Love truth, but pardon error.
—Voltaire

It felt like he was in a dream. The kind where one moment you fly freeform through blue skies and white perfect clouds, and the next you have lost the magic and are plummeting to the earth at screaming, flesh-splattering velocity—except he didn’t wake up in time to save himself.

Standing in the glare of a simmering July sun he felt the emergence of nightmare-like sweat coating his skin. He could taste it bitterly in his mouth and feel the essence of it seeping under his armpits. Like some menacing bird, the day had taken wing into the fantastic and the macabre.

The body was face down in the dirt. Using his sleeve to wipe his face, he blinked rapidly, trying to focus. Her perfect profile was towards him—the delicate arch of her nose superimposed in the powdery dust, the gentle protrusion of her chin, the sightless, staring eyes. A small trickle of blood trailed languidly from one nostril, crusting against the small delicate opening and coiling wetly on the ground.

Dead.

She was undeniably dead. As much dust as the spot on which she lay.

Ashes to ashes...

He could barely think. Everything seemed to merge into one long moment of heat, acrid dust, and stale blood. Fumbling with the reality of the moment, his mind rejected that stark, limp image in the road even as his stomach knotted in acknowledgment.

A crow screamed from a nearby post. Like some outraged shrew, it poured abuse into the sultry air, the sound painful against the ringing in his ears. Jolted into action by the sudden noise, he opened and closed his hands, swallowing hard.

He had to hide the body. The idea floated to him in a continuation of his nightmare illusion, a disembodied notion born of panic and necessity. It was done and now he had to compound his crime by hiding the body.

Bury her deep. The idea became a silent chant in his brain. Bury her so deep that no one would ever find her and know the truth.

The awful truth.

Chapter 1

She had been mugged, right there on Michigan Avenue with hordes of people passing by and paying absolutely no attention.

Victoria Paulsen struggled back to her feet and stared at the broken strap of her purse dangling uselessly from her hand. It had happened so fast. One minute she was slogging along in the infernal drizzle that had plagued the city all week and the next she was skidding down on one knee, her shoulder half-jerked out of its socket as some teenage kid in a sodden sleeveless shirt and baggy shorts disappeared into the crowd with her purse.

It was the icing on a perfectly horrible day.

No one stopped. She stood, mouth open in protest and affront. People flowed past, in tailored suits with newspapers on their heads, in skimpy skirts and cropped tops, in nylon shorts and jogging shoes—uncaring, hurrying, self-absorbed citizens who huddled under umbrellas and raincoats and swept right on by.

She hadn’t even shouted. There had been no time.

A warm stream of water slowly seeped down her neck. Her knee was bleeding, her panty hose were torn, and she had lost her driver’s license, credit cards, and address book. Trembling, she groped at the side of her raincoat. The metallic lump was a relief. Thank heaven her keys were in her coat pocket—one blessing among a thousand curses.

The street smelled oily, exhaust mingling with gasoline and insistent rain. A well-dressed man bumped her shoulder and darted away without an apology, waving for a taxi. Not knowing what else to do, Victoria started walking again, clutching the broken strap as the one piece of physical evidence she had to prove the assault.

It took twenty long, miserable minutes before she was trudging up the steps of her apartment building. Twenty minutes to reflect on calling the police and reporting the theft. Not to mention the lost file that had consumed her morning at the office, her inadequate, expensive and stone-cold lunch, and a completely unproductive afternoon.

A thumping headache began to knock at her temples. She’d never had a migraine; maybe today would round itself out nicely and oblige her with a first.

Trailing up two flights of stairs, Victoria tiredly shoved her key into her front door. A soothing bath and some cold pizza would finish the evening. Anything else sounded far too exhausting.

She took two steps inside and knew the nightmare wasn’t over. A faint scent hung in the air, frightening by its presence where it wasn’t expected. She stopped dead, arrested by the unfamiliar smell, her stomach clenching into tight knots.

Her brain raced, registering more disturbing impressions. God in heaven, it was too dark, even with the rain. Surely she’d opened the drapes this morning before she left for work? She simply stood there, frozen in place, coat dripping, keys dangling, trying to explain to herself that the scent of aftershave and the persuasive gloom did not necessarily mean a strange man was in her apartment. Her heart seemed to move up in her chest, impeding every effort she made to breathe.

