Two nights ago, Bert, one of Zach’s guys, had followed Young to the townhouse where Jaimie had lived. Young had stood in the
shadows, staring at the house for hours.
Bert had put in a call to the local cops. There were no charges to bring against Young but the cops had been alerted to the situation through Zach’s contacts. They’d showed up, four cars, four uniforms, hassled Young and run him off.
Yesterday, Jerry had followed Young to what had been Jaimie’s office, where he’d demanded to know her whereabouts.
“Young made threats. He’d done the same thing before, when you were out of the country. That time, security threw him out. This time things were worse. Young beat up the owner, some dude named Bengs. They called the cops, but Young got away.”
Zach had pumped his fist in the air. Trespass or what a smart prosecutor could make stand as trespass. Assault. Things were adding up.
“There’s more,” Jerry said. “During the night, he broke into the manager’s place. The woman who runs Stafford and Bengs? She’s maybe fifty-five, sixty. She’s the one who’d called the cops the day before. So Carl—who was covering Young from midnight to eight—called the precinct. He ended up breaking protocol. He went in himself when he heard the woman screaming.” His voice had flattened. “Young had beaten the shit out of her, Zach, and disappeared into the wild blue yonder. She’s in the hospital. Concussion. Fractured jaw. Fractured pelvis.”
“He’s finished,” Zach said, his voice as flat as Jerry’s.
“Oh, yeah. He’s done. Not all the high-powered connections in the world can get him out of this.”
The news was everything Zach had hoped for.
Delivering it to Jaimie was everything he feared.
First things first. He had calls to make. To people he knew in D.C. The contacts he’d spoken with at the start of all this. He’d call Caleb, too, put his mind at rest, but first…
Zach rubbed his hands over his face.
First, he was going home. To Jaimie. Tell her everything.
Tell her the only thing that mattered, the thing it had taken him until now to admit.
He would tell her that he loved her.
* * * *
Normally, the Wilde sisters connected via Skype at least once a month, more than that when something was important. Well, this was important—but Skype wasn’t going to work.
Emily and Marco, her fiancé, were in Rome. Jaimie checked her watch, did a little fast calculating and decided she didn’t want to wake her sister in the middle of the night.
She’d call Lissa on her cell. It was faster.
Lissa’s phone rang four times. Jaimie sighed, was about to disconnect when she heard Lissa say, “Jaimie?”
Jaimie sank down on one of the kitchen stools in Zach’s condo.
“I almost gave up,” she said. “I figured I was going to get your voice mail.”
“How are you?” Lisa said. “We haven’t talked to each other in years!”
“Weeks,” Jaimie said.
“Seems longer.” Lissa sighed. “My fault as much as yours. I, uh, I changed jobs.”
“Me, too.”
“Locations, too.”
“You’re not in Hollywood?”
“Well, I am. And I’m not. I was working in this restaurant, remember?”