Marie Claire Saint-Ange didn’t look like a woman who could murder three men.   
            None of the articles Michael Quinn had read prepared him for his first glimpse of the woman the local Maine newspapers called the Widow Spider.
            Even with the oversized black cardigan wrapped around her tall, slender form, Michael’s avid gaze browsed sweetly rounded curves exactly where a man’s hands would stray. Her tailored black slacks and turtleneck looked expensively soft. Wing-like waves of dark brown hair framed a subtly sensuous face with huge doe eyes and full red lips.
            His breath lodged somewhere south of his throat, and his blood south of his belt. Even on this winter day, his blood burned.
            A man would have to be dead not to react to her sultry beauty. Was hers a face from heaven, as her name suggested? Or the face of a Siren?
            Of course, he supposed, neither Lizzie Borden nor Ted Bundy had looked like butchers. If facial features could label killers, who would need cops like him?
            He mentally kicked himself in the butt. He meant to keep as distant from that female as possible. He’d come on business. Anything else could be a hell of a lot more dangerous. For him.
            Talking to a bearded old man in a tattered parka, the Saint-Ange woman stood in a cleared space on her snow-covered side porch. Michael closed the door of his Jeep Cherokee, parked behind a new black Subaru Forester. Sweet wheels. The widow had done all right.
            She sketched a restrained salute of greeting. He gave a nod of acknowledgment, and she continued her conversation.
            Michael’s trained gaze scanned the two-story white Victorian. Simple green wreaths with crimson bows on the door. Classy but not ostentatious. Not unlike all the other large frame houses on the quiet street.
            How did they feel at the Weymouth town office about their sleepy little Portland suburb harboring a sexy serial killer?
            Hoping to eavesdrop, he sauntered up the curving sidewalk to the porch. A gusty wind scythed the last stray clumps of new-fallen snow from tree branches and shrubs. The cold didn’t bother him, but how could the woman stand it out here in just a sweater?
            “Don’t you fret none, Miz Claire,” the old man said in his Downeast Maine accent. “Elisha Fogg’s not too old for a few more years’ shovelin’.”
            Unsmiling, she stared at him a long moment. Then she tilted her head in a uniquely French posture. “Certainly,” she replied. “But I won’t pay you to shovel the porch. The wind will clear it soon enough. Go home, Elisha.”
            In contrast with her cold manner, her voice was throaty, with the musical lilt and pronunciation of her northern Maine Acadian background.
            Elisha muttered what might have been “Yes, ma’am,” then shuffled past Michael toward a decrepit old truck parked at the curb.
            Odd that she’d cut corners on the snow shoveling when she’d spent lavishly on a new car.
            After watching the old truck chug away, Michael frowned and turned to be struck dumb by wide eyes the color of the richest dark chocolate. The intensity of her stare unnerved, yet aroused him. Did she have any idea of the impact of that liquid gaze? Sure as hell, a woman like that was born knowing her power over men.
            In the set of her shoulders he saw self-assurance and determination, and in her eyes intelligence and...an elusive vulnerability that woke the protective instinct he damn well thought he’d buried. The Widow Spider’s confidence hung by a single strand.
            “I assume you’re the private investigator?”
            He shook off his unwanted thoughts. “Yeah. Michael Quinn. Mr. Fitzhugh said you were expecting me.”
            “Come in, then. It’s too cold to stand out here any longer.” She opened the carved oak door. “Unless you’re afraid. Did Fitz tell you about me?”
            Still irritated that she’d kept the old man out in the cold arguing and then stinted him on his pay, Michael scowled. “I know who you are. Fitzhugh gave me the newspaper clippings,” he snapped. “After you.”
            Spine stiff as an icicle, she preceded him into the wide foyer. After setting two locks on the heavy door, she hung his coat and her sweater on a brass tree. To his left spread a gracious parlor bigger than his entire apartment, but she led him to a smaller, cozy living room on the right.
            Close behind her, Michael inhaled a light herbal scent. Shampoo or lotion, not perfume, but just as arousing. More, because it wasn’t deliberate. He noted, too, that her haughty rigidity didn’t extend to her hips, which swayed seductively with each step. Probably couldn’t help it.
            “Sit down, Mr. Quinn. This room will warm up in a bit.” She lifted a log from the wood box beside the hearth and placed it carefully in the small, high-tech wood stove set in the fireplace.
