“I’m sorry,” he said again, and the sincerity was there in the gruffness of his deep voice.
She didn’t doubt that he was sorry, but she didn’t care. She just wanted him gone.
“Why are you here?” she asked, impatience fraying her voice into sharpness. This was the tone that always—finally—got Alex’s attention.
“Have you seen the news?” he asked. “Do you know about...?”
She grimly nodded as concern tightly gripped her heart. “There’s another girl missing. She was abducted from the last fitting for her bridal gown.”
It could only be one killer. Her sister’s.
“I need your help,” he said.
But he hadn’t come to her when those other women had been abducted. He hadn’t needed her help then. Why was he asking for it now—when he hadn’t listened to her six years ago?
“I already told you who killed Lexi.”
He sighed—that long-suffering sigh that irritated her. Then he pulled a photo from a file he had clasped under his arm and held it out to her. “I need you to look at this.”
She grimaced and backed away from him. The last thing she wanted to see was another crime scene. She already had one that she could not get out of her mind. “No.”
“Please, Becca—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped at him. To Lexi, she’d been Becca. And to him...when she’d thought he actually cared about her.
But all Jared Bell cared about was his career—and how this one unsolved case could damage it.
“What should I call you?” he asked. “Ms. Drummond, or Mrs....?”
“Rebecca,” she said, refusing to reveal her marital status. It wouldn’t matter to him anyway since it had nothing to do with the case.
“Rebecca,” he repeated. “Please look at the picture.”
She closed her eyes, and that old crime scene flashed through her mind: the wedding dress soaked with blood spilling out of the trunk of Lexi’s car.
Her body hadn’t been in the trunk. But it didn’t matter. The coroner had confirmed she couldn’t have lost that much blood and lived.
Lexi was forever gone.
“I need your help,” he said again. “Please...”
She forced herself to open her eyes—to look. It wasn’t a crime scene. But it might have been worse to see Lexi like she was in that old photo—alive with happiness—because it reminded Rebecca of how much she’d lost.
Just like seeing Jared again reminded her of how much she’d lost...
Panic pressed on her lungs, stealing her breath. “You need to leave,” she said.
“Rebecca—”
She planted her palm against his chest. Even through his suit and shirt, she could feel the warmth of his skin and the hardness of his muscles. But she pushed him toward the door. “I can’t help you—because you won’t listen to me.”
“Rebecca, I want to talk to you about Lexi—about how she knew this girl.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t look at the picture again—of her and the missing girl. “Ask Amy Wilcox’s family.”
His amber-colored eyes darkened with emotion. “I asked them.” And from his grim expression, it hadn’t gone well. “They had no idea that Amy had known Lexi.”
She shook her head. “I had no idea, either.”
“We need to compare their pasts,” he said, “and find out where their paths might have crossed.” Mercifully, he turned the photo over to the white back. But then he pointed to the date on it. “This was taken the month Lexi disappeared. That’s too great a coincidence. We need to figure out their connection.”
She shook her head again.
“Bec—Rebecca, I need your help,” he implored her.
Heat arced between them as he stared at her. She avoided his intense gaze, averting hers. Then she noticed the clock on the wall behind his head, and her panic returned with even more intensity. She had no time to answer his questions. “You need to leave now!”
Before Alex came home—because if Jared saw him he would have more questions.
More questions she couldn’t answer...
Jared’s heart pounded hard and fast beneath the warmth of her hand on his chest. He’d worried that she might slam the door in his face. After the mess he had made of everything, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. But she’d let him in. Although after hearing her soft cry, he hadn’t given her much choice. He would have kicked in the door to get to her—to make sure she was all right.
She was beautiful—even more so than she had been six years ago. Her blond hair was longer and lighter and her skin tanned as if she spent more time in the sun now. Of course six years ago she had been so focused on school—her first year of med school—that she’d no time for the sun or relaxation or her friends and family.
Until her sister had disappeared.
“You have to leave,” she said as she shoved on his chest again.
Already light-headed from the concussion, he stumbled back a step. To steady himself, he reached out and clasped her shoulders. Her blue eyes widened as she stared up at him. The urge to pull her closer overwhelmed him. It had been so long since he had held her that he ached to hold her again.
But that wasn’t why he had risked getting the door slammed in his face—or getting shoved out of her house. “There’s a girl missing,” he reminded her. “Her family is going crazy with fear.”
They had gone even crazier when he’d asked them about Lexi Drummond. Amy’s mother had gotten hysterical, hyperventilating so badly that they’d had to call for an ambulance. Her dad had been trying hard to hold his wife together even as he began to fall apart himself, shaking uncontrollably. Amy’s fiancé was the only one who’d managed to voice their fears aloud. “He has her then—that sick bastard who kills brides. She’s probably already dead!” And then the man, a big burly former college linebacker, had dropped to his knees and dissolved into broken sobs.
Jared released a ragged breath and repeated, “They’re going crazy with fear.” More so because of him, because he had taken away some of the hope they’d desperately been clinging to.
“Just like I went crazy,” she murmured.
She hadn’t gone crazy, but she’d certainly been upset and vulnerable. And he would never forgive himself for taking advantage of that vulnerability—of her.
“You know what they’re going through,” he said.
“I can empathize,” she said.
“You can help.”
She shook her head. “I tried to help six years ago. I told you who killed Lexi, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“It’s not him, Bec—Rebecca,” he said. He wished it had been. But the guy had had an ironclad alibi.
She sighed. “You wasted your time coming here,” she said, “if you’re still not going to listen to me.”
“All I want is for you to look at the picture and tell me how Lexi knew Amy Wilcox.” That was a lie. He wanted more—much