing that made this case so difficult. The accused wasn’t just any cop. DeMarco was a decorated veteran of the Chicago Police Department and a war hero from Desert Storm. Good-looking, well-educated, the kind of defendant that was easy to root for because people wanted to believe he was exactly what he seemed to be—one of the good guys.

Kimbra, on the other hand, was a troubled young girl who’d lived on the streets for years. Moody, defiant, and tough as nails, she’d been a difficult and reluctant witness from the start, the kind that sometimes made Fiona wonder if the aggravation was worth it.

She sighed wearily. “Since we didn’t get any help from Kimbra, it’s imperative we make up ground in the closing argument. We’ll both have to be at the top of our game, Milo.”

“Oh, no pressure there,” he grumbled as he got out of the car and came around to open her door. When she stepped out, he said awkwardly, “Look, Fiona, that business about Guy—”

She cut him off. “Let’s just forget it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“I understand.” He ran a hand through his hair, messing his gel job. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. About the gossip, I mean. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable at the office.”

She shrugged. “I hate gossip, but maybe it’s best that you did bring it to my attention. It’s always a good idea to know what people are saying about you behind your back. But just for the record? I’m not involved with Guy Hardison. On any level. I want you to know that. I want you to believe that.”

“Maybe you’re not involved, but—”

“Milo.” Her tone held a warning note. “There is nothing going on between Guy Hardison and me. Period.”

He nodded. “Okay. I get the message. Case closed. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

They said their good-nights, and then Fiona ran up the front steps and inserted her key into the lock. She couldn’t wait to be inside her own apartment, to lock the door behind her and close herself off from the rest of the world, if only for the next few hours.

Resolving herself to the work she’d left earlier, she went into her tiny kitchen to brew a fresh pot of coffee. But instead, she climbed up on the counter and reached into the far corner of a top cabinet to retrieve the bottle of scotch she’d stashed several months ago when she’d quit drinking.

She stared at the bottle for a moment, then got out a glass and poured herself a drink. Her grandmother’s voice seemed to echo through the silent apartment. “You drink alone, you’re apt to die alone, Fiona Colleen.”

“Sorry, Gran,” she muttered. But dying alone was pretty much a foregone conclusion for her anyway.

Fiona downed the whiskey sitting on the edge of the counter, then poured herself another. The liquor seared a comforting path all the way to her stomach, and she closed her eyes, letting the familiar numbness take hold.

Hopping off the counter, she carried the bottle and the glass into the other room and dropped into a chair at the dining table. Sipping her drink, she read over the notes she’d made earlier.

One out of three women in this country will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. One out of every three.

She finished her drink, then began to write.

It could happen to me, it could happen to you, it could happen to anyone at any time.

She stared at the words and frowned. Had Alicia been sexually assaulted? Was that the reason she’d been murdered?

They would have to wait for the autopsy to find out, and even then the results, except in the more brutal cases, could be ambiguous.

However, the way she’d been murdered, one shot to the back of the head, suggested—as Guy had said earlier—an execution-style hit. Very deliberate, premeditated, someone wanting to shut her up. But why? What could an eighteen-year-old girl who’d lived a very sheltered and protected existence know that would make someone want to kill her? What might she have seen? Who might she have seen?

And where the hell was Lexi?

The questions swirled inside Fiona’s brain, and she rubbed her temples, trying to shut them out so that she could concentrate on her work. She poured herself another drink and scribbled:

Think of three women in your own life. Your mother, your daughter, your sister...

As she stared at what she’d written, Lori Guest’s words suddenly came back to her.

“They have that twin thing, Fiona. Where one goes, the other goes. When one is upset, the other is upset. If one gets hurt, well, you get the idea. They’re so attuned to one another, it’s almost scary.”

Had Lexi sensed that Alicia was in trouble? Had she felt her sister’s terror?

Did she know the exact moment when the bullet had pierced her sister’s skull?

Or was Lexi...beyond knowing?

“Why did you call me, Alicia?” Fiona wondered aloud. “And why in God’s name didn’t I call you back?”

