Chapter 4
Peace of mind was required to get a good night’s sleep.
Feeling rough around the edges, Kai hopped into the shower just so she could wake up enough to start the day. A couple cups of coffee later and she was awake enough to figure out what she had on her calendar. She’d probably spend the morning in the office until meeting Ice for lunch. She glanced around her apartment and considered the emails she’d gotten. Maybe she should stop by the police station first. She didn’t want to be forgotten or her stalker file to get thrown in a corner. Maybe if they saw her face every once in a while, they’d realize how much of a person she was, not just a file or case number. That didn’t mean the cops weren’t doing their job, but she felt so helpless.
When she’d had to deal with trouble before, she had a team beside her and orders to follow. And yet, here she was no longer part of the team, asking the police to step up and do the job her own unit would have done at her side. It felt odd and uncomfortable, and she admitted it made her feel insecure. In this new world nobody cared about her but her. At least not to the same extent. When she’d bought into the tech company, she’d been hoping it would become her new family. But then Mark had died in an accident, and everything had changed. Mark’s death had ripped away her newfound sense of security, her sense of belonging.
While still raw from that, she’d struggled to regain her footing and to take the helm of the company without being overt about it. And then the stalker had found her. Outside of keeping watch for anyone suspicious, eyeing her cell, taking precautions, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about him. And therein lay the problem. She wanted a target. She wanted somebody she could go after. But there was no one.
The longer she thought about that, she’d be better off going to work an hour later and hitting the shooting range first. Her self-confidence had taken a hit with this stalker, and a surefire way of handling that was to regain control. She needed to be in control, not feel like a victim. Target practice was one of the best ways to feel empowered. Leaving the military she had also lost sparring partners. For the first time in a long time she realized maybe her skills weren’t quite as good as they should be. She needed time on the VR system herself.
She sent Warren a quick text that she’d be an hour late to the office. She packed up and headed to the local range. She had a membership there and was one of the regular faces. As she walked in, Johnson gave her a wave. She signed the book and headed into the back.
He called out, “Bad morning?”
She laughed. “The worst but that’s going to change.”
And true enough, forty minutes later, having beat the crap out of the targets, her arm now on the weaker side but her sense of invincibility and capability up, she realized she could start the day again. She high-fived Johnson as she walked out. “It’s all good now.”
He shook his head. “It’s a sick world out there. You watch your back.”
She shot him a startled look, wondering if he understood just how true a warning that was for her. She realized it was likely a comment he’d have tossed off to anybody. She walked to her car, considered the photos somebody had taken of it. But found no sign of anybody here, nor any sign of damage. She lay down on the ground and checked to see if anything was obviously out of place or damaged or a threat to her. And found nothing. But did she know what the latest gadgets even looked like?
She should have asked Levi if somebody could run a check on the vehicle. But that would require an explanation, and she wasn’t good at that. Everybody would say Kai was invincible. Nobody would dare attack her. She’d knock them hard if they did. At one point she had believed it to be true but the assiduous stalker’s threats were like fine sandpaper grating against her self-confidence. And the result was ugly.
Back at the office she caught up on the paperwork dumped on her desk, answered email messages and waited for the rest of the crew to come in. When nobody did, she sent out text messages. Is there a party I missed?
After a few minutes Tommy answered, You said we had the day off.
She stared at the text in surprise. I did? When?
This morning. You said everyone’s worked hard so take the day off. We all deserved it. So please don’t change that now.
Her heart slammed against her chest. She hit the telephone icon to call him. When he answered, she said, “I’m not trying to be an asshole of a boss, Tommy, but I didn’t send a text this morning.”
There was silence at the other end. “You didn’t?”
“I did not,” she said firmly. “And, until my stalker problem is solved, everybody has to speak with me—personally—about each and every email and text supposedly from me. I have no problem with everyone taking the day off, but I wouldn’t send a text to say that. That someone did scares the crap out of me.”
“It should,” he said, his voice serious. “It means the stalker knows your contacts. Great job.”
