The Bodyguard: Protecting Plain Jane

Charlotte tilted her head to find a curiously indulgent smile waiting for her. “What does that mean?”

“In some ways, every time I run into you, it’s like high school all over again. You make me feel like I have to prove something, and I haven’t had to prove anything to anyone for a long time.”

“You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Yeah, I do. You still don’t trust me.”

Well, he’d certainly kept his word about one thing. He didn’t lie. So they both had things they wanted to change. Good luck with that. “If we were in high school, I’d be the four-eyed brainiac in college-prep classes and you’d be the resident bad boy in shop or auto mechanics. Our paths would never cross.”

Her smile faded along with his. But then something warm and mischievous colored his eyes. Before she could speculate on the change, he slid his finger and thumb beneath her chin and tipped it up another notch. He caught her startled gasp beneath his lips and pressed his mouth against hers. The kiss was tender, warm, brief.

He paused for a moment, his breath whispering against her skin. Then he tunneled his fingers into the curls at her nape, dipped his head and kissed her again. More firmly this time—a little less gentle, a little more possessive. He caught her bottom lip between both of his and drew his tongue along the curve, triggering a moist arrow of heat that made her fingers latch on to his biceps and her insides go liquid. Her lips pouted out, chasing his, foolishly wanting more, when he pulled away. Trip grinned. “Then I’m glad we’re not in high school.”

She didn’t deserve that grin, wasn’t sure she could even remember the last time a man had kissed her—didn’t think a grown man as sexy and strong as Trip ever had. Charlotte’s brain was spinning with questions, and she felt a little too flustered to speak coherently at the moment.

Fortunately, Trip Jones had no trouble with words or kisses or flaky plain Janes with a quirk for every day of the week. He scooted her to one side and opened the door. “Lock this behind me. And remember, you haven’t seen the last of me yet. I’ve got your back.”

She pushed the door shut after he stepped into the hallway, then scrambled the code on the keypad to lock it securely. She turned and leaned back against the door, drawing in a weary, thoughtful breath. Could she really conquer her phobias the way Trip had apparently conquered his reading disorder? Could she stand up to a killer who seemed to want to literally scare her to death? Could she ever be normal enough to act on this unexpected bond she was building with Trip?

I’ve got your back.

Charlotte knew that Trip believed that promise.

But could she?

THE MAN RAN HIS FINGERS around the tiny circular dent on the tailgate of the black pickup truck, relying on the steady fall of rain to wash away any prints he might leave behind.

The shot wasn’t terribly accurate if the prankster had been aiming for Charlotte. The scattershot approach was definitely too messy for his tastes. The randomness of firing into a crowd left entirely too much to chance.

He flipped up his collar and walked around the truck that was still steaming from the heat of the engine and counted one, two, at least three or four shots, judging by the shattered glass sitting in a puddle on the driver’s seat. He’d wager the press had gotten some interesting pictures for the evening news, although he doubted if Charlotte would ever see them or the headlines surrounding the day’s events. Jackson Mayweather and all his money would see to that.

So what was the advantage to his unknown and unwanted accomplice’s attempt when his call and missive at the cemetery had already produced the desired results of tearing away at Charlotte Mayweather’s fragile sense of security?

Straightening, he slowly turned 360 degrees, squinting into the rain as if the other man was still out there. Who the hell would shoot at her?

He had his plan carefully mapped out. One step at a time. Take away her safety net of familiar faces and staid routines. Make the phone calls, send the notes. Make her face everything she feared—loud noises, strangers, crowds, drugs, violence, isolation—everything that had been in the papers about her kidnapping. And then he’d add death to her story.

On his terms. In his own good time.

He buried his hands in his pockets and chuckled, the sound swallowed up by the storm. There was something extraordinarily delightful in watching Charlotte screaming like a crazy woman behind the wheel of a truck as she barreled through the gates of her own home.

Crazy was good. Crazy was justice.

But he wanted the satisfaction of showing Miss Brainiac that she was no better than him. Telling him no. Treating him like the hired help. Ignoring the gallantry she didn’t deserve.

She was his to destroy.

No one else’s.

