by Janet Dailey
Slick and slow.
Kenzie capped the tube and pouted at the mirror—and at the security team with the cushy indoor gig watching the monitor feeds from the entire complex. They might even beg this guy to let her in.
He came back. “My supervisor said for you to wait at reception. Mr. Brody isn’t in his office. But his temp assistant can talk to you.” The guard handed back her license and a temporary pass with her name on it.
“Oh, okay. Thanks so much for checking.” She smiled at him, sincerely.
A faint noise issued from his earphone. The guys must be razzing him. He didn’t soften. “Park over there.” He pointed to an area by the main entrance. “Fifteen minutes. Then you have to go.”
“I appreciate it.” Still in park, she put her foot on the accelerator and revved the motor. “The gate?” She pointed at it with one finger and winked at him. “I don’t want to take it with me. I actually have done that a couple of times.”
Which was true. He didn’t have to know it wasn’t because she was stupid.
He went back to push the button that lifted it and she drove through, bumping over three rows of tire-stabbers and past a Do Not Reverse sign. SKC was serious about physical security.
The fences surrounding the complex were twenty feet high, only partly concealed with greenery and topped with razor wire that glinted in the sun. The posts were topped with metal balls with dark glass lenses. More cameras.
Come on in. We’re watching you, she thought. To be expected.
Kenzie was glad she wasn’t going to be here long. She hoped Christine would never have to come back to this place. Kenzie only had to duck in and out, but even that seemed like a chore.
Kenzie got out of her car and walked quickly toward the entrance, stepping through steel-framed doors that whooshed apart, then closed behind her.
The receptionist looked up from a phone console and stretched her lips into a smile. She gave Kenzie a cool nod, indicating the chairs in the waiting area with a slight gesture. “Good morning. Please sit down. Brenda will be right out.”
She went back to her work, fielding calls and talking into a small microphone attached to a headpiece.
Kenzie settled down, setting the tote with the papers and her purse in another chair. There were promotional brochures about SKC and its many subsidiaries on a low table in front of her, and military-interest periodicals. Casually, Kenzie leafed through the SKC material, sliding a few brochures for Lieutenant Mike Warren into her purse. It would give him something to do.
She picked up a company magazine that had fallen onto the floor and looked at the cover.
The stylized company initials took up most of it, fitted into a gray, blocky shape that looked like the main building’s tower. No visual to show what SKC actually did or made.
Kenzie flipped to the first inside page, catching buzzwords in the introductory letter.
Diversified. Full-service. Steadfast commitment in a changing world.
Her gaze moved to the photo of the CEO, Lee Slattery.
White-silver hair and bright blue eyes. Impeccably groomed. Plausibly tanned.
His signature took up the whole lower half of the page. But then he didn’t have much to say. Some publicity person had written the intro for him. She put the magazine in with the brochures as someone spoke behind her.
“Ms. MacKenzie? I’m Brenda White.” She extended a hand as Kenzie stood up and turned. “Nice to meet you. I’m covering for Christine Corelli while she’s in the hospital—I understand you’re a good friend of hers.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Kenzie responded to the genuine warmth in the other woman’s voice.
“Mr. Brody explained about the accident. I hope she’s doing better.”
“Her doctors think so.” Kenzie evaded a detailed response by bending down to pick up the tote bag.
“That’s good to know.”
Kenzie gave an acknowledging nod and didn’t volunteer any more information. “Her parents wanted to make sure that her insurance paperwork got to the right person.”
“I’ll see that it does,” Brenda assured her.
Kenzie slipped the paperwork out of the tote and handed it over. Brenda clutched it with both hands.
“It’s nice of you to do that for her.”
“Well, I’m the go-to gal for the little stuff,” Kenzie said. “Her folks are doing the hard work. They’re with her in the ICU every single day.”
“Please let them know that SKC wants her back,” Brenda said.
“I will. Thanks again.”
She clutched the empty tote bag in her hand and slipped her purse strap over her shoulder as she turned to leave.
“Take care, Ms. MacKenzie.” Brenda got a better grip on the sheaf of papers before she headed back to the unseen office.
The women exchanged farewells and Kenzie walked past the receptionist, who was engrossed in a call. With a brief wave, Kenzie exited through the steel-framed doors, moving quickly toward her car.
She drove out, ignoring the guard at the gate when he requested her pass. He came out of the post and watched her drive off, but he didn’t shout. The pass was only good for one day. He wasn’t going to come after her.
To her surprise, Linc was waiting around the first curve on the road, listening to the radio. She could see his hand tapping a beat on the back of the other seat. Kenzie slowed her car to a stop when their windows lined up.
He rolled his down. “Hey. How’d it go?”
“No big deal. I handed the papers to his temp assistant. What the hell are you doing here?”
Linc studied her face. “I wanted to see if the beacon I put on your car was working.”
She should have known. “Is that necessary?”
“The readout is on this.” He tapped the face of his watch.
“I can’t see. And I don’t believe you.” Kenzie put her car into park, got out, and walked around.
He turned his wrist to show her. “Check it out. Your dot merged into my dot.”
