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“Looks that way. There’s a glitch in the security system, probably a short or something and McKay wants to post a few extra guards. He’s got some big client coming in with a truckload of jewels.” Hastings consulted his screen again, and Zane looked over his shoulder, trying to show some interest in Frank McKay’s import/export business. But all the while he talked with Hastings, he had the gnawing feeling that he was making a mistake—that Kaylie wasn’t safe, that she needed his protection.
Paranoid, that’s what he was, he decided.
Later, as he walked back to his office, he still wasn’t convinced he’d made the right decision. But he had no choice. This was the way she wanted it, and he’d be damned if he was going to blow this marriage.
“Here are your messages, Mr. Flannery,” Peggy said, waving the pink slips of paper as he started for his office.
“Oh, thanks.”
“And your wife called.”
His wife. It sounded so lasting. Grinning, Zane leaned across Peggy’s desk. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for getting through to the police so quickly. They were at the house in Carmel practically as soon as I was.” Reading the messages, he started back to his office.
Peggy adjusted her headset. “I don’t think you should thank me. By the time I got through, they’d already been called.”
Zane stopped dead in his tracks, then turned on his heel. “They’d already been called?” he repeated slowly, his mind spinning ahead. “By whom? Someone at Whispering Falls?”
“I—I don’t know,” Peggy stammered. “I didn’t think to ask. It took quite a while to connect with the right number in Carmel because I called the San Francisco Police Department first—you know, to check out her apartment here in the city. When I finally got through to the police in Carmel, I’m sure the dispatcher said something about already sending a unit over to her house. I—I guess I should have told you sooner, but everything turned out okay, and as soon as you were out of the hospital you took off to get married in Lake Tahoe…and…” She lifted her palms and blushed to the roots of her hair. Peggy prided herself on her work. “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
From Peggy’s reaction, Zane assumed the look on his face must be murderous. A hundred questions raced through his mind, but not one single answer filled the worrisome gaps. Who had called? How would that person know that Kaylie was in Carmel?
“Mr. Flannery…?” Peggy asked, apparently still shivering in her boots.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, trying to keep his expression calm while inside he was tormented. He’d thought that having Lee Johnston readmitted to the hospital would solve the problem, but there were still some loose ends. It took all of his willpower not to march back to Hastings’s office and order not only Rafferty, but six extra men to watch Kaylie every waking hour that Zane wasn’t with her. “Call the police, get all the information you can…. Never mind, I think I’d better do it myself.”
Back in his office, he shoved aside the desire to pour himself a stiff shot. He knew several detectives on the force, men he’d worked with at Gemini Security ages ago, before he’d started his own company. Now, because of his position as owner of a private detective/security firm, he shouldn’t have to wade through a lot of red tape to get the information he wanted. He picked up the phone and rested his hips against the desk. “Come on, come on,” he muttered as the call was finally routed to Detective Mike Saragossa.
“Hey, ol’ buddy!” Mike drawled lazily from somewhere deep in the bowels of the SFPD. “’Bout time I heard from you. What can I do for ya?”
* * *
Kaylie’s day had gone from bad to worse. After the meeting with Jim and Alan, she’d muffed the introduction of a newspaper reporter who was investigating crime within the city government, and Alan had rescued her. Then during an interview with a woman running for mayor, there was trouble with her microphone and, once again, Alan had to take over until the station break. The defective microphone was whisked away and a new one clipped quickly onto her lapel. Meanwhile, the candidate, Kathleen McKenney, was more than a little miffed at the inconvenience, and pointedly ignored Kaylie from that point on.
The last half of the show ran more smoothly, but by the end of the program, Kaylie couldn’t wait to climb off her chair, wipe off her smile and relax. She headed straight to the cafeteria, drowned herself in a diet soda, then, after going over the problems with Jim, grabbed her notes for the next day and left the station. All she wanted to do was go straight home and curl up with a good book and spend the rest of the evening with her new husband.
But first, she thought as she climbed into her car and flicked on the ignition, she’d surprise Zane. Rather than wait for him at home, she’d catch him at work. She guided her car out of the lot and merged into traffic. Adjusting her rearview mirror, she spotted a car, not a silver Taurus, but a blue wagon, roll into traffic behind her. No big deal, she decided, but she’d spied that wagon before—on days when the Taurus hadn’t been around the parking lot.
So what? Lots of people go to the same place every day. The driver was probably someone who works around here. She drove a couple of blocks, turned right twice, doubling back, and couldn’t help but check the rearview mirror. Sure enough, about four cars behind, the wagon tailed her.
Fear jarred her. Oh, Lord, not again! She nearly rear-ended the car in front of her. Stay cool, Kaylie. Get a grip on yourself! But her heart slammed against her rib cage, and a cold sweat broke out over her skin. Her fingers clamped the wheel in a death grip.
At the next stoplight she slowed, checking the mirror every five seconds.
The light turned green, and she tromped on the gas, her concentration split between the road ahead and the mirror. The blue wagon followed three cars behind. Kaylie shifted down. Timing the next light, she sailed through a yellow and the wagon got hung up on a red.
Her hands were sweating, the steering wheel felt slick as she drove ten blocks out of her way before turning again and heading for Zane’s office. She felt numb inside. No one would be following her. Johnston was locked up.
But Zane’s words, spoken in an angry blurt at the last mention of Johnston in The Insider, came back to haunt her. “The more the press makes of this, the more likely some other wacko is going to try to duplicate the same sick crime. If not wit
h you then with someone else—no one who’s famous is safe!” He’d slapped the paper onto the table in front of her to make his point, and she’d pointedly picked it up with two fingers, rotated in her chair and dropped the entire paper into the trash.
“I didn’t know you subscribed,” she’d mocked, though part of his anger had been conveyed to her.
He’d scowled at her and motioned impatiently toward the trash. “Articles like that only cause trouble. Believe me, I know.” And he did. One part of his business, especially in his office near Hollywood, had grown by leaps and bounds, patronized by stars who needed protection from overly zealous or crazed fans. Any one of those “fans” could potentially endanger the star’s life or the lives of members of his or her family.
Kaylie shivered. Her heart knocking crazily, she drove into the parking lot, slid into an open space, then turned off the engine and, with a shuddering sigh, leaned her head against the steering wheel. “You’re okay,” she told herself, and slowly her pulse decelerated. Should she tell Zane about the cars—the Taurus and the wagon? Would he think she was imagining things, or worse yet, would it send him into the same paranoid need to protect her that had destroyed their marriage once before?
She wanted to be honest with him. Good marriages were based on honesty and yet, just this once, she might let the truth slip.
