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Under the Microscope
Jessica Andersen


HIS JOB WAS TO PROTECT THE CLIENT, NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH HER…AGAINMedical expert Raine Montgomery never dreamed the drug she created would be responsible for so many deaths. Suspicions on high alert, Raine was convinced someone was out to destroy her reputation–and her life. Turning to the best for help, Raine knew she and investigator Maximilian Vasek had to put aside their rocky history and focus on who wanted her eliminated….Being around Raine reminded Max of a past he'd tried hard to forget. Still, he couldn't ignore the vulnerability in her brown eyes, or the sizzling tension between them. Keeping her safe he could do. Walking away in the end might not be so easy….









Their eyes met on a singe of memory.


Feeling the ache of the day in his soul, Max was close enough to see the wariness in Raine’s expression. “It’ll be okay,” he said, knowing it probably wouldn’t be. “We’ll get through this.” Almost without thinking, he took her hands, and squeezed them when he felt the shocky cold of her skin. “I’m here for you.”

I’m here for you, he’d said back at Boston General, giving her reassurance when she’d needed it, when she’d had nobody on her side. She’d leaned on him when she’d needed him, and left when she hadn’t.

A familiar pattern.

He pulled his hands away abruptly and stood. “Come on,” he said gruffly, more mad at himself than her. “The SUV’s outside.”

“What about your truck?” She stood, and the worried questions in her eyes asked about more than just the truck. What’s next? Where do we go from here?




Jessica Andersen

Under the Microscope





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Sally Hinkle Russell, riding coach and friend.

Thank you for everything.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses, Jessica is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for info on upcoming books, contests and to say “hi”!




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Raine Montgomery—When her company’s new drug, Thriller, reportedly kills four women, she must fight to prove that something—or someone—else is responsible before she becomes the next victim.

Maximilian Vasek—A private investigator specializing in medical cases, Max knows the Thriller job will propel him to the next level. But he and Raine have crossed paths before, and he doesn’t trust her one bit.

Tori Campbell—Raine’s assistant has the inside scoop on many things.

William Caine—Max’s business partner encourages him to take the job and get Raine out of his system—one way or another.

Ike—The freelance “information specialist” is everything Raine is not—confident, sexy, self-sufficient…and Max’s former lover.

Jeffrey Wells—Raine’s second-in-command is her most trusted ally.

Cari Summerton—Does the young mother’s death hold the key?




Contents


Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen




Prologue


Cari Summerton tucked her tiny daughter into the pink-swathed crib and whispered, “Mama and Daddy have some serious loving planned tonight.”

She pressed a kiss to the sleeping baby’s forehead, and felt a prickly ball of excitement just below her ribs for the first time since she’d gotten pregnant. Cari hummed as she tidied the baby’s room, a saucy va-va-va-voom punctuated with a bump and grind that reminded her that she was twenty-eight, not the eighty-something she’d been feeling lately.

All that was going to change, starting tonight. She was done being depressed. She’d vowed to remember how to be a woman, not just a mother.

The sample packet of pills hidden at the back of her closet was an important first step. Her new hair color—Sassy Strawberry—was the second; a brutal but oh-so-effective bikini wax was third; and the pièce de résistance—a naughty nightie from Victoria’s Secret—was laid out on her bed amid crisp white-and-gold tissue paper.

Jimmy was due home any minute now, and tonight would be about the two of them. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still humming, Cari sashayed to the bedroom, shrugged out of the jeans and sweatshirt she thought of as her mommy uniform, and pulled the naughty nightie out of its tissue. She held it up against her body and watched her reflection in the mirror.

She looked good. She’d had a tummy tuck when the doctors had gone in for the C-section—why not?—and was toying with the idea of new breasts for her birthday. Maybe she wasn’t as tight as she’d been in college, when she and Jim had met over an exploding beaker in chem lab, but she wasn’t bad for a mommy.

Not a mommy, she corrected herself. Tonight was about being a woman. She rubbed her naked thighs together and her reflection smiled a secretive, satisfied moue when she pulled on the nightie. The clock clicked over to 7:35 p.m. as she draped a long silk robe over her shoulders, knowing it showed as much as it covered. Then she ducked into her closet, unearthed the hidden foil packet and pressed out one of the four pink pills the doc had given her to try.

The sweet-coated tablet went down easily, leaving her with a fizzy aftertaste, as if she’d swallowed champagne. Cari’s heart beat a little faster in her chest and her blood tingled beneath her skin, revving her juices, pumping her up, making her ready for her husband. Ready for some loving.

Headlights cruised up the driveway and the automatic garage door opener cranked to life. Jimmy!

Her pulse stuttered as she moved through their single-level home, turning off the lights in the side rooms and dimming the kitchen chandelier to emphasize the elegant tapers she’d lit at a table set for two. Pink fizz raced through her bloodstream when the kitchen doorknob turned.

She struck a pose, feeling feminine. Feeling beautiful.

The door opened and Jimmy took one step inside before he froze and his handsome face went slack with shock. “Cari?”

Power bubbled up, stealing her breath. She shifted so the lace rode up her inner thigh. “Hey, handsome. Wanna party?”

Jimmy’s carry-on hit the tile floor with a thump. Heat kindled in his green eyes and his lips lifted in a youthful smile, one that reminded her of simpler times before mortgages and college funds. He cleared his throat. “I must have made a mistake. I thought this was my house.”

She laughed and crossed to him, the thrill buzzing in her veins. She reached beneath his loosened tie and unfastened the top two buttons so she could touch his dark, springy chest hair. “Let’s not tell your wife, okay?”

His hands closed on her waist, seeming to burn through the layers of cloth to her core. The rasp of lace against skin was exquisite torture, and the feel of his hard body against hers was like coming home to someplace new—familiar and exciting at the same time.

“No,” he said against her mouth, and his breath tasted of spearmint gum. “You’re my wife. My love.”

The words squeezed like a fist around her heart, reminding her that this was Jimmy, the man she’d loved pretty much since the first moment she’d seen him across the chem lab, with his eyebrows singed off. She smiled against his lips as intense, overwhelming love washed through her with the strength of an orgasm. Suddenly, breathing didn’t seem so important.

Then it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

Her throat closed. Her lungs locked. There was utter, unbelievable silence in her ears, in her veins.

Heat turned to pain in an instant. Help! she shrieked in her mind. Help me! She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t scream.

Panicked, she grabbed on to Jimmy. Pain hammered alongside the fear. Why wasn’t her heart beating faster? She couldn’t hear it, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t really feel anything. She crashed to the floor and rolled onto her back, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come.

Help me!

Jimmy scrambled to her side and grabbed her arms. She saw a light flashing on the wall. He’d hit the security system panic button just inside the door.

They’re on their way, she saw him mouth, and then her hearing cut back in and she heard him say, “Hang on, Cari. The paramedics will be here any minute. Just breathe. Nice and easy. Breathe!”

