Present Danger (20 page)

Aunie picked up the receiver. “Hi, Jordan, it’s me.”

“Aunie! That’s some recording. Where on earth did you get it?”

“My downstairs neighbor recorded it for me.”

“Very effective,” he said. “Is your downstairs neighbor quite large by any chance?”

“Extremely.”

“African-American?”

“Yes.”

“As mean as he sounds?”

“No,” she replied. “He’s a pussycat, actually; although if you didn’t know him, you most likely wouldn’t think so.”

Jordan laughed. He hesitated a moment, then said, “I’m not quite sure how to tell you the reason I’m calling, dear. I don’t want to frighten you unnecessarily, because it’s probably nothing, but my office was broken into a couple weeks ago.”

Aunie tensed all over. “Oh Gawd,” she whispered. “Wesley?”

“It’s very unlikely, Aunie,” Jordan replied. “But your phone number was in my personal Rolodex, so I felt you had the right to know. It didn’t include the
area code, though, and without that there’s no way to know in what state it originates. The only record of your address, of course, is in your file, which was under lock and key.”

“I’ve been receivin’ nuisance calls, Jordan.”

He swore. “Does it sound like Wesley?”

“I don’t know; the caller never speaks. He hangs up as soon as I answer. That’s why Otis recorded the message on my machine.”

“Wesley has never been the type to keep silent, dear. It’s quite likely those calls are entirely unrelated.”

“That’s what I thought … what I hoped,” she replied. “But now …” Now she had a very bad feeling. Things had been going just too well to last—she should have known better.

They conversed for a while longer before Jordan finally rang off. Long after the call was terminated, Aunie remained on the couch with her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped tightly around her shins, and her forehead cushioned by her kneecaps. Shadows grew long across the hardwood floor as afternoon turned into early evening, but she never noticed. God in heaven, she kept thinking over and over again. God in heaven.

Was the madness to begin all over again?

Lola and Mary went with her to file a police report. She was, by then, convinced her caller was Wesley. Once the officer taking her report learned which college she was attending, however, he was equally certain they were dealing with the man harassing her fellow students.

“In either case,” he finally said with strained patience the third time she attempted to argue with
him about it, “the procedure works the same. Call this number and the tele-abuse line will tell you how to proceed.”

“I have a restrainin’ order against my ex-husband,” Aunie informed the officer. “But it didn’t prevent him from beatin’ me black and blue once before. Can you at least promise you’ll respond quickly to a call for help from me if it does turn out to be him?”

“Yes, ma’am. That I can do.” He scribbled a notation on her report. Resigned to the fact that it was probably the best she could hope for, Aunie rose. She offered her hand. “Thank you, officer. I appreciate your time.”

He shook her hand, tipping his head politely. “Ma’am.”

“Well, that was pretty much a waste of time,” she commented glumly once she, Lola, and Mary hit the street.

“At least you have a case number,” Mary said with uncertain optimism.

“Yes, I have that.” She squinted against the bright March sunshine, took a deep breath, and slowly expelled it. “So. I suppose my next step is to contact the telephone company.”

Lola dug in her purse for a pair of dark glasses. “Let’s go get somethin’ hot to drink, woo-mon,” she suggested. “And something chocolate. We’ll find us a place that overlooks the mountains, have us a latte or tea, eat somethin’ fattenin’, and relax.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Aunie said, perking up. “Mary?”

“You guys navigate and I’ll drive.”

They ended up at a small restaurant in Post Alley across the street from the Pike Place Market. Over
tea and decadently rich desserts, Lola asked, “You ever consider askin’ James for advice?”

“No!” Aunie stated emphatically. Her prickly, hard-earned independence demanded she handle it herself. Then she amended truthfully, “Well… yeah, I did
consider
it. Briefly.”

“The mon can be wickedly inventive when it come to handlin’ this sorta thing, Aunie.”

