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to pour herself into ‘her research work, find a way to help deter violent behavior so she could save others.
    Maybe if she helped find Jordie’s killer, it would atone for the fact that her family’s murderers had never been caught.
    Raindrops splattered her cheeks as she stepped from the SUV and walked toward the house, but Dante placed a hand on her arm. “I’m going to check inside first.”
    Her heart stuttered. “You think the killer might have come back?”
    His dark eyes met hers, a sharp warning glittering. “He knows where you live, Marlena. He probably knows you personally.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “And for some reason, he’s involved you in this crime, so you can’t be too careful.”
    Fear slithered through her, and she gave a quick nod of understanding, then followed him up the porch. “Stay behind me’ he ordered.
    He withdrew his gun and held it at the ready as they entered. She flipped on a light in the foyer and crept behind him from room to room. Her heart hammered in her chest each time he paused to listen for an intruder.
    The scent of the lavender candles she’d burned in her bath wafted through the house, and oddly she thought she detected the faint scent of the jasmine lotion her mother used to wear.
    Lights flickered on and off upstairs and Dante gripped her arm. “Has it done that before?”
    “Yes. I thought there might be a short circuit.” Or that the house might be haunted, but she bit back the words. People had thought she was crazy when she’d talked about monsters as a little girl. She didn’t want to admit that she thought her mother and sister’s spirits still lingered in the house. That sometimes she felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder just before she fell asleep.
    That she heard her little sister’s cries at night.
    Dante inched up the steps, shadows flickering against the faded walls. The wooden floors creaked, the furnace groaned, and wind whistled through the eaves of the plastered walls.
    When they reached the landing, she gestured to the right to her bedroom, the room originally intended as the guest suite. She hadn’t been able to sleep in her old room, and certainly not in her mother’s or sister’s.
    They checked each one, then he pointed to the door at the end of the hail.
    “That’s the attic,” she said.
    “It’s locked?”
    She nodded, then reached into her purse for her key and handed it to him. He unlocked the door, and slowly they crept up the stairs, the floor creaking, a whisper of cold air wafting through the stairwell.
    At the top of the landing, her gaze searched the room. Barring the trunks of old clothes and household items stored inside, it was empty.
    “It’s clear,” he said, then she sighed in relief and led the way down the stairs.
    He stopped in the foyer. “Do you have a security system?”
    “No. The house was built years ago.”
    “You should consider getting one,” Dante suggested.
    Exhaustion pulled at Marlena, and she ran her hand through her hair. “I’ll think about it.”
    His dark gaze raked over her, and for a brief second, an odd look flickered in his eyes. It was almost as if he wanted to touch her, to say something more.
    The air felt charged, electric. His masculine scent wafted toward her, arousing her desire. It had been a long time since she’d been held by a man or allowed anyone into her life.
    Except for an occasional one night of sex…
    Sex with Dante would be phenomenal. Intense. Passionate. Hot.
    Her hand shook with the effort it took for her not to reach for him.
    But a cold mask suddenly slid over his face, and he backed toward the door. “Call me if you need anything.”
    She needed him now. She didn’t want to be alone. Not in the house with the painful memories, with the whisper of her mother’s band on her back, the torment of her sister’s cries.
    But the history they shared, that one night when he’d saved her, the questions regarding that attack stood between