Secret Protector

by Ann Voss Peterson

  “It is fantastic.”

  “You don’t look like it is.”

  “It’s not that this isn’t a good development. I’m just…” He pulled out a piece of paper and offered it to her. “This was sent to Kendall Communications.”

  She took the sheet. It looked like a printout of an email. The paper rattled in her trembling hand. Scooping in a fortifying breath, she read.

  Dear Kendall Communications,

  I am writing to warn you about a man who is working for you. His name is Grayson Scott, and he is not only a liar, but a war criminal. He has proven selfish and dangerous in the past. He is also a murderer who brutally caused my husband’s death.

  If you don’t fire Grayson Scott immediately, I will have no choice but to deal with him myself. And if any of you try to stop me or stand in the way, you will pay, too.

  Natalie looked up from the paper and focused on Gray. The uneasy feeling she’d had when she’d first realized Gray wasn’t joining her in the shower buzzed along every nerve. “Do they know who wrote it?”

  “The police believe it’s from Jimbo’s wife. Jim Russel. The friend I told you about.”

  The friend who had died in Yemen.

  She looked back down at the email and read it again, but she still couldn’t make it turn out any differently than the first time. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “She blames me. She might want to hurt you to get back at me for Jimbo’s death.”

  She’d gotten that much. The rest shuffled into place when she looked into Gray’s eyes. “So the person who pushed me into traffic, the one who shot up your apartment, the sniper at Ash and Rachel’s wedding, all those were her?”

  “It looks like it, yes.”

  She could see where this was going. Gray was blaming himself. Just as he had blamed himself for his friend’s death, he was now blaming himself for putting her and her family in danger. “She must be very troubled.”

  He pressed his lips into a bloodless line and said nothing.

  She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “You know this isn’t your fault, either.”

  Circles dug under his eyes, not from lack of sleep but from stress. “You could have been killed, Natalie.”

  “But that’s not because of you.”

  “Who is it because of?”

  “Sherry. If she’s really the one running around shooting at people, it’s Sherry’s fault. Sherry’s actions. You’re not responsible for the things she chooses to do.”

  He shook his head. “She hasn’t been stable since Jimbo died. She’s had emotional problems. A nervous breakdown. I don’t know what else.”

  She wasn’t getting through to him. That was obvious. He’d stacked up years of guilt and self-blame and an annoying habit of taking responsibility for everything and everybody. She had to find some way to get him to listen. She had last night. Maybe she could break through his walls again. “You told me I couldn’t blame myself for not screaming the night my parents died.”

  “We’ve been over that, Natalie. It isn’t the same.” He pulled his arm away from her touch and paced the length of the living room floor. “Here your brother hired me to be your bodyguard, and yet you would have been far safer if he’d never called. By just being here, being around you, I’ve put you in danger.”

  She shook her head. She wanted to touch him, hold him. She needed to make him see. “But you couldn’t have known that.”

  “I should have. I saw Sherry.”

  “When?”

  “That night we first met, I went back to the coffee shop to ask the barista about your admirer. Sherry was waiting for me outside. She threatened to make me regret breaking my promise and letting her husband sacrifice his life for me. She must have followed me, saw I was protecting you.”

  “That was the night my house was broken into and vandalized.”

  He nodded. “That was the night it all started. I was following you for weeks before that. There was no sign of any danger. That’s because Sherry didn’t know about your connection to me until then. I brought the danger down on you that night.”

  She clawed her wet hair back from her face. She had to convince him to listen, but how? She was so frustrated, she could hardly breathe. “I’m getting the feeling I could repeat that it wasn’t your fault for the rest of my life, and you would never believe it.”

  He crossed to the bay window overlooking the cottage’s front gardens.

  She followed him, stopping about ten feet behind. They were quite a pair, weren’t they? Both crippled. Both unable to see beyond the prisons they’d built for themselves, constructed from their own guilt and blame. “I get it. I know how you feel. And I’ve done the same thing with my parents’ murders. But I’ll make you a promise. If you at least try to let this go, I’ll do the same.”

  He turned away from the window, grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch and put it on.

  Natalie watched him, no clue what to say or do. For the first time, she noticed the couch where, except for last night, Gray had been camping out since his apartment had been shot up and he’d confessed he was her bodyguard. The pillows were neatly arranged. The blankets he’d been using were nowhere to be seen.

  And the small suitcase he’d brought from his apartment was gone. “Where are you going?”

  “To the police station. Ash and the rest of the P.D. are out trying to find Sherry right now. I want to be there in case they’re successful.”

  “I’ll get my coat and bag.”

  “No, Natalie. You need to stay here. I’ve asked Devin to hire another bodyguard. He just arrived.”

  “What?”

  He motioned out the front window at a hefty hulk of a man striding up to the cottage. “If I’m Sherry’s target, I need to stay away from you. That’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

  Natalie felt sick. After last night, she hadn’t seen this coming. She’d really thought what she’d found with Gray was different. Maybe even permanent. Obviously it was all wishful thinking. “You’re leaving.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She could cry, she could plead with him not to go, she could grab him and kiss him and attempt to seduce him into staying. But it was no use. She felt bone tired, like she could curl up and sleep for weeks.

