by Susan Fleet
The sour taste of fear filled her mouth.
The SUV slammed her bumper.
Fear exploded into panic.
Her heart pounded like a sprinter nearing the finish line. She stomped the gas, and wind whipped through the window onto her face. The engine whined, matching the frantic thrash of her heart. The SUV remained inches from her bumper, its lights blinding her. She floored the accelerator, sweaty hands gripping the wheel, desperate to reach the safety of her house.
Desperate to escape the maniac in the SUV behind her.
The SUV rammed her car again and sat on the bumper, forcing her to go faster. Bile rose in her throat. This couldn’t be happening. Any second she would wake up, sweaty and terrified, safe in her own bed.
But this was no dream, this was real. A living nightmare.
The idiot would make her crash, like the drunk driver who’d killed her family. Tears burned her eyes. She would die in an accident like Blaine and her parents, die before her time, her life snuffed out just as her career began to blossom. Just as she’d always feared.
She stomped the brakes. Heard them screech against the wheels.
The car bucked, but didn’t slow down. The SUV backed off.
Her arms went weak with relief. She was safe.
No! Headlights glared in her rearview as SUV came at her again and hit her left bumper, pushing her toward the sidewalk.
She thought her heart would stop. She tried to turn the wheel.
Impossible. Panic sat on her chest like a grand piano, squeezing the air from her lungs. A light pole flashed by, then a fire hydrant.
A huge tree trunk loomed in front of her.
“No,” she screamed. “No, no, no.”
With a deafening bang and a bone-jarring impact, the car hit the tree, and her airbag deployed, hitting her face and chest, a one-two punch that drove her back against the seat.
Too stunned to move, she inhaled the sour stink of the airbag, heart pounding, unable to catch her breath, dimly aware that the SUV was speeding away. She heard a hissing sound and peered through the windshield.
Steam was rising from the crumpled hood of her car. The impact had broken her radiator. Her hands trembled.
Her hands! A broken finger might end her career. She examined each finger, went weak with relief when she found them uninjured.
Her panic subsided, replaced by outrage. The idiot had run her off the road, had almost killed her. She was alive, but her car was wrecked.
How would she get home?
Call Frank, she thought. He’ll know what to do.
Then she thought: No. Frank would make her report the accident.
She pictured the headline: Famous flute soloist crashes into tree.
She reached for her purse. Before the crash it had been on the passenger seat. Not now. Frantic, she groped the floor. At last, she found the purse near her feet. She dug out her cell phone.
_____
After a nerve-wracking fifteen-minute wait, a long flatbed truck with flashing yellow lights arrived. Relieved not to be alone, she asked the driver, a courteous young man with a ginger-colored beard, to tow her car to a service station and asked if he could stop at her house on the way. He got her luggage out of the trunk, helped her into the cab of his truck and cranked her Infiniti coupe onto the flatbed.
When he dropped her off, she thanked him and went in the house. Her empty house.
Numb with exhaustion, she went in the kitchen, drew a glass of water from the sink and sank onto a chair at the butcher-block table in the corner. The cozy table for two where she ate her solitary meals. Jake sometimes ate lunch with her if he wasn’t too busy. No one else ever came to visit her.
And now Jake was threatening to leave.
A dull ache pulsed her temples. Her hand shook as she raised the glass to her mouth. Visions whirled through her mind like debris from a tornado.
The SUV behind her. The tree looming in front of her.
The bone-jarring impact. The exploding airbag. The sour stench.
The mind-numbing fear.
She began to weep, sobbing uncontrollably, torrents of tears running down her cheeks. Jake was home with Dean, the man who loved him dearly. Guy had his Brit wife. Ramon had his Spanish spitfire. She had no one.
Before she could change her mind, she went to her wall phone and dialed a number.
“Hello.”
She recognized the deep melodious voice. Was it her imagination or did his voice sound wary?
“Frank, some idiot just forced me off the road near City Park and made me crash into a tree.”
Silence on the other end.
“I’m sorry, Frank. Did I wake you? This is Belinda Scully. I’m afraid I’m still shaken up from the accident.”
“Oh. Belinda.” Sounding less wary now. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay, but my car is wrecked. I had a tow service take it to my service station.” She drew a shaky breath. “You said to call if anything weird happened.”
“Where are you?”
“At home. The tow truck driver dropped me off.”
“What did the police say?”
Her worst fear. Frank expected her to report the accident. “I can’t explain over the phone. Do you think you could . . . could you come over?”
Tears filled her eyes. She sounded like a helpless little girl. She hated that.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you.” She returned to the table and drank some water, picturing his strong jaw, hawkish nose and penetrating eyes.
His aura of strength. She needed his strength.
She couldn’t bear to be alone, not now.
“Please, Frank,” she whispered, “please get here as fast as you can.”
CHAPTER 9
She set two bottles of Arizona Iced Tea on her butcher-block table. Before Frank arrived, she had composed herself enough to wipe the streaks of mascara off her cheeks and freshen her makeup. Now that he was here she felt better. Calmer. In control. But her throat still felt scratchy and parched.
