I could kind of see that. He had a lot of really hard edges, as if he’d had to push through a lot of crap to get where he was. Maybe that was why he hated me so much—because he thought my upbringing had all been velvet and roses, compared to his.
It helped me understand him better. Not like him any better though.
“Do you resent everyone who didn’t grow up the way you did?”
He turned his head toward me. “What?”
“You seem to resent me, and it seems to be because you think I had an easier time in life than you did.”
“I bet you everything in your fat wallet that you did.”
I brushed off the snide comment. “Whether it’s true or not, you resent me for it. That’s a hard way to go through life, only respecting people you think have suffered as much as you have. Do you resent Sebastian too?”
Something flickered on his face, and I could see that he had resented Sebastian—at least at one point even if he didn’t still now. “Sebastian is a friend.”
“So that means you’ve realized there’s more to him than the easy life you think he’s had. Is it possible that might be true of me?”
Cole met my eyes, and for a moment he seemed to really see me. See me—in a way he hadn’t in the entire past week. Before he could say anything, though, the buzzer from the doorman sounded.
Both of us jumped, and I ran back into the living area of the apartment, relieved to be back inside.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Cole asked as he reached to pick up the phone to talk to the doorman.
I shook my head and waited.
“I’ll be right down,” Cole said after a minute and hung up. He looked at me. “Jimmy sent you something from the bakery. Is that normal?”
Nodding, I said, “He normally sends me something once a week.”
With a curt nod, Cole went down to get it, and he came up with a box of gourmet muffins.
I smiled at the sight. “Jimmy has sent these to me before. He does it to be nice. I’m sure it’s fine.” I reached out to take the box from Cole.
Cole was still frowning, but after inspecting the box from all angles, he handed it to me.
I brought it over to the counter, realizing I was a little hungry since all I’d had so far today was half a cup of coffee.
When I lifted the top, there were the familiar rows of muffins in a variety of flavors. I grabbed one and started to take a bite.
Then I noticed something. In one of the slots for the muffins, there wasn’t a muffin.
There was a dead mouse.
I squealed in shock and disgust, dropped the lid, and took several steps away from the box, shuddering in disgust and spitting out the bite I’d just taken.
Cole sprang into action immediately, jumping over to examine the box and then coming over to me.
I was still spitting and half sobbing, trying to get the sight of that mouse out of my head. For some reason it was more horrifying than it should have been. I definitely didn’t like mice, but when it was placed like that, amid food objects that were supposed to be a gift, it took on a kind of nightmare, surreal quality.
“Evangeline,” Cole was saying, sounding urgent, strong, strangely reassuring. “Evangeline, are you all right? It’s okay. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. I ran over to the sink to fill a glass of water and swish it in my mouth, spitting it out again into the sink. There was no reason to think anything was wrong with the muffin I’d taken a bite from, but it had been in the box with the dead mouse, and I didn’t want any crumb of it remaining.
“It’s just to scare you,” Cole said, evidently assuring himself I hadn’t been poisoned and going back over to the box. He put the lid on it and moved it out of the kitchen, over to a table near the door. “It’s just supposed to scare you.”
“It did scare me,” I said, rubbing my mouth with the back of my hand. “It was horrible.”
“I know. It was ugly. I’m sorry I didn’t check the box before I let you open it.”
I shook my head since it was obviously not his fault. “Jimmy sends me those muffins. He’s done it a lot. The note sounded like him.”
Cole nodded, looking sober. “It’s someone who’s familiar with your and those around you.”
That was even more terrifying. I gave a little whimper, shivering from the aftermath of the horror on top of the chill from being outside in my pajamas. I hugged myself, barely able to stand still.
I must have looked particularly pitiful because Cole’s expression broke with what looked like empathy. “Damn it,” he said, reaching out and pulling me against him, wrapping me in one of his arms. “It’s over now.”
It didn’t feel like it was over. It felt like there was a stranger in my home, constantly threatening me, making me helpless, vulnerable.
I just wanted it to stop.
I felt better with his arm around me, and I huddled against him. He felt warm and strong, and I needed it.
After a minute, though, I started to pull myself together. I was a little embarrassed at my breakdown, particularly since it probably just confirmed Cole’s first impression of me being weak and spoiled. I pulled away enough to look up at him. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.” His eyes weren’t as cold and hard as normal. They looked protective. And defiant, but not toward me.
If there was anyone I wanted going after the bastard doing this to me, it was this man. It was Cole. The bastard wouldn’t have a chance against that strength and defiance.
“I’m okay,” I repeated, pulling farther away from him. “Sorry about the dramatics. It was just a mouse.”
“It was ugly,” he said again. “Anyone would be upset by it. Fuck, I’m upset about it.”
Ridiculously, that made me feel better, even though I was sure he was lying. “Thank you.” I gave him a small smile and hugged myself again when another chill ran over me as my eyes glanced past the table near the door where the box was.
Cole put an arm around me again, and I let myself take comfort in it—for just a few seconds.
