Kiss in the Dark (6 page)

“You think she did it?” he asked as blandly as he could.

Zito shrugged. “Chances are.”

“Evidence?”

Zito reached for a cigarette. “Mostly circumstantial al this point, but the divorce makes a nice motive. She lost a lot when he walked out on her.”

“Money never mattered to her.” Just stability. Peace. Solitude. The kind of lifestyle Dylan could never offer.

“People change.”

Dylan eyed the half-empty pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t put one to his mouth in over a year, hadn’t craved the pungent bite in months. Until now. Sure people changed, but deep down, needs and desires stayed the same.

The daughter of a woman who thrived on grabbing the spotlight any way she could, who upgraded husbands and lovers more frequently than most people did cars, Bethany had always dreamed of a life straight out of a fifties sitcom. She wanted to be June Cleaver. She wanted to marry Ward.

Instead, she’d married Lance.

Dylan had always wondered what went down when Lance decided to enter public service, rather than the private sector he’d always promised he would serve. If she’d been angry, betrayed, she’d never let it show. While Lance’s star soared, she’d devoted herself to a nonprofit organization for underprivileged teenage girls.

The blade of sorrow caught him by surprise. Prince Lance was dead now. Gone forever. And Bethany was left standing in the spotlight, alone. With blood on her hands.

“It doesn’t add up,” he muttered. Despite the circumstantial evidence and apparent motivation, Dylan couldn’t see Bethany doing anything to draw attention to herself, much less place herself in the heart of a scandal.

“Not all crimes are premeditated,” Zito pointed out. “Passion can lead to murder as easily as a one-night stand. You don’t know what went down today. You don’t know what was going on between her and Lance. She might have just snapped.”

A hard sound broke from Dylan’s throat. “You don’t know Bethany.” She never snapped, never came unglued. Never. Except—

Don’t
go there,
he warned himself.
Don’t
even acknowledge there existed.

“I hate to spoil the party,” Loretta Myers said as she picked up their empties, “but some of us have homes to go to.”

Dylan glanced around the darkened bar and saw that only he and Zito remained. “Come on, Lori, cut us some slack.”

“Five minutes, saint. Five minutes.”

He winked, earning a glower before she strolled away.

“You can’t let that pretty face fool you, son.”

Dylan jerked his attention back to Zito, the cigarettes begging him from the table. Sometimes, restraint came at a high cost. “Come on, man, even I’m not that hard up.”

“Not Loretta. Bethany. I saw the way you were looking at her, the way she was looking at you.”

“And what way would that be?”

“I’m not a poet, son, but for a minute there I thought I was going to have a second crime to clean up.” Zito stood. “One of the hardest lessons a cop learns is to remain objective, no matter what. That’s what makes Bethany St. Croix so dangerous. I know it’s hard to look into those sexy blue eyes and see a murderer, not a woman you’d love to have underneath you, but facts don’t lie. And right now, the facts say she probably killed Lance. It’s my job to prove it.”

Everything inside Dylan hardened. He wanted to hit something. Someone. Hit hard. He wanted to turn his back on Bethany like she’d done him, but couldn’t. Not until he knew what really went down in that house.

“What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty?” he barked.

Zito’s gaze sharpened. “There you go again, defending her. Is there something going on I should know about?”

Dylan almost laughed. Almost. It was either that or slam his fist against the table. The good detective had no idea. None. And if Dylan was going to get to the bottom of this mess, he needed to put all that boiling emotion aside and keep it that way.

“Chill out,” he said, standing. “I’m not defending her, and I’m sure as hell not getting suckered by a pretty face and killer body.” Not again. “Just considering all possibilities.”

* * *

“The cops are going after a crime of passion angle.”

Passion.
The word made Beth cringe. “Lighting a wet match would be more likely,” she told Janine, looking out the window of her seventeenth-story hotel room. Early morning sun streamed through low clouds, the eerie backlighting making the vista look more like a dreamscape than a landscape.

Through the phone line, her friend sighed. “I know, but I also know how quickly things can spiral out of control. One moment is all it takes to change a lifetime.” She paused, seemed to hesitate. “Listen, Beth. If I’m going to help you, I need to be sure you’ve told me everything. About when you got home, when you came to, everything. I need to make sure there’s nothing the police can discover that you’ve held back.”

