She winced at the loud bang.

“Who did this?” Eric demanded. She knew his burning stare had taken in everything. The slashed couch cushions. The shattered picture frames. The broken vases. The smashed TV.

“If we knew,” Ben fired right back, “then I wouldn’t have called you!”

Piper wrapped her arms around her stomach. “This is a breaking and entering case. The cops said things like this—unfortunately—happen too often in Atlanta.” Her voice came out nice and steady, a good sign. She needed to appear in control. “This isn’t the type of case that you handle, Eric. You’re into corporate security and celebrity protection bits.” The rich and famous. “Ben didn’t need to call you. It’s nothing.”

But Eric stalked toward her with his slow, lethal grace. He moved silently. He always did. She’d never quite figured out how a man so big could move without making a whisper of sound.

He stopped right in front of her. She tipped back her head so that she could meet his dark stare.

“Someone broke into your home. Someone destroyed your things.” A muscle jerked along his rock-hard jaw. A jaw that was covered with just the faintest of five o’clock shadows. “That isn’t nothing. It’s something very big to me.”

“And to me!” Ben piped up. “That’s why I had to call you. The cops did their routine, but they turned up nothing, and seeing as how this is the second time that—”

Eric held up one hand. “Second time?” His gaze never left Piper’s face.

“Uh, yeah.” Ben cleared his throat. “This is the second time someone has broken into her place. The first time was about a month ago, when she was out of town on another business trip. The place wasn’t destroyed, though, and the cops barely glanced anywhere then.” Now he shot Piper his disapproving frown. “Not that I knew about that incident at the time, since Piper has apparently decided to start keeping secrets from her best friend.”

Seriously? “It wasn’t a secret. You were busy back then.” A big case at his firm. “And I didn’t think it was a big deal. I handled it.”

“Handled it?” Eric’s voice was low and lethal.

He’d always done that. Gotten quiet when he was at his most dangerous. Other people yelled. Their faces turned red. Not Eric. Oh, sure, he was angry, she could see the fury hardening his gaze. And that quiet, gravelly voice…Crap, he’s pissed.

Piper squared her shoulders. “You didn’t need to come here,” she whispered.

“I should have been here a month ago,” he rasped right back. “What did the bastard do when he broke in then?”