Savage needed to find that out. Brandon might forgive and move on to other things, but if he was set on getting a payload, he might be angry enough to retaliate against Seychelle. Savage detested that he wasn’t with her to watch over her himself. He knew he could rely on his brothers and sisters, but it left him feeling impotent and out of sorts. Edgy. Angry. At himself. At the circumstances. Even at Seychelle, for not letting him explain.
If it wasn’t bad enough that Brandon had wormed his way into Doris’s life, he was now walking with his latest girlfriend along the road between Seychelle’s cottage and the headlands. Ever since the conversation, three times a week, he had parked his car up the street and forced a very reluctant girlfriend to walk, no matter the weather, in the evening with him.
The girl appeared, according to the Torpedo Ink members who watched over Seychelle, to be very young and too thin, listless, yet eager to please Brandon, hurrying to do whatever he whispered to her. After she did it, he whispered again to her, and she would get tears in her eyes and look at the ground as if she hadn’t met his expectations. They always walked past Seychelle’s cottage, and he would stare at it, even as he kissed his girlfriend or acted as if he was nibbling on her neck.
Aside from Brandon coming three times a week to walk by the cottage, an older man of about fifty had appeared on the headlands with a camera, taking photographs of the birds, or appearing to do so. Then he photographed the cottages along the road where Seychelle lived. That wasn’t necessarily a threat. The buildings were historic, and more than one person had painted and photographed them.
The man returned a few days later and set up an easel to paint, tucking photographs in the corners of his canvas, facing the cottages. His camera hung around his neck. That was unusual and a red flag for Keys, who happened to be watching over Seychelle that day. He kept his eyes on the “artist.”
Seychelle emerged from her cottage to take a walk on the headlands around five that afternoon. The artist had lost the light. He hadn’t packed up his equipment. He’d eaten. He’d dabbed a few strokes of paint here and there on the canvas, but for the most part he’d gotten up and paced or stretched. The moment Seychelle walked out her front door, the man came to life, putting down his paintbrush and catching up his camera.
He took several pictures of her as she walked across the street toward the narrow path leading to the bluffs. He had to turn away from her as she came toward him, but the moment she was parallel with him, he backed away to put distance between them and began snapping her picture. He took photographs of her standing on the bluff with her hair blowing wildly and then more as she returned to her cottage.
Keys followed the stranger to the local hotel and waited until he had gone to dinner before entering his hotel room. Evidently, the man was a private investigator. Keys turned over his name to Code and, with a little digging, Code discovered Joseph Arnold had hired him to take pictures of Seychelle and report on her movements.
Savage thought his head might explode. His woman sat in her cottage, totally oblivious to the danger. In fact, with Brandon, she invited it to her. He was grateful for his Torpedo Ink brethren. Each of them took shifts, even those who were married.
His woman was racking up indiscretions, things they were going to be dealing with once she was back under his wing, because he was determined he was getting her back. He was willing her back to him. Finding a way. They belonged. She knew it. He knew it. She was scared and hurt and had every reason to be. She just had to want to be with him more than both of those things.
NINE
Savage went to the bar every Thursday night hoping Seychelle would come to sing with Maestro and the others jamming. He sat at the same table, at the very back, nursing a beer, willing her to come to him. To give herself to him. He knew what the cost would be to her, and it would be enormous. Still, now he knew he had something to give her back.
She needed him every bit as much as he needed her. He didn’t just need her. He wanted her. Her brightness. Her compassion. Her laughter. That directness that got to him every time. The way she was with the older people who counted on her. She gave and gave and didn’t ask for anything in return. He knew he could give a lot to her. He wanted to.