by Lisa Childs
Cole snorted now. “That’s not all she is to you.”
His friend knew him too well. It wasn’t all she was. But it was all she could be. Seeing her penthouse—where and how she lived—reinforced the fact that they were too different. She could never be satisfied with a simple guy like him, a simple life like his.
No. She’d turned to him only for protection. And a distraction.
Unfortunately, she had distracted him, as well. But looking around her place, he knew this was where she belonged. He needed to help her get her life back with no threats from the stalker. And he needed to make certain that she was safe.
Just as she had convinced Cole to let her out of the condo, she might have convinced Lars and Nikki to do the same. If the stalker got to her before he returned...
He had to get back to River City. Now. But before he could open the door, the handle rattled, then began to turn. He grabbed for his gun just as it opened. Maybe the stalker had gotten fixated on him as well as Teddie. Or he knew what Manny had vowed—that the only way he would get to her was by taking out Manny first.
* * *
Seeing Manny draw his gun had Cole reaching for his, as well—even though he hadn’t heard anyone at the door, hadn’t seen the knob turn. But he saw the door open, saw the shock on the face of the man who stared into the barrels of two guns.
His face paled and he gasped. “What—who the hell...?”
Manny grabbed the man’s neck and threw him against the wall next to the door. “You son of a bitch.”
It wasn’t the photographer Manny had thought it was. But this man’s picture had been pinned to Nikki’s wall of suspects, as well.
Manny had been right. The fan letters were a dead-end lead. But retrieving them might have helped them catch her stalker, if that was who this man was.
They needed to interrogate him. But Cole wasn’t certain Manny would give the man the chance to speak. He’d tightened his hand around the guy’s neck, like the stalker had choked Teddie in the hospital.
And Cole had a horrible feeling he might have to turn his gun on his friend—to stop him from becoming a killer.
Chapter 20
We got him. That was the text Cole had sent Nikki from New York. At least, Cole thought they had him, Nikki had informed Teddie. But Manny hadn’t been as convinced, so he hadn’t called the police. Instead they’d brought her stalker back to River City.
To the Payne Protection Agency.
And for some reason, maybe just to get close to Teddie again, the stalker had come along willingly.
Teddie stood outside the conference room, bracing herself to confront the man who had made her life a living hell the past few months. Nobody had told her who it was, but apparently it was someone she knew.
“Are you ready?” Nikki asked.
The female bodyguard hadn’t left her side since she’d taken over protection duty from Manny. But even with her sticking so close, Teddie hadn’t felt safe. It wasn’t because Nikki was so petite. Despite her size, the female bodyguard was fierce. She was also armed. And her fiancé—the blond hulk—had always been close by, as well.
The reason Teddie hadn’t felt safe was that Manny had been gone. It wasn’t just her own safety about which she’d been concerned, though. She’d been more worried about Manny. And even though Cooper had sent another bodyguard along with him for his protection, it had been Cole, who was hurt. So he might not have been much help if the stalker had tried for Manny again.
And he must have. How else had they caught him?
“You don’t have to do this,” Nikki said when Teddie hesitated. “You don’t have to face him.”
“You said he wants to talk to me.”
“Of course he does,” Nikki said. “The whole point of stalking you is to get close to you.”
He hadn’t just wanted to get close to her, though. He’d wanted to hurt her. Kill her...
How could someone hate her that much?
She shuddered but nodded. “I want to talk to him.”
She wanted to know why. What had she done?
Nikki opened the door to the conference room and held it for Teddie. The first person her gaze settled on wasn’t the stalker but Manny. He was the one she wanted most to see, to make certain he was all right.
She’d been worried about him, worried that he might get hurt because of her. She breathed a sigh of relief that he looked fine, especially with his dark hair and dark eyes and strong jaw. He was so damn handsome.
Her pulse quickened, and she released a shaky breath. Then he stepped aside, and she saw the man sitting at the conference table. Was this who they thought her stalker was?
She shook her head. “No. This is a mistake.”
Ed Bowers jerked his head up and down in a series of quick nods. “That’s what I told them,” he said. “This is all a mistake. But they wouldn’t listen to me. That’s why I agreed to come here, so I could explain it to you.”
She glanced at Manny now. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”
Her old manager wasn’t as big and strong and young as he and Cole were.
“If it’s a mistake, what the hell was he doing letting himself into your penthouse?” It was Cole who asked the question while Manny stayed curiously silent.
She glanced at Ed now. “How—why...?” It wasn’t possible, was it? A man who had been almost like a father to her couldn’t have betrayed her, could he?
Not that Teddie had any idea what a father was supposed to be like. She’d never met hers.
“I still have the extra set you gave me when you bought the penthouse,” Ed explained. “I’d forgotten I had them until I saw the news. Then I remembered the keys and those creepy fan letters you used to get. I intended to get them and bring them to the police department.”
