“But—” Lucy’s voice caught when she saw the truth in his expression.
Sean looked at the table and saw the card. Fury and fear raced through his bloodstream as he read the brief message.
I had a terrific time at the ice rink yesterday. I’ll see you soon.
“I didn’t write that. Who knew we went skating yesterday?”
The panic that crossed Lucy’s face was tangible.
“No one,” Lucy whispered. “No one.”
TWENTY-TWO
Lucy was wrapped up in her own thoughts as Sean drove to WCF. She hated feeling like a victim again and vowed she wouldn’t. She wasn’t a victim. She’d fought back six years ago, and while she lost a couple of rounds, she’d won the battle. She’d survived. She’d prospered. She had a life and a future and family.
Someone watched you yesterday at the ice rink. Some sicko saw you with Sean. Saw you kiss him. Dirtied what was pure and fun.
Her stomach heaved and she closed her eyes, prayed that Sean couldn’t see her inner turmoil. But when her eyes were closed, memories of what Roger Morton had done to her flooded her mind: flashes like a camera, others watching as she was raped and beaten.
She couldn’t bear the thought that her affection toward Sean had been tainted by a voyeur. A stalker. Pain seared her, physical angst, until she could hardly breathe.
The flowers and card told her he was a stalker. Her mind knew it and rebelled against it, angry and ready for action. But the intangible spectator, watching her as if she were a show, fueled the ember of pain that she still harbored deep inside.
Intellectually, Lucy could tell herself that she wasn’t a victim, that she was a survivor and everyone involved in her attack was dead. She could repeat the mantra endlessly, but it didn’t change how her stomach felt, or the prickle across her skin when people looked at her, or the way her throat tightened when she let her guard down and the memories flooded in unexpectedly.
It had all been better, until now. Kate’s lies, Morton’s death, the stalker. Everything felt real again.
The car stopped before she realized they were already at WCF headquarters.
Sean said, “I wouldn’t have sent you red roses.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He reached out and put his hand on her cheek, then ran his fingers through her hair.
“I would have sent multicolored daisies, dozens of them in yellow and white and blue and purple and pink and every color I could find.”
“Why daisies?” she whispered.
“Because they would make you smile, then laugh, and you would smile again every time you looked at them. Every time you saw a daisy, you would think of me. Because no one else would give you such a whimsical bouquet of flowers.”
He pulled her the short distance toward him, meeting her halfway, and kissed her. It started soft, as if he intended to give her a quick, supportive kiss. But it didn’t end. His mouth pressed against hers, confident, calm, but insistent. His hand held her neck, his fingers moving in small circles like five dancing fairies, easing her tight muscles. Her lips parted as she relaxed, her nerves calmed, and she leaned into Sean, her right hand finding his face, the rough stubble beginning to push through his skin. She rubbed lightly, the sandpaper texture alluring, then her hand moved to his soft, thick hair, savoring the contrast.
Sean kissed her repeatedly, as if to assure himself that she was here, and she returned the urgency, her internal pain and fear retreating deep inside, behind locked doors, where she prayed it would stay.
He reached down and unbuckled her seat belt, then pulled her as close as possible with the console separating their seats. Lucy put her head on Sean’s chest and closed her eyes, feeling peace and safety and hope.
Somehow, they would find the answers. And whatever those answers were—whoever was responsible—Lucy would survive. She’d survived worse.
Before she had her family. Now … she thought she might have something else. Someone else.
“Lucy,” Sean said quietly in her ear, “are you okay with this?”
“Giving you a tour so you can bug WCF offices? I don’t know. But—I understand why you have to do it. But as soon as I get the files I need, we go to Kate, right?”
He smiled. “Right, but I wasn’t talking about WCF. I was talking about us. About me. You. This.” He kissed her.
She licked her lips, then firmly kissed him back, showing him that she was very okay with this. “Actions speak louder than words.”
“Maybe I just want to hear how much you like me.” He grinned devilishly. “I have a very sensitive ego. It needs constant reminders that I’m worthy of you.”
He said it playfully, but Lucy heard just a hint of awe and apprehension in his voice, as if she were special and he really did need to know how she felt.
“I like you,” she assured him. “You’re wonderful. You’re worthy of me. Let’s get this over with and take our mutual admiration society home.”
“Before we go upstairs, call Kate. We need to know about the flowers.”
Noah needed daylight.
He’d been holed up in Kate’s windowless computer room at Quantico all day. While he understood the need for the added computer power, he didn’t understand why they couldn’t have set up anywhere else. His cubicle at regional headquarters had a window.
“Your tension is suffocating me,” Kate said.
“How do you work in here?”
“I’ve had worse. You can leave—I’ll call you when the files are uncoded.”
Kate was running a program to re-create every email that had passed through Roger Morton’s account. She needed to keep on top of it to prevent hiccups, and she was simultaneously grading tests from the current session of FBI recruits. Running this program had taken nearly three days. Noah would never have survived in cybercrimes.
Noah had decided to work from here rather than his cubicle downtown because he was still uncomfortable about pulling in someone to help who had such a twisted history with the victim. But Kate had been nothing if not professional. A bit hotheaded at times, but sharp.
