Identity Crisis (27 page)

Mike Pittman was his usual rude self. ‘Where’s Ms. Delaney?’ He spoke above the rain. ‘And why isn’t she here with you?’

The tight silence of anticipation was broken by the rev of an engine and the screech of tires as a blue Audi jerked to a stop in front of the house. The door burst open and Tess Delaney practically catapulted from the seat looking way more casual than Carla, or anyone else, had ever seen her in the brief time she’d been in the public eye.

‘I am here.’ She spoke in a loud, clear voice. For a second, she stood facing the two men on the porch, ignoring the downpour around her. There was a muttering of awe as the press parted and Tess literally ran up the sidewalk and onto the porch. She was completely drenched by the time she reached Garrett Thorne. She pushed her way in close, grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him hard.

It was frustrating as hell. Once again, no one could hear what Tess whispered to him, but she practically manhandled Garrett back into the house, with Bachman mumbling an embarrassed apology before he followed them in and shut the door.

Inside, Kendra wasted no time. ‘Don, stay here,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she led Garrett, her hand still fisted in his shirt, to the kitchen. ‘I need to talk to Garrett alone.’

Once they were in the kitchen, she slammed the door that separated it from the rest of the house and turned on him. But he beat her to the draw.

‘How the hell did you get here? Ellis and Dee promised me they would keep you there, that they would keep you safe.’

‘Don’t ask people to make promises they can’t keep.’ Her voice was a low growl. But that was about as calm as it got. ‘You sonovabitch!’ She slapped him hard enough to make his ears ring. ‘You left me! You left me without so much as a fucking word!’ She would have slapped him again, but this time he caught her arms and pulled them in close to his chest.

She jerked away and stood with her fists tight at her side, chest heaving with rage. ‘Look, if you absolutely feel you want to tell the press Tess’s secret, I can’t stop you, but goddamn it, you pulled me into this in the first place to protect her identity.’ She shoved a pointed index finger at his chest. ‘You don’t back out without telling me. Do you understand? If you want to fucking fire me, then do it, damn it! Just do it. But until that happens I’m in charge and we do it my way.’

‘Kendra, Kendra! This has nothing to do with who’s in charge and you know it.’ He reached for her, but she jerked away. ‘I don’t give a fuck who’s in charge and I don’t care how angry you are, I’m not putting you at any more risk. I’m going out there to tell the press who I am, and then, even if I fucking have to hogtie you, I’m going to take you someplace safe, someplace away from here.’ He reached for her and she jerked away so hard she fell back against the table.

‘I quit, Garrett.’

She could have kicked him in the gut and he would have felt it less. ‘Kendra, wait. Listen to me, please.’

‘I said I quit!’ She hoisted her bag higher onto her shoulder and jerked open the back door before he could jerk it away from her and slam it shut, then she slapped him again.

And he kissed her. He pressed her up hard against the granite counter, holding her wrists none too gently, ignoring the painful nip of her front teeth, grunting hard as a loose elbow hit him in the ribs. ‘Damn it, Kendra, stop it. Just stop it and listen to me.’

‘Fuck you,’ she said, her voice nothing more than a breathless hiss before she grabbed him by the hair and pulled him into a kiss he wasn’t sure he would survive. Then she was shoving and ripping at his fly, growling and cursing like fury itself. ‘Damn you, Garrett Thorne. I hate you! I fucking hate you!’

He hoisted her onto the counter top, forcing the short denim skirt up over her hips and pushing the crotch of her panties aside. ‘No, you don’t. You don’t hate me.’

She grabbed at his hair again, fingers curled so tight it felt like he was being scalped. ‘I hate you, I hate you.’ She forced the words up through her chest that heaved as though it would explode. With the other hand she brutalized him in her efforts to get to his cock, and how he could be erect right now made no sense, but he was. ‘I hate you,’ she gasped, as he gripped her buttocks and pulled her onto him so hard that her gasp was surely one of pain.

