Obsession

by Traci Hunter Abramson

  “Kendra, something is obviously bothering you.” He motioned to the board. “I never get this far ahead of you, even when I have a phenomenal game. So tell me what’s on your mind.”

  She let out a sigh. “You’re going to think it’s silly.”

  “Maybe,” Charlie agreed. “But tell me anyway.”

  “I need a dress.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “A dress?”

  “Yeah, for the benefit concert coming up.” Kendra took a deep breath and let it out. “I know it probably seems silly, but there are always so many reporters and photographers at these events. I will be expected to show up wearing something suitable.”

  “Something suitable,” Charlie repeated, looking as though he were torn between concern and laughter. “So what are you asking me to do?”

  “I need to talk to my designer to have a new dress made,” Kendra told him. “He’s probably already started on one, but it would be the same blue that I always wear. After everything that’s happened, I want something different.”

  “That sounds reasonable.” Charlie nodded.

  “It does?”

  “Sure.” He rolled the dice, considered his options briefly, and then made his move. “Give me his number, and I’ll have someone contact him. I assume he already knows your size.”

  She nodded. “I’d need at least one fitting before the benefit, but that can wait until a couple of days beforehand.”

  Charlie nodded again, but humor danced in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “You know, you’re really cute when you’re nervous.”

  Kendra rolled her eyes and let her dice fall. “You’re just trying to distract me.”

  “You already distracted yourself.” Charlie motioned to the board as Kendra made her move. He was within two rolls of winning the game, and Kendra didn’t have a single piece home yet.

  “Maybe I was just softening you up so you’d help me order my dress.”

  “Oh, is that it?” Charlie rolled again. He gave her a smug look when double sixes fell to win him the game.

  She smirked at him and nodded. “I can be sneaky when I have to be.”

  “That’s good to know.” Charlie motioned toward the kitchen. “But loser gets to fix dinner.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “How come when I win, the winner gets to clean up or fix dinner or do dishes, but when you win, it’s the loser that gets extra chores?”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Because I can be sneaky too.”

  * * *

  “You must understand Mr. Blake’s concerns,” Alan Parsons said from the seat across the desk from Rick Michaels in the FBI’s Los Angeles office.

  “Exactly what is it you’re asking of me?”

  “My father’s company has been providing security for the Blake family for nearly a decade. We need to know if you are any closer to apprehending the man you believe is after Kendra or if we need to be prepared to alter our security plans for her when she leaves your protection.”

  “We do have a person of interest at this time, but we need time to investigate further before we bring him in for questioning.”

  “Can I ask who?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information.”

  “I see.” Alan pulled a business card from his pocket and offered it to Rick as he stood up. “Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Obviously, we want this situation resolved as quickly as possible. Kendra belongs at home.”

  Rick stood as well. “I appreciate your concern.”

  * * *

  Elias picked up his phone, his attention still on the computer screen in front of him. “Washington.”

  “Elias, it’s Rick Michaels. I need a favor.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve been trying to locate Steve DeFoe.”

  “Yeah, I read the report. Any luck?”

  “Actually, we think he’s heading your way. He used his credit card to rent a car this morning. The GPS on the vehicle shows him heading east on Interstate 10.”

  “If you know where he is, why aren’t you having the local LEOs pick him up?”

  “Our case is still pretty circumstantial. Without the murder weapon, all we have is a couple instances of him being in the right place at the wrong time,” Rick said. “The search warrant just came through, so I’m going to head over to his apartment right now, but odds are that if he has the weapon, he has it on him.”

  “Great,” Elias muttered. “So I assume that you want us to stake out Kendra’s condo to see if he shows up.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Any hits on hotel reservations for him?”

  “No, but I did e-mail you his photo and the rental car info so you can track him. If we’re right, he should be arriving in about five hours.”

  “All right. We’ll keep an eye on him, and if he shows up here in Phoenix, I’ll send someone over there to keep an eye out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Let’s just hope that he shows up. I’m ready to close the book on this one.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  * * *

  “Is all of this really necessary?” Kendra looked at the travel plans spread out on Charlie’s desk. “The fitting is only going to take an hour at the most.”

  “It’s going to take a lot longer than that to get there.” He tapped his finger on the winding route they would take through the valley to get to the hotel room where they would meet her designer.

  Even her designer would be picked up by an agent tomorrow at the airport and escorted by similar fashion to the private villa that had been reserved for him at the Arizona Biltmore. Charlie had arranged for a decoy vehicle to bring Henrico to see Kendra.

  “I still don’t understand why you didn’t push this back another week.” Kendra thought of the dreaded wig. “Henrico must have rearranged his whole schedule to have made my dress in only three days.”

  “He was very accommodating,” Charlie said cryptically.

  Kendra caught his look, and suspicion bloomed along with a surge of annoyance. “Did you question him?”

  “Me?” Charlie shook his head. “No.”

  Her voice took on an edge. “Not you personally. The FBI. Did they question him?”

