River's End

by Nora Roberts

  “Time enough for coffee?”

  “I . . . yes. I was going to invite you to dinner—a home-cooked meal.”

  “Oh yeah? Much better than coffee.” He tried to think. He could talk to her more privately at her apartment. She’d be more comfortable there. She was obviously nervous now, standing in his cramped hotel room, with her hands locked together while she flicked uneasy glances toward the bed.

  So they’d get out. All he had to do was keep his hands off her in the meantime.

  “I need to clean up a little,” he told her.

  “Ah . . .” He looked wonderful, damp from his workout, the muscles in his arms toned and tough. She remembered how strong they’d been when they’d banded around her. “I just have to pick up a few things at the market.”

  “Tell you what. Give me a chance to take a shower, and we’ll both go to the market. Then I can watch you cook.”

  “All right.”

  He grabbed jeans from the back of a chair, hunted up a shirt. “There’s a very miserly honor bar under the TV. Help yourself. We’ve got cable,” he added as he dug socks and underwear out of a drawer. “Just have a seat. Give me ten minutes.”

  “Take your time.” The minute he closed the door to the bathroom, she lowered herself to the edge of the bed. Her knees were shaking.

  Good Lord, how was she going to manage this and not make a complete fool of herself? Marketing, they were going marketing. She wanted to giggle wildly. She’d just come from the drugstore where she’d had to gather every fiber of her courage to walk to the counter and buy condoms.

  Now they lay in her purse, weighing like lead. Not because of the heft of the decision she’d made, but because of the fear that she’d misread what she’d seen in his eyes the night before. What she’d tasted when he’d kissed her.

  She had intended to ask him to dinner, but that would have been after. After she’d knocked on his door, after he’d opened it and she’d smiled and stepped to him, slipped her arms around him, kissed him.

  She’d imagined it so perfectly that when she’d knocked and he hadn’t answered, she’d been completely baffled, and now nothing was going as she’d scripted it in her head.

  She’d come here to offer herself, to tell him she wanted him to be the one. She’d imagined more—the way his eyes would focus on her face, so deep, so intense, until her vision blurred and his mouth would cover hers.

  The way he’d pick her up—even the quick rushing feel in her stomach the sweep of that would cause. How he’d carry her to the bed.

  She let out a breath and got up to pace. Of course she’d built up the room differently in her mind. It had been larger, with prettier colors, a soft spread over the bed, a mountain of pillows.

  She’d added candlelight.

  This room was small, with colors of gray and faded rose. Bland, she thought, as so many hotel rooms were. But it didn’t matter. She closed her eyes and listened to the water drumming in the shower.

  What would he do if she went in, if she quietly stripped, stepped into the steam and spray with him? Would their bodies come together then? Wet and hot and ready.

  She didn’t have the courage for it. Sighing, she walked to the honor bar, perused the selections without interest, wandered to the desk where he’d set up his computer and piles of disorganized notes and files.

  She’d wait until he came out. She was better at dealing with matters, both small and vital, in a clear, face-to-face fashion. She wasn’t the sultry seductress and never would be.

  Would that disappoint him?

  Annoyed with herself, she shook her head. She had to stop second-guessing him, criticizing herself. When he came back out again, she would simply let him know she wanted him, and see what happened next.

  Idly, she tidied his notes, tapping edges together. She liked the fact that he’d brought work with him. She respected the ambition, the dedication, the energy. It was important to respect someone you loved.

  He hadn’t talked very much about his work, she thought now, then rolled her eyes. Because she’d been too busy babbling about herself. She’d ask him about it, she decided. About what he liked best in his work, how it felt to see his words in print and know that people read them.

  She thought it must be a wonderful, satisfying feeling, and smiled over it as she stacked his notes.

  The name MacBride, scrawled in black ink on a yellow legal pad caught her eye, had her frowning, lifting the sheet of paper.

  Within seconds, her blood had gone cold and she was riffling through his work without a thought for his privacy.

  Noah rubbed a towel over his hair and worked out exactly what he would say to Olivia. Once they’d come to an agreement on professional terms, they’d work on the personal ones. He could go to River’s End and spend some time with her that summer. To do the interviews, certainly. But to be with her. He’d never known a woman he was so compelled to be with.

  He’d have to arrange for more time off from the newspaper. Or just fucking quit, he thought, staring at his own face in the steamy mirror. Of course he’d have to figure out how the hell he was going to live until the book was written and sold. But he’d work that out.

  He never doubted it would sell. He was meant to write books, and he was damn sure he was meant to write this one.

  And he was beginning to think, not entirely easily, that he was meant to be with Olivia.

  None of that would happen until he took the first step.

