“WHAT’S THIS?” Sam loomed over her bed, his cupped hands extended in front of him.
Cass sat up blinking, not understanding what was going on. What was he talking about? Groggily, she pushed her hair from her face.
“What were these doing in your milk carton?”
She shook her head, still not comprehending. The dark expression on his face scared her. “What are you talking about?”
He shoved his palms under her nose and for the first time she saw the jewelry. Her mouth dropped open.
Around his thumb was looped the Tiffany watch that had gone missing the night of her friend Melina’s birthday party. There winked the cluster diamond earrings stolen from her coworkers’ Easter celebration. And in the center of his palm sat the round green jade from Bunnie’s Buddha.
As she stared at the treasures in Sam’s hands, understanding crept over her. Every piece of jewelry in his hand had been pilfered during elaborate parties thrown by luminaries and the social elite. All parties she had attended.
Every single one of them.
She looked up to meet Sam’s gaze, clutching the sheet to her breast, acutely aware of her nakedness.
He said nothing, just clenched his jaw. His face changed. Went white. With anger or hurt she didn’t know which. But he had no right to be hurt or angry. She was the injured party here. She was the one he was wrongly accusing of a crime with his murky gray eyes.
“You think I stole these?”
“They were in the milk carton in your refrigerator,” he repeated.
“Well then, someone else is trying to frame me. My apartment was vandalized. Find out who broke in and you’ll find out who’s put them there.”
“There’s no sign of forced entry.”
She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d kicked her in the gut with his thick, ugly Doc Martens boots. “You think I wrecked my own place?”
Cass had never seen such emotions in a man’s face all at once. Regret, disappointment, grimness, steely resolve.
“I don’t want to think it, Cass. Show me something else. Give me something I can cling to.”
Another unpleasant thought slapped her.
“You didn’t take me to Bunnie’s for an introduction because you suspected she and Trevor had robbed the Stanhope auction house. You were spying on me, waiting to see if I would steal something.”
His guilty expression was answer enough. He shifted his weight, his hands still outstretched, the jewelry winking at her in accusation.
“Yeah.”
A short, derisive noise escaped her. Unbelievable. She’d finally, finally fallen for a man and look where it had gotten her. “You thought I was guilty from the very beginning. You’ve been using me all along, trying to get me to crack. Lovely technique, Detective Mason.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Last night was…”
“A bad mistake,” she said firmly. Cass tightened her jaw. She wasn’t going to cry. She refused to cry. She was tougher than that. She was innocent. She’d get a lawyer. She’d prove she hadn’t stolen anything.
And her feelings for Sam?
Well, clearly that was over.
“You have the right to remain silent,” he said.
SAM SAT WITH HIS BACK to the wall at O’Reilly’s bar two blocks from the 39th Precinct, planning on getting rip-roaring drunk. Putting Cass in jail had been the single most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life. And he hated himself for it.
But what choice had he had?
His gut told him she was innocent, but the evidence said otherwise. He was a cop, sworn to uphold the law.
He’d done the dutiful thing.
But was doing his duty the right thing?
Gritting his teeth, Sam knocked back a swig of beer. He hated to believe he had a pattern of falling for shallow beautiful women.
No. He refused to accept that. Yes, on the surface, Cass and Keeley were a lot alike. But underneath, they were midnight and dawn. Cass had a generous heart. She was kind and considerate of others. She was fun loving yes, and that was part of the reason he was so attracted to her. She balanced out his more serious side.
Unless he was simply deceiving himself.
Was he?
Sam plowed a hand through his hair. He knew Cass must be feeling powerfully betrayed. Last night, he’d made her promises. Promises he’d been unable to keep. He couldn’t blame her if she hated his guts.
Right now, he hated his own guts.
Sam’s cell phone vibrated against his hip. He didn’t want to answer it. Wanted nothing more than to get stinking drunk and forget all about Cass Richards.
But the phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. Finally, he snatched it up. “Yeah?”
“Sam? This is Joey from the evidence lab. Got that DNA report back from that blood sample you found on the onyx brooch recovered from the Stanhope robbery.”
Sam sat up straighter, his heart a piston in his chest. “What did you find?”
