Against the Storm1 (26 page)

Ashley laughed, too. Trace chuckled and pretty soon all of them were laughing.

Maggie wiped her eyes. “I guess you noticed I’m not much of an interior designer.”

Ashley grinned. “I kinda couldn’t miss it. When you
get the place remodeled, I’ll help you. I’m pretty good at that kind of stuff.”

“I bet you are, and that’d be great.”

Trace tried for a smile, but his thoughts had returned to Maggie and her stalker.

To the fire that could have been lethal—and what might happen next.

T
he buzz of activity filled the white-walled interior of the Twin Oaks Gallery as Trace escorted Maggie inside. It was time to start moving forward with their plan to lure the stalker into the trap they were setting.

Trace had spoken to Ben and Alex, and both had agreed to help. On Friday, the men would arrive in Kemah before daybreak to stake the place out.
Ranger’s Lady
would serve as headquarters for the operation.

“There’s Faye,” Maggie said, starting in the owner’s direction. Trace was surprised to see spotlights shining on walls that were mostly bare.

“What’s going on?” Maggie asked as the swanky brunette walked up to greet them.

Faye smiled. “I’ve been meaning to call. After the TV news broke the story of the fire, a rush of people poured in to look at your work. They were curious, I guess. People liked what they saw. The rest of your photos practically flew out the door.” She laughed. “You just can’t buy advertising like that.”

Maggie glanced around at the empty spaces. “I guess not.”

Two burly young men were busily hanging pictures, nicely framed black-and-white photographic portraits of interesting faces.

“Who’s the artist?” Trace asked.

“Those belong to a guy named Zeke Meadows. I’m filling in with his work until Maggie can get me more pictures.”

“I’m heading down to Kemah on Friday,” Maggie said, spinning the story they had planned. “I’m starting to shoot again. I just need a little more time.”

The brunette rolled her long-lashed blue eyes. “I guess there isn’t any choice, but I can’t sell—”

“What you don’t have,” Maggie finished for her. “Let my clients know I’m back to work starting Friday. Tell anyone who might be interested.”

Faye cast Maggie a suspicious glance. She knew about the stalker, and the woman was clearly no fool. She turned to Trace. “So let me get this straight. You want people to know where Maggie’s going to be this Friday.”

“That’s right.”

“But you’ll be there to make sure she’s all right.”

Trace smiled. “You can leave that part out.”

Faye relaxed and returned his smile. “You got it, cowboy.”

They talked a little while longer. Faye was upset that the fire had destroyed Maggie’s latest collection, but as she had promised, Maggie kept silent about her Photodrive storage. She did a bang-up job of convincing Faye not to do anything until they could work things out.

Which pleased Trace in one way, but reminded him how good she was at lying by omission.

Trace told himself she’d done exactly what he
wanted. The trap would give them the stalker, and the stalker would be the guy responsible for the fire.

He wished he believed it.

On Wednesday morning, Maggie did a TV interview with Sally Grimshaw of KGEO TV in front of her burned-out condo. Again, she talked about her Friday morning trip to the shore.

“So you’re going back to work,” Sally said once they’d gotten started. She was blonde and petite, very attractive and extremely dedicated to her job as a journalist. “That’s right.”

“I’m sure your fans will be delighted to hear it.”

Maggie adjusted the mic pinned to the lapel of her pale blue silk blouse, which like all her clothes was a recent acquisition. “I certainly hope so.”

“The fire was reported to be arson. Do you have any idea who might have set it?”

The question threw her. For a moment she wasn’t sure how to respond. She glanced at Trace, who was standing nearby, then decided to roll with it.

“I’ve been having trouble with a stalker. Phone calls, notes on my car, that kind of thing. He’s seems the mostly likely suspect.”

“I see. Have the police made any progress in finding him?”

Maggie flashed a phony smile into the camera. “I’m sure they’re doing their best.”

They talked a few minutes about her upcoming trip to the shore, then the cameraman turned off the bright white light and the interview was over. The piece aired on the morning news, was shown again at noon and repeated at five and eleven.

Word was out. Maggie hoped her stalker was still as interested in her movements as he had been before. If he showed up in Kemah—and she prayed he did—they would be ready.

There was just one last thing.

Trace wanted her to meet the rest of the team. He wanted her to be able to recognize the men in case there was trouble.

Alex Justice and Ben Slocum arrived at his house on Thursday night right after supper. Both in their early thirties, both over six feet tall, they were almost equally handsome. Alex, with his dark blond hair, blue eyes and dimples, had a lighter personality, charming and jovial, and yet she sensed an inner core of steel.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maggie,” he said as he sauntered into the living room. No Texas drawl; instead there was a hint of refinement in his voice.

“You, as well, Alex. Trace has spoken very highly of you.”

Alex grinned. “I’m amazed he mentioned me at all.”

