Blood Red

And still the spray fell around them.

He held her soaked, glistening body, smoothing back her hair, looking into her eyes.

He almost said the words he had said once before, what seemed like eons ago….

I love you.

But he held back. Instead he cupped her chin and stared at the beauty of her face, the fine lines of her profile sculpted by the water.

“We have to be more careful than ever,” he said softly.

She swallowed. “It’s my fault. And I was thinking…we should leave.”

He felt as if someone were squeezing his heart, but when he spoke, it wasn’t because he was afraid. It was because he couldn’t bear to let her go.

He spoke the truth.

“It won’t help if you leave,” he said wearily. “He’ll follow you.”

Fear lit her eyes, but she blinked it away quickly. “All right. But maybe Heidi and Deanna should go.”

Maybe they should, he thought. Except that once they were gone, there would be no Sean Canady, no Bobby Munro, no Stacey and no Maggie, no Big Jim, to keep them safe.

And now Jonas was in the mix, too.

“I’m afraid this has to be solved here, now, or else you’ll all be in danger for the rest of your lives,” he told her.

And it was the truth.

She lowered her eyes and nodded, her hair teasing his chest.

“I’m not lying just to keep you here,” he said softly.

“I know you’re not,” she told him. “So where do we go from here?”

“We find him. So you’re never in danger again.”

As he listened to the half-hysterical woman on the street, Sean Canady nodded politely and reminded himself that he had asked to be told when anything odd occurred.

“I’m telling you, the two of them fell from the fourth floor window,” she said indignantly. “It’s broken. Even a blind man can see that.”

The window was broken. That much was for sure. The hotel manager had told him that the room was registered to a Rene Smith. She had listed her address as New York City. Sean wasn’t from New York and hadn’t spent that much time in the Big Apple, but even he knew there was no such thing as 18th Avenue in Manhattan.

“They fell from the window—and got back up?” one of the detectives with Sean inquired skepticallly.

The woman, who was in her mid-sixties and wrapped in self-righteousness, looked at the officer and inhaled deeply. “I’m telling you what I saw,” she said. “With these two eyes.”

Sean lowered his head, wincing. The officer who’d spoken was Jerry Merchant. Night shift. Detective Jerry Merchant. This was really his case.

And he knew Jerry. Knew what Jerry was about to say.

“I’m sorry, but do you usually wear glasses?” Jerry asked politely.

Not unexpectedly, the woman exploded. “I wear glasses to read a menu, young man, not to see at a distance. I was right across the street. Over there. And I’m telling you that two people came flying out of that window. They hit the ground. Then the man took one of those construction beams and slammed it into the woman’s chest. I saw it.”

“You mean like that beam lying in the pile of soot on the sidewalk over there?” Jerry asked.

The woman pursed her lips. “Harry was right next to me. He saw it, too. Didn’t you, Harry?” She gave her husband a light smack in the arm with her handbag.

“Uh…” Harry said, looking at his wife and wincing. “I was concentrating on Harrah’s—that’s where we were headed. It’s our fortieth anniversary, right, Sonia?” He attempted a weak smile. If he’d wanted a happy anniversary, he wasn’t getting it now.

“Harry! How could you have missed it?” she demanded angrily.

“Honey, if you say they fell from the window, I know they did,” Harry said gallantly.

She sniffed. “They’re going to be pulling that girl out of the Mississippi, too, you mark my words.”

“Now, now, since she would have been dead if a two by four had gone through her chest, she’d have to be here, wouldn’t she? They won’t be pulling her out of the Mississippi. I’m sure of that,” Jerry said.

Sean knew that Jerry was right, but he was also feeling a fair amount of sympathy for Sonia, who had undoubtedly seen it all exactly the way she was telling it.

Which was unnerving. It looked like Mark was right. Stephan had brought an army.

“You have to find that man and arrest him,” Sonia said.

“You’ll describe him for us, right?” Jerry said.

He was humoring her, thank God, Sean thought.