Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  “So what happened?” Lisa spoke to Jerry.

  “You know Alex is...or was, a friend of mine. Used to pass by and we would talk for hours, besides buying heaps of computer accessories for his company. He was in charge of purchases. I used to visit his place too: lived with his sister in a place off West 25th. She’s really taken this hard, the poor thing. It seems he was found lying on the back seat of his car, dead! Shot on the forehead.”

  “Oh my God!” Lisa held the sides of her face in a shocked daze. “That is terrible.”

  “I called you because Alex seemed to be very interested in you. Every time he saw you around this place he would pester me to suggest great pick-up lines, always checking you out, but you never seemed to notice him. Over the last one week, he seemed to have decided he had to meet you by all means...even seemed to know you were an Oceanview Marymount Campus student, the time you attended classes and when you left...”

  “He said a friend told him all that,” Lisa said.

  “Maybe this friend knows you…maybe she or he is a friend of yours. I can’t imagine him saying ‘I’m sorry but I’ve been kinda stalking you.’ I don’t like the stalker syndrome, so I told him to man up and tell you his obsessions if he ever met you. He said he had you on the radar and I said I wouldn’t be dragged into those things.”

  Lisa frowned. “So the meeting at the Snack King was planned...seems he had been watching me. Detestable, but not too bad. But this changes the whole thing, Jerry. I suppose that is a case for the police.”

  “They took the body away. I will be visiting his sister later today. Not the ideal visit, but it’s got to be done.”

  Lisa drove back home, thinking hard. She wished Alex had not been acting so weird, stalking her, and somehow getting her involved in this. Should he talk to an LAPD officer about it? Suppose they found out that she had spent some minutes with Alex? She banged her fist on the steering wheel, angry with Alex for dragging her into this mess. She was sorry that he was dead, but angry that he had gotten her, however remotely, involved.

  Lisa had just parked the car when she heard the sound of her ringtone. She pulled her phone out of her pocket where she preferred to keep it and glanced at the number, and then dropped the phone with a scream. It was Alex’s number! The phone had fallen on the grass where Lisa stood outside the garage, and was still ringing. Could this be his sister? Who on earth could be calling her?

  Finally the phone went silent. Jo appeared at the door. “What’s going on, Lisa? Have you seen a ghost? Did you just scream?”

  Lisa stared at Jo, then at her phone, her eyes looking scared and wide. She was breathing hard.

  Jo joined her.

  The phone beeped like it did when a new message came in. Lisa picked it up with a shaking hand, and saw that it was indeed a new message seemingly from Alex. “But he’s dead,” she said in a whisper.

  “Oh, please don’t,” Jo said. “I’m tough as iron but some things give me the creeps. I don’t want calls and messages from the dead.”

  Curiosity got the better of Lisa. She read the message. “Lisa, I’d like to meet you. It’s about Alex. He was my boyfriend.”

  Lisa sighed with relief. “That’s much better than a call from a dead Alex.”

  She dialed the number. A woman’s voice spoke. “Hello. Lisa? My name is Stacy. Please meet me at the Snack King at seven-thirty P.M. tonight. Just meeting Alex’s friends...”

  “Listen to me!” Lisa snapped. “I’m very sorry about Alex. Actually I met him on Friday and I didn’t know him before that, but apparently he had seen me before in my place of work. I’m sorry Stacy, but I can’t help you. Why are you meeting his friends?”

  “I want to find out if Alex said anything that can help know why this happened to him.”

  “Trust me I met him for the first and last time at Snack King on Friday afternoon, and that was for about ten minutes. He found me there and recognized me. And I don’t think playing police is a good idea.” Even as she said this, Lisa thought of her uncle Coleman, who considered himself an expert in security matters and had rigged the front of the house and the gate with cameras and a central screen linking his cameras, and often said that he saw no reason to hire a security company for security or bother the police if they ever needed some surveillance work. She thought he had read too many spy thrillers.

  “Apparently you already know he’s dead,” Stacy said in her amazingly calm voice. Then Lisa heard her speak as if to somebody else. “Her name is Lisa Coleman.”