He’d said the same thing when she’d been in labor, but she’d been able to breathe then.

She struggled, head spinning, and managed to suck in half a lungful of air. She expended the precious oxygen on two words. “The pills…”

Then something went boom inside her, and everything drained away. Touch, taste, smell, everything.

The last thing to fade was the distant sound of her baby crying.




Chapter One


“Shhh! Here comes the ad.” Raine Montgomery dug her manicured fingernails into her palms, trying to act boss-like when she really wanted to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

On the other side of the conference table sat Jeffrey Wells, the sandy-blond, baby-faced child prodigy she’d hired fresh out of grad school to help her run the company. Beside him was Tori Campbell, the thin, dark-eyed young mother Raine had hired with no secretarial references whatsoever because she’d seen too much of her old self in the woman’s defeated eyes.

Taking them on had been two of the smartest decisions she’d ever made. Tori kept her organized. Jeff helped bring her visions to life.

The three leaned forward in their chairs and stared at the flat-screen TV she’d set up in the small, richly furnished conference room. As they watched, a mid-afternoon talk show cut to commercials—a household cleaner first, followed by color-enhancing shampoo. Targeted advertising, aimed straight at the prized twenty-five to fifty-something female demographic. When the screen switched from minivans to a rose-hued shot of an attractive couple, Raine swallowed against a churn of anticipation and tugged at the cowl neck of her dark blue cashmere sweater. “This is it!”

She’d seen the short advertisement a dozen times, at various points during its evolution, but watching it broadcast on national TV was different.

It was real.

“More than sixty million women in the U.S. suffer from libido problems,” a sexy female voice said over the images of middle-aged couples holding hands. Kissing. Staring at each other over candlelit meals. The images were all clichés, but the marketing consultants had assured Raine the triteness would trigger warm, fuzzy feelings.

Damned if they weren’t right, she thought, stifling a small sigh that she’d be headed home to an empty apartment after the impending office celebration wound down.

The images grew steamier, though still PG-rated. Then, the woman on the screen turned away from her partner, expression tight.

“Low libido is nothing to be ashamed of,” the voice-over soothed. “Sometimes it’s due to physical reasons. Other times there’s no obvious cause. But this serious condition can undermine our relationships. Our self-confidence.”

A small pink pill rotated on-screen as the voice said, “Now there’s a new option for couples everywhere. Ask your doctor about Thriller today.”

The final shot was one of lovers lying together in postcoital bliss, smiling.

But it wasn’t that image—or the memory of how long it’d been since she’d experienced postcoital anything—that drove a giant lump into Raine’s throat. It wasn’t the sexy, feminine logo the consultants had spent six months polishing. It wasn’t the short list of possible side effects—nothing worse than dizziness and insomnia—or the possible drug interaction warnings—none. It was the tiny words at the bottom of the screen.

A product of Rainey Days, Inc.

Thriller wasn’t something she’d developed for her previous employer, FalcoTechno.

It was all hers.



WHEN THE TV STATION SEGUED back to the talk show, Raine hit the mute button with trembling fingers, sat for a moment and exhaled a long breath.

She’d done it.

It had taken her more than three years, but she’d done it. After leaving—okay, abandoning—her position at FalcoTechno and fleeing Boston, she’d scraped together all her money, liquidated her minimal assets, floated a few loans and used the capital to buy a drug nobody else had believed in.

She’d built a company around a dream, and it was starting to look as if that dream was becoming reality.

After three months of free sample distribution to targeted areas, Thriller would go public tomorrow. The presale numbers were already off the charts. The accounting department had even started to use the B word.

Blockbuster.

The experts had said it couldn’t be done. They’d said the female sexual response was too complicated to reproduce in pill form.

Thankfully, all the clinical trials said the experts were wrong. Thriller worked. Women who hadn’t had orgasms in years were lighting up like Christmas trees and calling for more samples with their husbands’ voices in the background, urging them on. Which was a relief, as Raine had worried that men would be threatened by the little pink pills, that they would think Thriller an insult to their manhood.

But instead of saying Our wives don’t need that when they have us, they were saying Give us more.

Thank God. Raine squeezed her eyes shut and wondered if the dizziness was relief that Thriller was finally being released, or fear that the numbers wouldn’t hold. If the sales didn’t take off almost immediately, she’d be left swimming in debt, with a staff that needed to be paid and a slim drug portfolio that contained two flops and three promising compounds that had barely entered phase-two trials.

If Thriller tanked, it would take Rainey Days—and Raine—with it.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Tori’s soft voice said, “The commercial looks fantastic. Congratulations.”

The dark-haired woman slipped out of the room. The human embodiment of the word unobtrusive, Tori wasn’t comfortable with crowds, but she gave great phone and kept Raine’s professional life organized to a tee.

Jeff punched the air in victory. “That rocked!”

Raine grinned at the younger man’s enthusiasm and at the excitement that lit his mid-blue eyes. Something loosened in her chest. “Hopefully it didn’t rock too hard. That’s the ad targeted at our older demographic. The younger targets—music channels and some of the reality shows—will get a version that’s heavier on the sex and the ‘I am woman, hear me come’ message.”

Her face didn’t heat anymore when she said stuff like that. As the Thriller mania had geared up over the past months, she’d grown used to thinking of orgasms as a marketable commodity. Jeff, on the other hand, still blushed.

The faint pink on his pale cheeks made him look younger than his twenty-three years and less worldly than his double degree would suggest. But he manned up, swallowed and nodded. “Good. That’s good. You’re booked on three local radio shows this week, and the Channel Four news is thinking about doing an interview. If we’re lucky, that’ll generate enough buzz to get you picked up by the national media.”

Raine fought the wince. “Yeah, and I already know two of the interview questions, guaranteed. Is there a personal reason you chose to develop a female sex-enhancement drug, and the ever-popular, have you tried it yourself?”

The answers were no and no. She’d developed Thriller because the corresponding male sex-enhancement drug had made its parent company approximately a bazillion dollars, and she hadn’t tried the product herself because, well, it was back to that whole empty-apartment thing.

She didn’t have anything against dating, but she was thirty-five, divorced, childless and focused on building her company. Most of the men she met were either post-midlife crisis and looking for arm candy, or late-thirties and wanted to start a family yesterday. In the absence of someone tall, dark, handsome and not looking to sow his seed at the expense of her career, she’d decided to go with the better off alone theory.

Jeff avoided her eyes and the pink deepened. “I’m sure you’ll come up with some clever answers between now and then.”

“Let’s brainstorm while we party. Everyone’s headed to the New Bridge Tavern, right?” She could hear the muted sounds of celebration out in the main office lobby, where she’d set up another TV so the rest of her employees could watch the launch ad.

Sure, it was 3:00 p.m. on a Monday, but who really cared? They deserved to blow off some steam.

Their lives were about to change. They could bear the chilly winds of winter in New Bridge, Connecticut, long enough to walk around the corner for a party.