“Surprise!”

She jumped a foot and let out a small cry of alarm.

Lights came on, illuminating the tiny living room. A man stood by a small table located where her couch normally sat, his hand on the light switch. He was of medium height, well-built, with trim brown hair and expertly tailored dark slacks below an immaculate sport shirt.

“Michael!” The name exploded forcefully from her lips. Anger and relief replaced the white-hot knife of fear in her veins. “What the hell are you doing here?” She stood, knees quaking, willing her breathing back to normal.

Michael Roberts’ eyebrows shot together as he took in her disheveled appearance, focusing on her shredded stockings and the trickle of blood on her leg beneath her short, dark skirt. A welcoming smile faded into concern. “Making you dinner,” he said slowly. “Surprising you. What happened?”

“You scared me half to death, that’s what happened. Is that a new cologne?” Maybe it was wrong to snap at him, to take the frustrations of the day out on him, but the words tumbled out. “Why are you off so early anyway?”

She knew his schedule very well as they worked at the same office. Of course, she was just a secretary and he was an attorney.

Still shaking, Victoria jerked at her soaking raincoat, dropping the lonesome strap of her purse on the floor.

His face stiffened slightly, but Michael was not one to let a childish outburst interfere with his line of questioning. He moved across the room quickly to take her raincoat, holding it carefully away from his beautiful trousers. He said evasively, “Your leg is bleeding.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“Did you fall?”

“No, I was pushed.” Victoria felt the squish of sodden leather as she shifted her weight. One heel—the heel of her new expensive pumps—wobbled as it separated depressingly from the sole. She swiped at her wet hair, shoving it off her forehead.

She knew what she must look like after a sprawl on the sidewalk and blocks and blocks in the soaking rain. It didn’t help to have Michael so immaculate and relaxed. Beyond his shoulder, she could see that he’d taken the liberty of rearranging the furniture to accommodate a table in the center of the living room. Snowy white linen, candles, and opulent red roses in a vase met her gaze. There was also the gleam of crystal that certainly did not belong to her.

“Pushed?” Michael prodded, forehead wrinkling. He absently shook her coat. A rain shower littered the floor.

“He stole my purse.” The memory was infuriating. Her eyes smarted with unwanted tears. “Grabbed it and pushed me. Hard. I fell. No one helped me. Not a soul even stopped, Michael.”

“I swear it, sometimes this city gets to me, it really does. There were no policemen around either. I guess I’ll have to call from here and report it. Not that they’ll ever catch him. My license, credit cards—all gone. Good thing I didn’t have much cash with me.” She ended in a small sob—the enormity of the catastrophe overwhelming at that moment. Being wet and injured and tired did not add up to dealing with feelings of intrusion and assault.

“Are you hurt?” Michael’s tone was soothing. It sounded a shade too professional, his expression just properly concerned. Her coat had made a small puddle on the linoleum by his feet.

She shook her head. The ache in her temples had spread and concentrated. God, what a terrible day! She put a hand to her right temple and rubbed. Her blouse was clinging gelatinously to her skin, soaked from the long walk in the rain. Outside, the storm still blundered on, tapping at the shuttered windows of the living room.

Michael said calmly, “Good. Tell you what. You go clean up; I’ll get you a glass of wine. We’ll worry about things like police and credit cards later, okay?”

“Can I do that?” she asked doubtfully. “Don’t I have to report it right away?”

“I’m a criminal lawyer, sweetheart, remember? I’ll take care of everything.”

It sounded good. Michael was that way, even-tempered, practical, infinitely in charge at all times. The dictatorial air was occasionally too close to pompous for comfort, but now was not one of those times. The last thing she wanted was to fill out a police report and hear how futile it was going to be to try and catch her assailant.

Michael stepped closer, still mindful of her dripping coat, and touched her chin, looking into her eyes. The subdued lighting did nice things to the chiseled line of his nose and softened what could be an uncompromising mouth. “Go on,” he urged. “Dinner is going to be delivered at seven-thirty. Chilean Sea Bass from that little bistro you love downtown. It won’t wait, darling.”

So persuasive.

