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Praise for the novels of
MAGGIE SHAYNE

“A tasty, tension-packed read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water

“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb touch, blending fantasy and romance into an outstanding reading experience.”

—Romantic Times on Embrace the Twilight

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”

—Bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”

—Romantic Times on Twilight Hunger

“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven…. A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night!”

—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man

“Shayne’s talent knows no bounds!”

—Rendezvous

“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping intensity and bewitching passion.”

—Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the preeminent voices in paranormal romance today!”

—Romantic Times

MAGGIE SHAYNE
THICKER THAN WATER

This book would not have happened if not for the assistance of some very special people, and I wish to acknowledge and thank them. I dedicate this book to the following wonderful, talented people. I feel lucky to share the planet with every one of them.

To Gayle Wilson, whose words of wisdom broke the dam! I was stuck fast, but you inspired me at NJRW, 2002.

To Molly Herwood, who went above and beyond to help me find the information I needed.

To WTVH-5’s Maureen Greene and Melissa Medalie, who helped me get inside the head of a news anchor. To photojournalists John and Al, who changed my entire concept of this book’s hero. And to everyone else in the newsroom at WTVH-5 Syracuse, for your invaluable assistance and inspiration.

To David O. Norris, veteran cop, skilled P.I. and Captain of the Genesee Belle for unwavering support and tireless advice, and for helping me get the “cop stuff” right.

To my precious husband, Rick, who stands between me and the world like a suit of armor. Without you, I’d be done for.

I’d also like to thank those I think of as “my team.” My agent, Eileen Fallon, for her solid guidance, wise advice and for her steady hands at the helm of my career. My editors: Leslie Wainger, who has been in my corner, supporting me and believing in me from the very start, and to Dianne Moggy and Amy Moore-Benson, who had the faith to embrace both sides of this writer’s split personality by welcoming both my vampires and my suspense novels into the MIRA family. My editors deserve sainthood for putting up with an author who changes the story while the back cover copy is being written—and never once flinching or complaining.

Thank you, all. My life is richer (and my books are better) because of you.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Prologue

“Can’t you see that we’ll die if we don’t get the hell out of here?”

“We won’t, Jewel,” Lizzie whispered. “Mordecai would never let anything happen to us. Not to us.” Her voice changed to a singsong kind of coo. “No, he wouldn’t. Not to his own baby, would he, Sunshine? No.” She sat cuddling her newborn daughter in the rocking chair Mordecai Young, “the reverend,” had brought into their quarters.

They no longer had to room in the barracks with the other so-called Young Believers. Mordecai Young had moved his special girls into the spacious attic of the main house, where he could be closer to them.

“Lizzie, you’re being stupid. You’re forgetting the plan.” Jewel paced the length of the large room, growing more and more agitated. “And it was working so damn well.”

Lizzie looked at her and for a moment Jewel thought she saw the sharp mind and clear eyes of the girl her friend had been six months ago. “It was,” Lizzie said. “We made him believe we loved him, didn’t we? And it worked.”

It had worked. Mordecai had made them his right hands. They had access to the house. They ate better. He never hit them anymore.

“But, Jewel, I’m not acting anymore. I love him.”

“He’s a criminal. Jesus, Lizzie, he takes in runaways and makes us into slaves. He has armed guards and those dogs of his patrolling the compound in case any of us try to leave. We’re fenced in, fed all the drugs he can slip into our food to keep us complacent while we listen to his sermons and cultivate his crops. And you’ve seen the weapons room. He’s got more firepower than the freaking National Guard down there!”

Unmoved by Jewel’s impassioned speech, Lizzie stroked a forefinger along her baby’s whisper-soft cheek. “He’s my daughter’s father.”

“He’s a drug dealer with a Messiah complex, Lizzie. And this is no place for a baby.” She moved closer, ran a palm over Sunny’s silken baby hair. “We have to get out—for her sake.”

Lizzie closed her eyes. A tear squeezed through her lashes. “I know. I know you’re right. I just…I don’t think he means to be…I think he really believes the things he tells us.”

Maybe he did, Jewel thought. Maybe he really did believe he was more enlightened than the rest of the world, or that he’d been chosen by God to be his new messenger and ordered to create this compound. And that the marijuana crop didn’t do much real harm, and that it was the good he could do with the money it brought in that made it all right in the eyes of the Almighty.

Yeah, maybe he really did believe all that. Which made him insane, and even more dangerous.

“He loves her. It’ll kill him to lose her.”

“He wants to control her,” Jewel insisted. “He named her. He sets her schedule. When she eats, when she sleeps, when she’s bathed, how often you get to hold her. He sees her as something he owns, just like us.”

“It’s just his way.”

Jewel thinned her lips. “Tonight,” she said. “I made a special snack for the dogs. It ought to put them out of commission. We’ll tell the guard at the gate that Sunshine is sick and that Mordecai ordered us to get her to a hospital. If he gives us any trouble—” She took the paring knife out of her jeans pocket. “I snatched this from the kitchen tonight.”

“My God, Jewel!” Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Why can’t we try to go out through the tunnels?”

“How, when he keeps the only key on a chain around his neck?” Jewel put a firm hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “I’m seventeen years old, Lizzie. I am not going to spend the rest of my life in this prison. And neither is she,” she added with a nod at Sunshine. “I love her, too, you know.”

