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The Guardian
Bethany Campbell
GUARANTEED PAGE-TURNERFrom the bestselling author of See How They Run and Don't Talk to Strangers comes a compelling story of drama and suspense. And a romance you won't forget!The only rule.Don't get involved. To Hawkshaw, they're words to live by. He left the Secret Service because he didn't want to take care of anyone but himself. Then an old friend asks him for a favor….The last case.A woman and her young son need a place to hide–and someone to protect them. A stalker wants her and he'll do anything to have her….The wrong woman.Hawkshaw agrees to help, but he's more than a little reluctant. Kate Kanaday's not the woman he wants living in his house. Even worse, she's got him thinking about breaking his only rule….
Hawkshaw went over the Kanaday woman’s file again. (#u4c32a0b4-c97b-50d4-8793-541844904751) Letter to Reader (#u0540139f-d060-53b3-8085-fb3055d52ca0) Title Page (#uf76cbfdc-fd5c-521e-b03b-408fb642d74e) Dedication (#u5b272c8f-7dad-540d-9bc1-6be43c062e7c) CHAPTER ONE (#u2ffe467b-1e75-5850-a367-3c88f7af4e13) CHAPTER TWO (#u21cd5d4a-bc4f-544d-ba59-7a23d0370c34) CHAPTER THREE (#uc296fecd-cece-51ff-94b9-edc6890b1153) CHAPTER FOUR (#ub4307d6f-3267-5f15-93ea-4b839922f73c) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Hawkshaw went over the Kanaday woman’s file again.
Now that he’d met her and the kid, the case no longer seemed an abstraction, nor did they. They were flesh and blood.
And the reality of her was distracting, too distracting. Because she wasn’t the woman he wanted. He forced himself to look at the fuzzy reproductions of the snapshots that Corbett had sent of Kate. There were only three.
The first showed her and the kid sitting before a towering Christmas tree. The kid, Charlie, was mugging for the camera, and she was smiling with what seemed like real joy. Her smile was nice, full of life. He wondered if she would ever smile that way again. He set the photos aside and took a sip of beer.
A lone light shone from the farthest window of the house. Kate had left the bathroom light on for the kid, a gesture that touched him in spite of himself.
Don’t be touched, he warned himself. Don’t feel anything.
The woman and kid had come into his life suddenly, and with luck they’d disappear just as suddenly. Until then, he’d watch out for them because they were a legacy from Corbett, a favor to be returned and a debt to be paid.
But nothing personal. He would stay uninvolved. He had made it his specialty.
Dear Reader,
My husband and I visit Florida’s Lower Keys as often as possible and have explored the backcountry by kayak. I love the loneliness and wildness of the place—although I could have done without getting to know a certain sea slug quite so well.
Before writing this story, I read a lot about the backcountry, stalkers and attention deficiency in children. There’s a lot of my son in Charlie—a bright, imaginative kid intensely frustrated by reading problems and handicapped by an overabundance of energy and a tendency to march to a different drummer. He overcame his difficulties much as Charlie does. Today he teaches composition and Shakespeare at the University of New Orleans. Writing this book made me aware again of the challenges such children—and their parents—face. The best part was the reaffirmation that such challenges can be met.
Sadly, writing The Guardian also made me painfully conscious of the inadequacy of stalking laws in the United States. I hope we can work to better them.
Sincerely,
Bethany Campbell
The Guardian
Bethany Campbell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Margot Dalton—
Who, like E. B. White’s Charlotte, is not only a good friend, but a good writer.
CHAPTER ONE
THE SHARK WAS DUSTY.
Nearly six feet long, it was stuffed, mounted and hung on the wall above the sagging couch. Its downturned mouth grinned with cruel teeth.
On the shark’s head was a black baseball cap. In white letters, it said UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.
A tall man, naked except for a towel knotted around his middle, stood before the shark. He held the phone and listened to a voice half a continent away. His face was grim.
I don’t want to get involved, he thought with deep distaste. Those days are over. I’m out of the game. For good.
