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Raven's Cove
Jenna Ryan
The reappearance of Rogan signaled she needed protection. They'd lived together for months in a safe house, her life in this mysterious detective's hands. Dark haired and heavyhearted, Rogan had allowed his and Jasmine's fates to be intertwined, just as someone from her past sought to kill her.…Rogan and Jasmine had ended their romance because of the danger it had brought. Now, if they hoped to stop the killer, they would have to revisit Raven's Cove, the birthplace of the ancient legend he twisted to suit his dark mission. And uncover the secrets still left between them…


Outside her window he stood—and Jasmine Ellis knew she'd been marked for murder
The reappearance of Rogan signaled she needed protection. They'd lived together for months in a safe house, her life in this mysterious detective's hands. Dark haired and heavyhearted, Rogan had allowed his and Jasmine's fates to be intertwined, just as someone from her past sought to kill her....
Rogan and Jasmine had ended their romance because of the danger it had brought. Now, if they hoped to stop the killer, they would have to revisit Raven's Cove, the birthplace of the ancient legend he twisted to suit his dark mission. And uncover the secrets still left between them....
There was no way to read his tone or his mood. But his eyes—now, those occasionally told a tale.
Blanking her expression, she turned. And immediately wanted to sigh. He had such a devastating half grin.
The touch of his fingers and thumb on her chin cautioned her to put some distance between them—as she should have done six weeks ago.
Was his mouth moving closer? Being around him, she let curiosity chase away good sense. She ran her own finger down the side of his throat to the shadowy hollow at the base. “Pulse rate’s up a little, Rogan.”
The man was gorgeous in a dark and dangerous way. Eyes that could weave a spell with a look, great hands, even better mouth…
She’d let herself fall under his spell at the safe house and again after the funeral. So why, with two mistakes to her credit, couldn’t she walk away and be done with him?

Raven’s Cove
Jenna Ryan


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenna started making up stories before she could read or write. As she grew up, romance always had a strong appeal, but romantic suspense was the perfect fit. She tried out a number of different careers, including modeling, interior design and travel, but writing has always been her one true love. That and her longtime partner, Rod.
Inspired from book to book by her sister Kathy, she lives in a rural setting fifteen minutes from the city of Victoria, British Columbia. It’s taken a lot of years, but she’s finally slowed the frantic pace and adopted a West Coast mind-set. Stay active, stay healthy, keep it simple. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the read. All of that works for her, but what she continues to enjoy most is writing stories she loves. She also loves reader feedback. Email her at jacquigoff@shaw.ca or visit Jenna Ryan on Facebook.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jasmine Ellis—Her ex’s meddling combined with a three-hundred-year-old legend have put her life in jeopardy.
Rogan—The rogue cop saved her from a drug lord, but can he protect her from a murderer who’s using an old legend to stalk her?
Daniel Cory—Jasmine’s ex has endangered her life twice since their divorce.
Malcolm Wainwright—The drug lord died during a prison break. Allegedly.
Brent Boxman—Jasmine knows him from her stint at a safe house, but why is he in Raven’s Cove?
Sergeant Costello—He knows Jasmine is under threat. He also hates that he was forced to retire.
Victor Bowcott—The safe house cop is in love with Jasmine.
Cyrus Bowcott—Victor’s twin brother has as many secrets as the residents of Raven’s Cove.
Donald Dukes—The chameleon cop disappeared. But is he dead or alive?
Contents
The Raven’s Tale (#u1077d91e-d315-5f0b-80d2-d56105ede27d)
Chapter One (#ubc022eb3-9f8d-5d6f-ba1e-2a207869364d)
Chapter Two (#u2cb7b0f6-8b30-569c-abb8-e33a0fd4703b)
Chapter Three (#u11a29e4a-3eba-5d30-a33e-a11229eac6bf)
Chapter Four (#u0fc545c4-e0f5-58b6-8702-7b2071eb4415)
Chapter Five (#u218e7070-9ef8-58b6-b7cb-ba1182ac7f68)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
The Raven’s Tale
When lost and angry soul did meet,
Sly spirit cloaked in dark deceit,
That whispered low within the mist,
Of vengeance and false justice, hissed,
And twined until the soul, confused,
Unable to resist, bemused,
And willing to forsake his faith,
Bade spirit enter. Like a wraith,
The darkness crept in, seized control.
The two now intertwined, now whole,
Saw death descend upon the town.
As spirit grew, held lost soul down,
Regret, repentance rose and cried,
Please help the one ensnared inside.
But darkness had its claws sunk deep,
Would not relinquish hold, would keep,
Soul prisoner forevermore,
Brooked no escape to any shore.
Bright spirit heard but could not break,
Dark spirit’s grip so deeply staked,
Could merely transform man to bird,
And offer hope through cryptic word.
Sleek raven now can steal no breath,
Can cause no harm, incur no death.
But feathers three placed on the door,
Means life within is destined for,
Untimely end. The raven knows,
And with that knowledge, torment grows.
Yet on the day death gains no ground,
And though portended is not found,
Where feathers three by raven placed,
Should death be met and duly faced,
And conquered, then tormented soul,
Will freedom wrest from evil fold.
Unfettered soul may rise, move on,
No more pernicious spirit’s pawn.
Until that day shall raven fly,
The darkness call and people die.
Until the one is once more two
The raven’s curse holds fast and true.
Chapter One
Jasmine heard the phone ringing as she undertook the complex process of disabling her condo’s security system. Always the way, she thought, and considered letting the call go to voice mail. But the door opened, her shoes slipped off easily and the violence of the thunder that had been circling Salem, Massachusetts, for the past hour had her longing to hear a friendly voice rather than the insidious whispers currently echoing in her head.
Those whispers wanted to draw her back to another place and time, just far enough away that she managed not to think of it every minute of the day. Only in darker minutes and thunderstorms.
She ran the last few steps to grab the handset. The spectacular bolt of lightning that corresponded with her breathless “Jasmine Ellis” flickered on through the “Ouch” that followed when her bare foot came down on a leather dog toy. A moment later, two large paws planted themselves on her chest and shoved her onto the sofa.
Laughing, she shoved back. “Hello to you, too, Boris.” She caught the dog’s chin. “If it took you this long to get here, you must have been sleeping on the bed again.”
Her three-year-old German shepherd barked twice. Meant yes, or in this case, guilty.
Still laughing, Jasmine dislodged his paws and returned her attention to the neglected caller. “Sorry—hello.” A prolonged crackle made her sigh. “Melvin, is that you?”
To his delight, her assistant’s seven-year-old son had recently discovered the snicker value in playing practical jokes. He’d called her twice last night to crinkle tissue paper in front of the mouthpiece.
“I can hear you breathing, kiddo.” Giving Boris’s ears a quick scratch, she shrugged off her black trench. “First rule of practical jokes, the same old, same old doesn’t work more than twice. …”
The crackle came again, so sharp she drew the phone from her ear.
“Jas, it’s me,” a man on the other end shouted. “Are you there?”
A chill danced across Jasmine’s skin. She stood slowly, her eyes locking on the polished floorboards. “Daniel?” Then suspicion swept in, and she spun to scan the darkness beyond the living room window. “Who is this?”
“It’s me, Daniel, swear. The rain in Spain made our honeymoon a pain.”
Jasmine’s mind scrambled to decode his words even as she endeavored to block the horror-filled months that preceded his removal from her life.
Didn’t work, of course. The memories were simply too strong.
Daniel Corey was her ex-husband, emphasis on the ex. He’d been an investigative reporter who’d gone where he shouldn’t have, learned things he’d had no business knowing, escaped—barely—and dragged himself home. That’s when all hell had broken loose.
Life for both of them had become a carousel of safe houses, stringent security measures, pending trial dates, testimony and, in the end, for Daniel at least, the witness protection program.
Her role in the fallout hadn’t been as prominent, but that hadn’t made it any less terrifying. Because he had no other family, the people Daniel had crossed had seen her as his Achilles heel.
With several very real threats hanging over her, Jasmine had been followed day and night by undercover police officers for four long months. When that had been deemed insufficient, she’d been placed in a safe house for three more. Altogether, she’d forfeited over half a year of her life to Daniel’s dog-with-a-bone attitude. She didn’t intend to lose another day.
