Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Six

“We found one set of prints on the note,” Frank told Daniel, his gaze drifting across the room to where Rose sat in a chair by the wall. “Hers.”

Daniel had feared as much. “And the handwriting?”

“We’ve got our analysts on it, but that could take a while.” Frank glanced at Rose again. “How’s she holding up?”

“She’s scared, but holding it together.”

“Wonder why she called you instead of me?” A faint undertone of suspicion threaded through Frank’s voice.

“I think she was afraid she was overreacting. Easier to pass it by me than someone official.”

“How long have you two known each other?”

“A few days. I met her through her friend Melissa.”

“Melissa Bannerman? How do you know her?”

Daniel nodded. “She’s a publisher. I write books.”

Frank looked suspicious, but he dropped the subject. “Maybe that note will be the break we need.”

Daniel wasn’t so sure. Without fingerprints, all they had was the handwriting. Great, if they found a suspect and could connect him to the block printing, but useless until then. “You through with Ms. Browning?”

“Not much more she can add at the moment. I’m going to canvass her neighbors, see if anyone saw anything.” Frank grabbed his jacket and headed for the exit.

Daniel crossed to where Rose sat, tense and wide-eyed, by the wall. “Done here. Think you can handle a little lunch?”

“I don’t know. I’m feeling a little queasy.”

“Nerves.” He led her to the door. “We’ll grab something light and see how it goes. What are you in the mood for?”

She flashed him a lopsided grin. “Pepto-Bismol.”

He chuckled. “How about a BLT on wheat? I know a place just around the corner.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for a lunch crowd.”

“We’ll grab something to go.”

The diner Daniel had in mind was a hole in the wall tucked between a dry cleaner’s and a stationery store in Forest Park. He parked the Jeep and cut the engine. “I was half afraid this place wouldn’t still be here,” he admitted. “Haven’t been back in a while. Lots of things have changed.”

A blast of fragrant warmth and the murmur of a lunch crowd greeted them inside the diner. Rose decided on a chicken salad with tomato, while Daniel chose a BLT and coleslaw. Within minutes, they were back in the car, heading to Rose’s.

Rose said. “Was this diner here when you were younger?”

“Yeah, though it was more of a mom-and-pop place then. Not as trendy.” The place had passed on to the second generation, a brother and sister with a much more bohemian sense of style and cuisine than their meat-and-three parents. But the food was still good and affordable and the service had seemed quick and friendly. “Do you eat out or in more often?”

“In,” she said with a half smile. “Cheaper that way.”

“Hard to start a business in a new town. You buying your house or renting?”

“Buying. I loved it the moment I saw it.” Her eyes softened as if she were reliving the first time she’d seen the house. “It had been renovated a couple of years ago, as a rental, but the owner was tired of dealing with transient and student renters, so he jumped on my first offer to buy it.”

“Putting down roots, huh?”

She nodded. “It was time.”

“Nothing left for you in Willow Grove?”

Her gaze lifted, a hint of wariness in her eyes. “I have family there, but as far as business…”

“Parents? Brothers and sisters?”

“Two sisters. My sister, Lily, lives with her husband in Borland. Only Iris is still in Willow Grove.”

Daniel pulled into Rose’s driveway, parking behind her Impala. “Nice that they’re both close.”

Her expression shuttered. “Yeah.”

Interesting, Daniel thought. Her reticence about her sisters suggested there was more to the story. Were she and her sisters estranged?

He followed her into the kitchen and laid their food out on the table while Rose poured them two glasses of iced tea. She handed him a glass and sat at the kitchen table. He slid in across from her.

Rose tried a bite of her sandwich, making a low, humming sound of pleasure that sent blood racing south of his belt. “This is amazing,” she commented after washing down her first bite with a sip of tea. “It’s got pecans in it, and grapes-”

“Guess you were hungry, after all?” he murmured.

She took another bite, making that same moaning sound that sent a shudder of need skating down his spine.

He took a deep breath and forced his mind back to the reason he was here in the first place. “Maybe you should see if one of your sisters could come stay with you for a while. Until we know more about the note you received.”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You think I’m in danger living here alone?”

“I’d feel better if you weren’t living alone. That’s all.”

She put down her sandwich. “I can’t ask my sisters to drop their lives and come babysit me.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m a big girl. I’ll keep my eyes open and take those self-defense classes we talked about. Maybe get an alarm installed. I’ll be fine.” She managed a smile that he didn’t quite buy.

He couldn’t remember seeing a genuine smile from her, he realized. The Granville murder-suicide must’ve done a real number on her.

“You think last night’s meeting did any good?” Rose asked.

“Don’t think it did any harm.”

There was an odd quality to her silence that caught his gaze. A frown creased her forehead and her lower lip was pinched between her teeth.

