by Janie Crouch
But then he’d turned his focus on Alexandra. Almost taken a step backwards. And announced that she was his intended victim.
It didn’t make sense. Not from the stalker’s tactical standpoint.
“How’s it going?” Even though there were a number of seats around the table Alexandra brought her plate and sat down in the chair right next to Shane.
“I’m just trying to figure this guy out. Make sense of these latest moves.”
“Figuring him out, that’s important, right? That’s how you stop him?”
“Yes. Unless he messes something up, then we’ll have to try to figure out who he is from all this.” He gestured to the files on the table.
She ate in silence for a while as he studied the pictures, trying to pinpoint what he was missing.
“I feel better having you here,” Alexandra finally said after he spent a while studying the information around him.
Shane glanced at her and she gave him one of her megawatt smiles. He had to hand it to her, she didn’t give up.
“Actually, I’m taking my turn inside right now but I’ll be outside most of the night.”
Her smile faded. “And if I asked you to stay inside with me? That it makes me feel safer to know that you’re next to me?”
“Alexandra.” Shane let out a breath, struggling for patience. “Lexi. Your safety is a priority for me. I’ll keep you that way by being the one outside during nighttime hours. I have the most experience, it makes the most tactical sense.”
“Look, like I said, I know you and Chloe have something going on. But if it’s not exclusive…” Her hand rested on his arm lightly, her fingers moving in gentle circles. “Or if it needs to be just our little secret…I know you take my safety seriously, but I’d like for you to protect me in the house tonight. In my bedroom.”
It wasn’t even a question for Shane. “No.”
Surprise flashed across her features. Alexandra Adams probably wasn’t turned down so abruptly by many men.
“No? That’s it? Just no?”
“First of all, I wouldn’t do it even if I wasn’t involved with someone. I’m on a job. It would be completely unprofessional. But yes, I am involved with Chloe. And it is exclusive. And she is important to me.”
More important than he let himself, and especially Chloe, realize. Something he planned to rectify next time he saw her.
Alexandra stood grabbing her plate. “I can’t believe I went to so much trouble to—” she cut herself off.
Shane’s eyes narrowed. “What trouble? You went to a lot of trouble to do what?” Shane had no idea what she was talking about. Some sort of seduction scene? Alexandra now looked sad rather than angry. Like she was in pain.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. If I had seen you and Chloe together in the catering hall before…” She trailed off again. “Never mind.”
She stalked into the kitchen and he heard her placing her dishes in the sink. A few minutes later Alexandra walked by him without a word, went into her bedroom and shut the door.
“Stay away from the windows. We already know he’s good with a rifle,” he called out to her.
Alexandra’s absence didn’t bother Shane in the least. If she confined herself to one room, that would make it even easier for them to protect her.
He looked down at the pictures again. The newest ones from Alexandra’s trailer.
Evil actresses must die. That was the one found on her bed with all the knives.
Alexandra Adams must die. The one sent in the mail.
Definitely targeting her. The notes had become more specific. Shane looked at the pictures of them more closely. The notes themselves had changed too. They’d been so busy looking at the content, that they hadn’t noticed the slight change of font used. It was almost the same, boxy, plain lettering, but it was slightly different.
Both the one found in Alexandra’s trailer and the letter that had been received in the mail the day after.
Shane wasn’t sure what that meant, if anything. He was a soldier, not a crime scene analyst for crying out loud. Did it mean the stalker was escalating? Changing? Becoming careless? Becoming impatient?
Shane looked at the knives that had been stabbed into Alexandra’s mattress. Both the pictures of them in the mattress, and ones taken later by the CSI team showing them stacked side-by-side. They were all the same type. Large, formidable-looking kitchen knives.
Kitchen knives.
Shane looked back at the early reports. All the original knives left by the stalker had been hunting knives, not kitchen. The same black handle, and even similar in appearance, but different in purpose.
Oh shit.
His phone rang. It was Hobbes from the security trailer.
“Hobbes, what’s going on?”
“Shane, where are you? Are you at Alexandra’s house?”
“Yes. Why? Did something happen?” Shane couldn’t swallow the dread pooling in his throat.
“No. A breakthrough, actually. But you’re not going to like it. Nobody’s going to.”
Shane stood. “Tell me.”
“I know we had no good angles covering Alexandra’s trailer, but earlier this afternoon I caught a reflection of the trailer on a different feed. So Tony and I have spent hours enhancing the footage from the time leading up to when we found Alexandra’s trailer destroyed. We got an ID.”
“Who?”
“You’re not going to believe me.”
Shane rubbed his fingers over his eyes and looked at the closed bedroom door across the hall.
“Alexandra herself,” he said.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I just figured out that the destroyed trailer and the letter the next day were both slightly different. That it probably wasn’t from the same person as the other threats.”
