Second Nature: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

Lee glanced up at Bryan Mitchell, one of the top photographers on the West Coast. Grateful, she accepted the cup of coffee Bryan passed her. In the past four days, she’d had a total of twenty hours sleep. “Good,” she said simply.

“I’ve seen better art scrawled in alleys.”

Though she privately agreed, Lee only shrugged. “Some people like the clunky and obscure.”

With a laugh, Bryan shook her head. “When they told me to photograph that red and black tangle of wire to its best advantage, I nearly asked them to shut off the lights.”

“You made it look almost mystical.”

“I can make a junkyard look mystical with the right lighting.” She shot Lee a grin. “The same way you can make it sound fascinating.”

A smile touched Lee’s mouth but her mind was veering off in a dozen other directions. “All in a day’s work, right?”

“Speaking of which—” Bryan rested one slim jean-clad hip on Lee’s organized desk, drinking her own coffee black. “Still trying to dig something up on Hunter Brown?”

A frown drew Lee’s elegant brows together. Hunter Brown was becoming her personal quest and almost an obsession. Perhaps because he was so completely inaccessible, she’d become determined to be the first to break through the cloud of mystery. It had taken her nearly five years to earn her title as staff reporter, and she had a reputation for being tenacious, thorough and cool. Lee knew she’d earned those adjectives. Three months of hitting blank walls in researching Hunter Brown didn’t deter her. One way or the other, she was going to get the story.

“So far I haven’t gotten beyond his agent’s name and his editor’s phone number.” There might’ve been a hint of frustration in her tone, but her expression was determined. “I’ve never known people so closemouthed.”

“His latest book hit the stands last week.” Absently, Bryan picked up the top sheet from one of the tidy piles of papers Lee was systematically dealing with. “Have you read it?”

“I picked it up, but I haven’t had a chance to start it yet.”

Bryan tossed back the long honey-colored braid that fell over her shoulder. “Don’t start it on a dark night.” She sipped at her coffee, then gave a laugh. “God, I ended up sleeping with every light in the apartment burning. I don’t know how he does it.”

Lee glanced up again, her eyes calm and confident. “That’s one of the things I’m going to find out.”

Bryan nodded. She’d known Lee for three years, and she didn’t doubt Lee would. “Why?” Her frank, almond-shaped eyes rested on Lee’s.

“Because—” Lee finished off her coffee and tossed the empty cup into her overflowing wastebasket “—no one else has.”

“The Mount Everest syndrome,” Bryan commented, and earned a rare, spontaneous grin.

A quick glance would have shown two attractive women in casual conversation in a modern, attractively decorated office. A closer look would have uncovered the contrasts. Bryan, in jeans and a snug T-shirt, was completely relaxed. Everything about her was casual and not quite tidy, from her smudged sneakers to the loose braid. Her sharp-featured, arresting face was touched only with a hasty dab of mascara. She’d probably meant to add lipstick or blusher and then forgotten.

Lee, on the other hand, wore a very elegant ice-blue suit, and the nerves that gave her her drive were evident in the hands that were never quite still. Her hair was expertly cut in a short swinging style that took very little care—which was every bit as important to her as having it look good. Its shade fell somewhere between copper and gold. Her skin was the delicate, milky white some redheads bless and others curse. Her makeup had been meticulously applied that morning, down to the dusky blue shadow that matched her eyes. She had delicate, elegant features offset by a full and obviously stubborn mouth.

The two women had entirely different styles and entirely different tastes but oddly enough, their friendship had begun the moment they’d met. Though Bryan didn’t always like Lee’s aggressive tactics and Lee didn’t always approve of Bryan’s laid-back approach, their closeness hadn’t wavered in three years.

“So.” Bryan found the candy bar she’d stuck in her jeans pocket and proceeded to unwrap it. “What’s your master plan?”

“To keep digging,” Lee returned almost grimly. “I do have a couple of connections at Horizon, his publishing house. Maybe one of them’ll come through with something.” Without being fully aware of it, she drummed her fingers on the desk. “Damn it, Bryan, he’s like the man who wasn’t there. I can’t even find out what state he lives in.”

“I’m half inclined to believe some of the rumors,” Bryan said thoughtfully. Outside Lee’s office someone was having hysterics over the final editing of an article. “I’d say the guy lives in a cave somewhere, full of bats with a couple of stray wolves thrown in. He probably writes the original manuscript in sheep’s blood.”

“And sacrifices virgins every new moon.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Bryan swung her feet lazily while she munched on her chocolate bar. “I tell you the man’s weird.”

“Silent Scream’s already on the bestseller list.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t brilliant,” Bryan countered, “I said he was weird. What kind of a mind does he have?” She shook her head with a half-sheepish smile. “I can tell you I wished I’d never heard of Hunter Brown last night while I was trying to sleep with my eyes open.”

“That’s just it.” Impatient, Lee rose and paced to the tiny window on the east wall. She wasn’t looking out; the view of Los Angeles didn’t interest her. She just had to move around. “What kind of mind does he have? What kind of life does he live? Is he married? Is he sixty-five or twenty-five? Why does he write novels about the supernatural?” She turned, her impatience and her annoyance showing beneath the surface of the sophisticated grooming. “Why did you read his book?”