‘I’ll do what I have to, Kendra, so just deal with it.’ This time he pulled her hair, forcing her to look him in the eyes, forcing her to face him and not look away, and he thrust as though he would split her in two, as she kicked him hard in the kidneys with her legs locked around his waist. ‘Get over it, because I’ll do what I have to. I’ll keep you safe.’ Each thrust was painful, each thrust felt like it would gut him, felt like it would break her in half, felt like it would tear the world apart.

She sobbed her orgasm as though her heart were broken, in hot tears of rage and frustration and who knew what else. God knew she would never tell him.

He felt like everything he was he suddenly spilled inside her, and there was no going back. There’d never be any going back. ‘I love you, Kendra,’ he whispered against her ear. But he wasn’t sure she heard him when his BlackBerry was ringing from where he’d tossed it on the kitchen table when he’d come in earlier this morning.

‘Get it,’ she managed between efforts to breathe. ‘It might be important.’

He settled her onto the floor and grabbed for it. ‘It’s Wade.’ He put it on speaker phone.

‘Wade, it’s Kendra. What’s going on?’

‘I’m here.’ Garrett spoke before Wade could ask. Then he settled onto the chair next to Kendra.

‘Glad you’re together,’ he said. ‘I figured you would be. We’ve found the stalker.’

The sound that came from Kendra’s throat was like someone had wounded her. Quickly she covered her mouth and swallowed back a sob, and Garrett thought his heart would break for her.

‘Police have taken him into custody. His name is Bill Gleason. He works over at Web-Z.’

‘How did you find him?’ Garrett asked.

‘I pulled a few strings,’ Wade said. ‘Convinced some of the friends I know in media that it might be time to check for porn on the computers of their employees. They got my meaning.’

Garrett knew that as low key and mild-mannered as Wade Crittenden appeared to be, the man had friends in high places and endless resources of the human kind, of the technological kind, and of the kind that came with Pneuma Inc.’s very deep pockets.

‘You’re sure it’s him?’ Kendra asked.

‘All of the emails were there on his computer, and he’s admitted to writing them.’

There was a timid knock on the kitchen door and Don stuck his head in. ‘You two need to see what’s on television,’ he said.

‘Keep me on,’ Wade said. ‘I’ll watch from here.’

Just as they settled onto the sofa in front of the big screen TV, Kendra’s Blackberry rang. It was Dee. ‘Thank God! Ken, are you all right’ Her voice was breathless, urgent. Kendra owed her a huge apology. She’d literally stolen the Audi when Dee was in the shower. Before Kendra could respond she continued, ‘Did Wade call? Did he tell you they’ve caught the stalker?’

‘I’m fine. Garrett has him on speaker phone now. I’ll call you back,’ she said, as she looked up to see a man being taken away from the Web-Z offices in handcuffs, his face covered by a jacket he had pulled over his head. She shut off the device and laid it on the coffee table next to Garrett’s, her attention now riveted to the voiceover.

‘Bill Gleason was arrested early this morning for threatening the life of romance novelist and winner of the Golden Kiss Award, Tess Delaney. Since Tess’s first ever public appearance at Friday night’s award ceremony, rumors have been rife about her early and mysterious exit from the ceremony with Garrett Thorne, younger brother to Ellison Thorne, CEO of Pneuma Inc. Since that time, Ms. Delaney has been holed up at Garrett’s house insisting, during several conversations with the press, that her stay with Thorne was nothing more than him providing a quiet place for her to finish writing her next novel. Speculations arose early on the first day of Ms. Delaney’s confinement that there was a threat to her life, speculations confirmed by presenter and literary critic, Barker Blessing. Those speculations were denied – no doubt for the protection of Ms. Delaney.’

The same reporter at large, who had been on hand the first day Kendra had awoken in Garrett’s flat, was once again back in the bookstores, asking how people felt about the stalker’s arrest.

‘I’m so relieved they found him. It must have been so terrifying for Tess.’

‘How could anyone do such a thing?’

‘I suspected that something wasn’t right after that interview with Barker Blessing.’

There were several more similar one-liners from the bookstore frequenters, many with Tess Delaney novels in tow. Then the report returned to the voiceover.

‘So far Tess has made no comment, though she was seen arriving in a blue Audi a short while ago looking rather distressed.’ Sure enough, there was footage of Tess piling out of the Audi and forcing Garrett and Don back into the house.

