The officer didn’t have to finish the sentence. Nathan knew what the or meant. She might be hurt, she might be dead. Or the whole thing might be nothing. As a policeman, he never knew what he was going to walk in on. Always be prepared—it was the motto a policeman lived by—either that or die. “We’ll be there in five. Over.” Nathan flipped on the police siren and headed down Main Street, passing idle motorists and slipping through traffic with practiced ease.
Ford shook his head in disgust. “Can’t even finish a damn hamburger without some ruckus going on at that apartment complex. Fourth call we’ve had this week.”
“I’m surprised. Seems like a classy place.”
Ford spoke through a mouthful of food. “Some nutcase has been calling in. Hope to hell this ain’t her. Might have us a repeated homicide caller.”
Nathan kept his eyes trained on the road ignoring Ford’s blasé attitude. He hoped Ford proved to be a responsible partner; he was cautious about who he trusted to cover his back. A blue-and-white pulled up just as he swerved into the parking lot. His hand automatically checked his gun as he climbed out. “Check the exterior of the complex,” he told the uniformed officers.
The man-woman team nodded. Each apartment had its own outside door and private entrance. Nathan and Ford moved silently to the one marked J-5.
The apartment was dark, the door unlocked. Ford maneuvered the flashlight inside the doorway and rolled it around the room, sweeping it with a dim stream of light. Weapon ready, Nathan slowly entered the apartment, his ears pricked, his gaze penetrating the darkness and scanning the den. Sofa, chairs, entertainment center, fairly empty room. Ford checked the small white kitchen, gave him a nod, and Nathan checked the outer bath. Small, but neat. Even in the dim light he could tell the front living area hadn’t been disturbed.
A slight moan rumbled from the back. He and Ford exchanged glances and crept to the door. Nathan eased it open, his .38 poised. Tiny rays of moonlight sliced the darkness, and he spotted a figure lying in the rumpled bed. Broken glass lay shattered on the floor. Pillows and magazines were scattered around, a pair of black heels tossed in separate directions. Another groan pierced the air. Nathan moved closer to the figure.
“If there was an intruder, he’s not here,” Ford said.
Nathan stood beside the bed, quickly assessing the situation. The woman groaned as if she was frightened or in pain. Drops of blood were splattered all over the bedclothes and she held a bloody knife clutched in one hand. Blood oozed from an open wound in her right wrist, and a tiny droplet lingered on her throat. “Get me some towels from the bathroom,” he ordered Ford.
First he had to remove the weapon, in case she woke up and tried to use it on him. He replaced his gun in its holster, slipped the knife from her fingers, jerked a plastic bag from his pocket and dropped it inside. Ford tossed some towels his way. Nathan slowly lowered himself beside the woman and wrapped one around her wrist tightly, then pressed another on top to stop the bleeding.
“She gonna make it?” Ford asked, walking around the room.
“Yeah. But she’s lost some blood.” Nathan noted the pale color of her creamy skin against her long dark hair and his heart thudded. “Miss, miss, can you hear me?” he asked, gently shaking her.
“She’s a looker, ain’t she?” Ford moved up beside him.
Nathan glared at his partner. “Hit the lights and bring the team in to start looking for traceables.” Ford leered at him but left the room.
The woman’s dark eyelashes fluttered, and her soft pink lips quivered as she tried to speak. She had a small frame, almost lost in the blood-splattered white cotton gown, high cheekbones, and dainty fingers that were well manicured but devoid of nail polish. He quickly inventoried her body to see if there were other wounds. Her skin was flawless, her legs long and slender. There didn’t appear to be any other cuts, except a point where it looked like the knife had pricked the skin at the base of her throat. Bruises marked her other wrist and slender thighs.
He heard the wail of the siren and breathed a sigh of relief. The paramedics would arrive soon. She was much too beautiful to die.
“I KILLED HIM, NO…NO,” Veronica mumbled. She kicked at the tangled bedcovers in an attempt to escape the horrible nightmare.
