before, there had been only darkness. As he struggled, he had the irresistible urge to throw himself into the nearest steaming hot shower to wash away the filth that seemed crusted, invisible, to his skin.
Grabbing blindly, he found his firearm and attempted to stand. He lifted his weapon, but just as Mac’s had, the gun shot out of his grip, landing in the hands of a regal, dark-haired woman dressed entirely in purple. She had materialized directly in his path.
“I mean you no harm,” she said calmly.
Rick threw himself back against the elevator doors. “What just happened to me? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Regina St. Lyon, Lilith’s sister and Guardian of Witches. Josie called me. I’m here to help.”
She spun away from Rick and immediately slid to the floor beside Lilith and Mac.
“What’s wrong with her?” Mac asked.
Regina passed her hand over Lilith’s face. “She’s unconscious. I believe she overloaded psychically when she touched the warlock. Take her out of here, Mac. Get her someplace safe.”
“But what about—” said Rick.
Regina stood. “I’ll take care of this situation, Detective, but the evil vibrations still linger here. She needs a healing place. Please.”
Mac scooped Lilith into his arms and dashed toward the elevator. Rick pushed the button. The doors swung immediately open.
“Help her,” Mac said, nodding his head toward Regina. “She’ll need you to fix this.”
The doors closed and Rick turned to see Regina surveying the two dead bodies, shattered glass and scorch marks in the hallway with all the calculated coolness of a well-trained crime-scene analyst. He gasped, suddenly realizing he hadn’t taken in enough oxygen. Stars shot through his vision, and he had to grasp the wall to keep from stumbling.
When he righted himself, he caught Regina staring at him with eyes the color of purple gemstones.
“Tell me what happened here,” she demanded.
Her superior tone snapped him out of his fugue, but he had no doubt that she was one of them. Not human. Not normal. “Two people died,” he answered curtly.
She arched a careless brow. “I observed as much. But I need you to point to the evidence that proves how they died.”
Clearly, she had no idea that he’d been attacked seconds before her arrival by a shadow that had emerged from the dead mayor’s body. And he wasn’t about to tell her. Had he imagined the whole episode? Had the connection with Lilith cost him his sanity? He’d have suspected Regina, too, was a figment of his imagination if Mac hadn’t just spoken with her seconds before.
“Why?” he asked, anticipating an answer he didn’t want to hear.
“Do you really need for me to tell you?”
He was a cop. He had to think like a cop. Assess the crime scene. Catalogue the evidence. Formulate a working theory that could be backed up by proof.
Her gaze flicked toward the elevator doors, where Mac and Lilith had just escaped. Mac and Lilith, who would, from the evidence he observed and what he’d seen with his own eyes, be charged if not convicted of a double murder.
Unless he told Regina what she needed to know.
Unless he ignored what had just happened and denied the moral path he’d followed since birth.
Something unexplainable had occurred here. Something evil. Something wicked. But mostly, something unjust. He couldn’t allow Mac and Lilith to pay the price. He did as she asked and told her all that he had seen and heard. Then, once she was satisfied that she understood the full breadth of the situation, Regina asked Rick one last question.
“So how do we ensure that neither my sister nor Mac is charged with murder?”
Rick eyed her with a loathing he had not felt in years. She was asking him to help her cover up a crime. It went against everything he’d ever believed in, even before he joined the police force. Justice wasn’t supposed to work this way. Was it?
“First,” he answered, his chest cracking open with each syllable he uttered, “we get rid of their fingerprints.”
2
Six months later…
THERE WAS A TIME when sneaking off to a hotel room with Rick Fernandez had been Josie’s ultimate fantasy. She’d spent hours in bed at night, mulling over every detail, imagining every moment. She’d fill the luxury suite of a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan with candles of her own design—candles that would enhance their senses. The strawberries and chocolate she’d order from room service would burst with sweet silkiness in their mouths, a prelude to the sugared flavor of slow, intense kisses. The music she’d tune on the suite’s high-definition stereo would block out any sounds of the city below. She had even gone to Victoria’s Secret at Water Tower Place and imagined exactly which silk panty or satin bra would drive Rick utterly mad with desire.
Staring up at the dive motel on the dark edge of East Harlem in New York City, she wondered how her sexual fantasy had turned into such a nightmare.
Behind her, men in tattered clothes and smelling strongly of unwashed skin, car exhaust and cheap whiskey, accosted a pair of prostitutes tottering past on acrylic heels. The women ignored the catcalls, but gave Josie a disapproving once-over as they sidled by. Josie glanced down at her own attire—snug but comfortable jeans, twin tank tops and a sleek leather jacket that worked fine to ward off the occasional chill in the unusually warm February air. She was here for seduction, yes, but she was not competing with the area’s working girls. She was here for one man and one man only.
Rick.
She’d staked out the hotel earlier. After months of following his ghostlike trail, she’d spotted him just before dawn and had followed him here. One bribe later and she’d acquired the number to his hotel room. She had to hope and pray that while she’d formulated her plan, he hadn’t left. Holding tight to a can of pepper spray in her pocket, she slipped into the alley and, once certain no one was around, jimmied the side door so she could enter without alerting anyone in the lobby. In the minutes just before nightfall, the place was fairly deserted. The hookers hadn’t yet shown up with their johns and the drug addicts weren’t yet sober enough to go out to find their next fix.
But Rick was here. He had to be. She’d been searching for months, ever since he’d disappeared the night Lilith and Mac had been attacked by the mayor. She’d heard from him only once, in a note she’d found hidden in the cash register at her shop, telling her goodbye.
The fact that he thought she’d leave matters alone on account of the contents of one scribbled note verified how little he knew her. Something had happened that night—something neither Mac nor Lilith nor Regina, the Guardian of Witches who had approved Josie’s search, knew about. Something that had sent Rick deep underground.
She’d encouraged him to help Mac and Lilith that night. She couldn’t help bearing some of the responsibility for the aftermath. But that wasn’t why she was here. The drive to find Rick after he’d gone missing stemmed from emotions
