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question was, how well? No doubt, she’d connect the fire with a man driving a dark truck, turning off the deserted street as she’d been rounding the corner. Tell the police about a stranger who had no business in this sleepy, aging upper-crust community in the wee hours.
    Now he’d have to ditch the truck. Drive to another county and trade it in at some obscure lot where nobody required a damned DNA sample to do business. Cash ’n’ dash.
    His jaw clenched in anger. Two days of casing the area, studying the residents’ comings and goings, picking the perfect empty house, only to have the woman show unexpectedly.
    He’d observed Sweet Cheeks picking up the mail and newspapers both of the previous afternoons, performing the menial tasks of a friend or relative dropping by to check on things while the owners were out of town. Ten minutes per house, in and out. The dumb bitch may as well have posted a sign in the yard shouting THESE PEOPLE ARE VACATIONING!
    Choosing between the two residences for his plan had been simple. As with many older homes, the complacent owners had never gotten around to installing an alarm system. Surprise, boys and girls. Life sucks.
    So easy, his plans carried off without a hitch . . . until the girl presented a challenging new twist to the fun.
    Of course, he’d have to dispose of her, though perhaps not right away. The sparks flying between the beauty and her beast had nearly started another blaze. There was truly no accounting for a woman’s taste in men, even if she was a slut.
    Interesting and potentially useful, however. For a relationship to blossom between them would be a gift from heaven dropped into his lap. To use the lieutenant’s lady as the final tool of his destruction, the ultimate payback. The supreme irony.
    Steal the one you cherish most, the way you stole from me. By God, you will atone.
    So he’d watch, wait. Should their attraction to each other bear no fruit, well . . . no harm, no foul. In that case, he’d keep to the original plan.
    Before Howard Paxton drew his last breath, he would regret the day he’d been born.
    About time the worthless bastard joined the club.

    3
    Usually Kat preferred to sleep naked. Here in the privacy of her apartment, in the darkness of her own bedroom, she could feel sexy. Feminine. Close her eyes, let the sheets caress her bare skin, and pretend. Sometimes she imagined the brush of cotton sheets were the palm of a man’s hand, skimming, exploring. In her fantasy, this man detested supermodel-thin women. He adored her plump curves, worshipping every inch of her.
    Tonight, nudity only left her feeling horribly exposed.
    In spite of the pajamas she’d donned like armor against the bogeyman, she began to tremble. Delayed reaction.
    She slid between the crisp, cool sheets with a grateful sigh, wiggling to make them a warm cocoon. Her safe haven, even if an illusion. A long, hot shower had washed off the sweat and stink of smoke, but had no positive effect whatsoever on the black cloud suddenly hanging over her head.
    God, that poor person, whoever he or she was. How terrifying it must’ve been to burn to death—if the person wasn’t murdered before the fire. How horrible to have a psycho loose in the city, probably proud of what he’d done!
    Howard said she might be in danger, a tiny detail she’d neglected to mention to her anxious parents when they’d received her emergency message and phoned from the ship. The roly-poly cop with the personality of a brick had agreed. The lawman’s brilliant suggestion? Get a big, kick-ass dog. Right. Robocop didn’t have to pay the enormous pet deposit, take it for walks, or clean piss off the carpet when it got mad because you were gone too long.
    Forget the dog. A big, kick-ass man, on the other hand . . .
    Mmm. Howard wouldn’t pee on the rug, either. Oh, the guy probably had several nasty and annoying habits. Most men did. What she wouldn’t give to learn every single one of