Chapter 1
One
Her eyes flew open, and she gasped for air, gulping it down like she’d never get enough. A pale, early morning light filtered in through threadbare curtains, bright enough to spark prisms off the glass cat on the dresser across the room.
She put a hand to her throat and found only smooth, warm skin. There was no pain, none of the cold that chilled her bones in her dream. She closed her eyes again only to crack one open again, her head cocked to one side.
She pushed against the weight of the blankets piled on the bed and levered into a sitting position, blinking hard to dispel the last of the nightmare.
She shook her head to try to clear the noise, but it continued.
With a growl, she threw back the covers and shivered as she stuffed her feet into a pair of slippers and shuffled to the door, digging a sweater out of the basket of clean clothes beside it.
The buzzing continued, an off-key mechanical sound that wobbled and spluttered as if it too had been awakened from a deep sleep and hadn’t quite figured out how to work yet.
It seemed to be coming from the far side of the living room, from the door.
She narrowed her eyes and wrapped the sweater around her as she scuffed her feet across the concrete floor.
Since when has this place had a doorbell? She glanced at the clock in the kitchen and whimpered. It's only 7:30?
“I’m coming…” she grumbled as she swept a curtain of disheveled black curls out of her face and peered through the foggy scope in the door.
Who could have the gall to ring the doorbell at 7:30 in the morning? No one knew where she lived, and she’d bet that even her neighbors would have trouble picking her out of a crowd. Just how she liked it.
A man stood in the hallway, his face stretched and distorted as if it was a carnival mirror.
The hallway wasn’t as bright as the room behind her, but she could make out that his hair, which was just long enough to tuck behind his ears, was a medium shade of brown, and his eyes were dark.
They were also trained on the scope as if he knew she was watching him.
For a moment, she just looked back. There was something familiar about him that tugged at the fringes of a memory that was still foggy with sleep. Though she was awake enough to appreciate that he had a face that made getting out of bed worthwhile.
Then she remembered that he had been ringing her doorbell for at least the last five minutes, and still had his finger pressed firmly to the cracked plastic.
“Hello?” she called through the door while still pressing one eye to the scope.
The buzzing cut off abruptly, though it continued to echo in her ears for a few more moments. “Jal?” he asked, his voice, though muffled, was smooth as silk. “Jal Morrow?”
“How do you know that name?” she demanded. Of the few people who knew her face, even fewer knew her name.
He dug in his pocket and held something up. For a moment, panic gripped her that it would be a badge, but there was no metal shield attached to the leather wallet he held up, just a New York State driver’s license— with her picture on it?
Her eyes flew to the cloth satchel on the kitchen counter a heartbeat before she dove for it and dumped it out, swallowing hard when only an empty water bottle, lip gloss, and a handful of receipts tumbled to the counter. Nope, no wallet. Shit.
She threw the bag back onto the counter. The empty bottle clattered to the floor, but she ignored it as she dashed back to the door and furiously flipped the locks. She yanked the door open a foot, the cracked paint digging into her palm as she studied his face.
Without the foggy lens of the peephole, his hair was like a rich milk chocolate, and his eyes, which had seemed almost black in the hallway, were much lighter, reminding her of a glass of whisky held up to the light.
Those eyes…
Her own narrowed as recognition finally hit her. She pulled the door open a little further and braced her arms out wide between door and frame. “You!” she exclaimed. “You picked my pocket!”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “You picked mine first.” He reached down and pulled a pocket of his dress pants inside out in illustration.
Jal held out her hand. “Give it back.”
The other side of his mouth lifted and stretched into a grin, showing lots of straight, white teeth. “Only if you return the favor.”
She was too annoyed to try to identify the strange cadence of his voice. She lunged for the wallet he tapped idly against his leg, but he dodged her hand and held it up by two fingers overhead and made a tsking sound with his tongue.
He easily had six inches of height on her, so it didn’t take much to put it out of reach, even if she were inclined to make an undignified jump for it.
Which she wasn't. Instead, she blew her hair out of her eyes with an irritated puff of air and quelled the impulse to kick him where it mattered and take it while his balls were still in his throat.
Is it really worth it? She wondered for a heartbeat.
The cards were fake anyway, just to make it seem like she had more assets than she really did.
The driver’s license was real but easily replaced.
Probably should anyway, since she’d obviously been out of her mind giving the DMV her real address in the first place.
He braced a forearm on the door frame, bringing those whisky eyes closer. Their gazes locked, and her breath hitched. He just stared right back, and for a moment, the amusement went out of his eyes, but it quickly returned. He raised an expectant eyebrow.
“You know what? It’s just a wallet,” she told him, with a casual tone to her voice that belied how much she wanted to grind her teeth. “I don’t need it back.”
She took a quick step back and pushed the door closed, but he stuck his foot in at the last second and used one hand to push it open, brushing past her easily, despite using all her strength to close it on him. He stopped a few feet inside and looked around.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?
” she demanded. Her nerves crackled with energy, but she locked it down.
Like hell was she going to let him see how much her hands wanted to shake.
Instead, she clenched her fists tight enough for her nails to bite into her palms, and used the pain to clear her head, though her traitorous heart still raced.
