Legally, that made sense. On a practical basis, though, it was enraging. “So you’ll risk my life to keep your case pristine.”

“No. I know who he is, which is why I’ll be sticking to you like glue, to keep him from getting to you.” He gave her a grim smile. “And because he knows who you are, he’ll be able to find out where you live, if he hasn’t already. Like it or not, sweetheart, you can’t get rid of me just yet.”

On a practical basis, that meant she couldn’t sleep in her own home, that this hellish night wasn’t over with yet. Eric went inside, thoroughly searched the house before he let her come in, and even then it was just to hastily pack a suitcase. She didn’t argue, because she wasn’t stupid enough to risk her life over where she slept. At the same time, she was completely prepared to put up a kicking and screaming fight if he tried to take her to his home, because no way was she doing that.

He must have known that, because he didn’t even make the suggestion. Instead he drove her to an extended-stay hotel, where she got a two-room suite, a living room/kitchen combo with a separate bedroom. It wasn’t home, but it wasn’t bad. He even took the precaution of checking her in with his credit card, under his name.

“But what about work?” she asked, standing in the middle of the generic living room with anxiety eating at her. “He’ll know where I work, too. Mom and Peach and Diedra are all in danger.”

“This is Saturday,” he said. “You told your mother you’d be better off at work, but did you mean you’d actually be in the office today?”

She was so tired she could barely think, but she focused on the question. “Maybe in and out. We don’t have any appointments with potential clients, because our schedule this week has been so hectic. We do have two weddings today, and a rehearsal, so what I actually meant was that I’d be better off working.”

“Then everyone should be safe enough this weekend. If the case hasn’t broken by Monday, then yeah, maybe you should take some time off.”

Wasn’t it an ironic coincidence that she’d been thinking the same thing, though for a completely different reason? Somehow the idea of taking a vacation wasn’t nearly as attractive when she was doing it to evade a killer. That took some of the shine off the idea of rest and relaxation, made it seem more like going into hiding, which of course it was.

“Is it on your website, which events you personally will be working?” His mind was still working, worrying at the details like a pit bull. He had to be stretched as thin as she was; his eyes were shadowed, his hair was rumpled, and he needed to shave. Nevertheless, even with his sock-less feet shoved into running shoes, wearing wrinkled pants and a snug T-shirt that showed every line of his muscled torso, he was so masculine and sexy he made her toes curl. With a sense of sorrow, she realized she might never meet anyone else who made her react physically the way Eric did, and that hurt so much she had to force herself to concentrate on what he was saying.

“No, we don’t post that information at all. Some—a lot, actually—of our clients put the information on their Facebook pages, but you’d have to know who they are to begin with, and then get on their friend list, so that doesn’t seem feasible.”

“No,” he agreed. “But somehow he found you tonight, and when we can nail down how he did it, that’s the link that’ll connect him.”

Dawn was approaching so fast that neither of them would be able to snatch more than a couple of hours of sleep, Eric even fewer, because he still had to drive home. As soon as he left, Jaclyn locked and chained the door, then stripped off her clothes and tumbled into bed after barely taking the time to hang up her suit. She did remember to set the alarm on her cell phone—and then she curled up between the cool sheets and cried, because when she’d thought she was going to die her last thought had been of Eric, that she wouldn’t get a chance to tell him she loved him.

She didn’t know where that thought had come from; she couldn’t possibly love him. She didn’t know him well enough to love him. The potential had been there, though, and she grieved its loss, with a sharpness that left her hollow and aching.


Chapter Twenty-two

THE ALARM WENT OFF AT SEVEN-THIRTY. JACLYN STRETCHED an arm from beneath the covers, fumbled for her cell, and silenced the noise. The feel of the phone in her hand reminded her that she hadn’t called her mother the night before. Hastily she thumbed in Madelyn’s number, blinking her eyes to focus them on the keypad.

“What’s going on?” was Madelyn’s greeting.

“I’m in a hotel,” Jaclyn said, and yawned. “The detective thought I’d be safer if no one knew where I was, so I packed a suitcase and he brought me here. I didn’t get checked in until around four-thirty. As soon as he left, I fell into bed.”

“Safer?” Trust Madelyn’s mom instinct to seize on the most trauma-inducing word.

“From whoever took those shots at me.” Jaclyn sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “The good news is, I’m officially off the suspect list. The bad news is, the man I saw at the reception hall is probably who killed Carrie, and now he thinks I can identify him.”

“Oh my God.”

“There’s more good news/bad news. Good: the detective said he’s pretty sure he knows who did it. Bad: he doesn’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant, so he hoped when he brings his photographs I’ll be able to put my finger on a guy and say ‘this is the one.’ I can’t, though. I honestly didn’t pay enough attention,” she said unhappily. She certainly wished there had been something outstanding enough about the guy that she’d memorized his face, so she could get this over with.

“But … I thought you and Diedra both said the person who tried to shoot you could be a woman.”

“Or a small man,” Jaclyn pointed out, then closed her eyes as she thought about the man she’d seen in the parking lot at the reception hall. Nothing about his face stood out, but she had good spatial memory, and she had a very clear sense of how tall he’d been in relation to his car. The man she’d seen hadn’t been short; if anything, he’d been pushing six feet tall, if not taller. “I don’t think it was the same man I saw that day.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“I suppose he could have hired someone,” she said uncertainly. “Either that, or the shooting didn’t have anything to do with Carrie.”

