The Professional (14 page)

Only his excuse, his ticket into her world, was disappearing. It was over.

So now what? Jeb wondered, his cheeks puffing as he released a breath. What sort of reason was he going to have to manufacture to keep her in his life? Because he grimly suspected that she’d just become the center of his universe.

13

N
OSTRILS
FLARED
,
eyes blazing, Marjorie marched into her office, sniffed delicately, obviously noticing the scent of sex in the air, and narrowed her gaze.

Sophie wanted to fall through the floor, but ignored the heat rushing into her cheeks and held her ground.

It helped that her ground was next to Jeb’s.

“I want to know just what in the hell you think you’re doing in here,” she demanded. “This door was
locked
. My computer was
off
. You’ve got exactly three seconds to tell me or I’m—”

“Going to nail us with your riding crop, Ms. Whitehall?” Jeb asked, his lips quirking dangerously.

She gasped and all the color drained from her face. “Now, listen here. I—”

Jeb strode forward. “I’m Jeb Anderson with Ranger Security,” he told her. “And I am
not
Foy’s grandson. I was hired by Rose-Marie Wilton’s family to investigate the theft of her vintage Tiffany brooch, as well as several other missing pieces of jewelry from other residents on site, most recently a diamond engagement ring that had belonged to Annie Wilcox, Foy’s late wife, which was stolen from his safe this afternoon.”

Marjorie blanched. “What? But—”

“The missing jewelry—all of it—was found hidden in the treasure box of your aquarium.”

Looking as if she might be ill at any moment, Marjorie’s disbelieving gaze darted to her aquarium, then she gripped the edge of her desk. “I didn’t take it,” she said. “I swear, I have no idea how it got there. I—”

“We know how it got there,” Jeb told her. “Because we were here when the engagement ring was put into the box tonight.” He arched a brow. “Do you have any idea why anyone would want to frame you for these thefts? Anyone holding a grudge against you? Anything at all you’d like to share before the authorities get here?”

She swallowed, pressed a hand against her throat. “You know who did it?”

Jeb nodded. “We do. The ‘why’ of it is still a bit of a mystery. We were hoping you could enlighten us.”

She glanced up, her gaze darting nervously between the two of them. “How did you know about—”

“Your happy place?” Jeb asked. “I hacked into your computer,” he admitted. He lifted a shoulder. “You were a suspect in my investigation. It was necessary to clear you.” He arched a brow. “She found out, didn’t she? And you retaliated by using her phobia against her.”

Sophie blinked and swiveled to look at him. When had he figured that out?

“She was blackmailing me,” Marjorie finally admitted. “I’ve always kept a decent supply of cash put aside, but she was determined to drain me dry, to take it all, just because something in my personal life isn’t precisely in character for a director of a retirement home.” Marjorie swallowed. “How dare she. It’s no one’s business but mine. And Twilight Acres is my home. These people, as infuriating as they can be,” she admitted with a significant eye roll, “are my family.”

Sophie certainly understood that. She felt the same way about all the residents here.

“How did she get the codes to the safes?”

Marjorie grimaced. “Undoubtedly the same way you did,” she said. “By figuring out my password.”

“I didn’t figure out your password. I used a customized program that did it for me. I wouldn’t think Ethel would have access to something like that.”

“Could she have figured out your password?” Sophie asked.

“She could,” she said. “She knew my other name. My handle. The Whippet.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid,” she muttered. “I should have changed it. I just never suspected she’d do anything so heinous.”

The Whippet? Really, Sophie thought. Like the dog? She got the “whip” part, but… Oh, she thought, understanding dawning. Female dog. Bitch. Whippet. Double meaning. Quite clever, actually.

“Any idea why these specific people were targeted?” Jeb asked.

Marjorie rubbed a line from between her brows. “Any person who ever had anything negative to say about her cooking could have been a target,” she said. She frowned. “Foy’s ring went missing today?” she asked.

Jeb nodded. “It did.”

“Cora had mentioned that Ethel was having a tantrum today because Foy had suggested her mashed potatoes didn’t have enough salt.” She rolled her eyes, looked up at them. “Did you recover all the missing items?” she asked.

“We did,” he said.

