Chapter Twelve
“So was that David texting you?” Elle asked as they walked out.
“What?” He tried to play dumb.
“I heard your phone buzz. Was it David?” she asked patiently.
“Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly. “Marcus was attacked.”
Her heart stuttered to a stop and her stomach seemed to drop out.
“Is he . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.
“He’s alive,” Conrad quickly assured her. He had her bend over and place her hands on her knees as she took some deep breaths. Conrad rubbed his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her.
“How bad?” she asked when she felt strong enough to stand up again.
“David doesn’t know.”
“Where is he?” she demanded, then turned and began to jog toward the elevator.
“You have another interview,” he objected.
“I’ll cancel it; they’ll understand,” she insisted, her hand shaking as she pressed the call button repeatedly even though it was already lit.
He debated telling her what he suspected about Marcus, but when he’d gently presented the idea of him being her stalker before, she’d laughed at the idea. Now that her thinking was clouded with guilt, she certainly wasn’t more likely to believe him.
“David says he’s at the Royal London,” Conrad shared as they entered the elevator.
Elle got her phone out and texted David, asking him to cancel her next interview because she was going to see Marcus.
As she jogged from the building as fast as she could in her ridiculous heels, Conrad debated arguing with her, but he could tell by the set of her jaw and the steely look in her eyes that he would be wasting his energy.
Instead, he spent the car ride to the hospital texting Jed and Browning’s for any updates they had on Marcus. There didn’t seem to be anything incriminating in the new data. Dammit!
If Conrad didn’t hate what Marcus was doing with every fiber of his being, he might almost admire the man for his cunning.
Elle felt herself tear up as she saw Marcus lying on the gurney. Finally seeing that he was all right with her own eyes was a huge relief.
If something happened to him . . . well, she didn’t know how she’d live with that much guilt.
His face was a mass of small cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and his left arm was heavily bandaged. Interestingly enough, the bandage on his head was gone, and the small inch-long wound was clearly visible.
Conrad noted that it clearly hadn’t merited the large dressing that Marcus had been sporting for the last several days.
Elle didn’t seem to notice, however.
“Oh, Marcus,” she said as she approached him and gingerly gave him a hug. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, too choked with emotion to speak at a normal volume.
“Not your fault, Ella. You aren’t to blame for this madman’s actions.”
He was still in the Emergency Room awaiting X-rays on his skull, so the area was buzzing with other people. Conrad kept a close eye on them, just in case the accomplice was here too, and this was some kind of trap.
“What happened?” Elle asked, wiping away her tears as she pulled away and took his hand.
“I was attacked this morning as I was jogging.”
“Oh, you poor man.”
“Thank you for coming.” He reached over, grimacing in pain, and patted the back of her hand. “It means a lot.”
“Have they said how bad it is?”
“They won’t say until I’ve had a CT scan,” he said weakly. “I could have a broken nose or cheekbone, but what they’re really worried about is the possibility of a skull fracture or cranial bleed since I lost consciousness for a time.”
“Oh, Marcus . . .” She sniffled. “I’m so sorry!”
“You could have told me he’d threatened me in his emails, you know,” he chided her softly, closing his eyes. “I could have taken precautions if I’d known he wanted to harm me.”
“Threatened you?” Elle asked bewilderedly. “What emails? When did he threaten you?”
“Well he hasn’t, not directly, but he said something about telling you that he would come for your protector or something . . . I w-wasn’t actually focusing much on his words,” he finished feebly.
No, Conrad thought as he ground his teeth in frustration. But you remembered just enough to make Elle feel badly, didn’t you, you bastard?
The fact that he said he’d been attacked while jogging also didn’t escape his notice; that eliminated any hope of the police searching his home and computer.
“Conrad?” Elle asked, her voice soft with confusion. “Did my stalker threaten Marcus?”
He could try to lie, but that wasn’t who he wanted to be.
“One message said something about your protector. I didn’t mention it because I figured he had no way of knowing who he’d attacked in David’s garage, let alone be able to find him. I assumed he was threatening me.” Conrad shrugged nonchalantly, knowing it would piss the other man off.
Marcus went brick red, sending Conrad a narrow look, but he played it off with an exaggerated wince as he tried to push himself up on the bed with his bandaged hand.
“But all it took was someone to leak it to the police, and now this happens!” She was so angry, she had tears in her eyes. “You should have warned him!”
Marcus hid a smug smile, and tugged at Elle’s hand to recapture her attention. This must be going far better than Marcus had expected.
“It’s all right, Ella. If he wasn’t telling you these things, you couldn’t know.”
