Always Watching

by Lynette Eason

  “Shot with, you mean.”

  Her gaze sharpened on him. “What do you mean?”

  “It was a dart. I remember pulling it out, then dropping it as my legs gave out.”

  “Nothing like that was found near you.” She narrowed her eyes and Wade thought he could see her brain spinning. “That’s why she was stooped down beside you,” Olivia murmured. “She was cleaning up after herself. She—or he—took the dart with her. I’m still not sure if it was a woman or a man.” Olivia pulled over into a restaurant parking lot and put the car in park although she left it running. She picked her phone up. “‘Propofol is the generic name for Diprivan, an anesthetic that causes unconsciousness.’” She shot him a look. “Guess we knew that. ‘It’s mostly used in surgeries and administered by IV. It’s fast acting, but short-lived. Meaning in order for the patient to stay unconscious, it has to be monitored and a steady dosage maintained in the bloodstream.’”

  Wade nodded. “The doctor seemed to think the side effects would wear off in a few hours. He said to give it twenty-four hours from the time of the injection for it to be totally out of my system.” He shook his head. “Who would have access to that kind of thing? I wouldn’t think it would be that easy to get ahold of that kind of drug. It would have to be obtained by someone in the medical field, right?”

  “That would be my first thought.”

  She pulled back out and merged with the traffic. Five minutes later, she pulled into his drive. “You have a nice place.”

  “You mean you haven’t been out here watching?” He couldn’t help the edge of sarcasm.

  “Yes, I’ve been here.” Either she didn’t notice the sarcasm or she didn’t let it bother her. He had a feeling it was the latter. “Maddy, Haley, and Katie are the ones who’ve been doing most of the watching.”

  “Why not you?” He tempered his tone. No need to take his frustration out on her.

  She shot him a grim smile. “I also have other duties that demand my time, but now that Maddy’s fighting for her life, I’ll be taking a much more active role in guarding you, while we work to figure out who attacked you.”

  She pulled around to the back, past the wrought iron gate he’d left open, and up under the covered area. To the left was the main house. To the right, the three-car garage complete with guest home on the second floor. In front, a second wrought iron gate stood open, allowing him to drive through and around to the front of his home without having to back the car out of the driveway.

  She’d definitely been here before. How had he not known? How had they watched him and he’d never known it?

  And yet he’d known someone was watching him last night. He remembered the sense of evil and felt chills pebble his skin. He reached for the door handle as his father pulled in beside him.

  “We’ll probably need to keep these gates closed. It would be hard work to get into your house that way. Keeping this entrance sealed means lessening the risk of someone entering.”

  “I usually just leave them open all the time. But we can keep them closed now.” He started to open the door.

  “Will you please stay in the car?”

  He hesitated. “Why?”

  “Katie’s going to check the area.” She spoke into her phone and motioned for his father to stay in his vehicle as well. His father nodded.

  Then she simply waited.

  Wade released the handle. He thought it all ridiculous and yet he couldn’t deny what had happened in the wee hours of the morning. He also couldn’t deny the gifts he’d been getting. So he stayed silent.

  She left the car running and the air conditioner blasting. Late August in the South meant hot muggy days. He tried to see his place through her eyes and felt a sense of satisfaction dart through him. A little bit of pride, but mostly gratefulness. He didn’t want to take his good fortune for granted.

  Thanks to his mother’s lucrative career as an actress in the late 1970s to early ’80s, he lived comfortably. His father had set him up with a trust fund after her death. At the age of twenty-one, he received access to the money and had built this house on the small private lake just outside the city limits. He’d always found it a refuge. Peaceful and quiet. He had neighbors, but they were spread out, separated by strategically placed greenery.

  He grimaced. At least it used to seem peaceful. Now his home just looked like an easy target.

  “Do you have any clients today?” Olivia asked.

  “Not today. I work Monday through Thursday in my office and do the radio show Thursday through Sunday.” He shot her a look. “I thought you would know that.”

  “I do, but you’re not exactly the most predictable client we’ve ever had.” He supposed that was true. He often got calls from clients asking for last-minute appointments or met some of his friends from the radio station for coffee if he received an impromptu text or phone call. “And honestly, that’s one of the best things you can do,” she said. “Don’t be predictable. Predictable will get you killed.” She glanced at the door as though impatient for Katie to hurry up.

  “You tell it like it is, don’t you? No dancing around the topic with you, huh?”

  She shot him a surprised glance, then shrugged. “It depends on the person, the client’s personality.” She studied him for moment. “However, you’re not a ‘dancing’ type of client. You shoot straight when you can and pull your punches when the person you’re talking to needs it. You prefer to meet conflict head-on—especially when the conflict is personal. Like you, I adjust my way of talking to the personality of my clients.”

  He flexed his jaw. She was right. And it was just plain creepy. How had she read him so easily? Just exactly how much did she know about him anyway? Did she know about Justine? Of course she did. As soon as his father had hired her agency, his past was an open book. His jaw tightened at the invasion of his private life. “You sure know a lot about me.”

