He kissed his way along the skin behind my ear, down my neck. Tipping my head back, I moaned softly.

Sean suddenly froze.

"What?" I asked.

Then I heard it. Knocking.

My mother's voice floated through the door. "LucyD?"

Sean lowered his head to the floor with a strangled sigh. I scrambled for the door, tugging on the hem of my shirt, straightening my lounge pants. I felt the color on my cheeks as I pulled open the bedroom door. "Mum?"

She eyed me as she tied her robe. "I heard something."

I noticed Thoreau and Grendel didn't so much as lift their heads at the intrusion. Tristan Rourke wouldn't meet much resistance with the two of them on guard.

"Oh. Well. Right." I coughed. "That was Sean. Investigating."

"LucyD," my mother said, fighting a smile, "normally I wouldn't be checking on bumps in the night coming from the room of a young couple in love, but there's a criminal on the loose, and the noise came from your closet. I worry!"

Craning her neck, she peeked in the closet, as if she didn't trust me that Tristan Rourke wasn't in there, lying in wait. Sean waved.

She waved back. "Why is your laptop on in your closet?"

No mention of Sean at all. "We're, ah, working."

Her eyebrow arched. In a sugary voice, she said, "Is that what they're calling it now?"

I smiled. "You just couldn't resist."

She wiggled her eyebrows. "Trauma cuts both ways, LucyD. That's all I'm saying."

As she walked down the hallway, I swear I could hear her mutter, "Therapy."

I closed the door, sank back onto the floor in the closet. Sean still lay where I left him, a huge smile on his face. "Your mom's room on the other side of the wall?"

I nodded.

"Figures," he said. "The curse?"

"I thought you were having doubts about its existence."

"Temporary insanity." He ran a hand over his face. "Guess that puts my investigating on hold. Rain check?"

"Sure." I was actually grateful for the reprieve. "How are you feeling?"

"I was better a couple of minutes ago."

I seconded that. For a while there I had forgotten I was worried sick.

"What are you working on? Tristan Rourke? Did I tell you I'm meeting with Mary Ellen and Catherine tomorrow morning?" His brow furrowed. "This morning. Meaghan begged them to meet with me. She's convinced Mary Ellen is mistaken in IDing Tristan."

I supposed it was possible. Catherine, especially, had been terrified Tristan Rourke would seek revenge. Maybe fear had influenced what Mary Ellen had seen, too. I bit the inside of my cheek. Aiden probably hadn't had time to check on other witnesses in the case....

Sean turned the laptop screen to face him. With a swipe of his finger, he cleared the screen saver.

Oh. No.

His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned into a grim line.

"I, ah-" I suddenly knew how my father felt with that cheesecake. There was no explaining the Web site away.

Sean closed the screen and looked at me with such tenderness I could have melted into a puddle. "Come here."

I crawled over to him, fell into his open arms. He held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn't care. My cheek was pressed to his chest, and I could hear the reassuring beat of his heart. Wump, wump. Wump, wump.

"You know if you have questions you can ask me, right?"

His voice echoed around his chest, mixing with the wump, wump.

"Luce?" He nudged my chin. "Right?"

I shook my head. "You don't always answer my questions. You pick and choose."

Wump, wump.

"Not about my heart," he answered. "I've always been completely open with you about that."

I love you, Lucy Valentine.

I lifted my head. "I know. But about other things. Your childhood, for one. Your years as a firefighter. Why you couldn't walk away from Tristan Rourke's case."

Wump, wump. "I know," he said. Here in the closet, with its dim light, his eyes glowed, almost unnaturally. "And I'm sorry."

I waited him out, hoping for more of an explanation.

He twisted one of my curls around his finger. "Sometimes it's easier to just lock it away."

"Lock what?" I was pressing. He didn't want to talk about it; I could tell by the way his voice grew tight. I put my head back on his chest. Wump, wump.

"The pain. I took Rourke's case because I wanted to believe he was innocent. I wanted to believe because we have a lot in common."

"You do?"

"To an extent. I was a foster kid once, too. I had my fair share of trouble. My juvie record is at least ten pages long. I was kicked out of more homes that I can remember before finally deciding I could do better on my own."