“I know… or at least I’ve guessed as much,” Aunie admitted. “It’s those damn eyes of his …” She straightened defensively. “But he’s made it pretty darn clear what he thinks about me and my problems, Lola. And besides, I’m supposed to be learnin’ to stand on my own two feet.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t think I’ll be sayin’ anything to James Ryder about all this. I’ll deal with it on my own.”

She girded herself for Lola’s argument, but to her surprise Lola merely shrugged and changed the subject.

When Aunie got home, she called the tele-abuse line at the phone company. Upon reciting her police case number, she was told a trace would be put on her line and she was instructed to keep a precise record of the date and exact time of each suspicious call. She was further instructed to phone in her list of said calls each Friday. Once she’d hung up, she sat drumming her fingertips on the arm of the couch.

She had a nasty feeling that too little was being done. She felt like a sitting duck and she detested the sensation. If her caller were Wesley—and she had an awful feeling it was—and if he were able to proceed in a natural progression that would advance him from step A: having traced her unlisted number, to step B: tracking down her actual address … Oh God.

She was as good as dead.

The total defeatism of that thought put the starch back in her spine, and she pushed out of her chair, pacing militantly back and forth in front of the fireplace. She had progressed a long way from the girl she’d once been. She’d discovered strengths in herself and a depth of intelligence she never would have guessed she possessed a little over a year ago.

Bully for you. It doesn’t mean diddly if you can’t figure out a way to utilize your swell new accomplishments.

She had gained a certain degree of competence, dammit, earned through hard work and trial and error. She was
not
a useless decoration, willing to sit still like a good little victim, just waiting to be attacked. Not again, not ever. She was damned if she was going to let Wesley’s sick obsession destroy everything for which she’d worked so diligently.

That being the case, how did she go about preparing herself so she
wouldn’t
be a sitting duck?

You’re a smart woman. Think!

She chewed the skin around her thumbnail as she paced. Damn! If she were supposed to be so darn smart, then why was her brain working with such appalling sluggishness? The only thought that came readily to mind was that any confrontation with Wesley would have to be brought to her and as such would be out of his natural territory. She’d take any advantage she could secure, of course; but as a strategy it was a little on the passive side.

Frankly, as a strategy, it was downright pitiful.

When her doorbell rang, she was grateful for the interruption and jumped up enthusiastically to answer it. This searching for a workable solution was a lot like having a name on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t quite recall. The harder she tried,
the bigger the blank she drew. Perhaps if she shelved it for the moment, the solution would come to her.

She opened the door, expecting to see Lola.

Instead, it was James who lounged against her door frame. He was wearing a leather carpenter’s belt, riding low on his hips and bristling with tools. A drill was loosely clasped in one large hand. As she stared up at him in surprise, he slowly pushed away from the doorjamb.

“Hi there, Magnolia Blossom,” he said with a lopsided smile as he strolled uninvited into her apartment. “Lola tells me you’ve been receiving a rash of nuisance calls.” He closed the door behind him, leaned back against it, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down at her. The light in his moss green eyes made him appear even more of a rabble-rouser than usual.

“So?” she inquired blankly.

“So,” he stated, wagging the drill beneath her nose. “I’m here to take you in hand.”

Aunie pushed the drill aside with a dainty fingertip. “Ah
beg
your pardon?”

He grinned at her imperious tone. “You heard me. Lola said the cops think it’s the same person who’s been harassing some other students from your college, but you believe it’s Cunningham.”

“Lola said a lot, apparently,” Aunie muttered. No wonder she hadn’t bothered to argue with her earlier in the afternoon about involving James. She probably hadn’t wanted to give Aunie the opportunity to flat-out forbid her to drag him into this. Aunie leveled her dark brown eyes on James’s. “Thank you very much for your concern,” she said coolly, “but I can handle this on my own.”

“Uh huh,” he said agreeably and unlooped the cord to
the
drill. He extended the end to her. “Here, plug this in for me.”

She ignored it and stood her ground to block his way, hands on her hips. “James, are you listenin’ to me? I said I appreciate your willingness to help, especially considering everything you’ve said to the contrary in the past, but…”

“I want to do it my own self,” he concluded for her, making her sound like a recalcitrant four-year-old. He picked her up by the waist and moved her out of his way. Kneeling down, he plugged the drill into the wall socket, then straightened and fed out the cord to the front door. Hefting the drill in his right hand, he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Come here.”

