Protective Measures

by Maggie K. Black

  “Leo?” Zoe said softly. She leaned toward him. Her hand brushed his arm. He pulled away, startled by the sudden contact. But the next words from her mouth wiped any worry she was being affectionate from his mind. “We’re being followed.”

  SIX

  His eyes rose to the rearview mirror. A black sedan with diplomatic plates was following close behind them. He pulled smoothly through a parking lot and onto a side street. The sedan shot past, and for a moment he thought he’d lost it. But in seconds, the car was behind him again. Leo turned to Zoe. “You’re right.”

  He leaned forward and hit the stereo. Instantly, happy, bopping children’s music filled the cab. He adjusted the speakers so the music came out the back.

  “So, what do we do?” Zoe asked softly.

  He pulled onto the highway and chose the middle lane. The black sedan matched pace.

  “We do nothing. I can’t outrun a vehicle in a high-speed chase with my daughters in the car. The vehicle has diplomatic plates. Anyone from the symposium could’ve borrowed it from the pool. They’re not about to open fire on a crowded highway. We ignore them, pretend we don’t know they’re there and let them follow.” Zoe shook her head. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Before she could dial, his hand landed on hers. “Don’t! If you call the police the girls will hear the call.”

  “I’m not.” She pulled her hand away, raised her phone and took a picture of the car. “I’m texting a picture of the car and the license plate to Alex. He can call the police. They can be on the lookout for it. He can also run the plates, although if you’re right it’ll just take us back to the symposium.”

  He held the steering wheel firmly at ten and two and prayed under his breath as the car closed the gap between them. It was following too close. The driver’s face was hidden in the black hood of a sweatshirt. Traffic hemmed around them. The car nudged closer still until its bumper almost brushed against Leo’s truck. Zoe’s hand tightened on the door handle. Help me, Lord, I don’t want to risk an accident with the girls in the car. But if I try to shake him, I might endanger my daughters’ lives. He waited for a gap in traffic and then pulled into the right-hand lane. An exit loomed ahead. He hit his signal and shifted as late as he dared. Horns sounded and tires shrieked as the black car swerved across traffic to follow him.

  But Leo was almost home. Just three more blocks and he’d be on his street, leading the driver directly to his house. He couldn’t let that happen. There was a family pizza parlor ahead on his left. He pulled neatly into the parking lot. Leo’s eyes cut to the rearview mirror just in time to see the black car speed past. The car’s window rolled down. An empty soft drink cup flew from the window and clattered to the ground just inches away from his truck. Then the car disappeared down the street.

  “Surprise, girls,” he said. “We’re getting pizza for dinner.”

  A cheer went up from the backseat. He cut the engine and turned to Zoe. “Sorry for the change of plans, but I thought it would be a good idea to be somewhere public. I’m going to go in and get a table for me and the girls. Can you call Alex to meet us here?”

  Zoe opened her mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t wait. Leo walked his girls into the pizza place, got them a table by the window and set them up with coloring pages. Outside he could see Zoe pacing the parking lot, hands in the air like she was battling an invisible foe. Moments later the Ash van pulled into the lot. After a quick glance from Zoe, Alex walked into the restaurant.

  “Hey, man,” Alex said. “Mind if I sit down and join the girls? I think Zoe wants to talk to you, and I’m an expert at coloring.”

  Leo walked out to the parking lot. Zoe made a beeline for him.

  “We got another taunt.” She held up the cup. His eyes glanced down at the familiar shape of a menacing storm cloud. “Someone followed your truck down the highway and threw an empty cup out the window with a storm cloud drawn on it.”

  “I see.” His arms crossed. “I’m sure Alex will run the plates and see if it’s possible to narrow down who took the vehicle out.”

  “I don’t understand how you can be so calm about this!” Zoe said. “Talking to you is like trying to chip away slowly at a big, thick block of ice. Do you have human emotions? I don’t know about you, but I’m furious that someone would do this to those two amazing little girls. First terrifying them at the park yesterday and now this!”

