by Beth Yarnall
He continued to watch me. At least he hadn’t kicked me out of his car. Yet.
“I’ve been told I might have anger-management issues. And a slight impulse-control issue. I’m trying to improve myself.” I paused for applause. Yeah, no. He clearly wasn’t impressed.
His gaze unnerved me, which was probably the point. I didn’t want to hurt him or make him think I regretted being with him. What I regretted was not taking a moment to make the conscious choice to be with him. Flying high on emotion, I’d just wanted to trade one memory for another much better one.
“I just wanted different hands on me,” I told him in a rush, shame heating my cheeks. “Can you understand that?”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment, sagging a little in his seat. “I can.”
It was my turn to stare at him. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I also wished I could thank him for muddling through my lame-assed explanation and for making the effort to understand it. Especially since I could hardly make sense of it myself.
“I’m trying not to feel used,” he said. “I get it. I really do. I just wish it had meant the same to us both.”
Oh. Ouch. “I thought I was the girl in this relationship.” I clapped my hand over my mouth, then mumbled under it. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Stupid impulse issues! “It did mean something to me. I swear. Honestly, I don’t even know why you stick around sometimes.”
“You have your charms.” He reached out and did that thing where he wrapped my hair around his finger. “How about next time we plan ahead so we’re both on the same page at the same time?”
I lowered my hand and gave him the side-eye. “You want to make an appointment with me for sex?”
“Not exactly. I want you to tell me when you’re ready. Ahead of time. No impulsive decisions. No regrets or rethinking.” He made a back-and-forth motion between us. “Same page.”
“Okay. But doesn’t that take some of the fun out of it?”
He leaned in, a wicked smile curving his mouth. “No. It gives me time to think up new ways to make you scream.”
“I don’t think you should move in with me,” I told Super Agent on the drive back to Scottsdale.
I had a plan. Well, not so much a plan as a hair-brained scheme that just might work. If I could talk Super Agent into going along with it. Big if there.
“I thought we settled last night.”
“We did.” Mostly. “My secret admirer won’t make a move with you there.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard my idea.”
“If it involves leaving you alone without protection to possibly get hurt or killed—no.”
“Not alone alone. Just hear me out and then you can decide that you really like my idea and go along with it and then this whole thing will be over.”
“No.”
“Quit being so stubborn.”
His gaze tracked to our joined hands and the marks on my wrist. “Haven’t you been through enough already?”
Oohhh. The quiet torment in his voice was a punch to the gut. Blinking stinging eyes, I gave his hand a squeeze. “Just listen. If you decide that it’s a no-go, then it’s a no-go. And I’ll do it whatever way you want. Okay?”
He stared out over the dash for a moment then slowly nodded his head. This was big doings for Super Agent. In a rush I filled him in on my plan for drawing out my stalker. When I finished, Super Agent gave me a quick appraising glance. Heh. I’d surprised him with my cleverness. Maybe not so much cleverness as my ability to be conniving. His second, worried look confirmed the latter.
“I’ll call and put things in the works when we get to your place.”
Huzzah! He’d gone for it. Although I didn’t know why I was so excited. I was the one who was going to have to do all the work.
~*~
It was all set up just the way I’d laid it out for Super Agent. Although if I’d known what a control freak he’d be about it all, I would’ve tried to come up with an entirely different plan. That man would make some child a very good mother one day. We barely had time as it was to get everything together, let alone check, recheck, double and triple recheck, and check yet again.
Stratford’s Department Store was open and I was at the Estelle Landers counter as scheduled. Everything had begun here. This was where I’d started to miss things and where Shasta had been killed. It only seemed logical that this would be where things would escalate.
Or I could be totally wrong, as it was looking more and more likely the closer it came to when I’d get off work and nothing had happened. If I didn’t count the reporters who pressed their noses to the windows at the front of the store near the counter, trying to get my attention. They’d thinned considerably since the store had reopened, but there were still a few diehards hanging about like vultures picking at the last scraps.
“Sorry,” I told Super Agent through the microphone he’d wired me with. “I clock out in five minutes. I was really hoping the Creepy Creeper would’ve revealed himself by now and we all could’ve gone home and gotten a beer.”
He didn’t respond. Communication had only been hooked up one way, which had been fun for about five minutes and then talking dirty to the thin air had gotten kinda boring. Plus Xavier had overheard me at one point and had thought I’d been talking to him. He wished.
Daryl edged around the counter toward me. He always approached me like I was a caged wild tiger and he was doused in eau de meat.
“I thought I’d let you know that I have an interview set tonight for a possible replacement for Shasta,” he told me, wearing black because it was Friday. “Thought you might want to sit in on it.”
“You’re not going to waste my time again and then hire the worst possible person for the job, are you?”
He shook his head.
“What time is the interview?”
“Six o’clock.” He pointed up. “In the boardroom.”
“I’ll be there.”
Daryl backed away, keeping his eye on me until he bumped into the Shy Kitty counter and had to break eye contact. He scuttled back to his office without a backwards glance.