Don’t dwell on it. Nothing could be done about it now. Recriminations could come later, but for now, the only productive thing Fiona could do was concentrate on her work.

She glanced back down at her notes, tried to pull her thoughts together once again, but her mind kept rambling and the words on the page blurred. Her eyes suddenly burned with exhaustion, and Fiona thought that if she could just rest them for a moment, she’d be good to go.

But the moment she closed her eyes, she drifted off and the image of Alicia’s pale, still features materialized in her dream. Mist swirled around the body as Fiona stared down at her, and somewhere in the darkness behind her, a tape played over and over. “Fiona? This is Alicia Mercer. Please call me when you get this message. I really need to talk to you.”

And then suddenly the tape stopped. The fog faded, and Fiona was standing on a lonely road in the harsh glare of headlights as she stared down at David Mackenzie’s lifeless body. Someone said in horror, “He’s dead, Fiona. My God, you killed him.”

She came awake with a start, the ringing of the telephone as jarring in the early morning hours as a scream. Glancing around, Fiona tried to orient herself, and when the sound persisted, she finally got up to answer it. Finding herself not quite steady on her feet, she put a hand on the table for balance.

Carefully she walked across the room to the sofa where she’d tossed the cordless phone earlier. Halfway there, she realized it wasn’t the phone ringing, but the doorbell.

She adjusted course and moved very deliberately to the door to glance through the peephole. Detective Doggett stood on the other side. She undid the dead bolts and drew back the door to let him in.

He walked inside and glanced back at all the locks. “How many of those things you got on there?”

Not enough. Fiona pulled fingers through her messy hair as she closed the door, then turning, she caught her breath when she found him standing right behind her. His eyes...those laser blue eyes...were staring at her intently. And he was frowning. Fiona had the vague notion that he was scowling at her in disapproval.

Not a comfortable revelation for any woman.

“Sorry to drop by like this,” he said. “But I told you I’d be in touch as soon as I heard something.”

Fiona had made sure he had her home phone number before they left the crime scene, expecting that he would simply call when he had news. But here he was, alive and in person, and she realized that he must have looked up her address in the cross directory. She wondered if she should be annoyed at his presumption. Maybe when she was thinking a little more clearly she would be.

She felt dizzy, all of a sudden, and put a hand to her forehead.

“Hey, you okay?” Doggett asked her.

“I’m fine.” But her words sounded slurred even to her.

“Maybe we’d better sit down. You don’t look too steady on your feet.”

“No, I told you I’m fine—” But Fiona was horrified to feel herself sway. She put out a hand to stop the room from spinning, but there was nothing to grab hold of. “I think I’m going to—”

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Doggett was standing over her. Still scowling. Still disapproving.

“I’m all right,” she muttered. “I just felt a little woozy.” So woozy, in fact, she couldn’t quite remember having gotten from the door to the sofa.

“You fainted,” Doggett said. “Or maybe I should say, you passed out.”

Disgust in his voice. Not a good sign. Fiona gritted her teeth and sat up. “I couldn’t have. I didn’t have that much to drink.”

“You had enough to knock you on your butt. Is that the norm for you? You come home from a crime scene at four o’clock in the morning and start drinking?” His expression was so grim that Fiona thought if he’d had a rolled up newspaper, he probably would have bopped her on the nose with it. She had the sudden urge to tuck her tail between her legs and slink off to the nearest corner.

“I didn’t get home until four-thirty,” she said coolly as if that made any kind of difference whatsoever. Humiliation always made her irreverent...irrelevant...shit. “And if I want to have a drink in the privacy of my own home, I don’t see how that’s your business.”

“I’ll tell you how it’s my business. You’re the prosecutor assigned to my case. I don’t want a bad guy slipping through the cracks because you weren’t up to the job.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Fiona assured him, wishing she didn’t feel as if she might throw up at any moment. Barfing on Doggett’s shoes would definitely undermine her credibility. “I know how to do my job. You just make sure the bad guy doesn’t slip through the cracks because you or some other detective in your division decides to ride roughshod over his rights.”

