by Unknown
“They as in my mother and her best friend who is a very close family friend and as close to family as you can get without the blood ties. Closer than you could imagine.” Why not have my own personal comments and jokes I can smile about to myself. “You don’t cross a southern woman or her mama. Don’t you know it’s the confession to having a death wish?”
He just smiled and pushed a red button on his door panel. “To Ms. Kane’s please, Frederick.”
As the car began to move smoothly forward into New York City traffic, his direction made me pause. ‘How do you know where I live?” With possible creepy stalkers about, you should always be cautious.
“Matt gave him the address earlier, anticipating I might be giving you a lift home.”
“Ah. I see.” I pursed my lips in frustration. Or anger. I hadn’t quite decided yet.
Jason did not seem to pick up on my inner thoughts or shift in mood and asked, “Now that I have you at my mercy and unable to run away, would you please reconsider a dinner with me?”
Damnit this man was relentless. How do you say no without hurting someone’s feelings, after having said it every other way, in a kind manner? I toss my head back against the leather head rest cushioning and he notices my still hesitation and adds, “I must warn you now, that I am incredibly tenacious and do not give up on the things I want. Ever.”
“That’s exactly what I thought you might say.” I sighed. Realizing we were sitting in front of my building already, I gave him a smile, a handshake and opened the door to climb out. “I’m afraid you may have just met the day that Jason Henderson has been told no.” He didn’t try to stop me as I walked away and I thought, well at least he isn’t stupid.
Once inside my apartment with my alarm reactivated and doors triple locked, I pulled out my cell phone and angrily speed dialed Matt. Waiting for it to connect, I notice a note scribbled on the whiteboard, hanging on the stainless steel fridge, from Jamie.
Gone to Rome early, will call
when I land, be safe and
let me know if anything else happens.
xoxo James
“Okay, before you verbally abuse me, I set up running before we talked. It would have just been rude to cancel last second.” He answers quickly on the defense knowing I’d come in swinging.
“You mean like the way you left me alone with this strange man and his traveling circus!” I shrieked at him flailing my arms around for my own benefit, careful not to smack my hand on the walls as I walked to my room. He was now on speakerphone as I started a shower and stripped.
“He’s not exactly a strange man. He is America’s favorite bachelor and I didn’t know the pap was there. You should know I wouldn’t have left you then.” Deep sigh. “Sorry sweetheart.” At least he sounded regretful over the horrible crowd following us around like mosquitos.
“Are you home now?” Matt asked sounding genuinely concerned.
“Yes, after said strange man and his strange driver brought me home in a limo. Home, to a place I sleep and work, without me telling them my address.” My voice may or may not have had a very angry edge to it with a touch of scorned.
“I deserve that sass, I’m sorry.”
“Today, yes.”
“What the hell bit you on the ass today? You seem touchier than normal by this hour.”
“Har. Har. Let’s start with being woken up by two southern mama’s who were upset I was being portrayed as some hussy in the very face of the World. At 5 AM mind you. God doesn’t even like being up that early. He told me. Why do you think Church is 9 am til midafternoon and even at night?” I said matter of factly.
Matt chuckled and I pulled the phone over to sit on the sink while I walked into the shower. “Well, I’m glad you got home okay. A nice, long, hot shower will do you some good. Maybe you can use that shower head for something other than cleaning the sweat off of you...”
I blushed as though he could see and shrieked “Matthew Godfrey Carver!”
“I’m just trying to be helpful. You need a good stress release and if you aren’t gonna get it from Jason...” I imagined him shrugging his shoulders as he ended the statement, allowing me to finish it out in my head. I may very well be a romance novelist but it’s a very well-known fact that I do not speak of my sex life and certainly don’t speak of sex in public. Blushing happens, as well as utter embarrassment and discomfort. It’s a southern thing, we just don’t do that in public. Mama’s raise their girls to be a lady in the streets and freak in the sheets.