  “I traced the call,” a male voice spoke.

  Lisa felt a chill up her spine. Who were these people? Alex’s murderers? What on earth did they want from her?

  “What’s going on? Are you in trouble?” Jo seemed to be very concerned, and well she might.

  “I could be in serious trouble, and I don’t know why. It seems they know my name and even traced the call here.”

  “Oh, no...this is beyond scary,” Jo said. “I’m calling the police. Let me speak to Mr Coleman.”

  “Is he home?” Lisa exclaimed.

  “Arrived just after you left.”

  Lisa and Jo walked into her uncle’s study room. She hugged her uncle, who seemed very pleased to see her. He was dressed in grey pants and a grey half-coat, an orange tie and a white shirt.

  “Good to see you dressed like that for once, Uncle!” Lisa said, smiling.

  “Yes, I don’t want everybody staring at me when I’m the only man dressed in shorts on the plane or at the conference. What’s been happening?”

  “Say what? Plenty...scary stuff.” Lisa told him the whole story, starting with the meeting with Alex and the stalking background behind the meeting. She ended with the call she had just received. As usual Uncle Coleman was a bit too cool for words.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “Shakes and Shivers!” Jo exclaimed. “I didn’t know it was that bad! You have had a stalker all this long and you did not even tell me? Mr Coleman, I don’t know what you think, but I think it’s the perfect time to call the police!”

  Coleman rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think that’s a good idea!”

  “Kings and Queens!” Jo exclaimed again. “You do not think it’s a good idea to call the police when Lisa’s life is in obvious danger?”

  “Lisa may have been compromised,” Coleman said.

  “Compromised!” This time Lisa and Jo spoke in unison.

  “Look at it this way,” Coleman said. “First, this person has been stalking her, and she knows it, and didn’t report it. I don’t blame her; she probably thought it was a stupid boy with a creepy behavior, but it seems it wasn’t that. Of course you are not under obligation to know that you are being stalked or to spot your stalker. The problem is that they met, and there were witnesses. But still, that doesn’t prove anything. Stalkers sometimes give themselves away through notebooks, phone messages, movements, etcetera, but only to a person who is actively seeking out the stalker. Give me all the details you have about Alex and we’ll give the police a call, Lisa.”

  What happened by noon was that Stacy had been traced through Alex’s phone, something she should have been smart enough to know could give her away.

  Two officers arrived in a squad car, and the officer named Donovan was now saying:

  “We have a location. That is where Alex’s phone is, anyway. Whether this woman is there or not, we don’t know. I will trace the last ten numbers that have been active on Alex’s phone for the last week, and we might get some data on this Stacy of yours.”

  “She’s not my Stacy,” Lisa argued. “I have a feeling she and I would never be good friends.”

  “The only females on Alex’s callers’ list are Claire Reed and Allison Dixon. Really? Allison Dixon?”

  “Allison Dixon!” Jo exclaimed. “Is her mother a poet or something? What kind of a name is Allison Dixon?”

  “Forget Allison Dixon,” Lisa smiled. “Yes, that’s her real name and she’s a sweet b
lond girl working at Yours Digitally, Uncle. The rhyme on the name sounds cool, I think.”

  “Cool, Miss? I reserve my comments,” Donovan growled. “So we were able to pull the list of Alex’s contacts in the last seven days. Police record...positive! Jail-time...a five year stretch between 2004 and 2009, and a ten-month stretch in 2012. The idea that this could be your Stacy is getting more and more likely. But would she shoot your stalker dead? She has accomplices, and the scary thing is that they are able to trace your location.”

  “But, Officer,” Coleman pointed out, “in these days of google maps, GPS and caller identity apps, why is it a big deal to trace your contact’s location?”

  “You have a point,” Officer O’Brien admitted. “But we aren’t taking chances, sir. They may have more sophisticated locator equipment than smartphones and the like, which would make them very dangerous. She’s probably an amateur, or she wouldn’t be calling people she thinks are connected to Alex using that phone. And something else, her five-year prison term had something to do with involvement with drug-running. Cocaine. Coke. Crack. Same thing.”

