LITMIR.BIZ

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examining a designer original evening gown that sparkled even in the artificial overhead light. “What drove you, Eileen? What?”

      Taylor stopped talking and cocked her head, listening. Was that…?

      It was.

      The sound of the front door opening and then closing. Instantly alert, her journey in the other woman’s shoes immediately suspended, Taylor pulled out her weapon again.

      Had someone else come in?

      What was going on here, anyway? It felt as if she’d wandered into an open house instead of an official crime scene. Holding her breath, Taylor cautiously made her way to the living room again.

      And then stopped dead.

      The handcuffs she’d used to secure the intruder were neatly lying on the white rug before the Doric column, nothing but air held within the metal circles.

      She rushed over to the cuffs and grabbed them, exasperation bubbling within her veins as she scanned the room. The intruder was nowhere to be seen. He’d pulled a Houdini on her. How? These weren’t fake cuffs or a prop. The average person couldn’t have gotten out of them.

      Hell, she couldn’t have gotten out of them. But he had. Just who the hell was he?

      “Damn it!” Taylor exclaimed, scanning the room again as if the second survey would somehow uncover the man for her.

      What if the door opening and closing was just to throw her off?

      She looked around for a third time, tension weaving in and out of her. Taylor half expected the stranger to come charging at her from one of the corners.

      Adrenaline still rushing through her veins, weapon drawn, she swept from one room to another, checking closets, bathrooms, the balcony. Anywhere the man could have folded his lengthy form and attempted to hide. All to no avail.

      The man was gone.

      Who the hell was he and how did he fit into all this? she silently demanded, her exasperation growing exponentially. This scenario wouldn’t have gone this way if Aaron had been with her. Damn him, anyway.

      No, Taylor upbraided herself tersely the next moment. This wasn’t Aaron’s fault, it was hers. She was the one who’d gotten sloppy, unconsciously getting too accustomed to someone having her back at all times.

      She knew better.

      On this job, no matter what, you had to remain vigilant because there were no guarantees and even the best of partners could be caught napping.

      Just like she had this evening, she thought in disgust.

      Crossing to the front door, Taylor locked it, then tested the doorknob to make sure it held. It did. Even so, she dragged one of the chairs over and placed it in front of the ornate door. If “Houdini” decided to come back and pick the lock, he’d still wind up hitting the chair. The scraping noise the feet would make against the marble would alert her. She didn’t want to be caught off guard a second time.

      Most likely, she mused, the intruder wasn’t going to come back. He was probably just happy to get away. Not that she planned to let him. She intended to find him, but that was something she’d deal with later. After she did what she came here to do.

      Glancing toward the door one final time, Taylor went back to Eileen Stevens’s bedroom. Somewhere amid all the woman’s things she hoped to get a handle on the late lawyer’s life.

      

      No doubt about it, Eileen Stevens had led an extremely busy life, Taylor concluded more than ninety minutes later, finally driving home to her own apartment. A busy life, but, as far as she could ascertain, it had been far from satisfying. The few photographs that did grace the walls in the lawyer’s study were of Eileen and the other, older partners from the firm. Eileen appeared very formal in them.

      Didn’t the woman have a personal life?

      From everything she’d found, it didn’t seem so. There were no love letters stashed in a bottom drawer, held fast with a faded ribbon, no secret photographs tucked away in an album of someone who had once made her pulse race. There was nothing to indicate that Eileen had made any kind of personal contact with anyone.

      The only scrapbook the woman had kept was filled with newspaper articles about her cases. Cases she had won. It was all about winning for Eileen.

      Can’t take a court victory to bed with you at night, Taylor thought.

      “Looks like you lost, big time,” Taylor murmured under her breath to a woman who could no longer benefit from any insight she might have to give.

      Is this any better than your life? an annoying voice in her head mockingly asked. Here it is, way past your shift, and what are you doing? Poking around a dead woman’s apartment.

      Taylor unconsciously stiffened her shoulders. Eileen Stevens’s life wasn’t like her life, she silently insisted. She had a life, she had a family. A family that meant the world to her and who were always there for her anytime she needed them, or just wanted to kick back. Just because she wasn’t spending her nights with a lover didn’t make her anything like the dead woman.

      She blew out a breath as she pulled into her apartment complex, a modest collection of garden apartments with carport parking and bright white daisies planted all along their borders.

      “Great, so now you’re arguing with yourself. Maybe you should go back to Brian and have him assign that temporary partner to you,” she said out loud in disgust.

      Taylor pulled into her carport and turned the engine off. For a second she sat there, listening to crickets calling to each other. In the distance was not-so-faint music coming from the pool area. Someone was having another party.

      Someone was always having another party this time of year. She felt no desire to go.

       Maybe you should go, anyway. Might do you good.

      She shook her head. Andrew Cavanaugh saw to her social life. The former chief of police and family patriarch held enough gatherings at his place to take care of any spare time she had.

      Tonight she was just tired. Tired and disappointed in herself for allowing that cocky intruder to get away. Tomorrow would be better, she silently vowed getting out of her vehicle. All she needed was a good night’s sleep and then she’d be back on track.

      The good night’s sleep she’d planned on had eluded her.

      Oh, she’d slept all right, but rather than a restful, dreamless event, her night was packed full of dreams. One dream flowering instantly into another, all involving the sexy intruder.

      The dreams played out so vividly that she’d had trouble separating reality from fiction. In several versions, the intruder got the drop on her rather than she on him. In the last dream, things inexplicably heated up. Her clothes disappeared just as she realized that he wasn’t wearing any either.

      That was when she bolted upright, waking up.

      It was 7:00 a.m. and her pulse was racing. Her breathing was so shallow she thought for a moment she was going to hyperventilate. The downside was that she felt far more tired than when she’d first fallen asleep.

      Exhausted, her breathing finally under control, she dropped, face forward on the comforter for a moment longer.

      Who the hell was that man and how did he fit into Eileen’s life? Taylor wondered for the hundredth time.

      She knew she wasn’t going to have any peace until she answered those questions, especially the first one. Sitting up again, Taylor sighed and dragged her hand through her tousled, long blond hair. First thing this morning, she would see about getting together with the sketch artist, before the intruder’s features faded from her memory.

      She should be so lucky.

      Throwing off the covers, Taylor marched into the bathroom.

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