“Where’s Abigail?” Kate asked.
“She’s been working all day on getting the GPS data from Morton’s car. It’s a federal holiday, not that you were looking at the calendar or anything.”
“I don’t see you taking the day off, Armstrong.”
The phone blinked but didn’t ring. Kate answered it. She listened for a minute, then said, “I didn’t see the logo on the truck. The delivery guy was five foot eleven, wore black pants, navy-blue jacket, red turtleneck underneath. Probably a sweater as well; I couldn’t see because the jacket was bulky. Green cap—white words …” She closed her eyes. “GW Florist. He had a long blond ponytail.… Yes, of course I’m sure it was a guy. Lucy, what’s wrong?”
The edge in Kate’s voice had Noah turning his attention to her phone conversation with Lucy.
Kate said into the receiver, “Don’t leave the house.… Dammit, Lucy!”
Kate stood and paced as far as the phone cord could go. “I want to talk to Sean.… Listen, Sean, I’m coming home as soon as I can. I don’t like this at all.… I can’t believe you let her go to WCF! … You’d damn well better keep an eye on her.” She slammed the receiver down.
“Is everything okay?”
“Just peachy. Lucy has a—”
“One sec,” he said as a new message popped up on his screen. “The ballistics from the Ralston homicide came back. No match to anything in the database.”
“Did they check it against Morton? That was recent—”
“They did. No match.”
Her computer beeped, and Kate turned to the screen. She grinned widely. “I’m a genius.” She pressed a few buttons. “It’s printing now. We have a lot of reading to do tonight. I want to take it home.”
“So is there something wrong?”
“You heard the call.”
“Couldn’t miss it.”
“It’s Lucy. I think
she has a stalker. I need to follow up on some roses that were delivered. I’d assumed they were from Sean. They weren’t.”
After Lucy gave Sean a “tour” of WCF offices and he’d planted bugs in the conference room and Fran Buckley’s office, he left her there with the admonition not to leave the building until he returned. Then he drove back to Georgetown to GW Florist.
Sean walked into the small shop on Wisconsin. It was empty, except for a young female clerk behind the counter. He walked up and smiled.
“May I help you?” she asked.
Sean had considered different ways to get the information about who sent the flowers. Often, retail businesses wouldn’t share private customer information with just anyone. And while he could often flirt information out of women, it wasn’t a guarantee and he’d get only one chance.
He pulled his wallet out of his front pocket and opened to his private investigator’s license. “Sean Rogan, private investigator. I was retained by a woman who is being stalked. This morning, she received one dozen red roses delivered by one of your drivers. There was no signature, but the message disturbed her greatly. Do you have records of who ordered such a delivery?”
She looked closely at his identification and frowned. “I’m not supposed to give out any information.”
“I understand. I’ll file a police report on her behalf and they’ll come back with a warrant.” He pocketed his ID.
“I don’t know—well, I only work afternoons. I can call my mother, who owns the store.”
“Do you keep records of deliveries?”
“Of course.”
“I have the name and address the flowers were delivered to.”
She nodded. “I can look it up by delivery address.”
Sean gave her Lucy’s address and waited a minute while she typed. “Yes, we have one dozen long-stemmed red roses going to that address this morning.”
The tension in his stomach increased tenfold. “Do you have a name?” That he kept his voice professional was a testament to his training.
“Mr. Lorenzo was a walk-in customer and paid cash,” she said.
Sean straightened. “Lorenzo?” he snapped.
She fidgeted and stepped back. “Y-yes,” she said. Sean must have sounded furious, because she looked like a doe caught in the headlights.
“Cody Lorenzo?” he said, forcing himself to sound calm.
“Yes.”
What was Lorenzo up to? After accusing Lucy of getting Prenter killed, maybe—maybe—Sean could see him sending flowers to apologize. But there was no I’m sorry on the card. What was he doing watching Lucy at the ice rink? Why send a cryptic message? The cop had to know it would disturb her.
Yet it happened far too often—ex-boyfriends, and sometimes ex-girlfriends, unable to let go, resorting to stalking. And Lorenzo was a cop—they had access to information the average John Q. Public didn’t. When a cop turned stalker, it rarely ended well. They often used their resources to bully their victims.
Sean would not let Lucy be bullied by anyone, particularly Cody Lorenzo.
“Mr. Rogan?” The clerk bit her bottom lip.
Sean attempted to smile but wasn’t sure if he pulled it off. “Thanks. I may need to talk to the person who helped Mr. Lorenzo this morning, in case I have more questions.”
She handed over a card for the shop, with a number on the back. “That’s my mom’s number. She’ll also be here tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you for your time.” Sean handed her his card. He was still fuming about Lorenzo, unable to figure out what he was up to—other than scaring Lucy—but on his way out, some long-stemmed white daisies caught his eye.
Sean turned back to the clerk. “Can I get one of those daisies in a bud vase?”
TWENTY-THREE
Lucy was silent as Sean drove back to her house. She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that Cody had sent her the flowers.
He must have followed them after church. It would also explain her intense feelings of being watched for the past couple of weeks. But they’d broken up last year! Why now? Because of Sean?
