Authors: Grace Marshall
‘Reporters aren’t stupid,’ Dee said. She raised a hand before Kendra could speak. ‘I don’t give a damn what you think, Ken, what K. Ryde thinks. To me those emails constitute a threat. And even if they are nothing more than some neurotic fan, I know how you respond to those emails no matter. And that’s not something I can let pass, you know that.’
Garrett bundled Kendra close to him and smiled at Dee. He wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of either of Kendra’s friends. He was pretty sure it would be fatal. At the moment, he still wasn’t sure Harris wouldn’t happily yank his heart from his chest and make him eat it if he got half a chance. But all of that fierce loyalty, all of that deep love was for Kendra, just because she was Kendra, just because she was amazing and they knew her better than anyone. That made him feel better somehow, lest he forget it was his fault she was in this mess to begin with. And he really wasn’t likely to forget that, was he?
There wasn’t much traffic late on Sunday afternoon in Portland, so the drive to the Pneuma Building didn’t take long. Kendra wasn’t sure why Ellis and Dee – and Garrett too, for that matter, were so keen on her seeing Wade Crittenden, like he was some god or something. OK, she knew the man was a genius, and she owed him big time for unleashing evil Kendra on Garrett in his office several weeks ago. Though it hadn’t seemed to bother him too terribly much, as she recalled. She admired that about him from the start.
They parked in the underground garage, away from prying eyes, and took the elevator down to Wade’s dungeon. Kendra had laughed when she’d first heard the man’s nerd king laboratory referred to as such. Harris had elbowed her into silence, and it was clear that Wade was completely oblivious to the double meaning. Either that or he just didn’t care. With Wade it was never easy to tell. And in truth, she had only seen the lounge of Wade’s domain. Who knew, maybe he did dabble in BDSM somewhere down in the bowels of the Pneuma Building. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought.
They found the man in the inner sanctum, also known as his boudoir. God, surely the man couldn’t miss out on all of the double entendres, even in his insulated little world. He was hunched over the keyboard of a computer with a very large monitor.
‘I’ve got Flannery and his men on it, but I think the stalker’s a journalist,’ Wade said, without looking up from what he was doing, without offering a greeting.
‘Flannery?’ Kendra said. ‘Any relation to the Carla Flannery who’s been grilling us over at Garrett’s place?’
‘He’s her father,’ Wade replied, still tapping away on the keyboard. ‘Ex-military, and a kick-ass detective and security man. He’s worked for Pneuma for years. I’ve heard his daughter is a real pit bull. Ellis certainly has a lot of respect for her.’
‘So why do you think that Razor Sharp is a journalist?’ Garrett asked.
‘Because of the timing,’ Wade said, shoving the sleeve of his sweatshirt up to reveal a well-muscled forearm that surprised Kendra. She wondered if he actually worked out, perhaps in the dungeon she’d imagined, the one with whips and cuffs. She could picture him wielding a whip across the bared bottom of an adoring groupie, or a willing secretary. And frankly, it wasn’t that hard to picture. Kendra knew that still waters often ran very deep and very kinky. Every time she’d seen Wade Crittenden, he’d been swaddled in sweatshirts and hoodies. Even at Harris’s party he wore a shapeless hoodie. But if that bulging forearm were any indication, she figured the man wouldn’t look half bad in leather or tight jeans.
She forced herself away from the welcome distraction of speculating about Wade Crittenden’s secret life and back to what the man was actually saying. ‘If you look at the dates of the last few emails, including the first one you received after Tess Delaney made her first public appearance, they all happened very soon after situations involving the press.’ He scrolled up to the first one. ‘Look at the time.’ He said. ‘You didn’t see this email until the next day, is that right?’ He glanced up at Garrett.
‘That’s right,’ Garrett said.
‘Granted, the Golden Kiss Awards were on television live, but even with your early departure you wouldn’t have been home when this email was written. It was written while the event was still going on. Could have been a fan who was very angry at your absconding with his idol before he could fully indulge in the experience.
‘And this one.’ He scrolled down to the next email. ‘What time did the two of you confront the press?’ he asked.
‘It was afternoon,’ Kendra said. ‘Somewhere around three, I think.’
‘Was any of your talk with the press carried live?’ Wade asked.