Now to get out of the damn rain and get back to work.

Chapter Seven

Trip cradled the china cup that was far too delicate for his fingers in his open palm, and settled for smelling the coffee he’d been served this morning. A good ten years had passed since he’d been summoned like a rookie being called on the carpet for blowing an arrest. And his morning briefings had never taken place at a swanky, old-money estate where this dining room alone was as big as his entire apartment.

But Captain Cutler had okayed it—had encouraged Trip to answer Jackson Mayweather’s invitation to breakfast, especially if the serial killer who’d targeted Alex Taylor’s fiancée last year was now back in the picture and had set his sights on Charlotte. SWAT Team One had a personal connection to this case. The captain had told Trip that as long as there was a threat to someone the team cared about, then the team itself was at risk. If he had an in to keep tabs on the investigation, then use it. Let Alex hole up with Audrey on twenty-four-hour protection detail while Sergeant Delgado, Randy Murdock and Captain Cutler held down the fort at KCPD headquarters. Trip was here amongst the businessmen and lawyers and Fourth Precinct detectives to represent the interests of the team.

Besides, the scenery here was more interesting than any morning roll call meeting or team briefing. And he wasn’t talking about the suits and ties seated around one end of the long dining room table.

Trip leaned against the oak frame beside a bank of windows and peeked through the sheers into a tiny square of lawn surrounded by a tall fence covered in ivy. It had no gate he could see and was only accessible from an entrance in the back of the house itself. It was separate from the rest of the detailed landscaping on the grounds, nothing but grass and a small patio. And he guessed it served one purpose.

Max, an energetic, one-eared mix of shepherd and terrier, jumped into Charlotte’s arms. The two went down on the slick wet grass and rolled, and she came up laughing.

For one surreal moment, he thought the rare glimpse of sunshine between storm fronts was playing tricks on his eyes. Charlotte Mayweather laughing, unguarded—her mouth open and her toffee-colored curls bouncing around her head—stirred something warm and appreciative in his blood. Made him think of that unexpected urge he’d had to kiss her yesterday—and the even stranger sense of territorial rightness that had flowed through his veins when she’d kissed him back.

Maybe some ancient magic had gotten inside him when she’d cut him with that old sword. Because there was something about all the crazy that was Charlotte Mayweather that kept getting under his skin.

Maybe it was the glimpses of the woman she was meant to be, like the one he saw now, surrounded by fresh air and her precious pooch, that intrigued him. She was wearing bright red rain boots and didn’t seem to care a lick that she had mud and grass stains splashed on her bottom and the elbows of her red-and-gold-striped rugby shirt. Her jeans skimmed over her healthy curves nicely, and other than the funky earrings that glistened like gold Aztec sunbursts, she looked more like an outdoorsy kind of woman than a locked-up recluse—a woman better suited to running with Max in a dog park, traipsing through archaeological ruins or camping out in a tent with him, a campfire and one sleeping bag.

Time out, big guy. One sleeping bag? So when exactly did that idea pop into his head? The woman had forced him to get a tetanus shot, put his truck in the shop and wounded his pride. So why was his body humming with the idea of discovering what other hidden treasures Charlotte possessed?

He had to be honest with himself and admit that the team wasn’t the only reason he’d agreed to come this morning. He still had something to prove to Charlotte, and he wasn’t giving up on getting her to believe that he was one of the good guys until she stopped looking at him with those big gray eyes as though he was part of the nightmares that made her so afraid of the world beyond that fence.

Detective Montgomery set his cup in his saucer and expressed his frustration with Jackson Mayweather’s version of cooperation. “I would have preferred to interview your daughter yesterday at the cemetery, or here after the shooting. Eighteen hours after the event, memories get sketchy, clues disappear and so do my suspects.”

Jackson leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. “If you want to question Charlotte, you’ll do it here, with my lawyer and me present, or not at all.”

Trip tuned back in to the conversation, guessing for a moment that no one had bothered to tell Charlotte about this meeting of the minds that seemed fixated on using her to solve the Rich Girl Killer case. And then he decided that Charlotte was too observant a woman to miss the vehicles lined up in front of her home, and suspected she was out there throwing a tennis ball for Max and muddying up her clothes in an effort to hide from any possible contact with the men in this room.

