She’d been left with the conviction that she and Logan were connected on some level. He was a loner, and in her own way, so was she. She’d learned the hard way never to rely on anyone else for emotional fulfillment. Everyone she’d ever trusted with her tender feelings had let her down: father, sister, husband, even her mother, though not by choice. As far as she was concerned, she was on her own for the duration.
Logan had embraced that particular sentiment with a telling enthusiasm. Never trust anyone, he’d said, and you won’t be disappointed.
Zara stood at the window and watched him emerge onto the sidewalk. Even from five stories up, he was impressive, with his wide shoulders and powerful, long-legged stride.
He looked up as he passed, directly at her. Had he known she was watching? Had he sensed her eyes on him? A funny little smile crossed his face before he disappeared from view.
You’ll talk to Emma when this whole thing blows over. Not a minute sooner.
Arrogant man. What possible reason could he have for forbidding her to communicate with her sister? She just wanted to assure herself she was okay, as he claimed. A reasonable request.
A tiny voice inside whispered, He’s afraid of what Emma might tell you. Afraid of what you might learn about the case—or perhaps about Logan himself.
Zara only had his word that Emma was safe. If she’d been hurt…or worse…was it possible he’d conceal that from her? He was charged with protecting her, keeping her here at this safe house. He had to know that if she suspected Emma needed her, she’d be anything but docile and easy to manage, as she had been the last two days.
The more she thought about it, the more her suspicions blossomed, though she had a hard time reconciling that brand of duplicity with the complex, haunted man she was beginning to know. Still, she refused to kid herself. He had a job to do. She had no doubt that he was capable of manipulating the truth, if it made that job easier.
She looked up and down the block. Only when she spotted it did she realize what she’d been looking for.
The telephone booth beckoned like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Two minutes and a quarter could buy her peace of mind. She had the phone number for Emma’s new house in Queens in her address book.
She moved quickly. Zara Sutcliffe hadn’t gotten where she was by being indecisive. That was her sister’s specialty. She chose not to dwell on the fact that she’d promised Logan she wouldn’t leave the building without him. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. He’d ordered her not to leave. A little smile tugged at her lips. She didn’t recall promising anything.
She rode the big, rickety elevator to the first floor and let herself out of the building, alert for any sign of danger. In the glow of the streetlights she saw only one other person, an unkempt man swaying on his feet, muttering to himself and gesticulating with a bottle wrapped in a brown bag.
She made it to the end of the block in seconds, but it seemed like the longest trek of her life.
Damn Agent Pierce for making her paranoid in her own beloved city.
She reached the phone booth, if the abbreviated version in use nowadays could be called a booth. She fished her address book out of her purse and dropped a quarter in the slot. After one ring a recording kicked in, in a voice eerily similar to her own. She’d never gotten used to that.
“You have reached 5556439I’m sorry I cannot come to the phone right now…”
Zara rolled her eyes. Her first order of business would be to help her staid twin sister jazz up her message.
“If you leave your name and phone number at the tone, I’ll return your call as soon as possible.”
Zara waited impatiently for the beep.
“Emma, it’s Zara. Dammit, I wish you were home. I got into town on Friday. Seems all hell broke loose while I was gone. I just need…I need to talk to you. You can’t reach me. I’ll try calling back later…”
She squeezed her eyes shut, appalled by the prospect of slinking back up to that warehouse with nothing to show for this defiant excursion.
“Listen, I’ll—I’ll be there soon. At your place. It’s, uh—” she checked her watch “—eight-twenty now. I should be there within about forty-five minutes. Okay? If you get in, sit tight!”
She replaced the receiver. She must be nuts. What if Logan returned while she was gone? She had no idea how long he’d be out.
The hell with him, she decided. Hadn’t he forced her to take matters into her own hands with his “Me Tarzan” routine?
Knowing few taxis would be cruising this side street at this hour, she hurried to Tenth Avenue and bolted into the street to snag the first vacant cab she spied.
