Obsession

by Lisa Jackson

  Zane! she thought desperately. She had to get to Zane! Inside the elevator she slapped the door panel. The doors swept shut, blocking out the blond man, and Kaylie sagged against the metal rail as the car moved upward with a lurch. Now, if only the man didn’t run up the stairs faster than the elevator…. Again, fear tore at her.

  “Zane, oh, God, Zane,” she whispered, trying not to fall apart. When the doors opened, she half expected the man to be waiting, aiming a gun at her chest, but she found herself in the reception area of Flannery Security. She flew down the hall, past Peggy’s desk and bolted into Zane’s office.

  “Kaylie?” He was standing at the windows, a dark expression on his face. She threw herself at him and clung to him, refusing to sob. “What the devil’s going on?”

  Trembling, she knew she was scaring him and wished she could calm down. “Call the police,” she cried, “or send out your best man.”

  “Wh—”

  “There’s a man following me!” she cried, and Zane drew her closer to him, his muscles strong and hard.

  “You’re okay,” he said, reaching behind him and pushing the button of the intercom, “Peggy, call Brad. Have him seal the building and send out a search team—an armed search team. There’s a suspect somewhere in the building.”

  “The parking lot—” Kaylie clarified, glad for the feel of Zane’s arms around her. Still holding her, Zane reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out his revolver.

  “What’s up?” Brad Hastings’s voice boomed through the speaker.

  “Someone followed Kaylie here. Check the exterior lot and the basement lot, all the staircases.”

  “You got it!” Hastings replied.

  Zane checked his gun for ammunition.

  Within seconds, the door to his office opened. “Is everything all right?” Peggy asked.

  “Y-yes, fine,” Kaylie stammered.

  “Could I get you a cup of coffee?”

  Kaylie shook her head, and Peggy, with a quick glance at Zane, stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

  “Oh, God, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

  Zane held her close and kissed her forehead. “Sorry for what?”

  She had to tell him. She’d be foolish to keep information like this inside. Trying to calm down, she let him lead her to the couch.

  Peggy knocked quietly, then left a tray of coffee for two on Zane’s desk. When Kaylie tried to protest, the secretary held up a hand. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but frankly, you look like you could use a cup of coffee and a shot of bourbon.” With those words of advice, she left the room again and locked the door behind her.

  “Okay, so what happened?” Zane demanded, his lips a thin, dangerous line as he handed her one of the steaming cups.

  Kaylie found strength in the warmth of the cup cradled between her palms. She hadn’t known she felt cold, but now that the fear had subsided, she felt chilled to the bone. Haltingly, between sips, she found the words. “This isn’t the first time,” she admitted.

  “What?” he nearly screamed. “What the hell do you mean ‘isn’t the first time’?”

  “Just don’t get mad…okay? I had this…feeling…for a few weeks now, but I told myself I was just overreacting to Johnston’s attack. You know, seeing ghosts in every corner.”

  Zane became very still, every muscle in his body rigid and hard. “You should’ve told me.”

  “I know, but I didn’t want to scare you.”

  “You just did.”

  “Maybe it was all in my mind,” she said, then shook her head. “There are lots of Taurus cars on the road, and blue wagons are a dime a dozen.”

  Zane sucked a breath between his teeth. “You were followed here by a Taurus?” he asked, laying his gun on the table.

  “No—it was the blue wagon.” She explained about losing the car that had been chasing her only to run into it again in the parking garage.

  She thought Zane would call additional men to seal off the garage, but instead he walked to the desk and punched the intercom. “Peggy, send Tim Rafferty in, if he’s here.”

  A few seconds later a blond man of about twenty—the very man who had been behind the wheel of the blue station wagon—walked into Zane’s office. Kaylie nearly screamed.

  Zane dragged a hand through his hair. “Is this the guy?”

  “Yes, but—” Cold realization started in the pit of her stomach and crawled up her spine.

  “Tim works for me,” Zane admitted, his face ashen. “Tim, this is my wife, Kaylie Melville. Kaylie…Tim.”