‘The press is hoping for a statement from Tess Delaney and Garrett Thorne soon.’

‘You’re sure?’ Garrett asked Wade.

‘This is the man who wrote the emails, yes,’ Wade said. ‘He hasn’t admitted to breaking into your house or being in the woods behind Ellis’s house, but the police are still questioning him.’

Carla’s fingers cramped from the cold rain and from the murderous grip she had on her iPhone. When her editor picked up she said. ‘Phil, is it true about Gleason?’

Phil Gibbs puffed out a breath that sounded like a small explosion against her ear. ‘Dena Parish found the emails,’ he said. ‘She was using Gleason’s computer to send a quick message. I mean, we were going to check everyone anyway. Request by Wade Crittenden. Didn’t even know he knew Tess Delaney, but then he does know Ellison Thorne’s brother, so I guess that’s how he fits into this. Wade’s a police force within himself, you know? He’s the go-to man for most of the police departments in the Northwest, even though criminology’s not his thing. Still, he’s Wade Crittenden, isn’t he? If he says make it so, no one’s going to argue. Turns out he was right again. It was someone in the press.

‘Anyway, like I said, Dena found the emails by accident. Gleason said it was nothing, but they didn’t sound like nothing to me. Scary shit, Flannery. Scary shit. Hard to believe he was right here in our midst spewing out all that horrible stuff all along and we didn’t know it. I mean, I thought he seemed awfully interested in what was going on with the Tess situation, but then who wasn’t? Jesus, he was even out there with you quite a bit, wasn’t he?’

Carla felt ice snake up her spine. ‘All day yesterday.’ Quickly she calculated the time, and … ‘Phil,’ she spoke slowly, mostly to be able to hear her own voice above the fluttering in her ears. ‘Phil, Gleason was with me until the rain started at four this morning. We were playing cribbage. I sent him home, told him I’d call him back if anything happened.’

Carla was a freelancer; it wasn’t unusual to have some of the real Web-Z staff on stories with her, and Gleason was decent with a camera. Web-Z usually went for more fluff and human interest than she did.

‘So?’ came the reply she barely heard.

‘Nothing. I’ve gotta go.’ She disconnected and held the umbrella gripped between her neck and shoulder to steady it as she began to text. She wasn’t sure why she did it. She must be insane. With her fingers unsteady from more than just the cold, it took her three attempts at the text, but eventually she managed it and read it back, wiping residual rain from the screen. Then she sent it. To the stalker, hoping against hope that it had all been a lie and that Gleason had just been pulling her chain too.

What time were you at Thorne’s mansion last night?

The reply was almost instant. So much so, in fact, that she jumped and uttered a little yelp that caused Mike Pittman to glare at her like she was some nutter.

Not long after dark. I told you, I was home in time for a midnight snack. Oh yes, I saw the news, Carla! Who knew that our dear Tess had so many admirers?

Almost before she actually knew what was happening, Carla broke ranks from the soggy front lawn vigil and ran to the motorhome, slipping and sliding on the mud-slickened lawn and drawing the attention of several of the press in her less than graceful departure. She crawled into the driver’s seat and started the engine. How she managed to get out of the neighborhood without hitting someone or something was beyond her. In her peripheral vision she could see Mike Pittman, now standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the lawn, no doubt trying to decide whether or not to follow her. At the moment, she didn’t give a fuck what he did. This was way more than just a story.

As she hit the freeway faster than her dad would have approved of her driving in his motorhome, she punched in the Pneuma Inc. switchboard on her iPhone. She still had the number from when she was working on the story from John Day. When the operator picked up, she didn’t wait for a greeting.

‘I need to talk to Wade Crittenden. It’s urgent.’ She sounded like she’d just run a marathon.

‘I’m sorry, but Mr. Crittenden isn’t available at the moment. Could I take a message?’

She nearly hung up on the woman, but thought better of it. ‘This is Carla Flannery, I’m a journalist. I need to talk to him about Tess Delaney’s stalker. I’m serious. It’s urgent.’ She recited her cell number, then repeated it. ‘It’s urgent. I mean it!’ she said, then she hung up and stepped on the gas.

