“No!” She jerked her hands from his and backed away. “That’s not how it happened.” The wind whipped long locks of hair against her mouth, but this time neither of them moved to slide the silky strands back. “I told you—someone knocked me out when I walked in the door.”
Dylan studied her standing there against the darkness, that skimpy robe falling open at the chest and revealing too much cleavage. He didn’t need to be a seasoned detective to see the secrets in her eyes. The fear. He didn’t need to be a man practiced in seeing through pretenses to notice how badly she trembled.
But he did need Herculean strength to keep his hands off her.
Too damn well, too intimately, he knew how passion could blind and distort, make even the most rational person snap like a sapling in a gale force wind.
He’d just never thought passion played a role in Bethany and Lance’s relationship. The thought, the reality that it might have, made him a little crazy.
“If it was self-defense, you need to tell me.” He tried to speak casually now, to match calm with calm, but the horror was like a rusty stake driven through his core. “If he grabbed you, tossed you around—”
“No—”
“You wanted him to leave,” he pushed on, needing to hear her denial as badly as he’d ever needed anything. Even her. “He wouldn’t. Maybe he grabbed you. You only picked up the fire poker to protect yourself. You never meant to hurt—”
“Stop!” she shouted, lifting a hand as though to physically destroy his nasty scenario.
He caught her wrist, just barely resisting the crazy desire to pull her into his arms. He knew better than putting a snub-nose to his temple.
“I wish I could stop,” he said as levelly as he could. “But I can’t. Don’t you understand what’s going on here? Lance is dead and his blood is on your hands.”
The change came over her visibly, the glacierlike wall she used to separate herself from the world slipping into place with eerie precision. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
Come back, he wanted to shout, but for the first time Dylan could remember, he envied her the ability to isolate herself from what she felt. He wanted to do that now, to shut himself off from the horror and the rage and the fractured grief that splattered through him like vivid splashes of color all mixed together until nothing was discernable except for dark, jagged smudges.
But lack of feeling was her specialty, not his.
“You may not owe me anything,” he said, “but the cops are a different story.” He glanced toward the door, where Zito stood watching. “And their questions are going to be a hell of a lot harder.”
She lifted her chin in a masterful gesture of cool defiance that was pure Bethany. “If you’re trying to reenact the crime, it’s not going to work. The fire poker is inside.”
The words were soft, but they landed like crashing boulders. He looked down at his big hand manacling her slender wrist, the nasty bruises completely hidden. It was a miracle whoever roughed her up hadn’t snapped the small bone in two. It wouldn’t have taken much extra effort. Just a little pressure—
He let go abruptly and stepped back.
Slowly, Bethany lifted her eyes to his. “Do you really think I’m capable of murder?”
The night fell quiet, so silent he would have sworn he heard the pounding of his heart, the rasp of his breathing. Or maybe that was hers. Theirs.
Everything else faded to the background, Zito waiting in the wings, the ugliness inside. There was no horror or blind rage, no stabbing grief, no crime to be solved, no betrayal to be forgotten. There was only a man and woman, a silent communion he neither understood nor wanted.
He drank in the sight of her standing there, finally allowing himself to look into eyes he’d relegated to the darkest, coldest hours of the night. They were deep and heavy-lidded, fathomless, liquid sapphire framed by full dark lashes. A man could lose himself in those eyes, swirling and serene, but somehow, always, always, lost.
But they were dull now, huge and unfocused, her pupils dilated. Long, tangled brown hair concealed a portion of her face, but not the smear of blood on her left cheekbone. Nor the fact that no tear tracks marred her features.
Because he didn’t want her to see how badly they’d started to shake, Dylan shoved his hands into his pockets. He tore his gaze from hers and let it slide lower, to the silk garment gaping to reveal the swell of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the curve of her hips. He couldn’t help but wonder about the negligee beneath, whether it would be pristine, as well, or if at least in the bedroom, she’d displayed a little warmth and creativity.
Like she had with him.
Before.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “you’re capable of anything you put your mind to.”
Beth curled her fingers into her palms, digging deep. The lingering smell of stale cigarette smoke and scorched coffee burned her eyes and throat; the gash at the back of her head throbbed with every beat of her heart. She wasn’t going to wake up. Two detectives really did sit across from her in the small interrogation room, tossing out one nasty scenario after another, as they’d been doing for over an hour.
“So you invited him over, slipped into that skimpy negligee, and tried to seduce him back into your bed.”
“No.”
“You didn’t like being divorced. You wanted your fancy life back. You were a little desperate. Didn’t enjoy being a has-been, the butt of town gossip, like your mama, is that it?”
“No!” The word burst from her with the force of a bullet. The fact they’d finally thrown her mother into the fray pushed Beth dangerously close to the edge. One way or another, everything always circled back to the notorious Sierra Rae.
They were trying to break her, she knew, rattle her, find some way to make her trip. It was their job.
Dylan didn’t have the same excuse.
“This has nothing to do with Mrs. St. Croix’s mother,” Janine White bit out. A longtime friend of Lance’s, then of Beth’s, the attorney had met her at the station without hesitation. The women who’d laughed over martinis sat side by side in the small room, cups of bitter coffee and a tape recorder separating them from detectives Paul Zito and Harry Livingston.
Detective Zito picked up his pencil. “Just trying to establish motivation.”
“There is no motivation,” Janine shot back, “because you’re talking to an innocent woman. Beth did not kill Lance.”
Gratitude squeezed through the icy tightness in Beth’s chest. Janine’s sleek white evening gown made her look more like an Amazon priestess than a savvy attorney, but she had a reputation for being as tough as nails. Even now she appeared amazingly composed, the red rimming her eyes the only evidence of tears Beth knew she’d shed.
“Did you and Mr. St. Croix have intercourse today?”
The question might as well have been a knife. It sliced deep, robbing Beth of breath. Disgust bled through.
Janine recovered first. “This woman’s ex-husband has been murdered!” she said, surging up and slamming her palms down on the table. “What the hell are you trying to prove?”
“You know damn well what I’m trying to do,” Detective Livingston drawled, turning his stony eyes to Beth. “Did he take what you offered and walk away? You felt used and hurt and ran after him—”
“That’s disgusting,” Beth bit out.
The balding detective frowned. “Murder is.”
Beth