A hand gripped her arm, and she threw up her other hand in defense and screamed. Thank God the sound came out. Maybe this time someone would hear her before he killed her.
“Miss, it’s okay. I’m Detective Nathan Dawson, Oakland County Police Department.”
Veronica drew back and clenched the sheet to her chest. Trembling, she forced herself to open her eyes, expecting to see the shadow from her nightmare.
The man sitting beside her flashed his badge. “Can you tell me your name?”
Veronica nodded numbly. “Veronica…Miller.”
The detective offered a smile. “Lie back and relax, Ms. Miller. Then tell me exactly what happened.”
Still disoriented, Veronica stared at the handsome detective as he propped a pillow behind her back. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but the badge seemed real. She felt unsteady and confused, and so weak she thought she might faint. How had this man gotten into her apartment?
“The paramedics will be here any second. I have to keep pressure on your wrist wound.”
Dazed, Veronica glanced down and saw the bloodstained towel he’d wrapped around her arm. The horror and reality of what had happened seeped in, and she trembled.
“It’s okay, now. We’re going to take care of you.” The man’s deep, husky voice soothed her nerves. A calmness enveloped her. Finally someone was going to listen to her.
“You told the 911 operator that you’d killed somebody.” The detective stretched one long leg out in front of him.
“What?” Veronica swallowed. She didn’t remember making the phone call. She especially didn’t remember admitting to murder.
She started to push her tangled hair away from her face, but realized her fingers were covered in a red sticky substance. Blood. Her stomach roiled. Visions of the attack flashed through her mind. The detective wiped her palms with a towel, then pressed a clean cloth to the cut on her arm.
Veronica bit her lip. This couldn’t be happening—not again.
“Once again, miss, you said you killed someone.” Detective Dawson gave her a concerned look. “Can you tell me exactly what happened? Was someone in your apartment?”
Veronica glanced around the room, searching for the shadow of the body she’d seen collapse on her floor. Nothing. “I don’t understand. He was right there.” She pointed to the floor beside the venetian blinds. Blue lights swirled and flashed outside her window. An approaching siren wailed loudly. Her stomach turned again.
“He put a pillow on my face. He tried to smother me. I couldn’t breathe.” She pressed her hand to her throat, gasping for air as she relived the horror of the attack. “I fought him, knocked the knife out of his hand. But the room was dark, so dark, and I tried to call for help, but I felt dizzy.”
“You’re okay now, Ms. Miller,” the deep voice said softly. “Try to relax. Take a deep breath.”
Veronica’s gaze swept the room. Panic crawled through her. It hadn’t been a dream. She hadn’t imagined the stranger in her apartment. But where was his body? “He attacked me. He was going to kill me. What happened to him?”
Pieces of her shattered lamp littered the floor, pillows had been tossed around the room, her makeup and perfume bottles were overturned on her dresser. Her breathing came out in sharp pants. “I…where is he?” She searched the detective’s face but saw nothing except questions in his troubled expression.
“That’s what I need you to tell me, miss. You were alone when we got here. You’d passed out. The phone was off the hook and the door was unlocked.”
“No,” Veronica said vehemently. “I always lock my door. Always. And the windows, too.”
Detective Dawson nodded. Another man entered the room, taking big, lumbering steps toward Ve
ronica. His rough appearance and chilly expression made Veronica shiver.
“This is Detective Ford,” Dawson said.
The man scrubbed his hand over his bristly red beard. “Dawson, we didn’t find anyone here. Dead or alive.” He stared at Veronica. Wariness settled over her. She’d dealt with skepticism all her life. This man didn’t believe her. His glowering look said everything. Coming back to her hometown had been a mistake. Her grandmother had always told her to stay away, but her grandmother’s death had prompted the return of her childhood nightmares, and she’d felt compelled to come back.
Ford must have recognized her name from when she’d called in before. He probably thought she was a psychotic, paranoid woman. Veronica forced back a sob and searched her mind for an explanation, aware Dawson was studying her. “There has to be a body. He fell. He collapsed right in front of me.” But then she’d collapsed, too. Her head still ached. And why was her mind so foggy? She felt as if she’d been asleep for days.