I should have known, she thought wryly as she headed for the bedroom to shower and change, that with Michael the phrase ‘making you dinner’ simply involved making arrangements to have someone else make you dinner. Still, he had gone to a great deal of trouble. Stopping short at the door of her bedroom, she suddenly wondered if she knew why.

Not tonight, she thought, groaning inwardly. She couldn’t deal with it.

Please...not tonight.

* * * *
The wine was wonderful. The fish was superb, the ambiance very carefully orchestrated. Into the background faded the purse-snatcher, the screeching paralegal actually responsible for the missing file, the warm, dark droplets flooding the skies. As incessantly as her woes had built up during the day, Victoria felt them bow diffidently away.

Only to be replaced with a new anxiety to gnaw at her nerves.

“Still dwelling on the purse thing?”

She jerked out of her abstraction. “Sorry. No...no. I’m not. I was just thinking about something else.” Her fingers curled around her wine glass and she took a quick, guilty sip.

Leaning back in his chair, Michael studied her face with an intensity that made her want to squirm. “Well, then, to us.” He lifted a glass of white burgundy with a light flourish as understated as his choice of wine for dinner.

“Us.” How could she not agree? Her glass went up.

“The future.” He held her gaze.

“Yes.” Her voice sounded hollow.

She cleared her throat. Her fingers were damp from the moisture on her glass and a sudden onslaught of nervous tension. The fish in her stomach seemed to be jostling for position with a load of butterflies.

Michael carefully set down his glass and reached into his pocket. By now, the tiny velvet box he produced was no surprise. Nor was the theatrical way he tugged at the leg of his pants to allow him to slide to one knee by the side of the table.

Panic flared, sending heat into Victoria’s face.

He reached for her hand. Oh, Lord, what am I going to say?

The telephone chose that moment to begin to ring.

Saved by the bell...

“Ignore it,” Michael ordered. His fingers tightened on hers. “Darling…I think you know how I—”

The telephone pealed again. Michael grimaced, manfully conquering his disgust at the destruction of his grand moment by trying to raise his voice.

“You know how I feel about you. I’ve been doing nothing but—”

The machine clicked loudly and picked up the call. A new voice replaced Michael’s, booming into the apartment with all the force born of genuine anger, not waiting for her recorded request to leave a message. “Victoria, pick up the phone! Pick it up. I want to talk to Emily.”

Michael’s mouth tightened in true annoyance.

The voice went on. “Pick up now! Please, Vicky...or Emily, honey, pick up.”

Victoria’s gaze swiveled away from Michael’s face momentarily to where the telephone sat on an antique table in the nearby hallway by the front door. She bit her lip. The machine clicked again, cutting off any more importunate demands. She said hesitantly, “That was Ronald.”

“Is that so? Who the hell is Ronald?”

“Actually, he’s—”

“No, wait, I don’t care about Ronald.” Michael took a steadying breath, retaining his supplicant pose, his grip on her hand. “Tell me later about Ronald. Can I continue?”

The phone started to ring again.

“Shit,” he muttered blackly.

Victoria raised her shoulders apologetically, easing her hand out of his grip. “He’s like this. If he really thinks Emily is here, and it sounds like he does, he’ll just keep calling. I’d better just answer it.”

“By all means,” Michael said, shoving the box unopened back into his pocket and standing up stiffly to let her go past him.

Victoria ran to the phone, picking it up just before the machine went back into action. ‘Saved by the bell’ was only too appropriate a phrase. She could only hope her face hadn’t registered any of her relief. Michael was no idiot and reading people was a good deal of his job.

“Hello?”

“Vicky, is that you?” Heavy breathing whistled down the line, a symptom of the agitation that had caused such persistence. “I knew you were there. Just let me talk to Emily.”

“Emily isn’t here.”

“Bullshit.”

Intensely aware of Michael sitting back down as he listened to her end of the conversation, Victoria spoke carefully, “Why would she be here, Ron? What’s happened?”

“Nothing!” The reply was a shout, not at all surprising since she knew her brother-in-law so well. Ronald was fond of shouting. For that matter, her sister was fairly fond of making him shout. He and Emily had fights that sent echoes into space.

Silence.

More breathing.

“I haven’t heard from her lately,” Victoria settled on saying. “Not since April when she was here. You probably know we had a disagreement.” That statement was a short version of the hard truth.

“Then where is she?”