“I know you do.” Lizzie sighed, lifting her eyes. “What about Sirona and Tessa?”

“I don’t know. Since he moved them into the main house, he’s been visiting us less and less at night. I think he’s going to get tired of us soon, anyway. We lose favor, we end up back out in the barracks. And you know that wouldn’t be good for the baby.”

“I know.” She looked more sad, though, than afraid. Sad that her lover was spending time with other women. She’d never minded sharing him with Jewel. But that was different. They were like sisters, the two of them.

“I’d like to take Sirona and Tessa with us, but I’m not sure we can trust them not to run straight to Mordecai if we tell them our plan.”

“I don’t like them, anyway,” Lizzie said.

She was pale and far too thin. She’d been bleeding heavily since giving birth—too heavily, in Jewel’s opinion, but then again, what did she know? It had been seven weeks. She thought it should have stopped by now. Lizzie wasn’t the same spunky, fun-loving girl she’d been when Jewel had met her on the streets. They’d heard rumors of this place, that it was a dream come true for runaways.

It wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare.

They both looked up quickly as they heard his unmistakable footsteps, coming up the stairs. The door opened, and he stood there, with his warm brown eyes, long, mink hair, and neatly trimmed beard. He wore white robes and sandals, and he looked for all the world like Jesus. But when he spoke, the illusion was shattered by his soft Southern twang.

“I need to take li’l Sunshine now. Bedtime.” He smiled as he looked at the baby.

Lizzie kissed her child’s forehead and hurried to hand her over to her father. “Good night, my sweet baby.”

Jewel watched him take the baby. He stared down at the child adoringly, his brown eyes softer than ever. “You’re a special li’l girl, you know that? The daughter of the Son. You’re blessed, my Sunshine. You’re blessed.” Then, as he turned and carried the baby away, he began to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

“Mordecai,” Jewel said, knowing he would be angry at her interruption, but daring it all the same.

He turned, scowling at her.

“I’m worried about Sunny. Do you really think it’s safe for her here, with the drugs and the weapons and all?”

“Do you think I’d risk my only child?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “I just—I overheard you talking to one of the guards today. You said there had been some kind of…government men asking questions in town.”

He walked closer to her, his face gentle—right up until his fist connected with her jaw, knocking her backward to the floor. Lizzie shot to her feet, rushing to where Jewel landed.

“Let that be a lesson to you about eavesdroppin’,” Mordecai said. “Haven’t I taught you better?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, a hand on her face, not daring to get to her feet. Lizzie was leaning over her, hands on her shoulders, but she turned now to the man who stood nearby, cradling the baby in his arms.

“You didn’t answer her question, Mordecai. What happens if these government men try to come in here? What we’re doing isn’t exactly legal. And you have all those guns—”

Sighing, he gazed down adoringly on his child. “It’s as I’ve always told all of you, mankind is not ready for a soul like mine. They may very well try to kill me, in the end. And if they do—well, now, what better place for my only child than with her daddy?”

“You—you mean…?”

“Death is nothing to fear, you know. Haven’t I taught you as much? Haven’t you learned a thing in your time here?” He shook his head slowly, then turned and carried the baby out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Lizzie hurled herself after him, only to collide with the door. When she went to tear it open, it had been locked from the outside. She pounded on it uselessly, then collapsed against the wood, sobbing.

Jewel got to her feet and went to her friend, sliding her arms around her and pulling her close.

“Oh, God, you were right, Jewel. You were right. He doesn’t care if Sunny lives or dies!”

“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll take her with us. Everything will be okay.”

“I thought he loved her,” Lizzie sobbed. “I thought he loved us!”

“He only loves his own crazy ideas. He loves the power he has over all of us. He loves being in control and this God complex of his. And he loves money. God, he’s got scads of it down there somewhere.”

Lizzie lifted her head. “I know where he keeps it. It’s in the escape tunnel.” She stared hard at Jewel. “It’s almost as if he knows something horrible is going to happen. It’s like he’s…preparing for it.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t be here when it does. And neither will our baby.”

As it turned out, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

They awoke to the sound of gunfire, rapid and loud.

Jewel leaped out of bed and ran for the door. “It’s coming from inside the house!” The knob wouldn’t turn in her hand, though.

Lizzie was at the window, looking out. “From outside, too! There are soldiers!” Her entire body jerked backward when the glass shattered, and she hit the floor.

“Lizzie!” Jewel ran to her, sliding across the floor on her knees when she got close. “Lizzie, my God.” There was blood on the front of her nightgown.

Lizzie sat up, pushing Jewel’s hands away from her belly. “It’s okay. Just a little cut. The glass.”

Jewel shook her head, terrified her friend had been hit by a bullet. “Are you sure? Let me see.”

“I’m fine, Jewel.” Lizzie pressed her palm to the bloody spot on her nightgown. Jewel tried to shift it aside to see the damage, but Lizzie pushed her away. “We have to get the baby out of here!”

“I know, I know.” Jewel helped her friend to her feet, watching her face, worried.

