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“Sorry,” he muttered, blinking his eyes clear. He put the car into gear, started driving again.

“There’s nothing to?—”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Maybe it should,” she whispered. “Maybe you need someone right now.”

“What was it, a few hours ago, you told me not to touch you again?”

She lowered her head. “I didn’t know who you really were then.”

“You still don’t know who the hell I am. I don’t discuss my family with strangers, Lexi. I am human, though, so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your distance.”

He didn’t have to look at her to know his words had hurt her.

He knew she winced, could see the flash of pain in her eyes without even turning his head.

Too bad. She was apparently one of those females who thought she could heal the world with her soft touch and her smile and a little TLC with her incredible body.

And her eyes, don’t forget those. Well, she was wrong.

He was stuck with her for a few days, at most. Long enough to find the missing formula and send White to hell. That was it.

She was silent for a long time while he drove. He was, too, though his mind was working overtime. It took some effort to put his grief and the faces of his lost little boys back into the deep well of pain that used to be his heart.

It took a lot more effort to bring his thoughts back on track. A plan was what he needed. That was where his mind ought to be.

“Where are we going?” she asked him at last.

“Where do you think?”

She gave him a look that made him feel like a demon for deliberately trying to wound her. It was a defense mechanism, apparently designed specifically to keep her from getting too close to his private hell ever again. He couldn’t help it. It was instinctual, and it was necessary.

“We’re going back to Pine Lake,” he told her. “But we have a few stops to make first.”

Their half-sister Lexia Stoltz’s isolated log cabin was a dream at first glance. Huge, and beautiful, set against a backdrop of pine trees and snow. But when Kira and Toni, who was officially not there with her, saw the blood on the snow, the dream seemed to have taken a nightmarish turn.

Kira knocked and the door swung inward slowly, creaking as if to warn them they would not like what they were about to find. She shot a look at Toni, pulled a gun, and said, “Stay here.”

“Sure I will,” Toni said, pulling a gun of her own. Married to a cop, with a long career dishing dirt on crime lords, she had enough experience to hold her own.

Kira supposed she ought to be grateful she’d convinced the pregnant Caitlin to stay home where it was safe. Joey had stayed home too, but was “tapping in” to the sister she’d never met. She’d promised to keep them posted. Kira wasn’t expecting much. She didn’t believe in psychics.

“Dr. Stoltz?” she called.

A plaintive yowl was the only reply. The place felt empty except for the fat yellow cat who came out to wind himself around their ankles. There was a giant Christmas tree without a single decoration standing in the front windows. It made her feel unspeakably sad.

Toni closed the door. Kira found a light switch and flipped it on. Then they walked in opposite directions, checking every room on the ground floor, and meeting back where they’d started.

“Anything?” Kira asked.

“Nothing. The cat followed me into the kitchen, though, so I filled his dishes with food and water. Enough to get him through a few days, at least. If we haven’t found her by then, I’ll come back for him.”

Kira nodded, pointing with her eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s more blood, there on the stairs.”

“Shit.”

Together they went up the stairs to the second floor, then split up again to check every room.

From the bathroom, Tony called, “Blood and bandages in the wastebasket. Somebody dressed a wound in here.”

“I’ve got an open bedroom window with a rope ladder hanging from it,” Kira called back.

Toni joined her in the bedroom, eyeing the window. “Someone came after her, and it looks like she got away,” Toni said slowly.

“Or tried to,” Kira replied.

“Maybe it’s time you told me why the DEA is looking for her, Kira.”

“We’re not, exactly. We’re looking for the guy who’s after her.”

“For?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Toni pursed her lips and tilted her head.

“Well, I’m DEA. So you can figure out where my interest lies.

Although this dude has his fingers in so many pies …

” She stopped there and nodded. “His drug deals just fund his other illegal enterprises. I’m gonna have Michael check with his contacts in other agencies.

CIA. FBI. See if there are any other active investigations we can coordinate with.

” She was texting while she was speaking.

“Michael? Your husband Michael?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s also my partner.”

His sons had died, Lexi thought. Those adorable little boys in the photos who looked so much like him.

They’d been taken from him without warning or reason.

God, it was no wonder he was so nasty. The man was in more pain than any human being ought to bear in a lifetime. And his had come all at once.

He had let her hold him, even if it had been brief. He’d turned to her with his grief, turned to her as if for salvation. In his eyes she’d seen something she’d never seen before. A desperation, a plea he couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t know how to voice. Help me, Lexi.

Maybe he wasn’t even aware of it, but Romano was going to bleed to death from the poison arrows in his heart if he didn’t pull them out and start to heal soon.

