Kitabı oku: «A Kiss In The Dark», sayfa 3

This hug. This embrace. It was what she’d wanted from Dylan the second she’d seen him standing on the patio, to feel his arms around her, his body against hers. To just lean against him and be held.

She’d be safer dancing naked in a bonfire.

“Thank you,” she said against Kent’s chest, struggling to free herself. His arms suddenly felt like a net, sending panic twisting through her. She needed to get away. Not from the cops or Kent, but from Dylan and those hard, penetrating eyes.

Kent, a shrewd politician with a well-earned reputation for cutting throats and breaking hearts, didn’t try to stop her, just stepped back and frowned. For a man rumored to be on his way out, he still held himself with commanding presence.

“I’ll have Livingston’s badge for putting you through this. Anyone who knows you knows you couldn’t hurt a flea.”

Involuntarily, Beth looked toward the end of the hall, only to find Dylan gone.

“Thanks for coming down,” she said, turning back to Lance’s colleagues. “It means a lot to me.”

Kent pulled her in for another quick hug and Janine did her best to smile. Beth bade them good-night, then crossed the lobby to the front door. A few uniformed cops lingered by a counter, talking in loud tones. A woman rushed inside, demanding to know where her Donny was. Across the room, a young girl with ratty hair and torn clothes yelled to anyone who would listen.

Pushing open the glass door, Beth welcomed the blast of cool night air.

“Mrs. St. Croix!” came a shouted voice, as a crowd of reporters rushed up the steps. “Mrs. St. Croix, can you tell us what happened?”

Flashbulbs exploded around her. Microphones were jammed toward her. “Do they have any suspects?”

“Was the murder weapon really a fire poker?”

Beth tried to turn away, but the swarm had circled her.

“Did you really find his body?”

Revulsion surged through her. She saw the collective gleam in the eyes of the reporters, the thirst for a story with no regard for the fact that the roadkill they picked apart was someone’s world. She’d worked hard to keep her personal life private, but when Lance went to work for the district attorney’s office, anonymity became a luxury of the past. He’d thrived on the adulation, fed off it. And the press had fallen in love. He was the grandson of a wealthy state judge, he was handsome, and everyone believed it only a matter of time before he capitalized on his popularity and ran for public office, starting with D.A. The press had been having a field day with rumors about English stepping down, Lance taking over.

No one was quite sure why.

But now the golden boy was dead; murdered, she thought with a sharp stab, and the media he’d used so shamelessly wanted to know why.

“I have no comment,” Beth said. No intention of telling them anything. Even words of innocence could be twisted into stones of condemnation.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, trying to push through the tight circle of reporters.

“Did you kill him?”

The question stopped Beth cold. Yvonne Kelly, an investigative reporter whose love of going for the jugular Lance had always admired, pushed her way to the front. The wind blew pale hair into her face. Her eyes glittered.

“Was it a crime of passion?” she asked icily. “Is that how you ended up with blood on your hands?”

Control shattered. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you—” she started, but the crowd erupted into a frenzy of shouts and curses and shoving before she could finish. Someone screamed. Flashes of light ricocheted through the darkness. She heard a low roar, then the sound of something smashing violently to the concrete.

“You can’t do that!” a reporter shouted.

“Watch me.” Dylan broke from the throng and pushed to her side, hooked an arm around her waist without breaking his stride. “Sorry, folks, but this feeding frenzy is over. Ms. St. Croix has no comment.”

Disappointment tittered through the reporters, but the swarm instantly loosened, obeying Dylan’s command like he was some fallen deity and the price of going against him was eternal damnation. He led her down the steps, his stride long and purposeful. Determined. She almost had to run to keep up with him. He never looked back, just kept his arm around her waist and guided her to the dark SUV at the curb.

He opened the passenger door and grabbed a bulging file from the bucket seat. “Get in.”

Beth hesitated. The interior of the black Bronco looked as dark and isolating as a cave, and once inside, they’d be completely alone. Just the two of them. No outside interference. Just like that cold night at the cabin, the terrible mistake that still had her jerking awake in the middle of the night, heart hammering, chest tight, body burning from his touch.

She didn’t want that. Lance was dead. She was a suspect. There was no room for the chaos that was Dylan in her world. Hadn’t been for a long time. She’d worked hard to carve him from her life, her dreams. But God help her, because of one mindless slip, he’d stepped out of those shadowy, forbidden images and into the worst nightmare of her life.