  Her gaze softened a fraction. “I’m sorry. It’s what we do, Wade. The information we have is only used to keep you safe, nothing else.”

  “So tell me something about you.”

  She looked away and he wondered if she would answer. Finally she shrugged. “Like I said, my life was pretty boring. I was raised in a series of foster homes. I graduated high school at the top of my class and went to the University of South Carolina on a full-ride scholarship. Which was a good thing because I sure couldn’t afford anything else. I majored in criminal justice, graduated, and went straight into the police academy at the ripe old age of twenty-one.”

  Wade blinked. “Foster homes. Wow.”

  “That’s all you got from that paragraph?”

  “How did you turn out so well?” He coughed. “Um . . . that didn’t come out right.”

  She gave him a small smile. “I understand. A lot of foster kids don’t turn out great, but I was fortunate. I had some good homes, some great foster parents. The last one was the best and I was there for six years.”

  “Six years?”

  “When they took me in, I was treated as one of theirs. There was no bias between their biological children and their foster children.”

  “So they’re your family?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Where are your biological parents?”

  Sadness flickered in her eyes, then was gone so fast he wondered if he’d imagined it. “They were killed in a small plane crash when I was ten. Both of them were only children of deceased parents, so there wasn’t anyone who could—or would—take me in.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  “But your last foster parents didn’t adopt you?”

  Olivia shook her head. “No.” A guarded tension came over her, and he bit his tongue on asking why, but she finally volunteered the answer. “They wanted to. They weren’t the problem. I was.”

  He studied her. “You didn’t want to be adopted?”

  “No.” She hesitated again. “I did, but I . . . didn’t. I stil
l had a strong connection to my parents.” She took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t accept that they were gone for good.”

  “Didn’t you go to the funerals?”

  “Yes, but . . .” She shrugged and looked away, then cleared her throat. “So Maddy’s told me a little about your charity,” she said. “I think it’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

  He nodded. Allowed the change of subject even while his mind processed what she’d revealed. “Thanks. After my late wife took off, I had a huge adjustment to single parenthood. Amy was just a baby at the time, but her mother’s abandonment and eventual death still had an effect on her. On us.”

  “Of course it did.”

  “I wanted to help parents and kids who found themselves in that situation. Fortunately, I had a father and the funds to make things easier on me. The majority of single parents don’t have that. This charity makes a difference for them.”

  “It’s a much-needed organization. I applaud you for founding it.” Her eyes never stopped moving. He knew she was listening to him, but her alert status never wavered. For some reason that comforted him. Made his respect for her slide up a notch.

  She held up a finger when her phone rang.

  “Put it on speaker, will you?” he said.

  She lifted a brow but did so.

  “I have something, Liv,” Katie said, her voice strong and concerned. “Let me finish clearing the house.”

  “What is it?”

  “Someone left a gift on the front steps.”

  Olivia glanced at him and Wade narrowed his eyes. “What kind of gift?” she asked.

  “A package. Stay put until I know whether or not it’s rigged to go boom.”

  [8]

  Wade flinched. “Go boom?” He sat, tension threading through every muscle. He could feel his heart beating in his temples and had to remind himself to breathe.

  It seemed like hours before Katie’s voice came back on the line. “The house is clear, you might as well come around to the front porch and see it. One thing I do know: it’s not going to go boom.”

  “Well, that’s a comfort,” Wade muttered. In the rearview mirror, he saw his sister-in-law pull in behind him with Amy and Amy’s friend Stacy Abbott. He’d forgotten all about Stacy staying the weekend.

  He climbed from the vehicle, anxious to see what his stalker had left. He was grateful Olivia didn’t try to stop him from entering the house, she just followed him.

  Into her phone, she spoke to someone else. “Keep everyone out of the house for the moment. Did you check the guest house where the sister-in-law lives?” She cut the speakerphone off and listened. Spoke again. “Good. I’ll let you know when it’s clear to allow them to come in.”

  At the door, Wade paused and glanced back at his daughter. The frown on her pretty young face said she wanted to know what was going on and would pit bull him until he told her. She might have anxiety issues, but she also had her fair share of his stubborn genes. He sighed. And maybe it was time to talk to her. This whole situation seemed to be snowballing at a rate that would bury them all under an avalanche of danger if he didn’t do something to figure out who was stalking him and put a stop to it.

  He stepped inside the short hallway. To his right was a room his sister-in-law often used for scrapbooking and other craftwork. To his left was his office. He bypassed that and his dining room and stepped into the foyer. He opened the front door and found the person Olivia had been talking to. Katie. She was bent over an object on his front porch.

  His father had pulled around to the left side of the horseshoe-shaped drive while Wade had been distracted with Olivia and the call. The man now stood next to Katie, his eyes on whatever she was also looking at.

  His father’s pasty-white face sent dread skittering through Wade, but he didn’t falter in his steps. He wanted to know. Had to know.

  Katie sat on the top step, looking down into a box that probably measured three feet long by two feet wide. It wasn’t the box itself that caused his breathing to quicken, but the shape.