“Now listen heah, Mistah Ry—”

“
Come here!
” There was such authority in his voice that she found herself automatically taking several forward steps before she caught herself and stopped. By then, however,
the
damage had been done, for that involuntary response to his peremptory command had brought her within James’s range. He reached out a long arm and snagged her wrist in one rawboned fist, yanking her forward. “Now,” he said, grasping her shoulders and whirling her around to face the closed door, “stand still. I’m gonna measure for a peephole.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t a bad idea. She probably would have thought of it herself… tomorrow.

He shook his head in amazement as he bent down, leaning over her shoulder to make a pencil mark on the door. “Christ,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s a damn good thing I purchased the swiveling
kind or all you’d see from this height would be a bunch of navels.”

Aunie had been hearing comments about her lack of stature all her life and rarely had she allowed them to affect her one way or the other. There was, however, such a thing as timing, and James’s was somewhat less than fortunate. She was already feeling railroaded by the way he’d barged right in and taken over. The last thing she needed at the moment was to hear a sarcastic remark about her height.

She whirled to face him, giving him an angry shove to the diaphragm that took him off guard and backed him up a pace or two. “Ah didn’t ask you here,” she spat out, “and I have no intention of putting up with you or your stupid comments.” She whipped open the front door, then grasped his forearm with both hands, fully intent on throwing him out of her apartment. “You can just get out of my home right now.”

His bare arm. was warm beneath her gripping hands, hard with muscle, soft where the veins stood out, and rough with hair. It didn’t budge so much as an inch when she yanked on it. Aunie could have screamed in pure frustration.

James looked down at her. He reached out his free hand and rubbed a calloused thumb over the arch of her cheekbone. “I’m sorry for that crack,” he apologized. “It was rude and uncalled-for.” Aunie felt somewhat mollified until he ruined it by adding, “Now back off, will ya? I’ve got work to do.”

Reining in her anger, she sighed in defeat, accepting that he wouldn’t leave until he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. She released his arm.

James fished a flat case out of one of the pockets in his carpenter’s belt, selected a bit, and squatted down to fit it in the drill. Moments later, the scream
of metal ripping through wood filled the apartment, along with a faint scent of sawdust. Aunie watched him work for a minute, then walked away, settling herself at the dining room table to study.

She heard the front door open and close awhile later and thought he had left. A moment later, however, she heard the door reopen, a soft rumble of wheels, and then the high-powered whine of a shop vac. She decided he must be cleaning up.

James stuck his head in the room. “All done,” he said. “Want to come check it out?”

Aunie ignored him.

“Guess not.” He stepped into the room. “I suppose my chances of being offered a beer are pretty slim, huh?”

She ignored that, too.

“You gonna sulk all night?”

Her head snapped up. “I am not sulking!”

“Of course you aren’t,” he agreed, resting a hip against the table and bending down to finger her lower lip. “This is always pouting out to here.”

She slapped his hand away, shoved back her chair with a screech and stood. Going to the kitchen, she retrieved a Dos Equis from the refrigerator, popped the cap, and returned to the dining area, slapping the bottle down on the table next to him. “Here” she said. “It’s to go.”

He pulled out a chair, whirled it around, and straddled it. Taking a long draw on his beer, he held the bottle loosely between both hands and looked at her. “Why are you so mad?”

“Because you’re just like every damn man I’ve ever met,” she spat. “They all think I’m either too stupid or too helpless to do anything for myself.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. After hearing about
some of the men in her life, he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be lumped together with them. “I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” he said evenly, “and if you’d climb down off your high horse and let me help, I could teach you ways to minimize your helplessness.” When she didn’t immediately snap his head off, he asked, “What have you come up with so far? How do you plan to handle the situation?”

Oh God, he
would
have to ask. “Wesley’s goin’ to have to bring the confrontation to me,” she said softly.