But because it was Corbett talking on the other end of the line, Hawkshaw listened.
“There’s no choice,” Corbett said. “She’s got to get out of town. She knows it. I can’t keep her safe.”
Hawkshaw adjusted the towel around his waist. He was dripping salt water onto the old braided rug.
He said, “I was about to get into the shower.”
Corbett said, “This guy who’s after her—this stalker—he’s getting dangerous. Not just to her, to her kid. He’s started to look on the kid as some sort of rival.”
A kid, Hawkshaw thought with weariness and guilt. He tried to keep himself indifferent, unassailable. “Why can’t the police handle it?” he asked.
Corbett said, “The guy’s smart, Hawkshaw. He doesn’t threaten her outright. But he never stops watching her. And he lets her know he’s watching—and that he wants her.”
Hawkshaw sighed in disgust. He didn’t like the sound of this. An anonymous stalker was the worst and most slippery kind. “You’ve got no idea who this psycho is?”
“None. He’s a voice on a phone. He’s a note in the mail. He’s the ice pick in your tire. The dead bird on your doorstep.”
“How long has he been after her?”
“Eighteen months,” Corbett said. “It started with a couple of notes. Anonymous calls. It built. She changed her number, kept it unlisted. I encrypted her computer so nobody could get into her e-mail. But nothing works. She needs to get the hell out of here.”
Hawkshaw stared at the shark. It returned his gaze with a glassy, emotionless eye.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Hasn’t she got people of her own to go to?”
“No. Her parents are dead. She’s a widow. She’s got a friend in another city who’ll help. But I don’t want her going straight there. I want to throw this bastard a curve. Have her take such a crooked path, he can’t follow.”
“And I’m the crooked path she takes.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Hawkshaw. This woman doesn’t want charity. She doesn’t want to run—she’s a fighter. If the guy was a threat only to her, I don’t think she’d budge. But there’s the kid.”
I don’t want to help widows and children, Hawkshaw thought with resentment. Throw them to the sharks. He ran a forefinger along the edges of the shark’s teeth. They felt pleasantly sharp.
“She’s no shrinking violet,” Corbett insisted. “She’s an extremely independent, self-reliant woman—”
Then let her be independent and reliant by herself, Hawkshaw thought.
“—listen, Hawkshaw,” Corbett continued, “this guy who’s after her, he’s getting ready to explode. All the signs are there. Something very bad is about to happen unless she and the kid get out of here. It’s instinct. I can’t shake it. You understand?”
Corbett’s instinct. Hawkshaw understood all too well. He stared at the scar that snaked up the tanned flesh of his right forearm. Oh, yes, he would always remember Corbett’s instinct; he was beholden to it for the rest of his life.
But he said, “My Galahad days are over, Corbett. I’m a hermit now. I like it.”
“But you’re staying there?” Corbett asked, slyness in his voice. “In Florida?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Hawkshaw said. “I’ll probably sell the place. I’ve got to fix it up. One of these days.”
“That’s what you said six months ago.”
“Time flies.”
“Look, she could help you. She’s got energy, she’s enterprising,” Corbett said. “Up here she can’t even work anymore. The stalker—he disrupts her workday, calls her co-workers. He’s starting to harass everybody she comes into contact with.”
Bingo, thought Hawkshaw with a sure, sickening realization. Suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this. “Everybody?”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Corbett said.
Hawkshaw closed his eyes. As in a vision, he saw Corbett’s round, good-natured face, the receding hair, the mustache that never seemed even on both sides.
He saw Cherry, Corbett’s wife, pretty and ever-generous. He thought of Corbett’s adolescent twin girls in last year’s Christmas snapshot, their smiles silvery with braces. He was godfather to both.
Hawkshaw opened his eyes. He wiped a cobweb from the shark’s fin. “Everybody includes you, doesn’t it, Corbett? It includes Cherry and the girls, too. Don’t bloody lie to me. I know you too well.”
There was a moment of silence. Finally Corbett said, “That’s not a factor. It goes with the territory. My major concern is for the woman and her son. That’s the truth.”
