Sandra Brown: Low Pressure

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry, but I’m grounded. Grounded means no charters. Which means no income. To you… Hell, you probably don’t even understand the concept.”

His scorn smarted, because the truth of it was that she had never suffered a financial setback. In her family, money had never been a problem.

“The bank isn’t going to suspend my payments while the airplane is being fixed. I’ll be making payments on a plane I can’t fly. That is until I run out of money completely and can’t make the payments anymore, and then they’ll come and get it. If they repossess my airplane, I’m grounded for good. So your being sorry isn’t of much help, is it?”

“I deeply regret this. I do. I know you need the work.”

He focused on her sharply, then laughed drily and turned his head away. But when he looked at her again his eyes were smoky with anger. “So. You checked me out. Discovered that I’m barely scraping by. Took pity. Was that what yesterday was? You threw poor ol’ Dent a bone?”

“I told you why I contacted you.”

He continued to look at her in that searing way until she relented.

“All right, yes. I’d read that the airline released you after the incident.”

“Wrong. I walked after the incident.”

“Pension? Benefits?”

“Had to be sacrificed when I told them to shove it.” He pulled in his long legs and sat forward. “But we’re not going to talk about my financial woes right now. What we’re going to talk about is why somebody vandalized my airplane after breaking into your house and painting a warning on your bedroom wall.”

“What makes you think the two are related?”

He gave her another hard look.

“It’s strange, I’ll admit.”

“No, A.k.a. Let me tell you what’s strange. Strange is that when I got to your house last night, you were scared silly. Petrified, in fact. But you wouldn’t hear of calling the police. That’s strange. And don’t give me shit about publicity, not when you admit to going on TV and hawking your book. Gall saw a prerecorded interview this morning.”

“I didn’t want the publicity,” she exclaimed. She told him about Rocky Van Durbin and EyeSpy . “Ever since he printed my name and picture in that rag, and announced that my novel was based on fact, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. I didn’t want the notoriety.”

“Oh, come now,” he scoffed. “It helps sell books, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t deny that book sales increased dramatically once I got out there and began promoting it. I’ve cultivated a lot of fans.”

“And one enemy.”

She stood up quickly and stepped from behind the desk to move to the window. For several moments, she watched the traffic zipping past on the freeway, then turned back into the room. Dent’s gaze was fixed on her as she went over to the leather sofa beneath the family Christmas portrait and sat down.

His eyes narrowed, and he said softly, “You know who the bad guy is.”

“No, I don’t. I swear I don’t. If I did, don’t you think I would have done something before now to stop it?”

“Stop it ? Stop what ? Something happened before last night? What? When?”

“It’s not your problem, Dent.”

“Like hell it’s not.” He got up from the chair in which he’d been sitting and dragged it over to the sofa, planting it directly in front of her then solidly planting himself in the chair. He propped his forearms on his wide-spread knees and leaned toward her. “Somebody did a bad number on my airplane. That makes it my problem.”

“I hate that I involved you.”

“Yeah. So do I.”

She sighed. “Truly. I’m sorry. I understand why you’re angry. You have every right to be. If I had it to do over—”

“But you don’t. I’m involved, and by God I’m gonna find out who did the deed, and when I do, I’m not going to depend on the law of the land to punish the bastard. I’m going to see to it myself. Now, tell me what’s going on.”

She felt trapped by him but realized he wasn’t going to let it go until she gave him more information. She also realized what a relief it would be finally to tell someone what she’d been experiencing for the past several weeks.

“It started in New York.” She ran her damp palms up and down the tops of her thighs, drying the moisture on the fabric of her slacks. When she noticed Dent watching, following the motion with interest, she curled her hands into fists and folded her arms across her middle.

Her body language wasn’t lost on him. “Scared of me?”

“No.”

He studied her face for a moment, then asked her what had happened in New York.

In stops and starts, she told him about the gift-wrapped box that had been delivered to her apartment building. “A dead rat was horrifying. But when I saw its tail move and realized it was alive…” Even now, thinking about it caused her to shudder. Dent stood up. Hands on hips, he walked a tight circle and ran his hand across the back of his neck. “What kind of sick—” He broke off and muttered a stream of profanity.

“I didn’t even pack,” she said. “I fled. That’s the only word for it. I grabbed my handbag and rushed out of the apartment. I stopped in the lobby of my building only long enough to ask the concierge about the delivery. He hadn’t noted a company name, hadn’t seen a truck. Just a ‘man in a uniform and a Yankees ball cap.’

“He couldn’t describe him in any more detail than that. I told him he needed to get a pest exterminator for my apartment, told him I would be away indefinitely, then hailed a taxi to the airport and left on the first flight I could get on.

“I called Dexter, my agent, from the taxi, and told him to cancel all my scheduled appearances and interviews. I had to hang up with him still sputtering reasons why I was crazy to abandon the tidal wave of publicity. I haven’t granted an interview since. I’ve dodged the local media. Eventually reporters stopped trying to contact me.” She shrugged. “They gave up. Other stories came along. I don’t care. I’m just glad to be out of the limelight.”

Dent processed all that. “Okay, you came scuttling back to Austin. Showing up unexpectedly like you did, your dad and stepmom must’ve thought it was weird. Did you tell them about the rat?”

“No. And they were surprised by my decision to leave New York for a while. Even more surprised when I rented the Georgetown house my second day back. I was a bit surprised by that myself,” she added thoughtfully. “I told them I was tired of the city and needed a break. They didn’t ask for a further explanation, because they know the real reason. That I want to be here and close to Daddy until he dies. But it’s better for all of us that I have my own place.”

She got up and went to a bar built into the opposite wall. “Water?”

“Sure.”

She carried a bottle to him and uncapped one for herself as she returned to her place on the sofa. Dent sat back down in the chair. “How long ago was this?”

“Three weeks, give or take. When I left New York, I thought I was leaving behind a stalker. For lack of a better word. Someone who bore a grudge, or someone I’d unintentionally slighted.”

When she paused, he leaned forward again. “But?”

She chafed her arms. “But I’ve often got the feeling that I’m being watched. Followed. At first I passed it off. The rat incident had put all these melodramatic scenarios in my head, made me jittery, paranoid. Then, about a week ago, someone broke into my car while I was in the supermarket. Nothing was taken, but I almost wish something had been.”

“Maybe the would-be thief was interrupted. He popped the door lock but got scared and ran off.”