So much for new beginnings. Back home, the reporters had left him alone. He’d been old news there.
“Beth, sorry, gotta go. I’ve given you everything I can think of to give you, and that should be plenty.”
“But, Rowan, Rowan, you don’t understand, I want it to be right, from your side—”
A massive surge of irritation welled within him. “You write whatever you feel you have to write,” he said, and hung up.
Sam took a deep breath. She smiled after a moment. There was nothing spooky about the house. She was making it up in her own mind. The house was beautiful. It had all come together now. The massive chandelier above her head was dazzling in the sunlight that filtered in from the long windows. The light fell against the majestic stairway, touched the paintings on the walls, highlighted the ages-old tile and marble accents on the floors. From where she stood, she could look up the graceful stairway, or to her right or left, to the living room with the grand fireplace and high ceilings, to the library. She knew the layout of the house; she’d been in it time and again.
Marnie’s excitement had been that of a child—yes, look at her new toy. It was magnificent.
Was there any way that Marnie could still be sleeping? Sam decided to call out again. “Marnie! Hey, Marnie! It’s Sam. Are you here?”
She should stop yelling. That was what was making her feel so funny. The sound of her voice was echoing hollowly through the house. She knew that it was empty.
She moved through the house, into the living room, then back through the foyer, and out to the back, the kitchen. She looked out at the patio, over the crystal-clear water of the pool, and on to the blue depths of the bay beyond it. A bright, perfect Saturday morning in May. Lots of boaters were out there. Sails rode the breeze. The water sparkled as if the sun had cast down a shimmering, jeweled carpet on it.
Sam slowly looked around the kitchen. There were no wineglasses left sitting on the counter, as if a date had come for her. Sam opened the refrigerator. Wineglasses and a bottle of 1980-something California Chablis waited on the middle shelf. There was also a tray of cheeses and vegetables in plastic wrap on a lower shelf. She had meant to entertain or so it seemed.
Sam turned around again, frowning. There was a servants stairway in a hall behind the kitchen. She started quickly up the steps, which reached the second level right by the guest wing. “Marnie?”
Silly. She knew Marnie wasn’t going to answer her now. So what did she think she was doing, snooping around her friend’s house?
Looking for clues as to where Marnie might be. No, just trying to reassure myself that Marnie is out somewhere and okay.
No sign of Marnie or anyone else in the guest rooms. Everything was perfect. Brand-new, smelling of fresh paint. Everything had a clean and almost too perfect look about it.
She came back out and looked down the hallway. Marnie’s room. If something had happened, she suddenly thought, it would have happened there.
“Oh, jeez, come on!” she chastised herself out loud. Nothing had happened. Marnie would show up any minute, and she might be angry at first that Sam was there, but then she would be all excited, thrilled that Sam was finally her audience for a tour through the almost absolutely completed renovation.
Smiling to herself, Sam started down the hallway. At Marnie’s door, she paused again, holding on to the door frame. She looked into the bedroom.
It was clean, neat as a pin. There wasn’t the slightest wrinkle in the Ralph Lauren spread that graced Marnie’s big bed. There wasn’t a bit of dust on the carpet, the least smudge on a wall. The place was perfectly clean. No sign of a struggle whatsoever.
She breathed, letting out a long sigh, unaware until she did so that she’d been holding her breath.
Yet just as she exhaled, she noted the dressing table.
Like everything else in the room, it was neat as a pin. Perfect—if you didn’t know Marnie. But she did know Marnie. Marnie was a fanatic, a perfectionist, in many ways. Nothing was ever out of order, not even her makeup. And though it was arranged as usual in perfect rows…
The beige lipstick didn’t line up with the beige nail polish.
“The Devil’s Own Red” nail polish was next to “Barely There” lipstick.
She frowned, shaking her head. No big thing—it was all still in perfect order. To most people. Except Marnie. Maybe Marnie had been in a hurry. Maybe she’d actually gotten so involved in what she was doing that she’d forgotten to be perfect.
Still frowning, Sam suddenly dropped down and looked under the bed. Nothing, not even a dust bunny.
She rose, then stared at the closet. She opened it. Already full. Marnie’s tailored work clothing, her wilder evening wear. Something really wild, Sam thought, curiously reaching out to touch the fabric of a risqué bra and panty set with spangles, sparkles, and fur. She couldn’t help a smile. Marnie did plan some wild dates. Yes, that she did. Well, in college she’d done some fairly wild things for income, Sam reminded herself. Then she realized she was intruding, looking through her friend’s closet, and she stepped back quickly, closing the door again.
She walked across to the windows, remembering how excited Marnie had been to explain the way that she would be able to see the sun coming up in the morning. It meant so much to her. Maybe Marnie made her feel guilty at times. She’d had such a normal life. She’d grown up in the house that was hers now—she’d been blessed with sunrises and sunsets all her life. It had been terrible when her father had died, a pain like the severing of her soul. He was a wonderful man, he’d have cut off his own arm rather than hurt her, he loved her mother, and he’d never raised a hand against either of them. After his death, learning to work with her mother had been therapy for them both. It had made them closer.