A chill cut through her. Too easily she could see the fire poker, feel its cold, deadly shape in her hands. “I didn’t kill him,” she said with absolute conviction.

“What about motive? Is there anything—
anything
—that could spark an argument? Lies? Betrayals?”

Deep inside, she started to bleed. “We didn’t argue.” Not even about the betrayals.

A few minutes later Beth hung up the phone. Fatigue pulled at her, but restless energy kept her from the bed. How could she slip between crisp sheets and close her eyes, when all she wanted was to wake up? Go back to before. Yes, she’d wanted Lance out of her life, but not like this. Dear God, not like this.

The numbness spread. She should feel something, she thought. She should feel something other than this icy chill whenever she thought about Lance. But the second she’d stepped from Dylan’s Bronco, the cold fog had returned, settling deep into her bones.

Sorrow squeezed her chest. Instinctively she clenched the lapel of the thick terrycloth robe tighter, as though in doing so she could hold the seams of her life together, as well. She had to find a way to stop the bleeding. To warm up. She couldn’t break down. She had to be strong.

Not just because of Lance, but because of Dylan.

She drew a hand to her mouth and tried to forget the feel of his lips on hers, the shock and the dizziness. His kiss hadn’t been hard like the words volleying between them, but unbearably soft. Seeking. Almost … desperate.

It was as though when he’d put his mouth to hers, he’d breathed life into her, a piece of himself. Just like before. The memory burned through her heart and her soul, and everywhere in between, searing and scorching. Tempting.

She couldn’t let him do that to her. Couldn’t let him overwhelm her through physical or sexual prowess. Couldn’t let him slip in and play her like a never-ending song. The coming days and weeks promised to be hard enough. She had no idea how she’d move past the horror of finding Lance dead, but knew Dylan St. Croix wasn’t the answer.

Turning, she headed for the bathroom, but saw the TV first.

“No stone will be left unturned,” Judge Sebastian St. Croix was vowing. The imposing patriarch’s face was pale, his brooding eyes red-rimmed, his white hair mussed. “No avenue unexplored. We will find my grandson’s murderer and exact swift justice.”

Beth froze.

“Have you talked to his wife?” Yvonne Kelley asked.

“That’s a family matter.”

The steely-eyed reporter didn’t back down. “Judge, a source tells me evidence at the scene suggests she might be involved. Is the family standing by her?”

His smile turned cutting. “The St. Croixs stand by justice, Evy, pure and simple. There’ll be an investigation—”

The sound of a loud knock overrode the rest of the judge’s rant. Beth swung toward the door, but didn’t move. No one knew she was here. She’d driven around for over an hour last night before losing the last of the journalists following her. She’d checked in under an assumed name. She’d paid in cash.

Another knock, this one more forceful. “Room service.”

Beth edged closer to the door, again tightening the sash of the bulky white robe provided by the hotel. All her clothes remained at the house that had never quite been a home, but was now a crime scene.

Through the peephole, she saw nothing, not even light, and her heart started to pound even harder.

“I didn’t order room service,” she said, keeping her eye to the opening.

“Damn it, Bethany, let me in.”

Her hands fell away from the door, as though the man outside had infused the cool wood with the power to burn her palms.

Dylan.

Her heart slowed and thrummed, then started to hammer. Swearing softly, she looked more closely. Clearly he hadn’t slept much, but not even fatigue interfered with Dylan St. Croix. It enhanced. He stood there in an olive button-down and black jeans, a knapsack over his shoulder, a silver tray on one of his hands. His dark hair was mussed, his deep-set eyes deceptively benign. Whiskers shadowed his jaw.

Deep inside, the icy wall started to fissure, and her pulse kicked up. Resentment came next, alarm, because therein lay the danger.

Despite everything she knew about the man—his penchant for muddying the waters and wreaking havoc—he possessed the disturbing ability to make the rest of the world fade away. When he walked into a room, everything else slipped to the background. Bethany could see only him. Feel only him.

She didn’t want that kind of intensity now, couldn’t trust something that spun out of control so easily. She didn’t want that kind of mindless, blinding blur ever, ever again. With absolute certainty, she knew if she let the man standing in the hall anywhere near the fractured glass door of her emotions, the shards would more than slice to the bone.