My jaw dropped. I lifted my head again and stared at him. He wasn't teasing. His eyes were troubled. No wonder he'd been acting strangely all week. It was a wonder Sean hadn't run Spero down himself after the hellhole comment he'd made the night he was killed.

"I met Sam on the streets."

"You mean he's not ... your brother?"

Sean twisted another of my curls around his finger, let the hair slide free. "Not biologically, no. But that hardly matters in here." He tapped his chest.

Of course I'd noticed he and Sam didn't look alike, but I never dreamed they weren't really related ... I just thought they took after opposite sides of the family. "How did you end up together? With the same last name?"

Sean yawned loudly. "It's a long story."

I suspected he faked the yawn to get out of telling me. But I didn't push. I couldn't. There was such pain in the depths of his eyes it made me ache to the center of my soul. What kind of hell had he been through? No wonder he kept it all locked up. "Some other day?"

He cupped my face and kissed me. "Thank you," he whispered, "for understanding."

I fussed with the magazines so I wouldn't start crying again. Sean picked one up, grinned. "These yours?"

My stomach hurt and my chest felt tight, but I managed to return his smile. "Will it lessen your high opinion of me?"

"Possibly."

I batted my eyelashes. "Then they're all Marisol's."

"I thought so." Smiling, he thumbed through one of them. He now seemed wide awake. "What were you looking for?"

"Rick Hayes."

"Find him?"

I pointed to a stack I'd set aside-the issues that had articles on Rick. "But I feel like there should be more." I realized I wanted him to be guilty simply because I didn't like him and I wanted someone to blame for Mac's disappearance. But there were no skeletons in Rick's past. It didn't mean he was innocent, but it made proving him guilty that much harder.

I hated admitting that might be because he wasn't guilty.

Fred Ross's words floated through my head. I think whatever happened, it was Mac's choice.

Now that Sean was wide awake, it would have made perfect sense to move the magazines and laptop into my room, where there was abundant space to spread out. But I liked this closeness, his knee touching mine. I could pick up the faint scent of his toothpaste, could still taste his kiss on my lips.

I glanced at him.

Home.

All my life my home, my heart, had been with my mum. Now ... I felt it shifting, making room to include Sean. Here, tucked away in this closet, the air moist, warm, I felt safe. Loved.

He looked up, caught me staring. Seemed to know what I was thinking. Smiled.

I smiled back, wondering how long I could keep us in here, instead of facing the world outside.

Not long, I knew. So I was determined to enjoy it.

Sean flipped a page. He held up the magazine. "Who drew the heart around Mark Wahlberg?"

"Marisol."

"Ri-i-ght," he said, drawing the one syllable into three.

"I'm not kidding! He's not my type."

I smiled at memories of Em, Marisol, and me crowded together on this floor. We'd spent hours flipping through the pages of these magazines, declaring who was going to marry whom. Marisol still had dibs on Mark Wahlberg-a proclamation renewed when he posed for those Calvin Klein underwear ads a few years ago. For a fleeting second, just for that memory alone, I was glad my mother never threw anything away.

"Who did you have a teenage crush on?" Sean asked.

"You first."

He skimmed the magazine as he said, "No one."

"Liar."

"All right." He smiled. "Wonder Woman."

"No pressure there for me."

He laughed. "Now you."

"Dewey Evans."

"I think I just fell in love with you all over again."

Though it was said lightly, my heart melted. I was so lost in mush and gush that I jumped when Sean said, "Whoa!"

"What?"

"Look." He spread the magazine in front of me and tapped a picture.

It was a photo of Rick and his fourth wife, Esmeralda, taken on the red carpet at the 1989 Grammy Awards. Rick hadn't changed much over the past twenty years. I suspected he may have had some work done on his face. A lift here, a tuck there. "What?"

"Do you recognize her?"

Her? Esmeralda? I scanned her flawless face, her long dark hair, her emerald eyes. She was gorgeous, but I'd never seen her before.

Sean said, "Shorten her hair."

I still didn't know who it was.

"Put her in a housekeeper's uniform and give her a British accent."

My eyes widened. "Esme!"

"Interesting, don't you think, that Rick's fourth wife is now working as his family's housekeeper?"

Very interesting-but did it have anything to do with Mac?

Sean suddenly tipped his head, listening. "Is that your phone?"