by Lisa Jackson
"You can't take the chance. Isn't this enough proof that the guy's unhinged, that he's going to do you major harm?" Ty asked. "He's accused you of murder. He's spouted a lot of biblical mumbo jumbo, maybe he believes in the old 'An eye for an eye,' type of retribution."
"But not yet." As weary as she was, she was certain that she wasn't in immediate danger. John wanted to terrorize her. He got his thrills by trying to scare her out of her wits and then communicating with her. He wanted her to beg for forgiveness. She glanced at her car. "Don't worry, I—I'm going to be fine. I'm starting to understand him."
"Believe me, no one understands this creep. Come on, let me drive you home."
"It's nice of you, really, to be so concerned, but I'm okay. A big girl, you know," she said, though she wasn't certain she meant it any more than she thought it was a good idea to let Ty take on the role of bodyguard. She barely knew the guy. He seemed sincere enough, and she had a sense of safety around him, but his timing, showing up when she'd started getting the prank calls made her second-guess his motives. God, she hated this… this newfound fear. John had stripped her of her independence, but she intended to fight back.
"Okay, then I'm going to check out the car again, and I'll follow you. All you have to do is drive me to my car, and I'll make sure you get into your house all right."
"Promise?" She was too tired to argue any longer. What would it hurt for him to see her to her house? It wasn't as if it was out of his way. "Fine. If that's what you want."
"It is. Now, I don't suppose you have a flashlight."
"Ask and ye shall receive," she said, and opened the trunk.
"Not funny, Sam."
"Oh, ye of little faith and humor." She pulled out an emergency roadside kit—flares, matches, reflective signs and a flashlight. For the next few minutes Ty checked under the hood and the body of the car, lying on the grimy cement, shining the flashlight's small beam across the wheel axles and exhaust system. He tested the lug nuts on her wheels and looked over the ignition and steering column. By the time he'd finished his forehead was damp, sweat running down the sides of his face.
"I guess there's only one way to find out for sure," he said and snagged the keys from her hand. "Stand back."
"No way. I'm not going to let you—"
"Too late." He slid into the bucket seat. "Back off in case I get blown to smithereens."
"This is ridiculous."
"Humor me—the one of little faith and humor—okay?"
"You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
Seeing that he wasn't about to budge, she backed up a few steps, her stomach tightening. He jabbed her key into the ignition, twisted and the Mustang's engine caught on the first try, firing to life. Ty stepped on the throttle, gunning the engine. Exhaust spewed out of the tailpipe, the roar of six cylinders deafening. But there was no explosion. No flying glass. No twisting of metal.
"I think it's okay," Ty said through the open window. "Hop in." Leaning over he opened the passenger door. Since there was no changing his mind, she crossed the short span of grease-dappled concrete and climbed into the passenger side of her car.
"You don't have to baby-sit me," she said, as he drove down the ramp to the first floor and out into the street, where streetlights glowed watery blue and there was little traffic.
"Is that what I'm doing?" He slanted her a glance as he slowed for a traffic light and her heart nearly stopped. There was something about him, something she didn't quite understand that warned her to be wary, yet she couldn't resist him, couldn't help but trust him. As the interior of the car glowed red in the reflection of the stoplight, she caught his eyes, saw promises in his gaze she didn't want to understand. "I'm baby-sitting?" he asked again.
"Seems like." Forcing her accelerating heartbeat to slow, she held up one finger. "You called the station after I got the weird call from Annie." Another finger jutted upward as the light changed and she watched his profile—strong jaw, deep-set eyes, high forehead, bladed cheeks, razor-thin lips. In an instant she wondered what it would feel like to kiss him… to touch him… The car shot forward, and she realized she hadn't finished her thought. "You waited for me at the station door." A third finger joined the first two as Ty rounded a final corner and pulled into a spot behind his Volvo. "You walked Melanie and me to the parking garage." Her pinky straightened. "You checked out the car and drove me here. And"—her thumb raised and she splayed her fingers in front of his face as her car idled— "and you're going to follow me home."
