by Camy Tang
Except now she realized that if someone was really after her, it put him in the line of fire. And she didn’t want that.
“Let me see if I can lose him,” Edward said. “Hang on.”
Edward’s truck suddenly veered, throwing her against the window because she had loosened the seat belt and twisted around in her seat. Dust clouded around them for a moment before they continued down the new lane, a dirt track that was smaller than the main road they’d been on.
The car didn’t follow them.
“It kept going.” Rachel’s heart settled back down into her chest. “I feel silly, I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”
“I don’t blame you, after everything that’s happened.”
His approbation warmed her chilled heart.
Edward knew the Sonoma roads well enough to circle back around to the highway without needing to do a three-point turn. They were just entering the spa driveway when Rachel gasped. “There it is.”
Directly in front, heading toward them from the opposite direction. As if it had driven past the spa and then turned around.
As if it had been waiting for them to arrive.
“Let’s get you inside the spa quick,” Edward said. He jammed the accelerator and hustled down the spa’s long driveway to curve around to the staff parking lot behind the building.
“It stopped.” She pointed out the back window at where the car had angled into the entrance to the driveway, but then paused. “It’s not within range of the outside surveillance cameras.”
“Naomi never ordered that the angle be increased?” Edward asked. “After the two murders that happened at the spa last year?”
Rachel glared at him. “We didn’t exactly expect any more situations where we’d need to videotape a car before it entered the spa driveway.”
He parked the truck, but they still had a view of the driveway around the trees guarding the opening and the bushes lining the staff parking lot. However, neither of them moved from their seats.
She squinted at her limited view of the car, which included only a piece of the passenger side. Then she saw the door swing open. “They’re getting out.” Her heart rate sped up.
“Inside the spa,” Edward barked.
“No, wait. They’re not getting out. They just dumped something on the ground. Now they’re leaving.” The piece of the car that Rachel could see backed out of view, then she saw a flash of blue as the car sped down the highway.
She exhaled long and slowly, while her heartbeat thrummed against the base of her throat. Now she understood why excitement could make someone have a heart attack—hers was in overdrive. She inhaled deeply, willing herself to relax.
“What did they drop?” Edward got out of the truck and headed for the driveway.
“Wait, is that safe?” Rachel said, also getting out.
Edward returned holding aloft a laptop case. “Let’s get inside.” He hustled her indoors.
Naomi’s office was open, and she and Aunt Becca were there enjoying a cup of tea. Naomi read Rachel’s face and abruptly stood. “What happened?”
“We think we were followed.”
Aunt Becca gasped. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine.” Rachel took the case from Edward and laid it on Naomi’s desk. “A car dropped this at the entrance to the spa driveway and took off.”
“Is that our laptop?” Aunt Becca leaned over to peer at it. “The one that was just stolen?”
Naomi opened the case. The computer inside certainly looked like the one they’d just bought. On top was a note, handwritten in what seemed a childish hand.
My mom made me give this back. I’m sorry.
“Aw.” A half smile softened the corners of Aunt Becca’s mouth.
“Aunt Becca…” Rachel remonstrated.
“He stole the laptop to begin with,” Naomi added.
“But he returned it.”
“We should call Detective Carter,” Naomi said.
Aunt Becca laid a hand on her arm. “Do we need to? The thief seems sorry.”
“Just because he returned it doesn’t mean he’s sorry. Maybe the laptop was broken when it fell.”
“Fire it up and see.”
Naomi and Rachel peered at the start-up screen, but the two accounts Naomi had created—hers and Rachel’s—appeared without problems. Naomi logged in and opened the few files she had on the hard drive, which wasn’t much. “It seems okay.”
“See? No need to call the police.”
“No, you should call them anyway,” Edward chimed in. “You never know.”
Naomi flipped open her cell phone. “I almost have Detective Carter on speed dial,” she muttered.
Aunt Becca heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I still think this is unnecessary. That poor boy, to think he had to steal. At least he listened to his mother.”
“Aunt Becca, we still don’t know why he returned the laptop, and there’s no proof his mama made him do it,” Naomi said.
Rachel privately agreed, but on the other hand, she could relate to her aunt’s feelings that it seemed a bit mean to report a laptop that was stolen but returned.
“Hello? Detective Carter? Yes, ahem…it’s Naomi Grant….”
Rachel listened with half an ear, chewing her lip while faintly squirming inside at the Grant sisters needing to call the police yet again.
The greenhouse break-in had made her irrational. In light of the returned laptop, the blue car this morning made sense—the car was probably not following them at all, but had instead been heading to the spa to return the laptop. It had most likely overshot the spa driveway and turned around, appearing just as they pulled in.
And the bike accident yesterday probably had been drunk tourists, or tired ones.
As for the greenhouse, why was she surprised? The industry was cutthroat and her scar-reduction cream promised to be revolutionary. Dad was right, she should have taken greater precautions in the first place to guard the plants.
Naomi clicked her cell phone shut and gave Aunt Becca a superior look. “Detective Carter thanked us for telling him about the laptop.”
Aunt Becca sniffed and rolled her eyes.
