Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Nine

“Yes, that sounds like her.” The restaurant manager’s voice was tight with disapproval. “We don’t normally have those sorts of scenes in a place like this.”

Rose looked up at Daniel’s tense expression, her stomach aching with fear. They’d been up and down the highway for the past half hour with no sign of Melissa. They’d gone from restaurant to restaurant until they’d found Chez Sofie and someone who remembered Melissa being there that evening.

“She didn’t come back here?” Daniel asked.

“No. Her…companions left soon after she did, and I haven’t seen either of them since.” He looked pleased by that fact, as if his restaurant had been spared further ignominy.

Daniel sighed. “You remember anyone else leaving the restaurant soon after Ms. Bannerman left?”

“Only the gentleman and the other lady.” The manager turned away from them dismissively, pasting a smile on his face as he greeted a couple coming through the front doors. “Welcome to Chez Sofie. Do you have a reservation?”

Daniel touched Rose’s back, nodding toward the exit. They emerged into the cool night air, Rose’s heart hammering hard against her breast.

“Maybe Mark found her and talked her into letting him drive her home.” Daniel opened the Jeep door for her.

“Why didn’t she call you back on his phone, then? To let you know you didn’t have to come?” She slid into the seat, searching his face for a hint of hope.

Though he tried to keep his expression neutral, she didn’t miss the grim set of his mouth. “Don’t know,” he admitted.

She buckled her seat belt and laid her head back against the headrest. “I don’t have Mark’s cell-phone number on my cell phone, but I think I have it in my address book back at home.” She bit her lip. “Why didn’t I think to bring it with me?”

“Because you had no idea you’d need to call him,” Daniel said sensibly, strapping in and starting the Jeep.

“Can we go back down Highway 11?” she asked as he started toward the interstate. “Just in case?”

“Sure,” he agreed. But he didn’t sound hopeful.

They reached Roebuck without spotting Melissa anywhere along the highway. Daniel slanted a look at Rose. “Odds really are that she met up with Mark and he took her home.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“It’s the most likely answer,” he insisted.

She turned to look at him. His profile was outlined by the indigo glow of the dashboard lights, his jaw squared and tight. “But you don’t really believe it,” she repeated softly.

He glanced at her again, not answering.

“It’s a gut feeling,” she added. “Nothing scientific or logical. Just a little voice inside your head telling you that the most likely answer isn’t the right one. Right?”

His jaw muscle bunched.

“He has her.” Rose voiced her deepest fear, certain it was true. “There’s nothing we can do to stop him from killing her.”

“Until we have more information to go on, let’s not think the worst. Okay?”

She settled against the seat, her heart a painful knot in her chest. Intellectually, she knew he was right. Until they talked to Mark, they couldn’t be sure of anything. But in her gut, she knew. The man Daniel called Orion had Melissa, and he wasn’t going to drop her off safely at home tonight.

The only questions were, where would he leave her body and when would it be found?

DANIEL LISTENED to the muted chatter on the police radio sitting on Rose’s side table, trying not to think the worst. He hadn’t been able to reach Melissa on her cell phone or at home, and Mark Phagan wasn’t answering either of the numbers Rose had in her address book. Calling the police so early was pointless, especially since Melissa had ample reason to be lying low after whatever had happened between her and Mark at the restaurant.

Rose had settled into a restless doze around 2:00 a.m., curled into a half-fetal position on her sofa. She looked young and vulnerable, her face soft with sleep. He felt the urge to scoop her up in his arms, carry her up the stairs to her bedroom and settle her under the colorful quilt.

And it was a toss-up whether he’d tuck her in or join her under the covers.

He was crazy to be thinking of her this way. He still didn’t have a clue how she knew so much about Orion and his murders. Getting any more involved with her before he’d settled that question was criminally stupid.

But she couldn’t have feigned the fear he’d seen in her eyes when she realized Melissa was really missing. She hadn’t faked the troubled dreams that had chased her for the last two hours, making her toss and turn on the sofa, low sounds of distress trapped in her throat.

