“Not this time. Janice is working the monitors and noticed a car—black sedan—slowly driving by Ms. Connelly’s place twice tonight. At first we assumed it was an unmarked police car, but now we aren’t so sure. We’re waiting for someone from police headquarters to call us back.”
The hairs on the back of Striker’s neck stood up. “Call me if anyone sees that car again or if anything else looks suspicious.”
“Will do.”
Striker ended the call. He realized Margo was studying him. She hadn’t even pretended not to eavesdrop. “Now, Margo, where were we? Oh yeah, you were about to tell me just what that guy did to scare you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It placed too much damn emphasis on her breasts. And they were breasts he recalled his chest rubbing against whenever they kissed.
“What did Stonewall want? What’s going on?”
Leaning in the doorway, he placed his arms across his chest as well. “If you don’t answer my question, I won’t answer yours.”
She glared at him. “Play your games by yourself, Striker. Move out the way so I can go upstairs.”
He was about to move out of her way when his cell phone went off. It was Stonewall again. “You got something?”
“Yes. I just heard from police headquarters and that car wasn’t one of theirs or the feds. I need you to kill all the lights in the house for at least an hour. We want to see if that black sedan does another drive-by. Someone might be checking to see if anyone’s awake.”
“Okay.”
He hung up the phone and looked at Margo. There was no way he could avoid telling her what was going on now. He saw the way her eyes widened as he relayed Stonewall’s message and could all but hear her heart thumping in her chest. “Who do they think it is?”
“They aren’t sure. Stonewall is on it, so don’t worry about a thing.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not worried.”
Yes, you are, he thought and decided not to point out how she’d begun fidgeting with the hem of her top and showing a little bit of skin, which he didn’t mind seeing. “We need to turn off all the lights for a while. And it will be best if we stay down here instead of going upstairs.”
When he reached for the light switch, she intercepted and then snatched her hand back. He figured she’d felt the same tingling sensation that he had when they’d touched. “What did you do that for?” he asked her, frowning.
“Why are you turning off the lights down here? I thought you said we needed to stay down here. Why not go up the stairs and turn those lights off first?”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans to deflect the tingling sensation he still felt. “If someone is watching the house, from the outside it will appear as if we’ve gone to bed for the night when we turn the lights off on the first floor and then upstairs. We’ll use the flashlight on our cell phones to come back down here and sit for a while.”
“Sit?”
“Yes, sit and talk. You still need to tell me what that guy did.”
“I’m not telling you anything, Striker.”
She followed him out the room and he decided not to argue with her. He would get the information out of her no matter what it took.
*
THE HOUSE WAS completely dark as if they were tucked away in bed. The only light was from one of the lampposts that lined the street, its soft illumination coming through the window.
Margo was sitting on the love seat, and Striker was stretched out on the sofa. So far he hadn’t brought up Scott, and she was grateful for that. But she had to assume he would at some point. He’d been too adamant earlier about finding out. She had put the episode behind her and didn’t want to talk about it again. Like she’d told him, she had handled it. And regardless of what Scott thought, there could never be anything between them again. Some men just didn’t know when to let go, and she was finding out that Scott was one of those types.
Margo heard Striker ease up on the sofa into a sitting position. “Ready to talk?”
She rolled her eyes. “I have nothing to say.”
“I need to know what that guy did, Margo.”
She wanted to scoff at those words but couldn’t. There was something in Striker’s voice, she couldn’t say exactly what, that seized her and wriggled through her defenses in a way she wasn’t prepared for. “Why? So you can tell my uncle?”
“No, I won’t tell your uncle unless I feel there is a security need for me to do so.”
“I told you I handled it.”
“But you should not have had to.”
That much was true. But Scott had underestimated her. He hadn’t really known her. He still didn’t know her. “I’m a big girl, Striker. I can take care of myself.” Except in a situation like this, she thought, when there’s a crazy man out there who wants me dead.
“What did he do? Tell me.” He swallowed. “Please.”
That last word was softly spoken, but she heard it whether he’d wanted her to or not. There was a deep sense of care and concern in that single word. If their roles were reversed, she knew she’d be just as insistent because she would care as well.
“Okay, I’ll tell you.” She paused a moment to collect her thoughts, to recall memories she’d rather leave in the past. But she was bringing them into the present for him. “Scott had been trying to get me to move in with him for a while, and I kept refusing. He couldn’t understand why, since he figured it would save me a ton of money in the long run. On the other hand, I couldn’t understand why he would want me to share space with him when he wasn’t paying much attention to me anyway. Eventually I realized it was all about control. He wanted me to be the dependent little woman who needed him.”
She paused a moment and then said, “I began getting phone calls in the middle of the night.” Similar to the one I got last week, she thought. “The person wouldn’t say anything, but I knew he was there. I could hear him breathing.”
“Did you report it to the police?”
“Yes, but all they did was file a report and tell me to get my number changed. I did. I thought that would be the end of it. But that wasn’t the case.”
“What happened next?”
She closed her eyes. To some it might have been a harmless prank, but she hadn’t seen it that way. “Scott must have told the guy how terrified I was of snakes, so he put several in my car. They weren’t poisonous, but I had no way of knowing that. The guy claimed the plan was for me to see one of them the minute I opened the door. I didn’t and had driven a block when all those snakes seemed to come out of nowhere.”
Margo doubted that she would ever forget that day. “I freaked out, nearly hit a post and jumped a curb before bringing my car to a stop and rushing out. Luckily there hadn’t been much traffic on the road. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if there was.”
“How did you find out who was behind it?” She could tell Striker was trying to hold back his anger.
“My college roommate, Sharon, whose wedding gown I made, is married to an FBI agent. As a favor, Walter checked out a few things after the local police claimed they had more serious crimes to investigate. It was easy enough to trace who’d recently purchased that many snakes. When Walter paid Freddie Siskin a visit, he confessed. Said he was a college friend of Scott’s and was doing him a favor by scaring me. Scott claimed he hadn’t known about the snakes, and that all Freddie was supposed to do was make those phone calls.”
“You knew Siskin?”
“No, never met him. I still haven’t met him. I let Walter and my attorney handle everything. I had no desire to see a man who could be so despicable.”
“And you didn’t press charges?” Striker’s tone was furious.
“No. Scott agreed to pay for the damage to my car. Since there were no injuries, I didn’t get the police involved. I just wanted Scott out of my life. He wanted to make it up to me, but I refused to let him. Then I decided it was time to move home, which I had been thinking of doing anyway.”
Striker was quiet for a minute, and then he said, “I hope I never get the chance to meet Scott Dylan.”
Even with the dim light shining through the window, she could see the tightness of his jaw. “Why?”
His dark eyes stared at her. “Because if I ever do, I plan to pulverize his ass.”