“I used to love getting packages in the mail,” I murmured, following the line of my thoughts. “My granddad used to send me these caramels from a little candy shop in his town. He’d send them every week to me when I started doing the television show—just to let me know he was thinking about me. The only place you could get those caramels was Hillsville, Indiana, and every time they came in the mail to me, I’d know he was thinking of me. They just meant love.”
I realized what I was saying—to a guy who’d been nothing but a jerk to me—so I pulled away, a little embarrassed.
“Sounds like a good grandpa,” he said, not sounding like he thought I was stupid.
I nodded. “I haven’t had them since he died, but getting stuff in the mail always felt really special to me because of it. But now I’m afraid it’s all going to be tainted because of this.”
“This won’t last long. We’ll get him.”
When I looked up at him, his expression was different. It was still protective, but it was warm in a very different way.
I responded to the expression immediately. My heart accelerated, and my pulse started to throb in my wrists and my throat. There was something very masculine, powerful, almost fierce about him. He wasn’t handsome like the men I was used to dating, but his presence so close to me suddenly prompted an instinct more primitive than anything I’d ever experienced.
As if my body was attuned to his—by nature, all the way down to the core.
We stared at each other, both of us breathing heavily, and for a moment I was sure he would kiss me.
And I wanted him to. Ridiculously, irrationally, I wanted him to.
I wanted him to claim me in some primal way.
Fortunately, my brain finally caught up, and I suddenly saw us as if from a distance. Me in my pajamas, him in his jeans and bad attitude, trapped in some sort of holding pattern of resentment and attraction fo
r a moment that just wouldn’t end.
Then I remembered everything he had said to me that week, all the offensive ways he had treated me.
There was no way in hell I could kiss that kind of man.
There was no way in hell I would want to.
I turned away, reaching for my lukewarm coffee and taking a swig, mostly for something to do.
He made a sound in his throat and took a step back too. “I’ll have the box checked out,” he said at last, sounding not nearly as focused as normal. “And I’ll look into the courier service. This guy won’t be able to hide his tracks as well as he thinks.”
I nodded. “Good.”
He looked around as if he wasn’t sure what to do. “I’ll go take care of it. You stay here today.”
I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to go anywhere. But I also didn’t want him to order me around as if I had no say about my own life. “I might go to the day spa later.”
“No. You need to stay here today.”
I stiffened in anger, more at his harsh tone than at the instructions. “I’ll go somewhere if I want to. Malcolm can take me.”
“No, he can’t.”
I snapped, completely losing my patience. After the week of aggravation and the fright I’d just had, I had no mental barriers left. Not to mention the weird reaction I’d just had to him, which I absolutely could not let myself entertain. “You can’t stop me from doing normal things. It’s not dangerous. I haven’t made an appointment, so no one can know I’m going there. Maybe someone like you could be satisfied buried in a hole somewhere, but most of us want to behave like civilized human beings.”
I regretted the words as soon as I’d said them since they came out sounding like I was slamming him for a class reason—as if he were lower-class and thus uncivilized—when I’d intended it to be about his endlessly rude behavior. But there was nothing I could do about it now.
At least I’d said something to show how I felt about him.
He grew very still for just a minute, and then his eyes turned ice cold. “Understood,” he said. “But you’re still not going with Malcolm. If you’re going out today, I’ll get an extra guy to go too.”
“Fine,” I said, relenting just to get him out of here. “Now would you just take that horrible thing out of here and go away.”
He gave me another cold look. “I’m gone.”
He was gone, and I was relieved. But I was also really upset. About everything.
Someone was after me, refused to let me feel safe anywhere.
And Cole seemed to hate me more now than he had before.
It was a lot to have accomplished before ten o’clock on a Saturday morning.
Four
Cole
Well, I’d give her this. She had balls.
Seriously, I’d butted heads with more than my share of people, and the diva certainly did a damn fine job of putting me in my place. Part of me was actually proud of her.
And part of me still wanted to strangle her.
I couldn’t believe I’d actually let my guard down and didn’t even think to check the damn box of muffins. Nothing should be left unchecked, and at this point, everyone was a suspect.
It wasn’t until I was down in the lobby that I actually allowed myself to breathe. I couldn’t slack off on this case—or any case, for that matter—but particularly this one. The sooner I got things figured out, the sooner I’d be out of here.
And away from Evangeline.
Even thinking her name had me shaking my head. It was ridiculous. Although it was kind of fun twisting it around and watching her get all pissy about it. I chuckled at the thought and realized it was the only kind of distraction I could allow myself. I was not here to play nice or socialize.
And I certainly wasn’t here to get up close and personal with a client.
No matter how badly my body was saying otherwise.
“Fuck,” I muttered and pulled out my phone. We had a lab in DC that we used for cases like this. There was no way I could leave and bring it to them, and I knew they would give me shit about having to make the drive to Baltimore to pick it up.
Too bad. They got paid a lot of money to handle things like this, and I was not in the mood to play courier.
