Cocky Protector: A Hero Club Novel

by Kat Mizera

  What if it wasn’t him?

  It was hard to verify whether or not that was Ace, considering the quality of this picture, and that scared me a little more, because then I could be in serious danger. Whoever it was had access to my home. To me. And that was unacceptable.

  Not for the first time since my father had passed, I missed him. He would have handled this by now. Just like he’d handled my lying, cheating husband. I felt a stray tear leak from my eye and swiped at it angrily. I was my father’s daughter, and though he was gone, he hadn’t raised me to be a wimp. I’d been meek through my formative years because my mother insisted that was how ladies behaved, but a bad marriage and losing the man I loved and respected more than anyone had changed me, so I couldn’t allow myself to be victimized without disrespecting my father.

  And the first thing I was going to do was confront whomever this was. Lt. Colonel Wayne Barrow had raised me and there had to be at least a little of his huge heart and military savviness in me. And even if there wasn’t, I was going to fake it. I didn’t have a choice.

  I gave my students mostly busy work the rest of the day. I didn’t like to do that, but with exams coming up, working on a study guide was both functional and something they would have done anyway. It gave me the time I needed to think, wrap my head around everything going on. Part of me was terrified while the rest of me was determined. I could and would get to the bottom of this. I had a plan and I wasn’t stupid. I knew the neighborhood between the school and my apartment like the back of my hand, every alley, shop and streetlamp. I had Mace in my purse and I knew Mr. Koelzig at the chocolate shop always looked for me. If I walked past his shop, he would be watching for me and give me a sample of something.

  I couldn’t plan for everything, but by the time I left school I was prepared for what I considered the confrontation of a lifetime. It was possible Ace, or whoever my stalker was, wouldn’t be following me home today, but he’d spent hours at my apartment. Obviously, he wanted something he hadn’t found because from what I could tell, he’d left without taking anything. I couldn’t be sure since the camera was set up in the living room and I couldn’t see what he did in the other rooms, but unless he took something small enough to fit in his pockets, he hadn’t had anything with him when he’d headed toward the door.

  So today, and every day until I could confront this guy, I would be prepared.

  I kept the Mace in my hand and my hand in the pocket of my coat as I walked toward Mr. Koelzig’s bakery. I kept my pace pretty slow, pausing to look in stores and pretending to window-shop. I stopped to speak to people I recognized, pet a few dogs, and even took the time to buy a loaf of bread because I actually needed it. The whole time I had my eye on a guy in a leather jacket and a baseball cap who was walking on the other side of the street. It could have been anyone, but he wasn’t getting lost in the crowds when I stopped and I felt a slight rush of adrenaline as I realized it was probably him. I didn’t know who him was, but it had to be my stalker.

  I walked into Mr. Koelzig’s bakery and smiled at him. “Do you mind if I go out your back door?” I asked when he approached me. “One of my students has a crush on me and keeps trying to give me presents, so I’m trying to avoid him.”

  He smiled. “Well, as beautiful as you are, of course young men want to buy you presents! Yes, go.” He nodded toward the back door. “It’s open.”

  “Thank you!” I waved and hurried out the back, skirting behind the building and then all but running the length of two short city blocks. I turned right at the next alley and headed toward the main street, hopefully two blocks beyond where I’d last seen my stalker. If I was lucky, I’d be able to cross the street and then ambush him close to the hardware store. It was always busy this time of day, because it was the only evening of the week they stayed open late. So there would be people everywhere and hopefully I’d get some answers.

  I took a few seconds to take off my coat and turn it inside out. It was double-sided, one side maroon, the other black. I’d thought it was fun to have the ability to change colors, and now if it confused him even for a few seconds, that was all the time I needed.

  With the Mace still in my hand, I came out on the street and looked down to where he’d been. Sure enough, he was still there, leaning against the building as he faced Mr. Koelzig’s bakery from the other side of the street, ostensibly still waiting for me to come out. The light turned and I fell in with a group of people crossing, just as he appeared to get antsy and began walking towards me. Now that he was right here, just a few feet away, I almost lost my nerve, but with crowds of people all around us, it was now or never. I rushed forward and stopped right in front of him.

  “Why are you following me? What do you want?”

  Chapter Seven

  Ace

  If she hadn’t been right in front of me, calling me out, I wouldn’t have believed this was happening. I was a fucking spy. I worked for one of the greatest intelligence agencies in the world and she’d spotted me? Sweet, shy Shannon Barrow had not just figured out I was following her, but she’d gotten the drop on me and was now standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. And she looked furious.

  For a minute, I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do. So I just looked at her. Those gorgeous blue eyes. Those full red lips. Her chest heaving as she demanded I answer her. She was as beautiful as ever and for a few seconds, I couldn’t even hear what she was saying because I was so enamored just looking at her.

  “God dammit, Ace, answer me!” Her eyes flashed and she threw up her hands in exasperation. Which was when I noticed the Mace in her left hand.