Including him?

Now there was an irritating thought.

Jackson Mayweather’s svelte blonde wife, Laura, signaled to the attendant waiting by the breakfast buffet to circle the table with the coffeepot again. “You keep talking about Charlotte. What are you doing about protecting my Bailey? She’s a rich girl, too.”

Jackson reached across the corner of the table and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve stepped up security here. I’m paying Quinn Gallagher’s security company for a round-the-clock physical presence on the estate.”

“That protects Charlotte—she’s a homebody.”

Trip shook off the attendant’s offer to heat up his full cup of coffee. “She goes to work at the museum, doesn’t she?”

“When it’s closed.” Laura Austin-Mayweather dismissed Trip’s question as easily as she dismissed the servant. Her focus was on whatever her husband had to say. “What about when Bailey has a party to attend? Or is out on a date?”

Jackson patted her hand as he pulled away. “I’ll assign one of the guards to follow her 24/7.”

Trip crossed to the table and set his cup and saucer down. “Are you making the same arrangements for Charlotte?”

With a gesture to an empty chair, Jackson asked him to sit. “That’s why I invited you to this meeting, son. You and I need to have a discussion.”

“I’m listening.” Trip rested one hand on the back of a chair and the other near his badge on his utility belt, opting to stand. He didn’t fault Mrs. Mayweather for worrying about her daughter’s safety, but he had a feeling the psychological and physical attacks on Charlotte were specifically for Charlotte, and that no one else in this family was in any real danger. He had a feeling Jackson Mayweather sensed that as well, but was humoring his wife.

But Spencer Montgomery wasn’t in the mood to humor anybody. He reached inside the pocket of his suit coat. “My job isn’t security. It’s solving these murders. I would think getting a serial killer off the streets would make everyone feel safer. Now if you and your lawyer will allow me to resume my interview? Even secondhand observations might be helpful.” He set a clear plastic evidence bag holding the cell phone Trip had taken off Bud Preston on the table. “Can anyone here tell me how this phone got into Miss Mayweather’s hands? From what I understand, she doesn’t go shopping for such things.”

Trip scanned the men and woman at the table right along with Detective Montgomery. Mrs. Mayweather looked to her husband, who looked to his stepson, Kyle, whose gaze fixed on the man with the glasses sitting across the table from him.

Jackson seemed displeased with the silence. “As soon as Charlotte told me she wanted to attend Richard’s funeral service, I realized she’d need a new phone to keep in contact with me.”

The brown-haired man with the wire-framed glasses dabbed his napkin against his lips and cleared his throat. Jeffrey Beecher was here representing the event staff that had worked on the estate and at the cemetery. “You hired our company to make sure everything ran smoothly yesterday. Maintaining communication between your family and our staff at Mt. Washington and here was key to a successful day. So I took the liberty of providing phones for each family member.”

Detective Montgomery made the notation in his notebook. “Who had access to the numbers besides you?”

“The clerk at the phone company. Anyone with access to their database.”

“I’m talking about anyone here at the house—before the funeral.”

Jeffrey returned Kyle’s pointed glare, apparently willing to share information, but not to take blame. “Mr. Austin told me to get five phones that he could hand out before everyone left for the cemetery. I set them on the credenza in the foyer, like you asked.”

Jackson tossed his napkin on the table and faced his stepson. “Kyle, I asked you to get that new number for Charlotte—to help your sister. She trusts the family.”

“I had things to do yesterday, Jackson. Meetings. The hired help was right there, willing to do whatever we needed. I delegated.”

Trip cared less about the family dynamics and more about the obvious lapse in security. “So the phones were sitting there all morning. Anyone in this house could have gotten the number and called her with the threat—family, regular staff, event staff, guests.”

Jackson drummed his fist on the table. “You will not accuse my family of any wrongdoing. We’re the victims here.”

No, Charlotte and Richard Eames were the only victims in this house. “Sir, with all due respect, you asked me here this morning to report everything that happened while I was with your daughter. You wanted someone from the outside with no connection to your family to share his observations. You must have some suspicions.”