  She wiped her hand across the air as if mapping out where his invisible ice wall would be.

  “What should I have done? Endangered and frightened my children by getting into a wild car chase?” He grabbed her hand out of thin air and held it. Who was she to tell him he didn’t have emotions? Just because he preferred to keep his to himself while she broadcast hers like a megaphone. “Don’t you get it? They’re trying to intimidate me. They’re trying to scare me. And I don’t scare easily.”

  Protective anger was practically radiating from Zoe’s body. But he knew it wasn’t directed at him. Instead, the fury that anyone would hurt his children was what flashed like lightning in her eyes. “But your daughters—”

  “Will be in even more danger if I don’t control my emotions,” he interrupted. “You said yesterday that you’d been taunted by bullies before. Did they ever cause you to lose your temper? Did you ever lash out and do something you regretted?”

  She pulled her hand out of his grasp and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You know the answer to that question. It’s the first thing that probably came up when you looked me up online before hiring me. You know I elbowed a guy in the face on national television.”

  “No, I didn’t know that, actually,” he said. “Because I didn’t look you up. Because I trusted you and your past is immaterial to me. We all did foolish things we regretted when we were younger. But we’re adults now, with kids to protect. You’re not a parent. I know not everyone thinks like a parent and some people aren’t even cut out to be parents, but all that matters right now is protecting those girls and getting that data from the informant. The informant didn’t approach me today. But hopefully he will tomorrow. Then I’ll get the data, process it, pass it on to Admiral Jacobs when he gets out of hospital or to someone else the data tells me is clean. The Anemoi might be trying to get their hands on the same data that I am, but they won’t succeed. The sooner I get the intel, the sooner this will all be over with and my daughters will be safe again.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Zoe’s face had gone white. She shook her head so furiously her hair danced around her head. “I told you that The Anemoi are vigilantes. They ruin lives. They utterly destroy them. If they’re targeting you—if they’re taunting you—then there’s something you have that somebody wants, or something terrible that somebody thinks you’ve done. You need to let Samantha do a complete sweep of your past. Of anyone you’ve wronged. Of anyone you’ve hurt, starting with that Tommy Ferrier guy you got thrown into jail for drug smuggling. Because if I’m right, this won’t be over when you get that data and pass it up the chain. This will be over when The Anemoi gets what it wants.”

  “I told you, I don’t have anything to steal.”

  “Then what about Marisa?” Zoe said. “Could she have done something? Did she rack up heavy debts that you weren’t aware of? Were there people she brought into the girls’ lives or associated with that were trouble? Did she gamble? Did she shoplift? Did she do illegal drugs? Or see other men?”

  “Stop!” He held up his hand. “I know you’re trying to help. But you didn’t know Marisa. She was deeply devoted to Ivy and Eve. She was overprotective, bordering on paranoid. She would never allow anything in her life that would hurt our daughters. So much so that after her first diagnosis with cancer, she made me promise that if anything ever happened to her I wouldn’t even bring another woman into the girls’ lives or consider remarrying until they were adults.”

 
“I don’t get it.” The words flew from Zoe’s mouth in a rush. “How does depriving your daughters of ever having a stepmom make Marisa a good mother?”

  Leo stepped back. Pain filled his chest as sharply as if she’d just punched him. How dare she judge Marisa like that? First Marisa’s life had been knocked sideways by an unexpected teenage pregnancy and then she’d been left to raise two daughters practically solo while Leo had been overseas. She’d had the right to be overprotective and worry that Leo might make another mistake and bring the wrong woman into their lives. Hadn’t she?

  And if not, he’d agreed to it. He couldn’t go back on his word now.

  Zoe stepped back, too, her eyes on his face as if reading the pain in his silence. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I didn’t mean to imply...”

