A black brow rose. “He?”
“Or she.”
“Do you still have it?”
She fished the torn page piece by piece out of her pocket, holding them out while seeing herself as she’d been less than an hour ago, hissing through her teeth and tearing the page like a mad person. “Son of a bitch! You . . .” She had ripped the paper into shreds just as the bastard had her family’s precious pictures downstairs, gritting her teeth until she thought they’d crack. “I won’t stay quiet, I won’t . . . forget forever, I won’t give you the satisfaction!”
She’d destroyed evidence! God, how sick was that!
“You tore it,” he said.
She thought she’d burst from the embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to say. “I shouldn’t have done that. It just made me so angry.”
A restless muscle jumped in the back of his jaw as he fixed his attention on the small pieces she’d handed him.
She could see him sorting them out in his mind. The image was branded in hers. Mocking. Twisted. Infuriating and . . . frightening.
In the yearbook photo, she’d been a smiling, glimmery-eyed senior. Her pet peeve? Natural disasters. And there, under “goals,” where the true goals of an innocent eighteen-year-old—“world peace and no hunger”— had been scratched off, bright red words replaced them.
MEET DADDY IN HELL.
SOON, MY DEAR.
“I didn’t mean to destroy it,” she said meekly.
He looked up and, somehow, into her.
“I understand,” he said quietly.
He understood.
While Paige could not understand the balm his voice spread inside her, the medicine his simple words provided; he understood. He stood close enough to touch, and as she stared into those solid, riveting eyes, he could’ve been holding her, the moment felt so profoundly intimate.
She was the first to break eye contact, unsettled to her core. Who was this man? The detective cleared his throat and within minutes he’d called up one of his team— the stocky blond who’d earlier introduced himself as Detective Nordstrom— who efficiently bagged both the torn page and her yearbook. Then Paige was once again alone with him.
Stalker. She did not even want to know the reason he was called “Stalker.”
His relentless green eyes skimmed the walls of her room, studied the window overlooking the street, covered the length of the plush bone-colored carpet, and Paige found herself examining the tall, lithe man while he assessed her room. She could not remember ever stroking a man’s hair. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to feel someone’s breath, or skin, or . . . God, his hands. As he tugged off the latex gloves, the sight of his large bronzed hands and the long, skillful fingers made her womb clench.
“Do you have someone to stay with tonight?” he asked.
Paige hesitated.
How sad to admit she had no one to call. Then she reasoned that whether or not she should find a room in a nearby hotel wasn’t this officer’s problem. She would clean up the mess downstairs, let the Realtor earn her commission and sell the house, book her return flight to Seattle for perhaps sooner than later, and all would be perfect. All would be perfect.
“I’m okay,” she assured, smiling with a confidence she didn’t feel.
She must have convinced him, though, for he just nodded.
On his way out, he set a business card down on the vanity. “I’ll keep you apprised of anything we find.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
When he left, Paige stared at the empty doorway for the longest time, then crossed the room to lift his card.
Zachary Rivers.
ZACH SLID INTO the front seat of the SUV and shut the door. Okay. Breathe, motherfucker, breathe!