Chapter Two
Summer disconnected the call and shoved her cell phone into the pocket of her jeans, replaying the conversation with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she appreciated the concern her friends were showing. With her family split in their support of her—her parents wished she’d just make all the media attention surrounding her gift go away, while her brother and sister-in-law supported her but tried not to piss off their parents—and nearly everyone else she came into contact with treating her like a freak of nature, her relationship with the Hallorans was something very precious to her.
On the other hand, she wasn’t too anxious to have a stranger prowling around her house, even if the Hallorans vouched for him completely. She’d learned by now how to hole up with the blinds and curtains tightly shut when this happened, how to ride out the media circus of the moment. The police presence when Hurley could spare someone helped, too. But eventually the bloodhounds got tired of getting no response and drifted off to harass some other poor soul. And she could resume what passed for a normal life. Up until now, everyone—including Faith and Mark—had left her to it. Her home had never actually been breached, so why did they now think it necessary to send her someone to check out her safety?
Idly, she wondered what he was like. Would he be like Mark Halloran, the quintessential alpha male who fairly radiated the aura of a warrior in full battle mode? Muscular and ruggedly good-looking, Mark attracted glances from women wherever he went, yet Summer had never seen him show an iota of interest in anyone besides Faith, who brought out his soft side. Not to mention the fact that he was definitely someone she’d want in her corner in a situation like this. She hoped Troy would be the same type of person.
When the doorbell rang, she was gripped by a sudden attack of nerves, her palms sweating for no reason. She wiped them on her jeans and looked through the peephole. What she saw was an identification folder with a photo ID and Troy Arsenault, Phoenix Agency, in black capital letters, along with the Phoenix logo.
“It’s me,” he called through the door. “Maybe you’d better let me in before your friends out here decide to join me.”
Friends? What friends?
She cracked the door a little, and her heart sank when she realized some of the reporters and photographers had wandered back closer to the house, apparently hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Or to get a quick shot at her before the cops chased them away. At least they were staying off her lawn. A cruiser would be driving by again before too long, and they’d get chased away. She swallowed hard against the sudden rise of panic.
I won’t give in to it. Everything’s going to be fine. They’ll go away, and I can have my life back.
Summer slid off the safety chain and opened the door just enough for Troy to slip through. When she closed it, she hooked the chain again and turned the deadbolt. Then she turned to the man in her foyer.
She was prepared to be polite, let him do his thing, and send him on his way. But when she looked at the man standing there, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and all her breath was trapped in her lungs. Faith had told her Troy Arsenault was a former SEAL, and as far as Summer was concerned, he could have been the poster boy for recruiting. He was as tall as Mark, with a lean runner’s body and deeply tanned skin. His light-brown hair was just a tad long, curling at the neck of his shirt, the kind of hair a woman wanted to run her fingers through.
But it was his face that was the most arresting. Ruggedly handsome like Mark, his high cheekbones were slashes on either side of his nose, and his eyes, the color of melted chocolate, studied her from beneath unexpectedly dark eyebrows and lashes.
Holy crap!
Her reaction to him was hot and totally unexpected, and she made a deliberate effort to tamp it down. For one thing, he was only here to make sure she was safe. For another, her history with men was so unpleasant that she’d decided to swear off them completely. The last thing she needed was to have her ruthlessly controlled hormones decide to take a walk on the wild side. How terribly inconvenient it was that those hormones chose this particular moment to start galloping through her system again. Maybe she should have insisted harder to Faith that she didn’t need anyone.
“Looks like you’re pretty popular with the folks out there.” His mouth curved in a smile, but his tone was dead serious. When she didn’t comment, he asked, “You okay?”
Summer gave herself a mental shake. What was going on with her? She had a problem here, and this man had kindly agreed to come check it out as a favor to her friends. This was business, not pleasure. She’d hoped for someone at least appealing to look at, but Troy Arsenault had danger written all over him.
“Sorry.” She didn’t know whether her hands trembled because of the mob outside or the nearness of this man. She shoved them into the pockets of her jeans. “Thank you for coming over here, although I don’t think it was really necessary.”
“From what I saw outside, this may be a little more serious than you think.” He held out his hand. “Troy Arsenault. But you already know that, right? Nice to meet you, Summer.”