The ride to Queens was interminable. She’d never been to Emma’s new home. At first she thought the cabbie had brought her to the wrong place. But no, the address was right. It was a one-story brick-andframe bungalow with a tiny, weedy lawn and a rusted chain-link fence. No lights on. Emma wasn’t home yet.
“Wait here,” she told the driver, hoping she could find a way to get into the house. She tried the front door and found it unlocked. She groaned at her sister’s trusting spirit. “You aren’t in the wilds of Maine anymore, Emma. You’re a New Yorker now, you’ll have to learn to lock up.” Still, she was grateful, just this once, for Emma’s naiveté.
Zara paid the driver and sent him on his way, then let herself into the hovel her sister called home. She couldn’t see much in the dark, and she groped for a light switch.
When she flicked it on, her own horrified gasp broke the silence. The place had been torn apart. “Oh, my God…” she whimpered as she took in the disarray that had once been a living room. Furniture upended, bookcases toppled, spewing enough beat-up paperbacks to carpet the floor.
Had Emma been home when the place was broken into? If so, where was she now?
Common sense dictated she leave immediately. The intruder might still be in the house. But for all she knew, her sister could be here, too, hurt or unconscious. Needing her help. She had to look.
She scanned the place for a weapon and came up with a pair of sewing shears lying amid a jumble of craft supplies. Gingerly she picked her way through the mess.
Emma had obviously been in the midst of unpacking from her move. Meticulously labeled cartons were strewn around, spilling their contents: Nonfiction, A-G. Mysteries, H-P. A bark of hysterical laughter burst from her. Her sister still arranged her books by the author’s last name. She’d always loved whodunits.
A carton labeled CraftWorld lay upended near a mound of magazines. Emma had written freelance craft articles for the publication until its recent demise had forced her to take a staff writing position with Crafty Lady magazine here in New York. Hence the move from Maine to Queens. She knew Emma relished the independence of freelance work and had dreaded the new in-house job, but financial considerations had forced her to accept it.
Even amid the horror of the devastation surrounding her, she couldn’t help noticing the squalid furnishings and tacky wallpaper. Had they come with the place or had Emma actually selected them? She thought of her own luxurious penthouse apartment on East Eighty-sixth Street in Manhattan. How long would she last in a dump like this?
Then again, she thought, slogging through the chaos to the rooms beyond, she herself now called a grubby, roach-infested warehouse home. She had to admit, Emma’s green-flocked wallpaper looked downright swanky by comparison.
She toured the tiny, antiquated kitchen, the utilitarian bathroom and the two bedrooms, one of which Emma obviously planned to turn into an office. They, too, had been ransacked.
Her fears were unfounded. No bogeyman leapt from the shadows. The place was deserted.
“Emma, where are you, honey?” she breathed, tossing the scissors on her sister’s nightstand. “Where are you?” She’d meant what she’d said to Logan. When this whole thing blew over, she was going to pull out the stops and heal her relationship with her sister. The one good thing to come out of this debacle with Mac Byrne was
the realigning of her priorities.
She thought about the popular idea that identical twins shared a sort of telepathy, that they could sense what was happening to each other. Fanciful nonsense, yet how she wished it were true at this moment.
She straightened the mattress, which had been stripped and yanked half off the bed. Unspeakably weary, she kicked off her shoes and plopped on it, stretching full length. Would she ever again know the luxury of sheets?
Her sleepless night was catching up to her. That and nerves. She stared at the old-fashioned light fixture glowing overhead, a milky glass dish through which she counted seven fly corpses. It wouldn’t hurt to rest awhile, she reasoned. As soon as she had her second wind, she’d call a taxi and return to her glamorous home away from home before Logan even knew she’d stepped out.
HE INVADED HER DREAM, with his flagrant male hunger. His carnal fury. Whipping a tempest of raw, scorching need with no release.
