Murphy's Law Read Online Free Page B

abyss between fantasizing about killing a nasty, overbearing son of a bitch and actually doing it. Actually taking a knife and plunging it into a human heart. Perhaps holding it in place, watching the light in the eyes fade, watching the life drain away…
    Faith shivered. She was alone in the cubicle now. The guard was outside the entrance pacing the wide, graveled driveway, all Latin insouciance gone.
    She lifted her eyes and was startled to see a face staring back at her. The face was dead white with pale freckles scattered over nose and cheeks. Wide, light-brown eyes, a cloud of pale hair. Pale face, pale eyes, pale hair. A ghost.
    She knew she was seeing what Nick had seen the morning after the night before.
    No wonder he hadn’t remembered her name. Who could? She looked insubstantial—pale and lifeless. Plain and utterly forgettable. Faith looked away from the mirror, unable to bear the sight.
    How could Nick remember her name? He was brimming with life. It flowed from his fingertips. She felt an electric crackle every time she touched him. She made it seem casual, but she remembered each single time they’d touched over the past year. He seemed to carry a force field around his large, strong frame. Even his coloring was vivid. Blue-black hair, bright blue eyes, olive skin with ruddy undertones.
    Faith could see him now, his face alive with joy and excitement. Just being around him was like being plugged into a source of energy. When she’d tagged along with Nick and his sister Lou and all their hangers-on, she’d had to work to keep her eyes off him. Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could see his laughing, handsome face…
    “ Signorina .”
    Faith’s eyes flew open. She stared at the newcomer.
    Her heart stuttered and her hands shook.
    “Nick,” she breathed. “What on earth are you doing in—” she began, and then bit her tongue.
    The man standing in front of her was tall and well-built, with olive skin and bright blue eyes and as handsome as sin, just like Nick. But his hair was dark brown, not blue-black and he wasn’t smiling. Nick always smiled, always.
    “Not Nick,” he said soberly in perfect English. “Dante. Commissario Dante Rossi, of the Siena Police Department.”

 
    Chapter Three
     
    Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
     
    Southbury, Massachusetts
     
    Faith’s cell was switched off, so he kept trying her home number. It was Nick’s twentieth call. He let the phone ring fifteen times. The shrill sound of the rings hurt his ears. Shit, breathing still hurt.
    His instinct was to lie down for a few days, maybe a few weeks, until he felt better, but he couldn’t. Not until he talked to Faith. Which, it appeared, wasn’t going to happen any time soon. He finally hung up, still hung over.
    He’d been calling since the day before yesterday morning. He’d sent flowers, but the florist had called to say there was nobody home to accept delivery.
    He’d driven by, shielding his eyes against the nauseatingly bright sunshine, driving slowly because he was sure he still had an illegal amount of alcohol in his system even after two days.
    He could just see the headlines if he’d been arrested while still steeped in alcohol. Former Hunter Star Arrested For Drunk Driving . And it would all be out.
    The concussion, the letter from the doctor, the letter from the team manager. The sympathy, the calls from friends who would soon be former friends, bandwagon fans, newshounds hot after the scent of blood…
    It was going to come out soon anyway. Nick Rossi’s forced retirement from hockey was going to be big news and the calls were going to come sooner or later.
    Later. The later, the better.
    It was why he’d switched off his cell, why he wasn’t answering the landline and why he had put his answering machine in the spare room.
    One of the spare rooms.
    Ever since his sister Lou had forced him to buy into this luxury condo as an investment, he had more room— rooms