“Same goes. And the idiots outside will probably go away the next time a police car comes by.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? Doesn’t look like it to me.”
She suddenly found herself tongue-tied. What happened next? “Um, would you like some coffee? I made a fresh pot.”
“Thanks. That would be nice.”
She led the way into her kitchen and motioned for him to have a seat at the table. Figuring the first rush of phone calls would have subsided by now, she picked up the receiver from the counter and replaced it in the cradle. Her hand hovered over it a moment as she waited to see whether it rang. When it didn’t, she breathed a sigh of relief and turned to occupy herself taking down mugs and filling them. As she poured the coffee, she tried to focus on the situation and not the man. Troy Arsenault had an electric magnetism about him that made the air sizzle and her brain scramble. And that was the last thing she needed right now.
Troy smiled at her when she sat down opposite him, the kind of smile that bathed you in warmth.
“Faith and Mark filled me in a little bit on what’s happening,” he began, “but I’d really like to get the details from you.”
Summer took a sip of coffee, set her mug down in front of her.
“How much do you know about psychic healing?” she asked.
“More than you probably think. I’ve met a couple of healers and talked to them, although not as much as I would have liked. But I was interested enough to do some research on it.” He took a swallow of the hot brew in his mug. “I know there’s more than one kind. Mark said you’re a touch healer.”
She nodded. “I’ve had what people call ‘the gift’ since I was a teenager. My mother is part Cherokee, and she also is a healer, as were her mother and her grandmother. In our family, the healing arts came down on the maternal side.”
“Tell me about the little boy you just treated,” he encouraged.
Because he was obviously interested and not looking to sensationalize her, Summer explained all about Rory Flanagan, his condition, and the process by which she had healed him.
“The only request I made was no publicity at all.” She shook her head. “I realize it was an accident. Rory’s aunt was so excited about it she couldn’t help telling the guy she’s dating. My bad luck that he’s a television news reporter.”
“Is it always this wild when word gets out?”
She nodded. “They’re like vultures descending on roadkill. They camp out in front of my house, bang on my door, disturb my neighbors. I’ve become close friends with the sergeant at the local precinct, who luckily has sympathy for me and doesn’t think I’m a nut. He always sends patrol cars to clear the area, and then schedules regular drive-bys. At least for a day or so.”
“But then what?” Troy wanted to know.
Summer frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean?”
“The cops aren’t going to drive past your house forever. What’s to stop people from harassing you then? Do you have an unlisted number? A good security system for the house?”
Although his voice was calm and soothing, the things Troy brought up disturbed her. The notoriety that exploded every time the news media discovered she’d healed someone else had become an unpleasant part of her life, but she had schooled herself not to panic and to deal with it. At first it had been frightening, but with each succeeding incident, she’d learned to handle it a little better. Even her family had stopped trying to insist she come and stay with one of them until the furor died down. So far it had been mostly noise—the ringing of her doorbell and the constant phone calls. She’d changed her phone number to an unlisted one, but it hadn’t helped. Someone always seemed to find it, so she’d just stopped using the house phone during these episodes and stuck to her cell.
No one had ever actually tried to forcibly enter her house or attack her, except verbally. Even when her stalker popped up, she never considered him as anything other than someone who liked the sound of his own voice. She tried to explain all that to Troy.
“I have three deadbolts on all the exterior doors and safety locks on the windows,” she said slowly. “Last year, I had a security system installed, but maybe it needs to be upgraded. And I do have an unlisted number, although people seem to have a way of finding it no matter how often I change it.” She shrugged. “After a few days the newshounds go away, though. The curiosity seekers stop driving by. Even the phone calls eventually stop.”
“Anything other than that? Something more specific?”
Summer hesitated. She hadn’t told anyone about the stalker, figuring it was just another nutjob who would eventually tire of the game and go away. But maybe . . .
“What, Summer?” His voice was soothing, encouraging. “Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.”
So she told him about the stalker, hoping he didn’t think she was making something out of nothing.
But there was no skepticism in his voice when he spoke. “He’s never come to the house? Never tried to push his way in?”
She shook her head. “He used to send me letters, too, but he’s stopped that. Now it’s only the calls with a bunch of threats and nasty language.”
“That doesn’t mean things can’t escalate. From what I saw on the news this morning and outside just now, you need to be prepared in case they do.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “This is really the worst it’s ever been. I don’t know what’s so special about this incident, but it’s lit a fire under everyone.”
