Face to Face (2 page)

Yesterday the photos started. Crime scene photos, some enlarged, some glued into bizarre collages of blood and horror. Autopsy photos revealing sacrosanct secrets of the body of a woman Drake had once been intimate with. 

A woman who killed herself with Drake's own gun. While Drake slept a few feet away in her bed. After they made love.

Pamela Reynolds, age twenty-six. By all accounts unstable, off balance, in desperate need of psychiatric help, angry, despairing, and hopeless after learning she was HIV positive–a secret she kept until her autopsy. 

Drake had ended their relationship weeks before her death, her boomerang moods and childlike neediness too much for him to handle. But then, July eleventh of last year, after too much to drink, Pamela seduced him back into her bed once more. 

One final time. He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory of that last night. He'd awoken to find her standing at the foot of the bed, smiling as she raised his gun to her head. Then came the explosion of sound and blood that reverberated through his soul.

Never forget
. As if he ever could. 

He squeezed Hart tighter than he'd intended, clutching her against his body as if she were lost to him as well. He felt her stir and awaken. She took his hand in hers and raised it to rest over her heart. He opened his eyes to see her dark ones staring up at him in concern.

"You going to tell me what's going on?" she asked.

Hoping she wouldn't see the lie, he looked away. "Can't. It's work."

She took his face in both of her hands and gazed into his eyes, frowning. "You know you can tell me anything," she said. "Anything."

He nodded. Her fingers danced over his forehead, soothing away the furrows. Her lips followed, gently caressing and soothing. Then she moved down, kissing each eyelid, his nose, the scar on his chin. He ran his hands under her T-shirt, sliding over the sculpted muscles leading from her shoulder blades to curve deliciously down to her hips.

Finally, after a tantalizing pause, her mouth found his. As his mouth opened beneath hers, he felt his need for her rise with an urgency he couldn't control. He was a drowning man, and Hart was his only hope.

<><><>

Cassie straddled Drake, hoping to distract him from his dark worries. Whatever the case that now consumed him, it had insinuated itself between them. Over the past few days, sex had become the only outlet for his emotions. He refused to talk to her about what troubled him. Whenever they were together, his eyes were either dark with worry or darting about the room, searching for hidden enemies. 

She knelt over him, tugged her shirt over her head, and flung it away. If it was sex he needed, she'd use it–if only to break down the invisible wall that had suddenly grown between them. They'd been together for almost five months now, survived rough times. She'd seen him get shot; he'd been there when she killed a man. 

After all that, Cassie thought they'd found a balance, a comfortable give and take between their disparate personalities and life styles.

Before this week, he turned to her for help on his cases. This was the first time he refused to discuss one with her.

Which made her both fearful and grimly determined to help him in any way possible.

She fisted her hands in his hair, tilting his head back as she leaned over him. Their kiss was passionate enough to drive demons away. She felt his arousal and pulled back, just enough to allow his mouth to move to her breast. His hands ran down her hips, along the back of her thighs, stroking, kneading, as she squirmed against him.

When they were both ready, she moved her hips down over his. She felt him respond, then he tensed. 

"Wait." Through clenched teeth, his voice a ragged whisper. He moved her weight off him and reached toward the bedside table, fumbling for the condoms there.

"It's okay," she told him, laying her hand over his. "You've been tested."

His eyes clouded for a moment, passion replaced by something else for a brief second. "The results of the last one won't be back until next week."

Cassie sighed. He'd taken the cocktail after his HIV exposure from Pamela Reynolds, tested negative three times since–but still he insisted on condoms, even though the odds were very much in their favor. It annoyed her, this martyr complex, this penance he'd assigned himself.

And he accused her of being stubborn
. She said nothing, instead tugged his shorts off and allowed her fingers to stroke him, sending ripples through his muscles as he fought to control his arousal. He turned to her, and she smiled a wicked smile. If he wanted to torture and punish himself about a mistake he made a year ago, then fine, she could go along with that.

