Forget it. He doesn’t want me here, that’s all.”
“But you’re staying anyway? You are one of a kind.” Frankie muttered something indistinct. “If a man didn’t want me around, I’d be out of there so fast you wouldn’t see me for dust.”
“But you’re an introvert. And you’re weird around men.”
“Do I need to remind you I’m in love and engaged?”
“You’re weird around all men except Matt.”
“In this case I agree with Frankie. If he makes you feel uncomfortable, you should leave.” Paige was emphatic. “We have a rule, remember? If a situation feels wrong then we get the hell out, especially when we’re working alone.”
“I don’t feel threatened. And I can’t leave him.” She lowered her voice. “There was almost no food in the place until I showed up. And it’s not only food that’s missing. There’s hardly any furniture. No mess. It’s as if he just moved in.”
“Having you there will soon change that,” Frankie said, but Paige didn’t laugh.
“The more I hear, the less I like. How did he persuade you to stay?”
“He didn’t. He wanted me to leave, until—” Until he’d noticed the weather. She turned and glanced toward the windows. That was it. He’d been pushing her to leave right up until the moment he’d looked out of the window and seen that New York was virtually shut down. “He didn’t want me to travel in a blizzard. Don’t worry, if he was planning to do away with me, he would have booted me out into the street and let the weather do the job for him.” She strolled toward the windows and peered through the swirling wall of white. The streets and the park had vanished behind the ferocious fury of the storm. “I couldn’t leave now even if I wanted to.” The knowledge made her nerve endings tingle. It was just the two of them. Alone. Only this time the word alone conjured up different feelings. Her stomach felt jittery.
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes. I came equipped to turn his house into a winter wonderland with gourmet extras.” But she hadn’t expected the place to be quite so stark. She could decorate, but she wasn’t a magician.
“Stay in touch,” Paige said. “If we don’t hear from you, we’re coming down there, blizzard or no blizzard. Jake’s here and he’s staying over. And Matt’s here with Frankie. We miss you!”
Eva felt a pang. Both her friends were in committed relationships. They’d found love and she was happy for them. But there was no denying it made her feel even more alone.
“Remember that self-defense move I taught you?” Frankie’s voice came down the phone and Eva smiled.
“This guy is a black belt in you-name-it-I-do-it martial arts, so my single self-defense move isn’t going to get me far.” She remembered the skill with which he’d brought her to the floor. “I’m going to trust my natural instinct about people. I know he writes about bad guys, but he isn’t a bad guy himself.”
She tried to forget what he’d said about the man in the street hiding who he really was.
He was wrong about that. Perhaps some people hid who they were, but most people were kind. She’d seen it time and time again.
Damn the man for planting that nasty seed in her usually optimistic mind.
“So you’re staying the night with a guy you never met before tonight?” Paige sounded worried. “I don’t like the sound of it, Ev.”
“I can assure you he has no interest in me.” Eva glanced up the stairway again, but upstairs was still and silent. “What does it mean when a guy says you have good bones?”
“When a crime writer says it, it means you need to get out of there,” Frankie muttered. “Lucas Blade writes scary stuff. The last guy he wrote about used to strip his victims.”
“Of their clothes?”
“Of their skin.”
“Ew.” Eva wished she hadn’t asked. “Why would you read that?”
“Because I can’t not read it. Everything he writes is gripping. He gets into the minds of people. Exploits your fears. He is hugely successful and his books are getting better and better. Everyone is waiting for his next book, including me. Hey, if you get a glimpse, send me a couple of chapters. What’s he like, anyway?”
Intimidating. “He wasn’t expecting to see me here, so I don’t think I’ve seen him at his best.”
“If you can’t find anything good to say about him then he must be truly bad,” Paige said. “You always see the good in people.”
“He isn’t bad. He bought his grandmother a puppy.”
“So? Psychopaths can be pet owners. Come home, Ev. He’s not your responsibility.”
“I’m the only one who knows he’s here,” Eva said simply. “And he’s in trouble. Whether he wants me here or not, I’m not leaving.”
* * *
Lucas stared at the glow of the screen.
Do I look like a murderer to you?
Those words had triggered a flow of ideas in his head, but none of them had made it from his head to his fingers. There were still too many unanswered questions.
It was like looking at a tangled ball of wool. The threads were there, but so far he hadn’t managed to untangle them and weave them into a pattern that would keep his readers turning the pages.
But he had something. He knew he had something.
He rose to his feet and paced to the window of his study.
It was his superpower, the ability to delve deep into the psyche of the average person and expose, and exploit, their deepest fears. If he hadn’t been a writer, he would have been a profiler for the FBI. He had contacts, had developed a few close relationships over the years. If he’d thought about it for too long he might have been disturbed by the directions his mind took. Right now though it was going nowhere.
His agent would be calling again soon. And his editor.
Soon they wouldn’t just want a few chapters, they’d want the whole damn book.
He was running out of time. The book was due on Christmas Eve. He had less than a month. He’d never written a book that fast. He was approaching the point that he was going to have to tell them the truth. He’d have to tell them that the book wasn’t finished. It wasn’t even started. He didn’t have a single word on the page.
A scent rose up through the apartment and he turned his head to the door, trying to place it.
Cinnamon.
The moment he identified it coincided with a soft tap on the door.
He dragged it open and saw Eva standing there,
