Like No One Else

by Maureen Smith

  “Okay, but call me the second he leaves. I want to know what the hell’s going on.”

  “Okay. I will.” Tommie disconnected, tossed the cell phone onto the sofa, and raced out of the loft. She flew down the stairs and hurriedly opened the door.

  When Julius Donovan’s dark eyes widened in surprise, she realized that she must look a sight with tangled hair, swollen, bloodshot eyes, and a reddened nose.

  “Thanks for coming over,” she murmured, gesturing him inside. “I know you’re very busy.”

  “It’s no problem.” As he stepped past her, his concerned gaze swept across her face. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been better,” Tommie said ruefully, closing the door and passing a hand over her disheveled hair. “It’s been a rough day.”

  “I know.” Shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark trousers, Donovan pushed out a long, deep breath and shook his head at her. “If it’s any consolation to you, he doesn’t look too good, either.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Tommie asked hopefully.

  Donovan nodded. “About an hour ago. I met him somewhere to give him an update on a few leads he’d asked me to follow up on.” He grimaced. “He’s been removed from the case and placed on leave pending an internal investigation.”

  “Oh no,” Tommie whispered, stricken.

  “I know,” Donovan said, scowling. “It’s not fair. Sanchez is a damned good cop, the best I’ve ever worked with. He deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt. I don’t care what some deacon says about him being corrupt.”

  Tommie frowned, staring up at him. “What deacon?”

  Donovan looked sheepish as he scratched the back of his bald head. “I guess you haven’t heard about that.”

  “No, I haven’t. What happened?”

  “Seems that Sanchez assaulted a deacon outside a church on Saturday afternoon, damn near knocked him out cold. The man had to be taken to the ER.”

  Tommie felt light-headed. “Oh God.”

  Donovan let out a mirthless chuckle. “I’m sure that’s who the deacon was praying to all the way to the hospital.”

  Tommie shook her head, rubbed her pounding temple. Something else Paulo had lied to her about, damn him.

  “How much trouble is he in, Detective Donovan?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  Donovan sighed. “It doesn’t look good,” he admitted. “Having his fingerprint found at a crime scene was damaging enough. That stuff surfacing from his past certainly didn’t help. Right now, the assault charges against him are the least of his problems.”

  Tommie’s heart sank as a fresh sheen of tears blurred her vision. She kept hoping that this was all just a bad dream, that at any moment she would awaken in Paulo’s arms, blissfully content and looking forward to the future.

  Belatedly remembering her manners, she said, “I’m sorry. Would you like something to drink, Detective Donovan?”

  “Sure. And remember I told you to call me Julius.”

  Tommie managed a wan smile. “All right.”

  As they started toward the stairwell, his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his coat pocket, frowned at the caller ID, then muttered apologetically, “I have to take this call in private. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. Use the studio. I’ll wait out here for you.”

  As he disappeared down the hallway, a fist suddenly hammered against the front door. Thinking it was Paulo—hoping it was Paulo—Tommie hastily unlocked the door and threw it open.

  Too late, she realized her mistake.

  Roland barged inside, looking so grotesque that for a stunned moment she didn’t recognize him. His left eye was swollen shut, the skin around it blackened and badly bruised. A line of stitches marched down one side of his cheek and crawled over his discolored lower lip.

  Tommie didn’t know what alarmed her more—his hideous appearance or the look of wild, lethal rage on his face.

  “Roland—”

  “You fucking bitch!” he roared, spittle flying from his mouth as he charged her. “You think you can get away with siccing that crazy motherfucker on me?”

  “You need to calm down,” Tommie said, backing away from him.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! Did you tell him to calm down?”

  She cried out as he viciously grabbed her arms and shook her like a rag doll, shouting in her face, “I should have killed you a long time ago! You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side since I met you!”

  Tommie struggled to wrench herself free, but he had a maniacal grip on her. Shaking with fear, but fortified with anger, she looked him in the eye and spat in his face. “Go to hell.”