Lizzie went to the locked door. The gunshots were ringing out faster, louder, than before. Then something even louder than a gunshot shook the entire house, and Jewel thought she smelled smoke. Lizzie gave up twisting the knob, stood back, and kicked the door. It was an old door, and the wood began to split under the pressure of her foot. She kicked again, and then Jewel was beside her with a small metal chair in her hands. Using the chair as a battering ram, she slammed it against the door. The two took turns attacking the door, until it finally gave way under the assault. The smoke smell was stronger now, as they raced down the stairs to the second floor nursery.

But Sunny’s crib was empty. “Oh, God. Oh, God, where is she?” Lizzie moaned.

“Mordecai must have her!”

Jewel gripped her friend’s arm and tugged her out of the nursery. They ran together down to the ground floor. Fire and smoke were everywhere. The front door was open, but instead of running out of the house, people were running into it, bullets chasing them down. Some lay on the floor, dead or dying. Others stood at the windows, firing shots at the army of men outside. The front of the house was completely engulfed in flames.

“He couldn’t have got out that way!” Jewel cried.

“The basement. He must have taken her to the tunnel.”

As they ran for the basement, Jewel tripped over someone, turned to look, and saw Sirona, cowering in a corner, sobbing. Tessa was nearby, sitting on the floor looking shocky, her face blank, her body rocking.

“Come on, come with us,” Jewel said, bending to grip Tessa’s upper arm, jerking her to her feet. Sirona followed wordlessly. Lizzie was several steps ahead of them by then. The fire was spreading—chasing them it seemed. “Hurry!”

They made it to the basement stairs, then down them. It was dark, but Jewel saw Lizzie come to a sudden stop ahead of them and heard her as she shouted, “How could you? How could you try to save yourself and leave the rest of us to die?”

Jewel raced closer, shocked into stillness when she saw Mordecai there, cradling little Sunny in his arms.

“Go back to your room!” he shouted. “You have no idea what’s happening here!”

“I know exactly what’s happening.” Lizzie’s voice was weaker than before. The red stain on the front of her nightgown was larger now, spreading. There was an explosion from somewhere close. It was deafening, and it shook them physically. A loud roar followed, and Jewel felt the heat.

“Give me my daughter,” Lizzie said.

Mordecai lifted one hand, and Jewel stiffened when she saw the gun he held. “Go back or die right here.”

Jewel ran at him. He was so focused on Lizzie that he didn’t see her fast enough to fire, and she hit him with every ounce of strength she possessed, knocking him right off his feet and wrestling the baby from his arms as she fell on top of him. The gun skittered across the concrete floor. Jewel tore herself and little Sunny from Mordecai’s arms, and then it seemed like the end of the world as the beams and boards above them came crashing down like some fiery avalanche.

She was knocked to her knees, and when she managed to get up again, holding the screaming baby close, choking on the smoke and heat, she saw Lizzie on her knees. Sirona and Tessa hovered two feet away, looking terrified in the dancing light of the flaming beams that littered the floor now. And beneath one of those beams, Mordecai lay, trapped.

He held out a hand toward Lizzie. “Help me. Help me, and I’ll get you out of here.”

Lizzie got slowly to her feet and edged closer to him. She stepped carefully over and around the burning beams that crisscrossed his torso. Then she knelt beside Mordecai. “I loved you,” she told him.

“You still do, you know you do. It’ll be like I promised, Lizzie. You and me and Sunny, the plantation house in Virginia. A real family.”

“Just like you promised,” she whispered. Then she reached out…and snatched the chain with the key dangling at its end from around his neck. She looked past him then, at the other girls. “Come on.”

The flames blazed higher. Soon they would all be trapped. They hurried forward, and the four women ran as Mordecai cried out to them to save him. Then the rest of the ceiling came crashing down, and he was silent, buried under flaming debris.

“Hurry!” They made it to the secret door that was hidden behind a set of false shelving, and Lizzie took the baby from Jewel’s arms and handed her the key. Then she leaned back against the wall, as if she could barely stand on her own.

“Lizzie?”

“Just get the door.”

Jewel nodded, hurrying to fit the key to the lock, taking off the padlock, opening the door onto a pitch-dark tunnel. The air that wafted from it smelled of earth and cool dampness but, blessedly, not of smoke. “It’s open. Come on.”

She turned back to Lizzie, who had slumped to a sitting position on the floor. Lizzie leaned close to her baby, kissed her cheek. Then she lifted her gaze to Jewel’s again. “Take her,” she said, her voice so hoarse and weak that Jewel could barely hear her over the fire.

Jewel dropped the key, taking the baby from Lizzie’s arms, tucking her into one of her own and reaching down with her other hand to help Lizzie. Lizzie only shook her head from side to side and let her upper body fall backward to the floor.

“Lizzie!” Jewel leaned over her.

“Take her. Take her, Jewel. She’s yours now.”

“Get up, Lizzie. Come on, I’ll help you.”

“Take the money. There’s so much of it, there in the tunnel. Duffel bags full of it. Take it and make a good life for my Sunny.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

Lizzie smiled gently. “No. I’m leaving you.” She pressed her hand to her belly again. “It wasn’t glass, honey. It wasn’t glass at all.” Her eyes fell closed.

Jewel shook her, but there was no response.

