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face, but something about the way Jake
looked, rugged, almost outdoorsy, made her stir inside. It started small and
began to build. She shifted in place to shake off the tingling feeling.
    Jake cleared his throat. “You read.
Just tell me where.”
    “Where?”
    “Coffee. Preferably extra-strength,
if you have it. I'll make it.”
    Uneasiness skittered through her,
settling in her stomach. It wasn't the same stirring she felt just seconds ago.
Cassie refused to believe it to be a premonition, so she passed it off as
fatigue.
    Jake's presence in her home was too
intimate. He'd been an enigmatic stranger at Rory's, and a highly professional
police officer at the police station last night. He was much the same now,
except in her apartment, surrounded by her personal things, Cassie felt almost… naked in a way she hadn't felt for some time.
    “Colombian coffee on the refrigerator
door. Filters in the cabinet above the coffee maker on the counter,” she said.
    As Jake treaded to the kitchen,
Cassie plopped down on her slipcovered sofa and draped the afghan over her
legs. This man had been privileged to see more of her than any man had in three
years, and she hadn't even known him a full twenty-four hours.
    It wasn't only modesty. Scratches
from the flying glass and bruises from hitting the floor were now surfacing on
her skin. Cassie hadn't felt them when she'd showered last night or before she
went to bed, but now that the adrenaline rush had worn off, they were nagging
at her.
    She reached for the newspaper. “What
am I reading?”
    “Front page,” Jake called out from
the kitchen.
    Cassie slapped the newspaper on her
lap, fingering the edge of the paper as she examined the headline. “The
President vetoed—” she started to say before Jake came back into the room and
cut in.
    “Bottom of the page, big bold print.”
    Her eyes grazed the page of the Providence
Journal Bulletin until they settled on the article Jake was referring to.
Her whole body collapsed as the newsprint screamed at her. Crime novelist
Cassie Lang involved in deadly shoot-out.
    Cassie’s heart stopped beating and
her hands shook so violently, the newspaper slipped from her fingers and fell
to the floor. When she finally found her voice, it was barely audible to her
own ears as she spoke.
    “You said you weren't going to reveal
my name.”
    Jake was at the doorway, leaning his
shoulder against the doorjamb.
    “I didn't.”
    “Then how? Who?”
    He came into the room slowly and
eased himself down on the sofa beside her, draping his arm across the back in
what seemed like a comforting gesture. The whole thing felt like watching a
movie in slow motion. Those bottomless blue eyes she'd locked onto last night
held assurance meant only for her benefit. She only wished it brought the
comfort she craved.
    “That's what I'd like to know,” he
said.
    “Just tell me one thing. Did you find
Angel Fagnelio?”
    “No.”
    To his credit, Jake didn’t try to
sugarcoat the truth. Cassie didn’t know why that made her feel better but it
did. But only momentarily.
    “He’s in hiding,” she muttered.
    “We’re looking. I need to know if you
recognized anyone at that bar last night. Anyone at all.”
    “No. Why would I? I’d never been
there before.”
    “Who knew you were there?”
    “Just Maureen Phillips.”
    Goosebumps invaded her skin like
wildfire running across a dry field, and she hugged herself to keep from
shivering. Jake inched closer and hesitated, as if he didn't like what he was
about to say.
    “Not Maureen,” she insisted, taking
the burden from him.
    He scrubbed his hand over his jaw
before replying. “Who is she?”
    “My editor.”
    “Anyone else who might have known?
Someone Maureen might have told?”
    “It just happened last night? Who
could she have told between the time I spoke to her at the station and the
newspaper went to press?”
    Cassie squeezed her eyes for a moment,
wishing she could will away the newsprint on the