Page 29 of Tiger on the Prowl

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Olivia took a deep breath and headed back into the reception, when she froze at the entrance. All the guests were gathered around the dance floor, watching two couples dance. Her father was dancing with Grace, and her mother with Timothy. The music was loud, and everybody was focused on the dancers, which was why nobody noticed what Olivia saw.

A tall, black waiter lunged for a man who emerged from behind a partition where several shelving units held bottles of wine, and plastic baskets with dirty dishes. The man wasn’t a waiter. He would have looked like a guest, were it not for the weapon in his hand. Olivia’s heart stopped. The black waiter tackled the armed man and wrestled the gun from him. Just then, another waiter, a tall blond guy, appeared from another direction and snatched the weapon from the floor, then stuck it in the back of his pants, while the first waiter put the would-be shooter into a chokehold.

She’d seen enough cop shows to know that the person administering the chokehold had to be professional law enforcement. When he loosened his hold on the attacker’s neck, the man slumped forward, unconscious.

When the two heroic waiters suddenly looked in her direction, she realized that she’d walked halfway toward them, and was now only a few feet away from them. Close enough to see the black waiter’s face more clearly. He sported a goatee, and his black hair was curly and thick. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes. She recognized those eyes. This wasn’t some random waiter, this was Jay, the man she’d slept with, the man who’d rifled through her office.

“Fuck,” Jay hissed, his voice further confirming that it was him.

He exchanged a quick look with the other waiter, who she guessed wasn’t a real waiter either. Both men were wearing secret-service-style earpieces in their ears.

“We’ve gotta get him outta here,” the blond guy urged.

Jay nodded, and each of them took one arm of the unconscious man and looped it over his shoulder. Then Jay cast her a look. “Olivia, you didn’t see me. This never happened. Please.”

Then he and his partner disappeared through the door behind the bamboo partition, dragging the subdued man with them. How could she pretend that this hadn’t happened? No, she couldn’t just forget that. Jay was a hero, yet he wanted her to pretend she hadn’t seen him take down a shooter? So much didn’t make sense. How could the same man betray her trust by rifling through her private things, yet risk his own life to take down a shooter at her sister’s wedding?

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, where the two couples were still dancing, and the guests were still watching them. Nobody had noticed what had happened.

Determined to talk to Jay, she followed him through the door into the service area of the hotel. Jay and his partner were already halfway down the corridor.

“Jay, hold up!” she called after him.

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “Go back to the wedding, Olivia.”

Suddenly another waiter emerged from a door and looked at the two men dragging the unconscious one. “What’s going on here?”

“Guy can’t hold his liquor,” Jay replied.

“Yeah, there’s always one, isn’t there?” Jay’s partner added. “We’ll just put him in a taxi.”

“Yeah, get him outta here,” the waiter said, then glanced in Olivia’s direction. “Is he with you?”

“Yeah, uh,” Olivia said and approached hurriedly, “my brother-in-law. He’s an alcoholic. Sorry, he should have never been invited to the wedding.” The lie rolled down off lips like well-rehearsed dialogue from one of her books. Sometimes it paid to be a professional writer.

Olivia exchanged a look with Jay, and finally he nodded. “Let’s get him a taxi, ma’am. Come with us so you can give the taxi driver his address.”

She followed them through the corridor, around a couple of turns, until they finally reached a door that led outside. There, Jay and his partner headed toward a white van. She remained on their heels and watched them open the side door of the van. Brilliant White Laundry Service it said. With every moment that passed, she became more suspicious of the entire incident.

“What is this?” she asked, and Jay stepped aside, all of a sudden giving her a close view of the face of the unconscious man. She froze. “Oh my God.” She pointed at the man. “That can’t be.”

“What?” Jay asked and stared from her to the man he’d subdued. “Do you know him?”

Olivia nodded. “That’s Dirk Clover. He worked in the same architecture firm as my sister.” Her heart beat out of control. “He started stalking her, and it got so bad that the firm fired him, and Grace got a restraining order against him.” She looked away from Dirk’s face to Jay and his partner. “Is that why you’re here? Somebody informed you that he violated the restraining order? Oh my God, he really tried to kill her, didn’t he?”

That knowledge sent an ice-cold shiver down her spine despite the warm evening weather.

“Are you law enforcement? Is that why you’re here?” She pointed to Jay’s face. “Disguised with a fake beard and hair?

“We’re not police.”

“Then what are you? Those earpieces don’t look cheap. And that chokehold you used on him looked professional.”

She noticed Jay and his partner exchange a look.

“I’ll take care of him,” the blond guy said. “You’d better sort this out with her. We can’t let this get out.”