“There were two donors on the specimen.”
“Two?”
“But neither one of them matched your suspect, Cass Richards.”
His sigh of relief was audible. “Did you find a match?”
“One was unidentifiable. We did get a hit on the second, but I don’t think it’s going to help you much,” Joey said.
“What do you mean?”
“It was a match to the contractor the Stanhope hired to assess and catalogue the Zander estate. It’s highly likely the guy stuck himself while he was logging in the items, probably has nothing to do with your case.”
“You gonna give me a name, Joey?” Sam spat out the question.
“Sure, sure. It’s Marcos Rebisi.”
Sam hung up the phone, bolted from the bar. He knew now what the smell was he’d detected underneath the antiseptic scent in Cass’s apartment. It was the same odor he’d smelled in the stairwell of the rehab hospital.
Wet cardboard.
The damp boxy smell of Marcos Rebisi’s cologne.
He had to get to Cass. Had to find out exactly what had happened between her and Marcos.
Sam couldn’t believe he’d been so shortsighted. He’d gone through the roster of Stanhope employees, assuming it accounted for everyone who may have had contact with the gems since they’d come into the auction house’s possession.
And yes, he’d checked the guest list of all the parties where the Blueblood Burglar had struck, and while the only name on all seven guest lists had been Cass’s, Marcos’s name had appeared on six of them. And the party that Marcos had not attended was one thrown by a Melina Rebisi Parker.
After making a quick cell phone call to Bunnie Bernaldo while en route to the station, Sam found out Melina Parker was indeed Marcos’s sister. Her brother could have stolen the Tiffany watch from her home at any point. The theft hadn’t occurred during the Parkers’ party. Cass wasn’t to blame.
Cursing himself, Sam rushed up to the outer desk at the holding cells.
“Cass Richards,” he said to the jailer. “I want her in an interrogation room, now.”
“No can do, Detective.”
“What do you mean?” Sam glowered.
“She’s not here.”
Darkly, Sam leaned across the desk. “What do you mean she’s not here?”
“Some guy sprang her about…” He checked his watch. “Forty-five minutes ago.”
Sam fisted his hand. “Who? What guy?”
“Hang on.” He tapped on the computer keyboard, consulted the screen in front of him. “Um…his name was Marcos Rebisi.”
“THANK YOU SO MUCH for bailing me out of jail, Marcos.”
“You’re welcome.”
They were standing in the kitchen of Cass’s apartment. Marcos had given her a ride home in his Porsche. He’d arrived to post her bail at the same moment the jailer had been escorting her to a phone to call Morgan. She’d been uncomfortable letting Marcos bail her out, considering she didn’t want to encourage his thinking that they could get back together again. But she’d been even less comfortable staying in jail.
“By the way, how did you know I’d been arrested?” she asked, the thought occurring to her for the first time. She had just been so thankful to leave that cement cell and those lonely black bars behind that she hadn’t asked too many questions.
Marcos smiled. “I keep tabs on my favorite girl.”
“Keep tabs?” Cass frowned. What did he mean by that?
He moved closer to her.
Unsettled, Cass stepped back.
“I’ve been keeping a close eye on you.”
She gulped. “You’ve been spying on me? Stalking me?”
“No, no.” Marcos shook his head. “I would never do anything to frighten you. I’ve just been watching over you, protecting you. Waiting for you to come to your senses and realize how much you love me.”
He reached out a hand to stroke her cheek. Cass shrank back against the kitchen cabinets. A knob poked her hard in the spine. He cupped the back of her head in his palm.
“I forgive you,” he whispered. “Everything is all right now.”
“Forgive me? For what?”
Marcos’s too handsome face clouded darkly. “For getting cold feet and running out on me. I know you’re scared of commitment. That’s why I had to make sure that you would need me. So I could prove that I would always be there for you. No matter what. There’s no need to be afraid.”
“You,” she said as understanding dawned. “You’re the Blueblood Burglar.”
“Yes,” he said. “But when the police hardly paid any attention, I knew I had to do something more dramatic. I had to force their hand.”
