Against the Storm

“Anyone else?”

She hated to mention David, since she had been the one at fault for the breakup, and she didn’t want to cause him any more trouble.

“Maggie?”

She released a breath, determined to reveal as little as possible. “I went out with an attorney named David Lyons for a while. We lived together a couple of months.”

“Bad breakup?”

His eyes were on hers. The man didn’t miss a thing. “Pretty bad. It was my fault. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but I did.”

“When did it end?”

“First of April, two years ago.”

“Where is he now?”

“I haven’t seen him. I heard he was dating someone.”

Trace stopped making notes and looked at her. There was something in those golden-brown eyes that seemed to see more than she wanted.

“What about now?” he asked. “Are you involved with anyone at the moment?”

Maggie shook her head. “I’ve been way too busy.” She wondered if there might be something personal in the question. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “And I really don’t like the dating scene. I suppose eventually I’d like to meet someone, but not right now. I’ve got my career to think about. I’m happy the way I am.”

He studied her as if he wasn’t sure he believed her. She wondered if he was one of those men who thought every woman was desperate to find a husband. Or maybe exactly the opposite. That she was just another faithless female concerned with only herself.

“It’ll take some time to check all this out,” he said. “The thing is, you might know this person and not realize it. He—or she—could be using this odd style of writing so you won’t figure out who it is.”

She frowned. “You don’t actually think this could be a woman?”

“Unless your sexual preferences go both ways, probably not.”

She smiled. “I’m boringly heterosexual.”

His eyes seemed to darken. Maggie felt a warm, unwelcome stirring in the pit of her stomach, and inwardly cursed her bad luck. An attraction to Trace Rawlins was the last thing she wanted.

“The handwriting looks masculine,” Trace continued, “but there definitely are women stalkers. Jealousy over a past relationship with a man, or your success as a photographer. That kind of thing.”

He kept asking questions, moving her backward in time. Thinking about the incident with Josh Varner, she began to grow more and more uneasy.

“Tell me about your family,” Trace said, making notes now and again.

“My mom and dad divorced when I was four. Mom moved back to Florida where she was raised, remarried not long after and had another kid. I stayed here and lived with my dad.”

“He still alive?”

“He passed away a couple of years ago.”

“I lost mine a while back. I still miss him.”

Maggie made no comment. Her dad had been demanding and a tough disciplinarian, but she had loved him and still missed him.

“How about high school? Anything stand out? Any old grudges that might blossom years later?”

She forced her gaze to remain on his face. No way was she telling him about Josh Varner. Josh didn’t even live in Texas anymore. He had gone to UCLA on a scholarship and then taken a job in Seattle with Microsoft. She’d heard he made barrels of money.

And if he wrote her a message, it wouldn’t sound anything like the words on the notes she had received.

“I, um, can’t think of anything. Besides, if it was something from high school, why would the person wait all these years?”

Trace’s pen stopped moving. “Usually something happens, an event of some kind. A stressor, it’s called. A trigger that digs up old memories, sometimes twists them around in a weird direction.”

She shook her head. “I really can’t think of anything.” At least nothing that had recently occurred. Still, she was glad he looked down just then to write another note. She had always been an unconvincing liar.

“It may well be that this guy has seen you somewhere but the two of you have never met. He could be fixated on you for no good reason other than the color of your hair, or that you look like someone he once knew.”

A little chill ran through her. “I see.”

Trace reached over and squeezed her hand. “Look, we’re going to catch this guy. There are very tough laws against stalking.”

She nodded. Just his light touch reassured her. Maybe this was a man she could count on, a man who could make things turn out all right.

They talked awhile longer, but he didn’t bring up her past again. If something happened that involved her Great Shame, as she thought of it, she would tell him. If she did, she knew the look she would see on his face. At the moment, she just couldn’t handle it.

Trace rose effortlessly from his chair, to tower over her on his long legs. “On the way back to the office, you can show me where you lived when you got the first note.” He packed up his stuff, closed the briefcase, clamped on his cowboy hat. “I’d like to take the notes,” he said, “check them for prints.”

“All right.”

Trace bagged the notes and she led him to the entry.

“You keep your doors and windows locked?”

“I’m pretty good about it.”

His glance was hard and direct. “You be better than pretty good. You be damned good.”

She didn’t like his attitude. On the other hand, he was probably right. Even in a good neighborhood, the crime rate in Houston was high.

“I’ll keep the doors locked.”

“Good girl. Let’s go.”

She felt his hand at the small of her back, big and warm as he guided her out of the house toward his Jeep, then opened the door and helped her climb in. They cruised by her old apartment. He stopped in front and made a thorough perusal of the area, then turned the Jeep around and headed back toward his office.

“Anyone in your old apartment building who might be interested in you in some way?”