  “But—”

  “I told him to follow you,” Zane clarified.

  “But why—Oh, God, no, don’t tell me,” she said, her heart dropping to her knees in disappointment. “You’ve already started it again, haven’t you?” she whispered, her voice ragged.

  “I had some of my men assigned to follow you for a few weeks—ever since I got the phone calls from Ted.” He motioned for Tim to leave the room, and the blond slipped out, shutting the door behind him.

  Kaylie was furious. Her heart pounded in her ears as she realized they were replaying the same mistakes all over again. Her voice so low she could barely hear her own words, she said, “How could you?”

  “Because I love you, damn it. And I wasn’t going to lose you again.”

  Her throat worked, but no words came. Strangled with disappointment, she stared at her hands.

  “I told Brad just this morning to take all the men off the case.”

  “All the men? You mean there were more than one?”

  “Six men rotated.”

  “Six? Tim must’ve missed the message.”

  “Don’t make this any harder than it is, Kaylie,” he said, returning the revolver to his desk drawer.

  “Oh, Lord, Zane, you don’t trust me at all, do you?”

  He snorted. “I just don’t trust the public.”

  Closing her eyes against the tears that threatened, she shook her head slowly from side to side. “I should have known you wouldn’t change,” she said, dying a little when she noticed the band of gold and diamonds on her left ring finger.

  “I have changed.”

  “Not enough.” Why had she been so foolish? A tear slid from the corner of her eye, and she dashed it away. “I—I wanted this to work.”

  “It will, Kaylie. We’ll make it work.”

  “Will we?” She sniffed loudly, then squared her shoulders. She’d been played for a fool, a childish, simpleminded fool for the last time. “And how will you handle the fact that one of the next guests on West Coast Morning might be Dr. Anthony Henshaw?”

  Zane’s eyes narrowed. “Johnston’s doctor? Is this some kind of morbid joke?”

  “I wish,” she said with a sigh. She rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled and explained her conversation with Jim and Alan.

  “And you agreed to this?” Zane charged.

  “I didn’t have any choice. The decision had already been made.”

  “But that’s crazy,” Zane said, pacing between the desk and the window. “It just promotes—” He clamped his mouth shut and, though still tense, leaned his hips against the windowsill. His eyes, when he stared at her, still burned, but his expression was soft. “You look like you’ve had a rough day. How about I take you home and cook you dinner?”

  She rolled her eyes and struggled out of her chair. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to,” he said, trying to break the tension, though apprehension grappled with his forced calmness. What the hell was going on at West Coast Morning? Didn’t they know that they were potentially setting up Kaylie as a target for the next publicity-hungry nut?

  And what about “Ted”? Who was he?

  Alan’s name kept popping into his mind, but the voice on the tape didn’t sound like Alan at all. And he didn’t suspect Jim Crowley. So who? Who? Someone at the television station? One of Kaylie’s friends? Or someone at the hospital who had invented a fictitio
us name?

  They drove separately back to the apartment, and Franklin, the traitorous beast, padded after Kaylie when they walked inside.

  Zane, true to his promise, poured them each a glass of wine, then began fixing dinner. But as he broiled steaks on the grill and steamed potatoes in the microwave, he thought about the upcoming show.

  All his instincts told him the program was a big mistake. But his hands were tied. Kaylie had about come unglued when she’d found out he’d had men watching her, and, he supposed, glancing over his shoulder to the counter where she was chopping vegetables for a salad, he didn’t blame her. He hadn’t played fair.

  And now he had to.

  “Hey—watch out!” Kaylie cried. “Medium-rare, remember? I’m not into ‘burned beyond recognition.’” She grabbed a long-handled fork from the drawer in the cooking island and flipped the steaks on the interior grill. Without asking, she dashed a shot of lemon pepper over the two T-bones.

  “You’re fouling up my recipe,” he said with a good-natured gleam in his eye.

  “Recipe?”

