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She didn’t dare go upstairs alone. In fact, she needed to get out of the house now.

Stepping back out into the dark morning, Alyssa reached for her cell phone. Tyler answered on the first ring.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone broke into my house.”

Tyler swore, an ugly string of curses that made her wince. “I’m still in my truck. I’ll be there in less than five. Call the police. Now.”

Whispering her agreement, she hung up the phone, and shivered in the November chill. It had gotten too cold for her short skirts, and she wished she’d brought a coat. She had wonderfully warm clothes in her closet upstairs . . . but she’d rather freeze than risk going up there alone.

The 911 dispatcher answered quickly, and Alyssa gave her name and address, and described the break-in, at least as much as she knew about it.

Should she call Luc now or wait until a more reasonable hour? It was two in the morning in L.A., and his taping always began so early each morning, he’d be sound asleep.

Before she could decide, Tyler pulled into her driveway with a growl of his engine and threw the truck in park. He climbed out and grabbed her shoulders, dragging her against him. “Are you all right?”

“Shaken. Not hurt.”

“And cold.”

Swearing, he reached inside the truck, then wrapped his coat around her. Alyssa sighed at the sudden warmth, but her relief was short-lived.

“Show me what you found,” Tyler demanded.

“Shouldn’t we let Remy and the boys in there for a look first?” Honestly, she just didn’t want to see what else the intruder had done to her house.

“You mean preserve the crime scene because they’re such fabulous investigators?” Razor blades had nothing on the sharpness of his sarcasm. “I want to see the scene for myself before they fuck it up.”

“Did you used to—?”

“Yeah. I won’t have time to examine the scene closely before they barge in, but I can look.” He pulled out a pair of leather gloves from the truck. “Let’s make this quick.”

Alyssa’s insides shook as she led Tyler back in the house. The questions about his past could wait.

Inside the dim interior, she flipped on the foyer light, as she’d done when she first entered the house. Tyler looked at the alarm panel, studying it with a clenched jaw. “Fuck. Was this as far as you got in the house before leaving?”

“I was too afraid to stay, in case the pissed-off intruder was still here with his friend, Mr. Hammer.”

“Especially if he also brought other friends, like Misters Knife or Gun,” Tyler muttered grimly. “Good girl.”

From the back of his waistband, Tyler pulled out a nasty semiautomatic. Alyssa stared, wide-eyed.

“Where did you get that?”

“My truck. I don’t make a production about the fact I have it. Stay behind me,” he instructed as he made his way up the dark stairs.

He shouldered open the first door on the left, the guest room, and flipped on the light. “Anything look disturbed?”

Alyssa peeked over his shoulder. Everything looked exactly as she’d left it that afternoon. In fact, it had a vaguely stale smell, as if no one had opened the door in weeks, which was true.

Tyler extinguished the light and rolled his shoulders, as if trying to get calm. He crept toward her exercise room, gun drawn. The door was still wide-open, as it had been after she’d finished her morning workout.

Inside, he groped around for the light switch. A moment later, soft overhead light illuminated the space. Everything was the same: punching bag dangling from the ceiling, stair climber, free weights. Even the remnants of this morning’s bottle of water remained on the windowsill.

“Nothing,” she murmured.

“Good.” He sighed as he switched off the light, clearly trying to find his calm.

“Maybe when the alarm went off, he smashed it in frustration, then took off.” But even as she said the words, she
knew
that someone had been up here. She felt it—and the resulting fear.

Tyler just grimaced, as if he didn’t want to scare her with the truth.

She chewed on her bottom lip nervously. “I don’t know why it didn’t alert the police.”

“I’m going guess this asshole snipped your phone line before he broke into your house, cutting your connection to the police.” Tyler sounded grim. “If you don’t have detectors on your windows, he probably cut a hole in the glass and climbed in.”

“Which is why it’s so cold in the house.” Nausea slid through her.

“Exactly. Then he probably disabled the audible alarm system in your attic. That way, no matter what he did next, he never had to worry about alerting your neighbors. Then I’ll bet he pounded your alarm panel just for fun.”

“Would a run-of-the-mill burglar do all that?”

He shook his head, then turned to trek down the hall, toward her bedroom. “They usually prefer something simpler. Open windows are an engraved invitation. But that’s not to say they won’t do whatever necessary to get past your fancy equipment if they think you’ve got something of great value.”

“B-but I don’t. I never bothered to buy a flat-panel TV. My laptop is at Bonheur. I don’t keep cash in the house. I don’t have much jewelry.”

“And you’ve been wearing your wedding rock, so it wasn’t lying around the house.”

So Tyler
had
noticed her ring. And his grousing voice didn’t sound thrilled in the least. Then again, she wasn’t surprised.

As Tyler opened the master bedroom, he paused. “Light switch?”

“On the wall to your right, closer to the bathroom.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “Too far in the dark. Just in case . . .”

Edging away from her bedroom, he backtracked to the guest bathroom in the hallway and switched on the little room’s bright lights. The beam of illumination drifted across the hardwood floor of the hallway and cast gray shadows just inside the doorway of her room.

“Wait here.” Tyler’s voice made it clear that his demand wasn’t up for negotiation.

Terror pulsed in her stomach. She had the worst feeling that whatever she found was going to crush her, scare her in a way that the notes affixed with knives never had. Heart racing, she pressed her lips together so she didn’t pant and alert Tyler to the fact she was right behind him.

“You’re not following directions.”

Alyssa ignored him until he thrust out an arm. “Fucking wait outside the doorway. And get out of my light.”

Reluctantly, she stepped aside, peering around the door. A moment later, Tyler flipped the light on.

He revealed complete disaster, and she screamed.