“You should have brought him to the police department,” Cooper said from the end of the conference table.
She glanced at her bodyguard. That was all he was now. There was nothing of her lover on his handsome face, no memory of the intimacy they’d shared. He was all business.
“I wanted to,” Cole said defensively. “But Manny wanted to bring him here instead.”
“I didn’t bring him to the police department because he’s not the guy,” Manny explained to his boss.
“But he has keys to her penthouse like the stalker had keys to the cabin,” Cole pointed out. “And he has motive.” He gestured at the board now.
Teddie shook her head. “I gave Ed those keys when I first bought the place. I didn’t give him keys to the cabin. And he has no motive to hurt me.”
Ed looked at her now. “You know I would never hurt you.”
And she believed him. That was why he had told her she needed to find another agent. He’d thought he was hurting her career because he couldn’t keep up with all the jobs designers had wanted to book her for.
She settled onto the chair across from him, reached over the table and squeezed his hand. “I know.”
“That’s why—once I saw the news and found out you have a stalker—I wanted to get those old fan letters,” Ed said. “I wanted to see if they would help the police figure out who’s trying to hurt you.”
“Did you get the letters?” Nikki asked.
Cole handed over a folder to the female bodyguard. “There are some weird ones in there. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have sent them.” It was clear he still suspected Ed.
Teddie didn’t. She couldn’t.
“It’ll be simple enough to check his alibi for the most recent attempts,” Manny said.
Ed squeezed her hand and stared at her across the table. “I’m so sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through. I had no idea when you dropped out of the public eye that that was why.”
She should have stayed in touch with Ed. But she’d felt so bad about no l
onger working with him that she hadn’t wanted to burden him with her problems. Or endanger him. It looked like she had anyway, since he looked a little roughed up with his hair disheveled and his clothes rumpled.
But he asked her, “Are you okay, honey?”
She forced her lips to curve up at the corners. But that was the biggest smile she could manage.
So of course he wasn’t fooled. “You were smart to hire the Payne Protection Agency,” he said.
“It was Mama’s idea,” she said. If she hadn’t listened to her mother, she probably would have been dead—at the least. At the worst...
She shuddered to think about what the stalker might have done to her. But she had only to look at those mutilated photographs to remember his intentions.
“Your mother is a very shrewd woman,” Ed said. He had always had a soft spot for Mama. But her mother had never believed a man who worked with models could have been genuinely interested in her. In her mind she was still the trailer trash Teddie’s father had called her.
“How is she?” Ed asked.
“Worried sick,” Teddie admitted.
He glanced behind him—at Manny. “Me, too.” He’d said she’d been smart to hire Payne Protection. So what about Manny could concern him?
Was he worried that she might fall for the man? Because she was worried that she already had.
* * *
Manny had insisted on being the one to bring Teddie back to the condo. Maybe all the talk of her mother had reminded him of his promise to the woman. Or maybe it was because he’d promised himself. Either way, he knew it was a mistake when the steel door closed behind them, locking them inside the safe house together.
Just the two of them...
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m just doing my job,” he said, reminding her and himself that was all this was. A professional relationship. Not a real one. Seeing her penthouse had proved that to him.
“If you’d just been doing your job...” she began.
He wouldn’t have slept with her. Was she going to bring that up?
But she continued, “You would have brought Ed to the police department like Cooper wanted. And if the press had gotten wind of that, it could have ruined his career.”
“He’s not the guy,” Manny said. And it hadn’t taken Nikki long to prove his alibi was legit. She’d hacked into a hotel’s security feeds and proved he’d been at the charity ball just like he’d claimed. He wasn’t the guy. The stalker was still out there. That was why it had been important to get Teddie back to the safe house.
But it didn’t feel safe anymore, at least not to Manny. Being alone with her was dangerous as hell—for him.
“I know,” Teddie said, “but the media doesn’t care about facts. Just knowing he’d been brought in would have damaged his reputation.”
“You care about him,” Manny said.
“He’s a good guy,” she insisted. “He would never try to hurt me.”
“No,” Manny agreed. “He’s scared of your mother, too.”
Teddie laughed. “You’re scared of my mother?”
“Terrified,” he said.
“She would love that.” She smiled a genuine smile that brightened her green eyes, not a fake smile like the one Manny had seen her force for her former manager. “She would love you.”
He shook his head. “I told you—mothers don’t like me. Sometimes not even my own.” He’d reminded her too much of his father. That was why he’d been so careful to act nothing like him.
Teddie’s smile slipped away. “That’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “I understand. The men in my family don’t exactly inspire trust.”
“My mother trusts you,” Teddie said. “I spoke with her earlier tonight. She believes you’ll keep me safe.”
Manny felt a pressure on his chest, panic that he might fail not just her mother but her. “I shouldn’t have made her any promises.”
