Cat 'N Mouse (12 page)

“Good night, Sam.” Her voice was just above a whisper, sad.

“Alexandria, wait.” He started toward the bedroom but she closed it, locking him out.

His cellphone rang, shattering the stillness of the night. “What!”

“Don’t tell me you two had a fight again?”

Sam wished that was all it was. With them snapping at each other, at least there was distance between them. He wasn’t so sure how he was going to deal with this attraction between them. He turned from her bedroom door and went out to the solarium. He couldn’t get her out of his head…the way she moved sensually against him, how soft she felt.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Matt asked.

“No. I can handle it. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Are you calling to check up on me?”

“Far from it. I wanted to let you know Rodriquez is dead.”

Sam had to shake his head and think for a minute, trying to get the disappointed look in Alexandria’s eyes out of his head so he could focus on what Matt was saying.

“Rodriquez…you mean the traffic cop?” Matt had said he was going to meet with the woman.

“Yeah. They suspect suicide.” Matt was quiet for a long moment then asked, “Do you believe in coincidences?”

“Hell, no. You started asking questions and the cop who is to provide the answers is dead. I think someone didn’t want the two of you connecting. “First the incident at the hotel and then someone tried to run us off the road tonight.”

“What?!”

“Someone tried to turn us into road kill.”

“Is Alexandria okay?”

“She’s shaken up.” Sam looked toward the kitchen when he heard Alexandria’s bedroom door open. Maybe she was coming out to see him? Not a chance because she closed it moments later. The outcome of tomorrow would be anybody’s guess.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m going to find this guy, Matt. I’ll even do it for free.”

“What about your one week deadline?”

“The bastard tried to kill me. You know,” Sam said, thinking out loud as he sat down on the wicker sofa that squeaked under his weight. “If he really wanted to kill us, we would’ve been dead.”

“How so?”

“The guy was driving one of those souped up monster trucks. When I fired at it, he just took off. It seems he only wanted to scare us. It was like a game with him. “I couldn’t go after him while Alexandria was with me.”

“What now?”

“Do you think you can use your connection and get a copy of the report on Rodriquez’s death? I don’t think she killed herself.”

“Already on it. I also have the reports on Mimi, Colt, Dennis and Robyn, which I think is a waste of time. You can knock yourself out, but you’re not going to find anything. Prescott is very careful about the people he hires. Oh, got Cain’s as well. He was vetted by the condo board before they hired him.”

“What about Warren Prescott?”

“Prescott… I thought you were joking. You’re really serious? Why would he want to hurt his daughter?”

“People do strange things in the name of love.” Melanie Daniels flashed in through this mind. The case that still kept him up at nights and had changed his career forever.

“Prescott is off limits,” Matt warmed. “He’s my boss. I’m telling you he wouldn’t do this.”

“How do you know?” Sam remembered Robyn’s comment about Prescott earlier. “What about his business dealings? They’re a lot of people out there that want to hurt him. They may even take it out on his daughter.”

“I’ll worry about that. That’s my job. You look after Alexandria. The blood thing must have freaked her out.”

“She was pretty good at keeping it together after that incident. I’m more worried about what happened tonight.” And he wasn’t just talking about their run in with the truck.

“This is his third attempt. Our stalker is getting more agitated. Something’s got him riled up.”

“I did.” Sam thought about Cain and made a mental note to check the time he finished his shift tonight. There was another man at the front door when he’d driven by to get to the underground parking. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Sam leaned back into the sofa after he’d gotten off the phone with Matt. He wanted to know what Warren Prescott was up to and he knew just the person to contact.

•  •  •

The engine revved. Turning it off with a shaking hand, he basked in the silence. His heart thumped in his chest from the adrenalin rush.

He waited until the garage door closed before he got out of the truck. It was a special garage constructed for the truck. Looking at the bullet hole in the windshield, he slammed his fist into the seat.