“Alex was in the air force,” Trace added, tossing his friend a warning glance.

“Fighter jockey.” Alex ignored him. “I hope Trace’s been taking good care of you. The way he’s kept you locked up, we figured we might have to stage a jail-break.”

She laughed, wondering if Trace really had purposely kept her away from his two gorgeous friends.

Maggie turned to the more somber of the pair, a man with dark hair, ice-blue eyes and unforgiving features. “I gather you served with Trace in the army.”

“Rangers. Yes, ma’am.” The drawl was back, not as slow and sexy as Trace’s but with a slightly harder edge. Another Texan, she was sure.

Maggie smiled. “Looks like I should be safe enough with the three of you there to protect me. I just hope this works so I can get a place of my own and my life back to normal.”

Both men glanced at Trace, but he made no comment. Once this was over, she would be moving out of his house, living again on her own. There was no commitment between them, no talk of the future. Both of them expected the arrangement to end.

Maggie told herself it was exactly what she wanted. They would still see each other, but they would be able to live their own lives. The thought made her stomach clench into a knot.

“Alex and Ben will be in place by the time you get to Kemah,” Trace said. “You won’t see them. But you can be sure they’ll see you. I’ll come in behind you. You’ll be wearing a mic and an earbud so we’ll be able to communicate. If you see someone you recognize, or something seems out of place, just sing out.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“This guy shows up,” Ben said, “his ass is ours.”

“Count on it,” Alex agreed.

“I spoke to the county sheriff’s office,” Trace added. “They’ve been in touch with Houston P.D. and alerted their deputies. We’ll have backup if we need it.”

The men nodded. They finished the beers they were drinking while a few more items were discussed. The meeting ended on a determined note and the pair left the house. The sound of their footsteps crossing the porch faded away, then silence filled the living room.

Trace turned to Maggie, tipped her chin up and captured her lips in a soft, sexy kiss.

“Let’s go to bed, darlin’,” he said gruffly. “Forget all this for a while.” The familiar heat was in his eyes, but
there was something more. She recognized it as worry. He didn’t like using her for bait.

But time had proved to be their enemy.

They didn’t have any other choice.

M
aggie ignored the butterflies in her stomach. A heat wave had settled over the city. The day was hot and clammy, the dense, humid air sticking to her skin. She prayed her stalker had seen her TV interview or heard through the grapevine via Faye that Maggie would be driving to Kemah this morning.

She wondered if he knew where she had been staying since the fire, wondered if he had kept track of her somehow. She wondered if maybe he had seen her drive away from Trace’s that morning, and a shudder of apprehension slipped down her spine.

She checked her rearview mirror. As she drove her little SUV down Highway 45, Trace followed somewhere in the traffic behind her. He was driving Alex’s BMW in case the stalker had seen him in the Jeep. Alex and Ben were already in place. They would be watching for her arrival. None of the men were taking any chances, but she still she felt very alone.

The trip seemed to take forever, the road stretching endlessly ahead of her. Her neck ached from constantly looking in the mirror, or searching the cars ahead or
beside her. Finally, the 518 exit to Kemah appeared and Maggie sighed with relief. She pulled onto the road that wound its way east toward Kemah and Galveston Bay. She didn’t see Alex’s silver-blue Beemer, but she knew Trace was back there.

She reached up and adjusted the seashell necklace she wore, which contained a tiny microphone. The men could hear whatever she said. She was also wearing an earbud, easily hidden by her heavy hair.

“I’m on the 518,” she said, just to hear the sound of Trace’s voice in return.

“Good girl. I’m a ways back, but I’ve got your GPS location.” He had affixed a bug to her bumper just in case something went wrong and he needed to find her.

“Roger that,” she said with a grin, beginning to get into the part.

She heard his deep chuckle, and warmth curled through her. It was amazing how sexually attuned she was to him. He was an amazing lover, intuitive in the things she liked, at times able to bring her to orgasm with only a touch. It was getting more and more difficult to imagine sleeping without him.

Maggie shoved the thought away. At the moment, she didn’t have time to think of her sex life or her nebulous future. She needed to focus on the task ahead.

Winding through the traffic, she finally reached the 146 and found her way into the parking lot in front of the Kemah boardwalk. The plan was to start there, taking shots in the area, then wander over to the boardwalk marina, where
Ranger’s Lady
was docked.

She turned off the engine and rounded the Escape to the back. Opening the hatch, she grabbed her camera bag, pulled out her Nikon D3S, which had been in the
back of her car the night of the fire, thank God, not in her studio.

She took her time getting ready, pulling on a yellow sun visor that matched her blouse, dusting off her white capri pants, lifting the strap of her camera over her head, attaching the Tamron lens.

If someone had followed or was already there watching for her arrival, she wanted to make it easy for him to find her.

