by Lucy Monroe
“I’ve got a snack made for you if you want it.”
She headed toward the kitchen. “You don’t have to tell me twice. I’m starved.”
She noticed her computer chair was empty when she passed it. “I heard the door shut.”
His expression turned wry. “The last time was about the fifth time it opened and closed today. Nitro’s been and gone. I went running and came back and Hotwire left a second ago.”
“No wonder you look like you just took a shower.”
“I went running five hours ago.”
She grimaced. “Oh…”
He chuckled. “We had a meeting and then I worked out on the floor of your bedroom while you were writing.”
“I could use a workout. My muscles ache from sitting in one position for so long.” She stopped beside the table and did some side stretches.
Joshua watched her with distracting interest and she bumped the table sliding into her chair.
She took a long drink of the juice he’d poured her and then a bite of her sandwich. It was Heavenly, and she didn’t talk again until she’d eaten most of it.
“I take it you got a lot done on your book?”
“Yep.”
“Hotwire installed an invisible firewall on your system that should trap anyone trying to get in and give us a lead to their computer.”
“Nemesis didn’t leave a trail when he deleted my file.”
“No. He did a better sweep job than a soldier in the field during war games.”
“That makes sense. When I used my firewall software to try to trace his e-mails, I came up with nothing.”
Joshua spun a chair around and straddled it, his arms over the back. He liked watching Lise eat. She was dainty, even if she wouldn’t appreciate him saying so.
“Hotwire got a little further with the e-mails, but he’s still working on it.”
“So, am I supposed to use my computer now?”
“It’s up to you. Stick with the Dana if that makes you feel better, but download to the computer every night so he doesn’t track the fact we’re on to him. Just keep a current backup of your file.”
“I always do.”
“Good.”
“Thanks for working on that.”
“Thank Hotwire. He did it. Computers are not my specialty.”
“What is your specialty?”
“Tactics and warfare.”
She didn’t flinch as he’d expected, but watched him with eyes he swore saw into his soul. “You said you’d done a lot of things you wouldn’t want put in your memoirs.”
“Yes.” He’d lived as a mercenary for ten years and his six years in the Army Rangers had been only marginally better.
“Everyone has things in their past they aren’t proud of.”
“Would everyone do them again?” Because he would.
He’d made a lot of tough calls in his life, but the few regrets weren’t about the warfare he’d waged on behalf of the people who had needed his help. That didn’t mean things didn’t weigh on his conscience. It didn’t matter how many times a man had to kill, he never learned to take it in stride.
At least he hadn’t.
“Few people have lived lives so full of heroism that they’d want to.”
“I’m no hero.”
She waved her hand, dismissing his words. “Tell me about what y’all discussed while I was writing.”
He didn’t feel like arguing with her to disillusion her, so he went with the change of subject. “I read through the letters you keep in your ‘weird letter’ file.”
“I did that, too, right after the stalking started, but I couldn’t see a correlation between any of the letters and what was happening to me.”
“You can’t limit yourself to linking like events. Five of those messages were written from prison, four of them by men who have since been let out.”
“Some of the letters were really disgusting.” She shivered. “Have you looked into the men’s whereabouts?”
“One is doing parole in the Midwest and from all accounts hasn’t left town since getting out. Another is doing time again, but in a county jail, and the other two skipped parole and no one knows where they are.”
“Do you think one of them is my stalker?”
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, wishing it could be that easy, suspecting it wouldn’t be. “One of the men was in for sexual assault.”
Her face blanched and he reached out to touch her before thinking better of it.
“No one is getting near you.”
“Thanks.” She licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth and he wanted to follow her retreating tongue with his own.
He forced his thoughts away from that dangerous path. “There were a few more letters I thought we should investigate.”
“Which ones?”
“You’ve had two letters from a right-wing conservative group that claims to have discovered the new way to salvation. They’ve got major issues with women, especially assertive and strong ones.”
“You think I’m being stalked by a cult?” She sounded incredulous.
“No, but one of the cult’s followers might have fixated on you. It’s something we’re going to have to look into.”
“This isn’t going to be straightforward, is it?”
There was no sense lying to her. She was too smart to believe him, anyway. “No.”
The apartment intercom buzzed.
“Are you expecting anyone?”
“No.”
He followed her into the hall and she pressed the black button on her intercom. “Yes?”
“Miss Barton, this is the security desk. A package was delivered for you today that wouldn’t fit in your mailbox.”
“I’ll be down shortly to collect it.” She snagged her keys from the hook. “Be right back.”
Joshua put his hand on the door, preventing her from opening it. “How often do you get packages?”
“Quite a lot, actually.” She patted his arm as if trying to reassure him.
It was a strange sensation. No one but his mother and sisters believed he needed that kind of thing.
“This is nothing new, Joshua. My publisher sends me manuscripts for proofing, author copies of my books, and I order a lot of books online, too.”