  Lord have mercy, she was seriously pissed and I needed to say something before I got an eyeful of concentrated capsaicin, which would hurt like a bitch.

  “Shannon, let me explain.” I spoke quietly, hoping to calm her, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

  “Explain? You were in my apartment reading my diary! Who does that? What the hell is wrong with you? Why have you been stalking me?”

  Wait, what? Holy shit, she thought I was her stalker? Jesus, this was a clusterfuck. Or she was truly nuts.

  “Shannon, I’m not your stalker. I don’t even know—”

  “I have a nanny cam!” Her eyes were blazing. It was a good thing she couldn’t shoot bullets or lasers out of them because I would’ve been a dead man. “So don’t fucking lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying. I was—”

  “You read my diary.” If possible, her eyes blazed even hotter, fixing me with a look that spoke volumes about how much of a line I’d crossed, despite my good intentions.

  She was spectacularly pissed about the diary. And how had I not noticed a fucking nanny cam? Was I losing my touch or what? I took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to—”

  “Wanted to what? Spy on me?” She wouldn’t let me finish a sentence and it was getting tiresome.

  “Shannon.” I kept my voice low but I hoped my tone let her know I was done with this unnecessary arguing.

  “What?” Her pretty face was drawn in a scowl and the most poignant thing was that beneath her anger was something else: disappointment.

  “I was trying to help!” I blurted out.

  “Help what?”

  “You. I was trying to see if there was anything going on that—”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Maybe if you’d let me finish a sentence, you’d hear what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I don’t want to listen to anything you have to say.” She pointed a finger at me. “Stop following me. Stop moving things around in my apartment. And don’t you ever invade my privacy again.”

  She started walking away.

  I had no choice but to follow her, so I did, reaching for her arm. “Would you please listen to me?”

  “Nope.” She kept walking, wrenching her arm away so I couldn’t touch her, and a few people looked our way so I opted to let her go.

 
“Call your mother!” I called after her. “She’s the one who contacted me. Ask her.”

  She hesitated, but didn’t turn around. Then she kept walking.

  Great. I felt completely helpless as the woman of my dreams stalked off down the street, totally upset with me. Had I fucked this up or what?

  I’d just gotten back to my hotel when Samantha Barrow’s name flashed on the screen of my phone. Oh, this was going to be fun.

  “Hey, Mrs. Barrow.”

  “You read her diary?!”

  “What did you think I was going to do?” I demanded. “Watch her for a few hours, immediately find the stalker, beat him up and call to tell you everything was okay? Do you understand how a stalker works? If she even has one.”

  “If…” Her voice trailed off. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, so far all I’ve discovered is that Shannon decorates with a lot of bright colors and doesn’t think she’ll ever get married again. Essentially, there isn’t any evidence pointing to a stalker.”

  She sighed.

  “If you truly believe there’s something going on, I’ll stick around a little longer, but now that she knows I’m here and is pissed at me, I don’t know how effective I can be. I wish you’d told me she got a nanny cam.”

  “She just did it last night. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  “Shannon isn’t crazy. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know she’s not making things up or having hallucinations. She showed me the pictures of her teakettle in the morning and then in a different place when she got home. Short of doing it herself, what else could this be? She has money, a job she swears she loves, and friends she travels and hangs out with. There’s no reason for her to make something like this up. Please, Ace, don’t give up yet. I know she’s being difficult, but it’s only because…”

  “Because?” I pressed her when she let her voice trail off.

  “Her divorce hurt and losing her father gutted her. She’s had a rough couple of years and even though you did what you had to do, I’m sure breaking into her apartment feels like a betrayal of some kind.”

  Now I was the one who sighed. “I should have spoken to her before I did that.”

  “Well, what’s done is done. Give her a couple of days to calm down and see if you notice anything else amiss. If there’s still no sign of a stalker, I’ll let it go.”

  “All right. A few more days.” I hung up and put the phone down. This had gone sideways in ways I couldn’t explain. I hadn’t anticipated the nanny cam, hadn’t even thought about it since there hadn’t been one in my initial visit to the apartment. I’d taken for granted she was still a sweet, naïve woman who wasn’t very worldly and I’d been very wrong. Now I had no idea how to fix it, and worse, if she really did have a stalker, I wasn’t in any position to help her.

  I’d just dozed off when my phone rang. I grabbed it and blinked at the unfamiliar number. It was local, which was confusing, so I answered cautiously. “Ace Ross.”

  “Ace, it’s me.” She was whispering but I somehow recognized Shannon’s voice.

  “Shannon? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s someone in my apartment.”

  I jumped out of bed, grabbing my jeans as I spoke. “Are you safe? Where are you?”

  “I’m at a bar. I was going to delete the app for the stupid nanny cam and when I pulled it up, there was someone there that’s not you.”

  “Tell me where you are and do not leave the bar!” I jammed my feet into my shoes, grabbed my coat and ran out the door as she told me the name of the neighborhood pub she was calling from.