This was Samuel O’Malley’s fault. He had thought he was going to be able to get rid of O’Malley quickly, but the man was proving to be more bothersome than he thought. Even getting close to Alexandria was proving to be a challenge.

O’Malley was the kind of man she wanted. He wasn’t like Warren Prescott at all, yet she was falling for him. He could tell by the way she looked up at him all dreamy eyed tonight.

When he was told about Alexandria going out to dinner he had to see for himself. He didn’t think she would want to go out after what had happened at the hotel. He thought she would rush home to the mansion. The reason why she hadn’t was because of O’Malley. He had his hands all over her. That’s not what he was hired to do. A pawn in a strategic plan—that was supposed to be his role.

O’Malley was getting too close.

He had to die.

He was ruining everything.

She had to die.

•  •  •

Alexandria opened her eyes and her hand went up shielding her face from the sunshine streaming through the window. Rolling over, she groaned when she lifted her head from the pillow. Her head was spinning.

She saw her clothes in a pile on the chair. Memories of last night came floating back in bits and pieces. For a moment she thought it was all a dream, but when she heard Sam’s voice from the living room, she remembered the kiss. The kiss she had initiated and he ended abruptly.

What was she thinking? Sam wasn’t like anyone she’d met before. He wanted nothing from her, not even her father’s money. At first she thought there was something between them…an attraction perhaps. The way he’d kissed her last night, surely he couldn’t have kissed her and felt nothing. But he did kiss her, felt nothing and then he had pushed her away.

Then again if that truck hadn’t tried to run them off the road last night, the kiss wouldn’t have happened. She remembered the man in the washroom at the hotel and shuddered.

For weeks the sense of someone watching her and following her became very real when the man threw blood on her then he tried to run them off the road last night. It had to be the same person. But who?

Someone was trying to hurt her and if it wasn’t for Sam she would have died. When the truck slammed into them last night, she had been paralyzed with fear and she was still afraid.

Twenty-four hours. That’s how long she’d given Sam. His time was up, but she didn’t want him to leave. He was the first person she’d met since Robyn who saw her as a person and not as a means to her father’s money. Would he stay if she asked him to?

Slowly she got up out of the bed and headed for the shower. She stood under the hot spray and allowed the water to soothe the bruises across her right shoulder from the seatbelt.

The one good thing that came of last night was that she hadn’t dreamt about her mother. The dreams had begun again when she had started having the eerie feeling that someone was watching her.

Don’t think about it she told herself as she stepped out of the shower, wrapping the towel around her. Don’t think about her scream or the man in the shadow. She was safe from him.

Sam said he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Should she believe him? Can she afford not to?

•  •  •

“Good morning.”

Sam looked up from the laptop when Alexandria came into the solarium and stood by the door. Waiting. He wasn’t sure how today would play out after last night and was ready for anything she dished out. It looked like she had something to say as she shifted from one foot to the other as if trying to determine where to begin.

He closed the webpage of the Prescott Corporation. He’d woken up earlier more convinced that her troubles had to be connected with her father and was hoping to find a connection. Matt had said he would take care of it. He couldn’t sleep and wanted to see what he could find.

After two hours of searching the web he found nothing that would support his line of thinking. What he did find were a lot of pictures of Princess and her escapades, as one newspaper had called them. Yet, the woman in the articles he had read and the woman he’d come to know were entirely different.

The hellcat that tried to take his head off was gone. The red carpet diva was gone. He wasn’t sure what to make of her now.

“Hi. How are you feeling today?”

“Fine,” she said rubbing her arms and moved to the floor to ceiling window, staring off into the distance. The sunrise casted an orange glow across the sky and she seemed mesmerized by it as it shone into the glass room.

She had a purple bruise on her right shoulder across her chest disappearing under the white tank top. Fine wasn’t the word he would use to describe her, but he kept his mouth shut. She appeared tense, unsure of herself. He would even go as far as to say scared. It’s not like he could blame her after last night.

