by Camy Tang
“She also had a boyfriend and a roommate. And the initial letters threatened to hurt her if she didn’t stop work on the family planning clinic, but he didn’t do anything physically against her—no attacks, just malicious letters. Clare’s roommate said that sometimes Clare thought the guy was only full of hot air.”
“So he only wanted to manipulate her, he didn’t intend to hurt her?”
“Eventually he did intend to hurt her. The stalker’s later letters were more threatening, when she continued to ignore him.”
“But what made you think it was Phillip?”
“Clare’s roommate said that my sister investigated a nasty gift the stalker sent her, a bottle of snake venom. She traced it to a shop on Haight-Ashbury where the stalker had bought it illegally for five thousand dollars. The person who sold it said the man buying the venom matched Phillip’s height, weight, coloring, and he wore a black leather duster coat like one that Phillip owns.”
“Did she ask him about it?”
“Her roommate said she confronted Phillip, who denied it. Clare believed him, but her roommate didn’t. Neither do I.”
“Did you see a photo? Video surveillance?”
Shaun’s eyes slid away from her.
“So you don’t have proof that it was Phillip who bought the snake venom.”
“The salesperson positively identified—”
“Phillip isn’t unusual-looking. Light brown hair, light brown eyes, medium height. And it’s Haight-Ashbury—a black duster isn’t even going to turn heads among the people who shop on that street. There are people there in wild costumes every day.”
“I’m telling you, Phillip is the stalker. Every time I’ve talked to him, he acts like he’s hiding something.”
“Everyone is hiding something, but it doesn’t mean they’re hiding a double life as a stalker. I don’t think what Phillip is hiding is very sinister. I think it’s somehow more self-serving.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’m good at reading people.”
But now she wondered if she could really be entirely wrong. Was he more dangerous a person than she’d given him credit for? She had detected some attraction on Phillip’s side, but that had happened with other men, and she never encouraged any unprofessional interest. It seemed Phillip wanted to get close to her for some reason of his own, perhaps because of her wealthy family and her father’s lucrative business connections. “Do you have any solid proof about Phillip?”
He pressed his lips together.
“Don’t you wonder if your bias about him from your school years might be clouding your judgment?”
Shaun shook his head. “He’s a…he’s slimy.”
She could admit Phillip seemed a bit slimy, but she didn’t think he would send dead snakes to her.
Still, he’d known she’d be at Lorianne’s Café. But anyone watching her could have followed her to the restaurant, too. She wondered if Detective Carter had discovered who had delivered the gruesome florist’s box.
She gave Shaun a hard look. “Phillip Bromley is an investor, and I can’t simply cancel our appointment. It’s unprofessional, which would reflect badly not just on me, but also on the clinic and my father.”
His face sobered at the mention of her father.
“I’ve hired you to protect me, so you’ll just have to protect me when I meet with Phillip. And who knows, maybe he’ll reveal something to prove he’s the stalker.” She was sure Shaun would appreciate that if it happened.
He didn’t answer at first. She could almost read his mind. His protective instinct was warring with his desire for answers.
“Fine,” he said shortly. Then he leaned closer to her. “But you need to do exactly what I tell you. Otherwise you might as well fire me right now, because I won’t be able to protect you.”
He was too close to her. The memory of the kiss came back in a rush. She blinked to clear her thoughts and sidled away from him.
“Fine.” She didn’t look at him.
How ironic that Shaun thought Phillip was a threat when it was Shaun who seemed more dangerous.
Shaun watched the door to Lorianne’s Café from where he stood next to Monica. So far, no Phillip, only a tourist taking photos of the square and a woman with a baby carriage.
Her scent wrapped around him, something exotic, which made him want to move closer to her. She was distracting him just when he couldn’t be distracted.
He remembered the same scent during that moment at their teaching session in the hotel gym. He didn’t know why he’d kissed her. There was something about her that made him want to be closer to her, to let her soothe something inside him. But he couldn’t let anyone touch that pain and bitterness, he had to keep it to himself.
He was glad she’d laughed it off. It was better for both of them that she did. He wasn’t good for any woman, although protecting her and finding the stalker might help him find some peace.
Movement by the door drew him out of his thoughts. He should have been paying attention.
Phillip Bromley entered in an expensive business suit, holding a bouquet of red roses. The sight of the flowers and their vivid color made Shaun’s shoulders hunch and tighten like a bull pawing at the ground. Phillip had on a wide smile, and his eyes were fixed on Monica.
She met him with a polite smile. “Thank you, Phillip. You shouldn’t have.” Shaun thought she should have chucked the flowers at Phillip’s head, but she did hold the bouquet in front of her like a thorny shield, preventing Phillip when he tried to move in to give her a hug in greeting.
Phillip then turned to Shaun, who stood closer to Monica’s elbow than he knew he should. “Hi, Shaun. I saw your father last week at the Zoe banquet.”
“Hi, Phillip.”
“Are you meeting someone for lunch, too?” Phillip asked.
Shaun wanted to say no, to say that he’d been thinking of joining Phillip and Monica, but they had decided beforehand not to make it obvious he was watching over her.
