Hands trembling, Erin shook the envelope again.
A note that had been scripted on a scrap of the same ivory paper fluttered into her lap. Shakily, she lifted it to read. There were only three words.
Analise,
Find me.
For hours, Erin sat in the darkened apartment, lit only by moonlight and a single lamp. She read and reread the five items lined up on the coffee table. A pattern had emerged from the morbid columns and sent her to the computer, fighting the urge to retch.
To an eye trained in more than the nature of crime, the records of the deceased had a connection stronger than the tenuous nature of death.
A killer was on the loose.
Perhaps it took one to know one.
CHAPTER 2
Gabriel Moss loped through the hallway at Burkeen University Monday morning, his loose, confident strides eating up the tiled floor. Though he covered ground quickly, his gait was easygoing. He had learned young that the person at the other end would probably wait until he arrived.
He swung around a corner into another corridor of numbered doors. Since he wasn’t in any real hurry to reach his destination, he slowed his steps even more. Genevieve was more than a little annoyed with him, and he couldn’t blame her. Her messages had piled up while he’d been away. Messages he’d studiously ignored. As long as he didn’t answer, he figured, she couldn’t tell him about Mirren Enterprises’ latest attack on his fledgling newspaper, the Bayou Ledger. And the longer he could wait before he confronted its head rat, Nick Jacoby.
Still, if she was going to be angry, he had a perfect defense. Running the Ledger left little time for niceties like returning phone calls. He had to refurbish a dilapidated production center, hire staff, set up a Web site, and convert the fourth-floor administrative center into a place for him to sleep when he could steal an hour. When he was in New Orleans.
Which, as of late, hadn’t been too often. For weeks now, he’d been traveling the country, scratching together new investors and allaying fears about the fate of the paper. Luckily, he trusted his managing editor, Peter Cameron, to run the weekly print edition and the daily electronic edition without him. On his last swing through town, he’d hired a business manager to do the day-to-day number-crunching and negotiating that he despised.
He had been and always would be a reporter first. The rest was a matter of survival and revenge.
By his internal clock, he knew he was already fifteen minutes late for their 11:00 a.m. meeting, but he also knew Gennie would forgive his tardiness. After almost thirty years, his baby sister had no doubt grown used to his fluid relationship with time, much as he had accepted her fanaticism about punctuality.
Maybe he should have brought a peace offering, he thought, pausing midstep. Gennie was a sucker for boxed chocolates. He stood in the hallway, debating whether he had time to run out to a drugstore.
Before he could decide, applause, then a dusky laugh like lust draped in fog floated into the passageway from a lecture hall, distracting him. Intrigued by the siren sound, Gabriel walked over to the bright blue door propped on its hinges and peeked inside. The room was set on two levels, with raised auditorium-style seating. From his swift perusal, he figured at least a hundred students had crowded into the class. Every eye was fixed on the owner of the sultry laugh.
Gabriel eased into the classroom, drawn despite the fact that Gennie was waiting for him. Years of training had taught him stealth and obscurity. Looking down at the podium on the first level, he firmly decided that the sexysounding professor had at least taken lessons in the second. She earned excellent marks. If he hadn’t heard the laugh for himself, he’d never have guessed it had come from the dowdy waif at the lectern.
Boxy brown swathed the woman from shoulder to midcalf. The ill-fitting mud-colored tweed was out of place in the spring and positively stifling in the weeks leading up to a New Orleans summer. Awful brown shoes encased her feet, and if he wasn’t mistaken, misshapen hose bunched a bit at the ankle.
The view got no better the higher his eyes traveled. Glorious black hair had been twisted into a mockery of style. Caught somewhere between bun and ponytail, the length of black silk hung in a defeated hank at her slender neck. To complete the picture, spectacles perched on the bridge of an arrogant nose, one with surprising character. From his position, he approved of lips drawn to a permanent pout and cheekbones that could etch stone. Then she angled her head and glass glinted in the fluorescent light.
