The Perfect Stranger (13 page)

If, however, he did send the note and she didn’t mention it to him, then it was yet another of his tests that she’d failed. And that, she figured, was probably for the best.

Realizing she was stalling, Saura straightened her shoulders and breezed across the room. All she had to do was open the door.

I
t wasn’t that big of a deal. And yet as Saura reached for the knob, that primal place that had taken over after Adrian’s death warned that she was walking into more than just the adjacent room.

“What took you—” John’s gruff words died the second their eyes met. Dressed in all black he looked more like a musician than a cop, except his hair was cut far too short. But the hint of a goatee at his chin was right, as was the small gold hoop in his left ear. He’d not been wearing that when he arrived.

And his eyes, the deep olive glimmered with an edginess she’d not seen before, as if all throttles were go, but he wore lead boots that would not let him move.

“John—”
she said, because she couldn’t just stand there while he watched her as if he expected her to pull a gun any minute and mow him down. “Can you get this for me?” Lifting the hair from her shoulders, she turned to reveal the zipper caught a few inches below her neck.

A rough sound broke from his throat as she felt his hands, so large and warm against her back. The shiver was immediate, the hazy flash from six weeks before, when he’d put his hands to her body, when he’d undressed her, then made her forget.

Now, dear God, he made her remember.

“Thank you,” she said the second she felt the zipper slide into place. Briskly she released her hair and started toward the kitchen. “Nathan should be here soon—”

“Saura.”

The sound of her name on his voice slipped like a silken ribbon through her chest, and tightened. She made herself turn, made herself breathe even as she saw him crossing toward her. Sometimes she forgot how big he was, how dominating his presence could be. He was so adept at slipping in and out of the shadows.

All part of the game, she knew. All part of the act. Detective John D’Ambrosia could be anyone, anything. Best friend or worst enemy, junkie or hero, loner or lover. It all depended upon the game, and the role.

Closing in on her, he stopped so close she had to lift her eyes to see his. “Put this on,” he said, handing her a small black box she hadn’t noticed before.

She took it and lifted the lid, felt her breath catch at the sight of the black cameo.

“For tonight,” he said with no inflection, as if he hadn’t just given her an exquisite piece of jewelry. She watched him slide a finger beneath the delicate silver chain, and again lifted her hair as he stepped behind her and draped the necklace around her neck. But she did not understand.

They’d parted tersely the night before. Every time they’d spoken today, their words had been careful and measured. From the moment he’d walked into her fake apartment, they’d been treating each other with strained politeness.

That he would give her a necklace—

She wasn’t sure what made her look. Curiosity, perhaps. A penchant for self-torture. But as he fumbled with the clasp, she glanced toward the beveled mirror hanging over the sofa, and watched. Lovers, the casual observer would think. Man and woman standing intimately close, his head bowed as he fastened a necklace around her neck. All she had to do was turn, and she would be in his arms.

But Saura saw only strangers. She was tall, but the woman in the mirror, the woman dressed for romance, looked small and vulnerable, fragile, because of the man, the warm possessiveness of his hands against her nape. He towered over her, grim and isolated even as he touched her.

The awkward intimacy whispered through her, driving home the reality that no matter how much she didn’t want to, she felt. The roughness of his hands against her shoulders and the warmth of his breath against her skin. She even felt the frustration that coiled through him and the slow burn of desire in his eyes, the unmistakable cost of his restraint.

Most men she knew, when they saw something they wanted, they went after it. But not John. The more he wanted, she realized, the more he denied.

“I can do it.” She lifted her hands to his and took the ends of the necklace, brought them together and easily secured the clasp.

She expected him to bark a gruff comment and step away. He didn’t. In the mirror she saw his hands smooth her hair into place. Inside, she felt the warmth of his touch the second his palms flattened along her shoulders.

Through the mirror, his eyes found hers. “There’s a chip in the pendant—a tracking device.”

Of course. It made sense. They had a job to do. Despite the fact he’d be able to hear every word, every breath, between her and Lambert, John wasn’t thrilled about using her as bait.

