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Was the couple really running after her?
Why?
Was she just overreacting?
Or had Jonathan been right about the couple all along?
Kate reached the metal door that led back into the mall and started to second-guess herself. It was a coincidence. That was all. It was perfectly normal for a couple to eat and then go shopping. It was New York City, after all. She nodded to herself, trying to ignore the fear that had cropped up. She took a step back and looked toward the mouth of the alley.
Seconds later the woman and her green jacket came into view. Kate’s blood ran cold but her feet stayed warm. She grabbed the door handle, ready to fling it open and make a mad dash inside, when it swung wide so fast that she gave a little scream.
“Whoa, it’s me,” said Jonathan. He grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. Relief didn’t just pool within her, it flooded. “What’s wrong?”
Kate turned back to the mouth of the alley. The woman and her counterpart were nowhere to be seen.
“She was just there,” Kate whispered.
“Who?” Jonathan’s grip tightened. He moved her around behind him, looking where she had.
Maybe Kate had imagined it.
“Who?” he asked again. “Kathryn?”
“Call me Kate,” she whispered. She shook her head and looked up at him. Embarrassment at acting like such a carefree child washed over her. While trying to avoid the bodyguard and what she believed to be a service she didn’t need, she’d just managed to convince herself that she was in some kind of danger. She was creating fictional scenarios and problems for herself, most likely seeing more in the couple’s actions than was there. Still, the fear wasn’t fully leaving, either. Fear often led to loss of control.
And Kate didn’t like losing what little control she had.
She cleared her throat before continuing with a much stronger voice. “I never liked being called Kathryn.”
“Okay, Kate,” he started, brows pulling together. “Who did you see?”
“Never mind,” she said. She straightened her back and took a deep breath. There was no way she was going to let the bodyguard’s paranoia and her fear make her lose her focus. “Let’s head back,” she said, no longer wanting to explore.
Kate might be able to write off how the woman in the green coat had seemingly been looking for her as a coincidence, but she wasn’t about to take off from the bodyguard’s side again.
She was in denial, but not that much.
* * *
THE WALK BACK to the hotel was quiet. More than anything Jonathan wanted to reprimand his charge for running off, but after seeing her expression in the alley, he’d refrained. Whatever—whoever—she’d seen had spooked her. While seeing Jonathan had done the opposite.
She’d let out a deep sigh that had seemingly passed through her entire body at the sight of him. Seeing such poignant relief because of his proximity had affected him almost as much as the look of fear she’d harbored seconds before. The absurd amount of annoyance he’d felt for Kathryn—Kate—had taken a backseat to a resounding protectiveness that went beyond his usual job duties.
He suddenly not only needed to keep her safe, he wanted to do it, and to the best of his abilities.
The silence stretched past the sidewalk and up to their rooms, and when it finally broke, it wasn’t by much.
“I’m a little tired from traveling,” Kate muttered. “I’ll let you know if I want to leave.” There was an undercurrent to her words, but Jonathan couldn’t place the emotion creating it. Was it guilt at ditching him earlier? Or residual fear from whatever had happened when he hadn’t been right on her heels?
“Thank you,” was all he could say.
She nodded and opened her door. He waited until it was closed and the top latch was thrown in place. It made him wonder if she’d done it by habit, or if Kate was more worried than she was letting on.
Chapter Six (#ulink_0ad909b4-219e-5985-81e3-cfd7330b30cd)
Kate closed the top latch over the door and took a step back to look at it. She heard Jonathan’s door close.
You aren’t in any danger, she thought. Don’t let his overprotectiveness worry you.
But even as she gave herself the advice, she couldn’t help but feel an influx of nerves tighten her stomach.
“This is why I didn’t want a bodyguard,” she muttered, rubbing her stomach. “Now I think I have problems I don’t really have.”
Trying to forget about the man next door wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped.
Talking about his past, including Orion’s origin, had softened her otherwise harsh opinion of the man. He wasn’t some faceless hunk of meat sent to stalk her in hopes of keeping a potentially imaginary predator at bay. He was a man who had persevered through tragedy and had made a life of preventing it from repeating again.
And wasn’t that exactly what she was doing, too?
She tried to banish thoughts of the brooding dark-haired man and fell onto the bed. The jaunt right after eating a full meal plus traveling combined to make her eyelids unbelievably heavy as soon as she hit the pillow.
The feeling of exhaustion and the desire to give in to the comfort of the bed surprised her. Taking naps wasn’t something she was used to doing. In the last few years, if there was time to sleep, then that meant there was time to work. She’d rarely picked a nap over lab time. It was a choice that had turned into a habit.
A yawn tore itself from her lips and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was asleep.
This trip was already turning out much differently than she had originally planned.
* * *
THE ROOM WAS DARK.
Barely any light filtered in from behind the curtains. It was so dim Kate placed them as streetlights. Which meant her nap had stretched longer than she’d meant it to.
She rolled onto her back and yawned. Even though she’d been sleeping, she felt exhaustion still weighing her down. If she closed her eyes again, she was sure she’d sleep until morning.
So what had woken her up?
She tilted her head, listening.
A car horn blared outside, promptly followed by two more.
Ah, the sweet sounds of New York City, she thought.
She contemplated her next move, listening to a symphony of agitated drivers vent via their respective vehicles when another sound caught her ear.
Confused, she turned her head, peering into the dark for the culprit. It stopped.
Kate’s heartbeat began to pick up. She waited. There it was again.
Someone was in the hallway.
But what were they doing?
