“Been there, done that?”
A sliver of old guilt embedded itself in his gut. “Almost been there, almost done that.”
Her eyes narrowed, as if his response intrigued her. But to his relief she didn’t pursue the topic, asking instead, “Does your friend, Frank, know you’re looking into these murders?”
“Does now,” Daniel admitted. “Probably going to have to go official now, see if I can talk someone at the Birmingham P.D. into letting me in on the case.”
“You don’t like going through channels?”
He met her curious gaze. “They can be inhibiting.”
She cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You were hunting for him that night in the bar, weren’t you?”
He sat across the table from her. “So were you.”
She looked down at her clasped hands and didn’t reply.
“Weren’t you?” he prodded.
“I just wanted to get out and mingle.”
He shook his head. “But you weren’t mingling. You were watching. You were looking for Orion.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Orion?”
“That’s what I call him.”
“The hunter?” She gave him a look. “A bit cliche.”
He shrugged, a little annoyed. What did she know about serial killers? “It fits.”
“How many are there?” Rose asked.
He cut his eyes at her. “Murders?”
“You said he didn’t start here in Birmingham. How many other women has he killed?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Ballpark figure.”
He sighed. “At least twenty connected by signature and modus operandi. I’m pretty sure there are more.”
“Twenty?” She looked ill.
“That I know of.”
Her expression darkened. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Immerse yourself in so much violence and death.” She turned her face away from him, her profile distant. “I mean, you seek it out, don’t you? To write about it?”
“To prevent it,” he said softly. “I want to find Orion and stop him before he kills anyone else.”
She didn’t respond right away, giving him time to wonder why he had opened up to her like that. He tended to keep his own counsel about the cases he studied and especially about his own motivations. He tried to be clinical and objective, to see the crimes as puzzles to be solved rather than real lives shattered and destroyed. But at its core, what he did was about stopping very bad men from doing more evil.
Men like Orion.
That’s why he was here-wasn’t it?-when every instinct he had was screaming at him that Rose Browning was dangerous to him on a lot of different levels. No matter how attractive he found her, no matter how much he wanted to scoop her up out of her chair, take her up to her bedroom and finish what they’d started the night before, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Rose knew more about Orion than she was admitting.
“I can’t stop wondering why you were at Alice’s apartment that morning.” He leaned toward her. “Melissa said you met Alice only the night before. Why would you go to her apartment the next morning?”
Her expression shuttered. “I told you, I called her workplace and she wasn’t there.”
“And you just offered to go to a virtual stranger’s apartment to check on her?” Daniel shook his head, conviction tightening his gut. “You already knew something had happened to her, didn’t you?”
“Her employee seemed upset on the phone. It wasn’t far to Alice’s apartment, so I went to check.”
“Very altruistic.”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“You were hunting Orion in the bar. Looking for him at the other bar, where you met Alice. What do you know about him?”
Her eyelids flickered, but she didn’t respond. He stood, rounding the table to her side. She looked up at him, fear and something else in her eyes.
Something that looked a lot like guilt.
Daniel’s stomach knotted. “Who is he, Rose?”
“I don’t know.”
He clenched his fists and crowded her, his voice hardening. “I don’t believe you.”
The stricken look on her face caught him off guard. He stepped back, bumping into the chair. It banged to the floor, making Rose flinch.
Daniel picked the chair up, surprised to find his hands shaking. He wasn’t prone to anger, especially not while interviewing suspects. He was the master of control. The one who manipulated situations and events, not the other way around.
Yet, here he was, on the verge of putting his fist through the nearest wall.
He needed to get out of here. Get some air. Some perspective. “I have to go.”
She nodded, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Yeah.”
She walked with him as far as the living room and stopped, letting him cross to the front door alone. He opened the door and turned to look at her. She stood with arms folded across her stomach, her gaze unreadable.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“I know.” Her soft reply had a plaintive edge that softened his anger.
Back in his Jeep, Daniel closed his eyes and laid his head back on the headrest. But he couldn’t get Rose’s tear-bright eyes out of his mind.
Or the look of guilt on her face when he’d told her he didn’t believe her.
He’d practically accused her of knowing who Orion was-yet if she knew, why had she been bar-crawling in search of him? And if she knew who the killer was and how he operated, why would she have gone to Alice Donovan’s house looking for her? Orion never killed his victims at home and he never dumped them where they lived.
So she didn’t know Orion. But she knew something.
What was she hiding?
ROSE ARRIVED at Bella a little after two, still reeling from her confrontation with Daniel. He didn’t trust her, and who could blame him? She
Bella Charmaigne met her at the door with a long-suffering smile. “Ms. Bannerman’s already here. She brought her gown so that she could see how the veils looked with it.” She motioned for Rose to take a seat outside the dressing area.
A moment later Melissa emerged from the dressing room on a cloud of snowy silk and lace. Rose lifted her gaze to Melissa’s smiling face. Her heart plummeted.
Shimmery gashes wept crimson over Melissa’s face.
Rose swallowed convulsively, fighting for control.
Melissa modeled the gauzy drape, turning to look at herself from all angles in the bank of full-length mirrors. “It matches my dress perfectly.” She lifted the long silk skirt of the wedding gown and waved it gently, admiring the glossy ripple of fabric. Rose looked down at her hands, noting the pasty whiteness of her tightly clenched knuckles.
“Well?” There was an edginess to Melissa’s voice, an imperious tone that caught Rose off guard. Rose forced herself to look up.
“Do you like the veil or not?” Melissa’s choice of words popped a big bubble of hysteria in Rose’s stomach. Adrenaline spilled out, sending wild tremors through her nervous system.
She pushed to her feet. “Melissa, you’ve got to change and come with me.”
Melissa’s face crinkled with surprise. “Where?”
“Somewhere private.” She wasn’t handling the situation well, but she didn’t know what to say, how to explain.