“It’s not all right, Marcus. He should have told me, then I could have told you.” Elle glared at Conrad.
Conrad had never wanted to punch someone more than he did at that moment; listening to Marcus play the martyr was intolerable.
Still, he’d had his share of asshole commanding officers, so he knew how to keep his temper in check.
“Wait, shouldn’t you be at Eva magazine?” Marcus asked.
“I asked David to cancel it as soon as I heard what happened. I wasn’t going to let you go through this alone!”
The smile Marcus gave her was that of someone smitten, and something clicked in Conrad’s mind. Marcus was an intimacy seeking stalker!
So if Marcus was an intimacy seeker, Conrad thought, where did the other stalker come into it? Right now, his being hurt was making Elle feel guilty, which was driving her to be exceptionally nice to him, but until very recently, every threat had been against Elle.
“I don’t expect Conrad had any way of knowing my name would be leaked yesterday evening.” Marcus sounded weary, but his words left just enough room to imply that Conrad had leaked the story.
But what if the second stalker had originally been hired to make Elle feel unsafe and drive her into Marcus’s arms? That would explain those hideous letters and emails too. They were designed to terrorize her and haunt her dreams with their sick fantasies. But David had undercut that plan by deleting the emails before Elle could see them.
“Yesterday evening?” Elle questioned.
So Marcus had broken into her home, her last safe space, and had sprayed bull semen all over her bed, for God’s sake. But Elle had proven too resilient, so he’d finally resorted to physical violence. Then he could literally be her knight in shining armor.’
“Yes, David called me about six o’clock last night, I think.”
Marcus had no way of knowing that David would call me in for help, and he’d been resistant to my presence that first morning. Nevertheless, he’d reworked his plan to find another way to manipulate Elle, and goddamn it, it was working!
“Conrad!”
He looked up to see Elle looking pissed, and he realized he must have missed something while putting the pieces together.
“I said, did you know that the story of my being stalked had leaked last night?”
“Yes,” he admitted easily.
The look she gave him was one of pure fury, and he almost quailed as she approached him.
“How could you?” she yelled, pushing on his chest. He stepped back. He needed to get her alone to tell her his suspicions about Marcus and if he let her push him out of the room, he had a better chance of getting her alone without raising any suspicions.
He knew he didn’t have proof, but he had to try to tell her.
She didn’t continue to push him, however. She gave him the look he’d always dreaded receiving from her, the one that said she was so disappointed in him, then she turned her back and returned to Marcus.
Wow, given her temper and his rather cold response, he’d expected more rage.
“I’m sorry,” she told Marcus as she took his hand once more. “How are you feeling?”
Marcus gave a halfhearted shrug in reply.
“Have the police been by?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “They took a brief statement but said they’d be back later. I was a bit out of it.” He chuckled without mirth.
Conrad moved back to his spot at the edge of the cubical, leaning on the wall of the medical bay so he could see both sides of the curtain.
“Will they be keeping you here?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I hope so. I’ll feel a lot safer here than at home.”
“Oh no, of course you can’t go home!” She shook her head. “You’ll come and stay with us.”
“No,” Conrad interrupted firmly.
“What?” Elle looked scandalized as she turned to him, her hands on her hips, looking as formidable as he’d ever seen her look. “Of course he can! Marcus is my friend, and he’s in danger. I’m not going to send him home alone when we have a safe place to stay! He’s coming with us, and that’s that!”
Conrad had to think on his feet to come up with a bullshit reason that wouldn’t let Marcus know he was onto him.
“Why don’t you both just gift wrap yourselves for the stalker?” he yelled, equaling her ire. “Only an idiot keeps everything to be protected in one place, because that makes it so much easier to kill two birds with one stone! Now I don’t deny that Marcus needs protection, but I am not dividing my time between you both; one man isn’t physically able to protect two people at once. I’ll find someone else to act as a bodyguard, and there are plenty of other safe hotels in London he can stay in. That way, even if this madman gets one of you, he won’t get both of you!”
Hiring another bodyguard would also give Conrad a way to have Marcus watched.
He hated himself as he saw Elle turn inward, almost shrinking before his eyes, his harsh words clearly hurting her and undermining her self-confidence. Later, when they were alone and he could tell her everything, he would explain that he hadn’t meant for his words to pain her but that he needed to make sure Marcus believed him.
“No, I don’t want to be a bother.” Marcus sighed. “I’m fine, honestly. I’m sure they’ll keep me here tonight. Then I’ll go to a hotel.”