It was none of her business, though, was it? She barely knew him.

But Lexi had always been drawn to the wounded.

The more serious the wound, the more she was compelled to help.

It came of that need to be needed, she supposed.

It was all twisted up in her psyche, knotted together with the death of her mother when she was only five years old, and with the cold, callousness of a father everyone said was a great man.

Mix in the knowledge that she’d never have children of her own, and it was no wonder she was drawn to people she could nurture and heal.

Common sense ought to have some say in the matter, though, and common sense suggested she keep a safe distance from a man with cactus skin. A man who lashed out just to keep her away. A man who’d told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want her help.

His wounds were too deep, too dangerous. The darkness inside him was devouring him, maybe already had. And if she got too close it would devour her too. She knew it would. She felt the warnings prickling up and down her spine and dancing over her skin. Stay away , they whispered. Stay away.

If she had any sense at all, she’d heed those warnings.

She would try, she vowed in silence. She would try to keep a cool distance.

She’d stop asking about his beautiful, lost family.

She’d stop caring about his pain. He was nothing to her; why should she care?

She’d force herself not to reach out to him again.

She could do that. It wasn’t such an impossible task.

They rode in silence through the small town they’d discovered nearby, pulling in at a used car dealership where Romano went inside.

Alone in the car, Lexi couldn’t help wondering if he’d been a different man before his wife and sons had died. She tried to picture him happy, content, affectionate. But it was a terrible stretch of the imagination.

“Mrs. Jones?”

There was a tap on her window and Lexi jumped, then turned to see the round, friendly face of a salesman staring in at her. She put the window down.

“Mrs. Jones, come take a look. We can’t have your husband making a purchase this important without your input now, can we?”

Frowning, she opened the door and got out, allowing the salesman to lead her around the lot to where Romano was just stepping out of a motor home the size of a tank.

He met her confused gaze and smiled … actually smiled at her.

The perfect image of the devoted husband.

He crossed to where she stood, draped an arm around her shoulders.

“Well, honey, what do you think?” He waved his free hand toward the house on wheels.

His arm felt warm and heavy on her shoulders. She resisted the urge to lean into his embrace, to tilt her head sideways until it rested on his shoulder, to slide her own arm around his waist and give it a squeeze and tell him that he was going to be all right.

The man did not want to be comforted, she reminded herself.

“I … uh … I’m not sure what to think.”

“It has everything. Perfect for our trip. Go on inside, take a look.”

She blinked at him. He’d converted himself into the image of the American sightseer, evoking images of campfires and hot dogs.

Without a word she stepped into the camper, but she wasn’t really looking at it. She just walked around, pretending to check it out, while he chatted outside with the salesman.

When he poked his head inside, he was back to his former, cold demeanor. “Get our stuff out of the car and stash it in here while I finish up the paperwork.”

He said it as if he expected her immediate compliance. So she said, “No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

His eyes were sapphire chips. His words fell like icy rain, chilling her right to the bone. “I mean, no. You can’t just give orders and expect me to carry them out. I don’t work for you.”

He sighed, lowered his head and pulled the camper door shut. “What do you want, Lexi?”

“I want to know the plan. I want to know why we’re buying a used RV and where we’re taking it. And how the hell you explained the busted-out rear window in the Porsche, or didn’t he even ask about that?”

He took a slow breath and she got the feeling he was struggling for patience. “He did ask.”

“And?”

“And it was a freak accident. Chunk of ice slid off a roof and right through the window.”

“Why are we changing vehicles?” she asked.

“Because White’s seen the car.”

“But why a camper? Why not a pickup truck or a mini-van or a compact? Why this huge RV?”

“Why all the questions?” he countered. “Look, I do this kind of thing for a living. I know my job, okay?”

He’d looked into her eyes as he’d snapped his reply, but when she flinched, he looked away. She thought she glimpsed guilt, just for a second. Maybe he didn’t like hurting her.

“The last thing White would find suspicious is a vehicle like this,” he said, and his tone was kinder.

“And having a place to sleep might come in handy. No more ambushes in motel parking lots. We can’t exactly take up residence at your house in the woods again, Lexi.

Hell, White probably left men posted there in case we come back. ”

“I don’t think he’d have any reason to do that.” She thinned her lips, tilted her head, still not looking at him. “So that’s the plan, we’re heading back to Pine Lake?”

“Yeah, to get the contents of your father’s safe deposit box from his lawyer.”

“And then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s all I’ve got. I guess it depends on what we find.” He looked at her again. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”