Page 12 of The Agent
He was silent for a moment. “Okay. Let’s move on to other possibilities. Disgruntled customers? Competitors?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure there are a few, but are they unhappy enough to stalk me? No.” Then a thought struck her, one she hadn’t considered before. “Oh!”
“What?” He leaned forward again, his attention focused.
“There’s this other thing I do that maybe ...” She tapped her bottom lip with her index finger before she gave him a level look. “It’s not something I talk about, for reasons which will become obvious, so I’ll ask for your discretion.”
He nodded. “You’ve got it.”
She knew that already but she had to hear him say it. “Hairstylists are kind of like bartenders. Our customers tell us things—sometimes deeply personal things. My clients know that I’m divorced, so they sometimes open up about their marital issues.” She shifted on the sofa. “There are times when I recognize that they might need some help. I take them into my office at the salon and privately offer them my guest room here whenever they might need a safe place to stay, no questions asked. That’s one reason I bought this house. It’s private and has the self-contained guest suite.”
Because she’d had no safe place to run to when she had needed it.
“You’re courageous to do that,” Tully said. “But it opens up a whole new field of possibilities. How many women have you housed here?”
“Here? Three. However, I used to let them stay with me in the apartment over the salon before I moved into this place. There were two who took me up on it back then.”
“So five potentially angry husbands or ex-husbands.” Tully blew out a breath and ran his hand over his hair. “How many ended up divorced?”
“All but one.” The one wife had gone back because she had small children and her husband had agreed to intensive marital counseling. When she came into the salon now, she looked drawn and exhausted, but she said they were making progress. “You can see why I don’t talk about it. I don’t want those angry husbands showing up on my doorstep, terrifying their wives.”
“Besides the five women, who knows you’ve done this?”
“Alice and Dawn, of course. One of my stylists, who’s completely trustworthy.” Gino had been her mentor when she started working at the Mane Attraction as a new stylist. He would never breathe a word of her secret.
“Any of the husbands?”
Natalie considered for a moment. “I don’t think so. None of them have confronted me. I ask that no one reveal where they stayed, but you never know what might come out in the heat of a divorce proceeding.”
“Can you ask them if they let it slip?”
“I can try. I don’t know if they would be honest with me. They might be embarrassed that they told their ex-husbands.”
“However, if they do admit to giving away your secret, that would give us a starting point,” Tully said. “Make sure they understand the urgency of your question. I’ll need their names, their ex-husbands’ names, and their current and/or previous addresses. All to be kept in confidence, of course.”
She nodded, thinking of the five women who’d spent time with her. Two had moved away after their divorces, so she no longer saw them. Another had remarried very quickly, and Natalie prayed that she hadn’t gone from one bad marriage to another. Her most recent guest had left eight days ago. “I’ll email you as much information as I have.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t have anywhere to go when you left Matt,” Tully said, his tone gentle.
“Oh, I went home to my mother,” Natalie said. “She didn’t understand.” In fact, she’d subjected Natalie to a barrage of criticism and pressured her to return to Matt. Natalie had nearly buckled under the stress of getting it from both sides because Matt had tried to woo her back too. He couldn’t believe she had actually had the nerve to leave him.
“Different generation,” Tully said.
“No, unsupportive mother,” Natalie said bluntly. “Why would I leave a good provider who didn’t physically abuse me?” She laughed without a trace of humor. “Another reason it would have been easier if he’d hit me.”
“That’s rough,” Tully said with a sympathetic wince. “Your mother should be there for you, no matter what.”
“I didn’t stay with her long.” Fortunately, the tenant in the apartment at the salon was leaving in a few weeks, so Natalie had gritted her teeth and toughed it out until she could move in there. Those weeks had felt like an eternity of being battered by a whirlpool of conflicting currents.
“Sounds like that was a good thing.” Tully’s expression sharpened again. “We need to talk about where you’re going to stay until we get this resolved.”
“What do you mean? I can’t leave. I have a salon to run.” But she frowned as she realized she would be alone in the house that the stalker was watching.
“It would be safer if you changed locations.”
“Maybe I could stay with one of my stylists.” She shook her head as a thought struck her. “No, I won’t do that. It might put them in danger too.”
“You can’t stay here alone. It’s too isolated and the stalker has proven that he’s watching you.” He gave her a gimlet stare. “I’m going to send a bodyguard to stay with you. You don’t have anyone else who needs your guest room now, do you?”
