Since he was only about three years older than I, that statement wasn’t nearly so perverted as it might’ve sounded. I could feel the summoning in the deep timbre of his voice, the coaxing energy, luring me to him, seducing me like an incubus, and every part of me shivered in response, quaked with a need so visceral, so consuming, it stole my breath.

“And when you were in high school,” he continued, as though he were reliving a dream, “the way you carried your books. The arch of your back. The flawlessness of your skin. I craved you like an animal craves blood.”

I grew weaker with each word, with each heartbeat that reverberated toward me. I knew I would give in if I let him continue. I didn’t have the superhuman strength it would take to resist him for long. There simply wasn’t much super in me, human or otherwise.

“So, what exactly is brimstone?” I asked, hoping to douse the flames. And I wanted to remind him where he came from, to cut him just a little, because he was cutting me. By not trusting me, by tossing my wishes and concerns to the wind, he was cutting. Just like every other man in my life of late.

A slow, calculating smile spread across his face. “If you ever bother my sister again, I’ll slice you in two.”

I guess it worked. I cut him. He cut me. I could live with that. “If you’re not going to tell me where you are, if you’re not going to trust me to help you, then why are you here? Why bother?”

After the room reverberated with a soft growl, I felt him leave. I felt his essence drain from the room, the cold stillness that lingered in his wake. A split second before he vanished completely, he brushed past me, whispered in my ear. “Because you’re the reason I breathe.”

With a sigh, I burrowed into my blankets even farther and lay there a long while, contemplating … everything. His words. His voice. His stunning beauty. I was the reason he breathed? He was the very reason my heart beat.

With a gasp, I bolted upright. His heartbeats. I could feel his heartbeats. Rumbling toward me as he spoke, strong and even. He was alive!

I jumped out of bed, stumbled a bit when a sheet plagued with separation anxiety attacked my foot, then hopped to the bathroom to sit on my porcelain throne and tinkle. I had one more shot to find out where he was. I hoped Reyes’s best friend, Amador Sanchez, didn’t mind crazy female private investigators visiting him in the middle of the night. I might should take my gun, just in case.

After throwing on some clothes, pulling my hair back, and accessorizing with a Glock, I ran to the office and got everything Cookie had on Reyes’s BFF from both high school and prison. Mr. Amador Sanchez. It was touching that they’d stayed close and could spend so much time together over the years. Snort.

I cut through light traffic—it being three in the A.M.—and landed in the Heights a little over fifteen minutes later, a tad surprised I was going to the Heights in the first place.

Amador Sanchez had been a fair-to-poor student in high school, had been arrested a couple of times for petty crimes, then was arrested and received four years for assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily harm. It didn’t help that he’d also hit a police officer. Never a good decision. And yet he lived in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. I needed to remember to ask him who his broker was. Mr. Wong and I could do with some nice digs ourselves.

The house I pulled up to wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting, despite the address. I’d conjured something from the South Valley, low-income housing, or even a halfway house. A stunning trilevel Spanish-tiled adobe with a stained glass entryway hardly fit my image of an ex-convict who’d done time for assault.

Feeling almost bad, I hurried through the frigid air and rang the doorbell. Maybe this wasn’t Amador’s house? Maybe he lived in a caretaker’s house or something out back. But according to Cook’s notes, he lived here with his wife and two kids. I couldn’t help but hope this was the right place. An ex-convict who’d made it past all the stereotypes to forge a successful—and hopefully legitimate—career would make my day.

I pulled my jacket tighter around me and rang again, letting the occupants know I was not going away. A porch light blazed on, and a blurry figure gazed out the stained glass window at me. I finally heard the turning of a lock, and the door opened warily.

“Yes?” A Latino in his early thirties stood rubbing one eye and studying me with the other.

I held up my license and set my jaw. “Reyes Farrow. Where is he?”

He dropped his hand and stared at me like I was part lunatic and part escaped mental patient. “I don’t know any Reyes Farrow.”

I crossed my arms. “Really? That’s how you want to do this? Did I mention that my uncle is an APD detective and I can have him over here in about twenty minutes?”

He got defensive at once. “You can call your aunt while you’re at it, too. I haven’t done a f**king thing.” He was so testy.

“Amador.” A woman walked up behind him, a scolding edge to her voice. “Stop being so rude.”

He shrugged sheepishly and stepped aside as she took hold of the door.

“What can we help you with?”

I flashed my license again. “I’m so sorry for the hour.”

“She didn’t apologize to me for the hour,” he told his wife.

I glowered at him. Tattletale. “I’m here about Reyes Farrow, and I’m hoping your husband knows his current whereabouts.”

“Reyes?” She closed the collar of her robe, worry lining her pretty face. “They haven’t found him?”