Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Two

Rose called the flower shop as early as she dared the next morning. As soon as someone answered the phone, she forced the reluctant words from her mouth. “Is Alice Donovan there?”

“She’s not in yet.”

“When do you expect her in?”

A thick pause greeted the question. When the woman finally spoke, the anxiety in her voice was palpable. “An hour ago.”

Rose’s nightmare flashed through her mind, chilling her to the bone. Her voice cracked. “Have you tried her home number?”

“She’s not answering her home phone or her cell.” The woman’s voice shook. “She’s never late like this.”

Rose tried to keep her voice even. “I met her last night. I said I’d give her a call-I’m a wedding planner and I can always use a new flower source.”

“Was she okay when you saw her?”

Rose closed her eyes. “She was fine, heading home the last I talked to her. Does she live nearby?”

“On Doberville-the Brookstone Apartments.”

Rose gave a start. A block away, easy walking distance.

“I’d go check on her,” the woman continued, “but I’m the only one in the shop…”

“I’ll check, if you’d like. I live nearby. What apartment?”

The woman hesitated, as if realizing she’d already given out a lot of personal information to a stranger. “Maybe I should call the police.”

“Definitely do that. But they won’t do anything yet-she’s an adult and she’s been missing only an hour. I know you don’t want to give out that kind of information to a stranger on the phone. My name is Rose Browning. Like I said, I have a wedding planning company. You can look me up in the Yellow Pages or on the Internet. I just want to help, and I live so close…”

“Apartment 2-D,” the woman said softly.

“I’ll go right now.” Rose hung up and started dressing, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t too late.

That Alice wasn’t already dead.

THE MORNING CHILL curled around the collar of Daniel’s suit jacket, making him wish he’d worn an overcoat. Ahead, yellow crime tape cordoned off a large square where the crime-scene unit gathered evidence while detectives watched from the sides.

Daniel steered clear of the tape, blending into the crowd of locals watching from across the street. He edged toward the local television reporters setting up for live shots nearby.

A pretty black woman in a red wool coat was doing sound checks, practicing her copy for the technician.

“Police report that a couple of joggers found the body here just outside the Mountain View Golf Course. Police have not identified the victim, a woman in her mid-twenties.”

An image of the dark-haired woman at the Southside Pub flashed through Daniel’s mind. Unease settled low in his gut.

He needed to see the body. See who she was, if she was displayed. The crime-scene unit surrounded the body, their camera flashes piercing the tree-sheltered gloom of the brush bordering the golf course.

He circled the scene, vines and brambles tugging his pant cuffs as he edged away from the sightseers and climbed a slight rise for a better vantage point. He settled between a couple of trees. His line of sight wasn’t perfect, but he had a pretty good view of the body. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his jacket pocket and trained them on the scene.

Though nobody looked the same in death as in life, he quickly ascertained that the woman lying faceup in the tall grass was not the dark-haired beauty he’d seen at the pub the night before. This woman was about the same age, but her hair was lighter in color, with an unruly wave to it.

Ignoring a twinge of relief, he trained the binoculars on the victim’s face. He could see little of her features behind the roadmap of slashes marring her pale skin, but what he saw of the wound patterns answered the most pressing question. She was victim number three. She lay posed on her back with her hands crossed over her chest, just like the others.

Just like Tina.

“Danny?”

A man’s voice nearby sent a jolt down Daniel’s spine. He turned to find a clean-cut man in a trim gray suit standing a few feet away, his head slightly cocked.

Daniel was mentally prepping his explanation when he realized the man had called him by name. Recognition dawned, unexpected and not entirely welcome.

No longer the gangly teen Daniel had known, Tina Carter’s brother, Frank, was now in his thirties. He’d gone from bony to wellbuilt and, while still not exactly handsome, women would like him, especially with the badge hanging low on his hip.

Daniel pocketed his binoculars. “Didn’t know you’d become a detective, Frank.” He crossed to the man and held out his hand.

