He shook his head. "I can't risk their lives."
Dammit, why wouldn't he trust her? She clutched her hands into fists.
"I'm sorry, Lara, but I have to be loyal to my friends. Would you be able to respect me if I was the type of man to betray them?"
For the first time, she realized she was forcing him to choose between her and his friends. And if what she suspected was true, and he was centuries old, then he could have had these friends for a long, long time. Still, she was falling in love with him. Didn't she have the right to expect his trust?
She made a strangled sound of frustration. "What will it take for you to open up to me? Do we have to be married before it could happen?"
His eyes widened. "Are you proposing?"
"No!" She gritted her teeth. "I was being sarcastic."
His brows drew together. "Do not toy with me, Lara."
She groaned. "I only meant that if we're going to make ourselves vulnerable to each other, then we have to trust each other. I can't go any further until you trust me enough to tell me everything."
He dragged a hand through his hair. "Isn't it enough that I love you? That I would protect you with my life? And I will honor and cherish you for the rest of my life?"
That was beautiful, but still, she needed to know. "How long a life are we talking about exactly?"
He scowled at her. "It shouldn't matter. Not if you love me."
"Of course it matters! I'm not stupid, Jack. I'm guessing that you're really old. In fact, I have this bizarre theory that Giacomo Casanova is actually your father. Can you deny that?"
His face paled.
Her heart sank as time stretched out and he remained silent. He couldn't deny it. Her theory must be correct.
She pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out loud. What was she doing here? She couldn't fall in love with someone who never aged. This was awful! He should have warned her.
He had. He'd told her to run like the hounds of hell were after her. He'd tried to avoid her. She was the one who had tracked him down at the wedding, at his townhouse, at Romatech. She'd pursued him relentlessly.
And now, he said he loved her.
Oh God, what had she done? "I need to go." She grabbed her handbag and strode from the room.
"Lara, I could teleport you home." He followed her as she headed down the stairs. "Or I could drive."
"I already called a cab." She was breathing heavily by the time she reached the ground floor. Her chest felt like it had been hit by a Mack truck.
"I need to turn off the alarm." He zoomed past her to the security panel by the door.
Tears stung her eyes. He was so different from her. Too different. "I won't tell anyone about you. You can trust me, Jack. You and your friends will be safe."
He frowned as he opened the door. "I want to see you again. We've come too far to give up now."
She stepped onto the front porch. It hurt too much to give him up entirely. "We'll keep in touch. We're working that case together, remember?" She descended the steps. "I was really impressed by all the work you did."
"When I am determined, nothing can stop me from obtaining my goal."
She paused at the sidewalk to look back at him. He was watching her with a fierce gleam in his eyes. She had to wonder if she had become his personal goal.
Lara dragged out of bed Tuesday afternoon about one. She'd been too upset to sleep when she'd returned to her apartment the night before. And she needed to stay acclimated to the night shift. So she kept herself busy printing off hard copies and studying all the material from the Apollo folder that she'd e-mailed to herself.
By five a.m., the kitchen table was covered with information, and her eyes were stinging too much to look at it anymore. She'd stumbled off to bed. Her last waking thought had been about Jack. She'd been right to back off. But when her eyes flitted shut, she remembered the soft way his eyes glimmered with love when he looked at her.
"Jack," she whispered and hugged the spare pillow to her chest. How could she not want him? She drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Venice.
After she awoke, she trudged into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed. She started the coffee machine and fixed herself a bowl of cereal. There was a dirty bowl and glass in the sink. LaToya must have been in a rush this morning before going to work.
Lara was sitting at the kitchen table, methodically spooning cereal into her mouth and wondering if Jack ever ate cereal, when she noticed the table was bare.
She blinked. Where the hell was all the stuff she'd printed out? She jumped to her feet and quickly checked the apartment. All the Apollo papers were gone.
LaToya. Lara grabbed the phone and called her.
"Hey, sleepyhead," LaToya told her. "I was just about to call to wake you up. I think they're going to want to see you."
"Who?"
"The special task force," LaToya said. "Can you believe it? This is so exciting. Here, let me get into an interrogation room here so no one can hear us."
"LaToya, did you take all my Apollo stuff?"
"Of course. You had so much information, girlfriend. It was amazing."
Lara's heart sank. "You shouldn't have taken it."
There was a pause, then LaToya whispered, "Are you serious? Girl, you can't withhold information concerning an ongoing investigation. People get arrested for that."
Lara winced. Her roommate had a point. "All right, but you should have asked me before taking it."
LaToya scoffed. "Why? Were you intending to keep it a secret? I thought we were working together. And I thought the idea was to catch the guy."
"Well, yes, but..." She'd wanted to work the case with Jack. If the police took over, she'd have no reason to see him again. Her heart sank deeper.
"Don't worry," LaToya said. "I wrote your name at the top of everything so the detectives would know that you'd done all the work."
"But I-"
"The guys were really pissed at first 'cause we weren't supposed to be doing it," LaToya continued, her words rushing out with excitement. "But when they realized you'd uncovered a serial kidnapper, they got real excited. They showed it to our captain, and he called your captain. Then they got together and called the police chief and the FBI!"
"Oh shit," Lara breathed.
"They're putting together a task force, 'cause it looks like this Apollo dude has kidnapped at least ten women from four different states. How did you find all that information so fast?"
Lara groaned. "I didn't."
"What do you mean? I heard you working last night. That damned printer is too loud."
"I didn't do it. Jack did."
"Oh. Damn." LaToya lowered her voice. "I sorta told everyone that you did it."
Lara sighed. "I can't take credit for Jack's work."