  “Oh, I didn’t even know those three referred to essentially the same thing,” Lisa gaped. “Those nicknames make it sound less harmful, you know.”

  “It depends on the form of cocaine it is in. Crack is the kind of cocaine that can be inhaled by smoking.”

  “To get a mere five years she must have been remotely involved, but involved all the same,” Coleman said. “I think some traffickers get much more than that. So, does it mean Alex was involved?”

  Lisa shivered. “At this rate I’m going to be involved in this,” she said, covering her face with her hands.

  “That boy, rest his soul, had no business stalking you like that!” Jo snapped. “Suppose he had some notes or photos that the police can find that leads to Lisa? Some muddle-headed infatuated people do the most stupid things. Then the police will be after my baby!”

  “Ex-baby,” Lisa corrected. “You are my ex-nanny and I’m your ex-baby.”

  ***

  The time was twenty past seven P.M. the following day, and according to Sergeant Wash, he was now off-duty and that is why he had accepted Professor Coleman’s offer to help the professor empty a huge flask of coffee that Jo had placed on the glass table at the end of the dimly-lit patio. Lisa sat with them but was not drinking anything. She said she didn’t want to be “sidetracked” before dinner!

  A lot was said at the table as Sergeant Wash and the professor had known each other for years, but the words the reader might be interested to know about were:

  “So Claire Reed and her accomplice Rooky have been arrested again,” Sergeant Wash said. “But this time she might be in for life. This ties in with a case we’ve been working on for eighteen months. It involves packets of coke smuggled through the Mexican border through a four-hundred-yard tunnel starting on the Mexican side. They also smuggle grass - marijuana to you – to the United States, but coke is their main focus. Claire and Rooky are just two of the smaller fish, but we really needed a lead to the big fish here. They target young men who seem to be hard-up for money and do not live a very social lifestyle, and Alex fitted right in. Both Claire and Rooky have been yelling themselves hoarse about having absolutely nothing to do with Alex’s murder. But the phone records give them away as far as the coke business and the connection with Alex is concerned. Alex seemed to be obsessed with you, Lisa, but Claire and Rooky do not seem to even know who you are. I think the young man was just obsessed with you. Apparently he sent a text to Claire demanding his payment and referring to her as his handler who should know where his cut is coming from, and if she doesn’t act and follow up his money from the powers that be, he will spill his guts to the cops. Something to that effect. May be enough to hang those two. But this is a small case in a big case.”

  “You call a murder a ‘small case’, Sergeant Wash?” There was disapproval in Lisa’s voice.

  Sergeant Wash smiled. “Before you claw my face, you need to know that we work systematically. We want to bust an entire drug trafficking ring, and though we knew their operations, we didn’t know the big guys, and the little guys are so stubborn you wouldn’t believe it. Sometimes it’s better to wait for the little guys to lead us to the big guys and give us a rope to hang the big guys with instead of just arresting the little guys. They are ready to spend ten years behind bars without mentioning any names. The communication secrecy is unbelievable, including no phone-to-phone communication with the bigger fish. The passwords and street words used to refer to each gang’s activities is a nightmare to any detective. I’m sorry about your friend.” He patted Lisa on the shoulder comfortingly.

  “He was not really a friend,” Lisa said. “But I’m really sorry for him. He was enticed by those criminals.”

  “Enticed!” Jo, who had come to the table to ask the sergeant to stay for dinner, exclaimed. “Enticed indeed! Chile, there are thousands of legal ways a young man can make money without involving himself with drugs or traffickers, and enticement is the sorriest excuse I have ever heard in my life!”

  June 2016

  Lisa had a call from Detective Ray at eight-thirty that evening, and Nick happened to be at her place. “Lisa Coleman? Detective Ray here. We spoke to your boyfriend’s ex, and she has promised to back off. We don’t expect any more trouble from her. I told her to sort out her issues with her former boyfriend…that is, your boyfriend.”

  “Thank you, Officer. It’ll be nice not to hear her voice again.”