  With an outraged scream, Roland reared back his arm to strike her. Tommie closed her eyes, instinctively bracing herself for the blow.

  The sudden blast of a gunshot made her cry out.

  Roland jerked against her, his eye bulging in shock as he staggered forward. Tommie gasped at the sight of bright crimson blood blooming across his chest. He looked at her, his face contorted with pain and confusion. A moment later he pitched to the floor with a dull thud.

  Tommie lifted her head and stared, openmouthed, as Julius Donovan calmly holstered his gun and strode across the foyer. He knelt beside Roland’s body and pressed a finger to his carotid artery, checking for a pulse. Slowly he shook his head.

  “You killed him,” Tommie whispered shakily.

  “I couldn’t let him kill you,” the detective murmured.

  Tommie swallowed, her heart thumping. “It’s going to be okay. I—I’ll tell them it was self-defense. Y-you were just protecting me.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” Donovan raised his head and looked straight at her. The hatred in his eyes seemed to glow red in his dark face. “I couldn’t let him kill you because I’m going to.”

  Chapter 25

  Tommie quaked with fear as she faced Julius Donovan, the horrifying ramifications of what he’d just told her sinking in. “You…you killed those women?” she whispered faintly. “You’re behind all of this?”

  Slowly, deliberately, he rose to his feet. Tall, dressed entirely in black, he loomed over her like a demon shadow.

  Ice congealed in her veins. She shook her head, staring into his cruel dark eyes. “H-how can you do this? You’re a cop.”

  A slow, predatory smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Ah, but I only became one because of you.”

  Her pulse thudded. “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, you will.” Stepping over Roland’s body, he came toward her. “Before the night is over, Tommie, you will understand everything I did. All for you.”

  Panic gripped her.

  Propelled into motion, she spun around and ran for the stairs. She heard him behind her, lightning-fast footsteps that quickly closed in on her. She screamed, pain ricocheting through her body as he seized a handful of her hair and yanked her backward. She struggled desperately, kicking and flailing against him until she saw something flash in his hand. Instantly she went still, realizing with horror that it was a knife, the long, deadly blade glinting in the light as he brought it to her throat.

  “No,” she whimpered pleadingly, tears spurting from her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “Please don’t—” she cried out as he tightened his brutal grip on her hair, wrenching her head back.

  “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he whispered, making her skin crawl as he brushed his lips across her neck. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Tommie. Can’t you tell?”

  She shuddered with revulsion, feeling his erection against her backside. Her heart pounded against her sternum as he traced the cool tip of the blade across her throat, down to the hollow where her pulse beat frantically.

  “They both screamed and begged for their lives,” he murmured in her ear. “Will you do the same, Tommie? Will you scream and beg the way you do when you’re fucking Sanchez like a bitch in heat?”

  Tommie swallowed, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe as she watched
the knife trail lower, coming to rest at a spot between her breasts. She suppressed a shudder as he let go of her hair and reached around to fondle a breast.

  “You think I didn’t see you?” he taunted softly, his voice razoring along her jagged nerve endings. “You think I didn’t watch you spreading your legs for him, riding him, sucking his filthy dick? You think I didn’t watch you whoring yourself for him? Right before you moved into this building, I broke in and installed hidden cameras all over the place. I saw everything.”

  Tommie closed her eyes, a roiling nausea crawling up her throat at the extent of his depravity, at the terrible sense of violation she felt. He’d been spying on her for months.

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted,” he told her, nuzzling her nape. “The others were merely a means to an end, a way to get your attention. A dress rehearsal, if you will.”

  Icy foreboding settled over her heart, chilled her blood. “Why are you doing this? What have I ever done to you?”

  He chuckled softly. “Words can’t begin to describe what you’ve done to me, Tommie. And before I kill you tonight, there’s one more thing I must ask of you.”