A harsh rasp escaped his throat. She plucked the unwrapped condom from his limp fingers, taking her sweet time as she smoothed it over him. His head fell back, knocking against the headboard, eyes squeezed shut.

"Cassie," he moaned.

She smiled. Drake only used her first name when he was seriously annoyed. If he was that irritated, she could guarantee he wasn't thinking about his case. She slid her body over his, torturing him for a few moments longer before guiding him inside of her. They immediately found their rhythm, their bodies moving together as the bed creaked in harmony. His hands on her hips, hers clutching his shoulders. She searched his gaze, found no fears, no worries there, and she was pleased.
Mission accomplished
.

Long minutes later, they collapsed onto the sweat soaked sheets. Cassie turned her head to one side, found the strength to open her eyes. Drake's hands idly feathered their way over her back. His face was smooth, unlined with worry for the first time in days.

Raising a hand to comb through the sparse, dark hair on his chest, she sighed in contentment. She could lie forever just like this, let the rest of the world go to hell. She had all that she needed, right here.

How many people could say that? A tingle of awe at her luck ran through her. For all his annoying habits–she still hadn't trained him to put the toilet seat down–Drake was all she ever wanted to make her life complete. And to think, before she met him, she'd given up on men completely. No surprise, given her disastrous marriage to Richard King. A fairytale romance turned into a bloody nightmare. 

A nightmare she'd walked away from, she reminded herself. She was no victim. A fool occasionally, but never a victim. She took responsibility for the people she brought into her life. For better or worse. A lesson hammered into her by the grandmother who raised her, her father's mother, Rosa.

Cassie traced her finger along Drake's strong jaw line, that enchanting scar on his chin, those luscious lips, and smiled. It was a gift, a very precious gift to find this. It wasn't that Drake
made
her happy, rather she was happy merely because he was there with her.

He opened his mouth and sucked on her finger. 

"Breakfast?" she asked. She pulled her finger away from his playful nip. 

"Too hot." 

No surprise, he seldom ate before noon. Not her—her stomach growled at the mere thought of food. 

"It'll be cooler up at the Lake," he continued. After his shift, they were driving up to his Aunt Nellie's house, meeting his mother and aunt for the weekend. "I could call in sick, we could leave this morning." He gazed down at her. "Why don't we do that? We could be there in a few hours."

His voice was eager, and she hated to disappoint him. "Can't. I have to meet with the District Attorney about my testimony in the Mary Eamon case." 

"I've got a gun," Drake muttered. His hands tensed into fists at her back. "How about if I just take the bastard out and shoot him like the dog he is?" 

She arched up and looked at him full in the face. This wasn't Drake. He was the one who worked within the law, used the system to get the bad guys. Usually it was Cassie who ran afoul of authority with her casual disregard of rules and regulations.

She laid a finger over his lips. "Shhh," she whispered. "You don't mean that. I'll take care of Ronald Brickner. I'll bury him in court. The jury will convict him so fast it'll make his head spin."

He kissed her hand, but the shadows had returned to his eyes. What the hell was this case that had him so worried? She hated being powerless to help him. "I'll call, see if we can meet earlier," she promised him. "Maybe we can leave by lunch."

His expression lightened a little. "You going in to work on the clinic this morning?"

Of course. Where else did she have to go, after losing her position in the ER at Three Rivers Medical Center? "Almost done hanging drywall on the first floor." She forced her voice to remain light. "Told Tammy I'd meet her there by eight."

Drake nodded at that. Once the construction on the Liberty Center was finished, he'd be free to return to his apartment on the third floor of his building, get back to work on the paintings he'd left neglected in his studio. But first he had to deal with the sick sonofabitch stalking him.

He wanted tomorrow to be over with, wanted Hart safe at the Lake, wanted to get his hands on whomever was stalking him. He saw the frown crease her forehead and forced himself to smile.

After tomorrow, he'd tell her everything, he vowed. Just had to see her safely through the eleventh. Just had to get the hell out of this city.

Before he lost his mind.

