Before she had a chance to respond, Michael’s phone began ringing. “That’s probably Connor, your bodyguard.” He reached for his phone. “Yeah, come on up. I’ll buzz you in.”
Kate followed Michael to the foyer near the elevator.
Connor stepped out of the elevator, wearing faded blue jeans and a dark green T-shirt. He’d clearly stopped shaving, Michael noted when assessing his scruffy beard. Michael felt strangely uneasy as he watched Kate’s eyes wander over Connor’s body, before adjusting to meet his green eyes.
A muscular arm extended toward Kate. Her dimples were exposed as she smiled back at Connor. “Hi, I’m Kate.”
“I wish I were meeting you under different circumstances, but it’s nice to meet you. I’m Connor.” He flashed her a bright smile and held her gaze a little longer than Michael liked.
“Thank you for coming,” Michael said, almost a little too loud, attempting to break the handshake and shift Connor’s attention away from Kate. “I’m glad you can help.”
Kate glanced at Michael out of the corner of her eye and redirected her attention back to Connor.
“Kate, Connor was with me in Afghanistan—he joined the year I did. He’s been out of the Marines for about as long as me.” Michael motioned them into the living room.
Connor studied Kate’s long legs as he followed behind her, which Michael observed with pained annoyance. “How do you know each other?” Connor asked before taking a seat on the suede sofa next to Kate.
Michael stood by the fireplace and trained his attention on Connor. Now that he noticed how captivated Connor seemed to be with Kate, Michael was beginning to question his choice of bodyguard. Connor was thirty-two, single, and a handsome guy. He’d have to be blind not to notice Kate.
Michael should have asked Kate to change out of her workout shorts before Connor had shown up. Why had he not thought of it sooner?
God, what is wrong with me? He mentally smacked himself for his foreign jealous thoughts.
“I planned the event for Michael. I didn’t see you there the other night, did I?”
Connor shook his head. “No, I just got back from London yesterday. I was working on a special assignment, so I couldn’t make it.”
“Do you, um, keep people safe for a living?” she asked, her eyes widening with curiosity.
Connor smirked. “When it pays well,” he joked. “Michael explained to me the situation. I’m glad to be at your beck and call until he finds the bastard who is following you.”
Michael flinched. What had he gotten himself into? He could watch Kate while they were both here, but he couldn’t be with her all the time—he had to go to work, eventually. No, he had been right to hire Connor, but he would have to keep an eye on him, too, and make it very clear that Kate was off limits. “I don’t think we’ll need you today,” he found himself saying. “I’ve decided I’m not going into work.”
He had a meeting he couldn’t miss tomorrow, though. He couldn’t allow whatever madness that had overcome him to triumph. “If you could be here by eight tomorrow morning that would be great.”
Connor nodded. “I’m staying at the hotel across the street, so I’ll be close by.”
“Thank you. I think this is all a little extreme, but Michael insists, so I guess I have no choice.” She smiled at Connor and rose to her feet when he stood.
“We’ll keep you safe. Don’t worry.”
“Let’s talk for a minute. In private,” Michael said while motioning for Connor to follow him.
Clouds were pooling together in the sky, blocking the morning sun, when Michael returned to the living room.
“I like him,” Kate said.
Michael’s jaw clamped shut for a brief moment. “Good.” He looked down at his watch. “We have a few hours before Jake, my friend from the FBI, gets here. I was thinking that maybe you could try and sketch a picture of what the guy looked like—the one you saw watching you at the club, restaurant, and ball.”
Kate released a small laugh. “Me? I can try, but I doubt it will do us much good. Drawing is not exactly my forte.”
He gave her a slight nod. “Come on, I’ll let you use my office.” After providing her with white paper and a pencil, he left without saying another word. He didn’t want to be alone with her. He couldn’t breathe around her right now. She smelled too good—looked too good.
And he had promised to keep her safe.
***
“You’re gorgeous.” Those were the first words that Jake uttered to Kate. Not “hi,” “how are you,” or “nice to meet you.” He opened with, “You’re gorgeous.”
Michael’s eyes widened as he pushed his fingertips against his right temple. “Jake,” he muttered in a low voice.
Kate’s cheeks warmed as Jake held onto her hand for a little too long. It was the second time today an attractive man had knocked her confidence up a few pegs. She felt buoyed by their interest after Michael’s rejection.
“So, some asshole has been following you, huh?”
Kate decided that swear words sounded sexy with a Texas drawl. “Unfortunately.”
“Perhaps we could sit down and get acquainted and discuss what you already know,” he replied before heading toward the living room.
“Sure. Let me just grab something.” She walked down the hall and to the office.
“Mike, you could have warned me about her before I met her.” Kate stopped for a moment as surprise warmed her body.
“Warn you about what?” Michael asked. She could just imagine him rolling his eyes.
“She’s a goddamned incredible looking woman. And with no make-up on . . . she looks like that? Tell me you’re not screwing her. Tell me she’s available.”
“Jake, you’re a good friend, but if you even think about making a move on her . . .”