“That doesn’t mean this package is innocent.” His gut was telling him things were escalating. There was no overt proof of it, but he knew it all the same.
“You can’t go with me.” She hugged herself in a way he’d learned meant she was feeling threatened. “For all we know, Nemesis is one of the apartment building’s security guards.”
He liked the way her posture put her breasts into prominence, but he didn’t think he’d mention that.
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” he said instead. “Security here is pretty damn lax.”
“The Realtor who helped me find my apartment said the security here was very tight.”
“I got in without any problem.”
“It may have escaped your notice, but most burglars aren’t former mercenaries.” A smile twitched on her lips and he got the distinct impression she was laughing at him.
Another new experience for him.
“I’m not a former anything.” He was still a soldier for hire and neither one of them had better forget that fact.
“I know, but my point is,” she said with exaggerated care, “there are only a handful of people in the world with your skill set. If Nemesis was one of them, we wouldn’t have any concrete information on him at all.”
On that point, Joshua had to agree, but he didn’t agree with her going to the lobby alone. “I’ll call Nitro and have him in the lobby when you come down. He’ll follow you to the elevator since his and Hotwire’s temporary apartment is only one floor below.
She didn’t argue and he hadn’t expected her to.
Chapter 7
Lise was too nervous to chat with the security guard like she normally did when picking up a packag
e.
But that was going to get her nowhere, which was where running away to Seattle had gotten her, so she didn’t do it.
Taking the box, which felt light for its size, she thanked the female security agent and then headed straight for the elevator. Nitro came along beside her, but did not betray by a flicker of an eyelash that he knew her.
Once they were on the elevator, he kept his eyes straight ahead and she examined the package. Wrapped in brown paper, it was about the right size for a book delivery, but too light, unless there were only a couple of books and a lot of weightless packing. The return address was smudged beyond recognition and the postmark was from Seattle’s city center post office.
While Amazon.com was Seattle-based, deliveries from the bookstore had the company name emblazoned on the boxes themselves and she couldn’t remember making a recent order. Though that didn’t mean a great deal. She’d often surprised herself with book orders when they got delivered.
Talking wasn’t the only thing she did with her mind fully engaged in her book.
The elevator stopped on Nitro’s floor and he stepped out, stopping just on the other side of the open doors, but not turning around to look at her. “Don’t open it until I’m up there.”
He didn’t wait for her agreement before leaving and the doors slid shut almost immediately after.
Both Joshua and Nitro’s attitudes weren’t doing much for her nerves. She’d thought she had mentally prepared herself to live under the siege mentality that being stalked induced, but she realized she’d been trying to hide from reality again. Yesterday, she’d used her work to do it, typing away while Joshua and his friends discussed her plight.
She should have been in on that, taken an active interest in their plans, but she’d lost herself in the fictional world she’d created. A world where the heroine always triumphed and the bad guys got theirs. It wasn’t a new defense mechanism. She’d used the stories in her head to hide from her father’s rejection and her focus on her writing had effectively masked the cracks in her marriage until Mike’s request for a divorce had plunged her into painful reality.
Here she was, trying to hide again. She didn’t want to believe the package was from her stalker, so she kept trying to come up with an alternative. She hated knowing that everything coming into her life was suspect now. However, not wanting to face reality was a far cry from being able to get rid of the prickly feeling she got every time she looked down at the nondescript box in her hands.
Joshua waited impatiently for Lise to return.
He didn’t like that walk down the hall by herself, even if he knew Nitro would not have left the elevator if there had been anyone else on it with Lise when it stopped at his floor. Knowing his friend’s competence didn’t stop Joshua from picking up his mobile to call and see if Nitro had returned to his own apartment, but as he went to dial, the door opened and Lise walked in.
She put a plain brown box down on the hall table and hung up her keys, her expression troubled.
He flipped his phone shut again and attached it to the clip on his belt. “What’s the problem?”
Biting her lower lip, her eyes skittered to the package and then to him. “I can’t read the return address and the postmark is from the post office here in Seattle.” She glared at nothing in particular. “I hate feeling like this.”
“Like what?”
“Besieged.”
Joshua knew what she meant. Thus far, all of her actions in regard to her stalker had been defensive. You couldn’t live large behind a defensive shield. It was a simple reality of combat. Taking the offensive could be a huge risk, but it also freed a person to act instead of react.
“Has he sent you anything before?” She hadn’t mentioned it, but he had not interrogated her on all the events leading up to her current situation.
It shamed him to acknowledge it, but he’d been too busy fighting the ungovernable desire that plagued him whenever he was with her. Sixteen years as a professional soldier and a tiny woman laid waste his defenses. It was damn embarrassing and not something he would ever willingly admit to.
