I glanced at my watch. It was ten thirty in the morning, an hour and a half into the show, and I’d gotten a meager fifteen signatures for my petition. I had to do better than that if I hoped to have any leverage at all when I went to court to ask for an injunction against Uniworld.
More people were coming up the aisle, so I rose to deliver my jelly-bean pitch, then caught sight of a lean, so-blond-he-was-almost-albino guy watching me from the other side. In his mid-thirties, he had a clean-cut Scandinavian look about him, dressing as though he’d just stepped out of an IKEA ad. A decent-looking guy, I decided, until his unfriendly gaze met mine; then gooseflesh dotted my arms.
I smiled, hoping to disarm him. It didn’t work, so I turned my back on him and went back to coaxing people to sign the petition. When they moved on, I returned to my seat beside Tara. The man was still watching.
“Spook Face over there is weirding me out,” Tara whispered.
“Ignore him. Maybe he’ll go away.”
No such luck. He began to move toward us, pausing for people to pass, walking with the slow stealth of a leopard.
“Call Special Ops Salvare,” Tara whispered. “We need backup.”
I cautioned her to be quiet as the man approached. He picked up a cow photo for a closer look, put it down, then bent over the clipboard, running his finger down the list of names. Tara nudged me just as the man straightened, pinning me with a tight smile and an ice-blue gaze.
“Good morning,” he said in a smooth voice that registered a Germanic background. “I’m curious about this petition you have here.”
My inner antennae quivered a warning. Something about the way he looked at me set my teeth on edge, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and launched into my spiel.
“Stop, please,” he said at once. “You misunderstand. I’m curious as to what your petition is doing
here
.”
I decided to play it cool, find out who I was dealing with before I went on the defense. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Abby—”
“Yes, I know who you are, Ms. Knight.”
My inner alarm was going off like crazy now. Feeling myself tense, I asked, “How do you know me?”
“Your name is on the sign taped to your table.”
My shoulders sagged in relief. He’d read the sign. Duh.
Making no attempt to shake my hand, he said in his clipped voice, “I’m Nils Raand, the local representative of Uniworld Food Corporation.”
Uniworld?
Oops.
No wonder he was so hostile. “Well, then,” I said, folding my arms, “I don’t need to explain the reason for my petition because you already know about your company’s criminal treatment of their animals, not to mention—”
“Excuse me, Ms. Knight, but I must lodge a protest. We do nothing illegal to our animals, and I would ask you to check your facts before making false accusations.”
“So you’re defending the practice of injecting cows with hormones to increase milk production, regardless of the cost to animal or human life?”
His gaze narrowed, yet his tone remained eerily calm. “I’m not here to debate the issue with you. I’m asking you to put away the petition.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
Raand stared at me for a long moment, as though trying to intimidate me. “As you wish,” he said at last, “but consider yourself warned.”
“What do you mean by that?” I demanded. Vague threats tended to make me testy.
He shrugged, as though to say,
Figure it out
, while his chilly gaze flashed,
You don’t want me to explain
. Then he turned and walked away.
“You can’t sue me,” I called. “What I’m doing is perfectly legal, guaranteed by my First Amendment rights.”
He didn’t look back.
I pressed my lips together, into a frown. Nils Raand was a bully in chic clothing. Too bad for Nils, bullies don’t scare me.