            “Big house to heat that way,” Michael commented as he regarded the camel-backed couch. Antique or a very expensive reproduction? An assessing glance at the other aspects of the room--gleaming, dark wood, hand-carved paneling, marble-topped tables, Oriental rugs--convinced his inexpert eye the couch was an original.
            The house wasn’t merely renovated, as his sketchy file said; it ranked as a damn showplace ready for a magazine spread.
            A partially decorated balsam fir that brushed the ceiling and neatly stacked boxes of ornaments filled the large front window. Unusual that a rich widow like her didn’t have the Christmas decorations done professionally.
            He eased into a green wing chair near the hearth.
            “The furnace does its job, but I prefer the ambiance of wood heat.” She sat opposite him in a twin of his chair.
            Her slender body curved in all the right places. She wore little or no make-up, no adornments of any kind. He wouldn’t mind tasting the natural red of her lips. In the warmth of the lamplight, her dewy skin, like that of a young girl, belied the thirty odd years he knew as her age. Hands itching to touch her creamy skin, Michael clasped his fingers on his knees.
            He didn’t want to be here, didn’t like the feel of this case, didn’t like coming into it less prepared than usual. From the onset, something about it had sent cold tingles to the base of his skull. He sure as hell didn’t want a case about a woman whose mere presence stirred everything male in him. But he had no choice.
            The woman consulted a manila folder she slid from an adjacent small table. Her direct gaze heated his blood as if she’d stoked a fire in him instead of in the wood stove.
            “Fitz tells me that until eight months ago, you were an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, based in Boston. One of their best investigators. Why did you quit?”
            He shrugged. “I’d had enough.” Enough damned drug dealers, enough wallowing in greed and slime, enough misplaced emotional involvement. Enough failure.
            This time he didn’t have to care or feel responsible or protective. Didn’t have to feel, didn’t want to feel, period. His only stake in this case would be completing it and moving on.
            She probably expected him to say more. Tough.  “Why did you hire me?”
            She clapped shut the folder. “I want you to clear me.”
            “Clear you.” The tingling again. He rubbed his nape. He hoped to God she didn’t need protection. Given his track record, no one should trust him to protect a snow cone.  “But I understood you’ve never been charged with anything.”
            In a graceful feminine gesture, she tossed her hair back.
            Damn, but she was beautiful. If she ever let herself smile, if she ever smiled at him, he’d erupt into a fireball. He was already having a hell of a time keeping cool.
            “Officially, no. But by every other means--in the press and in everyone’s eyes--I’ve been charged, convicted, and sentenced.”
            “You’re innocent, of course.” He couldn’t prevent an accusatory tone.
            Shoulders straight, she glared at him with fierce fervor. “You can think whatever you want, Mr. Quinn. Few believe in my innocence. Though Fitz has been my financial advisor for years, sometimes I think even he doubts me. The police are chasing a cat with five paws trying to prove I killed those men. I’ve hired you to find the truth of how each died, so I can live in peace.”
            Her gaze held pride and strength, underlain with a sadness that didn’t jibe with what little he’d read about her. Innocent? Or acting?
            The last death had occurred eleven months ago. A long time to wait before seeking help. Did she aim to make herself look good by hiring a PI?
            He ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Seems to me you’ve held up okay under media and police pressure. What makes now any different?”
            Abruptly, she shot to her feet and strode to the side window. Her dark hair fell in thick waves to the middle of her back. He waited while she searched for words.
            Claire struggled against the burning in her eyes. This man challenged her control. The flinty cynicism and the brooding eyes, gray and implacable as the granite he resembled, sliced through her protective shield. His own obvious resentment agitated and annoyed her. That he might dislike or even fear her shouldn’t bother her. Usually she cultivated that reaction. It shouldn’t matter how shabby her treatment of poor old Elisha appeared, but for some reason, it did.
            Aloofness and a prickly attitude served her well as a barrier to more tragedy. It did double duty in protecting the old man’s pride and his back at the same time.
            Confronted by this scowling PI, she drew from the self-reliance and strength of character instilled in her by the tantes. A self-reliance they said she’d need: The curse of your beauty is to be alone.