  She swallowed, quivering with fear and dread. “Wh-what do you want?”

  She felt him smile against her neck.

  “A private performance.”

  Seated in the shadowy interior of his Dodge Durango, Paulo lit a cigarette and drew hard on it, as if he could burn the bitter taste of bile from his mouth. He’d been camped out in his truck for the better part of the day, avoiding his apartment like a fugitive of the law. Not only were reporters crawling all over the place, but his family, frantic with worry, had stopped by several times looking for him. His cell phone had been ringing off the hook, and Rafe and Daniela had sent him several angry text messages, demanding to know his whereabouts.

  He wasn’t ready to deal with them, wasn’t ready to field questions he didn’t have the answers to.

  After the devastating confrontation with Tommie, he’d returned to the police station to face the wrath of his supervisor. As expected, Captain Boulware had read him the riot act about Roland Jackson and demanded an explanation about the evidence found at Ashton Dupree’s crime scene. Unsatisfied with Paulo’s terse responses, the captain had pronounced judgment, placing him on leave effective immediately. Paulo had surrendered his service weapon and badge, then stormed out of the station and called Ted Colston’s secretary, pretending to be one of his clients. After learning that Colston had taken the day off, Paulo had driven straight to the attorney’s sprawling home in Sugarland. But it had been a fool’s errand. When he arrived he was met by two uniformed officers who’d apologetically informed him that Colston had filed a restraining order against him. Paulo wasn’t to go anywhere near the man.

  But it didn’t matter.

  Because even though he’d gone there fully intending to confront Colston, Paulo no longer believed the attorney was behind the killings.

  After speaking to Norah O’Connor that morning, Paulo had tried to convince himself that the trail, the logic, led back to Colston. He’d wanted the lawyer to be guilty because he hadn’t wanted to face another possibility.

  An unthinkable possibility.

  He’d scoured the crime scene reports, studied the grisly photos until the images blurred in his mind. The killer had been painstakingly meticulous, careful to leave no trace behind. That pointed to someone with experience. Someone who was perfectly aware of what the cops would need to apprehend him.

  Because he himself was a cop.

  Any number of people in the police department could have had access to Paulo’s fingerprints. Any of them could have witnessed the reunion between him and Ashton Dupree, and anyone walking by his office could have overheard the final argument they’d had. But only one person knew about Paulo’s connection to both victims. Only one person knew that Paulo was related to the Santiago family, that two years ago he’d attended a dinner function where he’d met Maribel Cruz.

  And if Tommie was in the killer’s crosshairs, as Paulo feared, only one person could have known of his previous association with her.

  Only one person knew the whole picture.

  His partner of the past two years.

  Julius Donovan.

  As soon as Paulo allowed his mind to go there, he’d felt a tingling sense of awareness, a prickle of knowledge. The quick burst of adrenaline that accompanied cracking a troublesome puzzle.

  He’d called Donovan, asked him to meet him somewhere under the guise of pumping him for information about the case. He knew the younger detective wouldn’t refuse to see him. If he really was betraying Paulo, he was cunning enough not to tip his hand.

  So Donovan had shown up, and they’d talked, and Paulo had watched his eyes like a poker player, searching for something intangible that would give him away. But if Donovan was wearing a mask, it had remained firmly in place.

  He’d left Paulo shortly afterward, responding to an emergency call from dispatch. A double shooting on Westheimer, near the Galleria.

  So here Paulo was, parked down the street from his partner’s silent house, about to break the law and risk losing everything he’d built over the past seventeen years.

  Because of a gut instinct.

  Someone had drawn him into a deadly game. Someone with a vendetta against him, someone with a sinister agenda.

  If he were to have any chance of clearing his name, he had to get evidence.

  He had to find the truth.

  But it wasn’t just about seeking personal justice.

  It was about stopping a cold-blooded killer in his tracks.