  Ray chuckled and hung up. Lisa had no interest in knowing Kayla’s current address: as long as she had promised to keep off, that was good enough. And what good could confronting her physically do except drag her and her drama back into Nick’s life?

  She had just told Nick that she had no intention of allowing him to spend the night. “For goodness’ sake, Nick, we have just had a sexual roller-coaster ride and if you spend the night here you’ll want a second helping in the morning before dawn, and that’s not my style. You tempt me in the morning and I fall for the ride, and I will not have it.”

  “And what’s gonna happen when we move in together?”

  “Hmmm…maybe we shouldn’t,” Lisa said slyly. “Anyway, if that happens I can tie you to the bed every night to curb your morning mischief. I know you start by stroking my ever-sensitive neck.”

  “Hey, you are kidding, right? If you don’t move in with me I’ll kidnap you.”

  Nick left about fifteen minutes later, but called her again at five past ten P.M.

  “Lisa, I don’t know if that stalker ex got on my nerves, but as I drove home a Jeep was on my tail almost all the way. When I drove faster, this guy drove faster. When I slowed down, he did. Not sure if I imagined it, but I guess my senses are a little bit alert after that Kayla stalking behavior.”

  Lisa frowned. “Why on earth would anybody trail your car, Nick? This is not a movie. Are you trying to say that you should have slept here, in your own words?”

  “I’m serious…that driver was acting weird. I even drove away from the home route and made three turns and he still followed me. He vanished as I headed towards the Ocean Boulevard again and I didn’t see him anymore.”

  “Probably a thug who might have wanted to rob you. But you probably didn’t get his number, right?”

  “I didn’t, and it’s useless to tell them a Navy-blue Jeep Renegade was following me. The guy never got close enough for me to get his number, no matter how much I slowed down.”

  “Do you think Kayla could be the owner of a dark-blue Jeep?”

  “I doubt. Last time I knew she had a Chevrolet Spark that she loved probably more than she loved me. You think Kayla could start tailing my car only hours after getting a warning from the police and being read the possible legal acts involved?”

  “She would have to have incredible guts. She’d have to be crazy.”

  “Crazy ain’t strong enough. She’d have to be a f… lunatic.”

  �
��Keep your windows shut and move your settee against the door of your house, Nick.”

  “You are laughing at my jittery ways.”

  Lisa laughed. “I’m sure the Jeep phantom will never bother you again. The worst I can think of is that Kayla has hired a private detective to shadow you now that she has grown cold feet after cops called on her.”

  “You are possibly a genius, Lisa. You could be right.”

  “Good night, Nick. The positive side is somebody loves you enough to do all that.”

  “Would you do that for me?” Nick asked.

  “You mean stalk you and stuff? I love you very much, Nick, but in a sane way. Your ex loves you in an insane way. Trust me, sane is much better.”

  “As usual, your answer is faultless, my gal. Good night, my lovely.”

  “Good night, my only.”

  But Lisa dreamt that she and Nick were being chased by a huge ten-foot high blue Jeep Renegade before their car went over the cliff towards the rocks below, and she woke up sweating and shaking. It was half past two A.M.

  She dialed Nick’s number. After several rings he spoke: “Come on, Lisa. This is why we should move in together. Calling me at two-thirty A.M.!”

  “Damn you, Nick. Why did you have to tell me about the Jeep? I just had a horrible nightmare.”

  “Sorry, baby. Play some soft music and go back to sleep. Nothing like a silent house to induce nightmares and a stressful, sleepless night.”

  Lisa was listening to the third song from her R&B collection when she fell asleep again.

  ***

  It was the next day, Wednesday, after work. Lisa had left her car at the office and Nick had driven her to the Snack King, and they were leaving at half past seven to head for Nick’s home. “And let’s agree, my lovely, that you won’t demand to be driven home at ten P.M. but are going to spend the night. I’ll stay away from your neck in the morning,” he promised.

  Lisa laughed. “Well, based on that promise, I agree. I don’t want mysterious Jeeps chasing you on your way back.”