Frank shook it firmly. “You didn’t know I was on the force at all, Danny.” He shrugged off Daniel’s apologetic expression. “What are you doing here? Nobody called the FBI.”

“I’m not with the FBI anymore. I teach college now.” Daniel nodded toward the crime scene. “This is number three, isn’t it? Here, at least.”

Frank glanced toward the scene. “Why would a college professor want to know?”

“Just looking.”

Frank’s frown tightened. “I’ve got to get back before my captain realizes I’m not around. I suggest you be gone before she starts trolling the crowd for witnesses. Unless you’re ready to explain why you’re sneaking around her crime scene uninvited.”

Daniel wasn’t. “Good to see you, Frank.”

Frank just gave a curt nod and strode back down the shallow incline toward the cordoned-off crime scene.

Daniel waited until Frank had slipped under the yellow tape before he followed, skirting the crowd again to keep his distance from the cops and technicians still swarming the crime scene. It was possible someone might recognize his face from his TV appearances.

Daniel wasn’t ready for that to happen. Not yet.

Not until he knew if these murders really were connected to Tina Carter’s.

He settled behind the wheel of his Jeep, his attention focused on the police officers on the scene. Sooner or later, detectives would head for the victim’s home, looking for a murder scene that would provide them with more evidence than the carefully staged dumpsite they were scouring at the moment.

And when they did, Daniel intended to tag along.

THE BROOKSTONE APARTMENTS on Doberville Road had been built in the twenties, a redbrick Colonial Georgian the owner had partitioned into apartments years ago when apartment housing in Birmingham’s vibrant Southside community had become a hot-ticket item. Alice’s apartment was on the backside of the building, making it easy for Rose to approach from the alley without attracting much attention.

She climbed the exterior stairs, the memory of the death veil quivering over Alice’s face haunting her. She should have made Alice believe her. Maybe if she’d come across matter-of-fact, less uncertain…

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe Alice just had a bad hangover and had overslept. No need to give up hope yet.

But her loud raps on Alice’s door brought no response. “Alice, are you in there?”

No answer.

Panic built in her belly, coiling like snakes. “Alice, please come to the door!”

Rose pressed her ear to the door, listening. She felt the hum of electricity against her cheek and the faint sound of voices coming from other apartments, but from inside Alice’s apartment, all was silent.

Frustrated, she followed the wraparound balcony to the side of the building. Alice had a corner apartment with a side window; maybe she could see through the curtains.

As she approached the window, movement at the front of the building distracted her. Two cars, one of them a marked police cruiser, pulled up the drive, heading for the parking lot at the back.

Rose flattened herself against the side of the building, her heart in her throat. The police were here because of Alice. And not just because the woman at the flower shop had called them, either.

They would only be here this quickly if they’d already found Alice’s body.

The police cars disappeared around the building. In a few seconds they’d come back into view. Rose didn’t intend to be here waiting for them. She knew better than to try to explain death veils to the police. She’d tried telling the Willow Grove police about what she’d seen in Dillon’s face when she had reported the Granvilles’ deaths. They’d practically accused her of lying-and those policemen had known her since she was a baby.

The Birmingham police didn’t know her from Adam. They wouldn’t hesitate to make her their prime suspect.

She raced for the stairs, making it to the first-floor breezeway unseen. She darted across the lawn and descended the steep driveway to the street. She headed down the sidewalk, keeping her gaze on the road ahead. If she looked back, she’d only attract more attention.

She should never have told the woman at the flower shop her name. The police would surely speak to Alice’s coworkers and, if the woman on the phone remembered Rose’s name-

She turned at the corner and headed uphill toward home, her breath coming in short huffs. Ignoring a stitch in her side, she took the concrete steps to her house two at a time.

“What are you running from?”

A man’s voice jarred up her spine. She stumbled, grabbing for the iron railing to keep from falling, and whirled around, her muscles bunching, prepared for fight or flight.

