The Sharpest Edge. Stephanie Rowe

pressed her back against the door, afraid of the house and its cavernous interior with so many hiding places. “He was in prison and he got out and I heard something on the roof and then he climbed down the side of the building and then you came and I don’t know if he’s still here or…”

      Something flickered in his eyes, but he offered no comforting words. Not as he would have ten years ago. “Lock yourself in the bathroom while I check things out.” He opened the powder room door, old instincts apparently directing him to the right place without a second thought. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

      She grabbed his arm before he could get away. “Be careful. He’s a cop.”

      Sean stopped, surprise flickering on his face. “A cop?”

      She nodded. “He’ll kill you.”

      “No chance.” He disengaged her grip and guided her into the room, then pulled the door shut. “Lock it.”

      His footsteps didn’t take him away until she’d engaged the lock with an audible click.

      And then, all she could do was wait.

      KIM LEANED AGAINST the door, trying to catch her breath. Her chest was so tight, her hands cold, her forehead hot.

      Sean. He was here. At her house. Alive.

      And Jimmy was here. At her house. And he wanted her dead.

      She groaned and slid down the door to the floor. Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped them to the tiles and let her head flop back against the wood.

      What was Sean doing in town? She never would have agreed to come back if she’d known he was around. Even for her sister, she couldn’t have done it. Cheryl had begged her to return to Maine when they’d found out about their dad’s accident because Cheryl was still trapped in hiding and couldn’t come home. For her sister, Kim could endure anything.

      Except Sean.

      And Jimmy again.

      She had no strength left to cope with either of them, not even for Cheryl. She was exhausted, so unbearably tired.

      A knock on the door sent her leaping to her feet. Kim smashed herself up against the opposite wall. Was it Sean, or had Jimmy killed Sean? What if Jimmy had come back to finish her off at a leisurely pace?

      “It’s me. Open up.”

      She nearly collapsed with relief at Sean’s voice. “Is it safe?”

      “Yeah.”

      Kim inched toward the door and flicked the lock, but the doorknob turned before she could open it. Sean stuck his head into the room, his dark eyebrows knitting when he saw her. She had no doubt that he’d be able to see through her facade and know that she was terrified. For an instant, his face softened and she thought he was going to give her the reassurance she craved, but then his expression hardened. “Come on out. We need to talk.”

      An agonizing need to have his arms around her again jolted her into moving toward him, but he turned away before she could reach him.

      Nothing. No comfort. No special look. No touch of support, even though he had to know how much she needed it. Regret made her energy sag. Had she done that to him? Changed him from a sweet, doting guy into someone who wouldn’t even touch her arm in comfort? She couldn’t ask. Couldn’t apologize. Where would she start after a decade of silence? Should she try?

      He held the door for her and stepped back when she reached him, his eyes cold and distant. Pushing her away. He didn’t want to hear about their past. She could read it in the tight set to his mouth, the way he held his arm so she couldn’t brush against it.

      They were strangers now.

      Strangers who had to discuss the man who’d almost killed her once and wouldn’t let her escape next time.

      Chapter Two

      Sean grabbed a soda from the fridge, pulled out a chair with his foot and sat down at the kitchen table. “Talk.”

      Talk. God, there were so many things to discuss. And nothing to say.

      Nothing except for Jimmy.

      Kim sat down across from Sean and tried not to think about how much she wanted him to hold her. Just for a minute, so she could feel secure and loved and warm. Which was stupid. That was the reason she hadn’t wanted to come back. Falling into the trap of the familiar and the safe already, just like her mom had warned her.

      A lump came to her throat at the thought of Joyce Collins, as it always did.

      Sean fixed his gaze on her. “Jimmy Ramsey. A cop who wants to kill you. Tell me.”

      Right. She could focus. She could think. With Sean sitting across from her, his gun on his hip, she wasn’t scared.

      For the first time in eighteen months, she wasn’t afraid.

      Exhausted to the point of numbness. Freaking out to be sitting across from the man she’d been thirty minutes from marrying. Saddened by the chasm between them and the fact that she’d caused it. But not fearing for her life. It was a start.

      “Jimmy is…or was…a cop in L.A. Cheryl met him when he was working at one of the events I brought her to.” What a night that had been. Cheryl had been so excited at the chance to meet a Hollywood star, yet from the moment she’d seen Jimmy, she’d cared about nothing else. “He’s incredibly good-looking, and she was hooked immediately.”

      He pulled out a notepad and jotted something down. “Keep going.”

      His index finger on his left hand was crooked now, as if it had been broken and healed wrong. What had his life been like in the ten years since she’d left?

      “Kim.” His voice was devoid of warmth or familiarity. He was nothing but a cop to her anymore.

      As it should be. As she’d wanted. So why did she feel as though a black cloak had suddenly been wrapped around her soul? “Jimmy pursued Cheryl hard, and they were married two months after they met.”

      “Two months? That’s not like Cheryl.”

      “He was manipulating her, but I couldn’t talk her out of it.” How she’d tried. “It nearly ruined our relationship.” After more than six years of estrangement between her and Cheryl, she’d been too afraid to risk their tentative new friendship by lobbying against the marriage. “So I backed off.” What an awful, horrible mistake that had been.

      “And then?” His eyes were intent on hers, but they were devoid of emotion. Empty of warmth. She didn’t recognize them.

      She sighed. “Then Jimmy started beating Cheryl up.”

      “Damn.”

      Exactly how she’d felt the first time she’d seen the bruises on Cheryl’s arm. “After he put her in the emergency room, I talked her into leaving him. The women’s shelter slipped her out of the hospital before he even knew what happened.”

      His pen was motionless, suspended above the paper with the stillness of death. Oh, nice analogy. How about the stillness of a snowman on a subzero day? That was much cheerier. No death analogies needed.

      “And then he came after you?”

      Kim shrugged, but she couldn’t stop the shiver that raced through her body. “He thought he could convince me to tell him where she’d gone.” Plus, he’d been pissed. Really, really pissed.

      He set the pen down and leaned forward, his voice no longer quite as detached and clinical as before. “How did he try to persuade you?”

      It took two deep breaths and supreme effort to block the image from her mind before she could answer. “A knife.”

      He cursed, then shoved back his chair and yanked her to her feet. “Let me see the scars.” His eyes were no longer empty