He slouched in the chair, allowing himself to memorize the curve of her jaw, the soft bow of her lips, the brush of her long, dark lashes against her cheeks. The makeup she’d worn to go clubbing was mostly gone, save for the smudge of mascara darkening the skin beneath her eyes. And, yet, in that perfect moment in time, he knew he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

But perfect moments always came to an end, and his ended at 4:21 a.m., when the call came over the police scanner. Ten fifty-four-possible dead body. He pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and jotted down the address, waiting with growing apprehension for more information to come over the scanner.

Ten minutes later, the call came, confirming the dead body and calling for the coroner.

Daniel looked across the living room at Rose’s sleeping form, his heart sinking. The last thing he wanted to do was to wake her when all he knew was that some poor soul had died that night. But he couldn’t bring himself to sneak out and leave her here to wonder what had happened.

He woke her with a gentle shake. Her eyes fluttered open and settled on him, her gaze warm and liquid. For a moment, he almost let himself forget the murders, the call on the scanner, everything but the raw need he saw simmering in the depths of her mossy-brown eyes. But she looked away, breaking the connection. Her gaze flew to the scanner on the side table. “Has something happened?”

He told her about the police call, trying to hide his own growing uneasiness as he told her that it could be a death completely unconnected to Melissa or Orion himself. “I thought I’d head to the scene and see what I could find out.”

“I’m coming with you.” She untangled her legs from the knit throw and sat up.

“Rose, you shouldn’t go. I don’t know what I’ll find-”

“I can’t stay here and worry. I’ll stay in the car while you check on it, but please don’t make me stay here.”

Knowing futility when he saw it, he nodded. “But you stay in the car.”

“Thank you.” Relief and dread mingled in her voice. “I’ll go change clothes.”

She returned a few minutes later, her hair in a ponytail and her face scrubbed clean. She’d changed out of her club clothes into a moss-green sweater and a pair of faded jeans. “Ready?” she asked.

Not really, he thought. But he gave a nod and followed her outside, where the early morning quiet was broken by the faint hum of traffic on the expressway a few blocks away.

For most of the city, life went on, oblivious to the fact that a woman lay dead only a few blocks away.

WAITING IN THE CAR was only marginally better than waiting at home, Rose decided as the hand on her wristwatch clicked past 5:00 a.m. Daniel had left the Jeep about fifteen minutes ago, disappearing into the small clump of bystanders gathered outside the yellow crime-scene tape cordoning off an overgrown, empty lot that had once been a school playground. The abandoned school loomed in the background, shuttered and silent, its dark facade painted blue and crimson by the flashing dome lights of the police cruisers parked at haphazard angles along the curb.

Rose reached into her purse for her cell phone, hitting the speed dial for Melissa’s home phone. After six rings, the answering machine picked up. Rose hung up before the beep; Daniel had already left a message on her machine last night.

She tried Mark Phagan’s home number with the same result. Grimacing with frustration, she put her phone on the seat beside her, peering through the Jeep’s windshield to see if she could catch a glimpse of Daniel in the crowd. Time slowed to a mind-numbing crawl, each minute interminable.

On impulse, she picked up her phone and tried Melissa’s cell-phone number one more time. It rang three times, then there was a click. But no one spoke.

“Melissa? It’s me-please don’t hang up-”

More silence.

Rose’s heart began pounding. “Melissa?”

“Who is this?” a man’s voice asked.

Rose’s heart skipped a beat. A cold chill washed over her, making her light-headed and shaky. Her vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

It must be him. He’d killed Melissa and taken her cell phone-

“Hello?” the voice repeated. “I asked, who is this?”

“Who is this?” she countered, forcing the words from her constricted throat.

There was a brief pause, then the man answered, “This is Detective Frank Carter with the Birmingham Police Department.”