She opened her bottle of iced tea, took several gulps and sat down opposite him. His jaw was dark with stubble and his tan polo shirt was rumpled, as though he’d grabbed whatever clothes were handy and rushed out of his house to come here. Despite his disheveled appearance, he seemed alert and focused. Intense. Powerful.
“Thank you so much for coming, Frank. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, but you should have called 911.” His dark penetrating eyes were full of reproach.
“And have the media run outrageous articles about me in the newspaper and on TV?” She conjured a humor-me smile. “If Britney Spears gets a pimple on her nose, it makes headlines. Besides, what would I say? Some drunk forced me off the road? They might say I was drunk!”
He gazed at her, expressionless. “Is that what happened? Some drunk ran you off the road?”
“Of course! Do you think I made it up?”
“If someone forced you off the road, you need to report it.”
“But I’m fine now. Really. It was just some idiot—”
“No, it wasn’t. That’s what you said about the car at the restaurant.”
A tingle of pleasure rippled through her. Frank was worried about her. He wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense. Nothing about Frank Renzi was conventional. He had a face you couldn’t ignore: a prominent nose, angular cheekbones and those incredible dark eyes, intense and penetrating.
Frank had no trouble attracting women, of that she was certain. What would it be like to have a man like Frank fall in love with her? It had been three long years since a strong, powerful man had made love to her. Ramon.
Don’t think about Ramon.
She forced herself to concentrate on what Frank was saying.
“. . . willing to accept the hot-rodder theory until Jake told me about the notes you’ve been getting. Jake told you about them, right?”
A shiver of fear danced d
own her spine. Weird notes. A lot of them, notes dating back to her days in Boston. She clenched her hands, dug her fingernails into her palms. “Yes, he did.”
Frank pulled a spiral notepad out of his pocket. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Someone’s trying to scare you. Can you describe the vehicle that forced you off the road?”
“Not really. It was some sort of SUV. The high beams were on so it was hard to see, and when my car hit the tree, the airbag deployed. By the time I recovered, it was gone.”
“Anything you can tell me would help, even the color.”
“I couldn’t tell you if it was white, black, green or blue.”
“Did you get a look at the driver?”
“No. It happened too fast,” she said, and absently rubbed her cheek.
“You’re going to have a nasty bruise.”
“At least it didn’t hit my mouth. That would have been a disaster.”
To her surprise, he smiled. “I know. I used to play trumpet. Get smacked in the chops, forget playing.”
“You played trumpet?” Another enticement, along with his deep melodious voice.
“In high school and college. Jazz mostly.” His smile disappeared and his eyes locked onto hers, an intense look that made her body tingle.
“If I’m going to find whoever did this, I need information. I can’t get the lab techs to go over your car without an accident report.”
She faked a yawn. “I’m too tired to think about that now. I spent the day in planes and airports.”
His expression softened. “How did the concert go?”
Grateful for the diversion, she smiled. “It was fantastic. The orchestra wants me to record the Khachaturian with them, and my solo variations on Gershwin’s ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’.”
“Nice tune,” he said, and put his notepad in his pocket.
“I’m playing it at a NOOCA concert Friday night. Why don’t you come and hear it?”
“I’ll try, but in my business, you learn not to make too many plans.” He pushed back his chair.
“Please, don’t go yet. I need to tell you something.” She gulped some iced tea. Now that the moment was here, the thought of revealing her secret terrified her. She’d never told anyone. Would Frank understand? She wiped sweaty palms on her skirt and tried to reassure herself. Frank was a policeman. He’d heard all kinds of stories. But not her story. Not her secret.
The secret she’d guarded so zealously all these years.
“I was pissed that Jake didn’t show me those notes. But I’ve been keeping something from Jake, too.”
“Uh-huh. What?” His eyes were laser beams, intense and unwavering.
“Two weeks ago someone left a threat on my voicemail.”
“What kind of threat?”
“It’s . . . complicated. Juilliard granted me early admission when I was a senior. I already had enough credits to graduate, so I moved to New York.”
“After your family was killed?”
“Yes.” She fiddled with her napkin, folding it into tiny squares. Her heart skittered against her ribs. “I got involved with another student and got pregnant. Stupid, I know, but I didn’t think—” She gave him a rueful smile. “No one thinks it will happen to them.”
“You were hurting,” he said, holding her gaze with his incredible warm brown eyes. “You needed someone to love you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. Determined not to cry, she clenched her jaw. She couldn’t afford to lose control, not now, not in front of a man she found so attractive. “Having a baby would have ruined everything I’d worked so hard to achieve. Lots of flutists apply to Juilliard, but most of them don’t get full scholarships.” She gazed at him, willing him to understand. “I had an abortion. No one knows about it. Not even Jake.”
“What about the father? Did you tell him?”
She hesitated, then said, “No. He wouldn’t have understood.”
Frank raised his eyebrows, a quick flick, but said nothing. Watching her with those incredibly sexy eyes.
