Kate Hoffmann - Declan

“I know. After I did it, I couldn’t take it back. The cops wouldn’t listen. They didn’t believe me, that I made it up. I knew too many details, they said. But I only knew those things because everyone at the station was talking about Dr. Devine’s stalker.”

Dec nodded. “I’ll give her the letter.”

The young man smiled, then nodded, backing out of the control room. “Thanks. I really appreciate that.”

“I’m surprised the station let that guy come back,” Dec muttered after Jerry was gone.

“He’s the owner’s nephew,” Rachel’s producer said.

Dec groaned. “Yeah, well, he should have known better.” He turned his attention to Rachel’s mail, flipping through the envelopes. They’d all been opened. Perhaps it was station policy or maybe security was looking for more letters from her stalker, but as he read through a few, Dec didn’t find anything of interest.

Then he turned his attention to the package, flipping it over. The moment he did, his heart stopped. A slash of red paint covered the brown paper, the same shade that had been tossed on Rachel’s car.

He excused himself from the control room and walked across the hall to a small conference room. He set the package on the table. There was no telling what was inside. The prudent thing to do would be to call in the bomb squad.

He picked up the package and carried it through the hallway to the back door of the station. When he’d reached the middle of the empty parking lot, Dec knelt down and carefully began to unfasten the tape and string that held it together. He’d had some training in disarming explosives when he was in the navy, but if there was some type of explosive device inside, it probably wasn’t as sophisticated as what he was used to dealing with.

He got the brown paper off the box without incident, then ran his finger under the lid of the shoebox. There weren’t any trips or triggers, so he carefully tipped the box over and lifted the bottom off the top.

A small can of paint, streaked with dribbles of red, tumbled out. Stuck to it with a piece of tape was a note. Dec picked it up and squinted to read it by the parking lot lights. I’m watching you, the note said. We’ll talk soon.

“Damn it,” Dec muttered. He raked his hand through his hair, then carefully put the can of red paint back into the box. His first thought was to turn it over to the police. But maybe it was better to first give it to one of the private labs he used, just to make sure nothing was missed.

He walked over to his car and unlocked the truck, then put the box, along with the paper wrapping inside. He wouldn’t tell Rachel about this. It would only worry her further. But he did want to talk to Jerry. It seemed a bit more than coincidence that he was the one delivering the package.

Dec pressed the security buzzer for the back door and a few moments later the station guard came and let him in. He walked back toward Rachel’s studio, searching for Jerry along the way. He found the guy in the coffee room, refilling the sugar and creamer dispensers.

“Hey,” Dec said. “I need to talk to you.”

Jerry glanced up. “Did I do something wrong?”

“That package you brought in. Where did you get it? It didn’t come through the mail. There was no postage on it.”

“Some lady dropped it off this morning.”

“She brought it in?”

Jerry shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, no. She was out in the parking lot and I was coming into work. She asked if I’d deliver it to Dr. Devine. I said yes.”

“And you didn’t think anything of it? You know that Dr. Devine has a stalker.”

“But this was a lady,” Jerry said. “Dr. Devine’s stalker is a man.”

“We don’t know that.” Dec sighed. “What can you tell me about her? Describe her.”

“I don’t know,” Jerry said. “She wasn’t old. But she wasn’t really young either. And she had kinda dark hair, but you couldn’t really see because she was wearing a big hat. And sunglasses.”

“How tall? As tall as Dr. Devine? And older or younger than Dr. Devine?”

“She was a little older I guess and about the same height,” he said. “She had a pretty good body. I noticed when she was walking back to her car.”

“You saw her car?” Dec asked, stepping closer.

Jerry backed away. “Yeah. It was grey or maybe light blue. Some kind of sedan.”

“What make and model?” Dec asked.

“Hey, I don’t know much about cars. I couldn’t tell you. But it didn’t have four doors, only two. It was a little smaller, so maybe it was a foreign make.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

Jerry thought about it for a while, then shrugged. “She was really nice to me,” he offered.

“All right,” Dec said. “I want you to keep this between me and you. Don’t tell anyone else. Do I have your promise on that? I’m going to call someone from my firm over to see if you can pick out a photo of the type of car it was, or maybe make a drawing. Will you do that?”

“Only if you promise to give Dr. Devine that letter,” Jerry said.

“All right. But I’m going to read it first.”

A flush crept up the young man’s cheeks. “Sure. I guess.”

Dec made a quick phone call to the investigator he’d assigned to Rachel’s case, then turned and walked back to the control room. He slipped through the door and took a seat in the shadows again. Rachel’s voice came over the station speakers as she explained the proper and improper ways for men to masturbate. Dec hadn’t realized there was an improper way, but then he learned something new from Rachel every day.

Finally, he had something new to offer her. Her stalker wasn’t a man, but a woman. His buddy at the FBI had been right all along. So that seriously cut down on the number of suspects they were looking at.

This woman had struck at the university, at the radio station and at Rachel’s home. There had to be a way to connect all these dots, Dec mused. Somehow, he sensed that if he’d been working on the case full time and not spending his time protecting Rachel, he’d have been able to work this out. But his mind had been completely distracted by her.

The best thing to do would be to put a different detail on her, give her another bodyguard so he could go back to doing what he did best-investigating. But the thought of putting Rachel into someone else’s care, even one of his own guys’, wasn’t really an option.

For now, he’d have to do both jobs, starting with a thorough interview with Rachel. He was beginning to think her stalker knew her well, that there was a reason beyond just some crazy obsession that she was doing this. Rachel couldn’t know that many women personally, and of those she knew, how many of them could she have angered enough for someone to want to take revenge.

The minute he got her home, they’d begin. And he wouldn’t stop questioning her until he was sure he knew everything about her.

RACHEL ROLLED OVER IN BED, then pushed up on her elbow and shoved her hair out of her face. A persistent ringing had drawn her out of a deep sleep. As she looked around, she realized the sound was coming from Dec’s jeans, which were draped over the end of the bed.

Dec was lying beside her, his naked body sprawled across the mattress. She loved the way he slept, completely vulnerable, his body open to her touch. He was always so watchful when he was awake, but asleep, he let down his guard and she could get a sense of the man he’d be once he didn’t have to protect her anymore.

They’d been sleeping together like this for three nights now, discarding the last pretenses of propriety. They’d both accepted the fact they were sharing a very intense sexual relationship and in order to continue that, it was best if they shared a bed every night.