The rain-Spain-honeymoon thing was a password of sorts. Daniel had invented it should the need to contact her—which he was never supposed to do—arise.
Thunder sounded directly overhead, a perfect backdrop to Jasmine’s plunging mood. “Where are you?” she demanded, then slashed a hand through the air. “Scratch that. Why are you calling?”
“Something bad’s going on. I’ve got two feathers and, oh…um, speaking of death, I’m really sorry I missed Captain Ballard’s funeral.”
Captain Gus Ballard of the San Diego Police Department had been at the heart of the case that Daniel’s unsanctioned investigating had brought to a highly explosive head. In short, and put very, very simply, one corrupt San Diego business magnate named Malcolm Wainwright, with ties to an equally corrupt South American magnate, both of whom possessed a network of people, weapons and criminal savvy, had been, if not destroyed, seriously damaged by Daniel’s findings.
Ballard had spearheaded the case from start to finish. He’d arranged the safe houses, seen to her protection and kept Daniel alive through the trial and beyond. Sadly, eighteen months after the nightmare had more or less played out, he’d died of a pulmonary embolism.
“I know you were at the service.” Her ex-husband’s regret penetrated the phone line’s static. “Ballard was a good man.”
“Yes, he was.” She struggled for patience. “Daniel, what do you want?”
“I told you, something’s happening. Here and in other places.”
Thunder rumbled again. Though he made no sound, Boris’s ears flattened. She gave his side a reassuring rub. “Well, nothing’s happened here. I’d know if it had.” Wouldn’t she? “In any case, you must have seen the headlines. The escape Wainwright and two other inmates engineered three months ago resulted in a smashed helicopter and the remains of three dead bodies. And don’t tell me Wainwright couldn’t be positively identified, because both the police and the FBI were satisfied he was among the fatalities. Story’s dead, and so is he.”
“Dentures aren’t proof positive in my opinion, and no Wainwright-related story is ever dead. If it were, would I still be living in exile under a new name?”
Swallowing a snarl, Jasmine started for the kitchen. “Daniel, if you called to give me heebie-jeebies because you’re bored with your new life, I’m hanging up. I watched people die protecting me from the hornet’s nest you agitated just as the cops were about to close in.”
“Hey, all I did was nudge the investigation along.”
“Hanging up,” she warned.
“No, don’t. Listen, Jas, I do know that a handful of people who should be alive today have died during the six weeks since Ballard’s funeral. Wainwright’s chopper went down three months ago, right?”
Pausing, she rested her back on the kitchen door frame as another bolt of lightning shot through the sky. Wisdom told her she should disconnect. But Daniel had never been an alarmist. He wouldn’t have contacted her without a very good reason.
“Okay, I give up,” she relented. “Who besides the captain—and his death was absolutely of natural causes—has died?” Her eyes went up as thunder rolled like a slow-motion wave from ceiling to floor. “Better make it fast. The storm here’s getting worse.”
“Here, too,” he returned above the static. “The answer is two of Wainwright’s top executives, as well as the assistant D.A. of San Diego.”
Boris wandered through the kitchen, sniffed the air. Watching him, Jasmine offered a cautious “Go on.”
“The trial judge’s sister-in-law.”
“Don’t you think in-laws are a bit of a stretch?”
“Not done yet. One of the investigating officers under Captain Ballard, a man who was an integral part of the security team, got word that his uncle was knifed in a New Orleans alley a few days ago. And here’s the kicker. I can’t get hold of my contact.”
“Maybe he’s on vacation.”
Daniel’s protracted silence elicited a sigh.
“Fine, things have happened. And you know about them because…?”
“Sources, Jas, plus a little hacking prowess I’ve acquired.”
Boris gave a short bark as lightning speared down once more. Pushing off, Jasmine crossed to the back door and checked the dead bolt.
“I assume you think one of Wainwright’s people is out for blood.”
“One of his people, one of his South American counterpart’s people or, hell, even Wainwright himself.”
“Stretching, Daniel.” She observed the light show through the door’s half window. “People like Wainwright never do their own dirty work. Especially if they’re dead.” Boris had gone rigid beside her. “What is it?” she asked with a frown.
He gave two quick barks. Not a warning, but—something.
“Jasmine?” She could barely hear Daniel now. “Whatever’s unfolding here, I’m worried. About you more than me—even though I’m the one who got the raven’s feathers.”
“What raven’s feathers?” she demanded. “Daniel, are you drunk?”
“I wish. You need to call someone you can trust. And no, I’m not going to name names, because even if we have been divorced for three years, I still care about you. Hell, I love you. So don’t expect me to suggest you put your life, or any other part of you, in someone else’s hands.”
Now a very different set of memories popped into her head, though truthfully, they’d been swimming on the fringe since the thunder had started.
“Will it make you feel better if I contact Ballard’s replacement?”
“Sorry…can’t hear you.” Daniel’s voice faded in and out on elastic bands of static. “For the record, and just in case the feathers are for real, I’m…”
Interference took over.
“Daniel?” She quieted Boris. “Where are you?”
“Raven’s Cove… Maine.”
So close? She’d expected him to be in some innocuous Midwestern town.
“Ballard’s replacement’s in San Diego,” he continued. “That’s a country’s width away from Massachusetts. I’m not sure who’s in your area, but, well, do what you have to do to stay safe.”
His frustration came through loud and clear.
“Whatever you decide, just keep away…too dangerous…don’t believe in gobbledygook as such, but I did get those feathers, and there’s a raven…local legend says…certain death…”
The rest of his sentence was swallowed up in a sizzle of sound that had Jasmine jerking the handset from her ear a second time.
“Daniel?” she tried from a distance.
But there was only fuzzy noise. And a moment later not even that as both the lights and her phone went dead.
* * *
HE LINGERED FOR AN exhilarating moment in the rain and gusting wind. Lingered and savored and visualized the prize.
There’d been no hitches so far, no obstacles thrown down that he couldn’t handle. They would come, though, and from more than one direction, because it was the woman’s turn now. Her long-overdue, highly anticipated turn.
Anger bubbled like hot acid. But he needed to maintain control, fight for balance. He couldn’t allow a single wrong emotion to slip in or out.
Lightning directly above fractured the night. Watching it fade, he ramped up his resolve, shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and prepared to set the wheels of Jasmine Ellis’s death in motion.
* * *
JASMINE WONDERED DISTANTLY how her mother, her only family, would react to Daniel’s call.
Colleen Ellis had been forty-four years old when she’d marched into a sperm bank and been impregnated. Time was right, she’d decided. Her tenure at Harvard was secure, and her internal clock was winding down.
She’d taught art history for twenty-five years after Jasmine’s birth, then she’d packed up her hiking boots and cameras and headed for Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster.
Confirming the existence of at least one legendary beast was the lone item on Colleen Ellis’s bucket list. When Nessie had failed to materialize, she’d shifted her attention to the fabled giant octopus off the coast of Bermuda. Currently, she was hunting for Bigfoot in the Olympic Mountains.
Colleen could surely decipher the raven’s-feather references, Jasmine suspected, if not the implications of what they portended.
Holding tight to Boris’s collar, Jasmine waited until her emergency lights kicked in.
Rain pounded the roof and windows like ferocious fists. As if galvanized by them, her thoughts took off in two directions.
The first led her back more than a year and a half to a night much like this one. On that night, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man had appeared at her safe house, a stranger who had simultaneously terrified and fascinated her.
The second took her back six weeks, to Captain Ballard’s funeral. Once again, the man had appeared in the night. Maybe he’d appeared out of it. Either way, she’d turned and there he’d been, standing behind her, more familiar this time, but no less dangerous and certainly no less fascinating.
His name was Rogan. Just that, no more. Ballard had assured her he was a cop. Not the sort you could pin down to any one division or captain—or any one city or state, for that matter. Rogan went where required as required and stayed until the job he’d been sent to do was done. Then, poof, back into the night.
Not that Jasmine didn’t appreciate his mysterious qualities. She was, after all, the head of acquisitions at Salem’s Museum of Early American Artifacts and Antiquities, or Witch House, as it was more commonly known, since almost every piece there had a witch-related story attached to it.
