Killer Smile. Marilyn Pappano
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protected and loved and aroused and so very lucky. And afraid. She’d wanted to love him and adore him and never, ever hurt him, and she’d done it all—the loving, the adoring and the hurting.
He wouldn’t let her hurt him again. She knew that. He wouldn’t let anything the least bit sweet enter into his thoughts or his actions, because he had to protect himself from her, and that hurt her.
Daniel read the note, then gave the photo a cursory glance, unimpressed by it. It had taken her breath away the first time: sunset that very day over the ocean, the sun’s rays bursting out of dark clouds to form a halo of gold and deep pink and dark blue and luscious purples. She’d thought about having it enlarged, printed and framed to hang on her wall, and Daniel gave it just a look. Huh. A sunset.
He went on to read the second mail, the third, on down the list. After four minutes, according to the bank sign across the street, he looked up. “These aren’t exactly what comes to mind when I think ‘stalker.’”
“I didn’t think of him that way, either. I honestly thought it was someone I knew who was being coy. Seeing how long it would take me to figure out who it was. That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before the number of emails passed five hundred in the first four months. Now it’s around two thousand. Plus he’s sent me nine hundred plus texts, twenty-eight cards, a half dozen flower deliveries and four personal deliveries. The ones you’ve read, he was still being charming and fun and not creepy.”
He stared at her a long time, his dark gaze steady. He could make a person squirm with that gaze, in both good ways and bad. She could easily imagine him in an interrogation room with a suspect across the table, getting a confession without saying a word. That look just compelled a person to talk.
“Did you contact the police?”
“Yes. Apparently, stalkers aren’t a big deal these days. Just about everyone in Los Angeles has one.” Then she sighed. “I talked to a detective, asked for advice. She looked into it and agreed it was probably just someone I knew playing games. He hadn’t actually done anything. She suggested I change my email address and my cell number. I’d already done both a half dozen times. She said moving couldn’t hurt. I’d already done that. She said let her know if he escalated.
“I called again after Kyle’s accident. She looked into it again. He was home alone. He was carrying some boxes down the stairs and apparently misjudged a step. His parents believed it was an accident. His girlfriend believed it. No one had a reason to hurt him.”
Her conversations with the detective had all sounded so logical over the phone in her tightly secured apartment or sitting at the woman’s desk in a building filled with armed people. She was overreacting. Hypersensitive. Reading more into the emails than was there.
But there’d been one small issue that prevented Natasha from taking the detective at her word.
“Who did you talk to?” Daniel asked.
“Felicia Martin.”
His face tightened. He’d gone through the academy with Felicia. They’d called her Flea because she was nearly a foot shorter than most of them, wiry and compact, constantly in motion and tough as hell to get rid of. He and Flea had liked and respected each other. It had seemed only natural to Natasha that, after the way she’d ended their engagement, Flea neither liked nor respected her.
“She’s a good cop.”
Natasha didn’t respond. Cops were also people, and people were influenced by a lot of things. Was Felicia a good cop? Probably. Would she have taken more interest in Natasha’s complaint if they were strangers? Maybe. But that wouldn’t have changed the bottom line: that Natasha was being haunted by a phantom who didn’t leave the slightest trace and Felicia didn’t have the resources to discover who he was.
Daniel set her phone carefully on the table between them. “So, how did you make the leap from Kyle falling down the stairs to thinking that I’m in danger?”
“The same message where he mentioned Kyle. He said he was looking forward to meeting with you, Eric and—” Her mouth froze, and it took her a moment to get it working again. “And Zach. He said he hoped the visits would be as satisfying.”
“Zach.” Daniel’s voice was hollow, his mouth quirking in a sardonic twist, his gaze rolling skyward in a grimace of distaste. “There’s four of us now? Is that all, or did RememberMe miss one?”
“That’s all.” She barely managed a whisper. Four men. Four loves. Five broken hearts. And all the blame lay on her.
He was silent a moment longer, until a gust of wind rattled the window beside them. Rain hit it so hard that it sounded like pebbles hitting the glass. She knew the sound, because once when she’d teased that no boyfriend had ever tossed pebbles at her bedroom window when she was growing up, Daniel had done just that the next night with a handful of aquarium gravel.
“Have you talked to Eric and Zach?”
She shook her head. “I’m looking for them.”
His shoulders straightened, his expression going blank, as he gathered the empty sugar and creamer packets he’d used. “Okay, so now I know. There wasn’t any need to come here. You could have called. You could have just given the message to my parents and let them pass it on. But I appreciate the heads-up. Don’t feel like you need to stick around any longer.”
With that, he stood and walked away. Natasha turned to watch him throw his coffee and litter into the trash, then go out the door and into the rain. He didn’t look over his shoulder until he was inside his car and then only to check traffic before backing out of the parking space.
A lump rose in her throat as he drove away. It had gone better than she’d had any right to expect, she told herself as she threw her own coffee away, then exited the restaurant. He was probably right. She should have just told Jeffrey and Archer and let them handle it. But she’d needed to get out of LA, and she’d found it hard enough talking to him. She didn’t think she could have borne the anger that his fathers surely would have felt finding out that he was in danger because of her.
“And you wanted to see Daniel,” Tasha whispered, filling all the corners of her brain with malicious glee.
All right. Yes, somewhere deep, deep inside, she’d wanted to see Daniel.
Stumbling to a stop in the drive-through lane, Natasha tilted her face to the sky and let the rain wash over her. It ran down her cheeks, caught on her eyelashes and dripped from her chin. It didn’t make her feel better, didn’t wash away her hurts or regrets.
But if a tear or two happened to seep from her eyes, no one would suspect. It’s just rain, she could say.
She could even pretend she believed it.
The rain had stopped sometime during the night, giving the waterlogged city a chance to drain and catch its breath. Daniel needed to catch his breath, but it was going to take a lot more than a break in the clouds to do that. He didn’t even have a chance until he knew for sure that Natasha had left Cedar Creek and Oklahoma far behind. He figured he would be able to feel it in his bones when it happened.
The police station was quiet and dimly lit. He’d dressed down today—black tactical pants, a gray polo shirt embroidered with the department’s badge and boots—only very slightly in deference to the fact that it was Friday and everyone else always dressed down on Friday. Mostly it was because of the weather and his desire to keep his feet dry but also because of the trouble he’d had with his tie this morning. The agitation that hummed through his nerves all night long would have made self-strangulation far too tempting if he’d had to give the silk noose one more effort.
He checked the time and grimaced. It was a little after six, so shortly after 4:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. Flea would kill him if he called now. He wondered if Natasha had shared her danger theory and Flea had found it without merit. She obviously hadn’t felt the urge to pass on the information