by Cate Remy
“Wait.” He touched her on the wrist. A tiny tingle of electricity buzzed along her skin. “Did you go into work yesterday?”
“No. After what I saw at Mary’s house, all I wanted to do was go home and crawl under the covers.” Thinking about it again left a heavy feeling in her chest.
“The reason I’m asking is because someone may have also sent a threat to your office.”
The heavy feeling was replaced with a sharp ping of alarm. “I didn’t even think to ask security to check my office this morning.”
“I’m coming inside with you.” Cy got out of the BMW.
Dahlia did the same. She fluffed out her curls she forgot to put in braids the night before. They were frizzy instead of polished. She caught her reflection in the glass door as she entered the building. She looked exactly like the anxious, rumpled mess she felt on the inside.
“Hi, Ben, are you doing well this morning?” she greeted the old security guard as she passed his station.
“I’m fine, but we all heard what happened yesterday. I’m sorry for you.” He gave her a look of sympathy. Then he glanced at Cy. “Can I help you, sir?”
“He’s with me, Ben.”
“I still need to see his ID.”
Cy pulled his wallet out of his jeans pocket and presented his driver’s license to the security guard.
Ben took his time reading it before he gave the thumbs-up. “You’re good to go.”
Dahlia continued on until she reached the elevator. She pressed the button to call it down. The doors opened. She got in first and pressed the button for the third floor.
Cy stepped in and stared at the numbers on the wall panel. He didn’t talk to her while the pulley cables made a slight creaking noise as they lifted the elevator. It came to a stop on the third floor. “From now on, I get out of elevators first,” he said while stepping out. “It’s a safety precaution.” His gaze swept the hall.
Things looked fine to Dahlia. She stepped out of the elevator before the doors could close on her. “My office is straight ahead.”
She took out her keys and walked to the door to unlock it. Without going inside, she moved her hand along the wall and felt for the switch to turn on the lights. Was she being a little paranoid?
The lights came on to highlight a room full of brown boxes stacked on a couple tables. Two computer monitors were on sleep mode. She figured her two interns Nelle and Brandon left them that way before they went home last night.
“Everything looks normal to me.” She went inside and set her purse on one of the desks.
Cy closed the door behind him after he entered. “Does your office normally look like this?”
“Like I said, my new makeup line launches this month. These are the samplers and preorders. They go out to blog and beauty magazine reviewers.” She peeled back the lid of one of the cardboard boxes and took out a bubble wrapped packet of eyeshadow kits. “I need to sort through all of these boxes today.”
“What’s your schedule?”
“I don’t have a set schedule. I can be up at five in the morning or come home after ten at night. It all depends on my appointments and what I have to do for my business.”
“No more.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t be out all night with a stalker on the loose looking for you. You’re going to have to have a more structured schedule.”
Dahlia made a point to clarify. “Some of my clients are celebrities. They have to be on set early or they go out to parties late at night. I get what you’re saying, but I can’t keep banker’s hours and expect to work as a hair and makeup artist.”
“You’re going to have to figure something out.”
A quiet knock came from the other side of the door. Cy faced it and waited for it to open. The door parted slowly and a young woman with brown hair stuck her head in. “Hi, Dahlia. Hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, voice uncertain as she looked at Cy.
“Not at all. Nelle, this is Cy. Cy, this is Nelle, my intern.”
“Hey.” Nelle stared at him as if he were a pink elephant in the room. A pink elephant in a crisply-ironed shirt and great-fitting pants.
“Brandon’s my other intern,” Dahlia explained to Cy. “He should be here soon.”
Nelle began opening boxes at the far end of the left table. “You know Brandon. He’s got to stop at Jumpy Java and get his coffee by the gallon.”
“Normally, coffee sounds good, but today I’m already a little jumpy.”
“I’ll be outside the door.” Cy left the two of them in the room.
Nelle paused from unpacking. “I want to ask you two questions. First, I want to hear how you’re doing.”
Dahlia knew she was going to get questions like this all day. At least it meant there were people who cared about her. “I’m hanging in there. Two days ago, I was at the police station for hours answering questions about what I saw. Yesterday, I had to take a break.”
Nelle shook her head. “We all heard about Mary in the news and couldn’t believe it. I was so relieved when you answered my text to let me know you were okay.”
“You were nice to check on me. Alright, so what’s your next question?” She already knew it was going to be about Cy.
“Who’s the tall, brooding pack of biceps outside?”
Geez. “He has a name, Nelle. It’s Cy.”
“But who is he, and what’s he doing here?”
Should she tell her intern that she hired a personal bodyguard or did she need to keep quiet about Cy’s true identity? “He’s here to help me.”
“With what, inventory?”
“He’s here to help me with...” She didn’t want to mention the death threat she received yesterday. It would frighten Nelle. “He specializes in safety precautions.”
“I get it. He’s doing your quality control.”
Dahlia hated lying, not only because she thought it was wrong, but because she was horribly bad at it. “Yes. He’s my assistant and he’s helping me with quality control.”