Jeff grinned. “That was supposed to be a surprise, boss. We thought—”

Tori burst into the room at a run. She leaned over the conference table and punched a button to activate one of the built-in phones. “You’ve got to hear this.”

Raine grinned. “Another crank call? Something more creative than heavy breathing and fake moans?” Then she got a good look at Tori’s expression and a knot formed in her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“Listen.” Tori stabbed another button and cranked the speakerphone volume.

After a moment of hissing silence, her recorded voice said, “Rainey Days, Incorporated, this is Tori speaking. How may I help you?”

“Thriller killed my wife.”

The oxygen evaporated from the conference room. Raine couldn’t breathe. She could barely hear over the roaring in her ears.

After a long pause, Tori’s voice said, “I’m sorry to hear about your wife, sir, but—”

“Cari… She had a sample packet.” The man swallowed loudly, and the sound echoed on the tense air. “The doctors say she had a heart attack. She was only twenty-eight. We have a baby….”

More hissing silence.

“Oh, God. Oh, no. Nonononono—” Heart pounding, Raine looked around to see who was saying that and realized it was her. She clamped her lips together and fought the nausea. Fought the panic.

Think. She had to think.

She was in charge.

On the recording, Tori’s voice said, “Will you hold, please? I’m going to connect you to—”

There was a click, and the line went dead. After a long moment, Tori moved to punch off the speakerphone. “I called back, but nobody picked up. Caller ID says it’s registered to James and Cari Summerton in Houghton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philly. He must’ve used Google to find the company and gotten the main number rather than the help line….” She trailed off. “Do you think it could be a prank?”

Raine didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to do. She could barely feel her body—everything was numb besides her brain, which pounded that same panicked litany of no-no-no-no.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

Fear for her company bubbled up alongside basic human horror. A woman was dead. A mother.

Panic brushed at the edges of her soul, trying to take over everything, but she beat it back. She wasn’t the weak woman she’d once been, ready to crumble and let someone else take over and fix things. She couldn’t be.

She was the boss now.

She placed her palms flat on the conference table and pressed until the numbness receded and she could feel the wood grain beneath her fingertips. “Cancel the party. We have work to do.”



THAT NIGHT, RAINE SLEPT a couple of hours stretched out on the couch in her office, waiting for new information. She had to have new information because what little they had didn’t make an iota of sense.

Thriller hadn’t killed Cari Summerton. It couldn’t have.

The fast-track clinical trials had shown that it was safe for human use. The toxicities were so minor as to be nonexistent. The drug researchers hadn’t noted anything unexpected—certainly nothing had suggested a connection between Thriller and heart attacks. There had to be another explanation for the woman’s death.

But what, exactly?

Coincidence? Fraud? Something else? As the cold winter dawn broke outside her office window, her mind buzzed with the possibilities, each of which seemed equally unlikely, but none more unlikely—at least to her—than the thought that her drug was a killer.

Please, God, let there be another explanation.

By ten that morning, as Raine downed her third cup of coffee, changed into the spare power suit she kept in the office closet and headed for a council of war, she wasn’t any closer to an answer. She just hoped to hell they found one soon.

Tension hung heavy in the conference room, which was crammed with nearly half of Raine’s forty-person staff. She sat at the head of the table and gestured for Jeff to begin with the first report. “What have we got on the caller? Is James Summerton for real?”

A sleepless night was etched in the young man’s earnest face, but he shook his head. “Not much. I’ve confirmed the names and the address, but nobody’s answering the phone. I can’t find an obituary on Cari Summerton in the local paper, but they may not have gotten it organized yet.” He paused. “Sorry. I wish I had more for you.”

So do I, Raine thought, but she didn’t say it aloud because she knew Jeff was already working as hard as he could. They’d each taken a chance on the other—her in hiring a young genius with no managerial experience, him in working for a startup company with only one major product in the pipeline. He was putting his sickly younger brother through college. She was trying to grow up at the age of thirty-five and learn how to take charge of her own life.

They both needed Thriller to succeed.

“Keep looking,” she said. “We need to be absolutely certain this guy is for real before we proceed.” Scam artists had planted severed fingers in fast food before, looking for a quick settlement. It was possible that Summerton was looking to cash in on an unexpected—or faked—death, figuring the company would pay rather than risk Thriller’s reputation on the eve of its launch.

If that was the case, she’d be tempted to pay, just to keep things quiet. But, if there was a problem with Thriller, they needed to know about it before the drug went on sale. She was trying to do this right, trying to protect the consumer while covering her own butt.

She had already called the Food and Drug Administration—FDA—where she’d filed an unexpected toxicity report that likely wouldn’t get read for a few days or even a week. Then she’d called her distributors, delaying the launch.

She’d said there were problems with the print ads and the commercials, that the hype wasn’t where she needed it to be. “Push it back a week,” she’d said. “We’ll have everything straightened out by then.”

She hoped.

That had taken care of the new prescriptions, but there were thousands of sample packets already in use. Were they safe or not? One possibly fraudulent death report wasn’t sufficient evidence for her to recall the samples, but if another user died and the press got wind that Rainey Days had known about the problem…

Instant media crisis. How could she balance the company’s welfare against the possibility that she might be endangering lives?

Raine pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to fight back the impending headache. She gestured to her head epidemiologist, Red, who was a sharp-faced woman with wild auburn hair, a mercurial temper and a photographic recall for facts and figures. Raine asked, “Did your department find any cardiac problems in the toxicity databases?”

Red scowled, apparently taking the question—and the death—as a personal affront. “Of course not. There’s nothing to find. Thriller is safe for human use. Hell, it scores better in terms of side effects and cross-reactions than aspirin. This is a setup. It has to be.”

Raine, who’d butted heads with Red on more than one occasion, fixed her with a stern look. “You did check the clinical-trial databases for cardiac toxicity reports, right?”

The epidemiologist bristled. “Of course. There were none. Headaches. Sleeplessness. A few sniffles. Nothing more, like I already told you six times.”

Ignoring the attitude because Red was the best at what she did, personal style notwithstanding, Raine called on the other department heads. They didn’t have much to add until she reached Phillip Worth, the gaunt, forty-something head of the legal department.

“You need to get yourself an investigator,” Phil said. “We can’t plan a strategy without more information. Is the dead woman really dead? Did she actually take Thriller? Was an autopsy performed? Tox screen?” He spread his hands. “There’ll either be a monetary demand or a lawsuit. We need to be prepared for both.”

Raine nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” Both about the preparations and the investigator. “I’ll work on it.”

She dismissed the meeting soon after, knowing that the longer they sat there, the more unanswered questions they’d accumulate.

Tori lingered while the others filed out. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “What’s wrong?”

Raine nearly laughed because at this point what wasn’t wrong? But she knew that wasn’t what Tori was asking.

The women weren’t close, weren’t even really friends, but they shared an unspoken bond of two people working to figure out who they were when everyone around them had been defining them for too long.