More than once she’d considered working a figure of Rogan into an exhibit. Hypnotic, haunting man, dressed in black, surrounded by swirling shadows. She’d highlight his incredible eyes, give him a murky past and a vaguely occult ancestor. Any female viewing him was bound to be as mesmerized as she’d been when she’d met him.
Intriguing though it was, the idea shattered with the next blast of wind.
Good, because she really didn’t want to think about Rogan or the circumstances of their first meeting. That would lead her back to the conversation she’d just had with her ex, which would lead her to Rogan, and on and on.
Determined to break the cycle, she went to the fridge for a soft drink. She was debating her choices when Boris growled.
Bumping the door closed with her hip, Jasmine surveyed the darker shadows. “Please tell me that wasn’t a threatening sound.”
The dog gave a sharp bark.
She listened, but heard nothing above the storm. Until…
On the heels of the thunder, and courtesy of a lull in the wind, she caught a faint sound, like a swish of leather.
Now, that wasn’t part of the storm. There was someone behind her.
Fighting a spurt of panic, she ducked sideways. But the intruder was faster and apparently more intuitive. Before she could evade him, a hand came down on her mouth, and she was hauled back against a man’s strong, hard body.
Chapter Two
Jasmine knew who it was before he lowered his mouth to the side of her head. Using both hands, she reached up and snatched Rogan’s palm away.
“Quiet,” he warned in a deceptively soft voice.
She used temper to beat down fear. “What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”
She kept the question to a hiss, but even that must have been too loud, because he covered her mouth again. “Look out the window, Jasmine.”
Her gaze shot to the rain-washed glass. Lightning forked down somewhere in the vicinity of Witch House. The trees were listing, and… Her eyes widened. The neighbors’ lights were on!
A shiver skated along her spine. Her blood ran cold, but she didn’t move, wouldn’t let herself react.
“No sound.” Rogan’s breath was warm and undeniably sensual in her ear.
Eyes fixed on the lights, Jasmine nodded.
He removed his hand, but kept her close. Beside them, Boris stood absolutely still.
Jasmine waited, breath held. Until her vision began to blur, then she let it out. Slowly, deliberately and with Daniel’s words repeating in her head.
Something bad’s going on…
Did Rogan agree? Stupid question. He was here. And Rogan never did anything without a very good reason.
Of course knowing that wasn’t exactly reassuring. Neither was the silence that vibrated beneath the storm.
Thunder rolled again. Rogan motioned for Boris to move. Since he’d trained the dog, Boris responded instantly. Although, Jasmine noted, he never actually left her side.
“Worked your magic on him, too, huh?” In the barely there light, she caught the gleam of amusement in Rogan’s eyes—a split second before they shifted to a distant window.
He nudged her toward the kitchen island, handed her a gun. “I’m going to trust you haven’t forgotten how to use it.”
She would have responded if there’d been any point. Or time. Because he was gone with the last word.
Alert and ready to protect, Boris assumed a ferocious stance between his mistress and the tall pane of glass.
Her heart was hammering, Jasmine realized, almost louder than the thunder. But she had to think past her fear, reason it out.
Daniel said people were dying. People connected to Malcolm Wainwright’s trial.
Was it possible Wainwright had survived that helicopter crash three months ago? Or was someone within his tattered organization championing his cause? Whatever the case, Daniel had been unnerved enough to break the rules and contact her, Rogan was hunting a shadow on her side porch—and all hell was going to break loose again, she just knew it.
Braced for the worst, she adjusted her grip on the gun. A moment later, she heard a commotion outside. It ended with a thump on the back wall. There was a yelp—not Rogan—followed by a second thump.
Lightning illuminated two men through the window. One of them booted the door with his foot.
“Open up, Jasmine,” Rogan told her.
She hesitated, couldn’t help it.
“Jasmine.”
Lowering the gun, she stood, crossed the floor and twisted the lock.
A square-built man in a soggy raincoat stumbled in, with Rogan close behind.
Bending slightly, she peered up into a familiar face. “Gunther?”
“Ya, it’s me.”
She recognized his German accent at once.
“You’re the shadow?” Her gaze moved to Rogan. “He’s the shadow?”
“So it would seem.”
“Uh…hmm.”
“My sentiments exactly.” He pushed the man ahead so he could clear and close the door. “I found him prowling around your cut power line.”
A baffled Gunther appealed to Jasmine. “My mother sent me over to check on you. All your lights went out at the same time, and then she saw someone near your side wall. I went where she said and found your line had been cut.”
“You wouldn’t think I’d be surprised at this point.” Giving her neighbor’s shoulder an encouraging pat, Jasmine straightened. “Rogan, Gunther planted my front garden for me. He shovels my sidewalk and driveway every time it snows, and he took care of Boris while I was in San Diego six weeks ago. He didn’t cut the power.”
Rogan studied the man by emergency light. “Can you describe the person your mother saw?”
Gunther moved a thick shoulder. “She said he walked like a man.” He slanted his interrogator a doubtful look. “He was wearing black.”
“Do you have beer?” Rogan asked Jasmine.
“Heineken.” She offered him a bland smile. “It’s Gunther’s favorite. In the fridge, second shelf. You can have one, too.”
He said nothing, but didn’t take his eyes off Gunther as he opened the refrigerator door.
Boris’s thumping tail seemed like a positive sign, so while Rogan tossed Gunther a beer and undertook the required question-and-answer session, she located a pair of battery lamps. Less than five minutes later, Gunther and his beer were gone, a headache was brewing in her temples and her mind was swinging like an overwound pendulum.
She didn’t hear him approach, but knew as she had earlier when Rogan came to stand behind her.
She relaxed her muscles and didn’t respond to the hand he ran along her arm. “You look good, love.”
There was no way to read his tone or his mood. But his eyes—now, those occasionally told a tale.
Blanking her expression, she turned. And immediately wanted to sigh. He had such a devastating half grin. No wonder she’d fallen into the clichéd trap and had sex with him after Ballard’s funeral.
Hot, crazed sex, she amended, fingering the thin silver chain around her neck.
“Pretty sure I look the same as I did at the memorial service.”
“You looked sad then.” His gaze lowered and rose in a single seductive sweep. “You don’t now.”
“Good to know I still wear terror well.”
The touch of his fingers and thumb on her chin cautioned her to put some distance between them—as she should have done six weeks ago. Instead, she trapped his wrist. “Daniel called me tonight. We were cut off, but he’s in trouble.”
“I know.”
Did he now? Her elevated brows posed the obvious question.
The half smile lingered. “Your ex-husband’s not the only one who sees and hears. People are dying. Wainwright’s the common denominator.”
“Wainwright’s dead. Ballard was convinced of it.”
“So was I, until…” He slid his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “Dead or alive’s not the point. Finding the person responsible for the homicides is. And to answer your next question, yes, everyone who’s died was murdered.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“You want lies?”
“What I want seems to be something I can’t have.”
“And what would that be?”
Was his mouth moving closer? As it tended to around him, curiosity chased away good sense. She ran her own finger down the side of his throat to the shadowy hollow at the base. “Pulse rate’s up a little, Rogan.”
“I’d be surprised if not. What do you want?”
“Peace. Stability. Maybe a hit of amnesia so I can stop seeing dead people whenever my sleeping mind decides a nightmare’s in order.”
“Was it so bad that you can’t let it go?”
“Two police officers were killed, and a third is presumed dead, all because they were watching out for me.”
“It was their job to watch out for you.”
Theirs, his and that of at least four other officers. Jasmine supposed she should be grateful the death toll hadn’t been higher.
“Wainwright saw you as a way to stop Daniel from testifying against him. You were a victim of circumstance. Fortunately, when the trial dust settled, he wound up behind bars.”
“And you don’t think there might have been a phoenix within the ashes of his organization ready to rise up and take over?”
“There’s always a phoenix, but Wainwright’s South American drug connection’s been severed, so all’s as well as it can be for the moment.”
A sudden urge to laugh tickled her throat. Had to be hysteria, she decided, and, tipping her head, regarded him through her lashes.
Rogan had eyes that could weave a spell with a look, great hands and an even better mouth. She’d let herself fall under his spell at the safe house and again after the funeral. So why, with two mistakes to her credit, couldn’t she walk away and be done with him?