“You aren’t listening. I wouldn’t know.” Victoria plucked at the hem of her dress. Glass clinked against crystal behind her. Michael was supplementing his glass of wine. “How long has she been gone?”

“Three days.”

“Three days!”

“Yes.” It was a short answer—a snapping of the jaws. He still was breathing loudly, whistling against the receiver like a thin wind.

Victoria frowned, her hand going still. “You had a fight.” It was a declaration, not a question. She knew her sister. She knew Ronald. And Emily had left him before. True, it had been years ago, but she had twice decamped furiously, and for a while the family thought the marriage was over.

“I’m telling you there was no fight. She left for work Monday morning and just never came home. Gail is having a fit, as if the whole thing is my damned fault.” He sounded more aggrieved than worried.

Gail Benedict, Emily’s partner in an interior design business, might well be entitled to her fit. While Emily created brilliant rooms of style and color, Gail ran the financial end of their enterprise. She was the rudder steering a wild creative ship. Without her tempestuous and stormy designer, Gail had no business.

“What about Dad? Or Mom? Surely she’s called the farm?” It was a weary question. If it wasn’t for the rift in April, Victoria would have been more worried. Emily had run, but not to her—simple as that. She was somewhere else, crying on someone else’s shoulder.

“No one has seen her or heard anything.”

“Odd.”

“Odd? Is that all you have to say?” Ronald demanded. “Are you sure you aren’t lying, Vicky? She could always talk you into anything. Please...I’m serious here. I need to talk to her.”

“I’m not lying. Maybe you should call the police, Ronald.”

The line went dead—no good-bye, no apologies. Leave it to Emily, Victoria thought with jaded amusement, to intrude on one of the most important moments in my life. Emily had always taken center stage without remorse.

Turning around, she saw that Michael was polishing off the rest of the wine, his glass tipped to his mouth. Who could blame him?

He had also worked a few things out.

“Ronald. Ronald Sims. Your brother-in-law, the famous artist?” he said pleasantly enough. “Married to your sister, Emily. The twin.”

“Yes.” Victoria came back to her seat, feeling guilty. There was a sip or two left in her glass, which was a relief. Drinking it gave her something to do.

“The next time you talk to him, tell him he has crappy timing.” It was only half a joke.

“I will.”

“So where do you think she is?” Michael, never slow, had not just been drinking wine while she talked. He’d been listening closely. And he seemed disinclined to go back to his knees. There was a betraying tightness around his mouth that belied the casual tone. He was annoyed.

“Emily? Hard to say. She’s always been a bit unpredictable.” Victoria fingered her empty glass, glancing up from under her eyelashes. “Michael, I’m so sorry...I just knew that Ronald would keep on calling and calling—”

He interrupted shortly, “You don’t seem worried. Three days is a long time.”

So, she thought with resignation, he is going to pout. She felt more relief, tinged with more guilt.

“She’s staying with a friend, I’m sure of that. Em has the unique ability to convince sane people to do things against their better judgment—such as lying to Ronald. I adore her, but she can be...exhausting. She’s just that way—emotional, thoughtless, but also very charming. You should meet her. People just fall at her feet.”

Outside, the rain had finally stopped. She could hear the swooshing of tires on the wet pavement and the faint sound of sirens headed to some disaster.

Disaster. Emily. She felt a faint tremor, quickly squelched. Three days was a long time. Even for Emily.

“You don’t sound much alike,” Michael commented.

Her smile was unwilling, a glimmer. “Thanks a lot.”

“I simply meant she sounds flighty and insubstantial. Not like you at all, Victoria. You go the other way, my dear.” His tone was deliberate, a bit sardonic. “Your curse is that you over-think things. Over-complicate them. Not everything can be a certainty in life. You have to take a chance or two.”

A pause. Awkward. She felt the childish urge to chew on her fingernails.

He added blandly, “It isn’t like we’ve rushed things—quite the opposite. We’ve dated for some time now.”

So he had known. Sensed her apprehension, felt all the churning uncertainty. Damn, lawyers were hard to fool.

She shook her head and tried desperately to think of what to say. I want to say yes, Michael. I want the ring, the wedding, the life we both imagine. I’m just not sure you’re the one. That would hardly do.