Someone tugged Jewel away. Sirona. Tessa was already moving past them into the tunnel. “You have to go. You have to get the baby out,” Sirona said gently.

“I can’t leave her!”

“She’s gone, Jewel. She’s gone.”

The fire surged closer, brighter and hotter. Jewel got up and handed the baby to Sirona; then she took Lizzie by the wrists and dragged her limp body into the tunnel. She couldn’t bear the thought of her being burned, or ending her life so close to Mordecai Young. She pushed the door closed behind them, then turned to take the baby from Sirona again.

As she moved through the seemingly endless tunnel, she wondered how her life had managed to change so drastically over the course of one short summer. First her drunken, abusive father had hit her mother one too many times and wound up in prison for murder. Then the streets, where Jewel had fled to avoid ending up a ward of the state. Then this place, this supposed underground haven for runaway teens.

And now? What now?

She made her way through the tunnel, Sirona and Tessa flanking her. Eventually it grew lighter, and she spotted the duffel bags resting on the ground along the wall. She said, “Grab those and bring them. We’ll split up what’s inside once we get out of here. If we get out of here. And then we’ll go our separate ways.” She looked sternly at the two girls. “None of us can tell what happened here. Not ever, do you understand? If we do, little Sunny will end up a ward of the state—just like I almost was—or worse yet, with Lizzie’s family, whoever they are. And that couldn’t have been good, or Lizzie wouldn’t be…” She swallowed hard, lowered her head. “She never even told me her last name.”

“I was in the system,” Sirona said. “It’s no place for Sunny. It’s okay. We’ll never tell.”

“There’s enough money in those bags for all of us to start fresh, start new lives. We can never look back from here. Never. It’s a pact. Understand?”

They both nodded.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

Sirona and Tessa each grabbed a bag and followed Jewel along the last leg of the tunnel. It angled slowly upward from deep in the earth, growing lighter and lighter, until finally it opened into sunlight.

They climbed out, helping each other. “It’s morning,” Sirona whispered.

Jewel turned to look back at the flames and smoke rising in the distance from what had been the Young Believers’ compound. Every building on the place must be burning, she thought. And everyone left behind must be dead.

But that was behind her. She turned her back on all of it and faced the slowly rising sun that shone its red-orange light onto her and onto the baby.

Her baby now.

“It’s Dawn,” she whispered.

Chapter One

Sixteen Years Later

Syracuse, NY

Mascara tears were so far beneath her that she could barely believe they would dare skim down her face. She speed-yanked a half-dozen tissues from the hotel-issue dispenser and wiped the trespassers off. Then she cranked on the cold water, splashed her face and went still, staring at her reflection as the water dripped from her chin.

What would Dawn think of her if she saw her mom like this? Was this the way she was raising her daughter to be? Weak? Compliant? Afraid?

No.

“I’m not paying the scrawny little bastard anymore,” she whispered to her reflection. She stood a little straighter, lifted her chin a little higher. “No more. It’s over. One way or another, it’s finished.”

She opened her purse and yanked out a compact. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing he’d made her cry. No one made her cry. Hell, she was the one who was known for making other people weep. On the air, in front of the entire city. This idiot had jerked her around long enough. The fact that he’d dared to even try—the fact that she had let him get away with it, even for a little while—it was beyond the pale.

“What the hell was I thinking?” she asked her reflection, while her hands moved to automatically and expertly return her face to a state of near perfection. “I’m not some little nobody. I’m Julie Fucking Jones.”

The doorknob of the hotel’s bathroom jiggled. She sent it a burning glance. “Keep your pants on, Harry. I’ll be out by the time room service gets here with your goddamn celebratory champagne.”

Footsteps moved rapidly away from the bathroom door.

She paused, glanced down at the mascara she’d just pulled out of the handbag, and grimaced at it. “Waterproof, my ass.” She flung it at the wastebasket, then snapped the bag shut and turned on her heel to return to the other room—to end this thing, as she should have done six months ago.

She flung open the door and stepped through it. “I don’t know why it took so long,” she said, her voice as firm and strong as it was when she was on the air. “But you’ve finally pushed me too far. It’s finished, Harry. You’re not getting another nickel from me. You can drop this now, or I’m going to go to your brother and tell him everything.”

He sat in the small armchair, right where he’d been when she’d excused herself to go to the bathroom and gather her courage. As if he’d never moved. His back was to her. She could only see the top of his head. The little pink patch where his black hair was starting to thin. He said nothing, probably too surprised. She couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t been expecting this. Did he really think she would let him keep pushing?

“You can do whatever you want with the evidence, I don’t care,” she lied. She did care. “If it goes public, Harry, you’ll go to prison. I’ll see to it, even it means losing everything. Nobody wrongs me like this, much less threatens my daughter, and gets away with it. Nobody.”

She strode straight past him to the nightstand, wondering at the metallic smell in the air. He always brought copies of the damning evidence to these meetings. Always promised they were the last copies in existence as he sold them to her for large amounts of cash. Always insisted on closing the deal with a glass of champagne. And a month later, he always showed up with another set of demands. She looked down at the table. But the envelope was gone.

