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“Oh, I just saw you coming, and I thought I’d wait for you.” He nervously fingered the hem of his gray T-shirt, which hung a little too high over his tight bicycle shorts to be flattering. “To walk to class together, you know.”
Deep breath. Maybe as Terri, the office manager, often pointed out, the more difficult students who came their way were secret bodhisattvas, put on earth to teach everyone patience. And really, Stan wasn’t the worst they’d ever had—just a little socially awkward.
Slamming the door shut, she pressed the button on her key fob to lock the doors. Twice, just in case. “I’m sorry, didn’t Terri put up a sign yet? I’m having to cancel classes today.”
“Ohhhh. Oh, yeah. Umm.”
His stuttered reply gave her the distinct feeling that Terri had put up a sign and he’d seen it. But she pushed the thought out of her mind—she was just being paranoid. She’d read about conditions like Asperger’s where people had trouble reading social cues—Stan probably deserved patience, not condemnation.
Slinging her bags over her shoulder, she started walking toward the studio, and he fell into step beside her.
“Well, um…”
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I have an emergency I’m having to deal with. We’ll add a free class to your prepaid schedule to make up for it. I know how I feel when I have to miss my morning yoga.” She gave a laugh that had been an attempt at being pleasant, but sounded hollow and artificial even to her ears.
“Sure, thanks, uh…”
She felt a rush of relief when they turned the corner onto Cannery Row and were suddenly playing Dodge the Tourists. Crowds. Crowds were good. Resurrected serial killers would have a hard time coming after her in a big crowd. She stopped underneath the hand-painted sign for her Laughing Lotus Yoga Studio and scanned the busy street, but she saw no evidence of Liz’s car.
When she turned toward the studio, she saw that Stan had planted himself in front of the doorway, where he was simply watching her with wide, staring blue eyes.
“Do you have a question for me, Stan?” His eyes were a nice blue. A perfectly normal shade of blue with the slightest smile lines at the corners. There was nothing wrong with him—no reason for him to be setting off her alarm bells this way.
Nerves. It’s just nerves.
“No—well, yes, actually, but it’s not about yoga.” Interrupting himself with a loud sigh, Stan rolled his eyes skyward. “Say it. Just say it. You can say it.”
Her eyes flicked back to the street, and as the silence stretched between them, she willed Liz’s car to appear. “Uh, Stan?”
“Would you go out with me? This Saturday, maybe? There’s a great little ice cream shop in Carmel, and we could walk on the beach afterward, and I’ll pick you up at one, if that’s okay with you.” He skimmed his hand along his hip bone during his entire nervous, rapidfire monologue, as if trying to shove his fingers into a pocket that wasn’t there. “I mean, if it’s not too drizzly on the beach. It always seems to rain on the public-access parts even when the rest of the area is sunny—”
“I’m seeing someone,” she blurted, cringing inwardly at the lie.
She should have known. Ever since James had died, shy, awkward men had come out from every corner of Monterey to ask her out, as if sensing that something was slightly off-kilter inside her, too. But she wasn’t socially awkward—she just didn’t want to socialize. She didn’t want to go out on dates, she didn’t want to go shopping with friends, she barely wanted to go to work in the morning. It all seemed so superficial and…unfair, since James couldn’t do any of it anymore. Maybe that’s why she’d upped her class load and spent more of her free time teaching, after selling the clothing boutique she used to own…before. At least teaching made her feel as if she was doing something useful with her life.
“Just as you should be,” Stan murmured to the sidewalk. He shuffled his weight from side to side, his hands moving awkwardly. He really wasn’t bad looking—he had a pleasant face, a healthy head of hair and a fit physique, if a little on the skinny side. But dating wasn’t something she did anymore—she just couldn’t drum up the energy to be attracted to someone.
“I’m sorry.” She really was. And now she knew why Stan had made her uneasy—she must’ve known at some unconscious level that they would be having this uncomfortable conversation soon.
He nodded several times, opening his mouth once to respond and then closing it again. Still nodding, he started ambling down the street. A few seconds later, he turned around and came back to stand beside her.
“I’m sorry to put you in that position.” He waved off her reflexive denial. “I don’t want my being in your class to get strange. It’s just…” His gaze darted across the street, and he shrugged. “My mother is in the hospital. They think she might be dying this time, and I just feel peaceful when I’m around you.” He looked back at the blue-and-green sign hanging over the studio door, showing a laughing woman sitting cross-legged and holding a lotus. “I bet you have that effect on a lot of people.”
