Watching You

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Maisy swallowed hard, glad—so very glad—she hadn’t changed her driver’s license from Pennsylvania to California yet. Lucky, lucky Maisy.

  But if she was so lucky, how did they find out? She’d been so careful. There had been nobody around when she’d been stockpiling supplies in the ladies’ room, and nobody when she’d run out of it after delivering the whole kit and caboodle onto that head of brassy-red hair. So how had they figured out she was the one who’d done it? Was she now Unlucky Maisy?

  “The picture the officer showed me looked like it came from the hotel security system.”

  She jerked. “The hotel has a security system?”

  “Well of course, silly. There are cameras everywhere. How did on earth you not notice them?”

  Because I’m so stupid. That’s what you think, isn’t it?

  She tried to bluff. “They have my picture from a camera. So what? I bet they have a lot of other people’s pictures, too. I bet they have yours.”

  A hard, disbelieving, Don’t kid a kidder smile made the woman look more genuine. “But not one of me carrying jugs of bleach into the bathroom where a woman was later attacked.”

  Oh, God. She was Stupid Maisy.

  If only she hadn’t paid attention to the jealous thoughts in her head. She knew she and Reece would end up together eventually. Of course he wasn’t seriously interested in the red-haired woman, and Maisy should have pretended she didn’t exist. She had let her anger overwhelm her, like it used to before she got better.

  She wouldn’t go back to being Crazy Maisy. She would never return to that place with people who screamed, people who drooled, people in white who shoved pills down her throat. She’d spent years in such a place, after the fire had killed her sister. I didn’t mean to kill her, but she made me so mad. Those years meant she’d paid for what she did, and winning the lottery had been her reward for doing it. There was no way somebody so lucky would ever have to go back.

  “Honestly, Maisy, if anyone can understand your frustration, it’s me. I mean, I was just as shocked Reece would show up with someone like that.”

  “Why?” Maisy asked, suspicious. Why did Candace think it was any of her business? She had no personal connection to Reece, while Maisy did.

  “She’s not really our sort, is she? She’s so obvious, with that red dress.”

  “You can’t help but notice her.” Poor Reece wouldn’t have much of a chance if somebody so determined to get him put her mind to it. Well, Jessica’s mind might have been to it lately, but Maisy’s had been for years and years. She had the greater claim.

  “I don’t know how many people you met at the gala…”

  “None.”

  “Or how many of them already knew you.”

  “Only you.”

  “Good.” Candace sipped her iced tea. Her crystal glass had condensation on it. Delicately drying her fingers on a cloth napkin, she finally got to the point. “I am happy to help, but sooner or later, I have to be honest with the police. I’m sure people saw us talking at our table.”

  Here it comes.

  “I do hate to spill the beans, but…

  “How much do you want?”

  Maisy had brought her checkbook, knowing it would come to this. Candace had evidently anticipated it, too, which was probably why she’d seated them at the kitchen table, rather than in a more comfortable room. Easier for Maisy to write the check, or to count out cash. How considerate of her.

  God, it made her blood boil. She hated the thought of giving her hard-earned winnings over to a blackmailer. But if the police were looking for her, and might take her back to that place, she needed time to get away and hide. She hated the thought of leaving her beautiful house and going far away. More than anything, she hated the thought of leaving Reece.

  I just can’t.

  Maybe she didn’t have to. What was the point of having tons of money if you couldn’t use it to get out of scrapes like this one? She could lie low until all this died down and everybody forgot some dumb intern had splashed herself with bleach in a public bathroom.

  “Wait,” she whispered, suddenly thinking of something.

  If she changed how she looked, how would they identify her? She’d been wanting to update her look, cut her hair, and maybe dye it. Maisy had always been the type who blended in. There was nothing really unique about her, except her hair, which was why she’d kept the gray streaks. It was the only distinctive part of her. If she got rid of it, she’d be able to go on living in Los Angeles, right under the noses of the cops, though she would have to leave her beautiful house for a while.

  There was one more way to make herself unrecognizable. “Who’s your plastic surgeon?”

  Candace lifted a hand to her heart, as if wounded. Maisy just raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, all right. He’s in Phoenix. I’ll get you his card. Now, are we agreed?”

  “About what?”

  “About the two hundred and fifty thousand, silly.”

  Hiding her growing rage, Maisy knew she had to go along with it, or else this evil woman could ruin everything. “Agreed.”

  “Excellent. That will be fine for the first payment,” the woman said. “We’ll talk about what comes next after the excitement dies down a bit.”

  Whatever the first payment was, even if Maisy doubled it, Candace didn’t plan on it being the last. She would string this out, maybe forever. Filthy blackmailers always did, tormenting their victims by perpetually holding something over their heads.

  It would never end. She would be imprisoned by this woman, like she’d been imprisoned in a place with soft walls.

  She began to quiver, and then to shake.

  “Are you cold, dear?”

  Not cold. Furious.

  When Maisy got angry, it was like someone stuck an electric wire inside her and she jerked and shook, needing to lash out, to do something to make the person angering her stop. She’d done it to her whining sister because the fifteen-year-old had borrowed her sweater and torn it. What wouldn’t she do to someone who was trying to ruin her carefully planned, lucky life, and her future with Reece?