And Yvonne Kelly was closing in fast.

“We don’t have all night,” Dylan prompted.

Beth cut him a sharp look then slipped into the Bronco. In a heartbeat he had the door closed and was sliding into the driver’s seat, effectively shutting them off from the world. Through the tinted windows, Beth saw Yvonne Kelly hit the sidewalk at a run, but the engine purred to life and they tore from the curb with a shriek of tires.

Her heart raced as fast as the blur of buildings and cars they passed. He took a right curve too fast, then another, then swerved onto the side of the deserted road and threw the gear into park. A few cars lined the street, but no activity, and very little light. They were behind the police station, she realized. Not far away, but completely out of sight.

“You sure do know how to attract a crowd, sweetheart.”

The insolent words brought her back to familiar territory. Or at least, remembered territory. For a few dizzying minutes, Dylan had seemed more stranger than one-man wrecking crew. In his touch, she’d felt a protectiveness she didn’t remember. In his rough-hewn voice, she’d heard a strain she hadn’t understood. This bold, in-your-face proclamation was much more suited to the man she’d foolishly given her heart so long ago.

Little light made its way from the street lamp through the tinted windows, leaving only the blue glow from the dashboard to cast his face in shadow. He watched her intently, his six-foot-two frame dominating the front seat. She could hardly move without touching him.

She didn’t want to touch him.

She hadn’t wanted to spend the night at the cabin with him, either. She’d driven to the mountains after an emotional appointment with her doctor, in search of peace and quiet, to clear her mind. Instead, she’d found Dylan. She hadn’t realized he spent weekends there, at the St. Croix retreat. She hadn’t known the snow would make the roads impassable. She hadn’t anticipated all the memories closing in on her, the nightmare that had pinned her to the bed, waking up to find Dylan by her side, so big and strong, so…gentle. That had been new. Or maybe just an illusion. A dream. A wish. Regardless, it had shredded every remaining particle of her defenses.

Until she’d awoken just before sunrise, sprawled over his big hot body, their legs tangled, his arm draped possessively over her waist.

She’d wanted to cry.

Even now, weeks later, she could hardly believe the gravity of her mistake. She should have been able to tell him no. Tell herself no. She should have been able to resist that keening deep inside, the acute longing to feel his arms around her. It was tempting to make up some excuse like she’d been confused, hadn’t realized what she was doing. But that was a lie, and she knew it. She’d known. And she’d wanted. Badly. That was the problem. Being with Dylan went against everything she believed in, violated the life she’d built. And still, she’d given herself to him.

Still, she’d given.

Never again, she’d promised herself on the cold, slick drive down the mountain. Never, never again would she let herself give in to the kind of desire that burned everything in its path. Passion was intoxicating, but it never, never lasted.

Believing otherwise only led to pain.

She had to focus on Lance now, couldn’t let her irrational reaction to Dylan blur her focus all over again.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

She blinked. “What?”

“Good old-fashioned H₂O,” he said, offering her the plastic bottle from his cup holder. “It’s nothing fancy and a little warm now, but it’s better than you passing out on me.”

She stared at his big, scarred hand, but rather than seeing those capable fingers wrapped around clear plastic, she saw them closed around her wrist. She’d felt the strength of his grip, but an unmistakable tenderness, as well.

It had been the tenderness that made her lash out.

Now she forced herself to look from the hand that could play her body like a song, to the hard line of his mouth and those eyes so deep and dark. And for a shattering moment, she didn’t see the uncompromising man who wanted to know if she’d killed the cousin who shared his last name but not his life.

She saw what she’d remembered on the mountain, the reckless boy he’d been, the one who’d coaxed her from her safe little world and made her want to be a little bad. Daring. To take chances she’d never even considered. And from that mirage came the crazy desire to lean closer and soak up the warmth of his body, to feel his arms close around her and hear his rough-hewn voice promise everything would be okay.

But that was impossible, and she knew it.

With Dylan St. Croix, nothing was ever okay.

“No, thanks,” she said, reaching for the door. “I don’t need you charging in and playing hero.” She’d learned the hard way that leaning on Dylan St. Croix was like leaning on a volcano ready to blow. And if she forgot, she had only to drive thirty minutes south of town, where two cold tombstones stood in silent reminder. “I can take care of myself.”