Lance slid into my line of sight. “Hi there.”
“Hey.”
He leaned against the counter, posing like the guy in the ad for Gent cologne. “So I was thinking. Me. You. A bottle of Chianti, some takeout, and a DVD at my place.”
“That’s first your mistake—thinking. Your second was voicing those thoughts.”
“Come on.” He shifted a little closer and a cloud of Gent cologne crawled up my nose. “It could be fun. Relieve a little stress.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
I didn’t need to hear Super Agent to know that his back teeth were grinding.
“Yeah. No,” I answered. “I’m pretty sure I already have plans to jab my eye out with a hot poker.”
He chuckled. “That’s what I always liked about you—your sense of humor.” His gaze drifted south and his tone turned oily. “But not the only thing. There’s a whole lot about you to like.”
I scrunched up my nose, trying to prevent a sneeze, and pointed to the other side of the cosmetics department. “You can like it from over there with all of your teeth intact.”
“Your mouth says one thing, but your body tells me another.” He moved even closer, crowding my personal space and pissing me off. “So which should I believe?”
“My fist.”
I popped him one. He went down like the stiff, life-sized cardboard cutout of the Gent spokesmodel.
Uh-oh. This wasn’t going to go over well with my probation officer.
Son of a bitch. I cradled my abused hand. That hurt.
And then holy hell broke loose.
The reporters smelling fresh blood in the water—Lance’s, which was spurting from his nose—and a new angle on Shasta’s murder, exploded through the doors. Camera flashes burst in the air around me, drawing customers to what was going on.
Dang it. More YourVid clips.
Suddenly there was a lot of noise and a lot of people all around us. I got jostled and bumped back by the crowd that had started to form around Lance, who was out cold. I moved back, desperately needing to get away from all the noise and confusion. Someone shoved a cell phone in my face and blinded me with the flash. I stumbled around, my vision dotted and blurry, right into a body.
A hot and hard body. A body I’d felt before. A body I’d had on top of me, all around me, inside me.
Super Agent.
He wrapped an arm around me and hustled me out of the growing crowd and into the elevator.
“How am I supposed to keep you out of jail when you keep assaulting people on camera?”
I blinked up at him, trying to clear my vision. “Are you laughing at me?”
“You’ve got quite a right cross there, Knockout. Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“He’s had that coming awhile, but da-yam.” I shook my hand. “That hurt.”
He took my hand in his. “I’ll see if I can get you some ice.” He placed a kiss on the back of my hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m clearly not right in the head.” I flexed my fingers. “Or in the hand.”
“You’ll make better mistakes tomorrow.”
“I thought so yesterday, but I’m not so sure today.”
The elevator doors opened to the first floor. Super Agent guided me toward store security office where he’d been hanging out all day watching me and listening in.
As we entered, one of the security personnel scooted past us. “I’ve got to go help with crowd control,” the guy said. He nudged his chin at me as he left. “Nice hit.”
“I have a feeling the guys around this store are going to start giving you a wide berth,” Super Agent said.
“You seem awfully pleased about that.”
He hitched a shoulder and headed for the door. “Where can I find some ice?”
“You’re jealous.”
His gaze connected with mine. “You’re a beautiful woman, Maggie. Guys are gonna notice. I like it. What I don’t like is them forcing you to protect yourself. The ice?”
“Employee lounge. Go back out the way we came and go toward the escalators then hook a left. You’ll see the door. The code is 1-2-3-4.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yeah, we’re like the Pentagon around here.”
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Alone in the security office I took a moment to look around. I’d been in here once before to collect a reward for catching a customer trying to pass off stolen gift cards. There was a wall of TV screens with different camera angles all over the store. I sat down in a wheeled office chair and scooted forward to watch Super Agent make his way out of the hallway and onto the sales floor.
Man that dude was sexy. The way he moved, like a panther, all sleek darkness and tightly packed power. My lady parts sat up like begging dogs, panting, tongues lolling. I reached out and touched his image on the monitor. I wished I could be the right kind of girlfriend for him. He deserved better than me. I guessed I was just going to have to work harder at it.
As Super Agent disappeared into the employee lounge, I switched my attention to the melee going on around the Estelle Landers counter. Lance was now sitting up. Tabitha held a cloth to his nose. I hoped it was broken. More people had joined the crowd and there was some jockeying for position.
Xavier was going to be sorry today was his day off. When this hit the news my phone was going to explode. Too bad I didn’t have it with me or I could FaceTime him footage from the security cameras. He’d like that.
My gaze tracked to the stockroom where Shasta had been killed. The camera angle on the other door was odd. If you opened the door, it would block you from being seen and then wouldn’t pick you up again until you were on the other side of the floor. Whoever rigged that shelving unit had to have known about that discrepancy.
“Hello, Maggie.”
I spun around in my seat. I’d been so wrapped up in my conspiracy theories I hadn’t heard the door open.
“Hey, Daryl.” Oh, crap. He was here to fire me. I could see it in his face. “I’m so sorry about what happened with Lance. I really didn’t mean to hit him. If you’d heard—”
“I know what he says about you. And to you. He’s a pig.”
