He sped up until he was almost running, as if he could somehow go faster than his fears and the memories that haunted him more each day. What would he do if this stack of cards he was assembling failed? He was out of ideas, almost out of hope, and Genevieve was his last chance.
Stopping at the corner market a few blocks before his house, he quickly picked up eggs and bacon, along with some fresh bread and fruit. He’d go home, make breakfast for Genevieve and then lay the whole sordid story out at her feet and pray she would agree to help him. Because if she didn’t, he was completely screwed.
But when he opened the door to his house ten minutes later, he knew he had missed her—the warmth she’d brought to the house, and to him, was gone.
Still, he checked the bedroom for her, praying that he was mistaken. He wasn’t—Genevieve was gone and she hadn’t even bothered to leave him a note.
Cole went back down the stairs to the living room. Mindless of the fact that it was still well before noon, he crossed the huge room and poured himself a shot of Patrón. Tossed it back and wondered, miserably, what he was supposed to do now. What he could do now that he’d screwed everything up so badly.
With the bottle of tequila in one hand and the empty glass in the other, he headed back up the stairs to his office, where he turned on his laptop. While he waited for it to start up, he splashed more Patrón into the glass.
As soon as the computer was ready, his fingers began flying across its keyboard, amassing information at close to the speed of light. God bless the Internet—you really could get anything you wanted on the Web these days. Even information that wasn’t readily available was just a few keystrokes away if you knew what you were doing.
Cole knew exactly what he was doing as he eyed the homicide photos that had been taken early yesterday morning. They’d been uploaded into the NOPD database yesterday afternoon, and he had retrieved them last night, before heading out in search of Genevieve.
Tossing back the shot he’d just poured, he reached for the bottle of Patrón he’d set to the right of the computer. Poured another shot into his glass and knocked it back.
What had he been thinking when he’d brought Genevieve home last night? Had he really expected her to sleep with him and then calmly listen—after the fact—while he laid out the reasons he’d gone looking for her to begin with?
He was a bigger fool than he’d thought, and now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He had to get to Genevieve, which meant he needed to go to the police station. At the same time, his sudden appearance there would seem suspicious to her; they hadn’t exactly exchanged job descriptions the night before.
Would she believe him when he told her that bringing her home had had nothing to do with the movie he was making—nothing to do with Samantha? Or would she kick him out before he even got the chance to explain?
The second outcome was much more likely, he acknowledged, his fingers tensing on the keyboard. And if that happened—if that happened, he’d be right back where he’d started. With a bunch of research on dead women and a ton of photos he could barely stand to look at.
Glancing back at the computer screen, Cole ran through the photos of recent homicide scenes. He knew what he was looking for—something, anything that might connect to Samantha. Something that might point him in the right direction, even after all this time.
But as he scanned the photos, he knew he’d hacked into the NOPD for no reason—there was nothing here, nothing at all that resembled what had happened to his sister. And yet he couldn’t deny a horrified fascination with the pictures. Couldn’t help wanting Genevieve to find whoever had done these terrible things. So that some other family could find a modicum of the peace that continued to elude him seven years after his baby sister’s brutal murder.
Genevieve could bring him peace. The thought sprang unbidden into his head, even as he snarled at the absurdity of it. She’d done a lot of things to him last night—made him sweat, made him swear, made his body respond in a way it hadn’t for a very long time, if ever. But bring him peace—no, he wouldn’t describe the riotous emotions she caused in him as anything close to peaceful. Yet she could be the answer to his prayers, the salvation he’d spent so long looking for. If he stuck to the plan and controlled his suddenly out-of-control libido.
Shit, f**k, damn. He slammed back another shot as his body tightened uncomfortably. What the hell was Genevieve doing in homicide anyway? She was too hot for this job, too sexy to waste her life investigating the dead. She belonged somewhere far away from all of this—before she ended up a victim of the very criminals she’d spent her career trying to stop.
The idea of one day staring at homicide photos of his sexy blond cop had him swearing and downing his drink yet again. His hands were shaking, his heart beating wildly, but he ignored them. Stared harder at the broken, bloody bodies on the computer screen. Tried his damnedest not to see Genevieve in the same position as the dead women in the photographs.
He reached for the mouse. Clicked a few times and watched as the current photos were replaced by older ones. Bloodier ones.
As he stared at pictures of his sister’s body, he knew he no longer had a choice. There was a compulsion inside of him, a dark and violent need that grew with every day he spent in this city.
It was why he had come back, after all, why he had allowed the studio to talk him into making this movie. And it had only grown worse with every hour he stayed here.
Closing the laptop, he shoved it away from himself with a muffled groan. He couldn’t stand to look at it anymore, couldn’t stand the images that were branded into his brain. But they were there for good. He’d learned to accept that sometime during the last seven years.
It was ridiculous to be this upset, considering how long he’d spent thinking about doing this. How many times he’d asked himself if he could go through with it before deciding that indeed he could. How often he’d run his plan in his head, looking for any and all flaws.
