Secret Star. Nora Roberts

didn’t realize until her hand moved that he’d placed his own over it. He pulled back on every level, and rose. “I haven’t been able to reach Helen Fontaine or her husband. She’s in Europe.”

      “I know where she is.” Grace shook back her hair, but didn’t try to stand. Not yet. “I can find her.” The thought of making that call, saying what had to be said, squeezed her throat. “Could I have some water, Lieutenant?”

      His heels echoed on tile as he strode off. Then there was silence—a full, damning silence that whispered of what kind of business was done in such places. There were scents here that slid slyly under the potent odors of antiseptics and industrial cleaning solutions.

      She was pitifully grateful when she heard his footsteps on the return journey.

      She took the paper cup from him with both hands, drinking slowly, concentrating on the simple act of swallowing liquid.

      “Why did she hate you?”

      “What?”

      “Your cousin. You said she hated you. Why?”

      “Family trait,” she said briefly. She handed him back the empty cup as she rose. “I’d like to go now.”

      He took her measure a second time. Her color had yet to return, her pupils were dilated, the electric-blue irises were glassy. He doubted she’d last another hour.

      “I’ll take you back to Parris’s,” he decided. “You can get your things in the morning, come in to my office to make your statement.”

      “I said I’d do it tonight.”

      “And I say you’ll do it in the morning. You’re no good to me now.”

      She tried a weak laugh. “Why, Lieutenant, I believe you’re the first man who’s ever said that to me. I’m crushed.”

      “Don’t waste the routine on me.” He took her arm, led her to the outside doors. “You haven’t got the energy for it.”

      He was exactly right. She pulled her arm free as they stepped back into the thick night air. “I don’t like you.”

      “You don’t have to.” He opened the car door, waited. “Any more than I have to like you.”

      She stepped to the door, and with it between them met his eyes. “But the difference is, if I had the energy—or the inclination—I could make you sit up and beg.”

      She got in, sliding those long, silky legs in.

      Not likely, Seth told himself as he shut the door with a snap. But he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it.