“I asked you here because you’re a SWAT cop, as finely trained as any elite military officer.”

Kyle snickered into his coffee cup. “He called you because you’re the only man with a gun and a badge that she’s let close enough to do her any good these past ten years.”

“Kyle,” Laura chided her son.

He swallowed the last drop and set down his cup. “The last man she trusted enough to protect her outside this house was murdered. I can see why he’d rather have this Robocop than an old man around to look after her.”

Trip’s hand fisted around the top rung of the chair. Thank goodness Charlotte wasn’t here to hear that cold bit of compassion. “Well, then—speaking as a representative of Charlotte’s best interests—her stalker is someone who’s been in this house, right under your nose. Now I don’t know if it’s the same guy as the Rich Girl Killer, but I do know she’s not safe here. It’s an illusion you can’t keep letting her live with.”

“My daughter is very fragile.”

“Thank you.” Kyle threw up his hands as if he’d just scored a point. “I’ve been trying to tell you that Char’s eccentricities border on mental instability.”

“You’re not helping, Kyle.”

“I’m the one watching your money, Jackson. She’s the one who’s giving it away like candy.”

“Her charities give her a connection to the outside world. Writing a check isn’t the same as being strong enough to face that world.”

The woman Trip had seen wrestling with the dog, the woman who’d come at him with a sword and a rebel yell, wasn’t fragile. And the woman he’d kissed certainly wasn’t mentally unstable. “Give your daughter some credit, Mayweather. It’s not the way I would have done it, but she was resourceful enough to save herself yesterday, and that night your chauffeur was killed.”

Spencer Montgomery smoothed his tie and stood. “The Rich Girl Killer doesn’t shoot his victims in the middle of traffic jams.”

“Somebody was shooting yesterday.” Trip reminded him, “He worked with gang members last year when he was going after Audrey Kline. Maybe he has another ally this time.”

“The RGK is hands-on.” The detective continued to quote his by-the-book profile of the man he was hunting. “His failure with Miss Kline is fueling his pursuit of Charlotte. He likes to terrorize, torture and strangle. He’s methodical and precise—very much an in-your-face kind of killer. I believe he suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and perceives that these wealthy young women have wronged him somehow. He’s exacting punishment. He’s coming. He can’t help himself.”

Laura Austin-Mayweather’s shocked gasp pretty much summed up the growing tension in the room. These people were talking about ongoing cases and estate security, placing blame and deflecting accusations. He was talking about one woman. “He’s already here. If you’re so smart, Montgomery, tell me—how do you plan to identify your killer and catch him before he succeeds in his quest?”

The detective’s light-colored eyes barely blinked. He’d be a tough one to go up against in a poker game. “We were misled by the gang involvement when he went after Miss Kline. But we know how he works now. We set up twenty-four-hour surveillance on Miss Mayweather, tap her phones and the security cameras here. Any time he calls we need to keep him talking as long as possible to help us pinpoint a location, or get some clue to his identity. The next time he delivers a message or tries to approach her, in any disguise, we’ll be ready.”

“That’s your plan? First, she’s too fragile, and now you’re using Charlotte as bait?”

“I hope that we can assemble evidence from enough of these stalking incidents to piece together their source— where he’s getting his inside information on these women. We find the common link and we can zero in on him.”

Trip scrubbed his hand over his jaw, not believing what he was hearing. “So you’re hoping this bastard terrorizes Charlotte long enough before killing her so that you can find your answers?”

“It’s a difficult choice, but I’ll be saving lives in the long run.”

“You’re not saving hers.” Trip turned to Jackson. “And you support this idiotic idea?”

“If we don’t find a way to catch him, my daughter will die—if not by his hand, then by driving her mad. I nearly lost her once—when she came back from those kidnappers, she was broken. I won’t let that happen again.”

Just a few long strides took Trip around the table and put him in Montgomery’s face. “How do you protect Charlotte when your unsub is living or working or regularly visiting in the same house where she lives? She has a fear of strangers. But how does she identify the enemy when all of your suspects are people she knows? How do you? She’ll be dead in her locked-up room before you figure it out.”

