ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “You don’t have to tell me what you discuss with your doctor,” he told me one day, when I was pausing a lot in my narrative, fighting to put something into the rightest words possible so Levi could understand it.

  “But I want to tell you what I discussed.”

  “I don’t want you to feel that you have to. What goes on inside that office is private. It’s your time to discuss whatever you want with the doctor. You don’t have to share it with me. You’re not obligated.”

  “But I need to,” I persisted. “You need to understand why I am the way I am.”

  “If you want to talk to me about it, I support you,” Levi said. “But don’t feel like you have to. I love you no matter what, okay?”

  “I love you, too.” Both of us paused over the lunch we’d been sharing — a couple of wraps the chef had made up for us once we’d gotten back from my appointment. Levi had told me several times already that he loved me, but this was the first time I’d reciprocated.

  “Do you really mean that?” he asked quietly. “You don’t have to say it because you think you have to.”

  “Stop telling me what to say,” I said quietly. “I love you. I really do. I’m sorry things are messed up right now — well, all the time — and I don’t think I really understand why you’re keeping me around when you could go as far away from here as you wanted and get out of this situation, but I love you. If the tables had been turned, if you were the one who needed my help and I was the one helping you, I don’t know if I could do it.”

  “You’d do it,” Levi said, smiling. “You’d do it because you love me.”

  I laughed suddenly, apropos of nothing. “You got me a gun for Christmas, for crying out loud. Who does that?”

  “You needed that gun,” he said calmly. “Do you still have it?”

  “Of course I still have it,” I said, holding up my purse. “You told me to keep it on me at all times, and I do. It’s heavy.”

  “It’s not that heavy,” he said, taking a bite of his wrap. “You’ll get used to it. It just feels heavy — in your mind, that is.”

  I picked at my wrap for a few long moments, not incredibly hungry but not wanting to cause Levi any worry. I nibbled on a piece of lettuce that had fallen out.

  “How do you know all of that about shooting and guns and everything?” I asked, looking at him. “I didn’t know that being an architect required such … specialized … knowledge.”

  “I’ve had some contracts in some interesting places,” he explained. “After an onsite experience in the Middle East — nothing major, just a mugging — I realized how important it was to know how to defend myself. I engaged the security team, and I took a few classes myself. Security’s good only as long as they’re with you and attentive. In the end, Meagan, you have to understand that you’re the only person you can rely on.”

  “I’ve known that for a long time,” I said, giving him a small smile.

  “You can rely on me, though,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

  “I do.” And I did. He kept a roof over me, for crying out loud, and food in my belly. “And you can rely on me, too, even if I don’t have as much to offer you as you do to offer me.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, kissing me softly on my cheek. “I’m in love with you, and that’s worth more than anything else.”

  “I don’t know why you would still want to be with me,” I said, studying our fingers, interwoven, interlocked. They seemed so strong together, so right, as if nothing could tear them apart. I realized, though, that it would be easy to unlock them if one of us were to let go. I didn’t want Levi to let me go, but I’d understand if he did. I felt like I was too broken to deserve redemption, and I didn’t wish the task of rebuilding me on anyone.

  I wished there were a way to get out of it, myself.

  “I love you like I’ve never loved anyone,” he said. “And the only thing I want is for you to be safe and happy.”

  Could it be as simple as that? I puzzled over it for the rest of the day, Levi distracting me with a movie and a promise of something pleasurable to end the day with.

  As I got undressed in the room as Levi brushed his teeth in the bathroom, my eyes fell on a folded piece of paper on my pillow. I smiled as I picked up the piece of paper. Had Levi written me a love note and left it here for me to find earlier? I unfolded it.

  “I’m coming for you,” it read, and I frowned. That wasn’t romantic at all. In fact, it sounded like another note I’d received not so very long ago from someone I never wanted to see again. Carl.

  I dropped the paper like it was on fire, stepping back so quickly that when I hit the wall behind me, all the pictures hung on it rattled.

  “Meagan? Are you okay?” Levi called from the bathroom. “You drop something?”

  I had dropped something, but it was my fear that had caused the big noise.

  Levi walked out of the bathroom, his toothbrush still in his mouth, and his eyes widened.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, ducking back out of the room quickly to spit the foam into the sink. “What happened, Meagan?”

  I’d lost the ability to speak, at least temporarily, and pointed instead to the note that I’d dropped on the floor. Levi stepped forward, his strides long and fast, and examined the piece of paper.

  “It’s Carl Prentice, isn’t it?” he asked, looking at me. “It’s your stepfather.”

  I gave a short nod.

  “Where did you find it?”

  Another point — this time, to the pillow on the bed we shared.

  Levi set his jaw, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

  “He was here, wasn’t he?” I managed to say. “Right here, in the townhouse. In this bedroom.”

  “We don’t know that,” Levi said. “Don’t rush to conclusions just yet, Meagan. Stay calm.”