“Marcus, you shouldn’t be alone,” Elle said softly to him as she glared at Conrad. She couldn’t disagree with his logic, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “We have three bedrooms in one of the safest blocks in London. You’ll be fine there, I promise.”
“Elle, I’m not joking. Marcus is not staying with us!”
“Yes, he is!”
Conrad glanced at Marcus, who was having a hard time keeping his smile hidden as he watched their fight.
“I control that place, and I say who is let in or not. I will never put Marcus on the cleared list!”
“Fine, then I won’t stay there either!” Her hands were back on her hips, and her cheeks were flushed with anger. She looked breathtaking. He imagined how it might feel to have her defend him like this one day.
“Excuse me.” A nurse pulled the curtain aside and walked into the treatment bay. “I’m going to have to ask you two to leave,” she said firmly, looking between Elle and Conrad.
“No, please. I’m sorry. Let me stay with him.” Elle looked stricken.
“It won’t make a lot of difference anyway.” The nurse softened. She’d seen her fair share of frayed tempers in here, but these two didn’t seem like the type to start a physical fight. “He’s going up for his CT scan in a minute, and neither of you will be allowed to accompany him. Why don’t you go away, cool off, and come back when you’ve both gotten your tempers under control?”
“Thank you,” she told the nurse, who stepped back but didn’t leave.
Elle flashed Conrad a look that might turn a lesser man to stone, but thankfully he was made of stronger stuff.
She faced Marcus again. “I’ll be back. I promise,” she told him before she leaned over the bed, intending to kiss his cheek. Marcus turned his head at the last moment, though, so she ended up kissing his lips.
She gave him a tight smile as she pulled back but relaxed when he spoke.
“Thank you so much for being here, Ella. It means so much to me, dear girl.”
“You’re very welcome.” She let go of his hand and turned to the nurse. “How long will he be?”
“Best give it an hour to be safe.”
She nodded her understanding and left, leveling a death glare at Conrad as he fell into step beside her. She waited until they were outside the hospital, in the ambulance bay, to lay into him again.
“What is your problem?” she demanded. “He’s hurt because of me!”
Conrad glanced around the bay, noting several people nearby whose heads turned to look after hearing the tone and volume of her voice. He winced. This conversation needed to be as private as possible. He took her hand and tugged her along the building and over a grass lawn, toward what looked to be a short alleyway near the staff entrance.
Furious, Elle tried to yank her hand from his, but Conrad was relentless, keeping hold of her effortlessly as he strode over the grass. He didn’t hurt her, but his force only fueled her ire. Plus, those damned ridiculous high heels that Marcus insisted she wear kept sinking into the grass!
Elle lurched once more as her heel caught, and she stumbled, swearing. Conrad stopped dragging her along. As soon as he let go of her hand, she reached down and ripped one high heel off, flinging it blindly toward the wall.
“I need you to hear me out,” Conrad ground out as calmly as he could.
“No dammit, I refuse—” She yanked her foot up, nearly overbalancing, and flung her other shoe as well. He was lucky she didn’t fling it at his head!
“Please, just listen!” He reached out to steady her, trying to calm her, but she slapped his hand away.
“—because you’re being horrible to my friend!” She glared at him, her face a furious red.
“I’m trying to explain, if you’ll just listen!”
This was not going well. However, he certainly deserved her anger after he’d deliberately wound her up. He opened his mouth, not really sure what he was going to say, but she beat him to it.
“No, you listen! You’re fired!”
“Marcus is your stalker!” Conrad blurted at the same time, wincing internally at his bluntness. Shit. He’d meant to tell her more gently.
That stopped her dead. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she stared at him, then she shook her head.
“You’re crazy. Marcus chased him away the first time I was attacked!”
“You’re right, Elle, but I think he hired someone else to do it,” he said gently.
“Hired? You’re . . .” She laughed incredulously. “You’re making a joke, right? Am I being punked?”
“No joke,” he replied soberly, shaking his head and not taking his eyes off her.
“But Marcus is . . .” She swallowed, remembering the sense of disquiet she sometimes felt. “Marcus wouldn’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” Conrad demanded, more harshly than he intended. But he needed her to stop and think.
Elle clutched her head, her fingers viciously curled into her hair. The pain was almost as good as a slap to shock her out of her fury and make her consider Conrad’s outrageous suggestion.
Her hands fell back to her sides as she thought back to all the instances where she’d felt uncomfortable around Marcus, but couldn’t say why she felt that way. Was it possible she’d missed something? Could she have been so blind?
He saw her lower lip wobble for a moment before she pulled herself together. Elle stood tall and straightened her shoulders, looking him in the eye.
“Okay, you’ve got one hour to convince me.”