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at the idea of working with Max, being near Max.
    “This is business,” she said aloud as she passed the line into North New Bridge, the suburb where she’d rented a small house. “Strictly business. Nothing personal.”
    Then again, it had been business when Max had watched over her in Boston General. She’d been hospitalized partly because of the pregnancy and its complications, partly because a killer had stalked Max’s boss at the lab. Max had appointed himself her de facto bodyguard for a time. It had been business, not personal, but she’d developed feelings for him just the same.
    “I was pregnant. It was hormones. I even convinced myself I was in love with Erik for a while there.” When the words echoed back at her, sheturned up the radio to drown them out, to drown out the knowledge that while she’d quickly talked herself out of the infatuation with her boss at FalcoTechno, she hadn’t been able to dismiss Max Vasek’s memory so easily.
    Now it was the man himself, not the memory, who haunted her thoughts as she pulled into the driveway beside her small white house.
    The lights were off when she let herself in, prompting her to grumble about needing to reset the automatic timer. She was a few steps inside the door when she noticed that the burglar alarm was solid green rather than blinking red.
    “What the—”
    A dark blur swung through her peripheral vision and a savage blow caught her behind the ear, driving her against the wall. Panic spurted alongside pain as the darkness grew arms and legs, and a man’s weight pinned her.
    “Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
    Then blackness.
     
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
    It was close to midnight by the time Max turned down Raine’s street in North New Bridge, Connecticut. It was too late to knock on her door, stupid even to be in her neighborhood, but he’d decided to do a drive-by. Familiarize himself with the area.
    It was a nice enough neighborhood, middle-class residential with good sidewalks and signage. Max glanced from side to side as he rolled through a stop sign, looking for trouble, maybe, or insight into the woman who’d knocked on his door. She looked like Raine Montgomery, but she was different. She seemed harder than he remembered. Sharper.
    Flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror, wig-wagging blue and white.
    “Oh, hell,” Max muttered under his breath and shook his head. A ticket for a rolling stop was just about the last thing he needed right now.
    He cursed and pulled over. Instead of stopping,the cop flipped on his siren and sped past, sending a jolt of adrenaline through Max’s system.
    Raine!
    Gut tight, hoping it was a coincidence, Max hit the gas and peeled back onto the road. He gunned his truck around the next corner and slammed on the brakes when he saw two cruisers parked half on the snow-covered lawn of a small white two-story home. The house numbers matched the ones written on Raine’s file folder.
    And the windows glowed orange with fire.
    Max didn’t waste time cursing or asking questions. He slapped the transmission into park, leaped out of his truck and bolted across the snow-slicked lawn. As he hurdled a burlap-covered shrub, he heard the cops shout something behind him, but he ignored them.
    Heat radiated from the walls of the burning house, warming the skin of his hands and face as he charged up the steps. The iron railing of the banister was flesh-hot to the touch. Smoke tainted the air, irritating his lungs with the promise of worse to come.
    Max twisted the doorknob, barely registering the singe of hot metal. Unlocked.
    He barreled through the door and skidded into a smoke-filled kitchen.
    Heart thundering, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Raine? Where are you? Raine!”
    He thought he heard an answer over the rush of fire, which was eating its orange, greedy way from the kitchen table to the counter, where a roll of paper towels blazed.
    He shouted again, “Raine?”
    There was no