MY HEARTFELT thanks to Monique Patterson, to her awesome assistant Holly Blanck, and to Roberta Brown who brought us together.
AND THANK YOU to Sierra Dafoe, Wylie Kinson, Robin L. Rotham, Sheryl Carpenter, and Georgia Woods, for your amazing support and enthusiasm. You’re so much better than chocolate.
THIS ONE’S FOR you, Mr. Red. And to our reckless moments.
PROLOGUE
PAIGE.
Her name was Paige.
So sleepy. She could not open her eyes. Her arms felt as though a building sat on top of them, and an insectlike sensation crawled up her legs under the sheets.
But the sounds . . . The rhythm was strangely soothing, like a lullaby. A nice, sweet lullaby. Keeping company in the quiet.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Mrs. Avery! They said Paige was in a trauma and we had to come—”
“Ohmigod, we’re so sorry about the judge! But what happened? What’s wrong with her—”
“Shhh! Francine, can’t you see she’s sleeping?”
A voice rose above the others— ringing with maturity, authority. “Girls! Please. You can’t all be in here at once! Out in the hall, please.”
Again quiet.
Sleep called to her, drew her deeper into its spell even as she fought for consciousness. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted . . . she wanted . . . she didn’t know what she wanted. Maybe she wanted to die.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A knock came. “Mrs. Avery, I’d like a word with your daughter.”
Mrs. Avery. Poor Mrs. Avery was everywhere. Doctors called her name. Nurses. People. Friends. I’m so sorry, we heard, this is awful . . .
Mrs. Avery’s voice was tired now. Was she angry? She sounded strained and far away, shuffling to the door. “Officer, this is not a good time . . .”
The voices faded into the hall, still audible to some degree.
“. . . shock . . . head trauma . . . doesn’t remember . . .”
They were talking about her. Weren’t they? But she did remember. Didn’t she?
Her name was Paige.
Her mother said to pack. They would leave soon. No one would bother them again. But Father . . . Father was . . .
“. . . accident . . . autopsy . . . funeral . . .”
Father was dead?
Paige heard more murmurs out in the hall before she sensed the presence in the room. The unmistakable breathing of someone—and not her. She could hardly believe the sneer in the man’s words the instant they registered.
“I hear Daddy’s dead.”
Her nostrils flared at the pungent scent coming off his body. He leaned over her. The bed creaked with the weight of his arms, and a tendril of fear took hold in the pit of her belly. He thrust his next words into her ear, words that chilled down to the marrow of her bones.
“Remember what I told you, hmm? Be a good, good girl, Paige, and stay very, very quiet. If you dare open your mouth I swear to God I’m going to break your boyfriend into tiny little pieces. And then I’m going to break you.”
A sound welled in the back of her throat, a cry for help, but it died when he squeezed her upper arm hard enough to cut off her blood supply. He released her. “Good girl. Don’t forget.”
She tossed her head and moaned. Mother. Seconds passed, minutes. Hours?
He was gone— and she did not want to lie here. Felt restless. She needed to do something. Something important. Something she should run to, far and fast and hard, but her stupid legs—
“Paige?”
The voice. It struck her like lightning. She fell utterly still, stiller than still. Her lungs froze in her chest and her ears strained for more of that hoarse, male rasp. First she heard footsteps.
Her body tensed at each of the five steps that brought the speaker closer, and her mind went blank while she frantically waited to listen. Her world narrowed down to that one whisper he uttered—
“Paige, it’s me.”
Me.
Unexpectedly, as though this voice were all she needed to set loose a well of emotion, her lips began to tremble. A hot fat tear leaked from the corner of her eye.
A second followed down her cheek, and the moment a flat, callused thumb gently began to swipe it, she impulsively turned her face into that hand. She ached to weep into it. Let “me” catch all her tears.
She began to sob in earnest, and a second hand engulfed her left cheek. She heard a gruff “fuck,” while he furiously tried to wipe the tears away. He seemed as desperate to stop them as she ached to set them free. “Oh, fuck.” Long fingers spread open to hold her, heels of his palms cradling her jaw. His hands shook.
