“I’m waiting for the punch line, Carmichael.” McCall crossed his arms over his chest.

“He mentioned that later in the day they drove to the restaurant. Then they drove to the store, then drove home. Drove. He habitually uses that verb when he’s with someone. That morning, he drove to the perfect place. Then went for a drive in the country. His change in verbiage indicates a change in reality. He was with someone, later he was alone. Who was he with and what happened to them?”

McCall took a step toward her. “Carmichael, you’re off base accusing an officer of a heinous crime because of the verbs he used.”

“I don’t think so.” Paige angled her chin. “Earlier this evening you told me you buy into statement analysis one hundred percent.”

He moved toward her, his face tense in the harsh fluorescent light. “This skill of yours has merit when it comes to criminals. They deserve having every word uttered put under a microscope for you to pick apart. That’s your job.”

“And I’m damn good at it,” Paige said firmly.

“Ever think you might be too damn good?”

Trigger Effect
Maggie Price

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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MAGGIE PRICE

is no stranger to law enforcement. While on the job as a civilian crime analyst for the Oklahoma City Police Department, she analyzed robberies and sex crimes and snagged numerous special assignments to homicide task forces.

While at OCPD, Maggie stored up enough tales of intrigue, murder and mayhem to keep her at the keyboard for years. The first of those tales won the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award for Romantic Suspense. Maggie is also the recipient of Romantic Times’ Career Achievement Award in series romantic suspense.

Maggie invites her readers to contact her at 416 N. W. 8th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73102-2604, or on the Web at www.maggieprice.net.

To my former coworkers at the Oklahoma City Police Department for acting as my guide into the fascinating world of homicide investigation and forensic statement analysis. If longtime pals are truly gold, you guys are twenty-four karat.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 1

The morning started off badly the instant Paige Carmichael woke in her hotel suite, flipped on the TV and heard the date. Just the reminder it was February tenth shifted her mood from half-asleep to sulky to totally ticked.

Offended and resentful soon jumped into the mix as things went downhill fast.

She burned her tongue on the coffee she brewed in the unit atop the minibar. While dressing, she snagged her only pair of panty hose. Dropped and lost the tiny back of her earring. Made two wrong turns in Oklahoma City’s maze of unfamiliar rush hour traffic.

When she finally nosed her rental car into a slot marked Guest Instructor at the police training center, she was fifteen minutes late for her workshop.

Grabbing her briefcase, Paige opened the car door and stepped into the February morning. Although sunlight beamed down, the temperature was icy and she shivered beneath her tan cashmere coat. Despite running late, she did a slow surveillance of the parking lot that was jammed like Easter Sunday.

Paige didn’t buy the cold, bright veneer of peace. Underlying it was a low hum of disquiet that skimmed along her nerves. Her sense of awareness had taken on an edge nearly two weeks ago when Edwin Isaac, the brilliant psychiatrist she’d taken down for murdering five prostitutes, killed a guard and escaped after a hearing at a Texas courthouse.

During his nearly year-long killing spree, the media had dubbed the killer “Gentleman Jim” because of the meek, soft-spoken facade he’d used when approaching his prey. After his capture, Isaac’s polite demeanor hadn’t faltered, even while eerily promising Paige they would see each other again.

Isaac had been as good as his word. After his escape, he’d left a message on her cell phone’s voice mail, reminding her of that promise.

Since then, nothing.

Her early-warning system told her she was the only person lurking in the parking lot, so she hustled into the building. During her drive there she’d called the training center and alerted the secretary that she’d be late. Paige asked the woman to distribute the manuals shipped there by her employer, the Lassiter Group, a security and investigations firm. She’d also gotten the location of her classroom.

The clicking sound of her spiky red suede heels pierced the silence like gunshots as she rushed along the tiled hallway, shifting her purse and briefcase between hands while she tugged off her coat. After her crummy morning, she’d resolved once more to take what had happened three years ago in stride.

Her renewed resolve lasted only until she opened the door to her classroom, its seating done in auditorium-style with tables facing the far wall. Her gaze sliding over the awaiting workshop attendees, she dashed inside and stumbled over the outstretched legs of a lanky man seated at the table nearest the door.

“Careful,” he said. The only thing that kept her from falling on her face was the hand he’d locked on her elbow.

“Sorry,” she managed when she got her balance back. Smoothing her skirt, Paige noted the gold badge clipped to his belt.

“I’m not,” he murmured. Easing his feet out of her way, he arched a dark brow and slowly shifted his gaze to her cherry-red jacket and slim skirt. He hitched up one corner of his mouth while he scoped out her legs as if memorizing them for a lineup.

Narrowing her eyes, Paige wrenched her elbow from his grip. The man leaned back in his chair, rested an ankle over one knee and grinned. He wore a dark suit, starched white dress shirt and a crimson tie. His hair was jet-black and his Mediterranean complexion only added to his looks.

Good-looking or not, he was an arrogant jerk, she thought as she strode past rows of occupied tables toward the front of the classroom. She knew exactly what type of man lay behind that pretty-boy face. Her reportedly sexy-as-hell rodeo-riding father had blown into Dallas like an ill wind and claimed her mother’s heart. The minute Sara Sue Carmichael breathed the word, “pregnant,” Daddy Dear saddled up and rode out of town, never to be heard from again.

Twenty years later, having learned zilch from her mother’s experience, Paige got hitched to her own bad-boy charmer. And three years ago today she had found out how wrong Mr. Right had been. Now, here she was, barely avoiding a face-plant over a cop with a shit-eating grin that brought her ex all too clearly to mind. Paige’s mood shot all the way to surly.

She settled her briefcase, purse and coat on the table beside the speaker’s podium. When she’d called ahead, she asked the secretary to have the mix of twenty-five cop and civilian investigator attendees fill out a seating chart with their name and agency. Paige saw the chart on the podium. Her gaze focused on the list of names on the back row. The shit-eating grin belonged to Sergeant Nate McCall, Oklahoma City PD Homicide.

She’d shown her tomcat husband no mercy, she thought with grim satisfaction. And she would bet the bank that during her three-day workshop she’d have the opportunity to use Sergeant Lothario’s own words to take him down a notch.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, scanning the attendees. There were three men for every woman in the workshop; more commissioned law enforcement officers than civilians from local security firms.

As usual for the first day of a workshop, they were all sizing her up.

A few seemed to regard her with outright skepticism. The majority studied her through unreadable eyes. Having worn a badge for eight years, Paige knew that everyone—especially cynical, seen-it-all cops—would take tons of convincing before they bought into the idea that forensic statement analysis was a viable investigative technique.

Not a problem. She’d taught the subject for more than two years and she was up for the challenge.

She pulled a legal pad from her briefcase and announced, “I’m Paige Carmichael. Your manual lists my background information. I’ll fill in any blanks if you’ve got questions about my credentials.”

A burly man with gray at his temples and carrying the no-nonsense air of a veteran cop spoke up. “Why’d you quit the Dallas PD?”

Paige had been asked the question more times than she could count. As always, it settled a hard knot of regret inside her. In law enforcement circles, a huge difference existed between ex and retired cops. Retired cops had served their full time. Ex meant there was some reason a person didn’t have what it took to stay on the job.

“This is why.” Paige held up her right hand, exposing the scar that extended from her knuckles to her wrist. The scar looked smooth and shiny, like a latex snake, and stayed perpetually numb due to nerve damage. She’d considered—then discarded—the idea of having cosmetic surgery. Instead, she wore the scar as a reminder of the havoc a charming son of a bitch could wreak in a woman’s life.

“In the last homicide case I worked we had a string of five victims. All prostitutes. It took my partner and me nearly a year to zero in on a psychiatrist named Edwin Isaac. When we closed in on him, he squeezed off one shot before we took him down. That shot ended my ability to squeeze a trigger. A perpetual desk job wasn’t what I wanted, so I resigned.” Paige didn’t add that the bullet had also sent the dominoes tumbling, unearthing her husband’s betrayal and turning her life upside down.

“Tough way to lose your badge,” the older cop commented. “The good news is you nabbed the killer shrink.”

“The bad news is Isaac escaped two weeks ago, and is still on the lam.” Paige saw a few cops exchange alarmed looks. “Now that you know about me, it’s my turn to learn something about each of you.”

She stepped to the closest table and handed the pad to an attractive female cop with a heavy black braid looped over one shoulder. “Tear off one page and pass the pad along. I want each of you to write down everything you did yesterday, from the time you woke up to the time you went to bed.

