Ready (12 page)

“No.” She looked at him with troubled eyes as turbulent as a war-torn country. “But prior to pushing me into the street, he’d never done anything to put me in danger, either.” Her small fingers curled and uncurled at her sides, the knuckles turning white. “Maybe the sergeant was right. Maybe that wasn’t my stalker at all.”

He squeezed her shoulders, pulling her infinitesimally closer to him. “Don’t start doubting yourself now.”

She looked at his hands on her shoulders and then back at his face. “You do that a lot.”

“What?” Her mind definitely went places he had trouble following.

“Touch me.”

“And that surprises you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You said no sex on the job.”

He brushed the delicate column of her neck with both his thumbs, entranced by the rapidity of the pulse he found there. “I’m not touching you sexually.” Much.

“It’s just a
friendly
touch,” she mocked.

“Yeah.” A real friendly connection.

“And you caress all your
friends
this way, right?”

His lips quirked. He liked the way she made him smile even when she was stressed. “Not Hotwire and Nitro.”

Her hazel eyes filled with humor. “I can’t imagine.”

Neither could he, but what she didn’t know and he had no intention of telling her was that he couldn’t imagine touching another woman in this casual way, either. Even when he was having sex, he tended to keep the fondling to what was necessary to achieve his partner’s climax. With Lise, he wanted his hands on her all the time, even when he wasn’t aching with desires he couldn’t do anything about right now.

Her small hand settled against his heart and her pixie face took on a very serious cast. “I’m glad you’re here, Joshua. Thank you for helping me.”

For several seconds, he couldn’t say anything and he had to force himself to let her go and step back. “No problem.” He picked up the box. “Let me get Nitro in here before we open this.”

“He said he’d be up, but why does he have to be here to open it?”

“He’s an explosives expert.”

“
You think it might be a bomb?
”

“Your stalker’s behavior so far hasn’t indicated that level of violent intent, but caution never hurts.”

She glared at him, her eyes promising mayhem and retribution. “My heart missed several beats there. Maybe you need to be a little more circumspect about your precautions.”

He liked her sass, but he didn’t agree. “It’s no use hiding from the possibilities.”

She straightened as if driving herself up and mentally soldiering on. “I know you’re right. I have a bad habit of hoping if I ignore something, it will go away.”

“Like a stalker?”

“Yeah, among other things.”

Lise watched the dark, silent man use a swab chemical detector like the ones security employed in airports.

They’d brought the box into the kitchen and he was working at the table.

Joshua had suggested she go down to his friends’ apartment while Nitro did the scan, but she’d wanted to watch. Her professional curiosity had been aroused. Besides, she’d argued, if Joshua had really believed it was dangerous, he wouldn’t have allowed her to bring the package up from the security desk in the first place.

He’d admitted she was right with a real lack of grace and allowed her to stay, grumbling about independent, stubborn females. However, he’d made her promise to leave if Nitro found anything doubtful.

So far, Nemesis had been very careful to avoid giving any sort of concrete evidence for her to take to the police. She didn’t think they’d find anything dangerous or traceable in the package. Unless he wanted to kill her, and nothing so far indicated he wanted to do anything more than terrorize her, there was little chance the package was any danger to anything but her mental well-being.

Nitro’s efforts were no doubt overkill, but they were fascinating to watch.

“What does that do?” she asked Nitro as he scanned the package with a handheld wand.

“It detects electromagnetic emissions.”

She looked at Joshua for a clarification.

“If there is an electric timer or trigger for a bomb, the wand will pick it up.”

“It’s clean.” Nitro flipped open a knife that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

He sliced the packing tape holding the brown paper to the box and then pulled back the flaps. It was filled with packing peanuts and Nitro carefully removed them after doing an additional scan with his wand thing.

He pulled a tissue-wrapped bundle from the box and looked at her. “Do you mind if I unwrap it?”

She shook her head. “Go ahead.”