Hobbes’ tone was incredulous. “Why would Alexandra send threats to herself? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Because she’d wanted Shane nearby. Because she’d wanted the focus on herself. “It doesn’t matter. What does is that we’ve still got a stalker out there and he’s not necessarily after Alexandra. Have you heard from Kassler?”
“Yeah, he’s right here, why?”
“Did they have any problems while scouting out the site today?” It would’ve been a perfect time for an attack. Their focus had been so consumed with Alexandra, assuming the stalker was after her, that everyone else had been basically unprotected.
Shane heard Hobbes talking to Kassler in the background.
“Um, Shane, Kassler didn’t go with them. Chloe convinced him he was needed more here since we all thought Alexandra was the one in danger.”
Shane felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. He took a second and focused.
“Where was the location? Does anyone know?”
“Noah, that intern kid found it. I’ll find him and ask.”
Noah. All the pieces were starting to come together for Shane now.
“I want to know right away and send a team out there.”
Shane hung up the phone and called Chloe. He cursed when it went straight to voicemail. He tried a text but received no response.
He covered his panic with ice and told Markus to bring the team back into the house. They weren’t needed here. Once the men were in, Shane explained what was going on. A few minutes later Hobbes called him back.
“Shane, we can’t find or get in touch with Noah. And none of us of have been successful getting a call through to Chloe or Nadine. I got a bad feeling about this.”
The same one Shane had had all day. They had focused their efforts on Alexandra and left the true target unprotected.
Chloe.
And then put her straight into the arms of a maniac. One who looked like the most helpful person on the set: Noah.
The only person whose loss would cause this show to collapse is Chloe.
Noah had announced it to Shane earlier today, but Shane hadn’t realized what the younger man w
as saying.
He looked up and saw Alexandra studying the chaos in her living room, her arms wrapped around herself.
“Why did you do it?” he asked her.
She didn’t even pretend like she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I just wanted someone to look at me the way you look at her. Willing to give your life for her. To give her whatever she needs to make her whole.” Alexandra took a step forward, but at Shane’s sharp look moved back. “I just wanted someone to focus on me in that way. I never dreamed it would turn into this.”
Shane couldn’t even look at her anymore. “Someone stay with her. The sheriff will be by to arrest her soon. I’m going to find Chloe.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“So I think this is going to work perfectly. We’ve definitely got to figure out how to give Noah a raise. I don’t know how he found this place, but it’s breathtaking. We would’ve never discovered it on our own.”
Chloe and Nadine were standing together looking over a steep mountain drop off as the sun began to set. To call it gorgeous was an understatement.
“Can you see it?” Chloe asked Nadine. “Can’t you just see Tia looking out here, trying to come to terms with the choices she made? The people she had to leave behind?”
“It’s definitely perfect.” Nadine nodded. “Seriously, I want to come live here.”
They’d known it was the right spot for the finale the moment they’d arrived, but had stuck around, had dinner, talked, so they could see the lighting as the sun started to go down.
It had been worth the wait.
They watched in silence a few more minutes before heading back to the car in the deepening twilight.
“Shane is going to be pretty mad that we didn’t bring Kassler with us,” Nadine said.
Chloe just shrugged. They had successfully avoided talking about men all day. It hurt to think about Shane. Hurt to think that it might already be over, that he might have decided that Alexandra was whom he really wanted if she was still making the offer.
Chloe kept her hands on the wheel as she answered since there were ditches on either side of the road. “I think the stalker has made it abundantly clear that Alexandra is the target. Plus, I just needed to get away from everything. Everybody.”
“That’s not what I heard about how you and Shane were acting in the catering hall last night. I was told he couldn’t keep his hands off you.” Nadine shifted her weight so she could lean against the passenger side door and study Chloe.
“Yeah well, that was last night. And it was good. But this morning…I just don’t know.”
“Was he distant? Did he say something that made you mad?”
“Well, it started when he was about to give me the talk regarding how things aren’t permanent. Will never be permanent.”
“Are you serious? What a bastard. I can’t believe he said that.”
Chloe grimaced.
“Wait a minute.” Nadine smacked her on the arm. “I know that look. Did he actually say those things?”
“No. But he would’ve. They were coming.”
“So let me guess, you said something to shut it down before he could even speak.”
“Hey. You weren’t there. I was.”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “And we both know that you’re the best judge when it comes to emotional intimacy. Because you’re always willing to give people a shot. You’re always willing to be the first to open up, in order to encourage others to do the same.”
Everything Nadine was saying was the truth, but Chloe didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to think about the fact that her own defensive nature was what had driven a wedge between her and Shane.
“I can still fire you, you know,” she muttered.
Nadine wasn’t worried. “You can fire me as part of your creative team, but not as your friend. And that’s not going to stop me from trying to talk some sense into you.”
“He told me he would be with Alexandra when I got back tonight.” That had hurt.
“‘With Alexandra’ as in, naked doing the horizontal tango, or as in his job to provide security for her, which you approved?” Nadine asked with one eyebrow raised.