Troy finished his coffee and stood up. “Let’s walk through the house so I can check windows and doors, and we’ll figure out what you need.”
Summer reached out to take the mug from him. When their fingers brushed, bolts of electricity shot through her arm and into her body. Long-buried feelings of sexual awareness zinged to life, freezing her in place.
“Summer?” Troy’s voice broke through the fog surrounding her brain. “Are you okay?”
“What? Oh yes. Sorry.”
But when she looked up at him, she saw a corresponding, shocked awareness in his eyes. Whatever it was, he’d felt it, too.
She nearly stumbled as she backed away from him, gathering her wits as she rinsed the mugs in the sink and put them in the dishwasher. When she turned back to face him, she felt more in control.
“Where do you want to start?”
“Front door’s a good place. We’ll go room by room down here, then head upstairs.”
As they walked through the lower floor, Troy checked doors and windows, nooks and crannies, and made notes on his iPhone. When they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Summer was acutely aware of Troy behind her, almost as if he were touching her. Nerves sparked beneath the surface of her skin, and her pulse throbbed everywhere. They moved slowly from room to room. Whenever their bodies touched accidentally or their hands brushed, Summer felt that same explosive reaction.
When they came to the door of her bedroom, she stepped back to let him enter, inexplicably nervous about being in the room with him. He looked at her, one corner of his mouth twitching as if a grin were teasing at it, before he walked in and did his usual check. By the time they finished with the room, she was a nervous wreck and not sure she understood why. Still, she did her best to conceal it.
She felt a lot better when they were back in the kitchen, a room with no beds. But when she looked at him, that sense of awareness still lurked in his eyes, the brown deepening to a rich chocolate. She had to use all her wits to focus on the conversation.
“Faith and Mark are good friends,” she told him, leaning against the counter, arms crossed. “They wouldn’t have asked you to do this if they didn’t have some concerns. So what do you think I should do?”
“The first thing we need to talk about,” he began, “is getting you much better electronic protection, not just for the house but also for the entire property. A system with a lot more bells and whistles. Living by yourself, it’s good to have one anyway.”
Summer shrugged. “I guess you’re right. But it’s a terrible thing to think you aren’t safe in your own home.”
He moved closer to her, his very masculine aftershave drifting across her nose. Good Lord, what was wrong with her? She had a problem, and thinking about sex wasn’t going to help it.
“All we’re doing is making your home as safe as possible,” he told her. “Unfortunately, experience tells me this probably isn’t the last time something like this will happen. Who knows how aggressive an individual might get in the future?”
She shivered at the thought but nodded. “Okay, then.”
Before he could say anything else the landline rang, its sound shrill and jarring, and without thinking she lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
“You’ve gone too far this time, you freak.” The voice was low, filled with venom, and totally recognizable. “Someone needs to wipe you off the face of the earth before you do some real harm.”
Nerves jittery already, Summer dropped the phone into the cradle as if it were a hot poker.
Troy took one of her hands, his touch grounding her as shivers raced through her body. “Tell me.”
She wet her lips. “It was him. The stalker.”
The muscles in Troy’s face tightened. He opened his mouth to say something when the phone rang again. “Don’t answer it,” he ordered her. “Let it ring.”
“He’ll just keep calling,” Summer protested. “Eventually he’ll get tired of it and stop. At least for today. I’ll just take the receiver off like I did earlier.”
Sure enough, the phone rang a third time.
Troy held up a hand to her as he reached for the instrument. “Let me.”
Troy didn’t know what he expected when he lifted the phone, but it wasn’t the stream of vitriol that spewed over the connection. He didn’t even need to utter a greeting before it began.
“Don’t ever hang up on me, you mutant. You bitch. You’d better answer my calls, or I might have to step up my efforts to rid society of you. Before you actually kill someone with your mumbo jumbo.”
Troy didn’t say a word, just let the man rant for another minute or two, growing angrier by the minute. What he heard disturbed him greatly, and he had to grit his teeth to keep his control in place. He had dealt with people like this before, and the end result was never good. The man was obviously disturbed and obsessed with destroying Summer, and it might not be too much longer before he moved from phone calls to a personal appearance. All Troy’s experience told him this man was perched on the edge of a ledge and about to fall over into escalated violence.