  Her words trailed off. But maybe it was better she didn’t finish the sentence.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m happy to just pretend you didn’t say that and move on. But the one thing you need to know about Marisa, rightly or wrongly, is that she protected the girls before all else.”

  Silence spread out between them again. Zoe looked down at the ground. He couldn’t tell if he was upset at her question or The Anemoi, or this entire situation.

  “Look,” he added. “You’ve had a really long day. How about you go back to your hotel and relax for a bit. I don’t need you watching my back to have dinner with my girls.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say a word. Somehow her silence unnerved him more than her talking.

  “As you know, tomorrow’s the parade,” he went on, “and because it’s near Toronto, Theresa will be able to be there. The girls love her. She’s been a wonderful therapist to them. I’m going to request that Alex and Theresa accompany me on the float with the girls. Then Saturday, I’ll get a second ticket for Alex to accompany me to the auction. I’m sure Nigel won’t mind, especially since I got dinner at a five-star restaurant and front row theater tickets to auction off.”

  Another nod. She still wasn’t arguing. She wasn’t saying anything.

  “Josh has invited the girls and me up to Cedar Lake once the symposium is done,” he added. “I’ll talk through your suspicions with them that this might be personally motivated, and see what we come up with. Marisa did have a laptop and she did keep an electronic diary. But I deleted it when she died. I just couldn’t bear to read it. Maybe Samantha can retrieve it. Again, I’m still hoping that once my informant makes contact and I get the data that this will all be over.”

  “So are you going to walk in there and tell my brother that you’re sidelining me for the rest of the week, and want him to have your back?” she asked. “Or do you want me to do it? Because, I’m warning you, he’s very protective.”

  Why did this infuriating woman always have to be so direct? She might have said talking to him was like trying to chip through ice, but talking to her was like getting pelted with fireballs and being expected to expertly volley them back.

  “I had the impression from Josh that you didn’t like the spotlight,” he said. “Do you really want to be stuck with us on some parade float waving to the crowd or escorting me around some fancy ballroom?”

  “I just don’t want to be sidelined.” Her hands snapped to her hips. “Obviously, Alex and I will talk things out, plan and come up with the best possible way to watch your back and protect your daughters. And if you want Alex on the float that’s what will happen. But I’m good at what I do. I care about protecting you and those girls. I don’t want you ignoring me and pushing me into the shadows.”

  Ignoring her? He was trying to keep from being hung up on her, even fixated on her. She was like some magnetic field pulling his attention to her. Didn’t she feel it? Was she really going to make him come out and say it?

  “I know you’re good at what you do,” he said, “but I have to think about what’s best for my children.”

  “You don’t trust me to protect them.” She said it like it wasn’t even a question.

  Why didn’t she understand? The problem was with him, not her. He was the one battling an attraction like he’d never felt before, one that had the potential of hurting his children as well as breaking the promise he’d made to his wife.

  “Today, we were pursued by a vehicle down the highway and we had different approaches on how to handle it,” he said. “If you had been driving things could’ve turned out very differently.”

  “I know how to drive in dangerous situations,” Zoe said. “I would’ve told them what was going on, told them to get low and got them home safely. I would have never put them in danger.”

  “It’s not just today,” he said. “Yesterday Ivy managed to run and jump into the water while we were both watching her. I still haven’t managed to get her to open up about that or explain why she tried to rescue Fluff all by herself instead of telling me what was happening and asking for help. It’s like she’s shut me out from whatever’s going on in her mind.”

  “Did you try listening to her?” Zoe asked.

  “I can’t listen to her if she won’t talk to me.”

  She sighed. “Maybe you should try listening to the words she’s not saying.”