“So we’re back to that again, are we? Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not Frank Quinlan.”

Well, on that, they were in perfect agreement.

As Doggett turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen, Fiona leaned forward slightly, watching him exit the room. He had a nice butt, and the fact that she noticed told her that she must, indeed, be just a tiny bit hammered. After a moment, she heard him fiddle with the coffee-maker as he tried to figure out the controls.

“Make yourself at home,” she grumbled, wondering if she had enough strength to make it to the bathroom, wash her face, and then crawl back before Doggett ever missed her. She decided she didn’t, and let her head fall back against the sofa instead.

When Doggett returned, he set a steaming cup of coffee on the table in front of her. “Drink it. Let’s get you sobered up so we can talk.”

“I’m not drunk. And, for God’s sake, do you have to hover over me like that? You’re not my mother.”

His lips thinned in displeasure. “No. But you’re reminding me a little too much of mine just now.”

Oh, God, she really was going to be sick. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He glared down at her, then shrugged. “Just drink the coffee.”

“When you stop hovering.”

He walked over and sank down in a chair opposite the sofa. “Better?”

She picked up the cup and sipped. The coffee was hot, bitter and strong. Just the way she liked it. The caffeine went straight to her head, and Fiona sat back against the sofa, cradling the cup between her hands.

After a moment, she glanced at Doggett. “Okay. Tell me why you’re here. Did you find Lexi?”

Something flickered in his eyes, a shadow that sent a shiver of dread up Fiona’s spine. “No, not yet.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “But I did manage to track down their roommate through a neighbor. Her name is Kelly Everhardt. She drove up to Wheeler on Sunday morning to visit her parents for a couple of days. She’s coming back sometime this morning.”

“Does she know where Lexi is?”

Doggett paused. “She hasn’t seen Lexi for nearly a week.”

A chill shot through Fiona’s heart. “Where’s she been?”

“No one seems to know. The roommate says she didn’t come home last Thursday night, and she hasn’t been seen since.”

“Has a missing person’s report been filed?”

He shook his head. “The roommate said Alicia didn’t want to get the police involved.”

“Why not?”

“Because she didn’t want their parents to find out. According to the roommate, Lexi has a habit of disappearing. Seems she got involved with a married man last semester, and the two of them used to sneak off for days at a time without telling anyone because he insisted they keep the affair a secret. The roommate says Lexi broke off the relationship before Christmas, but when she didn’t come home this time, Alicia was afraid she’d gone off with him again. The roommate said Alicia thought she could find her on her own, talk some sense into her, and the parents would never have to know.”

Fiona leaned forward and carefully placed the cup on the table. The sudden infusion of caffeine had given her a bad case of the shakes. “Did their roommate say who this married man was?”

“She didn’t know. She said Alicia didn’t know for sure, either, but she told the roommate she had her suspicions.”

“Do you think this guy could have had something to do with Alicia’s death? Maybe he was afraid she knew about him and Lexi.”

Doggett shrugged. “It’s possible. Right now it’s the only lead we’ve got. Hopefully we’ll know more after the autopsy.”

“Did you call Lori?” Fiona asked anxiously.

“I spoke with her a little while ago.”

“How did she take it? Is she...okay?” A stupid question. Lori Guest had just learned that one daughter had been murdered and the other one was missing. Of course, she wasn’t okay. She’d probably never be okay again.

Oh, God...

“She’s flying into O’Hare sometime later this morning,” Doggett said.

“Did you talk to her husband?”

“No, just Mrs. Guest.”

Fiona rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I’ve been asking myself over and over why Alicia called me last week, and now I think I know. She wanted me to help her find Lexi. When I didn’t call her back, she went searching for her sister on her own. And now she’s dead.”

“You’re not blaming yourself for that, are you?” Doggett’s blue eyes pierced through Fiona’s armor with hardly any resistance, and she found herself wondering, unaccountably and inappropriately, if there was a woman in his life.

“I know Alicia’s death wasn’t my fault,” she said with a frown. “But I’ll always wonder what might have happened if I had called her back. Maybe I could have helped her, and maybe she’d still be alive.”

