Caught

When she woke up it was 6:29 in the morning, the sun was beginning to light the empty streets, and they were back in a neighborhood her family had sworn never to return to.

Swallowing a lump of fear, Megan cautiously stepped inside, surveying the place in horror while Cody inspected the rotting wood beams above.

My God, it seemed like nothing could have ever thrived here. No evidence of life remained. The furniture was mostly gone, and what remained contained layers and layers of dust and maybe termites. The marble floor was cracked and uneven, making walking a hazard.

Assailed by a wave of pity as she remembered the once-cozy ambience of this household, Meg dragged her fingers over the dusty dining room table surface, then she recalled Ivan’s face across the table, young and predatory at sixteen and gazing at her as if she were lunch, and she yanked her hand back. “Are you looking for something in particular?” she asked Cody’s broad back.

“I always come here when I need to think.”

She didn’t imagine it; there was wistfulness in his tone, and it made her feel incredibly sad.

Standing here, while a truckful of memories threatened to burst through her walls of forgetfulness, Megan wondered how Cody could possibly bear it. Come here to “think” and at the same time, confront the horrors that had happened here. And it had been horrifying. Don’t think about it, she thought frantically as she felt herself grow faint.

But an image of Ivan standing over the bodies, bloodied and screaming as he continued hacking away at their flesh, flashed through her mind, and her blood froze in her veins. “You don’t think he would be here, too, would he?” she squeaked in sudden fear, rushing up to stand close to him. Suddenly she had the distinct sensation of being watched. The hair all along her arms rose to attention, and her heart began to thunder.

Oh, God, he was watching.

“Not sure he’d risk coming here.”

Calm and cool as ever, Cody crossed the cluttered length of the old kitchen, then went to check the glass doors that led to the back yard. As he checked for the kind of stuff detectives always check for, he said, without looking up, “You’d be amazed how many cases crack open with the most stupid mistakes—criminals returning to the scene of the crime, that sort of thing.” He straightened and pulled a fistful of hair in apparent frustration, and when he let go, part of his hair remained standing up so adorably, making him look so handsome and irresistible, that she felt her fear begin to ebb away. “What I want to figure out is where this bastard’s hiding,” he admitted.

And what I’d like to figure out is what a girl needs to do to make you notice her.

His face was so virile, Cody would make the perfect Armani model. And with that killer tie, a solid, satiny, crimson one that brought out his tan, he could be on TV right now.

Oblivious to her thoughts, he walked to the bookshelf that used to contain the world’s largest collection of family photographs, and she wondered if Cody remembered the sounds of his mother’s cooking.

Megan did. The clang of the baking pans, the click click click of the oven timer. It could’ve been yesterday that she was here, playing Life with Cody and Ivan and even Mr. Nordstrom, while the Mrs. pulled out homemade Margarita pizza from the oven. Ivan hadn’t seemed happy here, nor had Mr. and Mrs. Nordstrom ever been proud of Ivan the way they had, clearly, been of Cody.

“Where would you hide, if you were him?” she asked as she watched him, loving the way his muscles bulged as he reached out and wiped the dust off the empty shelves.

His head came up, and the corners of his lips formed a barely-there smile. “Here.”

“Here?” she asked, shocked. “Really?” In this decrepit, smelly old house? Well, maybe he remembers the Life days, too.

“Yep. I’d hide right here.” He banged the wall with his fist. “Under everyone’s very own noses.”

She made a face and crossed her arms. “We could say Ivan’s got that pegged, too, you know. He was hiding in your home just hours ago, and something about the way he hesitated before approaching me made me think he hadn’t planned on me being there.”

Cody’s expression darkened; his entire face tightening with anger. “And then he saw you in your…”

“My purchases, why, yes!”

The nonchalance she tried injecting into her admission seemed to pass by him unnoticed, for Cody stared at her for a long, tense moment, his blue gaze dark and shuttered and so personal she felt the muscles of her legs turn buttery. He walked over to her, moving slow and sure, like a panther. His voice dropped a decibel.

“What where you doing there?”

The gruffly spoken question stroked her insides more than any seductive whisper.

His manly stance, his hot, possessive gaze, ignited her need and hunger until her throat hurt with the need to tell him how he made her feel.

Those beautiful blue eyes he stared at her with now had seen the same thing that haunted her nightmares. Those beautiful blue eyes were exactly like the killer’s, except she liked to think that she knew their small differences.

Cody’s lashes were longer, the tips blonder, and the way he used those eyes—to control, to intimidate, even to seduce—was a power his twin had never mastered.

Those eyes made her want to melt.

Now those eyes demanded she answer, but her pride would not allow her to admit the truth out loud.