course.
In the blink of an eye, he traded his parents’ living room for a grungy downtown alley that smelled strongly of human waste. Shaking hands pointed a gun at his head. Red-rimmed eyes bulged at him.
“You want her to die,” Critch accused. He cocked the gun.
“Finally-finally, it’s all good, it’s all right, and you want to take her from me. To kill her because you can’t have her.”
Jacob had made the usual attempt to placate him. Why would he want Belinda dead? Someone might have threatened her life, but it hadn’t been him.
The quiet click had surprised him as much as it had startled Warren Critch. He hadn’t seen Romana slip into the alley. She’d moved with the shadows, used them, caught them both off guard.
“Put the gun down,” she’d ordered Critch from behind. “Toss it toward the trash cans.”
“He wants to kill my wife,” Critch had insisted, stiff-lipped. “I won’t let him do that.”
“Drop the gun,” Romana had repeated. Not once had her eyes flicked to Jacob’s face. “Do it, Critch. Now.”
Critch’s arms had trembled. He’d made a low, agonized sound. His entire body had seemed to vibrate. Then the sound had ended, and his weapon had clattered to the pavement.
“Kick it away,” Romana had instructed.
“Belinda told me she’s been threatened. I know they had lunch. They argued. Knight was angry with her. He wants to kill her.”
“It’s up to the police to investigate that allegation,” Romana had replied. “It’s not your job or your right to execute vigilante justice…”
The scene changed with an abrupt sideways slash.
Belinda Critch was dead, and Jacob was talking to his captain. The captain wanted answers he didn’t have. O’Keefe knew the truth about the blackouts, but for his partner’s sake he had kept silent.
They stood like the points of a triangle around the captain’s desk while Kermit sang a silly Christmas song in the background.
A hand touched Jacob’s arm. He whipped his head around. Romana stood behind him. She wore a white coat with a long red scarf.
“Look in the mirror,” she said.
He didn’t want to do it, but his eyes were drawn to the glass, magnet to metal. He saw his father’s face staring at him and felt hollow inside, like the void his mind had suddenly become.
Dropping his head back, he stared at the white ceiling tiles. He wasn’t his father, please, God, never his father, and yet his father was in him. Some of his father’s traits lived on through him. Romana needed to know that, to understand.
It was past time he told her the truth.
When he turned to her, she set her hands on his chest. Before he could speak, her eyes widened in alarm. He caught her arms, tried to keep her from falling. But it was too late. He could do nothing but watch in horrified disbelief as the tails of her red scarf turned to twin ribbons of blood.
And the light that was life drained out of her stunning winter-lake eyes.
JACOB SHOT UPRIGHT IN BED, again, pried his clenched teeth apart, again. It took several seconds for the worst of the nightmare to fade. Once it had, he reminded himself that these images came from him. From his very deep feelings of guilt.
An ambulance raced past on the street below. Horns blared as the rush hour began.
A shower helped, hot at first to relax his tight muscles, then cold to counter the effect Romana continued to have on him. She hadn’t been naked in his latest dream, but it made little difference. When he thought about her, his body reacted. He could only imagine what actually seeing her naked might do.
The phone rang while he brewed coffee. With his hair dripping and his mind distracted, he picked up.
“Knight.”
The response was immediate, whispered words that blew across his soul like an evil north wind.
“You’re a dead man, Detective Knight, at my whim. You and the exquisite Romana Grey. She won’t be so exquisite when I’m finished with her. In fact, she might not be exquisite already. I’m holding a sprig of mistletoe, Jacob. But do you think the leaves are on the sprig where they belong, or on the ground beside her?”
Chapter Nine
Romana leaned on the intercom button, counted to five and leaned on it again. As a rule, she found the theater where Jacob lived delightfully atmospheric, but tonight it felt plain old spooky. Even the little cherubs floating high on the ceiling seemed to be leering at her.
She checked her watch. He went on duty at nine. His truck was in the alley. The hood was hot, so he’d been out, but he was here now, and she was going to see him.
Finally, he responded. “Mick?”
Romana stepped in front of the camera. “No, it’s me. I can’t find Fitz. We were supposed to go shopping after she finished work, but she didn’t show. She always shows, Jacob, or calls to say why she can’t. It’s one of her best qualities. She never leaves me hanging.”
He said nothing, and she was just cranky enough to consider smashing the monitor.
“I’ve had a bad day, Knight,” she warned. “Please don’t choose tonight to go all moody and withdrawn on me.”
Five seconds passed, then ten. Romana zeroed in on the stairwell door. She was yanking on the handle when the elevator opened and Jacob emerged.
He strode right over to her, took her by the arms, jerked her up on her toes and kissed her. At least it resembled a kiss. In some ways, it felt more like an assault on her senses, but there was heat behind it and under that a measure of desperation that confused and unnerved her.
“What?” She dragged her mouth free. “Did something else happen?”
“Phone call.” Trapping her chin between his fingers and thumb, he examined her face.
“Uh, Jacob.” Closing her fingers around his wrist, Romana gave a subtle tug. “I wasn’t outside long enough to get frostbite if that’s what’s worrying you.”
Then she remembered what he’d said, and her heart jittered. “Did you hear from Fitz?”
“I heard from Critch.” Setting his forehead against hers, he closed his eyes. “He wanted me to think you might be dead, that he might have killed you. O’Keefe and I have half the Cincinnati force out searching for you. I checked the alley where you nailed Critch myself.”
Half the force? It was difficult to think past that, more difficult still to keep from wrapping herself around him. “You could have tried my cell phone. It’s always on.”
“Is it always charged?”
“Your point.” Then, recalling her reasons for being there, she snagged the sides of his jacket. “Jacob, I can’t find Fitz.” She shook him so hard his hair brushed her cheek. “I have to find her.”
“We’ll find her.” Jacob ran reassuring hands along her arms. “If Critch has her, we’ll get her back.”
Romana’s heart beat so fast it made her feel lightheaded. “He’ll hurt her, I know he will. If he hurt your neighbor, he’ll hurt Fitz.”
“Unless he doesn’t have her. Romana, she might have gone out with someone, spent the night with him.”
Romana had already considered the possibility. “I couldn’t get hold of Patrick,” she allowed. “And Fitz does have a thing for him.”
“What about Barret?”
“Ah, well.” She dropped her hands, fingers spread. “Different story there. Shera insists that James flew to Cleveland this morning. My sources at the airlines claim he’s not on any of their flight lists, so either he was traveling incognito or…”
“He didn’t go to Cleveland.”
She forced herself to relax, had to or she’d lose her ability to think. “The scuttlebutt at Barret Brown is that he has a mistress.”