“I can hear your mind working, Jasmine. You’re thinking a trip to Antarctica would be a good idea about now.”
Since a similar thought actually had drifted through the back of her mind, she smiled. “Any chance of that happening?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” She stared past him to the streaming window. “I can’t help feeling responsible for the officers who died. I should have gone to the safe house when Captain Ballard suggested it. Instead, a team of cops trailed after me day and night.”
“No one died tailing you.”
“Could have, though.”
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
Warning eyes shot to his. “This isn’t about me, and you know it. The men who were killed had families. Call it what you like, I feel the weight of their deaths every day.”
“So if a lunatic came into Witch House and shot you, you’d expect your boss to bear the burden?”
“The only burden he’d bear is if the shooter missed me and hit one of the artifacts.”
“Sounds like you need a new employer.”
“It’s crossed my mind.” She would have moved out of range then if he hadn’t trapped her arm.
“We’re not done yet.”
She glanced first at his hand, then at his shadowed face. “We are, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not getting involved with you again.”
A trace of amusement appeared. “I’d say mutual attraction is the least of our problems.”
“My problems, Rogan.”
“Makes them mine by default. You’re connected to Daniel and through him to Wainwright’s trial. People far less directly involved are dead. Your power line was cut. …”
“And you’re in my home. The how and why of which you still haven’t explained. You can’t possibly have known Daniel would phone me tonight, or that my power would go out before the call ended.”
“Put my appearance down to fortunate timing. I actually planned to wait until tomorrow to show up.”
“Have I mentioned you’re a little scary sometimes?”
He drew her in so smoothly she didn’t even realize her feet were moving.
The word danger became a red glare in her head, but she made no effort to resist. Why bother? She wasn’t foolish enough to pretend there’d never been anything between them. She just wished she could identify it and make it go away.
With his eyes locked on hers, Rogan lowered his mouth to within an inch of hers. The fingers he slid under her hair wrapped around the back of her neck. Then a smile grazed his lips.
“What?” she asked when he held her there unmoving. “Please don’t tell me you hear something outside.”
“Not outside. In. Your cell phone’s ringing.”
“It’s probably Daniel.” She kept her tone calm and her expression neutral. “If you want me to answer, you’ll have to let me go.”
She breathed out when he released her and headed for the living room.
“Jasmine Ellis.”
She anticipated a burst of static. When it didn’t materialize, she regarded the screen. No number, no caller name. Switching to speaker, and aware that Rogan was behind her again, she tried for a different angle in case the storm was affecting the reception.
“Melvin, is that you?” The silence stretched out. She was about to disconnect, when an artificial male voice reached her.
“Hello, sweet Jasmine. This is your nemesis, your fate. Open your front door and see the feathery token I’ve left for you. A large bird told me it means death. But not yet. First, you’re going to suffer. As I suffered. Before I died. …”
Chapter Three
Rogan had spent too much of his adult life wading through the muddy back roads of the criminal psyche to dismiss any possibility, but no matter how he worked it, he couldn’t see Wainwright employing this kind of scare tactic. Not that he was prepared to view Jasmine as a victim, but obviously someone did. Unfortunately, the someone who best fit the caller profile was a should-be-dead drug lord with a weighty ax to grind.
Wainwright had been old school all the way. Murder for necessity, no problem. Murder for pleasure? About as probable as the odds that he’d survived that helicopter crash.
So what did that leave?
Pulling on a glove, Rogan picked up and examined the long black feather they’d found taped to Jasmine’s front door. Courtesy of a raven, he imagined.
According to local Maine legend, one feather warned, three equaled death. Or so Daniel’s contact had said.
Straddling a dining room chair, Rogan contemplated both token and tale. Then swore. Trust Daniel Corey to drag Jasmine not only back into his miserable life, but also into a witch’s brew of omens, legends and death.
Police protocol dictated that both the feather and the tape used to secure it to her door be checked for prints, but he knew there wouldn’t be any. Just as surely, the cell phone from which the threatening call had been placed would turn up in a trash can or not at all.
Anyone capable of committing seven murders—more than Daniel realized—in the month and a half since Gus Ballard’s funeral wasn’t going to be easily identified. Nor was he likely to hang around Jasmine’s condo.
After the call, Rogan had left Jasmine at Gunther’s place and conducted a thorough search of the neighborhood. He’d come up empty, but then he hadn’t expected to find the guy cowering in the bushes, waiting to be flushed out.
A sound from the bedroom where Jasmine was packing diverted him. His gaze moved past the upheld feather to the half-closed door.
It didn’t matter how much time went by, he could always bring her face to mind. She’d been haunting him for weeks. Longer, if he was honest with himself.
She was a beauty, no doubt about it, inside, outside and every other place. Long hair, as dark as the feather he held, green eyes just a shade deeper than emerald, sleek yet curvy body—the list went on. She was thoughtful, smart and kind. And if he’d been any of those things, he’d have sent someone else to Salem to check on her.
As if a breaker tripped in his head, he switched back to cop mode and visualized the seven corpses he’d viewed recently. Factor in Jasmine’s threat, and a sense of something more twisted than mere criminal vengeance began to snake through his belly.
The storm wind bore down hard on the roof. While Jasmine continued tossing God knew what into a case for the night, he zeroed in on her ex-husband’s location as it related to the message she’d received. … Rather, he would have if she hadn’t emerged from the bedroom pulling a large suitcase and carrying a second overstuffed bag.
His eyes rose to her face. “You’re joking, right? I said pack for a night, not a month.”
“Promises, promises.” She handed him the carryall, swung her trench coat on and shouldered her purse and laptop. “Any more than three nights, and I’ll have to call Gunther to water the plants.”
Amusement warred with exasperation. “You get a death threat, and you’re worried about your plants?”
“My mother’s plants.” She dug out her iPhone and pressed the screen. “Very old and in some cases very rare. Gunther’s a good friend, and…” She regarded the screen. “This is the third time I’ve tried Daniel’s number. He’s not answering.”
Rogan made a motion that had Boris trotting to the side door. “A college-educated man, still technically within the confines of the witness protection program, gave you his number?”
She smiled at his tone. “Daniel’s not a complete ass. He used a cell to call me. I imagine he has several and ditches them as he sees fit. Still—” she dropped her phone into her purse “—he must have known I’d call back. He was trying to tell me something when we were cut off.”
“So you said.”
She caught his arm while he tucked a gun into the back of his waistband. “We have to make sure he’s all right.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
A smile crossed his lips as he scoped out what was visible—not much—beyond the front window. “If I didn’t know both of us better, I’d be offended by that.”
“Do you have a contact in Raven’s Cove?”
“Not yet. But give me a few hours and a break in the storm and I will.”
He felt the visual dagger she aimed at his back. “I’ve met that diabolical mind of yours enough times to know who it is you trust and therefore who that so-called contact will be. We’re heading north, aren’t we?”
He couldn’t resist. Turning his head, he brushed a kiss across her cheek, then let his lips stray to her ear. “North to Raven’s Cove, love. Into the heart of a three-hundred-year-old legend.”
* * *
A POSSIBLY NOT-DEAD CRIME lord, a phone call from Daniel, another from a potential killer, a death threat, a black feather and now a remote New England town complete with a legend. Why not? Jasmine wondered as they crossed the border from Massachusetts into New Hampshire. It wasn’t as if she’d had any plans for the weekend.
They were traveling in a fully equipped Ford F-350 truck. Rogan drove it with ease and seemed unfazed by the extreme weather that encompassed the whole eastern seaboard.
“We’ll be in Raven’s Cove in a few hours, right?”
“Give or take.” He reached out to turn down the volume on AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “The town’s on a tricky point of land north of Portland and well off 95. Well off any of the state highways, for that matter.”
“So basically, right off the map. We’re talking paved roads here, I hope.”
“In the town proper.”
“Meaning you’ve either been there or you’ve done your homework. Oh, sorry, I mean research, because you don’t actually have a home, do you? Captain Ballard called you a rogue cop with links but no ties to anyone or anything, just an uncanny sense of when and where you need to be.”
She saw the beginnings of a grin in profile. “You want to know why I was in your condo tonight.”
“Why, how long, how you got in—though that one I can guess—who sent you and any other details you think might be pertinent to the fact that I’m sitting in your truck en route to a town where both a three-hundred-year-old legend and, apparently, Daniel live.”