  “I watch Chef Glenn on Friday mornings.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” she said. “This is all well and good, Zane, but you don’t know a curry sauce from a fruit compote—”

  He whirled, grabbed her and swept her off her feet. One of her shoes dropped to the floor. “Watch it, lady,” he growled in her ear, “or I might have to take my spatula to you.”

  “Promises, promises.” She giggled as he carried her into the bedroom. “Hey, wait. Zane,” she cried, laughing. “You can’t—” He tossed her onto the bed and, while standing over her, ripped off his shirt in one swift motion.

  “But the steaks,” she protested, forcing her eyes away from the wide expanse of his chest.

  “I’ve decided ‘burned beyond recognition’ is the best way to serve T-bones.”

  “But—”

  He dropped onto the bed and covered her mouth with his. She was still laughing, but as his kiss deepened, her giggles gave way to moans. “Zane, please,” she whispered, still thinking of the steaks sizzling into charred bones.

  The smoke detector started beeping loudly.

  “Saved by the bell,” she said with a giggle. For that remark, she was rewarded with a pillow in the face. Zane, muttering under his breath, jumped off the bed and hurried into the kitchen. In a state of dishabille, she followed, laughing when she saw the T-bones—small, black replicas of steak.

  Zane turned off the grill and opened the windows to air out the kitchen. “How about take-out Chinese, Mrs. Flannery?” he asked, a slightly off-center smile curving his lips as he tossed the burned meat into the sink. The smoke slowly dissipated, and the smoke alarm quit bleating.

  “Anything’s fine with me.”

  “But first we have some unfinished business,” he said, thinking aloud, a menacing glint in his eye. He grabbed her again, and this time they weren’t interrupted.

  * * *

  On Friday morning, Kaylie was nervous as a cat. She and Zane hadn’t discussed the show again, and she’d finally forgiven him for having her followed. It’s going to take time, she reminded herself. Zane was used to being in command, and slowly, with visible effort, he was allowing her to make her own decisions. Though, she suspected with a smile, it was killing him.

  For the past few days there had been no silver Taurus, no blue wagon, no car or man following her. She couldn’t help looking over her shoulder occasionally and checking her rearview mirror more often than usual, but she was convinced that Zane had kept to his word.

  And she’d kept hers. She was more careful than she’d ever been and more in love.

  She had great faith that this time, no matter what fate threw their way, she and Zane would make it. Together.

  * * *

  Zane couldn’t get his mind off of today’s program. He itched to go to the station, to watch Kaylie, to make sure that she was all right. Rationally, he knew that nothing would happen to her. Johnston’s psychiatrist wasn’t a madman; Henshaw couldn’t hurt Kaylie.

  But some other fruitcake could. He drove to work and dropped by Hastings’s office. Brad, as usual, had been working for hours, though it was barely eight o’clock. He glanced up from his computer terminal when Zane walked in.

  “Got a minute?” Zane asked.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “This.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Zane withdrew the tape of his last conversation with Ted. “Did you find anyone who could have made this call?”

  “Nope.” Brad shook his head slowly. “But several of the guys here are convinced the voice is that of a woman.”

  “A woman.” That didn’t make things any easier. Zane stuffed the tape back into his pocket.

  “You want us to keep working on it?”

  “As long as you’ve got leads.”

  “Well, we’re about dried-up. As for the tracer, most of the calls that we can’t identify came in from booths—different booths located usually in the financial district.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Zane said, thinking aloud. “I don’t suppose anyone we suspect lives or works there.”

  Hastings shook his head. “No one we’ve scared up so far.”

  “What about Alan Bently?”

  “He’d be my guess as suspect number one,” Hastings agreed. “He seems to have the most to gain by all this publicity. Want a printout on the guy?”

  “Sure.”

  Hastings turned back to his computer, and his nimble fingers flew over the keys. A printer whirred to life, and soon a four-paged single-spaced report was lying in the tray. Brad handed the pages to Zane. “Here you go. Everything you always wanted to know about Alan Bently but were afraid to ask.”