And she wasn’t afraid. Not this time.
She fought the tug of wakefulness, wanting—needing—this dream. Needing him any way she could have him.
Hands on her, urgent, possessive, stroking her through her clothes.
“Open your eyes, Zara.”
She did.
A scream barreled out of her throat, arrested by the big palm clamped over her mouth.
“Easy.”
The light had been turned off. In the dark she could barely see him, a shadow looming over her. But it was his voice. It was his long, silky hair tickling her face. His hand felt strange against her lips, the skin too smooth. He slowly removed it.
“Logan,” she breathed. “I…” She almost said, I was dreaming about you.
No. She couldn’t tell him that.
“How—how did you know I was here?”
He nuzzled her throat, and she gasped. “You can’t hide from me, Zara. That was careless, leaving a message on Emma’s machine.”
Belatedly she realized her sister must have given Logan the remote code to retrieve her messages. His hand swept over her body. Instinct drew her arms up, a flimsy barrier between them. Last night he’d said this wouldn’t happen again. Let’s just keep our distance.
“Logan, don’t—”
He silenced her with his mouth. His hand found her breast and squeezed it through her silk blouse. He ignored her muffled protests, her attempt to dislodge his grasping fingers. The more she struggled, the more aggressive he became, until she found herself pinned beneath him. His mouth was voracious. This wasn’t the impassioned kiss of last night—this was a taking, not a sharing.
Her anger surged, lending her strength. She twisted beneath him, bringing elbows and knees into play. “I said stop!”
She cried out in pain as he seized her forearms roughly and slammed them on the mattress near her ears. His mouth ground against hers, cruelly.
Some part of her—some primal animal part—didn’t recognize this man. Her senses were in discord, sending conflicting messages to her brain. Something was different. The scent of him, the taste of him.
Relying on instinct, she bit his lip savagely, and he jerked back with a bellow of outrage. His hand arced up to strike her and she turned away, taking the blow on the back of the head.
Pain lanced her skull, momentarily stunning her.
One of the good guys, she dully thought. Logan was supposed to be one of the good guys.
He rose off the bed, but somehow she knew he wasn’t finished with her. She heard him leave the room. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, fighting dizziness, forcing her mind into problem-solving mode.
The scissors. She’d dropped them on the nightstand. She groped in the dark and came up with nothing more lethal than a clock radio.
She squinted against the sudden glare of the overhead light.
“A precaution,” he said, leaning against the door frame, swinging the shears from one long finger. Now she saw why his hand had felt odd—latex gloves. The kind surgeons wear. The kind criminals wear when they don’t want to leave fingerprints. He flung the scissors into a corner.
Her gut clenched. She’d never seen that taunting smile before. “Logan.”. She gained her feet. “Why are you doing this?”
“Wish we had more time.” He pushed off the door frame. “I’d give you one hell of a ride. Take these.”
Only then did she notice what else he was holding. A paper bathroom cup and a prescription vial. He shook out the contents—six small white pills.
“What is that?” Her voice wobbled.
“Painkillers. Heavy-duty stuff, too.”
“Those are Emma’s?”
“Yep.” Logan examined the prescription label. “Couple of years old. Probably had a tooth out or something. Guess she didn’t need them all.” He tossed the vial. “Take ‘em.”
“No.” Her knees were shaking.
Logan drew his gun from under his waistband. That’s when she realized he’d changed clothes. The teal raw silk shirt and beige linen slacks were a far cry from the weathered gray polo shirt and jeans he’d worn earlier. The ponytail was gone, his long hair brushed back off his face, revealing the edge of a scar at his hairline that she’d never noticed before.
Those little changes made an amazing difference in his appearance—though the biggest difference of all was his expression. Glacial. As if the two of them hadn’t spent half the day sprawled on the mattress in the warehouse, the Sunday Times spread out around them, rolling in muffin crumbs and empty coffee cups, working the crossword puzzle and reading the editorials to each other. As if she hadn’t revealed more of herself to him than she had to anyone, ever.