She willed her eyes to open but they stung. Her lashes felt stuck together with Super Glue and she hated that they would not obey her mind. A sound full of distress and frustration burst from her lips. He tilted her head back a fraction and his warm, ragged breath misted across her forehead. Soft dry lips brushed across one closed eyelid, then the other. “Shhhh. I’m here.”
When the hot, moist flick of his tongue lapped the tears from the corner of one eye, her stomach exploded with emotion. The breath shuddered out of her.
His mouth trailed down the other cheek while he rained kisses on her.
A powerful tremor shook her body; that same shudder seemed to run through him, too. His hands tightened reflexively on her face and he lowered his head, grazing the shell of her ear with his lips, whispering, “I’ll make it better. Whatever it takes, anything I need to—”
Her mother’s voice sliced through the room like an ice pick.
“Take your hands off her.”
A feeble protest tore out of her as she tossed her head in negation. No. But the hands slowly, hesitantly, left her. She could no longer smell the sun on his skin, the masculine aroma of sand and trees clinging to his clothing; instead the scent of medicine and plastic prevailed.
“I ask you to get out now.”
Her heart thundered in her breast. She could not move. She could not scream. Could not say, No no no. Don’t go, don’t go.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
“You’re distressing her, leave now!”
His footsteps echoed on the tile floor. Leaving. Leaving now. And she could not do anything but lie there, afraid, in the darkness, with his fleeting touch imprinted somewhere deep and lonely inside her.
Her name was Paige.
CHAPTER 1
Phoenix, Arizona, March 4 Seven Years Later . . .
PHONE RINGING.
Damn phone ringing.
Lying prone on the bed, Zach flung an arm out and groped around for the receiver, lifting it just in time to catch the familiar boom on the other end.
“Rivers?” Fellow PPD detective Cody Nordstrom. Friend. Pain in the ass. Gossip girl.
Rolling onto his side, phone to his ear, he glared at the clock on the nightstand. Four forty-three p.m. Sunday. Fuck it.
After the all-nighter he’d pulled— bringing in some sick shit who’d beaten his teenage daughter to death— and a one-hour shower at noon, he’d been asleep exactly four hours.
“I’m awake,” he grumbled as he climbed off the bed and picked his jeans up from the floor. “What’s up?”
“Your pigeon’s home.”
One thought slammed him like a torpedo. Paige.
“There’s a 459R reported there. Patrol’s already dispatched. Apparently she’s unharmed.” A dramatic sigh. “So here I sat, thinking, figuring, ‘Man, this would really ruffle Zach’s feathers.’ ”
On his feet, fully alert, Zach grabbed his Glock, his backup, and his badge, shoving them all in place. “Robbery, my ass.” The house had been empty for seven years and the day she came home they decided to rob it?
“I hear you, I hear you. So then I wonder if maybe you can find something there that’ll persuade the lieutenant to reopen that old case you have a hard-on for.”
The judge’s case. Paige’s father’s case. The case every cop in town knew Zach was itching to nail.
He plunged his head into his T-shirt and brought the phone back up. “I will.”
“Or hey. Perhaps her failing memory has returned and you’ll have yourself a witness?”
Charging outside, Zach yanked his car door open, resolute. “I’m on my way.”
“Rivers?”
The engine of his SUV roared to life. “Yeah.”
“There’s a little Las Vegas going on here. Mia’s got a twenty on you getting the girl and the bad guy.”
“Against?”
“My twenty that you only get the bad guy.”
He smiled a fuck-you-too smile. “Thanks, asshole.”
“Wait a sec. It’s kind of dull down here. Mind if I come over and take a peek?”
“I’ll meet you there.” Zach flapped the cell shut, tearing the SUV onto the street.
Paige was home.
God help him, his chest felt ready to burst. Thoughts, memories, feelings, bolted through his body, working up a storm.