“Isn’t that sweet.”
He grinned. “It’s not a problem to remove the beacon if you don’t like it.”
“No. It’s all right. You’re the only person who knows where I am most of the time now.”
That didn’t seem to have occurred to him. “Really?”
She nodded.
“So where are you off to?”
Kenzie shot him a mocking look. “You don’t have to ask, do you?”
Linc laughed. “The beacon can’t read your mind.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank God for that. If you want to know, I was heading to the drugstore to print out some of the photos for Mrs. Corelli. Where are you going?”
“Just running errands,” he said. “Need anything from the electronics store?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay. I’m just picking up a couple of components.”
Kenzie gave a little yelp. “Yikes—that reminds me. Yesterday my boss asked me to pick something up for him out in the boondocks. I forgot until you said that. So if my dot falls off your watch, you’ll know why.”
He smiled at her warmly as he bent his arm and rested it on the bottom of the window frame. The bicep under the flannel rounded up very nicely as he lifted a hand and chucked her gently under the chin. “Funny.”
The friendly touch was unexpectedly intimate.
In fact, it triggered a dangerous sensation of giving in. She smiled at him, feeling weak. His brown eyes were dark and warm. She felt herself blush under his steady gaze.
Linc was the real deal. Maybe she didn’t have to be so tough all the time. It was okay to be protected. More than okay.
Back when she’d had Tex at her side, she’d actually liked the feeling. Like all military working dogs, he’d been trained to maintain an invisible six-foot circle around her, and woe to anyone who crossed into it without her permission. Including guys she was dating.
“Kenzie?”
She snapped out o
f it. “Sorry. You knocked on my stupid spot.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
She shook her head in mock dismay. “Please don’t. Let’s touch base around four or five o’clock.”
He nodded and turned the key in the ignition. “Works for me.” His gaze stayed on her a moment longer. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Thanks.” She glanced back at the gray monolith a little distance behind them and her mouth tightened. But when her green gaze met Linc’s brown eyes, she managed a quick smile.
He raised his left hand in a quick good-bye wave and eased his car ahead of hers, rolling up the window again. She watched him go, then got back into hers and drove on, turning off on the road to the firing range.
Kenzie pulled into a gravel driveway and parked in the customer area, leaving the engine running. She took her chiming cell phone out of her purse, reading her boss’s reminder to please pick up his gun and responding with a brief text.
At Hamill’s now.
Jim didn’t text back. He trusted her to get things done in her own time and her own way.
She scrolled through the messages, checking for a response from Randy Holt. Maybe he hadn’t received her reply. Playing phone tag. Then she told herself he could be in transit, enduring a long flight home in a troop transport.
Kenzie tossed the phone back into her purse and put the car in gear again, swinging around to the back where the employees parked. The front lot was full. Norm Hamill’s firing range was popular with law enforcement pros from several counties around plus the states bordering Maryland, along with federal officers of every stripe.
It was a big place, about a hundred acres all told, and the owner lived there, in a house adjacent to the main building, which housed his repair shop and retail business.
She got out of her car and looked into the near distance at the shooters who stood in a row, ear and eye protection worn per Hamill rules, their feet apart in braced stances as they fired off rounds at paper targets. Kenzie headed for the shop.
Norm Hamill smiled broadly when he saw her come in.
“Kenzie! Nice to see you.”
“Hi, Norm. It’s been too long. You look great.”
He did, in a bearded, ball-capped, wrinkled way. He was a character and always had been.
“Liar. But thanks.” He rested his hands on the glass cabinet in front of him, its shelves neatly laid out with various small items. “What can I do for you?”
“Jim sent me to pick up the gun you repaired.”
“Of course. It’s done. Good as new. I e-mailed him the specifics so you don’t have to remember them.”
“Good.” She smiled back. “I don’t think I could. Life’s been crazy.”
“Oh? Why is that?” But Norm didn’t wait for her answer. Another customer stepped up to the counter and Kenzie realized that he’d been waiting since she walked in.
She moved aside to let him talk to Norm. A black, very interested nose appeared where the proprietor had been standing and sniffed. Kenzie leaned over and saw the rest of Beebee, a black Lab she’d trained for guard duty, wriggling with happiness.
The dog put his enormous black paws on the glass and rose to give her an enthusiastic welcome. Kenzie laughed and took hold of his collar. “Get down, Beebee. That’s not allowed and you know it.”
Obeying her, Beebee dropped to the floor and trotted around until he was on the customer side of the case and next to her.
He sat, motionless and solid as a boulder.
“That’s better.” Absently she stroked his big head while she looked at the contents of the glass cabinet. There was a selection of folding knives, and next to that, a tray of enamel tiepins in the shape of fish.
Leaping trout. Fighting muskies. She made a mental note to buy one of each for her father’s upcoming birthday. He’d like them and her mother wouldn’t shudder.
Kenzie’s gaze moved to a wall plaque of a proud stag with antlers out to here, surrounded by a harem of adoring does. Definitely man stuff.