"Fine. You want to explain who Jack is to the police chief and the FBI?"
Lara winced.
"I think you should stop seeing that guy," LaToya said. "He's too strange."
Lara gritted her teeth. "That would really be ungrateful. He spent hours compiling all that information."
"Yeah, but he's got your mind messed up, girl. You're acting like the police don't have a right to this case, when it's Jack who's butting in where he doesn't belong. What's in it for him, anyway?"
Lara didn't know how to answer that. Why was Jack so interested in this case? If Apollo and Jack had similar mind control abilities, what else did they have in common?
"There's something really suspicious about him," LaToya muttered.
"Please don't tell anyone about him. I'm serious. Please." Lara had promised Jack that she wouldn't tell anyone about him or his friends.
LaToya paused, then whispered, "You know the truth about him, don't you?"
"Not really." Other than her theory that he was the son of Casanova and some kind of mutated human with supernatural powers. If she told her superiors that, they'd lock her up and lose the key.
"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling me something?"
Lara sighed. She was in the same predicament as Jack-having to decide between him and her friends. "Jack did all that work just to help us. I don't want to cause him any trouble."
There was another pause. "Okay, then. If Jack's out of the picture, then you'll have to be the hero. I bet they make you a detective soon."
That was good news. It had been Lara's goal for the last six years. She'd wanted to put the pageant days behind her and do something meaningful with her life. Catching the bad guys and protecting the innocent-that had seemed like the most heroic thing she could do with her life.
No wonder she was so attracted to Jack. His goal was the same as hers. And whereas she aspired to be a regular hero, he was a superhero.
"Hang on a sec. Someone's at the door," LaToya said, and Lara heard mumbled voices. "Yes, sir. I'll tell her right away. Lara, you still there?"
"Yes."
"Get your ass into uniform quick," LaToya said. "A patrol car will be picking you up in ten minutes. The task force wants to see you."
Close to an hour later, Lara entered the precinct at Morningside Heights. As a sergeant led her through a sea of desks, dozens of heads turned to look at her. LaToya waved from across the room and gave her a thumbs-up.
"Boucher." Captain O'Brian from her precinct at Midtown North greeted her on the way to the conference room. "You've been briefed?"
"Yes, sir."
"You were told to take a week off after the Trent incident, and yet, you and Officer LaFayette took it upon yourselves to investigate a case you were not assigned to."
Lara swallowed hard. She hoped LaToya wasn't in trouble. "Yes, sir."
Captain O'Brian regarded her sternly. "It would appear the community will benefit from your utter disregard for the rules and your inability to grasp the concept of time off. Brilliant detective work, Butch."
Her cheeks warmed with a blush. She hated taking credit for Jack's hard work.
"They're waiting inside for you," the captain continued. "I told them you could do this, Butch. Don't let me down."
Do what? "Yes, sir."
Captain O'Brian opened the conference-room door and ushered her inside. At the sight of the police chief, Lara came to attention. There were five men at the table, all of them studying her silently. Captain O'Brian introduced them. Other than the police chief, there was the captain of this precinct, one of the NYPD case detectives, and two special agents from the FBI.
"At ease, Officer," the police chief said. He thumbed through some papers on the table in front of him. "Let's see, you graduated from our academy six months ago, and you were assigned to the night shift out of Midtown North."
"Yes, sir."
The chief turned to the special agents from the FBI. "What do you think?"
The one in the gray suit motioned to the Apollo papers on the table. "She's a good detective. She was able to uncover information that the case detectives didn't find."
The NYPD detective stiffened. "I interviewed those college girls myself. They didn't say a word about Apollo or this seminar."
"Maybe they were more comfortable talking to a female officer," the second special agent suggested. "But the real question is, how will she perform in the field?"
"She does just fine," Captain O'Brian said. "Just a week ago, she subdued an armed man in a domestic dispute. He had shot and wounded her partner."
"She has the right look." The gray-suited FBI man motioned to the photos of Apollo's victims. "She has the right hair color, and she looks young enough to pass for a college student."
"Excellent." The police chief rubbed his hands together and regarded Lara grimly. "What do you say, Officer Boucher, to an undercover assignment?"
Lara swallowed hard. They wanted to use her as bait. Her mind raced. They were correct that she had the right look. What they didn't know, and what wasn't in those papers, was the fact that Apollo used mind control to abduct his victims and cover his tracks. She was immune to Jack's mind control, so hopefully, she would also be immune to Apollo's. If she was able to keep her wits about her, she could probably manage this.
She cleared her throat. "You want me to pose as a college student to help you locate Apollo when he comes on campus to do his seminar?"
"There's no law against him conducting a seminar," the NYPD detective said. "We need to know where he's taking the girls. Only then will we have the evidence we need to make an arrest."
"Exactly," the gray-suited FBI man agreed. "Officer Boucher, you'll have to let Apollo kidnap you."
Lara gulped. What would she do if he physically restrained her? What if he tried to rape her... or kill her? Maybe she should let a female officer with more experience do this. But what if that woman succumbed to Apollo's mind control? She would have a worse chance of survival than Lara. And if she was murdered, how could Lara live with that? And how could she refuse this job and do nothing, when Apollo continued to kidnap a new girl every month? She drew in a deep, shaky breath. "I'll do it."
CHAPTER 16
"Are you crazy, girl?" LaToya demanded after she arrived home that evening.
"Don't fuss at me." Lara spooned chicken and sausage jambalaya onto two plates. After an hour of discussing her dangerous mission in the conference room, she'd come home frazzled. She'd decided to cook to calm herself down. "I wouldn't be in this fix if you hadn't swiped that Apollo file."