The two detectives exchanged looks. “No sign of forced entry,” Ford said. “No footprints outside the window.”
“The knife you had, was it yours?” Detective Dawson asked.
Veronica nodded. “It…it looks like one from my kitchen.”
“Dust everything,” Dawson said. “And have Handley canvass the adjacent apartments—see if they saw or heard anything.”
“Will do.” Ford cast Veronica another smug look and headed toward a uniformed policeman standing in the doorway.
“Check the carpet for hair fibers, too,” Dawson said.
“I’m on it,” Ford said, smirking at him.
Dawson raked a hand through his sandy, unkempt hair. Veronica rocked herself back and forth, striving for calm.
“Can you give us a description of the intruder?” Dawson’s voice sounded deep and husky, and Veronica’s anxiety mellowed slightly.
“I didn’t see his face. He was just…big.” She tugged the sheet tighter around herself, and suddenly realized she wasn’t wearing anything but a skimpy cotton gown. And it had drops of blood all over it.
“Think, Ms. Miller. You might have seen something that could help us. Did he have a limp? A scar? Did he say anything?”
Veronica shook her head, realizing how little she really had seen. She noticed the strong chiseled jaw, the small cleft in Detective Dawson’s chin, the bronze tones of his skin. She forced herself to try to remember details about the other man. “He had on a mask or something. Maybe a stocking. And he wasn’t quite as tall as you.”
Detective Dawson scribbled in his small notepad.
“And he smelled…”
“Smelled like what?” Dawson asked.
Veronica closed her eyes. “Like sweat and some kind of cologne.”
“Did you recognize the cologne?”
Veronica shook her head. “I don’t think so. But there was something else.” Her mind was still foggy, and the more she tried to remember, the more her head ached. “I can’t remember.”
Dawson nodded. “It may come back to you. If you remember anything, today or tomorrow or anytime, let me know.”
“I will,” Veronica said, tightening her fingers around the sheet.
Ford came back in, a scowl on his face. He’d obviously heard her comment. He lumbered over and planted one beefy leg on her cream-colored ottoman. “The neighbors say they didn’t hear anything unusual,” Ford said. “Are you sure you weren’t entertaining and things just…well, got a little out of hand?” Ford raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Fury churned through Veronica. “How dare you insinuate such a thing. I thought you were supposed to be a policeman—here to help protect the citizens.” She squared her shoulders and tried to sit up as she leveled a cold look at Ford, but fell exhausted back against the sheets. She was unaware the movement caused the bedding to fall to her waist until she caught the nicer detective staring at her and realized she’d exposed her gown. A blush crept up her neck and she reached for the blanket.
Detective Dawson handed her a bathrobe from the chair beside the bed. He made certain the towel was secure around her wrist. “Put this on. And try to stay calm, miss.”
“Did you have company?” Ford asked again. His persistence annoyed her, but she decided to play it cool.
Veronica belted the robe tightly and sat on the edge of the bed. “No, I was alone all evening.” Detective Dawson’s body felt hot next to her. His eyes were like liquid pools of scotch whiskey, tame and wild at the same time. They reflected none of his thoughts, but if she wasn’t mistaken they hinted at a burning desire she recognized as male interest.
She didn’t have time for male interest. She needed this detective to find out if someone was trying to kill her. Or maybe he knew her history and had already decided she was a flake.
She’d endured skepticism before. She didn’t know if she could endure it again.
“You have to believe me,” she said, panic lacing her voice. “There was someone here. He tried to kill me.” She covered her face with her hands as the memory flashed through her mind.
Detective Dawson patted her shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Relax, miss, it’s over now.”
Ford wasn’t so kind. He narrowed his eyes at her, reminding Veronica of a mean old bulldog, then held up an empty wineglass. “Ms. Miller, were you drinking last night?”
Veronica hesitated. She knew where this line of questioning was headed, and she didn’t like it. Not one little bit.
