Jack shrugged. “It fills my spare time.”

Cameron would have loved to own such a collection of books—one of her plans for her house was to convert part of the third floor into a library. Not that she got a chance to read as much as she would’ve liked; a lot of her free time was sucked up by Collin and Amy. Which made her wonder whether Jack had a Collin or Amy in his life. Or anyone, for that matter. He seemed awfully . . . solitary.

He pointed upstairs. “I’m going to grab my things. Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

As soon as he went upstairs, Cameron checked out the living room more thoroughly, looking for anything that would give her some insight into the mystery that was Jack Pallas. He had an impressive flat-screen television on the wall opposite the sable couch—of course he had a big TV; he may have been a mystery but he was still a guy—and from what she could tell from the books underneath the coffee table, he had an interest in black-and-white photography.

A couple of picture frames on the end table next to the couch caught her eye. Curious, Cameron headed over. One of the photos had been taken several years ago—Jack and three other guys at their graduation from West Point, all formally dressed in their uniforms of gray coats, gloves, white pants, and caps.

Cameron picked up the frame. In the photo, Jack wore a cocky, wide grin and had his arms slung over the shoulders of the guys next to him. It was his smile that struck her—so brash and open. Seemingly so different from the man she knew now.

She turned to the next picture frame. It held a black-and-white photograph of a woman in her late twenties who laughed as she pushed a little boy on a swing. The woman had dark eyes and straight, chin-length hair pulled back with a headband. She bore a striking resemblance to Jack.

“My sister and nephew,” came his voice from behind her.

Cameron started and turned around. He stood before her with a duffel bag on the floor near his feet. No clue how long he’d been there.

She tried not to reveal how curious she was as she set the picture frame back down. “Do you see your sister and nephew a lot?”

“Not that much when I was in Nebraska. But hopefully more now.” He swung the large duffel bag over his shoulder with one hand. “Ready?”

Cameron couldn’t help herself as her eyes drifted over him, remembering the night at Manor House. The strong shoulders and arms that had braced her against the door, the lean hips and muscled thighs that had pressed heatedly against hers, the firm chest and stomach that she’d just begun to explore with her hands. And the intense look of desire in his eyes.

Now he’d be sleeping in the bedroom next to her.

Perhaps she’d be better off taking her chances with the murderer.


WHEN THEY GOT back to Cameron’s house, Jack’s first order of business was to make sure that the doors had been repaired per his orders—first the front lock, and then the French doors off the master bedroom balcony. As he’d instructed, the agency had sent over a maintenance crew to board the door and clean up the glass.

Cameron eyed their handiwork skeptically. “It definitely adds that certain ‘vandalized’ quality I was going for with my renovation.”

“It’s safe. We can worry about style later,” Jack said.

The second thing he did was conduct a thorough check of the premises, with Cameron by his side until he was sure they were clear. This was no quick feat, given the size of the house.

“Did you used to be married?” he asked as he opened the closet in one of the guest bedrooms.

“No,” she said, seeming surprised by the question.

Rules out the rich ex-husband idea, Jack thought.

Another mystery he would soon get to the bottom of.

Third on his list was to get settled in. He took the room closest to Cameron’s—which luckily, unlike the other guest bedrooms, actually had furniture—and unpacked his bag. He shrugged out of his blazer and hung it in the closet. He put his spare gun on the nightstand, then opened one of the drawers of the dresser in the corner.

He discovered a man’s sweatshirt inside.

Jack slammed the drawer shut and chose another.

He moved next onto the fourth item on the evening’s agenda: taking care of Cameron.

She was doing a pretty good job with the tough criminal prosecutor routine, pretending to be fine with everything that had happened that afternoon. But he had seen the exhaustion that had set into her eyes in the car ride to her house, had heard the nervousness that belied the sarcasm in her voice as she’d commented on the boarded-up French doors, and had noticed the way she’d momentarily hesitated when she’d followed him up the stairs that led to the second floor, undoubtedly thinking back to the masked intruder’s earlier attack.