There was condemnation in his voice as he said it. She gasped in surprise. “Hey, I told you about this a long time ago. So why are you blaming me?”
He groaned. “I’m not blaming you. It’s just that he’s gotten all the contact information on my phone too.”
“Is that a bad thing?” She shook her head. She could handle a stray bullet, and most weapons and karate were a huge help for any hand-to hand defense. … And of course she’d learned a lot of dirty tricks from her combat training. But damn this technology stuff was confusing as hell.
“If he knows what he’s doing, it’s definitely a bad thing. And so far he’s demonstrated a decent amount of skill.”
“Am I supposed to get a phone that can’t be traced like he has?”
“That might be a good idea. We never considered it before because it didn’t seem necessary. It’s not like you’re some model or some famous figure who’ll have a fan following.”
She sat back and reached up a shaky hand to her forehead. “Really? That’s what you have to tell me? I’m not famous enough to have a stalker? So you think I’d make it up?”
“No, we definitely don’t think that you’ve been lying. But, at the same time, I really had thought the guy wasn’t serious. But now he’s impacted my world …”
She leaned forward and stared out her office door at the empty desk in front of her where Tommy would normally sit. “Oh, I see. So now that it’s touched your world, you’re ready to do something about it?” She winced at her own bitterness and gave herself a head shake. She wasn’t given to fits of panic or flights of fancy. So what she really needed to do … was calm down. “Look, I can’t talk about this right now. I’ll talk to you later.”
Just as she went to hang up, he said, “Wait.”
She looked at the phone again and said, “What?”
“Do we still have the day off?”
She glared at the phone and hung up on him. To the empty room she said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if he came in and helped me out?” She sat, wondering how her wonderful new start in life had turned to sawdust in her mouth. How the company, the job she really loved, had evolved into working with assholes overnight.
She knew Tommy was an arrogant hormonal teenager, but he never got to her like this before. It made perfect sense he wouldn’t be worried about a stalker. He lived in innocence. Untouched by the darker side. To a certain extent, she did too. But the military had shown her what an ugly place the world was. Seeing what people did to each other … But it had never been personally directed against her. She’d never been singled out like she was now. And that was a whole different issue.
She could sit here and wait until her appointment with Ice, or she could do something productive. First she needed to check in with Warren.
“Why didn’t Warren contact me when he got that text?” she said to the empty room. She hit his contact number and waited for the phone to dial. When it went to voice mail, she figured he must have gotten the same text about taking the day off from work, even though he was part owner of the company. She’d normally expect a lambaste phone call from him. Particularly after their conversation last night. Warren was cheap in so many ways, and giving the staff the day off wasn’t something he’d do or agree to.
With nothing important in her emails that she couldn’t push off for another day, she got up and headed to the open parking lot on the same floor and behind their second-floor offices. Very convenient and where everyone had one designated spot to park.
She walked to her car, stopped and looked around. She hated that sense of being watched all the time. And yet, she never saw anyone. Shrugging, she got into her vehicle and drove toward her lunch appointment with Ice.
The bank and the nearby restaurant where she was meeting Ice were both in the same small shopping mall. Her insurance company was in the mall too. She stopped there first and renewed her car insurance. While there, she made inquiries about life insurance. Armed with pamphlets, way more than she had any intention of reading, she left and headed to the bank. Business banking done first, then she took out some cash for herself. In this day of plastic, it seemed like nobody used cash anymore. But she still preferred it for some things.
In the back of her mind she was afraid her cards could be traced. If somebody was following her, they’d know where she lived by tracking her bank cards. She was tempted to just freeze them all. But instead, she took enough cash so she’d be fine for at least a week, then walked to the restaurant. Ice wasn’t there yet. Kai ordered coffee and sat by the window. She had paperwork she could do in the meantime.
When a shadow fell on the table, she looked up and smiled. Only her smile faltered. “Hi, Tyson. It’s good to see you.”
“Are you sure?” he asked in a low tone. “It doesn’t appear that way from the look on your face.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true,” she protested. “I was expecting Ice. When I saw a man I didn’t recognize initially,” she admitted, “I got a little worried.”