They would cut clear through to the core of who she was.

Months had passed, but somewhere deep inside, the little girl still lived, the one who’d stood barefoot in the cold
hallway, clutching a well-worn, much-loved stuffed rabbit
while her mother laughed at her father, telling him this
time she’d found a real man. An exciting man. A man who could satisfy her. Her father had fired back that some day she’d learn the difference between passion and love, he only hoped it wasn’t too late for them all.

Too late had come a long time ago.

“Now isn’t the time for games, Bethany. You took a nasty blow to your head yesterday. Don’t make me—”

She didn’t need to hear the rest of his threat. She knew.
Dylan St. Croix wouldn’t hesitate to use force to have his
way, including persuading the manager to use his passkey.

“I’m not hungry,” she announced, pulling open the door.

His smile said he didn’t care. “Sure you are.” Without waiting for a response, he invaded the room just like he invaded her dreams, striding in and setting the tray on a small table.

Beth closed the door, but didn’t move, just watched him. Tried to breathe. He moved with incredible grace for such a large, destructive man, pouring coffee into a small demitasse cup that made his hands look even bigger, adding just the right amount of milk and sugar.

She didn’t want to think about the fact he remembered.

He wanted something. That’s what she had to remember. Dylan St. Croix wouldn’t show up at her hotel room with a tray of breakfast unless he had an angle to play.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

He took a bite from a flaky croissant and chewed thoroughly before
answering. “I’m a private investigator.
I find what people hide.” His gaze met hers. “Even themselves.”

The words were soft, matter-of-fact, but they left her feeling as exposed as though the robe had fallen from her shoulders. “I wasn’t hiding.”

An odd light glinted in his eyes, undeniably hot, but unbearably cold. “It wouldn’t matter if you were.”

Chapter 4

«
^
»

B
ecause
he would find her.
He didn’t say the words, but Beth heard the warning loud and clear. Dylan St. Croix had earned a reputation for unearthing deeply buried secrets. Because of him, companies had been made to pay, people cry.

“Nothing has changed since last night, Dylan. I walked away for a reason.”

“Nothing has changed for far longer than just last night,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand by and watch you suffer.”

The fierce words curled through her like a warm mist,
giving birth to a temptation she knew better than indulging. Yes, fire burned. But first, it warmed.

And she so very desperately wanted to be warm.

“Why not?” she asked. “You’re a St. Croix. The fam
ily prince is dead and the cops can’t wait to sink their teeth into me. You’re the last person I should turn to.”

“But I’m also the only one here.” The words were soft, devastating. He gestured toward the plate of scrambled eggs and thick strips of bacon. “Quit looking for hidden agendas and nasty motives. Just eat. Please.”

Her stomach roiled. “Eating’s not a good idea right now,” she said, drawing a hand to her mouth. Just the sight of all that rich food, the warring scents, almost did her in.

Dylan looked at her like she’d suddenly turned ten shades of green. “Are you okay?” In three long strides he was by her side. “Is it your head? Do you need a doctor?”

She drew a hand to her stomach, but the fight drained out of her. She was tired of pretending, of fighting. Because no, she wasn’t okay. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Lance on the living room floor. And every time she opened them, she saw her bloodstained fingers curled around the fire poker.

“I’ve always been able to pull myself out of a nightmare before the knife touched my throat or the water got too deep, but this time…” She hesitated. “I can’t make this one end.”

Dylan lifted a hand to her face and smoothed the hair behind her ear. “Because you never even went to sleep, did you?”

His touch, the gentle question, sent the room spinning. She reached toward the wall, hoping Dylan wouldn’t notice. The vertigo was getting worse. She’d been battling it all morning, a strange, disconnected feeling, like she’d been yanked from her life and could only watch it happen.

“It shows?” she asked, and immediately regretted.

His gaze dipped from her face down her chest, where her robe gaped. He lingered a moment, then continued his perusal to the sash at her waist, on down to where terry cloth gave way to calves and bare feet.

Unwanted sensation whispered through her, as though Dylan skimmed a feather along her flesh, and not just his gaze. For a moment there, a dangerous, insane moment, she forgot what she had seen in the mirror a little over an hour before—the dull tangled hair, the pale skin and dark
rings under her eyes, the chapped lips.
The faded, jagged line along her hairline.
For a moment, the look on Dylan’s face made her feel beautiful. Desirable.