“I had one glass of wine,” Veronica said through clenched teeth. “It wasn’t even full.”
Ford rattled a prescription pill bottle in front of her. “And these? Did you take some before you went to sleep?”
Veronica closed her eyes and grimaced inwardly. “I…I’ve had trouble sleeping. The doctor recommended them. But I didn’t take one last night.”
Ford held the bottle up to the light. “Sleeping pills? Hmm.” A smug expression crossed his weathered face. “You know, mixing alcohol and drugs can cause hallucinations.”
“That’s not what happened. I told you—someone attacked me.”
Nathan Dawson’s warm, strong hand covered hers. “Relax, Ms. Miller. We’re dusting for fingerprints.” He gestured to where two officers searched for clues. “You said you fought him. Do you think you injured him?”
Veronica struggled to remember. “I…I thought I stabbed him, but I’m not sure.”
“Where?” The detective pointed to his chest, then each of his limbs in turn as he spoke. “Left side? Right? His arm?”
“His right arm,” Veronica said. “He grunted and moved off of me then.”
Dawson smiled. “Good, that’ll help us. We’ll have the blood sample from the knife analyzed to see if there are two blood types on it. If something happened here, I’ll get to the bottom of it. It could have been a robbery attempt.”
Ford cleared his throat. “Listen, Dawson, there’s something you ought to know.”
Dawson gave Ford a warning look. “Later, Ford. Right now, we have a crime scene to investigate. Now get busy.” Ford sighed disgustedly and left the room.
“I’ve been getting hang-up calls,” Veronica said, hoping to tell her side of things before Ford had a chance to muddy Dawson’s impression. “And I’ve been hearing noises as if someone’s been hanging around outside my apartment. I told the police, but they haven’t done anything.”
“I’ll check into it,” Dawson said.
“Thank you, Detective.” Veronica twisted her fingers together as she forced herself to meet his intense gaze.
Nathan Dawson didn’t move. His amber eyes turned from a light brown to a darker shade streaked with gold. Veronica’s entire body tingled with awareness. But she reminded herself her reaction was simply because he was being nice to her. He was going to help her.
She had to make him believe her. She wasn’t crazy. Reporters and people who knew of her background would disagree, but she knew differently. She’d actually lived a mundane, quiet lif
e for the past few years in Fort Lauderdale. Then she’d moved back to Oakland, a suburb of Atlanta, her hometown, and strange things had started happening. She’d been a frightened and withdrawn little girl when she’d left Oakland. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. And she was tired of running scared. She’d been running her whole life.
But not this time. This time she intended to get to the bottom of things.
The paramedics rushed in, accompanied by Ford. “I’ll let them see to you now.” Nathan rose from the bed as one of the paramedics took his place. “We’ll talk some more later.”
He felt in his pocket for his cigarettes, then remembered he’d quit six months ago, the day he’d walked out of the hospital and realized he had a second chance at life. Literally. The accident had almost stolen his future, and he’d decided he wouldn’t finish the job with nicotine.
But damn, he missed the buzz. Especially now. Hot on a case. And the woman? Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a jolt of heat slide into his gut. A good, long smoke always cleared his head, something he desperately needed.
He stepped outside with Ford, but felt like he was abandoning Veronica. Something about her tugged at him. Maybe those enormous dark eyes. Or those high, sculpted cheekbones. Or that jet-black hair that streamed down her back like reams of silk.
Mentally shaking himself, he forced his mind to forget the physical attraction he felt for her. It had no business in his job. Besides, the woman was scared out of her mind. She claimed someone had tried to kill her, and it was his job to find out who attacked her. He knew real fear when he saw it, and this woman had been terrified.
“Listen, Dawson,” Ford said as soon as he made it to the front stoop. “I don’t think anyone tried to kill this broad.”
Dawson gritted his teeth. “She is not a broad. She’s a woman—a citizen who has requested our help.”
Ford slammed his fist against the rail. He made no attempt to lower his voice. “You’ve been suckered in by those pretty looks. Don’t you know who she is?”
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