“Then I’d like an opportunity to handle this in-house,” she said. “You can ask them all first and I’ll abide by whatever they decide. But I can fire her for this with the threat of going to the authorities if she ever harasses any of us again.”

And she’d have the leverage to get Ethel completely off her back, not that Sophie could blame her for wanting that. Granted pain was not part of her pleasure process, but to each his own. If Marjorie got her jollies by beating the crap out of people who liked it, then who was she to judge? Hell, she’d just had sex with a man right here under her desk. She certainly didn’t have the right to hurl any stones.

Jeb considered her request. “I’ll talk to everyone and get back to you. In the interim, change your safe codes and your passwords and don’t let her know that we’re onto her.”

“You saw her, you say?” she asked, lifting a brow.

“We did.”

“But she didn’t see you?”

“We were hiding,” Jeb told her.

Her eyes twinkled with knowing humor. “I’ll just bet you were.” She glanced at Sophie. “Your sweater’s on inside out, sweetheart. Might want to correct that before you leave.”

Sophie felt her eyes widen in alarm, glanced down at her shirt and winced. “Damn.”

“And if you ever find you can’t keep him in line, let me know,” she added. “I’ve got a few toys I could lend you.”

Sophie cleared her throat. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, thanks.”

Marjorie merely shrugged, then predictably settled down and got to work.

“Do you think they’ll go for it?” Jeb asked her. “Do you think Foy and the rest of them will let Marjorie handle Ethel?”

Sophie chuckled darkly. “Oh, I think they’re definitely going to be more in favor of Marjorie meting out justice than anyone else.”

Jeb slung an arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss against her head, the treasure chest in his hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go give these people their belongings back.”

She grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

“And then we’re going to go to your house and I’m going to do some finger painting. With chocolate. And you’re going to be my canvas.”

Sophie grinned. She couldn’t think of a better way to end the day.

* * *

“W
HAT
DO
THE
letters ASAP mean to you?” Charlie asked Jeb the next morning when he finally got around to returning her call. They’d returned the jewelry last night, confirmed that Marjorie would be responsible for Ethel’s punishment, then gone back to Sophie’s and played paint by number with chocolate cobbler on each other’s bodies.

It had been wonderful. The best. He’d awoken this morning to her sweet rump squashed against his aching groin, her plump breast his hand and a smile of bone deep contentment on his face. For the first time since he’d left the military, since that horrible business in Mosul, he felt…hopeful about the future.

Guilt had accompanied it, of course, but admittedly it wasn’t as debilitating as it had been before.

“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t had time.”

“Are you with her?” she asked.

He watched as Sophie threw feed out to her chickens. “I am, but she’s not right here with me at the moment so I can talk, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes and no,” she said, letting go a breath. “Listen, I’m not even sure where to start, so I’m going to give you an abbreviated rundown, okay?”

Unease nudged his belly and he felt his attention narrow. “Okay.”

“Sophie’s family is as screwed up as they come. With the exception of both grandparents, who are both deceased, she doesn’t have a single relative who isn’t certifiably crazy. Seriously. Her father never attended a school he didn’t get kicked out of. He stabbed a kid in Kindergarten through the hand with a pencil and that’s the least violent thing on record, although certainly not the least disturbing. His teacher’s note said, and I quote, ‘The boy scares me. There’s a darkness in his eyes, a pure lack of remorselessness that makes me fear for my safety as well as the other children’s.’”

Jeb whistled low. “Damn.”

She laughed grimly. “And that’s not even the half of it. He met Sophie’s mother in reform school. Her mother had already been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, with an unnatural predisposed hatred of other members of her sex. So the sociopath meets and marries the psychopath and they have a boy, whom they adore. But when Sophie came along…”

“Oh, geez,” Jeb said, passing a hand over his face.

“They terrorized her, Jeb. I widened the net to a three state radius and found hospital records that would break your heart. The last one I found was right here in Cobb county. She’d been six, taken to the hospital by her grandmother. Multiple cuts and bruises and a gash inside of her right arm that required twenty-four stitches to close. She took her grandmother’s name less than a month later, but the grandmother kept a restraining order against her son until the day she died. Sophie has been renewing one for both her parents and her brother every six months for the last two years. She’s called the police department several times, reporting disturbances around her house, crank calls and vandalism to her car. They even poisoned her animals. Bastards.”