“No.” She looked at him with troubled eyes as turbulent as a war-torn country. “But prior to pushing me into the street, he’d never done anything to put me in danger, either.” Her small fingers curled and uncurled at her sides, the knuckles turning white. “Maybe the sergeant was right. Maybe that wasn’t my stalker at all.”
He squeezed her shoulders, pulling her infinitesimally closer to him. “Don’t start doubting yourself now.”
She looked at his hands on her shoulders and then back at his face. “You do that a lot.”
“What?” Her mind definitely went places he had trouble following.
“Touch me.”
“And that surprises you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You said no sex on the job.”
He brushed the delicate column of her neck with both his thumbs, entranced by the rapidity of the pulse he found there. “I’m not touching you sexually.” Much.
“It’s just a friendly touch,” she mocked.
“Yeah.” A real friendly connection.
“And you caress all your friends this way, right?”
His lips quirked. He liked the way she made him smile even when she was stressed. “Not Hotwire and Nitro.”
Her hazel eyes filled with humor. “I can’t imagine.”
Neither could he, but what she didn’t know and he had no intention of telling her was that he couldn’t imagine touching another woman in this casual way, either. Even when he was having sex, he tended to keep the fondling to what was necessary to achieve his partner’s climax. With Lise, he wanted his hands on her all the time, even when he wasn’t aching with desires he couldn’t do anything about right now.
Her small hand settled against his heart and her pixie face took on a very serious cast. “I’m glad you’re here, Joshua. Thank you for helping me.”
For several seconds, he couldn’t say anything and he had to force himself to let her go and step back. “No problem.” He picked up the box. “Let me get Nitro in here before we open this.”
“He said he’d be up, but why does he have to be here to open it?”
“He’s an explosives expert.”
“You think it might be a bomb?”
“Your stalker’s behavior so far hasn’t indicated that level of violent intent, but caution never hurts.”
She glared at him, her eyes promising mayhem and retribution. “My heart missed several beats there. Maybe you need to be a little more circumspect about your precautions.”
He liked her sass, but he didn’t agree. “It’s no use hiding from the possibilities.”
She straightened as if driving herself up and mentally soldiering on. “I know you’re right. I have a bad habit of hoping if I ignore something, it will go away.”
“Like a stalker?”
“Yeah, among other things.”
Lise watched the dark, silent man use a swab chemical detector like the ones security employed in airports.
They’d brought the box into the kitchen and he was working at the table.
Joshua had suggested she go down to his friends’ apartment while Nitro did the scan, but she’d wanted to watch. Her professional curiosity had been aroused. Besides, she’d argued, if Joshua had really believed it was dangerous, he wouldn’t have allowed her to bring the package up from the security desk in the first place.
He’d admitted she was right with a real lack of grace and allowed her to stay, grumbling about independent, stubborn females. However, he’d made her promise to leave if Nitro found anything doubtful.
So far, Nemesis had been very careful to avoid giving any sort of concrete evidence for her to take to the police. She didn’t think they’d find anything dangerous or traceable in the package. Unless he wanted to kill her, and nothing so far indicated he wanted to do anything more than terrorize her, there was little chance the package wa
s any danger to anything but her mental well-being.
Nitro’s efforts were no doubt overkill, but they were fascinating to watch.
“What does that do?” she asked Nitro as he scanned the package with a handheld wand.
“It detects electromagnetic emissions.”
She looked at Joshua for a clarification.
“If there is an electric timer or trigger for a bomb, the wand will pick it up.”
“It’s clean.” Nitro flipped open a knife that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
He sliced the packing tape holding the brown paper to the box and then pulled back the flaps. It was filled with packing peanuts and Nitro carefully removed them after doing an additional scan with his wand thing.
He pulled a tissue-wrapped bundle from the box and looked at her. “Do you mind if I unwrap it?”
She shook her head. “Go ahead.”
He peeled away the generic white tissue to reveal two pieces of a broken crystal heart on a pedestal. A groom was still attached to the base, but the bride had been crushed, the tiny shards of colored crystal that had comprised her still in the tissue.
Both Nitro and Joshua looked at her as if asking what it was.
“That’s a wedding cake topper. It’s a lot like the one I had when I married Mike.” Uncannily like it, actually.
Joshua took the tissue bundle from Nitro and examined it. “How much like it?”
She leaned back against the counter, not wanting the men to know that her limbs seemed to have stopped working. She hated being weak. “Almost identical. It’s like he’s seen my wedding photos, or something.”
“Maybe he did.”
Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back down. She was not going to be a wimp about this.
“He could have seen it one of the times he broke into my apartment in Canyon Rock.” She’d kept her wedding album with her other pictures in a cabinet.
Joshua set the tissue bundle down on the counter and started rifling through the box. “You kept your wedding photos?”
He sounded surprised. She supposed a professional mercenary didn’t make it a habit of saving mementos.
“Yes.” It was part of her past, just like her awful picture missing her two front teeth in first grade and the photos that saved for posterity her pimple-faced adolescence.