A small pebble of hope bounced around her stomach. Is he jealous?
She must have made some small sound to express her glee. Michael looked up and found her. “Kate.”
Kate glanced at Jake and then at Michael. “Here,” she said, handing her drawing to Jake, playing off the weird tension in the room by offering a forced but tight-lipped smile. “I can’t draw well, but that’s the best I could do. I saw this guy a few times. I don’t know for sure if he is the one following me. But he sure was looking at me . . .” She sat down in a nearby, cream colored armchair.
“This will help. Thank you,” Jake replied. “So, tell me what has been going on.” He focused his attention on Kate, ignoring the glower that Michael was shooting his way. Fanning the flames a bit more, he added, “You’re a beautiful woman. It’s no great surprise that you might have a stalker.”
She glanced at Michael and saw his brows pinched together in obvious annoyance. What’s his problem? She ran her hand through her blonde hair and looked back at Jake. He had short, dirty blonde hair. He was tall and muscular, but a little leaner than Michael, and his warm brown eyes seemed to smile whenever he flashed his dimples at her. Like Connor, he was handsome. Did Michael only have good looking friends?
“Show him your phone,” Michael said, almost as if he were impatient with Kate.
“It’s right there,” she said, pointing to her phone, which sat on the coffee table just in front of Jake.
Jake nodded and grabbed it. “Michael said he started off with just sending text messages, right? I assume they’re from the blocked number in here?” He scrolled through the images. “What else do you have?” He put the phone back down and looked at Michael, and then to Kate.
The red envelope was sitting on the end table by the armchair, alongside the dozen or so pictures that had been on the bed. She reached for them, feeling the same tremble in her body. “Here,” she said, trying to steady her shaking hand.
Jake flipped through the photos and opened the envelope. If he was worried at all, his face didn’t show it. In fact, she couldn’t gauge any type of reaction from him whatsoever. He was an FBI agent, she had to remind herself, and her situation pr
obably didn’t even rank on the weird meter to him.
He set the photos and envelope on the table next to her phone and leaned forward, perching his elbows on his knees. “Stalkers generally send messages and photos for one of a few reasons. Sometimes the stalker actually believes that he loves the person he is following, and the messages are meant to serve as a token of appreciation and love. Sometimes a stalker sends messages because he gets off on the fear. He likes seeing your face when you receive the message and enjoys that you react.”
Kate pulled the side of her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment before realizing it. She shifted her focus to Michael, who rose to his feet and walked to the wall of windows. The cloudy sky was growing darker, matching their somber mood.
“But it may not be either of those reasons,” Jake announced.
Her shoulders slumped as her brows lifted. “What else could it be?”
“The person might not be obsessed with you in an infatuation sort of way, but rather just wants you to think that he is. Considering that your stalker demanded you go back to New York suggests that the motive of the texts and photos was to frighten you out of the city.”
“But why?” she asked, her voice cracking a little as she spoke.
He sunk back into the couch and clasped his hands together. “I have two theories. Your stalker wants you back in New York for whatever reason, maybe to do you harm there. There’s also a chance that this is somehow connected to your mother’s murder.”
With that, he had her complete attention. “I’m sorry, what?” she snapped.
Michael turned away from the window, zoning in on Jake as though he had a grenade in hand.
“I did some research on you after Michael called me yesterday. Sorry.” He looked up at Michael and back to Kate.
“Apparently your research sucks because my mom wasn’t murdered.” She closed her mouth and shook her head with a reaffirming, you-are-out-of-your-mind ‘hell no.’ She pushed to her feet and walked to the fireplace, where she stared down at the fake, gray logs.
“Kate . . . I’m sorry . . . What do you know about your mom’s death?” He glanced over at Michael.
Michael was beholding her with the same worry that rippled through her own body. She exhaled, fixing her gaze on the Brazilian hardwood floors. There was no way she could deal with this right now. No way. “She was eight months pregnant and went into labor early. They had to do an emergency C-section. There was a lot of bleeding. Her blood pressure spiked. She died.” Her voice was cold and hard. Distant. Her body was rigid, but her eyes grew blurry as they penetrated the floor. She blinked a few times, freeing herself of stupor.
Jake held his hands up in front of him before clasping them together in apology. “Shit, I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t expect to be the one to tell you this. I assumed your father—or, at least someone, would have told you the truth.” He reached into the duffel bag by his foot and retrieved a folder. He opened it and pulled out a copy of a newspaper article.
“Your mom was murdered in her parents’ home on Lake Norman, in your grandfather’s office. She was shot in the chest.”
Kate trained her eyes on Michael as if somehow he could make the boogeyman of bad news disappear. He just looked as confused as she felt. She turned back toward the FBI agent, who was killing her on the inside with tiny little knife jabs of unwanted truth.
“Your dad arrived on the scene just after it happened—your mom was still alive, but barely. The medics couldn’t save her, but the ER doctors were able to save you.” He took a breath.