Marnie had never really known what it was to be loved unconditionally.
Staring out the window, Sam frowned suddenly, feeling a cold tension seize her. Why? Something…
A sound.
Yes. She thought she’d heard a sound from downstairs.
“Ma—”
She opened her mouth to call out, then closed it quickly. Some sixth sense warned her that it wasn’t Marnie who had walked into the house.
She held dead still. Listening.
Not a sound.
She waited. Looking down, she realized that her fingers were curled hard over the tiled windowsill. She made a point of relaxing them.
Still nothing. She had imagined it.
Then she heard something again. At least she thought she did. A sound, coming, fading, gone. What had it been? A creaking?
And then she realized…
Someone was coming up the stairs.
Someone moving with such tremendous silence on purpose. Furtive.
Certainly not Marnie.
Sam started to rush out into the hall. Then she realized that if a burglar was in the house, she would run right into him. She stood frozen. No, she couldn’t go running into the hall. So where? The balcony? No, someone could just look out… The closet.
He was coming closer. Coming straight for Marnie’s bedroom.
She spun around, tried to silently open Marnie’s closet door. Thank God everything was so new—the door didn’t creak. She stepped into the closet, quickly closed the door behind her.
Shit! Big closet, but with the door closed, it was dark as Hades.
Now she could feel his footsteps through the floor. She groped blindly in front of her. Marnie, what do you have in here, what kind of a weapon? Is there anything here, anything at all?
Her fingers grasped something. Something wooden… and woven.
A tennis racket.
She felt around frantically in the same area. Something else, long and hard and strangely clothlike.
An umbrella.
She gripped it tightly in her hands, making a bat of it. Better than the tennis racket. She prayed that she wouldn’t have to use it. That whoever it was would just look around the bedroom and leave.
She waited, barely breathing. She heard nothing. Nothing at all. He must have gone.
Then suddenly, just when she was relaxing her stance, breathing deeply, easily, the door was flung open wide.
“No!”
She screamed the word in panic. And she started to swing the umbrella with all her might.
“Son of a bitch!”
She heard the deep swearing, yet was only barely aware of it in her frantic desire to escape. The man had his arms up, protecting his face from her blows. She slammed the umbrella down again and tried to catapult herself past the invader.
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
She was caught by her hair at first. Shrieking, she tried to break free. Marnie had been murdered. She was suddenly certain.
The killer often came back to the scene of the crime. Teddy had told her so. Cold sweat broke out all over her body.
“Hey!”
Her hair was suddenly free, but fingers wound around her arm. She tried to strike out again, but the umbrella was caught. She struggled to keep it, and free herself. Stepping backward, she tripped. She went down as the umbrella was wrenched from her hands.
He fell on top of her!
She screamed, struggled, striking out. She was a strong woman; he was stronger. She was blinded by her hair. She kicked, writhed…
Her hands were caught, pinned beside her head. Her hair was moved from her eyes.
Then…
“Jesus! Sam!”
She looked up, stunned to immobility.
“Oh, my God! Rowan?” she said incredulously.
Yes, Rowan. Rowan Dillon. He’d closed a door against her, and she’d walked out of his life more than five years ago. And now he was on top of her in Marnie’s house. He hadn’t changed. Well, maybe a little. The lines around his eyes were a little more deeply grooved; strands of gray were starting to dust his hair.
Rowan. She blinked. Oh, God. He had to be the new neighbor.
Oh, but he was still tall, dark, and handsome, just as Laura had described him when she had seen nothing but his height and his coloring and back the day they’d just missed the new neighbor as he was walking into his new house.
Tall, broad-shouldered, a large, powerful man, he was here now, in Marnie’s house. He had known Marnie, of course, when they had lived in Gainesville.
Where he had been accused of murder!
Ridiculously so, of course.
Rowan. Rowan Dillon was here.
She’d never believed it, not for a minute. But then, she had loved him. She had been the cast-aside lover. The foolish “other woman.” She had believed him, believed that he had been finished with Dina. Yeah, the cops had believed that, too. Believed he had a hot enough temper, maybe even a good enough reason to kill…
“Sam.”
He said her name very softly. His dark hair was mussed, of course. She’d just beaten him with an umbrella. He’d just tackled her to the floor. He didn’t seem any the worse for wear from the beating. He was just staring at her. Studying her.
“Rowan!” she repeated, angry now. She’d been caught off guard. She’d never thought to see him again. “Damn you, what—?”
“I bought the house next door,” he explained.
His voice, just hearing his voice, caused a strange sensation to snake up her spine. Great voice, naturally. He loved the guitar, and the drums, but it had been his voice that had taken the group to the top of the charts. Deep, with a touch of huskiness, his voice could make every woman listening think he was singing to her, make every man feel as if he were the one with the thoughts.
“How could you?” she accused without thinking. She was so… furious!