  Zane’s mouth stretched into a grin. “That’s what I keep you around here for, Brad, that lousy sense of humor of yours.”

  “Nope, boss. You keep me ’cause I’m the best.”

  Zane laughed. “Well, that might be part of it,” he agreed, sauntering down the hall. He grabbed a cup of coffee, settled into his desk chair and began perusing the report, line by revealing line. Most of the information, he’d read before. The names, the places, the people who were associated with Alan Bently.

  “Maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree,” he told himself as he leaned back and propped his feet on the desk. He dialed the police department in Carmel, hoping someone there could tell him who the anonymous caller was. Someone had called the police, and if he guessed right, that someone had called long distance.

  When the police couldn’t help him, he dialed the phone company. He had a friend in administration who owed him a favor. Maybe he could finally get some answers—answers his own phone surveillance hadn’t uncovered.

  While waiting to be connected to his friend, he pushed a button on the remote control for the television and waited for Kaylie’s show to begin.

  * * *

  Dr. Henshaw was the guest scheduled for the first segment of the show. Kaylie, more nervous than she’d been while interviewing the president’s wife, flipped through her notes one last time.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Tracy called through the door, and Kaylie let out her breath. She straightened her skirt and made her way to the set, where she and Alan were introduced to Dr. Henshaw by the assistant producer.

  A small man with a beard that rimmed his chin and no mustache, he seemed as anxious about the interview as she was.

  “Ms. Melville,” he said, clasping her hand and forcing a thin smile.

  “Mrs. Flannery now,” she replied, “but, please, just call me Kaylie.”

  Tracy cut in. “Okay, now look Kaylie or Alan in the eye when they talk to you. Forget about the cameras. When I give you this signal…”

  Kaylie had heard the spiel a hundred times before.

  “Places, everyone!” Jim said loudly, and people scurried. Tracy led Dr. Henshaw to his spot on the end of the couch, Alan perched in his usual chair and Kaylie sat in her usual chair.
<
br />   “Quiet, please, and five…four…three…”

  The lead-in music filtered through the speakers, and Kaylie forced herself to smile calmly, as if every day she interviewed the man who was her attacker’s doctor.

  “Good morning,” Alan said, grinning confidently into the cameras, and the show was off.

  Kaylie worked on automatic. They talked about the doctor’s forthcoming book, which he’d sold just the day before to a major publisher, and they discussed psychosis in broad terms. Alan brought up Johnston’s name, but only in regard to the premiere of Obsession. Not only were clips from the film shown, but also footage of the original attack. It took all of Kaylie’s professional acting skills to appear calm and detached when inside, her heart was thumping and sweat was beading along her spine.

  Just let me get through this, she prayed inwardly as she turned to Dr. Henshaw and asked him about security at the hospital. The doctor became slightly defensive, but soon the interview and the ordeal were over.

  Later, after the final segment where Chef Glenn whipped up his favorite apple torte, Kaylie left the set on unsteady legs. This has to be the worst, she thought, content to stay in her office for the rest of the day. She flipped on the radio, answered her mail and gathered some ideas for future shows. She wasn’t going to be caught in a lurch again!

  At three o’clock, Alan knocked on the door and stepped into her office. “Well,” he said, smiling broadly. “Did you hear? The phones haven’t stopped ringing. Today’s show was a bona fide success! From the response, Jim thinks it may be in the top ten for the year.”

  Great. “It must’ve been the apple torte,” Kaylie said, and Alan rolled his eyes.

  “You should’ve seen the switchboard! Becky was going crazy out there. And that’s not the best news.”

  “No?” Kaylie tried to sound interested, but her heart wasn’t in it. Alan didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve had a million calls but only two that really count. One from my agent, the other from Cameron James. He’s agreed to direct again, and he’s got a screenwriter lined up to work out a sequel to Obsession! Triumph Pictures is interested in producing, and one of the major studios—probably Zeus—is backing the film. It’s only a matter of time!”