Curling her fingers around the handle, she pulled.

But the door didn’t budge.

“This isn’t a game,” came Dylan’s dangerously quiet voice from behind her. He reached across the passenger’s seat and pulled her hand from the door. “And I’m sure as hell not doing this for fun.”

“Then let me go.”

“I can’t.”

She turned to face him. Only inches separated them, making her painfully aware of the whiskers shadowing the uncompromising line of his mouth. “Yes, you can.”

“Lance is dead, Bethany, and you’re just barely hanging on. Queen Cutthroat was ready to crucify you. What kind of man would I be if I just melted into the shadows?”

The breath stalled in her throat. His words were soft, silky, but the warning rang clear. She sat there crowded against the seat, stunned, struggling to breathe without drawing the drugging scent of sandalwood and clove deep within her. Not only was he still holding her hand, but his body was pressed to hers, seemingly absorbing every heartbeat, every breath.

“It’s a little late,” she said slowly, deliberately, “to pretend you care what anyone else thinks about you.”

The light in his eyes went dark. “I’ll say it one more time.” He let go of her hand, but didn’t ease away. “I don’t do games. I don’t do hero. And I sure as hell don’t pretend. That was always your specialty.”

The pain was swift and immediate, driving home the truth. Dylan St. Croix had a penchant for streaking into her life like a shooting star, big and blazing and beautiful, but he’d never really known her. Never understood her. Never loved her. He’d just wanted her. In his arms and in his bed, but not in his heart.

“No,” she said, hoping he couldn’t hear the ragged edge to her breathing. “You just blaze along seeing how many applecarts you can knock over.”

He didn’t retreat as she’d hoped, didn’t pull back to his side of the car. “Sometimes that’s the only way to separate the good fruit from the bad.”

“And what am I?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“It’s not for me to decide.”

“Then why won’t you let me go?”

His lips thinned. “I’ve already told you, Bethany, I’m not into standing on the sidelines and watching someone get raked over the coals. Not even you. I’m not that cold.”

There was a rough edge to his voice, a hoarseness that hadn’t been there before. “I never thought you were cold.”

“What about Lance?” he asked, leaning closer. “Did you think he was cold?”

The urge to pull away engulfed her, but with her back against the locked door, she had nowhere to go. Instead, she reached for the blanket of numbness.

“I don’t want to talk about Lance.”

Dylan lifted a hand to her face, violating the space she’d put between them by skimming his index finger beneath her eyes. “You haven’t cried.”

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. No way would she tell him she was all cried out, that before that ill-fated night on the mountain, the last tear had spilled from her eyes the night before she married Lance, when she’d awoken with the remembered touch of Dylan’s hands on her body.

“Crying doesn’t help, Dylan. Crying doesn’t change a damn thing.” She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Dylan to see truths she couldn’t hide. Not even from herself.

She realized her mistake too late. A woman should never close her eyes on Dylan St. Croix. Never turn her back to him. Never give him an advantage to press. Because he would.

Dylan St. Croix never turned down the killing blow.

Out of the darkness his mouth came down on hers, and just like that explosive, snowbound night in the cabin, the bottom fell out from her world.

Chapter 3

She could retreat from the world, build ice palaces where no one could touch her, hurt her, but by God, Dylan refused to let her slip away from him. Not again. Pretenses made him crazy. Lies destroyed.

Sex, Dylan. It was just sex. Nothing more, nothing less.

The words tore in from the past, dark. Tortured. After all this time, he still didn’t know if she’d spoken the truth when she’d told him she loved him, or when she’d told him she didn’t.

And he knew if Bethany had her way, he never would.

He felt her stiffen beneath his hands, his mouth, heard the sharp intake of breath. But she didn’t lift a hand to his face like she’d done that night in the mountains, didn’t sigh, didn’t open for him.

Frustration twisted with something darker, something he’d tried to destroy, but that had lain dormant instead. He’d hoped to slice through the remote facade she wore like a tight-fitting bodysuit, to see if he could still reach her or if after that night she’d traveled so far away, sewn herself up so tightly, that she was beyond even his touch.

He might as well have lifted a goblet of arsenic to his own mouth and drunk greedily.

