he feared the worst-that those deaths had put the idea of suicide in her head, too. he couldn't let that happen.

"if you really want to help, then you'll leave. right now. i don't know what's going on, and i can't risk you, too."

"risk me how?"

she squeezed his hands, though grant didn't think she realized she was doing so. "it's not safe here for you."

"why not? you've got to help me understand."

she was silent for a long moment, and then finally, her shoulders slumped in defeat. her voice was a quiet whisper of sound, but he heard her clearly enough. "i don't think those people killed themselves. i think they were murdered."

that news shook grant to the core, leaving him floundering. he kept his voice and expression carefully neutral, reserving judgment until he had more information. "if you think people are being killed, why didn't you call me and tell me about this sooner?"

she tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn't let her. he held firm, keeping her right there with him, demanding that she give him an answer.

"i called once to warn you. you weren't available, and i felt weird leaving a message. i figured you'd think i was crazy."

grant's jaw clenched in frustration. how many other times had she tried to contact him when he couldn't be reached? he should have been there for her-for all of those kids. after all, he was the one who had put them all back out on the street. he should have done a better job of looking out for their welfare, even if he had been just a kid himself.

at least he'd gotten to her now, before it was too late.

"well, i'm available now. and i'm not going anywhere until i know you're safe."

david, his new job, and his new life were just going to have to wait.

chapter two

isabelle couldn't let grant stay. it wasn't safe for him, and it certainly wasn't safe for her and all of the plans she'd made for her life.

"i'm a big girl. i haven't needed a protector since i was sixteen."

grant's jaw muscles bunched as his gaze slid away, and she immediately regretted bringing up the past.

he'd killed a man to save her. sure, he'd saved a lot of other kids, too, but lavine had come for her for the first time that night. grant had pulled lavine off of her, protecting her from that hellish fate so many of his other foster kids had suffered. because of grant, isabelle had to deal with only attempted rape rather than the horror the rest of those children had faced.

"i'm staying. you might as well fill me in on everything." his voice was hard and unyielding.

"i just told you everything."

"there's got to be a reason you think these people were murdered. tell me what it is."

she swallowed hard to ease the lump of relief tightening her throat. he didn't assume she was crazy, as she'd feared. he didn't assume she was lying or making things up just to get attention.

he hadn't seen her for years, yet he gave her more benefit of the doubt than her closest friends.

"you do have a reason, don't you, isabelle?"

"i do."

muscles along her spine unclenched, and until now, she hadn't even realized just how tense she'd been, just how relieved she was that someone wanted to listen to her.

she'd show grant her files, and he'd tell her she was reading too much into what she'd found, and she'd be able to let it go and get on with her life. "follow me."

isabelle went down the hall that led to the small bedroom she used as her office. every few steps, she glanced back to make sure he was still there. she should have known that grant wouldn't ditch her, but life had given her enough nasty surprises that she wasn't entirely trusting. she'd been left behind one too many times to be that foolish.

she flipped on the office lights. the secondhand desk was a little the worse for wear but big enough to grade homework as well as house her pc.

using a key she kept with her, she opened the locked file cabinet. she didn't want her foster son to accidentally stumble on her findings and worry himself. dale had enough to deal with on his own without fear for her safety adding to the mix.

she pulled the drawer all the way open and reached into the back for an expandable file where she kept everything she'd found.

"here you go. look at these and tell me what you think."

she moved aside her ungraded homework and the consumer reports article on swing sets and laid everything out on the desk. she let him see the newspaper clippings and medical examiners' reports without saying anything that might sway his opinion one way or another.

she watched him as he picked up each paper and read over it. his jaw tightened more with every page he read. the glittering interest in his eyes darkened to lethal menace.

light from the desk lamp washed over his features, casting deep shadows on his face. she could see a couple of small scars-one on his cheek and another over his left eyebrow. the split lip lavine had given him hadn't left a mark, which relieved her. she didn't like the idea of him carrying a reminder of that night where he'd have to see it every time he shaved.

grant set down the first stack of pages and reached for the next. isabelle stayed silent, watching him.

she knew exactly what he read. page after page revealed the facts around the deaths of six people. carrie was the first. she left her car running with the garage door shut and the car doors open. then henry. he hanged himself from a beam in his basement after his wife left him-his wife who had been missing for weeks. jamal jumped from the tenth floor of his apartment building. linda overdosed.

she hadn't really known any of those people well, but she'd known sam and beverly, who had also reportedly killed themselves.

isabelle knew in her gut that was a lie.

grant set the last paper down on the desk very carefully and turned that menacing gaze to her.

