Forbidden Lover

Daniel O’Roarke had eventually been convicted of Ashley Dallas’s murder and given the death penalty. Over the years, an army of powerful lawyers, hired by Daniel’s father, Richard, had tried one appeal after another. Nothing had worked until a few months ago, when new information had come to light which suggested that both Sean Gallagher and Ed Dawson had suppressed evidence in the case that might have, if not cleared Daniel, at least created reasonable doubt.

Armed with this potentially explosive information, the O’Roarke attorneys had petitioned the court to overturn Daniel’s conviction, in which case, Daniel would walk out of prison a free man. And because of the O’Roarkes’ money and influence, not to mention their willingness to use extortion when necessary, Daniel’s freedom appeared to not only be a possibility but a probability.

For weeks now Nick had had to live with the image of his father’s murderer plastered across the news broadcasts. He’d had to listen to the impassioned pleas of starlets and zealots, begging the courts to set Daniel O’Roarke free. O’Roarke even had a web site in his honor, created and maintained by one of his most ardent admirers, a young woman who claimed she and O’Roarke were in love.

Not once did any of these people stop to consider the victims’ families, Nick thought bitterly. Not once did they stop to think what it would be like to have your father’s murderer roaming free, willing and able to kill again. Not once did they stop to contemplate that even if information had been withheld from the official police report, the evidence against O’Roarke had still been sufficiently overwhelming to convince a jury of his guilt.

Never before had Nick felt so enraged by the judicial system, nor so helpless. But then, like divine intervention, Roy Glass, the sheriff in Webber County, Wisconsin, had called and told him about the discovery of a skeleton in the woods near the fishing cabin from which Nick’s father had disappeared. If the remains turned out to be Sean’s and if Nick could prove his father had been murdered, then he would begin very systematically to build another case against Daniel O’Roarke.

After eight long years of waiting, there would finally be justice for Sean Gallagher. And for Nick.

UNLIKE VISITORS to the lab, Erin was never frightened by her surroundings. She usually became so absorbed in her work that she never stopped to think about the potential “chill” factor, but ever since her conversation with Nick earlier that day, she’d felt an unprecedented sense of unease she couldn’t seem to shake.

Tonight, after finding the building unlocked, the feeling had deepened, and as Erin stood in the deserted lab, a shiver skimmed along her arms.

Probably served her right, she decided, for trying to scare poor Detective Gallagher earlier. Not that he appeared to be a man who frightened easily, but he had been uncomfortable with the lights off and he hadn’t tried to pretend otherwise. Erin liked that about him. He didn’t exhibit any of the forced machismo she’d seen so often in police officers. But then, he didn’t have to. He exuded an innate strength and sense of self that needed no false bolstering. He was one of the most interesting men she’d ever met.

Telling herself she didn’t have time to stand around all night analyzing Detective Gallagher’s manly qualities, she set about gathering up the equipment she would need for the excavation, including her Marshall-town trowel.

Busy with her work, the noise that came from somewhere behind her barely registered at first, but then, like a midday shadow, the realization that she wasn’t alone came creeping over her, and the hair on the back of her neck rose in warning.

She didn’t immediately turn, but stood for a moment, trying to analyze the noise—what it had been, where it had come from. The walls and doors in the lab where thick, but every once in a while, when everything was dead silent, like now, noises from the outside would filter in. Erin could sometimes even hear the faint, telltale clang of the elevator as it descended from the third floor.

Initially, she’d chalked those sounds up to imagination, but then almost inevitably someone would appear at the lab door—one of the staff, Gloria, a visitor. Erin had gotten used to this early warning system, and had decided that she had either been blessed with exceptional hearing, which she’d never appreciated before, or the vents in the lab were situated in such a way as to magnify sound from the hallway. If the latter was the case, no one else seemed to notice, but that was probably because she was the one most often alone in the lab—