“Did you sleep with her?”

Baldwin shifted. Taylor leaned away from him, plunged her fork into a piece of chicken and fed it into her mouth, watching him struggle with an answer as she chewed.

“So you slept with her. When?”

Baldwin tried for a chagrined smile. “Long before you, I’ll tell you that. Taylor, you have to understand, she means nothing to me. It was a thing, a heat-of-the-moment kind 14

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of situation. She’s a viper. A true bitch. I hate her, if that makes you feel better.”

“Why do I get the sense that Miss Charlotte doesn’t hate you?”

“Fair enough. There may be some tension with this. I’m sorry. She’s a piece of work, and the minute you meet her, you’ll understand why I’m with you and not with her. Will you trust me on that?”

“Of course. It’s not like I expected you to come to our marriage bed a virgin.”

She got up, picked up her plate and went into the kitchen. Baldwin followed.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Taylor set her dish down on the counter, carefully con

sidering that question. Of course she was okay. My God, they were adults. It wasn’t like Baldwin was her first. But leaning against the counter, watching him watch her, it struck her how little she really knew about him. He was a compli

cated man, layer upon layer of self-containment. They’d just never delved too deeply into “Who have you fucked?”

She pushed away from the granite, gave him a half smile. “I’m fine. It’s funny, actually. I never saw myself as the jealous type.”

“I like it. Makes me feel wanted.” Baldwin put a hand lightly on her chest and pushed her back to the ledge. He nuzzled in close, insinuating his legs between hers. She reacted, slipping back onto the counter, wrapping her legs around his lean hips and accepting his kiss.

“It’s late,” she murmured when they came up for air.

“So it is.” He picked her up, walked her backward into the living room, set her on the couch and followed her body down. “So it is.”

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* * *

It was nearly midnight when the phone rang, jarring them out of a cramped sleep on the couch. Taylor fumbled the phone to her ear.

“Taylor Jackson? This is Frank Richardson. Late of the Tennessean. ”

“I don’t have any comment…. Oh, wait. You’re the reporter from the old Snow White cases. Sorry. I didn’t think you were back until tomorrow.”

“I’m not, really. I had a layover scheduled in New York so I could visit a friend, but he’s come down with the flu and I’m stuck at JFK. It’s 7:00 a.m. my body time—I’ve been in France for the past few weeks. Am I calling too late?”

It’s never too late for murder, she thought.

“No, no. Just give me a moment, okay?”

She set the phone down, disentangled herself from Baldwin, who sleepily opened his eyes and happily closed them when she shook her head, telling him he wasn’t needed immediately. More and more, the late-night phone calls were strictly for Taylor’s benefit. She slipped her sweater on, dragged the afghan off the back of the couch. It trailed behind her like a security blanket as she moved into the kitchen with the phone. She sat at the table, pulled the afghan around her legs. It had grown chilly; the fire in the hearth was nearly out.

“Sorry, Mr. Richardson. Caught me off guard.”

“No, no, I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. Didn’t know you cop types ever slept.”

“Yeah, we’re regular vampires.”

He laughed. “Seriously, I figured you’d want to talk to 14

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me as soon as you could. I can’t believe this has come up again. And call me Frank.”

“You and me both, Frank.” She reached over the back of her chair and pulled a yellow notepad from the phone desk, set it on the table in front of her. She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand.

“I’m ready. Shoot.”

She racked the balls, taking shot after shot, trying to sort through the hour’s worth of information Frank Rich

ardson had given her.

He’d known about the signet ring.

He’d known about the hunks of hair ripped from the victims’ heads.

He had theories about the killer, about why he’d stopped, that were incredibly sound, very credible. He had his own speculations about who the killer might be. Most were similar in scope to the theories postulated by the homicide team. They ranged from a teacher at one of the girls’ schools to a sexual predator who’d been killed in jail. All had been explored and ruled out. But it was a word he’d used, an offhand remark, that kept coming back to Taylor. The moment she heard the term, she knew she wouldn’t sleep again that night. Frank wasn’t even talking about the case, he was recounting a moment in Caprese, the hometown of the painter and sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti. Frank and his wife were touring the tightly winding streets and their guide spoke of a Florentine painter named Domenico Ghirlan

daio, who worked with the young Michelangelo before he turned to sculpture and the eventual patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Michelangelo went on to greatness, but, for a 104

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time, he was a novice, learning the ropes, his natural talent shaped by the great men around him.

He was an apprentice.

Nine

Nashville, Tennessee

Tuesday, December 16

10:30 p.m.

“Can I get you another Corona, Jane?”

Jane Macias looked at the clear bottle, the lime shoved through the neck. Maybe another sip left. “Yes, please, Jerry.”

“Sure thing, kid.”

The bartender moved toward the cooler situated to his right, plunged his hand into the ice and pulled another beer free. He snapped the lid off and placed the bottle in front of Jane, then slipped a thinly cut lime wedge into the neck for her.

“Voilà.”

“Who knew you were so worldly, Jerry? Thanks.” She smiled warmly at the older man. He’d been nice to her, not prying, not hitting on her, just serving her beer and leaving her alone, which was what she wanted. Jane went back to her book. There was something hor

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rifying about sitting alone in a bar reading, but she needed the break and the beer was half price tonight. Her roommate’s gargantuan linebacker boyfriend had come over—a benchwarmer for the Tennessee Titans, and Jane knew there would be no rest in their cramped apartment tonight. So she’d grabbed a novel off the bookshelf and headed down here, two blocks and a lifetime away from her normal haunts.

She’d been slipping into the bar next door to the VIBE

strip club more and more often lately. Called Control, it was quiet, usually empty, and there was something homey in the atmosphere. Granted, next door the music throbbed and the lights flashed while not-so-beautiful women slid up and down the stage in five-inch Lucite platforms, but hey, it could be worse. She could be the one up on the stage. Instead, Jane sat in the semidarkness of the anony

mous R-rated bar next door, feeling warm and fuzzy as she sipped cool beer and forced the noise from her mind. The clientele was good for the mental novel she was writing, anyway—she needed a fictional population and she cer

tainly was exposed to it here.

Control gave her the added advantage of anonymity. People from work and from her apartment building wouldn’t be likely to frequent this place. It was nice to know she could be alone. Though Jerry knew her first name, the place turned over so many times during the course of an evening that there were rarely faces present for an entire night. People peeked in after leaving VIBE

next door to see if anything was hopping, but not a lot decided it was worth their time to stay. She should have found a nice coffee shop to hang out in; there was a Starbucks right around the corner, but Skip would find her 14