“You won’t keep me safe?” Teddie asked. And the smile was back, playing around her full lips as she teased him.
That pressure increased. “I’ll do my best.” And hopefully this time his best would be good enough.
She stared up at him, her green eyes darkening with desire. His heart pounded with it. But he couldn’t give in to temptation again, not when he knew that he would never be good enough for her.
He expelled a ragged breath and told her, “You have a real fancy place in New York.”
“I do,” she agreed. “I don’t know why I bought it.”
So she wasn’t just renting the penthouse. Not that he knew anyone who would have even been able to afford the rent. Except for Cole. Cole probably could.
“Why don’t you know?” he asked, wondering about her. Which woman was real? The supermodel living in the New York City penthouse? Or the student hiding out at a secluded, rustic cabin?
“I didn’t need the penthouse,” she said. “I think I only bought it to prove to myself how far I came from where I started.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She sighed. “I already told you that my mom was just a kid when she had me. Her parents had ditched her for drugs, so she was living in a trailer with her grandmother.”
Manny had even more respect for her mother now.
“Mama wanted out of the trailer badly since that was why my dad had dumped her—because she was just trailer trash. So when Nana passed away,” she continued, “she used the leftover life insurance to buy a little house for us. But we could barely make ends meet. It was tough for Mama to get a good-paying job since she’d dropped out of school to have me. So to help her out, I started babysitting when I was eleven.”
“Just a kid yourself.”
She nodded, then shuddered. “Not all the dads saw me that way, though. I developed early.”
Anger surged through Manny. “Did someone hurt you?” He would go back and kill him, whoever he was.
She shook her head. “No. But one creepy dad tried to convince me to let him take pictures of me.”
Yeah, he wanted to kill the guy. “Is he still alive?” Maybe her stalker went way back in her life.
She shook her head again. “No. He passed away years ago. He said he wanted to send the pictures to some modeling competition for me.”
“You didn’t let him take the pictures, did you?” he asked, horrified for her.
“No. I told Mama, and she took care of him.”
No wonder the guy wasn’t alive anymore. “I do like your mom,” he mused.
“But I told Mama to take the pictures,” she said. “We had to save up for a good camera first. And she wouldn’t do it until I was older—fifteen. Those were the photos we entered in that suntan-lotion contest.”
Photos she probably wouldn’t have taken if not for the creepy dad. Manny still wanted to hurt him, though, for objectifying a child.
“You won that contest,” he remembered from her telling him and from what he’d already known about her.
“Yes,” she said. “Probably because Ed was one of the judges. He offered me representation.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have left his agency.”
Manny hoped Nikki had double-checked that security footage to make sure it wasn’t tampered with. The guy might have had a legit gripe with Teddie. But then he remembered Ed Bowers’s very genuine concern.
“The only thing your old manager seems upset about is your being in danger,” Manny said. He believed the guy, believed that he had only wanted to help when he’d let himself into her penthouse.
“He’s not the only one,” Teddie said. “I want this to be over. That’s why I think we should let the stalker get me again.”
“What!” Manny exclaimed.
“Using Nikki as a decoy to try to flush him out didn’t work,” she reminded him. “An impostor won’
t fool him. But we know that if I’m out again—on my own—he will grab me.”
“That’s why you’re not leaving here again,” Manny said. “You’re staying where it’s safe.”
“But I would be safe out there,” she said, “if all of you were close. It’s probably the only way we’ll be able to catch him.”
He shook his head. “No. We’ll figure out who he is without putting your life at risk.”
“What kind of life am I living?” she asked. “When I’m always afraid? When I can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything? I don’t want to live like this.”
He could understand her frustration. “Just give us a little while longer,” he said. “Nikki’s looking into all those old letters.”
She shook her head. “None of those were sent by the stalker. She’s wasting her time.”
Manny was afraid that she was probably right. But there had to be some other way to catch the stalker than putting her at risk. He couldn’t take the chance of losing her.
When they caught the stalker, he would. She would go back to her old life and he would move on to the next assignment. They had no future together. But he wanted to make sure she would have a future.
“You hired us to protect you,” he reminded her. “Let us do our job.”
“Is that all I am to you?” she asked.
This question was far more dangerous—to him—than her asking to flush out the stalker. Because he wasn’t sure he could be truthful with her or with himself.
* * *
Nikki sucked in a breath as the police record scrolled across her screen. She glanced down at the spliced photo of Teddie and the man Nikki had run through the face recognition program she had.
His face had gotten a hit on a mug shot. He’d been booked for assault and battery, for stalking...
This had to be the guy. But this letter wasn’t like the others. He didn’t threaten her harm. Instead he declared his love and adoration and intention to one day meet and marry her. It was creepy. But it wasn’t as creepy as the others.
Had he escalated?
Obviously he was capable of violence or he wouldn’t have a police record.