that thought aside, Nik forced himself to think like a cop. As the next in line to take over the Oliver business interests, he figured that Roman wouldn’t have been happy about his sister’s wedding. In fact, he might have done anything to prevent it.
Still crouched down, he glanced around the area. The space beneath and behind the circular staircase was shrouded in shadows, and it wasn’t until his gaze swept the area a second time that he spotted the purse lying beneath the first step. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out plastic gloves and slipped them on. Then he lifted the purse and dumped the contents out. Neat was his first thought. In his experience most women carried an enormous amount of junk around in their purses. This one contained only a cell phone, a wallet, a day planner, a lipstick and a pen. When he flipped open the wallet, he found the driver’s license in a clear plastic frame. His stomach clenched. Sadie Oliver, Roman’s other sister.
Searching his memory, Nik pulled up details. If he remembered correctly, Sadie was about four years Roman’s junior. He’d never met her, but there’d been a shot of all three of the Oliver siblings in the paper recently. Like her brother and sister, Sadie was tall, and she had long dark hair. She’d graduated from Harvard Law School recently and come home to work at Oliver Enterprises. So Sadie, Roman and Juliana had all been here in the church when the shooting had started. That wasn’t good.
After slipping the items back into the purse, Nik rose, and drew out his gun again. He had a very bad feeling about what he was going to find in the choir loft. Signaling to one cop to follow him, he spoke to the other officer. “Don’t let anyone else in except the EMTs. There’s a dead man in the sacristy and the priest’s been shot. Call the crime lab and tell them to get a team here ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” the uniform said as he pulled out his cell.
At the top of the stairs, Nik stopped. The choir loft was empty but there was a closed door ten feet from where he was standing. He motioned the uniformed officer to one side and he took the other. As soon as they were both in position, he threw open the door and went in low, while his companion went in high.
The room was small, ten by ten, and it was empty. Except for the wedding bouquet—and the bloodstains on two walls.
J.C. WASN’T SURE how much longer she could stay hidden in the depths of the closet. Even as a child, she’d hated to wait for anything. Plus, she was absolutely starving. She always got ravenously hungry whenever she was nervous or scared. Surely the police should have arrived by now.
She thought she’d heard a siren, but that had been a while ago. And it could have been wishful thinking. She wasn’t even sure how long she’d been hiding. She’d tried to say a rosary—something she hadn’t done in years. How long had that taken? Five minutes? Ten? She wanted to check on Father Mike but she wouldn’t do him much good if Snake Eyes was still out there.
It was too dark to check her watch. If she could just hear something…Whatever the priest’s vestments were made of, they certainly blocked out sound. The police could be out there right now, and she wouldn’t know it.
What J.C. did know was that her fear of the snake-eyed man was gradually being replaced by her fear of being confined in a small space. And Father Mike’s closet gave new meaning to the word confined. She felt as if she were buried in robes and the incense lingering on them had grown cloying. Keep calm, she told herself. But she could feel her heart beating faster and faster.
As the urge to bolt began to grow, J.C. imagined Snake Eyes looking for her—searching the rectory, then returning to the sacristy. At any moment he could fling open the cupboard and start plowing through the garments. She was nothing more than a sitting duck.
Well, there was no sense in making it easy for him.
Slowly, she burrowed her way toward the front of the cupboard, holding her breath each time one vestment rubbed against another. When she reached the door, she discovered that in her rush to hide herself, she hadn’t closed it completely. Pressing her face to the narrow opening, she peered through it and fear bubbled through her again.
A man stood over the body of the dead man. He had his back to her, but she knew he wasn’t Snake Eyes. This man was taller, broader. Snake Eyes’s hair had been slicked back close to his head because of the ski mask. This man’s dark hair was dark, curly and unruly. But she could sense just as much danger emanating from him as she had from the killer.
He was wearing a tank top that fit snugly over nearly bronze-colored skin. As he began to move slowly around the dead man, she caught her first glimpse of his face and for a moment she stared, fascinated. He reminded her of the Greek gods she’d had to study in a required mythology class. Unlike most of her peers who’d complained noisily about the class, she’d been fascinated with the stories. This man reminded her of Adonis. Of course, Adonis hadn’t been a god—just the human lover of two very powerful goddesses, Persephone and Aphrodite, who’d fought over him constantly. She’d found the story intriguing, but personally, she’d yet to meet a man worth fighting another woman for.
J.C. gave herself a mental shake. This man might not be Snake Eyes, but he might very well be the man who’d fired those other shots she’d heard. He was certainly tough enough looking. His nose wasn’t quite straight, and taking in the sharp slash of cheekbone and the strong line of his jaw, she thought of a warrior—the kind of man who would lead armies into war…and win. This didn’t at all explain why she had the oddest urge to touch his face—to feel the planes and angles beneath her hands.
What was up with that, she thought with a frown. Warriors had never been her type.
But then when it came to men, she really hadn’t had much experience determining her type. The kind of men her dad and stepmom wanted her to date might as well be clones of each other, successful young metro males with the right kind of family backgrounds. She found them almost as boring as the temperamental prima donnas she’d met when she’d trained at the American Culinary Institute.
The man in front of her had circled the body so that he was standing with his back to her again, and she caught herself noticing the way his threadbare jeans molded his butt. Good Lord, she wanted to touch that, too.
Whoa! J.C. reined in her thoughts again. A vivid imagination had always plagued her as a child, but she’d never reacted in quite this physical a way to a man before. Just looking at him made her palms itch.
For the first time, she noticed the gun and her throat went dry. It was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, right above his exceptional-looking—
Stop it, she scolded herself. She could very well be looking at a killer. A ruthless, cold-blooded killer.
In that very instant, he whirled on her and she found herself looking down the barrel of a very big gun.
“Open the door slowly and keep your hands where I can see them. Don’t make me shoot you.”
3
“WHO IN THE HELL are you?” Nik asked as the tiny redhead stepped out of the cupboard.
“Who are you?” she countered.
“I’m a cop, so I get to ask the questions.” She was such a little pip-squeak that he couldn’t imagine that she’d played a part in the carnage in the church, but his thumbs had prickled again the moment he’d stepped back into the sacristy. And it didn’t sit well with him that it had taken him so long to sense her presence in that cupboard.
“Who