He’d meant his job. She knew it. He knew it. But they both also knew he meant that if Chloe wasn’t interested someone else was.
Someone else who happened to be gorgeous, friendly, and flirty. Not prickly and difficult.
“Let’s talk about something else. Like you and Travis. I haven’t even had a chance to get the details about how your break went in Wilmington.”
“You know Travis, he’s a little moody. All creative types tend to be. And I sometimes feel like he’s off in another world. But again, that comes with the territory.”
“So you guys had fun?”
“Yes. He showed me his sailboat. It was docked in the harbor and he told me he was going to take me on it someday soon.” Nadine grinned. “Which almost made up for the fact that he had to take care of some research alone during our trip.”
“What research? And why wouldn’t he take you?”
“Who knows? He said he didn’t want to talk about it until he was sure it would pan out. I didn’t want to fight with him, so I just went along with it.”
“Probably smart. He’ll share when he’s ready. And…romance-wise, how were things?”
Nadine’s smile faltered just a little. “It was just okay. I think I had built the lovemaking up in my mind to the degree that reality couldn’t possibly live up to it. I was tense. He was tense. So it was all just tense. I never really felt like he was truly into it.”
Chloe reached out and grabbed her hand. “Oh sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m sure he was into you. It’s just a lot of pressure the first time.”
“I know. And it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. And we were both a little anxious to get back to work since that final scene hadn’t been started. And then once that psychic was killed nearby, I just wanted to get Travis out of there. You know how he and Justin fight about the topic all the time.”
“That’s for sure. I’m assuming since Travis is so violently opposed to having psychics in the show, that you haven’t said anything about me or my voices.”
Nadine shrugged. “He’s heard rumors, of course. He’s asked me about it.”
“Shane says it’s me using a part of my brain that most people don’t. So it’s like a child prodigy on a piano or something.”
“That’s good, and probably not untrue. And see, Shane didn’t freak out. Another reason to give him a chance.”
As if Chloe needed more reasons.
“What about Conversation Hearts?” Nadine asked. “You’ve looked much better the last few days. I haven’t seen any nosebleeds.”
Chloe shifted in the driver’s seat. “There’s been a change. He’s still there, I can feel him, but it’s different. I don’t know. Maybe he got his girl and he’s done. I hope so.”
Because right now it was worse than it had been all week. There was no burning pain, but the pressure was building. He was about to do something. Something important. She could feel it, the pressure, like someone was sitting on her chest. It was going down soon.
What Chloe didn’t know was if he was going to take her down with him. Maybe this would sever the bond between them, especially since Chloe had no idea why they were attached to begin with.
But maybe it would fry her brain for good. And this time even Shane’s coolness wouldn’t be able to help. Especially since it didn’t look like he’d be close enough to be any sort of shield anyway.
“Well, I say you just need to talk to Sh—”
Both women screamed as a car hit them from behind, almost causing them to go into the ditch.
“What the hell?” Chloe yelled.
Nadine spun around to try and see what was happening. “Do you think the driver is drunk? Should we stop?”
They had their answer a moment later when the vehicle behind them sped up and hit them again. Chloe was bare
ly able to keep their car on the road.
All of a sudden being way out in the middle of nowhere with no members of the security team didn’t seem like a good idea, even if this had nothing to do with the stalker.
Chloe hit the gas. The vehicle behind them obviously was bigger and better equipped for some Mad Max type ramming. But maybe they could outrun them. Or maybe if this was some sick game he or she would get bored.
But just a few seconds later Chloe realized this was no game. This had been carefully orchestrated. The road became more narrow and treacherous, the ditches on either side of them more steep.
And then Chloe heard the voice in her head.
To stop the evil, the heart of the evil must die.
“Oh my God, hang on Nadine, it’s him. The stalker. He’s going to hit us again.”
“How do you know?”
Chloe just glanced over at her friend, her best friend since she was eight. Nadine understood.
Chloe could hear him.
Chloe tried to slow the car down, knowing she was going too fast for the curves. But as soon as she did, the vehicle behind them—it had to be a truck or Hummer from the height of the headlights—slammed into them again.
Chloe fought to keep the car under control, but she couldn’t. The left wheels were already over the side and they were sliding down the ditch. One last hit from the truck flipped them over.
The airbags deployed and Chloe clutched the steering wheel as the car slid and flipped, her head cracking against the window. Nadine screamed, trying to brace herself on the door and roof of the car as they flipped again, finally coming to rest at the bottom of the small ravine.
It took Chloe a minute to gather her senses. To take a mental stock. She could move her toes, her fingers, her neck.
“Nadine? Nadine, are you all right?”
She couldn’t see anything in the darkness and dust from the airbags. She heard Nadine cough. Chloe wrestled with her seatbelt to unbuckle it. The car had landed upside down, and all her weight was dragging on the belt.
