LITMIR.BIZ

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But it hadn’t been just that he was drawn to her, connected in some way he couldn’t explain. It had been because of the murder. He’d called the Bureau to find out why she’d been called away so abruptly and he’d learned of it. The ritualistic killing that so closely matched the M.O. of the protagonist of his Thief of Hearts novels. He’d had to see for himself if the nightmares he’d hoped were only products of his imagination matched the horrifying reality.

      “I was there,” he murmured, the dead woman’s terror gripping him again. “It was just like.” The violent images once again took center stage in his mind.

      “It’s not your fault,” Dietrich said, “if someone copied your book. You can’t be held responsible for someone else’s actions.”

      But what if they’d once been his?

      He closed his eyes, and passionate images replaced the violent ones. A woman’s nails raking his back, clutching at his butt as he thrust inside her again and again. Alaina Paulsen was more than just an agent investigating murders; she was part of it, too.

      She had once been his … and he couldn’t leave until she was again.

      Excitement coursed through him, but he fought it down, fought to control his emotions.

      But it was all so perfect.

      He wanted to scream, wanted to thump his fist in the air in celebration. But he had rejoiced another way, a far more satisfying way….

      He lifted the cover from the box. He’d found it, like he had so many other things, when he’d opened that door and allowed the past to come rushing back into his mind.

      A chuckle rumbled in his chest. Trent Baines had unlocked that door with his books. And until today the man had had no idea that he’d let the monster loose.

      He gazed inside that box at the heart he’d stolen. In his mind, it beat yet. For him.

      But it wasn’t the heart he really wanted. That heart beat now inside Alaina Paulsen’s chest. But he knew to whom it had once belonged. The woman she had once been and the man she had once loved.

      Now he knew who they all were and who they all had once been … before he’d killed them.

      He closed the lid on the box, which would soon fill with more hearts. Because now he knew what he had to do, who he had to kill. Again.

       Chapter 5

      “So did you talk to the director?” Alaina asked as Vonner dropped into the chair across from her desk. Dust danced in the morning sun streaming through the windows. Since she’d forbidden the night-shift cleaners from touching her office, and potentially misplacing some of those files, she’d have to clean it herself soon.

      After taking a swig of coffee from his paper cup, Vonner grimaced and shook his head. “No. I talked to Bilski first, like you suggested.”

      “And?”

      He shrugged. “He doesn’t think Baines is a problem.”

      Alaina rubbed her fingers over her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept at all last night, plagued by the images chasing through her mind. Of that poor woman … and Trent, leaning close to her in the hall, his eyes promising her the passion she remembered from another life. Maybe she should have gone with him, wherever he’d wanted to take her. Maybe she should have let him take her….

      Maybe then she would have had the answers she’d sought for so many years.

      She opened her eyes and focused on the pile of cold cases. Which woman had she been of the twelve murdered at the hands of a sadistic serial killer?

      “You and I both know better,” Vonner prodded her.

      “What?” Heat flushed her face. She did know better than to trust a man who could have been that killer.

      “We both know that Baines is a problem,” Vonner explained. “A big one.”

      Yes, a problem for her peace of mind. For her heart.

      But was he the killer? God, she hoped not.

      “So Bilski wouldn’t speak to the director?” she asked, trying to follow the conversation when she was tempted instead to follow her heart.

      “No.” Vonner snorted his disgust. “He figures Baines already left.”

      A twinge of regret tightened her chest. She rubbed her knuckles over it, feeling the faint ridge of the scar beneath the thin fabric of her lightweight sweater. She closed her eyes again, as an image taunted her.

      Lips on her breast, the skin smooth and clear over her heart. Hands tightening on her hips, lifting her to meet his thrusts.

      She opened her eyes, trying to clear her head, and she met his deep green gaze. Trent Baines stood behind Vonner, leaning against the open door of her small office. Heat rushed to her face as if he’d caught her like she’d been in that memory—naked and vulnerable.

      “Good morning,” he greeted them.

      Startled, Vonner jerked and inadvertently squeezed his paper cup. Coffee surged between the rim and the lid and ran over his fingers. He set the cup on the floor and cursed.

      Trent clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I figured you’d have sharper reflexes, being an agent.”

      “Damn you.”

      He shook his head. “You better run some cold water over that. Looks like it could be a nasty burn.”

      Vonner, his dark eyes hot with anger, glanced back at Alaina. “Go ahead,” she assured him. “I can show Mr. Baines out.”

      “Show me out?” he asked after Vonner knocked against him, passing him in the door way.

      She rose from behind her desk and walked around it, blocking it and those files from his view. This was her personal space; she wanted him nowhere near it. “You must be leaving, right? Heading back to the U.P.?”

      “Not yet,” he said, his gaze intent on her face, as if he knew what she’d been thinking, what she’d been seeing.

      “There’s no reason for you to stick around,” she pointed out. “You won’t talk.”

      “There’s another reason for me to stick around,” he said, leaning close.

      She needed to step back, to get away from him, in case he tried to kiss her. Because somehow she knew that if his lips touched hers, she’d be lost.

      But instead of kissing her, he murmured, “I need to see those cold-case files.”

      She stepped closer to him, tempted to shove him out the door. “You exploited those women enough already,” she said, anger choking her. “You’re not using them anymore.”

      “I only have your word that my books match those murders,” he said.

      “You were there yesterday, at the crime scene.” It still galled her that he’d beaten her there. “You know those murders match the books.”

      “No, I know that murder matched my books.” And it drove him crazy that that woman might have died because of him, because some lunatic had decided to copy what he’d written. Or what he’d done.

      “It’s the same as the others,” she insisted. “There’s no need for you to go through the files.”

      “You should want me to take a look at them,” he said. “I can help you.”

      She shook her head, and while he couldn’t feel her emotions, he glimpsed the fear in the depths of her gray-blue eyes. Maybe, like him, she was afraid of the answers to the questions, afraid of what she would learn about herself. “What makes you think I need your help?”

      “You came to me,” he reminded her.

      “For answers. You haven’t given me

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