Dark Obsession. Amanda Stevens

back of her neck rise as his arm brushed against hers. There was something so unsettling about his touch, something so daunting about his presence in her sister’s apartment.

      He walked slowly around the room, not touching anything, but Erin had the distinct impression that nothing missed his scrutiny. He paused beside a vase of wilted roses. One fingertip stroked a shriveled petal as he frowned pensively. Then his gaze returned to her, and Erin’s heart began to thump inside her chest.

      “How’d you get in?” His voice—that deep, cold, spine-tingling voice—shattered the illusion of calm in Megan’s apartment.

      “I have a key,” she told him. “I let myself in. Megan wasn’t here. I thought perhaps she’d gotten bored waiting for me and gone out for a while. I was supposed to have been here hours ago, you see, but the flight was late leaving Los Angeles. It was after midnight when we landed at La Guardia. Then I had to get my luggage and find a taxi, and even at that time of night, traffic was horrendous. It took forever to get here….” She trailed off, glancing away as if realizing she’d revealed more than she’d meant to.

      So the guilt had already set in. Slade pitied her for that. He’d lived with that same emotion for eight long years, knew how deadly and destructive it could be. He took her arm and steered her toward the couch.

      “How did you happen to go out into the yard?” he asked her as they sat down.

      “I heard voices. I think I must have dozed here on the couch for a little while. I thought I was dreaming at first. Then I opened my eyes and realized I was awake and the voices were coming from below. The window was open.”

      She tilted her head toward the French doors that flanked one side of the fireplace. Her black hair, pulled smoothly back and knotted, rippled with iridescence in the light. Her skin was as pale and soft as moonlight, her features delicate, almost fragile.

      But her eyes…her eyes were the contradiction. In their violet blue depths, he glimpsed the soul of a woman who could write novels so terrifying that they sent shivers along his spine.

      She might be in shock now, but Slade knew she wouldn’t accept a simple explanation for her sister’s murder and then allow herself to go quietly away. Instinctively he could tell that she would want it all. Every last detail. Her guilt would demand it. He just hoped to God she’d be able to live with the facts when she learned them. If she learned them. He would do his damnedest to see that she didn’t. That was his job.

      Abruptly he got up and walked over to the window. He knelt and examined the latch. “Did you leave the door open?”

      “No. It must have been that way when I came in. The latch on that door sometimes sticks. You think it’s fastened, but it’s not. It’s always been that way.”

      Slade glanced up. “You’ve been here before then?”

      Something flickered in her eyes and then disappeared, but Slade thought again of the horrifying stories she so aptly created. “I lived here as a child,” she explained quietly. “My sister and I own this apartment. We grew up here. Megan probably didn’t get the lock fixed because…she wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.”

      “Lots of things in the dark to be afraid of,” Slade murmured. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked down at the yard. The body had already been placed in a bag, but there were still several people milling around in the yard. One of the officers laughed. The sound carried easily to the balcony. Slade glanced back inside, glad suddenly that he’d persuaded Erin to leave the scene below.

      “So you heard voices,” he said, walking back into the apartment and closing the door to block the sounds from the yard. “Did you recognize them?”

      Erin looked up at him. “I thought I heard Megan’s voice. I thought I heard her…laughing.”

      A chill seeped through Slade’s skin, accompanied by a cold, dark suspicion. “Did you recognize anyone else?”

      Erin shook her head, wrapping his leather coat more tightly around her shoulders. “I think I heard a man’s voice, but I’m not sure. It was more like a…like a whisper, and yet I could hear it all the way up here. When I looked out the window, all I could see were shadows. I called to Megan, and I heard her laugh again. That’s when I went down to the yard to find her.”

      “What did you see when you got there?”

      She gazed at him reproachfully as if to say, the same thing you saw, Detective. But he hoped she hadn’t. He hoped to hell she hadn’t seen the same thing he had.

      Her bottom lip trembled with emotion and she bit it. Slade could almost taste the blood on her tongue. He took a few steps toward her. “What did you see, Erin?”

      The sound of her name seemed to startle her. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. He moved to the couch and sat down beside her again. The warmth of her presence filled the emptiness inside his soul, and for the first time in eight years, Slade felt a yearning deep inside him. She looked so vulnerable, so…innocent, but he suspected in reality she was neither. And somehow that notion excited him even more.

      Back off, he warned himself. She’s not for you. But at the moment, all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her slender shoulders, draw her close to him and protect her from the evil that lurked in the darkness.

      The evil that was part of himself.

      Erin’s eyes widened as if she recognized the danger. Her fingers wrapped around the silver cross that hung around her neck. “I saw Megan lying on the ground,” she said. “And I saw…something in the darkness.”

      Slade’s heart jumped into his throat as he stared at her. “Are you saying you saw the murderer?”

      “I’m not sure what I saw. I didn’t see a face, no definite form, but there were these…eyes. Silver eyes. And they were…glowing in the dark….” Her words trailed away as she met Slade’s stare. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his dark glasses. For endless seconds, their gazes clung. Slade’s pulse quickened as he recognized something in Erin Ramsey that scraped along his nerves and left him oddly shaken.

      Then the doorbell sounded, breaking the spell, and Erin started to get up. Slade’s hand shot out and touched her arm briefly. Her gaze dropped to his hand as if she’d felt the same tiny jolt he had. He heard her gasp softly when she saw the scars. Her gaze flew back up to meet his, and he let his hand fall away from her.

      “What else did you see?” he demanded.

      “Nothing,” she whispered. “That was all.”

      But that was enough, Slade thought grimly. In fact, too damned much.

      Erin Ramsey had seen silver eyes glowing in the dark.

      * * *

      Erin’s hands trembled as she crossed the room to answer the door. She didn’t like to admit that Detective Slade had left her so shaken, so uncertain of her own emotions. She’d never met a man quite like him before.

      But, of course, she’d just found her sister—her only family—dead in the backyard. Erin suspected she was still in shock. No doubt that was why Detective Slade had affected her so strangely.

      Trying to summon the last vestiges of her courage, she drew open the front door. A woman she had never seen before stood on the other side.

      “You must be Erin,” the woman said. “I came just as soon as I heard.” She was tall, towering over Erin by several inches, and she had the most extraordinary red hair Erin had ever seen. It flowed down her back, almost to her waist, and even in the dim hallway light, the thick ringlets blazed with fire. She was dressed all in black—tight leggings, a loose knit sweater and high leather boots. She hovered on the threshold as if waiting for Erin to invite her inside.

      Erin said, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

      “My name is Racine DiMeneci,” the