  He skidded to a stop. “Seriously? A coffin?” His heart thudded, beating a painful, heavy rhythm in his chest. “How do you know it’s not going to ‘go boom’?” He identified another emotion surging through him. Anger. Pure white-hot rage that someone would dare violate his home, his life and family.

  “Katie’s had extensive training in explosives. She’s ex-ATF,” Olivia said. “If she says it’s not a bomb, it’s not.”

  “Oh.” Feeling slightly better, he glanced at the woman named Katie. Tall, maybe five feet ten, a hundred forty or so pounds, she had black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, olive skin, black eyes. She wasn’t beautiful like her partner, but she was pretty in an understated, non-flashy way. She wore no makeup that he could see, and her clothes suggested she dressed for comfort, not fashion. She had gloves on her hands. The kind of gloves cops wore. “Then what is it?”

  “I’ve called the police. We have to report this, but in the meantime, you can have a look inside.”

  Wade hesitated for only a brief second before he moved so he could see. Olivia stayed with him and together they looked into the box. He sucked in a silent breath. Olivia went still. Frozen.

  On top of plastic that had been stapled to the sides of the coffin, a teddy bear with dark black eyes stared up at him.

  The head had been decapitated.

  Red liquid filled the area under the body. The plastic kept the blood from soaking the cardboard coffin, and the odor emanating from the object made him sure the blood wasn’t paint or theater makeup. He turned away, feeling sick. “Who would do this?”

  “Whoever you ticked off when you announced you were throwing her gifts away,” his father said.

  Wade looked back, the image now ingrained in his memory. “Whose blood is that?”

  “I’m hoping it’s animal blood,” Katie said. “But we’ll have it tested to be sure.”

  Wade set his jaw and stared. Then narrowed his eyes as he took in the details of the mutilated stuffed animal. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?” Olivia asked.

  “I need to check on something.” He opened the front door and moved into the house. He heard Olivia follow him, but his focus was on finding out if he was right or not. He headed toward the back hall that would take him toward Amy’s room.

  Olivia followed him up the stairs. “What is it, Wade?”

  “Hold on a minute and we’ll both know.” He pushed open the door to his daughter’s room and went to her bed. A plethora of stuffed animals lined the headboard and propped themselves on blue checkered pillows. “It’s here, I know it is.”

  Olivia waited behind him, her impatience nearly tangible, but at least she didn’t push him. He’d explain soon enough.

  There. He grabbed the bear and turned, holding it in front of him. “This. Anything stand out to you about this?”

  Olivia stepped farther into the bedroom and took the toy from him. “It’s the same one.”

  “Identical.”

  She glanced up. “I thought you threw everything away.”

  “Everything but that. Amy loved it so I let her keep it.”

  “Katie’s called the police. We’ll file the report about this latest incident. What’s your security system like here again? I know we went over everything with your father, but maybe it’s better that we have your input.”

  “I have a security system that I turn on when I’m not here, and I make sure Amy arms it if she’s alone—which is pretty much never and definitely not since all of this started. The windows are wired, the doors . . . motion detectors and lights on the perimeter of the house. I’ve been much more meticulous about arming it these days, trust me.”

  “Cameras?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll definitely need to add those and some floodlights around the boathouse.”

  As she talked, she became more animated, her passion and dedication for her job coming through. It comforted him and attr
acted him all at the same time.

  He nodded. “All right.” He needed to stop noticing things about Olivia that he didn’t have any business noticing. There had been a lot of gorgeous women in his life. Women he’d simply noticed were beautiful, but he’d felt no special tug of interest in. Except for Justine. Beautiful, sweet Justine. He looked away for a moment as her memory rushed over him. He cleared his throat. Just because he’d gone and felt that spark of interest in Olivia didn’t mean he had to get all distracted by that.

  At least not right now. Probably not ever.

  “And another thing,” she said, “there will be a police officer assigned to your home. He—or she—will be here at all times to watch the house. Fortunately, I have a lot of friends on the force who are willing to earn a few extra bucks by lending their skills when needed. The police force itself doesn’t have the resources to be able to watch you like you need it.” Her phone buzzed and she looked at it. “Good. Cameras will be installed first thing in the morning.”

  “You have a lot of resources at your fingertips, don’t you?”

  “It’s taken time to build the relationships, but yes, I’m very fortunate in that respect. When we started the agency, each of us brought resources with us. We utilize them when we need to.”

  Wade walked to the window. He stared out across the expansive acreage and wondered if she was watching his house now. The anger still simmered.

  “Do you mind not standing right in front of the window?”

  He turned to see the frown on her face intense, hand outstretched like she was ready to snatch him from the very jaws of danger. He stepped back and to the side and her stance relaxed a fraction. “I guess I’m going to have to start thinking as though my life depends on how smart I am, aren’t I?”

  “Definitely. I’m really wanting cameras installed. This person is brazen enough to come onto your property. Maybe with a camera we’ll be able to get a picture.” She shot him a stern look. “Don’t mention the security upgrade on your radio show.”

  He rolled his eyes. “As if,” he muttered. “I’m only an idiot on early Friday morning. This time of day, I’m good.”