She was extraordinary, Gabriel thought, as heat shot through his gut and tripped up his pulse. A face to match the voice. Delicate warred with fierce and resulted in dazzling. And, Gabriel realized as light splintered toward him, the beauty was looking straight at him.
Though she had not stopped speaking, he could tell by the tilt of her head that she was examining him as carefully as he had her. He knew what she saw.
Jeans strained white at the knees and a black T-shirt that had seen better days. He kept his curly brown hair from reaching too far down his neck and his face clean. He’d inherited his father’s slightly square jaw and his mother’s long, romantic mouth. He was an attractive man, teetering on the precipice of handsome, and comfortable with the balance.
Watching her watch him, Gabriel held what he assumed were the professor’s eyes. Her ability to keep speaking—and his to keep breathing—while she dissected him impressed. And, if the jut of her chin was any indication, she was none too pleased by what she saw. Amused by her irritation and freed by the reaction, Gabriel grinned broadly and winked. With an impudent nod, he strolled back outside.
In the nearly empty hallway, the grin faded and he rubbed an absent hand over an unexpected ache in his chest. The edgy punch of desire had caught him unawares.
Forget it, he warned himself. The husky-voiced professor was certainly striking, but not his type. He definitely preferred the flamboyant to the drab, if beautiful, bookworm. Besides, the Ledger left no time for anything else. I came; I saw; I admired; I moved on.
It was harder than he expected, though, for Gabriel to banish the temptation to discover what lay beneath the professor’s poorly fitted clothes. Shaking his head, he continued his journey along the citrine-tiled hall. Three doors down, he knocked on the faux oak and listened for the exasperated call to enter. Yep, he sighed, he should’ve brought candy.
“You’re twenty minutes late,” Genevieve declared from behind her desk. Carefully framed diplomas decorated the faded beige walls behind her. As was his habit, Gabriel read yet again the gilded nameplate announcing: DR. GENEVIEVE MOSS. Like their mother, she’d chosen the life of the academic rather than that of their father, the journalist. An indulgent smile added warmth to smoke gray eyes that could freeze in an instant.
With a scowl, Genevieve soaked in the sight of her brother. Finally, a feminine echo of his smile curved her lips as she stood up to offer a tight hug. “Would it kill you to be on time once in a while?”
Gabriel shrugged negligently. “Stranger things have happened. Why tempt fate?”
“Live dangerously,” she retorted.
“I gave that up when I left the big city. No more intrigue for me.”
Gabriel grinned, but Gennie saw that the smile didn’t reach his eyes. They rarely talked about his life before he came home to work with their father at the New Orleans Chronicle. Before then, she’d faithfully clipped Gabriel’s articles from trouble spots around the world. Whether it was the massacres in Uganda or weapons cartels in Kyrgyzstan, he’d been on the ground, in the thick of the action.
For better or worse, those days were gone. Loyalty brought him home to New Orleans, but it was the vengeance that held him here that worried her. A vengeance she was about to stoke. Bracing herself, she pushed him into one of two chairs that flanked her desk. Perching on its smooth surface, she pouted, “I’m starting to annoy Peter.”
“Peter is always annoyed. It’s his trademark.”
Forced to agree about his cranky managing editor, Genevie
ve tried a different tack. “One might imagine he’s the owner of the Ledger rather than you.”
“Sometimes, he thinks so, too.” He leaned forward and stole a sip from the coffee mug steaming near her. The robust chicory flavor settled on his tongue, the essence of New Orleans. He grinned. “Peter’s attempted coups are usually my cue to return.”
Not to be placated, Genevieve chided, “You’ve been gone for weeks, Gabe. Perhaps you could take some time between pitches to check in. Say, ‘Hello, I’m alive’?”
“Are you going to lecture me on my manners?” He reached out a hand and cupped her cheek affectionately. Sometimes she looked so much like their parents, it broke his heart. To ward off the tendrils of grief, he teased, “If so, I think I have the one from last week on tape, to save you time.”
“Very funny.” Genevieve wrinkled her nose at him, knowing he’d never change.