Chapter Twenty-
Five

He switched off his cell phone. He didn’t want to be interrupted, not even by Carla, busy playing her little detective games. Though she was entertaining, she was just a diversion, just someone he could toy with until he got what he wanted. The fact that someone else would be getting the blame for some silly little email threats was also irrelevant. Whoever it was could be of no real consequence or he would never have gotten caught. He wasn’t jealous that someone else had gotten the attention. It wasn’t the attention he wanted, at least not yet. It was nothing, really. Nothing at all compared to what he was about to do. The man would be totally eclipsed for his petty little dabblings when the world discovered what he had planned. In the background, the television whispered. Her television. He only had it on to listen for the latest news as the Tess Delaney saga unfolded. He could hardly contain himself when he thought about the next chapter, the one no one could have ever guessed in ten lifetimes, the one even she couldn’t guess.

As he walked from room to room, he took in the scent of her; sweet, so sweet. He had caught that sweet scent in the woods the other night, but then it was contaminated by the reek of sex, by the stench of Thorne. Here, in her private space, in her flat, it was the pure, distilled, exquisite essence of her. Not of Tess Delaney, not of K. Ryde, not of the Bird Woman or any of the other people she had been in her deceptive life, but of Kendra Davis, raw, laid bare, Kendra Davis in the place where she would have never brought anyone for sex. He was sure she’d never brought Thorne here. He would have known if she had. This was the place she would keep from everyone, maybe even her closest friends. And he knew her well enough to know that here, in this place, on her home turf, she did have friends, powerful friends. But even they were no match for him. They only made the game more interesting. They would only make the final chapter more satisfying.

It was a small place, much smaller than she could afford, but then she wasn’t all that concerned with material things. He had always liked that about her. She was more concerned with ordering other peoples’ lives and the challenge they presented in their disorder. The place was as Spartan and as distilled as her essence that hung in the air. He was sure, remembering who she was, how she was, that everything, every little thing had a purpose. She was not sentimental. She was not a collector of mementoes. When he knew her, she lived in the moments she created, lived as a creature other than herself. He had never known her as herself. When he knew her, she was a mystery like none he’d ever tackled before, a mystery worth studying, worth waiting for. And now he would know her more fully than he had ever dreamed possible.

He moved into her bedroom and was delighted to find that her bed was made, meticulously made. Of course she probably had someone do it for her. She could afford it. But then again, he couldn’t really imagine her letting a stranger touch her personal things, not even in something as mundane as making her bed. Carefully, almost reverently, he sat down on the edge of it, on the side she slept on, he could tell by the books, by the reading lamp, by the alarm clock. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath as though he was about to reverence the divine, as though he was about to step onto holy ground, onto a place that wasn’t quite safe to step. Welling with emotions he had held inside himself for over a year, he laid back on it, pressing his body gently into the place where she slept and dreamed. He didn’t put his feet up; that would have been wrong, like he was invading her privacy, like he was desecrating a sacred place. But the pillow! Oh, dear God in heaven, the pillow smelled so powerfully of her. It smelled of her sleep, it smelled of her dreams. And oh how he wondered what she dreamed. Did she ever dream of him? He’d tried so hard, when he knew her before, to make sure that she would remember him in her dreams. He wanted that more than anything else from her; that she would dream of him, that even when she slept she would never be rid of him. Oh yes, he wanted that! He buried his face in her pillow and inhaled as though he could take her very essence into himself, as though he could capture her spirit that way. But really, no hocus pocus would be necessary. He would need no magic. It would be easy. So very easy.

His hand strayed to his fly, which was now tight and uncomfortable. How could it not be when he was in her home, in her bed, surrounded by her essence, surrounded by her things? For a second he lay in a fetal position, very careful to keep his feet off the bed, and rocked against himself. The feel of her was almost more than he could endure. He cried out and stood quickly, breathing deeply, closing his eyes, focusing – focusing. Not yet. The time wasn’t right yet. He could control himself just a little bit longer. He could save himself for her.

