Dangerously Attractive

Dangerously Attractive
Jenna Ryan

A serial killer is targeting Detective Vanessa Connor's oldest friends, and evidence–the sicko left his calling card in her home–shows she's the next victim.But Vanessa refuses to run scared. She's a cop. And she's determined to make full use of her years on the force to trap the murderer herself. So when a federal agent is assigned to protect her and catch the perp, Vanessa isn't exactly cooperative.She doesn't need a bodyguard–particularly one as dangerously attractive, dangerously seductive as Rick Maguire. His powerful arms make Vanessa feel safer than she wants to admit. Especially when the killer gets close enough to cross them both off his list.

“You realize you’re pushing the boundaries, don’t you, Maguire?” Vanessa asked.

“Duty-wise as well as in other ways.”

“Story of my life, Detective Connor.” His lips were an inch from hers when he spoke.

Damn, she thought as little zips of lightning began to shoot through her system. She actually wanted him to bridge that last bit of space and kiss her. On the other hand…“Gonna drive me crazy,” she predicted and, tangling her fingers in his hair, dragged his mouth onto hers.

Jenna Ryan

Dangerously Attractive

To Shelley most of all. Loved. Missed. Remembered.

To James McCowan, my healer.

To Bailey, for the joy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Ryan loves creating dark-haired heroes, heroines with strength and good murder mysteries. Ever since she was young, she has had an extremely active imagination. She considered various careers over the years and dabbled in several of them, until the day her sister Kathy suggested she put her imagination to work and write a book. She enjoys working with intriguing characters and feels she is at her best writing romantic suspense. When people ask her how she writes, she tells them by instinct. Clearly it’s worked, since she’s received numerous awards from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. She lives in Canada and travels as much as she can when she’s not writing.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Vanessa Connor—A San Francisco homicide detective who attended Berkeley College. She’s marked for death.

Rick Maguire—An FBI agent assigned to track down a serial killer while he protects Vanessa.

Bobby Valley—He owns a day spa in Haight-Ashbury, and he knows all the Berkeley victims.

Orrin O’Malley—An aspiring politician, he had many secrets at Berkeley.

Geri Kruger—A friend now, she was jealous of Vanessa and her friends at college.

Willis Reed—Former Berkeley professor, now presumed dead. But is he?

Edna Reed—Does the professor’s wife know more than she’s letting on?

Senator Graham—His niece was an embarrassment to him. Now she’s dead.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Prologue

Wisps of black fog drifted in and out of Vanessa Connor’s head. They obscured the face of a man she desperately wanted to see. She called his name, but that only added knife blades to the darkness. The shiny tips jabbed gleefully at the edges of her brain.

It was like a dream, but not really. Someone had hit her, caught her hard with the butt end of a gun. As the darkness began to crack, vague memories slithered in to hiss at her.

The walls around her groaned. She heard a bird croaking overhead. “Beware,” it warned again and again.

With an enormous effort, Vanessa clawed her way through one of the cracks and forced her eyes open. Think, she ordered herself. Breathe. Focus.

Because the literal darkness hadn’t altered, the only thing she could focus on was a tattered spiderweb in the corner of a high, rectangular window. The air smelled damp, vaguely musty. The bird’s voice floated downward again.

“Don’t talk to strangers!”

Having succeeded in raising her head, Vanessa let it fall back. She stared at the unfinished ceiling. Cobwebs dangled like broken threads. Her mind became a whirlpool, sucking in thoughts and tossing them back out at random.

She pictured the man again. Was he calling her name? Probably. Would he find her here in this dank northern California cellar? Unlikely.

On a more chilling note, she recalled four dead women, college friends once who’d turned into strangers with the passing years.

She visualized their killer. Her killer unless she could find a way out of here. But the ropes around her wrists were cinched tight, and the ones binding her ankles weren’t much looser.