He slipped in the chair opposite her. “Worried? Is that because of the phone message that upset you yesterday?”
She stared at him, her mouth open. “What’s that about my text message?”
He waved a hand, dismissing her protests. “I saw your face when the message came in. It’s obvious whatever was in that text upset you.”
She closed up her paperwork, shoved the files into the bag she’d brought with her and sat back with her coffee. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Inside though she wondered, Should I tell him? She needed help from someone.
“You do know what I’m talking about, but, for the moment, you don’t trust me, and you figure big bad Kai can handle any trouble coming by herself.”
She snorted. “Everybody meets trouble they can’t handle at some point.”
“Have you got trouble you can’t handle?”
Just then somebody approached the table. She looked up to see Ice and Levi. She frowned. “The whole gang is here too?” she joked.
Ice sat down beside her, boxing her in against the wall, and Levi sat across from her beside Tyson.
Levi said, “Detective Mannford called yesterday, wanting verification you came to the compound. We checked the security cameras but didn’t pick up anybody following you.”
Silence followed for a moment while Kai regrouped. In a small voice she said, “Oh.” She stared out the window for a long moment, then turned back to him. “So he wasn’t there?”
Levi shook his head.
Ice said, “We checked all the feeds from an hour before you arrived through the day and the night. No strange vehicles. No strangers. All was well on that score.”
“Well, that’s something then,” Kai said with forced cheerfulness.
“Which leads us to believe there might be a tracker in your vehicle,” Tyson said. He reached across the table. “Give me your keys.”
“I checked but didn’t find anything. That would explain some things though.” She let out a breath, pulled out her keys and tossed them toward him. She watched as Levi stood up so Tyson could leave. When Levi sat down again, Kai glanced from him to Ice. “You must be wondering what this is about.”
“Detective Mannford explained a little bit,” Levi said. “Why don’t you fill us in?”
“Wish I could, but I know damn little,” she said. “I started receiving strange text messages.” She pulled out her phone, brought up the latest text and handed it to him. “Read for yourself. Yesterday after I left your place, I went to work for a couple hours. When I got home, I found three emails. Each one showed a picture of my place. The first one showed a picture of the front of my apartment building. The second was a picture of my actual door. The third was a picture of my vehicle parked at my complex.”
“So he’s saying, I know where you live. I know what you drive. I can come for you anytime.” Ice’s voice was cool but gentle.
Kai winced and nodded. “That was my take. I sent everything to the cops as I have done since it first started. I had a really bad night. Woke up this morning feeling shaky, went to the firing range, popped off a good few rounds,” she said with a bright smile. “Felt better. Earlier I sent Warren a text, saying I would be an hour late, but he never responded. When I got in, the place was empty. I contacted Tommy, my whiz kid, and asked where the party was because apparently I had missed it, and that’s where it gets a little more disturbing.”
Levi and Ice leaned a little closer.
She continued. “Tommy said he’d received a text from me, saying everyone could take the day off, that the company was doing well, and they all deserved it.” She sat back. “Of course he wasn’t impressed when he found the text hadn’t been from me.” She groaned. “I tried to call Warren because he hadn’t responded to the first text. I knew he would’ve had fits if he’d received a copy of the one about taking the day off, but I got no answer. I decided nothing needed to be done at the office, so I left to do some errands until lunch. I was doing paperwork when Tyson walked in.”
Levi settled back. “Well, this does make for an interesting scenario.”
Ice put it a little more succinctly. “Hell no. This is a shit storm.”
*
With Kai having coffee safely with Ice and Levi, Tyson went out to her car. He walked around the outside of it first, taking several photographs. He didn’t know if she had bothered checking for any outside damage or not. He opened up the driver’s side and looked inside. With all four doors open, he took his time using a bug detector to check for anything. He found nothing inside. He moved to the trunk, found it empty and carried on.