“Don’t put your name on the page. You’ll turn it in anonymously.” She glanced at her watch, then retrieved a pen that had been left on the podium. “I have to check in at the commander’s office, so you’ve got half an hour to complete your assignment. And don’t think you can get by without turning one in.”

She retraced her steps along the center aisle. When she reached the back row of tables, she dropped her pen on purpose behind Nate McCall’s chair. Leaning down, she swept up the pen, pausing to zero in on his paper. It took only seconds for her to commit his handwriting to memory.

A half hour later, Paige was back at the podium, the assignment sheets stacked on the nearby table.

“Over the next few days you’ll learn to view statements by suspects, victims and witnesses in an entirely different way. This technique is hard for a lot of investigators to accept at first because you’re conditioned to believe a person with something to hide is going to lie.”

“Get a clue, lady,” the man sitting next to McCall said. “They do lie.”

The comment garnered a slew of laughs. Paige checked the seating chart for the name of the man who looked something akin to an Italian playboy. Hugh Henderson, OCPD Homicide. The jerk quotient for that particular division just rose.

“You’re right, Sergeant. If you back a guilty suspect into a corner and demand to know, ‘Did you kill the convenience store clerk?’ you’ll probably be told a lie. But since your job is to find out the truth, operating that way won’t help solve your case.

“Instead, have that same suspect write down what happened on the day the convenience store he was seen at got robbed. He’ll probably choose not to lie because doing so causes stress. Instead, he’ll tell you the truth, omitting anything that’s incriminating to get you to believe he’s innocent. The key to statement analysis is to pay attention to every word a person uses, and to believe what they tell you. Never assume someone is lying.”

Paige knew from experience she had to dish up solid proof if she hoped to start making converts.

“When you received your enrollment confirmation, you were asked to bring a statement from an actual case you’ve closed. Did you bring one, Sergeant Henderson?”

“My partner’s got it.” Henderson glanced at the affable-looking sandy-haired man sitting on his left. “You remember to bring it?”

“Yeah.” The toothpick stuck in the corner of the man’s mouth bobbed with the word. While he reached inside his sport coat, Paige checked her chart. Steve Kidd. He pulled out a piece of paper, passed it to a cop at the table in front of him.

Paige moved around the podium to take the paper. “Sergeant Kidd, give me a quick summary of who wrote this statement.”

“A guy called 911, claimed he got home from work and found his wife dead,” Kidd said around the toothpick. “This statement is all we got before he had an emotional breakdown and his doctor had to sedate him.”

Paige unfolded the paper. The statement was just ten lines. She read the statement, using a pencil to circle certain words, underline and connect others, and drew a box around specific ones.

When she finished her analysis, she said, “Again, I’m approaching this with the belief that the husband is telling the truth. I’ll read his statement out loud, then give you my take on what happened.”

“Sure thing,” Henderson said, then shot McCall a smug look. Paige noticed the look was wasted, since McCall was intensely focused on her.

Paige began to read.

“‘I came home. I noticed that the house is very quiet. I kept wondering where Mary was. I knew she had to be somewheres. I started trying to find her. I walked into her bedroom and there she was. All I could do is stand and wonder what to do now and finally decided to call 911 and tell them when I got home I found that someone had killed my wife. When you guys showed up you saw all the blood and everything in such a mess. Whoever killed her made her suffer, that is for sure.’”

Paige leaned an elbow on the podium. “In the first line the husband wrote ‘I came home.’ Later he told the police dispatcher that ‘I got home.’ It’s significant that the subject uses different verbs to describe the same activity.”

“How?” asked the female cop with the dark braid. “What difference does that make?”

Paige glanced at the seating chart. The woman’s name was Tia Alvarado, a sergeant in OCPD’s Vice detail. “We’re creatures of habit. When we do something alone, we habitually use one verb to describe a specific activity. But when someone is with us, we use a different verb when talking about that same activity. It’s an unconscious thing. So this shift in word usage can determine if there’s a change in the number of people present at any given time in a statement.”

Henderson shifted in his chair. “How does that tell you if our guy was alone or not?”

“In this case it doesn’t because his statement is so brief. If this were an open case, I would recommend that when you and Sergeant Kidd reinterview the husband, you ask him how he spent the day prior to his wife’s murder. Then the day before that, and so on. It would soon be clear which verb he habitually uses when he talks about being with Mary. And if every day he came home and found her alive, it would be a good bet she was still alive when he came home on the day she died.”

Paige studied her audience. A few were exchanging looks.

“The husband tells us he ‘noticed that the house is very quiet.’ He’s switched to present tense. That’s a red flag because there’s a good chance that part of the story isn’t coming from memory. That he’s making it up.”

People had begun jotting notes.

“The subject writes that he started trying to find his wife, yet he went straight to her bedroom where her body was. Her bedroom. Not sharing a bedroom is unusual for a husband and wife. I would want to ask him about his and Mary’s relationship.

“He then tells us ‘I finally decided to call 911.’ What’s to decide? He claims he came home and found his wife dead, so calling 911 should have been automatic. Could be he was wondering if he had let enough time go by to call the police.”

“Every word,” Alvarado said. “You do look at every word.”

Paige nodded. “A person gives him or herself away unconsciously because they’re focused on hiding information. Patterns can be detected if you know what to look for.”

She referred back to the statement. “In his third sentence the husband calls Mary by name. Later he refers to her only as ‘my wife’ and ‘her.’ He’s trying to depersonalize Mary.”

“Because by that point she’s dead?” someone asked.

“I’d say so. A depersonalization is common in homicide cases when one spouse murders the other.” Paige skimmed her gaze to the end of the statement. “The last sentence is the kicker. ‘Whoever killed her made her suffer, that is for sure.’ If I were working this case, I’d be sure to ask how he knows that.”

She shifted her gaze to Henderson and Kidd. Both had their eyes trained on her. “In my opinion,” she said, “the husband is as guilty as homemade sin. Is that how things turned out?”

“Man,” Henderson said, shaking his head. “Man, oh, man.”

“Yeah.” Kidd pulled the toothpick out of his mouth. Paige saw that it was a plastic one with a curve on one end that held a length of dental floss. “It took us a couple of days, but we got a confession out of him.” Kidd paused. “Did you read about this case in the papers, Ms. Carmichael?”

“I live in Dallas, Sergeant Kidd. Our media doesn’t cover most crimes that occur in Oklahoma.”

“Guess not.” He slid the toothpick into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

“Statement analysis can be used in areas other than criminal investigations.” Paige moved to the table beside the podium and picked up the stack of assignments. “Let’s take a look at one of these.” She fanned through the pages, spotted McCall’s handwriting, plucked out the sheet and began to read.

“‘I woke up, showered, shaved, got dressed, then drove across town and picked up a friend. We went to Nick’s for champagne brunch. We left Nick’s and drove to a movie. After the movie we stopped and had a drink. Then she and I went to a mall, did some shopping. Later I took her back to her condo. She unlocked the door, I turned on the lights. I went home not long after that. I worked on my car, watched TV, then read for a while.’”

Paige glanced up. Because several cops were sending knowing looks in McCall’s direction, she figured Nick’s must be a well-known hangout of his.

“I’m guessing this was written by a male since the author mentioned shaving and working on a car.” She met McCall’s gaze for an instant before looking back at the paper. “The author didn’t introduce his lady friend by name. The norm for healthy relationships is a clear introduction. For example, ‘My friend, Sally.’ But in tumultuous relationships, introductions often are missing. Still, there’s a sense of togetherness in that the author uses the word we in his initial description of his and his friend’s activities. We went to Nick’s, we left there, we drove to the movie, we stopped to have a drink.”

“Hey, McCall,” Henderson said, sending his coworker a leering look. “Just how much togetherness went on?”

Muted chuckles sounded while McCall shrugged, said nothing.

“A problem,” Paige continued, “or disagreement occurred between the time the author and his friend stopped to have a drink and went to the mall. I know that because he shifted his language from we to she and I. That change shows a distancing. This problem continued when he got to his friend’s condo. He was hoping to…” Paige paused. “Well, let’s just say, hope is all he did.”

“Holy—” Detective Alvarado flicked a slightly amused look over her shoulder at McCall before turning back to Paige. “How the heck can you tell when someone doesn’t score?”

“The author mentioned that when he and his friend arrived at her condo, he turned on the lights,” Paige replied.

“So?” Tia asked. “It must have been dark out.”

“And turning on the lights would be taken for granted. So, mentioning the activity indicates it meant something.” Despite her best intention not to, Paige looked at McCall. She felt a streak of satisfaction to see Sergeant Lothario’s jaw locked tight and his eyes smoldering. “A reference to turning on the lights is prevalent in statements where a person wanted sex, but didn’t get it.”