Michael solved her dilemma. “Maybe next week, we’ll have dinner again,” he murmured. “I have this wonderful French Cab I found a few months ago. Is it a date?” His gaze was direct. His expression said that he was willing to wait, but not forever. Another week was plenty of grace.

A week. Time to think. That’s what she needed, wasn’t it—just a little time.

“Yes,” she murmured in a stammer. Dipping her head, she skimmed the edge of the tablecloth with her finger.

“Victoria?” Michael smiled finally, relaxing his shoulders against the back of his chair.

“What?”

“Next week…unplug the phone, will you?”

She smothered a nervous laugh with the back of her hand.

* * * *
Mitchell Williams leaned back in his black leather chair, ignoring the protesting groan of the springs. He wore out more chairs that way—tilting them backwards beyond their capacity to bend. He did it out of habit; and of his habits, it seemed the least offensive to bother exerting effort to cure.

“Cigarette?” He eyed the young woman across, opening the gold case on his desk. When she shook her head, he studied her face for signs of overt disapproval, and seeing nothing but polite attention, lit one for himself.

“You wanted to talk to me?” he asked genially. The request had been a little surprising.

Michael Roberts had made it quite plain that an engagement was in the works, so if Victoria Paulsen had a problem, it seemed logical that she would go to Michael, or even her future father-in-law, John, who was a partner in the firm.

“I’d like to take a leave of absence.” Victoria Paulsen made the announcement quietly, crossing one slim leg carefully over the other and unobtrusively tugging at her short navy skirt. “Mrs. Byrnes is my supervisor. She said I had to clear it through you or one of the other partners.”

Mitchell did admire the way Mrs. Byrnes did her job. The Paulsen girl was a part-time secretary, but Byrnes made no exception to the rules, not even for a student who barely worked fifteen hours a week. Not even for someone who might someday be married to the son of a partner. Good for her. Byrnes was quite a stickler.

Again, the question, why not go to Michael or John?

Mitchell nodded, narrowing his eyes against the smoke. “That’s our policy, certainly. Is there some sort of problem?”

“Family problem.”

Her eyes, an unusual shade somewhere between blue and green, gazed past him toward the window. Lovely eyes, Mitchell thought absently, drawing smoke into his lungs with an almost sexual enjoyment, and the rest of her not bad either. Not bad at all. Michael is a bright young man.

“I see. How many hours a week do you work?”

“Fifteen—sometimes only ten. I go to Northwestern. Journalism.”

“Hmmm. I’m sure we can work something out. When will you be back?”

The beautiful eyes swiveled back toward his face, then her gaze dropped. “I don’t know. I can’t actually say how long I’ll need.” A small swallow twitched the muscles of her throat. “I was hoping to leave immediately.”

Thirty-plus years of practicing law gave Mitchell Williams the ability to recognize true distress, to sort it from the playacting and the hype. “Does this have anything to do with Michael?” he asked bluntly, not wanting to mince words. Lord, that was all they needed, some sort of argument between a part-time secretary and one of their top lawyers. A sexual harassment suit would be a financial nightmare for the firm. The cigarette made an automatic arc to his mouth.

Surprise made her face blank for the split second before she grasped his inference. “No, sir.” Color began a slow climb upward from her neck, staining her cheekbones with reddish blotches. “This has nothing to do with Michael. In fact, I came to you in order to keep him and his father out of this. I’d like to think that no one here could say I was shown any specific preference.”

That was a distinct relief, but he didn’t show it. “I’m sure,” his smile was condescending, “that no one thinks you get special treatment. I hope nothing is seriously wrong?”

There was a palatable hesitation before she answered, “My sister has disappeared.”

“Really?”

She gave another self-conscious tug on her skirt. “Her husband called me three days ago. At first we thought maybe she’d left him but it’s been nearly a week now and no word. My family is beginning to get frantic.”

“I imagine.”

A brief smile, one that seemed tinged liberally with irony, touched her mouth. “I have no idea why they think I need to be there, but they have asked me to come home.”

Mitchell’s chair creaked. “Never underestimate the value of moral support, Miss Paulsen.”

“No, sir.”

His cigarette was finished, the stump going to its death in the ashtray on the desk. Regretfully he exhaled the last of the smoke.

“Take the time you need,” he offered.