egging her on, while some intense, wicked excitement threatened to overwhelm her. Because she could win now, make him wait while she and her henchmen did what they’d come here for. And later, she could find out what the hell was going on, and if Ferdy had employed this guy too.
She leaned back, returning her feet flat to the ground. The stranger’s odd, dark eyes flamed with what she hoped was arousal. He said, “Why don’t we ‘talk’ first?” And bent over her.
She stepped smartly backward. “Tam,” she whispered. “I have to get rid of Tam.”
“I don’t mind Tam.” His gaze lifted from the rapid rise and fall of her breasts to her throat. His lips, full and sensual, parted as they smiled, revealing a glimpse of pointed canine teeth.
“Oh Jesus H. Ch—” she began in frustration, and broke off in mid-word as he lifted his hand to her neck, brushing her skin with one soft, blatantly sexual caress.
“It’s you I want,” he whispered. She felt no breath on her skin, no warmth from him to excite her, and yet his words thrilled from her mind to every nerve in her body. And then cold sliced through her like a shard of ice.
It blasted her. Yet there was no vision, only a profound, red-tinged blackness she couldn’t bear to look into. She caught a little fun and pleasure and humor from the mix, bleeding from the darkness, but the overwhelming sensation was of death and pulsating, unreachable memory, cold and black and terrifyingly profound. Although Sera was used to picking up emotions, even visions, from touch, it took her several disoriented moments to realize that this dreadful flood had grown out of the sensual caress of his fingertips, of the smell and feel that was uniquely him. Him, God help her.
She threw herself backward out of his awful reach, stifling the cry of agony that tried to burst from her lips. Christ, who are you? What have you done…?
Their eyes locked. Sera heard only her own panting breath. The smile still curving the stranger’s lips began to die. He took another step nearer her, and she raised one useless hand to ward him off.
And someone screamed, loud and insistent.
Instinct spun Sera around, dragging her gaze and her body away from the stranger. At least, as she bolted through the trees in the direction of the scream, she called it instinct. In truth, as her feet pounded across the rough ground and branches caught at her clothes and hair, it felt a lot like relief.
Someone was following. She hoped to God it was Tam and not—
Her phone broke into song. She didn’t slow down as she seized it and clamped it to her ear. But she’d reached the edge of the trees now, and she could see the panic of people milling around the garden. Most of them seemed to be squashing into the ornamental maze.
“Sera,” Jilly’s voice said from her phone. She sounded shaky, breathy, her pitch higher than usual. “You’d better get over here. The maze. It’s Jason, Ferdy’s son. I think he’s dead.”
Sera stopped in her tracks. “What?” Her ears were singing; her heart felt as if it had stopped beating. It had to be a sick wind-up, and yet Jilly’s silence on the phone said very loudly that she believed it. “Oh shite…” As Tam’s footsteps faltered behind her, she said, “It’s all gone tits up. You’d better get out of here fast.”
She didn’t look at him or wait to see if he obeyed. She began to run again toward the maze with an ominous feeling of the sky falling on her head. She was vaguely surprised when people made way for her to get into the maze. A woman in a strappy, black silk dress with a tear at the side, her face understandably white under her perfect makeup, even pointed out which way to go.
The body that was presumably Jason lay on the ground, with his distraught parents on one side. Mrs. Bell was tugging at her once beautifully sculpted hair and weeping. Jack seemed to be administering CPR, while Jilly stared down at his efforts, for once without a word of criticism.
Sera swallowed. “Ambulance?” she said to no one in particular.
“On its way,” said Jilly.
“What happened?”
“We just found him lying there,” Jilly said helplessly. “Me and Mr. Bell.”
Briefly, Sera met Ferdy’s gaze. There was genuine worry in his eyes, she’d swear. Yet behind it was the same gleam that had always bothered her. She’d