“Why is that?” a man from a security consulting firm asked.

“No one knows for sure.” Paige held up a hand to ward off the inevitable protests. “That’s a long way from a scientific explanation. So is a cop’s following some hunch that winds up solving a crime. You can’t explain it. It just is.”

“Hey, Teach, can I get my assignment back before you read it?” a man’s voice spiked with humor asked.

“No can do.” Smiling, Paige opened her briefcase, slid the assignments inside, pleased she was already gaining converts to the investigative technique she deeply believed in. “Like I said, I told you a lot about myself. It’s only fair I learn a few things about each of you.”

Paige had excused the workshop attendees for lunch and had the classroom to herself. Or so she thought until she glanced up and saw Nate McCall moving down the aisle toward her with what she sensed was a deceptive calm. Seeing him for the first time on his feet, he was taller, leaner than she’d first guessed.

“Aren’t you going to lunch, Sergeant McCall?” she asked as she shut her briefcase. His cocky grin was just a memory; his face had taken on a closed look, and she decided he did the dead-eyed cop stare as well as anyone she’d ever seen.

“Kidd and Henderson will wait on me. I need to talk to you.”

Not you and I need to talk, or we need to talk, she automatically thought. Verbally, McCall was putting plenty of distance between them.

“About?”

“You know damn well what about. I want to know why you started snarling the instant you laid eyes on me. And then on your way out of the room why you made sure to drop your pen behind my chair so you’d have time to peg my handwriting.” He paused, giving her a pointed look that would make a civilian squirm in their shoes. “Jump in if I get any of this wrong.”

He might be a jerk but he wasn’t stupid, Paige thought, and felt her stomach tighten when he took a step forward.

“That way you could make sure you pulled my paper out of the stack so you could analyze it,” he continued. “Why single me out?”

Faced with cold, hard facts, Paige conceded it hadn’t been the smartest thing to let her personal baggage color her professional behavior toward one of her workshop attendees. Then again, Detective Studpuppy had asked for it.

“You leered at my legs.”

He raised a dark brow. “That’s it? My giving your legs an appreciative look made you decide payback was in order?”

“You leered.” She lifted her chin. “You reminded me of someone I don’t like. As a matter of fact, he’s a total weasel.”

Annoyance narrowed his eyes. “Are you always this quick to make assumptions about someone you’ve never before laid eyes on?”

Yes, she thought. Especially when the person was a man with the type of charmer’s grin that put a sizzle in her blood. She’d been pulled in once by a blinding grin that prevented her from seeing the truth. Never again.

She ran a hand across her briefcase while acknowledging how bitter, vindictive and totally lame she sounded. “Look, I had a rotten morning even before I got lost twice on my way here. That little encounter with you went all over me.”

“So you pulled out my paper on the off chance you could hammer me? What if I’d spent all day yesterday volunteering at an old folks’ home or something?”

It was her turn to arch a brow. “Then I doubt you’d have mentioned turning on the lights.”

“Lights,” he repeated with derision. “Your area of expertise might have merit, Carmichael, but I’m not buying your explanation that you know someone’s got sex on their mind just because they walk into a dark room and flip on a light switch.”

She smiled at the temper smoldering in his eyes. “Was I wrong about what happened between you and your companion?”

“We argued. The way you came up with that makes sense. And it isn’t a huge mental step to figure the odds are low of two people in the midst of a fight winding up in bed.”

“You think it was a good guess on my part?”

“Exactly.”

Paige eased out a breath, reminding herself it had also taken her time to buy into the merits of statement analysis. “You’re entitled to your opinion, Sergeant. Maybe as we get deeper into the subject matter it will change.”

He started to say something just as his cell phone chimed. Shoving back one flap of his suit coat, he pulled the unit off his belt and answered.

Watching him, Paige saw the way his eyes went flat and cool as he listened to the caller. No one had to tell her she’d just witnessed McCall slide into his cop’s skin. She’d done it often enough herself when she carried a badge.

After a minute passed, he said, “I’m on my way. Make sure the uniform keeps the scene secured. Until the lab guys get there, he doesn’t allow anyone in that freezer, including himself.”

He hung up, clipped the phone back on his belt. “I’ve got a homicide to work. Don’t expect me back today.”

Paige blinked. “You’re enrolled in my workshop and on call to work cases?”

“Have to. My partner’s on maternity leave. With three of us from Homicide taking your workshop, things are spread thin.”

“Hopefully you’ll rejoin us tomorrow.”

He paused and looked at her. Paige had the sense he was sizing her up with the same intensity he would if she were a suspect in the murder case he’d just been assigned.

“If I do make it back, how about giving me a break?”

She hoped he would be back. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt an intense challenge to make a believer of Nate McCall. “I’ll consider it, Sergeant.”

Hours later, Paige rose from behind the desk in the office used by the center’s guest instructors. Grateful she had the first day of the workshop behind her, she set the locks on her briefcase, then retrieved her coat from the closet tucked into one corner. The headache that had stayed with her all day hammered behind her eyes, tension knotted her shoulders and she hoped she could find her hotel without repeating the wrong turns she’d made that morning.

“Dammit,” she muttered after she pulled on her coat and turned back to her briefcase. She’d had the secretary run a copy of each of the workshop assignment sheets so she could leave the originals untouched when she analyzed them. But she’d stuck the copies in her briefcase and left the original statements stacked on one end of the desk. Not wanting to take time to rekey the briefcase’s combination, she coiled the sheets like a roll of paper towels and slid them into her red suede purse.

Swinging its strap over her shoulder, Paige grabbed her briefcase, then headed out of her temporary office. The click of her heels echoed against the now-deserted main hallway.

To acknowledge the three-year anniversary of her life getting blasted to smithereens, her evening plans included cracking open the minibar, room service and a long soak in the tub. With her headache drumming, she revised those plans to include a couple of aspirin.

Car keys clenched in one hand, briefcase in the other, she shoved open the door and stepped into the cold afternoon gloom.

With thoughts of the escaped Edwin Isaac never far from her mind, she paused just outside the door. The wind gusted, raking through her dark hair like wild fingers while her senses strained to catch the slightest noise, the slightest movement.

Maybe it was just the low, ominous-looking gray cloud bank sucking up what was left of the daylight that compelled her to settle her briefcase at her feet and slip her hand into her coat pocket. When her fingers failed to connect with the asp she habitually carried there, she swore a silent oath. She’d stowed the collapsible tactical baton inside her suitcase for yesterday’s flight from Dallas to Oklahoma City. In her haste this morning, she’d forgotten to retrieve the weapon.

“Can’t just stand here,” she muttered. Picking up her briefcase, Paige hunched her shoulders against the chill and headed around the side of the building.

The instant she came abreast of a thick, bushy shrub she sensed a presence. Motion. The hair rose on the back of her neck. Her right hand instinctively went for the holstered Glock she hadn’t carried in three years.

At the edge of her vision she glimpsed a towering black-clad figure wearing a leather mask charge from the shadows. Adrenaline blew through her system, and she had a crazy half second to think how her day was about to get worse.

Chapter 2

Paige’s elbow swept up toward the man’s jaw at the same instant the side of his hand slammed into her temple. The blow shot jagged lights behind her eyes.

Stumbling off balance, she smashed against the hood of her rental car.

She had no time to think, to work out if the attacker was Isaac. No time to wonder if he had a weapon. There was no time to do anything but act and react.

Sucking in a breath like a diver going under, she tightened her hold on the briefcase, spun upward. Her mind catalogued her attacker’s black leather mask and gloves as she slammed the briefcase into his gut.

His breath exploded in a grunt. It turned into a cursing rush when the toe of her shoe plowed into his knee. She knew if he had a weapon, odds were he’d have gone for it by now.

He locked an arm around the briefcase and yanked. Snarling, she held on like a pit bull.

Still gripping the keys in her right hand, she shoved one between her clenched fingers. She jerked on the briefcase’s handle, yanking him into a forward stagger as she jabbed the key at his left eye.

He feinted and, instead, the teeth of the key raked a furrow along the side of his neck, drawing blood.

Howling, he swung his fist.

The blow to Paige’s cheekbone sent pain grinding down her face. Reeling, she knew she was going down, and made sure she took him with her. She hit the pavement hard, and though she rolled, he landed on top of her.

The impact stole her breath.

He lunged up. Jerked the briefcase from her hold. Bolting in a half limp, he veered across the parking lot toward a six-foot cement block fence.

Paige shoved herself up, ignoring the flash of pain in her side and the throb in her cheek. She set off running after him. Eyeing him from behind, she realized the mask fitted over his entire head, like something out of an S&M flick.

