“Fairfield.”
“Hey, Fairfield. This is Dane Hood. Put Kelly on the phone, would you?”
That was the last voice he’d wanted to hear in this particular moment. “How did you get this number?”
“I’m a detective. It wasn’t that hard.”
“Why don’t you lose it and call her phone.”
“I’ve been calling her. She won’t pick up.”
Ryder glanced across the room to where Kelly had disappeared. There was no sign of her returning.
“Maybe that should tell you something, Hood.”
“And maybe you should just put her on the phone.” There was anger in his voice now, irritation at his mistaken belief that Ryder was keeping him from Kelly. “I need to speak to her.”
“She’s not here at the moment.”
“You’re her fucking bodyguard. Where else would she be?”
“In the restroom. But I’ll have her call you when she comes back.”
Ryder disconnected the phone at the sounds of Hood yelling on the other end.
She wasn’t answering his calls. Ryder wondered what that meant. The two of them had seemed close when they left Springfield. What could have happened in the last twenty-four hours to change that?
And then he realized it could have something to do with the kiss they shared on the balcony. Had she thought that meant something more than it had?
Not even Ryder knew what that’d meant.
Kelly came back; her eyes lowered to avoid meeting his. He got up and pulled out her chair, doing the gentlemanly thing. She didn’t say anything, still wouldn’t look at him.
“I wish you wouldn’t leave,” she said softly as he returned to his seat.
“I’m making you unhappy.”
She groaned. “You’ve got to stop making yourself responsible for the way I feel. I’m responsible for my own feelings, Ryder.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to stay because, despite everything, I know you, and I trust you. I wouldn’t trust some stranger.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll stay?”
He inclined his head. “I’ll stay.”
She nodded. “Good. Because I called your mother, and she expects you to call her in the morning.”
What was there to say to that? He lowered his head and stared at his food, unable to hide the smile that slowly made itself irresistible. He should be mad. He should be incredibly mad. But she’d forced his hand just like she always used to do, and it felt familiar. It felt good.
He’d never realized how much he missed having someone to take care of him.
Chapter 15
Chicago, Illinois
Barnes & Noble Bookstore
“Kira is my favorite fictional character ever!” a middle-aged woman said as she set her book down in front of Kelly. “I love this book! I can’t wait for the next one to come out!”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Will Kira and Ollie make it to the end?”
“I certainly hope so. But you never know.”
The woman laughed, the excitement in her eyes was unmistakable.
Kelly sometimes couldn’t believe how seriously some people took her books. To her, the characters were alive, and they had full lives. But she had never met so many people who felt the same way, especially not people who felt that way about people she’d made up in her head, people who had full lives on notes on her computer, half of which never made it to the published page. Kelly knew these people in and out. It was logical that they would seem real to her. But other people? She still found it amazing.
She wondered if that was how her favorite writers, Stephen King and Dean Koontz, felt. Were they just as puzzled about their fans obsession as she was? But, again, they’d been around a long time, and they wrote much more intense novels than her little dystopian things.
The middle-aged woman moved on, and someone else took her place. Kelly signed a good twenty or thirty books in less than an hour, and her hand was beginning to cramp. She paused to rub her injured wrist, her eyes moving lazily over the crowd. And then she spotted a face she never thought she’d see again.
Suddenly, the sight of Tracy’s bruised and beaten body filled her mind.
“Ryder!”
He was standing behind her, his arms over his chest as he surveyed the crowd. At the sound of his name on her lips, he leaned close, his hand resting on her shoulder.
“Something wrong?”
“Jordan Alvarez’s brother is here.”
Confusion crossed his expression briefly, but then something like understanding dawned. He straightened and looked over the crowd, his eyes stopping on the dark expression of a twenty-something kid standing at the back of the room. He immediately took Kelly’s arm and pulled her out of her chair, leading her toward the back of the store to the boos of the rest of her fans waiting in line.
“What’s the problem?” the store manager asked, more annoyed than anything else.
“We need to get her out of here. There’s a man in the store who might mean her harm.”
The manager stepped back as though the danger was contagious or something. “I’ll contact our security guy.”
“Why don’t you just clear out the store. Tell everyone she’s not feeling well and needs to go.”
“Of course.”
The manager left, leaving Ryder and Kelly alone. Ryder came to her and gently touched her cheek. “You okay?”
She wasn’t. The last time she’d seen Jared Alvarez he was hurling insults at her as he drove passed her house. That was just after the miscarriage, right before Ryder left.
She’d always assumed that was part of the reason Ryder had left.
“Why is he here?”
“I don’t know. But he’s not coming near you.”
She nodded, leaning her forehead on his chest for a moment. But then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to touch him. She stepped back, turning away from him because the sight of him made her resolve weaken.
They waited in a small break room for nearly a half hour before a man in a dark security uniform knocked on the door and informed them they could go. Ryder’s SUV was parked by the back door, so they were able to get out of there without seeing anyone else. Once they were in the safety of the vehicle, however, Kelly began to feel guilty for leaving her fans in a lurch.