  As Paulo climbed out of his truck, crushed out the cigarette, and started up the darkened street, he told himself that he was already in enough hot water. Might as well add breaking and entering to his list of crimes.

  Tommie’s hands trembled violently as she undid the top button of her shirt.

  “Slowly,” Donovan dictated, watching her from a chair tucked into a corner of the bedroom, his eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction. “I want to savor every moment of this.”

  Nausea and revulsion churned in Tommie’s stomach.

  The detective had forced her upstairs to the loft with the lethal blade of the knife pressed to her throat, letting her know that one false move on her part would ensure her swift, violent death. Once inside the bedroom, he’d ordered her to get undressed and put on the costume he’d brought for her. When her gaze landed on the red corset and flowing chiffon skirt, her blood ran cold. Because she’d recognized it as the costume she’d worn in Black Orpheus, during the hauntingly climactic scene in which Eurydice had been lured to her death.

  Seeing the look of stunned recognition on her face, Donovan had smiled, slow and sinister. “That’s right, Tommie. You’re going to perform the death scene for me. Only this time, there’ll be no rescuing you from the abyss.”

  Terror sliced through her. “H-how did you get the costume?”

  He’d chuckled softly. “Oh, it’s not the original, unfortunately. I couldn’t risk raising any suspicions by trying to purchase the actual costume from your dance company. But it’s a good enough replica, don’t you think?”

  Tommie stared at him as comprehension dawned. “You were there…at the performance in February?”

  “Of course. And it wasn’t the first time.” His face hardened. “Get undressed.”

  And now as Tommie unfastened the last button on her shirt, she drew a deep, shuddering breath. Pretend you’re performing onstage, she told herself. Don’t think about the audience. Don’t think about who’s watching you. Just do what you have to do!

  As a stripper, she’d perfected the technique of blanking out, of becoming detached from herself. When her music came up, she’d pushed all thoughts but her routine out of her mind. When she’d deigned to make eye contact with the customers, it was only to identify the men who seemed most likely to part with their money. And even as their hands had eagerly skimmed over h
er hips as they’d tucked bills into her G-string, she’d always been the one in control.

  It was hard to convince herself she was in control now, with a sadistic monster holding her at knifepoint, calmly dictating her every move.

  As she slowly slid the shirt off her shoulders, he leaned forward intently, his long, lean fingers stroking the edge of the knife, caressing it in hungry anticipation. “Now take off the bra.”

  When Tommie hesitated, he snapped, “Do it, Tommie! Now!”

  Trembling and choking back a sob, she unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered almost reverently, staring at her naked breasts. “A fucking goddess. No wonder Sanchez can’t keep his damned hands off you.”

  Tommie swallowed the bile that burned the back of her throat.

  “Don’t pretend you’re not enjoying this,” Donovan jeered. “I was there four years ago. I saw the way you strutted across that stage with your batting eyelashes and cock-tease smile. I saw the way you had those men salivating, eating out of the palm of your hand. I saw you.”

  Chilled to the bone, Tommie stared at him. And as she did, she realized why he’d struck her as familiar when she met him at Paulo’s apartment on Thursday morning. He’d been a customer at the Sirens and Spurs Gentlemen’s Club. So Paulo had been right about her coming to the killer’s attention through her dancing—just not through her ballet dancing.

  Donovan smiled, enjoying her stunned reaction. “I was in San Antonio four years ago. I was there on business, attending a weeklong conference. One of my colleagues, who was from the area, talked me into going to a strip club with him one night. He said the Sirens and Spurs had the best-looking dancers, so we had to go there. I was skeptical at first, and I’d never been much into the strip club scene, being a preacher’s kid. But you made a believer out of me, Tommie. From the moment you stepped out onto that stage, I was a convert. A goner. I came back alone the next night. And the next. I couldn’t help myself. I had to see you. I was obsessed.” He sneered at her. “Just like poor Roland. But I won’t end up like him. I’m smarter than that. You won’t destroy me.”