Page 13 of Once And Always (Blackhawk Security)

Chapter 5

Zoe recoiled. “You’re trying to frighten me.”

“Damn straight I am. You’ve got a guy who’s obsessed with you, and he’s in your city. He sent you a trophy he stole from you. To let you know he hasn’t forgotten about you. Or the bond he thinks you share.”

Spence leaned toward Zoe, seeing her eyes dilate with fear. Her mouth trembled until she clamped her lips together. Good. She needed to be afraid. She needed to take this seriously. “He knows where you are, Zoe,” Spence continued, watching her shudder with fear. “If he found your business address, he certainly knows where you live, too. I’d bet a million bucks he’s followed you home from work. Followed you around Seattle, learning where you go. What you do. Who you meet.

“He’s had thirteen years to think about this. To obsess about you. To search the web for information about you, and plan what he’d do when he found you.”

Zoe nodded slowly, holding his gaze. “He was really good with computers back in high school. Almost as good as me. And he’s had a long time to scour the web, looking for me.”

He touched her hand briefly, then withdrew when he wanted to twine their fingers together. “Yeah. You’d have been his sole focus.” He leaned closer. “How do you think he feels about you now?”

Zoe swallowed. Stared down at her hands, and her red curls fell over her shoulders. Partially obscured her face. “He probably hates me,” she finally said. “I wouldn’t do what he demanded. I wouldn’t go with him. I ruined his plan.”

“Exactly,” Spence said. “He wants you, but he hates you at the same time. If he finds you, those conflicting feelings will put you in a very dangerous situation. He’ll be unpredictable. Angry. Hurt.” He shook his head. “No one can predict what he’ll do if he ever gets close to you. My job is to make sure he never does.”

Zoe slid her hands onto her lap, but not before he’d seen them shaking. “Where… where do you think he’ll try to get to me? Here? Or at my office?”

Spence leaned back in his chair, wondering how blunt he should be. Some clients wanted to be reassured. Calmed.

He suspected Zoe would want the brutal truth. All of it. But it was her choice.

“You want the truth?” he asked. “Or the sugar-coated version?”

She frowned at him. “The truth, of course. What good would sugar-coating it do? It would only make me less prepared. Less ready.”

If he hadn’t already been attracted to Zoe, her answer would have sealed the deal. So he nodded to her. “Good answer.” He took a breath. Closed his eyes. Imagined what an obsessed man, one who’d been locked up for five years, then lived with his mother in a small, central Illinois town for seven more years, would do once he found Zoe and decided to act.

“My guess?” Spence said slowly. “He’ll come here. To your condo. First of all, he went to your house the last time he tried to kidnap you. And he’s obsessive, so he’ll stick to his pattern. Second, it’s easier to get into an apartment building.”

Spence frowned. “Although it’s possible he’d try your business first,” he said slowly. “Because you own a computer business, and he connected with you during a computer class. That would be important to an obsessive person. But he won’t succeed, because there are too many gatekeepers at businesses. Receptionists who want to know your business before they’ll let you into the elevators. Assistants who block access to the company’s bigwigs. It’s easier in an apartment building.”

He eased back and studied Zoe. She wasn’t going to like the next part. “I’m betting Davies has already been here. He’s scoped it out. Paid attention to the security. This is where you live. Where you’d be more relaxed. More accessible.”

Zoe sucked in a deep breath, and he reached for her hand. She clung to him, and instead of twining their fingers together, as every cell in his body screamed for him to do, he held her hand gently. “I noticed a coffee shop in the lobby,” Spence said. “He could, and probably did, sit in there for hours, buying coffees and pretending to work on a computer, waiting for you to leave. Waiting for you to come home. He’d study the doorman. See him greeting the residents, probably recognizing all of them. He’d see the residents interacting with the doorman.

“Then you walk into the lobby. You say hello to the doorman, call him by name. Then you open the elevator with a key, and boom. Davies knows how to get access to your apartment. He’d realize the doorman would have a key, too. In case of an emergency, and to let visitors into your elevator.

“When he’s ready, he comes back at night, when there’s no one but the doorman in the lobby. He takes a baseball bat to the doorman’s head and grabs the key. Gets in the elevator and comes right up to your apartment. Conveniently, the door opens into your living space. He doesn’t even have to worry about getting in the front door.

“If you were sound asleep, he’d have you bound and gagged before you were completely awake. Then it’s down the elevator to your parking garage, dump you in his trunk, and you disappear. Just like he’d planned on doing the night he killed your father.”

Zoe’s face was sheet white. “Are you deliberately trying to scare me?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I don’t want you terrified. I want you alert. Calm. Aware of everything and everyone around you. Mel’s working on getting some current photos of Davies. When she does, I’ll have you memorize every detail of his face. Then we’ll both scan every face we see, looking for Davies.

“And you won’t have to worry about Davies incapacitating the doorman and taking your key. We’ll talk to all the doormen and explain the situation. Tell them to keep the key in a locked drawer. Suggest they get a canister of pepper spray to protect themselves. And even if Davies still somehow managed to get into your apartment, I’ll be there. I’ll hear him and I’ll stop him.”

He leaned closer. “That’s why I have to stay in your condo with you.”

Zoe’s throat rippled as she swallowed, and Spence wanted to touch that small pulse. Feel it flutter under her skin and against his tongue.

Closed his eyes, trying to control his little head. He would not go there. He couldn’t go there while Zoe was in danger.

Tearing his gaze away from Zoe, he cleared his throat. Glanced around the condo. “So, you have a spare bedroom here? Or am I sleeping on the couch?”

“There’s a spare bedroom,” Zoe said, her voice raspy and deeper than usual. “I’ll show you where it is.”

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