She wondered idly if Linc had anything like that around his house and decided that he probably didn’t. He had an outdoorsy look, though—he just wasn’t ridiculously macho.
“Sorry, Kenzie. Let me get you what you came for,” Norm said to her before heading to the back room.
“Thanks.”
He returned with a classic army-issue pistol in one hand and its removed barrel in the other. Then he set both on the counter and reached into a shelf she couldn’t see, puffing when he straightened up with Jim’s gun case.
“Don’t know why this got put down there,” he grumbled. “Ever since Adam went off to college, I can’t find a darn thing.”
“You must miss him.” Norm was close to his son, his only child, and Adam had always helped with all aspects of the family business.
“Yes, I do. It was nice having him right there in his two rooms up above the shop, even with that awful music he played so loud. Now that they’re empty, there ain’t nothing but echoes. It’s not like I can rent them or would want to—”
Kenzie wasn’t really listening to the rest of it. “Empty? Really?”
“Not quite,” Norm corrected himself. “There’s his bed and a table and a chair and an amp.” He gave her a curious look. “Why, Kenz? You looking for a place?”
“No—well, sort of.”
“It’s nothing fancy.”
She took a breath, about to tell a fib that wouldn’t hurt anyone. “That’s not important. There’s a plumbing leak in my building. I was told the ceiling could come down at any time.”
“Why now, you can bring your things and stay here until it’s safe to go home,” Norm said with spirit. “Carol will be thrilled. I warn you that neither of us will have a spare second to sit and chat with you, but it’d be a roof over your head for as long as you needed it.”
More than a roof. It would be a safe haven, probably the safest she could find. Norm Hamill’s shooting range was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire, security-patrolled, and locked up tight at night. He and his wife Carol lived on the property and so did one or two of the staff. The longstanding customers tended to be protective of Norm, Norm’s family, and Norm’s friends.
And then there was Beebee. One hundred pounds of unconditional love with very sharp teeth. She’d missed having a dog in her life. “Let me think it over,” she said, laughing.
“Don’t,” he said quickly. “Just come. We’d be glad to have you.”
“I can give you an answer tonight. How’s that?”
Norm shook his head. “It’ll have to do.”
She signed the invoice for the gun repair and left while he turned to another customer. She would call Linc first and ask his opinion.
Silence.
“Hello? Linc?”
Kenzie moved the cell phone away from her ear to see if she’d accidentally switched it off. It was on. Someone had picked up.
“Linc, are you there? What do you think?”
He finally answered. “Yes, I’m here. Sorry. I was—trying to think of something to say.”
“Norm and Carol are really nice people. I’ve known them for ages and he happened to mention the room was empty. Stroke of luck, isn’t it? Private entrance and everything.”
A pause.
“What can I say? If you want to hide out at a shooting range, I guess it’s a good idea.”
The bad news, in his opinion, was that she’d be surrounded by men. Other men.
“Look, can you meet me there in an hour? I’d like you to meet Norm and his wife.”
Sounded like a done deal. She wasn’t really asking his opinion.
“Okay.” He took down the directions.
Linc stood in the room that Norm’s son had vacated, done with the grand tour. There was a nook with a microwave and a dorm fridge and a folding table, and she had her own bathroom. All she needed, really.
He cast a glance at the heavy-metal posters on the walls. One was
peeling off at a corner and another had been torn and taped back together.
“Norm said I could take those down,” Kenzie told him.
“You don’t like them?” he asked dryly.
She only smiled and sat down on the platform bed. It held a sagging mattress covered with a black sheet with a few holes.
“He also said I should go pick out a new mattress and bedding. He gave me enough cash for both.”
Linc shot her a look. “Sounds like you’re settling in.”
“No way. This is temporary.”
“Did you tell them why you needed to stay here?”
“I will. Norm was busy with a customer in the shop. I couldn’t just blurt it out.”
“He and his wife oughta know.”
“I’m going to tell them!” Her forceful answer had a defensive ring.
Linc figured that Norm wouldn’t be shy about saying hello with a sawed-off shotgun if the stalker showed up. But if the gun-store proprietor didn’t know there was one out there, he’d be in trouble. As far as Kenzie was concerned, she’d be better off if people she trusted knew what was going on.
Granted, it hadn’t been that long since the accident and since she’d seen the frightening face. But Kenzie’s go-it-alone approach wasn’t the right way. And the man with the evil eyes wouldn’t disappear if she pretended he didn’t exist, even for a little while.
Linc folded his arms over his chest. “All right. Let me know when you do.”
“Get off my back. And don’t you dare tell them for me.”
Misplaced belligerence. He could deal. “Fair enough. So, what can I do to help around here?” he asked.
She stood up and yanked the black sheet off the bed so hard it ripped at the holes. “So much for that,” Kenzie muttered. She threw it on the floor, then bent down with a swoop and balled it up, stuffing it into an empty shopping bag.
“Anything else?” he asked pleasantly. “Want to make a Destroy list?”
She threw him a fierce look. “I know you won’t believe me, but you wouldn’t be on it.”
Her way of saying he was right. Linc couldn’t mess up that small victory with some stupid comeback.