“You disagree?” Daniel asked.

She looked at him. “It’s too early to know, isn’t it?”

He cocked his head. “It’s because you think the killer was there last night, isn’t it?”

“You thought so, too.”

He nodded. “But maybe it’s a good thing he saw his victims aren’t going to lie down and take it from him in the future.”

“Or maybe he saw the crowd as a big buffet table full of goodies to sample,” she muttered.

“I don’t think it hurts that those women now know a little more about how to protect themselves from him. Safety in numbers, locking doors-”

“All the things people are supposed to remember but never do,” Rose murmured.

“Or refuse to do,” Daniel countered. “Like have a family member-say, a sister-come stay with them.”

She darted a look at him. “Touché.”

He gathered up the remains of their lunch and dumped it in the trash bin. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“I have to meet Melissa later to help her pick out a veil for her wedding dress.” Rose hooked her arm over the back of her chair and shot him a bemused look. “What are you going to do if she pursues that book deal you snookered her with?”

He shrugged and walked back to the table, close enough that she had to lean her head back to look him in the eye. “Maybe I’ll take her up on it. I wouldn’t have used it as an excuse if it wasn’t a possibility.”

“What about telling her you might need a wedding planner?”

“Not in the market at the moment.”

“Been there, done that?”

A sliver of old guilt embedded itself in his gut. “Almost been there, almost done that.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if his response intrigued her. But to his relief she didn’t pursue the topic, asking instead, “Does your friend, Frank, know you’re looking into these murders?”

“Does now,” Daniel admitted. “Probably going to have to go official now, see if I can talk someone at the Birmingham P.D. into letting me in on the case.”

“You don’t like going through channels?”

He met her curious gaze. “They can be inhibiting.”

She cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You were hunting for him that night in the bar, weren’t you?”

He sat across the table from her. “So were you.”

She looked down at her clasped hands and didn’t reply.

“Weren’t you?” he prodded.

“I just wanted to get out and mingle.”

He shook his head. “But you weren’t mingling. You were watching. You were looking for Orion.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Orion?”

“That’s what I call him.”

“The hunter?” She gave him a look. “A bit cliché.”

He shrugged, a little annoyed. What did she know about serial killers? “It fits.”

“How many are there?” Rose asked.

He cut his eyes at her. “Murders?”

“You said he didn’t start here in Birmingham. How many other women has he killed?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“Ballpark figure.”

He sighed. “At least twenty connected by signature and modus operandi. I’m pretty sure there are more.”

“Twenty?” She looked ill.

“That I know of.”

Her expression darkened. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Immerse yourself in so much violence and death.” She turned her face away from him, her profile distant. “I mean, you seek it out, don’t you? To write about it?”

“To prevent it,” he said softly. “I want to find Orion and stop him before he kills anyone else.”

She didn’t respond right away, giving him time to wonder why he had opened up to her like that. He tended to keep his own counsel about the cases he studied and especially about his own motivations. He tried to be clinical and objective, to see the crimes as puzzles to be solved rather than real lives shattered and destroyed. But at its core, what he did was about stopping very bad men from doing more evil.

Men like Orion.

That’s why he was here-wasn’t it?-when every instinct he had was screaming at him that Rose Browning was dangerous to him on a lot of different levels. No matter how attractive he found her, no matter how much he wanted to scoop her up out of her chair, take her up to her bedroom and finish what they’d started the night before, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Rose knew more about Orion than she was admitting.

“I can’t stop wondering why you were at Alice’s apartment that morning.” He leaned toward her. “Melissa said you met Alice only the night before. Why would you go to her apartment the next morning?”

Her expression shuttered. “I told you, I called her workplace and she wasn’t there.”

“And you just offered to go to a virtual stranger’s apartment to check on her?” Daniel shook his head, conviction tightening his gut. “You already knew something had happened to her, didn’t you?”

“Her employee seemed upset on the phone. It wasn’t far to Alice’s apartment, so I went to check.”

“Very altruistic.”

“What exactly are you implying?”

“You were hunting Orion in the bar. Looking for him at the other bar, where you met Alice. What do you know about him?”

Her eyelids flickered, but she didn’t respond. He stood, rounding the table to her side. She looked up at him, fear and something else in her eyes.

Something that looked a lot like guilt.

Daniel’s stomach knotted. “Who is he, Rose?”

“I don’t know.”

He clenched his fists and crowded her, his voice hardening. “I don’t believe you.”

The stricken look on her face caught him off guard. He stepped back, bumping into the chair. It banged to the floor, making Rose flinch.

Daniel picked the chair up, surprised to find his hands shaking. He wasn’t prone to anger, especially not while interviewing suspects. He was the master of control. The one who manipulated situations and events, not the other way around.