When he was sure he wouldn’t disgrace himself, he made his way back to the desk in the tiny living room. Her laptop sat closed in standby mode, and he couldn’t resist a message to her, a single message for old time’s sake. It would be the sweetest gift. It would make her ready for their coming together as nothing else could.

He opened her email account, paying no attention to the messages that were there. They didn’t matter to him; nothing else mattered to him about her past. There was only now, this moment, and he would extend it to include her, and this would be the beginning. He began to type an email.

For a long moment Kendra, Garrett, and Don sat in front of the television as the news ended with a recap of the arrest of Tess Delaney’s stalker. At last, Garrett flicked the off switch on the remote and the silence came back into focus, hindered only by the soft drumming of the rain.

‘It’s over then,’ Kendra said at last.

Both men nodded. And for another long moment they sat in the rain-pocked silence as though the remote had somehow switched them all off as well, as though the whole world had gone into standby.

It was Kendra who broke the silence. ‘Good.’ She shoved to her feet and grabbed her BlackBerry from the coffee table. ‘Then I’m out of here.’ She headed toward the front door.

‘What the …? Kendra, where are you going?’ Garrett pushed off the sofa to follow her, ignoring Don. ‘Kendra, what are you doing?’

At the front door, she stuffed the device into her bag, which she hoisted onto her shoulder. Then she turned to him, and the look on her face was cold, distant. ‘I quit, Garrett.’ She nodded to the door. ‘I’m not speaking to the press. I don’t care what you tell them. That’s up to you. But I quit.’

He felt like the floor had fallen away from under his feet. He reached for her arm. ‘Kendra, no, you can’t, you can’t leave now. We’re not finished.’

She jerked away and wiped at her welling eyes with the back of her hand. ‘We are finished, Garrett. There’s nothing else for us to do, and I don’t work for people who don’t listen to me.’

‘Jesus, Kendra, this is not about work, it hasn’t been about work for a long time now, you have to know that.’

She raised a hand and grabbed the door handle. ‘I don’t know that, Garrett. I don’t know anything anymore.’ She glanced at the door. ‘I’m going. Don’t make a scene. It won’t do you or Tess any good.’ Then she turned and walked out the door, startling the soggy press with the unexpected visitation.

He started after her, but before he could clear the door, Don grabbed him in a firm hand and pulled him back, slamming the door shut as he did so, and Garrett was on him, fists first. ‘Get off me. Get off me! I can’t let her go, goddamnit!’

He landed a blow to Don’s jaw and Don would have gone down if he hadn’t caught himself with a hand against the wall. He shook his head, hard, then grabbed Garrett by both shoulders, risking another onslaught.

‘Garrett! Garrett, listen to me! Let her go. She’s right. Leave it. You can go after her later. Hell, I’ll even drive you if you want me to, but you have to drop this until cooler heads prevail.’

‘She’s angry at me for doing exactly what she would have done if she’d been in my shoes,’ Garrett yelled. ‘The woman ran into the woods after me like some crazy lady, like she could save the world, like, like, like …’

‘Like she wanted you safe, I know,’ Don said. ‘Like she was afraid of losing you.’ He eased his arm around Garrett’s shoulders and guided him back to the sofa in the living room. ‘She’s scared. That’s all, she’s scared. I could see it in her eyes. Give her a little space, Garrett, and let her breathe. Just let her breathe.’

‘I can’t lose her, Don.’ His control broke. ‘Fuck this! I’m going after her!’

He sprang from the sofa just as his BlackBerry buzzed an incoming message. He grabbed it up and felt his whole body tense as he viewed the screen.

‘It’s from her. Wait a minute. Something’s wrong.’ Garrett fiddled with the device, nearly dropping it before he figured out what was going on. ‘This is Kendra’s BlackBerry. She took mine, then. She’s probably emailing to say she has mine and …’ His words died in his throat and the world fell away as he opened the email.

Hello Bird Woman,

I’m back at long last, and I’ve been missing you terribly. Surely you knew I’d find you. I know, I know. You thought I was dead, but honestly, darling, a love like ours can’t be conquered by death. Surely you know that. You’ll never guess where I am, loveliness. I’m right here in your delicious little apartment, and I’m writing this message from your laptop, even from your address. It’s so much more personal that way, don’t you think? Of course I won’t be here when you leave that horrid Thorne. But don’t worry, I’ll find you when the time is right. And this time, Bird Woman, I won’t take no for an answer.

