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woman how sorry she was for her loss. But Kyle’s mother had flipped out on her, then gone public with accusations that Rachel had seduced her “baby” and shot him down when he tried to end their sleazy, secret sex. The grand jurors had been sympathetic—enough to hand down the indictment that Rachel’s lawyer had been certain wouldn’t happen.
    But whoever her tormentor was, Rachel wasn’t about to let the woman push her back into the habit of self-medicating. After Rachel had been charged, her attorney insisted she meet with a clinical psychologist who worked with victims of violent crime. Not only had Dr. Damien Thomas later testified on her behalf, he’d helped her wean herself off the sleeping pills she had used to get through each long night after the shooting. It had been hard, harrowing work with the pressure of the trial looming, but she hadn’t fought to save her life from her attacker only to end up as an addict…or a suicide.
    Reclaiming your life’s the best revenge. Dr. Thomas had been right about that, Rachel reminded herself, even though he was wrong—dead wrong—about the evening she’d forgotten.
    From outside, she heard gentle hooting, the soft call of a nearby owl to her mate. It was a sound she remembered from her childhood, something as familiar to her as the drone of an airplane or the sweep of winter winds down from the mountains. But not even the owl’s serenade could lull her back to sleep now. A little after five, she gave up and crawled from the bed, then used the coffeemaker to heat water from the bathroom. While her tea brewed, she pulled on sweats with fuzzy slippers and switched on the radio. She needed friendly chatter but had to settle for the country tunes that had already been relics in the days her mother had enjoyed them. Still, it was something else familiar, something more to pull her back to the years before she’d first heard the name Underwood.
    Soon, Rachel was sitting at the room’s small writing table with a mug of hot tea and reaching for the prints she’d created using her laptop and a high-end printer. Though she hadn’t finished tweaking values or yet printed onto acid-free archival paper, the proofs convinced her she’d been right about the shots of Zeke Pike at his work.
    Especially about the one shot she was holding, where soft light gilded sweat-beaded biceps and highlighted a strong man’s absolute absorption in his work. He was at once humility and pride and the embodiment of power, captured at a moment she felt privileged to have witnessed.
    Yet there was something more as well, an undercurrent of sexuality that made her ask herself—would probably make any living woman ask—what it would be like to be the object of such total focus. Rachel wrapped her hands around her mug and shivered, at once deeply attracted and repulsed by the idea.
    She had already been the object of one man’s total focus—a focus that had sharpened into sick obsession. She’d hadenough of male attention to last her for two lifetimes. Her reaction, she decided, had nothing to do with Zeke Pike, and everything to do with the most perfect photograph she’d ever taken.
    The trouble was that no one else would see it. Because once Zeke Pike saw the proofs, he’d never sign the release that she needed to use a photo with his likeness. The image was so personal, so revealing of the man behind the misanthrope, she felt certain he’d demand that she destroy it.
    And that would be a crime, every bit as much a crime as if she took a blowtorch to the gorgeous table he’d created. Both were art, and art counted for something more than the stubbornness of one of its components.
    So what are you going to do about it, Rachel?
    She worried at the edges of the question for a long while, until the earthenware mug grew cool between her hands. Finally, she put her tea down and pulled one print from her stack.
    By the time she parked beside The Roost a half hour later, the small airport