She was officially a monster. The poor guy’s mother was dying, and she’d been acting all uncomfortable just because he’d paid her the compliment of asking her out. “I’m so sorry, Stan. Has she been sick long?” Making a conscious effort to relax her body, she glanced down at her hands to discover she’d woven her fingers through her set of keys while they’d been talking, so a key stuck straight out between each pair—instant brass knuckles.
Stan didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. She had cancer a while back, and now it’s in her lungs. They told her she has about a month left.”
“I’m sorry.” What do you say to something like that without resorting to clichés and stale platitudes? She couldn’t even imagine going through what the poor guy was dealing with, as her own parents were strong and healthy. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
Instead of replying, Stan suddenly lifted his arm in the air to flag a passing taxi. With a murmured goodbye, he got inside, and the cab disappeared down the street.
A few minutes later, Liz screeched into view in her off-duty Dodge Charger, black with dark-tinted windows. Nobody loved an American muscle car better than Liz. Leaning her body against the door, Adriana curled her fingers under its handle, then stopped.
A flash of gray out of the corner of her eye. The sense that someone was staring at her.
Stan was gone—the awkward moment had passed—and yet, something still felt…off, somehow. And all she had to go on to prove it was a feeling. She watched the street, as people strolled in and out of the vibrant little shops and art galleries lining the historic street. Some paused to admire the explosions of flowers planted near curbs and on the road dividers. Many were undoubtedly headed toward the far end of the street, to either visit the famous aquarium or just for a glimpse of Monterey Bay itself. It was a pleasant scene, one straight out of the glossy, free, tourist brochures inside her studio.
And something was so wrong about it all. But what?
Still looking down the street, she opened the door and got into the car.
“S ORRY I’ M LATE ,” a deep voice said to her left, the masculine sound very unlike Liz’s no-nonsense alto.
Whipping her head around in shock, she discovered that Liz wasn’t inside waiting for her…and that she herself wasn’t even in Liz’s car. The sleek black Charger looked exactly like Liz’s from the outside, but the gray interior lacked the crumpled soda cans and ballet and basketball gear her daughters perpetually left inside. Come to think of it, the familiar Truth or D.A.R.E. decal on the rear side window touting the police-run drug education program was also missing. And there was also the small detail that in the driver’s seat, instead of Liz, was a man she hadn’t seen in four years—one she remembered all too well.
“Lieutenant Borkowski sent me,” Detective Daniel Cardenas said without preamble, which was enough to stop her from apologizing and scrambling out of the vehicle.
“You two have the same car,” she replied, immediately wanting to kick herself for sounding so stupid.
“There’s a Dodge dealer in town who likes cops. Nice discounts.” He hit a button on the door armrest, causing all four doors to lock down with a loud thud. “Buckle up.”
She clicked her seat belt into place, knowing that if Liz had sent him, she’d had a good reason for doing so. “So, Detective, you want to tell me why Liz isn’t picking me up herself like she promised?”
“She said she promised you a ride, Ms. Torres,” he said, as unfailingly polite as she remembered. Despite the Latin last name—he was Puerto Rican, she remembered—his English was unaccented, until he said her name with the rolling R and musical tone of a native Spanish speaker.
“Adriana. Or Addy,” she said. He didn’t invite her to call him Daniel—and she knew he wouldn’t. If Cardenas was going to have anything to do with her case, he would keep things professional.
Concentrating intently on the road, he pulled the car away from the curb. He didn’t smile—she couldn’t remember ever having seen him smile—but his face was relaxed, pleasant. “She thought we should talk.”
“Oh?” Obviously, getting information out of Mr. Strong and Silent was going to be about as easy as bathing Liz’s cat. When Cardenas didn’t offer any further information, Adriana sat back in her seat, seeing if waiting patiently would produce some results.
Four years ago, at the age of twenty-eight, Daniel Cardenas had become the youngest detective sergeant in the City of Monterey Police Department’s history, James had told her. Known for his sharpshooting skills and a constant, almost preternatural cool under pressure that had earned him the nickname “The Zen Master,” the quiet detective with a rumored genius-level IQ had a case-solve rate that rivaled the best in the department, including Liz and James.
At one of the police department’s social events, Cardenas’s date had confided to Adriana that she referred to him as “The Kama Sutra Master” with her girlfriends, because “he had really great hands.” Fortunately, Addy had managed to excuse herself before the woman had provided any more details.
