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Gabe shook his head. The woman was squirrel fodder. He’d been right to not waste time talking with her when she called.
The beam of her small flashlight swung away from the window. Gabe moved to where he could just see her vague outline. Her body radiated tension as she peered around the room. The resonant sound of the grandfather clock chiming the hour sent a tiny shriek past her lips.
“Idiot!”
On that, they were in complete agreement.
Muttering a profanity, she repositioned the chair at the table.
“No way am I going back out that window. When I leave tonight, I’m going out a door like any civilized burglar.”
Thoroughly amused, Gabe watched as Cassiopia moved the small ray of light to search out a path to the kitchen. It would almost be a shame to ruin her evening by revealing his presence.
HER FRAZZLED NERVES were playing tricks on her. There was no one here. Gabriel Lowe was at the gym. Based on past observations she should have an hour and a half before he returned.
Cassy picked her way carefully through the maze of furniture. Fortunately for her, his tastes ran to the stark. While the heavy old pieces were oversized, he hadn’t filled his home with bric-a-brac and clutter. And that seemed a little strange, given that he was supposed to be a sculptor. She’d expected to find dozens of ugly pieces scattered about.
Cassy shook her head. Who cared? The only thing that mattered was finding his home office, doing a quick search for what Beacher had found and getting away before either of them returned. She’d watched Gabriel enough to know that he spent most of his time in his basement. He even entertained Beacher down there, unless they sat around in the dark upstairs when he came to visit. Obviously, the basement was the place to start and she’d better hurry.
Finding a door next to the refrigerator, she reached for the handle. A mop stem hurled out of the darkness and cracked against her shoulder. Cassy leaped back, another small shriek escaping. Dislodged, a plastic pail rocked against the dustpan with a surprising clatter. The broom tipped over. She barely caught the handle in time to keep it from crashing to the floor.
HE WAS GOING TO HAVE to fix that wall mount for the mop and broom soon, Gabe thought, lips twitching. He’d waited until she’d stepped fully into the kitchen before slipping in through the open window without disturbing the drape or the chair. He’d cautiously taken a position near the hall entrance to the kitchen to see what she’d do next.
“I’m going to have a major heart attack before I even find the basement,” she muttered so softly he had to strain to hear her. “Gabriel Lowe is going to come home and find my dead body on his kitchen floor wearing stupid baggie gloves. Why didn’t I stop and pick up some latex ones?”
Stupid baggie gloves?
She replaced the mop, the broom and the pail and closed the door. The beam bobbled as she sent the anemic shaft of light toward the dining room entrance. He melted back before she shone it in the hall’s direction, then moved to observe her when the light swung away again.
Taking a cautious step around the refrigerator, she continued moving until she reached the basement door. She opened it gingerly and aimed the faint beam of light down the steps. He saw her shudder.
“This is so not a good idea.”
Gabe agreed. What was she doing here? Didn’t she realize his house was searched on a regular basis? The professionals could probably tell her the number of cans and the brand names of the soup in his kitchen cupboard on any given day. This had to have something to do with Beacher.
Gabe’s humor dissolved as Cassiopia gripped the smooth wood banister and started down the stairs. He waited for her to reach the third step from the bottom. The board creaked loudly. Her gasp was swallowed by the darkness.
He took a step back from the opening. Sure enough, she sent that stupid little light back up before swinging it in front of her again. What she expected a beam of that size to reveal he wasn’t sure. He probably hadn’t even needed to move.
“Think of the squeak as an early warning system,” she muttered.
That was exactly how he’d always looked at it. The narrow stairs were the only way in or out of the basement. He wondered if she knew that.
Using the flat of one hand and the weakening beam of light, she followed the curve of the wall to her right.
“If that man has a single rodent scurrying around down here I will come back and haunt him for all eternity.”
He skimmed down the stairs noiselessly in her wake.
REALIZING SHE’D FOUND another room, Cassy swept her hand over the inside wall until she located the light switch. Waiting for her eyes to adjust to what seemed like sudden brilliance, she gaped in amazement and stepped inside.
The windowless space was filled with shelves and columned pedestals of varying heights. Each held a bronze sculpture or series of small sculptures. Animals, especially lions and big cats, seemed to be his specialty. He’d infused an almost living essence in each subject. They were exquisitely detailed.
Her hand reached out to stroke a deer poised in flight. She stopped before actually touching the lifelike bronze figurine and shook her head reverently. Slowly, she moved about the room in awe. Gabriel Lowe was an artist in the truest sense of the word. His talent was nothing short of amazing.
She paused to squat before a pair of identical, nearly life-sized bronzes. The crouching lions perched on elaborate, ebony wood bases on the tiled floor.
“Absolutely incredible.”
“Thank you.”
Cassy rose with a shriek and whirled.
Wreathed in the concealing darkness of the hall, deep-set eyes seemed to gleam with a predator’s assessment as they surveyed her from beyond the room’s pool of light. Panic sent her gaze questing for a nonexistent escape route.
Energy crackled as Gabriel Lowe took a sinuous step into the shaft of light.
Her gaze fastened on the twisted scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to the edge of his strong jaw. Horrible! It added gruesome detail to the sinister, fierce aura he projected.
He was broader and taller up close than she’d expected. Powerful shoulders tapered to a narrow waist. Lean hips and well-muscled thighs confirmed his fitness as he glided forward silently like some large, stalking cat.
Cassy forgot to breathe. The darkness seemed to thicken behind him, creating an impenetrable barrier. His fixed, implacable expression held her silent. Her heart drummed wildly against her rib cage.