  He blinked. It was the kind of thing Marisa would say and he had no idea what she meant by it. But he recognized all too well the look she was giving him. It was the same look of disbelief and frustration he’d seen in Marisa’s eyes every time she thought he was missing the obvious. As if the women in his life, including his daughters, had their own secret language, which he’d never learned and was somehow blamed for not knowing. Something about it hit him like a cold, wet towel to the face. Maybe the pull he felt toward Zoe was one-sided. Maybe it was all in his mind, but not in hers, and just like Marisa she was unwilling to receive or return what he offered her.

  “I appreciate that you’re trying to help,” he said. “But I have to think about what’s best for my girls.”

  No matter how much something inside him wanted her there, by his side, in his arms and as part of his sad and broken little family.

  Zoe clenched her jaw so tightly it quivered. “Got it, Boss.”

  For a long moment they stood there, eyes locked on each other, neither one willing to break their gaze. Then she turned and walked back to the van.

  * * *

  It was quarter after eleven in the morning, and the Ontario town was packed with people who’d driven in for the parade and street festival. Zoe sat on a stool at a small high table in the front of a café. The sliding front window had been opened all the way creating an open patio feel and giving her the perfect vantage point. A text from Samantha this morning had confirmed that a member of The Anemoi who went by Dionysus took credit for dropping Fluff in the river, but there was no word about further actions against Leo or the parade.

  “Man, this shindig is taking its time to start.” Alex’s voice echoed in her earpiece. “Theresa, the girls and I are all good. We’re standing at the front of the float. How’s the view from the sky, Leo?”

  Zoe raised her bracelet microphone to her mouth, using her cell phone as cover. “The sky?”

  “The Canadian delegation float was built around a cherry picker.” Leo’s voice took over the airwaves. “Alex, Theresa and the girls are standing on the truck bed. We decided the girls would be safest there. I’m up in the hydraulic bucket.”

  “There’s a decorative arch spanning the road, near the end of the route, just before we turn the corner.” Alex chuckled. “Our driver says we should clear it no problem. I mean, really it’ll be fine. But you should’ve seen the look on Leo’s face when he told him that he should be prepared to duck just in case.”

  Alex was still laughing as the line went quiet again.

  She leaned her elbows on the table and tried to settle the jitters hearing Leo’s voice had caused. When she’d first started
with Ash Private Security, it had been hard enough hearing her own brother and Josh in her head, and she’d known them almost all her life. Having Leo’s deep, baritone growl suddenly whispering in her ear was a whole other experience.

  “Alrighty.” Alex’s voice was back. “We’re getting ready to move. The floats are going to park in the side street behind the fairgrounds. We’ll meet you there afterward and walk over to the fair together, so Leo and the girls can spend some time in the Canadian heroes booth.”

  None of this was news, but Alex was a big fan of running commentaries on missions like these. Thankfully, the police, military, firefighters and paramedics fair booths were all clumped together in a semicircle and Samantha had already managed to wrangle a list of who’d be manning them and run them through a background check. Everyone had checked out. All they had to do was get Leo and the girls through the parade and they’d be home free. The street was a different matter. As crowded as the café was around her, it was nothing compared to the street below her. Parents, children and grandchildren lined the sidewalk, huddled on laps and sitting on small fold-out chairs and blankets. Families were everywhere.

  You’re not a parent. Leo’s words echoed in her mind. Maybe if you were a parent you’d understand.

  It was like he’d kept hammering that point home, both in the park and in the parking lot, oblivious to how his words stabbed her in the heart. Growing up, she’d never really wanted children. Maybe it was because she hadn’t had a mother or a sibling until her dad married Alex’s mom. Or maybe it was just because she’d been a tomboy and never into dolls. But in the terrible weeks and months that followed her suspension from the national gymnastic team after she’d elbowed Killian Lynch in the face on live television, her stepmom had been so worried for her health, she’d gently urged her to see a doctor. Her parents had wondered if she had depression. But instead the routine appointment had led to questions about hormone levels, which had in turn led to unexpected blood tests, then scans and finally the verdict, when she was just sixteen, that she was unlikely to ever have children of her own.