A Kiss In The Dark

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.