  I hailed a taxi and was there in less than ten minutes, rushing inside and barely breathing until I saw her. She was at a table by the window, staring down at her phone. She looked up when I came in and got to her feet, rushing to me and throwing her arms around me.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought it was you… Oh my god, there’s really someone stalking me.”

  “Are they still there?”

  She shook her head as she started to pull away. “No, they left, but the whole thing is recorded.”

  “Let’s sit down, okay?” As much as I liked having her arms around me, I had to focus. “Show me.”

  She sank into her chair and pulled something up on her phone. A few seconds later I was watching a shadowed figure moving around her living room. Whoever it was wore a large coat, a baseball cap and gloves. It was hard to see anything distinct about them, but my gut told me it was a woman. The person moved quickly, but with purpose, rearranging Shannon’s pillows so the ones from the couch were on the chair and the ones from the chair were on the couch. It was ridiculous, with no motive I could think of.

  “Why would someone do this?” Shannon whispered. “I don’t understand.”

  “Me either,” I admitted. “Could it be your ex-husband?”

  Her eyes darkened. “He was the one who wanted the divorce. What could he possibly want from me? He has money, a new wife, and a burgeoning career. It would shock me if this was him, as much as I despise the man.”

  “What about a man who was interested in you since you moved here?” I asked slowly. “Someone you blew off.”

  “No one has asked me out that I’ve blown off,” she said. “I went out with one guy at work and then his father died and he moved back to the U.S. So he left me, not the other way around. Mr. Koelzig at the bakery flirts with me every day, but he’s eighty if he’s a day, and the person in my apartment was much thinner.”

  “All right. First thing we’re doing is packing you a bag and going to my hotel. I’ll sleep in the chair, but I don’t want you out of my sight until I get a handle on this.”

  “Okay.” She was quiet now, nothing like the furious woman from earlier today.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “Promise.”

  She just nodded, though I could see in her eyes she didn’t quite believe it.

  Chapter Eight

  Shannon

  While I was gratified to know I wasn’t going crazy, now that there was a real threat, I was terrified and sad. It was beyond my understanding that someone could hate me enough to want to scare me like this. Whoever it was had known I was out tonight because all the instances of weird things happening had been when I wasn’t home, except for the night my phone had been temporarily missing. I had no way of knowing what their end game was, but it couldn’t be good and now not only was I frightened, but I was embarrassed by my behavior towards Ace as well.

  He’d come to Cologne at my mother’s request to help me, and instead I’d accused him of being the bad guy and gotten bent out of shape over my stupid diary. In the grand scheme of things, that had been ridiculous. Yes, he’d invaded my privacy, but that was nothing compared to someone possibly trying to hurt me.

  “Whatever you’re thinking,” he said as we walked toward my apartment. “Don’t. This isn’t your fault.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “What if it’s because I gave a kid a bad grade and they committed suicide or something and now their father wants revenge?”

  He glanced at me. “Has that happened?”

  “Not that I know of, but what else could it be? I honestly don’t think this has anything to do with my ex, and I don’t have enemies that I know of. I was a kindergarten teacher in D.C. and now I teach high school literature.”

  “Your family? Your mother? Your father probably had enemies.”

  I stiffened. I hated the idea that my father had enemies. He’d been one of the best human beings I’d ever known and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over his death.

  “I know you don’t want to hear that,” Ace continued after a moment. “But we have to consider every possibility.”

  “I suppose.” I unlocked my apartment and Ace walked in ahead of me, turning on lights and pulling a gun I hadn’t been expecting from his pocket. He checked closets, the bedroom, the bathroom, and under the bed. Then he stuffed the g
un back in his jacket and turned to me.

  “Take what you’ll need for a few days.”

  “Okay.” I pulled a small bag out of my closet and threw in two work outfits, my pajamas, a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and some toiletries. I added a pair of flats I often wore to work and zipped up the bag. I was probably forgetting something, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I was anxious to get out of here because my apartment felt tainted now.

  “You okay?” Ace’s voice was soft and I nodded, though I couldn’t look at him. I was still embarrassed about my behavior and unsure what to say.

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, lifting my chin and looking into my eyes.

  “I don’t even understand what you’re doing here,” I said after a moment.

  “I know, and we’ll talk about everything once we’re at the hotel.”

  I took a moment to water my plants since I might be gone a few days, and he fiddled with the nanny cam after asking me where it was.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  He put a finger to his lips, so I waited until we were out on the street.

  “The intruder might have left a bug, so I didn’t want to say too much. I’ll come back and do a thorough search tomorrow while you’re at work, but until then, be very careful what you say. I’m going to check your phone too.”

  I shuddered slightly, even though I wasn’t cold.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m right here.”

  “I know, but…” I glanced over at him. “Why are you here?”

  “I told you, your mom called me and—”

  “Yes, but why you? Why would she think of you to help with this?”

  He looked confused. “Didn’t she tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “What I do for a living.”

  I shook my head. “Our conversation was very brief.”