LITMIR.BIZ

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turned on the flashlight and took the steps quickly. Hanging a right, he walked around the right front corner of the house, spotting an officer with his light trained just below the windowsill.

      “You got something?”

      “Yeah. It’s suspect, anyway. Sort of weird.”

      Royce stepped in next to the officer and aimed the flashlight beam on the same spot.

      “What does it mean?” Officer Jones asked.

      “I don’t know.”

      The letters were scratched…no, carved into the siding of the house. It wasn’t weathered. It looked fresh.

      BEHOLD…and the beginning of another letter. “Is that part of an E maybe?”

      “Could be.” Royce slid the flashlight’s beam down the siding and onto the soft earth, where a partial shoe print was pressed into the mud.

      “Get Gina on this, see if we can match it to the tracks in the kitchen.”

      “Do you think they were made by the same person?”

      Royce pondered the officer’s question, but he didn’t have an answer.

      “We’ll have to wait for a comparison.” But there was one thing he knew for certain.

      Adelaide Charboneau was in real danger.

       Chapter Two

      Royce paced in front of the chief’s office door.

      It had been two days since Adelaide Charboneau’s attack, two days too many as far as he was concerned. Hell, he’d have put half the department shoulder to shoulder around her house if he could have.

      “Beckett. Stop it, and get in here.”

      Relief would have been his response had Chief Danbury’s voice not held its note of irritation for more than two beats.

      He avoided the chair directly in front of the desk and chose to stand. “You heard about Miss Charboneau’s attempted kidnapping?”

      “Is that what it is now?”

      “Her attacker blindfolded her and restrained her with duct tape. He was dragging her across the lawn when I got to the scene. We have to assume he planned to take her if I hadn’t intervened. For what purpose, we don’t know.”

      Danbury grunted, motioned to the chair and rocked back in his own.

      A sit-down was a good indication he’d at least hear him out, up until the word “stake-out” came up, anyway.

      “I’ve read the report, Beckett, and you know where we stand on manpower. I’m up to my armpits in shortfalls. The mayor is having a hissy fit because the knucklehead who snatched his mother’s purse hasn’t been apprehended yet. Three cruisers in the motor pool have been vandalized in the last week, and this department is stretched as thin as my momma’s gray hair.”

      “She’s one of our own, Chief.” If his statement registered with Danbury, it was in the way his eyes narrowed for an instant and his shoulders sagged. “Spill it.”

      Royce sat forward, feeling tension crank the muscles between his shoulder blades. “I know this guy is coming back for her. I don’t know when, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I just know he is.”

      “Cut the drama, Beckett. How much time?”

      “Three days, more if necessary.”

      Chief Danbury let out a puff of air and eyeballed him with skepticism from across the desk. “The report says the word behold was carved in the wood under a window. Any idea what it means?”

      “No.”

      “Did you ask Miss Charboneau?”

      “I didn’t get the chance—”

      “Then you better get cracking. You’ve got three days.”

      Had he heard correctly? Three days to prove a theory that had churned up from somewhere in his gut?

      “Thanks, Chief.” He stood up and hustled for the door.

      “Don’t thank me yet. If anything comes in, I’m pulling you off this.”

      He nodded and didn’t turn around. He couldn’t risk giving Danbury a chance to renege. It was going to be tough enough to hope another case didn’t come in and push hers down on the priority list.

      Hanging a left at the end of the hall, Royce headed for Gina’s office, almost running into her as she stepped through the doorway.

      “Hey, Ice Man, you better pull your head out of the clouds before you get hurt.”

      Royce stopped short and glanced up, irritated with himself for not paying attention. “The Charboneau case.”

      “Hmm. I don’t suppose you’d be this mushy-brained if she were, let’s just say, less than attractive.”

      He gave her a serious stare. “Yes, she’s beautiful, but I’m only interested in doing my job, and catching the creep who kicked her door down and tried to abduct her.” He pulled in a breath, watching a slow smile bow Gina’s lips.

      “Just checking to see if you’ve caught the bug, too, because in case you haven’t noticed, the single men in this department have lost touch with any measure of decorum they may have possessed. It’s Miss Charboneau this, and Adelaide that—”

      “You’re jealous?” Royce followed her into her lab and leaned against the counter.

      “No. But my date-night calendar for this weekend is empty. Care to disprove my observation? I’ll pencil you in.”

      “Busy.”

      “I was counting on you to be immune.”

      He wasn’t immune, but he opened his mouth to quantify a denial.

      Gina held up her hand, and the rebuttal stuck in his throat.

      “Yes. I have some results on the Charboneau scene.”

      He clamped his teeth together and smiled.

      “Men,” she grumbled as she snagged a file from her desk and returned to the counter. “I’ll have you know she has turned every one of them down for a date in the past six months. I have no idea why they keep banging their heads against that wall.”

      A measure of admiration circulated in his brain as he watched her open the file and spread out its contents.

      “There were no prints on the duct tape, but I did find some fibers, possibly from a pair of gloves, which would explain why we didn’t find any foreign prints on the tape, or anywhere in the house.”

      She slid the photo of Adelaide’s bound hands in his direction, exposing the one underneath. It showed the towel used to blindfold her, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the close-up of her lips that had made it into the top of the frame.

      Full and supple, slightly parted. Sexy as hell.

      The desire to connect them with his own, and part them even farther with his tongue, streaked through his mind before he could pull it back.

      “The footprints from the kitchen floor, and the one from under the studio window, do they match?” he asked, more than ready to refocus his thoughts on the crime scene, rather than the crime’s beautiful victim.

      Gina flipped the tantalizing photo over with a decisive slap. “No. We’re looking at two different sets of footprints. Two different subjects.”

      “There’s no way to tell if they were made on the same night?” Concern laced through him.

      “Not unless you’re some sort of human surveillance camera. It’s just the toe of a shoe, and the only reason I was able to cast it at all is because the overhang protected it from the downpour. Otherwise,

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