A storm called Paige. Avery.
By the time Zach pulled over in front of 106 Dominion Drive, his heart was thudding like a beast unleashed.
Paige was back, and apparently he wasn’t the only one with his nuts in a twist about it. Someone was alarmed, panicked, determined to frighten her off, or all of the above.
The judge’s old residence sat in sprawling splendor atop a flat stretch of land; six thousand square feet of Spanish Colonial, burnt-tile rooftops and arched windows. The cacti flourished along the walkway that led up to its wide front doors, and the scent of fresh paint clung to the warm spring air.
Stepping to the sidewalk, his hunter’s instinct simmering inside him, Zach narrowed his eyes against the glaring afternoon sun and focused on his surroundings, sweeping the area with one sharp, calculating look.
Evidence. Damned if he wouldn’t find it. He knew this house like the back of his hand. He’d driven past it mornings and nights, rain and shine. He knew every plant, every rock, every bit of grass on its lawns, he knew every window. The top west window. Her window.
He passed a glaring for sale sign that jutted out of the ground. This, for one, was new. Hell, Zach actually entering the house was new.
“Well, well, well, Stalker’s here. Our very own detective now.”
City cops were already on the scene, well-trained officers in most capacities. Vance Dean, whom Zach had patrolled with before he’d made Homicide at the VCB, looked up from an old gold clock he was dusting for prints.
“Welcome to the party, sweetheart. Though I’ve yet to see the dead guy?” he added with a lift of his eyebrows.
Zach panned across the room, noting the havoc the perps had wreaked. Overturned sofas. Torn lampshades. Crystal chandeliers in tatters. Photos, dozens and dozens of broken photos, of her as a child, of her parents.
The Averys’ living room looked like the anteroom of hell.
He tamped down his anger. “Forced entry?”
“Nope.”
“Hairs? Blood?”
“On my wish list.”
“Stolen articles?”
“Victim says everything’s here. Just a B and E so far.”
“Victim,” Zach tersely repeated. “She all right?”
“Pale. We secured her in an area adjoining.” Vance pointed down the hall. “Found nothing upstairs, but you might want to check it. Miles is on the south of the house.”
Zach pulled out his Sony camcorder and began to record, taking in everything with his eyes first, then with his camera. Give me something, asshole, so we can finally meet, me and you.
Upstairs, the bedrooms were undisturbed, the master and guest bedrooms clean and luxurious. Paige’s bedroom . . . smelled nice. Like lavender, hell, he didn’t know. Like her.
Bracing himself against the deep, dark stirrings that sultry scent caused, he moved the camcorder and tried not to think this was her room. Where she’d slept. While he’d been thinking of sleeping with her.
Hundreds of books, perfectly arranged, lined the bookshelves. A row of cosmetics occupied the left-hand side of the bathroom sink. All perfectly neat. All Paige.
When he finished recording and descended the stairs, Zach felt like someone had just set off a bomb inside his chest.
A tall, bulky blond waited on the first floor, hands in his suit pockets. Cody Nordstrom and his crimson tie. “Quite a mess you got here, Detective,” he said conversationally.
He pocketed his camera. “You’ve seen her?”
“Introduced myself. I handed her my card.” He shot him a long, dry smile. “Though I suspect she’d rather take yours.”
“Where is she?”
His friend stuck his thumb past his shoulder. “Study. She’s a quiet one.”
And when Zach turned to the adjoining room, he saw her.
How could he not? How could he not see Paige? She was beautiful, and fragile, and she was real. So real his eyes hurt.
He took a step into the room, and another, feeling as if he were expanding under his skin like a helium balloon. He had hoped, and imagined, and if he was truthful, he might have even prayed, but still he had never expected to see her again.
But now Paige Avery was home. And she was breathing the same air he was. And her lips—dear God, just finish me off— were still the stuff of heaven. Plush and pouty, shimmering pink.