She felt ill. She’d trusted Cody—was her judgment about people that bad? How could she not know the truth when she saw Cody all the time?
She looked at the daisy in her hands and took a deep breath, doing her best to accept that Cody was stalking her.
Sean said, “The good news is that when confronted, most stalkers will sulk but stop their harassment. Lorenzo has a lot to lose; he’ll back off.”
“You’re probably right,” she said quietly.
“You going to be okay?”
“We were friends. I thought so anyway. How could I be so wrong about him?”
“This isn’t about you, Lucy, I don’t have to tell you that. It’s about him.”
In her head she understood that, but her heart told her she was an idiot to have trusted Cody for so many years. To have dated him. Slept with him. He’d been so good to her.
I will not cry.
Sean stopped his car in front of her narrow house. “Come here,” he said, taking her hand, kissing it, then kissing her lips. “We’ll fix this. I promise. I know it hurts, but you’re strong, Luce. I’ll talk to him—”
She frowned. “He’d see that as a threat and dig in his heels.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Stalkers aren’t always reasonable.”
“He gets out of line even an inch, we go to his boss. Right now, we don’t have enough. While you and I think the message was disturbing, he could argue that it was innocuous. So we put him on notice and go from there.”
“Okay.” She was still worried about Sean confronting Cody, but right now she couldn’t explain to Sean that she needed to be the one to talk to Cody about the flowers and unsettling message. She knew exactly what to say.
“Neither of us is going to let that guy intimidate you,” Sean said, then kissed her again. “You’re okay?”
“In many ways, I’m relieved it’s Cody. I know him, and while I don’t understand what he was thinking, I can handle the situation much better than an unknown variable.”
They went inside. Though she had agreed with Sean, it didn’t make sense that Cody would send her flowers, then accuse her of conspiracy to commit murder. What possessed him?
Kate was sitting by herself at the dining room table with a beer and stacks of papers in front of her. She looked up at Sean and said, “Did you find who sent the flowers?”
“Cody Lorenzo.”
Kate stared in stark disbelief. “Cody?”
“That’s what the florist said. Paid cash.”
“That fucking bastard. Dammit! I need to talk to him—”
“I am going to do that,” Sean said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kate said. “Considering …” her voice trailed off, but her eyes went to Sean and Lucy’s clasped hands.
“Kate, with all due respect, I can handle Lorenzo.”
“What about me?” Lucy said, frustrated. “This is between Cody and me. I’m not saying I’m going to do something stupid and confront him in a dark alley, but I think I need to be the one to talk to him.” Sean opened his mouth, but Lucy cut him off before he could speak. “I understand your reasons, and you’re right, except that I’ve known Cody for three years, and I can find out what’s going on.”
“You’re not seeing him alone.”
“I’ll invite him over here. You both can be in the kitchen eavesdropping, but I will talk to him. Agreed?”
Neither Sean nor Kate liked the idea, but then Kate said, “Lucy has a point. Cody has been a friend of the family for a long time.”
“Fine,” Sean relented, but didn’t sound happy.
Lucy dialed Cody’s number on her cell phone. His voicemail picked up. “Cody, it’s Lucy. Call when you get this message. It’s important.” She hung up, her stomach still unsettled. “I’m going to change,” she said. She just needed a few minutes alone. “I’ll be down in ten m
inutes.”
Sean watched Lucy walk up the stairs. She’d reacted as he’d expected, if a bit subdued.
When Lucy was out of earshot, he asked Kate, “What do you think about this Lorenzo?”
“Sit down,” Kate said.
Sean was surprised at the command. He sat, though he didn’t like being ordered to do anything.
“Cody wasn’t happy when Lucy broke up with him,” Kate said. “But that was over a year ago. I can’t see her remaining friends if he was actively pressuring her to get back together.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s following her. He hasn’t gotten over her leaving him.”
Kate considered. “This was the first time he’s made such contact. He was satisfied in the role of friend until—” She stared pointedly at Sean.
He resisted squirming. Kate’s unspoken question asked about his intentions, and he wasn’t surprised.
“So he sees Lucy and me together and he flips out and sends the flowers.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t sign the card,” Kate said. “I don’t see why he wants to scare her, when his goal—at least I’d think it had be his goal—would be to win her back.”
“Maybe he’s looking to run in and protect her. Trying to scare her so she feels she needs a cop around.”
“What am I? Chopped liver?”
“You know what I mean. The macho protective crap.”
“You do pretty well with the macho protective crap,” Kate said.
Sean frowned. “That’s not the same thing.”
Kate grinned, and Sean realized she was baiting him. She said, “Lucy’s right, though—Cody needs to hear it from her. She’ll make him understand. And if he crosses the line, I’ll come down on his ass so hard he’ll move halfway cross the country just to avoid me.”
A man’s voice came from the doorway. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, sweetheart.”
Sean turned and saw Dillon Kincaid—Kate’s husband and Lucy’s brother—standing in the doorway, a suitcase at his feet.
Kate jumped up and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him long enough that Sean averted his eyes. “I thought you wouldn’t be home until after midnight,” she said.
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