He was now dressed in a blue-gray silk tie and a tailored white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His dark gray suit jacket lay abandoned in the backseat, a fact that made her realize she’d never seen him look that rumpled. He’d always been buttoned up, pressed and coolly professional, usually with a pair of mirrored aviators hiding his dark eyes and making him look like Secret Service. Even his short, black hair was cool, the cut a combination of artfully mussed style and low-maintenance casualness that you couldn’t get from a discount barber.
She glanced at his hands, loosely clamped around the steering wheel at three and nine o’clock, the tendons standing out in sharp relief underneath his tanned skin. No rings.
She remembered those hands. They’d held her for hours after he’d come to her door to tell her that James had died in the line of duty. They’d wiped her tears and had dialed the phone to call her family. They’d stroked her hair and had given her something to hold on to when she thought she’d die because it hurt so much. Seeing him again was like a handsome, polite reminder of the worst day of her life.
The car crawled slowly through the tourists on Cannery Row, and since Cardenas seemed more focused on his driving than on enlightening her, she decided to start playing twenty questions. “You’re the one she was telling me about?” she asked, more than a little glad her voice sounded more normal than she felt. “The MPD ‘go-to guy’ on stalking cases?”
A corner of his mouth quirked upward. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was closer than she’d ever seen. Not that they’d crossed paths all that often. “Something like that.”
“But this might be more than just a stalking case.”
He nodded, a small, economic movement, quickly glancing in the rearview mirror before responding further. “I know.”
She turned her face away from him to stare out the window.
Arriving at the Hoffman Avenue intersection in time for a break in the tourists meandering through the crosswalks, Daniel made a sudden left. He followed that with an immediate, sharp right onto Lighthouse that had her grasping for the armrest so she wouldn’t careen into his side. She could have sworn she heard the tires squealing.
As she peeled herself off the door, she noticed he was driving calmly, as if the two Indy 500 turns he’d just made had never happened.
“Uh, Detective,” she said. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“I like to drive fast.”
Okay, now he was just messing with her. And she was about to let him have it when everything clicked into place—the off-duty car, the rolled-up sleeves, the slightly askew tie.
“This isn’t official is it? You’re off duty.”
“I’m never off duty,” he replied, extremely focused on the road. “But I’m officially on the clock in exactly two minutes, if it makes you feel better.”
“Look. I don’t know what Liz told you, but I don’t need to waste the department’s time—and yours, since you’re not even on the clock at the moment, and I know they just cut the overtime budget because Liz has been ranting about that for weeks.”
Another glance in his mirrors. He slipped a pair of expensive aviators out of his shirt pocket and put them on, hiding his eyes. “You’re not wasting my time, Adriana.”
The rolling R again. She was a native Spanish speaker, and his accent still sounded sexy to her. “I am. I’m not rich or important enough to pull police off the streets—or out of their homes—for my personal protection. We’re not sure that The Surgeon is still alive. Frankly, I don’t see how he could be.” Liar. “Take me back to work, Detective, and then go do whatever it is you need to do for the day.” She just wanted to get out of the car, away from the hot guy with communication problems. Away from the memories he’d brought with him.
“Adriana Maria Imaculata Torres, age thirty-six,” he said, calmly staring at the road. “Parents are Ana Maria and Juan Roberto Torres of Carmel, net worth approximately $1.6 billion, mostly from the sale of the Asilomar Tire Company they inherited in 1972, which had been in the family for approximately three generations. Today the family owns a small vineyard that boasts several award-winning chardonnays and a tragically underrated merlot.”
Adriana could only stare at him.
“You are that rich, according to the Monterey County Herald, ” he supplied, making a puzzling series of right turns that had them going pretty much in a circle through downtown. “And everyone’s important enough to make their safety paramount.”
Safety paramount? Who talked like that?
“Detective?”
“Hmm?” They’d hit Asilomar, one of the busier roads. Cardenas glanced in his mirrors and accelerated past two cars that had been meandering along.
“How about we not mention my middle name ever again, please? No one should ever saddle their child with something as horrible as Imaculata, even though it was my great-grandmother’s name, God rest her soul.”
The almost smile appeared again. “Catholic family?”
“You know it.” She didn’t know why, but it had suddenly become her challenge in life to make him smile outright, or maybe even laugh. Maybe because it kept her from thinking too hard about why Liz was so afraid for her safety, she’d pulled a hardworking detective off of his undoubtedly heavy caseload to babysit her. “Do you really think The Surgeon might be back?”
