CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (5 page)

             
Then, as he spoke, the illusion dissolved. "That's your car?" He
tsked
in disgust. "I've been telling the legislature we need some protection out here for our reporters, but nothing will happen. Those guys understand concealed weapons but not common sense.

             
Kate leaned a hand against the hood. Her imagination, usually so inactive, had transferred guilt to Senator Oberlin. Senator Oberlin, the man who had made her uncomfortable with his attentions and his touch that had lingered too long. "It would be better if there was a guard," she said.

             
"Since nine-eleven, the capitol has a contract with a private security company." He discarded his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "They supply undercover guards who patrol the capitol. But they patrol only the buildings, and that leaves me out here to protect you. Now, Miss Montgomery, when I was a teenager, I worked in a gas station. I haven't changed a tire in about thirty years, but I bet I remember how."

             
Now her hand did go to her phone. "Senator, please, let me call a service to change it."

             
Faintly, she could see that his eyes twinkled. "I suppose you think I'm too old to use a jack."

             
"No, sir! That's not what I thought at all. You're in great shape." He was. She'd noted that. Not an ounce of fat around his belly, and his bare forearms were strongly muscled. "But you're dressed too well to be kneeling in a parking lot."

             
Opening the trunk, he extracted the jack and the tire. "Consider it a favor done with the express purpose of having you return the favor."

             
She must be really tired, for again the image of rape and murder rampaged through her mind, and Linda's warning—
Don't go into a hearing room with a senator unless you want to wrestle for your virtue
—rang in her mind.

             
"Someday I'll need some coverage for one of my bills." Kneeling beside her tire, he efficiently removed the nuts.

             
Relief filled her, then dismay. "Sir, I can't promise that," she said faintly.

             
"Then you can go out and get me a hamburger next time there's a filibuster." He wrestled the flat off and replaced it with the spare. He worked efficiently, spinning the wheel and tightening the nuts with the tire iron.

             
She relaxed. That Hispanic man yesterday had gotten under her skin. Everywhere she looked she saw trouble, even when none existed. "Wendy's or McDonald's?"

             
"I've got a better idea. My wife and I are giving a party next week. Perhaps you can come. September nineteenth. It's our anniversary, our twenty-fifth, and we're planning a big bash." He sounded genial, hospitable. He lowered the jack, threw the slashed tire into the trunk, and used his handkerchief to clean his fingers. "Bring a friend."

             
She couldn't think of a reason why not. Didn't see any harm in going to a party that would undoubtedly include other reporters and perhaps contacts that would help her. Plus, she really did owe him. She wouldn't have wanted to wait alone for the auto club to come out and change her tire. "I'd be delighted to attend. Thank you, Senator—for everything."

             
"I don't know, Mom." Kate cleared the dirty dishes off the carved Indonesian table in her mother's elegant high-rise town house. "In Houston, the station manager was a jerk and everyone else was nice. At KTTV, the station manager is fine, and all the reporters treat me like dirt."

             
"Is he cute?" her mother asked automatically. She had cooked one of her fabulous dinners to celebrate Kate's first week on the job, and now she let Kate do the cleanup while she sipped a small glass of port.

             
"Who?"

             
"The station manager."

             
"Brad? E-uw, no." Kate thought of the thick scent of tobacco that hung in the air around Brad, and reiterated, "E-uw."

             
"Too bad." Her mother reacted to Kate's single status like a bull to a red flag. "You need to have a social life."

             
"No, I need to find enough stories so that bitch Linda Nguyen has to be nice to me." Kate piled the silverware onto the plates with a little too much vigor.

             
"Don't say 'bitch.' If you're going to abuse the china, you can leave the dishes for the housekeeper tomorrow. And . . . wait . . . Linda Nguyen?" Mom was diverted. "I've seen her reports. I like her a lot."

             
"Well, she doesn't like
me
." Kate handled the dishes with a little more care.

             
"You'll win her over." The two women shared a smile. A handsome woman of fifty-eight, Marilyn Montgomery was a slender, well-groomed brunette who kept herself in shape by working out at the gym and doing fund-raising for every charity that sent her an appeal. She was good at it, too, organizing parties ruthlessly and squeezing money out of corporations with finesse and charm. She served on the board for the Austin Symphony and as the chairman of the Breadwinner's Shelter for Homeless Children.

             
Her mother had always believed in her. Her father had always believed in her. Believed she could do whatever she wanted, be whatever she wanted. That was the real reason Kate had to succeed. She wanted to fulfill their faith in her—and her own faith in herself. She might be an orphan. She might be the daughter of a frightened teenager or a prostitute. But she was strong. She would succeed. "If I don't win them over, I'll still do my job."

             
"Of course. You are your father's daughter."

             
It was the pain and tragedy of Skeeter Montgomery's death that had brought about the extremely close relationship between Kate and her mother. No two women could go through the agony of knowing the man they loved had been captured by terrorists, was perhaps being tortured, was perhaps being killed . . . When, after two months of waiting, his body had been found, it had almost been a relief to know for sure.

