To Love, Honor and Defend

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Chapter 4

“What can you tell me about a guy who calls himself Roach?” Libby tossed her purse in a bottom file drawer on Monday morning and gave Stan a pointed look as she scooted her chair up to her desk.

“Roach? Geez, where’d you run into him?” Stan settled in a chair across from her and bridged his fingers. When he propped one ankle on the opposite knee, his pressed khakis slid up to reveal a pair of green-blue-and-tan argyle socks.

“Long story. So you know the guy? Can you lay your hands on his file for me?”

Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Stan leaned back in his seat. “Gonna tell me why you’re interested in him?”

She shrugged. “Just curious. I have reasons to want to keep an eye on him.”

“Mail call!” Libby’s assistant, Helen, stepped into the office and dropped a pile of envelopes and magazines on Libby’s desk. “‘Morning, Stanley. Good weekend?”

Stan sat straighter and tugged at his tie. “Very good. And you?”

Libby caught the intimate grin Helen sent Stan and jerked her gaze to her colleague in time to see his returned wink. Helen and Stan? She covered her smile with a little cough and began shuffling through the stack of mail.

“Helen, would you be so good as to pull the file on Lawrence White? Look in the case files from about two years ago,” Stan said.

Libby glanced up from sorting out the junk mail for the round file. “Lawrence White?”

“Roach’s brother. You helped send him to Angola a couple years ago for dealing narcotics.”

“Yeah, I remember the case.”

“So what has little brother been up to?” Stan scrunched forward on his chair and propped an arm on her desk.

“I just ran into him this weekend. Seems little brother may have taken over the family business. I’d like a good reason to pin something on him that’ll stick.” She tossed the rest of her mail down with a huff and rubbed her temples.

Stan frowned. “Hey, you okay?”

“Uh-huh. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, besides that threatening letter you showed me last week, I heard that someone followed you to your car Thursday night.”

Libby’s stomach lurched. Cal’s marriage proposal and Ally’s plight may have offered a distraction from her own problems over the weekend, but something had to be done about her stalker. Soon.

“Did you call the cops like you promised? Have you told them what happened the other night on the stairs?”

Libby scowled at Stan. “Wait a minute. You were in court all day on Friday. Where did you hear about the guy following me?”

Besides the police, no one knew about that incident except Cal and…Helen.

Stan shrugged. “Just heard it…around.”

Libby gave Helen a meaningful look.

Her assistant flushed and hurried for the next room. “I think I hear my phone.”

Clearing his throat, Stan picked at the crease in his slacks.

“If Helen told you about Thursday night—” Stan’s guilty grimace confirmed she was right “—I’m surprised she didn’t mention I was up half the night giving the police my statement. I was a zombie most of the day Friday.” She didn’t bother to tell Stan the reason she’d lost so much sleep Thursday night had more to do with Cal and his marriage proposition.

“What did the police say?”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “The usual questions, told me to report anything new. Yada yada.”

“I don’t think you should be so blasе about this.”

She nearly laughed. Blasе? She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks, and her stomach felt permanently tied in knots. The prospect of marrying Cal didn’t help her state of mind, either.

“Do you think this Roach character is the guy who’s hassling you? Sending those letters?”

Libby shook her head. “No. At least, I don’t have any reason to think so.”

She thought of the menacing voice in the stairwell Thursday night and shuddered.

“I want you to at least have someone walk out with you to your car until this creep is caught.” Stan punctuated his demand by tapping her desk with his finger.

“You sound like a mother hen.”

“I’m a concerned friend. And I’m just talking about using a little caution.”

Libby raised her palms. “I know. You’re right. It’s just that…” Even that tiny precaution felt like giving up a piece of her independence.

After years of taking care of herself, depending on anyone else seemed a step backward. She sighed. “I won’t go out alone, Stan. I promise.”

“Good.” Stan paused and tipped his head in inquiry. “You seem…distracted. You sure you’re telling me everything about this stalker?”

Libby sighed deeply. “I’m fine. I’ve just…got a full plate.”

While she dug in her purse for an aspirin, Stan scooted aside a manila envelope with a pencil and tapped an incriminating blue one in her mail. “What have we here?”

Her breakfast threatened to come up. Slowly, she pulled in air, filling her lungs to loosen the tightness in her chest.

Deep breaths. Don’t lose control.

“Wait, Libby, don’t touch it. They might be able to lift some prints—”

But she was already ripping the letter open, scanning the familiar script. “You can run, but you can’t hide. Next time, I will get you. I will have my revenge.”

Tremors raced through her. Revenge. She hated to think what form that revenge might take. Would she have known this man’s revenge if Cal hadn’t been waiting in the garage on Thursday night?

I can protect you. His presence had protected her in the parking garage. Was it possible that marrying him would prove a sufficient deterrent to the creep trying to terrorize her?

She’d purposely downplayed her concerns about her stalker to Cal, knowing how he’d overreact. If Cal knew the full extent of the stalker’s threats, he’d smother her, never leave her side, try to usurp control. Having him around the house at night for added protection was one thing. Letting Cal take over her life with his overprotectiveness was quite another.

But had she gone too far minimizing the situation with the stalker? She was still worried about Ally, even if Cal felt he was all the protection the girl needed.

Stan grabbed her phone and started jabbing the keypad.

A chilling new thought slid through her mind as she listened to Stan report the new letter to the police. Marrying Cal might not deter her stalker.

It could provoke him.

“Act 894, huh?” Cal’s parole officer flipped through the file on his desk and scribbled notes as he talked.

“That’s right.” Cal sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair opposite the officer and tried not to let the nerves dancing in his stomach show.

As he read, the heavyset parole officer stroked a bushy white mustache, which hid most of his mouth except when he smiled. Fortunately for Cal, Henry Boucheron seemed to smile often. The officer’s good humor boded well for Cal’s relationship with the man who’d play such a large part in his life for the next two years.

“Lucky guy.” Boucheron rocked back in his seat and folded his hands over his barrel chest. “Not too many fellas who come through my office get the chance to erase their record, start fresh.” He flashed Cal one of his ready smiles. “Keep your nose clean, toe the line for the next five years—” he waggled a finger at Cal “—and your record will be expunged.”

Cal simply nodded, not bothering to tell the man his lawyer had already been over the details with him of what Act 894 entailed—a second chance to get his life on track, possibly even be reinstated at the fire department.

God, he wanted that clean record so badly he could taste it. It would be sweet, so sweet, to have his life back, his name cleared. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“The job with the road crew workin’ out all right?”

Tamping the frustration that rolled through him, Cal nodded. “It’s not firefighting, but it’s a job. I’m grateful to have it.”

His P.O. cocked his head and studied him through narrowed eyes. “I know a guy who volunteers for the Clairmont Fire Department just down the road. I believe they’re a bit shorthanded.”

Now the man had his full attention. Cal leaned forward. “A volunteer department?”