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“Scarlett,” Cliff said into the phone. “Are you all right?” Each word was delivered with an icy undertone.
There was a long, awkward pause. Ruby half expected her sister to hang up. No matter. Cliff knew Scarlett was alive and well. That had been the whole purpose for the call in the first place.
Or, did he have an ulterior motive? He might have insisted Ruby call her sister in order to confirm the friend was indeed a boyfriend. Maybe he was retaliating by embarrassing both Scarlett and Ruby.
Anger prompted her to blurt out, “He knows about us. He saw my tattoo.”
The pause that followed was considerably shorter. “I’m sorry, Cliff,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I’d have told you, but everything happened so fast.”
“Are you all right?” he repeated.
“I’m great.” She sighed. “Look, maybe we can talk about this when I have more time. Then, I can explain.”
“Not necessary.” Turning on his heels, he snatched his half-finished coffee off the table and carried it to the sink where he rinsed out the mug.
Ruby removed the phone from speaker before continuing the conversation with her sister.
“For crying out loud, Scarlett, why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“I thought it was over.”
“You thought?”
“All right, I wanted it to be over. When Demitri contacted me last week, I blew Cliff off. Sort of.”
“Sort of? Really?”
“I avoided him. Didn’t return his calls. I figured he’d get the message.”
“He obviously didn’t. He brought you flowers.”
“Oh.”
“You should have leveled with him.” Ruby found it difficult to keep the disappointment from her voice. Her sister thought first of herself, then others.
“How’s he doing?”
Now she suddenly cared?
“I have no idea.” Ruby stared at Cliff’s rigid back, then at the flowers on the table, and her heart cried a little for him.
“How are you doing?” Scarlett asked.
“Well enough, all things considered.” She returned to the subject of Cliff. “Detective James says Sheriff Dempsey is someone I can trust. A straight-up guy.”
“He is. And he’s really sweet. If not for Demitri, I’d still be going out with him.”
Second choice. Ruby decided to spare Cliff that tidbit of info.
“He’s gorgeous, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Scarlett continued, talking more to herself than to Ruby. “And I liked the attention. Demitri was being his typical indifferent self, and I needed a distraction.”
Ruby gnashed her teeth together in frustration. How many times would her sister keep returning to that loser before she wised up?
The “gorgeous” guy in question stood at the sink, staring out the window, the muscles in his neck corded with tension.
Whatever Ruby did next, stay or leave, was partially up to him. She wasn’t reassured. There was nothing yielding or compassionate about him as far as she could tell. Even his kiss had been hard. Void of emotion. She was nothing more to him than a lead in a possible crime.
And he was definitely not the person in whose hands she cared to place her fate.
A click alerted her there was a call waiting. “I have to go,” she told Scarlett. “Someone’s buzzing in.”
“Sorry about Cliff.”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”
“Call me later.”
“I will.” Ruby checked the display, aware of Cliff’s intense scrutiny. The incoming number wasn’t one she recognized.
“Who is it?” he demanded.
“I’m not sure.” Her new number was only a few days old.
Normally, she’d let the call go directly to voice mail. If it was important, they’d leave a message. But Cliff’s intimidating presence threw her off balance.
She swiped her finger across the phone’s screen, accepting the call. “Hello.”
“Hey, baby. Miss me?”
Terror froze her bones. For a nanosecond. Then, fury took its place, just like it had that night in her condo. A fury that had ultimately saved her life.
“How did you get this number?” she rasped.
“You should know you can’t hide from me forever. I’ll always find you.”
Her arm shook so violently, the phone started to slip. Using both hands, she held it in front of her mouth and screamed into the receiver, “Leave me alone!”
Cliff materialized at her side. Grabbing the phone from her, he barked, “Who is this?” Empty silence answered him, and the display returned to the home screen.
Crowley had hung up.
Ruby’s legs went out from under her, and she leaned against the nearest solid object, which happened to be Cliff.
* * *
“HERE, SIT.” CLIFF LOWERED Ruby into a seat at the table, then fetched her a bottle of water from the fridge. He held it to her mouth. “Drink this.”
She complied, and the water seemed to restore her strength. “The bastard,” she muttered.
Cliff couldn’t agree more.
She pressed her palms to her cheeks. “I don’t understand. How did he find me? I changed my number three days ago.”
“He may not have found you, only your new number. Let’s assume for the moment you’re still safe.”