“When Brandon comes in, I’ll let him know that makeup inventory has to go through Cy before we ship it.”
Nelle resumed her work unpacking the box. Dahlia opened a box beside her and started withdrawing its contents. She wished she had come up with a better reason for Cy’s sudden appearance. She looked at his shadow through the window of the door. He stood straight and tall. She hoped he wouldn’t scare Brandon away.
Chapter Three
Cy stood outside the door of Dahlia’s office. He was just about to go back in and ask her if she was planning on staying at the office all day tomorrow as well. Then a guy who looked like he was in his early twenties came strolling down the hall.
Dressed in a black corduroy jacket and those skinny jeans everyone’s favorite neighborhood hipster was wearing, he carried three cups of coffee in a carrier from Jumpy Java in his hand. He stopped in front of Cy and used his other hand to tweak the thin handlebars of his waxed mustache. “Were you looking for someone out here?”
“No,” Cy replied. “I’m where I’m supposed to be. What about you?”
“This is where I need to be. I think.” He looked around Cy to see into the glass window in the door. “I’m Brandon, by the way.” He motioned his hands as if he intended to extend one of them for a shake. Appearing to change his mind, he gestured with a nod instead. “Does Dahlia know you’re out here?”
The door opened and Dahlia popped her head out. “Hey, Cy, I need you for a moment. Hi, Brandon.”
“Morning.” Brandon slipped past her to go inside the office.
She looked behind her and slowly shut the door. “Think you could do me a little favor?”
Cy wondered why she kept her voice so low. “Why are you acting like you’re trying to hide something?”
“I am. Sort of. Would you mind putting a bunch of packages in the trunk of your car to go to the post office later?”
“Post office?”
“I know it sounds weird,
but I told Nelle you were my assistant. She thinks you’re helping me with quality control.”
He realized that being a bodyguard involved a degree of subterfuge, but pretending to be Dahlia’s assistant? He didn’t know if he could keep the lie going. “Why did you tell her I was your assistant?”
“I didn’t know what else to say when she asked about you. She’s in there repeating it to Brandon. He looked like he was scared of you.”
“I hardly said anything to him.”
“Exactly. Could you go easy on them? They’re just college students, and this is their first internship.”
“I didn’t know there were interns in this field.”
Her pretty face turned down in a frown. “Because hair and makeup isn’t scientific enough, right?”
Cy got the distinct impression he stepped in something that smelled very bad.
Dahlia put her hands on her hips. “I get that cosmetology isn’t military science, but there are people who take value in it. Nelle is going into business and Brandon wants to work with makeup and special effects.”
He got a sense of déjà vu. They had this argument before or another version of it. The angry look on Dahlia’s face made that clear. “I didn’t mean that your work didn’t have value. I don’t know anything about what you do. Your interns are going to see right through me.”
Her expression lightened. “Don’t worry. I can keep you looking busy.”
He gave in. “Where are the packages? I’ll put them in my trunk.”
“Be right back.” Dahlia opened the door to her office and disappeared.
She and her interns came out a couple minutes later, each with a box loaded down with smaller boxes ready to go. “These are all of them. At least, what we have today.”
He looked at the boxes. “I’m not sure all of those can fit in the trunk of my car.”
“Sure they can. I’ve seen your car.” Dahlia tightened her grip on the box. “They won’t be a problem.”
The phone rang with in her office. Nelle set her box down on the ground.” I’ll go and answer that.”
Cy took the box from Dahlia and pulled her aside. Brandon gave him a look, but didn’t say anything. Cy leaned in close to Dahlia and spoke low. “I keep special equipment in my trunk.”
“Equipment?”
“Yes, in case I need it to do my job.”
She wore a flattering dark berry lipstick. He watched her mouth form a perfect O. She stole a glance behind her at Brandon and then faced him again. She whispered, “You mean, you have weapons in your trunk?”
“Computer equipment, an emergency kit, and yes, things I use for self-defense.” He carried her box to the elevator. “I just have to put these in in the backseat.”
Dahlia picked up Brandon’s box and carried it to the elevator. She rode down with him. “We’re almost done with office business. We should be wrapping up before lunch.”
“You’re closing early?”
“Nope. I do my weekly makeup tutorials here at the office. Brandon and Nelle help me edit them before we post them online to social media.”
“I watched a couple tutorials on social media for fixing cars.”
She gave a small laugh. “You can learn a lot online these days.”
“So it’ll only take five or ten minutes to shoot your video?”
“The tutorial is about that length after it’s edited. But edits can take anywhere from forty minutes to three hours.”
“That’s a lot of editing.” Cy got out of the elevator first. He tucked the box under his arm and pushed open the front door for Dahlia.
“Social media followers see the finished product and think all us video vloggers do is press record and hit publish. We have to edit out background noise, maybe put in some nice music instead. Adjust the lighting. Some people have it perfected into an art.”
“People can make a lot of money uploading videos.” He opened the backseat door of his car and put the box in.
