Kat Martin - Against the Storm

The colors were brilliant, the angles of the photos showed the subject to the very best advantage, and there was always something a little different, something intriguing about each picture. At the bottom of the page, information on the three galleries in Texas that carried limited-edition prints of Maggie’s work was listed, and a contact email address.

Trace searched through the dozens of other sites that popped up on Google when he referenced her name, and the more he searched, the more frustrated he became.

Damn, his client wasn’t just a good photographer, she was practically a celebrity. She was a well-known, well-respected artist whose work had been viewed by thousands of people.

And any one of them could be the person who was stalking her.

Trace leaned forward in his leather chair and punched the button on the recorder, listening again to his conversation with Maggie. When he finished, he reviewed the notes he had taken.

He went to work on her list of names, verifying what little information he had. Nothing turned up. Michael Irving and David Lyons both had webpages. Irving was a certified public accountant in Dallas. Lyons was a corporate lawyer in Houston with Holder Holder & Meeks.

It was after seven by the time Trace finished. The office was closed. Annie had left for the night and Alex and Ben were out working cases. Trace had decided to postpone his trip to the shore until next weekend, and had called Rex Westcott to start the tail on Maggie tomorrow morning. He had sent Rex’s photo to the email address she had given him: photolady@baytown.com.

Photolady. Looking at some of her work, he realized she was far more than that. He might have smiled, except that he didn’t like complications, and Maggie O’Connell was nothing but. Her life was complicated. The possibilities of who her stalker might be were endless.

And the unwanted attraction Trace felt for her only made matters worse.

He sighed as he rose from his chair, plucked his hat off the credenza behind his desk and prepared to leave. A knock on the front door caught his attention. He glanced at the clock, saw that another hour had passed and wondered who knew he would be there this late.

He settled his hat on his head and started for the front door, turned the lock and pulled it open.

“Good heavens, Trace,” said a familiar female voice, “where on earth have you been?” Carly Benson Rawlins stormed past him into the office, whirled and set her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you return my calls? I needed you, Trace. Why didn’t you call me back?”

“Good evening, Carly. Why don’t you come on in?”

His sarcasm went unnoticed.

“How could you be so insensitive?” She was petite and voluptuous, with long, straight red hair that fell past her shoulders. She had the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. He cursed as he watched them fill with tears. “H-how could you ignore me like that?”

“You aren’t my wife anymore, Carly. I can ignore you whenever I want.”

She sniffed, tilted her head back to look up at him. “What if something had happened? What if I’d been in a car wreck or something?”

“Were you in a car wreck?”

“No, but I could have been. Did you see that newspaper article in the Chronicle this morning? That woman who drove down to the shore and never came back? Her parents are frantic. She was my age, Trace—twenty-nine years old and she just disappeared.”

“I saw it. The police think maybe she took off with her boyfriend or something.”

“Or maybe she was murdered.” Carly shuddered with feigned revulsion. “A woman needs a man to look out for her.” She smiled, her tears long forgotten, looped her arms around his neck and went up on her toes to look into his face. “You know I still love you, Trace. Sometimes I just need to know you’re still there for me.”

He took hold of her wrists and eased her back down on her feet. “Look, Carly. You aren’t in any sort of danger and you need to get on with your life. That’s what people do when they get divorced.”

“I never wanted a divorce and you know it.”

“No, but you wanted other men in your bed. That didn’t work for me.”

Her chin angled up. “You weren’t there, Trace. You were working all the time.”

“I was trying to build the business, trying to make a life for us. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you properly entertained.”

“It was all your fault and you know it.”

Maybe some of it was, but mostly he had just picked the wrong woman, as his friends had tried to warn him. Carly was wild and self-centered. She hadn’t been ready to settle down when he’d married her. She wasn’t ready now.

Still, he felt sorry for her. She wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sure she ever would be.

He turned her around and urged her gently toward the door. “We’ve been through all this before.” A thousand times, he added silently. “Things just didn’t work out, that’s all. Go home, Carly. Entertain yourself with someone else.”

She jerked to a halt at the door. “You’re cruel, Trace. Cruel and heartless.”

If anything, he was too soft when it came to women. Years ago, he had learned to control his temper. He had come to value his self-control. He’d been raised to treat a woman like a lady. He did his best to do just that.

“Good night, Carly,” he said gently, then waited as she stormed out the door. Trace watched her drive her little silver BMW sports car down the alley out of sight, and wondered which of her many admirers had bought it for her.

He lifted his hat, raked back his hair, then settled the hat a little lower across his forehead. He had no idea why his ex-wife continued to plague him. They were never right for each other, never should have married. They might have been in lust at one time, but they were never in love.

That same kind of attraction to a good-looking redhead had hit him several other times in his life. None of those times had ended well.

Trace thought of Maggie O’Connell and warned himself not to go down that road again.

Four

It was pitch-black in her upstairs bedroom. Only the night sounds of crickets and cicadas intruded into the darkness of the high-ceilinged room. Maggie tossed and turned beneath the lightweight down comforter, unable to sleep with so much on her mind. She needed to get the photos completed for her coffee-table book. And she had a show coming up. She had most of the pictures ready, but could use a few more for the exhibit.

She sighed into the darkness. She had so much to do. Aside from her work, she needed to unpack, try to make the town house more of a home. There wasn’t much furniture downstairs, and only a bed, two nightstands and a dresser in her bedroom, stuff she’d had for years.

She still had a few pieces to bring over from the apartment before the end of the month, when her lease was up, and some things she needed to buy, and of course her photos and some prized Ansel Adams pieces that needed to be hung on the walls. She wasn’t much of a decorator but she could do better than the way it looked now.

She punched her pillow, turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow was Saturday. She planned to drive down to Galveston, take some shots around the harbor. She needed to get up early. Which meant she had to get some sleep.

She closed her eyes, tried to clear her head.

That was when she heard it. The faint scraping of a chair against the ceramic tile floor in the kitchen. She listened, straining her ears. Was that the patio door sliding open? Was that a footstep she heard on the stairs? Her heart was pounding, thumping against her ribs. Her palms felt slick where she clenched the sheet. She thought of the notes she had received, wondered if the man who had written them was crazy enough to break into her home.