When I finished with my shower quickly, Matt was still on the phone mumbling on about how I needed to get some worse than he did, as if he didn’t have a side piece available 24/7 and I tuned him out again, reaching for my favorite fluffy, overstuffed mulberry colored towel. Wrapping it around my body, I grab two smaller towels to wrap my hair up and dry off my mirror, looking back at the mess that was me already, today. After a few moments of lotioning and fidgeting, I go to open the door leading back into my bedroom and immediately felt my heart sink into the pit of my stomach.
The door now open, I hear a scream that could have shattered glass. I realized it was me after Matt sounded startled and was running a mile a minute, judging by his huffing on the phone, he kept asking me if I was alright and what it was. I took a deep breath and reached for my .22 on the bathroom counter.
“Call the cops” was all I could muster before slamming the door and running to the toilet and ejecting the donut and tea I had partially consumed that morning, from my stomach.
After heaving and crying for at least ten minutes, I heard the front door open and several footsteps running down the hall while Matt yelled out to me. “Tay! Taylor, where are you sweetheart?”
Chapter 5
Tommy was in the master bedroom of his home, packing an away bag for his first job with his brothers’ security firm when the front door opened and his oldest brother called out to him. “TJ?”
“Up here.” Tommy hollered back as he took his expertly folded shirts and placed them in the black duffel. He picked up his favorite shoulder holster and held the chewed up and spit out leather in his hands a moment, turning it over and over, closing his eyes, and just remembering. Remembering the sweltering heat beating down on him and the sweet smells and images his memory conjured up, that got him through all of those hard moments stuck in bum-fuck-shitsville with his men, half starving and dehydrated, waiting for backup while they held off and eliminated the immediate enemy threats. Hard times spent thinking on a soft woman to be his savior. Swearing that would be his last thought, his last memory if they were overrun.
Mike climbed the stairs easily skipping two at a time and stood in the doorway without so much as a hitch in his breath. Tommy’s eyes opened slowly and looked over to his brother who was holding up the door frame by his massive shoulder.
“Nice shirt.” Tipping his chin at Tommy’s short sleeve, fitted, black tee that read,
EAT
SLEEP
KILL
REPEAT.
It had a white flag on the right sleeve and Grunt Style emblem on the left.
Tommy laughed, “Thanks. It’s Grunt Style. Veteran owned, veteran made and just plain fucking kickass.”
“Oorah.” He grinned wickedly. Mike served 10 years in the United States Marine Corps and would never let Tommy forget for a minute that he thought the Marines overshadowed the Army by a mile.
“Change of plans. One of Luke’s contacts called five minutes ago and gave him some intel on a case developing. Some celebrity with a stalker. He’s setting up the drop off now, but we’ll know more in a few hours. I’m switching you onto this case and Noah is finishing up with his latest so he’ll put off the paperwork and jump onto the singer.”
“Yeah, I bet he will.” Tommy remarked shaking his head at his brother’s horn dog attitude.
Mike laughed then turned away to leave.
“No travel?”
Mike merely looked back at Tommy from the landing of the stairs
. “Nope. You’ll be entertaining though, so make sure you got food in the pantry and clean sheets on the beds.”
“Beds? More than one?” His eyebrow kicked up in question.
“Just two of them; Celeb and her ‘people’.” Mike’s gigantic hands doing such a chick like thing, air quotes in this case, always provided a laugh and never grew old.
“You mean, ‘person’.”
“Same shit.” Mike shrugged his shoulders.
Instead of unpacking, Tommy simply threw his bag to the corner and followed Mike out, taking his holster with him.
“Her, meaning a woman. You got a name?”
“Good detective work Sherlock. Look, I know you like to be informed and prepared but at this point what I just told you is all we know.”
“Alright.” Tommy held up his hands, surrendering the questioning. He headed for the couch in his sitting room when they hit the bottom landing and set the holster on the coffee table then sat back.