Tori had an ex-husband with quick fists.

Raine didn’t have that excuse.

Aware that her receptionist was waiting for an answer, Raine blew out a breath. “There are three major pharmaceutical investigation firms in the northeast. The top two won’t take the case without a six-figure retainer.” She dug her nails into her palms and felt success trickling away. “Everything I have—and then some—is tied up in Thriller. I had to borrow against the office computers to pay for the TV spots.”

Saying it aloud only made it sound worse.

“You said there were three companies. What about the third?”

“Vasek and Caine Investigations,” Raine said, trying to ignore the fine buzz of warmth that ran through her when she said the name. “It’s a small company, fairly new, but it’s gotten a hell of a cachet in the past few years. They have the reputation of taking on the impossible cases and making them possible.”

Tori’s eyes narrowed and she studied Raine’s face. “Which one are you avoiding, Vasek or Caine?”

Raine winced. “That would be Maximilian Vasek. Max. We had a…”

She wasn’t even sure what to call it. They hadn’t dated, hadn’t been lovers, hadn’t even kissed. He had known her during the worst weeks of her life, three years earlier. She’d leaned on him, depended on him, formed a connection with him.

And then she’d taken off.

She hadn’t even said goodbye. She hadn’t known how to.

“We knew each other,” she said finally. “It didn’t end well.”

“Did it end badly enough that he’d turn you down flat if you called and explained the situation?” Tori asked.

“I don’t know.” It was possible the emotion had been all on her side, that he’d been relieved when she left. And hell, it’d been three years. Surely she was little more than a bad memory by now?

Surely, he didn’t still think of her, didn’t still wonder what might have happened if she’d stayed and worked through her problems back in Boston rather than running away?

“Call him,” Tori ordered, sounding bossier than Raine had ever heard her before.

“There’s got to be something else we can try first.” Raine heard a pleading note creep into her voice. She’d stared at the New York phone number off and on all morning, knowing she had to make the call.

She wasn’t sure which would be worse—having him hang up on her, or having him not remember her at all. In fact, it would probably be better just to show up. He wouldn’t throw her out of the office.

Would he?

A knock brought Raine’s head up in time to see Jeff enter the room. His expression was grim enough to send a chill racing across her skin when he said, “You need to see this.”

He clicked on the TV, the one they’d used to watch the debut of her commercial—was it only yesterday? It felt like a week ago.

He tuned to one of the major twenty-four-hour news stations, and Raine’s stomach knotted. “Oh, God. Cari Summerton’s family went public?”

If they had, it meant this wasn’t a scam. There really was a dead woman. She really had taken Thriller. Those basic facts were too easy for the reporters to check.

It also meant the media bloodbath had begun.

Jeff shook his head, eyes hollow. “Worse. Whoever broke the story got three other families to come forward. It’s not just one dead woman, it’s four.”

Four dead.

The words buzzed in Raine’s brain like a scream that was echoed in the strident ring of the conference-room phone. Tori answered, and her already pale face went ghost-white. “Please hold.”

She held the receiver out to Raine just as the TV news crawl read, Four women die after taking the sex-enhancement drug Thriller. A spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration reports that an investigation will be launched immediately.

Raine looked at the handset. “Is that the FDA?” When Tori nodded, Raine pinched the bridge of her nose, where a stress headache had taken up permanent residence. “I guess it’s time for that last resort.”

It looked like she was headed to New York.

And Max.




Chapter Two


When a knock at the apartment door signaled the arrival of his take-out dinner, Max Vasek poked his head out of the bathroom and yelled, “Be right there!”

And it was about time, too. He’d called in the order nearly forty minutes ago. Then again, he’d learned that stuff like deliveries and repairs always took twice as long in New York City versus back in Boston, where he’d grown up and spent a chunk of his adult life.

It was a geographic law or something.

Hair still damp from his post-gym shower, wearing worn jeans and a heavy flannel shirt he’d left unbuttoned because the thermostat was on the fritz again and the five-room apartment was randomly cycling between arctic and parboil, Max padded to the door barefoot. He plucked a ten and a twenty from his wallet, undid the safety locks and opened the door. “Keep the—”

Then he stopped. Standing outside his apartment was a tall woman wearing a calf-length red coat and a bulky wool hat, tipped down so it obscured her face. She was long and lean, with a big leather bag slung diagonally across her body, city-style.

Clearly not his Chinese food.

“Whoops, sorry.” Max rocked back on his heels. “You the new tenant in 5B? If you’re wondering about the heat, the super said he’d get to it this week sometime, and he’s pretty good about stuff like that.”

The woman took a breath, and he saw her gloved hands twine together and hold before she said, “I’m not the new tenant.” Her husky voice was the first punch of a one-two, with “two” following the moment she looked up, so he could see her face. “I need to talk to you.”

Max’s breath whistled between his teeth, forced by the shock of that second punch.

Her long dark hair was pulled back under her hat, but a few loose curls touched the aristocratic angles of her face and the long curve of her neck. Her eyes were a haunting light brown that seemed to glow against her rosy skin and dark lashes, adding a pout to her full, dusky lips.

Raine Montgomery. He knew her instantly, even after—what had it been? Two years? Three?

Three years since she’d disappeared from her room at Boston General Hospital without a word, proving that he’d been wrong about her. She hadn’t had a deeper layer buried beneath the brittle, scared exterior. She had been exactly what she’d seemed on the surface. Shallow. Self-absorbed. Career-minded at the expense of family or loyalty.

And so achingly beautiful he’d talked himself into believing she needed him, talked himself into believing they had a future together.

Until she’d taken off.

“I went to your office and spoke with your partner. He gave me this address. I hope you don’t mind.” She tilted her head to look up at him, because although she was a slender five foot ten, he still topped her by nearly six inches. “May I come in?”

“I do mind.” In fact, he was going to kill William for giving out his home address. “And no, you can’t come in.” Max didn’t need to glance back into the bare rooms to know he didn’t want her anywhere near his apartment, or his life. “Since I know damn well this isn’t a social call, I can only assume you have a case for Vasek and Caine. Make an appointment during business hours and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

Translation: he’d pawn her off on William, who was nearly impervious to big brown eyes.

Max was tempted to tell her to get lost, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew her company was getting set to launch their highly touted female sex-enhancement drug—not because he’d been keeping tabs on her, but because the buzz had been impossible to ignore. It stood to reason that she wanted to see him about Thriller.

The drug was slated to bring in big money. Big publicity. Exactly the sort of thing his and William’s company needed if they wanted to break out of the nickel-and-dime stuff and into mainstream competition.

“Tomorrow could be too late,” she argued. “I need to talk to you now.”

He was faintly surprised by the persistence, which jarred against his memory of a quiet, polite woman in a hospital bed, one who didn’t want to be fussed over as the doctors struggled to control a blood clotting issue. It was that very desire not to make a fuss that had made him want to fuss over her. Want to be with her. Want to wrap her in silk and take her away from danger and ugliness.