“I know you’re not asking for my advice, but call him Carter. It’ll remind you that he was just a man.”
A man who liked to carve people up for fun.
“Let me ask you a question,” Daniel said gently when she didn’t respond. “Is there anyone else it could be?”
Her hands flew briefly into the air, palms upward. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure at least some of the notes I’ve gotten over the years have been from some teenagers who live near me. I even got a glimpse of one once, and he was definitely just shy of puberty. But this…it seemed different.”
“Let’s assume it is different,” he replied. Darn those glasses. She couldn’t see his eyes, and without that, she didn’t have a prayer of reading his expression. “Who else might want to upset you?”
She had to think about that one. Truthfully, she tried to avoid conflict and didn’t have any enemies she could think of. “Well, there’s…” She let the sentence trail off.
“There’s who?” he prompted gently.
“It’s nothing.” She shrugged. “Just a stupid thought.”
“Coworker? Customer? Some guy who passes you on the street every day and acts a little strange?”
“I was going to say there’s this guy in one of my yoga classes—a student. But he’s harmless, really. Just because someone is a little socially awkward—”
He took the glasses off and tossed them on the dash. “Adriana, I’d really like it if you’d give me permission to come into your house when I drop you off. There are a couple of things I haven’t told you yet.” He flicked a glance at her, and though she’d known his eyes were hazel, she hadn’t noticed the almost hypnotic combination of green and gold, until that split second. And then she remembered—when Daniel Cardenas looked at you, even for just a moment, he really looked at you. And he must have known the effect he had when he did, or he wouldn’t have removed those damned sunglasses just then.
She didn’t want to deal with his pity. She didn’t want to show him her drab house and the refrigerator that lacked all the things you offered a guest. She didn’t want him to have to keep up that unfailing politeness while he witnessed how sad and pathetic her life had become.
But someone was out there. Taking pictures of the dead.
And so she had to know what his last sentence had meant. “What things?”
“I can’t tell you how many times a victim I’ve interviewed has said, ‘I was going to mention this guy as a possible suspect, but he’s harmless,’ and the guy turned out to be not so harmless.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. He’d been doing that a lot, so she looked over her shoulder, too, but all she saw were a couple of innocuous cars cruising along behind them.
She waited for his second point, but instead he just asked, “See that handle up there?”
She blinked at the odd non sequitur. “What?”
“The grab handle.” He motioned slightly with his chin toward the interior handle near the roof. She’d always thought those were put there to hold dry cleaning.
“Yes.”
“Hang on to it.”
As soon as her fingers curled around it, Daniel calmly put the gear shift in Neutral. Then, he cranked the steering wheel to the left, yanking up hard on the emergency brake. With an ear-splitting squeal of its tires, the Charger spun in a tight half circle, fast and hard. Her right side slammed into the passenger door. “What are you—”
But Daniel wasn’t in the mood for questions. His mouth set in a grim line, he let down the brake handle and punched the accelerator, probably leaving most of his tire treads on the asphalt as the car shot forward. The force of it slammed Addy back in her seat. They zoomed past the cars that had been behind them. So fast, Addy couldn’t get even a glimpse of the drivers. As soon as they hit an intersection, Daniel took another hairpin turn to the right. He followed that with a tire-squealing left through a traffic light that had just changed from yellow to red.
After one more careening left turn, Daniel finally slowed down to an acceptable speed, leaving Addy reeling in her seat, dizzy and more than a little car sick.
“Do you always drive like this?” she asked, tentatively loosening her death grip on the grab handle. “Because if you do, I’m so going to throw up on you.”
The half smile actually turned into a full-fledged grin, a flash of straight, white teeth that contrasted against his brown skin.
“You’re laughing at me.” She fussed with the hoodie sweatshirt she’d tied around her waist to make her black, flared-leg spandex pants a little more modest as streetwear.
“I don’t laugh at crime victims.” His expression turned serious once more. He had a nice smile, and despite her confusion over what had just happened and the fear that had been lingering on the edge of her conscience all day, she kind of wished it had stayed a little longer.
“What just happened there? Because I think it was more than a boys-and-their-toys moment.”
Signaling a turn for the first time since she’d gotten into the car with him, he pulled the Charger onto Mermaid Point Drive. He parked the car in front of her little clapboard house.
“You know that guy who walked out of your store with you? Left in a taxi?”