The huffing noise of a panting dog made Trip’s heart sink.

He spotted the red glasses and muddy jeans as soon as Charlotte appeared in the archway to the dining room. Max sat beside her, his leash held in a white-knuckled grip. She’d heard every word out of his big, stupid mouth. “Interesting plan. Maybe someone should ask me first.”

“AND YOU WONDER WHY I have trust issues. Now I can’t even mourn in peace.”

Trip stood at the bathroom door watching Charlotte, leaning over the edge of the tub, rinsing the last of the mud and suds from Max’s fur. Her bottom bobbed up and down as she moved, and he rolled his eyes away so he could concentrate on the discussion and not the distraction of all those curves emphasized by her clingy wet clothes. The woman really did have a seriously sweet figure, and a surprisingly sharp tongue for someone the rest of the world considered an introvert.

“I can’t believe it, all of you eating breakfast, plotting ways to intensify my nightmare or even get me killed.”

“I was the one defending you in there.”

She shut off the water and warned Max to stay put. “Because I’m too incompetent to defend myself?”

“Because you weren’t there.” Trip picked up one of the towels stacked on the toilet lid and handed it to her. She wrapped the towel around Max and rocked back on her heels as the dog climbed out of the tub. “Personally, I think Montgomery’s plan sucks. There has to be more investigating he can do, more suspects he can bring in, more clues he can uncover before resorting to surveilling you and hoping something new breaks on the case.”

Max licked her face while she toweled him dry—the perfect excuse for not making eye contact with him, the perfect barrier for keeping Trip at a distance. “Detective Montgomery told me he’s been investigating the RGK murders for two years now. I suppose he’s getting desperate. He must be if he thinks I can help him.”

“You don’t have to do this, Charlotte. Your father thinks catching the killer is the only way to save your life. But I don’t think he fully realizes the risk he’s taking.”

“And you do?”

“You do, too.” She was the only person in this house who’d been the victim of a violent crime. She knew better than any one of her well-meaning family the emotional and potentially deadly price they were asking of her. “Tell them no.”

Charlotte’s cheeks paled at the grim reminder. But her only response was to let the dog loose. The dog took two steps and shook himself from nose to tail, spraying water all over the bathroom—and Trip’s uniform. Point made. Discussion over. Shut up, already.

Or not. After letting out the stopper in the tub, Charlotte picked up a second towel and crawled around the bathroom, wiping splatters of water off the cabinets, walls and fixtures. “You said I could change things. That I didn’t have to be afraid the rest of my life.”

“I didn’t mean this.” Trip stepped aside to let the dog trot into the sitting room to find a warm spot on the rug to take a nap.

“How then?” Charlotte shifted her attention to the floor, mopping up the trail Max had made across the tiles. “One thing I agree with Detective Montgomery on is that this sicko will come after me again. He’ll leave a note or make a call—I haven’t revisited everything that happened during my kidnapping yet, and he’s enjoying the game too much. It’s like he was there. But those men are all in prison. How can he know so much about those weeks I was a hostage? Why is he doing this to me?”

“Charlotte.” Trip knelt down and pulled the towel from her hand.

She snatched the towel right back and kept working. “If I’m the one he’ll make contact with, then maybe I should help capture him. That’s being strong, isn’t it? I’d be taking control of my life, instead of the life outside these doors controlling me. Right?”

“It’s a crapshoot. I wasn’t talking about risking your life yesterday.”

Her hands stilled for a moment and she looked straight at him. “But catching him would make him stop, right?”

Oh, God. Those had better not be tears glinting in her eyes. Now Trip was the one rocking back on his heels as her pain, her bravery, her desperation twisted something deep inside him. But this was a woman he couldn’t lie to. “I think the threats will only escalate until we arrest him or—”

“—he kills me.”

“I don’t like that option.”

Trip’s husky whisper held her attention for one hushed, intimate moment in time.

And then she reached beneath her glasses to wipe the moisture from her eyes and resumed her work on the floor. “That’s why Dad is paying you to be my bodyguard, isn’t it?”