He peeled away the generic white tissue to reveal two pieces of a broken crystal heart on a pedestal. A groom was still attached to the base, but the bride had been crushed, the tiny shards of colored crystal that had comprised her still in the tissue.

Both Nitro and Joshua looked at her as if asking what it was.

“That’s a wedding cake topper. It’s a lot like the one I had when I married Mike.” Uncannily like it, actually.

Joshua took the tissue bundle from Nitro and examined it. “How much like it?”

She leaned back against the counter, not wanting the men to know that her limbs seemed to have stopped working. She hated being weak. “Almost identical. It’s like he’s seen my wedding photos, or something.”

“Maybe he did.”

Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back down. She was not going to be a wimp about this.

“He could have seen it one of the times he broke into my apartment in Canyon Rock.” She’d kept her wedding album with her other pictures in a cabinet.

Joshua set the tissue bundle down on the counter and started rifling through the box. “You kept your wedding photos?”

He sounded surprised. She supposed a professional mercenary didn’t make it a habit of saving mementos.

“Yes.” It was part of her past, just like her awful picture missing her two front teeth in first grade and the photos that saved for posterity her pimple-faced adolescence.

Joshua looked at Nitro. “No note.”

She couldn’t say she was sorry. The implied message was upsetting enough—she didn’t need a vitriolic note to add to the effect.

That night, it wasn’t an erotic dream that woke Lise. It was the sound of a ringing telephone.

She rolled across the huge bed and scrabbled for the cordless phone on the table beside it. She encountered a hard, hairy wrist instead.

“Joshua?” she asked groggily.

“Yes. Here’s the phone.” He put it in her hand. “If it’s Nemesis, try to keep him talking for a trace.”

“You put a tracer on my phone?” she asked, shock waking her more effectively than the sound of the phone.

“Don’t worry about that now. Just answer it.”

She pressed the Call button as Joshua came down to sit beside her on the bed.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Lise.” The digitized voice made her hand clench tightly around the phone. “Your boyfriend appears to have abandoned you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Digitized but obviously scornful laughter met her denial.

Joshua’s warm hand settled over her thigh as if he was making a statement.

She wasn’t alone.

Not at all sure which was messing more with her nerves—the call, or Joshua’s nearness—she asked, “Who is this?”

How many times had she asked that same question? At least once in each of his phone calls. It irritated her that she hadn’t stopped asking it because he sure as certain wasn’t answering it.

“
Nemesis
. Are you pretending you don’t know?”

“Nemesis isn’t your real name.”

“It is now. That is what I’ve become, what you’ve made me.” Even through the voice distortion, she could hear the passionate anger in his voice, the accusation.

“How did I make you that? I don’t even know you.”

“Are you sure about that, Lise Barton?” Again the awful, almost mechanical laughter.

No, she wasn’t, and that bothered her. A lot. Nevertheless, she said, “I’m positive. None of the people I know would do what you’re doing.”

“They don’t have the guts.”

“It doesn’t take guts to stalk a woman, it takes insanity.”

Joshua squeezed her thigh in warning and she remembered she was trying to keep the lunatic talking, not make him mad enough to hang up.

“You deserve what you get. You lead other women astray.”

What in the world was he talking about? She didn’t even belong to a local writer’s organization, much less a women’s group of some kind. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend ignorance. You know!” Fury vibrated in each word.

“But I don’t.”

“Don’t lie to me! You know! You destroy families.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper through the digitizer. “Maybe your family needs to be destroyed—then you would understand how heinous your crime really is.”

Sick fear curled through her insides.

“My family hasn’t done anything.”

“That’s true. They’re innocent and the innocent should not pay with the guilty, but they love you. To love you they must share your distorted view of the world. I have to think about this…” His voice trailed off like he was talking to himself.

“No. Leave my family alone. Please.”

“I don’t know.” He sounded unsure, almost confused, and terror ripped through her at the thought of him hurting anyone she loved.

“
They’re innocent
,” she stressed.

“But you’re not!” His voice boomed across the phone lines, condemnation vibrating in every syllable.