“No, I’m not meeting anyone,” Shaun said. “I’m just here to take a leisurely lunch.”
Phillip gave a bland smile. “My mom went to the baby shower for your brother’s wife. She mentioned that your sister-in-law was worried about you. Something tragic happened down near the border, she said.”
His anger at Phillip for putting Shaun at a disadvantage warred with a flash of images of the drowning van.
“Every job has its stresses,” Monica interjected. “Businessmen have their own types of stresses, while law enforcement has an entirely different set. More physical, those requiring strength of body and mind.” She gave Phillip a bright smile, then shot Shaun a look that said, Don’t let him antagonize you.
Phillip’s neck had reddened at the mention of the “physical and mental strength.” Shaun wondered if Monica had said that deliberately, to contrast Shaun’s larger, more muscular frame to Phillip’s rather pasty, thin body.
The thought made him not mind her stern look at him.
“Well, we should get on with our lunch appointment,” Monica said. “It was nice chatting with you, Shaun.” She led Phillip to a table near the back of the restaurant.
Monica had already spoken to the restaurant owner, her friend Lorianne, about Shaun being her secret bodyguard, so Lorianne had given him a small table next to Monica and Phillip where he could keep an eye on them and eavesdrop on their conversation.
Phillip pulled out the chair to Monica’s right, about to sit down, but she placed the roses on the chair, preventing him. Her purse was on the seat to the left, so he awkwardly moved to the seat across from her.
“I hope you like roses,” Phillip said.
“Oh. Certainly,” she said carelessly.
A part of Shaun felt relief that she seemed to be making an effort not to encourage Phillip’s Casanova moves. She hadn’t mentioned that Phillip had a more than professional interest in her. Sitting only a few feet away, listening to their conversation, was harder than
Shaun had expected it to be.
“I bought the roses because they remind me of the dress you wore to the Zoe banquet,” Phillip said. “You looked amazing.”
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“It was the first time I’d gone to the banquet. Do you go every year?”
“Yes. Dad has contributed regularly to Zoe International, and they hold the banquet every year to thank their largest donors.”
“Speaking of your father…” Phillip leaned in with a smile. “I heard a rumor that he was going to expand the Joy Luck Life Spa into a hotel. Is it true?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him, since I don’t usually work at the spa,” Monica said with a neutral expression.
“That’s right, you’ve been nursing him while planning this clinic.” Shaun thought Phillip’s eyes were a little too bright. “I’m so impressed you can do both.”
“Nursing comes easily to me,” she said lightly.
“I’m sure you’re too modest.”
“I assure you, I’m not. The clinic is what I’m most passionate about.”
“You did seem very passionate when we spoke about it. Your passion makes you quite beautiful, did you know that?”
Shaun clenched his fists. The man’s flirting was going to get out of line soon.
“Phillip, why don’t we decide what we’re going to order, and then we can discuss business?” Monica’s tone was polite and sweet—not slamming the door in his face, but putting an end to the conversational thread.
She did it so smoothly, it made Shaun wonder if she had a lot of men hitting on her. Of all the Grant sisters, he’d always thought Monica the most beautiful. She had clear amber eyes framed by dark lashes, with a smokey look that reminded him of some fashion models, and her long, wavy hair was darker and glossier than her sisters’ medium brown hair. Her mouth was a bit wide, but her smile lit up her heart-shaped face.
Not that he’d seen her smile often around him.
She was too beautiful for someone like him, who had so much ugliness inside of him. So many ugly memories of people he couldn’t save.
A glint of sunlight off glass caught his eye. He turned to look out the large windows at the front of the restaurant and saw the same tourist from before taking a photo of the building.
Tourists taking pictures of the historic buildings in downtown Sonoma wasn’t unusual, but the building the restaurant was in wasn’t historic.
The man was about Phillip’s height. Brown hair, medium-to-slender build. He didn’t quite carry himself like a tourist—none of the casual sightseeing movements of the head, or the typical wandering pace as he circled the square. He was focused on this building, on this restaurant.
He took another picture.
Shaun got up, interrupting the waitress, who had just come to take his order. “I’ll be right back.”
Shaun exited the restaurant and glanced around quickly before crossing the street. The tourist was still there. It looked like he was studying the businesses around Lorianne’s Café, as well, but he hadn’t moved from his position on the sidewalk across from the restaurant.
Shaun tried not to hurry as he approached the man, but the tourist happened to glance in Shaun’s direction. In a flash, he turned to walk away.
“Excuse me,” Shaun called after him.
The man broke into a run.
Shaun sprinted after him, adrenaline pumping through his heart and his lungs. If this was the stalker, he wasn’t about to let him get away, not when he was so close.
Shaun was taller and had a longer stride. He caught up to him and then threw himself at the man, tackling him into the grass alongside the sidewalk.
“Oomph!”
The man’s camera went flying, and as Shaun wrestled the man’s hands behind his back, he winced a bit as he saw the camera land hard on the grass.
“Hey! My camera!” the man cried.
