The Collector by Nora Roberts Page A

was . . . an unusual man.
    He thought of her as a tool, occasionally as a pet or a pampered child. She was grateful he didn’t think of her as a lover, as she’d have been obliged to sleep with him. The thought offended even her limited sensibilities.
    She stopped to admire a pair of shoes in a display window—high,glittering gold heels, thin leopard-spot straps. There had been a time when she was lucky to have a single pair of shoes. Now she could have as many as she liked. The memory of hot, blistered feet, of hunger so deep and sharp it felt like death, crossed the years.
    If she had business in China now, she stayed in the finest hotels—and still memories of dirt and hunger, of terrible cold or terrible heat, could haunt her.
    But money, blood, power and pretty shoes chased ghosts away again.
    She wanted the shoes, wanted them now. So she walked into the shop.
    Within ten minutes she was walking out wearing them, enjoying the way they showed off the knife edges of her calf muscles. She swung the shopping bag carelessly, a striking Asian woman in black—short, tight-cropped pants, snug shirt—and the exotic shoes. Her long tail of ebony hair swung down her back, and pulled high and tight, left her face with its deceptively soft curves, full red lips, large almond eyes of coal-black unframed.
    Yes, men looked, and women, too. Men wished to fuck her, women wished to be her—and some wished to fuck her as well.
    But they would never know her. She was a bullet in the dark, a knife slicing silently across the throat.
    She killed not only because she could, not only because it paid very, very well, but because she loved it. Even more than the lovely new shoes, more than sex, more than food and drink and breath.
    She wondered if she would kill the skinny brunette and the idiot’s brother. It depended on how they fit into the puzzle, but she thought it might be both necessary and enjoyable.
    Her phone pinged, and taking it out of her bag, she nodded in satisfaction. The photo she’d taken of the woman now had a name, an address.
    Lila Emerson, but not the address of the building she’d entered.
    Odd, Jai thought, but still it would not be a coincidence she’d gone into that building. But since she was there, she was not at the address displayed on the phone.
    Perhaps she would find something interesting and useful at the address of this Lila Emerson.

    J ulie unlocked the door of her apartment just after nine P.M. and immediately pulled off the shoes she’d been in far too long. She should never have let her coworkers talk her into going to that salsa club. Fun, yes, but oh God, her feet had been wailing like colicky babies for over an hour.
    She wanted to soak them in warm, scented water, drink a few gallons of water to filter out the far too many margaritas she’d downed, then go to bed.
    Was she getting old? she wondered as she secured the door. Stale? Boring?
    Of course not. She was just tired—worried a little about Lila, still raw from the breakup with David, and tired after about fourteen straight hours of work and play.
    The fact that she was thirty-two, single, childless and would sleep alone had nothing to do with it.
    She had an amazing career, she assured herself as she went straight into the kitchen to grab a giant bottle of Fiji water. She loved her work, the people she worked with, the people she met. The artists, the art lovers, the showings, the occasional travel.
    So she had a divorce under her belt. All right, two divorces, but she’d been insane and eighteen the first time, and it hadn’t lasted a year. It really didn’t count.
    But she stood, drinking straight from the bottle in the gleaming,state-of-the-art kitchen used primarily to store water, wine and a few basics, and wondered why the hell she felt so unsettled.
    Loved her work, had a great circle of friends, an apartment that reflected her taste—
just
her taste, thank