Killing Me Softly

He released her hand as they walked, and hers felt cold without it, despite the warmth of the evening.

“Why am I…at risk, Bryan?” she asked.

He sighed, coming to a stop. They’d followed a walk-way that wound through a garden that hadn’t been there when she’d left. It took up the entire side lawn, and was dotted with statues and benches. The air was almost thick with perfume, and even though it was already dark, there were still bees bumbling from blossom to fragrant blossom.

Bryan sank onto a bench, and she sat down beside him. “Dawn,” he said, “Bette looked…similar to you.”

“She did?” She tipped her head to one side, and for some reason her mind went in the opposite direction from murders and death and serial killers. It went straight to him—to them. “You were dating someone who looked like me? What’s that mean, Bryan? Are you saying you never—”

“It wasn’t like that with Bette and me. We were friends.”

Dawn lifted her brows. “Some friends.”

“I’m not telling you this to make you think I still—Dawn, that’s not what this is about. You’re blonde, slender, taller than average. You have blue eyes, and you’re between nineteen and twenty-five.”

“That’s an odd way to put it. You know perfectly well I’m twenty-four.”

“Bette was twenty-three.”

She nodded. “So we were close in age. And we looked kind of alike. But it was just coincidence that you were dating her, right? It had nothing to do with her resemblance to me.”

“Right.”

“So why bring it up, then?”

“Because…that description—the age range, the body type, the long straight hair, light brown to blond—it also fits all the original victims of the Nightcap Strangler.”

An ice-cold finger slid down Dawn’s spine, and she sucked in a breath, suddenly very clear as to what he was getting at.

“All of them? And how many would that be, Bryan?”

“Seventeen original victims that we know of. Eighteen, if you add Bette. The thing is, whether this is a copycat or Nick arrested the wrong guy, you won’t be safe in Shadow Falls. And Nick’s right, you might not even be safe here in Blackberry, Dawn.”

She nodded three times, slowly, firmly, while her mind raced. But even before her brain reached a practical conclusion, her lips were moving. Her emotions were doing the talking tonight, it seemed.

“I’m not leaving,” she told him.

“Dawn, look, I can’t let you risk your life—”

“It sounded like you don’t think this guy will kill again.”

“Nick thinks he will. And believe me, Dawn, Nick knows this case a whole lot better than I do.”

“I can take precautions,” she said quickly. “I can color my hair. Slouch when I walk so I look shorter. Get some tinted contacts.”

Bryan sighed, shaking his head and, she sensed, constructing logical arguments in his mind. But then she closed her hand around his, and he went very still. She’d been hoping her touch still had the same effect on him as his did on her. And it seemed that maybe it did.

“I’m not leaving you, Bryan.”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment. She tried not to start arguing with herself as to whether what she was feeling for him now was friendship or something more. It wasn’t the same emotion she’d felt for him before. She’d been a girl then. Barely out of school.

What she felt now was different, and it was too soon to know exactly how. Besides, figuring that out wasn’t the most important thing right now. What was important now was getting through this. “I mean it,” she said, feeling the need to drive the point home. “I won’t leave you.”

“Sure you will,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

She frowned, because that had sounded bitter, and as if it had nothing to do with the subject at hand. But before she had a chance to defend herself, she heard the distinct sound of carefully placed footsteps on the path behind them. She swung her head around startled.

Bryan surged to his feet and stepped in front of her so fast that it shocked her. She sat there staring up at the back of his T-shirt, noticing how his wide shoulders offset his narrow hips. God, he was built. This was not the lean, lanky nineteen-year-old she’d left behind. His arms were cut, probably all flexed out like that because of the way he was clenching his fists at his sides, as if ready to take on all comers in her defense. It made her belly clench up and her heart beat faster.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“Who the hell is there?” Bryan demanded.

“Hey, Kendall, is that you?” The steps came closer.

“Rico?” Bryan’s fists unclenched, and she heard his breath flowing out all at once, like a mini-windstorm. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he said, “It’s okay. It’s my partner, Rico Chavez. We call him Rico Suave—he’s pretty smooth with the women.”

By the time he finished his explanation, Rico was coming toward them along the garden path. He was a relatively short bronze-skinned hunk with black curly hair cut close to his head, and when he saw Dawn, he hesitated. “Sorry, man. I hope I’m not—”

“It’s fine,” Bryan said. “Rico, this is Dawn Jones.”

“Oh.” Rico’s thick brows went up as he stared at her a little too intently. And then he asked, “The Dawn?” And Bryan groaned and nodded.

Rico came closer, better to check her out. He smiled, a bright white smile in that copper-skinned face, and offered her a hand, then sent a not-so-subtle nod of approval Bryan’s way.

So apparently Bryan had told his partner about her. That warmed her way more than it probably ought to.

“Don’t you believe anything they say about my man, here,” Rico said. Then he looked at Bryan, and his smile turned serious. “I got your back, Bry. I hope you know it. No question. I don’t doubt you.”

Bryan nodded. “Thanks, Rico. That means a lot to me.”

“I think they’re close to, uh…” He shifted his eyes to Dawn and then back to Bryan again.

“Arresting me?”

Dawn felt her blood run cold, not even believing the words had crossed Bryan’s lips. “No,” she whispered. “No, that can’t be.”

“Sorry, man,” Rico said. “I don’t think it’ll be tonight. Maybe tomorrow, though. She’s got your skin under her nails, your hairs on her pillow—” He bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“That’s bullshit,” Dawn blurted. “He was sleeping with her. Naturally his DNA would be all over her.”

Then she pressed a hand to her suddenly queasy stomach and turned her back on both of them. She realized she wasn’t just sick at the thought of Bryan going to jail, but at the thought of him making love to another woman. God, why would it hit her this powerfully? And why right now? Had she really thought he’d been celibate all this time, just because she had?

“There’s no sign of anyone else, man. Not in the bed or on the body,” Rico explained.

“Why is that so strange?” Dawn demanded. They both looked at her, questioningly, so she went on. “You didn’t say anything about the Nightcap Strangler raping his victims.”

“You’re right,” Bryan told her. “He didn’t rape any of them.”