The Agent

by Herkness, Nancy

  Knowing he was focused on solving her problem loosened the knots in her shoulders. “I don’t have good news to report either. Two of the women swear they didn’t tell their ex-husbands. Two I left voice mails for. The last one I have no way of contacting because her cell phone service has been shut off, probably to avoid her husband. However, I’m almost certain she wouldn’t even tell him the time if he asked.”

  “Give me her name and I’ll see if I can track her down.”

  “Regina Van Houten. Married to William Van Houten. His nickname is Dobs, for some reason. She lived in Manorville, about forty-five minutes from here, although she’s originally from somewhere in Nebraska. She’s not close with her family, though, so I don’t think she’d go there. I always ask them not to tell me where they’re heading so I can’t be pressured to reveal their whereabouts.”

  “You are a very smart woman. But I knew that already.”

  His approval sent a glow of gratification spiraling through her.

  “I’m going to check up on what’s happening in Matt’s life too,” Natalie said.

  “No!” Tully’s response was emphatic. “Let me handle that. He could be your stalker, so I don’t want you going near that SOB.”

  “I won’t have to. I own a beauty salon.” She smiled. “I have a web of informants I can tap at any time.”

  Tully’s chuckle was a dark rumble that vibrated low in her belly. “And to think I was going to waste time by hiring a private detective.” However, there was no amusement in his voice when he said, “But that could prod him into doing something worse, so I’m asking you to leave that to me.”

  He was putting a lot of resources—which cost money—into solving this. She massaged the bridge of her nose as she wondered how to repay him. Free haircuts for life as long as he trekked out to New Jersey? She dropped her hand onto the legal pad. “This stalker is jerking my chain and I’m tired of it. I’m not going to spend my days looking over my shoulder in fear.”

  “That’s strong, but don’t put yourself in danger because of it. Listen to Pam when she’s with you.”

  “She can’t stay with me indefinitely. It’s too much. And don’t feed me that line about the SBI covering all this.”

  “Hey, Derek chartered a private jet to fly Alice to Texas when they were tracking the computer accounting fraud.”

  “That affected thousands of people. This is just about me.”

  “You’ve got it backward. All those people were going to lose was their money. This is about your safety.” His words were rock hard with conviction.

  “Okay. I won’t object anymore . . . for now.” His implication sent a shiver though her. Despite all the reassurances, he wasn’t sure the stalker was nonviolent.

  “I’m going to come by your house later in the day to install outside security cameras on more than just your front door. That way we’ll catch him on video if he comes there again. Or scare him off with the added surveillance. Either option works for me.”

  Her heart did a flip of anticipation, and she slapped her palm against her chest in a ridiculous attempt to calm it. “Remember what I said about too much? I’ll get the alarm company to do it. Just tell me where you want them.”

  “I want to check on you too. See how you’re holding up.”

  Now a different part of her body was doing a happy dance. “You’re coming whether I agree or not, aren’t you?”

  His chuckle added the accompaniment for the pulse beating between her legs. “Now you’re getting the idea.”

  She’d sworn never to have her decisions overruled by a man again. But that didn’t mean she would be stupid when Tully suggested sensible precautions.

  Especially when the prospect of seeing him made her body hum like a two-thousand-watt hair dryer.

  Tully walked into Leland’s computer lair, which was known as Mission Control due to its massive array of computer screens. “You should see the safe I found for the Meier house in Connecticut. It makes Fort Knox look like it’s built out of tissue paper.”

  “That will make Mrs. Meier happy. All those diamonds to protect,” Leland said, just as Tully noticed there was a third person in the room.

  “Hey, Tully!” Dawn swiveled her chair around, her glossy dark hair lit by the glow of the screens, and jumped up to give Tully a hug. Then she put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to stay with Natalie tonight.”

  Behind her Leland shook his head. As if Tully needed that cue.

  “Natalie won’t let you do that,” Tully said. “She’s concerned that you’d be in danger.”