“Because it was fascinating,” Bryan answered immediately. “Because by the time I was on page 3, I was so into it you couldn’t have gotten the book away from me with a crowbar.”

“And you’re an intelligent woman.”

“Damn right,” Bryan agreed and grinned. “So?”

“Why do intelligent people buy and read something that’s going to terrify them?” Lee demanded. “When you pick up a Hunter Brown, you know what it’s going to do to you, yet his books consistently spring to the top of the bestseller list and stay there. Why does an obviously intelligent man write books like that?” She began, in a habit Bryan recognized, to fiddle with whatever was at hand—the leaves of a philodendron, the stub of a pencil, the left earring she’d removed during a phone conversation.

“Do I hear a hint of disapproval?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Frowning, Lee looked up again. “The man is probably the best colorist in the country. If he’s describing a room in an old house, you can smell the dust. His characterizations are so real you’d swear you’d met the people in his books. And he uses that talent to write about things that go bump in the night. I want to find out why.”

Bryan crumpled her candy wrapper into a ball. “I know a woman who has one of the sharpest, most analytical minds I’ve ever come across. She has a talent for digging up obscure facts, some of them impossibly dry, and turning them into intriguing stories. She’s ambitious, has a remarkable talent for words, but works on a magazine and lets a half-finished novel sit abandoned in a drawer. She’s lovely, but she rarely dates for any purpose other than business. And she has a habit of twisting paper clips into ungodly shapes while she’s talking.”

Lee glanced down at the small mangled piece of metal in her hands, then met Bryan’s eyes coolly. “Do you know why?”

There was a hint of humor in Bryan’s eyes, but her tone was serious enough. “I’ve tried to figure it out for three years, but I can’t precisely put my finger on it.”

With a smile, Lee tossed the bent paper clip into the trash. “But then, you’re not a reporter.”

Because she wasn’t very good at taking advice, Lee switched on her bedside lamp, stretched out and opened Hunter Brown’s latest novel. She would read a chapter or two, she decided, then make it an early night. An early night was an almost sinful luxury after the week she’d put in at Celebrity.

Her bedroom was done in creamy ivories and shades of blue from the palest aqua to indigo. She’d indulged herself here, with dozens of plump throw pillows, a huge Turkish rug and a Queen Anne stand that held an urn filled with peacock feathers and eucalyptus. Her latest acquisition, a large ficus tree, sat by the window and thrived.

She considered this room the only truly private spot in her life. As a reporter, Lee accepted that she was public property as much as the people she sought out. Privacy wasn’t something she could cling to when she constantly dug into other people’s lives. But in this little corner of the world, she could relax completely, forget there was work to do, ladders to climb. She could pretend L.A. wasn’t bustling outside, as long as she had this oasis of peace. Without it, without the hours she spent sleeping and unwinding there, she knew she’d overload.

Knowing herself well, Lee understood that she had a tendency to push too hard, run too fast. In the quiet of her bedroom she could recharge herself each night so that she’d be ready for the race again the following day.

Relaxed, she opened Hunter Brown’s latest effort.

Within a half hour, Lee was disturbed, uncomfortable and completely engrossed. She’d have been angry with the author for drawing her in if she hadn’t been so busy turning pages. He’d put an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and done it with such skill that Lee was already relating to the teacher who’d found himself caught up in a small town with a dark secret.

The prose flowed and the dialogue was so natural she could hear the voices. He filled the town with so many recognizable things, she could have sworn she’d been there herself. She knew the story was going to give her more than one bad moment in the dark, but she had to go on. That was the magic of a major storyteller. Cursing him, she read on, so tense that when the phone rang beside her, the book flew out of her hands. Lee swore again, at herself, and lifted the receiver.

Her annoyance at being disturbed didn’t last. Grabbing a pencil, she began to scrawl on the pad beside the phone. With her tongue caught between her teeth, she set down the pencil and smiled. She owed the contact in New York an enormous favor, but she’d pay off when the time came, as she always did. For now, Lee thought, running her hand over Hunter’s book, she had to make arrangements to attend a small writers’ conference in Flagstaff, Arizona.

She had to admit the country was impressive. As was her habit, Lee had spent the time during the flight from L.A. to Phoenix working, but once she’d changed to the small commuter plane for the trip to Flagstaff, her work had been forgotten. She’d flown through thin clouds over a vastness almost impossible to conceive after the skyscrapers and traffic of Los Angeles. She’d looked down on the peaks and dips and castlelike rocks of Oak Creek Canyon, feeling a drumming excitement that was rare in a woman who wasn’t easily impressed. If she’d had more time…

Lee sighed as she stepped off the plane. There was never time enough.

The tiny airport boasted a one-room lobby with a choice of concession stand or soda and candy machines. No loudspeaker announced incoming and outgoing flights. No skycap bustled up to her to relieve her of her bags. There wasn’t a line of cabs waiting outside to compete for the handful of people who’d disembarked. With her garment bag slung over her shoulder, she frowned at the inconvenience. Patience wasn’t one of her virtues.

Tired, hungry and inwardly a little frazzled by the shaky commuter flight, she stepped up to one of the counters. “I need to arrange for a car to take me to town.”