“So you robbed the auction house. You stole the jewelry from the Zoey Zander collection and you mailed it to me. And then you broke in, ransacked my apartment and planted the Blueblood Burglar loot in my milk carton.”
“I didn’t break in,” he denied. “I used the key you gave me.”
“I never gave you a key.” In equal turns she felt both mad and scared.
“You left it out in plain sight when I came over to pick you up for a date one night while you were in your room getting ready. It was an open invitation to have a copy made.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Her heart thudded and her mind raced. The man was obviously deranged.
“It was for your own good, Cassandra. Can’t you see that?” Marcos stroked the underside of her jaw with his thumb.
She stiffened. “How is getting framed for burglary good for me?”
“So I could be there for you when you were arrested. I just never figured you’d cheat on me with that cop.” He scowled. “But I can forgive you for that, too. I understand. You’re a sexy woman and you have physical needs. But I’m here to meet them now.”
“No, no, you’re not.”
“Yes.” He was smiling again. “Yes I am.”
He trailed a finger down the hollow of her throat to the top of her cleavage and it was all she could do not to shudder.
“You got your comeuppance,” he said. “The cop betrayed you. He slept with you and then he arrested you. But I never will betray you, Cass, never. You should have made love to me and none of this would have happened. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
And then she saw the gun.
The butt of it protruded from the waistband of his tailor-made trousers. At that point, she realized exactly how much trouble she was in.
A knocked sounded at the door.
Marcos and Cass both froze.
“Cass! Are you in there? It’s me, Sam.”
Her heart leapt. Frantically, she glanced at the door, trying to measure her chance for escape.
“I need to talk to you, Cass,” Sam called. “It’s very important. If you’re in there, please open the door.”
Marcos wrapped a hand around her upper arm, dug his fingers into her skin. “Tell the cop to go away. Tell him you never want to see him again. Tell him or I’ll kill him.”
His eyes flashed wildly and he pulled the gun from his waistband. Cass had no doubt that he meant business.
“Go away, Sam, I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, raising her voice loud enough so he could hear her through the thickness of the door.
“Cass, are you all right?”
Marcos’s fingers bit harder into her flesh. Cass winced. “Answer him,” he hissed in her ear.
“Yes, no thanks to you. Now go away.”
“Listen, we really have to talk.”
Marcos pointed the gun at the door. “Make him go away, Cass. Or I’ll shoot through the door.”
“He’s a cop, you can’t shoot him. It’d be capital murder.”
Marcos swung the gun around, pointed it at Cass’s temple. “Fine, I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself. One way or the other, we’ll be together forever.”
“No, Marcos. No killing.” She held her hands up in a defensive gesture. “Calm down. I’ll make him go away.”
Her mind scrambled for some kind of a coded message. Something to give Sam a clue as to what was really going on. Something Marcos would not recognize.
Without a better plan, Cass ended up babbling and praying Sam would understand. “Sam Mason, you’ve forced me out on a ledge, knocked me off balance and you betrayed me. I hate you. I never want to see you again. Get away from my door. Get out of my apartment building. Get out of my life.”
Dear God, she prayed, please don’t let Sam think I really hate him.
Total silence from the other side of the door.
Marcos was still brandishing the gun. Aiming it first at the door, his jaw tight, his eyes red-rimmed, breathing heavy. Then the next second, he would swing the weapon around and direct it at her.
“Okay, Cass,” Sam’s steady voice came at last. She couldn’t read anything into the sound of it. “If that’s what you want. I’m leaving. I’ll leave you alone.”
She caught her breath.
They heard the sound of Sam’s footsteps retreating down the hallway.
Cass exhaled.
Marcos grabbed her by the hair.
“Ow, what are you doing?” She swatted at him until he pressed the gun into her side.
“Be still.”
“Stop pulling my hair.”
He shoved her in front of him. “Into your bedroom,” he said. “I’m going to get what’s due me.”
YOU’VE FORCED ME OUT ON A LEDGE.
Cass’s words echoed in Sam’s head. They made no sense. They were out of context. He thought of the window ledge at Isaac Vincent’s where he’d first met her. How she’d knocked him off balance and they’d fallen together into the airbag. What was she saying?