Yet, here he was, on the verge of putting his fist through the nearest wall.

He needed to get out of here. Get some air. Some perspective. “I have to go.”

She nodded, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Yeah.”

She walked with him as far as the living room and stopped, letting him cross to the front door alone. He opened the door and turned to look at her. She stood with arms folded across her stomach, her gaze unreadable.

“I’ll be back,” he said.

“I know.” Her soft reply had a plaintive edge that softened his anger.

Back in his Jeep, Daniel closed his eyes and laid his head back on the headrest. But he couldn’t get Rose’s tear-bright eyes out of his mind.

Or the look of guilt on her face when he’d told her he didn’t believe her.

He’d practically accused her of knowing who Orion was-yet if she knew, why had she been bar-crawling in search of him? And if she knew who the killer was and how he operated, why would she have gone to Alice Donovan’s house looking for her? Orion never killed his victims at home and he never dumped them where they lived.

So she didn’t know Orion. But she knew something.

What was she hiding?

ROSE ARRIVED at Bella a little after two, still reeling from her confrontation with Daniel. He didn’t trust her, and who could blame him? She was keeping secrets.

Bella Charmaigne met her at the door with a long-suffering smile. “Ms. Bannerman’s already here. She brought her gown so that she could see how the veils looked with it.” She motioned for Rose to take a seat outside the dressing area.

A moment later Melissa emerged from the dressing room on a cloud of snowy silk and lace. Rose lifted her gaze to Melissa’s smiling face. Her heart plummeted.

Shimmery gashes wept crimson over Melissa’s face.

Rose swallowed convulsively, fighting for control.

Melissa modeled the gauzy drape, turning to look at herself from all angles in the bank of full-length mirrors. “It matches my dress perfectly.” She lifted the long silk skirt of the wedding gown and waved it gently, admiring the glossy ripple of fabric. Rose looked down at her hands, noting the pasty whiteness of her tightly clenched knuckles.

I have to tell her, she thought.

“Well?” There was an edginess to Melissa’s voice, an imperious tone that caught Rose off guard. Rose forced herself to look up.

“Do you like the veil or not?” Melissa’s choice of words popped a big bubble of hysteria in Rose’s stomach. Adrenaline spilled out, sending wild tremors through her nervous system.

She pushed to her feet. “Melissa, you’ve got to change and come with me.”

Melissa’s face crinkled with surprise. “Where?”

“Somewhere private.” She wasn’t handling the situation well, but she didn’t know what to say, how to explain. All she knew was that she couldn’t tell Melissa about the death veil here, in the middle of a dress shop.

Melissa looked perplexed. “It can’t wait?”

Rose took a desperate step toward Melissa. “No, it can’t. Please get dressed.”

Melissa hesitated a moment, as if to protest, but she finally pivoted and returned to the dressing room. Rose glanced at Bella, not surprised to find the dressmaker’s expression as wary as Melissa’s had been. She looked away and started pacing off her nervous energy until Melissa reemerged from the dressing room wearing a business suit.

She handed the veil she’d selected to Bella. “Put this on my account and hold it for me, okay?”

Bella scurried away to ring up the sale while Melissa draped her garment bag over one arm and grabbed Rose’s elbow with the other hand. She led her outside at a brisk, angry pace, stopping when they reached the silver Lexus parked in front of the dress shop. She put the dress in the backseat and faced her, eyes flashing fire. “What the hell’s going on?”

Rose’s legs trembled with the urge to run far away from the skeptical world, to a place where she’d never have to try to explain the unexplainable again. She pushed her fingers through her hair with shaking hands and took a deep breath. “Okay. When you hired me, you checked my references, right?”

Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “Right.”

“And people in Willow Grove probably had a good bit to say about me, didn’t they?”

Melissa’s lips quirked. “They think you’re some kind of romance wizard. Said you were quite the matchmaker.”

“I used to be. I used to be a lot of things.”

Melissa gestured impatiently. “What’s going on, Rose?”

“I see-” Rose paused, wondering if there was a better word than veil. She could think of nothing. “I see veils.”

Melissa blinked. “Veils? Wedding veils?”

Rose shook her head impatiently. “Not wedding veils. Just-veils. Shimmery veils over some people’s faces. I used to see good ones. Happy ones.” Rose rushed through a quick explanation of the true-love veils.

“So you see true-love veils and use them to match people?” Curiosity battled with skepticism in Melissa’s dark blue eyes.

“Yes. Or, at least, I did,” Rose admitted. “But this is about something else-”

Melissa’s expression darkened. “Something bad?”

Rose looked up at Melissa, willing the girl to believe. Taking another deep breath, she plunged ahead, saying the words she’d never said out loud before, even to herself.

“I see death.”