Finally, he disconnected the call in midrant and turned back to Summer. She was watching him, eyes wide. Her face was pale, her body taut with anxiety. He needed to be sharp here, to not just analyze the situation and develop solutions but also assure Summer that he had things well in hand.
He was, however, having a hard time focusing. The Hallorans hadn’t warned him that Summer Cahill had the kind of earthy beauty that punched you in the gut and stunned your body. It was all the more shocking because she was so unaware of her natural sexiness. And he totally hadn’t expected to be blindsided by the electricity that crackled between them from the first casual brush of hands. Not that he ever lacked for women. He had a healthy sexual appetite and wasn’t shy about feeding it. But no woman had ever affected him like this one. His fingers itched to sift through the silk of her thick brown hair, and his mouth badly wanted to taste hers. And her body!
Holy shit!
He had to forcibly rein in his libido, reminding himself he was here on business. What now appeared to be really serious business. And he couldn’t let himself be distracted by a woman whose very presence set his blood to heating and his cock hardening to the point he could pound nails with it. Shit. He had more control than that.
Didn’t he?
He damn well better have.
“You have an answering machine, right?” he asked her. Who didn’t in this day and age?
She nodded. “In the room I use as my office.”
“Show me.”
She led him into the cozy room where bookshelves lined two walls. A large window overlooking the backyard let in plenty of light and sunshine and made it a pleasant work environment. Here, she’d set up the computers and printers she used for her web design and graphics business, a large corkboard on one wall displaying printouts of projects in various stages of design.
“I fell in love with this house the minute I saw it,” she told him. “My family tried their best to talk me out of it.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Different reasons. Too big. Too much space. Too much to take care of. What was I doing with something this size?”
He couldn’t help smiling. “But you bought it anyway.”
“Of course. I had the money, an inheritance from one of my grandparents. I needed to get away from my father’s worry and my mother’s constant disapproval. I hated apartments, and I was too old to be living with my parents.”
“When did you buy it?”
“About eight years ago. And I’ve never been sorry.”
Troy took a moment to admire the room before turning toward the desk. Summer was scant inches away from him, and again that charge of electricity crackled between them. Holy shit! This woman was in danger, and his cock insisted on doing his thinking for him. He’d never had this problem before, and he needed to get it under control right now.
The answering machine was garden-variety, built into the base on which the receiver sat and with a limited capacity for storing messages. Messages had to be erased regularly to make space for new ones. He picked it up to examine it more closely and was still holding it when the phone rang again.
He held up his hand to stop Summer from answering, shaking his head. “Let it ring.”
“I usually do when this chaos starts again. I didn’t even mean to answer it before. But then I worry it’s someone I really need to talk to.”
“You have a cell phone, right?”
She nodded.
“Then anyone important will call you on that. If they don’t have the number already, give it to them. Let’s see who this is.”
The first words left no doubt. “I know you’re listening, you insane bitch. Well, listen to this.”
The venom spewing out of the speaker made every muscle in Troy’s body tighten.
“You can’t get away from me,” the caller concluded. “I’ll find you and neutralize you before you do real damage.”
Summer had dropped into the big wing chair in the corner, even paler than before, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
“He’s never made this many phone calls at one time,” she said almost in a whisper. “I think he’s getting worse.”
“You’d better believe it,” Troy agreed. “And that means we need to take the proper steps to ensure your safety. You can’t even be sure the media has backed off completely. They could just be biding their time before another assault. If you won’t stay with the Hallorans, or even at a hotel”—he paused, looking at her, but she shook her head—“then we need to create a total security blanket for you.”
He pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed-dial number for Mark.
“Who are you calling?”
“Mark, and then our other partner who lives in San Antonio, Dan Romeo. This calls for a little more than a basic security system and a better answering machine.”
Kurt Olberman leaned back in his big leather desk chair and lit one of the fat cigars he enjoyed so much. Puffing a stream of smoke into the air, he pressed the rewind button on his remote and watched again the chaotic scene in front of Summer Cahill’s home in San Antonio, Texas. Listened one more time to her background as a photo of her filled the screen. The idea rooting around in his brain continued to form and grow.
He had become the multibillionaire that he was by paying attention to things that most people passed over. To the media, Summer Cahill was a freak, a source of sensationalism, fodder for their gristmill. To the general public, she was weird and someone to be shunned. But Kurt saw in her the source of countless wealth if handled properly.