It had been a long time.

“Most people wouldn’t notice,” he said.

An emotion she didn’t understand jammed into her throat. “What?”

“You asked if your sleeplessness showed—I said most people wouldn’t notice.”

But he did.

“You look beautiful even when you’re ready to drop,” he added, tracing a finger down her face, dangerously close to the scar that served as a reminder of that long-ago night.

This time Bethany did back away. Turned away, too. She didn’t need to hear words like that. Didn’t want to. Not from him. Not now. With anger and sarcasm the man was dangerous.

With tenderness, he destroyed.

“A good investigator draws conclusions from multiple sources,” he continued, and she could tell he was moving from her. “And even if I couldn’t see through you, I’d still know.”

She turned to find him by the king-size bed.

“It hasn’t been slept in,” he said, running a hand over the pillow. “You haven’t even laid down.”

Hadn’t sat either. She’d stood at the window for a long, long time, before taking a shower until the water ran cold. Then she’d returned to the window.

“Sleeping didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Maybe not appropriate, but necessary.” Dylan eased back the thick down comforter. “If you’re not going to eat, you at least need to sleep. You need your strength.”

Who was this man? she wondered in some faraway corner of her mind. No way was she walking across the room and joining him anywhere near that big bed. Just seeing him running his hand along the crisp white sheets was bad enough. “I don’t need you to tuck me in, Dylan.”

“Who said anything about tucking you in?”

Beth closed her eyes and counted to ten. She’d been right before. The past twenty-four hours had left her defenses in tatters. And being in the same room as Dylan St. Croix without defenses was like going to the equator without sunblock.

“You should go,” she told him, reaching for the numbness that always dissolved around him. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.” Had to, even if the way the room swayed made her wonder if stepping into Dylan’s arms would make it stop. “I have a lot of calls to make.”

He frowned. “I’ve already taken care of it.”

“Taken care of what?” she asked more sharply than she intended.

“The funeral.”

The two words brought every horrific second of the past sixteen hours barreling back. The darkened house and the blow to her head, waking up on the floor, the blood on her hands. The accusations. The brutal finality of it all. A funeral. Of course there had to be a funeral. But…

“You shouldn’t have done that, Dylan. Lance was
my…” Husband.
The word lodged in her throat. No, he wasn’t her husband. Somehow, after six years, it was still hard to remember. Old habits, she figured.

Before she could blink, Dylan was across the room and taking her shoulders in his hands. “He wasn’t your husband anymore, Bethany.”

She lifted her chin. “Don’t call me Bethany.”

“Would you rather I call you
sweetheart?”
he asked softly.

Memories tumbled forward, dusty and threadbare, completely unwanted. “I go by Beth.”

“You pretend to be Beth,” he countered. “You want to be Beth. Beth is nice and safe. Beth fits in. But deep inside, the passionate woman named Bethany still lives.” He slid a hand to the back of her head, gently skimming the gash.

“You and I both know that, just like we know your marriage had been over a lot longer than you’re admitting.”

A fact the cops wanted to use against her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice “When was the last time you and Lance made love? Do you even remember?”

She stiffened. “You have no right—”

“Since when has that stopped me?”

Words of denial formed, but emotion clogged her throat. Dylan was right. She’d called Lance husband for six years but they’d quit living as man and wife long before he’d walked out. She didn’t know the last time they’d shared breakfast, a joke, a bed.

“What happened, Bethany? Tell me.”

The sharp stab of longing was ridiculous, that she could accept his concern at face value. But she also knew silence opened the door for him to form his own conclusions, conclusions more dangerous than the truth.

“Nothing happened,” she said woodenly. “That’s just it. Lance and I worked long hours, and after a while, being alone seemed normal. It wasn’t until he moved out that I realized what a farce our marriage had become.”

“Is that why you never became parents?”

She pulled from him and put distance between them, drew a few deep breaths, tried to ignore the subtle aroma of clove and sandalwood that was all Dylan.

“I wanted children,” she said, and felt the ache in her heart. “Right up to the end. Call me a fool, but I always thought children would fill the gap somehow. Give us something to love.”

Dylan frowned, but his eyes gentled. “Because you didn’t love Lance.”

