River’s End

documenting the body of Julie MacBride at the scene of the murder.
    He had a copy of the picture in his own files, and though he’d looked at it countless times, the stark black and white was freshly appalling.
    No, not a photocopy, he realized. Computer-scanned, just as the bold letters beneath the picture were computer-generated.
    IT CAN HAPPEN AGAIN.
    IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU.
    Rage, cold and controlled, coated him as he looked into his mother’s horrified, baffled eyes. “He flicked the wrong switch this time,” Noah murmured. He waited until his father came racing home. But no amount of arguing or pleading could make him wait until the police arrived.
    The son of a bitch had played him all right and had nearly sucked him in. Now he’d threatened his family. Revenge, Noah supposed as he slammed out of his car and strode down Sunset. Revenge against the cop who’d helped lock him away. Go after the family. Lure the son in, dangle the story, take the money, then terrorize the wife.
    Noah pushed through the front entrance of the apartment unit, flicked a glance at the elevator and chose the stairs. The mighty had fallen here, he thought. The paint was peeling, the treads grimy, and he caught the sweet whiff of pot still clinging to the air. But he hadn’t fallen far enough.
    The bastard liked women as his victims. Noah pounded a fist on the door of the second-floor apartment. Women and little girls. They’d just see how well he handled it when he had a man to deal with.
    He pounded again and seriously considered kicking the door in. The cold edge of his rage had flashed to a burn.
    “If you’re looking for the old man, he split.”
    Noah glanced around, saw the woman—hell, the hooker, he corrected.
    “Split where?”
    “Hey, I don’t keep tabs on the neighbors, honey. You a cop?”
    “No, I’ve got business with him, that’s all.”
    “Look a little like a cop,” she decided after an expert up-and-down survey. “Parole officer?”
    “What makes you think he needs one?”
    “Shit, you think I can’t spot a con? He did some long time. What he do, kill somebody?”
    “I just want to talk to him.”
    “Well, he ain’t here.” She kept moving, giving Noah a unattractive whiff of cheap perfume and stale sex. “Packed up his little bag and moved out yesterday.”
    Long after the Center had closed for the day, Olivia worked in her office. The paperwork had a nasty habit of building up on her during late spring and summer. She much preferred taking groups on the trail, giving lectures or heading a tour of the backcountry for a few days.
    She caught herself staring at the phone, again, and muttered curses under her breath. It was humiliating, absolutely mortifying, to realize that part of the reason she was working late again was the hope that Noah would call.
    Which he hadn’t done in two days, she reminded herself. Not that he was under any obligation to call her, of course. Not that she couldn’t, if she wanted to, call him. Which she wouldn’t do because, damn it, it would look as if she was hoping he’d call.
    She was acting like a high school girl with a crush. At least she thought she was. She’d never been a high school girl with a crush. Apparently she’d had more sense at sixteen than she had now.
    Now she daydreamed over the flowers he’d sent. She remembered the exact tone of his voice when he’d said her name. After he’d kissed her. The texture of his hands against her face. The little lurch of shock and pleasure in her own stomach. The way he talked and talked, she thought now, poking and prodding at her until she gave up and laughed. He’d been the first man she’d ever been attracted to who could make her laugh.
    He was certainly the only man she’d ever thought about after he was out of sight. No, maybe she should say the second man, as the younger version of Noah had attracted her, charmed her, confused her. They were both just different enough now for this .. . whatever it was between them, to be somehow new. And very compelling.
    Which, she supposed, said as much about her as it did about him. She hadn’t wanted anything but surface involvements, and she hadn’t wanted many of those.
    Why in the world was she sitting here analyzing her feelings when she didn’t want to have any feelings in the first place? She had enough to worry about without adding Noah Brady to the mix.
    She glanced toward her little storage closet. She’d buried the music box under the packing,