“No matter where you go,” he was saying, “as long as you wear the necklace, I’ll know.”

And he would be there. Listening. Waiting. It would have been easy for the words, the truth behind them, to seduce. Instead they scraped. Because despite the way he kept his hands on her body, it was the cop who spoke, who reviewed the plan of action.

Not the man making a promise.

Relief, she told herself. That’s all she could allow herself to feel. She didn’t want a man making promises to her. She didn’t want promises, period.

Even as she did.

The realization stunned.

“If that makes you feel better,” she said, softer than she’d intended.

“Nothing about this makes me feel better,” John said, and then he was turning her in his arms, even as he kept his hands on her shoulders. His eyes glowed with an intensity that scorched clear to the bone. “You don’t have to do this, you know that, don’t you? You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. There’s no one keeping score.”

“This isn’t about keeping score.”

“The hell it’s not,” he said. “Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’ve designed this elaborate test for yourself, as if somehow you actually believe your future really depends upon finding Alec’s killer.”

She stiffened. “He was my friend—”

“You think this is what he would want?” he bit out. “Alec, your friend, one of the only goddamn men I ever knew who opened the door for a woman every damn time? You think he would want you presenting yourself like some kind of offering to Nathan Lambert? A man he despised? You think he would want you to let that man touch you, kiss you—”

“Stop it!” Twisting from his grip, she stepped away. “Are you sure it’s Alec you’re talking about?” she asked with the same deadly quiet her brother used when moving in for the kill. “Or yourself?”

His nostrils flared. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That would make it easier, if this was about me and not the fact that when Adrian died, part of you died, too. Do you really think this is the answer? Risking your own life? Do you think that’s how—”

Everything about him went still. He stood there dressed in black, with his face set in stone and his eyes staring at her as if seeing her for the first time—and not liking what he saw.

Saura squared her shoulders, but could do nothing about the silence pouring in from all directions, screaming and swirling and damning…

“My God.
Cain was right.
”

The words were soft and horrified, and they pierced her defensiveness like anger never could. “Right about what?”

John studied her. She half expected him to break into the sign of the cross. “That you have a death wish.”

She’d been struck before. By a boy in the third grade, a drunk jock in high school who thought he could use force to gain submission, then later, as
Femme de la Nuit,
by a junkie who thought he could teach her a lesson. Each time a hand had been used, and each time there’d been a sting, followed by a bruise. And each time she’d come back swinging with a strike of her own.

Now she only felt the room shift around her.

A death wish.

“Is that what this is all about?” he asked. He moved toward her again, and though she knew she should preserve the distance she’d deliberately put between them, she watched him close in on her. “The bullet that killed your fiancé only wounded you,” he said, and despite his proximity, his voice came at her through a chasm of space and time. “And now you need someone else to finish the job.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “No,” she said. Or maybe she breathed it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Couldn’t. Know.

“Don’t I?” He lifted a hand to touch her. But she didn’t feel. Anything. Anywhere. Not his hand against her face or his leg against hers. Not even inside, where his words kept slicing. “Just think, if something goes wrong and Lambert catches on to you, silences you, then it will be over, won’t it?” His hand slid down her neck. “You won’t have to feel anymore. You won’t have to hurt.”

No, she wanted to say. No, she wanted to believe. But the word wouldn’t form, and the truth merged with the lie.

“And then,” he added so quietly she had to strain to hear him, “you’ll be back with the man you love.”

“No.” This time she found voice, and this time she moved. She lifted a hand and let her thumb slide along his jaw. “That’s not how it is.” Not anymore. “I don’t want—”

The knock at the door jackhammered through her. She felt her eyes widen as she looked up at John, saw the slow burn in his.

Another knock. Followed by a voice. “Dawn?”

But she couldn’t look away from John. Couldn’t stop touching him. He still had his hand curved around her neck with a possessiveness that made her bleed in places she’d never thought to bleed again.

Never wanted to bleed again.

Another knock. Harder.

“Go,” John said, and against the hoarseness of his voice, her throat tightened. He slid his hand to her shoulder and spun her toward the door. “Lambert is waiting.”

