New Orleans, Louisiana, two years later

Terri Mitchell studied the naked male lying before her once more. Straight black hair fell loosely around his baby-smooth face. He'd shaved recently. Those chiseled lips were too enticing and perfect, as if shaped by a master sculptor.

How many women had enjoyed this body and those lips? Been pleasured by that captivating mouth?

And why should she care? Terri tamped down on her female interest. She was a professional and shouldn't consider things like this guy's social life or his lean, muscular body, but men didn't come much better packaged than this one. All she'd seen so far was his upper body since the cotton sheet covered his lower half.

Using her pen, she lifted the white cloth to see if there was anything else she could glean from this inspection beyond the bullet hole in his forehead.

Not really, unless she wanted to add "well endowed" to her notes. Such a waste of one fine-looking male.

Probably not the Fat Tuesday this guy had expected when he got up this morning.

"I like the highlights, the more blonde look. That new?" The radio-announcer-smooth baritone asking that question from behind her belonged to a man she hadn't planned to see again. At least not yet.

Terri yanked her pen away. The sheet fell back into place over the corpse's toned midsection. She swung around to face DEA Special Agent Robert Brady and cursed silently for almost getting caught ogling a body.

"Hello, Brady."

"Nice to see you, Terri. Look good. I like the extra meat on your bones."

"Is that a polite way of saying I'm overweight?" She used to worry about trying to reach a dress size in the single digits. Not anymore. Surviving a nearly fatal attack had put her