Relief shuddered through her, quickly swallowed by despair. If Detective Carter had Melissa’s phone-

“I told you who I am. It’s your turn.”

She licked her lips. “It’s Rose Browning. Melissa’s friend.”

Detective Carter released a slow, deep breath. “Oh. I’m sorry to tell you this, Ms. Browning, but your friend is dead.”

Rose closed her eyes, pain closing around her throat. Even though she’d spent the last hours preparing for this moment, it hit her like a truck. She tried to say something but only a strangled bleat escaped her mouth.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Detective Carter said, his voice gentle. “I’ll want to speak to you later, so don’t leave town in the next few days, okay?”

“Okay.” She managed to get the word out.

“I’ll talk to you soon.” He hung up.

Rose dropped her phone to her lap, sinking back against the seat. A shiver shook her, scattering chill bumps across her arms and chest. She wrapped her arms over her chest, trying to control the tremors.

The trill of her cell phone split the silence of the Jeep’s cab. She jumped, the phone tumbling to the floor-board. She groped for it in the darkness. “Hello?”

“It’s me.” Daniel’s voice rumbled through her, warm and solid, easing her shivers. “How’re you holding up?”

She could tell by his careful tone that he already knew about Melissa. “I know it’s her,” she said. “I tried Melissa’s cell phone and Detective Carter answered.”

Daniel sighed. “That was a terrible way to hear it.”

“There’s no good way to hear it.” She closed her eyes, her head beginning to ache. “Have you learned anything else?”

“Not yet. I’m hoping to get Frank off by himself to see what I can learn without the feds catching wind of my interest.”

Rose caught sight of Daniel through the windshield. He stood near the edge of the crowd gathered behind the police cars, his cell phone to his ear. Just seeing him, knowing he was close, eased some of her tension. “I see you,” she murmured, her voice tinged with unexpected tenderness.

He turned and looked toward her. “I see you, too.” The low, intimate tone of his voice set a fire in her belly, radiating warmth through her chilled limbs. “You have the doors locked, don’t you?”

She eyed the door locks. “Yes.”

“Keep your eyes open, okay? If you see anyone heading your direction, call me immediately. You have my number?”

“Yes,” she assured him.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared down the street at her. When he spoke, his voice softened. “We have a lot to talk about when we’re through here.”

“I know.”

“I’ve got to go see if I can get Frank to tell me anything. Don’t forget-call me if anyone starts to approach you.”

“I won’t forget.”

“I’m sorry about Melissa,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He rang off, weaving through the crowd again.

Rose clutched the phone to her chest, his warm voice lingering in her ears.

DANIEL EDGED HIS WAY to the police-tape cordon, trying to catch Frank Carter’s eye. When Frank glanced his way, Daniel gestured at him. Carter’s expression darkened, his mouth tightening with annoyance, but he said something to the detective standing next to him and headed toward the street.

Frank didn’t make eye contact with Daniel as he lifted the crime scene tape and ducked under it, but he gave a slight nod that Daniel took as an invitation to talk.

As Frank opened the trunk of an unmarked Oldsmobile Cutlass, Daniel joined him. “Number four?”

Frank didn’t answer. Daniel didn’t need him to. What he’d seen of Melissa’s body confirmed it for him.

“I’d like to come in on the case officially,” Daniel continued.

Frank slanted a dark look at him. “As what? A roving university professor?”

Daniel let the barb slide. “The last time we talked, you offered to speak to your boss about bringing me into the case.”

“Last time, you said no.”

“You think I’m going to horn in on your publicity when you catch this guy? I’m not. I don’t want publicity. I just want this bastard to go down.”

Frank stopped pretending to look for something in the car trunk and turned to face Daniel. “I’ve been doing a little investigating of my own, Danny. Tell me-what made you leave the FBI six years ago? Just felt the need to slow down, stop and smell the roses?”

Daniel could tell Frank knew the answer. “You know why.”

Frank’s voice darkened. “It’s all about Tina, isn’t it?”