She sat on a green wing-backed chair by a floor lamp, a business card in one hand, her cell phone in the other as she busily punched in some numbers. A pretty white blouse with a lacy collar contoured her small waist and discreetly dipped between breasts he’d kissed a thousand times in his mind and a precious few for real. Her hair was a deeper shade of red than he remembered, cut attractively into bangs that fell across her forehead and curled behind her ears, and her features were sleeker, more refined. Still so lovely. So damned lovely, all of her.
His hand settled on the grip of the Glock at his hip, then he realized he did not know why he grasped it. He did it when he got an uneasy crawling up his spine, or a tingling in his stomach, and he did it now when he felt . . . open. Vulnerable.
“Maybe she’ll talk to you,” Cody said at his side.
Zach nodded, indicating he would speak with her, and his teammate left the room. It had been years, and it had been hell, and he still dreamed of her face seven years after he’d last seen it. Had dreamed of this moment.
For two thousand and six hundred days.
Strange, all the things he’d thought he’d do— haul her into his arms and kiss her until her toes curled, promise to never let anyone hurt her, threaten to make her regret it if she ever, ever thought of leaving again— he did none of that. Just sought her eyes for something. Recognition. Remembrance. For her to look at him.
Look up, baby, look into my eyes and know who I am.
And then she turned. Her gaze was like a spear slammed straight through his heart. There was nothing on her face. No fear. No excitement. No smile of welcome. Nothing at all.
She stored away her phone in a small brown purse, and her eyes ventured down his body, skimming the T-shirt, the jeans, lingering slightly on the gun, and at last returning to meet his gaze.
He held his breath, waiting for . . . just waiting. For a smile perhaps. A whisper that said all he craved to know. His name, God, let her say Zachary.
But still she stared.
And he stared.
Sucker punched by those eyes. A light, worn blue, no longer shining with innocence, but wide and lost and killing him.
“Paige.” His throat closed around his words. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
She sat up straighter, her eyes flaring wider, shoulders tensing. As if he were a giant mastiff without a leash, she warily watched as he pulled up a chair across from hers and lowered his body onto the seat.
A thousand questions tumbled inside him, questions from the cop and questions from the man and questions from the boy who’d loved her.
He propped his elbows on his knees, leaning forward, gentling his voice.
“Where were you when this happened?”
She stared at his lips, then seemed to catch herself and went rigid. “I was out,” she said, her voice a bare wisp. “Buying boxes to pack some of my mom’s belongings.”
“You were alone?”
She nodded.
He told himself he wouldn’t remember, not now, dammit. But he could still taste Paige inside his mouth. He could feel the weight of those little breasts in his hands, could hear her gasps as she suckled hungrily on his tongue and he sucked on hers.
Paige Avery had come home . . . and Zach was dying to come home to her.
She used to pass him with her eyes downcast in the school halls, and would not glance across the cafeteria, and when her friends talked to her she smiled and very rarely stole a glance at him. But when no one was looking, Zachary would touch her with his shoulders or his elbows or his hands or his fingers, and she would shyly touch back. And they would find a nook or a closet or a place to kiss and kiss and kiss each other’s heart out. Then the twenty-four hours before Zach had her lips on his again he spent replaying Paige’s gasps and how they tumbled down his throat and he would moan every night at the sheer agony of wanting her like he did.
“Detective . . . ?”
Zachary’s brows rose the moment he registered her softly spoken words.
“Your name. It’s . . .” She trailed off and signaled at his clothes. “You’re not wearing a tag. Your colleagues call you ‘Stalker’?”
He watched her carefully as he told her. “Rivers. Zachary Rivers.”
She cocked her head and regarded him. Her hands began to wring on her lap. “We’ve met before?”
“You could say that.” Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He had wondered, assumed, she would remember some about him. He’d imagined she would lie in her bed like he did in his, and . . . well, shit. Clearly, she didn’t. She did not remember Zachary Rivers. At all.
He numbed himself against the wrenching in his stomach and barely remembered to tape their interview. He felt like the biggest fool. Biggest fucking fool that ever lived.