The first time he’d seen a story about her, he’d tucked the information away in a corner of his mind until he could investigate further. Since then, he’d researched both Summer and psychic healing—everything he could find on it. The more he read, the more fascinated he became. Especially with Summer herself.
He traveled all over the world, wheeling and dealing in his mostly illegal enterprises. From drug smuggling and white slavery to selling arms to both sides of a conflict and supporting terrorist groups, there was little he didn’t have his fingers in. In the course of his activities he’d met several men with untold wealth, many of whom had a family member with some type of lingering illness. And who would without doubt pay an exorbitant price to have that person cured.
Olberman swiveled in his chair and gazed with great pleasure out the big window overlooking the grounds of his fortress. And that’s what it was—a fortress. One hundred acres of lush green lawn and thick forest, with the three-story, stone Tudor house rising from the crest of a hill high in the Colorado Rockies. A stone wall ten feet high, constructed at great cost, surrounded the entire property, its top embedded with sensors should anyone have the balls to try to breach it. Not too far from the house, trees had been cut down to build a landing strip, helipad, and hangar for Kurt’s private jet and his helicopter. It allowed him the freedom to travel on his own schedule and also provided a facility for those few he invited to land their own planes.
Some might have chafed at the isolation, but for Olberman it suited his purposes perfectly. He had the magnificence and grandeur of the Rockies as a backdrop and the assurance that he was well protected from his enemies. Oh yes, he had enemies—a man didn’t do what he did without accumulating them. But no one could get to him here.
He smiled. This was his paradise, his kingdom, and even thinking about it gave him great pleasure. And an ideal place for what he had in mind. All he had to do was sweep up Summer Cahill, install her in private quarters in the house, and make her available to those who would pay handsomely for her services. And with the hangar and landing strip, the “clients” could come to him. The lovely Miss Cahill could live out her days here until such time as her powers failed. Then he would find someone else to replace her.
But first, he had to satisfy himself that she was the real deal.
Turning back to his desk, he pressed a button on his intercom. Vivian Jackson, his no-nonsense assistant, answered at once.
“Yes, Mr. Olberman?”
“Please come in. I have an assignment for you.”
Summer poured coffee into three mugs and handed them to the men sitting at her kitchen table. Then she sat down with her own mug between Troy and Mark. Directly across from her was a man she was meeting for the first time, the darkly good-looking Dan Romeo. Six five, olive-skinned with dark hair and darker eyes, and a former Force Recon marine, he was the nominal leader of the group, although they all had equal decision-making powers. She knew two partners were absent. In addition to Mark, who was former Delta Force, Troy, and Dan, the partnership included flyboy Mike D’Antoni, who’d trained with England’s crack SAS, and finally, Eric “Rick” Latrobe, former Special Ops and a trained sniper.
Each brought highly specialized skills to the agency known simply as Phoenix. A good name for a group that had risen from the ashes of war and now contracted to both private citizens and the US government for jobs that had to be conducted “off the books.”
Dan had made her feel at ease immediately. She recalled being told his wife, Mia, had precognitive abilities, the gift that allowed her to see future events before they happened. Her visions usually came to her in bits and pieces, and sometimes only as clues that she had to decipher. But Mark had also mentioned that her visions had helped Phoenix wrap up an espionage case. Faith and Mark also used their telepathic communications gift when the agency needed it.
She wondered about Rick Latrobe’s wife, Kelly. They lived in Maryland, along with Mike and Kat D’Antoni, so she was unlikely to meet them. Still, she couldn’t help being curious.
Now the three men were holding a council of war in her kitchen with an efficiency that was at once both comforting and frightening. Before this, she’d always just hidden from the crowds and the stalker, closing all the drapes, working in near darkness, and answering calls only from her family. Eventually everyone got tired and left her alone. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that this time everyone had stepped up their game. More reporters. Bigger mob. More vicious and frequent vitriol from her stalker.
“Aren’t you all making just a little too much of this?” she asked finally, cradling her mug as if the warmth of the liquid could ease the chill suddenly invading her body. “Mark, you know I’ve been through this before. In a few days, the media loses interest and focuses on someone else. And my so-called stalker has never done much beyond his phone calls. Even the letters have stopped. Then he loses interest, too.”