  If he wanted to leave, he would. Nothing she could say or do would change it. “I’m sorry, too.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The police station seemed busy for a Sunday, not that Gray visited regularly enough to know. When the officer manning the entrance ushered him into a tiny, vacant room holding a table and two chairs bolted to the floor, Gray was more relieved to be by himself than unnerved by the camera peering down at him from the corner. The room smelled like body odor mixed with some kind of minty aftershave, but at least it was quiet enough to think.

  Not that he relished more time to dwell on what he’d done to Natalie.

  He’d hurt her when he’d left. Hurt her so badly, he doubted she would ever be able to forgive him, even when this was over. The look of abandonment in her eyes would haunt him forever. But he couldn’t change it. He’d only wanted to do his job, to keep her safe. He couldn’t let his feelings for her and his selfish need to be near her interfere with her safety. He had come close enough to making that mistake already.

  The sound of knuckles rapping wood came from the door behind him. As he looked up, the door swung wide and Ash stepped into the room.

  Gray shot up from his chair. “Well? Did you find her?”

  “Yes.” Ash’s face looked drawn.

  A bad feeling worked its way up Gray’s spine and pinched at the back of his neck. He couldn’t help fearing the worst. “Is she alive?”

  “Yes.”

  He let out the breath he’d been holding. He just wished Ash would come out with it instead of making him ask for every crumb of information. “Is she here?”

  Ash raked a hand through his hair. “She’s not the one trying to kill Natalie.”


  No, she hadn’t been trying to kill Natalie. He knew that already. If anything, she had intended to hurt Natalie to get at him. But he knew what was more likely to be her endgame. “She was trying to kill me.”

  Ash shook his head. “No. She has a lot of resentment aimed at you. That’s obvious from her email to Kendall Communications. But Sherry Russel wasn’t the shooter. Not at your apartment and not at the wedding.”

  Gray shook his head. When Ash had showed him the email from Sherry, it had all added up. It had all made sense. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what Ash was trying to tell him now. “Why do you think that?”

  “Don’t think it. Know. We found her at a mental health hospital. She’s been there since the night you ran into her, the night she sent the email, the night Natalie’s cottage was vandalized.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “The hospital records back it up. She’s been in and out since her husband’s death. She had her third nervous breakdown that night.”

  “Triggered by seeing me.”

  Ash tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Seems like it. But whatever the cause, she wasn’t trying to kill Natalie. Or you. She was in the hospital during the shootings. It couldn’t have been her.”

  Gray’s head spun. He wanted to tell Ash he was wrong, but he clearly couldn’t argue with hospital records.

  Ash shifted his feet on the floor. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. If I hadn’t needed some background in order to find her, I wouldn’t have come to you until we determined whether she was a viable suspect.”

  Gray waved away the apology. It hadn’t been Ash’s fault. It had been his own. And now that the first thing he’d done when the going had gotten tough was the one thing Natalie had feared all along, he wasn’t sure where to turn.

  He swallowed into a dry throat. “Do you have any other leads? Any ideas about who the shooter really is?”

  “Afraid not. We followed up on what you and Natalie discovered about Demetrius Jones. He has solid alibis for the shootings, as well. But I still think you two might have been on the right track with those suspicions. The shredded paintings might very well be the detail that breaks this case.”

  Gray hadn’t known Natalie’s brother long, but the police detective had always seemed confident, maybe even to the point of being cocky. He didn’t seem that way now. Something was bothering Ash, something a lot deeper than running low on leads. And Gray had a feeling he could guess what he was getting at. “You think the attacks on Natalie might be related to your parents’ murders?”

  Ash flinched, ever so slightly, but he didn’t deny that was where his thoughts were leading.

  “You’re looking for…who?” He thought about what Natalie had told him had happened that night. “The real murderer?”

  Again, Ash didn’t answer. Not directly. “We’re looking for someone older. Someone who might suspect the paintings mean Natalie is able to identify him.”

  “Someone who might have also committed The Christmas Eve Murders,” Gray supplied, and Ash didn’t correct him.

  NATALIE LEANED CLOSE to the mirror. She was still trembling, making it difficult to sweep mascara on her lashes without stabbing herself in the eye. Not that an accident like that could make her eyes any more sore than they already were from crying.

  She’d spent the morning trying to pull herself together. Finally she’d decided it was silly to knock around the cottage alone when she could simply show up at the hotel a little early and spend time with her family. If she could just lose herself in gift opening and wedding celebration, she wouldn’t have to think about Gray leaving her.

  Another surge of tears blurred her vision. How she could produce more, she didn’t know. She abandoned the idea of mascara and walked to the living room.

  Her bodyguard, a perfectly nice man named Chet, was watching a cable news channel on television. As she entered the room, he looked up. “Ready to go?”

  She nodded and hoped she didn’t look half the total mess she felt. “Whenever you are.”

