Chapter One
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight ... will be at my mercy!
Detective Larisa Vega looked at the evidence bag in her hand. Inside was a torn, half sheet of notebook paper, wrinkled as if it'd been folded a hundred times. She tossed the plastic bag onto her cramped and overcrowded desk.
She wanted this psycho behind bars. Four B-list actresses had been stalked with phone calls, usually hang-ups, and strange deliveries, from dead roses to a dead rat. All had inevitably been raped during mysterious screen calls for roles in varying movies.
Larisa sighed as she leaned back in her chair. This was L.A. everyone was out for their big break. No one was heeding the blatant warning the news media had feverishly blared every night for the last two months.
Her stint in the anti-stalking/violent crime unit, First Defense, had shown her the crueler side of mankind. She didn't believe humans were basically good--just greedy.
As the only woman on the squad, her job was even more difficult. She'd never made it a secret that she wouldn't bow down to the overwhelming testosterone that flowed in and out the doors of the LAPD.
Deep down, Larisa knew that she would never have chosen a different profession. Being a cop was all she knew. She'd walked in her late father's footsteps, much to her mother's chagrin. Janice Vega wanted her daughter to be something more prominent. A doctor. A ballerina. A model. They would never see eye to eye on her career, especially once she'd been promoted into First Defense two years ago. Her mother believed that matters such as rape were not to be discussed, as her own hadn't. The subject had caused a well-trodden trench between them.
Larisa glanced at the small frame on her desk, a picture of her parents taken during a trip to Hawaii several years ago. Her mother had gone to college and then med school, where she'd been raped by another student. She'd never reported the incident, a fact that to this day caused Larisa to flinch. Personally, Larisa would have rearranged the bastard's anatomy!
She'd learned to steel her emotions from victims when they refused to prosecute their abusive boyfriends or husbands. She knew the depth of human pain was different for everyone, and the process by which that pain was handled was as varied as the victims themselves.
"Plotting global domination, Vega?"
She looked up into the hazel eyes of Detective Martin Stubbs, fellow First Defense team member and long-ago lover. She used to get lost in him, until they had decided to cool things when he'd wanted to get married and she hadn't. Now, they were friends--good ones.
Larisa chuckled. "Not quite." She straightened in her chair. "Word is someone is going to be assigned to the Estes case. Any idea as to who that might be?"
"No, the briefing is later this afternoon. I hear the mayor has been all over this." Martin sat down at the desk opposite her, winked and said, "Be careful what you wish for."
"Could that be because Estes and the mayor have been rumored to be fucking around?" She crooked her eyebrows.
"Woman, you don't hold anything back, do you?"
"Why should I? It's a waste of damn time."
"Vega! My office!" Sergeant Kellerman stuck his head out of his office and within seconds, disappeared again.
Larisa met Martin's questioning gaze. "Looks like you weren't invited to the party." She swiped the evidence bag off her desk and sauntered toward the sergeant's office.
"Yep, some of us get all the luck," Martin said.
As soon as she walked through the door, Curtis Kellerman started in on her. "I need you for a case."
"A case?"
"We're getting pressure to get the Starlight Rapist off the street."
"One guess," Larisa drawled, despite the excitement racing through her. She'd finally get out of paperwork. "Maxwell Warner has chosen this case to rally behind--just in time for re-election."
The sergeant grunted, folding his hands on his desk. "Be that as it may, we're getting this bastard. You've heard of Dara Estes, the actress?"
"Yes." Larisa thought of the beauty that had starred in smaller-budget movies until she'd been nominated for an academy award. She hadn't won, but her name was gaining recognition. On several occasions, Larisa had been told that she bore a striking resemblance to the woman.
"I need you to go undercover as Estes."
"Excuse me?" How was she going to get away with acting like a celebrity? "How long?"
The sergeant glared. "As long as it takes. We've already moved Estes to a secured location." He pushed a file toward her. "Familiarize yourself with this."
Larisa picked up the file and skimmed through it. She tried to keep her wits about her, aware that every move she made had been judged from the moment she'd walked into the room. "Estes is the only victim that escaped the rapist?"
"Yes, and just like the others, she was lured by the casting call. The psych tells us that this animal will try again. I want us to take him down when he does. So far, we've kept the media out of this, and it has to stay that way or our advantage will be wasted. Today's press release is simply to toss them a bone."
He paused.
She looked up from the documents, her eyebrows raised. "What is it?"
The sergeant removed his tortoise shell glasses, his pensive brown gaze zeroing in on her. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
"Are you questioning my capabilities, Sergeant?" she asked, standing perfectly still. "Why?"
"Your father hasn't been dead three months, and you're back on active duty."
Larisa folded her hands over her chest, gritting her teeth. "I hardly call paper pushing 'active duty'."
He ignored her quip. "Look, I was there to see you grow up, and your old man happened to be my closest friend." Kellerman sighed. "You're like a daughter to me." His eyes bored into hers. "So, I'll ask again, can you handle this?"
"If you didn't think I could handle this, I wouldn't be standing here right now," Larisa answered, titling her chin defensively.
"True. But then, you didn't answer my question."
"My father is gone, and as much as I want him to be here, there's nothing I can do to bring him back. He would want me to get on with my life."
"Are you?" Kellerman asked.
"Taking it one day at a time, just like everyone else." She walked closer to his desk. "I can do my job, so let me do it."
"Fine, the Estes case is yours." He cleared his throat. "One more thing, Larisa. I've called in a favor."
Her eyebrows arched. "A favor?"
"Yes," Kellerman replied, looking away from her questioning gaze. "Nicolas Herrera will be joining you."
Nicolas? The man was a walking orgasm for any red-blooded woman other than Larisa, with his hard-body physique, rugged, dark looks and smoldering eyes. He moved like a big cat. Wild. Fluid. Or at least that's how several other co-workers had described him to her while she'd pretended not to listen to their preposterous claims of his moves in and outside of the bedroom. All former victims of his, she guessed.
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