He grabbed her hand. Hard warm fingers wrapping around hers. "And," he vowed solemnly, "when we get back to your place, I'm gonna walk you inside."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to, okay?" His eyes, dark with the night, held hers and his fingers tightened. "I would never forgive myself, Samantha, if something happened to you. Now, we can sit here and argue semantics all night, but I think we should go. It's late."
She swallowed hard. Retrieved her hand. "Fine."
One side of his mouth lifted. "I'm holding you to it." Then he was out of the car, jogging to the Volvo, and sliding inside. His brake lights flashed as Sam crawled over the gearshift and landed behind the steering wheel. After she adjusted the position of her seat, she punched the accelerator, watching in her rearview mirror as the Volvo pulled away from the curb and followed her.
Ty Wheeler seemed to have appointed himself her bodyguard.
Whether she wanted him to or not.
Chapter Fourteen
On the way home Sam punched the first button on her radio, caught the end of the Lights Out program and drove through the deserted streets toward the lake and the small community of Cambrai. She met a few cars, the oncoming headlights bright, but, for the most part, her attention was focused in the rearview mirror and the twin beams from Ty's Volvo. What was he thinking? Why was he making her problems his? What did he want from her? She turned onto her street, and she couldn't help but second-guess him. Did his boat really break down?
"Stop it," she growled as she pulled into her driveway and pushed the button on her automatic garage-door opener. She was tired, her nerves shot, paranoia taking hold. As the garage door cranked upward she pulled inside. It had once been a carriage house but had been converted to house a horseless carriage sometime in the nineteen twenties. Later a breezeway had been added, attaching the garage to the kitchen. As she climbed out of the car, Ty's car wheeled into the drive. He was out of his car in seconds and following her into the house.
"No arguments," he advised when he noticed she was about to protest. "Let me check the place out."
"It's been locked."
"So was the car."
He walked ahead of her through the door and strode along the glassed-in breezeway as if he'd done it all his life. Inside the house, Sam shut off the alarm that she'd activated for once. She'd forgotten it time and time again, just wasn't used to setting it. Thankfully, tonight, the troublesome thing seemed to be working, but Ty wasn't satisfied, he walked slowly through the kitchen and dining area where, perched on one of the chairs, Charon watched with wide, suspicious eyes.
"It's all right," she mouthed to the cat.
With Samantha on his heels, Ty did a room-by-room search of the house. He didn't bother to ask her permission as he opened doors to cupboards and closets, even tested the locked trapdoor of the crawl space tucked under the stairs. Then he took the steps two at a time to the second floor. Without a word he walked into the guest room, with its lacy curtains, daybed and antique dresser, through the shared bath and finally ended up in her bedroom.
Following after him, she felt uneasy and exposed. Naked. All the private corners of her living space bared. He slid one glance at the oversize canopy bed, then proceeded into the walk-in wardrobe where her clothes, shoes and handbags were strewn haphazardly.
Within seconds he emerged. Sam was leaning against her armoire. "Satisfied?" she asked. "No bogeymen?"
"Not so far." He tested the lo
ck on the French doors leading to her balcony, gave the lever a shake, then grunted as if he finally was convinced that the house was safe. "Okay… so I guess I can give you the all clear."
"Good." She stretched and started for the door, but Ty didn't follow.
"Why don't you tell me about Annie Seger?" he asked, leaning against one of the bedposts. "I know you're tired, but it would help me to know why someone is blaming you for her death."
"That's a good question." Sam shoved her fingers through her hair and thought for a second. "I can't really tell you the answer as I don't understand it myself." She lowered herself into the rocker by the French doors and wrapped the faded afghan her great-grandmother had knitted decades ago around her shoulders. Ty had been kind to her, interested. The least she could do was try and explain. "I was hosting a show like the one I'm doing now, only at a smaller station. I'd only been out of college a while and was separated from my husband, so I was on my own for the first time in my life, and the show was enjoying quite a bit of success. Jeremy, that's my ex, thought it was going to my head, and tried to make it an issue, like the catalyst for the divorce, but it was more than that. A lot more."