“The odds against that would be astronomical. I agree with Peach; it has to be connected to Carrie.”

“Or someone else whose wedding I did, and the bride hated everything.”

There was a moment of silence, then Madelyn said, “Oh my God,” again in a very unhappy tone. “There was a call yesterday … if it was a woman who shot at you, then I think maybe I told her where you’d be last night.”

“What?”

“Someone called the office yesterday; Diedra answered the call, then transferred it to me. The woman, whoever it was, said she was an old friend of yours from college, that you’d talked recently and were supposed to meet for drinks after work but she’d forgotten the time. She rattled off a name, but we were so busy yesterday I didn’t really take note. I told her you had a rehearsal yesterday, then you were going straight to a wedding and I told her where it was, and that it would be late when you got finished so probably there was a mix-up on dates. I gave her your cell number, to call and reschedule. Did she call?” Madelyn asked hopefully.

Jaclyn pinched between her eyes. “No, no one called. And I haven’t talked to any old college friends.”

“I almost got you killed,” Madelyn breathed with horror, and her voice wobbled with tears as she continued, “Surely we can have the call traced, find out who it was—”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll call Detective Wilder. Mom, don’t cry. You didn’t almost get me killed. Whoever shot at me is the one to blame, not you.” Because this was her mother, tears welled in her eyes, too. “Please don’t cry, or you’ll have me boohooing, and then we’ll both have swollen eyes today.”

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

Soothing Madelyn took several minutes, during which they both cried. As soon as they disconnected the call, though, Jaclyn dug Eric’s card out of her bag and dialed his cell.

“Jaclyn. Is something wrong?”

Startled, she took the phone from her ear and stared at it as if it were inhabited by aliens. It was one thing for her mother to answer the phone with a question, because after all she would recognize the number and know who was calling, but she’d never called Eric before. Cautiously she put the phone back to her ear. “How did you know who it was?”

“I recognized the number.”

“I’ve never called you before.”

“No, but I’ve called you. Remember the occasion? I was inside you almost before your back hit the mattress.”

A tidal wave of heat washed over her, because, yes, oh God yes, she remembered. She might want to forget, but in that moment physical memory was stronger and her flesh relived the feel of him pushing into her, thick and hot and deep. She vividly felt his arms around her again, his chest hair roughly rubbing her nipples, his hands gripping her bottom and lifting her into each thrust. Every muscle inside her tightened as if she was holding him again, clamping down around him as she came. Her nipples tightened on their own, standing out as flushed and firm as if he’d been sucking on them.

“I—” she said, then fell silent because there was nothing she could say, no rebuttal she could make. What had happened, happened. She squeezed her eyes shut and her legs tightly together, trying to make the ache go away.

“Yes,” he said roughly, his tone making it plain he was reliving his own moments. “You.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. She’d never understood the charm of phone sex until that moment, and this was a damn poor time for it, too. “Ah … someone, a woman, called Mom yesterday and said she was an old college friend and we were supposed to get together for drinks—” She was blabbering. She stopped, took another breath. “Anyway, Mom told her where I’d be last night. And, no, I haven’t been in touch with any old college friends about having drinks.”

“Caller ID?” he asked sharply, evidently making the transition from pleasure to business a lot more smoothly than she had.

“No, it was on the office phone. Mom said something about having the call traced. We don’t have caller ID on the office line.”

He muttered something that she doubted was complimentary, then said, “Okay, find out what time the call came in. We’ll get the ball rolling with the phone company.”

“It was a woman. That knocks a hole in your theory about the gray-haired man trying to kill me, doesn’t it?”

“No, in fact, it doesn’t. Look, I really need you to look at some photographs. If you can’t come here, tell me where you’ll be and I’ll bring them to you.”

A sense of alarm seized her at the words “come here.” Surely he wasn’t—

“Ah … where are you?”

“At work.”

Her face heated as she thought of what he’d said. Had anyone heard him?

“Don’t worry, no one’s near enough to eavesdrop,” he said in amusement. “Can you come now?”

She didn’t know what devil seized her, but she did know that payback was sweet. “Almost,” she murmured, and listened to the sudden fumbling and background cursing as he dropped his cell phone.

Garvey approached Eric’s desk, some papers in hand. “The senator’s alibied tighter than Dick’s hatband,” he said in disgust. “He was at a fund-raiser, with Mrs. Dennison, in Savannah last night. It lasted until midnight. He couldn’t be in two places at once.”

“He might not have done it, but he had it done,” Eric growled. “The fucker screwed up. If he’d just left it alone, we didn’t have enough on him to get a search warrant, but he was afraid Jaclyn could identify him. Now we’re going to look real hard at his girlfriend. Jaclyn just called; a woman pretending to be an old friend called her business yesterday, and her mother told the woman where Jaclyn would be. That was a puzzle, figuring out how anyone knew where Jaclyn would be at any given time, but the answer was simple.”

“The girlfriend.”

“Yep.” Eric pulled up some information on his computer. “Atlanta P.D. sent over their ballistic report. They found one bullet in the Jag’s upholstery; the other one went through the passenger door. The weight of the bullet is consistent with a nine millimeter. Ms. Taite Boyne is registered as the owner of a Glock 26, which is a subcompact nine millimeter.”

“If she’s smart, that pistol is at the bottom of Lake Lanier.”

“Problem is, she thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. People like that make stupid mistakes. We’ll trace the call to Premier’s office, see what pops. Maybe she used her cell phone.”