“Do you think we can reschedule?”
Ryder glanced at her like she was insane. “No. You have six more appearances this week. If those people can’t make it to another one, they don’t want your autograph that badly.”
“Maybe.”
“Keeping you safe is our priority. That boy being there put that in peril. You shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to be safe.”
“I know you’re right, I just . . . He didn’t look menacing.”
“Your neighbor was murdered three floors below you. Everyone looks menacing to me, especially a boy who made clear threats to you two years ago.”
“How did he even know how to find me?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll make some phone calls and find out.”
Kelly turned to look out the window, watching as the city flashed by beyond the safety of the vehicle. She didn’t feel the tension radiating off Ryder at first, perhaps because she was still so tense. But she finally saw the tendons in his jaw bulging the way they did when he was struggling with something.
“What?” she asked.
“I saw him earlier today.”
“What?”
“I saw him at your first appearance this morning. I didn’t recognize him, and I thought he was just there to flirt with one of the cashiers.”
“Ryder!”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“No . . .” Kelly dug her fingers under her braid and scratched at her scalp. “It’s not your fault. I almost didn’t realize who it was at first, either.”
“I should have known. I shouldn’t have let you go to that second reading.”
“Why did he come to both?”
Ryder glanced over at her, but he didn’t have anything to say to that. She didn’t have an answer, either. At least, not one that set her mind at ease.
They pulled up to the hotel a few minutes later. Ryder parked in the covered driveway, handing his keys off to the valet. He took Kelly’s hand, and it didn’t occur to her to argue. The adrenaline was wearing off, and she was plain scared now. She wasn’t sure she’d feel better after they got to the suite but knew it would feel better than being down here in the open.
They were crossing the lobby when a familiar face suddenly appeared; hands held up as he approached.
“I only want to talk.”
Ryder pulled Kelly behind him, holding her close, but protecting her with the bulk of his body.
“Why are you here? How did you know where we were staying?”
Jared Alvarez was calm and confident as he answered. “I have a friend who works the front desk here. He told me you were staying here and gave me a copy of your public appearances, Mrs. Fairfield. I just . . . I’ve wanted to speak to the two of you for a long time, and I couldn’t believe my luck, finding out you were visiting my adopted hometown.”
The last statement piqued Kelly’s curiosity. She peeked her head around Ryder’s arm even though he tried to hold her back. “You’ve moved out of Atlanta?”
“Last year. I came here to go to school.”
“You’re attending college here?” she asked even as Ryder turned into her and tried to push her behind him again.
“I am.”
“That’s amazing!”
The boy smiled, a crooked smile that reminded Kelly of the picture the press repeatedly put in the newspaper of Jared’s brother, Jordan. It was a high school yearbook picture, and he was smiling that crooked smile that made him look like the most innocent boy on the face of the earth. Barely ten months younger than his brother, Jared looked a lot like Jordan. They could have been twins back then, but there were subtle differences now. Jared was fuller in the face now, and taller than his brother had been. And he had a sort of wisdom about his face that Jordan had lacked.
“I owe it to you, Mr. Fairfield,” he said, the smile disappearing as he focused on Ryder. “If it weren’t for the money you send my mom, I never could have left home.”
It was Kelly’s turn to look sharply at Ryder. His expression was dark, unexpressive. A mask that hid what was really going on underneath.
“He’s been sending money?”
“Since the beginning. If not for him, Mom would never have been able to pay the medical bills or for the physical therapist who comes a couple of times a week to help Jordan learn how to walk and talk again.”
“How is he doing?”
Jared tilted his head slightly to one side. “They say he’ll never fully recover. But he’s learning to take care of himself again.”
“That’s good.”
Ryder shook his head. “It’s not good. Good would be if he’d never been shot in the first place.” He let go of Kelly and stepped into Jared, pushing him back even as he twisted one of his arms behind his back. “Why are you stalking her? Why were you at her appearances?”
“I just wanted to talk!”
“Were you in Springfield two weeks ago? Did you stalk her on Tinder?”
“No!” Jared’s face brightened with shock and fear. “Of course not!”
“Ryder,” Kelly said sharply, moving up behind him to tug at his arm, “he’s not capable of hurting anyone. Can’t you see that?”
Ryder brushed her off with a little shrug, but he studied Jared’s face, studied the emotion dancing over his face like a cartoon image dancing on a movie screen. He stepped back as suddenly as he stepped into the boy, letting him go and brushing his hands over his pants before crossing his arms over his chest.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Jared’s eyes fell to the floor. He was quiet for a long moment, but then he looked up, focusing on Ryder first, but then his eyes resting on Kelly’s face, a plea clear in them.
“I just want to talk. I’d like to apologize for some of the things that happened after the shooting. To tell you I was wrong.”
