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“Cadence?” Levi’s voice was rough and strained.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you won’t go anywhere alone once you’re done at the police station.”
How could I promise him that when I’d just been thinking the best way to protect the people I loved was to stay as far away from them as I could?
“Promise me,” he repeated. “Don’t go doing something stupid. I need to know you’re not alone.”
I turned in at the parking lot across from the station. “I’m here,” I said. “I have to go take this in.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he repeated as we hung up.
I hadn’t made him any sort of promise, but his words echoed in my head the whole way into the building. Don’t go doing something stupid. Wasn’t that exactly what I’d been saying to myself? If I were alone, that would be the easiest way for Guy to get to me. He wasn’t making himself known when I was surrounded by people. Usually only when it was just me, or if I only had one other person with me.
Alone, I was an easy target. Surrounded, I wasn’t.
Truth and fear didn’t mesh well in my head.
KEEPING MY HEADtogether on this trip had been difficult in the best of times, considering how worried I was about Cadence and her stalker. But before our Saturday matinee game against the Rangers, when I’d gotten that call from her, it had gotten to be about a thousand times more difficult than before. I’d filled in Jonny with what I’d learned as soon as I hung up with her, but now we were both worried sick.
Here we were, stuck in New York and unable to protect her. Anthony and Jesse were in Cleveland all weekend. Yeah, the cops were there, but so far they hadn’t done much but give her a piece of paper. We didn’t like it. Neither of us. Not one bit, but what could we do short of skipping out on the team? Nothing.
Right before warm-ups, Jonny came stalking over to my stall in the locker room, looking ready to rip my head off.
“What?” I asked, sure it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Cadence.
He glared at me, shook his head, and stomped off.
“Go,” Hammer said. “Follow him. Figure out what’s up.”
So I went, finding him in a quiet corner in the bowels of Madison Square Garden, not too far from where Koz and several of the other guys were kicking around a soccer ball.
“Sara just called,” he said once I caught up with him. He ground out the words, like he’d swallowed gravel.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
He shook his head. “She’s having a hell of a time convincing Cadence to stay at the house. Cadence seems to think it would be safer for Sara and the kids if she wasn’t there.”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Yeah.”
The worst part of it was that there might be some truth to Cadence’s fears. I wasn’t sure. Would Guy leave the other people in Cadence’s life alone if she wasn’t around them? Maybe or maybe not. It was too soon to tell.
“She’s not leaving yet, is she? She needs to stay at least until we return home. I don’t like the thought of her being alone.”
“If she leaves, she’ll be alone whether we’re there or not.”
“Not if she comes to stay with me.”
Jonny glowered at me for a long time. Long enough that most guys would immediately back down from whatever it was they were doing.
I didn’t, though. I couldn’t. Not on this. “She’s scared for you and your wife and kids. I get it, but she can’t be alone.”
“She’s scared for you, too,” he finally said. “What happens if she won’t stay with you?”
“I’ll find a way to convince her.”