Kendra shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. Though it was broadcast very shortly after.’
Ellis chimed in, ‘It probably would have been blogged about and certainly tweeted.’
‘I’ve considered that,’ Wade said. ‘But nonetheless, the bloggers and tweeters at this stage would have been people at your impromptu press conference, so still a journalist. Certainly the email came almost immediately after you two first spoke to the press, possibly even simultaneously.
‘And again.’ He pulled up the last two emails, the one Don had received and the one Garrett had gotten a scant two minutes later. ‘There’s no way this man could have known all of these things unless he was right there, either in the mob or the press, and the mob wasn’t there when the earlier emails came through.’
‘Christ,’ Garrett whispered. ‘Then there’s a good chance this man is there with the press at my house and has been the whole time.’
Kendra’s legs gave and she dropped into the chair next to Wade’s desk. ‘You’re sure, Wade?’
‘I can’t be sure, but it makes more sense than anything else at this point.’
She blinked away spots from behind her eyes and forced back the fear and the panic. ‘There’s a way we could be sure,’ she said. ‘We could have another press conference. We could make up something that will give it away. I don’t know; it would be easy enough to come up with something. Then we could have someone inside the house on the computer checking when the email comes in.’
‘No! Not gonna happen. I don’t want you exposed anymore,’ Garrett said, grabbing her hand.
She ignored him and kept talking. ‘Maybe we’ve been going about this wrong. Maybe we need to give Tess more exposure, you know, draw him out.’ Before Garrett or anyone else could protest, she stood and began to pace. ‘Look the worst thing that could ultimately happen is that the world finds out Tess Delaney has hired someone to play Tess Delaney to keep her identity secret.’
‘We’re not having this discussion, and that’s final,’ Garrett said.
‘But –’
‘I agree with Garrett,’ Ellis said, and Dee and Wade both nodded. ‘The less risk, the better.’
Wade handed Kendra a BlackBerry. ‘This is for you.’
‘Thanks, but I already have a phone,’ she said.
‘Not one like this one, you don’t,’ Garrett said.
‘It’s a Pneuma Inc. special,’ Dee added. ‘Ellis has one, Wade has one, I have one, the executive secretaries have one. Garrett has one too.’
Kendra picked it up and turned it over in her hand. ‘Looks like an ordinary BlackBerry to me.’
‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Garrett said.
Wade typed in something on his computer and pulled up a satellite map of the whole Western Seaboard. Then he typed in Sandra Blain, Dee’s secretary. And the view of the map zoomed in until it was focused on a small logging road off US-26 on the flank of the Cascades opposite Mount Hood. It focused right down to an older Dodge Ram parked at a pull-out in a heavily forested area. ‘Ah yes,’ Dee said. ‘Sandra told me she and her husband were checking out the huckleberries today.’
‘The woman makes the best huckleberry muffins in the whole world,’ Ellis added.
‘She’s been told a dozen times not to leave her device in the car. Can you talk to her again, Dee?’ Wade said.
Kendra looked down at the Blackberry in her hand. ‘Wow!’
‘Exactly, wow,’ Garrett said. ‘Even when the device is off, it’s not really off. Wade knows all, sees all.’
‘Sounds very entertaining for Wade,’ Kendra said, and she thought she saw a blush crawl up the neck of his sweatshirt followed by a twitch of a smile.
‘I’m not that hard up for entertainment,’ Wade said. ‘It’s just a safety precaution. You can’t do what we do here at Pneuma Inc. and not have a few enemies. Besides, both Ellis and Dee are all over the globe. This helps me keep track of them if I need to get in touch with them. Especially if they’re in someplace questionable. Now, give me your iPhone,’ he said.
Kendra balked ‘But I like my iPhone.’
‘And you can have it back when you’re Kendra Davis again,’ Wade said. ‘Give me a minute to transfer all the data and you’ll be set.’
Kendra handed over her phone. She had the very distinct impression that arguing with seemingly mild-mannered Wade Crittenden might not be a good idea. And in all honesty, after everything that had happened, even though she still believed that the emails were not a danger to her, she still felt better knowing Wade and everyone else in the room could keep an eye on her.
‘Galina’s a fabulous cook.’ Garrett leaned against the stone wall of the patio drinking Mirror Pond ale and watching the stars come out over the open field behind Ellis’s house.
