by Dawn Altieri
His face twisted with agonized concern. “Well, what the hell are they doing about it?”
The weatherman now stood in front of a map of the northeast. “Not much. The detectives told me to be cautious, but they don’t think the guy will come after the same person twice.”
“Jesus Christ, Em.” Matt shoved his fingers through his short blond hair.
She swiveled to face the bar again, away from his intense scrutiny. She hated making him worry. He’d done enough worrying about her over the years.
“Everything has been quiet since that night,” she assured him. “I think I’m in the clear.”
“At least promise me you’ll hold off on the Lovematch thing for now,” he said. “You don’t need that crap to find a date. As a matter of fact, you need to get your mind off this. You’re coming out with me tomorrow night. There’s a great band playing at Donnelly’s Pub. Invite Lauren, too, if you want.”
Emma lowered her near-empty wineglass. “I don’t know, Matt. Isn’t Friday traditionally date night? What will you tell all your Lovematch admirers?”
He grasped her hand again. “You’re way more important than any of them.”
She was so thankful for the friendship they’d shared all these years. She considered the laundry she’d planned to tackle, the errands she needed to run. What was she doing? She was in desperate need of a distraction, and Matt was an expert at distracting her. He’d pulled her back from the brink of despair many times in the past.
“You’re not saying no to me,” he said with the smirk she’d seen on his face on more occasions than she could count. “You never could, and you’re not going to start now.”
“Okay.” She lifted her glass and tapped it against his with a wink. “Unless a better offer comes along.”
…
After saying goodbye to Matt downstairs, Emma entered her apartment and tossed the stack of junk from her mailbox onto the foyer table. She locked the door and leaned back against it, lifting her eyes to the engagement photo that hung on the wall in front of her. The photographer had positioned Justin behind her, and though he’d only been a few inches taller than Emma, he towered over her in the pose, with his chin on the top of her head and his arms wrapped around her, a prominent reminder to anyone who entered the apartment that she belonged to him.
What had Detective Jake Quinn thought when he saw the photo?
She closed her eyes as exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, and when she opened them, Justin’s smiling face still stared down at her. She lifted the photograph off its hook and slid it down behind the table, facing the wall.
Her wayward thoughts returned to the man who’d driven her home and checked her apartment for signs of an intruder after the attack, a service he was not here to provide now. She glanced toward the dark hallway, toed her way across the gleaming hardwood floor until she reached the light switch, and flipped it to illuminate the short corridor.
Nothing.
A quick peek into each of the bedrooms revealed the same. She was being ridiculous. No one could have gotten past security. No one was hiding in the shadows of her apartment. She was just looking for an excuse to call the handsome detective, and she needed to stop.
Why couldn’t she get him out of her head? Her instant attraction to him was nothing more than infatuation, lust that had crept in, no doubt as a result of her long, self-imposed stretch of celibacy.
This was not the time to get hung up on a man…not that there’d ever be a good time to get hung up on a man like Quinn. She wasn’t foolish enough to expect a handsome New York City homicide detective—who likely could take his pick of beautiful, exciting women—to be interested in a plain-Jane like her.
Besides, she didn’t want him to be interested. He’d let Justin’s killer go free. How could she ever get past that? Better to push the whole idea of him right out of her head.
The stack of mail called to her, piles of junk and advertisements that could distract her from her thoughts, at least temporarily. She stepped into the living room, heading for the oversize, plush furnishings which somehow appeared small in the space. The apartment was so much bigger than she needed, especially since she lived in it alone. A wall of windows showcased the New York City skyline, with the Empire State Building visible in the distance. Behind her, a breakfast bar separated the space from a fully-equipped kitchen complete with expensive cabinets and appliances. The apartment was all Justin. All the overpriced artwork, the uptight decor, the ostentatious bullshit that wasn’t Emma. He’d bought it, decorated it, and furnished it when they’d gotten engaged. She should have been thrilled by his surprise, but really, it had just felt like another in a long list of ways he’d totally controlled her life.
She slipped off her heels and curled up on the luxurious, ridiculously expensive sofa, sorting through envelopes until she came to one that was obviously not the usual junk mail. There was no return information, just her name and address hand-scribbled messily across the front of it.
She frowned. What on earth was it?
Chapter Eight
Jake bounded up the front steps to Emma’s building, opened the outer glass door, and pushed the button for her apartment. His heart thundered in his chest until her voice came over the intercom.
“Detective Quinn?”
“Yes, Emma, it’s me, Jake.”
The buzzer sounded, and he opened the door, pulling it closed behind him to be certain it locked before he took the elevator to her floor.
It’s just an envelope.
The words repeated over and over in his head like a mantra that failed to calm the surge of adrenaline coursing through him. He’d spent the week running down dead-end leads and staring at security footage from outside her building that revealed nothing more than the top of a man’s knit ski mask. He’d fought the urge to call and check on her, and when she’d called him—minutes after he’d left the precinct for the night—the panic that flooded his veins had been completely out of line with his training as a law enforcement officer. Panic the likes of which he’d only felt once before.