             
That was the worst part of all, that the confirmation of his death was a relief.

             
Since her father had been killed five years ago, her mother had been prone to anxiety. She had made a home for them in Nashville while Kate attended Vanderbilt. Kate had never admitted it, but having her mother keeping track of her so closely during her college years had felt restrictive. When Kate landed the job in Houston, her mother's decision to return to her hometown of Austin had come as a complete surprise. "You're going to be okay living by yourself now, won't you, honey?" her mother had asked. "You're not afraid anymore, are you?"

             
And Kate had realized that she
had
been afraid . . . and that the time with her mother had healed her.

             
Her mom was the greatest, smartest person in the world.

             
"I'm my mother's daughter, too." Kate headed for the kitchen with the stack of dishes. "If you hadn't taught me how to break someone's kneecaps with a velvet stick, I wouldn't have done nearly so well this week. The capitol is everything I expected."

             
"Corrupt?" Mom followed, amused.

             
"And fascinating." The committee rooms with their seal of Texas at the head of the room, the broad staircases curving up and down, the official bustle of the Senate in session. "I've met so many people. Only a few even stand out. I did meet Senator Martinez. And Senator Oberlin. Do you know him?"

             
Her mom shook her head. "No, but government bores me. Is he important?"

             
"Linda says he has a lot of power."

             
"Is
he
cute?"

             
Kate rolled her eyes. "Old and married for twenty-five years."

             
"Oh." Mom subsided. "If you're not going to find yourself a nice boy, I'll have to do it for you. Dean Sanders is quite the catch. He's handsome. He's a lawyer with MacMillan and Anderson. He knows his way around Austin society."

             
"And?" Kate waited for the other shoe to drop.

             
"He's divorced, but his mother says that his wife caused the problems and that he's ready to date again."

             
"No. Please, no." Going to her mother, Kate wrapped her arms around her and gave her a hug. "Really, Mom. No. I don't want a guy who's getting over a divorce."

             
"But his mother says—"

             
"She's lying. You know she is."

             
"I suppose," her mom said irritably. "But he's a good man. He deserves someone like you."

             
"There's only one of me," Kate said with humor. "Not all the men can be lucky."

             
She left by nine—"Tomorrow's a workday, Mom." Darkness had fallen by the time she hurried to her car, which was parked in a visitor's space at the front of the building.

             
She heard a sound behind her. A hushed step, a brief brush of cloth against metal. She turned, expecting to see her mother hurrying after her with an extra helping of Cornish hen.

             
She saw no movement. A few parked cars, some nicely planted bushes, a few flowers . . .

             
A cat, perhaps. Or a squirrel. Something.

             
Still she scanned the sidewalk behind her.

             
There was nothing there. With a shrug, she got into her car and drove home.

             
That night, Kate's phone rang at two A.M. Barely awake, she fumbled for the receiver, her heart pounding in her throat.

             
Was it Mom? Had they gotten Mom, too?

             
When she picked it up, no one was there. The line was open, but no one spoke, no one breathed. She hung up and got out of bed.

             
Caller ID showed: "Private caller."

             
She dismissed the call as a mistake.

             
She got a drink of water and looked at herself in the mirror.

             
She hated this. One call in the middle of the night, and all the fear and anguish of her dad's kidnapping came rushing back. All the memories paraded through her mind. They were nightmares come to life, and no matter how hard she tried, nothing could erase them.

             
She went back to bed, and an hour later, she had just drifted back to sleep when her cell phone rang. She got up and looked at the phone, but she didn't answer this time. Again it read: "Private caller."

             
Coincidence, probably. A bad coincidence since both numbers were unlisted and unpublished, but a coincidence nevertheless.

             
When her home phone rang again at five A.M., she let the answering machine pick it up. A low, growly, disguised voice said, "Leave, bitch."

             
And quietly hung up.

             
That day, to cover the dark circles under her eyes, Kate wore extra makeup.

             
Two nights later she left the capitol to discover a slap of whitewash on her car window.

             
In shaky letters, it spelled out,
Leave, bitch
.

             
Kate stared at the message. Her heart pounded in her throat. Her temples tightened with fear. She whipped around to check for onlookers, but none of the people who strolled past paid her any attention.

             
Yet she had to face the truth.

             
She had a stalker.

             
She just didn't know what to do about it.

             
She hadn't yet had the nerve to call the police. Despite Brad's assurances about her work—she'd scooped every other station in Austin on two more stories— there wasn't a doubt in her mind that every reporter at KTTV would love to see her fail. If she announced she had a stalker, she'd be regarded as a grandstander, and the laughter that went on behind her back would turn around to blare in her face. She couldn't bear to make things worse.

             
Yet Kate knew the facts. She knew that stalkers loved to target the "girl" reporters. Stalkers were unstable, and although hers hadn't done anything violent yet, the incidents were likely to escalate, possibly to serious crimes—to rape and murder.