Curious—always curious—Kate got off the bed and made her way to the door. She peered through the peephole but was met with a cloudy circle with no help identifying who was outside. If there was anyone at all. She dropped back down to flat-footed and bit her bottom lip, waiting.
Seconds turned into minutes. Kate remained perfectly still until she was positive the sound, whatever it had been, had stopped. Slowly she unlatched the top lock and eased the door open a crack.
No one was there.
Cautious, Kate stepped out into the hallway. It was empty. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
See? That bodyguard has made you paranoid, she thought. No one is after you. No one even knows where you—
Her current thought bubble popped as she turned.
Taped to the door was a piece of paper with a single word written on it: Stop.
However, it wasn’t the message that made her throat catch.
Soaking the paper, blurring the one bold word, was blood. It ran off the paper and down the chipped paint of the door.
And this time, Kate didn’t think it was fake.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_6e86994f-0605-52b1-acfe-e5ef6142cb20)
Jonathan was barely out of the shower when a pounding sounded against his door. Adrenaline spiked at the urgency behind each knock. He dropped the towel to his waist and had the door open within seconds, water dripping off him and on to the carpet.
“I think it’s real,” Kate greeted. She was still wearing her clothes from earlier but the impression of a pillow lined the right side of her face while her hair was ruffled. Like he’d suspected, she had been sleeping for the last few hours. Her expression, however, was not in the least rested. Her brows were pushed together, a wrinkle between them, and she wore a frown so pronounced it seemed to drag down every line that made up her face.
“What?” Jonathan asked, an umbrella question to everything.
“This time I think it’s real,” she repeated.
“What’s real?” Jonathan moved closer, out of the doorway. He was trying to get an answer that made sense. What he got was Kate’s shaky hand pointing to her door.
And then he understood.
“It’s real blood,” he said, senses going on alert as he took in what was taped to her door. This one undoubtedly looked more menacing than the other letters she’d received.
“Yes. The coloring, the way it drips,” she added. “The way it smells.”
Jonathan didn’t need to sniff the dark crimson to agree with her assessment. When he was a teenager, he’d gotten into a bad fight with a kid in foster care over which bed was his. The kid had been older and bigger and had hit Jonathan so perfectly in the nose that he busted it on impact. For nearly an hour it had bled. The color and consistency matched what was on the door now.
That was real blood, all right.
“Did you see who put it here?” he asked. His head swiveled back and forth down the empty hallway.
“No. I heard something and when I came out here to look I found—” she motioned to the note, eyes wide “—that.”
Jonathan spotted the bubble cameras at each end of the hall.
“I bet those did,” he muttered. “Have you touched it in any way?”
Kate shook her head.
“I just saw it and then knocked on your door.”
“Good, come on.”
He motioned for her to go into his room. Her concerned look turned stubborn immediately.
“Shouldn’t we call someone?”
“We will, but inside the room,” he said, holding back a building tidal wave of frustration only she seemed to be able to produce within him. “If you haven’t noticed, the longest trail of blood hasn’t even made it to the carpet yet.”
Kate whipped her head back to the door and he knew when she saw what he was talking about.
“Which means—” Jonathan started before she cut him off.
“That it hasn’t been there long at all.”
“A plus for the scientist,” he said, waving her through again.
This time she followed instructions without resistance.
“Call the front desk and get the manager up here,” he said, following her in and immediately going to his still-packed bag. “Let them know that you’re also calling the cops.” Kate’s mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water. “Listen, there’s no doubt in my mind this letter is connected to the others you’ve been receiving. Which means his anger is escalating.” He held up his fingers to tick off his points as he made them. “One large ‘stop’ instead of a page filled with the word. Real blood, not fake. On your hotel-room door, states away from home. Even that stubborn brain of yours has to see that whoever is behind these letters is getting angrier.”
He watched as the urge to fight back—to be the one making complete sense—flashed across her face. Thankfully, it disappeared quickly. In its place was the face of a woman who finally agreed with him. She nodded.
“Which asks the question...what’s next?”
“Let’s make sure we never have to find out. Now call the front desk and, if you don’t want to see me naked, turn around.”
Jonathan saw her cheeks redden, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Someone had left a letter soaked in blood as a warning to Kate—a violent threat. Jonathan not only wanted to protect her from that person, he wanted to find and stop them, too.
He changed into a white T-shirt and covered it with a gray button-down and a pair of khakis that were a bit tighter than he liked thanks to his recently changed leg workouts. Once he put on his boots, though, he wasn’t thinking about how his clothes looked. His mind was already focused outside the hotel room.
“The front-desk guy, Jett, the one who checked you in, said a manager is on the way up,” Kate said, eyes still averted. “He sounded more than concerned.”
“Good, he should be.”
Jonathan grabbed his cell phone and rummaged through his bags until he found something he had hoped he wouldn’t even have to think about while on contract.
“Orion prides itself on always trying to use nonlethal means to protect our clients,” he said, walking to the other side of the bed where Kate sat with the phone. “But since you refused a second bodyguard and now you’re getting bloody letters on your door, I’m going to give you this and warn you to be careful.” Jonathan extended the small block of plastic to her. It was black with a strip of school-bus yellow across the grips on either side and about as heavy as it looked. “Do I need to show you how to use it?”
Kate’s eyes had widened when she realized what it was, but the surprise didn’t last long.
“I’m a woman who lives by herself,” she said, taking it carefully and placing it on the nightstand. “I know how to use a Taser, Mr. Bodyguard.”