“Logan,” she breathed. “You don’t want to do this.” Whatever he had in mind, she knew she didn’t want him to do it.
He slowly approached her. His implacable golden stare held her immobile, bringing to mind once more that picture of a wolf in her father’s den. Ruthless. Single-minded. The quintessential predator.
Casually he touched the barrel of the gun to her chest. “I prefer not to shoot you. But I will if I have to.”
She felt the blood drain from her head as she accepted the cup of water. He dropped the pills into her hand.
“I wish I could’ve found more,” he said. “That would make it easier on you. Easier on both of us.”
His words squeezed her stomach like a fist. She wondered giddily if she’d be able to get the pills down her tight throat—and keep them down.
He watched as she placed them in her mouth and chased them with a swallow of water.
He said, “Open up.”
She endured the humiliating exercise of opening her mouth to prove she wasn’t hiding the pills.
Satisfied, he gestured with the gun. “Strip.”
The soft-spoken word paralyzed her. This isn’t happening, she told herself. Logan isn’t doing this to me.
“Logan—”
Without warning, he tore open her blouse, sending buttons flying. “Hurry up.” He stalked to the pile of clothes tossed from Emma’s dresser drawers and kicked aside sweaters, underwear and socks until he found what he was looking for-a swimsuit. A plain black one-piece with a demure neckline. What Zara thought of as a “grandma suit.”
He tossed it at her. “Put it on.”
She forced herself to undress as Logan stood watching. “Emma isn’t really safe, is she? You—you did something to her.”
She couldn’t sort it all out. If Logan was working for Mac Byrne, if he’d never intended to let her live, why had he tucked her away in a warehouse off Tenth Avenue for two days? Murderers didn’t feed their victims Sicilian heroes and mu shu pork and take them to the museum when they whined about cabin fever.
He stared fixedly as she dropped her blouse and stepped out of the short leather skirt. For the first time in her life, she wished she wore sedate white cotton undies like Emma.
“You and your old lady,” he said, with a little head shake. “You sure know how to show off what you’ve got.”
She presented her back and quickly divested herself of garter belt, stockings and bra. She whipped off the panties and pulled on the swimsuit in about three seconds.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he snickered.
She’d kill him, she thought, turning around to face him. If he gave her half a chance, she’d wring the bastard’s neck. Tears scalded her eyes, less from humiliation than from a profound sense of betrayal.
This man had made her feel something. She’d exposed her bleeding soul to him, her insecurities and yearnings, the hurts of her past and her prayers for the future. For his part, he’d shown an underlying gentleness, a vulnerability she’d suspected the rest of the world never got to see. Either he was a consummate actor or she was a first-class fool.
She’d even felt an exhilarating sexual longing for the first time since well before her divorce: a stunning resurrection of that which her ex-husband had methodically obliterated.
He’d made her feel that, damn him, this animal now pointing a gun at her!
He gestured toward the doorway. “How about a little nightcap?”
Chafing the gooseflesh on her arms, she preceded him into the living room. He righted a tattered easy chair and ordered her to sit. Already she was feeling woozy. The rump-sprung cushions were a welcome support, saving her the bothersome chore of keeping her feet under her. She wished she had more in her stomach to slow down the drug. She’d eaten a light dinner, knowing that if she kept letting Logan stuff her with food, she’d soon need a larger wardrobe.
She watched, a little too placidly, she knew, as he entered the kitchen. She heard him crunching over the broken glass that littered the tile floor, heard the refrigerator door open. By the time her muddled mind decided to make a run for it, he was back, a half-filled bottle of white wine in hand.
“Thirsty?” he cheerfully asked, holstering his gun.
“Does it matter?”
“I’m afraid not.” He pulled the cork and held the bottle out to her. “Bottoms up.”
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