She was a foot away when he swivelled. She dove under his arm and hit him hard. Instead of toppling, he took the impact, swung the briefcase. She twisted, deflecting the brunt of the blow with her shoulder.

She wished like hell she had her asp baton.

He lobbed the briefcase over the fence, then scrambled after it. She caught his pant leg when he was halfway over.

“Give it up, bitch!” he snarled, kicking wildly.

The toe of his shoe caught her in the jaw, snapping her teeth shut. She lost her grip on his pants, staggered back and landed on her butt. She was on her feet in a flash.

And knew there was no way she could get over a towering cement block fence in her snug straight skirt and three-inch suede heels in time to catch the scum.

“Dammit!”

Lungs heaving, breath ragged, adrenaline rocketing through her system, she crammed her trembling hands on her hips. Her jaw clenched as she listened to the bastard race through what sounded like high brush on the other side of the fence.

“Freaking February tenth,” she muttered.

The patrol cop whose brass name tag said Vawter sat behind the wheel of his black and white, jotting a note on a report form clamped to a metal clipboard. He sent Paige a speculative look across the front seat. “You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital, Ms. Carmichael?”

“Positive.” A crackle of police traffic from the radio accompanied her reply. Even though she had a stinging sensation in her jaw and her right cheek was just now getting the feeling back, Paige had gotten roughed up a lot worse when she was a street cop. Nothing a couple of Advil couldn’t help. “The other guy was doing all the bleeding.”

“A stroke of luck, considering the way you said you went after him.” Vawter was tall, with a linebacker’s shoulders beneath his uniform jacket. His thick hair and vivid blue eyes reminded Paige of her Grandpa Carmichael. “It’s going to take some doing to get the grime out of that expensive coat. And it’s my guess you’ve got a few bruises underneath it.”

“A couple.” Already, her hip ached like a bad tooth.

“Might have been smarter to let the guy have your briefcase. Especially if you think it could have been the escaped shrink.”

“Like I said, I’ve got my doubts it was Isaac.” With the after-attack adrenaline still pricking at her wrists, Paige stared out the windshield toward the cement fence the scum had slithered over. “The voice didn’t sound like Isaac’s. And his waging an assault like that doesn’t fit his profile. He first likes to play mind games with his prey. Attack comes later. When that happens, he doesn’t leave his victim behind. He takes her with him.”

“You said he called you after he escaped. Maybe he’s ready for a face-to-face.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“But you don’t think it’s probable.”

“I don’t know. He’s been locked in a cell for three years. That changes a person.” Paige pursed her mouth. “My partner and I suspected Isaac had an accomplice, but we could never prove it. If we were right, that could have been who mugged me.”

Vawter nodded. “Let’s look at things from another angle,” he said. “In my experience, a run-of-the mill mugger wants cash, credit cards. Stuff a woman carries in her purse.”

“You’re wondering why he stole my briefcase. Maybe because I slammed it into his gut? Though he didn’t even try for my purse.”

“Plus, hanging around the police training center is a strange place for a masked mugger. Unless he’s got a specific target.”

“You’re not saying anything I haven’t already thought of, Sergeant.” Fingering her cheekbone, Paige winced when she hit an extratender spot. “The briefcase is old. It first belonged to my mother, so it shows a lot of wear and tear. If the guy was some druggie aiming to boost something he could pawn for enough money to score a hit, he struck out.”

Vawter studied the list he’d jotted on the report form. “Inside the briefcase was an extra training manual, a file folder with copies of reports and newspaper articles on Edwin Isaac, another file containing personal papers, written assignments the people in your workshop turned in and a premeasured syringe of epinephrine, used to treat your allergy to peanuts.”

“And one banana,” Paige added. Luckily, she’d left her laptop at the hotel.

“So, you said you cut the guy’s neck with your car key?”

“I was aiming for his eye. He dodged.”

“What color were his eyes?”

“I couldn’t tell. The mask wasn’t just your ordinary leather one. It fit over his entire head and had some sort of gauzy material over the eye holes. It looked like some kinky sex mask.”

“Guess we’d better take a look at the local deviates. And we’ll alert clinics and hospitals, in case someone with a wound to the neck comes in.”

“I doubt I hurt him badly enough to need stitches.”

“Gonna do the alert before my shift ends, just in case.”

Paige furrowed her brow. “It just hit me that I forgot to put the original assignments in my briefcase, so I stuffed them in here.” She patted her suede purse on the seat beside her.

“Are there just police officers in your workshop?”

“No, I’ve got some civilians who run security for local corporations. The subject I teach, statement analysis, can help them zero in on potential problem areas when they conduct hiring interviews. And if they discover their employer is being ripped off by someone on the inside, they can use S.A. to develop questionnaires to be filled out by possible suspects.”

“So, it doesn’t sound like you’ve got any criminal types for students.” Vawter considered her for a second. “You ever been to Oklahoma City before? Made any enemies here?”

“My mom and I spent a day here a couple of years ago at the Murrah bombing memorial,” Paige said quietly. “I haven’t been back until last night.”

“Did you manage to ruffle anyone’s feathers today?”

Paige shifted her gaze out the windshield at the bushy shrub where her attacker had hidden. “I got on the wrong side of one of your Homicide cops.”

“Yeah? Which one?”

“Nate McCall.”

Vawter barked a laugh. “His daddy was my training officer when I was a rookie. You maybe got on the wrong side of Nate, but I don’t expect he’d have mugged you for doing it.”

“I agree.” Paige thought of the way McCall had advanced on her, angry for picking on him in class. “Sergeant McCall utilizes a more direct approach.”

“From what I hear, lots of women would agree with you on that.”

Paige was determined to have what was left of her day end on a positive note. So, the first thing she did when she limped into her hotel suite was pour herself a glass of merlot. While sipping her wine she soaked out the majority of her aches in a tub frothing with vanilla-scented bubbles. Then she treated herself to the priciest steak on the Waterford Hotel’s expansive room service menu.

Now, dressed in a white cashmere tunic and black tights, she sat cross-legged on the bed’s sapphire-and ruby-toned comforter, her laptop humming, the assignment sheets from the workshop stacked beside her. The suite was large and airy with heavy, dark wood furnishings. Floor-to-ceiling windows bordered by emerald drapes spanned one entire wall. A love seat and chair upholstered in a rich, muted tapestry and a coffee table polished to a mirror finish were tucked into a cozy sitting area. On the table sat a silver bowl piled with fresh fruit that had been delivered sometime during the day. The accompanying card said the bowl was compliments of the Waterford’s manager.

On the few times she’d had to travel during her tenure as a Homicide cop, the department’s budget had barely covered a room in some concrete-block motel with a dollar-a-minute surcharge on the telephone.

Her present employer, the Lassiter Group, was Dallas’s most elite security, protection and private investigations firm. Paige’s generous salary and fat expense account definitely had its perks. Perks that she would give up in a heartbeat if she could have her badge back, she thought as thunder rumbled in the distance.

Flexing her fingers, she stared down at the scar. Where would she be if certain events on that night three years ago had never happened? If she and her partner had taken down Edwin Isaac before he’d squeezed off the one shot. If she hadn’t wound up in that hospital’s E.R. and summarily found out…

She shook her head. She had found out. And she’d dealt with the emotional upheaval that came from learning the husband she’d loved and trusted had betrayed her. She’d gotten on with her life. No sense dwelling on it.

She had work to do.

The rumble of thunder drew nearer while she began processing the workshop assignments. She circled pronouns, sketched boxes around phrases that indicated gaps in time, inserted asterisks in places where words had been omitted, drew lines to connect similar words and phrases.

After processing each assignment, she typed notes into her laptop. She paused after analyzing five assignments. Her word-by-word analysis revealed that several of the attendees had gotten caught in unmentioned time crunches at a point during their day. Some had spats with spouses, others unwittingly revealed frustrations over dealing with children, in-laws and neighbors. By the time she read to the end of an individual’s statement, Paige knew far more about the life of that person than she was sure they intended.

She plucked the next statement off the stack and went to work. When she’d finished her analysis, she leaned back against the bank of pillows while she slid her pen end-over-end through her fingers. The author of this statement was clearly one of the female cops enrolled in the workshop. The woman had written about a family gathering she’d attended, listing her husband only after mentioning several other people. Without meaning to, she had revealed that she considered her husband the least important of those people. Not the best of relationships, Paige mused. If anything criminal happened to the husband, and the wife claimed they’d been close, the statement in Paige’s hand would shine an entirely different light on the relationship.