“Please tell me what I’ve done.”

“Your husband divorced you. He found out you weren’t worth loving, didn’t he? He married a woman who gave him children, a woman worthy of marriage. You aren’t, Lise Barton.”

She knew the man speaking had to be crazy to do what he did, but his words hurt anyway because they tapped into an old fear. One she’d tried so hard to leave behind in her less-than-pleasant childhood, the fear that she wasn’t worthy of love.

“You’re wrong.”

“You’re defective. You couldn’t even give him children. God punished you with infertility and now I will punish you, too.”

His words shocked her into silence.

“You want to destroy other women’s marriages. All because you couldn’t keep your own.”

She had to keep her head about her, not give in to the palpable insanity blasting her through the phone. “I don’t want to destroy anyone’s marriage. What are you talking about? I have a right to know what I’m accused of!”

“You have no rights. You’ve already been tried and convicted.”

“By
you?
”

“Your own actions have convicted you and you will be punished.”

The words were still echoing in her ear when the click that signaled he’d hung up crossed the line. She pressed the Disconnect button with a trembling hand and then fumbled the phone back to the nightstand.

“What did he say?”

“He said I destroyed other people’s marriages. That’s why he’s become my Nemesis.” She tried vainly to make eye contact in the darkness. “I don’t understand, Joshua. I’ve never even told a girlfriend she should leave her husband. Not that I wouldn’t…if I thought she was at risk, or something, but the issue has never come up.”

Joshua’s cell phone buzzed. He picked it up. “Yeah?”

She could hear the echo of a voice from the mobile phone’s headpiece.

“Hell.”

“Who is it?” she asked, not caring that it was rude to interrupt a phone conversation.

“Nitro—he says the call was made from a pay phone across town.” His attention went back to the phone. “He said
what
?” Joshua demanded.

More talking at the other end indicated that Nitro was recounting the horrific conversation verbatim. They must have put a wiretap on the phone as well as a tracer. She was grateful.

She didn’t want to forget anything that had been said, especially the threat to her family.

They had to do something.

“My guess is he’s hacked into her medical records,” Joshua said and then paused.

She could hear Nitro’s voice, but not what he was saying over the mobile phone.

“Hold on a sec,” Joshua said.

He turned the bedside lamp on and then faced her, his expression serious. “We need to know where he got the information about your infertility. My guess is your medical file, but is it something you told other people?”

She snorted, anger replacing the feeling of fear and helplessness the awful phone call had instilled in her again. “I’m not infertile. I have an odd monthly cycle, that’s all. The doctor said it
might
take a while to get pregnant, but Mike and I never even tried. Not only is Nemesis insane, he’s also an idiot.”

And she wished, just at that moment, that her tormenter could hear her opinion of him.

“Is this women’s cycle thing common knowledge?”

“No.” She hadn’t even told Mike because it had never become an issue in their marriage. “It’s not a big deal.”

Joshua nodded and returned to the phone. His expression turned feral and he said a really ugly word. “Like hell he is going to hurt them.”

Good—Nitro had shared that part as well.

“Will you fly down and move them?” Joshua asked, then said, “Tomorrow would be good.” A pause. “Your house. Right. It’s as much of a fortress as mine.” He smiled. “We’ll have to ask Bella what she thinks after she’s seen both of them.”

Lise listened to him making plans to move her brother’s family to safety with a growing sense of guilt and self-condemnation. Something she had done had put her family at risk. Jake was going to be furious about having to leave the ranch. Thank God it was winter and not roundup, or he’d insist on staying while sending his wife and daughter to safety.

But
she’d
done this, messed up everyone’s lives.

A tiny voice of reason tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but it was no match for the emotions roiling inside her.

Joshua shifted to put his free arm across her thighs, boxing her in, surrounding her with his presence. So obviously lending her his strength that she about choked on another wave of emotion.

She couldn’t handle it. She’d spent the last two years proving to herself she could make it on her own and that concept of herself was being blasted to heck and gone by her anonymous enemy.