Ryder thought it was important for the person sending them out into the field every day to know what was truly at risk.
The elevator door opened and Gracie, the lady from human resources, was standing there waiting. She looked up, clearly distracted by something, a small smile touching her pretty face.
“Hey, Ryder,” she said, pushing her glasses up her thin nose.
“Gracie.”
She looked him up and down for a second, always acting as though she was scattered, never fully in the moment, but there was something about the way she took people in that made him feel like that was only an act. She seemed more composed under the surface than anyone he’d ever met.
They passed each other as she got on the elevator and he stepped off. He glanced back at her, caught her watching him even as her eyes dipped and she pretended she wasn’t. Everyone around here loved Gracie, but there was something about her that made Ryder nervous.
He headed down the hall, found Axel standing in the narrow alcove outside his office, talking to one of the other operatives. They ended their conversation as Ryder walked up, the other guy—Gunner—nodding to him as he walked off.
“Ryder,” Axel said, gesturing for him to enter his new office.
Ryder glanced around, a little surprised at how moved in it looked even though Axel had only been in his new position for a few weeks. In fact, he’d only recently moved in to this office.
“I heard you got good footage at the bank.”
“Caught the guy red handed, so to speak.”
“Good. The client will be pleased.”
Ryder nodded his head in acknowledgment. It hadn’t really been a hard case. Some banker who was helping himself to funds that weren’t his. Wasn’t hard to catch him, just a few well-placed cameras, a virus on his computer, and it was all well documented. The man would be going to jail for a long time over a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Idiot.
Axel sat behind his desk and sighed. “So, I know you don’t like protection details.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But we had a direct request for your services.”
Ryder leaned forward. “What?”
“A client came in this morning asking for you by name. It’s a simple case, a couple of public appearances here and in Chicago. Shouldn’t be too complicated.”
Ryder shook his head. “No. I don’t do that sort of thing.”
“I understand, but, like I said, she requested you directly.”
“How does she even know me?”
Axel shook his head. “Don’t know, but she was adamant. She won’t accept anyone else.”
Ryder stood, burying his hands in his pockets again. “Sorry, Axel, but I can’t do it. I don’t want the one-on-one thing.”
Axel stood, too. “She’s coming back in here in a little bit. Don’t you at least want to know who she is? Why she asked specifically for you?”
“Not really.”
Axel frowned, clearly annoyed by his answer. “Well,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, “I think you should tell her yourself that you aren’t interested in the job. Perhaps if you tell her yourself, she’ll be open to one of the other operatives taking the case.”
“Didn’t realize Mastiff was doing so badly that we had to take every case that walked through the door.”
Axel reddened a little. “We’re not. But we like to do the best we can to honor a client’s requests, especially one who could send more business our way.”
That sparked Ryder’s curiosity, but not enough to cause him to ask. “I’m sorry. I just don’t think I’d be good at a protective detail. Besides, it’s in my contract.”
“Not exactly.” Axel went back to his desk and picked up a group of papers that had been waiting there. “I had Gracie bring your contract up from downstairs. The wording says that you’d rather not do protective detail, but that under certain circumstances you would.”
Ryder crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you going to fire me if I refuse?”
“No.” Axel was a little caught off guard by the question. “Of course not. But it would really help us out if—”
“I’m not interested, Axel. I hate to be difficult, but this is one thing I really would just rather not do. I’m sorry.”
He walked out, aware that Axel was following him. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to take this case for any reason. Working one-on-one with a client was like inserting yourself into someone’s life and telling them how to live it. He wouldn’t want someone else to do that to him, so he had no interest in doing it to someone else. Not only that, but he preferred to be on his own. Working that closely with someone required engaging in conversations, caring about another person, putting himself in front of potential danger. He simply wasn’t interested.
He would take any other case right now, but not that. There was nothing on earth that would change his mind.
“You would only have to deal with the client for a short time, just long enough to get the details of her public appearances. After that, you could watch over her from a distance.”
“You know that’s not how it would go. You’ve been on some of these sweetheart operations that didn’t work out quite that way, right?”
Again, Axel reddened a little. “No operation ever goes the way it should. But this—”
“Nothing you can say is going to talk me into it.”
Ryder continued down the hall, stopping only when he reached the elevator. He jabbed his finger against the ground floor button, determined to get out of this building and find something to fill the rest of this long day. He might go have something to eat, go back to his empty apartment and work out before bed. Or maybe he’d head over to the police academy’s range for target practice. Mastiff had a deal with the local police department that made their training facilities available to Mastiff’s operatives. Doing a little shooting might burn off some of this nervous energy that was suddenly tensing his shoulders.
Axel leaned against the wall beside the elevator just within Ryder’s line of vision. “You’re really going to leave us high and dry?”
