• • •
While Eve worked into the night, worked through it until Roarke simply carried her, half sleeping, to bed, the killer paced.
No mistakes, no mistakes, no accidents. What had happened? Unpredictable. The unpredictable could and did happen.
But it shouldn’t! It shouldn’t when you’ve done everything right. When you’d studied and planned and practiced.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
It should have been easy, should have been right. It should have been done.
Third time was supposed to be the charm!
Where had the woman come from? The model. The star. Oh, the face was immediately recognizable—one to be coveted and admired. Admired for nothing more than fortunate DNA.
Who could have known someone like Matilda would be with an ugly man—inside and out—like Hastings?
No accounting for taste. No accounting for sense.
Hands shaking now, shaking now in the solitude, in the quiet.
Did Eve tremble in the quiet?
Of course not! So the trembling must stop. The work must continue.
To soothe there were candles to be lighted, and their glow illuminated the wall. The wall covered with photographs, drawings, clippings of Eve. Always watching, always vigilant.
In the room stood a board—like Eve’s. Exactly like Eve’s.
Many faces there, so many. Two looked out with a thick red X across their faces.
Hastings should have looked through that thick red X tonight.
One day he would, yes, he would, and he’d suffer first. Because tonight had been a humiliation. Failure scarred. Failure burned.
But no matter, he’d have his day with justice. For now, there were others.
There were so many others.
And maybe it was time to be more bold. To make a bigger statement.
But first there was an apology to write. Sitting, the killer poured out regret and shame—and fury—in the words written to Eve.
Eve woke a little after five, groggy, blurry from dreams, and not surprised to find herself alone in bed. She lay in the dark, wishing for another hour’s sleep, knowing it wouldn’t come—and wondering, not for the first time, how Roarke managed on so little shut-eye.
She shoved herself up, staggered to the AutoChef to clear her brain and boost her flagging system with coffee. And reminded herself she wouldn’t have to visit the morgue that morning.
Coffee and a live witness—two live witnesses—made for a good start to the day.
To give her spirit a boost along with her system and brain, she turned on the bedroom Christmas tree—it would be gone for another year in just a few days, so why not enjoy those pretty, cheerful lights? For more warmth, more light, she started the fire.
She still had moments of amazement, and thought she always would, that she had this place, this home where she could enjoy the warmth and snap of a fire on a cold winter morning.
All because someone extraordinary loved her.
By the time she’d grabbed clothes from the closet, programmed her second cup of coffee of the morning, Roarke strolled in, the cat prancing at his heels.
He was already dressed in a king-of-the-business-world suit—black with faint, needle-thin silver stripes, black shirt, a tie that picked up the stripes.