John Baldwin was relatively content. He’d closed his last case, his field office was under the control of a surrogate acting director. No orders to take over the Snow White case had come. He had nothing official to do but get married. His most pressing concern at the moment was Taylor.
A fire was roaring in the fireplace, and Taylor stood five feet from him, a cup of hot chocolate held tightly, trying to force the numbness away. She’d come home with her hands practically blue. He considered her profile as she looked out the window, a study in concentration. She was miles away. A rare southern blizzard surrounded them. Snow continued to plummet from the sky, piling onto the Japanese maple bushes in the front yard so rapidly that they bent like old men.
Despite the late hour, a disembodied male voice spoke, deep and languorous.
“Listen to the following statements. How would you respond? Buon giorno, signora. Lei parla l’inglese? Dove siamo? Come si dice ‘Piazza San Marco is here’ en italiano?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s going too fast. Jeez, this is the easy stuff, too.” Taylor snapped the off button on the CD player remote, shaking her head and smiling.
“What’s wrong, cara?” he crooned, egging her on.
Taylor focused on her fiancé with narrowed eyes. “Vaffanculo,” she spat, then grinned at him. Baldwin guffawed in surprise.
“Where’d you learn that one?”
“You like? I’ve got more.”
She had that crazy sexy smile going, the one that held great promise. The mismatched gray eyes flashed. He played with her. “Now, Taylor, there’s no need for that kind of language. You’ll get yourself in trouble if you say that over there, anyway. How is it you have trouble with the most simple commands, yet you can curse like a sailor in perfect gutter Italian? No, don’t answer that,” he said, holding up a hand. Taylor’s lips had pursed, ready to spew out what he assumed was another charming epithet.
“Relax, sweetheart. You know more than you think you do. I’ve watched you go through these tapes for weeks. Trust me, we get over there, you’ll be fluent in days. I promise. You’re just distracted.”
He went to the stereo, turning the power off. He glanced around their living room—a spacious compilation of curved arches and exposed beams. Their new home was more like what he and Taylor had each grown up in, elegant and airy, whitewashed walls with simple accents. They both loved it the moment they saw it. The exterior was brick and stone, a Georgian colonial that bordered on federalist, a style so popular in this section of the South. They had much more room than furniture. The plan was to buy the accompanying furnishings and art on their trip. And stock their burgeoning wine cellar.
Over there. Italy. Italia. They had scheduled three weeks for a romantic honeymoon, and Taylor had been bound and determined to teach herself the language before they left. He loved to watch her learn, to see the phrases tumble from her lips.
“Distracted. Why would you think that?” She turned back to the window and stared at the winter wonderland that comprised their new front yard, the cul-de-sac and the other houses in the neighborhood. The problem was, there were no defining characteristics between them all. Everything was white. Fifteen inches of white.
And a killer was out there, plotting his next murder. Damn. He watched her mood shift, playful to alert and serious.
“Four new murders, Baldwin. Sam’s call all but confirms it. Snow White is really back. Or is this a copycat? If he is, he’s a damn good mimic. And we look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football.”
Baldwin slipped behind Taylor, putting his arms around her waist. He started whispering in her ear. “Siete il mio amore. Non posso attendere per spendere il resto della mia vita con voi. Avete la faccia di un angelo. Need me to translate?”
She spun in his arms, her breath hot on his cheek. Obviously she caught the gist of what he’d said. He gave her a wink. It never failed.
“You’re an easy woman, Taylor. Mutter a few words in a foreign language and here you are, rubbing up against me like a cat.” He brushed a kiss against her generous mouth, smiling as she bit his lip.
“I may be easy, Dr. Baldwin, but at least I’m not cheap.” She pulled away and punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Do you think they’ll have the street plowed by morning?”
Baldwin looked out the window. “We can hope.”
Taylor cracked her neck. Snow. Murder. The look in her gray eyes was blatant—if the roads weren’t clear by tomorrow, she would murder someone herself.
Baldwin slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her back to him. “We could …”
“No, we couldn’t. That was the deal. I want our wedding night to be special. You can hold out a little longer. All I asked is that we try to abstain for a week. A week wasn’t that much to ask.”
He smiled and pulled her close. “But we already.” He kissed her softly, tasting chocolate, but she fought to leave the circle of his arms. Breath ragged, she pushed him away, gave him a weak smile.
“Stop. Four more days. Okay? Let’s just make it through this week, and we’ll be horizontal before you know it. I just can’t think about anything but that poor girl right now.”
Baldwin adjusted his fly and gave her his most wicked smile. “Let me help you forget.”
Taylor lay in the bed, realizing she was sleeping with her eyes wide shut. It was an old trick she used, keeping her eyes closed as if asleep, but seeing everything behind the lids. Usually, it worked to allow her mind to process whatever kept her awake, yet she felt rested when she finally succumbed and got out of the bed. It wasn’t working.
She opened her eyes, taking in the dim light of the room. Baldwin was asleep on his left side, back to her, and she knew he was out by the soft whispery snores emanating from his pillow. Lucky bastard. Since they’d moved to the new house, he’d been sleeping like a baby. It might have been the bed—a king-size sleigh that afforded them much more room than they actually needed. They could each stretch out and not worry about banging into the other. She missed the old bed, but only briefly. Who was she kidding? She loved to luxuriate in the crisp sheets, to stretch her extremely long legs all the way to the end of the bed and still have several inches to spare.
She did just that, easing the tension in her shoulders with a bit of stretching, tensing and releasing. Maybe a game would take her mind off the case. No sense lying here staring at the ceiling.
The pool table was housed in the bonus room over their three-car garage. Taylor walked out of the master, slipping the door closed with a gentle click. A night-light showed her the path. She walked down the long, wide hallway past empty rooms. Rooms that should hold promise but mocked her with their very emptiness. Marriage. Babies. Yawning mouths of black-haired, red-lipped girls, all in a row.
Fuck it all. She jogged the last few steps down the hall until she reached the open space that housed the vast majority of her old life.
She flicked the lamp and the room filled with soft yellow light. Closing the door carefully behind her, she went to the pool table, whipped the cover off and bunched it into a ball. Tossing it on the couch, she went back to the table, racked the balls and took a moment to stretch again, two vertebrae in her neck unkinking with a pop. Better. Loosened up, she took the break, cracking ball after ball into their respective pockets.
She ignored the faces hanging on the wall. She’d turned the poolroom into a makeshift office, someplace she could spend her nights thinking about the murders while she tried to relax. Elizabeth Shaw, Candace Brooks and Glenna Wells all smiled down on her. At least they’d been identified quickly. This new victim was nameless.
Smack—Snow White.
Smack—Janesicle.
Smack,