“There’re only four units. A retired lady schoolteacher lives in one. There’s a single mother and her four-year-old son, and an older man in a wheelchair. The one I left is still vacant.”

“Looks like we can rule out the apartment residents.”

They reached his office and Trace walked her over to her car.

“Remember what I said about keeping your doors locked.”

“I will.”

As Maggie drove back to her town house, she couldn’t help thinking that in going to a private investigator she had done the right thing.

She didn’t like the attraction she felt, but it was only physical, nothing to really worry about. Trace was a handsome, incredibly masculine man, and she hadn’t been involved with anyone in years.

And she felt better knowing she had someone to help her.

Even if she had to pay for it.

Trace sat in front of his computer, staring at Maggie O’Connell’s webpage. The black background showed off a dozen photos of the Texas Hill Country, including the imported African game that roamed the grasslands, and a variety of magnificent sunsets that lured the viewer deeper into each scene.

On another page, there were shots of small towns and beaches along the coastline bordering the Gulf, and wonderful action photos of various power- and sailboats skimming over the water in Galveston Bay.

The colors were brilliant, the angles of the photos showed the subject to the very best advantage, and there was always something a little different, something intriguing about each picture. At the bottom of the page, information on the three galleries in Texas that carried limited-edition prints of Maggie’s work was listed, and a contact email address.

Trace searched through the dozens of other sites that popped up on Google when he referenced her name, and the more he searched, the more frustrated he became.

Damn, his client wasn’t just a good photographer, she was practically a celebrity. She was a well-known, well-respected artist whose work had been viewed by thousands of people.

And any one of them could be the person who was stalking her.

Trace leaned forward in his leather chair and punched the button on the recorder, listening again to his conversation with Maggie. When he finished, he reviewed the notes he had taken.

He went to work on her list of names, verifying what little information he had. Nothing turned up. Michael Irving and David Lyons both had webpages. Irving was a certified public accountant in Dallas. Lyons was a corporate lawyer in Houston with Holder Holder & Meeks.

It was after seven by the time Trace finished. The office was closed. Annie had left for the night and Alex and Ben were out working cases. Trace had decided to postpone his trip to the shore until next weekend, and had called Rex Westcott to start the tail on Maggie tomorrow morning. He had sent Rex’s photo to the email address she had given him: [e-mail].

Photolady. Looking at some of her work, he realized she was far more than that. He might have smiled, except that he didn’t like complications, and Maggie O’Connell was nothing but. Her life was complicated. The possibilities of who her stalker might be were endless.

And the unwanted attraction Trace felt for her only made matters worse.

He sighed as he rose from his chair, plucked his hat off the credenza behind his desk and prepared to leave. A knock on the front door caught his attention. He glanced at the clock, saw that another hour had passed and wondered who knew he would be there this late.

He settled his hat on his head and started for the front door, turned the lock and pulled it open.

“Good heavens, Trace,” said a familiar female voice, “where on earth have you been?” Carly Benson Rawlins stormed past him into the office, whirled and set her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you return my calls? I needed you, Trace. Why didn’t you call me back?”

“Good evening, Carly. Why don’t you come on in?”

His sarcasm went unnoticed.

“How could you be so insensitive?” She was petite and voluptuous, with long, straight red hair that fell past her shoulders. She had the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. He cursed as he watched them fill with tears. “H-how could you ignore me like that?”

“You aren’t my wife anymore, Carly. I can ignore you whenever I want.”

She sniffed, tilted her head back to look up at him. “What if something had happened? What if I’d been in a car wreck or something?”

“Were you in a car wreck?”

“No, but I could have been. Did you see that newspaper article in the Chronicle this morning? That woman who drove down to the shore and never came back? Her parents are frantic. She was my age, Trace—twenty-nine years old and she just disappeared.”

“I saw it. The police think maybe she took off with her boyfriend or something.”

“Or maybe she was murdered.” Carly shuddered with feigned revulsion. “A woman needs a man to look out for her.” She smiled, her tears long forgotten, looped her arms around his neck and went up on her toes to look into his face. “You know I still love you, Trace. Sometimes I just need to know you’re still there for me.”

He took hold of her wrists and eased her back down on her feet. “Look, Carly. You aren’t in any sort of danger and you need to get on with your life. That’s what people do when they get divorced.”

“I never wanted a divorce and you know it.”

“No, but you wanted other men in your bed. That didn’t work for me.”

Her chin angled up. “You weren’t there, Trace. You were working all the time.”

“I was trying to build the business, trying to make a life for us. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you properly entertained.”

“It was all your fault and you know it.”

Maybe some of it was, but mostly he had just picked the wrong woman, as his friends had tried to warn him. Carly was wild and self-centered. She hadn’t been ready to settle down when he’d married her. She wasn’t ready now.

Still, he felt sorry for her. She wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sure she ever would be.