Shaun paused. Something about this didn’t seem right. The man seemed more upset about his camera than being caught in the act of spying on Monica. “Who are you?” Shaun demanded.
“Chris Durant.”
The man’s voice was higher pitched than the stalker’s had been, although he could have been disguising it. But something about the sniveling voice seemed too far off from the taunting whisper of a few nights ago.
“What were you doing?”
“Just taking pictures.”
“Of Lorianne’s Café?”
“There’s no law against it.”
“Except I saw you take dozens of shots. Why that building?”
Chris didn’t respond immediately, so Shaun pressed against his two hands held behind his back. “Why that building?” he repeated.
“Hey, you’re heavy, did you know that? Man, he said I might get chased but he didn’t say it would be from a sumo wrestler,” Chris complained.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The guy who paid me.”
Shaun’s gut tensed. “Someone paid you?”
“This guy paid me five thousand dollars to stand outside that restaurant and just take pictures. Only of that building. He didn’t even want the pictures I took. He just wanted me to stand out there.”
Five thousand dollars? Who had that kind of money? “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t exactly give me his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno. Brown hair, brown eyes.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few minutes before you came out of the restaurant.”
Only a few minutes ago?
“The guy said someone might come out to question me, and to just stall,” Chris said.
“Where did he go after he paid you?”
“Inside the restaurant.”
Shaun snapped his head up and stared down the street at the restaurant. Where he’d left Monica alone. “Quick, what was he wearing?”
“A business suit. Dark gray or dark blue?”
Shaun jumped to his feet and pushed past a few tourists who had noticed him and Chris on the ground and had cautiously approached them. He didn’t have time for explanations. He had to get back to the restaurant.
But he had a feeling Monica would be safe. The stalker hadn’t paid Chris to take photos. He’d paid Chris to be a decoy, to lure out Shaun or anyone who might be helping Monica.
Shaun had been had.
FIVE
Monica didn’t want to offend Phillip, but he was making her more and more uncomfortable.
But it wasn’t because she thought he was the stalker. It was because Phillip’s true agenda was revealing itself. He didn’t really care about the free children’s clinic. He was interested in her. Or specifically, her family.
She’d met so many men like him before, who saw the Grant sisters as a way into the family business or the family money or both. This was the agenda he’d been trying to hide the last time she talked to him.
She reached out with a swift hand to get the check even as he reached for it.
“No, let me get lunch,” he said.
“Nonsense. I invited you to talk about the clinic.” She also didn’t want this lunch to seem more intimate between the two of them, which it would if he paid for her. She handed the waitress her credit card and the slim leather folder that held the bill.
“Well, I hope we can have many more lunches together.” He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward.
Phillip was much more aggressive than any other man who had expressed interest in her, and it was giving her a rather creepy feeling. Maybe he really was the stalker? He seemed to have the same dogged persistence.
She leaned back in her chair to get as much distance between them as possible. “I hope you’ll consider investing in the clinic.”
“I think it would be great to work with you on just about any business venture.” His smile didn’t quite meet his brown eyes.
Business venture? Did he want in on Dad’s h
otel scheme? Was that his game plan—woo the only unattached daughter to become chums with Augustus Grant? The thought made her shiver with distaste.
Unfortunately, he noticed. “Are you cold? Why don’t you take my jacket—”
“No.” She stopped him before he could remove his dark gray business suit jacket. “I’m fine. I’m leaving soon, anyway.”
“Oh, I was hoping we’d have time for a coffee at that new Italian espresso bar down the street.”
Much as she loved Captain Caffeine’s Espresso, Monica wasn’t about to encourage Phillip’s attentions. “I’m sorry, but I’m still taking care of my dad. I need to get home.”
“Oh, of course. He had a stroke, right? He’s, uh…doing all right?”
“He’s getting better every day.”
“Great, great.” There was that smile again that didn’t reach his eyes.
As Monica signed the credit card receipt, she realized she understood why Shaun didn’t like Phillip. He was ingenuine, a trait that Shaun must hate. Shaun was so straightforward, so blunt and honest.
She wondered where he went. He’d dashed out earlier, but he hadn’t returned to his seat. In fact, the wait staff had cleaned up and sat two young businesswomen at his table.
But even though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was still looking out for her somewhere in the restaurant.
She rose, and Phillip stood as well. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.
“There’s no need.”
“I never let a lady walk to her car alone.” His attempt to be gentlemanly sounded false to her ears. Was it because he was the stalker or because he was trying to get into her good graces? Her gut instinct told her it was the latter.
But what good was her gut instinct? She’d apparently met the stalker at some point in the past few weeks and didn’t even pick up on the fact that he was displeased with her work on a free children’s clinic.
No way was she letting Phillip walk her to her car. She’d never be able to get him to walk away before watching her open her car door, not without seeming rude or strange.
She was trying to come up with an excuse when they were interrupted by the waitress. “Miss Grant, Lorianne asks for you to please wait to speak to her. She’s a bit busy right now, but she says she’ll have a free moment in a few minutes. If you’ll wait near the bar?”