Oh, hell. Depression stole over Hawkshaw like a long, cold shadow.
He sat down on the old couch. He thought of Corbett and all he owed to Corbett.
A hopeless sensation yawned within him. He knew what he was going to say and wished with all his heart that he could say something else.
“All right,” Hawkshaw said. “Fax the details to me, in care of the Flamingo Motel.” He gave Corbett the number. “Tell the woman and kid I’ll take them on. For a while. A couple weeks maybe.”
“Good. If we cover her tracks well enough, maybe she can break free of him. Go her own way.”
“Amen,” said Hawkshaw. The sooner the better.
There was another awkward silence. Then, with feeling, Corbett said, “You won’t be sorry about this.”
Yes, I will, thought Hawkshaw.
He was already sorry.
THE DETECTIVE, CORBETT, came back from the downstairs pay phone and into his private office. He was a stockily built man with thinning hair and a mustache that always seemed slightly off-center.
He gave Kate a smile that had no happiness in it. “You’re going away,” he said. “It’s set.”
Kate’s arm tightened around Charlie, her six-year-old son. “Can’t you at least tell me where?” she asked.
Charlie wriggled. He hated sitting still and was fidgety.
Corbett shook his head. “It’s best you don’t know yet. Out of the Midwest. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry.”
I have no secrets, Kate thought numbly. Wherever I am, whatever I do, the stalker knows. He always finds out. Always.
She let Charlie slip away from her. He ran to the window, stood on tiptoe and looked out at the summer afternoon.
Her hand fell uselessly to her lap. She could only stare at Corbett’s kind, jowly face.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
She swallowed. “How—how long do you think we’ll have to stay there?”
“I don’t know,” Corbett said. “Till we’re sure he hasn’t tracked you. Once we know that, you’re free to move on.”
To move on.
The words tolled ominously in Kate’s mind. She had known it might come to this, of course. She and Corbett had talked about it, insane as it was.
Wordlessly, both she and Corbett turned their gazes to Charlie. The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot and hummed as he stared outside. He tugged restlessly at his brown forelock.
She had tried to prepare Charlie for the possibility that they would have to leave. But how, really, did one prepare for such an extreme and desperate action?
“I—I—” Kate stammered “—well, it’s necessary. It has to be done. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes,” Corbett said. He came to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “If we can’t keep him away from you, then you’ve got to get away from him. Both of you. Where he can’t find you.”
We have to run. Like hunted animals. Because there’s a madman out there. This can’t be happening. Not really.
Kate shook her head to clear it. “I didn’t want anybody else involved. Why can’t Charlie and I just leave on our own? I could go straight to my friend. Eliminate this middle person, this stranger—”
“We were in the Secret Service together,” Corbett said. “He retired two years ago. He’s the best, Kate. And he’s worked with kids. Consider it a security move for a while, that’s all. I couldn’t trust you to anyone better.”
But his words didn’t reassure her. She felt stunned, shocked, empty, unreal. “Won’t you at least tell me his name?”
“Kate,” Corbett said wearily, “the less you know the better. I want you to go home, pack the bare necessities. I’m taking you someplace else tonight. In my car, not yours. I’ll get your plane tickets. You’ll have to travel under another name.”
She straightened her back and tried to square her jaw, which felt twitchy, undependable. “How soon? When do you want us to go?”
“As soon as possible.”
“How long are we supposed to stay with this—person?”
“Until we think you’re safe.”
Safe. A bitter giddiness filled her. She smiled at the irony of the word. Safe.
“Until we make sure he hasn’t traced you,” Corbett said.
“He,” Kate echoed. Her stalker was nameless, faceless, shapeless. He was nowhere and everywhere. He seemed like some monster out of mythology, with a thousand eyes to watch her, a thousand ears to listen to her, a thousand invisible tentacles to reach out at her.
“Our things—” she said, thinking of their small condominium, stuffed with its trove of mementoes. There were the photos, the antiques, Charlie’s toys, her precious books.