  “I’m an expert in self-defense.” Dawn was a personal trainer, but she also taught women to protect themselves from attack. “I can help.”

  In addition, she was as tenacious as a bulldog.

  “It’s not my call. I already suggested that Natalie stay with a friend and she refused because she didn’t want her stalker to target anyone else. So I sent a professional bodyguard to protect her.” Tully shrugged. “But if you think she’ll let you come . . .”

  Leland gave Tully a thumbs-up behind Dawn’s back.

  Dawn assessed Tully with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’d better not be messing with me.”

  “Call her yourself,” he said.

  Dawn flopped back down in the chair. “It sounds exactly like what Natalie would decide. She won’t budge if she thinks she’s protecting her friends. She can be stubborn.”

  “Of course, you don’t have a stubborn bone in your body,” Leland said.

  Dawn nudged his sneaker with hers. “And your slow southern drawl doesn’t fool any of us into thinking you’re a pushover.”

  “There’s no lack of strong personalities in this room,” Tully said with a grin. “Keeps life interesting.”

  “Is the bodyguard really good?” Dawn’s gaze was pinned on Tully again.

  “One of my best.” He propped his hip against a desk. “I’m also going to install some additional security cams at Natalie’s house. Leland, I want to set up a feed that my people can monitor from here.”

  Leland looked at him with an odd half smile. “Why don’t you let Jackson or Sarah take care of it? They just finished some continuing education on that very topic.”

  Tully was about to tell Leland to stuff it when he realized his partner was baiting him. “I need to check out the security at the salon too.”

  “Okay, I’ll hook up the monitoring from this end,” Leland said, his smile deepening.

  Tully would have wiped the smirk off Leland’s face with a few choice words if Dawn hadn’t been present.

  “I’m coming with you when you install the cams,” she said. “I want to see how Nat is doing and meet this bodyguard.”

  “Let me ask you something,” Tully said. “Did she tell you about the email messages?”

  “No, and I’m not happy about that. She should have.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want you involved because it would add to her anxiety.” Tully kept his voice gentle. “We don’t know what this stalker is after yet, so it’s risky introducing people Natalie cares about into the equation. It makes her more vulnerable, not less.”

  “But I’m her friend,” Dawn said. “Friends are there for each other in bad situations.”

  “Do you trust me?” Tully looked at her straight on.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then trust me.”

  Dawn held his gaze for a long moment. “All right, but I’m going to call her to see how she’s doing.”

  “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” Natalie was lucky to have such a fierce ally—just as lucky as he was to have his two partners. But then, Natalie helped women she barely knew. She would be an unwavering friend. “What do you know about Natalie’s ex-husband?” he asked.

  “You mean Matt the narcissistic douchebag?” Dawn’s lips twisted into a grimace. “He’s a pro at psychological abuse, so I could easily see him being a stalker.”

  “But he’s left her alone for three years,” Leland sai
d. “So why now?”

  “Good question,” Tully agreed before he turned back to Dawn. “Would he hurt her physically?”

  “Well, she always said he didn’t hit her.” Dawn considered for a moment. “It was more stuff like gaslighting. When no one else was around to hear it, he would criticize her in a horrible, nasty way. If she brought it up again, he would look at her like she was crazy and deny he’d ever said it. If she pushed harder, he would backpedal and claim he didn’t remember saying it.” Dawn looked thoughtful again. “That might have been even worse—to forget you’d said something so devastating.”

  Tully felt an urge to plant his fist in Matt Stevens’s face.

  Dawn continued. “He’s very worried about what people think of him—he plays the funny, charming guy in public—so that might stop him from physical abuse. If he injured her, it could become public. He would hate that.”

  Dawn’s analysis reinforced Natalie’s, so Tully reduced his concern about her physical safety by half a degree. The ex’s anxiety about public disgrace could also explain why he was working so hard to remain anonymous.

  Assuming the stalker was the ex.