This situation could not end the same way.
She opened the door and gazed up at him in silence for several moments, her big brown eyes wide and uncertain…and so damned beautiful.
“It’s probably nothing.” Her words spewed out quickly as she gestured toward the thick white envelope on the kitchen countertop. “But you said to call, so—”
“It’s okay.” He raised a hand to her shoulder and felt nothing but tension there. “You did the right thing.”
She exhaled in a rush, a sure sign she was more shaken than she wanted to let on.
The only markings on the envelope were a New York City postmark and the numbers and letters of her address scrawled across the front. He donned a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, lifted the envelope over his head under the recessed ceiling light, and squinted in an effort to identify its contents.
Flowers. Same as the ones scattered over Abigail Murray.
“Can I see?” Emma asked, peering up at the envelope as she slipped into the space next to him. The delicate scent of vanilla and rose petals filled his nose and the air around him, commanding his attention. It was all he could do not to pull her close and breathe her in.
This was not the time to be thinking that way.
“Lilacs.” Her soft voice was barely audible. “My wedding flowers.”
Shit. Of course they were lilacs. And how could he have forgotten that detail? Back in the Hamptons, her fiancé had given her a bouquet of lilacs outside the bakery where they’d gone for a cake tasting. She’d accidentally dropped the flowers, and he’d stepped back into the street to pick them up. A moment later, he was run down.
Whoever was doing this knew what the flowers would mean to her.
Jake unfolded an evidence bag from his pocket and dropped the envelope in
to it. He snapped the gloves off and turned back to her. “Emma, there were lilacs on the victim we found last week. That’s too unusual to be a coincidence. This is someone who knows you.”
A visible shudder chased through her as she looked up at him, seeming to stare right through him. With her attacker still on the loose, there wasn’t a damned thing he could say to reassure her.
“I’m going to call someone to pick this up and get it to forensics,” he said. “I’m not leaving.”
“What?” Something flashed across her features. Surprise? Distrust? “No. You don’t need to stay. This must have been mailed a few days ago. Whoever it is, it’s not like he’s waiting outside for me.”
Great. She didn’t believe he could keep her safe, and she obviously didn’t want him in her apartment.
“But he could be,” Jake argued. “He already was once before.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll have my friend Lauren meet me here in the morning and we’ll go to work together. I won’t go outside alone.”
Jake crossed to the foyer to inspect the security system once more and sort out a plan. The city would never foot the bill for a uniform to watch over her place, but someone should be here with her.
“You said yourself, the building is secure,” she reminded him. “I have an alarm, and I won’t let anyone in.”
He turned back, sensing in her big brown eyes the fear she was trying so hard to hide from him. He felt at least partially responsible for putting it there. Those eyes would haunt him until he could put this scumbag behind bars, hopefully before she or anyone else got hurt.
She clearly didn’t trust him. And she wasn’t about to give in.
But he wouldn’t let her down again. Whether she liked it or not.
…
Jake sat in the Tahoe for over an hour watching the entrance to Emma’s building before he finally headed back to the precinct to drop off the envelope at the forensics lab. He stopped at his desk, then made his way toward the photo board he and his colleagues had created of the Murray crime scene, hoping something would jump out at him that he hadn’t already considered. Thinking about the Windsor case had put some strange theories in his head, but no matter how improbable, he wasn’t ready to write them off.
“Well, look who’s here.” Mack set his mug of black coffee on his desk and took a seat, stretching his arms over his head and cracking the bones in his neck. “What brings you back this late on a Thursday night?”
Jake could easily ask his partner the same question.
He dropped into his chair and propped his elbows on the desk. “Emma Sloane.” The name rolled off his tongue and left him with a rush of that newfound warmth he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling. He pushed it down as fast as it rose up. “She found something in her mailbox. An envelope filled with lilacs. Turns out, lilacs were supposed to be her wedding flowers.”
Mack’s eyes widened. “No shit.”
For a long moment, Jake considered whether it was a good idea to tell Mack the narrative he’d formed in his head, despite how absurd it might sound. He breathed in deep before he plunged in. “I’ve got another angle on this whole thing that seemed like a coincidence at first, but the more I think about it, I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?”
He scanned the room to be sure no one else was listening. “I know her, Mack. From the Windsor case. That unsolved hit-and-run I told you about?”
“Out on Long Island?” Mack leaned forward and lowered his voice. “She’s the girl you’ve had the hard-on for since you moved out here?”
Jake winced first, nodded second. Mack had been sitting opposite him while he spilled his guts to Kevin that fateful night at Donnelly’s. His partner sure had a way of spinning a different perspective on things.
“Well, that’s understandable. She ain’t hard to look at, that’s for sure.” Mack sat back in his chair again. “You think there’s a connection?”
