“Hell,” he muttered under his breath as the truth of the matter sank in. His jaw slid to one side and for a second he let himself fantasize about teaching a class where Kristi was his student, where she would have to be under his scrutiny, his control. Jesus! What was he thinking? He’d decided long ago that never seeing her again was just fine. Now it looked like he’d be staring at her face for three hours once a week.

Draining his beer, he slammed the empty bottle onto his desk. He hadn’t altered his whole damned work schedule, started working ten-hour shifts, gone through the headache of changing his whole life only to have to see Kristi every week. His jaw clenched so hard it ached.

Maybe she’d drop his class. The second she realized he was stepping in for Dr. Monroe, Kristi would probably alter her schedule. No doubt she didn’t want to see him any more than he wanted to deal with her. And the thought that he would be her teacher would probably really bug her. She’d resign from his class. Of course she would.

Good.

He read the rest of the class list of thirty-five students interested in criminology—make that thirty-four. His gaze drifted back to the first name on the list: Rylee Adams. Disturbed, Jay scratched at the stubble on his chin.

What the hell had happened to her?

CHAPTER 2

“…No loud music, no pets, no smoking, it’s all here in the lease,” Irene Calloway said, though she herself smelled suspiciously of cigarette smoke. In her early seventies with a few short wisps of gray hair poking from under a red beret, Irene was as thin as a rail beneath her faded baggy jeans and oversized T-shirt. Her jacket was a man’s flannel shirt and she peered at Kristi through thick glasses. She and Kristi were seated at a small scarred table in the furnished studio apartment on the third floor. The place had a bit of charm with its dormers, old fireplace, plank floors, and watery glass windows. It was cozy and quiet and Kristi couldn’t believe her luck in finding the place. Irene jabbed a long, gnarled finger at the fine print of the lease.

“I read it,” Kristi assured her, though the copy she’d been faxed had been blurry. Wasting no more time, she signed both sets of the six-month lease and handed one back to her new landlady.

“You’re not married?”

“No.”

“No kids?”

Kristi bristled as she shook her head. Irene’s questions were a little too personal.

“No boyfriend? The lease stipulates only one person up here.” She motioned to the small loft that had once been an attic, possibly servants’ quarters of the grand old house now chopped into apartments.