“I’m not assuming anything.” Her hands fell, and she lifted her gaze to him. Tears shone in her eyes, making them large and luminous. “That’s what got me in trouble in the first place. I assumed his creepy attention was a harmless crush. When he started cornering me at work and outside my condo building, I assumed complaining to my manager would resolve the problem. I also assumed I was safe inside my own home.”
“Detective James said you fought him off.”
“I never guessed for one second anyone could make it past the locks on my door or my security system.”
“It’s easier than you think.”
“He came out of nowhere and grabbed me.” Her hand drifted to her throat. “I couldn’t breathe. Felt myself passing out. Then something snapped inside me. I got angry. How dare he intrude into my home! Violate me. I drove the heel of my stiletto into the top of his foot. Luckily, he was wearing shorts and sandals and my aim was good. He loosened his grip.”
“You ran?”
“That would have been the smart thing to do.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Instead, I turned and kicked him square in the center of his man parts.”
Cliff kept a straight face. Inside, he cringed, thinking of her pointed-toe shoe. Crowley deserved no less.
“He sank to his knees. That’s when I ran into the hall as fast as I could. I went from door to door, screaming at the top of my lungs and ringing bells.”
“You were brave to take him on.”
“I was stupid. He could have killed me. I’m lucky he didn’t.”
“What did he do?”
“Got the hell out of there. By then, two or three of my neighbors had called 9-1-1. Another one of them took me inside her place to wait for the police. When Detective James arrived, I ID’d Crowley. They picked him up at his home a short while later. He denied attacking me, of course. But my neighbor saw his face when he pushed past her and was able to pick him out of a lineup. And then there was the injury to his foot.”
Ruby shuddered.
Cliff put a hand on her shoulder. She’d been through a lot. He didn’t tell her that this was only the beginning. A long road lay ahead of her. Opening the back of her phone, he removed the battery and SIM card.
“What are you doing?”
“Disabling your phone so he can’t trace the signal. Don’t reassemble it whatever you do.” He set the phone on the table near her elbow.
She glared at the components as if they were Crowley himself. “I shouldn’t be surprised he found my number. He learned everything else about me. My schedule at work. My friends. My route home.”
“Is he connected?” In Cliff’s experience, only someone with extensive resources or a computer hacker could find a newly issued cell-phone number.
“The mob? No. But his father’s a congressman. The family is as rich as Midas.”
Money. That explained a lot. Cliff was more anxious than ever to read the reports.
“Finish your water.” He pushed the bottle toward her.
She’d stopped trembling but was white as a ghost. He probably should have been easier on her. She didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his anger at her sister.
Anger or hurt?
Fine, he’d admit it. Scarlett dumping him for an old boyfriend had dented his ego. Which beat the heck out of broken heart, he supposed. If anything, Cliff had dodged a bullet. He should be grateful to the slob.
Removing his phone from his belt, he dialed the station.
“Who are you calling?”
“Detective James.”
Ruby nodded resignedly. She sat finishing her water while Cliff was put through a second time to the LVMPD. Detective James expressed appropriate concern.
“Can you post a watch on her?” he asked.
“Consider it done.”
At his remark, Ruby arched her brows.
Lovely brows, he observed. Elegant and graceful.
Cliff warned himself to stay strong. Women in trouble were a weakness of his and had landed him into trouble before.
“She needs to pull off this switch with her sister,” Detective James said. “Crowley’s one sly pervert, and he’s not the kind to give up easily, as his previous record shows.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
Cliff finished his conversation with the detective, promising to check in with the man on a daily basis. For his part, Detective James would bring Crowley into the station for another face-to-face. There’d be repercussions for him violating the order of protection.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Cliff took the seat next to Ruby. “Detective James agrees with me that while Crowley found your number, he has no idea you’re in Sweetheart.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Which is why James is putting a tail on Crowley. In the meantime, we’re going to keep pretending you’re Scarlett. It makes the best sense. He’s after you, not her.”
“Forget it. Obviously I’m no good at pretending to be Scarlett. I didn’t fool you for even five minutes.”
“I’ll help you pull it off. On two conditions.”
She sent him a look.
“First, you need a new cell phone. Better yet, I’ll buy it for you. A disposable one. The only people you give the number to are your sister, Detective James, me and Sam.”
“Scarlett’s boss?”
“He and Annie need to be included.”
“They’ll fire Scarlett.”