‘She’s the best,’ Dee replied. ‘Without her, I think Ellis would be reduced to take-outs and peanut butter sandwiches. Afraid I’m not much help either in the cooking department. If I can slap it on the grill I can cook it, otherwise I can’t be bothered.’
‘Besides, when do either of you have time?’ Garrett asked.
Galina had laid on a fabulous spread of Mexican food New Mexican style because she knew that was Garrett’s favorite. And nobody in the whole world made
tres leches
cake better than Galina. The meal had been served on Ellis’s fabulous patio with the view of Mount Hood fading beneath a fiery sunset, making it easy to believe that the mountain, like all of the Cascade Range, was once, and could very easily be again, an active volcano.
The conversation had been light and easy, and there was not the usual rush Garrett so often had felt with his brother in the past. This was a leisurely meal, something Garrett was sure, until Dee came along, his brother had not experienced in a lot of years.
Now Ellis was in his study finishing up last-minute details for a meeting in Denver tomorrow, and Kendra was settled in the atrium working on PR in K. Ryde mode. He figured a lot of that involved calming Don down. K. Ryde Agency still existed and was now owned by several of Kendra’s former employees who were very talented. Kendra still had plenty of connections and she knew how to use them. Garrett could see her profile at the table amid the ferns and vines that filled the sunroom. She was still convinced there needed to be another press conference to see if they could flush Razor Sharp. Garrett would be happy if they never had to have anything to do with the press again.
Dee followed his gaze and sipped at her own beer. ‘She’s a force of nature, Kendra.’
He smiled at the woman hard at work. ‘Don’t I know it?’ Then the smile disappeared and he felt the familiar fist-like clench at his heart. ‘I’m sorry this happened, Dee. I’m so sorry. You have to believe I would have never ever done anything to put her in harm’s way.’
‘Hey.’ Dee took his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’s Kendra we’re talking about here. She makes her own choices. She makes her own rules. You’re not to blame for any of this. No one is.’
‘If I had just let her walk away when she found out it was me, that Tess is … If I’d only just let her walk away. She wanted to. I’m so sorry.’
She guided him to a heavy pine lawn chair and sat down in one next to him. ‘I’m not.’
He caught his breath and looked up at her.
‘I mean yes, of course I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, about this nutcase, Razor Sharp, about the press fiasco, but I’m not sorry you came into her life.’ Her smile became mischievous, and she chuckled softly. ‘I mean after I got over the fear of her sending you to the hospital in traction, that is. Garrett –’ She scooted closer. ‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to her. You’re the first man I know that she’s ever let in. That’s huge. You can’t imagine how huge.’
‘Why, Dee? Why am I the first? The woman’s amazing, she’s talented, she’s funny, she’s sexy, she’s … she’s so strong. She could have any man she wants. Why? Why doesn’t she let anyone in?’
‘And why are you so damn nosy?’
Both Garrett and Dee turned to find Kendra standing in the door with a Diet Pepsi clenched in her hand.
‘And why are you always sneaking up on people?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t sneak. You two were just so caught up in gossiping that you didn’t hear me, that’s all.’ She was smiling that wonderful smile that he always wanted to kiss until it evolved into something more demanding. He reached out his hand to her and she came onto the patio and settled on his lap.
Dee looked down at her watch. ‘It’s an early morning for Ellis and me tomorrow, so I’m going to hunt him down and coax him off to bed.’ She glanced up at the two of them and then at the darkening sky. ‘Should be good sky-watching tonight. The moon’s just past new. I bet you could get Galina to fix you a Thermos of hot chocolate, and if I’m not mistaken, she made ginger snaps yesterday. She knows Ellis loves them. That should give you the strength for some serious stargazing.’ Garrett was sure Dee knew it wasn’t stargazing they’d need strength for.
He shoved the hair away from Kendra’s face with an index finger. ‘You up for it?’
‘Very,’ she said with a smile.
‘Dee told me about this place,’ Kendra said, as Garrett spread the blankets onto the grass and then pulled her down next to him. ‘She said the two of you watched a meteor shower from here one night. And that –’ She pointed to the dome that housed Ellis’s telescope. ‘Will we use that?’
