Marise met him at the door the next morning. Her mother and Paul were tight-lipped but silent.
She gave them both a hug, then handed Cassidy her bag. There wasn’t much in it. A couple of track suits, a pair of slacks, a pair of jeans, a couple of blouses, a night shirt and robe. A pair of shoes in addition to the running shoes she was wearing now along with a shirt and slacks she was wearing. That was it. Her costumes would go with Paul and her mother.
She hoped she didn’t look as red-eyed as she felt. She’d gotten precious little sleep last night. She’d feared the nightmare would return and that if she woke her mother, there would be yet another battle to fight and more tears to stem.
Her head still ached slightly, and she had enough bruises to make moving uncomfortable. Most of all, she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. She and Paul did need practice time. Was she destroying his career because she didn’t care enough about her own?
Was this…idea simply a way to break away from an increasingly uncomfortable life, one that no longer satisfied her? Was it a selfish adventure that could destroy the hopes of people she cared about?
She only knew that despite the danger she was not foolish enough to ignore, she looked forward to a few days of freedom, away from routine and discipline and the feeling of being trapped.
Or was she just running into another kind of prison?
She was attracted to Cassidy MacKay. He was so different from any man she’d ever met. He exuded competence, and yet there was no arrogance about him, none of the constant anxiety that ran among many skaters.
“Quiet desperation,” she’d called it once.
Cassidy MacKay had none of that. He knew who and what he was.
He had that air of competence this morning. His usually unruly hair was combed, and he’d shaved; she caught a whiff of some masculine scent. Jeans hugged a body that was not the athletically sculptured form she’d grown accustomed to on the competition circuit, though he was obviously in good shape. His forearms were tanned, strong, but without the developed muscles that Paul had. His fingers were unusually long, even elegant, which didn’t go with anything else.
Her gaze met his. She’d noticed before that his eyes were dark, enigmatic. Guarded. They’d rarely shown any emotion. They didn’t now.
“We have a car in back,” he said. “I think we can avoid the reporters.”
She was relieved. She really had not wanted to cope with the media this morning. He opened the door for her, waited until she was out, then shut it gently behind him. Two uniformed policemen were seated in chairs outside her door, although that, she’d learned, had taken some negotiation with the hotel management. The manager had not relented until Cassidy had told the manager to simply explain to enquiring guests that they had an important celebrity they could not name.
They didn’t take the elevators but walked down four flights of stairs, the uniformed police at their heels. They went down to a parking garage, and as they stepped out of the elevator, they were met by Manny in his car.
She looked at both men, knowing she was putting her life in their hands, that she was stepping out of a world that had been safe, if not exactly secure. For a moment, she wanted to flee upstairs.
MacKay opened the back door of the car and held out his hand to help her in. The sudden warmth of it sent an electric shock through her. Her eyes met his, and this time they weren’t empty at all. He felt it, too. She could see it in the muscle that throbbed against his cheek.
This was another kind of danger. She knew it. She was also drawn to it.
Be careful, she warned herself, when his hand jerked away as if it had been burned. Be very, very careful.
Touching her was unwise. Very, very unwise. Cassidy had felt the sudden hesitancy in her, had seen her hand tremble for a moment.
But he didn’t want to lose her now.
He’d been able to get resources he’d only dreamed about before. The press on the killer was scaring the city. It had been bad enough when the victims were prostitutes, but now that an internationally known figure had been attacked, the public would be demanding results.
But he’d been warned that he had limited time, no more than a week. Any longer would be far too expensive in terms of both money and manpower. Which meant he had to bait the trap quickly.
His first concern, though, had been Marise’s safety. He would have additional detectives in the house at all times—ones he had chosen himself.
He also had asked to be told if any member of the department asked to be on the special squad. He still hadn’t dismissed the idea that the killer might be a cop. So he wasn’t taking any chances.
Once Cassidy had Marise inside Manny’s car, he threw his keys to one of the uniforms. “My car is the blue one over there,” he said, gesturing to where he’d parked in an emergency spot. “Do you have a squad car?”
The senior of the two officers nodded.
“Have someone pick it up. You two can take my car and follow us.”
The older one nodded. The younger one couldn’t take his eyes off Marise Merrick. For some reason, that annoyed Cassidy considerably. He put Marise’s bag in the front seat next to Manny, then got in the back seat with Marise.
He felt unusually large and awkward. Every movement Marise made was graceful. He felt like an elephant next to a gazelle. But then she smiled at him, and he didn’t feel awkward at all.
He felt something else altogether. And as he did, a knot of apprehension twisted his stomach. He didn’t need this. Any personal feelings interfered with what he needed to do: protect her and catch a killer.
He steeled himself against her appeal. She already treated him like a friend. She was that way with Manny, too. And that touch had been like a hot electrical wire, snaking across his body, sparking reactions he didn’t want to feel.
Cassidy knew he was glowering. Manny told him he did it better than anyone. But when he looked at Marise, he saw that she was unimpressed. Instead, she regarded him with bemusement.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For putting your life in danger?”
“For letting me do something about it.”
Something shifted inside him. She’d said the words with such simplicity. Even gratitude. He felt like a fraud. He was using her. Nothing more than that. And he wondered why she seemed to cater so much to her mother, and even to Paul, when there was so much strength and substance to her.
“Has your mother always been your manager?” he asked to dissipate the expectancy that was radiating between them.
She tensed slightly, then seemed to forcibly relax. “Yes,” she said. “She was a skater herself. She knows the business. She’s wonderful with the costumes.” Then she turned and looked out the window. “Are we really going to your house?”
“Don’t expect much,” he warned her. “I bought it at a bargain price because it needed so much work.”
“Are there really a lot of policemen in the neighborhood?”
“Manny lives half a block away. A captain in another division lives three houses down. Two other members of the Atlanta P.D. live within two blocks. A lieutenant in the sheriff’s department and a highway patrol major also live nearby. That’s how I found my house. It had been an eyesore, and Manny knew I like to work with my hands.”
She gazed up at him with those magnificent eyes. “You’re doing the work?”
“Some of it,” he said.
“All of it,” Manny interrupted. “My wife calls him when she needs something done. It’s humiliating.”
They