It was what his techie friend Ike called DIDS. Damsel In Distress Syndrome.

But, Max thought grimly, knowing you have a problem is the first step in fighting it.

He didn’t budge from the door. “You need to talk to me? So talk.”

She took a breath and glanced away. “First, I need to apologize. You were nothing but kind to me three years ago, and I treated you badly. I was sick, hormonal and upset and going through a really terrible time in my life, but that’s no excuse.” She paused and looked at him squarely before she said, “I’m sorry. I should have said goodbye.”

Three years ago, that might have mattered to him.

Now, he scowled. “Agreed. So what?”

He expected her to back down. Instead, she stood her ground while something dark and haunted moved through her expression. “I’m in trouble. You’ve heard of Thriller?”

He nodded, accepting the change of topic if not the apology. “Female sexuality drug. Lots of publicity. Launches sometime this week.”

“Actually, it was supposed to launch today. The FDA put a hold on it.” Still standing in the hallway, she unslung the leather bag from around her neck, opened it and pulled out a folder that was filled with a half inch of papers and had a data disk taped to the front inside a plastic sleeve. She offered it to him. “Four women are dead from cardiac arrest. According to the reports, the only thing they had in common was that all four took Thriller before they died.”

He ignored the folder. “Call William in the morning and make an appointment. Our history back in Boston doesn’t give you the right to hunt me up at home, and it doesn’t qualify you for preferential treatment. Hell, if anything, I should tell him to ask for hazard pay.”

He told himself he’d meant the comment as a joke, but it landed flat.

Three years earlier, he’d been more or less content with his lab work at Boston General Hospital. With a Ph.D in biochemistry, a postdoc in a fertility lab and a half-dozen major first-author papers to his name, he could’ve run his own group, but preferred having someone else manage the basics, leaving him free to pursue interesting side projects.

It was one such side project that had put him in contact with a then-pregnant Raine. When danger had stalked the lab and its patients, Max had appointed himself the pretty divorcée’s guardian, and had thought his growing feelings were reciprocated.

In the end, an empty hospital room had proven otherwise.

“I already spoke to your partner about the case,” she said quickly. “He told me to talk to you.”

Max bet she was leaving out a few steps. Like how she’d conned William into giving up his address. No doubt she’d implied—or outright said—that they’d been lovers, when they’d been nothing of the sort.

Though they might have been lovers. If they’d met at another time, under different circumstances…

It didn’t matter, Max told himself. They’d met the way they’d met, and parted the way they’d parted.

And he’d gone on to make some really bad decisions in the aftermath. Maybe it wasn’t fair to blame her for them, but that didn’t change the upshot.

Damsels in distress were nothing but trouble.

He held up a hand before she could speak again. “Look, Raine. An apology doesn’t change anything.” He stepped back, into the apartment. “If you want Vasek and Caine to handle your case, you’ll have to deal with William, not me.”

With that, he shut the door on her. He didn’t slam it, because a slam would indicate anger, suggesting he still cared.

No, he shut it gently, with a firm, final-sounding thunk.

Then he locked and double locked it. But as he turned away from the door and stared into the barren apartment, which had been stripped of most of its furnishings and absolutely everything of monetary value, he had to wonder.

Was he locking her out, or locking himself in?



RAINE STOOD IN THE HALLWAY for a long moment, trembling. Not with fear or anger, though that was part of it. And not with the accumulated stress of the past two days, though that was part of it, too. But the rest of it was Max.

She’d thought she’d been prepared to see him.

She’d been wrong.

He was taller than she remembered, and broader, but his voice was the same, a deep, dark rumble that used an educated man’s vocabulary in a blue-collar Boston accent. His face remained a collection of heavy planes and angles that shouldn’t have been handsome but somehow was, even beneath a faint shadow of stubble. All that was the same.

But his eyes were different. How he’d looked at her was different.

When they’d known each other for those few short weeks at Boston General, under the strangest of circumstances, he’d treated her so kindly, so gently. He hadn’t said much, but he’d been there through the entire terrifying ordeal, and he’d never looked at her as though she were the enemy, as though she had betrayed him.

Never looked at her the way he had just now.

“It’s nothing more than I deserve,” she said aloud. “I took off on him.”

It occurred to her that his reaction—along with his partner’s raised brows and quick cooperation when she’d given her name—was confirmation that Max remembered her, evidence that the feelings hadn’t been all on her side. But it was also proof that she’d hurt him when she’d left, and she hadn’t wanted that.

She’d wanted to punish herself for getting sick and miscarrying the baby, not him. But it seemed as though she’d managed to do both, and she wasn’t sure how to fix it. Wasn’t sure it was fixable at all.

On the long, traffic-delayed drive from the Vasek and Caine offices in Manhattan, she’d worked out what she would say when Max opened the door. But the shock of seeing him had driven the planned speech out of her head.

He’d turned her down before she’d been able to get back on track. So now what?

“General Gao’s?”

Raine gasped and spun at the unfamiliar voice.

A young man in courier’s clothes and a bike helmet stumbled back a step and held up a fragrant brown bag as a shield. “General Gao’s!” he repeated. “Pork fried rice.” He pointed to Max’s door. “You’re in 5A, right?”

“Of course.” Thinking fast, Raine dug her wallet out of her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

She paid him, added a generous tip and waited until he was gone, until she was alone in the hallway.

Then she faced Max’s door and took a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.”

She wasn’t giving up on her company.

According to Jeff, the FDA investigators had practically locked down Rainey Days while they pored over the computer and hard-copy files of the clinical trials. They were checking to see whether Thriller was safe for human use. They were also looking for evidence of criminal misconduct. Falsified evidence. Mysteriously “lost” toxicity reports.

Though she knew they would find no such thing, Raine didn’t dare trust the system. Her childhood had taught her that much. Besides, the FDA was part of the government, and elections were on the horizon. If a competing company started throwing its financial weight around with influential candidates, she could be in deep trouble.

She needed her own investigation, damn it. She would’ve preferred to hire William Caine, but he’d claimed he was overbooked, that Max would have to help her.

Granted, he’d said that after he’d figured out who she was.

“Fine,” she said under her breath. “We’ll do it the hard way.”

She unbuttoned her long coat, tugged on the hem of her camel-colored sweater and faced the door squarely, trying to look like the boss of a growing company.

Then she knocked. “Delivery.”

She heard his footsteps on the hardwood floor she’d glimpsed just inside the door. When the steps paused but the locks didn’t disengage, she held the bag up and stared at the fish-eye peephole. “You want your dinner? Let me in.”

It felt like forever before she heard the locks turn. The door opened and Max glared out. His shirt was buttoned now, and he had thick socks on his feet and a knit cap pulled over his short dark hair. “I don’t remember you being this bossy before.”

“You didn’t know me before,” she said, telling herself that the flutter in her stomach was nothing more complicated than nerves.