  He took one, into the bedroom, and heard the world crash around his ears. She was standing by his desk, his papers in her hands, and a look of iced fury in those amber eyes.

  “You son of a bitch.” She said it quietly, but the words ripped the air like a scream. “You scheming, calculating bastard.”

  “Just a minute.”

  “Don’t touch me.” She slapped him back with the words even as he started toward her. “Don’t think about touching me. You’re here on your own, not as a reporter. Fucking liar, it was all for a story.”

  “No.” He stepped to the side to block her before she could stride to the door. “Just wait. I’m not here for the paper.”

  She still held his notes and, looking him dead in the eye, crumpled them in her hand and tossed them in his face.

  “Just how big a fool do you think I am?”

  “I don’t.” He grabbed her arms. He expected her to struggle, to claw and spit and scratch. Instead she went rigid. She turned off. He could see in her eyes the way she simply shut off. A little desperate, he gave her a quick, light shake.

  “Listen, goddamn it. It’s not for the paper. I want to write a book. I should have told you, I meant to tell you. Then . . . Jesus, Liv, you know what happened. The minute I looked at you everything got confused. I wanted to spend some time with you. I needed to. That’s a first for me. Every time I looked at you . . . I just went under.”

  “You used me.” She’d be cold, she’d stay cold. Nothing he could say, nothing he could do could penetrate the wall of ice. She wouldn’t permit it. She wouldn’t let herself fall into that trap again.

  “If I did, I’m sorry. I let what I felt for you get in the way of what was right. Last night, walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I wanted you so much it ached right down to the bone.”

  “You’d have slept with me to get information for your book.” Stay cold, she ordered herself. Pain couldn’t cut through ice.

  “No.” It ripped at his guts that she would think it, that she would believe it. “You have to know better than that. What happened between us had nothing to do with the book. It was about you and me. I wanted you, Liv, from the minute you opened your door, but I couldn’t touch you until I’d explained everything. I was going to talk to you about it tonight.”

  “Were you?” There was a snap of amusement in her voice—frigid amusement that cut like frosted razors. “That’s very convenient, Noah. Take your hands off me.”

  “You have to listen to me.”

 
; “No, I don’t. I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to look at you. I don’t have to think about you ever again once I’m out of this room. So I’ll finish this, here and now. Pay attention.”

  She pushed his hands away, and her eyes were level, a burning gold. “This is my life, not yours. My business, no one else’s. I won’t cooperate with your goddamn book, and neither will my family. I’ll see to it. And if I find out you’ve tried to contact anyone I care about, anyone who matters to me, I’ll do everything I can to make you suffer.”

  She shoved him back. “Stay away from me and mine, Brady. If you call me again, if you contact me again, I’ll ask my aunt to use every bit of her influence to see you’re fired from the Times. And if you’ve done your research, you know just how much influence she has.”

  The threat taunted his own temper, had him yanking it back. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I’d feel for you, how huge it could be. I didn’t plan what happened here, between us.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened between us. I despise you and everyone like you. Keep away from me.” She snatched up her bag, shoved by him to the door. “I once told you that your father was a great man. He is. Beside him, Noah, you’re very small.”

  She didn’t even bother to slam the door. He watched it close with a quiet click.

  She didn’t run, but she wanted to. Her chest was full and heavy, her eyes stinging with tears she refused to shed. He’d used her; he’d betrayed her. She’d let herself love, she’d let herself trust, and what she’d gotten had been lies.

  He’d never wanted her. He’d wanted her mother, her father. He’d wanted the blood and the grief. She would never, never give them to him.

  She would never give her trust to anyone again.

  She wondered if her mother had felt anything like this when she’d known the man she’d loved was a lie. If she’d felt this emptiness, this sick sadness, this burning betrayal.

  Olivia let rage coat over misery and promised herself she’d never think of Noah Brady again.

  eleven

  Venice, California, 1999

  Noah Brady figured his life was just about perfect. Thanks to the critical and popular success of his first book, he had his trim little bungalow on the beach and the financial resources to live pretty much as he liked.

  He loved his work—the intensity and punch of writing true crime with the bent of sliding into the mind and heart of those who chose murder as a solution, or as recreation. It was much more satisfying than the four years he’d worked as a reporter, forced to accept assignments and to gear his style to fit the newspaper.

  God knew it paid better, he thought, as he jogged the last of his daily three-mile run along the beach.

  Not that he was in it for the money, but the money sure as hell didn’t hurt.

  Now with his second book just hitting the bookstores, the reviews and sales solid, he figured it didn’t get much better.