“And maybe,” Doggett said in that deep, rumbling voice of his. “You’d be lying in the morgue with her right now.”

CHAPTER SIX

MEREDITH SWEENEY, the assistant ME, had Alicia Mercer’s X-rays waiting for Doggett a few hours later when he arrived at the Chicago Technical Park where the morgue was located.

He studied the skull X-rays. “Was I right about the bullet hole? A .45 caliber slug, right?”

Meredith shook her dark head. “No, but that’s what I thought, too, at first, so don’t feel bad. When I calibrated the hole, though, I found it somewhat smaller than .5 inches. The wound is more consistent with a .40 caliber or 10 mm bullet.”

Doggett glanced at her. “You sure about that?”

She shrugged. “You can measure it for yourself if you want.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” The information didn’t necessarily mean anything, but on the other hand, Doggett found it interesting. In recent years, .40 caliber weapons had come into wide use by law enforcement agencies all over the country, including the Chicago PD. Doggett’s own service weapon was a Glock 27, a piece favored by a lot of undercover cops.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up for any kind of ballistics match,” Meredith told him. She pointed to the left side of the victim’s skull, in the area behind the eye socket where metallic density showed as white flecks on the X-ray.

“A lead snowstorm,” Doggett muttered.

“Exactly. You can actually see where the bullet disintegrated as it traveled through the body, which means it must have been partially jacketed.” She moved to another X-ray and indicated an anomalous object in the pelvis area. “I suspect this is where we’ll find the bullet, what’s left of it.”

Doggett nodded. “What about the bruises around her wrists?”

“Looks like he used a nylon cord, the kind you can buy in any hardware store.”

“And the mark on her shoulder?”

“We’ve sent a sample of the ink to the lab, but you can get stamp pads in any discount or office supply store, and those temporary tattoos are sold out of vending machines.”

“It’s the symbol that’s bugging me,” Doggett said. “Why a trident?”

“At least it’s not a swastika,” Meredith said dryly. “Or a pentagram. God knows we see our share of those.” She gave Doggett a moment longer to study the X-rays. “Are you staying for the autopsy?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t just a matter of duty, but a matter of conscience. His way of paying respect to the victim. Doggett never walked out on an autopsy, no matter how gruesome.

Meredith nodded briskly. “Let’s get started then, shall we?”

Doggett followed her into the autopsy room where Alicia Mercer’s nude body waited for them on a cold, stainless-steel table.

* * *

THE AIR-CONDITIONING in the courtroom was operating in hyperdrive, and Fiona shivered as she glanced around the packed benches, picking out faces in the crowd that she recognized. She was seated at the prosecution table with Milo, who was busy going over his notes. Fiona knew that she should do the same, but her gaze kept straying back to the visitors’ block where a dozen or more cops from Area Three, both in uniforms and plainclothes, had turned out in a show of support for Vince DeMarco.

Fiona came from a long line of cops. The Gallaghers were almost legendary in the police department. Her grandfather, her father, her three brothers...all Chicago PD. So she knew cops. She knew how they walked, how they talked, how they thought. But the one thing she’d never been able to understand about them, no matter their rank, was the blind loyalty to the brotherhood.

Most of the police officers she knew were good, decent, hardworking guys who would never, in a million years, condone rape. They recognized the crime for what it was—an act of violence. In most cops’ estimation, a rapist ranked just slightly above a child molester, and yet here a dozen or so of Chicago’s finest—those good, decent, hardworking men—sat lending moral support to a creep like DeMarco. And all because he was a fellow police officer.

But that view was simplistic and more than a little unfair, Fiona knew. Most of the officers in the courtroom had undoubtedly managed to convince themselves, with Quinlan’s help, that DeMarco was the victim. He was a good cop being railroaded by a vindictive junkie and by an out-of-control prosecutor who had started to believe her own press. Fiona Gallagher, the Iron Maiden, was building herself quite the reputation by going after cops—first Quinlan and now DeMarco.