Not all of it. But enough. “The FBI wanted me to move onto other cases six years ago, so I quit and took the university job. Might as well put the Ph.D. to work.”

“You think this is the same guy?” Frank looked troubled.

“The M.O. is the same. The victims are similar-young, pretty women.”

“What if you’re just seeing what you want to see?”

Daniel didn’t reply, no longer certain he knew the answer. If Frank, of all people, didn’t see it-

Frank closed the trunk. Without turning around, he asked, “How did you know to be here this morning?”

“Police scanner.”

“You were up at four in the morning listening to the police scanner?”

Daniel saw no reason not to tell Frank about Melissa’s call. He’d learn the truth once he checked the numbers on Melissa’s cell phone, anyway. “Melissa had a fight with her boyfriend, and she left a message on my cell phone to see if I could come pick her up and take her home. But when I went looking for her, I couldn’t find her.”

Frank half turned, cutting his eyes at Daniel. “Why you? Is there something I need to know about you and Melissa Bannerman?”

“I told you before, she and I have been discussing a book.”

Frank shook his head. “But why call you and not a friend? Or family?”

“She said she didn’t want to get into it with people she knew. I get the feeling it’s not the first trouble she’s had with the fiancé.”

“We’ll be checking him out,” Frank assured him. “Where was she when she called?”

Daniel told Frank everything he knew, leaving out only Rose’s involvement. He was reluctant to put her on Frank’s “persons of interest” list, at least until he’d settled for himself exactly what her connection to the case really was.

“I’ll put out feelers with my captain about getting you involved,” Frank said grudgingly. “But it won’t be a paid position, and you can’t be going off on a wild hare and screwing up our case. Understand?”

“Of course,” Daniel said, not meaning it. He didn’t need the locals to tell him how to investigate a case.

“Get lost, will you?” Frank muttered as he headed back under the crime-scene tape.

Daniel took his advice, drifting back through the crowd and emerging on the other side. He walked slowly back down the street to his Jeep, squinting against the glare of the morning sun reflected in his front windshield.

He reached the driver’s side door and looked inside. Rose’s dark gaze met his through the glass, her expression a heady blend of relief and something that sent his pulse racing. She reached across and unlocked his door. “Any more news?”

Sliding behind the steering wheel, he told her about his conversation with Frank, leaving out the part about Tina. He never talked about Tina, hadn’t in ten years. No point in starting now; it would just further muddle the already complicated relationship between him and Rose.

“I think he’ll be able to get me officially in on the investigation,” he added, buckling his seat belt.

“Is that good?” she asked as he started the engine.

“I’ll have better access to the files on the past four victims.” Not that he expected to see anything in those files he hadn’t seen dozens of times before, but it was possible Orion had changed his tactics in a way that might reveal more about him than Daniel already knew.

At this point, he’d take any new information he could get.

“I should have warned her,” Rose murmured.

“I thought you did.”

“Not about the death veils. About Mark.”

He sat forward. “What about Mark?”

“I knew there was a good chance he was cheating on her again, but I never told her. Maybe if I had-”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t have any proof. All I had was a snippet of conversation I’d overheard.” She told him about hearing Mark Phagan set up an alibi with his friends at Alice’s funeral. “I told myself he might have been planning a surprise for her or something, that it wasn’t proof he was cheating. But I knew better.” Misery tinged her voice.

Ignoring all the warning bells in his head, he took her hand in his. “Don’t blame yourself about that. Might not have changed anything. Melissa said on the phone that she wouldn’t listen to her friends when they tried to warn her about Mark.”

“I know you think I’m crazy.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. “Sometimes I think I am, too.”

Which meant she wasn’t, he thought. The really crazy ones never realized it. So she wasn’t crazy. And she wasn’t a liar. Which left one unthinkable explanation.

She really did see death veils.

His head ached. He’d been awake for twenty-four hours, much of that time spent wound like a spring. The last thing he needed to do right now was to try to make sense of the senseless.