His features remained inscrutable. “My uncanny cop sense tells me you’re pissed off about pretty much all those things.”
She regarded Boris, comfortably settled on the seat behind them. “Whether Wainwright’s dead or not, Rogan, Daniel gave his testimony. Threatening me won’t change what went down afterward.”
“I agree. Is there anyone else you can think of, besides Wainwright, who might want you dead?”
“Not unless one of the artifacts I’ve acquired has a curse from a vindictive witch attached to it.”
“I think we can safely rule that one out.”
“I don’t know.” She rocked her head from side to side to alleviate the tension knots. “A few of the witches I’ve heard about uttered some pretty nasty things before they passed on. For instance, one of them was caged and left hanging in the woods to die of thirst and/or exposure. When everyone was sure she was gone, the town magistrates had her buried, cage and all. Two nights later, the cage was back hanging from the tree. The following day, the man who’d buried her fell into a grave he’d just finished digging and broke his neck.”
“Let me guess. No one wanted to touch the witch’s cage and/or her remains again.”
“You’re making fun of the story, but within a month, all three of her accusers choked on their tongues while they slept.”
“Sounds more like poetic justice than a curse.”
The amusement that rose felt good. A little out of place, but good. “Okay, we’re way off topic, so last word on this particular witch. The inquisitor who’d passed sentence on her had a fatal accident exactly one month to the day after the so-called trial ended. His horse threw him into a ravine. He landed faceup, eyes open, staring at the bottom of her cage.”
“Or more likely his wife pushed him into the ravine after someone let it slip that he’d been—let’s keep it polite and say he’d been having an affair with said witch, whom he probably offed because she threatened to have a chat with his wife if he didn’t set her up in the seventeenth-century version of a Salem penthouse.”
“Cynic,” she returned on a laugh. “I should have known you’d reduce a perfectly good story to a case of sexual spite. I don’t suppose you could do the same thing with that feather I got. …” She moved a doubtful hand between him and the dash where the feather sat, saw the expression on his face and gave her fingers a resigned flick. “Nope, guess not. The feather’s real, and for reasons as yet unknown, so is the threat.”
Superbright headlights came toward them, the first they’d seen in thirty minutes. “The caller wants me to suffer the way he did before he died. Any way I look at it, the name that best fits that threat is Wainwright’s. He went to prison, he escaped, he crashed, he died. Allegedly.”
“Seven other people have been murdered since the crash.”
“Did they suffer beforehand?”
“From what we know, I’d say probably not.”
“So that honor’s reserved for me.”
“Brings us back to my question.”
“Have I pissed anyone off to the point where he or she would want me dead? Answer’s no. Now it’s your turn. Where, when, why, how, what?”
The grin he shot her disarmed but didn’t deflect. “Maybe I just wanted to see you again. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”
“And maybe my mother will meet Bigfoot, but I doubt it.”
“Meaning you believe in witches and curses, but not myths and legends.”
“I believe in many things, one of them being your ability to circumvent. Why did you come to Salem?”
“Pretty sure I answered that. I thought you might be in danger, figured you probably were, in fact.”
“And the fortunate-timing thing?”
“Luck happens, Jasmine.” He kept an eye on the rearview mirror. “I wasn’t sent, although I did talk to Ballard’s replacement. She’s one of several cops being pressured about the validity of the coroner’s report regarding one Malcolm Wainwright.”
“Captain Ballard swore Wainwright died in that crash.”
“Yes, but Gus Ballard’s not here to stand by his conviction, and there are seven unexplained murders on the books.”
Since she couldn’t really argue, Jasmine moved on. “How did you know Daniel called me?”
“I didn’t. You just assumed.”
“But you knew he was in trouble.”
“At the risk of sounding uncoplike, duh.”
She slit her eyes at him. “How did you know he was in Raven’s Cove? Only his contact and one other person were supposed to possess that information.”
The grin hovering on his lips widened. “Ta-da.”
She hissed out her frustration. “I’ve got to stop being surprised. Okay, obvious next question. Why you?”
“Someone had to be the other. Better a mobile cop than not. In any case, with Wainwright’s now-alleged death, Ballard’s unswerving belief in it, plus a number of interdepartmental cost cuts, Daniel’s security-risk factor’s been dropped. He’s still officially in the program, but accessing his peripheral information isn’t as difficult as some of us think it should be.”
“In other words, money’s tight, something had to give and Daniel lost the coin toss.”
“Pretty much sums it up.”
“So you’re aware that Daniel’s contact is missing.”
“Yeah, I’m aware.”
“Is that why you showed up in Salem early? You were checking on him?”
Rogan squinted upward as the rain swept over them in sheets. “If I tell you Daniel’s contact lives in South Carolina, will that set off a whole new round of questions?”
“Maybe.” Leaning back, she studied him. “I’m not sure I trust you as a cop to tell me the absolute truth.”
“Probably a wise precaution given that we seldom tell it.”
That remark shouldn’t sting, but she knew she might have made another invalid assumption six weeks ago. He’d told her he cared, that he had feelings for her he’d never had for anyone else. Then he’d vanished.
From the driver’s seat, he slanted her an assessing look. “Are we done with the Q and A portion of our trip?”
“I’ll let you know when my head stops spinning and my thoughts make some kind of sense. I was planning to visit my mother in Washington next weekend, did you know that? She says the Olympic Mountains are beautiful in October.”
“They’re beautiful any time of year, and how would I know what your long-weekend plans were?”
“So you can’t read minds then.”
“Depends whose mind we’re talking about. I know you’re worried.”
“And here I thought I was hiding it so well.” She brought her gaze back to his face. “It was supposed to be done, Rogan, at least as done as it could be. Everyone except Daniel could go back to their lives. You, me, the cops from the safe house.” Curiosity sidetracked her. “How are they, by the way? I talked to Costello at the funeral. He said he took an early retirement and moved to Stockton.”
“Unfortunately, golfing and gardening can’t always fill the void in a cop’s life.”
“He could become a P.I.”
“I’ll mention that next time I see him. As for the others, Boxman’s taking a hiatus. He cited burnout coupled with a messy divorce as his reasons. Carla Prewitt’s on maternity leave, and Victor Bowcott’s thinking about transferring from San Diego to Buffalo, New York.”
“Victor…to Buffalo?” She stared, incredulous. “Why?”
“He didn’t say. Problem with Buffalo?”
“No, but come on, Rogan, Victor’s all about warm winters, not frigid ones.”
“Yeah? Interesting you’d know that.”
“What, you didn’t?”
“I’m not as well acquainted with him as you appear to be.”
She twirled a finger. “We lived together, remember? You, me, him and the others, for a month. Of course, it would have been longer in your case if you’d been there from the start like the rest of us were.”
“I came when the situation heated up and when the assignment I’d been working on prior to the heating ended.”
She let her mind slide back and amusement spike. “I honestly thought somebody’d messed up, that one of Wainwright’s henchmen had crashed our gruesome little party. One of his crazy, high-on-crack, South American mercenary henchmen. If Costello hadn’t recognized you, I might have tried to stab you with a kitchen knife. Oh, but that wouldn’t have worked, would it, because you never expose your back. To anyone.”
As the streaming rain turned into a near waterfall, Rogan switched the wipers on high. “Deal with the criminal element long enough, you’ll discover there’s always someone behind you. The trick is to make sure he or she doesn’t get a clear shot.”
Jasmine figured he’d mastered that trick in spades. Ballard had told her that Rogan appeared on scene whenever the danger peaked. After that, there were only two ways he’d leave. When the danger ended, or he was dead.
Determined not to dwell, she contemplated the barely visible road ahead. Then did a double take as she spotted the blurred headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
Unless the rain was distorting her vision, the driver had swerved over the centerline. And was headed straight for them.
Chapter Four
“I’m so sorry. Really, so very sorry. Don’t know how she got away from me like that.”
The driver, a fifty-something man in a wrinkled business suit, looked more baffled than shaken. He also smelled like a brewery. His female passenger remained in the car, arms tightly folded, eyes pointed straight ahead, tight skirt riding high on stockinged legs.
You just never know how a night might go, Jasmine thought with mild sympathy as the newly arrived highway patrol officers approached the woman.