The dark-haired man from the pub the night before stood just feet away, his expression tinged with curiosity. His gaze swept over her, through her, as if he were studying every atom, every cell, every drop of blood coursing through her veins.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Saw you last night. At the Southside Pub.”

“If you don’t leave now I’m going to call the police.”

His lips curved. “Should be easy. They’re only a block away.”

Her heart skipped another beat. “Who are you?”

“Daniel. Who are you?”

She pressed her lips together and took a step backward up the stairs. “You’re trespassing on private property.”

“You were at the home of a murder victim. Why?”

She tightened her grip on the railing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The police are knocking on her door right now to see if anyone else is home. You ran when you saw them coming. Why?”

Rather than answer, she turned and started up the steps.

He followed, his footfalls thudding close behind. “Was she your friend?”

She made it to the porch and turned to face him from above. “If you don’t leave now, I will call the police.”

He stopped, gazing up at her, a challenge in his smoky eyes. “Be my guest.”

She turned and went inside, slamming the door behind her. She flipped the dead bolt and rested her head against the heavy wood door, her heart fluttering with panic.

Who was he? Alice’s killer, coming here to taunt her? Whoever had been hiding in the shadows at the end of the side parking lot had seen her.

Had he chosen her as his next victim, after all?

Crossing the foyer on shaky legs, she peered at herself in the antique mirror over the narrow hall table. Her haunted expression gazed back at her, pale and wide-eyed but free of any sort of phantom veil.

Her legs felt boneless. She made it to the living room before her knees buckled. She fell gracelessly onto the sofa, slumping forward, her head in her hands.

If the gray-eyed man was the killer-and, really, why couldn’t he be?-he wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d imagined that a man who could brutalize a woman the way the killer had done must have some mark of evil, a coldness in the gaze or a cruelty around the mouth that would tell her “he’s the one.”

Rationally, she knew it didn’t work that way. The nice man who lived next door and kept his lawn mowed and his house painted could turn out to be the most twisted of killers, and nobody would have a clue. But she should have a clue. For whatever reason, she’d been saddled with this terrifying ability to foresee death. She should damned well be able to spot a killer.

For the past few months she’d been stumbling around in dark, feeling her way through a maze of sharp edges and dizzying pitfalls. As if witnessing Dillon Granville’s suicide had struck her blind, robbed her of the true-love veils and left her with a cruel facsimile, the death veils that now haunted her day and night.

Nearby, her cell phone trilled. She was tempted to ignore it, let the caller leave a message, but she had a business to run, bills to pay. It was probably Melissa with a question about the caterer or the floral arrangements-

Melissa. She had no idea Alice was dead.

By the time she found her cell phone, the ringing had stopped. The number on the display window belonged to her sister, Iris. She was leaving a message.

Rose crossed to the front door as she waited for the message indicator to show up on her cell phone, peering through the narrow glass panel to the right of the door. Rose saw no sign of the man who’d called himself Daniel.

The message light on her cell phone began to blink. She pressed the button, knowing what she’d hear. It had been almost two weeks since she’d last spoken to Iris, and her sister wasn’t used to being an outsider in Rose’s life.

“Rose, are you ignoring my calls?” Iris’s light tone couldn’t hide the dark current of hurt. “Lily’s thinking about hosting Thanksgiving dinner at her house. She said she and Casey are already planning a menu.”

Casey was her sister Lily’s stepdaughter. Lily’s visions had helped reunite Casey with her father, police lieutenant J. McBride. Lily’d fallen in love with the gruff cop in the process, marrying him not long after Casey’s return.

Rose had known Lily would marry McBride from the start. A true-love veil had told her so.

Dashing away tears with her fingertips, she started to dial the phone, resolved to call Iris and commit to being there for Thanksgiving. But another memory stopped her, a flash of shimmery silver slashed with deep crimson, hovering over Alice Donovan’s pretty features.

Iris and Lily knew she’d lost her ability to see true-love veils, but she hadn’t yet told them about the death veils. Even the thought of telling them made her cringe. The death veils made her feel dirty, stained by the miscalculation that had led to Carrie Granville’s death and Dillon’s suicide.

