Impulsive (40 page)

"Where to from here?" Ty asked.

Haggardy was right. There was at least one more bad egg rolling
around loose. On Tuesday, he left a message on Jess's E-mail. "I'll get
you yet." It was followed by a note with no postmark, left in her regular
mailbox on Wednesday. "Your luck can't last forever." Both messages
were addressed to her, not Ty, and both sent to her apartment, though she was
spending the majority of her time at Ty's condo.

"I don't like this," Ty told her for the thousandth
time. "This jerk has been to your place and personally put that last note
in your mailbox. Why else would it have no postmark?"

As a matter of course, they turned the threat mail over to
Haggardy, who advised the pair of them to exercise extreme caution, and for
neither of them to go anywhere alone.

"We might as well be attached at the hip as it is," Jess
informed him wryly. "Ty barely lets me out of his sight to use the
bathroom."

Haggardy grunted. "Then he should go in there, too."

Thursday was blessedly uneventful, but the fact that it was only
made the day all the more unnerving. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then, on Friday, Ty and Jess arrived back at her place to find that her
apartment had been broken into while they had been at practice.

"Don't touch anything!" Ty warned, as they stared at the
shambles that stretched from the front door as far as they could see.
"I'll call Haggardy."

"H... How?" Jess asked, her voice trembling—indeed, her
whole body beginning to shake. "I d-doubt we can f-find the
ph-phone."

On the off chance that the intruder was still inside, they went
back outside. While Ty kept watch on the apartment, Jess used a neighbor's
phone to call the police. Haggardy arrived within a quarter hour, with a team
of back-up officers. Only after they ascertained that no one was inside, did
Haggardy allow Jess and Ty to enter.

"Try not to disturb anything. Just look around, Jess, and
tell us if you can spot anything missing."

"In this mess?" she exclaimed in disbelief. The vandal
or vandals had gone through the apartment with a vengeance. Much worse than the
police had done at the Rome household a few weeks prior. There wasn't a piece
of furniture that wasn't overturned, the cushions sliced open and the stuffing
torn out. The entire contents of her cupboards and refrigerator lay crushed and
smeared on the kitchen floor. Her office had been totally demolished, books and
research files ripped to shreds and thrown in the center of the room in a
jumbled heap of paper. Her fax machine and computer had been smashed beyond
repair—and all of her computer discs were gone!

"That's a start," Haggardy noted. "Now all we have
to do is determine why they needed them. What was your current project?"

"I was trying to correlate all the data on the problems
plaguing the Knights," she told him. "Doing background checks on
everyone involved with the team. That sort of thing."

"Did you come across anything interesting?"

"Not that I could tell. Not yet, anyway."

"Who knew you were doing this?"

"Just Ty. I didn't tell anyone else."

"Then someone, knowing your skills as a reporter, must have
assumed you'd be working on it. That would account for the threats. They were
trying to get you to back off. Now they want to know just how deep you've dug,
so they've taken the discs. Did you keep back-up discs anyplace else?"

Jess nodded. "At Ty's. On my laptop, and on a floppy."

"I'll need copies of those, if you don't mind."

Her bedroom hadn't escaped damage either. To Jess's mind, this was
the worst. Not only had her clothes been yanked from her closet and drawers,
they had literally been cut to tatters. Dresses, sweaters, underwear—not a
whole piece among them. Her stomach roiled as she viewed it all. Her intimate
belongings, handled and destroyed by some madman. She felt violated to the core
of her being. If she'd been physically raped, it could not have affected her
more deeply.

Then, among the litter of her life, she spotted the photo. It was
lying on the floor, the glass shattered, the paper gouged in several places, as
if the vandal had ground his foot into it in a fit of rage. With a cry, she
fell to her knees, and despite Haggardy's warning not to touch anything, she
scooped it up with trembling hands. Ty knelt beside her, holding her shoulders
as she broke into anguished sobs.

"Who are they?" Haggardy asked, not recognizing the
people in the picture.

"Her father and brother," Ty related. "They were
killed in a boating accident when Jess was young. That photo is her most
precious possession. I'd like to get my hands on the guy who did this."

"Stand in line, James. You realize, of course, that this is
no ordinary act of vandalism. This maniac is through messing around. It's
personal to him now. In my professional opinion, no one carves up a woman's
clothes like this, without visualizing doing the same to her."

Jess's body stiffened in Ty's grasp as she let out a strangled
whimper.

"Jesus, Haggardy!" Ty exploded. "What are you
trying to do? Send her over the edge? Couldn't you have kept that disgusting
bit of information between you and me? Do you get your jollies by scaring women
witless, or what?"

"I
want her scared," Haggardy went on relentlessly. "I want
her to be looking over her shoulder at every turn. I want her to second guess
everything she sees and hears from here on out—until we catch this deranged
squirrel and lock him safely behind bars. I don't want her to trust anyone, not
even her pastor or the little old lady down the block. Her life could very well
depend on it."

"I'm aware of that," Ty shot back. "That's why
she's moving in with me, where the security is tighter. If I have to, I'll hire
a bodyguard for her. I intend to do my part, Haggardy. Now, do yours, and get
this lunatic off the streets."

The one bright mark on the day was that among the chaos the police
did turn up a couple of vital clues. Until now, all of the threats to Jess had
been via phone, fax, E-mail, or notes made up of cut-and-pasted newsprint.
Never handwritten or typed. He'd gotten reckless this time, however, and
scrawled a message on the sink over her bathroom vanity. "Count the days.
I am." More importantly, in the process of slicing up her clothes, the man
had cut himself as well. They found several droplets of blood on the shredded
fabric.