At thirty-four, he was six years her senior. It was an age difference he never let her forget. In his eyes, it made him responsible for her. She’d conceded years ago, like many a disappointed suitor, that it was a fool’s errand to argue. Just like it had been pointless to argue that he had no obligation to take Dad’s place at the Chronicle. Or that it wasn’t his fault when Mirren Enterprises stole their family legacy while he was at the helm.
They were about to take something else.
Leaning back, she scooped a letter from a disciplined pile on her desk. Genevieve extended it to him, then pulled back before he could take it from her. “First of all, I need you to not overreact. Second, I only opened it because it was addressed to G. Moss and it came to the house.”
Smoky eyes darkened to pewter. “Give me the letter.”
“Please remember that threatening physical violence is a criminal offense and you don’t have bail money. Neither do I,” she hurried on, clutching the letter in her fist.
“Genevieve.”
The dark, implacable voice that her big brother used to great effect, coupled with the solid, work-roughened hand that swallowed her own, convinced Genevieve to slowly uncurl her fingers.
“They’re not worth it, Gabe,” she warned as he ripped open the legal-sized envelope.
“Albert Fish eventually confessed to the murders of sixteen children, including the cannibalism of ten-year-old Gracie Budd.” Erin tore her eyes away from the empty doorjamb and tried to focus on her final lecture in psychopathology, what her students called Murder 101. But rather than the sadism of Henry Lee Lucas and Edmund Kemper, her mind wandered back to her unexpected visitor.
Impressions flashed in rapid succession. Three words stuck in her suddenly fuzzy mind.
Tall. Gorgeous. Trouble.
Trouble most of all.
Broad shoulders, muscled arms, and narrow hips sketched the body of a rogue. Angles and planes dueled in mahogany, carving a tough, compelling face, ceding curves only to heavily lidded eyes and a wide, seductive mouth. The easy invasion of her classroom said he went where he chose. And the silent, intent observation said he remembered what he saw.
Definitely trouble, Erin concluded firmly. Which she could absolutely do without.
She struggled to put the handsome interloper out of her head; however, faithless memory lingered on a rakish face softened for a moment with an insolent grin.
When she caught her hand on its way to her mouth, Erin wrenched her focus back to the present, but traitorous flutters trembled in her belly.
This is nonsense, she lectured herself sternly. A strange man lurking in the back of her classroom should not be so … affecting. She’d seen attractive men before.
Gorgeous, a traitorous voice countered. The reason heaven gave us denim.
Muffling a sigh of appreciation for the artisans who first made jeans, Erin returned her attention to her students. With concerted effort, she finished her final lecture for Murder 101. After two more classes and exam period, the summer would begin.
She absently nodded to the students as they filed past, turning in take-home tests. Rather than the quiet murmurs that usually greeted the end of class, pleased chatter filled the room. And they’d wildly applauded her announcement that final papers weren’t due until the last day of final exams. Though the semester ended on Friday, she understood students enough to know that most hadn’t started their projects and would need the extra time to finish. But with other, more disturbing matters on her mind, she wasn’t in a hurry to read amateur rationales for criminal behavior.
Not when she had a real mystery in her briefcase.
Standing at her desk, she quickly accepted the exams, half-listening to the sounds of students in the background as they talked about the evil of finals, summer break plans, and the welcome passage of another school year. As they had all morning, the voices faded in and out, replaced by memories she’d sworn to forget.
“Dr. Abbott?”
Jolted from her reverie, Erin turned her attention to the student waiting for her. She banished the envelope and her past from her mind. “Yes, Ms. Turner?”
Harmony Turner chose a bright, wheedling voice with the honeysuckle tones native to every New Orleans citizen and launched into her spiel. “See, my boyfriend’s computer died last night and he had all of my research on his hard drive and I promise I can finish my paper, but between pledging and my other classes, it’ll be impossible to meet the deadline and I really need to get a good grade, so I was wondering …”
While Harmony streamed through her speech, Erin peeked at the utilitarian clock that hung on the back wall of the lecture hall. She had an appointment at noon. Turning her attention back to Harmony, Erin asked mildly, “Are you requesting an extension on your paper, Ms. Turner?” In notable contrast to the dulcet tones of Ms. Turner, Erin’s voice was low and solid.
