The Prey Read online

  One violent murder three days ago and then nothing. The calm before the storm. She shuddered.

  Rowan had been sitting at her desk in her locked den doing nothing but feeling guilty for a crime she hadn’t committed when she heard the cars arrive. No one came to the door immediately, so she looked out the blinds and saw the two security people standing there, talking, their body language showing that they were comfortable together. A team.

  She’d never had that. Even with her partners in the FBI, she’d never grown close to anyone. She couldn’t. What if something happened to them?

  The doorbell rang. She needed a few more minutes to compose herself. She loved Roger dearly, but talking to him last night on top of everything else had brought back black memories she needed to re-bury, at least until she was alone.

  “Nice place,” Tess said.

  Michael looked around, frowning. He appreciated the aesthetics, but right now he was most concerned about security. “Lots of windows. Where are the blinds?”

  “The owner never put coverings on the west-facing windows.” Annette tossed her black bob with a subtle shake of the head. She was a trim and attractive woman with bright, intelligent blue eyes. “He’s quite eccentric. So it can get hot in here in the late afternoon.” The trendy producer always spoke with strong inflections. At times it was irritating.

  “I thought Smith was a woman.”

  “She is. The owner’s a friend of mine, an actor, who’s in Australia filming. He’s leasing the place to Rowan.”

  Michael surveyed his surroundings, absorbing the layout.

  Everything was blinding white and glass. The furniture, the paint, the carpets. The only color came from bright, primary-toned abstract paintings sparsely decorating the walls. Sterile, cold. He sure wouldn’t want to live here.

  They stood in the large, sunken living room. Three tall windows showcased the ocean. To the right was a raised sitting area or library of sorts with a high-end entertainment center on one wall. To the left was an elevated dining room with its own picture window. All three rooms had sets of double glass doors leading to the deck.

  The house was a damn fish bowl.

  “What’s wrong?” Annette asked.

  “We need to do something about these windows.” He motioned with his hand.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything.”

  “But no one can see in. The house faces the ocean.”

  Michael struggled to be polite. “True, but at night someone could be outside on this deck and see everything inside with the house lit up like a Christmas tree, and we wouldn’t even know it.” He looked around. “Where’s Ms. Smith?”

  “In her office,” Annette said. “I’ll get her.”

  Alone? Michael thought. Already he didn’t like the feeling of this assignment. He knew nothing about Smith except that she was a former FBI agent turned writer working on a screenplay for Annette and living in a virtual glass house. And, of course, what he’d read in the newspapers about the murder in Denver.

  Michael watched the producer walk down the open hall and stop at the first set of double doors. He knew Annette and trusted her for the most part, but made a mental note to have Tess do a little clandestine research on the producer and her company. While he’d never heard of committing murder for publicity, he had been privy to some illegal stunts to bring attention to a fledgling star or poorly reviewed movie.

  “Rowan?” Annette said through the door. “The security people are here.”

  A muffled response.

  Annette turned to Michael with a half-smile. “She’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “Look, she can’t be alone. If someone is trying to kill her, she needs to be within sight at all times.” He passed Annette and rapped loudly on the door. “Ms. Smith, this is Michael Flynn. Please come out.”

  “I said five minutes!” she called from behind the door.

  “Now. You’re not safe in there.”

  He heard her laugh, followed by the distinct sound of a round being chambered. His heart raced. Was she alone? He tried the door. Locked. Then one knob slowly turned. He stood back against the wall. The door opened slightly and he waited for her to emerge. When she didn’t, he scooted along the wall, pushed the door in all the way.

  In the middle of the den stood a tall blonde with eyes the color of the ocean. Her face was blank, emotionless, her long hair clasped in the back.

  She had a gun pointed at his chest. “Bang, you’re dead.”

  “Put the damn gun down! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Protecting myself.”

  Michael whirled on his heel and started for the door. “Tess, let’s go.”

  “Michael,” Tess said, biting her lip.

  “Now.” To say he was furious was an understatement. He would tolerate no one pulling a gun on him. Was she crazy?

  “Please, Michael.” Annette laid a manicured hand on his arm. “Rowan’s upset. Just listen. She needs you.”

  Michael looked from Annette to the blonde emerging from the den, arms crossed, holding a Glock casually in one hand, pointed down. Her body rippled with tension, belying her casual posture. While too skinny, he noted well-toned muscles under the short sleeves of her shirt. Pale, but still a beautiful woman. Her face was as blank as when she’d pointed that damn gun at him. But her stormy eyes stopped him from walking out the door. He finally understood the phrase “eyes are windows to the soul.” Rowan Smith’s eyes told him she was scared but strong, troubled but defiant. A captivating combination.

  “I’ll give you ten minutes to explain,” Michael said through clenched teeth.

  It took him days to find the perfect flower shop. It would have been so much easier had she named it.

  His gloved hands opened the book to the page he’d marked.

  The front of the simple flower shop reminded him of the neighborhood where he’d grown up. A large picture window framed by a green-and-white awning, metal carts spilling over with an array of colorful carnations, red roses the color of fresh spilled blood, ferns newly misted, dripping dew like tears.