Ryder shook his head, but Kelly slid her hand through the crook of his arm. “Hear him out,” she said softly.
Ryder resisted a moment longer. She could feel the vibration of tension in his arm, but then he nodded. He tilted his head toward the bar set off to one side of the lobby. The three of them took a table toward the back and ordered a round of beers for the guys, a glass of wine for Kelly. For a long few minutes, they sat and stared at each other, lost in the oddity of their companionship.
“What are you majoring in?” Kelly finally asked Jared.
“Computer programming.”
She smiled. “That’s good. You’ll do well at that.”
He returned her smile, a touch of pride shining in his eyes. “My math teacher back in Atlanta said the same thing. Said that I could always fall back on accounting, but she thought computers were definitely my thing.”
“Good.”
Kelly had taught a lot of boys like Jared in her short time as a high school English teacher. She could see ambition written all over him when he talked about school, knew he would do well. Boys like him couldn’t help but find success.
“You on scholarship?” Ryder asked.
“Yes, sir. A full ride.”
Ryder lifted his beer and took a healthy slug before setting it back down, his hands moving slowly over the sides of the slick glass like it was a woman’s body. He wouldn’t look up, had no interest in looking Jared in the eye. It made Kelly a little sad to see the resistance, the pain this boy’s presence created for him. She wished it didn’t have to be so hard.
“I know you don’t know me well,” Jared finally said. “We lived in different parts of the city, had different lives. We should never have met.”
But they had. At the hospital. Kelly sat with his mother for more than an hour, held her hand while they waited for news on Jordan. His brother, Jensen, was there, pacing the length of the waiting room. And Jared. He sat beside Kelly and told her about school, talked about a dozen things that strangers tell each other in a stressful situation. He was fifteen at the time, a frightened little boy who was scared to death of losing his brother. He was an eighteen-year-old man now, living on his own for the first time. It was like night and day.
“I was filled with hatred after everything went down because Jordan was my whole world back then.” Jared lifted his beer but didn’t actually drink any of it before setting it back down. “Jensen was so much older than us, and he had a full-time job, so it was always just me and Jordan. He was the man I looked up to, the man I wanted to be someday. When it all happened, when we learned that he would likely never wake up from the coma he’d been in, I was pissed. I wanted to hurt the person I thought was to blame for everything.” Jared glanced at Ryder, but Ryder’s head was turned down. He couldn’t see much more than the top of his head.
“It must have been awful,” Kelly said, prompting him to continue.
Jared nodded, his eyes gratefully moving over Kelly. “I’m sorry for the things I did. The words we yelled at you, and the things we said to the press. The baseballs through your windows.”
“That was you?”
Jared shrugged. “Like I said, I was really angry.”
“Is that why we’re here?” Ryder suddenly asked, his eyes snapping with emotion when he looked over at Jared. “Are you here to take more revenge on us? Do you think we haven’t suffered enough?”
“No, sir!” Jared held up his hands as though to show he had no weapon. “I wanted to apologize. What we did was wrong. We shouldn’t have taken our anger out on you!”
“Why not? I shot your brother!”
Jared nodded. “But only after he shot you.” He reached for the backpack he’d been wearing that he’d sat on the seat beside him. He pulled out a file folder and set it on
the table, pushing it toward Ryder. “A year ago, I went to the district attorney to ask him why he hadn’t charged you. He gave me a copy of the investigator’s files, told me that if I still wanted you charged after I looked at that, he’d resign his position and introduce me to his replacement.”
Ryder didn’t respond. He simply picked up his beer and took another drink.
Kelly picked up the file and opened it, her heart aching when the first thing she saw was a photograph of Ryder the night of the shooting. He was naked from the waist up, a bruise the size of a softball visible in the center of his chest. It was the mark left behind when Jordan’s bullet lodge in his Kevlar vest. A bruise that could have been a fatal wound, but wasn’t.
She lifted the picture and looked through the papers behind it, read little snippets here and there, most of it information she already knew.
Suspect, Jordan Alvarez, a member of the Sureños, was transporting a kilo of cocaine when he was pulled over by Officer Ryder Fairfield for failing to signal a turn. Alvarez, afraid his vehicle would be searched and he’d be caught with the drugs, pulled a weapon from under the driver’s side seat. He fired twice upon Officer Fairfield’s return to the car after running a check on Alvarez’s license and firing a third time hitting Fairfield in the chest as Fairfield pulled his gun. Exercising caution, Fairfield fired a single shot into Alvarez’s arm and gained control of the gun. Fairfield then performed first aid and called for an ambulance to transport Alvarez to the hospital. Fairfield did not inform responding officers of his own injuries until Officer Ingram noticed the bullet hole on the front of his uniform shirt and insisted he be checked out by responding paramedics.
“He was a gang banger?”
Jared nodded. “It was new. He’d only joined the gang a few weeks before it all went down. That’s why the drugs. They were testing him.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 49