She glanced around, looking for Alex or Ben, thinking maybe she would spot Trace, but saw no one. She ignored a moment of uneasiness and reminded herself the men were professionals. If they didn’t want to be seen, they wouldn’t be.

Sucking in a deep breath, she squinted, finding the sun bright even though she was wearing sunglasses and the visor. Then she pasted on a smile and started forward.

“I’m heading toward the entrance,” she said into the mic.

“We’ve got you,” Trace said into her earbud.

She meandered toward the red-white-and-blue arch, taking shots of kids and their parents, trying to look as if she was really interested and not just there as bait for a trap. She wandered awhile longer, careful to stay out in the open, making it easy to be seen.

A commotion to her left drew her attention. A man darted out of nowhere and ran toward her, and her heart jerked. Skinny black jeans, black T-shirt, long black hair tied back in a queue. He was lean-muscled and handsome. He was on a beeline course, headed her way, and she had never seen him before.

“There’s a guy on your right moving toward you.” Trace’s voice held a note of tension.

“I see him.”

“You’re definitely his target.”

“I don’t know him, but—”

“I’ve got him,” Alex said.

“On his twenty,” said Ben.

The guy kept coming. He was young and nothing like she had expected.

“Hold your positions,” Trace commanded. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

The man in black closed the distance between them. “Maggie? Maggie O’Connell?” He stopped right in front of her, his voice carrying into the mic.

“Yes? Do I know you?”

“I’m a friend of your sister’s. Ziggy Murdock? I’m sure she told you about me.”

The tightness in Maggie’s shoulders relaxed. He wasn’t her stalker, just Ashley’s jerk of an ex-boyfriend. “I know who you are.”

“Stand down.” Trace’s deep command came through loud and clear.

“I saw you on TV,” Ziggy continued. “I thought if I could talk to you, maybe you could help me fix things with your sister.”

Maggie glanced around at the tourists and locals, none of whom looked threatening. “I’m shooting, Ziggy. And even if I had time, I wouldn’t help you. Ashley’s life is on a different course now. She’s over you and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

“Hey, she’s got my kid, you know. That gives me some rights.”

“Yes, it does. And I’m sure once she gets settled and you get your own life in order, Ashley will be willing to make some sort of arrangement, if you’re really in
terested in seeing your son. Until then, as I said, I’m busy.”

She brushed past him, kept walking. Ziggy followed, coming up beside her.

“You know what? You two bitches are just alike.”

Maggie smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you.” Ziggy turned and stomped away, his long, thin legs carrying him off.

Trace chuckled into the earbud. “Guess he made a long drive for nothing.” Maggie grinned.

“Nice work, ma’am.” It was Slocum’s hard Texas drawl.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

Maggie trolled for another hour, meandering past the Saltgrass Steak House, circling the carousel, strolling beneath the Ferris wheel, taking photos along the boardwalk out into the bay. She took dozens of shots, but none were particularly good. Her mind wasn’t on work. It was on catching a stalker.

A string of musical chimes threw her for an instant—a text message coming in on her cell phone. Maggie dug frantically through her purse, pulled out the phone and read the text marching across the bottom of the screen.

I didn’t set the fire. I would never hurt you, Maggie.

Her insides turned to ice. She glanced frantically around, but no one was looking her way, or seemed the least bit interested. With trembling fingers, she reached for the necklace, adjusted the mic.

“I got a text,” she said, facing away from the patrons on the boardwalk toward the open water, so no one could see her lips moving. “I-it’s from him. He says he
didn’t set the fire. He says he would never hurt me.” She took a deep breath. “Do you think he’s here?”

“Could have come from anyplace,” Trace’s voice replied. “Forward the message and start walking. Keep your eyes open.”

Maggie sent the message on to Trace. She knew he would try to find out where the text had come from. She steeled herself, forced herself to start again, to move at a leisurely pace.

The morning heated and the sun turned brutal, the humidity creeping higher and higher. Her skin felt sticky; her sunglasses slid down her nose.

“I’m going back to check the car, see if he might have left a note. Maybe he’s somewhere nearby, watching for me to return.”

“Roger that,” Trace said. The others acknowledged the communication. Aside from Ziggy’s brief appearance, and the text she had received, nothing had happened. And no one had seen anything out of the ordinary.

Maggie reached the parking lot, where the pavement was soft and hot beneath the soles of her sneakers, and heat rose in rippling waves. She wanted to climb inside the car and turn on the air conditioner, blast the icy coolness into her face.

At the sight of the empty windshield, she felt her shoulders droop. Unlike the last time, there was no note, no sign that her stalker had been there. Nothing but his eerie text message, which, like before, had probably come from a throwaway phone.

“Shall I head over to the marina?” she asked into the mic.

Alex and Ben had been aboard the boat that morn
ing, she knew, a place to have coffee and wait for the sun to come up.

