Praise for New York Times Bestselling Author
Heather Graham
“Graham shines in this frightening tale. Paranormal elements add zing to her trademark chilling suspense and steamy romance, keeping the pages flying.”
—Romantic Times on Haunted
“Graham’s tight plotting, her keen sense of when to reveal and when to tease…will keep fans turning the pages.”
—Publishers Weekly on Picture Me Dead
“An incredible storyteller!”
—Los Angeles Daily News
“Demonstrating the skills that have made her one of today’s best storytellers, Ms. Graham delivers one of this year’s best books thus far.”
—Romantic Times on Hurricane Bay
“A suspenseful, sexy thriller…Graham builds jagged suspense that will keep readers guessing up to the final pages.”
—Publishers Weekly on Hurricane Bay
“A roller-coaster ride…fast-paced, thrilling…Heather Graham will keep you in suspense until the very end. Captivating.”
—Literary Times on Hurricane Bay
“The talented Ms. Graham once again thrills us. She delivers excitement [and] romance…that keep the pages flipping quickly from beginning to end.”
—Romantic Times on Night of the Blackbird
“With the name Heather Graham on the cover, you are guaranteed a good read!”
—Literary Times
Also by HEATHER GRAHAM
THE PRESENCE
DEAD ON THE DANCE FLOOR
HAUNTED
PICTURE ME DEAD
A SEASON OF MIRACLES
HURRICANE BAY
NIGHT OF THE BLACKBIRD
IF LOOKS COULD KILL
EYES OF FIRE
SLOW BURN
NIGHT HEAT
Watch for the new blockbuster from
HEATHER GRAHAM
KILLING KELLY
HEATHER GRAHAM
NEVER SLEEP WITH STRANGERS
NEVER SLEEP WITH STRANGERS
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Prologue
Cassandra Stuart was beautiful, and she knew it. She could manipulate others, and she knew that, too. If she could just make him turn around and look back at her…
“Jon! Jon!”
She knew that he’d heard her, but he didn’t stop. He was really furious with her this time. As she watched, he continued down the gravel path that led to the loch. Maybe she had overplayed it this time, but she didn’t want to be here in the back of beyond, in this godforsaken, remote patch of Scotland. Despite his famous guests, despite his famous charity game. They were his guests; it was his game. She hated the country; she wanted to be in London.
But she knew her husband, knew what he was thinking now. He’d known the day would go badly, that she would be rude and impatient and ruin it for them all. But damn him, he still wouldn’t give it up! He’d hosted this event every year for the past decade. He’d made his plans; he had a life to live. The week was already underway. Besides, no matter how damned marvelous his wife might be, he’d told her—sounding awfully damned sarcastic—he would be damned if a woman was going to lead him around by the nose. Any woman.
“Jon!”
She knew that he didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to see her.
Because he knew what she was planning. And he had planned ahead himself. He wasn’t going to let her play him, wasn’t going to let her manipulate him the way she intended to.
She meant to leave. Today. It was the last disruption she had up her sleeve. She hoped her departure would get through to him the way her pouting and petulance had not.
But she wanted him to come back to her first; she wanted to make love, to be passionate and exciting, to remind him that he couldn’t exist without her. She would tell him that she needed him, remind him why he had married her. She could make him happy, could make him laugh, and she was damned good in bed, even if she had just taken a lover because she couldn’t bear the look in Jon’s eyes sometimes, knowing that he might on occasion be thinking of someone else. Come back! she thought furiously. Let me seduce you just one last time so you don’t forget, so maybe…
She would wait until he had slipped away, and then she would pack, leaving behind a letter addressed to “My Dearest Darling,” explaining that she would be at the London Hilton, waiting for him when he could escape his dreary associates. And maybe, just maybe, he would come. He could be such a fool! She knew so much more about his guests and household than he did! Who was sleeping with whom. And why. Actually, she thought, and almost smiled, she knew a number of them very well. Intimately, one might say.
And still there was such a wretched hole of jealousy in her heart.
“Jon! Come back!” she called again. She experienced a strange new fear beyond the sense of powerlessness and loss she had been feeling so much lately. “Jon! Please come back! Or I’ll make you pay!”
Her voice was both provocative and irritated. But he was still walking. So tall, hair so dark, shoulders broad and muscled. He was a beautiful man, and she was losing him.
Panic seized her. He had guessed she was having an affair with someone here. Did he know that she was trying to goad him, get even with him? Because she was certain he was having an affair, as well.
“Jon! Jon, damn you!”