She expected a snappy rejoinder, or maybe agreement.

Instead, she got an inscrutable stare.

When the silence grew long and uncomfortable, she cleared her throat. “I want to hire you to help me prove that Thriller didn’t kill those women. I’m afraid the only way to do that is to figure out what did kill them. I can’t do that by myself. I need an investigator. A good one. If—no when we succeed, it could be a huge boost to Vasek and Caine. I’ll give you all the credit, whatever publicity you want. TV appearances, ads, you name it.” She held out the paper bag. “Will you at least hear me out?”

He looked from the bag to her, and she knew he wasn’t weighing the food bribe. He was trying to decide whether the good of his company outweighed their history.

As the boss of her own start-up, Raine knew what the answer had to be. Practicality would win over emotion every time.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here, would she?

Finally, he stepped back and muttered, “Come in.”

The thrill of victory was dampened by the sly shift of heat when she walked past him, the shimmer of awkwardness at being inside his space.

The discomfort increased when she looked around. The apartment was large and airy, with carved moldings and neutrally painted walls. The hardwood floors were worn but well varnished, stretching from the tiles of an open kitchen nook, through the main living space, and narrowing into a hallway and glimpses of other rooms. She could see the small details of the hand carved woodwork on the trim and doors, mainly because that was almost the only thing to see. The apartment was bare, as though he’d just arrived and the moving vans hadn’t caught up yet.

Yet downstairs, the label on his mailbox was yellow with age.

“Nice place,” she said faintly, wanting to ask but knowing she didn’t have the right.

The living-room furnishings consisted of a smallish plasma-screen TV bolted to one wall and a single faux-leather chair with a trash basket beside it. The TV sat in a square of darker paint, as though it had taken the place of a larger set.

Max cleared his throat and avoided her eyes. “My roommate moved out and took a bunch of stuff a few months back. I haven’t had a chance to replace the things yet.”

“I just figured your decorator was a minimalist,” Raine said, trying for a joke when there was no laughter to be had. She held out his dinner. “Are you sharing?”

He snagged the bag. “Not on your life. Start talking.”

When he went into the kitchen, she took another look around, wondering what had happened. Was the roommate thing true, or had his furniture been repossessed?

It struck her then that while Max didn’t know anything about her, the same was equally true in reverse.

So why did it feel as if they’d known each other so very well?

He reappeared with a white carton in one hand and a fork in the other. He propped a hip on the corner of a granite countertop and dug in. “Clock’s ticking.”

She held out the file folder she’d assembled back at the office in New Bridge. “It’s all in here—everything we’ve managed to pull together on the clinical trials and the four dead women. It’s not much, which is why we need a professional. My people are scientists and marketers, not pharmaceutical investigators.”

Then again, Max had been a scientist when she’d known him. What had changed?

“Is there anything besides optimism that makes you think your drug wasn’t responsible for the deaths?” he asked, his tone making the question seem like a dig. “I mean, clinical trials usually contain what, a few thousand people? If there’s a rare risk factor, it’s entirely possible that your sample populations might not have contained an example. You might just have missed it.”

Raine dug her fingernails into her palms, knowing the scenario he painted was one-hundred-percent possible. But that wasn’t the explanation for the deaths. She knew it. She felt it.

Optimism? Perhaps. But right now it was her only hope.

“Our clinical trials were exhaustive,” she said, knowing that didn’t really answer his question. “We used computers to test out another million or so models. All negative. Besides, the dead women don’t share any risk factors.”

“None that you’ve found yet.” He nodded at the file in her hands.

“Which is why I need your help,” she said quietly, mustering as much dignity as she could. When his expression didn’t change, didn’t soften, she let out a small defeated sigh. “What will it take to get you onboard? Do you want me to apologize again? Double your hourly rate? Get down on my knees and beg?” She would do it if she had to, for the sake of the company she’d built from nothing. For the sake of her future. Her employees’ futures.

A heavy weight settled on her shoulders, feeling like each of the dreams she let herself imagine late at night.

He stared at her for a long moment, giving nothing away. Then he gestured with his fork. “Leave your info. I’ll have a look at it and talk to William. Call the office in the morning and set up a real appointment. I’ll let you know then.”

Instead of relief, Raine felt a new layer of tension settle. “Let me know what?”

“Whether we’ll take the case or not.” He sent her a hard look. “And if we do, it won’t be because of Boston, apology or not.”

A faint chill skittered across her skin, warning her that the agreeable Max Vasek she’d known before might not be the only side of him.

She’d known she would have to work to get past his initial resistance. Now, she reevaluated, and came up thinking that she might never get past it. She could only hope they’d manage to work together in a sort of armed truce.

She nodded slowly. “I understand.” She turned toward the door, only then realizing that she could see her breath. The apartment was bitter cold. Another sign that Max’s finances were in trouble?

She turned back and confessed, “I can’t pay a retainer. That’s why the others wouldn’t take the case.”

He shrugged, expression shuttered. “If we take the case, William and I will keep track of our hours and expenses, and you can pay us when it’s over.” Now his eyes focused on her. “Can I trust that you won’t run away from the debt?”

She wasn’t sure if the faint mockery in his tone was directed at her or himself, but she knew she wasn’t going to find a better deal elsewhere. If Thriller went back on the market, it would take months—maybe longer—for sales to rebound, but they would rebound. Then she’d be solvent and able to pay. If Thriller wound up banned from the market…

Hell, she’d probably have to sell off the rest of the Rainey Days drug portfolio to settle her debts. She’d find the money one way or the other, except that one way, she’d be a success.

The other, a failure.

She swallowed hard, told herself this was what she’d come to New York to achieve, and nodded. “It’s a deal.”

He dug his fork into the carton and turned his back on her. “Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His message was clear. He would consider working with her for both their benefits, but that didn’t mean she was forgiven.



WHEN THE TAP OF HER HEELS receded in the hallway outside his apartment, Max dropped the carton of fried rice onto the counter and scrubbed both hands across his face.

Well. Raine Montgomery.

Damn it, he hadn’t expected ever to see her again. Hadn’t expected to want her if he did. He knew better. But that didn’t change the fact that his head was jammed with the sight and scent of her, that her husky voice sounded in his ears the way it had before, tempting him, challenging him.

She’s no different than Charlotte, he reminded himself. A professional damsel in distress.

Lucky for him, he knew better. He’d been vaccinated against DIDS.

Twice.

He grabbed the phone and punched in William’s number, trying to believe his friend had a reason for giving out his home info.

The two men had known each other at Boston General, where the ex-FBI agent had worked for Hospitals for Humanity, a part-humanitarian, part-undercover investigative group with branches at hospitals across the U.S. When the men had found themselves needing a change at about the same time, they’d gone into business and Vasek and Caine Investigations was born.

It might die tonight, Max thought as the phone rang. When William answered, Max didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Damn it. Why’d you send her over here?”