Dahlia handed him her box. “It’s what helped me. I was in the salon and then I came home and started doing makeup tutorials. My first videos were unedited. Still, I managed to get a good following.”
“Sounds like a good deal. Organic following and not much start-up capital needed.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I worked hard, especially since I didn’t have the startup capital.”
What was he saying to keep getting on her bad side?
Brandon eventually came out of the building with the third box of makeup kits. Cy squeezed it into the back seat of the car with the other two boxes.
Dahlia’s phone beeped. “It’s almost noon. Why don’t we take a break for lunch? Cy and I will run down to the post office.”
Cy got in the driver’s seat and began the unexpected drive to the post office. He glanced over at Dahlia, who was checking her schedule on her phone’s calendar. Her thick mass of curls almost hid her profile from view. Pale winter sunlight touched the crown of her head, making the coiled black ringlets take on a reddish tint. He put his eyes back on the road.
He carried the boxes into the post office and stood in line with Dahlia while she got everything postmarked and ready to ship. The line was long due to the lunch crowd. It ended up taking an hour.
He took Dahlia back to her office. There, the interns already had a camera and vanity table set up for her to go to work.
“If you want to stay and watch, you’ll have to stand,” she said.
“I can wait for you outside your office.”
“If you do that every day, you’re going to need a book to read.”
He held up his cell phone. “Or I could just watch tutorials.”
She smiled the same smile that used to make his pulse jump. It still had that effect. “Knock yourself out.” She walked into her office and shut the door on him.
Cy settled into one of the chairs outside of her office in the waiting area. He used his phone to check his emails from the firm and to follow up with his employees. Once he handled all the administrative tasks, he checked the time. He spent almost forty minutes doing routine work. On a whim, he opened a video sharing website and did a search under Dahlia’s name.
She came up as Dahlia Doll, along with an image of her holding a couple makeup brushes and a tube of lipstick. Her screen name was in gold letters. She had over a hundred thousand followers. That was the Dahlia he remembered. Very sweet, popular, and likeable. He was glad she found her calling.
He made a note to himself to stop by the IT and Surveillance Department at the firm and show Pace the list of Dahlia’s social media followers. He wanted to see if there were any new or suspicious profiles linked to the threatening note she received.
He clicked on her most recent video tutorial, where she taught how to apply makeup for a daytime look. Her skin was fresh and dewy in the video.
“First, we want to start off with a clean slate, so make sure your face is washed and moisturized.”
He found himself watching her do the short makeup routine. Her finished look was nice, but he liked the bare, fresh face she started out with. He finished the video and scrolled through the comments. Dahlia posted the video a week ago, yet there were new comments from the past two days. He read a few.
Sorry to hear about Mary. You said in previous videos that she was your client and friend.
My condolences, D. Stay strong!
Prayers for you, girl.
You should do a tutorial for corpse makeup, lol.
Cy shook his head at the last comment. The anonymity of the internet made people think they could get away with saying the worst things.
“Ha, I didn’t think you were actually going to watch one of my makeup tutorials.”
He looked up to see Dahlia standing over him with an amused grin.
Chapter Four
Dahlia knew she caught Cy off guard. He was staring so intently at his phone he didn’t see her come out of the office.
He hurried to exit out of the video he was watchi
ng. It was her latest she uploaded from last week. For some odd reason, she didn’t know why, she got the urge to poke fun at him. “You know, I didn’t think that Daytime Look was my best video. What do you think?”
“Seems fine to me.” He straightened up and put his phone away in his back pocket. “I’m going to need to take the video you just made.”
“Nelle and Brandon are just about done editing it. Why do you need to see it before I upload it?”
“I’m going to run it by my guys at Iron Guard to see if there’s anything you may have mistakenly left for the person sending you threats.”
Her mood tanked again after he reminded her precisely why he was there. “Like I told you before, I don’t give out personal info in my videos. The only way followers can reach me is by email or a snail mail P.O. box.”
“Give me the address of your P.O. box, too.”
“You can have it, but I don’t think you’re going to find anything there from the person who threw the brick in my window.”
“I read the comments people left on your video. You can’t be too careful.”
Dahlia read a couple herself earlier today. The one about a funeral left her feeling shaken, but she had to keep moving forward. “Some of those comments are written by internet trolls. They enjoy being mean to people and getting a reaction. I’m not going to satisfy them.”
“Even so, you want to take everything seriously. Let my tech guys do a run-through of your channel and the new video before you upload it.”
Dahlia gave in. “You think it’ll help, so go ahead.”
She went back inside the office. Brandon and Nelle were in the process of shutting down the computer and cleaning up the workspace.
“All finished with the edits,” Nelle stated. “I think the followers are really going to like the makeup highlighting palette you previewed.”
Dahlia gave a sigh. “It looks like they’re going to have to wait on it.”
“Why? Do you want to do a retake?”
“I want to let the video sit for a little while to see if everything looks good. I guess you could say I’m a bit nervous about my makeup launch.”