Fifteen minutes later, arrangements were made. I had gotten a kit from the trunk of my car so I could bag this stuff up and keep it protected until their guy arrived. That was one thing off my list. Now to check with the doorman. I knew Evangeline said those muffins were a normal occurrence, but I needed to know how they arrived, who delivered them, and then get with Malcolm and have him hit the bakery and question the people there.
It was a long shot, and I knew it. Chances were whoever put the mouse in there did it after the box left the bakery, but still, I had to check every angle and question every person I possibly could.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I actually liked talking to people.
But I didn’t.
Most people are idiots.
A fact that was confirmed once I was done with the doorman. He was completely useless. He couldn’t give me an accurate description of who dropped the box off and played it off as “being busy.”
Bullshit.
I realized those muffins came all the time, but Evangeline hadn’t been here in this location for long, so this guy should have been paying more attention. It was an average delivery for Evangeline, not so much for the doorman. I promised the guy I was going to be talking to his boss and his boss’s boss. He didn’t really seem to care, but it made me feel better to issue the threat.
I was better than this.
I knew I was better than this, and on most cases, I would be much further along in figuring out what the hell was going on. Why couldn’t I do this? Why couldn’t I get a handle on where this threat was coming from? Looking at my watch, I saw I had already been away from Evangeline for almost forty-five minutes. And that was much longer than I should have allowed. Shaking my head, I walked over to the elevator and headed back up.
Once back at her apartment, I let myself in. She was nowhere in sight, and I actually breathed a sigh of relief. With her out of the way—even temporarily—I could finish making my calls. The first call was to Malcolm. I shared the morning’s events with him and was glad he seemed just as perplexed as I was. With explicit directions, I sent him on his way to do some investigating on his own.
With still no sign of Evangeline, I took a minute to call Levi and chuckled at how exhausted he sounded. “What’s the matter? Not getting any sleep?” I asked.
A loud yawn was the initial response followed by, “I cannot believe how much one baby can mess you up. I mean, Harper just keeps telling me he’s got his days and nights mixed up, but how the hell do you fix that?”
“So were you sleeping right now?”
“I wish.” Another yawn. “I doubt you’re calling to check on my sleeping habits, so what’s up? I thought we had a conference call planned for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said with my own weariness. “It’s just… I don’t know, man. I can’t read this case, and it’s starting to piss me off.” I gave him a rundown of what I’d seen, heard, and observed and then waited for his input.
“Seems to me a large part of the issue is that there are so many possibilities. There’s no obvious string of suspects because Evangeline’s in such a high-profile position. Honestly, this person might not even be in Baltimore.”
“No,” I said adamantly. “The mouse in the muffin box says otherwise.”
“Or he has an accomplice.”
“Don’t even say that. If I can’t get a handle on one of them, how the hell am I supposed to track down two of them?”
“It’s still early in the case, Cole. I know you want out of there, and I think that’s part of what’s messing with you. Stop thinking about the end of the case, and get your head in the here and now.” He yawned loudly, and in the background I could hear the baby cry. “Listen, we’ll talk again tomorrow. Y
ou’re free to talk around seven in the morning, right?”
“Why don’t you tell me what this is all about and save the call?”
There was a minute of hesitation. “It’s really something we all need to talk about. Seb’s even calling in from vacation.”
“That sounds pretty serious, Levi. Come on. What’s going on?”
He sighed. “I got a call yesterday. From Washington. It seems that the inquiry into what happened the day Gavin died is over.”
Shit.
“The only reason I received the call is because someone majorly broke protocol to tell me. I just thought…” He cleared his throat. “I figured we’d all discuss it now because we’ll probably all be either called or summoned to the capital to talk about it.”
“No fucking way. I’m not going.”
“Cole…”
“No, I’m serious, man. I did my time, and I’m out. No one has any hold on me or any power over me. It’s over, it’s done, and I’m not talking about it ever again.” I was pissed by the catch in my voice. “I can’t go there again, Levi. I just can’t.”
“We’re all feeling the same way,” Levi said quietly. “Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to just move on from the whole thing. But we owe it to Gavin—and to ourselves—to see it through to the end.”
“The end already fucking came! Gavin’s dead! No inquiry or meeting or report is going to change that! Why are we still having to talk about it?”
In the background, the cries grew louder, and I heard Harper call out for Levi. “Look, Cole, I’ve got to go. Call in the morning. Please.”
I told him I would, but I was still on the fence and leaning heavily toward not. But he had enough on his plate without dealing with me and my hang-ups and issues. I hung up and rested my elbows on the counter, my head in my hands.
“Are you okay?”
Great. I looked up and saw Evangeline standing beside me, concern written all over her face.
“Yeah. Why?” I asked, hating how defensive I sounded.
“I… I overheard…” She motioned toward my phone.
“Yeah, well… just… just forget that you did.” I stalked away and went in search of something to drink. She stayed rooted to the spot, watching me. I wasn’t really thirsty, but I needed to keep moving. I couldn’t have her looking at me like that—with pity. With compassion.
Protecting the Movie Star (The Protectors Book 4) Page 5