There hadn’t been any.Focus on the female homicide detective, not just because of her gender but because of her background in cold cases and her higher-than-normal case clearance rate. Get her interested in past cases through the documentary he was working on. Get her to decide to reopen Samantha’s case—and investigate it.
The subterfuge burned his ass, but since he’d been all but banned from the precinct, he had no other choice.
After his sister’s death—and in the intervening years—he’d gone a little crazy. Had hired private detectives—some of whom caused more harm than good—when he’d been dissatisfied with the police investigation. Had lost his temper and threatened officers when progress hadn’t been made.
He’d even gotten himself kicked out of the damn station three years ago, by that prick of a homicide lieutenant, Chastian. He’d told Cole in no uncertain terms that one more inquiry or public confrontation regarding Samantha would end with him burying the file so deep inside cold cases that it would never see the light of day again.
Cole hadn’t believed him, had pushed the as**ole anyway. And had found out that Chastian didn’t make idle threats; Samantha’s file had all but disappeared, after erroneously being declared closed. Chastian had even gone so far as to threaten the detectives involved in the case, until each of them had developed an overwhelming case of amnesia when it came to his sister.
Fucking damn corrupt cops. He hated them with a destructive passion that ate at him until he could barely think through the red haze that enveloped him. Hated them enough that he’d planned on using one without a drop of compunction, completely unconcerned that helping him could end her career.
But that was before he’d met Genevieve, before she had stripped everything from him but the primal desire to mate. He wanted her, needed her, in a way he didn’t understand and couldn’t afford.
She was a distraction, a complication that could keep him from seeing this thing through. Because every time he ran the scenario in his head, with Genevieve as his lover, something went terribly wrong.
How could he lie to her, use her, at the same time he was sleeping with her? He might be a bastard, but that was too far even for him. Besides, the feelings she’d evoked in him last night made it impossible to imagine just f**king her and moving on—he wanted to possess her, to do things to her body no one else ever had.
Leaning back in his chair, he slammed down one last shot, more than a little unsteady from the alcohol he’d consumed but still relishing the burn of the liquor down his throat. The heat that masked the coldness inside of him, even if it couldn’t chase it away completely.
So what to do? How to balance his insane attraction to Genevieve with the agenda he just couldn’t abandon? How could he have both?
He rolled the shot glass between his hands, watched as the light projected the colors onto the cherry desktop. Shifted his hand and sent the rainbow cascading over his arm instead. Twisted the glass slightly and thought of all the ways he’d failed his sister. Hadn’t controlled her wildness as a teenager, hadn’t tried to stop her ill-thought-out move to New Orleans, despite his mom and stepdad’s objections. Hadn’t rushed to her side when his mother had called him and told him she thought something was wrong with Samantha.
He hadn’t wanted to seem like he was trying to control her. He’d known how important independence was to Sam, how she’d fought to find a place of her own, separate from the overachieving family she’d always struggled to be good enough for.
As he thought of his sister—of everything he hadn’t done for her—he knew he had to tell Genevieve the truth. Had to wait for her to get off work then lay everything on the line—including his too strong attraction to her—and hope that she could see past the deception to help him anyway.
Because if she didn’t, he was totally f**ked.
Chapter Four
His name was Cole Adams. Genevieve shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the report in front of her. The Cole Adams—American documentary maker and Academy Award winner extraordinaire. How had she failed to recognize him?
Maybe because she rarely paid attention to that stuff—even on her good days. Not to mention that his reclusiveness was the stuff Hollywood legends were made of. Of course, the fact that he’d spent most of the night with his face buried between her legs might also have contributed to her lack of recognition.
Feeling her cheeks heat at the memory, Genevieve did her best to convince herself that Cole’s profession accounted for the file she’d found at his apartment that morning. Her gut had told her all along that he was innocent, but her brain still wasn’t ready to lay it to rest.
If it was something as easily explained as research for a new documentary, why was he hiding it in a bedroom drawer? And why hadn’t he said something to her about it right away?
Genevieve read the brief report one more time—seven years before, he’d been arrested for misdemeanor assault, but the charges had been dropped, as the other guy had instigated the fight. Other than that, his record was clean—nothing there to show any signs of sexual or homicidal deviance. With a sigh, she put it aside. She didn’t have any more time to waste on this, even though she didn’t believe for one moment that he’d sat beside her at that bar last night and not known who she was.
No, that was entirely too coincidental for a woman who didn’t believe in coincidence.
Going back to the file she’d started on her latest case, she reviewed everything she’d managed to accomplish that day.
Missing persons had popped on the victim’s identity that morning, so she’d started her day by breaking the news to the girl’s devastated parents. Her name was Jessica Robbins, and she’d been a freshman at Tulane. Her roommate had reported her missing three days before, when she hadn’t come back to the dorm after her evening jog through the Garden District.