Look Behind You (Kendra Michaels #5)

“I’ll have to see what happens.” Olivia reached out and squeezed her hand. “You okay now, Kendra?”

It was like Olivia to be concerned about Kendra after all she’d been through herself today. “As long as you are. No problem.” She leaned back on the cushions. Like Olivia, she was trying to block the vision she was seeing of a shadowy man standing looking at her friend and deciding whether or not he’d let her live. “I only hope we’ll get a chance to eat that lasagna before Metcalf comes bounding up those stairs.”

But her hope was not fulfilled. Kendra had just set the table and put the lasagna on a platter when Metcalf and Gina arrived at the door.

“Lord, that smells good.” Gina was sniffing the air. “Garlic bread?”

“What else goes as well with lasagna?” Kendra asked as she let them in the condo. “I was hoping you’d take a little longer before you came to take her statement. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing suspicious,” Metcalf said. “Everything appears to belong to Olivia and is in perfect order.”

“Duh,” Olivia said. “I’m blind, Metcalf. If it wasn’t in order my life would be chaos.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” Metcalf said. “But then you’re gorgeous, and you don’t need anything to become you. Evidence Response is still looking, but we’re not hopeful.”

“I’m bringing out a security team at nine tonight. Are you going to let them do their work?”

“More than likely. As I said, we’re not finding much. But I need a statement from Olivia, and Griffin’s not going to take any excuses. I knew she was upset, and I wanted to give her time to settle down, but I have to—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Olivia said. “Stop waffling. Ask me your questions. But both of you sit down and have dinner first. I refuse to let good food get cold. There’s plenty, isn’t there, Kendra?”

Kendra shrugged. “More than enough.”

“Well, if you insist—” Metcalf said, his gaze on the lasagna. “And after dinner you should call Griffin, Kendra. He didn’t like the way we bolted out of the office after we got Olivia’s call. And when I called him back about Zachary’s message, he nearly blew a gasket.”

“I imagine he did.” She hadn’t thought about Griffin and didn’t want to do so now. But she knew Metcalf had probably covered for her to keep Griffin from bothering Olivia and her during a very stressful time. The longer she waited to call him, the longer Metcalf would be under the gun. “I’ll call him now. You all go on and eat.”

Metcalf frowned. “You could wait until—”

“Eat.” She took out her phone and headed for the living room. “This may not take long.”

Or then again, it might.

“It’s about time you called me,” Griffin said sourly when he picked up. “Metcalf said you were busy, but after all, I do head this investigation.”

“I wasn’t concerned about protocol or whether I was offending you. My old friend had just been exposed to a serial killer, and she was my number one priority. It’s a wonder she came out of this alive.”

“Yes, it is,” he said bluntly. “Reports have been coming in from the profilers in D.C., and they see no clemency in this killer’s behavior. He was far more likely to butcher Olivia to make a statement than to let her go. We’re generating this report to the investigators who are coming here to help work this case. We need her input.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Olivia will be only too glad to be a guinea pig for them to study. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t take them apart one by one.”

“Then it’s your responsibility to make her see that she has to be helpful if she wants this man captured.”

She tried to hold onto her temper. “I have no responsibility as far as your dream team is concerned, Griffin. Your responsibility is to keep Olivia alive and well. That’s my responsibility also. Don’t drown her in red tape or do anything that threatens her in any way just to give your team a project.”

“We’re trying to do just the opposite, Kendra,” he said soothingly. “I know she’s very close to you. But there’s something intrinsically valuable in a team effort.”

Maybe he actually believed that, she thought wearily. “Then have your team find a way to tell us what he’s going to do next. Because I would never have called this one in a hundred years.”

“Neither would I,” Griffin said. “It blew us out of the water.”

“We just have to keep Olivia safe. And my mother, have you arranged protection for my mother?”

“The minute Metcalf told me that Olivia’s threat was real and credible. Your mother’s fine, we’ll keep her that way.”

“Good. Keeping everyone safe is the primary thing we have to do now.”

Silence. “That’s not exactly true, Kendra. It’s important, but it’s not primary.”

She stiffened. “What are you saying?”

“You’re not thinking of anyone but Olivia. It’s very natural but you have to consider why Zachary came to Olivia. He wanted to get to you, Kendra. He made that very clear. Why do you think he did that?”

“I have no idea. How could I? The man is insane and I know nothing about him. Maybe he picked my name out of the phone book.”

“That’s not what he said. He said he’d been searching. Perhaps we should investigate just what he meant. It could either be a threat … or an opportunity.”

“You investigate it. Right now, I’m not thinking about me, I’m thinking about ways to keep him away from the people I care about.”

“And you’re fighting desperately not to realize that I’m right and you’re wrong. You don’t want to see it. The importance of the entire scenario is the fact that you’re right in the middle and Zachary wants to keep you there.” He went on quickly. “You’re upset, and I’ll cut you some slack, but I’ll keep coming back to you. I have to do it, Kendra.” He cut the connection.

Damn him, he was right. She didn’t want to think about how Zachary’s message was going to affect her, because he’d already shown her how vulnerable she was, how vulnerable everyone who touched her was going to be. But she had to think about it, because Zachary had made a move she couldn’t ignore.

But not right now. She had to take a little time to make certain he couldn’t damage the people she cared about. It was not going to be easy, because she suddenly realized that she was not an island. Her first thought had been for Olivia and her mother, but Zachary might not choose them. She had other friends whom it would hurt her to lose. He might go farther afield because he’d think she wouldn’t expect it.

Perhaps that was what he’d intended, keep her busy and frantic while he made his next move. And he was succeeding, just thinking about what he might do was causing her heart to pound and her palms to sweat.

She couldn’t allow him to do that to her.

All right, one step at a time.

Protect her assets and then use her mind instead of her emotions. Circle the wagons and keep the savage away. Don’t let her mother and Olivia realize how scared she was or they’d insist on trying to rush to guard her.