She turned slowly to face Harry. “All right, what did you do with the…”

Her voice tripped over a heartbeat when she faced him fully. He sat in the chair, just as he had before. Only now he was dead. The white dress shirt he wore was completely soaked in blood. So were his hands, and the chair itself, his shoes and the beige carpet underneath them.

Her gaze slid to his face again. The slightly open mouth. The wide, sightless eyes. The dark, gaping, bloody crescent in his long, skinny neck. Her body began to shake. A tremor formed somewhere down deep and worked its way outward to her hands and knees and even her head, lips, eyes. Fear gripped her heart like an icy fist as her gaze danced around the room. But no one else was there. Not now. She checked the tiny closet just to be sure, but it was empty. She was alone in the room, and Harry Blackwood was dead.

A wave of nausea rose up in her stomach as she lunged toward the door to turn the dead bolt. She barely got it done before she had to run for the bathroom again, and while she leaned over the toilet, she got so dizzy she nearly fell in.

When she could finally stop retching, she braced one hand on the tank to hold herself upright, knocked the lid down, flushed. Then she turned weakly to the sink to rinse her mouth.

It was as she turned the taps off again that she found herself blinking down at her hands on the knobs. And slowly a line of news copy printed itself across her mind.

Respected News Anchor Sole Suspect in Brutal Murder. Fingerprints Found at Scene. Blackmail Plot and Scandalous Past Uncovered.

“Details at eleven,” she whispered softly. She was swimming in motive. And standing in the middle of a visit that spelled opportunity in 30-point type. She closed her eyes. “No. No, goddammit.” Yanking tissues again, she used them to wipe the faucet and valves, the toilet tank, its handle and anything else she had touched in the bathroom. She tossed the used tissues into the wastebasket, and then grabbed a washcloth from the stack, wet it and wiped down the counter, the doorknob, everything. She removed the plastic bag from the wastebasket and carried it with her back into the main part of the hotel room. When she bent to wipe off the nightstand she had touched moments ago, an icy chill whispered along her spine. The envelope. Where was the envelope? What if the killer had taken it?

“Jesus. What is this? How could anyone know what was in that envelope? And why would they take it if they didn’t know, and…”

No time, not now, her mind whispered, and she found herself nodding in agreement. She had to move; she had to be smart, eliminate any hint of her presence and get the hell out of here, all unseen. She could not afford to panic.

Moving silently and quickly, her entire body still trembling, she wiped down the dead bolt, the doorknob, every surface and door frame in the room, anything she had even been close to, just in case she had rested her hand on any surface. She was careful, and she was thorough. She searched as she wiped. Every cupboard and drawer. She found a stack of self-help books by self-proclaimed psychics on the nightstand: John Andrews and Sylvia Brown and Nathan Z. But the envelope wasn’t there. It wasn’t under the bed. It wasn’t in Harry’s coat pockets or his shaving kit, and those were the only things in the entire room that belonged to him.

When she finished her search and her wiping, she dropped the washcloth into the wastepaper bag and looked around the room. There were two glasses on the table.

Her eyes were drawn back to the dead man in the chair. Her shaking intensified, and her breath began to rush in and out too quickly.

“Focus, dammit!” She barked the words aloud, forcing her attention to the job at hand, told herself to hurry before room service brought the champagne. She focused again on the two glasses. One nearly empty, one half full of whiskey. She picked up the fuller one, which had been hers. It had her prints on it, and maybe her lipstick. She downed the whiskey fast, grating her teeth against the burn and welcoming the warmth that spread outward from her belly when it landed. Then she added the glass to her bag of rubbish and backed toward the door. She yanked her tan trenchcoat from the back of the desk chair where she’d left it, hurriedly put it on, and used the sleeve to wipe off the back of the chair, where it had been hanging. Then, on the edge of panic again, she checked the large inside pocket. But the bundle of cash was still there. A sigh of relief tumbled from her lungs. She took the scarf and oversize sunglasses from another of the deep pockets and put them on. No one had recognized her coming in. She’d always done her best not to be noticed or recognized when meeting with her blackmailer to pay him off. She had become adept at that over the last six months. Thanks to Harry.

She took her small handbag, then pulled her coat sleeve over her hand to open the door and close it behind her, wiping the outer knob clean. At the elevator, she used that same coat sleeve to push the button. The car came to a stop. She tucked her little bag of rubbish underneath her coat as the doors slid open.

A short, round woman of Hispanic descent, wearing a teal designer knockoff dress, glanced at her, then looked away. At all, thin man with skin so pale he seemed colorless stood beside her in a cheap suit. He didn’t make eye contact at all. Julie stepped into the elevator, then went stiff from head to toe when a loud rattling sound came along the hall. As the elevator doors slid closed, she saw the young man, pushing the room service cart along the hall. Along for the ride were a champagne bottle in an ice bucket and two glasses. He stopped in front of Harry’s room.

Sickening fear choked Julie as the elevator doors closed and the car began to drop. That man. He would be opening Harry’s door about now. Finding his body. Shouting in horror. Jesus, she had to get out of here—fast.

The couple got off at the lobby. The moment they did, Julie reached out to wipe the button marked 12 clean of any prints she might have left on it on her way up earlier. She kept her back to the security camera, using her body to block her hands from its all-seeing gaze as she worked. She rode the elevator down to the lower level parking garage, and then she got off and hurried to her car. Her heels were loud in the darkness, clicking over the concrete. They sounded like gunshots to her raw senses.

