His chin was on her shoulder. He could see himself in the broken mirror. With the swelling and bruising and bleeding, he looked like a freak from a horror movie. Abby Lowell’s attention had gone from him to the message on the glass. The red lipstick had smeared on the word
“I didn’t put that there,” Jace said. “I didn’t get a look at the guy who did, but I swear it wasn’t me.”
She had gone still in his arms. He loosened his hold on her slightly.
“You won’t scream?” he asked. “I’ll take my hand away if you promise you won’t scream.”
She nodded her head. Slowly, Jace took his hand away from her mouth. She didn’t scream, didn’t move. He loosened his hold across her stomach, stepped back a couple of inches so that she was no longer pressed against the sink, but he could pin her there again if she tried to bolt.
“Who are you?” she asked, still watching him in the broken mirror.
“I knew your father.”
“How? Were you a client?”
“I did some work for him once in a while.”
“What kind of work?”
“That’s not important.”
“It is to me,” she said. “How do I know you didn’t kill him? How do I know you didn’t do this to my home?”
“And then beat myself into a stupor?” Jace said. “How did I manage that?”
“Maybe Lenny did that to you before you killed him.”
“And I’m still bleeding? Maybe if I’m a hemophiliac.”
“How do I know you didn’t kill him?” she said again. “And now you’re here to kill me.”
“Why would I want you dead? Why would anyone want you dead?”
“I don’t know. One minute my life was normal, and the next my father is dead, and I’m being questioned by detectives, and having to make funeral arrangements, and now this,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried to steel herself against the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.
“I know,” Jace said softly. “I know.”
She twisted around to face him. They stood as close as lovers sharing a secret. He could smell her perfume, something soft and musky. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“I know he was killed,” Jace said. “I read in the paper you found his body.”
“That’s not true. I don’t know how that got in there.”
“They seemed to know a lot about you.”
She looked away, upset by the idea. “I wasn’t there. Not until . . . after.”
“So you didn’t see anyone leaving the scene?”
“No. The police were there by the time I got there. Why would you want to know that? Do you have some idea who killed him?”
Jace shook his head, though in his memory the dark sedan slid past him, and he saw the stone-faced guy behind the wheel. “No. Do you?”
“I was told it was a robbery.”
“What about this place?” he asked. “The perpetrator of a random crime kills your father, then seeks you out to rob you and leave a death threat on your mirror? That’s pretty far-fetched. I’d say somebody was looking for something here. Do you know what?”
“I can’t imagine,” she said, watching him like a poker player. “Do you know?”
“Was anything missing from Lenny’s office?”
“Money. I don’t know how much. There was money in the safe. He was waiting for a bike messenger last night. The police think the messenger did it. Killed Lenny, took the money, and skipped town.”
“Doesn’t look to me like the killer skipped town,” Jace said.
“Maybe it wasn’t the killer who did this. Maybe this was just a thief.”
“And why would a common thief write that on your mirror?” he asked. “‘Next you die.’ It would be a pretty amazing coincidence if the night after your dad was murdered, an unrelated serial killer just happened to single you out to be his next victim.”
Abby Lowell put her hands over her face, rubbing at the tension, trailing her manicured fingers down her throat as she tipped her head back and sighed. “I need to sit down.”
Jace didn’t stop her as she slipped past him to sit on the edge of the bathtub. He lowered himself onto the closed toilet. He wanted to lie down. His head felt like someone was hitting him over and over with a lead pipe. He raised a hand to his face to check for bleeding.
“Who are you?” she asked again. “Why would you come here? I don’t know you. You’re not the usual sort Lenny did business with. Even if you were, why would you come to me? Why is this any of your business?”
Jace studied her for a moment. She sat with her back straight and her legs crossed, elegant and ladylike. How the hell had Lenny ever managed to produce a daughter like this? Maybe she was adopted.
“You haven’t answered my questions,” she said.
She tilted her head, dark hair spilling from behind her ear like a curtain. She pushed it back and looked at him, sort of up-from-under. Sexy.
“If you know something about Lenny’s death,” she said, “you should go to the cops. Ask for Detective Parker. If you know something about why this unknown assailant broke into my apartment, you should go to the cops. You can use my phone,” she offered. “Or I can make the call.”
Jace glanced away. She was cornering him. He stayed cool. “I’m not interested in talking to cops.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Do you know what your father was involved in?”
“I didn’t know he was involved in anything.”
“Someone thinks you do,” Jace said, looking at the mirror. “Someone thinks if they didn’t get what they wanted from your father, then you must have it.”
“Why don’t you want to talk to the police?” she asked. “If you aren’t involved in something yourself. If you don’t know anything about it, why are you asking all these questions?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Because you know something,” she said, standing. She was getting angry, agitated. She paced a couple of steps one way, then the other. “And the only way you could know something is if you’re involved.”
“Someone tried to kill me last night,” Jace said, coming to his feet as his own anger bubbled up. “That’s what I know. I was doing something for your father, and someone tried to kill me. And on my way back to ask Lenny what the fuck he’d gotten me into, I found out he was dead. I think that gives me a right to be interested, don’t you?”
“You’re him, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re the bike messenger.”
In a heartbeat she was out the door, yanking it shut behind her. Jace bolted, flinging the door back and running after her.
She grabbed a portable phone on her way toward the door, then stumbled over books that had been flung to the floor in the ransacking.
Jace lunged at her, knocking her down, landing on top of her. She cried out for help, and twisted beneath him enough so that she could swing at him with the phone. She landed a glancing blow off his right eyebrow. Stars burst before his eyes. He blocked a second blow, and tried to knock the phone out of her hand.
“Goddammit, stop fighting!” he growled. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
“What the hell’s going on up there?” a male voice called from somewhere outside the apartment.
Abby started to shout again for help. Jace clamped a hand over her mouth. Footsteps sounded on the stairs in the hall.
“Miss Lowell? Are you all right?”
She twisted her head to the side to slip his hold, and bit down hard on a finger. Jace yanked his hand back and she shouted “No!” before he could cover her mouth again.
Out in the hall the man shouted to someone else, “Call 911!”
“Shit!”