She shut off her phone, fresh tears of despair spilling down her cheeks. She didn’t know how to tell Iris or Lily what was wrong with her. She couldn’t find the words to explain how upside down her life had become since that nightmarish Christmas Eve in Bridey Woods.

A few months ago she’d moved her business and her life to Birmingham, where everyone was a stranger and nobody knew about true-love veils, Carrie and Dillon Granville or the fact that the nice wedding planner in the pretty old Southside house could tell them they were going to die within the next month.

Everything was different now. She was different.

The death veils had built an impenetrable wall between her and the two people she loved most in the world, and she didn’t know how to tear it down.

DANIEL COULD HAVE afforded a top-of-the-line hotel but had opted for an economy motel just outside the city, where he’d be left alone to pore over his files and notes uninterrupted. He’d had another option, of course; he could have gone home. His mother still lived in the same cozy Tudor in Forest Park where he’d spent his childhood.

His brother, Evan, a doctor, lived south of town with his beautiful wife and two children under the age of three. They kept an eye on his mother, made sure she was keeping up with old friends and doctor visits and not sinking into loneliness.

She was lucky to have Evan and his family. God knows what she’d do if Daniel was all she had to depend on.

Guilt tugged at the back of his neck, a familiar feeling. He had a lot to answer for where his family was concerned, and all he’d accomplished over the past decade wasn’t enough to erase the trouble he’d been when he was younger.

He’d stop by to check on her before he left town.

Meanwhile, he had the name of victim number three, thanks to his mystery woman. She’d knocked on the door of apartment 2-D. All he’d had to do was call up the address in a reverse directory and he had the name. Alice Donovan. A quick Internet search had connected her to a flower shop on Twentieth Street. He made a note in his day planner to stop by the place later that afternoon, see if the other employees could help him flesh out who she was and how she might have ended up at the mercy of a killer.

He’d had less luck with the dark-haired woman he’d seen at the pub the night before. He had her address now, but the reverse directory updated once a year. Apparently she’d moved into the house on Mountain Avenue less than a year ago.

He let it go, for now. Steve, his teaching assistant, had e-mailed some new information that needed his attention.

Steve had attached three new articles, two from Tennessee and one from Arkansas, all dated between six and nine months earlier. They filled in a gap between the Colbert County murders and the Texas murders he’d documented last year.

The killer he’d informally dubbed Orion, after the hunter in mythology, seemed to move around a lot. From job to job? Or did his job allow him to travel widely and at will? It was a question Daniel hadn’t yet answered to his own satisfaction. A traveling salesman would make a lot of sense, considering how widespread the murders were. But his crimes also seemed to indicate a certain level of trust on the part of his victims-he couldn’t have killed so many women without being caught if women were wary about him.

Maybe there wasn’t just one killer. Maybe he was all wrong and Orion was a series of different killers with similar M.O.s and signatures. It was possible, wasn’t it?

Maybe he was seeing what he wanted to see, putting together patterns that didn’t really exist because he needed those patterns to take shape and make sense of a mystery he’d been trying to solve for the past thirteen years.

Daniel scrubbed his hands over his gritty eyes, thinking back to the shock of seeing Frank Carter at the crime scene that morning. His memory of Tina’s brother was little more than a series of snapshots frozen in time: Frank watching from the stairs as Daniel picked up Tina for a college formal. Frank eyeing Daniel’s new Firebird with all the hungry interest of a fifteen-year-old with a learner’s permit burning a hole in the pocket of his Levi’s.

Frank’s dark, tragic eyes as he watched the shiny silver casket being lowered into the grave bearing a simple gray stone marked with his sister’s name.

Did Frank see the similarities? The telltale slash marks, the obscene pose mimicking peaceful death? Surely, he did. How could he not?

He wondered, with envy, if Frank had been able to let go of that one violence-stained moment of his life and move on. Maybe he didn’t spend his free time obsessing on crime stats and police reports, looking for those key similarities that might suggest Tina’s killer was still out there, still taking lives.