“But he also said it would be difficult to find out who stole it. They don’t have enough manpower to investigate, and since it was returned, it’s a low priority.”
“Now I feel rather silly for being so nervous in the car,” Rachel said. “I’m the one who first thought we were being followed—”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Edward interrupted. “We were just being cautious.”
A knock at the door made them all turn. Gloria Reynolds, one of the spa’s longtime clients, peered in. “Miss Grant? I wanted to see if I could schedule my appointment for an earlier time slot. But I arrived at the spa so early that the receptionists aren’t at the front desk yet, so I thought I’d come here…”
Naomi had her professional smile in place as she hurried toward Gloria. “I apologize that the receptionists aren’t there, Ms. Reynolds. I’m certain we can schedule you for an earlier appointment. A manicure, was it?” They disappeared from the doorway and could be heard heading down the hallway, toward the entrance foyer.
“I have a lot of work to do today,” Rachel said and noticed Edward’s eyes flickered away from her. The gesture was familiar to her, but she couldn’t understand how or why.
No matter, she had to get to work. “Thanks for the ride, Edward.”
He smiled at her, but seemed to be avoiding her eyes.
“Well, that was a bit of excitement to start the day,” Aunt Becca said as he left.
“That’s enough excitement for me,” Rachel said as she headed toward her lab. “I’ll stop being so paranoid from now on, or else I’ll start thinking everything that happens to me is a threat to my life.”
FOUR
“So you’re driving Rachel to and from work?” Alex asked his brother.
“And any of her family who needs a lift at the same time,
” Edward replied.
“Do you really think she’s in danger?”
Edward navigated the turn out of his farm’s driveway onto the highway. “I’m not sure. But I also don’t want to take any chances.” Regardless of how he felt about her, he couldn’t do nothing.
Alex had wanted to come along with Edward while he picked up Rachel from the spa because Alex wanted to check whether the truck’s engine whined when it went over a certain speed.
A smile as bright as the July sun lit Rachel’s face when she saw Alex in the truck. “Hey, stranger.”
Alex got out to buss her cheek in greeting. “You don’t come to the greenhouse often enough.”
“I get there plenty—you’re just always busy avoiding me,” Rachel said playfully.
“Do your aunt and sister need a ride?” Alex asked as he got into the backseat.
“No, Aunt Becca drove them this morning. Naomi had to get to work early,” Rachel said as she climbed into the truck. “They actually just left. I had to finish an experiment.”
On the drive to her home, Rachel turned in her seat to talk to Alex, who was sitting behind them. As they bantered back and forth, the way they always did, Edward tried to concentrate on the traffic, which was almost nonexistent, and the road, which was smooth.
He and Rachel used to banter together before he’d started distancing himself from her.
And now he was jealous of his younger brother. He snorted in self-disgust and sped up. The faster he got her home, the better.
He pulled up to the front door and reached over to touch her arm before she climbed out of the truck. “I have something to talk to you about.”
Her smooth skin contrasted with the callouses of his fingers. They were too different. He had good reason to keep his emotions in check.
She rubbed at her eyes. “Sure, but could I take my contacts out first? They’re killing me.”
“I’ll walk you to the house.”
“I’ll stay in the truck,” Alex said from the backseat.
“Don’t be silly, Aunt Becca would love to stuff you with whatever our housekeeper baked today.” Rachel shut the truck door and headed inside the Grants’ large home with Edward and Alex following her.
While Rachel hurried up the wide staircase to the second story, Edward and Alex waited in the foyer.
Augustus Grant emerged from one of the doorways flanking the foyer, his wheelchair rolling smoothly on the marble tile. “Edward, Alex. How are you boys doing?”
Alex shook the man’s hand first, then Edward reached out to do the same.
And jumped when he heard the scream.
The house alarm blared a half second after the scream and persisted thereafter.
Edward took the stairs three at a time. He’d never been upstairs to Rachel’s room, so he hoped it was easy to find in this huge house.
It was. She stood in the hallway outside her room, frozen. She turned when she saw him, and seemed to snap out of her shock. She pointed into her room. “A man! He’s escaping out my window!”
Edward glanced inside in time to see a man’s booted foot disappear below her bedroom’s window ledge. The intruder was diving off the sloping roof from the second story to the ground.
“What’s going on?” Alex shouted over the alarm.
“An intruder.” Edward ran back through the hallway, leaped down the stairs in three bounds and pelted out the front door, aware of Alex close behind him.
They rounded the front corner of the house, but Edward lost precious seconds fumbling for the latch in the wooden gate that led to the backyard.
“Never mind that,” Alex said, tugging at him. “He won’t stay in the garden—he’ll be headed for the woods out back.”
Cursing himself for not thinking, Edward followed Alex along the wooden fence that hemmed in the Grants’ extensive rose garden, toward the grove of apple trees that stood on the back end of the property. Sure enough, the man had run through the rose garden and leaped over the fence and was now hurrying toward the grove. He was only a blur—medium height, not large, but quick.