Mark leaned forward. “Summer, you know I’m not an alarmist. If I agreed with you, then we’d set up some simple security procedures and let it go at that. But this time is different. First of all, this is the largest media mob by far you’ve had hounding you. Maybe it’s just a slow news week, but they’re out for blood.”
“Not to mention the fact,” Troy added, “that it’s a good bet we haven’t seen the last of the sleazy tabloids.”
“Second,” Mark went on, “we listened to the message on your answering machine. Trust me when I say we’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone’s about to go over the edge.” He narrowed his gaze. “And I am more than mildly pissed, Summer, that you never came to me before about the letters and the constancy of the phone calls.”
“You have much more important business to attend to than being bothered by my little problem.” Asking for help had never been easy for her.
“Damn it.” His hand tightened into a fist. “Now I’m really pissed off. There’s nothing more important than helping my friend. Jesus, Summer. You’re practically family.”
“The police—”
“Can do a good job. More than adequate. But they don’t have the resources Phoenix does.” He pinned her with his dark gaze. “So are we clear that this time we’re in charge?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I know you’re right.” Summer tightened her grip on her mug. “I just hate having my life controlled by some nut who’s probably going to move on to someone else before I can blink my eyes.”
“That would be the best-case scenario,” Troy said. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Dan picked up his tablet and tapped it, bringing up a list he scrolled through. The smile he gave Summer she knew was meant to be reassuring. “When I heard from Troy this morning, I called our office in Maryland. Our super geek, Andy, runs what I think is the computer that rules the world.” He grinned. “He calls it ‘the Dragon,’ and he may be right. I asked him to find every story ever written about you and send it to me in a compressed file.”
“He can do that? Won’t it take a lot of time?”
Dan shook his head. “Not with the Dragon.”
“But what’s the point?” she wanted to know.
“Just getting a feel for what’s out there and what kind of thing might trigger your stalker. Is it something specific that was written, or just the general fact of your gift? I also asked him to see if other healers have been getting threats, too. If so, maybe there’s some kind of link. We can have Andy run a number of different probabilities. Narrow things down.” The look on his face was serious. “I know how you protect the privacy of your clients, Summer, but I’m going to need a list of them, too.”
She frowned. “I never give out anyone’s name. People who use my . . . skills often don’t like to let others know about it. Psychic healing isn’t widely accepted, you know.”
“Still, this guy has a tie to you someplace, either you as a healer or to you specifically, and we have to be able to narrow down the list of possibilities. I promise you, these people will never know anything about this. Unless, of course, it leads back to one of them.”
“I can’t believe anyone connected to any of my calls would do this, but . . . if you say it’s necessary, I’ll get the list together for you. Just treat it carefully, okay?”
He smiled at her. “I promise you can trust us on this.”
“In any event,” Mark said, “we need to do some things immediately. I called a company we use locally, and they’ll be here in an hour. They’ll replace your existing security system with a really high-tech one that works on encrypted sound waves. And yes, it will be easy for you to use,” he added, anticipating her objection.
Summer raised her eyebrows. “They can do it that quickly? Usually there’s a waiting list.”
Mark grinned at her. “Not for Phoenix. We call, they come. I’m also having them install hidden cameras at the four corners of your roof. We’ll put sensors around the perimeter of the property, and everything will feed into a laptop we’ll set up, either in the den or the kitchen.”
“We’ll show you how to use it,” Dan assured her. “What to do when you want to go out in the backyard and also when you enter and leave the house. There will even be a sensor for your garage door, so we’ll get you a new opener with the code programmed into it.”
She squirmed in her chair, hating to ask the next question. “H-how much will all this cost?”
“You let me worry about that,” Mark told her. “And don’t give me any trouble about it. Faith would have my head if we didn’t take every precaution here.”
“They’re also bringing a different answering machine,” Dan added. “One that’s separate from the phone. Don’t use the landline for anything. Let the machine pick up all incoming calls.”
“What about my web clients?” she asked. “I can’t just leave them hanging. And what if I get another call for my special . . . skills?”
“Troy will pass along messages from people other than the stalker. Return those calls on your cell phone.” Dan looked at the other two men. “And we agree that for the moment it would be best if you don’t take any healing calls.”