As for Fiona, she had no doubt whatsoever of DeMarco’s guilt. She didn’t care what his fellow cops thought. She didn’t care what Frank Quinlan had force-fed them into believing. All she had to do was look into DeMarco’s eyes, those cold, dark, soulless eyes, to know the truth.

“You raped that poor girl, didn’t you, Detective DeMarco? You saw her on the street that night, you accosted her, and you’re not the type to take no for an answer. When she wouldn’t go with you willingly, you forced her into that alley, tried to beat her into submission, and then, when that didn’t work, you put your gun to her head and threatened to blow her brains out if she screamed. Isn’t that what happened? Admit it, Detective. You raped that girl, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“No! I didn’t touch her! I swear! I wouldn’t do something like that. I’m a cop, for God’s sake. I took an oath to protect people like Kimbra Williams. I would never hurt anyone.”

So earnest, so sincere. The jury had hung on his every word.

But his eyes had told Fiona something very different. His eyes had taunted her, conveyed to her secretly that, yeah, he’d done it. He’d do it again, too, if the mood struck him, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

Maybe you’d like to be next, Counselor.

He hadn’t said it aloud, but the message was so clear in his eyes that for a moment, Fiona was the one who had been rattled by the cross-examination. And it hadn’t helped her poise to know that Frank Quinlan was sitting on the front row, his beady eyes tracking her every move as she walked back to the prosecution table.

He was there again today. Fiona had seen him when she first entered the courtroom. He’d been sitting front and center, in full-dress uniform, brass stars shimmering in the fluorescent lighting as he’d clapped a supportive hand on DeMarco’s shoulder.

Milo muttered something under his breath, then leaned toward Fiona. “Did you see all the brass from police headquarters walk in? What the hell are they doing here?”

“Are you kidding? Didn’t you see the TV cameras out front?” Fiona glanced over her shoulder, her gaze once again sweeping the crowded courtroom. Milo was right. The big guns were out in full force, including Deputy Chief of Detectives Clare Fox. She wore her dress uniform, too, and her stars seemed to shine just a little more brilliantly than Quinlan’s.

Milo tugged at his tie. “Hell, with all this attention, you’d think we had O.J. in here.”

“A cop accused of rape is pretty good copy,” Fiona said. “Especially a hero like DeMarco. But at least the reporting so far has been fair.”

“Fair?” Milo grinned. “Ever since you cooperated with that IAD investigation, you own the guy at the Trib.”

“Which I’m sure endears me even more to Frank Quinlan,” she said dryly.

Milo’s grin disappeared. “Quinlan’s got some heavy-duty connections, Fiona. Don’t underestimate him.”

She turned in surprise. “Gee, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were starting to get paranoid on me, Milo. What’s with all these warnings? First Guy and now Quinlan?”

He frowned. “Those two have more in common than you might think.”

She lifted a brow. “Such as?”

Milo turned away, but not before she’d seen something dark flicker in his eyes. That secret again. “They can both be major-league assholes,” he muttered, but Fiona didn’t think that was what he’d meant to say at all.

More and more, she was starting to think that there was something on Milo’s mind, something he wanted to confide in her, but for some reason, felt he couldn’t. The vague warnings were starting to make her uneasy around him.

But at least his appearance was somewhat reassuring. He was dressed today like the Milo she was accustomed to—gray suit, neatly combed hair, dark-rimmed glasses that made him look boyish and earnest. A persona that might or might not be an asset if the jurors compared it to the dark, smoldering sex appeal of Vince DeMarco.

“Only one person missing from this circus,” he said, turning to scan the courtroom. “Where in the hell is Kimbra? Have you heard from her this morning?”

“I haven’t talked to her since court yesterday, but she promised me she’d be here.”

Milo’s lips thinned. “And if she doesn’t show?”

“Then we could be in some deep you-know-what here. But she still has a few more minutes. I’m not giving up on her just yet.”

But it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise if Kimbra didn’t show, even though Fiona had stressed over and over how important it was for the jury to see her in the courtroom today. But that was Kimbra’s MO. When the going got tough, she ran.