Still catchable.

Good for him if he didn’t. Good for him if he could close his eyes at night and sleep in peace. Daniel couldn’t.

He hadn’t slept peacefully in thirteen years.

MELISSA BANNERMAN slumped in the armchair across from Rose, her expression stunned. “Someone murdered her? Last night?”

Rose nodded.

“My God.” Tears welled up in Melissa’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks. “Oh, my God.”

“I hate being the one to have to tell you-”

“How did you find out?”

“I heard it on the radio, just before you got here.” The two o’clock news report had finally confirmed what Rose had already known. Alice Donovan was dead.

“My God. Her poor parents.” Melissa shook her head.

“I called the flower shop this morning like I said I would,” Rose added. It was the truth, if an incomplete version. “The woman who answered was obviously upset when I asked for Alice. I managed to get her to tell me that Alice hadn’t shown up at work on time and they couldn’t reach her at home.”

“She lives only a block from here.” Melissa wiped her cheeks, her expression slack and numb.

“I’d gotten that out of her employee. I went to check, but the police had arrived, and I’d thought it best to get out of the way.”

“Was she in her apartment?”

“The news reports don’t say.”

“She just had a new alarm system put in her apartment. I told her it was overkill, but there’ve been two murders in the neighborhood recently, and she didn’t feel safe.” Melissa sniffled. “God, what about funeral arrangements?”

“I imagine there’ll be some delay, given the circumstances. Give her family time to process everything, and they’ll be in touch, I’m sure.” Rose took a deep breath. “Will you let me know when you get the details? I’d like to pay my respects.”

That wasn’t the truth; she could think of a million things she’d rather do than attend Alice Donovan’s funeral. But she knew in her bones that he’d be there. The one who’d killed her.

So she had to be there, too.

“The other murders-they were both young women, too, weren’t they?” Melissa asked.

“Yes.” Sherry Nicholson had been twenty-eight, Elisa Biondi twenty-six. Both had lived in Southside and both had been to Southside bars within a day or two of their deaths.

“I don’t want to think about my wedding today.” Melissa stood and wiped her eyes. “It’s too cruel, thinking happy thoughts today. I’ll call Monday and we’ll regroup from there.”

Rose saw her out, watching from the doorway until she was safely to her car in Rose’s driveway. As Melissa backed her Lexus onto Mountain Avenue, Rose started to close the door.

Until she caught sight of the blue sedan across the street.

A ripple of unease fluttered through her. The windows of the car were tinted dark, but she could make out the shape of someone in the driver’s seat.

Heart thudding, she went back inside the house and locked the door behind her, taking deep breaths to calm herself.

It could be nothing. A salesman between appointments, pulled over to talk on his cell phone. Someone considering one of the empty apartments dotted along Mountain Avenue.

Or the man who’d accosted her this morning on her way back from Alice’s.

She peered out the tall, narrow window that flanked the door, hoping the bright daylight would hide her from view.

The sedan was gone.

She slumped against the wall, not sure whether to be relieved or alarmed.

HIS HEART POUNDED a swift, steady cadence, blood rushing in his ears. He always felt energized after he took his prey, but this time was different in an entirely unexpected way.

Because of her.

The pretty brunette who’d tried to warn Alice that she was going to die.

He hadn’t planned to kill sweet Alice last night. He’d noticed her when she arrived at the club, her wavy dark hair spilling around her shoulders in soft waves. Pretty in an obvious way, she’d fascinated him with her reckless need to dance off whatever was bothering her. He’d fantasized about the first cut, the blood trickling over her pink cheeks and down into the cleft between her full breasts. But he hadn’t planned to kill her. Until he’d heard the other woman’s warning.

“I see death.”

Somehow, she’d known, even before he’d made his selection. She’d known that Alice was the one.

When she’d showed up outside Alice’s apartment this morning, he’d known for certain that something special was happening.

He’d found his muse.