It really was her. Every nuance of her face had been seared into his mind from his first glimpse of her. Now, here she was, sitting right in front of him like some kind of miracle. Healthy and unharmed, beautiful as ever.
And apparently totally unaware of just how narrowly she’d managed to elude death today.
She stared at him in a mix of confusion and disbelief after he’d blurted out the news of the attack on her home.
“What are you talking about?” Her brows knit, and a look of bone-deep dread began to fill her gaze. “The cabin is . . .” Her lips parted on a quiet inhalation. “No, you’re lying.”
He wanted to be gentle for her, but soft emotions weren’t in his nature. Nor did he have time for that even if they were. “I was just there, Laurel. All that’s left are cinders and rubble. And a body. Who was the woman left in the cabin while you’ve been out today?”
Her face drained of color. She swallowed hard but didn’t answer him.
“Did you know her?” Razor pressed. “Is it possible that whoever attacked your home might’ve assumed she was you?”
“No, this can’t be true.” She sagged back against the driver’s seat. A small, pained noise worked its way up her throat now. “Nothing you’re saying can be true. It can’t!”
She shook her head, but it seemed more like a reflexive tremor than conscious movement. Her shell-shocked gaze turned bleak, as if she herself were suddenly standing with one foot in the grave.
“Get out of my way,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “Let me go. I have to see for myself.”
“Bad idea,” Razor grimly cautioned her. “There’s nothing left for you there anymore.”
She sucked in a jagged breath. “I need to go. I need to see her right now!”
Damn it. He was getting nowhere trying to explain the situation to her. He had more efficient ways to deal with this problem. Trance her. Commandeer her vehicle. Then he could drop her somewhere safe, call Theo with the location and be done with the twenty-year promise he’d made.
Not to mention the unwanted attraction he felt toward her, even when she was staring at him like he was the one holding a can of gasoline and a match.
“I realize you’re scared, but you have to trust me.”
“No, I don’t,” she shot back. “I don’t believe a word you’re saying, vampire.”
Great. She was only getting more agitated. There was a wild look in her eyes that said she was on the verge of panic and desperate to do anything to get away from him and drive up that mountain.
“Laurel, I’m only going to say this once. Move to the other seat now so I can get behind the wheel and get you out of here.”
“Fuck you.” She stomped on the accelerator, groaning as the engine revved but the wheels stayed locked in place. She beat her palms against the steering wheel in frustration. “Let me go, damn you! She can’t be dead!” A sob tore out of her. “You have to let me see her. You have to let me try to save her!”
Try to save her? What was she talking about?
And now his brain snagged on something else she just said.
Holy hell.
He’d been wrong. The truth hadn’t seemed so obvious until she said it. Now, the realization hit him like a hammer on glass.
“You’re not Laurel Townsend. The dead woman I found in the cabin . . . that was her.”
Those bleak green eyes looked up at him in misery. “She’s my sister. Laurel is my twin sister.”
Razor reeled back, running a hand over his face. “Ah, fuck.”
And just because his luck couldn’t possibly get any worse, at that same moment a local police cruiser with lights flashing moved into position directly behind the Jeep.
Razor bit off a curse under his breath. “Stay put,” he growled to Laurel’s twin. “I’ll handle this.”
The pair of cops inside the darkened vehicle peered out the windshield into the gathering darkness outside. The driver, the larger of the two, said something to his partner who then lit up a spotlight mounted to his side of the car. The beam nearly blinded Razor’s inhuman retinas, but he was more concerned about anyone ID’ing the woman next to him.
“Don’t look back at—”