            Gazing anywhere but at him, she spoke with forced calm. “In their desperation to pin something--anything--on me, the police are questioning my aunts in Fort Kent, in northern Maine. I grew up there, in the St. John Valley, where the culture is Acadian French and Catholic. From birth, I spoke French and English interchangeably. Almost as a litany, my aunts have always told me the tragedies in my life have been sent by le bon Dieu, by the good Lord, as a curse or a sort of trial by fire. I don’t want them burned by the flames.”
            “Haven’t they been interrogated before?”
            “You don’t understand. Tante Odette and Tante Rolande raised me. They’re very old now, in their eighties, and fragile.” She faced him again.
            Like a block of New England bedrock, he sat quietly, awaiting her explanation. Under six feet tall, he appeared larger because of his stocky, muscular frame. He emanated banked power, the coiled force of a warrior.
            She drew a deep breath. “That state detective, Pratt”--she spat the name with venom--“asked them about my parents. Bringing up their deaths will only distress them and serve no purpose.”
            “Your parents? How did they die?”
            Now he would suspect her there as well? The bad seed. The idea left a taste as harsh as the ashes in the stove.
            She sat opposite him again. With quivering fingers, she straightened the magazines on the small end table, fanning them like playing cards. “I was ten. We all contracted a bacterial infection, E.coli, from some contaminated meat. By the time Tante Odette convinced them to see a doctor, it was too late. I had eaten only a bite or two, so I lived.”
            His gunmetal gaze ran over her with cool appraisal. “And you went to live with your aunts after that?”
            “Until I finished high school. They lived nearby, together. Neither ever married. I was a chick with two mother hens.” She left her chair and knelt to stir the fire, which had warmed the room.
            “Two French hens.” His lips twitched toward a smile.
            The poker fell from her hand. Quinn caught it easily before it marred the hardwood floor. When he extended the fire tool to her, their hands brushed.
            Claire started, seared as if by his body heat. But that was silly. Averting her gaze, she prodded the flaming logs.
            He hesitated a moment, as if waiting for a reply to his jest, then continued, “Then you moved here to live with your cousin. Is that right?”
            “No, there was money for two years of college. I came to live with Martine and her family after that.”
            “To help with the small children. You met Jonathan Farnsworth, your first husband, then. He was Martine’s stepson.”
            She nodded. “You sound like a cop interrogating a suspect, Mr. Quinn. I thought I hired you to examine others about my case, not me.”
            Annoyed at how impassively he sat there stripping her layers of protection with his questions, she went to stand at the mantel. She lined up the five brass candlesticks from shortest to tallest.
            For so long, she’d held in her feelings, kept herself strong and detached. It was the only way to survive the losses and the censure, the taunts and the threats. Revealing her main reason for hiring him would expose her fears, her weakness. She had to preserve her strong image.
            After the avalanche had buried Alan and the firestorm of accusations erupted, the threatening calls came. She’d changed to an unlisted number, and still they found her. She’d changed it again and again. Finally the calls stopped.
            Until last week.
            They began again last week, new, anonymous calls with no threats or obscenities. Their silence was the most terrifying sound she’d ever heard.     
            Silence. And a palpable emanation of menace.
            In the background, sometimes she heard a vaguely familiar thumping noise. Layered with it, breathing.
            Someone was there. Listening. Plotting.
            No longer could she drift along, waiting for her waking nightmare to end. No longer could she hope it would all just go away. The implicit threat had spurred her to telephone Fitz about hiring an investigator.
            “To find the truth, Ms. Saint-Ange, as you requested,” he said, “I’ll need to know everything, including your side of the story. The news clippings were lacking in anything but sensationalism and innuendo.”
            Quinn leaned forward, as if ready for combat. The layered sinews of his thighs strained the khaki fabric of his stylishly pleated trousers. Slabs and planes of muscle bulged beneath his collarless denim shirt. His imposing physique and harshly carved facial features must have instilled fear in more than a few drug dealers.
            “Mr. Quinn--”
            “Just Quinn. Or Michael,” he said. “Mr. Quinn is my father.”
            How strange to think of this hard man having a father. “Quinn, then.” Michael was too familiar.
            Claire hesitated. Fitz had assured her Quinn could be trusted. She had no one else.
            “I need your help, but don’t ask me to relive those memories in excruciating detail.”