She dipped in her pocket for her keys. Pushed aside the ever-present notebook, the mini-cassette recorder, the pen…Goddammit, where were her keys?

She stood where she was, ten feet from her Mercedes, closed her eyes and prayed as she slowly, methodically, searched every single pocket, without luck. She searched the small handbag, as well, but the keys were not there. God, please, tell me I didn’t leave them in Harry’s room. She couldn’t have. She couldn’t—

“Calm. Slow. Just think.”

Drawing a calming breath, she hit her mental rewind and then tried to replay the events of the last hour.

She knocked once. Harry opened the door and stood there smirking at her as she pushed past him to go inside. “I thought that twenty grand I paid you a month ago bought me the last copies.”

“I know,” he said, having the good sense to look guilty. “I lied. But this time, I swear, I brought the originals.” He turned and pointed toward the nightstand where the envelope rested. “Look for yourself, if you don’t believe me. I mean it, Jewel, this is the last time you’ll ever hear from me.”

She shook her head slowly, not looking at the items in the envelope. She knew well enough what it contained. The photographs of her at the compound. Proof that her daughter’s birth certificate was a fake. “No. No, you’re lying, just like you’ve been lying all along. This is never going to end, is it, Harry? You’ll keep on bleeding me until there’s nothing left, and then you’ll sell the evidence to the highest bidder anyway. Won’t you?”

“Come on, you know I won’t do that. I promise. This is the last time.” He walked away from her, sat in the chair and poured whiskey into two glasses. “Have a drink. You’re so damn tense you’re making me nervous, and the customary champagne isn’t here yet. Damn slow room service.”

She moved forward, slapped her keys onto the coffee table and picked up one of the glasses. After taking a slug, she set the glass down again.

“People trust you, you know. They respect your opinions. They count on you to be practical and levelheaded and reliable. That’s why you’re so good at what you do, Jewel.”

“It’s Julie.”

“Sure. Now. You’re good, and you know it. That’s why the networks have started sniffing around you.”

She looked at him sharply. “How the hell do you know about that?”

He shrugged, drank his whiskey. “I hear things. What, you think I don’t keep track of you? I probably know more about your life than you do. You know your station’s been talking to male news anchors?”

“What do you know about any of that?”

He smiled. “I know your ratings have been falling since your former coanchor retired. I know you prefer to keep the spotlight all to yourself. I know—”

“You just keep your nose out of my career, Harry. None of it has anything to do with you.”

He shook his head as if she were being ridiculous, then faced her squarely. “I need fifty thousand this time. Cash.”

Her throat tried to close, and she felt tears burn her eyes. Angry tears. Outraged tears. “You’re fucked, then, because I only brought twenty.” She yanked a fat wad of cash, bound in a rubber band, from the inside pocket of her coat, showed it to him.

“You’re fucked, then, ‘cause I can start the rag sheets’ bidding at seventy-five, and it’ll only go up from there. Come on, what happened to all that cash you stole from Mordecai?”

“It’s gone, Harry. I bought a house, a new identity, got an education. All I have now is what I earn at the station—”

“Which you’ll lose—if I share your secret with the world.”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

The look on his face told her that he would dare. God, she had to stop him. She held the cash out to him, silently pleading with him to take it and leave her alone. But he only looked at it as if it were something that smelled bad and then looked away. Julie stuffed the money back into her coat pocket and began to shake. She’d already paid him more than two hundred thousand dollars over the last six months. Her 401K was drained, and she’d had to sell stocks at a loss to get this additional twenty thousand for him.

“Well? Can you get another thirty or do I place a call to The Exposer?”

“I…don’t know. I…I don’t know how I can get another thirty. I don’t know.” She got up, paced back and forth. She was hot, sweating with it, so she peeled off her coat and hung it over a chair near the door. She needed to think, to clear her head. “I need to use the rest room,” she told him.

He shrugged. “It’s over there,” he said, nodding toward the door on the far side of the room. “Don’t be long. Time is money, babe.”

So she went into the bathroom….

“And when I came out, he was dead,” she whispered.

Blinking back to the present, she gave her head a firm shake. “The keys were on the coffee table. Dammit, why didn’t I see them when I was cleaning up?”

Because there were a dead man and a pool of blood in the room with you, some cynical voice inside her taunted. You may have been a little distracted.

“No. That’s not it. Maybe they got knocked off the table. Onto the floor. They must have. They were probably right there, on the floor, or maybe under the edge of a chair, or…” She shivered as her mind raced on. Maybe they were under that blood-soaked chair where she’d left Harry. Maybe they were on the blood-soaked carpet. “Oh God, oh Jesus.”

She had to go back.

The idea of walking back into that room sent her heart racing. Her knees felt weak, and she leaned on a support column to keep from falling over. This was idiotic. She didn’t hyperventilate, and she didn’t faint. It wasn’t in her to faint. But she felt goddamn close to it right now.

Just figure out what to do. Think, dammit!

