Page 5 of Shiver

“Published?”

“Enough to make a living.” She watched under lowered lashes as he popped a few more pralines and drank down his tea in large gulps. He exuded an overabundance of confidence and moved with the grace of a panther. A dangerous mix. She had a good idea he could be equally ferocious.

A trickle of moisture ran between her shoulder blades. She glanced at the clock. “Look, I’ve got to go soon. Are we about done?”

His gaze, cool and assessing, studied her. “A young woman—twenty-five, blond, beautiful, married and happy—her whole life in front of her, was found dead in the Quarter with this around her neck.” He held up the plastic baggie containing the locket.

But she couldn’t look at the necklace; she was too focused on the man’s eyes, the deep brown of them melting in pain. He’d known this woman. “I’m sorry,” she offered, though she understood it wasn’t enough.

It never was.

His eyes narrowed and his pretense of charm disappeared, replaced by something uglier, something desperate and frustrated. “I want to know how this necklace wound up around her neck.” He slammed his glass onto the counter. She jumped, refusing to meet his eyes. There was nothing she could offer that would help him or that woman.

“When was the last time you saw your necklace?” He was close—too close—stealing her energy, her breath, her feeble hold on her senses.

She stared at the locket through the plastic, focusing on the small rose etched on its face, on anything but him. “Last Saturday, at the Children’s Hospital.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I mean…I believe so.”

“Can you think of any reason why your necklace would have been found on a murder victim?”

Because I’m next?

“No,” she whispered. She looked up at him, her gaze colliding with his. Big mistake. His doubt, his anger, riding so close to the surface, frightened her. “I don’t know. Maybe she found it,” she offered in a voice barely above a whisper.

“No one has ever seen her with it before. Plus, it has a picture in it of a couple I don’t recognize. I know her. She wouldn’t wear a locket with someone else’s picture in it.”

Devra nodded slowly. Of course, she wouldn’t.

“Who are they? The couple in the picture.”

Her tongue seemed to thicken and fill her mouth.

He stepped closer. She could smell him now…rich, spicy, male.

“Who are they?” he repeated.

“My parents.”

“Where do they live?”

“Washington State.”

He pulled a notepad out of his back pocket. “Their names?”

She hesitated.

He looked at her, waiting, coldly calculating.

She said the names she hadn’t uttered in fifteen years. “William and Lydia.”William and Lydia Miller. But she wouldn’t tell him that much, not if she could help it. He closed the notepad and shoved it back into his pocket. She let out the breath she’d been holding and waited for him to back away.

He didn’t.

“Is that all?” she stammered.

His piercing gaze looked right through her. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

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