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“G-gun?” Jimmy’s buddy stuttered. Brady needed to get the kid’s name. “But we were just playing!”
“You don’t play at someone’s house at midnight. You don’t play by throwing shit at her window, you don’t play by—”
“Brady.” Noelle’s voice. Soft. Soothing. “You’re scaring them.”
His head turned toward her. “Maybe they need to be scared.” They’d scaredher.He’d seen the terror in her eyes, and he hadn’t liked it. Not one bit.
“Listen, mister,” Jimmy’s buddy began.
“Who the hell are you?” Brady demanded as he focused on the kid. “Name, now.”
“Kyle. Kyle Birch. And we were…” A quick look at Jimmy. “Look, it was just a prank, all right?”
Even though Jimmy was bigger, apparently Kyle was braver because he was the one doing all the talking.
And Brady wasn’t buying the prank BS. “You picked her house…why?”
“Brady, you have to be freezing,” Noelle said. “You don’t have on a shirt or shoes.”
The cold was his last concern. He’d just caught the look exchanged between the two boys. “Her house,” he blasted. “Why?” He focused his ire on Jimmy, the weak link.
Jimmy winced. “Because he gave us fifty bucks, each, okay? Said it was no big deal. Just toss a few snowballs and earn some cash.”
Brady stiffened. “Who gave you the cash?”
“He hasn’t given it to us yet,” Kyle rushed to say. “We were gonna get paid after. Told us that he’d send us the money through an app when we were done.”
The story got worse and worse. “Have you met this guy? In person?”
Again, the boys looked at each other.
Hell. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“He just…he posted online, and the address he listed was right down the road from my house.” Jimmy pointed vaguely to the left. “Just a few snowballs. I mean, what could it hurt?”
Brady lunged toward the teen.
Jimmy let out a shriek.
Noelle caught Brady’s arm. “You’re scaring them.”
He looked at her. “They scaredyou.” They’d done it on the orders of some asshole who was hiding. The same jerk who had come after her before? Brady didn’t like this mess, not one damn bit. Noelle might not think she needed a bodyguard, but she was wrong.
Someone was targeting her.
***
The cops drove away with the two teens in the back of their patrol car. Noelle stood on her porch, watching them go, aware that her toes had curled inside of her boots and that the cold seemed to chill her to the bone.
The uniforms had grilled the boys, but the kids hadn’t been able to offer up much info about the man who’d contacted them. They couldn’t even be sure itwasa man. Online, everything was so anonymous.
“Let’s get inside.” Brady’s deep voice came from right beside her. She’d felt the rage simmering beneath his surface, but he’d held his strict control in place while talking to the cops. He’d hauled on a shirt, shoes, and a coat to go along with his jogging pants. He kept sweeping the scene with his sharp stare, as if he was looking for a threat, and Noelle had to admit that she was doing the same thing.
What is happening?
She crept inside, and Brady locked the door behind her.
“The snowballs must have set off the alarm. The windows were shaking beneath the impact of the hits, and the alarm sensors in place thought someone was trying to get inside.” She was rambling, and she knew it. Noelle glanced toward her den and the cheerful Christmas tree that waited in there. The sight of the tree steadied her a little bit. She was in her home. Brady was with her. She was safe. “A prank.”