There was nowhere to run even if she could have summoned the will to move. Like a cornered mouse, she knew she was trapped. The jig was up.
Gabriel Lowe was going to kill her, too.
Chapter Two
Gabe watched as Cassiopia’s shocked gaze traveled the length of his scar before absorbing the rest of him. Well, his features hadn’t been all that great even before the explosion. The bright red puckering of the scar had faded to white over time, but he knew its impact was still strong on unsuspecting people.
“Wha-what are you doing here?” she managed to gasp.
He arched his eyebrows pointedly and remained silent.
Cassiopia closed her eyes and groaned. “I knew I was going to get caught.” She opened her eyes and grimaced. “I guess I should be glad you aren’t a mad rapist.”
He waited, keeping his expression blank, still reluctantly amused by her forced attempt at humor.
“You aren’t, are you?”
“Which? Mad, or a rapist?”
“I know you aren’t a rapist.”
He raised his eyebrows. Color singed her cheeks but she pressed forward boldly.
“How mad are you?”
He came away from the door in a motion that brought him across the room in three long strides. Cassiopia took an inadvertent step back, stopping when her heel bumped the base of the nearest crouching lion.
“What makes you so sure I’m not a rapist?”
The silky tone of his words charged the air. Her lips parted without sound while her gaze fastened on his scar once more. She inhaled raggedly.
“Don’t be absurd.”
Her voice cracked, denying the false calm she was trying to project.
“Are you going to call the police?”
He let his expression darken, then crowded her deliberately, coming to a stop when he was inches from her face.
“Now why would I want to do that? The last thing a mad rapist wants is the police,” he told her with silken menace.
Cassy refused to look away. “That isn’t funny.”
“Neither is breaking and entering.”
She dropped her gaze. Gabe sensed it lingering on the scarred backs of his hands and made no effort to conceal the puckered skin. Let her look her fill. There were more scars than these, covered by his clothing.
A piece of burning siding had landed on him in the explosion nearly four years ago. He’d been unconscious, and only the fast action of a neighbor had kept him from burning to death. Any number of times he’d thought the man hadn’t done him any favors.
Gabe was close enough to smell a bewitchingly light scent that wasn’t some cloying perfume, but was utterly female. He tried to ignore that and focused on the play of color in her hair. Cassiopia Richards was…distracting.
Amazingly, there was neither pity nor horror in her expression when she lifted her eyes. “You left me no choice,” she told him with surprising fierceness. “You could have talked to me when I called you yesterday.”
“I did.”
Her lips thinned. “You told me to take a hike.”
“I’m certain I was more polite than that.”
“Stop playing games.”
That stirred his anger once more. “I’ve said all I have to say on the subject of what happened four years ago. I’m not interested in repeating myself.”
“Beacher claims you were an innocent victim, too.”
Beacher was a fool. His friend was convinced Cassiopia knew something that would help them discover what Powell Richards had done with the missing toxin so he refused to give up his pursuit of her.
As Beacher had pointed out, “That toxin’s somewhere and we’re going to find it and prove we had nothing to do with what happened.”
Gabe believed talking with Cassiopia was a waste of time. She’d been away at school when her father had taken the toxin from under Gabe’s nose and gotten himself killed. And she’d scored an indelible impression on him that day in the hospital. She was too young, too passionate and obviously too impulsive to be of any help to them.
She summoned up a glare as if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. “I’m leaving.”
“You just got here.”
Not many people could hold his gaze when he was in a temper. Given his overall size and his scars, he’d perfected the art of intimidation, but only the quickening leap of the pulse in her neck told him she wasn’t as immune as she’d like him to believe.
Gabe stepped back. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
The widening of those soft gray eyes brought a sudden vision of his bedroom and the two of them intertwined on twisted sheets. It had been a long time since he’d thought about sex and he banished the image instantly. But she seemed to be tuning in to his thoughts.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
This time anxiety threaded her voice.
“You’d rather remain here?”
“Yes. Go ahead and call the police. I’d welcome them.”
The bluster was gone. He’d finally succeeded in frightening her. It made him feel oddly ashamed.
“To the kitchen, Cassiopia,” he told her more gently. “To talk. I may be mad—God knows I’ve been called worse—but I’m no rapist.”
He stepped back even farther, giving her space. “Come or stay.”
Her chin lifted in defiance. “I’ll stay.”
“Fine. But you should know that the way you entered is the only way out.”
He crossed to the door and waited. She wasn’t beautiful in the strictest sense of the word, but he’d definitely call her attractive. That rich brown hair with its hints of gold framed an oval face with high, prominent cheekbones and a long, graceful neck. Under other circumstances…
Who was he kidding? Under other circumstances she’d either take one look at his face and run the other way or cringe in pity. She faced him because she had no choice.
CASSY SOUGHT ANOTHER OPTION and realized there wasn’t one. She was not going to cringe like a mouse even if this beast did have her well and truly trapped. She hated feeling afraid. She was in the wrong, but if he’d intended to kill her he’d have done it down here, not upstairs.
With a brief, accepting nod she squared her shoulders and marched over to him.
“Do not call me Cassiopia,” she told him, pointing a plastic encased finger at his chest.
“Do you prefer Ms. Richards, or Dr. Richards?”
If he knew she was a Ph.D., he also knew she was a chemical engineer. She brushed aside Gabriel’s question with a wave of her covered hand. “I go by Cassy.”
He scowled, staring at her hand. “What are those things?”
Heat suffused her cheeks. Hastily, she pulled off the silly plastic shapes, feeling foolish.
“They come with packages of inexpensive hair dye.”
“Brown isn’t your natural color?”
