Well, it wasn’t exactly wide open, but the door was definitely ajar-ajar enough for her to burst through, gasping for breath, dripping rain like a drenched puppy.

Just inside, a small antique chandelier lit the vestibule with the effectiveness of a candle in the wind. Still, it wasn’t the dimness that made Sophie suddenly stumble. For some crazy reason, a big bulky object blocked the entrance, right inside the door.

Disaster was instantaneous. Her overfilled grocery bag split completely. Milk and Tampax and cereal and tomatoes and oranges went flying. Then she did. Knowing a crash was inevitable, she reacted instinctively to protect her laptop and precious research, but she landed so hard on her right hip and elbow that she saw stars-outraged, blinding, dizzying stars. Whoever left the monster-size thing on the floor was going to get a piece of her mind, the very second she…

One twist of her head, and she saw the body.

It wasn’t a thing on the floor.

It was a body. A bare-naked body. Her hunk of a neighbor’s body.

Shock seemed to turn her to stone. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There wasn’t a sound in the place, not the creak of a floorboard, nothing to indicate anyone was around. And of course there wasn’t. The larger downstairs apartment had been vacant for over a month now, and upstairs, there were only two apartments-hers and Jon Pruitt’s.

Jon…She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t not look at him, but suddenly her heart stopped beating in big, panicked thumps. Jon was the womanizer of the universe, the heartthrob of every woman in the neighborhood, and the selfish son of a sea dog who neglected his cat. Sophie had as much in common with him as a bunny had with a shark, but damn. He’d been decent to her. They’d turned into amazingly compatible neighbors.