‘Not tonight,’ Garrett said. ‘Not sure Ellis would even let me play with his prize toy without him present to participate. Anyway, it’s a fairly complex piece of equipment, and I don’t want to think that hard. At least, not about anything but you.’ He pulled her into his arms so that her head rested on his shoulder. ‘Shall I give you the grand tour?’
‘Please do,’ she said, resting a hand low on his belly, just above the waistband of his jeans. It was a position that instantly made him think of things other than stars.
He laid his hand against hers. ‘For someone who doesn’t believe in romance, you do a pretty good job of going through the motions.’
‘What? This?’ She wriggled her fingers against his waistband. ‘This is about lust, Garrett, not romance.’
He hadn’t planned it. It was the epitome of poor timing, but the question was out before he could stop himself. ‘So why don’t you believe in romance? You never did tell me.’
She slid a finger beneath his waistband, and nipped his earlobe. ‘What? You want romance
and
scorching hot sex? You greedy, greedy man.’
Just as her fingers made contact with his pubic curls, he sucked a tight breath and captured her hand with his, moving it up to rest against his chest just above where his heart had suddenly gone mad. ‘I am a greedy man. Very greedy, and I’m nosy. Tell me what I want to know and I might let you have what you want.’ He nodded down to his fly.
This time her giggle was wicked. ‘What makes you think I want it that bad?’
He raised her knuckles to his lips and kissed them, then captured her index finger and ran his tongue over the length of it. She caught her breath in a quick jerk.
‘Because I know you, Kendra Davis. You’re insatiable, and I haven’t fucked you in hours.’
She pulled his hand to her mouth and returned the favor, sliding her tongue over his index finger then turning her head just enough to nip the pad of his thumb. He felt himself harden. ‘All right,’ she said. This time there was a slight edge in her voice. ‘It’s no secret, really. I don’t want to follow in my mother’s footsteps.’ She forced the words out fast, like maybe if she said them fast enough and ran them together, maybe he wouldn’t get what she’d just said, maybe he would be too polite to ask her to repeat it. But she should have known better.
‘All right, you don’t want to follow in your mother’s footsteps. What exactly does that mean?’
She sat up next to him, and for a long moment looked out into the woodland in front of them. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to say anything else, she spoke. ‘Garrett, did your parents love each other?’
‘Of course they did. They adored each other, actually. Ellis and I were lucky that way, I suppose.’
‘And you want what they had, then? You and Tess. That’s why you write what you do. That’s why you believe in happy ever after.’
‘Well, I don’t want exactly what they had, but something along those lines, yes. Why?’
She pulled her knees up under her and turned to face him. Though he couldn’t see her eyes in the dark, or her expression, he had the feeling she was studying him. She released a soft breath. ‘My mother was a romantic. She had a room full of romance novels, you know the ones that come once a month, four or five in a package, all delivered to her door. Not just those, though. She read all kinds of romance novels. And DVDs, she had a huge collection of those, and even videos. My mom owned every romance, every romantic comedy, every classic love story ever made.’
‘Lots of people do,’ Garrett said. ‘That’s what keeps Tess in business.’
‘No, you don’t understand. That room full of novels, those DVDS, that
was
romance for my mother, Garrett. My dad cheated on her almost from their wedding night. She told me that, years later, when she needed me to commiserate and feel sorry for her.’
‘Jesus, Kendra, I’m sorry.’ It was a hell of a thing to put on your daughter, he thought.
She waved his sympathy away and continued, ‘He said he couldn’t help himself, my dad did. He said he needed that little extra that mom couldn’t give him. But he said it didn’t mean anything. He said it was still her he loved, her he needed, that he needed his family. And she believed him.’ She laughed a humorless laugh. ‘My dad had his own version of romance, you see.’ She curled a tight fist into the grass, pulled up a tuft, and tossed it aside. ‘And my mom believed him until the day she died. And when she died, she died without a shred of self-respect, and without a shred of respect from anyone else, including me.’
‘I’m sorry, Kendra,’ he said.