  He pushed up from the couch. Tall and lean with plenty of muscle, Chet was the type of man Natalie was sure countless women swooned over. She half wished she could be one of them. It would be so much easier to fill the void Gray had left in her heart. Unfortunately she suspected no man would be able to do that for a long, long time. If ever.

  He pulled on a dark blue jacket and held up a hand. “Let me bring the car around. I’ll come back in and get you.”

  “You really think that’s necessary? No one is really after me, as it turns out. All of this was about hurting someone else.”

  “My orders are to provide protection. You need to let me do my job.”

  She let out a sigh. Maybe she really was that hard to deal with. Obviously Devin thought so, otherwise he wouldn’t have hired Gray to protect her on the sly. Now she was harassing poor Chet, when all he wanted was to do his job. “I’m sorry. It’s been a tough weekend. I’ll try not to take it out on you.”

  Chet gave her a smile that would melt most women’s hearts. “Not a problem. Understandable. In this line of work, I usually see people when they aren’t at their best. Now you wait. I’ll come back in when I have the car ready and am sure the coast is clear.”

  She answered his smile the best she could. “Thanks, Chet.”

  He opened the front door. On the step outside, he paused. “Flip the dead bolt when I leave.”

  Natalie forced her eyes not to roll. Chet was doing his job and doing it well. He likely didn’t know they’d already caught the shooter and now that Gray had walked out, Sherry no longer had reason to try to kill her. “Will do, Chet.”

  When the door closed behind him, Natalie did as he’d asked, locking the place up tight. Then, making herself pass by the couch where Gray had slept, without looking at it she wandered into the kitchen.

  She took a few sips of cold coffee and cleaned up the countertops. When she’d finished, Chet still hadn’t returned. She checked her watch. There was no way it would have taken him this long to get her car. She peered out the front bay window. The wind was still tossing trees and swirling dried leaves through the garden in mini tornadoes. Dark clouds scuttled across the blue sky, gathering in number. Her gaze rested on something dark between gold and white chrysanthemums and bushes of purple aster.

  She shifted to one side of the window, trying to get a better look.

  Natalie’s heart stuttered.

  The dark color was the deep blue of a jacket. And wearing that jacket, was a man. Chet. Facedown in the garden and not moving.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gray loaded the heavy file box into the trunk of his car and climbed behind the wheel. He closed the door, grateful to get out of the wind. The weather’s dark bluster seemed to reflect the turmoil inside him. He longed to go back to Natalie’s house, to beg her to forgive him, to promise he’d never leave her again. But he couldn’t put her through that. Not when leaving her might possibly have been the best gift he could have given her.

  He never should have mixed his personal feelings with his duty. He should have learned that lesson in Yemen. All SEALs watch each other’s backs, but Natalie was right last night when she said by promising Sherry that he would be Jimbo’s protector, he’d upset the balance. He’d become Jimbo’s protector instead of his fellow soldier. And as a result, he’d failed everyone involved.

  And now he’d done the same thing with Natalie. This morning, protecting her had meant walking away, loving her had meant staying. He’d been torn between the two, and as a result, he hadn’t succeeded in accomplishing either.

  At least now she had a bodyguard who had his head in the right place.

  He slipped his key in the ignition and started the car. He knew what he had to do. He might not be on the Kendall payroll any longer, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up protecting Natalie. And he was going to start by finding the bastard who was trying to kill her.

  He’d start with the old case
file Ash had let him copy. He’d hole up in his apartment and go through each interview, each report. He wasn’t as good an investigator as a detective like Ash; he knew that. But maybe looking at the case with fresh eyes would help.

  It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  He leaned forward, ready to shift the car into gear, and then paused. An uneasy feeling pinched the back of his neck. He rolled one shoulder then the other, but it did no good.

  He fished in his jacket and pulled out his cell phone. He couldn’t drop in on Natalie and check on her just to leave again. Not unless he wanted to prove Sherry was right about his selfishness and disregard for others. That’s why, before he’d left, he’d gotten her new bodyguard’s cell phone number.

  He punched in the digits and held the device to his ear. Five rings later, he was switched to voice mail.

  Damn.

  He punched in the number again and got the same result. This time, he waited for the tone. “Chet, this is Gray Scott. I just wanted to check with you. Make sure everything’s going okay and Natalie is safe. Call me back as soon as you get this. Please call. Right away.” He left his number, even though Chet’s phone should have a record of it, then cut the call.

  He shifted into Drive and pulled out into traffic. Shoulders tight, he willed the phone to ring, for Chet to respond to his message, but the call never came. He’d driven about a mile in the direction of his apartment, when he finally gave in and turned around.

  Chet Lawson might not be answering for a myriad of reasons. But that didn’t mean Gray could leave a message and go on with his business. Above all, he had to know Natalie was okay.

  To him, it was the only thing that mattered.

  NATALIE’S HANDS SHOOK so badly, she dropped her cell phone. She picked it up off the carpet and managed to hit the numbers 911. She held it to her ear, a silent prayer racing through her mind.