  “That’s what we do.” Charlie’s shrugged, but his concentration was on the map in front of him. He made a note on his master plan and then glanced up at her, apparently oblivious to her shifting emotions. “We couldn’t bring him out here unless we were certain he wasn’t involved with any of the killings.”

  “That’s why you were asking about him,” Kendra realized, a sense of invasion crowding her for the first time since agreeing to protection. Resentment hummed through her voice. “Is everything I say just more data for you to analyze for your case files?”

  Charlie looked up at her and let out a sigh. “I told you before, my primary goal is to keep you safe, but I also want to see the man after you behind bars.”

  “Am I just a case to you?” Kendra asked.

  “What?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Where did that come from?”

  “It comes from realizing that every conversation we’ve had was really an interrogation,” Kendra said as temper replaced annoyance. “When I talk to you, it’s because I want to know you better. You talk to me so you can solve a case.”

  “That’s not the only reason, and that case has everything to do with your safety.”

  “Well, I’m safe for now.” Kendra turned to leave the room, but she only made it two steps before Charlie reached out and grabbed her arm.

  He waited for her to turn and look at him before he spoke. “Kendra, I may be here on protection duty, but you’re not just a case to me. I thought you knew that.”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Her words vibrated with anger.

  His eyebrows lifted, and he cocked his head to one side in a way that made him look confused and unexpectedly vulnerable. “I don’t know what
you want me to say.”

  “Tell me how you feel,” Kendra insisted. “Tell me if I’ll ever see you again after you catch this man, if you even want to see me once this is all over.”

  “Of course I want to see you, but I’m also trying to be realistic. I live in Phoenix. You live just about everywhere else.”

  “That’s just geography, Charlie.” Kendra’s stomach went to war with a thousand butterflies, but she forced herself to push on. “Except for my family, I’ve never felt as close to anyone as I feel to you.”

  “Kendra, I don’t know what you expect from me. Do you really think that we could make a long-distance relationship work? What are we supposed to do, steal snatches of time between your concerts and my stakeouts?”

  “It doesn’t have to be that complicated. But that’s not the point. If this is for real, I have to think that the Lord would help us figure things out. The question is whether or not you want to try.” She took a steadying breath. “I could fall in love with you, Charlie, and I’m afraid you’ll break my heart if I do.”

  Charlie blinked rapidly three times before he managed to look at her. Then his shoulders relaxed marginally. “I think I started falling for you when you tried walking in the snow with sandals on.” He reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You matter a lot to me—enough that it scares me. But I’m afraid that if I let myself get distracted, I won’t be able to do my job, that something will happen to you because my focus isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”

  “And when your job is over?”

  “I would really like it if you could stay in Phoenix for a while. I’d love to take you out and get to know you without worrying about who might be hiding in the shadows.”

  Kendra managed to smile as a sense of satisfaction spread through her. “I’d like that too.”

  Chapter 30

  Rick pulled on a pair of gloves as the apartment manager unlocked the door to Steve DeFoe’s unit. As soon as the door was unlocked, he thanked the manager and then walked inside, followed by fellow FBI agent Anthony Martinez. The moment the door was closed behind them, they began their search, both of them feeling a sense of urgency. In fewer than four hours, their prime suspect would be arriving in Phoenix, a short distance from where Kendra Blake was currently being hidden. Protective custody or not, no one wanted to let him get too close.

  They started in the living room, quickly dispensing with the few possible hiding places due to the simplicity of the furnishings. They then worked their way back to the bedroom. Like the living room, the furniture was streamlined and modern. Other than a newspaper on the nightstand and a pair of shoes on the floor, everything in the room was exceptionally tidy.

  “What do you think?” Anthony asked. “Is this guy a neat freak, or does he have a maid?”

  “Maid,” Rick answered. “Neat freaks don’t leave their shoes in the middle of the floor.”

  “I’ll check out the closet.”

  Rick nodded and pulled open a nightstand drawer. He looked through the drawers in both nightstands and then moved to the dresser. The haphazardly folded clothes suggested that he was right about the maid, a maid who clearly didn’t do the man’s laundry. Meticulously, he searched through the clothes until he reached the left bottom drawer. Nestled in the corner, beneath a stack of swimsuits, was a handgun.

  “Got something,” Rick called out. He pulled the weapon free and held it up to show Anthony. “It’s the right caliber.”

  Anthony glanced down at his watch. “If we hurry, we should be able to get the gun to the lab and get the ballistics report before DeFoe gets to Phoenix.”

  Rick nodded as he bagged the weapon. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Charlie was still reeling from his talk with Kendra when Ray arrived that night. He looked up from his desk in the study, surprised to see Neal Coramavich walk in with Ray. Before Charlie could ask why Neal was there, Ray asked, “How’s it going?”

  Charlie tapped a printout on his desk. “I’ve got those travel plans finalized for tomorrow.”

  “We may have to put that on hold,” Ray told him.

  “What?”

  Neal spoke now. “Steve DeFoe is on his way to Phoenix. We’ve been tracking the GPS on his rental car since early this afternoon, and he’s definitely heading this way.”