Rogan had avoided both the head-on collision and the power pole that had appeared out of nowhere. The man in the silver Subaru hadn’t been so lucky. He’d sideswiped a tree, done a wobbly one-eighty and smashed the front end of his car into the pole’s now-dented base. All in all, the incident had cost them an hour and given Jasmine much more time to think than could possibly be good.
Not that her thoughts followed any kind of logical path, but then, considering the raven’s feather she’d received, she might have to get used to that.
With her coat and hair dripping, she headed back to the truck, tried Daniel’s number again and wound up tossing her phone on the dash.
“I sense irritation.” At a wave from the patrolman, Rogan got in next to her and swung his truck back onto the river that was the interstate. “Want to clue me in?”
Like the woman in the other car, Jasmine folded her arms and stared through the windshield. “Daniel did this kind of thing the whole time we were married, all two and a half years of it. He’d call me from wherever he happened to be, freak me out with stories about subversive activities, riots, roadside bombings or some vast grow-op he’d managed to unearth. ‘Just so you know, Jas,’ he’d say. ‘In case I don’t come home.’ He’s drawn to it.”
“To danger or the prospect of death?”
She started to say “both,” then shook her head. “Death and danger are your drugs, Rogan. For Daniel it’s the thrill of the hunt.”
“Like your mother.”
“Yes, except she’s chasing mythical creatures, not crime lords, terrorists and power-hungry third-world generals. I met Daniel while I was in college. The whole Bohemian-rebel-fight-for-a-cause idea intrigued me. It was challenging, and at the same time it seemed worthwhile. Then reality hit, and I realized there were less radical ways to make a statement than by jumping off metaphorical cliffs into the middle of international drug rings.”
“Jumping can work,” Rogan said.
The fact that she knew he was trying not to grin drew a warning sound from her throat. “You believe that because you’re all about shadows and intrigue.”
“You make me sound like a WWII spy.”
“There’s cause for comparison. Daniel has the pseudo-hippie vibe. You’ve got the mystery. Well, and the law.”
A blast of wind pummeled the truck as Rogan traded the interstate for a bumpy off-ramp. “Big gun doesn’t hurt, either.”
“No, it doesn’t, but I don’t think that’s my point.”
Despite the thickening shadows, she felt his eyes on her face. “What is your point? That under the surface I’m a lot like Daniel?”
“God.” She laughed. “You are so not. In fact, you’re as unlike as two people can be, jumping-in tendency aside. You see and act. Daniel hears and reacts. You think. He emotes. You consider. He fixates. Still not my point, though.”
“And that is…?”
“More people are going to die. More than the ones who are already dead. I don’t blame Daniel for that, I’m just tired of being dragged back into a life I tried to say goodbye to three years ago. It stands to reason that I’ll know someone who gets killed before this ends. It could be Daniel, it could be a person I meet in Raven’s Cove, it could be Boris.” She ground her teeth. “It could be you.”
Using the mirror, Rogan eyed the German shepherd, curled up and sleeping behind them. “I trained Boris at the safe house. It’s his job to protect you, and you can believe me when I tell you he knows how to take down an armed adversary.”
“Yes, I’m sure you showed him the moves personally, and you could probably dodge a hundred bullets between you. But there’s always that random shot, the one fired by the guy you didn’t see. Maybe that shot kills you. Maybe it doesn’t, and you can get to a hospital in time. But it could also hit and not kill you right away, yet you know death’s imminent because there’s no one around to help you.”
His eyes flicked to hers. “You’re thinking about Dukes, aren’t you?”
“Partly,” she admitted. “Dukes was that teddy-bear uncle you automatically love. Captain Ballard said they never found his body.” Her heart gave a painful twist. “There were only two days left before Daniel’s court appearance. Forty-eight hours. Then the wind changed, a storm blew in, and Wainwright’s men came out of the night like cockroaches.”
“There were only twenty. And we expected them.”
“It didn’t matter, though, did it? Two police officers still died. And we’ll never know what happened to Dukes. Well, yes, we will, because—what was it you said to me when he didn’t come back? A missing cop is a dead cop. Which means Wainwright’s people took him, and whether he lived long enough to be tortured, or died before they could question him, he’s gone.” She pushed on her throbbing right temple. “This isn’t helping, is it?”
“You have feelings, Jasmine. And yours are more compassionate than some. Dukes’s mother thought Daniel should have been sent up alongside Wainwright for blundering into the investigation.”
“Making her not the warm-and-fuzzy aunt people automatically love.” Thunder rumbled, but it was a distant sound. “I didn’t anticipate a return visit to hell, Rogan. I pictured all of us moving forward with our lives.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” he remarked.
“It will unless I take it in a more philosophical direction. I’ll work on it,” she promised when his lips twitched. “But don’t expect a miracle in two hours. My museum friends tend to be more pragmatic than the ones I had in San Diego. It rubs off.”
“I met some of your San Diego friends. You’re on a safer path in Salem.”
Probably true, she thought. Then she set her head on the leather rest and told herself not to question what his definition of safe might be.
The highway resembled a long, wet snake, complete with serpentine twists, shadowy dips and slippery rises. Rogan’s musical taste ranged from Clapton and Thorogood to remastered Louis Armstrong. As eclectic and unpredictable a mix as the man himself. Layer in the cloak of mystery he wore so well, and how could she have avoided tumbling into love? The question was, could she tumble back out? Because Rogan was absolutely not the kind of man who stuck around.
An hour ticked by. In that time, they traded the local highway for a two-lane back road and eventually a pitted sliver of asphalt barely wide enough to support a single vehicle.
“I’m told it improves,” Rogan said, reading her mind.
She pushed at her damp hair and peered into the murky nothing that stretched endlessly out in front of them. “So if the potholes shrink from the size of lakes to the size of ponds, we’ll know we’re on the right track. Uh…” She pointed, winced, then breathed out when he avoided a huge expanse of rippling water. She swiveled her head. “Did I see a sign floating in that puddle?”
“It said Welcome to Raven’s Cove. Population 976. Tortured souls and ravens not included.”
She shot him a dry look. “You’re a great help. Look, I know all men believe they have tracking systems built into their DNA, but do you actually know where we are?”
“Still in the continental United States isn’t good enough for you, huh?”
“Still on the continent will do for now.” She watched a large stand of pines bend almost in half. “Is this what they call a nor’easter? Because if it isn’t, I do not want to experience one.”
“Forget the weather. We need to find a cottage called the Bird’s Nest, and like Raven’s Cove, it’s not on the GPS.”
“Good luck to us then, because either there are no lights in this town or the power’s out from here to, well, wherever here leads.”
They were bouncing through a series of bone-jarring ruts when the headlights revealed a fork in the road. And a fence, Jasmine realized. A sagging, possibly white fence missing several pickets.
“There’s a sign on the gate.” She tipped her head and tried to read the wildly blowing plaque suspended from the gatepost by a chain. “It says something Nest. And there’s a huddled black building to my right.”
Rogan halted the truck, but snagged her wrist before she could move. “Daniel’s name is Leonard Grant. He goes by Lenny or Len. He teaches English at the local middle school. His hobbies are bird-watching and cooking. He does Sunday dinners for seniors. His ex-wife, Sally, lived in Tulsa until her death four years ago. Brain aneurysm. No kids, no pets. I’m a football buddy from Michigan State. You’re my wife of seven years.”
Torn between laughing and making him go through it all again just for the hell of it, Jasmine opted for boggier ground and offered a guileless smile. “Interesting.” Leaning in, she stroked a fingernail from his cheek to his mouth. “Tell me, are we happily married?”
His slow grin caused her pulse to jump. “Do you want us to be?”
“It would be a new experience.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “You’re playing with fire, love. I hope you know that.”
She was playing with dynamite, lighting matches and not ready to stop. Bringing her mouth temptingly closer, she lowered her lashes. “I’m pretty sure at least one of us will get burned no matter how this turns out. But remember, I’ve done the marriage thing for real. I know how to avoid the flames.”
His smile didn’t change; but the gleam in his eyes warned her she’d gone too far. In that split second of time, the hand on her wrist moved to her neck, and his mouth covered hers in a kiss that drained every thought from her head.