Jake might as well have put a gun to her heart. It felt like her life was seeping from her. She looked down at her chest to see if there was blood.
Jake continued, despite the fact that Kate’s face was blanching. “The police decided it must have been a robbery gone bad, that maybe the burglars expected the home to be empty, and your mother confronted them with her father’s gun. Perhaps they took the gun and shot her . . . and then when her boyfriend—your father—showed up, they took off.”
She was touching her chest now. There was real pain there. She could feel it. She couldn’t possibly be imagining the feeling—her heart was constricting against her ribcage. Her nails clawed at her chest as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Kate?” Worry lit across Michael’s face. “Are you okay?” He darted toward her, holding her arm as if she might fall. He guided her back to the armchair.
She sat down for a few minutes in silence.
At last, she mumbled, “My dad would have told me. I don’t believe it.”
Michael remained standing next to Kate as he rubbed his jaw and rolled his head from side to side.
Jake let out a breath and continued to speak with a steady but softer voice. “Your father took you to New York as soon as the hospital let him. And your grandparents abandoned their home after the shooting. Either it was too painful for them to be in Charlotte or they suspected the murder was more . . . personal . . . than the police explanation.”
On a normal day, Kate had a steady stream of thoughts running through her head, although they sometimes looped around and around like an old fashioned record player, when she was troubled. She could get stuck on a problem for hours.
But not right now—right now there was just silence.
Her legs felt heavy, even though she was sitting down. “My dad left Charlotte because my mom died here. He left because this city was a painful reminder of her existence. Not because she was murdered.” For the first time, Kate noticed her hands were trembling.
“Kate, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I can show you the police report if you would like.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed on Jake as he held up his hand. A warning.
“She needs to know this,” Jake insisted. He stood up and walked over to Kate. He stopped in front of her and tilted his head.
Her attention shifted up to meet his eyes. “Go on,” she whispered.
“DNA evidence was brand new back then, and forensics didn’t reveal much. There was evidence of a break-in at the door to the back entrance. Your father reported that a family necklace your mother always wore was missing from her neck. Since your father saw no sign of a vehicle, the police assumed the robbers had parked down the street and approached the house on foot. Because your father worried there was more to the story, the cops interviewed friends and classmates of your mother, but they came up with a bunch of loose ends.”
Kate wasn’t sure how she would manage to stand. “I need to make a call. Excuse me,” she whispered before retrieving her cell phone and exiting the living room.
Her legs had that weird, rubbery sensation of being on an elliptical machine for a long time. She didn’t remember how she got to her bedroom or dialed her father’s number, but she listened to him say her name for the third time.
“Are you okay? Kate? Say something.”
She shut her eyes. “You lied to me. Why?”
“What in God’s name are you talking about? What’s going on?” Her father’s voice had lost its cool edge and dripped with worry. Or maybe anger.
“Mom was murdered.” The words sounded strange as they rolled off her tongue.
Silence greeted her on the other end of the line.
“Why did you lie to me?” Her eyes flashed open, and she gripped the phone tight to her ear.
“Who told you this?”
“I just want the truth. What happened to her?”
“I’m taking the next flight to Charlotte. I’ll call you when I land, and then I’m picking you up and taking you home.”
The line went dead.
She continued to grip the phone to her ear, as though answers would pour forth from it.
“Kate?” Michael tapped on the door. “Are you all right?”
She looked over at the door. “Go away.”
“I can’t do that.”
Michael opened the door, and she regretted not locking it. She dropped her phone on the bed and focused her attention on th
e plush carpet beneath her toes. Don’t cry. Don’t break down in front of him. Her lower lip quivered as she attempted to remain composed.
“Kate.” Her name was but the ghost of a whisper on his lips as he approached the bed.
She shifted to lie down. Turning away from him, she pleaded, “Go away.”
He ignored her and joined her on top of the covers, pulling her body against him, holding her.
She struggled as she began to let loose the storm of tears that had built inside her. “Let me go,” she muttered, although it felt good to have her back pressed against his chest.
“No,” he replied, holding her even tighter. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
She fidgeted and jerked against him. A few minutes later she relaxed into his arms and fell asleep.
Michael held her as she slept, cradling her in his arms until even he passed out.
Chapter Thirteen
Something heavy pressed against her stomach, and the need to take a deep breath forced her awake. Kate’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked down to see Michael’s arm resting on her abdomen. He was lying beside her, asleep. What had happened?
Then the memories flooded her mind, making her feel ill. Her mom had been murdered.
Murdered.
And it wasn’t a bad dream. She couldn’t quite comprehend the news. How does one process something like that? She was losing her mother all over again.
“Kate.” Michael looked over and pulled her back to him, holding her tight in his arms.
The proximity to him and his affection was confusing. She wanted to trust him but knew that in as few as five minutes he could be leaping for the door, eyeing her with that inscrutable cold stare. She couldn’t handle his mixed signals right now—she had her own issues to deal with. “Michael,” she said, her voice a warning. She moved his arm from her body and forced herself to sit up.
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