“Roger that,” Trace said. “We’ll rendezvous at the
Lady,
get out of the sun for a while, maybe try again a little later.”

Though if her stalker was watching, he would see them all together, and any chance to make contact would probably be lost.

Still, getting out of the sun sounded like a great idea to Maggie. Imagining a cold drink and some time off her feet, she didn’t notice the battered old Dodge van that was parked two cars down from her Ford on the opposite side. She didn’t give it much thought when the driver backed the van out of its space and pulled up in front of her.

Then the van doors rolled open and two men in tank tops and camouflage cargo pants jumped out and shot toward her, their heavy lace-up boots clattering on the asphalt. One was white with curly blond hair, the other Hispanic with a do-rag tied around his head. Both were covered with tattoos and had solid, muscular bodies.

“Trace!” Maggie screamed as one of the men grabbed her camera and started trying to drag the strap off over her head. “Let go of that!” The heavy length of black nylon was looped around her neck. Maggie hung on tight, not about to let go. “Get away from me!”

“Get her purse!” the guy yelled to his friend, who grabbed her bag, which she was wearing secured across her body messenger-style. Even if she’d wanted to give it to him, she couldn’t get it free.

“Goddamn it, lady!” He tugged on the strap, trying to jerk the expensive camera off over her head, while the other guy yanked on her purse, which held credit cards and several hundred dollars in cash.

Maggie dug her heels into the pavement and pulled back as hard as she could, at the same time twisting to get free. One of them shoved her and she went down, scraping her palms as she tried to protect the camera.

The second man pulled a knife out of nowhere, cut the strap on her purse and ran for the van. “Come on, Chaz!”

Maggie staggered to her feet, still gripping the camera, determined to hold out until Trace, Ben and Alex could reach her.

“I’m not giving it to you!” Her heart was pounding, slamming against her ribs, as she tussled with the blond man.

“You bitch!” A tattooed hand slapped her hard across the face and she stumbled but didn’t let go. A red-and-blue serpent wound around the arm that fought for the camera, and a skull-and-crossbones gleamed on one shoulder.

“Stop it!” Her cheek burned, making her more determined than ever not to let him win. Then, suddenly, she was free, stumbling to keep her balance and not wind up on the ground again.

In a blinding rage, Trace grabbed the first guy by the back of the neck, spun him around and hit him so hard that his feet left the ground and his head cracked against the pavement. From the corner of his eye, he saw Alex grab the second guy, a muscular Hispanic with a faint mustache and deep-set black eyes. Alex slammed the gangbanger’s head against the side of the van once, twice and again, and Maggie’s purse tumbled out of his hands. Through the window, Trace saw Ben jerk open the driver’s-side door, drag a second Hispanic guy out of the vehicle and smash a fist into his face.

Trace turned an instant too late. His opponent was on his feet, a tattooed arm swinging a punch that split Trace’s lip and sent blood flying across the front of his shirt. He rammed a fist into the thug’s belly. A right, then a left, followed by third blow left the guy reeling.

Flicking a glance at Maggie, Trace saw the red mark on her cheek and punched him again, slamming him to the pavement. This time he didn’t get up, until Trace grabbed the front of his tank top and hauled him to his feet, ready to hit him again.

“Trace!” Maggie’s high-pitched shriek cut through the bloodlust, dragging him back to his senses. He shook his head to clear it and reined himself in, his fist shaking with his effort to stay in control. He’d known better than to make Maggie a target. The minute he spotted the van, he knew he had made a mistake.

Trace turned to see Alex mopping up the pavement with the gangbanger in the do-rag, then hauling him up beside the van. Ben goose-stepped the driver around the front of the vehicle, his arm cranked up behind him.

The guy with the serpent tattoo hadn’t moved since Trace knocked him ass-over-tea-kettle onto the pavement. Trace stepped over the unconscious figure, checked the pulse beating at the side of his neck, found it strong and steady, and headed for Maggie.

She was trembling and pale, her hands scraped raw from her fall on the asphalt. Trace drew her into his arms.

“It’s okay, honey, it’s over. Everything’s all right.”

Maggie took a deep breath, but didn’t let him go. All Trace could think was how glad he was that she was only scared and a little bruised, not seriously injured. She took another breath, managed to nod, and reluctantly, he released her.

A crowd was beginning to gather. In the distance, he could hear the wail of a siren.

Maggie gazed up at him. “I don’t…I don’t understand what’s going on. Is one of these men my stalker?”

“No,” Trace said darkly. “Maybe you ought to go sit in the car, turn on the AC.”

Maggie firmly shook her head. “No way.”

The white guy was still unconscious. Trace turned his attention to the driver of the van, who appeared to be in his late twenties, with a shaved head and small goatee. “Who hired you to follow the lady down here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

Ben whacked him on the back of the skull, summoning a belligerent glare.