"Anyway, things were going relatively well." She remembered how each day she would push thoughts of Jeremy and the divorce from her mind, tell herself she hadn't failed, that the marriage had been destined to fall apart, then drive to the station and bury herself in her work, listen to the callers, try to sort things out for others as she hadn't been able to for herself.
"One night, this girl calls, says her name is Annie, and that she wants some advice." Samantha remembered the girl's hesitancy at first, how embarrassed she'd seemed, how frightened. Pulling the afghan closer around her neck, Sam said, "The girl, Annie, was scared. She'd just found out she was pregnant and couldn't tell her parents because they would flip—maybe turn her out, that sort of thing. I got the impression that they were very strict and religious, that their daughter being unwed and in a family way would be socially unacceptable."
"I suggested she talk to a counselor at school or her pastor, someone who might be able to help her and guide her in her decision, someone she trusted."
"But she didn't?" he asked, still leaning against the bedpost.
"She couldn't, I guess. A few nights later she called back. More scared than ever. Her boyfriend wanted her to get an abortion, but she didn't want one, was adamantly against it for personal as well as religious reasons. I told her not to do anything she wasn't comfortable with, that it was her body and her baby. Of course, as the audience is hearing this, the phone lines are lighting up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Everyone had an opinion. Or advice. I asked her to call back when I wasn't on the air, that I would give her the names of some counselors and women's services where she could get one-on-one help."
Sam let out her breath slowly as she remembered those painful days. "Maybe I wasn't the best one to be giving out advice at the time," she admitted, thinking back to that black period in her life. "I'd only been in Houston a few months, and the reason I got the job is that the woman who was hosting the program had quit. I was only supposed to be a temporary fill-in, but audience response was great, even if the pay wasn't, so they offered me a raise, and I stayed on."
She rolled her eyes at her own naiveté, pushed back with her toe and began slowly rocking. "Even though we were on the road to divorce anyway, my husband didn't like it. I was in the limelight for once, not him, and it eroded the marriage all the faster I think. I wasn't going to give up the job and within weeks—possibly days—he found someone else… or, more likely, he'd been seeing her all along, but that's another story," she added, surprised at herself for confiding so much. "We were talking about Annie Seger. The upshot was that Annie ignored my advice, never called after hours, but phoned in every other night or so. And the audience went crazy. People started phoning in like mad. Everyone from the president of the local chapter of Right to Life and several youth ministers to someone from the local paper. The thing just kept getting bigger and bigger. Mushrooming. I had lawyers calling me with offers of money, couples wanted to adopt Annie's baby. Young mothers called, women who'd suffered abortions or miscarriages or marrying the wrong guy because they were pregnant and had been forced to get married by their folks. It was a circus. And in the middle of it was a lonely, scared sixteen-year-old."
Sam shivered, remembered being seated at a windowless booth in the heart of the station, taking the calls, wondering if Annie would phone in again. George Hannah, the owner, had been beside himself with glee at the ratings, and Eleanor, too, had reveled in the increased listenership. "Everyone at the station was thrilled. We were beating out the rival station, and that was what mattered. Ratings were through the roof, by God! And the bottom line looked good." Sam couldn't hide the sarcasm in her voice.
But, aside from all the hoopla, Annie had been desperate. And Samantha had failed her. Even after all of these years, Sam still felt the girl's despair, her fear. Her shame.
"I tried to get through to her, but she couldn't find the strength to confide in anyone close to her. She had family but seemed terrified of them. Couldn't or wouldn't talk to a school counselor or anyone from her parish. She became angry with me, for some reason. As if I were to blame. It was awful. Just… awful." Sam drew in a long breath and said, "Then, after the seventh or eighth time she'd called in, about three weeks after the initial time she'd contacted me, she was found dead. Overdose and her wrists slit. Her mother's prescription for sleeping pills and about half a fifth of vodka along with a pair of bloody gardening shears were nearby. There was a suicide note on her computer. It said something about Annie being ashamed, feeling alone, not having anyone to confide in, not her parents, boyfriend or me."