Bethany wrenched away from his kiss and stared at him through huge, bruised eyes. The breath tore in and out of her.

“Does that change anything?” he asked darkly, buying time to bring himself under control.

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “I’m not a naive, passion-drunk little girl anymore,” she whispered, “I’m not my mother. It takes more than a kiss in the dark to break me.”

Like he’d done before. She didn’t say the words, but they reverberated through him. He looked at her sitting inches from him, her hair loose around her face, the mutinous line of the mouth that could set his body to fire. She no longer wore that slinky robe, and for that, he found himself grateful. But somehow, even in the severe black pantsuit, she still managed to look shockingly vulnerable, wary, but beautiful all the same.

“Who said I was trying to break you?” Maybe he’d been trying to break himself.

A hard sound broke from her throat. He refused to label it pain.

“You forget,” she said. “I know you, Dylan. I know how you operate. But it’s not going to work. You can’t rattle a confession out of me—you lost that ability long ago.”

The words sounded tough, but he’d felt the tremor race through that lithe body of hers. Who was she trying to convince? he wondered. Him? Or herself.

“Careful, Bethany. Some men might mistake that as a challenge.”

She pulled his hand away from her face. “Let me go.”

He should, he knew. A smart man would unlock the door and let her vanish into the night all over again. But he couldn’t do that. Lance was dead, and Bethany had bruises around her wrists. He didn’t want to think about what other, less visible, wounds she hid. But did.

“You always thought you’d break if you showed emotion. But the truth is you’ll break if you don’t. There’s honesty in feeling things deeply. Not shame.”

Through the glow of the dashboard, her eyes darkened. At the house, he’d seen the wall of ice slide into place, but this time her expression remained naked and raw, like she was bleeding from the inside out and couldn’t make it stop.

“Maybe I don’t feel anything.” The words were soft, brittle, surprisingly candid. “Maybe everything inside me is cold. Frozen.”

And maybe he was a fool. He never should have come to the police station, never should have left his grandfather’s house. He’d gone there to tell the judge about Lance, but afterward, the silence had been suffocating. The older man had retreated, not showing a flicker of the grief Dylan knew he felt.

“It’s called shock,” he said and knew, “but someone who doesn’t know you could mistake lack of emotion for lack of feeling.”

“And you, Dylan? Is that what you think?”

“I know you’re capable of feeling. At least you used to be.” Earlier, the years between them had fallen away; now they stacked right back up. “But I don’t know you anymore, and I don’t have a damn clue how you felt about Lance.”

He never had, either. Part of him wanted to hear her express pure, undying love for his cousin. No matter how badly that would sting, at least it would help assure him Zito’s suspicions were as crazy as Dylan wanted them to be. Without that sentiment, he was left standing on the razor fine edge of doubt, and it was slicing him to the bone.

“Did you love him?” he asked point-blank.

She didn’t look away like he expected her to, like she once would have. Through the darkness, she just stared at him.

“Well?” he asked. “It’s not that tough of a question.”

Bethany looked down at the hands clasped severely in her lap, where the gaudy two-carat, emerald-cut solitaire Lance had given her no longer overwhelmed her slender finger.

“Lance and I had a…complicated relationship.”

“I thought it looked pretty simple.” Though he’d tried not to look at all. Not to know. “He went his way, and you went yours.”

She looked up abruptly. “Not every relationship has to be fire and brimstone. Sometimes they can be quiet and simple, undemanding. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Relationship? It looked more like a photo-op to me.”

Pain flickered in her eyes, and yet she lifted her chin like a queen. “You have no right to pass judgment on me, Dylan. Not you, of all people. You and Lance were hardly the devoted cousins your grandfather wanted everyone to think you were.”

“How could we be?” Sebastian St. Croix had done his best to raise Dylan and Lance as brothers, but they’d been as different as fire and ice. Lance had thrived in the posh world of the Portland elite, old money and timeless hypocrisy.

Dylan had felt like he’d been sent to prison.

“The only thing we had in common was something two men should never share.” And now Lance was dead, leaving Dylan to pick up the pieces, like his cousin had done for him so long ago.

“I’m not doing this,” Bethany said, reaching for the door.

But he didn’t release the locks, wasn’t ready to let her go. “I’m just calling a spade a spade, sweetheart.”

