Mary sighed in mild relief when the an who called himself Michael left the bar. She'd noticed him the first time he'd come in. Of course she'd noticed him. A woman would have to be dead not to notice him. A woman would have to be dead not to notice him. He was pale, but God, he was beautiful. The most strikingly beautiful man she had ever seen. His hair was long, a deep shade of brown. He didn't tie it back or hack it off. He left it hanging just as it grew, no apologies. He was lean but powerful. That sense of raw energy was more a palpable thing than a visible one. He didn't bulge with muscle. There was just this quiet strength about him that left no doubt about its presence.
But his eyes struck her most of all. The first time he had lifted his hooded gaze to look her way, she'd felt these eyes on her like brands, and when she'd looked back, shed felt herself falling into them. They were black, his eyes, and hypnotic. They made her heart pound harder against her chest, and her breath came quick shallow. They made her stomach knot and her hands tremble.
It was only when he'd broken the connection by looking away quickly that she'd realized he didn't want to make contact. He wasn't trying to pick her up. Throughout that night and the nights that followed, she had felt that penetrating gaze on her again and again, but each time she tried to return it, he looked away.
She was suffering the throes of an intense physical attraction to a complete stranger. She was not the kind of woman who lusted after men she'd never met. She didn't go to strip clubs or buy hunks calendars or pant for action heroes. But if this guy were on a calendar, she thought, she would buy a copy for every wall in her apartment.
She'd fantasized about him at night, when she was alone in her room. Fantasies so bold and so unlike her that they startled her. And yet she relished every forbidden image that raced through her mind and her dreams.
It wasn't until the policeman working on her break-in complaint has asked her if there were anyone new in her life, anyone strange hanging around, perhaps paying undue attention to her, that she'd even begun to suspect her dark stranger at the bar might be the one. The cop thought that the break-in, combined with her feeling of being followed home three nights in a row and the barrage of odd phone calls, added up to a possible stalker. And that frightened her.
Not as much as Michael had.
The phone calls had begun two weeks ago. At first the caller would just phone once or twice after the bar closed, wake her from a sound sleep and hang up. Then he stated with the heavy breathing. And now he'd moved up to whispered threats. One-liners. "I'm watching you," he'd tell her, or "I'm coming for you soon."
She'd gotten her number changed-the phone company had taken forever, but that had been done yesterday. In the meantime, someone had broken into her apartment, though nothing had been taken. Nothing she noticed, anyway.
So now she had all new locks on the doors and windows, and the police had promised to keep any eye on the place, whatever that meant.
When she hustled the last customer out of the bar and locked the door, chill rushed up her spine. Michael said the ma was more than a stalker-that he was a killer. And that she was next on his list. She swallowed hard, quickly rinsed the remaining glasses and wiped down the bar.
Tommy came in from the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. "Good night for you, Mare?" he asked. He slung the towel over his shoulder and moved from table to table, turning the chair upside down and setting them on top.
She glanced at her tip jar. A one-hundred-dollar bill lay on top of the mounds of one and fives and change. "Uh... yeah. Another good day." She wasn't surprised. There had been one in her jar every night for a while now. Ever since the stranger named Michael started coming around.
Customers did not put money into the tip jar. They left it on their tables or handed it to her themselves. She kept the jar under the mahogany bar, on a shelf, and added her tips to it herself throughout the night. She'd never seen Michael leave his table or come anywhere near it. Not once. And yet, somehow she knew he was responsible for it.
She would return the money to him if she could afford to. But so far his tips had enabled her to fend off both the car-repo company and the landlord. She could not afford to be proud.
She put a cap on the jar and dropped it into her purse. "Walk me to my car?" she asked.
Tommy grinned at her. "You bet." He put up the last of the chairs, tossed his towel onto the bar and then moved behind it, toward the small closet hidden on one side of the mirrored wall. "You have a jacket in here?"
"The blue one," she told him.
He got it for her, helping her into it before putting on his own, which was denim. "Ready?"
"Ready."
Tommy opened the door. Mary turned out the lights and stepped outside, into a light rain and a pitch-black night, pulling the door closed behind her and double-checking the lock. Sealed. Good.
The parking lot in front was deserted. Only one car was in it, and that was her own. She looked up and down the street, craned her neck to see through the warm rain, around to the back of the building. There were other businesses on either side of the bar, of course, but they were all closed up tight at this time of night. There was no traffic whatsoever, and the streetlights did little to dispel the gloom.
"Where's your car, Tommy?"
"Left the headlights on last night," he said with a sheepish shrug. "Battery was dead this morning. But it's okay. I only live five blocks away."
"You're walking?"
He nodded, and flipped up his collar.
Swallowing hard, her keys in her hand by now, she argued with herself inside her head. Tommy had always had a crushed on her. Could he be the one making the calls, harassing her? It was far-fetched, even more far-fetched if this stalker really was something far more dangerous. Tommy wouldn't hurt a fly.