“But—”
Troy covered one of her hands with his. “We don’t want you to do anything that will rile the media again before this has even had a chance to die down. And we certainly don’t want to spike the rage in stalker more than it already is.”
Summer chewed her bottom lip. “If someone really needs me, I don’t want to turn them down. If they need help, I want to provide it.” When Troy opened his mouth to say something, she shook her head. “As good as you all are, I’m sure you can find some way to spirit me out of here and take me to wherever I have to go without stirring up a crowd. And you can make sure to keep a lid on things, right?”
Reluctantly, they agreed.
“But,” Mark said, “there’s a condition with all this.”
She frowned. “What kind of condition? What have you cooked up?”
“You can’t stay here alone, even with the security we’re installing.”
“Are you kidding me?” She stood with her fists planted on her hips. “You’ve got all these cameras set up inside and out, and two monitors—one in my office and one in my bedroom. If anyone gets even close to the house, I can call nine-one-one immediately. I’m used to being alone and you know it.”
“Summer.” Mark closed his hands over her fists and lifted them, unclenching her fingers. “I know that. Faith and I worry about that all the time. But I think this is a little more troublesome than usual. You’ve got more media. You’ve got nutjobs with signs, and your stalker has turned up again. This time his venom seems to be escalating. Either I put someone here or you’re coming to stay with us.”
“I can’t ask someone else to put themselves in the middle of this situation,” she protested.
“No worries.” Mark grinned. “Troy will be staying here.”
Hot-and-cold flashes surged through Summer’s body, and a little shiver skated along her spine. Troy was staying here? With her? Just the two of them? She looked at him, and although his face was carefully blank, she couldn’t miss the heat darkening his eyes. Did the other two men sense the chemistry crackling between them? It seemed almost visible to her.
Maybe I’m just imagining all this.
Or maybe not?
“Summer?” Mark’s voice broke into her thoughts, and a hand waved in front of her face. “You still with us?”
She blinked. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I said, Troy will be staying here. Is that going to be a problem?”
“We’ll work it out,” Troy answered for her, then slid his gaze to her. “Your safety comes first, right, Summer?” The heat was still there, and the look he gave her did nothing to subdue it. In fact, she was nearly mesmerized by it.
“Oh.” She blinked again. “Yes. Of course. Thank you. I guess.”
“Good.” Dan took a final swallow of his coffee and looked at his watch. “Has this guy ever contacted you anywhere but at home?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t travel much for this. I try to refer those calls to people in their area.”
“But you have gone out of state,” Mark persisted. “Faith has gone with you a couple of times.”
“Yes, although I’m sure it’s a real pain in the ass for her.”
“Not at all. And she always says the change of scenery helps clear her head when she’s stuck on a plot.”
Summer had met Faith when she’d gone to a signing for one of the woman’s bestsellers. They’d connected, gone for coffee, and since had become very close friends.
“All right.” Dan nodded. “Having Troy here makes it a little easier. The security people should be here soon, so let’s get ready for them.” He set his tablet down on the table and carried his mug to the sink. “And Summer? Along with the people you did accept, I’d like you to make a list of everyone who ever contacted you that you didn’t or couldn’t help for one reason or another. Your stalker may be related to one of those people.”
“There aren’t many people I’ve turned down,” she told him. “I always check out the patient carefully to make sure someone isn’t trying to scam me. You know, want me to, as they say, put on a show for them and their friends. If they are, those are the ones I turn away.”
“What about a real case that you were unsuccessful with?” Mark asked. “Didn’t you tell Faith and me that there were two people you actually couldn’t help?”
Summer felt the tragedy of those two cases surge up inside her. “One of them was a young boy who was paralyzed. There was no way I could regenerate dead nerves. My power doesn’t work like that.”
“What was the other one?”
“That one was too bizarre. A girl had a leg amputated, and her family somehow thought I could help her grow a new one.” She shook her head. “When people get desperate, they grasp at any chance at all.”
“Okay.” Dan picked up the tablet again and brought up a blank screen. “Give us all the names I asked for, and I’ll get them checked out. And give us a list of your neighbors while you’re at it. You never know if one of them got a bee in his or her bonnet. Mark, you work with her on that. Troy, I think the security company’s here. I’ll get Andy doing some more digging and also check on what’s happening back at the office. All right, folks. Time to get busy.”