He guessed she hadn’t eaten in hours. That seemed as good a place as any to start. Pausing at her bedroom door to make sure everything sounded okay, Jack headed downstairs into the kitchen. He found her junk drawer and a well-worn menu from a Chinese restaurant a couple blocks away and figured that was a safe bet. He had no idea what she’d want to eat, so he ordered a bunch of things—screw it, he’d charge it to the Bureau. Besides, this way they’d have leftovers. From the looks of her refrigerator and freezer, she was an even worse cook than he was. Thank God for delivery, because a six-foot-two-inch man couldn’t last more than an hour on those skimpy frozen meals. He’d been stranded in a jungle in Colombia for five nights with four other guys on his Special Forces team and still had seen larger rations than those things.

Next, he checked out the liquor cabinet in her dining room. From the looks of it, she liked wine and she liked it red, so he went with the safe bet and chose a cabernet. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, he knew she would need some help falling asleep that night. While listening to the sound of water running upstairs, he made his way around the kitchen and poured her a glass of wine. The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and, after a brief moment of confusion when Jack frisked the delivery guy, asked him for his I.D., and called the restaurant to confirm his status, they were set to go.

Jack set the bags of food on the counter, grabbed the wineglass, and headed upstairs. Cameron had left her bedroom door partially open, as he’d asked her to. He knocked.

“Come in,” she said in quiet voice.

Jack pushed the door the rest of the way open. He found her standing in front of her closet and walked over. “I thought you might want a glass of wine to help you . . .” He trailed off as she turned around, stunned by what he saw.

There were tears in her eyes.

Of course, he realized. The closet where the killer had been hiding, waiting for her.

He set the wineglass on the floor and went to her. “Cameron . . . everything’s okay now. You know that, right?”

She blinked, and a tear ran down her cheek.

It killed him.

Jack wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He whispered in her ear. “He’s not getting near you again, baby, I promise. No one’s laying a finger on you ever again.”

She turned her cheek against his chest and peeked inside the closet. He could’ve sworn he heard a sniffle.

“It’s such a beautiful dress,” she finally said.

Jack took a look. A long, silky, deep-pink dress hung front-out in the closet. No clue why she was crying over it, but he figured it was best to simply nod and be supportive under the circumstances. Maybe the killer had wrinkled it or something.

“It’s a very nice dress,” he agreed.

Cameron pointed at a pair of silver high-heeled shoes on the closet floor. She’d positioned them directly underneath the dress, as if an invisible woman was wearing them. “And the shoes . . .” She peered up at him, all weepy-eyed. “They would’ve gone so perfectly with it, don’t you think?”

Yeah . . . maybe he should just skip past dinner and put her straight to bed instead. Somebody was clearly a bit out of sorts.

He cleared his throat. Frankly, this was the kind of thing Wilkins was better at. “And now. . . you don’t want to wear the shoes again because . . . the killer might have touched them?” Hell, he was a guy, what did he know? Maybe shoes were as sacrosanct as purses and bachelorette parties.

Cameron pulled back and gave him the strangest look. “What? Oh, come on, give me a little credit, Jack. It’s a bridesmaid’s dress. I’m upset because I was supposed to wear it to my friend Amy’s wedding. It’s this weekend, in Michigan. With all the chaos today, I completely forgot about it.” She sighed. “You’re going to tell me I can’t go, aren’t you?”

Jack thought this over. “Where in Michigan?”

“At a hotel in Traverse City. Amy used to vacation there with her family when she was a kid. She’s planned this wedding for years—it means a lot to her.” Cameron forced a smile. “Looks like Collin’s going to have to step in as maid of honor after all. He’s going to be so pissed.”

Jack saw right through the smile. It was impossible not to notice how close she was with her friends.

Traverse City was a good couple hundred miles from their Detroit office, but he could probably get Davis to call in a few favors. Everybody owed Davis favors.

“I can get you to the wedding,” he said.

“Really? You think it will be safe?”

“Assuming we can send a few agents over from the Detroit office as backup, yes. Actually, this works out well. This is a big house—a lot of space to be watching over you. I planned to have a security system installed—silent alarm, motion detectors, the works. Now one of our tech teams can put that in over the weekend, and when you and I get back from the wedding we’ll be good to go.”