Underneath the vehicle he found what he was looking for. The vehicle had a LoJack tracker on it—an object common on rental vehicles for keeping track of renter’s movements. He took several images, then left it in place. With the image on his phone, he walked back into the restaurant, ordered himself a coffee and sat down beside Levi. He held his phone out to Kai and said, “You’re being tracked.”
He watched the color wash out of her face. She sat back and swallowed hard. But so typical of Kai, she didn’t panic or scream in outrage. She studied the image, gave a clipped nod and said, “I checked but didn’t see that.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I feel like I should have.”
“It was well hidden. And at least you thought to look,” Levi said. “This wasn’t your field in the military. Plus we often can’t see what’s happening right in front of us … Not until it’s too late.” His tone changed as he added, “Speaking of trackers, I need to see your phone.”
With that she brought it out and handed it to him. There was silence at the table as Levi quickly dismantled her phone and pointed to a small dot on the inside. This time there was shock and anger on her face.
He quickly dropped it on the table. “You need to get yourself a new phone.”
She stared down in frustration. “Why? The damage has been done.”
“Yes. So he knows where you’ve been, what you are doing and how you are doing it. What we want to make sure of is that he doesn’t know what you do from here on out.”
“Who knew you were coming here?” Tyson asked.
“Warren. He knew about the meeting … and wanted to come with me. He’s a bit of an asshole. But that doesn’t make him a criminal.”
Levi nodded. “Maybe not but it could make him a bigger asshole than you think.”
She groaned. “I really don’t like the idea of having to look at everybody in my circle of friends to see if one of them is a stalker.”
“Chances are he won’t be in your circle of good friends. A stalker is generally outside that intimate level but close enough to know who you are or where you work.”
She nodded. “I understand. But that means he’s in the realm of acquaintances. And I run a business with a lot of networking. I meet a lot of people. I have a lot of business contacts on my phone.”
Levi turned the phone back on and copied the list to his phone. “I’ll send these to you as soon as you send me a brand-new phone number nobody knows.”
Tyson watched her face as she struggled to see just how much of her life would change now.
“Shit.” She stared out the window. “I guess that’s the first step.”
“Your network of contacts should be checked out. But with your VR system, your company is on the verge of making it big.”
She stared at Levi. “You realize how many men in the military would be in that group?”
“And how many of those contacts have IT experience?” Tyson asked. “How many of them had access to your cell phone?”
She swallowed. And shook her head. “Many have IT experience but access to my cell phone … not many at all.”
“It’s that ‘not many’ part the concerns us,” Levi said. “We need names and the last time you saw them. And what type of relationship you have with them.”
She took several deep breaths. “That’ll take a moment or two.”
Ice opened a bag at her side, pulled out a notepad and pen and shoved it toward her. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Kai gave her a grateful look. “Thank you but this isn’t your problem.”
“And that’ll just piss us off,” Tyson said, his voice low.
She shot him a hard gaze.
But he glared back. Like hell he would walk away when she was obviously in trouble. Not his style. He already knew it wasn’t Levi and Ice’s style. He also knew, as soon as he hit the compound, everybody would want an update. He turned to Levi. “Who’s the best for IT at home?” The term home slipped out naturally enough.
They didn’t think anything of it. But there was a tilt to the corner of Levi and Ice’s lips as they smiled at each other.
“Hard to say,” Ice said with a laugh. “Lots of them think they’re the best. And some are definitely really good at it. But currently Stone and Harrison are working some angles. What about Tommy? Any chance he’s your stalker?”
“My boobs aren’t big enough. My ass is too flat, and my legs aren’t long enough, and I don’t have a blow-up doll personality, so I’d have to say, no.”
Ice started to laugh. “Is he that bad?”
“He’s eighteen, arrogant and thinks that is the epitome of the perfect woman. I don’t fit the bill,” she said drily. She stared down at the notepad and couldn’t write one name.
Tyson nudged her. “Is there anybody in particular we should look at?”
Puzzled, she stared up at him. “I don’t know. For the last six months I’ve been celibate, buried in my job. I have turned down even a date for coffee. I didn’t notice anybody following me, looking at me strangely or being overly amorous.” She put her pen down. “I have no idea.”