She was adding information to her typed notes when her cell phone rang. Paige reached for it, then hesitated. After Isaac called her two weeks ago and left the voice mail message, she’d been tempted to get a new number and list it under an alias. Doing so, though, wouldn’t help track the bastard. So she’d allowed the cops to insert a state-of-the-art tracking chip inside her phone. If Isaac called again, they had a good chance of nailing his location.

She checked the phone’s display. The number beaming via the caller ID feature had her smiling.

“Hey, handsome.”

“How’s my favorite girl?”

She relaxed against the pillows. “How’s my favorite guy?”

“I asked first.”

“Couldn’t be better, Grandpa.” Toying with the long silver chain she always wore around her neck, Paige gave silent thanks that the rough-hewn retired Texas Ranger couldn’t see her bruised cheek. Not only would Tate Carmichael grill her like a rack of ribs about every aspect of the mugging, he would strap on a revolver and hightail it to Oklahoma City to act as her personal bodyguard. “What are you and Mom up to?”

“Sara Sue’s off doing her volunteer work at the legal aid clinic tonight. We’ve been thinking a lot about you today.”

Because it’s February tenth, Paige thought. If it hadn’t been for her grandfather and mother, she wasn’t certain she’d have gotten back on her feet after her life upended. Even now, whenever she found time to visit her grandfather’s small cattle ranch outside of Dallas, she occasionally caught one or both of them watching her with narrow-eyed concern.

Thunder crashed; Paige glanced up as rain frozen to sleet began pelting the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I could tell you and Mom to stop worrying, but I’d be wasting my breath.”

“You always were as sharp as barbed wire.” Her grandfather waited a beat before continuing. “I’ve been checking with my law enforcement contacts, Paige. No one’s caught sight of Isaac.”

“If he’s smart, and we both know he is, he’s out of the country by now. Sitting on some beach, drinking rum.”

“And thinking about you, like he said he’d do on that voice mail he left.”

Closing her eyes, she replayed Isaac’s clipped, cultured voice. A shiver ran down her back.

“As long as all he does is think about me, that’s fine.” She half hoped her grandfather would agree with her about the high probability of Isaac’s leaving the country, if for no other reason than to ease the edgy tension that seemed to prickle across the phone line. But she knew he wouldn’t—her grandfather wasn’t that type of man. The facts were the facts, he would see no purpose in padding the truth to soften the blows.

“Consider the man, Paige. You tracked him down. He blames you for destroying his life. He’s still thinking about what he’d like to do to you. Isaac wants a second act. We both know it.”

“I refuse to go into hiding,” Paige said, trying to waylay what she knew was coming next.

“I’m not asking you to tuck your tail between your legs, girl. I’m just saying it’d be smart for you to pack up and come on home. Stay on the ranch with your mom and me until the law finds that murdering bastard.”

If Isaac was planning to exact revenge, Paige knew staying on the ranch would put her family in danger. No way would she chance that.

“I can take care of myself, Grandpa. You know that. Just because Isaac’s on the lam isn’t reason for me to change my schedule.”

“How about to keep an old man from worrying himself into the grave?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “You’re not old. And you’d worry about me whether I was sitting in your living room, or a thousand miles away.”

“Can’t argue that. You wearing your lucky necklace?”

She glanced down at the handcuff key and miniature Texas Rangers badge that hung on the silver chain. Her grandfather had given her the necklace the day she graduated the police academy. “I even sleep in it.”

“What about the asp?”

“It’s on the nightstand. Consider me armed and dangerous. Now, enough about me. How many head of cattle did you buy on last week’s trip to Fort Worth?”

After Paige said good-night to her grandfather, she called her former partner in Dallas PD Homicide. His answering machine picked up so she left a message. Not only did she need replacement copies of the reports that had been in her briefcase, she also wanted to talk to him about a vague theory they’d developed during their investigation into Isaac.

Too unsettled to go back to the workshop assignments, she slid off the bed, wandered to the sitting area and plucked a banana out of the silver bowl. Tapping it against her palm, she moved to the wall of windows. Ice hazed the glass and marred her view of what she’d learned was the priciest real estate in Oklahoma City. Frowning, she conjured up the mugger’s voice.

Give it up, bitch. The voice, the words didn’t fit Isaac. From all witnesses’ accounts, “Gentleman Jim” had conducted himself in a mild, meek manner when he approached each intended victim who worked the dimly lit streets of Dallas’s red-light district. His demeanor had stayed the same after his arrest—in all her dealings with Isaac, Paige had never heard him utter a curse or say anything crude. Even his promises to exact revenge against her had been delivered in formal, polite tones.

One thing about it, she thought, getting mugged had put a cap on the day.

She was just about to peel the banana when the phone on the nightstand rang. Halfway expecting it to be someone from the hotel’s laundry calling to tell her they couldn’t remove all the stains from her cashmere coat, she walked over to the phone by the bed and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

“You said you were going to give me a break.”

Nate McCall. “That’s correct, Sergeant.”

“Then why drop my name to the patrol cop who took your mugging report?”

Paige, caught off guard by the question, blinked. “He asked me if I’d gotten on anyone’s bad side. Your name popped into my head.”

Silence.

She tucked the phone between her shoulder and cheek and began peeling the banana. “What’s the deal, McCall? It’s not like I told Sergeant Vawter I thought you were the creep who mugged me.”

“Yeah, he made that clear.” Paige heard the rattle of dishes and hum of conversation in the background. “Do you think the mugger is the escaped shrink you mentioned this morning?”

Surprised by McCall’s concerned tone, she furrowed her forehead. This was more than a polite inquiry, he seemed worried about her. “My instincts say no.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

“Just a quirk on my part, Carmichael. Let’s say I have this thing about escaped serial killers showing up in my city. And even though you’ve got a nasty streak, I don’t like the idea of you getting roughed up on my turf.”

My city. My turf. Paige had felt the same when she carried a badge—she didn’t like bad things happening in her territory. Cops were innately possessive about that. And although she knew McCall’s concern wasn’t personal, she felt another tug of guilt over how she’d targeted him during the workshop.

“I appreciate you taking the time to do a follow-up, Sergeant. That’s beyond the call of duty.”

“Shows that even weasels are dedicated.”

“Good point.” Paige couldn’t help but smile. “So maybe I’ll concede you’re not a total weasel,” she added, then took a bite of the banana.

Before she even swallowed, a sickening sensation hit her. She spit out the bite. “Oh, God!”

“What? What’s the—”

She dropped the phone and the banana. The receiver clattered against the edge of the nightstand before landing on the floor. Sweat had broken out on her palms, beaded across her forehead. Already she felt the tightness in her throat as the tissues began to swell. In seconds her breathing plunged from shallow to labored.

She could hear McCall shouting her name while she told herself to stay calm. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. The litany looped through her head even as thick, sticky cobwebs settled over her brain. She’d had allergic reactions before. She had survived them.

No reason she couldn’t survive this one.

Weaving like a drunk, she made her way around the bed. She stumbled against the mattress, knocking the stack of assignment sheets onto the floor.

By the time she reached the bureau where she’d left her red suede purse, her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Using her forearm, she swept her purse onto the floor, dropped to her knees and dumped out the contents amid the scattered papers.

Her throat tightened as her air passage narrowed. Her breathing transformed into painful gasps. A headache barged down on her like a freight train. Pinpricks needled over her flesh; she was shuddering, sweating.

Banana, she thought hazily. Not right. Not right. She was allergic to peanuts, not bananas. She had eaten bananas all her life. Tons of bananas. Hundreds.

Dizziness swirled up from the ground. Panic surged through her as she clawed at the contents of her purse, shoving aside her billfold, her sunglasses case, her Palm Pilot. Her backup meds were in her stolen briefcase, but she always kept a supply in her purse. They had to be here. Had to be.

Finally—finally!—she found the metal case that held the syringes preloaded with epinephrine. She fumbled one out, jerked its safety cap off with her teeth. Setting her jaw, she stabbed the needle into her right thigh.

Her lungs heaved. She struggled to drag air past her constricted throat. You’ll be fine, she told herself. Just fine. The shot would buy her enough time to get to the E.R.

She had to get to the E.R.

Fighting to remain lucid, knowing her legs would never support her, she crawled around the bed. Her vision doubled, tripled; she followed McCall’s shouts, flailing a hand for the receiver, found it.

“Carmichael? What the hell’s going on? Carmich—”

“Ambulance.” She forced out the word between gasps. “Call…ambulance.”

Chapter 3

The E.R. doctor jotted a note on a clipboard, set it aside, then gave Paige a scrutinizing look. “You’re still pale. But your breathing is good and your heartbeat’s back to normal.”