William didn’t call him on the rudeness. “I figured that given your history with her, you’d want to know she was in trouble.”

Max didn’t bother asking how or what William knew about him and Raine. William had known pretty much everything that had gone on at Boston General. “Why, so I’d help her, or so I could gloat?”

“Whichever lets you get on with things,” William answered pragmatically. “There’s more to life than living alone in a five-room unfurnished apartment in the city.”

“I like being alone. So sue me.” Alone wasn’t the same as lonely, Max told himself. And it was sure as hell better than being used. “And just be cause I don’t date as often as you do—” make that ever “—doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what did or didn’t happen between me and Raine Montgomery back at BoGen.”

“Then it was no big deal seeing her, you don’t care that I gave her your address, and you’re taking the case, right? This could be the break we’ve been looking for, you know.”

“Only if we find something the FDA doesn’t,” Max cautioned. “And no, I haven’t taken the case yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first, since I’ll want you to be point man.”

“No can do. I’m tied up through next week at the earliest with that malpractice thing, and I took on a new pro bono this morning. You’re on your own.”

Max gritted his teeth. “Don’t try to fix my life for me, Caine.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re doing such a good job on your own.” William’s voice dropped a notch and the flippancy vanished. “Look—we both know you’ve been marking time ever since Charlotte left. Maybe it’s because of this woman, maybe it’s something else, I don’t know. Whatever it is, you can do better. You can be better.”

Max winced because he’d heard nearly the same words from his father a few days earlier, during their bimonthly phone call. According to his father, Max was closing in on forty fast. He should have a wife by now, a family. Sons. Daughters. Little ones to come home to and play with, and watch grow into not-so-little ones, like his nieces in the old neighborhood had done.

And maybe his pop had a point. But between college and grad school, the wife hadn’t happened. The children hadn’t happened. Over the past couple of years, he’d been wrapped up in starting and then growing the new company. Then there’d been Charlotte. For a while he’d thought he was all set. Then he’d been less sure. Then she’d been gone. And now…

What was his excuse now?

“Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “Maybe I do have something to work out where Raine is concerned.” Maybe that was why he’d opened the door the second time, knowing even then that he would take the case.

Not to be near her, but to exorcize her.

Which led to another realization. He’d already decided to take the case. For the company. For himself.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

He hung up the phone, then glanced around the bare apartment, which seemed so much emptier than it had an hour before. He picked up the folder Raine had left, which was prominently marked with her address, the Rainey Days office address and several phone numbers.

Logically, he knew he should review the data and make a few calls from the apartment, or maybe wait until the next day and work out of the Caine and Vasek office downtown. Instead, he cursed and headed for the bedroom, where there was a mattress on the floor, a few boxes full of clothes and a duffel he kept packed for emergencies.

Fifteen minutes later, he was on his way to the scene of the crime.

On his way to see her.



RAINE SPENT THE TWO-HOUR DRIVE from New York City to New Bridge, Connecticut, trying to convince herself that everything was going to be okay.

She failed.

She was too aware of the vehicles in her rearview mirror, too aware of being jumbled up at the idea of working with Max, being near Max.

“This is business,” she said aloud as she passed the line into North New Bridge, the suburb where she’d rented a small house. “Strictly business. Nothing personal.”

Then again, it had been business when Max had watched over her in Boston General. She’d been hospitalized partly because of the pregnancy and its complications, partly because a killer had stalked Max’s boss at the lab. Max had appointed himself her de facto bodyguard for a time. It had been business, not personal, but she’d developed feelings for him just the same.

“I was pregnant. It was hormones. I even convinced myself I was in love with Erik for a while there.” When the words echoed back at her, she turned up the radio to drown them out, to drown out the knowledge that while she’d quickly talked herself out of the infatuation with her boss at FalcoTechno, she hadn’t been able to dismiss Max Vasek’s memory so easily.

Now it was the man himself, not the memory, who haunted her thoughts as she pulled into the driveway beside her small white house.

The lights were off when she let herself in, prompting her to grumble about needing to reset the automatic timer. She was a few steps inside the door when she noticed that the burglar alarm was solid green rather than blinking red.

“What the—”

A dark blur swung through her peripheral vision and a savage blow caught her behind the ear, driving her against the wall. Panic spurted alongside pain as the darkness grew arms and legs, and a man’s weight pinned her.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

Then blackness.




Chapter Three


It was close to midnight by the time Max turned down Raine’s street in North New Bridge, Connecticut. It was too late to knock on her door, stupid even to be in her neighborhood, but he’d decided to do a drive-by. Familiarize himself with the area.

It was a nice enough neighborhood, middle-class residential with good sidewalks and signage. Max glanced from side to side as he rolled through a stop sign, looking for trouble, maybe, or insight into the woman who’d knocked on his door. She looked like Raine Montgomery, but she was different. She seemed harder than he remembered. Sharper.

Flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror, wig-wagging blue and white.

“Oh, hell,” Max muttered under his breath and shook his head. A ticket for a rolling stop was just about the last thing he needed right now.

He cursed and pulled over. Instead of stopping, the cop flipped on his siren and sped past, sending a jolt of adrenaline through Max’s system.

Raine!

Gut tight, hoping it was a coincidence, Max hit the gas and peeled back onto the road. He gunned his truck around the next corner and slammed on the brakes when he saw two cruisers parked half on the snow-covered lawn of a small white two-story home. The house numbers matched the ones written on Raine’s file folder.

And the windows glowed orange with fire.

Max didn’t waste time cursing or asking questions. He slapped the transmission into park, leaped out of his truck and bolted across the snow-slicked lawn. As he hurdled a burlap-covered shrub, he heard the cops shout something behind him, but he ignored them.

Heat radiated from the walls of the burning house, warming the skin of his hands and face as he charged up the steps. The iron railing of the banister was flesh-hot to the touch. Smoke tainted the air, irritating his lungs with the promise of worse to come.

Max twisted the doorknob, barely registering the singe of hot metal. Unlocked.

He barreled through the door and skidded into a smoke-filled kitchen.

Heart thundering, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Raine? Where are you? Raine!”

He thought he heard an answer over the rush of fire, which was eating its orange, greedy way from the kitchen table to the counter, where a roll of paper towels blazed.

He shouted again, “Raine?”

There was no answer. Maybe there never had been.

The ceiling bowed down with unnatural fluidity, as though the walls themselves were breathing. A door on the other side of the main room listed sideways in a surreal yawn of heat and smoke. Or was he the one swaying?

Gasping for breath, sweating inside his lined leather jacket, Max crouched low and looped the edge of his flannel shirt over his nose and mouth while he squinted against the smoke and tried to get his bearings.

There was a short hallway ahead of him, opening onto what looked like an open living room with stairs at the far end, presumably leading to an upstairs bedroom.

He crossed the living room, barely registering the soft furniture, visible in the strange orange light that radiated from the walls, from the floor, from all around him. He was surrounded by the awful, animal rushing roar of fire. The structure of the house had been smoldering when he’d arrived.