  Tully had put an investigator on Stevens to see what might have sent him into stalker mode. Now he was thinking that he might pay a visit to Stevens himself just to get a vibe from the man.

  “What about Natalie’s sanctuary for abused wives?” Tully asked Dawn. “Anyone come to mind who might be so angry about his wife leaving him that he would punish Natalie for it?”

  “I guess she had to tell you about that, but it’s a big secret. It took her a year to trust me with it, so I don’t think any of the ex-husbands know.” Dawn rolled her shoulders. “If they did, yeah, they could be pissed off. One of them trained at the gym in Cofferwood, and he was a real lowlife. But I’d see him more confronting her and yelling than sneaking around writing cryptic emails.”

  “That’s useful,” Tully said with a nod of encouragement. “How about competitors? All the quotes are about beauty, so the stalker is referring to her work.” Or her appearance. She was exactly as he’d told her: stunningly beautiful and sexy as hell.

  “She’d know more about that than I would,” Dawn said before she leaned forward. “But people respect her. She’s really good at her job, and she hires people who are the same and then mentors them. Customers come from a couple of hours away to get their hair done at the Mane Attraction. That might make someone jealous, but would they stalk her because of it?”

  “If they thought she was stealing business from them, they might,” Leland said. “Money makes people do strange things.”

  A shadow crossed Dawn’s face, and she reached for Leland’s hand where it rested on the arm of his chair.

  Tully suspected she was thinking of the arms dealer she and Leland had uncovered at the gym where Dawn once worked. They had nearly lost their lives as a result of their discovery.

  “Okay, I’ll let you get back to work.” Dawn scooted her chair over to give Leland a quick kiss and stood. “I’ve got clients.” She tossed a sassy glare at Tully. “And I’m going to call Nat.”

  After Dawn left, Leland said, “It doesn’t sound like you’re any closer to finding the stalker than you were before.”

  “My first priority is getting Natalie protected. That’s handled. I’ve got investigators looking into her ex and the other possibly disgruntled ex-husbands.”

  “That’s a lot of investigating.” Leland’s look implied a question.

  “The SBI will take care of it.” Tully crossed his arms.

  Leland steepled his fingers. “Knowing Natalie, I’m surprised she will accept all this. She strikes me as a very independent woman.”

  “It’s taken some persuasion.” Tully shifted against the desk. “And she doesn’t know about everything I’ve done.”

  Leland’s eyebrows lifted. “You think she won’t find out?”

  “As long as we catch the stalker, I don’t care.”

  His partner lifted one shoulder. “It’s your funeral.”

  “As long as it’s not hers.”

  Leland gave him a level look. “Agreed.” Then he tilted his chair back. “Did you see the latest message from our favorite client?”

  Tully pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “If you mean Henry Earnshaw at Dexcorp, yes. I’ll set up another meeting to reassure him that his corporate security is state of the art.” Tully gave a knife-edged smile. “But this time I’m going to charge him for my time. That may convince him that he’s been reassured enough so he’ll forgo the meeting.”

  Leland nodded his approval. “If we ever do another proposal for them, we’ll build in an excessive meetings surcharge.”

  Tully snorted and pushed away from the desk. “No amount of money is worth dealing with Henry Earnshaw ever again.”

  Leland laughed as Tully walked out of the room.

  He would have to get on the phone with Earnshaw before he could head to New Jersey. The delay in seeing Natalie just made him more irritated with the time-wasting senior vice president at Dexcorp. He couldn’t even tell himself that he was worried about Natalie’s safety, because he trusted Pam implicitly.

  No, he just wanted to feel that buzz between them. It was like a drug that he had become addicted to.

  Chapter 7

  As Tully pulled into the parking lot next to the Mane Attraction, he surveyed the decorative shrubs under the salon windows and wished they didn’t offer so much opportunity for concealment. There was no video camera on the wide front porch with its fancy carved railings. He knocked a code rhythm on one of the purple double doors. At least those were solid oak. Kicking them down would take some doing and make a hell of a racket.