Ah, Jesus.
He lowered his head, stared at the porch decking beneath his feet. The fence inside the fence—it had been to protect her animals. Anger tightened his fingers, made them ache and he had to unclench his jaw in order to respond.

“Do you know where they are now?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m calling,” she said. “They’re holed up in a cheap hotel less than three miles from her address and they’ve been there for three days. I don’t know what they want or what they’re planning, but she needs to be on guard. They’re dangerous.”

Yes, they were, Jeb thought. And they were going to play hell trying to get past him. “Thanks for everything, Charlie. I appreciate it.”

“Keep her safe,” she said. “I don’t know her, but I like her already.”

Smiling, her cheeks pink from the cold, her muck boots on her feet, Sophie mounted the steps to the porch. Her expression faltered when she saw his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

What to say? He knew she was going to be angry that he’d asked Charlie to dig around in her past, but her family, who seemed hell-bent and determined to hurt her, were an immediate threat. She needed to know. And, unfortunately, it was his job to tell her.

“That was Charlie,” he said. “Our resident hacker, remember?”

“The one who designed the password breaker program?”

He nodded. “One in the same.” He hesitated, trying to find the right words, or if not the right words, then at least the ones that would piss her off the least.

She frowned, concerned. “Jeb, what it is?”

He looked up, caught her gaze. “Your father, mother and brother are in a motel less than three miles from here. They’ve been there for three days.”

She stilled and a flash of fear raced across her face. “How do you know this?” she asked faintly. She frowned. “I don’t understand…”

“I know because I asked Charlie to look,” he said. “I knew that you were afraid of something, I knew that you’d built a fortress around your house and kept a cache of loaded weapons next to your door.” He paused, swallowed, glanced at her arm. “I knew that someone had hurt you. Badly,” he added. “But I didn’t realize, until you’d made that comment about some family members being unhappy with the terms of your grandmother’s will, that it was by someone who was supposed to love and protect you.”

She sank down onto the top step. “They’ve been there for three days?” she asked. “That’s unusual. They usually never stay here that long.” Her tone was wooden, lifeless, but the fear was unmistakable all the same. “They’ll breeze through for a day, make a crank call or slash my tires, or try to poison my animals, or taunt me from the distance allowed by the protection order,” she said. “But they never stay. They leave.”

It was heartbreaking to watch her, to see the sadness round her shoulders, the fear make them tense. “When was the last time you saw them?”

“A couple of weeks ago. In the parking lot of the grocery store. They told me they were going to get me. Called me a ‘thieving bitch’ because Gran left me everything. She raised me,” Sophie said. “She wasn’t just my grandmother. For all intents and purposes, she was my mother. She nursed me through childhood illnesses, she braided my hair, she taught me how to cook, helped me with my homework.” She swallowed, her voice cracking. “She was all I ever had.”

Jeb pulled her into his arms. “I wish I could have met her. She sounds like another perfect woman,” he said, giving her a squeeze.

The comment had the desired effect and she managed a wan smile. “She was,” she said. She nodded toward the end of the driveway. “He left me there,” she said. “At the end of that drive. Bleeding, bruised, scared, no shoes. In the middle of December. I was six.”

Bile rose in the back of his throat. “He’s not right, Sophie. He’s sick. They all are.”

“I know that now,” she said. “And I guess a part of me knew it then, but I still wondered what was wrong with me, why was I so hard to love?”

She was killing him, Jeb thought. Absolutely killing him and her pain made him want to pummel the ever-loving hell out of her father.

She slid a finger over the scar on her arm. “My mother did this,” she said, shocking him. “He brought me here and left me to keep her from killing me. I should thank him for that.”

“You don’t owe any of them anything.”

“They’re coming for me,” she said. “They wouldn’t have hung around otherwise.”

Jeb tilted her chin up and stared into her woefully familiar eyes. “They won’t get near you, sweetheart. I’d die first.”

Her chin trembled and she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips. “Don’t you dare,” she said fiercely, her voice cracking. “Don’t you dare.”