“I feel fine now.” Fully dressed again and sitting upright with her legs dangling off the gurney, she sent the young intern a hopeful look. “You’re releasing me, right?”

Without comment, he hooked a finger under her chin and nudged her head from side to side. “No swelling in your face now, except around the bruise on your right cheek.” His forehead furrowed. “The nurse said you got mugged?”

“I’ve had a lousy day.”

“Sounds like it.” He released her chin. “It would have been lousier if you’d swallowed that bite of banana.”

A low whisper of suspicion sounded in the back of her brain. “I still can’t believe I had a reaction to a banana. I’ve eaten them all my life with no problem.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “The way I had to fight to breathe, the hives, the headache, the dizziness. Everything felt like the reaction I have to peanuts.”

“A person can develop a sudden allergy to a food they’ve never had a problem eating. That might be what happened.”

Having a vague memory of her own allergist telling her the same thing, Paige studied the intern. His wiry brown hair needed serious combing. His eyes were bloodshot. The cast of his skin was a little too close a match to his pale green hospital scrubs. Looks aside, the guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“This type of allergic reaction can encompass more than food,” he added. “Like sex.”

“What?”

“When you have intercourse, does your partner wear a condom?”

Paige blinked. “Excuse me?”

Mouth twitching, he held up a hand. “Sorry, I tend to get ahead of myself. A person who’s allergic to bananas has a tendency to have an allergy to latex. That’s because bananas and latex have some of the same proteins. If you’ve experienced any discomfort while engaging in sex with a partner wearing a latex condom, that could explain why.”

“Oh. No discomfort.” No way was she going to admit that the last time she’d had sex was three years ago. With the husband she booted out of her life shortly thereafter.

“What about avocados and chestnuts? They have some of the same proteins as bananas.”

“I was in California last week teaching a workshop. I ate a salad with avocados for lunch one day. Zero reaction.”

“Well, you’ll want to discuss all this with your allergist.”

“He’s in Dallas where I live. Is there a way you can test me now to see if a banana caused the reaction?”

“No, we dosed you with steroids and antihistamines. Allergy testing can’t be done until you’ve been off antihistamines for a while.”

“How long is ‘a while’?”

“Approximately two weeks.”

Rubbing her thumb over her numb scar, Paige thought about Edwin Isaac. If he was behind the theft of her briefcase, he was now in possession of her doctor’s memo that outlined the severity of her allergy to peanuts.

With his medical training, Isaac would readily realize her allergy could prove fatal. A sense of unease pressed in around her as if the E.R.’s disinfectant-scented air had suddenly become more dense.

She might be experiencing a cop’s innate paranoia, but she didn’t intend to wait to find out if she’d nearly wound up in the morgue because of a sudden allergic reaction or something nefarious. She couldn’t be tested, but the fruit could. And until the results were back, the fruit bowl in her suite had to be treated as evidence. Which meant she needed to turn it over to a cop.

Let’s just say I have this thing about escaped serial killers showing up in my city.

She remembered what Nate McCall had said and gave herself another mental kick for letting her personal baggage get the best of her that morning. Putting herself on the wrong side of McCall didn’t exactly open the door to asking him to submit the fruit bowl to OCPD’s lab. Still, he was the type of cop who cared about what happened on his turf. And he had quite possibly saved her life tonight.

For the first time since she’d arrived at the E.R., the memory of what had happened after she’d crawled back to the phone came crashing back. Fighting to get enough air into her lungs to stay conscious, all she could manage was to gasp that she needed an ambulance. He must have had another phone available, because she remembered hearing him alert police dispatch to send an ambulance and a patrol unit to the Waterford. He’d also instructed the dispatcher to call the hotel and send their own security people to her suite. That’s who’d reached her first, Paige remembered now. Two armed security guards had bypassed the lock with a passkey and used some sort of tool to release the U-shaped swing bar that prevented the door from fully opening.

During all that time, McCall had stayed on the phone, assuring her help was on the way. His voice had been a calm, soothing lifeline holding her steady, pushing back the ragged black edges of panic.

“I’ll write you a prescription for a refill of your epi-pen,” the doctor said, drawing Paige back.

“Does that mean you’re releasing me?”

“Yes.” He pulled a pad from a pocket. “If you were going to have further symptoms, they would have shown up by now.”

Relieved, she pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. It wasn’t just the fatiguing aftereffects of the allergic reaction that fueled her impatience to get out of the E.R. The cloying, antiseptic air, spotless white enamel walls and squeak of rubber soles against the tiled floor flashed her back three years to an almost identical E.R. in Dallas. The current pitching in her stomach was due to a desperate need to escape the sterile surroundings and all the memories.

She eased off the gurney and slid her shoes on. When she retrieved her suede purse, she saw it had an overstuffed look. Opening it, she instantly realized why. After the EMTs arrived at her suite, she’d asked one of the security guards to shove the belongings she’d dumped out back into her purse so she could take it with her. The guard apparently crammed everything off the floor into her purse, including the workshop assignments.

“Everything okay?” the doctor asked.

“Yes.” She turned to face him. “I need to call a cab. Where can I find a phone book?”

“The nurses’ station.” He handed her the prescription. “If the cop made it back by now you won’t need a cab.”

“What cop?”

“I didn’t catch his name, but he said he was on the phone with you when you had the reaction. He was very insistent on finding out what had happened to you.”

“Oh.” McCall was looking less like the jerk she’d pegged him to be. She was starting to feel guilt. “You said he had to leave?”

“He had to interview a witness in a homicide. I told him you were going to be fine, but it would be a while before I knew if I’d have to keep you overnight for observation. He said he would try to make it back.”

“Thanks,” Paige said, then slipped through the opening in the privacy curtain that circled the gurney.

She passed a waiting room and glanced inside. The majority of the plastic chairs lining the room were occupied. McCall was nowhere in sight.

Not a surprise, she thought. She understood why he came by after she’d been admitted—he’d listened to her fighting to stay alive. When she worked patrol in Dallas, she’d spent her share of time trying to calm and soothe victims of crime and people injured in accidents. Despite the wall cops put around their emotions, a personal bond often formed during those adrenaline-pumping moments. When that happened, she’d always made a point to stop by the hospital to check on a victim. Still, there wasn’t any real reason for McCall to make a return visit to the E.R., especially when he was working a homicide.

And since he hadn’t shown up again, her only hope of contacting him about the fruit bowl tonight was to leave a message for him with police dispatch. She would make the call when she got back to her hotel. And she intended to find out exactly who from the manager’s office had sent the fruit bowl, and the name of the person who’d delivered it to her suite.

At the nurses’ station, Paige got the phone number for a cab company. Half an hour later, she pushed through Waterford Hotel’s revolving door and stepped into the lobby’s gilded silence. Her low flats tapped against the gleaming marble floor as she made a beeline for the reception counter. She identified herself to a twentysomething male clerk dressed in a red blazer with a white carnation in the buttonhole of its lapel.

Upon hearing her name, he looked duly concerned. “Are you okay, Ms. Carmichael? I was on duty when you got sick.”

“I’m fine now, thanks.” She checked the brass name tag on his blazer. “Robert, I’d like to send a note of appreciation to the person who arranged to have the fruit bowl sent to me from the hotel’s manager. Can you tell me who that is?”

“Of course.” He entered data on a keyboard, then frowned. “We show you received a fruit bowl, but it was delivered here from an outside vendor, and left at the bell captain’s stand.”

A chill threaded through her. “The fruit bowl didn’t come from your boss?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Is there a record of which company delivered it?”

He tapped more keys. “The Epicurean. They deal in flowers and gift baskets. Would you like their phone number?”

“And their address. Also the person at the bell captain’s stand who logged in the bowl.”

“Certainly.”

Damn, Paige thought while an elevator whisked her to the top floor. Damn, damn, damn. Could she have been wrong about the message on the card that came with the fruit bowl? She’d given it only a cursory glimpse when she got back to her suite after the mugging. Both her head and body had ached; all she’d wanted was a couple of aspirin, a glass of wine and a long soak in the tub. She had received obligatory fruit bowls from the management of a dozen other upscale hotels where she’d stayed—maybe she had looked at the message on the card that had been with this bowl and her distracted mind had failed to input the right data.

She stepped off the elevator. As she’d done since learning about Isaac’s escape, she paused to check in both directions along the otherwise deserted-looking hallway while straining to listen for any sound of another presence. Nothing.

She locked the door of her suite behind her, tossed her purse on the bed, then crossed to the sitting area. The card was where she’d left it on the table beside the silver bowl of fruit.