Sam remembered seeing the front page of the paper the next day with Annie Seger's face in black and white. A pretty, privileged girl, captain of the cheerleading squad, an honor student, dead by her own hand.
A girl who had been pregnant.
And alone. Someone who had reached out for help and gotten nothing.
The girl's high-school picture had made Annie seem more real, more helpless, more tragic to Sam. Annie had been so damned young. Sam had been devastated and the images of the smiling girl in the black-and-white photo of the paper still haunted her. "I quit the job after that. Took some time off and spent it with my dad. Went into private practice in Santa Monica. It was all Eleanor could do to persuade me to get behind the mike again and host another program." She plucked at the afghan with her fingers. "And now it's all happening again."
"So Thursday would have been Annie's twenty-fifth birthday?"
"I guess." Sam lifted a shoulder. Felt cold to her bones. Tightened the blanket around her though the temperature in the room was probably over eighty degrees. "I just don't know why anyone would bring it all up again."
"Neither do I," he said, and held her gaze for a second longer than necessary. "Listen, if you hear or see anything that bothers you—anything at all—give me a call." Pulling a pen from his pocket, he crossed to the nightstand and wrote on the notepad by her phone. "Here're my numbers— home and cell. Don't lose 'em." He tore off the top page, walked to her chair and handed her the information.
"Wouldn't dream of it," she said, and had to stifle a yawn.
Ty glanced again at the bed with its fluffy duvet, decorative pillows and slatted canopy. "Go to bed, Champ. You've had a long day."
"Very long," she agreed, thinking it had lasted forever.
To her surprise, Ty reached forward, pulled her, afghan and all, out of the chair and drew her into the circle of his arms.
"You will call me," he said, leaning down so that his forehead touched hers.
All thoughts of sleep vanished. The cozy room with its sloped ceiling seemed to shrink. Become warmer. "If it comes down to that."
"Even if you just get scared." With one strong finger he lifted her chin. "Promise."
"Oh, sure. Scout's honor," she agreed, her h
eart drumming wildly. The scent of old leather mingled with a lingering trace of some aftershave and that pure male scent she hadn't smelled in a long, long time.
"I'll hold you to it." He glanced down at her mouth and in a second she realized he was going to kiss her.
Oh, God. Her throat went dry, her skin tingled in anticipation. As if he knew exactly what she was feeling, what kind of response he'd already evoked from her, he had the audacity to smile, that irrepressible, cocky, half grin that made her breath stop.
"Good night, Sam," he said, and he brushed a kiss across her forehead before releasing her. "You keep your doors locked and give me a call if anything bothers you."
You bother me, she thought, as he released her and walked out the door. Damn it, Ty Wheeler, you bother the hell out of me.
Two hours later Ty flipped through his notes as he sat at the keyboard, the dog at his feet, the windows open to let in the breeze. Ice cubes melting, a drink sat on his desk, nearly forgotten as he flipped through his notes on Annie Seger. He knew the info by heart, yet studied it as if he'd never heard Annie's name before.
Which was ridiculous, as he was related to her in a roundabout way.
His third cousin. Which was the reason he'd been thrown off the case.
He perused the yellowed newspaper clippings, reading over the facts that he'd memorized long ago:
Too frightened to tell her parents that she was in a family way, she'd sought solace in a local radio psychiatrist, Dr. Samantha Leeds, and couldn't heed the doctor's advice. She'd felt she had nowhere to turn, and when the father of her child had told her that he didn't want to raise a family, she'd gone into her bedroom, turned on her computer, written a note and when sleeping pills and vodka hadn't done the trick, slit her wrists.
It had been a scandal that had rocked a wealthy section of Houston. Soon, the Dr. Sam show had gone off the air but not because of poor ratings. Contrarily, the popularity of her program had soared to new heights and her fame, or infamy, had skyrocketed.