“I was in town earlier.” Mike turned on him and grinned. “Lissy was asking about you and asking when you were gonna call her.”
Tommy just flipped his brother off and picked up his book.
He chuckled. “I’ll let her know that.”
“Make sure that you do.”
When Tommy thought his brother was going to leave, he turned around and joined him there on the couch.
“What’re you reading there?”
“You wouldn’t know it.” He didn’t look up from the pages.
“Try me.”
Pausing a minute and closing the book over his thumb he turned to Mike. “Riley T.K.”
“Ah. So you like a little mystery with a whole lot of hard on.”
Tommy nearly choked when he took a pull from his longneck and fought to restrain himself.
Mike just laughed and said, “Yeah, I read. I’m not just a pretty face.” He framed his face and mocked a pose.
“Slow down cowboy, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“The women would disagree.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down at TJ while his brother just stared at him blankly.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Tommy shifted back into the couch and reopened the book. Mike could stay as long as he liked, and normally he enjoyed the distraction but right now, today, he just wanted to allow the pain and love and hate and hurt and desire and pride to flow through him while he sulked around his house - their house.
“As much as I’d love to stay and torture your peace of mind some more, I actually do have to go. Rita is waiting for me.” Mike threw his brother the finger guns and blew them out then stood up and clapped a hand to Tommy’s shoulder when he passed by.
“Remember, sharing is not caring if it scratches or burns!”
“Suck my dick.” He called over his shoulder, almost to the front door.
“Not my type.” TJ chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you when I hear back.”
After Mike left, Tommy locked the door and walked down the hall to a door which lead to his own private library, hidden under the left staircase. In the back of the library was a long couch, table and full bar, placed so as not to be seen without walking all the way into the library. His kind of library, specially made by his own two hands and came with sort of free liquor.
Pulling out a glass, he popped two ice cubes out of the tray and poured himself three deep fingers of Jim Beam. Before sitting down, he un-holstered his Glock 17, set down his glass and retrieved his book. He had read all of her books, but liked to reread them when the opportunity arose. They took him back to a sweeter, lighter time. A time without war and nightmares. The smell of her flooded his senses as if she had just walked by as he traced his finger along the words she had written. Words that played out their very own escapades from that eventful summer when she was finally his, even if fleetingly.
Three glasses of whiskey later, Tommy stood to pour another when his phone vibrated indicating an email. He sat his glass down on the bar and pulled his phone out of his front pocket.
From: Anonymous
Oh, Tommy!
JASON HENDERSON SPOTTED WITH LATEST GIRL TOY! MYSTERY WOMAN RENDEZVOUSED WITH JASON AT AWARDS CEREMONY AND MORNING AFTER JOG IN THE PARK!! WILL IT LAST?
JASON AND NEW GIRLFRIEND LEAVE CENTRAL PARK TOGETHER IN LIMO, HEADED TO HER APARTMENT NIGHT AFTER BEING PHOTOGRAPHED AT AWARDS CEREMONY IN INTIMATE CONVERSATION!
IS OUR MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR FINALLY OFF THE MARKET? THINGS SEEM AWFULLY COZY WITH NEW MYSTERY GIRLFRIEND.
He grunted and closed out the article when he saw a picture of her, his angel, looking stunning in a gown, sitting between two men in penguin outfits. The sight of her made his heart swell and his cock do some push-ups. Those headlines and the sight of the guys near her just pissed him off though. Had it been a paper in front of him, it probably would have been shredded to bits, lying on the floor at his feet by now.
He wanted Tay to be happy but not with anyone that wasn’t him. Granted, it had been five years and she had to live her life sometime. It was stupid of him to think she would just come back home to him one day. And fuck whoever wrote those stories and sent that email. Taylor was no toy and she sure as hell wasn’t just some mystery woman. Well, maybe she was, but not the way they meant. She had probably made more than him with her first book alone and now there were movie offers. He wanted to share her success with the world, but it was just that, her success. With his luck, that douche in the article would end up playing in one of her movie adaptions.
