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One
Allison Whittaker stared at theto kill her
She shifted the slats of herblinds slightly to get a better view of the dark Boston street stretched out below her The yellowish glow cast by an old-fashioned gas la battle with the darkness of the cool April nightThe man sat motionless in the driver’s seat of the black car across the street, his face in shadow
He’d been there last night, too
She’d noticed SheMore than four years as an Assistant District Attorney in Boston did that to a person She’d been a lot ht out of law school
A nice genteel white-shoe law-fir on the ladder Her upper-crust family had certainly expected it of her Her lowing article written about her in The Boston Globe, certainly had
Instead, she’d surprised theh prosecutor’s job And not as a prestigious Assistant US Attorney trying federal cases either
Nope She’d gone for the down-and-dirty: putting away the friendly neighborhood drug dealer or burglar as a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office
She looked down again at the man in the car Of course, she’d surprise everyone even more if she wound up dead in her apart her death threats She didn’t want to make that her encore
She held her breath as the man in the car shifted and opened the driver’s-side door
As he got out of the car, she strained for a better view but couldn’t make out his facial features in the dark What she could tell was that he was tall and solidly built, with sandy-brown hair and dark clothes
She watched as he scanned the street up and down and thenfor her?
Her heart began to pound, her breath catching in her throat Call the police! the rational part of her mind screamed
Surely the neighbors would hear if he tried to break in? Her exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood was usually quiet and serene
The man below passed under a street lahts
She knew that face
Suddenly fear was replaced by anger Not the sier, either, but a full-blown boil The type that any of her three older brothers would have recognized as a sign to dive for cover
She headed for the staircase of the redbrick townhouse that she called home, heedless of the fact that she was dressed for bed in a short silk slip and ot downstairs—the back of hernote of the fact that she hadn’t yet heard a knock or bell—she undid the lock on the front door and yanked the door open without ceremony
“Hello, princess”
Allison felt the say she always did in thistension
He had a lithe but les and flirtatious banter But not her They had too much of a history for that, and she doubted his presence on her doorstep tonight was a mere coincidence
She crossed her ar turn, Connor? The last tihborhood for riffraff like you”
He had the audacity to look a her “And you’re still the perfect diamond blue blood, princess Just like I remembered”
“If you know anything about diamonds, you’ll remember they’re the hardest stones around”