Paula Graves - Forbidden Temptation

She flashed him a lopsided grin. “Pepto-Bismol.”

He chuckled. “How about a BLT on wheat? I know a place just around the corner.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for a lunch crowd.”

“We’ll grab something to go.”

The diner Daniel had in mind was a hole in the wall tucked between a dry cleaner’s and a stationery store in Forest Park. He parked the Jeep and cut the engine. “I was half afraid this place wouldn’t still be here,” he admitted. “Haven’t been back in a while. Lots of things have changed.”

A blast of fragrant warmth and the murmur of a lunch crowd greeted them inside the diner. Rose decided on a chicken salad with tomato, while Daniel chose a BLT and coleslaw. Within minutes, they were back in the car, heading to Rose’s.

Rose said. “Was this diner here when you were younger?”

“Yeah, though it was more of a mom-and-pop place then. Not as trendy.” The place had passed on to the second generation, a brother and sister with a much more bohemian sense of style and cuisine than their meat-and-three parents. But the food was still good and affordable and the service had seemed quick and friendly. “Do you eat out or in more often?”

“In,” she said with a half smile. “Cheaper that way.”

“Hard to start a business in a new town. You buying your house or renting?”

“Buying. I loved it the moment I saw it.” Her eyes softened as if she were reliving the first time she’d seen the house. “It had been renovated a couple of years ago, as a rental, but the owner was tired of dealing with transient and student renters, so he jumped on my first offer to buy it.”

“Putting down roots, huh?”

She nodded. “It was time.”

“Nothing left for you in Willow Grove?”

Her gaze lifted, a hint of wariness in her eyes. “I have family there, but as far as business…”

“Parents? Brothers and sisters?”

“Two sisters. My sister, Lily, lives with her husband in Borland. Only Iris is still in Willow Grove.”

Daniel pulled into Rose’s driveway, parking behind her Impala. “Nice that they’re both close.”

Her expression shuttered. “Yeah.”

Interesting, Daniel thought. Her reticence about her sisters suggested there was more to the story. Were she and her sisters estranged?

He followed her into the kitchen and laid their food out on the table while Rose poured them two glasses of iced tea. She handed him a glass and sat at the kitchen table. He slid in across from her.

Rose tried a bite of her sandwich, making a low, humming sound of pleasure that sent blood racing south of his belt. “This is amazing,” she commented after washing down her first bite with a sip of tea. “It’s got pecans in it, and grapes-”

“Guess you were hungry, after all?” he murmured.

She took another bite, making that same moaning sound that sent a shudder of need skating down his spine.

He took a deep breath and forced his mind back to the reason he was here in the first place. “Maybe you should see if one of your sisters could come stay with you for a while. Until we know more about the note you received.”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You think I’m in danger living here alone?”

“I’d feel better if you weren’t living alone. That’s all.”

She put down her sandwich. “I can’t ask my sisters to drop their lives and come babysit me.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m a big girl. I’ll keep my eyes open and take those self-defense classes we talked about. Maybe get an alarm installed. I’ll be fine.” She managed a smile that he didn’t quite buy.

He couldn’t remember seeing a genuine smile from her, he realized. The Granville murder-suicide must’ve done a real number on her.

“You think last night’s meeting did any good?” Rose asked.

“Don’t think it did any harm.”

There was an odd quality to her silence that caught his gaze. A frown creased her forehead and her lower lip was pinched between her teeth.

“You disagree?” Daniel asked.

She looked at him. “It’s too early to know, isn’t it?”

He cocked his head. “It’s because you think the killer was there last night, isn’t it?”

“You thought so, too.”

He nodded. “But maybe it’s a good thing he saw his victims aren’t going to lie down and take it from him in the future.”

“Or maybe he saw the crowd as a big buffet table full of goodies to sample,” she muttered.

“I don’t think it hurts that those women now know a little more about how to protect themselves from him. Safety in numbers, locking doors-”

“All the things people are supposed to remember but never do,” Rose murmured.

“Or refuse to do,” Daniel countered. “Like have a family member-say, a sister-come stay with them.”

She darted a look at him. “Touché.”

He gathered up the remains of their lunch and dumped it in the trash bin. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“I have to meet Melissa later to help her pick out a veil for her wedding dress.” Rose hooked her arm over the back of her chair and shot him a bemused look. “What are you going to do if she pursues that book deal you snookered her with?”

He shrugged and walked back to the table, close enough that she had to lean her head back to look him in the eye. “Maybe I’ll take her up on it. I wouldn’t have used it as an excuse if it wasn’t a possibility.”

“What about telling her you might need a wedding planner?”

“Not in the market at the moment.”

“Been there, done that?”

A sliver of old guilt embedded itself in his gut. “Almost been there, almost done that.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if his response intrigued her. But to his relief she didn’t pursue the topic, asking instead, “Does your friend, Frank, know you’re looking into these murders?”

“Does now,” Daniel admitted. “Probably going to have to go official now, see if I can talk someone at the Birmingham P.D. into letting me in on the case.”

“You don’t like going through channels?”

He met her curious gaze. “They can be inhibiting.”

She cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You were hunting for him that night in the bar, weren’t you?”

He sat across the table from her. “So were you.”

She looked down at her clasped hands and didn’t reply.

“Weren’t you?” he prodded.

“I just wanted to get out and mingle.”

He shook his head. “But you weren’t mingling. You were watching. You were looking for Orion.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Orion?”

“That’s what I call him.”

“The hunter?” She gave him a look. “A bit cliché.”

He shrugged, a little annoyed. What did she know about serial killers? “It fits.”

“How many are there?” Rose asked.

He cut his eyes at her. “Murders?”

“You said he didn’t start here in Birmingham. How many other women has he killed?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“Ballpark figure.”

He sighed. “At least twenty connected by signature and modus operandi. I’m pretty sure there are more.”

“Twenty?” She looked ill.

“That I know of.”

Her expression darkened. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Immerse yourself in so much violence and death.” She turned her face away from him, her profile distant. “I mean, you seek it out, don’t you? To write about it?”

“To prevent it,” he said softly. “I want to find Orion and stop him before he kills anyone else.”

She didn’t respond right away, giving him time to wonder why he had opened up to her like that. He tended to keep his own counsel about the cases he studied and especially about his own motivations. He tried to be clinical and objective, to see the crimes as puzzles to be solved rather than real lives shattered and destroyed. But at its core, what he did was about stopping very bad men from doing more evil.