Tommy needed another drink and was well on his way to getting it before his phone rang this time.
“Tommy.” He answered, all business.
* * *
“Jesus Christ.” Matt cursed hurrying into my room and going straight through it to the master bathroom where I had my head laid on the tile floor.
“Are you okay honey?”
I made a grunting noise to indicate I was alive but talking was out of the question.
He sat me up and hugged me close for several minutes. I hadn’t stopped him because he needed to comfort me as much as I wouldn’t admit, I needed to be comforted.
I heard the officers in my bedroom, taking notes and talking amongst themselves and over the radio.
When I tried to stand, I felt Matt grab my hands and lift me easily. Seriously, those upper arms are a force to be reckon with.
Walking back into my bedroom, I saw the most disturbing scene I ever could have imagined, and I did write some mystery so that was saying something. Maybe it was a shit ton scarier because it was actually happening to me, in real world, real life and not in one of my books, but holy bazooka, I was absolutely frightened. If scared out of my wits was what they were going for, they hit the nail on the head, knocked it out of the park, got bull’s-eye ten times and received perfect marks. On all of my walls but one, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of pictures of me doing various things in various places, at different ages. The most terrifying of which, were pictures of me sleeping. On the wall without pictures was a message that looked as though it had been written in blood. Red paint I assume. And hope like hell.
YOU’RE MINE.
THE COPS CAN’T STOP ME. HE CANNOT STOP ME.
I’M ALWAYS AROUND.
I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AROUND.
-I’LL BE SEEING YOU...SOON.
A picture of me from this morning had been shredded up as someone carved an X over my face, was posted to the wall by the switchblade I always carried in my purse. Some may say that is overly cautious, but considering the current shit-uation I was in, I would say it was not cautious enough. A glint of something golden was shining from the picture, held up by the knife and as I took another step closer, I realized it was my missing ring.
Fuck the what!
“Okay, call your friend.” I was referring to his friend offering protection, but I hadn’t needed to tell him. If ever I needed to be convinced, that had done it.
“I already did, on the way over.
We are leaving in a few hours.” He hugged me nearer and kissed the top of my head. I felt him vibrate against me and whisper something against my hair. I was too scared and needed him so close too badly to pull away even to ask him to repeat that. All I could do was nod.
The cops took pictures and allowed me to pack a bag while they investigated further. Something clicked as I watched them all moving around my space.
“I set the alarm Matty. I did it when you and I were on the phone with each other and I know I did. I swear.” I sputtered out when the cops asked me questions.
Matt tried to soothe me and rub my back, “It is okay, Tay! Don’t even worry about it. This isn’t your fault.”
“Yes Matt, but listen to what I am saying. I set the alarm! You ran in here and the alarm did not go off.” He halted his movement and I felt his body tighten against me, humming with emotion.
“They know your code. They were in here when you were… when you were in the shower and I was on the phone with you!” He nearly screamed the last bit. The cops began writing furiously and pulled away to whisper in harsh tones. I realized I was shivering in fear but he was shaking with anger.
“Who would do this?” I spat, refusing to let the hot tears roll down my face.
While I packed a few more things, Matt stuck near me and called Jason to let him know the gist of the situation. “Whoever this is, is really pissed and she is seriously in danger. For all we know, you may be too.”
Matt put it on speaker phone and I heard Jason blow out a long breath and say, “It’s okay. I’ll get an extra bodyguard and keep my eyes open. I have to keep filming and can’t stop because of some psycho. Just tell Taylor to let me know if there is anything I can do for her and be safe. I’m sorry this is happening to her, fans can be nuts. I should have walked her to her door.”
“You’re right about the fans but maybe its best you didn’t walk her up. While it was the chivalrous thing to do, you both could have been hurt if he sees you as a threat of some sort. Anyways, keep your eyes open and I’ll let her know what you said. We can’t really let you know where we are going but we will keep you updated as best we can.”