She turned back toward him. “But that doesn’t change anything, does it? Lance is still dead. And no matter what went down between the two of you, the two of us for that matter, he didn’t deserve to die.”

She’d yet to say she loved him. He wondered if she realized that. Worse, he wondered why he cared.

“No,” he agreed, “he didn’t.” But too well, Dylan knew people didn’t always get what they deserved. Or wanted.

Once, a long time ago, Dylan’s grandmother had given him a bag of marbles. He’d loved playing with the small, colorful glass balls, had spent hours organizing and sorting them. Then Prince Lance had come over, yanked the bag from Dylan’s hands, and dumped them on the sloping driveway. The marbles had scattered everywhere, and no matter how quickly Dylan tried to scoop them up, they just kept rolling away from him. With sickening clarity, he remembered the sound of Lance’s laughter.

But when his grandfather had caught them fighting, it had been Dylan who got the belt.

Now he studied Bethany through the blue glow of the dashboard lights, the shadows playing against the soft lines of her face. Silky hair cascaded down her shoulders, looking more sable than brown. She’d brushed it, he noted, and wondered if Lance had ever done the task for her. Like he had.

A long time ago.

“Where will you go?” he asked.

“Home,” she started, but he saw the second awareness dawned. Her home was a crime scene. “Maybe a hotel.”

“The media will be crawling all over you there,” he said. “You’ll be safer at my house.”

Her eyes flared. “Your house?”

He didn’t stop to think. “It’s isolated, secure. No one would find you there.”

And he really was out of his mind.

She just stared at him. And when she spoke, her voice was soft but cutting, classic Bethany. “That was me on the patio this evening. That was me you practically accused of killing your cousin. It’s too late to pretend you’re on my side.”

No matter where he stepped, they always landed in the same place. “I’m not the one pretending, Bethany.”

She didn’t defend herself as he wanted, didn’t take the bait. She just frowned. “It’s late, I’m tired, and I don’t have the energy for your games right now. Please. Let me go.”

“My God,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice, the one that masked all those sharp edges slicing him up inside. “You’re really just going to sit there and act like that night on the mountain didn’t happen?” He’d told himself he wasn’t going to bring it up, but the fact she was pretending it never happened pushed him over the edge. It happened. She’d come alive in his arms, twisted and turned, begged. “We didn’t even use birth control, for crissakes. I could have gotten you pregnant. Would you have even told me?”

The car was dark, but he saw the color fade from her face, saw her wince.

“I can’t have children,” she said. “You know that.”

The pain in her voice almost made him turn back. Almost. “Are you sure about that?”

She stared at him a long moment before answering. He waited for one of her ice walls to slide in place, but her expression remained naked, bleeding. He could hear the edge to her breathing. And slowly, slowly, fire came back into her eyes.

“Do you enjoy being cruel?” she asked in a cracked voice.

“It’s a legitimate question. We had sex. If there’s any chance—”

“It was a mistake!” she surprised him by shouting. “It was one of those heat of the moment—”

He went coldly still. “Don’t.”

He didn’t know whether it was the edge to his voice or the fury he knew hardened his expression, but something dangerously close to fear flashed in her eyes. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t sit there and insinuate you didn’t know what you were doing. You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you.”

For a moment he saw the same heat in her gaze, that glaze of passion that had haunted him for so long. But then, finally, at last, a Bethany ice wall slid into place, and she angled her chin. “That doesn’t make it right.”

He wasn’t going to let her do it. Wasn’t going to let her use the heat between them as a weapon against him. “Quit trying to make everything black or white,” he bit out. “It wasn’t premeditated. It just…happened. We were stranded. You needed someone, and I was there.”

A shadow crossed her face. “It was wrong.”

It took effort, but somehow he resisted the urge to reach across the seat and put his mouth to hers, prove what she tried to deny.

Instead, he let an insolent smile curve his lips. “I thought it was pretty damn right.”

“Dylan—”

“But don’t worry, angel, when I think of that night…” which he tried not to “…I don’t see you naked or hear the way you cried out my name, I see the morning after, waking up alone in that big cold bed. I may be a slow learner, but sledgehammers like that usually do the trick.”

“Then there’s nothing left to say, is there?” she asked in a voice devoid of all emotion.

