No such luck. Samantha came up beside her and draped her slender arm over Sidney’s shoulder, striking a sultry pose. “Good morning,” she said, her electric-blue eyes raking over Marc’s muscular physique. Her mascara was smudged and her hair a riot of blond tangles, but Samantha made a hangover look like a million bucks. The hot-pink panties and matching lace camisole she was wearing didn’t hurt.
Marc looked, proving himself a red-blooded man, and let his gaze linger, proving himself a shallow, horny bastard.
“This must be the handsome investigator you told me about,” Samantha said.
Sidney felt her face grow warm. Why did her sister always insist on embarrassing her? “Do you want to come in and wait?” she asked Marc. “I’m not ready.”
He ogled Samantha one more time. “Sure.”
Sidney stormed away, wishing a lifetime of miseries on them both. She was staring at her pathetic, puffy-eyed reflection over the bathroom sink when Samantha hurried in, flapping her hands with excitement. “Oh, honey, you’ve got to get with him.”
Sidney splashed cold water on her face. “Why?”
“So you can tell me if he’s any good.”
She began brushing her teeth vigorously. “Why don’t you give him a test run yourself and leave me out of it?”
“Don’t be so negative, darling. Men hate it.”
Affecting total disinterest, Sidney shouldered past her. In the dryer, the only clothes she could find were a pair of blue terry-cloth shorts she sometimes used as pajamas. She pulled them on with a baggy T-shirt and stepped into her river-stained tennis shoes.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Samantha was horrified.
“Why don’t I just parade around in see-through lingerie, like you?”
“Oh my God,” she said, clapping a hand over her mouth.
“You’re jealous.”
Sidney glared her sister into silence, motioning toward the living room.
“He went outside to make a phone call,” Samantha explained.
“He couldn’t have been less interested in me.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it, Sid. I think he really likes you.”
Sidney snorted her disbelief. Maybe Marc was pretending to be her boyfriend again, like last night. She was too tired to figure out what game he was playing. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” she said to Samantha. “Get some more sleep.”
In his car, moments later, she was uncomfortably aware of his presence, her appearance, the amount of thigh exposed by her brief shorts and the feel of her bare skin against his all-leather interior. For some reason, whenever she was with him her physical reactions went haywire, while her other senses dulled. Last night, he’d put his hands all over her face. He’d brushed his lips over hers. And yet, the only feelings she’d experienced were her own.
Was animal attraction the cure for her condition?
Closing her eyes, she replayed his kiss in her mind, unable to stop torturing herself with the memory.
“About last night,” he began, pulling at his collar. “I was thinking I could have handled things differently.”
She hazarded a glance at him. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted to talk with Greg privately, so I misrepresented our…relationship, and put my investigation above your feelings. You can still press charges, of course.”
“No,” she said quickly, flushing at the thought of complaining to his superiors about a harmless little kiss.
“I should have offered you that option last night. It was selfish.”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I hardly felt it.”
“Hardly felt what?”
“Your…” She trailed off, seeing his confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You, pressing charges against Greg.”
“Oh. Right.”
“What were you talking about?” His lips curved into a slight smile. “Me kissing you?”
She felt her cheeks heat even more.
He arched a brow. “Hardly felt it, did you? Hmm.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Guajome Lake.”
Those two words dispelled any romantic notions she’d been entertaining.
Guajome Lake was a small body of water along the eastern edge of Oceanside, close to Bonsall, where Sidney grew up. The lake was surrounded by a quiet camping area and RV park. A month ago, Anika Groene’s nude body had been found there, half-submerged, tangled in reeds.
As Marc pulled his car into the shaded parking area, Sidney felt mildly nauseous. She wished she’d eaten something this morning to settle her stomach, and was glad, at the same time, that she hadn’t.
“What do you want me to do?”
He shrugged, getting out of the car. They walked the perimeter of the lake with a flock of ducks waddling around their feet, changing the mood from macabre to bizarre. Sidney didn’t feel anything supernatural, but she hadn’t expected to. She didn’t get readings from the air, or the sky, or the soles of her shoes.
At a clearing along the shore, she stopped. It was a dry dirt bank, close to the road, and the kind of place where a person wouldn’t leave muddy footprints. “Was she found here?”
Instead of answering, he shoved his hands in his pockets, looking across the silent expanse of water.
“Hold my hand,” she requested.
His dark gaze searched her face, but he did as she asked. Closing her eyes in concentration, she grasped for an impression and got nothing more from him than she ever had. He put up a resistance around himself like a brick wall.
Sighing, she gave up on trying to read his thoughts. Instead she felt the warmth of his skin, the slightly rough texture of his palm, the banked strength in his hand.
“You weren’t here,” she said. “When they pulled her up.”
It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t bother to reply. He did meet her eyes, and for a second, the wall between them fell away.
Through him, she saw herself, not standing on the shore of Guajome Lake, but in the outdoor shower at her own home. With her head tilted back and her hands in her wet hair, every detail of her naked body was on provocative display.
She dropped his hand from hers like it had been burned. “You saw me in the shower,” she whispered. Not only had he been spying on her, but he’d been listening in. “You heard…” Shame and betrayal stabbed through her, as sharp as a knife. She pressed the back of her hand to her trembling mouth. “How could you do that?”
Guilt flashed in his eyes. “Sidney-”
With a muted cry, she turned and ran, almost losing her footing on the slippery, freshly watered grass on the hillside leading up to the women’s rest room. Inside, she locked herself in the last stall, pulse beating wildly in her throat, a cold sweat breaking out on her skin.
Night before last, he’d seen her naked. He’d heard her
She put her forehead against the stall door, unable to stifle a humiliated moan. The hand she’d felt on her pillow had been his. He’d been in her house. He’d violated her sanctuary.
Last night, he hadn’t knocked on her door because he’d been “in the neighborhood.” He’d been listening to her and Greg grapple on the living room couch.
She stood there for a few moments, writhing with mortification, blinking back angry tears. Although she wanted to hide forever, Sidney wasn’t a coward, so she squared her shoulders, lifted her wobbly chin and walked out of the stall to face him.
She paused at the sink with the intention of washing her hands, and maybe splashing a bit of water on her flushed cheeks.
When she reached out to turn on the faucet, her reflection in the stainless steel mirror faded. In its place, there was a strange man, his features gaunt and steeped in shadow…