Luc’s clothes had been piled in the middle of the bedroom, torn to shreds, then doused in red paint. The linens had been yanked from the mattress and strewn across the floor, again ripped in a fit of fury and drenched in crimson. It was all over her carpet, her bedroom walls. She could
feel
the rage of whoever had done this. The act had been deeply personal, his silent act of war.

“Who would do this?” Her voice shook, and she clutched her stomach, wondering if she was going to lose her dinner.

“Peter would be my first choice.”

“He’s in County right now.”

A grim frown crossed Tyler’s face. “Primpton?”

“He just wants to shut me down. For that, he needs to publicly discredit me, not scare me. Invading my personal space doesn’t accomplish a damn thing.”

“Maybe he’s just hoping to run you out of town?”

“I’m sure he’d love that, but he should know better after eighteen months of bitching.” She shook her head. Primpton doing this didn’t feel right.

“True . . . but he’s the only suspect we’ve got, unless you can think of another slighted customer who would be this pissed at you.”

“No.”

Alyssa kept taking in the devastation in the room with her mouth agape. Her perfume bottles were everywhere, most broken, and the room smelled like a horrific mix of flowers and chemicals that nearly made her sick. He’d piled a bunch of her lingerie in the middle of the naked bed, and as she approached it, the sight got even more revolting.

“Oh, my God. Th-that’s semen.”

Instantly, Tyler was at her side, staring at the thick white ejaculate some sick freak had sprayed all over her lingerie.

Alyssa put a hand over her mouth and turned away. Now she really was going to throw up.

But her eyes landed on something silver on the carpet, barely sticking out from under the comforter. Fear and denial turbocharging her heart, she ran to it and reached out to grab it.

“No!” Tyler growled, then pulled her back before she could clutch the object. “You can’t touch anything. Let me.”

Gingerly with his thumb and forefinger, he lifted the downy comforter enough for Alyssa’s worst fears to be confirmed: Someone had destroyed Luc’s wedding gift to her. The photo of their wedding kiss had been ripped into little pieces. The terrible intruder had splashed red paint on the picture frame. It dripped down the engraving. She sobbed and reached out for it, wanting the frame restored so badly she ached.

Tyler wrapped his arms around her middle, forcing her arms to her sides. “You can’t.”

“B-but Luc gave this to me.” Sick, shuddering, shaking sobs poured forth and she doubled over, unable to look at the devastation anymore.

Tyler pulled her back against his chest, his palm over her abdomen, his lips at her ear. “It’s okay. We’ll fix everything. Honey, don’t make yourself sick over this. It’s not good for you.”

Or the baby. She knew that, but the shock and fear crashing through her system, combined with exhaustion and the noxious scents, had her on overload.

“Shh,” he soothed.

She just shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You have to get it together. Remy and the boys will be here soon. Let’s go.”

Alyssa gave him a miserable nod, and Tyler dragged her to her feet. Her knees nearly didn’t support her, but she forced herself to stay upright.

Tyler dropped the comforter, slightly away from the ruined picture frame, revealing the last and worst of the horrors. The picture of her in her wedding dress had been ripped from the frame, and he’d left her a message that made her scream herself into a black abyss.

ALYSSA was missing. Pacing his Los Angeles hotel room before dawn, Luc tried her house and cell numbers again. No answer at either and no voice mail at the former. Sadie had been unable to locate her at Bonheur or the club. Remy could only tell him that Alyssa had made a 911 call and reported that someone had broken into her house. And that by the time the sheriff and his deputy arrived, her car was there . . . but she was nowhere in sight.

Had someone abducted her? What if someone other than Peter had left those threatening notes and taken her?

The term “cold sweat” had a whole new meaning for him as he shoved the last of his belongings in his suitcase.

An hour ago, he’d called Jack Cole, who had immediately started the hunt for Alyssa. Jack had called a few minutes ago to say that, so far, he’d found nothing. And Luc felt helpless in Los Angeles. If Alyssa was missing . . . The taping of the show was important, but not more than finding her and the baby.

The only other person his wife knew that he hadn’t spoken with yet was Tyler. Alyssa would go to him; the bouncer made her feel safe. But what else did he make her feel? Would she really fuck the baby’s biological father mere hours after Luc turned his back? He didn’t have an answer, but Luc knew Tyler would be only too happy to have Alyssa in his bed again. Still, the jealous clenching of his gut was better than thinking a madman had gotten his hands on her.

But both options sucked.

Swearing, Luc grabbed his phone again and called Jack. “Anything new?”

“Sorry, man.” Jack’s voice. “I checked the hospitals. Nothing.”

Closing his eyes, Luc tamped down panic, fearing that, one way or another, he’d lost Alyssa. “Keep looking. Please. I’m on my way to the airport. I’ll call Sadie again, see if she can track Tyler down. I’ll catch the first flight back I can.”

After more murmured sympathy from Jack, he hung up and made the call to Sadie he dreaded. She answered right away.

“I checked with Brandy,” the dancer said. “She hasn’t heard from Alyssa.”

Luc pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off the headache he knew stemmed from lack of sleep. When he hadn’t been able to reach his wife in the wee hours of the morning, he’d been unable to go to sleep. No way he’d be able to rest until he knew what the hell was going on.

“What about Tyler?”

“I called. No answer. I’d drive by his place . . . but I don’t know where he lives. He’s never been interested in socializing with anyone but Alyssa.”

Socializing?
Luc barely held in a grunt. If Tyler had Alyssa, Luc bet the man was doing something far more personal to his wife.

Thanking the dancer, Luc hung up and called Jack again as he grabbed a taxi to the airport. “Can you find an address for a guy named Tyler Murphy? He’s new to Lafayette.”