The truth lay at her feet, but acknowledging it seemed wrong. Because she
had
loved Lance. Once. A long time ago. But it had been a different kind of love, one a man like Dylan would never understand.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” he asked.

She looked at him standing there and cursed the way her pulse thrummed low and deep. Too well, she remembered the last time she opened herself to this man, the fallout. It wasn’t his fault, she knew. He was who he was. But he wasn’t the kind of man she could let into her life. A few kind gestures could no more erase the hard words from last night, than they could overshadow the fundamental differences that stood between them. She wanted simple. He thrived on chaos.

And no matter how exciting that kind of mind-numbing passion could be, Beth had learned it was dangerous. Passion led to pain. It wasn’t sustaining. It always, always burned out.

“Last night you asked if I killed your cousin,” she reminded. “How
can
I trust you?”

“Damn it, Bethany.” His gaze seared into hers for a punishing heartbeat. Earlier, the low light in his eyes had made her feel beautiful. This time, his scrutiny ran over her like a black crayon obscuring something that didn’t quite measure up.

“You
see only what you want to see, don’t you? Just like before.”

An immediate defense vaulted through her, but she bit the words back. She didn’t need to defend herself to Dylan St. Croix. Instead, she stood silently and watched him stoop down and violently snag the knapsack he’d carried into the room.

“I don’t know why I even bothered,” he muttered, handing her the large satchel as he strode to the door.

The sudden jolt of panic made no sense. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn she’d hurt him.

Quickly, she looked at the bag—it didn’t weigh much, and when she squeezed, she found the contents soft. “What’s this?”

He jerked open the door before turning back to her. Those dark green eyes of his blazed with an emotion she couldn’t even begin to name. “Open it.”

Curiosity nudged against caution. She couldn’t imagine what he would give her, knew that sooner or later a Dylan bomb had to detonate. One always did.

“It’s not a bomb, Bethany.”

She winced, wondering for a second there if she’d spoken aloud. But of course she hadn’t. That was just Dylan.

Beth didn’t consider herself a brave woman—she rolled her eyes at movies where a scantily clad, defenseless woman investigated a noise late at night. But she wasn’t a coward, either. Instinct may have warned not to open the bag, but determination demanded she not give Dylan any indication that he could rattle her. Whatever he had squished up inside, she could handle.

Or so she thought.

She unfastened the two buckles and pulled back the flap just stared. “Clothes?” she asked, looking up at him. “You brought me clothes?”

He leaned against the door frame, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his arms across his chest. A slow heat lit his gaze as it dipped down over her body. “Bastard that I am, I didn’t think you’d want to wear a robe to the funeral.”

Everything inside her went very still. She felt as though she’d just been given a pop quiz, and not only did she not understand the subject, she couldn’t even make out the language.

“What’s the matter?” His voice was lower now, thicker. “Scared to look?”

Terrified. What a man bought for a woman said a lot about how he thought about her. How he felt.

“Do you really think I’m capable of murder?”

“You’re capable of anything you put your mind to.”

She didn’t want to look inside that bag. She didn’t want to know what Dylan really thought about her. Too easily she could see him in some trendy store, running his hands over short skirts and sheer blouses, leopard prints and crotchless underwear.

But she wasn’t a coward. Fire with fire, she reminded herself, then scooped a hand down into the knapsack.

* * *

For the second time in twelve hours, Dylan saw Bethany’s eyes go wide and dark, her mouth tumble open. He heard the sharp intake of breath. Her hand came out of the bag slowly, carrying with it the items he’d picked up on his way over.

He wanted to feel anger. He wanted to resent her for the heartlessness she so clearly expected of him. He’d seen the wariness in her every move, her every look, knew she expected him to supply her with the kind of sleazy clothes a woman like Bethany would never wear.

She didn’t need clothes to send a man to his knees.

Hell, even exhausted and frightened, she took his breath away. The sight of her when she’d opened the door in that bulky white robe had almost wiped out everything he’d told himself on the way over. To just play it cool. To stick to the facts, the matter at hand. See if he could detect any hint of a vital secret she might be keeping. Tell her he’d already planned the funeral, then leave. Breakfast was a mere necessity—he couldn’t have her passing out while they stood graveside. And the clothes, well, she had to wear something.