Not that Fiona could blame her. It couldn’t be easy sitting in court day in and day out with her attacker only a few feet away, his smoldering gaze mocking her at every turn. The jury saw only one side of Vincent DeMarco, the good-looking, sexy cop who wouldn’t need to resort to rape when he could have any woman he wanted, even one as young and exotically attractive as Kimbra.

But rape wasn’t about sex. It was about power. It was about domination and humiliation.

And humiliation was something Fiona could relate to.

You didn’t fall in love with a man who’d killed three women and not want to curl up and die at your own gullibility—at your own blind stupidity for not having seen through such evil, for not having been able to stop it.

Which was why Fiona had to stop it now.

Almost against her will, she glanced at the table across the aisle. Vincent DeMarco met her gaze and smiled, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Then a commotion at the back of the courtroom drew his attention, and Fiona saw anger flash across his face. He turned and said something to Quinlan, and the older cop nodded in grim agreement.

Fiona shifted her gaze to see what had caused their agitation, and relief swept through her. Kimbra and Rachel Torres, the woman who ran the runaway shelter where Kimbra sometimes stayed, had just come into the courtroom. They paused at the back, and then Kimbra started forward with a little stumble, as if Rachel had had to nudge her to get her to move. The girl’s expression was frozen. She glanced neither to the right nor to the left as she stepped up to the prosecution table and took her seat.

Fiona turned and put her hand over Kimbra’s. “Thanks for coming.”

Kimbra shrugged. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

Fiona squeezed her fingers. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but you’ve done great so far. Just hang in there a little longer, okay? It’ll all be over soon.”

“Then he’s goin’ to prison, right?” Kimbra turned eyes that looked as old as time on Fiona. “Cuz if he don’t do no time for this, I’m a dead woman.”

A shiver crawled up Fiona’s spine at the certainty in the girl’s voice. “If he threatens you in any way—”

“What y’all gonna do ’bout it, Miss Lawyer? Huh? That man’s Five-O. They do what they want,” she said bitterly. “Who’s gonna stop ’em?”

“I’ll stop him. If he comes near you, we’ll get a restraining order—”

Kimbra all but laughed in her face. “You still don’t get it, do you? If he wants me dead, I’ll just disappear one day. Won’t nobody ever know what happened to me. That’s how he’ll do it.”

She paused for a moment, her gaze sliding past Fiona as a look of pure terror crept into her eyes. Then she blinked it away and the defiant mask slipped back into place. “Y’all keep messin’ with the wrong people, Miss Lawyer, they might just disappear you, too.”

* * *

FIONA WALKED OVER TO THE jury box and planted her hands on the railing. Milo had done a fantastic job sum-marizing the evidence and recounting witness testimony in his closing remarks, but the defense attorney, Dylan O’Roarke, had been masterful.

He’d wasted no time in getting to the heart of the case. “In spite of the prosecution’s attempts to muddy the waters at every turn, the case is a simple one, ladies and gentlemen. It boils down to one single question. Who do you believe? A troubled runaway with a long history of drug abuse and a willful disobedience of the law? One who openly bragged about her hatred of the police? One who, as you heard more than one witness testify, swore to get her revenge on Detective DeMarco for an old arrest?

“Or do you believe Vincent DeMarco, a decorated police officer, an ex-Army Ranger who distinguished himself on a desert battlefield as well as on the mean streets of Chicago?”

Dylan had gone on and on, hammering home the same point until Fiona had seen at least one juror nod very slightly in agreement.

And now it was her turn to offer a rebuttal. She surveyed the twelve members of the panel, noting their expressions as they stared up at her expectantly, and then she said, very quietly, “One out of every three women in this country will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. One out of every three.”

She emphasized the last five words as her gaze slid to a well-dressed, middle-aged woman in the second row who had sat rigidly throughout the whole trial. Her expression rarely showed anything more than an intense concentration, as if she were determined to perform her civic duty to the best of her ability, but beyond that the trial couldn’t touch her. Rape couldn’t touch her.