Ty wasn't thrilled about having to fly to New York that night for
their upcoming game against the Jets, but Jess was terrifically relieved to be
getting away from the site of so much hatred and violence. "I really do
need the change of scene, Ty," she convinced him. "I need the
distraction, so I can regroup and be ready to deal with all of this once we get
back home."

Another factor, all but overshadowed in the wake of the vandalism
and Haggardy's dire warning, was that this Saturday was Ty's birthday, and Jess
had something special planned, with Corey's help. She'd be damned if she'd let
this faceless monster ruin it, as he'd laid waste to her apartment.

The flight was a late one, and she and Ty were fairly well washed
out by the time they checked into their Meadowlands, New Jersey, hotel, just a
stone's throw from the stadium. New York could wait until tomorrow. Tonight,
all Jess wanted was to curl up in bed in Ty's arms and forget the trials and
tribulations of today.

Saturday brought clouds and drizzle, not a great omen by any
means, but Jess was determined to go through with her plans and make Ty's
birthday a wonderful and memorable event. She hated seeing him so worried, so
burdened, so constantly on edge—and now he'd decided that until this whole
disaster was resolved it was too dangerous for Josh to continue his weekend
visits to Columbus, which dampened his spirits even further. She was going to
change that, to lighten his mood, if only for a couple of days.

After the morning practice, Jess was to meet Corey at Rockefeller
Center, presumably for lunch and to watch her shoot a commercial, something
which held little interest for Ty. Gabe's assignment was to keep Ty occupied
elsewhere while the girls conducted their business on the sly. Corey, who had
come to New York in mid-week to do a modeling shoot, had made all the advance
arrangements. In fact, when Jess had been trying to decide what to give Ty for
his birthday, it was Corey who had come up with the idea.

There were three routes into the city from New Jersey, none of
which thrilled Jess—two tunnels and one bridge over the Hudson River. She opted
for the bridge, the lesser of the evils in her estimation. Ty tried to convince
her otherwise, to no avail.

"Honey, we'll be going out of our way if we take the bridge.
The Lincoln tunnel is more of a straight shot. We'll get there a lot sooner,
and I'll be there to hold your hand the whole time." He and Gabe were
riding into town with her, to see that Jess hooked up with Corey safely. Then
the guys planned to take the ferry to Liberty Island, an excursion Jess's fear
of boats would not allow her to experience.

"No way," she told him firmly. "I'd be a blithering
idiot in that tunnel, imagining all those tons of water surrounding me. The
bridge is going to be bad enough, thank you." She scowled. "Why did
they have to build the blasted city on a blasted island to start with? You'd
think they'd have better sense."

Ty and Gabe shared an amused look. "They've done okay so
far," Gabe pointed out.

"What's all that stuff you're lugging with you?" Ty
asked, changing the subject. Jess was carrying an oversize tote bag, crammed to
the gills.

"Just a few things Corey suggested I bring along. Comfortable
walking shoes, my camera, and the like." Actually, the bag held several
changes of clothing, though Ty didn't need to know that. It would spoil the
surprise if he did.

Corey was waiting for them when their taxi pulled up. "You fellows
had better keep the cab while you've got one," she advised. "Jess and
I can walk from here—and don't worry, Ty. I'll watch her like she was made of
gold."

Ty was going along with this plan very reluctantly. He'd only
agreed because Jess had seemed so excited about spending some time with Corey
and watching her work. He supposed Jess also needed a little space, away from
him for a while, to do her "woman" thing.

Ty consulted his watch. "Okay, we'll meet back here at five
o'clock, right?"

"Sure thing." Jess leaned back into the cab to give him
a quick kiss. "See you then. Have fun."

The taxi had scarcely pulled away from the curb when Corey grabbed
Jess's arm and began tugging her along at a fast pace. "Come on, or we're
going to be late. I told Blane I'd have you there by one, and we don't want to
tick him off. After all, he doesn't do this for just anyone."

"Is he one of those temperamental artist types?"

Corey rolled her eyes. "Aren't they all? Even if they're not,
they pretend to be."

They dashed into a building and caught the elevator just as the
doors were about to close. Squeezed in like sardines with a dozen other people,
they got off on the fifteenth floor. Upon entering an office halfway down the
hall, the receptionist motioned them on. "Better hustle. He's waiting for
you—very impatiently."

They burst through another set of doors, and Jess found herself in
a cavernous room with no windows and no light, with the exception of a couple
of bright lamps at one end.

"Watch your step," Corey cautioned. "There are
wires and cords strung every which way." Indeed, the floor was littered
with them. They picked their way through them, toward a man fiddling with one
of the lights.

"Here she is, Blane," Corey announced. "Meet Jess
Myers, latest darling of the sports world."

Blane strode forward and, without so much as a by-your-leave,
caught Jess's chin in his fingers. Saying nothing, he twisted her head this way
and that, studying her face. He stepped back, motioned for her to remove her
coat, and surveyed her body from head to toe. "Nice and thin," he
stated finally. "Good bone structure. We'll have to work on the makeup,
though. Enhance her eyes more. And for God's sake, have Emma do
something..." He fluttered a hand in the air, as if to grab the words from
space. "...interesting with her hair. I trust you have your outfits and
accessories?"

"Uh, yes." Taken aback, Jess couldn't formulate a more
complete response, but it didn't matter. Blane was already waving them away.