  Perfect, down to the red roses and misted ferns.

  He opened the glass door, a bell ringing overhead. The fragrant aroma of flowers, soil, and plants greeted him, along with a cheerful, “Hello, may I help you?”

  He breathed in the earthy scent, looking at a display of bright spring arrangements just inside the door while he waited for two chatty women at the counter to finish their order and leave.

  One arrangement in particular caught his attention: a brilliantly designed triangular piece with majestic pink and purple larkspurs framed by bright yellow daffodils, white and pink mums, and purple lilies, quivering in the air-conditioned store.

  It would have been perfect for her on any other occasion, but not for a funeral. Too bad.

  He turned to another worn page in the book. Though he had the passage memorized, he liked to look at the words. They gave him an almost giddy sense of pleasure, as if he were leaning over her shoulder as she typed them into her computer.

  Casa Blanca lilies, carnations, roses, moluccella, snapdragons and gypsophila, all in pure white, framed the funeral wreath, soft trailing plumosus lending a green backdrop, making the white even brighter. The fragrant flowers, so alive, should never have hung next to the closed casket, a casket that held the dead, dismembered body of a life taken too soon.

  “May I help you?”

  He turned, smiling at the young clerk who leaned forward to wait on him. Under thirty and blonde. Thankfully, there was no other description of her in the book. Even though there were hundreds of florist shops in Los Angeles, it might have been difficult to get both the setting and the victim just right had there been more detail. It had taken him six months to track down a waitress named Doreen Rodriguez in Denver.

  And he had a flight to Portland in less than two hours.

  “Yes, I’d like to purchase a funeral wreath.” He watched as the other cu
stomers left the store, chatting, ignorant. They had no idea they’d brushed shoulders with a god. Energized by his duplicity, he smiled at the pretty clerk.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the pretty young woman said. Her name badge read Christine.

  Doreen hadn’t been much of a loss. In fact, she hadn’t put up much of a fight, but he wasn’t about to tell his next victim that small tidbit.

  Closing the book, he described the flowers he wanted in the wreath. Christine attempted to make suggestions, showing him other exquisite arrangements, flowing greenery, and explaining that wreaths had become passé. He politely demurred. “This is what she would want,” he explained.

  “I understand.” The florist smiled warmly, with just the right hint of sympathy in her pretty blue eyes.

  A shame he would have to kill her.

  CHAPTER

  3

  “Have you been threatened?”

  They sat at the dining room table, Annette providing most of the details, but Michael still had many unanswered questions. He glanced at Rowan, but couldn’t get a fix on her. She’d put on small wire-rim glasses with a gray coating so he couldn’t see her eyes. They weren’t sunglasses, but had the same shielding effect. She sat at the far end of the table, looking out the window.

  “Not directly,” Rowan said in time. Summarizing what the police had told her yesterday, she was careful to leave out the detail about her book being left at the scene. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she said, glancing at him. “What exactly would you do to protect me?” Her condescending tone irritated him.

  Of course, she had been a Fed. All Feds thought they knew best, Michael thought with derision. Still, she needed protection. Some lunatic had used her book as a blueprint for murder. The killer might have his own agenda, or he might be coming for her. Increasing security around this place was a good start.

  It didn’t hurt that a high-profile case could really help his business take off, either.

  “I was a cop for nearly fifteen years and have been in private security for two. I’m more than capable of watching your back,” he told her. It was quite a nice back to watch, he thought. The whole package was attractive.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Rowan said, her posture rigid. “What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?”

  Was she being deliberately obtuse? She had to know what a bodyguard was for. “You’ve worked for the FBI. You know damn well what I’d be doing. Answering your door. Escorting you when you leave the house. Locking down at night and if the guy shows, getting you to a safe place. What more do you want to know?”

  Rowan arched an eyebrow and seemed about to say something when the doorbell rang. She stood, and Michael glared at her.

  “I would imagine answering the door falls under my job description,” he said.

  She nodded, taking the Glock out of the shoulder holster she wore over her white T-shirt.

  Annette looked almost excited, and Tess took out her own little snub-nosed .38.

  Rowan couldn’t help but smile at Tess Flynn’s firearm. “Cute gun,” she said before she could stop herself from being bitchy.

  Michael disappeared down the hall to the foyer. He’d been a cop for fifteen years, probably joined the academy right out of high school. He had that beat-cop bravado, a slight arrogant swagger, the rigid stance. His body crackled with suppressed energy, but he had laugh lines around his green eyes and his hair was too long to be a regulation cut. He almost had a rebel appearance. She couldn’t help but wonder why he’d left the force so young. He wouldn’t get full retirement benefits, something very important to most people in law enforcement.

  That was something she intended to look into.

  But he seemed to know what he was doing regarding personal security. It was either him or Roger would send out a pair of agents. Rowan didn’t feel comfortable taking so many resources away from the Bureau. Not before they had any solid information about the killer.

  She just didn’t like being under someone else’s thumb. The whole idea of a bodyguard irritated her. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, as she had told both Roger and this new guy, Michael Flynn.