  “How else would the note have gotten here?” I demanded, still frozen against the wall, staring at the paper as if it would leap up and bite me if I took my eyes off of it. “It didn’t just fly here, Levi. Someone had to put it here.”

  For a man who was so good at springing to action, perhaps Levi was wasted upon the architecture industry. His security team was swarming the townhouse in mere minutes, coupled with police officers. All of the newly rehired staff were questioned thoroughly, but no one could divine just how the note had gotten placed on my pillow.

  Levi and I sat on the couch in the downstairs den amid all the tumult, the fingers of one of his hands drumming the armrest ceaselessly, the other hand gripping mine. I was sure he thought he was trying to impart some comfort to me in this stressful evening, but part of me wondered if he was keeping me in place, keeping me from running away, which I sincerely wanted to do.

  It was easy to say that I wanted to stay and face down this threat, tie up this dangerous lose end with Carl when I wasn’t faced with real proof that he was even on the loose. But now, with this letter, I knew that he was closer than ever. It terrified me. I didn’t want to go through the horror again. I didn’t want to be forced to do things to myself anymore. And I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Levi. It would be something I couldn’t forgive myself for. Levi had done everything for me, and it would be a terrible way to repay him to let him bear any of the brunt of Carl’s rage toward me.

  I wanted nothing more than to run.

  “What do you want to do, Mr. Morgan?” a big man in a dark suit asked. I’d never seen him before since I’d moved here, but I figured he had to be someone important — someone high up in the security team.

  “If we can’t figure out who left the note there, we’re going to have to be that much more vigilant in the future,” Levi said, his fingers still moving, their tapping conveying the turmoil in his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking that he’d rather be rid of me than to deal with this problem, and I agreed with him. He didn’t have to do any of this. All he had to do to get past this threat would be to turn me loose on the streets. I’d support that decisio
n, even if it meant leaving my survival up to luck.

  And I’d never been lucky.

  “We can increase the police outside,” the man said. “Station more of your security team inside.”

  “I don’t know that engaging even more people is going to solve this,” Levi said. “Let’s talk security cameras. If I’d had surveillance in the bedroom, we could at least review the tape to see who was in there.”

  A deep shudder welled inside of me. The thought of cameras watching my every move inside the townhouse — that was too close. It was just too close. Inside of my head, Carl would be behind every camera, recording my every move, watching me.

  Perhaps watching me even now.

  “Meagan?”

  I opened my eyes — I hadn’t realized I’d closed them — to see Levi and the security man staring at me.

  “What?” I asked, my eyes darting between them both.

  “Are you okay?” Levi asked.

  “If we can do it without the cameras, I think that would be better,” I said. “Only if we can. Please. I don’t think I could stay here.”

  Levi’s face brightened with understanding and then darkened all the same. “No cameras,” he said shortly. “You’re all capable people. All I’m asking for is that you figure out how to keep a man who wants to hurt this woman out of my house. Is that difficult?”

  Levi was upset that this had happened, upset at his security team, at the idea that, given all of the resources at his disposal, he couldn’t throw enough money at this problem to get it to go away. I knew that was what he was thinking, and that my safety was a source of stress and frustration made me hate myself.

  “Maybe I’ll just go away,” I said. “I’ll just go somewhere, anywhere. Get out of town. You won’t have to worry about me.”

  “Meagan, I would worry about you even if there wasn’t a lunatic out to get you,” Levi said. “You’re not going anywhere. If you’re alone and away from here, you’re even more vulnerable. We’ll get this figured out. Increase the patrols around the neighborhood. Add three more men to the detail inside the townhouse.”

  The last two orders were directed at the man in the suit, who nodded and stepped briefly away, talking on a cellphone and grabbing people as he passed by. The house was crawling with people in dark suits. It was a wonder they could tell themselves apart. There had to be dozens of them.

  “We’ll just have to get used to having more people around than usual until we get all of this figured out,” Levi said, smiling grimly at me.

  “And what is it going to take to figure this out?” I asked dully. “Carl behind bars?”

  “He’ll never make it behind bars,” Levi said with a strange tone of voice.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my heart sinking. “You don’t think the notes would do it? The police think he was behind my brother’s killing. They don’t have the evidence that would put him away?”

  “He won’t make it behind bars because I’ll kill him myself if I see him,” Levi vowed.

  I shuddered in spite of myself. I knew that Levi knew his way around a weapon, but to hear him profess that he was ready to commit an act of violence … it was frightening.

  “I think I want to go to bed now,” I said in a small voice. “Can we send everyone home, just for tonight? I just want to be alone with you. Not in a crowd of people.”

  Levi’s face softened, and he kissed my forehead. “Of course. Everyone out!”

  The security man he’d been talking to earlier looked at Levi with surprise, but didn’t question him, helping to usher all of the other personnel out, including the police officers who’d drifted inside during the tumult. Levi even dismissed the staff he had on hand, giving them the night off for my own comfort.