  She opened her mouth, about to tell the woman she could shove her blackmail scheme. But she knew she couldn’t. Candace knows who you are, and she knows you’re thinking about getting plastic surgery She could warn the cops you changed your appearance.

  That was a problem. A very big problem. Much bigger than a tear in a sweater.

  “You really are shivering. Why don’t I make you some warm tea,” Candace said, still pretending to be a friend, even though she’d just extorted $250,000 from her.

  She got up and went to the stove. Maisy rose and followed her, not entirely sure why.

  Well, maybe a little sure.

  On the counter there stood a heavy lead-crystal pitcher from which Candace had poured the iced tea. Apparently plastic ones weren’t good enough for her.

  The pitcher looked heavy. So heavy.

  Maisy wanted to know how heavy. She picked it up by the handle and felt her arm sag under the weight. The thing was like a cement block. Candace probably used it only to show off how much it had cost.

  “I have Earl Grey and herbal. Which would you—”

  “Nobody blackmails me.” Caught up in the heat of rage, her whole body shaking, Maisy swung her arm at the woman, who’d just started to turn around.

  She didn’t know what to expect. Maybe she would miss. Maybe the pitcher would break, leaving a furious, injured Candace to call the police right away.

  If that’s what she expected, she’d been very wrong. When lead crystal came up against a human skull, crystal definitely won out.

  The pitcher didn’t even break. But Candace’s head most definitely did.

  Chapter 12

  As promised, Jessica’s doctor released her Thursday evening. Liza had left the hospital and come back with some clothes and personal items for her. After giving Reece a warning finger wag, she kissed her sister, and informed them she wo
uld be up to visit soon.

  Liza had loosened up toward him after she’d found him beating the shit out of Johnny Dixon. But when she’d learned the person responsible for targeting Jessica had been his stalker, not Jess’s ex, her guard had gone back up, though maybe not as high.

  “Just relax,” he told Jess as he helped her into the front seat of his car. “Take a nap. It’s about a half-hour drive.”

  As he headed out of the city toward Hollywood Hills, she took him at his word, reclining her seat and closing her eyes. Her breaths became slow and even. Knowing she’d gotten a lot of sleep, but no real rest over the past couple of days, he didn’t turn on the stereo for fear of waking her. He did, however, have to look over every so often to watch her sleep, unable to stop himself.

  Awake, Jessica was fire, passion, and wit. Asleep she was the fairy-tale princess waiting for a kiss to awaken her.

  He might have kissed her—a lot. But he was no prince. In fact, Reece was so far away from a noble hero, he might as well be the villain of the story. He had no business being the one to take her home to play protective knight in shining armor. She deserved to be with someone better. Less fucked up, with a whole lot fewer secrets to keep and crimes hidden under his bed.

  But someone better might not necessarily be someone safer. Right now, all he gave a shit about was keeping her protected. Until Maisy Cullinan was caught, he wanted Jessica behind the high fence surrounding his rental house, which backed onto a cliff nobody could climb. Finding out Maisy was a killer hadn’t doubled the stakes; it had increased them exponentially.

  “Stop frowning,” she said from the other side of the car. “You’ll get wrinkles. Then how will you pull a Clooney and be named the Sexiest Man Alive again when you’re in your forties?”

  “That was a long one.”

  She opened one eye—well, actually, she must have already had her eyes open a bit, since she’d seen him frowning. But she was no longer trying to hide it, and turned to look at him, a grin on her face. “What was a long one, Reece? I can’t quite put my finger on what you’re talking about.”

  Damn. The woman was hurt and hoarse, and she still managed to turn him on with a look and a smile. And though he hated that she’d been injured, her husky voice was sexy as fuck, too.

  What kind of uncaring asshole would get turned on by a woman who’d almost been killed because of him? His kind, that was who.

  “Hmm. What long thing have I come across recently?” She tapped her fingertips on her chin. “My memory is so unreliable.”

  “Stop talking. It’s bad for you.”

  “But how can I get better if nobody helps me recover my memories?”

  “I’m sure you remember everything you need to about Tuesday night.”

  God knows he did. The memories of everything they’d done together had cemented themselves in his brain. Although he’d slept only in bits and pieces the past few days, he’d definitely dreamed. When those dreams had not been about finding Jessica on the bathroom floor, they’d been about having her legs wrapped around him as he held her against the wall and pounded into her.

  “Maybe I need to be reminded. I mean, I keep picturing something. It has to do with a closet. And me riding on this a great big…”

  “Shut up,” he said, his hands clenching the steering wheel. Never had his Mercedes felt so small. Not to mention his pants. Uncaring asshole. Uncaring asshole. Uncaring asshole.

  “You just told a poor, injured woman to shut up?”

  “You sound awful. Your voice is getting worse. Seriously, stop talking.”

  She crossed her arms and sank into her seat, her lush lower lip pudging out in the world’s most obvious, intentional pout. The silence lasted for about a minute. He should have known she couldn’t go longer. “So talk to me. About anything. Everything.”