Fiona stared at her for a long moment until the woman was forced to meet her gaze. “It could happen to any woman in this courtroom. It could happen to me. It could happen to you.”

Something flashed briefly in the woman’s eyes. Denial, Fiona thought. She often found the toughest jurors to sway in a rape case were upper-middle-class white women who had a hard time identifying with a victim like Kimbra.

“Think of three women in your own life. Your mother. Your sister.” Fiona paused, letting her gaze move to a male juror seated directly in front of her in the first row. “Your daughter.”

He flinched.

“One out of every three women in this country will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.”

Fiona straightened and paced slowly back and forth in front of the jury box. “The defense would have you believe that a man like Vincent DeMarco, a decorated police officer, a war hero from Desert Storm, a man of impeachable honor and character, could not have perpetrated such a terrible crime. A man like Vincent DeMarco could not be guilty of rape. And yet...”

Fiona turned to Kimbra. “Someone did rape Kimbra Williams on the night of April 17. Someone forced her into that alley and beat her until she could barely move. And when she still fought back, her attacker held a gun to her head and threatened to blow her brains out if she screamed.”

Fiona paused again, letting the mental picture seep in. “You heard testimony from the doctor who examined Kimbra on that same night. You saw photographs of the severe bruises and swelling left by the beating. Kimbra Williams was brutally attacked and raped. Of that, there is no doubt.

“But the defense has also implied that Kimbra’s fear may have impaired her ability to correctly identify her assailant. After all, it was a dark, moonless night, and she was terrified beyond reason. How could she—how could anyone—be so certain, under the circumstances, of her assailant’s identity?”

Fiona’s expression hardened. “I’ll tell you how. Vincent DeMarco’s face was only inches from Kimbra’s as he held that gun to her head. It didn’t happen instantly. It took minutes. For Kimbra, it took an eternity. Not only was she able to correctly identify her attacker, but I can pretty much guarantee you that his is a face she will never forget.”

Fiona allowed a shudder to ripple through her.

“The crux of the defense’s case, though, rests on Kimbra’s alleged hatred of the police. Her loathing for authority, they want you to believe, is the real reason for the charges against Detective DeMarco. She held a grudge against him for hassling her on the street so what better way to get back at him than to accuse him of a brutal crime? It’s been known to happen, they warned you.”

Fiona let contempt creep into her voice. “Only one thing wrong with that theory, ladies and gentlemen. Kimbra Williams was raped and beaten on the night of April 17. She didn’t lie about those bruises. You saw the pictures.

“For all we know, she was left for dead in that alley, but even if her attacker never meant to kill her, you can be certain that a man like Vincent DeMarco would not expect her to press charges against him. After all, as a police officer, he would know that fifty percent of all rapes go unreported every year because the victim is either worried she won’t be believed or is afraid of retaliation by her assailant.

“Retaliation is what the defense wants you to believe motivated Kimbra Williams. But let’s examine that for a moment. A girl in Kimbra’s position, a runaway who spends most of her life on the street, falsely accuses a police officer, of all people, of rape. How easy would it be for him to retaliate against her? She’s vulnerable. She’s alone. No friends or family to come to her rescue. Do you really think she’d take that chance?”

Fiona walked back to the jury box and once again placed her hands on the rail, leaning forward. “Vincent DeMarco’s fate is in your hands today, ladies and gentlemen, but regardless of what you decide, Kimbra Williams’s life is never going to be the same. Thirty-one percent of all rape victims develop Rape-Related Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and they are nine times more likely to attempt suicide. A pretty grim statistic, isn’t it?

“But the most frightening statistic of all isn’t about the victim. It’s about the assailant. Studies have shown that the recidivism rate among rate among rapists can be as high as 50 percent. That means if Vincent DeMarco is allowed to walk out of this courtroom a free man, there is an extremely high probability he will rape again.

“Who will his next victim be, I wonder? That one woman out of three who will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime?”

Fiona gazed at them for a moment longer, then turned and strode back to the prosecution table to await the judge’s final instructions to the jury.

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