“There has to be. Someone tosses dead flower petals over a body that looks just like her, and then she gets the same dead flowers in the mail? Could the guy who tried to mug her be the same guy who ran down her fiancé after she dropped a bunch of lilacs in the street? Another coincidence? I doubt it. I was hoping I was wrong and she wasn’t linked to this murder, but with all this? There’s no denying she has to be connected.”
“Shit,” Mack muttered, tapping his pen on the desk. “We need to pull those case files.”
“I already have a call in to East Hampton.” Jake scrubbed a palm across his stubbled chin. “Damn it, Mack, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Thinking about the case, or thinking about her. Thinking about how different she was from the pretentious notion he’d constructed in his head in an unsuccessful attempt to curb his fascination for her; thinking about how determined she was to take care of herself in all of this. Thinking about the curves of her body and how they’d fit so perfectly into the hard angles of his own, if he gave in to the urge and pulled her close against him.
And thinking about how much he should not be thinking about any of that.
“Hey,” Mack said, snapping him out of his daydream. “She is linked to this murder, and whatever’s going on in that head of yours is a bad idea. What’s worse, she’s linked to Nathan fucking Windsor, and the last thing you need is that entitled asshole breathing down your neck.”
Jake grumbled a curse under his breath. He knew that hell better than anybody. “I’m not going to jeopardize this investigation, not to mention my career.” That rumored promotion meant too damned much to risk losing it by getting involved with a witness. “I’m not that stupid.”
He studied Mack’s reaction, prayed his partner would believe him, maybe even have some sort of solution.
Instead, Mack glanced down at his notepad. “I did a little research myself.” He cleared his throat. “‘These violent delights have violent ends.’ Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet.” He tore the page from his notepad and passed it to Jake. “Mean anything to you?”
Jake shook his head slowly, contemplating the disturbing quote. “He’s a literature buff?”
“Or pretending to be,” Mack said.
True. Wouldn’t be the first time a perp had tried to come off as smarter than he was. Still, the quote didn’t mean anything to Jake in relation to the limited information they’d gathered so far.
He shook his head again, hoping to clear all the noise clouding whatever clue he was missing. “I have to do something. This message, the flowers…all of it means something, and it isn’t anything good. I know the department is too broke or too cheap to set up Emma with protection, but I have to figure something out.”
“Just watch yourself.” Mack rose from his seat to add the Shakespeare quote to the board. “With any luck, we’ll catch this bastard soon, and then you can do whatever the hell you want.”
“Yeah, right,” Jake muttered. “I can assure you, she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Aw, you’re not that bad.” Mack said as he slapped Jake on the shoulder. “I definitely understand it, pal. Not only is she gorgeous, she seems like a real nice girl. Not your typical target, though. Who knows? Maybe there’s hope for you, after all.”
Chapter Nine
Emma scanned her ID badge at the front desk and boarded the elevator to her office. Her gaze fixed on the reflection in the metallic door panel, darting from one person to another in the small, enclosed space. The same faceless throngs of people she saw every day—MacMillan employees and those of the numerous other companies housed in the sixty-story skyscraper. Complete strangers to which she’d never given a second thought now all seemed like possible threats.
She had to stop this. She could not let fear overtake her. The office building had state-of-the-art security procedures in place. She was probably safer here than she was in her own apartment.
She would feel better later that evening. After Jake left the night before, she’d called Lauren and eventually calmed down. She’d even given in and agreed to go to Donnelly’s Pub with Lauren and Matt to get out and get her mind off things…even though her sofa, the television remote, and some microwave popcorn felt like a much safer choice.
When the elevator stopped at her floor, she rushed from the car to escape the wave of claustrophobia. With a fortifying breath, she straightened her skirt and approached the entrance to MacMillan Investments. She tugged open the heavy glass door, reassured by the familiar sights and sounds of her coworkers scurrying about, grabbing coffee from the break room near the reception area, preparing to start another boring week in finance. She’d take that boredom over the hell she’d been going through any day.
She stepped inside and released the door behind her but stopped cold when she noticed a floral arrangement on the reception desk. “Oh my God,” she uttered under her breath.
It was more lilacs.
Chapter Ten
A fresh, sweet aroma hung in the air, hitting Jake the moment he opened the door to the MacMillan Investments lobby. A bouquet of lilacs sat on prominent display at the edge of the receptionist’s desk. The scent transported him back to his mother’s garden, to spring days playing ball with Kevin in the yard while she weeded and pruned.
“Can I help you?” the blond receptionist asked as she glanced up at him.
“Jake Quinn, here to see Emma Sloane.”
She nodded and picked up the telephone on her desk. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”
He examined the flowers more closely, drawing in a deep inhale as he pulled out the delivery card. No message, just Emma’s name and the name of the florist, an address and phone number. He shoved it into his pocket.