She extended her hand. “Hi, Lauren. I’m Nola Seabrook. Your dad and I met a long time ago when we were both TDY in Texas.”
The teen offered her hand but her eyes offered no welcome. “Yeah. I saw you in Texas this week, too. You’re the cookie lady.”
Sheesh, the kid didn’t have to make the cookies sound so…lame. How did teenagers manage to reduce competent adults that way?
“Lauren,” Rick said in that low parental tone of his again.
Nola shook her head and smiled. “It’s fine.” She shook the teen’s hand. “Nice to meet you and I would be glad to make you some of those cookies while you’re here. You’re very welcome in my home. I know you’ll want to talk to your dad, so I’m going to head inside and make up a bed for you.”
Nola made tracks toward the front door, Rick’s conversation with his daughter drifting on the marshy breeze.
“Lauren, you should have called. I’m here helping Nola because she’s got a stalker threatening her life. Now my attention will be cut in half watching over the two of you.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Of course. You want me to go.”
He sighed and slung his arm around her shoulders again, obviously trying his best in a situation that had no doubt thrown him for a loop. “I don’t want you to go. You have to leave for your own protection.”
Her head spinning with images of Rick with his daughter, Nola trudged up the steps into her house. He’d handled the situation as well as any parent could when faced with a surly teenage runaway—a child so obviously hungry for love.
Nola snagged extra sheets from the linen closet. The sleeping arrangements would definitely change since they all couldn’t sleep in the garage. She imagined what Rick would want in the way of security. He would insist on sleeping in her living room after all, and Lauren would sleep on a roll away in her office. He would undoubtedly make arrangements to send her home ASAP.
The girl’s bravado hadn’t come close to covering her heartbreak.
Nola clutched the sheets to her chest. She knew Rick would place a call to Lauren’s mom and reserve a plane ticket for the girl. Meanwhile, the three of them would stick together like glue until Lauren had a seat on an airliner home.
No more hot tub moments. Nola had gotten her breathing space.
She should be happy. Instead she felt as if she’d screwed up and lost something.
Her phone jangled from across the room. She dropped the sheets on the sofa and rushed to snatch up the receiver in case Rick needed something more for his daughter.
“Captain Seabrook.” A low, electronically distorted voice eased over the line with insidious chill. “Did you enjoy your flight today?”
“Who is this?” Nola swallowed down a bilious dread and wished she had made arrangements with the phone company to have her calls traced. There could be no doubt but that her stalker had finally made contact. Did it mean he was getting more serious that he would risk a phone call? Things certainly felt more eerie, more horridly personal.
“I wonder how you paid for that airplane with all your financial problems lately. Your new man friend, I assume. I watched you both from the field. If only I owned a shoulder-held rocket launcher…”
He continued to talk about how he’d enjoyed his view from the ground. His words looped over her like an icy noose around her body. Thank goodness her flight had been a last-minute decision. If she’d planned ahead and somehow he’d found out he could have sabotaged the plane in countless ways.
Her knees folded and she sank onto the sofa arm. She couldn’t bear to think she would have caused Rick’s death. As much as she craved his comfort, she also longed to tell him to leave, go anywhere far away from her, but she knew well nothing would peel him from her side now. His protector instincts were too deeply honed.
As deep as her own, because she couldn’t leave his side now that he needed her help with his daughter. Hmm. What an odd thought and God, her mind was wandering when she needed to focus on what this maniac was saying.
She wished the cops had tapped her phone, or that Rick was in the room with her. Now wasn’t that the ultimate in selfish? She had no idea what she expected him to do, but she hated being alone with the mechanically altered voice. It could be anyone babbling on the other end of that line. A stranger.
Or someone she knew. “So you’re finally ready to talk to me rather than hiding behind letters.”
“Soon we will talk face-to-face and you will remember me then. Your time is almost up.”
“You say we know each other.” She shivered at the thought. Was it someone she faced on a daily basis? She wanted to scream. This person had filled her life with fear for long enough. “Be a man and show yourself now. Who are you? Other than a coward who doesn’t reveal his face.”
“Not a coward,” he insisted with pompous indignation. “A careful strategist.”
She forced herself to stay calm and think, not to let fear overtake her. She could use this chance to gain information. “What have I ever done to you to warrant you hijacking my life this way?”
“I am reasonable. You will understand when we meet face-to-face.”
She wanted to shout her frustration. She’d learned nothing except that she’d met him. Although with stalkers, they could imagine a connection based on simply brushing arms in a crowd, interpreting an accidental exchanged look as having a secret code.