Because she knew this was something she’d asked for, she made no effort to pull free. Instead, she let a satisfied purr escape from her throat.
There was need and hunger on both sides. Jasmine also recognized and savored a punch of excitement. The taste of Rogan was one of pure sex. He wanted and he took, but so did she, with abandon.
While his lips explored, she ran her hands under his jacket, felt the heat and strength of his body, the warmth of his skin. Greed threatened to overtake her as his tongue dipped and rediscovered every part of her mouth. Her heart knocked against her ribs. But when he started to push the top of her dress aside, a red flag began to wave.
Tempted, highly tempted, to ignore it, she soldiered up and dragged her mouth free. She needed air and balance and a long moment for sanity to take root.
His half smile might have done her in if she hadn’t spied the arrogance behind it. Temper replaced hunger in a heartbeat, and she shoved him back.
“You set me up—”
He crushed his lips back onto hers, cutting her off swiftly. But only briefly, and with just enough heat to dissipate her anger.
He kept his fingers around her neck when he pulled away. “I wasn’t baiting you, Jasmine, or trying to take either of us where we know better than to go.”
She planted her hands on his chest, not trusting him or herself enough to let them drop. “You have a strange sense of direction. But then so do I sometimes.”
“Which explains why I’ll still be able to walk when we get out of this truck.”
“If you didn’t want me to use the moves, you shouldn’t have taught them to me.”
His fingers tightened, forcing her head up. “Did your eyes just give a witchy flash?”
She found she could smile. “You can let go. I’m not going to try to cripple you. I’m not even going to ask why you kissed me when I know very well I started it.”
His lips curved. “You make it hard for me to resist. And I have a high level of resistance.”
Frustration allayed, she gave his chest a precautionary pat and removed her hands. “Okay, we’re good then. And square. For the moment. As for our fake marriage—you said seven years, right?”
“Yes—to that, and to your loaded earlier question. We’re happy.”
She breathed out a shaky laugh. “That must have been some sensitive trigger I pulled.”
“Squeezed. And it was. FYI, Jasmine, you could seduce my cold-as-ice great-grandfather, and he’s been dead for fifteen years.”
Amused, she made a questioning motion with her hand. “Do we have fake identities to go with our happy marriage?”
“Your middle name’s Elizabeth, so we’ll go with that. We’re Elizabeth and Michael. McCabe.”
“You’re making this up as you go, aren’t you?”
With the shadows shifting, she heard rather than saw his wry smile. “Welcome to my life, love. We’re on a road trip. We come from…”
“Ork?” she inserted when he paused. “Krypton? Vulcan?”
“Somewhere closer to home would be better. You still good in the kitchen?”
“I can still whip up a mean chicken tetrazzini—if that was a literal question.”
She saw the smile this time. “I’ll leave the innuendo alone and say we own and operate a restaurant called Fontino’s in New Orleans.”
“Will that story hold if anyone checks?”
“No one will before morning. By then, it’ll stand.”
“Not going to ask,” she promised herself and gave her temples a tap. “Okay, summing up. Lenny Grant, teacher and bird-watcher. Elizabeth and Michael McCabe, Fontino’s, New Orleans. Entered and stored. Can Boris still be Boris, or does he get a code name, too?”
Rogan inspected his backup firearm. “You’re not warming to this spy thing, are you?”
“Truthfully, I’d rather be tracking Bigfoot with my mother. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.”
“It doesn’t. But speaking of hurt, we should probably go inside and see what if anything’s up with Lenny.”
“Bet we really are on Krypton,” she murmured and set a hand on the door. “Come on, Boris. Michael McCabe has a door to jimmy. Like he did with ours.”
Sliding out, Rogan pulled her across to the driver’s seat, then set his hands on her waist and lifted her down. “Walk where I walk.” He reached back inside for a flashlight. “And stay close.”
A gust of wind blew her hair in all directions. Swiping it from her face, she peered around him. “Can I know why we’re playing follow the leader?”
“Land mines,” he said over his shoulder.
She stopped dead. “In the driveway?” Then she spotted his grin and considered ordering Boris to attack.
A moment later, however, she had her answer. The driveway, though paved, was a sea of cracks and potholes. It also sloped sharply sideways, and twice they had to step over exposed tree roots that reached almost to her knees.
A minefield, she reflected, might have been easier to navigate.
Because Rogan had his beam trained on the ground, a glimmer of light next to the cottage brought her up short. “Did you see…?”
“Yeah.” When they reached the porch, he eased her aside. “No sound,” he cautioned. “Wait here with Boris until I get back.” Then he was gone.
She leaned a hip on the railing. “I could have worked later than late at the museum tonight,” she told the dog. “Huge shipment, boxes galore. Hours of overtime.”
Despite the roar of wind that refused to subside, Jasmine managed to hear the protracted creak behind her. Whirling, she spied a large hanging pot swinging drunkenly toward her.
She reacted swiftly, grabbing the fat base and glaring into the shadows behind her. What in God’s name had prompted her to come here?
Daniel, her brain piped up. Death threat. Raven’s feather. Sliced power line.
Time stretched out. So did Jasmine’s nerves. The wind howled like a demon through the rafters. The chain holding the pot protested loudly.
Wainwright’s men had burst out of a night very similar to this one. She’d been watching the storm when she’d seen the shadows mutate. What she’d initially identified as bushes had morphed into humans. Fit, agile humans, packing three weapons apiece…
The wind wailed again. Thankfully, the memory passed. This was a different night, a different place. Here in Maine, the bushes were bushes, and the only danger she could see came from the evergreens that were swaying back and forth like drunk giants ready to topple.
As if responding to her thought, Jasmine heard a crack in the yard. She released the hanging pot as an object, possibly a branch, hit the ground with a resounding thunk.
That’s when the darkness to her right came alive. …
Chapter Five
She could have sworn a locomotive blindsided her—or tried to. She glimpsed a body, then a blur of fur. Instead of grabbing her, the would-be attacker simply knocked her across the porch.
Boris’s growl became a furious snarl. Ripe male curses answered it. Despite the fact that her head struck the clapboard siding, Jasmine thought she recognized the voice.
The man’s fingers clawed at her trench coat. However, with Boris’s mouth clamped to his leg, she was able to avoid them. Scrambling to her feet, she ran for the door. And this time slammed into a human wall.
“What is it? Are you hurt?” Rogan trapped her arms, examined her face.
“No, I’m…”
But she was talking to air. And of course the heel of her boot had jammed itself between two slats. One good yank freed it, but by then, both the men and the dog had vanished into the bushes below.
Catching hold of the planter that seemed determined to mow her down, Jasmine scanned the tangled greenery. “Rogan? Boris. Where are you?”
“We’re here,” Rogan replied.
Still growling, Boris mounted the stairs behind a large, heavyset man. Rogan brought up the rear.
Recognition widened her eyes. “Boxman?”
Sergeant Brent Boxman grunted. “See? She didn’t have to bounce me on my ass to know who I am. What’s the matter, Rogan? Your eyesight gone south because of a little rain shower?”
“More likely because of the thirty pounds you’ve packed on since the last time I saw you.”
Boxman showed his teeth. “You get a punch-drunk lawyer to fight your court battle against a divorce diva, an ex-wife from hell and two grown stepkids who tell you to your face to stuff your gun in your pants and blow your private parts sky-high, and see how you’re doing at the end of six frigging months. Your diet’s a conveyor belt of greasy burgers, beer and pizza.”
“That’s bad?”
The cop jabbed a resentful finger. “One day, pal, your lifestyle’s gonna catch up with you, and Jasmine here won’t be able to tell the difference between us, except that you’ll be lying in a pine box, and I’ll still be reeling in fish like Malcolm Wainwright.”
“You think?”
Rogan’s eyes glinted, but whether with humor or some kind of male challenge, Jasmine wasn’t sure. In any case, he was right about the weight. Boxman had developed a distinct paunch. He’d also grown a beard, added an earring and, unless her eyes were playing tricks in the glow from the flashlight, lost a lower tooth.
His gaze left Rogan to brighten on her. “So, tell me, angel face, what brings you to this slice of New England paradise?”
Reaching over, she straightened the bandanna he wore as a headband. “I got a feather and two phone calls, so Rogan made me come. You?”