"who are all of these people, and exactly how are you connected to them?" he demanded. his voice was hard and cold, and isabelle had to stifle a little shiver of apprehension.

"you're connected to them, too. every one of them was edgar lavine's foster child at one time."

his mouth tightened in a disgusted grimace at the mention of that man's name. "how did you find that out? aren't those records private?"

isabelle felt the heat of a blush crawl up her neck. "i'm not going to tell you how i got that information. it would get someone else in trouble, someone who was trying to help me."

he accepted that and moved on without hounding her like the police had. "are you sure all of them lived with lavine?" he asked.

"positive. what i'm not sure of is that any of them committed suicide."

"lavine did a lot of terrible things to the kids in his care, isabelle. maybe these people never got over it."

even though grant had saved isabelle from being raped, the fact that she'd come so close to being another of lavine's victims still haunted her sometimes. she'd see a man who resembled lavine at the grocery store and stop dead in her tracks. once, a student's father had reached out to shake her hand and those blunt, gnarled fingers-so much like lavine's-had flung her back to that horrid night. she'd run to the bathroom to throw up and never could bring herself to go back to face the baffled father.

if she still dealt with what had nearly happened to her, how much worse was it for the kids grant hadn't been around to save? bad enough to commit suicide?

"i'm not sure anyone ever gets over something like that," she told grant, "but i still don't think they killed themselves."

"why not?"

"i just don't," she stated with every ounce of belief she possessed.

"give me something to go on here. i'm trying to understand."

"sam and beverly were not suicidal. i knew them. i'd bet my life on it."

grant's mouth flattened at her choice of words. "okay, let's say that's true and they weren't suicidal. what about the rest of them? did you know them, too?"

"no. and as sick as it sounds, i really want to believe they killed themselves. it's much easier to think that they took their own lives to be at peace than to believe they were murdered, made victims yet again. the problem is, everything in me is screaming that's what happened."

"why?" not judgment, just curiosity.

isabelle shrugged. "women's intuition? instincts? i don't know. all i know is that if i'm right, then there are others out there in danger. including you."

that news didn't even rate a shocked flicker of his eyelid. "i can take care of myself. it's you i'm worried about. if you are right, then we've got to talk to the police about this. get you some protection, especially since you're digging up all of this stuff. if someone is killing people and disguising murder as suicide, they aren't going to want you figuring it out. if they find out you're investigating, they'll try to stop you."

isabelle stuffed everything back into the file, feeling a familiar rise of frustration. no one believed her. maybe she was wrong. "i've already been to the police. they don't have any proof that a crime has been committed, and some of these apparent suicides are way out of their jurisdiction."

"let me guess, they want to help but say they can't."

"exactly."

"what about the missing woman?"

"trina. she's henry's wife. they looked for her for a few days, but i doubt they're putting much manpower into it. henry had a note from her in his hand when he died, saying she'd run off with another man."

"but you don't think she did?"

isabelle shrugged. "i didn't really know her or henry well enough to say one way or another. they both had left lavine's before i arrived."

"this is a hell of a mess, isn't it?"

"i really didn't want to dump this on you."

"i didn't give you a choice."

"and now that you know, what do you think we should do?"

grant was silent for a moment as if waging an internal debate, then straightened his shoulders and pushed away from the desk. "i know exactly what to do."

"does that mean you believe me?" she held her breath, waiting for his answer.

"i believe you believe it. for now, that's enough. we'll figure this thing out. don't worry."

don't worry. right. easier said than done. at least he didn't automatically jump to the conclusion that she was crazy to even consider looking into the possibility of murder, the way her friend keith had.

grant held out his big hand and waited expectantly for her to give him the file. isabelle wasn't ready to give it over so easily. not until she knew what he planned to do with it. gathering this information had taken weeks and used up about every favor she'd ever earned.