Now it was fully involved.

Blood racing with urgency even as his brain faded from lack of oxygen, Max stumbled past the couch.

His foot struck something soft and yielding. A body. Raine! He dropped to his knees, needing air, needing to believe she was okay. He said her name, but the words were ripped away as the fire spread into the living room and ate at the couch, counting down the seconds before it would be too late for them to get out safely.

“Raine?” He coughed against the burning claw of smoke in his lungs and pressed two fingers beneath her jaw. “Raine, damn it!”

He felt a pulse, but had no time for relief. A splintering crackle surrounded them. The floor beneath him heaved. The ceiling gave way near the stairwell and the whole structure tilted to one side. This time he was pretty sure it was the house moving, not him.

He got one arm around Raine’s neck and the other behind her knees and lifted. She curled limply against his chest, feeling too light, as though the life had already been burned out of her. Her arms and legs dangled, and her eyes remained shut. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell.

“Come on, baby, breathe.” The words were raspy with smoke, broken by coughs. He stood and staggered, then righted himself and headed for the door with one thought pounding in his brain.

He had to get them out of there.

Fire nipped at his heels, at his clothes, at his skin as he crossed the living room and kitchen, aiming for a door that seemed too far away. His feet burned and stuck as the rubber of his boots melted, and he felt the rivets of his jeans brand his skin.

Something crashed behind him, too close, and he broke into a coughing, shambling run as he cleared the door.

He made it down two of the steps before he slammed into a firefighter.

Time sped up, gained chaos, became sound and a burning chill as a flurry of suited men rushed him off the steps and out into the night air, which was refreshingly, painfully cold in his scorched lungs.

A firefighter grabbed his arm. “Is anyone else in the house?”

Max shook his head, “I don’t think so.” He had to shout over the crackle of flames, which was now joined by the hiss of water from a manned hose, and the sirens of an incoming fire truck.

“No husband? Kids?”

“No,” Max repeated. Her career was her baby. Her family.

“This way, sir. Bring her over here.” A pair of paramedics hustled him out to the street, where three ambulances were parked, part of an emergency response that seemed too large and fast for the situation.

Max paused, considering. The flames had been barely visible when he’d arrived on the cop’s heels. “Who called in the alarm?” he asked, voice raspy with smoke.

The nearest paramedic, a tall woman with short, frizzy hair, shrugged. “Don’t know. Ask the cops—they were the first response units. You’re lucky it was so quick, though. Another few minutes…” She gestured to an unfolded gurney. “Anyway. You can put her down here.”

But Max barely heard the order because he knew the paramedic was right. If the alarm hadn’t been sounded…if he’d been a few minutes later…

He tightened his arms around Raine and felt a stir in response. He looked down just as her eyes opened and locked on him. There was no change in her expression, no flicker of recognition or surprise or fear or any emotion beyond simple acceptance. She slipped her arms around his torso, reached up, pressed her cheek to his and said, “You came for me. Thank you.”

He froze, peripherally aware of the firefighters’ shouts and curses as they gained control of the blaze, along with the growing crowd of gawkers and the hiss of the angry fire. He noticed all those things, plus the sting of burns and the catch of smoke in his lungs and throat, but the sensory inputs seemed so much farther away than the woman in his arms, who filled up a space that had been empty for longer than he cared to admit, longer than his apartment had been bare.

He shifted, intending to push her away, but she moved and their bodies realigned until her lips were a breath away and her eyes were locked on his. He saw her lips shape his name, and before he knew he would do it, before he could stop himself, he closed the gap between them.

And then, almost exactly three years and three months after the day she’d walked out on him, he kissed her for the first time.



FLAMES. FIRE. SEARING HEAT. Raine could have blamed it all on the burning building, but that would have been a lie. The heat wasn’t coming from an external source; it was coming from inside her. From Max.

From the spark they kindled together.

Finally, she thought on a whisper of memory, as his mouth slanted across hers and his tongue demanded entry. She parted her lips and accepted him, tasted him and wanted more.

She remembered wishing for him as her attacker had knocked her unconscious. Then she’d come to and known whose arms held her. Whose heart beat beneath her ear. Who had come to her rescue.

Again.

Max. She fisted her hands in his flannel shirt and held on as a maelstrom built inside her, around her, swirls of heat and smoke and sensation roaring alongside the pounding beat of her heart. She felt his pulse drum beneath her fingertips, or maybe that was the race of her own heart; she wasn’t sure anymore; she only knew that he was there with her, beside her, pressed against her. He had come for her when she’d needed him.

He’d come. He’d rescued her, and—

And she was doing it again, Raine realized on a sudden shock of cold reality. She was putting herself in the middle of a rescue fantasy and grabbing onto the first man to step into the role.

She broke the kiss and stared at Max, whose eyes were very close to hers and dark with passion. She said, “Put me down.”

He lowered her to her feet and kept a hand on each arm until he was sure she was steady. Then they stood for a second, staring at each other, breathing heavily from the escape, from the kiss.

She saw the flames in his normally shielded expression, felt the answering surge in her blood and nearly reached for him.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

What the hell was she thinking? She’d been attacked. Thriller hung in the balance. She had to be the boss here, not the victim.

Not a woman.

She drew a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

A moment later, between one heartbeat and the next, his expression blanked. He muttered something unintelligible and gave her a long, measured look. Then gestured to the gurney and the waiting paramedics. “Let them check you out and get you to the hospital. You’ll need to be treated for smoke inhalation, at the very least.”

She batted his hand away and stood on her own two feet, doing her best not to wobble. “Don’t boss me around, Vasek. I’m fine.” She lifted her hand to the back of her head and winced when she found a large, tender bump. “Okay, a few bruises and a sore throat, but nothing I’m going to the hospital for. Where are the police? I saw the guy who grabbed me. I can give them a description of the bastard.”

She fanned the flames of outward anger, but the realizations bounded through her head in a terrifying litany. She’d been attacked. In her own home. Her place had been torched with her in it. She should be dead.

She would have been, if it hadn’t been for Max.

She didn’t know what he’d done to get her out, but she knew she owed him a hell of a debt, so she touched his arm. “A man was waiting for me when I got home tonight. He knocked me out, then set the place on fire several hours later. Don’t you see? This could be related to what’s going on at Rainey Days. It could have something to do with the Thriller deaths.”

His brows lowered and he seemed to grow bigger and more menacing, though she knew he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Exactly,” he said, voice low. “Which is why you should leave it to me.”

She froze. “You’re taking the case.”

Maybe that should have been obvious. Otherwise, why would he be in Connecticut? But she needed to hear him say it, needed to know she had someone on her side.

“I’m taking the case.” He held out a hand and she shook almost numbly, two businesspeople sealing a deal in the strangest of settings, standing in the darkness as firefighters slowly gained control of the inferno that had once been her house.




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