When No One Is Watching. Natalie Charles

eyes snapped to meet his. He knew. He’d done his research. Of course he had. Her cheeks grew hot as she realized how exposed she was. “What happened to me was a random attack, that’s all. Those cases, where the victim has no connection to the assailant, can be nearly impossible to solve.”

      He allowed her words to settle before speaking. “You know what I think? I think that you don’t think it was random,” he said quietly.

      The statement pressed against her body as surely as if he’d pushed her. “Of course it was random. I know it was. Why...?” The words eluded her, scurrying in her mind like lab rats through a maze. “What are you suggesting?”

      “A partnership, Mia. Nothing more.”

      * * *

      Gray loathed these events. There were too many people in the room and not enough air to breathe, and he’d had to rent this monkey suit. But when the chief told you to go to a fundraiser, you went. “It’s for the Boston Victims’ Rights Coalition,” the chief had said. “It’s important that the Boston P.D. give a show of support.”

      Newsflash: The Boston Police Department supports victims’ rights.

      He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been slightly more interested in the event when he’d heard Mia Perez would be a guest of honor. She might be irritatingly effervescent, but she was easy on the eyes, and she’d been running through his mind ever since she’d shown up at the crime scene on the Charles. All of this was nothing more than evidence that he needed to date a little more than he had been since his divorce was finalized. A relationship was out of the question, but dating...maybe.

      He wouldn’t be dating Mia, though. Not given the way she was looking at him now, her amber eyes sizing him up with a look that was one part heavy suspicion, two parts panic, as if he’d just informed her he could see through her dress. Part of him wondered what the psychologist thought of him. A larger part of him didn’t give a damn what she thought. He wasn’t at this fundraiser for psychoanalysis. He was here to do his job, and right now Mia Perez was a means to an end.

      “A partnership?”

      Her eyes narrowed. Gray couldn’t help but run his gaze from those eyes to her tense red-stained lips and then to the smattering of brown freckles on her olive skin. He observed the peachlike hair on her jaw and the small diamonds that sparkled in her earlobes. Dr. Perez cleaned up nicely.

      The bartender pulled up against the side of the bar and pointed to Gray. “Coke with a twist of lime.” He shot Mia a glance. “I’m on duty tonight.”

      “That’s too bad,” she said coolly. “All work and no play. It’s not good for the psyche.”

      “You would know more about that than me. All I know is I like to work. Playing gets me in trouble.” He accepted the drink the bartender handed him and dropped a few dollars into a glass bowl. “Which personality disorder makes a person work too much?”

      She could have frozen his drink with that smile. “Unlike you, I’m not on duty. I’m not diagnosing tonight.”

      “Maybe another time, then.” He reached forward to touch her on the elbow. “I was hoping we could chat for a few minutes.”

      “I really should be getting back to my friend,” Mia said, turning her long neck back from where she’d come.

      “Ten minutes, that’s all.”

      She reached a long, manicured finger to the spot where her ear met her jaw. “I don’t know....”

      Behind them a quartet was playing, and a few couples were turning across the dance floor. Mia gripped her glass with white knuckles, darting her gaze around the room like a frightened animal. In his informal background search, he’d learned she’d suffered anxiety in crowds ever since the attack. It couldn’t make an event like this easy, and he needed her to focus on something other than the crowd.

      He gently took her drink from her hands and set it on the bar, placing his beside it. Her eyes widened. “Hey, wait a minute—”

      “You don’t even like whatever you ordered. Come with me.”

      He took her by one of her cold hands. To his amazement, she went with him. “Where are we going?”

      “I want to dance with you.”

      He wound her through the crowd to the dance floor. “I can’t dance,” she said.

      “Then I’ll teach you.”

      They reached the floor and he turned to face her. She stood in place. “No. I can’t dance.”

      “I’ve seen you walk. You carry yourself like a dancer, so I know you can dance. If you’re saying you don’t know the steps, I’ll teach you.” He took her hand again when she squinted at him, looking unconvinced. “Come on. Give me a cheap thrill.”

      She rolled her eyes, but her facade melted just slightly into a smile. It was a start. “Fine. One dance.”

      A waltz began and they fell naturally into place, chest to chest, his right arm encircling her back, her left hand draping his shoulder. She had a glint in her eyes that he didn’t comment on. He just smiled. He knew she was a dancer.

      They glided across the floor as though they were sliding on glass, he leading and she following with regal grace. Gray had hoped only to relieve some of her anxiety, but now he felt her body turning with his, meeting his direction with fluid movement that left him feeling downright amateur. Not that he minded. He could hardly focus on his pride when someone like Mia was in his arms.

      He dipped her back. “You lied to me,” he whispered against her ear in mock consternation. “You’re good at this.”

      Her eyes didn’t leave his as they came back to standing. “I’m good at a lot of things, Gray.”

      Indeed. His collar tightened.

      They turned around the floor, lost in the music, and her muscles relaxed beneath his fingers. Then Mia drew closer to his ear and said, “What did you mean when you said you wanted to discuss a partnership?”

      Business. It was like glass shattering. “You impressed me last week with your analysis of the murder scene at the Charles.” More than impressed him. The forensic evidence had confirmed her nearly immediate conclusion that the person who’d killed the young woman was a copycat, not Valentine. Then a concerned citizen had reported a large puddle of blood behind a row house in the South End. She’d been right about the gravel, too. Mia knew her stuff, and right now he needed someone who knew Valentine. “You obviously know your way around the Valentine files.”

      “I have reason to.”

      “I know. That’s why I want your help. I want you to look at the Valentine files again and tell me everything you see.”

      “It would take me longer than five minutes.”

      “Five min—?” He stopped. Right. He’d limited her time at the scene last week to five minutes. So she was angry with him for that? He spun her around and dipped her back again. “That was my scene. You’re lucky you even got five minutes.”

      “You’re a real charmer, you know that?” She righted herself. “I told Lieutenant Mathieson everything I thought about the Valentine files, so why don’t you ask him?”

      “Valentine is the key to finding out what happened to your sister, and finding out what happened to her is the key to finding out who assaulted you within an inch of your life last summer.”

      Her grip tightened on his shoulder, and she looked away from him. “You keep saying the incidents are related. Why?”

      “Call it a hunch. A woman disappears, and then a person investigating her crime—her sister—is attacked.” He shrugged. “Don’t think I’m in this just for your benefit. I think someone was trying to shut you up. You must know something damning about Valentine, and I want to know