“Hurry!” Edward shouted to his taller brother, who had a longer stride. “There’s a road on the other side of the grove!” Little used and perfect for parking a getaway car.
Alex obeyed and picked up speed, inching away from Edward, although he tried to keep up. They lost time weaving in between the apple trees. Edward stepped on a fallen apple and stumbled, slamming a hand against a tree to right himself, but kept going.
He emerged from the grove seconds behind Alex, just in time to see taillights heading down the road in a cloud of dead leaves and debris.
Her entire bedroom was in shambles.
Rachel had to sag against the door frame to keep herself upright. Her entire body was shaking. She felt violated.
“Oh, my goodness.” Aunt Becca’s voice floated to her. “Rachel, your room…”
“What happened?” roared her father from downstairs, panic and frustration in his tone.
She felt rather than saw her sisters on either side of her. Monica grabbed her arm as if to keep her standing.
“I’ll turn off the alarm,” Naomi said. “Aunt Becca, call the police.”
Rachel rolled around and leaned against the wall outside her bedroom. She didn’t want to see it. No one said anything—they could barely hear over the ear-piercing alarm.
Where was Edward? Did he capture the intruder?
Finally, the alarm shut off. The silence was almost louder.
“How did someone get in the house?” Monica demanded.
“The window’s open,” said Aunt Becca.
The man had pivoted and thrown it open just as Rachel entered her bedroom. She hadn’t seen his face. In her first shocked glimpse of her room, she’d only seen the mess—clothes scattered, mattress upturned and slashed, drawers in splinters, book pages littering the room. She shuddered.
“Rachel!” Edward called.
She reached for Edward automatically, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. He was warm from running, musky with the scent of pine and a thread of orchid. The smell wrapped around her, a shelter in the midst of the chaos she’d seen.
His embrace was tight, protective. She just wanted him to keep holding her. She wanted him to take the ugliness away and make everything okay again.
Except that nothing would ever be okay again.
“Dad! How did you…?” Monica’s shocked voice made Rachel look up.
Her father wheeled toward them, with Alex, Naomi and the housekeeper following. He hadn’t been upstairs since his stroke. “Alex carried me up the stairs, and Evita and Naomi carried my wheelchair,” he said. Then he saw Rachel’s room and paled.
It was the only thing that could have made Rachel move away from Edward. Her father wasn’t going to have a relapse, was he?
“You shouldn’t be here,” Monica said fiercely, reaching her father at the same time as Rachel and Naomi.
He took a few deep breaths. “I’m fine. Just surprised.” He looked at Rachel then, and she thought he might have said something more to her, or maybe might have even embraced her, but then he cleared his throat and the moment was gone.
She straightened and turned away. She shouldn’t have hoped for his comfort. Her father had never been very affectionate.
Evita gasped as she looked in the room. “How could this have happened?”
“We chased a man.” Edward explained what had happened when he took off after the intruder who exited her room. “No one heard him ransacking her room?”
The housekeeper wrung her hands. “I was in the kitchen all afternoon. It’s too far away—I wouldn’t have heard anyone in her room.”
“I was with Evita,” Monica added. “I didn’t hear anything, either.”
“Me, too.” Dad pounded a fist against his wheelchair. “I was in my bedroom for a few hours, then my study. The bedroom’s on the opposite side of the house, and the study’s on the first floor nea
r the kitchen.”
“If you keep the house alarm on, how did he get in?” Edward asked.
Naomi’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, someone coming in the window would have tripped it the same way he tripped it going out.”
“Wait, there was that UPS man,” Monica said. “He dropped off something for Naomi.”
The housekeeper nodded. “I turned off the alarm when I answered the door, but I turned it on again after he left.”
“That’s probably when the intruder came in.” Monica said.
Despite the alarm on the house, someone had violated Rachel’s private bedroom. Despite the security at the spa, someone might have infiltrated her lab and computer and stolen her research formula. And despite the alarm at the greenhouse, someone had tried to destroy her plants, crippling her product launch. She still didn’t know how many of the basil plants would survive.
Her cousin Jane had said she’d finagled her boss to give her some time off from work, and she would come by tomorrow to look at Rachel’s spa computer, but even with that precaution Rachel was taking, it seemed like too little, too late. Security and alarms hadn’t stopped whoever was after her and her research.
She couldn’t stop them.
“Where’s that UPS package?” her father demanded.
“In the kitchen,” Evita said. “I’ll make some Japanese tea…” She eyed Edward and Alex. “And maybe some coffee, too?”
Edward seemed to hold back for a moment as they all trooped downstairs. Rachel glanced up at him, suddenly self-conscious about the way she’d hurled herself into him. “Edward?” Maybe he felt it, too, this awkward aftermath. No, he snatched at her hand.
“Are you all right?” Edward asked.
She shrugged, not wanting him to worry about her. But she also knew him well enough to know that if she didn’t tell the truth, he’d worry even more. “I’m still a bit shaken, I think. It’s hard.” She swallowed and glanced at the open doorway to her room, unwilling to look inside again.
He squeezed her hand, then let go. “A mug of tea will warm you up.” He ushered her downstairs.