He parked behind Rose’s house. When they reached the house, he took the keys from her trembling hands and unlocked the door. “Get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day.”

She lifted shadowed eyes to his. “For you, too.”

“I have a few calls I need to make, but I’ll catch a quick nap on your sofa when I’m through, if that’s okay.”

As Rose headed upstairs, Daniel called his research assistant, Steve, whose groggy voice reminded Daniel that it was only 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. “Sorry to wake you, Steve, but I have a new murder to add to the running tally.”

That woke Steve up a bit. “Number four?”

Daniel outlined the facts in the Melissa Bannerman murder. “I’ve never been this close.”

“You’ve never made it to a place while Orion’s still active there,” Steve pointed out.

“He got sloppy this time, killing them all in one area.”

“Except the last one.”

There was that, Daniel had to admit. While the killer had dumped Melissa in the same general area as the others, he’d picked her up well across town. “We’ve figured all along that these weren’t murders of opportunity.”

“He stalks them,” Steve agreed.

Still, he had gone outside his comfort zone last night when he’d targeted Melissa. Maybe he’d made a mistake. All the more reason to join the investigation in an official capacity.

He rang off with Steve and dialed the number for the Birmingham Police Department Homicide Bureau. The captain was out of her office, no doubt still front and center at the crime scene, but he left her a voice mail to get the ball rolling.

Finished with his calls, Daniel headed upstairs to check on Rose. The next few days were going to be hell for her, dealing with the aftermath of Melissa’s murder, and he didn’t know how much time he could spend with her if he managed to convince the police to bring him into the investigation on a more official basis. He’d probably be putting in long hours studying the case files and catching himself up on all the details.

Rose’s bedroom door was open just enough for him to see her slim figure stretched out atop the covers of her bed. Through the window beyond, dawn painted the Birmingham skyline in shades of saffron and coral.

He’d kissed Rose in front of that window, he thought, the memory vivid enough to send his heart racing. He felt the pull of her, even now, a tidal pulse of need.

He crossed quietly to her bedside. She’d taken a shower and changed into a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. Her hair was damp, and the air around her smelled like a fresh sea breeze, tangy-sweet. He breathed deeply, memorizing the scent.

He eased a nearby armchair next to the bed and sat, studying her sleep-softened features. The morning light bathed her face with warmth, burnishing the smooth apples of her cheeks. His fingers ached to touch her, but he resisted, reminding himself that she was still a puzzle that needed solving, a key piece of the mystery he’d spent the last years of his life trying to unravel.

Letting her mean anything more to him than that was a mistake he couldn’t afford to make.

HE FOLDED THE NOTE carefully, the latex gloves a minor nuisance. Part of him longed to touch the paper, to know his flesh had touched something Rose would touch, but he wasn’t insane. She’d take the note to the police for testing. So he took care; used bottled water to seal the envelope. He ran a hand vac over both note and envelope before sealing the first inside the second. The envelope immediately went into a resealable plastic bag for the trip.

He felt flush, still sated by what he had done. He wasn’t delusional like some who did what he did; he didn’t imagine himself ridding the earth of harlots or releasing tortured souls from hell on earth into eternal paradise. He killed because he liked to watch the aftermath. Like a stone hitting the surface of a placid lake, what he did sent out circles of reaction, and he liked to see just how far those circles could travel. It started small-the victim, her loved ones, her friends. With a single act, he’d changed the course of their lives forever.

But the effects of his handiwork didn’t stop with those closest to her. They spread across the full spectrum of his victim’s life, touching acquaintances, her neighborhood, even her city. Killing wasn’t a solitary crime with a single victim. When he killed, his actions affected thousands of people in ways big and small.

It wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t about hate.

It was about power.

He had always been an arbitrary, greedy god over his chosen domain, striking when and where he pleased for reasons that made sense to no one but him.

But now he had Rose.

She would tell him who came next.