She saw him in the shadows.  She felt him watching her.  She knew he was going to get her... The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh.  But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital.  Long enough for the world to forget him.  But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter. Now he's been set free. Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother.  Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love. So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X.  She only felt someone watching her.  Following her.  And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more.  She needed her own unshakable courage to outsmart a killer's deadly, twisted plan. "Exhilarating...Adler delivers an ending with a punch." --Publishers Weekly "Fast-paced, suspenseful." --Library Journal "Adler is a true genius." --Affaire de Coeur "Sensuous...swift plotting." --Kirkus Reviews An Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club in the shadows. She felt him watching her. She knew he was going to get her... The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh. But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital. Long enough for the world to forget him. But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter. Now he's been set free. Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother. Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love. So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X. She only felt someone watching her. Following her. And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more She saw him in the shadows. She felt him watching her. She knew he was going to get her... The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh. But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital. Long enough for the world to forget him. But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter. Now he's been set free. Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother. Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love. So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X. She only felt someone watching her. Following her. And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more. She needed her own unshakable courage to outsmart a killer's deadly, twisted plan. Elizabeth Adler is the bestselling author of Sooner or Later, Now or Never, The Secret of the Villa Mimosa , and other internationally acclaimed novels. Dan backed his brand-new white Explorer into a tight spot on Main Street.  The California sun blazed down, bronzed people in shorts and T-shirts whizzed by him on rollerblades or simply took it easy at sidewalk cafes, and the parking meter still had half an hour left on it.  It was early April and he'd seen the weather back east on TV: they'd just had another two inches of snow.  Feeling that life wasn't too bad after all, he strolled into Ellie's Place. The red-haired young woman behind the coffee machine gave him a dazzling smile of welcome that seemed to spread from one pretty diamond-studded ear to the other. "Be right with you," she called.  "The coffee machine's acting up again though, so if it's caffeine you're after, you might want to try Starbucks.  It's on the next block." "Juice is fine.  It's eggs I really want, scrambled with a toasted bagel." "Okay." She wrote the order and headed toward the kitchen in the back. It was just a tiny storefront cafe done out like a Parisian bistro.  The mirrors covering the walls were old and foggy, the bronze sconces were verdigrised, the tables were marble and the chairs cane.  A scattering of fresh sawdust covered the tile floor and lace curtains hung from a brass rail halfway up the window, on which the name Ellie's Place was inscribed in green shadowed with gold. Cute, he thought.  Like the waitress.  She came back carrying cutlery, napkins and a basket of fresh bread covered with a green-checked cloth, and he quickly amended that statement.  You could never call a woman as tall as she was "cute."  And she was no cookie-cutter California girl either. She gave him another glancing smile as she set the bread in front of him and he noticed a smud