When he'd been in the hallway, there had been the door between them, but now that he was inside? Their difference in size was stark, and terrifying. He could easily overpower her, rape her, and dump her body. And there wasn’t anything that she could do about it.
A scream started to crawl up her throat, but it froze in place when he turned those whisky eyes on her and winked. Actually, winked at her. She watched wide-eyed as he pulled a kitchen drawer open, and then another.
Finding nothing but utensils and aluminum foil, he scanned the room and drifted toward the dining table, its worn surface the dumping ground for anything and everything that hadn’t been put in its proper place.
His eyes sparkled as he crossed the room, but instead of sifting through the clutter, he set her wallet down on the top of the pile and bent his knees.
Jal watched in horror as the stranger wrapped his hand around the top of one leg, his fingers finding and pressing the hidden catch as if he knew exactly where to look. A ten-inch-wide section of the table skirt popped free, and he drew open the hidden drawer.
“For such a talented thief, I expected you’d have a better hiding place.” He mused in that hypnotizingly melodious voice of his as he sifted idly through the pile of coins and jewelry in front.
“You have no right!”
He chuckled. “This from a thief?” he tsked at her and pulled the drawer out a little further. Sorting through with one finger, he grunted in satisfaction as he plucked his wallet from underneath a few others at the back. “You really need a better hiding spot.”
She bristled. “I thought it was pretty good,” she snapped. “The fireplace and the freezer were too obvious. I’d never expect someone to check the table.” She snapped her mouth closed, and narrowed her eyes again. “Wait, what am I saying?”
She blamed the lock of hair that had fallen in his eyes when he bent over the drawer, and the smooth velvet of his voice. Was he Scottish? Irish? She shook her head, trying to break free from his charm, and demanded again that he return her property.
He slid the drawer in with deliberate slowness until it closed with a quiet click that practically echoed in the silent space, perched a hip on the edge of the table and generally made himself at home.
He plucked her wallet from the table and made a show of rifling through it, lifting each card up and examining both sides before moving to the next.
Just as she took a step forward to take the wallet back, he snapped it shut and tossed it at her. His eyes danced with amusement as she leafed through it herself.
“Wait, there was a hundred bucks in here!”
“Call it a finder’s fee, lass.”
Jal growled low in her throat and got a little satisfaction when the twitch of his mouth was more unnerved than amused.
He regained his feet and flipped his own wallet open, barking a laugh when he pulled apart the sides of the main pocket to find it empty. “I’m the one who should be complaining,” he told her. “There was four times as much in here.”
“Five hundred bucks is better than four,” she pointed out, glad that she had stowed the cash elsewhere in the apartment. It was becoming clear that this guy was no idiotic tourist.
“Fair enough,” he said ruefully and tucked the wallet into the pocket of his black felted jacket. But he made no move to leave.
Jal clutched the neck of her sweater closed and fought the urge to shift nervously on her feet. “You have your damned wallet back now, so get out!”
He glanced around the apartment one more time with interest, taking in the cracked drywall, the worn carpets, the kitchen appliances that had been around far longer than she’d been alive. “Aye, I’ll go,” he said, eyes sparkling. “But I’ll be seeing you around.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
He winked again and strolled unhurriedly to the door, stopping at the threshold.
She grabbed the door in one hand and started pushing it closed, but he held the door open easily. “We’ll see each other again quite soon, I think.”
“Well, whoever you are — “
“It’s Ciaran,” he told her. “Ciaran Gray.”
“Well, Ciaran Gray, now that we’ve met, I wouldn’t object to never seeing you again.” She replied and added a second hand to the effort.
He craned his neck around the door and locked eyes with her and a dimple flashed as his mouth turned up again in a knowing smirk. “About that fireplace…”
Her hands dropped away, her face blank with shock. The smirk became a grin as he took hold of the doorknob and closed the door behind him.
Jal leaned against the door until his footsteps reached the stairs.
The elevator was broken again, had been broken more often than it was functional lately.
It was a pity, though, as the mental image of the door opening with no car and the smug Ciaran Gray stepping in and plunging five floors to his death was all too appealing.
Then his parting words sunk in and she ran to the fireplace along the back wall.
Behind the loose brick two rows below the mantel was a lot of nothing.
In place of the cash and jewelry was a scrap of paper.
Jal pulled it out with trembling fingers and unfolded it.
In a slanted but clear hand was an invitation to dinner the next night at a trendy, and expensive restaurant in Midtown.
Dress elegantly, he'd written below.
Jal struggled to put the brick back with shaking hands and crushed the note in a fist. Her brain felt like it was going to explode.
The only way he could know where to look was if he had been here before.
Her empty stomach twisted on itself at the thought.
And showing up a second time under the guise of exchanging the wallets back? Just a means to taunt her.
She rushed around the apartment, checking the rest of her stashes, becoming more and more frantic, her vision more red as she found hiding place after hiding place stripped bare, the same mocking invitation to dinner placed on top of the few token pieces, if any, that he had deigned to leave behind.
As she jumped down from the counter after replacing the cover over a vent over the kitchen cabinets, she growled again and damned him to hell.
She was going to have to see him again after all.