Her tone was growing more petulant. She stood on the master bedroom’s second-floor balcony, overlooking the rear courtyard. The rooms had been handsomely enough appointed, “remodeled” at the end of the seventeenth century and modernized by Jon himself just a few years ago. The balcony was a sweeping, curved affair that boasted views of three corners of the property. Here, in the rear, it looked over an elegant fountain with a priceless marble Poseidon, complete with trident, as its centerpiece. Despite the fact that winter was rapidly approaching, roses still bloomed around the tiled path that encircled the fountain. The path turned to gravel as it passed through the rose arbor and headed toward the loch. In the master chambers themselves, the walls were covered with antique tapestries, and there was a massive fireplace, as well as a state-of-the-art hot-water heating system with generator backup. A four-poster king-size bed sat on a dais, and one level down from the main section of the bedroom, just beyond a medieval archway, was a huge whirlpool bath and sauna. She had a huge dressing room and closet, as did he.
“What’s not to like?” Jon had asked her impatiently, offended.
The decor was fine. She just hated the country. No excitement, no sense of life. It wasn’t London, Paris, New York or even Edinburgh, for God’s sake.
That was exactly why he liked it so much, he’d told her.
He was walking away. Still walking away.
She was amazed to feel tears stinging her eyes. How could he care more about this pile of stones and his imbecilic friends than her? “Jon, Jon! Damn you, Jon!”
He’d talked about divorce; he’d said that things just weren’t working out. But, he couldn’t divorce her. He just couldn’t! She’d already told him that she would make it impossible. She would drag him through the mud, give away a million filthy secrets about him and his associates.
“Jo—”
She started to say his name, then realized that someone was behind her.
She spun around to see who had slipped in. “You, damn you! Get out! Did he send you? Get the hell out of my room. Our room! I’m his wife. I’m the one who sleeps with him. Get out!”
She spun back to stare out from the balcony. “Jon!”
She heard a rush of movement, like a whisper of air, and she turned back.
For a moment she stared into the eyes of her killer, and she knew.
“Oh, God!” she breathed, and, desperate, she began to cry out again.
“Jon! Jon! Jon!”
She felt the pressure of the rail at her back. And she screamed.
Because she was falling.
And she could see her own death.
Jon Stuart had been angry, really angry. He’d intended to make good his escape. But something in Cassandra’s voice gave him pause that time, and he swung around.
And there she was.
Falling…
It looked as if she were sailing. In this, as in all other things, she was elegant. She was wearing a white silk dressing gown, and it billowed out around her. Her ebony hair was caught by the golden glory of the sun and shone with blue-black lights. It struck him that she even fell with dramatic grace and beauty.
And only after a split second of the mindless realization that he could do nothing at all to stop it did he realize that she was already in the act of dying. Screaming, crying out, shrieking his name, plummeting to earth.
She died in Poseidon’s arms. Cradled within them, like a wayward goddess. Eyes closed, ebony hair and snow-white gown caught by the breeze. She almost looked as if she were sleeping, except…
The trident had pierced through her.
And the snow-white gown was turning crimson.
His heart hammering, he began to shout, running desperately, as if he could reach her, help her, despite the fact that he knew…
He cried out.
Cried out her name.
Reached her, and held her.
As her blood spilled over him.
While her eyes stared into his with an ever silent reproach.
1
Three years later
The scene was definitely a chilling one. A beautiful woman in medieval dress, her long blond hair waving over the workings of the mechanism, was tied to the implement of torture, with a dark-haired, bearded and mustachioed man standing over her.
The Earl of Exeter’s Daughter, also known as the Rack, proclaimed the sign overhead. Named after the Man Most Proficient in the Art of Extracting Confessions from his Victims.
The artist who had created the wax figures had been proficient, as well. The blonde stretched out on the wicked wooden rack was exquisite, with fine, classically molded features and huge blue eyes widened by her fear of her tormentor. Any sane man would long to rescue her. While the fellow standing above her—his features were pure evil. His eyes gleamed in sadistic anticipation of the pain he was about to inflict.
Many of the exhibits in the hall were excellent, retelling ancient tales of man’s inhumanity to man. This particular display outdid them all.
So Jon Stuart thought as he stood silently in the shadows, leaning casually against the stone wall, his presence obscured by the darkness of the dungeon. He stared watchfully, contemplatively, at the exhibit—and at the flesh-and-blood blonde now standing in front of it.
She was nearly—in face, coloring and form—a mirror image of the poor beauty stretched out on the rack itself. She was a young woman with a glorious mop of blond hair that cascaded freely over her shoulders and down her back. She was slender and beautifully shaped, doing incredible justice to the jeans and fitted sweater she wore. Her features were very feminine: fine, straight, slender nose; high, chiseled cheekbones; beautiful blue eyes; and full, lushly shaped lips. She was surveying the display with a certain amount of interest—and wariness. She looked as if she wanted to laugh ruefully, reminding herself that she was looking at wax figures, but the scene was scary, and she was alone in the shadows. Or so she thought.
Sabrina Holloway.