  “Is that better?” he asked as he turned the bed down for me, helping me into it. It was hard to believe that the note had been there, right where my head was resting. I wondered what had happened to it, but didn’t really want to ask.

  “Much better,” I said, smiling at him. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  “Meagan, I love you. I love you and I would do anything for you. This is nothing. We’re going to get through this.”

  “I know,” I said, even if I wasn’t so sure of it myself. It was comforting to be caught up in Levi’s conviction.

  The floorboards creaked behind him and I gasped as I suddenly made out a form darkening the doorway.

  Levi half turned before there was sickening thud, and his face registered a moment of confusion and pain before nothingness.

  Chapter 19

  I didn’t understand what was happening until I saw Levi tumbling heavily to the bed beside me, his lips parted in surprised and pain, his hand attempting to explore whatever pained him but falling uselessly on the mattress. There wasn’t any blood, but then again, I knew that you could die without it. My mother had seemed for all the world to be asleep in her bed when I knew otherwise. My eyes bore holes into Levi until I saw the rise of his back, a tangible sign he was breathing.

  “Meagan, look at me.”

  The voice alone was enough to make me scramble off the bed, away from Levi, running mindlessly into whatever room I could find — the next bedroom adjacent to Levi’s that I used to keep my growing collection of belongings. He’d bought me so many clothes and shoes and purses and accessories that I’d have overtaken his closet long ago before he assigned me a room-sized closet.

  But none of that was important right now. There wasn’t an exit in this room. There wasn’t an escape. My panic had run me right into a dead end. I didn’t have time to dwell on the discomfiting fact that I’d run away from Levi after he’d been hurt, leaving him to whatever fate might befall him. His attacker was in the room with me.

  “Look at me.”

  I whirled around, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by everything Levi had given me, to face the problem.

  The problem didn’t look very threatening. He was just a man — not very tall, not remarkable in any way other than the fact that he’d come into the townhouse, hit Levi, and chased me into this room. He smiled like he recognized me, like he expected me to know who he was, but I couldn’t place him. Where was the security team? Where were the police? This place was supposed to be tighter than Fort Knox. That was what Levi had put into place after I’d found the note on the bed, on the pillow where I’d laid my head to sleep. He’d had the place turned upside down, considered installing security cameras, but stopped at my behest. Was this my fault? Could we have been safer if I’d just been able to suck it up and deal with the cameras?

  Everything was my fault.

  “You got my note, didn’t you?”

  I still didn’t understand how that voice — so dead, so relentless, so familiar — was issuing forth from that body. The body didn’t look like anyone I recognized, but the voice was there.

  “And you had to have heard that I killed your brother by now, right?”

  I flinched and breathed harder. Levi had said there was a good chance Carl was the one behind Matt’s shooting, but it hadn’t seemed plausible until now.

  Now, when Carl was standing before me.

  I set my shoulders and lifted my chin. “Why did you kill my brother?” If I was going to face this thing instead of running away, I wanted answers.

  “Because I could.” That voice was so maddening. It made me feel like I was going crazy to hear it again. “Because I knew it would flush you out. Because he would’ve been a threat. Because I wanted to.”

  None of them was the answer I sought, the answer I wanted to hear. My brother had died for nothing. He’d died because Carl had some abstract thought that Matt would try to protect me here in New York City, but now I had Levi, all of his security team, and a good portion of the police force — for what little good they’d done me. After all of the measures, Carl had still been able to weasel his way inside.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, my voice quavering even thought I didn’t want to.
I still hadn’t been able to look fully at the body filling the doorway, trapping me inside this room. Part of me still didn’t want it to be real. I expected at any moment to wake up from this latest nightmare from my past, but I knew I was living it. There wasn’t an escape from this reality.

  “Didn’t I tell you I’d come back for you, Meagan?” he asked, his lips curling upward into a grin. He was very pleased with himself.

  The reality was so ludicrous that I studied the man in front of me, my stomach tense but not churning, for a long time. He didn’t look like the Carl that plagued my mind, both awake and asleep. The Carl who’d invaded my innocence had an innocuous bald spot, a soft, pudgy belly, and a pervasive overall feeling of being non-threatening. It was the reason my mother never suspected anything, the reason my brother didn’t try take me out of the house sooner.

  It was the reason I didn’t understand just what was at stake until it was far too late.

  But this man standing in front of me, claiming to be the man who’d ruined my life, didn’t look like Carl at all.

  This man was slim, wearing a nice, dark suit like everyone else on Levi’s security team, fitting in perfectly — right down to the closely cropped hair, which didn’t add up. He wasn’t bald at all. I couldn’t see that shiny spot I’d so often stared at.

  But there were things that added up all too well. The height factor was something you couldn’t really fake. Carl hadn’t been that tall — about as tall as I was — and he was easily the shortest person on Levi’s security staff.

  And then there were the eyes.

  I knew those eyes so well that it was almost as if they were my own, staring back out of the mirror at me.