“I borrowed your laptop. I hope you don’t mind,” he said, to get the conversation rolling. It’s not like she did. He’d been using it since he arrived yesterday.

“No.” She turned to look at the laptop then up at him. “Are you still leaving?”

She started rubbing her hands up and down her arms again, then shoved them in the pocket of her jeans. Then it hit him. His twenty-four hours of service was up. It was the bet between them.

“You’ve every right to,” she began, looking everywhere but at him.

Sam figured that this was her attempt at an apology, but didn’t say anything. Apologies didn’t come easy for Princess.

“It’s just that… I don’t want to go home to the estate. Matt has his hands full trying to protect daddy’s company. And Colt is busy too, trying to protect daddy.”

Sam watched her intently wondering where she was going. Then it hit home. She was asking for his help.

“It finally sunk in last night that someone really wants to hurt me and I don’t know why.” She started rubbing her hands up her arms again as if she was trying to keep warm. “If it wasn’t for you last night, I’d be dead. I know my father hired you, but I don’t want you reporting to him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll use what happened at the hotel and last night as leverage to get me to move back home.” She ran her hand though her hair, lifting her black curls from her shoulders.

“Would that be so bad?”

“I don’t want to go back there to live but right now I don’t have the energy to fight him.”

The sadness he saw in her eyes made him wonder what drove her from her childhood home with fear of not wanting to return. He didn’t like the thought that came into his mind. All he could think of was Melanie Daniels and the way her father hurt her. He was determined that Alexandria would not meet the same fate as Melanie.

“You give your father too much credit. You’re a smart woman with a wicked right hook.” Sam came to her defense wanting to make her smile. It didn’t. “Stand up to him.”

“I was against it when he hired you,” she said, her bottom lip trembling. “Do you know how he convinced me to agree to get you to become my bodyguard?”

He shook his head.

“Two million dollars.”

“He paid you two million dollars?”

“No. He’d promised to give the money to Robyn’s Nest Foundation, but if I didn’t go along with his plan, he would’ve withdrawn his donation. I’m not going to bury my head in the sand any more. I’m ready to confront this stalker, but I don’t want my father in my face while I’m doing it.”

Sam was right about Prescott. It was all about control and he controlled with money. Princess didn’t want to be controlled any more. She was growing up and wanted to stand up to her daddy. This was her first stance. He had a feeling it wasn’t going to be an easy task moving forward for her.

He decided there and then that he would stand with Princess. That shocked him because after he lost his job, he’d never given a damn about anything or anyone, let alone sticking his neck out for anyone. Yet, here he was, putting his neck on the chopping block, going up against Warren Prescott. He just might get it chopped off.

“Alright,” Sam said, the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “I’m now on your payroll. We can work out the details later. However, there is a small matter about my car.”

“Daddy handles all the insurance stuff. I’m sure he’ll take care of it. Why didn’t you buy it brand new? Why put all that money into it to make it look like it’s brand new? Doesn’t make sense. Daddy said it’s because you couldn’t afford it brand new.”

“Do you believe everything your father tells you?”

She stiffened. Princess had issues with her father. As much as she wanted to cut the apron strings, she didn’t want to let go. She loved her father and wanted his approval. If she were going to stand up to Prescott then she would have to develop some backbone, with that came disapproval.

“He’s not that bad you know.”

“Yet you don’t want to go back home. Want to tell me why?”

She turned her back to him. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll take that to mean it’s none of my business; okay, fair enough. Realize though, at some point you’ll have to tell me.”

His comment was met by silence and a stiffened back.

“To answer your question, according to your schedule, you have to be at Robyn’s Nest within the hour. If you’re not up to it, we—”

“I won’t let him win by hiding,” she said with a determined look on her face. The terrified woman of last night was gone and the one that stood before him was royally ticked. “He has taken enough from me. I won’t allow him to take any more.”

“That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear, but somehow I knew you would say something like that. You’ll be fine at Robyn’s Nest. I spoke to Dennis this morning about extra security.”