He hadn’t seen her in more than three and a half years now, and though he was somewhat surprised by her presence; he was glad she had decided to come. She had politely declined his invitation to the last, fateful Mystery Week. The occasion when Cassandra had died.
Whether Sabrina realized it or not, she had most certainly been Joshua’s model for the beauty on the rack; she was the victim’s spitting image, and Joshua always enjoyed using people he knew in his art. He had mentioned to Jon that he had met Sabrina Holloway in Chicago, and he had sounded entirely infatuated, so Jon had refrained from telling Joshua that he, too, was acquainted with her. It was easy to understand Joshua’s head-over-heels reaction; he’d experienced something quite similar when he’d met her himself. Before…
Well, there was a lot to admire—or covet—about Ms. Holloway. Jon hadn’t been the only one to fall victim to her charm; she had attracted the attention of Brett McGraff, as well. Jon shook his head. She’d gone off and married McGraff. Whirlwind courtship, whirlwind marriage—scandalous divorce.
Jon watched her now, glad of the distance between them. He stared at her in simple assessment. She possessed a rare grace and beauty. Even though he’d been something of a recluse over the last few years, he’d kept up with her career, reading about her in the papers and tabloids. Reporters had leaped wholeheartedly on Brett McGraff’s last, noisy divorce from such a beautiful young creature.
She had been stunning when Jon met her. So innocent, eager, fascinated. He was certain that the rose-colored blinders were gone from her eyes now. She had matured. And now she was…
Spectacular. More elegant than ever. She looked thoughtful, even wise.
And how would you know? Jon taunted himself.
She might well have matured into a hard, ambitious bitch, he reminded himself dryly. Life often did that to people. After all, she’d walked away from him with a will of steel. And she’d been able to stand her ground during the media blitz after her divorce, even in the midst of a shocking situation. Still, she now maintained a strange, compelling air that combined sophistication and innocence, although, God knew, he’d learned the hard way that the most delicate, fragile females could be the worst black widows.
She was a Midwestern farm girl, Jon remembered, and he had to smile. She possessed both warmth and reserve, and yet there had been moments when she’d let down her guard and he’d felt that he had known her forever. He had found her to be both captivating and as down-to-earth as her natural beauty. She’d been twenty-four, fresh from the country, when they met. She’d turned twenty-eight last month. Plenty of time to learn, to harden, to change. If only…
Well, it had been a different time, a different place, a different life. No one had ever been the wiser. He hadn’t told tales.
She hadn’t wanted any told.
Still…
Jon suddenly felt a deep irritation. His feelings were totally unjustified, he told himself. Brett McGraff was here, as well. She and McGraff had actually been married. Jon had no right himself. And yet…
Hell, it was his place, his party. And he intended to spend time with all his guests. McGraff’s presence would only make it a more intriguing enterprise to attempt to get to know Sabrina again.
But was she in over her head? he wondered suddenly. Maybe he should have left her name off the guest list. But then, he hadn’t really expected her to come. And they were all in over their heads. Still, he suddenly wished he hadn’t taken the chance of making her, like the others, an unwitting pawn in this dark game.
But he’d set this board into motion; he’d had no choice. It was either this or give up his sanity. And there were others to whom he owed both the truth and justice, if not to himself. He wasn’t exactly in this alone. He had promised to do things again, exactly this way.
Maybe he should just stay away from Ms. Sabrina Hollow
ay. Of all the people here, she alone was clearly innocent.
He wondered if he could stay away from her. And he reminded himself that she was here by choice. They’d all come willingly enough, ready to play. Some for the fun of it, some for the publicity. Cassie, the inveterate journalist, had once told him, “Never miss a photo op, darling!” He’d noticed that very few writers, actors, musicians or artists ever tended to do so, and, in a manner of speaking, this week was a major photo op. Even the reclusive types who preferred to remain in the shadows wouldn’t dare miss this. The world had gotten far too competitive, and name recognition could mean the difference between starvation and healthy income.
Yet, he mused, Sabrina Holloway had inadvertently garnered enough publicity already. Marriage to and divorce from Brett McGraff had put her squarely in the public eye. But she had maintained a steady course, and though her notoriety had given her popular career a jump start, she’d managed to accrue a respectable amount of critical praise for the writing. He hadn’t been in the States for a while now, so he wasn’t sure who else was doing the talk-show circuit, but apparently she’d hit just the right chord with her Victorian thrillers. She was also young and lovely, and the media loved to hop on a personality with sex appeal and presence.
He was about to approach her when he realized that another woman was walking toward him. Susan Sharp. He groaned inwardly and considered a fast retreat up the secret staircase behind him. His ancestors had been Jacobites and had filled the castle with hidden doors and passages, a multitude of escape routes.
But Jon didn’t escape; he didn’t want his secrets known as yet, so he stood still while Susan sashayed closer, delighted with her good luck in discovering that he was literally cornered.
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