“Yes, ma’am.” The student’s blond head hung with a mixture of hope and precious shame. Limpid blue eyes filled as if on cue. “If I do well in your course, I can make the dean’s list and then my daddy will let me go to Greece for the summer with Pi Gamma Delta, if I make the house, and if I make it and I can’t go then I’ll be the only one and I’ll just die, Dr. Abbott, I’ll just die!”
Casting the specter of imminent demise did nothing to move Erin, but she appreciated the attempt. Summoning up her most stern look, Erin responded, “Ms. Turner, I just announced that the papers aren’t due until the end of the exam period. Were you not paying attention?”
“I tried, but Reggie Clark was talking to me about a party tonight and wouldn’t shut up. I don’t know why I ever listen to him, because it’s not as though he really knows anything except football!”
Coy crossness raised the high-pitched voice a notch, and Erin resisted the urge to wince. “Perhaps when a teacher is speaking, you should work on listening?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Harmony beamed, showing the results of braces no doubt paid for by the daddy who’d be flying her to Athens in a month. “I’ll send you a postcard from Greece!”
The bubbly student turned on fashionably nonfunctional heels and hurried to join her friends in the corridor, heading off to class. Classroom empty, Erin packed her notes away and checked the room for stray students or papers. Experience had taught her to be diligent about cleanliness, to leave no trace behind.
Somewhere along the way, she’d failed. The note to Analise said so. Someone knew her secrets, perhaps even her darkest one. Run, a shrill voice in her head urged, as it had last night. Right now, pack your bags and go.
But she’d sworn never to run again.
Still, bravery didn’t mean stupidity, she’d decided. Which was why she wanted to be on her way to the police station before she lost her nerve and gave in to the panic.
She needed to check in with her teaching assistant and grab her grade book, then she’d be on her way. Taking a deep breath, Erin hoisted the bag laden with exams and slung the leather strap high over the thick padding at her shoulder. As soon as she left the air-conditioned confines of the psychology building, sweat would bead on her brow
and pool beneath the suffocating tweed. In anticipation, she tugged at the collar with dread but didn’t slip the heavy fabric off.
The shapeless, matronly jacket with its silk liner and myriad buttons mocked her attempts. Sometimes she longed to peel away the layers she shrouded herself in and race through the halls naked.
Well, maybe not naked, she corrected. But cotton would certainly be an improvement.
“At what cost?” Erin examined the hideous brown that engulfed her arm down past the wrist. She understood what the stranger must have seen, why he’d disappeared as quickly as he’d come. But his lack of interest was what she wanted, she reminded herself.
It was another one of her rules. Survival wouldn’t allow for dating or relationships or falling in love. Men rarely looked below the surface, so she made her surface as unappealing as possible.
Gone were the clothes she’d once dressed in. Ones that emphasized her generous bust and shapely hips. The flattering haircut worn by Analise had grown shaggy and unstructured, no longer highlighting the refined bones and drawing attention to unusually pure brown eyes. Rubbing the nubby fabric again, she grimaced, then pulled the jacket more firmly around her. Shapeless clothes and isolation were her only guarantees of anonymity. Of independence.
“Whatever it takes,” Erin vowed fiercely to the empty room. If she had to drape herself in worsted wool in the dead of summer, she would. Hadn’t she already proven she’d do anything for her freedom?
The chiming of a clock in the university courtyard reminded her of the hour. Her mouth settled into grim lines as she took the steps out of the classroom two at a time. If she didn’t leave now, she’d never go. Erin urged her legs into a swift jog and hurried out of the room.
And promptly plowed into a man heading in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER 3
“Oof!” As a brown missile collided with him mid-chest, Gabriel automatically braced himself to keep them upright. A satchel bounced once on his foot, then sprawled at their tangled feet.
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