  “We might be able to use that to our advantage,” Charlie considered. “Maybe we can time Kendra’s fitting to be while he’s being questioned.”

  “We aren’t just picking him up for questioning. We have enough to charge him,” Neal told him.

  “I thought everything we had was circumstantial.”

  “It was, until a couple of LA agents found the murder weapon in his apartment. We just got the call a little while ago.”

  “Are you serious?” Excitement rippled through Charlie. “That’s huge!”

  Neal nodded. Then he glanced down at his watch and looked knowingly at Charlie. “It’s too bad he’ll probably get picked up after hours.”

  Charlie couldn’t help but grin. Everyone knew that spending time in the federal prison system was preferable to the local jail, but if it was after five, the local police would be called in to take him into custody instead of the U.S. Marshals. “Yeah, that is a real shame. Too bad it isn’t Friday.”

  “Well, we can’t have everything,” Neal said. “Anyway, I need a key to Kendra’s condo. I thought it might be more effective if I can wait for DeFoe inside. He might be able to spot a stakeout on the street.”

  “Good thinking.” Charlie nodded and led the way into the living room, where Kendra was sitting on the couch cross-legged, her guitar resting beside her as she scribbled in her notebook. “Hey, Ken. I need the key to your condo.”

  She didn’t look up but waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. “It’s in my purse. Outside pocket.”

  Charlie walked into the kitchen and picked up her purse from off the island, oblivious to the speculative look that crossed Neal’s face. He opened the outside pocket, fished out her key ring, and flipped through the half dozen keys, all labeled with what they went to. He slid the correct key off the ring and handed it to Neal. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” Neal pocketed the key as Kendra shifted her guitar onto her lap and began playing an unfamiliar song. Her voice joined the music, and all three men stopped and stared.

  Charlie smiled when he recognized a few of the lines he had heard Kendra working on the night before. Realizing that she had completely tuned them out, he turned his attention back to Neal. “Watch your back tonight, and give us a call when you know anything.”

  “Huh?” Neal stared at Kendra for a moment longer before facing Charlie. “Oh, yeah.”

  Charlie left Ray in the living room with Kendra and walked Neal to the door. Neal shook his head, and envy filled his voice. “Boy, did you luck out on this assignment.”

  “More than you know,” Charlie muttered. “I’ll talk to you later. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Neal Coramavich was ready. Images of the crime photos, of the victims, were imprinted on his memory. Nothing could bring those people back or reverse their individual tragedies, but at least he knew he could give them justice and stop the Malibu Stalker from claiming any more lives.

  He might have envied Charlie his assignment and the easy friendship he obviously now shared with Kendra Blake, but right now he couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be. The surveillance team outside had already alerted him to Steve DeFoe’s arrival, and only a moment ago, he’d received word that DeFoe had started up the stairs leading to Kendra’s front door.

  Footsteps sounded on the landing, and Neal flexed his hand on the grip of his gun. The doorknob rattled, the lock turned, and the door swung open.

  “FBI. Freeze!” Neal demanded before DeFoe could even pull the key free of the lock. Neal’s finger itched as he thought of the victims once more. He found himself sorely disappointed when Steve DeFoe star
ed at him wide-eyed and simply raised his hands over his head.

  * * *

  Charlie hung up his phone, an immeasurable sense of relief flowing through him. Finally, Kendra was truly safe. Finally, her nightmare was over.

  “Kendra!” he called for her as he hurried into the kitchen, where she was putting away the leftovers from dinner. His face was alive with excitement when he grabbed both of her arms and her eyes lifted to meet his. “They caught him.”

  “Who?” Confusion crossed her face. “The Malibu Stalker?”

  He nodded, and his hands slid down her arms, his fingers linking with hers. “Neal just caught him red-handed entering your condo.”

  Her jaw dropped open at that news, but then the reality that she was finally safe caught up with her. “It’s really over?”

  “It looks that way.” Charlie pulled his hands free of hers and slid them around her waist. His gaze lowered to her mouth, lingering there for a moment before his eyes met hers once more. The beginnings of a smile lit his face. “Which means I’m finally free to do this.”

  His expression was full of fun when he leaned down and touched his lips to hers. She lifted her hands to grip his shoulders, and the subtle scent of her shampoo tickled his senses. What had begun as a playful kiss slowly changed and deepened. Warmth sparked inside him and spread as he gathered her close, a sense of freedom rushing through him.

  He was going to miss her, he realized suddenly. He had been spoiled, being able to see her all day, every day. More than anything, he wanted to keep Kendra right here with him, and he didn’t know if he should be comforted that his heart was open once again or if he should be terrified.

  Memories stirred within him, images of her singing late at night, of her walking out of her room with her eyes still heavy with sleep. Relief and regret melded together as he reveled in her safety but knew he was no longer needed in quite the same way.

  He pulled back and looked down at her, his eyes dark. “I don’t know how I’m going to get to sleep now that I won’t have you singing to me.”

  She shrugged and reached up to kiss him once more. “I guess you’ll just have to download all my music.”