  She sighed, rubbed her eyes under the small glasses, resigned to the fact that it was either Michael or a former colleague. She didn’t need the lenses for seeing, but she found wearing them was a good way to observe people.

  A few moments later, Michael came back into the dining room carrying a huge white and green funeral wreath.

  The blood drained from her face. She’d seen the wreath before. In her mind.

  The sweet, cloying smell of flowers reminded Rowan of every funeral she’d ever been to. There were too many, but she remembered each and every one of them. Who thought that the overabundance of beauty somehow made violent death more palatable? Death, premature death, could never be glossed over.

  “There’s a card,” Michael said, reaching for it.

  “Don’t touch it!” Rowan rushed to his side.

  Michael stopped, hand in midair. “I checked out the package before I let the driver go. It’s clean.” He looked annoyed, his lips drawn into a tight line as if irritated that she had the audacity to challenge his ability.

  “No, it’s not that. I recognize it.”

  “The flowers?”

  She nodded. “They’re exactly as I envisioned in one of my books.” Her voice sounded unsteady, just like she felt. This certainly wasn’t a good sign, and any hope there had been a mistake in delivery quickly dissipated when she carefully pulled the card out by the corner with her fingernails.

  The pre-printed message at top—IN MEMORIAM—was followed by one written sentence: Please accept my heartfelt condolences on the death of your brainchild, Doreen. It was signed, A Fan.

  Rowan dropped the card on the table as if it had burned her, heart pounding. Her stomach threatened to rebel against the coffee and banana that had comprised her breakfast three hours before.

  Michael leaned over to read the message. “What does it mean?”

  Rowan hoped she was wrong, but feared she wasn’t. “Call the police. He’s going to kill again. If he hasn’t already.”

  By the time the police left hours later, along with Annette and Tess, Rowan was exhausted. Michael didn’t say anything when she retired to the den. The police would trace the flowers, but Rowan seemed resigned to the fact that someone had already died. The rancor she’d displayed earlier at Michael’s presence was gone; she just closed up emotionally and told him to do what he needed to do.

  Michael checked the security system and perimeter, then all windows and doors. Secure.

  Long past dark, Michael’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Though the contents of Rowan’s kitchen were sparse, he found some pasta—not fresh, but it would suffice. While the water boiled, he went through the pantry, pulling out basic spaghetti sauce, a jar of sliced mushrooms, a can of olives, and diced tomatoes.

  He enjoyed the peace of cooking, especially in a gourmet kitchen like this. While everything simmered, he opened cabinets until he found a bottle of good red wine. He nodded at the vintage. Good stuff. He couldn’t drink on the job, but maybe a glass would relax Rowan Smith.

  “Glad you approve,” Rowan said from the doorway.

  Michael was startled she’d gotten the drop on him. He usually knew when he was being watched. “I thought you might want a glass to relax.”

  She nodded, slid onto one of the two bar stools. He opened the wine, poured her a glass, and handed it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said with a half-smile.

  “It’s your wine.”

  “For giving me time alone.” The small eyeglasses she’d been wearing earlier were gone and he tried not to stare into her pretty blue-gray eyes. They were so expressive, even with her blank face and rigid posture. Right now they told him she was tired but thinking—probably running through every case she’d ever worked.

 
“You didn’t have much by way of food, so I improvised,” he said as he checked on the meal.

  “Food tends to go bad. I buy what I need when I need it.”

  “Spoken like a true bachelorette.”

  “Not all of us are the marrying type.”

  “I suppose not.” Michael went back to the stove and stirred his sauce. He’d thought about marrying on more than one occasion. Most recently, Jessica. The thought of her brought waves of anger and deep sadness. You’d think that after two years he’d be over it.

  “Everything okay?” Rowan asked.

  Damn, he didn’t think he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Then again, she’d been a cop and was used to reading body language.

  “Fine.” He kept his voice light and his back to her as he strained the rotelle, tossed everything together, and dished up two plates. By the time he slid a plate in front of Rowan, he’d forced all thoughts of Jessica from his mind.

  “Normally, I would have bread and salad to go with this, but there wasn’t any.” He tried to make light of her bare cupboards.

  “It smells wonderful.”

  “Thanks.”

  They ate in companionable silence, side by side at the counter. When they were done, Michael started cleaning, but she touched his arm. “You cooked; I’ll clean.”

  Rowan cleaned up with quick, non-superfluous movements. He had a million questions to ask her, but decided to take it slow. There was far more to Rowan Smith than a pretty face and the ability to tell a scary story. In the few hours he’d known her, he realized she was an exceptionally private woman.

  She was smart, competent, and had an intriguing past. FBI agent turned crime writer. Quiet and reserved, she seemed to have energy bottled up, simmering under her skin. An interesting contrast. He wanted to know why she’d quit what appeared to have been a promising career with the FBI. Why had she decided to write murder mysteries? What prompted her to leave Washington to move to the West Coast? Since she leased this beach house temporarily, where did she call home?

  Michael would make it his mission to learn everything there was to know about Rowan Smith. For professional reasons, of course, he told himself.