Secret Star. Nora Roberts

however lovely, that dragged at him.

      It was the face in the portrait.

      He’d left his car at the top of the sweep of the drive, and walked to the house sheltered by grand old trees and well-trimmed shrubs green with summer. He’d let himself in, turned the switch that had the foyer chandelier blazing light.

      His men had already started the tedious door-to-door of the neighborhood, hoping that someone, in another of the big, exquisite homes, would have heard something, seen anything.

      The medical examiner was slow—understandably, Seth reminded himself. It was a holiday, and the staff was down to bare minimum. Official reports would take a bit longer.

      But it wasn’t the reports or lack of them that nagged at his mind as he wandered back, inevitably, to the portrait over the glazed-tile hearth.

      Grace Fontaine had been loved. He’d underestimated the depth friendship could reach. But he’d seen that depth, and that shocked and racking grief in the faces of the two women he’d just left.

      There had been a bond between Bailey James, M. J. O’Leary and Grace that was as strong as he’d ever seen. He regretted—and he rarely had regrets—that he’d had to tell them so bluntly.

      I’m sorry for your loss.

      Words cops said to euphemize the death they lived with—often violent, always unexpected. He had said the words, as he had too often in the past, and watched the fragile blonde and the cat-eyed redhead simply crumble. Clutching each other, they had simply crumbled.

      He hadn’t needed the two men who had ranged themselves as the women’s champions to tell him to leave them alone with their grief. There would be no questions, no statements, no answers, that night. Nothing he could say or do would penetrate that thick curtain of grief.

      Grace Fontaine had been loved, he thought again, looking into those spectacular blue eyes. Not simply desired by men, but loved by two women. What was behind those eyes, what was behind that face, that had deserved that kind of unquestioning emotion?

      “Who the hell were you?” he murmured, and was answered by that bold, inviting smile. “Too beautiful to be real. Too aware of your own beauty to be soft.” His deep voice, rough with fatigue, echoed in the empty house. He slipped his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. “Too dead to care.”

      And though he turned from the portrait, he had the uneasy feeling that it was watching him. Measuring him.

      He had yet to reach her next of kin, the aunt and uncle in Virginia who had raised her after the death of her parents. The aunt was summering in a villa in Italy and was, for tonight, out of touch.

      Villas in Italy, he mused, blue diamonds, oil portraits over fireplaces of sapphire-blue tile. It was a world far removed from his firmly middle-class up-bringing, and from the life he’d embraced through his career.

      But he knew violence didn’t play favorites.

      He would eventually go home to his tiny little house on its postage-stamp lot, crowded together with dozens of other tiny little houses. It would be empty, as he’d never found a woman who moved him to want to share even that small private space. But his home would be there for him.

      And this house, for all its gleaming wood and acres of gleaming glass, its sloping lawn, sparkling pool and trimmed bushes, hadn’t protected its mistress.

      He walked around the stark outline on the floor and started up the stairs again. His mood was edgy—he could admit that. And the best thing to smooth it out again was work.

      He thought perhaps a woman with as eventful a life as Grace Fontaine would have noted those events—and her personal feelings about them—in a diary.

      He worked in silence, going through her bedroom carefully, knowing very well that he was trapped in that sultry scent she’d left behind.

      He’d taken his tie off, tucked it in his pocket. The weight from his weapon, snug in his shoulder harness, was so much a part of him it went unnoticed.

      He went through her drawers without a qualm, though they were largely empty now, as their contents were strewn around the room. He searched beneath them, behind them and under the mattress.

      He thought, irrelevantly, that she’d owned enough clothing to outfit a good-size modeling troupe, and that she’d leaned toward soft materials. Silks, cashmeres, satins, thin brushed wools. Bold colors. Jewel colors, with a bent toward blues.

      With those eyes, he thought as they crept back into his mind, why not?

      He caught himself wondering how her voice had sounded. Would it have fit that sultry face, been husky and low, another purr of temptation for a man? He imagined it that way, a voice as dark and sensual as the scent that hung on the air.

      Her body had fit the face, fit the scent, he mused, stepping into her enormous walk-in closet. Of course, she’d helped nature along there. And he wondered why a woman would feel impelled to add silicone to her body to lure a man. And what kind of pea-brained man would prefer it to an honest shape.

      He preferred honesty in women. Insisted on it. Which, he supposed, was one of the reasons he lived alone.

      He scanned the clothes still hanging with a shake of his head. Even the killer had run out of patience here, it seemed. The hangers were swept back so that garments were crowded together, but he hadn’t bothered to pull them all out.

      Seth judged that the number of shoes totaled well over two hundred, and one wall of shelves had obviously been fashioned to hold handbags. These, in every imaginable shape and size and color, had been pulled out of their slots, ripped open and searched.

      A cupboard had held more—sweaters, scarves. Costume jewelry. He imagined she’d had plenty of the real sparkles, as well. Some would have been in the now empty safe downstairs, he was sure. And she might have a lockbox at a bank.

      That he would check on first thing in the morning.

      She’d enjoyed music, he mused, scanning the wireless speakers. He’d seen speakers in every room of the house, and there had been CDs, tapes, even old albums, tossed around the living area downstairs. She’d had eclectic taste there. Everything from Bach to the B-52s.

      Had she spent many evenings alone? he wondered. With music playing through the house? Had she ever curled up in front of that classy fireplace with one of the hundreds of books that lined the walls of her library?

      Snuggled up on the couch, he thought, wearing that little red robe, with her million-dollar legs tucked up. A glass of brandy, the music on low, the starlight streaming through the roof windows.

      He could see it too well. He could see her look up, skim that fall of hair back from that staggering face, curve those tempting lips as she caught him watching her. Set the book aside, reach out a hand in invitation, give that low, husky purr of a laugh as she drew him down beside her.

      He could almost taste it.

      Because he could, he swore under his breath, gave himself a moment to control the sudden up-beat of his heart rate.

      Dead or alive, he decided, the woman was a witch. And the damn stones, preposterous or not, only seemed to add to her power.

      And he was wasting his time. Completely wasting it, he told himself as he rose. He was covering ground best covered through rules and routine. He needed to go back, light a fire under the M.E., push for an estimated time of death. He needed to start calling the numbers in the victim’s address book.

      He needed to get out of this house that smelled of this woman. All but breathed of her. And stay out of it, he determined, until he was certain he could rein in his uncharacteristic imaginings.

      Annoyed with himself, irked by his own deviation from strict routine, he walked back through the bedroom. He’d just started down the curve of the stairs when a movement caught his eye. His hand reached for his weapon. But it was already too late for that.

      Very slowly, he