“So, I’m not in trouble?” I went limp with relief. I really needed this job. And I suddenly realized how much I really liked it too.
“Oh, you’re in trouble,” he said, inching closer. “I saw you with that man. Who is he?”
“It’s okay. Security knows all about him—”
“No. Who is he to you?”
“He’s my boyfriend. I probably should’ve talked to you—”
“Should’ve? Of course you should’ve. You should’ve broken it off with him when you accepted my gifts.” He was close enough now that I could smell the coffee on his breath. “You’re mine, Maggie. Only mine.”
Ho-ly creeper.
I’d worked with this man for almost two years and never thought…never saw. He seemed so harmless. This man with his mousy looks and timidity had killed Shasta. Because of me.
I cut my gaze to the monitors, hoping to see Super Agent on his way back, but the first floor was virtually empty now. The cosmetics department on the second floor was crammed with people. A fight had broken out between some of the reporters. I watched in dawning horror as the remaining first-floor employees filed onto the escalator to the second floor. Super Agent would be my only hope.
“He’s not coming,” Daryl said, regaining my attention. “I jammed the door. No one’s coming. It’s just you and me, Maggie. Forever.”
He reached out to touch my face. I leaned as far out of his reach as I could and came up against the counter.
“Ouch!” I reached out to touch the twinge in my side as Daryl showed me the syringe in his hand. “What did you…?”
My last coherent thought was that I wouldn’t get to make a better mistake than this tomorrow.
I woke up all at once, gasping as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. I tried to move but soon realized I was tied to the rolling chair from the security office. Daryl had secured my forearms to the chair arms and my feet were tucked up under me and strapped to the underside of the chair. He’d even bound me around the waist, cutting into my sore ribs. I wasn’t gagged so he must not have been too concerned about me screaming my head off.
I was in a bedroom decorated in late-teenaged nerd with posters of half-naked sci-fi movie starlets tacked to the walls. The bedspread had robot-looking soldiers on rocky terrain, gripping space-aged guns. Spaceship models hung from a ceiling dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars configured in an unfamiliar constellation. On the bedside table was a photograph of Daryl and me. I had no memory of when that picture could’ve been taken.
Oh, wait. No. It was after last year’s sales awards ceremony. I’d won second place. Xavier had taken first as he always did. Xav should’ve been standing on the other side of Daryl but had been cut out of the picture, leaving just Daryl and me. Major creepy ew!
Where in the heck was Super Agent?
Daryl came into the room, stopped just inside the door, and set down a tray on the dresser covered in…holy freak-out…pictures of me. And not just from the store. Most of them were of me in my everyday life.
“I’ve imagined you here so many times. To actually have you here now…” He wiped at his eyes. Was he crying? “It’s a dream come true.”
“Funny. I was thinking this was an alcohol-induced nightmare and any minute now I’m going to wake up with a raging hangover.”
“I’ve always enjoyed your honesty. You say what you think, how you feel. So refreshing.”
“Then you’re going to appreciate how completely pissed off I am at being kidnapped and tied to this chair.”
He turned and picked up a steaming bowl of soup. “I don’t expect you to
fall in love with me right away. We’ll work on it. You’ll come to see we’re meant to be together.”
“If your plan is to keep me tied up in your childhood bedroom until I fall in love with you, then your plan sucks monkey balls. That’s never going to happen.”
He chuckled. “And so colorful too. I bet you’re quite spirited in bed.”
“Okay, first of all, eww. Second of all, untie me. Right now.”
He looked disappointed in me. “I can’t do that. You see, I’ve been studying Stockholm syndrome and military basic training techniques. It’s going to take some time and unfortunately some efforts I’m not completely comfortable with to turn your mind toward me. You’re going to love me. Do you understand?”
“Okaayyyy. I was hoping to reason with you, but I see now that your reason has gone on permanent vacation in Crazy Town.”
“I’m not crazy. I’m just a man in love.”
“It really doesn’t matter how long you keep me here, Daryl, or what you do to me. I won’t ever love you. I’m in love with someone else who is on his way here right now to rescue me.” Hopefully.
He set the soup down and in two long strides was standing in front of me. He raised his hand and smacked me in the face. Hard. “You’re in love with me.” He hit me again with his other hand. “You love only me. Now.” He pulled at the tails of his shirt, straightening it. “How about some soup. You must be hungry.”
My cheeks burned and tears filled my eyes. That hobbit-looking son of a bitch was a lot stronger than he looked. He picked up the bowl of soup again and came toward me. I glared up at him through stubborn watery eyes.
He brought the soup-filled spoon to my lips. “Come on, dear. I know you’re hungry. You’ve been out cold for nearly ten hours. Eat.”
That long?
My stomach growled and he smiled. “See. Hungry. And I’ve brought delicious soup for you, my love. Open up for me.”
I let him feed me. When he went for a second spoonful I spat the soup at him. His face grew red and I thought for a moment that he was going to hit me again. Instead he splashed the entire steaming bowl of soup at me.
