CHAPTER ONE

 

 

LOGAN WOKE UP the next morning to find Presley curled up against him, her head on his chest, her silky hair draped over her shoulder and spilling onto the sheets. He didn’t wake her, but instead watched her sleep as he replayed in his mind what had happened between them the night before.

It hadn’t taken him very long to figure out Presley was trying to get him into bed. He believed her when she’d said she made him a home-cooked meal to thank him for his help, but considering she’d been wearing those skimpy shorts as she traipsed around his kitchen, he suspected she had more than dinner planned. However, he wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure until she suggested they share a slice of cake. After that, it had been pretty damn obvious what was going on, and though he should have stopped her, he couldn’t. He wanted her more than he could remember ever wanting any other woman and when she’d sat down on his lap, he hadn’t wanted to fight it any longer.

Presley stirred, interrupting his musings, and he looked down to see her blinking up at him sleepily.

His mouth curved. “Good morning, beautiful.”

She pushed her hair back from her face with a laugh. “I’m not sure how beautiful I look when I first wake up, considering all my makeup is off and my hair is a mess.”

He tilted up her chin to kiss her on the mouth. “Well, I think you look gorgeous even with all your makeup off and your hair a mess. It means you spent a wild night in bed.”

She laughed again and rolled onto her back to stretch her arms over her head. As she did, the sheet slid down to expose the tops of her breasts, revealing the jagged scar on her chest. He saw it last night when she’d taken off her top, but he’d been way too focused on her naked body to pay much attention to it. He’d read in the papers she’d been stabbed, but they hadn’t said where or how serious it had been. Looking at the scar more closely now, he realized how lucky she was to be alive. It seemed like Del Vecchio’s knife had just missed her heart.

Presley must have noticed the direction of his gaze because she flushed and quickly tugged up the sheet to cover the scar.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said softly.

Her grip tightened on the sheet. “Yes, I do. It’s ugly.”

“It’s not ugly.” Taking the sheet from her, he lowered it to where it had been before, then leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to the puckered skin before lifting his head to gaze down at her. “It’s part of you and there’s nothing about you that’s ugly.”

Her eyes glistened with tears and he was sure she was going to cry, but she simply reached up to cup his jaw with her hand. He covered it with his own.

“I knew you’d been stabbed, but I didn’t know it was that bad,” he said. “How long were you in the hospital?”

“I was in intensive care for two weeks, then for almost three more after they moved me to a regular room.”

He frowned. “Five weeks? That means…”

She nodded. “That I’ve only been out of the hospital for about a week.”

Logan was surprised to hear Presley had just gotten out of the hospital. He’d never been knifed, but he knew guys who had, so he was sure she probably still experienced some pain if she exerted herself too much or did something too strenuous. Two things she had almost certainly done when she’d been running away from that ghost in Delhi. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t once complained. That showed what an amazing and resilient woman she truly was, not to mention tough as nails.

He bent to kiss her. “I’m starving. Why don’t we get cleaned up and see if we can find something to eat?”

Once he stepped into the shower with Presley and started running his soapy hands all over her naked body, though, it was impossible to simply get cleaned up, no matter how hungry for food he was. Breakfast could wait. The urge to make love to her in the shower couldn’t.

As a result, it was almost two hours later before they finally made it out to the kitchen, by which time he was even more ravenous and in need of some serious caffeine. Figuring coffee would take off the edge while they rustled up something to eat, he made that first. He was getting a filter from the cabinet when Presley’s cell phone rang. She picked it up from the counter and glanced at the screen.

“It’s my mom,” she said. “I have to take it. I’ll just be a minute.”

Logan listened to her side of the conversation with half an ear as he finished making the coffee. When he was done, he rooted around in the fridge for something to eat. Damn, there was no pizza. Or leftovers from last night, either. He eyed the pineapple, wondering how long it would take to cut up the thing.

Presley must have disapproved of his breakfast plans because she shooed him away from the fridge as he reached for the pineapple and grabbed a plastic jug from one of the shelves instead.

“No, Mom, I’m not staying by myself,” Presley said into the phone. “I’m staying at a friend’s house.” She smiled at Logan, then frowned at whatever her mother must have said. “Actually, it’s a guy friend… Well, I suppose you could say we’re dating. We’ve been spending a lot of time to together lately… No, we haven’t talked about it… Yes, he’s very nice.”

Logan arched a brow as he read the label when Presley set the plastic jug down on the counter. Ready-made pancake mix. Damn, that was cool.

“Yes, Mom, he has a job. In fact, he owns his own business… What does he do?” Presley turned to look at Logan questioningly. “He’s a…private investigator. He specializes in…” She gave him a smile. “Tough cases.”

Logan’s mouth quirked. Tough cases. That was one way to put it. He watched as she took the frying pan out of the dishwasher and set it on the stove, wondering if he should offer to make breakfast so she could talk to her mother.

She covered the bottom portion of the phone with her hand and glanced at him. “Could you get the dishes and silverware?”

He had to get those out of the dishwasher, too, and was glad Presley had turned it on before they had dessert the night before. Over by the stove, Presley poured the pre-made pancake batter into the hot pan. He smiled, amazed she could make pancakes and talk on the phone at the same time. If he tried that, they’d be hockey pucks.

It sounded like she and her mother were close. He couldn’t say the same about his mom. She’d left when he was five because she hadn’t been able to stand the fact that his father had been a cop. Apparently, she hadn’t wanted anything to do with her son, either, because he never saw or heard from her again. Thirty years later and it still bothered the hell out of him.