“How could I buy a house?” he inquired incredulously. He stared at her, then said, “Well, I’m sorry, at the time I didn’t know that you lived here. I didn’t even know that Marnie had this house—”
“You didn’t know?”
“No! I didn’t know.”
“So what the hell are you doing now? What in God’s name are you doing skulking around in Marnie’s house?”
He arched a brow, easing back slightly. But his features were tense, jaw locked, at the sound of her voice. She was still pinned down, she realized. And he was not really backing off, not responding to the sound of anger in her voice. It wasn’t his way to back down.
“Excuse me,” he said, actually leaning closer. “What were you doing, hiding in Marnie’s closet?”
“I have a key to this house,” she snapped back.
“And that explains why you’re in her closet?” He rose suddenly, reaching down to her. She realized that she’d just lain there like an idiot, that she hadn’t even asked him to get off her. She grasped his hand, rising. Her hand felt as if it had been burned.
“Well?” he inquired.
“I—was worried about Marnie.”
“Why?”
“She hasn’t come home.”
“Since when?”
“Last night.”
His brow arched slightly higher. Okay, he thought she was a fool for worrying about a woman who’d been gone less than twenty-four hours. Or did he? How well could she really know a man she hadn’t seen in five years? How well had she ever really known him? Every inch of him, I thought I knew every inch, inside and out, but I guess I didn’t, because he didn’t want me.
“So what are you doing here?” she demanded.
He smiled, running his fingers through his umbrella-mussed hair, smoothing it back from his face. “I thought someone was breaking in. I came to check up on the prowler I thought was in here, to keep the house from being burglarized.”
“Oh?”
He was studying her intently and she felt acutely uneasy. He was in swim trunks, cutoff denims. Shoulders and chest were still muscled and tanned. Teeth were still white against the bronze of his face, his eyes amber-green. Hazel eyes, taking on different colors at different times, with different emotions. He’d always been quick to smile. Quick to anger, quick to passion.
She had to get away. She was entirely too off balance. Five years, and now she was alone with him. He’d just had to be half naked here in cutoffs, too, of course, and he’d had to touch her, tackle her, straddle her, and…
And he was still studying her, those amber eyes so intent, physical form so imposing and male. She could smell him, for God’s sake, and he smelled so sexy—no, she would not be such a fool!
“God, Sam, it’s good to see you,” he said quietly. He stepped back, giving her plenty of space. Arms crossed over his chest, feet well apart, legs sturdy. Great legs.
She couldn’t believe the things she was thinking, the way her mind was working. Maybe Marnie was right, telling Sam that she needed a real life, sex now and then.
He was waiting for a reply.
“Oh, yeah, Great, yeah, right. Good, great, absolutely, right. Wonderful to see you, too. Just wonderful. If you’ll excuse me…”
She pushed past him, started out. But at the doorway to Marnie’s room, she looked back, finding a modicum of dignity.
“No, it isn’t wonderful to see you. I had never wanted to see you again. And I don’t want to see you now. Okay, it’s a free world, you bought a house—near mine. I still don’t want to see you. More than ever, I don’t want to see you, unless we’re both out on our lawns picking up our newspapers, and we wave to one another, just to be civil.”
He stared at her, giving her a slow smile. “Sam, there’s no law saying that neighbors have to be civil. Hell, don’t wave if you don’t want to.”
She didn’t bother to respond. She turned again and started out of the house. Calmly. With dignity.
Even slowly, at first. Oddly, all she could think of at that moment was diving class. If you run into a shark, never try to swim quickly away. Never let the animal know that you’re in distress…
Just like diving class. She walked down the hall slowly…
A shark recognizes distress. Distress makes a victim look like easy prey.
By the time she reached the stairs, she was walking faster.
By the time she reached the bottom, she was running. And she didn’t give a damn. All she wanted was out of that house.
Chapter 4
“Hey, Sam!”
Laura came into the glassed-in Florida room. Sam was sitting on an upholstered wicker chair, staring toward the bay, as she had been doing ever since she’d walked back into her house.
“Sam!” Laura stared down at her. “You’re not dressed, you’re not ready!”
Sam looked at her. “I know who the new neighbor is.”
“Oh, really? Who?”
“Rowan Dillon.”
“What?” Laura said incredulously.
Sam nodded. Laura stared at her.
“You went over there? He came over here? You met him?”
“No, we were both in Marnie’s house. I was trying to find her, to see if something was wrong, and I heard noises… and it was him.”
“Rowan?” Laura repeated.
“Rowan.”
Laura spun around, heading purposefully for the front door. Sam jumped to her feet. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“Well, you’re not ready to go out. I’m going to go over and say hi to him.”
“What?”
“I’m going to go and welcome him to the neighborhood."
“Laura, I don’t believe you!”
Laura stopped, turning to her. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“Laura, you’re my cousin, remember?” Sam said incredulously. “The man devastated me! Broke my heart, destroyed my life—”
“Sam, Sam! That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? He was going through some terrible times. And your father dying is what broke your heart, and your life isn’t destroyed. It’s a little boring at times, but that’s because you refuse—”