He turned her around and urged her gently toward the door. “We’ve been through all this before.” A thousand times, he added silently. “Things just didn’t work out, that’s all. Go home, Carly. Entertain yourself with someone else.”

She jerked to a halt at the door. “You’re cruel, Trace. Cruel and heartless.”

If anything, he was too soft when it came to women. Years ago, he had learned to control his temper. He had come to value his self-control. He’d been raised to treat a woman like a lady. He did his best to do just that.

“Good night, Carly,” he said gently, then waited as she stormed out the door. Trace watched her drive her little silver BMW sports car down the alley out of sight, and wondered which of her many admirers had bought it for her.

He lifted his hat, raked back his hair, then settled the hat a little lower across his forehead. He had no idea why his ex-wife continued to plague him. They were never right for each other, never should have married. They might have been in lust at one time, but they were never in love.

That same kind of attraction to a good-looking redhead had hit him several other times in his life. None of those times had ended well.

Trace thought of Maggie O’Connell and warned himself not to go down that road again.

Four

It was pitch-black in her upstairs bedroom. Only the night sounds of crickets and cicadas intruded into the darkness of the high-ceilinged room. Maggie tossed and turned beneath the lightweight down comforter, unable to sleep with so much on her mind. She needed to get the photos completed for her coffee-table book. And she had a show coming up. She had most of the pictures ready, but could use a few more for the exhibit.

She sighed into the darkness. She had so much to do. Aside from her work, she needed to unpack, try to make the town house more of a home. There wasn’t much furniture downstairs, and only a bed, two nightstands and a dresser in her bedroom, stuff she’d had for years.

She still had a few pieces to bring over from the apartment before the end of the month, when her lease was up, and some things she needed to buy, and of course her photos and some prized Ansel Adams pieces that needed to be hung on the walls. She wasn’t much of a decorator but she could do better than the way it looked now.

She punched her pillow, turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow was Saturday. She planned to drive down to Galveston, take some shots around the harbor. She needed to get up early. Which meant she had to get some sleep.

She closed her eyes, tried to clear her head.

That was when she heard it. The faint scraping of a chair against the ceramic tile floor in the kitchen. She listened, straining her ears. Was that the patio door sliding open? Was that a footstep she heard on the stairs? Her heart was pounding, thumping against her ribs. Her palms felt slick where she clenched the sheet. She thought of the notes she had received, wondered if the man who had written them was crazy enough to break into her home.

She listened again, trying to decide if she should call 911. The police would show up, she figured, even if they knew she was the caller. But as the seconds stretched into minutes, she realized the only sound she was hearing was the fear pumping through her veins.

When the noise didn’t come again, she began to relax. She had imagined the intruder. There was no one in the house. As Trace had insisted, she had carefully locked the doors.

She glanced at the digital clock beside the bed: 2:15. She lay there in silence, her ears focused to catch any noise out of the ordinary, but she didn’t hear anything more. The little button in the center of the bedroom doorknob was pushed. It wasn’t much of a lock, but it gave her some sense of security. At least she would know if someone was trying to get in.

She watched the clock, the numbers slipping past. At two thirty-five, she rolled out of bed. No other sounds had reached her. Maybe she had fallen asleep for an instant and dreamed the entire incident. Things like that had happened to her before.

Still, she had to know.

Reaching for the blue fleece robe tossed over the foot of the bed, she slipped her arms inside and tied the sash around her waist. After years of living in the Texas heat, she slept in the nude, but she always kept the robe handy in case there was some sort of emergency, like a fire, or just someone arriving unexpectedly at her door.

She listened again for a moment, heard nothing and quietly turned the knob. Easing the door open, she waited. Just the ticking of the antique clock that she planned to hang on the wall in the living room but hadn’t done yet. Sticking her head out in the hallway, she glanced both ways, but no lights were burning; nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

After tiptoeing down the hall, she slipped into her photo studio and grabbed a makeshift weapon—a unipod, the one-legged stand she sometimes used to steady her camera. She quietly retraced her steps with it clutched in both hands, and descended the stairs.

No movement. No sound. Maggie flipped on the light switch, illuminating the glass lamp hanging in the foyer, casting a bright glow partway into the living room.

Nothing.

The tension eased from her shoulders. She turned on the light in the kitchen, turned on a lamp in the living room, took a look around. She had imagined the entire episode—thank God.

It was the note. The notes were making her edgy and restless, sending her into a tailspin. She hoped Trace Rawlins would find the man who had been harassing her.

She moved through the house, making a brief inspection of the locks, finding them all secured. She turned off the brass lamp in the living room, then padded back to the kitchen. Her hand paused midway to the light switch as her eyes caught something sitting on the breakfast bar.

A cold chill swept through her. The only things there when she had gone to bed were the telephone, the old-fashioned answering machine she still used and the address book she kept beside them.