“I heard—” He blinked. “You got a what?”
“Feather.” She used her hands to demonstrate. “About this long, black, probably stolen from a raven. My friend Lenny has two. That’s a bad thing in this town.”
Boxman waved a hand in front of her face. “You on happy pills or something?”
“Daniel found out about the recent murders,” Rogan explained. “He coupled them with the fact that there wasn’t much left of the helicopter that went down after the prison break and drew the same conclusion as the rest of us. It’s possible Wainwright’s not dead.”
“Phoenix,” Jasmine reminded and saw his lips twitch.
“It’s also possible that one of Wainwright’s subordinates has decided either to rise up and avenge his boss’s death—unlikely—or make it appear that Malcolm’s still running the show in an effort to pump fresh blood into the rapidly crumbling business.” He rested his shoulder on a post, kept his expression bland. “Your turn, Sergeant. What and why?”
Boxman shook his head. “Crocker got in touch with me.”
“Crocker’s incommunicado.”
“Sent me a text yesterday just the same.”
“What did it say?”
“Verbatim? ‘Trouble brewing in Raven’s Cove, Maine. Daniel at risk. Go.”
“Crocker’s Daniel’s contact,” Rogan told Jasmine.
“I guess he got wind I was heading up to Vermont to visit my sister while my ex and her Lady Macbeth lawyer plot my financial demise. Guess he knows, too, that since Daniel’s no longer top of the most-likely-to-be-offed list, he could bend the rules and ask me to take a detour, make sure things were kosher with his charge. I figured what the hell, so here I am, doing a favor and getting double-teamed by a dog and a shadow cop.”
Did she believe that? Jasmine wondered. More to the point, did Rogan?
She couldn’t tell, but one thing was certain, she’d had enough of the wind and rain for one night. If it was still night.
A glance at her cell put the time at 12:05 a.m., five minutes into the witching hour in a town where legends ruled and ravens sacrificed feathers to convey death messages.
Securing her blowing hair, she glanced at Rogan. “Can we take this inside? I assume Daniel’s not here or you’d have mentioned it.”
“He’s not here. Is there a hotel in town?” Rogan asked Boxman.
“There’s a house with rooms. Birdwoman of Alcatraz runs it. I met her earlier tonight in a bar called the Raven’s Perch. House sits on a cliff on the east edge of town, but if you decide to crash here instead, we could always make it a party.” He offered a wicked smile. “It’ll be like old times, minus the irritating nits.”
Nits, Jasmine recalled, was his term for anyone who adhered too closely to the rules. Like Rogan, Boxman preferred to fly solo. Unfortunately, as far as she knew, he’d never been allowed to do so.
It took her a moment to identify the sensation settling over her as disappointment. Did that mean she’d wanted to be stranded with Rogan? Alone? That she hadn’t really come here to find Daniel? “Do I even want to know?” she muttered in disgust to herself. Catching Rogan’s eye, she summoned a smile. “Tired.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then set a hand on her back and steered her toward the door.
Maybe Boxman’s presence was a plus, she mused. Because one touch from the man behind her, and her good sense was already threatening to fly out the window.
Rogan passed a flashlight over her shoulder. “Boxman’s checking the backyard sheds for a generator.”
On the threshold and resigned, Jasmine played her beam over stack after precarious stack of newspapers, magazines and books.
She moved with care along the narrow pathways. “Trust me, this is Daniel’s idea of organized.”
“A pack rat with a system, huh?”
“It was one of our many differences. My mother was, for lack of a better term, a collector until the day she flew off on her retirement adventure. I spent my childhood learning to appreciate the value of empty space.”
“So it makes sense you’d marry a man who’d fill it up again.”
“Or bury the secret in his parents’ basement until we got back from our honeymoon in not-sunny Spain. Within days, a moving van carrying half a million books showed up on our doorstep, and it occurred to me there might have been one or two questions I’d neglected to ask.” Angling her beam upward, Jasmine sighed. “Like how many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
Rogan perused the overflowing phone desk. “You trusted Daniel to be truthful. Be glad he didn’t have a deeper, darker secret stashed in that basement.”
She didn’t realize he’d left the desk until she felt his knuckles graze her cheek.
“You smell like tropical flowers, Jasmine. I’ve never figured out which ones, but I’ve always thought I’d be able to pick you out of a crowd by your scent alone.” Easing her hair aside, he bared her neck. “Do you want me to make Boxman disappear?”
Did guns have triggers? “I don’t think…” she began, then caught her breath as he kissed the sensitive spot below her earlobe.
“I’ve missed you, love. You’re in my head every night when I try to sleep.”
Although her mind wanted to haze, she held tight to her last thread of reason. “Night turns to day, Rogan, every time. Moon and stars vanish and take you with them into the great unknown. The only time I knew you’d be there without fail was at the safe house. And even then I understood why you were training Boris. You’d leave, he’d stay, and that would be the end of it. It’ll be the end again when this mess we’re in now is sorted out. I’m not going to live my life on a carousel that you come to and go from whenever a situation requires your attention.”
Rogan didn’t push her, but he didn’t move away, either. “What about Boxman?”
“What about him? He’s here, we’re here, and our reasons all seem to be rooted in the growing possibility that Malcolm Wainwright didn’t die in that helicopter crash.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, God.” Suspicion at his cryptic tone had her turning to look. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He ran a light thumb across her cheek. “Boxman said Daniel’s contact sent him a text message yesterday.”
“And you don’t buy that because…?”
“Crocker’s dead, Jasmine. His throat was slashed. I found his body in the trunk of his car two days ago.”
* * *
IN THE TWELVE YEARS HE’D been a cop, Rogan hadn’t given a second thought to lying. It came with the territory, and most of the time that territory was a cesspool. So why did he feel like slime for not telling Jasmine the whole story?
She’d figure it out eventually, or see it for herself. In a town the size of Raven’s Cove, how could she not?
With annoyance beginning to rise and no answers in sight, he jogged to his truck, traded guilt for mistrust and moved on to Boxman.
Was the sergeant searching for a measure of off-duty glory, or something else entirely? Time would tell, he supposed, but with the stakes high and Jasmine’s life on the line, he didn’t plan to give anyone, cop or civilian, much rope.
The storm appeared to have taken root on the coast. Lack of light and power made it difficult to follow directions, but he reached his destination at last, parked and settled in to wait.
He’d left Jasmine sleeping at Daniel’s cottage. Boxman had grumbled, but agreed to spend the night in his camper. Boris would ensure he didn’t change his mind.
The passenger door opened while he was once again contemplating Jasmine’s feather. A man climbed in, soaked and cursing.
“Piece-of-crap night.” He started to rub his wrist, then flapped it forward instead. “Take us down to the water. Fishermen don’t care if the lights are powered by gas or electric. All they want’s the drink.”
As Rogan shoved the truck in gear, his companion sniffed once. And again. Then he grunted out a breath. “You brought her with you, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“Someone threatened to kill her. Slowly. He left that as a token.”
The man beside him sighed when he spied the feather. “You were right, then. Except now we’re talking local legend, or the borrowing thereof, to do the same job to Jasmine that’s been done to the others.”
“Daniel has two feathers.”
“And just how would you know that unless you’ve been talking to him? And if you have, you might’ve mentioned it before I spent half of this hellish night slip-sliding around town—and I mean that literally as you’ll see when and if the sun ever comes out—trying to locate him.”
Ignoring the question, Rogan pointed his truck down a steep hill. “Any luck?”
“None. Far as I can tell in my extremely limited time here, no one’s seen him for two days.”
Rogan wasn’t surprised. “He called Jasmine tonight, told her about his feathers and suggested she contact someone she could trust.”
His companion snorted. “Contact someone she could trust before, once again, his meddling got her killed. Bastard’s probably gone into hiding.”
“Odds are.”
“Could as easily be dead.”
“Also possible, but only if the killer’s working with a partner, which I doubt. That feather wasn’t on Jasmine’s door when she got home from work.”
The man pointed. “See that shack near the piers that shoot out from the dock? It’s called Two Toe Joe’s. Place smells like piss. Beer tastes like it. The oldest geezer on the planet parks his bony ass there every night. You got questions about legends and feathers, he’s your man. But you gotta keep his cup full, or his vocal cords dry up.”

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