            Quinn levered himself from the deep confines of the wing chair. He stood only a few inches taller than she, but loomed above her more imposing than before, and more intimidating. His chestnut brown hair brushed his collar and threatened to flop onto his forehead. His square face with its rugged features and probing gray eyes wasn’t handsome but nevertheless compelling in its intense maleness and strength.
            Disliking his imposing stance, she rose, but not without a warm flutter of reaction.
            Mais non, she couldn’t allow herself to be attracted to him, to any man. It wasn’t safe.
            “If I don’t have the facts,” he said flatly, “I’m no good to you. Detail the deaths for me, or find someone else.”
            His uncompromising tone set her back a pace. “You can get the whole story from the police files. Here’s the detective’s phone number and the address of his Portland office.” Claire plucked a slip of paper from her folder.
            For the first time, she noticed that the bronze cast to his skin left white crinkles around his eyes. A tan, not merely a swarthy complexion. Curious.
            “Fine, if all you want me to know is their side of things. If I work for you, shouldn’t I have yours?”
            Slumping inwardly, she accepted his logic. “All right, Quinn. Sit down. I’ll go through it for you.” She lined up the folder with the magazines on the table. No need to consult it. She knew the events by heart.
            From a pocket, he extracted a small notebook and pen. “Just the basic chronology for now,” he said softly. “We can fill in the details later.”
            Had this hard, blunt man with his strong, blunt face actually yielded at her distress?  In his assessing gaze, she perceived a predatory gleam that belied his obvious dislike of her. Not her distress, but her beauty influenced him.
            Her beauty, that was her curse, as if she needed a reminder. Attraction led to tragedy.
             The curse of your beauty is to be alone.
            “All I really know,” he continued, “is that over the last seven years, three men connected to you died.”
            Steeling herself against the painful retrospection, she said, “Yes, the first two deaths were accidents, or at least appeared accidental. My first husband, Jonathan Farnsworth, died in an automobile accident on a narrow coastal road.”
            “Was there another vehicle involved?”
            “No. He went over a cliff.” She knew her voice sounded robotic, but automatic recitation staved off an emotional onslaught.
            “And the next?” he urged, flipping a page to add more notes.
            “My second husband, Paul Santerre. He drowned while out on his yacht. Again alone.”
            “But it wasn’t until the third man died five years later that the cops stepped in?”
            Drenched in memories, she nodded. “When Alan Worcester died in an avalanche at Caribou Peak Ski Resort.” The state police, the entity charged with investigating homicide in the state of Maine, had accused her of murder. Three murders. She shuddered involuntarily.
            “But they found neither solid evidence of foul play in any of the three deaths nor enough to incriminate you.”
            “No, nor anyone else. Jonathan’s father is very influential with both the press and the authorities, so they continue trying, probing, prying,” she said, shrugging elaborately. “The most damning link to me was that I’d been married to the first two men and engaged to the third.”
            “I’ll go now,” he said, levering to his feet once more, “and see if I can contact Pratt today. Once I’ve read the official reports, I’ll come back.”
            She accompanied him to the hall, where she retrieved his bulky coat.
            “Go talk to Detective Lieutenant Pratt,” she said. “Read their stacks of files. Fill in the gaps. Then we’ll begin our investigation.”
            The thick, insulated parka impressed her like the man, substantial and overwhelming. The scent of his aftershave and something else distinctly male arose from the fabric. Like the coat, might he have a softer side? Not that she wanted to know anything personal about him.
            He pivoted at the open doorway. “What did you mean, we’ll begin investigating?”
            His powerful masculine presence unnerved her, but she wouldn’t be cowed. She folded her arms. “I’m paying you well for this case, Quinn. I will accompany you on interviews. We share all information.”
            “No way, lady.” He shook his large head of chestnut-brown hair, like a bull preparing to charge. “You’ve hired me to investigate. I’ll do just that and report back. I work alone, not with a damn partner, especially a client.”
            Claire thrust out her chin and drilled him with a glare. “Over the past months, people have accused me of horrible things. The media sensationalized the case, vilified me. They called me many names, Widow Spider and Bloody Mary the least offensive. It’s my life at stake. As long as you’re working for me, I’m your damn partner.”


From the book Dangerous Attraction
by Susan Vaughan
copyright Susan Hofstetter Vaughan 2001
ISBN 0-373-27476-9
Silhouette Intimate Moments, Harlequin Books


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