CHAPTER 2

Drake was the first out the door. He paused on the porch, scanning the street for anything suspicious, while Hart got her stuff together and set her house alarm. His car, a candy apple red '68 Mustang convertible, sat parked at the curb. Everything seemed fine. 

None of the envelopes had come here. Hart's house was his last safe refuge. In more ways than one, he thought, remembering how accepting of his silence she'd been, never once bringing him to task for his recent irritability.

Just had to make it through today. 

He had a plan. Hart was a master improviser; while Drake liked to know where he was going. Even when he began a painting he knew the exact effect he wanted to achieve. Which was why it had taken him so long to finish the triptych his agent was currently yammering at him to deliver. 

The paintings were a series titled
Steadfast
. In the first panel, a dark-haired angel knelt, her wings folded around her, head bent low, seemingly defeated, shrouded in shadow. In the second, her face brightened, wings beginning to unfold, shoulders lifting, eyes blazing in defiance. And in the final, she rose to her full power, wings unfurled, brilliant banners of light and color bathing her face and body, her face calm but determined as she continued her battle. 

Drake created special mixtures of vegetable dyes and oils to get the right consistency and transparency. He played with the light and shadow, wrestled with negative spaces and contours for weeks before he was happy with the end result that matched his memory. 

The figure was Hart, of course. Most all of his work was anymore. He'd done the original sketches the first week after he met her. A time when he'd seen her brought low by the murder of her best friend, by threats on her own life and the shadows of suspicion cast onto her, and, finally, had witnessed her triumphant emergence from the darkness.

He settled his forty-caliber Glock into its accustomed place at his right hip. Hart hated guns, insisted he remove his service weapon and the Baby Glock he wore in an ankle holster as soon as he came into her house. He kept a Beretta as a backup in a lockbox in the Mustang's trunk when it wasn't sitting close at hand below his driver's seat. Hart didn't know about that one–no sense asking for an argument. 

Satisfied that at least the morning was starting out good, Drake crossed the porch. He stopped short. Saw the envelope centered on the cushions of the porch swing. Jagged red letters spelling out his name scratched across the front.

His breath caught. He glanced through the living room window to ensure Hart wasn't watching as he approached the swing. Generic manila envelope, but the first one with handwriting on it. Not enough to identify the actor, he was certain. To be safe, he pulled out a clean handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand as he opened the thin package. 

Drake knew he should wait until he got to the station house to open it. But none of the others yielded any useful evidence and he desperately needed to see what was inside, to weigh any threat his stalker might be announcing. Particularly if that threat involved Hart.

He slid the photos out, just enough to take a quick glance at them. Photos of Pamela's death scene. And a new twist: photos of Drake lying in a pool of his own blood. 

The message had changed as well, now a single word:
Tomorrow
. 

Drake's breath hissed out as if he'd been sucker punched. The photos of him were computer generated but eerily accurate. The actor must have read the police report of his shooting five months ago. Or talked to someone who'd been on scene. Paramedics, state troopers, the list was too long to be helpful. 

"I thought you'd left already." Hart's voice made him jump. "What's that?"

He fumbled the photos back into the envelope before turning around. He held it by its edges, turned so that she couldn't see the writing on it.

"Just something I need for my case," he told her, keeping his voice steady, his face impassive.

She looked at him hard, but didn't challenge his lie.

"How about if I drive you to the clinic?" he suggested. "I need to grab some things from my place anyway."

"I need my car to go downtown to the District Attorney's office, remember?" 

"Right, I forgot. I'll follow you, then." He gestured for her to precede him down the porch steps, hoping she didn't notice his hand on his Glock. He almost ran into her when she stopped to wave to her across the street neighbor, Mrs. Ferraro, who was watering her Impatiens.

Go, go,
he thought
.
They were sitting targets out here. His gaze boomeranged up and down Gettysburg Street. Everything quiet except his pulse jackhammering through his brain. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine, while the small hairs on the back of his neck prickled in warning.