  Pam opened the door. “Hey, boss. I wasn’t expecting you here.”

  “I wanted to check out the salon. Get the layout. Not that I don’t trust your report.” He smiled briefly before scanning the space. Through the right-hand archway, a big room held styling chairs, a seating area, a coffee bar . . . and many windows, tall and with multiple panes, spilling light onto the polished wood floor. At least Pam had reported that they all had alarm contacts. The place was neat as a pin, but he would expect nothing less from a business Natalie ran.

  He pivoted to his left to look through the archway there. A small waiting area filled the front of the space. Bulky pedicure chairs sat along another multiwindowed wall, the tops of the damn shrubs blocking part of the view onto the parking lot. At the back were two doors opening into rooms furnished with what looked like massage tables, as well as a narrow hallway. Too many places a psychopath could hide.

  “The hallway leads to Natalie’s office,” Pam said. “She’s there now.”

  “Where’s the latest communication from the stalker?”

  Pam picked up a plastic bag from the reception desk. “I touched the upper-right corner but that’s all.”

  “We won’t get any prints anyway.” Tully took the bag and scanned the message. “What do you make of all the sayings?”

  “If she didn’t own a beauty salon, I’d think this was a rejected admirer,” she said. “But her job muddies the picture.”

  “Exactly.” Tully flicked the paper back onto the desk. “Why don’t you take time off until after dinner? Say, nine o’clock. I’ve got to install cameras at the house, so I’ll be around anyway. It’ll give you a few hours’ break.”

  “My husband will love you. He just got back from a business trip.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that? I wouldn’t have put you on this assignment if I’d known.”

  “Because then you wouldn’t have put me on this assignment.” She grinned as she exited.

  Tully threw the dead bolt on the front door behind Pam. Savoring the sense of anticipation, he strode into the left-hand room and down the hallway.

  When he got to the open door of the office, he knocked on the frame before he stepped in. Natalie sat at a desk with her back to the window, her short, sleek blonde hair painte
d with sunlight. She wore a simple white shirt unbuttoned just enough to tantalize his imagination with the shadows it cast in the V. He felt the now-familiar buzz vibrate through his body.

  When she looked up from whatever she was reading, her blue eyes widened in surprise. “Tully! I thought you were coming to the house later.”

  “I wanted to take a look at the salon.” He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “I can tell you’ve put a lot of thought into it. It’s real nice.”

  She folded her hands on the desktop. “Thank you. I’m very fortunate that the previous owner took a liking to me when I worked for her. She sold the business to me when she retired.”

  He suspected that Natalie had earned it with her talent and hard work and not just luck. He sat down in one of the small blue chairs in front of her desk. “I gave Pam time off until after dinner.”

  “I’ll be fine alone with all the equipment you’re installing.”

  He shook his head. “Not happening. It’s a subtle progression but the messages are becoming more threatening. The one you just got is from a fairy tale with an evil queen who tries to kill her stepdaughter.”

  Natalie’s full lips tightened. He noticed that today she wore pink lipstick. He was still partial to the Natalie with no makeup—and no bra—of yesterday morning. “I thought I might have imagined that the quotations have become more menacing, but I guess not,” she said.

  “He’s also escalated from email to hand delivery in two locations. He’s showing that he knows your routine. That’s a power play.”

  “What does he want from me?” Natalie asked, an undertone of anger and fear in her voice.

  “I’d say your attention, but the anonymity undercuts that.” Tully looked at her slender shoulders, her elegant hands, and the fine bone structure of her face. She should appear fragile, but instead she radiated strength. So he told her the truth. “He’s trying to make you afraid. To keep you off-balance. The question is why.”

  Her hand went to her throat to fiddle with the fine silver chain she wore. What would the skin there feel like against his lips? Her blue eyes clouded. “I don’t understand who would hate me enough to do this.”