My Deepest Love,

Edge

P.S.: LOVE the Mustang!

Garrett was still reading the message as he frantically tried to call Kendra on his land line.

‘She probably isn’t picking up,’ Don said. ‘Let me try.’

There was no response. Garrett forwarded the email to Wade, along with a text saying he was on his way to Kendra’s house.

‘Dear God, do you really think she’ll catch him there?’ Don asked.

‘Probably not, but she’s still not safe, and I have to find her.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Don said, following Garrett to the front door.

‘Call the police. Tell the press what’s going on. Maybe they can help, and keep trying to call her.’

Garrett shoved his way through the rain-soaked press and into his Jeep, which hadn’t been driven in two days. The tires spun up a wild spray of rainwater as he accelerated out onto the street.

Kendra felt like someone had gutted her. And she felt scared, scared like she’d never been before. She drove down I-84 at break-neck speed, not really caring if she got stopped, not really caring about anything but getting home. Harris was right. It was a mistake for her to sleep with Garrett Thorne. It was a mistake for her to have anything to do with him. He was trouble. Already he was trying to control her life. Even when she was the boss, even when she was in charge, he had to take that away from her. Well, she couldn’t have it. She couldn’t! She would never allow herself to end up like her mother, controlled by some man who only used her, controlled by some man who always had room for one more when he got a little bored. There had been no sense of pride, no sense of self-worth, and in truth, she would have done anything for Garrett. It had gotten to that point. So close, so close. It was only when he walked out of Ellis’s house this morning and tried to do what he did that she really realized just how close to losing control she was, just how close to losing what she’d fought so hard to win. And she couldn’t have that. She just couldn’t.

What was really terrifying was that, for the first time in her life, she understood. She understood exactly how her mother could feel so deeply for a man, so deeply that she would abdicate all control to him, that she would be willing to suffer all humiliation, willing to do whatever it took just to keep him by her side, just to have his affection from time to time. Jesus, she understood! And nothing, nothing in her whole life had ever been more terrifying. She didn’t want to understand, damn it! She didn’t want to empathize, and she hated Garrett Thorne for opening her to such self-loathing, to such weakness.

She wanted to get home, have a hot shower, then take the Mustang out for a good hard drive. It had been too long, and the Mustang always made her feel better. The Mustang always reminded her of who she was, of how tough she was, of how she could handle anything if she had to. She could handle anything, even Garrett Thorne. The thought made her eyes well. Goddamn him! Why couldn’t he have just let her walk out the door in the beginning? And why had she been so hell-bent on connecting with Tess Delaney? Why couldn’t she have just left well enough alone?

As soon as she could breathe again, as soon as she was a little more calm, she’d give Dee a call and see if she could have one of Ellis’s drivers come and get the Audi. She practically stole it when Dee had gone for a shower and Ellis had been distracted in his study by a phone call. She tried to cheer herself with thoughts of an outing to The Boiling Point next weekend, but all she could think of was being there with Garrett. Well, there were certainly other clubs she could go to. The Boiling Point wasn’t the only place to shake her booty. It wasn’t even the best place to shake her booty. So why did she still feel so fucking miserable? Dee and Ellis didn’t have to go clubbing to find each other. Dee and Ellis didn’t try to control each other. And Garrett was Ellis’s brother.

She tried to shake thoughts of him out of her head. He was Tess Delaney; he was Garrett Thorne, so different from his brother, so different. But she didn’t care who the hell he was. He was not her problem anymore.

She pulled Dee’s Audi into the underground parking garage in the space right next to the Mustang. Her lovely Mustang. She gave the well-polished candy-apple red flank a stroke, as she locked up the Audi and headed for the elevator. A hot shower, that would be a good start. And then maybe she’d just drive on over to the coast, maybe to Lincoln City, and spend a couple of days driving the Mustang on the coastal highway. Surely that would take her mind off – things. She stepped into the elevator and let the doors shut behind her before she punched in her floor.