‘Don’t be. I wasn’t.’ The air practically sizzled with her anger. ‘And Dad. He had the balls to show up at her funeral with one of his women, one who couldn’t have been much older than I was. He said he needed someone. He said he couldn’t bear the pain of his loss alone. His loss!’ She spat the last words out as though they were vile. ‘I haven’t spoken to him since. Mom and I weren’t enough for him. His family wasn’t enough for him. But he never had the guts to walk away either, just in case. He knew when his chicks got tired of an old fart pretending to be young, and everything crumbled, he could always come home. And he could always count on Mom to forgive him, give him a place to brood and pout and lick his wounds until the next girl came along. Well, in the end he wasn’t enough for me either. He wasn’t enough of a father. He wasn’t enough of a decent human being.’ Garrett could hear her breath, fast and furious in the darkness. ‘So no, I’m not a big fan of romance because it never is what it really is. It’s an excuse. It’s make-believe. For me it’s just one more form of fantasy, one more type of escapism. That’s all. I’d die alone before I’d ever let anyone do that to me, treat me that way.’
‘My God, Kendra.’ He pulled her back down into his arms and held her tight until she relaxed. ‘No one would ever do that to you. Not you. Not ever.’
She rose on one elbow, enough to meet his gaze. ‘Not as long as I’m in control, they won’t, and I’m always in control.’
‘No you’re not,’ he said, running a hand over her cheek. ‘You’ve not been in control for a while now, Kendra, and you know it, and it scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it? And now I understand why.’
She pushed his hand away. ‘You don’t understand anything. There is no sweetness and light, no hearts and flowers. That’s a pipe dream. That’s for people like Ellis and Dee, people who live larger than the rest of us, people who dream big and then make it happen. It’s not for people like me. I know how dark it really is out there, and I can’t pretend just because Tess Delaney writes pretty words that the darkness doesn’t exist.’
‘No one’s asking you to pretend the darkness doesn’t exist. Of course it exists.’ He reached for her and she pushed him away again.
‘Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m going back to the house.’
But as she started to stand he pulled her back down next to him. ‘No, you’re not. You’re not running away this time, Kendra.’
She jerked back against him, ‘Damn it, Garrett, I said I’m not playing, now let me go.’ She jerked again. He lost his grip on her wrist, and the momentum sent her back on her butt onto the grass, forcing the breath from her lungs. She let out a little yelp followed by a curse, but he was on her, straddling her, trapping her arms above her head with one hand holding her wrists. He took her mouth viciously, hard, the only way he could take her while she fought him, coming dangerously close to kneeing him in the kidney and toppling him off.
‘Garrett, damn it, stop it!’ The fury in her voice was exhilarating, and frightening, and he’d never behaved this way with anyone. He never would have. He took her mouth again and she bit him and bucked hard beneath him.
He bit her back. ‘You can’t control me, Kendra. If you want to share power that’s fine, but right now it’s my turn, and long overdue.’
‘Damn it, Garrett.’ She shoved and kicked and tried to roll out from under him. ‘You’re an asshole! You’re a jerk! You deserve what you get! You deserve it! You deserve everything,’ she sobbed.
‘Tell me, Kendra,’ he gasped, forcing her legs apart with his knee and wriggling in between to nestle down tight against her. ‘Tell me what I deserve.’
‘You deserve … You deserve …’ The bucking became shifting and raking, and her tongue darted into his mouth and they ate at each other until neither could breathe. ‘You deserve better than this.’ Without warning, she collapsed back onto the ground, threw her arm across her face, and broke into angry sobs.
‘Jesus, Kendra! No!’ He pushed her arm away from her face and cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘How can you say that? There is no better than this, than you, than us together.’ He kissed her throat, feeling her swallow back a sob. ‘How can you not see that? How?’
He held her there beneath him, her legs open to the press of him, her wrists cuffed in his hands until he felt her relax, felt the tension drain away, felt the shudders calm. And when he was sure she would no longer fight him, he released her arms.
She lay beneath him unmoving, looking up at the sky. Then he kissed her throat again, and her nape and the lobe of her ear. ‘I won’t let you have control, Kendra. It’s ours to share, and that can be good, that can be so good. I’m not your father, and you’re not your mother. You’re Kendra Davis and you’re stunning, and I can’t get you out of my head, not even for a minute. I don’t know how the hell you did it, but you did.’ He eased his weight slightly to one side, giving her space, letting her breathe, giving her room to come back to him from the dark space where she kept herself way too often.