Then again, what if she left him walk home alone and something happened to him? Could she live with herself then?
"Excuse me," said a voice from the darkness.
She knew that voice. It sent shivers of recognition dancing down her spine. Michael, her pale, wild-haired, potent-eyed admirer.
She turned and met his eyes, fell into them, felt her blood heat and her belly tighten. God, what was it about him that stirred her up this way? She licked her kip and saw his gaze shoot to them and stay there. "I... suppose you need a ride, too," she said. Part of her was hoping he would-and arguing with the part of her that hoped he wouldn't.
He nodded. "Only...five blocks."
Five blocks. He only wanted to ride as far as Tommy was going. Well, Tommy certainly couldn't try and anything with Michael along. And Michael wouldn't murder her in front of Tommy, either. And that was exactly what the stranger intended, wasn't it? To make her fell perfectly safe? To let her know she wasn't in any danger?
Stupid. He was not some guardian come to watch over her. He wasn't.
And yet she let him. "Fine. Get in. Both of you." Tommy looked put out, but he moved toward the car. Michael beat him to the front door opened it and slid in without asking. When Tommy got into the back seat, he almost appearing to be sulking.
"Tommy," Mary said as she shoved the keys into the switch and started the car, "this is Michael. Michael, Tommy."
"Hey," Tommy said
"Likewise," Michael replied.
Mary rolled her eyes and backed out of the parking lot. She didn't fasten her seat belt. Some insane primal fear told her she should be ready to throw herself out of the car and run for her life at a moment's notice. A seat belt would slow her down.
She drove. Her cell phone bleated. She picked it up without a thought, ignoring all the public service announcements suggesting it was a bad idea. She simply hadn't gotten around to buying a Madonna-mike for her head.
"Hello?"
"Are you afraid, Mary? You should be." The voice was the course whisper of her nightmares, and it was followed by a sharp decisive click.
She jerked the phone away from her head and glanced at the panel, but no number showed on the screen to tell her where the call had come from. She set the phone down.
Michael was looking at her. Those probing eyes staring straight through her skin and reading every thought-she could feel it. He knew exactly what that call had been. Maybe even heard it through her ears somehow. No. Impossible.
"Mary? Anything wrong?" Tommy asked from the back seat.
She shook her head. "Wrong number," she lied.
Oh well. At least the culprit was neither of the two men sitting with her alone, in the dark, of her car.
And then it hit her, and the bottom seemed to fall out of her belly. Because if Michael wasn't the stalker, then he really had no reason she could think of to lie to her. Did he?
Sure he did, her practical mind argued. Plenty of reasons. Maybe he was trying to make his name as a psychic by meddling in criminal cases. He probably had a connection at the police department, who had put him on to her. Or maybe he just wanted to get into her pants. That would be reason enough to scare her half to death, right?
She shot him a sideways glance. His eyes were right there waiting, and he shook his head slowly left then right. "Wrong on both counts," he whispered.
She felt her eyes widen. How in the hell...?
"What's that?" Tommy asked, leaning forward. "I didn't hear you."
"Nothing We're here." Mary hit the brake, brought the car to a jerky stop without even pulling over the curb in front of Tommy's building
"Yeah. Thanks for the ride, Mary." He opened his door, then frowned at Michael's back. "You coming?"
"Look at that, it's raining even harder now," Michael said nodding at the tiny beads glistening on the windshield. 'I only live a block further up. Do you mind?"
Hell, he wasn't the stalker. But that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous.
Tommy glanced at her as he got out. "You okay with that, Mare?"
"You should be," Michael said. "That stun gun tucked under the side of your seat is plenty to keep me in line."
She jerked her hand back to the steering wheel. She'd been reaching below, just to make sure she could grab the little weapon quickly should she need it. How the hell did he know?
"Mare?"
"Fine, Tommy. Go ahead. See you tomorrow night."
"Yeah, see you." He closed the door and hurried away.
She glanced toward her passenger. "So do you really live a block away?"
He shook his head from side to side "I'm going home with you."
She closed her eyes. "Oh, for God's sake-"
"No, Mary. For your sake."
She sighed, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. "So what is it, Michael? An I supposed to think you're some kind of knight in shining armor? Maybe leap into bed with you to thank you for rescuing me from the evil phone call guy?"
He lifted his eyebrows. "He's more than an 'evil phone call guy,' Mary. He's a killer. He's struck before-I can prove it to you, if you'll give me an hour. I brought evidence." He patted the shoulder bag that hung over his worn gray trench coat. "And he'll strike against unless we stop him. But he's not going to get you."
She thought he was finished. He sounded reasonable, convincing and fairly sane. He also sounded like a man who only wanted to watch over and protect her. Which meant he was too good to be true.
Then he sent her a knowing smile and added, "how you choose to think me, on the other hand is entirely up to you."