Her mouth went dry. She forced her feet to carry her to the counter. Her hand shook as she reached toward the small porcelain statuette sitting on top. It was no more than five inches high, a man in a black tuxedo dancing with a woman with upswept red hair wearing a long, flowing, pale green evening gown.

Maggie swallowed. Her gaze shot around the kitchen, but she had checked the rooms and the closets and found no one there. Picking up her address book with a shaking hand, she flicked it open. Trace Rawlins’s business card rested just inside.

Frantically, she dialed the cell number printed on the card, terrified that the man who had left the statue might be hiding in the house and she just hadn’t found him. With the phone pressed against her ear, she listened to the ringing on the other end of the line and prayed Trace Rawlins would answer.

The boat was running with the wind, Ranger’s Lady skimming over the surface of the frothy blue ocean. The early-spring air felt fresh and cool against his skin. Gulls screeched and turned over the top of the mast, circling the boat in search of food.

Trace was smiling, enjoying the perfect day, when Faith Hill’s sweet voice began to sing to him through his cell phone. In an instant, he was jolted awake, a habit from his days in the Rangers. His hand shot out and grabbed the phone off the bedside table, and he pressed it against his ear.

“Rawlins,” he rasped in a sleepy voice.

“Trace, it’s Maggie O’Connell.”

“Maggie?” Worry slid through him. He rolled to the side of the bed, swung his long legs over the side. “Maggie, what is it?”

“Someone…someone was in my house tonight. He left…left something for me on the counter.”

A chill ran down Trace’s spine. “Have you called the police?”

“I—I called you instead.”

His fingers tightened around the phone. “Are you sure he isn’t still there?”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“Not good enough. Hang up and call 911. I’m on my way.”

Trace hung up the phone, grabbed his jeans off the back of a chair and pulled them on without bothering with his briefs. After dragging a T-shirt over his head, he pulled on his boots and headed for the door. Sensing his urgency, Rowdy followed, but the dog was used to his master’s odd hours and didn’t make a fuss.

Trace’s shoulder holster hung on the hat rack beside the back door. He used a Beretta 9 mm semiauto when he carried, which he hadn’t needed to do lately. He slipped on the holster, snapped out the weapon and checked the load as he hurried outside toward his car.

It didn’t take long to reach Maggie’s town house. He was glad he had been there before. It was almost three in the morning, but the lights were on. As he strode up the walkway, he could see her through a small window over the sink in the kitchen, standing there in her bathrobe, her arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold.

No patrol car was in sight. Trace silently cursed the time it was taking them to get there. He knocked on the door. “Maggie? It’s Trace.”

She opened the door an instant later, her shoulders sagging with relief as he walked past her into the entry.

“Thank you for coming.”

He glanced around. “I thought the cops would be here by now.”

Her gaze strayed from his. “I, um, didn’t call them.”

Frustration tightened Trace’s jaw. “Why the hell not?”

“You were on your way. I took another look around. I’m sure he’s not here.”

Trace shook his head. “Dammit, Maggie.” Pulling the Beretta from its holster, he made a check of the rooms downstairs, the coat closet, the bedroom and bath. He made the same search upstairs, the master bedroom and bath, and the photo studio. Returning downstairs, he opened the door from the entry into the garage, flipped on the light and took the single step down.

Maggie’s Ford Escape sat in the garage. The door leading outside was locked. There was no sign of whoever had come into the house.

“I checked the doors and windows,” he told her as he returned to the kitchen. “They’re all locked. No broken latches, nothing. Any idea how he got in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Show me what he left you.”

She led him to the breakfast bar. “That.” She pointed toward the item on the counter. “It’s pretty innocuous, just a little porcelain statuette, but…”

“But it means something. At least to him.”

Trace examined the dancing couple, carefully painted by hand. Using a paper towel, he lifted the piece to examine it more closely, noting that the bottom was uneven, as if it had been attached to something, and broken off.

He set the statuette back on the breakfast bar. “Does it mean anything to you?”

Maggie shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks a little like one of those things you put on top of a wedding cake.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t. Check the bottom.” He showed her the uneven edges. “At one time, this was attached to something. Glued on, it looks like.”

“I have no idea why anyone would leave that here,” she said, her gaze still on the figurine. Her eyes were the same pale green as the woman’s dress, her hair the same fiery red. The porcelain figure meant something, all right, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

Trace glanced around the town house. “Your locks are a joke. Tomorrow I’ll have my guys come over and install some decent ones, along with a security system.”

“They’re, uh, kind of expensive, aren’t they?”

For the first time, he smiled. “You’re a client. You get a special price. We’ll just do the basics—the windows and doors, a couple motion detectors.”

“I guess I don’t have much choice.”

He gently caught her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “We need to call the police, Maggie. Someone broke into your home. This isn’t the first problem you’ve had. You need to file a report, keep the cops in the loop.”