Presley set her phone down on the counter and gave him a rueful smile as she transferred the pancakes onto the plates.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “My mom loves to talk.”

He picked up the coffee mugs and carried them over to the table. “No problem. You could have talked longer if you wanted. We could have kept the pancakes warm in the oven.”

She laughed as she sat down. “If I did that, we’d be having them for dinner.”

Logan chuckled. “I got that impression.”

He slathered butter and syrup on his stack of pancakes, then picked up his fork and dug in. They were fluffy and light and way better than any he’d ever made, that was for sure. Hell, they were even better than the ones at the diner up by the freeway.

Presley drizzled syrup on her pancakes. “Everyone in my family is close. Mom makes sure of that. It drove her absolutely nuts when I wouldn’t go back in with them to recuperate after I got attacked.”

He took a swallow of coffee. “Why didn’t you?”

She shrugged. “I thought about it, but figured if I did, it was kind of like letting Del Vecchio win. I wasn’t going to let what he did to me ruin my life. I was also kind of afraid if I went back home to Mom and Dad’s, she’d never want me to leave again.”

“That means she cares about you.”

“Yeah, I know. But it also means she can be way too overprotective. She still thinks my sister and I are little girls.” Presley picked up her fork. “She’s like the ultimate mom. She keeps all the stuff from when we were kids. Every drawing we ever made, every craft project, every report card, every Mother’s Day card, clippings of hair from when we were babies. She won’t even let my father paint over the doorjamb where we marked out how much we grew each birthday. I’m telling you, she’s a little insane.”

Logan started to laugh, but then stopped and frowned as something suddenly occurred to him. Presley must have seen his expression because she groaned.

“That sounded awful, didn’t it? I didn’t mean to say that my mom is crazy. I know she does all those things because she loves my sister and me. It’s just—”

“It didn’t sound awful,” Logan said. “I know exactly what you meant.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then why were you looking at me like that just now?”

“Because I was wondering if Del Vecchio’s mother could be like your mother.”

“My mother? Thanks a lot.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m saying that if his mother kept clippings of hair from when he was a baby, then the funeral home might have cremated the son of a bitch after all.”

Presley gave him a confused look. “I don’t follow. You mean Del Vecchio would be able to come back if his mother kept a lock of his hair from when he was a baby?”

“Normally, no. A few clippings of hair usually wouldn’t be enough. But if she kept a lot of clippings and maybe some other things, too, like baby teeth let’s say, he could have used them to guide himself back to this plane of existence. Like you said, he was one nasty bastard.”

She picked up her mug and took a sip of coffee. “Okay, so how are we going to find out if she kept anything?”

“Ask her,” he said simply. “If she used a funeral home in Fairfield, that probably means she lives in the area. Your roommate Darla never mentioned where Del Vecchio’s mother lived, did she?”

Presley shook her head. “No, but then again we didn’t sit around and chat about him or his family. I thought he was creepy from the first time I met him.”

“It’s okay. I can find out from someone at the Fairfield PD. Del Vecchio can’t be that common a name. I’ll give them a call after we eat.”

Logan considered calling Muncie, but quickly changed his mind. While his friend could definitely get him the information, Muncie would try to connect it to the current serial murders he was investigating and almost certainly ask questions. Which was why Logan called a guy he knew who worked in dispatch at the Fairfield Police Department instead—Keith Tobin.

“Logan, my man, what’s up?” Keith asked.

“Not too much. Your sister hasn’t had any more trouble with that ex of hers, has she?”

“No trouble at all, thanks to you.”

Keith’s sister had unknowingly married an asshole of a shapeshifter who didn’t want to play nice when she wanted a divorce. After figuring out his brother-in-law wasn’t quite human, Keith had called Logan and he’d paid the guy a less than friendly visit.

“Glad to hear it,” Logan said. “Listen Keith, I need a favor.”

“Sure. Name it.”

“I need you to check the computer and see if you can find a name for Carson Del Vecchio’s mother.”

“Del Vecchio? The serial killer?”

Logan nodded. “That’s him.”

“I don’t have to look it up for you. His mother’s name is Joyce Reynolds. The woman has been a major pain in the ass since the bastard took a header off that balcony.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s called almost every day since Del Vecchio bought it. Once his name got released to the papers, every freak on the planet has shown up at her house wanting to see where the local serial killer grew up. When they do, Mrs. Reynolds calls and demands we go out there and chase them off. Every dispatched and cop in the city knows her address by heart.”

Logan jotted down the address on a notepad as his friend rattled it off. “Thanks, Keith.”

“No problem. I don’t know if you plan on talking to her or what, but if you do, be warned. The woman’s as nutty as a fruit cake.”

That could explain why her son turned out to be such a model citizen. Logan thanked Keith again, then hung up.

“Del Vecchio’s mother lives in Fairfield,” he told Presley. “I’m going to pay her a visit. You want to take a ride with me?”

“Of course. But yesterday you said it was safer for me to stay here.”

“It probably would be, but I have to admit that yesterday I spent more time worrying about you than focusing on what I was doing.” Understatement there. Something that should have taken an hour had taken twice that. All because he couldn’t get her out of his head. “I’d feel a whole lot better if you come with me, but if you feel safer staying here, I’m good with that.”

She leaned over to kiss him. “These days, I only seem to feel safe when I’m with you. I’ll get my coat.”