She didn’t want to. God, she didn’t want to walk away from him, to Nathan. Not at that moment. She didn’t want to let another man touch her, another man—

“Coming…” Because she had to, she crossed to a small table and swept up her purse, headed for the door. But then she turned and John was there. And before she could even lift her face, his mouth was on hers.

“Dawn, darling? Is everything okay?”

John jerked away from her, but his eyes didn’t stop glittering. “I’ll be listening.” His voice was the one that permeated her dreams. “I’ll be there.”

“I know,” she whispered.

And then he was gone, striding to the utility room adjacent to the kitchen.

Feeling a steel come over her, Saura put a hand to the knob and opened the door. “Nathan,” she said, accepting both his handful of white orchids, and his kiss to her cheek. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“You’re shivering.”

“Just a bit chilly. I didn’t realize we’d be outside.”

“Here, take my jacket.” Silence. A soft brushing sound. “There—better?”

“Yes, much. Thank you.”

“No, I am the one who should be thanking you for being such a good sport. I know you were looking forward to the play.”

“Things come up. I understand.”

So did John. And he’d stake his life on the fact Nathan Lambert did not have a headache. His abrupt decision to bypass the off-Broadway production had nothing to do with how he felt, and everything to do with what he wanted.

“The pool is lovely,” Saura said, and from a catering van one block away, John could see them, Saura and Lambert, strolling among the concrete gods that watched over his Roman-inspired pool.

“We can go inside if you like,” Lambert surprised John by saying. But then the other shoe dropped. “Or perhaps I can tempt you with a soak in the hot tub.”

He could almost hear Saura’s startled smile. “I don’t have a suit.”

John very seriously doubted that mattered to Lambert.

“I keep several on hand,” the other man said, “for occasions such as this. Let me—” The words stopped, replaced by the ringing of a cell phone. “I am sorry,” he said, as he had four other times throughout the evening. “I need to take this.”

“Of course,” Saura said. Then silence, and he knew Lambert had walked away to take a call.

Something was so up. “Time to say good-night,” he whispered into a small microphone. Courtesy of modern technology, the receiver was even smaller, tucked into her ear and concealed by thick auburn hair.

“Not yet.” Her quiet words confirmed his suspicions—Lambert had moved away. “I saw something in his study. I need to—”

“No.” It was as simple as that. “Not tonight.”

“Just a little bit longer,” she said. “He’s…not himself. I really think he doesn’t feel good.”

Like hell. “Saura, I mean it—”

“Nathan.”
He hated the way she said the other man’s name, all thick and warm and concerned. “Everything okay?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Maybe we should go inside. You look a little…distracted.”

John stared into the darkness beyond the utilitarian van, cataloged every reason he should stay exactly where he was and not swing open the van door and—

And put Saura in even more danger.

“Walk with me,” Lambert said. Then silence, and again John’s imagination supplied what his eyes did not, the sight of Saura in her skimpy black dress with Lambert’s white tuxedo jacket hanging from her shoulders, walking through the moonlight. Tucked inside a trail of azaleas, small solar lights led toward a gazebo—

“It’s lovely out here,” Saura commented, doing as John had instructed and narrating their movements.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Lambert said quietly. “I’m afraid I don’t spend much time in the gardens anymore.”

Why?
That was the right question. John knew that, knew that Saura did, too. Anything to get the man talking, keep him talking, nudge him into lowering his guard. But only silence crackled through the receiver. John clenched his jaw and waited, felt his heart start to pound.

Patience wasn’t the problem. When he needed to, he possessed infinite patience. On a stakeout. In an interrogation. When a woman with the saddest eyes he’d ever seen watched him from across a room.

When she lay on top of him, naked and willing and—

Patience wasn’t the problem. But stupidity was. Inaction. He’d never been able to sit through horror flicks, didn’t know how to sit there in the darkness and wait for the axe to fall or knife to flash, when he saw what was about to happen.

“Nathan?” The edge of concern to Saura’s voice made John sit straighter. “What is it? Did I say something to upset you?”