She faked a bright smile. “He’s married now, with two kids of his own. He just got a great job with the Cleveland Orchestra—”
“Tell me about the voicemail message. What was the threat?”
“He said he knew all my secrets.” The thought made her cringe. She had no idea what the man knew, but if the media got wind of the abortion and certain other sordid details, it would wreck her career. It was bad enough telling Frank about the abortion. She didn’t want him knowing about her affairs with married men.
“I’ve got a reputation to maintain. I don’t want people knowing I had an abortion when I was eighteen.” She studied his face, waiting for a reaction, but his expression remained unreadable.
“Was the caller a man or a woman?”
A woman? The idea shocked her. Then again, women could be vicious if they didn’t like you. She’d found that out at Juilliard. The school was a cesspool of bitchery and intrigue, Purgatory Prep for the hell of competition in the music business. If women hated you, they were beyond vicious.
Get out of Boston or I’ll tell every reporter in town you’re fucking my husband.
The Spanish spitfire’s hateful words.
She swallowed some iced tea. “I’m pretty sure it was a man. Whoever it was spoke in a raspy whisper.”
“What would he gain by exposing your secret? Did he ask for money?”
“No. He asked me to meet him the next morning in Jackson Square.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not!”
“Did you save the message?”
“No.” She sighed. “I know. I’m as bad as Jake, not saving the notes. But I didn’t want to hear it on my machine, over and over.”
“Do you remember what he said?”
Remember? She would never forget it. She recited it from memory.
“I know all your secrets, Belinda. What would your fans think if they knew? Meet me outside the Cabildo tomorrow morning at ten.”
“But you didn’t go and meet him,” Frank said.
“No.” She clenched her jaw. “Three days later I found a note on the mat outside my front door when I was going out for my run at six that morning.”
“I want to see it.”
“Frank, I know you’re going to kill me, but I . . . I ripped it up and threw it in the trash.”
“Jesus.” He stared at her. “What the hell for?”
“It frightened me.”
“What did it say?”
She licked her lips and spoke it aloud. “Stop ignoring me, Belinda. I know all your secrets. We need to talk.”
“That’s it? No signature?”
“No signature.”
Frank scratched his jaw. “Where did you have the abortion?”
“At a clinic in Newark. No one knew about it. No one.”
He tapped his pen on the table, frowning, as if he were trying to make a decision. “Any other secrets I should know about?”
She made her mind go blank. Don’t think about Ramon’s wife and her vicious threat. “No. No more secrets.”
Another flick of his eyebrows and a deadpan expression. “Most security experts would tell you to put out the information yourself. You need to decide how important it is to keep your secret. He called two week ago, delivered the note himself three days later. You’ve heard nothing since?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“Maybe you never will.”
“Do you think so?” Desperately hoping he was right.
“Hard to predict. If he calls again, save the message. I want to hear it. Same with any notes you get.”
She smiled. “I will. Thank you for understanding, Frank. Could you, um, could you keep what I told you confidential, please?”
“Sure.” He rose to his feet. “I need to see your security system.”
“Why? It’s state-of-the-art. I’ve got flutes in the house worth thousands of dollars.”
He didn’t answer, striding down the
hall to the foyer. He had a muscular way of walking, purposeful and confident, as if he knew exactly where he was going and why. She liked that.
He studied the keypad by the front door. “Are there motion detectors?”
“Yes, in the halls, upstairs and down.” She took him around the corner to her studio. “I love the high ceilings. The acoustics are great.”
He circled the room, paused at the two front windows, continued past her mother’s ladder-back rocker, and ran his fingers over her gleaming Steinway baby grand. “Do you practice in here at night?”
“No. I practice in the morning and every afternoon.”
“Better put up some curtains. Anyone on the street can see in here.”
“But that would ruin the acoustics.”
He gave her a stern look, one intended to intimidate. She knew that look. “Belinda, someone is stalking you. He’s got your phone number and he knows where you live. And you live by yourself. You need to hire some security, someone trained to protect you.”
She had no intention of hiring a security guard. She faked a yawn. “I’m grateful for your help, Frank, but if I don’t get some sleep I’ll collapse.”
_____
He went out to his car and sat there, thoughts churning. When his phone rang, he’d figured it was his ex-wife having one of her panic attacks, not Belinda Scully. He almost blew her off and told her to call the District police station. But she’d been on the verge of hysteria, her voice shaking with fear, and he was a sucker for damsels in distress. And that wasn’t the only reason. She was a flute soloist with secrets. A beautiful woman. Intelligent. Talented. And hiding something. The exact sort of puzzle he couldn’t resist.
She was also unwilling to admit she was scared. In the safety of her own home, she was in control, lowering her head, eyeing him with her baby-blues, lips parted in a smile. He’d seen Princess Di do that on TV, seducing millions of viewers. The vibes Belinda put out tonight were unmistakable, stronger than the vibes he’d picked up at the station. She was flirting with him.
Not that it would do her any good. Within seconds of meeting a woman he usually knew whether he wanted to go to bed with her, and he had no desire to sleep with Belinda Scully. Maybe it was her hair.