  He was young, healthy, successful and blissfully unattached—since he’d recently untangled himself from a relationship that had started off intriguing, sexy and fun and had degenerated into mildly annoying.

  Who’d have thought that Caryn, self-described party girl and wanna-be actress, would have morphed into a clinging, suffocating female who whined and sulked every time he wanted an evening on his own?

  He knew he’d been in trouble when more and more of her things started taking up permanent residence in his closet and drawers. When her makeup began making itself at home on his bathroom counter. He’d come dangerously close to living with her mostly by default. No, not default, his fault, Noah corrected, because he’d been so preoccupied with the research and writing on his next book he’d barely noticed.

  Which, of course, is what pissed her off enough to send her into a raging, tearful snit when she’d tossed accusations of selfishness and neglect at him while she’d tossed her things into a tote bag the size of Kansas. She’d broken two lamps—one nearly over his head, but he’d been quicker—had upended his prized gloxinia into a mess of soil, broken leaves and shattered pottery. Then she’d walked out on him, flipping back her long, straight California blond hair.

  As he’d stood, just a little dazed in the middle of the debris, she’d shot him a killing look out of brimming blue eyes and had told him he could reach her at Marva’s when he was man enough to apologize.

  Noah decided he was man enough to be relieved when the door slammed behind her.

  That hadn’t stopped her from leaving messages on his machine that ranged from snotty to weepy to raging. He didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was a stunningly beautiful woman in a town that worshiped beautiful women. She was hardly going to spend time alone if she wanted a man to play with.

  It never occurred to him that she might have been in love with him. Or at least believed herself to be.

  His mother would have said that was typical of him. He was able to see inside strangers, victims, witnesses, the guilty and the innocent with uncanny insight and interest. But when it came to personal relationships, he barely skimmed the surface.

  He’d wanted to once, and the results had been disastrous. For Olivia, and for him.

  It had taken him months to get over those three days he’d spent with her. To get over her. In time he’d managed to convince himself it had been the book after all, the thirst to write it, that had tilted his feelings for her into something he’d nearly thought was love.

  She’d simply interested him, and attracted him, and because of that—and inexperience—he’d handled the entire situation badly. He’d found ways to put that aside, just as he’d put the idea of that particular book aside. He’d found other women, and other murders.

  When he thought of Olivia, it was with regret, guilt and a wondering about what might have been.

  So he tried not to think of it.

  He jogged toward the tidy, two-story bungalow the color of buttermilk. The sun splattered over the red-tile roof, shot out from the windows. It might have been late March, but southern California was experiencing a sultry heat wave that delighted him.

  Out of habit, he went around to the front of the house to get his mail. The floods of color in his flower beds were the envy of his neighbors.

  He went inside, moving straight through the living area he’d furnished sparsely, and dumped the mail on the kitchen counter, then pulled a large bottle of spring water from the fridge.

  He glanced at his answering machine, saw he’d already accumulated four messages since he’d gone out for his run. Fearing at least one would be from the now-dreaded Caryn, he decided to make coffee and toast a couple of bagels before he played them back.

  A guy needed fuel for certain tasks.

  He tossed his sunglasses on top of his pile of mail and got down to the first order of business. While the coffee brewed, he switched on the portable TV, flipping through the morning talk shows to see if there was a topic of interest to him.

  His bedroom VCR would have taped the Today show while he’d been out. He’d catch up with that later, see what was up in the world, skim through it for the news headlines. He’d brought the morning papers in before his run, and he’d get to them as well, spending at least an hour, if not two, absorbing the top stories, the metro reports, the crime.

  You just never knew where the next book would come from.

  He glanced again at the light blinking on his answering machine but decided his mail was a higher priority than his phone messages. Not that he was procrastinating, he thought as he sat at the counter with his single-man’s breakfast and listened with half an ear to Jerry Springer.

  He scooped back his hair, thought vaguely about a haircut and worked his way through the usual complement of bills and junk mail. There was a nice little packet of reader mail forwarded by his publisher that he decided to read and savor later, his monthly issue of Prison Life and a postcard from a friend vacationing in Maui.

  Then he picked up a plain white e
nvelope with his name and address carefully handwritten on it. The return address was San Quentin.

  He received mail from prisoners routinely, but not, Noah thought with a frown, at his home address. Sometimes they wanted to kick his ass on general principles, but for the most part they were certain he’d want to write their story.

  He hesitated over the letter, not sure if he should be annoyed or concerned that someone in one of those cages had his home address. But when he had opened it and skimmed the first lines, his heart gave a quick jerk that was both shock and fascination.

  Dear Noah Brady,

  My name is Sam Tanner. I think you’ll know who I am. We are, in a way, connected. Your father was the primary investigating officer