Dawn. She could call Dawn. Have her bring the spare keys from the rack in the kitchen. She shouldn’t really be driving on her own. She only had her learner’s permit. But in an emergency…

Yeah, that’s the answer, Julie. Bring your daughter into this mess.

No. She couldn’t call Dawn. She didn’t want Dawn within a million miles of this nightmare. Dawn needed to be protected at all costs. Dawn was everything to her.

So think of something else, then.

But there was nothing else to think of. If the police found her keys in that room, that put her there. She had to go back. She wanted to argue with the calm, cool voice in her head. The news anchor voice. But she couldn’t. It was right.

She took a steadying breath, straightened her spine and took another. She’d been standing here, fighting panic and racking her brain, for twenty minutes. She could stand here all night, and it wouldn’t change the facts. She had to find a way to get back inside that room and get her keys before the police did. There wasn’t really a choice here. Turning, she walked firmly, steadily, to the elevator, stuffing the small garbage bag from Harry’s room into a large overfilled Dumpster on the way. Once again she used her coat sleeve to hit the elevator button.

The elevator went up, but not far. It stopped on the lobby level. The doors opened, and two men in police uniforms got on. “What floor did he say?” one was asking.

“Twelve. The manager who called it in is up there with the fellow who found him.”

Like a flash, Julie’s hand shot out to hit a button. Any button besides 12, because these two were cops, and they would damn well notice if 12 was the only button lit, and then they’d want to know why she was going there.

The doors slid closed, and one of the cops, a solid looking man with a face like a road map, hit the button marked 12, noticed it was already lit and glanced her way. The other one stood back. He was taller, leaner and younger. But if anything, he looked even meaner than his partner. Neither was familiar to her, and she considered that a lucky break. But the shorter one glanced at her briefly, then, with a frown, looked at her again.

The car stopped on the third floor, and the doors slid open. She left the elevator as if her feet were on fire, acting as if she were looking for her room key as she did.

When the doors closed again, she stopped, braced her hand on a wall and tried to stop shaking. The police were here already. Now what the hell was she going to do?

A door opened somewhere further down the hall, so she moved in the opposite direction, spotted the stair door ahead of her and headed toward it as if it were a haven.

It was cool and dark in the stairwell. Every breath echoed. But at least she was alone. She could think. She had to get back into that room before the cops found her keys. But how?

Sean MacKenzie didn’t like looking at dead people. You never really got used to it, he supposed. According to his police scanner, there was one waiting for him at the Armory Square Hotel. He’d been up. Lately, sleep was not an option. And trying to sleep when he couldn’t was sheer hell. So he spent a lot of time cruising the city, scanner on, looking for stories.

He had no idea how much it had paid off until he stood outside the door to room 1207, staring in at the body in the chair. His throat was slashed, and there was blood everywhere, and it was goddamn creepy the way the eyes stayed open and seemed to stare right at him. And then he recognized the stiff, and his heart skipped a beat.

“Jesus Christ, isn’t that Harry Blackwood?” he whispered to himself.

“My God, I think it is.”

He damn near jumped right out of his skin when that answering whisper came from so close beside him. He jerked his gaze to the side and saw his nemesis standing right beside him. Julie Jones.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Getting a story, just like you,” she told him.

“You don’t get stories. You read them.”

The two police officers had moved from the main room into the bathroom, checking it out. Other cops, homicide detectives, would be arriving any second to help secure the crime scene, and the two journalists would be tossed out on their asses.

“Have they found anything?” she asked him.

“You think I’d tell you if they had?”

She shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to scoop me on the hard facts, MacKenzie. We both know you make them up as you go along.”

“At least I got my job based on my talent and not on my cleavage.”

She shot him a hate-filled glance. He mirrored it back at her. Then he yanked his camera out of the case that hung from his shoulder and snapped several photos of the dead man. The camera was the quietest one he owned, and he didn’t use the flash. It was a tacky and cheap thing to do, and he would probably be barred from selling the photos, Harry being who he had been, black sheep of a political family that rivaled royalty in New York State. But the photos would be worth some nice cash if he could get away with it.

She said, “You’re a ghoul, MacKenzie.” Then she shouldered him aside. “I’m going in there.” And she walked right into the room.

He reached out to grab her arm, to stop her, but his reaction wasn’t fast enough. She walked right into the crime scene. Granted, there was no yellow tape across the door just yet, but she still knew better. What the hell was she thinking?

She stood near the glass-topped coffee table, her back to him, a notebook in her hand, scribbling rapidly. Only it was odd, because she wasn’t really looking at the notepad as she wrote on it. She was scanning the room, craning her neck, looking at the floor, peering underneath the table. Sean didn’t see all that much of interest besides the body. What was she looking for?

The two cops came from the bathroom, one of them carrying a small zippered plastic evidence bag in his hand. Mac shoved the camera back into the case and backed off just a little, out of the line of fire, but still close enough to see. He was going to relish watching Julie Jones get her ass toasted for this temporary bout of idiocy or whatever had made her walk into that room. He didn’t really think she’d been sitting at the anchor desk long enough to have forgotten the procedure for crime scene reporting. The press did not trample crime scenes. Even he knew that much.

The cops froze in their tracks at the sight of her.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing in here? This is a crime scene!”