Because he wanted to crush her in his arms, he released the locks. “Go.”

She did. Without looking back, she pushed open the door and let in a blast of cold, then stepped into the night and vanished in the darkness.

Just like always.

B. B. King belted out the blues, but with only ten minutes until Shady’s called it a night, few remained to listen. Two of the three pool tables stood deserted. Only one poor soul remained at the bar. The smoke was actually beginning to clear.

“You know this breaks every rule in the book,” Zito said, running a hand over his scruffy face.

Dylan polished off his scotch and dropped the empty glass on top of a heart carved into the battered wood table. “Depends upon whose book you’re talking about.”

“Since when have I given a damn about any book but my own?”

That’s exactly what Dylan was counting on. After he’d followed Bethany to a hotel, he’d tried to go home and put her out of his mind, but quickly realized climbing Mount Hood blindfolded would be easier.

He needed to know what had gone down in that interrogation room. He knew Zito’s partner, knew the man’s knack for going for the jugular. And it had killed him to wait outside, to not know, to imagine. Had they broken her? Had they made her hurt?

“No one’s making you stay,” he reminded the detective.

Zito made a show of picking up his microbrew and drinking deeply of the local favorite, all the while his speculative, too-seeing gaze trained on Dylan. “Don’t tell me the champion of the underdog is standing by the woman who killed your cousin? Beauty doesn’t equate innocence, son.”

“You think she did it?” he asked as blandly as he could.

Zito shrugged. “Chances are.”

“Evidence?”

Zito reached for a cigarette. “Mostly circumstantial at this point, but the divorce makes a nice motive. She lost a lot when he walked out on her.”

“Money never mattered to her.” Just stability. Peace. Solitude. The kind of lifestyle Dylan could never offer.

“People change.”

Dylan eyed the half-empty pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t put one to his mouth in over a year, hadn’t craved the pungent bite in months. Until now. Sure people changed, but deep down, needs and desires stayed the same.

The daughter of a woman who thrived on grabbing the spotlight any way she could, who upgraded husbands and lovers more frequently than most people did cars, Bethany had always dreamed of a life straight out of a fifties sitcom. She wanted to be June Cleaver. She wanted to marry Ward.

Instead, she’d married Lance.

Dylan had always wondered what went down when Lance decided to enter public service, rather than the private sector he’d always promised he would serve. If she’d been angry, betrayed, she’d never let it show. While Lance’s star soared, she’d devoted herself to a nonprofit organization for underprivileged teenage girls.

The blade of sorrow caught him by surprise. Prince Lance was dead now. Gone forever. And Bethany was left standing in the spotlight, alone. With blood on her hands.

“It doesn’t add up,” he muttered. Despite the circumstantial evidence and apparent motivation, Dylan couldn’t see Bethany doing anything to draw attention to herself, much less place herself in the heart of a scandal.

“Not all crimes are premeditated,” Zito pointed out. “Passion can lead to murder as easily as a one-night stand. You don’t know what went down today. You don’t know what was going on between her and Lance. She might have just snapped.”

A hard sound broke from Dylan’s throat. “You don’t know Bethany.” She never snapped, never came unglued. Never. Except—

Don’t go there, he warned himself. Don’t even acknowledge there existed.

“I hate to spoil the party,” Loretta Myers said as she picked up their empties, “but some of us have homes to go to.”

Dylan glanced around the darkened bar and saw that only he and Zito remained. “Come on, Lori, cut us some slack.”

“Five minutes, saint. Five minutes.”

He winked, earning a glower before she strolled away.

“You can’t let that pretty face fool you, son.”

Dylan jerked his attention back to Zito, the cigarettes begging him from the table. Sometimes, restraint came at a high cost. “Come on, man, even I’m not that hard up.”

“Not Loretta. Bethany. I saw the way you were looking at her, the way she was looking at you.”

“And what way would that be?”

“I’m not a poet, son, but for a minute there I thought I was going to have a second crime to clean up.” Zito stood. “One of the hardest lessons a cop learns is to remain objective, no matter what. That’s what makes Bethany St. Croix so dangerous. I know it’s hard to look into those sexy blue eyes and see a murderer, not a woman you’d love to have underneath you, but facts don’t lie. And right now, the facts say she probably killed Lance. It’s my job to prove it.”