His gut torqued. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
He realized she was sending him a signal. Marcos Rebisi must be in the apartment with her, holding her against her will.
As a cop, he was bound by the law. Cass had told him to go away. He had no evidence to support his suspicion Marcos was holding her hostage. He had no proof Marcos had done anything illegal. None at all. And yet, Sam just knew that he was in Cass’s apartment and she wasn’t able to speak freely or let him in.
Something in her voice, something in the way his heart churned told him that Cass was in serious peril. No matter what words she used to chase him away, she did not want him to go.
But if he stayed and tried to force the issue, tried to make her let him in, Marcos could hurt her. Sam wasn’t willing to take that risk.
The fire escape. He could get into her bedroom window through the fire escape.
Which meant he’d have to go up on the roof. His head spun.
It’s time to get over your fear of heights. Cass is depending on you.
He’d gone out on a ledge for her once before, when he hadn’t even known her. He’d do whatever it took to save her. He would rock the boat, he would violate the law, he would, by God, overcome his fear of heights.
Whatever it took.
He scaled the stairs up one more floor and stepped out onto the roof. Purposefully, he stalked to the edge. Sam stood on the brink, forcing himself to look down.
Hurry, you don’t have much time. You don’t know what’s going on in that apartment or what he’s doing to Cass.
Galvanized, Sam started down the fire escape.
He paid no attention to the wad of panic in his stomach and he ignored the shaking of the thin metal beneath his feet. By sheer will of effort, he pushed himself down those stairs until he reached Cass’s bedroom window.
Cautiously, he bent to peer in.
What he saw froze his heart.
Marcos Rebisi was sitting on the edge of Cass’s bed with a gun pointed at her chest, making her do a striptease.
ONE MINUTE CASS WAS EDGING her bra strap down over her shoulders, praying for divine intervention so she wouldn’t have to have sex with Marcos, and the next minute her bedroom window shattered.
She screamed and fell to the floor, covering her head with her arms.
“Drop the gun, Rebisi.”
Sam? Tentatively, she lowered her hands and raised her head.
Sam stood in the middle of her bedroom, his gun drawn, glass glistening in his hair, a cut on his cheek bleeding. His eyes were narrowed at Marcos, who was on her bed with both hands raised in the air, his gun resting on her pillow.
Cass jumped up, grabbed her discarded clothes and clutched them to her nearly naked body.
Sam strode across the room, confiscated Marcos’s gun and then handcuffed him. He used her phone to call for backup. He made Marcos lie down on the bathroom floor and locked him in. Then he turned to Cass, took her clothes from her and gently began to dress her.
Teeth chattering with fear and cold from the wind blowing in her fractured bedroom window, she told him everything that had happened. When she’d finished and she was fully clothed again. Sam cupped her chin in his palm and held her gaze.
“Forgive me, Cass, for not believing you.” Sam threaded the fingers of his right hand through her left, then raised their joined hands to his lips and gently kissed each knuckle.
“I understand, Sam. You were a cop, doing your job. Just like with your ex-wife.”
“Except she was guilty and I knew it and you were innocent and in my gut, I knew that too. I don’t trust my instincts enough. I’m too worried about making a stink or breaking the rules.”
“It’s okay, no harm, no foul.”
“Are you kidding? If I hadn’t arrested you, then you wouldn’t have ended up in Rebisi’s clutches.”
“Yes, I would have. He’s pathologically obsessed with me. One way or the other, he would have come after me.”
“I let you down.”
“No, you did not. You saved me.”
“You saved yourself with that out-on-a-ledge clue.”
She grinned. “I was hoping you’d pick up on that.”
“You’re amazing,” he whispered.
“You’re the amazing one. Climbing my fourth-floor fire escape when you’re afraid of heights.”
“You know,” he said, “I think I’ve conquered that fear.”
“Hey, I’m just glad you showed up when you did.” She cast an uneasy glance at the locked bathroom door. “A few minutes longer and Marcos would have compromised my virtue.”
He held her close and she shivered against him. He stroked her head. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s all over now.”
“I don’t think I can stay here tonight. Not with all that’s happened.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “I’m taking you home with me.”