“You knew I would.”
Axel nodded. “I was just hoping you would surprise me.”
“The older I get, the more I accept that there are very few surprises in the world.” Ryder jabbed his finger against the elevator button again, as though that would make it come faster. “If you get another job, a surveillance thing or something, give me a call.”
Axel lowered his head in a slow, disappointed nod. The elevator doors opened and Ryder thought he was going to escape. He stepped to one side to allow the occupants off, not really paying attention to the two men and woman who were disembarking. But then something familiar about the woman brought his head up, his full attention on beautiful caramel colored eyes.
“Ms. Hobart,” Durango, coming unexpectedly from behind Ryder, said, his hands held out to the woman who owned those eyes, who owned the shocked expression that was focused directly on Ryder. “Thank you for coming back in.”
“Ryder,” she said softly, the sound of his name on her lips like a knife twisting in his heart.
He shook his head, moving before he realized he had. He gripped her arms and pushed her back inside the elevator, trapping her roughly against the back wall as the doors slammed shut behind them.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hiring a bodyguard.”
Ryder shook her roughly, forcing her head to bang against the back of the elevator wall. “You know what I mean! Why are you here?”
“You know why.” Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “I need your help.”
“You need to stay away from me. I told you—two years ago! It’s over, Kelly.”
She jerked her arms upward, forcing his hands off her, and stepping out of his reach. “You’ve gotten conceited these last few years,” she said, turning her face from him so that he couldn’t see it. “I’m not here to beg you to com
e back to me.”
She said the words, but he didn’t believe them. He knew her well enough to understand what that little catch in her voice meant.
“Kelly,” he said, purposely softening his tone, “you shouldn’t be here.”
“Do you think I would have come here if I had any other choice?” There was fire in her eyes when she turned around, her gaze strong and absent of any of the shock or hurt he’d seen and heard before. “I came because my neighbor—my friend—was murdered over the weekend.”
Ryder frowned. “What are you talking about? Back in Atlanta?”
“No. I live here now.”
“Here? In Springfield?” He stepped into her again, pushing her back against the wall with just his invasion of her personal space. “Why? Why would you come here?”
“Because I . . .” She stopped, not finishing her thought. “Does it matter?”
He looked her over, her face, her body, so familiar to him that it hurt. Physically hurt. He’d been so convinced that he’d never see her again that he’d almost forgotten how difficult it was to be in the same space with her and not have the freedom to do something as simple as trace his finger over the curve of her jaw.
“I have a couple of public appearances. For my books.”
Ryder dropped his head a little. He knew about the books, knew that it had been her dream since she was a little girl, a dream that her parents had ridiculed as illogical. He was glad she’d pursued it anyway.
“This neighbor who was murdered, were you close?”
“She was the closest thing I had to a best friend here in Illinois.”
“What about Anna? What about all your friends back in Atlanta? How could you just leave them all behind?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
The elevator slowed, and the doors opened to the lobby. Ryder and Kelly stared at each other as a couple boarded, the man reaching over to press the button for the tech floor. Ryder glared at him, and he took his woman’s hand and led the way off the elevator again. The doors closed and the box began to make its way back up. Ryder reached over and pulled the emergency stop, setting off a silent alarm that would light up the maintenance office.
“I asked you to stay away from me for a reason.”
“I know you did.”
“I’m poison to the people around me, Kel.”
“You’re not.”
Ryder groaned, his eyes dropping from her face once again. Did she know it was killing him to look at her? Did she know that being this close to her, smelling her scent, feeling the heat of her gorgeous body, was destroying every wall he’d put up, every bit of work he’d done these past two years to put her behind him?
“The girl who was murdered, Tracy, looked a little like me, Ryder. She was younger, but she was mixed race like me, had brown eyes like mine, had dark hair like mine. And she set up a profile on Tinder under my name.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She thought she was helping me.” Kelly shook her head even as she studied his eyes, trying to see if there was jealousy there, he guessed. Her gaze dropped after a minute, disappointed she didn’t see what she wanted to see. But that was only because he was intensely careful to hide his emotions. “She was being a friend.”
“That’s stupid, but I don’t see what it has to do with her murder.”
“She was killed the same night she went out on a blind date that was supposed to be for me. She went with a guy she met on the Tinder account she created for me, with this guy who thought she was me.”
“Kelly . . .”
“What if it’s about that kid? What if this is about what happened before?”
Guilt fell onto Ryder’s shoulders like a pile of bricks. He lifted his hand and was inches from touching her when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to. He backed away, physically and emotionally, moving back against the elevator doors to put as much space between them as he could.
“And what if it was just some psycho on Tinder?”
“It could have been. The police are looking into it, but, Ryder, what if it isn’t?”
“Did you tell the police about the Tinder account?”