Compliments of the Waterford. Feel free to contact me if we can be of any assistance.

John W. Greenhaw, Manager

Paige pursed her mouth. The only thing suspicious about the card was that Mr. Greenhaw made it sound like he was urging a guest to contact him personally for assistance. However, his switch from using “me” to “we” in his second sentence told Paige the man’s subconscious had been at work. In truth, a guest would have to work his or her way through several layers of assistants before ever getting to talk to the hotel’s head honcho.

She shifted her gaze to the fruit bowl. She supposed it was possible cards could have been accidentally switched if a number of baskets and bowls wound up on the bell captain’s stand at the same time. If that was the case, Mr. Greenhaw’s card could have been meant for someone else. Who, then, had sent her the fruit bowl from The Epicurean?

Knowing she couldn’t get that question answered until morning, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was after midnight. If she had any hope of contacting McCall tonight, she had to make the call now.

On her way to the phone she glanced toward the door to make sure she’d set the swing bar. A flash of white against the dove-gray carpet caught her eye. Moving to the door, she realized the white shape was a small envelope. Had it been there when she’d walked in? Entirely possible, she thought. With her mind so focused on the manager’s card, she’d apparently missed seeing the envelope that someone had slipped beneath the door while she’d been at the hospital.

Nothing was written on either side of the envelope. Paige unsealed the flap, peered inside and felt her heart stop when she saw the mug shot of Edwin Isaac. The data at its lower edge identified the Dallas Police Department as the arresting agency. The date was the day Paige and her partner arrested Isaac.

She had seen this very mug shot that morning when she slid Isaac’s file into her briefcase.

Hands and legs unsteady, she moved to the bed, upended the envelope and watched the mug shot flutter to the mattress. It landed facedown, revealing the typed label affixed to the back.

We’ll be together soon. I promise.

Gentleman Jim

Nausea shot into her throat. Closing her eyes, she saw the bodies of five women, their flesh sliced, the wounds charred from being cauterized with a red-hot knife blade. Each victim’s head had been wrapped in plastic that camouflaged the ghoulish makeup applied to their battered faces. During the months she’d hunted their killer, she had sometimes imagined she heard his victims’ screams. Deep inside her mind, she still did.

Paige forced herself to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself, trying to control the mix of fear and adrenaline pumping through her system. She would not allow herself to panic. If she panicked, she wouldn’t be able to think rationally. Which she knew was Isaac’s goal.

The memory of his oh-so-polite voice during their extensive interviews rippled across her nerve endings.

Once I take possession of a person’s mind, they are powerless to defend themselves against me.

As a psychiatrist, Isaac was a master at mental manipulation. After he targeted a victim, he knew exactly how to terrify, was keenly aware of the value of breaking down by exhaustion, had become expert at exploiting a victim’s thinking until she was thoroughly ripened by fear.

“Devise a plan,” Paige whispered. First, she had to talk to McCall. Receiving a personal note from an escaped serial killer was one step from a face-to-face encounter. Second, she needed to pack. No way in hell could she sleep in this room knowing that Isaac, or someone sent by him, had been just outside.

Third, she—

A sharp rap on the door had her nearly jumping out of her skin. Heart in her throat, Paige moved around the bed and grabbed the asp off the nightstand.

She knew that even if a stranger was on the other side of the door, she couldn’t let down her guard. Not when Isaac was a master at disguise.

And if it was him who’d knocked, how was he planning to make a run at her? Fire a bullet through the peephole if she was careless enough to look through it? Mace her? Toss acid in her face, like he had one of his victims?

Tightening her fingers on the asp, Paige flicked her wrist. A silver wand shot out of the short black cylinder, transforming it into a solid steel tactical baton as she eased toward the door.

Chapter 4

Barely breathing, her palm sweating against the asp’s handle, Paige positioned herself at one side of the door.

“Who’s there?” Her voice sounded like chipped glass.

“Nate McCall.”

Relief rose in her like a wave. She shoved back the U-shaped safety bar, unlocked the deadbolt, then opened the door.

He wore an unbuttoned black trench coat over his black suit; his hair looked rumpled, a shadow of dark stubble on his jaw gave his olive skin a swarthy look. She wasn’t too proud to acknowledge how glad she was to see him.

“I called the E.R.,” he said. “A nurse said they released you, so I…” His eyes flicked to her right hand and narrowed abruptly. “You planning on trying to take me down with that man-tamer baton, Carmichael?”

Paige realized she must look paranoid standing there gripping the thick, silvery asp that could drop a heavyweight in round one.

“Not you. Someone else.” Stepping back, she pulled the door open wider and gestured him in.

He moved past her, then turned, waiting just behind her as she rebolted the door. “Who?”

“The slime who boosted my briefcase.” She twisted the asp’s spring then shoved the telescoping chrome shaft back into the black handle. “He paid me a return visit.”

“He came here?”

“When I was at the E.R. He left me a present.” Stepping to the bed, she motioned toward the facedown mug shot. “That typed note is on the back of a mug shot of Edwin Isaac. It was in my briefcase.”

“‘We’ll be together soon,’” McCall read. “‘I promise. Gentleman Jim.’” He looked up. “Is that a nickname the Dallas cops gave the shrink?”

“The media. When Isaac was in disguise trolling for hookers, he acted meek. Mild. Like there wasn’t a threatening bone in his body.”

“Let me guess. After Isaac got a hooker alone, he turned into Jack the Ripper.”

“Worse. The Ripper killed his victims within hours of their initial contact. Isaac kept each one alive at least a week.”

“For sex?”

“No. To destroy them psychologically while convincing them they were useless sluts and unworthy of living. He brainwashed them. Coerced each victim to perform self-mutilation by slicing her own flesh with a scalpel. Then he used a hot knife to cauterize the wounds to prevent them from bleeding to death.”

“Christ.” McCall shoved a hand through his hair. “How’d the bastard get so twisted?”

“His stepmother, mostly,” Paige answered. “She was an actress who played roles in dinner theater productions. The woman was superdomineering. From what we could find out, she had numerous affairs with various actors, stagehands, theater owners. Even after she married Isaac’s father, the affairs didn’t stop.”

“What happened to his real mother?”

“She died when he was a baby. The stepmom craved the spotlight. Having a child around took some of the attention away from her, and she resented him. Isaac did enough hanging around the theater to learn about costuming and how to use makeup as a disguise.”

“So, little Eddie grows up into Edwin the killer who knows how to camouflage himself. To hide in plain sight.”

“Exactly. It took us nearly a year to get him because each time he trolled for hookers his appearance changed. But we knew it was the same guy because of witnesses who overheard his unique voice. And the real Isaac is polite. Almost genteel. Even in interrogation when he threatened he’d someday get out and we would meet again on his terms, he was polite about it.”

“What kind of guy was the father?”

“He was a genius computer geek who spent his life walking three steps behind his wife, saying, ‘Yes, dear.’ If he even noticed her affairs he didn’t do anything to stop them.”

“Two less-than-stellar role models for a kid.”

“That about sums it up.”

McCall pulled a pen out of his coat pocket, used its tip to flip the mug shot over. “Not bad-looking for a perverted serial killer.”

Paige stared into the face of the man who, with one squeeze of a trigger, spun her life onto a path she never would have imagined for herself. Isaac was in his early forties, his thick blond hair carefully styled and feathered back. His forehead was broad and unlined, his eyes deep-set and startlingly blue. His nose was narrow, his chin square, his complexion pale but healthy. His mind was anything but.

“Did you touch the mug shot?” McCall asked.

“Just the envelope it came in.”

“Yours are probably the only prints that will show up, but I’ll have the lab check.” He dipped a hand into another pocket and pulled out a small plastic evidence bag.

She’d done that, too, when she worked Homicide, Paige thought. Constantly carried around evidence bags in her purse and car. There’d been no way to predict from one minute to the next when she’d wind up working a crime scene.

“Let’s go with the assumption it was Isaac who slipped this mug shot under your door,” McCall said. “How would he know you’re in Oklahoma City?”

“My employer, the Lassiter Group, maintains a Web site. The dates and locations for my workshops are listed so students can enroll online.”

“To do that, Isaac would have to know you’re working for Lassiter. He’s been in prison, so how would he find out?”

“My partner and I suspected Isaac had an accomplice working with him during his killing spree. We could never find enough evidence to prove it. But if we’re right, that person could have been feeding him information the past three years. I suspect that’s how Isaac got my cell phone number.”

“He called you?”

“Yes, hours after he escaped. I was on another call so he left a message on my voice mail.”

“What did he say?”

“That we’ll be together soon.”