  He sensed she wanted to hear something light, funny, and breezy. Unfortunately, he knew he had to tell her something else. That afternoon, Reece had gone over to Rowan’s house for a quick shower and to borrow some clean clothes. While he was there, the news had come in about a murder in Brentwood. A neighbor had seen someone going into the victim’s house right before lunch; a rather plain woman with long, dark hair streaked with gray.

  “Look, Jessica, there’s something you need to know. The police have identified the woman who attacked you.”

  She remained silent. He could feel the increased tension in the car.

  “Her name is Maisy Cullinan. After wasting a lot of time with interviews, some smart cop did a simple online search with the surveillance picture and found her. She won a multistate lottery jackpot eight months ago, and moved here from Pennsylvania.”

  Glancing over, he saw her roll her eyes, and he knew what she was thinking. Why does somebody so dangerous to others win millions?

  “Do they know where she is?”

  “Not yet. There’s more.” He took a deep breath and let it ease out. “The police think she murdered someone who could identify her from the gala.”

  She flinched, and then wrapped her arms around herself, as if cold. Reece didn’t change the temperature in the car, knowing the chill had come from inside her. The realization that you’d been attacked by someone who had committed murder would freeze anyone.

  “Wait, she killed someone who recognized her, even though her face had been all over the internet after she won the lottery?”

  He shrugged, not understanding it either. It made as little sense as the woman attacking Jessica in a place where she would be caught on visible security cameras. Maisy Cullinan was not a criminal mastermind. But she was a violent one. Meaning he intended to stick like glue to Jessica until she was caught.

  “Imagine the good she could have done,” Jessica whispered.

  “I know. Instead, she moved to California.” His temple began to throb. “Into a house that’s within spitting distance of mine.”

  She sat up straighter. “Your house. The one that burned down?”

  He nodded.

  “Did she do it? Is she the arsonist?”

  He thought about what else Rowan had told him about the deranged woman. When detectives found articles about her, including mentions of where she was from, they called the police in her Pennsylvania hometown. What they’d learned had been pretty damning.

  “She killed her sister when she was a teenager.” He cleared his throat, knowing how she would react to what came next. “She burned down their house with the sister in it.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, reaching over to put a hand on his leg. “So she’s an arsonist. Of course she set the fire.”

  He dropped his hand on top of hers, entwining their fingers and steering with his left. “Rowan thinks so.”

  “I agree with your brother. Thank God you weren’t there.”

  Maybe if he had been, he could have caught her, had her arrested, and she would not have been able to attack Jessica, or kill some other woman in her own home. He knew he couldn’t think that way, but the self-recrimination still haunted him and would for a long time. Just one more piece of damage to add to his long list.

  “If she murdered her sister, how come she’s not in prison?”

  “She was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was institutionalized for decades. She was released a couple of years ago.”

  “All better, huh?” she said, sounding disgusted.

  “Obviously not. Winning the lottery was probably the worst thing that could happen to her. Rather than staying in treatment, she had the money to go out into the world and do whatever she wanted.”

  “Like stalk her fantasy man.”

  Having seen his own mother struggle with mental illness, fighting against her need to do violence, he found a seed of pity inside himself for Maisy. But it didn’t bloom—not after what she’d done to Jessica.

  Still, he did understand the destructiveness of a tortured mind. Viv Winchester, his mother, might not have burned down houses or stalked people, but toward the end, her rage and illn
ess had made her a danger to herself. And to others. If she’d found the person she was looking for, she might have committed murder, too.

  Maybe she did.

  Yes. Maybe she did.

  He drove through the night, deep in thought. They were cocooned in silence, as if in their own world. Knowing Jessica was safe beside him gave him the most peace he’d had in days. Watching her struggle in the hospital to recover had been agonizing. And during that time, what he felt toward her had come into full focus.

  He’d wanted her. He’d lusted after her. He’d liked her. He’d respected her.

  Now he loved her.

  There was no hiding from it. His feelings for her were unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Seeing her suffer had crushed him. Thinking she might die had nearly killed him.

  If Jessica Jensen would have him, all he wanted was to keep her in his life. He didn’t deserve her, he wasn’t good enough for her, but he wanted her just the same.

  “I want to keep you,” he mumbled, admitting it out loud for the first time.

  “Excuse me?” she yelped, her voice ending in a croak.

  Christ, it wasn’t the time or the place. The woman deserved romance, not to be claimed while she was still hoarse and weak. He’d acted impulsively; so unlike him. He needed a plan before he talked to her about their future…if they were going to have one.

  “I want to keep you safe,” he clarified. It sounded genuine, because he meant that, too.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “Thank you. I do feel safe with you.”

  Although he wasn’t ready to talk about emotions, if there was any chance at all for the two of them, he would have to be honest with Jess about at least some of what he’d been hiding. No, he couldn’t tell her everything. Some stories weren’t his alone to tell. One thing, though, he could share. He had to.

  He cleared his throat, wondering how to begin. With something like this, however, there was no easing into it. So he was completely blunt. “My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. She was institutionalized for the final few years of her life.”