“They found it on their own. But I was honest about it when they asked.”
“Who’s the lead detective?”
“Dane Hood. He’s been really great about the whole thing, keeping me informed on everything that’s going on.”
Ryder cocked his head slightly. “I know Hood. We’ve worked a couple of cases together.”
And he didn’t like the idea of him being close to Kelly. He was charming, good looking, the kind of guy a scared woman would be more than willing to fall into bed with. And, rumor said, Hood had been more than happy to catch those women when they fell. He’d even heard that he’d hooked up with the mayor’s wife after a series of death threats required his detective skills.
“I don’t want you to investigate this thing. The police have it under control. I just . . . I want you around when I make these public appearances just in case I was the intended victim. Just in case it’s related to what happened back in Atlanta. Maybe, if that’s what’s happening, you could finally put an end to this whole thing.”
“There will never be an end to this thing.”
“At least you and that boy can make peace.”
Ryder shook his head again. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Ryder—”
“But I’ll take your case. I’ll go to these public appearances with you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, clearly relieved. “I promise I won’t be a nuisance.”
Ryder slapped his hand against the button that had stopped the elevator, and it immediately jerked into action. He buried his hands in his pockets and moved back beside her against the back wall.
“When this is over, one way or the other, you have to promise that you’ll keep your distance.”
Kelly nodded. “I never would have come here if it weren’t for Tracy.”
He glanced at her, wondering if that was the truth, or if this was all just a convenient excuse to seek him out. He’d never known Kelly to be a liar, but she did tell lies for a living.
The elevator doors opened before he could figure out a non-offensive way to ask. Durango and Axel were standing in the executive floor lobby, one looking confused, the other pissed. Or maybe they were both confused and that was just what it looked like.
“I’ll take the case,” Ryder announced as he stepped off the elevator behind Kelly.
Axel’s eyebrows rose. “What made you change your mind?”
Ryder shrugged, his hands still deep in his front pockets. He glanced at Kelly, saw that she was watching him. She was letting him take the lead on this. He was grateful for that.
“She’s very persuasive.”
He left it at that, walking off toward the conference room where they would hammer out the details, aware of the eyes on his back. He could feel them almost like a physical touch. But he didn’t owe these people an explanation. He didn’t owe anyone anything. And that was how he liked it.
Chapter 5
Springfield, Illinois
Granny’s Bookstore
Kelly’s hands shook as she sat on a crate of books in the storeroom in the back of the store where she could hear the murmur of voices from those waiting to hear her read a passage from her latest book. It was quite a crowd, the store owner told her. More than a hundred people. The largest turnout they’d ever had for a book reading. And it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, unusual for late February in Illinois. It all seemed like a good omen.
Then why did Kelly feel like she had a target on the center of her chest?
Detective Hood had called that morning and promised that he would have a team of patrol cops in the area, watching out for any sign of trouble. And Ryder, a gun making an obvious bulge in the small of his back, stood off to one side watching all the fuss. She couldn’t believe he was here. It was almost surreal being
in the same room with him after all this time.
She’d seen him many times in the past year. From a distance. She would stand outside the building where he had his apartment and watch him leave early in the morning, heading off to work in the same casual attire he once scoffed at.
People who work in jeans and a t-shirt have no self-respect.
She shopped at the same grocery store where he shopped, went to the same diner where he ate the same hamburger and fries for dinner every Saturday night. She watched, from a distance, saw how alone he was, how lonely he seemed. It spawned this hope deep in her heart that he would one day reach out to her, that he would go back on his ultimatum and love her again. A year was a very long time to wait for such a miracle, and there was never any sign that he would give up his belief that he was only capable of hurting the people closest to him.
But now he was here. If only it hadn’t happened at such a terrible price.
“Ten more minutes, Ms. Hobart.”
“Thank you.”
Kelly stood and paced the small space in the back of the store, her thoughts rushing through her head. What if she stuttered? What if she couldn’t get the words out, or forgot what passage she’d decided to read? What if the crowd didn’t like the passage she chose or understand why she chose that particular set of pages? What if they booed her, walked out and left her alone in that huge room?
“You’re going to be fine,” Ryder said from across the room, his voice flat. Unemotional.
“What?”
“You’re overthinking it.” He didn’t move from his stone-like stance, didn’t even look at her. But he was saying exactly what she needed to hear. “You need to take a deep breath and find your confidence.”
“What would you know about it?”
“I saw you through every speech you had to give in high school, every campaign speech when you ran for student council four years in a row, every oratory class. Even that class you took in college. I know.”
He had. And the fact that he remembered, that he was bringing it up, was a double-edged sword. On the one side, it hurt like hell to remember that fact and to know it was in the past, as in over. On the other side, it was encouraging, a hopeful sign, that he remembered.
Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 40