She jerked her head up sharply, and Sean saw the moment the cop recognized her. The most famous news anchor in Central NY. “I’m reporting. That’s what I do,” she said. She tucked the pencil behind her ear and started to open the little handbag she carried. “I have ID, if you—”

“Get your fucking ass out of here before I haul you in on an unlawful entry charge!”

It must have startled her, because she dropped the bag. Several items spilled out of it when it hit the floor.

“Jesus, you’re contaminating the hell out of my crime scene,” the second cop said, pushing past the first one toward her. He dropped to his knees on the floor, scooping up her items and shoving them back into her bag, then rising and pushing it into her hands even while shoving her bodily out the door. “You saw her drop that shit, didn’t you, Klein?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. There was nothing on the floor when we came in. It’s fine, just get her the fuck out before we end up explaining to the lieutenant how she got by us, all right? Jax will have us doing paperwork for a freaking month if she hears about this.”

Julie was pawing through the open bag as the cop shoved her out into the hallway. He caught sight of Sean. “You with her?”

“I’m just waiting for a statement.” Sean held up both hands, backing off.

“Stay out here.” The cop glanced at the camera bag. “And no photos.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julie was still digging through the purse. “Hey, hey, wait a minute. Where are my keys?”

Both cops turned. They did not look amused. Probably had visions of that paperwork mountain and an unpleasant session with their superiors dancing in their heads, Sean thought. He knew Lieutenant Jackson, and they were right. She would have them buried in paperwork for this.

Jones went through the items in the purse, taking them out one by one. A cell phone, a pack of gum, a business card case, an earring. “I can’t find my keys,” she said again.

“Jesus, lady, are you saying you lost ‘em in here?”

She searched all of her pockets. Made a big production about it, Sean thought. “I had them. And now I don’t. That’s all I know.”

One cop closed his eyes, sighing and shaking his head.

The other one was talking fast. “What do they look like?”

“The key ring is silver, in the shape of my initials. J. J. It’s got several keys on it. House, office, garage, file cabinet, my car, my daughter’s Jeep.”

As she kept talking, the other cop got back on the floor, looking underneath the chairs, shaking his head in disgust when he found nothing.

The other one said, “Look, if we find your keys, we’ll get ‘em to you, okay? That’s the best we can do for you, lady, and lemme tell you right now, if you breathe a word to anyone about this, I’ll see to it you never get any kind of cooperation from our department again. No tips, no exclusives, no press releases, and we’ll keep you so far away from crime scenes from now on that you’ll have watch someone else’s news show to get the details.” He glanced at Sean. “That goes for both of you. Understand?”

“Yes. Yes, of course I do,” Julie said quickly. “Thank you, Officer. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so sorry.” She yanked the card case from her purse again, took out a card and handed it to him. “When you find the keys, just call me, all right?”

He muttered something unintelligible.

The other cop came forward. “Look, go wait in the lobby. Homicide and Forensics are on the way. I want you two out of here.”

“Can’t we at least get a statement?” Sean asked. And he couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t asked it first. Was she that rusty when it came to actual reporting? The elevator pinged and opened, and several plainclothes cops got out, including the one Sean thought of as the sexiest cop on the force—and maybe also the scariest—blond-haired, blue-eyed Lieutenant Cassandra Jackson.

“You want a statement?” she asked, honing in on the conversation as she strode toward the room. “Here’s your statement. ‘An unidentified man was found dead in the Armory Hotel. Police suspect foul play and an investigation is underway.’”

Sean had started to write, then lifted his head. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh, come on, Jax. It’s Senator Blackwood’s lowlife brother, and his throat’s been cut!”

“That’s Lieutenant Jackson to you.” She took his camera bag from his hand, took out the camera and easily popped open the back. A second later his film was hanging from her hands like crepe paper. She stuffed it into the deep pockets of her olive drab trench coat. “Cause of death will be determined at the autopsy. The identity is unofficial until next of kin are notified and come in to verify it.”

“We won’t release his name until we get the okay,” Julie Jones offered. “Just so long as you give us the okay before you tell anyone else.”

“Uh—both of us, that is. Not just her,” Sean put in, sensing that Jones was trying to scoop him, as usual. He had to admit, though, he was a little relieved that she was finally acting like the professional he reluctantly knew her to be. He tugged a card from a pocket. “My beeper number is on that.”

Jax took it and nodded. “As if I don’t have ten of these?”

“Yeah, but you never call.” He gave her his most charming smile.

She returned a wink. “I’m way more than you could handle, MacKenzie.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine, you two get the scoop. But only if you get out of here right now and let my people do their job.”

“Deal.” Sean turned to head to the elevator, surprised when the normally aggressive Julie Jones turned around and followed him. Something was up with her. He wanted to know what.

He got into the elevator; she got in beside him. The doors slid closed. She sighed audibly, and he swore her body sagged.

“Do you have another set of keys?” he asked.

“Not on me.”

“So then…you need a ride home?”

“I can get a cab.”

He shrugged. “I could drive you.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “Why?”

“Why not?”

Frowning as if she trusted him about as far as she could throw him—a sentiment he understood well, since he felt the same way about her—she finally shrugged. “What the hell. Okay, fine. Drive me home.”