McCall looked at the mug shot. “Same message he sent tonight. Anybody check to see who visited Isaac in prison?”

“I checked. During the entire time he was locked up, his attorney was his only visitor. The accomplice could have sent information through him.”

“You told me on the phone your instincts tell you Isaac isn’t who mugged you. Maybe he hooked back up with the unknown accomplice after he escaped? That could be the guy who snatched your briefcase.”

“That theory feels more right.”

McCall’s gaze settled on her cheek. “I take it you got that in the mugging?”

“Yes.” She fingered the edges of the bruise. With all that had happened since then, she’d forgotten about it. She glanced up, noting he continued to inspect her intensely. “What?”

“I’m thinking what the mugger gained was minimal compared to the effort he put out, especially since he didn’t try for your purse. If he had, he would have at least gotten some cash, credit cards. Is there anyone other than Isaac who’d have reason to come after you like that? Rough you up a little? Then drop off Isaac’s mug shot, just to mess with your head?”

“I’ve been asking myself those same questions. There’s no one.” She shifted her gaze back to the bed. “When you knocked on my door I was just about to call dispatch and leave you a message.”

“About the mug shot?”

“That’s one thing.” She watched him use the pen to nudge the photo and envelope into the plastic bag. “I need a favor.”

He slid the bag into his coat pocket. “What?”

She gave him a rundown on her allergy to peanuts, the E.R. doctor’s theory that she could suddenly be allergic to bananas, the information she’d found out about the fruit bowl from the hotel desk clerk and the contents of her briefcase. Then she added that the meds pumped into her at the E.R. prevented her from being tested for two weeks. While she talked, she watched McCall work the information, taking it in.

“You can’t be tested, but the fruit can,” he said. “You want me to submit it to the cop lab.”

“Yes.” Paige eased out a breath. “After this morning, I’m not in the best position to ask you for a favor.”

“Submitting evidence of a possible crime isn’t a favor. It’s my job.” Moving around the bed, he grabbed a pillow, pulled off its case, then walked to the sitting area where the fruit bowl sat. “I’ll write a supplement to the mugging report that Vawter wrote. That’ll help push the testing on the fruit.”

Paige watched as he eased the bowl and fruit into the pillowcase. It hit her then, how close she’d come to dying only hours before. Her legs went unsteady as the enormity of that sank in.

She lowered onto the edge of the bed, fisted her hands that had suddenly begun to shake. “I had one more reason for leaving you a message.”

He flicked her a look as he knotted the ends of the pillowcase. “Was it to admit your theory about lights and sex is a load of crap?”

Paige’s mouth twitched. The humor was unexpected, and welcome. “The theory’s solid, McCall.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “I wanted to thank you for getting help here when I had the reaction. And for staying on the phone.” Though her voice had taken on a barely perceptible quake, she continued. “One second my throat was fine, the next it had nearly swelled shut. I thought…” I might die. She took a deep breath. “Just your telling me the ambulance was on the way, that I was going to be fine, helped me focus. So, thanks.”

Leaving the pillowcase on the table, he strode across the suite to stand in front of her. “I was scared, too,” he said quietly.

She saw sympathy, concern and something more in his expression. She saw a cop’s perception of how hard it was for her to think of herself as a victim. “The doctor said you came by the E.R.”

“To find out for sure what had happened to you. And check your condition.”

“I hate being scared. It pisses me off. I felt the same way when I read the label on the back of Isaac’s mug shot. Spooked as hell.”

“He’s a scary guy.”

“At least I can do something about getting myself off his radar screen.” She rose, moved to the closet, grabbed her suitcase and plopped it on the bed. “I’m getting out of here tonight.”

“And going where?”

“To some hotel where I can check in under an alias and pay with cash.” She scooped up everything out of a bureau drawer, dumped it into the suitcase. “Can you recommend a place?”

He nodded. “It’s a little less plush than this, but still on the five-star scale. The manager is a pal of mine. If I give him a call, he can have you registered and a room ready by the time you get there.”

She glanced at her watch. “He must be a good pal if you can call him this late at night.”

“His name’s Burke Youngblood and he won’t mind.” McCall’s mouth quirked as he pulled his cell phone off his belt. “Burke lives on-site and he likes to play cop. He’s cut me a good rate in the past just so I would house a couple of witnesses under protection there. Burke keeps a good eye on things.” He angled his chin. “What alias do you want to use?”

“You pick,” Paige said as she emptied another drawer. “That way, it won’t tie to me.”

“Will do.” While McCall punched buttons on his cell, she stepped into the bathroom and gathered her toiletries.

“Burke will have everything taken care of by the time you get there,” McCall said when she carried her tote into the room. “Your alias is Fiona Shepherd.”

“Fiona?”

His mouth curved. “It’s a family name. The place you’re staying is the Ambassador Arms, about a five-minute drive from here. You can follow me there. That way I can make sure you don’t pick up a tail.”

“All right.”

“I’m sure this has occurred to you, Carmichael, but I’m going to point it out anyway. If someone’s looking to find you, all they have to do is wait for you to show up at the training center tomorrow.”

“I know. If I pick up a tail when I leave there, I’ll make sure I lose it.”

“The homicide I snagged today is political, so there’s a lot of pressure to get the case wrapped up fast. That means I won’t be back at your workshop. I’ll call Steve Kidd, brief him on what’s happened tonight. He and Henderson can back you up when you leave the training center. If you do get tailed, they can close in and grab him.”

“Thanks.” Paige checked all the drawers to make sure she hadn’t left any belongings behind.

McCall gave her a scrutinizing look. “It hasn’t been that long since you were a cop, so I figure you’ve still got federal contacts. Are you getting flagged for NCIC off-line searches on Isaac?”

“Yes.” As a high-profile escapee, Isaac was listed with the National Crime Information Center, the national database operated by the FBI that was the world’s largest collection of information on known criminals. If someone thought they recognized Isaac in Des Moines, Iowa, and contacted NCIC, Paige would receive a message on her cell phone.

“The note on the back of his mug shot is enough reason for me to issue a ‘be on the lookout’ to local cops,” McCall said. “If Isaac is here, he’ll need a place to lie low. Food and transportation. For all that, he needs money.”

“We never found all his money. He had tons of it, not just from his psychiatric practice, but an inheritance from his grandmother.” Paige pulled her cleaned coat out of the closet and stripped off the plastic bag. “My partner and I always suspected he’d stashed funds in numbered accounts in various locations. In and out of the country. If that’s the case, he will have made sure he can get that money easily and safely.”

“That’s going to make him a lot harder to find.”

“If he’s found at all. Right now he could be overseas while his pal performs the dirty work here.” Paige slid her laptop into its leather case. She didn’t want to think about the prospect of having to watch her back for all eternity.

“Ready to get out of here?” McCall asked after she shut the lid on her suitcase and set the locks.

“Yes.” She shrugged on her coat, then reached for her purse. A thought had her hesitating.

“Something wrong?”

“It just hit me. I didn’t ask why you showed up at my door. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“You’re under pressure to solve a homicide. You could have just called instead.”

“Could have.” Gripping the pillowcase holding the fruit bowl, he moved back across the suite. “Look, Carmichael, here’s the deal. I’ve got three younger sisters who are all OCPD cops. It would take a hell of a lot for any of them to admit they have a problem dealing on their own with whatever comes their way.”

Her chin angled, she said, “Maybe that’s because they can deal with it.”

“Female cops,” he muttered. “Even former ones work hard to act tough.”

“It’s no act, McCall. We are tough. And proving it is the only way to get macho male cops to take us seriously.”

“Trust me, Grace, Carrie and Morgan have delivered that message loud and clear.”

“Good for them.”

“Here’s a news flash from a brother’s perspective. If one of my sisters was out of town and had some escaped psycho killer after her, not to mention getting mugged, then almost checking out while having an allergic reaction, I’d hope to hell some local cop would care enough to lend her a hand.”

Paige stared at him while something warm raced through her blood. Every gesture he made brought the layers of the man beneath that pretty face and cocky grin a little closer to the surface. He wasn’t just a cop who cared about what happened on his turf, he was a man with a soft spot in his heart for his three sisters.

The realization seemed to have too much influence on her pulse. His dark eyes locked on hers. “You going to go all tough on me now, Carmichael? Tell me you’ve got a problem with me helping you out?”

“No, I appreciate everything you’ve done.” Easing out a breath, she slid the strap of her computer case over one shoulder. “Greatly.”

Before he could make a move for her suitcase, she hefted it off the bed and rolled it toward the door.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Just don’t be too nice, McCall. You do, you’ll mess up my image of you as a slimeball.”

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